The 8.3 experience

[Cosmic Janitor]

honestly the way i would fix m+ is make the gear from it have bonuses just in dungeons and outdoor,wile the raid gear have bonuses for the raids and outdoor,thefore it becomes the intent they have for them to be 2 different gearing paths,but not make you feel like both are a must do

That idea has been around for ages as well. I mean we essentially had that with benthic gear last tier or PvP-resiliance gear in the distant past. While I absolutely see the merit of that, I just can't help but feel that fragmenting the progression paths might also cause issues down the line.

Not to mention I'm kinda over raiding at this point. It get's harder to schedule a regular raid evening (or 2) with each passing year, the flexibility of M+ is rather welcome at this point. Just being able to accomodate schedule hick-ups on a week to week basis of 5 people instead of 20 is an imeasurable blessing to me as of late. If the loot is the only thing that props up raiding at this point, I have to wonder how legitimate raiding as a form of desireably content is in the first place.

[deenman]

I usually defend Blizzard and I still play the game and have fun, but... this patch had a lot less content than I expected. The one fun thing added (Horrific visions) is time gated, which is a big mistake imo. I get that the cloak upgrades should be time gated, but visions shouldn't. Also, the explanations for how visions work and what your goal in it is could be much better.

With the essence grind I can't be arsed to play alts. And I'm not interested in levelling a diaper gnome. Just hoping there's a lot in the raid, though part of me wishes it's undertuned so I can spend some time in other games.

the ammount of content seems fine to me,the issues were all the crazy bugs and problems the patch came with,this patch may be among the worst end of expansion patches in wow history

[Gaidax]

Raid aside, I think 8.3, outside the raid, is weak. As a raider I am fine with it, as it means I don’t need to do much anything outside raiding and mandatory daily vision for essences.

Content outside raids is a big step down from 8.2, it’s just a bunch of tedious dailies in a pretty package with only Horrific Visions Feeling like the only real new addition to the outside world.

For me it’s fine, because I never was a non-raid content fan, but for others the well will run dry very fast.

I imagine they just decided to focus on Shlands and did the bare minimum outside content they could reasonably do to spend more effort on next expansion.

[Maylander]

I find the rep grind of 8.3 terrible, as it'll take too long to get exalted for it to be particularly relevant (the permanent augment rune will be available after most of the raid has been cleared).

However, I do like horrific visions, both as group and solo content. I think limiting the total attempts per week is the right thing to do, as it makes each attempt a risky affair. I enjoy the risk vs reward aspect. That being said, I wouldn't mind having a few more attempts per week, as it's by far the best content of 8.3.

[Gestopft]

Can't judge yet, as I've spent all of my playtime this week just getting the cloak for every one of my max-level toons (two more to go). But I think it'll give me plenty to do for the foreseeable future.

[sam86]

thats kinda crazy to me,for all bfa's issues,raiding isnt one of them,the idea of playing classic FOR the raids versus bfa is kinda insane to me

vanilla has 40 men raid, it feels epic, the best raid feeling
but i also remember how f8cked up impossible it was to organize, i love 40 men raiding but realistic even 25 is hard to manage, can't imagine how nightmarish it is to organize 40
but seriously 40 actually felt a raid, u are a mini army attacking real threats, when u take 5 ppl to beat someone u can't sell he is as real threat as a guy who needs 40 to die

[Osmeric]

Well, for me the barrier for entry of BfA raiding is just too high. You need to level the neck, level the cloak, get all the right essences, get the right azerite traits, and get the right corruptions. It's just too much, especially as someone who stopped playing in 8.0 and then came back for 8.3. Just the list of all the things I need to get done to catch up for raiding is just insane on top of the normal gearing that is to be expected.

The time required (at an effective cost of your time of $7/hour and up) is the real cost of playing the game. So making the game grindier and more time consuming drives people away more effectively than actually increasing the subscription cost.

But they must realize this, so I have to wonder why they are doing this. I'm guessing it's to condition the remaining player population to be ready for a F2P transition, where the monetization will be paying to avoid this (personally time-expensive) grind.

[Zarvel]

You know, I think that, but it is amazing how many people are still content or vehemently defending this game despite its current state. I don't know if they're new and didn't get to experience what some of the rest of us have experienced so they have nothing to compare it to, or if the general design of the game just appeals to them for whatever reason.

So I still think it will be around quite awhile. They have great marketing, and they're great at adding in a few things here and there to reel people back in, like allied races, even if it's only for a short amount of time until they remember all of the other flaws and reasons why they left.

They're also still really good at pushing out expansions, even if they don't always have the best premise. I definitely don't have high hopes for Shadowlands, but I do think it will be better even if just for the sake of gaining some of the interest back that they lost with this.

More often than not, you'll find that folks who regularly socialize with others in the game when doing content will defend the game at all costs. It's not that the game is good and keeping them happy, but its the experience of doing the content with others that keeps them going. Ironically, they can swap to a different game with the same set of people and it wouldn't change a thing for them. And yet, they'll defend the current state of the game to the max.

This means, usually the folks who criticize the content repeatedly are those who depend less on the social aspect and more on how the game actually plays in a day-to-day experience from just a mechanics standpoint. If you're the kind of guy who does not log on to a guild full of buddies to do random stuff with, but are looking for a fun chore to keep you busy in your free time, then it is obviously more likely for you to face the harsh truth of the design, as compared to those who will look past said issues and continue doing it with their social group.

Common example is those people who never touch m+ over keystone level 5, or folks who never step past LFR/Normal mode raiding, or collectors(pets/mounts/mogs) - These folks do not have to interact with the systems in any progression based manner so when they encounter said "new content" the once or twice in the entire patch cycle, they don't mind it being the way it is.
The problem comes in when folks who wish to justify their sub with a proper fun and engaging gameplay loop on a daily basis have to deal with badly designed content. Like folks who play more than 1 characters, or those who run keystones 10 and above, or heroic/mythic raiders, or mid-high bracket pvp. This is still a video game, one with a monthly sub, that should offer a proper gameplay experience to justify a cost past the initial Box price. Gating current content behind 2-3 hours of pointless questing, where you spend 85% of the time flying from point A to point B while AFK, and only 15% killing and looting stuff, is a problem, no matter how you look at it. It's bad design.

8.3 needed to be a catch-up patch. Instead it has even worse gating than before. Farm CV for a week to get 1-2 shots at doing horrific visions, which only last 10-12 mins a pop, is bad design. Even the Mage Tower was a lot more accessible from an entry perspective....you could fly around the broken shore searching for 6-7 chests for the currency for 1 attempt, which hardly took 20-25 mins of flying. How do they keep missing the important lessons learnt from the past?
Removed titanforging? Cool, replace it with corruption where if you get a shitty corruption affix, you feel just as bad as when you received gear that did not titanforge. Same problem, in different clothing. Pure nonsense.
I put the same feedback in the comments box when cancelling my sub. I know they won't read it, but whatever, I just needed to vent because I wasted my money on the sub initially.

[Gaidax]

Insane to believe that there are actually people enjoying the game that experienced the whole life span of WoW + a second time with Classic like me, right

I played this game all from the beginning and right now when it comes to actual group content and raid content - it's the best WoW ever was really.

I'd say the only thing that is missing was these insane daylong AV tugs of war, but other than that - whether it's dungeons or raids - current WoW is head and shoulders above anything pre-WoD. The only raid that comes close to the level of what we get nowadays is Ulduar.

As a raider all the way from Vanilla, for me the biggest enjoyment is clearing raids both because of the challenge and guild dynamics. For all its fallings, current WoW does that one right with its stellar Mythic Raids.

So yes, there are people that enjoy current WoW plenty and I don't see what's so insane about it, if anything it's reasonable, because there is literally no game right now that offers raiding content with such a great quality and frequency.

[Serenais]

Personal opinion is that the bugs are currently the biggest downside. I don't mind the invasions, however, the spawn rates need to adjust better, and quest objective items (like certain obelisks...) need to be shared, not "one tags it, it goes away". This wouldn't be as bad if there was more of them available, however, especially in the Vale, the area is simply not large enough for them to be available in large enough number.
There is a similar issue in Uldum, but due to Uldum being larger and the zone being less dotted with sharply steep hills, it is far less prevalent.
On the other hand, I do find the visions interesting, although given that my guild refuses to have me there as a tank (I have to switch to DPS spec; alas...), that is mitigated somewhat. I would preffer to be able to play in a spec I like, which in this case, appears to not be possible (even though I am running around in ilvl449 at the time of writing this). At least I can easily solo the lesser visions; I do not want to imagine how that must be for a healer, who probably has to switch to DPS most of the time and basically have to play something drastically different to what they preffer. I don't mind that being a necessity for for example the Brawler's Guild, as it is not mandatory content for raiding. Visions are, and thus should people let play the way they want and intend in further content.
I am looking forward to the raid and am curious about the new mythic+ prefix. Due to them not being available yet, I will reserve judgement there.

I would say, let non-DPS people easier access to the non-raid and non-mythic+ features, make quest objectives being more present and repair the bugs, and we might have a solid patch. In the state it is right now, the patch leaves a lot to be desired.

[DemonDays]

You know, I think that, but it is amazing how many people are still content or vehemently defending this game despite its current state. I don't know if they're new and didn't get to experience what some of the rest of us have experienced so they have nothing to compare it to, or if the general design of the game just appeals to them for whatever reason.

So I still think it will be around quite awhile. They have great marketing, and they're great at adding in a few things here and there to reel people back in, like allied races, even if it's only for a short amount of time until they remember all of the other flaws and reasons why they left.

They're also still really good at pushing out expansions, even if they don't always have the best premise. I definitely don't have high hopes for Shadowlands, but I do think it will be better even if just for the sake of gaining some of the interest back that they lost with this.

Sunk cost fallacy? Addiction? Delusion? Emotional attachment? I really don't know.

Baffles the mind anyone that would defend a corporation who's continued milking of this community is honestly becoming comical now. They're riding on loyalty, addiction and emotional attachment. Riding it into the ground.

- - - Updated - - -

Personal opinion is that the bugs are currently the biggest downside. I don't mind the invasions, however, the spawn rates need to adjust better, and quest objective items (like certain obelisks...) need to be shared, not "one tags it, it goes away". This wouldn't be as bad if there was more of them available, however, especially in the Vale, the area is simply not large enough for them to be available in large enough number.
There is a similar issue in Uldum, but due to Uldum being larger and the zone being less dotted with sharply steep hills, it is far less prevalent.
On the other hand, I do find the visions interesting, although given that my guild refuses to have me there as a tank (I have to switch to DPS spec; alas...), that is mitigated somewhat. I would preffer to be able to play in a spec I like, which in this case, appears to not be possible (even though I am running around in ilvl449 at the time of writing this). At least I can easily solo the lesser visions; I do not want to imagine how that must be for a healer, who probably has to switch to DPS most of the time and basically have to play something drastically different to what they preffer. I don't mind that being a necessity for for example the Brawler's Guild, as it is not mandatory content for raiding. Visions are, and thus should people let play the way they want and intend in further content.
I am looking forward to the raid and am curious about the new mythic+ prefix. Due to them not being available yet, I will reserve judgement there.

I would say, let non-DPS people easier access to the non-raid and non-mythic+ features, make quest objectives being more present and repair the bugs, and we might have a solid patch. In the state it is right now, the patch leaves a lot to be desired.

It was designed this way. Designed to waste your time for minimal reward. They know it has to last 10+ months.

[Nathasil]

I think the 8.3 story is "ok" and actually the first time the story made any sense in this game since ~7.2. For me, anything that happened after Suramar was just a complete dumpster fire. But i totally agree that the way it is told could be improved upon.

I like the N'Zoth art assets. The obelisks, the faceless, the worms in the sky...i dig that. And because i like it i find it even more depressing that they did not add a dungeon using these assets. They created Mechagon out of a junkyard and praised it as a "Megadungeon" - for me, personally, even a single room with an obelisk in the middle and 4 bosses around it would have been more "mega" than Mechagon.

The gearing is a convoluted mess, just like all gearing in BFA.

They force you to go through that unnecessary long and partly boring questchain, yet never allow themselves some time to just let you connect to the NPCs you meet. What happened to the Devs that made Suramar? Have they all left? Those guys knew how to make a story with relateable NPCs...*sigh*

Visions have some mechanical flaws that could easily be fixed by giving individual specs buffs/debuffs to bring everybody to a somewhat equal level of performance in there. Not everything needs to be 100% fair - but those visions are the only really new feature of this patch and a level of adaption would have been really nice to see. Aside from that, i like them. I even do not mind that you are limited to ~3 per week (or 2, if you do not enjoy daylies). We are supposed to play this patch for ~8 months...so 2 runs a week are ok.

My main criticism is that the patch feels off. It was unrealistic to expect fixes to the fundamentally fucked up gearing systems of BFA....but this patch with this story right now simply does not fit into the expansion at all. There is nothing at stake. We all know how the story continues...nobody really gives a fuck about N'Zoth. Throwing this low-effort-patch at us after they spent MILLIONS of dollars to create Saurfang-Cinematics is insulting.

I would not agree that the game is on a constant down-spiral. I still believe that 7.0 and 7.1 were a HUGE improvement over the state the game had been in before...but after that, it went totally into the shitter...with BFA being even worse than the last 2 patches of Legion.

My hopes for Shadowlands are actually not that high. It seems like Ion and his gang are convinced that BFA was a grande expansion with a great story and the faction-focus was amazing for the game.

[Ghostile]

8.3 is the perfect example of how blizzard can never win.

People cried for reuse of old zones, More inconvenient quests, pretty much everything that was delivered in the patch was requested but alas now that the part that asked for them is playing, another cries out claiming its terrible

[Osmeric]

8.3 is the perfect example of how blizzard can never win.

People cried for reuse of old zones, More inconvenient quests, pretty much everything that was delivered in the patch was requested but alas now that the part that asked for them is playing, another cries out claiming its terrible

When players ask for X, it doesn't mean that any delivery of X is what they want. It's entirely possible to screw things up even while satisfying the letter of the requirements. Players requests are not, and never could be, exhaustive descriptions of what it takes to satisfy them.

[deenman]

vanilla has 40 men raid, it feels epic, the best raid feeling
but i also remember how f8cked up impossible it was to organize, i love 40 men raiding but realistic even 25 is hard to manage, can't imagine how nightmarish it is to organize 40
but seriously 40 actually felt a raid, u are a mini army attacking real threats, when u take 5 ppl to beat someone u can't sell he is as real threat as a guy who needs 40 to die

thats a nice novelty first time,but once you realise those bosses die in a very unepic and unchallening way and no actual theat,also 10 man hc was the hardest before mythic raids,the fewer people the less mistakes you could make and more responability you had,also blizz tuned 10 man badly lol

[Raisei]

Well, for me the barrier for entry of BfA raiding is just too high. You need to level the neck, level the cloak, get all the right essences, get the right azerite traits, and get the right corruptions. It's just too much, especially as someone who stopped playing in 8.0 and then came back for 8.3. Just the list of all the things I need to get done to catch up for raiding is just insane on top of the normal gearing that is to be expected.

Yes well, the barrier to raid in BFA is basically playing the game. The same as it was in Legion.

Upgrading the neck happens pretty much instantly and requires just a bit of grind IF you actually play the game, you get Azerite from nearly every activity and the azerite requirements drop every week, to a minimum of 1000 and in the quest where you get the first essence you get an item that immediatedly levels it to 35 or even more.

The Cloak is pretty new and you literally cannot upgrade it beyond rank 6 this week, which is absolutely doable with nearly no grind. In fact grinding is discouraged since the drops of the currency from killing mobs are miniscule, hardly worth the time and once you reach the weekly cap on the cloak you can limit yourself to doing ONE assault per week with one vision to upgrade it. Besides it is only needed for the corrupted gear, which you can just as well cleanse to not deal with the system. Then it is just a matter of wearing a high ilvl cloak that you got for free.

With the Essences you are correct to a point. But you can limit your grinding by just focussing on the ones your class needs.

But yes, no matter what the systems are, if you do not want to play the game, then no system will make you do it. There are always problems with any system implemented, MMOs always come with a certain level of grind, and if you can't live with that you are simply not meant to play this game.

[Accendor]

thats kinda crazy to me,for all bfa's issues,raiding isnt one of them,the idea of playing classic FOR the raids versus bfa is kinda insane to me

A big problem is that the gearing system on retail is really, really broken and therefore is character progression. In classic this stuff works out far better. And then there is the fact that some people just prefer 40 people to 25 (or even less).
Oh, and of course it is debatable how good current raiding really is, e.g. BoD was loved by many but hated by most likely the same amount of people. Like don't get me wrong, I also think that raiding is the best part about retail, but there are things where they went wrong in the past.