The biggest MMORPG streamer on Twitch is Zack aka “Asmongold”. For personal reasons, he currently streams irregularly and mainly on his secondary channel. There he now let himself out about World of Warcraft, especially the raids do not come off well.
Who is Asmongold?
Even though he complains a lot about Blizzard, he is still impressed by the new Dragonflight expansion. He’s especially taken with the Dracthyr Caller. You can see gameplay of the new class here:
Asmongold thinks raids in WoW waste too much time
This is the situation: Since 2021, Asmon has also been showing more Final Fantasy XIV and Lost Ark. He even broke his viewership record with the latter. When he returned after his WoW abstinence, he showed himself annoyed by the “horrible and boring raids.”
That’s what bothers him about the Raids: On August 01, 2022, Asmongold posted a video titled “Blizzard Is Killing WoW.” In it, he criticizes the raids in particular. These are outdated, antiquated and a waste of time.
Asmon accuses WoW of deliberately wasting players’ time. A large part of the boss fight is occupied with completely different things. This also means that many players simply don’t have time for raids anymore.
This is how a raid in WoW works from Asmon’s point of view:
- The organization: First you have to get the whole group to the right place. Forgotten the warlock? Then 2 people have to run all the way back to get the missing people.
- Wipe Protection: One person should always survive to revive the whole group. If you don’t have that available, you have to run all the way back in case of a wipe.
- Trash Mobs: Then endless waves of trash mobs would have to be cleared out of the way, which are no fun and only drag everything out artificially.
What could actually be done in 30 minutes, would inflate to 3 hours according to Asmongold. At some point, people wouldn’t want to do that anymore, and then they just wouldn’t do it. The game doesn’t respect their time.
The difficulty of the raids themselves is not the problem. It’s more the organizational hurdles you have to overcome to even get to the raid. That’s the real challenge.
It’s the trash mobs that seem to particularly annoy Asmon. In the past, they would have had some sort of value. You could learn the mechanics of the boss through them or get cosmic flux, a currency in WoW.
They also just didn’t realize how lousy some mechanics were when there was less direct comparison. Now, however, they are a remnant of a bygone era. Other games have left WoW behind in the meantime.
Raids should focus on the essentials
That’s how other games do it better: In FFXIV and Lost Ark, it’s all better. There you are actually busy with the boss itself most of the time.
- Epic raids in FFXIV now have no trash at all. You go straight into the boss fight and can start right away.
- The Abyss Raids in Lost Ark do have trash, but you can go right back to the boss after a wipe.
Both FFXIV and Lost Ark also offer raids for much smaller groups than WoW, which makes organization a lot easier. Also, in FFXIV you keep your foodbuff after death, which again makes it easier to organize and prepare for the raid because you don’t use up as many items.
This is what Asmongold wants from WoW: In the past, he said, WoW drove innovation in the genre by being the pioneer in many areas and improving on pre-existing MMORPG mechanics. Nowadays, everyone would benefit from that groundwork except WoW itself. They would have to become the pioneer again. Also, he said, they should focus on mechanics that actually enrich players:
These enhancements are not included in World of Warcraft’s design. And they need to be. World of Warcraft needs to go back to being what made it a good game in the first place. A pioneer of the genre.
Asmongold via YouTube
And more concretely? When you die, you should respawn right in front of the boss without having to fight your way all the way there again. There should also be a portal there to summon teammates.
Food buffs should also not be removed completely by any means. Instead, they should be made more unique and have an impact on the gameplay. That’s what he hopes Dragonflight will do as well.
Can players also do something better? Asmongold is annoyed by the mentality of some players. They pride themselves on having their time wasted. Just because you are able to overcome such a time-wasting mechanic, the mechanic itself is not good.
Here he probably wishes for a rethinking in parts of the community. He also wants players who haven’t been in the game that long or have such a high skill level to have fun in raids. They should also be able to have fun in raids.
What do our editors have to say about this?
Cortyn sees it all a little differently:
“Most raids in World of Warcraft simply have a different target audience than those in, say, Lost Ark. Raids are supposed to be undertakings that last several hours – a full-length program, a big, coherent adventure. Of course, this doesn’t require eternally long return paths, but they are already significantly shorter than they used to be. You can always argue about trash mobs, for some they are just filler, but for others they are logical inhabitants of the respective place – henchmen who also have to be defeated and who sometimes drop fancy loot.
Blizzard has already adjusted the most annoying problems of the raids in WoW over the years, which is why I can only partially understand Asmongold’s criticism.
That being said, the raids in WoW are still considered by most communities to be a prime example of good boss design with interesting mechanics. Many other MMORPGs would scramble for such fights. But they’re also so good and memorable because you need time to do them and aren’t done after 20 minutes.”
Irina thinks Final Fantasy XIV does a lot right:
“While I can’t say what WoW is like, I definitely don’t miss the trash in FFXIV. In the early days of FFXIV 2.0, there was still trash in the Bahamut and Alexander raids, but it gradually fell away. Also, the loss of the food buff after death was initially handled the same way as in WoW and only changed later. I remember how this was really celebrated by our guild. They’re little ‘quality of life’ improvements that you learn to appreciate when they’re not present in other MMORPGs.”
What’s your take on this? Have you guys defected as well, or are you staying loyal to WoW? Are the mechanics really out of time, or just what WoW is all about?
Asmongold can strike quite different notes, though. Even if he doesn’t usually leave a good hair on Blizzard’s head, Dragonflight also makes his eyes shine.
Follow us and check out our social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook & YouTube ►
● on Twitter ► esport.directory
● Facebook ► esport.directory
● Youtube ► esport.directory
WoW Classictips, WoW Classictricks, WoW Classiccheats, WoW Classichacks, WoW Classichacks2022, WoW Classictipspro, WoW Classicpaidcheats, WoW Classic, WoW Classictipsandtricks, WoW Classictipsandtricks2022, WoW Classictipsandtricksforbeginners, WoW Classictips, WoW Classictricks, WoW Classictrickshots, WoW Classichacks, WoW Classichacksfree, WoW Classichacksfree2022,