We lost 70% of our player base half a year in

[Shougun]

Current WoW could be great if it looked at the game less as a "personal goal driven" and more as a "shared experience driven". Things that resonate with me are the lead up to the goal...not the goal itself.

Take this current savage tier. I will probably forget that feeling of elation after dropping Hespheros. But I will NEVER forget the frustration of FOF, FOA, Flow 3, Chains, Pinax, Curtain Call, etc. etc. Overcoming those moments was the REAL goal. Finished P4S was kind of sad for me....it's over...it's done. I won't have that moment again. The only thing left is all the memories and shared experience I had with my static group. Talking about strategies. Listening to the healers talk about when to use strong heals and mitigation (no idea what there talking about unless its AST). My OT and I on the same wavelength an understanding when to shirk, voke, stance on stance off, invuln, toss out nascent to them, gives me TBN.

Those are the moments I will cherish....

Climbing a mountain is long and arduous, followed up with shear elation of reaching the summit as your reward....so is the climb back down...

WoW was weird as when it came out it was unlike ANYTHING out there. I have life long friends that I still talk with till this day that I met back in 2004 when I was 21. WoW came at a VERY opportune time in my life and I found an outlet for myself through the game.

FFXIV gives me that in neat little packages that I can continually visit. Once I complete the goal the only thing I remember is everything I encountered along the way. I almost never remember achieving the goal. Is that wired?

Why would that be weird~

Enjoying the experience is usually a main part of the fun of it all. Of course this does vary from person to person, so you can't always hit a one size fits all formula. For example I'm sure some people felt elated getting their ARR relic after all the FATE grind.. to me that was like a slow form of torture lol. Though that's where I think, generally, FFXIV does pretty good at giving many different types of players the opportunity to experience something in the means they'd like (most of it being a function of time). If I think "wow that grind is just.. that's just pure awful" for the most part I know I can just wait and then it'll be more my pace later, meanwhile the people who do need a bit of 'pain' (to create powerful memories) .. there it is lol. Of course FFXIV also tends to be a bit more friendly with the pain as they've added more and more systems that are kinder like "ehy good job! now here is something relevant, cherry on top of your rush you're feeling!" rather than some MMOs (particularly older school designed) which are like "good job, but you got nothing.. so.. go again amirite?".

Of course there is rush to that pain as well, for people who try to get their kirin asode, club, turtle shield or whatever fraction of a decimal drop rate item lol, but I look back at such things and think to myself- way too much pain to offset that moment and specifically a very real chance that all that pain is not worth it 'ever' (very real chance you could spend hundreds of hours for a 0.X% drop item and never get it, meanwhile you'll be filled green with envy and maybe even rage when some person 'gets it on their first try'). Alternatively, especially in context of those hyper painful designs, I can simply play a fantastic game that doesn't require almost anything perceivable as 'pain' and still have an amazing time- for example.. witcher 3. I remember that game exceptionally well, and never did I really feel like I was being disrespected or taken advantage of nor did I feel like "there is a high chance my efforts here are being manipulated or will likely be worthless" (unlike high pain grind / low drop rate designs). I'm very much in favor of respecting my psychological health, my time, and trying as best as possible to view that journey as 'fun'.

I think that's why for me, on the more casual side, I occasionally talk about movement systems like.. you know... it sounds silly but.. I think you should invest more in how you navigate the world... the journey itself is gameplay! Or in a similar thought but different system, ensuring the open world has a bit more of a journey itself (I did like the ShB gem system, but still need some more ideas I think for their open world - with other MMOs we can reference as examples.. not like we're waving blankly in the air and saying "do something", or I've, suggested ideas and you can see ideas out there in action).

I think that's a thing WoW would benefit from by killing their love of FOMO- there is some content that you can't just wait till it becomes your style. More often WoW is like "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY", now of course there are MMOs far more hardcore than WoW lol, but such an unnesccary approach that prays on the minds of players in a sort of "how can I manipulate you into being forced to take action now" and some of that might just be general game design 101 you have to consider.. but it's also blatantly obvious and therefore feels insulting. To which I give FFXIV credit for because there are many times where I think FFXIV's team looks at something as says, "you know what, we could abuse the psychological fear more but we're going to not do that anyways".

Coming back around more to your point though- absolutely the journey itself is important. That's where I think of course those hardcore raids shine, I mean I DO NOT WANT TO DO THEM- AT ALL (because to me it's going to be A LOT of time lost to gaining nothing, given my limited time and perhaps luck if I find a group that can learn or can't.. even worse then), but ... you can read those stories, you can hear Yoshida talk about those stories, I have those stories, they're pretty powerful. It's why I love that rolling mountain design FFXIV generally uses, 'for the most part', everyone gets to approach the content in a way that will suit them.

There are amazing stories in WoW about that high energy journey, but overall I still feel the game doesn't do a very good job of respecting time, helping encourage players to enjoy majority content via functions (like time, though they do 'do that' just things like FOMO are in direct opposition), and in general the company itself seems like it's very addicted to psychological manipulation / abuse currently .