Why does wow feel so unrewarding

Community General Discussion
21

I know what you mean. I’ve noticed the same thing. Even when playing asian grinders, even if I am only taking baby steps, I am still moving toward a definite fixed finish line on any particular goal. WoW however has so much RNG now (even RNG based timegates!) that it feels like you could just run on the hamster wheel forever because not even nostramadus knows when/if that paragon cache mount is ever going to drop for you.

And whats up with crafting? Take time to gather some mats to craft yourself a breastplate of the aurora? Or fireflash? Or shnicklefrtiz? Who knows. It feels bad man.

I want to know what I am working on and when I will get there whether its a big carrot or just a little one that I’m chasing. I don’t care if the grind is long and hard as long as the finish line actually gets a teeny bit closer each time I work on it!

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22

Research suggests something known as the overjustification effect which implies that over rewarding people with extrinsic motivation (tangible rewards, achievements, gear etc) can lead to a significant reduction in someone’s intrinsic motivation, or the motivation to do something to get better or just because they find it fun etc.

It definitely seems highly relevant in regards to WoW, where previously good gear was hard to obtain and not guaranteed compared to the modern version where doing a 2 minute WQ for little effort can reward you with “epic” items.

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23

Light at the end of the tunnel ? I know the feeling. I like grinds but full rng grinds suck balls. TW mount is perfect example of rng grind it has the lowest chance to drop, why wasnt it just 25k emblems at least you know there is an end point.

People have been going on about this for so long now , its no wonder players believe that all blizzard cares for is Time played metric and not what is fun and those paragon caches can go to hell.

Id rather they say hand in 10x paragon caches and you will get this reward, light at the end of the friggin tunnel

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26

Nah, I still enjoy many other video games, including FFXIV which is very similar to how WoW used to feel to play, and I still very much enjoy Classic WoW as well. It’s not me, it’s definitely WoW.

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27

WHY DOES WOW FEEL SO UNREWARDING

Because you are playing the game wrong. Simple as that. :slight_smile:

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28

Lineage 2 featured a lot of RNG with drops and crafting. But you still were not time gated when it came to crafting mats because it hinged upon how much grinding you did or your ability to make adena to buy mats from dwarf stores.

So old school MMOs and MMORPGs used RNG, but when you put in place a time gate on top of the RNG or some heavy restrictions that is when the RNG becomes bad game design.

29

Agreed. I enjoyed the grind for coins to get a golden celestial dragon back in MoP. It was something I could do at my own pace, and when I’d finally killed every gulp frog in the history of Pandaria and removed the coins that they loved to eat, I felt like I’d accomplished something worthwhile.

When I get to the end of whatever bit of rep and or currency is handed out on a given day for modern WoW “grinds” I just feel annoyed that I’ll have to get back on every single day for however long to do the same little drip unless I want my acquisition time to increase by 24 hours for every day I’ve got something else to do.

3 Likes
30

Then why play, your point is you get no enjoyment out of the game not that it’s not rewarding. There are tons of rewards for all play styles of the game. So this is an attempt to get everyone to play the way you want or you simply have no interest in the game

31

sounds like a you problem m8. maybe wow isn’t the game for you.

32

It feels unrewarding because the game it too easy. Clearing the latest raid and killing the big bad van be done the same week you hit level cap.
Big rewards like titan forges are largely rng based so even when you get them you didn’t necessarily earn them. Hopefully this feels different either the higher ilvl off nzoth in 8.3.

33

Because the game is a weird combination of all carrots and no stick over here, and all sticks with no carrots over there. When you design a carrot on a stick game, if you give out too many carrots the carrots aren’t worth a s*** to the player that’s tired of getting them. And if there aren’t enough carrots or they’re kinda shabby, the grind to get them isn’t worth putting up with. The carrot to stick ratio is currently broken.

1 Like
34

Excessive iLv inflation caused by 4 raid difficulties means every 6 months your gear is useless.

because of the stagnant nature of the gear in M+ and if the raids dont have BIS pieces for you, you are just refarming what you already have.

the things you can * sort of * farm for are piled with RNG meaning even if you get something you want, if it isnt a maxed titanforge+socket+tertiary its garbage. let alone RNG stats, RNG what drops, RNG if its an upgrade on what you already have, RNG if its got a socket, RNG if its got tertiary, etcs etcs.

crafted gear is often completely overlooked by blizzard and professions have been left to rot for years.

pvp gearing is absolutely terrible.

you cannot target particular slots of gear to aim towards.

no more master loot so even if someone gets a TF of a piece that is totally useless for them, they cannot give it to you.

we grind and grind for an eternity to get nothing from our efforts.

the rep gear is completely useless by the time you have the rep needed to purchase the gear.

this xpack specifically about 90% of the xmog has been extremely bad. so even chasing aesthetics isnt worth it, because nothing looks good. in eternal palace they could of got real inventive with bioluminescence with the gear, and instead of get coral and fins. the art team is literally putting in 1/3 of the effort they have in all prior xpacks and this is what they have to show for there efforts. i can honestly say theres maybe 1 set ill come back and try to farm in the future from this xpack, if i can still stomach to play this game.

the RNG systems in place running rampant all over this game and the complete lack of player agency and determinisitic rewards makes this game completely unfun. the lack of safety checks for bad luck. prime example is island mounts/pets/xmog. all of the rewards should of been on the dubloon vendor. if you dont earn what you want along the way, you can eventually farm to unlock it as a deterministic reward for your playtime being rewarded.

a lot of the systems implemented this xpack basically had 0 iteration and ended up being terrible, despite all of there feedback. islands/warfronts being obvious glaring ones. essences too. corrupted gear will be as well.

i could go on for hours, but nothing is fun this xpack. the rewards are not rewarding because you as a player have absolutely 0 control over your characters progression other than farming AP. the necklace and azerite gear are atrociously bad systems that came from the absolutely terrible NLC system from last xpack. everything is bad. the only fun ive had this xpack is the random world pvp during the invasions.

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