What would you say is the most enjoyable of the 3: BFA, SL, or WoD?

[Th3Scourge]

WOD seriously lacked things to do outside of raiding, but the raiding was great. And the classes played great. PVP was fun too. The zones were also beautiful, questing very engaging and enjoyable (also very fast)

BFA had decent raiding and stuff to do outside of raid, but it was mostly chores/upkeep like do your AP grind, do your visions grind, play corruptions roulette until they added in a ROTATING vendor, grind reps and honor for essences, play roulette for benthic gear. At least AoE wasn't capped so M+ was more fun than it is now. The class design was also terrible, with the removal of legendaries, artifact weapons and tier sets. Questing was ok (Alliance had a much better experience IMO)

Shadowlands has decent raiding but nothing to do outside of raid besides Mythic+ which is kinda meh because the dungeons aren't that great (subjectively) and AoE caps are lame. PVP is bland with shitty rewards, too much grinding for everything. Grind renown, grind soul ash, grind soul cinders, grind stygian embers, grind stygia, run torghast 2x each week. The classes are slightly better designed than BFA, but still garbage compared to WoD. Questing was terrible, hate the zones just being different realm, which makes it feel like there is no connection. Korthia is actually joke content too.

Most of Legion was pretty bad too. The grind was atrocious, legendary acquisition was terrible. Raids were OK, Nighthold being a standout fantastic raid and a culmination of the best zone and story experience every added to the game with Suramar. By 7.3.5, legion was fantastic, easily my second favourite experience in wow after 3.1 Ulduar patch.

[Asrialol]

I find it fascinating how players just suddenly one day switched on a dime from Legion being a horrible bug-ridden expansion filled with grind and pointless busywork to declaring it truly great.

Legiondaries were a plague on the game, and it took most of its lifespan until it got even close to being fixed. Alts were probably about as bad as they were ever going to be, only held up by the promise of 12 different campaigns and a unique mount.
The grind was immense, and was further something which hamstrung not just alts, but off-specs. The only reason we don't say it is what truly killed off-specs as a concept in Legion is that the issue of Legiondaries was infinitely worse.
Spreading content out on every single individual class meant that most of the campaigns ended up being filler, and not to mention heavily reliant on mission table timegates.
7.2 was probably one of the most pitiful excuses for a patch we have had other than 6.1. The epic questline leading up to killing Kil'jaeden was comprised of a grand total of 2 unique quests per class, and a whole bunch of weekly quests amounting to busywork like finding 10 chests or killing 100 demons.

You wouldnt believe how full of vitriol the playerbase was towards Legion while it was current. It's saving grace was really only it's patch cadence being pretty close to perfect, as well as the story leaning heavily into just being cool rather than being deep, and even that led to some awful grinding of gears when you got to stuff like Illidan never meeting with Malfurion of Tyrande despite being literally on the same island fighting the same enemies.


Legion is the example I will always give of why an expansion will never be judged fairly while it is current. Because noone seemed interested in considering how Suramar was a wonder of a zone, all they wanted to discuss was how shit the experience was to play.

No expansion will ever be given a fair shake while it is current. It takes at least being able to judge it in its entirety to compare and contrast it to other expansions.

Legiondaries was whined about by a fraction of the playerbase, mainly the people who raided in the top 10% or so. The casual players didn't mind, and actually enjoyed getting that exiting legendary effect. You'd be surprised how loud a minority in this game can be. Paladin gap closer drama in what, 2010 or so, comes to mind.
Once they brought in the legendary currency and made them targeted it did improve it, though. Personally I found the RNGness of the legendaries to be fun, once the droprate was fixed.

Then again, I played a healer and thus it wasn't that big of a deal to me as I didn't have a "by far best" legendary, such as Fire mages had, for instance.

I really enjoyed Legion. I enjoyed the last patch of WoD, and I really enjoyed S4 m+ of BFA / Essences / Corruption. Call me crazy. Corruption gave such a unique customization of my characters power. Quite enjoyable.

I don't mind SL but I've played it less than Legion/BFA/WoD so far. I don't mind borrowed power, but the covnenat stuff feels as it isn't really "part of my character", sort of. I feel like the essences of BFA made more sense as a borrowed power than covenent stuff.

[Adamas102]

From a casual perspective, BFA was my favorite of the three. While it was nice making gold hand over fist during WoD, there wasn't all that much to do besides that. And as for SL, the grind of the first several months was just too much. Least alt friendly expansion so far. I know things like the anima grind has been improved of late so perhaps if I resub next year I'll have a different opinion of it.

[crusadernero]

I would say BfA. Kept me subbed most of the xpac and I had decent fun out of it.

WoD made me outright unsub for about a year, for the first time ever. People forget very easily or didnt even play it, just read about it. I remember the announcement and I was very hyped, god damn it crashed. In a couple of years SL will probably get praised, thats how it goes.

[Thestrawman]

I would say BfA. Kept me subbed most of the xpac and I had decent fun out of it.

WoD made me outright unsub for about a year, for the first time ever. People forget very easily or didnt even play it, just read about it. I remember the announcement and I was very hyped, god damn it crashed. In a couple of years SL will probably get praised, thats how it goes.

See that's what I liked about WoD. Because I did unsub. I left after BRF and was gone for quite a while. Then I came back. And within a week jumped back into raiding again in HFC.

You couldn't do that with BFA or SL. Too many chores that need to be done.

[Adamas102]

I find it fascinating how players just suddenly one day switched on a dime from Legion being a horrible bug-ridden expansion filled with grind and pointless busywork to declaring it truly great.

Legiondaries were a plague on the game, and it took most of its lifespan until it got even close to being fixed. Alts were probably about as bad as they were ever going to be, only held up by the promise of 12 different campaigns and a unique mount.
The grind was immense, and was further something which hamstrung not just alts, but off-specs. The only reason we don't say it is what truly killed off-specs as a concept in Legion is that the issue of Legiondaries was infinitely worse.
Spreading content out on every single individual class meant that most of the campaigns ended up being filler, and not to mention heavily reliant on mission table timegates.
7.2 was probably one of the most pitiful excuses for a patch we have had other than 6.1. The epic questline leading up to killing Kil'jaeden was comprised of a grand total of 2 unique quests per class, and a whole bunch of weekly quests amounting to busywork like finding 10 chests or killing 100 demons.

You wouldnt believe how full of vitriol the playerbase was towards Legion while it was current. It's saving grace was really only it's patch cadence being pretty close to perfect, as well as the story leaning heavily into just being cool rather than being deep, and even that led to some awful grinding of gears when you got to stuff like Illidan never meeting with Malfurion of Tyrande despite being literally on the same island fighting the same enemies.


Legion is the example I will always give of why an expansion will never be judged fairly while it is current. Because noone seemed interested in considering how Suramar was a wonder of a zone, all they wanted to discuss was how shit the experience was to play.

No expansion will ever be given a fair shake while it is current. It takes at least being able to judge it in its entirety to compare and contrast it to other expansions.

Legion certainly had its fair share of issues (every expansion does), but a lot of the things you listed were not things that casual players cared all that much about.

If you weren't determined to min/max then the legendary lottery and the artifact power grinds were non-issues. Getting a legendary drop was usually a nice bonus regardless of how it ranked on your class' list, and artifact power acquisition progressed at a decent enough pace to feel rewarding even without trying to grind it out. Then of course there was a good amount of enjoyable content to do as well as a lot of desirable cosmetics that casuals could pursue. Good incentives for playing multiple specs and classes was also a nice plus. Now, I'm not saying it was the best expansion for everyone, but for the majority who don't care about raiding and min/maxing it was a pretty good one.

[mauserr]

I'm glad people are starting to notice Blizz doing this, no one wants that shit removed in the final patch we want it removed when we tell you it's shit in beta.

Exactly. An expansion where you can take a break and come back later and still be able to raid without having to do 1023123 chores is a great expansion.

This poll is badly done. There should be 2 perspectives - from a casual standpoint where raids aren't everything and from a raider's perspective. I'm willing to bet money that poll results would look like this:

Casual's perspective:
- SL, BFA, Legion being the top due to parasitic addon presence, systems like artifact power etc that give you the feeling of having stuff to do, basically what people consider "content"

Raider's perspective:
- MoP, WoD, end of Legion and other raid oriented expansions because you could raidlog and you weren't forced to do nonsensical grinds to stay competetive. You wanted to be good in raids, you did raid content. The rest was entirely optional and provided no advantage in raids.

Legion certainly had its fair share of issues (every expansion does), but a lot of the things you listed were not things that casual players cared all that much about.

If you weren't determined to min/max then the legendary lottery and the artifact power grinds were non-issues. Getting a legendary drop was usually a nice bonus regardless of how it ranked on your class' list, and artifact power acquisition progressed at a decent enough pace to feel rewarding even without trying to grind it out. Then of course there was a good amount of enjoyable content to do as well as a lot of desirable cosmetics that casuals could pursue. Good incentives for playing multiple specs and classes was also a nice plus. Now, I'm not saying it was the best expansion for everyone, but for the majority who don't care about raiding and min/maxing it was a pretty good one.

I think when people refer to Legion being good, they mean end of Legion, where issues plaguing the expansion were mostly gone, ie. you had a deterministic way of earning your Legiondary, AP grind was mostly non existent, stuff was account-wide and alts weren't a chore anymore.

Legion is basically 2 expansions - a steaming pile of shit at launch and a great expansion at the end of it.

[scubi666stacy]

People defend the games current situation by saying the catch-up "isn't that bad" or "doesn't take THAT long" instead of focusing on what you said here - it's uninteresting, and boring.

Similar to when people argue about content quantity from expansion to expansion, or even tier to tier. Instead, we should be comparing quality and how fun/engaging the content is. Yes, enjoyment is subjective, but that's exactly why we should be discussing it.

Exactly, and in this regard, SL wins out of all three choices by far. I just don't have time to do all the things I have to do because of chores and resources chokepoints / gating, and this is what makes the expansion not as fun to me as Legion or TBC.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Legion certainly had its fair share of issues (every expansion does), but a lot of the things you listed were not things that casual players cared all that much about.

If you weren't determined to min/max then the legendary lottery and the artifact power grinds were non-issues. Getting a legendary drop was usually a nice bonus regardless of how it ranked on your class' list, and artifact power acquisition progressed at a decent enough pace to feel rewarding even without trying to grind it out. Then of course there was a good amount of enjoyable content to do as well as a lot of desirable cosmetics that casuals could pursue. Good incentives for playing multiple specs and classes was also a nice plus. Now, I'm not saying it was the best expansion for everyone, but for the majority who don't care about raiding and min/maxing it was a pretty good one.

While I agree that legion was alot better outside of 2 core issues, namely legendary aquisition and AP for alt specs, I also have press x to doubt that any sane person was fond of getting the original prydaz instead of a dps/healer legendary. This was not a top 10% issue, everyone that steps a foot into a raid on a regular basis is usually not stocked that they had 2 chances to get a legendary that actually benefitted them, before they hit a hidden semi-hard cap on it. It's true that only the top 10% would actually go as far as rerolling to get another shot at a better legendary, but that doesn't mean others wheren't turned off by it as well.

But both of these issues where continously adressed in legion, not a year later mind you, it was addressed in the quick paced patch cadence of legion. It was only truly good towards the end, but in Legion you could also still choke it up as a learning experience. The kind of benefit of doubt you can give them for the first time they tried such a system. In BfA and SL it was clear that this type of thing had method and was not based on madness (or sheer ineptitude).

[scubi666stacy]

See that's what I liked about WoD. Because I did unsub. I left after BRF and was gone for quite a while. Then I came back. And within a week jumped back into raiding again in HFC.

You couldn't do that with BFA or SL. Too many chores that need to be done.

But there was nothing beside raiding and Garrison. The world was dead. For me, the world is the most important part.

[crusadernero]

See that's what I liked about WoD. Because I did unsub. I left after BRF and was gone for quite a while. Then I came back. And within a week jumped back into raiding again in HFC.

You couldn't do that with BFA or SL. Too many chores that need to be done.

Thats true and a very good point. Personally I never returned to WoD, I subbed right around the pre patch time for Legion. But I had several friends who returned for the last raid of WoD, and they had good fun. They also highlighted the fact you could sub up and start raiding etc quite quickly.

Thats probably what sucks the most about BfA & SL. BfA was the first xpac I didnt play more than 1(almost 2) characters. Usually I would lvl and play alts, but no more. It sucks cause I dont dislike SL that much, but theres to much boring shit to keep up with.

[scubi666stacy]

While I agree that legion was alot better outside of 2 core issues, namely legendary aquisition and AP for alt specs, I also have press x to doubt that any sane person was fond of getting the original prydaz instead of a dps/healer legendary. This was not a top 10% issue, everyone that steps a foot into a raid on a regular basis is usually not stocked that they had 2 chances to get a legendary that actually benefitted them, before they hit a hidden semi-hard cap on it. It's true that only the top 10% would actually go as far as rerolling to get another shot at a better legendary, but that doesn't mean others wheren't turned off by it as well.

But both of these issues where continously adressed in legion, not a year later mind you, it was addressed in the quick paced patch cadence of legion. It was only truly good towards the end, but in Legion you could also still choke it up as a learning experience. The kind of benefit of doubt you can give them for the first time they tried such a system. In BfA and SL it was clear that this type of thing had method and was not based on madness (or sheer ineptitude).

Anecdotal evidence: I got Sephuz as my first legendary. Also had to switch from Frost to Fire shortly after entering the first mythic dungeon and finding out that my spec was not performing as good as I wanted it to be. So I also had to re-level a different legendary. Anyway, I first was disappointed that I only got the Sephuz. But then I played with that ring a bit and since I am really fast with spellstealing, interrupts, stuns (dragon breath) etc. and also used the BE racial a lot, I got a high uptime of the haste proc which was quite a compensation.

But Legion was for example the only expansion where I have really enjoyed PvP (though only random BGs and Arenas since I cannot do organised content anymore for years). And there was really good content in the open world (leveling stories, Suramar storyline, etc.), Mage Tower, great dungeons and raid (the only expansion after WotLK where I was running raids beyond LFR - because everyone was pugging raids for the artifact weapon questline). Legion had incredibly well executed social mechanics for random groups.

The only memorable thing about WoD for me was leveling alts, farming mounts from old raids, and mythic dungeons farming for legendary trinkets. I spent much time in Tanaan at the end of the expansion, but beside that, it was an extremely boring expansion. Of course, in hindsight it was great that I got so many alts to generate gold via Garrison and to be ready to get all classes into Legion and experience all the class stories etc. as well. But it does not change that WoD was a very bad expansion for my playstyle.

[Polybius]

The raid/dungeon scene in WoD was really good, and class design was well for the most part. Outside of that, the game was lacking. I enjoyed PvE in WoD more than in BFA or SL.

[Caperfin]

A toss up between WoD and Slands. BFA im guessing will be the least popular :P

[WowIsDead64]

Quality of content matters in the sense that less enjoyable content is roughly similar to less content in general. But no content is still no content, just because the raids were enjoyable in WoD doesnt magically make the dead space between raid nights enjoyable.

Even if someone despises Torghast and Emissaries in SL, so long as they like even something even slightly in the open world, whether that means gathering consumables or cosmetics, that still means it has more content than WoD.

The only way in which WoD was made better than SL, BfA and even Legion is that the lack of content outside raids meant an extremely low barrier for entry, and basically no feeling that you were "forced" into grind for power.
If that is the argument then I can respect that, but WoD was for me only something I got through without quitting because that is when I joined a great guild. And even then I doubt I would have managed if it wasnt for the fact that I was still fresh enough into the game that the preceding expansions gave enough content for me to fill the days with.

There are just many other factors, than simple "xpack A has X content and xpack B has Y content". Content design also matters.

Content is bad when its:
1) Overtuned
2) Overstretched
3) Overdesigned
4) Artificially gated
5) Doesn't have consistent progression route, i.e. unstructured, etc.

Overall 6.0/6.1 were bad and I was unsubbed during that patches, because leveling and daily Appexis missive without flying weren't good enough for me to be playing. But since 6.2 situation changed. Tanaan with FLYING (Please note! Big difference between Tanaan and, let's say, Maw) was good enough daily business for me. And then WOD became just perfect. Good leveling, not much endgame gating - almost immediate access to Garrison and 1-2 days to access Tanaan, reason to complete Loremaster anyway, because leveling was enjoyable and provided meaningful rewards, like default followers, so you didn't need to hire them on weekly basis, around 1hr of daily chores with good reward structure in Tanaan and ability to pad gaming session via leveling alts to close that content pipeline.

Overall core problem - is "main vs alts" problem. Devs want to provide potentially infinite content for mains for players, who can't find something to do by themselves. But it kills alts for players, who prefer limited but replayable content. Their current "compromise" - is to nerf content in future patches. But it kills all desire for alt-oriented players to play this game till some later patches. Bad thing about latest xpacks, like BFA and SL - content isn't even properly nerfed, that keeps it unplayable. And this problem should finally be solved. My solution - long term grind, like rep grinds for example, should be account wide. Blizzard should give up and accept this simple truth - not many players actually want to do some long tedious grind on other character from scratch, just because they've run out of things to do on their main, because this new character will always be felt incomplete.

[Nerovar]

I find it fascinating how players just suddenly one day switched on a dime from Legion being a horrible bug-ridden expansion filled with grind and pointless busywork to declaring it truly great.

Legiondaries were a plague on the game, and it took most of its lifespan until it got even close to being fixed. Alts were probably about as bad as they were ever going to be, only held up by the promise of 12 different campaigns and a unique mount.
The grind was immense, and was further something which hamstrung not just alts, but off-specs. The only reason we don't say it is what truly killed off-specs as a concept in Legion is that the issue of Legiondaries was infinitely worse.
Spreading content out on every single individual class meant that most of the campaigns ended up being filler, and not to mention heavily reliant on mission table timegates.
7.2 was probably one of the most pitiful excuses for a patch we have had other than 6.1. The epic questline leading up to killing Kil'jaeden was comprised of a grand total of 2 unique quests per class, and a whole bunch of weekly quests amounting to busywork like finding 10 chests or killing 100 demons.

You wouldnt believe how full of vitriol the playerbase was towards Legion while it was current. It's saving grace was really only it's patch cadence being pretty close to perfect, as well as the story leaning heavily into just being cool rather than being deep, and even that led to some awful grinding of gears when you got to stuff like Illidan never meeting with Malfurion of Tyrande despite being literally on the same island fighting the same enemies.


Legion is the example I will always give of why an expansion will never be judged fairly while it is current. Because noone seemed interested in considering how Suramar was a wonder of a zone, all they wanted to discuss was how shit the experience was to play.

No expansion will ever be given a fair shake while it is current. It takes at least being able to judge it in its entirety to compare and contrast it to other expansions.

Funny anecdote in regards to Legiondaries:
Played pretty much only arena at the start of the expansion. Didn't bother to do much M+, WQs or whatever so I didn't get a legendary until months into the expansion. Then I randomly got one from a blingtron package while I was on the wrong loot spec. What an amazing feeling.

[Alkizon]

Overall core problem - is "main vs alts" problem.

Well... kind of yes, but it should be formulated a little different. Here is it, we talked about this. Task has no solution, it's needed to make choice, but devs' hands tremble and stomach is cramping from greed. So you got what you got.

[sam86]

I voted WoD because I assume u talk as SL ended when i stopped, which was 9.0
if i must pick between SL 9.0 or WoD full, easily WoD full
BFA is a whole different lvl, better content than WoD yes, but my class (paladin) i hated to even login on him to play because how fucking bad it was butchered to a joke lvl, i had more spells in wrath than in BFA

[kranur]

WoD was actually a great expansion, it only lacked 1 thing ... some other form of content outside of raiding and pvp at max level.
The world was awesome, the questing was great, had some of the best raids ever, some of the dungeons were pretty cool too and there was also Ashran to mess around.
Professions were in a better place too and so were classes ... Demonology had the best iteration ever during BRF.

[Lex Icon]

WoD for me... i'm not the type of guy that play all day everyday and never unsub so the content drought wasn't that big of a deal.
am also not a raider so the whole "only raiders enjoyed it" narrative is kinda bs. also it had some of my favorite talents RIP shirvallah and glad stance

i liked the theme of BFA but gameplay sucked.
can't speak to SL as i've had 0 interest in even trying it out.