World of Warcraft: Legion Remix was supposed to be full of lawless fun, but it turned out to be awfully grindy

Blizzard has always been divided when it comes to its old-expansions-revisited Remix mode, and the latest update shows the studio isn't quite sure exactly what it should be, even when players share their ideas directly.

The whole point of the mode, Blizzard says, is wild, frenetic fun: getting super powerful and collecting every transmog armor appearance, pet, mount, and toy an expansion offers in a short period of time. But the decisions the company makes about the mode, including the most recent update, are often not in support of that goal.

Players level up their strength so fast and so far in Remix that they're ridiculously overpowered, tackling even the toughest group content in the game solo, romping through old dungeons and raids as if they were new-player zones.

In the current Legion Remix, players are called Timerunners, and the same buff they build up to become OP levelers and fighters also gives them a speed buff—they literally dash everywhere they go. So far, so good.

Go fast! But not that fast

But even when the first Mists of Pandaria Remix debuted last year, there were signs of trouble on the horizon. Players discovered they could farm power quickly in areas with constantly-respawning elite enemies, and cheerfully did so, earning the title "frog farmers" because of the most popular Timeless Isle locale to grind.

Blizzard could have chosen to turn a blind eye—after all, the whole point of Remix is to be silly and strong, and most of those hulking players were using their might to help carry others through dungeons and raids, the core of Warcraft's "play together" ethos. But instead, the farms and the farmers were nerfed, in some cases rolling back gains by players who hadn't even taken part in the farms and had instead done the content as intended.

Legion Remix launched earlier this fall, offering players the chance to collect not only all those appearances and mounts and goodies that MoP Remix had, but also a shot at collecting new decor items for its player housing feature, which just launched on December 2.

Once again, farming spots were nerfed, though the company took a slightly lighter touch with players this time around. But unlike the MoP version, the whole event was time-gated.

A speedy mode with slow drops

Raids were dropped over the course of weeks, rather than being available all at once. Transmog and mount rewards were locked on vendors, gradually becoming available over time. The power curve was much shallower, eventually giving players their OP time in the sun, but only after what frankly felt like a punishing grind.

Opportunities to help other players become powerful by pulling them through raids and high level mythic + dungeons were nerfed, with item levels being boosted slowly based on what players were previously wearing, not how difficult the instances themselves were. The event-specific bronze currency that buys all the vendor transmogs/mounts/decor items came at a gentle flow, instead of the flood it was in MoP Remix.

Players hoped that the final update to Legion Remix, which has a month left to go but already has players (literally) saying their goodbyes, would finally lift the restrictions. They asked in forums and in Reddit threads for the ability to share their player power with their alt characters, to increase the drop rates for bronze to the point where they could buy all the things they wanted. Players who had abstained from the mode, annoyed by the time-gating, hoped for bronze levels that would allow them to catch up now that everything was open.

A final disappointment

Instead, the "original content" they were promised in the update turned out to be two new quests: one to say goodbye to NPCs, the other to kill world-boss infernal demons that were dropping everywhere at once. These demons showed up so frequently that finding a group to kill any particular one turned out to be a huge headache.

The advertised new options for increased player power turned out to be gear at a slightly higher item level. Bronze drops appear to have increased, but still struck players as underwhelming. In all, the final update was a limp sign-off, a not-a-bang-but-a-whimper that was very much in keeping with Blizzard's oddly disjointed approach to Remix as a whole.

The slow slog to max power and obtaining All the Things means that many players are having to choose between doing Remix and playing/collecting things for Blizzard's new housing feature, creating an odd sort of internal competition. The new Brawler's Arena launched this week, adding yet another layer of competing content for collectors.

Players were unimpressed and said so:

• "Blizz really dropped the ball on Lemix with these crazy decisions."
• "It's so weird speeding to 80 with 300 percent extra XP, then slamming into a wall with no artifact power. No, I am not regrinding that shit at a 1 to 1 rate I did on my main."
• "It's amusing that Legion Remix repeats one of vanilla Remix's biggest blunders, but worse: Insanely alt unfriendly."
• "They’ve tackled the power catch-up but not the collection catch-up which is probably what [the] majority of people still playing it are looking for."

It's a silly mode—why so serious?

Time-gating content where the entire point is supposed to be that it's sped-up fun is an odd decision.

You could argue that Blizzard merely wants to keep people engaged throughout Lemix's months-long run, but in most modes of this type player engagement comes in waves. As each group maxes out and loses interest, the next group comes behind, helping the wave behind them, and so on.

I've played a couple hours most days it's been in existence, have a main character at max level and about 650 out of the 999 levels of player power available—and I still have half a million bronze to farm.

For a "fun" mode, that's awfully grindy—and a sign that the company's new "listen to players" ethic is still sometimes on shaky ground.