Shadowlands has major problems up ahead

[Mafic]

I mean they have so many things to do right now and I cannot stress this enough: launch is in 38 days. We haven't seen any proper balancing for Covenants, conduits and classes in general. Several specs still are bugged and not working properly. Now they have the Torghast issues.

And pre-patch? If they do not announce it today or tomorrow (which would make the time from announcement to release the shortest yet with 9-10 days), it'll be Oct 6 the earliest.

We had the same problems from 8.0 -> 8.1 and 9.0 -> 9.1. I do not understand why they had to set the release date at end of October, when end of November could have worked as well.

Prepatch should be coming out within two weeks. But if the latest prepatch comes out would be Oct 6th which is very close to launch of expansion itself. I too think it it all too soon.

Currently the PTR is more "stable" than beta but the bugs that exist on the PTR and beta are numerous. Plus, the PTR features many undocumented changes that we do not know if they are mistakes or not. Mount equipment being unlocked at level 40 is a massive nerf to a feature that came with this current expansion. I will never understand why the current dev team quickly abandons features and systems so quickly without investing some time developing further.

[Asrialol]

OP claim he's a casual, yet makes detailed posts most mythic CE raiders wouldn't bother making, obviously plays both beta and ptr extensively and also finding and reporting bugs on both platforms, reads up on new game systems down to the very last detail in terms of numbers, how gameplay is affected, etc etc. I happen to remember the OP from previous expansions making pretty much identical threads. I don't know. Seems weird.

If the game isn't casual friendly, and you're a casual, stop playing a game that is being unfriendly to you. I guess. Pretty much as logical as everything else this strange thread is filled with.

[tangers58]

Nice analysis. Nobody cares about your opinion.

Protip, people that "don't care" also don't stop to comment, they scroll right on by.

[MrLachyG]

Not to be that guy but who in their right mind would want to do any BFA content ever again?

the levelling in BfA is fine, not as good as say WoD but better than some other expansions

- - - Updated - - -

I don't agree because anyone can access the PTR. Right now on the PTR there are so many issues and prepatch is very near. Lots of bugs, scaling is really bad and the squish of gear is not consistent across content (eg BFA).

And with BFA you can't really choose to level in BFA as the HoA is not unlocked to level 50 now which defeats the point of doing any BFA content again if you desire to do so.

really? that has to be an oversight; what's the point of giving us azerite armor without the neck

[Whiskeyjac]

I mean they have so many things to do right now and I cannot stress this enough: launch is in 38 days. We haven't seen any proper balancing for Covenants, conduits and classes in general. Several specs still are bugged and not working properly. Now they have the Torghast issues.

And pre-patch? If they do not announce it today or tomorrow (which would make the time from announcement to release the shortest yet with 9-10 days), it'll be Oct 6 the earliest.

We had the same problems from 8.0 -> 8.1 and 9.0 -> 9.1. I do not understand why they had to set the release date at end of October, when end of November could have worked as well.

I don't think the developers set the release schedule but rather the publishers. I have tested expansions usually from alpha since mop and this is the first time save for BFA were everything felt so rushed this close to launch and azerite wasn't as ambitious as what the covenant system is. I still believe it will be a good game but I also expect it to have some classes that perform tiers ahead of others in terms of dps, healing, and survivability.

[Samuraijake]

if as a super casual player you feel "forced" to do things in a video game, re-evaluate.

this ^

/ten chars

[Nyel]

Prepatch should be coming out within two weeks. But if the latest prepatch comes out would be Oct 6th which is very close to launch of expansion itself. I too think it it all too soon.

Currently the PTR is more "stable" than beta but the bugs that exist on the PTR and beta are numerous. Plus, the PTR features many undocumented changes that we do not know if they are mistakes or not. Mount equipment being unlocked at level 40 is a massive nerf to a feature that came with this current expansion. I will never understand why the current dev team quickly abandons features and systems so quickly without investing some time developing further.

Because that's their design philosophy since Legion. Dump everything from the previous expansion instead of building up on it, see Garrisons, Artifacts, Legendaries (they just needed an entire expansion to reevaluate this as a great feature), Island Expeditions, Warfronts, Azerite, Essences, Corruption. And in two years it will be identical for Covenants.

All they do is short-term planning and designing of features without even thinking about how they could use them in the upcoming expansion.

[shoegazing]

This is simply not true.

Classes became less homogenized in Legion.

What homogenization is called in WoW is the state where every single class has the same answer to everything.
One single target stun, one interrupt, one aoe stun, a blink, a mov speed buff, a this and that utility spell etc.

In MoP every single class had everything (to dumb it down) and that's what is called being homogenized as a class.

What you're talking about is homogenization of gameplay, not classes themselves.
And even then you are flawed.
Having basic build-up / spender style gameplay is what WoW is and always has been. Only now you have a more defined "rotation" (more like priority in most cases).
If you think rogues and monks play the same then you probably haven't played both at all (coming from someone switching mains from rogue to monk here specifically).
I don't even know which part of DK and Warrior you are trying to compare here.

I bet you are not even playing the game, either at all or anything past world quests.

Bullshit. Legion made homogenization way worse.

My Rogue lost Gouge, Poisons, Bleeds, all kinds of abilities that are ESSENTIAL ROGUE ABILITIES THAT I HAD SINCE VANILLA WOW IN 2005.

In return I gained some AoE finisher that I NEVER WANTED, THAT SUBTLETY ROGUE SHOULD NEVER HAVE.

Legion class design is homogenized dogshit.

[Tylanthia]

If the game isn't casual friendly, and you're a casual, stop playing a game that is being unfriendly to you. I guess. Pretty much as logical as everything else this strange thread is filled with.

You can be a casual who doesn't raid mythic means and still have valid feedback on the game. For example, let's say you're a casual who's really into mount drops. You definitely can be of the opinion that BFA had way too many rare mount at low RNG rates off of world mobs. While some RNG is fun since acquiring a mount too soon/easily is not, a daily rare mob with 1/1500 perhaps is not the best design. Or that it's kind of BS that you grind a reputation and then are expected to pay 90k in gold for the reputation mount you just earned.

Likewise, let's say you're a casual really into dailies/WQ (there are a lot of us). You can definitely be of the opinion that Mechagon was kind of fun but that the Rajani and Uldom accord reputation grinds were kind of stingy and less fun. Or that Isle of Thunder and Molten Front were the best daily hubs Blizzard made and they should model future content upon them. That making WQs even more unfun and tedious in Shadowlands is not the answer.

If you're really into collecting things, you can be a casual and believe the original island system kind of sucked since it had a ton of loot with no way to target anything. However, adding in doubloons made that system better.

You can be a casual and believe that warfonts could have been a great idea and Blizzard should fix them instead of ditching them but, as they are, they weren't exactly what we were expecting.

So going back to covenants. Let's say you're a casual really into the story and you prefer to not play alts (i.e., had the same main since you started)--it does kind of suck that you can't experience the patch story without swapping covenants (which is unnecessarily gated).

[CalamityHeart]

Because that's their design philosophy since Legion. Dump everything from the previous expansion instead of building up on it, see Garrisons, Artifacts, Legendaries (they just needed an entire expansion to reevaluate this as a great feature), Island Expeditions, Warfronts, Azerite, Essences, Corruption. And in two years it will be identical for Covenants.

All they do is short-term planning and designing of features without even thinking about how they could use them in the upcoming expansion.

I dunno, something like Torghast, if done correctly and received well, could be the kind of thing I see coming into next expansion. Just like Mythic+ came out of Legion and the Adventure Board, or whatever that thing was called in Garrisons where you sent heroes on missions, has come out of WoD and had iterations in Legion and BFA. Not everything needs to be or should be dragged over from one expansion to the next. There's nothing wrong with short-term designing on an expansion-by-expansion basis for the most part.

And honestly, I wouldn't be too upset if very little from BFA got carried over. There was very little in BFA worth carrying over.

[Mafic]

OP claim he's a casual, yet makes detailed posts most mythic CE raiders wouldn't bother making, obviously plays both beta and ptr extensively and also finding and reporting bugs on both platforms, reads up on new game systems down to the very last detail in terms of numbers, how gameplay is affected, etc etc. I happen to remember the OP from previous expansions making pretty much identical threads. I don't know. Seems weird.

If the game isn't casual friendly, and you're a casual, stop playing a game that is being unfriendly to you. I guess. Pretty much as logical as everything else this strange thread is filled with.

That is a misconception about casuals. Casuals can be informed about how the game functions while not investing and pushing to the highest levels like a mythic CE raider. Plus with how systemlands is designed most raiders will go back to raid logging for the most part which I guess can be defined as casual play. However, it dos not diminish their knowledge or skill level with regards to WoW.

Being able to test things is integral for casual play as well as the hardcore. BlizZard invites a wide range of players from a large pool for this reason because the hardcore would not bother testing the leveling, mount equipment old raids, etc. The focus of the hardcore would be looking at endgame systems exclusively.

- - - Updated - - -

Bullshit. Legion made homogenization way worse.

My Rogue lost Gouge, Poisons, Bleeds, all kinds of abilities that are ESSENTIAL ROGUE ABILITIES THAT I HAD SINCE VANILLA WOW IN 2005.

In return I gained some AoE finisher that I NEVER WANTED, THAT SUBTLETY ROGUE SHOULD NEVER HAVE.

Legion class design is homogenized dogshit.

Unpruning Gouge is integral to making Sub and Assassination whole again. Well said.

- - - Updated - - -

Because that's their design philosophy since Legion. Dump everything from the previous expansion instead of building up on it, see Garrisons, Artifacts, Legendaries (they just needed an entire expansion to reevaluate this as a great feature), Island Expeditions, Warfronts, Azerite, Essences, Corruption. And in two years it will be identical for Covenants.

All they do is short-term planning and designing of features without even thinking about how they could use them in the upcoming expansion.

I am inclined to agree that this philosophy of standalone expansion story, features and systems has grinded the the game to a halt. It feels that we are losing more QoL features than gaining as the game grows older. Worse, it feels like they are trying to drag the game back to an era of WoW that is no longer part of retail meanwhile ignoring why people want to play BC servers or still play classic...it is because classes simply play better generally speaking.

Which is why with all the running back and forth quests in the new expansion without having proper transportation systems I can presume that they did not do enough thinking as to why classic became so popular...hint...it is the class design and no the quest design. The quest design in vanilla or classic isn't the pinnacle to model because running back and forth to complete quest chains isn't what people enjoy of the classic or vanilla experience. Plus, classic is more of a laid back approach while currently retail is more of a go go go mentality with seasons.

It feels like the upcoming expansion has an identity crisis and doesn't know what it wants to become. I guess we find out very, very soon what the upcoming expansion can deliver properly.

[shoegazing]

I am inclined to agree that this philosophy of standalone expansion story, features and systems has grinded the the game to a halt.

Imagine if they took all the developer hours they spent ruining classes in Legion, and all the hours they spent gradually rolling those bad changes back, and all the hours they spent every expansion on these dumb borrowed power systems, and instead took the approach:

1. Make only minor tweaks to most classes since MoP/WoD to improve the gameplay and balance, only do major rebuilds as a last resort when a class is really in a bad state

2. Take all of the saved time and use it to make a greater quantity of higher quality content

[Darkimpact]

Howdy, My name is Mafic BlizZArd BlizZard BlizZard BlizZard BlizZard BlizZard BlizZard BlizZard.

You so trendy.

[NineSpine]

That is a misconception about casuals. Casuals can be informed about how the game functions while not investing and pushing to the highest levels like a mythic CE raider. Plus with how systemlands is designed most raiders will go back to raid logging for the most part which I guess can be defined as casual play. However, it dos not diminish their knowledge or skill level with regards to WoW.

Being able to test things is integral for casual play as well as the hardcore. BlizZard invites a wide range of players from a large pool for this reason because the hardcore would not bother testing the leveling, mount equipment old raids, etc. The focus of the hardcore would be looking at endgame systems exclusively.

- - - Updated - - -



Unpruning Gouge is integral to making Sub and Assassination whole again. Well said.

- - - Updated - - -



I am inclined to agree that this philosophy of standalone expansion story, features and systems has grinded the the game to a halt. It feels that we are losing more QoL features than gaining as the game grows older. Worse, it feels like they are trying to drag the game back to an era of WoW that is no longer part of retail meanwhile ignoring why people want to play BC servers or still play classic...it is because classes simply play better generally speaking.

Which is why with all the running back and forth quests in the new expansion without having proper transportation systems I can presume that they did not do enough thinking as to why classic became so popular...hint...it is the class design and no the quest design. The quest design in vanilla or classic isn't the pinnacle to model because running back and forth to complete quest chains isn't what people enjoy of the classic or vanilla experience. Plus, classic is more of a laid back approach while currently retail is more of a go go go mentality with seasons.

It feels like the upcoming expansion has an identity crisis and doesn't know what it wants to become. I guess we find out very, very soon what the upcoming expansion can deliver properly.

Part of the appeal of classic for a lot of people is the pacing created by travel times, eating/drinking, etc.. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that.

[Aeriedk]

how long does it take, thta even ppl like you, get, that even for casuals it feels shit, to know they underperform by nature (even when its 0.5% for them). ppl like you will never understand human nature. sorry.

The point I'm trying to make is that it is a game and you should enjoy it. Play what you enjoy and don't let little things ruin it for you. When you start letting little things ruin it for you then you're not very much a casual IMO. It's all peoples personal opinions. I'm sorry you don't think I understand human nature.

I'm sure you have a Phd in it.

Also...if you actually read what he is posting both in the OP and his replies it is quite clear he is determined to be unhappy...which to be fair is a lot of MMO-C forum post.

- - - Updated - - -

I am a casual player and having only one option for solo play is not fun.

Covenant system is a failure IMVHO.

Point being is you don't only have one option. You have several options...it starts with class...you don't have to play rogue, sometimes its a choice to play a toon that is poorly tuned...its in the nature of the game...I mean I've played DK for 12 years.. there have been some downtimes, but it's my favorite class so I play it regardless of what's happening, but I never made it a federal case.

You can also play a different covenant...you get both the covenant ability and class ability so you can opt to play any of those, but you don't want to, which is fine, but it doesn't make the entire system a failure albeit it does need some minor changes to correct issues like yours.

There is more to the game than this single ability in the covenant you're feeling forced into choosing.

I would liken this to race and professions back when I did mythic raiding. I always felt compelled to pick what was highest DPS. I learned over time that I could still be a mythic raider even if I didn't choose those things and I was just as if not more happy. You can be happy too if you just pick what you enjoy rather than bemoaning a system that has an issue that you have no control over.

I hope they change it for you and the other players that feel the way that you do, but you shouldn't let it ruin your experience. If it is ruining it then you might want to consider playing another game...after all, it's supposed to be fun. Just my thoughts.

[Mafic]

Part of the appeal of classic for a lot of people is the pacing created by travel times, eating/drinking, etc.. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that.

It is a laid back style of game play but no one is appealed by traveling back and forth for quest chains from one continent to another. Nice attempt though.

- - - Updated - - -

The point I'm trying to make is that it is a game and you should enjoy it. Play what you enjoy and don't let little things ruin it for you. When you start letting little things ruin it for you then you're not very much a casual IMO. It's all peoples personal opinions. I'm sorry you don't think I understand human nature.

I'm sure you have a Phd in it.

Also...if you actually read what he is posting both in the OP and his replies it is quite clear he is determined to be unhappy...which to be fair is a lot of MMO-C forum post.

- - - Updated - - -



Point being is you don't only have one option. You have several options...it starts with class...you don't have to play rogue, sometimes its a choice to play a toon that is poorly tuned...its in the nature of the game...I mean I've played DK for 12 years.. there have been some downtimes, but it's my favorite class so I play it regardless of what's happening, but I never made it a federal case.

You can also play a different covenant...you get both the covenant ability and class ability so you can opt to play any of those, but you don't want to, which is fine, but it doesn't make the entire system a failure albeit it does need some minor changes to correct issues like yours.

There is more to the game than this single ability in the covenant you're feeling forced into choosing.

I would liken this to race and professions back when I did mythic raiding. I always felt compelled to pick what was highest DPS. I learned over time that I could still be a mythic raider even if I didn't choose those things and I was just as if not more happy. You can be happy too if you just pick what you enjoy rather than bemoaning a system that has an issue that you have no control over.

I hope they change it for you and the other players that feel the way that you do, but you shouldn't let it ruin your experience. If it is ruining it then you might want to consider playing another game...after all, it's supposed to be fun. Just my thoughts.

If I can't have a choice of covenants to play on my chosen class it is a failure of a system. I am not a hardcore player that rolls five different classes and ready to pick the OP one for the meta.

- - - Updated - - -

You so trendy.

Have you seen the BlizZard logo before?

- - - Updated - - -

Imagine if they took all the developer hours they spent ruining classes in Legion, and all the hours they spent gradually rolling those bad changes back, and all the hours they spent every expansion on these dumb borrowed power systems, and instead took the approach:

1. Make only minor tweaks to most classes since MoP/WoD to improve the gameplay and balance, only do major rebuilds as a last resort when a class is really in a bad state

2. Take all of the saved time and use it to make a greater quantity of higher quality content

I concur.

All they had to do is park class design into neutral with MoP lets say and then move on with making their standalone expansions or actually adding fun content. Instead they butchered classes and then said that borrowed power is how we will fill the gaps while also not giving proper content.

If BlizZard insists on keeping WoW on life support then at least leave classes alone and return them to a state where they were whole instead of into shattered pieces.

[The Cheat]

Have you seen the BlizZard logo before?

I knew it!

[Mafic]

You can be a casual who doesn't raid mythic means and still have valid feedback on the game. For example, let's say you're a casual who's really into mount drops. You definitely can be of the opinion that BFA had way too many rare mount at low RNG rates off of world mobs. While some RNG is fun since acquiring a mount too soon/easily is not, a daily rare mob with 1/1500 perhaps is not the best design. Or that it's kind of BS that you grind a reputation and then are expected to pay 90k in gold for the reputation mount you just earned.

Likewise, let's say you're a casual really into dailies/WQ (there are a lot of us). You can definitely be of the opinion that Mechagon was kind of fun but that the Rajani and Uldom accord reputation grinds were kind of stingy and less fun. Or that Isle of Thunder and Molten Front were the best daily hubs Blizzard made and they should model future content upon them. That making WQs even more unfun and tedious in Shadowlands is not the answer.

If you're really into collecting things, you can be a casual and believe the original island system kind of sucked since it had a ton of loot with no way to target anything. However, adding in doubloons made that system better.

You can be a casual and believe that warfonts could have been a great idea and Blizzard should fix them instead of ditching them but, as they are, they weren't exactly what we were expecting.

So going back to covenants. Let's say you're a casual really into the story and you prefer to not play alts (i.e., had the same main since you started)--it does kind of suck that you can't experience the patch story without swapping covenants (which is unnecessarily gated).

Yes you are right. To truly experience what the story of systemlands is about you need to roll four classes picking four different covenants. That feels bad too as a casual player. Having one choice feels bad from a game play point of view as a Rogue. But the story being gated that way against casuals hurts too.

- - - Updated - - -

I knew it!

You called it. You deserve a raise at work. Tell your boss!

[Nyel]

Part of the appeal of classic for a lot of people is the pacing created by travel times, eating/drinking, etc.. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that.

It's just that you're out in the world longer. Are the quests better? By no means. Is drinking / eating hella annoying? Absolutely. Is moving around and running from place to place slow and takes a lot of time? Yes. And I didn't have so much fun leveling in retail for well over a decade. I leveled several characters in Classic and I loved it. All of it. The overall MMORPG approach is different and just felt... nostalgic and still enticing to me. Leveling in Shadowlands? I can't tell you how less I care about that at all. It'll be a rush to max level, as usual.

[shoegazing]

Yes you are right. To truly experience what the story of systemlands is about you need to roll four classes picking four different covenants. That feels bad too as a casual player. Having one choice feels bad from a game play point of view as a Rogue. But the story being gated that way against casuals hurts too.

It also feels bad as a Rogue because I simply don't like any of the covenants.

The devs said that with Shadowlands, they don't want players to say "I play a Rogue", but rather "I play a Venthyr Rogue" or "I play a Night Fae Rogue".

The problem is, I don't give a fuck about Venthyr, or Night Fae, or Kyrian, or Necrolords.

I want to play a Rogue. The Rogue class is beautiful (well, it used to be). I don't want to pollute it with some layered garbage.