The Queue: Happy Queuemas!

Hello, Queue! I hope you are having a lovely Friday.

We are now turning your lovely Friday into a lovely Friday of talking about video games.

My mother gave me a t-shirt that says “I’m Mom’s Favorite” (I’m an only child.)

I should clarify that I find this funny. My Grandmommy and Grandpa used to say I was their #1 granddaughter (I was their only granddaughter), and it’s sort of become a thing.

I feel like this expansion dumped a lot on us at once. There’s a lot happening in the Shadowlands. Lots of systems. Lots of depth. Lots of complication. Over the long term, I think complicated systems are good. They give us puzzles to figure out, loot to acquire, new things to do. But this was a lot all at once, as though we’d gotten our Heart of Azeroth, Azerite Traits, and Corruption dumped on us all at the same time, with a couple more systems on top.

But I think it’s too much all at once. It would have felt less overwhelming if they’d added little new systems over the course of the expansion, giving us time to learn and understand one before dumping another on us. We’ve gotten so much stuff up-front that I really wonder how the expansion is going to develop from here. More things, more systems, more stuff? It practically has to, but it already feels like the content we have could have been spread out a little more. It would have given us more time to absorb everything, give Blizzard a better chance to teach us the systems, and prevent the whole thing from being quite so overwhelming.

But somehow at the same time the expansion already feels too spread out. The Covenant campaign ambles forward at a pace that’s far slower than players. Just a chapter or two back, one of my Soulbinds found out that all souls are going into the Maw, which is the most terrible thing ever. Which is true! It is pretty terrible! And it’s also the reason I came to find you in the first place, Kleia, have you not been paying attention? I have literally been saying this since day one, but we’re rehashing it more than halfway through the Covenant campaign. Even if this played consecutively with the main story arc, that would be out of sync. Similarly, the rate at which we rescue our friends from the Maw is artificially held back. At least Covenant quests have a catchup mechanism — new chapters unlock as you earn Renown, and if you’re behind on Renown you earn it from basically everything, and chapters unlock quickly. Bolvar’s quests sending you in the Maw unlock once a week for everyone. So if you, like me, got off to a slow start in BFA, it’s simply impossible to catch up with that storyline.

The crux of the problem with this too fast/too slow situation is that if you give players content, they will devour it immediately. They’ll gobble it up as fast as possible. Putting artificial spaces in the system — whether that’s rolling content out in stages (like the Covenant campaign, the Bolvar quests, raids), or limiting the number of things you can do every week (like how you can only attempt two Torghast wings a week, like the Maw’s Jailerwatch system) forces you to slow down. And that’s not always such a bad thing, because when everything falls on your head at once, it’s a lot.

Unfortunately, it’s hard — maybe impossible — to find the right pace for everyone. If you slow something down, you have a lot of players frustrated they don’t have enough to do. If you speed things up, you have a lot of players frustrated that they can’t keep up.

Overall, I think the pacing around endgame could be improved, and that it would feel more fun and less overwhelming if it were spread around a bit. As frustrating as I know gating content can be, it keeps everything from happening at once. In BFA we didn’t get Azerite Essences or Corruption on day 1 — those systems were added later, as the expansion grew. I would have been tempted to lock some Shadowlands systems down, making players spend a few weeks with a chance to learn them. I kind of liked new systems unlocking throughout BFA, and perhaps Shadowlands will feel the same over time and they’ll add things. But up front, this all feels like too much.

Storywise, the Covenant campaigns are oddly out of pace with everything else, falling into this narrative spot that feels weird. Maybe when we get to the end of the story it will feel less weird, but as we go, it feels like my Covenant is several steps behind on the game’s main narrative arc. The Bolvar story sending us into the Maw is the one I’m really interested to, and it’s just a single quest a week without catchup mechanisms. I’ve really enjoyed being able to catch up with Renown and thus with the Covenant story — I’d like to be able to catch up with this Maw story, too.

Covenants themselves I think are interesting, if complicated. The Maw I think is interesting, if kind of miserable — and I’m not really sure how you improve that. It’s a bad place and it feels bad, but it’s designed to be that way. I do kind of like the way the Jailer’s eyes prevents us from spending all day in the Maw. I don’t want to spend all day in the Maw. No one does. This just reinforces that point. Torghast I like, but it feels kind of unrewarding — an expansion-long Legendary grind.

In the end, the problem with all of these problems is that the game is big and complicated. For every problem I have that I suggest a fix for, I might cause another problem for someone else. What is too slow for me will be too fast for someone else, and what’s too fast for me will be too slow for someone else. There’s no perfect system in which we’re all happy. And to that end… I think Blizzard’s done a good job trying to cater to a varied crowd with different needs and wants. The results aren’t perfect, not for everyone, but it isn’t like I’m not having fun.

Except when I’m in the Maw. I’m definitely not having fun in the Maw.

Placing LFR ilevel at 170 feels like an odd choice. When you hit level 60, your gearing options were World Quests (145+), crafting (151+), normal dungeons (158), PVP (158+), rep gear (164+) heroic dungeons (171), Mythic dungeons (184+), and your one legendary item (190+). You can upgrade your faction gear for anima — this week, up to ilevel 177 — but it doesn’t cover every piece and when LFR released you couldn’t even get it that high.

If you wanted to be in LFR on launch day, you would need to be almost wholly geared in heroic dungeon loot with a legendary equipped. Possibly you’d have to run a mythic or two to fill gear slots, or hit the auction house for a Darkmoon Deck trinket. That’s not impossible, but that does seem like a big ask for an LFR level player. To my mind, the usual LFR-goers don’t do many heroic dungeons, and don’t step in mythic at all. They’re almost certainly not grinding out Torghast to max level every week and zooming through legendary crafting. Upgrading Covenant gear is the most likely way for them to earn ilevel, but the gear still isn’t high enough to put you at 170 without some significant extra work.

But is the ilevel requirement right for the content? I think it is. Nathria LFR drops ilevel 187+, and requiring ilevel 170+ isn’t unreasonable. However, it is high considering the sources of gear this expansion, I think it’s a lot to ask of LFR raiders. I wonder who’s been raiding it so far, because this certainly raised the bar for entry.

I myself have been doing Nathria normal with my guild. I am behind on expansion content and when we started I was only around ilevel 150. I hit 170 just this week, so I can now run Nathria LFR to improve my gear for Nathria normal. It’s an odd, backwards progression, and to an extent I’ve caused it myself by falling behind — but gear is harder to get this expansions and it’s easier to fall behind.

That’s all, my Queuevian friends. I hope you are having a lovely day, whether it’s Christmas or just Friday. Remember to tell you loved ones you love them and wear a mask if you venture out. Stay safe and I will see you back here again in 2021.

Wow! 2021! That’s so far in the future!