At what point does a patch become "old" and a "content drought" begins?

[Jaylock]

Currently we are 8-9 months into the HFC 6.2 patch of WoD. It is the final raid tier of the expansion. To me, (and i think everyone would agree with me on this), the patch is still fresh and there is still stuff to do.

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 9-11 months at minimum. This gives everyone ample time to finish mythic raiding if they choose to do so, and then be ready for the next expansion (after gearing a few alts in fully mythic warforged gear as well).

Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now. Give it another 3-4 months, then yeah, maybe we will be in one. But right now we are only 8-9 months into the patch.

At what point in a patch's life cycle is it considered "old"?

[willtron]

Currently we are 5-6 months into the HFC 6.2 patch of WoD. It is the final raid tier of the expansion. To me, (and i think everyone would agree with me on this), the patch is still fresh and there is still stuff to do.

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 6-9 months at minimum. This gives everyone ample time to finish mythic raiding if they choose to do so, and then be ready for the next expansion (after gearing a few alts in fully mythic warforged gear as well).

Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now. Give it another 3-4 months, then yeah, maybe we will be in one. But right now we are only 5-6 months into the patch.

At what point in a patch's life cycle is it considered "old"?

As soon as you're bored.

[lunchbox2042]

It's been 9 months, not 5-6 since 6.2 dropped.

[Mitters]

6 months for every patch, 4 patches per expansion. Not that hard is it? They released Blackrock foundry way too soon after Highmaul

[clevin]

It's been 9 months, not 5-6 since 6.2 dropped.

This. But then Jay doesn't really deal in reality.

On topic - ~4-6 months for a raid patch depending on the size of the raid and what non-raid content came with it. 3-4 months for a non-raid patch. But if you're asking when a drought begins after the last patch I'd say about 6 months for people who raid. By then everyone who's going to clear a raid on their difficulty has.

The complicating factor is that for non-raiders, if the last patch has mostly or only raid content, then the entire time is a drought in the sense that they didn't get new content. Even if we assume there's some non-raid content and they run LFR a couple of times to see things, a non-raider would probably feel that the last patch is getting old much sooner, around the 2-3 month mark.

[Skarzog]

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 9-11 months at minimum. This gives everyone ample time to finish mythic raiding if they choose to do so, and then be ready for the next expansion (after gearing a few alts in fully mythic warforged gear as well).

I don't know where you get that. If anything the sentiment typically falls on the opposite, these nearly year long final patches are increadibly annoying and turn people off to the game.

I don't know what qualifies as an "adequate" amount of time for any patch. There certainly isn't some well defined amount of time that officially classifies a patch as "old".

My question is what makes an end tier patch so much more special than the others? Blizzard is notorious at this point for not properly distributing their patches. The first patch of this expansion lasted I think 3 or so months. Our guild is 41st US and we barely scrapped by with a M Imperator kill before BRF was released.

So why is the first patch ~ 3 months and the final patch a year long?

Raiding? So the answer is to rush people in one tier and bore them to death in the last?
Gear? If anything getting full bis is far more important on the intermediary tiers where you can actually apply your gear to the upcoming content, whereas everything people are collecting now will be discarded for questing gear.

I don't know what the "correct" amount of time for a patch is. But I do know is Blizzard needs to get better at distributing their patches. It is annoying to be rushed for the first half of an expansion and then bored to death for the last half.

Edit: Same thing happened in MoP too. First few patches came out within a couple of months. The last patch lasted well over a year. Doesn't make sense.

[Granyala]

Up to the person.

For me, I was ready for a change after 6 months. After 6 months I didn't want to go into the same raid 3x a week any longer, no matter whether we cleared it on mythic or not. Doing the same boss on a higher difficulty simply doesn't have the same draw to me as doing a completely unfamiliar boss.

General rule of thumb: if all that remains is: PET battles, Achivement/Transmog hunting in old stuff, that's when I feel "out of content".
As a non raider, it really depends. Difficult to put a number on it, because I only start experiencing the game from that PoV now. Ask me in a couple of patches. ^^

- - - Updated - - -

I think everyone will agree with me on the fact that an end expansion patch should last between 9-11 months at minimum.

You're trying way too hard to troll here. You used to be more subtle, Jay.

[Deleted]

8 months should be max between content patches imo. If we get one expansion every second year, then it means 2 content patches minimum. 8 months, 16 months and then expansion at 24 months/ 2 years.
Would make the gaming experience better imo. Something new to do from time to time...

[WowIsDead64]

Usually 6 months, but this number is valid, only if you raid. If you don't raid and you play one character only (and it looks like, that Wow is still designed only with playing one character in mind, cuz we still don't have any "legacy" features in it, i.e. Blizzard still haven't admitted, that 99.99% of players have alts) - content may be completed within just a few weeks. Raid or die philosophy in action. Blizzard still can't find another way to force you to grind something for several months, other than raiding. Only there you have small chance to get 1-2 pieces of gear per week, which also decreases with time, cuz chance to get specific piece of gear << chance to get any piece of gear.

[MoanaLisa]

It's personal and comes down to when you feel like you have done everything you want to do. Estimating in calendar time, probably four-to-six months for a decent content patch but it will vary with play style, how many alts you maintain and how often you play. It may very well be that people that only play on weekends still have plenty to do. I'm not them so I don't know.

[Alvito]

in your first post you said 5 to 6 months into the patch and at 3 to 4 it wold be stale. Since we are really 9 in is it now stale or does it need a new spin? Content is old and stale when you don't have anything to do. For some that was the case a month or so into 6.2, for others that wont be true even up to Legion.

[Luxeley]

I for one could not possibly "disagree" with you more. This post is so idiotic, narrow minded and clueless that I seriously hope you're trolling. In case you're not a troll and just plain "clueless" (not even sure how you figured out how to turn on your computer), 5-6 months into a patch things are unquestionably stale, 6-8 months and people seriously complain 'where's the new content?' 8-10 months into a patch and the players who haven't already quit start doing so in droves. Generally speaking, a patch is supposed to offer 5-6 months of content. But if you consider the fact patch 6.1 was not a content patch, but a twitter patch, you're looking at 1 patch for what equates to 17-18 months of content since WOD launch.

[rda]

If you want a number, 6 months is very generous.

I think it's significantly less than 6 months *even* if you care about raids. And if you don't care about raids, well... then we are in "where's that content that I maybe kind of wanted to do before, but didn't do, let me check it, maybe I will like it" mode. That's how people go to try PVP, pet battles, etc. And if you had more than one lengthy period of no content already, chances are, you have nothing to turn to.

"Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now. Give it another 3-4 months, then yeah, maybe we will be in one. But right now we are only 8-9 months into the patch." --- yeah, that's complete BS. Like I say, 6 months already is too much and that's only if you like raids. The vast majority don't.

[Alvito]

6 months for every patch, 4 patches per expansion. Not that hard is it? They released Blackrock foundry way too soon after Highmaul

They screwed up with trying to make them the same tier but having a gap and huge item level difference between them. They couldn't pick a path and fucked up both of them as a result.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

(and i think everyone would agree with me on this),

Don't clump everyone together in your opinion with nothing backing it up.

[Eon Drache]

Imo content starts becoming "Stale" after about 4-5 months. Unfortunately with the mythic mount dropping 1 per kill you need 9-10 months to get everyone the mount.

[Jaylock]

If you want a number, 6 months is very generous.

I think it's significantly less than 6 months *even* if you care about raids. And if you don't care about raids, well... then we are in "where's that content that I maybe kind of wanted to do before, but didn't do, let me check it, maybe I will like it" mode. That's how people go to try PVP, pet battles, etc. And if you had more than one lengthy period of no content already, chances are, you have nothing to turn to.

"Imho, and im sure everyone will agree with me, we are not in a content drought at all right now. Give it another 3-4 months, then yeah, maybe we will be in one. But right now we are only 8-9 months into the patch." --- yeah, that's complete BS. Like I say, 6 months already is too much and that's only if you like raids. The vast majority don't.

6 months is not enough time for the majority of the players to finish that patch's raid tiers. Again, i got in a little late on the HFC raiding, but im only 11/13 mythic with manno about to go down soon. We are 8-9 months in. 9-11 months seems to be the right amount of time to adequately gear and farm the final raid tier in any given expansion. Our guild needs to get 20+ mounts before legion hits, and im sure many other people need to do the same in their respective guilds.

[Deleted]

I think it highly depends on how fast you get everything done that you want, that's why gating works because it helps preserve it for longer, Right now each patch is worth 2 weeks, maybe less, and each catch up tool makes the last one irrelivant

[Deleted]

Depends on how much content it brings.
For example:
-the selfie/twitter patch became old after 15 minutes... because that was it.
-the Molten Front area + raid in Cataclysm became old after 4-6 months. Because there was content.

[Osmeric]

It's close to being finished for me. I've already achieved my initial raiding goal, and am close to my stretch goal.

However, I typically don't unsub during content droughts, I just go into a more relaxed play style, as I am still having fun.