World of Warcraft’s newest expansion, Dragonflight, is right around the corner (which is something not a lot of us expected) and it promises to turn back the clock and bring a modern spin on the classic systems that old-school players have shed plenty of tears over when they were cut or dumbed down over the years.
While that is all well and good, World of Warcraft still runs into a problem that it’s had since Day 1… not enough end-game content to keep you coming back day after day and playing.
Despite the game straying away from its identity over the years, the base formula hasn’t really changed all that much:
- Get your character to the maximum level
- Run dungeons to get the gear you need for raids
- Do the raids and get more gear
- Level up your professions
- Max out your reputations
- Murder people if you enjoy PvP
Of course, World of Warcraft has added 1-hit-wonder systems like Garrisons, Artifact Weapons, Azerite Armor, Corrupted Gear, Torghast, Covenants, and every other form of borrowed power you can think of, but when you strip all of that away, the base goals of the game haven’t changed.
Once you accomplish those base goals, World of Warcraft turns into a $15/month version of an old-school AOL chat room. You log on, talk in guild chat, and maybe message some friends, all while aimlessly flying around that expansion’s capital city. Dungeons and Raids have lost their luster, the guild doesn’t want to run them anymore, you already capped out your honor for the week, and any arbitrary borrowed power system has become too much of a chore to do anymore… so what is the player to do?
Sure, you could go into old raids and ROFLstomp through the bosses for some transmog gear but that, too, gets old. Especially when you’re on Year 6, Kill 5,867, and Arthas STILL hasn’t dropped Invincible!! (You cheap bastard!)
There are some solutions that probably won’t solve the “What do I do?” problem but they can sure alleviate some of the pain. I also know that these solutions work because I (like many others during the backlash Blizzard has taken on the chin), saw them in action and working in Final Fantasy 14.
Whoa now.
Hold on.
I’m not turning this into a World of Warcraft vs Final Fantasy 14 column BUT there are some things FF14 does better than WoW (and the inverse is true, too… like I think WoW has the best raiding experience out of any MMORPG I’ve played but those comparisons could be a whole other column.) I do not think WoW needs to straight up copy FF14 (although they sure are trying with Dragonflight’s new overhauled profession system) but just like FF14 learned some things from WoW, I believe Ion and company could learn some things from FF14.
First! Get rid of Timewalking “holidays.”
Timewalking was a great idea but sticking it on the calendar and having it roll around about as often as your uncle when he needs a place to sleep it off isn’t exactly engaging or fun. If I want to log in and run a Wrath of the Lich King Timewalking Dungeon, I should be able to do so at any point I desire. FF14 does this with the Level Sync system, making old content available 24/7 all while restoring the challenge.
Now, WoW and FF14’s systems are vastly different when it comes to gameplay so I’m not expecting Blizzard to remove spells you never had at that level, etc, (they do that enough every expansion when they can’t figure out how to balance their game around the classes) but just the simple gesture of removing the holiday system and allow players to timewalk dungeons AND raids any time we choose would make great use of old content and give players something else to do.
Second!! Make Darkmoon Faire Island open 24/7.
People get sick of raiding and running mythic+ dungeons. They just want to log in and relax and play some minigames. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have had to bitch at some of my guild members for playing the Bejeweled addon when they should be been DPSing the trash on the way to the boss.
So, why not let players do that whenever they please? Add some timed events, throw in some seasonal rewards to keep people coming back and earning tickets, add some more games and expand the island, and… here’s a nifty one… move the Brawler’s Guild there so it’s right in the center of all the action. Imagine seeing people succeed or wipe on boss fights in the background while you’re playing Whack-a-Gnoll or riding the Coaster? Just stick a GTFO dome over the arena so that if anyone gets shot out of a cannon, they don’t accidentally land in the middle of someone’s boss attempt!
Just make the island more engaging, more fun, and keep that sucker open so people can go relax and have some extra fun.
Third!!! Housing. Stop making damn excuses.
“What do you want to sacrifice for housing?”
The answer is nothing, Ion. Especially since you just bought a whole gaming studio and added 100 devs to the WoW team. There is no excuse now. Stick them on housing and get it done. It’s embarrassing that MMORPGs have this staple feature in them and WoW still doesn’t have it. What’s even more embarrassing is the technology for housing exists and has been used in the game before!
For those still scratching their heads… Garrisons in Warlords of Draenor = housing.
If the argument is “Well, horde may be given Orgrimmar assets but they really want Silvermoon” or “Alliance may get Stormwind assets but they want Exodar.” then… okay? So? Nobody said you had to give us ALL the assets upfront. Release new assets, land plots, etc with each expansion. Give us Undercity and Darnassus in 11.0. Give us Silvermoon and Exodar in 12.0, etc., etc. You can give it to us chunk by chunk and if you have the extra manpower, maybe give us the assets twice per expansion which would equate to 1 set of assets per year at your current release schedule.
Stop beating around the bush and get it done! We’ve only been asking for 15+ years and every new (and old) MMORPG we start or go back and play that has housing just makes us wish you would get with the times more quickly!
Four!!!! Boss Rush
World of Warcraft has a very rich dungeon and raid history. Make use of it!
In addition to Timewalking, imagine a brand-new system that carries over with every expansion and (no pun intended) expands each and every time! Best of all… all of your assets, programming, models, etc are already in the game!
So, you queue up with a pre-made group and you can choose, 5, 10, or 15 bosses. The game will then open a portal into a boss’ lair… just as it was in the raid. When you beat the boss, a new portal opens and you are sent into another boss room… unchanged from the raid you encountered it in. This goes on and on until you defeat your set number of bosses and you will receive rewards based on the level you chose. Rewards can be transmog gear, pets, mounts, resources, materials, gold, whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be character power stuff. Just a carrot at the end of a stick for people to do the mode.
Maybe even have seasons where the base rewards stay the same but each season, there are extra special rewards you can earn. Maybe throw in a ranking system that judges how well you perform and the better your performance, the higher the chance you get those seasonal rewards out of the chest at the end.
It would be another great way to recycle content already in the game while adding a new, fun mode people can play.
Five!!!!! Play Hearthstone in World of Warcraft
So, Final Fantasy 14 used Final Fantasy 8’s Triple Triad minigame and made it a whole system. But, WoW doesn’t need to create a card game to pull that off because they already did that. Bring Hearthstone into World of Warcraft!
Imagine walking into any inn in Azeroth and seeing some Hearthstone game boards. If you have a Hearthstone account, simply link it to your World of Warcraft account and click on a board. It can open up a mini interface that links directly into Hearthstone’s servers and you can enjoy a few hands until your raid leader penalizes you by taking away all of your DKP for trying to reach Legend when you’re supposed to be tanking Mythic Sire Denathrius.
You could even run special promotions where WoW bosses drop legendary cards that can be used in Hearthstone (and yes, for the non-WoW players you can still get them in packs and craft them in Hearthstone so don’t get your panties in a bunch, okay?).
BONUS!!!!!! Remove Raid Lockouts for Solo-Farmable Content
I mean… the header says it all. It’s old and soloable for a reason… none of the gear in there empowers your character anymore. Remove raid lockouts for all old expansions so when you go in, you can do it over and over and over again until you get what you want from a boss (unless you’re farming Invincible then not even this will help you.)
Sure, all of these suggestions would require a lot of coding work and could break the game in more ways than one due to the archaic and non-forward-thinking way WoW was built upon (don’t believe me? Go try and fly on the Isle of Quel’danas and let me know how that works out for you) but with a little elbow grease, Blizzard could make use of a lot of things that are already in the game to expand the range of options players have when logging in.
As aforementioned, I don’t think these solutions would completely cure the “what do I do?” syndrome that plagues the game as no MMORPG has ever solved that problem, but more options do help alleviate the issue a bit.
One thing I learned with Final Fantasy 14 is that it is perfectly okay to overwhelm the player with things to do… just don’t make any of them required to progress your character.
Agree?
Disagree?
Have something you would like to see done in WoW to help you occupy your free time better?
Drop a line in the comments below.
