Shadow Lands feels like a maintenance expansion [Extensive]

[Muajin76]

I think they see it that way, something like "we already have DK, so we're good".
I hope that you are right, but don't get your hopes up, even if they agreed now that it was a mistake not adding another class due to the outcry on the community (which isnt happening) they would just say its too late now, we have to wait for the next time, maybe in 10 years we will get another chance for a death-themed class.

I don't want to be the anti-blizz poster child and say *yea..they won't give us another class, they're slacking and just don't care* but I do feel that blizz has some type of big surprise waiting in 9.0, class wise. I don't expect it, but just a fleeting hope. It could happen or it couldn't. It it happens, i'll be like sweet! If it doesn't, i'll just like OK..we all figured they wouldn't. :P

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Yes, nothing say maintenance mode like they reseting the levels to open ways to the new expansions to come.

I mean, I hate the fact that there is no class for this expansion pack, I really think they dropped the ball on this department, BUT, everything else is looking pretty fucking good to be honest.

Although we will look like tourists in this expansion since we are not taking anything from it.

The expac as a whole is looking quite nice, hopefully they don't drop the ball and give it a well thought out lore story for the whole shadowlands/death themed expac.

[msdos]

I seriously doubt the silent majority of WoW players want another class added. I feel like it's a minority of people.

The next class obviously isn't gonna be tank since people won't play tanks even if you make Demon Hunter a tank and every new class concept you see, other than Tinker, has no tank spec lol.
Just what the game needs, yet another edgy DPS that has no idea if it wants to be king of mobility or king of squishy.

[arkanon]

I'd be more inclined to believe you if they actually talked about what they're doing, especially in regards to classes, instead of being absolutely dark about it other than to say "Here are some old abilities that we took away back that you'll almost never have a use for"

I am all for them making changes to the classes, i am one of the players who is not particularly enjoying the class design currently. So initially, i was excited by the announcement of looking into class design. Then i read the language used, and it had nothing about flow, ability impact, or how classes play, but instead just a painfully vague "hey, we might give hunters their hunters mark back, and a bunch of unused abilities from past expansions"

In their defense, there is a small part of the community that moan about the removal of trivial abilities like eyes of the beast etc, but the most common theme i see is that classes just all feel the same, dont feel unique, and lack impact and special moments / 'oh shit' moments. Everyone is average at everything, and for some of us, that is terribly boring.

Overall, i see a lot of the fans of shadowlands saying sweeping, vague statements that are at this early stage baseless like "they are fixing the classes, thats all i wanted". To clarify, i am actually ok with no new class if many / all the current classes undergo a solid review, and i enjoy classes / specs that i currently find very boring (most of them)

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I seriously doubt the silent majority of WoW players want another class added. I feel like it's a minority of people.

The next class obviously isn't gonna be tank since people won't play tanks even if you make Demon Hunter a tank and every new class concept you see, other than Tinker, has no tank spec lol.
Just what the game needs, yet another edgy DPS that has no idea if it wants to be king of mobility or king of squishy.

See above, however i would add that i have no clue what the majority of players do or do not want, all i know is that among my friends and guildies, in chat, on the forums, there does seem to be a pretty strong consensus that many of the classes currently lack any flair or uniqueness, and many have strayed a long way from their origins. This is something i personally agree with, so i would take major reworks of the current classes over the introduction of a new class.

I also find the whole "edgy" discussion very tiresome and pretty unfounded, as everyone's definition of what an "edgy" class is totally varies.

[wholol]

From what I've gathered in videos and on forums, wow hasn't really been innovative or fun in a very long time. I doubt this expansion will change that.

Diablo 4 looks promising though! Maybe I should give D3 a shot; is it any good?

D3 is like BFA and D4 is basically blizzard's attempt of going back to "classic (D2)" , seeing the pattern yet? this is happening to all their games apparently.

If you wanna play something that is close to D2 , I'd say try Path of Exile. It's considered by many to be the closest thing that inherits the D2 spirit , gonna have to wait and see how D4 turns out but it's still far off for now.

[Relapses]

"DAE Blizzard sucks in 2019?! [Long]"

This is getting ridiculous. Your needlessly wordy diatribe amounts to a very long, very complicated whinge about game developers not doing things you think they should do. It's honestly impressive how managed to be this verbose yet completely failed to provide even a moderate level of constructive criticism in the entire thing.

[Trivelius]

Yeah this feels like a patch, I preordered since I know ill play it anyway but I doubt people not completely hooked on wow will buy this expac.

[Relapses]

Yeah this feels like a patch, I preordered since I know ill play it anyway but I doubt people not completely hooked on wow will buy this expac.

A return to a meaningful (yet less time-consuming) leveling experience is a huge draw, imo. New player generation is just as important as old player retention. For every five or six veteran players who look at an expansion and say, "what the fuck, there isn't enough new shit to keep me entertained," there's a dozen new or returning players who might say, "fuck, the reason I haven't bought the last {x} expansions is because I didn't want to level through old expansions just to catch up with my friends." I really think that's the biggest upshot the leveling squish gives Blizzard.

[rulk]

I think it's just some people's thinking cause they're angry for blizz not adding a new class. I think blizz will surprise players with a new class maybe halfway into 9.0.

that's just me.

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I'm wondering if blizz's response to a new class is revamping DKs. I foresee blizz having a surprise halfway or early into 9.0.

There is no way they'd add an entirely new class mid expansion cycle, if only for the balancing issues alone.

[ErrandRunner]

I just wanted to comment on your Races/Classes section. I don't know if I'm in the minority for this, but I have seen others write something similar in other threads: we have enough Classes (and especially Races) as of current retail WOW. Introducing new classes creates major work for the developers and means other classes most likely need to be nerfed as a result of balancing it all out. I can see it would be disappointing if you were expecting something new, but many players would rather they better balance the current classes before introducing new ones.

[Flutterguy]

Yea, god forbid some one post some constructive criticism so people can discuss it and Blizzard might even let it influence their development decisions /s

Post about an expansion being bad, you get roasted for being vague and non constructive. Post a thought out detailed post expressing your concerns, get roasted for that too. Lol.

Thank you for your pointless comment.

Probably not getting Necro. They will have to put in your bow character, so Amazon/Rogue/Demonhunter and they will need the holy character so paladin/crusader to be the shield user. Necromancer will be DLC or expansion bait.

[tyranade]

I agree totally with OP and in addition to this I think the expansion is so early in development because they have been forced to backtrack.
Maybe they had started on something but the success of Classic and failure of BfA put them in an untenable position and they where told to change course.

[Guildenstern]

I agree totally with OP and in addition to this I think the expansion is so early in development because they have been forced to backtrack.
Maybe they had started on something but the success of Classic and failure of BfA put them in an untenable position and they where told to change course.

So they've had an even worse expansion in the works. Dont know if I should be happy or not.

[owbu]

I dont think there is such a thing as a filler/maintenance expansion.

Every single expansion so far has more of the same stuff (zones, dungeons, raids) and then it reworks some of the major and minor systems. Wether or not the expansion turns out to be a terrible mess or not seems to mostly rely on wether their new features turn out well, so that they have time to polish and start working on patch content early (m+ and so on), or turn into developmentime sucking monsters of suck (old work rework, garrison and war fronts).

They never just half ass it and go home early. No matter what feature you think somewhat sounds like another feature you have heard of, They just sometimes fail at making something good.

[jiih]

Strap in, this is probably going to be a pretty expansive post, so I'm going to break it down into sections. I'm sure I'll miss discussing some things, but these are my primary concerns/things I've noticed initially. Note that this is largely fueled by speculation and my own personal opinions and biases for what I want from the game, and likely varies from person to person.

I. Covenants / Soulbinds
II. Races/Classes
III. Torghast / Maw
IV. Lore/Story
V. Leveling / Alts


I. Covenants / Soulbinds

Artifacts and class halls. This is my initial reaction to these systems after hearing them announced and described.

I'll start off by saying I wasn't a fan of artifacts in Legion - for one reason. I didn't want to see every ret paladin running around with the legendary Ashbringer, etc. It destroyed the feeling of the item being an artifact to me. I think they could have introduced this system with out including artifacts at all.
This seems to be more like what Covenant is doing.

The basis of the idea was fine, to grant some passive bonuses and even an active ability to classes. I hope this new "Anima" system is not simply a renamed and re-implemented version of AP, but I don't have a lot of faith at the moment.

Everything is lining up in a way that this entire system looks to just be a re-implementation of Artifacts, Class halls, and AP with a new name.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't exciting either; its not innovative or new.

Here is my major concern with covenants.

1) Which covenant has the cosmetic rewards you like the most?
2) Which covenant has the ability that is most interesting / useful?
3) Which covenant has the best bound abilities/passives for your class/spec?

If you're lucky, you will get two of them to match up. If you're very luck, you will get all 3. If you're an average luck kind of person, well, have fun only getting to choose one that you like. I don't like this implementation. I don't want to have to choose between these options. Cosmetics shouldn't have a system that directly connects them to a characters power level. You have to make a choice between which Covenant do you like the looks or lore of the most, versus the one that has your classes best "bonuses" or most interesting passives, with some consideration for which has the most genuinely useful non-combat ability.

Choices are good when they're within the same category of discussion: Such as "Do you like X cosmetic set or Y cosmetic set more?"

I don't think they should be like this: "Do you like X cosmetic set or Y passives more?". Please don't make me choose between cosmetics and effective power level. That isn't a fun or interesting choice, its just depressing.

I also want to mention the covenant abilities. They all share a similar *theme*, but man the Necrolord one is really not on the same level as the other 3. Two of them grant movement speed bonuses and other effects. One is just a straight up blink. The necrolord one offers no movement speed boost, you become a spirit but your body is still vulnerable, and presumably upon reactivation you teleport to your spirit. The necrolord ability needs something else to make it comparable given its lengthy 3 minute cool down. I think one good improvement is to give you the ability to fly in the spirit form - but that might be too overpowered. The other option is, just give it a movement speed boost in the spirit form, at least. Right now it isn't worthy of having the longest cool down of all the covenant abilities.

Bonds: There hasn't been much announced regarding these. The first look wasn't promising though. Looks to be effective, yet boring passive effects. Flat 5% crit chance. Is it good? Sure. Is it interesting? No, not really. Hopefully they have a lot more to show regarding bonds soon.


TLDR;
Covenants, Soulbinds, and Anima sounds like Artifacts, Class Halls, and AP again. Not innovate or interesting.

Potentially having to choose between passives that boost character power level or the cosmetics you prefer is bad.

Bonds - We don't know much yet, but the passives seem like they might be effective, yet boring and uninteresting.

More borrowed abilities? Things that don't transfer across expansions that you get attached to and then lose isn't great design. See: Basically every artifact ability either being removed or becoming a talent in most cases.

II. Races/Classes

This is maybe my biggest disappointment in regards to expansion announcements. I kept waiting and hoping in each successive panel to hear about a new class or major class changes. I never heard it.

Preface: Adding back old abilities that were pruned is not an expansion feature. This is patch content. This would have fit perfectly in the 8.3.5 expansion pre-patch. This has no business being toted as an expansion feature.

Lack of a new class: I know people are split on this. Maybe we didn't necessarily need a new class, but we needed a new SOMETHING. Whether this is class reworks, or a new talent tree, or whatever.

WoW always released a new class on every other expansion. This was due to be the expansion for a new class, and we got nothing. Legitimately nothing game-play impacting to make up for the lack of some fresh class game play. No new class? Okay...weird. Major class changes should be coming then? Nope....not that either. The only "class changes" we've seen so far are adding back old abilities. Old abilities that see no use 98% of the time.

Each class gets one new skill depending on the covenant they choose, none of which were particularly interesting, inspiring, or game changing out of the announced ones. It is just another button you press every 30-60 seconds or so, where some classes might SLIGHTLY change their rotation to maximize the effectiveness of. None of these abilities are awe inspiring impressive. In fact for the most part they're really just....boring, and may as well not exist. Hell, the priest one is downright awful particularly for a shadow priest. Is the 50% less cast speed really necessary here? This ability might be okay for holy or even disc, but I wouldn't want to touch it on shadow. They had an opportunity here to create some really iconic class specific abilities and I think they really dropped the ball.

In addition to this, because the way covenants work, you're likely only ever going to use one class-specific covenant ability for the majority of the expansion, since everything Blizzard has stated regarding switching covenants at this point is a system designed in a way that punishes people for wanting to experience the other abilities/bonds. It seems really backwards to design 4 new abilities for each class, but only ever allow a player to really experience one of them.

The recent dev interviews have revealed that the reason we don't have a new class/race is because the art team took most of the time to work on adding new character customization options.

Uhg. Really? Character customization options that you don't see 95% of the time really trumps mechanical game play changes? Are we just going to see people hiding their armor now to show off their troll tattoos, even though a protection warrior battling some god-like boss naked is immersion destroying?

Character customization is another "Feature" that should have been in a major content patch - or at the very least it shouldn't have come at the cost of adding a new class or class reworks. Classes and specs are absolutely in shambles right now after Legion / BFA. They need a lot of work and as of right now we have heard zero on major class changes other than adding back old abilities that will see very little use and aren't particularly interesting.

TLDR;
Adding back old abilities is prepatch content, it is not an expansion feature. These abilities won't see use 98% of the time anyway.

Adding character customization options trumped adding a new class or giving classes a mechanical over haul to repair damage from Legion/BFA. Yikes. Hopefully they're doing major class fixes still and they just weren't ready to announce. The choices were to add a new class or fix previous classes and it doesn't appear they did either of those.

Character customization shouldn't trump mechanical game play changing development. It should be a major patch content addition instead of an expansion feature if they can't do both. This really sounds like a cop out / excuse.

III. Torghast / Maw

Torghast might be the only innovative thing I've really read about Shadow Lands thus far. This is something actually new that hasn't been in the game yet, if I'm understanding the concept and its implementation correctly. There is still a lot to learn about this, but it could be good; or it could be REALLY BAD if its a chore to do in order to acquire legendaries. Remains to be seen, but I don't really have any reason to be faithful in Blizzard's capability right now to release repeatable content that doesn't become a chore (See: Island Expeditions, world quests). One interview said they're aware that the content needs to be fun and not be considered a chore, so maybe there is a little hope.

Maw: We basically know very little about Maw. We do know that it won't have a story line/quest line like Suramar did. Personally I could care less, I hated Suramar and I hate level cap questing, but I know a lot of people liked Suramar. Sorry for those folks.

IV. Lore/Story

Preface: I haven't really given a shit about WoW lore since WOTLK.

So, [SPOILERS ALERT IF YOU DIDNT WATCH THE CINEMATIC] - Sylvanas somehow manages to single handedly dispatch the new lich king with out breaking a sweat. Whether this is because Bolvar is a chump, or Sylvanas is mysteriously overpowered, empowered by some "unknown force" *yawn*, we don't really know. Probably a combination of both given the Lich King's loss of Frostmourne. Either way, its not terribly inspired. Theres no reason Sylvanas should be as overpowered as she apparently appears to be, and saying that shes "empowered by an unknown force" is pretty uninspired and boring in my opinion.

Then, to top things off, she rips the helm of domination in two like its a paper mache. I guess really I had no reason to think an incredibly power artifact like the Helm of Domination would be resistant to being torn in two - no one had really tried to destroy it since "There must always be a Lich King", but it doesn't settle right with me that the helm wouldn't have been more resistant to destruction in its own right.

Much like all previous expansions since WOTLK, none of the lore interests me and it really does feel like they're running thin on ideas and making it up as they go along. Maybe this is part of the reason I've hated the questing process since then.

V. Leveling / Alts

Level squish to 60, a complete rework of the leveling process to feel more rewarding (and to be faster! hooray!)

I don't have anything negative to say about this. Its just a matter of how they work out the kinks involved with such a large level reduction. If the implementation is good and feels solid, then its all good. I do have concerns that some expansions are just going to be vastly superior to level in. If one expansion has 50% less quests than another, doesn't that mean that in order for 10-50 in that expansion to be possible, each quest would have to give twice as much experience? If my choice for leveling is between an expansion with 200 quests versus an expansion with 100-130 quests, I know which one I'm picking 95% of the time. Maybe that is fine, I don't really think the point of this is for each expansion's leveling time to be similar.

Alts:
Remains to be seen, really. They come of as if they're really thinking about people that like to play alts this expansion and making mechanics less punishing to them - but this is the same thing they said about BFA and they STILL didn't have a catch up mechanic in place upon release, recreating the exact same problematic situation they had in Legion....somehow. Let's hope the third time is the charm and the lesson has been learned, if they really do give a shit about alts and aren't just saying itll be easier to appease people.




ENDING TLDR;

I'm...underwhelmed to say the least. As of right now there isn't a single announcement that has me truly excited to play again. I'm very afraid that classes are going to feel basically the same; broken, boring, old. Right now I can not think of a single class or spec that I want to play in Shadow Lands.

There is nothing that is truly compelling me to want to play. Nothing that makes me say "Holy shit, I want to experience/see that".

WoW has had 3 new classes in the last 6 (soon to be 7) expansions. Every single one has had a melee dps spec, and not a single ranged dps spec. This expansion was the absolute perfect time to introduce a thematic new ranged dps class, and we got nothing. Very disappointing for people who like to play ranged DPS.

Where is the hook in Shadow Lands that is supposed to pull me in to play? There wasn't really one in BFA and as a result I didn't play it much at all. BFA was widely considered a filler/maintenance expansion. The fact that it looking like we're having another one right after is really bad..

Some of the people who interviewed the developers all seemed to come to the same conclusion: A lot of the "answers" they got from the developers was "We don't know". "We don't know how X will work" "We don't know how Y will be implemented". It feels like the development is very early on, which is quite surprising. I wouldn't be surprised to see a December expansion as opposed to the more classic Sept/Aug release. This is both hopeful, and concerning. Its hopeful because it means things can still change or be implemented. Its concerning because it means those things have to be decided on, implemented, and tested in 12-13 months time, while also being interesting and enjoyable.

Over all, it sounds like the expansion's near primary purpose is an attempt to fix things that were broken as opposed to adding new things, but with very little information on how exactly they're fixing these problems particularly in regards to classes/specs. What gives? If the expansion isn't adding new class mechanics, where are the sweeping changes to at least refresh classes and make them feel more interesting?

i think its time to you to take a break from the game

[KYZ123]

Here is my major concern with covenants.

1) Which covenant has the cosmetic rewards you like the most?
2) Which covenant has the ability that is most interesting / useful?
3) Which covenant has the best bound abilities/passives for your class/spec?

If you're lucky, you will get two of them to match up. If you're very luck, you will get all 3. If you're an average luck kind of person, well, have fun only getting to choose one that you like. I don't like this implementation. I don't want to have to choose between these options. Cosmetics shouldn't have a system that directly connects them to a characters power level. You have to make a choice between which Covenant do you like the looks or lore of the most, versus the one that has your classes best "bonuses" or most interesting passives, with some consideration for which has the most genuinely useful non-combat ability.

Choices are good when they're within the same category of discussion: Such as "Do you like X cosmetic set or Y cosmetic set more?"

I don't think they should be like this: "Do you like X cosmetic set or Y passives more?". Please don't make me choose between cosmetics and effective power level. That isn't a fun or interesting choice, its just depressing.

I also want to mention the covenant abilities. They all share a similar *theme*, but man the Necrolord one is really not on the same level as the other 3. Two of them grant movement speed bonuses and other effects. One is just a straight up blink. The necrolord one offers no movement speed boost, you become a spirit but your body is still vulnerable, and presumably upon reactivation you teleport to your spirit. The necrolord ability needs something else to make it comparable given its lengthy 3 minute cool down. I think one good improvement is to give you the ability to fly in the spirit form - but that might be too overpowered. The other option is, just give it a movement speed boost in the spirit form, at least. Right now it isn't worthy of having the longest cool down of all the covenant abilities.

I originally shared your opinion, but after some explaining at BlizzCon it's easier to see the mindset that they're going for.

Do you choose your spec based on which is currently the best? How about your class - do you change class to whichever is the current top DPS/healer/tank? There are some players who do, but the vast majority do not - they choose based on the rotation they like the most or find most interesting, or based on the class fantasy, or perhaps which they like the armor sets and cosmetics of.

That's what Blizzard is going for - very few players would choose a covenant based on min-maxing, with the rest choosing based on which they find the most interesting or which they like the flavour of the most.

Ideally, both classes and covenants would be balanced so well that the choice of each would change practically nothing of your DPS/healing/tanking ability, but in practice the only real way to do that is to homogenise them, which is not an ideal outcome.

[Hastis]

Would be a joke to release without Demon Hunter

Amazon would be range class. But i would like to get something like rouge

[Chonar]

So many feelings.
I feel you man.

[Molis]

I do not agree with your opening statement so cant be bothered reading this

Can I get a TLDR?

[Beamde]

I'm going to wait for more info before passing judgement, but knowing myself I'll still play as I have since WoW was released.

I feel it has alot of potential, moreso than BFA had, and it has me excited.

[Muxtar]

Well this xpac doesnt have new race (even allied), new class, new mechanic, new profession. Given that lore has been awful recently, I highly doubt I will ever touch it.