Bored after 2 months of DF

[Rageonit]

Boo hoo is right. It is a travesty if I can't beat or compete with scrubs or people who are worse than me just because I refuse to do any amount of grind in things I dislike at all and they don't refuse to do it. Also, if I never had done any wq's I wouldn't just be a few weeks behind. I'd be months. What about "I don't want to do any WQs *at all* and still be as competitive in raid as people who do" is hard to understand and likewise seems egregious to you? I want my desired content to be the only thing I have to do to be 100% of my potential. Seems fair and fine.

But again, that's not the problem of content - it's a problem of reward structure. Why CAN'T Blizzard introduce AP in a way that people who like to raid, get that AP from raiding, and people who like to do WQs, get that from WQs. We're arguing here like it's something unfathomable, but it's hardly true. If they want to, they can make that happen, and then you have your avenue of developing your character, and someone who just likes to wander through the world without ever grouping has his own. So it shouldn't be me and you fighting over what content should or shouldn't be in the game; it should be me and you fighting with Blizzard to allow us to play the way we want, without creating tension between us. Cutting content/character development paths out of the game is not a solution, because while you might enjoy it, the other group suffers, and we blame each other for it, while the culprit is Blizzard and their idiotic reward structure (like Ash only dropping from Torghast).

[Sinx]

I don't think you see the point. You were never forced to grind to do well if you were not aiming for cutting edge. You could still spend your time running M+ with the boys without worrying about "grinds".

But let me put it this way - your idea of fun is spamming M+ and raids and not engaging in any other kind of content. That's fine. But consider that only ~2% of players manage to clear mythic raids and get Cutting Edge, and only about 18% on average manage to clear heroic raids and get AotC. What about the other 80%? Why should the sense of progression and reward be removed from the content they enjoy doing?

First of all i don't raid. Not everything is about mythic raiding. Or heroic or normal raiding for that matter. In fact raiding is an ancient relic. The modern gamer wants to log on, do their thing for a couple of hours, and log off to do something else. It's the concept of virtually every major multiplayer game these days. The old school mmorpg concept with playing 12 hours a day doesn't hold up the same way in 2023 as it did in 2010. The new generation of gamers don't like it, and the old ones don't have the time and will to do it anymore. M+, however, fits the narrative of the modern gamer much better. Log on, do a couple of keys, do something else. And whenever you have to do this side content that doesn't interest you, it digs into the time you can play your preferred activity. And optimizing a character isn't just for RWF raiders or MDI level m+ players. The vast majority of players seek to do as well as they can, and falling behind on character progression slows that down. And that goes either you just want to get those 15s in to get the KSM mount, want to get the 2500 rating achievment, getting the +20 portals or winning the MDI. The mentality is much the same. The same goes for PvP. PvP'ers don't want to farm borrowed power, or do raids (ecause they put a ridiculously op item in there) to have a viable character. They want to PvP. And we're talking more than 2%. Currently about 300.000 characters have an m+ rating of 2500 or higher. The number for 2000 rating (KSM) is over 720.000. That's a quite significant part of the WoW playerbase. I'll wager a clear majority of them would prefer to log on and just do m+, over having to split their playtime with farming world quests every day, or having to run torghast or visions to stay up to date on a borrowed power.

Hence why I'd rather that they added a 4th progression path ,that is a more casual or solo friendly, as an option, rather than try to force players to participate in everything, cause that only drives players away. And they still have a lot of those issues left, with raiders that don't want to do m+, but feel forced to in order to get the gear needed to defend their raid spot. M+ and PvP players that are annoyed cause they only put tier sets (and some ridiculously op items) in the raid, while they're stuck with RNG bingo in the vault for months until the catalyst is opened. Quite annoying when they implement set bonuses that changes a spec from utter garbage to S-tier. Trying to force players to do content they don't enjoy is a bad business model in the long run.

[crusadernero]

But again, that's not the problem of content - it's a problem of reward structure. Why CAN'T Blizzard introduce AP in a way that people who like to raid, get that AP from raiding, and people who like to do WQs, get that from WQs. We're arguing here like it's something unfathomable, but it's hardly true. If they want to, they can make that happen, and then you have your avenue of developing your character, and someone who just likes to wander through the world without ever grouping has his own. So it shouldn't be me and you fighting over what content should or shouldn't be in the game; it should be me and you fighting with Blizzard to allow us to play the way we want, without creating tension between us. Cutting content/character development paths out of the game is not a solution, because while you might enjoy it, the other group suffers, and we blame each other for it, while the culprit is Blizzard and their idiotic reward structure (like Ash only dropping from Torghast).

If you got AP from WQs, raids & m+ the only thing that would happen is that doing WQs would be required in order to raid and push m+. Sad to say, but thats how it works.
Raiders would have to do WQs and lots of m+.
m+ players would have to do WQs in additon to m+ keys.
WQ players woul be happy cause they literally dont do anything else than WQ for some reason.
We can blame Blizzard for it (game design) or blame it on the playerbase. Doesnt really matter, the outcome is the same. In the end, the outcome here matters.

Historically, WQs/dailies has never really given great gear. It gave OK gear, rep, mounts and cosmetics. WQs giving player power is relative new.

[BeepBoo]

If you got AP from WQs, raids & m+ the only thing that would happen is that doing WQs would be required in order to raid and push m+. Sad to say, but thats how it works.

I think you're misunderstanding the premise a bit here. At least as I took it, Rage is saying there would be a weekly cap on power gained that you could easily cap out doing like 1 raid OR like 5 m+ OR like 109712356567123 world quests. Whatever mix you did, you would hit a cap at some point.

My supposition is that there are a lot of people who enjoy nolyfing all forms of content that would complain about the cap, though.

[crusadernero]

I think you're misunderstanding the premise a bit here. At least as I took it, Rage is saying there would be a weekly cap on power gained that you could easily cap out doing like 1 raid OR like 5 m+ OR like 109712356567123 world quests.

Weekly caps for lots of things have been tested and done in this game. It never really worked except with valor for upgrading items you have obtained. It all became mandatory and everyone felt they had to reach the weekly cap, each week.

What happens if you miss out on one weekly cap? You either fall behind or you get more to grind, just like with valor. Chances are, people start to feel they are falling behind. At that point, it gets tedious.

Blizzar would also balance out how much you get from raid, m+ & WQs. They would have to and most likely it wouldnt be reasonable to expect a good balance. People would find out whatever was most effective and do that.

In the end, these power gains from measly activies brings a plethoria of issues.

[Thundering]

The problem is no innovation. It's same shit all over again with a different theme and ppl got bored of it.

the problem is that they expect us to rerun the same content over and over again, that is the main issue and we are not talking about 1-2 months but entire expansions.

[Glorious Leader]

Weekly caps for lots of things have been tested and done in this game. It never really worked except with valor for upgrading items you have obtained. It all became mandatory and everyone felt they had to reach the weekly cap, each week.

What happens if you miss out on one weekly cap? You either fall behind or you get more to grind, just like with valor. Chances are, people start to feel they are falling behind. At that point, it gets tedious.

Blizzar would also balance out how much you get from raid, m+ & WQs. They would have to and most likely it wouldnt be reasonable to expect a good balance. People would find out whatever was most effective and do that.

In the end, these power gains from measly activies brings a plethoria of issues.

The weekly cap is still more catering to people who evidently can't seem to escape this weird social pressure that isn't a function of game design or even is even really universal among people raiding or running m+. It really is just a fraction of a fraction of the player base. Catering to this complaint is so bizarre. These people who were complaining by and large participated in the content, hated it and remained subbed! Why would you risk alienating literally everybody else for the sake of people who have clearly shown they will do whatever you throw at them?

[Rageonit]

If you got AP from WQs, raids & m+ the only thing that would happen is that doing WQs would be required in order to raid and push m+. Sad to say, but thats how it works.

Yeah, I've noticed that's what you believe (and honestly, I have to intention to change it). Incidentally, it's people with exactly your mindset imposing it on other similar people, while everyone else simply mind their own business.

I play this game since release and I've pugged almost everything there is to pug, and here's how it works: if you have high enough ilvl and an achi, you get an invite. You pull the boss, if it dies, people loot it and go their own way. If they wipe, lowest DPS are kicked (and nobody gives a fuck about their AP), and high DPS stay (and nobody gives a fuck about their AP).

Also, there are two types of raid leaders in this game: lazy and hot-headed, who will spam invites to people with high enough ilvl without checking anything else (and that's most of them); and meticulous and experienced raid leaders, who simply check people's performance on warcraftlogs. None of them give a fuck about AP. Item level & parses is all that counts, to different types of players. If you think otherwise, you don't know much about pugging.

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My supposition is that there are a lot of people who enjoy nolyfing all forms of content that would complain about the cap, though.

Maybe in the beginning, but they'd learn to live with it, fast. Very few people complain nowadays about Valor/Conquest cap; it's simply acknowledged as something normal.

EDIT: Also, when it comes to falling behind, you simply introduce a catchup. If you fall X weeks behind, you get a 100% buff or something. Hell, make it so you CAN'T fall below a certain level, like, say, 4 weeks. So if I don't play for 3 months and log back, I simply receive 2 months of AP, so I'm only a couple of weeks behind. There are plenty of options.

[crusadernero]

Yeah, I've noticed that's what you believe (and honestly, I have to intention to change it). Incidentally, it's people with exactly your mindset imposing it on other similar people, while everyone else simply mind their own business.

I play this game since release and I've pugged almost everything there is to pug, and here's how it work: if you have high enough ilvl and an achi, you get an invite. You pull the boss, if it dies, people loot it and go their own way. If they wipe, lowest DPS are kicked (and nobody gives a fuck about their AP), and high DPS stay (and nobody gives a fuck about their AP).

Also, there are two types of raid leaders in this game: lazy and hot-headed, who will spam invites to people with high enough ilvl without checking anything else (and that's most of them); and meticulous and experienced raid leaders, who simply check people's performance on warcraftlogs. None of them give a fuck about AP. Item level & parses is all that counts, to different types of players. If you think otherwise, you don't know much about pugging.

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Maybe in the beginning, but they'd learn to live with it, fast. Very few people complains nowadays about Valor/Conquest cap; it's simply acknowledged as something normal.

Yes, pugging has been my endgame activity in wow for about a decade or so. Gear, ilevel, achiv, rio score, AP (neck/wep lvl). Whatever. All is added to the list. Right now its gear(ilvl)+ rating/rio score. With AP it would just be another layer. Chances were lower to get invited if you had a shite score on either of them. Even worse if its bad with more than one of them.

Ofc theres great pug leaders that do great background work before setting up raids/dungeons, but thats not the norm.. Sadly. High AP lvl, high rio score, high ilevel and achivs will give you invites. If one or more of them are missing, your chances of getting invited are lowered. As such, players do whats needed in order to get invited to grps.

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The weekly cap is still more catering to people who evidently can't seem to escape this weird social pressure that isn't a function of game design or even is even really universal among people raiding or running m+. It really is just a fraction of a fraction of the player base. Catering to this complaint is so bizarre. These people who were complaining by and large participated in the content, hated it and remained subbed! Why would you risk alienating literally everybody else for the sake of people who have clearly shown they will do whatever you throw at them?

Ok sure. If they managed to make the AP gains HUGE from literally any activity and the catchup would he even bigger, then maybe it could work. It works OK with valor/conquest cause players can from the get go get rather good gear without needing to upgrade it.

[Rageonit]

Ofc theres great pug leaders that do great background work before setting up raids/dungeons, but thats not the norm.. Sadly. High AP lvl, high rio score, high ilevel and achivs will give you invites. If one or more of them are missing, your chances of getting invited are lowered. As such, players do whats needed in order to get invited to grps.

Nah, that's bullshit. Lazy raid leaders check ilvl and achi, meticulous raid leaders check logs & parses. No lazy raid leader will go through several layers of stats; only a meticulous and experienced would do that, but there's no need, becasue those people have better tools (warcraftlogs). That thing about AP is you painting an alternate reality picture to back up your claims.

[Zodiark]

Yeah, I've noticed that's what you believe (and honestly, I have to intention to change it). Incidentally, it's people with exactly your mindset imposing it on other similar people, while everyone else simply mind their own business.

I play this game since release and I've pugged almost everything there is to pug, and here's how it works: if you have high enough ilvl and an achi, you get an invite. You pull the boss, if it dies, people loot it and go their own way. If they wipe, lowest DPS are kicked (and nobody gives a fuck about their AP), and high DPS stay (and nobody gives a fuck about their AP).

Also, there are two types of raid leaders in this game: lazy and hot-headed, who will spam invites to people with high enough ilvl without checking anything else (and that's most of them); and meticulous and experienced raid leaders, who simply check people's performance on warcraftlogs. None of them give a fuck about AP. Item level & parses is all that counts, to different types of players. If you think otherwise, you don't know much about pugging.

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Maybe in the beginning, but they'd learn to live with it, fast. Very few people complain nowadays about Valor/Conquest cap; it's simply acknowledged as something normal.

EDIT: Also, when it comes to falling behind, you simply introduce a catchup. If you fall X weeks behind, you get a 100% buff or something. Hell, make it so you CAN'T fall below a certain level, like, say, 4 weeks. So if I don't play for 3 months and log back, I simply receive 2 months of AP, so I'm only a couple of weeks behind. There are plenty of options.

Yeah hey I more or less agree with the points you make. Nice to see other old guys on here from back in the day. Your right in your claim that people just care about parses. If you can crush the meters then no one really cares about much else. But people want to make this whole RaiderIO and AP, and all these other things more important than what they are. I think people like this just like to make everything more complicated in general.

Regarding the whole catchup thing. I basically LIVE for the catchup systems. Because I NEVER play current content. WHY? Because I can't be MADE to play a game like a job when I'm not getting paid for it. Logging in each day to do the gimmicky little BS that the dev's think up to keep players logging in each day and month until enough time goes by and said catchup system is put in place and people like me can just waltz up and scoop up fairly easy gear and then just go run everything previously released. I mean hell if you GAVE me the gear early on in the expansion I could tear the meters up with the best of them. I'm not adverse to reading up on a class for different builds and rotations, etc. I just don't want to be that guy who feels he needs to log in to do his little weekly quests, or other laundry lists.

[BeepBoo]

I just don't want to be that guy who feels he needs to log in to do his little weekly quests, or other laundry lists.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't as competitive as I am, but man there is nothing like being better than someone at something and having the stats to back it up. I simply wouldn't be playing wow if I wasn't doing current content stomping people. It holds next to no appeal otherwise.

[Arai]

The game lacks interesting content. Raid is what it is and has been since forever with slight variations until WoD. The best form of raiding was during MoP with the option to raid 10m highest difficulty. M+ has become a slog, almost no iteration at all, people are fed up with affixes and the design gets worse and worse. The timer doesnt benefit anyone and is a relic from the Diablo devs that created M+ in Legion. A bandaid to create "diffiuculty" as scalable content especially in an environment with Legendaries + Titanforging were it was difficult to figure out proper balance. However it is terrible design and hasnt changed ever since. Lets not talk about PvP its pretty garbage.

The game overall is boring and failed to iterate properly with interesting new features. Whats left is the boring gear treadmill, predictable. There are no Class Halls, no Artifact Weapons or tons of transmog variations to farm for. No other new side content that is actually interesting. To me this expansion feels like WoD 2.0 with the luck of M+ being there already and a few WQs popping up once in a while. Besides that the content is dreadfully boring and barebones. The professions while nice, have worn off quickly and I wouldnt call them a big feature really. Its a UI game to get more ilvl. No interesting transmog or questlines attached. Fetch this fetch that, repeat 100x.

I wonder what all the WoW devs at blizzard actually do to be honest. Bigger than ever apparently, doesnt feel like it thats for sure especially if you look at the amount of bugs that were in DF since launch and terrible M+ balancing. I always thought with Legion we finally climbed that hill were the team is so much larger and properly worked in and now the amazing expansions with tons of cool content can begin. What an outlier.

[Rageonit]

Sometimes I wish I wasn't as competitive as I am, but man there is nothing like being better than someone at something and having the stats to back it up. I simply wouldn't be playing wow if I wasn't doing current content stomping people. It holds next to no appeal otherwise.

How about crushing people on the meters, while having lower stats...? Ain't that even more worthy?

[Zorachus]

The game lacks interesting content. Raid is what it is and has been since forever with slight variations until WoD. The best form of raiding was during MoP with the option to raid 10m highest difficulty. M+ has become a slog, almost no iteration at all, people are fed up with affixes and the design gets worse and worse. The timer doesnt benefit anyone and is a relic from the Diablo devs that created M+ in Legion. A bandaid to create "diffiuculty" as scalable content especially in an environment with Legendaries + Titanforging were it was difficult to figure out proper balance. However it is terrible design and hasnt changed ever since. Lets not talk about PvP its pretty garbage.

The game overall is boring and failed to iterate properly with interesting new features. Whats left is the boring gear treadmill, predictable. There are no Class Halls, no Artifact Weapons or tons of transmog variations to farm for. No other new side content that is actually interesting. To me this expansion feels like WoD 2.0 with the luck of M+ being there already and a few WQs popping up once in a while. Besides that the content is dreadfully boring and barebones. The professions while nice, have worn off quickly and I wouldnt call them a big feature really. Its a UI game to get more ilvl. No interesting transmog or questlines attached. Fetch this fetch that, repeat 100x.

I wonder what all the WoW devs at blizzard actually do to be honest. Bigger than ever apparently, doesnt feel like it thats for sure especially if you look at the amount of bugs that were in DF since launch and terrible M+ balancing. I always thought with Legion we finally climbed that hill were the team is so much larger and properly worked in and now the amazing expansions with tons of cool content can begin. What an outlier.

Totally agree.

My opinion, in the last 10 years or so, only two expansion stand out as the best, MoP and Legion. The rest were mediocre to bad, like WoD sucked, BfA was just ok borderline not good, Shittylands totally sucked, and now DF is seeming a bit hollow a little generic, not bad, it's just ok so far.

[Rageonit]

The professions while nice, have worn off quickly and I wouldnt call them a big feature really. Its a UI game to get more ilvl. No interesting transmog or questlines attached. Fetch this fetch that, repeat 100x.

Seconded. But it's the Blizzard way currently: how to introduce more game withouth introducing any content. Trading Post is exactly the same: zero playable content (just some old and desirable mounts/mogs + some new); and just do even more of the thing you're already doing in order to get it.

EDIT: I'd even risk saying that Blizzard overtuning raids since at least several patches now is the same tactic: get more subs by prolonging the same content, instead of giving us new content.

[Glorious Leader]

How about crushing people on the meters, while having lower stats...? Ain't that even more worthy?

Theirs an amusing part of this because people who typically whine about forced content usually also claim to crave difficulty The fact that they will exploit every possible avenue to undermine that difficulty is evidently lost on them.

[Malkiah]

The problem is that to be "competitive" you needed it. I personally don't enjoy PvP either as some comps can be super effective against the other team BUT it was necessary to get the PvP on-use trinket that provided primary stats. The burst potential that trinket provided was far too good in PvE content.

but as is so often the case in this discussion... no, you literally didn't.

well OK, let me be clear: there is no rational or reasonable metric by which the term "competitive" can be applied to anyone posting on this forum, including you, that required anyone involved in this discussion to have access to that essence.
at no point during BFA was that essence the crux upon which success or failure hinged for anyone posting in this thread.

now what happened with that essence is that some people felt it was required for them to FEEL competitive, in whatever nebulous and ill defined way that "competitive" means to them personally.
and that's an important distinction.

But let's step back a bit, do you remember the MoP legendary cloak questline? That required players to do PvP at a certain stage. You could NOT bypass it in any way. I guess if you wanted to be that person who didn't have a legendary cloak then sure, you could opt out...

also true.
not that it matters, but in that case the power gain over a not-legendary cloak was big enough that i suffered through it since that only required a single win instead of farming honor.

but hell even that kinda reinforces my point, i think - it's OK to have stuff in the game that is or isn't attainable for some people, obtained via content that they may or may not want to do, and for people to pick and choose what they do or don't want to do.
the cloak was something i was willing to tolerate a little bit of PVP to get, the essence was something i was not willing to tolerate a lot of PVP to get.
that feels like a workable overall system to me.

So then what if Blizzard just gave you a power increase passively. You don't even need to log in, it just happens in the background as long as you stay subbed.

well for me personally i wouldn't care but i think that's because i seem to be a huge rarity on MMO-C... you see, i actually like playing WoW.
(excepting PVP, as i've mentioned)

i know, i know, it's freakish and bizarre and inexplicable, but there's this video game that exists and i enjoy playing it, and so i play it.
thus, designs that give me more WoW to play are positive and designs that reduce the amount of WoW to play are negative.
i don't play to inflate my ego over my io score, or compensate for my shriveled genitals via my PVP rating, or to construct an elaborate fantasy where narrowly specific benchmarks are mandatory for me to able to play.
i just like to log in and go forth and do WoW stuff.

[Alroxas]

but as is so often the case in this discussion... no, you literally didn't.

Ok then to perform well (aka within the 75% percentile) for that specific class/spec during that time frame, the PvP trinket was BiS and well sought after even by players who despised PvP.

This is backed up by not only simulations generated and shown on Bloodmallet or Herodamage but also shows up in warcraft logs and subcreation sites where it parses the wow's data to see what players are using.

This goes beyond "feel"craft to actual data that yes using XYZ is actually measurably better provided A) you can get the item and B) you can use it effectively.

not that it matters, but in that case the power gain over a not-legendary cloak was big enough that i suffered through it since that only required a single win instead of farming honor.

Lucky, took me over 12 matches on my alliance toon to get that win. Alliance is that bad at PvP at least on my server/battle group.

well for me personally i wouldn't care but i think that's because i seem to be a huge rarity on MMO-C... you see, i actually like playing WoW. (excepting PVP, as i've mentioned)

And you've highlighted the exact point - You enjoy playing WoW on your terms without having to deal with the stuff you don't want to do (aka PvP). Now imagine for instance, if in order to play WoW and do the things you want to do in WoW, you HAVE TO spend a MINIMUM of 2 hrs per day doing PvP before you can do the stuff you want to do.

That's the issue that Legion, BFA, and SL had. There was all this crap that some players HAD to do before they got to the stuff they WANTED to do.

For some Legion players, it was doing the daily chores of WQ to finish off emissaries on the hopes that they might get a Legion Legendary they wanted and not the crap Legion legendary that they got already. Or in BFA, it was doing those island expeditions to get the efficient AP farm done for the week even if you HATED island expeditions.

Finally in DF, you don't need to do those things. If you don't like community feast, you don't have to do it. The often sought after loot drop from the feast (aka Alchemical Flavor Pocket) is sold on the AH. You don't have to do Aiding the Accord if it doesn't reward you with things you want.

You want player power, go do raids or M+ or rated PvP. Also there's grinding out the reputations for the primal infusion reward at 25 or 30 renown (depends on faction).

[Soon-TM]

Legion's biggest mistake, AFAIK, was the random nature of lego drops - which Blizzard had never, ever repeated.

Not even that, imo the real problem with Legion was how badly balanced were Legiondaries at the beginning. Getting e.g. pre-buff Prydaz was not only disappointing, but also annoying, since that meant you weren't going to get your +20% dmg bracers for quite a while. Especially since Blizzard lied through their teeth insisting that there was no soft (or rather hidden) cap on Legiondaries acquisition rates, until someone from Reddit proved them wrong with sheer empirical data and a bit of basic math.