Watcher's post about diversity of rewards

[Yriel]

Post is EXTREMELY hypocritical and double-standarded. Why? Because if Blizzard cares about different kind of players, make content even for tiny minority of players and try to ignore feedback from players, for whom this content isn't intended, then why:

1) They've nerfed LFR, because raiders asked to do it.
2) They will remove Garrisons in Legion, just because players, who like outdoor content, asked to do it.

So. Blizzard use such a populist arguments only when this arguments suits them. And brake exact the same rule, when it doesn't suit them. In fact via this post Watcher tried to derail discussion. Discussion was about providing $500 worth exclusive rewards in P2P game. And he simply thrown a bone to his White Knights, as always, so now they can parrot this argument to protect this direction of development.

That is because it is actually the other way around. The cool mounts are not rewards for dedicated players, they are there to bait players to do activities that are not fun to them. How many people would raid mythic just for fun? My guess is not very many.
But Blizzard, for some reason, wants to keep certain areas of the game alive, no matter if anybody actually wants to do them so they put out those rewards to get people to do them so that they can justify keeping these activities around.

The current devs don't like LFR so they put in shitty rewards to remove any incentive to do it. I don't know if they care about Garrisons.

[GodEmperor]

So what about Gladiator Mount collectors who want to have the limited Mythic only mounts but never get them because they never raid.

By your reasoning, Blizzard should add all mounts to all aspects of the game. Inb4 we get pet battlers who say they need all the mounts because they pet battle at the highest level.

No let it stay this way. Stop whining like crybabies.

[Coconut]

So what about Gladiator Mount collectors who want to have the limited Mythic only mounts but never get them because they never raid.

By your reasoning, Blizzard should add all mounts to all aspects of the game. Inb4 we get pet battlers who say they need all the mounts because they pet battle at the highest level.

No let it stay this way. Stop whining like crybabies.

Mythic mounts never get removed from the game and eventually become easily farmable, while heroic AotC mounts are fairly easy to get or buy in an expansion, and there's no cutoff limiting how many people get them.

It's funny you mention whiny crybabies though, seeing how Gladiators whined like crybabies on twitter that they didn't want unicorn mounts, and were rewarded for it with infernals.

[Lei]

I feel like the devs now create rewards assuming you have an armada of alts at your disposal (example: garrison boss mounts). It also feels like the devs now think that these achieve hunter / pet-mount collector nerds will do anything, so let's just give them some grindy crap, maybe some rng fest, they will like it, that's their thing anyways. In fact, the more rng-y, the more complicated these stuff are, the bigger boner they will have. Because ... nerds!

This is my thought after looking through on wod achieves/rewards. Haven't really checked legion achieves yet, but came accross on the pristine archaeology achieve while I lurked on wowhead. :/

I remember when in Wrath my daily thought was "oh, my oracle egg will ahtch tomorrow, weeee!" in wod last year: "how the hell will I find groups for garrison boss on my last 5 chars and will the boss drop the mount I already have again, or will I finally be able to finish the colleciton?"

[Raiju]

I feel like the devs now create rewards assuming you have an armada of alts at your disposal (example: garrison boss mounts). It also feels like the devs now think that these achieve hunter / pet-mount collector nerds will do anything, so let's just give them some grindy crap, maybe some rng fest, they will like it, that's their thing anyways. In fact, the more rng-y, the more complicated these stuff are, the bigger boner they will have. Because ... nerds!

This is my thought after looking through on wod achieves/rewards. Haven't really checked legion achieves yet, but came accross on the pristine archaeology achieve while I lurked on wowhead. :/

Or maybe they want to set rewards appropriate to the people who don't attempt to do every content in game, rather than lower the bar for everyone because of achievement hunters.

[Lei]

Or maybe they want to set rewards appropriate to the people who don't attempt to do every content in game, rather than lower the bar for everyone because of achievement hunters.

You see that's the problem. The bar was quite low before. You only had to dip your toes into something (honor mounts) and you could still get somewhere.

Edit: I have no problem with gladiator mounts or the vicious saddles. I will never do arenas, it's fine. I'm talking about casual gameplay. Like garrison missions and fun (garrison) boss drops.

[Cien]

I am replying to this here because I play on EU and can't reply directly to his thread. If someone can quote me there, I would greatly appreciate it.

This was a post aimed mostly at the 2 million gold spider, but I think the infernals that recently became gladiator mounts apply as well, and so do the world boss mounts which have been discussed in the recent months (I was part of that discussion on the EU forums).

First, I would like to say that, at first glance, I agree with this idea of diversifying rewards. This is a good change from WoD, where half a dozen different activities rewarded you with a recolor of the same type of mount. Sometimes, having sources that strengthen the reward's identity is awesome.

That being said, as a mount collector who likes to diversify his playstyle in order to collect as many mounts as I can, I say let's not overdo it. It's cool to have branched out rewards, but if they are each meant to belong to a small elite, so far up the ladder that only few will reach them, we will all end up poorer (or more frustrated in the end).

We all prefer different things, but trying more than the thing we like most should be a good thing, not a horror. A cool mount should encourage and reward trying new things, not make someone feel exclusive to them. The people who expect to do everything and still complain about it will only complain more if they are asked to go to extremes. Those who need a push to try new things will just get bored if rewards are too far out of reach.


I would also like to underline that mount rarity and model exclusivity should not be more important than gameplay and a player's desire to customize themselves with something cool. It should not be more important than creating an immersive world either.

World boss mounts (I'm speaking, at least, about the ones in MoP) are designed to be extremely rare, but this offers no actual gameplay. Many still farm them, and very few actually enjoy it. Their rarity gives nothing to the players as a whole, it's just a quirk that seems cool from the outside. Ditto for rare spawns, like Time Lost Protdrake. Yes, it's rare, but how does that offer good gameplay? People camp it at night, realm hop and get frustrated, that is all.

The spider, so highly priced, may or may not be fine based on the inflation in Legion. Yes, it is different. But what does it add to the world by being such an expensive item sold by a random crazy gnome? How am I immersed in the game by paying 2 million gold for it? At least put it on a Nightborne vendor, since it thematically matches them (and I'm sure they can be mad as well).

One of the mistakes made in early WoD was that many iconic mount models ended up in the shop or as CE rewards instead of enriching Draenor's content, as casual or less casual rewards. The Arrakoa offered no Dread Raven, the Frostwolves no rylaks, the Laughing Skull no Ravager, the Draenei no Fairy Dragon... the models were present all around, but the world felt poorer because we couldn't get them in it. The spider won't be a store item (though it won't be far off considering the tokens), but how does it enrich the world as a 2 million gold mount? Why not make a solid gold Sky Golem for that? Or anything that thematically says "I'm rich".

Last but not least, the Infernals. They are an iconic creature for an expansion you call "Legion". My warlock friend, who is a mythic raider, but also a working mom, was looking forward to getting one. So was I, as a collector. Neither of us has the time and ability to become Gladiators, let alone over one expansion, with almost no PvP experience behind us.

I absolutely am not saying that Glads shouldn't get cool rewards, but theirs have always been custom armored versions of otherwise available mounts... whether those mounts became available before or after the gladiator seasons started. If you arbitrarily justify it to yourself that gladiators absolutely must have unique creatures as mounts, all those amazing models will go to waste for the vast majority of players. And they could have been flagship mounts, somehow obtained... from the Burning Legion which they represent! Wouldn't that feel better for the players?

Why change a system that provided elegance and balance all this time? Because PvP is dying? It's not dying because of the elite, it's dying, on the contrary, because the learning curve is too steep, and the plebs get nothing... so we don't participate.

In conclusion, I say yes, offer me a rich world to delve in and sample, with varied rewards for varied styles of gameplay... but don't try to build your world by going out of your way to prevent me from obtaining things! Don't distribute rewards arbitrarily when they can help form a deeper connection to the world! Don't waste entire models by making them all highly exclusive and temporary.

If you spread rewards too far apart, most will get next to nothing, and they will treat the game as if there was nothing to chase at all.

i am completely for unique rewards for different branches, why should everything be the same? its ridiculous :/ we can't *all* be good at everything nor should we have access to *all* rewards just because they are ingame. let people who are talented enough reap the rewards whether it be high end pve/gladiators in pvp, that way, we can still get the awe of 'oh shit, they actually got that, SO cool' like people used to get in vanilla/tbc, when things were hard. i just disagree that we should be handed rewards for being online. the coolest shit should be gated behind difficult pve content or a high rbg/arena rating, if that means i don't quite make the cut myself? so be it

[Mafic]

The entire reward structure is messed up with WoD and heading into Legion.

They are going down a dangerous path where players do not feel they are progression towards some tangible and realistically reachable goal. In theory this is supposed to keep players subbed longer so the bean counters like the idea on paper. Reality is players would rather quit than go on a wild goose chanse for something that is out of their reach.

Blizz was on top of the MMORPG heap because they made rewards reasonable to reached for many people via a badge/honor system. With both scrapped this foreshadows a dark future ahead for reward distribution in the game.

Blizz thinks this is "fun". Player view this as punishment for long time loyal players.

[Deleted]

His explanation is sound, stop getting so butthurt when a CM is right it makes you look like an ignorant child.

[Raiju]

You see that's the problem. The bar was quite low before. You only had to dip your toes into something (honor mounts) and you could still get somewhere.

are you suggesting there will be 0 mounts to buy with gold other than this one? theres no glory hero/glory raider before the mythic boss mount? there's no vicious mounts before gladiator?

[toxicrusader]

I completely understand you.

As a fellow warlock, I was sad the moment I saw they were giving the infernals to gladiators, SPECIALLY the fel one. The only mount that screams LEGION goes do gladiators? And they don't even like it, just like they didn't with the gronns, and the same happened with Felblood Gronnling, which recolor was perfect for a Glory of the Hellfire Raider. Just give them armored Storm Drakes as they want, and give Infernals to people who really cares about themes.

And the argument "if you want a glad mount you should become a glad" is invalid, cause even if someone push it to the limits, ending up on the top 0.5% it's not even guaranteed. Glad mounts should be unique in its own way, not an exclusive model, which would be tottaly unfair. Why? PvE content is never retired, titles, mounts, gear, it all remains obtainable, except for mounts that have their drop chance reduced, but still, not removed. PvP have unique mounts, gear and titles that become obtainable when the respective season ends. I'm not beeing salty here, I don't want a Primal Gladiator title if I didn't play when it was current, nor some recolor of gear that in most cases isn't even that great, and even the armored versions they always get for mounts, but if they tie up a model to a very restricted achievement it will be douche move, indeed.

And just to enforce your argument, I think all will agree that seeing Ravagers on the store instead of Laughing Skull faction was as lame as it could be. As it was when Dread Ravens went to CE, just to get recolored in 6.2. Imperial Quillen remained unique in its model. Hope they do the same with Illidari Felstalker. Blizzard should worry more about thematics, definitely. WoD's most iconic mounts were straight to the store, but I can go back and say the same about Heart of the Aspects. And we spend the whole expansion getting more wolves, boars and hippos from the most different sources. As an avid mount collector, that was one of the worst things they did in WoD. I was hoping they learned the lesson, but only time will tell us that.

[Mafic]

His explanation is sound, stop getting so butthurt when a CM is right it makes you look like an ignorant child.

As a child I think his explanation is full of double standards and PR spin.

[Lillpapps]

It's not a must to do all the content for all the mounts. When you choose to collect mounts you agree to your own terms that you will have to do things that you don't want to do. The game does not force you to do anything. In the end you choose to do content you don't enjoy because you want the cosmetic item that has no effect on gameplay. The cosmetics are there as a reward for those who partake in the activity, if you do it's your choice and nothing mandatory at all and if you decide to partake then the fault lies with you if you don't enjoy it. You can't blame that on the game.

[Deleted]

Requiring gold and lots of it to acquire cool mounts and pets encourages everyone to play the game in whatever manner they wish.

Nope, it just encourages richie rich to spend some bucks in tokens, so that blizzard profits and the playerbase still has a way to play wow without paying subs with real money, preventing an even bigger population plummeting.
I would change my mind about this, if it is easier in legion to make gold than it was in WOD, otherwise it is all about white whales hunt.

[ro9ue]

I mean his assessment is right but Blizzard has made their own bed. By trying to appeal to every possible type of player on the face of the earth, instead of creating a tighter knit community with similarities, they've concocted a volatile brew of incompatible ingredients.

[Coconut]

I feel like the devs now create rewards assuming you have an armada of alts at your disposal (example: garrison boss mounts). It also feels like the devs now think that these achieve hunter / pet-mount collector nerds will do anything, so let's just give them some grindy crap, maybe some rng fest, they will like it, that's their thing anyways. In fact, the more rng-y, the more complicated these stuff are, the bigger boner they will have. Because ... nerds!

This is my thought after looking through on wod achieves/rewards. Haven't really checked legion achieves yet, but came accross on the pristine archaeology achieve while I lurked on wowhead. :/

I remember when in Wrath my daily thought was "oh, my oracle egg will ahtch tomorrow, weeee!" in wod last year: "how the hell will I find groups for garrison boss on my last 5 chars and will the boss drop the mount I already have again, or will I finally be able to finish the colleciton?"

I feel they certainly risk confusing "I will begrudgingly do it" for "I like to do it, I want more!".

But the bigger problem is that they seem to be winging the reward system. Things are either too hard or too easy to get, and they tend to look for effects that don't really lead to good gameplay, like the huge amount of rare spawns in WoD. And then we have knee-jerk reactions like gladiators getting infernals because they spammed Twitter about my little pony.

Not sure what happened, because MoP, aside from the World Boss mounts being too rare, had really cool systems for collecting mounts.

I feel like invasions are only a problem because they are restricted to once a week, they are too hard to trigger and the rewards aren't specific to each foe. Garrisons as a whole could have been better if they spent more time tweaking the invasion system (and maybe diversified the mechanics a bit). If anything they were a reason to bring people in your garrison, and more of that would have been good.

[Lei]

are you suggesting there will be 0 mounts to buy with gold other than this one? theres no glory hero/glory raider before the mythic boss mount? there's no vicious mounts before gladiator?

No, I'm saying how it was in WoD, and we only know about the starter Legion experience.

[Raiju]

No, I'm saying how it was in WoD, and we only know about the starter Legion experience.

In WoD you have both vicious available mounts & gladiator, varying gold cost mounts, farming mounts, easy & difficult to attain pve mounts...

[Deleted]

It's simple, really.

You want Mythic gear? Go raid mythic raids. You want CM rewards? Go do CM dungs. You want Water Strider? Go do Anglers rep. You want Chopper? Go farm gold or level up eng. You want to collect every mount? Go do everything you need to do (PvP, PvE, grind, farm, whatever). You want Infernals mount? Go do PvP.

Everyone shouldn't have access to everything. That's what made this game so much worse. Even if it's "just" mounts or different models. It's just like saying poor people should get iPhones or Macs. It doesn't work like that. You need to work, get money and then you can get it. Even if you don't like the job.

Sorry but i have to ask. Are you trolling? are you unaware that all those rewards you are talking about are advertised in exchange for GOLD in any trade/general chat in every populated server EU and US and NO ONE is being banned for that?
Do you understand that right now, if they put a vendor who gave those things in exchange for gold, nothing would change in the game rewards wise?
Everyone has acces to everything in this game as long as he has enough gold for it, and NOBODY seems to care.
Oh and Blizzard is to blame for this; Sometimes i even think they encourage these practices, because it financially benefits them.

[Mad_Murdock]

As a child I think his explanation is full of double standards and PR spin.

I don't see how you get that. But I'm guessing you just don't like that answer and thus, why you view it the way you do.