Is Ashran Blizzard's biggest design disaster?

[Moradim]

it's just such a poorly designed zone.

why don't the side events influence the main objectives AT ALL? it's like an even more PVE version of the already nerfed AV. the main road isn't fun, it's just a zerg and if you are melee you die instantly. at least in AV bridge battles melee could be useful.

not to mention how the horde npc is useless, while the giant tree is a god of destruction...

[Thirteen]

Reading about Ashran before the game came out, I was extremely excited. Unfortunately they decided to go in a completely different direction and made it slightly worse, but I still enjoyed it. Now they just made it into a completely regular battleground (they even removed the wands and scrolls), and it just has no redeeming factors anymore. It's a shame they ruined it without ever giving it a chance. People complain about things for years on end and they don't even touch them - a couple of threads about people disliking Ashran show up and they redo it completely and turn it into exactly like every other battleground.

[TheMediator]

Frankly, it's fairly quizzical game design to have players progress while they're not logged in, but that's exactly what garrisons do.

No it isn't. Blue XP has been around since before the game was even released. You still have to get the materials to put in work orders and pick up the work orders, and yes that's a trivial amount of effort, but so is killing mobs and yet blue XP builds up all the same.

[Pua]

No it isn't. Blue XP has been around since before the game was even released. You still have to get the materials to put in work orders and pick up the work orders, and yes that's a trivial amount of effort, but so is killing mobs and yet blue XP builds up all the same.

The materials are also gathered entirely passively.

In any event, this is a thread about Ashran and not garrisons. Garrisons, despite being dreadful, are meeting their design intent. That makes them objectively better than Ashran, simply because Ashran isn't.

[MoanaLisa]

The materials are also gathered entirely passively.

In any event, this is a thread about Ashran and not garrisons. Garrisons, despite being dreadful, are meeting their design intent. That makes them objectively better than Ashran, simply because Ashran isn't.

The thread is really about anything though. If we go by forum posts this week their biggest design disaster would be Twitter integration. If we keep the thread going long enough it will be something else.

Ashran is a mess no doubt. A PVP area where the sides prefer to do anything other than engage is a failure at every level. It's arguable that for the long-term health of the expansion something to do with PVE is going to be a bigger design catastrophe than Ashran though.

[Deleted]

Subjective.
For me the biggest single design disaster would be the introduction of Arena's. So much "Class balancing" is based around making Arena's more balanced for the PvP side of the game, that it inevitably has a negative effect on the major part of the game which is PvE.

Now for someone else, the Biggest design disaster would be flying, either the introduction, or the current restriction.
For someone else it could be the redesign of the old world content for MOP.

It really depends on who you ask, and what their priorities are.

[Pua]

The thread is really about anything though. If we go by forum posts this week their biggest design disaster would be Twitter integration. If we keep the thread going long enough it will be something else.

You've quoted my post, but completely ignored the second paragraph you're commenting on. That's bizarre.

The Twitter integration, though disliked among many people, will work as intended. It'll meet the design intent. By that definition alone, it'll be better than a PvP zone that doesn't meet the promise of "24-hour PvP" and where people do their best to avoid one another. I'm still stuck on about 35 night elf kills in the Nemesis quest line because if I try to go out and fight, I run into a match of around 25 to one. I simply can't win.

I'm forced to aimlessly run around until I find where the main Horde group is, and then do the events with them.

It's terrible.

[Alopex Major]

nope, CRZ is.

CRZ can occasionally be useful, but I agree it's usually a nightmare. I especially liked dual-boxing when crz changes would cause me to fall off my flying passenger mount to my death, good times.

But for me personally, garrisons, or rather the degree that they are integrated into WoD. If they were truly optional, I could just happily ignore them. (And don't say they are. You cannot level without one.)

[MoanaLisa]

You've quoted my post, but completely ignored the second paragraph you're commenting on. That's bizarre.

Not really. A lot of people aren't doing anything at all with their garrisons. They are bored with them. They were fun to build. They are a nightmare to do day-to-day management with and it's still up in the air whether that can be changed. That's a failure too. And a pretty big one when nearly everyone was expected to mess with garrisons and not everyone was expected to be interested in Ashran.

[Illiterate]

Assram is far from the worst. I would say WoD is the biggest disaster. Complete shitstain of an expansion aimed to see with how little effort/work/content they can get away with while pushing more pay to win bullshit and milking more money out of us then ever before.

[Pua]

Not really. A lot of people aren't doing anything at all with their garrisons. They are bored with them. They were fun to build. They are a nightmare to do day-to-day management with and it's still up in the air whether that can be changed. That's a failure too. And a pretty big one when nearly everyone was expected to mess with garrisons and not everyone was expected to be interested in Ashran.

Yep, fair point.

[Jamie71]

For me the biggest design disaster is Garrisons followed by Ashran.

This whole expansion just feels like on massive grind fest with Zero Fun...