Can BfA Even Be Salvaged at This Point?

[tyrlaan]

Why are you making the assumption that those people are enjoying the game?

Because they're not here bitching and they are playing the game.

I mean its a wildly more reasonable assumption than they think the game is not salvageable and just mindlessly playing while miserable.

Also this:

Except it also happended with other expansions which are praised by the community now.

Face it. Every expansion is the same story. "Current expansion is trash. Blizzard doesn't care about the game anymore. Last expansion was better. I'm unsubbing." WoD was an exception, although people started shitting less on it since Legion launched.

I agree with constructive criticism, but most of the playerbase act like crybabies who do nothing but rage on the developers with no arguments whatsoever.

[Whatever Dude]

Ion Hazzikostas should be fired at this point. We are going to continue getting trash expansions as long as he's at the helm.

I don't like the guy's game philosophy at all.

[MinTDH]

Now I'm very confused. Now a majority of the playerbase acts like crybabies but it's still a vocal minority? @tyrlaan

[Walross]

Now I'm very confused. Now a majority of the playerbase acts like crybabies but it's still a vocal minority? @tyrlaan

You are pretty much trolling at this point.

[Motso]

I dunno what game some of you lot are playing but I am finding that queue times better than I remember them being in a long time, I amenjoying most of the questy shite. Levelling 110-120 is a breeze and quite pleasant, and you can smash from levelling junk to 335-340 in a single reset if you get lucky/bust your ass. All in all I am enjoying it, and within game it seems like that is the general consensus. Legitmately MMO-C is the only place I hear about BfA being considered bad/boring whatever. People have their complaints on FB, we all do, but not this same sort of flat out sky is falling WoW is garbage rhetoric. I mean its never gonna be a cutting edge game again folks but damn.
And the bit that confuses the piss out of me is how the pointless moaners have adopted this bizarre anti establishment 'fight the power' attitude to their whinging, as if paying for a game they despise makes them somehow cooler than those of us that enjoy the thing we exchange money and/or time for. When did that start?

[MinTDH]

You are pretty much trolling at this point.

Mods can decide that. But it doesn't seem like you have a good answer as to how that can even remotely be the case.

[Motso]

Now I'm very confused. Now a majority of the playerbase acts like crybabies but it's still a vocal minority? @tyrlaan

Majority act like it, vocal minority in here actually moaning about how terrible it all is while still paying/playing obsessively? Just a hunch

[Vlaid]

I played the expansion for about 4-8 hours, didn't even make it to 120 and unsubbed. Everything mechanically I experienced was garbage, the storytelling was great (almost always is) but god the traits, the talents, the combat slow down, removal of artifact abilities ruined the classes I used to love in Legion.

I guess I'll hit it up in the last tier of the expansion when they fix the game or wait until next expansion when they realize all the decisions they made in BFA were wrong.

[tyrlaan]

Now I'm very confused. Now a majority of the playerbase acts like crybabies but it's still a vocal minority? @tyrlaan

I mean, I said nothing like this at all, but please point out where I did.

[MinTDH]

I mean, I said nothing like this at all, but please point out where I did.

Quoting Walross, and without omitting the last sentence, you appeared to of agreed that a majority of the playerbase acts in a negative way when you were previously arguing a different position.

[Wildberry]

Except it also happended with other expansions which are praised by the community now.

"The WoW Community is 1 Person"

Because they're not here bitching and they are playing the game.

Weird, usually people that come here to bitch get flamed for "still playing the game." If they still play the game, while complaining, why should we assume that people that don't offer criticism on a third party site are just okay with everything.

Also this:

See above.

[Sluvs]

When you own a white knight epic style.



It's not the game I've been playing for a very long time. The new "endgame content" isn't compelling or rewarding in the slightest. More importantly, class design has gone completely off the rails.

When you own a white knight!... By doing exactly what he said?

[Motso]

I mean, not saying that the opinions of us (myself included) here as a group on MMO-C are completely pointless. But there has to be a reason Blizz have never, ever acknowledged it or its users as a meaningful source of... anything. Its a sounding chamber for the perpetually pissed off or whingy, whether you happen to be pissed off at the game, other players, or blizz themselves. That is all this site is. A big ol' bitchfest. One way or the other, including me, we are all doin it, right now.

[Wildberry]

When you own a white knight!... By doing exactly what he said?

The comment was tongue in cheek, but these people have gotten far too comfortable with the idea that complainers don't actually unsub.

[tyrlaan]

Weird, usually people that come here to bitch get flamed for "still playing the game." If they still play the game, while complaining, why should we assume that people that don't offer criticism on a third party site are just okay with everything.

So your stance is because some people bitch at people for bitching, folks are actively playing the game in miserable silence out of, er, "fear" of getting bitched at on the internet. All while every aspect of playing WoW and posting on this forum is anonymous.

AND that the people that fit this niche scenario are sufficient for your opinion to equal the majority opinion.


Riiight...


Your shovel is quite impressive.

Also, read up on Occam's Razor.

[Wildberry]

folks are actively playing the game in miserable silence out of, er, "fear" of getting bitched at on the internet..

Yeah, I never made that claim chief, sorry.

Also, read up on Occam's Razor.

Read up on the burden of proof :^)

[Whatever Dude]

The comment was tongue in cheek, but these people have gotten far too comfortable with the idea that complainers don't actually unsub.

This right here. It feels like projection where they themselves can't see being unsubbed, so they project that unto others.

[Worgoblin]

Not for me. BFA is a big fat stinker and I'm done with it. The wait for Classic, and the next expansion, begins.

[mhdoe]

It is just fine except for a couple of "I can do better" nobody's on mmo-champion.

[Caaethil]

I don't think it's terrible. There are substantial issues, but they could hypothetically be resolved, including with some of the points you made. Bugs can and will be fixed, obviously.

Islands can be improved with more variation, more interesting mob abilities, and some reworking to the AI. The vendors need to be reworked with a per-island currency progression so you can get stronger and gain interesting power-ups throughout an expedition, rather than just outspending your opponent right from the start. The current dubloons should be repurposed to let you buy the different mounts and pets. They can be as expensive as possible, but there should be some way to guarantee you get them, even if it's actually just equal to or slower than the RNG on average. This would make completing an island more meaningful, as you're actually getting closer to something cool rather than just running the AP treadmill, which feels more like a requirement than a reward. Islands also need some kind of war game feature.

I haven't tried a warfront yet. AFK-ers definitely need to be automatically removed. The issue with them being unlosable (in most cases) is a tough one. I'd say it should be okay to lose, but I get why they've done it the way they have. Maybe even just add a heroic mode with substantially better rewards. I can't speak for the actual gameplay itself, for reasons I've just stated. The rotation time is honestly not a big deal in my opinion. Remember in 7.2 when the Legion invasions came out? I don't remember which region it was, but there were complaints that the invasions were happening during working hours so nobody could try them out. Of course, that was genuinely dumb of Blizzard and they should have made sure that the invasion cycle started at a reasonable time of day, but the point is that after the patch had been out for a while, people stopped caring. Maybe that just speaks for the fact that invasions were pretty boring and often unrewarding, and the case with warfronts is a bit different as the cycle is even longer, but you catch my drift.

I think most of the class issues lie in a lack of progression rather than design. The design sucks, don't get me wrong, but what hits the hardest is a lack of progression beyond even level 100 in BfA. In Legion it was fine because your artifact gave you a cool new active ability. The problem with this was twofold. First, most classes were changed significantly in Legion and for many these abilities were very core to the playstyle. Second, they were given right and the start and stuck with you until the end. They never felt replaceable. The goal was to create a system where new class features can be added and then freely removed to avoid bloat and homogenisation. Legion artifacts failed in this regard because their abilities were able to be treated as baseline class abilities. Conceptually, azerite is actually much better, because none of the abilities you get are core to your gameplay style (your class should function without any given azerite trait, balance non-withstanding), and your azerite traits change with different gear so you shouldn't feel too cheated when they're all gone for good.

So in short there, Legion had class progression but failed to achieve the main purpose of artifacts. Azerite achieves that purpose but doesn't really give you class progression, because the traits are pretty lame and don't really affect your gameplay. Even if they were awesome, the fact you're always swapping gear might make it hard to feel like you've progressed your character. But I guess we'll never know because the traits aren't awesome. This is one of the harder issues to solve. The most realistic choice is to maybe add an extra ring of traits to each existing piece with new, more interesting traits. Alternatively, they could add another slot, like Azerite legs, or replace the existing traits entirely, but these solutions have more issues when it comes to going back and changing existing gear. Mythic+ making the same dungeon gear infinitely relevant is the main reason these changes are hard to make.

I don't expect Blizzard to fix all of these things. It's not realistic and I think BfA will be pretty solid either way, especially if a few of the kinds of changes I'm talking about are made. I don't think it's irreparable, 8.1 and other patches are still on the cards to fix some of the worse-playing classes (not holding my breath though). I think Legion is a good example of an expansion with irreparable systems - the legendary vendor could have been added sooner, but legendary acquisition still kind of sucked even with that. The legendary changes were band-aid solutions to a potentially cool system that needed to be rebuilt from scratch. I don't think BfA has this problem. All of the systems sound pretty good on paper. It's a solid base to work off. It's just the implementation that's sketchy in some places and that can be worked on.