Which expansion was the absolute worst?

[Relapses]

The reward structure of Wotlk and Cata are pretty similiar.

So yeah, no idea where this "Nothing to do except raids" criticism towards Cata comes from.
That started in Wotlk, not Cata.

People often forget the reason Blizzard adds certain features is because of the very "player outcry" Blizzard is often accused of ignoring. WotLK's casual-friendly approach was a 180 from the "1% of all players entered SWP" of TBC before it. Cata's "hard dungeons" were the response to players saying WotLK was "too easy." MoP's dual pronged approach to 10- and 25M raiding was a response to Cata allowing "casual Heroic" raiders to emerge. WoD's "raid or die" mentality is because most people who stayed subbed for MoP did so because of the raids. And Legion's total 180 of WoD is a result from the dismal results their decision to listen to this part of the community had on the game. It's not all good. It's not all bad. It's mostly somewhere in the middle. But at some point during the game's near two decades of existence I think most players have an idealized version of WoW which trumps everything else in their mind. And because human beings are selfish, egotistical creatures it's natural to feel like everybody else should share this opinion. That's why these threads are silly -- it's either a bunch of people agreeing with themselves that something was great or it's the same group of people questioning why other people don't think the same way.

[Kralljin]

-snip-

Honestly, most of your post only some touching points at best with what i'm saying.

It seems more like a Meta opinion on this thread as a whole, rather than a specific respone to my post.

MoP's dual pronged approach to 10- and 25M raiding was a response to Cata allowing "casual Heroic" raiders to emerge.

Cata and MoP used the same raid structure, besides the addition of Flex in SoO.

WoD's "raid or die" mentality is because most people who stayed subbed for MoP did so because of the raids.

No, it's just that raids were only thing that could be considered "finished" in WoD.

The "raid or die" mentality has been a thing since Wotlk, because raids were the only thing to gear your character in the endgame post 5man dungeons, besides the catchup via a new vendor in a patch.
And said catchup was there to prepare you to enter raiding.

[Relapses]

Honestly, most of your post only some touching points at best with what i'm saying.

It seems more like a Meta opinion on this thread as a whole, rather than a specific respone to my post.

It's more of a commentary on the idea that the "original sin" of the game being "too focused on raiding" happened in any given expansion is one which is at odds with reality. WoW has, at its core, always been about raiding. It's the one thing which really sets it apart from every other game out there. It's what set it apart in Classic, it's what helped it maintain its uniqueness in TBC and it was the central focus of the expansions which followed it. I think whenever a player becomes disengaged with WoW, they naturally feel like they're being prodded into raiding because most of the game's reward structures intentionally point in this direction -- thus, I feel like this isn't so much a criticism as much as it is evidence that a player became disengaged with an expansion's content at this point.

Cata and MoP used the same raid structure, besides the addition of Flex in SoO.

While true, MoP doubled down on the dual raid size hierarchy which began in Cata after Blizzard's decision of item level parity between 10 and 25M nearly eliminated 25M raiding from existence. Blizzard spent the better part of MoP trying to move players back into 25M raiding (see: TFing) and after failing to do so, compromised on 20M Mythic in WoD. However, since most of the 10M Heroic raiders did not successfully transition into 20M guilds in WoD, I think most of them simply stopped playing contributing to the now-infamous subscriber drop-off after WoD's launch.

No, it's just that raids were only thing that could be considered "finished" in WoD.

I'm sure there was more content planned for WoD but once the developers realized the massive mistake they'd made with the way content rolled out in this expansion they were forced to go back to the drawing board and begin working on Legion almost immediately.

[Kralljin]

I feel like this isn't so much a criticism as much as it is evidence that a player became disengaged with an expansion's content at this point.

You're not wrong in the conclusion that raiding generally was the endgame in WoW, however i think the concept of it being the sole source of endgame loot crystallized during Wotlk.

In Classic, you first had to level to 60 in the first place, that was months, then you had to exhaust every dungeon, Reputation (though ignoring Ranking and WSG / AB factions here) and outdoor activity in order to reach a point where raiding was necessary to gear your character.

A casual player simply did not exhaust all of in this within a few months, partially because everything in Classic took longer.

In TBC, Reputation became more central, heroics were added (alongside a badge vendor), Professions were massive time sink with powerful, Arena / PvP also provided "casual friendly" mechanics to upgrade your character.

You could get your character quite far in TBC without ever stepping into a raid.

In Wotlk, they started to streamlined it.
Most Reputation loot was equal / worse than heroic loot, heroics and badges also no longer provided loot that was at least in some cases equivalent / superior to raid loot.
On top of that, professions also got nuked, no longer was there a super powerful BoP Item from professions, most of it was at best equivalent to raiding and you only had a handful of pieces to choose from.

The game also becoming more fastpaced just increased the speed at which people geared their characters.

In Wotlk, it was very easy to reach the point of "i have to raid to upgrade my character", something that took more casual players months in Classic or TBC.

That's why i say:
Wotlk was without a doubt the start of the "Raid or die" mentality, the fact that Blizzard in the same vein also made raiding more accessible speaks to this.

Why people suddenly use Cata, MoP or WoD in that context is beyond me, those just continued the path set by Wotlk but were not the perpetrators.

But i agree with the notion that a lot aren't that objective in their judgement and work off their personal experience "when the game started to suck" while throwing in some buzzwords to scapegoat.

While true, MoP doubled down on the dual raid size hierarchy which began in Cata after Blizzard's decision of item level parity between 10 and 25M nearly eliminated 25M raiding from existence. Blizzard spent the better part of MoP trying to move players back into 25M raiding (see: TFing)

Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that they didn't really alter anything between Cata and MoP, besides adding Thunderforging.

The lesson that the game mode which awards equivalent loot but requires less people tends to cannibalize the other modes is a lesson the devs should have learned during that time (looking at you, M+).

[kaminaris]

While true, MoP doubled down on the dual raid size hierarchy which began in Cata after Blizzard's decision of item level parity between 10 and 25M nearly eliminated 25M raiding from existence. Blizzard spent the better part of MoP trying to move players back into 25M raiding (see: TFing) and after failing to do so, compromised on 20M Mythic in WoD. However, since most of the 10M Heroic raiders did not successfully transition into 20M guilds in WoD, I think most of them simply stopped playing contributing to the now-infamous subscriber drop-off after WoD's launch.

Because it's a failed idea to force such large group together. If giving more rewards don't work then problem is elsewhere.
20 man isn't a compromise, it's retardness pretty much killed raiding.

Realistically speaking you don't have more than 5-7 closer friends in game. So 20 mans are filled a smaller group of friends not always liking each other, that eventually makes chasms, issues and either rotating squad or guilds falling aparat.

And yes there are tons of people who liked 10M and refuse to play with 20. They are either gone or just playing casually.
Yet another idea that blizz hoped people will "step up" and people just "stepped out" instead.

[arkanon]

For me, personally, WoD was better than BfA. I played WoD from start to finish, enjoyed most of the raids, 5mans were ok. I didn't like the garry, so i personally didn't really do much with them. I didnt enjoy it, so i just didnt do it. Did i miss out on hundreds of thousands of gold? Without a doubt. Did it allow me to focus on the thinngs i did enjoy? Yup.

BfA was the first expansion i unsubbed from purely because i didnt enjoy it; no other game dragging me away, no real life drama, just flat out didnt enjoy it.

[Th3Scourge]

I think now at the end of BfA we can say that BfA is the absolute worst. Corruption is such a dreadful system

So far.

There is every possibility that Shadowlands can be worse. I can't even bring myself to log back on the beta with the covenants as they are

[Sharnie786]

The reward structure of Wotlk and Cata are pretty similiar.

So yeah, no idea where this "Nothing to do except raids" criticism towards Cata comes from.
That started in Wotlk, not Cata.

The reason a lot have a favourable view of Wrath is because that's when they started playing so they're blinded by the noob experience. For me, wrath was horrible, it introduced things that felt horrible. Classes were mainly broken throughout minus a few specs. It didn't feel like a good expansion at all

[StealthadintheRogue]

BFA is the worst, not a single redeeming quality about it. From start to finish it was a terrible, out of place, unfinished product.
WoD is the second worst, what it did have was awesome, but it was missing a lot.
Legion is next, rose tinted glasses. People thought it was good, but that was because WoD was pretty soulless.
Cataclysm wasn't bad, but it also wasn't great. Pretty middle of the road expansion.
Vanilla, only here because everything else was just better, but Vanilla was and is still awesome.
MOP, great for PvP, great for raiding, great scenery.
TBC, amazing expansion, felt completely different from Vanilla. Arenas began, PvP was fun, PvE was awesome.
Wrath. Can't argue this one. Its just the GOAT of WoW so far. Peak WoW. Great story telling, amazing raids, zones were all engaging.

[Krimzin]

BFA is the worst, not a single redeeming quality about it. From start to finish it was a terrible, out of place, unfinished product.
WoD is the second worst, what it did have was awesome, but it was missing a lot.
Legion is next, rose tinted glasses. People thought it was good, but that was because WoD was pretty soulless.
Cataclysm wasn't bad, but it also wasn't great. Pretty middle of the road expansion.
Vanilla, only here because everything else was just better, but Vanilla was and is still awesome.
MOP, great for PvP, great for raiding, great scenery.
TBC, amazing expansion, felt completely different from Vanilla. Arenas began, PvP was fun, PvE was awesome.
Wrath. Can't argue this one. Its just the GOAT of WoW so far. Peak WoW. Great story telling, amazing raids, zones were all engaging.

What makes any expansion good or bad is experience. The more th experienced the player, the more we demand.

TBC:Everyone has nothing but good things to say about TBC, because it was the first ever for WoW, so we had nothing to compare it to.

WoTHLK:When we moved onto WoTLK we all thought we knew it all so we wanted even more and with DKs they were fun but still wasn't enough..

Cata came out and It seemed better than LK so we were appeased for brief time.

MoP was something so different that we were in awe. Not to mention having a new class to toy with.

WoD introduced us to garrisons and lets face it, made it feel like a Single player game.So no matter how good WoD was, we still have a bad taste in our mouths.

Legion: Again, another completely different landscape that a lot loved. Overall though we as players are a lot harder to impress so it was good and bad.

BFA: Its the most recent and with everything else going to shit in the world, we are just piling on BFA because we are bored. The raids were solid. The corruption idea was shit. Overall its one of the worse but I personally enjoyed some parts of it. I just seemed to go on forever because a lot of us were stuck at home so we played stupid amounts of WoW.

Obviously just my opinions.

[Sluvs]

WoD, while BfA has its problems (dont even get me started on the lore), I still had fun playing it. WoD was just a barren landscape with nothing to do.

But I will be lying if sometimes I dont rage about the stupid story they tried to push it. But again, it would probably be recency bias.

[Dazmalak]

Lore and all the extra systems killed BfA for me. Personal opinion is that both it and Legion were terrible. I didn't love WoD, but I had enough fun in Ashran on various toons that it kept me entertained, though there was almost literally nothing else to do. I expect Shadowlands to suck, because right now WoW is on a trajectory of ever increasing asspull world cataclysmic events and villains, as well as continuing the trend of extra systems and borrowed power.

[Baroclinic]

It's always been a tough call between WoD and Cataclysm for me, but WoD wins since I could atleast fly around Cataclysm.

[Thetruth1400]

Far and away BfA. Very little of the content actually held player interest or felt rewarding and not just a slog grind.

I don't get why people shit on WoD so much. It wasn't a bad expansion, it was just way too content light. The content there was relatively good though.

[enigma77]

Anyone that doesn't say Warlords is just kidding themself.

It had NO content and got cancelled after only receiving one additional raid tier.

Bfa for all its flaws had 100 times more to do and did not get cancelled.

[Dch48]

I have liked them all, even BFA and WOD, but if I have to pick a worst it would be Burning Crusade. That expansion started out great with Karazhan but degraded steadily after that. My primary issue is that by the end, the difficulty of the raids had ramped up so much that at least 90% of the player base was being excluded from seeing the end Bosses. That was just poor design and Blizzard admitted the mistake and said it would never happen again.

[callipygoustp]

Still think WoD was the worst. A close second being Cata.

BfA, while a pain in the ass at times, was still pretty enjoyable imo. Essences and Corruptions could have been handled better for alts, but, otherwise - pretty solid all around.

[korijenkins]

WoD was devoid of content, but BFA had broken systems, but Legion had awful PvP, but...

[Th3Scourge]

Anyone that doesn't say Warlords is just kidding themself.

It had NO content and got cancelled after only receiving one additional raid tier.

Bfa for all its flaws had 100 times more to do and did not get cancelled.

BfA proved having things to do does not translate to a positive gaming experience. Quite the opposite, the amount of shit and hoops you had to jump through in order to have a functioning and playable character made for a dreadful gaming experience

[Krimzin]

Anyone that doesn't say Warlords is just kidding themself.

It had NO content and got cancelled after only receiving one additional raid tier.

Bfa for all its flaws had 100 times more to do and did not get cancelled.

I will never say WoD.. I made millions in WoD Garrisons. Still sitting flush today from WoD because of the ability to make gold in Garrisons.