Anti-grinding mechanic has now been added in (AOE farming no longer possible)

[ramjb]

There are now reports in the official forums that 6.0 secretly added in an unannounced anti-grinding mechanic. Large pulls of, or killing 10+ mobs in the same area will reward only 10% of the XP and loot drops (so e.g. cloth so goodbye farming for low level mats) per kill.

Leveling and gathering has been completely nerfed to push people to buy $60 level 90 and profession boosts. The XP of mobs in dungeons has been reduced, and AOE grinding mobs is no longer possible. After killing 10 or more mobs in the same area, the mobs only reward 10% XP and loot (gg cloth, leather, etc. for leveling professions). Blizzard snuck this in hoping people would not notice. Guild Wars 2 tried doing the same thing, which they publicly announced as their anti-botting solution, but the playerbase ended up protesting so much that ArenaNet reversed their policy and removed it from Guild Wars 2. Of course Blizzard are going to keep it in WoW because people who pay $15 a month to play a game with 2004 gameplay/graphics have a high tolerance for being ripped off.

Here are some of the posts in the official forums:

Seriously I kill mobs quickly so I get an experience penalty?

I wasn't even going through an insane amount of them either. I pulled like 2 or 3 of the same type of mob on my prot paladin around level 77 in heirloom gear. I get to about 15 kills or so and go from 1,200 exp to 111....

I enjoy grinding. I find it fun. I listen to music and pod casts and turn off my WoW sound. Especially when I find the zones, quests etc to be boring drull, or just for whatever reason I don't feel like questing. Its a good alternative. Its also very effective with rested experience. No I don't want to fetch 20 squirrel tails for insert NPC. I can go grind cloth or materials etc and make my own goals/quests but all of that includes grinding and killing mobs efficiently to some extent.

Dungeons should not be the only alternative to questing for leveling. Seriously remove this experience nerf. There is nothing wrong with grinding to level.

"Same mob... same *LEVEL* of mob.

one kill 1200xp..
next kill 120 xp
next kill 1200 xp again...
then 120 xp for a few ..
then one last 1200xp..

then the rest are 120xp ...

ah ... what the hell ?

AGAIN!! mobs are the SAME mob, SAME level of mob, and no I did not gain a level whille killing the same mob and same level of mob while grinding frostweave. "

Does that loot drop nerf apply in instances though? Because a common way to farm mats is to round up large numbers of mobs in a low-level instance and aoe them down all at once. I imagine you can easily kill a few hundred mobs in a few seconds that way?

Wonder if this is why i was getting like 4 embersilk cloth in Normal Stonecore when I rounded all the mobs up until right before the first boss. Rougly what like 20+ mobs? different names though. /shrug

UPDATE: video of someone who noticed the anti-grinding mechanic being activated in the beta servers. The commentator explains his observations of the phenomenon / what might trigger it / how to get around it. He states that it affects both instances and open world grinding. He was not able to grind instances for leveling, because after killing a set number of mobs in the instance the XP got nerfed to 10% (the only way to restore the XP rate was to leave the instance and reset it).

[Martyn 470]

I don't mind this as long as it only affects packs of 10+, if you're leveling as prot like a few of my characters did, aoe grinding is the only real way to get quests done quickly, it's a bit like how on my crusader in Diablo 3, my single target dps is horrible but i can take down packs of 50 mobs in a few seconds with aoe.

[Darsithis]

Leveling and gathering has been completely nerfed to push people to buy $60 level 90 and profession boosts. Blizzard are going to keep it in WoW because people who pay $15 a month to play a game with 2004 gameplay/graphics have a high tolerance for being ripped off.

Source?

There are now reports in the official forums that 6.0 secretly added in an unannounced anti-grinding mechanic. Large pulls of, or killing 10+ mobs in the same area will reward only 10% of the XP and loot drops (so e.g. cloth so goodbye farming for low level mats) per kill.

Definitely not a change I'm happy about. I haven't noticed it, though, but I'll see tonight if it's in there for sure or if it's a bug.

[Revi]

Wow, this is pretty shitty. If this applies at max level it'll ruin the solo aspect of the game for me.

[Martyn 470]

I should mention I just did Heroic Bastion of twilight and was still getting 20+ cloth per pack of mobs which seems fine to me, I don't know if its because it was a raid or not.

[SL1200]

If this is true, I dont like it. Why penalize honest players because of botters. I hate when they do this stuff.

[oathy]

its like the crazy idea of mages.
Arcane and Frost can still AOE no problem yet go fire and we have that "amazing" flamestrike to use its complete Crap I soloed TK earlier and it was actually so bad it was funny that after 2 flamestrikes the mobs were still alive. yet on Frost they were dead in seconds and the entire instance done in 10 minutes. I love how the Devs have suddenly decided AOE isn't really that nice even though certain classes are basically created for AOE.

[Siri]

The lower exp award is intended and it has been this way for a veeeeery long time on the beta realms.

[SL1200]

Just because it's intended doesn't mean it's good, and nothing that has happened in beta quallifies for being in the game a very long time.

[Deleted]

So what's their excuse for not putting this in the patch notes? Afraid of riots?

[Keile]

I think the intention here was to try and prevent botting, while trying to persuade normal players to level via questing/instancing rather than grinding.

Easy fix for that would be for them to slightly increase quest xp to compensate so normal players can still level up quickly while botters get penalized.

[foxHeart]

That is, frankly, retarded.

[Spoonman]

The exp thing being reduced after a while is true..
There is one way to bypass it but im not gonna say anything before I see who gets World first level 100

Its gonna be very interesting this time around to see if someone have managed to find a super place with all these mechanincs u also need to beat at the same time

[oathy]

That is, frankly, retarded.

the only thing that's keeping me playing They are ignoring the obvious outcome at the moment.
but I suspect we are going to see the biggest Repair patch in the history of WOW within months of WOD launching.
they have got the entire direction so wrong this time.

[Thelxi]

This is just stupid. This change does nothing to eliminate bots which having been running rampant for years, but only punishes players. There was no reason for this change, -1 Blizzard.

[Ralph01]

I dont like this at all. I play MS prot on any class that can tank. Personally i like gathering large groups of mobs and trying to survive (whilst grinding for whatever mats or xp im looking for at the time), if this stays true it is going to distroy that method of questing. Hell, even on my hunter i use turtle to round up 5-6 mobs then AoE them down. I feel like the way they are gearing the game is for less grinding.. lemmie just say that if i have to kill one mob at a time, 90-100 is going to be worse than The Insane title in Wrath.

[glowpipe]

this mainly hurts bots. Decent change. i approve

[foxHeart]

this mainly hurts players who are even remotely competent.

Corrected for accuracy.

[Deleted]

So that means I can no longer pull half of Black Temple or Sunwell, AoE the mobs and loot everything at once ?

[Frozenbeef]

What about for low level dungeons? I love running through instances then auto aoe looting everything to disenchant / sell on the ah