Get Ready to GRIND!!! (Allied Race Requirements)

[Moozart]

I don't mind the grind unless the grind is time locked behind WQ, let us put on a tabard and grind dungeons like in WotLK.

So you can finish it in 2 days? That would defeat the whole purpose.

For the people that want near instant gratification maybe MMO's are no longer for you

[spleen1015]

Is it actually a grind? By grind I mean once you reach 120, you need to do WQs for 3 months to get exalted? Or is it you get the rep has you complete the War Campaign and when you are done you have about 10k rep to get after that?

I have a feeling its like the second, in which case it isn't a grind.

[elaina]

I had 100% of the unlock requirements for all four allied races completed before they were even announced. Not too worried about it. If you wanna play it so bad, enjoy your grind - you only have to do it once. It's not asking a lot.

[Accendor]

No I didn't. I just think instead of them saying 'available at launch' they should have said 'available to grind at launch' it's clever wording to trick people. Apologies that I figured I'd be able to play the race I wanted to play. It's different when you add a rep grind after the content to grind has been out four nearly two years - that I can see being silly to complain about. I have no issues with grinding, just not happy that I feel I was misinformed.

But it is not grinding, it is playing the game.

[Asotcha]

I hadn't read through this entire thread yet but its also entirely plausible that we could hit exalted in the course of regular play before the new races are even made available--then we'd just have to listen to the latecomers fuss about it, but thats not so bad.

[Fetus Rex]

It is one thing to grind mount but another to get race you want to center your gameplay around. I don't like reputation gateway.

[SirCowdog]

But it is not grinding, it is playing the game.

Can you detail the exact requirements of unlocking the new races. Not the 4 we have access to already in Legion, but the ones available in BfA?

You say "it is playing the game" as though that explains anything. Grinding is playing the game, but it's still grinding! However, if you complete the requirements to unlock by normal quest-chains, without having to do extra WQ nonsense afterwords, then I will agree that it's not grinding.

[Accendor]

But you have no idea what grinding really means. Even pushing a faction to exalted these days is not grinding.

[SirCowdog]

But you have no idea what grinding really means. Even pushing a faction to exalted these days is not grinding.

Look, I played EQ and several korean-style MMOs. I've also been playing WoW since vanilla. I've played EVE online on and off for several years. I've played UO, and just about every major MMO since. So don't tell me I don't know what grinding is. Are WQs less-grindy than those games? Of course! But they're still a repetitive treadmill of generic content.

Also, answer the question(if you can):

Can you detail the exact requirements of unlocking the new races. Not the 4 we have access to already in Legion, but the ones available in BfA? Do the story quest lines provide enough rep to reach exalted, or are additional WQ "grinds" required to get there?

This is a question open to anyone, btw.

[Socialhealer]

Can you detail the exact requirements of unlocking the new races. Not the 4 we have access to already in Legion, but the ones available in BfA?

You say "it is playing the game" as though that explains anything. Grinding is playing the game, but it's still grinding! However, if you complete the requirements to unlock by normal quest-chains, without having to do extra WQ nonsense afterwords, then I will agree that it's not grinding.

you're also expected to do world quests to gather resources/gold/item upgrades before raiding and probably more.

so talking crap that you've played grindier korean games, then content you're expected to do you're still calling it grindy? what a joke.

how little content do you want to do exactly? the part i would call grindy is leveling the newly unlocked allied races to 120, when a lot of people already have 10 100+'s. gets boring for the 15th 16th time etc.

[Rylalai]

Also, answer the question(if you can):

Can you detail the exact requirements of unlocking the new races. Not the 4 we have access to already in Legion, but the ones available in BfA? Do the story quest lines provide enough rep to reach exalted, or are additional WQ "grinds" required to get there?

Pretty sure they'll require you to "grind" reputation after hitting 120. And it's save to assume, the main way to farm this reputation after finishing all quest lines is doing WQs in combination with emissary quests.

WQs (or dailies back then) are part of WoW since TBC I believe? So why the hazzle all of the sudden? WQs are part of the daily routine of most WoW players together with the daily hc dungeon, at least for the beginning of an expansion.

[SirCowdog]

how little content do you want to do exactly? the part i would call grindy is leveling the newly unlocked allied races to 120, when a lot of people already have 10 100+'s. gets boring for the 15th 16th time etc.

Just because you ate fast food for over a decade doesn't mean that the burger you're eating today isn't still fast food because you ordered with no sauce.

But you're absolutely correct that the 30-60 hours to level it up an allied race to cap is where the grind actually is. And that's before doing anything else required of a capped character to do anything else, such as M+ or raiding. So why should we, as players, be defending the blatant stretching of that with extra WQs tacked on to the end of the story that explains access to the allied races in the first place?

This is not about wanting to do as little content as possible. It's wanting the content that IS there to make sense. It's about pointing out blatantly unneeded filler bullshit.

[thilicen]

But you have no idea what grinding really means. Even pushing a faction to exalted these days is not grinding.

To a lot of players these days, having to do something more than once and maybe over the course of a couple of weeks or more is a massive grind.

[SirCowdog]

WQs (or dailies back then) are part of WoW since TBC I believe? So why the hazzle all of the sudden? WQs are part of the daily routine of most WoW players together with the daily hc dungeon, at least for the beginning of an expansion.

Some of us have been pointing out this kind of garbage for awhile. Do you remember the complaints about layered Daily/Rep grinds in MoP? The complaints about the mindless repetition of apexis stupidity in WoD? The layered RNG of Legendaries and WF/TF?

It's all part of the same problem. This isn't a new complaint by any stretch.

[Rylalai]

Some of us have been pointing out this kind of garbage for awhile. Do you remember the complaints about layered Daily/Rep grinds in MoP? The complaints about the mindless repetition of apexis stupidity in WoD? The layered RNG of Legendaries and WF/TF?

It's all part of the same problem. This isn't a new complaint by any stretch.

C'mon. You can't compare a mild nuisance like WQs to the bullshit that is layered RNG.. At least with WQs you know why you do them and you know what you're getting out of it. Problem is, a lot of people would simply be bored if Blizzard would remove WQs and dailies or at least redefine the reasons to do them in the first place (just resources, without reputation). I'm gonna be straight, without an incentive to do WQs (reputation/Artifact power/gear upgrade) I'd never do them in the first place, meaning I'd get bored really quick because of the lack of new content outside of M+ and raids. And people who are bored, will just simply stop play the game and unsub eventually until there's new actual content for them to play through.

WQs are a simple way for Blizzard to add a time-gate to their content. Most people don't mind adding WQs to their daily routine, at least for a couple of weeks until they got to a point where they either stop doing them all together or just reduce the amount of WQs they complete. At least for me it's a gradual reduction in the number of WQs I do every day. (doing all of them for rep -> doing the quests giving an improvement -> completing emissary WQs -> quit doing WQs)

The question is, how can a classic themepark MMORPG keep people engaged in between content patches. I honestly couldn't come up with something besides repetitive tasks like WQs/dailies.

[SirCowdog]

C'mon. You can't compare a mild nuisance like WQs to the bullshit that is layered RNG.. At least with WQs you know why you do them and you know what you're getting out of it. Problem is, a lot of people would simply be bored if Blizzard would remove WQs and dailies or at least redefine the reasons to do them in the first place (just resources, without reputation). I'm gonna be straight, without an incentive to do WQs (reputation/Artifact power/gear upgrade) I'd never do them in the first place, meaning I'd get bored really quick because of the lack of new content outside of M+ and raids. And people who are bored, will just simply stop play the game and unsub eventually until there's new actual content for them to play through.

WQs are a simple way for Blizzard to add a time-gate to their content. Most people don't mind adding WQs to their daily routine, at least for a couple of weeks until they got to a point where they either stop doing them all together or just reduce the amount of WQs they complete. At least for me it's a gradual reduction in the number of WQs I do every day. (doing all of them for rep -> doing the quests giving an improvement -> completing emissary WQs -> quit doing WQs)

The question is, how can a classic themepark MMORPG keep people engaged in between content patches. I honestly couldn't come up with something besides repetitive tasks like WQs/dailies.

You've just described the very problem with the content that I've been trying to get people to understand for years now: Are you playing the content because it's actually fun? Or are you just putting up with it because you want a reward? You're basically just not having a good time while chasing a carrot. Wouldn't it be better if you were actually enjoying the game instead of being bored while grinding away at something?

As for time gates: Is the 30-60 hours just to reach cap on a new character NOT ENOUGH already? Especially considering that reaching cap on a new character just puts you at the START of all the WQs and gearing and content available?

How does a themepark MMO keep people engaged? Better content. Better gameplay. Better execution. M+ is a good example of this. A superior system to the standard boring difficulty settings. Allied races are another good example, adding the ENTIRE leveling process as something to do. Now Blizzard just needs to actually make the leveling process interesting with better mechanics(scaling is still kind of borked). Mage Tower challenges and MoP style CMs should be scaled up and maintained for longer, and not simply turned off.

There are a host of things like this that Blizzard COULD be doing, but aren't.

[Orby]

Its not going to be hard, rep grinds are not like they were in vanilla. In fact if they are anything like they were in Legion it'll be a cake walk. I dont even play WoW that much as I used to and I don't mind this. :P

You are acting like its going to take anywhere from 6 months to a year to grind :P

[clevin]

So, for the people complaining about this, do you think that you should have access to any new allied race released during BfA without having to do anything?

Because if so, you're ignoring past gating for raids like attunements, you're ignoring have to have high level characters in order to make a DK or DH, you're ignoring things like Naxx 1 needing AD rep, etc.

Yeah, you'll need rep. THat's fine. If you really object that much... skip that allied race. I mean, hell, you have to level it from 20-120 anyway. If the rep grind is too much for you, how the hell are you going to do that?

[Soluna]

To unlock these Allied Races, players must attain Exalted reputation with your War Campaign's faction 7th Legion and The Honorbound and complete the War Campaign!

I understood it for Legion because many of those factions would have been exalted at launch but this is just painful to see. Even bumping it down to revered would have been nice. Gonna be a while before you can play the new factions all I can suggest is that you grind every rep you see from now on, no questions asked. All WQ's every day, dungeons, etc. YOU WILL GRIND FOR YOUR RACES AND YOU WILL LIKE IT!

Must be extremely tough to passively level your reputation to exalted in 20 days simply by logging in and playing the game... yeah... very grindy, oh wait.

[SirCowdog]

So, for the people complaining about this, do you think that you should have access to any new allied race released during BfA without having to do anything?

Because if so, you're ignoring past gating for raids like attunements, you're ignoring have to have high level characters in order to make a DK or DH, you're ignoring things like Naxx 1 needing AD rep, etc.

Yeah, you'll need rep. THat's fine. If you really object that much... skip that allied race. I mean, hell, you have to level it from 20-120 anyway. If the rep grind is too much for you, how the hell are you going to do that?

Attunements have almost universally been removed, and for good reason.

And it's BECAUSE you have to level from 20 to 120 that additional grind past the initial story is completely unnecessary.