Asking For Feedback, Blizzard Responds To Criticism On World Of Warcraft: Shadowlands’ New Torment System

Asking For Feedback, Blizzard Responds To Criticism On World Of Warcraft: Shadowlands’ New Torment System
Credit: World of Warcraft via YouTube

The minds behind World of Warcraft are constantly looking for new ways to push the envelope. In recent months, they’ve returned to their previous ways of paying close attention to what fans are saying and reacting thusly.

This has lead to a huge variety of benefits for all involved – extension of the double-XP buff, implementation of a double-reputation buff, and even the removal of RNG-based systems like Titanforging and Warforging for the upcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion.

For many, this has signaled a return to the Blizzard of old. After years of much of the fan base feeling discarded and tossed away, this return to Blizzard listening and reacting has fans more pleased with the developers than ever before.

Of course, part of listening is reaching out and searching for feedback. Blizzard did exactly this as they took to the forums to ask the community what they thought of the latest mechanic added to the Shadowlands alpha, Torments.

We discussed Torments at length yesterday, which you can catch up on here. Essentially, Torments act as a sort of Soft Timer within Torghast, Tower of the Damned, slowly ramping up the difficulty with stacking buffs and debuffs to speed you along or force you out.

Fans, however, seem displeased by this, wanting the Tower of the Damned to be played by their own (relative) pace, with only the terrifying Tarragrue to force them along. Blizzard has responded, saying that making Torghast into a face-paced time-constrained feature in the same vein as Mythic+ content is far from their intention.

“Torments should apply just enough pressure that this group can still kill every single creature on the floor… while still being careful, using crowd control, taking a few seconds to rest or strategize between pulls, and even then, maybe sometimes waiting just a little longer for a cooldown before engaging,” Blizzard writes in their statement.

“If that is the most efficient way to play Torghast, then we’ve hit our mark exactly. If that perfectly efficient group has to skip big portions of a floor because Torment debuffs are getting too out of hand, we have a problem.”

Overall, Blizzard doesn’t want Torghast to be intimidating or stop players from taking a needed break. They’ve asked players to provide feedback, setting a small survey on their forums to prompt specific concerns.

More than anything, it’s great to see Blizzard paying this close of attention to the way that players and playtesters are responding. As the development of Shadowlands continues, we can only hope the care and passion remains.

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