Echoes of Mortality, Vestments of the Eternal Traveler and Torghast

[Nosgoth]

In case you don't know, if you preorder the heroic edition, you can get a transmog set. However you have to do a quest first and gather 40 Echoes of Mortality. The thing is that there seems to be a mechanic, that gives you a couple of them rather quickly each day, but after a few, you hit a point where the droprate is severely reduced. So for example you might enter a dungeon, do 5 pulls and after 5 minutes get 6 Echoes from one mob. But then you hit the cap, and now you get like 1 drop per hour.

I and many other players have noticed this. Essentially this means that either you can invest 5 minutes per day and do that and get your quest done after about a week with minimal effort, or you can accept the low drop chances and grind all day. Some have reported finishing it in 90 minutes, but I am fairly skeptical of that, since others report 1 drop per hour, even in good farmspots.

Bottomline is, you can either wait and invest minimal time and effort, or get it done day one with a lot of grinding.

Why is Blizzard doing this? I mean let's set aside how obviously terrible it is to force players through this quest after they have just paid real money to have access to this transmog set. But what is the point of such a quest? Why let people decide between waiting it out and taking the grind?

Could it be that they are testing something for the next expansion?

We know that Torghast will give legendaries and that players will be able to do Torghast as much as they like. Now if whatever resource Torghast gives that is needed for crafting legendaries has a cap, then most likely people will just reach the cap and stop playing.

But let's say you need 1000x [legendary resource] and you can get 50 of them easily each day. It takes you just one average run or something. You do your daily Torghast for 20 days, and you get to craft your first legendary. But what if, if you kept playing, it keeps giving you that resource, but at a much reduced rate? So hardcore players will get to craft their legendary earlier, but they will have to grind it out.

I'm not saying this would be a great thing, I'm just wondering if Blizzard is considering something like this.

[The Butt Witch]

I considered it but then I saw the costume has clipping issues with the shoulders clipping into that chest plate thing, so naah.

Also I promised myself that I will only buy the expansion if MM/BM hunter becomes good at 1v1 pvp next expac.

[Jowany]

From my guildmates I know they were farming this for like 3 hours. I dont think there is something like small drop rate. Maybe depends where you were farming.

[Amerissis]

Yes, could be. Could not be. We have no idea. What exactly do you want to discuss?

[Nosgoth]

From my guildmates I know they were farming this for like 3 hours. I dont think there is something like small drop rate. Maybe depends where you were farming.

Even farming for three hours means there is a low drop chance.

You get the first 4-6 drops each day within minutes. Every day. I have done this over the course of 1 week, investing as little as 5 minutes each day doing the first few pulls in a dungeon up to the first boss, and I got 4-6 drops each day just from doing that. That's a total time investment of about 30-45 minutes.

If it took someone 3 hours of grinding, that just shows the reduced droprate.

There are many people reporting exactly what I am saying. It's clear this is the case.

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Yes, could be. Could not be. We have no idea. What exactly do you want to discuss?

What do you want here?

[Nosgoth]

Honestly I am largely in favor of soft caps as long as there is also catch up.

But doesn't that discourage playing? If I can get something done for the day in 5 minutes, and after that it is hours of playing to achieve the same thing in several hours, doesn't that just tell me that it is better to just wait for the next day and invest as little time as possible.

[Nosgoth]

It's better for them if people can play one hour per day but play every day than if people play for 6-7 hours per day for a week or two then don't log in for three months.

But that's the point. It's better. It's better for everyone. How crazy would you be to grind for hours if you could just wait a week and achieve the same thing with minimal effort.

[Chonar]

As an awesome grown-up heavy babby-man with responsibilities including a 9 to 5 job, I see no problems here. Most of my ingame goal are long-term ones.

[huth]

No, that's not a new system. Getting extra on the first drop has been used before.

[Samin]

But doesn't that discourage playing? If I can get something done for the day in 5 minutes, and after that it is hours of playing to achieve the same thing in several hours, doesn't that just tell me that it is better to just wait for the next day and invest as little time as possible.

I mean catch up mechanics should at their lowest be measured in weeks, maybe months or even content releases.

Also, catch up mechanics should only bring you to an acceptable base level, meaning active/intense play still means you're ahead. It just gives other people a chance to keep up.

Also, of course, if the entirety of the gameplay is what is being caught up, then that kind of devalues actively playing. But the goal is that you don't only play for the grind but have tons of other things going on around it. As such it should discourage playing because you don't play just to optimize getting that numbers, but rather for the entirety of the experience.

[Toxuvox]

I've done the quest. From accepting to handing in, doing a handfull of WQs and farming the Blood Gate, it took a little over 90 minutes to farm all 40 Echos. I know some folks who have come in a little under that 90 minutes, and a fair few who took a fair bit longer. I think the drop rate is, with the exception of that one multidrop, just random and low. I could go 10 minutes and maybe 100 mobs with no drops, then get 3 or 4 in the next couple minutes. Sometimes it was a steady flow of 1 in 5, or 1 in 10.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Could it be that they are testing something for the next expansion?

Yes. They are implementing a "grind" mechanic to the game that forces you to play the game more and for longer periods of time to achieve something.






OH WAIT---

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Did you just figure out that bad luck protection/daily/weekly limits/quest etc exist?

This isn't something new, blood of sargeras was one of the earlier that was noticeable. There probably are much earlier things that had limited drop chance past a few items

[KYZ123]

But doesn't that discourage playing? If I can get something done for the day in 5 minutes, and after that it is hours of playing to achieve the same thing in several hours, doesn't that just tell me that it is better to just wait for the next day and invest as little time as possible.

Depends on where the soft cap is, and the rate at which you can grind after hitting the soft cap.

Rustbolt reputation also has a daily soft cap which you hit after about half an hour to an hour (depending on your speed). After doing the daily quests/world quests, your ability to gain reputation is severely reduced. Barring one-time-only sources, the only way is to grind the recycling quest.

This means that if you really, absolutely want to grind out Rustbolt exalted as soon as possible (for some reason), you can, at a much reduced rate. Or, if you're just a hundred points off of Honored/Revered/Exalted, you can get there without having to wait a day. For the majority of the playerbase, who don't have the time to grind a reputation out in a day, hitting the daily soft cap is a perfectly viable method of getting reputation.

Soft caps are also the midpoint between hard caps and no caps. With hard caps, the players with more time complain that they can't continue playing/getting rewards after hitting it. With no caps, the players with less time complain that they feel obligated to grind it all out, and players with more time complain that they burn through the content in a day.

Soft caps avoid the negatives of both of these. You can continue playing and getting rewards after hitting the soft cap. It's unfeasible to burn through all the content in a day. There's clearly no obligation to finish the grind as quickly as possible.

[LordVargK]

But that's the point. It's better. It's better for everyone. How crazy would you be to grind for hours if you could just wait a week and achieve the same thing with minimal effort.

No. That's absolutely not better for everyone. I personally HATE daily activities (mostly MOP daily PTSD). Give me a weekly cap or give me no cap at all. Thats why I also hate worldquests in their current form. Emissary quests require you to play every 3 days to get maximum benefits, which is kinda fine. But most worldquests only last for a day, so to maximize your reputation gain, you have to login every day. Would be nice if worldquests would last for 3 days, like emissary quests. Then you don't have to play when you don't feel like it and you could make up for the lost day by playing longer on another day.

But BTT: I can imagine Torghast currency working like the valorpoint system: Get a weekly cap and be done with it. Or maybe make it a weekly softcap so that people with no alts and too much time have a reason to grind further. But i would despise a daily cap, because I hate the thought "If I don't play today, I will miss something". It makes the game a chore, not fun. Give the player the choice to grind 1 hour everyday or 7 hours on one day and be done with the reasonable grind. Then hardcore players can grind on with 90% reduced gains or so, Altoholics can play each of their alts on a different day (it's probably way more time efficient to play 7h once a week compared to play every alt 1h each day, considering you'll have to factor in traveling times to Torghast and such), and the casual player can play 2 hours Mo-Fr and 5 hours on the weekend if he so desires
More time invested will still reap greater benefits (but at reduced efficiency) and you won't be forced to invest time each day (which is not something rewardworthy imo).

All of this is written from a players perspective of course. From a publishers side, the story is different, but I would argue putting this currency on a weekly schedule will reduce player burnout. And putting it on a daily schedule would let players make the game a part of their daily routine, which increases the grip the game has on players. At the same time burnout will be higher and I think that burnout will overcome the routine eventually unless every legendary is earned before that (which it probably won't since Torghast has to be relevant for the entire expansion).

tldr: Daily systems turn more players off than they bind to the game and giving the players the choice to play when they feel like it makes the game overall better. If Torghast gets a (soft)cap, it should be a weekly cap, not a daily one

[Nosgoth]

Did you just figure out that bad luck protection/daily/weekly limits/quest etc exist?

Those are entirely different things.

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I've done the quest. From accepting to handing in, doing a handfull of WQs and farming the Blood Gate, it took a little over 90 minutes to farm all 40 Echos. I know some folks who have come in a little under that 90 minutes, and a fair few who took a fair bit longer. I think the drop rate is, with the exception of that one multidrop, just random and low. I could go 10 minutes and maybe 100 mobs with no drops, then get 3 or 4 in the next couple minutes. Sometimes it was a steady flow of 1 in 5, or 1 in 10.

By just killing a couple of mobs every day for a week, you could reduce that time to maybe 30 minutes or less. So waiting still makes it more time-efficient.

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No, that's not a new system. Getting extra on the first drop has been used before.

You are not getting "extra" on the first drop, and I don't know what system you mean.

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No. That's absolutely not better for everyone. I personally HATE daily activities (mostly MOP daily PTSD). Give me a weekly cap or give me no cap at all.

You hate daily activities, but you like weekly ones?

[LordVargK]

You hate daily activities, but you like weekly ones?

Yes, did you read the post? I hate being "forced" to play everyday if even if I otherwise would not, even at times I generally like the game. But I accept, that caps are a necessity. I only ask that I'm able to reach the cap at my own rate and giving me a week's time to finish 7hours of grinding (arbitrary value) is more reasonable than giving me a day to complete 1h. It's about personal freedom and choice.

To give you an example: Let's say your're an average WoW player 30-40 years old, have a job, wife/husband, maybe even children or a pet. You may also have friends in real life, rumours say that something like that exists. If you're our average WoW player, you will find yourself in the situation that you'll have days, where you just can't play WoW. Now you can't do your daily quests and you have to wait longer for the reward you're grinding for. But then, the weekend comes and you have completed all you dailys but still got time to play. Sure would be nice if you can make up that one lost day, wouldn't it? But no, you've done your dailys for the day and now you're bored and fly circles in Stormwind. And you feel punished, because your guildie, who plays the same amount of time as you gets their legendary a week before you, just because he can play every day. That makes you frustrated with WoW in general.

What I'm saying is that the daily system punishes players, who can't play every day, even when they play as much or even more than a player who can play every day. Invested time (within reason) should be rewarded, not daily attendance.

[Nosgoth]

Yes, did you read the post? I hate being "forced" to play everyday

With weekly activities, you're forced to play every week.

[Shauren]

This is not a new system, to give you an idea of how old it is I will use an example from cataclysm - if you farmed volatile elements (fire/air/water/earth, crafting materials) for too long, drop rate was severely diminished

[Nosgoth]

It's a very different thing to every day. It lets you binge on the weekend which is something many did or it lets you get done with such activities on reset day and then focus on instanced content.

I don't like to be forced to play all weekend.

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This is not a new system, to give you an idea of how old it is I will use an example from cataclysm - if you farmed volatile elements (fire/air/water/earth, crafting materials) for too long, drop rate was severely diminished

I've never noticed that, probably cause I never farmed those. Seems very irrelevant. That just seems like something done to diminish the effect bots have on the economy. So it's a totally different thing.