Unfortunately, this conversation has finally after 20 years in WoW brought me to make my first forum post…
The changes brought to dungeons that are active on the PTR right now are 100% bad changes for the game, especially for Alliance players. Even with changes to Lust/Hero, an optimal comp for TBC raiding still consists of 5 shamans, with an argument to be made for potentially 4 once with get to later tiers like SWP if it is viable to drop your ele shaman. Those of us on alliance had terrible issues trying to fill shaman spots back in the 2021 release of TBC Classic, ESPECIALLY enhance shaman slots which you need 2 of because without windfury on melee in TBC raiding, you are effectively playing a baby version of your class. For those ready to make the argument of “okay just go Horde then,” that is not realistic for 2 reasons:
- People may want to continue to play their Alliance characters from Classic Anniversary.
- In case people have forgotten since it has been some time since many of us have had to think about it, we are playing on servers that will faction lock if one faction becomes over populated compared to the other, meaning you literally cannot just “go Horde” to solve the problem.
This change is also made worse for Alliance players by the nature of making alt end game more accessible through a reduction in attunement requirements for alts. Don’t get me wrong, this is a tremendous change and props to Blizzard because this change was implemented perfectly by still making us attune in the traditional way on our main characters, and then having a faster method for alts while still leaving a smaller rep requirement to ensure the normal dungeon scene can live. People want to play more characters in raid content, which is why this change exists. However, more raids just means more and more shamans are required on Alliance. With either a nerf to dungeon boosting or a lack of a Draenei/Blood Elf 58 boost, I feel like we are missing the obvious issue that this change effectively increased the demand of shamans which is already astronomically high and reduced the supply which was already worryingly low on Alliance, even back in 2021 TBC Classic when we were able to dungeon boost these classes. This problem does exist on Horde with paladins, but not nearly to the same extent since the demand for paladins is fundamentally lower than the demand for shamans in TBC raiding. If a nerf to dungeon boosting is in place and we do not receive Draenei/Blood Elf 58 boosts, then the Joyous Journeys buff should be added for either 1-58 or 1-60 characters for the entirety of TBC, not just the prepatch in order to help sustain the demand for shamans on Alliance and paladins on Horde.
Addressing the RMT component, yes we all agree with RMT being negative for the game and that is should not exist within the game. That being said, it is fundamentally dishonest to say that boosting removes RMT in the same way the the removal of GDKP did not remove RMT. First, many guilds (including mine) were prepared to boost Draenei shamans/hunter rerollers entirely though guild members for free through our own means during the prepatch: warriors in the guild were prepared to boost stockades, mages in the guild were prepared to boost mara, and paladins in the guild were prepared to boost strat for the health of our guild in TBC. ALL through legal means, ALL without any RMT involvement. Boosting and RMT are not mutually exclusive in the way that botting and RMT are. If eliminating RMT is really the goal of Blizzard, then there are ways to make a greater impact: introducing the WoW Token (which I also disagree with but is Blizzard’s answer in all other versions of the game,) investing in better anti-cheat detection, etc… I’m not sure how realistic the second option is here since I admittedly don’t know much about the logistics of implementing/developing a higher quality anti-cheat, but the point is there are other ways to address this component without removing a method of faster leveling that is ENTIRELY possible amongst guilds.
If anything, the changes currently set in place will end up with a larger incentive for many players to engage in RMT as instanced raw gold farming is now nerfed from the game. Bots dominate the open world market because of their numbers and ability to farm 24/7. While open world farming, nor instanced raw gold farming are the only methods to farm gold, instanced farming allows players their own market that is not affected by bots, meaning there is a competitive method of attaining gold legitimately to fund an economy that is inflated due to botting. Prices go up from bots → people don’t have the opportunity for competitive farming (whether that be the inaccessibility of instanced raw gold farms, or a lack of time to engage in open world farming) → people will gravitate towards RMT. You can make all the arguments you want against this, but the reality of the situation is this is what is going to go through the minds of many players.
Lastly, to address the portion of the player base that will call me a “min maxxer” or a “cringe player” or whatever, this is how I and a significant portion of the player base enjoys the game, whether you disagree with it or not. I think players that enjoy a more laid back, go with the flow approach to the game should be allowed to enjoy this approach. That being said, for those of us that enjoy the excitement of efficiency, or are more interested in what the end game has to offer, then we should not be forced to alter how we enjoy the game by reducing efficiency in leveling or gold farming, especially when there are entirely LEGAL methods of boosting through dungeons by utilizing guilds, or utilizing instanced gold farms. I want to you to enjoy the game and I think you should be allowed to engage with it in the way you enjoy, but I would also extend that same courtesy towards myself and the significant portion of the player base that engages with the game in the way that I do. If you disagree with that perspective of everyone getting to engage with the game how they enjoy, I fear your time is better spent focusing on why your kids don’t want to come home for the holidays this year.
I hope that these changes are just PTR issues and do not end up on live servers since we are still yet to have any communication from Blizzard after days of this. We have already seen changes like these effect SoM and SoD engagement. In fact, SoD even saw a rebirth in popularity when methods of faster leveling (while they were not dungeon boosting, you understand the point,) were introduced. Why build the same barrier that has negatively impacted the same target audience/player base twice before in the last 4 years and think it is going to have a good impact on the health of the game the third time?
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