Zaralek caverns feels like it was designed by dev that made Shadowlands so Unbearable

[czarek]

Barelly toched. Ive just skip it mostly. Nothin interesting in here. Ive finished main story and thats it. I think that content is made for no one. tbh.

[Venziir]

Environment wise, I've been clamoring for an underground zone for years. Zaralek Cavern is more memorable than most zones to release within the past decade, but it still falls short of what it could have been. It isn't as visually imaginative as other underground zones explored in other games (Draconis Mons and Tangled Depths in GW2), other movies (How to Train your Dragon 3), or even WoW's own past (that TBC dungeon, Azjol Nerub, etc).








What could have been.


As for your comment about elites, I personally prefer difficult outdoor content that requires you to group up with other people and socialize during a long grind. Difficult not as in damage sponges, but as in the mobs are threatening so you need tanks and healers and people crowd controlling. Unfortunately the elites in Zalarek are not threatening, they are just damage sponges, and you can't grind them for hours on end like in Timeless Isle's Ordon Sanctuary or even the Black Dragonflight rep farm. So there is no reason to hang out in Zalarek Cavern after you've beaten the campaign, unless the Loam Niffen rep rewards interest you (and you can only progress that from world quest chores). It's one and done content.

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The one thing I do like about Zalarek Caverns is that you can find way more open world PvP there. You hardly ever get fights on the Dragon Isles because people can just spam spacebar and infinitely ascend, but in Zaralek there is a ceiling so they cannot cheese a way out. They actually have to play skillfully with their charges and try to evade being knocked off by your aerial tumbling ability. There are also only three chokepoints in or out which, again gives a chance to engage in PvP. Sadly people will stop visiting Zaralek when the next zone and tier hits, so if you want open world PvP, now is probably the best time to do so since BFA's prepatch event 5 years ago.

Pardon, but that looks like a bad acid trip...

[Nymrohd]

Pardon, but that looks like a bad acid trip...

Also, none of them look underground at all.

I'd say more of this

[McNeil]

Zaralek had a fun quest chain but thats about it. The world quests other than the dragonriding ones are really bad, most events aren't fun, rares are unrewarding, all the snail stuff was unbearable so its yet another thing I won't complete. Also the zone itself isn't visually pleasing and more of a pain to use dragonriding in, Forbidden Reach was much better in comparison which was used as a filler zone. I wish they could have had Azjol-Nerub with about the same size back in WotLK when using a massive cavern as a zone.

[Nymrohd]

Zaralek had a fun quest chain but thats about it. The world quests other than the dragonriding ones are really bad, most events aren't fun, rares are unrewarding, all the snail stuff was unbearable so its yet another thing I won't complete. Also the zone itself isn't visually pleasing and more of a pain to use dragonriding in, Forbidden Reach was much better in comparison which was used as a filler zone. I wish they could have had Azjol-Nerub with about the same size back in WotLK when using a massive cavern as a zone.

I remember back at the Wrath reveal Blizzcon, Azjol Nerub was supposed to be a zone and they were even discussing mounts that would climb walls.

[FelPlague]

Environment wise, I've been clamoring for an underground zone for years. Zaralek Cavern is more memorable than most zones to release within the past decade, but it still falls short of what it could have been. It isn't as visually imaginative as other underground zones explored in other games (Draconis Mons and Tangled Depths in GW2), other movies (How to Train your Dragon 3), or even WoW's own past (that TBC dungeon, Azjol Nerub, etc).








What could have been.

The first 3 images don't even look underground cause you cant see the ceilings, they look more like a twisted thousand needles
the final image is literally zaralek cavern but with white crystals instead of the various greens and blues and purples in zaralek caverns.

[RobertMugabe]

I finally did all the possible quests and such in Zaralek and they were fun(at least most of them), but when it comes to gameplay - this zone makes me feeling like im playing Shadowlands again, not really rewarding, a pain in the ass with the goddamn bulletsponge elites, content that most people abandonded and it's hard to even find people in group finder to do them, at least on my connected realms.

Forbidden reach was more enjoyable for me as a "wait for 10.1" content, even if it was mostly hunting rares, but it was nice getting all these items that you will be able to use in the future for alts to gear up faster.


As someone that enjoys group content from time to time but also likes doing open world content, it slowly feels like Blizzard just wants you to do m+ and afk in valdrakken most of the time, because they surely didn't make new open world content enjoyable or rewarding.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the World boss, i did it on many alts and didn't see any loot dropping or other people getting any loot in chat logs.


Maybe im just the problem, dunno but that's how i feel about this zone.


What are your thoughts on that? Do you still enjoy Zaralek Cavern?

It reminds me a lot of Korthia and the Maw lol.

I think this whole patch island design (or whatever we can call it) has been more or less the same since the Timeless Isle with some good designs, but also a lot of it is pretty bad and has become quite stale. Nazjatar, Mechagon, Argus, Zereth Mortis were miles better IMO.

btw. as for the World Boss: I haven't seen any loot from any world boss so far in Dragonflight and I have been playing several alts. The drops must be really low this time around.

[Nymrohd]

It reminds me a lot of Korthia and the Maw lol.

I think this whole patch island design (or whatever we can call it) has been more or less the same since the Timeless Isle with some good designs, but also a lot of it is pretty bad and has become quite stale. Nazjatar, Mechagon, Argus, Zereth Mortis were miles better IMO.

At least Zaralek feels like part of the continent and connects with it more naturally than older patch islands.

[RobertMugabe]

At least Zaralek feels like part of the continent and connects with it more naturally than older patch islands.

That is true and I do regard it as a positive... however it doesn't really make the zone more "fun" or rewarding.

[Snowfunk]

Caverns is horrible.

There's just a spam of events everywhere, and they are a damn slog, unless you have a group, you ain't completing them without a 10-20 minute grind.
And the rares are awful as well, I don't know who thought those bloated health pools was a good idea. It seems they just slapped +10-15 millions of health, compared to any previous content rares....

But the worst part, none of the above "activities" drop anything worth farming. Sure, there are some Manuscripts and Toys, but after you've gotten those, there's no point in farming. Rares drop a single Drake shard (1/15 needed for emblem), which is only need for the initial upgrades of normal gear.

Reach was decent, It was fun & smooth to farm. Kind of bullshit they added that <0.1% mount though.

[Nymrohd]

That is true and I do regard it as a positive... however it doesn't really make the zone more "fun" or rewarding.

As I said earlier, yeah the cosmetics are very low effort except for the mogs and you gain the mogs in their best color the first week in the zone. The only real reward for people not doing harder content is to just do the rares for Drake quests to upgrade Veteran/Champion gear to 424. Which to be fair, is absolutely better than nothing; it is a progression system. It's just a very boring one.

[czarek]

Caverns is horrible.

There's just a spam of events everywhere, and they are a damn slog, unless you have a group, you ain't completing them without a 10-20 minute grind.
And the rares are awful as well, I don't know who thought those bloated health pools was a good idea. It seems they just slapped +10-15 millions of health, compared to any previous content rares....

But the worst part, none of the above "activities" drop anything worth farming. Sure, there are some Manuscripts and Toys, but after you've gotten those, there's no point in farming. Rares drop a single Drake shard (1/15 needed for emblem), which is only need for the initial upgrades of normal gear.

Reach was decent, It was fun & smooth to farm. Kind of bullshit they added that <0.1% mount though.

Reach and ZC are way diffrent. And i am thinkin about both. Isnt they just checking something ? Or someone take a great idea to pick some ideas from ZM and put them to ZC and the others to Reach ? Anyway ZC are dumb and nonsense. Imo they were made for 1% of playebase or the developers had a stroke.

[Cynical Asshole]

Zaralek Caverns. A catchup place for new players and alts.

One problem: there are no new players, and hardly anyone is playing alts during early season.

[czarek]

Zaralek Caverns. A catchup place for new players and alts.

One problem: there are no new players, and hardly anyone is playing alts during early season.

Basicly you dont need em as new player or alt to gear up tbh. Except this as new one you cant do 90% of the content in there (solo) As geared player you dont need anythin from here. So its content for no one as i said few posts before

[Gimlix]

Biggest issue is that it's underground, it's dark, claustrophobia and has that same feeling as an underwater zone.
I prefer open world zones, but sometimes a swap is nice, the first moment i stepped into the new zone i already knew it wouldn't be a hit.

too closed off.

[oldgeezer]

As an openworlder I don't find Zaralek to be interesting at all. It's annoying to navigate, even with a flappy dragon, the WQs aren't particularly fun, the mole people just plain irritating. Nothing really engages me here (a bit like this expansion in general; appallingly bad & klutzy new systems aside, it feels like we're just treading water).

I'm gonna sit things out until the next major content patch and see how things go from there.

[Doffen]

I dont think we are playing the same game, I'm a hunter and the first week with 420 ilvl I could almost solo the TW dungeons... (or was it in the pre season ?) All my 5 weeekly dungeon were "run with all the mobs until boss and aoe". Bosses take like 15 sec to kill

It is severely undertuned for sure. I dont think TW has been this undertuned at max level as the Cata ones were this week.

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The first 3 images don't even look underground cause you cant see the ceilings, they look more like a twisted thousand needles
the final image is literally zaralek cavern but with white crystals instead of the various greens and blues and purples in zaralek caverns.

Yeah, the last one is Zaralek but in WoW its worse graphics. People cant really expect to get THAT in WoW. So in essence Val got what Val wanted.

[FelPlague]

It is severely undertuned for sure. I dont think TW has been this undertuned at max level as the Cata ones were this week.

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Yeah, the last one is Zaralek but in WoW its worse graphics. People cant really expect to get THAT in WoW. So in essence Val got what Val wanted.

??? The final one isn't even graphics it's artwork, no game looks like that, so of course it's worse graphics then a literal actual painting.

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Zaralek Caverns. A catchup place for new players and alts.

One problem: there are no new players, and hardly anyone is playing alts during early season.

I see new players there all the time, and tons of alts

[enigma77]

The underground zone novelty is nice but there's simply nothing exciting or fun to do there. Same old farm rares and treasures for garbage loot, the zone feels empty and pointless. Yawn, cya next patch.

[Soon-TM]

I got my alts through the zone this weekend for the mogs, killed the world bosses three times in a row with full raids. NOONE got loot. That's not normal.
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...gear/447367/25

By the looks of it, it is either a bug that they are taking their sweet time to fix, or a good ol' stealth nerf.