It feels like Blizzard is slowly abbandoning this MMO

[ovm33]

I don't like Argus. Least fun patch for me since the Firelands. Going to wait til next week to get the rest of the story then unsubbing until next xpac.

I dislike Argus for a lot of reasons. Grindy, RNG, tired of the choked full o' mobs feel, annoying travel. We all know the list - my complaints are similar to those that have been posted 100 times. But all of those things exists for one simple reason imo. To make the content last. The last patch always lasts 9-12 months before the next expansion. Blizz is trying to keep us entertained (subbed) until it drops. Every expansion has a long content drought and this one will be no different.

But the fact that Blizz has now figured out that that they need to provide a years worth of content prior to next xpac should be all the clue you need that WoW is not dying. Despite the fact that I dislike the direction they took... I can at least appreciate the reasons behind it.

[Rogalicus]

It has brought new gameplay features in the invasion points

Invasion points are not really new features, it's nothing more than lazy scenario with no story where you just grind mobs. Also, most assets are from WoD.

Mac'aree being an open area steeped in history and unique environmental models and textures (void, ancient Eredar Structures, etc.)

They are not new though, most of those are yet again from WoD (namely, Talador).

Xenedar

Oshugun with Auchindoun textures.
That's why this patch feels so lazy, amount of new art is really miniscule, world quests are 'Kill rare'/'Kill 10 mobs and 1 bigger mob'/'Redo story quests, but without story this time', new dungeon just reuses Mac'Aree (which is already made from reused assets), Antorus (which isn't even released yet) is yet again uninspired dark green low detail corridors (but with some dark red this time). You'd have to wonder what the fuck were they doing for this year.

[Grenzstein]

Damn, WoW players are so whiny. It must be so frustrating to NEVER be satisfied with anything and yet spend all your time complaining about it on the forums.
I love this patch. Legion is an amazing xpack. And i have yet to find a day that i have "nothing" to do in WoW this year.

[MrFiddleswitch]

Invasion points are not really new features, it's nothing more than lazy scenario with no story where you just grind mobs. Also, most assets are from WoD.

The invasion tech is the same tech as the 7.0 launch - it is "NEW" insofar as a permanent gameplay feature.

They are not new though, most of those are yet again from WoD (namely, Talador).

You obviously missed all of western Mac'aree. Broken updated models, Broken/half void models, All new void textures, doodads, trees, etc., Ethereals new models, also 3 new demon models in the other 2 zones. I'd say that's "new" and lot more effort than anything put in any end patch in the game, ever - which was, by the way, what OP was discussing and what I was replying to.

Oshugun with Auchindoun textures.
That's why this patch feels so lazy, amount of new art is really miniscule, world quests are 'Kill rare'/'Kill 10 mobs and 1 bigger mob'/'Redo story quests, but without story this time', new dungeon just reuses Mac'Aree (which is already made from reused assets), Antorus (which isn't even released yet) is yet again uninspired dark green low detail corridors (but with some dark red this time). You'd have to wonder what the fuck were they doing for this year.

Some of Mac'aree are reused assets, many are not and many are reskinned and retextured with high rez textures - look again.

World quests are no different than Daily Quests offered in Quel'Dannas, Tanaan, and a hell of a lot more than was offered on Timeless Isles, which was just grind your face off - They are also far more varied than any daily quests of any patch in the past, let alone the "island patches". The only difference is you get far more of them and far more variations - IE: not less effort than any previous patch, but considering how many more there are - likely more effort by Developers.

The Xenedar itself is a reuse of existing, yes, but the entire land around it (which is what I was discussing) is absolutely not. The textures used for the crash site ground and debris are new and created specifically for this patch - Again something entirely unique to 7.3 - Every single expansion has re-used assets for their final outdoor zone, some (wrath) even pulled most of their enemy assets directly from vanilla - in fact, the majority of the last zone of previous expansions are ONLY re-used assets, while this one at least brings something new in the void textures/doodads/trees, ethereal, and broken sets. (Tanaan is a slight exception here as the assets used in the raid and for the demons throughout Tanaan were created for Legion and then thrown in to Tanaan - just as many of the new Void related modelsin 7.3 likely are for the upcoming expansion)

You seemed to have missed the entire point of my post though, which was speaking directly to OPs post. This patch has more included in it than any previous patch released, which suggests an increase in development, not a decrease as OP originally stated. The fact that there are ANY unique textures, models, etc. is more than any previous final patch has ever introduced.

The rest of what you said is purely your opinion. I personally find the primary hall of Antorus perfect considering it is the home citadel of the Legion (of course its going to be green!). More than that, Agrimaar's room, Eonar's room, and the Seat of Pantheon where you face Argus are all fantastic and certainly better than anything we've had in the last 3 expansions for a final boss fight, even if they use some assets from the "Titan" set - it's appropriate.

As for what new models were added this expansion. "Imp Mothers, New Fel Reavers, New Sea Giants, New Dreadlords, Storm Drakes, All Naga including Naga Brutes, Fel'doarai, new demonic spider models, new demonic spider queens (reskin of new succubus model), Nightborn and nightfallen, Nightmare Dragons and Nythendra, New Satyrs, Demonic Jailers, Demon "Destroyers" (spike backs), New Fel guard dudes (Atrigan boss in Tomb), Felhounds (not felstalkers - the hounds that are the model for the Hounds of Sargeras raid boss and the 4 new mounts as well as enemies that are reskins/remodels of it), many new Eredar reskins, 4 new shivara reskins, New Talbuks, New cat thingies (shadowstalkers?), Ur'zul, New Mana Rays, Falcosuars, Armored Jellyfish, new horse models, new Eleks, Sting rays, multiple new fish in underwater areas, Broken, shadow/void broken (remodel on the pale orc/ghast skeleton), Etherals, Troggs, unicorn wannabes, and the new little gecko looking guys on Mac'aree, the "mind worm" model - not to mention full new animations for almost every spell and melee attack animations or the high rez upgrade of turtle mounts, tigers, the new fox and fox mounts, bears, stormdrakes, rats, hippogryphs, all the high rez and unique models for class mounts. I'm sure there are plenty I've missed - but you should get the idea.

I don't think you have been paying attention to just how much was added with this expansion.

You are absolutely free to have your own opinion about if you enjoy the content or not - that is not what is up for debate in OPs post - but the fact is, there was more done for this patch (and possibly the expansion) than any previous patch in the history of the game, and if you disagree with those facts, I suggest heading back to Timeless Isle, Tanaan Jungle, Quel'Danas (comparable last patch zones) and see how little content there actually was compared to what is in 7.3.

[Deleted]

I feel "abandoning" is the wrong word to it.

Are they probably realizing that shifting resources around, as in not as many in WoW while these could be put to good use elsewhere? I'd say yes.
From that to "Abandoning WoW" is quite the stretch. It still gives them money. No way they'll take actions against it.

Last we heard, the WoW dev team expanded, absorbing many ex-overwatch mmo players (project titan). There is absolutely nothing that corroborates with what the OP is saying in practical or official terms. It's completely delusional and devoid of truth.
Even if the team downsized a bit, it's probably still bigger than it was during Wrath, the epitome of WoW. So, its all baseless speculation.

[Servasus]

Legion has had the most content and the most frequent content updates this game has literally ever received in an expansion and you claim the game is "smaller than ever."

What an insane statement. It just sounds like you're over the mmo genre and you're trying to find blame for your lack of interest rather than taking ownership of it, yourself.

[Deleted]

Well, I read a lot of posts here and I gotta say that in my opinion it's mostly 3 things that hurt WoW currently.

1) legendary system

This thing has been talked about a lot and it indeed either feels terrible or boring (if your first 2 legendaries are BiS - you're done forever, if not - you'll feel bad until you get them and what is worse, you'll literally be worse performing than same spec person with them).

2) titanforging system

Basically, almost the same as legendary system except it has even more direct effect. You wanna apply to some PUG or basically anything in this game? Did you have luck with titanforge and you are insane ilvl compared to most while maybe you're just definitely not a good player but you will get invited and carried solely on your ilvl? Grats!

Oh, you're a player that tries to min-max your secondaries, you know your skills, CDs you know each encounter inside-out but you didn't get them fat 955 rolled? Sorry!

I know there are few ways around. Every truly serious player will check Armory for it shows equipped ilvl - but why all ingame tools that look for group show ilvl in bags? Every even more serious player will check wowprogress, raider.io, warcraftlogs, I know. But Blizzard DIRECTLY supporting this approach where basically main measure of skill is in bags ilvl and achievement?

*feelsbadman.jpg here*

3) the heart of the endgame

Okay, so this is the most complex thing and again it has been talked about for years and there are many opinions, pros, cons to each side of it. What I mean by this is the tools and possibilites you have for endgame (LFR, LFG .. ) and how people approach them (this is not something Blizzard can change directly but they can do so indirectly).

I feel there are two extremes and very little middle ground between them. Players who play WoW a bit and just do "easier" content like non + mythics (maybe heroics only) and LFR. Some funky things outside like pet battles and such and that's that.

Then we have those 20+ and above keys runners and mythic raiders.

If you are anywhere in between, I feel that, you're gonna have a bad time. *iknowthatfeelbro.jpg here* Okay, surely this can be just my very, very skewed personal view. I know - GET A GUILD MAN THAT DOES EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT! STOP Q_Q LUL. But really. I know too many people around my level where we'd want to do some around +15 to + 20 keys, some enjoyable but serious heroic raiding. LFR is not for us. Mythic raiding and 23+ keys are not for us.

But what we gotta do? We gotta use tons of outside of game tools to achieve our needs and wants. Everything in game is "against us". We're "too good" for easy content. We're not good enough for the most hardcore content. Should I split my game time between farming gold and then paying the most hardcore guys to "carry me"?

Should I just run +7 keys and normal raids and be happy with it when I really am not?

Please, I know it's part QQ (fair enough) but also, if you think about it I am sure you'll realize there is some truth to it. If it really is a huge problem for WoW? Maybe not. But maybe yes because by no means I am an outstanding mythic raider, but usually I can heal in LFR and be top 5 damage at the same time. If the game helped a regular guy a bit more instead of telling him "wait for those BiS legendaries and them fat titanforges, then try again" I think a lot of us people would be a bit less.. worried about the "state of the game" and we'd be inside a lot more enjoying it

[CaptainV]

Not sure why would feel like the largest patch ever made. To me it looks like (since the day they announced it) that 7.3 would be just like another Isle of Thunder and similar patch. Zone wise, it's larger but nothing extra new to it.

Also, if Blizzard is giving up on WoW, it's not because it's easier. It's high likely because it's cost effective. Also, I heard Legion is also meant to be one of the shortest expansions. It turned out to be quite well.

Thats actually not true, blizzards entire goal with legion was apparently to avoid making it short due to how short WoD was and people hated WoD, thats why there's been so many patches in Legion.

Blizzard had hoped by giving you masses of nothing to do you basically feel like theres something. But the problem is they fail to understand artifical content is not content, this is why raids should be released on day one, not in a .5 patch 2 months later.

They dont need Mythic, they dont need LFR, just go back to normal and heroic and bring "more" raids out if the issue is making so much content for raids.

Its a simple fix.

As for Dungeons, change Mythic to Heroic+ and you have the problem solved, Make Heroic the new Mythic and again, you have the problem solved, though do make Heroics LFD queable even if Heroic+ is not.

However all this is unlikley to happen because making 4 tiers of the same content is less work, and far less effort needed. Again, proof of laziness when you can make 4 tiers of the same raid instead of 4 raids with 2 tiers.

Blizzard doesnt *want* to put the effort in any more, and if it did, then more would have gone into argus than just reusing broken shore assets and adding one new tileset for Mac'aree.

[CaptainV]

This part is just naive. You really think that an expansion that is 7 years is in development has anything to do with how players reacted in WoD?

Actually "yes" I do, it was so negatively recieved that blizzard decided rather than trying to activly make a go of the origional vision of WoD they rushed it to its ending, the same thing happened to Cataclysm.

Cata was meant to have an entire extra raid that was meant to cover the Neptulon story, it was never resolved or added because of development already moving into Firelands and the fact people were tired of underwater content.

WoD was meant to have a Shattrath raid, significantly longer story and much more depth of lore such as groups like the flowerpicker clan getting an eeire story about roofieing their enemies to death.

Instead, because people hated Orcs and the Orc theme plus the fact people were pretty bored of Orcs in general after playing SoO for a whole year without a break, the Orc theme in WoD became so stale it was obnoxious, which is the same reason the Demon theme in Legion aswell as Draenei/Night Elf heavy focus has become boring.

People want something new, fresh, and thats why the next expansion will likely be rushed out sooner than later, Legion was meant to have quite a few patches as Ion said during its development that blizzard had "No" rush when it came to Legion, they wnated to take their time to make a good expansion.

The problem was, their RNG heavy stigma created the opposite effect, people are done with the RNG bullshit and blizzard, for every effort they've tried to make RNG appealing, realize its far too late to go back and remake it, so they just made more RNG to make RNG easier yet still unrewarding.

This is why the next expansion is very unlikley to have much of the bonus roll/titanforged focus that this one does. Blizzard likely knows after 2 expansions it has not been recieved well, they DEFINATLEY wont be adding leggies again to the RNG table as nobody freaking wanted them in the first place *on* the RNG table.

So, over all...

Blizzard pretty much has given up on Legion the same way they gave up on WoD, they've decided to rush out a final patch, using reused assets from Tanaan/Broken Shores, added one new map layout for Mac'aree and reskinned old WoD assets to make it look fresh.

In other words, nothing new was added in 7.3, it was a massive reskin of current content, and in an effort to make the Demon Thing remain relevent they decided to rush Argus to its closure.

There was even a popular belief that ToS was initally meant to be the final raid, it was indeed the origional plan that ToS would be the finale, and that you'd defeat the Legion there. But Thal'dranath got scrapped for "something way cooler" as the devs said, which was Argus, which honestly is a dissapointment when you consider Ions excuse for teh boring canvas is:

"Argus is a wasteland, there wouldnt be much to look at" is more or less what hes implying in his dev commentary. Its a shame, considering that we see from Azeroth looking at the planet many shades of arcane blue, orange, purple, green, we could have had many flavors of destroyed landscape and broken fractured places.

Instead, it was just... more legion assets, and reskinned WoD content.

Do not, tell me, with a straight face, much was added in 7.3 It is basically timeless isles, recycling current content to try to make it feel new and fresh when in harsh reality its basically the same old same old.

The most we see thats new here is the void theme which will very likley get reused alot in the next expansion (and they have already said the void will be in the next expansion).

In other words, they pre-place the assets the expansion before to add them in the next one, then they call it new content when in reality its already been there before and by the end of each expansion we feel bored of what ever threat is agianst us.

The honest truth to me is that blizzards only way of fixing this at this point would be:

- Utterly crush the RNG problem by adding hundreds upon thousands of guarenteed pieces of loot, and a way to upgrade their ilevels alla the MoP System.
- Get rid of Mythic and LFR, allowing them to make MORE raids as opposed to MORE diffiuclties and longer time gates, make Heroic feel Heroic again, Normal feel casual, make Mythic dungeon difficulty into Heroic and Heroic+ become a thing.
- For the love of god, a new BG, if not 2 are needed for PvP, heavily so, not just brawls, NEW, pvp maps, with NEW, PvP objectives, not just Arenas, but actual, pvp, maps. Aswell as a new PvP Zone, as the mini world quest zones are basically just pve zones disguised as pvp zones and only the FFA pvp content is relevent at this point.
- Account wide achievement progression, not just account wide achievements, allowing alt friendly content to... feel, alt friendly, aswell as account wide rep grinds, no more boring archaic farms through the same crap 50 times over.
- Either remove the factions entirley, or redesign them from scratch, possibly add a new morality system involving the light/void as that seems to be playing heavily into the plot theme of wow, allow people to be aligned to a new type of faction choice, or alternativley, allow people to mercenary factions in world pvp and cross-faction raid/pve for faster que times and progress.
- Bonus Rolls *always* give loot, even if loot is worthless and non titanforged, at least hten you'd be actually feeling some sense of value to the loot, even if its the same bloody loot you already have. Fair tradeoff is that you loose the ability to bonus roll on a boss more than once in raid difficulties per week.
- As a compramise to the people that dont like flying and those that love it like myself, add some form of *Mount skills* as gw2 is doing, where certain mounts can temporarily fly, but only to certain altitudes, you may even *need* them to reach unaccessable parts of zones.
- More races, we need a new race even if its Vrykul or High Elves/Ogres, we need a new playable race, or at the very least, subraces, this is an especially problematic thing for people who like variation in their char customisation.
- Lastly, an improoved version of Artifact power thats basically an Account Wide PvP Prestiege system for PvE, offering mounts, transmogs, long term investment rewards that can be done on any character once you hit level cap, making content truly, alt friendly.

[nocturnus]

Kinda ridiculous opinion considering what during last 2 expansions Blizzard greatly updated game graphic/model/effects/animations. And they keep upgrading it.

Yeah, because that's something that's going to make the game more fun, right? New animations.

OP is referring to content and quite frankly, he's got a point.

It's simple, Blizzard aren't making a game players are supposed to enjoy anymore. They're making a game players are supposed to get addicted to. Every implementation of new mechanics proves as much;

- Legendaries: Need to be farmed by repeating very basic quests (cheap content), soley reliant on RNG, nevertheless crucial for performance.
- AP: Needs to be farmed by repeating very basic quests (cheap content), initial progression is fun but after reaching concordance it abruptly stops being fun. It becomes a necessary grind with no end in sight.
- Relics: Only a few types are good for your particular role. The ones that are best have a slim supply and need to be farmed ad nauseam. This, thrice, PER SPEC.

- The cherry on the topping: The Netherlight Crucible: Since farming all of the above wasn't abusive enough they went and added some more RNG to an already exhausting system. Now, it's not enough to finally have your BiS relic drop, because it might proc shitty traits in your NC, which means you'll have to do it all over, who knows how many times. Also, thrice per spec. Especially fun when your loot council finds out the relic you got won't be used due to the shit trait procs, since it can't be traded after having it pre-viewed.

- Alts? Forget about em.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty much expecting the next WoW expansion to be announced at Blizzcon soon. But if that doesn't happen then I would be inclined to agree with you, OP.