Does anyone else think Shadowlands looks like time gated rep grinds: the expansion?

[Eapoe]

The main feature of the expansion, Covenants, just looks it will be nothing but time gated rep grinds by doing world quests, and it's going to be extremely important to do, because it will unlock new abilities that are probably very much required to do content like raiding, Mythic+, etc.

Then on top of that, it's more time gated rep grinds to unlock flying through Pathfinder. Probably even more time gated rep grinds to unlock gear and cosmetic rewards.

And then to top it all off, I hope you like being slowed down in your content consumption even more, because Titanforging is here to stay.

It seems like every design decision lately that Blizzard makes has only one goal in mind: slow down our content consumption to increase the MAU numbers by keeping people playing for longer, and make sure they're logging in every day by stopping their progress for the day and telling them to come back tomorrow. When do we get content that is just designed to be rewarding and fun to play through? Will this game ever go back to being just a well designed video game, and not a cash cow for Blizzard to design to milk the most profits from to funnel to other projects?

I don't think it ever will honestly, I know people will still buy and play Shadowlands, they'll say "time gating everything is fine, people shouldn't be able to rush through the content and then complain about having nothing to do", and Blizzard will never stop tacking a time gate on everything or making every design decision based around slowing down our content consumption as much as possible.

I can't stand it anymore, it has completely ruined my enjoyment of this game, and I don't think I can stand to play through another time gated rep grinds: the expansion. If Shadowlands isn't that, I'd be glad to give it a shot, but everything I've seen about it so far pretty much points to exactly that.

Since people have necro’d this thread and stating the OP is correct, let’s look at some things:
Rep grinds don’t really matter. You get a few crafting items from some of them, but for the most part you get specific quests that unlock Renown that take about 30 minutes at a time. Rep is more cosmetic item related.

Pathfinder isn’t tied to rep (at least not yet) as Blizzard has even stated as much.

Titanforging is gone.

Blizzard has catch up mechanics in place to allow people to not fall too far behind others if they are new or returning players. This actually lowers MAUs because, unless you are playing for other reasons (raid/m+/sheer enjoyment of the game) then they can’t time gate you for MAUs since you’re already playing. Otherwise you can just not play for a few month, come in, and catch up, which also doesn’t affect MAUs.

Good news OP: rep has almost zero influence on end game unless you really want to be the one in your raid group with a feast or cauldron drop. People complain about the Maw not allowing any mounts, but with portals being opened up as you progress, and the fact that people haven’t stated yet how those 2 dailies just can’t be completed on a daily basis because they are on foot, then it’s obviously not that big of an issue. Nor does that increase MAUs as people are still playing to play the game.
Seems like anyone who has played so far would be able to tell you your fears are unwarranted and you can jump right back in to the game and play.

[Sluvs]

Half the convenant features are time gated by souls, that includes the covenant specific weekly events.

But almost all of them do not affect player power.

I get what you are saying, but I really do not mind that

[Eurhetemec]

The time gating sure isn't impacting my gameplay in any negative way yet.

I was wondering if it would, because some time gating has been somewhat obnoxious, but it looks like it doesn't. If I was no-lifing it I could see being a bit mad, but even then M+ and raids haven't even opened up, so give WoW a minute for god's sake.

[Flower Milk]

OP here, it's actually not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. I'm sure some of you disagree but I'm glad that it's finally not just doing WQs to fill up a rep bar, I like that. I'm also playing pretty casually too so there is that.

[cparle87]

do you even tabard bro?

That existed for one xpac, not even for all reps, and Blizz removed it because people were no-lifing dungeons.

[Adamas102]

Time gate and grind are direct opposites

And yet here we have both. Covenant renown is time gated with a weekly cap, but the anima required to progress your covenant is a massive grind fest. I'm fine with the time gate since I know there's a catch up mechanic in place if I let my sub lapse for a couple months, but I don't relish having to catch up on anima for the upgrades, gear, missions, etc.

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OP here, it's actually not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. I'm sure some of you disagree but I'm glad that it's finally not just doing WQs to fill up a rep bar, I like that. I'm also playing pretty casually too so there is that.

Instead it's WQs to fill up a sanctum reservoir bar.

[Qnubi]

Instead it's WQs to fill up a sanctum reservoir bar.

I don't do any WQ including Anima that are below 140 and I have 2k on my Paladin (alt) and 3,7k on my Mage (main), where I have wasted 1,5k for a useless cosmetic change (nightfae travel form) so I would be way above 5k there. So the grind is very little. 50% of my weekly anima income are actually coming from quests both daily and weekly. I also make around 150 a day from the command table which takes like 1 minute.

[huth]

And yet here we have both. Covenant renown is time gated with a weekly cap, but the anima required to progress your covenant is a massive grind fest.

That's just a flat-out lie. Anima is quite plentiful, and there aren't any grindable sources for it.

[Adamas102]

I don't do any WQ including Anima that are below 140 and I have 2k on my Paladin (alt) and 3,7k on my Mage (main), where I have wasted 1,5k for a useless cosmetic change (nightfae travel form) so I would be way above 5k there. So the grind is very little. 50% of my weekly anima income are actually coming from quests both daily and weekly. I also make around 150 a day from the command table which takes like 1 minute.

Cool. 5k anima in almost 2 weeks. Soooo at that rate you'll complete your sanctum upgrades (87k anima) in just under 9 months. You're also capped by souls, but acquiring those is a weekly quest so you don't need to log on daily for it. 9 months of logging on every day to do the same WQs, send out missions every 4 hours for small net gains of anima, and do whatever else you can for minor increases in anima. If you also want to spend anima on other things like upgrading your covenant set or buying the renown transmogs when they become available then we're talking about a year long grind. Again, that's just if you log on each day. If you come into the expansion late or take time off, that renown catch up is there, but what about an anima catch up? If anima gains are going to increase over the course of the expansion, then no problem.

Also, do the daily callings even reward anima? I just finished two today and got only greys, conduits, and a piece of gear. The weekly is ok, but that 350 anima is just a drop in the bucket. And 160 anima a day from the command table is 8 missions that take 4-5 hours each. Even if you have a pair of companion teams doing it (because I've yet to see more than 2 of those missions up at one time), that still requires you to hop on at least 4 times a day.

Sure, I suppose that doesn't sound like a grind to someone who doesn't mind logging on every day, several times a day, to do the same repeatable over and over and over. But that's still a grind.

That's just a flat-out lie. Anima is quite plentiful, and there aren't any grindable sources for it.

Just because you can't spam it doesn't mean it's not a grind. See above. We don't have a lot to spend anima on right now because of the time gating, but if you've looked at how much it costs to upgrade your sanctum and buy transmogs/mounts that's a loooooot of grinding the same repeatable content.

[Krakan]

It isn't really reo gated but it confuses me why they have such a hard on for time gating and alternative power progression systems.

That said I'm not the average wow player maybe they badly need the fill the bar design philosophy

[Lolites]

Cool. 5k anima in almost 2 weeks. Soooo at that rate you'll complete your sanctum upgrades (87k anima) in just under 9 months.

sooo LOONG before first half of expansion is over, provided the anima aquisition wont increase...
you do realise MMORPGS are not meant to be played for few days and then put on shelf, but rather over a long time, dont you? i mean it was like that for whole existence of wow, which is 16years so if you just realised that you are realy slow...

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Sure, I suppose that doesn't sound like a grind to someone who doesn't mind logging on every day, several times a day, to do the same repeatable over and over and over. But that's still a grind.

thats literaly the basis of MMORPG genre, if you dont want that go play different games...

[Adamas102]

sooo LOONG before first half of expansion is over, provided the anima aquisition wont increase...
you do realise MMORPGS are not meant to be played for few days and then put on shelf, but rather over a long time, dont you? i mean it was like that for whole existence of wow, which is 16years so if you just realised that you are realy slow...

Oh look, the requisite, low intelligence “it’s not meant to be done in a few days” response.

The point (which you apparently missed) was that the year long scenario was based on a daily grind at current anima acquisition levels. I suppose you also missed the fact that I was responding to posters who claimed that anima was plentiful and not a grind. I’m not saying this is against type for WoW. I’m just saying it’s a grind.

And yes, this becomes less of an issue if anima gains increase over the course of the expansion. Then again, there’s also the chance that they add even more things to spend anima on as well. We shall see.

[huth]

Just because you can't spam it doesn't mean it's not a grind.

Then you have no idea what a grind even is. Having to spam it to get anywhere is a defining feature, so not being able to spam something automatically disqualifies it.

[Adamas102]

Then you have no idea what a grind even is. Having to spam it to get anywhere is a defining feature, so not being able to spam something automatically disqualifies it.

Imagine thinking that referring to something as a grind is relegated only to spammable video game content. I’m guessing you’re not of an age to have actually worked a job if calling daily tasks for small incremental gains a grind is a foreign concept to you. MMO’s are built on grinds, whether they’re weekly, daily, or spammable content. If you do it at regular intervals to slowly build up currency, reputation, etc. it’s a grind.

[Zmagoslav]

funny guy you are

i logged in on wednesday - i did my m0 farm , i did my thorgast im done till next wednesday .

i could as well go on hiatus to play cyberpunk and come back when timegates are over.

so what was your point exackly ?

similiar with my hunter- dinged 60 on weekend - bought 151 gear of AH , cleared all m0 on monday , cleared thorgast on tuesday - guess today i will do the same what i did on main on my hunter and then what ? go and level another alt ? cba that early in expansion to have 12 alt because thats what this is heading.

boring game is boring.

Ok, so you are one of the players who like to burn trough everything on day 1 and complain for the rest of the week?

m0s and torghast on wednesday sum up to atleast 5 hours of gameplay. And that's completely ignoring the half-hour a day maw expedition you should be doing and the half an hour story chapter.

Don't worry, in a few days you get m+ and can spend 6 hours daily doing those on either character.

Imagine thinking that referring to something as a grind is relegated only to spammable video game content. I’m guessing you’re not of an age to have actually worked a job if calling daily tasks for small incremental gains a grind is a foreign concept to you. MMO’s are built on grinds, whether they’re weekly, daily, or spammable content. If you do it at regular intervals to slowly build up currency, reputation, etc. it’s a grind.

If you call your job a grind then it might be a good idea to re-evaluate certain things in your life instead of spending time on these forums.

[nekobaka]

Reps have been time gated for as long as there have been dailies, which was BC. Why are people acting like it's a new thing that the new evil ActiBlizz has put in deliberately to ruin their fun?

As for your whole conspiracy theory about how they're deliberately slowing us down to milk MAUs, here's a piece of info for you. It is literally impossible to create content at the pace the playerbase consumes it. We had people complaining on day three of the expansion that they'd levelled to max, did all the mythic 0s, and then came to the forums crying "is that everything? where's the content?"

Reminds me of the not so welcoming responses I got from players fuming about Firelands daily zone time gating when pointing out the WotLK Crusader zone did so as well. Was sad seeing so many claiming WotLK never did so and this was some new scummy tactic.

[cparle87]

Reminds me of the not so welcoming responses I got from players fuming about Firelands daily zone time gating when pointing out the WotLK Crusader zone did so as well. Was sad seeing so many claiming WotLK never did so and this was some new scummy tactic.

Even before the Tournament came out there were more dailies than the cap would let you do. Icecrown had a dozen little daily hubs, Storm Peaks had one, and there were other dailies sprinkled around.

[Qnubi]

Cool. 5k anima in almost 2 weeks. Soooo at that rate you'll complete your sanctum upgrades (87k anima) in just under 9 months. You're also capped by souls, but acquiring those is a weekly quest so you don't need to log on daily for it. 9 months of logging on every day to do the same WQs, send out missions every 4 hours for small net gains of anima, and do whatever else you can for minor increases in anima. If you also want to spend anima on other things like upgrading your covenant set or buying the renown transmogs when they become available then we're talking about a year long grind. Again, that's just if you log on each day. If you come into the expansion late or take time off, that renown catch up is there, but what about an anima catch up? If anima gains are going to increase over the course of the expansion, then no problem.

Also, do the daily callings even reward anima? I just finished two today and got only greys, conduits, and a piece of gear. The weekly is ok, but that 350 anima is just a drop in the bucket. And 160 anima a day from the command table is 8 missions that take 4-5 hours each. Even if you have a pair of companion teams doing it (because I've yet to see more than 2 of those missions up at one time), that still requires you to hop on at least 4 times a day.

Sure, I suppose that doesn't sound like a grind to someone who doesn't mind logging on every day, several times a day, to do the same repeatable over and over and over. But that's still a grind.

There are a lot of wrong assumptions in your post, lack of knowledge and wrong facts. I will run you through the errors of your post.

First thing is, I did not "only" have 5,2k anima overall on my mage, that is anima that I can't use at the moment because, like you said, I am locked behind spending further on my covenant buildings due to lack of souls. I have built all 4 starting buildings so far, which is another 4k I already spent my anima on, boosting my overall anima to around 10k (command table also costs some anima). 10k in 9 days, I only reached level 60 on Friday last week, I leveled pretty casually. You also seem to ignore that we still have no M+ and Raids, which will 100% yield an insane amount of anima per week for a one time quest/chest. And World bosses will most likely give a lot of Anima as well. You are just too early to complain already my friend, I don't know why.

Currently I have 4 teams (2 story, 1 torghast and 1 renown) and we will get another 4 or 5 down the line. That means I can currently do the same amount you claimed you do with just 2 log ins, on top of that: You can just use the mobile app to send out more missions if you are just on your way to work or have a break in whatever you do. Hell, even when walking to make groceries you can quickly send out a mission, no need to sit in-front of your PC anymore for these mundane tasks.

A friend of mine who has even less time than me because of work (6 days a week each 10 hours) has managed to cap out on anima (no way to spend it anymore) and sits on 2k in reserve. By the time new opportunities arise I will certainly have enough to instantly buy whatever gets opened up. We will be capped by souls, and not because of lack of anima we earn.

If you really struggle with Anima I am 100% confident and certain that you are missing some easy Anima quests and opportunities each day/week. I can recommend a video on what to do each day/week if you want to so your anima problems will disappear shortly after.

There are also multiple one time quests in dungeons that yield 750 anima.

You also need to elaborate what, in your opinion qualifies as a grind and what does not. How much time do you think is warranted for an activity to not feel like a grind. Telling me "it's a grind" is not telling me anything because officially "a grind" is something that is repetitive. My sources for anima: PvP, WQ, Quests, Command Tables, Dungeons, Treasure Chests, Rares. As you can see, that is not repetitive because it's literally the entirety of the game that is yielding anima. It is a byproduct of playing the game, not the focus. Now, if you think WoW itself is just a grind game, welcome to MMOs.

[Blackmist]

I wouldn't mind the rep grinds (and the Avowed is especially tedious) if there weren't covenant specific rewards attached to them.

So you grind it all the way up, and you still get fuck all for your effort.

Covenant rewards should be linked to renown only.

Reputation rewards should be linked to rep only.

[T3ramos]

I am loving the caps. Don't have much time to play in a week, so this addon is the first where I don't think I'm aeons behind in content. But people that play for 4 hours a day or more may feel like they have nothing to to. Maybe play some other games