Why Legion seems to be better received than WoD

[Revamp Man]

It was actually the complete opposite. The developers had listened to the players prior to making warlords. It's also really hard to see the legion being the quality expansion you are discribing.



It was a huge step back quality and content wise, but that doesnt stop the players on this forum from worshipping it.

are you saying that WoD had better content than legion....it had one wave of dungeons and 3 raids....

legion has come out with a dungeon every patch plus the m+ system and the first tier had 3 raids

in WoD if you wanted challenging content you had raids and thats it because mythic dungeons were a very late addition and ashran was trash

in legion you have raids and M+ and pvp brawls and heck if you want to be super casual you even have argus invasions

[Akka]

You are making 2 big assumptions:

1) Legion didn't also have 10 million subs at launch;
2) Current subscriber base is not higher than late WoD subscriber base.

You are unable to prove or confirm either of them, and any semblance of evidence points the other way (player activity is significantly higher in Legion than WoD).

Actually, player activity today is lower than it was late WoD.
(though it also points at Legion reaching 10m at release too)

[Revamp Man]

They literally gave you everything you could wish for in the expansion, but you are still going to complain just for the sake of complaining.

gave everything except dungeons taht remain relevant throughout the expansion
meaningful outdoor content
anything other than constant raiding

[rda]

You are making 2 big assumptions:

1) Legion didn't also have 10 million subs at launch;
2) Current subscriber base is not higher than late WoD subscriber base.

You are unable to prove or confirm either of them, and any semblance of evidence points the other way (player activity is significantly higher in Legion than WoD).

Blizzard stopped publishing sub numbers, but there is more than enough data surrounding the game to roughly gauge where the numbers are.

With that:

1. It is absolutely clear that Legion didn't have 10 million subs at launch. Maybe it had 7.

2. It is absolutely clear that Legion had the exact same behavior that WoD had in that after a month or two, players started leaving the game in big numbers and in a few more months the game reduced to around half of what it was at the launch spike. This is called "it's seasonal" and this largely wasn't happening before WoD or Legion (half-happened in MoP, nothing before MoP).

BFA is heading in the same direction - maybe 5 million spike at first, then down to 2 million or so, deeper than Legion similarly to how Legion dove deeper than WoD.

[Akka]

If I remember the earning calls correctly, Legion had similiar subscriber numbers at the start and they decayed slower than WoDs subscriber numbers did.

No, the wording was (purposedly ?) confusing.
They spoke of numbers being better "year on year", but it's unclear if it means "three months after Legion compared to three months after WoD" or "last three months of this year compared to last three months of last year". So they could just have been saying that the game had more activity three months after the release of Legion than during the last year of WoD. Which, is, hu, pretty expected.

[SirCowdog]

WoD started with over 10 million subscribers, and after the expansion's performance, this number collapsed to about 5 million and lower.

The remaining few million players are mostly passionate veterans of WoW, and because of this passion, any change is magnified. So they see 1 extra patch from WoD as extraordinary. Only problem is that these are mostly the only players remaining, so there is a bias towards threads portraying Legion being a good expansion, despite millions of dissatisfied players leaving in the last year or two who are not voicing their opinions since they are no longer around.

In summary, most of the remaining players are irrationally optimistic about the game which leads to a positive bias towards the quality of Legion.

No, it's because WoD was a steaming pile of hairy dog crap polished up just enough to run a hype train so blizzard could cash grab. Whereas Legion has some actual game improvements, lots of dungeons, and alternatives to raid only nonsense.

Don't get me wrong here, Legion has its warts too. Over use of RNG in the loot system, the Pathfinder lockout based on arbitrary time instead of player speed. And AP not being account wide. But overall it's a MUCH better product.

[Tamurello]

mythic plus saved wow

[Kolvarg]

you can only see unofficial activity numbers on http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1 and they are worse then they were at the end of wod

Actually, they are not.

Current:
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weekly...hp?serverid=-1
Average around ~400

2016/07/30 (Legion released 2016/08/30):
https://web.archive.org/web/20160730...hp?serverid=-1
Average around ~300

And this has been a recurrent trend throughout Legion. Of course, one would argue that this is simply caused by Legion having a lot more to do than WoD (World quests, Mythic dungeons). Nevertheless, the player activity is significantly higher.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, player activity today is lower than it was late WoD.
(though it also points at Legion reaching 10m at release too)

See above. Got any source proving otherwise?

[Deleted]

WoD started with over 10 million subscribers, and after the expansion's performance, this number collapsed to about 5 million and lower.

The remaining few million players are mostly passionate veterans of WoW, and because of this passion, any change is magnified. So they see 1 extra patch from WoD as extraordinary. Only problem is that these are mostly the only players remaining, so there is a bias towards threads portraying Legion being a good expansion, despite millions of dissatisfied players leaving in the last year or two who are not voicing their opinions since they are no longer around.

In summary, most of the remaining players are irrationally optimistic about the game which leads to a positive bias towards the quality of Legion.

Do you have subscriber numbers at each point of the expansions? No, you're only assuming things.

There is no bias, the evidence is quite clear and supported by actual facts and features of each.

They both had good raids, WoD maybe had better but fewer.
WoD had better zones (personal opinion)

The difference and what makes Legion far better is that outside of raiding and leveling WoD only had Garrisons which provided nearly no active gameplay and Challenge Modes which provided little incentive to re-do them once Gold was achieved. WoD's patches also, outside of a new raid consisted of only 1 zone with a few quests.
Legion on the other has World Quests, Class Campaign + Artifacts including challenges and Mythic+ and it's patches consisted of an additional zone, an additional larger zone with 3 sub-zones (Argus), significantly more quests and world quests in each, 3 additional dungeons and the *lol* chromie scenario.

Bottom line, supported by facts, Legion provided significantly more content.

[Loosecannon]

Having a look at the elements which most people consider 'content':

Zones:
WoD was a case of 'once you're done levelling, you basically don't need to leave your garrison' and only had one additional zone over the course of the expansion.
Legion had 2 post release zones (I liked them, but I know they were perceived differently), and also an entirely max-level zone with one of the best received story arcs/setups I've seen since I've been playing WoW.

Dungeons:
WOD had 8 Dungeons (one of which was rehashed UBRS) and only normal/heroic for the majority of the expansion.
Legion has 14 Dungeons (13 if you count Kara as only 1). Kara you could potentially count as a re-hash, although it was a complete redesign, they all have at least 3 modes, as well as infinitely scaling M+, providing a constant source of challenge. They have also implemented some new changes in these dungeons making them more involved (profession buffs etc in CoS, using the rat mounts in Kara).

Raids:
WoD had 3 raids, admittedly they are all considered to be *very* good.
Legion has 5 raids, and they are more of a mixed bag.

To me, it looks like on 2 of the 3, it would be hard to argue that WoD was better (however all of these things are entirely subjective).

I can see why other things frustrate people, the Legendary RNG was badly designed, and should never have been allowed to happen, and the AP grind in the earlier parts of the expansion was a complete shitshow. I also think most would agree that titanforging made raid balance really difficult.

However, i'd happily take that for the ability to have meaningful content to do outside of raiding. I think M+ is a really good addition to the game, and particularly Suramar was much better lore-wise than anything which WoD offered. That being said, WoD is the only time since I've been playing the game where I've actively levelled alts and actually played them at max level, due to the fact that there was next to nothing to do if you only had 1 character. I haven't touched any of my alts in Legion.

In terms of sub numbers - it's impossible to gauge what's happening, because Blizzard don't publish numbers any more, but if you look at every expansion since WOTLK, there's been a big spike initially on release and then a drop off thereafter. If your assumption is correct that legion now has less subs did than WOD did at a similar point, I don't think there's any surprise in that, as WoW subs in general are on a downtrend and have been since the end of WOTLK. Such a decrease would be a trend which is based on the overall trend of WoW as a product as a whole, rather than the impact of any particular expansion.

[Kolvarg]

Blizzard stopped publishing sub numbers, but there is more than enough data surrounding the game to roughly gauge where the numbers are.

With that:

1. It is absolutely clear that Legion didn't have 10 million subs at launch. Maybe it had 7.

2. It is absolutely clear that Legion had the exact same behavior that WoD had in that after a month or two, players started leaving the game in big numbers and in a few more months the game reduced to around half of what it was at the launch spike. This is called "it's seasonal" and this largely wasn't happening before WoD or Legion (half-happened in MoP, nothing before MoP).

BFA is heading in the same direction - maybe 5 million spike at first, then down to 2 million or so, deeper than Legion similarly to how Legion dove deeper than WoD.

Well, what is that data then? Stating that it is "absolutely clear" is not data nor evidence. I imagine quite the opposite, that Legion is doing at leas as well, possibly better than WoD.

Also, regarding the "seasonal" trend not happening before WoD, that's untrue. It started at the very least with MoP (launch spike then decline throughout the expansion), and it's noticeable already with Cataclysm. I could say that it's "absolutely clear" that the most likely explanation is that as the game aged more people started leaving and less people started joining, but you'll just state the opposite so not sure there's much point =P

[jellmoo]

The problem with threads like this one are that they start with a conclusion, build a narrative around it, cherry pick "facts" to present as supporting evidence and then twist those "facts" (that can be interpreted in multiple ways) so that they match the initial conclusion. Unfortunately the breadcrumb trail is too thin, and doesn't really support the initial conclusion.

[Forgottenone]

WoD set the bar pretty freaking low, Legion as a whole was a good expansion but once you compared it to WoD it seemed like the best thing ever for some.

[Gaidax]

I don't need to prove claims that I never made.

You are the one making wild claims there about how the few millions that remained apparently are some sort loyalists who would praise anything as long as it is not a total wreck.

Legion is better perceived that WoD is for a very simple reason - Legion is objectively a lot better than WoD ever was. WoD was literally raid or die, Legion retains WoD's stellar raid setup but also adds a lot of great stuff to do outside raiding.

[HuxNeva]

Wel I quit the game in WoD, a travestiy that should be balefired out of WoW history. I came back about 3 weeks after the legion launch, as I wanted to be absolutely sure they had turned a page before subscribing again. I find Legion to be one of the, if not THE best expansion ever.

[ZazuuPriest]

Mythic Plus

The end

[Wallmaker Yahzarah]

WoD started with over 10 million subscribers, and after the expansion's performance, this number collapsed to about 5 million and lower.

The remaining few million players are mostly passionate veterans of WoW, and because of this passion, any change is magnified. So they see 1 extra patch from WoD as extraordinary. Only problem is that these are mostly the only players remaining, so there is a bias towards threads portraying Legion being a good expansion, despite millions of dissatisfied players leaving in the last year or two who are not voicing their opinions since they are no longer around.

In summary, most of the remaining players are irrationally optimistic about the game which leads to a positive bias towards the quality of Legion.

LOL Love these people with their undetermined, untraceable statistic. Might be true... most likely not. But I personally find it hilarious that someone would try to soap box without definitive proof that something isnt doing well outside of stating... "about", "remaining few" "... and lower".


Also, "most of the remaining players are irrationally optimistic about the game"? Really...? Have you not read the forums? No? I think you STFU and go learn some perspective on satellite opinion of yours, orbiting some other game that wishes it was as big as wow's failures in comparison to its milestones. It's cool to hate things. Freedom. Whatever... Dont attack everyone for their bias-ness, when your clearly pushing your own biased opinion of wow onto others to forced them to agree with an underlining opinion with obvious intention. You think wow is a failure. Thats cool. You want everyone to agree. Thats cool. But...! You have no definitive proof other than sketchy neutral-ish words. You have literal proof. Just your feels. Which should be the highlight of what you are trying to say. "Just my opinion".

[Doffen]

Why Legion seems to be better received than WoD:

Because it is better. If its received by most players as better than WoD, most likely it is better. Rocket science.

[Nutri]

despite millions of dissatisfied players leaving in the last year or two who are not voicing their opinions since they are no longer around

Last time I checked Blizzard didn't report numbers anymore. Your opinion leans towards being based on assumption.

[kaamila]

I hated WoD because of garrison and missions. Because you could equip your garrison with everything you needed(vendors/AH), no one went to the main cities anymore. With garrisons being phased, you just sat there by yourself waiting for raids/queues to pop. It stopped feeling like an MMO to me so I quit. Class Halls was a welcome change and the main hubs(Dalaran) came back. I hated Legion because of AP grind, and random legendary drops. Feelsbad when you play the same or more than the other person, but they have 3-4 legendaries and you have 1.