Looking back on 2 biggest controversies of 9.1 PTR times

[darklogrus]

It's pretty weird that there are still realms like that after all the realm connections we've had. Are you on an RP realm? A non-english eu realm? My server was connected twice, and our connected server now consists of like 5-6 separate realms, this seems to have remedied the AH issue completely. Most expensive rank 6 leggos are like 300k atm.

Ours hasnt been merged with anything since MOP so the playerbase continues to dwindle. Some quit Wow, some went the M+ route and most who wanted to raid continue to mass exodus to more raider friendly realms.

Then throw in the entry level to raid,the shitty drop rates in raids, rental systems plus the amount of outside influence for raiding and it continues to have a neg effect. Well at least on realms like mine. I mean it wasnt that long ago 10 of us could carry the bottom 12 long enough til they got enough gear that it smoothed itself out.

Its why Im anti everything grp forced, power enforced. Its why I advocate for more alternatives to gearing.Its why Im fine with the LFG and the LFR. Because I come from a realm that has been forgotten..

[Lady Atia]

Yeah, that's the only bad thing i have to say about the m+ changes. Why this is a thing i don't know, i have alrady done said content with a character which likely doesn't even need to upgrade stuff with valor excluding the odd bad luck piece or the trinket i dropped week 1. The upgrades were the perfect way to gear up alts but now i have to redo the whole thing from scratch? Even less incentive to do it on my main - i'll farm my BiS trinkets and then call it a day, because i have zero interest in scores that give me nothing.

Isn't the achievement still account wide? I haven't tried to use valor on my alts because I don't do instanced content with them, but iirc you should still be able to upgrade your gear with them once you got the actual achievement? The difference to S1 is that you can't run 4 dungeons with your main and 4 others with your alts to get the KSM.

[Coldkil]

Isn't the achievement still account wide? I haven't tried to use valor on my alts because I don't do instanced content with them, but iirc you should still be able to upgrade your gear with them once you got the actual achievement? The difference to S1 is that you can't run 4 dungeons with your main and 4 others with your alts to get the KSM.

The achievement still is, but the actual upgrades aren't. I supposed they would change it back later on when most people was done and m+ partecipation would plummet, but given they have stopped WoW developement due to current shitstorm i don't really know what to think.

[muto]

They knew well what they were doing. They want people to stay logged in. They can’t risk people logging out, and playing other games and realizing the patch sucks.

[Revamp Man]

Domination gear is a bigger controversy than ksm tbh

I have 2 big problems with the legendary recrafting
1. We were told choosing your legendary slot was meaningful and they fucked it in the first patch
2. The gem socket change was dumb just because it wasn’t needed

The third is mostly because of domination gear but it does have to do with the legendary items
You have 5 domination pieces
You have 1 legendary piece
That’s 6 locked slots
They removed tier saying they didn’t like locking gear slots and ended up doing worse

The ksm change is one that I couldn’t find an issue with

- - - Updated - - -

They knew well what they were doing. They want people to stay logged in. They can’t risk people logging out, and playing other games and realizing the patch sucks.

How does any of this achieve that?

[Doomchicken]

The changes to KSM was the number 1 thing that got me to quit this game finally. I wasn't enjoying blizz's horribly balanced dungeons to begin with, especially with some of the worst class tuning I've seen on top of that and seeing them just out of the blue double the requirement to get ksm without any context, without any hint that the dungeons were going to be easier, or the score was going to be done different, was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I would not of put money on Blizzard making it quicker to get KSM since they rarely do make things easier.

Having said that I have absolutely zero regrets quitting. If Blizzard can't be bothered to communicate with the playerbase on why changes like that take place, especially ones where on paper it makes getting the requirement TWICE as hard, then I can't be bothered putting up with their shit anymore.

[Coldkil]

How does any of this achieve that?

It doesn't. Mostly because people is not stupid and doesn't give infinite "second chances". Also from my experience a lot of people started with Legion and they're used to this kind of systems.

But you can clearly see how things are designed in a way to make you spend more time in game than actually needed, so they can say the player activity has increased to the shareholders. Thorgast for example is nothing more than a chore made again artificially long to create your mandatory legendary. While the dps difference between a 190ilvl and a 262 on my character is just 2%.

[Azerate]

They knew well what they were doing. They want people to stay logged in. They can’t risk people logging out, and playing other games and realizing the patch sucks.

Did you even read the thread? Why bother trash-posting if you didn't?

Legendary recrafting does not add any additional time spent required, and KSM is actually easier than it was before, which will also make it faster for most people, because even if they have to do objectively more dungeons (at the minimum) they will probably require much less attempts

And just a quick reminder - for participation metrics it is enough that a person logs in once a month, it does not matter how long they play outside of that. As long as you log in for 1 minute in a month, you are 1 MAU, same as someone who plays every day for 10 hours.

It doesn't. Mostly because people is not stupid and doesn't give infinite "second chances". Also from my experience a lot of people started with Legion and they're used to this kind of systems.

But you can clearly see how things are designed in a way to make you spend more time in game than actually needed, so they can say the player activity has increased to the shareholders. Thorgast for example is nothing more than a chore made again artificially long to create your mandatory legendary. While the dps difference between a 190ilvl and a 262 on my character is just 2%.

I mean...yeah the game is developed so that you play it more. I don't understand why this is necessarily somehow insidious and dirty for them to do. Tying open world / other content types to player power is also not new and is something that motivates players to do other content. They actually backtracked a lot on it in SL, which I think is one of the biggest faults of the current expansion. The reality is that if a lot of different activities provide player power, then people are just more likely to partake in them / try them out. It's the biggest mistake of SL that anima has no bearing on your character's growth, because it makes the system dead on arrival and irrelevant for like half the player base right from the start. Legion and BfA did it much better with AP that increased the power of your items.

[Revamp Man]

It doesn't. Mostly because people is not stupid and doesn't give infinite "second chances". Also from my experience a lot of people started with Legion and they're used to this kind of systems.

But you can clearly see how things are designed in a way to make you spend more time in game than actually needed, so they can say the player activity has increased to the shareholders. Thorgast for example is nothing more than a chore made again artificially long to create your mandatory legendary. While the dps difference between a 190ilvl and a 262 on my character is just 2%.

New torghast is shorter than 9.0

[Coldkil]

New torghast is shorter than 9.0

Doesn't matter for shit. It's still something i have to do until i'm done with leggos even if to me it's just wasted time, and won't be touching it again once done.

[GreenJesus]

The biggest issue with #2 right now is that the upgrading doesn't seem to be account bound. Needing an alt to do 16 dungeons just to spend Valor is insane and will kill alts for a lot of people.

It will probably be like what.. 20 dungeons per character once the 2 mega dungeon wings x2 gets added to the pool?

- - - Updated - - -

Did you even read the thread? Why bother trash-posting if you didn't?

Legendary recrafting does not add any additional time spent required, and KSM is actually easier than it was before, which will also make it faster for most people, because even if they have to do objectively more dungeons (at the minimum) they will probably require much less attempts

And just a quick reminder - for participation metrics it is enough that a person logs in once a month, it does not matter how long they play outside of that. As long as you log in for 1 minute in a month, you are 1 MAU, same as someone who plays every day for 10 hours.



I mean...yeah the game is developed so that you play it more. I don't understand why this is necessarily somehow insidious and dirty for them to do. Tying open world / other content types to player power is also not new and is something that motivates players to do other content. They actually backtracked a lot on it in SL, which I think is one of the biggest faults of the current expansion. The reality is that if a lot of different activities provide player power, then people are just more likely to partake in them / try them out. It's the biggest mistake of SL that anima has no bearing on your character's growth, because it makes the system dead on arrival and irrelevant for like half the player base right from the start. Legion and BfA did it much better with AP that increased the power of your items.

Anime being worthless was the best part of shadowlands. Not having to grind world quests for RNG legendaries and AP is the only saving grace of shadowlands. Its kind of sad that less content = good, but that's how it is.

[Coldkil]

And just a quick reminder - for participation metrics it is enough that a person logs in once a month, it does not matter how long they play outside of that. As long as you log in for 1 minute in a month, you are 1 MAU, same as someone who plays every day for 10 hours.

This is where you're wrong. How much time someone soends in game is very valuable for them. It'one of the most important parameters about how successful a content is. If players spend 90% of their time into a specific area, they doibke down on it.

The problem is that this number is just artificially inflated. I'm not saying that you shouldn't spend time in game, but dribbling player power through 20 different places is just gonna make players annoyed.

They should just ditch the modern "1000x systems" structure they've built because it simply doesn't work. In the end, people just do PvP, m+ and raids. They do the rest because they have to, not because they want to. And this means it could be shit content and people would do it nontheless.

EDIT: AP was shit. Made people just nolife it until Blizz caved in and set 1000x multipliers on it. Much like happened with anima now, it went from "i have to choose between an upgrade and a reward" to "i have maxed out everything without farming and now i don't know where to spend it".

When we had only gear as a source of power, and not some shitty temporary system, there weren't much problems.

[Jackstraw]

AP was shit. Made people just nolife it until Blizz caved in and set 1000x multipliers on it. Much like happened with anima now, it went from "i have to choose between an upgrade and a reward" to "i have maxed out everything without farming and now i don't know where to spend it".

When we had only gear as a source of power, and not some shitty temporary system, there weren't much problems.

AP was miles better than anima, you did two whatever and your basics were covered. Overall the open world gameplay loop in Legion was miles better than anything period.

Titanforging, as shunned as it was, and the carrot that were legendaries kept all the world content relevant. And when the residuum and Nethershards got introduced, a person always tried to go do world quests if on an alt. Nevermind classes having some thoughts behind and the gameplay loop with the Artifact, the followers, the bonuses and the ease of clearing whatever there was as an objective.

The points made in the OP were valid concerns during the PTR only up to the dungeons. Player-regulated access to upgrades is left as is, without Blizzard interacting with the economy - which is fair enough. This puts players in either the situation of wanting to farm their resources and gear themselves or playing the AH to get the gold and eventually the upgrade. Or, to go full tinfoil, buying as many tokens as needed to get the upgrade.

The situation as far as armor legendaries go is insane for certain armor classes. The comparison between leather crafted pieces and cloth crafted pieces is perplexing at the very least, and the absolute lack of regulation - which is not fair at all - about crafting materials needed really makes you wonder. So you have to interact with money making venues, research your Domination gear spread and in the worst case scenario recraft your legendary.

Again, in Legion your progress on your earned legendary was recognized and the legendary itself upgradeable with a generic currency. You still ran the hamster wheel, but it was a single one and not an armillar sphere of things.

[muto]

Did you even read the thread? Why bother trash-posting if you didn't?

Legendary recrafting does not add any additional time spent required, and KSM is actually easier than it was before, which will also make it faster for most people, because even if they have to do objectively more dungeons (at the minimum) they will probably require much less attempts

And just a quick reminder - for participation metrics it is enough that a person logs in once a month, it does not matter how long they play outside of that. As long as you log in for 1 minute in a month, you are 1 MAU, same as someone who plays every day for 10 hours.



I mean...yeah the game is developed so that you play it more. I don't understand why this is necessarily somehow insidious and dirty for them to do. Tying open world / other content types to player power is also not new and is something that motivates players to do other content. They actually backtracked a lot on it in SL, which I think is one of the biggest faults of the current expansion. The reality is that if a lot of different activities provide player power, then people are just more likely to partake in them / try them out. It's the biggest mistake of SL that anima has no bearing on your character's growth, because it makes the system dead on arrival and irrelevant for like half the player base right from the start. Legion and BfA did it much better with AP that increased the power of your items.

1. Yes it does, hence why they made soul ash able to be farmed repeatedly. Especially the case if you play multiple specs, and use a variety of legendaries. Also to quote you from your original post, since you accused me of not reading when you clearly don't even read what YOU typed it would seem that you agree with me, thus you contradicted yourself.

This also means you can get it in 2 weeks by running torghast twice as much as you need. And finally, this means you can just grind soul ash. This is especially easy in lower layers that you can now speed clear easily on a character geared in the open world. Clearing layer 8 takes me about 12-15 minutes and provides about 170 soul ash. If you're more skilled and you can quickly clear higher layers, this will go up. If you choose to grind it, you can get about 700-800 soul ash per hour.

2. How does having to time twice as many dungeons make it easier or faster? That makes zero sense.

[Gaidax]

2. How does having to time twice as many dungeons make it easier or faster? That makes zero sense.

You no longer have to do 15 in all of them.

If you do 16 or 17 in one, you can get away with having 13 in another. You can do higher keys in easier dungeons (loot from which you might actually want on top of that like Mists) and then do lower key in the harder dungeons.

Because it's score driven it's more flexible.

[muto]

You no longer have to do 15 in all of them.

If you do 16 or 17 in one, you can get away with having 13 in another. You can do higher keys in easier dungeons (loot from which you might actually want on top of that like Mists) and then do lower key in the harder dungeons.

Because it's score driven it's more flexible.

Yeah I mean that sounds nice and all, but it’s still twice the effort, since you’d still be doing 16 dungeons.

[Gaidax]

Yeah I mean that sounds nice and all, but it’s still twice the effort, since you’d still be doing 16 dungeons.

You do 16-17 dungeons with friends who happen to have the key while you run M+ with them and you're like "whatever" about it. This way you end up having a good amount of higher than you need stuff done and you the can pug some 13s you miss and be done.

[Azerate]

Anime being worthless was the best part of shadowlands. Not having to grind world quests for RNG legendaries and AP is the only saving grace of shadowlands. Its kind of sad that less content = good, but that's how it is.

It is good, in a way, for these people who hate any content outside of dungeons/raids/arena, but for the overall health of the game it is definitely a positive to have player power tied to open world content, because it incentivizes doing other kinds of activities.

This is where you're wrong. How much time someone soends in game is very valuable for them. It'one of the most important parameters about how successful a content is. If players spend 90% of their time into a specific area, they doibke down on it.

Yes, and participation is measured in MAU, which is the same regardless of whether you log in once a month, or every day for 5 hours. Hence the name monthly active users. You seem to share one of the popular myths about how participation metrics in games work.

1. Yes it does, hence why they made soul ash able to be farmed repeatedly. Especially the case if you play multiple specs, and use a variety of legendaries. Also to quote you from your original post, since you accused me of not reading when you clearly don't even read what YOU typed it would seem that you agree with me, thus you contradicted yourself.


2. How does having to time twice as many dungeons make it easier or faster? That makes zero sense.

1. For people who only make 1 legendary for their main spec, which is the absolute vast majority of the players, it's the same amount of torghast to recraft your leggo + elevate it to 6th rank. Agree that the minority needs to put slightly more time, but only slightly more.

2. Because most people don't just waltz into a dungeon day 1 of the patch, time it, and leave. People progress through keys, sometimes timing them, sometimes not. If you need to time every 15 - you will probably spend more time trying to do it, than in the current system, where you can make up for the score by timing something else, and even by not timing it. As I wrote in the OP - yes, if you are in that small group of people who can just do every dungeon on timed 15 in the first week of the patch but you are unable to do so quickly on 16/17, then it's worse. For everyone else it's better/easier/faster.

[Swnem]

Those are your perceived issues.

Legendary system still sucks and having your work thrown out the window still sucks. Getting new legendaries requires copious amounts of gold for a few stats. Out of reach for most players. Likely a scam to sell tokens.

The big controversy you are forgetting are domination gear and gem, which objectively suck. They have low drop chances and force mythic+ and PvPrs to raid.

Another controversy you didn't mention. The patch is buggy and performs badly. Still happens. The maw and korthia might as well be called lag town.

Speaking of Korthia. That archivist grind eh? What about that random box of catch up gear?

Also, the previous issues didn't go away. The game still feels unrewarding. The patch just made it all worse.

Sure, we got a new dungeon and a new raid. Yaay... same s**tty gameplay, albeit worse.

[StillMcfuu]

On SL's Leggos; I have multiple issues with these. The cost of the base item is absurd and makes it cost prohibitive to collect functional leggos for your class/specs. The Torghast issue is its become mandatory content for player power, which I personally think is bad design. WQs, Dungeons, M+, Raiding, and PvP are functionally all voluntary. And if you do choose to do that content you receive item rewards which increase your power (generally for that content). But now you have Torghast which is required, regardless of the content you prefer because you need Torghast for player progression/power.

And this is coming from someone who is a fan of Torghast, at least conceptually.

There is also the issue of sourcing the leggo powers but that isn't as bad. Its technically not mandatory if balancing is done correctly as the leggo powers you pull from your favored content should be competitive with others (this isn't the practical case, but the point still stands).