I tried Riot Game’s Valorant for the first time the other day, and although it can give off entertaining Overwatch vibes, just starting off with leveling the XP, I need to win 13 total rounds (which can lead to 26), and for the amount of time it takes to complete, suffice to say my team did lose, I only got 1/3 of level 1 to continue grinding to level 2+
If you read this and say: “whelp, big deal, the rounds are like 2 seconds each”, just hear me out
Although the choose your items before the round is interesting with replenished currency, I’m trying to find my place in this game; pick the best/most expensive weapon, mix and match with heavy armor, a plethora of what should I do’s to succeed, and being the noob, don’t last very long; I averaged 1-2 enemy player kills out of the ~26 rounds it took to finish the fight completely
I’d quote Ion Hazzikostas: “get good”, but then there’s thing about WoW: Shadowlands:
I’m a somewhat fresh level 60 Windwalker Monk, grinded the necessary XP from 50-60, played a few battlegrounds to get the ilvl gear necessary to reach 170+ so I could start raiding the first tier Castle Nathria, killed all 12 bosses in LFR, then waited around for the Tuesday vault reset, and sadly, the vault options are all empty
Maybe it’s a mistake on my part, whelp, you should’ve opened the vault beforehand, gotten the leggo quest to get a reward from the vault, but from a design perspective this isn’t very alt friendly
It happens in Chromie Time when WoW: Shadowlands initially launched, and still to this day, that your not just alt friendly guided into play whichever expansion pack you want, as your force fed Battle For Azeroth
It happens in Warlords Of Draenor, Legion, and BFA still to this day, where every previous expansion pack places the instance quests at the door, rather than being forced to do the entire zone to pickup said quest
It happens in every instance where it’s the year 2022, and we still can’t skip Culling Of Stratholme cutscenes between Arthas and his master
It happens in Patch 9.2 with Zeth Mortis as a zone looking like rehashed zones from previous; it’s got a bit of Stranglethorn Vale greenish vibes with gates of AQ, and some desert Uldum, and mechanical mobs
I didn’t have high hopes that being the twin brother to Azeroth, that Zeth Mortis would’ve been an inverted Azeroth, where it’s been this Castlevania Symphony of the Night the story is half over scenario, but when Blizzard hypes up 9.2 like it’s going places, one can’t help but wonder
For me lately, I find myself grinding out the level 50 alts that I had parked in Oribos, and it’s a rinse and repeat of each class; ding level 60, PvP gear till ilvl 170, and then casually raid at my leisure
But I also find myself sulking and sighing, as once in a blue moon, grinding from level 50-60 in Shadowlands dungeons, I’ll get a level 60 character who’s got ilvl 250+, and ask myself: “how does he do it?”
Maybe the player is just passionate like a Valorant fan, but for myself, I’m struggling to find the concept of what exactly is “alt friendly”
Things like the submitted screen shots, where I get level 50-60 dungeon gear blues, it’s easily 40-50 ilvls below a piece of ilvl 177 PvP gear, and once I equip the latter at level 60, my overall ilvl only goes up by 1-5
Rinse and repeat with Castle Nathria over to tier 2 LFR, needing piece of gear in every slot to quality for the LFR queue
Mathematically it doesn’t make sense, where “get good” doesn’t apply here, as I’d just be repeating the same gear slot replacements over and over again
Where’s the appeal?
I was recently running Necrotic Wake, and if you kill the blue abomination and then the minions around him, Surgeon Stitchflesh still says: “nooooo, that one was my favorite”
Are they all his favorite Blizzard?
Initially I did 4 level 60 characters, one for each Covenant, and then one character could magically grind every one of them with patch 9.1
But this is far from being an alt friendly game
My Hunter is Renown level 80 with the Night Fae, and the other 3 characters (Rogue, Druid, Mage), are of the other 3 Covenants, with anywhere from 50-60 Renown, but have no “passionate” desire to cap them out at Renown 80
So then why would I grind it out on any of my alts, having one of each class, to Renown 80? To grind all that Anima, unlocking every tier, and the super dee duper transmog collect-a-thon?
You’ve got to look ahead for that next hype thing for World of Warcraft, as your first character, you grind the Renown for the cool looking blue Antelope moose mount, but if you ding level 60 on an alt, average level 30 Renown, here’s your reward: a free mount in your bag that you already have
Ding level 60 on an alt, here’s the World Quests that offer those Covenent reputations and the anima
Meanwhile, these Covenant zones are so tiny, that you can only do so much, where you finally get the flying mount, and can finally see what’s on the zones islands that you couldn’t access previously - a whole lot of nothing going on there
From a design perspective, maybe it’s in no way near as thought out as it could be, like I’ve still got 4 free collecters edition boosts that I have no need for, because they can’t be applied to a classic WoW character, and these icons have been on the character selection screen for years
Waiting, waiting to see if Blizzard Entertainment stops looking at what they’ve done for future content, and start looking at what your doing; removing emotes that have been in the game since the year 2004 because of toxic politically controlled opinions that can’t handle a simple emote, isn’t making the game better
At the end of the day, WoW: Shadowlands is void of any story or character involvement, as you can create infinite alts, running dungeons endlessly, and are still stuck with: “wtf is going on here?”
Like if you do the Covenant Campaign then run Necrotic Wake, you hear and see the exact same crap: “you dare deny me the sky, than I shall answer in kind” RE: foolish paragon
There’s no intertwined campaign story for story arch in the dungeons/raids that provide any sort of character involvement of any kind
It doesn’t have to be end game Deathwing or Arthas in nature, but what classic WoW got so right was that there was always a bigger fish scenario, as each zone has this boss within a boss, and it felt alot like Game Of Thrones, Yellowstone, and Frontier
And part of not looking what you’ve already done ties into not doing it yet for future content, as Duskwood by example is my favorite zone; it’s dark, it’s eerie, it’s good, but you never continued any of the backlog content, like who is Morladim, or an old history book that a skeleton drops that leads to Ogres in Alterac and just abruptly ends
If you used Chrome Time for WoW zones, you could take the player base through this content of how things are the way they are, like Role Play as Mor’ladim being the guardian of the tomb of the unknown soldier, or these Greenhills of Stranglethorn pages that make new spell books, or more ingrained story lore that I’m not going to read in a seperate book by some manga fantasy author
Rather than force feed content to players in Shadowlands and expect people to just want it stuffed down their throats
There’s to many topical issues in WoW that’s the main focus, like male animal couples in Ardenweald and BFA turtles not gender pre-assuming your identity in Boralus, to Covenant specific class spells that are it’s primary focus; the character’s over look, how they’ll look, and not Covenant related enough where you could unlock Transmogs for WoW zones; make Stranglethorn Vale look like Ardenweald with Warlords’ of Draenor Frostwolf snow with a heavy Arathi Basin winter whiteout while all of Northrend is melted over
Because WoW never took advantage of itself, where the game is so huge, but everyone AFK’s in a capital city
There’s never been Heroic/Mythic/Hardcore zones and Dungeons where mobs and gear are buffed up
There’s never been mission tables and currency for max level characters at level 60 in Shadowlands, like let me access Anima and Azerite from my mini map command table list, and make it mean something, like War resources, have it apply to the current expansion pack max level chacter
There’s over 100 reputations to grind to exalted, and you really have to WoWHead hunt down them all because there’s a quick dungeon grind and even just casually grinding quests, and in the end, they’re not worth the effort, due to the rewards never changing
The Grand Expedition Yak is a perfect example; aquire it in WoW: Mists of Pandaria, but in WoW: Shadowlands, there’s still this cheesy vendor item options that don’t benefit the character, as the only incentive is to transmog and repair
You could build upon Farmville and Garrisons and make real Player Houses and Guild Halls, things that were implemented but never executed properly; Night Fae seeds are Farmville 2.0 but with Patch 10.0 and 11.0, the trend will inevitably continue, as nobody will go back and Farmville in Mists of Pandaria and lose interest
The First Ones could simply have the knowledge about taking care of a Panderan yak just right, and here’s why it’s finally got level 60 items
Or you Chromie Time to Northrend to Tiraguard Keep which has a Nerubian mount from said reputation vendor because you helped the zone at level 60, instead of: “whelp, why bother get the meaty grapes”; you could give us the mob perspective of helping out the Northrend murlocs, that, rather than carry a white flag for surrounder, offer the player an option to get the “enemy’s side” - or even betray their faction
Neither of which World of Warcraft has ever done; unlock murloc race, murloc cosmetic gear, it’s connected to Naz’jatar as they worship Queen Azshara in some way, and just make it a thing
Patch 10.0 might be factionless Horde And Alliance finally raiding together and setting aside their differences against a common threat…“you burned down our tree, you always got away with it…we forgive you”
Game design matters as much as story, lore, character involvement, and gear
Some care about social bonds, I don’t, I prefer if I have 0 friends because then I have 0 distractions in game.