Campaign locked behind Reputation - The Thread

[Narzok]

as the title says.
since it has come up in various different threads i thought it would be right to make a dedicated thread for this.

i think locking the main expansion campaign behind reputation is a problematic thing, and so far i am not a fan of it.
i like unlocking story quests myself without watching spoilers, but i also like reading on WoW news sites about miscellaneous topics.
combine that with sites that put topic headlines at the top of their page, like MMO-Champ or Wowhead, and the idiots that create topics or news article with spoilers in the title and you have spoilers jump in your face every time you open such a website.

i don't mind a spoiler once in a while, but having to tiptoe around every WoW news site for the next 2 years to avoid story spoiler that others have unlocked weeks in advance sounds bothersome.

before, there were some topics you could fall behind on, like class hall campaigns on alts or a raid cutscene after defeating a certain boss,
but having the main campaign narrrative locked behind something that can be farmed without end is a bit annoying.

right now it is only 1 or 2 small bits of story, but unless they add some form of catch up for renown, the gap will widen until we reach the renown cap.

what do you think about this?
again, this is not about progression or player power, but about the fact that you either have to constantly dodge spoilers or grind rep like crazy to see it before the spoilers get overwhelming.

[Lochton]

I think it is a smart way as it is just the initial campaign and not a future campaign as they are still by patch delivery. The new reputation system is great overall.

[czarek]

Gateing this is the way. They cant serve full cake in day one :P You need to wait at the table a bit longer for the last piece.

[Narzok]

Gateing this is the way. They cant serve full cake in day one :P You need to wait at the table a bit longer for the last piece.

to be clear, i do not mind time gating the story.
in fact i think it is the right thing to do.

i just don't like the idea that a time gate can be forced with potentially unhealthy amounts of investment.
propably just a thing of opinions, but i prefer it if everyone gets to get their piece of cake at the same time.

i played more than i consider average for my usual play behaviour since launch, have completed the sojourner for all zones other than azure span, and am at valdrakken 12 right now.
i know there are many people who are higher, but we have to compare it to someone NOT farming rep right now.
i know several people who have no faction at 8 or higher right now, and at the same time some people have valdrakken at 19 for the story quest unlock.

if this is just a one-time thing then fine, but if this repeats with each patch/renown increase, then we will have spoiler for every chapter weeks before normal people have a chance to see it.

I think it is a smart way as it is just the initial campaign and not a future campaign as they are still by patch delivery. The new reputation system is great overall.

i love the reputation system. you get to do something with the factions and are not just looking at a quartermaster every couple weeks.
the only thing i don't like is the main campaign being tied into it.
if i had to choose between hard time-gated chapters like in SL or the "whoever grinds the most gets to spoil it first", i would take the former.

[Karawaka]

This is much preferable, as it's just the story locked, with no player power tied to it and it's not a lock set by the devs. You can get it at your own pace. Besides, most sites have spoiler warnings when covering game topics.

[Nymrohd]

If people enjoy the grind let them do it. No one is forcing it on you. It will leak regardless (it already has) and the simple fact is that any kind of media about the game will need to be avoided these days when it comes to spoilers because no site gives a shit about spoilers (unless a mod doesn't like you).

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This is much preferable, as it's just the story locked, with no player power tied to it and it's not a lock set by the devs. You can get it at your own pace. Besides, most sites have spoiler warnings when covering game topics.

I call bullshit on that. Yeah, spoiler warnings with the spoiler on the actual title of the article, the video on the front page after "Spoiler Warning" and a couple of empty lines that obscure nothing.

[Lochton]

i love the reputation system. you get to do something with the factions and are not just looking at a quartermaster every couple weeks.
the only thing i don't like is the main campaign being tied into it.
if i had to choose between hard time-gated chapters like in SL or the "whoever grinds the most gets to spoil it first", i would take the former.

I can understand how you feel, for me, the love of the system is that we aren't just watching a reputation bar climbing but we reach marks of understanding, story development, and progressing rewards instead of just buying everything at exalted. It feels more rewarding than the old and even beneficial for alting.

[Aucald]

If story-based content is to be gated, and an argument can be made for that being a good thing to some degree, then reputation is the system that makes the most sense for it to be gated behind.

[dirk123]

I don't mind reputation locking the story of the main campaign, however the amount needed to get to the next part is kinda huge.
Compared to like said Surumar.

[kranur]

The new reputation system is great overall.

No it's not. It's basically the same but with a different outfit. The fact that it's still not account wide is ... retarded.

OT: It's fine with storylines to be locked behind rep, however the ways to gain rep need to be better.

[Nyel]

I think it is a smart way as it is just the initial campaign and not a future campaign as they are still by patch delivery. The new reputation system is great overall.

You'll change your mind as soon as you've done all available side quests and are stuck with a poor amount of bi-weekly world quests and three boring events to further progress your renown.

To just unlock the Dragonflight main quests you need:

• A Mystery, Sealed: Dragonscale Expedition Renown 13
• In the Halls of Titans: Dragonscale Expedition Renown 24
• The Chieftain's Duty: Iskaara Tuskarr Renown 11
• Replacement Hooves: Maruuk Centaur Renown 9
• The Silver Purpose: Valdrakken Accord Renown 12
• Garden of Secrets: Valdrakken Accord Renown 19

Good luck getting there. Casual players will need months of daily chores to unlock renown 19 or 24 just to see a simple main campaign quest.

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I can understand how you feel, for me, the love of the system is that we aren't just watching a reputation bar climbing but we reach marks of understanding, story development, and progressing rewards instead of just buying everything at exalted. It feels more rewarding than the old and even beneficial for alting.

It's especially rewarding when you get a new renown level and all you receive for that is 48 supplies.

[Lochton]

No it's not. It's basically the same but with a different outfit. The fact that it's still not account wide is ... retarded.

OT: It's fine with storylines to be locked behind rep, however the ways to gain rep need to be better.

How can it be the same?

25-30 levels of some sort of progression or reward. At level 10, you get a 100% Rep bonus for all under level 10. At level 20, you get 200% for all under level 10 and 100% for all under level 20. Faction features get unlocked account-wide. Some items in the store are unlocked for the whole account.

Vs.

Four levels of minimal use rewards (25 levels of good use if we count SL), and no further connection. Overall, you get nothing, no bonus reputation unless we talk about MoP (Or SL catch-up, but doesn't really count as you don't get that from the start). What faction features? (Except for BFA and SL but even they weren't account-wide). Items in the store are locked to one character.

The ways to gain reputation are already fine but could be stretched a bit, I'm already way high for minimal work (Though I'm not in a rush with Wrathion/Sabe, I'm not in a hurry).

[Marlamin]

I agree with OP, I don't think renown was the right way to go about the campaign quests with it now being tied to reputation. It created a weird spoiler exclusivity situation where a few people would have access to spoilers and cinematics/cutscenes (even before the news sites covered it), and those people were either exploiting the weekly quest bug or had enough spare time to spend days grinding dirt and keys.

Don't get me wrong either, I like the new renown and the rewards it gives with the only exception being the campaign quests. It would've been acceptable if the campaign quests were rewarded earlier on in the renown track, some place naturally reached after finishing the main campaign and then flowing into the next chapter shortly afterwards. However right now there's a several week, maybe even a month or more, gap between those grinding dirt/keeping up with all daily activities and those not doing so which feels like it goes against Blizzard's supposed new "don't need to log in every day to not miss out" philosophy. Hopefully they'll improve this in upcoming story unlocks in 10.0.5/10.1.0.

[kranur]

How can it be the same?

25-30 levels of some sort of progression or reward. At level 10, you get a 100% Rep bonus for all under level 10. At level 20, you get 200% for all under level 10 and 100% for all under level 20. Faction features get unlocked account-wide. Some items in the store are unlocked for the whole account.

Vs.

Four levels of minimal use rewards (25 levels of good use if we count SL), and no further connection. Overall, you get nothing, no bonus reputation unless we talk about MoP (Or SL catch-up, but doesn't really count as you don't get that from the start). What faction features? (Except for BFA and SL but even they weren't account-wide). Items in the store are locked to one character.

The ways to gain reputation are already fine but could be stretched a bit, I'm already way high for minimal work (Though I'm not in a rush with Wrathion/Sabe, I'm not in a hurry).

That's just bandaid bullshit. If you take the old rep system and add a perk thing every 2.5k rep it's exactly the same thing.
The ways to gain rep are garbage. 2 WQ, some buggy events and farm keys until your eyes bleed .. wouldn't exactly call that fine.

[Lochton]

You'll change your mind as soon as you've done all available side quests and are stuck with a poor amount of bi-weekly world quests and three boring events to further progress your renown.

To just unlock the Dragonflight main quests you need:

• A Mystery, Sealed: Dragonscale Expedition Renown 13
• In the Halls of Titans: Dragonscale Expedition Renown 24
• The Chieftain's Duty: Iskaara Tuskarr Renown 11
• Replacement Hooves: Maruuk Centaur Renown 9
• The Silver Purpose: Valdrakken Accord Renown 12
• Garden of Secrets: Valdrakken Accord Renown 19

Good luck getting there. Casual players will need months of daily chores to unlock renown 19 or 24 just to see a simple main campaign quest.

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It's especially rewarding when you get a new renown level and all you receive for that is 48 supplies.

As a casual or I'd like to call it "world player" because I've seen raiders more casual than me. I'm currently at DE (13), IT (8), MC (11), VA (11) by just taking it easy. I'm not in a rush and you aren't meant to rush through it all. It won't take long to catch up to max renown when all stages are only 2500 reputation, that is a maximum of 10 dailies, which can be boosted by various items and side collections.

As for supplies, need them? Go find them? Currently sitting on 8.000, with an almost full explorer's backpack unluck.

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That's just bandaid bullshit. If you take the old rep system and add a perk thing every 2.5k rep it's exactly the same thing.

Except, you are still ignoring the BoA feature unlock, and items.

[Nyel]

As a casual or I'd like to call it "world player" because I've seen raiders more casual than me. I'm currently at DE (13), IT (8), MC (11), VA (11) by just taking it easy. I'm not in a rush and you aren't meant to rush through it all. It won't take long to catch up to max renown when all stages are only 2500 reputation, that is a maximum of 10 dailies, which can be boosted by various items and side collections.

As for supplies, need them? Go find them? Currently sitting on 8.000, with an almost full explorer's backpack unluck.

You're definitely not taking it easy when your renown levels are so high already, lol. I'm not taking it easy and I haven't reached those renown levels yet. Just 10 dailies for a renown level, then there are 4 factions. So basically 40 daily quests to reach a renown level by each faction. And all that to unlock the base game (aka the main campaign)? You must be joking.

And that comment about supplies was obviously a joke, it's ridiculous to get a new renown stage just to be rewarded a pitiful amount of Dragon Isle Supplies.

As Marlamin said, renown is fine with the exception of the main campaign heavily being locked behind it.

[MCMLXXXII]

You're definitely not taking it easy when your renown levels are so high already, lol. I'm not taking it easy and I haven't reached those renown levels yet. Just 10 dailies for a renown level, then there are 4 factions. So basically 40 daily quests to reach a renown level by each faction. And all that to unlock the base game (aka the main campaign)? You must be joking.

And that comment about supplies was obviously a joke, it's ridiculous to get a new renown stage just to be rewarded a pitiful amount of Dragon Isle Supplies.

As Marlamin said, renown is fine with the exception of the main campaign heavily being locked behind it.

I've been taking it a very easy and I'm on the same level Lochton is. Took my time to get Loremaster, which I always do in a new expac. Then did some additional stuff like planting flags on mountaintops, which gives a lot DE rep. Then I did some WQ, not even every one.

[Tojara]

Most of the renown rewards are account wide BTW. The only did this for some of the 'tangible' powers so that you can't just log onto an alternate character and just grab every single epic BoP on the vendor and the recipes. Most of the perks are account wide, so no, it's not the same.

Previous expansions have all drip fed the campaign for what, 6-8 weeks? Suramar and the post quest stuff launched before Nighthold couldn't be done all at once, and some of them took several weeks or more to get all of the story beats. Same with Broken Shore and the same with Argus. BFA was similar, and Shadowlands took well over as you were limited to 2-3 renown per week. I think a lot of people remember Legion way different than I did.

DF is absolutely different. You can theoretically do all of the campaign without any of it being gated. Why? Most reputations just by doing the quests in every zone will get you to ~10 renown and there are systems in the game that allow you to hard grind anything if you wish. I know this because I hit 25 expedition renown before the reset simply by flying around doing all of their quests, looting thousands of treasures and doing some of the unlocks that renown gives you to further your reputation.

The only one that really requires high renown is the expedition at 24. I did basically the entire campaign and focused on the expedition for the week, and my Valdrakken accord reputation was sitting at like 8 or 9 just by doing the campaign. Casual by it's very definition means doing world content and quests in each zone, and I have no doubt that you can reach renown levels of 10 to 12 just by doing the quests located in every zone. That isn't even counting repeatable sources or world quests that do pop up.

[Nyel]

I've been taking it a very easy and I'm on the same level Lochton is. Took my time to get Loremaster, which I always do in a new expac. Then did some additional stuff like planting flags on mountaintops, which gives a lot DE rep. Then I did some WQ, not even every one.

Please tell me how you've reached those high renown levels by "taking it very easy". I finished lore master in Thaldraszus and Waking Shore and my renown for Dragonscale is 5, Valdrakken is 8. Now I'm finishing Ohnara and halfway my Renown is 6 right now. Haven't done side quests in Azure Span yet, so can't comment on that.

[Cheezits]

I think rep-gated story is fine, however exploits should ABSOLUTELY be prepared for in regards to rep so that story beats don't get spoiled so early. Also they should probably come earlier in the rep track yeah (such as "finish all the sidequests in a zone" level of rep)