Rate Shadowlands (2021 version)

[Kokolums]

As long as the in-game community is destroyed, I can never give higher than a 3. The ugly mog sets, ugly mounts, torghast being awful etc drag this down to a 2/10.

[odamienskii]

The problem with SL is that it's an expansion made to fix all the mess they've made in BFA.
Many don't realize but BFA was without a shadow of a doubt, the worst expansion the blizz has ever done. A number of design mistakes were made that were really incredible from many points of view during BFA and now it takes time to fix everything (eg GCD but especially bad class design and bad gear progress system). If there hadn't been WOW in front of the BFA name, it would have ended up like Anthem.
As a result SL hasn't brought anything really new, it's the same game from Legion. Furthermore, I would not have embarked on a system like the covenant knowing full well that the balance of the 4 would be too complex.
Having said that SL has good potential but the blizz must exploit them well.
My rating currently 6.5 / 10

They fixed bfa problems and created a whole new world of problems that are clearly worse than bfaas because bfa was never this dead, look around oribos, try create a m+ key see how many/ what kind of players you are getting signing, the good players are so few and far between now its so sad.

-making pvp gearing the easiest way, this isnt an opinion its fact, you sit in rbgs for a couple of days congratulations your 220, it took me 3 days to gear my unplayed disc from 202 where i left it in december to 220. 3 days!
-retarded class misbalance in pvp which honestly its not even an opinion its fact they took wayyyy too long to change, by the time they changed half the people had already unsubbed, healers getting outhealed by tanks. hardly going to fill ll those healers that were taking up pvp for the first time because they felt like they HAD TO filled with enthusiasm and enjoyment.

- adding an extra avenue which makes a player unviable (covenents), so you have a premade of 4 for halls 19, nobody is venth, tell me that most the playerbase isnt excluded from that key aside from priests and warriors etc. dumb moves by blizzard left right and centre

whats with all the nerfs? making the content easy to complete doesnt fool anybody, all the players that need a better level to play are FAST becoming bored. its like they have no idea how to retain there playerbase anymore and have lost all sense of idea what exactly will keep a player interested.

Sorry @ all the more casual players but harder content that you are unable to do is NEEDED to keep wow balanced, otherwise you just lower the number of good players because sorry but the good players will feel underwhelmed with there achievements when they 2 shot a boss thats meant to be "endgame"

its 1 thing giving the players what they want
its another thing doing something that will retain a bigger portion of players EVEN IF ITS NOT WHAT THEY THINK THEY WANT.

make content harder and more challenging you would find the community would now still be working there way through it. there wouldnt be cries "this is too hard" other than from the casual playerbase who frankly couldnt give a crap to the point of unsubbing anyway!

[Osmeric]

make content harder and more challenging you would find the community would now still be working there way through it.

No, you won't. Ghostcrawler pointed out this is wrong, years ago. See quote in my sig. What they found is that for many players, making the game hard doesn't mean they keep working through it, it means they stop playing entirely.

SL looks like an expansion that has repelled many players in this fashion. Doubling down on difficulty and general unattractiveness is going to complete the WildStarification of WoW.

[odamienskii]

I consider SL to be far worse than BfA. And I don't think my reaction is unusual.

agree, dont get me wrong bfa was an absolute disaster but this is something 10x worse

[CiccioBello]

I consider SL to be far worse than BfA. And I don't think my reaction is unusual.

Different points of view .. I think many have forgotten about the disaster that occurred with the bfa patch 8.0, where the decline in players was even more drastic than what is happening now. But players always have short memories.
I can tell you that I have playing both 8.0 and 9.0 / 9.0.5 there is no story at all. Patch 8.0 was really unwatchable.
SL for me is a step forward compared to BFA, obviously it is not perfect and there are still errors to be fixed but as mentioned before it has much greater potential than BFA.

[ippollite]

Sorry @ all the more casual players but harder content that you are unable to do is NEEDED to keep wow balanced, otherwise you just lower the number of good players because sorry but the good players will feel underwhelmed with there achievements when they 2 shot a boss thats meant to be "endgame"

What if, and hear me out. What if instead of making the game an arbitrary level of difficulty locked behind player control, the game instead lowered the difficulty curve at the lower levels to bring players in, then gradually increased the difficulty on an infinite scale... you know, like mythic dungeons. What if, instead of an ever decreasing pool of 'good players' the game actually TAUGHT players how to play their game in lower difficulty levels by both widening access, whilst also allowing them a less challenging experience initially that steadily ramped up and increased the pool of potential players available to those at the higher ends of difficulty?

What if the 'solution' you suggest in fact widens the gulf between good and bad players, increasing the gap between the skilled and unskilled playerbase, and thus ends up susceptible to the very issues youre moaning about (your pool is shrinking)? What if, instead of 'balancing' the game, this actually 'unbalances' it, making players less inclined to broach said gulf. What if, instead of short termist, self serving thinking, you looked into why players are reluctant to meet you at your dizzying heights inside your ivory tower?

Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!
No. GTFO scrub!
Oh, guess i'll go do something else then.

"why am i so alone? Maybe if i lock myself in an even taller tower, more people will want to rescue me!"

[Lei]

Legion and BfA borrowed playerpower pushed me out of desiring to raid. Which was fine, I consider myself a collector first, and a leisure raider as a cherry on top.
So not having player power grind is great, however now we have cosmetic AP grind which is - as a collector first - the shittiest iteration ever. The devs tend to seriously overprice everything and literally anything that goes into your toybox, pet/mount/transmog collection, ever since WoD/legion.

Shadowlands for me was like arriving to disney land, wanting to try everything, starting with a blank slate, but then realizing a can of cola costs 100 bucks and you have to wait in line for it for 3 hours. In fcking disney land, where you want to play and not stand in a shitty line waiting for your 100 bucks cola. Like what the actual fuck? This overpricing spoils everything.
My initial rating in the first weeks was a solid 7-8, but when I got familiar with the "prices" it quickly went down to 3-4. And ofc unsubbed.

[kaminaris]

Different points of view .. I think many have forgotten about the disaster that occurred with the bfa patch 8.0, where the decline in players was even more drastic than what is happening now. But players always have short memories.

Actually 8.0 according to some sources (quarterly reports) literally did not change playerbase count, it was stable, through entire BfA. Steady decline is normal but no such thing occurred. So it's not a matter of "remembering", its just your anecdotal experience at worst.

[Exeris]

Looking at what SL has to offer it looks like something I should have a lot of fun with but I don't and I don't fully understand why, playing SL leaves me with a feeling that I've wasted my time, it feels pointless and almost everything is on some level annoying and/or frustrating.

Been almost 100% subbed since early vanilla, WoD kept me fully subbed and playing and the same with BFA, but SL lost me? I really didn't see that coming.

Been waiting for a burnout that should have happened many expansions ago but never did and now it finally happened(about two months ago) when I least expected it.

[ippollite]

Legion and BfA borrowed playerpower pushed me out of desiring to raid. Which was fine, I consider myself a collector first, and a leisure raider as a cherry on top.
So not having player power grind is great, however now we have cosmetic AP grind which is - as a collector first - the shittiest iteration ever. The devs tend to seriously overprice everything and literally anything that goes into your toybox, pet/mount/transmog collection, ever since WoD/legion.

Shadowlands for me was like arriving to disney land, wanting to try everything, starting with a blank slate, but then realizing a can of cola costs 100 bucks and you have to wait in line for it for 3 hours. In fcking disney land, where you want to play and not stand in a shitty line waiting for your 100 bucks cola. Like what the actual fuck? This overpricing spoils everything.
My initial rating in the first weeks was a solid 7-8, but when I got familiar with the "prices" it quickly went down to 3-4. And ofc unsubbed.

I feel this so much! The first few weeks of mount farming and exploring were genuinely amazing. But then reality set in. I LOVE cosmetic grinding. This should have worked to keep me preoccupied for months, but i dont know if it was the cost, or the sheer volume of things available (the christmas tree effect) but it became quickly overwhelming. Once people started mathing out the numbers, my disinterest became absolute.

[Rose the Delinquent]

Pretty horrible. Literally makes me question if BFA was unironically better.

[ippollite]

No, you won't. Ghostcrawler pointed out this is wrong, years ago. See quote in my sig. What they found is that for many players, making the game hard doesn't mean they keep working through it, it means they stop playing entirely.

SL looks like an expansion that has repelled many players in this fashion. Doubling down on difficulty and general unattractiveness is going to complete the WildStarification of WoW.

That quote is great. Interestingly it also applies to BfA and why we have SLs and why that philosophy is going to be ditched by 10.0. Lets chromie time this.

Panda was hugely successful. LFR was WOW! successful. The lego quest was amazing. The timeless isles (hated by a few) were loved. Panda was a casual players wet dream (by 5.4). It pulled me back to the game. But the forums were a colossal dumpster fire. The absolute rage about LFR cant be understated. Because it had the Bis trinket and because set bonuses applied regardless of the tier, hardcore players ENDLESSLY complained about having to not only do this content, but also carry these scrubs through LFR. By late 5.3 (or 5.4 i forget), flex was introduced (also FREAKING AMAZING and i wish it would return). Regardless, the point is the well was poisoned. Once we started the hype to wod, the changes were coming down the pipeline. Tier sets were stripped out of LFR, the trinket was stripped out of LFR. The DIFFICULTY was stripped out of LFR (ive seen people suggest it wasnt, but honestly aside archimonde, i cant think of a single fight that even had the wipe potential of Galakas or Nazgrim). Heck, even the trash pulls before Garrosh were a coin flip. Regardless, thats pure subjective memory. Maybe it did get more difficult. The point was, LFR was in its first iteration of being consigned to the dustbin of wow. Blizzard even justified their changes (massive nerfs to one shot mechanics) with a phrase that, to this day, still sticks in my craw: "Tourist mode" and so nerfed it into oblivion (and a light show of pointless mechanics). I cautioned against this at the time. But the game apparently needed to be 'more hardcore' to save it.

So Wod from its offset was intended to be a more hardcore experience. Not leveling though. Of course not. But aside that, it really was. Uber casuals got the garrison. Progressive casuals got garrison, LFR and a lot of pointless fill up the bar quests that eventually capped them out at... i want to say 610 ilvl? It feels like a number i remember, but i aint looking this up (but lets arbitrarily pretend thats the correct number). That aspiring casual would then go to the new lfg to try and get themselves into a normal pug raid. They would then face a WALL of demands (LF Dps: 625, link 'chiev). And your casual player would be looking at this thinking "but... how am i supposed to have aotc or an ilvl 625 when im trying to run the only content in game that gives me an upgrade above 610 ilvl?.

The forums were obviously a basket case at the time: Run your own groups! (they'd shout to the person who has no idea about strats or mechanics, let alone raid-leading). These are FARM groups! Get a guild to carry you! (as they looked around at all the cesspool guilds (and heroic guilds looking for one specific type of player that isnt them). Yet, somehow the playerbase kept declining. So a change was brewing. I warned y'all at the time. If you wouldnt play nice, blizzard would swing their nerf bat and it wouldnt be subtle.

Welcome to legion RNG HELL!!! Legion. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over legendary drops and titanforging! Still, despite this, players got over it and on the whole seem to love the expansion (i put it as a nice middle tier expansion - suramar was fantastic which tied us over to 7.2, which was the BIRTH of the timegated story. Imagine a world, modern wow players who never played legion complaining about renown, where you had 1 quest a week (kill 100 of x-mobs), and that was all you got until next week. That was you. Done. See you next week for Khadgars amazing quest chain (ten steps/weeks). I endured it for ten weeks because i wanted flight. I got flight. I did a few invasions. Actually, now i think about it, suramar (my rosy goggles are kinda busted - i remember it being a slog) might have been the birth of this nonsense).Either way, timegating was hard locked into the game.

Anyways... i missed the real 8.3 content. I think i tapped back in for a month at some point. But it wasnt that interesting (though the instanced 'invasion' quests were kinda cool). Legion was generally well received. It brought us a new meta system through artifact power. It gave us class quests with a nice class mount at the end of it. It gave us rep grinding to the max (reps were everything) and paragon loot boxes gave you an endless reason to keep farming rep because you might get that stupid invitation to the fox hunt. Oh, and that stupid suramar training mission (precursor to corruption), that was nice. Legion was better than i think ive described it. Everyone had stuff that was fun to do.

Then we doubled down in BfA. Like completely doubled down. As i say, i bailed out pre 7.3. Im sure the argus campaign was lovely. The raid was probably lovely too. No idea. I came back to wow in 8.1.5. The alliance quests were trash, the horde quests were amazing. But its basically legion 2.0. RNG is everywhere. Emissaries are now a gear progression system. I dunno. Coming back to the game and catching up through the war campaign and the jaina story (in particular) was lovely. When 8.2 dropped i was in LOVE with the game. Benthic gear was nice, but mechagon was incredible. I carried my sub all the way through this and right into 9.0.3 (arguably my longest sub - i kinda loved the fact i always had progression). But the forums were losing their mind over titanforging/warforging/socketing and rng in general.

"I just want a bis list i can work toward!"

So here we are. Scarred by the critique of a no-lose scenario in their previous expansion defining feature (warfronts), blizzard were 'listening'. They didnt want to make this mistake again. Torghast would now suck for everyone. Timegating would do the heavy lifting of sub retention. Cosmetics would give the casuals something to do. Blizzard were listening. I think that preach video on covenants genuinely terrified them. I love preach. But i think it really scared them... especially when bel and asmon multiplied it. They wanted to listen... the game would be more hardcore.

So thats why we're here. Insecurity. They dont understand their playerbase. They dont understand what motivates them. They've stopped designing a game according to what they think is a good game, but whatever focus group 10 thinks. They're 'listening' to the wrong people.

Hey remember when Rob Pardo said something like "then we looked at the data and saw that some players would finish the leveling grind in a few days? We shouldnt be designing to that guy".

[Coldkil]

Basically, half good half bad with no extremes. I agree - I think SL is a really good xpack plagued by a plethora of useless systems that shouldn't be in place and players have express their doubts about from the very start of the alpha/beta.

In the end there's still plenty of people playing so i'm fine.

[Kralljin]

I think that preach video on covenants genuinely terrified them.I love preach. But i think it really scared them... especially when bel and asmon multiplied it. They wanted to listen...

Look, your post is one of the many "hardcore players ruined this game", except in a slightly more subtle fashion, but citing the covenant discussion on how much influence the "hardcore playerbase" has over the devs is downright stupid.

The hardcore playerbase was extremely vocal about "meaningful choice" of the covenant system and did not want this, yet Blizzard forced it through and will most likely stick to it until the end of SL.
You can't cite this discussion as proof when the Blizzard made the clear decision against what the hardcore community wanted.

[ippollite]

Look, your post is one of the many "hardcore players ruined this game", except in a slightly more subtle fashion, but citing the covenant discussion on how much influence the "hardcore playerbase" has over the devs is downright stupid.

The hardcore playerbase was extremely vocal about "meaningful choice" of the covenant system and did not want this, yet Blizzard forced it through and will most likely stick to it until the end of SL.
You can't cite this discussion as proof when the Blizzard made the clear decision against what the hardcore community wanted.

I cant, youre right. But lets look at torghast 1.0 in alpha, lets then look to the forums of people complaining that it was 'pointless' and 'trivial' calling for timers. Then look at the sudden introduction of 'torments'. Then look at the backlash. Then look at what we ended up with. Lets remember, the alpha torghast was widely praised by those on alpha as a fun experience they just enjoyed because it was fun. Then watch their shocked disappointment with what we ended up with.

As for 'meaningful choice'. What a can of worms! I like covenants. I like the restrictions. I find its MORE of a meaningful choice when i stick with sin spec rogue on night fae because i want to see the Ysera storyline. The restriction IS the point. Its like survival melee hunters in vanilla. Preach's meaningful choice is to power grind and force designers to design around them. If you dont have an equal pull (through rp or cosmetics vs power), then its not actually a choice, is it? The point is you need to equalise the pull between all the motivations. That was ion's point. But preach's meaningful choice is that he wants power (remember, he openly stated he'd change his talent spec for trash pulls and that he wouldnt take x-npc because they didnt give him the power he wanted). So why is he torn?

Consistently he wants the spec that gives him the most output. The only thing that would satisfy him as a 'meaningful choice' is that the covenants be balanced equally (something he is very quick to point out is virtually impossible and has never yet been achieved) so he can have the 'option' to choose on other grounds. One spec and covenant outlay will give him the most powerful output according to math. He doesnt actually want choice. He just wants to know which one produces the most output. If he's torn about aesthetics, then blizzard are doing their jobs to provide an actual meaningful choice, are they not?

[Mightytasty]

I’d put it in the Bad category. It’s the third worst expansion, in front of BFA and WoD. Torghast, the Maw, and covenants were complete flops - though there is potential they can be fixed in a later patch. But it’s not looking like 9.1.

And for the “It’s only 9.0” crowd: Judging from the 9.1 PTR and Korthia, I think 9.1 has the potential to be one of the most disappointing major content patches ever, especially if they don’t pull the ripcord.

[Kralljin]

Then watch their disappointment with what we ended up with.

In other words, Blizzard did not listen to the "Hardcore community" again?

The restriction IS the point. Its like survival melee hunters in vanilla.

You mean, dysfunctional and effectively removed midway through the expansion (or that case, Vanilla)?

Are you trying to defeat your own arguements or why do you cite stuff that flat out did not work?

I'm not going to engage in the whole aspect of the covenant discussion again, because i had my fair share of those, so unless you can actually provide more arguements for the "Listening to hardcore players is bad!" (at least that's what i'm getting from your previous post), then i'm not going to entertain this further.

[ippollite]

Because it was a... get this, 'choice'. Those players CHOSE this limitation because power wasnt the point of their choice. RPing was the point. They made a choice that deliberately limited them because it made the game, and i know, its wild... FUN for them. Let me put it in hardcore language so you can understand:

Ever done the iron man wow challenge? Why on earth would anyone do that? There's a res literally waiting for you! Oh, you want a challenge?! I get it! (pity you dont).

Also, how convenient that youve done this argument so much you wouldnt want to address the point on what 'meaningful choice' actually means? Just like preach, who thinks his calculation of a *meaningful* choice is the only valid one in existence. (ie. he CHOSE power).

Oh, everyone should obviously choose power you say? I wonder why?

[Kralljin]

Because it was a... get this, 'choice'. Those players CHOSE this limitation because power wasnt the point of their choice. RPing was the point.

That's why the Vanilla devs themselves chose to pretty much remove most of the Melee aspects from SV in Vanilla already?
Because it was such a great choice?

You know, most players assume that if they're being presented with a choice like this, they're all viable to some extent, not that one is actually far superior to the other, that's where Melee Hunters failed.

Ever done the iron man wow challenge? Why on earth would anyone do that? There's a res literally waiting for you! Oh, you want a challenge?! I get it! (pity you dont).

Comparing the Iron man challenge to an actual system is stupid, the Iron Man challenge is self imposed, the way you engage with a system is not self imposed.
There is a world of difference between emergent player behavior and developer imposed behavior.

Just like preach, who thinks his definition of a *meaningful* choice is the only one in existence.

Funnily enough, Preach recently made a video saying that it's complete bogus for a developer to decide that X is a meaningful choice because what is meaningful to a player varies.

[ippollite]

/selfawarewolves.

Why is a self imposed restriction for rp purposes different to another self imposed restriction based on rp purposes? Is it because i called one of them hardcore? Its not hardcore, its rp. Both are self imposed player choices. That you leap to the defence of the latter is truly mindboggling. Perhaps it has to do with your first point that rp choices were designed out of the game... well, out of the power progression game. Because the game has spent multiple expansions increasingly the complexity of its end game difficulty making those rp choices obsolete.

So... i guess preach is right. Of course the only choice is power because the game has painted itself into a corner where power is the only consideration for players like him. So again, why is he annoyed about choosing night fae? He chose according to his narrow definition of 'meaningful'. I chose sin rogue night fae because im a hippy who loves night elves. I didnt choose night fae for its power, i chose it because the egg story was emotionally resonant and made me want to help them. He made a meaningful choice, as did i. We both chose according to our own criteria, so why is this an 'enforced' choice and not a meaningful one? If i loved maldraxxus and their aesthetic, i could have just as easily chose them because i dont care about power, right? I made a meaningful choice. I chose on rp/story grounds. Power wasnt on my radar (it might have been if it was so unbalanced, but again, id have weighed this up in my decision).

I chose along rp grounds, whilst preach chose on power progression grounds. We both made meaningful choices and neither one of us agreed on the scope of what a 'choice' is (the revendreth story wasnt as engaging for me - should they also be equally balanced for story with a formulaic mapped out arc of highs and lows to provide me with a "choice". You'd laugh in my face at the suggestion. So instead i picked the one of the four i liked the best. Preach picked the one of the four that had the most power.)

So you either accept that theres no enforcement at all and players do have a meaningful choice. Or, you decide that power is the only actual meaningful choice you have available and story, rp, cosmetics should only play a secondary role in your "meaningful" choice (in which case, why are you complaining- you chose power, one covenant package is going to be mathematically better than the others). I got a meaningful choice. I am adamant i got one. Do you genuinely disagree?

And be careful here because its a very loaded question... if you do, why should i care about power as the only 'meaningful' choice i can make?

Heres the rub: The problem isnt the choice itself. The problem is the designers have spent expansion after expansion pushing competitive, high end content to the detriment of everything else. They then tried to have their cake and eat it by suggesting that the covenants would be a 'meaningful' choice. They are correct in that players can choose meaningfully based on their individual desires and goals in game. They are wrong to think that this one tiny dumb change would suddenly lead to a surge of players choosing on RP/Story/Cosmetic grounds. We have been conditioned in this game to only care about ranking, power, and player competition. To buck that trend and choose your covenant based on rp grounds is to become that 'survival melee hunter' from vanilla.