Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Kel_Sceptic]

I'm sorry, did they add a new battleground I am unaware of? Or any other type of PvP ZONE (Wintergrasp, Tol Barad, Ashran.) that I haven't been seeing people talk about? I was simply stating doing touch ups on old BGS never cut it for me. (I never actually qued to see the changes..) Or events like Korrak's revenge.. (I got the anniversary gift and never went back) Someone wanted to mention PvP has been neglected for a long time. I was just giving my opinion on this: I did participate in PvP zones a lot and don't mind to see a new one in the future. Also promoting more selection for mogs like usual.

Ok, thanks for clearing that out.
While I casually do those just to get the Honor farm since they each got 1000Honor quest in them, the big ones are quite unpleasent.
To be honest, last time I've enjoyed doing AVs, was when while farming the AV mount during Korak, or when Alterac Valley Mark of Honor was still a thing and we bought gear with them in TBC.
Mostly the intensive and competitive PvP takes place in Rated Arena or in Rated Battlegounds.
Other 10-15man BGs are for casual fun.

You say "people talk about", but do you do any competitive PvP ? As not, it is clearly why you think Epic Battlegrounds are interesting.

[Shedaar]

From this thread I can see that there are people who will forever be whining about stuff.
Ehh...
I love SL so far, even tho I play one of the weakest specs.
I just hope balance pass comes in a week or two with another 5% or something fix and I'm gucci.

[DarkAmbient]

It's a disappointment for me so far. Torghast is boring with no rewards. World quests are the worst so far, they take longer and have shittier rewards. The zones are even more stuffed with mobs than Legion which makes them annoying as fuck to quest in, and no flight master whistle compounds that problem. Scaling and difficulty in old content are fucked. Really bummed about it tbh, was looking forward to the expansion.

[Osmeric]

Every Expansion they do a variation of "Dungeons are hard again!" at the beginning and they always row back, probably because people are leaving in noticable numbers.

And also because upper management never holds those who commit the repeated mistake responsible.

I'm interested to see if that changes this time, with Morhaime out of the way.

[flatpancake]

Overall my biggest problem is - I don't like both leveling variants. I would want to do story, but at the same time I want to get to my covenant, i.e. endgame, as fast, as possible. In this case WOD was better. I could access Garrison after just short introduction quest line and actually start to progress there, but nothing prevented me from completing Loremaster at my own pace.

If you want your covenant fast then level through the story. Right before you hit 60 talk to threads of fate NPC and turn it on. You will get your covenant, the storyline is faster leveling than threads of fate and you get to end game as fast as possible. You can't do any end game stuff for your Covenant until you hit 60 anyway.

[rrayy]

Dude, I've done Layer 8 with my feral on reset day. And Layer 3 (maximum at that time) with my freshed dingged DH.
Don't give me the "Yeah but you haven't tried to do it with X Y Z" speach.

But I am going to because it rings true. DH is one of the most OP classes in the game. OF course you are going to finish it easily. IF you were using the specs I mentioned, there is no way you would have been saying it is easy because you would have struggled far more than you did with your DH.

[Yriel]

If you are not Rank 12 with your covenant, then you are playing this casual part of the game in the wrong way.

Really? Because i didn't hit 60 in the first week i do the casual part wrong? Interesting take.

If Shadowlands is not casual friendly, my friend, then I don't know what else people could want from an MMO. You want those kind of phone-style, "visit daily-recieve-mythic-raiding-gear" kind of casual, dumb down systems ?

And yet the last two expansions were much more casual friendly.
This time they again focused only on the raider/M+ crowd.
We'll see how that works out for them.

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And also because upper management never holds those who commit the repeated mistake responsible.

I'm interested to see if that changes this time, with Morhaime out of the way.

I really don't understand that because there is no harm to make some content for everyone.
Solo Torghast for some sub-mythic gear would be no effort for them. And no one else would be pressured to do it because they get better gear anyway.
So why not do that?
Their "Everyone has to play the way i did back then in Everquest" approach is mind-boggeling.

Especially since with the vault they do give out welfare, but this time only for the rich. Great approach, learnd that from Trump?
Hey those guys that already get the best gear out there get some more awsome gear for free!

[PolarityER]

I won't really know how this expansion will come out in the rankings for me personally yet. I have, however, put almost 8 days of play time in the last month on one character, which I haven't done since Wrath. My guild has a full raid group again, we are doing mythics and pvp and there feels like lots of content to work on outside of group stuff, too. The story is pretty cool. Leveling my alts feels good. Idk. It's a good start to an expansion. There are things that I don't like but overall I'm having a good time. Really wish I had flying though.

[Kel_Sceptic]

Really? Because i didn't hit 60 in the first week i do the casual part wrong? Interesting take.

Even if you hit 60 yesterday, if you put 4 hours in it, you would be rank 12 renown, that is how high-easy the catch-up casual level is.

Don't get me wrong, I play as a casual, since I don't do raids or dungeons at all, again, i repeat, i didn't do even 1 heroic dungeon. I am queueing, daily stuff 30-60mins, then the rest of the time is PvP Arena. That is it. I am really using it as a queue-play-exit game, not as an MMO.
Dunno what doesn't feel casual about SL, but it is more casual and catch-up-able then any expansion has ever been. Hell, no expansion had Threads of Fate :/

I got 2 kids (1 of 2yo, and 1 of 4yo), trust me when I say I need this game to be as casual as possible, as simple as possible, so I can finish any stuff that is not related to PvP, so I can do the only activity I love in it, and that is Arena.

Especially since with the vault they do give out welfare, but this time only for the rich. Great approach, learnd that from Trump?
Hey those guys that already get the best gear out there get some more awsome gear for free!

Do you even understand how Greater Vault works before politicising the game?

If you don't have time to spend like, dunno, 1h per day in this game, or don't like to do any of the activities that are core to the MMO genre, maybe you are actualy looking for a really different game.
And again, don't get me wrong, even if the grindy shi7 that BFA was, it only stopped me from playing 1 year, but I've still played and enjoyed Legion and BFA (except the corruption missery), BUT, the biggest downside those two expansion had for me, is that they forced me to do raiding and dungeon just to gear for PvP. They lacked PvP vendor, and Shadowlands having them and the greatest PvP Gearing-Upgrading system since ever, makes me put Shadowlands on top of BFA and Legion.
Dunno how can you say BFA was casual, when as a PvP player, I had to do M+, raiding, essences in mecha and nazj, just to be geared and able to PvP.

It is mindblowing to hear BFA or Legion were casual friendly, it is really really out of this world from my perspective.
But hey, each his own, some people see the sky blue, others see it pink, others think earth is flat, and others still belive taking part on one side or the other of the political mess is a good thing.


Later Edit: Give it some toughts, hell, who knows maybe for some people, BFA seemd more casual, can't argue that. But from my perspective, as a player that like to do only 1 thing in this game, PvP Arena, man it didn't felt casual at all, it felt the most forcing-into-every-core-part-of-the-game expansion I've ever played.

My gameplay time is very limited so for me, it is ok to know the exact things I need to do daily, before I can do PvP. Another fact, I play solo, no friends. But as I said, to each his own. These are my toughts, from a PvP-Arena-only player.

[Yriel]

If you don't have time to spend like, dunno, 1h per day in this game, or don't like to do any of the activities that are core to the MMO genre, maybe you are actualy looking for a really different game.

Who are you to decide what the core activities of the MMO genre are?
I played MMOs for over 20 years and i played a lot of them and this Everquest mindset is not the only one existing.

[Kel_Sceptic]

Who are you to decide what the core activities of the MMO genre are?
I played MMOs for over 20 years and i played a lot of them and this Everquest mindset is not the only one existing.

My bad for puting it like that, I really meant for world of warcraft MMORPG.
I've tried SWToR, Conan and EsO, and thats about all my MMORPG experience, so yeah, I just know what WoW's content contains.

If after 16 years of WoW's existence you have no clear, delimited ideea about WoW's core activities, then my bad for even trying to ... anything.



WoW Wiki:

End-game

The End-game (also known as Elder game) refers to the part of the game where level advancement is no longer the goal and other activities take center stage. In the World of Warcraft, these include, but are not limited to:

Improving on existing gear.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Legion Legion this includes grinding for ilvl improvments on Legendary gear.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Legion Legion: Grind World quests. This can help with a variety of areas.
Building Reputation with factions in the game.
Running instances:
Heroic mode Heroic mode 5-man instances.
Raids (instances which require more than 5 party members) that are only accessible at the highest attainable character level. This typically involves becoming established in a raiding guild.
Mythic mode+ Mythic plus 5-man instances.
Mythic mode Mythic mode raids. Only the most organized and well-geard guilds tend to do these type raids.
Scenarios, mostly for additional lore experience or sometimes related to professions.
PvP combat and/or increasing PvP rank through "honor grinding".
Mastering or picking up new professions to possibly expand one's role in the realm economy.
Exploration.
Grinding Achievements.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Warlords of Draenor this is actually required to unlock Flying.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Legion Legion: Running followers/champions on missions.
Role playing.
Mount collecting.
Battle pet collecting.

[JohnnyRockets]

Maybe learn the meaning of a word before you use it?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shill

His opinion is his, he's not "shilling" just because you disagree.

A shill defending another shill? Color me surprised.

[kamuimac]

My bad for puting it like that, I really meant for world of warcraft MMORPG.
I've tried SWToR, Conan and EsO, and thats about all my MMORPG experience, so yeah, I just know what WoW's content contains.

If after 16 years of WoW's existence you have no clear, delimited ideea about WoW's core activities, then my bad for even trying to ... anything.



WoW Wiki:

End-game

The End-game (also known as Elder game) refers to the part of the game where level advancement is no longer the goal and other activities take center stage. In the World of Warcraft, these include, but are not limited to:

Improving on existing gear.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Legion Legion this includes grinding for ilvl improvments on Legendary gear.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Legion Legion: Grind World quests. This can help with a variety of areas.
Building Reputation with factions in the game.
Running instances:
Heroic mode Heroic mode 5-man instances.
Raids (instances which require more than 5 party members) that are only accessible at the highest attainable character level. This typically involves becoming established in a raiding guild.
Mythic mode+ Mythic plus 5-man instances.
Mythic mode Mythic mode raids. Only the most organized and well-geard guilds tend to do these type raids.
Scenarios, mostly for additional lore experience or sometimes related to professions.
PvP combat and/or increasing PvP rank through "honor grinding".
Mastering or picking up new professions to possibly expand one's role in the realm economy.
Exploration.
Grinding Achievements.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Warlords of Draenor this is actually required to unlock Flying.
Starting with World of Warcraft: Legion Legion: Running followers/champions on missions.
Role playing.
Mount collecting.
Battle pet collecting.

ye you defeated yourself already on point 1

as for majority of playerbase said pve gear progression doesnt exists due to abysmal droprated in SL unless they raid.

[Kel_Sceptic]

Yeah, I said my bad, nothing to deafeat as we are talking about World of Warcraft.
But I really don't know what you are trying to prove, since Yirel said he needs gear delivered from the mail box, since he doesnt want the WQ one, and doesn't like to do any of the major-gear-rewarding activities in game. That was the point. That he only answered about my mistake, non-wow problem and didn;t touch any WoW facts at all, well, whatever.

I'm going with his conclusion, and yours aswell, Shadowlands is an expansion for hardcore gamers Since I'm discussing based on here-present people's toughts, not on "the majority says", since I don't even think that is true. Sure, people got used with blizzard handing them free gear, tokens for free rolls, titanforge items from WQ and so on, at the same time they claim TBC or WotLK were top 2 best expansions, but they don't remember how many raid clears did it took for them to get 1 BiS item. I sure remember getting Prince's Sword in Kara, for my worlock, after about 10-15 clears (10-15 weeks, just to be sure all people know how raiding works in WoW).
Yeah, now being full epic 2 weeks after dinging 60 and about 3 weeks after the expansion released ... man it is hard to get gear.

[Malania]

I wrote something but this thread, as well as couple others, including the recent Torghast fiasco, just lead me to belieave wow players are a special kind of a lost cause.

And yet you hang with us. Your life must be right on track.

[Deferionus]

I mean, It's just BFA and Legion really. Same framework, same endgame with a different skin. I am enjoying it alright so far but I don't see how it's substantially any different then Legion or BFA. Maybe better class design but thats debatable.

It's also been like a month, people are way to fast to throw favourites. This thread is made every expac after a month. The long term is what matters most, having an extreme amount of fun for a month then a slog for the next 13 months does not a good expansion make.

Then again, the WoW community isn't exactly great at pegging good game design. Especially early on. I just don't see where this expansion is going to go for 9.1/9.2 etc. I am basically about to go on Autopilot onces those reps ding exalted. What then? Maw is nearly done (While being an annoying pain), WQ's offer little variety compared to previous two expac (especially this expac, i've done the same damn ones everyday for days on end). Torghast is pretty fun now that the rebalanced it but even that is almost done. M+ is a rush filled nightmare and Raiding is the same as always. I do not see what people do when they praise this as anything different.

- - - Updated - - -

Cata better then MoP? That is the worst take i've ever seen. In maybe the history of browsing this forum.

I am also in the Cata is better than MoP crowd. MoP felt like it was too far outside of the Warcraft theme at the time. Cata added RBGs. I enjoyed the daily area Cata added. I liked Tol Barad. The guild system implemented was cool and fresh at the time. I did not raid much but the little bit I did felt good early Cata. Loved the hard heroics at the launch of the expac before the casuals got them nerfed. I played that expac until awhile after Firelands release.

MoP I returned to the game and leveled up. I then started to do the dailies and just didn't want to do them. The PvP and class design felt worse than Cata. This was the first expac, that to me, the class design felt worse than the one before it. I ended up leveling three of my 85s to 90 and made a monk then quit the expac. It was just unappealing. I think if they released MoP today I would receive it better than I did back then, daily quests excluded, but at the time it just felt bad.

[ashblond]

I mean, It's just BFA and Legion really. Same framework, same endgame with a different skin. I am enjoying it alright so far but I don't see how it's substantially any different then Legion or BFA. Maybe better class design but thats debatable.

It's also been like a month, people are way to fast to throw favourites. This thread is made every expac after a month. The long term is what matters most, having an extreme amount of fun for a month then a slog for the next 13 months does not a good expansion make.

Then again, the WoW community isn't exactly great at pegging good game design. Especially early on. I just don't see where this expansion is going to go for 9.1/9.2 etc. I am basically about to go on Autopilot onces those reps ding exalted. What then? Maw is nearly done (While being an annoying pain), WQ's offer little variety compared to previous two expac (especially this expac, i've done the same damn ones everyday for days on end). Torghast is pretty fun now that the rebalanced it but even that is almost done. M+ is a rush filled nightmare and Raiding is the same as always. I do not see what people do when they praise this as anything different.

Excatly, SL and BFA are essentially the same.

- - - Updated - - -

For me, the biggest differences between them are:
1. PvP gear vendor and reworked PvP gearing system. One of the best implemented to date, from my PoV.
2. Greater Vault rewards only 1 item no matter what content you do. So you don't feel the need to do PvE/PvP just so you get 1 more item. Rewarding you for the content you like to do by giving you 3 items to choose from, and still giving you 6 more choices if you are the type that does all content weekly (PvP and PvE (raid+ M+)).
3. A much better and defined gated power progression system that shows every step for the next 9 weeks. Sure it is debateble if there should be one, or not, but for me this keeps me interesed in WoW's story progression while recieving something new every week. It is similar to how Legion's weapon was, but defined and finit for every week (3 renowns per week, a choore obtainable in 1-2 hours per week) so people with "OCD", myself included, see that the task is done!!!.

How things will workout in the future ? Who knows. But for the time being I am ok with what SL has to offer.
BFA was pretty ok once the grinding ended in 8.3, but turned to shit, at least for the PvP side, with all that grindy Corruption system.

PvP vendor gear is a good change. But PvP gear once again is garbage compared to PvE gear.

If you look at the PvP forum, you will see people complain this season is one of worsts:
- PvP gear is trash compared to PvE gear
- Class balance is bad
- Covenant balance is bad
- WM doesn't work
...

The gear vendor is a good change, but there are far more problems.

[erifwodahs]

Who are you to decide what the core activities of the MMO genre are?
I played MMOs for over 20 years and i played a lot of them and this Everquest mindset is not the only one existing.

You play WoW tho... "Hey guys.... who said that you can't play football in NBA?" You can play football elsewhere.

[Kel_Sceptic]

PvP vendor gear is a good change. But PvP gear once again is garbage compared to PvE gear.

If you look at the PvP forum, you will see people complain this season is one of worsts:
- PvP gear is trash compared to PvE gear
- Class balance is bad
- Covenant balance is bad
- WM doesn't work
...

The gear vendor is a good change, but there are far more problems.

You clearly want to just argue for the sake of arguing. Cause I said in past posts that ilvl on pvp gear is off by 1 level, it shuld be up, but it is still BETTER THEN THE SH17 we got in legion and BFA.

- PvP gear exists, and if you are good you will upgrade it to 226. If not, then stay wherever your skill is.
There's the important part that you actually CAN gear from PvP, and not be forced to do content that you dont like, waste hours so you can finally do the content you like.
I
- Class balance, you make me laugh. I think that is a joke, since when tf was a balance between classes ?

- Covenant balance is bad, ok, I can get that. Either Min-Max, or choose what you want. For PvE it is ok nontheless.

- WM doesn't work - so did it worked in BFA or Legion ?


Nobody said this is the perfect expansion, but it has hell of improvements over BFA and Legion. At least at the PvP part of the game, and if you read, PvP is my main and only focus. In my 7 days and 22 hours of /played since I hit 60 on my main, I've only done 4 NORMAL dungeons just to finish the campaign zone quests. Since then I haven't touched any other part of the game that I don't want to do or don't like to do. All I did is weekly covenant story + renown + torghast (2 hours per week), and dailies
(covenant dailies and calling and the Ve'nari dailies 30-45min per day) the rest of the time, i've played Battlegrounds and Arena.
If you want more technical aproach
2h per week x 4 weeks =8hours
45mins dailies x 31 days = 23hours

That means I've done 1 day and 7 hours, lets say 2 days of stuff I could have live without doing, but I've played ~6 days of the only part I love from this game.

If it were for Legion of BFA, I would have wasted probably more then half of that time just to gear up to be ready to enter rated Arena.

[ashblond]

- Class balance, you make me laugh. I think that is a joke, since when tf was a balance between classes ?

- Covenant balance is bad, ok, I can get that. Either Min-Max, or choose what you want. For PvE it is ok nontheless.

- WM doesn't work - so did it worked in BFA or Legion ?

That is exactly the point here: SL is the same as BFA/Legion. What didn't work before doesn't work now.