So, what didn't work this expansion?

[Deleted]

Very interesting thread.

I can only speak for myself so I try to address what I disliked about MoP:

First the whole storyline and continent:
For me WoW has always been abou our main factions and races but what they basically did with MoP is forgetting about that and adding Pandas everywhere. Thw whole addon was basically centered on those Pandas, you always had to deal with them and to be honest, I nevr liked them.

They were cool as a sidekick in TFT but they should have never become so important and especially not a whole addon catered to them.


Secondly:
Everything has been dumbed down alot. With the introduction of LFD it was obvious that hard heroicdungeons will not play out. If they are so hard that you will wipe a few times with a premade group of friends, they will be impossible with a random group thus the only way to not let the feature die is to reduce difficulty of dungeons since the QQ in Cata was extreme.

Now we got LFR aswell making it so easy to see the content that many players, including me, don't feel the urge to do the "real" raids because I have already seen everything and it isn't enough for me to play the whole raid again with a mob that has one attack more.

So while I had toraid and progress slowly through the content in WotLK and Cata, I didn't have to in MoP I queued for LFR and saw the whole raid content in a few hours.


Thirdly:
Class restrictions
With Caa it began that we have been forced to skill into one tree and not being able to hybrid or to skill and customize our character as we please.
There was no longer experimenting, there was no longer a way to get around a certain playstyle for a class if you didn't like it.

It dumbed down char progression and made it boring. With MoP they even went past that. We don't have a choice anymore and leveling up is not interesting anymore. 1 Telent point each 15 levels is not interesting and not char progression. We even lost spec specific spells even if if it was not optimal as a frostmage to use firebolt, it was still nice to have it.
It is even worse with Warriors, who lost every shield specific skill in Fury and Arms, no more shieldblock and revege spam when turteling, no more shield slam dispell and so on.

Classes even lost signature skills they had since the begining and defined the class, for exemple Intercept has been completely removed.

This leads me to:


Fourthly:
Alts are not fun anymore.
There is nothing fun left in leveling an alt. Cata has basically destroyed alt leveling with teh revomp of teh zones. The zones are so linear and so boring that it is just not fun to level anymore. Also as a veteran player the massive revamp disconected me from the roots of the game, destroyed my nostalgia that drove me to play another alt, just to see the old zones again I "grew up" with.

his coupled with the removal of talent trees and only one choice every 15 levels made it evenmore boring and unrewarding.



So my conclusion to the massive drop in subs is basically this:

The subs that have been lost are probably mostly veteran players who just don't feel "home" in this game anymore.
Basically everything that made WoW interesting for them has been changed, dumped down or replaced.

For me personally the massive changes in the game systems, world and classes that took place with the beginning of Cata or end of Wotlk are the reasons.

To some extend I think Ghostcrawler can be blaimed, not because his changes were bad but because they drove WoW into a completely different direction than before making it basically a completely different, easier, game that is no longer the game I used to love.

[Deleted]

Maybe a few patches ago it wasn't alt friendly, but now it's probably the most alt friendly expansion to exist. I have like 9 pretty decent geared level 90's at the moment.

[Deleted]

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.

I'm sorry but this is and has been BS, since the release of MoP. Yes it took somewhat longer than previous expansions to gear up an alt, but nothing as "hard/long/difficult" as you claim.

I do agree with you on the replayable content, which is a bitch, since Cata. Actually its from the introduction from LFD tool in WotLK. That is when the challenging gameplay became boring and lost its MMO feel. Why? Everything had to be able to be steamrolled by players because communication is/was the hardest part. While in TBC and Vanilla, effort was payed with the best items and pride. Also we already had difficulty settings, as in the Tiers themselves. Kara and Gruul were easier than SCC/TK, those were easier than BT/SW. It didn't matter that you didn't DO sunwell. You could see it on youtube or something. Since it could just have been a "Bridge to far".

These days it resembles a Single Player game through LFR and LFD. And if you have ever played a single player game then you wont play it more than 2/3 times, else it gets boring.

Berioh

[Deleted]

Dailies in the beginning of MoP were boring as hell and took about 2 hours to complete them all (I was blood specced early mop ) and it's terrible to have alts now :|

[Felarion]

For me alot of things they add are nice. Quicker patches, intresting raiding, however i just don't like mop asian theme, tiers looks etc. That's why i don't enjoy it so much.

[Surfd]

Sigh. Precisely the "herp derp" I was referring to earlier.

Someone disagrees with you: Automatically label them a "herp derp" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and blissfully ignore the fact that your opinion is not a fact. Nice discussion strategy there friend.

Problem is that they are trying to tell a story that no one is really interested about. In contrary to what you believe, people playing a fantasy game want to hear about dungeons and dragons, not furries and ponies.

Nice to know that you speak for every single WoW player with your pointless and meaningless sweeping generalizations. Plenty of us seem to be enjoying ourselves, despite your determined efforts to convince us that we shouldnt be. Also, I really want my pony. You said there were ponies, and I havent seen them, so obviously blizzard has not delivered.

There is also such thing as overexplaining. Especially with a boring story.

Make up your mind, would you. First the lore is bad, and we have "uinispired baddies" popping unexplained out of the woodwork, then there is too much lore and things are being over explained? Pick one and stick with it would you.

Also, I am quite enjoying the current story about internal conflict, the nature of leadership, and watching the horde / alliance evolve. I am not expecting high art here, but they have a definate direction they are going, and watching things play out has been worth the 15 bucks a month.

Newsflash: the whole MoP exists because of a "tiny vocal minority" of fanatics screamed it everywhere. In fact I believe most players were more like "oh, they can't possibly come up with something that stupid" and didn't bother to take part in the flame war... until it was too late to change course. That's exactly how stupid decisions are made in real life too.

Oh for the love of god. Given how far blizzard has most of this shit planned out in advance, MoP was likely already in story and content phazes LONG before your so called "tiny vocal minority" even started talking about it. If you honestly believe Blizzard created an entire expantion based on the fanboy dreams of a few vocal forum fanatics, then I can only conclude that you are dilusional at best.

Quoting your own words... YOU may like it, but that does not mean EVERYONE agrees with you. You like MoP. Most people don't. And it's indeed people like you who are responsible for the sorry state of the game. Of course you can't understand it if you are into pandas, pokemon and other stupid shit and masturbate on Gina Mudclaw's picture every night. YOU are part of the problem, not the solution. Deal with it. Or cry me a river. It won't change it.

Carefull, your obvious bias against the content based purely on the fact that it has pandas in it is showing. I mean, really, in a game with Squid Goats, Wolf people, Cow people, a couple varieties of Bird people, Snake people Pig People, Fish people and probably a dozen others i missed, you seem to really have a hate on for the Pandas.

And yes, if me enjoying myself is responsible somehow for the current "sorry state of the game", because I like the story, and dont have a problem with a bunch of laid back Panda people, then go me.

Couldnt possibly have anything to do with any one of at least a dozen or so more plausible reasons. Has to be panda people and a storyline that doesnt involve the Alliance and the Horde mindlessly fighting eachother at every turn.

[Osmeric]

PvE players for the most part will continue paying a subscription for mundane things in the game because they have no self control. PvP players however will react to huge changes in PvP. If a class gets overpowered they'll roll FOTM for fun. This last patch however broke the PvP backbone of the game by making resilience and pvp power worthless. It's like Blizzard decided it was a mistake or something and decided PvE gear even crafted is the best gear for PvP.

I suspect what they saw was large numbers of PvE players (mostly LFR heroes) who reached the PvP part of the legendary quest chain and then went... "ok, I'm done with this." So they asked themselves "how can we make PvP less painful for LFR heroes?" and that was their solution.

[K i s u]

I've been enjoying the majority of MoP, the main problem I've had is the snag in leveling another alt and replay value which is always my main timesink of playtime near the end of an expansion so I've been playing less and less lately.

[Sturmbringe]

Newsflash: the whole MoP exists because of a "tiny vocal minority" of fanatics screamed it everywhere. In fact I believe most players were more like "oh, they can't possibly come up with something that stupid" and didn't bother to take part in the flame war... until it was too late to change course. That's exactly how stupid decisions are made in real life too.

Quoting your own words... YOU may like it, but that does not mean EVERYONE agrees with you. You like MoP. Most people don't. And it's indeed people like you who are responsible for the sorry state of the game. Of course you can't understand it if you are into pandas, pokemon and other stupid shit and masturbate on Gina Mudclaw's picture every night. YOU are part of the problem, not the solution. Deal with it. Or cry me a river. It won't change it.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Tbh, I have lost hope that Blizzard will ever produce a quality Warcraft expansion.

Knowing what Blizzard has become, next expansion will probably be about Bubble Bobble Dragons, Naruto, Ponies or [insert manga title here]. Possibly even about gangnam style, why not. It is fun, asian and a lot of kids love it.

[SL1200]

Warrior tanking in mop is awful and boring as hell. I have 3 useless warriors because the class isn't any fun to play anymore.

[Deleted]

I agree too, so alt unfriendly, I have 4 level 90s each one of them was a grind, a terrible grind from 85 to 90, and the only reason I did level them in some cases was for professions, damn I mean I still have 5 others to level to 90, at the moment I just can't entertain the thought, furthermore the zones really bore me now, the continent is too small, and too samey IMO.

Also RNG has played a huge factor for this expac, I don't like luck based things, it's unfair, we all see those threads about people exemely far behind on legendary quest because of RNG, myself including.

[Lime]

You like MoP. Most people don't.

Man, I would absolutely love a source for such a claim. Or are you just making it up to try to bolster your point as every other MoP hater seems to do?

[Deleted]

The legendary questline felt neither legendary not was it fun. Both the metagem and the cloak are such massive upgrades, tying them to RNG droprates is simply insulting. My Mage is on the Secrets for 14 weeks now, at 18/20.

Not only is it horrible for Mains, it's equally horrible for alts or rerolls. It's one long grind that could take you anywhere from, say, 6-8 weeks to complete to 30+ weeks.

Another thing about that questline that I disliked is how quickly the Sha-touched gems became obsolete. They should've allowed us to insert them in the Prismatic Sockets.

The other thing I felt did not work was the Thunderforged idea. Not only is it a loot master/system nightmare, with people saving their loot currency for a chance on a TF item while passing normal upgrades, but it's just one more artificial change that keeps us running the grind treadmill longer than we did in the past. In the past, your HC BIS bracers were BIS if they dropped in HC. Now they are most likely normal, and not worth spending your valor on, or they have a slight chance of being HC TF.

[draykorinee]

Man, I would absolutely love a source for such a claim. Or are you just making it up to try to bolster your point as every other MoP hater seems to do?

His source is more than likely pulled from the same place he poops from.

[Deleted]

-affly revamp was a fail
-green fire quest is a huge letdown
-pandaland has nothing to do with wow. both the setting and lore have not much to connect to the wow universe
-raids are good awful boring, but that is a preference choice so don't take seriously
-85-90 questing is yet again a horrible grindfest
-pvp has never been more frustrating
-new talent tree is depressingly boring
-too much focus on pet balance, yet they again do not listen to the pvp playerbase since the beta

[Tyrannica]

I blame the departure from the games established style and lore... pandaria is too colorful and it's inhabitants too cartoony and cliche.

I barely made it out of jade forest without canceling my account, the damn Hozen made me feel like i was playing a disney channel cartoon or something.

its just copied china with 2 legged, speaking pandas. They even included the chinese wall. And unlike the 2 previous expansions there was only 1 boring starting zone. Some of the quests were innovative though, but several were not.

just for zones and leveling/quests i still prefere cata, its just a great choice to either go underwater or to hyjal and still have quality quests.

The best thing in the world would be an improved outland like continent with diverse zones and 2 complete different starting zones again.

[Syran]

Carefull, your obvious bias against the content based purely on the fact that it has pandas in it is showing. I mean, really, in a game with Squid Goats, Wolf people, Cow people, a couple varieties of Bird people, Snake people Pig People, Fish people and probably a dozen others i missed, you seem to really have a hate on for the Pandas.

There are tons of differences between how panda-people and all the other -people were presented and marketed. None of the previous squids, goats and cow people are so obviously based on some real culture, including all the stereotypes and cliches that come along with it (goofy animations and drunken behaviour feel so cheap, the dwarves are far better at playing resident drunks). None of them had a whole expansion dedicated to them (not to the extent of MoP and pandaren), even though they played a far far bigger role in previous Warcraft games. And after all, Warcraft has always been a western themed medieval style fantasy game, suddenly changing the focus to far east so dramatically is bound to get a lot of people disappointed and upset.

[Tazila]

WotLK I had 6 max level alts
Cata I had 8 max level alts

Currently in MoP, I have my main at 90 and one max level alt, in which after realizing I'm going to have to suffer through LFR until the luck fairy grants me gear, I decided that I didn't really want to play on an alt, and it's not the lack of fast gear for my alt that turns me off, it's the fact you can somehow still wipe to LFR stonegaurd and elegon just drives me insane, and the thought that there's still HoF to do and then back into ToT... Oh gods.

This killed my want to level in any other alts, and at this point I only log into my main for guild raid and to check to see who is on Real ID.






Also, I'm a fan of less in more. While they seem to have offered a lot of things to do, pet battles, scenerios, challenge modes, the solo battle arena, rares around pandaria, etc. None of those things have really been able to keep my interest, I've tried all of them except challenge modes due to not enough people doing them and it just never held me.

Got bored with pet battles when I kept being que'd against people "my level" with pets clearly better than mine, then got bored flying around fighting pets in the world.
At no point could I get into scenerios.
Challenge modes - Not enough people on my server/friendslist doing them after the first month of MoP.
Arena Solo Battle thing - Got to rank 7 and got the ticket and then didn't care about it anymore
Rares around Pandaria - Can solo most of them and none of them really have anything my main needs anymore...


Everyone's different though, my likes most likely aren't the likes of most of the players, so that's just my opinion on things, but this expac has been rough on my liking of the game. I want to keep liking it, but it's becoming very hard to.

[Tyrannica]

-affly revamp was a fail
-green fire quest is a huge letdown
-pandaland has nothing to do with wow. both the setting and lore have not much to connect to the wow universe
-raids are good awful boring, but that is a preference choice so don't take seriously
-85-90 questing is yet again a horrible grindfest
-pvp has never been more frustrating
-new talent tree is depressingly boring
-too much focus on pet balance, yet they again do not listen to the pvp playerbase since the beta

this sums it up pretty, well.

i mean whats hard to do it like in TBC? outland like continent with 2 starting zones as diverse as in cata, TBC PVP not every spec should have everything and bloated abilities, and actually a lore that progress the damn wow story in meaningful ways.

after unsubbing about 1-2 months ago i replayed warcraft2 beyond the dark portal and wacraft 3 and was shocked, shocked about wow how stale it is at the lore in comparission to its rts games. And how PG 12 it is...those rts games felt way darker?


and when i think about wow nowdays i think less is more? the current devs care about ridiculous minor things more than essential stuff. they care more about pets and blizzard shops and vanity items than a good story and gameplay, this game totally goes in the wrong direction.

But it seems we now have after the semi fail of the Titan project better devs again, that are focused on the next xpack, so there is a bit of a hope.

[jakeic]

His source is more than likely pulled from the same place he poops from.

where is your source that people love pandaria? the setting and the lore are not keeping people interested in the game, subs keep dropping and if people found pandas compelling they wouldn't leave. besides, MoP has been nothing but pandering, an entire expansion built off of the lowest common denominator.

what hasn't worked is the class balancing. sure classes are generally closer together in competitiveness in pve, and certainly all specs are all a lot more viable than they were in previous expansions, but this has only served to add bloat to the game and neuter the different feel of classes.