Shadowlands has major problems up ahead

[Toybox]

I addressed that in my very next sentence. I concede that abilities provide more player power than items, but the other benefits offered by covenants are greater to compensate. It's comparable in that player power is tied to a locked choice at all.

Fair, but the difference between shoulder enchants was a percentage of a percentage. Meanwhile, the difference between something like Condemn on ST vs Spear/Aftershock on AoE is insane to the point of absolute hilarity. It's like saying a skateboard is comparable to a car because both have 4 wheels & get you places.

[Sorshen]

Yet again, the borrowed power is situationally obscene. Can't wait for the first m+ week when people that don't have the 'correct' covenant will feel the burn of being denied from any high key.

[kaminaris]

Yet again, the borrowed power is situationally obscene. Can't wait for the first m+ week when people that don't have the 'correct' covenant will feel the burn of being denied from any high key.

Doubt that. Unless you mean really high key like current 29+. But not even 0.1% participate in high keys anyways so nothing of value was lost.

[The Cheat]

Man I thought there were a lot more Blizzard white knights on the official forums but this thread really has caused me to re-evaluate that stance. Yeah the OP might seem to be parroting points some streamers have made, but why knock him if he actually believes that and chooses to attempt to engage in meaningful discussion?

Also, the "BlizZard" thing is likely because he's spelling it like how their logo looks with one Z bigger than the other. Surprised no one pointed this out unless I missed it.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Also, the "BlizZard" thing is likely because he's spelling it like how their logo looks with one Z bigger than the other. Surprised no one pointed this out unless I missed it.

I thought it was a play on zZzZzZ or zzzZZZ; sleeping/snorring sfx .

[Sentynel]

At least with BFA the rental systems were spread out but this will feel 100% worse IMVHO because it is coming at us all at once which is not good!

Why are you so sure they won't expand on their existing garbage systems throughout the expansion or introduce other garbage systems on top of the already existing garbage systems? Do you have Blizzard's content schedule?

[ydraw]

The last thing that I ever want them to do is "listen to the players." At least the very vocal players. That's how we got BFA. People complained about the Legion AP grind, and that's how we got the watered down Azerite system. People complained about the RNG legendaries and that's how we got the return of login, raid, maybe do a M+, log out for a week with zero incentive to do other content.

Were we even playing the same game? BFA was the expansion with the most extra chores to do in the game's history. AP grind, Essence Grind, Corruption Grind. It's what most people disliked about it.

[Volatilis]

I mean its pretty obvious they are cutting to the front of the line so the speak to make the Christmas market.

The question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to still play the game anyway? Sure there will be bugs and balance issues. But will your enjoyment override those factors? If not then maybe its time to look else where. Plenty of great games out at the moment and couple big ones coming out in a few months too.

[kaminaris]

Were we even playing the same game? BFA was the expansion with the most extra chores to do in the game's history. AP grind, Essence Grind, Corruption Grind. It's what most people disliked about it.

WOT, you didn't grind any of that. Literally nothing you said was grinded.

[Toybox]

WOT, you didn't grind any of that. Literally nothing you said was grinded.

Right, you just naturally got the 50k honor needed for Blood of the Enemy R3.

[kaminaris]

Right, you just naturally got the 50k honor needed for Blood of the Enemy R3.

Or you just ignore that and picked something else cause difference in skill is not going to make up for it.

[Toybox]

Or you just ignore that and picked something else cause difference in skill is not going to make up for it.

Borrowed power currently makes more of a difference than skill for the overwhelming majority of mythic & even heroic geared players if we're talking raw damage numbers. Without corruptions, ideal azerite traits & essences, my sim DPS close to halves.

[kaminaris]

Borrowed power currently makes more of a difference than skill for the overwhelming majority of mythic & even heroic geared players if we're talking raw damage numbers. Without corruptions, ideal azerite traits & essences, my sim DPS close to halves.

Corruptions are 27% but these are enchants. Quite literally. Most of specs uses now stat-stick-corruptions.
Azerite traits are like set bonuses, hardly can call that borrowed power unless you call tier sets borrowed power too.
Essenses are ~10-15%, those are like additional trinket slots, might call them borrowed power.

And still in the end, no it doesnt. There is a reason why top guilds clear raids in 1-2 weeks while rest of players needs couple of months, hint: its not gear, as they had waaaaay worse gear than it's currently available. Same goes for 8.2 where guilds did clear jaina with totally scuffed items minus 10 ilvl from mythic rewards.

[Surfacin9]

Were we even playing the same game? BFA was the expansion with the most extra chores to do in the game's history. AP grind, Essence Grind, Corruption Grind. It's what most people disliked about it.

But all those grinds were spread over 4 content patches. In the begining and in 8.1 you were grinding AP since neither essences not corruptions existed. Once they realized the flaw with AP grind they practically removed it. When I came back in mid 8.2, AP was a non-issue except for the one required to unlock more essence slots which you could achieve without extra effort by playing the game regularly. 8.2 had the essence grind, which I personally didn't bother with until a month into 8.3. Then 8.3 brought cloak and corruptions. You needed to level cloak at first, because corruptions were random. Cloak grind had limits and you could easily stay current by just doing the dailies and asaults. When players asked for corruptions to be targetable, they implemented the grind. So it was sort of a grind that players asked upon themselves. One could argue that the whole corruption aquiring mechanic should have been implemented differently, but don't forget that it was replacing another random drop mechanic - titanforging. The problem with corruptions was that someone could get lucky and have godo corruptions, pushing their dps sky-high, while others were left with crappy useless ones.

One can say it had the most amount of chores, another - you always had something to do. The only ones that were overwhelmed are the 8.3 returnees who had to grind the essences, but again, the most notoriously 'hard' to grind for PvE players (Blood of the Enemy, Conflict & Strife) were only required for those who wanted to push higher keys and go deeper into mythic Ny'alotha. The rest just did it because they couldn't read the parses well and choose the next best thing which was unsignificantly lower performance increase for their level on content.

I've no faith in Blizzard to actually balance the covenant abilities well enough, but I don't see it being a huge problem like many try to blow it out of proportion. If you want to play different specs that require different covenants, then you'd still choose what's best for the main spec, and the secondary spec that you play less would just have to suffice with a weaker covenant ability that still has its use, just not as great as the best one, but its your secondary spec afterall. Same goes for varying types of content. You'd choose the covenant for your primary activity and will still be able to run other content. If you want to run different types of content on the same high competitive level, then you should have enough time to either swap covenants or level a 2nd character

[Tacos87]

Seeing as you say you are a "super casual player" who only do transmg runs and stuff I don't see how most things in this post is even relevant to you? Yes the scaling for legacy content will probably be a bit botched in the beginning, it's been like that in previous squishes as well but blizzard fixed that pretty swiftly those times so I don't worry that this time will be somehow different. Yes you'll initially lose some power with the loss of the neck and corruptions but you'll regain that power and far more by simply leveling up again so there isn't really an issue there.

All of the shadowlands stuff is irrelevant for the content you yourself say you enjoying doing. Even the "gameplay loop" you talk about can just be ignored if you want. And I also must say I struggle to understand the issue with this "loop". You have certain tasks to do in a certain amount of time yes, but what would the alternative be really? Just because something is the same doesn't mean it's repetitive.

I also think you have far too many detailed concerns about the beta (especially as a casual player) when you haven't even played it yourself. Just wait and form your own opinion instead of just being some kind of echo.

I know there are a LOT of issues with BFA, and when I raided early in the expansion I was painfully aware. But I've been super casual for a long time now and honestly at that level BFA is totally fine, not worse or better than legion because all the "troublesome" stuff doesn't really concern me at the level I play currently. It will be the same in Shadowlands.

[Packmule]

Its fine man, game had died since legion. Just a cookt cutter diablo type of game now. Cant take the game serious at this point anymore. Shouldnt expect miracles anymore by now.

[ydraw]

One can say it had the most amount of chores, another - you always had something to do.

But I mean I always had something to do anyway, because I liked the actual content - in particular M+ dungeons. But I also had to do all these chores on top of that if i wanted to give my best performance in that content.

At least in Legion I could "grind" AP by doing the content i wanted to do anyway. BFA forced you into otherwise pointless islands for AP, and into a month worth of grinding world quests or PvP for essences, and you had to do it on every character.

[Neforpubl]

Nice analysis. Nobody cares about your opinion.

I giggled when I read your response. Then I giggled again when I saw the infraction cards on the bottom right hahahaha.

[Chonar]

Hey OP, can you respond to this? I feel like this person had hit the nail on the head and you've chosen not to respond unless you have and I missed it? Apologies.

I don't think he's gonna respond. After all, it's not part of his echo chamber, and people are positively terrified of actually meaningful dialogue on the internet.

[Lolites]

BFA forced you into otherwise pointless islands for AP

no it didnt, at all...
it was probably most eficient way of geting AP, but you were in no way forced to do them, i should know before starting to do them for achievments in 8.3 i did seldom even do those few for weekly q and yet i had no issue of keeping up with azerite...