Mass burnout.

[Deleted]

I see 3 major factors:

- Even more casual players reach 54 traits in at least one spec now or are very close to it (50 or 54 doesn't really matter that much). The motivation to do stuff for AP (solely or partially) is going away for more and more players. The prospect of having 19 traits "refunded" just to get back ~4-5 traits doesn't help.

- Thanks to M+ and WF/TF even semi-decent and semi-active players have average itemlevels of 885-900. The motivation to invest time and/or effort to do (relatively) challenging content (heroic or mythic raids and grinding high M+) for relatively minor upgrades isn't as big as it was doing it for significantly better gear - with no other way to get it.

- For raids with mythic aspirations the pacing of Legion has been terrible. EN was way too easy, whether it was intentional tuning or just the legendary/WF/TF/M+ systems, so a lot of raids not only stepped foot into it but progressed far or even cleared it pretty fast. Then came a very short-lived (especially because we had Christmas/new year during it), hard tuned ToV and NH was announced to come out pretty quickly which caused many raids not to invest too much into ToV.

And now we have NH with the 3 first bosses being absolute "free-loot" for every decent mythic raid. Since there is essentially no real progression through the first 3 bosses, a huge amount of raids that usually take weeks/months to really get into mythic, instantly stood before the significantly harder bosses and get their asses handed to them. Part of that is tuning, but part of is that players are not prepared to play harder boss encounters anymore. It's not like Krosus or Tichondrius are rocket science.

[Deleted]

There isn't supposed to be an "end", and it's not a grind. It's a consistent reward you get for pretty much all content throughout the expansion, kind of like valor points previously.

This, however the playerbase always sets its targets based on the best. Its good having something to aim for, but competition is not for everyone... like the french :P

[Taeldorian]

Right, but my point is, you only get the AP back from whatever you spent over the 35th trait and now there will be a whole bunch of new traits that are tremendously more expensive, so anyone that was at 54 now has to grind AP again. Everyone will be back to grinding AP.

The AP grind in 7.2 isn't nearly as bad as the grind in 7.1/7.1.5.

Here's why:

1. You no longer have to spam maw. You can run basically anything you want. Halls/arc provide more AP while short dungeons like maw provide less. So you don't need to spam maw when you can run others to get higher AP. However you can if you want to, we have choices now.

2. High level keys are incentivized. You get AP out of your weekly chest based on the highest key you ran. Running a 20 could net you a toooon of AP. This is also a source we haven't had in 7.1.

3. You get tons of AP from raids. This was added in 7.1.5 whenever a lot of people were already done with the 54 trait grind so it's a fairly new source.

4. We only need about 340 "maw" runs (this was the new calculation I believe after the 1000 was shown to be incorrect) which is an overreach because there's other ways to passively get AP. High level keys, longer dungeons, raiding, etc. So it's not nearly as bad as 7.1.

5. The "paragon" trait this time is infinite and not all that worth it either. So we don't need to grind the paragon points at all in 7.2. There's hardly a point in doing so. I'll passively happen regardless but going out of your way to grind for it is unnecessary.

[Deleted]

If it's thriving, why do you need recruitment?

To get moar raiders! Moar people! Rawr!

[Paulosio]

So you think they quit instead of completing things? Please do not compare guilds facing raid brick walls with members ragequitting to "everything" that the game is.

These people certainly do not. feel the need to do everything. it is mostly getting bis gear and killing the last raid boss which are their ultimate goals. About 5% of the game, and this is what you refer to as everything.

He was obviously referring to people who decided to run mythic plus dungeons for hours every day and hunt down every source of AP to get a slight performance boost. It was especially dumb of the people who were doing this pre level 25 artifact knowledge who put in all that effort to get to get their 35th trait a week or 2 earlier compared to someone who just did a few AP world quests and got theirs shortly after with less than half the effort.

Players choose to put themselves through these grinds (in all but the extreme cases of the less than .1% of players who are in the top guilds). There is no need for it and if it's not something you enjoy and it is going to make you feel burned out then why put yourself through it? Just play at your own pace and enjoy ffs...

[Teri]

The AP grind in 7.2 isn't nearly as bad as the grind in 7.1/7.1.5.

Here's why:

1. You no longer have to spam maw. You can run basically anything you want. Halls/arc provide more AP while short dungeons like maw provide less. So you don't need to spam maw when you can run others to get higher AP. However you can if you want to, we have choices now.

2. High level keys are incentivized. You get AP out of your weekly chest based on the highest key you ran. Running a 20 could net you a toooon of AP. This is also a source we haven't had in 7.1.

3. You get tons of AP from raids. This was added in 7.1.5 whenever a lot of people were already done with the 54 trait grind so it's a fairly new source.

4. We only need about 340 "maw" runs (this was the new calculation I believe after the 1000 was shown to be incorrect) which is an overreach because there's other ways to passively get AP. High level keys, longer dungeons, raiding, etc. So it's not nearly as bad as 7.1.

First it will take 4+ months to get AK50.

340 maw runs to reach what? 51 traits? certainly not 101 traits as that would take 865.000.000.000.000 AP.

865 trillion AP = 3.6 million tokens that give 100k now, boosted with AK50 (220 million per token)

Perspective, 54 traits is like 65 million AP, or 650 100k tokens.

[caervek]

Anyone else experiencing this level of burnout in their guild?

Yup, the game is currently the grindiest and most RNG it's ever been, having to work super hard towards a nonexistent goal totally kills the fun for me and apparently many others.

Never thought I would miss any aspects of WoD lol.

[wholol]

I found that balancing a bit of everything ( pve/pvp ) to keep myself away from the same routine fixed this issue.

Although some people might not like doing things outside of their comfort zone, but it is important to see everything this game has to offer beyond just one end game.

[Deleted]

Our guild too suffered several burnouts in the past weeks, and we're now struggling to get enough people for mythic.
While I do agree that players are the one to blame for not having self-control regarding the ap farm, I think that Blizz is also at fault for the extreme rng and horrible class design and balance in Legion that inevitably bothers hc/mythic raiders, and not just "top 100 guilds" like many posters here claim.

[Deleted]

Reset vs. refund: Yes, the points will be refunded. No, the newly bought traits will probably not bring the same power level as before. You know how "good" Blizzard is with balancing.

So, while you technically keep your AP points and will have more traits if you have been capped before 7.2 as someone who has been not, your progress will probably be negated to some extent. Especially in the case that we will have, where new traits will continue to have exponentially rising costs. I don't think that more ranks in AK will offset that.

The only way of not having a reset would be keeping your weapon in exactly the same state as before and adding new traits independently of the previously gained. And having the option for people to either invest their levels in the new traits, in the old performance-boost (current 20 extra levels) or new performance boost at the same costs as before (if the traits have existed before).

With redesigning the system they implement at least a partial reset.

[ehxy]

What pretty much happened is they tuned NH to be unforgiving after 5000 mythic raiding guilds said EN Mythic was too easy.

So this is blizzard's knee jerk reaction to slow progression down to keep the content relevant.

We lost one of our main tanks, 4 dps, 5 including me. I just don't care anymore. It's not fun. I think mythic raiding is the worst idea to happen to wow. Come back, do the same instance 3x with little bits changed each difficulty. Recipe for burn out? You betchya.

[Rathaniel]

Im burnt out for sure

[Onikaroshi]

Reset vs. refund: Yes, the points will be refunded. No, the newly bought traits will probably not bring the same power level as before. You know how "good" Blizzard is with balancing.

So, while you technically keep your AP points and will have more traits if you have been capped before 7.2 as someone who has been not, your progress will probably be negated to some extent.

The only way of not having a reset would be keeping your weapon in exactly the same state as before and adding new traits independently of the previously gained. And having the option for people to either invest their levels in the new traits, in the old performance-boost (current 20 extra levels) or new performance boost at the same costs as before (if the traits have existed before).

With redesigning the system they implement at least a partial reset.

No, it won't be the same as 54 traits, cause there's .5% MORE dmg there, 20 traits in this paragon point = 14.5% flat dmg, 35th trait 5% + 36th trait 10% = 15%, and you only need 36 points in your weapon currently to get it.

and if you have 54 traits now, you'll come out even more powerful because you'll put 3 points in the next 0/4 trait.

[Dystemper]

thats the problem blizzard cant find a way to satisfy everyone WoD allmost nothing to do Legion opposite case ...idk i think its fine how it is atm you are not forced to do all but peopel force themself ...control yourself.
Only top 10 guilds are a littel bit fucked with this system but casuals not in the end its our own fault ^.-

Its not that Wod had nothing to do. It is that WOD has so much to do that was either not fun or not worth doing. Legion is the same way. Lots of stuff to do, very little of it is fun, rewarding or worth doing over and over and over.

[caervek]

Players choose to put themselves through these grinds

Well yeah, you don't have to put effort into your character, just like you don't have to use consumables, enchant your gear, etc. The thing is if you don't put in any effort compared to the people you play with then you're being carried and I don't want to be carried I want to be part of the team. And in Legion that means the endless RNG grindfest of world quests and AP /sigh.

[Onikaroshi]

What pretty much happened is they tuned NH to be unforgiving after 5000 mythic raiding guilds said EN Mythic was too easy.

So this is blizzard's knee jerk reaction.

They should have left the scaling based off your average guild, not the top. Top grinded too much for EN, it was a pushover (a "normal" mythic guild still had some sense of progression, didn't have 2-3 gold traits and a legendary on EVERY member) they complained, Blizz overtuned ToV to combat it, then NH was tuned for those same guilds that cried about EN being done in a day. So you end up with this grind around what the top did. Should have just tuned for your average guild, let the top end blow through it and get bored, no one cares.

[KrazyK923]

Because everything at end game is a grind now. And people don't want to do that. They put up with it in Vanilla because WoW was new and the MMORPG market was pretty barren.

Nobody wanted to grind millions of AP for a .5% increase over 20 ranks.

EN Mythic was too easy so then Blizzard made everything past 4/10 require 54 ranks.

Those two facts together = mythic guilds fell apart and most people stopped caring.

[Halyon]

Sorry but I beg to differ. The game allows you to more easily burn that candle at both ends, but there has never been a genuine cap on things. The only difference now is that you don't need to resort to alts to get there - you can play the way want to play which really should be a good thing.

The rest really is simply about people being unable to moderate themselves. I would far rather play a game where the player is given the freedom to choose their playstyle and in return is expected to moderate their playtime, than a game that restricts that freedom in order to protect people who lack the capacity to moderate themselves.

The solution isn't to bitch and complain on the forums about how this is all Blizzard's fault by telling players who fail at taking personal responsibility that it's not their fault. Of course it's their fault. The solution, obviously, if for players to start accepting responsibility for their choices and opening their eyes to the fact that they don't have to force themselves to grind the game beyond the point they enjoy it. It's really not rocket science....

An enableist system is still a bad system. They want you to play the game. The game has a very abuse-prone system in place, which ends up being a very dangerous double-edged sword. They have a casual playerbase, and a dedicated/hardcore playerbase. Dedicated players tend to do everything they can to stay on top of their shit, and since there is no top/ceiling to keep on top of, you're forced to keep going well past 'trivial' because titanforged and legendaries exist. Nvm AP.

It encourages grinding to a burnout.

Before you had weekly caps and lockouts to limit the amount of grind you had to do, which was fine. There is no cap on AP or mythic+'s for gear, so unless you're ridiculously lucky and get your BiS max TF'd gear in a couple of months, you have to keep going. It feels worse than a job in the end, because the other side of the sword is that people are petty as fuck and will replace you on a whim if someone has more numbers than you do, skill rarely having an impact, because numbers help in making the grind just a few minutes less.

[Teri]

Nobody wanted to grind millions of AP for a .5% increase over 20 ranks.

It's gonna be even funnier with hundreds of trillions of AP over 50 ranks to get a stat proc (weapon 51 to 101) nobody will be ever done, not even top raiders, until they set personal limits.

Unless over time they increase AK beyond 50(7.3/7.4)

[KrazyK923]

It's gonna be even funnier with hundreds of trillions of AP over 50 ranks to get a stat proc (weapon 51 to 101)

Sure is.

I can't believe they're keeping the system.

I really cannot believe they think the optics of seeing something like 500,000,000% increase of AP doesn't immediately put everybody off of the game.