Are timegates really bad?

[Raelbo]

If everything can be done as fast as you want in, say 8.3, how much fun would that really be? Grind one weekend of Visions to get rank 15 of the cloak. Grind one week Mobs for the currency to buy the entrance. Or get rid of the currency completly so you don't have to do content at all.
So you are done with everything in two days tops.

You will force everyone who wants to stay in the game to do the same if they want to stay competitive at all. I honestly don't think that that would be good for the game as a whole.

I personally agree with you. Timegates allow players to take their time on content instead of simply trying to rush through it in order to get to the rewards ASAP. This is important in an MMO where the game is about immersion, about exploring, reading quest text etc.

To me one of the most obvious missing timegates in recent times has been Pathfinder part II. Pathfinder part I was a completely unstressful achievement to get. We literally had a year to get it done, and most people got it within a few months anyway. Then they finally introduce flying with a straight up requirement of doing a rep grind in Nazjatar and Mechagon in order to unlock flying everywhere. So instead of players taking their time to savour the content, it was all about rushing it, grinding, playing it to death for an insane 2 weeks - by which time most people hated it.

It would have been far more sensible to release a short 10-15 minute questline to enable flying in Kul Tiras and Zandalar for those with Pathfinder Part I and put a 4-6 week timegate on flying in Nazjatar/Mechagon (or else remove the grind requirement altogether). That way people could have taken their time in the zones and do them at a pace determined by what is most enjoyable rather than what will get them to flying the fastest.



Obviously timegating for the sake of getting people to stay subbed longer isn't good either, but in all honesty, I don't see that much in WoW, and IMO most of the complaints about artificial timegating just to get more subs are reliant on conspiracy theory type reasoning. Granted, I am not the kind of player who likes gorging on content so that I can be done and then unsubscribe. I find that WoW has so much to do in it that when I am done with the timegated stuff, there is always more than enough other stuff to get to.

[DemonDays]

They have literally been time gating stuff in WoW since 2004. What the hell are you talking about acting like it's a recent thing? LOL

Time-gating being attached to literally everything in the game?

No. That hasn't been the case since 2004. Are you turning into a pathological liar like your god and saviour Ion?

[Rotted]

if they timegate stuff, people complain about it and accuse Blizzard of timegating so they can keep subs going.

if they don't timegate stuff, people complain about it and accuse Blizzard of not having enough content for them to do.

Blizzard cannot win.

In fairness, there's a line between the both of them. Either its horrendously gated or theres a complete lack of content at end game bar raiding.

TBC was bursting with content to do constantly. It was structured good enough that freshly dinged 70s couldn't jump straight into BT. That kept every piece of content relevant. In addition to that, there was plenty to do daily wise, netherwing, nether rays etc. Then Quel dunas released. Plenty of dailies, farming, new dungeon etc.

This disappeared in Wrath - but we had plenty of replacement content. For example the Argent tournament. Don't get me wrong I wasn't overly fond of it, but it was content and it was well done.

Cata started to get interested, in Hyjal we saw how a zone can slowly change over time to match the story. But in my opinion the changes were too massive and missing a few things out could really screw people.

From MoP onwards everything started to go down hill really. End game felt like it was solely focused on raiding. Then WoD launched, while I wouldn't call anything particularly gated; they did screw up pathfinder. It was far to much to unlock over far to long of a period. Take me for example (Aye I know, I'm not the center of the universe) I couldn't play until part way through HFC release. At which point pathfinder was simply to much to catch up on, but that also meant I could achieve nothing in the jungle as everyone would just fly somewhere and mobs would be dead way before I got there.

Legion felt a lot better to me, but I played from launch and I made sure to stick on top of everything. BFA seems to have gone backwards.

It just seems like blizzard can't find the sweet spot right now

[Daffan]

if they timegate stuff, people complain about it and accuse Blizzard of timegating so they can keep subs going.

if they don't timegate stuff, people complain about it and accuse Blizzard of not having enough content for them to do.

Blizzard cannot win.

Remember when Blizzard didn't hand out welfare and catchup 24/7 therefore never needed artificial time gating? ppl called it Elitist. Those same casuals turn around and complain about content drought now.

LMAO It's true Blizzard can't win.

[Zuben]

Players have the tendency to commit to a goal past their well-being, so in that sense nanny-like gating is called for. Remember MoP's initial daily rush? Blizz removed the daily quest cap and told us to go nuts; people did exactly that and a lot of them burned out.

As for release gating (e.g. LFR wings) that's fine too, gives me an excellent reason to take a break from the game.

[Accendor]

Yes timegates are always bad. No exception.

[matrix123mko]

that is impossible, to give you that many quests, would be impossible.

heres a practice, try to write a book faster then people can read it.
now keep it interesting, making sense, and without errors.
now do that forever.
see how long you can do that for, see how long it takes for someone to catch up to you, and then go "wow this book is over there is no more writing"
well guess what, the second you type 1 word people will already be ahead.


making content takes far, far longer then it does to consume it.
movies take thousands to tens of thouands of hours to make.
but are viewed in only 90 minutes.

I know it works like this but they could write long stories in Vanilla.

[FelPlague]

I know it works like this but they could write long stories in Vanilla.

no, not at all.
vanilla the quests were super short, and far apart, it was specificly known for this.
the quest lasted long not because they were large, had tons of lore, and there was many.
it was cause 1 quest could take hours to do.
we all remember the quests like collect zevra hooves.

[Zephire]

It's funny that you use that particular example, because in this case, the soft timegating basically informs the hard one.

Cloak upgrades being capped would be a hard timegate, naturally. But if that timegate wasn't there, then the soft one would become problematic. People would see that they could technically farm vessels and therefore cloak upgrades in an unlimited fashion - and therefore feel that they need to do so asap. Because that's how a lot of players approach these things. That's why people complain about the AP grind so much. Guilds would require their members to get to cloak lvl X on week one or be benched, etc.

As someone who never really gave into the farming pressure since I don't have the time to hardcore raid anymore, I personally can live with this sort of time-gating. Though I would like more vessels available to do more visions when I do have the time.

Yeah, that's the dilemma. Would like the cloak to not be timegated by force but rather let the visions be the gate. Per OP request I'm ignoring balance etc of content. It's difficult!

[matrix123mko]

no, not at all.
vanilla the quests were super short, and far apart, it was specificly known for this.
the quest lasted long not because they were large, had tons of lore, and there was many.
it was cause 1 quest could take hours to do.
we all remember the quests like collect zevra hooves.

I despise this kind of quests.

[FelPlague]

I despise this kind of quests.

And that is MOST of vanilla's quests.
i hate them too though.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, that's the dilemma. Would like the cloak to not be timegated by force but rather let the visions be the gate. Per OP request I'm ignoring balance etc of content. It's difficult!

if it was just visions, then blizz would be in more trouble, cause the horde gets less of them then alliance, and people would complain their PVE progress is locked behind PVP, as a LOT of visions come from PVP (Warmode 25-30% bonus for alliance. and daily bounty giving 500)

[Shakana]

Depends on the where the timegating is. And usually yes it's bad.

[prwraith]

I'd rather no time gates so I can finish it then play alts after my main char is basically just raid-logging.

[justandulas]

It was better with attunements. Attunements arent time gates but effort gated

[Tech614]

Time-gating being attached to literally everything in the game?

No. That hasn't been the case since 2004. Are you turning into a pathological liar like your god and saviour Ion?

Oh my dear child. So Onyxia scales wasn't a time gate? AQ gates wasn't a time gate? Shadow resist gear in BT time gate? Sunwell and the entire island was completely time gated? Argent Tournament full on time gated? Do you want me to keep going into the more modern xpacs? If you think time gates are new to WoW you literally just started playing WoW and have no idea what you're talking about.

[Belloc]

It was better with attunements. Attunements arent time gates but effort gated

Yeah, there's nothing like having to clear old content so you can bring new recruits to current content. Soooo much better.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

make your self a new 120 character and try to be raid rdy then you answer your own question very quickly
you need a fucking spreadsheet to keep track of the things you have to do every day

This is my War alt i have for 2 weeks now, im gated for atleast 3 weeks befor i can raid or do higher keys (I have completed the islands and 75 neck and stuff like starting gear and profesions/warfronts, there was a lot more on the sheet):

[tangers58]

not even close to true, did you know icc took 2 months to open fully? they timegated the raid wings opening.
they also timegated AQ you needed to spend a super long time gathering resources before you could do the raid, wow.
they also timegated legendaries, you couldnt just do the raid, you needed to do it for many weeks to get drops, shadowfrost shards anyone?

Quite true. As much as we all love weird attempts at strawman arguments I don't recall saying anything about raid wings releasing gradually. And who gives a crap if legendaries are timegated? They are supposed to take work. If you can't refute the complaints I guess you just try to attach them to things literally no one was talking about to "win" kinda sad if you ask me.

[mauserr]

Yes. /thread

make your self a new 120 character and try to be raid rdy then you answer your own question very quickly
you need a fucking spreadsheet to keep track of the things you have to do every day

This is my War alt i have for 2 weeks now, im gated for atleast 3 weeks befor i can raid or do higher keys (I have completed the islands and 75 neck and stuff like starting gear and profesions/warfronts, there was a lot more on the sheet):

Isn't C&S the worst offender of all those essences? If you don't have "mythic" equivalent rating, like 1,9k+ to get the higher amounts of tokens for the essence, it basically takes like 8+ weeks for the average pvp pleb (~1,5k rating and less) to get rank 3, if not longer. That's just retarded. PvP essences being BiS in PvE is just dogshit design.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

Yes. /thread




Isn't C&S the worst offender of all those essences? If you don't have "mythic" equivalent rating, like 1,9k+ to get the higher amounts of tokens for the essence, it basically takes like 8+ weeks for the average pvp pleb (~1,5k rating and less) to get rank 3, if not longer. That's just retarded. PvP essences being BiS in PvE is just dogshit design.

I agree I'll use cof until i have strife in about 2 months lol 2 k dps lose w/e