Is World of Warcraft Dying? - The PoddyC Ep. 17

[@lucasbetarello2592]

Dorki and Growl will plunder Max so hard that he'll go back to Wildstar

[@erimiya.mp4]

fronk is the editing goat fr 🐐

[@bear576]

he's a rat

[@Kurt_Monk]

Roadmap definitely helped for me as a casual raider. gave clear outlines on content and expected time of release

[@Silvertaurus_]

Wish instead of "Battle Royale" it was Rogue Like, Dungeon Crawler (through BRD?, or some old Raid), where with team of 2-4 people earn XP, random powers and build your team to finish dungeon and beat the boss.

[@InaComputer]

A WoW rogue like would be awesome(one that isnt torghast)

[@Patrins]

@59:30 the only reason someone would WANT 40 man raids is because they want to show up, individually have very little impact or personal responsibility towards the fight, and not feel any stress while completing the encounter quickly and easily.

[@Draik41]

What about the people wanting 10 man?

[@brkus2665]

And that is bad? Having a place to chill with a few buddies while joining some huge raid, mess around easy bosses kill something, get some loot and have fun and good time. FUN IN WOW PROHIBITED, ONLY SWEAT!

[@iv9ry]

​@brkus2665 it feels bad when someone is putting little to no effort into the raid, and you have to carry only to lose loot to them

[@fleshhunter8703]

@@brkus2665 I would rather... having 9 friends that play WoW (or a sane number of 4) and go into a situation with 0 expectation, than deal with say... 30 other people+my friends.

[@brkus2665]

@@fleshhunter8703 that is the point of it all. Preference and as long as you acknowledge that you are fine. And not go into it this is correct this is wrong. It's just preference.

[@prkr_ae]

probably 90% or higher of people running m+ wouldn't just restart over and over without depletes. the only thing that would change for the vast majority of people is that they wouldn't get punished as hard when there's a single wipe and someone bails and bricks the key

[@user-uw1gk7hf1o]

100% this, I also don't enjoy spending 90% of my time on homework keys to hope it rolls in a high doable key. It's the same reason why I don't enjoy farming raids.

[@Addictingdrugsbad]

disagree would create more elitism for higher m+ pushers. if someone doesn't know the defense rotation to stay alive you will get booted and go again

[@user-uw1gk7hf1o]

​@@Addictingdrugsbad yeah, what is wrong about that? If it happens on the first pull maybe. Now if someone leaves after the first death the key owner get rekt and has to do another homework key. I don't think it's fun to do homework keys and then not worth my time if I don't think it's fun. There's no punishment for the early leavers in keys now and almost not worth it to do high keys without a full premade to make sure no one leaves after the first death. I'm talking 28+ key level this season.

[@domperry4175]

I can see both perspectives. The timer-less m+ idea is similar. It would remove some negative interactions for sure, but there is also an element of risk these mechanics bring that adds to the excitement.

[@NoradNoxtus]

just make the now upto +10s not deplete and anything above that is for the sweat lords to sweat it out. also, if a key fails, make everyone's key deplete and make it possible to see each person who applies' key level. people need to go into it with equal stakes and key levels actually worth loosing to give a fuck.

[@glkification]

I agree with Dratnos' take on the current state of retail - I love m+, I enjoy 20 man raids, I like being able to use addons to personalise my UI exactly as I want it, I like the complexity of the game. It's great atm. Discussions about simplifying wow are a bit odd to me - it's complexity is one of the best things about it. If you like simple games, just play wow simply, it is already possible to play the game only using 10 spells. It is already possible to go up against world bosses with 40+ players. No need to remove the complexity.

[@chuckkoro]

Dorki is right. The same group of people lost their minds with pet battles in MoP. “This care bear Pokémon bullshit is taking the place of more dungeons and raids”. The Care Bears subs help keep the lights on, so I’ll take more Plunderstorm over another Korthia any day.

[@vincenthamel3420]

is he tho? it's the second expension in a row we're missing a raid tier. And now we are also recycling old dungeon for M+. And we don't have seasonal affixes anymore. And the new talent tree is really just making previous baseline abilities / stuff we got from previous expension into a tree format.. So did those pet battle / plunderstorm and watheverelse really help raiders / M+ peep get more content? BTW, Korthia is sure as heck not made for the raider/ M+ population.

[@brosirs]

The care bears don't like Plunderstorm. All I see in my casual guild discords is people who hate that there's a PvP aspect, or who view it as a grind to get rewards that they won't do again. The people who like Plunderstorm are the content creators. Their girlfriends got some new underwear and it got them excited for the next week or two before they realise that it's still just the same girlfriend.

[@jandolezel2585]

​@@vincenthamel3420He Is. We're getting a new set of dungeons for every season which is great and it kinda makes seasonal affixes obsolete. Even if it's just recycling old dungeons it's still better than what we had. Missing raid tiers are bummer but on the other side WoW was always a seasonal game and having one low stakes season when they can cook something new and you don't have to play is acceptable. Plus War Within is set to release around September so it's kinda half season

[@fleshhunter8703]

@@brosirsAs someone who likes Plunderstorm and isn't a content creator... If you are in a social circle that hates a topic, typically the people that enjoy it know better than to bring it up, because at best it just annoys those that dislike it. Now this isn't saying that there are 'secret enjoyers of Plunderstorm' in your circle, they might be meh on it. You don't have to "Legitimize" your dislike of a system by saying "Only content creators enjoy it" you can just be like "I don't like playing Plunderstorm, it doesn't appeal to me"

[@brosirs]

@@fleshhunter8703 It's entirely illogical for me to assume that there's a secret group of people who like Plunderstorm but are keeping quiet about it. It's entirely logical for me to base what I'm saying on actual observation of the two casual social guilds I'm in.

[@JRSoper]

I feel like I called Dratnos was doing pirate transmog irl with the tooth to build up hype for Plunderstrom. He's a blizzard plant.

[@Nyeusi]

Oh no. A content creator doing something fun for his stream. How dare they.

[@jaredwallace219]

​@@CasuallyEfficientwhat the fuck are you talking about

[@Epicpickle_WoW]

A couple things. I wouldn’t mind seeing instead of the mega dungeon type of deal like DOTI make it a small 10man raid for mid tier content and see how it goes. And for M+ I don’t mind the depletion. It’s rewarding when you do time the higher keys and can learn when you do brick it or deplete them

[@noamz9527]

I, personally, like the amount of active skills in wow. I think if u level a character u get used to them while leveling. The main issue starts when u try a new spec or a class get reworked and suddenly u need to learn a full list of skills. I would like them to add some kind of easy training quest on max level which walks u through the skills and special class interactions for a reward of basic starter gear for max level.

[@lexiconprime7211]

I think people forget how inspired and talented the people who do the real work at Blizzard actually are. So the people who think they're idiots (The "Hire me Blizzard, I can do it better" people) are so lost. The people who think they don't play their own game are morons. You can't design a game without playing it. It's actually impossible.

[@seandurkin1941]

Really felt dratnos talking about customizing your own rotational ui. I am not an amazing player. I have also worked my way up to raiding at a CE level over many years. Creating the visual and audial clarity to play a given spec through research, practice, and experimentation has been one of the most engaging parts of playing higher end pve content. A lot of it is also just sharing ideas with other players and finding new ways to optimize. I feel like that realm of customization and personal expression should be preserved.

[@iyaramonk]

Hell yeah brother

[@karlzone2]

Exactly. Creating a clear visual ui, and researching the specs I play, are some of the ways I do skill expression. And it's very satisfying to improve my own gameplay in that way. I'm not better at reacting, I'm not better at rotation, etc, etc. But this is a big part of how I become good at the game.

[@Skyelk]

For me personally: I *despise* any form of PVP, especially BRs, but I'm truly happy people are enjoying the mode, and anytime there is a win for Blizz I consider it a win for me. However, waiting for months blindly being hyped about doing some Jack Sparrow stuff for it to end up being a mode I know without playing I will hate every minute of is kind of a bummer.

[@PhoTC]

Sounds like you shouldn't go hyping yourself up blindly

[@Skyelk]

@@PhoTC except that's exactly what they were trying to do? Build hype by keeping it close to the chest and teasing without revealing?

[@jsjsjsjs]

It'd be very interesting to have an episode dedicated to the role of add-ons in other MMOs - specifically with a number of guests who have recent & accurate experience with the impact of add-ons in those other MMOs.

[@xsteelFghterX]

I'd be super down for a Dorki-cast episode next week where he just brings on a desk of his favorite co-creators and rambles for an hour! :D

[@calvinhavener596]

Dratnos rocking his guild merch

[@Wha162]

No artifact power grind in DF has been amazing

[@user-tw3es7gc7u]

In SL as well.

[@zarroe_]

banger intro

[@TheDickWard]

Agreed. Give Fronk a raise

[@Lionelhutz-attorney-at-law]

Can that just be a permanent intro? Thanks.

[@ericliffrig3088]

Loved the longer discussion! Dorki tried so hard to get Max on the right track in the add on discussion. The real elephant in the room is in-combat add ons, nobody is out here crying about UI and cosmetic mods ruining the game. I would love to hear Max actually dig into that topic a bit and not just handwave it away "everyone knows combat add ons are bad". If add on regulation was working why are private auras a total mess?

[@666lumberjack]

On Plunderstorm vs Mage Tower/Challenge modes for casuals, I think it's an important distinction that the former is a grind that anyone can do while the latter two are tests of skill. Because anyone *can* get the plunderstorm mounts, completionists feel like they have to do it while the mode is still around or they'll regret missing out. Whereas with tests of skill, there's more a feeling of 'welp, this isn't for me, but it's cool'. That's also not to mention a lot of people finding working to overcome a challenge more satisfying than just grinding away.

[@Boxeye360]

Y’all should name the poddy “MurTalk” and have the logo being a microphone shaped as a murloc and dratnos can do the noise at the beginning of every pod

[@zachattack245]

Ok, all jokes aside, Asmon is the stereotypical example of a boomer who couldn't adapt to change and just goes "if only things went back to the way they were!"

[@Stanthorus]

well then you are the example of the players who doesn't care on making the game better

[@zachattack245]

@@Stanthorus “better” does not equal “just make it the way it was ___ years ago”. I am all for fixing addons and button bloat. But not the way someone like Asmon wants it

[@Stanthorus]

@@zachattack245 you guys are just getting the idea completely wrong about him. What asmon said is putting the game into mechanics not buttons. Have you ever turned off your details and just focus on doing the raid mechanics or even dungeons? Thats the whole point of why he is pointing out the 10 buttons argument. Every argument on this is taking Final Fantasy as an example, but people just ignore the fact that if you want to do high parses in Final Fantasy, you STILL have to play the mechanics and rotation. Now wow is just a bunch of calculation on top of other calculation (rotation, mechanics blahblahblah)

[@zachattack245]

@@Stanthorus well, ok. But again, here’s the problem. WoW can’t go to a 10-button system. Maybe if they do a WoW 2 in 10 years you could try that. But it would require a completely different game. Also, I mainly play tank so I never look at damage meters when I play.

[@Stanthorus]

@@zachattack245 I get it if its not going into 10 button thing in like a year or earlier. But they do need to change, the hero talents are great but it still implements bunch of calculation into the game which is too toxic to the game and even players. I just hope somehow the dev in wow just realize the problem. And I do play tank healer and dps, you can only not looking to meter when you play the keys +10 or below this patch. lol

[@kreuk13]

I really don't think we're getting more content, it's just spread out over more patches. Like dratnos said I wouldve loved to see another raid tier instead, but it seems blizzard already knew at least a year ago they were gonna phone in another fated patch cus 'the last one was so well received' lmfao, all in favor of working on the new xpac ofc that'll keep em quiet

[@sepantaassadi344]

I just wanted to add 2 points in regards to m+: 1. Key not deplete but change on failure. 2. M+ puging and premade team run are complete different beasts

[@mebrandonb]

HEY! I was born in '82 but I am loving Plunderstorm! Not all of us "older" gamers like mount farming (also, fuck you).

[@Elgato1221]

‘87 here and I totally agree with you

[@BirdmanG07]

My issue with Plunderstorm is I dropped in for my first few games and got absolutely pub stopped. I wish since my renown was 1 I would’ve been up against people with similar experience.

[@ergodoodle1951]

No 40 man ever again, ever. 40 man raids were the worst experience I ever had in 20 years of this game. 40 toilet breaks, food breaks, kids yelling, afking randomly, dc issues, then 3 guys are from another timezone so they have to leave early and you have to find someone else, but nobody wants to join because of the lockout. My blood boils at the thought. Asmon can have cool takes, but his idea of what retail should be is horrid in my mind. No addons? So I should have my character pane in the top left corner and never be able to tell how much hp or mana I have? Or rearange stupid bars? Just let me customize my ui to suit how I want to play.

[@shadowdragon8168]

1:05:40 There is actually a huge movement going around in SoD right now pushing blizz to reduce ALL the 40man raids to either 20 or 10 man, especially since the Level up raids have been 10man.

[@ahiwalter9153]

SOD players crack me up man, like just play retail at this point 😂

[@user-tw3es7gc7u]

​@@ahiwalter9153And classic andys crack me up. This is an experimental seasonal mode and they should make all the changes that make sense, original vanilla is still there for people who want to do the same thing all the time.

[@the_dohboy7832]

Yuge shoutout to Max for improving his ability to take a step back and let the boys talk.

[@salviosama7942]

I think they are designing themselves into a corner with the defensive options, playing a shaman is a totally different experience to playing a mage in terms of feeling safe and staying alive through mechanics, I don't see them culling abilities to the extent that is needed, I mean they just introduced evoker and it has like 4 different defensive buttons, so instead they will have to power creep Shaman and other classes like priest to compete.

[@Mikkelzu]

tbh i think the ability prune thing is a good idea, but i also think its weird that asmon would make that point when he was also the first person to be in favour of the unpruning that happened in shadowlands.

[@wowxleahyrain]

As a big fan of the mode I think it's really disingenuous to say "eh the rewards have no power so don't play it if you don't like it" tmog and mounts are a big thing to a lot of wow players, you also miss out on like 750 traders tender if you don't play it, just because it has no player power doesn't mean you don't have to do it

[@Elgato1221]

“I don’t like this new mode and I don’t want to do it to get the thing from it”, weak argument man

[@wowxleahyrain]

@@Elgato1221 not really though. The key difference between that and using that argument for PVP or raiding is Plunderstorm is a completely different game, it's not wow at all in the slightest, but it gives rewards for wow. Imagine if you had to go play league of legends for 15 hours to get rewards for wow.

[@Elgato1221]

@@wowxleahyrain that’s a false equivalence, and I’ll explain. When a pve player needs to do pvp for gear to progress pve, that makes no sense. Or when someone needs to do torgas (might have misspelled that one) to upgrade there power to raid. The key here is if you need to engage in an activity in order to progress in another activity; then that becomes bad game design. Rewards are not always the same as the tools one uses to progress there gameplay.

[@merenwen_kiltæsir]

What people don’t want is lengthy 40 men raids. There is classic for that. Has anybody asked why M+ is so popular? 30 min dungeon, 5 players, gg. Make Raids be more like TBC Karazhan and you’ll see a lot of people doing them.

[@vincenthamel3420]

Karazhan was great in 2007. but in 2024? bunch of tank n spank bosses? a huge waste of time in the form of chessboard? tons of obnoxious trash everywhere? Boring keying? no.

[@user-nz4un6se7y]

Lengthy? You mean like an hour for the entire raid?

[@merenwen_kiltæsir]

@@user-nz4un6se7y wow, 1 hour… 🤨 how much did you pay? I’m interested.

[@fleshhunter8703]

@@vincenthamel3420 I am 90% sure they mean "Raid with 10 people" more than Karazhan's mechanics.

[@vincenthamel3420]

@@fleshhunter8703 so say 10-man raid, like we ( by the way) already have with flex-mode in normal and heroic.

[@pippinjunior2109]

"Man buns look sick" the worst take I've ever heard 😂

[@Wisconsen]

One big thing that WildStar got right years ago was the LAS or Limited Action Set. Limiting the number of abilities a class can use not only prevents button bloat, but improves usability for the player and allows customization both at the player level "What skill do i want to use" the group level "what skills do we need brought" and the raid level "How many people can we afford to go all out DPS, and Who can we trust with mechanics". Now WildStar didn't implement it perfectly, it had it's issues. But it was a better direction to go in IMO. Lost Ark Functions similarly with how their skills work as another example of how this is done.

[@Orthus100]

Also, the magic fairy land of no PTR may sound good to you guys for raids, but how many thousands of times have we made major change to classes, systems, and encounters that would have been absolute disasters if they went live? We already have enough things slip through the cracks, it's just not reasonable to not test a game this big.

[@triplebee3]

I won my first solo Plunderstorm game today and as primarily a Raider/m+ player the rush of getting that win fking hits so hard. legit like getting mythic boss kills after 100 pulls!

[@Mushnp]

Plunderstorm is fun, I've been enjoying it, finished the renown days ago, but I definitely think it's somewhat shallow. I already see matches starting with ~25 teams.

[@tsetse5942]

How would no depleting of keys work in pugs? Everyone is talking about running a pull over an over again but I really dont think pugs would work that way.

[@quintit]

Keystone charges would probably be ideal for pugs and competitive players

[@Darkrampager]

My thing about plunderstorm is its pvp and i don't enjoy pvp but feel like i have to play it to get those cool rewards in wow

[@Elgato1221]

Hold tough there big guy while I go get my tiny violin 🎻

[@JDP2393]

I think one of the most insanely hype things they could do is go all out with class/spec customizations. Things like blood red effects for paladins, maybe avenging wrath changes appearance per race, and maybe you go and collect glyphs from quests or whatever that unlock these effects. Like green fire but more. If they do this, it would generate so much hype it’s unreal.

[@talisredstar1543]

They do have glyphs that change Avenging Wrath, changing it to blood Red effects would go against lore. Now more things like the green fire quest would be cool. have to be careful with it, too much change too quickly would mess over pvper's that rely on seeing abilities and what not to identify people. And/or would force Blizz to add another check box into options where you can turn that stuff off for yourself.

[@JDP2393]

@@talisredstar1543 how would blood red effects go against lore? It would fit blood elves very well. And yes we have 1 glyph, talking about much more than that. And I’m not sure why they’d have to be careful with it, pvpers do not use visual cues often at all anymore because there’s far too much going on, SL+ has been addon dominated in pvp for this reason and I doubt we are getting away from that. I know this was blizzards reasoning but it doesn’t actually make sense post bfa. And yes they could certainly make a toggle option for these effects ie glyphs

[@talisredstar1543]

@@JDP2393 Because the Blood Elves no longer get their access to the Light through draining a Naaru. When the sunwell was reignited by the Light. They were freed from that vampirism, and the light now comes to the naturally.

[@lootship5]

if they added 10 man Mythic i would be the happiest i would ever be.

[@alinethome4064]

I'd like them to try 14, personally.

[@Xynth25]

We've seen the problems of 10-man. If people think class representation is bad now they have no idea what that would lead to. The smallest I think they can realistically design a fixed raid for is 15, which still has tons of problems.

[@ahiwalter9153]

yea I feel like if 10 man mythic was feasible, it would be in the game. I don’t think blizz is oblivious to the fact that getting 20 people together is a challenge & I totally agree, I remember the days of 10 man heroic & it was VERY restrictive on certain tiers, boss fights & just in general with the limited number of slots for buffs

[@robertdunn7165]

Dorki’s dota 2 reference to Invoker is great I always thought mage should have a spec that works similarly to that hero. Like chromatic mage pulling strong spells from frost fire and arcane as you build up “spell runes” or “mana orbs”

[@ahiwalter9153]

the only problem is much like invoker, the best players will completely rip on it & everyone else will really not do anything haha xD

[@attinger117]

Classes all felt great to play in MoP and the pruning in WoD and legion absolutely destroyed the classes. They didn’t really start to feel good to play again until dragonflight. I can’t think of a better way to kill this game than to try and prune class kits down to 10 buttons.

[@Lewdology]

Playing for rewards is a road to hell. The key is to play for the sake of playing. Just like anything in life, actually.

[@duman173]

They were making DF in the middle of SL to assume this wasn't the plan all along and that this expac we would be getting 4 raids is just something people made in their own minds and decided it had to be true

[@kylechermak7092]

@ 33:30 the interesting part about button bloat is that back in classic, leveling was the how-to guide without really any extra effort needed from blizzard. Classic had a ton of abilities at 60 (shaman with 12+ totems anyone?). You slowly gained more abilities, and because you took so long to level, you naturally learned the game at a reasonable progression rate. Nowadays, you can absolutely take a first time player, slap them on a new account, and they will slowly get more buttons, but with how fast leveling is (and the fact that leveling feels rushed toward the end game), you don’t have that new-player friendly experience anymore.

[@quintit]

I literally leveled a new character as the spec I wanted to learn and purposely took a while doing it because it was pretty overwhelming to just plop in front of the dummies with the 20 new buttons

[@cole8834]

what you dont seem to realize is that "tank and spank" classic bosses are much more acceptable when the entire world* is relevant for gearing your character. shrinking everything to just being raids is poor for the overall health of the game. it just makes it a multiplayer action game. but w/e

[@dram359]

A portion of the drop off for 9.1 was because of the issues in Blizzard that came out around the same time

[@conorlavelle9748]

Im in a AOTC guild that only gets the first few mythic bosses, so we're fairly casual. As a data point, augmentation evoker caused us a lot of problems. People who hated aug complained endlessly which bothered the people who switched over or were recruited to play aug.

[@Xynth25]

There can't be only one Support spec in the game for this to work. Either they turn some healers into Supports or they just don't run Supports. But there can't be a single spec or ability adding so much value that other classes are tuned around potentially having it.

[@ahiwalter9153]

I don’t think healer support is the move especially when they have like 4 or 5 dps specs that have been dead for years as far as being desirable in groups that need something

[@Xynth25]

@@ahiwalter9153 Healer is the role with the most overlap of the Support concept, so it's the one that I think needs to change to accomodate the role. Personally, I think Support shouldn't exist in WoW and we could do with a culling of current specs. Like DK should only have Tank or DPS, with aspects of Blood/Frost/Unholy spread across the two. Can do that kind of thing with basically every class, the problem is getting the playerbase to accept it.

[@ahiwalter9153]

I agree they’ve created too many specs in the game, but I think the optics of changing some healers to a aug style of play would be a lot worse than say changing survival to a support style dps spec that actually gets invited to groups, or feral druids, elemental shamans etc.

[@Xynth25]

@@ahiwalter9153 If anything Survival should be a Tank, it has a ton of tools to make it super effective and unique at the role, being a Tank with a pet that can solo taunt swap while also having access to Lust. But that's my personal hill to die on. Realistically, some specs would have to change but I think there would be *significantly* more backlash from DPS players having specs taken away from their role than from Healers being told "Your role is even more vital to a party now." Healing is the first thing you look to cut in any content, and Healers are already Support classes to the extent that they manage dispells, debuffs, and important mitigation/healing CDs. Healers that don't add to group damage whenever feasible are actively trolling. It's literally half a step for Healers to become fully realized Supports.

[@itsKyyyle]

Plunderstorm is definitely the last thing I wanted. If I had to pick from a list of what I want in 10.2.6, a battle Royale would be at the very bottom. To my surprise, I love the game mode and have been having a ton of fun with it despite absolutely hating all BRs. Guess the genre just needed the wow touch. Props to blizzard for this one. The mogs and mounts are sick too. Hope we get some more shit like this in the future

[@SteveBeck89]

If the optimal approach to a mechanic is to have assignments, WoW should give the assignment, not a Weakaura.

[@iyaramonk]

The raid leader should do the assignments, not the game.

[@arnaudsavi950]

To talk about addons i played LOL Before WOW and LOL With addons/weakaura that would helps you see some buffs more clearly and when its running out would be so cool ( lulu e/w , tryndamere ult ...) and i think that would make the game better and help people improve

[@talisredstar1543]

LoL would benefit so much from say Plater like addon. And being able to move your keybinds would be amazing too. I would shrink them down and move them under the middle of my screen like luxthos weakaura packs. but also with LoL you can't go nuts with addons at the same time, because you need to be able to see the majority of your screen way more than you do in wow, because you can zoom out so far in wow, LoL you can't sadly.

[@JO-um7xg]

Some of the button bloat can be resolved by giving abilities two effects like living flame. Why can’t soothing mist not behave like crackling Jace lightning depending on what you’re targeting.

[@themInterwebs]

10.2.6 was disappointing to me because it’s a new game mode, not something I can do on my main. I hope they don’t advertise other game modes in the retail roadmap again, immediately soured my impression of plunderstorm because of the false advertising.

[@ellipoe]

LMAO this intro is fire, and dratty with the fresh cut, fresh smile, hamburger meat comin out of the shirt woo buddy

[@akunomatata7897]

i saw the thumbnail and feared that cat wasnt here for the episode e

[@Gunnorra]

Sometimes i hate y'alls takes. Boomers aren't mad because people are having fun at Plunderstorm. It's simply there is a good segment of the game that doesn't like pvp. It would have taken a very small amount of additional effort to give this a PVE only option. You can already opt out of world pvp for reduced rewards, and most people do. Literally nobody would be upset with this if they had just added the option, it's just that Blizzard KNOWS that some people hate pvp, and instead giving just a tad more effort to make everyone happy, they decided "it's pvp, you'll have fun" and sent it as is. Toss a cyclone or something in the last couple circles to boot people into the storm to add a bit of skill to winning it and it was an easy win for everybody.

[@drackene]

Comparing content that PvP vs PvE gets every expansion or patch, just give it to them. PvE got basically 10 new dungeons and 3 raids.

[@mikewilliams-jw8jd]

Idk the sub numbers are still a bit concerning if u look at when classic releases the sub count doubles and after Df releases the downward trend is there about the same amount as any other expac it just rebounded mid expac. U could attribute that to df but I think it’s much more likely due to sod and hardcore. Even if u only count classic, sod, hardcore and their variants as 1/3 that means the retail sub count is approximately 5m which is kinda standard at this point and if it’s half the subs which I find much more likely then the retail subs are less then 4m which would be close to an all time low.

[@Mosan13]

If you're thinking about the sub count and DF vs classic impacts on the sub retention, go look up the graphs of people still doing M+ this late into season 3. There's a lot of people playing DF. But at the same time, this tribalism bullshit is stupid. The reality is that there might be

[@michaelwhatley]

“Makes fun of people thinking they are getting paid to (like) plundersrorm”. “Continues to TELL EVERYONE how much they are getting paid to play plundersrorm”. Lol

[@tommy4862]

There weremore buttons in classic, because all classes could learn all spells from all specs. But those buttons were irrelevant most of the time. So it looks like you have more buttons, but it retail you actually use most of your buttons. I think we've all seen the mage meme video where the classic mage was standing in place spamming frostbolt (top of the details btw) and then it cut to Firedup on mythic Jailer :D

[@chaosparticle4515]

On top of that, healers used multiple ranks of the same abilities so had a ton of buttons in vanilla

[@chaosparticle4515]

Healers + mana dps

[@Senen33]

There was also the "keep multiple levels of the same spell in your bar", though, especially for healers. I’m not sure how relevant it was in Classic but it definitely was a thing in Vanilla.

[@iyaramonk]

Most of those extra buttons were only relevant in pvp and world content.

[@jesse8250]

Warlocks had around 50 abilities at lvl 60 and used Shadowbolt and Life tap

[@Calltrops77]

I think the name of the podcast will hinder engagement and I would love to see this succeed especially with the end of the Titanforged podcast.

[@casualscroller8261]

One of the few podcasts on games in general, that I can follow. Good job guys big kudos

[@DoylePTB]

I hope they do for other game modes what they've done with Plunderstorm. Thinking Roguelikes, Tower Defense, AutoShooters etc

[@Gavriel14]

I wonder if the black painting is still behind the sofa where it fell off from the wall in ep 11😅

[@moridyn6501]

Fronk, you did an absolutely amazing job with that intro.

[@_d0ser]

If you take away weak auras, that'd be taking away the "21st man" for most CE guilds because they use weak auras LIKE a Max or Scripe. The gap would be HUGE between RWF and HoF tier raiders.

[@ahiwalter9153]

these guilds pay programmers make the weakauras for them & don’t release them till after the boss is killed so the gap is already monumental lol

[@cellsinterlinked]

As someone who does not give a shit about raids, it's great to see them do more stuff than just fucking raids. I know for a lot of people this is what they play WoW for, the fucking raids. But someone like me, who doesnt want to take two to three nights out of his weekly schedule dedicated to WoW, this focus on raids has driven me away from WoW rather than entice me to play. I don't play plunderstorm, it's just not the type of game mode I enjoy. But I am always happy when Blizzard just stops focusing solely on raids and over-complicated systems. Evolve! Yes, raids were the shit in 2004, but now we have more good shit in the game and Blizzard should properly reward people for sticking around rather than foremost for raiding.

[@hamadalthani8314]

Just do more ui updates so that we don’t need WA for class combat buffs and make the new pve that you don’t need an addon to complete them

[@FeralKobold]

I think part of the problem too is the amount of things that need tracking. In ffxiv most classes you're managing a few resources and the UI does a good job of tracking them for you with unique elements and it feels good. But even if WoW updated the UI to better track stuff beyond just the regular buff/debuff bars we have now, there's just SO much to track that without WAs it's impossible to be truly efficient and know exactly what's going on at any given moment. I main Hpriest, and in any given fight I have like 6 or 8 talents and my tier set all with stacking mechanics, auras I need to track, procs that don't inherently show up on the action bars and are only displayed as a buff that gets lost in the sea of constantly changing 30 buffs you have at any time. There's just so much going on at any given second that if we truly want to move away from WAs/addons in general (which I do, im in the camp of disable every single addon in the game) they need to completely reimagine basically every classes talent tree/skill system and how they interact. Which also sucks because like, setting up your talents and making the build is part of the fun of the game and I love the current talent trees. And that's before we even talk about how they specifically design fights around the use of WAs and DBM/big wigs The devs are certainly in a tight spot, that's for sure.

[@Blood_Ronin]

Damn, no episode next week? Sad, was hoping to watch during my bday! Either way, great content. Keep it up.

[@nicholashales9405]

Dratnos killed me day 1 in plunderstorm! I only noticed the name as I was running and he was closing on me.

[@angeloskarkoulias1175]

I feel like the prob is not the class design but is how the class design adapts to current content!(example: this season you need many prio dmg targets or you need to have aoe stops etc) So imo they should make the content (even + 31s )for every class! They have to bring back every raid buff so every class and spec can attend raids

[@hvdiv17]

The wow player base is split over 5 different versions of the game all Blizzard cares about is the subs and store. It doesn't matter to Blizzard if 7.8n people play one mmo or if it's 7.8m people spread across 5 mmos.

[@bilbobaggins7095]

I could prune the buttons. Instead of roll/chi torpedo/flying dragon kick/tigers just just have a talent that you pick between the 4.

[@TPGReddo]

What about if you deplete a key you get a choice between the current deplete or you get the same key with a cooldown on it. Maybe 2 hours or something like that.

[@hamishcogle9959]

add plunder to the game, and just give rewards for like increased adventure track rep, or just menial things like new warband backgrounds or something

[@bilbobaggins7095]

Also you could get rid of two trinkets have 1 trinket 1 bauble the baubles will always be self proc type the trinket will always be tied to each specs offensive cd for on demand burst

[@callmemc6]

1:14:00 This is such a bad take, man... "If you like it play, if you don't, don't" These are WOW rewards, WORLD OF WARCRAFT REWARDS locked behind a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GENRE OF GAME that is fully disconnected from WoW. I'd love to see the take if a mode was released that you weren't biased to like. You like BRs, that's fine. Plunder storm releases as an RTS throwback to Starcraft and you aren't a strategy game fan but there are rewards you want on a track locked behind that gamemode. If you want the rewards it's going to take you 12-24 hours IN THAT GAME MODE to get. Does your take change? I'm willing to bet money that it does change.

[@Orthus100]

Super late, but the reason people buy runs through various modes is for the exact type of cosmetic rewards that Plunderstorm has, but without the ability to just buy your way in. Every collector has their own cutoff point, and something anyone can do without spending money is pretty much always going to cause this sort of problem. I personally would have preferred the mounts and such be lower on the track and leave the top end for the mode specific stuff. Yeah, less people would play as long, but they also wouldn't be bitching as hard.

[@OMGITSJAD]

WoW at peak subscriber count in a while, meanwhile Asmongold shouts that the game is dying and people think it matters...

[@sbsftw4232]

If it's so awesome why the hell don't I want to play

[@herbdangus10]

@@sbsftw4232because you are old and look like your profile picture. If there is a face that encapsulates an angry, jaded nerd more than the face in your profile picture, it would be a miracle

[@djshadowmixsvods6193]

@@sbsftw4232a game made for everyone is a game made for no one - helldivers dev’s

[@icresp4263]

​@sbsftw4232 that might be something you have to answer yourself buddy lmao

[@MrCarlWax]

​@@sbsftw4232How would WE know?

[@Aswanguy]

40 man raiding would be fine if they just upped the cap on flex normal/heroic from 30 to 40. That way it's just an extra thing if you really want it and pretty trivial to add.

[@ncatalin2941]

Plunderstorm is fun but at the same time it is not, if you don't have friends to duo with, log in play 1-2 games a day seems ok but I don't want to be forced to play for rewards because they are gated behind a limited time event. If this would be a standalone mode that every season rewards change and you tell me that I can play 1-2 games a day and at the end of a season I get all rewards then I think everyone would be happy

[@martinmp19]

You are not forced my brotha

[@ncatalin2941]

@@martinmp19 Not technically but if you put rewards in retail everyone will want the transmogs/mounts, lets be real blizzard knowns it, you know it, everyone knows it

[@Orcaaaan]

I feel like if they wanted to they could add another raid tier as well.. you cant tell me you hav 600 people working on an MMO and cant handle that, would be perfect. As a smaller guild id also love if they added back the option to 10 man raid

[@Joel_bjornfors]

People wouldn’t restart a key over and over, a lot of people don’t have time to for that unless the key is dead and then you can retry instead of logging out.

[@KhosTheorie]

As a pvp player I really don't get the pruning talk. When they pruned the classes in legion, so many specs lost iconic and usefull abilitys. A lot of people (me included) didn't like it at all. Atleast I remember it that way. Nobody was really happy getting their skills pruned.

[@beallis2k8]

I'm not sure how many people this would apply for, but I definitely played the first season of dragonflight a lot longer than I usually would in previous expansion seasons, since even when I was done with raid/fishing for gear with M+, the profession system and filling out all the talent trees kept me engaged. In addition, even if I'm not feeling like playing the game that much, I'll still want to sub around the last/first week of a couple months in order to keep the trading post progress chugging along.

[@IPlayVideoGamesAndNothingElse]

The only reason why dragon flight retained its players is due to locking the campaign behind the terrible rep grinds. And drip feeding weekly sparks so no one could craft high enough gear to trivialize the open world and to just jump straight into heroic raids and mythic plus dungeons. It was all time gated.

[@dane-train]

I haven’t heard anyone talk about a classic season with no addons. The classic community seems to be more vocal about addons. Why not try it there? Regarding addons in retail I think combat addons should go. You talked about timers. That should be part of the game or done in a way where it’s very obvious something is about to happen.

[@lost1head]

I think closest example of a game becoming de facto standalone mode is Battlegrounds in Hearthstone client

[@maximas95]

I think a good midground on the depletion thing is just have and untimed key not go down a key level. I've been at a point where I had a 21 key and had a string of bad pugs and now i have a 15, and it feels so bad when you load into a key, tank dies on first pull, says garbage healer and then leaves because he doesn't think we can time it anymore. At least if the key level didn't go down on untimed keys you could advertise that it's a slower key not worrying about the timer, but if you want to push then time it. even if it only worked on keys lower than 20, or something.

[@Mandom92]

could there be a system in place that lets you chose a spezific dungeon for m+ for a set amount of gold? like for example you spend like 100k an the next dungeon your key will be is the dungeon you want .. or you can spent money to ensure your key safes the dungeon after completing it but it gets a higher lvl ... so you would have yet another option to get rid of gold within wow sry 4 bad english

[@Draik41]

But whats the actual monthly player count? Subscriber count doesnt matter anymore with the 6/12 month sub bundles. I know buddies that just buy that to have the mount when they come back for week after 8 months of not playing

[@Manicca]

I hate plunderstorm, and I grinded to 40, and I still think it's crap; because of two things - 1; Time limited / FOMO, and 2; Tied to World of Warcraft with rewards. If it was 100% seperate, it would be fine as its own thing. The two above points make it trash.

[@BunsGlaizin]

To be fair as someone who gets CE every tier & only does enough M+ to get the mount and my raid leader off my back. Asmons points while extreme are valid. Aside from the 40man raid, thats nuts LOL

[@LuckyLuke1707]

I would love if mythic raiding would open up to 10men after like hall of fame ends. It wouldn’t destroy the competitive part of raiding and the race, but would make it possible for players like me to raid mythic. Fyi I’m a 1-3/9 mythic raider. Me and my guildies can’t progress past that because we struggle to find 20 competitive players

[@jerrytruckn]

What’s stopping blizzard from saying to be eligible for World First, no combat addons and stream yourself playing?

[@ahiwalter9153]

it’s a community event & blizzard really wants to be as uninvolved as possible tbh

[@hadenjohnson5695]

In short, yes. I had ce all this expansion and played classic. The retail game at its highest level requires too much time for too little reward, the game is getting progressively more difficult over time, the company refuses to change the "pillars of the game". All this means you burn out players, or you push them away. Blizzard needs to focus on what is genuinely fun and respect the players.

[@nobodynamedmatlock]

On the topic of PTR, it's a mixed bag. You say how cool it would be to see everything fresh and new for the first time on gameday but at the same time Blizzard is already having to rework some hero talents due to feedback because they suck. So, do you want surprises or a better game? Is there a way to only hide the aspects you trust Blizzard to nail like boss encounter and just test new systems?

[@jaybee3895]

WoW developers could make their own addons that people can opt in and out of, like a rare finder or quest helper or make all bags open with one button and ui changes and what not, they could even have a built in dps meter. Disable all adons and solve the issues to your own game, these quality of life addons would take developers no time to create.