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

[rda]

6 months is not enough time for the majority of the players to finish that patch's raid tiers.

It doesn't matter.

First, few care about finishing the tier on highest difficulty, they are fine with finishing on whatever difficulty. Heck, many don't even care about finishing at all, 6 months is a ton of time, people get bored way earlier, they just want it to be over with.

Second, few care about raids at all, people you are talking about (care about finishing on mythic) are a minority within a minority.

[Spl4sh3r]

If we take it from raiding stand point then we can only raid once per week (I mean full clears for loot on one character) and I would say at least 16 times before we consider it done, each time we up the difficulty add 4 more weeks at least. Guess that ends up being 6 months for a Mythic Raider.

However that is if you are a casual raider that still aims to clear it all with a dedicated group. If you are more casual than that you can easily add another month or two and maybe you don't end up raiding each week so you can add even more to that.

If you don't raid at all or if you raid with more than one character then I guess the time is less than 6 months because you either run out of content quicker or you get bored doing the same thing over and over too much.

[Thelxi]

I start losing interest 3-4 months into patches.

[Deleted]

Last tier patches should last 10-12 months. This gives enough time to farm the mythic last boss mounts for everyone in a guild that takes roughly 5.5 months to clear the content. But it all depends on what there is to do in the game besides raiding really, and how ready the next expansion seems. If you're 8 months into the last patch and the next expansion looks almost ready, it is more bearable than if the expansion still looks very bare bones.
For the other patches, I'd say 6 months between raid tiers with an intermediat patch (like 5.1) 2-3 months into each non final patch.

[Deleted]

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 disagree. The patch is quite stale and old already.

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 disagree. I think it should last 8 months-12 months. So 12 months at most. This is because no matter how much you like the game there's a point where there isn't anything more to do. That being said, Blizzard does need the time to create a good expansion. Also, your point is moot as there's no reason to gear "a few" alts in fully mythic warforged gear, as that gear will become irrelevant after a few levels at the expansion.

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.

Imho, yes we are. I'm sure not everyone agrees with me, but I do believe a lot of people do.

[rda]

I disagree. I think it should last 8 months-12 months. So 12 months at most.

A different opinion: the final patch should last exactly the same as an intermediate patch. It's not my problem that they have an expansion to make, I am paying all the way - both a sub and separately for the expansion. It is their job to arrange effort in such a way that patches and expansions come at a steady pace, not mine. Final patches are *not* greater in size than intermediate patches, so if they last longer than intermediate patches, we have a situation where I am paying more for same content. That's unacceptable.

We are only accepting increased lengths of last patches because Blizzard have been doing it that way. It's not normal. (Yeah, I know, "unsub", someone is bound to suggest that. I did.)

[Kryos]

The sweet spot of a raid lasting is 4-5 months

Not my words. Tom Chilton's from Blizzard:

http://wowweekly.net/tom-chilton-int...-soon-to-come/

"A raid tier should last atleast 4 months otherwise it will feel too rushed."
"we wanna hit the sweet spot of a raid lasting between 4-5 months before the next big thing comes."

So even Blizzard has to admit, that Hellfire Citadel is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long and we should have hat at least a full tier of content since Hellfire came out 2015-06-23. When Legion hits wie will have a full year+ the same content. That's not ok.

Legion should have been released January to stay even remotely in these time frames. It didn't and is still far from finished. Blizzard screwed up again.

[WowIsDead64]

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.

Yeah. For example I'm altoholic. When I have nothing to do - I just start to level new character via quests and without looms, trying to reproduce Vanilla/TBC/WotLK experience. But with time, as you might guess, I have more and more to do, cuz even if you have just one week of content in some patch - it turns into months, when you have 22 characters of all classes and specs. So 3 5ppls + some solo outdoor content to fill gaps on pure DPS classes per patch - would be ideal content for me. So may be it's time for Blizzard to admit, that they have only three ways of making enough content for players: 1) Raids 2) Time gated Facebook mini-games 3) Alts. So may be it's time to implement official content for alts?

[rda]

The sweet spot of a raid lasting is 4-5 months

Not my words. Tom Chilton's from Blizzard:

http://wowweekly.net/tom-chilton-int...-soon-to-come/

"A raid tier should last atleast 4 months otherwise it will feel too rushed."
"we wanna hit the sweet spot of a raid lasting between 4-5 months before the next big thing comes."

Good find.

I agree with Tom Chilton.

[Djriff]

I have to agree that generally 4-6 months is long enough. However for me I enjoy the instance itself even if I do it on 5 different toons. It can get a bit annoying, but it's nice to experience it as a different class and makes the content last a bit longer for me.

4-6 months is plenty of time for guilds to clear normal/heroic. Mythic may be a bit tougher, but it's suppose to be. It may reinvigorate the race to the finish if you knew you only had 6 months to clear mythic.

[ComputerNerd]

It isn't universally old, nor is there a countent drought as a general definition.
The progress of one player or any selected players to suit an argument do not define that.
There will always be those more progressed, and those less.
And those with stuff still to do, or just mature enough to just accept they aren't the sole audience will not be making a lot of noise about it, therefore you cant say how many people the noisiest portion doing the complaining actually represents purely by their apparent volume.
There will always be those who run out of specific content to do if they are hell-bent on throwing themselves at it, no matter how quickly blizzard bring it out.
Now whether blizzard are happy with the numbers or not is another matter.
There can be a genuine intent to bring it out quicker, but not the execution behind it.

[Deficineiron]

Jaylock, I am amazed you can repeatedly take such blatantly inflammatory positions in a thread and get serious responses. You aren't even being subtle this time. Aren't you still busy exploring the joys of selfie cam like you described in another thread you started? Your equivocal response to me on that thread was disturbing as it smacked of 2.2 and 6.1 denial.

[Faenskap]

Well, the final patches of the expansions are... unneccessairly long.

They said they wanted yearly expansions, yet the last patch alone will last a year. That's disappointing

I'm done with max level content save for raiding and the really grindy things (slaughtering 500 pandas for instance) and I've been done for some time now. I guess you could say I was "done" with Tanaan in July when I hit exalted with the factions for flying. That's over 6 months ago.

Normally I'm a little nervous (I guess) when a new expansions arrvies as we have to relearn things which I don't like. Now though? Can't fucking wait.

[Arganis]

I'd say 8 months max. In an ideal world every 6 there should be something.

[kamuimac]

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

i completly disagree with you unless by last patch you meant last tier - just because tier is long there is no excuse for not releasing any patch in that time - and patch could mean anything dungeons/scenarios/dailies/quests/new storyline anything that rpg are build on and that is definetly not raids - there is a reason why it all begun stuff called "dungeons&dragons" not "raids&raids or gtfo"

also f me im tired didnt notice its another jaylocks trollbait ><

[Jaylock]

Jaylock, I am amazed you can repeatedly take such blatantly inflammatory positions in a thread and get serious responses. You aren't even being subtle this time. Aren't you still busy exploring the joys of selfie cam like you described in another thread you started? Your equivocal response to me on that thread was disturbing as it smacked of 2.2 and 6.1 denial.

Having an opinion that I don't think we are in the "content drought" phase of a patch doesn't = trolling. How you can't separate out genuine opinion vs trolling is beyond me.

How long FOR YOU would you say a content patch still has savour?

[Deleted]

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.

I'd say I've gone casual til Legion, I only really do anything on a Sunday when we raid.

Raids are pretty much keeping me subbed atm.

Just lack my Blackhand and Archimonde mounts.

[Deficineiron]

Having an opinion that I don't think we are in the "content drought" phase of a patch doesn't = trolling. How you can't separate out genuine opinion vs trolling is beyond me.

How long FOR YOU would you say a content patch still has savour?

I am shocked and offended by this post. I have not used the word trolling and it is a violation of forum law to do so. Additionally I believe I am the victim of a micro-aggression.

Finally, it is unclear how you have time to do all this content stuff while busy with selfie cam. It seems to me that you may be overstating your content issue while hiding how much you are using selfie-cam.

I am unable to offer intelligent feedback on the alleged topic at hand., in any event. I have not been subbed to a final content patch since 3.3 (yes I know about 3.4), and I was doing low-level and pvp stuff at that point.

[Kuntantee]

6, max 7 months per major patch is appropriate imo.

[Jaylock]

6, max 7 months per major patch is appropriate imo.

What about for the final tier of an expansion?