The way content is delivered feels strange

[Accendor]

I had this problem a few times in the past already, but I never felt it as strong as now: The pacing of new content is very strange.

Lets take 8.3 for example (it really is not only about that patch, but its a good example:

- Week 1: We get world events (invasions) and quest that show how big of a deal the new boss is (this is fine).
- Week 2: New raid opens on normal+heroic. Nzoth gets killed day 1 by me on normal and some days later on heroic too
- Week 3: Mythic Raiding opens and M+ with new affixes starts

So here is the thing: After week 2 the content makes no sense anymore. I killed Nzoth, the threat is over. His growing influence in m+ makes no sense anymore as well as the invasions.

IMO it should take way longer before the raid opens. I understand that many people (including me) want to play the new raid, but the current system completely devalues the m+ and open world aspects.

[Stickiler]

I had this problem a few times in the past already, but I never felt it as strong as now: The pacing of new content is very strange.

Lets take 8.3 for example (it really is not only about that patch, but its a good example:

- Week 1: We get world events (invasions) and quest that show how big of a deal the new boss is (this is fine).
- Week 2: New raid opens on normal+heroic. Nzoth gets killed day 1 by me on normal and some days later on heroic too
- Week 3: Mythic Raiding opens and M+ with new affixes starts

So here is the thing: After week 2 the content makes no sense anymore. I killed Nzoth, the threat is over. His growing influence in m+ makes no sense anymore as well as the invasions.

IMO it should take way longer before the raid opens. I understand that many people (including me) want to play the new raid, but the current system completely devalues the m+ and open world aspects.

Your characters timeline is not the real timeline. You're given access to the raid for gameplay reasons, but in the timeline of the game you don't enter nya'lotha until everything else is done.

[Asmonbronze]

Yeah dude it's strange I think that's why after 2000 days of playtime I'm finally bored of WoW and its sad dude



-- Brother of Asmongold --

[TickerDS]

Not excusing it, as blizz could have fixed a lot of things leading into the patch/raid, but a few things at play here.

One, you finished the content really fast. A vast majority of the player base will not complete the raid for a few weeks...and a majority of those players who have not thus far will not clear it until LFR opens the final wing. People clearing content the first few weeks will always have a disjointed story.

Two, the writing this expansion has been telling two stories...The old god story, and the Sylvanas story. Both stories have suffered from a lack of focus, not having any logical connection, and just bad/lazy writing. BFA should have been an Old God expansion, with Sylvanas pulling strings to further her goals, but not being the main character..giving the player some logical foreshadowing of her motives and the future...leading us to Shadowlands....not a Sylvanas centric storyline that also happened to guest star an Old God.

Three. The gameplay of this expansion was bad. Almost every system turned out to be a turd. Numbers suffered, so much like WoD....you can speculate that stuff was dropped - both to band-aid fix BFA, and to cut bait and start Shadowlands. Some speculation that the questing we are doing was supposed to come out a month(s) ago and lead up to the raid more...but was delayed due to work on the core of the game mechanics, essences, band-aiding azerite gear, ext. So the raid was sitting around, basically ready....and was waiting on the world content....and Blizz knew they could not suffer raiders not having a new raid this long, as that is the real buzz the game gets...so it all got shoved out at once when the world content was done enough to rush out the door.

Four, Blizz has never handled post big events in a good way. Take Suramar as an example. Why, after all I did in legion, does half the city still hate me? Should not it have phased into a completely friendly city after we finished Legion? Dozens of examples of zones tonally feeling "off" after big events are in the games past.

[MoanaLisa]

Theoretically I could agree that delaying the raid for a good number of weeks would thematically be coherent. It would be a catastrophe for business.

Reminder: It's a game. Relax. If killing a boss before mythic opens is ruining the game for you then consider the content done and take a break. It's a personal decision that has absolutely no bearing on how others play.

Another alternative: Just do LFR which is gated for weeks and weeks just as you proposed. Then when all of the wings are open and you've done it, take a break.

There's really no reason not to. Spending weeks or months gearing up while feeling uncomfortable about the plot is pointless as there will be a new plot later this year and that gear you spend so much time acquiring becomes useless. Hurray for developers who do not have the foresight to consider systems that actually grow and remain consistent/coherent as the game ages. This is the same sort of logic that now dictates that as you level you lose power. I can't even....

[DeusX]

- Week 3: Mythic Raiding opens and M+ with new affixes starts

Actually the M+ S4 was up since last reset (21/22 Jan) including the new scaling, lvl 10 affix & all that crap. Mythic raiding comes, on Week 3, with LFR wing 1 together.

[kranur]

I had this problem a few times in the past already, but I never felt it as strong as now: The pacing of new content is very strange.

Lets take 8.3 for example (it really is not only about that patch, but its a good example:

- Week 1: We get world events (invasions) and quest that show how big of a deal the new boss is (this is fine).
- Week 2: New raid opens on normal+heroic. Nzoth gets killed day 1 by me on normal and some days later on heroic too
- Week 3: Mythic Raiding opens and M+ with new affixes starts

So here is the thing: After week 2 the content makes no sense anymore. I killed Nzoth, the threat is over. His growing influence in m+ makes no sense anymore as well as the invasions.

IMO it should take way longer before the raid opens. I understand that many people (including me) want to play the new raid, but the current system completely devalues the m+ and open world aspects.

With this logic, you should also lose access to the invasions, visions and anything related. I mean, you killed it right? The threat is over, he can't invade if he's dead.

[Ghostile]

I had this problem a few times in the past already, but I never felt it as strong as now: The pacing of new content is very strange.

Lets take 8.3 for example (it really is not only about that patch, but its a good example:

- Week 1: We get world events (invasions) and quest that show how big of a deal the new boss is (this is fine).
- Week 2: New raid opens on normal+heroic. Nzoth gets killed day 1 by me on normal and some days later on heroic too
- Week 3: Mythic Raiding opens and M+ with new affixes starts

So here is the thing: After week 2 the content makes no sense anymore. I killed Nzoth, the threat is over. His growing influence in m+ makes no sense anymore as well as the invasions.

IMO it should take way longer before the raid opens. I understand that many people (including me) want to play the new raid, but the current system completely devalues the m+ and open world aspects.

welcome to MMOs where the timeline never makes sense from your perspective.

[Gaidax]

Ingame timeline does not reflect actual timeline of the events - every MMO ever.

[Leih]

They did delay the raid a bunch of weeks in some previous patches, Broken Shore in particular comes to mind, but people got pretty upset about the content being gated.

[Kumorii]

As others have mentioned. Gameplay timeline is not the canonical timeline. No game does that. Most gameplay elements in all games are for players to enjoy it, but rarely reflects what actually happens.

Take for example Dark Souls or any action adventure games where you can aggro certain mobs. Canonically other NPC's aren't just standing there watching their buddy fight. It's just for balancing sake why is it so. Stealth games don't have guards canonically have bad eye sight, but it's for gameplay reasons. etc etc.
Same applies for gameplay timelines.

Also, fairly sure that canonically the raids aren't just 20 people going in and fighting and instead it's proper armies, with player character being a champion of those armies. Think Blizzard mentioned this during WotLK and the Icecrown.

Sidenote:
I think this is the first pro timegate thread I've seen.

[Xaviaton]

I kinda agree but for not for this patch. I much prefer to have a month in between patch release and (Normal/HC) raid release so we can spend a significant amount of time with the content before the raid launches, it makes the build-up to the raid much more interesting story wise. However, that required the patch-cycle to have Legion tempo, not BFA tempo. I think it was about the correct time to release the raids but 8.3 should have dropped about 6 weeks ago.

[Ange]

IMO it should take way longer before the raid opens. I understand that many people (including me) want to play the new raid, but the current system completely devalues the m+ and open world aspects.

Only ONE RAID DIFFICULTY (MYTHIC++) and unkillable endbosses for months would solve your issues, but it would make a huge part of the storyline and content inaccessible for 99% of the playerbase.

The easiest solution for you would be to skip the casual content, go straight into mythic raiding and if you are done in 1-2 weeks (world first btw) you deserve to be bored with the timeline. Otherwise just stop doing casual content that is not tailored for regular players of the game.

[Azerate]

It's a game, and the primary objective is to make it a good experience. Not for it to get an Oscar for having great plot.

I don't see how the raid devalues anything. If you're a raider at at least normal/heroic level then the world content gives you minor upgrades at best over the previous tier.

I think you're trying very hard at this point to find something that doesn't work. If they waited 1 month before opening the raid you'd probably be the first to complain about it.

[Tekkommo]

I had this problem a few times in the past already, but I never felt it as strong as now: The pacing of new content is very strange.

Lets take 8.3 for example (it really is not only about that patch, but its a good example:

- Week 1: We get world events (invasions) and quest that show how big of a deal the new boss is (this is fine).
- Week 2: New raid opens on normal+heroic. Nzoth gets killed day 1 by me on normal and some days later on heroic too
- Week 3: Mythic Raiding opens and M+ with new affixes starts

So here is the thing: After week 2 the content makes no sense anymore. I killed Nzoth, the threat is over. His growing influence in m+ makes no sense anymore as well as the invasions.

IMO it should take way longer before the raid opens. I understand that many people (including me) want to play the new raid, but the current system completely devalues the m+ and open world aspects.

Are you new to MMOs?

Your join date says otherwise, it took you this long?

[Accendor]

Only ONE RAID DIFFICULTY (MYTHIC++) and unkillable endbosses for months would solve your issues, but it would make a huge part of the storyline and content inaccessible for 99% of the playerbase.

The easiest solution for you would be to skip the casual content, go straight into mythic raiding and if you are done in 1-2 weeks (world first btw) you deserve to be bored with the timeline. Otherwise just stop doing casual content that is not tailored for regular players of the game.

To be fair, its actually a requirement for mythic content, thats one of the main issues I have with this. I would skip it, but you can not really argue with your guild why you did, its socially not acceptable (and that is ok)