Shadowlands - Ion's final expansion?

[Doffen]

Oh you dear sweet summer child. What exactly did they say, btw?

When you link your claims, I'll tell you mine. But it's easy to check out.

I do like how you ignored the rest of the post. Your planet must be nice.

[Elkfingers]

People blaming everything on Ion have clearly never worked in anything close to a corporate environment.

There are shitloads of moving parts and departments that can determine whether or not ideas get cut or scaled back, or who can even insist on the inclusion of certain elements for better or worse.

The closest you could get to finding someone to blame would be to look at the Finance dept, but even that is a gross oversimplification.

[Aggrophobic]

Please don't lie.

I am not. Or would you like to maybe share some proof that I am?

[sam86]

Yeah, no, where did they say they fucked up with pruning?.

in their Q&A, if u don't follow it why exactly u commenting here in first place, when u don't know what they just said last 2 Q&A ? It was mentioned multiple times in multiple Q&A videos
U can find that on their official website, first check what they say, then u can discuss whatever u want
And that was their own words btw in the video, they ruined BFA because class design is the worst in entire game history, i even used the same word they used "vessel", that's their own description
Seriously... u here nagging and bickering while not even know what they said and think that it is playerbase who said that ?

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Like everything, it is all subjective.

subjective is saying i believe Wrath is best exp, while someone else believe MoP is best and so on
fact is when majority of votes say that Wrath is best exp, so while u may not enjoy it as MoP, u can't say that MoP is best in wow history, wrath is
He claimed that Legion was hated in its era, while it wasn't darling and it had many problems, no one said Legion was worst exp, the same like in MoP era, most ppl said that Cata was worse than MoP
Only WoD and BFA held the honorable (sh8t) title of worst exp during their run time, U can count cata but i admit i didn't follow news back then as close as these days to say that
So no it isn't subjective, Legion was never considered worst exp by majority of wow, if u think that urself ok i won't force my opinion on u, but i'm sure as egypt that Legion is no way the worst exp, or even 2nd worst by wow community

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People blaming everything on Ion have clearly never worked in anything close to a corporate environment

u can't blame them, he - on purpose - is putting himself in cannon fire to take all blame
back in Ghostcrawler i used to think the same, if not for seeing myself that Ion the wow player views how to fix wow is exact opposite in many fields than Ion the developer i may also thought the same because how he insist in his public image that he is the guy who decide everything (even if as proven, doubt he can decide anything -.-)

[TheRevenantHero]

I'd rather they get rid of Christie Golden before getting rid of Ion, personally.

[Yunaqt]

I think it was a very mediocre expansion from a gameplay standpoint, too much RNG which they seem to be fixing going forward, also class design was lazy and left almost completely unchanged from legion which is always why I play, to see how they rebuild classes and specs to revitalize the gameplay. I think by the end if BfA they will have a decent expansion but the first half was terrible.

From a raiding standpoint this expansion was fucking spot on for me. Really loved both BoD & TEP

[TheRevenantHero]

It depends on how close to Classic they can return the game without it having the issues of classic WoW.

They seem to be learning from what people like in Classic and bringing back some of the "fun" aspects of the game from it.

The "Class Identity" changes and return of spells, etc, other systems via the covenants could make SL successful...

The fact that they're pandering to the Classic crowd, which is a smaller crowd than Modern, is likely going to be the reason I quit WoW. If I wanted Classic, I'd fucking play Classic.

[daliric]

legion was garbage too. RNG artifacts, endless AP grind, out of control WF/TF, all but ignored PVP side, etc. and most of them have only gotten worse. legion had a few good late additions that people liked, but before then, EVERYONE hated legion, until the last patch it was widely considered to be as bad or worse than WoD.

What? A lot of people who played Legion have rated Legion as one of the best expansions blizzard has ever made.

[Doffen]

in their Q&A, if u don't follow it why exactly u commenting here in first place, when u don't know what they just said last 2 Q&A ? It was mentioned multiple times in multiple Q&A videos
U can find that on their official website, first check what they say, then u can discuss whatever u want
And that was their own words btw in the video, they ruined BFA because class design is the worst in entire game history, i even used the same word they used "vessel", that's their own description
Seriously... u here nagging and bickering while not even know what they said and think that it is playerbase who said that ?

No, I am here nagging that you are being hyperbolic. What you are saying is nothing close to what they said. They didn't say it failed, they didn't say it was fucked up, they didn't say that class design is a shitshow. They said it had gone a bit too far. Something entirely different.

If you wanna argue about something, at least keep it real. Not their own words at all.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

It's clear that Blizzard and the angry butthurt brigade have differing opinions on what entails 'failure'....

Considering that Blizzard makes up their own nonsensical metrics to rationalize how their products are a success to shareholders, then yes... yes they do. (And hint: Blizzard's opinion on the matter doesn't mean shit.)

[Seylene]

While i've never gotten even the slightest hint that Ion knows much anything about Warcraft or even likes the franchise in general, he does seem to be on point with how they want to move the format forward so despite how objectively bad BfA has been I cannot see him going anywhere as his business viewpoints seem to align well with the corporate interests. And Honestly he seems like a decent guy in general just as fans we want to see a real passion behind the creative forces in what we love and that's his major public failing.

[Starfals]

What? A lot of people who played Legion have rated Legion as one of the best expansions blizzard has ever made.

Same here, i love legion and i actually really miss it. Raiding ToS was the best, not to mention the nighthold... or the wonderful Argus runs. Seriously, Legion,Wrath and TBC were the best times for me in WoW. Not everything was fel/green either. Emerald nightmare was red!

[Kralljin]

Without inside knowledge, it's absolutely pointless to discuss whether a person is good at their job.

Maybe work culture at Blizzard has become shit and he has barely competent subordinates that are basically on the team because they can't find proper replacements.
Maybe their entire design process is getting meddled by Spreadsheet warriors who keep showing them fancy graphs on how to design "fun" mechanics and systems and corperate structure forces them to follow their "advice".

Fact just is, you can't judge the competence of a person just by the quality of the product, because if the raw materials or tools are just shit, even competent people can't create a masterpiece.

All i can say about Ion is that he presumably is one of the few people that still give a shit, he watches YT vids that discuss actual systems within the game (note: Preach himself said that Ion called his videos "hard but not unfair").
Even people that got fired from Blizzard spoke highly of him and i think someone who ditches a career as lawyer to become a game dev is either one hell of a conman to pull off that switch or extremely passionate about it.

That aside, i believe he one hell of an encounter designer, the guys first major project he worked on was Ulduar, that's actually where his name "Watcher" comes from and he helped to create a shit ton of encounters from early / mid Wotlk to WoD, he was after all lead encounter designer by the end of WoD.

And you are not going to find a lot of raiders that would call this era of WoW terrible as far as raid encounters are concerned.

Remember before you quote me that this is a personal opinion, not everyone thinks like you or should be like you.

Maybe you should take your own advice.

never cease to amaze me that people have the memory of a goldfish. are people seriously forgetting how sad WOD & Cataclysm were?

[alturic]

Ion isnt to blame on his own for the things that are being implemented.
You are being clueless about the fact that these decisions and systems are based on 1 persons ''job title''.

There will be a whole team deciding which systems make the cut.

Right, except there *is* a singular person (see: Ion) who would make the decision that something is ok to implement. You don't have rogue developers just implementing random shit. It's not a democratic process that everyone sits down, comes up with ideas and there's a team vote on things.

[Seranthor]

Considering that Blizzard makes up their own nonsensical metrics to rationalize how their products are a success to shareholders, then yes... yes they do. (And hint: Blizzard's opinion on the matter doesn't mean shit.)

When the quarterly report says that XYZ expansion did better than any other expansion then XYZ is a success.. if you dont like XYZ that really doesn't matter to Blizzard, but you'll still claim its a 'failure'. Hence the differing opinions... What YOU fail to grasp is that YOUR opinion doesn't matter.

[Polybius]

BfA wasn't a bomb, but like any form of entertainment the lead directors get replaced if their future prospects don't look good. In this case, it's all about the investors.

[Kithelle]

Ion is doing a fine job and the only people I see calling for him to be fired are the salty High elf people who have been told the high elves are on the horde and playable right now... The games fine people just grow tired of things and need to take a rest but a majority of the time they come back.

LOL...cool story bro, to bad that isn't true.

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It’s a game made by a whole team, not one person.

Not only that he’s a team lead at a major corporation, which means his hands are likely pretty tied to what the higher ups want from the game.

BFA wasn’t innately that bad, just poorly executed in a lot of ways.

But he is the team leader...he is the one who makes promises that turned into lies. He is the one telling us we'll love this or that that we've been telling him sucks since alpha/beta yet still pushes it and refuses to admit they're wrong till half way in or more into the expansion and tell us we're screwed till next expansion.

[sam86]

No, I am here nagging that you are being hyperbolic. What you are saying is nothing close to what they said. They didn't say it failed, they didn't say it was fucked up, they didn't say that class design is a shitshow. They said it had gone a bit too far. Something entirely different.

If you wanna argue about something, at least keep it real. Not their own words at all.

u meant my own words -.- ? of course they didn't say they f8cked up, u'll get flagged if u say that in tv, because god forbid that kids see on tv something that their parents say 24/7, their neighbors say 24/7, and the tv itself show it but 12 hours only when they 'sleep'
but they didn't just say they went too far, they did use the words i said that the vessel is broken, that player character isn't fun anymore to do anything, that part they did say, that's an admit that they screwed up (see? no more f8cked up words) in class design, they did admit that class design is failure
Unless by making class not fun to play mean that design works perfect in ur world

[Doffen]

u meant my own words -.- ? of course they didn't say they f8cked up, u'll get flagged if u say that in tv, because god forbid that kids see on tv something that their parents say 24/7, their neighbors say 24/7, and the tv itself show it but 12 hours only when they 'sleep'
but they didn't just say they went too far, they did use the words i said that the vessel is broken, that player character isn't fun anymore to do anything, that part they did say, that's an admit that they screwed up (see? no more f8cked up words) in class design, they did admit that class design is failure
Unless by making class not fun to play mean that design works perfect in ur world

No, fun is everything. And like I pointed out in another post, I think BfA is mediocre, both overall and when it comes to classes. I had much more fun in Legion than now, like the most fun I ever had in the game. I know people say that it sucked in Legion too, but I disagree strongly. BfA class design is a slower paced class design, and I am not a big fan of that. Saying that, some specs that I play I do have a lot of fun with in BfA too. But overall, I think they need some change. I am not sure how good it will be to just throw some new (old) abilities in there, but hopefully they manage to bake them in properly. I have my doubts though.

Is it fucked up though? :P Not so much. To think that they would use those words if they could is just being speculative. Do I want some changes and it needs improvement? Absolutely.

[Aeula]

So if the story was written a little more coherently you would have enjoyed the multitude of things people overwhelmingly complained about:

• Boring class design
• tedious islands
• tedious warfronts
• tedious AP grind
• azrerite armor
• Essence rep grinding
• RNG
• Nazjatar being nothing but a boring and repetitive WQ zone with nothing else to do

I see, the real problem was the narrative lol.

That said, people love to use hyperbole with regards to BfA.

I’m fine with class design.
I’m fine with islands (I feel 8.3 fixes the reward system with it’s crates, which was my main issue)
Warfronts are inconsequential
AP never felt tedious, but then I didn’t farm every single possible source of azerite 24/7. I take it hardcore people had issue with that?
Azerite armor is fine.
I thought the essences were good, I just wish they were account wide.
RNG is an issue, but not a massive one for me. Mostly suffer it through the weekly mythic chest.
Nazjatar is a bit crappy, but it’s not the doom of the expansion.

If the story wasn’t trash-tier terrible I would find this expansion to be enjoyably average. Certainly better than Legion and WoD but worse than MoP. Unfortunately I, for some reason, let myself get lost in the narrative of every game I play. No matter how shite it is. So I can’t look past that.