To avoid a wall of text I'll simply summarize the reasons without explaining them, we all can find the explanations in basically every other topic in this same subforum. Some reasons are more trivial for me than others.
Haven't played for months, my knowledge might be obsolete.
(In no particular order)
1) Stat gap. Honor set in 1 week or less
vs AK, AP
for each class and spec of the same class, Honor Talents, IL and their rng fest.
2) Balance.
3) Skill ceiling and floor too wide. It is enormous. (League of Legends devs balance the game keeping in mind even this aspect and some changes are made just to fix this issue, for example).
4) Pruning.
5) Non new PvP things. New bgs, maps, events, skins, tournaments, esports, dedicated patches, zones, rewards. PvP is simply an afterthought it seems.
6) Lack of comunication. In League of Legends devs keep writing essays about
everything that I can't keep up with even if I would have the whole day free, I swear. In WoW you don't even know
what are the template stats of your spec.......
7) Lack of clear fantasy and 8) gameplay.
For example, in the past disci priests were the best at: shielding, dispeling, doing damage. You had a clear role. Now it simply plays like every other healer. Now every healer is basically the same. Also, it is all a mess role wise. Holy paladins are the one with the highest dmg output 0o, resto druids are the tankiest (in bear) 0o, monks have the best heals over time 0o.
Another example, mages were the kings of ccs (and AoE damage for the matter). Now it is the only class without any hard cc (stun like) 0o.
Shamans were not known for having extremely powerful ccs. Now they have an AoE, ranged, Stun. 0o The best cc in the game one could hope to have lol (not necessarily reliable in PvP by all means, differently from PvE, talking about their stun).
Back in the past there were clearly defined gameplay. This point got too long. Let's move on.
9) Templates.
I miss stacking resilience because my spec is made of shit. I miss stacking mana regen because my comp is about rotting. I miss stacking haste because otherwise I can't get 1 cast off. I miss customizing my character.
10) Honor talents. 9 out of 10 are useless, unbalanced, uninteresting or spells that specs already had back in the past.
I am not necessarily against the concept of honor talents, I am against the philosophy of (hey, let's randomly throw a few darts at the wall, the ones which stick will be honor talents, this will definetely make so this mechanic (honor talents) will have a reason to exist).
There are other issues like honor talents randomly activating in world pvp, being things pvp exclusive, having to be balanced separately (so double work), etc.
11) PvE stuff giving PvP rewards or being displayed as if it is pvp (for example, Tower WQ giving honor points by killing undead npc 0o). It's not something which bothers me particularly, but it feels so strange and the contrary is not true anyway. Hopefully the amount is low enough to not force players who want to prestige to keep killing npcs...
12) Materialism 13) Utilitarism, 14) Standardization, 15) Stagnation 16) Artificiality (for lack of better words). I know, this is getting philosophic. Anyway, these points would need a whole book and
concern the whole game. In a sense, most of them are linked. To keep it very short:
"Materialism": the fact that everything is about numbers (almost all talents are about numbers, so the ones numerically superior are taken // item drops are rng (<- random number generator) heavy rather than about achieving something in particular or in a certain way // an item with 900 IL is better than an item with 899 because stats in PvP are about the IL).
"Utilitarism": lfg, lfr, bg spam rather than world pvp (which is 100% dead). It is all about power rewards and doing things as soon as possible. Random bgs give loot, world pvp does not, so people who wants to boost their stats are forced to do bgs, for example. It's all about max level and doing it asap. I can't even clear some zones and finish their questlines because I hugely outlevel them, so it's about 0 narrative and rpg aspects. It's about powerleveling. It's not about the journey anymore (vanilla lovers, I summon you to explain this point
).
"Standardization": as opposite to customization, same weapon (artifact one),
same stats (in PvP stats are predetermined), same talents, templates which force you to take certain paths and playstyle (if a template reduces your crit chance/damage to 50%, you are not going to take talents which are about crit, for example).
"Stagnation": nothing new, same specs/class in certain or all ratings (because they are broken), but it also about same maps, same gamemodes. Look at pve and what it offers to better understand this point.
"Artificiality": honor talents being pvp exclusive and popping off all of a sudden when you hit another player in world pvp, many abilities/spells which do not fit the game or the spec/class (frost dks have a honor talent which is basically a ball which keeps bouncing between target 0o).
Now, the one milion dollar question(s): What's similar and what's different from the past?
Similar:
- Balance (it depends on the season surely, some were probably worse or as worse as the most recent, some way better. The fact that there were way less specs in the past surely helped (down to 27, compared to the 36 of today);
- Skill Ceiling and Floor (always too wide probably, even in the past)
- Lack of Comunication (blizz devs have always been silent, even though I must say that now they reached new heights when you don't even know how your spec fully works in PvP).
Different:
- Stat Gap (It was way, way better and easier, I think this is not arguable);
- Pruning
- No new PvP stuff (Tbc was a revolution, infrastructure wise, even just remembering the introdution of arena is enough to understand the magnitude of PvP changes and implications; Wrath was a revolution, community wise, esports wise, out of the game guides/videos/topics wise, also introduced 1 bg, 2 arenas, 1 enormous world bg (Wintergrasp)).
- Lack of clear Fantasy and clear Gameplay (this point is quite clear and obvious I hope);
- Templates;
- Honor Talents;
- PvE Stuff giving PvP rewards and not viceversa anyway (if I remember well);
- Materialism, Utilitarism, Standardization, Stagnation, Artificiality (in different degrees and shapes, surely).
The end, sorry for english, it turned to be a wall of text in the end, well rip.