Where Apexis dailies failed as engaging content: no VIPE

[Deleted]

A few moments ago, I had a discussion with Watcher about the Apexis dailies. The discussion can be found here:

https://twitter.com/WatcherDev/statu...90561179193344

I took the liberty of copying the discussion for your convenience. This'll likely appear in the bluetracker on tomorrow's update, but I wanted to give the full story, not the 2 tweets that will probably show up and give a slightly warped indication of the discussion.

• Mailborn ‏@MailbornJenkins 1h1 hour ago
  @WarcraftDevs @WatcherDev Hey, Shipping Yard is NOT new content. Re Skined followers on a reskinned command table. Largest content my ass.
• Mailborn ‏@MailbornJenkins 1h1 hour ago
  @WarcraftDevs @WatcherDev Patch 5.2 kept me occupied for months with all the crap it had. 6.2 will last a week.
• Watcher ‏@WatcherDev 28m28 minutes ago
  @MailbornJenkins What do you feel Isle of Thunder has that Tanaan lacks?
• Mailborn ‏@MailbornJenkins 22m22 minutes ago
  @WatcherDev Quests? After the short little intro, it devolves into apexis dailies. A lot of people hate them.
• Mailborn ‏@MailbornJenkins 22m22 minutes ago
  @WatcherDev IE Filling a bar is less fullfilling than doing quests.
• Nzall ‏@realnzall 14m14 minutes ago
  @MailbornJenkins @WatcherDev All dailies so far had a hub-based theme, and interesting quests. all apexis dailies feel the same.
• Mailborn ‏@MailbornJenkins 12m12 minutes ago
  @realnzall @WatcherDev Yep. The only thing that is changing for Apexis is where its located.
• Nzall ‏@realnzall 9m9 minutes ago
  @MailbornJenkins @WatcherDev If I look at last phase IoT, you had a miniboss, then 3 quests, then 3 more minibosses, then a jumping puzzle.
• Nzall ‏@realnzall 8m8 minutes ago
  @MailbornJenkins @WatcherDev pre-SoO vale, same thing: 2-3 quests here, 2-3 quests there, finish with a miniboss.
• Nzall ‏@realnzall 6m6 minutes ago
  @MailbornJenkins @WatcherDev Krasarang hubs were similar: 6 dailies a day, a special questline every 2-3 days that expands story.
• Mailborn ‏@MailbornJenkins 5m5 minutes ago
  @realnzall @WatcherDev Thats the biggest part for me. Apexis does nothing to expand story. I am left thinking "For what purpose am I doing?"
• Nzall ‏@realnzall 3m3 minutes ago
  @MailbornJenkins @WatcherDev You got story now through the Garrison Campaign, but it's not linked to Apexis dailies at all. wrong move IMHO.

Watcher‏@WatcherDev

@realnzall @MailbornJenkins Thanks, this is great, constructive feedback.




So yeah, I wanted to start a discussion on this specific feedback: Apexis dailies are not interesting content because they're all basically the same:

1. Start at your garrison;
2. pick up the daily you'd like to do;
3. fly to the nearest flight path;
4. kill shit and click on things to slowly fill a bar.
5. Hearth to your Garrison, turn in the daily.
5a. (optional) do the invasion event that might have occured.
6. repeat 2 months for one item that's barely better than something you get from a normal raid.

That's it. There's no real incentive to do them. You don't unlock anything special doing them, the reward curve is too steep (I can do 5 days of apexis dailies for 1 630 item, or I can do 1 5 man heroic each day and be guaranteed 5 items) and they're bland and tasteless. The only reason to do them is for the 5K apexis you need for Khadgar, which are easily farmed in 1 day if you use the scouting reports.

They lack VIPE: Variation, Interesting content, Pacing and Engagement.

Let's take a look back at MoP. There were problems with dailies, but you have to admit that they were varied and interesting. In 5.0, you had 4 major factions (Klaxxi, Shado-Pan, Celestials and Golden Lotus) that each had multiple sets of dailies, each with their own ministory and often even a miniboss. You also had 3 minor factions (Tillers, Anglers and Cloud Serpents) which you could do on the side for cosmetic rewards. In patch 5.1, you had the Krasarang base, which had multiple sets of dailies, and every few days of doing dailies, you unlocked a new part of the storyline involving the Divine Bell.

Then in 5.2, you had the Isle of Thunder, where you had a daily questline that was rather varied: do a miniboss, then do 2-3 dailies, do 3 more minibosses, then do a jumping puzzle. On top of that, you also had the serverwide assignment to unlock the island, one scenario at a time.

After that, it watered down. Patch 5.3 is REALLY similar to current apexis dailies: just kill shit, loot shit and do rare mobs that fuck over melee, for a weekly quest to get 250 of 4 different resources. In reality, it devolved into a rare mob train that had people scurry to tag an NPC before it died. Timeless Isle was OK-ish, but it lacked structure and engaging content.

Personally, I think that, had they implemented dailies slightly differently by not locking the valor gear behind reputations, MoP dailies would have been much more enjoyable.

• Pacing: you could get any item you wanted in around 3 weeks.
• interesting Content: each hub had several different mini questlines, and some hubs even had something special (I was doing dailies long after exalted with August Celestials just to see how the rivalry subplot in the Red Crane place would play out).
• Variation: each mini questline had about a dozen quests that varied from just "kill stuff" to "kill this big dude" to "place these bombs" to "do a bombing run" to "interact with this mob or object".
• Engagementmost factions had a a few extra quests that you unlocked at a certain rep level that expanded the storyline, and which encouraged you to keep playing.

If we compare that to Apexis dailies:

• Varied: yeah, no. there are just 2 things to do: kill stuff and click on stuff. you can choose whether you kill stuff or click on stuff, but most people just choose to kill stuff because it's easier and faster.
• Interesting: there is 1 daily a day that's just filling up a bar.
• Pacing: 40 days to get something that's as good as LFR, 60 for something slightly better than normal.
• Engaging: This is the big issue: there is no real encouragement aside from the gear (which as we established isn't that good) to do these dailies beyond the 4896 you need for Khadgar. The only thing that MIGHT happen is that you get an invasion event if you've done enough of the right type.

How I would have done it? 2 simple changes:

1. instead of filling a bar, I would have made half a dozen quests that tell you what to do: 5 quests of the classic MMO type and 1 quest that asks you to kill a named NPC, i.e. one of the rares that are in the quest area.
2. after doing 3 of these miniquests, you'd unlock the next step in the garrison campaign. So instead of the garrison campaign unlocking on a weekly basis, it'd be a direct copy of the Krasarang quests. it wouldn't be original, but it'd be engaging and encouraging you to keep doing the dailies to see where it goes next.

So yeah, feel free to discuss this.

[Baine]

Totally agree. Apexis daily is really not that interesting. I always like the pacing and story of daily quests hubs. They really need to go back to the daily quests hubs without going over the top like in 5.0.

[dope_danny]

apexis is just a lazy way to fill empty space in zones and give players something to do in the world. Y'know, besides killing things in the same area to grind rep.

[guardian_titan]

Apexis dailies are just plain terrible and the few areas that have rep associated with them doesn't make it better. You're lucky to gain 250 rep a day by the time you finish getting you 100 mobs or clickables. With the old dailies, we got 500-2000 (or more) rep in a go. And I do mean you're lucky if you gain 250 rep. When I was trying to do them, every single mob would be dead. Run a circuit of the area hoping for respawns and they're still dead. One spawns and I try to tag it and someone else beats me to it. Leaves the only option being the clickables and no rep ... and that's if I can even find a clickable because everyone else is looking for those, too. And this was 2-4 months AFTER the expansion came out. You'd think people would have slowed down on them by then. Spending an hour for such lackluster rewards isn't worth the hassle. I'd rather have 5 dailies and be done in 30 minutes with 50-100g more and 1500 rep than 1 Apexis "daily" and be done in 2 hours with 100-200g and 50 rep.

You are right. There is no story. Why are we going to these areas to kill things or click on things? Where's the reward? Gold stopped being an incentive with WoD. The gear isn't worth it. Inside a week of hitting 100, you can be raiding before you can even get 1 piece of Apexis gear.

I don't bother doing Apexis dailies. I did a few here and there, particularly those that overlapped with the garrison campaign, but I just avoid them like the plague. I get my crystals from work orders and garrison missions. Screw Apexis "dailies" which aren't even dailies.

Blizzard really loves to swing the pendulum too much one way or another. People said in MoP they loved 5.1 dailies. How did they go from us loving that system to WoD? They had more feedback on 5.1 dailies before Timeless Isle came out so you'd think they would have focused more on that, not Timeless Isle where there wasn't really anything to do beyond kill rares and elites while looting chests (many of which were 1 time only). There wasn't really much story on Timeless Isle and there wasn't much incentive to keep going back after a while.

Doing something because they're fun versus doing something because it's mandatory isn't shown too well by numbers. A lot did Timeless Isle for the gear (free 496 you can upgrade to 535? Yes please) and the rares. That doesn't mean many liked it. What incentive was there to really do the 5.1 dailies? There wasn't really one beyond Black Prince rep which you didn't need dailies to grind and the mounts which many don't even care about. Raiders already had 496 gear or better so only those that did LFR or didn't raid at all would have seen a benefit to the gear. Yet people still did those dailies. Doing a good story can often get players into content. A terrible story or no story at all often won't get players into content. And this is an MMORPG. There's supposed to be story. So where the Apexis story? If WoD actually had a story at max level outside of garrison missions, maybe people would have partaken more in content outside of their garrisons.

Suppose the question is whether or not Blizzard was really listening to fans when they said which content they liked. While the Apexis "dailies" are a nice option for some, frankly, for an RPG, they're incredibly lacking. I want story. I want direction. I want to know why I'm doing something. If I wanted to mindlessly go out and do whatever, i'd play a sandbox game.

[Deleted]

Apexis dailys fall flat in several aspects. They don't give you anything worthwhile, they have no reputations associated with them and the grind to even get any of the subpar rewards they offer is extremly long. There isn't also much of a story.

- Reputations
- Story
- Actual rewards

These are all three things apexis dailys are missing, completely so far. What exactly is the point of doing them, at all? Isle of Thunder for example HAD all of what Apexis Dailys lack. It had differing hubs, it had an actual story, it had nice side objectives such as summong those bosses and so on and on. I have no idea why they ditched Isle of Thunder style building, even the scenarios where somewhat interesting there as they delivered story progression.

[Deleted]

Apexis dailys fall flat in several aspects. They don't give you anything worthwhile, they have no reputations associated with them and the grind to even get any of the subpar rewards they offer is extremly long. There isn't also much of a story.

- Reputations
- Story
- Actual rewards

These are all three things apexis dailys are missing, completely so far. What exactly is the point of doing them, at all? Isle of Thunder for example HAD all of what Apexis Dailys lack. It had differing hubs, it had an actual story, it had nice side objectives such as summong those bosses and so on and on. I have no idea why they ditched Isle of Thunder style building, even the scenarios where somewhat interesting there as they delivered story progression.

Which is exactly what I'm trying to say. Apexis dailies are not fun because they seem out of place.

[Deleted]

Personally I miss the Isle of Thunder.

After the Scourge invasion event it was something I actually had fun with the most but not as most as that obviously.

[Deleted]

Which is exactly what I'm trying to say. Apexis dailies are not fun because they seem out of place.

Yeah, I did the Isle of Thunder Dailys for several reasons or as Blizzard would call it with a disgusted face "double dipping". I could get reputation and in the end a decent enough mount, I could see the story and you could get some actual rewards from it. They didn't take "too long" either and there were small fun things on the side you could do such as the rares who had a chance to drop stuff and a bunch of achievments.

Sure Apexis Dailys also have achievments affiliated with them but somehow they are "off" aswell, they are often in the same vein as the Apexis and one of the only reasons why I even did Apexis dailys for that matter. Because let's honest, who here did use Apexis for actual gear? Hands up guys? Nobody? Odd!

If our server wasn't so heavily Horde biased there would've even been some world pvp on isle of thunder with the way it was set up. There was back on molten front. With Apexis I kinda doubt it. The places are fairly big and way out in nowhere.

- - - Updated - - -

Personally I miss the Isle of Thunder.

After the Scourge invasion event it was something I actually had fun with the most but not as most as that obviously.

Yeah, Isle of Thunder was nice. Heck even Molten Front was nice aside from the extreme gating and having to go through it from beginning to end for that matter. Because it was "all in one place", there was a story behind it, there were a bunch of people around, there was some occasionally PvP involved and there were actual rewards you'd want.

Apexis have none of that whatsoever. The currency in itself is completely pointless. Heck some actually came up with an equation showing just how long you would need to do the apexis dailys for a single piece of 655 gear with horrible itemization. They really didn't think the whole thing through.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Apexis dailies wound up suffering the exact same flaw that MoP dailies did.

You inevitably asked yourself "so why am I still doing this?" Especially since so many of the daily zones actually got resolved in the Garrison Campaign.

If you want to make something replayable ad infinity, you need to make it so the threat feels continually real. Not like "after a month of this you'd think we'd have won by now."

[arcaneshot]

Yeah, I did the Isle of Thunder Dailys for several reasons or as Blizzard would call it with a disgusted face "double dipping". I could get reputation and in the end a decent enough mount, I could see the story and you could get some actual rewards from it. They didn't take "too long" either and there were small fun things on the side you could do such as the rares who had a chance to drop stuff and a bunch of achievments.

Isle of Thunder could frequently take 15-20 minutes to get through and you were being herded like a cat through the whole thing.

As opposed to doing most Apexis dailies usually take only 5 minutes to complete if you aren't trying to brute force it like a fool (tack on a couple minutes for travel time to the zone).

[MoanaLisa]

Apexis dailies wound up suffering the exact same flaw that MoP dailies did.

You inevitably asked yourself "so why am I still doing this?" Especially since so many of the daily zones actually got resolved in the Garrison Campaign.

If you want to make something replayable ad infinity, you need to make it so the threat feels continually real. Not like "after a month of this you'd think we'd have won by now."

Dailies, even those dressed up in new clothes, are always going to be dailies. I don't mind the Apexis variety using the same mechanic as the bonus quests but they fell very short on the reward side especially given the rewards for doing raiding at any level of difficulty. And that's really one of the main stories of the expansion. Yeah, they are there, they are daily, but.....

[bugler18]

Isle of Thunder could frequently take 15-20 minutes to get through and you were being herded like a cat through the whole thing.

As opposed to doing most Apexis dailies usually take only 5 minutes to complete if you aren't trying to brute force it like a fool (tack on a couple minutes for travel time to the zone).

Really? Not a single one takes 5 minutes. Specially not skettis. Maybe on a low pop realm, but on Thrall it takes at least 15 minutes.

[Wondercrab]

It's been weird to think about what exactly it is that makes Apexis dailies feel worse than what was ostensibly the exact same thing, but broken up into multiple smaller segments. There's broader issues, as mentioned in the OP, but I'm talking strictly about the moment to moment gameplay involved.

I think, ultimately, it stems from the fact that you *can* do multiple different objectives in the apexis version, but there's no *need* to. It doesn't feel important that you kill a few of these guys, then gather a few of those things, then save a few of the people over there. There's no guiding incentive to go to different parts of the zone, kill different types of mobs, or track down specific items you need.
The Isle of Thunder quests offered a great variety of different things to do, while making sure all of those things felt like they had a *reason* behind them, and by ensuring you engaged with all of them (while offering a little flavour text beforehand to make sure you knew exactly *why*).

Multiple different dailies naturally created their own pacing, by offering hard cut-off points at which the quest log said "Okay, time to stop doing this activity and focus on something different", whereas the pacing of apexis quests naturally becomes sluggish and repetitive as you get bogged down in doing the one thing that's most efficient, or because you just don't happen to wander over to the other side of the area where something else is happening.

Having said that, I do think there's merit to the open freedom of the apexis quests. I don't think they create the same sense of snappy pacing, quick payoffs, and focused direction that hub dailies do, but I think there's room in the game for both variations to exist. It would just be nice for them to focus on the strengths of the old system, while keeping the new one as an occasional extra.

[Deleted]

Good on you for telling em, and good on you for posting it here

Can't help but agree - wow is at it's best when story, progression and learning interact.

As meatloaf says, 2 out of 3 ain't bad, but all 3 is the holy grail.

[Gadzooks]

It's been weird to think about what exactly it is that makes Apexis dailies feel worse than what was ostensibly the exact same thing, but broken up into multiple smaller segments. There's broader issues, as mentioned in the OP, but I'm talking strictly about the moment to moment gameplay involved.

For me, it's the lack of structure. No story telling, and the goal is so far away it feels pointless. If you took the amount if time needed to get exalted with MoP dailies, it's daunting, but when it has tiered levels of reward, that you can bite off in small bites, it doesn't feel as hopeless and never ending, and you have small rewards along the way to make it feel like you've accomplished something. Plus, the Shieldwall dailies had non-rep based rewards, fun stuff to play with. Apexis is just a long, never ending grind for gear and mounts nobody wants. I guarantee if they'd put the poundfist mount as a reward, people would be still doing the dailies.

I find it hard to believe Ion doesnt get that. He's had ten years experience with building this game, and seeing what players like, and what they don't. I like that they're asking questions, but that should have started during SoO when they were first putting the expansion together.

The psychology of game design is interesting to me, and Blizzard, up until MoP, seemed to have a good grasp of it. They really nailed the slot machine aspect with Diablo II, but then managed to fuck it up in Diablo III - and then fixed it with Loot 2.0, which brought back the slot machine. I know ultimately that any gains and accomplishments in a game are meaningless, but if you make them fun, then I'll buy a ticket. They seem to have managed to completely misunderstand what people find fun. Hell, I loved to just pick an area in TBC, and see what was in the loot tables there - I found epics in places I'd never have thought to look. When's the last time an epic dropped off a random mob in Dreanor? (And the chance to get epic versions of treasure of rares was a GOOD thing, but not when it's one and done) I used to farm the plaguelands constantly for a Krul's in vanilla. I farmed whelps for weeks to get my crimson whelp. There's nothing in Dreanor I would do that for, except the Poundfist mount, and I got in on the first server kill for that. I enjoyed the dragon racing dailies in MoP, and the variety of dailies to get dragon riding. The daily riding the giant yeti was FUN. The only daily grind I gave up on before WoD was the Stonecore dailies, they were just boring. I got the enchants, and said "forget it" for the Pebble pet.

I guess, to make an analogy, Blizzard designed a lot of carrots to lure us with, but there's nothing at the end of it. Remember the war beads grind in TBC to get exalted with the Nagrand rep, to get the Talbuk? I did it. It was painful. It was insane, but I made a ton of gold off the drops, I got the tailback mounts, and all the rewards along the way. That's the kind of daily we need. Structured, paced with levels of reward, with something worthwhile at the end - and the mobs dropping good loot along the way. I did the Consortium rep in TBC. I did all of the reps in Wrath, to exalted. I did all of the reps in MoP to exalted. I know reps. I know the grind, I know what makes them fun, and what doesnt. Apexis dailies miss the mark on every level and in every way. They're universally loathed, especially now that they can't be done in raids. There's no point to them, and now with the gear being purchasable with gold, there's no single reason to do them, except for one overpriced mount - and it's not even a mount with a repair NPC like the mammoth and yak, which cost about the same, without the Apexis. It's just bad ideas.

[melodramocracy]

I've never thought of them not succeeding because of that, but I do agree with your outlook on them.

I actually enjoyed the 'do x / fill bar y' element, but it indeed lacks variation. And some of the areas, such as the ogre area near HM, were just far too unchallenging, even solo.

Where I thought they had the biggest letdown was a) allowing raid groups to do the content for so long, which completely trivialized it, and b) the apexis rewards themselves being so dismal.

[Hopper]

I won't judge a book by its cover but....6.2 is not impressing me so far.

[chazus]

People keep bringing up things like Molten Front, and I think thats a good point. Lets compare and contrast. Also, I want to mention Isle of Quel Danas as well. Those were my two favorite daily hubs.

To be clear, I don't think "dailies" are a problem. It's how they're implemented. A lot of people loved QD and MF, and that was all dailies, all the time. I've played since WoW Beta in 2004, and seen all its iterations. I've seen good and bad design, in a lot of games. It's also part of my job as a content designer for our own game.

In both those instances, there were a few aspects.

1) Varied landscape. Both had a lot of different places. Apexis Dailies are.. rather dull, and all the same. Because who is kidding here, we all picked Shattrath unless it wasn't an option. Otherwise the Pit. Shattrath is beautiful, but obnoxious as a questing area.

2) Worthwhile rewards. The valor-level gear got you almost to raid level. The grind was worth it. Having gated loot for rep + valor was fantastic, without being too much of a hand-out. Apexis... You spend a few days and get a 630. You spend, what, a couple weeks? And get a 645. Woo. I'd rather run LFR. The rewards just aren't worth the work.

3) Interesting quests. Apexis is largely just kill stuff. Maybe pick up a thing. If you were unlucky enough to be forced into Skettis, you had to do a truely obnoxious quest of the keys + freeing people. If I had to do PVP or Skettis, I just wouldn't do apexis that day. Most of the other places actually had you DO something. I wouldn't call them crazy innovative, but it at least had some flavor to it.

4) A reason. I honestly think this is the least important, but "go kill stuff because they're bad" is not a very good reason, when it comes to doing something over and over again. The Magnarok were not an encroaching threat. The Ogres were not on our doorstep. We didn't risk losing it all, if a day was not spent doing dailies. It didn't FEEL like there was a need to do these dailies. In Molten Front, we literally had an endless tide of firelands mobs slamming themselves against our forces. In QD, we literally had to forcibly take back land from them, and keep it, while a battle was raging on a stones throw away in Sunwell. We literally SAW the raid going on, in effect. This is all aesthetics and environment, but it was powerful.

Isle of Thunder was a little different, and had some and not of the above. It ended up being easy valor in the end by killing rares. But you know what? Killing rares was actually fun. Communicating with the people on the server to try and rush from here to there. Getting keys for loot runs. That was fun! It was also varied landscapes, and different mechanics to deal with. I don't feel that the Isle of Thunder was mirrored well in Timeless Isle. I enjoyed TI for other reasons, but I don't think those reasons are useful here. Ordos was just an end-of-expansion loot run.

Apexis Dailies have none of these, and just really lack a reason to do them. However their inception seems to be focused on for some reason, and the area they're done in use HUGE areas of the map. Shattrath, arguably one of the most beautiful locations in the expansion, is almost exclusively a crappy Apexis Area. Magnarok and the Ogre areas, HUGE sections of frostfire, are nearly exclusively that. The dev team has committed a great deal of resources (map, art, etc), to this thing that... Honestly nobody wants to do.

I get what they were trying to do, I just think it was a system implemented poorly. Give us a way to grind them more reliably. Make getting them more interesting. Maybe the gear easier to get. I don't want stuff handed to me, but if "LFR is 10x easier" something is amiss.

[Dristereau]

The first Apexis Daily I did was the Spires of Arak one where you mutate into a Spore Creature. I still have no idea why I went there, or what I did that helped me out in terms of Story Progress. I just had the attitude of 'WTF was that shit?' Apexis is a useless currency, Valor was kept relevant through item upgrades whilst Apexis Gear has mainly terrible stats and takes a massive amount of time to get even one piece of gear at any quality.

In short, they could remove them overnight and I'd probably not notice, given how I ignore them completely after getting the Apexis for the Legendary that I need.

[Wondercrab]

For me, it's the lack of structure. No story telling, and the goal is so far away it feels pointless. If you took the amount if time needed to get exalted with MoP dailies, it's daunting, but when it has tiered levels of reward, that you can bite off in small bites, it doesn't feel as hopeless and never ending, and you have small rewards along the way to make it feel like you've accomplished something.

That's a really good point. When I read that part of your post I recalled how, in the past, I often used to skip certain daily quests if I found them particularly bothersome or long-winded. Some days I'd just do one or two I enjoyed, because I lacked the time or inclination to do the full bunch.
There's no option like that with apexis dailies. You either do it all, or you get nothing. It's nor possible to compartmentalise and just do a little bit here, a little bit there.