After playing this patch for a week now, I wanted to give a better review of my experiences so far.
So far, I can say without a doubt, this is moving WoW back onto the right path. There’s incentive to participate and experience new content and multiple goals to strive for. However, as I progress through these goals, I find it to be less and less rewarding. It’s been one week and I have already begun to hit a point where dailies are feeling like a chore because of the amount of times I have to go do them on all characters across my account.
But most importantly I realized that the randomness of dailies can really ruin the strive or mood you are in to play the game. It’s very simple, but let me explain…
We were doing dailies, killing 25 Hydras. While we pulled a big group of mobs, 3 alliance ran up and tried to gank us. We got into a little skrimish and it was a tough fight - but it was a fight. We were slaying mobs, fending off enemy players and were having a good time doing it. When the fight was over, the thrill wasn’t.
Moving off of the Hydra quest we were in a mind set to continue to kill mobs and/or slay other PvP players. It was an enjoyable experience. However, the next “stop” on our tour of dailies lead us to the beloved Bejeweled quest. Now I enjoy a nice game of Bejeweled while I am on the squatty potty, but it really really throws off the vibe we were in.
The high intensity of slaying dragons, only to have a mid quest of spending ten minutes trying to connect the dots or get 45 three runes in a row.
There’s a huge loss of “lets flow into the next section, quest, or zone.”
But there are also the days when you don’t want to experience those fights. After a long day you may want to just gather herbs, solve puzzles, or just explore the zone, what have you. However, this again leads to an issue of only having 1-3 of these dailies to do. Hardly a long enough time to just chill out and play, unwind etc.
It would be nice if maybe an alternative to dailies would be a longer, more complicated quest (similar to the “slay 25 naga”) were added to the game instead.
That a player could choose from an assorted list of NPCs on what “style” of game play they wish to do for the day.
Nessingway is at base camp asking the player to go kill 25 naga, 12 thunder dragons, 6 elite mana worms, and bring him only the middle head of a named Hydra.
Rokket “Rabbit” Raccoon (The Vulpera of course) wants you to go across the zone and gather materials he needs for a new “invention” he’s working on. Gathering herbs, mining ore, stealing nuts and bolts from a certain base, or even an arm from a goblin’s dresser drawer.
So every day you could choose to pick a play style that best suits you. Instead of only having 1-2 options you enjoy and feeling “forced” to play the rest. (With time to finish each quest taking into consideration and being balanced accordingly)
Second, as these essences are being farmed, the “difficulty” of doing these feels not as hard as I had originally thought to be honest. While this is nice for alts, it feels more like there won’t be much longevity to this system. It’s been one week and some people are already venturing into Revered with the new factions, or already accumulated 50,000 honor for the rank 3 of some essences.
Again, this is great in the sense of getting these for my alts won’t be as bad as I thought, but I have to admit that this also kills the longevity of these grinds. I have a feeling that within 2 weeks of the raids and dungeons being out, most essences will be farmed out. Minus the Mythic+ and Mythic raid kill of course.
I would love to see these essences be account bound so that I could play the race, class, spec, faction, etc in the content that I want to play. However, I would much rather see these as a longer grind to achieve so that they feel more rewarding and it prolongs my interest in playing. Once I achieve Rank3 with the factions, I will not continue to grind out Rank 4, especially if I know I will not be using that rank as a Major slot. No graphic for minors, so why would I care?
I enjoy doing BGs on my hunter, I would continue to do so if I knew that it would eventually lead me to achieve a rank 4 essence for my Prot warrior, for my whole account. However, now I am going to angrily join PvP as a Prot warrior, not enjoy my time, and just dread getting an essence I want to use in content I want to use it in.
I wouldn’t mind that it takes 250,000 honor to get rank 3 if I was able to play BGs on the spec that I wanted. I wouldn’t mind if getting exalted to longer if I only have to do it on one character for my whole account. I could then continue to go enjoy content I want to do on characters I want to do them on. Now instead, I going to get rank3 as fast as possible to “get it over with” and never do that content again.
Third is flying/pathfinder/whistle. The whistle truly contradicts what pathfinder is trying to accomplish. I run to a quest I may or may not want to do, finish it, and instantly, I mean instantly blow that whistle to get the heck out of there. I spend as little amount of time “running” to places as possible because honestly the system lets me do it. Now this is not a plug to get rid of the whistle, but to maybe change the system so that it is more so gated behind the story line then some daily/rep grind.
One to two weeks into the patch and we are going to get flying. What for? It feels like a needless grind, especially when we have flight paths and whistles. The system just does not work, and while I love the zones, and the art team usually does an amazing job. (This was not much of an empire for such a vain queen tho, if I’m being honest) But the WotLK style of questing from 70-77 without flying, then gaining it from 77-80 was amazing. It incorporated flying into the zone/leveling experience and was really really well done. Gunships in Ice Crown for example.
Have pathfinder one and then move into accommodating new zones and questing hubs with flying in mind. Quests and PvP objectives that require you to capture a flag on a gunship, do battle on a floating island, etc.
Finally, PvP cause it has to be said. It’s horrible. Multiple times I have finished the PvP event at 0-3000. If the faction imbalance is that bad, it’s time for some emergency racials, story writing, and free fraction changes.
Also, sitting at a node, a flag, or whatever is not very exciting. More events need to be added to make the game more exciting. Add a "defend the cart’ or a chest in the middle of the map that needs to be dragged back to the Alliance or Horde base to open. Taking the path through an area of elite mobs, maybe even a smaller base of the opposing faction, etc. The game needs to feel more alive in the sense of PvP.
I truly hate to say it, but I do love this game and want it to be more enjoyable and to succeed. BfA was 8 steps backwards but this patch was finally a step forward.
TL:DR
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Consider making dailies more of a “list choice” you choose every day. Having 1-2 dailies you actually enjoy and then feeling that the rest are “mandatory” can kill the vibe of playing. Some days you want to go slaughter a village of murlocs, others you may want to solve puzzles. Add more choice.
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Make essences account bound, but take a lot longer to achieve. I do not want to farm the rep on 4 characters every day, but I will cause I feel I must. It’s the nature of the game. I will not however continue to grind for Minor essences past rank 3. Leaving this content quickly irrelevant for most of my characters.
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Redo pathfinder, flying, and the whistle system. The whistle and flight paths really do the exact same thing as flying does. As soon as a world quest is finished, that flight whistle is being popped and the zone is no longer experienced “how it should be.” Instead, keep pathfinder part 1 and design future content zones with flying in mind.
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Add more balance and spice to the PvP scene. Carts you have to drag across the map for loot, smaller scale capture the flag, etc. If racials are truly that big of an issue, it may be time to completely redo that system in an emergency story line patch. (Add Alliance to the story line too)