Rate Shadowlands (2021 version)

[Nerovar]

Old thread:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...te-Shadowlands

I've noticed that some people expressed a change in attitude towards the expansion in the previous thread from back in december so I was curious about the results a few months later. Here's a new thread with a fresh poll for the sake of comparison.

Feel free break down your rating of the expansion in further detail. Personally, I'd have to abstain since I didn't buy the expansion yet and don't currently plan on doing so.

[Nyel]

Rated it 7-8 in the last poll. Now 3-4, my subscription ended in January as I did all of the content in Shadowlands. Never looked back one day since then as there’s simply nothing exciting at the moment. And with the very late 9.1 I don’t have a reason to come back for at least another 2 months.

Shadowlands had a very good start and was very good in the first weeks, way better than BfA or WoD in my opinion. But it became tedious and boring very quickly and now it just exists.

[Lochton]

It has an 'OK' rating for me.

[McNeil]

Old rating: 7/10

New rating: 5.5/10

I expected this to be another BFA but its been slightly better so far. A lot less mandatory chores, no more Azerite bullshit, no more WF/TF and corruption. BFA did do other things better like the zones, richer in content, dungeons were more fun and a much better setting were it actually felt close to OG Warcraft (Alliance vs Horde, exploring continents, meeting races that we've been looking forward for so long).

The start of SL was pretty fun as you go through the zones and follow the storyline. I also took my time to do every single secondary quest along the way and some of them were really good while others were just a boring chore. End game is alright but it feels like there isn't enough of it, which is also to blame for 9.1 taking way too long to come out. I hate going to the Maw and can't be bothered to get the mount. Torghast is fun for a few runs but it quickly gets boring.

Not a fan of how disconnected the zones are which requires a lot of FP's to get around. It lacks a proper world feeling where it now feels that your playing in islands instead. The zones are also rather small and cluttered. I like some of the zone specific stories but not a fan of the overall story with Anduin and Sylvanas. So far I'd rate this above Cata, WoD and BFA. But tis worse than TBC, WotLK, MoP and Legion. The rating might still chance but as it stands it has gotten worse after the honeymoon period ended.

[Nerovar]

Not a fan of how disconnected the zones are which requires a lot of FP's to get around. It lacks a proper world feeling where it now feels that your playing in islands instead. The zones are also rather small and cluttered. I like some of the zone specific stories but not a fan of the overall story with Anduin and Sylvanas. So far I'd rate this above Cata, WoD and BFA. But tis worse than TBC, WotLK, MoP and Legion. The rating might still chance but as it stands it has gotten worse after the honeymoon period ended.

I feel like zones in general have been too cluttered ever since MoP and it got continually worse from thereon. I really liked the older zones (like Arathi Highlands, Wetlands etc.) that actually had some empty space where your eyes could rest instead of being this overcomplicated labyrinth of NPCs and assets. The epitome of this weird zone design was Argus.

[The Saar]

Rated this expansion horrible... I played through the zones once and realized wow... I'll never do that again... This is the only expansion that I didn't stay for. Even BFA kept me longer.

[Adamas102]

5/10

It's not particularly exciting, but it's a perfectly adequate way to kill time. The anima grind is still terrible, but Torghast ended up being a bit more fun that it was early on.

My account just lapsed today, which is fine since the covenant campaign is over and I already finished Twisting Corridors so don't really have much else to do right now. Will wait till the next substantial content patch to resub.

[Rendark]

It's ok. Not the worst they have ever done but not the best. Better then legion and way better then bfa.

[Sanguinerd]

Even if it's called World of Warcraft it just doesn't feel like Warcraft anymore, bad from me.

WoD and BFA for all it's flaws atleast felt like Warcraft to me.

[Mendzia]

After 2 months (and starting early january) i had fun with friends but i lost all interest when 2 of them quit and i pugged HC Denathrius.
Solid 5/10 (which is best rating from me to retail since WotLK).

[Argorwal]

7/10 for me so far, will see what other content the new patches bring.

Shadowlands gearing system (post additional loot) to me is the most logical it’s been maybe ever.

3 separate gearing paths each with their own unique pros and cons that are “reasonably” balanced against each other. We have many posts where people from all 3 paths complained the “other” path has it easier. Someone that does all 3 gets the most benefit of course. And casual gearing still plateaus fairly high at 197-200.

The great vault is massively better than the old mythic+ Cache.

I love that titanforging and power gains AP are both gone. There is a slight grind for conduit and sockets but almost everyone can safely ignore it.

From a lore perspective I like the zones a part, but can agree for playability it’s annoying.

4 covenant stories are cool. Not as good as 12 class campaigns, but better than most.

Some unpruning done, could still use more.

CN is a good challenging raid in an opening tier for once and it has 10 bosses which is nice. It’s also why I’m happy they aren’t cutting the 1st tier off at 4 months like they did in Legion and BFA. Why steal 2 months of the first raid just to have a 2 month longer drought at the end? Mid tiers are typically 5-6 months.

The dungeons are mostly fun (looking at you SD gauntlet), and love that the covenants interact in them.

I still want to reserve full judgement though until the entire expansion is out. For now it’s probably 3rd after Legion and MoP. I just really hated rng lengendaries and titanforging in Legion, but all the class specific stories and such made up for it. Now SL is similar, with those annoyances gone, even if covenants aren’t as cool as 12 class campaigns.

[Exkrementor]

4/10. Class design is not fun, dungeons are not fun, raids are kinda meh, the maw is the worst daily zone they ever made, torghast proofs that blizzard doesnt understand why other games are fun.

[HateTrain]

Voted Low good last vote, now high bad or low ok. Like a 4.5

[Cosmic Janitor]

I gave it a 5-6 before and would give it a 4-5 now. I'm rounding up here to 5 because at least the expansion didn't offend me as bad as BfA and WoD did early on. It's thus painfully average in my book.

[frenzy16]

4/10

First time I was waiting for my sub to run out... BFA/Shadowlands/Cataclysm were the only exps that only lasted 3 months and didn't/won't get a resub.

I thought the expansion started off badly, with the bland intro questline, and Bastion being a really boring zone. Hell, even the entire soundtrack was unmemorable ambient trash especially after the music of BFA and previous expansions. The only song in SL I've looked up on youtube is Castle Nathria.

I hate the Maw, I hate Torghast, so as a solo player all I had to do at max level was Castle Nathria (which I thought was great), and M+ which was frustrating as a warrior dps obviously as I didn't have a dedicated group.

The only day I looked forward to was Tuesday to get my Vault reward, because the rest of the week it felt like my ilvl was stuck in the mud and I would get no upgrades.

There was a couple weeks when I was heavily invested in the game because I was trying to improve my parses on warcraftlogs, and trying to improve my raider.io score because I was close to the top10 warriors on my server (small server), but those are more OCD goals than loving the game.

About a month in, I was already running old achievements because it felt like I had nothing I wanted to do in Shadowlands.

[Nerovar]

I gave it a 5-6 before and would give it a 4-5 now. I'm rounding up here to 5 because at least the expansion didn't offend me as bad as BfA and WoD did early on. It's thus painfully average in my book.

I feel like this part is especially important.

Looking at Shadowlands from the outside, it feels like its biggest accomplishments is undoing damage caused by previous expansions such as reverting GCD changes (BfA), bringing back PvP gear (Legion), removing Titanforging (Legion). It doesn't feel like the game is actually progressing/moving forward because the devs are so at odds with their own game and their own community. Things like GCD changes that are almost unanimously hated still take an entire expansion to be reverted (and even then only partially). Meanwhile the actual content additions appear lukewarm at best.

[Elyiandris]

It is better than BfA and WoD but nowhere nearly as good as Legion. I think it's on the same quality level as Cataclysm or pre-Throne of Thunder Pandaria. It needs better anima drops, tier sets and flight/flight whistle.

[ghost]

TLDR: started "Okay", currently "Good", think it might turn "Bad" if they don't get more content out ASAP

So I think it started kind of "OK". To much stuff was gated behind just waiting for enough weeks to pass to see the covenant campaigns. Once we got enough ranks unlocked, it was a lot of fun to run an alt through each campaign. I liked the story a good bit, and how things that seemed random suddenly started making sense when you played through the campaigns. (De Other Side makes _zero_ sense, until you play the Night Fae covenant campaign.) The intro quest chain needed to be skippable. The leveling experience was not very good -- there just wasn't enough content. I sort of wish the option to turn off the story quest just bumped you to max level or made you earn 4x XP or something.

I think there is the awkward bit where we need new raids to be dropping "soon" as most of the groups who are going to clear something have done so. And without Titan Forging/etc existing, we don't have a reason to farm and are quickly running out reasons to go to Raid -- which makes it hard for guilds to maintain coherence.

So while I rank it as "Good" now, I think now, I think in 2 months where we've had no new content and just endless daily quests it might sink to "Bad".

I was ambivalent on Torghast initially - but now that I have enough gear, and have started doing it with friends its really become a fun romp to see ridiculous dps numbers. Twisting Corridors has its issues, but the load out at the end them is frequently giggle worthy.

The gear catchup mechanic for alts, by playing through covenant campaign is good. I have a set of alts who are basically "normal" raid ready or "medium" M+ ready just from playing through it.

It has its weak points.
* The scaling on mission tables is still just broken. And its default UI is really bad. (Add-ons help here, but they should have been baseline.) There is no catch up mechanism if you start late or swap covenants.
* The anima grind is really bad. It is unreasonable to see all 4 covenant's upgrade paths. And I'd like to see more of those with my alts, but there is no way I'm farming 200k of anima on alts just for the buildings, yet alone the additional 600k for cosmetics unlocked. At 1k a week that's like 14 years of grinding on alts to unlock everything (or 3 years just for the buildings). That feels really bad.
* Twisting Corridors is to long -- they need to figure out how to accelerate it; like just skip the first 9 levels and start you with 40 randomly chosen anima powers. And then add something fun you get for doing it after you've unlocked everything.
* There just aren't enough different daily quests. I sort of feel like a given daily quest should not be allowed to come up more than once a week.
* The valor system is good in theory, but meh in implementation. They need to remove the achievement aspect to unlock upgrading --OR-- let it upgrade to the same ilvl you are getting from the vault --OR-- make valor account wide so valor I farm on my main can be used to upgrade my alts gear which is unlocked by doing achievements on my main. Ideally, they'd let it upgrade to the highest level you've received on that character from the vault. I'm close to valor cap and can't spend it on anything (I'm ilvl 220).

[mr2t]

Even if it's called World of Warcraft it just doesn't feel like Warcraft anymore, bad from me.

WoD and BFA for all it's flaws atleast felt like Warcraft to me.

Yeah feels like a generic mmo. I don't care about anything in the SL.

[arkanon]

Yeah feels like a generic mmo. I don't care about anything in the SL.

This is such a common theme among my friends who play - "meh, its alright I guess, but I don't really care about any of the story..........or characters..........or lore..............or classes for that matter........wait, why the fuck am i even playing?" which for most has been followed by an unsub. Im not saying no one is playing it, im not saying its a dead game, not at all, im just saying for my group of friends, its a common theme.