Does anyone else think Shadowlands looks like time gated rep grinds: the expansion?

[Aphrel]

Reps have been time gated for as long as there have been dailies, which was BC. Why are people acting like it's a new thing that the new evil ActiBlizz has put in deliberately to ruin their fun?

As for your whole conspiracy theory about how they're deliberately slowing us down to milk MAUs, here's a piece of info for you. It is literally impossible to create content at the pace the playerbase consumes it. We had people complaining on day three of the expansion that they'd levelled to max, did all the mythic 0s, and then came to the forums crying "is that everything? where's the content?"

Im one of those people. And if i were lead designer i could have that issue fixed in a day. The most obvious first step would be to not make content that only half the playerbase gets to play, they shoudlve unlocked Qs on both islands for both factions. Giving us twiice the content.
Then theres mythic+, the most replayable content in the game, wich is gated to almost a month after launch.

Add to that, here are some more features that they could have had in the game at launch but choose to gate to several weeks-months later.
Warfronts, paragon rep, assaults, arenas, and raids.
Add to that, any chase items for any profession requires materials that can only drop in raids. So crafting professions are off the table aswell.

All of these features except possibly the invasions, are ready at launch, (we played it all on beta afterall). Yet are deliberatly gated, so its not a question of being unable to keep up with consumption. They are intentionally delaying content, releasing it in small bits to stretch out their MAU! Its not a conspiracy, its a sad fact.

[Lolites]

The 5.1 Horde/Alliance stories in Krasarang was closest. You'd do dailies until you hit a breakpoint, unlock a bit of storyline, rinse and repeat. When you got to revered and got that "double rep" commendation you'd blow your way through the rest of the chain in one day as each storyline part got you enough rep to do the next.

well you still needed to do some dailies in order to get to the story, does it matter the dailies were BEFORE the story not after like now in every zone?

[The Butt Witch]

Oh who gives a crap?! It's the same shit it has been for the past 15 years: dungeons, raids, casual pvp.

That seems to satisfy most people. The additional stuff is just fluff. People complain about time gating and grinds, but at the end of the day 95% of players won't bail over it.

[Reinhart11]

The best and most safe idea is probably to wait for 9.3, buy the game then, play through it with minimal grinds and rep gating and also pay way less monthly money for this.

But it doesn't really matter if class design is bad, class aren't fun to play and the story remains the utter garbage it is since MoP.

[Inukashi]

I have no problem with timegating as long as you can just rush through it with an alt to the point where everyone else is.

Also Ion said two things:
We are not gonna grind / fill up a green bar to get to the next step.
We are gonna get our covenant abilities close to leveling up to 60 with our main and early on while leveling with our alts. (since if we did the covenant unlock once, every other char can pick them right away and already do maxlevel content to catch up on storyline)

[Puupi]

Time gated rep grind - a feature that has been around for 15 years.

And this is somehow controversial now?

[Dracullus]

If they want to cut RNG, it will have grind, end of story. Another alternative is WoD 2.0 (or you know, Classic), where you finish stuff once and you're done (probably you're sub too).

But I think this time it will be "targeted" grind. Instead of "do whatever and get AP". It will be "do tower to get legos", "do mythic+ to gear for raid", "do world quests to get crafting mats" etc.

[ArmatisUlv]

Listen son, let me tell you a little story about an expansion called.... Warlords of Draenor...

Pardon me child, I played that expansion.

[Sondrelk]

Time gated rep grind - a feature that has been around for 15 years.

And this is somehow controversial now?

It's controversial every expansion.
That is, it is the worst thing ever until the next expansion comes around and the previous expansion suddenly got it right and the new one sucks.

Time-gated questlines in Suramar was only a problem until BfA, when suddenly the Suramar questline was teh best thing since sliced bread.
Legiondaries were revield until BfA when they suddenly became the perfect system to bolster talents.

By the time Shadowlands comes out Torghast will be a horrible time-gated system that just prevents players from farming Azerite powers like in BfA, or it will be horribly lazy and uninspired compared to Jorunndal and Snowblossom village in the Island expedition roster.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It’s been like this since mop arguably earlier I can’t say I have a problem with Daily’s/world quest and rep I like it more then the mindless mob grind of say wod or tbc.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Pretty much exactly how I feel at this point honestly. But I'm so sick of the time gating at this point I couldn't even bring myself to do that for BfA. If Shadowlands is the same, I think I just give up forever, no point in ever coming back, even 2 years later.

Your complaining about daily’s Gating reps and daily’s are no different two years in this would have no effect at all.

[cparle87]

Im one of those people. And if i were lead designer i could have that issue fixed in a day. The most obvious first step would be to not make content that only half the playerbase gets to play, they shoudlve unlocked Qs on both islands for both factions. Giving us twiice the content.
Then theres mythic+, the most replayable content in the game, wich is gated to almost a month after launch.

Add to that, here are some more features that they could have had in the game at launch but choose to gate to several weeks-months later.
Warfronts, paragon rep, assaults, arenas, and raids.
Add to that, any chase items for any profession requires materials that can only drop in raids. So crafting professions are off the table aswell.

All of these features except possibly the invasions, are ready at launch, (we played it all on beta afterall). Yet are deliberatly gated, so its not a question of being unable to keep up with consumption. They are intentionally delaying content, releasing it in small bits to stretch out their MAU! Its not a conspiracy, its a sad fact.

"It's easy just give us twice the content." Excellent idea Mr. Armchair dev who completely missed the point of my point that it is IMPOSSIBLE to make content at the rate it is consumed.

Also, here's an honest question. Your entire argument is that those things were deliberately kept out a few weeks/couple months to keep people playing during all that entire time. Are you actually trying to argue that if raids, warfronts, paragons, and arenas were available on day one that people would've completed them all, gotten bored, and decided to unsub before the second month of the expansion? Because if not your argument isn't actually an argument.

You're literally going "I'm going to clear the raid on mythic, get all the mogs, achievements, pets, do arena, get gladiator, get all the kills for the seasonal saddle, get all the paragon rep rewards, get all the warfront ensembles and achieves, etc etc etc" all in the first month and then unsub. And evil Blizz is timegating me so I can't do that and have to remain subbed for more than the one month it would take me to do everything if it wasn't.

I know I'm kind of going on a tirade, so here's a TLDR. Since it is impossible to get all the rewards from those contents that are time gated within one or even a few subscription cycles arguing that you weren't able to begin working on it during the first cycle makes no sense. Why does it matter if you spent months 2-4 of the expansion doing arena instead of months 1-3? You still had to be subbed 3 months to get it.

[Jujudrood]

So while OP has points, and some of you countered that reps and such have been time-gated since BC, there's a little bit of a difference.
Back then, you could grind normal dungeons to a certain point (Honored? don't remember), then you could do the Heroic dungeons daily to get more rep.
It wasn't just 'Do your dailies', especially since when Dailies were first introduced, you could only do 5 a day (later expanded to 25 a day).

So yes, Reps are time-gated since BC, but up through Cata and maybe into MoP (don't remember if all below apply), you got rep for:
1) questing in the zone
2) doing daily world quests
3) running dungeons
4) wearing tabards (to funnel rep to one specific)

Whereas today, you get rep by:
1) questing in the zone
2) doing WQs (that cycle out every 12 to 24 hours, some elite ones longer)
3) Rep contract (limited, WQs only)

Now, I neither support nor condemn either method, just throwing out how it used to be in relation to today's rep model.
There were more avenues one could take to get rep back then is all, and those avenues could be rushed more so than today, where you are limited to what's available at any given time via WQs.

As far as expansion-specific features, it's a 'Hurry up and wait' type of thing.
I'll judge those when more detail is available.

[Soon-TM]

Time-gated questlines in Suramar was only a problem until BfA, when suddenly the Suramar questline was teh best thing since sliced bread.
Legiondaries were revield until BfA when they suddenly became the perfect system to bolster talents.

You're being facetious, and you know it. Suramar was very good, the timegating however - not so much. Legiondaries were good as a concept - the way of acquiring them, however, sucked dinosaur balls until the vendor was added in 7.3

[Sondrelk]

You're being facetious, and you know it. Suramar was very good, the timegating however - not so much. Legiondaries were good as a concept - the way of acquiring them, however, sucked dinosaur balls until the vendor was added in 7.3

The think is, i enjoyed Suramar when it was current, and while i got lucky on my main and got the BiS Legiondary at the start i did feel how awful it would be for other unlucky players. I spent the entire expansion trying to get the correct Legiondary for my mage alt and never got it, completely killed any goodwill i had towards the system.

That is beside the point though honestly. The main point here is that all expansions are the worst thing ever, the systems broken and the zones uninspired until the next expansion, when the forums seem to forget the bad parts, the RNG grind for Legiondaries, how awful the "questline" was in 8.2. And how much players complained about M+.
By the time BfA had come out properly all the problems from Legion were seemingly forgotten and only the good points remained as a way to slam BfA for somehow being the worst thing, even WoD got its time in the spotlight when forumgoers compared it to BfA.


Bottom line: Every expansion is awful, until the next expansion when it is fondly remembered and the forums move on to the next thing. Claiming Legion was perfect comapred to BfA is disingenous, and exactly the same will be true in Shadowlands if Torghast ends up awful, or the world quests system is changes slightly. Or even if the mounts are not up to the standards of perfection.

[Trend]

I can't stand it anymore

Clearly any MMO is not for you. That's fine, the genre is not for everyone. Please just quit now as the fundamental nature of what an MMO is not going to change no matter how many forum tears you shed. There are a lot of games you do not have to grind at all, just play one of those.

[Aphrel]

"It's easy just give us twice the content." Excellent idea Mr. Armchair dev who completely missed the point of my point that it is IMPOSSIBLE to make content at the rate it is consumed.

Also, here's an honest question. Your entire argument is that those things were deliberately kept out a few weeks/couple months to keep people playing during all that entire time. Are you actually trying to argue that if raids, warfronts, paragons, and arenas were available on day one that people would've completed them all, gotten bored, and decided to unsub before the second month of the expansion? Because if not your argument isn't actually an argument.

You're literally going "I'm going to clear the raid on mythic, get all the mogs, achievements, pets, do arena, get gladiator, get all the kills for the seasonal saddle, get all the paragon rep rewards, get all the warfront ensembles and achieves, etc etc etc" all in the first month and then unsub. And evil Blizz is timegating me so I can't do that and have to remain subbed for more than the one month it would take me to do everything if it wasn't.

I know I'm kind of going on a tirade, so here's a TLDR. Since it is impossible to get all the rewards from those contents that are time gated within one or even a few subscription cycles arguing that you weren't able to begin working on it during the first cycle makes no sense. Why does it matter if you spent months 2-4 of the expansion doing arena instead of months 1-3? You still had to be subbed 3 months to get it.

It sounds like you didnt even read my post. THE CONTENT IS THERE ALREADY! They dont need to make twiice the content, they need to make the same amount of content but actually letting both factions play the damn content.

And while everyone is different. Ive been subbed since vanilla and im not planning on stopping. But it still does dissapoint me when they release expansions so barebone as they do now. The time of a new expansion should be when you have the most things to do. What would really be the harm of letting players do m+ from the start? (it is the most replayable content in the game afterall) We will still have an ilvl cap that limits our gearing progress anyway.

[Trumpcat]

I too am waiting for the expansion where you hit max level at purchase and there are no goals to achieve.

didnt they say covenants weren't reps? lol

They did but you be quiet with that or you disturb the whining.

[JoeGood]

Eventho this is SUPER fucking early to guess, so what if its true? - MMORPG's are ment to be timeconsuming.. it wouldnt be fun at all if the minute you hit max level you just get an e-mail from blizzard where everything is jagged into a neat bag..

[Augusta138]

Im one of those people. And if i were lead designer i could have that issue fixed in a day. The most obvious first step would be to not make content that only half the playerbase gets to play, they shoudlve unlocked Qs on both islands for both factions. Giving us twiice the content.
Then theres mythic+, the most replayable content in the game, wich is gated to almost a month after launch.

Add to that, here are some more features that they could have had in the game at launch but choose to gate to several weeks-months later.
Warfronts, paragon rep, assaults, arenas, and raids.
Add to that, any chase items for any profession requires materials that can only drop in raids. So crafting professions are off the table aswell.

All of these features except possibly the invasions, are ready at launch, (we played it all on beta afterall). Yet are deliberatly gated, so its not a question of being unable to keep up with consumption. They are intentionally delaying content, releasing it in small bits to stretch out their MAU! Its not a conspiracy, its a sad fact.

This creates a whole new type of whine thread if you will enable m+ right from the start / raids / warfronts.

Why you ask?

Not being able to play launch week of xpac or reach level cap before any of that stuff opens and potentially missing out on a m+ cache or a warfront or whatever you wanna put in instantly:

Omg dur dur, stupid blizzard xpac is one week old and i am already behind because i couldnt do x.

The time gates at the start of the expansion are there to let people enjoy leveling.
A lot of people rush to max level, because over the years it has become an epeen competion.

But in all fairness there is no reason to do so, since down the line the gains are marginal at best.
I could level to max lvl 1 week before the raids open / m+ and all that and be basically on the same gearlvl as my rushed friends that got max lvl within 48 hours of launch.
(Yes my hoa will be most likely be 1 or 2 lvls behind, but it could also have been behind even tho i lvled to max within 48 hours)

Then for putting quests for both factions on both continents, it wouldnt matter at all.

The time required by Blizzard for 10 levels during a new xpac is always set at a certain time determined by them. It takes approx. 15-20 hours nowadays.

Putting in quests on Zandalar and Kul Tiras for Alliance and Horde respectively wont change the leveling time but will only increase the route you can take. 10 levels divided by 6 zones is only 1,5 level per zone (remaining % is conquered in the start to Zandalar or Kul Tiras) so than we end up with a lot of traveling between zones without actually experiencing the zones.

Which then in turn creates other issues like: wtf is this zone about? What was the story behind the zone? Etc etc.

A lot of people complain that nothing is fun or will be fun in the game.

They also know the recipe for the content Blizzard creates since the game is 15 years old.

We are not going to get groundbreaking features or game design every xpac because it will cost them more players than they will keep.

Expanding on the systems you have or making improvements to current systems is the best option.

During pandaria / wod, challenge modes got absolutely shittalked about because:
3 difficulties: bronze / silver and gold.

However: everyone went in and tried to get gold the first time and the content was basically done.
If you didnt manage gold at the 1st go you returned.

So, content was done, rewards earned and CMs became huge cash cows.

The outcry started the system was nice but not replayable. Hence the introduction of M+.
Now that is here, it is ruining the game for people, because of x or y or whatever.

A lot of people in my eyes dont or cant quit WoW even tho they dont enjoy it anymore.

If you wanna do something you dont enjoy, by all means make yourself feel miserable and play it.

But please, stop making threads like these and many others that features need to be removed because you dont enjoy them or because you cant be arsed to meet the criteria to take part in said content.

I am also not enjoying all content in WoW, and i am fine with that.

TL/DR: if you don't enjoy WoW anymore or the content it provides, move on.

*Edit: not having the paragon reputations in from launch was a major oversight and confirmed by Blizzard they made a mistake there*