Originally Posted by
unbound
Well, first, hate seems like the wrong word. I think it would be more correctly called disdain...which was clearly demonstrated at the last Blizzcon (“Do you guys not have phones?”).
Too many people think Blizz is the same reputable company that developed the Warcraft series, Diablo I & II, Starcraft, and even WoW initially. This is not the same company. They have grown by leaps and bounds, and they have become just another corporation.
As just another corporation, customers are not people to be respected, but rather wallets to be drained as efficiently as possible. I know some want to blame Activision for all of this, but the sad reality is that Blizz was most likely going to get here regardless.
This is why everything is done cheaper. There is a clear correlation between subscribers and the money Blizz invests. Blizz invested a lot in WoW, as well as with BC and Wrath. They invested a bit less in Cata, and their investment has been (largely) steadily declining ever since. In typical corporate leadership fashion, rather than blaming their conscious decision to invest less, they blame middle management and workers, the age of the game, and even players...anyone but themselves and their decision to spend less.
WoD was a shock even to them. It prompted an increase in spending on Legion (still not nearly as much as they spent on BC or Wrath), but you can still see the cheap ideas in action...pruning abilities continued, the artifact weapon had a cute mini-game associated with it but was largely just passive bonuses to distract the players from the lack of having to develop interesting weapons (instead they could develop a handful of dirt-cheap skins and colors for each weapon), and Demon Hunters were reduced to just 2 specs; and they even included the much maligned garrison mission table so that they didn't have to develop something truly new and interesting.
Legion did well enough that the executives at Blizz decided it was okay to go back down to WoD levels of investment (perhaps even less). Rather than a new race or two, we have reskins of existing races...again, dirt cheap to produce. For the first time ever, they did almost nothing to the classes at all...pretty much preserving them as they were in Legion. They honestly figured that they could keep this grift going for an entire expansion and hold onto enough subscriptions to look really profitable...instead, the bulk of their profitability has to do with firing a lot of their people; something that is not sustainable in the long run, hence why their stock is not bouncing back.
Give up on BfA...Blizz is not going to spend anything more on it (it is the new WoD). Maybe, just maybe, they will spend Legion level of effort (again still much less than they did in BC or Wrath), but we'll have to see. In the meantime, if you are okay with the game being more thoughtful and less pew-pew-pew, then enjoy Classic for now.