WTF happened after 8.1.5?

[WowClassic]

Just wait for Classic TBC if you want arena. Retail is dead

[Venziir]

So I quit playing around 8.1.5 because well the game sucked lets be honest.

I wanted to come back to kill some time just doing arenas with my buddy, only to find out that to even stand a chance in pvp I basically have to do max level questing (which i despise) for 10-15+ hours just to stand any chance in pvp on ONE CHARACTER (I play lots of alts)

WTF happened to this game? Why are they make it so difficult and grindy for people who just want to pvp and not do any questing get back into the game?

Short version; because Blizzard doesn't care about pvp and never really has

[Tiwack]

Yea any fresh 120 basically gets murdered trying to go to nazj let alone do an assault on their own. I don't know what they're thinking, surely this wasn't the intent of their highly acclaimed scaling. It's bad enough hitting 120 and feeling way less powerful than you did at 119, being told you have to go here and here and put up with this and this for some awesome powerspikes turns a lot of players off from the game they thought they knew. Without reaching out/finding people to boost them a bit, few if any, keep login backin. There's just no fun in feeling that far behind while getting your ass handed to you so consistently while knowing you have so much still to go through to even be close to other players. Without taking time to gear up with wqs and eventually dungeons, getting essences and cloak just is not an option or even feasible. There's a ton of endgame content to wade through before you're even able to queue for lfr let alone queue to the most recent wings. They look forward to flying and those that are lucky are ignorant of the recently expired rep bonus buff...

[Akka]

To everyone saying, "The game's always required a major grind to catch up," No... No it has not. In Wrath and Cata, you could easily catch up in one lucky alt run of the current raid if no one else needed the gear. I've done that more than once. In Dragonsoul, I literally got carried through one run of heroic before I was doing comparable numbers to everyone else on a hunter.[/I]

TBH, that's not exactly an enticing game you're talking about here.
"I can catch up to everyone in two runs" is a pretty shitty design.
Not that today's WoW and boring grind is better, but making all progress irrelevant is not a good idea.

[TickTickTick]

There was a time when returning to the game after a year just meant you had to grind gear to catch up.

There was a time when humans were shitting where they stood instead of having toilets and sewers. Things change.

All I'm seeing is a person who mistakingly took this game for a pvp game, whereas it's not - the pvp in this game is only the tumor that's been growing more and more.
If you expect to return to the game 2 major patches later (basically during content drought, meaning people are as farmed as they'd like) and be on equal footing, you should choose a different game.

Don't like it - don't play it. You'll survive, trust me.

[The Butt Witch]

So I quit playing around 8.1.5 because well the game sucked lets be honest.

I wanted to come back to kill some time just doing arenas with my buddy, only to find out that to even stand a chance in pvp I basically have to do max level questing (which i despise) for 10-15+ hours just to stand any chance in pvp on ONE CHARACTER (I play lots of alts)

WTF happened to this game? Why are they make it so difficult and grindy for people who just want to pvp and not do any questing get back into the game?

Blizzard needed to find a way to keep people in the game. So they came up with systems like super RNG mechanics and unlimited grinds, in order to turn the game into a fucking job, so that if you don't play constantly, you fall behind the curve, and it's hard to come back to the curve.

[The Butt Witch]

Actually, I've found this to be the opposite. If you add up all the time players spent grinding out the Heart of Azeroth from the beginning of BfA to now, then compare it to someone who just buys BfA today, the newbie will spend only a tiny fraction of that time to hit the soft cap. Sure, it may feel like more of a grind because there are so many things to do, but the total time invested in catching up to the curve is much less than everyone already at the curve spent on it.

There are some catchup mechanics for players that are so behind the curve they can't even see it, because this would totally discourage new players from buying the game, just like Eve Online where by now people are flying planets and new players get a space trash truck.

But people in the vicinity of the curve, if they don't play for a week or two, or play very little every day, will discover that they're losing the rat race, fall behind in gear, fall behind in rio score, fall behind in azerite power, fall behind in all these grinds and opportunities, so they must keep playing and giving Blizzard money.

[ceall]

Pvp is a niche in this game. Deal with it.
Yes, you should definitely experience the game itself before doing your niche only.
If you don't want to do any max-level progression, play any kind of moba or battle Royale game.

If you don't like that, play when the arena servers are online.

On the other hand, if all the secondary progression stuff/trinkets/bonuses of any kind would be disabled in instanced pvp while also bringing back pvp templates, it could be a more enjoyable thing overall.

(Yes, I know, pvpers hated the templates, but I've seen enough fresh 120's with 60k hp in my random bgs, while everyone else was hovering at 500k+ hp. And of course, those lowly geared players always happened to be on my faction, resulting in a loss before the match had even begun. At least those templates gave ppl a rather equal playing field.)

[gobio]

I like how this was a thinly veiled "WoW is dying" thread or at least that's where the OP ended up.

Also, stop comparing shit to Wrath and Cata. That shit originally came out 12 years ago. Game design changes in time. Whether or not you stick around for the changes, is up to you. WoW is not "dead" or "dying." It will go f2p way before that and sustain itself with content patches and microtransactions for many years to come. Especially with an IP as strong as Warcraft.

For PVP
LEGIONARY item effect is disabled in LEGION, the last expansion.
While corruption effect is NOT disable in BFA, this exapnsion.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, I've found this to be the opposite. If you add up all the time players spent grinding out the Heart of Azeroth from the beginning of BfA to now, then compare it to someone who just buys BfA today, the newbie will spend only a tiny fraction of that time to hit the soft cap. Sure, it may feel like more of a grind because there are so many things to do, but the total time invested in catching up to the curve is much less than everyone already at the curve spent on it.

The ketchup experience near the end of an expansion is much better, IMO, than the early-to-mid-expansion experience, which doesn't cut the mustard.

that is because all the patch add new system on top of each other instead of replacing each other.

If i grind patch 1 for raid / pvp set and patch 2 for another raid / pvp set and patch 3 for another raid / pvp set, the "catching up" is different than
patch 1 azerite armor, patch 2 new essence, patch 3 corruption, all ON TOP OF EACH OTHER till the end.

[Doffen]

Personally I can't believe people would complain about an investment of a few hours in an MMO after taking a year off, but whatever floats your boat.

This is what I don't understand myself. I was away for 4 months during the first year in BfA, then came back and was just excited to log in again and had stuff to do and catch up on. I am not sure what kind of game people expect WoW to be anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

I gave up on alts this xpac... Its uber boring to repeat the same stuff over and over. Legion wasnt this boring.

And this is the problem I have with BfA after doing said content on my main. There is just not enough replayability in BfA to have fun on my alts because it's just the same thing you do while classes are boring to play generally. Powering up isn't my main issue even though it can be messy with all the systems you play around for.

Legion was great for alts because of replayability, and Shadowlands seems to improve it again.

[Doffen]

OP is the kind of entitled player that wants the game to be like a themepark he can do everything when he pleases it regardless of when he logs in.

And it seems that there are a few players that have the same mindset. To me that's just not what a MMO game is. Sure there is stuff to grind up on, but if I came back today I would be pleased to see that there are story, powering up and new content to do.

[Monster Hunter]

To everyone saying, "The game's always required a major grind to catch up," No... No it has not. In Wrath and Cata, you could easily catch up in one lucky alt run of the current raid if no one else needed the gear. I've done that more than once. In Dragonsoul, I literally got carried through one run of heroic before I was doing comparable numbers to everyone else on a hunter. I was competitive in dps with other hunters doing the highest level content in around 5 hours of being max level. Yeah, I got fed gear, 100%. It could have taken longer to grind that gear out the normal way. But the fact is still that anyone theoretically could have done that with luck combined with a willing group of friends, or enough gold to buy your way through it. In MoP they added the cloak, and that was the one thing you needed to grind up outside getting fed gear. In WoD it was the ring. In Legion they added new systems. Now you need to farm AP and farm legendaries, and hope for good Relics. In BfA now you need neck levels, Azerite armor, Essences, and Corruption, all of which require their own grinds and some require praying to RNG.

As the game has progressed beyond Wrath, you've needed to spend more and more time catching up if you haven't played the expansion yet. Saying, "Well what did you expect," if someone hasn't played the game in a couple of expansions is.. they expected it to be as fast as it used to be. Claiming the game's, "Always been this grindy," is disingenuous at best, trolling at worst. People hated WoD because there was nothing to grind.

Many would argue that that wasn't a good thing and some dude shouldn't have been pulling competitive dps with others after only comming back for 5 hrs.

[Sinaa]

Personally I think the best things in BfA were added after 8.1.5.
Nazjatar, Mechagon were reasonably fun daily questing areas in 8.2 and Horrific Visions are the most fun thing in the entire expansion & they were added in 8.3.

[WowIsDead64]

So I quit playing around 8.1.5 because well the game sucked lets be honest.

I wanted to come back to kill some time just doing arenas with my buddy, only to find out that to even stand a chance in pvp I basically have to do max level questing (which i despise) for 10-15+ hours just to stand any chance in pvp on ONE CHARACTER (I play lots of alts)

WTF happened to this game? Why are they make it so difficult and grindy for people who just want to pvp and not do any questing get back into the game?

Instead of just granting catch ups for returning players, as it happened back in Legion, Blizzard tried to make complete reboot of gearing systems in every patch, forcing players to regrind everything again, again and again. This is just terrible design. I returned back in 8.2 to get flying and thought, that game would be better since that moment. But no. Both Mechagon and Nazjatar were terrible. Mechagon was boring flying around isle, waiting for rare to respawn. And Nazjatar was just simply overtuned for returning player, who didn't have fully leveled heart and all essences, plus terrible PVP-biased (i.e. too much competition for mobs/items) WQ design, I just HATE. So I quit again. I returned about 2 months ago due to COVID situation and just to give this game another chance. But no. 8.3 content is also terrible. Yeah, I managed to catch up on one character. But further terrible daily/vision grind isn't interesting for me. At the same time I can't even think about doing the same crap on another alt.

What I do now? I play 3 Steam games at the same time. I play Euro Truck Simulator 2 to relax, watch sky and green grass. I play Binding of Isaak to check, if I really like Roguelike genre (I guess, I don't, cuz due to RNG it's even more grindy, than playing old console games without save files). I play Terraia, cuz sandbox game genre is the greatest example of so called "casual grind", i.e. grind, that is relaxing.

You just need to realize it. Blizzard don't make casual games. All their games are about either grind or challenge. And, I guess, it will never change. If you're casual player, you just shouldn't play their games.

[Gaidax]

Personally I think the best things in BfA were added after 8.1.5.
Nazjatar, Mechagon were reasonably fun daily questing areas in 8.2 and Horrific Visions are the most fun thing in the entire expansion & they were added in 8.3.

8.2 was legitimately among the best patches WoW had ever, if not THE best.

[InDemand]

This is what happens after taking long absences from the game. Yes, it sucks, but it is what it is. If you truly like the game, you will put in the time and effort to catch up, if you don't then you might as well "re" unsub again.

[froschhure]

Well! I have to agree, gathering arena cap for essence isn’t what a pve player wants, but this BIS shitlist they put online in 2020. likenthere is only 1 way to play a spec. Wake up. You don’t have to grind anything

[Raisei]

This is what I don't understand myself. I was away for 4 months during the first year in BfA, then came back and was just excited to log in again and had stuff to do and catch up on. I am not sure what kind of game people expect WoW to be anymore.

After many such threads I think that such people just feel like paying the sub should entitle them to be literal gods in the game. They don't want to improve the power of their characters they want to BE powerful.

Especially with PvPers we constantly see this demand. They do not actually want to play the game, they want to jump in and PvP and that is just not how the game works. PvErs have to gear and upgrade to raid and to do M+, demanding that PvPers skip this all and get to do their endgame is quite arrogant. But considering most pure PvPers consider PvE content beneath them, that is quite in character.

[Warferno]

The only grindy part is to unlock essences/traits/cape which in the end is not a terrible grind compared to past stuff in earlier expansions.
As for gearing, my friend who has never played retail before got over 460 Ilvl in less than a week just spamming low mythic+, how can you say this is not faster than old systems with honor and badges?
Gearing through conquest is shit I give you that but gearing as an end goal has never been faster than now.

[Gaidax]

After many such threads I think that such people just feel like paying the sub should entitle them to be literal gods in the game. They don't want to improve the power of their characters they want to BE powerful.

Especially with PvPers we constantly see this demand. They do not actually want to play the game, they want to jump in and PvP and that is just not how the game works. PvErs have to gear and upgrade to raid and to do M+, demanding that PvPers skip this all and get to do their endgame is quite arrogant. But considering most pure PvPers consider PvE content beneath them, that is quite in character.

Well to be fair, that's one of the reasons why MOBAs and eventually Battle Royales rose to prominence, while WoW and MMOs as a whole declined.

Someone back in mid to late 2000s realized that you don't have to do menial crap to prepare to having fun, you can instead jump right in and have that fun right away. It is a very valid point is why 2020 is the way it is for worse and for the better too.

It's just WoW is not such a game and people have hard time realizing that.