Flying in Wow and how poorly handled *I feel* Argus was.

[Mayia]

I'm not entirely sure how i'd explain what kind of player of wow i am, I played from the start of TBC till the start of Cata, came back at the end of WOD till now.

I used to raid and i've dipped my toe into LFR since i had returned but not tried any real raiding, i decided when i returned i would try out all the classes again learn them again and pick one i liked, my major goal was to farm old mounts which took much of my time but i did try to keep the 12 of each class with the best gear i could get via World quests, then the broken shore made things really easy, then argus kinda crushed that drive.

I felt like many the design of the broken shore was really good some zones the lack of flying was loathe-some at times but some other places it really didn't matter, and the flight whistle really helped so much, plus we knew flying was coming!
Though things took longer to do, and i had to pace myself more i enjoyed the world content at the time, and when flying was introduced i wouldn't say the content lost something, but it was clear you could do things much faster i could do 12 emissaries in a day (and not much else!)

The only Hiccup we all felt was the broken shore, which was a twisted mess it felt bad to be on that island without flying, it felt like if you didn't have flying there it was because you weren't trying hard enough, and soon enough most of us got flying from that place.

All was good, until Argus.
Now Argus IS great and i feel like the team did a really great job we all looked forward to it so much and i don't once remember seeing anyone say or ask "flying on argus" before the contents release, Then we got there.
Face it, unless you were cold hearted you went through the quests asap and were too busy enjoying yourself to worry but then that weeks quest line ended..

Then we started to wonder about flying a little, but we still had some quest lines to do, and in the weeks to follow they were pretty good though some of the areas unlocked started to remind us of the broken shore, Terrain that felt bad to navigate it and we started to actively wonder where flying was and ask the question "When can we easy mode argus" Of course the answer today is still no flying there sucks to be you.

Now that is fine we've had plenty of places without flying after all we played the start of the expansion without flying *I* personally had already got 36 characters to 110 (most beyond the 12 were demon hunters though) It wasn't really a big deal.. or was it?


Well this wasn't the start of the expansion and we weren't waiting on flying we'd already got it, and had months of flying speeding up our day to day grind.
I'll try to be as objective about the issues i felt and i observed from others feedback, but i was pretty annoyed at Argus and it helped me uninstall wow which i just did after my latest game time ran out, Though i must say now it was not the only factor. - If i hadn't wasted ingame gold on hearthstone packs something i also felt was poorly handled the current expansion i likely would've kept my account active longer, or long enough for me to come back so i'm not going to pretend this was the one thing that drove me over the edge it wasn't but it was a factor.



Argus just launched, i hadn't thought too much about it i had watched some youtubers first impressions and cliff notes of what to expect without spoiling too much of it, or digging through patch notes, i was pretty happy.. then i realized.
I hadn't spent my last lot of nethershards, most of my 12 active(r) characters had some laying around in order to buy more gear next 7k mission.
They were now useless.. Well that felt really bad, i understand most of what i got would've been 880 trash i vendored/de'd and very few items that would be better than what i could get on argus.. so what does it matter.

It kind of does, but i'll get back to that. -

The story was good, the area's were good but we were well into the expansion i don't know if we'll get another raid after this one so next expansion is bound to drop next year sometime?
So Argus is the last major patch until then? - Well we have a little bit of a complex problem.
Argus takes longer to do, there is much more to do right now while its new its pretty overwhelming if you have some alts, now imagine 12.
But not just that all current gear has pretty much been moved there, the World quest gear outside of Argus isn't as good and you'd want the Argus resource to roll the dice anyway! so besides the odd emissary quest you'll be spending a load of your time on Argus.
This is where flying being disabled after having given back to us becomes a massive problem, This is a zone that will last us until the end of the expansion it is the place we HAVE to go to progress unless you just do raids/dungeons and nothing in the world (1% of the population?) so this was a choice somebody made to introduce a new zone so late into the game without flying.

Now as i mentioned i wasn't playing during Pandamon but i do note there have been two islands similar to this released then? and back in the old days, there was the isle of Quel...del...whatever, But back then you could do it then not go back.
I remember doing that isle on different alts and servers and it never being a problem you couldn't fly there, and since it was near silvermoon it kind of made sense. (not really)

As Argus launched it didn't have account wide unlocks which it really needed, imagine doing the story more than twice ugh!
So all those characters who just got shafted as i previously mentioned on the "we are taking this vendor away, you should ready every patch detail before it goes live sucka's!" becomes more important.
Argus is too much work to do on 12 characters i could not possibly keep that much going, It might be nice solo players have more to do, but they have always had the option to do as much or as little as they want.

So what is the real problem all of us have with Argus? I've said a lot of stuff that effects me and others slightly its a game no big deal i don't need to do it right?

The nay sayers are completely right i don't need to do argus, i don't need to do it 12 times a day there is no reason to do anything i don't want to do.


-
But at the end of the day Legion become a comfortable thing that we did in our free time we knew how long it'd take to do A B and C and allotted time to enjoy more alts or do something else as i have previously mentioned if i was just farming gold and playing one character i'm sure i wouldn't mind it at all and it'd just be another nice piece of content, But it changed my goals so drastically i'd spent so long playing this game and felt like something major had just upturned my plans completely.

And i suspect something i have pretty much blamed on many of the poor choices made by Blizzard this expansion, From Artifact power to RNG legendary procs.
I don't even recall where i heard it, But somewhere at the start of legion i heard that Blizzard/Activsion was using time spent Playing the game as a measure of how well Warcraft was doing.

Is this true? i don't know but after all we've seen this expansion it makes sense maybe JFK was killed by a clone of hitler who could time travel.. yeah i know without proof it sounds stupid.

But the artifact power grind, the Rng legendaries, the painful time we had playing alts, and now Argus the best time sink we've seen so far.
Let us scale the mob health up if you have more gear "just so mobs don't die instantly" why does that matter? why does it matter if joe clears a world quest in 1 minute or 2? well it does if you are using time played as a gauge to see how well the game is doing.

Having hours added to my game plan without my input was a giant kick in the nads for me and blizzards reason for not allowing us to fly on argus "Cause" Well that is reasonable. (not)


So i uninstalled wow today and i don't currently plan to come back at the moment maybe the next expansion will draw me back and i'll have to pay for a month as well as the new expansion we'll see.
But i didn't just want to point out how blizzard have been acting more and more like a bunch of twats only concerned by money that was MOST of my reason but not all of it! honest!

But i feel like Argus would've fit better had it been sooner and/or less important in our day to day.
What do i mean? Well i don't know story wise why we couldn't have gone to argus before we got flying back then the area could always exclude flying or add it when they did the rest.
And the other point, if the rest of the broken shore was an option to obtain the new Rng currency even if its 5-15 per world quest, we all would've felt less bottlenecked into the place, and I think Blizzard needs to launch account wide daily/world quest/stuff more freely stuff locked behind massive quest lines don't feel good to repeat over and over again, the class story line was fine the first time.
It was interesting the second and third and by the fifth class i wanted to make the dev's play as much of the class order hall campaigns as i had (i think i ended up finishing 15 maybe 16)


Nay sayers are always pointing out how alt friendly Legion is, but it really isn't, back in TBC i leveled an alt in my spare time from raiding and gearing my main and got that into a raiding guild with very little hassle all i did at the time was keep farming badge gear, in legion to have an add ready to do mythic raiding i'd need to spend a massive time online to keep my rng procs for legendaries going so i could get bis on both my characters (i haven't played one character enough to do that!) hell back in Wrath i got four characters through ulduar 10man in order to get the 310% mount speed and mount, If the same situation happened in legion i couldn't main four characters.

I don't understand why from the start Artifact power wasn't an account wide resource, after all the goal was to keep players PLAYING it doesn't matter which character/class they play and encouraging players to have alts makes them want to spend MORE? time ingame i dunno, making legendaries boa as well would've been nice and have helped, at least then when every character kept getting the ring/necklace i could make sure the characters i wanted to focus on, had both of them in inventory before i proc'ed my next legendary chance?


Hopefully we see adjustments to these kinds of systems and they decide to take them account wide that is something i'd really like to see.


I've spilled a lot maybe at times repeated myself i've offered on the spot idea's and thoughts i've put some more thought into, but i'm open to suggestions, and i'd like to hear how others made it through this time, if you felt as me what did you focus on to come through this?
How did you deal with feeling betrayed by blizzard and keep playing?
And if you left where did you go?

I don't just want people to rant and rave that Blizzard are uncaring twats looking only to make money.. surely there are plenty of those threads :P
But what could have have done differently? what would've been better for the legendary system? how do you make alts more "friendly" how to get people to "spend time playing" without taxing people overly!

And thanks for reading. This game is worth our thoughts and passion but its not worth being miserable over!

[digichi]

Maybe your game style has changed more/you play more characters over time.

You say "Argus takes longer to do, there is much more to do right now while its new its pretty overwhelming if you have some alts, now imagine 12."
12 alts is, forgive me, a fuck tonne. Of course that is going to sink a lot of time.

Whereas, "back in Wrath i got four characters through ulduar 10man in order to get the 310% mount speed and mount, If the same situation happened in legion i couldn't main four characters."

I dont think you're SUPPOSED to ever be able to main more than 2 characters at ease. Its considered hardcore and surprising when people try to keep even 4 characters at the same level. In fact blizzard is doing something right if you can play more than 4+ characters at all (the game has always been this way. Your main char was always the one you'd spend more time on, therefore you'd have the best gear on it/the most knowledge how to play it. The alt would always be at a similar gear/skill level, but still not as much as your main. The most characters ive ever hardcored into was probably during WoTLK, and that was druid/paladin/warrior/hunter... And even THAT took up so much time that i had to step back and take a long break while waiting for cata. )

Remember, a lot of people never ran 12+ alts back in wrath/tbc because leveling was far more tedious, longer, and considered a chore after some time. It was considered a breath of fresh air when you finally reached the max level. Now, you have boosts at your disposal, exp buffs, heirlooms... there is so many options and shortcuts that it makes it far easier to 'get into' more characters. Legion MAKES it possible for a lot of people to max level and jump into end-gameplay.

Sometimes you just need to pace yourself / take a break/ strip back some characters.

[Lochton]

Maybe your game style has changed more/you play more characters over time.

You say "Argus takes longer to do, there is much more to do right now while its new its pretty overwhelming if you have some alts, now imagine 12."
12 alts is, forgive me, a fuck tonne. Of course that is going to sink a lot of time.

Whereas, "back in Wrath i got four characters through ulduar 10man in order to get the 310% mount speed and mount, If the same situation happened in legion i couldn't main four characters."

I dont think you're SUPPOSED to ever be able to main more than 2 characters at ease. Its considered hardcore and surprising when people try to keep even 4 characters at the same level. In fact blizzard is doing something right if you can play more than 4+ characters at all (the game has always been this way. Your main char was always the one you'd spend more time on, therefore you'd have the best gear on it/the most knowledge how to play it. The alt would always be at a similar gear/skill level, but still not as much as your main. The most characters ive ever hardcored into was probably during WoTLK, and that was druid/paladin/warrior/hunter... And even THAT took up so much time that i had to step back and take a long break while waiting for cata. )

Remember, a lot of people never ran 12+ alts back in wrath/tbc because leveling was far more tedious, longer, and considered a chore after some time. It was considered a breath of fresh air when you finally reached the max level. Now, you have boosts at your disposal, exp buffs, heirlooms... there is so many options and shortcuts that it makes it far easier to 'get into' more characters. Legion MAKES it possible for a lot of people to max level and jump into end-gameplay.

Sometimes you just need to pace yourself / take a break/ strip back some characters.

Wise words really.

[Deleted]

yeah, i would burn out pretty fast too if i were to do everything ingame 12 times. Pretty sure every game would suck if you had to do everything 12 times, so thats no surprise.

[Deleted]

No flying on Argus was a slap in the face, cause we just earned flying. It's true that other islands had no flying, too. But in MoP we had flying from the start. We didn't have to earn it. So when Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle were not designed for flying, it was cool, cause gaining flying wasn't a big deal to begin with. But earning it over months, only to have it restricted on Argus was an insult.

And the terrain on Argus, the Broken Shore and the Broken Isles in general makes traveling a pain.

If they wanted to have no-flying separately on Argus for a while, they should have done it like this. Make the terrain not a pain in the ass and have us unlock it separately by playing through the campaign and get to revered with both factions. And don't tell me flying on Argus is not possible because of the way it was designed. Then design it differently. We're not idiots.

[WowIsDead64]

Just ignore Argus, as I do. Just imagine, that it doesn't exist. Goals are subjective. Set your goals right below Argus and that's it. I've ignored Molten Front. I've ignored IOT/IOG. I've ignored TI. Why should Argus be different? But if Blizzard want to keep making last patch before year of content drought content not for all players - they should know, that after several months of such content many players will leave till next xpack.

[Deleted]

ah yes another pretentious post about flying in wow. *yawn*

glad you uninstalled the game. please dont forget to delete your account here as well.

laters

[Mayia]

Thanks Vettehenk, helpful reply its almost like you don't have anything to say because anything you do say will make you look stupid.
Perhaps just avoid posting??

I do disagree that maining many characters is "Hard" or "Time consuming" much of the time i played in game "back in the glory days lol!" was just fun runs, i spent a lot of extra time running dungeons i really didn't need to do on my main because we had a really fun group, had i done those dungeons on another class who could get rewards well.. i could've played many characters.

Now i can understand raiding with many characters can be exhausting.
Back in TBC i had my druid in a very "Casual-bad" heh, guild who was behind on major content until the Sunwell isle and badge gear came out which allowed us to stop doing TK/SSC to gear up for BT and jump right into BT, and by the end a guild who wasn't that great had cleared it and started making progress (slower than i'd like lol) into sunwell, we'd got past the first boss, Meanwhile my new guild was already well into Sunwell and was trying to beat a horde guild for first place.

During the down time i still leveled alts, did fun dungeon runs, but i basically raided a couple of hours with one guild jumped over to the other 3 days a week, i had a 4th with the better guild as well as two Zulaman runs, which i quickly pulled out of the bad guilds one, because i had achieved what i set out to do, get bears for the group of 10 we started with (nobody was interested until we had the run down then every bastard who never replied or was too busy to come suddenly wanted a place) which pissed me off.

Meanwhile my other guild we were selling the bear to a 10th person as we 9 manned the place. - Big difference.

It became the time when it was tiring doing basically two runs of BT and Sunwell a week and the worse guild wanting a free ride through ZA really made me loathe most the raid members, so i went full time with one guild, but i never stopped leveling characters gearing them up, i could main 4 characters in wrath pretty easily.

Mind you i am home all the time so perhaps 4 isn't possible for *most* people but there really isn't much work to get a character to max level, learn it and do the required content to get gear.

And if we were encouraged to swap between characters and classes i feel like patch notes nerfing one class wouldn't be such a ballkick.
Its something i do wish all mmo's would look into boosting the importance of alts.

And lets face it, i started playing warcraft as a hunter i didn't understand how healers or tanks felt or how anything more complicated than don't stand in stuff on the ground, not until i played those classes sometimes spec's play so differently having an understanding of them is really good, maybe a healing class has just used a big heal and you know its so and so class, so the tank needs to use a cooldown till the next big hit goes in, and what can i do as a dps to reduce incoming damage as well as kill mobs as quickly as possible? .. oh an add from behind well i'm less important to this fight than a healer so as a hunter i misdirect as another other ranged class i attack it and run closer to the tank for easier pickup. or CC if possible.

Playing an alt makes the game last longer it opens your eyes to so much more of the game and balance and teaches you how to react when you encounter said class, If you don't believe me check out wow players who do really big pvp or raid hardcore they wont have just the one character.


But yeah i did try to ignore argus but i felt like i wasn't achieving anything in character progression if i just ignored it, my hunter did it every few days to clear out quests do emissaries and i noticed a massive change compared to the other classes, so i just stopped playing and couldn't even find the drive to grind enough gold to keep my account active.

I have no doubt i'll come back to wow at some stage most people always come back and i'm very interested to try the skipping to the last boss/bosses in WOD raids in order to farm those mounts, they are few of the ones i still need, I just know something that makes me really sad.

Somebody likely more than one person made an active choice to make Argus a non flying area knowing exactly what would happen, it'd delay people and i suspect that was on purpose, its an active choice to not improve gameplay, not to help players or make the zone more interesting but to delay and hinder a player-base who supports them, its really scumbaggy.
For now i have more jobs to level in FFXIV maybe i'll get tired of it after my 120 odd days of game time runs out but lets see, so far having "Alts" is just leveling different jobs and it seems rewarding and easier it seems like playing more than one class was thought of and encouraged and i really like that, because there is still plenty for a player who doesn't play like that.

[Armourboy]

I mean really lets break it down, Argus is about as fun to navigate as getting your prostate checked, and it sticks in your craw even more knowing not only did you just earn flying, but also a class mount to go with it. It's not so much that having zones that you can't fly is a horrible idea, it's more that the timing of it was bad.

Frankly the biggest issue with Argus? Well it's boring. It's exactly the same thing we've done all expansion long, just with a different rep. As far as interesting content goes it was already played out by the time Broken Shore hit, let alone again on Argus.

I have no issue with the catch up stuff, or the fact that Argus exists, but in reality it is no different than Highmountain, Azsuna, etc. and it gets stale insanely fast, and I don't even play that much anymore.

I also think it is going to be a serious point of contention as things drag on. There is a surprising amount of people that have no clue that we will never have flying on Argus. My friend just found out today, and he is not a happy camper because he was waiting to take his alts there when he could fly.