What lessons should Blizzard take from the Collectors’ Bounty event in World of Warcraft?

The Collectors’ Bounty event is still going strong and it seems like out of all the recent events it’s the most popular. Every old instance I go to has numerous players outside, and I’m even seeing a lot of people camping the Rukhmar spawn point even though world bosses aren’t buffed by the event. While mounts do seem to be the primary motivation for players running old instances, many are also taking advantage of double drops to complete transmog sets or farm Legendaries. Ultimately anything that gets players to engage in the world is a positive and I’m already looking forward to farming Dragonflight and The War Within content the next time it comes around.

Then again it’s very possible that Blizzard will take a look at players’ excitement and feedback as a way to improve the old content experience in such a way that special events will no longer be necessary. Here are some ideas I have on how going forward players won’t mind the grind to loot legacy expansions.

The first thing that should be done is to increase the odds on 1% drops from legacy content. I get not wanting to make it easy to pick up the last expansion’s Mythic rewards, but by the time legacy loot rules kick in it’s been a few years. There’s also the harsh calculus of a 1% drop — on average it’ll take about 2 years of weekly farming with one character to get it. If the rate is increased to 4%, it’ll take about half a year instead, about the same length as a current Season in-game. Some players will be unlucky of course and it’ll take them a year to farm the drop but being unlucky with a 4% drop is far better than being unlucky with a 1% drop. The goal is to make the players feel joy when they get a rare drop, not relief that the grind is finally over.

The doubling of drops from bosses has been great for transmog enthusiasts even if some instances are programmed oddly and can drop eight of the same item. Still, this doubling wouldn’t actually be necessary if loot tables were cleaned up once an instance enters into Legacy Loot mode. No one needs a piece of jewelry or an expansion-specific piece of upgrade gear like the Legion artifact relics after the content is no longer relevant — or if they do, there can just be a toggle or NPC for “original loot tables.” If the only pieces that can drop from a boss are transmoggable pieces, then players collecting will be a lot happier. At the same time moving epic trash BOEs to boss tables will make it easier to complete some sets.

There is one issue with these suggestions: alts. The main reason I’ve been able to grab so many bosses during the event is that I have about two dozen characters I can call upon to sandblast the boss until it drops the mount. Not every player has the roster or the time to farm mount bosses like I do, and I’m sure there are some players looking on with envy as their friends and guildmates celebrate drop after drop while they’ve been lucky to get one or two. This is something that can be programmed around I think, although it’ll require more work than a simple bump in drop chances. If you use the idea of “first attempt” that has been implemented for holiday boss farming you could minimize the discrepancy between those with an army of alts and those without. Subsequent attempts should still have a chance to get the mount — maybe the original 1% or less — for players who want to farm with all their characters.

What do you think? Do you want to keep Collectors’ Bounty events on the calendar or would you prefer a bump in drop rates? I didn’t mention bad luck protection — would you add that instead? And how would you handle the alt “issue”?