Shadowlands is worst then BFA

[arkanon]

OP, how in the hell do you go from making a thread called this: It seems only trashing wow only gets you noticed now and days


...to immediately doing just that?


Don't answer that; it's rhetorical. We all know why. You just want to be noticed. To bait a response. The term associated with that kind of action escapes me...

I wouldn't say 5 months later is "immediately" but the other part is quite common here.

[ryanmahaffe]

Current expansion is always better then previous expansion in the eyes of the World of Warcraft fanbase. 9 years ago this entire forum was angry that the worst thing blizzard ever did was Wrath of the Lich King and how it catered to the casuals. Give it 3 expansions and people will look back at it fondly. "Oh there were no unessary grinds in Shadowlands and Zovaal was a REAL villian not Frumpy Twinkle toes that we have now and we only had 4 raid difficulties that make sense not the 2 we have now shit do I miss old school normal"

People still don't look at WoD fondly, or Cata (though it has more mixed appeal than WoD or BFA)

[Hctaz]

When you think WoW has hit rock bottom it somehow sinks lower.

This LOL

I think that's why people keep talking shit about the expansions as they release and then praising them later.
But more importantly, this isn't the same thing as the MoP nostalgia that popped up after people remember how much MoP was shit on. This is saying that Shadowlands is somehow so bad that it managed to be worse than BfA.

Realistically, a lot of the expansions that people look back on fondly had their pros and cons. Stuff where Blizzard maybe added some good things and some bad things. It's easier to view the decisions in a negative fashion when they're first announced because you don't realize how the positive stuff is going to impact you yet. I also guarantee that the people who say MoP is the best expansion probably think so for various opiniated reasons or didn't play every single expansion in order to judge them. You can't fault somebody who really likes Death Knights and the Lich King for claiming that Wrath is the best expansion because that's their opinion.

But it is funny how every expansion DOES seem to get worse and worse. I don't think this game would still be alive today if they jumped straight to Shadowlands from Wrath for example.

- - - Updated - - -

People still don't look at WoD fondly, or Cata (though it has more mixed appeal than WoD or BFA)

Nah people do look at those expansions fondly, but it's for very subjective things that you can't necessarily put a fixed numerical value on.

I have friends I play TBC with now who love Cata because they think the raiding (Before Dragon Soul) was amazing.

I know people who really liked WoD because they were only interested in raiding and they could very easily raid log without needing to do any additional outside prep. The only thing they had to do in order to raid was log in and raid.

I think the problem with BfA and Shadowlands is that nothing new is happening to compensate players for all the stuff that is getting bland/boring. Some people got burnt out on the max level player progression and RNG loot in Legion. BfA was pmuch Legion but worse. Nothing substantially new was added, and the things that were rehashed were worse or less detailed versions of the same stuff we just had in Legion. Shadowlands took away the RNG gearing aspect of forging, but I don't think it really innovated anything new. It just took away *some* bad stuff without adding anything new into the game. Instead of creating something entirely new, they just went the Legion/BfA route of the borrowed power grind with legendary items and Soulbinds. Torghast is just your same weekly grind but spiced up to possibly be more fun without actually being more fun. I think that has to be one of the biggest let downs actually... People seemed like they couldn't get enough of Torghast when it was endless and rewardless on the Beta. Just going in and having a good time seemed to be good enough. Putting a player progression system on it is what required it to have a floor limitation (maximize that reward) and made it feel like a mandatory chore instead of optional side content.

[Relapses]

But it is funny how every expansion DOES seem to get worse and worse. I don't think this game would still be alive today if they jumped straight to Shadowlands from Wrath for example.

This is such a silly thing to say. The people who play WoW today are different than the ones who played in Wrath. This idea that WoW needs to have only one audience for the entirety of its existence is one of the most reductive, infuriatingly myopic takes I see regurgitated ad infinitum on this website. Shadowlands, for better or for worse, is the result of a lot of things players asked for, whether you want to acknowledge that very real fact or not. And don't worry, in a couple years you'll be able to relive your WotLK fever dreams to your hearts content when it is released as Classic.

[MoanaLisa]

I'm interested to know what the second you consider possibly worse is. I'm guessing WoD is the first, & while I don't agree with that, I can definitely see the argument for it.

As for Shadowlands vs BfA, there really isn't much in it. BfA had absolutely horrendous power grinds & subpar class gameplay, but it did have a lot of content. SL has slightly less irritating grinds & slightly better class gameplay, but the content just isn't there if it's going to end after 9.2. I'd take WoD over both, as despite the lack of content & M+, the core class gameplay & raids were amazing... No grinds, either

Cataclysm, not so much for the opening content (although I do resent how the middle and end of the expansion was 100% mishandled by Blizzard's reaction to the steep falloff in subscriptions). It showed to me that they had zero faith in their design, or at least not enough to stand up for it. Street's blog about how everyone should just get better—which I don't necessarily disagree with in principle—was the wrong message at the wrong time given that they nerfed heroics soon after it came out. The rest of the expansion was just a mess. Way too long in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub and the optics of the Dragon Soul raid left a bad taste with most people. It's also worth mentioning that LFR was prematurely released as a stopgap measure (it was planned for Mists and wasn't ready on release). And then there's Deathwing generally and how that was handled throughout the expansion. Opening heroics with an eye toward making everyone more skillful, especially after Wrath, was a puzzling decision to me. What did they expect? That everyone would fall into line and hit the target dummies to perfect their reactions to the relatively new priority system?

For me it was a huge mess even if T11 was one of the best tiers ever.

I'll qualify all of this with the fact that perspectives can change as the way you play changes: I was a fairly dedicated raider through T11/T12 but T13 made me question all of that. Over time, I became a much more casual two-or-three times a week player. The view from there is that I don't raid, I don't do high-end M+, but I don't grind all that much either and there's plenty of content for someone who plays 10-12 days a month. It might be time to imagine that the game is now being designed with those players (likely the majority these days) in mind. I might have a different opinion if I was in the same game place I was at the end of Wrath and start of Cataclysm. I avoid the power grinds except in how they work out with just playing this and that. So to me it's a middling expansion and much like BfA which I disliked for a lot of the same reasons.

Warlords was an unforgiveable mess that was clearly designed to be the first of their 'yearly' expansions (which was never ever going to work given how the timing of the announcement-beta-launch loop works). I quite loved the leveling though and still consider Shadowmoon Valley one of the best zones ever.

I'm not a binary person. It's not ALL bad or ALL good with me. Expansions for me need to be designed to add up to more than their individual parts. They don't any longer and that's one reason why they're so less approachable to me. Add to that Ion and crew have over-engineered the game to a fare-thee-well and I'm not optimistic that it will get back to its roots. I could go on with another post this long about the problems with story and keeping everyone locked up in a few tiny zones for two years but that's enough.

[Th3Scourge]

I would say I probably had more fun in BfA because more of my friends actually hung around and played at least intermittently. Everyone I know checked out really quick on SL and they're all on FFXIV now, but personally I just didn't like that game at all. Don't care for the gameplay, the characters, the story, the interface, idk none of it was clicking with me. At the same time though, there's really nothing to do in WoW right now unless I want to do dungeons/raids with randoms, which isn't really what I'm looking for from an MMO.

This is probably a big part of it. I still have our core mythic raid team, but all the guys I did M+ and arenas with in BfA all fucked off early in 9.0

[Hctaz]

This is such a silly thing to say. The people who play WoW today are different than the ones who played in Wrath. This idea that WoW needs to have only one audience for the entirety of its existence is one of the most reductive, infuriatingly myopic takes I see regurgitated ad infinitum on this website. Shadowlands, for better or for worse, is the result of a lot of things players asked for, whether you want to acknowledge that very real fact or not. And don't worry, in a couple years you'll be able to relive your WotLK fever dreams to your hearts content when it is released as Classic.

Your interpretation of my quote is hilariously bad. It's ironic you called my opinion myopic when you completely missed the point.

My point still stands regardless of whether or not you understand the point. I never claimed that WoW should only have one audience for the entirely of its existence. Catering to a more casual audience is completely fine in my opinion as long as they don't butcher the experience of another audience in the process.

My point is that there was a large amount of discontent over certain things in EVERY iteration of the game. People did not like hybrids being good, people didn't like the introduction of paladins to the horde and shamans to the alliance, people didn't like heroic dungeons in Wrath being easy, people didn't like the introduction of a new class in the form of Death Knights, people didn't like the old world revamp, but it was a slow and gradual series of changes that led to people deciding to quit the game.

But the gameplay and story remained at least semi consistent up until Legion where they made a ton of changes that have led into BfA and Shadowlands. Had they jumped straight to Shadowlands, people would recognize the massive changes. We went down a gradual series of changes instead.

[Relapses]

Your interpretation of my quote is hilariously bad. It's ironic you called my opinion myopic when you completely missed the point.

My point still stands regardless of whether or not you understand the point. I never claimed that WoW should only have one audience for the entirely of its existence. Catering to a more casual audience is completely fine in my opinion as long as they don't butcher the experience of another audience in the process.

My point is that there was a large amount of discontent over certain things in EVERY iteration of the game. People did not like hybrids being good, people didn't like the introduction of paladins to the horde and shamans to the alliance, people didn't like heroic dungeons in Wrath being easy, people didn't like the introduction of a new class in the form of Death Knights, people didn't like the old world revamp, but it was a slow and gradual series of changes that led to people deciding to quit the game.

But the gameplay and story remained at least semi consistent up until Legion where they made a ton of changes that have led into BfA and Shadowlands. Had they jumped straight to Shadowlands, people would recognize the massive changes. We went down a gradual series of changes instead.

"People" in this case meaning "you." Are you sure I'm the one who missed the point?

[Hctaz]

Cataclysm, not so much for the opening content (although I do resent how the middle and end of the expansion was 100% mishandled by Blizzard's reaction to the steep falloff in subscriptions). It showed to me that they had zero faith in their design, or at least not enough to stand up for it. Street's blog about how everyone should just get better—which I don't necessarily disagree with in principle—was the wrong message at the wrong time given that they nerfed heroics soon after it came out. The rest of the expansion was just a mess. Way too long in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub and the optics of the Dragon Soul raid left a bad taste with most people. It's also worth mentioning that LFR was prematurely released as a stopgap measure (it was planned for Mists and wasn't ready on release). And then there's Deathwing generally and how that was handled throughout the expansion. Opening heroics with an eye toward making everyone more skillful, especially after Wrath, was a puzzling decision to me. What did they expect? That everyone would fall into line and hit the target dummies to perfect their reactions to the relatively new priority system?

For me it was a huge mess even if T11 was one of the best tiers ever.

I'll qualify all of this with the fact that perspectives can change as the way you play changes: I was a fairly dedicated raider through T11/T12 but T13 made me question all of that. Over time, I became a much more casual two-or-three times a week player. The view from there is that I don't raid, I don't do high-end M+, but I don't grind all that much either and there's plenty of content for someone who plays 10-12 days a month. It might be time to imagine that the game is now being designed with those players (likely the majority these days) in mind. I might have a different opinion if I was in the same game place I was at the end of Wrath and start of Cataclysm. I avoid the power grinds except in how they work out with just playing this and that. So to me it's a middling expansion and much like BfA which I disliked for a lot of the same reasons.

Warlords was an unforgiveable mess that was clearly designed to be the first of their 'yearly' expansions (which was never ever going to work given how the timing of the announcement-beta-launch loop works). I quite loved the leveling though and still consider Shadowmoon Valley one of the best zones ever.

I'm not a binary person. It's not ALL bad or ALL good with me. Expansions for me need to be designed to add up to more than their individual parts. They don't any longer and that's one reason why they're so less approachable to me. Add to that Ion and crew have over-engineered the game to a fare-thee-well and I'm not optimistic that it will get back to its roots. I could go on with another post this long about the problems with story and keeping everyone locked up in a few tiny zones for two years but that's enough.

Lots of things I agree with here, especially on the Cataclysm front. It really felt like that was an expansion where the mentality did not match the content that was being developed and they backed off instead of doubled down.

I also strongly agree that perspective change as the way you play changes. My stance, however, is that you shouldn't have an audience that is upset with the changes being made. I'm all for allowing casual players to have content that keeps them occupied, but I don't understand why that had to come at a cost for those players who were still taking raiding seriously.

WoD was an atrocity to anybody who was not a raider, but then Legion flipped the script and made the upkeep for serious raiding absurd. I simply don't understand why those two audiences needed any kind of overlap, however. Why could they not create interesting things for you to do 10-12 days a month and stay busy as a casual player while not having those same things bleed into raid prep?
I enjoyed the Chromie scenario and the Mage Tower. Collecting pets and mounts is interesting as well. Could have added tons of stuff to the game that didn't directly correlate to actually gaining player power. There's power in collectibles.

If the playerbase is mostly casual then I totally understand why they would want to focus their efforts into making the casual experience the best they possibly can, but it does suck that it typically comes at the expense of serious raiders and PvPers.

- - - Updated - - -

"People" in this case meaning "you." Are you sure I'm the one who missed the point?

??? The only thing I listed that I personally didn't enjoy was the old world revamp. I didn't even play the game past level 25 before Wrath came out so I legit have no opinion on those changes lol. Those are all sentiments I've heard from people who played the game at the time.

[Relapses]

??? The only thing I listed that I personally didn't enjoy was the old world revamp. I didn't even play the game past level 25 before Wrath came out so I legit have no opinion on those changes lol. Those are all sentiments I've heard from people who played the game at the time.

It doesn't matter if you experienced any of that firsthand, you're just perpetuating the same illogical fallacy I mentioned in my first post. "People" don't quit the game because of design changes. They quit the game because they move the fuck on with their lives. (Don't believe me? That's fine. But here's a guy who has seen WoW's actual retention data saying the same thing.) It's the new players who replace the ones leaving who dictate the changes made to the game which is why it's so hilariously out of touch to make statements like "the game would've died if it went from Wrath to Shadowlands."

[Hctaz]

It doesn't matter if you experienced any of that firsthand, you're just perpetuating the same illogical fallacy I mentioned in my first post. "People" don't quit the game because of design changes. They quit the game because they move the fuck on with their lives. (Don't believe me? That's fine. But here's a guy who has seen WoW's actual retention data saying the same thing.) It's the new players who replace the ones leaving who dictate the changes made to the game which is why it's so hilariously out of touch to make statements like "the game would've died if it went from Wrath to Shadowlands."

Oh boy. A dev who left the game before Blizzard started implementing dramatic changes. I'll take that with a grain of salt, yeah. Considering there are many people who say the opposite. My point is that, once again, it's not one specific change that caused players to quit but several issues that they had with the game. It still resonates within Ghostcrawlers post that you can't pin down players unsubbing to one specific change as there are several aspects to consider all at once which is true. He's also talking about people coming and going in the timeframe of HALF A YEAR which is not what I'm referring to at all. That's not even halfway through an expansion. If you have people coming and going in 6 months then they weren't going to play the game long term anyway. That's clearly discussing a casual audience who plays a game until they get bored and move on.

[Relapses]

Oh boy. A dev who left the game before Blizzard started implementing dramatic changes. I'll take that with a grain of salt, yeah. Considering there are many people who say the opposite. My point is that, once again, it's not one specific change that caused players to quit but several issues that they had with the game. It still resonates within Ghostcrawlers post that you can't pin down players unsubbing to one specific change as there are several aspects to consider all at once which is true. He's also talking about people coming and going in the timeframe of HALF A YEAR which is not what I'm referring to at all. That's not even halfway through an expansion. If you have people coming and going in 6 months then they weren't going to play the game long term anyway. That's clearly discussing a casual audience who plays a game until they get bored and move on.

Yeah, what a surprise... a forum that is designed specifically to air grievances is full of people airing grievances. The issue with that is that this forum is a microcosm of a microcosm, a very small portion of an even smaller portion of people who even talk about this game online. Most people who play WoW are casual and leave then come back whenever the fuck they feel like. These are the people the game is designed for. Not us, not the ones who are terminally dissatisfied and hopelessly cynical about everything. This is why Shadowlands is the way it is, for better or for worse. There's a reason the game still sets sales records and it isn't because people love to hate it so much. A majority of its playerbase simply doesn't give a fuck, they just buy the expansion because it's a fun thing to do for a couple months every 1-2 years. But you can't make salacious arguments about how Covenants "ruined the game" and "cost 5 million subscribers," if you acknowledge this boring reality so most people simply don't.

[sam86]

-snip-

big difference between 'this sucks improve' like AP farming and 'this sucks delete' like (sadly) warfront

[TheTaurenChieftain]

I'm all for allowing casual players to have content that keeps them occupied, but I don't understand why that had to come at a cost for those players who were still taking raiding seriously....

....WoD was an atrocity to anybody who was not a raider, but then Legion flipped the script and made the upkeep for serious raiding absurd. I simply don't understand why those two audiences needed any kind of overlap, however. Why could they not create interesting things for you to do 10-12 days a month and stay busy as a casual player while not having those same things bleed into raid prep?.....

.....If the playerbase is mostly casual then I totally understand why they would want to focus their efforts into making the casual experience the best they possibly can, but it does suck that it typically comes at the expense of serious raiders and PvPers.....

I don't understand where you got the idea from that Blizzards problem is that it focussed too much on the casual audience in the past. This is definitely not the case.

Most casual content is and was pretty boring and most of it was just mindless grinds. If casual content was important for Blizzard they would make casual content more engaging and interesting. "Casual content" doesn't mean that you AFK-steamroll through every outdoor mob in the game. It is the opposite. Casuals also want to have engaging and challenging content. WoW is still a game. And most gamers still want to be somewhat challenged when playing a game. They simply differ from harcore players in that they don't want to dedicate too much of their personal free time to WoW.

But you definitely can implement casual content that is challenging, engaging and interesting.

But I don't want to hear the argument "WoW is going bad because it focusses too much on the casuals" anymore. Because this is simply not true. WoW is a casual-unfriendly MMO. And most casual players who actually enjoy playing casually propably already left the game. The people who are currently playing the game are definitely not your average casual player.

[Chipped coin]

Yeah, what a surprise... a forum that is designed specifically to air grievances is full of people airing grievances. The issue with that is that this forum is a microcosm of a microcosm, a very small portion of an even smaller portion of people who even talk about this game online. Most people who play WoW are casual and leave then come back whenever the fuck they feel like. These are the people the game is designed for. Not us, not the ones who are terminally dissatisfied and hopelessly cynical about everything. This is why Shadowlands is the way it is, for better or for worse. There's a reason the game still sets sales records and it isn't because people love to hate it so much. A majority of its playerbase simply doesn't give a fuck, they just buy the expansion because it's a fun thing to do for a couple months every 1-2 years. But you can't make salacious arguments about how Covenants "ruined the game" and "cost 5 million subscribers," if you acknowledge this boring reality so most people simply don't.

I am kinda curious about this massive silent majority... if they existed I doubt we would of seen every spec being 80% the same covenant at sl launch.

Yes the forums are small but wow players are a pretty predictable bunch. I've never been shocked or surprised by how the community has reacted over the years have you?

As for if bfa was better then sl?

Christ that is one hard call to make... from a raid stand point I would say first tier of bfa was better with second tier being worse and I don't feel qualified to comment on the rest.

[Hctaz]

I don't understand where you got the idea from that Blizzards problem is that it focussed too much on the casual audience in the past. This is definitely not the case.

Most casual content is and was pretty boring and most of it was just mindless grinds. If casual content was important for Blizzard they would make casual content more engaging and interesting. "Casual content" doesn't mean that you AFK-steamroll through every outdoor mob in the game. It is the opposite. Casuals also want to have engaging and challenging content. WoW is still a game. And most gamers still want to be somewhat challenged when playing a game. They simply differ from harcore players in that they don't want to dedicate too much of their personal free time to WoW.

But you definitely can implement casual content that is challenging, engaging and interesting.

But I don't want to hear the argument "WoW is going bad because it focusses too much on the casuals" anymore. Because this is simply not true. WoW is a casual-unfriendly MMO. And most casual players who actually enjoy playing casually propably already left the game. The people who are currently playing the game are definitely not your average casual player.

I'll explain it a little better; The outcry in WoD was that there was nothing to do in the world. Casual players felt like they severely lacked content that they could do, and rightly so. WoW was not a game that catered to a casual playerbase. Everything in the game revolves around increasing your player strength which was primarily done through organized groups of some kind.

In Legion, the CLAIMED GOAL (this is what Blizzard stated as their reasoning for implementing various features) with things like artifact power, legendaries, and titanforging was to allow casual players to increase the power of their characters without needing to step into a raid to obtain gear. They could acquire a mythic itemlevel piece of gear from just getting lucky. Doing world quests was a pretty decent source of AP and legendary items.

My specific concern is with the way they went about fixing the issue of giving a more casual audience things to do. They did it in a way that also made those same casual activities mandatory for hardcore raiders to partake in. On top of raiding 20 hours a week, now you need to find time to do world quests and farm M+ for titanforged gear, AP, and legendary items. It isn't mandatory in the sense of like... you HAVE to keep playing the game. You could quit, but it was mandatory if you wanted to continue to do the thing you did before the same level you did before.

I feel like the content rewards should just be different. Give casual players something to do 1-2 hours a day or like 8 hours total per week without bleeding over into mythic raiding and PvP.

So it's not that WoW is "going bad because it focuses on the casuals," I just think WoW is alienating the most dedicated section of their playerbase in an attempt to give the casual audience something to do when they really could have made both groups happy. They seem to think that the only content people will find is worth doing is content that increases your numbers, but there are definitely alternative rewards that are still just as interesting.

[Konteil]

i just jumped back in after stopping shortly after launch. other than being confused as hell the play isnt that bad.. but i havent done a raid yet so we will see.

[Johnjohn]

Vanilla WoW was almost 100% a casual mmo. It's also when WoW was at its best.

I just don't buy that the game is more casual friendly now. It's way more hardcore and grindy. People blasting through Classic is evidence of this.

I felt way more apart of the game in vanilla as a casual player. Now it feels more like welfare while the big boys have all the fun.

It's honestly why I quit the game. I felt like in Vanilla I was being catered to and hardcore people were the ones getting bored and quitting. Now it's the opposite.