So at our next reset we will finally (well, those of us who are still logging in) achieve Renown level 80 with our Covenant, which in a way will signify the end of the tier some 15 (or so) weeks after it launched.
This doesn’t jive well with the fact that many/most engaged players grind hard for the first month to 6 weeks of the patch & then hit the point where they’ve gotten most of the gear they’re going to get for the tier OR they’re sick of the content OR some combination of those two things. Pug groups, for the most part, have out-paced guild groups for clearing content up to heroic. Tiers simply don’t last like they used to.
Solutions? Well I can think of 2 possible directions to go. Bliz can re-evaluate the lifespan of their raid tiers & adjust the grinds accordingly so it feels more engaging… or they can go back to staggering their releases of raid content to a weekly or bi-weekly opening of wings to slow the progress down.
Option 2 has some benefits, mainly more people would have an easier time catching up with the current progress if they have to miss a week or two near the launch of the patch. At this time, if you’re not clearing normal week 1 & heroic during week 2 or 3 you are behind & stuck trying to figure out some way to get the ach so you can get invited moving forward… and it gets harder & harder to get the ach as each week goes by (not considering paying for carries as a valid avenue to pursue).
TLDR - Bliz should slow down normal & heroic progress by going back to releasing raids on a wing after wing basis. It will make the patches feel fresher longer.
*Note - I am not proposing they slow down mythic raiders. Make the whole raid available as per normal. By releasing the heroic content at a slower pace though, the result would almost certainly be a longer race to world first due to less gear being available. Pros & cons here too I suppose.
You want them to gate even more content? That’s gonna be a no for me dawg.
Releasing content slowly doesn’t makes things feel “fresher” it just pisses people off. LFR is the only difficulty that is gated when the patch drops and there are always countless threads about how people hate it.
If content dries up too quickly the solution is to create more content or different content that has better replay ability, not stretching the current content out even further to give the illusion of there being more.
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Creating a raid tier worth of content can’t happen every 6-8 weeks. There is no way for them to keep up. In looking back, they haven’t released normal & heroic raids wing by wing in a long damned time - maybe all the way back to wrath… my memory is going. I could have sworn siege was released wing by wing on all difficulties but it doesn’t look like it.
How are pug groups outpacing guild groups?
Many pug groups are clearing heroic weeks 1 & 2, getting their achievements sorted out early so they can pick & choose the bosses they want to join for moving forward. I’m not sure how many guild groups are at that pace. I’m not saying it’s better to no-life pug it during weeks 1 & 2, my preference has always been to enjoy the progress with my guild (when we’re actually raiding), but it’s certainly happening & not having the ach for heroic by the 3rd or 4th week makes it much harder to join a viable pug.
I disagree with both of your solutions because you have missed the intent of the grind.
By adding a continuous power grind Blizzard makes higher difficulty content achievable by more players. So as you pointed out, highly skilled groups will complete all the content in weeks, moderately skilled in a few months, and low skilled groups around the time the grind is over.
Both of your solutions would hurt this system of making end game more approachable by all players.
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Most pugs were not clearing heroic SoD in the first two weeks.
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How would slowing things down hurt the system? I’m not understanding this. If the achievement isn’t available for a month after the raid launches, requiring it can’t become a barrier for at least that long.
Never said that this is what they should do.
And you’ve done very well this tier. Congrats on your success.
Slowing things down actually hurts the highly skilled/moderately skilled players. It will make the game boring and tedious for highly skilled/moderately skilled groups by making them wait months for the content they can clear in weeks.
Look at all the forum hate for the current time gated systems…applying it to raiding would be even worse.
The current system allows everyone to play at their own pace.
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Wait what?
There is a weird catch 22 going on with this.
It makes alt play terrible. Even main play sucks - it took almost 12 weeks of heroic clears to max out on ember shard upgrades for 1 set and the 2 other dps shards. Let alone “playing around” with the system (completing other shard sets).
On the other hand, it makes pugging raids much more viable, since it has players that outgear the content coming back. (it was the same thing back on Antorus - where reaching Argus was an automatic i.win with all of the decked out players farming the trinket).
So I don’t know how they solve this. I definitely do not want to keep farming SoD for seemingly ever just so I can get the stupid shards complete. I probably could’ve shaved off 2 weeks by doing the Korthia weekly, but ugh…talk about an awful experience.
Yeah, but that’s why they add the catch-up mechanics. In 9.1.5 all currencies and renown will be buffed for alts. Not to mention we will have all empowered conduit slots unlocked.
Is there a stygian ember catch up mechanic being added in 9.1.5? I don’t recall reading about it.
I looked again and couldn’t find any notes…so not yet. But I expect there will be either a higher drop rate or a way to buy them with a currency.
IMO this is the problem with catch up mechanics.
Their design right now is to cut back on creating interesting diverse cosmetic rewards (i.e. the removal of class sets and the creation of fewer unique sets) and depend primarily on the value of ilvl itself. So ilvl is the primary reward in the game.
Then they design the brand new content to be seasonal and something that you can quickly jump into if you haven’t been playing. They do this by providing you the entry level ilvl with very little effort.
This entry level ilvl for group content being provided up front makes everything that isn’t that group content devoid of value, since ilvl is the primary reward structure.
Then they wonder why content doesn’t last for more than a month for most people. So they try to create strange artificial obstacles and gates to counter the fact that they got rid of the original obstacles and natural gates, like leveling a character and gearing it up over time.
It’s a mess and it feels bad.
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I think that you are sligthly wrong on something.
There isn’t less sets. The class sets are gone, but that effort was put on both Warfront sets (that are basically faction/race themed sets and Heritage armor for 2 races per factions), Heritage armor itself and now the cosmetic covenant sets.
The issue is a different one. Classes and specs are the primary vehicle which players use to interact with the game. Nothing else is anywhere near as resonating. Neither factions, or races, much less Covenants have players as invested as their class and specs.
So, moving visual resources from classes and specs to be able to do other stuff was an interesting idea, but it didn’t worked because most players are a Hunter or a Paladin first and foremost, not a Horde or Alliance member, or a Dwarf, or an Orc., or a Necrolord, or a Kyrian. Legion, system wise, is not that different to BFA or SL, but it was focused on classes, so it was inmediatly better since classes is what people care about. Probably the only thing they care about.
This isn’t really a problem and is more just a way to indirectly make the raid easier as time goes on for more casual players-just like the vault, or how people have more loot chances the longer they play.
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