You don't think loot variance from pvp boxes was a form of gating? You don't think that grinding honor was a form of gating?
Additionally, pvp doesn't adhere to the same rules that pve content does. One is competitive in nature, the other is cooperative.
From what I've seen, the people complaining about gating have never given a better solution. So there's that.
People complain about gating alot but here's the deal.
Devs don't want you to spend every waking moment on the game progressing your character.
If you could, you might be tempted to do just that. Many people do. Remember how many people have claimed WoW ruined their lives? (Which is insane and completely their fault but the example stands.)
It makes sense to purposely control the amount of content you can consume in a certain time period, to ensure you can mentally "walk away" and do something else. "OK, I've done everything I can for today, what should I do now? Hmm, let's see what's on TV." / "Let's play another game I enjoy." / "I should go with my friends, they're going to a movie tonight," etc.
If someone COULD make progress constantly, by remaining on and active, they would be tempted to pass up the above mentioned more, just to try to 'keep up' with everything they could do.
So this potential fall out is countered, by time gating.
Gating is also used to pace content. If you could consume everything the game had to offer in a week, then you'd be bored the next week. But if you can't do it all this week and you have to do some of it next week, then you have a reason to come back next week -- and the week after that and so on.
The class hall quests are centered around the above mentioned. They take a long time, so you can walk away from the game, or so you don't run into a situation where you just went out and got started on a quest, when suddenly .. oh shit, your mission is back. You better kill this mob and go back to your class hall and send out another 30 min quest that can/will interupt the flow of your game again, and force you to go back a second time, and a third, and so on.
Gating also serves to keep players of various dedication levels "on the same page" or relatively close, by restricting how much the hardcore gamer can do vs. the casual guy who doesn't want to play as much or doesn't have time. Neither of them can get ahead for long due to being gated.
Gating plays an important role in alot of things in an MMO, probably the largest being: Keeping you coming back tomorrow.
I have in no way ever defended Ashran's or the weekly 3 RBG wins RNG boxes, especially for the BiS Accolade trinkets. I hated it as much as anyone and could see what it would lead to. But you could gear up in WoD much faster by doing instanced PvP than this crap in Legion, and you weren't channeled into PvE. You also had some choice in gear and knew the stats you could work toward getting.
Of course in an MMORPG there will always be a certain amount of gating or grinding. That's the nature of the genre, but it's a matter of degree and striking a more or less happy medium. At least since WoD (some would say well before that) Blizz has been hell bent on less content while increasing the grind and gating. That benefits their bottom line (less money spent on overhead while extending sub times means greater profit margins), while not doing much for the player.
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Repeating your inane arguments does not make them any less stupid.
Might be that secondary traits are randomized so that you have a chance to not get blizzard at all? Seems odd in that case since afaik you can't reroll them. Either way it's not that bad to have to wait a few days for the last relic slot. Game is barely out and people want to have completed everything already....
It's gated so people can't rush everything in 2 days and then moan on the forums about how "WAHHH THERE'S NO CONTENT!!"
Find something else to do in game whilst other things are on CD.
People keep saying this and I don't get the reasoning behind this. People don't like to wait for things, so Blizzard puts timers. People hate timers and want to finish their objective.
This wasn't a problem back in Vanilla, and you know why? Cause it took skill to progress through the game. It also took more content, but the game was difficult. Want to do a dungeon in Vanilla? You need to CC each pull. Want to raid MC? Gotta farm fire resist gear, and have your dungeon set. What do you need to progress in Legion? A pulse.
The game has been out 2 fucking weeks. If you got finished with everything in one day you'd complain it went by to quick and you've got nothing to do. There is a phone app that makes it even easier to do missions while you're at work or not near your PC. The QQ in this community over trivial shit is just retarded.
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"Gated" content has been around oh I dunno since Vanilla? Whether it was in the form of gear checks, rep gains, attunements or merely time.. its been here and it isn't going anywhere. compared to what it used to be the ''gating'' you're whining about pales in comparison.
I did the exact same as you, I waited until the hordes trampled the server and only even tried to log on 2 or 3 days after launch. Furthermore I did my leveling casually, I took time to read the quest texts and understand the story.
It made the whole experience more enjoyable by understanding whats going on in the broken isles instead of just rushing after quest completions.
Am I behind? Yes, I am behind on ilvl and artifact power / artifact knowledge / follower lvl/ilvl. Is it relevant? No.
#1. Everyone is max capped (theoretically) to 850, when raids open that gear gap will vanish
#2. AP increases exponentially so even if others started gathering sooner/harder eventually everyone will converge to the same artifact level (since the gap to the next one will be several million AP)
So, stop complaining. Enjoy life. Go outside or stay inside and do something else. Accept the fact that WoW (and MMOs) in general are supposed to be played over a long period of time, they are not supposed to be "finished" in a single sitting/night.
I only feel gated when I can't do anything else but wait for some timer to run out or reset. That hasn't happened yet. Yes, you can't go on with the order hall campaign until those missions are done, but there is so much more to do (at least for me), that it doesn't really matter. You're not behind on anything, there is no need to farm rep or get the order hall done before anyone else, so you can just do something else.
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Waaaahahaha, lol! Skill. It just took time, nothing else. Yes, yes, I did play since a week after launch.
Well, yeah, if difficult means a mob with 10 times the health and damage as a normal mob. There was no extra tactics involved or anything, just more HP to get down before it killed you, which (in case of group quests) meant you needed more people to dps. Glorified target dummies. Raiding wasn't difficult either. Getting together 40 people and making sure none of them did something stupid, that was the difficulty.It also took more content, but the game was difficult.
CC, yes. In the end it all came down to taking the right classes, as CC isn't very skillful, is it? You just needed a warm body that had a particular button, not skill. Farming resist gear is not difficult or skillful either. Nothing changed.Want to do a dungeon in Vanilla? You need to CC each pull. Want to raid MC? Gotta farm fire resist gear, and have your dungeon set. What do you need to progress in Legion? A pulse.
In fact, bosses have many more abilities now (even dungeons bosses are more engaging then MC bosses ever were) and a lot more to keep track of. But we also got better, as we've seen everything before. First time you saw something on the floor, you wondered what it was. Now you automatically step out of everything you see on the floor, as it's usually bad. Which in turn wiped groups, because Blizzard starts putting stuff on the floor that you dó have to stand in Also let's not forget the guides and videos explaining everything these days. There was a lot less of that going around in Classic.
There aren't a lot of timers in Legion. The only ones I can think of are the missions you need for the order hall campaign. Anything else?
Then lets compare.
Vanilla
A new Vanilla player would have to level to 60, which would certainly take 1-3 months. Once max leveled, a player starts doing dungeons for gear, which wasn't easy cause dungeons were much harder, and so was getting a group together. Besides the holy trio, you needed to get dps with CC capabilities. Once everyone arrives to the dungeon, you better hope the people you're with are good cause wipes cost gold, which was hard to come by in Vanilla.
After 3 months of dungeon farmings and what not, you're finally able to raid ZQ/MC. Not including the time it took to level, and good luck finding 39 other people to clear raids. This could take you a while.
Legion
Takes a week to max level a character, thanks to free level 90 and level 100 boost. Probably a few weeks to dungeon grind gear so you can LFR. Given all the raids are out, you can finish raiding in a week, and have no idea how to play your class. So in about 2 months, you finished the game, until next content patch. Given you have no interest in normal, Heroic, and Mythic raiding.
Last edited by Vash The Stampede; 2016-09-14 at 01:26 PM.
Don't you have any job? This leaves me a maximum of a couple of hours per day to play, if I don't have other things to do in the evening... oO
Also: Vanilla dungeons were not harder. They were time-consuming, and more people did not know how to play. And many specs were bad.