9.1: was doubling down on the Maw a good idea?

[Nalam the Venom]

I surprisingly didn’t mind the Maw prior to patch 9.1. What pissed me off in 9.1 is they made all that stygia farming people did for conduits moot as you now get 226 conduits from dungeons and raids, and upgraded legendary’s now have a free socket. They also made running Twisting Corridors pointless as you can now freely mount in the Maw. Also the new Korthia zone looks like it was made in a week; super small.

I probably wouldn’t have had stygia farming either, but trying to fix your mistake after people dedicated a ton of time to it pisses those people off, while lazy people get rewarded.

Each patch always bumps up the ilvl of things.

Why did you expect conduit drops to stay 200?

[Temp name]

I surprisingly didn’t mind the Maw prior to patch 9.1. What pissed me off in 9.1 is they made all that stygia farming people did for conduits moot as you now get 226 conduits from dungeons and raids,

Welcome to WoW, you must be new here. Patches have included a soft gear / power reset since like MoP.

[muto]

Each patch always bumps up the ilvl of things.

Why did you expect conduit drops to stay 200?

Not really about staying at 200, more about them at least not upping conduit item level past 226 if they're gonna do what they did.

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Welcome to WoW, you must be new here. Patches have included a soft gear / power reset since like MoP.

Not quite in that capacity since MoP only had two currencies you "farmed"; Timeless Coins, and Bloody Coins, and they were both in the last raid patch of the expansion, but okay. In fact MoP only had six currencies, and two were weekly quests. Damn even more reason it was such a good expansion.

[LazarusLong]

I respect Blizzard for coming up with something like the Maw, even though it didn't really work out the way they wanted it to.

The Maw is Blizzard taking the common criticism that WoW feels like a themepark (especially since Legion) where players move from attraction to attraction without anything standing in their way.

So it makes sense for them to want to put a zone in the game that feels hostile.

The attempt stumbled in several ways:

- The hostility was a hard restriction rather than a real danger.
- Players got stuck at the entrance and didn't get to experience much else.
- Players didn't feel lost and helpless.
- The zone couldn't yield too high rewards without making it feel mandatory to players who didn't like this content.


Probably the biggest flaw, in my view, is letting the players drop at the same starting position, a safe sanctuary where they could chew at the content from there. This completely undermined the threat of the Maw.

It would be more exciting if players entered the Maw like in the Seething Shore but with less control over their landing site. Players are dropped in a random location and they get to steer their parachute a bit to avoid the worst nearby spots. Dying would result in being dragged back into Oribos and going for another try.

The idea of being dropped in a random spot of a hostile territory immediately makes the player feel vulnerable. They don't get to stage a base camp. They don't get to flee back to where they came from. They immediately have to work with what they got. Didn't drop near a quest you wanted to do? Tough, you now will have to do the quest that you can reach from where you landed. Dropped far away from your friend? Tough shit, find a way to reach each other. Dropped near a group of hostile players? Too bad.

Blizzard played it too safe still. The other zones are still the usual themepark stuff. Mostly due to the lack of liminal space between the 'attractions'. This means a zone like the Maw can really screw over players in all kinds of unpleasant ways, while still being enjoyable because of it.

This is a good one. I think they could also double down on all the "zone upgrades", and not just from the currency, but from solving secrets in the zone. Hell maybe even borrow from the previous patch zones and make it server-wide. This way players would eventually get to the 9.1 Maw state.

But I guess they lacked a development time.

[BrintoSFJ]

From the start of the expansion, they heavily banked on maw gameplay. At this point of the game, where else were they supposed to focus on? It was always the plan. They could not just put in all the mechanics into the game and then decide to backpaddle. That makes no sense from the game development point of view. Your argument should be that they did not explore the maw enough, they did not flash out the story of maw enough, they cut too much content and so on.

[Azerate]

Maw was mostly disliked due to the eye mechanic and the mount restrictions...maybe also the visuals.

They basically deleted all the reasons to hate the maw, including its aesthetic in Korthia. Of course the old maw still retains its theme and looks basically the same so that's maybe one reason to still dislike it. It's a complete overhaul and a vast improvement as well.

[Nalam the Venom]

Not really about staying at 200, more about them at least not upping conduit item level past 226 if they're gonna do what they did.

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Not quite in that capacity since MoP only had two currencies you "farmed"; Timeless Coins, and Bloody Coins, and they were both in the last raid patch of the expansion, but okay. In fact MoP only had six currencies, and two were weekly quests. Damn even more reason it was such a good expansion.

Any thing you did during each patch will always be useless by the next patch.

[Kokolums]

Interesting enough that ppl hated it for the mount restriction and others love Vanilla and Classic, where you basically walk for 40 levels. And I did find the Maw actually dangerous in places (another thing that apparently Vanilla had and retail not). The hellish look is fine IMHO...better than Molten Core or Silithus anyways - to add more Vanilla comparisons

But oh well...obviously different strokes for different folks - or maybe something else after all behind it.

Vanilla had an engagement mechanic of buffs. Priests, druids, mages etc. could buff other players out in the world and it mattered. It seems like a very minor thing but it pushed people to actually be social, to seek out other players, engage and even talk. It really helped snowball the in-game community. SL replaces that sort of thing with covenant buffs for yourself only. Like necrolord might get a shield ability but its just for YOU so its antisocial. Its why one of my big fixes to wow is a helper talent tree where you get buffs that you can cast on yourself and others.

And before you say some buffs still exist, sure but they dont even matter they are so weak. In vanilla, you walk around and get a fort, int, mark and thorns and it really boosts you. And its SUPER important these buffs come from players and not an object or quest reward because it really does boost social play over time. In SL, you might have a WQ where there are some objects on the ground to interact with for a 5-10 minute self buff. That is such shitty design.

Reminds me of that quote from Jurassic World. “The only positive relationship this animal has is with that crane”.

[muto]

Any thing you did during each patch will always be useless by the next patch.

Not true. There have been patches where the previous tier set carried over into the next patch. I remember using 2+4 piece tier for Warlock in Legion. 2 piece Nighthold (10% UA), and 4 piece Tomb (chance to give Haste on spent Shards). Also Arcano Crystal was bis all of Legion, same with Whispers in the Dark until they nerfed it.

[Alvito]

The Maw is better than it was, it still isn't great. Torghast on the other hand sucks the shit out of a dead horses ass and somehow it got worse.

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Not true. There have been patches where the previous tier set carried over into the next patch. I remember using 2+4 piece tier for Warlock in Legion. 2 piece Nighthold (10% UA), and 4 piece Tomb (chance to give Haste on spent Shards). Also Arcano Crystal was bis all of Legion, same with Whispers in the Dark until they nerfed it.

The last time that was true in mass was BC, since then if it happened it was a rarity or conditional like stacking a set with another to cheese things.

[Schizoide]

Yes, it's gone.

Is that right? Good news!!

[Trumpcat]

Because making a 180 turn few months into the expansion would have served us with a more timely delivery of better content... Right?

The Maw sucks, Korthia sucks, Torghast sucks.

Nobody likes these areas, or the associated systems.

I like them and know people who also do. You sound like you need a break, however.

[Lord Pebbleton]

They could have made it more enjoyable. I get why they were trying to do by making it feel awful (it’s hell), however unfortunately in video games that doesn’t work, because just go play something else. Most people don’t play games to not have fun.

I personally do not hate Korthia. It is wayyyy too small for my likings, but the dailies are super quick, the rewards are worth it, and the size of the place allows you to usually get to rares before they are super murdered. Cannot say the same for the likes of Timeless Isle, which, even if it was small, had some annoying quests and the rares were on different height level and it was just frustrating

[Doffen]

9.1 has revitalized my fun in WoW again. Actual things to do, chilling in game doing the new content. Its not too much and its not too little. I am in the maw this time around lol.

Another raid reset today and I am gonna do the LFR on my chars today to get the mount while doing fun bosses

[Nynax]

Sooner or later after multiple tests, the rat in the maze will catch on and just wait 15 minutes at the start until the scientist gives up and lifts the walls to let the rat reach the cheese.

Why spend 200 hours grinding when it's current when you can get it in the next patch by spending 30 minutes? The players have seen this happen again and again since Legion.

Depends, are you playing to play or are you playing to be rewarded?

I grind through current content to play with friends and guild mates, with gear just being a gateway to harder stuff. If I didn't have them I probably wouldn't bother with WoW at all, and haven't in the past.

[Nalam the Venom]

Not true. There have been patches where the previous tier set carried over into the next patch. I remember using 2+4 piece tier for Warlock in Legion. 2 piece Nighthold (10% UA), and 4 piece Tomb (chance to give Haste on spent Shards). Also Arcano Crystal was bis all of Legion, same with Whispers in the Dark until they nerfed it.

But this is not legion.

This is Shadowlands, i’m just telling you how it is now.

[Schizoide]

Because making a 180 turn few months into the expansion would have served us with a more timely delivery of better content... Right?

No, there's a reason why X.1 patches don't fix the problems in X.0, the first patch is in development before the expansion even releases. There's no time to do more than band-aids. It is what it is.

[WowIsDead64]

I feel like they were so far in development that they couldn't backpeddle out of more Maw content following player backlash to the Maw since launch.

Either that or they knew the Maw was disliked and forged ahead anyways - either scenario wouldn't surprise me. How are you finding assaults etc in 9.1?

Overall it's that moment when "game surviving >> player experience". They needed no-flying forever location with minimal effort? They have it. That's it. It doesn't matter, what player think about it.

[Osmeric]

Singling down on the Maw was a mistake.

[Nyel]

Anything having to do with or designing the Maw in the first place was no good idea. This zone is just pure trash and there's no way to fix it or make it better in the sense of "likeable enough to play and stay".

The entire topic of The Maw, Jailer and Sylvanas is already so worn out and stale, the Maw is just the cherry on top. I really hope 9.2 is completely changing the setting, art style and everything related to the awful death / Maw theme we got in 9.0 and 9.1.