Consumables & Gold Farming

[Zetheros]

dude, it was an achievement because people used to cast their spells with mouse from the spellbook

Yea it sounds like the newer generation is making the same mistake to necessitate this change lmao

[Slashignore]

It was a massive fucking achievement to do endgame content in vanilla WoW. That's what made the game real to us, that's the golden carrot we were all chasing. Making the game easier is the same mistake retail did.

dude, it was an achievement because people used to cast their spells with mouse from the spellbook

do you also believe the earth is flat.. no people didnt but people said they did.
and perhaps 0.0001% did it the first levels but not during raiding.

[Ataika]

why don't you go out and farm materials, Ataika? Have fun spending hours running around clicking nodes, and give up your time raiding or leveling. That's what we do. My hunter is level 21, but could be level 30-40 if I didn't spend my time fishing.

If you don't want to pay the AH prices, go out and do it yourself. These changes make the game matter less.

Nobody is gatekeeping you from reducing the prices on the AH. If players don't like how expensive consumables are, the power was already in their hands to change it prior to this update.

Thats what i actually do, iam not sitting in DM half the day and defend this inflaction goldmine on forums.

[Erhog]

Well now it's makes raids much more casual friendly coz you won't been punished for wipe/deaths in so you can pop your elixirs from start and til the end. Progressive and casual guild will benefits most while those guys who are already farming all content could just do not care abut death on trash clearing. Will see how it'll going on but personally I'm planning to start using something like 20hp5 pots coz why not - it's not that expensive now due to I can pop just 4 per naxx or 1 per aq40/bwl.

[Zetheros]

Yes. More casual friendly. Less chase... less motivation to play. I think I'll go play something else for awhile, might check back in later.

[Sheed90]

Yes. More casual friendly. Less chase... less motivation to play. I think I'll go play something else for awhile, might check back in later.

Bye

Well now it's makes raids much more casual friendly coz you won't been punished for wipe/deaths in so you can pop your elixirs from start and til the end. Progressive and casual guild will benefits most while those guys who are already farming all content could just do not care abut death on trash clearing. Will see how it'll going on but personally I'm planning to start using something like 20hp5 pots coz why not - it's not that expensive now due to I can pop just 4 per naxx or 1 per aq40/bwl.

Yes absolutely. Raiders who wanted to get the most out of their character no longer have to spend 24/7 in DME to do so. It's a good change. A start for a healthy system.

[Zetheros]

I just read the server rules, how is this not allowed? It sounds fun. Low level players shouldn't stand in tight groups and also be PvP flagged. That's just asking to get ganked. What was the story behind adding this rule?

"Dropping infernals and doomguards on a group of players in low level zones."

This is definitely not the game for me.

[Hdliebtwo]

I like these changes. Time will tell if these "omg now everybody will raid, I thought I am special -people" are right or wrong. I just hope the Black Lotus prices go down becouse when I started playing they were 15 gold and today they are 50 gold. Also Libram of Focus was 10 Silver and now it's 20 gold. These scalpers just buyout the entire lot and relist them for how much they want.
Thanks TurtleWow team for making a step in the right direction.

[Hdliebtwo]

Yes. More casual friendly. Less chase... less motivation to play. I think I'll go play something else for awhile, might check back in later.

Good riddance!

[Zetheros]

Or I could keep playing out of spite, Hdliebtwo

[Fischminister]

Or I could keep playing out of spite, Hdliebtwo

Good Troll 5/7

[Jan4570]

All raiders are delighted to hear these news. We can enjoy the game without spending countless hours farming now. I'm saying this as someone who is clearing Naxx. I lost a lot of friends at Naxx because they didn't want to farm and had real life errands to deal with first. You have to be a bot or gold trader to be sad about these changes, there is no other way. This is the single best change developers could have come up with to fix the economy. Thank YOU developers, you've done an incredible job.

[Erhog]

Missed that one however, will be added.

Watabout https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=20004 https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=3826 https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=3388 https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=3382 ?

[Balake]

Missed that one however, will be added.

Watabout https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=20004 https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=3826 https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=3388 https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=3382 ?

They're in there, called Regeneration

[Schwarzschild]

I agree with the above statement.

Because you don't have to quit your job to keep raiding endgame content? Sounds legit
It's not farming 10h a day in DM:E why people love vanilla. It's the old world, it's the long journey to level up to 60, it's the social aspect keeping 40 players together to raid on a regularly basis etc.

In retail leveling was not a big part of the game anymore, you went to other worlds/islands and lost contact to the old world, scaling went out of control pretty fast, you didnt need to talk to any player since group finder would port you inside the queued dungeon and so on

TWoW is miles away from "turning into retail"

I'm confused. Long preparations for raids were a big part of vanilla, at least for me. Retail became more convenient for players who had not much time to play.
Though in my opinion current state of TWoW is still far away from retail, the server still values fundaments of vanilla. This change only reduced the demand for some consumables.

On Classic Vanilla in 2020 I played a farming-intense class (Boomie) on a PvP server (which made open world farming a chore... Lotus mafia even after Lotus spawn fix). I had to spend about 4-5 hours to farm for a progress raid night and 2-3 hours for a farm raid night (Lotus, demonic runes, buff food, etc). While I do definitely agree that Vanilla/Classic/Classic+ needs a characteristic raid preparation farm, it should not be more than the amount of time mentioned above that you can and should realistically demand of people. Beyond that is simply motivating an unhealthy lifestyle (just like the Vanilla PvP system did).

I think a rough rule of thumb should always be:
Raid farm time = Raid time itself (ballpark). If this relationship starts to drastically skew one or the other way, there is a problem.

[Proworx31]

Awesome changes. Nicely done Turtle-WoW-Team!

I can see that Gift of Arthas is missing. Is this intended or an oversight?

[Zetheros]

forget what I said earlier. Oily blackmouths are back up to ~50s and I'm happy. These were great changes, TWoW team!

[Xudo]

But why only in raids and dungeons?
In PvP people die much often than in raids. Up to the point that you don't drink any elixir on battleground. Only potions are used there.

Why Juju don't persist while blasted lands consumes do?

I am afraid that this change could lead to opposite effects. Instead of reducing price for herbs/elixirs, it will increase them.
Before the change, people would skip drinking elixirs if there is risk of dying. For example there is always weird stuff happen in 5mans which could lead to people death. After this change, people will use elixirs all the time. So amount of elixir consumption will increase overall and decrease for small amount in progressing raids.
Though I don't have data on my hands and turtle devs do. I hope they checked the numbers.

Someone already noted that flask prices will not be reduced because nothing will affect demand of Black Lotuses. Flask already persist through death.

I still don't understand why devs encourage consumable consumption afterall. It looks like "guys, you should farm more". But why do they change anything to reduce demand then?

Just for records. Weekly average price for 18 jan-24jan:
Flask of the Titans 100g21s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... tans-13510
Flask of Distilled Wisdom 72g58c https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... sdom-13511
Flask of Supreme Power 79g15s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... ower-13512

Elixir of Mongoose 9g23s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... oose-13452
Greater Arcane Elixir 3g45s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... ixir-13454
Elixir of the Sages 5g65s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... ages-13447

Black Lotus 44g9s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... otus-13468
Gromsblood 1g26s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... blood-8846
Plaguebloom 2g39s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... loom-13466
Mountain Silversage 2g8s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... sage-13465
Icecap 1g37s https://www.wowauctions.net/auctionHous ... ecap-13467

[Elesion]

Why Juju don't persist while blasted lands consumes do?

There are indeed some strange outliers. The general idea seems to be to decrease pressure from having limited herb spawns in the overworld used by dozens of guilds running Naxx (which is more than any retail Vanilla server ever had). But then there are some consumables that don't rely on herbs:
Blasted Lands buffs when the spawn increase a while ago have made them a lot less terrible to farm already.
Dreamshard Elixir when Dreamtonic is explicitly exempted, so the idea is to make Dream Dust cheaper? Because Dreamshards are used by both.

I am afraid that this change could lead to opposite effects. Instead of reducing price for herbs/elixirs, it will increase them.
Before the change, people would skip drinking elixirs if there is risk of dying. For example there is always weird stuff happen in 5mans which could lead to people death. After this change, people will use elixirs all the time. So amount of elixir consumption will increase overall and decrease for small amount in progressing raids.

Yes, I too have a feeling that prices will not go down long-term, because using these consumables has just gotten a whole lot more attractive, especially to guilds doing progression.
But (and that is a quite substantial but - so good job, Turtle team!) if you have used consumables in the past, your individual spending in terms of gold per raid will go down substantially (unless you've only had 0-death-runs). Every Mongoose might still cost 9g, but you will only ever need 1 per hour of raiding, regardless of what happens during it. It's not a solution to high prices, but in a way it's a fairly elegant solution to the entire issue - herbalists/alchemists make the same profit, but more people get to use consumables more liberally from the same still-limited supply of herbs.

We'll have to see what the coming weeks bring, but I'm cautiously optimistic - more fun and more progression for more people at little to no negative side-effects.

[Hyrag]

slowly turning the game into retail

go to retail

[Deeno]

Was I mistaken in thinking that inflation was a concern for you guys? Isn't this one of the worst changes you could make in terms of managing inflation? Raid consumes are the biggest gold sink in the endgame by far, reducing demand means less gold is moving between players and less gold is removed from circulation from AH fees. Seems like a potentially disastrous change. If consumes being too expensive was truly an issue then you should make farming gold or consume mats more accessible - more/quicker respawning gathering nodes for example.

This is the crasiest comment i have read so far. I could write a book how wrong you are, but i dont want to waste my time so i just highlight some problems, and hopefully you will get the rest:

1. 'make farming gold or consume mats more accessible'
One is addressing the whole economy while the other is a supply half of a segment of it. It is foolish to think of them as interchangeable.

2. 'consumes are the biggest gold sink'
What do you mean? Loot and quests generates gold, primarily vendors/repair sink gold (+ mail, some quests...). Everything between wont make the gold disappear from the economy, only from your purse. I think there is only deposit on the AH (you lose money if you cancel your auction), but no AH cut. Even if there would be an AH cut, players would only use AH if its insignificantly low compared to the gold availability (like mail). By the time AH could be considered a gold sink, no one would use it anymore; the players would stop using AH before the amount of cut would make a difference.

3. 'farming gold' idea
An mmo should and do offer plenty of activities to do, especially social ones. Spending time brainlessly doing some sort of chore alone regularly is a punishment. We are not talking about occasional 'i need the epic mount' kind of gold farm here, you are suggesting making it the core activity of the game to be able to access a significat part of the rest. This would kick in a spiral, which could only be stopped with an economic reset (they call it 'expansion' at blizzard).

4. 'if consumes being too expensive'...
The 'if' is confusing to me, since you started your comment with 'changes you could make in terms of managing inflation', which means you agree that there is an inflation problem, but you dont point out what is your theory why. You talk about consumable prices with an 'if'. There is a missing thought between the two expression. I need to point this out, because you either structure your thought as
* the consumable prices are the product of the inflation (=> ppl acquire more gold so the prices also increase)
* inflation is root of consumable prices (=> higher and highter prices force ppl to acquire more gold)
They sound similar, and obviously they are the two side of the same coin, but its crucial which perspective you are using, unless you dont want to make a mess.

5. 'potentially disastrous change'
I find this statement ironic by looking your suggestions. Its distrupive, meaning causing an economic shift, but how it would be a disaster, meaning economic downfall? The prices wont drop that much in long term, because as the decrease of the price will decrease the supply, so there is going to be a stabilisation in a month, and would also stop the unnatural amount of gold generated to do the raids. There is one major problem with this solution, but its not 'raw' economical. The problem is the same why is it easy for a goverment to do a tax reduction, but when the time will come to raise it back, it wont be popular. Additionally, this scale of intervention is a double edged sword, meaning they listen and react to the current issues, but creates an economic uncertainty, which could cause unexpected player behaviors. But i believe this last assumption of mine is not as significant, as players want to play the game, but the majority wont stick around for several years, as players come and go.

6. 'farming gold' spiral
Lets assume that farming gold is the way we want to go. People acquire gold, and then more gold. Inflation kicks in, in every level. Even that level 5 green sword with +2 spirit is going to cost 20g. But farming gold is not pleasant, so RMT will find a way anyway. Everything costs more, so players need more gold, generating more gold, so everything is going to costs more, and so on. The funny part of RMT, that when a classic wow server gets into this spiral, it is actually the RMT that will smooth out the economy. RMT is like cancer. It slowly builds up and at the very end kill you, but in the meantime, it actually makes the economy function, if you could really cut out in some way of this process, the economy would collapse. You either dont have RMT or reset the whole economy time to time (so new players can join). It is quiet easy to see when a classic wow server gets into this spiral, when vendor prices and repair is something players dont think about anymore. Feels good at the time, but you won't be happy in a year when the server dies out. I got carried away with RMT, from the 'farming gold', but i just want you to see, what it COULD trigger. Without any major economy change the economy can be 'micromanaged' to avoid this hell while 'making farming gold accessable', but it would mean the server itself needs to be an active actor, meaning gms should buy stuff and delete or create stuff and sell. You either have an imperative approach or reactive one. I dont see other options, you cant have your cake and eat it too.

7. 'more/quicker respawning gathering nodes'
This is the only thing that make sense in your comment, suggesting targeting the supply instead of the demand. Economicly the same, gamewise not so much. Im not against it, since i dont have much data to argue for or against, but i want to point out one flaw which maybe the reason why they didnt went with this (yet): campers. Some players claim to see campers, which may not infuence the gold availablity, but could create an elite playerbase. Although they could act as a gold sink in some sense. Huh, interesting. Nevermind, my time is up with this reply. I hope i could say something relevant to you.

edit:
Quick note - 'elite playerbase' maybe wouldnt be a gold sink at all as i was reading back my comment, since they can have enough gold to manipulate the market causing other players to acquire more gold etc etc.

edit2:
I didnt mention, but want to note, that not everything is sunshine, changing the demand has/can have downside gamewise as well.

edit3:
This is loosely related to the topic, but i meantioned 'unexpected player behavior' and didnt think about short term, but i have a good example: since the changes, the amount of 'inv for camp' on world chat (people farming gold, probably fearing this is their last chance) is increased insanly.

[Deeno]

slowly turning the game into retail

can you explain to me why do you think this?

[Niralthas]

slowly turning the game into retail

can you explain to me why do you think this?

I was about to quote his reaction, as I do agree a bit. In my opinion one of the reasons for retail's downfall was adding too much quality of life stuff to keep the players playing. I am happy as a player of course, but worried which path we're getting on now. Retail sort of became a funserver, I still have hope we're not.


But still, from me personally, thank you. I hope it was the right approach!

[Lowend]

This may seem like splitting hairs - but I think it's important to make the distinction...

This is not a gimmick qol to keep people playing, this is correcting a problem to prevent people from quitting!

I've been on turtle three years and have seen the rise and fall of many features, including the removal of many qol teleports around the world.

I've seen people asking for LFT to port to dungeon, and before LFT existed people asked for "gms" to "fix" "summoning" stones.

To say devs are on a slippery slope to retail is just plain wrong and a tad dramatic in my opinion. Devs have made clear with their words and their actions that they want azeroth to be alive, which means queueing from a city and rarely venturing out into the world - which is all too common in later expansions - will never happen on TWoW.

[Vaelen007]

I really like this change, but as has probably already been mentioned, this will have little to no effect on flask prices. It takes hours to farm a couple of materials worth of flasks which makes me just want to farm gold, which is also under fire. Please do something about flask prices as well, thx.

[Niralthas]

This may seem like splitting hairs - but I think it's important to make the distinction...

This is not a gimmick qol to keep people playing, this is correcting a problem to prevent people from quitting!

I've been on turtle three years and have seen the rise and fall of many features, including the removal of many qol teleports around the world.

I've seen people asking for LFT to port to dungeon, and before LFT existed people asked for "gms" to "fix" "summoning" stones.

To say devs are on a slippery slope to retail is just plain wrong and a tad dramatic in my opinion. Devs have made clear with their words and their actions that they want azeroth to be alive, which means queueing from a city and rarely venturing out into the world - which is all too common in later expansions - will never happen on TWoW.

Very valid points and I agree completely.. But I /hope/ the eye is on the same horizon, whch it is now. This is almost the max before calling it a fun-server. Vamolla DMA!.

[Drubarrymooer]

Can't see Elixir of Greater Nature Power in the list, I believe it should be there as well?
And while you at it can you pls fix that Arcane Elixir and Dreamshard tonic effects cancel each other, they share same icon but I believe that is not the reason.

its more expensive but greater arcane elixir doesn't conflict w/ dreamshard. It still needs fixed the last I checked, so good point.

[Sparta]

Just logged in to say this is a really bad change, potions are now flasks, great work removing such a distinction. Great way to remove any challenge, now it doesn't even matter if your guild dies or not.
One patch closer to retail

[Burunduk]

Challenge...
The real challenge is to find herbs in open world, raids are much easier.
Turtle has too many consumables, it's far away from retail.

[Ataika]

Just logged in to say this is a really bad change, potions are now flasks, great work removing such a distinction. Great way to remove any challenge, now it doesn't even matter if your guild dies or not.
One patch closer to retail

Throw them away upon death sweaty boy

[Inovatu]

Akalix was in an interview with Vrograg also with a Q/A on January 30th and explained some of the Concerns of the Playerbase here is the Link

its a livestream but i think the Interview with Akalix starts around 34 Minutes of the Video

[Xudo]

From this interview, I assume that one of the points of the change was "paladin tanks have to spend too many gold if their guild is dying in a raid" or "elemental shaman was too expensive to raid".
Why don't you guys limit amount of simultaneously working elixirs to 2? Like it was done in TBC.
Everyones spending will be dramatically reduced, so people have to choose 2 options out of all existing ones.

Other interesting point is that this economical problem kinda blocking future patches. Because new content will attract more people and demand for consumables will be even higher. If prices will be that high, people will complain even more.

[Akalix]

In about a day, prices for oily blackmouth fish went from 70s-43s and is steadily dropping. Will you guys compensate us for tanking our stocks of materials that we spent time gathering?

No. If you opt to not sell when demand is high, and speculate that it will go higher, you cannot blame the market when demand drops.

[Akalix]

I just read the server rules, how is this not allowed? It sounds fun. Low level players shouldn't stand in tight groups and also be PvP flagged. That's just asking to get ganked. What was the story behind adding this rule?

"Dropping infernals and doomguards on a group of players in low level zones."

This is definitely not the game for me.

This has been in the rules for years. This is due to the Hardcore gamemode. Doomguards and Infernals would not require a PvP flag to kill you when they can become hostile.

[Akalix]

But why only in raids and dungeons?
In PvP people die much often than in raids. Up to the point that you don't drink any elixir on battleground. Only potions are used there.

That is intended. We do not want consuming to become a barrier to entry for doing a battleground.

Why Juju don't persist while blasted lands consumes do?

We do not view Jujus as problematic currently.

Before the change, people would skip drinking elixirs if there is risk of dying. For example there is always weird stuff happen in 5mans which could lead to people death.

I can assure you this was not the case in a majority (but not all) of raids. Last week, I watched one Naxx team wipe 7 times on Patchwerk, all with full consumes. This is a very common behavior, meaning people would easily use hundreds of gold of consumes for one raid.