BFA is now over, it's time for even the fanboys to admit it: this expansion was shit

[Doffen]

BfA was shit. There, I said it. Can I join the club now?

#nomorefanboy
#shillstillnotpaid

[Zantera]

The experience you get out of the game is what you make it. Personally I've enjoyed BFA more than I enjoyed WoD, WotLK or Cata, but with that said it has its problems and 'middle of the road' is perhaps the best way I would rate it.

[Kiri]

WoD, unlike BFA, actually had a decent story. It had linear zone progression, where the story and characters were built up throughout the questing experience (unlike in BFA, where each zone story is self contained and do not interact with each other).

Uh...huh? I am not sure if I would agree with that. Gorgond and Spires of Arak were really pretty self-contained in WoD. I mean sure, Iron Horde was around and Kargath had some moments there, but it was pretty much inconsequential to the overall story. You could have skipped two out of five zones and not really miss a thing. It pretty much went starter zone --> Talador--> Nagrand for the overall story.

That's quite similar to what we have in BFA, really, just without a set order. But there is a clear overarching story for both sides that is being followed. Horde has the three seals stuff, with Zul and his cronies undermining the empire where they can to break them, culminating in the coup and the first Battle for Dazar Alor, building up Talanji and minor characters in the process.
On the Alliance side you have the other houses undermining the Proudmore regency, so the player investigates them all. There's the clear goal to sway these houses or get rid of underlying corruption and it is being followed up on. Jaina disappears for that arc, which is why it's weaker than horde side imho.
Both sides follow similar themes of a major power struggling with internal issues and corruption. Both times, three zones with a somewhat contained threat that had repercussions for the overall plot - somewhat similar to, say, the different clans in WoD. Shadowmoon in particular is quite similar to stuff we see in BFA. And both sides also culminate in a specific questline you can only access after doing individual zone lines that resolves that plot, along with a war campaign that reinforces the overall goal which all of this is in favour of - fighting the other faction.

I mean, whether one likes or dislikes that is a different question altogether. But the experience really wasn't as disconnected as you make it sound. It's just your standard WoW model - overarching plot, with regional threats loosely or closely related to that plot in each zone. We just got less linearity the past two expansions, so the zones don't build up on one another at all, which is instead moved to the post-leveling content. But even that is not necessarily new - Blizz has always kept references to older zones relatively vague and largely irrelevant to account for people skipping, usually restricting important developments to starting, end and central zones. Even Wrath had that. Starting zones established the scourge proper, central zone had Wrathgate etc, Icecrown picked up on that. Zul'Drak, Grizzly Hills, that Basin zone and even Storm Peaks didn't do much to further the story at all, mostly dealing with local threads.

[Sondrelk]

Yeah, Legion was the one that made me suspicious, but BfA is the one that made it clear to me.
Players will always hate on the new expansion, no matter how unfounded the ideas or how shaky their standpoint is.

Want to claim BfA has a bad story, i can get behind that, just don't try to hold up Legion like it was some kind of paragon of storytelling where quests flowed naturally into raids. Legion had terrible storytelling, Illidan was never shown to do much of anything until the very end when he was suddenly the messiah, he didnt even get so much as a quest where he actually talked directly to Malfurion or Tyrande.
7.2 is arguably one of the worst questing experiences leading into a raid done by Blizzard. With the exception of the single class specific quest the supposed leadup to the Tomb raid was a slog of one a week busywork.
Most of all people have the audacity to try to claim Artifacts were this holy grail of class design and everyone loved it. Because from what i remember it was one of the most despised systems ever put into the game, doing nothing but forcing players into a single spec, with even the possibility of changing your spec a daunting task, made even worse by the Legiondaries which the naysaers have somehow convinced themselves was this amazing system where you organically slotted in different impactful talents when from my recollection it was a string of disapointments that did nothing but force you to play old raids for that slim dropchance, and even with that you were not guaranteed to get the one you wanted, compounded by the fact that up until 7.1 there was a hard cap of 3 legiondaries per character, meaning that if you got 3 bad ones, or wanted to change spec midway you were completely stuffed.


BfA is on the lower end of average, Islands and Warfronts are bad, sure, but they are also not nearly as integral ot the main gameplay as some people try to claim.

Of course, not like this will actually change any minds. And when Shadowlands comes out and has a problem somewhere people will flock ot the forums to complain about how that one problem ruined the game forever and Actiblizz has officially killed the game because it is run by Satan. Then they will talk about how BfA at least had X or Y, which is always miles better than Z in the new expansion.

[McNeil]

The review thread rating the expansion was pretty spot on, and that while this is likely the most retail WoW loving forum (and the most loathesome towards Classic). That alone is saying something.

[Zka]

Based on my playtime, this was the 4. best era of wow for me (bc>classic>lk>bfa). I mostly played m+ with friends.
- I liked the class design of my favorite specs (disc, prot warrior). Disc was better than ever imho.
- I like that we still have m+ and the rewards are great.

However...
- I never liked tier sets, but replacing them with a system that has the same issues and then some more was retarded.
- Warfronts and Islands sucked.
- Problems of m+ have been largely neglected all over the expansion. Some specs are much more useful than others - not addressed. Difficulty of affixes isn't even remotely close to each other. Interactions between some mob/boss mechanics and some affixes makes some encounters unnecessarily difficult. They'd made some tuning regarding this but failed to nail it.
- Classes seem to be tuned for raids exclusively, unless they break m+ completely.
- M+ runs beyond the weekly chest aren't properly rewarded, many people DGAF about m+ because of this.
- Long lasting, grave class design issues have been neglected once again. For example disc still can't heal shit when there's no target to hit.
- Seasonal affixes are a good idea, but honestly, only 1 of these affixes was great and fun, the others were either meh or very frustrating.
- The idiotic, overly dynamic boss design from raids is slowly creeping into 5mans: bosses that force you to move every few seconds are NOT fun.
- TF wasn't the best system due to its contribution to hardcore ilvl inflation. But they've managed to replace it with something even worse: corruption is completely unfun and even more RNG than TF.
- Semi-mandatory grinds upon grinds: AP, essences, reps... really, stop this already.

[Clozer]

it was not as bad as people make it out to be. But honestly it's not much better either.

[wrynil]

Its not time to admit shit.. There are people who still enjoy the expansion and thats totally on them. Just because its not a game for me anymore, it can still be for many others.

[Kumorii]

Its not time to admit shit.. There are people who still enjoy the expansion and thats totally on them. Just because its not a game for me anymore, it can still be for many others.

Holy shit, one who dislike the current state but acknowledges others might like it? You are a rare gem, keep on.

[Resheph]

You do not have to be a "fanboy" to just like a game and play it. And be smart enough to when you stop liking a game, to stop playing it.
You don't have to be a frustrated troll to keep making the same whiney thread over and over as well, but it helps.

Its not time to admit shit.. There are people who still enjoy the expansion and thats totally on them. Just because its not a game for me anymore, it can still be for many others.

/thread

[MyndZero]

The most depressing part of BFA is that Bwomsamdi was introduced in this expansion. It honestly feels like he was part of the expansion before BFA because BFA has been so bad it feels like it's dragged on when in reality not that much time has actually passed. This is probably because the first day or two of the expansion is the only memorable part so it feels like years ago.

Rastakhan too but he died a useless death, his daughter ain't even close to his level of character so I put this down to another BFA bad decision.

[Heladys]

I remember a year ago when so many people here kept claiming that the game was ok, that things would get better, that we were all just haters, and that we should go away because we were so negative and we didn't really like wow in the first place...where are you now guys? Is someone going to be braindead enough to actually tell me that the expansion was good now, or are you just going to swallow your pride like you should?

But it's time for OP to eat shit. So eat the expansion?

[Gurahk]

The review thread rating the expansion was pretty spot on, and that while this is likely the most retail WoW loving forum (and the most loathesome towards Classic). That alone is saying something.

"Most retail WoW loving forum"
Mate, do you know where you are?

[Ardenaso]

"Wow giving pally/shaman to the other faction? thanks for killing faction identiy blizz-cucks"

I do hope they do it again: Warden for Night Elves/Void Elves/Worgen; and Shadow Hunter for Darkspear/Zandalari/Forsaken

[Adam Jensen]

It's time to admit it: Your opinion is not universal.

Oh and by the way I'm not saying if I agree or disagree with your statement, I just get annoyed by people like you who claim that your opinion is the only one. That's not how opinions work.

- - - Updated - - -

it was a mediocre expansion. same formula as Legion. This is why it was a boring expansion. But it was definetly better than WoD & Cata for me.

This doesn't mean i'm a fanboy, i'm just being reasonable.

I mean I enjoyed it.

If I hadn't, I would have quit and . . . not posted about it because I don't need my opinions validated by strangers on the internet.

[Azgraal]

What you want is an echo chamber...

BFA isn't brilliant but is alright.

[Akka]

WoD, unlike BFA, actually had a decent story.

I'm sorry, are we talking about the retarded "time travel alternate universe" BS that is the absolute worst it's even possible to reach ?
You can say it was more focused or consistent, but nothing can be as bad as the very premise of this shit.

[Monteverdi]

BFA is one of my least enjoyed expansions. I put it in the same category as Cata and WoD. This is coming off of the high that was Legion, which I would argue might just be *the* best expansion in the history of the game.

That said, I wouldn't go so far as to say it was shit. There are many high points (which honestly make the low points all that much worse):

* The out-of-the-box experience was fantastic. Leveling - especially on the Horde side - was a treat, the intro raid was quite good, and never before have I been so engaged in the story while questing.
* Speaking of storytelling, this expansion has had the most fantastic out-of-game storytelling with the Warbringers shorts and the Old Soldier series of cinematics. I don't even know that there's an argument to the contrary.
* The music this expansion has been phenomenal.

Now, the list of negatives is quite a bit longer than the above, but my point is that there's certainly some value here even if the package as a whole disappoints.

High hopes that Shadowlands takes the good, ditches the trash, and tries to live up to the likes of Legion, WotLK, and TBC.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

BfA was definitely a letdown. 8.0 was an okay patch tho. I loved all the zones and their story, the dungeons, and Uldir. Everything else was meh or downright depressing. Azerite armor was a big disappointment, Islands and Warfronts were depressing, the Alliance vs Horde theme of the expansion was just unnecessary, and warmode was a failure. It's sad that they wasted such good zones, lore, and characters on a trash expansion. Zandalar and Kul'tiras should have been their own expansions. Everything felt so rushed... so much wasted potential. I hope Shadowlands is better.

[Lolites]

You can say it was more focused or consistent

eh... can you?
Grom and iron horde is the biggest threat to our world - oh no, Grom is our bff and we totaly forget he wanted our world conquered...
if thats consistent...