Since we're talking about 8.0...

[Chandrassa]

... could we take a step or four back from the Legion design philosophy for this next expansion? I recommend tearing that "time played" banner down and replacing it with something like Rob Pardo's rules :-)

WoD was a hot mess, but I subbed for most of it because I could play the game without ever being bored out of my gourd. The weekly valor cap took a bit of time, but I found I could sneak it in no problem and usually enjoyed myself doing it. By contrast, I tried twice to get into Legion, and both times I learned that in order to play the part of the game I liked (what is now called heroic-to-mythic raiding) I had to play through about an hour or more per day of mind-numbingly easy and repetitive character maintenance (world quests, follower quests, etc.). I decided to switch characters, but then I got sick to my stomach thinking about doing the AP/AK/Legendary grind again from scratch... and I quit. This happened twice. 7.3 was about to be a third time, but I've wizened up and have read enough here and elsewhere to know the problem is as bad or worse than ever. It helps that I'm now invested enough in another game that I'm not getting the junkie shakes.

Whatever happened to "concentrated coolness", or "concentrate on the fun"? For example, does anyone actually like world quests after the first time? How about the Legion Invasions? Lets be generous and say 50% of respondents said yes to these questions... why then are 100% of raiders doing them?

Time for a toddler question... why do I have to eat my vegetables? Is the 10th iteration of some barrel-watching world quest somehow good for me? Is the experience of slogging through a million mobs (that scale to my level and my ilvl (wth??) so I can't just ignore them) building character? Is it helping me better enjoy my time spent challenging myself alongside my favorite raiders? Is there a reason I can't fly to that thing I *want* to do? My experience suggests that the only sub numbers these things are good for are competing MMOs'. Each time you (a dev) find yourself asking "how can I force or bribe a player to do this thing that they will be tempted to skip" ask yourself instead "does this thing that players will be tempted to skip belong in the game I want to make?" "Could I instead I put a cosmetic reward at the end of it to thank the people who love this stuff for their persistence?"

Okay, off my soapbox. Mostly, I just hope whatever comes next has a way for people who mostly enjoy raiding to play the game without so dang much repetitive non-group content. Going back to the old model of weekly dungeons/scenarios for badges/valor/etc would be a huge improvement.

[Simca]

Free bump because the spam filter caught this when originally posted.