Are timegates really bad?

[DemonDays]

Oh my dear child. So Onyxia scales wasn't a time gate? AQ gates wasn't a time gate? Shadow resist gear in BT time gate? Sunwell and the entire island was completely time gated? Argent Tournament full on time gated? Do you want me to keep going into the more modern xpacs? If you think time gates are new to WoW you literally just started playing WoW and have no idea what you're talking about.

So you've given a single example from each expansion.

Here's some from BfA.

Neck Level.
Azerite Gear.
Cloak Upgrades.
Vision Entry Tickets.
Allied Race rep grinds
Essence Grinds.
Reputation grinds.

I could go on and on listing these. As I said - if you're in favor of time-gating. You're either a massive apologist fanboy or you currently spend way too much time in the game. Your pathetic cherry picked responses don't even address what I initially stated.

Why is the game designed with caps on what you can do daily? Do you not understand that normal people can't log in every single day for a few hours to do menial boring as fuck WQs. You don't even get to choose the content you want to do anymore.

Do you think it's because the quality of content has dropped drastically and they know people would finish the content in mere days or weeks and become bored with their shitty product?

Really - I'd like your opinion on this. Rather than just pathetically trying to create a strawman argument like "BUT THE GAME HAS ALWAYS HAD TIME-GATES HURRR DURRRR REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BLIZZARD GOOD, PLAYERBASE BAD."

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...ive_about_the/

[Tech614]

Neck Level.
Azerite Gear.
Cloak Upgrades.
Vision Entry Tickets.
Allied Race rep grinds
Essence Grinds.
Reputation grinds.

Half of these things aren't even time gated. Azerite gear is time gated? lmfao so I guess gear in general throughout the history of time is a time gate! Also rep gates must be some new thing they invented in BFA, who knew? LMAO

I like how your tune has changed from "old wow didn't have time gates" to "BFA has more time gates!". Nice goal post shift, if you think I read your ramble after this list and your goal post shift well... you thought wrong.

[DemonDays]

Thanks for the reply...I was just about to ragetype something like this.

But ...hey...they guy you replied to is kinda here to dismiss anything that has to do with current WoW..so I guess you will either not get any answer or some reply that sidesteps what you wrote. Alternately he might claim these were not timegates. Also..something..something appeasing or white-knighting Ion and Blizzard.

I am not even saying if timegates are okay or not...nor do I claim to have an idea how to design an MMO without them - but to cry about timegates now when they have been a part of the game that you play since it came out is just....ridiculous.



No..just..no. Because a good deal of the shit was gated behind reps. Maybe they would be a bit more tolerable if they were accountwide. But I hate how attunements worked in TBC with a passion.

Then again..as I said earlier...we should probably first define what a time gate is.

You seem to have reading comprehension issues. No one claimed the game NEVER had time-gates. I have literally never typed those words.

I said the AMOUNT of fucking time-gates the game currently has is astoundingly bad.


Here's the quoted text from the reddit post I linked that lays it out quite eloquently. Even you should be able to understand - since you've offered nothing to the discussion here yet other than trying to dismiss what I'm writing by saying I just call everyone white knights.

Blizzard had a good formula years ago. It found a good balance between hooking the player and having him work and then rewarding him well for that work.

But they got greedy. They wanted to make more money but actually produce less content. They wanted people to play more, spend more time grinding and doing things that feel like work, for fewer rewards that are less fun and are farther apart from each other.

Now all that's left of the game is a soulless treadmill that milks the player for as long as possible, with layers upon layers of timegating and RNG.

- - - Updated - - -

Half of these things aren't even time gated. Azerite gear is time gated? lmfao so I guess gear in general throughout the history of time is a time gate! Also rep gates must be some new thing they invented in BFA, who knew? LMAO

I like how your tune has changed from "old wow didn't have time gates" to "BFA has more time gates!". Nice goal post shift, if you think I read your ramble after this list and your goal post shift well... you thought wrong.

Try to scroll up a bit and actually read what I wrote. Apparently you're having issues.

I said - Time-gates being attached to LITERALLY EVERYTHING has not been the case since 2004. Nor has FORCING you into a certain type of content ever been the case either.

Remember rep tabards? Where did they go champ. Remember being able to choose what you wanted to do and still progressing?

Also - nice job CHERRY PICKING your pathetic response again. Well done.

[apustus]

So you've given a single example from each expansion.

Here's some from BfA.

Neck Level.
Azerite Gear.
Cloak Upgrades.
Vision Entry Tickets.
Allied Race rep grinds
Essence Grinds.
Reputation grinds.

This is the best meme I've seen today, *tips fedora* well meme'd, sir!

[Big Thanks]

Madseasonshow, the classic youtuber, already made a list of timegates in current wow.
Here is his list.

[kaminaris]

Madseasonshow, the classic youtuber, already made a list of timegates in current wow.
Here is his list.

This list is beyond stupid. Calling most of the things on it as "timegating" is being insane.

[DemonDays]

Madseasonshow, the classic youtuber, already made a list of timegates in current wow.
Here is his list.

This doesn't even list WQs.

In the past you could grind rep to your hearts content. Wanna play a Kul Tiran but can only play a decent amount of time on Saturday and Sunday?

Chuck a tabard on and grind some dungeons out. Better yet - AoE grind down some mobs for rep.



Now? Now you can only do 5ish WQs a day. Each rewarding 75 rep. You only need 42000! COME BACK TOMORROW, YOU CAN DO 5 MORE.

[Sharby]

This list is beyond stupid. Calling most of the things on it as "timegating" is being insane.

WQ's - Gated
Emissary- Gated
Mecha/Naz Dailies- Gated
Assault dailies/Events- Gated
Mini-Vision-Gated
Missions- Gated
Warfront Contri/Quests- Gated
Incursion-Gated
Island Bar- Gated
World Bosses- Gated but p insignificant bc the gear sucks/is limited.
Warfronts- Gated but irrelevant for same as above
Conq Chest-Gated but gear should be gated, still a problem because CnS locked behind it.
CTA-Gated
M+ Chest- Gated and same bad aspect as PvP chest
Adventure Guide-Idk what this is so its probs irrelevant
AoO-same thing as CTA and is gated
Horrific Vision pages- Gated



At worst its redundant, but these are all more or less true as far as gating goes. Some timegating is okay, but imo this much timegating is redic.

[kieraTM]

Timegating for me was a huge part of why I have unsubbed and 'quit' WoW.

The issue is multifaceted. Timegating Suramar, as you point out, was fine because there was no tangible rewards at the end of it (that we knew at the time).
Timegating something like reputation grinds is a questionable endeavour. I believe this comes down to the implemented barriers which are a conscious decision of the devs. I play SWtOR regularly which shares all reputation over all characters on a realm. Even with this, you need to play a LOT to reach weekly reputation caps. In WoW it was much more apparent that lower values were deliberately implemented to encourage players to log in each week. This is cheap and sleazy in my view.

If you have a generous/no cap value at all, the player is free to play to their own personal extent. It is abundantly clear that Blizzard tries to elongate the timeframe of all in game activities in order to retain subscribers until their next expansion. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to implement in game systems that encourage players to log in each day and quest etc for the utmost chance of progression. They evoke a feeling that if you miss out then you miss out on tangible progression of your characters. You might miss the X% chance of getting an upgrade in a daily quest. It is a sinister but obvious tactic to retain player subscriptions during a drought period.

Ultimately it comes down to an individuals desire to play the game

[Schattenlied]

The carrot on a stick is what keeps MMORPGS alive. They can't do content 24/7 like you are playing a single player game because you play these games waaaaaay more than SP Games.

There are other multiplayer games that maintain playerbases without any carrot on a stick.

Know how they do it?

Their moment to moment gameplay is actually fun, unlike WoW's, people keep coming back to games like CS, even though the gameplay has not fundamentally changed in literally over a decade now, because just playing for the sake of playing is fun. If the only thing keeping you playing is the carrot, it's time to quit, because the company isn't trying hard enough to deserve your money.

[Omedon]

FFXIV has virtually zero timegating outside of gear and some things and its still flourishing.


Why?

Because the rest of the game is compelling enough to where once you get BiS you can enjoy the fruits of your labor because there's a lot of vanity stuff to do.



WoW suffers when there's no timegating because they devote very little of the game to vanity, it makes sense why they have to timegate everything, because if that weren't the case people would quit or get bored, I agree with this.



The solution is just to make the rest of the non-gear ladder oriented parts of the game fun to do.

This is what I call the "world to live in" effect. Eorzea is a world to live in, Azeroth is a racetrack to measure epeens. Yes there are places to compete with each other on Eorzea, but even beyond the fact that they *gasp* have housing, Eorzea still feels more welcoming as a place to just... be... between content drops. Because of how "SRS" WoW is made to be (largely because of its place as the unquestioned top of the MMO heap, as much as I love FFXIV), once you've climbed the mountain in WoW, there's not much to look at from said peak. So they delay the climb.

Funnily enough, when WoW replaces blatant timegating with "here is this long questline to unlock the patch's features" as they did with 8.3, they still can't win because of alt-unfriendliness. When WoW tries to "be busy," like FFXIV is with its actually important and binge-watchable storytelling, it gets called a waste of time. No one wants to hang out at the racetrack, they just want to get to the races so they can get back to measuring epeens.

[DemonDays]

Man...you are angry. You definitely have issues and are on a crusade. But yeah..arguments always get stronger when you add "fucking" to them...I get it. For somebody who is accusing ppl of cherry picking you do a good job at the opposite thing...claiming that now EVERYTHING is a timegate.

And since we are on the issue of reading comprehension....yeah..I guess I need to repeat for the third time "Then again..as I said earlier...we should probably first define what a time gate is." - I had a hunch that people consider different things a time gate. The list that @Shadoowpunk posted is the perfect example.

If a cloak upgrade is a timegate...then potentially getting any upgrade ever from any source was a timegate. If you say "the AMOUNT of fucking time-gates the game currently has is astoundingly bad." - then I say the amount of time-gates the game had for example in TBC for a single activity (attunements for raiding) has never been so crazy.

But hey...opinions and all...and fair enough...if it makes you angry and makes you hate Blizzard and makes you quit...that is only between you and the company. In your place I would worry that for several x-pacs this doesn't seem to get better if I apply your logic what a timegate is.

So your resort to thinly veiled insults and strawman arguments. "Issues" - the irony is palpable.

You're allowed a single cloak upgrade per week because..... It's time-gated.

Potentially "any other upgrade". Holy. Fucking. Shit.

[Tech614]

I have literally never typed those words.

No. That hasn't been the case since 2004.

Oh yes you did, now you just want to move the goal post and claim everything is a time gate which in return I can basically claim everything from 2004 on was also a time gate when you're claiming shit like fucking Azerite gear is a time gate. Loot the biggest time gate of all that every MMO revolves around is a time gate, heard it here from this really really smart dude who has to keep changing his argument anytime someone calls him on a false point.

Loot? Time gate.
Boss lockouts? Time gate.
Dailies or WQs? Time gate.

All these new things that only exist in modern WoW are time gates! What an amazing argument. Cut your losses.

[DemonDays]

Yeah....some people use irony, others attack and insult people directly, swear like they have Tourettes or something. At least you also remember that something...something... logical fallacies exists.

Whatever works for you.

Thanks again for contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion other than thinly veiled insults and vague deflections in the name of Blizzard. Guess you've gotta get your 33k post history from somewhere.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh yes you did, now you just want to move the goal post and claim everything is a time gate which in return I can basically claim everything from 2004 on was also a time gate when you're claiming shit like fucking Azerite gear is a time gate. Loot the biggest time gate of all that every MMO revolves around is a time gate, heard it here from this really really smart dude who has to keep changing his argument anytime someone calls him on a false point.

Yeah. Look at you cherry picking and editing my responses now.

Literally pathetic.

Time-gating being attached to literally everything in the game?

No. That hasn't been the case since 2004. Are you turning into a pathological liar like your god and saviour Ion?

[Tech614]

Yeah. Look at you cherry picking and editing my responses now.

This might be hard to understand for you, but I told you time gating has existed since 2004. It's not my fault you wanted to change the goal post with your retort. It's not cherry picking when it's never a debate I was willing to have with you. If you have to move the goal posts to have a come back, it's not really a come back. Imagine thinking I would humor some debate with you about which version of WoW had "more time gating" when the game has always had it.

[Big Thanks]

Imagine thinking I would humor some debate with you about which version of WoW had "more time gating" when the game has always had it.

No need to humor us with that debate BFA. BFA is the answer for the version of WoW with most timegates.

[Tech614]

No need to humor us with that debate BFA. BFA is the answer for the version of WoW with most timegates.

I doubt it using the definition you posted in that image. At best you could argue BFA/Legion had more because they had more content, but the image you posted is basically claiming everything in WoW is a time gate and has always been. % wise there is no difference.

[Big Thanks]

I doubt it using the definition you posted in that image. At best you could argue BFA/Legion had more because they had more content, but the image you posted is basically claiming everything in WoW is a time gate and has always been. % wise there is no difference.

There is no need to create some weird definition about what is a "timegate"
Is pretty straight forward really...a timegate...is a timegate.

Raids are timegated since the stone ages...for obvious reasons.

I dont see the point in coming up with weird definitions for a timegate when is pretty much obvious when something is.

[Tech614]

There is no need to create some weird definition about what is a "timegate"
Is pretty straight forward really...a timegate...is a timegate.

Raids are timegated since the stone ages...for obvious reasons.

I dont see the point in coming up with weird definitions for a timegate when is pretty much obvious when something is.

I mean, you did come up with a weird definition or at least posted some random youtuber's weird definition. And using it, the entire game and entire MMO genre for the most part is a time gate. That's an ok take to have just don't go trying to argue BFA has more of it then any other version of the game.

[Big Thanks]

I mean, you did come up with a weird definition or at least posted some random youtuber's weird definition. And using it, the entire game and entire MMO genre for the most part is a time gate. That's an ok take to have just don't go trying to argue BFA has more of it then any other version of the game.

Im kinda lost here. I have no idea what you mean by "my weird definition of timegate with the image"
Isnt everything on that list timegated?

What on that list is NOT a timegate...by your definition. And why is it not?