World Quests: A better version of the same thing

WoW World Quests

I’m very pleased with most of what World Quests have brought to WoW. World Quests provide a new twist on the ‘daily quest’ model. In other words, they disguise the same system very well.

World Quests are daily quests. There are multiple layers to these daily quests, including the fact that they’re all available for a limited time even within the same day (roughly, some have longer timers).

I like how the reward system plays out with items being able to upgrade, and the loot chests from D3-style bounty system act as a great carrot for hoping a legendary pops out and surprises you.

What I really dislike is the reputation, resource, and artifact power grinds. World Quests aren’t necessarily to blame for this, but they are being used to disguise how ‘active’ and ‘managed’ this grind has become. We have to gather ridiculous amounts of everything, and grinding these world quests every day is cumbersome.

I simply can’t get through a dozen+ world quests every day, AND do dungeons, AND to my Suramar dailies, AND the regular quests I still have to do there, etc. It’s too much. Yep, I’m saying it: There’s too much to do right now, but in a bad way.

Why is it bad? Because we’re compelled to feel as though it’s a “must do” activity. You “must do” this to get the upgrade to your ONLY weapon on the expansion. You “must do” this to get access to the best dungeons. You “must do” this to get access to the later parts of the expansion content in Suramar.

Sure, some will come along and say, “I can just do it at my leisure and get there eventually.” True. But that doesn’t change how the game is compelling us to have to stay up with others around us. If I want to run mythic+ or participate in activities then I must reach a threshold. If participating in the contemporary activities — the current’ “hip” and/or most fun thing to do — then I need to keep up with doing my “dailies.”

So while I like this version of daily quests more, it’s still just a better version of the same thing. World Quests are still daily quests. World Quests still make me feel like I must do them or else I fall behind. It’s the “or else” part that I dislike. The act of doing them is mostly fun, which is at least a step up in the right direction.

  • I have the same issue. And I’ve tackled it by not by splitting my activities by tasks, but by goals. It feels to me that Legion is designed this way. Objectives are not goals. My goals are prioritized as follows:
    – Gear up for mythics. Usually through Objectives (World Quest List addon is your friend), which might include dungeons or the emissary quests because the chest can contain gear.
    – Get High Mountain rep to improve my blacksmithing though objectives and any normal quests I missed.
    – Advance my class campaign story. That might include quests (which may or may not overlap objectives), missions (which gate your progress giving you time to do something else) and dungeons.
    – Advance Suramar rep/story, that includes weekly withered scenario.
    – Squeeze in a daily heroic dungeon for the bonus AP and possible gear
    – Restock my crafting goods (which as a blacksmith entails a trip to Ironhorn in Highmountain)

    This makes it easier for me to skip stuff that doesn’t fit my priorities. Or I can play against my priorities but with an eye on available playtime and interruptability.

  • @Kerazi Koder: That’s great advice, thank you. Although I wish I could do everything every day, I have taken to a similar approach. I’m focusing on at least doing 1 random heroic (last night I managed 2), the cache from the WQ bounty, and my class campaign. When I have a little extra time I do some engineering quests and work on my suramar.

    What I think nags at me is how some people are able to do it all, and already be 850 and already be maxing rep and I’m just like… how the heck do you have a job/life/kids/others and manage that? I know I could do it if I was like I was in 2004-2006 playing 18 hours a day… but that’s just so unrealistic.

  • @Keen: The key is to prioritize and to understand that not all quests have to be done the day you get them. Look at how much time you have in the day to play. If it is 2+ Hours, get you cache done, your rep and work on gear. If it is one hour, pick one or two items you want to focus on. If you have a half hour, just do what you want to have fun or something that will be ending today that has a huge reward that is quick to do. (Blue quest)

    Artifact Power is good, but understand they have designed the game with catch up mechanics. Those people that are dumping tons of time in doing every quest will only be a week or two ahead of you in progression. Of which that what ~3% more power in one ability, so not a huge deal.

    Gearing up initially is a big time investment but that will quickly fall away. As you hit 820 getting more gear becomes much slower, and while yes you can dedicate a large portion of your time to it, I wouldn’t suggest you do that unless you find that fun.

    Bottom line is: We are 10 days into the expansion, no one from our group did mythics the first week. Mythic+ won’t unlock for at least another 2 weeks. The rep grind is real, as was it with WoD and Panda… just make sure you take a step back and understand this is a game to have fun and relax.

  • I like it. You do 4 a day in a certain zone for the big reward. If you miss a day, it will keep up to 3 of those active before you are actually losing one. Doing more world quests than that will reward you but slowly compared to the 4 quest daily. It’s a great balance that should keep 2016 Keen happy while allowing 2004 Keen to have more to do in his 18 hours, progressing but more slowly per hour. The only problem here is that 2016 Keen resents 2004 Keen.

    Just as an example, world quests vs your rep
    2016 Keen does his 4 world quests in the daily zone. He gets 1500~ for the daily, and 50~ for each quest, so a total of about 1700~
    2004 Keen continues grinding for 17 more hours, getting 50~ rep per world quest.

    IMO, Blizzard really hit it out of the park with this system.

  • The problem is, if you feel compelled to keep up with other people (who play more than you), isn’t the only alternative to design the game so it is simply impossible to make any progress on your character after a certain amount of time per day?

  • @Carson: Nope, they can have a catch-up mechanic. If you can only earn a maximum of 1000 rep per day, and you can’t play every day, and you fall behind two days (let’s say getting 500 rep a day) then you are now 2 days behind without a way to ever catch up.

  • Ill have to disagree with your lack of love for the world quests. As someone who is totally tired of “dailies” I love the system. I can do whatever I want, work suramar, class campaign, do the world quests. I have my choice what I want to do, sure these fools rushed to mythic dungeons , but for what?

    Most of those people dont have lives like a “normal” working adult. Im loving it so far, and the rep grind is very well disguised with the large rep rewards from the WQ and the kiron tor rewards.

    Last night I unlocked WQ finally, knocked them all out in a couple of hours, now I get new ones every few days. You dont have to do them all same day which is even better!

  • @Wonderwyrm: I like them for the same reasons you do. 🙂 Hence the sentiment that they are an even better version of the daily quests. I have additional qualms with them, mainly their attachment to rep and gating content.

  • This article pretty much sums up how I feel… I feel stressed when logging in.. there are so much I wanna do and dont know where to start and what to complete before my free time ends..

    Also this is the first expansion that I have not started to level an “alt” after hitting max level with my “main”…

    -I want to finish suramar, to unlock the dungeons
    -I want to go honored with nightfallen to unlock the 4th piece from my class hall set
    -I want to complete each dungeon once, to get the 3rd piece from my class hall set
    -I MUST do the emissaries world quests for the chest (possible legendary)
    -I must do world quests for Class Hall resources and artifact power and gear upgrades

    and on top of all these, I wanna play 1-3 alts that I also like a lot and wanna get their professions too…

    I have to admitt, that my playtime is not fun but stressed… no matter how long I play I will not logout with a feeling of accomplishment, but rather with a feeling of “I didnt had time for x, y, z”

  • Timers needing to be met, we’re not why EQ or WoW worked in the beginning. Time spent sure. Smart time spent even better. But I was not on a dog leash to log in at a certain time every day to do something trivial.

    The whole genre has lost its way but it might not matter because…phones.