So, what didn't work this expansion?

[Talen]

There is a lot of good with MoP>
But...what went wrong?


Essentially - Cataclysm. Neat idea, very poorly handled and we're still seeing the effects of many of the decisions made there.


The game isn't quite as alt friendly.
Dailies were poorly designed and integrated at the start.
Far too much emphasis on dailies as end game content.
Blizzard put in timesinks as major content. Which would be fine if the timesinks were either fun and engaging or seen as totally optional - they weren't.
The Alliance story is unengaging at best.
CRZ - nice idea, great potential but the problems (especially in PvP) killed a lot of interest
PvP - just drove too many players away with all the ganking and anti-social behaviour. Needs a major fix and less of the isolationist approach.
The story - I was expecting a war with MoP. I've barely touched the other faction outside Krasarang and the Jade Forest.
The questing...less linear than Cata, but still very repetitive. How many Paragons did we need to find? Couldn't we just have needed 3? Couldn't they ahve spread them out throughoput the Xpac? Couldn't they have made the Paragons a sceret and had a trasure hunt for them? Or just there for you to stumble over?
Servers - VRs are good....but too late for those who already left.
Not enough dungeons. Too many poorly designed scenarios.
There was too much that felt mandatory, thanks to the various gating systems in use.
Normal raids were too difficult.


Other factors? F2P games are getting better. And with little in the way of story to keep players here, with dead servers limiting social interaction, with the lack of alts limiting variety of gameplay, with the focus so much on end game that levelling is often boring and unchallenging...there's not much to keep players here any more.

Other games are getting their own identity and playstyles, but what will keep players in WoW are the story and their social interactions. Servers are dying and the story, for many, isn't that good. All this simply compounds the gameplay issues such as dailies and raid difficulty.

EJL

[metasine]

Half of the problems in MOP stem from changes they put in during Cata:

25/10 Lockout changes
Class changes

From MOP though:

Putting most valor gains through LFR
LFR being primary way for alts = hell
Failure of a daily system
Shift away from heroics
Scenarios have yet to find a purpose in game
PVP CC is ridiculous

[melodramocracy]

I've never understood why people think it's expensive to play wow. The sub cost is like $10-12, that's nothing. I, and probably everyone else, spend several times that amount on crap each month. If you compare the cost of playing wow to other hobbies you'll realize that playing wow is cheap in comparison.

If you think paying $12/month is expensive you probably have a lot bigger problems than the cost of a subscription to worry about.

You missed the point. I don't think 12 / month is expensive. I think in comparison to other PC video games out there, WoW is expensive, and even moreso if you don't play a lot.

[Rhozul]

So, as we know the news of the sub decline is all over the place now and endless throwing of words ensues from it.
- The endgame in mists, well it was fun enough the first time around, it was excruciating to repeat it on an alt. Even with things like rep buffs, having to do all those dailies in alts again after you did them on your main, it was to much. I believe the tabard system in wrath was always the best system, since it was good for mains and alts.

- The replay value of wow just doesn't have that replay value it once did. It seems strange saying this now since it would have applied to cata too, but given how its been over three years since cata, and the massive changes they made to vanilla wow, one of the biggest complaints about cata was how lineal the game had become. I honestly have no motivation to level alts anymore because of how boring it is, which ironically fits into what I just said about the daily grind.

I'm merging these two together because they are different aspects of the same problem. Because Cataclysm had virtually no End Game content to speak of for most players, many people decided to use the time to try out new classes. Leveling alts was pretty easy between heirlooms and the revamped world, even today I still enjoy most of the level 1 - 60 experience. (The only place where it is pretty terrible is level 50 to 60, mostly because the Dungeon Que is Blackrock Depths all the way down.) Even when you reached Cataclysm and the Heirlooms turned off (at the time), Leveling wasn't too bad considering that if you were in a guild with the XP Boost perk, you were probably level 85 after three and a half zones. My alts usually managed it after most of Hyjal/Vashj, Deepholme, and then maybe half of Twilight Highlands. Quick. Easy. Done.

In Mists of Pandaria, you typically need to wade through almost all of the Jade Forest, all of Valley/Karasang, most of Kun Lai and Townlong, and after about three-fourths of the way through Dread Wastes will you reach level 90. Mists of Pandaria has another zone over Cataclysm, and that doesn't even begin to count for the fact that Mists of Pandaria was made arbitrarily longer by virtue of locking away flying mounts until level 90.

In regards to the linear questing argument, Cataclysm is much more linear than Mists of Pandaria, but Mists of Pandaria has the illusion of choice. Even though you can pick which hub you do first, you still are basically required to do both of them in order to level up high enough to progress to the next zone. Cataclysm, on the other hand, allowed you to reach a point where you decided, "I'm done with this storyline," and leave for the next zone fairly early. You can usually leave Hyjal just shortly after healing it of the inferno (shy of 50% completion) while you usually can't leave Jade Forest until right before you visit the Temple of the Jade Serpent for the first time (75% - 80%). So at that point, how much control does Pandaria really give you over your experience? Not much.

Now, if we're going to talk about Daily Quests, Mists of Pandaria did nothing that Cataclysm didn't do. There are strong parallels between the Isle of Thunder and the Firelands quest hubs. There are also strong parallels between the other reputations with the notary exception that gaining Reputation is much slower in Mists of Pandaria thanks to arbitrary limits and the stowing away of player power behind those reputations. For example, if I decide that I want to spend my Valor on a set of shoulders, I have to become best friends with a faction in order to do so, even knowing that it is a faction that I might not care about at all. 5.0's tier was much worse about this than 5.1's, but its still a very glaring problem with the system.

Perhaps the oddest thing of all is that Justice serves virtually no purpose in the game aside from upgrading Heirlooms and buying Pet Battle Stones. Honor and Conquest have a great relationship going on. Justice and Valor do not, and since you never get Justice outside of Heroics and Scenarios, there isn't much of anything interesting behind it.

I think, what blizzard seems to not understand, is how one of the biggest contributing factors of keeping players hooked on there game, is the reply value, as it is with any game. Alts are the reply value for wow, because once you've done something on your main you can't replay it. So, in what they've done with cata, and with mists, people simply don't want to play on other characters. They don't have anything to work towards on them because achievements are now account wide, so.. there i literally nothing to do outside of your main. and once you've done it on that, most would probably agree they'd sooner do the new content, not bother with alts, cancel sub until the next content patch, and then repeat.

I don't agree with parts of this. Account-Wide Achievements is not the reason alts have become non-existent; it is the grind that the character must take to reach Level 90. It takes far too long to level up high enough and fast enough to play with other max-level friends and once you get there getting from Quests to Heroics and then Heroics to LFR / Raiding is a chore. Part of this actually stems from how terribly the Justice Point system is designed and the other part comes from a lack of interesting ways to acquire gear. Finally, compared to every other expansion before it Mists of Pandaria has introduced no new interesting gameplay elements. TBC introduced the concept of the Daily Quest, the Honor system, and gave us Arenas, WotLK gave us split difficulty raids, the concept of a PvP Zone, Heroic Dungeons, LFD and the Battleground Quing System, and modernized the concept of NPC factions. Cataclysm revamped the entire world, modernized LFD, and gave us LFR. Mists of Pandaria gave us a farm, randomized daily quests, and scenarios.

Personally, I think Blizzard is trying to figure out how player progression should actually work now that they have all of this amazing technology to work with. I personally think that Daily Quests have a place in the game, but at the same time no one piece of content needs to be the focal point of either PvE or PvP. I think players will play your game longer if there is variety in what you offer them, not just a "DO THIS CONTENT NOW!" mindset.

[darklady]

1. Overly complex raids with too many mechanics combined with the raid community's snobbery pushed people to LFR.

2. Once in LFR, people realized the freedom and efficiency they had playing the game, and could take a subscription break. I got exalted with KTO, SPA, I did the legendary, and I got lucky with LFR drops and coin rolls, all about 3 months into tier 15. I played for maybe 3 hours per week. I felt like there wasn't any more for me to do this tier, so I didn't renew my sub right away. I guess I'm one of that 600,000. I know I would have never done that in normal or heroic raiding. It's nice. But I will renew again when 5.4 comes out. I think a lot of people are playing like this now, and I don't think it's a bad thing.

3. I play on Stormrage and the queue times are INSANE. Everything I did in my second point, I did on the weekend, because that was the only time there was no queue. Whenever I logged on during the week, queues would be anywhere from 900-1200. People are tired of paying for transfers, so they said screw it.

[Deleted]

What didn't work?

Even though we got more content than in Cata, there is still no reason whatsoever to group with people. The sense of community and the social aspect of the game has got hit HARD with all the accessibility and convenience changes. You are much more likely to make enemies than friends in the game now. That spontaneous exploration with "random" (first random, then best buddies, as it always is) people is dead and gone.

It is much more a single player game nowadays where the occasional grouping with others can yield you more rewards more efficiently, that's it. MMO and not an MMORPG.

[Deleted]

I'm levelling my 3rd alt now, and have not done a single daily quest on any of them. It's unnecessary.

For You maybe, but not for the Endgame raiders...

[Bluesftw]

for me its pvp... its such a clusterfck now its not even funny, mop got worst pvp seasons so far...

[Caliph]

the middle ground is really lame and bad. or perhaps that's my server us stormrage. oh wait everybody alliance side is on us stormrage. you have lfr all stars who come into normals and are just completely bad. you have a guild full of these lfr tards with 530 ilvl and can't kill or heal horridon. It has to do with the ease to get gear and how casual and lame everything is. No i'm not hardcore and only raid normals but these lfr all stars have now made 25m impossible, 10m are infested with them and i blame blizzard for making evreything so i win that tards don't even have to learn their class.

The replayability with alts is excrutiating. All of the reps and grinds. now you can bypass all of it with just some world bosses, isle of thunder, profession stuff. what held people the first time isn't going to work a 2nd or 3rd time.

I'd like to say pets but this isn't true at all. almost everyone i know outside of the heroic raiders I run with at times is into pets. of course, it's casual enough and brain dead enough for the lfr all stars so yeah it works.

pandaria is small and lame imo. no matter how many isles they add it'll always be small and lame.

[Deleted]

for me its pvp... its such a clusterfck now its not even funny, mop got worst pvp seasons so far...

Sorry to others for going off-topic here, but as Im not much of a pvper myself, could you elaborate on this more? I've been hearing that lots of people are dissatisfied with MoP more than ever, but what is exactly wrong? Is it a problem of losing to certain classes by default? Or the amount of (instant) CC + burst + inability for healers to go oom and whatnot? Would appreciate if you enlightened me!

[Trassk]

ugh....GTFO with this BS! The panda NPC, NPC! was in WC3 yes, as one of those, hey look! funny drunk panda! kinda joke NPC's. Did that really deserve an entire expansion based around it??

This whole expansion was nothing but an attempt by Blizz to increase their market share in Asian markets. If you can't see that, you're blind.

And it didn't work. Hopefully they have learned their lesson and we will move on, back to REAL WoW lore..scourge, burning legion, old gods, titans etc.

I think the devs themselves said this too.

I have no problem with pandaren. And I did love pandaria, its one of the most enriching landscapes they'd had so far in the game, compared to the bland bullshit like borean tundra and zul'drak.

I don't think pandaren or pandaria was the issue, but the execution of how it came into the game, it came at the worst possible time. Wow subs were already in decline, and so blizzard, instead of focusing on those that do pay the subs and have zone, they tried to win over another sub group with using the asian theme as the focal point.

They actually said they had to be careful about how they handled pandaren, because of if it upset any eastern culture. And yet, despite all that attention to detail, the Chinese still didn't care, and worse, the ones who spoke out for change the most, the western culture, began to leave as well.

Blizzard took a gamble with pandaria, and it failed. Don't get me wrong, I love the zones, I love some of the lore, and the pandaren themselves are okay (I didn't clap when they were announced as a race, but meh) but it came as the worst possible time. If they focused on what really could improve the game, then trying to appeal to a group of people via a cultural gimmick, then maybe they'd be in a better place now then they are.

[Aensland]

Pretty much everything that was on my mind has already been covered. On top of alt unfriendliness, this expansion can be particularly tough on returning players trying to catch up, especially someone who wants to do serious raiding. The legendary meta and cloak has become today's attunement for a chance of raiding in a higher ranking guild. Anyone w/o those legendary items are at a serious disadvantage versus those equipped with them.

That points out another issue I have and that's the scaling is out of this this world now. Okay, you've done all your ToT LFR's and is 510ilvl. You'll still do merely half the dps a 535+ilvl will on many, if not most boss fights. Another reason why many guilds (especially mediocre ones) are setting the bars "too high" on recruitment.

[Anprionsa]

For me its the fact theres nothing to do in the world.

Brawlers guild is nice, but its not lasting content, you finish it easily after you get a gear upgrade.

Pet battles is a terrible and slow version of normal pokemon that I couldnt even find the energy to invest time into past 3 level 10's.

World PvP is gone and dead, the thing I spent the majority of my time on, thats not really MoP's fault, Cata was the Xpac that killed whatever was left of it. However they havent rectified it yet, next patch has some hope, but it awaits to be seen.

Raiding was incredibly boring up till ToT. And theres not a lot to do outside of raids. The world bosses are so pathetically easy they genuinly should have just mailed us loot everyweek to save them wasting pixels.

Im basicly just struggling to find anything to do outside of raids that doesnt include leveling an alt.

You must be on a dead realm or dead cross realm. I've done more world PVP in this expansion than before. On the Isle of Thunder (always), and all over the eastern kingdom.

[enchanted]

Well... I'm going to be constructive here and basically I have quit when 5.1 hit and considering to resub in 5.4 if it turns out well. The biggest turn off for me was that the amount of dailies at start to get gear was unbareable and the new LFR system is just well I kinda not like it and the expansion really isn't alt friendly like it was in cata or wrath with the amount of gating and gearing up etc... 2nd this that didn't work for me is the theme.

I hate the asian theme and to this day I hate pandas kind of and I still can't believe blizz decided to turn pandas (a wc3 joke) into an expansion and nevertheless I was uninterested with their story like the mogu but glad we are moving from it the next expansion.

Another turn off for me well also is that most of my friends just quit for some of the reasons I stated and other races and also this game is pretty old so I think people just got tired of it. Also scenarios I find them as a lazy excuse not to make dungeons but I do prefer them as they do not require much time and the raids are just plain boring except for SoO and ToT (some parts well of ToT).

EDIT: I could also add the community but that has been going downhill since late-Wrath.

[Tzalix]

I love my main but I get bored of playing the same class or characters all the time, so, like in wrath and cata, I like to play alts.. then remember.. jesus, I need to grind months of dailies to get anything on him/her.

That's overdoing it a little bit, isn't it?

I recently changed main to Monk, had him geared up and ready to go ToT normal in 2-3 weeks, and I didn't do any dailies. None.

And I still really didn't "maximize" the geaing, I skipped some part of LFR every week.

[Army Dreamer]

Instances' difficulty. Blizz made them easier than in the end of Cata. They should be as in the beginning of Cata.
Focus on dailies.
Reputation grind.
At the enxpansion's start raids' were split as in the beginning of Cata. They should be as in TBC/End of Cata.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure what it is about MoP that doesn't feel right, but that feeling is there. It's like a tiny splinter in the side of your otherwise functioning hand that you keep checking but cannot find.

I am really starting to think that the theme of the expansion might be to blame. There is some beautiful scenery and landscapes in Pandaria, but for some reason, the feel of the continent and Pandaren themselves don't seem to fit in with the rest of the game. I know I am not alone with this feeling as I have read similar comments before.

Also, not having a main protagonist was a mistake; focusing on the Horde vs Alliance conflict was silly because we both work together at the end anyway. It's like the whole escalation in tensions between the factions was pointless.

but main villains are stupid , I dont get what's so fun in seeing another lichking 12319203910239190 times in every quest ''Oooh I'm going to kill you now! JK I'll let you live!'' and when we confront em they die no matter what we do and are like ''not killing you was my greatest plan trololo''

I much rather have faceless villains that we dont know of yet.

[Hoddie]

MoP has been my favourite expansion to date.

I thought the raiding was streets ahead of anything Cata had to offer, with the exception of Firelands.

Exploration was taken to a whole new level this expansion, hell there was even a reputation tied in to it. There were rares and non-rares with unique and interesting loot (some of which was fantastic, some of which was dire but different things appeal to different people). There was a lot of ground loot all over the place, hell I even found a new one just the other week (the mining pick that sometimes spawns gems when mining). There were even interesting items of vendor trash from mobs, the ones with flavour text and a value in gold rather than copper or silver. It's a small thing but it made me smile.

I thought the new reputations were interesting and how they'd introduced different ways of grinding each rep as opposed to just providing tabards or giving rep for raid kills. Think about it, 1 rep came from fishing, 1 from finding eggs (with a daily quest backup), 1 from exploration, 1 from a quest chain in the starting zone, 1 from cooking (with an egg-hunt type backup), 1 from mob kills and a long expansion-arcing quest chain, 1 from unique one-on-one encounters. The variety is better than anything we've ever had, even in BC which had some interesting rep grinds.

Some of the profession work was generic and boring, but I enjoyed the cooking prof and how it took a combination of dailies/work/gold/exploration to get to 600 across the board. The ranch is/was a ball ache to babysit daily but it was fun for a while and something new, particularly the way the farm evolved over the short to medium term. I thought the attention they paid to fishing and archaeology, both criminally over-looked in Cata, was promising but that still more could have been achieved.

I thought the quest-lines were strong across the continent, and I enjoyed the way that the daily quests were selected at random from a much larger pool. Nobody genuinely likes dailies, but I think this is the best way they've ever implemented it, especially the way that the daily quests on the Isle of Thunder progressed as the story did. I hit exalted with some of the reps before even seeing all the relevant dailies. I really enjoyed the Isle of Thunder. Everything there appeals to me, from the PVP quests to the quirky discoveries and achievements. I've even done a bit of old skool wall jumping there.

MoP isn't/wasn't perfect but it's a damn good expansion in my opinion. I think the world bosses could have been tougher, perhaps requiring a guild group, at least 1 or 2 of them in any case. I think they could have done more to combat the spread of bots in LFR and random PVP, and found a way to perhaps encourage more people to try rated PVP. I wish they'd stop trying to be all things to all people and return to 1-strength raiding (no LFR and only 1 group size) with perhaps an Ulduar-style nod to hard modes. But otherwise I think it's been a return to TBC form without the unnecessary grinds that existed back then. Though they exist for those who want them.

[bigrichard]

I don't know, I can't really put my finger on it but something has felt off this whole expansion. I mean I've really enjoyed it but once it's over, I don't think that I'm really going to have any memories, good or bad, like I did with each previous version of the game.

[rhorle]

I don't think anything didn't work well this expansion. I for don't really see the expansion as alt unfriendly anymore. Maybe in the first few months of the expansion but all expansions tend to be unfriendly then since everything is new. But with all the changes to rep, experience, dailies, valor, etc it is all super friendly to gear up an alt. I geared my shaman up for Throne LFR in a week or two (he was already 90 but not geared as he was only in blues and greens from questing/leveling)

Sure there is a lot to do, and I still have plenty of things I haven't done on my main but I don't really see that as alt unfriendly. The biggest thing left for me to do is pet battles and that is account wide so it doesn't matter who I work it on. The one thing I can say that didn't work is Valor of the Ancients as the counter should be account wide rather then based on one character. So I can get 800 valor on one character and 200 on another and get the buff for increase in valor.

Wotlk and Cata weren't really any more alt friendly though. The only reason why they became alt friendly was because of the 5-man loot catch ups Blizzard added later in the expansion. We've seen those in Mists but not through 5-mans.