First impressions matter and are long lasting. Siren Isle patch released with many bugs. Undermine released with many bugs. Now this patch has many bugs. Not getting a reward after logging in patch day from Nightfall? That is going to be remembered and taint the feature in the players mind.
As a player I do not know what the underlying issue is but can only guess. Is the developer timeline too strict? It seems set that overall as a company Blizzard wants to get this patch cadences to be consistent while also having developers work on releasing future expansions faster.
But I ask: is it worth it? If the patches leave bad first impressions then isn’t pushing patches at this schedule forced and defeat the purpose? The purpose of making players enjoy the game. This patch could, and in my opinion should, have been delayed. It feels like upper management wanting to have their cake and eat it too frankly. Content released in the patch shouldn’t be delayed more than 1-2 weeks. if horrific visions aren’t set to release until a month after the patch then just don’t release the patch for a couple of weeks and instead have bug fixes. Please, do not stick to a patch schedule for the sake of a strict schedule.
There should have been stress testing for Nightfall. Having it be open for set amount of hours at specific times to funnel players to recreate what an actual patch launch would be like. If the PTR had that I feel like at least some of the issues we are experiencing now could have been found sooner.
Feedback for patches feel like its being reacted to slowly. Undermine rep for the specific cartels was mentioned to be slow from PTR and at 11.1 launch. It got buffed by a massive 100% in the latest patch. Having to buff by 100% is missing the mark by a lot.
I worry that too many devs are being pulled and being set to work on Midnight to get it out sooner. It makes me worried for the rest of the Worldsoul saga if it is constantly going to be trying to get patches out and putting out fires that could have been avoided if just a little more time was taken. There are still current issues like the drop rate of Miscellaneous Mechanica that still have not been addressed and it feel like as a player i have to hope for wowhead to make an article to gain traction before it is looked at.
I don’t expect a patch to come out with zero bugs. I always expect some bugs, but the patches in the War Within so far have not been at the appropriate level they should have been on their launches. Please give developers a little more time. The content that there is looks good but again, first impressions matter.