The Mobile Game Aspects Of Shadowlands Needs To Go.

[Jtbrig7390]

So much stuff at level 60 is timed in some way and IMO it holds the experience back greatly.

The things I am talking about are...

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

The leveling experience in Shadowlands IMO was smooth. But all of gates and caps screams mobile gameplay and funny enough some of it can be played on their app. I legit have nothing to do the rest of the week unless I level a alt because of all of the caps and super slow grinds. Everything feels like its in place to make you play longer and not have fun.

All of this stuff is honestly pushing me away from SL and making me want to play it less. Sucks because there is also a decent amount here I really enjoy. I have loved the leveling and the dungeons.

That is just my 2cents tho, do you Agree? Disagree? or somewhere in between.

[HitRefresh]

Yeah I hate the caps. I want to keep playing and earn things, they're basically forcing me to stop playing and I'm probably going to lose interest once CP77 is out.

[Jtbrig7390]

Yeah I hate the caps. I want to keep playing and earn things, they're basically forcing me to stop playing and I'm probably going to lose interest once CP77 is out.

My sub ends 3 days before CP77 and honestly no clue when ill resub at this point. I'm already in a spot I got nothing to do because of the slow grind or caps.

[Schattenlied]

2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).

7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

These two especially make no sense... If you have noname units with a heal (I know Night Fae do) you can send them on an easy mission with a healers and heal them up that way for much cheaper... There's no reason for it to take so long to heal on their own, nor should it cost so much to heal them manually.

And not being able to mount in the maw is just stupid considering about 15% of the playerbase gets to ignore that rule, as Druids get their full power Travel Form in there, and Worgen can use Running Wild, both granting mounted movespeed... It's absurd... Even the lore excuse for not being able to mount there, "Your mount ignores your call while in the maw", falls apart under scrutiny, as any mount that is not "alive" cannot refuse your summons, such as mechanostriders, motorcycles, etc. if the mount is an inanimate object and has no free will, how is it ignoring my summons? What about the items that turn YOU into a mount, like the Vial of the Sands (Sandstone Drake), why can't I use that? It's ME, no different from a Druid shapeshifting.

Complete stupidity.

[Noctiphobia]

Almost all of the time gates are something that has existed for years. Did you know that you can do raid bosses only once a week?
Mythic+ is probably the only thing in WoW since forever that you can do as much as you want, and even then, the really good equipment only drops once per week.
Torghast is locked for the same reason M+, arena and raids are locked, how is this surprising to you?
Swapping soulbinds costs because it's intended as a semi-permanent choice rather than something you swap before each boss fight (like you already do with talents).
I agree with the maw mount, though. The stated reason is so that you can't just mount through some of the threats in the maw, but they could just make them dismount you.

Anyway, I assume you have done all mythics already, but do you have full 184 item level gear? If not, you can farm honor to get it.

[Kiri]

This does feel kind of odd to me. When I think mobile games, I think very grindy games that do not time-gate progress as much as they slow it down so you have to play lots of repetitive stuff, especially in the RPG realm.

I enjoy the current, less grindy style a bit more. Mostly because I can see the conundrum the Devs are in there. They have to get in the MAUs from players, but the amount of content they can produce is finite. So, if they don't timegate and you can grind endlessly, then the grind has to be less rewarding to keep you grinding. Else, instead of running out of stuff to do for the week in a day, you run out of stuff to do for a patch in a week, progression wise. It's not really that much better. Whichever you prefer is up to you, of course. But it is fairly apparent that without timegates, there would be other means to stretch the grind, much like systems were in the past. Other people were unhappy with that version, too. Impossible to make everyone happy, really.

And I mean, to an extent, that is okay, too. If you have preferences like that, it might be best for you to drop the sub for a while and play other games, then hop back in when most time-gates are over and grind your face blue (?) with catchups. Might be more enjoyable. It's more likely to lead to a positive experience than hoping that you can convince Blizz to change this so soon after launch.

[Ryzeth]

So much stuff at level 60 is timed in some way and IMO it holds the experience back greatly.

The things I am talking about are...

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
This is fine. Stops people foaming over minmaxing every single little thing they do, all the time. Terrible mindset.

2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
I'm on the fence about this one. Means you have to choose your missions more wisely, or farm more anima.

3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
This is flat out false. They've said when the next stages are coming out.

4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
I'm fine with this. I don't like feeling pressured to grind shit. Let me cap for the week and that's that.

5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
See above.

6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
I'm fine with this, as well. For the above reasons, and also because it gives something to do as opposed to feeling pressured to rush everything in the first week or three, then complain we have no content to do.

7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.
I'm a druid, I don't care. It does seem like an arbitrary restriction, though.

I disagree with most of what you said, personally.

[Jastall]

The caps are there because Legion and BfA proved without a shadow of a doubt that the players are their own worst enemy and many will feel "forced" to do trivial shit that gives 1% damage boost in their easy Heroic raids or +10 keys if there's no cap.

Fully agree on letting us mount in the Maw. The Eyes of the Jailer mechanic already makes the place dangerous to linger in, there's no need to also make travel stupidly slow while inside it, that's just boring as fuck.

[aceperson]

So much stuff at level 60 is timed in some way and IMO it holds the experience back greatly.

The things I am talking about are...

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

The leveling experience in Shadowlands IMO was smooth. But all of gates and caps screams mobile gameplay and funny enough some of it can be played on their app. I legit have nothing to do the rest of the week unless I level a alt because of all of the caps and super slow grinds. Everything feels like its in place to make you play longer and not have fun.

All of this stuff is honestly pushing me away from SL and making me want to play it less. Sucks because there is also a decent amount here I really enjoy. I have loved the leveling and the dungeons.

That is just my 2cents tho, do you Agree? Disagree? or somewhere in between.

1) agree
2) agree
3) this was done so people wouldn't burn themselves out doing 8 runs of one wing and then 5 more runs of the other 5 wings. i think this is a short lived necessary evil so torghast stays fun.
4) agree
5) renown is basically a new kind of rep and rep has been rather gated even way back to vanilla.
6) its been 4 days, i've gotten three of the 4 level one sanctum upgrades, and i've only been max level for 2 of those days. it doesn't take that long. though i do expect the tier 3 upgrades to be a long ways out.
7) ya, blizz really screwed up on making the maw compelling. i'd compare it to almost dark souls difficulty (it isn't that hard to me but one mistake can cause a death) with mostly no rewards.

[VinceVega]

So much stuff at level 60 is timed in some way and IMO it holds the experience back greatly.

The things I am talking about are...

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

The leveling experience in Shadowlands IMO was smooth. But all of gates and caps screams mobile gameplay and funny enough some of it can be played on their app. I legit have nothing to do the rest of the week unless I level a alt because of all of the caps and super slow grinds. Everything feels like its in place to make you play longer and not have fun.

All of this stuff is honestly pushing me away from SL and making me want to play it less. Sucks because there is also a decent amount here I really enjoy. I have loved the leveling and the dungeons.

That is just my 2cents tho, do you Agree? Disagree? or somewhere in between.

I disagree with nearly EVERYTHING. There is nearly no grind in the game. Everything is doable with next to no effort and most of it has no consequenze on your abilitie to clear content.
I don't like being forced to grind the fuck out of shit like islands and stuff. I do ot for two days and then i hate it so much i never want to touch it again. Wight now i can do THorgast as much as i want. But the Ash is capped. Thank god.

Also: WTDF do you expect? it is a MMO, no? MMO and timegating go hand in hand since forever. Their whole business model is to keep you playing longer. That is not bad just a fact.
The maw is a design choice btw. They could let you mount but just ramp up the jailer timer. Same effect. And you can find mounts left and right int he maw and in a few weeks everyone will have a maw mount anyway.

Sorry for the typos. It is late here.

By your logic they should let you run mythic bosses in raids as often as you want every week. Just stupid. People can do their stuff now and don't fall behind with normal effort. Grind addicts have to sit this out for once. Remeber the shitshow that was azerite and such?

[Rendark]

Some of my friends want me to come back and play wow again and stuff like this really makes shadowlands look crappy.

[Toby451]

Yeah I hate the caps. I want to keep playing and earn things, they're basically forcing me to stop playing and I'm probably going to lose interest once CP77 is out.

Uncapped and complain about "forced grinding".


Blizzard listens to community and puts in caps to prevent never ending grind "Complains about not being about to never ending grind".

[SirCowdog]

That is just my 2cents tho, do you Agree? Disagree? or somewhere in between.

Just be glad they aren't offering to let us bypass the weekly timers with a cash transaction. Full on mobile bullshit:

"You've run out of energy! But you can keep your adventure going by using diamonds! Here's a handy link to the store where you can buy them!"


Anyway, none of this really stinks to me of mobile influence. It's just the same old time-gating time /played metrics that we've always had due to the monthly subscription model. Content needs to be stretched. Players need to be given a reason to keep logging in each day/week. Gotta form that habit.

[Nitestash]

People really need to learn what forced means. Uncapped and absolutely nothing is forced. When they cap things they are forcing people to stop. All of those saying oh I dont want to be "forced to grind" really mean I want everything available to me at the same time as people who have no issue putting in the grind time.

Its exactly why I don't bother with the game the first few months. When I am ready to play i dont feel like having arbitrary caps in place limiting how much I can play.

[blankfaced]

Disagree 100%.

I much prefer the game not being able to be turned into a job. Forcing players to slow down and not get burned out doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. It also keeps the gap between players from growing too large. And i think that's also something they need to think of. If the gap grows too large between new players and those that started at the launch, new people will be turned off the expansion. And they don't want that.

People really need to learn what forced means. Uncapped and absolutely nothing is forced. When they cap things they are forcing people to stop. All of those saying oh I dont want to be "forced to grind" really mean I want everything available to me at the same time as people who have no issue putting in the grind time.

Its exactly why I don't bother with the game the first few months. When I am ready to play i dont feel like having arbitrary caps in place limiting how much I can play.

What? You're still able to progress, just not everything at all times. I think you also need to learn what the word "forced" means. And at no point are you limited in how much you can play. Yeah you need a dictionary as well. Don't even know what the word limited means either.

[Razion]

While I agree that people should normally be allowed to have as much fun as they want in regards to playing, we've seen what happens when people have unlimited access to grinds like Artifact Power and Azerite before. People just farm until they're actually sick of the game. People aren't doing this "as much as they want", they continue past that and past any limits of enjoyment or self-restraint they have. They aren't able to control themselves, they aren't able to practice moderation. If people were responsible, or at the very least reasonable enough to not complain when they make themselves sick of playing by inflicting that situation on themselves this would be an entirely different discussion. We could shift the blame to individuals and tell them not to continue. But players keep going because it obviously gives them power to do so. And, quite frankly, some players only do content if it actually gives them power and would only log in to raid or do a weekly M+ at their own leisure otherwise. And while I would probably say there's nothing wrong with that, Blizzard seems to want to have players logging in and being online. Perhaps monthly active users stops being a valuable metric when players are online less and less throughout that month. Perhaps players aren't as invested, perhaps they aren't as satisfied, perhaps they start feeling like their money is better spent elsewhere. These are the sorts of issues that are wrapped around this.

Left to their own devices, players hurt themselves. We could probably argue whether it is or isn't a game maker's responsibility to protect the consumer and to what extent that entails, especially in regards to themselves, but at the very least entertainment has to be considered. When it stops being fun for 'anyone', that's when a limit has to be put in place. It would be more wise to say that currently maybe there isn't enough freedom but obviously the freedom of old Artifact Power and Azerite ends up being far too much. They experimented with freedom for the player-base and quite frankly it failed, the players couldn't be trusted to act with moderation and responsibility to hold themselves accountable. Yet if there were established hard caps like the weekly we see now, people also feel these are mandatory grinds. People who don't want to grind as much and only want to log in periodically aren't happy either. A system of catch-up was implemented to make sure players didn't feel like they had to play all the time with Artifact Power and Azerite - weekly catchup with the research tree and the heart automatically upgrading were put in place, and still players didn't log out. They just kept grinding and got upset over it. Undeniably the grinds have to feel good, which is what they try to address with things like Torghast trying to be a more re-playable experience - to maybe try and solve the problem of burnout entirely by trying to achieve a loop that players won't get sick of so readily. Still, they have to be tested and they have to be made to not feel so exhausting. They should feel easy and repeatable and like something you should want to keep doing and never get tired of. People have wondered how best to tune Torghast, and the solution they seemed to have landed on was to make it a power trip where only at the very beginning would it be difficult, and after that you would be powerful and get only more powerful in order to facilitate a playstyle where players wouldn't burn out over extended play periods of having to perform at peak difficulty all the time. You can see why maybe Torghast was made in the avenue of a rogue-light experience. You're meant to have a lot of randomized runs - each run is meant to feel fresh.

So, in light of all this, look at the lens of these kinds of systems, what we need to ask is if they work correctly with the goal of making Torghast re-playable. To prevent burnout. This is pretty subjective, but I'll give my best impression so far.

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

1) Not being able to swap talents leads to repetitive gameplay. This isn't friendly to re-playability. It can lead to burn-out.
2) Having to go back to the Command Table too often would lead to burn-out -- limits in place make it more approachable, seems better this way.
3) Floors being unlocked periodically over time leads to less initial burn-out. But the floors will be unlocked eventually, so this is moot. It doesn't meaningfully help long-term burnout. This could be changed. But it's arguable either way whether it would be better or worse. Neutral.
4) People can't be trusted to grind blue in the face with moderation and responsibility or self-accountability. They will burn themselves out for power (even if multiple legendaries aren't usable right now, people may grind these "just in-case"), this isn't friendly to re-playability. In the long-term this would hurt even if right now it's frustrating. I think this is the right move for now.
5) Again, people lacn't be trusted to grind blue in the face. People would grind Soulbinds just like Legendaries until they had them all. People would grind Renown until they were sick of it - right now it's frustrating, but it's probably best like this for now. Like Soul Ash we'll all look back at this as not being that bad once everything is eventually unlocked. We'll be happier because we won't be burned out. It's better this way.
6) Events like WQs were made to reward proportionally more due to there being less WQ active. If this tuning is off, then this is a balance issue and should be addressed. Anima can be used to empower Soulbinds, but there is still a limit of WQ per day so increasing the reward here makes WQs more necessary for average players. It feeling like it isn't giving enough is the more cautious approach - if it gives too much players would feel more forced to do WQs beyond what they are comfortable with. If this is going to be changed it should be done carefully.
7) Not allowing mounts just isn't fun. I'm with you there. It leads to longer sessions unnecessarily and all the grounded running just leads to more exhausting sessions leading to more burn-out. The Maw being dangerous is no excuse for Mounts not to be available. Comat should already be punishing in the Maw - and I'd probably argue this also leads to more burn-out and making the Maw less re-playable as it is.

[Yuli]

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

1) Don't care as much as I anticipated, there's no reason to change them often anyway
2) Optional feature. I like it. You don't. Don't do it then.
3) Straight up false information. 4-6 opens up next week and 7-9 the week thereafter, also would've been tedious to grind to 9 in week one.
4) Oh, so now y'all want an endless grind?
5) Oh, so now y'all want an endless grind?²
6) Oh, so now y'all don't want an endless grind?? Also, Anima is optional after you've got your weekly. All Sanctum Upgrades are optional, too.
7) Boohoo, it's a very small zone with few time investment. Get your second maw upgrade and you are faster than with just a mount.

[SoulSoBreezy]

1) Swapping Talents in your Forge Bonds costs gems and each one recharges on a 10 hour timer.
2) Healing your companions at the command table costs a high amount of anima or a super long recharge time (over a day).
3) Torghast stages behind locked to a unknown week amount. Right now you can only do the first 3 stages and its unknow when the rest will come out.
4) Weekly cap on Soul Ash needs to go. If I want to grind it until I'm blue in the face let me.
5) Weekly renown cap needs to also be removed, Once again if I want to grind it let me.
6) The amount of anima you get doing WQ's is soo small and makes doing things like the listed above and Sanctum Upgrades extremely long to do.
7) The maw not allowing mounts so it takes longer to do stuff in it.

Model this out.

Really, imagine SL with all your concerns addressed the way you want them. take us through a new player experience and sell this to the hardcore/casual crowd.

[korijenkins]

1) Don't care as much as I anticipated, there's no reason to change them often anyway
2) Optional feature. I like it. You don't. Don't do it then.
3) Straight up false information. 4-6 opens up next week and 7-9 the week thereafter, also would've been tedious to grind to 9 in week one.
4) Oh, so now y'all want an endless grind?
5) Oh, so now y'all want an endless grind?²
6) Oh, so now y'all don't want an endless grind?? Also, Anima is optional after you've got your weekly. All Sanctum Upgrades are optional, too.
7) Boohoo, it's a very small zone with few time investment. Get your second maw upgrade and you are faster than with just a mount.

Nobody is saying they want an endless grind, which you smugly stated. They want an option to do it, or not to do it, but for that grind to not be required.

Blizzard white knights will twist everything they can to defend their beloved corporation to the death, it's sad.

[Hinastorm]

Don't quit your day job to be an mmo designer, op.

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody is saying they want an endless grind, which you smugly stated. They want an option to do it, or not to do it, but for that grind to not be required.

Blizzard white knights will twist everything they can to defend their beloved corporation to the death, it's sad.

Lol. "They want an option to do it, or not to do it, but for that grind to not be required."

There is no way to design such a system in a game where any small numbers advantage is considered required by most raiders.