Bitch Thread for Warlords of Draenor

[Ironwood]

 

[Lakov_Sanite]

wow's endgame content has been raiding for the past um, ten years?  It has it's faults but if you don't like raiding, why even play wow?

[Xanthippe]

It's been the same story every expansion. They really only have ~1 month of content unless you want to get into raiding (which this expansion so far has also under-delivered on, in terms of number of encounters and raid zones for a first tier).

The expansion had better leveling content, good exploration incentives, introduced new characters that were for likeable for once, and a nice minigame in the form of Garrisons. I'd rate the non-raid content, professions aside, higher than any previous expansion but it still won't last you long.

Wrath was the pinnacle of fun WoW for me. This one is super boring even with garrisons. I'm not and never have been a raider.

[Rokal]

I didn't really play Wrath, but lots of activities that would have increased longevity in older expansions aren't really viable anymore. In TBC I spent tons of time leveling alts, PVPing, farming gold for flying mounts, working on reputations, and the leveling experience itself (1-70) was much much longer. Aside from leveling alts (which most people have done enough of over the last 10 years), none of those activities sound fun after doing them for so long.

I spent more time playing WoW during TBC than every other expansion since combined, but I'm not going to pretend that it's because TBC had some superior design that has since been lost.

[Paelos]

I didn't really play Wrath, but lots of activities that would have increased longevity in older expansions aren't really viable anymore. In TBC I spent tons of time leveling alts, PVPing, farming gold for flying mounts, working on reputations, and the leveling experience itself (1-70) was much much longer. Aside from leveling alts (which most people have done enough of over the last 10 years), none of those activities sound fun after doing them for so long.

I spent more time playing WoW during TBC than every other expansion since combined, but I'm not going to pretend that it's because TBC had some superior design that has since been lost.

I really wish you'd played Wrath, because I can almost guarantee if you did we'd never disagree on the direction of the game.

LFR wasn't a solution. It was a band-aid. If anything, LFR has sped up the demise of their model because it turns raids into a disposable assets game. At the core of these type of games, you have to make friends to stay subbed and enjoy doing things with those friends. If not, there's no reason to stay subbed long enough to make it matter. LFR made content more accessible, which is good, but it also made it the baseline of effort, which is bad.

What Wrath did was make the raids easy enough to do with friends. You had to make the small effort to roster them, which usually wasn't that bad for things like Naxx. Then they ramped up the effort/difficulty in later raids. The important thing was they made the first raid super easy to do, and they make it easy to find groups. People were Pugging them anyway, and then were making more formal groups from the Pugs on the server.

Blizzard has been doing the reverse. Making harder on the front end for entry, but then offering options like LFR which have no stickiness and no sense of gathering together.

The answer is flex raiding, which they've come to late, and still have the bar set too high. It should be minimum a 5 man deal, and scale up from there.

[Rokal]

Nobody in this thread is asking for raid content to keep them subbed though. That part of the game is still there, if you want it, and the current "Normal" (previously called Flex) is apparently comparable to most WotLK raids. PuG raids are very common, and easier than ever with the LFG tool to organize raids cross-realm.

The question is, how much content does the game have to keep you interested if you don't want to raid? The amount of content available outside of raiding has gone up slightly each expansion, but other activities that would have previously kept players around have outlived their appeal.

[Paelos]

The question is, how much content does the game have to keep you interested if you don't want to raid? The amount of content available outside of raiding has gone up slightly each expansion, but other activities that would have previously kept players around have outlived their appeal.

The answer is that it should have enough non-raid content like factions, dailies, pets, cosmetics, alts, dungeons, and professions/collections to last more than two months. Or at the very least, have a patch ready at the two-month mark to add things other than just this new raid.

[Rokal]

The answer is that it should have enough non-raid content like factions, dailies, pets, cosmetics, alts, dungeons, and professions/collections to last more than two months. Or at the very least, have a patch ready at the two-month mark to add things other than just this new raid.

The new raid is part of the first tier. It's been ready to go since WoD launched, they just held it back to inflate how long the tier lasted for raiders. I think it worked out pretty well. My guild is just now getting tired of Highmaul and if they kept the gear ilvl gap it would have been forgotten as soon as people had the gear to move to BRF.

The new patch does add some new content though: Heirloom system revamp encouraging you to collect em all (with a mount reward), new profession items, new garrison missions, new garrison world/raid bosses, garrison music box, new legendary quest section, new mounts, new battle pets, and the normal slate of class buffs/nerfs. Feels like a pretty average WoW patch TBH.

I don't think any of the stuff you listed could really be expected to keep people interested for 2+ months though. Factions, dailies, pets, alts, professions, and to some extent cosmetics and dungeons, are all old hat at this point.

[KallDrexx]

Welp, got to 100 on my Shaman and quickly quests dried up.  I was actually have a good amount of fun while questing.

I guess all there really is to do is dungeon runs to gear up for LFR to gear up for raids?

Which is mightily boring since it's a minimum of 30 minutes per queue pop, on a good night (and god forbid I have to use the restroom right when it pops).  I'm not even totally sure I'd enjoy raiding knowing how hardcore my friend and his guild is (and I'm not liking high end dungeon play as a melee, i probably should have gone with ranged instead). 

I fear my time with WoW is close to an end.

[Rokal]

I'd suggest checking out the treasure map stuff from the Arch vendor in your WoD Capitol (Stormreach). That's the stuff I had the most fun with. Finishing out your garrison and checking out dungeons are also worthwhile.

[KallDrexx]

Treasure maps?  First I've heard of it, I'll look it out thanks.

*ediT* Oh it's just a built in handy notes run to the map marker thing :-/.  I was hoping for a UO style treasure map thing.

[Xanthippe]

A friend started to play on a different server, so I made a new monk.

When they smushed the servers together, so that people have people around them to see while they level (and maybe group with), it's like the old days of leveling - waiting for spawns. Since they dumbed down the starting areas so much - it's like they child-proofed them, with all the non-aggro mobs now - they ought to crank up the spawn rate, or lower the max rate before they open a new server.  It's obnoxious.

[SurfD]

I remember seeing a Blue post a bit back about someone ccomplaining about that.  They said that if you spot anywhere that spawns are not happening relatively quickly in times of high density player population in the area, you should report it as a bug so they can look into it, since there is supposed to be some kind of code in place that dynamically adjusts the spawn rates to account for that, and the area you are seeing the shortfall might have somehow been missed / not functioning properly.

[Polysorbate80]

Is there an option hidden in the UI somewhere to automatically block guild invites?  I wasn't back in the game more than 30 seconds (I haven't played since mid-Cataclysm) when they started popping up.  Hadn't even had time to remember what the damn controls were yet.

Needless to say, any guild that would random-spam invite me isn't one I'm looking for    But I swear someone tries every 15-20 minutes.

That sad, I'm hating Pandaria except for the Pokémon pets.  My paladin was 85, though.  Not worth wasting the level 90 boost on.  Besides, I'm 87 already and haven't even finished the first zone.  At this rate, I won't even have to ever finish Pandaria.

[Cadaverine]

It's in the settings under social, I think.   It's been a moment since I did so.

[Xanthippe]

That sad, I'm hating Pandaria except for the Pokémon pets.  My paladin was 85, though.  Not worth wasting the level 90 boost on.  Besides, I'm 87 already and haven't even finished the first zone.  At this rate, I won't even have to ever finish Pandaria.

I hit 90 in the Jade Forest simply by queueing for dungeons and doing quests, and still didn't finish. I had a lot of rested.

Bonus is that you can fly to the capital and not even have to do the questline to open it up - although I don't know if that happens at 90 or before; I never tried to go there until 90.

Started leveling my 85 alliance hunter again, to finish up some reputation achievements that were almost done but not quite.

[Hutch]

The questline to open up the Vale on foot takes place in Kun-Lai Summit, at the Temple of the White Tiger.

I hit it around 87 or 88 on my toons, depending on what questing path I was following, and how much pet battling and dungeoning I was doing along the way.

When you first enter the Summit (on foot), you do so via a boat ride through the tunnel at the SE corner of the zone. I don't know if the boat ride quest is level locked or not.

[Xanthippe]

I'm pretty sure that I had flying before I did the Temple quest or the boat ride.

[Hutch]

Right, if you were level 90 it makes sense that you'd have flying.
I was describing how to get the Vale open before 90.

[angry.bob]

For fuck's sake, where did they put the button to queue for battlegrounds at?

[Setanta]

Go to your LFG screen... tabs on that screen take you to PvP queues.

[angry.bob]

Ugh, thanks a ton.

[Draegan]

I started playing this game again after quitting during WOTLK. Boosted at leveled to 100. Was an ok experience. The game looks really good and the quests had it's standard Blizzard touch but it was mostly boring and I would  never want to do it again unless I had a fully twinked god-mode alt.

Garrison is kind of fun, but I would never want to start this shit over again.

Gearing up is basically do LFR/World Bosses and idle in that shitty Ashran place for points. I have a newborn at home so you can forget real raiding unless the wife is aware of it in the middle of a Saturday which I doubt will happen.

All the classes are rather boring to be honest. But I have to say, I ran through most of the Cata raids solo yesterday. That one fight with the Bird in Firelands where you are flying through the air was pretty badass. This game needs more of that.

[Paelos]

I'm interested to see what their end of Q1 sub number will be as I feel the initial shine has worn off by now.

I think you hit my feelings on the features list from afar. It sounded boring. It's why I'm not feeling the pull to try it out.

[KallDrexx]

Blizzard talks patch 6.1

[Tannhauser]

I just cancelled.  WoD was a good xpac overall but I've seen all I care to see I guess.  Plus, there's other games coming down the pipe and I have to make time for them.

[Xanthippe]

Got my alli hunter to 100, joining my horde disc priest and horde lock.

Silver proving grounds was so incredibly easy. I still cannot do it on lock or shadow priest. I've given up on playing those.

Disc priest is fun.

Hunter is super easy - I don't know why I had so much trouble playing the last time I tried. Oh - wait a minute, yes I do. Now I remember. When Blizzard changed hunters so that they no longer used polearms, only a bow or gun, they got rid of my ranged weapon and kept my polearm - so when I logged in, I had no ranged. I bought something cheap from the AH and was mighty irritated.

I think the alliance story in WoD is quite strong. MoP was a little disappointing in that respect. Not much different between the two sides once you get out of Jade Forest.

Ashran is awful, based upon about 3 visits. I don't much like any pvp anymore in WoW.

[Merusk]

You're probably using old rotations on your shadow priest, Xanth.  They don't DoT anymore it's all mind spike and mind blast with glyphed SWD. You weave devouring plague in when you have enough orbs and use Mind Sear on the packs.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/utp8u9kc5ssq9ssj/sum/damageDone/?s=2082&e=2275#Barotgus

That said, yes, Shadow took a biiiiiig hit this Xpac. You have to go to #102 before you even find a priest in the top of logs for raid fights.  (The guy I linked was the first player whose abilities showed up in English)

[Xanthippe]

Yes, I was. I did try the new rotation but couldn't get it to work. Ditto with warlock. It feels really clunky to me, and I've yet to have an ah-ha moment with either one of them.

Hunter is point and shoot in comparison, which is what my old reflexes need in a class to be in any way competent. Disc priest plays similarly although it changed also, but I never got the hang of holy this expansion (I've never really gotten the hang of holy at all, to be honest).

I'd like to level my monk further. My friend stopped playing, and my monk is around 30. I'd also like to level a druid again. And dk. Too many characters to play - this expansion really makes alt-ing feel more difficult due to the garrison chore factor.

I take back what I said before about there not being enough to do - there is too much to do and it feels like chores a lot of the time.

[Soulflame]

That was my problem during Wrath.  There was always something to do, and it often felt like busywork.

[Setanta]

I have 10 classes at 100 and one at 95. I log in, set up my mission running followers, open crates, pet battle, collect follower gear and set up new orders and then log out because fuck it, my gear has progressed from followers, not by actually playing my character. The garrison is too much for my OCD - the only time I've gone out is to get the jukebox and once a week to raid with friends.

Things I've managed to give up because the mission setup covers it:
Resource gathering Ore/flowers/leather/enchant mats (comes from salvage crates)
Crafting all chars at 700 - resources to make at least 4 more pieces each and no incentive to upgrade plus the stupid 3 piece lockout on equipped.
Fishing (4 chars at 700, fish to last me a life time)
Grinding for gold (missions has me fluctuating between 30K to 70K bank balance) - I buy an upgrade or two
Grinding/questing/dungeon runs for gear - my 95 priest put on the last 4 levels by ... followers doing XP missions. She has a 645 weapon waiting for her along with 3 necks and a combo of 630-645 gear. Her biggest block is only having 11 followers (I ran her out to Gorgrond to get Tormond and Blook). Some of my characters hit 100 and went straight to 632+ ilvl.
Rep grinding - Steemwheedle to honoured and Aarokka to 100 off exalted (after doing the birdman quests) from missions

Garrisons has actually taken the game out of the game to the point that I'm actually wondering how much game there actually is.

It's an interesting system but I think it has the potential to damage the game - TBH I wish the garrison was an ipad app that synched with the game rather than part of the game.

[Tannhauser]

That was my problem during Wrath.  There was always something to do, and it often felt like busywork.

A friend and I were running along the Tatooine desert long ago (in a galaxy far, far away) in SWG when he suddenly stopped and disappeared.  Didn't log back on.  Called him the next day and asked him what happened.  He said "I'm done man, I'm done with it."  To this day he has never played another MMO.

How I envy him.

WoW has been around for 10 years and it has a shit-ton of stuff to do.  Now multiply that by my 15 characters and my inability to exercise any sort of self-discipline and you get a mad man hunched over his laptop furiously trying to get his pet a new level.  I finally hit that wall last night and logged off.  I hope the spell is broken and I think it is, for now.

What I should do is delete every single goddam toon I have except one and play it that way, but they all are precious to me. So I'm out, I'm clean, ready to face a new game like Hearthstone.  I'm only 400 dust away from crafting a gold so I'm pretty excited...

[Setanta]

WoW has been around for 10 years and it has a shit-ton of stuff to do.  Now multiply that by my 15 characters and my inability to exercise any sort of self-discipline and you get a mad man hunched over his laptop furiously trying to get his pet a new level.  I finally hit that wall last night and logged off.  I hope the spell is broken and I think it is, for now.

What I should do is delete every single goddam toon I have except one and play it that way, but they all are precious to me. So I'm out, I'm clean, ready to face a new game like Hearthstone.  I'm only 400 dust away from crafting a gold so I'm pretty excited...

This is me to a "T" and I'm getting really pissed at myself for not saying "fuck it" and calling it quits. I have no control when it comes to WoW - best I've done is quit for 18 months. I need something to replace it so I've rebuilt my pushbike with the goal to get out more because replacing a video game with a video game is shit.

[Selby]

Now multiply that by my 15 characters and my inability to exercise any sort of self-discipline and you get a mad man hunched over his laptop furiously trying to get his pet a new level.  I finally hit that wall last night and logged off.  I hope the spell is broken and I think it is, for now.

This was me last year.  14 max level characters and lots of OCD stuff doing.  Target stole my debit card and my account got suspended for lack of payment.  I tried to log in one day and couldn't.  Then I sat back and said... "maybe it's a sign" and I've been gone ever since.  I miss it from time to time but honestly I didn't have much fun that last year or expansion anyways so it was for the best.

[Xanthippe]

I can see how WoW appeals to people who are compulsive. I'm not particularly; I have always had ADD with my characters, leaving many unfinished things on them. I can focus on at most two and even then ignore things that are there to do. Like the fishing daily, or the heroic dungeon.

The garrison pull is harder for some reason this time. I'm managing to ignore it by focusing on one character (horde priest) and when I get bored with that, I play my other (alliance hunter - my first main but Wrath was the last expansion I played her much.). They're on different servers but I don't feel compelled to finish, although there are things I want to do on both every day. If I don't, I don't worry about it.

I know that at some time, I will simply not log in, and when a few weeks of not logging in go by, I will unsub again (and probably go play minecraft, which I never finish anything on - or go knit, which I always finish).