Blizz 8.3 Response to Essence Grind

[Sacrodruid-frostmourne]

It sucks if your BiS are the rep grind ones, but unless you are really on the bleeding edge it’s strong enough

You must be joking. Or an idiot.

The healing essences, outside of the rep ones and lucid dreams, are USELESS. In most cases you may as well not have an essence equipped.

The only exceptions are essences like vision of perfection and conflict, which are locked behind 4 week minimum grinds.

Oh and come Nyalotha the mechagon dps essence is going to be pretty much mandatory considering most of the bosses are aberrations.

[Dondon-malganis]

If i said simple instead of easy would it make you feel better? When people refer to vanilla or even bc as being harder, they aren’t referring to how challenging the content is (some do, we call those people idiots), it’s that everything is time gated by long grinds. As far as the essences being “easy” to get, sure, the activities are very easy, it just takes a while.

I was agreeing with you. I do think that gear itself is a lot easier and faster to obtain which makes it less rewarding, but essences aren’t a good answer for that.

We used to wait patiently for gear on alts, sometimes not getting a piece for weeks, but people aren’t waiting patiently for essences, they’re just bothering.
Character progression needs to come from content that we decide we want to participate in. Just like how it worked in 8.1.

[Angeliqe-skullcrusher]

The problem with 8.1 was the same as it would be now if essences weren’t that grind though. I would literally log in, see if my friends were on, if they were run some mythics, if not I’d just log or level my millionth alt or work on legion pathfinder or farm transmogs etc. Yes, those are more fun than some of the activities we’re doing but it doesn’t progress my character any and there will be a point where i just log in, see no one is online and then log back off and play something else. I like wow. I want to play wow. Spending too much time not physically progressing my character doesn’t keep me playing though. They design these things so that you will be able to keep yourself busy until the next patch cycle drops, and even if gear dropped slower there’s still only so many mythics or even mythic raids you can do until you’re just absolutely topped out. Even on alts. This slows that progression down and i know you guys don’t think that’s a good thing but personally i don’t play an mmo to feel like I’ve beaten the game.

[Vaelian-moon-guard]

I think for alts they should do what Nazjatar Essences do and just make it so after you complete your first R3 every other essence for every other spec or on a alt has it’s costs reduced by 67%, so say once you unlock the 30k honor essence, 3.3k honor gets rank 2, 10k honor is needed to get r3 etc. Same with reps, but take it down further and say put exalted and revered essences at honored.

[Mafic-emerald-dream (Mafic)]

That would be the smart thing to do.

But patch 8.3 is going to hit the live servers and players will be rightfully upset.

[Yesuna-wyrmrest-accord]

But patch 8.3 is going to hit the live servers and players will be rightfully upset.

Let’s be honest, players will be outraged at about 4 dozen different things during 8.3. It doesn’t matter what happens or doesn’t happen in 8.3 there will still be outraged players insanely mad at Blizzard about things. These players will feel that they are rightfully upset and that Blizzard wronged them somehow.

[Marshmellowg-shattered-hand]

I have 1 of every class too, most of which are geared enough to do the majority of the content the game has to offer. But they are alts. I don’t expect them to do what my main can do with no effort. Character progression through gear alone is pointless when you can go from dinging 120 to having a 420+ilvl in a day.

However this is not the full story. I disagree with the notion that gear progression is completely dead.

If you have a group of geared players to feed you gear yes you can get an ok item level quickly but you will quickly also find that there are limits to this. Weekly loot limits to be specific. For M+ you are limited by the amount of keys you get done and if the gear drops that you need. Furthermore secondary stats, gem slots, bis rings and bis trinkets are still very hard to come by and can have drastic changes in power which makes them a grind on their own that can last weeks/months.

420 is not much considering I ended BOD with 415 item level and we get 415 gear from emissaries from this season.

Getting to 440+ with BIS trinkets, rings and azerite traits with level 67+ neck is still a grind. Its also challenging and therefore engaging.

Essences have no challenge and all grind. I would prefer to grind out those essences as a currency via any content I want to do instead of the content Blizz tells me to do. The content they currently have for it is so boring that forcing me to do it over and over again instead of logging in to play what I enjoy is just feeding my disdain of Blizzard.

Character progression via gear worked for what 15 years? Now that they made changes to this via essences its only natural for people to be upset and voice what they dislike about it. For me its the fact that I cannot use the precious few hours of gaming to be entertained and do what I enjoy because Blizzard says they like to see me fall asleep in front of my computer for $15/month.

[Pawsitivîty-area-52-827268]

They should skip the middle man and on day 1 of the new patch give every character rank 1 essences.
if they want more, got to grind for it but atleast there not horribly gimped

[Mohamedaleaf-emerald-dream]

Boggles my mind that they aren’t account wide on ptr. It’s turning players away.

If it was challenging or fun to regrind for essences people would do it. But it’s not. That’s blizzards fault. So blizzard should make em account wide.

[Thornado-incendius]

no you are for doing the grind…lol

player grinding equals player engagement and keeps them subbed.

[Paeldryth-hyjal (Paeldryth)]

Leaving BFA in the dumps will make 9.0 seem better. A masterful strategy.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

We’ve lost a lot more players due to the game becoming easy and unrewarding than we have from from grinds

[citation needed]

the subscriber count from launch to mop can tell you that

Funny how the sub count literally always proves exactly whatever everyone wants it to prove

Your claim doesn’t make sense because the game is much harder now than it was in MOP. So by your own idiotic reasoning the exact opposite of what you are claiming is true.

[Tentaclatrix-kelthuzad (Tentaclatrix)]

Considering the massive amount of crying over essences, when in essence, it’s the only grind because gear and neck level are basically handed to you in this game…Of course it’s not enough, people want 445+ ilvl, level 70 neck, and rank 3 essences handed to them on a silver platter when they log in.

This guy gets it.

Apparently alts should simply be secondary mains according to this community.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

If i said simple instead of easy would it make you feel better? When people refer to vanilla or even bc as being harder, they aren’t referring to how challenging the content is (some do, we call those people idiots), it’s that everything is time gated by long grinds.

Nothing in TBC was time gated by long grinds. You got gear from killing raid bosses. The end.

Your arguments can’t even reflect basic reality.

There has never been a time in the game’s history where BIS gear was locked behind a 2 month rep grind. 8.2 is literally the first time it’s ever happened.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

Let’s be honest, players will be outraged at about 4 dozen different things during 8.3. It doesn’t matter what happens or doesn’t happen in 8.3 there will still be outraged players insanely mad at Blizzard about things.

Really edgy stuff but players have every right to be outraged over a system that basically gimps alts and gates being effective in PVE behind a 2 month rep grind.

It’s just totally stupid and you need to accept that sometimes systems are just bad.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

player grinding equals player engagement and keeps them subbed.

Or, players come back when 8.3 hits, see the grind is still there, and their character won’t be competitive in PvE until they spend 2 months grinding essences. So they just log off and don’t bother logging back in again until 9.0.

They should skip the middle man and on day 1 of the new patch give every character rank 1 essences.
if they want more, got to grind for it but atleast there not horribly gimped

You’re still horribly gimped with rank 1.

They need give everyone rank 3, or even better just abolish the entire system. But giving everyone rank 3 for a nominal price at a vendor is the minimum that is needed to have 8.3 not be a massive failure.

People just are not going to come back from their breaks if the essence grind is still there. All those people who have quit until 8.3 will simply not come back.

[Tentaclatrix-kelthuzad (Tentaclatrix)]

Nothing in TBC was time gated by long grinds. You got gear from killing raid bosses. The end.

Are players still under the illusion that one raid per week isn’t the original, and biggest time gate of all?

I’ve been telling people this game is a trap all the way back in 2005.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

Are players still under the illusion that one raid per week is isn’t the original, and biggest time gate of all?

It’s not though. Sorry you don’t understand what time gate means.

In TBC you could have full T6 gear in a single week if your raid decided to funnel you gear.

You didn’t have to spend 2 months grinding rep to be able to loot it.

[Tentaclatrix-kelthuzad (Tentaclatrix)]

Only it is. Lmao, imagine having a whole guild always ready to funnel you a whole set.

[Thornado-incendius]

retail wow is about artificial goal posts moving forward that dont matter the the entire expansion.you can pretty much play on launch day then not log in until the last patch and yep that same artificial grind that doesnt mean anything is there.