Asmongold TV - Retail WoW Is Done | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Retail WoW Is Done Asmongold show for all of his stream highlights, competitions, reactions & more. --------------------------------- ---- Keywords: game criticism, gaming content creator, streamer reactions, gaming podcast, reaction videos, gaming hot takes, video game analysis, gaming commentary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A one-button auto rotation? Wait, what? Breaking news. Is implementing a rotation assistant? Single, wait what? Single button assistant? Welcome to a special edition of Wowcast, where we're going to talk about a patch 11.1.7 feature, and then a broader discussion about add-ons in World of Warcraft in general. I'm Dratnows, World of Warcraft Content Creator.

Uh-huh. I'm Max. I'm the raid leader of Team Liquid, the Wow Guild, and a content creator as well. And I'm Inhousa Koestis, game director on Wow, and it's a pleasure to be here with you guys. Very excited to be here. Okay. So what are we doing in 11.1.7?

A whole bunch of fun stuff, but one of the features that we're extra excited about is a new UI option that we're adding called Rotation Assist, which is really designed to help players who are maybe picking up... Enables highlights that suggest the spell to cast. So it tells you how to play the game?

New spec or want some... guidance on what abilities they should be using when without having to turn to third-party add-ons for it. So we've seen that, you know, it's an add-on called Heckyli that is very popular with a lot of players. We're basically building in a very similar version of that into the base UI that you can opt into. That will, no matter what DPS spec you're playing, highlight the recommended next ability

given, you know, your current energy, what's going on around you, and so forth. One extra thing that we're also going to do, which maybe goes a bit beyond what the adons can do is also have to be. is also have a one-button version of that, where they'll be... Oh my God! Single-button assistant! A key bind that if you just want almost an auto-rotation...

So you get to play the game with a garage door opener now? ...opped into that, and it will just automatically cast the next recommended ability in the sequence. It will be a small GCD penalty associated with that, but we want to make sure that this is for accessibility purposes, that it's there for people who may be... Just honestly aren't interested in the gameplay of mastering their spec. They want to explore Azaroth and experience the story,

and the mechanics kind of get in the way of that sometimes. This should be for them. Ideally, this is not a tool where someone is, like, being told by their raid leader to stop trying to DPS manual. This is not a tool where someone is, like, being told by their raid leader to stop trying to DPS manually and just turn on the one-button mode to meet some DPS check. That we want to give you the tool.

Well, of course they would. be. No, of course. The Ian's wrong. So if, no, because, okay, so this is what would happen, right? Is that, so the red line is the artificial one button DPS. And this is manual. So if you are inside of this area here, you will be told by your raid leader, just turn on the one button mode, start on the one button mode, Stop trying to play the game yourself. And if you're not in this mode and you're over here, you're going to be told to do it yourself. How the fuck? Like, these are the best players that have played the game for 20 years.

How the fuck do you guys not see this obvious graph? What the hell is going on? This is crazy. ...annually and just turn on the way of someone that sometimes. this should be for them. Ideally, this is not a tool where someone is like being told by their raid leader to stop trying to DPS manually

and just turn on the one button mode to meet some... It absolutely will be. PS check. That we want to give you the tools to kind of go. I remember I even did this with my mom. Because she was like, I don't know how a DPS. I say, okay. Hit Starfire.

After you're done hitting Starfire, hit it again. Just do that. And yes, the best moonkin rotation was more complex than that. But her interpretation of that rotation was worse than her just spamming Starfire. So I just had her spam Starfire. And everything was fine. Yeah, bro, I invented this in 2009. Go through that organic progression naturally.

Great. So the rotation assist doesn't come with a penalty or anything like that. that. That's just, we're going to show you what your next button is. Exactly. It's very similar for the Achille adon. It's kind of reflecting, you know, just the latest kind of established theory crafting, and it's something that we would continue to update, you know, with spec changes and class changes over time. Ideally, you know, it's borne out of the idea that we've seen a valuable tool that players feel like they should be looking outside the game to download, and we'd rather just reduce the barriers to that and make it available to everyone.

This game is so lost. It's actually insane. It's actually crazy to me that we are even in this position. It is so cooked that I can't even believe it. So why don't we try to employ a little bit of higher level thinking here? If the problem is that you need an add-on to play your character, maybe you should make characters easier to understand and play. Have you ever thought about that? That maybe you don't need 50,000 fucking bucks.

buttons and rotations and pop-ups and, you know, special, oh, no, no, boop. You know, like, that's it. So basically, they're creating a problem, and now they have to solve the problem that they've created. Yes, it's insane. It's basically, like, all Blizzard had to do was make a wheel, but they couldn't do a wheel. They had to make a hoverboard.

In order to make a hoverboard, you have to have the right kind of wood. And then you, okay, so then you need a seatbelt for the hoverboard because, science people can fall off the hoverboard. And what if the hoverboard goes too fast? Okay, well, you have to have a speed limiter on the hoverboard. And then on top of that, what are you going to use for fuel? How much is the fuel going to cause for the hoverboard? And this is all, we're doing all of this stuff, instead of just thinking about how to make a wheel.

It is crazy the amount of gymnastics that they're going through in order to appease these top 0.001% players that play the game as a job instead of making. the game better for everybody. This needless unnecessary complexity that can only be basically responded to with further needless unnecessary complexity and weird systems that simply remove gameplay from the game. This is, it's insane. How the fuck did this happen? Okay, yeah, because there's two parts there, right?

Like the advanced is, I want to really go into this is the one button thing. But that's not necessarily everyone that's going to use this. Like, I think this game, especially new players getting into it, it can be, there's a lot going on within a particular class, and you can be a little lost trying to figure out exactly what I should be pressing. So even just using it as... Then shouldn't you address that problem rather than introduce a solution to remove it? I think that's a design problem.

If a person can't, like, easily understand how to play their character in a video game, maybe that's a problem with the way the game is designed. Duh. Like as a guide to start learning your class and move off of it eventually, but just having a base understanding of what actually should I be doing at a base level? If I play retail while again,

I'm 100% just using this button. I'm fucking, I'm putting it on Space Bar too. Of this. That's really exactly the motivation on our end, especially with war bands and war within. We see lots and lots more alt. and leveling is pretty quick. Maybe you got you got a bunch of warbound

until equipped gear that you're passing over to a new character and just jumping into their full rotation we've never played the spec seriously before can be a pretty serious undertaking. And for some people, this may be enough for them and that's fine too, but we know, we recognize that there's so much,

wow has such a high skill ceiling that just recommend... Why? For who? For these people that you constantly talk to that are these people that... These people play your game as a job. and you're constantly listening to them on how to maintain that complexity? This is so distorted, it's unreal.

What the next ability is, isn't going to really remove that or fully solve that. There's still the muscle memory that you need to form. And then all of the nuances of like, we might have a recommendation for a rotation that makes sense if you're fighting a target dummy, you're fighting patchwork. But when you need to plan around the fact that you're going to have to move in four seconds,

that's a whole different layer of skill that still rests with players. Yeah, I know when I'm trying to, you know, play a new spec for the first time or haven't played it in years, it often feels like I've got a 30-minute checklist of, okay, I got to set up my key binds, got to make sure, oh, this ability's changed since two expansions ago. They're so close. They're so close. They almost understand. You're so fucking close to solving the problem.

I got to rebind that. And then I got to go. and read some guides and figure out how all my new rotation works and oh here's how the new set bonus works so i could see it being really nice to just have a so it would be really nice to just have a button that just does everything for you why not make it easier so you don't need the button like what the fuck is it this is a this is a way to jump in to some content to do with your friends and yeah have it work out nice and easily is that right one thing that jumps out to me is that a lot of the content i'd want to do would be like delves or keys And in either of those cases, there's a lot of AEOE.

Is this going to have a, you know, are we going to detect whether we're fighting three targets, five targets? And is it going to cast my arcane explosion instead of my arcane blast? Or is it just always going to be a single target? It's not just single targets. There is some sense of, you know, how many enemies are within your range in front of you, et cetera. And so that will affect the recommendations. Again, the goal is not optimal. The goal is not like this is going to, you know, okay, everyone's always going to get perfect parses and so forth going forward.

but as a baseline, this should be, you know, it should be useful the same way that many, many people find Hikila useful today. And really, like, a lot of this building on the foundations of the cool-down manager. This game is so cooked, it's actually insane. Like, I'm looking, you know what? Real ones remember this. It's the same one. It's, and you know it's the same one.

This is unbelievable. I, I, I, that just came out in 1115, kind of reflects us hearing people in the community telling us that they feel like they need to seek out these third party resources just to play the game at like, this is like, this is like watching an advertisement for one of those scam phone games

where it's like a guy with a machine gun is moving back and forth and one of them says add a hundred and it says subtract one. And then he goes into the one that says subtract one and he dies. It's like it's so easy. Everybody can see what you're supposed to do. A baseline effect of level in competitive content. And us asking, like, is that where we want the game to be in the long term? And what can we do to build in native solutions to many of these problems?

Like the base construct of it, there is a, this will help you learn what you're supposed to do if you are new. And then there is a, hey, I don't want to be the best player at this game. That's totally fine. I play it for a different reason. I want to collect things. I want to, like, understand the story. I want a quest, I want to level, right? And I don't want to feel like I can go into any content.

I just don't really know what I'm doing. I feel anxious about that. Like you have the ability to just be like, okay, well, at least Blizzard's got me. You know, I can have something at a base level where I can press one button and just kind of hang out and play the game. I have one question about the actual rotational thing. So is that going to, like, change with talent? So like, let's say, is it going to work off the base talent build? Or let's say you select a talent that now moves a AEOE button into your single target rotation?

Is that going to, is it going to be smart enough or plan to be smart enough to, incorporate a bunch of different potential talent builds. The goal is that it's aware of your talents and the logic is conditional based on what you do or don't have talented. How is it that you guys don't get this? I, this is honestly, when will wild players stop eating shit? Listen, if Blizzard needs, all right, I will take a month off of my stream, and I'll fix the game.

Okay? I have to be able to stream a period of time, but I'll fix the game. And you're not going to like what I do, but I'm going to fix it. Just give me autoplay. The thing is that here is the paradox of autoplay. If a game requires auto play, why do you have gameplay that's so meaningless that people don't even want to do it? That's the same problem here. And ironically, a Korean MMO figured this the fuck out with Throne and Liberty.

It's like Amosist, yes, pay to auto play. Well, yeah, I mean, I, listen, I have an E6 S5 fucking Akron in Star Rail, okay? Like, I couldn't afford my car because I bought that character. So I understand it. But at the same time, this is a garbage, Chinese, gotcha, trash, pay to win, piece of shit game.

I expect more out of world of Warcraft. As with, you know, this is going to be something... And the Star Rail, I guarantee, here's the best part. Who here thinks the Star Rail AutoPlay is going to be better than this?

Everybody knows it. Continues to evolve. We may not have every single possible permutation accounted for in the version that we roll out with. But it should still be very useful in that form to everyone, and we'll just get refined from there. Similar to the Cooldown Manager that we know is like, that is a first take at this. We have plans to add much more customization, much more functionality to that over time as well. Okay.

Yeah, I think it's a really exciting feature individually. The thing that's most exciting to me is in the broader context of the Cooldown Manager, of all these other edit mode changes that have come out. I'm just going to say it. I think people like this are ruining the game. I think that these hyper-elitist super Uber 1% players are in the ears of Blizzard, constantly pushing for them to make the game more complex, design the game around Mythic. And this is not the way a game should be made. You shouldn't be making a video game, listening and consulting with people like this.

And the problem, why is the solution to this not removing these completely? complexities in the first place. It's because people like this keep begging them not to because their entire fucking career is based off of it. That's it. The reason why this problem exists is because of the premise that you need all of these people to somehow, for some reason, go and, uh, you know, be professional wow players. This is what it's all about. It's indirect sabotage. It is. The game is designed around these, hyper-serious super-professional players, and everybody else has to play a worse version of the game because of it.

That's the truth. Blizzard should never be listening to these people. World of Warcraft is not a competitive game. It's just not. Stop trying to make it a hyper-complex, Omega competitive game and just simply make the game fun to play, easy to understand, and intuitive to learn. These sweats kill every fucking game. And Blizzard has let these people infest and ruin the game ever since Cataclysm.

Ever since Cataclysm, they kept making the game harder and harder and harder and more and more complex. And I think that they have done so much damage to the game. it doesn't help anybody it's awful it's not fun really it's just simply not fucking cato was 100% the cuff yes they killed casual playing they did because they these are people that their job is being good at the game so they will always want the game to maintain those different like skill gap differences in ceilings so they can maintain that level of superiority over other players That's it. Sweets ruin every fucking game.

If Blizzard wanted to fix this, they would remove half of the fucking buttons, at least. They would remove half of the effects. Why the fuck do you have polymorph and hex? Why do you have horrify and fear? What the hell is wrong with you? What are you retarded? What the fuck is this?

This complexity is so unnecessary. It's so meaningless. And it's just confusing. it's weird, it's hard to understand, it makes the game completely unapproachable, and it's like these people have never played anything else other than World of Warcraft, and I know that's not true, I know Dratnos and Max who played other games, but these people are actively making the game worse by making sure that it retains this competitive edge that is killing it. There was a time five years ago in Wow, where if you were just getting into the game,

there was an intimidating list of these are the add-ons that you need, And if you're not using these, you're kind of, you're kind of worse, right? Like, you're noticeably worse. If you can't track... You're so close. You are so close. You're 99% of the way there. Back, your group members major cooldown, right?

Like, you're worse at Mythic Plus than somebody who is, right? And it seems like the goal that has been accomplished with a lot of these things that have been coming into the base UI is, you can use those add-ons if you want, but we now have a native way to the game that you don't have to get an ad-on. That is pretty much exactly our long-term philosophical goal here, right? Like, add-ons are amazing. Effin. Why did they do this to my game, man? This is the end?

It's not the end. It was the end years ago. I haven't mauled it out about, wow, in months, man. It's been months. I've been clean. And this had to bring me back in. Does anybody even, like, what are, what are, people saying about. They're all happy. Thanks for coming to Artur. A lot of people have a

passion for the game and that comes to an interview. They're killing it. It's over, guys. It's over. The game, the games did. Check McConnell's DMs. Honestly, McConnell messaged me something the other day. It made me sad. I didn't even respond back to it. It did. It made me really sad. I'm going to show it real quick. This is gonna fuck y'all up real quick. You screenshot it. Holy fuck, there it is. Yes.

Dude. There it fucking is, dude. Guys, I better see some fucking Twitch primes in chat right now. Holy shit, man. This is a big, big fucking deal. Huge. I've been working at this for a long time. Now you can delete BFA, I guess so.

Thank you. Holy shit, that's all. God damn, yo, boys, yo, thank you. God, what the fuck. Thank you, boys, so much. This is one of the main... The things that the community has done over the last 20 years

to allow people to experience different aesthetics, different functionality, have information available at their fingertips, like, that is a huge part of wow's success, and we don't question or want to undermine that for a moment. At the same time, like, as you said, Ideally, it is about what do you want? How do you prefer to have things presented to you?

And not what do you have to do? What is a groupmate or raid leader, whatever, telling you must download? Or if you ask people, you know, hey, how can I get better? I'm really struggling at this. The first answer shouldn't be, we'll download this ad on, this ad on this ad on, otherwise you're doing it wrong. Because that's starting to get into that mandatory place, whether we like it or not. So yeah, I think, you know, longer term, these initiatives kind of fix.

into part of... No, it's not a joke. This is the... No, this is what they're doing. You know, how we're thinking about... This makes me feel... Like, I'm actually mad. No, I'm going to say it right now. I'm actually mad about this. All of add-ons and wow. You know, I... They're killing the game. Today, there is a sense that if you want to really be the best you can, if you want to play competitive content, there are certain add-ons that are required, that are simply going to improve your success over not having them, period. We would like to get away from that being the case.

I think I'd love to see a wow one day where you can still customize the aesthetic look of your UI. You can have information and quest helpers and all the other things that you might want to have to make your experience a bit more seamless. But that at the end of the day, when you're in competitive content, when you're queuing up for a rated PVP match, when you're going into a high key, when you're trying to get a first kill on a raid boss, there isn't the sense that you are

just holding yourself back if you're not using specific tools. I know. We know that there's a lot of work to do to get to a place where that could be the reality. The first steps really are going to be continuing to build up the just right out of the box functionality that World of Warcraft

offers to shrink. The first, this is not good for your mental health. I just if you ever thought what's going to happen with bots for this change, it doesn't matter. Lots will always be able to do things. It's not good for blood pressure. They'll never ban add-ons because it patches up shitty design.

Drink that gap. But at the same time, I think we're aware that at the very end of this process, we probably are going to have to rein in some of the functionality that add-ons currently have to do like real-time in-combat problem-solving specifically, where it's like automating, coordination. This is the easiest, most fucking obvious answer. Yes, you don't want add-ons that count. calculate things, you don't understand that add-ons that calculate things and add-ons that increase

your awareness of things are the same thing because both of them affect the amount of mental RAM that you're using. And so if you have an add-on that changes your awareness, it tells you when something is happening, that's not that much different than an add-on that can calculate who goes in what hole and when. The reason why is because both of these are active to decision-making things that you were doing during the fight. Like, it's all the, what, whole, no, it's that mythic jailer, right, is the example I was thinking of. Communication in ways that are always going to be better. So, like, here's the solution.

Stop making fights like Mythic Jailer. Fucking, duh. There's a reason why every other fucking MMO says that add-ons are cheating. It's crazy. then anything the UI could natively provide you as long as they remain possible. Yeah, so that moves us into like raid bosses where I don't want to name any names, but there are people who have optimized a little bit of their own fun out of the game sometimes. Who is it? Who is it? Who's doing it?

Just give me a minute. Give me a minute. Everything's fine. It's not. It's just a game. Right? It's just a game. It's just a game. And I spent 20 years playing this fucking game. game. 20 fucking years playing the shit. And it's been taken over by these professional sweats that want to ruin a game that millions of people used to love. And in a lot of cases, still do love because of their bullshit. I don't know where any of my sitting. They could be anywhere. They could be in this room with them. Hey man, I am the number one. They are in the room with you. There's three of them. Let's just, let's just, let's just do, let's just do the fight, let's make it work. And then sometimes it gets to, let's try to make something that could be

95% successful, 100 or 99, right? And there's a lot of frustration with the tech involved with that. I would definitely be, I think a lot of the rating community would be pretty for that. You know, I think a well-designed mechanic that the game giving you enough to be fair, you did help contribute to the hyper mid-maxing in the game. You're right. If you're watching the reaction, there's four people. No, you're absolutely right. And this is the best part. It's like, I was the problem. Like, and that's the thing. Like, I'm just going to say it. Who was the problem? Me. I was the problem. That's it. Information to solve this on your own realistically. A lot of the times the community will just use one because it's like what everyone else uses. It gets you in the same place. But if that doesn't exist and the game is giving you that information, it's objectively better, right? Even if you are doing it very well.

Is it objectively better to get raid information from native view? Manually, it's always going to be better to do it perfectly in a competitive situation. I mean, having watched your raid leading, for example, over many, many years over the race to world first, like years ago, you would call much more stuff verbally. Very true. Like, going back to... Already startled first. Like, how is this even on their radar?

How is this even being discussed? It's like 50 people. This is so... I can't believe... How is this happening to me? Max is going to say Asmon doesn't play the game anymore? Exactly. Exactly.

That's the point. There's way more people that have quit the game than are playing it. The Legion BFA era, whereas nowadays it seems like if there is something you're calling repeatedly on attempts, the first thing you're doing is asking, asking if, hey, can we automate this and get me out of the business of talking, which seems like it might be less enjoyable for you as a ride leader? Yeah. Oh, we're talking about that. I can talk all day about that. Yeah. No, I mean,

I felt like you certainly had more of an impact when you had the ability to, you know, influence the fight more. But the reality is, is just getting some way to automate it for your players is just better. You know, it is funny. Like, when I do that now, I... They're so close, man. I think, you know, what else can I be doing with my time? I could be, like, looking at other ways to optimize. And it's purely for the sake. of getting better. So yeah, for my own enjoyment, yeah, yeah, that's sweet. Let's do that. I'm trying to wonder also about those kind of mechanics. So like what bosses have existed in my head, I think in the past couple of years, there's not many, but have been defined by when we're

progressing this boss, we feel like maybe we're progressing a week. How are you listening to people that are playing the game as a job in the best guild in the world and getting feedback on how you need to design the bosses based off of that? How are you doing this? Something like brood twister or Echo of Nelfarian or jailer, maybe it was one of the first ones, right? And those mechanics, I feel like, could not have been done or probably would have been nerfed without weak oras

or having that effectiveness of that reduced. What do you do as a fight designer now? I know you're obviously really passionate about rating. You've rated for a little long time. Do you have to avoid those kind of assignment mechanics? Are there things in game? You can... Does this differ from your elitist videos from years ago?

You were the sweat? Of course! Do you think the race to world first, MDI and E-sports for Blizzard are affecting this situation? Absolutely, they are. Absolutely. The problem is that the game is built around a very small subset of hyper, hardcore players,

and it's built around maintain. their relevancy and maintaining some form of difference between them and the average player. So the game is handicapped and hamstrung in order to maintain these artificial skill gap differences. I'll be right back. All right. Here we go. Use to like naturally sort out those things. Like do you give more time for the mechanics? Like, do you have to stray away from assignments in general because the community has just, whether you like it or not, has trained themselves to have something solve that for them. Do you have to go back into a more simple version of that?

Do you find other ways to make fights difficult? There's obviously a bunch of ways to do that. The way we design encounters has been influenced in significant ways by the way players use atoms. I know the community sometimes speculates that this was built. Obviously. So you have the entire game that's being designed. Like, it's just this game is so lost, bro.

Like, it's so lost. and there's so many problems. Like, I don't know if it's ever going to change or improve or anything. Like, don't, like, how are you designing the game for add-ons? Like, it's just unreal. Vanilla's the only good version left. I don't understand. It needs a reset.

Why? So they could put this into base game? No, the problem is, I think Wow does need a reset, but the same people that are making Wow 1, are going to make Wow 2, and it's going to be the same problems with the same game. That's the issue. Clearly to require an add-on. I can't say that's never the case.

No encounter designer is ever sitting around saying, all right, we're going to make this mechanic, and then players will write this week or to solve it this way. Yeah, right, mission accomplished, let's ship the boss. This is a super long video. I'm not going to go through the entire thing. I pretty much just want to look at, at the beginning.

But like, this is crazy for me. Potty C on tour. Native replacements for weak oras were 100% gearing up for console launch. Raid frames need a major overhaul. I just, dude, how is this, how has this happened, man? Did you react to the auto rotation? They're adding? Yeah, I reacted to it.

I think that, I think that the auto rotation in this game is reminiscent of everything that I think is wrong with it. I think that Blizzard has constantly created problems and then has to invent solutions in order to get themselves out of the problem that they put themselves in in the first place. I think this is just simply another example of Blizzard not understanding and having any way of like intuitively like getting the way that players think. It is more design around the 1% and I know that it might not make sense to you. You might be like, how's it designed around the 1%

if it's accessibility to make everybody play the game? It's simple. It's because the game should be at a baseline to where you don't want to use a one-button rotation. The game shouldn't be designed in a way that it's so complex that you have people defaulting to use an option. You have to program and like fucking A-I-N an option into the game

so it can auto-play your character for you because there's so many levels of complex. you can't even understand it without three different add-ons. Like conduit energy, yeah, that's a perfect example. Blizzard has always had this problem. And I think this is a fundamental problem with Wow. They have always had this problem that they do not understand why the game is good, how players think, and they always try to effectively,

instead of actually revert back from decisions, they try to just build in more fail-safes from their best. bad decisions in the first place. So what's happening is that you have all these systems that are put in the game that are compounded on each other, and you have all of these different mechanics and this design.

If I watch the way that these new raids are played, like look at this like for example, right? I'll just pull up a random wow stream, okay? Let me see. We'll pull up and I want you guys to see how ridiculous this is. This is insane.

Really, this is absolutely. this is the new raid. This is absolutely crazy. Why is this happening? And that's basic UI. I think that no, the damage meters are not basic UI, by the way. No, it's not. But either way, it's not that bad, to be honest. Yeah, it is bad. It's bad. Nobody's going to see something like that and say, oh, this is great. I want to keep doing this. If I can pull up a arena, it's even worse. and so anyway I think this is really the problem that the game has

is that they constantly make it more and more and more complex and then instead of actually reducing that complexity and moving away from it instead of that they just add in ways to avoid the complexity entirely. The problem

is the complexity so if you involve like basically it's like you're building you know a river and now you need to build a bridge to go over the river. You should have never built the river in the first place. The problem is the river.

The bridge is a band-aid. And this is the issue that I think this game has, is that there's so much complexity to it. There's so much designed around it. And as I said, I'll be honest. I think it's guys like this that are professional players of the game that want to maintain the race to world first.

they want to maintain the complexity of the game because it is their job. You need to stop listening to people that play the game for a living, and you need to start looking at what makes a good experience for a person playing the game. Imagine how shitty Eldon Ring would have been if it was designed for people that beat Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 1, Securo, and Bloodborn. It wasn't. It was designed for people coming into the franchise, and they wanted to play a new game.

Every boss is millennia. Yes, every boss would be millennia. Isn't that you, though? No, I'm not playing the game as a job. Yeah, no, you're saying a game shouldn't be optimized for players like yourself? That is absolutely what I am saying. I am absolutely saying,

do not design the game for the top 1% of sweats because if you do, they're the only ones who will keep playing it. That's exactly what I am saying. I'm not seeing your elder ring play through? Yeah, just don't raid Mythic, man. Just keep doing heroic. I don't know.

But like, that's the whole problem that you have. Like, just don't do Mythic. Okay, just don't do the hard content that's really complex, that's rewarding, that gives you the best gear because we've made it needlessly complex. Why does it need to be that complex as a baseline in the first place? Who decided this? Well, I'll tell you who decided that.

top 0.001% players that need to use this content as a either job or an egot meter so they can feel better about themselves. This is not a good way of designing the game. You guys are you're coping so hard, you're not the target audience? I know. That's why I stopped playing. Duh. That's exactly what I've said before. That's my whole point.

Yes, that's, like, duh. Until the Zion completely crashes the player base, just will keep going on. I quit Mythic rating because I didn't wipe 400 times on one boss after my long day of work. Yes. Destiny 2 had a similar problem because the director is a 1% raider.

Look at Yoda's stream right now. He's pushing Mythic. Let me see. Yoda. Where's Yoda? I'm not sure really if I can find it there or not. Let me see. Okay.

This is crazy. Really, this is insane. What's really sad is like this like on a video? Cooked Wow is, my friend? Yeah. Cooked Wow is. I guess this is just the way it is now, guys. I feel like, honestly, the game, I am no longer the target audience for the game.

I think this was done partly by Blizzard and partly by me. Obviously, I haven't played Wow, Retail Wow in quite a while. It sounds kind of sick. sad to say because, you know, it used to be like my main game. I used to love retail while. I would play it constantly. But nowadays, I just simply don't have the same level of enthusiasm or interest in it anymore. And I think this is one of the really big reasons why. And I think it's super sad to see that happen. And you should attempt to casual play through the max level. Why? I mean, like, I just don't go back to the cave. Yeah, it's boring and lame now. Yeah, I guess so. Bro, remembers Burning Crusade. Yeah, I remember Burning Crusade. Yeah, I remember Burning Crusade,

I do. And you just grew up. I didn't grow up. I mean, it's not about growing up. It's just my interest changed, and I stopped doing the same thing because I've been doing it for a long time, and I wanted to do other stuff instead.

It's not even that, but Google Wow Classic RadioI, literally nothing changed over the years. Yes, it has. There's too many things happening on the screen. You can't tell me that a boss that does 20 different things is the same thing that Chromeagus is. It's insane.

I just, I don't know. I guess this is just another example of me being more certain that I'm no longer the target audience for the game. And as somebody who was a huge fan of the game for years, I'm disappointed in that and it's frustrating. That's it. That's the way I feel. It's frustrating. It's sad? Yeah, it is. But if they made your changes, would you start playing again? more likely to. I mean, I don't want to say I'm going to play the same way I used to. Like, I'd probably play sometimes for sure. Like, same as I played season of discovery when it came out.

But in a general sense, I mean, do I want to go back and play, do I want to go back and play this game's super hardcore forever? No, I don't. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be designed that way. Those little screenshots are just memes. Nobody uses four different raid frames. Yeah, I think so too. But you've got all great memories involved while. It's undeniable. Yeah, I think so. but I just feel like this problem, this solution, what this tells me is that the game is not going to get better anytime soon. And I understand that there's a lot of people that play retail wow and they still like retail wow.

They think it's a great game. I'm happy for you. I'm glad you have something that you enjoy. But I just can't get into it. That's all there is to it. I just can't get into it. It's not my thing. And Blizzards of Blissness,

they have to chase the money. I mean, then why are you making it for the 1%? You should make the call. Do not cover WOW anymore until you feel like it's going to the right direction. That's, I mean, like, I don't, why do I have to make a call? Like, I'm just going to talk about it if I feel like there's something interesting to talk about and not if there's not. I mean, I don't make decisions like that. Like, I don't need to, like, draw lines into sand with myself all the time.

Like, I just do what I feel like doing. So, I don't know, man. Did you're another crater clash fighter dropped out of the event? Yeah, I did actually. I'll look at that in a minute. It's all known at Max's fault because he defends weak oras religiously.

They need to ban weak oras. So the problem is that they don't understand that weak oras are not the problem. They are a solution to the problem. The solution would not necessarily need to exist if the problem in itself was solved. The problem is that the game is too overly complex, and it doesn't give you the tools to understand what's happening in a way that's digestible for an average person.

And it's over-designed to the point that it is a sensory overload for an average player. If people can't understand that, then I don't think that you know what it's like for a new player to get to get into it. It's palliative solution. Yes, exactly. People use weak oras in Classic too. Yeah, but they don't need to. That's the difference. everybody will always optimize the fun out of the game, but the difference is that in retail wow, you basically need to.

In classic wow, you don't. Isn't it a vicious cycle? It's like over-designed because they expect the weak aura? Yeah, it is. And they're even, like Ian is even saying this. He's saying that we over-designed fights because of weak-oras, basically. Like, yes, isn't counter-design influenced by add-ons? He says, yeah, it is.

Okay, well, that's bad. Which makes weak-ora is the problem? Okay, all right, look, look, listen, I understand, but like, I think weak oras are also a problem. But what my point was is that weak oras, at least in retail wow, are a symptom of a problem. Like, I think they're both problems. Just remove add-on, life support? Yeah, I know.

Saad has a good model with the hard modes and stuff. I don't know. It's just, how's the wow Reddit taking this? When they got dinars? Oh, my God. Nice for potty, see, host, small creators like Ian, official news. These are good foundations, but we need to have add-ons like Weikora is frequently updated and rebuild. Given what their initial version was of the cool down, man.

It was done, bro. It's done. Yep. It's just that that's it. That's just the way it is, boys. That's life. Man, people seem pretty positive. Maybe you're wrong.

Of course they do. I think, of course they do. Because, so this is the reason why. I think that Wow has had a seemingly, like, from every observable metric that I can find in terms of, like, let me look at this, like, for example. Oh, actually, it's because, like, this is a problem primarily with retail. So you can look like classic and season of discovery and hardcore, et cetera. And they'd all be kind of be lumped into this. So, like, Google Trends probably wouldn't work as a good example for this.

But here's what I can say is that, are they just eating it? yeah, they're eating the shit. Shorekeeper filled? Yeah, I was trying to make the character better. And, yeah, I got the character in weathering ways. But anyway, add-ons are great for cocoa melon brain. Anyway, what's happened is that, of course, the remaining people that are playing the game

like this because the game's made for them. What my point is, is that basically, so here's the problem. Okay, this is the wow player base, okay? we're just going to use this as an example so here's the entire wild player base it's the green okay the problem is that um just a second sorry

basically these are all the people that have already stopped playing the game and then the remaining people obviously a lot of them like it some of them might not but some of them do What I'm saying about this is that these decisions are just about maintaining this part right here and they never think about this massive amount of people that have totally been lost by the game. You see kind of what my point is with this

is that there's a huge audience of people that have played wow over the years and none of these changes and none of these implementations ever bring back new players. They just get old players to not, or sorry, current players to not quit the game. That's it. Myself included, I haven't played for about six years. They're writing them off as people whose opinions no longer matter.

Exactly. And like, basically, that's what's happened, is that now the people that are playing the game all the time are the ones whose opinions matter, which in some cases I think makes sense. But the problem is that the result of it is that the entire game now is designed around those people. And as the game becomes increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. smaller, what you're going to have is you're going to have this audience of people. Of course they're happy about it because they're the only ones that are left and it's been designed

for them in the first place. It sounds like fighting games, street fighter, imparts, modern controls, single button assistant will be amazing for accessibility. That's a totally separate thing. Like if you were adding this purely for people that had accessibility problems, then I would be completely okay with it. But here's the reality. So my mind. mom back in the day, she had accessibility problems. The reason why is because she had really bad eyesight, right? She was old. She had bad eyesight.

Her hands were fucked up. And she had to quit playing the game seriously and about, really cataclysm. Cataclysm was the point. The reason why the game isn't accessible is because there are too many things happening at the same time and it's overwhelming for a person. that's the reason why it happens. Of course, they're catering to people still playing. Why wouldn't they?

Well, it's a sub game. Blizzard makes money for their subs. Why would they listen to they haven't played wow in six years? Fuck that game, people. Because there's more people that haven't played wow in six years than are people that are playing wow right now. That's the reason.