Alright, I’m quite unsure how to start the rant to make it somewhat coherent, but here goes. After having countless discussions with tons of people on various Discords, it has seemed to me that there is some sort of a somewhat universal consensus to bring back old content in order to reinvigorate the game – both from the side of those that have experienced it, and from those who haven’t. Other than that, it seems that you guys have started to realizing this as well – you’re giving us free TCG mounts, you’re reintroducing WotLK transmog models in different recolors, you brought back Mage Tower etc. etc. In nowadays game, almost nobody gives a damn about FOMO anymore. What you sadly are doing though it preventing both active players and new players the access to these items, which has the potential to literally bring back old players, or bring people to play the game more, as well as gives them more possibilities. Not to mention these are some of the best collection items in the game.
Now, there are still people that gutterally disagree with this, but these people are mostly these people that want to keep the „prestige“ of TCG mounts behind a paywall (imagine buying status points in a videogame omegalul). And those who still disagree even though they do not fit into this bracket – let me try to convince you otherwise: Bring back the old content, and gate it behind a grind that is adequate to the level of „prestige“ it used to be, plus the FOMO „price to pay“.
An exquisite example of this was for example the Marksmanship Hunter Mage Tower challenge a few hours after being reintroduced. Man, that thing was HARD. It took me personally around 5 hours of research, theorycrafting, and practicing to kite the guy out, and I literally only beat the guy by one global – I was literally about to die if he finished the cast, but I was faster. (I played from launch time, and I played it the proper way, not the „outrange him and spam“ abuse way, and I even played it with gear I had on me, not Pandaria gem stack gear). However, the result was that I was really happy I managed to pass it as a challenge, and it was time well spent, because I enjoyed mastering it. The aspects of the game that suffer the most from this – PvP, Openworld Content, and M+, in this order by extent. In the same way, I suggest you reintroduce the following content, in order to incentivize people to play the game again, and make it less monotonous:
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MoP legendary cloaks, MoP challenge mode sets, WoD challenge mode mount and weapons, Legion Mage Tower artifact weapon(s)
Let’s start with the Openworld/Solo Content, because that’s something people that play WoW should universally hold dearly, to an extent. Unlike in the past, the Openworld nowadays is but a waiting room for your queues to pop. People have barely any reason to do anything in there, apart from e.g. Lucid Nightmare and other secret mounts, secret pets, secret transmog. But why? Wasn’t WoW originally all about avoiding loadscreens, creating an immersive world that feels like fantasy, and make it feel alive? Nowadays, we only use the Openworld as a waiting room. That’s such a pity. Incentivize people to play the game by other means than just queuing for PvP, raid, and M+. There’s barely any reason other than the so-called „prestige from back-in-the-days“ to keep this content no longer accessible. Make it harder than before, but make it doable if enough time is invested. Don’t timegate it, make it open like the new Mage Tower. Make the time invested worth it. Most people that have achieved any of these are no longer playing anyway, so it’s literally just dead content, which at the same time is considered top notch. Just milk it, have people do it, bring these players back, incentivize them to return to the openworld and solo content for other reasons than afking on a mountain for 40 minutes, searching for an LFG to join an instance. (Oh, and make Tarecgosa’s Rest transmoggable finally, in a way that you can change into the mount, how about that, and might as well reintroduce the Horde motorbike for the same price as the Alliance one).
On a side note - if not the same colour, at leat reintroduce the models and recolor them to tell them apart. -
PvP old transmogs, PvP gladiator mounts (bear with me, I know this is a brave thing to say)
This is a long one. Let’s keep in mind some things:
- you can buy RBG old Elite mogs in Area 52 if you reach a certain rating
- you can buy old Vicious mounts in the main cities if you reach a certain rating and grind enough to buy them
- high-end PvP content is effectively the hardest content in the game, and yet it’s being looked down on as if it were a „minigame for degenerates“
This content has been gated behind the unbreakable wall of time for literal years – even for those that have previously reached it in the given timeframe, for that matter, in old transmogs’ cases. Some of these unique transmogs have been almost lost to time, because they were a thing before the Collection tab was even a thing, such as the red PvP bow in WotLK, and the Cataclysmic Gladiator’s Elite recolor. At the same time, however, the level of one’s capabilities need to be at least the same – if not higher – to achieve the same ratings etc,. considering how the skillcap in PvP has been progressively developing.
Now for the suggestions:
a) Make all the previous transmogs accessible through grinding at an appropriate level, that is all transmog sets, weapons and tabards, starting with Cataclysm, all the way to Shadowlands, and eventually further. Legion Elite recolours required 2000 rating in a bracket back in the days? Sure, make it 10 wins at 2100 in any bracket to gain 1 token for which you can buy only 1 full set, including weapons. You want a tabard – make it 10 wins above 2400 for 1 token. You want all of them? Well, you better get grinding for all the ~300 wins! And similarly to new Vicious mounts, just like you always do, make the latest expansion rewards accessible through currency as the new expansion launches, to keep the people hooked so that they return for it. Or even better, MAKE IT A 2S REWARD SPECIFICALLY, because there’s 0 incentive to play 2s, with the current RSS situation where rss took all 2s rewards away, but it’s impossible to get anywhere close near progressing reasonably towards gladiator once you reach your peak in RSS – R1 excluded.
b) Make all gladiator mounts accessible the same way. You want an old gladiator drake? Well, get a seasonal gladiator first with 50 wins, and then get additional 100 wins at 2400+ in 3v3 to gain 1 token for 1 mount, just like Vicious saddles. You want all of them? Well, you better get grinding, because it’s not even close to how much time grinding people spent back in the days obtaining those! And if you missed out on the newest one, wait 4 seasons until the new expansion.
This is an especially important part of the post, considering just how much you butchered the whole PvP scene with the release of RSS. The achievements are unified, blurring the skill line tremendously, the CR ceilings are incomparably separated, 2s – which are supposed to be an entry gateway for Gladiator practice – are absolutely dead (the maximum CR differences this season were something like 3500 CR RSS, 3100 CR 3v3, 2800 (!) CR 2v2 – and you would regularly face R1s playing 2s at 1800 cr, and it would take you 10 minutes to even have the queue pop at levels beyond that). 2s are a gateway to gladiator, RSS isn’t. In RSS, games are sped up, communication is non-existent, people play suboptimal comps, blah blah blah, and it makes them think this is how it works in 3s, and yet once they enter 3s with 2400 cr in RSS, they get hardstuck at 1700, because not only are the standard brackets dead cuz 95 % of all PvP matches are shuffle, but also because they’re not even used to playing PvP properly, with comms, with people they know, with strats developed, with practice gained in fast-popping queues, instead of sitting at a peak of a mountain for 30 minutes, waiting for a healer to sign up, only for him to cancel the queue at the last second. Think about this, please. 2s are important, LFG is important, practice is important, balance is important.
- M+ mounts, since PvP was mentioned as well
Last, but not least, in the same manner as in PvP, you should reintroduce the M+ mounts for some sort of currency. I don’t exactly know how, but that’s not really my problem. Just make the grind reasonable, make peopel obtain the seasonal mount first, and then make it possible to grind towards tokens for other ones, such as the Vicious Saddle. Other than that – you can farm the Mythic CE raid drops after the seasons end anyway, so why not this.
Keep the prestige, but reinvigorate the content and incentivize people to play it. End of rant.
Sincerely,
A player that likes the game
