It's time to start thinking about the 450 and 500 mounts achievements

[DeltrusDisc]

They do, but if you look at the numbers I posted above, even with new mounts, etc the percentages for attainable mounts (60%) vs RNG (40%) is not that great imo. The amount of RNG mounts should be closer to ~15% when it comes to terms with the achievement. That way it makes each one achievable and then the last one they put out still require a bit of RNG luck.

This one is a mixed bag. I'd prefer the achievement to be more obtainable without needing PvP, non-obtainable reps, or ones where you swap sides. I'd also prefer if they counted leveling bodyguards/fisher friends and stuff since most of them take the same amount of time as leveling a bodyguard.[/QUOTE]
The only PVP reputation I have is AV, which is arguably the easiest one, since AV is mostly a PVE match up.
I am 90% sure I only have 1 non-obtainable reputation.
I don't have any swap side ones, unless you mean like the Aldor and Scryers/Scholazar Basin and not swapping factions?

This achievement is a true feat of strength and dedication. I'd rather not see it made into a joke, like so many before it.

- - - Updated - - -

got 400 or 450 or 500 mounts how about a free ingame shop mount of your choosing / how about that ?

LOL are you kidding?! Put forth literally weeks or months of effort for a mount someone can pay $25 for? Please share whatever you're smoking, friend.

[Lucetia]

This achievement is a true feat of strength and dedication. I'd rather not see it made into a joke, like so many before it.

Well I mean next expansion it will be infinitely easier to get than now.[/QUOTE]

[ReVnX]

It's even time to start thinking about the 550 and 600 achievements

[Vakir]

Didn't they confirm that a post-400 achievement may not even be in the cards immediately, just because they "don't want people to feel forced to get certain mounts/for it to be too out of reach?"

...I think that reasoning is fucking asinine, but they did say it.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=316830/...on-hazzikostas

[Azerate]

Past experiences show that, if a mount perfectly fits a specific zone in an expansion, it's going to be sold in the shop.

And we have the obligatory omg actiblizz cuts the best looking mounts from the game and sells them for cash !!!111one

What makes the Soundless mount tolerable is the group finder tool and the fact that the community (EU at least) has really pulled together to help each other out on this one. It effectively nullifies the problem of Soundless being a rare spawn.

That being said, I think that the writing is on the wall. If someone wants this mount they should get on it now while there is still sufficient interest in it that groups are forming regularly. Come SL and I think it's going to be a tough one to try farm.

The one saving grace of the MoP world boss mounts is that they can be bought of the BMAH (well, 3 of them at least). I obtained 2 of them that way, getting them back in WoD before the gold cap was raised. 955K for the Son of Galleon, and 400K for Nalak's mount

Agreed about Soundless. I feel like community really came together for this one. And also I think this is actually an emanation of a larger phenomenon. These past years collectors have really started connecting more, and popular hotspots for them often turn into really wholesome community experiences. There's plenty examples but just look at the spawn points of mop world bosses on a Wednesday or a Thursday. People just talking, having fun, jumping on different mounts, sharing experiences. I've had more conversations with people while camping mounts (even though I usually prefer to half-afk it) than throuhgout my whole 3 week experience with wow classic, which was supposed to be this pinnacle of player interaction (spoiler: it isn't).

As for the mop world bosses themselves, I actually enjoy them. I feel like they are this pinnacle crowning RNG feat that one can achieve. BMAH kind of cheapens that in my eyes, but there's not much I can do about it. I'm gonna get all mine the original way. Currently 2/4.

Didn't they confirm that a post-400 achievement may not even be in the cards immediately, just because they "don't want people to feel forced to get certain mounts/for it to be too out of reach?"

...I think that reasoning is fucking asinine, but they did say it.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=316830/...on-hazzikostas

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I do understand that reasoning and I kind of agree with it.

The way this game has always worked was that achievements were doable. With some debatable outliers, but still. Now I know that whenever I bring this up, someone who completely misses the point rushes with their "ooh so you want eveerrrybody to be able to do everything?. And to that I once again pre-emptively explain: No, but achievements should be within reasonable posibility of being attained by a player commited to the cause. They should never require literal 100% mastery of a given piece of content, such achievements should be limited to Feats of Strength, and they are, if they exist at all.

Some examples:

Back in Wrath: Heroic ToC had a regular achievement for its completion, and then it head different FoS achievements for crazy feats in the raid, such as no wipes, and even no deaths throughout the whole raid.

Legion: Achievement for the completion of your class campaign? Sure. Achievement for completing the class campaign on every available class? Feat of Strength.

BfA: There's an achievement for all essences at level 3, and then there's FoS "Phenomenal Cosmic Power" (All Rank 4s from 8.2)

At the moment, owning every mount, excluding promotional, tcg, bmah, raf, ranked-pvp, and any other unavailable ones, will probably put you roughly around a 500 mark. At the moment, a reasonable person shouldn't expect a 500 mount achievement to be added, maybe even 450 would be too much, but of course after including the ones from SL the latter might become somewhat more doable for a regular player. At the current state of the game (8.3) I feel like 400 is still reasonably hard and someone who has that many mounts is already a pretty hardcore mount farmer, especially if they missed a lot unobtainable mounts.

A system that could potentially make sense is to classify those achievements as FoS for a while, and then revert them to regular ones later down the line, but that would be a weird and unprecendented situation. Better just leave it as it is, so wait a bit longer and then add it.

This isn't new philosophy either. I remember as far back as Wrath, which was actually when achievements were added in the first place, that people already complained that there should be more achievements for # of mounts collected than there are. Like 10 years have passed since then, maybe it's time to make peace with what the achievements should be - acquirable.

[Vakir]

And we have the obligatory omg actiblizz cuts the best looking mounts from the game and sells them for cash !!!111one

I mean.

They do.

Not 100% of the time, as obviously some products are commissioned to be store mounts from the beginning.

But I'm not gonna buy that the faerie dragons in Warlords Shadowmoon just happened to show up as store mounts within the same timeframe they'd have been developed for that zone. The Luminous Starseeker literally being the same as the Argus cats we fought daily. Vulpine Familiar for Ardenweald, up to having recolors from there soon. Sylverian Dreamer having clear Bastion analogues....

The funniest argument I've heard was that something as obvious as Heart of the Aspects wasn't a planned Heroic reward for Madness of Deathwing rather than a terrible recolor. "Well, we don't know that they cannibalized it into a shop mount and just threw a recolor of Blazing Drake on him for heroic...they probably commissioned the store mount and just happened to have it show up in the Dragon Soul raid!"

Yeah, the fucking store mount designed to be a store mount showed up in a cutscene for the raid...only 3 months before the mount was on sale.

On topic, yeah, something like 500 is out of range. 450 is rough, but doable with SL mounts. Maybe they can start going back to 25 increments.

[Inxotep]

450 should be stormcrow, it's high time it makes it into the game.

They even teased us with it in the bfa lordaeron intro..

[Azerate]

But I'm not gonna buy that the faerie dragons in Warlords Shadowmoon just happened to show up as store mounts within the same timeframe they'd have been developed for that zone. The Luminous Starseeker literally being the same as the Argus cats we fought daily. Vulpine Familiar for Ardenweald, up to having recolors from there soon. Sylverian Dreamer having clear Bastion analogues....

The funniest argument I've heard was that something as obvious as Heart of the Aspects wasn't a planned Heroic reward for Madness of Deathwing rather than a terrible recolor. "Well, we don't know that they cannibalized it into a shop mount and just threw a recolor of Blazing Drake on him for heroic...they probably commissioned the store mount and just happened to have it show up in the Dragon Soul raid!".

It's fair game to assume these things happened, it's a bit of a reach to consider these objective facts though. I've looked at some SL mount previews, haven't seen any that use the same model as Vulpine Familiar or Sylverian Dreamer. Both of which are good looking mounts, but I wouldn't really call them best looking or anything like that. It's a whole different thing to say that cash shop mounts have ties to in-game themes, than to say "it was planned as an in-game reward and then was ripped out by corporate to be sold for real life money". It just makes sense for them to be somehow connected to the in-game world, I mean why wouldn't they be?

The real problem of the statement I quote above is that it always also carries with itself the underlying accusation that the cash shop mounts are the best looking in the game, while the ones added to the game all look shit. And that's just an incredibly ignorant opinion of someone who either doesn't play the game ta all (like in this case, per admission of the poster themselves) or plays the game but has no idea what mounts are being added.

Tastes are always subjective of course, but the game certainly does not suffer from shortage of new mounts, many of which have some great designs. To claim otherwise simply means the person doesn't know what they are talking about.

[Vakir]

It's fair game to assume these things happened, it's a bit of a reach to consider these objective facts though. I've looked at some SL mount previews, haven't seen any that use the same model as Vulpine Familiar or Sylverian Dreamer. Both of which are good looking mounts, but I wouldn't really call them best looking or anything like that. It's a whole different thing to say that cash shop mounts have ties to in-game themes, than to say "it was planned as an in-game reward and then was ripped out by corporate to be sold for real life money". It just makes sense for them to be somehow connected to the in-game world, I mean why wouldn't they be?

https://www.wowhead.com/news=316560/...-mount-preview


Not an objective fact, no, but...there's a huge difference between "This has some ties to the in-game world" and "This is something that heavily features in the in-game world and could reasonably be connected to a faction that has a lack of engaging rewards that could easily include it."

There's an entire cross-section of Shadowmoon that trains those faerie dragons, even though it actively worked to the detriment of racial identity and homogenized, as faerie dragons were originally strongly druidic or Night Elven themed. You help them out, but generally nothing comes of it, and we ended up with about 15 boar recolors while faerie dragons were paid only. WoD was heavily criticized for its poor mount selection and poor animations. This is different from, say, the Dreadwake, which could easily fit into something like Stormsong Valley and might even have inspirations from it, but isn't a blatantly existing asset connected to its identity.

It's not 100% impossible that it was never on their radar, but you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that's a realist about how these things work. Game companies ostensibly are passionate about games they create first and the business end is another, separate part of it - but as soon as a game is a service driven by a larger corporation and it also has microtransactions on top of subscriptions, you're actively fighting against that same company of how much they are going to nickle and dime you, because corporations are not your friends. This means they're only going to do as much as they feel they can get away with.

Dragon Soul was a shitshow, but nothing stops them from, prior to 8.3 release, going ahead and removing the Wicked Swarmer from Wrathion, making it the Mythic N'Zoth drop, and throwing up the Allseer on the mount shop 6 months later. They'd make a ton and it would only upset the top 0.1%. The thing that prevents them is how transparent it would be and how negative the reception to paid mounts is now vs. 9 years ago.

It's very, very easy to reverse the same logic for any mount put into the game. The Honeyback Harvester was a rep grind created out of wholecloth to allow acquisition of the mount for no direct cost beyond time invested. It would be very, very easy to sell it for money and not make that rep grind. It would actively benefit Activision-Blizzard's shareholders and bottom-line. But hoo boy would people lose it after it was MIA for several patch cycles despite being datamined.

In a perfect world, the income from these same mounts would go towards development of a better game, but late capitalism means that it generally doesn't. It goes to the top.

In agreement, though, that the quality is subjective, and I'd disagree that any are the "best" looking ones. It just grinds my gears when it feels like content that fits naturalistically into the game has been moved somewhere else. It feels like a bit more of the imaginations of talented artists have become business and the game world feels just a bit smaller.

[Othraerir]

I just got 400 today with the darkmoon mount i had been saving up for months

I wish island mounts were a bit easier to get, I only have 1, hopefully you can just solo them or something in SL.

I still have plenty of other world boss mounts and other things I could get, so 450 isn't too much of a stretch for me.

[Lucetia]

hopefully you can just solo them or something in SL.

Really hoping in SL you can solo queue like you can for LFR.

[Zyrinx]

Really hoping in SL you can solo queue like you can for LFR.

I hope I can get my last one (the Mogu one? Really? Mogu are like the most common main mobs ffs...) before SL but yeah they should deffo add this.

[Azerate]

Dragon Soul was a shitshow, but nothing stops them from, prior to 8.3 release, going ahead and removing the Wicked Swarmer from Wrathion, making it the Mythic N'Zoth drop, and throwing up the Allseer on the mount shop 6 months later. They'd make a ton and it would only upset the top 0.1%. The thing that prevents them is how transparent it would be and how negative the reception to paid mounts is now vs. 9 years ago.

It's very, very easy to reverse the same logic for any mount put into the game. The Honeyback Harvester was a rep grind created out of wholecloth to allow acquisition of the mount for no direct cost beyond time invested. It would be very, very easy to sell it for money and not make that rep grind. It would actively benefit Activision-Blizzard's shareholders and bottom-line. But hoo boy would people lose it after it was MIA for several patch cycles despite being datamined.

In a perfect world, the income from these same mounts would go towards development of a better game, but late capitalism means that it generally doesn't. It goes to the top.

In agreement, though, that the quality is subjective, and I'd disagree that any are the "best" looking ones. It just grinds my gears when it feels like content that fits naturalistically into the game has been moved somewhere else. It feels like a bit more of the imaginations of talented artists have become business and the game world feels just a bit smaller.

Yeah, these are things that we will never really know for sure.

Like I said above, my main point of contention is that I disagree the store mounts are taking anything from the game, and that seems to be one of the most important point in people critiquing them, besides just the opinion that the real money mounts shouldn't exist in a subscription game.

For some reason people think it's a fact that were it not for the cash shop, those mounts would have been made available in the game for free, which is an assumption made based on assuming ill intent, and nothing more.

I judge what I see, and I see countless cool mounts in the game, many with new and unique models. Cash shop mounts are just a nice bonus on top of all that for those who want to support Blizzard in an additional way.

[Rhelyo]

Agree with people that say achieve for 500 mounts owned should reward something very nice and unique not a recolour.I am about 3-4 mounts away from 500.

I have an idea for the mounts.Like say alliance character is rewarded with a horde saddle as in mounting a horde class while horde are rewarded an alliance saddle as in mounting an alliance class.
Imagine the possibilities a gnome riding a tauren.An orc riding a human.Dont want to go into more examples.
Obviously i am joking but rly we need something unique.500 are alot of mounts and a roundish number.Should be something head turning.

- - - Updated - - -

At this point in time mounts just no longer have any appeal for me. There are SO MANY over the top mounts in the game now, some of them are batshit insane and don't feel like WoW mounts at all. I just cannot care anymore, there are too many of them, and they are too crazy.

Blizzard needs to invent some other worthwhile cosmetics, cos slapping another mount reward just isn't making the players engage that much anymore. Glory of Ny'Alotha Raider rewards something almost identical to the thing that you get from doing both 5-mask visions. Why go through the trouble?

Besides, I just wish my mounts could fly in patch x.0 again. The pathfinder system activating in patch x.2 is by far the worst thing WoW implemented in recent years (besides huge RNG on gear). No flying for the first half of the xpac is one of two reasons why I am coming back to play x.3 patches only now (7.3 in legion, 8.3 in BFA, skipped everything else). The other reason is shit character (mainly: lack of haste, slow ass gameplay especially in BFA with the GCD changes)

Here are some ideas of new cosmetics for the game.

1. Wings that could come in very various models/skins
2.Character permanent auras underneath your character like the ones in W3.Rogue can be green for poison.Warrior can be red for rage etc..
Can probably thing of other cosmetics if i think about it.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh God, I hope not.

I'd rather take the red Hearthsteed... In fact, ANYTHING that flies, for both, thanks.

What if the frog suddenly grow wings? I mean hell its WoW.

[tromage2]

Would like one of these, Devilsaur mount should had been in BfA but they shoukld make one for the achievements or timewalking then.

[Lord Pebbleton]

The simple fact is this: Blizzard make a lot less money off subs than they did in the past. They also have a more sizeable development team. Now you can stubbornly decide to not believe that this will affect the amount of the content they are going to produce unless they find alternative means of generating revenue from the game, but that's not to going change reality.
Secondly, my point was actually that without the shop, we'd lose not only the items on the shop, but a lot more content as well. Because when a product like WoW fails to bring in enough revenue - they will find ways to cut costs.
True enough. But they're still far more likely to be acquired in-game.
Well I guess you're entitled to your opinion. Still seems to me though like a silly thing to get oneself worked up about.

I might come across as worked up, but I am actually not. I just really dislike the in-game shop and I wish Blizzard would explore different options instead. I will concede, however, that other solutions may be even less palatable, so I'll just suck it up and see the reasonable side of the situation.

And we have the obligatory omg actiblizz cuts the best looking mounts from the game and sells them for cash !!!111one

I don't know why you felt the need to paraphrase my words like I am incapable of coherent thoughts, but I never said that the best mounts are on the shop. I said that a few of the most expansion-oriented and appropriate ones are on there, which, while not true for all store mount, is a fact for some. I personally do not like the aesthetics of the majority of the things sold there.

[Trollokdamus]

I disagree the store mounts are taking anything from the game

I mean, the faction that rides ravagers does not reward you with a ravager at exalted. Same goes for the faction that rides fey dragons. They reward you with recolors of the mounts they are never seen using while both ravager and fey dragon ended up as store mounts. How is this not taking something from the game?

[Azerate]

I mean, the faction that rides ravagers does not reward you with a ravager at exalted. Same goes for the faction that rides fey dragons. They reward you with recolors of the mounts they are never seen using while both ravager and fey dragon ended up as store mounts. How is this not taking something from the game?

Because you have no actual proof those mounts would have existed and be available in-game through gameplay had the cash shop not existed. That is a possibility, but equally likely possibility is that they wouldn't have existed at all had it not been for cash shop.

What if instead of being a reason to withdraw content from the game, the cash shop is actually an incentive to add additional content that can fill out some thematic blanks in the game? Which is better, the game without a fey dragon mount at all, or a game where you can buy a fey dragon for real money?

[Trollokdamus]

Because you have no actual proof those mounts would have existed and be available in-game through gameplay had the cash shop not existed. That is a possibility, but equally likely possibility is that they wouldn't have existed at all had it not been for cash shop.

What if instead of being a reason to withdraw content from the game, the cash shop is actually an incentive to add additional content that can fill out some thematic blanks in the game? Which is better, the game without a fey dragon mount at all, or a game where you can buy a fey dragon for real money?

I can see your theory working when it comes to exceptional models like the fey dragon, but very much doubt that the addition of something as basic and integral to the world as ravagers or dread ravens was incentivized by the cash shop.

[Lei]

Because you have no actual proof those mounts would have existed and be available in-game through gameplay had the cash shop not existed. That is a possibility, but equally likely possibility is that they wouldn't have existed at all had it not been for cash shop.

What if instead of being a reason to withdraw content from the game, the cash shop is actually an incentive to add additional content that can fill out some thematic blanks in the game? Which is better, the game without a fey dragon mount at all, or a game where you can buy a fey dragon for real money?

They needed the mount model for the flight master (in case of the fey dragon for sure), so they had to exist. So I mean if you hold the model in your hands already, it's an active decision as to what to do with it. It would have made perfect sense and honestly honing previous traditions to put them as exalted rewards. But they didn't. Instead, the decision with the created and existing model was to put on the shop.