Shadowlands, Blizz's Fallout 76?

[Resheph]

Why do people insist in making such nonsensical hyperboles that only serve to harm their own arguments?

Because trolls feed on reactions like yours. Don;t give them the satisfaction. Just put OP on ignore, and move on.

[Newname1234567890]

No. Because YOU HAVEN'T FUCKING SEEN GAMEPLAY. Well gameplay not particularly shown by blizzard for advertisement

[Eazy]

Or.. like demented paople you can just do the same thing over and over and over again without ever remembering or learning. You're not a demented person are you?

Why did you receive an infraction, lol? That comment actually made a lot of sense.

It's Blizzard job to satisfy players, not players to be satisfied with Blizzard.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

[Woobels]

I don't think you quite realize how bad Fallout 76 is/was. No expansion of WoW has ever been that awful.

[FelPlague]

new leveling systems - how many current players will actually engage with this? Will someone who engages in end-game actively go out of their way to level a new character just because this system change exists?

Covenants - sounds like a rep and currency based talent system - it will be heavily gated - will likely be front heavy and then fall off really quickly after the first few weeks into the expansion (saying all this based on what we saw from the blizzcon floor and what we heard from ion and the devs on the stage)

soulbindings - glorified bodyguards - not really a "system", it's a perk. Not much different from WOD bodyguards, except that these guys can get talent trees and will use powerful abilities like the Nazjatar ones. Looking at you Poen Gillbrack, I see you. This is not a thing to sell an expansion on, it's a minor "feature" that will be semi-relevant.

torghast - horrific visions 2.0 - I'm looking forward to this, but I am cautiously optimistic after what I've seen in horrific visions where the balance is off when running it as rdps/heal vs as a bursty melee or tank. Role-agnostic content should not force you to group up to be optimal. That's failed design. Inb4 you say people are 4-5 chesting it as ranged now - Yes, i know and they're either doing it on bursty classes like Hunters or with the aid of a crutch like Corrupted gear that you will NOT have in shadowlands. They also have not confirmed if soulbinding will be in effect in torghast or not, as that would change both features massively.

legendary crafting - again, not a "feature" to sell an expansion on, it's a gearing perk. You gather x items, you use x items to craft a piece of gear. The acquisition of X items is the real gameplay here, not the crafting itself. Literally takes 10-20 seconds to craft a legendary if legion is anything to go on. And legendaries are not a system to sell an expansion on either, they are expected to exist as pieces of gear in every WoW expansion.

Basically we as a community are grasping at straws to give blizzard some semblance of a chance to prove themselves. There really wasn't much in terms of gameplay systems presented at Blizzcon besides torghast. We already have M+ and Raiding as staples so obviously they do not need to be presented.

I'm really curious about what we're gonna get once shadowlands Beta is out. One thing we know is they don't have enough time to work the classes back into a fun state and add more gameplay systems before the game is due to release at the end of the year. So expect a second coming of Beta for Azeroth, but one that is more bearable because at least this time they're not presenting us with Islands and Warfronts, which they had no clue themselves about how it would work out in end-game and fun/engagement.

New leveling- yes, because it will make leveling WAAAAY easier.

covenentns- hmm odd i dont remember reps giving us new abilities.

soulbinding- odd i dont remember bodyguards giving you new talents, stats, and passive abilities.

torghast is nothing like visions, it is roguelike, and it is not timed, and it is randomized.

yes, being able to craft a legendary how you want, in any way you want is a feature.

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Superman 64?

nah even superman 64 was better, it was an actual game, it was awkward but... god...

[The Emperor]

So basically you agree that you know nothing and are so impressionable that instead of waiting to learn more of a product the ad already told you all you needed to know. That makes about as much sense as buying or not buying a shampoo based on what girl is washing her hair with it in the ad.

"Now that shampoo might be good for me, but they used a brunette to present it. They failed me and everyone else, may they rot in hell."

Surprisingly enough the purpose of advertising is not lost on me with my inferior intellect, however in my humble opinion only the most impressionable people let an ad decide for them if something is worth buying or not. Do you buy cars because of a cool spot? Guess you do, because making a test drive is just about the same as waiting for the Beta and hopping on the PTR and we know you don't need those empirical facts in your life.

You are not helping your argument by slinging one insult after the next at me btw. It just makes you look more and irrational.



We also get 5 new areas, 10 new dungeons, the first of several raids, a combat overhaul, new abilities, a new idea for the story to unfold.... quite a lot for a patch if you ask me. But don't let me stop you, these details do not seem to count.
Otherwise it is your own fault that you expect a new class every two expansions, never was that stated as a goal of Blizzard, so do not blame them for your wrong expectations.



Okay, go ahead. Show me the sub numbers then. I am waiting. Because if you have more then some coloured estimations I will be extremly surprised, considering no one else has them. However I am glad you find it amusing to see your argument dismantled.



You are again simply demanding that people believe you when you claim insight that no one else has and predict the future, while actually admitting you have nothing to base your claims on.

And to round it off you again resort to insults of my intelligence because I prefer to base my arguments on facts not guessing.

Which is why I completely agree that my opinion is coloured by wishful thinking. However I never stated that Shadowlands would be an unltimate success, because I have no facts to support such an argument. I simply stated that it is prudent to wait before making such a damning opinion about a product you know nothing about.

Your shampoo analogy is invalid, WoW expansions have no skin contact with me thankfully and have no potential to affect my health.

And a car analogy is also dead wrong. By this point you should add "master of inappropriate comparisons" to your CV.

A somewhat appropriate analogy would be a movie trailer. If it sucks, yeah, chances are great the movie sucks as well.

What's next, ah yes, we get 4 zones and one empty 'sandbox' zone. Raids, dungeons, combat overhaul are all just the bare minimum for the expansion, but you yourself referenced your subpar capacities for grasping these concepts, that is why I specifically mention it.

As I have said, Thorghast is the only potentially new thing they are going to introduce.

And lastly, you can deny steep drop in subscription numbers as much as you please, it's not helping the numbers get back up.

So, this idea of you basing your arguments on "facts" revolves around:
1) drawing invalid comparisons
2) lauding base features that have been part of every single expansion since the dawn of mankind
3)wishful thinking, not taking into account current blizzard failures.

[mvaliz]

Nice to see that you can count on the unity of the community

But in all seriousness: What was bad about the start of Cata? I mean, dungeons were great at the start, raids were decent (not that good but also not that bad), sure, some of the world revamps didn't quite hit the mark, but that is not really an endgame problem. I can't comment on PvP as I play only PvE, but I remember that my guildmates were more active in PvP then than they are now. Let me ask you as well: What made WotLK better than Cata?

Dungeons IMO were aweful in the beginning. They were slow droggs getting through them. I'll admit that when Wrath LFD happened, I had more fun with that than anything I did in Cata. It's sad, because I saw that the dungeons were tuned very well in terms of needing all mechanics and making them very hard/challenging in Cata, but they took waaay too long and were harder/slooower, and thus sucked all fun out for me. My GL commented on vent how he thought they were tuned so well to need all CC/ect, and I agree in terms of mechanics... and I sat there thinking "But then why the hell am I so bored?"

Wrath's story IMO was better. Presentation was far more unified with a goal in mind. The dungeons were difficult in the beginning, but not 40+ minute drogfests like Cata's were, and then introduced a unexpected whole new level of fun with LFD that made me realize you can have fun without needing overtly hard challenges (my challenge became how fast could we clear dungeons as opposed to just slow dross of taking out overtuned trash for 40+ minutes). Also the esthetics in Wrath were more unified (Wasn't a big fan of the elementals) and Deathwing was changed from a mastermind manipulator who was so mad the Old Gods themselves lost control into a brainless goon for one Old God who's entire plan seemed to consist of shouting "RAAAAR!!!" and burn random patches of land. And, yes, I hated flying in Cata while questing. The convenience totally lost immersion of the land to me and actually liked how Wrath handled flying. (Endcap gives you flying). I could go on and on about wrath (and Pandaria) for why those were miles above Catafailure.

[Zarvel]

New leveling- yes, because it will make leveling WAAAAY easier.

covenentns- hmm odd i dont remember reps giving us new abilities.

---> You should be worried if covenants are the only new source of class freshness. Also, really? You don't remember reps giving you new abilities? You're using them right now, Azerite essences and their ranks. Lol, but nice try.

soulbinding- odd i dont remember bodyguards giving you new talents, stats, and passive abilities.

--> If it's only in outdoor content, it will not matter in your end-game gameplay. And let's be real, they cannot afford to allow soulbound bodyguards to influence the bread and butter of wow, that is PvE and PvP instanced content. Which is why I mentioned their lack of dot connecting between soulbinding and torghast, because otherwise, it's going to be a pointless feature that's a nice-to-have but not a core gameplay changer.

torghast is nothing like visions, it is roguelike, and it is not timed, and it is randomized.

---> Let's be real. Do you really think a roguelike-ish gameplay is possible with WoW's mechanics? Yes, it is not timed, but it will be gated in one form or another. Or worse, it loses its integrity and starts leaning more towards grouped gameplay to brush past said gating. The only pure non-gated single player content in wow so far were Proving Grounds and the Mage Tower. Also, "randomized", really? Have we not learnt our lessons from Island Expeditions? That's exactly how they sold that System, with that exact word used in their sales pitch at blizzcon.

True randomization of enemies in WoW is not a thing and it will never be possible. Things like that are ALWAYS predetermined and have pre-sets, out of which 1 comes into play per day/week/month. Let me give you a little insight from a game called Bejeweled/Bejeweled Blitz - You play that game by matching gems and clearing pieces till you meet the level clear requirements. From a player's point of view, the gems that fall into the board look like they're random and the way you clear the board feels random, but trust me, its not. The way us level designers do it is we decide what part of the board we want our players to interact with, then we decide the weightage of the type of gems they need to clear the level and set it to differing amounts from all sides of the board such that they result in the board being cleared. We test this, and only if we clear the level multiple times do we okay it for release. But every "random" part of that level/game that players see is in fact pre-determined and just shuffled between presets by designers. It's going to be the same for torghast.
Week 1 --> level 1 --> 3 patrol dogs, 5 valkyrie, 5 ghouls, 4 vrykul, boss 1
Week 2 --> level 1 --> 3 valkyrie, 5 patrol dogs, 3 ghouls, 1 revenant, 2 vrykul, boss 1
Week 3 --> level 1 --> 1 boss , 3 valkyrie, 2 revenants, 6 ghouls
Week 4 --> level 1 --> 3 patrol dogs, 5 valkyrie, 5 ghouls, 4 vrykul, boss 1 ---> oh wait, this looks a lot like week 1, i thought they said it would be randomized? * Shock * A lot of players are going to come to this realization within the first few weeks of torghast.

Do you think game design is magic? No, it's all pre-determined. Except corruption of gear and titanforging --- that shit is totally random and hence why it's shit unless you get lucky.

yes, being able to craft a legendary how you want, in any way you want is a feature.

--> what? that's not a feature. It's part of the crafting system that already exists. It's not new. It's just an extra option. Again, technicality.

What I can see here is that you misunderstand what systems are and what features/perks are. Systems change core gameplay in all forms of content or they themselves become the content. If soulbinding is the latter of those 2, it should worry everyone. If it's the former, well i'd love that, and idc if it causes blizz a headache in terms of balance. This game is due some stupid fun.

[Sondrelk]

---> You should be worried if covenants are the only new source of class freshness. Also, really? You don't remember reps giving you new abilities? You're using them right now, Azerite essences and their ranks. Lol, but nice try.

--> If it's only in outdoor content, it will not matter in your end-game gameplay. And let's be real, they cannot afford to allow soulbound bodyguards to influence the bread and butter of wow, that is PvE and PvP instanced content. Which is why I mentioned their lack of dot connecting between soulbinding and torghast, because otherwise, it's going to be a pointless feature that's a nice-to-have but not a core gameplay changer.

---> Let's be real. Do you really think a roguelike-ish gameplay is possible with WoW's mechanics? Yes, it is not timed, but it will be gated in one form or another. Or worse, it loses its integrity and starts leaning more towards grouped gameplay to brush past said gating. The only pure non-gated single player content in wow so far were Proving Grounds and the Mage Tower. Also, "randomized", really? Have we not learnt our lessons from Island Expeditions? That's exactly how they sold that System, with that exact word used in their sales pitch at blizzcon.

I guess i should have figured from the way you talked about Shadowlands, but clearly we have here someone who can see the future, i mean, how else would you know that the abilities from the followers are not used in instances? Can you please point me to the part of the deep dive where that tidbit was mentioned?

Also, your view of what constitutes a roguelike is extremely narrow, isnt it.
Most roguelikes do not have infinite content like you seem to claim they do, their variety comes from exploring the same enemies and areas in slightly different ways each time. Not by being wowed each time you open it up on how each new enemy and room is completely mechanically and visually distinct from previuos runs.
Islands ae roguelikes, believe it or not, pretty shitty rpoguelikes i will admit, but roguelikes all teh same. Torghast is that except with randomized layouts and personal upgrades useable for that run only, which to my mind is only a step or so below the kind of roguelike variety you would get in a standalone game.

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What I can see here is that you misunderstand what systems are and what features/perks are. Systems change core gameplay in all forms of content or they themselves become the content. If soulbinding is the latter of those 2, it should worry everyone. If it's the former, well i'd love that, and idc if it causes blizz a headache in terms of balance. This game is due some stupid fun.

Are you actually intending ot be this obtuse on every aspect of the game? You could say this about pretty much every part of the game.

M+? Just more difficult dungeons, not actually a new feature.
Warfronts? Just a different LFR, nothing new there.
World quests? Not a feature, just dailies again.
Clearly the new areas are not a selling feature either, afterall, you would expect something to be in the game, so why claim it as a selling point.

Honestly, stop trying ot be obtuse, you are making the trolling attempt too blatant.

[FelPlague]

---> You should be worried if covenants are the only new source of class freshness. Also, really? You don't remember reps giving you new abilities? You're using them right now, Azerite essences and their ranks. Lol, but nice try.

--> If it's only in outdoor content, it will not matter in your end-game gameplay. And let's be real, they cannot afford to allow soulbound bodyguards to influence the bread and butter of wow, that is PvE and PvP instanced content. Which is why I mentioned their lack of dot connecting between soulbinding and torghast, because otherwise, it's going to be a pointless feature that's a nice-to-have but not a core gameplay changer.

---> Let's be real. Do you really think a roguelike-ish gameplay is possible with WoW's mechanics? Yes, it is not timed, but it will be gated in one form or another. Or worse, it loses its integrity and starts leaning more towards grouped gameplay to brush past said gating. The only pure non-gated single player content in wow so far were Proving Grounds and the Mage Tower. Also, "randomized", really? Have we not learnt our lessons from Island Expeditions? That's exactly how they sold that System, with that exact word used in their sales pitch at blizzcon.

True randomization of enemies in WoW is not a thing and it will never be possible. Things like that are ALWAYS predetermined and have pre-sets, out of which 1 comes into play per day/week/month. Let me give you a little insight from a game called Bejeweled/Bejeweled Blitz - You play that game by matching gems and clearing pieces till you meet the level clear requirements. From a player's point of view, the gems that fall into the board look like they're random and the way you clear the board feels random, but trust me, its not. The way us level designers do it is we decide what part of the board we want our players to interact with, then we decide the weightage of the type of gems they need to clear the level and set it to differing amounts from all sides of the board such that they result in the board being cleared. We test this, and only if we clear the level multiple times do we okay it for release. But every "random" part of that level/game that players see is in fact pre-determined and just shuffled between presets by designers. It's going to be the same for torghast.
Week 1 --> level 1 --> 3 patrol dogs, 5 valkyrie, 5 ghouls, 4 vrykul, boss 1
Week 2 --> level 1 --> 3 valkyrie, 5 patrol dogs, 3 ghouls, 1 revenant, 2 vrykul, boss 1
Week 3 --> level 1 --> 1 boss , 3 valkyrie, 2 revenants, 6 ghouls
Week 4 --> level 1 --> 3 patrol dogs, 5 valkyrie, 5 ghouls, 4 vrykul, boss 1 ---> oh wait, this looks a lot like week 1, i thought they said it would be randomized? * Shock * A lot of players are going to come to this realization within the first few weeks of torghast.

Do you think game design is magic? No, it's all pre-determined. Except corruption of gear and titanforging --- that shit is totally random and hence why it's shit unless you get lucky.

--> what? that's not a feature. It's part of the crafting system that already exists. It's not new. It's just an extra option. Again, technicality.

What I can see here is that you misunderstand what systems are and what features/perks are. Systems change core gameplay in all forms of content or they themselves become the content. If soulbinding is the latter of those 2, it should worry everyone. If it's the former, well i'd love that, and idc if it causes blizz a headache in terms of balance. This game is due some stupid fun.

1. thats not just rep, also we are getting lots of new abilities without covenents, nice job making up a argument that wasnt being made.
2. its not just outdoor, it is everywhere.
3. yes, yes it is, no it will not be gated they already said that, and yes wow very much can pull off roguelike gameplay, why do you think they cant?
4. Yes, true randomization of enemies in wow is possible, also funny how you literally contradict yourself "we dont do random, they dont do random, except when they do" cool didnt know you worked for blizzard and knew all their coding enough to prove the game is not random. at this point its pretty obvious what you are.

[LordVargK]

Dungeons IMO were aweful in the beginning. They were slow droggs getting through them. I'll admit that when Wrath LFD happened, I had more fun with that than anything I did in Cata. It's sad, because I saw that the dungeons were tuned very well in terms of needing all mechanics and making them very hard/challenging in Cata, but they took waaay too long and were harder/slooower, and thus sucked all fun out for me. My GL commented on vent how he thought they were tuned so well to need all CC/ect, and I agree in terms of mechanics... and I sat there thinking "But then why the hell am I so bored?"

Wrath's story IMO was better. Presentation was far more unified with a goal in mind. The dungeons were difficult in the beginning, but not 40+ minute drogfests like Cata's were, and then introduced a unexpected whole new level of fun with LFD that made me realize you can have fun without needing overtly hard challenges (my challenge became how fast could we clear dungeons as opposed to just slow dross of taking out overtuned trash for 40+ minutes). Also the esthetics in Wrath were more unified (Wasn't a big fan of the elementals) and Deathwing was changed from a mastermind manipulator who was so mad the Old Gods themselves lost control into a brainless goon for one Old God who's entire plan seemed to consist of shouting "RAAAAR!!!" and burn random patches of land. And, yes, I hated flying in Cata while questing. The convenience totally lost immersion of the land to me and actually liked how Wrath handled flying. (Endcap gives you flying). I could go on and on about wrath (and Pandaria) for why those were miles above Catafailure.

I guess everyone likes their dungeons differently. I for myself like a chilled, thought out approach. That's why I never liked m+ the way I should have, because I despise rushing. And timers in general. This whole "gogo"-mentality is repulsive to me.
Story I can't argue. WotLK was superior. But that said: Cata's leveling zones were much more fun for me than WotLK's were. While I liked WotLK's theme more overall, Zones like Vash'ir and Uldum are still among my favorites today. Flying was not optimal, that's true. Not really too different from WotLK though, as you could purchase flying at level 77. But all of that does seem rather minor complaints, compared to other expansions that are called "bad". So based on your 3 points alone the expression "Catafailure" seems pretty exaggerated.

[Zyky]

You mean, until everyone have bought the expansion and subbed, so blizzard dont need to give a shit about quality because you've already given them the money.

>next patch will fix if launch was shit.
>next patch will fix it when this patch was shit. Rinse and repeat while blizzard is in drastic quality decline, while still getting money from drones

The game was deep in the shit before people bought the expansion and resubbed. It had a terrible alpha/beta cycle, the worst of any expansion.

[Stormwolf64]

Please do. Because it’s a subjective term.

And yes, I still think wow and BfA is a good game.

If it's so subjective then i suppose it does little good in explaining my definition. That's your words though as i firmly believe that certain stuff is very objectively good or bad.

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there is a difference between pattern recognition, and claiming to know the future.

Is there? I mean everyone should be able to know the future given Blizzards recent track record. It's now up to blizzard to prove they're able to create something worthwhile anymore.. I'm gonna assume it's shit until proven otherwise and it's Blizzards own fault for skimping out on development and generally fail to uphold the quality we knew them for.

[Zarvel]

1. thats not just rep, also we are getting lots of new abilities without covenents, nice job making up a argument that wasnt being made.
2. its not just outdoor, it is everywhere.
3. yes, yes it is, no it will not be gated they already said that, and yes wow very much can pull off roguelike gameplay, why do you think they cant?
4. Yes, true randomization of enemies in wow is possible, also funny how you literally contradict yourself "we dont do random, they dont do random, except when they do" cool didnt know you worked for blizzard and knew all their coding enough to prove the game is not random. at this point its pretty obvious what you are.

1. "lots of new abilities" ? Care to list out any you know of or are you just going to pull that phrase out of your ass with an assumption that there will be? Cuz the only thing mentioned at blizzcon on the stage and in interviews was that there would be a couple of covenant abilities, 1 universal and 1 role/class specific. Also wtf do you mean "that's not just rep" ? Just because a couple of essences and their ranks are gated behind reps does not mean they cannot be accounted for anymore, lol. You sounded like you didn't know of any spells and abilities that came from rep and I gave you a valid example. End of story. "making up an argument that wasn't being made", oh please, spare me.

2. Again, they never mentioned soulbinding in any sense outside of world content. They may have mentioned it linked to torghast in passing, but i honestly can't seem to remember. But i'm 110% certain they never mentioned or specifically said soulbinding would be in effect in instanced PvE and PvP content. Link me a clip of blizz employees saying so themselves and i'll gladly believe you. Otherwise, again, quit pulling stuff out of your ass to "make an argument that wasn't being made", as you put it.

3. Really dude? I just explained the "why" part in that damn paragraph. Read it again, properly this time, cuz I ain't re-typing it.

4. Wow, your comprehension is poorer than I initially thought. I literally explained in a long paragrah how nothing about the randomness is random. It's all weighted. Weights in any spawning automatically cuts out "randomness" because you are determining what appears where and when. If there were no weights, THAT would be random. That is how it works. It's very simple to understand, or at least I would've thought it would be, but thanks to you I doubt it's that simple after all. So, yeah. lol.

You need to spend a minute or two more reading before you decide to keyboard warrior shit up.

Good attempt at trying to take the high horse, unfortunately looks like you twisted an ankle while trying to climb said horse and fell flat. Ouch.
Another dude who quoted me tried the exact same thing trying to make me look like I'm complaining about stuff just because I'm not praising it instead? Lol , not even gonna bother gracing that with a response, waste of energy and keyboard strokes.

[kizzor]

Yea, Blizz has been shite recently but perhaps they pull off a "Capcom" and releases nothing but hits for a while and reintroduce themselves as beasts of the industry

[mvaliz]

I guess everyone likes their dungeons differently. I for myself like a chilled, thought out approach. That's why I never liked m+ the way I should have, because I despise rushing. And timers in general. This whole "gogo"-mentality is repulsive to me.
Story I can't argue. WotLK was superior. But that said: Cata's leveling zones were much more fun for me than WotLK's were. While I liked WotLK's theme more overall, Zones like Vash'ir and Uldum are still among my favorites today. Flying was not optimal, that's true. Not really too different from WotLK though, as you could purchase flying at level 77. But all of that does seem rather minor complaints, compared to other expansions that are called "bad". So based on your 3 points alone the expression "Catafailure" seems pretty exaggerated.

Oh, there's a lot more -just didn't want to write a novel. Example you said of "Zones being more fun". Nope, not at all for me. Uldum I was expecting "Storm Peaks meets Egypt", and instead got a poorly written Raiders of the Lost Ark Lampoon. Vashjir could've been amazing, if the swimming mechanics wasn't so gawd-aweful, the zones disgustingly huge with nothing in-between, and the restriction to use a singular mount removed.

And, to me, they weren't minor as they were major elements of the game. You don't get the right to dismiss the story, level design, plot, dungeon mechanics and leveling flying eff-up as just "Minor elements" when the rest of the world knows them as "The whole point of endgame expansion".

[Shadowsgrace]

Hello! with all of the recent discourse surrounding the craven business practices that Blizz have adopted ie. thousands of players being unable to play the unfinished 8.3...

Wait...what?

[Grimbold21]

New leveling- yes, because it will make leveling WAAAAY easier.

covenentns- hmm odd i dont remember reps giving us new abilities.

soulbinding- odd i dont remember bodyguards giving you new talents, stats, and passive abilities.

torghast is nothing like visions, it is roguelike, and it is not timed, and it is randomized.

yes, being able to craft a legendary how you want, in any way you want is a feature.

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nah even superman 64 was better, it was an actual game, it was awkward but... god...

Arguably (some) essences are rep locked

Legion body guards granted you abilities.

Also, while this is subjective, i don't much appreciate acquiring abilities or talents via other parties, specially if that acquisition is lockes behind several different measures of grinding.

[FelPlague]

1. "lots of new abilities" ? Care to list out any you know of or are you just going to pull that phrase out of your ass with an assumption that there will be? Cuz the only thing mentioned at blizzcon on the stage and in interviews was that there would be a couple of covenant abilities, 1 universal and 1 role/class specific. Also wtf do you mean "that's not just rep" ? Just because a couple of essences and their ranks are gated behind reps does not mean they cannot be accounted for anymore, lol. You sounded like you didn't know of any spells and abilities that came from rep and I gave you a valid example. End of story. "making up an argument that wasn't being made", oh please, spare me.

2. Again, they never mentioned soulbinding in any sense outside of world content. They may have mentioned it linked to torghast in passing, but i honestly can't seem to remember. But i'm 110% certain they never mentioned or specifically said soulbinding would be in effect in instanced PvE and PvP content. Link me a clip of blizz employees saying so themselves and i'll gladly believe you. Otherwise, again, quit pulling stuff out of your ass to "make an argument that wasn't being made", as you put it.

3. Really dude? I just explained the "why" part in that damn paragraph. Read it again, properly this time, cuz I ain't re-typing it.

4. Wow, your comprehension is poorer than I initially thought. I literally explained in a long paragrah how nothing about the randomness is random. It's all weighted. Weights in any spawning automatically cuts out "randomness" because you are determining what appears where and when. If there were no weights, THAT would be random. That is how it works. It's very simple to understand, or at least I would've thought it would be, but thanks to you I doubt it's that simple after all. So, yeah. lol.

You need to spend a minute or two more reading before you decide to keyboard warrior shit up.

Good attempt at trying to take the high horse, unfortunately looks like you twisted an ankle while trying to climb said horse and fell flat. Ouch.
Another dude who quoted me tried the exact same thing trying to make me look like I'm complaining about stuff just because I'm not praising it instead? Lol , not even gonna bother gracing that with a response, waste of energy and keyboard strokes.

1. Warlock curses, paladin auras, rogue poisons, totems. Demoni circle, summon gargoyle, hunters mark, hammer of wrath, cyclone, anti magic zone, shattering throw, killshot, ritual of doom, challenging shout, eyes of the beast. and more.

also 1 movement ability per covenent, then 1 per covenent per class, so 12 classes, 4, covenent,s 48 spells.

2. yes, yes they did, soulbinding will work throughout the game, including toghast.

3. nah not guna read all of your nonsense.

4. you literally said they are never gunna add random stuff to the game, then list stuff that is random.

[LordVargK]

Oh, there's a lot more -just didn't want to write a novel. Example you said of "Zones being more fun". Nope, not at all for me. Uldum I was expecting "Storm Peaks meets Egypt", and instead got a poorly written Raiders of the Lost Ark Lampoon. Vashjir could've been amazing, if the swimming mechanics wasn't so gawd-aweful, the zones disgustingly huge with nothing in-between, and the restriction to use a singular mount removed.

And, to me, they weren't minor as they were major elements of the game. You don't get the right to dismiss the story, level design, plot, dungeon mechanics and leveling flying eff-up as just "Minor elements" when the rest of the world knows them as "The whole point of endgame expansion".

BfA showed me, that it always can get worse. I would happily trade all of BfA for Cata. No random loot, no forced personal loot, no scaling max level enemies; no half assed classes, more abilities and the choice of alternative playstyles, no pressure to login every day, you were able to play multiple alts, etc...
I value classdesign and sensible character progression more than other content. I am not belitteling your opinion about cata, nor do I share it. But in hindsight and compared to the really bad expasions cata isn't all that bad. Sure compared to really good expansions it's not all that good either. In my opinion cata is the exact average WoW expansion.