Why do the people that enjoyed Legion not enjoy BfA?

[Pratt]

am i misremembering or wasnt legion also considered bad until late in the xpac?

It was. Every expansion is considered terrible until the next one comes out.

[Echocho]

Legion wasn't good because of those systems, it was good inspite of those systems. Remove everything good about Legion and you have BfA.

[Cæli]

social media

social media makes people think things that they wouldn't necessarily think, if they read too much of the hive mind's opinion, from people they somewhat relate to, tied to age or hobbies

[Leyre]

The only good things WoD added where, bonus objectives while questing, scenarios that made sense, and gold, BfA hasnt so far added absolutely nothing remarkable

[Kalarm]

For me, I found BFA way too grindy. Gotta grind for new races, gotta grind to unlock the same traits over and over, gotta grind reps (as usual but still). There is nothing to look forward to really. You grind to re-unlock what you already unlocked. I was not a fan of the netherlight crucible and it is basically the basis for the azerite armor.

I don't find island expeditions or warfronts particularly fun either.

Also, as an enh sham, I don't find my spec to be the worst state it ever was, IMO it was worst in legion beta and launch (before they put back WF from 5% to it's iconic 20%)... but for me, the last straw was when they kept saying there would be good changes in a futur patch, then we got a number tuning (could of been done through hotfix) which did not even change our talent choices. Now they say that it will need to wait for the next expac.

Legion had the artifacts which gave you 1 new ability per spec and multiple passives. It had legendaries that had interesting effects. BFA has traits that are massively passive and generic. So we basically went from legion to BFA and LOST abilities. It's so boring that they are reverting the HoA to behave like the artifact of legion but with more active abilities. That is saying a lot. I'll see what happens at that point. I sitll have 2 month tokens on my account and intend to use them for 8.2 should the changes be appealing.

[Sialina]

I enjoy BFA mostly because of M+ but the common complaints I hear are the following:

1. Island expeditions and warfronts are not good enough to be key features of the expansion.
2. Azerite armor is not very interesting and constantly re unlocking (Changing in 8.2) sucks
3. Class design is lacking, legions pruning and the loss of the artifact weapons left a lot of classes very bare bones.
4. This is speculation on my part, but removing class specific armor is a big reason, I think a lot of people enjoyed watching
and collecting the tier sets for their mains and alts. The limited number of designs coming out in BFA isn't good enough to make
up for what was lost.

[voidillusion]

The last time i raided in a Heroic/Mythic guild was in SoO. Since then, i've been a thilty casual unsubing here and there. In legion, the game managed to get my atention for some months, the artifact weapon system wasnt that bad and i pvped here and there, along with some dungeons and mythic dungeons.

In BFA, did the same as 2 previous expansions, maxed a couple of chars and then... emptyness.. It just felt i had nothing to do of interest at max lvl, so i unsubed shortly after.

This is at least my personal experience.

[LCDArcade]

Also I'll add that a lot of my not having fun does have to do with the fact my personal class just doesn't feel good to play anymore (Frost Death Knight).

[Maquegyver]

Simple answer. Legion was much better than WoD. So it was considered good by contrast. BfA took legion and made it less rewarding, got rid of ML, got rid of tier, made m+ dungeons way more generic and similar (for their dumb competition), simplified shit AP into an even shittier version, etc. Added shit playtime metric scenarios.

Claiming looting is the same is one of the dumbest statements I've ever seen btw...

They took something good by contrast ( not the same as good overall) and made it worse.

[Kalarm]

Sialina, as far as it goes for me, and perhaps those who main shams and hunters, I kinda do like the new direction they are taking. Every tier raid, I only have 2 sets to look forward to. Compared to 3 for cloth and plate and 4 for leather. The new tier sets IMO feel more fair. I can understand they frustration tho... but considering I dislike most of the hunter sets, I wasn't angry at them for going this direction. For me, it means more sets. For others, it means less.

My biggest bummer is I would of loved to have an emerald nightmare themed set .

[Satelliteyears0o]

This is also something I don't understand.

BfA a just a reskinned Legion, yet Legion is still considered as a good expansion.

Considered by many as the best one

[rohoz]

the hivemind told them that they won't enjoy it so they don't.

[Gambit5555]

Me, personally have not enjoyed this game in a LONG time. I believe it has been bad since WotLK. I am, however, confused why people seem to love Legion and hate BfA.

Let's compare BfA to Legion for a moment:
It has the same dungeon systems
It has the same mythic+ systems
It has the same raiding systems
It has the same looting systems
It has the same PvP gearing system
It has the same PvP rank system
It has the same world quest system
It has the same titanforging system

It has, in my opinion, actually has improved PvP gear mattering, added Conquest points and made PvP combat better than Legion.
It has, in my opinion, an improved world, music and quest system.

My understanding has been that a lot of people concidered Legion as "best expansion ever" and that those same people (could be wrong) conciders BfA as the "worst expansion ever".

Assuming Blizzard beleved you guys, and Legion was actually the best WoW has ever been. What exectly is so much worse in BfA than Legion?

Was it the Legendary system of Legion what made it so good?
Was it the Artifact weapon - "you do content to get transmog for your artifact weapon" - what made Legion so good?
Was the classes in Legion that much more fun than in BfA?

The only things left to blame is the NEW systems. Namely
1. Azerite Armor system
2. Island Expeditions
3. War mode
4. Warfront

Blizzard seem to be in the same boat as you guys, they look at Legion as the greatest expansion ever. So they only compare Legion to BfA in order to "fix the game". They spend all their energy on the above 4 systems...

If they "fix" all these systems, do you honestly think the game will suddenly be fun?

A few things added excitement to Legion. The legendary system meant that there was always potential to get a really special piece of gear from doing a random dungeon, emissary quest, etc. Even if you already had your two best some of the legendaries changed up gameplay in fun ways. The other system was the artifact weapons, which felt more rewarding when leveling up.

[Nnyco]

am i misremembering or wasnt legion also considered bad until late in the xpac?

It was good from the start, the only people that QQ'd were the ones that wanted their bis legendary now now NOW and spammed maw of souls hundreds of times just to get their weapon slightly higher than average.

[hyphnos]

Well to put it quite simple, every feature BFA has added or changed has been for the detriment for the game.

Lets talk about the carry overs:

It has the same dungeon systems
It has the same mythic+ systems

These two points for example, dungeon systems are part of a stock build for example(every xpac has dungeons). Now the second point you brought up is wrong, it is not the same mythic+ system. The dungeons are more designed around their later implementations of dungeons in Legion(which were the least ran dungeons) while the earlier version of legion dungeons(the ones in 7.0) were much more enjoyable to run. Secondly, they also change when you got affixes and the affixes themselves. Third, they rewarded much more artifact power and were a viable way to farm AP instead of being forced to do it through islands.=, this in turn promoted high ilvl players to do lower ilvl keys which in turn made the mythic+ system work at all key levels.

It has the same raiding systems
It has the same looting systems

First point is again stock xpac, they all come with raids. The second point you are again wrong, they drastically changed the loot in BFA down to removing master loot and enforcing personal loot. Tier sets are gone, Trinkets are worse(at least in Legion at this point in time we were in NH where there was at least 1 interesting trinket for most classes, there's nothing interesting in BoD), and gear design is awful.

It has the same world quest system
It has the same titanforging system

Near the end of Legion people were already getting burned out on doing world quest, they needed something fresh and new to replace it, not recycle it. Titanforging is a system not many liked to begin with.

Overall i would rate Legion as my number 2-3 xpac but BFA is definitely the worst one ive ever played(played every xpac but WoD). Class design is bad, islands feel more like a chore then enjoyable content, warfronts are boring as well and for many confusing, and warmode is just a zergfest.

Now what makes the Azerite System different from the Artifact system is the way it did progression. The Artifact system felt like(especially at the start and even at this point of the xpac) felt like you were building towards traits you were unlocking and keeping to make your character stronger. The system system is basically grinding to unlock things you already had just at a higher ilvl, it feels really bad and thats why the Devs are scrapping it.

Last but certainly not least, the class design. Saying it is terrible wouldn't do it justice as to how bad it is. Players use their toons as a way to interact with the ingame world, if it feels bad, your experience will be bad. Good Class design can make a mediocre xpac feel amazing(example. MoP, while its features and content were very basic it had some of the best class design this game has ever seen). Alternatively if your class design is awful it could make everything else feel a lot worse then they actually are(possible for me to like islands a bit mroe if the classes in this game played better for example).

Overall outside of the stock things you expect from a new xpac, everything else feels worse then Legion and the actual new features BFA brought are even worse then that.

You nailed it. 100% agree and would have written much the same post except you already did it for me.

The one thing I would add is that with 7.3.5 changes and whenever it was they put in ilvl scaling for mobs in the open world they created a knob that is just too tempting for devs tasked with increasing "player engagement metrics" to twist. In addition to characters playing horribly, you now also don't really know if that ilvl upgrade you just got will make a damned bit of difference because the mobs will just scale with you in the open world.

[Pattiecakes]

Once the Burning Legion and Sargeras were defeated the battle between the factions felt so lame. If BFA came before or after WoD, I'm sure I would have loved it but as it stands now I am on a Warcraft break and I may never return.

[Thelyron]

Because all the interesting class specific content is gone. No artifacts, no order halls, no class quests, no class mounts, no class armor. BFA took everything that was fun in legion and made it boring and samey.

[schwank05]

Look above, these are the ones i was able to find with MMOChamps "meh" search function

They arent saying its a good expansion they are saying that BFA is worse then WOD not that WOD was good. Just using it as a comparison saying that this shitty expansion is even shittier than the previous goal post for shitty expansions.

[zlygork]

Personally because I enjoyed Legion, but by the last 2 months, I was ready to move into new systems I suppose

[DesMephisto]

Cause its how human mentality and memory work.
everything now is bad, everything from the past is the best, and everything in the future will get better.

its why people suddenly are saying WoD was a really great expansion.


BFA has everything from legion it needs to succeed. issue is
1. class design- spells have been cut, and we lost even more from artifact
2. azerite having to re-earn traits, luckily 8.2 will fix this, but it may be too little too late
3. rng, while we did step back with weapons and azerite unable to titanforge now. we still run into the rest of the issues with said system.

if these things were fixed, BFA could be in MUCH, MUCH BETTER PLACE.

islands and warfronts are fine, they dont effect the rest of the game that much, but those 3 things are key points of every aspect of the game.

I thought WoD was amazing at the time, still do. Legion was bad IMO until they fixed legendaries/etc in 7.2 I believe. And I think BFA will become much better in 8.2