Tin foil hat theory - did they make shadowlands horrific on purpouse?

[Luxeley]

But being a "bad expansion" is not just an opinion. There are measurable and objective criteria that can be employed, if "bad" is interpreted in the sense of "serving the business purpose of the expansion". I think there's an excellent chance SL will be a bad expansion by that metric, particularly if it causes a large and permanent loss of customers. We will see if that happens. At this point in Cataclysm the people at Blizzard were still happytalking things.

If you want to present a personal opinion on the expansion, use words to indicate you are doing so. Like:

Personally, and in my opinion, I think SL is the worst expansion for me so far. It's not even close. In no other expansion did I nope out so quickly. If my personal reaction is at all reflective of the average customer, it's going to be a business disaster.

I do NOT want to put myself in a position to defend Blizzard, I despise them as a company. Objectively speaking, I do believe Cata, MOP, Wod and BFA are significantly worse than SL so far, especially the latter two. However, things can easily get a lot worse for SL, especially if the next patch hits in July/ August like some ppl predict.

The bottom line is, if you judge Blizzard and/or WOW based on "serving the business purpose of the expansion" I understand and respect your point. Then again, according to my XP which probably isn't much different than yours, Blizzard put Profit > Fun since the middle of WOTLK. At this point, I've neglected to even consider this point cause it's been north of 10 years since Blizzard put Fun > $$$, its just become the accepted norm for me which is sad but true. If you're taking in reference to consumer choice then Blizzard is breaking new ground and screwing the consumer in new and improved ways. For example the recent changes to sub choices and the high possibility of a TBC mount.

We'll have to see what happens with SL. There is no doubt Blizzard will play the Covid 19 card with all the reservation of a pig in mud.
I do admit, I am VOID of optimism right now, but I'll be patient (cause we'll know SL's direction in less than 3-4 months) in the interest of being fair. Even if Blizzard does remarkable things going forward, there is going to be quite a bit of attricion due to TBC's release.

[NordWitcher]

But Cata and WoD are still widely viewed as the worst expansions.

Cata is remembered as having a horrible final raid tier but is well liked. WoD, however, is remembered as the worst expansion ever.

But being a "bad expansion" is not just an opinion. There are measurable and objective criteria that can be employed, if "bad" is interpreted in the sense of "serving the business purpose of the expansion". I think there's an excellent chance SL will be a bad expansion by that metric, particularly if it causes a large and permanent loss of customers. We will see if that happens. At this point in Cataclysm the people at Blizzard were still happytalking things.

If you want to present a personal opinion on the expansion, use words to indicate you are doing so. Like:



Personally, and in my opinion, I think SL is the worst expansion for me so far. It's not even close. In no other expansion did I nope out so quickly. If my personal reaction is at all reflective of the average customer, it's going to be a business disaster.

I wholeheartedly agree with your last point. I mean past expansions had its issues but nothing has been has bad and frustrating as SL. Cata was known for being a "hardcore" expansion. It suffered cause of that and switching design philosophy mid way through the expansion from hard to easy. People hated on Cata early on cause Heroic Dungeons took hours especially the ZA/ZG ones, Deadmines, among a couple others. Firelands was a great patch with a hard raid and one of the hardest final raid bosses with so much stuff happening. Then they released Dragon Soul and LFR which was a huge change from their core game design.

BFA had its issues but at least dailies were dailies and you burned through them without them taking your time. SL feels like Legion 2.5 without all the tools that you previously had like the flight master's whistle, better loot, etc. Dailies are terrible with multiple requirements, travelling between zones is a time sink, the maw feels terrible and frustrating while loot is as unrewarding at any time in the game.

[Wangming]

No one is going to cut it with rat poison and kill their buyers. That's loss of business for them. The good heroin dealers, businessmen that don't inject their own product are going to have some kind of rules even in that cut throat of a business.

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The problem with Cata was that you had 2 design philosophies at work here. From the launch till Firelands which was hard for the expansion and the playerbase. WoW started losing subs here cause content was too hard and over tuned. The lack of dungeons was a huge thing as well. With that came a lot of reused dungeons and content. Firelands was a creat patch but the raid was freaking hard. Dragon Souls was rush released cause they had to respond to losing players and subscribers. They made everything easy and a cake walk. Compare the Dragon Soul Heroic dungeons to the launch heroic dungeons and its a day and night difference.

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The problem with WOD was that it just lacked content. The raids were great and definitely one of the best raids till now. Unique armor sets, weapons, levelling campaign, garrisons etc. It just launched with a lot less content by which time Blizzard decided to focus on Legion.

I've played through Cata, MoP, WOD, BFA and now Shadowlands and so SL is the worst expansion by far. It started of great but it's had terrible staying power even worse than WOD. At least with WOD, it had a hook in Garrisons. SL right now has no such hook other than a borrowed power system in place. The dungeons are terrible and feel they are designed more for e sports than anything. Everyone is so focused on finding the optimal route through trash, I wonder what's the point of even having trash in these dungeons. Loot is unrewarding and the armor and weapons look terrible.

Well Cata came with 7 original and 2 revamped dungeons and 4 raids. The first dungeon patch was 140 and the first raid patch 203 days away.
WoD came with 8 dungeons and 1 raid. The first raid patch was 221 days away, not counting the staggered Blackrock Foundry.

Both of them lagged behind the previous expansion when it came to raid and dungeon delivery

[Lollis]

More OT, Blizzard designed a mythic raider paradise with SL.

Are we playing the same game?

Mythic Raider paradise?

A paradise where gear from PvP and M+ is not only faster and easier to get hold of but also better in many cases?
A paradise where you often get no drops that are any good, and unlike M+ you don't even have a way to make up for it with upgrading other gear?
A paradise where raid drop rates got nerfed, and then buffed again, and are still not good enough?

That Mythic Raider paradise?

[arandomuser]

People always hate current expansion, pick some weakest feature in their eyes (Kung Fu Panda, garrisons, legiondaries, Azerite/corruptions) and exploit 24/7 whining on that single problem like it's most important thing ever. And then next expac sell as well as previous one (last two they even beat their own records), whiners get silent for month or two and return again.

What is REALLY funny this time around is that (current) most complained parts of Shadowlands - sparse gear, no reason to do open world for progression and Thorghast - are exactly what people screamed about, wanted and praised before launch, mostly inspired by various "wanna be game director" streamers. During Beta Covenants was thing that will cause literall hell for SL players - turns out it's non issue that no one complains about.

bingo
the "influencers" and their fandoms begged for alot of hte changes in shadowlands
no artifacts less gear "because classic was so amazing 4Head"
heres some things they also wanted that thankfully blizzard didnt cave to
they wanted soulbinds removed conduits removed
they wanted covanent abilities to be removed
blizz needs to really stop listening to the crybabies and just do things they know people log in to do by their own metrics, had more fun grinding azerite power from world quests than raid logging because its the only way to improve my character

[Utrrabbit]

NO - they made it horrible because Ion is a hardcore raider and he made expansion solely for hardcore raiders.

thats why end product is toxic pile of garbage that has atm less players then FF14. and this is 3 months into expansion.

it complete unmitigated failure - that most likely got already axed and resources already got moved to 10.0 because nothing can save it atm.

you will see that 9.1 will be last tier of expansion and thats why it wont come out untill septemeber

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he is not wrong though .

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fewer milions then FF14 has.

FF14 unlike wow gained 1,5 mln active players when wow kept loosing them - even though they didnt release new expansion yet.

Less players than FF14 . FF14 has like 4000 players. Wow currently has 18mil.

Yes less.

Get out of here with your garbage.

[Wangming]

Less players than FF14 . FF14 has like 4000 players. Wow currently has 18mil.

Yes less.

Get out of here with your garbage.

LoL. 12 million was the absolute top for WoW. Definitely not 18. He might pull numbers out of his arse, but needless hyperbole will only loose you credibility.

[anon5123]

Which is odd because I swear these forums only really had 3 major things to say about Cata: Heroic dungeons were too hard, Firelands was a great raid, and Dragon Soul was a horrible raid with many reused assets.

Heroic dungeons WERE hard....for the first month, before blizzard kowtowed to all the crying wrathbabies and nerfed the fuck out of everything so that you can aoe faceroll them again.

Firelands was not a "great raid". The difficulty curve was so terrible, to the point where all the bosses other than Ragnaros felt like trash mobs in comparison to Ragnaros. And having a main raid only be 7 bosses was kinda crap.

Dragon Soul was indeed horrible, mostly because it was just teleporting around from boss room to boss room and Deathwing was insanely anticlimactic, we didn't even get to fight him, we just fought some slimes and elementals, poked his toes, and then tapped his cheek so that Green Jesus could shoot his laser.

[Utrrabbit]

LoL. 12 million was the absolute top for WoW. Definitely not 18. He might pull numbers out of his arse, but needless hyperbole will only loose you credibility.

Actually 18 is what it is at now according to the last report blizzard stated numbers are higher now than it has ever been, numbers are 60%

[Wangming]

Actually 18 is what it is at now according to the last report blizzard stated numbers are higher now than it has ever been, numbers are 60%

Can you link the sauce please?