Will DF have better reward structure than ZM?

[WowIsDead64]

Common Blizzards' rule - to make new xpack according to last patch of previous one, that is considered to be "perfect". And I'm scared. Because ZM has terrible reward structure. If that's, what Blizzard call "No mandatory content - everybody does, what he wants", then we're in trouble.

Progression route and reward structure - are two major problems of several recent xpacks. When I come to ZM, I ask myself simple question: what should I do here? And here are answers:
1) Doing WQs
2) Doing dailies
3) Killing rares
4) Collecting treasures
5) Collecting mounts and pets

Second question is - for what purpose?
1) Sometimes they have nice rewards, but once you're 246, they're mostly pointless, except may be extra anima (see below). Reputation? There is no valuable rewards for it, so I don't need it.
2) Same, as #1, but their major reward - cyphers. Do I need this Poc-poc thing? No, I don't think so. Poc-poc customization is something for kids. And I'm not fan of zone-specific buffs. Yeah, I understand, that it's fun for some players. But I prefer to rely on my character's abilities only.
3) For what purpose? Anima? It's income is still too slow to be worth doing. I wanted to complete 9.0 content, but had to abandon it, because it takes too much of my time. It also requires souls and gifts. While gifts from rare and treasure are relatively quick to get, dailies are intentionally made extremely slow. Another rewards? Relics? Yeah, they're only valuable rewards in ZM. But there is too few content around them. Just weekly quest, daily chest and pair of rares. That's it.
4) Same as rares, but much worse rewards.
5) I'm not interested in pets and pet battles, but I like to collect mounts. But I don't collect them just for sake of collecting. I collect certain mounts, I like. I'm more transmog collector, than mount/pet collector.

So, I can barely find anything interesting for me in ZM. I don't want to say, that "no mandatory content" design is bad and content should be forced. But DF should have better reward and progression structure. When I come to location and ask myself simple question, for what purpose should I do content X - I should have some answer.

[Rendark]

So what you're saying is ZM is not for you. Sucks but that happens. For me it's pretty good, not the best thing ever made but good.

[cparle87]

Common Blizzards' rule - to make new xpack according to last patch of previous one, that is considered to be "perfect". And I'm scared. Because ZM has terrible reward structure. If that's, what Blizzard call "No mandatory content - everybody does, what he wants", then we're in trouble.

Progression route and reward structure - are two major problems of several recent xpacks. When I come to ZM, I ask myself simple question: what should I do here? And here are answers:
1) Doing WQs
2) Doing dailies
3) Killing rares
4) Collecting treasures
5) Collecting mounts and pets

Second question is - for what purpose?
1) Sometimes they have nice rewards, but once you're 246, they're mostly pointless, except may be extra anima (see below). Reputation? There is no valuable rewards for it, so I don't need it.
2) Same, as #1, but their major reward - cyphers. Do I need this Poc-poc thing? No, I don't think so. Poc-poc customization is something for kids. And I'm not fan of zone-specific buffs. Yeah, I understand, that it's fun for some players. But I prefer to rely on my character's abilities only.
3) For what purpose? Anima? It's income is still too slow to be worth doing. I wanted to complete 9.0 content, but had to abandon it, because it takes too much of my time. It also requires souls and gifts. While gifts from rare and treasure are relatively quick to get, dailies are intentionally made extremely slow. Another rewards? Relics? Yeah, they're only valuable rewards in ZM. But there is too few content around them. Just weekly quest, daily chest and pair of rares. That's it.
4) Same as rares, but much worse rewards.
5) I'm not interested in pets and pet battles, but I like to collect mounts. But I don't collect them just for sake of collecting. I collect certain mounts, I like. I'm more transmog collector, than mount/pet collector.

So, I can barely find anything interesting for me in ZM. I don't want to say, that "no mandatory content" design is bad and content should be forced. But DF should have better reward and progression structure. When I come to location and ask myself simple question, for what purpose should I do content X - I should have some answer.

1. Being mad that you eventually outgear rewards, hot take. And people hated raid level power being locked behind reps, Blizzard listened.
2. Dismissing casual content you don't care for as "for kids", another hot take.
3. Complaining that grinding in an mmorpg takes too much time.
4. Same as above.
5. "I choose not to partake in this therefore it's not considered content."

Glad to see another quality "Wowisdead" post. Don't you ever get tired of these "everything sucks, nothing is worth my time" posts? Hey, if the game isn't worth your time, why are you wasting even more of your oh so precious time complaining about the game on a forum?

In the time it took you to write this post you could've killed three rares, opened five chests, and done a WQ.

[melzas]

Your problem isn't reward structure in Zereth Mortis, your problem is that you are trying to force yourself to play a game you don't like.

If you have to ask yourself (numerous times too) why should I do content in video game, the answer should have always been the same - BECAUSE IT'S FUN. It's clear from your posts you no longer enjoy playing the game, so given your high activity on these forums, perhaps it would be best for you to seek professional help to break bad habits that are dragging you down.

[Eldryth]

While we haven't seen max-level open world content yet, the devs have compared it to "four Zereth Mortises", so I'd assume it'd have similar systems but separate progress and rewards for each zone. So it sounds like it may not be for you. Personally, I liked ZM- I liked the fact that it was mostly self-contained progress where I could work towards a lot of mounts and pets without it feeling forced like most content in the past few expansions, but I guess not everyone felt the same.

[WowIsDead64]

For me "no mandatory content" doesn't mean "we add small pieces of different content - it's your choice to pick one", result in too few content for certain players. Because it relies on "Players will pick as much content, as they can handle", but in reality players don't pick content, they aren't motivated enough to do or straight don't like. For me "no mandatory content" means no FOMO due to long-term time-gate grinds and no gating of X content behind completely unrelated Y content, like gating Covenant sanctum content behind anima grind or gating mission table followers behind Torghast grind.

What is better reward structure? It's structure, that allows me to do content I like for reward I want. As simple, as that. But it also can mean some optional long-term progression. Mostly in passive mode not to interrupt playing on current character too much. We don't need to go far to provide examples of such content. WOD garrisons and Legion class halls are great example of content with good reward structure.

Good progression structure is:
1) Short or optional active phase, like campaign. This part shouldn't be treated as one-time thing, that should be skipped then. It should be fun RPish part of progression. But it shouldn't gate long-term mid-phase grind in order to avoid FOMO. For example endgame content actually should be gated behind leveling. I understand, that there is some technical problem here - endgame is usually tuned for max level character. But it's very old FOMO problem, that should finally be fixed.
2) Mid phase with mid-time grind. Several weeks. Up to month. It's enough time to focus one character.
3) Long-term grind. Passive or account-wide. It's time to switch to alt and replay phases #1 and #2. This phase should guarantee, that "main only" and "altoholic" playstyles are equal, i.e. no penalty for playing on alts. That's why it should be account-wide.

Rewards structure? May be it shouldn't be tied to content? Because it causes hit-or-miss problem. Sometimes you don't like content. Sometimes you don't like reward. And it limits amount for available content for you. May be there should be universal currency and universal vendor with universal rewards? 100% universal currency! Not MOP crap, that was given mostly for dailies and gated behind rep grinds.

- - - Updated - - -

Your problem isn't reward structure in Zereth Mortis, your problem is that you are trying to force yourself to play a game you don't like.

If you have to ask yourself (numerous times too) why should I do content in video game, the answer should have always been the same - BECAUSE IT'S FUN. It's clear from your posts you no longer enjoy playing the game, so given your high activity on these forums, perhaps it would be best for you to seek professional help to break bad habits that are dragging you down.

Problem is: it's not about not liking game itself - it's about not liking specific xpack or patch. I still like WOD content. I still like Legion content. It's focusing too much on bad "sandbox" content design and FOMO progression/reward structure, that makes 2 recent xpacks bad.

[Nymrohd]

I think Zereth Mortis is problematic in that it gives decent gear but it caps too fast. So you will be done in gear progression there very fast especially with alts.

[WowIsDead64]

I think Zereth Mortis is problematic in that it gives decent gear but it caps too fast. So you will be done in gear progression there very fast especially with alts.

While character power shouldn't be the only motivation for player to play content, cuz for many players power is only needed to make current content easier, not to progress to harder content, I agree, that gear progression should be at least 1 month long. But not too long. Especially not potentially infinite. Player should be able to be done with his current character to avoid stacking FOMO activities on several characters. Usually rule of good gear progression - quick catch up to avoid struggling with overtuned content on undergeared character for too long and 1 or 2 months max of getting BIS.

[Tarba]

Playing a game for the reward...
You should instead play the game because it's fun to play. If enought people stop their reward addiction and simply stop playing games like that, blizzard would have to actually work to make the game better.

[Loveliest]

I don't understand what you mean with "do content you like for rewards you like".

You basically have this. Like questing? Then you can get gear, mounts, rep etc through that. Like raiding? You can get gear, mounts, pets etc through that. Like M+? You get the point.
Not the SAME reward, no. So you can't get the gear you would get in M+ by doing quests. Though there are some overlaps in content in regards to that. For example, you can get lfr tier set by not doing lfr. That still not good enough?

As a side note, what you like or don't like is subjective. For example, I hate paragon chests that make a grind longer, I want to be done with a rep when I reach exalted. But ppl screamed bloody murder when Blizz didn't add them immediately at the start of bfa because that gave them no reason to keep grinding. Apparently, some peopke like grinding.

[WowIsDead64]

I don't understand what you mean with "do content you like for rewards you like".

You basically have this. Like questing? Then you can get gear, mounts, rep etc through that. Like raiding? You can get gear, mounts, pets etc through that. Like M+? You get the point.
Not the SAME reward, no. So you can't get the gear you would get in M+ by doing quests. Though there are some overlaps in content in regards to that. For example, you can get lfr tier set by not doing lfr. That still not good enough?

As a side note, what you like or don't like is subjective. For example, I hate paragon chests that make a grind longer, I want to be done with a rep when I reach exalted. But ppl screamed bloody murder when Blizz didn't add them immediately at the start of bfa because that gave them no reason to keep grinding. Apparently, some peopke like grinding.

It's not true in 100% cases. In most cases Wow's content is "reward-driven". I.e. there is reward, you want, and you have to do whatever content, it's gated behind. It's price, you need to pay. You either buy it or not. And such combination isn't always good. Because content can be completely unrelated to reward.

Example of such bad reward "overlapping"? Getting mission table followers from Torghast. Yeah, it comes from assumption, that if Torghast is one of major xpack's features, then all players would 100% do it. But it's wrong assumption. I want followers to player follower-specific content, i.e. mission table, but I don't want to do Torghast, that is completely unrelated to them. This is also good example of FOMO. Follower leveling process is way too overstretched. So one would want to get all followers ASAP. This distracts players from playing content, they actually like. In this case "do content you like for rewards you like" would mean getting mission table followers from playing mission table itself. And I don't even talk about forcing Torghast via legendary grind, that is much more serious problem. It's not serious for me only because I don't care about content, where legendaries would be required.

[klaps_05]

Call me crazy, but I personally love having a power system to grind outside of raids. Yes, it can be a bit better set up than Korthian Fragments, but a zone which offers NO power is basically a useless zone for a game which is 99% focused on endgame. Such systems also allow for more casual players to continue advancing instead of all power being hitched to "ride or die".

[Arai]

Zereth Mortis is not a good zone. Bad rewards, bad activities. Oh wow killing rares aka grind the looking for group tab to catch a group so you can hit once and afk. Or the 3 WQs? Some boring treasures with trash rewards. And thats it. Nazjatar was much better with its benthic gear and more fun WQs. Also not as loaded with useless rares. Argus was also better. So I dont know how they get to the point that Zereth Mortis is the holy grail of zone design. Its bad and boring with mediocre to bad rewards.
If they mean that a lot more things are optional, well sure im for it. But the other designs features of the zone were all awful.

[Nymrohd]

While character power shouldn't be the only motivation for player to play content, cuz for many players power is only needed to make current content easier, not to progress to harder content, I agree, that gear progression should be at least 1 month long. But not too long. Especially not potentially infinite. Player should be able to be done with his current character to avoid stacking FOMO activities on several characters. Usually rule of good gear progression - quick catch up to avoid struggling with overtuned content on undergeared character for too long and 1 or 2 months max of getting BIS.

I don't know. I liked that MoP (with Valor) and BfA (with Conquest through world pvp) gave very slow but very powerful progression. MoP Valor in particular was very much "play what you like" since you could cap Valor even through pet battles if that was what you wanted. A very slow progression keeps more casual (low play time, world and matchmaking content only) players active for longer, rewards them with a high level of gear without creating an issue for active players (since the acquisition is far too slow to compete with their playstyle and can also be used to cover for poor RNG in loot drops).

[Accendor]

While we haven't seen max-level open world content yet, the devs have compared it to "four Zereth Mortises", so I'd assume it'd have similar systems but separate progress and rewards for each zone. So it sounds like it may not be for you. Personally, I liked ZM- I liked the fact that it was mostly self-contained progress where I could work towards a lot of mounts and pets without it feeling forced like most content in the past few expansions, but I guess not everyone felt the same.

If they honestly go the "we give you nothing to do" route again, the xpac will be a colossal failure right from the start.
SL was very bad in that regard as well, after the first two weeks of a new tier it was basically possible to raidlog and do 1m+/week.
Terrible boring concept.

We need power rewards outside of raids and dungeons. I'm not saying Single Player content, but content that offers no meaningful rewards might as well not exist.

[Aggressive]

1. Being mad that you eventually outgear rewards, hot take. And people hated raid level power being locked behind reps, Blizzard listened.
2. Dismissing casual content you don't care for as "for kids", another hot take.
3. Complaining that grinding in an mmorpg takes too much time.
4. Same as above.
5. "I choose not to partake in this therefore it's not considered content."

Glad to see another quality "Wowisdead" post. Don't you ever get tired of these "everything sucks, nothing is worth my time" posts? Hey, if the game isn't worth your time, why are you wasting even more of your oh so precious time complaining about the game on a forum?

In the time it took you to write this post you could've killed three rares, opened five chests, and done a WQ.

And people want players to return to WoW. Now I see why some don't want to. Bastards are rude as hell. Welcome to WoW in 2022..Huh

[WowIsDead64]

I just fear, that this "No mandatory grinds" will be applied to hardcore players only. I.e. no more Torghast legendary grinds. While casuals will still have exactly the same months long FOMO "anima" grinds for crappy rewards, that aren't worth it.

[neescher]

I'm fine with the way ZM is:

Not mandatory for raiders or m+ players. It's a good way to gear up new alts, but not really mandatory.

Way better than the Maw or Korthia.

[cparle87]

I just fear, that this "No mandatory grinds" will be applied to hardcore players only. I.e. no more Torghast legendary grinds. While casuals will still have exactly the same months long FOMO "anima" grinds for crappy rewards, that aren't worth it.

Problem with gamers like you, though, is there's no grey area. It's either mandatory or not worth it, with nothing in between.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Your entire mentality towards the current state of the game, let alone your problem with Zereth Mortis, is what your problem is.