Island Expedition Rewards Update, New Pet Battle Dungeon - Gnomeregan

Originally Posted by Th3Scourge

The only players I've ever come across that seem to care about them are female gamers, which is fine if that's what you want but it seems the only things added these days as rewards are pets and mounts, and mounts just aren't unique anymore

Well, female gamers caring doesn't suddenly invalidate the content, although I'm sure there are guys caring as well. Seen quite a few guys making Pet Battle strategy videos.

I'm not here to coddle you about this, you either care or you don't but long-term collections are still an inherent part of MMORPGs. Plenty of people care, that is probably WHY there are pets and mounts and transmog items added so frequently. .
Unique mounts exist, getting them before they become easy to obtain is a strategy many show-offs employ.

Thankfully. Having to allcaps to get randoms to stop mining so that we could kill the valuable mobs was annoying af.

I still think the loot system is too RNG and should have revolved around doubloons. But at least now I can just do the content the way it's meant to be done (IE quickly) and get stuff.

Originally Posted by Queen of Hamsters

Well, female gamers caring doesn't suddenly invalidate the content, although I'm sure there are guys caring as well. Seen quite a few guys making Pet Battle strategy videos.

I'm not here to coddle you about this, you either care or you don't but long-term collections are still an inherent part of MMORPGs. Plenty of people care, that is probably WHY there are pets and mounts and transmog items added so frequently. .
Unique mounts exist, getting them before they become easy to obtain is a strategy many show-offs employ.

Pets and mounts, once the skeleton has been designed, are able to be scaled and mass-reproduced, so it's an economic use of in-game assets to re-skin a base skeleton and call it a new product. Sad that this is what we get now in the way of rewards instead of any form of meaningful character progression items/class sets etc. I guess this is what was meant by Activision telling Blizzard to cut costs :/

Unique achievement mounts/boss mounts etc are fine, as they are a tangible reflection of dedication and determination

Originally Posted by Th3Scourge

Pets and mounts, once the skeleton has been designed, are able to be scaled and mass-reproduced, so it's an economic use of in-game assets to re-skin a base skeleton and call it a new product. Sad that this is what we get now in the way of rewards instead of any form of meaningful character progression items/class sets etc. I guess this is what was meant by Activision telling Blizzard to cut costs :/

Unique achievement mounts/boss mounts etc are fine, as they are a tangible reflection of dedication and determination

. How long have you been sitting on that little rant? It's nothing new, mind you. "Cuz Activision " is the WoW fanbase equivalent to the "coz God!"-fallacy that people throw out whenever they don't understand something.

It's meaningful to people caring about those things. Blizzard adding shit that nobody cares for ends badly, and they have the facts on what players gun for. Cosmetics are and always will be part of MMORPGs.

There were only a few times when someone would post a chat macro they had explaining the best way to get the items at the start of expeditions, but they never complained when I played the island normally to get it done quickly because I'm just there for the weekly. I like collecting things, but there's no way in hell I'm going to prolong an island to increase a tiny chance at a pet. Hopefully I'll start seeing more rewards with the change.

Originally Posted by Queen of Hamsters

. How long have you been sitting on that little rant? It's nothing new, mind you. "Cuz Activision " is the WoW fanbase equivalent to the "coz God!"-fallacy that people throw out whenever they don't understand something.

It's meaningful to people caring about those things. Blizzard adding shit that nobody cares for ends badly, and they have the facts on what players gun for. Cosmetics are and always will be part of MMORPGs.

Given details that emerged recently regarding cost reduction, and the decision to homogenize armour and other rewards, it's either an amazing coincidence or it just may be that pets/mounts/things that have no bearing on gameplay whatsoever have been added on bulk because they are cheaper and quicker to churn out and a percentage of the playerbase will lap it up.

Cosmetics, like tier sets and rare weapon xmogs from legacy raids, sure I see the value in that. As I see the value in mount runs. I do legion xmog runs myself because some of the tier sets looks awesome.

Maybe people do care about them (pets). I guess the people I play with (guildies and friends) just don't see to care about them. I'd also be wary of what Blizzard say in regards to the content people do. Participation =/= compelling gameplay. Dangle a dopamine-stimulating carrot over something and people will do it. And I think that catering to a percentage of the player base that would favour collecting pets (homogeneous and cheap) over class-specific items/cosmetic rewards/something tangible is a bad long term strategy

Originally Posted by Th3Scourge

Given details that emerged recently regarding cost reduction, and the decision to homogenize armour and other rewards, it's either an amazing coincidence or it just may be that pets/mounts/things that have no bearing on gameplay whatsoever have been added on bulk because they are cheaper and quicker to churn out and a percentage of the playerbase will lap it up.

Cosmetics, like tier sets and rare weapon xmogs from legacy raids, sure I see the value in that. As I see the value in mount runs. I do legion xmog runs myself because some of the tier sets looks awesome.

Maybe people do care about them (pets). I guess the people I play with (guildies and friends) just don't see to care about them. I'd also be wary of what Blizzard say in regards to the content people do. Participation =/= compelling gameplay. Dangle a dopamine-stimulating carrot over something and people will do it. And I think that catering to a percentage of the player base that would favour collecting pets (homogeneous and cheap) over class-specific items/cosmetic rewards/something tangible is a bad long term strategy

I'll believe the facts, not rumors and speculation from people irrelevant to the game since over a decade now, thanks. If they revert to the design philosophies of WoD, there might be some weight to the "cost reduction"-hypothesis.

The original question was "who wants to collect pets??", and to that the answer is "players". Again, since it seems a bit slow, what we see in-game and decisions made reflects player behaviour, NOT whatever is the current moronic meme spread by certain jaded individuals within the vocal minority that's active on forums.

People use certain buzzphrases about the game in every.single.expansion. Legion and BfA are no different. Meanwhile, in-game...

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ics-are-wrong/

Sorry, the sky isn't falling because you struggle to care about rewards in this particular game. As long as others don't struggle, at least.

There were rewards from island expeditions???

Throwing in more toys and pets doesn’t fix shit.

Less and less people care about those useless things

Originally Posted by Queen of Hamsters

I'll believe the facts, not rumors and speculation from people irrelevant to the game since over a decade now, thanks. If they revert to the design philosophies of WoD, there might be some weight to the "cost reduction"-hypothesis.

The original question was "who wants to collect pets??", and to that the answer is "players". Again, since it seems a bit slow, what we see in-game and decisions made reflects player behaviour, NOT whatever is the current moronic meme spread by certain jaded individuals within the vocal minority that's active on forums.

People use certain buzzphrases about the game in every.single.expansion. Legion and BfA are no different. Meanwhile, in-game...

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ics-are-wrong/

Sorry, the sky isn't falling because you struggle to care about rewards in this particular game. As long as others don't struggle, at least.

I'd dare say that the design philosophies behind core games systems (Classes, PVP, Itemisation) were FAR better in WoD than in BfA. The issue wasn't design (Garrison was shit tho), the issue was lack of content. And we will never really know what could have been because all resources were diverted to pumping out Legion (which, you could argue, had more content than even before)

The answer would be 'some players'. But thankfully, those players that think pets are rewarding will be able to enjoy them on their mobile

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Weeps

Throwing in more toys and pets doesn’t fix shit.

Less and less people care about those useless things

This guy gets it

Originally Posted by Th3Scourge

Pets and mounts, once the skeleton has been designed, are able to be scaled and mass-reproduced, so it's an economic use of in-game assets to re-skin a base skeleton and call it a new product. Sad that this is what we get now in the way of rewards instead of any form of meaningful character progression items/class sets etc. I guess this is what was meant by Activision telling Blizzard to cut costs :/

Unique achievement mounts/boss mounts etc are fine, as they are a tangible reflection of dedication and determination

What are you on about? Every game reuses art assets and blizzard has been doing it since day one this has litteraly nothing to do with Activision.

Actually pretty lame news about the islands. They were just starting to get fun now that their loot system had been figured out and the Ahoy addon was getting popular. Now blizz are throwing away one of their funner, more unique elements? If they had just been clear about how the loot worked from the start, I feel like everyone would have been on board with their loot system. With this change, RNG still dictates what loot we receive, only now we have literally no agency concerning what loot we get, other than by winning the island.

Again, if Blizz had been very clear and upfront about the initial loot design in islands, I think it would have been fine. But instead they complain about 'divergent player behavior' - well no shit, only a % of players know how the loot works, since Blizz intentionally obfuscated the system.

I stopped reading at cosmetic reward, lol.
What a pile of shit

Originally Posted by Daemos daemonium

What are you on about? Every game reuses art assets and blizzard has been doing it since day one this has litteraly nothing to do with Activision.

Yeah no shit, the connection here was that the decision to stop designing class-specific sets/xmog and replace it with generic plate/mail/leather/cloth etc and the boon in the number of re-skinned non-combat rewards (pets and mounts) coincides remarkably well with stories circulating about Blizzard being told to cut costs.

Whenever I see a new datamining for 8.1 with another 20 reskinned pets, I just think of this:

Originally Posted by Th3Scourge

Yeah no shit, the connection here was that the decision to stop designing class-specific sets/xmog and replace it with generic plate/mail/leather/cloth etc and the boon in the number of re-skinned non-combat rewards (pets and mounts) coincides remarkably well with stories circulating about Blizzard being told to cut costs.

Whenever I see a new datamining for 8.1 with another 20 reskinned pets, I just think of this:

I mean you might have had a point if they wernt adding new PvP gear not just recoloured raid sets, more leveling sets for both factions, more Warfront sets for both factions ect. No cost has been cut in the art department they have just changed it from making raid sets then recolouring them for PvP to making more sets set in other places.

Originally Posted by Deviant008

No you are, stop whining about whiners.

Stop whining about people who are whining about whiners

solution is far worse than problem

I liked the idea of going for specific mob for specific rewards, I've been teaming with other guys to farm IEs
they only had to drastically increase the terrible drop rate

now it's back to a zerg fest

bad, bad news

Originally Posted by Daemos daemonium

I mean you might have had a point if they wernt adding new PvP gear not just recoloured raid sets, more leveling sets for both factions, more Warfront sets for both factions ect. No cost has been cut in the art department they have just changed it from making raid sets then recolouring them for PvP to making more sets set in other places.

You mean they cut down from 13 class sets + recolours + generic PVP sets + PVP reskins. Plus 36 legion artifacts + 4 unique models + 4 reskins per model




But that's ok, we get battle pets instead!

over 1000 island exped and still no mount. oh well hope this gets better in 8.1

If they only did communicate from beginning how the islands and loot acquisitions worked this all shitstorm could have been avoided.