I think the Trading Post is a great addition to the game. While there hasn’t been anything I was SUPER stoked about yet, I think it’s a great way to encourage people to play each month, without expressly requiring it. Previously, it didn’t really feel too restrictive, though people have obviously noted that prices seem to be inching upwards.
We just saw the new Class “sets” coming, and most of them look incredible (not keen on the DK one). But obviously, with each being 450 tenders, that’s more than you can make in a month. Which I think is obviously going to be frustrating.
Personally? I would actually crank those prices UP, but also remove the cap for how many you can acquire. Like maybe they’re 600 per “set”, but you can grind it all out in the same month if you really want.
Obviously, that’s just an idea, and I think the Trading Post is something that will need to be refined over time. I think it definitely has a place in the game, but I’m worried it’s moving into practices that aren’t conducive to fun. And seeing a great system added to the game, I’d had to see it become something that players wind up hating, which this is absolutely going to inch closer towards.
I actually think the new “sets” are actually pretty cool, certainly more than “spamming Stockades for like an hour to unlock”. So asking some amount of investment from players to unlock is fair.
The problem is that the ceiling is so low, you can’t keep getting tenders. It’s something I’ve not been crazy about anyways, but haven’t felt particularly bothered because again, I didn’t feel overly excited about any of the items they offered.
I mean in all honesty, I think it’s a bummer that these cool new Class-specific armor designs aren’t rewards for some kind of new Class-specific quests. I don’t know why Blizzard seems to hate acknowledging Class-fantasy, despite being so well received during Legion.
It’s weird to me we’re so starved for currency. I’d assumed it was because they were intentionally holding it back so they could sell it on the cash shop, but they’ve said that’s not the case, so what’s the point?
I think they look great, and I think it’s fine Blizzard expecting effort to go towards earning them. But at 450 tenders, you can’t acquire all three (or in one month, four) in the same month unless you’re ALREADY sitting on a load of unspent chicken tendies.
I don’t want to falsely accuse anything, but it sure SEEMS like the kind of design structure that would encourage players to purchase additional tenders from the shop, which datamining has shown could be implemented at any time.
I would hate to see that happen, not only because I hate being nickel-and-dimed, but I genuinely think the Trading Post is actually a FUN addition to the game. I actually really enjoy the little benchmarks to hit, and in fact wouldn’t mind seeing them maybe throw in some goofy ones here and there, or maybe even tying them to Achievements (thus encouraging more “achievement runs”, even if YOU already have them, others might not, and you all get some tenders for doing it that week or something).
Trading Post is a great system. I’m worried it’s going to become frustrating when players start getting hit with a feeling of FOMO, and that would become incredibly volatile IF Blizzard ever attempted to sell tenders.
I don’t really agree with increasing the prices on the Trading Post class armor sets, but I definitely agree that the total cost of items per month versus the monthly cap is WAY out of balance.
It’s definitely leading people into not wanting to spend Tender. For instance, I can’t imagine that very many people are actually buying the Trading Post pets because they’re close to 3/4 of your total monthly Tender to buy. I’ve yet to buy any Trading Post pets and mounts because I don’t feel they’re worth sacrificing getting literally anything else from the Trading Post for the month.
I don’t mind there being some hard decisions regarding what to buy from the Trading Post, but I think it’s getting a bit ridiculous in how big the discrepancy is between how much Tender you can earn and how much you can spend. It looks like for the next several months the total price of all Trading Post offers could get to somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-10 times higher than the maximum number of Tender you can earn in a month.
For December, the class armor and weapons for December will total 3,800 Tender. If they also offer some mounts and a pet, the mounts are between 650-900 Tender and pets can be at least 750 Tender, so if they have two mounts and a pet in December, it could be well over 6,000 Tender of Trading Post offers, and that’s not even getting into the cheaper offerings.
I think the idea is to give a sense of exclusivity with the Trading Post items, as well as encourage people to play the game. No one has all Trading Post items, and no one will ever have every Trading Post item. They’ll maintain it so there’s always new items constantly and that no one can ever get every Trading Post item.
And yet there’s a huge pet/mount collecting community that prioritize these items over the weapons/armor/cosmetics that also take up so much of the budget every month…
And even then, there are more pets and mounts than most people can reasonably afford. Go nuts one month, go broke the next. It’s deeply unsatisfying to see so many neat things, and maybe you can get one or two a month while keeping a reasonable amount of Tenders in reserve…
(I like the recolored Wanderer’s emsemble, myself… solid color cloaks for the win.)
