Plunderstorm is here

[Aero-kargath]

It’s been a day and I’ve played up to renown four so here’s what I think so far.

I don’t have much experience in the BR genre. It’s not my preferred type of game in general. The closer-quarters type of combat is more interesting to me than something like a fortnite or other shooter games. So that’s neat I suppose. It kind of fits into something more like arena fights than shooting your way through a building.

That’s about as far as I can enjoy it though. The rewards are neat and compel me to play but it almost makes it worse. Because I feel I must play to get the rewards, being limited time of course, it brings a great deal of resentment. I find myself looking for the most efficient way to get the plunder I need (basically, do the quest and get whatever other random stuff I find nearby) and then find someone to end my game so I can move onto the next one. There is little incentive for me to push for being first when the reward for being first is a lower renown-per-minute ratio than just churning games quickly.

The game doesn’t feel intuitive. If you haven’t played these other type of games in the genre it simply doesn’t make sense and there’s no “tutorial” mode to try something out to learn what you’re dealing with. Or what the various abilities do (30s before launching isn’t really enough time to get that feel, either.)

I don’t begrudge people who do enjoy this style of game and I’m not one to complain about “dev time” etc. that was spent in creation of this new mode. Warcraft is a community of millions with a variety of interests and needs to bring in new players to sustain long-term. So I’m happy to bring more people to the community as a whole. But having 40 levels of in-Warcraft rewards, requiring 40ish hours of gameplay if you’re doing it at a somewhat reasonable pace, seems excessive.

It’s an unfortunate case of multiple layers being at odds with what players want:
Many rewards but limited time
Significant time investment but less to do in WoW so… shrug?
PVP focused for a largely PVE community
Is entirely in-house community requiring subscription which basically makes the player base the beta for the potential in a broader market.
PVE focused rewards from a game that is ultimately PVP which leads to an awkward game structure. After all, nobody plays RISK so they can capture Madagascar and quit to move on to the next round. (Showing my age here…)

If there’s going to be a significant PVE renown component to the game, maybe add a touch more to the questing. Progressive quests to gain additional renown by doing more tasks to keep people in the game longer. Add a 60s timer at the beginning that is entirely PVE so the mass contingent of people playing for the rewards can get in and start doing the PVE stuff, the PVP people can get their initial power ups going, and then open it up to the bloodbath.

[Vicara-moon-guard (Vicara)]

I’ve now gotten the Plunder Wonder feat of strength for being the last one alive & hit renown 5. So far my opinion remains the same, the game mode is fun, fast-paced and has potential but the rewards structure should not exist for a time-limited event. I wish it was not the case because I think it will sour the event for people, it should have just been a cosmetic reward at an early point and people who enjoy it keep playing. I hope the issues regarding the rewards does not deter making different game modes in the future just implementing incentives in a better way.

Then this is compounded with the trader’s tender issue. They are a reward which was supposed to be an easy currency to get when it is available but it takes awhile to grind here, combined with a few months items on the post having been increased and people feel more like thinking “what am I missing out on the post” vs “what am I getting”. This is a separate issue that semi-relates due to this having one of the only sources for tender.

[Yumuros-thunderlord]

Ready to Plunder? Arrgh not yet! - Initial Impression of Plunderstorm

To have a more clear split between topics of the latest Mode and everything revolving it I decided to split my feedback into two chapters - The First is Revolving the Announcement and Marketing of the Mode and what had been better to do if something else like this comes to WoW, and the second chapter revolves around the mode itself. Additonal I want to talk also about Modes like this should be evergreen instead of temporary modes.

• Chapter I: The Announcement and how it was handled
• Chapter II: Chapter II - Plunderstorm a Battle Royale which left a lot to be desired
• Bonus: New Modes should be evergreens instead of FOMO Experiences

Chapter I - The Announcement and how it was handled

What really went wrong in my point of view was that it was indicated as a retail patch experience in the “Modern WoW Roadmap” - It would be ten times better to say we have another fun surprise along Modern and Classic WoW. This way we wouldn’t have the negative backlash as many player expected a Modern WoW Retail Experience from it. The teasing on the day of the patch date announcement also didn’t helped this circiumstance. I know you worked very long on this and were hyped to come out with it, but the way you did you set false expectation to the playerbase.

Some players may hoped to have an experience with their characters instead they now have to wait till the next “patch hits” as BR is just not for everyone to enjoy and a majority of the current player base are not PvP Enjoyers per se.

Chapter II - Plunderstorm a Battle Royale which left a lot to be desired

Initial I want to say for what it is supposed to be “a temporary game mode” (even if it should have been an evergreen - more to that later on) it checks a mark, and I’m happy they’re trying something new. On a closer look, there are several flaws with it in my point of view.

First I want to talk about the Hit Feedback and Damage Calculation going with it.
What really bothers me is that it is really hard to tell if you are doing supposedly more damage with a ranked up skill because the hit itself of a improved skill doesn’t feel really more impactful at first glance. There are several Skills you can notice a difference between a Green, Blue or Purple skilllevel but those tend to be a bit overtuned in general in comparision to other skills.

Now let’s talk about the Interface and Visual Perception. For that I’m using a screenshot as reference.

Overall, the Interface is spotless and sleek. I also like the choice to have no add-on support for the mode. But what is really needed is at least the possibility to move the bars to a preferred position. Having them at the bottom of the screen alongside the health bar creates a conflict for the eyesight of the player. He no longer can focus in his Visual Perception only on the combat action, and is forced to split his attentions to 2 area of the screen at the same time. It hasn’t been rarely the case I lost a fight just because I focused too much on the action because I forget to check my health due to its awkward positioning. Esp. when zoomed out this is the case - only if you are more zoomed in it is better from a visual perception. With the possibility to zoom out it should been considered to have the possibility to change positioning of the basic UI Elements.

As the Game Mode is still in its early iteration phase I will avoid to talk too much about balance - I just want to point out that a skill shouldn’t do immense damage while also allowing the player to move at a fast pace - this is esp. the case for the Fire Swirl ability. It should either be a slow damage ability with some movement component to it or a utility tool with chip damage. Both together feels like flawed design with only very specific counterplays to it that requires aiming while the skill itself is just press and forget.

Lastly, I want to spend time on the topic of Uniqueness.
It is very obvious that former Devs of Spellbreak (former Proletariat Employees which have been acquired by Blizzard in 2022/2023) worked on this Game Mode as it has a lot of similarities to that game - yet it is missing a lot of its own spice. For someone that played now “both versions” I felt a bit underwhelmed on the lack of integration of unique elements from the WoW Universe. Using the Warfronts Map of BFA didn’t help that impression. I don’t want to be too negative about it, but it kinda feels like Spellbreak in a WoW Warfronts Disguise.

I would have liked to see a unique map with unique wow elements (f.e. Elevators, Portals or the Production Lines of the Siegecrafter Blackfuse Encounter) to make the map more dynamic and unexplored. As many players know the layout of the Warfront it really doesn’t hold a longterm motivation and is solved rather quickly.

When those issue I described would have been addressed and given a second thought I could see this being a success - It is good to have more PvP Elements in the WoW Universe but please for Good’s sake don’t forget about actual WoW PvP while doing so.

I would rate it a 6,5/10 atm. for being a temporary mode - As a permanent integration, it would be around a 6/10. Also, If you may plan to have this an evergreen it needs regular update to it on a steady pace not like every 3 month like it is in modern wow.

Bonus: New Modes should be evergreens instead of FOMO Experiences

I kinda teased it a bit now but I believe this game mode should stay instead of being a FOMO experience. In the past we have seen a lot of fun modes be introduced and then abandoned after the expansion or few patches (Isle Expeditions, Torghast) yet those would hold a lot of potential to hold players in the game. One of WoW strongest aspects isn’t often respected and utilized when developing content - its variety.

“Have you ever thought about being an archaeologist?” WoW got that for you
"Would like to have stable full of horse? " - WoW got that for you

Versus

“You like to explore far away islands?” - Wow had that for you spent dev time on it and scrapped it afterward.

Sadly, this theme park aspect rarely gets utilized when considering and developing a feature to the game, it is always FOMO. Players are sick of this stuff - it is also very demoralizing to play when you know it will be gone shortly. Esp. if this ressources could have been spent on a permanent experience rather then a short term one. WoW got a lot of content that is always fluctuating (mostly the expansion itself and the raids attached to it) so having some constant elements coming to the game is needed in my point of view to provide distation from potential content droughts. Those would also need some attention every few patches to keep them fresh and rewarding.

Also, the barrier of entering this new mode locked behind a sub is a mistake, as Battle Royal may spark the joy to potential new persons to give wow a try in general. You could keep the rewards behind a subscription but offer a “free 2 play” week for the game mode. Rewards for the actual modern wow and classic should also be easier to be obtained, and the renown tracks should if the mode stays provide mostly Plunderstorm specific cosmetics.

This is my feedback,

Yumuros - Thrall EU

[Exaltys-eitrigg]

I’m still torn on whether or not I even want to play one match of Plunderstorm because I don’t want to be an engagement metric for it. Most of my thoughts are summed up here in a thread I made in the Plunderstorm forum.

The biggest failure of Plunderstorm was putting it on the 10.2.6 spot on the Dragonflight content schedule

Without any other information given, players assumed it was content for Dragonflight itself. This created the incorrect expectation of some kind of event within Dragonflight itself and not a side game where you don’t even use any of your actual World of Warcraft stuff. They could have billed it as a grand experiment separate from World of Warcraft. Marketing failed.

@Exaltys-eitrigg

Without any other information given, players assumed it was content for Dragonflight itself. This created the incorrect expectation of some kind of event within Dragonflight itself and not a side game where you don’t even use any of your actual World of Warcraft stuff.

They could have billed it as a grand experiment separate from World of Warcraft.

Marketing failed.

[Zoumz-zuljin (Zoumz)]

I would like to be able to tune settings separately from my main game.
The usual sound/graphics are tied to the same profile as my wow.
I think the keybinds can also only be changed during a game, this can be a bit annoying.

I think some more balancing of certain spells could be done a bit better, level up also seems to make a great difference maybe too much. I’m not a fan of br games but I recognize it can be fun.

It could be interesting to let people create their own lobbies of 20 to 30 people in private games. I know some people have already started to “sync queue” which is trying to sync their queues at the same time so they can get more people in the same game.

I’m a bit on the side of many people that this doesn’t really replace in-game content. This is a completely new game for me and that’s fine. But this happens when we could use a bit more new dungeons or raid content as s4 will be old content or even get new bgs which doesn’t seem a priority.

[Kurbeegold]

Thanks for all of the great feedback in this thread. It helps us navigate how the game is feeling and these posts bolster what we’ve seen in other threads, on social media, etc.

@Yumuros-thunderlord

What really bothers me is that it is really hard to tell if you are doing supposedly more damage with a ranked up skill because the hit itself of a improved skill doesn’t feel really more impactful at first glance. There are several Skills you can notice a difference between a Green, Blue or Purple skill-level but those tend to be a bit overtuned in general in comparison to other skills.

We’re definitely looking at which builds are prevailing most and which abilities players are enjoying. It’s important to us that this mode still maintains a “party” feel, while not becoming too frustrating during the times when you aren’t getting a significantly better spell. One of the pillars of Plunderstorm is “Pick Up & Play”. Part of that is not necessarily giving you perfect knowledge of how much more exact damage you’ll be doing as you level or rank up spells, but instead, we want to make sure things feel better as you level. Some abilities may simply feel better to rank up and that can be because of multiple reasons.

This wasn’t just one team at Blizzard that worked on this. It was a tremendous amount of effort between all of us here. We care deeply about a fun player experience and this was developed to be a fun thing you can jump into and play with low barriers to entry. Hopefully, players can walk away feeling like they could gain a sense of understanding the game after just a few matches.

@Ravij-wyrmrest-accord

After playing a few matches, I don’t know how I’m supposed to progress the rewards track. It’s not easily discernable if it’s the Rep or the Plunder that progresses it.

We are listening to feedback here and elsewhere, and we’re looking into changes we might make that would meaningfully make the plunder aspects of Plundertorm more rewarding. Ultimately, not every player in every match can play their way to a ton of plunder, but we want to support as many different playstyles as we can.

We’ve already seen a lot of feedback that the game could more-clearly communicate facts such as: how Renown is earned through Plunder, the clarity of the winning bonus, and more. We’re talking about all of that as a team, looking at how plunder progression has been going, and making sure that this is a rewarding experience.

As always, continue to leave your feedback here. We’re listening and working to increase the fun.

[Válé-moon-guard]

Having gotten a day to play around with it, I really welcome the general freshness of a type of content like this. It’s not, by any means, everyone’s cup of tea, and the way it was advertised led to a lot of betrayed expectations. After the terrible display that was the 10.2.5 patch, which also had no PTR and was highly anticipated, the continued hyping up of 10.2.6 works against what would otherwise be more a broadly welcome sentiment. It does little to build trust in just allow the team to work in secrecy when it sometimes comes across as completely disconnected.

Poor handling of its announcement aside, I really enjoy the twist that Plunderstorm brings to the type of gameplay everyone is used to in WoW. It shines best in Duos I think, but it’s very fun to mix and match what spells each teammate gets, and then trying to combo them. It can maybe get a little repetitive over several matches, if the player isn’t having much fun to begin with though.

The plunder system is interesting but a little unclear on how it ultimately plays into the reputation, as others have mentioned. I like that it’s shared between the whole party in duos as well.

My main feedback is on smaller but still, I think, convenient things - it’s unclear in Duos who will be steering the parrot while dropping into Arathi, as who is team leader seemingly doesn’t matter. I’d almost guess it’s based on which teammate comes first alphabetically, based on my own matches. The other issue is that changing outfit/weapons/title requires always talking to the orc in the waiting lobby, rather than be saved between matches.

In summary, I like the novelty of this. If it means that we’ll get new game modes that play on other genres using the WoW gameplay, then a battle royale was an interesting place to start!

[Phenomenon-hydraxis]

Thank you for taking the time to respond here Kurbeegold.

After doing this quite a lot, mostly because of how much “Plunder” is required to actually complete this event but moving on, While I think the “Pick up and play” is there, it needs fine tuning. Players should be told what each of these does, how to gather the “Power ups”, be provided tools to help the common player quickly pick this up… Not be bait for players who can pick things up fast, or at this point players who’ve been “sweating” it. Currently, if you didn’t get the FoS right out the gate, it’s going to be harder and harder and harder for a player who hasnt gotten it to get it. Lets not even mention that theres appparently also a winning bonus? So, not only is a player that makes it to the end getting a FoS, but also getting more stuff for it? understandably, but still a feels bad for those who can barely sometimes even make it to be #40 in standing or who get constantly ganked right out the gates

It also worries me that you point out a lot of time, resources, and personnel went into this. What was sacrificed on the other end to make this happen? What did TWW just lose for this? Midnight? The last titan?

I wish this wasn’t so PvP heavy, This is a fun thing, It could have been so much better if this map was bigger, maybe less players, maybe less RnG on abilities. Currently if I don’t get the Fire twirl, and somehow find upgrades to it, I might as well quit because theres no way I’ll make it to the end. Ever. Especially with all the sweats and hardcore PvP people who are playing this event way more than I ever will be able to.

[Ravij-wyrmrest-accord (Ravij)]

@Kurbeegold

We are listening to feedback here and elsewhere, and we’re looking into changes we might make that would meaningfully make the plunder aspects of Plundertorm more rewarding.

On this note, I feel a lot of frustrations are in regard to how little plunder is being gotten to fill the renown bar. I made a remark after the post you quoted that I think this game mode would benefit from an automatic participation reward as many people are dying right as soon as they land.

To further incentivize, not just the last man standing; but I feel like the higher you place in the rankings, the more bonus plunder you receive once you die. I placed #5 in a match just a bit ago and if it weren’t for the daily that we get; I probably would have only walked away with 500 or so plunder. It’s not right to only greatly incentivize someone to hit 1st place.

Another point of contention IS the daily. It resets with each match so you cannot requeue to try to finish it. Say your daily is to loot 2 items. If you loot one then meet an early end you have to queue back up but upon getting into the game your daily is not only reset but it could be a completely different set of requirements. This in itself is extremely frustrating.

[Lenarius-chogall]

I’ve done quite a few matches now and I’m almost renown 9. I understand the system much better now. I feel like this game mode would be better if it were maybe 30 people in a match instead of 60. It reduces the likelihood that you and at least one other player will land at the same spot and one of you die right away. It gives you a chance to figure out the system while doing PvE to level, gain and try out abilities, etc.

Right now the meta for the most efficient plunder gain is land, get 300-500 plunder, die, leave game, and repeat instead of playing a match to win. I did a few matches last night where I ended up in the top 10 and then finally won a match (which I got nearly 1000 plunder from) but it took quite a while for the match to finish. The storm had almost completely collapsed on us by that point. So, while it’s nice that I have the Feat of Strength now, I don’t think that will be my goal in the future as I’m only doing this game mode for the transmog.

40 renown and however much plunder it takes to get there is also quite a slog. I don’t feel like there should be that many levels on a limited time event. If it was a permanent feature, fine, you can grind that out at your own pace. But as has been said many times now, the FOMO is strong with this one. If you significantly curtailed the number of renown levels, people could grind out what they wanted and then stop playing. Then, only the people who truly enjoyed playing it would continue to do so and you would get really improved feedback about the system from the people that actually want to play it.

[Lenarius-chogall]

Ya I did one match not too long ago where my daily was to loot two chests but I died so early that I didn’t even get to loot one.

[Phenomenon-hydraxis]

I wish I could last long enough to get the only achievement for this entire event or “win” one of these. sighs

[Ravij-wyrmrest-accord (Ravij)]

I came close at #5 but knew I wasn’t going to last as I was only level 5 by the time there were only 15 of us left, but some guy vastly out leveled the remainder of us and had every meta skill at epic.

I decided to hide with my back to the storm and when I was finally found I high tailed it into the danger bubble.

[Phenomenon-hydraxis]

The lowest I’ve gotten is 10, and yeah, its because I did the same exact thing. I hid in a farm house until the very last second I could. And then got super killed by exactly what you encountered.

[Ravij-wyrmrest-accord (Ravij)]

My original focus was 1 Renown level a day… but this is just way too tedious, tiresome, and frustrating. I’m planning to just TRY to do the daily and maybe think about if I want to throw my sanity at it over the weekends to make up for lost grinding on the weekdays. (I have work like a lot of people and when I get home I’m super exhausted.)

Unless they boost rep/renown gains like 1 plunder = 5-10 rep/renown, I’m not going to try to put more focus into it unless I’m feeling a bout of insanity.

[Kaivax]

@Válé-moon-guard

changing outfit/weapons/title requires always talking to the orc in the waiting lobby, rather than be saved between matches

We’re working on a fix to make it so that player weapon and clothing appearances get reapplied when you enter a new match.

[Kaivax]

And we’ve just increased Plunder gains:

More Plunder for the Plundering

Greetings fellow plunderers! It’s been a great experience seeing the community having fun, posting about your wins, creating lists of the best builds, and taking to the forums with thoughtful feedback. We’ve been reading and listening very closely to a lot of feedback since we launched Plunderstorm, and the number one issue we’ve heard about is the Renown you earn. We see that you care deeply about preserving the experience like we do, but you also feel that earning rewards should happen more …

[Phenomenon-hydraxis]

Kaivax, Thank you for linking this here.

After waking up early before work to play a few matches to see this I have the following feedback:
PvP interactions are way up. Where before players would allow others to do what they needed to do to get some plunder, now it’s kill on sight regardless.

Levels are being gained really fast now. - To which, still don’t really know what bonus’s to damage are incurred, or if those bonus’s extend into the “Power ups”.

And I was able to power thru an entire rank of renown in 2 matches. So that’s a really nice change. Thank you. I didnt exactly know where I started, but it’s still a nice change to get more plunder. Wish it was a little more still though Could potentially, make the Plunder to reputation be instead of 1:1 be 1:1.25 or something along with this change?

I wish the health potion wasn’t on a 30 second cooldown, or only providing little of your health. Nothing sucks more than finishing an extended fight between another player just to have a level 3-4 walk up and kill you because your health was so low you couldn’t last another fight. I thought I finally had a shot at getting to win a game, had Epic Fire Twirl and everything, killed another level 8 just for this level 4 to kill me and then become level 9 with all of my loot drops and probably went on to win the game because of all my epic power ups.

Edit: Or when fighting the pieces of hate, winning said fight, and then being ganked by someone that just waited until you won to come kill you, loot the chest, and then run off with all your stuff. These huge NPC’s in this mode either need to have a “Everyones friendly” field around them or not be such monstrous creatures of death roaming the field. In my opinion, its just not fun finally kiling it, just to get ganked on the other end because your health is so low. Like “Yay I did it!” immediatelly followed by “sigh why did I waste my time, this sucks.”

PvP really isn’t my thing, and with this recent change that interaction is up a lot. Granted, Yes I know… Its a PvP mode, but man I sure wish it wasn’t. like I stated before, It’s becoming increasingly hard for a common player who doesn’t partake in PvP to potentially win in this gaining them the only achievement for this event. I, for one, would love to get the achievement to denote in the future that “Yes, I was there” with that FoS achievement. But I guess one can dream.

[Yumuros-thunderlord]

@Kurbeegold

We’re definitely looking at which builds are prevailing most and which abilities players are enjoying. It’s important to us that this mode still maintains a “party” feel, while not becoming too frustrating during the times when you aren’t getting a significantly better spell. One of the pillars of Plunderstorm is “Pick Up & Play”. Part of that is not necessarily giving you perfect knowledge of how much more exact damage you’ll be doing as you level or rank up spells, but instead, we want to make sure things feel better as you level. Some abilities may simply feel better to rank up and that can be because of multiple reasons.

This seems very reasonable. I just hope the team get there and find a distinct balance between fun and hit feedback. I agree, it shouldn’t be particular deterministic to see what is good, but it should be more obvious what an upgrade does and if upgrades are important or nice to have (f.e. should I replace my blue one with a white one of another ability).

@Kurbeegold

We care deeply about a fun player experience and this was developed to be a fun

and it is! - Personally, I’m enjoying it a lot, and I’m totally happy with it even if my feedback was a bit direct - (that is just the way we talk in my home country, no sugar-coating. We’re getting directly to the point where our mind is). Great to hear so many talented people worked on this mode to bring it alive.

Still, I feel like it couldn’t be bad to consider offering a more friendly experience to players who may are new to PvP / Battle Royale or just not enjoying it. A more casual solo focused queue with 30 players as secondary option to the both other existing queues could be this. This way, players aren’t forced into early PvP and experience frustration right away.

I also want to mention I would like more control about the area I land. The bird feels like he isn’t capable of flying at all

Keep the great updates coming, the plunder change is a great step in the right direction.

[Dáenerys-alleria]

Thanks Kaivax for buffing the renown. I played a couple of renown levels on this yesterday, few matches. I will head into a few matches today also. One problem is just the RNG of where I land vs other players, I may not be able to do the daily for the match in the first couple of minutes before I get sniped by someone with abilities in the first couple of minutes. Other matches I’ve been able to survive longer. I prefer regular pvp to this BR game but personally, the event isn’t fun so am playing for cosmetics. I’ve only played solo mode, not sure I can rope any friends into grinding it while I’m on grinding games.