Metzen left many years ago, and he was at Blizzcon 2018. The Blizzard folks and he are still on great terms. Blizzard isn't in trouble because finally years later he's starting to work at another company.
Also, nothing in Shadowlands including the Maw was going to be completely redesigned in a 3 week delay. That should go without saying, but for good measure Blizzard also stated that the delay was for polish in the PR. If the delay was long, complain about that. If the delay was short (which it turned out to be), complain not enough was changed. We get the picture.
They evidently thought peppering dailies around the zone rather than just off Ven'ari and rewards being...additional Torghast unlocks/perks bought via Stygia would be enough and uh, it's not.
On the reward side, it's weird; there's like 5 datamined tints for the legendary sets, whose default color can't even be mogged in the first place, plus a bunch of cool Maw-themed weapons that are unobtainable. A bunch of Maw themed combat pets still MIA in terms of places to obtain them. Another recolor of the Mawhound mount with no source. There's all kinds of potential rewards still floating around that could've been put on Ven'ari or various rares.
On the actual content end...yeah, can't help them there. Even if they added more to do, it's just not a great zone inherently. The problem isn't even it being irritating to traverse, like Nazjatar or Argus - it's the fact that all the major combat areas are super cramped so they feel simplistic in engagement and the actual mobs you fight don't do anything particularly interesting. For the most part, even on big named mobs, just varying levels of higher hit points and auto attack/filler spell damage. There's no real variety of environmental threats beyond instant death pits off the side of the world that are binary pass/fail. Unlocking Corridor Creeper didn't make the traversal any less obnoxious, so it's not even a time investment issue, it's just...not engaging.
Eye of the Jailer threats may not be implemented correctly, since "Elite" Assassins are about as easy as normal ones, but generally the Eye threats don't feel like a dynamic adjustment to the zone as they ramp up. They're a minor nuisance at best until the final stage just turns into a bland daily gate.
Hell, even the "lore items" that you can turn into Ven'ari for rep give no actual lore on the damn zone, so we can't even appreciate what Obleron once was or what most things around the Maw are beyond speculation and inference. Whether or not this is to avoid spoilers, it just feels so devoid of fucks to give.
if you havent noticced by now, they arent looking to add substantive loot to things. they arent adding loot drops anywhere extra. you will fight for loot. and people are going to hate it. but its the way it used to be, and evertyone seems to think everything was great, so deal with it.
there were 2 options: add lots of things to do (that people will call necessary and start in on the "too many chores" train) or lerave it how it is, with particular rewards that everyone will want at some point (sockets) that you eventually have no use for.
thats it.
Your tone speaks to a defensiveness of the criticism on a personal level.
That being said, the reward side of things is only one paragraph of the above. Even the implementation of the actual gameplay end to get to whatever the inevitable rewards are is lacking, as discussed.
There'll be plenty of time for changes in 3 weeks when they announce another delay. Can't let cyberpunk roll in late and steal their precious metrics
Wrath baby and proud of it
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
Last edited by Doffen; 2020-10-31 at 11:06 AM.
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so far they've changed almost nothing post-delay aside from some minor tuning. why exactly was shadowlands delayed again?
bit too much info out there to call it a conspiracy theory at this point. it's pretty obvious some execs at activision made a power move at a smart time, it worked, and now were seeing the results. a tale that has happened to many a studio and apparently even blizz isn't immune.