I’m sure there’s been tons of these posts, and this one will probably repeat many of the same sentiments. Regardless, I came to vent to you guys because I know you too can relate to many of the issues below.
To begin, the game is tedious. No longer can you simply log in and play with friends. No longer can you hop on an alt and enjoy fun content without weeks of grinding and preparation. To enjoy end-game content, you’re forced to spend hours upon hours pursuing improvements that are always seemingly held out of reach by the systems implemented by Blizzard’s design team:
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Covenants require renown 80 for full perks and benefits. Renown 80 must be individually farmed on each toon, as the catchup only provides level 40. As specs/legendaries change for encounters/comps/content, one must also level those additional covenants to be competitive.
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Conduits must be farmed, with RNG loot tables affecting character performance, and high ilvl conduits are intentionally tied to content gating.
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Legendary affects are typically limited to one role/spec, and additional legendary items must be crafted to play others. Often multiple legendaries are needed for one spec. This is enough of an issue on its own with the amount of farming required, but factor in the absurd gold cost of obtaining legendaries and suddenly this becomes an issue tied to Blizzard’s P2W WoW token model.
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Obtaining gear is tedious enough with the personal loot system, small loot tables, and RNG nature of the vault. Factor the necessity to grind thousands of honor or valor points for individual item upgrades, and you’re suddenly spending weeks trying to upgrade your gear to a level of relevance.
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Want to optimize and min-max your toon? Additional improvements like sockets, and the above mentioned conduits, are tied to a weeks-long rep grind with boring repetitive questing in zones designed to be tedious and unrewarding.
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The infamous double legendary system… As Blizzard is known for recanting, it was no surprise that this mandatory character power improvement would be tied to a rep grind. (A grind that they claim isn’t necessary on alts, but is gated behind an even longer grind if you want to also gear those alts)
Some of you may argue that the additional bonuses tied to grinds are not mandatory. You may suggest that they are simply “extras” to obtain if you like. However, in any form of competitive content within the game players are expected to obtain the best improvements available to them. Nobody’s going to want to play with the guy who chose not to farm the rep, and is lacking X power improvement.
If I were someone who mained one character, the topics above likely wouldn’t be such an issue. Being a person who enjoys playing every class, I’m left behind on all but one character.
Since 9.2, I’ve spent over 1.5 mil gold on legendaries, and haven’t even covered a quarter of my toons. None of my alts are up to date on current quest lines, conduit ilvl upgrades, item-level in general, etc. Even attempting to grind on my alts sounds so miserable that I can’t even force myself to do it.
I don’t want to branch into the topic of P2W and intentional time gating, as that is heavily covered elsewhere. This is simply me complaining about the state of the game, and making the typical statement of “this sucks. fix it Blizz.” But I do so because I am passionate about this game. I have played for years, and have had countless hours of fun in the past. Some of my best memories are from fun times I’ve had playing WoW. It’s just all too depressing to see it become what it has.
I’ve already unsubscribed, and resub with gold when I feel the desire to play. I just can’t see myself purchasing another expansion based on lies, only to be slapped in the face with more tedious grinds, borrowed power, and content gating.
Here’s to hoping whatever the next expansion is will be a reflection of past successes, rather than creative future failures. Nobody likes systems, Blizzard. Seriously.
