All this whining about "the grind" in Legion - a look at TBC

[Kooja]

I kind of feel bad for Blizzard. I understand it's impossible to please everyone, but man the vocal haters are LOUD.

The biggest complaint I keep seeing is that Legion is nothing but a lack of content hidden behind time gated content or boring grinds that are a grind for the sake of being a grind. These same people then talk about how TBC or other expansions were the golden era of WoW.

Take a moment and seriously compare each individual aspect of Legion to a past expansion, any of them, and be honest with yourself on whether or not Legion is better or worse. Let's compare TBC to Legion:

TBC had much more content that was gated behind rep grinds, quest chains, daily grinds, etc. Remember Skettis? The amount of dailies you could do to increase rep for many factions was limited, and at ranks like honored and revered, typically the only bonus was another daily or two to speed up the grindy process.

Heroics were more challenging than what Legion has even on the mythic level, but mythic+ dungeons solve that "difficulty" problem. Once you were able to clear Kara/Gruuls/Mag, then that gear was better than heroics, so there wasn't much reason to do them beyond the rep grind, which also eventually ended. Even with the reputation choices, only a few would benefit your character, as the gear or enchants that were unlocked were specific to either casters or melee or tanks or healers, so you picked the rep or two you needed and could ignore the others. At this point, you were grinding rep for the completionist aspect of it and didn't even have a chance at character progression!

What else was there to do in TBC that you can't do in Legion? PvP, 5man dungeons, and rep grinds through grinding and very specific subset of repetitive dailies.

Let's not forget that the leveling process in Legion blows anything TBC had out of the water!

Outside of the whole "grind" conversation: the gameplay systems were different, and sure, that can be personal preference on which is better. But the talent trees in TBC were truly something that you would paste a pre determined spec and then forget about it. Few classes had options that were legitimate options. In Legion, most classes have options with their talents that should be chosen for either ease of play (passives), aoe, single target, utility, movement, etc. Much more decision making. "But to respec in Legion you need the tome which costs a lot". In TBC you literally had to not only be in a city, but you had to talk to a trainer to respec.

I do miss some of the unique identity classes had in TBC, like shadow priests being mana batteries. I do think that the complexity of playing your class well in Legion tends to be more engaging than it was in TBC for most specs (not all), but this is one area that changes every single expansion, and some specs are better in any given expansion, which again comes down to personal preference. If there are any hunters out there who try to say TBC was better than Legion... stop lying to yourself.

I loved TBC. I was late to the vanilla party and was just hitting 60 when TBC launched, so it was my first real taste of WoW. I began raiding and even started competitive progression raiding. My nostalgia glasses don't turn to vanilla, they turn to TBC and parts of WotLK. But still, I have to wonder why Legion is getting so much hate for the "grind" of content. This is nothing new to WoW at all, and Legion (in my opinion) is much better than any past expansion with their execution of it!

I'd be curious to hear legitimate counterpoints. Maybe someone can extend the look to other expansions in comparison to Legion (the outcome will be close to the same).

[Deleted]

To be honest, I can't be arsed to look at some old expac from a decade ago.
I was a different person back then. With a lot more free time.

I don't think Legion is especially "grindy" and I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with some RPG-style grinding in a RPG game. That comes with the package.

I have complaints about Suramar design in general and how it feels like a tin packed full of sardines. The differences to the other zones are so jarring, I've wondered if they had a special "Suramar team" working in its own silo without much collaboration with the other zone design teams.

I also think World Quests are a bit of a trap. They look shiny first, but start smelling like "old quests you've done just one time too many"-after a few. But hey, cheaply produced, repeatable content. Also part of the RPG-package.

But that has nothing to do with grind. I also haven't seen very many complaints about grind. I had to go to page 3 to find the first "time gated"-whine.

[cFortyfive]

I'd be curious to hear legitimate counterpoints.

I am always interested what people consider legitimate counterpoints when most of their points are essentially their feelings on a subject.
That said I am not even sure what your overall point is aside from I feel legion is better or how much sense it makes to point out how much more polished a current product appears to be than one that's close to a decade old.
Certainly legion "worldlies" are more rewarding but also therefore incredibly grindy. I was playing in a top 50 guild at the time and didn't grind any of the irrelevant factions to exalted at that time. Never bothered to do skettis or ogrila back then so certainly less of a required grind right there.
The grind for ap is mind numbing - so is the gear and legendary grind potential right here and I disagree with this being nothing new.

[Bonaduce]

I remember the grinds and attunements of EverQuest so "hokey we're doing this" is pretty much my response to those requirements. WoW has been torn between people like me who are used to these requirements and people who aren't or just want to coast while half-watching something else, it's interesting to see the pendulum swing back towards the grind a little bit.

[Tekkommo]

What is there to do in games like this besides grind? You grind everything. Grind to max level (not really a grind the first time), then you grind reps, grind attunements, grind ilvl etc.

I'm still enjoying it, I like how the progress has been laid out.

[Propainn]

Only issue I had was the Warrior Garrison Campaign taking longer than other classes. Honestly, they needed a few days where Arms wasn't pulling 40-50% of the damage on Mythic bosses any way. Dropped down to 35% for a bit there.

[Tackhisis]

Sorry, I don't give a shit about the situation in 2008. I want to have my fun by playing today.

[Elim Garak]

TBC had much more content

Agreed. It had.

[Deleted]

I am always interested what people consider legitimate counterpoints

It's basically you being supposed to disprove what they say based on arbitary parameters which are never clearly formulated and whom they can change at any given point aswell as having the freedom to disregard anything you say based on absolutely nothing but personal feelings.

@TE, why are you bringing up BC? This isn't a decade ago. I like some parts of Legion and immensely dislike others (especially the PvP balance + gearing system). Some complains are nonsensical others do have merit. This isn't mutually exclusive and coming up with how the game was nearly a decade ago isn't an argument.

[Deleted]

But why are you comparing legion and tbc? You should be trying to find counterpoints against the said whining instead.


And it doesnt matter if this or that is better or worse than before. Some of us had a lot more fun back then than we have now, thats simply it.

[Gimlix]

Agreed. It had.

Doesn't mean the content was good content. Let's be real here.

[Kooja]

Why compare to TBC? For one, because it's interesting to look at how the game has evolved, and two, because many of the negative posters always wish for times to be more similar to what it was "back in the day". I suppose I am just exhausted reading very vocal complainers say they wish it was a good game like Vanilla, TBC, WotLK was. If you don't enjoy the game, that's fine, but comparing it to where it was in 2008 does nothing but make it stand out for how great it is now, not the opposite like the complainers claim.

Really, the whole psychology behind the game and nostalgia is quite incredible, and I believe it actually does some harm. The longer a game survives and evolves, more people will struggle to enjoy it for what it is now because nostalgia is so powerful.

Complainers aside, it's a marvel to look at the game now compared to what it was back then. It would be an interesting little documentary to look at WoW's evolution over 10+ years

[Heaterz 88]

I blame Liberals

[Beerbill Society]

Legion is awesome, can't remember the last time I had so much fun in WoW, I actually enjoy playing it again.

I feel like people who complain are afraid of changes. Blizzard finally provided nice and different ways to do the content, but people still think they are "forced" to do everything, everyday otherwise they won't feel competitive, and imo that's where the grindy feel is coming from.

In my personal experience, I only do the things I feel like, I don't need to farm a thousand mobs or do 25 stupid daily to progress in a faction, just do the content I think will be fun and I still keep up with my guildies.

It's so much content I barely touched my alts and I have a lot

[Bigbazz]

Why do you feel bad for Blizzard? Those whining are in the minority, most of what I've seen has been positive. There is a massive grind because there is a lot of stuff to do, but it's not grindy unless you're in a rush to do it with many chars. Expansion is the best since WOTLK for me so far.

[BannedForViews]

I think Legion is better than TBC in a lot of ways, and TBC was the best up until now imo. The main difference I see is balance, both in PvE and PvP.The range between the top and bottom was a lot tigher in TBC. People would cry that they were doing 1800 dps while destro looks were doing 2k dps. A 10% difference is not game breaking. You can easily see a 100% difference in DPS in Legion. Most of this has to do with the fact that crowd control WAS an old mechanic. It will once again become relevant in Mythic+, but most people are still playing WoD, where you just tank and heal everything, and gear makes up the difference where planning and gameplay should. AoE is just too strong for many specs, and really leaves behind the specs that don't have similar cleave/aoe.

[Pull My Finger]

Agreed. It had.

Somewhere in your head, you actually probably believe that.

[Raetary]

its an mmo, anyone who expected to not have at least some kind of grind needs to stop doing drugs.

[Kuruption]

I don't mind "grinds" at all. I'm at the point of my life where I don't care about getting something done right away. I'm going to hit honored with the Nightfallen tonight, and I'm fine with that. A lot of people in my guild can run the two mythics behind the rep, and it just doesn't bug me.

I'd rather have something to look forward to while doing a bunch of quests than be bored.

But I can also see why people hate this too.

[TickTickTick]

Agreed. It had.

How unintelligent you must be to take a few words out of the whole sentence, which completely change the context? Original sentence is:

TBC had much more content that was gated behind rep grinds, quest chains, daily grinds, etc.


You are dumb. You are one of the haters OP is talking about. Its people like you who cant allow us having a normal discussion. Yet you are still here. Pathetic.