Account Wide Essences!

[Ange]

you are right with the fotm thing though but i don't remember it being a problem in wod...maybe i was oblivious.

WoD had only raiding as PVE endgame without mythic-plus, class tuning changes were done in/after heroic weeks, so FOTM was allways for a very short time frame and the legendary progression was just as cruel for alts as anything else from LEGION/BFA so people asked themselfs if its worth to jump the next FOTM train when it only last for a few weeks/months.

That changed a lot in LEGION/BFA. We dont have real class tuning each raid tier anymore, some outliers from LEGION even carried over to BfA for specific mechanics and it outweights in many cases any gear progression disadvantages you could have with rerolling all the time.

Just look at outlaw rogues in mythic for 3 season outperforming 20+ ilvl gear advantage simply because of mechanical/tuning issues. DoT specs outperferming everything in the current raid tiers, so you had no real disadvantages if you choose to reroll any of the broken classes, because the tunning was so far off, that gearprogression was basicly a non-factor.

Its bring the class not the player and you are even gifted with the lack of real balance changes. The reasons? Last time the wording was something like "we dont want to disturb the raid progression", so they change nothing PRE-content patch, they change nothing in the heroic week and they change nothing in the mythic week, even when they got all the data to track the outliers.

And people are surprised, SHOCKED!, that the PVE community was done with this crap gave up and moved to mythic-plus with full META setups, because there is no balance punishment to fear.

I enjoy playing with other players and it doesnt matter for me what aspects of this MMO they like.
What I dont really like the advantage seeking FOTM reroll crowd, the players who basicly hate the class they play but they still choose it because it "performs" better. The whole situation about this kind of gaming choice brings negativity and I try to stay as far away from thos kind of players as I can, for my own sake.

[Tradu]

WoD had only raiding as PVE endgame without mythic-plus, class tuning changes were done in/after heroic weeks, so FOTM was allways for a very short time frame and the legendary progression was just as cruel for alts as anything else from LEGION/BFA so people asked themselfs if its worth to jump the next FOTM train when it only last for a few weeks/months.

That changed a lot in LEGION/BFA. We dont have real class tuning each raid tier anymore, some outliers from LEGION even carried over to BfA for specific mechanics and it outweights in many cases any gear progression disadvantages you could have with rerolling all the time.

Just look at outlaw rogues in mythic for 3 season outperforming 20+ ilvl gear advantage simply because of mechanical/tuning issues. DoT specs outperferming everything in the current raid tiers, so you had no real disadvantages if you choose to reroll any of the broken classes, because the tunning was so far off, that gearprogression was basicly a non-factor.

Its bring the class not the player and you are even gifted with the lack of real balance changes. The reasons? Last time the wording was something like "we dont want to disturb the raid progression", so they change nothing PRE-content patch, they change nothing in the heroic week and they change nothing in the mythic week, even when they got all the data to track the outliers.

And people are surprised, SHOCKED!, that the PVE community was done with this crap gave up and moved to mythic-plus with full META setups, because there is no balance punishment to fear.

Not even remotely close to AP+legendaries or AP+essences.

[Augusta138]

WoD had only raiding as PVE endgame without mythic-plus, class tuning changes were done in/after heroic weeks, so FOTM was allways for a very short time frame and the legendary progression was just as cruel for alts as anything else from LEGION/BFA so people asked themselfs if its worth to jump the next FOTM train when it only last for a few weeks/months.

That changed a lot in LEGION/BFA. We dont have real class tuning each raid tier anymore, some outliers from LEGION even carried over to BfA for specific mechanics and it outweights in many cases any gear progression disadvantages you could have with rerolling all the time.

Just look at outlaw rogues in mythic for 3 season outperforming 20+ ilvl gear advantage simply because of mechanical/tuning issues. DoT specs outperferming everything in the current raid tiers, so you had no real disadvantages if you choose to reroll any of the broken classes, because the tunning was so far off, that gearprogression was basicly a non-factor.

Its bring the class not the player and you are even gifted with the lack of real balance changes. The reasons? Last time the wording was something like "we dont want to disturb the raid progression", so they change nothing PRE-content patch, they change nothing in the heroic week and they change nothing in the mythic week, even when they got all the data to track the outliers.

And people are surprised, SHOCKED!, that the PVE community was done with this crap gave up and moved to mythic-plus with full META setups, because there is no balance punishment to fear.

Legendary ring during WoD wasnt an alt related issue, because we got catch up system and not to mention the ring itself wasnt a huge boost in character performance till it did hit legendary status. (And no, catch up systems for just a few essences isnt enough)

Legendaries in legion were badly designed but still it was pretty easy to get atleast 1 legendary and later on you could farm legendaries for alts. (Which was still random but a lot of tasks you could pick from, provided you with the currency needed for the random legendary)

So telling us that WoD / Legion systems were also not alt friendly doesnt really work because they were both really different in terms of requirements and actual gains for your character.

Already posted it multiple times, but the essence thing isnt about a fotm playstyle you keep referring to.

[Ange]

Not even remotely close to AP+legendaries or AP+essences.

Tell me how many weeks a new character took to catch up? Exactly

And what was again blizzards standing on the huge disadvantage for players without the legendary?

https://www.wowhead.com/guides/raidi...ary-ring-guide


Because skipping complete phases with ring ussage and trivializing fights was not important for any guild.
"Unavoidable social dynamic" for people without the power-progression means just "get good"

Old-Blizzard was the cool mythic progression raider that simply didnt give a F about casual players. LEGION/BFA are the casual heaven babys of blizzard and people still cry tears and tear about the cruel system they implemented, while in reality it was much worse in the past and casuals begging for a straw most often just got the "get good" with a smilie face.

Not sure why players are so clueless about the history of the game/dev, nothing is hidden everything is archived.

[Augusta138]

Aparently yes... Since players are leaving the game as you said.

And thats why the system needs to be changed. And not be defended like most in here do.

But it is not the reason why i made this post about the system in place. I do enjoy a lot of other content so i will keep playing.

Coz the most read opinion so far from nay-sayers:
It really is important content that has to be farmed. Even if that means 10 or 12 times or how many chars you want to play.

Even tho nothing about essences is difficult and just a useless timesink.

I will never understand why people are so against people who wanna play more than 1 character.

[Ange]

Aparently yes... Since players are leaving the game as you said.

And whats wrong with that?

How many people started MoP and did not come back to finish the cloaks?
How many people started WoD and did not finish the ring?
How many people started LEGION and did not get at least all legendarys for 1 character?

Just as much will leave BfA without having all essences done.

The simple fact that player participation was never different and its a given that blizzard is just expecting the usual drop or even planing with it (HINT CLASSIC /HINT)

Players react the same way for over a decade and the current new playerbase expects a different reaction from blizzard, because...?

[Tradu]

Tell me how many weeks a new character took to catch up? Exactly

And what was again blizzards standing on the huge disadvantage for players without the legendary?

https://www.wowhead.com/guides/raidi...ary-ring-guide


Because skipping complete phases with ring ussage and trivializing fights was not important for any guild.
"Unavoidable social dynamic" for people without the power-progression means just "get good"

Old-Blizzard was the cool mythic progression raider that simply didnt give a F about casual players. LEGION/BFA are the casual heaven babys of blizzard and people still cry tears and tear about the cruel system they implemented, while in reality it was much worse in the past and casuals begging for a straw most often just got the "get good" with a smilie face.

Not sure why players are so clueless about the history of the game/dev, nothing is hidden everything is archived.

Something along the lines of 2-3 weeks for each "tier" of the quest chain by doing content that's relevant to the reward(twice as long before the catchup, probably)? Or like 3 months in the case of the ring upgrades from Archimonde(until they added a vendor for those as well). Not saying those quest lines were great either, but I'd rather have 1 questline to catch up on than 12 legendaries or 11 essences. I did those questlines on a similar amount of characters as I've done essences on(10ish), and it's not particularly enjoyable(and the end result only barely makes up for it).

The big difference is that back then, good rewards(for raiding) actually came almost exclusively from raiding(with occasional PvP items), so you could just do that content and be fine. Now you get some of the best rewards from the easiest, most repetitive content in the game.

Old-Blizzard doesn't exist, they have pretty much the same attitude now. They don't add catchup until it's impossible to refuse. Also them saying that it's unavoidable is great and all, that's not a good reason to add more and more layers of shit you have to do outside of just gearing up before you're ready to play.

[Ange]

good rewards(for raiding) actually came almost exclusively from raiding(with occasional PvP items), so you could just do that content and be fine.

Also them saying that it's unavoidable is great and all, that's not a good reason to add more and more layers of shit you have to do outside of just gearing up before you're ready to play.

First explains pretty well why WoD brought the game to its lowest participation moment.

Its a community demanded change. Most things were gated behind just raiding and it was a simple binary option. The community demanded a change of this progression model and blizzard did just that and it worked out better as expected. LEGION player participation broke every record and that was the main goal, to engage players outside of just forcing them to raid or do nothing (RAID-OR-DIE).

I would not expect a change of the new structure, because it worked out well for 2 expansions. Why should they change back to an old structure the community clearly disliked and many players had to quit the game.

[Tradu]

First explains pretty well why WoD brought the game to its lowest participation moment.

Its a community demanded change. Most things were gated behind just raiding and it was a simple binary option. The community demanded a change of this progression model and blizzard did just that and it worked out better as expected. LEGION player participation broke every record and that was the main goal, to engage players outside of just forcing them to raid or do nothing (RAID-OR-DIE).

I would not expect a change of the new structure, because it worked out well for 2 expansions. Why should they change back to an old structure the community clearly disliked and many players had to quit the game.

Because it's killing the top end of the game, which has historically been the most loyal, and does a lot for the game in terms of community engagement and publicity? I'm not saying to fully revert, but the current model is extremely flawed and as much as some white knights might claim that it benefits casual players, it doesn't really benefit anybody.

[Ange]

but the current model is extremely flawed and as much as some white knights might claim that it benefits casual players, it doesn't really benefit anybody.

Tell me just one thing, can you right now progress your character without raiding?
If the answer is yes, where is the flaw?

Can you get the best gear in the most efficient way from raiding?
If the answer is yes, where is the flaw?

Wanting back the gearprogression wall for no other reason but to gate out 99% of the community does not make the game better nor the participation.

WoW's major peaks in participation were the times where either the majority simply did not care about raiding and after raiding got mainstream, it was after the raid-or-die disaster in WoD. The high end "top of the game" community was either ignored by the majority or later blamed for the issues in the game. It was never a happy marriage.

The current middleground where raiders "HAVE TO" do 1-2 weeks of casual stuff each expansion and be done with it for 2 years is a huge ISSUE for the "top of the game" community I guess, but this near impossible task of actually playing the game just as the regular pleb needs to be done.

Outside of the forums I do not know even one hardcore raiding player that is whining so much about the game issues. People with time to grind, will grind and enjoy the game. The only "type" of players that actually are hurt, are the seasonal "casual" raiders, those guys who show up for 1-2 weeks each raid tier, quit after getting geared and complain all day on the forums about timegating. I might just not care that much as a regular player about the issues from some 0.1% with not enough time to actually play the game.

[Tradu]

Tell me just one thing, can you right now progress your character without raiding?
If the answer is yes, where is the flaw?

Can you get the best gear in the most efficient way from raiding?
If the answer is yes, where is the flaw?

Wanting back the gearprogression wall for no other reason but to gate out 99% of the community does not make the game better nor the participation.

WoW's major peaks in participation were the times where either the majority simply did not care about raiding and after raiding got mainstream, it was after the raid-or-die disaster in WoD. The high end "top of the game" community was either ignored by the majority or later blamed for the issues in the game. It was never a happy marriage.

The current middleground where raiders "HAVE TO" do 1-2 weeks of casual stuff each expansion and be done with it for 2 years is a huge ISSUE for the "top of the game" community I guess, but this near impossible task of actually playing the game just as the regular pleb needs to be done.

Outside of the forums I do not know even one hardcore raiding player that is whining so much about the game issues. People with time to grind, will grind and enjoy the game. The only "type" of players that actually are hurt, are the seasonal "casual" raiders, those guys who show up for 1-2 weeks each raid tier, quit after getting geared and complain all day on the forums about timegating. I might just not care that much as a regular player about the issues from some 0.1% with not enough time to actually play the game.

If you think it's 1-2 weeks, there's no point even discussing this.

[Ange]

If you think it's 1-2 weeks, there's no point even discussing this.

At least you told everyone what "type" of player you are. Good day, sir!

[Augusta138]

At least you told everyone what "type" of player you are. Good day, sir!

Again the assumptions. As soon as your argument gets debunked.

[Ange]

As soon as your argument gets debunked.

I am not debating I just exressed my opinion from my own experience as a player. I don't try to convince you or anybody else with my opinion, if your argumentation is sound, I am just as happy to change my opinion about this matter. It might need a bit more than some bold formated postings to change my opinion grounded on my own experience with 1900+ days /played, but nothing is set in stone and I might learn something new.

If this would be a debate, I would have allready won by default, since the poster left the discussion.

[Augusta138]

Tell me just one thing, can you right now progress your character without raiding?
If the answer is yes, where is the flaw?

Can you get the best gear in the most efficient way from raiding?
If the answer is yes, where is the flaw?

Wanting back the gearprogression wall for no other reason but to gate out 99% of the community does not make the game better nor the participation.

WoW's major peaks in participation were the times where either the majority simply did not care about raiding and after raiding got mainstream, it was after the raid-or-die disaster in WoD. The high end "top of the game" community was either ignored by the majority or later blamed for the issues in the game. It was never a happy marriage.

The current middleground where raiders "HAVE TO" do 1-2 weeks of casual stuff each expansion and be done with it for 2 years is a huge ISSUE for the "top of the game" community I guess, but this near impossible task of actually playing the game just as the regular pleb needs to be done.

Outside of the forums I do not know even one hardcore raiding player that is whining so much about the game issues. People with time to grind, will grind and enjoy the game. The only "type" of players that actually are hurt, are the seasonal "casual" raiders, those guys who show up for 1-2 weeks each raid tier, quit after getting geared and complain all day on the forums about timegating. I might just not care that much as a regular player about the issues from some 0.1% with not enough time to actually play the game.

We are talking about essence acquisition / upgrades here.
Not about any piece of gear or how difficult content can be.

Essences are not simply fixed in 1-2 weeks of casual stuff. As you just said yourself.
There is barely any complaints, we come with reasonable feedback and the feedback gets pointed at as being complaints.

If you think the essence farm is only a problem for people who play less (which is an assumption you are making once again) you are also mistaken.

You cant just simply say the system works perfectly and doesnt need changing.
If you only care about 1 character and done it all once and you got it all sorted out, than it might actually look like a reasonable system.

If you look beyond just that 1 character that you play, you will see the system is hugely flawed and it isnt challenging at all.

Just scroll through this twitter feed and you will notice that it isnt only casuals (according to you) who have issues with the systems in place:
https://twitter.com/Fleksmage/status...42917064511488

- - - Updated - - -

I am not debating I just exressed my opinion from my own experience as a player. I don't try to convince you or anybody else with my opinion, if your argumentation is sound, I am just as happy to change my opinion about this matter. It might need a bit more than some bold formated postings to change my opinion grounded on my own experience with 1900+ days /played, but nothing is set in stone and I might learn something new.

If this would be a debate, I would have allready won by default, since the poster left the discussion.

If you would have joined this topic properly, and read about the issues / feedback given you would have read the following:
- The essences are mandatory
- Nothing about getting them is challenging
- All of them are the same silly farm and all of them are really boring to farm on multiple characters
- Why do people think they can tell anyone how they should play the game, if we wanna play multiple chars lets us do so, without the major restrictions of regrinding everything we already did a couple of times.

Next time a new Pathfinder achievement debate comes up in another topic i will simply ask to not make it account wide, since your character has to earn flying instead of it being granted to you out of nowhere. (since it is account wide, and you earned it on just the 1 character most of the times)

Plus it completely ruins leveling because you fly from objective to objective. <- although this is a completely different discussion on its own.

[Augusta138]

Players react the same way for over a decade and the current new playerbase expects a different reaction from blizzard, because...?

Current new playerbase?

And you know this how? And is there any information about this so called new playerbase?

- - - Updated - - -

Thats exactly my point.

- - - Updated - - -



I dont see it as time sink. If you want to min max it on all characters. Ofc it will be a grind.

And i dont have any issues with:
- PVP
- Pathfinder
- Raids
- Dungeons
- M+
- Leveling
- Titanforged
- Legendaries for certain classes only (back in the days.)

Yet, i am not attacking people in topics to change above points, if they think it is necessary to make the game better or change it so it will become better for hte people who care about it.

Just because you dont see it as a time sink doesnt mean it isnt a time sink tho.

[Ange]

Current new playerbase?

And you know this how? And is there any information about this so called new playerbase?

1. Go and get a sub
2. Login to the game
3. Participate in the current regular content of M+/raiding/pvp
4. ask or check the accounts from the players you see

For every 10 LEGION/BFA starter you will maybe find 1 player from WoD, even less from past expansions and you will probably allready know/invite to a community or simply be in a guild with vanilla or similar long time players.

Or if you dont play, look at the amount of nonsense discussions about anything post LEGION, you can literally tell the lack of game experience from those versions.

Everybody on MMO-C is a vanilla players (fact!) but as soon things get mentioned that is basic stuff every player experienced while playing, things get foggy really quick. At least its entertaining to read, its similar to "Kids Explain: ...".

[Augusta138]

1. Go and get a sub
2. Login to the game
3. Participate in the current regular content of M+/raiding/pvp
4. ask or check the accounts from the players you see

For every 10 LEGION/BFA starter you will maybe find 1 player from WoD, even less from past expansions and you will probably allready know/invite to a community or simply be in a guild with vanilla or similar long time players.

Or if you dont play, look at the amount of nonsense discussions about anything post LEGION, you can literally tell the lack of game experience from those versions.

Everybody on MMO-C is a vanilla players (fact!) but as soon things get mentioned that is basic stuff every player experienced while playing, things get foggy really quick. At least its entertaining to read, its similar to "Kids Explain: ...".

Well, i am actively playing and i am actually playing since vanilla. But this now probably gets shot down to be a big no by all the nay-sayers in here.

And the above things are speculation only, you dont have any clue at all what the playerbase looks like.

Returning players / current active players dont wanna bother with essences, and they are essential for the content.
You wont make your trial if you dont have any essences in a raid guild
a 3v3 comp wont play arena with you if you dont have essences.

The whole system isnt going to function at all when 8.3 hits and it wont bring back players for 8.3 because of the silly design around it.

You can dislike that all you want, and feel personally fucked over because you did spend the time to farm all rank 3s but than you might aswell quit the game, since each expansion everything is basically being reset.
Each patch your mythic gear becomes just a bit higher than the catch up gear (or you need to farm said catch up gear because Blizzard fucked it up and made it too powerful *hint Benthic armor*)

Down the line:

If you owned the rank 3 essences ever since october (just randomly putting it here) where is the pain of making them to be had for returning players / alts in 8.3?
You had all these amazing powers all along, and yes you worked for it.

But you also worked for the mythic gear and the M+ score / FoS +10s in time / +15s in time.
You gained rewards for the above actions and got helped by the essences.

Now other players might not enjoy those essences or bonuses because you feel personally fucked over if they are handed out.

Then we should instead ask to make achievements to be only link-able if your character got the achievement personally. (no more easily HC runs for 8/8M players or whatever since you cant link anything)
Removal of Armory because of above mentioned point.
Pathfinder should be grinded on ALL characters you want to fly with. (if you wanna use essences, go farm them with your alts. So might aswell apply that logic for flying, wanna fly with an alt, go farm Pathfinder.)

Because the general opinion is that people need to earn everything that is in the game, so then the 2 above mentioned things are also needed.

Let me be very clear: i still do think things have to be earned (achievements / mounts / gear / essences etc etc) But at some point it has to become easier to be earned or to be used if you wanna play another character / for returning players

[Ange]

Let me be very clear: i still do think things have to be earned (achievements / mounts / gear / essences etc etc) But at some point it has to become easier to be earned or to be used if you wanna play another character / for returning players

Blizzard keept it pretty quiet in LEGION/BFA about this issues and they did not change anything about it.

You maybe missed this from my posting, but this was their standing on WoD ring progression for returning players:



"get good" or deal with the community consequences. And they did not change a thing for the rest of the expansion.

LEGION was just a cruel RNG variation of the same issue and the BfA patch in LEGION got some free candy for the returning player, THE PRE PATCH of the next expansion (last 4-6 weeks) I myself got my "BiS" class legendary as the very last, after all class specific and after all non class specific legendarys, so I had some simpathy for all the returning players starting with nothing in this long grind.

[Augusta138]

Blizzard keept it pretty quiet in LEGION/BFA about this issues and they did not change anything about it.

You maybe missed this from my posting, but this was their standing on WoD ring progression for returning players:



"get good" or deal with the community consequences.

Dodging 90% of my post and the points made. Nice move.

All nice and dandy a statement from years ago. (they also stated in 8.0 that Champions rep wouldnt be account wide, just look at 8.1)

What happened or has happened in earlier expansions doesnt tell us a lot about their choices to change systems. (Legendaries wont be a transmog option because they are unique, guess whats coming in 8.3)

And the good thing about giving feedback is that they might change their mind (Again: Champions rep)
Instead of falling back on everything you said over and over, there still hasnt been made a good argument why returning players or existing players (when playing another character) are forced through meaningless grinds to catch up or return to the current content.

And why there shouldnt be a change to the essence system, either with changing it completely in terms of obtaining essences / making them account wide or whatever else that makes it easier for the above mentioned groups to play to game.

Get good thing doesnt even apply if Essences dont require any skill or even knowledge. Most of them are gained with really easy activities like you said.
I can get all essences (If i spend enough gold on EP runs / Mechagon clears / M+ runs) and still be a total shitter while playing my class..

But atleast i have all my essences so thats what counts?

This system isnt working and wont be working in 8.3.