Can BfA Even Be Salvaged at This Point?

[Al Gorefiend]

I think Blizzard needs fresh developers behind their systems and actual logic to the gameplay.

Year after year, the art team, graphics team, audio team.. they KILL IT. Every time, WoW is almost carried by its epic vistas and music launching it into pop culture.

But the people creating the gameplay. Man, it's like it's either bearable or a total flop. They literally keep these people on payroll to just repeatedly break and then fix over and over again. After all, if they create the "perfect" synergy, they'd be out of a job now wouldn't they?

[Ticj]

Honestly the only thing that is making this expansion okay currently is that it's using Legion's systems (mythic+ and WQs) and has decent raiding.

[Exkrementor]

BFA has so many design flaws that fixing all of them would probably screw over the next expansion too because you have to put so many resources into bfa.

You basically need to overhaul all of the azerite system and much of the classes. Seeing what blizzard did with a 9 month beta makes this seem to be impossible.

They can implement work arounds like letting azerite armor drop in m+ and make all the azerite levels cheaper (yeah i know there is artifact knowledge but thats not enough).

I mean warfronts and islands were the big thing this expansion. They were the main selling points in the presentations. So blizzard worked 2 years for these things and they are complete and utter garbage.

Mythic+ needs to be looked at too. With this weeks affixes you can see that some dungeons were just not properly testet (or blizzard just ignored all the feedback which seems to be the theme of bfa)

I am honestly expecting that they abandon bfa like they did with wod and just work on the next expansion.

[Mafic]

Honestly the only thing that is making this expansion okay currently is that it's using Legion's systems (mythic+ and WQs) and has decent raiding.

But that is the thing they are trying to ride that momentum into a new expansion without improving even what was introduced in legion (eg. mythic +). That is what makes BFa peculiar. I mean it could be argued that cata improvement to talent trees from WotLk was a disaster, so improvement doesn't always yield good results. But cata pruned Wotlk trees and in BFA WoW devs pruned mythic + benefits assuming it would be good enough if scaled back.

[Cazz17]

The only things I'm not liking are:
No emissary caches.
No loot from expeditions.

[Mafic]

BFA has so many design flaws that fixing all of them would probably screw over the next expansion too because you have to put so many resources into bfa.

You basically need to overhaul all of the azerite system and much of the classes. Seeing what blizzard did with a 9 month beta makes this seem to be impossible.

They can implement work arounds like letting azerite armor drop in m+ and make all the azerite levels cheaper (yeah i know there is artifact knowledge but thats not enough).

I mean warfronts and islands were the big thing this expansion. They were the main selling points in the presentations. So blizzard worked 2 years for these things and they are complete and utter garbage.

Mythic+ needs to be looked at too. With this weeks affixes you can see that some dungeons were just not properly testet (or blizzard just ignored all the feedback which seems to be the theme of bfa)

I am honestly expecting that they abandon bfa like they did with wod and just work on the next expansion.

True, but I think they can do simple fixes with hot fixes and with patch updates with patch 8.1, patch 8.1.5 and patch 8.2. Beyond that I would not be surprised if they consider cutting their losses and looking forward.

[Stacie]

I think BFA is fine from a social perspective. It has allot of problems though feels more like a big legion patch rather than new expan. Island Expo got boring fast and now just seems like an annoying grind, warfronts i still don't get at all. Why cant i sign up to them with guild or a large group of friends? Why cant i loose? Why does it seem like a mid expan catch up for gear?

Raiding right now seems kinda pointless also. Normal raids are dead, just do mythic+ or pvp or warfronts for the same or better gear. Same with heroic/mythic. You can just sit in warfronts and get lucky with titanforges or run a few m+ with friends maybe some pvp.

[Steelangel]

Salvaged? I’m having fun. Forget you all.

[Skyforge1]

I'm loving my experience so far, at the end of the day the internet is a pretty negative place

[Th3Scourge]

The problem for me is the new expansion features of azerite armour and expeditions are unrewarding and warfronts are too rewarding for an afk fest.

The problem also lies with the way gear is being distributed. for example:

- lowest bracket 0 - 1399 pvp providing heroic uldir rewards
- WQ bosses providing heroic uldir rewards
- warfront turn-in providing mythic uldir reward and rares/victory (which is guaranteed) providing mythic+ 340+ loot aka catch-up mechanics

If the azerite system is improved in 8.1 it would be a step in the right direction. Right now I'm sitting at HoA level 21 and have no intention of grinding out any more AP because there is zero incentive to do so.

On a positive, Mythic+ is challenging and rewarding and Uldir is very enjoyable

[RoKPaNda]

Ah yes, classes being braindead and pruned to the bone is "feels," but God forbid the Mythic+ caches have an issue!


Fury has felt like garbage since Heroic Strike got the axe. The rework around Rampage in Legion felt completely lackluster, but was offset by CD stacking + Odyn's Fury. We're in a place now where Fury is one of the few specs that's actually fluid but it's just mindless.

I would talk about DKs, but I think we can just leave it at: "lol @ Frost Downtime and the spec being completely BoS-centered."

With regard to content that actually requires skill, Warriors lost disarm and spell reflect baseline and now have to burn talents on them. Stances are gone (unless you want to burn a talent as Arms) which dumbs down gameplay immensely. Fury also lost DBTS, in the name of "class fantasy." Banners got the axe which could actually be pretty impactful when used correctly.

Really, you're just being blatantly obtuse if your main, post-6.0 has felt like anything but a hollow shell of its former self.


Oh look, it's the "alarmists said some things before so your complaints are illegitimate." How'd that work out for the game in WoD? Don't worry though, I still remember that you criticized them for Mythic+ caches, you rebel!

Yes the same stale complaints that have been screamed from the forums for the past 20 years can safely be discarded. It's just tired whining with no substance.

Warrior has always been a very straightforward class, I've mained one pretty much since the start. Fury was the original 5 button spec with a couple cooldowns. Stance dancing in PvP as arms was important, I'll give you that. Otherwise, warrior has never required much brain power. Even in PvP, arenas after season 1 became "have mace, spamstring, gg."

Warriors have had a lot of changes, but we haven't lost anything of value. Stances were completely irrelevant for most of this game's life so far, the banners were a cute idea that they tried to flesh out class fantasy but weren't popular. Disarm and spell reflect were largely worthless in PVE. Arms and Fury have felt fantastic for the last couple of expansions.

Aside from outliers like feral druid at times what specs do you think weren't braindead? Specs with convoluted rotations that didn't put out near enough damage to justify the headache? I personally can't think of any really. It has always been "Here are your handful of abilities worth using and here is all this extra shit that you'll never use and will just take up bar space." Do you want them to just throw absolutely worthless abilities in all the classes so you can have the illusion of choice?

[Wildpantz]

Islands and warfronts suck rest is great.

[Derpleton]

Well right now I'd say we're looking at this ranking imo

Wrath > Legion > TBC > MoP > Cata > BfA > WoD

BfA is currently battling WoD for the bottom of the dumpster. It's really odd that it should be too because I think a few more months of dev time maybe would've put it up with TBC/MoP but ultimately for me this comes down to the following issues.

Island Expeditions are unrewarding
Warfronts are boring
The story has been a bit scattered and unfocused
Warfronts are over rewarding
Azerite Gear is a complete shitfest
Because Warfronts are over rewarding content like Heroic Dungeons, Mythic 0 Dungeons, LFR etc. are basically dead since they reward less.
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and more Bugs
There's no sign of 8.1

I think there being no sign of 8.1 is the big one that will determine whether BfA gets a shot at challenging WoD for the bottom. Patch 7.1 was on the PTR 2 weeks after Legion Launched and released 6 weeks after launch. If 8.1 was following this time table then it'd be out on October 30th. But clearly its not, we know literally nothing about it. So I think what we could potentially be looking at here is patch 8.1 in January with Azshara's raid (Like Nighthold), but then what? First of all that means no new content for 15 weeks which is a huge break from the way Legion delivered content. It also begs the question of who we fight in 8.2 and 8.3. Surely, N'zoth will get his own raid, presumably the final one but's hard to see who or what could serve as the ToS of BfA and come between Azshara and N'zoth. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised with some twist in the story and a decent villian/mid tier. That or the more pessimistic side of me is right and we're only getting 2 patches (8.1 Azshara and 8.2 N'zoth)

[Knslyr]

Islands and warfronts suck rest is great.

Pretty much.
Although I do think Warfronts are well made, the problem is the 19 other people. If it was singleplayer it would be a lot more fun. Now its just a rush fest and anything you do in there feels meaningless since you complete it so fast.

[Thetruth1400]

I'm not sure I understand your comment...we raid two nights a week once for 2 hours another for 3 hours.

My mistake, I thought you were implying you spend 5 hours on the one boss in addition to a complete clear of normal difficulty.

[Deleted]

Salvaged?

Just fix the bugs and it's fine.

This.

Sure, some reward tuning might be necessary for islands and warfronts, but it's not the drama the kiddies want it to be.

[Deleted]

" it seems like reception to BfA has been pretty [I]mixed."

" It seems to me like BfA is flopping hard..."

" Azerite Gear simply isn't interesting".

And so on and so forth... Yet another "expert" providing a detailed analysis of of all the issues the game currently is dealing with. Okay lol, just one question : HOW do they have to fix all of that ? Any answers ?

Nothing but opinions and subjective bs, moving on...

Every time someone come up with a creative way to fix things, it's either buried under a pile of "i disagree posts" with no input, or is derailed because apparently people would rather things stay the same, so they can whine about things staying the same.

If all the flaws were fixed, the problem would be something else. Like there's too much to do, my alts can't keep up, i can't figure out the azerite system, i think PvP or PvE awards too much ilvl! it will never stop.

Because at the end of the day, it's not about if you are having fun or not, it's about making the current systems even better. If you like the current azerite system, power to you, but it does not mean it cannot be improved. You like the expansion? Good for you, it does not mean it cannot be improved upon to make it fun for even more players, including the ones thinking it's already fun.

[Acidz]

8.4, to be released early 2020, will fix it. Just be patient until then and keep handing them your money.

[Mafic]

Well right now I'd say we're looking at this ranking imo

Wrath > Legion > TBC > MoP > Cata > BfA > WoD

BfA is currently battling WoD for the bottom of the dumpster. It's really odd that it should be too because I think a few more months of dev time maybe would've put it up with TBC/MoP but ultimately for me this comes down to the following issues.

Island Expeditions are unrewarding
Warfronts are boring
The story has been a bit scattered and unfocused
Warfronts are over rewarding
Azerite Gear is a complete shitfest
Because Warfronts are over rewarding content like Heroic Dungeons, Mythic 0 Dungeons, LFR etc. are basically dead since they reward less.
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and more Bugs
There's no sign of 8.1

I think there being no sign of 8.1 is the big one that will determine whether BfA gets a shot at challenging WoD for the bottom. Patch 7.1 was on the PTR 2 weeks after Legion Launched and released 6 weeks after launch. If 8.1 was following this time table then it'd be out on October 30th. But clearly its not, we know literally nothing about it. So I think what we could potentially be looking at here is patch 8.1 in January with Azshara's raid (Like Nighthold), but then what? First of all that means no new content for 15 weeks which is a huge break from the way Legion delivered content. It also begs the question of who we fight in 8.2 and 8.3. Surely, N'zoth will get his own raid, presumably the final one but's hard to see who or what could serve as the ToS of BfA and come between Azshara and N'zoth. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised with some twist in the story and a decent villian/mid tier. That or the more pessimistic side of me is right and we're only getting 2 patches (8.1 Azshara and 8.2 N'zoth)

What makes the lack of patch 8.1 news worse is that WoW devs have said that patch 7.1 came out "too soon". This is why watching how WoW devs handle patch 8.1 will tell how the BFA expansion will go. We all missed the signs when patch 6.1 released but this time around players will pay close attention to what patch 8.1 offers.

[Evilmoo]

The only thing that can save bfa is a mass, coordinated sub cancelation in protest. That's not going to happen - so no, bfa is beyond saving.