If time gating isn't the answer, what is?

[Agent Smith]

I see a ton of complaints about "the grind"... If they let you binge play new content, people would do what they do on Netflix: go through it all in a week (or less) and then sit there bored as hell complaining about the lack of content.

So if time gates aren't the answer, exactly what do you propose?

[IBZ]

1% chance drop like classic /s

[Agent Smith]

1% chance drop like classic /s

Dang, that would be... different.

[Fred Skinner]

Effort is the answer. Effort of the player. Without time gates. Without blizzard wanting to control the maximum outcome. Normal players play some hours a week, they should be able to progress in that time. Yet, someone who plays more, should gain more, which could include being done after two weeks if you play 10 hours a day.

Blizzard wants to control the reward schedule. Because of that they cap and time gate everything. They should get over their compulsive checking of progression. And allow players to play on their pace.

[paragraphgorilla]

I see a ton of complaints about "the grind"... If they let you binge play new content, people would do what they do on Netflix: go through it all in a week (or less) and then sit there bored as hell complaining about the lack of content.

So if time gates aren't the answer, exactly what do you propose?

Let them clear everything the first day it releases and be done with it. There is no need to time gate a quest chain that you could complete in 1 hour to 3 months. It's their problem if they complete everything the patch has to offer on the first day. If I want to grind mobs for 16 hours straight to get my flying early I will do so and Blizzard shouldn't stop me.

[bloomy]

they could just make fun content that casuals will take weeks or months to finish while others can grind out in a few days or a week. they seem to be obsessed with keeping everyone on the same exact page regardless of time spent playing the game, which sounds good, but in reality it just makes everything feel forced and delayed unless you are one of the casuals.

the bigger problem is that regardless of the content or the speed of that content, you have to interface with that content via your character, and right now the specs and gameplay mechanics are really bad. if i was a new player i probably wouldn't mind, but i know how good a spec/rotation can feel when it's done properly and they just don't exist in the game currently. a big part of that is no snapshotting so everything is cookie cutter when it comes to applying and reapplying dots, but even without that i think they could make specs a lot better across the board. until those changes come through the gating or not gating won't matter much to me because either way i'll get bored and quit shortly after any new content.

[MrKnubbles]

Yet, someone who plays more, should gain more, which could include being done after two weeks if you play 10 hours a day.

Why should tasks that are intended to take a while to complete, be completed in 10 hours? I think that rep is currently way too easy to earn. To me, it feels bad to get Exalted in a short amount of time then spend the rest of the expansion without that goal to progress towards. With rep gating, it's fun to have new things unlock over time. By "over time" I mean like getting new quests every week or two as the story continues to unfold, not completing the entire story line in one night.

[MoanaLisa]

they seem to be obsessed with keeping everyone on the same exact page regardless of time spent playing the game, which sounds good, but in reality it just makes everything feel forced and delayed unless you are one of the casuals.

Nothing feels more forced than wanting to pace yourself but having guild or other pressure driving you to push because of the perception of "falling behind." I don't know that there's a good answer to the question. I do know that many of those that complain about forced grinds are doing this to themselves. Whatever is driving people to "grind" isn't good for the game at all. My own feeling, apparently not shared by many, is that the game should be relaxed and unforced. My game is just like that. If I'm "behind" on something I suppose I could not care less.

[Wilfire]

People are not complaining about a lack of content. People are complaining about being forced to do the SAME content for months on end. If you want to raid, you can't just say "fuck it, I'm going to go play on an alt today". No, you have to keep grinding manapearls, AP and M+ on your main to stay relevant (especially with how tight the tuning is these days). Of course people are going to get sick and tired of doing the same content every day.

If the game was structured more like vanilla WoW, if you got sick and tired of doing the same shit on your main you'd be able to play different content on your alt and you wouldn't fall behind on your main. Modern WoW wants you to keep running on the gear treadmill on your main. Imagine having 15 years worth of content to play through. That's what WoW actually has. But you can't take your time to enjoy it because it's always a rush to get to the endgame and jump on the treadmill lest you fall behind.

[Amaterasu65]

Nothing feels more forced than wanting to pace yourself but having guild or other pressure driving you to push because of the perception of "falling behind." I don't know that there's a good answer to the question. I do know that many of those that complain about forced grinds are doing this to themselves. Whatever is driving people to "grind" isn't good for the game at all. My own feeling, apparently not shared by many, is that the game should be relaxed and unforced. My game is just like that. If I'm "behind" on something I suppose I could not care less.

When I was hardcore raiding in Legion, I had to level up 2 chars, do all the Suramar questline, reach a specific artifact level, do all the campaigns, level up the professions, buy/craft tems in advance in 2 weeks. I had to spam dungeons every week with the guild on both chars so people get geared. And that wss the first 2 weeks burn. It was good at the time, but I woule never put myself through it again. Pacing is important, playing the game at your own pace, play whwn you want to and stop when you want to.

I have to say that back then I was obsessed to not stay behind, and many of my guild mates felt bad when they took it a little more easy than they should. In the end the burn led me to my quitting guild raiding and playing fully casually, everything on my own terms.

[Agent Smith]

...I have to say that back then I was obsessed to not stay behind, and many of my guild mates felt bad when they took it a little more easy than they should. In the end the burn led me to my quitting guild raiding and playing fully casually, everything on my own terms.

This resonates with me... I was part of a realm first raid group and I was always stressed out. It was almost never fun. The best parts about raid night were socializing during breaks and the tiny amount of time I impressed someone casual with my l33t gear. After many missed birthdays, dates, social activities with friends and family, I went ultra casual... As in I'll do a couple of pet battles and maybe play for an hour if im feeling up to it. I barely got exalted with some of the factions, I dont have all races unlocked and I couldn't be happier.

[Eazy]

When I was hardcore raiding in Legion, I had to level up 2 chars, do all the Suramar questline, reach a specific artifact level, do all the campaigns, level up the professions, buy/craft tems in advance in 2 weeks. I had to spam dungeons every week with the guild on both chars so people get geared. And that wss the first 2 weeks burn. It was good at the time, but I woule never put myself through it again. Pacing is important, playing the game at your own pace, play whwn you want to and stop when you want to.

I have to say that back then I was obsessed to not stay behind, and many of my guild mates felt bad when they took it a little more easy than they should. In the end the burn led me to my quitting guild raiding and playing fully casually, everything on my own terms.

I whole wholeheartedly agree with you here.

If someone wants to hurry? Let them hurry. If someone wants to play on his own pace? Sure thing.
I personally think that having a "cap" on some things was a great idea back then. People who wanted to do such a thing could just play 8 hours straight(and have a reward immediately) or just 7x 1h a day in a week.

Another example: the legendaries in Legion, I think that they should've had a chance to drop weekly from one difficulty on each boss from the raid. Let me explain what I'm trying to say - people shouldn't farm other difficulties if they already did a raid on one and viceversa. For example - if you did every boss on mythic/hc - you shouldn't be able to get legendary from normal/lfr etc.

People are not complaining about a lack of content. People are complaining about being forced to do the SAME content for months on end. If you want to raid, you can't just say "fuck it, I'm going to go play on an alt today". No, you have to keep grinding manapearls, AP and M+ on your main to stay relevant (especially with how tight the tuning is these days). Of course people are going to get sick and tired of doing the same content every day.

If the game was structured more like vanilla WoW, if you got sick and tired of doing the same shit on your main you'd be able to play different content on your alt and you wouldn't fall behind on your main. Modern WoW wants you to keep running on the gear treadmill on your main. Imagine having 15 years worth of content to play through. That's what WoW actually has. But you can't take your time to enjoy it because it's always a rush to get to the endgame and jump on the treadmill lest you fall behind.

That's also the problem, I've had plenty(3, for me that's a lot!) of alts back then. I could just log on my main 1-2(3) times a week for 3-4h and be done(and that including raiding, doing weekly caps, PvP etc.).

[Aeula]

I prefer the grind to timegating. I’m going to run out of content and be bored anyway, if they gate it then I’ll be bored much sooner since I’ll probably only have 15 minutes of content a day.

Gating is a scummy way to prolong content to try and get an extra month of sub out of us.

[Eggroll]

I see a ton of complaints about "the grind"... If they let you binge play new content, people would do what they do on Netflix: go through it all in a week (or less) and then sit there bored as hell complaining about the lack of content.

So if time gates aren't the answer, exactly what do you propose?

The answer is ENJOYABLE content players are looking forward to doing, even repeating. It's not about quantity, it's about quality, about content that feels engaging. And the dev team has completely lost touch with that part of the game, they just mass produce soulless chores.

[MoanaLisa]

When I was hardcore raiding in Legion, I had to level up 2 chars, do all the Suramar questline, reach a specific artifact level, do all the campaigns, level up the professions, buy/craft items in advance in 2 weeks. I had to spam dungeons every week with the guild on both chars so people get geared. And that was the first 2 weeks burn. It was good at the time, but I would never put myself through it again. Pacing is important, playing the game at your own pace, play when you want to and stop when you want to.

I have to say that back then I was obsessed to not stay behind, and many of my guild mates felt bad when they took it a little more easy than they should. In the end the burn led me to my quitting guild raiding and playing fully casually, everything on my own terms.

Yeah, I've been there too. I raided for some years and during the mess that was the middle months of Cataclysm I took the opportunity of my guild falling apart to reassess and eventually move to a much more casual way of doing things and allow myself the pleasures of playing other games; something that isn't always easy if you have adult responsibilities and are logging on every night of the week.

I'm not necessarily against the idea of allowing people to progress on their own speed and time and more or less dump gating rep grinds. However it's true that there are many cases where that leads to social pressures and personally destructive behavior. Blizzard has been criticized roundly for that in previous years which is partly the reason it's the way it is now. It's a very hard thing to design around. Budgets and design resources constrain the quantity of content. There needs to be some sort of balance between allowing players to burn themselves out and feel like they're getting something done and not falling behind.

Wilfire says in #9 "Modern WoW wants you to keep running on the gear treadmill on your main." The modern game does not know nor care even a little bit about whether or not you stay on the gear treadmill. Whether you do or not depends on what you want to do and how much social pressure one is under to perform up to expectations. That's not the game, that's your fellow players. As a player you have agency and you can choose whether or not to live up to those expectations. The game itself doesn't care now and never has.

[Amaterasu65]

I whole wholeheartedly agree with you here.

If someone wants to hurry? Let them hurry. If someone wants to play on his own pace? Sure thing.
I personally think that having a "cap" on some things was a great idea back then. People who wanted to do such a thing could just play 8 hours straight(and have a reward immediately) or just 7x 1h a day in a week.

Another example: the legendaries in Legion, I think that they should've had a chance to drop weekly from one difficulty on each boss from the raid. Let me explain what I'm trying to say - people shouldn't farm other difficulties if they already did a raid on one and viceversa. For example - if you did every boss on mythic/hc - you shouldn't be able to get legendary from normal/lfr etc.

It was legit insane how they allowed so much grinding to happen at once. Nobody I knew in guild was happy spamming MoS all the time or lfr/normals just for the extra chance on legendaries. And when you didn't get that one BiS>disappointment+repeat. Fire mage was the hot shit back then and bracers were insanely important. I never got them, I got them months after I quit, as my last legendary on the spec. If I had kept grinding hard for legendaries and hadn't quit I would have lost my mind.

[Amaterasu65]

This resonates with me... I was part of a realm first raid group and I was always stressed out. It was almost never fun. The best parts about raid night were socializing during breaks and the tiny amount of time I impressed someone casual with my l33t gear. After many missed birthdays, dates, social activities with friends and family, I went ultra casual... As in I'll do a couple of pet battles and maybe play for an hour if im feeling up to it. I barely got exalted with some of the factions, I dont have all races unlocked and I couldn't be happier.

The times I didn't go to the cinema with my gf, the times I could have studied more during exam periods. It's a good feeling to be top but it's just in game, everything else outside of it is left behind-ish. Glad I'm done with it for now, though at times I'm looking at guilds looking for people on wowprogress but I never do anything about it. Maybe when my life stabilizes and I get some shit done (degree etc).

[Eggroll]

Fair enough. But that is just a buzzword until you pull out examples of what you find is or was "ENJOYABLE content players are looking forward to doing, even repeating."

I can tell you that even with raids, my guildies got pretty sick off ...

That's of course very subjective and varies individually. I for example was always looking forward to doing the cloak quests back in MoP, or the blacksmithing quest on the Isle of Thunder. Or the entrace scenario chain to Isle of Thunder, to do it on each and every alt. I always wished it WAS repeatable.

Different strokes for different folks though. On the other hand the profession quests in Legion I found only annoying, they just felt like deliberate roadblocks. I didn't level one profession to max in Legion or BfA. I was just like, "you know what - screw that".

[shadowmatrix]

There is no correct answer until development speed gets atleast 10 times faster. It takes several months to get a patch ready then players will go through 90% of the content in under 48 hours.

[Sencha]

Let players consume the game at the speed they want.

But you know, modern Blizz needs monthly revenues, so ... timegate.