Cortyn is complaining again today about World of Warcraft. The demon invasions have a design flaw.
No XP! Yes, a lot of XP! No, just a few XP!
It’s Wednesday again, and it’s really the perfect time to be a gamer. GamesCom has started, and gamers can’t keep up with all the new features. But one of those new features currently in World of Warcraft is giving me headaches.
First: The event surrounding the release of Legion is perfectly fine as such. It’s fun, offers interesting rewards, and reveals plenty of details about the story of World of Warcraft. Anyone who hasn’t the slightest idea about the event should check out the following posts to understand my grumbling:
Although the event has only been running for about a week, massive changes have already been made. At the beginning, there were no experience points at all, making the event quite annoying for low-level characters – as they couldn’t complete their usual quests in the respective zone during that time. Via hotfix, the events were adjusted so that you could earn 3-4 levels per invasion at low levels. Anyone wanting to level twinks had a golden time for a few days and could basically do it without being at the keyboard.
The latest hotfix has now massively reduced the experience points gained again – even in the mid-level range (around level 50), an invasion barely gives half a level. Even if you participate actively, the gained XP is in poor relation to the time invested.
Update: Blizzard has since implemented another hotfix, so that the invasion enemies are supposed to give more XP – the hotfix is likely going live in Europe in the evening.
The invasions are getting worse – but who cares?
Aside from that, the fact that the invasions are “becoming more intense each week” is perfectly fine lore-wise – but from a game design perspective, it’s a major mess. Because if you put your hand on your heart or your fingers on the keyboard: Anyone who wanted something out of the demon invasions, like gear or nether shards, has long since gathered that. No character needs more than 10 invasions unless they want to grab all items tagged “warforged”.
But the number of invasions is now increasing. Where there were previously 2 invasions every 4 hours, there are now 3 invasions every 2 hours.
The result will therefore be: The demons are attacking more intensively, and the players care less about it day by day.
This is quite an anticlimactic end to one of the biggest events that Azeroth has ever seen.
It remains to be seen whether Blizzard will continue to improve the event, because – it must be fairly said – they do that almost every day.
What do you think about the demon invasions and the further course of the event?
