Question - WoW refugees: what happened? Why is there suddenly such a huge influx of WoW players?

Nyladreas

I haven't paid any attention to wow or Blizzard for years. Just extremely curious about what happened, how come I'm starting to see so many ex-wow folks, how come there are popular players suddenly switching over? Can anyone enlighten me?

GarnetFire17

They're bored of Wow. They want to play new MMO content that isn't just the same stuff redone, until Classic WoW comes out. That is the sum of it from what I have gathered.

Nerftheforums

The bfa patch was a HUGE flop, like reaaaaally big. A stupid amount of players (we are talking millions) stopped playing the game, and one of the alternatives is eso.

Nyladreas

Nerftheforums wrote: »

The bfa patch was a HUGE flop, like reaaaaally big. A stupid amount of players (we are talking millions) stopped playing the game, and one of the alternatives is eso.

How so? What made BFA so bad? If you don't mind me asking. I played from start until early legion so I'm a bit familiar with wow.

Xerikten

this game is stupid easy as well as wow. no need to wonder why.

Nerftheforums

Nyladreas wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

The bfa patch was a HUGE flop, like reaaaaally big. A stupid amount of players (we are talking millions) stopped playing the game, and one of the alternatives is eso.

How so? What made BFA so bad? If you don't mind me asking. I played from start until early legion so I'm a bit familiar with wow.

Oh I wouldn't really know how to answer there, sorry. I'm not an ex wow player, this i just what I heard from wow content creators. One feature I know they removed (correct me if I'm wrong) is the possibility to share loot. Another thing is the rng needed to upgrade (drop?) some sort of loot.
I don't really know any detail and the more I write the more I feel stupid because idk exactly what I talking about. Sorry, maybe someone else can help you out better!

rfennell_ESO

Wow's graphics have become seriously dated.

I can get people with really inferior rigs sticking to it... but, anyone with anything remotely capable should have bailed a long time ago. That's if it means something to you/them, it doesn't to everyone.

Peekachu99

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

Arcadious

In nearly every aspect, the latest WoW expansion has been a downgrade from the previous expansion.

Entire zones worth of content become pointless as soon as new zones are added. The game is designed in a way that doesn't respect your time at all - as in, you spend a lot of time doing procedurally generated content that isn't very interesting all to pull the lever of a slot machine and possibly win it big, but probably not, rendering your time wasted.

Also, the story is straight out of a bad fan fiction. Seriously, it's borderline nonsense.

I've only been playing ESO for a month now, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. You're not missing anything.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Nyladreas wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

The bfa patch was a HUGE flop, like reaaaaally big. A stupid amount of players (we are talking millions) stopped playing the game, and one of the alternatives is eso.

How so? What made BFA so bad? If you don't mind me asking. I played from start until early legion so I'm a bit familiar with wow.

To put it simple and short:
Horrible treatmeant of the players. Even Zo$ is looking better.
Butchering of lore characters.
Extremely dumb story with more plotholes than a colander
Even more RNG.
And yet again, because it needs to be mentioned twice. The supposed "story" that is horrible.

It has been a lot of players going: "Please don't tell us you're doing what we think you're doing."
Blizzard: "No, of course not. There will be a twist, wait and see!"
*Does exactly what the players feared. Players sigh.*

Nestor

All I can say is Welcome WOW Players. Hope you like the game and find a place to hang your Mace.

Skwor

Arcadious wrote: »

In nearly every aspect, the latest WoW expansion has been a downgrade from the previous expansion.

Entire zones worth of content become pointless as soon as new zones are added. The game is designed in a way that doesn't respect your time at all - as in, you spend a lot of time doing procedurally generated content that isn't very interesting all to pull the lever of a slot machine and possibly win it big, but probably not, rendering your time wasted.

Also, the story is straight out of a bad fan fiction. Seriously, it's borderline nonsense.

I've only been playing ESO for a month now, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. You're not missing anything.

Take your time and read everything It is worth it.

kathandira

Peekachu99 wrote: »

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

That is the lazy way to get things done. There are great guilds out there, and unlike WoW, you can have your whole account in up to 5 guilds at a time, increasing your player pool by a lot. There are also Discord communities that can be utilized to find Trials.

Shouting in craglorn is the least effective way to get a competent group if you consider the above.

Peekachu99

kathandira wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

That is the lazy way to get things done. There are great guilds out there, and unlike WoW, you can have your whole account in up to 5 guilds at a time, increasing your player pool by a lot. There are also Discord communities that can be utilized to find Trials.

Shouting in craglorn is the least effective way to get a competent group if you consider the above.

You make this argument as if FFXIV doesn’t have an amazing social scene and dedicated, helpful fan base as well as an amazing suite of social tools for PVE content. ESO’s social tools are pure trash and a decision as indefensible as their lack of a search function in guild stores. Anything that takes you outside of a game to do something (Discord, Vent) is bad design. Period. That’s design 101.

spacebandit

Ff

Peekachu99 wrote: »

kathandira wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

That is the lazy way to get things done. There are great guilds out there, and unlike WoW, you can have your whole account in up to 5 guilds at a time, increasing your player pool by a lot. There are also Discord communities that can be utilized to find Trials.

Shouting in craglorn is the least effective way to get a competent group if you consider the above.

You make this argument as if FFXIV doesn’t have an amazing social scene and dedicated, helpful fan base as well as an amazing suite of social tools for PVE content. ESO’s social tools are pure trash and a decision as indefensible as their lack of a search function in guild stores. Anything that takes you outside of a game to do something (Discord, Vent) is bad design. Period. That’s design 101.

FF does what it does really good. ESO does what it does really good. It’s hard to compare the two because what type of experience each is trying to bring to their players is a bit different.

One thing that stands out to me though is when I play FFXIV I always feel like I’m trapped in a box, because outside of city hubs the world is pretty sparse and I don’t feel that way with ESO.

Both>Wow tho

Pevey

Peekachu99 wrote: »

kathandira wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

That is the lazy way to get things done. There are great guilds out there, and unlike WoW, you can have your whole account in up to 5 guilds at a time, increasing your player pool by a lot. There are also Discord communities that can be utilized to find Trials.

Shouting in craglorn is the least effective way to get a competent group if you consider the above.

You make this argument as if FFXIV doesn’t have an amazing social scene and dedicated, helpful fan base as well as an amazing suite of social tools for PVE content. ESO’s social tools are pure trash and a decision as indefensible as their lack of a search function in guild stores. Anything that takes you outside of a game to do something (Discord, Vent) is bad design. Period. That’s design 101.

Except that ESO has added a search function in guild stores, and next patch there will be a search and application function for guilds themselves. ZOS does seem to be listening and improving things players care most about.

BrianLovesLisa

What about the "You think you want that, but you don't really want that" Said during a blizcon.

Kiralyn2000

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Wow's graphics have become seriously dated.

I can get people with really inferior rigs sticking to it... but, anyone with anything remotely capable should have bailed a long time ago. That's if it means something to you/them, it doesn't to everyone.

That seems like the worst reason to quit - if the gameplay/story/etc are still good, the graphics are a minor thing.

And it definitely wouldn't be a reason for a sudden shift in population - the people currently playing know what the graphics are like and have been fine with it.

edit: checked out some BFA screenshots. Game still looks quite good - the advantage of a highly-stylized art design, it doesn't age as badly as other things.

spacebandit

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Wow's graphics have become seriously dated.

I can get people with really inferior rigs sticking to it... but, anyone with anything remotely capable should have bailed a long time ago. That's if it means something to you/them, it doesn't to everyone.

That seems like the worst reason to quit - if the gameplay/story/etc are still good, the graphics are a minor thing.

And it definitely wouldn't be a reason for a sudden shift in population - the people currently playing know what the graphics are like and have been fine with it.

edit: checked out some BFA screenshots. Game still looks quite good - the advantage of a highly-stylized art design, it doesn't age as badly as other things.

Gameplay took a hit because of increase to 1.5 sec gcd. The story is all over the place last time I was there about 7 months ago. On top of waiting halfway through expansion to release new races that everyone assumed you would be able to have close after launch.

Not to mention flying still being gated behind half an expansion. Travel is so painstakingly boring and takes forever in wow. Here you just click a Wayshrine and poof, I’m within 30 seconds of where I want to be.

snarkomatic

They are leaning harder and harder into a grindfest of nearly immediately obsolete progression. The raid from the beginning of this expansion is obsolete after the second raid is introduced with the first content patch. They repeatedly strip abilities and class flavor entirely, forcing players into only one or two builds -- and not even just what's viable for META, but literally no options to even be less-viable or go hybrid even if you want to.

In Legion (the previous expansion) they converted most class abilities and unique flavor to be present in artifact weapons you got for each class/spec ... then they took those away with the release of BfA (current expansion) and put them onto armor pieces you needed to level a piece of jewelry to use. Each time you upgrade that armor, you need to grind more levels on your necklace before you can get back the stats/abilities you already had on the lesser piece of gear, and the grind for those levels is excruciating for most average players.

Five-man progression is also pretty much stalled out if you don't like their speed-run-everything model for mythic+ dungeons, and as they only run one raid per tier, it's easy to burn out if you're looking to actually feel accomplished and participate in endgame.

The community is also absolute garbage at this point. I played on and off from vanilla to now, and can honestly say, the people currently inhabiting that game world are by and large atrocious. Blizzard community mods have no interest in connecting with players or helping foster a better environment, either. It's just free-flow hatred as long as you aren't directing it towards Blizzard themselves.

zaria

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Nyladreas wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

The bfa patch was a HUGE flop, like reaaaaally big. A stupid amount of players (we are talking millions) stopped playing the game, and one of the alternatives is eso.

How so? What made BFA so bad? If you don't mind me asking. I played from start until early legion so I'm a bit familiar with wow.

Oh I wouldn't really know how to answer there, sorry. I'm not an ex wow player, this i just what I heard from wow content creators. One feature I know they removed (correct me if I'm wrong) is the possibility to share loot. Another thing is the rng needed to upgrade (drop?) some sort of loot.
I don't really know any detail and the more I write the more I feel stupid because idk exactly what I talking about. Sorry, maybe someone else can help you out better!

Did the remove the ability to share loot? I know they removed the need / greed system but thought the replacement was more like the one in ESO, you get individual loot but can share within team.

But yes BFA was poorly received and lots of content creators has moved out to ESO or FF14 and made guides for how to survive the change.

Ohtimbar

Peekachu99 wrote: »

kathandira wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

That is the lazy way to get things done. There are great guilds out there, and unlike WoW, you can have your whole account in up to 5 guilds at a time, increasing your player pool by a lot. There are also Discord communities that can be utilized to find Trials.

Shouting in craglorn is the least effective way to get a competent group if you consider the above.

You make this argument as if FFXIV doesn’t have an amazing social scene and dedicated, helpful fan base as well as an amazing suite of social tools for PVE content. ESO’s social tools are pure trash and a decision as indefensible as their lack of a search function in guild stores. Anything that takes you outside of a game to do something (Discord, Vent) is bad design. Period. That’s design 101.

QFT

snarkomatic

zaria wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Nyladreas wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

The bfa patch was a HUGE flop, like reaaaaally big. A stupid amount of players (we are talking millions) stopped playing the game, and one of the alternatives is eso.

How so? What made BFA so bad? If you don't mind me asking. I played from start until early legion so I'm a bit familiar with wow.

Oh I wouldn't really know how to answer there, sorry. I'm not an ex wow player, this i just what I heard from wow content creators. One feature I know they removed (correct me if I'm wrong) is the possibility to share loot. Another thing is the rng needed to upgrade (drop?) some sort of loot.
I don't really know any detail and the more I write the more I feel stupid because idk exactly what I talking about. Sorry, maybe someone else can help you out better!

Did the remove the ability to share loot? I know they removed the need / greed system but thought the replacement was more like the one in ESO, you get individual loot but can share within team.

But yes BFA was poorly received and lots of content creators has moved out to ESO or FF14 and made guides for how to survive the change.

You can only trade an item that the system does not consider an upgrade for you; i.e., if you have a staff that is item level 345 and loot a greatsword ilvl 350, you can't trade it, even if you'd never in a million years want to use that greatsword.

Also, each boss still drops the same amount of loot as when you need/greed rolled, you just have no choice to give it to someone who needs it more.

Wildberryjack

I walked away from BfA and won't be going back. The game is straight up NOT fun anymore for a lot of reasons.

*Removal of skills and homogenization of the classes.
*Excessive RNG on everything, giving you nothing to work for you just have to get lucky.
*Time and rep gating everything, and I do mean everything.
*Putting most skills on the GCD so you push a button then wait, push a button then wait, push a button then wait, ad nauseam.
*Removal of items and quests from older content making it worthless to play.
*Broken scaling where you literally get weaker as you level.
*Item level scaling that makes it even worse because as your gear gets better the mobs scale beyond it, so what's the point?
*Gating progression behind dungeons.
*Professions that are utterly worthless in every way at every level.
*Limited content with nothing to do afterward except the same few world quests over and over, and over.
*Locking things that should come with the expansion behind a massive, boring, unfun, time and rep gated achievement.
*Adding "catch up" mechanics constantly that totally invalidate all the time and effort you put in up to that point so you'd have been better off just unsubbing and waiting for those mechanics to be added then sub back, lather rinse repeat.
*A story that is dumb and makes no sense what so ever.
*The game is on rails, you play their way or no way. I chose no way, bye Felicia.

Those are the main issues, there are a lot more that involve raiding and PvP but since I did neither in WoW I can't comment too much.

Malamar1229

I would imagine after all these years players just got sick of having to grind another 10 levels and replace all gear with every expansion. That's why I quit. And that's why I +1 ESO.
#AgainstLevelGrinding

snarkomatic

Malamar1229 wrote: »

I would imagine after all these years players just got sick of having to grind another 10 levels and replace all gear with every expansion. That's why I quit. And that's why I +1 ESO.
#AgainstLevelGrinding

And something else I forgot in my first post, which is the multitude of anti-QoL downgrade decisions they implement, which only really make sense once you accept that their sole motivation is forcing players to spend more time to accomplish less

spacebandit

snarkomatic wrote: »

Malamar1229 wrote: »

I would imagine after all these years players just got sick of having to grind another 10 levels and replace all gear with every expansion. That's why I quit. And that's why I +1 ESO.
#AgainstLevelGrinding

And something else I forgot in my first post, which is the multitude of anti-QoL downgrade decisions they implement, which only really make sense once you accept that their sole motivation is forcing players to spend more time to accomplish less

My understanding is in China they changed the wow subscription from monthly to time cards around Warlords because that’s how the other mmo there operates. And it directly effected their design decisions because it cut their profit way down.

Peekachu99

Pevey wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

kathandira wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

They’re gonna need to step up their social tools to compete. Wait till these poor ex-pats realize they’re gonna be shouting in Craglorn all day to get a raid going.

That is the lazy way to get things done. There are great guilds out there, and unlike WoW, you can have your whole account in up to 5 guilds at a time, increasing your player pool by a lot. There are also Discord communities that can be utilized to find Trials.

Shouting in craglorn is the least effective way to get a competent group if you consider the above.

You make this argument as if FFXIV doesn’t have an amazing social scene and dedicated, helpful fan base as well as an amazing suite of social tools for PVE content. ESO’s social tools are pure trash and a decision as indefensible as their lack of a search function in guild stores. Anything that takes you outside of a game to do something (Discord, Vent) is bad design. Period. That’s design 101.

Except that ESO has added a search function in guild stores, and next patch there will be a search and application function for guilds themselves. ZOS does seem to be listening and improving things players care most about.

I’m aware it has a search function NOW, after five years, I didn’t feel the need to state the explicitly obvious. The fact that it took them five years for basic functionality while blinded fans defended the “authenticity” of the system was my point.

If we have to wait another five years for better servers and social features, the game will be dead.

Goregrinder

They broke PVP in Legion, and didn't fix it in BFA so I lost interest.

Kel

I stopped playing WoW once I realized every expansion was the same story over and over.
The details might alter between expansion, but the crux is ALWAYS the same....

Horde and Alliance hate eachother and are at war...

Still war, but someone's discovered something, and each faction race to get it first...

A big bad is directly or indirectly introduced through said object...

Horde and Alliance have to work together to end Big Bad and save Azeroth...

Next Expansion: Horde and Alliance hate eachother and are at war...........

Repeat.

The story never changes, therefore nothing you do has any meaning or repercussions.

Yes, the systems and gameplay are bad, but for me, I finally asked myself why I cared...

david_m_18b16_ESO

GarnetFire17 wrote: »

They're bored of Wow. They want to play new MMO content that isn't just the same stuff redone, until Classic WoW comes out. That is the sum of it from what I have gathered.

IYou basicaly summered ESO expension I,d say nto WoW. Come on ESO expension bring new sets, a skill or 2 and either a new crafting or a new class it seems.

WoW lost a lot of players bcuz it made the oposite. The game tryied to be something it never meant to be and poeple hates it.