If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

[KizuyaKatogami]

Most people did not quit playing blizzard games because of what they were doing internally, don't try to white knight yourself. You quit cause the games started sucking same as most people. Cause quitting the game makes no difference in what they are doing internally. And if you think that it makes a difference well your just wrong.

Now if you were a shareholder and you pulled back investments and stock, that would make a difference, but you aren't.

Meanwhile me: Doesn’t care about politics and happily bought diablo 3 and is having a blast with it.

If people stopped playing games made by shitty people or businesses, we wouldn’t have any games left to play. SE isn’t exempt from this either.

[KayRadley]

Meanwhile me: Doesn’t care about politics and happily bought diablo 3 and is having a blast with it.

If people stopped playing games made by shitty people or businesses, we wouldn’t have any games left to play. SE isn’t exempt from this either.

That's a sacrifice I'd happily make.

[-BlueGreen-]

It sucks for those of us who can play a more challenging game, but when and where cash is king, accessibility will always be viewed as the best option. Why?

• A skilled player can play any game an unskilled player can, but not the other way around. Easy game = larger potential audience = larger potential income
• Can't make some classes 'hard' and others 'easy'. People who like the looks of a 'hard' class but are unable to play it well will nag to have changes made to make the class more accessible
• We can't have different styles/specs of each class. If we did, those chasing the meta around will force near uniformity in end game content. Why? Easy gameplay reduces the odds of making a mistake, so you'll be forced into running the easy setup unless the hard setup increases DPS, in which case easy-mode players will be banned from participating in places where DPS is king. Either way the choice is effectively removed from the player (just like base attribute points). If there's ultimately not going to be diversity, why invest resources to have it at all?

Maybe, just maybe it could be possible to balance the multi-spec thing to have it be generally acceptable. If "easy mode" versions of jobs could theoretically reach something like 80% of the theoretical max output of the "hard mode", I suspect that more casual raiding groups might be open to allowing "easy mode" players that's doing close to that 80% than asking them to do "hard mode" and then not clearing because they only manage 50-60% (or less). Of course, we've all seen groups who refuse to recruit anyone who isn't a top-tier job for the raiding meta because the lower cap on max DPS tends to translate to "greater chance of failing DPS checks" in their minds.

I feel like no matter how it's balanced, it'll be hard for an actual choice to gain traction without proper transparency (e.g. in-game DPS meters, showing who's in easy/hard modes, showing groups which have cleared content while using one mode or the other). Granted, that's pretty much not going to happen as SE has made it very clear that they aren't going to add in-game DPS meters.

[Roflcopter]

It sucks for those of us who can play a more challenging game, but when and where cash is king, accessibility will always be viewed as the best option. Why?

• A skilled player can play any game an unskilled player can, but not the other way around. Easy game = larger potential audience = larger potential income
• Can't make some classes 'hard' and others 'easy'. People who like the looks of a 'hard' class but are unable to play it well will nag to have changes made to make the class more accessible
• We can't have different styles/specs of each class. If we did, those chasing the meta around will force near uniformity in end game content. Why? Easy gameplay reduces the odds of making a mistake, so you'll be forced into running the easy setup unless the hard setup increases DPS, in which case easy-mode players will be banned from participating in places where DPS is king. Either way the choice is effectively removed from the player (just like base attribute points). If there's ultimately not going to be diversity, why invest resources to have it at all?

Maybe, just maybe it could be possible to balance the multi-spec thing to have it be generally acceptable. If "easy mode" versions of jobs could theoretically reach something like 80% of the theoretical max output of the "hard mode", I suspect that more casual raiding groups might be open to allowing "easy mode" players that's doing close to that 80% than asking them to do "hard mode" and then not clearing because they only manage 50-60% (or less). Of course, we've all seen groups who refuse to recruit anyone who isn't a top-tier job for the raiding meta because the lower cap on max DPS tends to translate to "greater chance of failing DPS checks" in their minds.

I feel like no matter how it's balanced, it'll be hard for an actual choice to gain traction without proper transparency (e.g. in-game DPS meters, showing who's in easy/hard modes, showing groups which have cleared content while using one mode or the other). Granted, that's pretty much not going to happen as SE has made it very clear that they aren't going to add in-game DPS meters.

People who talk this way are almost never anywhere close to as good as they think or say they are. This is just something you learn after playing mmorpgs for 25 years.

[s1mulacrum]

Meanwhile me: Doesn’t care about politics and happily bought diablo 3 and is having a blast with it.

If people stopped playing games made by shitty people or businesses, we wouldn’t have any games left to play. SE isn’t exempt from this either.

You should read the allegations against Blizzard execs a little more closely, friend. I'm not sure how sexual harassment, assault, and suicide = politics, but okay.

Shitty isn't binary: it is subject to gradation. Yoshi-P was creepy to a cosplayer once and I played anyway b/c I assume he was just trying to meme. Companies I still support engage in ethically questionable behavior b/c of perverse incentives created by our economic system. I understand relativity. What Blizzard execs did is FAR worse. The fact that you are being that dismissive about real people's suffering and reducing all of that to "politics" is gross.

[Anemic]

You should read the allegations against Blizzard execs a little more closely, friend. I'm not sure how sexual harassment, assault, and suicide = politics, but okay.

Shitty isn't binary: it is subject to gradation. Yoshi-P was creepy to a cosplayer once and I played anyway b/c I assume he was just trying to meme. Companies I still support engage in ethically questionable behavior b/c of perverse incentives created by our economic system. I understand relativity. What Blizzard execs did is FAR worse. The fact that you are being that dismissive about real people's suffering and reducing all of that to "politics" is gross.

It's in the direction society or maybe more so NA has been going as of the late decade. Pretty sadge IMO.

[KizuyaKatogami]

You should read the allegations against Blizzard execs a little more closely, friend. I'm not sure how sexual harassment, assault, and suicide = politics, but okay.

Shitty isn't binary: it is subject to gradation. Yoshi-P was creepy to a cosplayer once and I played anyway b/c I assume he was just trying to meme. Companies I still support engage in ethically questionable behavior b/c of perverse incentives created by our economic system. I understand relativity. What Blizzard execs did is FAR worse. The fact that you are being that dismissive about real people's suffering and reducing all of that to "politics" is gross.

Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

[Kyrj]

Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

If every person who cried "shame on X company" stuck to their guns and boycotted their products, they'd probably starve to death or live in a house with absolutely nothing in it. The business world is a shitty fucked up place and no amount of crying will ever fix it. Best to learn to live with it.

[s1mulacrum]

If every person who cried "shame on X company" stuck to their guns and boycotted their products, they'd probably starve to death or live in a house with absolutely nothing in it. The business world is a shitty fucked up place and no amount of crying will ever fix it. Best to learn to live with it.

Or maybe the world would be a better place and the market would be forced to adapt. When people left WoW en masse, all of a sudden Blizzard was willing to allow cross-faction: a thing they said they would never do. How do you think labor laws happened?

[Kyrj]

Or maybe the world would be a better place and the market would be forced to adapt.

Pfffhahahahahahahaha

Yeah, no. You clearly have no idea how shitty the business world really is. They will say whatever and do whatever to stay in business and earn a buck.