WoD and Legion - very little variety in raid themes

[Wilfire]

Let's look at different raids throughout WoW's history:

Vanilla:
MC - a fire elemental cave
OL - a dragon's lair
BWL - a dwarven citadel occupied by dragons
AQ20 - an ancient titan ruins occupied by bugs
AQ40 - underground tunnels occupied by bugs
Naxx40 - a floating undead citadel

TBC:
Kara - a magician's tower
Magtheridon's Lair - a dungeon with an imprisoned demon
Gruul's Lair - an ogrelord's cave
SSC - a naga cave
TK - a hijacked naaru floating citadel
MH - a battlefield vs demons
BT - a draenei temple
SWP - an elven fortress occupied by demons

WotLK:
Naxx - a floating undead citadel
OS - a traditional dragon's lair
EoE - a magic dragon's lair
Ulduar - a titan facility
TotC - a tournament-style raid
ICC - an undead citadel

Cata:
BoT - a cultist citadel
BWD - a dwarven citadel occupied by dragons
TotFW - an air elemental citadel
FL - fire elemental lands
DS - a battlefield vs Old God forces

MoP:
MSV - ancient mogu ruins
HoF - an insect citadel
ToES - mogu ruins occupied by the Sha
ToT - ancient mogu ruins
SoO - orcy orcs

WoD:
HM - the capital of the ogre empire
BRF - orcy orcs doing orcy things in an orcy stronghold
HFC - orcy orcs doing orcy things in an orcy stronghold with some demons thrown in

Legion:
EN - Old Gods doing things in a forest
ToV - an ancient floating titan stronghold + some undead vikings
NH - an elven palace with some demons thrown in
ToS - elven ruins with some demons thrown in
Antorus - more demons

IMO SoO - BRF - HFC arc was unacceptable because it was thematically the same raid over and over again with slight variations in color scheme and design. HFC - NH - ToS - Antorus is shaping up to be even worse with demon bosses in purple and green strongholds over and over again.

[Deleted]

Yep 100% right shit game if you like it you should feel bad shut it down

edit: pre-vanilla player btw

[Deleted]

I can play this game too

Vanilla:
MC - pixels
OL - pixels
BWL - pixels
AQ20 - pixels
AQ40 - pixels
Naxx40 - pixels

TBC:
Kara - pixels
Magtheridon's Lair - pixels
Gruul's Lair - pixels
SSC - pixels
TK - pixels
MH - pixels
BT - pixels
SWP - pixels

WotLK:
Naxx - pixels
OS - pixels
EoE - pixels
Ulduar - pixels
TotC - pixels
ICC - pixels

Cata:
BoT - pixels
BWD - pixels
TotFW -pixels
FL - pixels
DS - pixels

MoP:
MSV - pixels
HoF - pixels
ToES - pixels
ToT - pixels
SoO - pixels

WoD:
HM - pixels
BRF - pixels
HFC - pixels

Legion:
EN - pixels
ToV - pixels
NH - pixels
ToS - pixels
Antorus - pixels


My post is totally not for randomly bashing Blizzard i promise!

/s

[istroxpro]

So, you say we have two copypaste raids for vanilla
AQ20 - an ancient titan ruins occupied by bugs
AQ40 - underground tunnels occupied by bugs

Two completely identical raids from different expansions - naxxrammas

Two almost identical raids from different expansions - dwarven citadels occupied by dragons with 4 more raids with dragons occupied by dragons with their dragon friends on dragons.

4 raids with mogu riding bugs riding mogu riding bugs.

BUT! 2 raids with orcs and 2 raids with elves is a little bit too much?
Okay
Also, what is the difference between orcy orcs, nagy nagas, elvish elves, mogy mogu and buggy bugs?

[Emerald Archer]

Feels like a bit of a stretch, but I do get what you mean. I would love to see something really fresh, getting a bit sick of the colour green.
I don't mind too much though, as long as next expansion steers away from the theme Bring on that purple!

[Bloodmagix]

I'm over seeing fel. Fel is everywhere and they need something different for a while. Aside from that considering we are against the legion lately it's clear we have a lot of demons.

[Cronovey]

Let's look at different raids throughout WoW's history:

Vanilla:
MC - a fire elemental cave
OL - a dragon's lair
BWL - a dwarven citadel occupied by dragons
AQ20 - an ancient titan ruins occupied by bugs
AQ40 - underground tunnels occupied by bugs
Naxx40 - a floating undead citadel

Fire elementals > dragon > dragons > trolls (because you forgot ZG) > bugs > bugs > undead. 7 raids, 4 major themes. Let's ignore the fact that during all of Vanilla WoW, LBRS and UBRS were both run as 15 man raid groups and Scholomance and Stratholme were both run as 10 man raid groups, because that would make 4 dragon instances and 3 undead instances in a single "expansion".

TBC:
Kara - a magician's tower
Magtheridon's Lair - a dungeon with an imprisoned demon
Gruul's Lair - an ogrelord's cave
SSC - a naga cave
TK - a hijacked naaru floating citadel
MH - a battlefield vs demons
BT - a draenei temple
SWP - an elven fortress occupied by demons

We had Karazhan which was occupied by dragons and demons, Mag's Lair which was occupied by a demon, Gruul's Lair which was a gronn cave, not ogre. Then we had a Naga raid including blood elves, a BE raid, Hyjal that was a throwback for fun but chock full of demons, BT which was full of demons and BEs, and Sunwell which was full of....demons and BEs.

WotLK:
Naxx - a floating undead citadel
OS - a traditional dragon's lair
EoE - a magic dragon's lair
Ulduar - a titan facility
TotC - a tournament-style raid
ICC - an undead citadel

Wrath! Featuring an undead raid, a dragon raid, another dragon raid, an old god raid, a raid filled with more undead bosses (Twin Valks and Anub), and then a whole citadel filled with undead! You conveniently left off VoA which was elementals and Ruby Sanctum which was *gasp* another dragon raid featuring a single main boss, just like the previous 2 of the expansion. Oh, and the re-release of Onyxia's Lair, another single boss dragon raid. 4 raids with single dragon bosses, 3 raids full of undead (including a rehashed and nerfed/watered down version of an original raid) and then 2 unique raids.

SoO - orcy orcs

WoD:
HM - the capital of the ogre empire
BRF - orcy orcs doing orcy things in an orcy stronghold
HFC - orcy orcs doing orcy things in an orcy stronghold with some demons thrown in

Legion:
EN - Old Gods doing things in a forest
ToV - an ancient floating titan stronghold + some undead vikings
NH - an elven palace with some demons thrown in
ToS - elven ruins with some demons thrown in
Antorus - more demons

At this point you become incredibly biased and start describing the mobs inside the locations instead of the locations themselves. Siege of Orgrimmar starts in a Titan facility guarding the heart of an old god and then moves to the main city where you fight an entrenched Horde led by Garrosh. Warlords contains an ogre city state, a massive forge which includes the forge itself, an assembly line, and even a dock area with a boat to fight in, while Hellfire Citadel was just that: a citadel engulfed in flames and fire. I could say ORCS ERRYWHURR but that isn't helpful because they were drastically different settings, just like the raids I listed above with a shitty biased view like your own.

Wrath had 4 raids in separate instances containing one main dragon boss each, but I'd hardly call them all boring and the same. Malygos used vehicle combat, Sartharion had multiple difficulty levels and was one of the first bosses to ever do so (and in a very unique manner at that), Onyxia was a rehash for an anniversary, and Halion led into Cataclysm and also had a very unique fight. If you had described things with equal effort throughout your post, you'd probably have something more along the lines of:

EN: The Emerald Nightmare, using multiple locations of Azeroth through portals.
ToV: Floating stronghold of the Prime Designate and the undead realm of the keeper of Hel.
Nighthold: Elven city stormed into through the sewers through the Nightwell and into the stronghold of the elven leader.
Tomb: Elven temple desecrated over thousands of years by demons and haunted by ghosts of elves from the Sundering.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

The vast majority of raids, from the beginning of WoW to the present, have something to do with either the Void/Old Gods or the Fel/Legion. Those are the two cosmic forces, from what we can tell, that have always been out to get us. We are wrapping up one of those this expansion, and will focus the other next.

[killwithpwr]

Idk if you actually done these raids, but just for clearing the air here:

SoO:
Immerseus - a giant water fountain. (not an Orc)
Guardians - Pandas (Not orcs)
Nuroshen - A Sha simulation (no orcs)
Sha of Pride - Still not an orc
Galakras - a Proto drake with an orc on its back #first orcs you encounter in the instance (the mob pack with the cannons)
Iron Juggernaut - a monster truck skorpion (not an orc)
Shamans - Orcs. Fair enough.
Nazgrim - Orc. Fair.
Malkorok - A dumb Orc.
Spoils - All sorts of Mogu and Mantid (no orcs other than probably the anouncer, idk who he is though)
Thok -angry Dino (not an orc)
Blackfuse - a Goblin manipulation a tree cutting machine. (no orc)
Klaxxi - still no orcs.
And Garry... An old god heart infused Orc. Fair.

So out of 14 bosses, 4 are straight up orcs and 1 is an Orc you dont actually fight (she just fills your ears with hatespeech)

Lets go to BrF, shall we?

Oregorger - Not an orc
Gruul - Not an orc
Beastlord - an orc that you mostly fight his pets. But, fair enough.
Thogar - an orc.
Hanz&Franz - orcs (but just way too cool of a fight to be dissmissed as "Orcs")
Flamebender - orc.
Kromogg - not an orc.
Furnace - blended, mostly orcs, but gronn and elemental crazy fire as well...
Maidens - orcs.
Blackhand - epic orc fight.

So in an expac focused about orcs a raid on the main arms factory of the orcs we encounter more orcs, but not all... And mostly, the fights were epic. At least imo.

HfC then:
Hellfire assault - all kinds of tanks and mutated orcs and stuff.
Iron Reaver - orc operated XT.
Kormrok - not an orc.
Coucil - orcs, fair enough.
Killrogg - orc.
Gorefiend - not an orc (anymore)
Iskar - not an orc
Socrethar - not an orc
Velhari - not an orc
Zakuun - not an orc (mainly dissmissing the stupid orc tied to a tree there)
Xulhorac - not an orc
Mannoroth - on mythic the orcs sacrifice themself opon pull, so im gonna count as no orcs.
Archimonde - deffinetly not an orc.

So again, 3 out of 13 fights are straight up orcs and one is an orc, draenei, machinery add fight. (and again a machine operated by an orc)

They do have a lot of demonic influence, but thats something that was not touched upon since BC in a raid instance untill HfC...

I know it was a hard expansion to pass, but the raids have mostly been a great execution by blizzard (apart from silly bugs) and to be honest, i loved the wod raids way more than ToS...
Every raid has its own theme, but it is still varied enough for a breath of fresh air.
and if you consider any raid at any point in time to be more varied than SoO (which was the most unique raid in WoW history in my eyes) then i have no idea what you're on about...
I don't see how you got to the "unacceptable" conclusion
But i personally strongly disagree... Antorus looks to be another great one in my eyes, and looking forward to it.

[cparle87]

Idk if you actually done these raids, but just for clearing the air here:

SoO:
Immerseus - a giant water fountain. (not an Orc)
Guardians - Pandas (Not orcs)
Nuroshen - A Sha simulation (no orcs)
Sha of Pride - Still not an orc
Galakras - a Proto drake with an orc on its back #first orcs you encounter in the instance (the mob pack with the cannons)
Iron Juggernaut - a monster truck skorpion (not an orc)
Shamans - Orcs. Fair enough.
Nazgrim - Orc. Fair.
Spoils - All sorts of Mogu and Mantid (no orcs other than probably the anouncer, idk who he is though)
Thok -angry Dino (not an orc)
Blackfuse - a Goblin manipulation a tree cutting machine. (no orc)
Klaxxi - still no orcs.
And Garry... An old god heart infused Orc. Fair.

So out of 14 bosses, 3 are straight up orcs and 1 is an Orc you dont actually fight (she just fills your ears with hatespeech)

Lets go to BrF, shall we?

Oregorger - Not an orc
Gruul - Not an orc
Beastlord - an orc that you mostly fight his pets. But, fair enough.
Thogar - an orc.
Hanz&Franz - orcs (but just way too cool of a fight to be dissmissed as "Orcs")
Flamebender - orc.
Kromogg - not an orc.
Furnace - blended, mostly orcs, but gronn and elemental crazy fire as well...
Maidens - orcs.
Blackhand - epic orc fight.

So in an expac focused about orcs a raid on the main arms factory of the orcs we encounter more orcs, but not all... And mostly, the fights were epic. At least imo.

HfC then:
Hellfire assault - all kinds of tanks and mutated orcs and stuff.
Iron Reaver - orc operated XT.
Kormrok - not an orc.
Coucil - orcs, fair enough.
Killrogg - orc.
Gorefiend - not an orc (anymore)
Iskar - not an orc
Socrethar - not an orc
Velhari - not an orc
Zakuun - not an orc (mainly dissmissing the stupid orc tied to a tree there)
Xulhorac - not an orc
Mannoroth - on mythic the orcs sacrifice themself opon pull, so im gonna count as no orcs.
Archimonde - deffinetly not an orc.

So again, 3 out of 13 fights are straight up orcs and one is an orc, draenei, machinery add fight. (and again a machine operated by an orc)

They do have a lot of demonic influence, but thats something that was not touched upon since BC in a raid instance untill HfC...

I know it was a hard expansion to pass, but the raids have mostly been a great execution by blizzard (apart from silly bugs) and to be honest, i loved the wod raids way more than ToS...
I dont see how you got to the "unacceptable" conclusion
But i personnaly strongly disagree... Antorus looks to be another great one in my eyes, and looking forward to it.

Excellently, beautifully said, my friend. When I read the OPs post I got to thinking. Are there even any orcs at all on the upper floor of HFC? I ran it through in my head. To Xhul, nope demons and fel hounds. To Zakuun, nope succubi and felguard. To Iskaar, different kinds of birds. To Velhari, some really sick demonic draenei (loved that trash).

[XDurionX]

Yeah, who would've thought that a xpac called legions would have to deal with demons. I demand a refund.

[Blamblam41]

If anything, the themes of the expansions have become more narrowed. though I will miss the days of TBC where we could have multiple themes in the same expansion.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, who would've thought that a xpac called legions would have to deal with demons. I demand a refund.

With this logic, all they needed to do was put demons into Elwynn Forest and it would have satisfied you.

Tossing "loldemons" at every corner of the expansion named Legion doesn't help its narrative, structure or theme. If anything it's an over-saturation that we may never have to return to.

[Lord Pebbleton]

We haven't been playing the same game.
The concepts might be narrowed now, with not so many themes being developed, but saying that WoD and Legion are on the same scale when it comes to diversity in raiding environment means you've never played the game.
WoD was orc enslavers- orcs- fel orcs. Boring, we can all agree.
But Legion...
Emerald Nightmare= corrupted ancestral home of the druids
Trial= titan themed raid with vrykul vibe meant to close Helya's story
Nighthold= elves
Tomb= demons in a titan facility
Antorus= home of all demons
You may say that there are demon bosses sprinkled around the place and that the last two raids are demon-heavy, but face it, how believable would be an Antorus raid where not all bosses are demons? On Argus, of all places?

[Deleted]

We had 2 demon bosses in NH.... 3 if you count Guldan (though he is no demon, he had the fire theme).

What do you expect in a Legion xpac. At first you wanna have 3 raid tiers, now you are fed up by 3 raid tiers with demons? They tried different themes with EN, ToV (titans), NH (a very nice palace and not even close to a ruin. A ruin in TOS and well Antorus now. But with Antorus being on a planet occupied by legion...

I think the demons wont be a big part next xpac.

[chrisisvacant]

Fire elementals > dragon > dragons > trolls (because you forgot ZG) > bugs > bugs > undead. 7 raids, 4 major themes. Let's ignore the fact that during all of Vanilla WoW, LBRS and UBRS were both run as 15 man raid groups and Scholomance and Stratholme were both run as 10 man raid groups, because that would make 4 dragon instances and 3 undead instances in a single "expansion".

Um, were you even there? Because no.

- - - Updated - - -

Kinda bizarre the OP forgot ZA and ZG.

[Soluna]

I mean, aside from all the amazing points other made, like how WoD raids aren't more repetitive than other expansion raids (especially with Wotlk having 3 raids undead, 3 raids dragons... uggggh), I'd like to say that Nighthold is mostly Night elven, and not demonic, it really didn't feel that demonic to me. Then ToS is the real demonc presence, but even then, there are some nice switch ups, with naga forces and night elven forces. Next Antorus, sure it has tons of demonic presence, but it's the last fight against the legion (for now at least), and even then, there are some 'titan' focused fights. Wotlk wasn't different in that regard, if anything it was even worse.

[Cronovey]

Um, were you even there? Because no.

- - - Updated - - -

Kinda bizarre the OP forgot ZA and ZG.

Perhaps you should try looking up some information about these dungeons?

Patch 1.3.0 capped UBRS and LBRS as 15 man instances and Stratholme and Scholomance as 10 man instances.
Patch 1.10.0 capped UBRS and LBRS as 10 man instances and Stratholme and Scholomance as 5 man instances.

From the 1.10 patch notes:

High-Level Instance Changes

Along with the new Armor Sets, the high-level 5-10 man dungeons have received some changes regarding loot. Many items have been improved in quality and use. In addition, several epic items, such as Headmaster's Charge and the Runeblade of Baron Rivendare, have had their drop rates significantly increased. In order to preserve the challenge of these dungeons, they have had their instance caps lowered. Stratholme, Scholomance, and Blackrock Depths now allow a maximum of five players inside, and Blackrock Spire allows a maximum of ten.

All 3 of these dungeons (I say 3 because LBRS and UBRS were technically one dungeon at the time) were originally done by small raid teams. I remember this distinctly, having played and arranged these groups because I used to run the Scarlet Stratholme (commonly known as SS back then) for Righteous Orbs for Crusader enchants on my mage that had over 90 days of play time before BC ever released. But please, tell me more about these dungeons and how they worked.

[Darkguyver2020]

You morons are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to find shit to complain about. Troll harder.

[anon5123]

What the hell HFC did you play that it was "orcy orcs" ?

There was literally only 3 orc bosses in the entire instance

Seems you're really, really stretching to make a dumb and whiny point, OP.

[Deleted]

I don't even like wow anymore but some of these haters make me facepalm pretty hard.

The Expansion is about demons attacking. Fuck did you expect to fight in the raids if not demons?