Has the RARES mechanic devolved, just like the Mission table?

[thottstation]

It seems like we're watching robust game mechanics get stripped again and again, as if time was going backwards.

Look at the Mission Table. Imagine if time went backwards:

First came BFA: Random missions, generic disposable followers given at random via lottery. Two or three "Lore" followers who stand near the table, and some nobodies. Limited, generic equipment slots.

Then we got LEGION: Followers now disappear from the area when you send them on missions, and you can even select them as bodyguards that accompany you in the world! More equipment slots, with more varied equipment. Lore Followers are pivotal characters in the story, plus hidden unlockable lore Followers from multiple ingame content! You can now select which type of disposable followers to purchase!

Then we got WoD: All the features of Legion! PLUS expanded level Weapons and Armor! Followers now bumped to 30 with almost a hundred to recruit! And a vast grid of traits and sub-traits to select to match them to specific missions! And you even have 20 or so active followers walking around your garrison, interacting with each other, living their lives, and talking to each other and you if you come near them! And when you send them on missions, you can watch your followers literally walk out the garrison! Look, there they go!


And then we come to RARES.

They used to be.... well, rare. And they would drop some very nice piece of gear that would likely be an upgrade to you.

Then came Wotlk, where each zone had a rare or two, but you got an achievement for getting them all. One even dropped a (guaranteed) mount!

Then came Isle of Thunder, where Blizzard littered the one zone with about 10 or so rares that would spawn often, and you would get an achievement for getting them all!

Then came Timeless Isle, and the number of rares doubled, but now each would rarely drop a toy, or even a mount! And you got an achievement for killing them all AND ANOTHER achievement for getting all the extremely rare toys from them all.

And so on. New expansion, even more rares, even more toys, and mounts...

But look at BFA:


8.0. Arathi Highlands: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.1. Darkshore: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.2: Mechagon & Nazjatar: 20 or so rares, sometimes up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.3:
Uldum has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Aqir/Athir). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.
Vale has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Mogu/Mantid). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.


It just seems like BFA has de-evolutionized the entire concept of rares. Every patch Blizzard has basically added a zone, dumped 20 or so rares, added 5 mounts and 5 toys, and repeated it again and again and again... until 8.3, where they added about 60 to a zone, most of which drop NOTHING so the stars flooding your map is literally trash, but they did sprinkle a mount or toy here and there.

And the only achievement for rares in 8.3... is killing a total of 250 of them. It's as if Blizzard just... gave up and said "Whatever, just kill a whole bunch of them. We're not even gonna give them all unique names."

The "rare" mechanic in World of Warcraft seems to have gone through a de-evolution, and I'm fearful for Shadowlands. Is this "checkbox" method of solo content going to be repeated? Will every zone in Shadowlands have 20 rares with a sprinkling of recolored mounts and toys, and 50 more rares added in 9.1, and 50 more rares added in 9.2, and 50 more... you get the idea.

[munkeyinorbit]

It seems like we're watching robust game mechanics get stripped again and again, as if time was going backwards.

Look at the Mission Table. Imagine if time went backwards:

First came BFA: Random missions, generic disposable followers given at random via lottery. Two or three "Lore" followers who stand near the table, and some nobodies. Limited, generic equipment slots.

Then we got LEGION: Followers now disappear from the area when you send them on missions, and you can even select them as bodyguards that accompany you in the world! More equipment slots, with more varied equipment. Lore Followers are pivotal characters in the story, plus hidden unlockable lore Followers from multiple ingame content! You can now select which type of disposable followers to purchase!

Then we got WoD: All the features of Legion! PLUS expanded level Weapons and Armor! Followers now bumped to 30 with almost a hundred to recruit! And a vast grid of traits and sub-traits to select to match them to specific missions! And you even have 20 or so active followers walking around your garrison, interacting with each other, living their lives, and talking to each other and you if you come near them! And when you send them on missions, you can watch your followers literally walk out the garrison! Look, there they go!


And then we come to RARES.

They used to be.... well, rare. And they would drop some very nice piece of gear that would likely be an upgrade to you.

Then came Wotlk, where each zone had a rare or two, but you got an achievement for getting them all. One even dropped a (guaranteed) mount!

Then came Isle of Thunder, where Blizzard littered the one zone with about 10 or so rares that would spawn often, and you would get an achievement for getting them all!

Then came Timeless Isle, and the number of rares doubled, but now each would rarely drop a toy, or even a mount! And you got an achievement for killing them all AND ANOTHER achievement for getting all the extremely rare toys from them all.

And so on. New expansion, even more rares, even more toys, and mounts...

But look at BFA:


8.0. Arathi Highlands: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.1. Darkshore: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.2: Mechagon & Nazjatar: 20 or so rares, sometimes up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.3:
Uldum has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Aqir/Athir). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.
Vale has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Mogu/Mantid). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.


It just seems like BFA has de-evolutionized the entire concept of rares. Every patch Blizzard has basically added a zone, dumped 20 or so rares, added 5 mounts and 5 toys, and repeated it again and again and again... until 8.3, where they added about 60 to a zone, most of which drop NOTHING so the stars flooding your map is literally trash, but they did sprinkle a mount or toy here and there.

And the only achievement for rares in 8.3... is killing a total of 250 of them. It's as if Blizzard just... gave up and said "Whatever, just kill a whole bunch of them. We're not even gonna give them all unique names."

The "rare" mechanic in World of Warcraft seems to have gone through a de-evolution, and I'm fearful for Shadowlands. Is this "checkbox" method of solo content going to be repeated? Will every zone in Shadowlands have 20 rares with a sprinkling of recolored mounts and toys, and 50 more rares added in 9.1, and 50 more rares added in 9.2, and 50 more... you get the idea.

Yes it is.

[Adam Jensen]

They should not have called them "rares."

They should have added a few truly "rare" mobs that drop mounts (and they did, the one in Pandaria that drops a mount from the lasso), and called the other ones "Special" or something.

[Kehego]

It seems like we're watching robust game mechanics get stripped again and again, as if time was going backwards.

Look at the Mission Table. Imagine if time went backwards:

First came BFA: Random missions, generic disposable followers given at random via lottery. Two or three "Lore" followers who stand near the table, and some nobodies. Limited, generic equipment slots.

Then we got LEGION: Followers now disappear from the area when you send them on missions, and you can even select them as bodyguards that accompany you in the world! More equipment slots, with more varied equipment. Lore Followers are pivotal characters in the story, plus hidden unlockable lore Followers from multiple ingame content! You can now select which type of disposable followers to purchase!

Then we got WoD: All the features of Legion! PLUS expanded level Weapons and Armor! Followers now bumped to 30 with almost a hundred to recruit! And a vast grid of traits and sub-traits to select to match them to specific missions! And you even have 20 or so active followers walking around your garrison, interacting with each other, living their lives, and talking to each other and you if you come near them! And when you send them on missions, you can watch your followers literally walk out the garrison! Look, there they go!


And then we come to RARES.

They used to be.... well, rare. And they would drop some very nice piece of gear that would likely be an upgrade to you.

Then came Wotlk, where each zone had a rare or two, but you got an achievement for getting them all. One even dropped a (guaranteed) mount!

Then came Isle of Thunder, where Blizzard littered the one zone with about 10 or so rares that would spawn often, and you would get an achievement for getting them all!

Then came Timeless Isle, and the number of rares doubled, but now each would rarely drop a toy, or even a mount! And you got an achievement for killing them all AND ANOTHER achievement for getting all the extremely rare toys from them all.

And so on. New expansion, even more rares, even more toys, and mounts...

But look at BFA:


8.0. Arathi Highlands: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.1. Darkshore: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.2: Mechagon & Nazjatar: 20 or so rares, sometimes up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.3:
Uldum has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Aqir/Athir). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.
Vale has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Mogu/Mantid). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.


It just seems like BFA has de-evolutionized the entire concept of rares. Every patch Blizzard has basically added a zone, dumped 20 or so rares, added 5 mounts and 5 toys, and repeated it again and again and again... until 8.3, where they added about 60 to a zone, most of which drop NOTHING so the stars flooding your map is literally trash, but they did sprinkle a mount or toy here and there.

And the only achievement for rares in 8.3... is killing a total of 250 of them. It's as if Blizzard just... gave up and said "Whatever, just kill a whole bunch of them. We're not even gonna give them all unique names."

The "rare" mechanic in World of Warcraft seems to have gone through a de-evolution, and I'm fearful for Shadowlands. Is this "checkbox" method of solo content going to be repeated? Will every zone in Shadowlands have 20 rares with a sprinkling of recolored mounts and toys, and 50 more rares added in 9.1, and 50 more rares added in 9.2, and 50 more... you get the idea.

you're hilariously stupid if you think most arathi or darkshore rares drop mounts. there are 3 mount drops total from mechagon/nazj. bruh just stop

[zyx]

you're hilariously stupid if you think most arathi or darkshore rares drop mounts. there are 3 mount drops total from mechagon/nazj. bruh just stop

"most drop a toy or pet or mount" meaning most mobs can drop either a toy or a pet or a mount.
Obviously it doesn't mean that most mobs can drop both a toy and a pet and a mount.

I presume you already knew this, but just wanted to complain anyway.

[Kokolums]

Blizzard believes toys and mounts drive people to do content. As such, when they create a new game mode, they fill it chock to the brim with toys and mounts (and remove them from older content). That's why when they introduced IEs and WFs, they filled them with toys and mounts. Its a big carrot to get people to do that stuff. Older ideas like rares receive less toys and mounts to compensate.

Torghast will likely be loaded with toys and mounts to collect under every rock and bookshelf.

[cuafpr]

only thing i'd say is the more rare a mob is the higher the chance to drop the good stuff....

[exochaft]

They actually listened to player-feedback for once about the rarespawns.

Imagine if every rare was like TLPD or Aeonaxx, mmm that'd sure be fun yeah?

Comparing the rare situation now to TLPD or Aeonaxx is giving a false choice/premise, as the two situations couldn't be more different.

I think what the OP is saying is "If every mob is rare, then no mob is." For Vale/Uldum, a very large portion of the 'rares' are only there for the daily quests to kill three rares, and ironically enough even some of the non-rare event mobs count. With how they're treating rares for the 8.3 content, it'd make more sense to have the MoP timless isle version of rares (which would tend to respawn every hour with no loot lockout), just not even make them rares but named elites. Similar to "Purple is the new blue" when it comes to gear, "rare is the new elite" when it comes to mobs as WoW gets older.

From my perspective, I've given up mostly on collecting mounts/pets because they add so many bloody new ones each patch that I get tired from trying to farm them all. You basically need an army of alts or multiboxing to have a feasible chance of obtaining all the mounts/pets. It's similar to how I used to get every achievement in the game, until WoD when they added that insane amount of archeology achievements that just seemed to be there to make you do archeaology 20 times longer than necessary, so I stopped bothering after that (and this is coming from someone who did the Insane in the Membrane achievement the first month it originally came out). None of it feels special anymore, as everything feels like more of an chore than an experience/achievement. That's the feeling the OP seems to be describing: killing a rare used to feel special/meaningful, now it's just a chore and a daily quest.

[Kokolums]

From my perspective, I've given up mostly on collecting mounts/pets because they add so many bloody new ones each patch that I get tired from trying to farm them all. You basically need an army of alts or multiboxing to have a feasible chance of obtaining all the mounts/pets.

I've been killing some of the rares for mounts, but only because I'm still working on the meta achievements and those mobs are kinda right there so its easy to take a shot. Once I get the achievements, I'll probably stop farming them.

[Razion]

Rares get farmed when they drop something good. With multiple servers active in any given area, players can pass by a place where a rare would spawn and never end up seeing it over the course of the entire expansion and end up having to either circumvent game mechanics by manually jumping around servers, or come back in a later expansion when people aren't frequenting the area. As a result of the scarcity of rares, the rewards probably don't get obtained or used as much as other things they make in the game. Blizzard may feel it more worth it to them to invest in making toys and mounts that players are more likely to actually obtain and are more likely to use. So in this way, it's understandable when they tie these rewards to things like reputation. Some rewards are special due to their scarcity, and it's one of the few ways in the game a player can stand out - strutting around on a rare mount.

But, as well, the game has been around a long time and there are now so many "rare" mounts that any given player can be expected to have a half-dozen just lying around which is why we often now hear about players collecting mounts just for the sake of it rather than actually using them -- the prestige is gone. It kind of makes me wonder if they should prioritize updating old mounts rather than making new ones, so that when new mounts are added to the game it's more special and noteworthy, especially when they're really rare and hard to obtain, but at the same time people really like the appearances of their old mounts and wouldn't want them messed with. It's unfortunate, but mount bloat and rares all kind of share the same problem vacuum. The appeal of rares is to provide exclusive and prestigious rewards. Make them available to everyone and too plentiful, no one enjoys or uses them. Make them too hard to obtain, and a lot of effort is put into rewards that not a lot of players will end up using with a lot of people who end up trying to obtain the rewards maybe left unsatisfied as well.

[Niwes]

It seems like we're watching robust game mechanics get stripped again and again, as if time was going backwards.

Look at the Mission Table. Imagine if time went backwards:

First came BFA: Random missions, generic disposable followers given at random via lottery. Two or three "Lore" followers who stand near the table, and some nobodies. Limited, generic equipment slots.

Then we got LEGION: Followers now disappear from the area when you send them on missions, and you can even select them as bodyguards that accompany you in the world! More equipment slots, with more varied equipment. Lore Followers are pivotal characters in the story, plus hidden unlockable lore Followers from multiple ingame content! You can now select which type of disposable followers to purchase!

Then we got WoD: All the features of Legion! PLUS expanded level Weapons and Armor! Followers now bumped to 30 with almost a hundred to recruit! And a vast grid of traits and sub-traits to select to match them to specific missions! And you even have 20 or so active followers walking around your garrison, interacting with each other, living their lives, and talking to each other and you if you come near them! And when you send them on missions, you can watch your followers literally walk out the garrison! Look, there they go!


And then we come to RARES.

They used to be.... well, rare. And they would drop some very nice piece of gear that would likely be an upgrade to you.

Then came Wotlk, where each zone had a rare or two, but you got an achievement for getting them all. One even dropped a (guaranteed) mount!

Then came Isle of Thunder, where Blizzard littered the one zone with about 10 or so rares that would spawn often, and you would get an achievement for getting them all!

Then came Timeless Isle, and the number of rares doubled, but now each would rarely drop a toy, or even a mount! And you got an achievement for killing them all AND ANOTHER achievement for getting all the extremely rare toys from them all.

And so on. New expansion, even more rares, even more toys, and mounts...

But look at BFA:


8.0. Arathi Highlands: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.1. Darkshore: 20 or so rares, constantly up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.2: Mechagon & Nazjatar: 20 or so rares, sometimes up, most drop a toy or pet or mount. Achievement for killing them all!

8.3:
Uldum has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Aqir/Athir). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.
Vale has 60 rares. Only 20 up at a time (Black Empire/Mogu/Mantid). 18 rares drop NOTHING. 3 or so have a toy or mount.


It just seems like BFA has de-evolutionized the entire concept of rares. Every patch Blizzard has basically added a zone, dumped 20 or so rares, added 5 mounts and 5 toys, and repeated it again and again and again... until 8.3, where they added about 60 to a zone, most of which drop NOTHING so the stars flooding your map is literally trash, but they did sprinkle a mount or toy here and there.

And the only achievement for rares in 8.3... is killing a total of 250 of them. It's as if Blizzard just... gave up and said "Whatever, just kill a whole bunch of them. We're not even gonna give them all unique names."

The "rare" mechanic in World of Warcraft seems to have gone through a de-evolution, and I'm fearful for Shadowlands. Is this "checkbox" method of solo content going to be repeated? Will every zone in Shadowlands have 20 rares with a sprinkling of recolored mounts and toys, and 50 more rares added in 9.1, and 50 more rares added in 9.2, and 50 more... you get the idea.

what you describe is just the backward effect of a game that is getting cheaper and cheaper. thats the simple reason.

in past they invested more, you get more. the details you list is called quality. more investment = more quality. since they invest less and less while time goes on, you have exactly this effect.

simple as that.

[Kehego]

"most drop a toy or pet or mount" meaning most mobs can drop either a toy or a pet or a mount.
Obviously it doesn't mean that most mobs can drop both a toy and a pet and a mount.

I presume you already knew this, but just wanted to complain anyway.

I know what you said, and that, especially in mechagon/nazj isn't true.

[Rucati]

I certainly hope they do. I don't even care about the pets/mounts/toys because I know I'd never use any of those, it's mainly just that it's more fun to fly around and see rare mobs to kill for artifact power or whatever. Not to mention they make the world feel more alive when these 10mil health rares require like 5 people to kill, but then everyone complains the world is empty anyway so I guess it doesn't matter afterall.

[erifwodahs]

what you describe is just the backward effect of a game that is getting cheaper and cheaper. thats the simple reason.

in past they invested more, you get more. the details you list is called quality. more investment = more quality. since they invest less and less while time goes on, you have exactly this effect.

simple as that.

also players complaining about too complex systems for casuals, I liked Legion/WoD version of follower traits/equipment, BfA is very boring in comparison. It could have been expanded still in legion, with followers having minor generic talent trees (for example gold spec/ap spec/speed spec and so on) but... too complicated for average Joe and if they find it too complex, they won't participate in it. Also altoholics complaining about having to login on their 20 characters and having to do missions instead of playing those characters.

[Mirishka]

Not that it surprises me at this point, but this forum often feels like a small council of angry people that try very hard to come up with literally anything they can to complain about.

[zyx]

I know what you said, and that, especially in mechagon/nazj isn't true.

Let's see the numbers then:

In Mechagon we have 36 rares.
2 of them drops nothing.
If we don't count blueprints as a worthwhile drop, then 23 drops "nothing". Fair enough, that is quite a big number. But I'd argue, since it is still something you can "collect" that blueprints counts as a worthwhile drop - Especially since many of them can create pets and/or toys.

In Nazjatar we have 40 rares
9 of them drops nothing of real value. Ie cannot be collected, or gives a fairly large reward in gold and/or rep
If you don't care about that and only want collectible things, then 17 of them drops nothing of value.


So Mechagon has ~5% mobs with no worthwhile drops
Nazjatar has 22%-42% mobs with no worthwhile drops

So once again. Say that "Most drop a toy or pet or mount" is still true. More than 50% of the rares will drop something that can be collected one way or another.

[Yarathir]

Funny part is that Soundless is probably the cruelest rare up to now, and that was added in 8.2.

[Daedius]

Long respawn rates can fuck right off. I ain't paying the game to idle, that is the most ludicrously retarded concept that needs to fucking die.

And then you got the most stupid one thus far; Soundless mount, long spawn time AND obscenely low drop rate...

Short respawn timers to daily low drop rate chance works fine for me.

[Shinrael]

Really disappointed with how they've been handling rares since WoD (incl. Legion AND BFA). Rares drop nothing of interest by default. Then SOME of them have A CHANCE to drop something of interest. Then why not just make those few "Rare" and just reduce the rest to normal NPCs? Why do you need 20 rares anyway? To make people go around the map? Them make the 3 actually rare mobs go around the map? Or make them all drop some guaranteed rare/epic items. Useful currencies in reasonable amounts, not 20 coalescing visions rofl What was cool about rares in MoP is that they dropped a guaranteed rare item which was very useful for leveling and then they also had a chance to drop sacks of mats, reputation tokens, pets, toys, mounts and other stuff. Most had a short respawn time but they were fewer and made more sense for why they are where they are. I always loved entering Valley of the Four Winds and seeing that Pandaren Monk rare meditating under the shrine. AND the MoP rares were actually tough to solo. They had mechanics you had to avoid/interrupt and each had a type so if you previously fought a Pandaren Monk, you'd know that his pandaren monk has similar mechanics and you could build a strategy how to fight it before even trying. It promoted knowing the world. And that is an essential thing for an open-world RPG.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Comparing the rare situation now to TLPD or Aeonaxx is giving a false choice/premise, as the two situations couldn't be more different.

I think what the OP is saying is "If every mob is rare, then no mob is." For Vale/Uldum, a very large portion of the 'rares' are only there for the daily quests to kill three rares, and ironically enough even some of the non-rare event mobs count. With how they're treating rares for the 8.3 content, it'd make more sense to have the MoP timless isle version of rares (which would tend to respawn every hour with no loot lockout), just not even make them rares but named elites. Similar to "Purple is the new blue" when it comes to gear, "rare is the new elite" when it comes to mobs as WoW gets older.

From my perspective, I've given up mostly on collecting mounts/pets because they add so many bloody new ones each patch that I get tired from trying to farm them all. You basically need an army of alts or multiboxing to have a feasible chance of obtaining all the mounts/pets. It's similar to how I used to get every achievement in the game, until WoD when they added that insane amount of archeology achievements that just seemed to be there to make you do archeaology 20 times longer than necessary, so I stopped bothering after that (and this is coming from someone who did the Insane in the Membrane achievement the first month it originally came out). None of it feels special anymore, as everything feels like more of an chore than an experience/achievement. That's the feeling the OP seems to be describing: killing a rare used to feel special/meaningful, now it's just a chore and a daily quest.

Basically this. Rares USED to be something cool to stumble across or camp out if you REALLY wanted what they had... now its "oh look... the 35th rare I've seen in 3min that only drops AP and a grey item yawn...."