Negatitivy surrounding wow

[Tradu]

This pretty much hits the nail on it's head.
See the one guy escalating because Blizz wanted to stop people from locking their level at 110 or whatever to power boost.
I don't know anybody doing it, and also nobody paying people to get boosted. I bet at least 95% of the player base would not have noticed anything different if it was just changed.

Yeah, so it's a negative change for the 5% that are affected and neutral for the 95% that aren't. What a great change.

[Rapti]

Yes it was the start of the catering for easier difficulties (multiple versions of raids ever since)

I don't consider TBC normal mode dungeons as "easy mode" as most werent even level 70, meanwhile wotlk heroics were much easier already.

Its about then when I started to lose interest in WoW (slowly, but started) and 'whats the point? Not fun for me'. Was till after Ulduar (the options of 'hard mode' was perfect there). Tons of different difficulties and 10/25 for each raid made it meh and LFR was a nail and since then was completely unable to stick with it (ended up coming back and quitting with negative view on the game).

@OP I think with Classic you will be able to "experience" it and thats pretty much it, but it will not be the same (for anyone) as it was back in 2005-2006. Either way you will pick retail, classic or both and have fun or will try a different game.
Some of the community may clean up a bit, at least on retail.

[Craaazyyy]

Literally said about every single iteration of the game.

There are also players having played for 10+ years (not that that matters) not quitting and enjoying the game just fine.
100 million + accounts created (back in MoP), never more than 12 million players retained for an extended period of time.

If they don't knee-jerk abandon an expansion (like with WoD), it's pretty safe to bet that their data doesn't match the usual bellyaching online.
@woglofungi: You decide through experiencing it whether the game is good or bad TO YOU. If you'll listen to the community forums (official or fanmade), you'll end up being told to hate every single iteration and every single thing about it, since there's never a time where everyone's happy.

the difference is the reasons why people were saying things like that and the amount of people that were saying them

also its true to an extent that each expansion brought something controversial(or at times just bad), its just that people always focus on negatives

but also over time people forget that some of the negatives that people were complaining back in the days even exist.. what i mean by that is that ever since Wotlk the game has been progressively getting worse(though i think until WoD came out the game was still pretty good, WoD and onwards the game became pretty much unplayable shitshow, filled with pruning, rng and other stupid shit), but people also kept forgetting(or just ignoring) all the other shitty parts of the game that were changed/added since the game first came out.

So what im saying that people always focus on the current problems, and each expansion had problems, so people complained each expansion, but if people kept in mind all the changes that were happening to the game over the years, they wouldnt just complain, they would start a riot(kinda whats happening now, but still not really, unfortunately most people prefer to just quit), because with pretty much each expansion all the stupid shit is piling up and the game now is a joke compared to how it used to be

but again just because people used to complain about things back in the days doesnt mean that back in the days it was the same shit as now

[Philomene]

I'm somewhat confused as to why the negativity too.

There is nothing in BFA that stands out to me as absolutely bad. It's the same WoW it has always been.

Can someone summarize for me exactly which parts of the game are generally considered bad right now by the community?

Class design : bland

Timegating and daily bonuses : forcing you to login everyday for your daily routine, meaningless reputations, etc.

Reward system : filled with filler and uninteresting mounts or pet for the sake of just collecting more instead of delivering a few but qualitative ones. Heavily inspired by the trendy lootboxes where you have no control over, where "bad luck" is being prevented by a shower of those lootboxes.

Azerite system : could be great but filled with RNG and timegating in mind instead of developing interesting traits, let's put a lot of passive/trash/uninteresting traits like heal for 3,298 when surrounded by 3 enemies in a 28,97 yards range or "have a chance on your damaging spells to get some extra stat", also show how little thought was given over it when your 3-stack those traits and be way over someone having only one of those traits...

Island Exp. / Warfronts : complete failure, not epic, not hard, just some pointless and lazy mob bashing, they have to fill them with ridiculously high rewards for people to do them. A warfront is worth a Lv. 10 M+ while you can't LOSE a warfront.

etc. etc.

[WowIsDead64]

It's people opening their eyes to the realization that the game hasn't been an RPG since MoP.

The game took a tonal shift since WoD that many people noticed but a huge amount of the masses that play WoW didn't see until now, the transition from an MMORPG to a different perspective diablo-style game, with no more specific reward targeting, an intentional reduction in the value of professions, removal of party member reliance, and drastic regression of class complexity.
Demon hunters to me are the ultimate example of the transition between WoW before WoD and WoW after WoD. The demon hunter is flashy, has the necessary spells to have a kind of dps rotation, is a frontloaded burst-based melee DPS with none of the usual downsides and involves a lot of fancy flips and dashes but is overall a very bland and hollow experience with no nuance or complexity the other classes still have, even if just with the barest hint of a vestigial design that's faded in favor of pruning.

Overall WoW isn't an RPG anymore and the people who remained from the old times miss playing an MMORPG. We miss interacting with people, seeing that one jackass on your server in Shrine or Dalaran, seeing recognizable guilds, seeing friends out in the world, establishing connections with friends and logging in every week after reset and getting ready to get that last piece of badge/point gear.
The things that defined the identity of WoW and the way that you approach is has changed in both combat and rewards. To some it may be fine but to people who liked WoW for what it used to be have been just kind of clinging onto the memory of a game that's a shadow of what it used to be.

Yeah, Wow is more action-adventure, than MMORPG now.

[Xykotic]

Yes Don't listen to them they are just old salties. No different than your grandparents talking about the good ol days.

Yes, dismissing rational arguments as to why this expansion was poorly produce with petty insults. doesn't smack of arrogance at all. Not oooone bit.

If you can't see other peoples perspective on why its bad then you're either malicious or narrow minded. There are now countless thorough explanations which you could use. Choosing to remain ignorant as to more easily dismiss it as "old salties" is your own failing. Don't enable lazy game development.

[Tiwack]

It's true for every video game and if people don't have anything nice to say just ignore them to create your own impressions, first and foremost be based in yourself and your own priorities.
Gaming is often used as a coping strategy meaning some people get very hung up on some games and times in their lives making them habitually shit on everything else that doesn't fit with that, as they hark back to a time they perceive as better than it was while ignoring how great the present is and how resolved the future already is. They rarely know what they're doing or talking about but are very vocal nonetheless and as they barely see or understand their own behavior - it's that much more difficult to change.

[Drusin]

Yes, dismissing rational arguments as to why this expansion was poorly produce with petty insults. doesn't smack of arrogance at all. Not oooone bit.

If you can't see other peoples perspective on why its bad then you're either malicious or narrow minded. There are now countless thorough explanations which you could use. Choosing to remain ignorant as to more easily dismiss it as "old salties" is your own failing. Don't enable lazy game development.

mmk

I didn't say to dismiss what they were saying, just to (as a brand spanking new fresh off the press player who won't have any understanding of the games history or valuable input) ignore what they are saying. Doesn't do me any good to go to some other game forum and dwell on what the vets are saying.

[dacoolist]

I feel like there's this huge negative aura around wow right now and with all the people saying stuff like "it'll never be as great as vanilla" or "these new players will never understand" it makes trying wow for us new players much harder. At this point is it even worth it. Are new players ever going to experience a wow as "good as vanilla" or is it all just nostalgia and ignorance

I mean think about it.. the games dead. Blizzard and the fans want it dead, so it's dead right?

I mean, to be perfectly honest though - as much as I love hopping on the blizz hate train everyone is riding right now.. Blizzards been getting a LOT of shit no MATTER WHAT THEY DO. They could give away free shit.. oh wait they have - No matter what blizz does people are going to complain and not give ANY recommendations on how to fix the issue, just like most people in this thread.

If you're going to complain about something, have a way to fix it - if you just complain your whole life, you're going to just be a shitter like most of these people who 'CANT GET IN A MYTH PLUS GROUP BC I've ONLY RAN myth0 AND I WANT A MYTHIC 10 FOR FREE CARRY ME PLEASSE' - sick and tired of these people

[Izalla]

It has literally been the same way ever since I started playing.

Yes, even the now regarded as perfect WOTLK had the same shitfest of negativity surrounding it. I was also told back then that the game was literally ending after Arthas died, yet here we are.

Form your own opinion, remember that whatever you see on forums such as this one and even the official one, only reflects a vocal minority within the community. Then you can realize that some people have been complaining the same way about this game for a decade by now, and be entertained by that fact.

Yeah I started in Wrath and was being told constantly from the start that I missed the best of the game and that it's trash now, I started too late and it would never be good again. It was supposed to crash and burn by Cataclysm.

[SirCowdog]

The negativity is partially because of people mindlessly following what streamers/youtubers say

Eventually you should just form your own opinion

Did it ever occur to you that maybe people might be agreeing with youtubers/streamers are saying because they came to the same conclusions on their own? Just because streamers or youtubers are able to articulate the problems better than most doesn't mean that people who agree with them do so mindlessly.

What I want you to consider is that even many of the apologist youtubers like Bellular are starting to break down and criticize the current state of WoW. The "Aura of Negativity" isn't just because of some stupid fad. It's a direct result of Blizzard consistently and persistently sacrificing the quality of life in WoW for profit-stretching designs and business models.

The community didn't create this problem. Blizzard did.

[Boo Radley]

The negativity and nostalgia are twofold.

On the one hand is the unreasonable side, where the first time you went to an area and saw it and it amazed you, it was really special. Players now have higher quality zones with better content but they go through them much faster. If you're a first time player though, you're probably getting a decent amount of time in each zone just feeling it out, so this ones really just a "I miss feeling that way" sentiment by most.

On the reasonable side however is the overall feeling of endgame. There are no more "Hard" goals like there used to be. No items that are an "Oh my god do you see that?" No community on a server. No trade chat you get to know. No set progression system, or even set path to it. Everything gives a lootbox, everything gives a small upgrade, every small upgrade can titanforge to be a mythic raiding level item.

So yes, they are right that people will never get to know the satisfaction with saying "i built this guy through hard work and now he's a great character." Hopefully that will change. I still remember TBC very fondly, was my favorite experience in all of WoW. I quit during WotLK, loved Cata and mists, quit during wod, didnt play legion and came back to this mess. I am a Pvp player strictly though, which explains my preferences. (Wotlk was a great expansion except the DK's being so overtuned that pvp was useless)
BFA has no soul right now. I play a lot just to relax, there's no "draw" to do anything.

It must be said that Ion and Brack are really not doing enough to bail the water out of the ship.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

We are seeing a crest in the corporate greed and the gaming community. Starting about 15 years ago this greed creep started to bleed into the industry. Releasing games that weren't complete and required a day one paid DLC for example. Then that became the norm. Then on top of that they wanted us to buy loot boxes. Then they started releasing trash games based on beloved franchises because it would get people to chase. It has finally reached the point where a lot of people are throwing their hands up and saying why am I throwing money at these things anymore. I will admit Blizzard was a bit late to this game of exploitation because they used to be about making a good game that sales well because it is good and making a lot of money. Then they saw you could release trash and people would still throw money at you and they got lazy. Eventually, as in now, they are just plain greedy. So as much as the greed of these shit bags sucks a lot of what went wrong here was our willingness to throw money endlessly at these companies for poor business practices for MANY years.

I mean I used to think Blizzard cared about me being happy with the game. Sure I wasn't personally asked how I wanted things but I could feel they wanted to release a good product most the time. Even if they made mistakes. But now I feel all they know me as is my credit card number. The goal is to get me to purchase anything as often as possible. Who cares if I sub? As long as I bought some mounts, coins, and come back at the patch right? These things will all be timed around earnings calls to boost the perception of greatness. While I am around I will be funneled into one form of content. Most people hate the content but that is pretty much all there is to do. So suddenly that content is a wide success because look.. everyone is doing it...

It has just gotten tiring that is all. I hate to be negative about gaming because I love it. I REALLY love Blizzard too. But I just don't feel like they even want to pretend to care about me anymore. Instead it is just about trying to tax me. Honestly makes me a little sick. Sure they were always a business. Sure they always wanted to make money. But before it was about making money by dropping dimes. Now its about dropping duds and picking up as many dimes as possible by clever marketing and manipulation.

[Unlockmyhrt]

There are a lot of people who parrot what streamers are saying rather than deciding/experiencing on their own.

Streamers turn every minor thing into a pitchfork outrage to stir up views. It's kind of pathetic the situation we've been thrown into as a result.

Are you saying they are wrong? I mean they are just stating the obvious, but because they are youtubers its invalid?

[bigbleach]

I feel like there's this huge negative aura around wow right now and with all the people saying stuff like "it'll never be as great as vanilla" or "these new players will never understand" it makes trying wow for us new players much harder. At this point is it even worth it. Are new players ever going to experience a wow as "good as vanilla" or is it all just nostalgia and ignorance

They aren't lying about being as great as vanilla... It's currently better than vanilla ever was. People right now are butthurt and frothing at the mouth for the silliest of reasons. I for one, have been having a blast this expac. First expac since cata I've had more than 1 toon I regularly played, currently have 5 and am looking forward to making a druid and hunter soon. The raid content has been just fine. I'm not interested in mythic, I did a little bit of mythic and it was pretty difficult, just not for me. I got AotC. M+ is challenging. You have multiple paths to get gear. Idk why people liked artifacts so much. Maybe it was not having to replace a weapon for an entire expac. Tier sets and legendaries during legion meant that you had 6 pieces of gear that were locked in place and were not replaced until the next tier, without it just being a higher ilvl version of the same tier piece... add the weapon for the 7th. That isn't fun. It's lazy and I'm glad blizz changed it. Random power spikes from completing tier sets have never felt good to me, because when you did not have them... it felt terrible. I really enjoy BFA, I think it has been a solid expac so far and the next raid tier looks flipping amazing.

[Laerrus]

I am one of the few that are actually enjoying BfA. This expansion has been one of the most alt friendly expansions since MoP.

[Kul Tiras]

I feel like there's this huge negative aura around wow right now and with all the people saying stuff like "it'll never be as great as vanilla" or "these new players will never understand" it makes trying wow for us new players much harder. At this point is it even worth it. Are new players ever going to experience a wow as "good as vanilla" or is it all just nostalgia and ignorance

Cataclysm was the only thing truly better than BC, because it redid all that massive land of old quests and exploration and added new places to explore and things to do, a lot of which was fantastic.

Until they redo another Cataclysm, every expansion adds quality of live improvements, but the rest is mostly shit, now that they've exchausted the meat of WC3 lore.

[Tumile]

The negativity is partially because of people mindlessly following what streamers/youtubers say because these people are unable to form their own opinions. They just want to jump the band wagon to look edgy/cool.

Now in my own opinion I have enjoyed this game for over 14 years up until now. Sure there have been bad times (Looking at you WoD and Cataclysm end game content.), but lately I just can not find enjoyment in playing WoW. BfA has not completely killed my interest and love for the game, but I find the entire expansion lackluster. I try to force myself to love it, to enjoy the good things, which this expansion does have. In the end, the good does not make up for the feeling of the entire expansion being lackluster.

Maybe when the expansion has moved into a few more patches I might return, but for now I am just disappointed by the direction of the game and will just wait it out.

Eventually you should just form your own opinion and should not get discouraged by indeed, the auro of negativity, do not let other people dictate how you play games and even which games you enjoy.

Yeah I'm sure they were all having so much fun, laughing with their friends, having a grand ol' time, but then they saw a twitch clip of asmongoloid the literally worst gamer on twitch, saying the game was bad, and Suddenly stopped having fun! >

or maybe people weren't enjoying the expansion, some knew why, others struggled to analyze it themselves and youtubers, streamers, reddit posts, letters, and many other sources managed to analyze why the expansion is objectively bad in comparison with similar expansions, and suddenly they understood some of the reasons why they weren't having fun? I dunno i feel like my version makes a lot more sense than your Double Meta Anti-edgy, edgy post. but hey, whatever floats ur boat "The King in Yellow, the sunflower edgelord".

- - - Updated - - -

They aren't lying about being as great as vanilla... It's currently better than vanilla ever was. People right now are butthurt and frothing at the mouth for the silliest of reasons. I for one, have been having a blast this expac. First expac since cata I've had more than 1 toon I regularly played, currently have 5 and am looking forward to making a druid and hunter soon. The raid content has been just fine. I'm not interested in mythic, I did a little bit of mythic and it was pretty difficult, just not for me. I got AotC. M+ is challenging. You have multiple paths to get gear. Idk why people liked artifacts so much. Maybe it was not having to replace a weapon for an entire expac. Tier sets and legendaries during legion meant that you had 6 pieces of gear that were locked in place and were not replaced until the next tier, without it just being a higher ilvl version of the same tier piece... add the weapon for the 7th. That isn't fun. It's lazy and I'm glad blizz changed it. Random power spikes from completing tier sets have never felt good to me, because when you did not have them... it felt terrible. I really enjoy BFA, I think it has been a solid expac so far and the next raid tier looks flipping amazing.

Is what sense is it better than Vanilla, cuz i can agree that BFA is a better "RPG" in the sense of a singler player RPG, with story, cut-scenes etc, but if you judge it by the MMO tag surely you can understand why Vanilla would actually rip off BFA's head and shit down it's neck? all of the "bullshit" in vanilla had a super convenient side effect, Dungeons taking a long time to get going? - generally results in actually talking to ur party members (try it on a private server if u never tried it back in the day, its pretty fucking effective)
minning a node failing, and taking 5 times as long? this resulted in a lot of World PVP fighting for Herbs and Mining nodes, which is once again player interaction.

Difficult quests (once again, go on a private server if u dont remember this, but for classes than werent hunters or warlocks, there were some insanely difficult quests in some very strange positions, actually downright nonsensical positions) these moronic positions let u to form grps to complete these quests, since travelling was once again, such a huge hazzle, pain in the ass, and waste of time, you wanted to complete quests in an area in a way where u didnt have to come back. once again quality of life upgrades removed something that encouraged players interacting with eachother.

I tried a Private server after not having played vanilla for 14 or so years, and these were just the things i realized while i was levelling, a lot of the bad things from vanilla, had some hugely positive side effects if u were actually looking for an MMO-RPG and not just an online, or co-op RPG game. in Bfa i play with the same 8 or so people 99% of the time, except for raids, where i play with my guild for 2½ or so hours every week since progression is over and thats all it takes to clear 8/8 mythic. the game might as well be a Co-op RPG, it has nothing to do with an MMO anymore, so yeah, it depends on what u judge the game on, gameplay and RPG elements have definitely improved, but the MMO part was outright deleted. I play with the same 2 people for Arena, i play with the same 4-5 guys for M+, and i play with the same 25 people for Raiding, only time i meet a new face is when we have a new trial in the guild.

and yes i played with my friends on the private server, and i STILL kept talking and interacting with other people, because the game encouraged me to.

[Grizelda]

All I can say is think for yourself and form your own opinion. I don't think brand new players are checking out MMOC

There are brand new players?

[Doctor Funkenstein]

Pro-Tip: If a majority of people are saying negative things, as opposed to just a handful of people, chances are they're not pulling it out of their heads. In fact, chances are pretty fucking high that the minority of people living with rose-tinted glasses ("Wow is great!" "The Earth is flat!" "The environment is fine!" "Vaccinations cause retardation!" "Trump is the best president ever!") are not just wrong, but fucking wrong.