Bit of research done on the controversy surrounding Cata when compared to Vanilla, BC, WotLK and Pandaria. As someone who was only around for the Cataclysm launch, I really wanted to find out why the expansion seemed to be so poorly received by everyone once I came back for MoP.
Here's a list of reasons I've rounded up:
Launch
- Too much focus on remaking 1-60 zones, not enough on end-game
- Unlike Arthas, Deathwing required research to understand his motives. You're TOLD he's bad, not shown
- During the expansion launch, big cry out over difficulty and Blizzard made the controversial move of mass nerfs
- Quest linerarity, sense of discovery lost?
- Heroic dungeons had little entry barrier, so heaps of unskilled/ungeared players jumped in and ruined it, trash was bad too (ie. sheeping mobs) and the difficult disparity between Cata and WotLK was too much of a leap
- Places like Vash'jir had a rich storyline but was dropped because people didn't like the zone
- It was too easy to outlevel the 1-60 leveling content and end up stuck in Outland (ie. you level in Northern Barrens but then everything is grey 3/4s through) and taking off heirlooms seems silly
- Archaelogy was retardedly boring
- Though the expansions tone was appropriate, moving from zone-to-zone felt disorienting and nothing seemed 100% connected
- Not enough 80-85 leveling zones, moreso: not enough options when leveling through them (ie. 5 zones compared to Northrend's 8 and Pandaria's 7)
- People loved Worgen/Goblin starting zones, but didn't like that you were forced to stay there until level 10-15
4.1
- Valour points from the same two dungeons over and over
- Getting missing purples from the heroics was good, but then who could be bothered doing 4.0 raids when you could just get the loot from said heroics?
4.2
- Small raid tier, no content except the raid
- Dailies were only mildly interesting
4.3
- Raid finder = good but too easy?
- Killing Deathwing through raid finder felt lame
- Deathwing fight had a lot of rehashed environments and models though, especially over the course of one year
- The ending cinematic was bizarre and had no lead-up
Was there anything else?