TL;DR: There's a difference between 'MMO grind' and 'insulting the player'
There's a balance between 'grind' and respecting a player's time. WoW got ahead of the pack early because it was the most approachable of the MMOs at the time ('hardcore' players like to forget that detail). As it progressed, refinements were made, creating some elements of convenience, usually in exchange for some kind of time-investment.
The concern is that since Warlords, the pendulum of dev focus has swung the other way pretty hard.
An example: in Mists of Pandaria, if you wanted certain enchants or mounts or recipes, you had to get a particular faction to exalted. A time-sink, but you were given a choice of which time-sink you wanted to focus in. Essentially this boiled down to tanks, healers, or DPS focusing on their primary objectives, and then branching out as alts or secondary specs caught their attention.
So progression and achievement was connected to a grind. However, it was not connected to /all the grind/. You could bite it off in pieces of desired function.
/Flying/ was earned by hitting level cap and spending gold, in Mists, Cataclysm, and LK, and BC. It was logical, because you had to at least get to max level, /then/ you had convenience for getting around for the end-game grind. Some zones you couldn't even access without flying, even in BC (it was a single quest area there).
New races or classes were earned either by purchasing the expansion itself, or, again, leveling.
These are grinds that are expected. Logical. The enchant/recipes being locked behind specific reps was a bit painful, but still gave a reason for focus and order of operations rather than /just/ time-sinking.
However, in the last three expansions, BFA, Legion, Warlords, we see a trend of disrepect to player time. Suddenly we're told that flying is something the devs don't like, and that we should be grateful it exists at all... gated behind a omni-grind that, more or less, requires you grind EVERYTHING in an expansion.
Most people do not ever grind everything. They grind /portions/ to achieve their goals.
And now the new races. Which, on the game packaging, do not mention content-achievement requirements at all.
Never before has a core function of an expansion been fully locked behind an /exalted/ rep grind in an /previous/ expansion. And it's well-known that new expansions cause an influx of fresh or returning players. So well-known that even /players/ prepare for it with stockpiles and AHing behavior. There is no way Blizzard did not /know/ a huge number of players would jump in, excited for new races, and /then/ discover the gating mechanism.
So! I am troubled. I feel like the dev team for WoW is actually /antagonizing/ players who don't play the game an extremely specific way, and are deliberately hard-gating content to make it unappealing. Perhaps it's to add prestege.
I personally find that unhealthy in a relationship between a dev-team and their players.
No one asked for flying 'for free', and the races being part of the expansions de-facto makes them 'not free' ($50 purchase, they're part of the package).
Players that asked for flying to work that way it had worked since it was introduced were told /by the mechanics of the game/ that their desire is unreasonable, and requires performing ALL game content for the game to deign to allow (at which point it only really benefits your alts, because your main won't need it anymore).
Players that asked for races they /paid for/ to be available were told /by the mechanics of the game/ that their expectation was unreasonable, and that they must invest /substantially/ in old content that may or may not have interest in to get something they were looking forward to as part of a new toy they bought.
Because it is a toy. A video game. A toy for entertainment.
Saying it 'isn't for casuals' is simply a lie at baseline. Can defend that point as much as you wish to.
My time is respected if I need to play through the basic game, the 'story' (level cap), to be able to get around more easily for the end-game. That has logic to it. There's ebb and flow to it.
My time is respected if I purchased something and actually get to obtain it with the purchase.
My time is respected if I can get something /early/ with a rep-grind. The players that 'earned' their races early still should've gotten the ability with purchase, but the 'early' part can at least add more logic into the mix. That logic no longer applies.
New races make the game more fun. Flying makes the game more fun (for me anyway).
Having both hard-gated is honestly pretty insulting to the players that were hoping for casual fun when they spent their money.
Obviously, this will get the 'suck it up buttercup' response in droves. It always does.
That just doesn't make the response /correct/.
As a note: I do not own BfA. I am not grinding for the new races. I am working on Legion pathfinder... because I do not want any of my alts to have to use a land mount in this logic-forsaken terrain ever again.
/what/ /is/ /this/ /madness/
A lot of good points there. One positive from flying us how magic it is for levelling alts. By that time there will be catch ups to lessen the pain a bit such as upgraded heirlooms.
Have to say the gold acquisition is really bad. I'm making more from WoD garrisons, which is where my 49 L110 alts are parked. The future of BfA mission tables looks very short. Rep missions for a while, then that's it.
Have to say the gold acquisition is really bad. I'm making more from WoD garrisons, which is where my 49 L110 alts are parked. The future of BfA mission tables looks very short. Rep missions for a while, then that's it.
Why not just let everyone be max level, have max level gear, and all professions maxed.
It is in the game I payed for. Why do I need to work for it?
It is in the game I payed for. Why do I need to work for it?
08/17/2018 08:37 PMPosted by SeekerdroneWhy not just let everyone be max level, have max level gear, and all professions maxed.
It is in the game I payed for. Why do I need to work for it?
I get that you're trolling, but to simply tackle the point raised anyway.
You'll note that nowhere in my post did I say 'for free'. In fact I very specifically said the opposite, in explicit terms.
The issue is the scale of what earns something. Collecting gear from dungeons is part of the fun.
Grinding everything in the game to be able to more easily travel is not part of the fun. For me anyway.
...Also since you can /buy/ character boosts, the game itself is already undermining your point, but I agree that character boosting is a biiiiit much. (I won't harangue people for buying them, though)
No, see, this is a correct attitude towards it. Anyone who's sensible understands that at the end of the day Blizzard needs players to continue playing, and that means some of the developments will be designed to encourage player retention.
There's a balance that's understandable and even respectable. That's why there are things to farm, like low drop percentage mounts. It keeps people engaged. It's why loot is RNG, it keeps people playing another week.
The difference is when they start putting everything behind it. We've gone from the understandable to the extreme. The primary goal should always be fun, because if players are enjoying themselves and have something to work toward they will continue to play. But they've shifted to analytics and metrics. How many minutes can they keep someone chained to it without giving them anything. How many seconds can they eek out of a person before a prize must be delivered. Enough to get them to pay for another month?
So we've hit this tipping point where the rewards don't meet out the time requirements. For players there's a similar question to ask; perpendicular to Blizzard's. "Is this worth my time?" And the way they've been pushing things, where they care more about dollars and seconds than whether we're enjoying ourselves as players?
We've hit that point where everyone; even a longtime invested player like myself who cares deeply for my character and am willing to throw stupid amounts of time to keep myself distracted with my draenei over the real world... Well, at some point I'm going to realize I stopped having fun and I'll stop paying for access.
Because it won't be worth my time anymore.
Edit: And to clarify, I don't think this is a cultural problem that runs rampant at Blizzard. Because I keep tabs on a few of the quest devs and they seem tickled pink that people are enjoying their content; that we players get the references they sprinkled into the game, or caught the cool thing hidden off the main path. It's the higher ups, the bean counters, who pull executive privilege and say "It must be made this way for the shareholders."
There's a balance that's understandable and even respectable. That's why there are things to farm, like low drop percentage mounts. It keeps people engaged. It's why loot is RNG, it keeps people playing another week.
The difference is when they start putting everything behind it. We've gone from the understandable to the extreme. The primary goal should always be fun, because if players are enjoying themselves and have something to work toward they will continue to play. But they've shifted to analytics and metrics. How many minutes can they keep someone chained to it without giving them anything. How many seconds can they eek out of a person before a prize must be delivered. Enough to get them to pay for another month?
So we've hit this tipping point where the rewards don't meet out the time requirements. For players there's a similar question to ask; perpendicular to Blizzard's. "Is this worth my time?" And the way they've been pushing things, where they care more about dollars and seconds than whether we're enjoying ourselves as players?
We've hit that point where everyone; even a longtime invested player like myself who cares deeply for my character and am willing to throw stupid amounts of time to keep myself distracted with my draenei over the real world... Well, at some point I'm going to realize I stopped having fun and I'll stop paying for access.
Because it won't be worth my time anymore.
Edit: And to clarify, I don't think this is a cultural problem that runs rampant at Blizzard. Because I keep tabs on a few of the quest devs and they seem tickled pink that people are enjoying their content; that we players get the references they sprinkled into the game, or caught the cool thing hidden off the main path. It's the higher ups, the bean counters, who pull executive privilege and say "It must be made this way for the shareholders."
08/17/2018 09:02 PMPosted by HnetuNo, see, this is a correct attitude towards it. Anyone who's sensible understands that at the end of the day Blizzard needs players to continue playing, and that means some of the developments will be designed to encourage player retention.
There's a balance that's understandable and even respectable. That's why there are things to farm, like low drop percentage mounts. It keeps people engaged. It's why loot is RNG, it keeps people playing another week.
The difference is when they start putting everything behind it. We've gone from the understandable to the extreme. The primary goal should always be fun, because if players are enjoying themselves and have something to work toward they will continue to play. But they've shifted to analytics and metrics. How many minutes can they keep someone chained to it without giving them anything. How many seconds can they eek out of a person before a prize must be delivered. Enough to get them to pay for another month?
So we've hit this tipping point where the rewards don't meet out the time requirements. For players there's a similar question to ask; perpendicular to Blizzard's. "Is this worth my time?" And the way they've been pushing things, where they care more about dollars and seconds than whether we're enjoying ourselves as players?
We've hit that point where everyone; even a longtime invested player like myself who cares deeply for my character and am willing to throw stupid amounts of time to keep myself distracted with my draenei over the real world... Well, at some point I'm going to realize I stopped having fun and I'll stop paying for access.
Because it won't be worth my time anymore.
Beautifully put. Thank you!
08/17/2018 09:02 PMPosted by HnetuEdit: And to clarify, I don't think this is a cultural problem that runs rampant at Blizzard. Because I keep tabs on a few of the quest devs and they seem tickled pink that people are enjoying their content; that we players get the references they sprinkled into the game, or caught the cool thing hidden off the main path. It's the higher ups, the bean counters, who pull executive privilege and say "It must be made this way for the shareholders."
Noted! (and agreed! This seems like a TOP down issue)
08/17/2018 08:17 PMPosted by EralenTL;DR: There's a difference between 'MMO grind' and 'insulting the player'
There's a balance between 'grind' and respecting a player's time. WoW got ahead of the pack early because it was the most approachable of the MMOs at the time ('hardcore' players like to forget that detail). As it progressed, refinements were made, creating some elements of convenience, usually in exchange for some kind of time-investment.
The concern is that since Warlords, the pendulum of dev focus has swung the other way pretty hard.
An example: in Mists of Pandaria, if you wanted certain enchants or mounts or recipes, you had to get a particular faction to exalted. A time-sink, but you were given a choice of which time-sink you wanted to focus in. Essentially this boiled down to tanks, healers, or DPS focusing on their primary objectives, and then branching out as alts or secondary specs caught their attention.
So progression and achievement was connected to a grind. However, it was not connected to /all the grind/. You could bite it off in pieces of desired function.
/Flying/ was earned by hitting level cap and spending gold, in Mists, Cataclysm, and LK, and BC. It was logical, because you had to at least get to max level, /then/ you had convenience for getting around for the end-game grind. Some zones you couldn't even access without flying, even in BC (it was a single quest area there).
New races or classes were earned either by purchasing the expansion itself, or, again, leveling.
These are grinds that are expected. Logical. The enchant/recipes being locked behind specific reps was a bit painful, but still gave a reason for focus and order of operations rather than /just/ time-sinking.
However, in the last three expansions, BFA, Legion, Warlords, we see a trend of disrepect to player time. Suddenly we're told that flying is something the devs don't like, and that we should be grateful it exists at all... gated behind a omni-grind that, more or less, requires you grind EVERYTHING in an expansion.
Most people do not ever grind everything. They grind /portions/ to achieve their goals.
And now the new races. Which, on the game packaging, do not mention content-achievement requirements at all.
Never before has a core function of an expansion been fully locked behind an /exalted/ rep grind in an /previous/ expansion. And it's well-known that new expansions cause an influx of fresh or returning players. So well-known that even /players/ prepare for it with stockpiles and AHing behavior. There is no way Blizzard did not /know/ a huge number of players would jump in, excited for new races, and /then/ discover the gating mechanism.
So! I am troubled. I feel like the dev team for WoW is actually /antagonizing/ players who don't play the game an extremely specific way, and are deliberately hard-gating content to make it unappealing. Perhaps it's to add prestege.
I personally find that unhealthy in a relationship between a dev-team and their players.
No one asked for flying 'for free', and the races being part of the expansions de-facto makes them 'not free' ($50 purchase, they're part of the package).
Players that asked for flying to work that way it had worked since it was introduced were told /by the mechanics of the game/ that their desire is unreasonable, and requires performing ALL game content for the game to deign to allow (at which point it only really benefits your alts, because your main won't need it anymore).
Players that asked for races they /paid for/ to be available were told /by the mechanics of the game/ that their expectation was unreasonable, and that they must invest /substantially/ in old content that may or may not have interest in to get something they were looking forward to as part of a new toy they bought.
Because it is a toy. A video game. A toy for entertainment.
Saying it 'isn't for casuals' is simply a lie at baseline. Can defend that point as much as you wish to.
My time is respected if I need to play through the basic game, the 'story' (level cap), to be able to get around more easily for the end-game. That has logic to it. There's ebb and flow to it.
My time is respected if I purchased something and actually get to obtain it with the purchase.
My time is respected if I can get something /early/ with a rep-grind. The players that 'earned' their races early still should've gotten the ability with purchase, but the 'early' part can at least add more logic into the mix. That logic no longer applies.
New races make the game more fun. Flying makes the game more fun (for me anyway).
Having both hard-gated is honestly pretty insulting to the players that were hoping for casual fun when they spent their money.
Obviously, this will get the 'suck it up buttercup' response in droves. It always does.
That just doesn't make the response /correct/.
As a note: I do not own BfA. I am not grinding for the new races. I am working on Legion pathfinder... because I do not want any of my alts to have to use a land mount in this logic-forsaken terrain ever again.
Preach.
You're going to get a lot of "entitlement" nonsense thrown your way, but you are 100% dead on, balls accurate.
The game has pivoted from a "play the way you want to play and achieve the things you want to achieve" into a "play our way or suffer the consequences". Blizzard is so enamored with their own work that regardless of what you want, they are hell bent on making you experience it all.
Listen, I leveled a Dark Elf at release in EQ, with exp penalties and hell levels and then I did it again with an Iksar. I know full well what a grind is. I also know even though WoW is infinitely less of a haul than EQ was back then, it's still littered with grinds and gating at every turn. They literally managed, with BfA, to turn every single solitary form of advancement in this game into either a grind or a form of content gating.
You can't accomplish anything anymore by just playing normally. Want that allied race? No, it's not enough to complete the story, you have to grind the same WQs over and over again. Want that Enchant pattern? Tough, grind up rep for weeks on end. Want that piece of armor? Want that mount? Grind up yet another faction. And another. Want a flying mount?...do everything!! The real kick in the teeth, is that now even armor drops aren't immune to this garbage. Got a new drop with higher iLvl than what you are wearing?...sucks for you, it requires twice your current HoA level. Go grind for two weeks and hope the cycle doesn't repeat...but it will.
Now go enjoy our game and pay us $15 a month!!!
Blizzard doesn't care about your time, much less respect it. They don't care about how you want to play, or even when you're able to play. They care about one thing and that's keeping you so busy grinding 100 different things from a 100 different factions that you'll stay subscribed and giving them money.
In all seriousness, I'd take the single EQ level grind over the death of a thousand cuts that is current day WoW 10 times out of 10.
It's always interesting watching new people start to understand the casual->hardcore->casual progression. In time, one comes to understand why it's not necessary to chase everything competitively.
All this talk about disrespecting the player's time and you don't touch on the tripling of mob HP everywhere in world and in old raids and changes to extend leveling time...
08/17/2018 09:09 PMPosted by FollolAll this talk about disrespecting the player's time and you don't touch on the tripling of mob HP everywhere in world and in old raids and changes to extend leveling time...
You're quite right, I legit forgot about it. That is /absolutely/ part of the problem.
I've /only/ played my main the last couple of weeks, specifically working on the pathfinder grind, so the leveling mob health debacle is something I didn't have to deal with yet.
Especially with /120/ levels, even with the old expansions compacted into binary choices, the leveling didn't need to be a slog.
08/17/2018 08:31 PMPosted by Annastasi/what/ /is/ /this/ /madness/
/w/h/y/ /d/o/n/'/t/ /w/e/ /t/a/k/e/ /i/t/ /o/n/e/ /s/t/e/p/ /f/u/r/t/h/e/r/?/
If y'all spent 1/4 of the time doing the reqs as you do moaning about it on here you could have done it 8 times over already. Its not changing so either do it or uninstall. Nobody wants to hear it anymore.
08/17/2018 09:30 PMPosted by GarïmdorIf y'all spent 1/4 of the time doing the reqs as you do moaning about it on here you could have done it 8 times over already. Its not changing so either do it or uninstall. Nobody wants to hear it anymore.
For the record, I capped for the day before posting the OP.
Just to be clear.
Cute try, though.
08/17/2018 09:30 PMPosted by GarïmdorIf y'all spent 1/4 of the time doing the reqs as you do moaning about it on here you could have done it 8 times over already. Its not changing so either do it or uninstall. Nobody wants to hear it anymore.
You don't want to hear it, but you open threads discussing it? You're just the kind of masochist Blizzard is looking for!
P.S. I'm not at home, so I couldn't be playing anyway. But never fear, I have the handy, dandy mobile app to keep me apprised of all the cool things my followers get to do while I'm away!
Eh. I pay my sub so I can waste time playing a game I find enjoyable. I have no desire to rush through everything and then complain about nothing to do.
While I think RNG has gone to ridiculous lengths (paragon caches anyone?), I've got no problems with Pathfinder or Allied Race requirements. If I do the requirements, I WILL get the reward--not a "chance" for a reward. That's a formula I can get behind.
While I think RNG has gone to ridiculous lengths (paragon caches anyone?), I've got no problems with Pathfinder or Allied Race requirements. If I do the requirements, I WILL get the reward--not a "chance" for a reward. That's a formula I can get behind.
I agree with the post. It just doesn't feel like the developers are respecting player's time anymore. I'm all for earning my merits in the game, I'm not about being time-gated for weeks to play a race, that's unheard of in other MMOs for me. I would advise Blizzard to look into this otherwise this topic will keep popping up.
08/17/2018 08:17 PMPosted by EralenTL;DR: There's a difference between 'MMO grind' and 'insulting the player'
There's a balance between 'grind' and respecting a player's time. WoW got ahead of the pack early because it was the most approachable of the MMOs at the time ('hardcore' players like to forget that detail). As it progressed, refinements were made, creating some elements of convenience, usually in exchange for some kind of time-investment.
The concern is that since Warlords, the pendulum of dev focus has swung the other way pretty hard.
An example: in Mists of Pandaria, if you wanted certain enchants or mounts or recipes, you had to get a particular faction to exalted. A time-sink, but you were given a choice of which time-sink you wanted to focus in. Essentially this boiled down to tanks, healers, or DPS focusing on their primary objectives, and then branching out as alts or secondary specs caught their attention.
So progression and achievement was connected to a grind. However, it was not connected to /all the grind/. You could bite it off in pieces of desired function.
/Flying/ was earned by hitting level cap and spending gold, in Mists, Cataclysm, and LK, and BC. It was logical, because you had to at least get to max level, /then/ you had convenience for getting around for the end-game grind. Some zones you couldn't even access without flying, even in BC (it was a single quest area there).
New races or classes were earned either by purchasing the expansion itself, or, again, leveling.
These are grinds that are expected. Logical. The enchant/recipes being locked behind specific reps was a bit painful, but still gave a reason for focus and order of operations rather than /just/ time-sinking.
However, in the last three expansions, BFA, Legion, Warlords, we see a trend of disrepect to player time. Suddenly we're told that flying is something the devs don't like, and that we should be grateful it exists at all... gated behind a omni-grind that, more or less, requires you grind EVERYTHING in an expansion.
Most people do not ever grind everything. They grind /portions/ to achieve their goals.
And now the new races. Which, on the game packaging, do not mention content-achievement requirements at all.
Never before has a core function of an expansion been fully locked behind an /exalted/ rep grind in an /previous/ expansion. And it's well-known that new expansions cause an influx of fresh or returning players. So well-known that even /players/ prepare for it with stockpiles and AHing behavior. There is no way Blizzard did not /know/ a huge number of players would jump in, excited for new races, and /then/ discover the gating mechanism.
So! I am troubled. I feel like the dev team for WoW is actually /antagonizing/ players who don't play the game an extremely specific way, and are deliberately hard-gating content to make it unappealing. Perhaps it's to add prestege.
I personally find that unhealthy in a relationship between a dev-team and their players.
No one asked for flying 'for free', and the races being part of the expansions de-facto makes them 'not free' ($50 purchase, they're part of the package).
Players that asked for flying to work that way it had worked since it was introduced were told /by the mechanics of the game/ that their desire is unreasonable, and requires performing ALL game content for the game to deign to allow (at which point it only really benefits your alts, because your main won't need it anymore).
Players that asked for races they /paid for/ to be available were told /by the mechanics of the game/ that their expectation was unreasonable, and that they must invest /substantially/ in old content that may or may not have interest in to get something they were looking forward to as part of a new toy they bought.
Because it is a toy. A video game. A toy for entertainment.
Saying it 'isn't for casuals' is simply a lie at baseline. Can defend that point as much as you wish to.
My time is respected if I need to play through the basic game, the 'story' (level cap), to be able to get around more easily for the end-game. That has logic to it. There's ebb and flow to it.
My time is respected if I purchased something and actually get to obtain it with the purchase.
My time is respected if I can get something /early/ with a rep-grind. The players that 'earned' their races early still should've gotten the ability with purchase, but the 'early' part can at least add more logic into the mix. That logic no longer applies.
New races make the game more fun. Flying makes the game more fun (for me anyway).
Having both hard-gated is honestly pretty insulting to the players that were hoping for casual fun when they spent their money.
Obviously, this will get the 'suck it up buttercup' response in droves. It always does.
That just doesn't make the response /correct/.
As a note: I do not own BfA. I am not grinding for the new races. I am working on Legion pathfinder... because I do not want any of my alts to have to use a land mount in this logic-forsaken terrain ever again.
+1 from me, OP. Don't let the trolls and haters get ya down. I think your analysis is spot on. Since WoD the devs' "vision" has been sucking all the fun out of the game and turning it into a 2nd job.
They've been so busy taking things away and then making us re-earn what we already had under the thin disguise of "new" content, that they have "forgotten the face of their fathers", to coin a phrase. I think there are a lot of people who feel the same. They may not be subbed anymore to be able to voice it here on the forums, but I still think you've spoken a truth with which many will identify.
Sorry that's gonna be a hard negative from me.
Can we get a dislike button?
Can we get a dislike button?
08/17/2018 09:52 PMPosted by YeshuasSorry that's gonna be a hard negative from me.
Can we get a dislike button?
So just to confirm. You want a 'hard negative' to being able to get new races with an expansion purchase, and also you want flying gated behind all reps-to-max and all quests complete?
So let's get into. Why are those two new and additional restrictions (comparing Mists and previous to post-Mists) an improvement to your gaming experience? What did those two changes add to your fun with your toy that you pay for?