Garrisons are NOT the main problem of WoD

[PrairieChicken]

Honestly if they just bring back valor points and valor gear it will solve 90% of the problem.

Oh it won't happen because non-raiders are not supposed to have anything remotely good.

[ComputerNerd]

I agree. Garrisons are the scapegoat because it's the "main" content, like the raids, with an empty world around them.

Garrisons are a scapegoat used by players who enjoy hating for the sake of hating.
Well one of many such scapegoats anyway.
Garrisons have their flaws, but the reasons people have for not liking the expansion are hugely varied and garrisons alone are not going to ruin the entire game for anyone.
If someone blames them entirely, then they were just looking for an excuse, but aren't mature enough to just go out quietly.
They have to do it with a bang, and trying to legitimise their tantrum with supporting voices.

The worst part IMO of garrisons have been the excessive profession access and supply they have granted.

If you feel the garrison mine is a chore, then don't use it.
It obviously isn't providing value for its time, and you seem to be just doing it for the sake of doing it.

[Somus]

I really thought the world would become bigger when they removed flying... with garrisons, the world is now smaller than ever.

[bufferunderrun]

In the wake of the Q1 2015 earnings call it has become clear that WoD is the worst expansion to date and things in WoW need to change. While those who post on the forums may be a vocal minority there are a large number of people who blame the problems with WoD on the garrison system and want to see it removed. I, for one, do not think the garrisons are entirely to blame for what has happened to the game and I fairly enjoy the garrison as a concept.

I want people to consider what WoD would be like without the garrison. What would people do with the content of WoD without the garrison to sit in? We still would have no flying and all the treasures and rare creatures across would still be one-and-done deals. The reps would still be horrible grinds that reward barely tangible cosmetic rewards. Apexis crystals would still be barely useful and the apexis daily would still be boring as hell. Ashran would still be the mess it is today. If garrisons were never part of WoD most of us would have a great time leveling and then outside of raids we would just sit and AFK in Ashran instead of the garrison if we logged in at all. At least the garrison gives us a reason to log in at least once every couple of days outside of raids.

From the story perspective on the other hand, I don't know how the garrison system can be justifiably removed from the game. Prior to WoD our characters are effectively lone adventurers/faction champions. We were soldiers who fought on many different battlefronts under many different banners. In WoD we were recognized for our achievements and gained an army of our own. A loyal army of followers who we command. How would you justify going from the commander of an army to a soldier again? The garrison itself is just a building but if we left Draenor to deal with a new threat why would our personal army not back their leader on whatever battlefield we fight on? Would all of those soldiers simply vanish into the nether and Varian/Vol'jin arbitrarily bump us back down to the rank of soldier?

While I may stick up for the garrison system I will admit it is not perfect. The game needs to not revolve around the garrison only. The professions desperately need to be fixed and gathering professions specifically need to be looked at. If WoD had an engaging world like you would find in many of the past expansions and also had the garrison system you could manage on the side I firmly believe that people would not be as upset about garrisons as they are now. No matter how much you like a food, if you ate it for every meal you would grow to hate it. The same concept applies to garrisons. We were given barely any meaningful content outside of raids and garrisons and not everyone with a lvl 100 character will raid but every lvl 100 character has a garrison. We were stuck with nothing to do but sit in the garrisons and so people grew to hate the garrisons.

It is not the problem of the garrisons, however, but the problem of WoD's content and the lack thereof.

the problem isn't the garrison per se it's how blizzard implemented it compared to the concept they initially announced at Blizzcon; it started like something highly customizable from the location upon you can build it to the appearances of the buildings and followers etc, it ended up being something static that in the end completely ruined professions.
I don't know if blizz change it because they really don't want to give us such an highly customizable environment or simply because they lack time and rushed the xpack (i personally think it's a mix of the two) fact is the garrison is boring as hell.
Obviously this isn't the only problem in wod, imho the garrison+no flight+lfr completely ruined+levelling alts all through the same path without alternatives and then managing their garrisons+boring story+asharan = cata 2.0 or even worse.

[MoanaLisa]

Garrisons are part of a much larger problem but not the problem by themselves. There's nothing wrong with the concept of base building in a game like this. Where it goes wrong is when there's practically nothing in the way of customization and the actual building part stops as soon as it does here. I don't have much about professions to really say: the design has kept people out of the world but that was likely to happen anyway to a certain extent with flying gone. I like having access to more professions but I agree with those who think it ought to require more effort. For those who say professions were ruined, I don't know what that really means. I've made more gold with professions this expansion than in any previous.

If it wasn't for complaining about having to stay in the garrison for professions if it were different the complaints would still be there. Just about how terrible it is to do gathering with flying. So that's really pretty much a wash.

Base building from the ground up with something like what you have in EQN/Landmark would have been very cool and probably a lot better received over the long run.

[Elkas]

I'd say the biggest issue of WoD is that 6.1 was what it was. It should've been a fat, juicy content patch for stuff outside of raids. Instead we got twitter integration.

[c000]

still waiting for the dance studio

[Fabinas]

Agreed, garrisons are a great addition. Doesn't effect anything.
People act like all of a sudden every single piece of content in the game takes place behind the garrison mission tab.

Its as optional as anything else, its just a place that you can hearth to, so it seems more important than not.
Nothing important actually takes place there.

There isn't much that can be added to WoW at this point though.
As much as everyone acts like the game is suddenly lacking some obvious peice of content makes no sense to me.
The game is just 10 years old, so its getting kind of boring doing the same things we have been doing for ever.

Just LOL. NOOB-ist for sure. You cannot start questing in Draenor if you don't build your garrison. You cannot max your professions without the garrison. You can't do the legendary quest line without the Garrison. EVERYTHING is actually tied with the Garrison. Garrison affects EVERYTHING in WOD.

[roahn the warlock]

This ignores the fact that so many resources were wasted on the garrison instead of making other content.

I kinda disagree... without Garrisons this x pack would be completely empty... The problem is that the x pack is completely empty... I doubt Garrisons took thaaat much time.

[Tradu]

is resources really something blizzard lacks? they could easily double up the designer team...

They did that for WoD/during SoO. That didn't work out very well.

[Chrno]

If you ask me i'd say the problem is the way gearing works.
Blizzard makes shit obsolete within 1 patch .... 1 bloody patch ....
The ilvl jumps are so HUGE i now 2shot every damn mob in the entire continent ...

At the start i did what ... 12k dps as tank in heroics .... i now pull between 50 - 120k dps on trash packs and 30k+ on most boss fights.

[Magicalcrab]

For those who say professions were ruined, I don't know what that really means. I've made more gold with professions this expansion than in any previous.

I think that when people say "Professions were ruined," what they really meant to say was "the professions have a tendency to be terribly time-gated for apparently no other reason that to artificially extend the lifespan of content, and I don't like it. No, sir."

Garrisons are part of a much larger problem but not the problem by themselves. There's nothing wrong with the concept of base building in a game like this. Where it goes wrong is when there's practically nothing in the way of customization and the actual building part stops as soon as it does here.

Base building from the ground up with something like what you have in EQN/Landmark would have been very cool and probably a lot better received over the long run.

I really hope all the complaints about garrisons won't cause the pendulum to shift again, effectively dooming player housing forever in the eyes of Blizzard. Because I actually like the idea of garrisons. There's a hype-as-heck feature buried somewhere in there, but I strongly disagree with their implementation.

Blizzard seems to constantly struggle with wanting to make everything "meaningful", but by tying the garrisons so strongly to core aspects of gameplay they effectively killed player agency and customisation - their choice of buildings and aesthetics - stuff that is supposed to be the entire point of player housing. Blizzard dropped the ball entirely in this case.

"Meaningful" is such a red flag in my mind now.
What's wrong with a feature simply being fun for its own sake?

[Kaleredar]

Blizzard didn't "not create content." They did.

There are probably more rares, treasure chests, and that sort of thing than any other expansion. Probably even more than a few expansions combined.

The issue isn't that they don't have the manpower. They do. They put all that manpower into making these rares and treasure chests and mini events and all of that.

The issue is that no one feels a reason to go on every day and play their character. Now, why is this? Because there are no daily quests. There's no reason to log on, run out every day, and kill a bunch of mobs. There's no reason to log on every day and run heroic dungeons for valor points to grind up gear.

Now, you CAN run out and mindlessly slaughter various elites. But people don't want to do that, because there's no set beginning and end, save for reaching exalted. And when the mobs you're killing only give 8 rep a pop, that goal looks veeeeerrry far away. So people just don't do it.

Why do you think people put off doing the winterspring frostsaber mount grind? It's not because it was hard, or challenging. It was just awful. And Blizzard even changed it to make it a daily quest event.


And Blizzard made it so there we no daily quests on purpose. That's not some "nefarious design direction" as much as I'd simply call it a mistake.



People have this weird idea about "content." Like content is some mystical thing you can pull the lever on and have it come plopping out to eat up your game time.

What makes you log in every day and play your characters? Dailies. Whether they be daily quests, or daily valor point grinds, or so forth. "The freedom to do whatever you want" does not make you log in when that freedom seems like a chore. And if there's no structure to it, it's going to seem like a chore.

[PrairieChicken]

I really hope all the complaints about garrisons won't cause the pendulum to shift again, effectively dooming player housing forever in the eyes of Blizzard. Because I actually like the idea of garrisons. There's a hype-as-heck feature buried somewhere in there, but I strongly disagree with their implementation.

Garrisons are not player housing though. There is next to no customization and everything is about utility/profit. They serve completely different niche.

[Kaleredar]

Garrisons are not player housing though. There is next to no customization and everything is about utility/profit. They serve completely different niche.

Player housing wouldn't have served as "content" in any meaningful way more than garrisons do. Nor would "racial buildings" or any of that.

Garrisons themselves are not the problem. Garrisons could easily exist and be functional, exactly the way they are now, if we had daily rep quest grinds and valor point dailies.


And honestly, I don't think Blizzard thought Garrisons would replace those things. They just thought players didn't want them. And maybe players thought they didn't want them. But it's quite obvious that, in order to keep people playing, they DO need those. They've been a mainstay of WoW since BC, and are, quite frankly, the only meaningful "content difference" between any other expansion and this one.

[Magicalcrab]

Garrisons are not player housing though. There is next to no customization and everything is about utility/profit. They serve completely different niche.

If you want to play semantics, then perhaps I should rephrase it.
"... stuff that is supposed to be the entire point of creating and customizing your own little corner of draenor."

The point is that I think it would have been much more fun if the garrison was more of an independent feature. If you disagree on that point, feel free to elaborate, but I would rather abstain from a discussion of what is and isn't considered Player Housing.

[tankbug]

Garrisons is about the only thing in WoD. I love em, and I'm hoping for even deeper, more complex and varied improvements in the future. But I do wish my garrison was phased inside a major city, so I didn't have to use portals to see other people. Kinda lonely in the wilderness.

[Kaleredar]

If you want to play semantics, then perhaps I should rephrase it.
"... stuff that is supposed to be the entire point of creating and customizing your own little corner of draenor."

The point is that I think it would have been much more fun if the garrison was more of an independent feature. If you disagree on that point, feel free to elaborate, but I would rather abstain from a discussion of what is and isn't considered Player Housing.

But does that keep people logging in?

I mean, maybe some people would enjoy logging in every day to switch up the look of their buildings. But I'm going to assume most people wouldn't.

Like, say Blizzard made the astronomical (we're talking 800+ models) effort required to make racial buildings for every single garrison building. Okay. People settle on the buildings they like, and make them that way. There, a decision that took 30 seconds to make. That was, effectively, 30 seconds of content that you then passively stare at. And sure, you might appreciate the different buildings. But you aren't going to log on just to walk around your garrison and stare at them. That's not a compelling reason to log on every day and play your character.

[Stacyrect]

Ever since cataclysm blizzard has been putting less main line content and more sub content per say into each expansion. We get more content like cmodes, rbgs, selfie cams, pet battles, garrisons, and incoming is mythic dungeons and timewalker dungeons which is just recycled content with new rewards. These are good things, but they themselves arn't going to captivate us into staying. Blizzard is just unwilling, or it's parent company is just unwilling to spend the resources to make the main line content and the sub content. To me, it seems like they are worried about spending dimes to make dollars because of the sub loss's and the downward trends of not just wow but other mmos as well. If they add more content of depth and immersion, and less pop content, the game will grow again. In the end, if your looking to design a 1 year expansion but give it 4-5 weeks of actual content outside of raids, people are going to get bored and leave.

[Kaleredar]

I think the main problem is that people on forums think they can analyse games and know what makes or breaks them. Not only do those people have zero clue about gaming (other than that they play them), they also disagree on what works and what doesn't.

In the end we have tons of different opinions what needs to be changed and how it needs to be changed.

And ofc it won't help if I link a blue response on the subject because everyone is an expert and knows better and Blizzard employees and designers are just clueless.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3...ut-sub-losses/

I don't doubt Blizzard's commitment or effort placed in WoD.

I DO disagree with some of their design decisions. First and foremost, the removal of flying. But as much as I hate that decision, I don't think people quit the game just over that. I also disagree with their removal of daily quests and things like valor point grinds as the requisit structure character advancement. Why?


Looking at the various complaints, they all seem to revolve around "there's no content!" And it's obvious that Blizzard didn't "not make content." In theory, there are plenty of things to do. Now, we're to assume that prior expansions "had content," according to these complaints.

Doing a side-by-side comparison between WoD and every other expansion, the only palpable difference is the almost complete nonexistence of daily quests (especially in the realm of rep grinds) and the removal of the valor point system, both in its gear acquisition and the removal of a reason to run daily heroic dungeons.

And so I draw the conclusion (and frankly, agree with it) that the lack of daily quests and valor point grind; i.e, "structure" is causing the majority of people's grievances. The reputations are there to grind. The gear is there to be had (you can grind upgradable gear from apexis crystals and gold.) But these unstructured grinds are proving unpalatable to the vast number of people, either because they don't know about them or simply find the prospect of grinding them up utterly repulsive.