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

[Littleraven]

I would LOVE for them to release BC as it was then right now so people could see. You had to grind to get literally anything done in BC. Remember having to grind every rep to Revered so you could even get the key to run the heroics? Talk about a time gate. And rep was no joke back then. The only saving grace to that was I am pretty sure at that point you could just run a dungeon and get a certain rep for it.

I know not everyone who complains about something are all the same people but it's just ridiculous when people look back with rose tinted glasses and think that the game was league better than it is now. Sure in some respects an argument could be made but I really feel like the majority of that had to do with the game being brand new and a LOT of people being much younger and in different places in their lives. I was 16 when I started playing this game and am 27 now. That might as well be a lifetime lol.

[Deleted]

I honestly don't even feel there is a grind, but I only plan on doing LFR, so... I'm really free to just do whatever I want to, and not feel miserable.

[Xkiller9000]

The only "grind" in legion is spamming dungeons for a fucking legendary - yea im triggered cause its all ive been doing the past week since im done gearing

[Redecle]

So far Legion doesn't really feel that grindy and that's an exceptionally good thing.
Sure Suramar has it's problems, as said already the mob density compared to the other zones.. It feels like it's any year between 2004-2015.
I mean finally someone has made the executive decision of a life time in the other zones and not pack every square inch full of mobs.
That's amazing, i could literally say i love whoever made that decision and it actually makes the hike in the woods feel like a hike in the woods when you're not constantly surrounded by dozens of bloodhungry mobs. Sure wolves move in packs even where i live, but there's not 150 of them surrounding campers in the woods with a 10 second respawn timer like in the past expansions.
Really probs for that. And then there's Suramar where the old pattern continues, granted that's sort of understandable in the city, which is supposed to me sort of crowded capital city but it's happening all around the zone. And the layout is conflicting. The city part makes you feel like you're in a huge city but the rest is just way too complicated to navigate. I get it we dont' have flying yet so we have to make an effort. Maybe that's just complaining for nothing. It just sticks out so well from the other zones which are near perfect. Val'sharah, Stormheim and High Mountain are already on the shared spot of my favorite zones ever with classics like Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord, Storm Peaks, Kunlai Summit, Jade Forest, Winterspring, Darkshore, Uldum, Un'goro Crater, Redrige, STV and Hinterlands. Themes are just spot on, there's no sign on the mandatory boring zone, Gorgrond, Zul'drak, Dread Wastes, Deepholm just to name a few.

I've always been opposing the old traditional rpg grind style. RPGs can have constant content and interesting content without the grind.
Keyword there is dynamically created content, something wow really hasn't had before. The world quests are sort of trying that first hand, but already i've run in to the problem that i fear that the possible quest pool is not large enough, even currently i have 2 same wqs in Suramar active at the same time, 2 different elites to kill, but same item reward and same quest structure. Still i wouldn't go as far as saying some other expansion had more content to offer, since we have barely gotten started with Legion. Only time will tell how often we get patches and what new do they bring to the table.

There's always been grinds even in the good expansions, not to even talk about baseline classic. In that sense it was the worst, but it was following game like Everquest and others. In that way WoW has evolved in many ways out of the grindyness just to fall back in to it next expansion. WoD reputations probably being the worst offender as of late. I can't even but TBC in the same line, still. Even though my own personal opinion, in a world where we've had WoD and Cataclysm I still consider TBC to be the worst expansion of all time. It had like 4 good points to it, 4. Karazhan was awesome, the rest 3 are just obtainable things. So comparing to that Legion is doing excessively well.

Even though some of the quality of life improvements that the game has taken in over the years may have destroyed some of the game mechanics from 10 years ago. They've still overall improved the experience at least for me. Flying which was actually introduced in that TBC, has been a huge disagreement in the community. What it did to the world on the ground or wPVP. But it's a huge convenience factor on max level, specially looking like currently i'm just flying back and forth. 1 WQ in Val'sharah done, fly Stormheim for another, then a new one pops in Azsuna. That's doing something yes, but it's not necessarily interesting when i'm sitting in a flightpath taking a dump in the toilet half the time. Currently the world is a little bit too alive for me. And when it comes to wPVP, if people want to do that they will find away and they will do it. Flying removes most the random encounters yes, but that usually also means the people who don't want to participate don't have to. If you're looking for it, it will find you.

I just got finished with all the leveling zones quests, loremaster of Legion. I loved the zones and stories, granted there's still way too many kill x or collect y filler quests, but there's also lot of interesting quests. The pattern was pretty clear, every story or new questing experience had another kill or collect quest paired with it.
My leveling process doing the zones took 2,5 zones to get from 100 to 110, when there's 4 leveling zones. So this week i was continuing to Suramar i still had 1,5 zones of leveling quests to do for Loremaster. I think that's a huge margin of error needed for the pacing of leveling. Could have easily left out some of the unnecessary kill/collect quests for story.

Some of the content is clearly grind disguised as story, the Suramar being one, ancient mana anyone? I get that timegating is way to protect players from themselves and to prolong the content, but in it's basic form it's also a very unimaginative and just plain shitty way to do what it aims to do. But it's been here for long and Legion doesn't seem to change it. Leveling was fast, even though it took me like a week, but handed out i just wanted to enjoy it and not take the most optimal route or grind 15 hours straight in the first pass. And i did enjoy it, a lot. Although at the moment i'm pretty much convinced that getting 12 alts through the same is not going to happen on this pvp realm. The first pass i went with the rogue and i'm glad i did, i got to skip most of the nonsense other players tried to offer me, but still it got to the edge point that has been long time coming. I've been considering getting out of this realm for a while, and the amount of people out in the zones and this realm balance meaning 95% of them being opposing faction. I would just go blatantly absolutely insane trying to level any other class. You literally can't get off the flightmaster anywhere without getting 7 people dotting you. Today doing world quests pretty much sealed the deal that when i'm leveling next one it's going to be the lowest population pve server i can find.
But that's just other people, anonymity will guarantee everyone turning into assholes, well that has 2 sides, i'm sure the opposite side is like "pvp mate?" "let's do it like they do it in the olden days" "i need to farm them honor" or as the normal response is "you're on the pvp server, the world is dangerous" when i'm like "yeaahh.. it would be great if not every single mongoloid out there wasn't trying to get me", specially when it comes to leveling alts, i've now seen the leveling content, i'm not going to waste my time on things i have to do like 10+ times over again. That's the grind, but it's my grind for playing all the classes, still want to be smooth about it and as fast as possible, cause well 13 classes aren't going to prestige 13 themselves and even though wpvp is honor it's not the way you want to be grinding that out. It's the new content dilemma, the first week, not a single person attacked whilst leveling, now that people who are capped with gear and "nothing to do" started their old ways. But Vanish is your friend, saying "thanks, but no thanks, got no time for you". It has nothing to do with Legion, so far it's been amazing. As with anything it has negative sides and positives and so far positives are in the lead. Professions for one have come a long way. Love the fact that they involve quests and are actually doing something. On the other hand the artifact power ramp up is insanity, sure it's meant to last the expansion, but yeah you go from 1k max to suddenly 7k still with 10-30 acquiring rate and so on. WQs offer a lot more now, but even with those it's going to be a long long time. It's a progression for sure and on the main i don't mind it. It's fine to have another leveling curve over the expansion, it's the alts and catchup that will tell what the true nature is. I can't imagine doing all 13 classes and all 3 specs on each to full if it goes with this rate, no amount of time in the universe will be enough for that. Still that's one of the main goals so we'll see in the next few years how crazy i'm going to become. Reputations are another factor, i got 70+ exalted and so far most of Legion ones are already honored from the quests, far from the worst ones i've done in my day.

Dungeon loot RNG is pretty much the same it was in WoD, it's horrible, but what are you gonna do. Blizzard loves that rng. I've pretty much geared with WQs so far. Gotten one dungeon item drop and that was titanforged epic from a normal. At the time it felt nice and surprising, i guess what the intention here is. That people get excited about the loot they receive, but i've just grown out of the whole idea of gear loot. It's outdated, well not exactly, but in a way it is. RPGs have it one of two ways, either you enhance the stats on your character, much like training muscles, which makes more sense, or you change a shirt that increases the stats for you until you get a new shirt. For me there's only visuals that matter in the gear anymore. The statvamp is pointless. If we are keeping classic rpg elements such as grinds and rng why not have variety of stats? Masteries are all just % increases, crit is the same rng as the rest, versatility is completely pointless, it's just a flatout % increase, nothing interesting on that at all, haste for many specs have been nerfed to the ground, because of vers and it's actually the stat that changes something other than just the damage numbers in your combat text.

[Deleted]

The only "grind" in legion is spamming dungeons for a fucking legendary - yea im triggered cause its all ive been doing the past week since im done gearing

Just don't do it, then. See people like you are why we can't have nice things because you will feel forced to grind it out.

[Xkiller9000]

Just don't do it, then. See people like you are why we can't have nice things because you will feel forced to grind it out.

no, i didnt say that - i know im not forced, but i want one - and its only gonna gimme more numbers in raid

[Deleted]

Just don't do it, then. See people like you are why we can't have nice things because you will feel forced to grind it out.

Because to be competitive they are. You could argue the RNG part is the problem in this equation but if they instead put them behind hard work and dedication people like you would whine because somehow RNG and luck are better indicators of skill.

[darklogrus]

The only "grind" in legion is spamming dungeons for a fucking legendary - yea im triggered cause its all ive been doing the past week since im done gearing

Actually id be happy to see any gear at this point as I am now 0/3...

[Deleted]

no, i didnt say that - i know im not forced, but i want one - and its only gonna gimme more numbers in raid

Ok, then.

Because to be competitive they are.

Too bad, though. If Blizzard designs the game according to that minority, they will always have to pass on cool design decisions.

[Floopa]

the AP grind is fun.

world quests are fun.

spamming mythic dungeons are fun.

the only thing that isn't fun is the cancer-elite area of suramar, that place can go fuck itself.

[Makabreska]

Agreed. It had.

Ye ok, please tell me how BC had more content, because I have been hearing that for years. We have now apart from standard raids and dungeons upcoming mythic+, class halls with artifacts and campaigns tied to it, world quests, pet battles, brawlers guild (currently disabled), Suramar and much more. Please tell me HOW BC had more content?