Get your Displays up to 44% off with their Black Friday event at displate.com/?art=5f45ac3ee1585 Use Code Bellular to get the best deal, and support our channel. Thanks to Displate for sponsoring today's video. *Methodology* We pull guild kill data using Raider.io as our data source. Raider.io pulls data from Blizzard's armour API, meaning it is based on actual player data. For each video like this, we set a 'cut off' of X weeks from the start of a season. This allows us to make like for like comparisons between seasons. For this video, we're comparing entire seasons to eachother. As our data is guild kills, this will represent the most 'sticky' of the Warcraft playerbase, as guilded players tend to hang around longer, and participate in more of Warcrafts content. We think this is a strong indicator of WoW's core health. However, I would expect wider variance in true player data that includes players who fall outside our data collection.
You guys need to find a new game. All these videos of you content creators standing in front of a burning fireworks factory saying "Nothing to see here" to everyone is becoming a joke. Blizzard actively HIDES its subscriber numbers and revenue by combing WoWs with other games, a thing it never did before Dragonflight. THAT is how bad it is. And you using "rates" instead of totals to try to make a positive video to pretend Blizzard is turning the game around smacks of desperation. The players are not coming back and its new player experience is still one of the worst in MMO history with them making it so a new person has to read a novel just to ATTEMPT to play the actual story...you know, the GAME. That is why its retention rate is total ASS and will remain so ensuring WoWs population will continue its downward spiral. Find a new game, start building a fanbase with it as WoWs future and thus content creators relying on it, is bleak.
The data is correct but I don't think it's enough for it to be conclusive in any way shape or form of the retention for the vast majority of the playerbase. As you have pointed out Guilds are the 'sticky' playerbase so taking their kills into account is important but the data already skews favorable because they're sticky. Comparing it to the rest of the 'sticky' playerbase doesn't denote a 'good' outcome/expansion it simply points to there not being a major misstep from Blizzard that made the sticky players quit. It takes a lot to get a 'sticky' player to quit. A very relevant point of data would be LFG for NM and HC and LFR, which I don't think we have access to. Amirdrassil, because of the lower difficulty I assume, seems to have HUGE engagement at a glance just comparing Wednesday reset groups to Vault and Aberrus. This in my opinion is the most relevant set of data, which we need to make any conclusion, because these are not sticky players, these are players that Blizzard hopes to convert into 'sticky' players. Non-sticky players that game hop between MMOs, ARPGs, MOBAs throughout the year are the lifeblood of any live service game. The 'one-game' gamer that the early 2010s popularized because of games like SC2, League and Dota is nowhere near as prevalent anymore. Pretty much anyone that plays more than 15-20 hours of games a week will trend higher in the number of live service games played. Great video, good analysis of the sticky players I just wish someone some of the more popular addons Tukui/Elvui/DBM/BigWigs/Details would track player data and pool it all together into an open source db. That would give us so much more to work with.
Good points made here. Also gotta consider mythic+ being a more popular and accessible form of content that gives better gear so that could also affect raid numbers. I only raid when there is a bis piece i almost HAVE to get from raid that i cant get in m+. If not i dont even touch the raid.
I don't quite understand why everyone keeps praising the retention. The absolute numbers are in the gutter, everyone who had the wherewithal to leave did so, of course the dregs that remained are hardcore committed, they weeded out the non-desperate non-whales.
I am one of those players that have responded to the shift. I was drawn back by the SoD concept and the obvious exploration of a Classic+ concept. When I came back to poke around, I discovered Classic HC (Fun, for reasons) and then found myself having fun with retail as well. Now I am looking forward to the new retail path AND a Classic+ future AND having a HC option! WOW!
Same story with DF. They removed the abusive systems and didn't replace them with anything. It's been an unironic "Wow, it's nothing!" grindfest expac.
@@Emidretrauqe Speak for yourself. I've been having a great time in WoW this expac-- I probably didn't play as many hours as I did in SL at this point in the expac, but like... that seems fine? Just play or do other shit. The playerbase wanted it to feel less mandatory to be online a ton and that's exactly what we got. Easier raid tiers, no random grinds for dumb currencies, faster gearing, etc. There's still plenty to do for the people interested in finding something to do-- like collection stuff, for example, but it's great that the only thing related to power that we have to worry about is farming out our gear, filling up our vaults, and doing the bare minimum outside of the content that we actually want to do. Anyone pretending like there's been a bad patch since 9.1.5 is out of their minds or just doesn't like WoW anymore and no amount of good patches can fix that.
I think one thing to keep in mind also, is that because of the low difficulty of these raids and lower barrier of entry, the overall clear numbers, not just guilds, are probably higher too.
If you want higher difficulty mythic is available. It's not an "easy" raid. It took Liquid 435 pulls to defeat Fyraak, nvrmnd the difficulty experienced with Tindral Sageswift. Only three guilds have best Fyraak if I'm not mistaken. Easy? Nah.
@@1RightTurnClyde I obviously didn't mean Mythic, the devs don't even design Mythic with the intent of it being puggable no matter how easy it is, I was talking about Normal and Heroic.
@@damien7157 my point exactly! All in regards to peeps calling the raids easy.. Three teams; ECHO, Team Liquid, and Method have defeated Tindral. Liquid indeed has 200 pulls and ECHO has came closest getting Fyraak, to just under 60%. The whole comment was pointed at the raids NOT being easy. Your attempt at being cute is not appreciated and makes you look like someone who likes to simply run mouth and smack lips.
My biggest problem with PVP is the insane rewards that are there for dedicated players be it toys, mount transformation (manuscript), titles, transmogs etc. But they are essentially not possible to obtain due to the lack of players doing PVP and there's seemingly no other way for them to be earned like a "just play enough and you'll get it" meaning that you need to get an absurd rating that's near impossible to get even if you're more skilled then the avg player, If you could earn some of them but not all by just playing so you could target your "must have" rewards just by playing rated pvp (solo que ofc) I think that would help a lot because it doesn't become a situation of "I need to be top X% which is literally less then 200 players" or what the numbers are, instead it just becomes a grind to get your must have rewards but if you want all of it you still need to get good which will be easier if there's a lot more players going in there for the "just play a lot" rewards. Ofc the rewards would need a new currency and a structure that allows you to get a certain amount of currency that allows you to buy some of the rewards, this could also include older rewards from the past that could be purchaseable only if you reach elite rating, but the current season rewards are all grindable no matter the rating you're at with higher ratings rewarding it faster.
Can I suggest to your time to put the raid icons or last boss icons on the patch numbers, because not everyone remembers what raid was released on 6.0, 7.1, 8.3 and that makes difficult to read the charts
I always felt like this player retention is not a sign at all that they're doing completely the right things but is a consequence of that the people who are left in the game mostly just value core wow gameplay above all (like myself). DF doesn't make me feel any better to play the game than any other expansion let alone legion, the world content became to me completely irrelevant (I know that it hasn't become irrelevant for everyone BUT I used to care about that stuff in the past, even up to SL and now I don't). It just became a raidlogging expansion, and making easier raids is obviously an auto win but it doesn't mean that the quality of everything is higher. So I hope that Blizz is not content with this.
the completion % is cool and all but let's look at the number of players. This pretty much indicates that the regular players that quit did not come back, only the ones who pretty much wouldn't quit for anything are still playing. Aprox 50% drop off rate of playerbase, of those only 62% of heroic raiders cleared the last boss of the raid. These numbers are still pretty low and just shows how inaccessible the raid is even on just Heroic difficulty. Now imagine the 50% of the playerbase that left would have come back to try the raid, the success rate would very likely be much much lower.
I want blizzard to release how many people are on per server, actual sub ratings, how many subs actually played retail to max level, etc. with them having so many versions of wow I think it would be cool to see an Infograph like this maybe only during blizzcon or something
@@bainebloodhoof1140 It's not you and me they are hiding it from. My guess is, the shareholders who aren't gamers are the ones they are trying to convince that they're doing great.
Blizzard still have a lot of work to do to convince players to return. One decent xpac with a consistent flow of content for that one xpac isnt enough. Anyone who thinks Blizzard can be trusted are beyond naive.... Their a corporation motivated by money, nothing more.
Honestly, are there any corporations NOT motivated by money? They are financial constructs. Even nonprofits are focused on money. That's what corporation structure are literally for.
Clueless take tbh. The goal of every business is to make money. It's in blizzards every interest to make the game as appealing as possible to retain it's playerbase and draw new customers
@@Roachehh yet they didn't keep their player base because they were lazy and went for the minimal effort for maximum profit, which failed. They doubled down on it and kept doing it, and kept losing, now waking up to the fact people had enough and unlike shills like you, won't be easily run back. So shill all you like. Your "clueless take" and blatant defending of scumbags won't be accepted.
The Delves could add flavor and spice if done right and actually given Mythic Raid type rewards but with build-up-to difficulty rivaling it and something like, let's say, the Mage Tower in Legion. If they miss the opportunity, like they did with Island Expeditions, Tor Ghast (among others), and to an extent follower tables, then yeah, it'll remain stale.
There's no soul. That's why I lost interest personally. Everything is just a gateway to monetization. Every feature can, and will, be monetized in a way that ruins its soul.
I dont know how to feel about this data, mostly because raiding continues to be in decline in popularity. Then you can't accurately gauge M plus like a guild log, or pvp, or how many people are solo warriors.
As a former hardcore raider and current hardcore M+ enjoyer, I agree that lower difficulty of raid makes it overall more enjoyable for me. M+ is good for having alts. Raid is not. Raid not being a decently low difficulty makes pugging a nightmare, discouraging me from doing alts. Overall players are not good at the game. Normal being clearable by a not very good raid is how it should be. Heroic is where you should be forced to be slightly sharper and Mythic is where everything matters. If its not puggable, its not good for the game unless its specifically tailored to the hardcores the same way Mythic is. Its there for them, leave everything else on a difficulty a casual can complete.
Dragonflight's poor sales meant it will always have higher retention rates. It's survivorship bias that shouldn't be ignored. The number of players who will never quit wow make up a larger percentage of the playerbase in Dragonflight than it did in Legion, BFA & SL.
I agree. I used to think I didn't care about the story, until it started getting offensively bad. Then again, this is also because they're still following the mandatory linear narrative progression system established in Wrath. They forced a game that was never known for its deep narrative to revolve around it as though it is. It's just one of those hallmarks that defines retail WoW I'm afraid
I returned to the game after not even completing shadowlands before I left. I have no idea what’s going on in the story. Msq is not streamlined which makes it difficult to understand what is happening. Dragonflights story is meh. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think shadowlands had much better introduction to the expansion. The I made a mistake and use the free boost I got…I did not know it would automatically place me at end game. I just wish msq was more like ff14 or just had story focus mode so I can go through it in chronological order. I have no idea who this Farack guy and Vyranoth is. Now she is an ally? But alextraza and her have beef…also where is Wrathion, kalecgos, Nozdormu. They feel non existent. It’s hot mess of a situation I got myself in. I honestly can’t play the game with mouse and keyboard anymore. Had to console port addon and so far I’m loving it. A bit of a learning curve but got the hang of it. Wow is not new player friendly, but becoming more alt friendly. However delves seems more like my content so I got warwithin. I can’t recommend it to new players. Ff14 had its issues as well but once you realize MSQ in ff14 is what you should be doing. You unlock content and get into the lore at the same time. You don’t rush to endgame. As it’s a bout the journey. Wow is the complete opposite…you want to get to end game. I hope that changes up. I like dragon flying I just need to upgrade that skill tree. I’m going to have to choose one of my other characters and go through story from shadowlands to get the full picture of what in the world is going on in the lore.
This data is interesting and all, but it leaves out so many external factors. in 9.2 there was the whole cross faction raiding thing certainly affecting what is considered a "guild run". With the changes to m+, I'm certain that lots of people don't bother with raiding anymore (like me). Before the dungeon pool was different in every season, there was really only the raid to look forward to in a new season, but not anymore. If you were trying to push higher keys, you also HAD to raid for tier sets. It's also not taking into account PUGS or LFR, which are probably way more representative as how most people raid these days. I kinda disagree that guilds raiding is still the beating heart of WoW. Also with the arrival of a new endgame pillar in TWW with delves, I can bet these numbers will go ever lower.
if they want people to raid the raid fights need to be harder and better. amirdrassil is pretty but there are almost 0 unique mechanics and its way too undertuned
Dragonflight is such a massive win. My guild is closing in on a Normal clear tomorrow night, my experience with M+ as a tank has been extremely enjoyable (pugged and premade), and I’m completing _everything_ in the world-Time Rifts for collectibles, gathering for professions, side quests for story, etc.
I think it's an error to look at percent rather than raw numbers. An increase in finishing is good but Dragonflight raids were very easy. What's more important is that Vault numbers are lower than Dazar'alor or Nya'lotha, and that Aberus is the second lowest number on the charter other than Sepulcher.
Theres no real sense of community in game anymore, so the storyline about banding together rings hollow. Blizzard dislikes guild agency and when you take away the community tool for playing together and take the reins yourself, you better not miss. They missed heavily, a lot. The playerbase is so divided between jaded and animated rn, that they will never want to come together anymore. Theres not going to be astronomical numbers returning anymore. Nathria was a one last time thing, the playerbase grew up in all senses of that word. I sadly fully believe the wordsoul saga being abandoned for another emergency idea halfway in, like they did with the last three expansions.
Mythic Raiding is not rewarding enough for the hassle of its progression (time, money, head aches, frustrations, etc) not my cup of tea, im sticking with Heroic at most.
I used to raid mythic for all the cool stuff but now that the catalyst and upgrading heroic stuff gives you the look I can chill out have waaaaaaay more fun in just heroic. I imagine there are a lot of people like that.
Gas is consumed faster in stop and go traffic. Motivated travelers will put in more drive time each day to get to the destination faster, even if they are more tired, so they have more time to enjoy destination. It is easier to keep a snowball rolling, than to start rolling one that has stopped. Time gates in games feel like red lights on the main road with no traffic. Doing the professions feels like someone who spent all day preparing a meal and no one wants to eat it.
Wish there was a way to see how the world content numbers are. Feels like DF turned a lot of players off, even outside of instanced content, with all the group stuff.
You mean you don't like coming in everyday to do dragon race, all the dream and fyrakk stuff? Which on the server I was on the fyrakk stuff was nearly dead.
@@Tantakugames Hes prolly refering to zaralak caverns sure theres a ton of rares and open world stuff to do but good luck without forming a big group so its useless to a solo player.
these numbers are more like "how compelling is the lore?", "how good is the class gameplay?", "how overly complicated are the raid boss mechanics?", and "how painful are the weekly chores?"
Could you compare the drop between Heroic and Mythic? Isn't that an indicator that WoW raiding has an issue with raids being easier but you can't do Mythic without dealing with massive logistics changes (from flex raiding to 20man)..etc
Hey friend, I know you don't play it but I bet half of WoW current's player base plays classic in some form. It would be really interesting if you could do a similar comparison for classic to see some data of preferences and player engagement with classic's various systems
As a day one player, ex-hardcore raider gone casual, and a daily player I can honestly say Blizzard has 100% delivered on world content in DragonFlight. Releasing something like Zaralek Caverns or Island of Thunder from MOP at the start of spring or summer IRL makes it hard to play the content. We a player has been trapped inside all winter and sees spring IRL, it's hard to want to play a game based in a dark cavern or a raining island even though the content of both was decent. Forbidden Reach was fun, all the world content is great and well done, the constant gear upgrades, tmorgs, and toys/mounts keep it interesting. I'm going to change the Name to McWarcraft because Ba da ba ba da I'm Love'in It!
Great, only hardcore WoW raiders left and they are such pleasant people to play with. Makes me so look forward to returning to the Raider IO game... oh sorry WoW Retail.
All this retail talk. How about classic numbers? Hc wltlk and classic classic? I wonder if there is a way to quantify those after the recent boom on twitch.
I feel like what this data shows, is we're down to the dedicated people who will play wow forever no matter what. No one new, or no playerbase growth at all. Which isn't a diss on the video btw. I actually appreciate the fact you just show numbers. Facts>all
No one is saying DF is a win, cuz no one's playing it 😂 everyone quit to play FF14 and SW KoTOR and Elder Scrolls Legends. all of them are better games then this piling hot garbage you wow players call a video game
I quit a gew weeks into shadow lands. Dragonflight didnt look promising, and i had almsit no urge to explore the land of metro dragons. Got the free copy with preorder of war within, and have to say it way better than i would have expected. Cleared all the raid content and ran all mythic+ dungeons. What a blast. PvP is in a bad spot, but wow pve is gun rn.
really hoping the next expac will be a full return to form. i won't lie I fell off because i got tired of grinding the upgrade items by myself. and my friends stopped playing a while ago. although some of my friends say they will return if WoW is added to game pass. ((hoping but not sure that it can be done so easily with certain classes having ALL the buttons. ((mage/Warrior comes to mind.))
@@James-kv3llbefore anyone complains about the FF comparison just know in this instance this person is bringing up FF’s controller support to say that it probably is possible to get WoW working on controller
@@frosty6845 That’s what I’m saying. Ffxiv job rotations have around 12-15 buttons. They work perfectly fine on controller. WoW class rotations have around 6-9 buttons usually. It wouldn’t be a problem.
@@Sp4c3gl1d3r League of Legends is also far more console accessible then wow as it really only has at most five abilities. a call home, and the ability to place a ward. other then that it's just basic movement. so it would not surprise me if they eventually make it console accessible if it's not already.
Normal should be very easy, it should be something new and casual raiders can experience in full with their friends. It's also a could learning place for people who want to learn how to Tank & Heal raids without any pressure but still some accountability that is lacking in LFR. Heroic should be the "base" line difficulty and spike considerably since this is where the HotC achievement usually sits. Should require solid understanding of your character and mechanics, require consumables and proper enchants etc. Mythic should be punishing and difficult and be the chase progression for those who want it. These people should be all very proficient with their class, dedicated to learning over and over on wipes if required or researching all the details from the RWF clears.
@@aaronjohnson2215 Normal and heroic are already similar-ish in difficulty. Do you want them to basically be the same thing? Or do you want all difficulties to be harder? Because as a mythic raider, that sounds extremely unhealthy for the game. While I appreciate challenging bosses, the data has shown that accessibility is extremely important with player retention. The people looking for hard content already can just mythic raid and once someone hits CE, they can look to push ranks with it. Raising the skill floor by buffing normal seems pointless.
@@sere971 yes they need to be harder. Hc is too easy and I can't raid mythic because of its restrictions. There are lfr and normal for casual players. And if you insist on retention, then what about me who is bored with hc? Why they don't lift restrictions from mythic so i also stay in game?
@@aaronjohnson2215 You don't learn anything in LFR tho.. its a hot mess, people just run around doing whatever with no accountability. Normal should be easy enough that people can learn with an actual group and Heroic should be the "Standard" Difficulty for a proper challenging experience.
so, yea, the players that do still play, tend to complete the raids. however, there's a drastically reduced amount of players even playing the game. should this not be an alarm sign? numbers go down. blizzard has to assume that this trend will continue. they really have to steer this ship around and get players back. my overall impression of blizzcon was that this doesn't just happen with wow, but all of their franchises seemed to have and emphasize on bringing existing players back. which can be quite the challenge in this industry. for me as a player that's a good thing though. that means that innovation is right around the corner. happened already with legion. hope it's going to happen with the next expansion as well. df, as popular as it is with the players that still play the game, it is clear that for the rest of the players it didn't work out so well. and, well, releasing expansions every 18 instead of 24 months certainly helps mitigating the drop in players (and revenue) as well.
Liebkraft, I agree that the amount of overall players is in serious decline. I would just question the video's assumption that Raid retention numbers are in any way relevant to the overall health of the game. The numbers are purposely hidden by Blizzard but every time someone attempts to estimate player distribution, dedicated raiding and pvp combined are always somewhere south of 20% of overall player population. The main theme of BlizzCon23 was that the game needs to support open world and story gamers for the game to get back on track. This is what they talked about in every presentation, deep dive, interview and panel. "Reconsider old assumptions..." [Hazzikostas] : letting go of some traditions and philosophies that had been ingrained in me by the leaders who taught me about Warcraft design years ago." "Shake off old stubbornness..", "stubbornly holding on to archaic aspects of the game - and it was just out of a sense of tradition.”
I am fine with a lot of this... but not fine with how it causes classes to get prejudiced against (just like those stupid tier lists people make) because people think they need to run "the one true comp" rather than just having fun... and rather than stay in mythic where they belong, they come to lower content and harass more casual players, which leads to a lot of the toxicity we see (or at least I do). As an aside, you should have compared this with the data from all the raiding going on in Classic. Partially to prove if it is doing better/worse than retail, but also just to see how people feel about those raids as well, even if it is them being revisited. Those are surely numbers Blizzard will look at that will influence future raids.
The reward curve and balancing still sucks in WoW. You can have vastly different gearing times solely based on luck on drops and vault choices. Which makes the game not competitive anymore. Until you hit your bingo card. Couple that with just terrible class design where the classes with the most utility don't take a damage penalty for having it, then you end up with only a handful of specs being desirable for M+. FFXIV does endgame raiding so much better than WoW. They really need to add a bad luck protection token. Considering one raid trinket is doing 10k+ more DPS than the best option out of M+ is doing.
The gameplay and QoL stuff that they've been working on is really great, but man... the storytelling and overall vibe of DF is just not doing it for me. I can't really put my finger on it, but it feels like they're writing like Marvel (which is most evident in their "Worldsoul Saga" which is very obviously based on the Marvel Saga idea). I hope the next expansion returns to the darker and grittier world that made WoW special.
Man seeing the numbers around shadowlands vs Dragonflight is sad. Still disappointed I couldn't get my team to kill Ras on normal.I was so defeated, I dipped out. My son still wants that mount skin and I don't think I can get it.
idk what raid he's playing but Heroic of this new raid is not a huge step up, it's still really really easy, pugs are easily clearing up to T Swift easily.
Here is the reality. The facts. According to how many subscribers there are …. The people that raid is 0.375% of players. I just did the math. So it’s really not a metric that matters in any meaningful way.
At 3:20 Bellular throws out some percentage increases, but the graphs definitely don't show that. I think the percentage increase is from patch 9.2 to 10.0, not 9.1 to 10.0 as shown.
I think one big point, at least for me was, that 10.1 came right before summer and I would rather hang out with my friends outside, than on the computer.
pvp is horrible because devs keep catering to pve players and changing stuff so quickly and often but neglecting pvp so much it needs to be redesigned or seperated from pve design maybe pvp talent trees or something
Wow is not fixed in any way. Have they added good things sure. Not enough tho. Especially for the pvp community. And as usual it's still a fotm game where they break a class and everyone suffers the toxicness of it. Takes away the game of skill.
I still feel that what's happening is an increasingly higher portion of dedicated WoW players over time as others quit. At least in terms of raiding. While I wouldn't say DF is bad, it's definitely kinda dull an uninteresting.. uninspired in my opinion. There will always be some portion of players who will play it regardless or others that enjoy the current mobile game style gameplay. I think they need to step up their game and innovate the game as an mmorpg to truly attract players back. Too early to tell if War Within is on the right path for that, but the Alt friendly stuff at least sounds good so far.
DF was Blizzards attempt to stabilize WoW after the back-to-back shitshows of BFA and Shadowlands. It may be dull in comparison to the past, but it definitely put the game on sufficient life support til The War Within.
@wm1573 funny how you FF haters are still around even though FF is responsible for literally any improvement in WoW, be it for Blizzard despair in competing with it or copying features that works there.
its commical because the clear rates are extremly innacurate, i know i personal bought clears on my alts / mains due tot he content just not being fun, and i know many who did the same, so none of these #'s are accurate since mists when buying clears blew up and became popular in warlords.
Say no to Apexis crystals or what ever they call them these days... Blizzard: Get some seeds, no, not those green seeds because you need a thousand of them, get those purple seeds that rarely drop, so you have to play 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to get some. One man's Apexis crystals are another man's seed or what ever the 4uck they change that disease name to... Pass, I'll just do Mythic and Raid thanks... Just give me an ilvl item with out the "you have to do this to get that which allows you to do upgrade so you have to play 12 hours a day 7 days a week if you want to Raid BS!". Just let me Raid...
Losing players to FF14 the better game, go play ff14 its honestly unbeliable how fucking masterful that game is omg. Like playing w*w feels like eating shit ocmpared to that. But then again playing wow altogether fels like shit amirite 😂
I wanna know who died raiding because they like and want to do it and those who do it because they want gear and have to do it because story quest requires it
Dragonflight is good. But it's going to take more than one good expansion for WOW to be redeemed. Blizzard burned absolutely all their goodwill for cash, and people aren't going to magically trust them again after one good expansion. It will take time. They basically have to rebuild the brand from scratch. Dragonflight seems to be, at least, retaining those that are playing it, which is a good sign. But the numbers are not anywhere near where WOW used to be, nor will they be for some time. It has to grow again, and they absolutely cannot screw up again.
I've followed the M+ data from week to week via RIO and I can talk about this for hours. DF S1 and S2 were phenomenal compared to Shadowlands. And S3 is just crazy in terms of participation so far.
ok my question i dont care about PVE stuff-.- i dont wana do it and i got a lot of gold -.- so if i want something i just say here ya go i go afk and watch berserk until its done what about pvp and the pvp numbers? thats the only mode i care about actually
As long as there is like 200%+ DPS difference between boss-tailored talents and rotation vs whatever you like without any proc tracking add-ons then I am not raiding. Been there, done that, now I'm tired of it and it's not fun anymore, it's just bad game design catering to the top 5-10% (at best). Even that gameplay footage Bellular has in the background is just awful, you can't see shit in there, you are just looking at numbers and shiny edges of weakauras scattered across your character...now I just want to see my character do stuff and have fun.
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*Methodology*
We pull guild kill data using Raider.io as our data source. Raider.io pulls data from Blizzard's armour API, meaning it is based on actual player data. For each video like this, we set a 'cut off' of X weeks from the start of a season. This allows us to make like for like comparisons between seasons. For this video, we're comparing entire seasons to eachother.
As our data is guild kills, this will represent the most 'sticky' of the Warcraft playerbase, as guilded players tend to hang around longer, and participate in more of Warcrafts content. We think this is a strong indicator of WoW's core health. However, I would expect wider variance in true player data that includes players who fall outside our data collection.
What size is the displate you have in the video?
Last I checked, Displate was full of AI garbage, crowding out actual artists.
Too bad they don't deliver to our country since brexit
would have been good to see some kind of raid difficulty score for these too, because that would affect the completion numbers.
You guys need to find a new game. All these videos of you content creators standing in front of a burning fireworks factory saying "Nothing to see here" to everyone is becoming a joke.
Blizzard actively HIDES its subscriber numbers and revenue by combing WoWs with other games, a thing it never did before Dragonflight. THAT is how bad it is. And you using "rates" instead of totals to try to make a positive video to pretend Blizzard is turning the game around smacks of desperation.
The players are not coming back and its new player experience is still one of the worst in MMO history with them making it so a new person has to read a novel just to ATTEMPT to play the actual story...you know, the GAME. That is why its retention rate is total ASS and will remain so ensuring WoWs population will continue its downward spiral.
Find a new game, start building a fanbase with it as WoWs future and thus content creators relying on it, is bleak.
The new raid is so fun and engaging. It scales well for each level. The difficulty actually increases properly.
Agree , glad I can feel comfortable requesting to join pugs for normals. Something I haven’t been able to do since wotlk.
The data is correct but I don't think it's enough for it to be conclusive in any way shape or form of the retention for the vast majority of the playerbase.
As you have pointed out Guilds are the 'sticky' playerbase so taking their kills into account is important but the data already skews favorable because they're sticky. Comparing it to the rest of the 'sticky' playerbase doesn't denote a 'good' outcome/expansion it simply points to there not being a major misstep from Blizzard that made the sticky players quit. It takes a lot to get a 'sticky' player to quit.
A very relevant point of data would be LFG for NM and HC and LFR, which I don't think we have access to. Amirdrassil, because of the lower difficulty I assume, seems to have HUGE engagement at a glance just comparing Wednesday reset groups to Vault and Aberrus. This in my opinion is the most relevant set of data, which we need to make any conclusion, because these are not sticky players, these are players that Blizzard hopes to convert into 'sticky' players.
Non-sticky players that game hop between MMOs, ARPGs, MOBAs throughout the year are the lifeblood of any live service game. The 'one-game' gamer that the early 2010s popularized because of games like SC2, League and Dota is nowhere near as prevalent anymore. Pretty much anyone that plays more than 15-20 hours of games a week will trend higher in the number of live service games played.
Great video, good analysis of the sticky players I just wish someone some of the more popular addons Tukui/Elvui/DBM/BigWigs/Details would track player data and pool it all together into an open source db. That would give us so much more to work with.
Good points made here. Also gotta consider mythic+ being a more popular and accessible form of content that gives better gear so that could also affect raid numbers. I only raid when there is a bis piece i almost HAVE to get from raid that i cant get in m+. If not i dont even touch the raid.
I don't quite understand why everyone keeps praising the retention.
The absolute numbers are in the gutter, everyone who had the wherewithal to leave did so, of course the dregs that remained are hardcore committed, they weeded out the non-desperate non-whales.
And now that they have they're going to put the squeeze on them by charging a full expansion price for 25% less content.
I am one of those players that have responded to the shift. I was drawn back by the SoD concept and the obvious exploration of a Classic+ concept. When I came back to poke around, I discovered Classic HC (Fun, for reasons) and then found myself having fun with retail as well. Now I am looking forward to the new retail path AND a Classic+ future AND having a HC option! WOW!
I came back for a month...and I'm gone already. That wont be in the chart. Blizzcon hype really only lasted for 30 days for me.
"I came back before all the new features were there and was surprised it was still Dragonflight"
They do this every year. “They’ve learned from their mistakes!” Things look encouraging for a few weeks, then they hit you again.
Same story with DF. They removed the abusive systems and didn't replace them with anything. It's been an unironic "Wow, it's nothing!" grindfest expac.
@@Emidretrauqe Speak for yourself. I've been having a great time in WoW this expac-- I probably didn't play as many hours as I did in SL at this point in the expac, but like... that seems fine? Just play or do other shit. The playerbase wanted it to feel less mandatory to be online a ton and that's exactly what we got. Easier raid tiers, no random grinds for dumb currencies, faster gearing, etc.
There's still plenty to do for the people interested in finding something to do-- like collection stuff, for example, but it's great that the only thing related to power that we have to worry about is farming out our gear, filling up our vaults, and doing the bare minimum outside of the content that we actually want to do.
Anyone pretending like there's been a bad patch since 9.1.5 is out of their minds or just doesn't like WoW anymore and no amount of good patches can fix that.
I think one thing to keep in mind also, is that because of the low difficulty of these raids and lower barrier of entry, the overall clear numbers, not just guilds, are probably higher too.
i have yet to do a raid, im intimidated tbh but once i get the hang of things im gonna give it a try
@@sergiolandz6056 Highly suggest finding a guild to do it with if you aren’t in one already
If you want higher difficulty mythic is available. It's not an "easy" raid. It took Liquid 435 pulls to defeat Fyraak, nvrmnd the difficulty experienced with Tindral Sageswift. Only three guilds have best Fyraak if I'm not mistaken. Easy? Nah.
@@1RightTurnClyde I obviously didn't mean Mythic, the devs don't even design Mythic with the intent of it being puggable no matter how easy it is, I was talking about Normal and Heroic.
@@damien7157 my point exactly! All in regards to peeps calling the raids easy.. Three teams; ECHO, Team Liquid, and Method have defeated Tindral. Liquid indeed has 200 pulls and ECHO has came closest getting Fyraak, to just under 60%. The whole comment was pointed at the raids NOT being easy. Your attempt at being cute is not appreciated and makes you look like someone who likes to simply run mouth and smack lips.
My biggest problem with PVP is the insane rewards that are there for dedicated players be it toys, mount transformation (manuscript), titles, transmogs etc. But they are essentially not possible to obtain due to the lack of players doing PVP and there's seemingly no other way for them to be earned like a "just play enough and you'll get it" meaning that you need to get an absurd rating that's near impossible to get even if you're more skilled then the avg player, If you could earn some of them but not all by just playing so you could target your "must have" rewards just by playing rated pvp (solo que ofc) I think that would help a lot because it doesn't become a situation of "I need to be top X% which is literally less then 200 players" or what the numbers are, instead it just becomes a grind to get your must have rewards but if you want all of it you still need to get good which will be easier if there's a lot more players going in there for the "just play a lot" rewards.
Ofc the rewards would need a new currency and a structure that allows you to get a certain amount of currency that allows you to buy some of the rewards, this could also include older rewards from the past that could be purchaseable only if you reach elite rating, but the current season rewards are all grindable no matter the rating you're at with higher ratings rewarding it faster.
Can I suggest to your time to put the raid icons or last boss icons on the patch numbers, because not everyone remembers what raid was released on 6.0, 7.1, 8.3 and that makes difficult to read the charts
I always felt like this player retention is not a sign at all that they're doing completely the right things but is a consequence of that the people who are left in the game mostly just value core wow gameplay above all (like myself). DF doesn't make me feel any better to play the game than any other expansion let alone legion, the world content became to me completely irrelevant (I know that it hasn't become irrelevant for everyone BUT I used to care about that stuff in the past, even up to SL and now I don't). It just became a raidlogging expansion, and making easier raids is obviously an auto win but it doesn't mean that the quality of everything is higher. So I hope that Blizz is not content with this.
it will go down super fast.
the completion % is cool and all but let's look at the number of players.
This pretty much indicates that the regular players that quit did not come back, only the ones who pretty much wouldn't quit for anything are still playing. Aprox 50% drop off rate of playerbase, of those only 62% of heroic raiders cleared the last boss of the raid. These numbers are still pretty low and just shows how inaccessible the raid is even on just Heroic difficulty. Now imagine the 50% of the playerbase that left would have come back to try the raid, the success rate would very likely be much much lower.
I want blizzard to release how many people are on per server, actual sub ratings, how many subs actually played retail to max level, etc. with them having so many versions of wow I think it would be cool to see an Infograph like this maybe only during blizzcon or something
They don't need to, I already know the answer to that... It's like 10 😭😂😂😂😂😎😭😭💯😂😂nah bruh but frfrfr 💯💀
It feels like for them not to show that data, it'd be because showing that data would hurt them as a company.
@@Dalzedur There's nothing to hide bro, everyone and their grandma knows that this game is dead omegalul
@@bainebloodhoof1140 It's not you and me they are hiding it from. My guess is, the shareholders who aren't gamers are the ones they are trying to convince that they're doing great.
@@bainebloodhoof1140 on god 💯😂👌
These numbers only tell you about raids,total numbers logging in and playing other content too would give you true numbers
Blizzard still have a lot of work to do to convince players to return.
One decent xpac with a consistent flow of content for that one xpac isnt enough.
Anyone who thinks Blizzard can be trusted are beyond naive.... Their a corporation motivated by money, nothing more.
Honestly, are there any corporations NOT motivated by money? They are financial constructs. Even nonprofits are focused on money. That's what corporation structure are literally for.
@@nigelhirth2181true but there is a difference between a blizzard and fromsoftware. Some companies don't care about the product in the process.
Clueless take tbh. The goal of every business is to make money. It's in blizzards every interest to make the game as appealing as possible to retain it's playerbase and draw new customers
@@Roachehh yet they didn't keep their player base because they were lazy and went for the minimal effort for maximum profit, which failed. They doubled down on it and kept doing it, and kept losing, now waking up to the fact people had enough and unlike shills like you, won't be easily run back.
So shill all you like. Your "clueless take" and blatant defending of scumbags won't be accepted.
@@nigelhirth2181 Square Enix isn't, and unlike shitzarrd (🤮🤮) they actually have good work ethics
good lord that is the busiest UI I have ever seen in the very beginning of this video lmao
I think the issue is that WoW just might simply be getting stale for a lot of people no matter how well they fix its problems.
agree, I think they need to shake up end game somehow, change m+ and raiding, add some more variety or fun to it
I think the issue is that WoW raiding just might simply be getting stale for a lot of people no matter how well they fix its problems.
The Delves could add flavor and spice if done right and actually given Mythic Raid type rewards but with build-up-to difficulty rivaling it and something like, let's say, the Mage Tower in Legion.
If they miss the opportunity, like they did with Island Expeditions, Tor Ghast (among others), and to an extent follower tables, then yeah, it'll remain stale.
The problem is that no new kids come to WoW... the entry cost is quite high, and withou millions of casuals, MMO can ever be great.
There's no soul. That's why I lost interest personally.
Everything is just a gateway to monetization. Every feature can, and will, be monetized in a way that ruins its soul.
The war within is a war within...... the family.
I dont know how to feel about this data, mostly because raiding continues to be in decline in popularity. Then you can't accurately gauge M plus like a guild log, or pvp, or how many people are solo warriors.
As a former hardcore raider and current hardcore M+ enjoyer, I agree that lower difficulty of raid makes it overall more enjoyable for me. M+ is good for having alts. Raid is not. Raid not being a decently low difficulty makes pugging a nightmare, discouraging me from doing alts. Overall players are not good at the game. Normal being clearable by a not very good raid is how it should be. Heroic is where you should be forced to be slightly sharper and Mythic is where everything matters. If its not puggable, its not good for the game unless its specifically tailored to the hardcores the same way Mythic is. Its there for them, leave everything else on a difficulty a casual can complete.
Dragonflight's poor sales meant it will always have higher retention rates. It's survivorship bias that shouldn't be ignored. The number of players who will never quit wow make up a larger percentage of the playerbase in Dragonflight than it did in Legion, BFA & SL.
I think people underestimate how much the story factors into growth and retention. I think people even underestimate in themselves how much it matters
I agree. I used to think I didn't care about the story, until it started getting offensively bad.
Then again, this is also because they're still following the mandatory linear narrative progression system established in Wrath. They forced a game that was never known for its deep narrative to revolve around it as though it is.
It's just one of those hallmarks that defines retail WoW I'm afraid
I returned to the game after not even completing shadowlands before I left. I have no idea what’s going on in the story. Msq is not streamlined which makes it difficult to understand what is happening. Dragonflights story is meh. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think shadowlands had much better introduction to the expansion. The I made a mistake and use the free boost I got…I did not know it would automatically place me at end game. I just wish msq was more like ff14 or just had story focus mode so I can go through it in chronological order. I have no idea who this Farack guy and Vyranoth is. Now she is an ally? But alextraza and her have beef…also where is Wrathion, kalecgos, Nozdormu. They feel non existent.
It’s hot mess of a situation I got myself in.
I honestly can’t play the game with mouse and keyboard anymore. Had to console port addon and so far I’m loving it. A bit of a learning curve but got the hang of it.
Wow is not new player friendly, but becoming more alt friendly. However delves seems more like my content so I got warwithin.
I can’t recommend it to new players. Ff14 had its issues as well but once you realize MSQ in ff14 is what you should be doing. You unlock content and get into the lore at the same time. You don’t rush to endgame. As it’s a bout the journey.
Wow is the complete opposite…you want to get to end game. I hope that changes up. I like dragon flying I just need to upgrade that skill tree. I’m going to have to choose one of my other characters and go through story from shadowlands to get the full picture of what in the world is going on in the lore.
This data is interesting and all, but it leaves out so many external factors. in 9.2 there was the whole cross faction raiding thing certainly affecting what is considered a "guild run". With the changes to m+, I'm certain that lots of people don't bother with raiding anymore (like me). Before the dungeon pool was different in every season, there was really only the raid to look forward to in a new season, but not anymore. If you were trying to push higher keys, you also HAD to raid for tier sets. It's also not taking into account PUGS or LFR, which are probably way more representative as how most people raid these days. I kinda disagree that guilds raiding is still the beating heart of WoW. Also with the arrival of a new endgame pillar in TWW with delves, I can bet these numbers will go ever lower.
if they want people to raid the raid fights need to be harder and better. amirdrassil is pretty but there are almost 0 unique mechanics and its way too undertuned
Dragonflight is such a massive win. My guild is closing in on a Normal clear tomorrow night, my experience with M+ as a tank has been extremely enjoyable (pugged and premade), and I’m completing _everything_ in the world-Time Rifts for collectibles, gathering for professions, side quests for story, etc.
I think it's an error to look at percent rather than raw numbers. An increase in finishing is good but Dragonflight raids were very easy. What's more important is that Vault numbers are lower than Dazar'alor or Nya'lotha, and that Aberus is the second lowest number on the charter other than Sepulcher.
@4:18 Come on Bellular. It was Bobby. Everyone knows that. No gamer would turn fun content into a chore. It is all for retention metrics
"The wow team is larger so we can get out content faster." Hmmm, where have I heard that before? 🤔
Theres no real sense of community in game anymore, so the storyline about banding together rings hollow. Blizzard dislikes guild agency and when you take away the community tool for playing together and take the reins yourself, you better not miss. They missed heavily, a lot. The playerbase is so divided between jaded and animated rn, that they will never want to come together anymore. Theres not going to be astronomical numbers returning anymore. Nathria was a one last time thing, the playerbase grew up in all senses of that word. I sadly fully believe the wordsoul saga being abandoned for another emergency idea halfway in, like they did with the last three expansions.
If you are raider or a M+ player then you are happy. The world content players and crafters got dumped on hard this expansion.
"A lower key at 15-20"
Our definitions vary ^^;;
😂😂
Mythic Raiding is not rewarding enough for the hassle of its progression (time, money, head aches, frustrations, etc) not my cup of tea, im sticking with Heroic at most.
I used to raid mythic for all the cool stuff but now that the catalyst and upgrading heroic stuff gives you the look I can chill out have waaaaaaay more fun in just heroic. I imagine there are a lot of people like that.
Gas is consumed faster in stop and go traffic. Motivated travelers will put in more drive time each day to get to the destination faster, even if they are more tired, so they have more time to enjoy destination.
It is easier to keep a snowball rolling, than to start rolling one that has stopped.
Time gates in games feel like red lights on the main road with no traffic.
Doing the professions feels like someone who spent all day preparing a meal and no one wants to eat it.
Heroic is just too easy
Wish there was a way to see how the world content numbers are. Feels like DF turned a lot of players off, even outside of instanced content, with all the group stuff.
theres far more solo/open world stuff to do now than ever before...
Same! Who knows, perhaps there'll be a way to track Delve participation in 11.0.
You mean you don't like coming in everyday to do dragon race, all the dream and fyrakk stuff? Which on the server I was on the fyrakk stuff was nearly dead.
@@Tantakugames Hes prolly refering to zaralak caverns sure theres a ton of rares and open world stuff to do but good luck without forming a big group so its useless to a solo player.
The world feels very packed to me,as a pvper, I am always finding people to kill
these numbers are more like "how compelling is the lore?", "how good is the class gameplay?", "how overly complicated are the raid boss mechanics?", and "how painful are the weekly chores?"
Could you compare the drop between Heroic and Mythic? Isn't that an indicator that WoW raiding has an issue with raids being easier but you can't do Mythic without dealing with massive logistics changes (from flex raiding to 20man)..etc
Hey friend, I know you don't play it but I bet half of WoW current's player base plays classic in some form. It would be really interesting if you could do a similar comparison for classic to see some data of preferences and player engagement with classic's various systems
It seemed normal when you said "click the sponsor link to let you know that I sent them" at the end, but then my brain froze
No data on classic?:)
As a day one player, ex-hardcore raider gone casual, and a daily player I can honestly say Blizzard has 100% delivered on world content in DragonFlight. Releasing something like Zaralek Caverns or Island of Thunder from MOP at the start of spring or summer IRL makes it hard to play the content. We a player has been trapped inside all winter and sees spring IRL, it's hard to want to play a game based in a dark cavern or a raining island even though the content of both was decent. Forbidden Reach was fun, all the world content is great and well done, the constant gear upgrades, tmorgs, and toys/mounts keep it interesting.
I'm going to change the Name to McWarcraft because Ba da ba ba da I'm Love'in It!
Great, only hardcore WoW raiders left and they are such pleasant people to play with. Makes me so look forward to returning to the Raider IO game... oh sorry WoW Retail.
Tbh Nathria was a real stand out reaid.
All this retail talk. How about classic numbers? Hc wltlk and classic classic? I wonder if there is a way to quantify those after the recent boom on twitch.
I feel like what this data shows, is we're down to the dedicated people who will play wow forever no matter what. No one new, or no playerbase growth at all. Which isn't a diss on the video btw. I actually appreciate the fact you just show numbers. Facts>all
New wow retail player here and i am enjoying questing in this game, really fun experience
How is facerolling everything in your way fun rofl ?
@@jakubpelikan2393 I'm a long time player and its one of my favorite things.. It pays to take ur time and absorb things fully.
Only people left are the addicts and hopium champions like Bellular, who needs the game to do well so he can nab views.
I think what most of this data shows is your hitting the "never gonna quit" portions of the playerbase who say things like df is a win.
The poor Players clinging to delusions, reality is simply to harsh for them to look at.
No one is saying DF is a win, cuz no one's playing it 😂 everyone quit to play FF14 and SW KoTOR and Elder Scrolls Legends. all of them are better games then this piling hot garbage you wow players call a video game
@@bainebloodhoof1140 FF andy's are so sad lol. SO desperate to shit on anyone not enjoying the catgirl erp game
You guys seem so unhappy. Just play your game and have fun over there? DF is a win. @@bainebloodhoof1140
@@OhNoTheFacedon’t even think they’re a FF Andy lol they brought up SWTOR a game that nobody plays it’s a low effort troll
I quit a gew weeks into shadow lands. Dragonflight didnt look promising, and i had almsit no urge to explore the land of metro dragons. Got the free copy with preorder of war within, and have to say it way better than i would have expected. Cleared all the raid content and ran all mythic+ dungeons. What a blast. PvP is in a bad spot, but wow pve is gun rn.
Bellular: "The numbers are showing that WoW is back, boys!"
Meanwhile, me logging into Valdrakken or Stormwind and it's dead.
Just because they are in RIO as doing normal or heroic etc doesn't mean its with their guild. I pugged them.
really hoping the next expac will be a full return to form. i won't lie I fell off because i got tired of grinding the upgrade items by myself. and my friends stopped playing a while ago. although some of my friends say they will return if WoW is added to game pass. ((hoping but not sure that it can be done so easily with certain classes having ALL the buttons. ((mage/Warrior comes to mind.))
Ffxiv classes (jobs) have way more buttons in their rotations and it works fine.
Plus game pass isn’t Xbox only, it’s also on PC
@@James-kv3llbefore anyone complains about the FF comparison just know in this instance this person is bringing up FF’s controller support to say that it probably is possible to get WoW working on controller
@@frosty6845 That’s what I’m saying. Ffxiv job rotations have around 12-15 buttons. They work perfectly fine on controller. WoW class rotations have around 6-9 buttons usually. It wouldn’t be a problem.
WoW on gamepass don’t mean it would have to be on console, league of legends is on gamepass
@@Sp4c3gl1d3r League of Legends is also far more console accessible then wow as it really only has at most five abilities. a call home, and the ability to place a ward. other then that it's just basic movement.
so it would not surprise me if they eventually make it console accessible if it's not already.
Normal should be very easy, it should be something new and casual raiders can experience in full with their friends. It's also a could learning place for people who want to learn how to Tank & Heal raids without any pressure but still some accountability that is lacking in LFR.
Heroic should be the "base" line difficulty and spike considerably since this is where the HotC achievement usually sits. Should require solid understanding of your character and mechanics, require consumables and proper enchants etc.
Mythic should be punishing and difficult and be the chase progression for those who want it. These people should be all very proficient with their class, dedicated to learning over and over on wipes if required or researching all the details from the RWF clears.
There is lfr forc that...
@@aaronjohnson2215 Normal and heroic are already similar-ish in difficulty. Do you want them to basically be the same thing? Or do you want all difficulties to be harder? Because as a mythic raider, that sounds extremely unhealthy for the game. While I appreciate challenging bosses, the data has shown that accessibility is extremely important with player retention.
The people looking for hard content already can just mythic raid and once someone hits CE, they can look to push ranks with it. Raising the skill floor by buffing normal seems pointless.
@@sere971 yes they need to be harder. Hc is too easy and I can't raid mythic because of its restrictions. There are lfr and normal for casual players. And if you insist on retention, then what about me who is bored with hc? Why they don't lift restrictions from mythic so i also stay in game?
@@aaronjohnson2215 You don't learn anything in LFR tho.. its a hot mess, people just run around doing whatever with no accountability.
Normal should be easy enough that people can learn with an actual group and Heroic should be the "Standard" Difficulty for a proper challenging experience.
@@thedoubledoor2055 but it's not a proper challenging experience, that's the problem
This is scewing the numbers to a narrative...
Ngl I came back to PVP but I hoped I could queue for solo rbgs and have that count in the great vault. Arena just isn’t fun to me.
You can get vault from solo
@@nathanbell6962 solo 3v3 arena, not solo rbgs
"Activate Windows" I'm sorry. just can't unsee it XD
You are way too excited about these numbers. Aberrus was SO easy on normal/hc.
so, yea, the players that do still play, tend to complete the raids. however, there's a drastically reduced amount of players even playing the game. should this not be an alarm sign? numbers go down. blizzard has to assume that this trend will continue. they really have to steer this ship around and get players back. my overall impression of blizzcon was that this doesn't just happen with wow, but all of their franchises seemed to have and emphasize on bringing existing players back. which can be quite the challenge in this industry. for me as a player that's a good thing though. that means that innovation is right around the corner. happened already with legion. hope it's going to happen with the next expansion as well. df, as popular as it is with the players that still play the game, it is clear that for the rest of the players it didn't work out so well. and, well, releasing expansions every 18 instead of 24 months certainly helps mitigating the drop in players (and revenue) as well.
Liebkraft, I agree that the amount of overall players is in serious decline. I would just question the video's assumption that Raid retention numbers are in any way relevant to the overall health of the game. The numbers are purposely hidden by Blizzard but every time someone attempts to estimate player distribution, dedicated raiding and pvp combined are always somewhere south of 20% of overall player population. The main theme of BlizzCon23 was that the game needs to support open world and story gamers for the game to get back on track.
This is what they talked about in every presentation, deep dive, interview and panel. "Reconsider old assumptions..." [Hazzikostas] : letting go of some traditions and philosophies that had been ingrained in me by the leaders who taught me about Warcraft design years ago." "Shake off old stubbornness..", "stubbornly holding on to archaic aspects of the game - and it was just out of a sense of tradition.”
most people playing WoW don't raid
New player, can’t wait to be able to jump into this raid
I am fine with a lot of this... but not fine with how it causes classes to get prejudiced against (just like those stupid tier lists people make) because people think they need to run "the one true comp" rather than just having fun... and rather than stay in mythic where they belong, they come to lower content and harass more casual players, which leads to a lot of the toxicity we see (or at least I do).
As an aside, you should have compared this with the data from all the raiding going on in Classic. Partially to prove if it is doing better/worse than retail, but also just to see how people feel about those raids as well, even if it is them being revisited. Those are surely numbers Blizzard will look at that will influence future raids.
I also return to the game. It looks fantastic and i can finally blast keys with my old friends again.
They NEED the fix the autointerrupt macros in PVP. They are wild. It's literally impossible to miss a interrupt with them.
LFR is NOT included in this data correct? as it’s considered a tier below normal?
The data covers Normal, Heroic and Mythic, no LFR
The reward curve and balancing still sucks in WoW. You can have vastly different gearing times solely based on luck on drops and vault choices. Which makes the game not competitive anymore. Until you hit your bingo card. Couple that with just terrible class design where the classes with the most utility don't take a damage penalty for having it, then you end up with only a handful of specs being desirable for M+. FFXIV does endgame raiding so much better than WoW. They really need to add a bad luck protection token. Considering one raid trinket is doing 10k+ more DPS than the best option out of M+ is doing.
The gameplay and QoL stuff that they've been working on is really great, but man... the storytelling and overall vibe of DF is just not doing it for me. I can't really put my finger on it, but it feels like they're writing like Marvel (which is most evident in their "Worldsoul Saga" which is very obviously based on the Marvel Saga idea).
I hope the next expansion returns to the darker and grittier world that made WoW special.
Man seeing the numbers around shadowlands vs Dragonflight is sad. Still disappointed I couldn't get my team to kill Ras on normal.I was so defeated, I dipped out. My son still wants that mount skin and I don't think I can get it.
idk what raid he's playing but Heroic of this new raid is not a huge step up, it's still really really easy, pugs are easily clearing up to T Swift easily.
I'll come back once druid flight and warbands release.
Have to find it funny that you advertise displate who won't deliver to Northern Ireland.
Here is the reality. The facts. According to how many subscribers there are …. The people that raid is 0.375% of players. I just did the math. So it’s really not a metric that matters in any meaningful way.
Source: trust me bro
I wish blizzard would just start posting subscriber numbers again tbh...
What is the closing credits music?
At 3:20 Bellular throws out some percentage increases, but the graphs definitely don't show that. I think the percentage increase is from patch 9.2 to 10.0, not 9.1 to 10.0 as shown.
I think one big point, at least for me was, that 10.1 came right before summer and I would rather hang out with my friends outside, than on the computer.
Yeah, the reason why is more player playing the raid because it is much cheaper when you do the boost
If you even out the Covid chart wow is essentially flatlined since 8.0. Not growing not shrinking
wasn't anduin nerfed more than the jailer? by like a couple pages of notes more??
pvp is horrible because devs keep catering to pve players and changing stuff so quickly and often but neglecting pvp so much it needs to be redesigned or seperated from pve design maybe pvp talent trees or something
Wow is not fixed in any way. Have they added good things sure. Not enough tho. Especially for the pvp community. And as usual it's still a fotm game where they break a class and everyone suffers the toxicness of it. Takes away the game of skill.
Unfortunately any PvP in any game these days is ruined by cheaters. I don't even bother anymore. I used to LOVE wow pvp
I still feel that what's happening is an increasingly higher portion of dedicated WoW players over time as others quit. At least in terms of raiding. While I wouldn't say DF is bad, it's definitely kinda dull an uninteresting.. uninspired in my opinion. There will always be some portion of players who will play it regardless or others that enjoy the current mobile game style gameplay. I think they need to step up their game and innovate the game as an mmorpg to truly attract players back. Too early to tell if War Within is on the right path for that, but the Alt friendly stuff at least sounds good so far.
How is the gameplay like a mobile game? Have you played WoW ever? Wtf lol
Ok FF player
@@wm1573 ???
DF was Blizzards attempt to stabilize WoW after the back-to-back shitshows of BFA and Shadowlands. It may be dull in comparison to the past, but it definitely put the game on sufficient life support til The War Within.
@wm1573 funny how you FF haters are still around even though FF is responsible for literally any improvement in WoW, be it for Blizzard despair in competing with it or copying features that works there.
its commical because the clear rates are extremly innacurate, i know i personal bought clears on my alts / mains due tot he content just not being fun, and i know many who did the same, so none of these #'s are accurate since mists when buying clears blew up and became popular in warlords.
3:40 Work disruptions from transitioning to wfh probably was the main reason for the lack of responsiveness.
Say no to Apexis crystals or what ever they call them these days... Blizzard: Get some seeds, no, not those green seeds because you need a thousand of them, get those purple seeds that rarely drop, so you have to play 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to get some. One man's Apexis crystals are another man's seed or what ever the 4uck they change that disease name to... Pass, I'll just do Mythic and Raid thanks... Just give me an ilvl item with out the "you have to do this to get that which allows you to do upgrade so you have to play 12 hours a day 7 days a week if you want to Raid BS!". Just let me Raid...
Classic and HC driving players back
I’m just ready for SoD
thanks for calling attention to the pvp issues! from a pvp paul
Seems like copium when we say: Yay! We are losing players at a slower rate than previously....lol
Losing players to FF14 the better game, go play ff14 its honestly unbeliable how fucking masterful that game is omg. Like playing w*w feels like eating shit ocmpared to that. But then again playing wow altogether fels like shit amirite 😂
@@bainebloodhoof1140 Yes, play the PS3 graphics game with furries and non-account wide mounts.
@bainebloodhoof1140 bro just go play wtv u want, the wierdos that sit on every comment section hate parading need a life
@@bainebloodhoof1140 lil bro is a asmon stan hahahah
You're not very familiar with economics are you? 😂
I wanna know who died raiding because they like and want to do it and those who do it because they want gear and have to do it because story quest requires it
Dragonflight has been one of the better expansion and the announcement of where we are going sounds great.
Dragonflight is good. But it's going to take more than one good expansion for WOW to be redeemed. Blizzard burned absolutely all their goodwill for cash, and people aren't going to magically trust them again after one good expansion. It will take time. They basically have to rebuild the brand from scratch. Dragonflight seems to be, at least, retaining those that are playing it, which is a good sign. But the numbers are not anywhere near where WOW used to be, nor will they be for some time. It has to grow again, and they absolutely cannot screw up again.
I'd just like to know what % of the overall playerbase even do normal/heroic raiding, or M+.
these numbers are mainly the top 10% users playing mains and alts lmfao
I've followed the M+ data from week to week via RIO and I can talk about this for hours.
DF S1 and S2 were phenomenal compared to Shadowlands. And S3 is just crazy in terms of participation so far.
ok my question i dont care about PVE stuff-.- i dont wana do it and i got a lot of gold -.- so if i want something i just say here ya go i go afk and watch berserk until its done
what about pvp and the pvp numbers?
thats the only mode i care about actually
Thank you bellular ❤
new raid is so easy its kinda boring
I'm sure it is easy... on normal.
As long as there is like 200%+ DPS difference between boss-tailored talents and rotation vs whatever you like without any proc tracking add-ons then I am not raiding. Been there, done that, now I'm tired of it and it's not fun anymore, it's just bad game design catering to the top 5-10% (at best). Even that gameplay footage Bellular has in the background is just awful, you can't see shit in there, you are just looking at numbers and shiny edges of weakauras scattered across your character...now I just want to see my character do stuff and have fun.