Bad Expansion - Next one will be great?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

The user scores below seem to show some pretty interesting data about the player base and their general attitude of the game at those times. Those sure seem kind of similar to the graph and subscribers. I wonder why, could it be the quality of the game started slipping during those times? Notice BFA has the absolute lowest score of the bunch?

You could probably find similar data at other places, but I don't really care to look. Just like audience reviews of games and movies tend to reflect the overall quality of a product(not always of course), it's safe to assume there is a good amount of the playerbase that just doesn't like BFA.

Metacritic user scores for WoW:

BC - 8.0
Wrath - 7.9
MoP - 5.0
Cata - 5.6
WoD - 5.9
Legion - 7.3
BFA - 3.2

Your assumption that BFA is good has no meaningful data to support your opinion. End of discussion.

Yep, user reviews are totally a iron-clad and non-manipulatable gauge of how good something is.

[Paperfox]

One of the BfA changes was to introduce old world scaling. IMHO this sucks big time. I decided that I want to level my rogue, currently 76 and it has been an unenjoyable grind. (Grinding the Hydraxian Waterlords rep was far more fun.) All the leveling nerfs they did were a great disservice to the players. They should do a level squish soon.

While I've enjoyed the rest of BfA so far, this has blocked that. Should I rate it good or bad? I can't imagine going through this with another toon. The scaled world was a bullet-point on the box, so I think the answer is rating it bad.

[crono14]

Yep, user reviews are totally a iron-clad and non-manipulatable gauge of how good something is.

Data is data however you spin it. The data aligns with the general sentiment of the player base right now. There is no data that says BFA is in a good place right now from the player's eyes.

[Relapses]

I am legitimately floored that WoD doesn't just have a higher Metacritic rating than Cata but also fucking MoP.

Sometimes, some opinions are just ridiculous.

WoD's leveling was some of the best in the game. The initial release content was okay, too. The plethora of content droughts that came to define WoD weren't present until much later in the expansion. Most Metacritic scores are given near the release of the expansion.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

One of the BfA changes was to introduce old world scaling. IMHO this sucks big time. I decided that I want to level my rogue, currently 76 and it has been an unenjoyable grind. (Grinding the Hydraxian Waterlords rep was far more fun.) All the leveling nerfs they did were a great disservice to the players. They should do a level squish soon.

While I've enjoyed the rest of BfA so far, this has blocked that. Should I rate it good or bad? I can't imagine going through this with another toon. The scaled world was a bullet-point on the box, so I think the answer is rating it bad.

Is it still bad? They undid a lot of the nerfs I thought a while back, I was considering getting back to my heritage armor grind even.

- - - Updated - - -

Data is data however you spin it. The data aligns with the general sentiment of the player base right now. There is no data that says BFA is in a good place right now from the player's eyes.

It aligns with the general sentiment of this forum, which is by no means a good snapshot of the current playing community. Even ignoring the people who unsubbed that still post here, its total population is at BEST 1/3rd of live, and its active population less than a couple percent.

[xpose]

I played all of WoD. I lasted 1 months of BFA. Unless Blizzard radically reverse all the changes they made in BFA and go back to the Legion style, I'm never playing WoW again

- - - Updated - - -



Why? It's not like the things fundamentally wrong with the expansion's features can just be fixed

-azerite
-warfronts
- islands

These are the main features of BFA, and they all, imo, suck

I think what you mean to say is they can't be fixed the way "I" want them. These features can and are being fixed. Although I have no issue with warfronts as they currently are.

[Vakir]

WoD's leveling was some of the best in the game. The initial release content was okay, too. The plethora of content droughts that came to define WoD weren't present until much later in the expansion. Most Metacritic scores are given near the release of the expansion.

This is fair, but I felt droughted super early - even on release, my Garrison was done within a week or so.

The raiding was pretty great, though. But if you weren't a raider? RIP.

Say what you want about BFA, but at least we have stuff to do. It's just a flawed implementation of the same shit we were doing in Legion, and that's why it's so dull.

[Ragnarohk]

I honestly don't understand the people that say there's nothing to do ingame. I find myself overwhelmed by content, I don0t even have time to do everything in a week reset cycle. Also, not to mention that you only experience half the story if you only play 1 faction, so you can go level a toon of the opposite faction for more content.

[crono14]

Yep, user reviews are totally a iron-clad and non-manipulatable gauge of how good something is.

Would you go pay to see a movie with a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes or other websites based on audience review? Probably not right. Even if you did, the overwhelming majority of people don't like that product. Can't argue with the only data we have to go on and general sentiment around the game.

[therealbowser]

BFA isn't a bad expansion. It has some flaws but it's definitely not bad. Furthermore it's barely started.

Hell, Mists of Pandaria on 5.0 felt like a terrible expansion, but by 5.4 it was one of the best expansions the game ever released IMHO, second only to WotLK itself.

[crono14]

Is it still bad? They undid a lot of the nerfs I thought a while back, I was considering getting back to my heritage armor grind even.

- - - Updated - - -



It aligns with the general sentiment of this forum, which is by no means a good snapshot of the current playing community. Even ignoring the people who unsubbed that still post here, its total population is at BEST 1/3rd of live, and its active population less than a couple percent.

No it aligns with the sentiment of almost every forum that has a WoW community that we can see. Don't kid yourself.

[Relapses]

I honestly don't understand the people that say there's nothing to do ingame. I find myself overwhelmed by content, I don0t even have time to do everything in a week reset cycle. Also, not to mention that you only experience half the story if you only play 1 faction, so you can go level a toon of the opposite faction for more content.

The biggest issue with the "lack of content" argument is that what constitutes content for one player may seem like a chore to another. For example, I fucking loathe daily quests. Always have, always will. World Quests are like daily quests on steroids. I strongly dislike them. I still do them, but I really don't consider it fun. Another player might say that World Quests are literally the only thing which keeps them logging in. That's fine, too. It's just that a player like me is more likely to look at the content provided and come to the conclusion that the game isn't fulfilling its intended purpose of being innately fun.

[Deleted]

Since Cataclysm, it seems every odd expansion has been bad, and the ones immediate before or after have been considered very good.

Wrath (good) -> Cataclysm (bad) -> Pandaria (good) -> WoD (bad) -> Legion (good) -> BfA (bad) -> ??? (good)

I suppose the reason for this could be them pumping out expansions much faster than before. Maybe the better ideas just take longer to work on. So I'm wondering, what would make the next expansion great for you? What made the previous ones good for you? I personally loved Cataclysm, but I'm a huge fan of dragon lore.

I'm looking for something to be monumental in the next expansion... like a 3rd faction being added.

Left out TBC.

Each to their own. For me it is:

TBC (Amazing) -> Wrath(Amazing) -> Cataclysm(Good) -> MOP(Good) -> WOD(Bad) -> Legion(Good) -> BFA(Good)

[Ezekeel]

I did not like it from the start as a casual (AF) player and I am honestly surprised how the public opinion went from positive to negative.

[Mamut]

*In your opinion*. In aaaalot of other peoples opinion its the worst its ever been. Just because you're having fun doesn't mean the game is great.

*In your opinion* In aaaalot of other peoples opinion its good. Just because you dont like it doesn't mean the game is bad

[Deleted]

Fuck, the GCD alone is like the worst change they've made to the game since the removal of activated hard modes.

Almost like... you could raid mythic?

[klepp0906]

nope. blizzard has been paving this path for years. they just accelerated the curve with bfa. Dont like it? find a new game.

blizzard is catering to a very specific demographic now and to go back on that would mean to admit that a lot of years of work and direction was wrong. aka, never happen.

[Vakir]

Almost like... you could raid mythic?

By the same token, though, I get why people miss activated hard modes - they added flavor to HOW you did it in a given encounter. Keeping Saronite Vapors alive long enough, hitting the self-destruct which added a lot of personality and a reason for the urgency, making XT go even MORE haywire, having no help against an Old God (with 4 different variations on HOW you receive help)...

If you just toggled Mythic and pulled Mimiron, and suddenly the room is on fire and there's a self-destruct sequence for no reason other than "the difficulty," it's not nearly as cool as hitting a button that is deliberately marked to NOT hit and having his dialogue change to reflect it and suddenly "oh shit, we're on a time table." Similarly, not having a Sanity Fount and help making the Faceless adds killable on Yogg because you're going in without the keepers creates a sense of anxiety that you are truly "alone in the dark"...rather than just hitting a toggle and suddenly the fight is different.

People forget that games are also about using mechanics to tell a story and color an experience beyond just cold, utilitarian Skinner boxes. Boiling mechanics down to a toggle is part of why people don't find it as engaging as making difficulty part of the game's narrative.

I get why they're gone, some of them were "confusing" even to more seasoned players (or obnoxious in the case of Vezax) but it's a completely valid thing to miss.

[Paperfox]

Is it still bad? They undid a lot of the nerfs I thought a while back, I was considering getting back to my heritage armor grind even.

When it was rolled out, they realized that it was so bad they had to buff it. Even with the buffs it is terrible. Apparently the 60-80 bracket is the worst, then it gets better. I can't tell you if this is true as my toon is 76.

If you manage to get one toon up so that you get the heritage armor, you should automatically unlock every other racial armor.

I shouldn't complain though, it is encouraging me to read.

[Mojo03]

You can pretty much guarantee the next one will be Lich King 2.0 with all the delusional Wrath love now days and them needing something popular.

But I'd be for it, mostly because I want to see nerubians and the dragons done better.