Are patches coming too fast?

[AdamSavage]

Just read this article on wow insider, and thought it was interesting. What do you guys think ?

So the Patch 5.3 PTR was announced earlier this week, and I am currently downloading the files for it as I write this. Patch 5.2 only went live a couple of weeks ago, and its PTR began in January, a mere few weeks after 5.1 was released. Oh, and Mists of Pandaria itself has only been available since October! Whew! Ladies and Gentlemen, content in WoW's fourth expansion has been coming at a breakneck pace, and I'm not entirely sure I like it.

I'm a slow player, in all honesty. I like to take my time and explore, do lots of quests, level professions, and generally just take my sweet time. I play WoW largely to relax, and for me, racing through everything as quickly as possible is not relaxing. I also have a pretty hard limit to the amount of time I can spend playing before I start to go stir crazy and really need to get up and do something else. That isn't conducive to rapidly completing things like daily-based rep grinds. So for me, I'm a little disappointed by the short spaces between new content being released. It kind of stresses me out, makes me feel like I need to play more, and harder, to keep up. I realize that feeling is all in my own head, but it doesn't stop me from wishing I had, oh, maybe two extra weeks before the 5.3 PTR was announced!

Of course my wonderful bosses are quick to remind me that content for WoW equals content for WoW Insider. In that regard I would like to thank Blizzard for helping keep us writers employed and providing us with a steady source of material. So it's not all bad that patches are coming quickly. It's just overwhelming at times. It also makes me wonder how long Mists of Pandaria, as an expansion, will last. If patch 5.3 is in testing now, we can probably expect to see it live in June sometime. We already know that 5.4 will contain the Orgrimmar raid, so if the patches continue to release as they have been, we can likely expect to see that in September-October, almost exactly a year after Mists release. Then, what, 6.0 in December? That doesn't seem right! Blizzard has a track record of announcing the new expansions at Blizzcon, and Blizzcon isn't happening until early November.

Clearly, thinking about this any more will only result in further confusion as I lack the clairvoyance to read any developer's mind and attempt to layer assumption upon assumption. Still, I personally would have been slightly more comfortable with just a couple more weeks before the 5.3 PTR. What about you?

http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/03/27/are-p ... #continued

[Angerfang]

not at all IMO im maxed with all reps except the shado pan assault (hit honored this week) and lfr is being good to me.. i figure inside a month ill have most of the gear and things i want from this patch... then again im the guy who looks forward to Tues and by Thurs im sitting in down waiting for Tues again....

[Neilaren]

I'm in the "this is too fast" crowd... the only time I feel like content gets dragged is in the before-a-new-expansion phase... you know, after that last major patch and there's downtime.

There was way too much downtime before Pandaria and as a result a lot of my guildmates stopped playing, which really hurt us for raiding progression this time around. I had a friend resub recently asking us what happened since we had decent progression in Cata and we're so behind now...Bad attendance from everyone leaving, and continued bad luck even after we got new recruits; Combine this with how fast new raids had been happening: We barely beat Vaults on normal before Throne of Thunder came out, and it really harms my morale that we're even now struggling in HoF simply because we raid 3 nights a week and people keep having not being available to get a full 10 group. By this time in Cata we were nearly done with Firelands, ok? It's just making me feel real awful about the game. If it had only been one factor and not the other, it wouldn't nearly be this bad; We'd either be progressing slowly still only with one tier of raiding available, or progressing somewhat briskly with a full group keeping up with the content. But, no, the whiplash from one content-push-speed to another is killing my guild.

Oh, sure, all my reps are maxed, but as a result I'm also extremely burnt out from how fast I managed that all. I have to now be in this mindset to chew the content as fast as possible, because in a matter of weeks there will be more! I don't like that!

There's also my feeling that more bugs would be fixed if time was spent on them instead of on pushing out PTRs, but that's my bitter "I would like to be Blizzard's entire QA team, please" side talking.

[Bulletdance]

I think its a good pace for patches. I have a few reps and other older things I'd like to do, but I'd rather have more things to do than be forced to do them because there isn't any better option. More options are always good and its exciting to see how things are in the ptr. I think it'll be a while yet before 5.3 anyway.

[cowmuflage]

I think its a good pace for patches. I have a few reps and other older things I'd like to do, but I'd rather have more things to do than be forced to do them because there isn't any better option. More options are always good and its exciting to see how things are in the ptr. I think it'll be a while yet before 5.3 anyway.

I agree with you 100%

[Kalliope]

Speaking as someone who spends a lot of time on the PTR, it's too fast. But I'd imagine that it's fine for someone not doing that.

[Royi]

Curious, is Orgrimmar going to be an actual raid with Garrosh as the endboss? That would be kind of neat.

Wow has always had moments of "wait a new tier level? i'm still working on X" type of speed. Sometimes it was incredibly slow and nothing was new (how long was Dragon Soul out exactly?) but then times it felt that a whole patch was skipped over without notice. I think tier 9 with the Argent Tourney bowed pretty quick to ICC.

It would be really hard to try and make and release content with the whole spectrum of players in mind. Whats in it for the casuals? Whats in it for the hardcore? etc.

Wow has always been about having previous tiers gear feel instantly inferior the moment the next patch drops. Its a endless chase for the Epic-Snitch that no one is ever going to catch.

[Dewclaw]

I'm in the too fast group. I'm having a hard time keeping up and my poor alts.

[Agravaine]

It does seem a bit fast, and I too have not had time to level my alts. Perhaps they're overcompensating so people will forgive and forget the rancor and angast they expressed in threads like this...

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic ... 39&t=17874

Still makes me chuckle how mmo-champ came up with an average release date of one month after the cinematic reveal, when I'd produced actual documented dates that showed it was originally 8 months which went down to 2.

[Angerfang]

This just in. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING. Speed of the patches is fine, more content the better. besides the patch hasnt even come out yet and its just being put on the PTR .. its not likely well see it for a few more months... if anything i thought it was a little easier to get exalted with sunreavers etc.. (took me less than 2 weeks) i dont even really do their dailies anymore except the weekly valor. people would complain either way honestly .. it seems thats what wow players (not this forum) does best... i guess if you are an ADD completionist or want to level 3 toons all at the same time yes its too much too fast..theres plenty of 5.2 loot being thrown at use for next to nothing (sunreavers mount 3-4 522 ilvl shado pan items) not to mention all new lfr and scenarios etc... i guess i try to look at the overabundance of stuff to do as a positive vs how cata seemed to drag on forever and saw many friends and guilds fall apart...

[ejpaints]

I'm not getting bored since 5.1 hit. Although it was getting there before 5.2. So I'm fine with it. Sure my alts are way behind but for people that only play one toon I think it's a good pace. I expect 5.4 will drag in forever waiting on the next expac just like dragon soul did so I'm planning to work on alts then. In the meantime I work on em after I valor cap Enikka for the week. The fact that I don't have much time for goof off activities is a good thing IMO bc it means I'm not likely to get bored like I did in cata. Lets face it, during cata a lot of us logged in for raid and didn't bother the rest of the week towards the end.

[Agravaine]

This just in. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING. Speed of the patches is fine, more content the better. besides the patch hasnt even come out yet and its just being put on the PTR .. its not likely well see it for a few more months... if anything i thought it was a little easier to get exalted with sunreavers etc.. (took me less than 2 weeks) i dont even really do their dailies anymore except the weekly valor. people would complain either way honestly .. it seems thats what wow players (not this forum) does best... i guess if you are an ADD completionist or want to level 3 toons all at the same time yes its too much too fast..theres plenty of 5.2 loot being thrown at use for next to nothing (sunreavers mount 3-4 522 ilvl shado pan items) not to mention all new lfr and scenarios etc... i guess i try to look at the overabundance of stuff to do as a positive vs how cata seemed to drag on forever and saw many friends and guilds fall apart...

Thing is, I don't do everything. I'm never going to get the blanket achievement for getting exalted with all the factions in Pandaria since there are 3 factions I can't be arsed to do dailies for in gankfest areas. It takes me a couple of months longer than most to get into heroics, let alone LFR. I've responded to content that way in all the past expansions. Hell, in Wrath I ignored most content for about 7 months until I got my TLPD. So when I say this does feel a bit fast, I do have the context to say so, and I'll stick by my post above.

I'll give you another couple of observations. Cataclysm had an astounding amount of new conent, but a lot of us old fogeys didn't really notice because a lot of it was in the restructured old world and the new player leveling experience. So for the first time super-slow me was able to get 2 other toons to max level and into heroics and LFR, and also experience all the introductory quests and areas of both the Goblins and Worgen. Dailies in Hyjal, Twilight Highlands, The Molten Front, etc. were tolerable. All in all a very balanced, well-distributed and satisfying experience for an expansion about a shattered world.

In Mists, most of the new content is geared towards the players who reached max level by the end of Cataclysm, and its development was said to have begun shortly after Cataclysm released (concurrent with the development of Cataclysm patches like Molten Front, Firelands and Deathwing). It is also geared towards newer players who experienced the game for the first time and leveled new characters in Cataclysm, as well as towards completely new players who may have had a rather set or stereotyped view about WoW. Now we have pet battles and farming. There's something for players of all stripes.

So I'm not saying a whole lot of new content is bad. And of course I'm not going to do everything. I'll play as I've always played, cherrypicking the content I like.

And yeah, I still say it's coming a bit fast. Hey Slickrock, did they meet your expecations?

[Ril]

I'm not a fan of fast raiding tier releases. For most raids, even excellent ones, T14 was released too fast, before they could conclude T13, if they didn't go full nerd mode 4+ evenings a week. Sure as a raid leader of a 3-nights-a-week heroic raid I'm heavily biased. But I think that decent raids who constantly do around 12 hours a week should have the chance to conclude a tier properly, and maybe even a small break of 2-4 weeks to catch up with other stuff, before a new one is released. We had the same situation early Cata; there were loads of bosses as well but only the top 500 raids managed to down Sinestra by then, if not even fewer. On the other extreme there was DS, which lasted way too long. I thing after farming up like 15 madness heroic mounts we had a full summer's break (over 2 months) until MoP launch. That wasn't fun either. Even moreso since Blizz decided to introduce the nerfs way too soon.

Regarding non-tier patches, I'm on another boat though. Some changes should come fast. Smaller content like new factions, scenarios, 5-mans, MOAR STABLE SLOTS, general fixes and balancing of classes are better brought sooner than later. There's no reason to wait for that kind of stuff.

[Lisaara]

The time between 5.1 and 5.2 seemed too long. A lot of my guildies at the time even stopped playing cause...well...we got bored doing the same stuff over and over and over and over.

5.2 - 5.3, however....seems too fast. We JUST got 5.2. Why do we need another patch when I've not even done LFR ToT yet? I feel like I'm scrambling to get geared so I can do it. :<