Game Development Giant

Of course, Blizzard's mistakes in the design of WOW are not just due to this change in design style that compromises players.

Although the ICC period was the time when WOW had the most paying players.

But the majority of them are mostly due to the appeal of Alsace's plot. After all, the protagonist in WAR3 is Alsace, and many Blizzard fans started in WAE3.

It has little to do with the design of the crab. Moreover, I don’t know how much of the so-called crab design here is Flor’s design idea. For example, there is a very classic equipment accessory in ICC called ‘The Will of Death’. ', was dropped by Saurfang Jr., the son of Saurfang the Elder in ICC. Anyone who knows the style of WOW designers can tell this piece of equipment immediately. It is definitely not a crab design. .

It should be Flor's design.

Because the two people have completely different ideas for designing equipment.

You can look at the six large-scale versions since Crab came to power, and from ICC onwards. Most of the accessories in the ten large-scale copies cannot escape the "main attribute passively triggers the secondary attribute", "the secondary attribute passively triggers the main attribute" and "the use of the main attribute". There is such a strange circle of "giving secondary attributes" and "using secondary attributes to give main attributes"! Even the last conscience left by Flor, that the brand can be replaced by T10, was completely cut off in subsequent versions.

This is completely unfriendly to ordinary players, and it is no wonder that the number of WOW players has begun to decline in large numbers since CTM.

Specifically, how did the crab's jewelry design ideas transform this classic piece of equipment in WOW? That is to make this very unique piece of equipment completely dead. The Dragon Mother's accessories were cut off immediately after their appearance, and the progress was merged again. The consequence of this was that 25 people were killed.

Then, the pleasure of treatment disappeared, the priest who used to comfort him in the toc-icc era disappeared, and the mage who used foreign objects in 258 Reign of the Dead also disappeared, replaced by the death of a mortal or the mirror of Serlarion. The resident attribute triggers the waste of another attribute. In the ICC era, a big cure is a big cure. Three mouthfuls can fill up the empty blood T. It takes about 1.7 seconds to cast the spell. Quick treatment means fast treatment. It takes about 1.2 seconds to cast the spell. It takes 5-6 mouths to fill up the empty blood T. Group healing is group healing. It takes about 1.6 seconds to cast. The pleasure of filling up the team in 2-3 times is gone. Instead, a tube of blue can't even add a tube of T's blood. In many cases, because there is no blue, it can only Watch T die!

This is also the reason why there were so many complaints about AFK when CTM was first launched.

certainly. The bottom line is that after all these changes, the game is not as fun as before.

Of course, there are good and bad opinions about the reset of CTM's old world map and missions. It is said that after the reset, the missions will become more systematic, and the missions of each map will become a mission group with a complete main line. Instead, a blue outfit will be given back after completing the tasks on each map - but IMHO, this design idea is not suitable for RPG games.

The missions of a good RPG game will never be linear. They should appear like a messy mission group in the old world and be completed like that.

But in the final analysis, this is still unfriendly to newcomers. But the question is, since WOW has developed to N expansion packs, why do we still need to consider whether the original content is friendly to newcomers? Cutting off the upgrade experience is friendly enough, but how many people are bothered to slowly experience low-level content - besides, the original low-level content is already good, and it has proven its success in the past.

Then there is the daily world starting from 4.2 Molten Front, which is simply a way to kill the goose and lay the eggs for the sake of player online rate.

More importantly, it is a very good thing in daily life, and it has been used frequently in the past. The mistake is that the daily life of Molten Front directly leads to the rapid deterioration of the server environment. The PVP balance server is a battlefield with thousands of people. In an unbalanced server, the weak side cannot do daily business, and casual players, especially casual players in the weak side, will immediately have no way out.

Then once again, this part of the players left the game.

Because of the failure of 4.2 and the difficulty of H Fire Source, Crab launched a convenient version of 4.3 for the sake of players' online rate, and the three new copies of 4.3 directly dropped ordinary Fire Source level equipment, making the old copy of Fire Source completely dead. Because the meaning of grinding has been lost, it seems to be a good thing, but in fact it makes newcomers miss the training process of the team copy of Huoyuan, and the copy awareness and attitude of the copy are out of the question. This is a fallen era, and the 5% of Dragon Soul can be opened very fast. So much so that after playing Dragon Soul, high-end players and quasi-high-end players lamented, "Why should I play this game?" ‘What am I going to do with these equipment after I have cleared H Dragon Soul, am I going to farm for 5 hours?’? ? High-level players and quasi-high-level players are clearing the land through Dragon Soul, and after graduating with equipment, they will AFK a lot again.

And not just temporarily AFK, but it hasn't returned since Mists of Pandaria either.

In fact, what makes secondary dungeons lose their meaning is not only that the attributes of equipment level increase are too terrible, but also the problem of jewelry mentioned before. In the case where the special effects of jewelry are only secondary attributes that activate the main attributes, or the main attributes activate the secondary attributes. Next, the equipment level means everything, because more attributes are activated in this way, and the so-called special effects of accessories lose their meaning.

Special effects, an equipment designer should think about what kind of things can be called special effects. The same things are not worthy of being called special effects.

Think about it, why did low-level dungeons still have meaning in the 1970s? The powerful special effects of jewelry play a very big role in this.

In fact, in the final analysis, the original living environment of RPG games should not be like this. It should not be a world where players have nothing to do because it is a complete virtual world that allows for community interaction, and when World of Warcraft was first launched This is indeed the case.

After experiencing the failure of 4.3, Blizzard did not think about making amends. It is said that Crab was scolded internally by Mason, the original builder of the WOW world system, Blizzard's creative director and executive vice president. , then Crab said in an interview about 5.0 Mists of Pandaria that he needed to correct some errors in the new version.

At that time, while fixing previous mistakes, more mistakes were made.

Crab once again underestimated the player's IQ in a demolition-and-paying-for-it manner, and attributed all courage equipment to requiring reputation to purchase, while the way to gain reputation is to do daily activities. Generally speaking, Crab's game planning created a dream-like early stage of 5.0. In the everyday world, such an approach brings temporary peace and false prosperity.

But the good times didn't last long. One day, players were all maxed out on reputation, and then they finally recalled the fear of having nothing to do...

So players found this version of the team copy, but the attributes of this version of courage equipment were indeed very bad. The reputation in the first six weeks is not enough to buy all the courage equipment, which creates a gap between the difficulty of entering and the difficulty of the dungeon. The best equipment a player can get before entering the dungeon in the second progress is 467. The minimum equipment level of Mogushan Treasure House is 48~9.

Before this, no version had a challenge level of 22 equipment levels to open up a wasteland boss, so the four stone lions at the entrance to the treasure house became a nightmare for most teams. Players who have experienced the early development of this version must have a very deep impression of that time.

This is an almost unforgivable mistake in equipment and level design.

Some people say that the world BOSS mechanism of the 1960s has been restored - indeed, if you have experienced the world BOSS battle at that time, you will know that the Sha of Wrath at the beginning is definitely not easy to bully, and he easily killed two groups. It was common for them to escape unscathed. Although they were completely suppressed by the huge military force of four regiments, this absolutely unfriendly attitude towards PVE players directly caused a large number of players to succeed AFK.

Crabs definitely play an important role here.

Since this is the case in PVE, what about PVP? Patch 5.1 is also called Raiders of the Island, and the big theme is obviously red and blue versus PVP.

So Crab and his team had an idea. 'We should increase the strength of PVP.' Then there was a description in the patch: 'Increased the strength of PVP on weapons.' Then the crab felt that the increase was too much, so there was another line of text: "Now, PVP Strength will only increase the amount of healing provided by healing specializations, and the damage output or damage provided by tanking specializations."

But this doesn’t seem to matter. In the ruins of Aogu, several resource points around Lion Port, and even powerful professions in the battlefield have begun to lose their popularity. Even if PVE equipment is 20 or more equipment levels higher than PVP equipment, they will still be defeated. In PVP, players can compete against two or even three. Fake PVP players are even complacent because they have no technical content and beat PVE players who are 20 or so equipment levels higher than themselves and have no toughness and strength. It has to be said that it is the tragedy of real PVP, and this version is introduced for the first time. The +8 system was introduced, and at this time, PVE players generally wore full-body 10-man treasure troves of eternal spring clothing. The equipment level is between 490-496, which is only 5 more equipment levels than the upgraded 491 Vicious Gladiator suit but loses tens of thousands of toughness and strength.

With a full set of +8 viciousness, even if you fight standing up, you can defeat two PVE players of the same level. This stupid move has become more serious in 5.2, but that is another story. Let’s take a look at the Black Prince mission. As a transitional version, this version actually requires 6,000 courage points as a transition. As mentioned before, the unscrupulous method of increasing the online rate in disguise has never been popular with the public. Of course, the crab later knew that he was wrong and changed it to 3,000 points. .

In terms of PVE, Crab probably finally saw that PVE players were to blame for the continuous loss of merged progress, so it separated the 10-player and 25-player progress in the national server, and added 8 more equipment levels. The original intention was to save the country from The 25-man group was killed at the beginning of CTM, but Crab was wrong, and it was so wrong. The consequences of the equipment being separated and the drops not being separated was to directly collapse the foundation of the 10-man group. The 10-man group established since CTM4.03 The human system no longer exists.

This outrageous move has even affected several versions in the future. Players are self-interested and will definitely fight for something higher and stronger when they see it. So the 10-man group began to fall apart and was completely reduced to 25 people in 5.2. The vassalage of the group, this has to be said to be the reincarnation of history or the regression of history. The consequences are the massive loss of PVE players in Dunkirk in version 5.1. This matter is even worthy of being written into the textbook of online game design failure cases. If we look back now, what exactly led to this largest injustice in history?

Then there's 5.2.

This version once again exposed how an incompetent designer can fix a mistake and create a bigger one.

In the previous version, what were the consequences of their aggressive efforts to strengthen PVP equipment?

Without any matchmaking level requirements you will be able to use Conquest Points to purchase Tyrannical Gladiator gear at item level approximately 493, and after earning 7250 Conquest Points in a season, you will be able to purchase Tyrannical Gladiator weapons at item level approximately 493. A few weeks later, the pseudo-PVP players put on brutal gladiator suits and ambush at various rare spawn points, waiting for the PVE players to arrive and take off the heads with their swords.

The same is true in the battlefield. In this version, it is as easy as crushing a chicken to kill a blue-suited player who has just entered the battlefield with PVP equipment or killing a PVE player in the wild. This version of the battlefield arena still maintains the original appearance. Changes, so sometimes you can even see tyrannical monsters and monsters on the battlefield.

Pseudo-PVP players like to say "I beat you with my skills, but I will practice even if you don't accept it." However, the excessively high PVP threshold and the overpowering of PVP equipment in the wild have led to more public dissatisfaction.

Finally, Crab and his team drastically eliminated PVP and strengthened PVE in the next version, but the PVE players lost in this version can never be replaced.

Lost players are lost players.

5.3 is meant to please PVE players. It can even be said to be a big gamble to save PVE players. Its original intention is to please the PVE players who were full of resentment from 5.0 to 5.2. Unfortunately, the modifications made by the Crab design team are based on It’s based on the theme of “I won’t let you have fun”.

In this way, both parties in this gamble have become kings of thousands of kings with no return. There is no winner in this gamble, everyone is destined to lose! Crab wielded a machete and chopped down PVP players, and at the same time he also chopped off the last fig leaf of his integrity. The two-year PVP reign from the backlog of version 4.2 to version 5.2 came to an end. The backlog of PVP and pseudo-PVP players in the past two years was almost They immediately found that the space they relied on for survival had disappeared. In the three weeks since 5.3 was launched, all major channels were filled with pessimistic views from PVP and pseudo-PVP players.

In this way, after the loss of a large number of PVE players in the previous version, a Dunkirk-style defeat once again occurred.

Thinking of this, Jester couldn't help but sigh.

Regarding the development history of this one of his favorite games, it really feels like looking at the history of the decline and fall of a certain country. One mistake is always connected with another, leading to an almost irreversible situation. Decline. (~^~)