It should be one of the major features of the new expansion of World of Warcraft, but the community does not see this happening yet.
World of Warcraft Midnight will be an expansion that does not bring many new features – apart from housing. Instead, Blizzard’s MMORPG is still working on its fundamental renewal and mainly brings more of what players already know and like. However, a new feature, the “Prey” system, is not well received. Either it has been forgotten or people are wondering: Who is it actually for?
What is the Prey system? The new Prey feature, also called “loot,” is an optional mission that you can activate while playing in the open world. While you complete quests, hunt rare enemies, or participate in world events, you can be ambushed or find clues to your prey target. If you have enough clues, a duel will take place.
On normal difficulty, other characters can help you, but on the two higher levels, you have to survive the duel alone. However, when exactly your enemy strikes is random. This can happen right when you are fighting a tough elite enemy or when you just wanted to go “afk” for a moment.
Prey is missing exactly when you would need it
What is the community criticizing? In the WoW subreddit, there has been relatively little discussion about the Prey feature from the beta. It is being used very little, and there are several reasons for this. In a recent post, these 3 main criticisms are noted:
- If you die for any reason while playing, progress in the current Prey hunt is completely reset. Because scaling in Midnight is still strange, you can unexpectedly fail against elite or rare enemies during quests.
- Accepting a Prey mission is annoying because you have to go back to Silvermoon every time and interrupt the current gameplay for it. A detour that disrupts the flow of the game rather than enriches it.
- The system is only available from level 90, but the rewards feel rather weak at that point.
Many limitations of the feature have caused it to already be forgotten by many:
- “Wait, what? I thought this was something you use while leveling through the areas, and then it gets harder when you reach max level. As it is, it’s terrible.” – Lenyor-RR
- “Wow, I completely forgot about the feature.” – TheJewishMerp
What, you can’t use that while leveling? That’s pretty much the only time I’m in the open world? At least 90% of the time.
– TheHeroicLionheart- “As much as I wish everyone would hit a home run with their ideas, I’m also glad that it sounds like you could completely ignore it when playing dungeons or raids.” – yawgmothhagain
Who is the Prey system actually for? Much of the criticism can be countered if the Prey system is seen primarily as a gameplay opportunity for a specific group of players: outdoor fans. This is mainly the group that is rarely seen in forums or social media. Because there is a large part of the player base that avoids dungeons and does not attend raids, but instead only engages in outdoor activities in the endgame.
For exactly this group, the Prey system could become exciting and interesting. But it would be nice if all others could at least benefit a little more from it than has been the case so far.
Have you already checked out the beta? What is your first impression of the new Prey system? Is it even worth it, or will you not interact with the feature at all? If you just want to test it, take a look at the beta of Midnight, then you can also give direct feedback to Blizzard.
