Originally Posted by
Battlebeard
Hi!
I just had it now with this island and wanted to see if anyone out there would agree that this is the by far worst idea Blizzard ever had. Some people like this island but personally I truly hate it. I want a stronger word then hate, because I hated Isle of Thunder too, but this is literally ten times worse. I'm gonna state some reasons to see if anyone agree with me. I should say that more or less also played this game since launch actively and engaged in everything the game has to offer. Please read thoroughly before you reply.
The idea of Timeless
The main idea of this island was to implement an island with a common new reward system, with so called Timeless Coins which was obtainable from different sources. The idea sounded, well decent I guess, but they failed miserably. The amount of time it takes to get some coins is not the problem. But the problem is that is basically Nothing to buy that has any value. You can buy the 496 gear but they also drop everywhere and some are even guaranteed from some chests. I never bought one single item from the shop, yet all my alts have full 496 gear (those who needed it) for both MS and OS and I constantly now vendor these. So to sell these tokens for coins seems kinda unnecessary. You can also buy the 535 item, Burden of Eternity, but it cost 50 thousand coins. To get 50 thousand coins takes a long time, and who in their right mind would grind 50 thousand coins rather then go for Raid Finder of Flex. What were they thinking... The only other things you can buy, which was the only items I cared for was One single pet, One single mount and a teleport trinket. And they all required reputation that takes forever to grind. In conclusion, worthless currency, which was boring to grind and by far not worth the effort.
Agreed. And if it wasn't bad enough that it takes ages to grind 50k coins, you even have a high chance to get a useless 1-stat item which you HAVE TO disenchant if you care about stats. (a 535 1-stat item equals a 495 normal item)
Supports the lazy and the bad
I should say more about those 496 items. They are really easy to obtain. There are over 30 small chests and a few bigger chest which has a very high chance of containing them. The chests are not account wide so you can visit with all your chars and claim lots and lots of those gears. They are also account bound so you can simply send them to your alts as well. "Nice free epics" some might think. But one of the biggest problems this game has had since around WotLK is that it caters to the lazy and the bad instead of the dedicated and the good. People will never get better if they don't face any challenge. They will never get better if they are not forced to learn. They will never enjoy the game before they are getting better. If they don't enjoy the game, they will un-sub and this game will loose more subscribers. Blizzard has the very wrong tactic here. They think that handing out free stuff, like these items, LFR, Scenario loot, which is easy loot, is the solution. It is not. If anything, it should be harder to get loot with more patches, not easier. Right now, old tiers are dying because no one need them. And seriously, if you ONLY fly to an island and loot some chest for your gear. How can you gain any skill or knowledge. Free gear comes with no experience. That means that bad and lazy people will be more common and spread to other areas in the game. There is a reason LFR sucks beyond belief. Those players never learned the game cause they never HAD to. This island makes ANYONE regardless how inexperienced or bad they are to access more parts of they game. This is not good for them either. Since they will just be hated and suck, they won't enjoy the game and they quit. Adding 496 item level gear (which also has terrible stats) was a huge fail from Blizzard.
Yeah, I don't even bother with LFR on alts because 535 gear is superior if it has 2 good stats.
"Huolon 100%... Houlon dead"
Second is the rare mobs. Why was it necessary to add so many? Isle of Thunder had many problems, like awful terrain and way, way, way too many mobs who dazed you wherever you went. But at least they had a decent amount of rares. Here its 20+ and they are spread. You might think that is nice, something should always be up, but NO. They never drop anything for the achievement "Going to need a bigger bag" and they barely drop any of the 496 gear, therefore, they are always wanted. There is always someone camping them (on medium/high realms at least) so they are basically never up more then a few seconds. You spend almost your entire time on this island running between dead rares. It's just ridiculously boring to run between corpses with no rewards for it either if you manage to reach them.
Agreed, I can 2-shot most rares and their droprates are beyond ridiculous. While I got the Huolon mount twice I'm still missing lots of the vanity items.
This place sucks...
Thirdly is the terrain and design. What were they seriously thinking when they placed out the mobs. The grass area has more tigers then it actually has grass. Can you go anywhere without aggroing something? Doubt it. Not to mention the cranes or other mobs. How hard is programming a flexible world, which increase number of spawned enemies depending on how many people that are near that area. Many people are on the island but almost no one kills random mobs so the numbers stay crazy high. And also the terrain. The trail up to Ordos Sanctuary is a joke. Fall down and you have to run a mile to get back up. It's a minor point I know, but I just think it could have been more accessible. Also the tauren enemies of Ordos wander the roads and guard entryways. Whatever happened to "If you follow a road you are less likely to encounter monsters"?...
Disagreed. Shells exists for a reason, use them.
...and you never leave it
Next and most importantly is the never, ever, ever, ever, ever ending grinds. People said they missed Vanilla grinds but Blizzard took that to literal and added useless grinds that I doubt many like. If you are an achievement hunter or just interested in doing as much as possible in game or feel the need to do the grinds for any other reason, you will have a bad time doing so. Why are they adding things that no one could find fun? Grinds are worthless unless they are meaningful. Linear, repetitive and boring grinds like the ones on the island are completely worthless. I speak of many. I do not count grinding timeless coins because you can never be "done" with it really. I mean grinds you can complete. Fire Watcher, which require you to get 2000 Bloody Coins is one of them. What is this, seriously. Blizzard turn you against your allies. Whatever happened to the community of the game? Whatever happened to playing together? Whatever happened to Alliance versus Horde? This is against Everything WoW should be. And worst of all, it takes countless hours of mainly farming people who are busy fighting other things, or scouting AFK people or just being a dick in general and snatching kills. Two thousand is needed, 500 would have been much more then enough. Then there is the reputation grind of course. Killing an endless amount of tauren mobs for small rep. Same mobs. Over and over. So boring I can't find words. Why was this grind needed when the reward is a not so cool mount and nothing more... The lat major grind is the worst one. The horror of this one is indescribable and I will give it an own paragraph even...
Yeah, there were certain "allies" I had to cuss out to the worst extent imaginable and made them archenemies for lifetime, whoever uses this censer and attacks people of their OWN faction is worthless scum IRL.
The biggest turd ever laid
I speak of course about "Going to Need a Bigger Bag". This is an abomination to mankind. What kind of sadistic, sick people came up with this one. This achievement require you to collect a trillion rare items which mainly drop from the rares, which I already mentioned, are almost always dead. The drop rate varies from below 1% to 4% or so for most items. I have only seen a few people in the world who has done this and these people are top 50 worldwide achievement collectors as well. I am not saying it should be easy, but this goes to far. Never has I seen in Any game I ever played an achievement this stupid. It forces those who care for achievements to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on this island doing the very same thing, running between rares and hoping for that item. An insane grind based on RNG... How could they have come up with this? I can't find more words of hate for this achievement but anyone who is going for it will see that it's a living hell.
Agreed, the droprates of those are abysmally ridiculous.
Conclusion
So, to wrap this up. This island has seriously not brought anything good. It's an abomination to the glorious game that is WoW. I hope someone agrees with me. I'm afraid that Blizzard don't consider this the huge fail that it was and will continue like this. The fate of the game is depending on the new expansion and if WoD fails like this island, and copy it's style, I seriously believe it can be the end of the game. The dedicated veterans will drop and left will only be new players who doesn't want to learn and only want free epic items. This island was perfect for them but bad for the quality of the game. I will try to spread this to Blizzard as much as I can, hopefully someone can see that people are displeased, and I hope someone agree with me.
Could have been much better if rare item drop rate was about 5%, and token gear always had 2 stats. Rare mob HP should scale based on the combined item levels of those who are in combat with it, not just number of people, because a single 550 player does more dps than five 496 players combined.
Last words, Timeless Isle is the worst idea created for any video game in the history of gaming. One of the best games add one of the worst ideas ever. Sometimes I wish they keep doing things like this so that the game die, just so the the responsible people can lie sleepless at night and wonder about the abominations they killed a great game with. Screw this island, I'm going home to Ironforge!