Since this is one of my main topics regarding my ingame activity I’ll share my agreements and also disagreements:
Drop Chances + Lack of skips + Movement Speed:
In my opinion the first causes the need for the second and third and at some point you have to ask yourself (adding in legacy buffs) if you just want to insta-port to whatever boss (mostly the last one) and one-shot it so you can roll on another 1% drop. It is this combination of the 3 which creates the current legacy farming situation. At what point is it just about getting everything asap? And then moving forward: Why not one-shot everything in BFA once SL came out? Or the xpac’s first raid once it’s outdated?
Over time soloing old content turned from something organic (outleveling/gearing, except some non-soloable mechanics) into running for more and more 1% mount drops and starting with 4.3 getting all the transmog. 6.0 heavily trivialised it and set a new standard for the 2nd to last xpac farm. Given the current Legion situation you could argue that doubling the legacy buff for that is closer to the originial factors (16 resp. 25 with 6.0).
The most prominent aspect has to be the “1% roll farming” at this point. Leaving MC and BWL aside most of the class/armor type gear drops within the first 5-10 runs and after that it is just waiting for those 2-6 (resp. 9 in Legion) mount/cosmetic drops per xpac. You might aswell add the 5man mount drops since cataclysm to that list. Given a basic 1% drop chance (some are a bit higher) expecting an average of 100 runs to get all of this was fine years ago when the list of things was short and especially your time of the week was less dedicated to managing your borrowed power acquisition (maybe also across multiple alts). By now the relative amount of items that is this rare is still similar but the absolute amount has gotten quite big for those new to the cosmetics grind or those who just didn’t get lucky enough during the time the specific instances where current content.
So the question solely regarding drop chance is:
Should it still be this 1% grind after all those years?
Close to 90% of all runs spend in an old raid/instance are solely done because of 1 item. And since I am already on this spicy topic:
Why are MoP world boss mounts still at 0,1% drop chance with a respawn timer of 15 minutes when in BFA we get a belated world boss mount drop with a decent chance but also a 2 minute respawn timer?
I’ve heard from fellow mount farming colleagues that they are at 8000+ kills on at least one of those bosses which amounts to several months of ingame time just waiting for respawns.
There have been suggestions for bad luck protection or straight up increased drop chances for years. From my personal experience I’ve seen the Yogg+0 Mount drop on the same char twice within 2 weeks but also not drop for almost exactly 4 years (june 2017 - june 2021). There has to be a more reasonable consensus when it comes to this especially since the amount of 100s of runs you can accumulate has gotten quite big by now.
Another way to lessen these efforts is of course: More Skips!
Pain points per xpac/raid from my personal experience:
Vanilla
MC: given speed utility/gear this is a fine 10 minute run for all of it. Clearing the raid once should allow for a permanent option to directly spawn Ragnaros.
BWL: Afaik there is a skip gate after the 2nd boss that was always planned to open once you have progressed past it. That short-cut leaves out the entire supression room. Without that one - or gambling on still being hit with the super knockback from the former trash groups up to the next level - you can clean the entire raid in next to no time.
AQ Temple: You can port forward once certain bosses have been defeated in the current run, this could also be permanent given you have cleared it before.
TBC
T4 and T5 are “fine”. I Haven’t done Karazhan in a while regarding the 2nd entrance post theatre. Is that still functioning?
Mount Hyjal: The first 2 bosses are dead within 2 minutes of entering the instance! Why do Boss 3 & 4 take 10+ minutes to get through their waves? Maybe allow for a perma taunt for the entire trash to be activated by the player. That way all that trash that is fighting aross the map will at least get to the player and not the other way around. Another option would of course be permanent access to the individual sections in the portal room.
Black Temple: You can port past Akama and the Council once you’ve killed them making most of the instance rather quick to access. Once again: Clear it once → perma-use the skip from the get-go.
Sunwell: is “fine” since you can mount up and just rush through most of it. If it were about targeting the Bow a port past the Twins or Mu’ru would help a lot.
Wrath
Naxxramas: Is quite accessable by now, but: Options to shorten/insta spawn all waves on Gothic (4mins) & Kel’Thuzad (2.5 mins) would remove any other waiting point in the entire run.
Ulduar: There once was a (intended?) change that made it possible to use the teleporter right from the start and get far into the raid before having to kill (afaik) the 4 watchers to access the last 2 bosses. Once Ulduar became a Timewalking raid that got “fixed”. Maybe allow it once again to be used permanently (up to Yogg/General) after having done an entire run in legacy mode.
ToC: Skip the heroic speeches. We’ve heard them all before. There is an NPC to further the instance in general, maybe add the options in that dialogue window.
ICC: There is already a teleporter. Finishing the raid once should allow to use it freely. Currently it’s a close to 20 minute run to get to the one thing everybody wants from the Lich King.
Cataclysm
Tier 11: It’s “fine”. This could still turn into a rant about disabling gliders in all PvE instances instead of limiting that to just those done in Mythic+ mode. Gliding down from the elevator ramp to right before Chimaeron feels great!
Firelands: You can use a skip up to Majordomo once you’ve killed him. Having that accessable from the start would help a lot. Triggering Shannox (~160 trash mob kills) feels like half of the raid length.
Dragon Soul: The first 4 bosses just fly by (<5 mins). Then everything grinds to a halt:
- Either allow a skip past the pre-Ultraxion event or skip it in general (3-4 mins).
- The Warmaster fight is still solid 3 minutes of 90% thumb twisting.
- Finishing spine in under 4 minutes is still world record worthy.
These 3 factors make up 50-60% of the raid duration. Players want to get to Ultraxion resp. Madness of Deathwing quicker. The portals exist once you progress. Making those a permanent access via skips would preserve the spectacle of it all.
MoP
Tier 14: It’s “fine” for the most part. After clearing you can skip within MSV towards the 4 kings room. A skip option at Lorewalker Cho would be the most beneficial solution.
ToT: Access to Horridon is rather quick. The bridge cinematic is still not skippable but avoidable by jumping down next to the bridge. You can re-enter the raid prior to the run towards Ji-kun after defeating Megaera. Here would be a good spot for skipping via NPC dialogue. Another fitting option would be right before Iron Qon.
Siege: The Shaman set from the Kor’kron encounter and the mount+shoulders from Garrosh are rare and desired. Skipping right in front of the gates (past Galakras) and at least past Malkorok (there is a teleporter to get out already) would help a lot. But since the last part of the raid is all about running, the spot prior to accessing the Klaxxi or even past those would be a good solution. And regarding the Klaxxi: The spawn of at least 2 of the 9 is still bugged after almost 9 years.
In general this raid takes the cake in terms of runtime without any skips. Even with almost 70% extra baseline runspeed and regular extra boosts around 30-70% my warrior still needs almost 40 minutes to end up at Garrosh.
WoD
It’s “fine”. Highmaul always had good access (2 minutes of RP at the start aside), BRF is a good loop design. HFC is a good example of skip placements in general.
If I had to mention something it would be Blast Furnace getting a nerf for the required bombs for a few weeks some time ago that then again got reverted? Why?
Legion
No major issues here since skips were a given at the time.
BFA
Quite inconsistent and this topic will become more prominent next expansion.
In general
All these suggestions are about using what’s already in the game or at least having efficient access to most bosses without turning it into a port-fiesta across the entire instance. It is one way of getting around faster.
The other topic would be: Runspeed
There have been suggestions around not nerfing speed food or certain items. But all of those options always required trash to be killed for uptime - there are many empty sections in raids though - or the ability to use certain pieces of gear that are locked behind grind (essence for the heart) or restricted to certain classes (Baron sword, Legion plate legendary boots).
It would be nice to turn these (in part removed) requirements into basics activated by the legacy buff. Examples:
- Instead of having to carry that bufffood why not add 10-20% permanent runspeed to the legacy buff once the player has learned to make that food?
- The access to the Ripple in Space essence is currently more like an arranged beatdown for progress since BFA WM pvp has ended the moment SL started. 5% are quite beneficial, maybe adjust the requirements to a long term regular participation in PvP.
- Aggramar’s Stride or also the Longstrider trait from Azerite gear were/are quite effective. Refarming/carrying this gear around is a bit tedious. Since Aggramar exists as a raid boss: Why not grant players defeating him (solo? any difficulty) the access to a permanent runspeed buff in legacy content? This encounter had a major focus on movement, why not reward that?
- Same could be done with Baron Rivendare. Instead of carrying the sword you get a benefit from defeating him.
With options like these you would create a content & reward system around engaging with legacy content for benefits within the system itself. There have been suggestions for a Vision/Torghast-like talent tree but tying this directly to specific Bosses/RPG elements would make it more cohesive. Making this accountwide should be a given.
How much speed boost is enough? At some point any extra percent doesn’t remove that much more seconds from a run anyway.
So in conclusion:
There has to be a compromise for legacy content in general when it comes to 3 points.
- Are 1% drops still reasonable given the amount of chances and effort?
- Where are skips effective and fitting (use & implementation) within each raid?
- How fast - kill speed as well as movement - should players progress in general?
personal footnote:
If you have problems in Legion legacy raids in terms of HPS: Get the leech trinket from the Maldraxxus mixture rares (east of Seat of the Primus). If it drops it always has the leech bonus. In Legion you do 8x the damage therefore any kind of leech is also much much stronger. Another example of targetable gear suited for legacy content done right.