Blizzard's lack of respect towards players is the reason why i quit Shadowlands.

[Subrias]

Usually the reason to quit SL is a very bad work/reward ratio. Up to certain point its true for me too.
But the main reason i quit WoW 1.5 months after release was the clear realization that SL developers DONT respect me, the player and customer.

I played every aspect of SL and can point at two major parts that define the disrespect towards players:
1)disrespect towards players time
2)pure incompetentce.

WoW always asked for a certain amount of time spent to get the rewads. It was fine every new expansion. Shadowlands took the crown of how every single part of gameplay designed to make player spend more time in the game with very little payoff.

1) Hamsterwheel time machine:

• WQs are put far from flying/teleportation point to make player run all the way to get to them.
• Map terrain designed the way to make player spend a lot of time to run around. Verticality of the landscape is the most brutal across all expansions.
• No whistle, no two way Oribos-Covenant portal are made to make players spent 5-10 minutes AFKing during flying. It struck me often how much time i spend in the game just AFK in the air while moving to different locations.
• Introduction story has no reason to not have a skip button. No reason at all. Its not fun beyond first time and its tedious.
• MAW. You know the deal.
• Anima requirements. 35-105 anima rewards, rarely 250. 1500, 2000, 3000 anima cost of a single reward piece that has already been put behind Renown or Quest time wall. 5k, 10k, 20k anima cost for Covenant upgrades. People who designed THAT dont care about players.
• Rare loot that makes players spend more time to get the rewards. Its in no way meaningful, since the game for a decade was designed so you can replace your item piece that you couldnt get for a few days in like a half an hour with lucky random drop. It makes no sense to make loot drop so rare.

2) Pure incompetence. 
It boggles my mind how this game felt like it was in beta stage even 1.5 months after release.

• The most glaring one was the Maw Elite WQ that spawned twice a week. There are four rotating WQ with 1% chance to get the Maw Mount. I dont know was it fixed by now, but 1.5 months after release only ONCE i did that WQ succesfully. The rest were bugged in one way or another. You come in, you cant finish the quest, you check it out on Wowhead, you see people in the comment section sayin «Yeah, the quest isnt working». And this is pretty major Maw feature.
• Covenants werent tested out, neither powers, nor features like the commander table. The fact that it took Blizzard two months to somewhat bother to fix them with a tons of feedback that was given week 1 is a mindboggling. This is not an indie developer, this is 30yo rich company and the 15yo game.
• Bugged WQs. For a month doing one or another WQ i encountered some sort of minor or major bugs that werent fixed for a week or longer. I still wonder did they fix the ground bug around one of the Bastion’s transport point, where you COULDNT use teleportation (which was bought by Transport System upgrade for a 5k anima power btw) after completing daily activity, unless you relog.
• Torghast not being tested at all. Anima powers and mob scaling are way too off in between specs and classes. Twisted Corridors arent balanced at all.

I encountered everything i described above and to me this is enough to feel how developers despise me, whil asking my money for the game. I realized i cant encourage this attitude towards playerbase with subscription. It must NOT be tolearated.

I read this... and all I got from the first part was you want everything given to you and don't want to waste time moving from one point to the next. The only place I. The whole game that annoys me is north eastern bastion. Everything else seems reasonable distance wise. As for the 2nd part... the covenants and stuff were tested, that was a major reason they pushed back the release date. This expansion has had more developer communication than the last 5 expansions combined.

[intenz]

The hamsterwheel realisation might be the worst thing about modern WoW. It totally ruins immersion. At some point in the past they decided that instead of trying to make players keep subbing because they were having fun, they would make them keep subbing because all progression is timegated. This is demonstrated in the shift of weekly bonus loot going from a way to fill in gaps in loot, to being the only real form of loot progression in the game unless you are very lucky.

I haven't decided if I will re-sub in March. I still enjoy some things about SL, a lot depends on 9.0.5. If it's more of the same then I'll stop and play pathofdiablo or something.

Blizzard - give me farming back. Stop nerfing anything resembling sandbox fun in the game, anything that you can't ruin with micromanagement. That's what immersed me in the past. Put some effort into professions, they are just getting worse every expansion. There's no reason to even take a profession past level 1 engineering and level 1 alchemy for the perks. Ever since around MoP/WoD this game has felt more like a theme park than a MMO, and it keeps getting worse.

[KTM]

Totally agree.
The anima thing is especially outrageous.
With all the upgrades and all the stuff you can buy from renown/reputation vendors you need several 100.000 anima and they really implement WQs that give you 35 for killing 10-20 mobs on top of flying and riding there in the first place. Why is that even in the game?
But even with the 70-140 quests, sure there are no-lifers that spend like 20 hours each week topping their anima but for normal folks that play maybe 1-2 hours a day that would mean all i could do ingame is farming anima. Thats absurd.
Anima is such an stupid and unnessecary grind for not even good rewards, it's mind boggeling.

excuse my ignorance, but what u need to buy with anima?

[Relapses]

The hamsterwheel realisation might be the worst thing about modern WoW. It totally ruins immersion. At some point in the past they decided that instead of trying to make players keep subbing because they were having fun, they would make them keep subbing because all progression is timegated.

Care to entertain the very real possibility the game has always had time gates and your personal disengagement with the expansion is why you feel like it's a "hamster wheel," which really has little to do with the design of the game itself? It might surprise you but there are a lot of people who enjoy playing the video game this forum is made for (they just don't spend hours on forums seeking validation for their lack of engagement with it).

[erifwodahs]

I'm afraid you're not going to get much sympathy from this forum. Most of the people still here are cult-level obsessed with this franchise and company; that Blizzard can do no wrong to them.

Inb4 kthxbai/youdeservenothing/blizzarddoesntoweyou/youdonthavetodothosethingsthen/killyourself

^<- Thats the majority of replies when anyone calls out or critiques design decisions Blizzard has made over the years, its always the same fucking rhetorical responses and strawmans without an honest discussion.

This forum has a ton of Libertarian cocksuckers who think anyone who can't make/produce/achieve everything in a vacuum is inferior and relying on a functional society is a weakness. They apply the same logic to video games, anything YOU as the player do or don't do is strictly your fault, regardless of the countless systems and social structures that affect or alter your experience in games.

I've all but cut my ties with Blizzard for most of the reasons you've stated and more, I rarely frequent these forums these days but I stick around to keep up and discuss offtopic and Cinema subforums. The rest of it is a waste of bandwith.

Don't you sense irony in your own post? Also, your contribution to the discussion is negative because instead of discussing you just post shit. Also look at the threads... "simps" everywhere Maaate, just why. Kettle is black

[ro9ue]

The covenant bracer transmog is 3000 anima, and the average dungeon or WQ gives 35 - tells you all you need to know. So far only WoD, BFA and SL are the only expansions I lost interest by the second month from release.

[Kumorii]

Dunno. To me it felt like I had to spend less time than previous expansions. Can't say I notice a difference in wq locations compared to previous ones. Then again I usually just do the ones that actually are close to fp's.

[chronia]

Basicly the only thing i agree in the OP is the lack of anima (or the costs of the rewards you buy with anima).

[Yriel]

excuse my ignorance, but what u need to buy with anima?

Is that a "you don't NEED that to raid" kind of question?
I'd like to buy the coventant updates, the transmog gear, the pets, the toys, all that stuff.

[Scifix]

I agree with OP, i found it ironic the other day when i got the "Remember to take everything in moderation, even world of warcraft" then they make you spend hours upon hours trying to get a single piece of gear. Or days for a mount, if you consider twisting corridors

[TheRevenantHero]

I read this... and all I got from the first part was you want everything given to you and don't want to waste time moving from one point to the next. The only place I. The whole game that annoys me is north eastern bastion. Everything else seems reasonable distance wise. As for the 2nd part... the covenants and stuff were tested, that was a major reason they pushed back the release date. This expansion has had more developer communication than the last 5 expansions combined.

Lmfao you're are so incredibly wrong that it's actually pretty funny. Covenants absolutely were not tested since they're still hella unbalanced. And there has NOT been more developer communication this expansion than the last 5 expansions combined.

[Daedius]

For an MMO F2P games handle more players better than WoW, which struggles with a few dozen players in an area... leaves you wondering wtf the sub is for if they can't maintain server stability...

And the return of VP that players have been asking for, they're just using the same name and nothing else... people asked for a gear vendor, and they give us an upgrade system for M+...

With regards to Anima, it is rather obscene. I've been doing WQs and such daily from launch, and I am still starved of anima to upgrade the covenant nevermind purchasing the few cosmetics I got with loads more a huge ways off...

[Akta]

so you want an istant travel method, and whining over cosmetics and system like covenants upgrades with no real purpose in the game? wow impressive.

- - - Updated - - -

For an MMO F2P games handle more players better than WoW, which struggles with a few dozen players in an area... leaves you wondering wtf the sub is for if they can't maintain server stability...

if only wasn't a 15 years old enigne

[Chinesehavesmalldick]

I would have to agree with you on all this. Blizzard is fucking horrible at balancing shit. It is, by far, their worst trait as a gaming company. The sad thing about it is that the community has told them this for 17 damn years and they are just too arrogant, or too stupid, to listen.

i like people who quo long posts to type a sentence only.
i really liked you, would you be my mum?

- - - Updated - - -

Usually the reason to quit SL is a very bad work/reward ratio. Up to certain point its true for me too.
But the main reason i quit WoW 1.5 months after release was the clear realization that SL developers DONT respect me, the player and customer.

I played every aspect of SL and can point at two major parts that define the disrespect towards players:
1)disrespect towards players time
2)pure incompetentce.

WoW always asked for a certain amount of time spent to get the rewads. It was fine every new expansion. Shadowlands took the crown of how every single part of gameplay designed to make player spend more time in the game with very little payoff.

1) Hamsterwheel time machine:

• WQs are put far from flying/teleportation point to make player run all the way to get to them.
• Map terrain designed the way to make player spend a lot of time to run around. Verticality of the landscape is the most brutal across all expansions.
• No whistle, no two way Oribos-Covenant portal are made to make players spent 5-10 minutes AFKing during flying. It struck me often how much time i spend in the game just AFK in the air while moving to different locations.
• Introduction story has no reason to not have a skip button. No reason at all. Its not fun beyond first time and its tedious.
• MAW. You know the deal.
• Anima requirements. 35-105 anima rewards, rarely 250. 1500, 2000, 3000 anima cost of a single reward piece that has already been put behind Renown or Quest time wall. 5k, 10k, 20k anima cost for Covenant upgrades. People who designed THAT dont care about players.
• Rare loot that makes players spend more time to get the rewards. Its in no way meaningful, since the game for a decade was designed so you can replace your item piece that you couldnt get for a few days in like a half an hour with lucky random drop. It makes no sense to make loot drop so rare.

2) Pure incompetence. 
It boggles my mind how this game felt like it was in beta stage even 1.5 months after release.

• The most glaring one was the Maw Elite WQ that spawned twice a week. There are four rotating WQ with 1% chance to get the Maw Mount. I dont know was it fixed by now, but 1.5 months after release only ONCE i did that WQ succesfully. The rest were bugged in one way or another. You come in, you cant finish the quest, you check it out on Wowhead, you see people in the comment section sayin «Yeah, the quest isnt working». And this is pretty major Maw feature.
• Covenants werent tested out, neither powers, nor features like the commander table. The fact that it took Blizzard two months to somewhat bother to fix them with a tons of feedback that was given week 1 is a mindboggling. This is not an indie developer, this is 30yo rich company and the 15yo game.
• Bugged WQs. For a month doing one or another WQ i encountered some sort of minor or major bugs that werent fixed for a week or longer. I still wonder did they fix the ground bug around one of the Bastion’s transport point, where you COULDNT use teleportation (which was bought by Transport System upgrade for a 5k anima power btw) after completing daily activity, unless you relog.
• Torghast not being tested at all. Anima powers and mob scaling are way too off in between specs and classes. Twisted Corridors arent balanced at all.

I encountered everything i described above and to me this is enough to feel how developers despise me, whil asking my money for the game. I realized i cant encourage this attitude towards playerbase with subscription. It must NOT be tolearated.

Yes i agreee

[Dundebuns]

This is what happens when corporate pen pushers design games. We're cattle supplying them with the goods for their real customers; the shareholders.

[mbit]

What really gets me is that shitty f2p gacha mobile games are less annoying to play than wow.
wow already copied the mission table, should've gone the full way and copy the entire mechanic.
You can just send your followers to the equivalent of world quests and thorghast in these mobile games cause they understand and respect that most people dont enjoy redoing that borefest and thus give players limited autocomplete functions.

[MasterHamster]

Blizzard is trying to design the game like a mobile game, hence these design decisions. Their most important task is to make sure you have to return every week to gather your rewards. This is also why every major patch is it's own self-contained mini-expansion, they are just shuffling your weekly tasks over to something new and hope you keep coming back, instead of giving players more content to do in addition to existing content, because existing content is cleared within a few days.

[Daedius]

if only wasn't a 15 years old enigne

And? If they didn't have such a Frankenstein spaghetti coding with various coders putting layer upon layers of coding on top of each other, not adhering to coding conventions this'd be a non issue leaving as it would've simplified updating systems where needed.

Instead we got the jackasses saying it was 'impossible' to raise the default backpack slots, or chain of issues fixing one aspect of the game unforeseen.

[VinceVega]

Usually the reason to quit SL is a very bad work/reward ratio. Up to certain point its true for me too.
But the main reason i quit WoW 1.5 months after release was the clear realization that SL developers DONT respect me, the player and customer.

I played every aspect of SL and can point at two major parts that define the disrespect towards players:
1)disrespect towards players time
2)pure incompetentce.

WoW always asked for a certain amount of time spent to get the rewads. It was fine every new expansion. Shadowlands took the crown of how every single part of gameplay designed to make player spend more time in the game with very little payoff.

1) Hamsterwheel time machine:

• WQs are put far from flying/teleportation point to make player run all the way to get to them.
• Map terrain designed the way to make player spend a lot of time to run around. Verticality of the landscape is the most brutal across all expansions.
• No whistle, no two way Oribos-Covenant portal are made to make players spent 5-10 minutes AFKing during flying. It struck me often how much time i spend in the game just AFK in the air while moving to different locations.
• Introduction story has no reason to not have a skip button. No reason at all. Its not fun beyond first time and its tedious.
• MAW. You know the deal.
• Anima requirements. 35-105 anima rewards, rarely 250. 1500, 2000, 3000 anima cost of a single reward piece that has already been put behind Renown or Quest time wall. 5k, 10k, 20k anima cost for Covenant upgrades. People who designed THAT dont care about players.
• Rare loot that makes players spend more time to get the rewards. Its in no way meaningful, since the game for a decade was designed so you can replace your item piece that you couldnt get for a few days in like a half an hour with lucky random drop. It makes no sense to make loot drop so rare.

2) Pure incompetence. 
It boggles my mind how this game felt like it was in beta stage even 1.5 months after release.

• The most glaring one was the Maw Elite WQ that spawned twice a week. There are four rotating WQ with 1% chance to get the Maw Mount. I dont know was it fixed by now, but 1.5 months after release only ONCE i did that WQ succesfully. The rest were bugged in one way or another. You come in, you cant finish the quest, you check it out on Wowhead, you see people in the comment section sayin «Yeah, the quest isnt working». And this is pretty major Maw feature.
• Covenants werent tested out, neither powers, nor features like the commander table. The fact that it took Blizzard two months to somewhat bother to fix them with a tons of feedback that was given week 1 is a mindboggling. This is not an indie developer, this is 30yo rich company and the 15yo game.
• Bugged WQs. For a month doing one or another WQ i encountered some sort of minor or major bugs that werent fixed for a week or longer. I still wonder did they fix the ground bug around one of the Bastion’s transport point, where you COULDNT use teleportation (which was bought by Transport System upgrade for a 5k anima power btw) after completing daily activity, unless you relog.
• Torghast not being tested at all. Anima powers and mob scaling are way too off in between specs and classes. Twisted Corridors arent balanced at all.

I encountered everything i described above and to me this is enough to feel how developers despise me, whil asking my money for the game. I realized i cant encourage this attitude towards playerbase with subscription. It must NOT be tolearated.

I think there are only two things i agree on.

1. Anima is way to scarce... i just gave up on it beyond the 1000 a week (Which can be competed quite fast). Won't get the upgrades because F*** farming 100k anima. BUT i don't think it is intended as a finish in one patch kinda thing. Rather to finish is across the whole lifetime of the expansion. It doesn't even really matter. because in the end it is 100% convenience and cosmetic based.

2. The Maw is boring. Not because of no mount. But beacuse there is no.... reason for any mob to be there in this zone... this zone is just pinatas one after another.

Nothing in SL is bad or takes to long to reach. Flight paths to everywhere. And you never have to walk longer than maybe a minute to the most distant places like the worldboss in Ardneweald. The zones are not complicated AT ALL. Revendreth has elevators everywhere.
Half your points read as, i don't want to travel, i don't want to grind, in a MMO... go figure... If you want a looter shotter go play destiny. You are asking for a dofferent game. If you want to know how "bad" wow is regarding your points, play other MMOs. Most of them are WAY harder in these parts.
Making everything easy and instant does not make a game suddenly better.

"It must NOT be tolerated" - That just sounds pretentious af....

Are you guys really that blind to how wow was and how it is now? Like travel paths... or having tio walk in the world? Flight masters whistle while convenient was the worst introduction ever. People don't give a fuck about anything in the world anymore. Fly to point a whistle away, fly to point b whistle away and so on. Walking for maybe a minute is allready too much? Why have a open world in the first place then? Just make everything instance stand in the capital and click on a WQ which ports you directly into an instance where you can finish it and ports you back out.

[Wilfire]

Ion is designing the game for himself and his guild. We need a midcore game director, not a guy known for thinking that spreadsheets are fun.