At World of Warcraft there is a discussion about whether WoW has become too difficult for “normal” players. Blizzard’s president Mike Ybarra believes that Twitch streamer Asmongold’s criticism of WoW comes from his inability to succeed in heroic and mythic raids. The Twitch streamer, who has not raided for 7 years, responds to this.
This was the situation:
- The Twitch streamer Maximum, a World-First-Raider, watched a video by Asmongold in which he spoke about the situation of WoW (Why World of Warcrafts Needs a Reset). In the video, Asmongold demanded that Blizzard completely redesign WoW in the next 3 expansions and streamline it.
- Suddenly, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra appeared in the streamer’s chat and said: “The problem is that he cannot successfully raid Mythic and Heroic.” This is an accusation that many players make against Asmongold: the most famous critic of WoW does not participate in high-level raids, so he is not an expert and cannot contribute to the discussion.
- Twitch streamer Maximum shared this criticism: Asmongold plays too little WoW and is no longer up to date. Asmongold has a “doom-and-gloom” audience that believes everything he says, which gives him an extreme amount of self-confidence: however, he is often wrong in his views.
The criticism from the Blizzard chief prompted Asmongold to respond, who justified himself. More about Asmongold:
Asmongold says: Raids in WoW have become too hard since 2010
What does Asmongold say about this? Asmongold fundamentally agrees with the allegations. If you play too little WoW, you lose touch. But even if you play WoW as a job, you can no longer relate to the perspective of the average player. Because the average player does not play WoW that much.
Ultimately, everyone has their views and one is as good as the other.
Asmongold believes that raids in WoW have become too difficult for most “normal players” since Cataclysm (2010):
- During Wrath of the Lich King (2008), groups for Heroic runs were constantly being sought in the trade chat on his then server.
- With Cataclysm, the search for random groups in chat stopped: raiding in a random group became too difficult from then on.
- Even his mother suddenly stopped raiding in WoW with Cataclysm because it had become too difficult.
According to Asmongold, WoW players at that time also began approaching the increasingly difficult raids with increasingly sophisticated addons.
As Asmongold explains, the steadily increasing difficulty of the raids is a visible problem for Blizzard: because participation in raids statistically continues to decline. WoW Hardcore is now a reaction to the fact that hardly anyone wants to play the new, difficult raids.
Asmongold assures: he has no problem with Mike Ybarra and does not take the criticism personally. In fact, he likes the man.
Why did Asmongold stop raiding? Asmongold says his main reason for stopping raiding 7 years ago was that the raids and the raid preparations conflicted with his Twitch stream. When he had to handle guild and raid items, he had to turn off or mute the stream, which bored his viewers and ultimately harmed his stream.
Today, he does not want to invest time in raiding anymore because raids do not feel rewarding: every 4 months, a raider has to renew their gear, which devalues it.
How does Asmongold perceive his criticism? The streamer presents himself in the video as notably humble and says he is willing to change his opinion if someone provides him with convincing data that contradicts his views. He states that he strives to articulate his criticism based on data and is willing to reconsider.
But at the moment, Asmongold seems to maintain the view that the “hard raids” in WoW are made for too few players and that he enjoyed raiding during the Wrath of the Lich King much more than now.
More about Asmongold’s relationship with Blizzard:
Twitch: The fiercest critic of Blizzard is upset that they do not book him for advertising
