WTF happened after 8.1.5?

[Waterisbest]

The amount on unnecessary grinding has turned this game into a borefest. Yes, the grind always existed, but it had a purpose, now it exists to get in /played time. There are many classes and specs, but you can't have 2-3 "mains" anymore because of the boring grind. Even the 1st main feels like having an actual job even if you just want to play slightly above casual level. This needs to be addressed.

[Gaidax]

8.3 is a whole different kettle of fish because you're constantly pulled in different directions to unlock/obtain different parts. Do I farm for Azerite? Do I farm AP? Do I farm for my essences? Do I farm my cloak? Do I farm echoes for corruptions? etc. If we have more end patches like this then I'll be really dismayed.

I mean, 8.3 has plenty of problems but Azerite and AP is not one of them, at this point you got so much knowledge stacked that you literally can get to needed AP level in a matter of days by just playing the game, same goes for Azerite where you are literally getting it thrown in your face. One and a half or 2 weekly chests will give you enough currency to deck yourself in full 460 Azerite right there, sure it won't be 100% optimal, but that's 90% of the power already there almost immediately even without pug raiding.

Essences are a bit more problematic, some are still annoying to get- expect 2-4 resets there depending on what is needed. The real problem, though is Corruption. Vendor can help, but this is a huge power boost that is not exactly being thrown at you just yet. Now that's a bitch for sure.

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What are you talking about? Essences and corruptions are just as time consuming the same as Azerite Armor if not more. The catch up mechanisms help a little bit, but they are nowhere near what they're cracked up to be. You're still looking at at least 10-14 hours game play just to still be 15-20 ilvls behind everyone else. This isn't opinion, this is fact. The dude speaks the truth.

I think I said just that???

You sure you read stuff I wrote?

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Almost every expansions has required it in recent years.

MoP had the Cloak, WoD had the ring, Legion had the artifact (if you didn't do it you wouldn't unlock important artifact abilities or items like the Nether Crucible), and now BfA has the new cloak. Like I said, if that bothers you too much, play something else, doesn't look like it's changing, since SL will require who knows how much max level questing to unlock things in your covenant.

Exactly that.

While I agree that gap is annoying indeed and IMO Blizz could and should further relax previous patches requirements, but to say you did not have to quest and shit to catch up? That's rich.

I'm not sure there was even one last patch of expansion where you could return at patch -2 level and not need to quest your ass off to get up to speed. It's really a WoW thing and ever was.

[Great Destiny Man]

I mean, 8.3 has plenty of problems but Azerite and AP is not one of them, at this point you got so much knowledge stacked that you literally can get to needed AP level in a matter of days by just playing the game, same goes for Azerite where you are literally getting it thrown in your face. One and a half or 2 weekly chests will give you enough currency to deck yourself in full 460 Azerite right there, sure it won't be 100% optimal, but that's 90% of the power already there almost immediately even without pug raiding.

Essences are a bit more problematic, some are still annoying to get- expect 2-4 resets there depending on what is needed. The real problem, though is Corruption. Vendor can help, but this is a huge power boost that is not exactly being thrown at you just yet. Now that's a bitch for sure.

Maybe not the best examples, but it's not so much about difficulty but more the fact it's just not exactly in tandem with the rest. Like I say in Legion you could pretty much do whatever you want and basically work on all systems concurrently. 8.3 isn't anywhere near that level of uniformity.

[Gleem]

To everyone saying, "The game's always required a major grind to catch up," No... No it has not. In Wrath and Cata, you could easily catch up in one lucky alt run of the current raid if no one else needed the gear. I've done that more than once. In Dragonsoul, I literally got carried through one run of heroic before I was doing comparable numbers to everyone else on a hunter. I was competitive in dps with other hunters doing the highest level content in around 5 hours of being max level. Yeah, I got fed gear, 100%. It could have taken longer to grind that gear out the normal way. But the fact is still that anyone theoretically could have done that with luck combined with a willing group of friends, or enough gold to buy your way through it. In MoP they added the cloak, and that was the one thing you needed to grind up outside getting fed gear. In WoD it was the ring. In Legion they added new systems. Now you need to farm AP and farm legendaries, and hope for good Relics. In BfA now you need neck levels, Azerite armor, Essences, and Corruption, all of which require their own grinds and some require praying to RNG.

As the game has progressed beyond Wrath, you've needed to spend more and more time catching up if you haven't played the expansion yet. Saying, "Well what did you expect," if someone hasn't played the game in a couple of expansions is.. they expected it to be as fast as it used to be. Claiming the game's, "Always been this grindy," is disingenuous at best, trolling at worst. People hated WoD because there was nothing to grind.

[Nevcairiel]

You didn't used to be required to do 10-15+ hours of questing, you could grind the gear from pvp or dungeons or whatever.

When? Not in the last 4 expansions (MoP to BfA), they all had various powerful items that were locked behind long-term progression. And 4 expansions is about half the lifetime of WoW entirely at this point.

So... this ain't exactly news. If you return in the last patch of an expansion, you get to catch up. And that hasn't been just gear in a long time.

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if someone hasn't played the game in a couple of expansions is.. they expected it to be as fast as it used to be.

Expecting the game to be exactly the same as it was over 6 years+ ago is not a realistic expectation, however.

[Gaidax]

*snip*

And that's it. If that. even. So you had a period of let's say 4 years out of 15 where this was not as much of a thing. And even then it was a decade ago, OK?

[Great Destiny Man]

To everyone saying, "The game's always required a major grind to catch up," No... No it has not. In Wrath and Cata, you could easily catch up in one lucky alt run of the current raid if no one else needed the gear.

That's not really catchup though, that's just about straight up getting boosted.

[ReVnX]

Imagine if you didn't have the PvP scaling to hold your hand

This is an MMORPG, putting more time in should be rewarded

[Zantera]

What happened to the game was basically you didn't play it for 1 ½ year and new content was added. Believe it or not, life doesn't stop evolving around you just because you put a game away for almost 2 years.

[Kuntantee]

His problems have nothing to do with Azerite armor, get off your roofies.

His problem is purely 8.2 and 8.3 stuff - essences and corruptions, which indeed take time to gather, but are immense power boosts. Azerite armor is just a piece of gear at this point you can get pretty easily, either from pugs or simply buying all heroic pieces in a matter of one week's chest.

Essences and corruptions, on the other hand - you can't get from one shitty HC pug run or buy a full set of those from vendor in capital city almost immediately.

Other than that, I am not sure what you are so triggered about - ultimately it was always the case last 5-6 years. 2 major patches gap is a serious gap that always required grind. That's literally difference between how you are at start of expansion and at the end of it - was always big and you always had these tacked on systems in the end.

That's what I meant, the essences, not azerite.

[temple1906]

I think the point OP is trying to make, albeit poorly, is that there are too many independent systems for returning players. I quit about two weeks into Eternal Palace. A bunch of friends decided to come back to the game a few weeks after 8.3 and I decided to start a new character on their server to play with them. After hitting cap I had to worry about:
Neck Level
Azerite Armor
Essences
Cloak
Corruption
Neck level isn't so bad because of AK. Azerite Armor isn't terrible anymore since it's easy to farm out a serviceable set. Essences though....Essences are rough. I have to grind outdated content to get the essences I need, while grinding my cloak, and grinding corruptions. It's just too much. It makes the game feel like a job. For my friends, they didn't mind at all since it was all new to them. They hadn't played since WotLK. But for me, as someone that quit because he was tired of the constant grind in 8.2, it just exacerbated my issues. If Blizzard is going to make the content of previous patches obsolete then they shouldn't make you grind that same content to get to where they want you.

[Alcsaar]

What happened to the game was basically you didn't play it for 1 ½ year and new content was added. Believe it or not, life doesn't stop evolving around you just because you put a game away for almost 2 years.

Good example of why the game is dying.

Only the people who enjoy spending 5 hours a day on wow every single day doing dailies and all the other shit get to be competitive. People who can't stand doing that longer than a couple months get absolutely fucked over and have zero desire to return to the game until a "full reset" (new expansion), which is what its looking like im going to have to do now cause to hell with doing boring max level questing content just to try to be on even footing in PvP on top of all the essence, corruption, AP, etc grinding.

You can feel special if you want for being on the spectrum and being able to play like that every single day, but it isn't healthy for the games longevity, which is why every single expansion since they started doing this shit sees numbers dwindling down over the age of the expansion and never bouncing back.

[Gaidax]

Good example of why the game is dying.

Only the people who enjoy spending 5 hours a day on wow every single day doing dailies and all the other shit get to be competitive. People who can't stand doing that longer than a couple months get absolutely fucked over and have zero desire to return to the game until a "full reset" (new expansion), which is what its looking like im going to have to do now cause to hell with doing boring max level questing content just to try to be on even footing in PvP on top of all the essence, corruption, AP, etc grinding.

You can feel special if you want for being on the spectrum and being able to play like that every single day, but it isn't healthy for the games longevity, which is why every single expansion since they started doing this shit sees numbers dwindling down over the age of the expansion and never bouncing back.

Is it though?

So you want to tell me that if Blizzard would not add any meaningful content for a year plus then they would have more subs?

Where do I insert Juan Joya Borja laughing meme here again?

[msdos]

This expansion is nothing but drawing out your play time, if you try to go against it by playing something else or taking a break you get punished. All the problems could've been solved week 1 with vendors. Instead of corruptions and currencies and dailies and invasions, you literally could just put in a trinket that says, "increases haste by 50%" and put a low drop rate.

Instead of that, we get currency, then a little irritating scenario, then more world quests, then a vessel, then more currency and a mask and more currency, then you need to go do another chore, then wait for a lockout, then pay to respec your azerite, etc, etc, etc. It's supreme idiocy of the highest order, literal clown walking for no reason whatsoever other than to stretch your play time out.

Any time people try to justify an obvious extension when we could've just had "trinket increases haste by 50%", I know they're full of BS and have wool completely shed over their eyes. No one complained about the Arcano crystal being a boring stat stick, they only complained that it was hard to obtain, why do they keep going away from that??? Just to slap stat stick shit onto Azerite AND CORRUPTED GEAR? You're all being clowned with and it's hilarious.

[Gleem]

Then let me illustrate the process of gearing without "getting boosted." You'd hit max level, hit a few established catch-up questlines, hit some dungeons that gave gear way higher level than they required to do, use the catch-up currency to buy some gear, and you could still get to the point where you had the ilvl to run the normal version of the current raid in 10-15 hours of play, all of which could be plowed through in, at most, 2 weeks. In MoP and WoD, the only hard grind was the cloak/ring, both of which had major progression accelerators later on in the expansion to the point where it was possible to get to stage 3 in under 10 hours while doing all the stuff you needed to gear. If you didn't have the legendary version at the end of the expansion, but you were only 1 stage behind, groups were generally fine with it knowing it was a new character and you're just time gated. Your progress/power wasn't hindered that much.

I'm also glossing over BC, which outside possibly needing to grind attunements (which could be summoned around until you were attuned), they also had catch up gear systems in place, and all you really needed, again, was some luck with some gear. If you could be brought in on a raid above your gear level, progress could easily be skipped. Other than that, a lot of it was just doing older raids people would do anyway while you geared up. It didn't necessitate the level of grind now either.

But in Legion and especially BfA the grind is an ever-present thing, that just continues on and on. It's one of the biggest complaints now, that the grind literally never stops. I mean, essences alone can require you to farm arenas for weeks on end, weeks of dailies in Mechagon and Nazjatar, assaults, raid, etc depending on what essences your spec use. And, as OP was criticizing, that all requires you to grind outside the content you're likely trying to do (PVP, raiding, or M+). It used to be to gear up for PVP, you'd just... PVP. If you wanted to raid you'd just.. raid, and probably some dungeons, but still cooperative PvE. You do not have those options now. You hard have to grind all the other content for a very long time. It's certainly more than 10-15 hours.

I say all this from experience from someone who's had to alt swap multiple times per expansion in almost every expansion, and as someone who's quit and come back, or started late in a tier. I made it a game to see how fast it would take me to become competitive on a new character. Every expansion it's taken longer, but Legion and BfA have stood head and shoulders above every other expansion. At that point, that's 4 years of that level of grind compared to everything else where, at most, it'd take maybe 20 hours of grinding. Now, I can spend 20 hours just grinding a single essence on its own.

[Alcsaar]

Then let me illustrate the process of gearing without "getting boosted." You'd hit max level, hit a few established catch-up questlines, hit some dungeons that gave gear way higher level than they required to do, use the catch-up currency to buy some gear, and you could still get to the point where you had the ilvl to run the normal version of the current raid in 10-15 hours of play, all of which could be plowed through in, at most, 2 weeks. In MoP and WoD, the only hard grind was the cloak/ring, both of which had major progression accelerators later on in the expansion to the point where it was possible to get to stage 3 in under 10 hours while doing all the stuff you needed to gear. If you didn't have the legendary version at the end of the expansion, but you were only 1 stage behind, groups were generally fine with it knowing it was a new character and you're just time gated. Your progress/power wasn't hindered that much.

I'm also glossing over BC, which outside possibly needing to grind attunements (which could be summoned around until you were attuned), they also had catch up gear systems in place, and all you really needed, again, was some luck with some gear. If you could be brought in on a raid above your gear level, progress could easily be skipped. Other than that, a lot of it was just doing older raids people would do anyway while you geared up. It didn't necessitate the level of grind now either.

But in Legion and especially BfA the grind is an ever-present thing, that just continues on and on. It's one of the biggest complaints now, that the grind literally never stops. I mean, essences alone can require you to farm arenas for weeks on end, weeks of dailies in Mechagon and Nazjatar, assaults, raid, etc depending on what essences your spec use. And, as OP was criticizing, that all requires you to grind outside the content you're likely trying to do (PVP, raiding, or M+). It used to be to gear up for PVP, you'd just... PVP. If you wanted to raid you'd just.. raid, and probably some dungeons, but still cooperative PvE. You do not have those options now. You hard have to grind all the other content for a very long time. It's certainly more than 10-15 hours.

I say all this from experience from someone who's had to alt swap multiple times per expansion in almost every expansion, and as someone who's quit and come back, or started late in a tier. I made it a game to see how fast it would take me to become competitive on a new character. Every expansion it's taken longer, but Legion and BfA have stood head and shoulders above every other expansion. At that point, that's 4 years of that level of grind compared to everything else where, at most, it'd take maybe 20 hours of grinding. Now, I can spend 20 hours just grinding a single essence on its own.

Thanks, this is exactly what it feels like to me. Just layers and layers of boring ass grinding just to feel like I can finally "play the game" (pvp)

[temple1906]

Then let me illustrate the process of gearing without "getting boosted." You'd hit max level, hit a few established catch-up questlines, hit some dungeons that gave gear way higher level than they required to do, use the catch-up currency to buy some gear, and you could still get to the point where you had the ilvl to run the normal version of the current raid in 10-15 hours of play, all of which could be plowed through in, at most, 2 weeks. In MoP and WoD, the only hard grind was the cloak/ring, both of which had major progression accelerators later on in the expansion to the point where it was possible to get to stage 3 in under 10 hours while doing all the stuff you needed to gear. If you didn't have the legendary version at the end of the expansion, but you were only 1 stage behind, groups were generally fine with it knowing it was a new character and you're just time gated. Your progress/power wasn't hindered that much.

I'm also glossing over BC, which outside possibly needing to grind attunements (which could be summoned around until you were attuned), they also had catch up gear systems in place, and all you really needed, again, was some luck with some gear. If you could be brought in on a raid above your gear level, progress could easily be skipped. Other than that, a lot of it was just doing older raids people would do anyway while you geared up. It didn't necessitate the level of grind now either.

But in Legion and especially BfA the grind is an ever-present thing, that just continues on and on. It's one of the biggest complaints now, that the grind literally never stops. I mean, essences alone can require you to farm arenas for weeks on end, weeks of dailies in Mechagon and Nazjatar, assaults, raid, etc depending on what essences your spec use. And, as OP was criticizing, that all requires you to grind outside the content you're likely trying to do (PVP, raiding, or M+). It used to be to gear up for PVP, you'd just... PVP. If you wanted to raid you'd just.. raid, and probably some dungeons, but still cooperative PvE. You do not have those options now. You hard have to grind all the other content for a very long time. It's certainly more than 10-15 hours.

I say all this from experience from someone who's had to alt swap multiple times per expansion in almost every expansion, and as someone who's quit and come back, or started late in a tier. I made it a game to see how fast it would take me to become competitive on a new character. Every expansion it's taken longer, but Legion and BfA have stood head and shoulders above every other expansion. At that point, that's 4 years of that level of grind compared to everything else where, at most, it'd take maybe 20 hours of grinding. Now, I can spend 20 hours just grinding a single essence on its own.

This. I quit in 8.2 because it started to feel like a second job. Now it's even worse.

[Trend]

Good example of why the game is dying.

"The game is dying" because it's not exactly what I want was old in 2006. Get some better material.

Just layers and layers of boring ass grinding just to feel like I can finally "play the game" (pvp)

Then don't play. Nobody cares. If there is too much to do people will bitch and moan. If there is too little to do people will bitch and moan. Entitled customers will complain no matter what. Personally I can't believe people would complain about an investment of a few hours in an MMO after taking a year off, but whatever floats your boat.

[Kagthul]

So I quit playing around 8.1.5 because well the game sucked lets be honest.

I wanted to come back to kill some time just doing arenas with my buddy, only to find out that to even stand a chance in pvp I basically have to do max level questing (which i despise) for 10-15+ hours just to stand any chance in pvp on ONE CHARACTER (I play lots of alts)

WTF happened to this game? Why are they make it so difficult and grindy for people who just want to pvp and not do any questing get back into the game?

Why do you feel entitled to only play one portion of the game and get the same results as smone who plays them all?

As someone who has never done PvE as his primary end game - i PvP almost exclusively - ive never understood this shit. “WAAAHHHH i want to be just as good as someone who does 10x the work without actually doing it!!!11a!1”1!1,”

[salate]

I gave up on alts this xpac... Its uber boring to repeat the same stuff over and over. Legion wasnt this boring.