Plunderstorm is boring and toxic

[Glorious Leader]

The biggest mistake they made was giving it rewards that carry over into the real game.

That wasnt a mistake pal. It was fully by design and was utilized in order to meet whatever participation metric they had to meet. We must have x amount of people play this shit

[ThatsOurEric]

I do 2-3 Renown a day to get this done. The grind itself is ... a grind... and I can't wait to get to 40 and never touch it again.

Same here. Most I can stand is just 2 Renown and that's it.

[Capultro]

i hate plunderstorm i dont play it. subs cancelled.this

[Livevil]

Couldn't stand playing this trash for more than 4 games and i'm no stranger to grinds. What pissed me off most is that this garbage event costed a proper retail patch which could have been a new outdoor zone, a dungeon, a BG, a QoL iteration on classes and so on. Instead, we got this dogshit facebook game with retail rewards.

[Eapoe]

People have found a way of forming little three and four man groups in solo. It involves Discord and a lot of que'ing to ensure that at least two of them are in the same game. And when I see twenty plus people dead in the first two minutes of the game I know it's best to just run into the storm. Especially when it is the same names going X has killed X, I ain't getting the daily done in that situation. Oh and the whole just watching while others fight then rushing in to kill people when they are weak with all their cooldowns blown is another dick move.

I mean, the last part of your post is just being smart in a PvP situation.

- - - Updated - - -

It's fine it has rewards that tie into retail, but there should be an alternative ways to get the rewards.

Like traders tenders or something like that.

Therefore you can get the reward for free for putting time into the mode or you can sacrifice your limited tenders.

I like the mount and pirate outfit, but I'm level 7 in plunder and I have zero desire to do it, let alone 40ish hours to get the 2 rewards I want.

Give it time. More than likely we’ll see this on the TP, or a recolor. Worst case scenario is it appears of the cash shop later. I’d assume the cash shop isn’t gonna happen since they’ve been good about stating those things.

[Biomega]

What pissed me off most is that this garbage event costed a proper retail patch

How do you know this?

People so often assume design is a zero-sum game and that some feature's gain is another feature's loss.

That's almost never the case. Very often resources that don't get spent just... don't get spent. They don't automatically get spent elsewhere, let alone where you want. Not to mention that many of the teams involved are specialists who aren't just fungible personnel you can assign anywhere you want. Some systems/UI designer making Plunderstorm's interface can't just go and make a new zone or a quest hub for a "proper patch". Art and design people can't suddenly make encounters. Combat designers can't be reassigned to make new models. And so on.

It's entirely possible, for example, that they just had people left over from doing work on the expansion, and their skillsets happened to line up for this project. Or something like that. We have no idea. Assuming that they decided "hmmm it's either make a new quest zone and 'proper' patch or a BR minigame... ONE OF THOSE TWO, EXACTLY" and then went with what you didn't like is a very biased, very self-centered assumptions.

[Eapoe]

How do you know this?

People so often assume design is a zero-sum game and that some feature's gain is another feature's loss.

That's almost never the case. Very often resources that don't get spent just... don't get spent. They don't automatically get spent elsewhere, let alone where you want. Not to mention that many of the teams involved are specialists who aren't just fungible personnel you can assign anywhere you want. Some systems/UI designer making Plunderstorm's interface can't just go and make a new zone or a quest hub for a "proper patch". Art and design people can't suddenly make encounters. Combat designers can't be reassigned to make new models. And so on.

It's entirely possible, for example, that they just had people left over from doing work on the expansion, and their skillsets happened to line up for this project. Or something like that. We have no idea. Assuming that they decided "hmmm it's either make a new quest zone and 'proper' patch or a BR minigame... ONE OF THOSE TWO, EXACTLY" and then went with what you didn't like is a very biased, very self-centered assumptions.

I assume a lot of this sentiment comes from when Blizz made the statement that housing would cost a raid tier. Now, anytime something that comes along that people don’t enjoy can use that mentality to have arguments like the person you responded to.
Some people might not have been around during that time and not even know about it, but that mentality has been used enough over the years since then that I can see people catching on and using it.

[Ironhorn]

The problem is the leveling aspect. If you cant get to level 9 fast enough its impossible to win. It would be better if they just removed that part and made the focus getting upgrades for the spells and plunder.

[kaelix1]

Plunderstorm is boring

Good, don't play it, ignoring the mode will have zero effect on your retail/classic character, do you want the rewards? then grind the damn game 2 days and you are 40, not that hard to win once you get what is going on, last time I played I had 4 wins in a row, that's was easy 10k plunder

Plunderstorm is toxic

So a game mode where you can't talk with the opponent, it's pure pvp/pve without chat is toxic? does the game hurt your safe space? not sure why you are using buzzwords to make your point, it makes you look stupid

I sincerely don't fully understand the hate around this game, you are not forced to play it, it has zero impact on your character progress or power, and the 'grind' is super fast once you understand the game, what in the god name is going on with today's gaming community, so much damn whining

[Kraenen]

Really feels like when Paradox tried making a Star Trek spinoff game from Stellaris. We all know how that went.

[Cazer]

I enjoyed my time with it but not enough to grind out all 40 levels. I only play WotLK and having only 2 useable rewards makes the grind feel very not worth the time. It was nice to have some content that's also available to classic players though. I hope the upcoming PvE "experiment" is also accessible for classic players.

[FelPlague]

Couldn't stand playing this trash for more than 4 games and i'm no stranger to grinds. What pissed me off most is that this garbage event costed a proper retail patch which could have been a new outdoor zone, a dungeon, a BG, a QoL iteration on classes and so on. Instead, we got this dogshit facebook game with retail rewards.

It didn't.
Plunderstorm was part of the game jam they have at blizzard. They make games within their games as part of it, and we'll it turned out so well it got added live. I doubt it took an entire patch. This is not a ton of stuff, but even then it will help wow out in the long term. Hell season of discovery was aparently one to start.
They added a spectator mode now, that is SICK and now they just need to add it to raids and arena.
The new UI could be a new vehicle bar, thank god cause current is awful still.
And the concept is fun, it could well become a full mode in wow, not much development, but just there, as something you can do.

[Benggaul]

ON THE OTHER HAND, I do enjoy running around taunting people and making them chase me after I get my match quest done. yelling "You missed" when people try to Skill Shot me never gets old. "I have 10 HP and you can't convert. Come On KILL ME ALREADY" as I run away from them, stuff like that.

I just got 40 today (and will never play this godawful mode again) and this right here is what got me through the last 20ish renown levels. I'd quickly get my quest done for the 250 plunder bonus and then try to gather as much as I could before one of the tryhards at level 7+ decided they needed to come gunning for the nearby level 3/4 to the exclusion of all else--then I'd use all of the defensive/speed/slow abilities I'd picked up to just help them waste their time and then dash off into the storm to deny them any plunder from my death. Alternatively I'd lead them straight into a battle between a couple other people and they'd inevitably be merced because they're too tunnel-visioned on me while I flit from random plunder pile to plunder pile along the edges.

I'd average anywhere between 500-1k plunder per match and generally be out within 10 minutes, so the renown levels went by pretty quickly then. And to the myriad people who "don't understand why you'd play something you hate" you OFTEN have to complete tasks in games that you don't care for in order to reap certain rewards. Just because you personally don't value certain rewards doesn't mean they're pointless to everyone else. Quit being intentionally obtuse.

[Glorious Leader]

How do you know this?

People so often assume design is a zero-sum game and that some feature's gain is another feature's loss.

That's almost never the case. Very often resources that don't get spent just... don't get spent. They don't automatically get spent elsewhere, let alone where you want. Not to mention that many of the teams involved are specialists who aren't just fungible personnel you can assign anywhere you want. Some systems/UI designer making Plunderstorm's interface can't just go and make a new zone or a quest hub for a "proper patch". Art and design people can't suddenly make encounters. Combat designers can't be reassigned to make new models. And so on.

It's entirely possible, for example, that they just had people left over from doing work on the expansion, and their skillsets happened to line up for this project. Or something like that. We have no idea. Assuming that they decided "hmmm it's either make a new quest zone and 'proper' patch or a BR minigame... ONE OF THOSE TWO, EXACTLY" and then went with what you didn't like is a very biased, very self-centered assumptions.

so what i gather from this is that this patch which adds no actual content for wow would still add no content for wow even if they didnt spend all that time/effort/money on plunderstorm. and you think this is a particularly good defence of the criticism that they waste time and resources on this crap?

[Ielenia]

I never have understood the mentality of doing something you hate just to get some meaningless reward in a video game. Games are supposed to be fun so I play strictly for fun and nothing else.

Fun is highly subjective. Some people find fun to work the transmog feature in WoW and make their characters look the best they can, some change their transmog every month of so. And they want to look good. So they go after what they want.

I'm not sure if you have a collecting hobby, but I hope you can understand working hard to try to find a rare piece to complete your collection, perhaps even having to trade another rare piece you own for the one you want, basically doing things you don't really enjoy to acquire it.

It's technically the same thing here.

[Jaggler]

I don't agree with any of the poll choices, plunderstorm is neither bad, nor the best thing Blizz ever did. I think it's good that Blizz is trying something new.

Even though i am not the biggest fan of PvP, i had a good time with Plunderstorm and even though i am already done with the renown track, i wil probably jump into it every now and then to play a game or two fopr fun.

[PenguinChan]

so what i gather from this is that this patch which adds no actual content for wow would still add no content for wow even if they didnt spend all that time/effort/money on plunderstorm. and you think this is a particularly good defence of the criticism that they waste time and resources on this crap?

Nonsense and a non sequitur. More things than Plunderstorm get canned, or for in-house only. If you only knew how the game industry worked in larger companies you'd probably be absolutely furious with things being cut or pushed back all the time. Or mechanics / features put into limbo where they want to work on it / do them, but the main game still needs work and design.

I doubt Plunderstorm was longer than a month or so in total dev time, all of which is clearly on the side or when they wanted to work on it. It's pretty neat though, they clearly used their own realm system's combined with custom UI and flair to make it seem more... 'Professional' if you get what I mean? Instead of choosing the realm under a server selection it's just 'a button' that goes to the custom realm with the pirate character you have access to. I find it pretty neat from a tech stand-point: They're expanding how the engine works even on the character / realm selection screen.

Anyways. Plunderstorm is popular and you can constantly get 50-60 player games in 10-30 seconds. People are also really liking it from a viewership PoV too, which isn't surprising. Very easy to follow (until it's a chaotic 1v1v1v1.. etc.) near the end.

[Loveliest]

Some ppl have the mental capacity to do very boring very repetitive grinds. They put on some music and keep going and end up somewhat enjoying the experience.
Other people find this kind of experience insanely boring, mind-numbingly so and wonder how this even became a genre and what type of person it takes to enjoy it. It's soul killing if you aren't the type able to watch the same movie 3 times a day every day, but I guess some ppl just can and like it...

[Nelle]

I have fun, and I hope it comes back for more seasons with new rewards tied into Retail WoW so I have a reason to go play it again.
Im currently Renown 26, and I am just doing 1 or 2 quick games pr. day until its over. Doesn't feel like a grind in any way.

Problem is those who doesn't like the mode but feel they have to grind Renown 40 within a short timespan. Just spread it out, do 1 renown pr. day with the 800 daily bonus rep it is just a game or two. Its said to be here for 6 weeks, aka 42 days. Plenty time to go.

This is a huge W for Blizzard in my book. Looking forward to the new Vampire Survivor PvE mode coming out soon.

[Eazy]

Tried it. Player like ~4-5 battles, if you got Fire Whirl it's almost insta-win.
It's boring and tiresome though.

Not playing it, seems redundant for me.