Sort of lost, a little confused, and rather bored with SL so far

[clevin]

But if you don't do content above 10s or raid, do you actually need higher gear, then? Let's remember there's a difference between needing and wanting.

I don't see why you'd need 220+ ilvl to do 10s and world quests and whatnot.

You don't, but my point is that gearing really screeches to a halt at 200 and so doing things to get a little more gear isn't an incentive. I mean, look at the gearing curve on M+... if you're 195+ there's basically nothing for you until you do more than a 10.

What do you do when you ding 60? You finish the campaign etc but most of us also spend time gearing up from the 150 or whatever we have when we're freshly 60. And that gives is a lot to do.... random BGs, finish the campaign and get anima to upgrade that armor, run heroics or M0 etc.

Then, at 195 or so, you're done. There's no real reason to run M4 or 5 or whatever, that "let's run X to get some gear" reason to play is gone. So, you go from "I have a lot to do in order to gear" to "OK, done. I'm bored" and that's where OP and, to an extent, I am. I'm fine sitting at 200. But it also means I've gone from having stuff to do, to not.

[oldgeezer]

So you don't do dungeons, you don't raid, you don't PvP, and you're surprised you have nothing to do? That's literally the end game of WoW and always has been.

I don't do any of these things either (you'd be surprised how many people don't), but there's still plenty of ways to keep yourself amused in the game. Right now I'm putting alts through Covenants to collect the transmog sets.

That said, I don't rate SL as a particularly good expansion. The fragmented zones (real Cata vibe) and the tediousness of travel don't help.

[MrLachyG]

Didn't we learn this lesson in WoD though?

If there's no more character progression, which in WoW is gear level, then people just quit. In WoD, after you got the gear you needed from dungeons and LFR character progression was over. The same thing is happening in Shadowlands.

No titanforging does have a downside. Not saying titanforging was good and needs to come back as is, but there is a tension point between longevity of casual content and feeling you can still get upgrades vs a completely discouraging 0% chance.

I think there's probably a nice middle ground solution but we'll see how this plays out.

middle ground is the MoP model - each item can be upgraded twice each using currency which you get from raiding.

[Regalbeast]

Little history first, I have been playing WoW since vanilla, like most of you. I would consider myself a [H]ardcore casual if that makes any sense? Meaning I play almost every night, maybe for at least 30 minutes up to an hour or 90 minutes per night. So on average I say I play for an hour or so nightly, and a bit more on weekends.

I used to be a Raider big time, years ago, back in MoP and earlier expansions, when I had the time for 4 hour runs on a weeknight, but now that's not possible. So the most I do is low M+ keys, and World Quests, Campaign quests, transmog hunting, and mount hunting, etc...

Ok so Shadowlands, I was eagerly anticipating this expansion release, after BfA, which I thought was just ok, not terrible, but not great. And now that SL has been here for almost 3 months, I am a little disappointed, it just seems ok.

- Got my main my Undead Unholy DK to 60 right away, and completed the campaign, and ran dungeons, etc...got him to i198 gear, and then started to get a bit bored. and honestly confused as to what to do next? I bought 2 Legendary's at the AH, but found out can only equip one, and then it wasn't for the spec or build or Covenant or whatever. And that whole thing was a little confusing. So I am sitting here, level 60, done with all 9 campaign chapters, almost i200 geared, and lost as what to do next?

- So I started working on my alts that I also like, my Ret Paladin, Demon Hunter, Fury Warrior, BM Hunter, etc... got them to like level 55+ and working towards getting them to level 60, but it's slow going, as leveling up again is a bit of a chore, it's not hard by any means, just a bit boring going through all the same zones again.

My plan for now, is get them all to level 60, complete all their Campaigns, and gear them up a bit, and see which ones I truly like to play, and then just settle on like 2 main characters only, one Horde, and one Alliance, and concentrate on them for this expansion run.



I will say my fav expansion of the modern WoW era is Legion, I think Legion was the best expansion in many years, it has such great replay-ability, I still go back there to finish off stuff I didn't complete, like Class Hall quests, Artifact appearances, Class mounts, etc... Legion was so much fun, and it still is today. I'm in Legion areas or Dalaran city all the time, but can't say the same for places in BfA or WoD or MoP, I never go to those expansions anymore.

I love Dalaran city, easy to get around, not too large. I liked that Legion was mainly one large continent, not zones separated into islands, which made it faster and easier to get around.

And people might say I need a break from WoW, I'm burned out. No. I felt the same with WoD, just bored and not much to do, barely played, and then Legion came out, and I was glued to the game again for 2 years, playing 6 nights a week, couple hours each night, there was just so much to do in Legion for me.



Anyways, back to Shadowlands, I know it's early, and 9.1 will be out this Spring, and hopefully spruce things up again, but it is weird that this early on in a brand new expansion I am feeling a bit bored, and even confused as to all this stuff I'm supposed to be doing like Covenant gear, and legendary's, and Anima to get, and Soulbinding ( which I have no idea what that even is? ) is that the thing sort of like the Netherland Crucible in Argus in Legion? Ok my 60 DK does have Soulbinds then. Conduits? No clue.

I agree. Legion was absolutely amazing...best expansion ever. SL is not quite Legion but much better than BfA. Maybe taking a break.

[clevin]

So you don't do dungeons, you don't raid, you don't PvP, and you're surprised you have nothing to do? That's literally the end game of WoW and always has been.

You're 200 ilvl but you don't do any content, so of course you aren't getting new gear. What would you even need the gear for?

I do dungeons. But as I've said, there's no gear for me in any of them until I do 10s or better. So why would I do more than a few M+ to get the vault slots open? When you're 150 and newly 60, you have a reason to run normals to get gear so you can do heroic. Once you're 155+ you can run heroics to get to 170 and then either LFR, start M0 or some normal CN. You can progress your campaign and upgrade that armor. You can do random BGs and get honor gear and upgrade that.

You have a lot to do and a reason to do it (and then do harder versions of it).

Then you hit 195-200 and you have no reason to run M+ from 2 through 9 because almost none of that gear will be an upgrade. Same for LFR and N CN gear. Same for honor gear. It's not that you don't have things you CAN do, it's that you suddenly are missing the reason (progressing your character power) to do them. You need to either step up to heroic CN or rated PVP or keys that are 10+ which is a relatively big jump.

Of course there are things people CAN do... but much of it isn't story related (transmog farming, pet farming etc) so it's not really something SL brings. You could do that in BfA etc. The issue isn't 'can I find things to fill time' but 'does the expansion give me things to that are related to the expansion'? and the answer is mostly... no, not anymore.

TO be clear, that's fine. I just play less. But it's kind of a sudden wall we hit because of the way they did gearing. Instead of slowly approaching a limit and gearing slowing, you just hit a wall and stop.

[Zorachus]

I suppose 9.1 will freshen up things, and have catch up gear. Think I'll just finish getting my alts to 60, and complete the Campaigns for now, and get to i195 or so on each, then pause, and wait till 9.1 But doing all of that at my casual slow pace, will still take awhile. On alts I take my time to explore the new zones deeper than I do on my main rushing to max level.

[Lord Pebbleton]

The only thing that enrages me about Shadowlands are the hoops and bullshit you have to pull in order to get certain treasures. A ton of treasures have idiotic strings attached and every time I see something interesting I just give up because the reward will either suck or I will not be able to access it due to convenants.

A glaring and infuriating example is Bastion. I always see the area full of treasures and I can never get them. The chest in the area where you fly up the floating flowers (BS world quest too) contains a cool transmo, so I went there. Requires Proof of Wisdom. Okay, go online to see what the hell that is. I solve the riddle and I do not get the transmo because I am not kyrian. screw off with that bull and these stupid minigames.

The Sunrunner rare can smash in a wall for all I care too. I really don't like Bastion at all tbf.

I really don't know why but I cannot stand this kind of things in WoW. Maybe because I come from the old times when finding a chest was its own reward without having to gather the Proof of my Ass from Thekonominikos, Steward of the Great Whatever across the map. Every random encounter is now a ridiculous chore and I just run past them all, unless I'm in my covenant zone, where I am sure I can at least get something cool if I try.

[Anchorite]

Good thing about Legion, was even if you weren't into Raiding and high M+10 keys, there was still plenty to do. Class Hall quests. Artifact appearances to hunt down and long quest lines to work on. Achievements to get Class mount. And World Quests actually dropped pretty good gear often. And World Bosses also dropped nice gear a lot as well.

I guess my question is, once your around i200 in Shadowlands, and don't Raid or do high M+, what's there to do now? And I don't mean just looking for higher gear, but what about specific mounts just for your class or something unique, or specific weapons you want for transmog, or cool looking Tier gear, etc...

A big difference with all that stuff to do in legion compared to now? Most of that wasn't there in the release patch

[Echocho]

There isn't any thing to do, the game is pretty much over. I have no idea what Blizzard was thinking this expansion. If you're not a raider, pvper or keyrunner they're like "fuck you, you ain't getting no gameplay loop like these other fine people you filthy casual"

[Low Hanging Fruit]

World of Open up Vault Slotcraft.

I would just cut back on play time. It is kind of in that rut right now where a lot of people are waiting for new content and current content is being heavily over used a whole lot. But it is fairly normal for the first patch of the expansion to go this way. Everyone hits the ground running hard and fast. Patches usually are smoother.

[Soon-TM]

Didn't we learn this lesson in WoD though?

If there's no more character progression, which in WoW is gear level, then people just quit. In WoD, after you got the gear you needed from dungeons and LFR character progression was over. The same thing is happening in Shadowlands.

No titanforging does have a downside. Not saying titanforging was good and needs to come back as is, but there is a tension point between longevity of casual content and feeling you can still get upgrades vs a completely discouraging 0% chance.

I think there's probably a nice middle ground solution but we'll see how this plays out.

Yep, casual players (i.e. those with little time to play) are definitely $!@#ed in this xpac. Once you complete all 4 covenant campaigns, there is little reason to stay subbed, since your character's progression comes to an abrupt standstill. Unless you are into high level PvP or raiding, which I'd wager that most casual players don't participate in.

[dacoolist]

Yep, casual players (i.e. those with little time to play) are definitely $!@#ed in this xpac. Once you complete all 4 covenant campaigns, there is little reason to stay subbed, since your character's progression comes to an abrupt standstill. Unless you are into high level PvP or raiding, which I'd wager that most casual players don't participate in.

If you run a 25 minute HOA 14 per week.. you will have full 226

If you play 25000 minutes and dont do anything you will have 0 ilvl

The situation with the word casual being thrown around is getting out of hand

I am a VERY VERY casual player, I play 3 hours every other night and thats it.. does that make me hardcore? I have 1800 rating in 3's (that was easy and gives 220 ilvl), and complete a m14 per week for the 226 vault..

Sure I'll never have 229.19 ilvl like the top 9 people on earth right now, but I won't be at the bottom like a filthy casual (which is actually me) would normally be either

[loras]

But if you don't do content above 10s or raid, do you actually need higher gear, then? Let's remember there's a difference between needing and wanting.

I don't see why you'd need 220+ ilvl to do 10s and world quests and whatnot.

Do you need an even playing ground in pvp?
Of course you do, people whine ad infinitum whenever there is imbalance in pvp, and for good reason.
Nit being able to catch up in gear because you do not have the time to organise for ranked content is no better a reason to be at a disadvantage in pvp than it is when the devs fail to balance, say, rogues (or insert any other class that has ever been OP at some point in time...), and let even the skillless among them dominate better players.

[Otimus]

Blizzard seems to want you to unsub until a new patch that interests you is out. Please don't just stay subbed, unsub until something interests you so they get the message. Too many people just let their sub go.

[McNeil]

Shadowlands looks pretty close to Legion imo, with the only difference being that Legion introduced better features, most of which we still have (though some in different forms). I'm rather glad to not have stuff like legiondaries or having to traverse through the Broken Isles without a flying mount (so many zones were a pain due to all the hills). I liked the mage tower aswell but it wasn't part of the launch. If anything I wish that Shadowlands would have tried to be something different rather than following the Legion and BFA pattern.

[Kelduril]

Yep, once you get to ~200 gearing basically stops unless you're running keys over 10, doing rated PVP or Heroic CN. Outside, there's nothing much to do aside from World quests

Good? Why should people who only do faceroll content get the same gear as people who actually do ( more ) difficult stuff?

One of WoW's biggest modern issues is welfare epics that everyone gets.

High end content should give gear you can't get otherwise. Titanforging in BFA was a joke. People would do a low level dungeon or a Normal raid and walk away with gear on the level of Mythic. That's a no-no.

[Otimus]

middle ground is the MoP model - each item can be upgraded twice each using currency which you get from raiding.

Aside from gating valor gear by rep and a lack of importance of dungeons and the final patch (which was fine save for how how it made LFR irrelevant for turbo casuals), imho, mop got the closest to pleasing most all play styles. Now they just sort of cater to the hardcore players while dangling shinies above the heads of the majority and hope they're too dumb to unsubscribe.

[Littleraven]

I've mostly been logging in to do my daily covenant calling with a few other scattered dailies. I've completely abandoned the Maw and Torghast though. I got my BiS legendary maxed out and have no reason to bother running it anymore or farming rep for Venari. The socket would be nice and I will eventually get exalted so I can buy them but my game time has been much less than I thought it would be.

All that said I don't really mind. I like being able to log in for an hour or so a night, get my shit done and then go do something else. Be it play another game, watch something or whatever. I am more interested to see what they bring with the patches though. I am excited to see what they have coming in patch content though.

[Otimus]

Good? Why should people who only do faceroll content get the same gear as people who actually do ( more ) difficult stuff?

One of WoW's biggest modern issues is welfare epics that everyone gets.

High end content should give gear you can't get otherwise. Titanforging in BFA was a joke. People would do a low level dungeon or a Normal raid and walk away with gear on the level of Mythic. That's a no-no.

I mean, progressing your character is like 90% of the point of an MMORPG. You're basically saying that these people, probably the vast majority, should just unsub until a new patch is out, yes? Do you think that's a good business model? As is, it just seems like Blizzard coasts on the people who don't bother to unsub and barely play, and or the slow players to purely feed the minority. IDK, kinda seems fucked up.

[VinceVega]

Yep, once you get to ~200 gearing basically stops unless you're running keys over 10, doing rated PVP or Heroic CN. Outside, there's nothing much to do aside from World quests but those a) won't give you gear that you need or b) anything else you need. I don't see anything in my sanctum that's worth grinding anima for and once you have the legendary(s) you want, there's no real reason to run Torghast.

Of course you CAN do other stuff.. achievement hunting etc. But the expansion itself doesn't direct you or give you story related things to do.

I don't get it. It is not more or less than any expansion earlier but suddenly it is not enough? I would argue it is even more. Maybe Legion had a bit more with all the order hall quests. But they where actually quite short campaignes prolonged by the mission table.

If you don't raid. Don't want to go above M+9. Don't play PvP....

What the hell did you do in past expansion different then now?
And why do you want (or are entitled to) higher loot if you don want to do higher content?
Also a m+ gives you 216 loot... so you can got up to 216+leggo after a few weeks.