Lets talk about why people hate Cataclysm

[NorthWay]

In hindsight, I hate Cata. Not necessarily for its content being _that_ bad, but for going in a different direction (IMO) than what the 3 previous releases had. This is the stuff you expect to hear:
- killed off lots of content (1/3rd size Sunken Temple??? nice quests)
- destroyed large parts of the world and replaced it with worse versions (Barrens, Thousand Needles etc)
- Underwater zone (no, the game does not work with 3D positioning)
- Ugly stone/cave zone
- Ugly Firelands hub (and I didn't like many of the quests)

But most importantly (IMO) is that it killed a big chunk of the meta-game and that has just gotten worse and worse.
Locking in talents at level 10 that used to be selectable, having to fill the whole tree - generally limiting your ability to tune and modify your character. Trying to outwit the developers at Blizzard by finding that combination of gear and talents and whatnot that produces an effect that gives you an unintended advantage; the meta-game played against Blizzard by numbercrunchers and creative players.

That is all gone now. There are no surprises, no hidden depths. There is nothing to turn to when you have had enough instances and raids and monsters for the day. There is no point thinking you are smarter than the devs. Because they couldn't be arsed with balancing so many options and variables that they killed them off. And that, IMVNSHO, has been all the worse for the game.
(But if this is of no interest to you then you might have a better game now.)

[Coconut]

1-World revamp: Bigest waste of resources and money of all time. Hundreds of new quests, references and secrets that almost no one saw because were already high level.

Flying in the old world had to be done. For all the anti-flying crowd you see today, there were a ton of people clamoring for it in WotLK and even BC, and I bet people would still view it as a huge flaw in the game if it wasn't available today. Just how character models had to be done in WoD and it cost that expansion a lot.

I think their core problem though is knowing how to manage their assets efficiently - pace the content and distribute rewards in a way that keeps as many people interested as possible. If there's a big strain on the art team, the devs don't seem able to pick up the slack and make less look like more.

[Lane]

The world revamp was good, though, and it's sad that because of the attitude toward Cataclysm they'll probably never revamp any world worlds ever again now, as some parts of the game desperately need it.

I'm hoping with scaling technology they'll revisit the idea.

[Deleted]

u sound like u never did t11 raid then

it was the best first expansion raiding tier by far

*you must not have done it because I THINK it was the best.. and I will not give a reason why*

amazing rebuttal. simply epic. Totally proved the insane 10v25 imbalance(loot+tuning), class imbalance, almost every fight being an interrupt-the-ability mechanic and plain tediousness and overtuning wrong.

Totally did not destroy the massive amounts of the pug raiding scene from wotlk and guilds.

[caervek]

So tell me what was bad.

At the time it was the worst expansion ever made, that got burned into peoples minds so when they hear cata/dragonsoul today many instantly draw a negative memory, forgetting that WoD was much worse or that SoO/HFC dragged on waaaaaay longer than DS.

[Deleted]

Cata made wow hard for the first time. No wonder the Pros love Cata, and the bads hate it.

I actually liked it.

[Sarkol]

Also had some of the greatest heroics from the initial launch, before nerf. Funny thing is Cata is the first time i really quit since i started in TBC. But more due to burnout, and not too much to do outside organized raiding i think. Vashj'ir is also the best zone in the game and fuck anyone who says otherwise.

[Maglen]

I played a Lock during Cataclysm and this guy summed up my experience pretty well:

https://cynwise.wordpress.com/warloc...line-and-fall/

[Fayolynn]

No please go ahead tell me why the expansion was bad without talking about Dragon Soul.

T11 was one of the greatest tiers of all time -> What made it so great in your mind? Felt pretty meh to me.
The Entire world got redone ALOT OF ZONES and the new zones are probably still the largest zones we ever had gotten. -> Zone stories were horribly disjointed, left unfinished and nonsensical.
T12 Firelands and it's daily hub were praised and Ragnaros H is one of the greatest boss encounters of all time. Agreed
The Heroics that launched with Cata stand out as some of the most interesting ones made. Agreed but they were nerfed so heavily that you can't really count this as a plus
Loot wasnt a mass RNG fest and you could work towards goals with rep or Valor for other gear.

So tell me what was bad.

Comments in bold
Bad story
To much Thrall
Dragon Soul

[Deleted]

Cata made wow hard for the first time. No wonder the Pros love Cata, and the bads hate it.

I actually liked it.

Literally the stupidest shit I've ever read.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Ironically I think Cata was the most time I've played in WoW. Still have a character that exists(I played a warrior back then...good times).


If there was anything to dislike was the lack of endgame. I enjoyed the world revamp but I think it wasn't enough to be honest. That said it was a good effort(For what it did anyways).

[Deleted]

1) Very little world content and 0 reasons to repeat it.
2) Dragon Soul. You can't say Cata was good IF we don't count Dragon Soul.
3) Hard content + Random Groups. If you didn't have guildies available it was hell.
4) Troll dungeons. Redone content with 0 meaning in the history that was being told.
5) The great migrations happened during Cata, leaving lots of servers empty.
6) 1-60 redone. Lots of dev time with very little impact in game.
7) Flying available from 0 made lvling experience shit.
8) Unconnected zones and portals everywhere felt bad.
9) Vashj'ir is the worst zone I've ever played IMO.
10) No RNG it was all point grinds that felt like a work.

In my opinion and experience it was really bad.

[Deleted]

Literally the stupidest shit I've ever read.

He is talking about the Heroic Dungeons situation.
Cataclysm was the turning point where Blizzard decided to make the game brain dead forever because of the...not so good players.
LFR and easy mode Heroics forever and ever.
Gladly nowadays we have Mythic Dungeons so everything is back to normal.
But in Cataclysm this happened:

[Goldielocks]

People seem to despise Thrall like it's cool to do so, even though all he did was act as the earth warder.

That's not to say DS wasnt terrible. It was.

[RobertMugabe]

No please go ahead tell me why the expansion was bad without talking about Dragon Soul.

T11 was one of the greatest tiers of all time
The Entire world got redone ALOT OF ZONES and the new zones are probably still the largest zones we ever had gotten.
T12 Firelands and it's daily hub were praised and Ragnaros H is one of the greatest boss encounters of all time.
The Heroics that launched with Cata stand out as some of the most interesting ones made.
Loot wasnt a mass RNG fest and you could work towards goals with rep or Valor for other gear.

So tell me what was bad.

To Keep it small and simple: Cata offered much much less content than Wrath. The patches offered even less AND they reused a lot content(esp. in the Patches). Most dungeons and the raids felt very boring for most People (similar to WoD dungeons) and the 2 daily hubs (4.0 tol barad and 4.2 firelands) were also boring.
All in all, many people at that time felt, that Blizzard was just lazy.

There were some occasional shitstorms directed at blizz, but the big majority simply didn't the like cata because it offered little content and that Little content wasn't simply good.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Cataclysm traumatized many with the shitty dungeon situation at the start (Tol Barad was a pita with randoms at launch), that most of the awesome questing experience went into low level zones which some haven't seen to this day, and the underwhelming Deathwing encounter and the fact that dragon souls was active for way too long. That being said.. I'm convinced that many hate MoP and especially WoD way more! So it's fairly average on the overall hate-scale imho, just not as beloved as BC and WotlK.

[RobertMugabe]

He is talking about the Heroic Dungeons situation.
Cataclysm was the turning point where Blizzard decided to make the game brain dead forever because of the...not so good players.
LFR and easy mode Heroics forever and ever.
Gladly nowadays we have Mythic Dungeons so everything is back to normal.
But in Cataclysm this happened:

That's not true at all. Wrath heroics were far easier than the cata ones. Also I still remember that at the end of cata(they nerfed the dungeons in 4.2) I still wiped quite a lot in the dungeons, at least compared to Wrath dungeons.

[Sencha]

LFR was born in Cata.

But Cata was still better than MoP/WoD/Legion.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

LFR was born in Cata.

But Cata was still better than MoP/WoD/Legion.

Lol Cata wasn't better then MoP. Second Legion isn't over yet.

[Isoge]

I loved Cata. That was the first time they gave rogues some love with the legendaries. And I was the ruler of all dps meters by a landslide. Cata, imo, was the third best expansion, BC being the best, and lich king the natural second.