World of Warcraft wants to bring back an event and is slightly overshooting the mark. 10 dungeons per week are being “threatened” – and the community is not happy.
World of Warcraft Dragonflight has been showcasing a lot of content and cool events in recent months. But what has now been found in the game data is causing some frustration and dissatisfaction among players. Because Blizzard wants to create new incentives for heroes to dive into timewalking dungeons. But this very incentive frustrates many in advance, as the task is huge: For 5 weeks in a row, players are to complete 10 timewalking dungeons each week.
What has been found? In the game data for the upcoming Patch 10.1.7: Incarnation of Wrath, indications have been found that the “Turbulent Timeways” event is returning. There will be a timewalking event featuring a different expansion each week for 5 consecutive weeks. During the timewalking events, a selected portion of the “old” dungeons can be visited at adjusted difficulty.
What is the reward? A new achievement has been found, called “Master of the Turbulent Timeways.” This achievement requires you to earn the buff “Mastery of Timeways” each week for a total of 5 consecutive weeks. This buff increases the experience gained by 30% for up to 5 hours.
You will receive this buff when you accumulate a total of 10 stacks of the buff “Knowledge of Timeways” on a character. Knowledge of Timeways gives you 2% more XP and is stackable. Upon reaching the 10th stack, the buff transforms into “Mastery of Timeways.”
If you earn this buff for all 5 weeks of the event, the reward is a “Sandy Shalewing.” This mount is a new coloration of the “Ray” mounts, which could first be earned in the Zaralek Caverns.
How do you collect the buffs? That is exactly the problem. Apparently, completing a timewalking dungeon grants one stack of “Knowledge of Timeways.” This would mean that you must complete a total of 10 timewalking dungeons to earn “Mastery of Timeways” once.
This, in turn, would mean that you have to complete a total of 10 dungeons each week – and that for 5 consecutive weeks. In total, that’s 50 timewalking dungeons.
However, it could be possible to receive more than one stack per dungeon, as an item has also been found in the game data that grants a stack as well.
Why is this being criticized? Even though timewalking provides relatively a lot of experience points, not all players like them. Compared to current “Mythic+” dungeons, timewalking dungeons are usually of trivial difficulty and require little skill.
At the same time, timewalking dungeons are only limited in their use for leveling. Because these dungeons can only be entered from level 60 – relatively late in the leveling phase. There are already many good leveling opportunities through the Dragonflight quests or dungeons.
This is how the community is reacting: On the game’s subreddit and on wowhead, the event is being wildly discussed, and there are some critics. Most find the task simply boring, and the idea of the stackable XP buff not so great – especially since timewalking is only possible from level 60. Some comments on this:
- “Yeah, that will be one of the mounts I never get. Regular timewalking has always felt tedious, because you’re often disappointed by the rewards. In 8 out of 10 cases, you get some junk jewelry or a ring you already have. 50 dungeons while having a temporary buff for an ugly reskin? They are crazy.”
- “Oh God, 10 dungeons per week. As if I didn’t already have enough to do… I was actually looking forward to spending a little free time with non-WoW activities.”
- “Last time the event was good, but this time they are bringing a [stupid] buff for an ugly mount? Why does the buff have a duration? Just make it account-wide so all characters can benefit instead of just one and remove the duration. If they release it this way, I will simply ignore the event.”
Ultimately, it should be clearly stated that the rewards and the stackable XP buff are still based on datamining. There could still be some revisions before the event goes live. At least with the last patches, Blizzard was always willing to respond to community feedback and make changes.
Let’s hope this will be the case this time as well. Because many may not be willing to complete 10 timewalking dungeons every week for a month to get a mount.
