So is Shadowlands good?

[chase_the_mofo]

Is it fun - yes it really is.
Is it good, no its not.

[kaminaris]

Are you okay? I'm shocked there's a BFA stan in here. You'd have a point with the corruption vendor if it didn't have a shit rotation. The argument about azerite is pretty pepega too. On the classes I mained the best azerite came from the raids or elite PvP depending on what patch cycle it was. Shadowlands launch>>>>>>>>>BFA and it genuinely can only get better.

Let's bring you back to reality too since the rose tinted glasses are super thick. Sure, you probably had a whole shitload of corruptions but the odds of them being good is fucking hilariously low. There were also WAY MORE THAN ONE layer of RNG on corruption gear. Gear drops. Was it the corruption you actually wanted? Yes? Was it rank 1, 2 or 3? For example, if you were an Arms Warrior you wanted Expedient. Everything else was garbage in comparison. Same for Masterful with Fire Mages or Ret. This is so strange to see somebody defend the WORST system ever added to this game. For fuck's sake I knew people server transferring to troll auction houses for the right corruptions. It was absolutely disgusting.

No dude, you are delusional. Rotation or not, it was possible. Also you had to mix-and-match gear enchants that corruption was, to have pretty low overall corruption.
Second - it doesn't matter where your best azerite came from because you could always get something really close to bis or straight up bis from vendor. Or just drop one from raids. There was no such possibility with tier sets that only dropped from raids.

I do not have rose tinted glasses, my memory is way better than yours. So let me counter your feelings with facts.
Odds of getting corruption was exactly 1/19. This is far from "fucking hilariously low."

Gear drops, does it have corruption you wanted? Yes. End of story - one layer.
Its not the worst system, no, it wasn't great but because it was static gear + gear enchants (that were too powerful), it was still far better than legion legendaries.

- - - Updated - - -

Listen carefully to what he says from 1:50 My man.
Sure he does says that M+ is kind of unrewarding for casuals. ... that do M+15

There's just something that counters casual .... M+15 ))))

Nah dude, he is mostly correct in this video, listen from 10:36
https://youtu.be/gBJcuFnfWYc?t=636

[Packmule]

Its subjective, i know. For me - worse than BFA and Legion in every way.



Is there somewhere which explains it well?

Sorry, its not subjective. Its just better.

[Cæli]

it's a decent game, but it's not the world of warcraft I know and love
not wow
it's actually extremely weird
it's like if it's a creation bought and handled by other people

[kaminaris]

The only delusional person is the clown fighting the majority right now. Oh lord, you may have to do a couple more dungeons for loot. Do you not enjoy playing the game or something? Hell, you don't even know how gearing in XIV works. L U L

Just a word salad with any meaning. Fortunately facts are higher than your feelings. Also you are not a part of some majority, no, that is being delusional.

[MasterOfNone]

Agreed. They can't trust the player base on the feedback - only the metrics to see what content we need and how to shift it.

They need to literally listen to the forums and do the exact opposite. That would represent the majority. Squeaky wheel gets the grease kinda deal. The majority of wow players know that getting on a forum airing your grievances about game design is time consuming and kinda pointless. You have keyboard warriors and blizzard fan bois that will defend every aspect of blizzard’s decisions regardless of how bad. Removing flying is the perfect example...

[Unholyground]

Not really, nobody was expecting from me to farm shit in BfA. Now we have situations where officers are asking people "why you are not gearing? You havent done M+ yet?" then the dude links them his 20 M+ runs in which he got jack shit.

I have 2 characters fairly geared and I have only done 5 mythic 0 lol.

[kaminaris]

I have 2 characters fairly geared and I have only done 5 mythic 0 lol.

Yes it is possible to get loot from every single boss in a single run. Thats what RNG with low droprates is.
There is also possibility to not get anything for 3 full clears.

[Grapemask]

In my opinion, Shadowlands failed the important things, but it really nailed some things that don't really ultimately matter. I think it evens out to a "meh" expansion.

The level crunch and the leveling changes are huge, and way overdue. Leveling became so unwieldy that a boost has been a requirement since pretty much Wrath. And it's just fun, too - my wife and I leveled new characters 1-60 over the weekend, and we did 1-50 with a tour of our favorite zones from the previous expansions. I really don't think the game needs to come with free boosts at all anymore - leveling in WoW has really never been as fun as it is now.

This expansion is full of story. That's cool for story nerds. I have my complaints about it (cough retcons), but whatever, there's plenty to get engrossed in if that's your bag.

But it's the endgame gameplay that bugs me. This is an expansion for Diablo fans. I think Blizzard may find that there is not as much overlap between Diablo fans and Warcraft fans as they think - especially if their goal is the audience they had at Warcraft's peak, vanilla through Wrath. I enjoyed playing Diablo a few times through, but I didn't enjoy the "neverending farm" of endgame Diablo for very long at all (I think my interest was tied mostly to the real money auction house - I made a couple grand before it got pulled, and left around the same time). Torghast and the Maw in general are basically Diablo-meets-Warcraft and just piss me off. There is literally nothing about the Maw that is fun. And sure, I get that Hell shouldn't be fun, but a game about Hell should at least be fun to play.

But one key element that sticks out is that it's gated. Everything in this expansion is gated - because WoW has lost most of its player-driven fun, and instead needs Blizzard to carefully dish out the fun they've handcrafted in the studio. A large part of this has been the result of work done since BC. Blizzard feels only they know what is truly fun, and they also feel that fun is a thing that must be carefully controlled. Every fun thing must have a not-fun counter to it. Vanilla had loads of fun things that were just fun in and of themselves without consequence, BC had fewer, Wrath had even less - with Cataclysm, they went back and redesigned the entire world, which gave them a chance to finally remove any Dartol's Rods they might have overlooked over the years. Fast-forward to Shadowlands, and the entire concept of fun is more of a tightly-tuned button that WoW lets us push X times per day.

Conduits are a great example of this. The fun you are given: choosing paths through your tree! Slotting abilities! The not-fun counter? The paths are 80% things you hate or won't use as much as the fun things you picked the path for. Even vanilla talent trees weren't as fun/not-fun "balanced" as this. Dumping 3 of 31 talent points in 1% parry wasn't as bad as 3/8 of your choices being something you will literally never use - but if you're a good boy or girl, in about 6 weeks, Blizzard will open the gate that gets you a better path where only 2/8 of your choices are things you will never use.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize the issue is that Blizzard wants to make a nice single player game like Warcraft 4, but they're stuck with this MMO and can't figure out how to put back the emergent gameplay that online games require. Gated and tightly-controlled fun is great for single player games where the developer is always holding your hand - it's lousy for an MMO where players want a reason to keep logging in and paying their fees.

[NordWitcher]

In my opinion, Shadowlands failed the important things, but it really nailed some things that don't really ultimately matter. I think it evens out to a "meh" expansion.

The level crunch and the leveling changes are huge, and way overdue. Leveling became so unwieldy that a boost has been a requirement since pretty much Wrath. And it's just fun, too - my wife and I leveled new characters 1-60 over the weekend, and we did 1-50 with a tour of our favorite zones from the previous expansions. I really don't think the game needs to come with free boosts at all anymore - leveling in WoW has really never been as fun as it is now.

This expansion is full of story. That's cool for story nerds. I have my complaints about it (cough retcons), but whatever, there's plenty to get engrossed in if that's your bag.

But it's the endgame gameplay that bugs me. This is an expansion for Diablo fans. I think Blizzard may find that there is not as much overlap between Diablo fans and Warcraft fans as they think - especially if their goal is the audience they had at Warcraft's peak, vanilla through Wrath. I enjoyed playing Diablo a few times through, but I didn't enjoy the "neverending farm" of endgame Diablo for very long at all (I think my interest was tied mostly to the real money auction house - I made a couple grand before it got pulled, and left around the same time). Torghast and the Maw in general are basically Diablo-meets-Warcraft and just piss me off. There is literally nothing about the Maw that is fun. And sure, I get that Hell shouldn't be fun, but a game about Hell should at least be fun to play.

But one key element that sticks out is that it's gated. Everything in this expansion is gated - because WoW has lost most of its player-driven fun, and instead needs Blizzard to carefully dish out the fun they've handcrafted in the studio. A large part of this has been the result of work done since BC. Blizzard feels only they know what is truly fun, and they also feel that fun is a thing that must be carefully controlled. Every fun thing must have a not-fun counter to it. Vanilla had loads of fun things that were just fun in and of themselves without consequence, BC had fewer, Wrath had even less - with Cataclysm, they went back and redesigned the entire world, which gave them a chance to finally remove any Dartol's Rods they might have overlooked over the years. Fast-forward to Shadowlands, and the entire concept of fun is more of a tightly-tuned button that WoW lets us push X times per day.

Conduits are a great example of this. The fun you are given: choosing paths through your tree! Slotting abilities! The not-fun counter? The paths are 80% things you hate or won't use as much as the fun things you picked the path for. Even vanilla talent trees weren't as fun/not-fun "balanced" as this. Dumping 3 of 31 talent points in 1% parry wasn't as bad as 3/8 of your choices being something you will literally never use - but if you're a good boy or girl, in about 6 weeks, Blizzard will open the gate that gets you a better path where only 2/8 of your choices are things you will never use.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize the issue is that Blizzard wants to make a nice single player game like Warcraft 4, but they're stuck with this MMO and can't figure out how to put back the emergent gameplay that online games require. Gated and tightly-controlled fun is great for single player games where the developer is always holding your hand - it's lousy for an MMO where players want a reason to keep logging in and paying their fees.

I really liked your post. I think it speaks volumes about the current state. There is too much hand holding. It’s almost like Blizzard wants complete control on how you play their game. They literally want to control your pace, progression, etc. Is it due to them wanting to retain sub numbers, we will never know but I’ll put my tin foil hat on and say it’s so. I’ve never seen content as gate locked as it’s been so far. Legendaries were a fun thing to work towards but they’ve made it like near impossibly for any casual to craft their own rank 4. AH Goblins have invested in excess of 40+ million to level up their Legendaries from Rank 1- 4 for a single a lot. Now you go through the other 4-5 slots and you know what I mean.

I almost feel like WoW should go single player. I would love to personally play a third person action RPG set in Azeroth. Imagine having a fully realized Stormwind, etc. They can actually go back to making the world the focus rather than the player.

I know it will never happen but they seem so invested in this cash cow because let’s be honest WoW is a cash cow for them.

- - - Updated - - -

Torghast was an interesting idea but lack of rewards and complexity felt more like a routine than fun after a fortnight.

Its too slow paced to work with WoWs game play. It works in Diablo cause you simply crushing demons and you AoEing. You can’t even AOE since there is a cap in WoW.

Also no cosmetic rewards sucks big time. No gear drops, etc makes it ever worse.

[Anoikis]

My friends are already gone. Two of them even deleted WoW from their hard drive.
I have 16 days left and might be back for a month in 9.1 / 9.2 / ...
So I hope that answers OP's question.

[kaminaris]

snip

Well, you are not entirely wrong but comparison to diablo is really missed. Diablo has zero timegating. Literally zero. You can finish entire season in couple of days that includes getting best gear, beating challenges, doing some really high grifts, literally finishing entire game.

Your complaint is obviously about timegating. But diablo is not timegated.

Now lemmie tell you how would wow looked like if it was diablo (or alike). Raids would scale from 1-20 people, there would be raid plus instead of what we have now scaling from 0 to 150. Lets call it R+. Each R+ level would have totally random drops, increasing only quantity as difficulty goes up.
You could beat sire denaturatus on R+ 100 in couple of days while playing solo.
Weekly lockout? There would be no such thing.
Daily quests? Nope, everything would be infinitely repeatable as many times as you like.
World quests? Same as dailies
Weekly vault/chest wouldn't exist.
You would have best gear in a matter of days, not even weeks. Then your upgrades will be only small increments.
M+ would be similar to raids.
Loot would be dropping from the sky, every rock you kick might have 236 ilvl legendary
Your gear will be basically only legendary items + tier sets.
Everyone would wear the same gear (per spec)

Im not sure why people compare wow to diablo when gear and gameplay fundamentals is completely different.

But your complaint about timegating is right.

Also single player games don't tightly control your fun.

[Elim Garak]

Conduits are a great example of this.

Oh, they are a great example. It's been a month and I am already bored of the entire game and yet my conduits are not even fully unlocked. So even if they were actually fun - I am beyond waiting for them, and when they do fully unlock I'm gonna be like "ok".

They fucked up the pacing chasing the monthly active users KPI.

[Kel_Sceptic]

But one key element that sticks out is that it's gated. Everything in this expansion is gated

Sure, stuff like soulbinds should have never been gated, since that is the point of leting you customize between 3 different choices from the start, not unlocking them and making them feel they are of different importance from 1st being the less important and 3rd the most important.
But for conduits slots and spell enhancers, I don't care if they are gated, it feels a little bit as Artifact Weapons spells and bonuses were discovered over a period of weeks, BUT, the most important thing is that this time, the conduis slots are being discovered without any grind needed. Just by passing the time.

The renown system is gated, but for a part of people that is a good thing. For another part that is a bad thing.
It only depends on what is the percentage of those liking or understanding the gated renown system and those not liking or understanding it.

They maybe fked up pacing for the coevenant story related to the raid, as some said. But at least for me, in the Night Fae coevenant, I haven't seen anything related in the story with castle of nathria, it is just about the Night Warrior, Thorghast and so on.


Time will tell if there is a player base majority that enjoys this type of time gating, or only a minority.
For me personally, I really hope that the answer is: Majority. Since for me, as a father of 2 younglings, with TIME being my most precius ASSET/RESOURCE, the concept of Shadowlands's time gating fits me well.

As for the time being, these are the posibilities:
1. BFA sucked so much that 55% people voted just as a thank you because BFA ended.
2. Shadowlands is good that 55% people voted for it, and only 21% against it.
3. Shadowlands is bad but BFA is the pure bottom dog sh17 that 55% people voted just as a thank you because BFA ended.

For people saying "wait until your honeymoon ends", man I feel sorry for your wifes, or better, for you next to your wifes.

[Elim Garak]

with TIME being my most precius ASSET/RESOURCE, the concept of Shadowlands's time gating fits me well.

The fact that you prefer to spend your precious time here and not in shadowlands - speaks volumes. Or maybe it's just ironic.

[Tart]

Seems like Blizzard are continuing with the trend of one good one bad.

[Qnubi]

Yes it is possible to get loot from every single boss in a single run. Thats what RNG with low droprates is.
There is also possibility to not get anything for 3 full clears.

They have NOT changed loot droprates for normal, heroic or mythic dungeons. Only m+ and raids. So obviously you will gear yourself up really fast to 184 (mythic dungeon 0) and I have done so in 2 weekly IDs on 2 characters as well. The "true" endgame m+ and raids are loot starved.

The person you are quoting has not yet experienced the crappy loot drops. That's one of the reasons that people are slowly realizing it is actually really bad going forward. 40% chance in-time to get a crappy m+ item, and 10% chance to get a decent raid item in a 10man raid. This will kill WoW so fast, just wait.

[Kel_Sceptic]

The fact that you prefer to spend your precious time here and not in shadowlands - speaks volumes. Or maybe it's just ironic.

I'm in game, was in game the whole time being on this site. See, there's something invented 50 years ago, it is called computer multi tasking.

Actually the ironic part is the coralation between posts and playtime, since if you compare my post # with your post # it might result you have never actually played WoW Hillarious!

[Granyala]

Dude, have you actually played other mmos? Thats not how it works. See FFXIV for example. You can get geared prettty fukken fast as opposed to what we have now in WoW.

Depends.

i530 Savage raid loot is on weekly lockouts. RNG involved. IIRC: 2 Token drop for 8 players. + 1 guaranteed item per player that allows purchase after 4-8 kills of a specific boss. 4 bosses per Tier.
i530 upgraded badge loot does not exist yet, will be implemented in 3 months. No RNG involved.
i520 "Badge" loot is basically weekly capped. You need around 2.5 months worth of dungeon farming (5 dungeons per week) to gear a class. No RNG involved.
i510 Crafted gear is available from day 1. If you are a crafter, or have a few million gil to spare, you can equip it immediately.
i510 Normal Raid loot is on weekly lockouts. Mostly there for cosmetic reasons. RNG involved, you can brute force target specific slots though.
i500 Gear of last patch is freely farmable as a baseline w/o RNG or lockouts. Catchup mechanic.

As you can see: FF-XIV's gearing is not as fast as you think it is.

[kaminaris]

Depends.

i530 Savage raid loot is on weekly lockouts. RNG involved. IIRC: 2 Token drop for 8 players. + 1 guaranteed item per player that allows purchase after 4-8 kills of a specific boss. 4 bosses per Tier.
i530 upgraded badge loot does not exist yet, will be implemented in 3 months. No RNG involved.
i520 "Badge" loot is basically weekly capped. You need around 2.5 months worth of dungeon farming (5 dungeons per week) to gear a class. No RNG involved.
i510 Crafted gear is available from day 1. If you are a crafter, or have a few million gil to spare, you can equip it immediately.
i510 Normal Raid loot is on weekly lockouts. Mostly there for cosmetic reasons. RNG involved, you can brute force target specific slots though.
i500 Gear of last patch is freely farmable as a baseline w/o RNG or lockouts. Catchup mechanic.

As you can see: FF-XIV's gearing is not as fast as you think it is.

Well, that alone proved my point, thanks. See how many sources of loot you have and what is the ilvl disparity? See that there is a deterministic way to obtain loot?
It alone is far better than we have now. Just by looking at it. Gearing doesn't have to be instant, nobody said that. Gearing has to have a fucking way to offset bad luck.

Now compare that to wow system that has no tokens, no guaranteed items at any point of killing bosses. No badge gear so to fill up missing slots using non-existing system would take you infinity months. Crafted gear being garbo that may have been useful day 1 but thats about it. No way to "brute-force" anything.

If rng wants to screw you over, it will do so and the only thing you can do, is to bite a pillow