It seems that the team wants to prevent certain RNG spawns/factors hindering players finishing the meta achievement:
The Forgotten Proto-Vault in Zereth Mortis no longer requires the World Quest “Frog’it” to appear.
Another large problem lies within the Abonimation Factory Sub-Meta which is part of the Covenant feature Achievement Shadowlands Dilettante.
The parts for Venthyr, Night Fae and Kyrian are rather trivial. Meanwhile the one for Necrolords (Things to do when you’re dead) takes several weeks to unlock + getting the right quests. Pretty uneven. You need almost if not 100 superior parts to craft all the NPCs and certain items but also at least 4 weeks to get all the quests done IF the NPCs with 3-4 different quests give you the right ones or rather no doubles each week.
Crafting all the items also takes hours of getting the required materials.
I started finishing up 2 weeks ago and as long as absolute worst RNG doesn’t mess it up I should be fine but the comparative effort that this one covenant needs outperforms the other 3 multiple times.
I know that it’s tough to find an equivalent replacement since all AVs based around this covenant feature are rather grind heavy but maybe reduce the required amount for each of the 3 Necrolord grind AVs (X out of 31 quests, X out of 16 crafted Abos etc). You’ve made similar changes to RNG heavy quest/event collection metas in the past. And you already only need 25 out of 35 crafted fashion accessories for Wardrobe Makeover.
I agree, the abomination factory part of the Dilettante achievement is more involved, more timegated, and more dependent on RNG than the other three.
I’ve also experienced some frustration that many of the achievements required for the meta are not account wide. I played a different main in every Season of Shadowlands, and as a result I’ve got partial progress spread over a lot of different characters.
I ended up having to finish the Maw achievements on my Season 1 character, who was undergeared, when I would much rather have finished the rares I was missing with my current main. I’ve also got like 100 superior parts wasting away on alts who cannot mail them to my main who is doing the abomination factory achievements.
I’m also going to have to choose between starting the Torghast achievements from scratch on my geared main or going back to an Season 2 or 3 character with a lot of partial progress but low item level.
Small update and basically proof why the criticism is valid:
Last week I was 6 quests away from finishing “Abominable Lives”.
This week I am still 6 quests away from finishing “Abominable Lives”.
This can and might go on for the next few weeks.
This is terrible design and a terrible requirement decision for an Achievement.
Meanwhile I could finish the entire Kyrian meta requirement within 2-3 hours before Veilstrider is no longer obtainable.
Honestly I had the same issue with the necrolord quest. I had bad rng a lot and calculated that I would not have enough time to complete the meta achievement anymore and disengaged from it completely.
Idk why this achievement is going away in DF too. It has a potential to keep SL somewhat evergreen for achievement hunters.
Just let people get the achievement post-SL and keep it the same I don’t understand why they do stuff like this. Why induce the anxiety in the playerbase when there is no reason to, it’s not like these systems are going to disappear.
I could make the same argument for KSM Mounts of each expac, Ahead of the Curve Mounts, Gladiator Mounts, etc.
This is meant to be an outdoor player reward for playing during SL. Unless you are also advocating for all limited time rewards, including AOTC, KSM, etc. to not go away, please stop trying to take away the same limited time feats from outdoor players.
Raiders and M+ers always say well, “It’s not meant for you, it’s not the part of the game you focus on” - well, shoe’s on the other foot now. The feat was aimed at outdoor players who have had 2 years to do this achievement. Not at people who don’t do the content.
Just like if I started a journey for KSM today, there’s a much smaller chance I’d complete it than compared to if I started when the season started. This is no different. The only difference is one is RNG based, which I think forcibly putting the Abom Factory quests on a rotation for the remaining weeks would go a long way to fix, but that’s about as far as I think it should be changed. (I even think replacing the quest achievement with “Craft every abomination” would be fine. But outright removing the Abom Factory requirement would be insulting. It’d be like removing an entire dungeon from KSM requirement.) You had 2 years to do those quests. Just like I’ve had months to do KSM if I cared about it.
I’d have zero problem if they kept the achievement available, as long as the reward, Veilstrider, was limited time.
I would much rather they stop adding limited time anything, and that includes all the mounts I mentioned, but while they still do it, I’m going to advocate for fair and equal treatment of outdoor players and their content.
you could say that as an opinion but they still ask for timegating to be removed so they can do something that is pointlessly extended and random. The skill level for those things is vastly different than getting RNG from a quest
Please do not talk down to the content other players do. Intentional or not, it is insulting those players.
Which would be exactly the same thing if we asked that they remove the time limit on the KSM/Etc. mounts. It’s still timegating to require us to get them before a certain point.
I think the point is being missed. The relevancy for the achievement being RNG to unlock and removed when next expansion launches does not change that the NPC doesnt want to reward the quest. This has nothing to do with the ability of the player or the time it takes if the quest is only available because the RNG machine has decided not to make it available. its timegating to force more playtime because to obtain this they would have to log in and hope it is up instead of playing the actual game. No amount of skill can force the quest to be up.
For me the frustration is that I’ve put hours and hours into trying to earn this Veilstrider achievement. For example, since my Torghast progress was spread among four different characters and progress is not account-wide, I’ve had to do the Tower Ranger achievement starting from scratch on my main, who at least has good gear.
I’m grinding out a couple of 16 Torghast runs per day for no purpose–I certainly don’t need the currency at this point and I already have most of the cosmetics–except to progress Tower Ranger for Veilstrider.
But in the end, whether I get Veilstrider or not will come down to RNG. If the quests I need for Abominable Lives come up for me (we get one spawn of these quests per week so it’s not something I can grind), I will get it. If not, I’ll have put in all this effort for no reward.
Raiders and M+ers always say well, “It’s not meant for you, it’s not the part of the game you focus on” - well, shoe’s on the other foot now. The feat was aimed at outdoor players who have had 2 years to do this achievement. Not at people who don’t do the content.
Why are you so aggressive? Why do you think you’re the only outdoor player with an opinion that matters? I’m an outdoor player too. I’ve had this achievement for over a year. View my character if you don’t think I do outdoor content, I’ve done it all. And I stand by my opinion.
You know what, based on the quests I got today for Abominable Lives, I think it’s not random. I think it’s a rotation. Every construct that I had an unfinished quest for gave me a brand new quest this week. Either I got seriously lucky or it’s a fixed rotation.
My guildie who started a week earlier than I did got all the quests he needed this week and finished the achievement. If it is fixed and not RNG, I’ll finish it next week.
Maybe a short term hotfix because comments from a few months ago mentioned quests not spawning for months.
Edit:
After this weeks reset all 6 missing quests showed up. Either an indicator for a personalised priority, sheer luck with a fixed rotation or incredible luck with RNG. Looks more like first or second.
I do think there is a place for outdoor content to have an expansion-locked achievement like Veilstrider. I think there is merit to that stance. I will look back on my Veilstrider journey (and trust me I’ve done it all beyond Veilstrider too) with a similar fondness to my CEs and KSMs and keystone portals.
However, I don’t think that invalidates Abom Factory RNG issues. I agree that the Chordy requirement for weeklies is extremely disproportionate with the other 3 covenants and probably warrants a little protection. It took me awhile back when I did it, in the 9.1.5 era. The other 3 are more-or-less guaranteed in a few weeks, but not Chordy’s weeklies.
I don’t understand why they do stuff like this. Why induce the anxiety in the playerbase when there is no reason to, it’s not like these systems are going to disappear.