WoW became a horrible boring grindfest

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Became?

No, WoW and MMORPGs and games in general has always been about the grind.

Effort versus rewards, something something.

The sooner you understand that, the better gaming in general feels.

[Grimnakh]

so aion isnt korean? ok then.

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what the fuck has it got to do with you what i did next? are you my mother or something???

Youre complaining about wow being a boring grind (at max level) so if youre offering some other game as a superior alternative its relevant to your argument what there is to do in that game after reaching max level/have geared up.

[Niwes]

I agree with the OP, but, TBH, WoW has been sliding in this direction for several expansions now.

The primary problem is that Blizz is supporting the "give me gear for very little effort" crowd. They are doing this because it is the cheapest thing to do. I struggle to think of anything easier than the current design of "run the same content over and over again with a 4-tier slider scale" because you get the same gear, but more powerful!

As much as people loved Wrath, it was the first serious step into making dungeons more trivial. I've played since early Vanilla, and it was the first time I encountered multiple people screaming "Go! Go! Go!" in leveling dungeons and actually being successful. Unless you were very seriously geared in Vanilla and BC, anyone with that attitude was an idiot who died quickly. And Blizz just continued the trend until you have what you see today. Trivial dungeons, trivial leveling experiences, no need for cc, no need for a good healer or even a good tank most of the time.

And thus we have the attitude of people wanting ilvl far above what is needed because they are working off the assumption that most players can't do their rotation well, or tank well, or heal well, so enough gear will cover for the difference. And, when a few show up that know their rotation, that gear level ensures the run will be even more boring.

But, look, squirrel!!...er, sweet gear!!

agree to everything. truth spoken (especially the first half) in my eyes.

[Evangeliste]

"Time is money friend".

The world moved on, the gaming industry evolved, people's demands changed, time in an essence is something people need to share across everything. Not just sitting at their PC playing WoW for 12-15 hours a day.

Wake up, things spiral in different directions. Suramar was made to be similar to how Vanilla WoW was intended with time gates to simulate the longevity that Vanilla could sometimes be, people are crying its the worse part being a grindfest. Put two and two together.

Suck it up/enjoy it and carry on subbing. Distaste it and unsub.

[Niwes]

Yeah it was. The difference is that back in the day, the grind was a long-drawn-out process. Each dungeon in vanilla took a good long while to complete, quests were separated and took a lot of running back and forth, and gearing up to be able to clear an entire raid zone took a great long while within itself unless you all knew exactly what you were doing. (Some guilds on vanilla private servers can go from day 1 of a server's launch to clearing Molten Core/Onyxia within 2 weeks)

In Legion, however, almost everything is quick. Mythic keystones are quick, questing is quick, raiding is (mostly) quick, etc. That means you fully complete the same task a bajillion times over and over again, and each time you complete it, it gets a little bit less enjoyable. Eventually it all starts to feel like a chore you have to complete just to play the game, like flossing your teeth. It's not fun. Grinding Mythic dungeons endlessly to stay competitive was the primary reason I stopped playing Legion, personally.

totally agree here.

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You don't seem to have read the OP, you're basically agreeing with him.

DM tribute and Shattered halls are quite bad examples of the 'grind fest': DM tribute required pre-planning and controlled pulling / ccing / mats from outside the instance; Shattered halls had a timed element to it so it was more of a "turbo nuke aoe".

People are disregarding the OP's opinion about a MINDLESS grind. He's agreeing that WoW has always been grindy, we all know there were horrible grinds in vanilla but many of the examples listed in this thread are just poor. There was no point in doing Shen'drelar; Timbermaw was only really worth doing for enchanters (+15 agi on gloves?); Argent Dawn (this was mostly done by doing Scholo and Strat, i never actually purposefully farmed for their rep). Vanilla did have grinds but they generally weren't mindless and you generally didn't repeat them multiple times a day (dungeons were not repeated as much because they took so long). The farming of materials is overblown too, most players would not have flasked at all in vanilla wow.

The OP is saying that every activity he does in game now is mindless (incredibly easy) and it's true, outside of high level mythic+ and raiding.

thx for this one. (oh, an intelligent labradoodle ^^).

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[Lisa Frank Succubus]

It looks like you just affixed the word "grind" to various elements of the current game that you are not satisfied with. I remember "grinding" to job level 50 on my mage in classic Ragnarok being more of a grind or running the same act over and over in D2. Maybe our definition of "grind" in the context of video games is different because when I hear the word I'm at a loss to think up something mandatory that's truly grindy outside of pvp stuff in modern day WoW. I "grinded" or farmed in BC killing water elementals all night so I could get the mats for my warlock's tailoring set that was better than kara gear. I "grinded" heroics in WOTLK for badges and then justice or whatever they made it then so I could get my "free" raid gear. I grinded for various reps in BC and WOTLK.

You do your raid once or several days a week with your guild if you do that, you do your daily heroic for the free AP bonus if you need it..I guess you could grind monsters all day depending on what drops your artifact's hidden appearance (which isn't mandatory). I guess people "grind" mythics but it seems more like a race to see how far they can push with their group until they hit a wall. That may get tiring and burn some people out but I still don't think its grinding?

[Gandrake]

sometimes i like to think that it's just that my preferences have changed and i prefer to play a game that does not require me to consistently play it to acquire material rewards which make your performance competitive but i really don't know

like dang man i used to play overwatch a lot but got burned out on it... but it's not like i'm not going to come back to the game and end up having to play 30 hours of shit i don't enjoy so that i can do the things that i want to do

[Brewhan]

It looks like you just affixed the word "grind" to various elements of the current game that you are not satisfied with. I remember "grinding" to job level 50 on my mage in classic Ragnarok being more of a grind or running the same act over and over in D2. Maybe our definition of "grind" in the context of video games is different because when I hear the word I'm at a loss to think up something mandatory that's truly grindy outside of pvp stuff in modern day WoW. I "grinded" or farmed in BC killing water elementals all night so I could get the mats for my warlock's tailoring set that was better than kara gear. I "grinded" heroics in WOTLK for badges and then justice or whatever they made it then so I could get my "free" raid gear. I grinded for various reps in BC and WOTLK.

You do your raid once or several days a week with your guild if you do that, you do your daily heroic for the free AP bonus if you need it..I guess you could grind monsters all day depending on what drops your artifact's hidden appearance (which isn't mandatory). I guess people "grind" mythics but it seems more like a race to see how far they can push with their group until they hit a wall. That may get tiring and burn some people out but I still don't think its grinding?

I understand what you're saying ragnarok was indeed a pure grind. IN OPs statement I believe hes saying its more of like a pointless grind to do WQs/Weekend Timewalker quest/ LFR/ AP farm etc. Since in a world of progression and making your character stronger those activities are required in a way but they are extremely mind numbingly easy to the point of feeling like a dumb boring grind. You need to do WQs --> emisarry cache --> legendary chance or titanforge WQ item up to 870+ (I've seen it on my own multiple chars before). Timewalker Event --> need that NH item since it might titanforge 900+... LFR --> AP and possible legender bad luck protection and titanforge. Gotta grind some more AP since im almost to the next trait and it might help my dps increase and get me invited to that NH heroic pug ..

I feel a big problem is that titanforge system being way to op in some of the gearing it gives. For example yesterday I was just 3 chesting a +7 maw key for AP and it was my own key. I get a 885 titanforge ring which is better than my own current ring from normal NH. It was cool but at the same time I had another M11 ring on that was 885 too.. It's like blizz is telling me chain running easier content and praying titanforge is better than doing hard content in M+ and getting 1 chest with only AP tokens.. ?? The line of progression path is all over the place so people feel they have to grind all the dumb pointless stuff because of titanforging and legendary bad luck protection meaning if you kill that LFR boss you're 1% closer to the next legendary. You've got to agree that doing all that does indeed feel like a "grind" and not a fun one because you never know when it stops or what you're really even grinding for..

in your BC example you were grinding water elementals with a clear purpose of getting their motes /primals to make your cloth item for your character to increase their power to do more damage ( progression pathway)

in your ragnarok example well.. that game was just pure grind lets be honest it was like 2001 when it was made and had no quests lol. Still i have found memories playing that game while on vacation in mexico on the beach with my laptop since it was so low stress.

D2 well I didn't really play that game i wasn't allowed when i was younger due to the blood and violence had to go to my friends house to watch him play.

[Mordian]

I think its the right amount of grind for me

[Deleted]

Became?

No, WoW and MMORPGs and games in general has always been about the grind.

Effort versus rewards, something something.

The sooner you understand that, the better gaming in general feels.

Effort yields the least amount of rewards in Legion. The name of the game is Luck this time around.
"Deserve´s got nothing to do with it."
Even in Mythic raiding you might be the better player but will witness till the end of the expansion how others stock up on Titanforged loot.
Silly.

Are we sure Las Vegas casino empire is not connected to Activision Blizzard?

[Deleted]

Based on this post i will go ahead and assume you are just not into MMOs...
And that's just OK.

[thedingleberry]

I agree totally with OP

[kamuimac]

Even in Mythic raiding you might be the better player but will witness till the end of the expansion how others stock up on Titanforged loot.
Silly.

which was always the case - ever since timmy the dumb gathered fu...ton of dkp back in vanilla and clould outbid you on your bis just for being a warm body , through the pure unluck of never seeing your bis droping even after farming the place for a year because rng-ezus hated you

shit like this was always part of game

[Deleted]

which was always the case - ever since timmy the dumb gathered fu...ton of dkp back in vanilla and clould outbid you on your bis just for being a warm body , through the pure unluck of never seeing your bis droping even after farming the place for a year because rng-ezus hated you

shit like this was always part of game

No, TF was never part of the game.
the RNG about loot used to just be whether it drops or not. Not a million more multipliers.
And you know it. How dare you even say that this was always like it is now?

[Deleted]

It looks like you just affixed the word "grind" to various elements of the current game that you are not satisfied with. I remember "grinding" to job level 50 on my mage in classic Ragnarok being more of a grind or running the same act over and over in D2. Maybe our definition of "grind" in the context of video games is different because when I hear the word I'm at a loss to think up something mandatory that's truly grindy outside of pvp stuff in modern day WoW. I "grinded" or farmed in BC killing water elementals all night so I could get the mats for my warlock's tailoring set that was better than kara gear. I "grinded" heroics in WOTLK for badges and then justice or whatever they made it then so I could get my "free" raid gear. I grinded for various reps in BC and WOTLK.

You do your raid once or several days a week with your guild if you do that, you do your daily heroic for the free AP bonus if you need it..I guess you could grind monsters all day depending on what drops your artifact's hidden appearance (which isn't mandatory). I guess people "grind" mythics but it seems more like a race to see how far they can push with their group until they hit a wall. That may get tiring and burn some people out but I still don't think its grinding?

Yes, these have been grinds, but they always had an end. You farmed materials for your crafted set, got done eventually, and called it a day. If you farmed more, then for alts or to sell in the AH for gold, but this is a different thing. Reputation farming was also done after reaching exalted. Farming dungeons was done as soon as you got all items you needed (because they could not magically get some more item levels), so if you went in these afterwards, then for social reasons (=helping to gear a guild mate/friend) or rare materials (like farming crystals for enchants if you don't buy these at the AH). All grinds had a structure and a defined end.

Legion grinds don't have much strucure anymore and Blizzard aspires to turn every activity into an endless one. I only hope that I get the new reputation mounts asap, because I am quite disgusted by the extra reputation work they put into the game. And theoretically, you are only done with emissary chests, when you don't need resources, gold and legendaries anymore. Grinding dungeons also never stops, because they are the best source of AP, and because of the RNG abomination of warforged/titanforged upgrades.

For a long time in WoW I had a sense of progression on every character: Level up, get gear so you can run dungeons, switch to harder dungeons later, farm reputation for things you need (and then only for additional income via dailies), and progress further into raid content (or let the character rest and play another one). Up to WoD I had a sense of completion for my characters, depending on the power level and content level that I wanted to reach. WoD cracked that, but thanks to the Garrison, there was not that much of a time sink to keep my characters in a satisfying state. Now... I don't have time anymore and this is depressing. I either optimise my game time in terms of ROI (time to reward ratio), or I switch to any activity which is probably more fun at the moment and lose out on that overall progress.

And before some geniuses come up with "raiding don't cost much time" - for me it does. Every little bit of coordination with other people costs time. LFD/LFR reduces some of this, but I cut even these activities down. I don't want to waste a single minute with pointless group search / applications / whatever. I rather invest time in a different character because there I know how much time I will need for a specific step to progress. As soon as other people come into the equation, things get blurry - and in-game rewards cannot compensate the time loss I feel. If a grind does not have clearly defined time requirements, then I rather would not bother.

[Rotted]

It doesn't take much to get to 35 (hell my Paladin alt who I barely play has 2 specs at 35 now) and if you're playing that casually, you really don't need an extra ~9.5% damage/healing/ ~19% armor. You can do just fine without it (I mean hell, gear gives you more throughput than the extra 19 traits).

In 7.2, the "paragon" trait is becoming a 1-point trait (down from 20) and the new trait to replace it's significantly weaker than .5% damage/healing/1% armor per point.

I know right, I level'd up my sp in two nights from 100-110. She's got the first 9 traits I think from dungeons and quest rewards, I then got up to 34 in 4-5 (if that) hours of playing after she hit 110. Sent over ak from the main to her for the 20 boost. I ran 5 time walking, 3 heroics, mythic maw, VH, dht, nl. NL +2 and all the lfr wings, oh I had 4 seals which gave me all ap in the normal mythic dungeons.

That gave me 34, 845 ilvl from 790 in a handful of hours. All pugged, as a dps - but I did form my own groups, let's face it who's taking a 790 into mythic maw / maniac laugh

[Lilija]

WoW has always been a grindfest. And for me personally, the Vanilla/TBC experience was much more boring.

[Deleted]

Thats why i quit and tried other MMOs instead, i had old accounts of Wildstar and Guild Wars 2 so im playing that Also no sub fee either and much more visually appealing.

[kamuimac]

No, TF was never part of the game.
the RNG about loot used to just be whether it drops or not. Not a million more multipliers.
And you know it. How dare you even say that this was always like it is now?

because i see exackly 0 difference between runing the same raid for a half year hopin for thunderforged as runign a raid for a half year for a trinket that never dropped or somebody outdid you on dkp at the end - outcome is exackly the same - at the end of day in neither cases you got what you wanted - 0 difference.

[Ornerybear]

Just going to respond to the clickbaity title because Niwes rant.
Everyone wanted a game more like vanilla, and guess what we got, A BORING GRINDFEST. Just like vanilla...

Personally, I'm still enjoying legion, I raid normal and heroic with PUGs, but don't try to do everything or try and maximize my grind. I'm not burnt out and it's not the end of the world. Guess I just don't put enough stock in wow...