Challenging personal tasks over mindless grind

[Michael Jackson]

That is the closest we have in the game right now that matches the "challenging solo content" criteria.

If he can't even do those (and I am faily certain he cannot) then this discussion is dead on arrival.

If you can't complete the challenge you want to force everyone else to adapt to then all you are is a hyprocite bullshit artist.

What in the unholy fuck?

Yes, I suppose that's one way to do it. Or you can split it in multiple (2-3) challenges that are each let's say 60% of the difficulty of a 5 mask vision, to make it doable by everyone. Or you could have the option to do one challenge that hard, or multiple lower level difficulty challenges.

And no...I never once asked anyone to adapt to that level of challenge, I am open to any alternatives to meaningless, brain dead grinds.

And as for the closest we have in-game right now...have you never done Mage tower or other Legion activities in Suramar?

[Cosmic Janitor]

Heigan's Safety Dance but it's a climbing puzzle.

Have you ever seen the GW2 halloween tower jumping puzzle? Imagine something like that.. lol.

[MoanaLisa]

Grind need not be mindless. It may be difficult advice to take but when you're doing repetitive stuff to get to some reward or plateau just stop when you get tired of them for the day. Come back another day.

The nature of the game is grindy. WoW is worse than some, better than others.

Some people never got the message that the very vast majority of the player population doesn't necessarily thrive on challenge.

[Big Thanks]

Grind need not be mindless

This is why i prefer action based combat with deep customziation options and flashy animations.
I think is a nice "fix" to make a grind more bearable.
Grinding with a tab target combat system is painful (to me)

Personal preference ofcourse.

[wraysbury]

1. Let's say you want to unlock flight.

Instead of meaningless shit like doing all the quests in new zones and unlocking 6 reputations, why not something like:

-> Complete all the quests in the new zones and complete these aerial challenges on hard difficulty (a race challenge, an aerial combat challenge, etc)

2. Let's say you want to become exalted with a race.

Instead of meaningless shit like doing the same repeatable quests to honored, revered, exalted, why not instead:

-> Complete the introductory quest for this faction, then these other story chains which will explore the story of these factions through quests, dungeons and exploration of lore items in the world, interlaced with personal challenges that require your skill as a solo player to overcome.

3. Let's say you want to level a profession.

Instead of crafting shit items over and over to get some levels, why not instead:

-> Have the option to go around the world to for example fix NPC's sword and armor, or enchant their gear, or do this even for players, giving you a skill level for say every 5 people helped.

I keep seeing this shit argument for the past 15 years about how "players are entitled and want easy rewards and you should be rewarded only for wasting this many hours in game doing shit tasks" to why I always reply: why? Why the fuck should we content ourselves to be masochistic instead of demanding more challenging/mentally stimulating, more interactive and more fun content?

Alas, there's ample evidence that the current wow player base wants tediousness over challenges. For instance, whenever a wowhead comment explains how to cheese something that would otherwise be difficult, it's the most upvoted one.

You can see this in the attitude of entitlements people have towards war mode, always complaining that pvp is getting in the way of their quests. Wow players are broken and have no conception of risk versus reward. To them, "difficulty" means "time consuming" and nothing else. Complain about grinding and you will often receive an answer in the form of "everything shouldn't be easy", as if having to spend a lot of time performing repetitive tasks constituted difficulty.

This is why blizzard puts time gating everywhere, because that's the logical conclusion of "more time spent playing regardless of the quality of play = more reward" that most wow players abide to. They say they don't like it, but their actions speak otherwise.

Outside of pvp, wow doesn't really feel like a game. A game is something where you can succeed or fail. In wow everything is on rails and everything is trivial, and you quickly realize that the only thing between you and what you want is only time and nothing else. Real games don't feel like this. Real games feel like if you play very well you can progress quickly.

Looking at shadowlands, blizzard is undertaking significant efforts in revamping the onboarding experience, mostly the leveling process, but also the character creation experience. To me it means that they are gearing up for a significant player (re)-acquisition campaign. But I am skeptical that people outside of the wow bubble will enjoy its tediousness based gameplay.

[klaps_05]

Mmochamps: Waah, blizz is ruining the game
Also mmochamps: Waah, i dont want to grind in an mmo

[wraysbury]

Mmochamps: Waah, blizz is ruining the game
Also mmochamps: Waah, i dont want to grind in an mmo

MMO means "Massive Multiplayer Online". I don't see "grinding" anywhere in there. Where does this "MMO = Grinding" dogma comes from?

[Garymorilix]

It's not a solo challenge though? You can 2man, 4man, etc. Whether it's a challenge or not; visions are literally the most boring form of content i think i have ever done. Once I got my cloak to 15 i unsubbed.

What do you mean doing a solo 5 mask vision is not a solo challenge?

Yes, you can do it with more people but for the context of this thread I focused on the solo part. Why is this hard to understand?

The fact that neither you nor OP can even do a solo 5-mask run talks volumes about why there shouldn't be flying or anything locked behind actually challenging content.

[Eazy]

Why not both?
Same reward to challenging fast content and slow grind. (I don't count gear, though a few pieces would be nice, like it was in Nazjatar)
Like essences from EP: LFR gives less than normal, which gives less than heroic etc.

[Garymorilix]

What in the unholy fuck?

Yes, I suppose that's one way to do it. Or you can split it in multiple (2-3) challenges that are each let's say 60% of the difficulty of a 5 mask vision, to make it doable by everyone. Or you could have the option to do one challenge that hard, or multiple lower level difficulty challenges.

And no...I never once asked anyone to adapt to that level of challenge, I am open to any alternatives to meaningless, brain dead grinds.

And as for the closest we have in-game right now...have you never done Mage tower or other Legion activities in Suramar?

So you didn't do a 5-mask solo run. Okay. Pretty much met my expectation.

I have done the Mage Tower on all but 9 specs (cuz I didnt have those 3 classes leveled) so there's that, they were overall easier than a 5-mask solo run even before we could out-gear them. And I assume you are talking about being i-lvl appropriate for them not in decked-out Antorus gear.

What specs did u do the Mage Tower on? Any healers or tanks? Those were the true challenges, dps ones were basic.

Everything in Suramar was baby-walk, I dunno how that connects here.

Point is, you clearly can't do the actual challenging content that's in the game right now. In SL we will have Thorgast for a true solo challenge also but I doubt you'll be the one climbing the tower to the top.
There is a place for challenge and then there is a place for grind, this is an MMO.

[kamuimac]

1. Let's say you want to unlock flight.

Instead of meaningless shit like doing all the quests in new zones and unlocking 6 reputations, why not something like:

-> Complete all the quests in the new zones and complete these aerial challenges on hard difficulty (a race challenge, an aerial combat challenge, etc)

2. Let's say you want to become exalted with a race.

Instead of meaningless shit like doing the same repeatable quests to honored, revered, exalted, why not instead:

-> Complete the introductory quest for this faction, then these other story chains which will explore the story of these factions through quests, dungeons and exploration of lore items in the world, interlaced with personal challenges that require your skill as a solo player to overcome.

3. Let's say you want to level a profession.

Instead of crafting shit items over and over to get some levels, why not instead:

-> Have the option to go around the world to for example fix NPC's sword and armor, or enchant their gear, or do this even for players, giving you a skill level for say every 5 people helped.

I keep seeing this shit argument for the past 15 years about how "players are entitled and want easy rewards and you should be rewarded only for wasting this many hours in game doing shit tasks" to why I always reply: why? Why the fuck should we content ourselves to be masochistic instead of demanding more challenging/mentally stimulating, more interactive and more fun content?

seem like you are playing wrong genre.

mmorpgs are always about grinds.

go play dark souls or sekiro .

[Ange]

Mmochamps: Waah, blizz is ruining the game
Also mmochamps: Waah, i dont want to grind in an mmo

The 15-year old WoW with its constant casual direction is really hard to grasp for the fortnite generation. Going from hours-lasting console games to PC games that last for days/weeks is allready mindblowing for some players. But MMOs and in particular WoW are just to much for the limited imagination.

Lets change a worldwide successful game that did not change at all in 15 years to something that its target audience does not want. What a great idea, its the first of its kind.

[Army Dreamer]

5K gold was quite a challenging personal task back in TBC.

[Lolites]

What in the unholy fuck?

Yes, I suppose that's one way to do it. Or you can split it in multiple (2-3) challenges that are each let's say 60% of the difficulty of a 5 mask vision, to make it doable by everyone. Or you could have the option to do one challenge that hard, or multiple lower level difficulty challenges.

And no...I never once asked anyone to adapt to that level of challenge, I am open to any alternatives to meaningless, brain dead grinds.

And as for the closest we have in-game right now...have you never done Mage tower or other Legion activities in Suramar?

so basicaly, you dont want challenge, you just want reward faster...

[Flantini]

This just seems like a "If I'm good at the game I shouldn't have to wait or work for anything" thread. So what are these things that you wanted faster? you mentioned flying, reps, and professions, all three of which aren't needed to enjoy the game.

For flying, they want to reward you for actually playing a lot and grinding our these reps, so they reward you with a faster way to travel. With all the flight points and flight masters whistle and 5 min cd hearth, flying isn't a big deal.

For rep, it seems like you just don't want to grind it out and since you can jump out of the fire on a few mechanics you should get max in a day and the other "scrubs" can grind it out.

Professions are supposed to be a large material sink, and it makes sense to craft lower lvl items to get the skill you need to craft better items, it wouldn't make much sense if I just played a couple games of stump then bam!, master blacksmith because I can flip a hammer.

All in all if all these systems you want get implemented then what? Because I raid mythic and got 2200 in arena I should have all profs/reps maxed out in one day then I can sit on the forums and say this game has nothing to do. There are some systems in this game that require grinds, so are all work (like reps,and profs) some are work/luck as with mounts and other drops. There are also skill based systems, like 5 mask runs, mythic 15s, and arenas that reward skill and allow you to gear up faster. I don't want some jump puzzle or single player skill test around every system in the game and it wouldn't be fun to out skill everything and unlock all reps/mounts/toys/profs because I have the skill to do so, some things should just be about effort and that's okay.

[wraysbury]

Lets change a worldwide successful game that did not change at all in 15 years to something that its target audience does not want. What a great idea, its the first of its kind.

Wow is not a successful game anymore today. The paltry amount of activity on this forum and the official forum is evidence of that. Heck, by today's standards of success (that would be at least 20 million players), wow was never that successful.

There's a reason why Blizzard is dedicating so much of shadowland's development budget in revamping the new player experience. It's not for the sake of the players with 50 alts who have been living in wow's bubble for so long that they don't even know what a real game is like anymore.

[PaladinBash]

"I am too lazy to do anything ever but I want to get this reward!", the argument. Every single time it boils down to the same thing. Some try-hard who thinks nothing of grinding 500 dungeons to get a 1% simmed potential DPS upgrade from a specific piece for a certain set is mad he has to do dailies and calls them dull repetitive content that lacks challenge or interaction, completely unlike what he does which is skilled and shows how amazing he is. This is the kind of mindset these people have. If you want some random shit, you have to do dailies or something similar for it. It has to be a grind if only because it pisses you people off. I am glad for that. You people ignore the grinds you already do because you don't care about them but cry the second something else has to be grinded.

Let there be grinds. I don't care if they exist but that they piss off try-hards and always have makes them glorious.

[wraysbury]

"I am too lazy to do anything ever but I want to get this reward!", the argument.

No, the argument is "hard work is to do things that matter, playing games is to have fun". There a very few things as mindbogglingly idiotic as the words "hard work" and "laziness" applied to a video game.

[Michael Jackson]

So you didn't do a 5-mask solo run. Okay. Pretty much met my expectation.

I have done the Mage Tower on all but 9 specs (cuz I didnt have those 3 classes leveled) so there's that, they were overall easier than a 5-mask solo run even before we could out-gear them. And I assume you are talking about being i-lvl appropriate for them not in decked-out Antorus gear.

What specs did u do the Mage Tower on? Any healers or tanks? Those were the true challenges, dps ones were basic.

Everything in Suramar was baby-walk, I dunno how that connects here.

Point is, you clearly can't do the actual challenging content that's in the game right now. In SL we will have Thorgast for a true solo challenge also but I doubt you'll be the one climbing the tower to the top.
There is a place for challenge and then there is a place for grind, this is an MMO.

did you even read what i posted or are you just here to pick fights?

[Ange]

Heck, by today's standards of success (that would be at least 20 million players), wow was never that successful.

Did you just compare a sub-MMO with any of the free-to-play games that are riding the soon-to-be-outlawed train with - primed for gambling/young gamers model?

I guess you are right, some weeks/months existing smartphone games that target young gamers are clearly more successful as the 15year old running sub MMO with no real competition but its classic version on the market.

Enjoy your superior smartphone game and next week the successor and in 2 weeks the 3rd gen.