The Twitch streamer Asmongold is actually known for his streams of World of Warcraft. However, he has switched to the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. With this, he has achieved record numbers on Twitch and created a boom for Final Fantasy XIV on Steam. Now the streamer with the expressive eyebrows has a tip for Blizzard, which 2 features from Final Fantasy XIV would make his old MMORPG better.
This is a problem with WoW that Asmongold sees: In an interview with Dexerto, WoW expert Asmongold talks about a major difference between World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV has the overall better community:
“Blizzard is notorious for not being able to deal with nasty people. This leads the regular players to become upset. Very normal, balanced, reasonable people turn into a community that is increasingly hostile to outsiders, even to women.”
Feature 1: Clearly mark new players
What could Blizzard do about it? Asmongold sees 2 things that Final Fantasy XIV does right:
On one hand, Final Fantasy XIV has a small marker next to the name of a new player, a leaf symbol:
“I think often people are just harsh to someone they don’t even know is new. But if they knew, they would show more understanding for him.”
Feature 2: Let players respawn at the boss in raid
On the other hand, Asmongold believes WoW punishes failure in raids with bosses too harshly:
“The penalty for a loss in a raid is another thing. If you die at a boss in Final Fantasy XIV, the respawn is usually right at the boss, and you can actually continue right there and pull the boss again. In WoW, you have to run back and waste a lot of time, and whenever you waste your time, it leads to a much more toxic relationship.”
According to Asmongold, Blizzard simply needs a few new ideas for WoW right now. In his view, many players wish for this: There is just too little innovation in WoW, the developers don’t know what the players want.
The current state of Shadowlands contributes to the bad mood: The expansion simply offers too little content and wastes players’ time. The story quality has dropped significantly throughout the expansion. According to Asmongold, the story at the beginning of Shadowlands was at its peak but then fell to a low point during the expansion.
MeinMMO’s house succubus Cortyn sees this aspect differently than Asmongold.
Could what Asmongold suggests actually work? The two changes Asmongold proposes would certainly be easy and straightforward to implement.
The little “Corpse Run” you have to do after every wipe in WoW really feels outdated today – it feels like punishing the player for their failure. Some “old school raiders” surely welcome this penalty (“Raiding has to be hard so you can really enjoy the victory”), but wasting time can actually lead to frustration.
Typically, toxic behavior in WoW occurs especially when playing with “outsiders,” as Asmongold says: You rarely raid for progress and die 50 times in one evening.
The suggestion of the “New Player” symbol or at least a “First time in this dungeon” symbol is really good, though. Especially if this symbol is still connected with an EXP bonus for the others in a group, it could really be an important change for WoW.
A similar path is what League of Legends once took: The idea of rewarding players for “good behavior” apparently works better than punishing them for “bad behavior.”
You can read about Asmongold’s incredible success with Final Fantasy XIV here:
The biggest WoW streamer on Twitch cheats his MMORPG, becoming the top 1
