What exactly makes some people say Legion was good but BfA is bad?

[Zorachus]

+ Class Halls were awesome, cool questlines, and neat unique stuff to do with that.
+ Artifact weapon appearances were fun to go for
+ Character classes just felt so good, no cd issues or bogged down rotations.
+ One large continent, not broken up into two separate continents for each Faction, which is dumb
+ Dalaran city, the best, I prefer Faction shared cities, and not the crazy maze and confusing cities in BfA

- BfA sucks with Essences and Corruption, probly the two worst loot type gear systems ever made for WoW
- BfA class design the worst since Cat.

[Vampyrr]

I mean hell look what they did even with secondary professions ie cooking, archeology, first aid, and fishing and then nothing for bfa. BFA feels like they phoned it in and Legion they poured a lot of passion into

[sam86]

1- better story: bfa story is total bullsh8t, Sylvanas and her loyalists are winning and beating everyone everywhere, yet they are losing so hard that they have no navy, then again they are only force that can stand against N'zoth
what the F*CK? is Sylvie winning or not? official lore state yes but with zero evidence to back it up
2- artifacts : I literally subbed to wow 6 months after i saw druid artifact, and i don't play druid, and legion was 8 months away, so enjoy 6 months of WoD -.- still artifacts were very interesting concept, and beside few crap ones (frost dk comes to mind), most of them were amazing lore and story
3- artifact talent tree: specially in early days, made a feel like old talents era
4- legendary gear: also how to get it was horrible, legendaries themselves were amazing
5- no essence-like: u had only relics, and they are nowhere as bad as essence system
6- class fantasy: strongest part of legion is class fantasy, most class halls and campaigns were amazing and u really want to play them, again there were bad stuff (sewer cover mage mount) but there was also amazing elemental shaman mount
7- lot of new ideas: be it wq (which is worse than daily imo), faction rep bonus, instance for withered training later mage tower, the very heavy focus on class identity
8- class sets: even ppl who stopped playing wow since wrath days i know irl still like to talk and check on class sets, they can't imagine wow without class set, that's how iconic class set it
9- pvp talents: it was annoying that those talents were only in pvp, but lot of new talents finally in wow
10- no warmode: f8ck warmode, with its reward u feel u are forced to it instead of enjoying it, btw i play on pvp server on purpose, i still hate warmode, it makes ppl who don't want pvp, still pvp just for reward, then qq
Legion has a lot of drawbacks, how massive was AP grind, artifact can drop to u from fishing while ur hardcore raider friend won't get it before 7.3, but for all its bad, it had a LOT of content, specially if u are alcoholic like me, to play a priest means u see total new unique content for priest only, and LOT of content for priest only, while playing paly from warlock in bfa has zero difference except in gear drop and some flavor text

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I don't think anyone complains about WQs as I think 90%+ of people prefer it over the daily quests of the past? Maybe I am wrong there.

i hate wq system, i prefer daily system where u log anytime a day and u know what u'll get instead of how random wq was
but that is a minor complain, something that annoys me a little but no way make me stop play (i played Legion 2nd or 3rd most in wow history after wrath then tbc) not a major one like gcd

[Harbour]

To me, BfA is almost exactly the same as Legion.

It's the same focus on world quests. One daily quest with bigger reward etc.

It's the same focus on M+. The same key system, and endless scaling of dungeons in a "modern" GOGOGO AoE fashion.

It's the same Raiding system. 4 difficulties. LFR, Normal, Heroic and Mythic.

It's the same questing system.

It's the same AP grind.

It's the same Titanforging system.

It's actually a bit BETTER system than the "no gear should matter in PvP", "100% random garbage ilvl PvP gear" PvP system we had in Legion.

To me, it seems like the only reason people liked Legion was because of the transmogs on your cool weapons. And people seem salty that BfA don't have Class sets (another transmog argument). Is it really this easy to make you enjoy an expansion? Cool transmogs = good expansion?

-Legion's WQs as well as cashes gave way better rewards, especially by the end of xpac.
-Legion's dungeons were better designed for M+ and more enjoyable. Also M+ player's mentality wasnt that spoiled and toxic back then.
-Legion's raiding was better simply because Legendaries, transmog and certain tier-pieces required to do EM/NH/ToS even in 7.3. There always were enough people to do them. No one give a shit about Uldir or Dazaralor or Eternal Palace except for mount or few transmog weapons.
-BFA's dailies are trash.
-Couple WQ gave enough AP in Legion to get pre-top set of bonuses. Few more days of grind get you to fully unlocked Artifact.
-Corruption/Essences are worse than TF.

[Aeula]

Both were dogshit. Only thing Legion has over BfA is being more alt friendly and the mage tower.

[Specialka]

Legion was the best expansion after Wotlk, get over with, and even if you don't agree don't agree don't bash a good expansion or comparing to bfa, they are nothing alike besides systems taking from legion getting just annoying and disgusting in bfa.

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And legendaries felt good once you got them. And RNG on getting wasn't so bad honestly, i even got my bis on first tries. People love to exagerate and say wuee legendaries were so bad. Dude, everything you did you could get a legendary, and when you did it was the best feeling ever! Azerite never gives me that feeling!

I got the bis for my shaman (gloves) which was my main as my last leg in Antorus. So nop, the leg lottery was shit.

[munkeyinorbit]

And chars could all research your AK with catch ups and didnt punish you for playing more than one char.

How is it being punished by not earning your esscences on the character that you want them on? It's like saying "it's bullshit I can't use my mythic raid gear from my warrior on my newly dinged DK"

[Eazy]

Legion was more alt-friendly, had better lore and was finished(or at least done much better).

[Easo]

Story was overall more coherent and better (outside of Mary Sue you all are criminals Illidan), class halls, arguably better raids, legendary weapons were/are memorable.
The package as a whole had different impression.

[Very Tired]

Legion let me farm millions of gold just by logging onto each of my alts for a few seconds twice a day.

[Shiny212]

Legion had alts, and arguably much better class design. Pretty big diff.

[Kyriani]

To me, BfA is almost exactly the same as Legion.

It's the same focus on world quests. One daily quest with bigger reward etc.

It's the same focus on M+. The same key system, and endless scaling of dungeons in a "modern" GOGOGO AoE fashion.

It's the same Raiding system. 4 difficulties. LFR, Normal, Heroic and Mythic.

It's the same questing system.

It's the same AP grind.

It's the same Titanforging system.

It's actually a bit BETTER system than the "no gear should matter in PvP", "100% random garbage ilvl PvP gear" PvP system we had in Legion.

To me, it seems like the only reason people liked Legion was because of the transmogs on your cool weapons. And people seem salty that BfA don't have Class sets (another transmog argument). Is it really this easy to make you enjoy an expansion? Cool transmogs = good expansion?

For me... BfA duplicated much of Legion... but in true Blizzard fashion they didn't just carry systems over, they made them worse.

Mythic+ was fun in Legion, then BfA mucked with the affixes and made it far less enjoyable for me.

I liked leveling the artifact and unlocking the traits and it had a definitive end as far as the traits were concerned. BfA's neck, however, was just a gatekeeper to azerite traits... which you kept having to unlock over and over till they finally capped that. On top of that, unlike the fixed traits of the Legion artifacts, the azerite traits were a hodgepodge of basically generic stuff, of which only certain specific traits were good for your class/spec, and you had little agency in acquisition.

"Legiondary" RNG was one of the flaws of Legion... so what did Blizzard do? They decided to add more RNG. Titanforging wasn't bad enough, no they went and replaced it with corruption which is far worse.


Then we have things in BfA that Legion didn't have which reduced my enjoyment of the game:

Essences
Island Expeditions
Wrathion's Cloak 2.0

Just because some of the systems are the "same" on the surface doesn't mean those systems haven't been altered from Legion to BfA.

As I mentioned Mythic+ was more fun for me in Legion than it is now. The general principles of the Mythic+ system may be relatively the "same" as Legion, but things have changed which have made them far less enjoyable for me.

And again, the raid system might be the "same" but the raids themselves are not fun for me and I find them far less enjoyable. Heck... I haven't even fullycleared any of the BfA raids on LFR because I just can't justify subjecting myself to the "dance of the seven veils" of mechanics that raids have turned into. But in fairness, my enjoyment of raids as a whole has been steadily declining as I get older so perhaps that's a "me" issue.

Legion had it's flaws but the good far outweighed the bad. Comparatively, BfA had it's good points, but the bad far weighed the good. At least as far as I'm concerned.

[Jujudrood]

What exactly makes them say that?
Their mouths, driven by personal opinion, based on the features each one offered.

My opinion.
Legion gave the following story-driven things:
- Class Halls (unique per class, offered a variety of rewards)
- Artifacts (both in terms of the weapon itself and the story behind it, plus alternate appearances)
- Suramar (new race, new lore, tie-ins with dungeon/raid, etc)

BFA had the following "counter" to those:
- War Campaign (I guess... bland, the same for everyone per faction)
- Necklace (new artifact that is about as interesting as a bucket of water)
- I guess you could put Naz and/or Mechagon in here, but they lacked the true overall narrative Suramar had

Then they added new features in BFA, which were Warfronts and Island Expeditions, which were ill-received and have been "if I gotta..." type content that most seem to not enjoy.
The necklace as the "new artifact" has a singular focused story, which has been told poorly at best, and offers no real visual interest.
You're not getting various skins for it, nor are you building out the story based on your class/race/whatever.
It's just the same, boring stuff about a shiny dwarf and some nonsense about the planet.
Sure, seeing 48 people run by holding a Corrupted Ashbringer was a bit much, but that "unofficial side quest" alone was more interesting than the majority of BFA.

Those small points alone can be used as a reason as to why the overall quality dropped.
BFA was a carbon copy of base systems, sure, but it lacked the same "life" that Legion had, and in return it gave us more mediocrity.

[dewd]

class gameplay. once all traits and ok legendaries were aqcuired every spec was actually fucking fun and made we want to play my chars. now i sometimes log in, look at one dude at a time and thinking how they play for a second and just close wow again without even logging in

[Mardux]

Legion had:
-Suramar + withered scenario
-Mage Tower
-Class order halls + quests + mounts
-Interesting artifact designs you can collect
-Interesting story
-Likable characters

BfA has nothing of that.

Legion did have legiondary issues, and the AP wasn't fun to farm, but as a casual player I couldn't care less. My first legiondaries on my main was Prydaz and Sephuz so yeah, I wasn't exactly lucky in the legiondary lottery. And while it was a bitch to get alts raid ready with AP farm it got better later in the expac.

Azerite gear and essence farm isn't fun imo. Corruption feels like it just takes all control out of the players hands and that isn't a good feeling.

Legion did ruin a lot of classes but BfA imo is worse.

I still haven't figured out what was supposed to be so amazing about the mage tower other than be able to do each fight, which was one of only a few different ones, then never doing it again on that toon. No changing difficulty, no difference in mechanics or challenge. Just one and done and forget about it because there's zero reason to go back after killing one boss.

[Culex]

By "some" you mean "most" right?

[ro9ue]

Artifacts vs Heart of Azeroth
36 Different Weapons for each spec vs All the same item.
Cool custom visuals vs Neck piece.
Cosmetics to collect vs nothing.
Individual lore vs one questline.
Stories and class halls that directly relate to each alt vs one lame magni questline.
When you unlock stuff you keep it vs complete RNG and you lose it when you switch gear.

That's just one system and there's probably way more to that list.

[Sharby]

I still haven't figured out what was supposed to be so amazing about the mage tower other than be able to do each fight, which was one of only a few different ones, then never doing it again on that toon. No changing difficulty, no difference in mechanics or challenge. Just one and done and forget about it because there's zero reason to go back after killing one boss.

The fact that it was essentially a continuation of the challenge modes from WoD and MoP that rewarded 36 different weapons all tailored specifically to your spec? Not to mention it was very accessible near the end since nethershards could be farmed quite efficiently and getting an alt to the ilvl needed for the challenge was quick an easy. I personally did the challenge on five alts in a row in the last week of Legion.


Mage Tower was never popular for its journey, it was popular for its destination.

[Pakheth]

Mage Tower was never popular for its journey, it was popular for its destination.

Well said.

It also made you explore classes and specs you might not be that familiar with. I managed to do guardian druid and arms warrior, both of which I am rather proud considering I had no idea how to play those specs when I started. I also managed elem and resto shaman, MM hunter, WW monk, balance and feral druid, and a few others I don't remember right now.

It was a one time challenge, but one that was really fun if you did it on multiple characters and different specs.

[Doffen]

Artifact Weapon. Better initial power, more important and gave you the abilities and passives early on, so when you were done with the initial grind you could still upgrade it through static % upgrade. Catch up was also much better. Remember in 7.2 and following patches where you did a few World Quests and you were in practice caught up. Best example was my 45 minutes in 7.3 on a newly dinged alt and I had 3 points in Concordance. It's not so bad now with the Hearth of Azeroth level either, but it feels more like leveling today. You get power in like every 5 point instead of each point until now when you cap it at 80 where you get a static tiny upgrade from each level.

A good reason why World Quests have been less popular now is the reward they don't give. Until 8.3 there was little reason to do them at all. No legendaries. From 8.3 though the gear you get from emissaries can proc corruption.

Artifact Weapon also had, like you say, cosmetic rewards. And believe it or not, it is actually important. It's something you can show for yourself(or for others if thats important) that you did that content.

For me Class Hall and the content it gave was the biggest difference from Legion to BfA. Class Hall and your artifact weapon was connected. It also made some replayability if you had several alts, different classes. You had 36 different weapons who each had many cosmetic options. Class Hall provided a story about the Burning Legion, the greatest foe we have encountered so far in the Warcraft Franchise. Artifact Weapon gave us mage tower, it was connected to both that and the class mount. So in essence(pun) Legion had one thing you upgraded and worked on. You didn't have Azerite Armor to upgrade with your AP, and Essences to upgrade and now in 8.3 no cloak to upgrade. It's content you have to go outside your normal routine to upgrade. HoA level is the least of the worry. I don't think that's bad at all. It's pretty fast, but still slower than the Artifact Weapon. Especially on alts. In legion you upgraded your legendaries too you could say, but you didn't go outside raiding, or dungeons or world quests to not upgrade them. So the Legendary Cloak is something else. Mind you I don't dislike that either, but the biggest complaints I see now is that people think there are too many things from different places you have to work on to be optimal. This wasn't really the case in Legion where you could do everything with stuff you liked after the initial effort, grind if you like.

What BfA did better is that AP goes for all your specs. One major flaw with the weapon, though you didn't really have that issue when they brought in the massive catch ups during the expansion. And I also believe BfA and it's "grind" would be more accepted by the player base if they had Azerite Armor like tier-sets and had the Essence system from day one, more fleshed out and here comes the big boom, more like the Artifact Weapon.