The argument of AP being a grind or not is really just arguing over sematics.
The point of a progression system (such as AP) is to give people a reason to engage in a given content.
Take gear for example, do you think everybody loves M+ to the point where they feel obliged to go into the highest Key possible every week?
No, but because you get a big reward out of it at the end of the week.
Same goes for leveling (which is also just a basic form of a progression system), you're not doing every quest because you like them so much, but because you want to level your character, because you want to get new abilities or even simply to reach max level.
The key of a progression system is to give people a reason to engage in a given content, that's why people go into dungeons, that's why people do quests.
With AP however, the issue is that the content that awards AP (World quests and Island expeditions) aren't exactly great content, on top of that, the progression system itself is simply quite boring.
The "rewards" from AP simply aren't good, the ability to socket minor Essences isn't that amazing, these are mostly just statboosts.
And i think that's the core issue at hand, not AP "being a grind", but the fact that a system, which is central to the gameplay loop of WoW (which is after all character progression) isn't fun.
The fact that the only solution Blizzard came up with (so far) is to nerf it by 30% every week until you can basically ignore any content that awards just AP highlights how much of a bogus system this is.
Imagine if you really hate doing M+ (them not being difficult, you just don't like doing them), you just get a piece from M+ anyway every few weeks, so you still have the power upgrade.
Or if you could just wait a few months, because the XP required to level up is nerfed by 30% each week until you can do a handful of quests and are maxlevel.
If a system that every player, be it raider, PvP'er or M+ has to engage in, it needs to be fun and the solution cannot be that you can not play the game until you can basically ignore this aspect or the time required for it has reached a minimum.
That's a bandaid fix solution, not a fundamental aspect of this system.
It's not a "win" for the players if a system, which is supposed to encourage me to engage in a given content, nerfs itself into irrelevance, that's in my opinion just a creative bankruptcy on Blizzards part.
Last edited by Kralljin; 2020-02-23 at 01:02 PM.
Mostly true except for the last part. You can easily be 80+ with no more than three Mythic(or four HC) islands a week and only doing AP quests that you happen across or have an associated Emissary for, or even less than that. You're vastly overestimating the AP requirements if you think grinding islands was at any point in BfA ever actually necessary for that.
And grinding isn't just repetitive, otherwise 1/week activities would qualify. It needs to be repeatable beyond reasonable ability to exhaust supply and be repeated in short order to qualify. Which means AP WQ actually do not qualify either, as it very much is possible to do them faster than they refresh.
Yes, because that isn't actually related. What makes it a grind is the constant doing dungeons, though i'd disagree that 5 actually qualify for a grind. Whether you get an item every dungeon, every 5 dungeons or every 10 doesn't matter.Plus you get rewarded per dungeons normally - is it a grind if you typically get an item every 1-2 dungeons?
They already said they're going to.
While it wasn't a particularly memorable system, I don't remember hating it as much as I hate the current systems.-No more Netherlight Crucible type crap
Agreed on all of these. Get rid of them.-No Azerite traits shit gear, that can't be swapped to different specs like old Tier gear
-No Essences
-No Corruption
Having survived both Legion and BfA since they were added in WoD, there's no way they're ever going to get rid of Mission Tables at this point.-No Table mission crap
If you consider just playing the game to be a chore, that is fine - that is an opinion one can have. However - as to why you are playing a game you don't enjoy, that is a mystery.
Opinions aside - there is objectively no grind required to get AP.
I've got 30% of the way to 81 on my neck and in the last week, and I have NO interest in AP at all. It just happens.
Challenge Mode : Play WoW like my disability has me play:
You will need two people, Brian MUST use the mouse for movement/looking and John MUST use the keyboard for casting, attacking, healing etc.
Briand and John share the same goal, same intentions - but they can't talk to each other, however they can react to each other's in game activities.
Now see how far Brian and John get in WoW.
Challenge Mode : Play WoW like my disability has me play:
You will need two people, Brian MUST use the mouse for movement/looking and John MUST use the keyboard for casting, attacking, healing etc.
Briand and John share the same goal, same intentions - but they can't talk to each other, however they can react to each other's in game activities.
Now see how far Brian and John get in WoW.
Challenge Mode : Play WoW like my disability has me play:
You will need two people, Brian MUST use the mouse for movement/looking and John MUST use the keyboard for casting, attacking, healing etc.
Briand and John share the same goal, same intentions - but they can't talk to each other, however they can react to each other's in game activities.
Now see how far Brian and John get in WoW.
Nope, I am not doing world quest nor emissaries.
Currently in this expansion I have done on my main 196 world quests, my ilvl is 469.63, heart of azeroth 78.
Oh and I forgot to mention but I usually send 2 table missions for azerite per day, so that is also pretty decent amount.
Other than that I do ~5 M+ per week (~15-19)
Heroic raid + couple of M bosses.
- - - Updated - - -
It is perfectly possible. Considering I am not doing any world quest whatsoever, and if I do, it's a WQ for blue upgrade stone for battle pet and I am at 78.
So if he does sometimes emissaries he should be around 80.
Plus you can send missions for AP from table each day, that gives you quite some amount.
Nope, Sorry, 32489 layers of RNG For us next expansion!
We're all newbs, some are just more newbier than others.
Just a burned out hardcore raider turned casual.
I'm tired. So very tired. Can I just lay my head on your lap and fall asleep?
#TeamFuckEverything