Legion is unfriendly to returning players from previous expansions

[Granyala]

Like I got 8 characters, obviously 5 are older, more developed,

Oh dear lord, how did you endure that?!
I leveled my priestess main (obviously^^) and my herb/mining pally alt but couldn't bring myself to grind even more AP on my other characters.

[Deleted]

Come on... OP doesn't even believe in his words...

A pure example on the topic - a friend of mine who was the first to play WoW started in TBC, played in WotLK, killed Lich King and said "That's it! I killed him. Im done with the game"
One month ago he got so bored and after read the patch notes for 7.3 he decided that "fighting" the legion is worth his time again.
He resubed. I guided him throw and now he is 915 ilvl with 2 bis legendaries and 57 traits with flying unlocked. And you know what the best part? He plays like me - 2-4 hours a day, after he comes back from work, from 19 to 23 tops. AND he said its too easy... Can you believe that? No you can't, cuz you read so many posts about this topic so you decided to cry about it too:
"Legion has WAY too much time-gating. Way too many single-expansion timesinks. Too many bars to fill. Too many Arbitrary Magic Fun Points to grind. Not enough things carried between characters or specs." - boo hoo! You had to play Legion when it launched. Then you would have know the true meaning of those quotes.

It is way way easier now! You do not know anything about time gating. I will give you one simple exmaple. Its called Artifact Knowledge Levels.
At launch you got one level every five days, where now you get one level every, what is it?, 2 hours!!!

All those bars to fill and all those magic points to get are all in your head. No one except you yourself can force you to fill those bars.
But let me tell you one secret - You can just play the game and they fill by themself. Remove your focus from "filling bars" to "playing game" and your virtual life will be a lot more enjoyable.

[gushDH]

Oh no! I have to do stuff to be able to play!!! No way I want to do nothing and be mythic raider!! Why blizzard, why!!

If you don't play a lot don't expect to be a strong player. End of story, that's how an rpg is supposed to be, and any other game for that matter.

[Servasus]

I literally can level an alt from 100 to 110, get the third relic unlocked, and reach 880+ ilevel in less than 3-4 days of casual play. If you think "it's impossible to catch up," then you just are lazy and/or don't know how to do it.

[Teri]

Oh dear lord, how did you endure that?!
I leveled my priestess main (obviously^^) and my herb/mining pally alt but couldn't bring myself to grind even more AP on my other characters.

After like 15 weapons at concordance, 10000 WQ, etc, it is starting to become burn-out inducing and impossible to "keep up".

Yes yes, before people say "self-control" , I know 100%. And I am making changes to my goals.

-------

That's the main issue I warn OP for, stick with 1 character and Legion's game design is fine.

[Mayonnaise]

i cant stop laughing when anyone claims to play vanilla/tbc and claims to not have had a problem to grind all the shit in vanilla yet minimal farm in legion is suddenly problem for him - i wonder how you farmed resist gear back then if farming ap is too much .

Hell YEAH it is.

[Deleted]

Little background on myself for context: I've been playing Warcraft games since 1996 and became a fan of the lore since I first opened the Warcraft 2 manual when I was 13. I missed launch but I started playing WoW in February 2005. Like many of us old-schoolers I was fairly hardcore playing with friends right up through Wrath, then started falling into a more casual playstyle during Cata-onwards with long breaks as content dried up.

I was disgusted with Warlords. Disgusted. Lazy, bad expansion. We all know that. Nothing new to say. On paper I love to see what's happened with Legion. Regular content updates, something for everyone, a return to dungeons, more raids, better world content in patches, MORE patches, a seemingly-infinite flow of new stuff to do. Shame it's too grindy.

Legion has WAY too much time-gating. Way too many single-expansion timesinks. Too many bars to fill. Too many Arbitrary Magic Fun Points to grind. Not enough things carried between characters or specs.

As an example: I'm someone who loves Story. I would love to complete the zones, unlock my flying, hit all the dungeons and do Suramar, hit LFR and get the story for all the raids and do the broken shore. Unfortunately I'd also have to get my artifact traits, click on mission tables, wait for timers to count down and daily limits on quest content to unlock. These things aren't fun. They get in the way of fun. And that's a shame.

If you made it through my wall of text do tell me, am I alone? Or is the barrier to entry just too high at this point? Should a grumpy old bastard like myself that spends too much time in front of a computer for work all day maybe just give up and move on?

So you are okay wit how raiding works in vanilla when barely a few percent got to see the content,

you were okay with the insane amount of time gates in TBC, cus " TBC BEST EXPANSHUN"

But Legion has too much time- gating
FUCKING
LEGION.

You are complaining about the time gating in legion when you claim you played vanilla and tbc

would you fuck off.

[Casthiel]

Difference in grinding in vanilla and Legion.

Grinding in vanilla was a goal. I grinded UBRS for the mage chest, i never got it after running it a million times but it was a set path towards a goal. I grinded Guardian of Cenarius rep in sillythus, it was a loooong grind, but there's a clear path towards that goal.

Grinding in Legion is stupid and all the Diablo devs in the WOW team as well as in the Diablo dept should just be fired, that's how much i hate those morons. You want that legendary bracer/shoulder/ring? Well... do the content for that RNG chance to get that RNG legendary. You want that BIS piece from Neth Lair? Well.. grind +10 for that RNG weekly and pray for that RNG Titanforged+socket. Maybe you'll get that RNG Titanforged BIS relic, maybe you won't get diddly squat.

I could go on but that's the gist of grinding in Legion, not to mention that time gates. Yeah, let me level that Paladin to 110 real quick but cock block me for 1 week to get my 3rd relic. I would sure love to do the Suramar quests for the sweet sweet AP after the AK boost from my main but NOPE! Cock block the quest lines and force me to grind rep for something i already saw.

RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG + Time gate, good stuff Diablo guys.

People want a diablo MMO when it's already here :/

this is exactly how i feel. Grinding nonstop and then hoping for rng is dumb. If i wanted to play diablo, well... i'd be playing diablo. -.-

[Faxton]

I remember doing attunment in vanilla/tbc. Oh boy that was fun. Not gated at all.

Edit: Spelling

[Teri]

I have 6 level 110's now. I have 4 artifacts at concordance. I have legion flying. And I am extremely-super casual. I have a full-time job and 2 children. I play maybe 1-2 hours a day MAX (assuming I get to play every day which I do not).

Of course you can play like that, but doing LFR and WQ and whatnot, the bare minimum casual progression for solo play on multiple characters is still a huge timesink compared to 1 character.

I don't level characters to let them sit inactive. Even if order hall has some minor benefits for those.

[Deleted]

You know it's BIG difference when you are 13yo with nothing to do beside games and 25yo with a lot of RL stuff? Right?

I don't know about you.. but being an adult with a job.. I have a hell of a lot more spare time now than I did whilst studying.

[Thetruth1400]

i cant stop laughing when anyone claims to play vanilla/tbc and claims to not have had a problem to grind all the shit in vanilla yet minimal farm in legion is suddenly problem for him - i wonder how you farmed resist gear back then if farming ap is too much .

Agreed. If anything, I think the WoW of today doesn't hold a candle to even coming close to the Vanilla - WotLK era in terms of "having" to do things. Back then you had a minimum amount you had to do each week and if you didn't you fell behind without the hand out catch up mechanics of today. Sure, late TBC and WotLK had some catch up mechanics, but even those you had to work for. They had a badge vendor, but a single piece of badge gear costs 50 or more badges and you got a single badge per boss on heroics or in raids, that was it. Literally go kill 50 bosses if you want a single piece of catch up gear.

Today, you breeze through the leveling "experience" and before you finish two (three if you do no other content) zones of their quest lines you're max level already. After that you just go sit in your order hall, send the table out and let the table do the work for you. The table gets you literally everything you need to be near top of the line ready within a week. Do the single quest at the table for 7,500 nethershards, which takes 3 days, and you are literally decked out in gear equal to the previous raid tier, having done nothing but sit in your order hall, then talk to a vendor.

Oh wow, you can go out and do some world quests to pass the time and speed up the process as well. Literally, you can go there and auto attack the mobs a single time because others will be there doing the same quests.

If WoW today was anything even close to like it was back in the Vanilla - WotLK era, you'd have to do literally every zone, almost every quest before you'd even hit max level. Then, you'd have to hop into normal dungeons to get the gear for heroics, go through those heroics, then go to the first raid tier before you have enough gear to go to the second, and so on. I honestly hope you guys that say today is harder in any form are joking, because this game is nothing like what it used to be. It's a watered down, whack a mole, everyone sees everything Facebook level game. It literally has a phone app that you can hop on and do all the micro managing aspects from literally without having to be near a computer to actually, I don't know, play your characters to progress.

[Akka]

i cant stop laughing when anyone claims to play vanilla/tbc and claims to not have had a problem to grind all the shit in vanilla yet minimal farm in legion is suddenly problem for him - i wonder how you farmed resist gear back then if farming ap is too much .

Vanilla feels much less grindy than Legion. It's not cognitive dissonance, there is actual, real reasons for that :
- First, Vanilla is much slower in pace. Legion is extremely fast-paced, but with ton of grinding sprinkled all over. It makes the "stop-and-go" pretty noticeable and jarring, while the "grindy" aspect of Vanilla was more in-line with the general design.
- Vanilla content didn't became obsolete. It meant that you would "grind", but then it would not be made pointless two monthes later. Made such "grind" much more tolerable and less a feeling of "what was the point ?".
- The "grind" was more organic and progressive. Less "walls" and more "bit by bit".

Difference in grinding in vanilla and Legion.

Grinding in vanilla was a goal. I grinded UBRS for the mage chest, i never got it after running it a million times but it was a set path towards a goal. I grinded Guardian of Cenarius rep in sillythus, it was a loooong grind, but there's a clear path towards that goal.

Grinding in Legion is stupid and all the Diablo devs in the WOW team as well as in the Diablo dept should just be fired, that's how much i hate those morons. You want that legendary bracer/shoulder/ring? Well... do the content for that RNG chance to get that RNG legendary. You want that BIS piece from Neth Lair? Well.. grind +10 for that RNG weekly and pray for that RNG Titanforged+socket. Maybe you'll get that RNG Titanforged BIS relic, maybe you won't get diddly squat.

That too.

[HeiAggra]

Agreed. If anything, I think the WoW of today doesn't hold a candle to even coming close to the Vanilla - WotLK era in terms of "having" to do things. Back then you had a minimum amount you had to do each week and if you didn't you fell behind without the hand out catch up mechanics of today. Sure, late TBC and WotLK had some catch up mechanics, but even those you had to work for. They had a badge vendor, but a single piece of badge gear costs 50 or more badges and you got a single badge per boss on heroics or in raids, that was it. Literally go kill 50 bosses if you want a single piece of catch up gear.

Today, you breeze through the leveling "experience" and before you finish two (three if you do no other content) zones of their quest lines you're max level already. After that you just go sit in your order hall, send the table out and let the table do the work for you. The table gets you literally everything you need to be near top of the line ready within a week. Do the single quest at the table for 7,500 nethershards, which takes 3 days, and you are literally decked out in gear equal to the previous raid tier, having done nothing but sit in your order hall, then talk to a vendor.

Oh wow, you can go out and do some world quests to pass the time and speed up the process as well. Literally, you can go there and auto attack the mobs a single time because others will be there doing the same quests.

If WoW today was anything even close to like it was back in the Vanilla - WotLK era, you'd have to do literally every zone, almost every quest before you'd even hit max level. Then, you'd have to hop into normal dungeons to get the gear for heroics, go through those heroics, then go to the first raid tier before you have enough gear to go to the second, and so on. I honestly hope you guys that say today is harder in any form are joking, because this game is nothing like what it used to be. It's a watered down, whack a mole, everyone sees everything Facebook level game. It literally has a phone app that you can hop on and do all the micro managing aspects from literally without having to be near a computer to actually, I don't know, play your characters to progress.

I trully loved your post mate.

[Deleted]

Uuh to be frank: I find them all underwhelming and not exciting. I don#t get why people fuss out over them.
Maybe that is because I did the Tarecgosa questline back when it was current. An awesome model, unique effect and interesting story. That is what gets me excited, because those memories and the models live on far far beyond the next patch/expansion that invalidates all stats anyway.

Not some often invisible or generic looking lame RNG stat stick.

The problem with legendaries is that some of them are HUGE damage boosts, some even reaching 15-20% of the total damage a class can deal. most of them have been rightfully nerfed, but some are still that overpowered. Rendering classes that depend on them, useless in any raid setting.

[Deleted]

What grind exactly? There is no grind in Legion anymore.

Have to grind concordance 60 or I will be kicked from my 5/9 heroic guild. Didn't you get the memo?

[Akka]

Yup, Vanilla solo grinding wasn't RNG at all.

Sure when it came to dungeons you had rng drop rates as it's always been, and still is now, but when you got that piece, you had it, no heroic/mythic/mythic 2-5-15/titanforged versions of it.

Same for Raids, tier sets needed 8 pieces, and I know it took months for another mage to get his Tier 2 8/8 set in Blackwing Lair after me, but once you had it, you had it.

No RNG like Titanforged or not knowing when or what Legendary will drop next.

I don't know who you are answering to, but nothing in your post is even remotely relevant to what I was saying.
Are you a bot ?

---

Agreed. If anything, I think the WoW of today doesn't hold a candle to even coming close to the Vanilla - WotLK era in terms of "having" to do things. Back then you had a minimum amount you had to do each week and if you didn't you fell behind without the hand out catch up mechanics of today.

Don't know in which reality it happened, but certainly not in the one of this world. Especially ironical in the fact that "mandatory weekly thing" was pretty much an invention of late WotLK.

[Deleted]

The problem with legendaries is that some of them are HUGE damage boosts, some even reaching 15-20% of the total damage a class can deal. most of them have been rightfully nerfed, but some are still that overpowered. Rendering classes that depend on them, useless in any raid setting.

Pure, unadulterated bullshit.

[Peroxidex]

You know it's BIG difference when you are 13yo with nothing to do beside games and 25yo with a lot of RL stuff? Right?

Hey, 25 year olds can still live in their parent's basement. Leave him alone, he's living the dream.

[Teri]

I don't know who you are answering to, but nothing in your post is even remotely relevant to what I was saying.
Are you a bot ?

No I am not a bot, I am just commenting on my personal opinion on Vanilla Grinding, same subject...