BFA is done. Time for your official review

[Shorteh]

Many mechanical changes were made not to improve, but merely to change regardless of community feedback.
tl;dr: BfA felt like a worse state of the game than Legion in most if not every way.
8.3 is them doubling down on the RNG

[Oswen]

Very good in the art and music department, Allied Races are a good idea (but not perfectly executed)...and that's about it, I'd only rank WoD lower.

Shadowlands doesn't look promising either, really hope to be proven wrong though.

[Tyrannica]

Worst fucking expansion ever put out. Everything about it was shit except for art and music

This really sums it up.

Apart from the system changes nobody needs and wants(gcd, azerite armor, class focus removed, autoattack/passives dmg increased), i had a problem with Sylvanas coming into the spotlight all-too much.

Saurfang got his cinematics... i think its ok, because he merely got them in BfA and also ended in BfA, while Sylvanas the unblievable troublemaker with a secret plot armor has to be in every intro cinematic since legion, so 3 expansions straight with SL.

I have to ask why is that? Not even our green jesus Thrall had this pleasure and by that point. Why fucking overuse a character? Merely a side character in orginal wc3...

So blizz wasted Arthas in just 1 expansion, but Sylvanas his creation roams free for multiple expansions. Why blizzard?

its really, really annoying. Why can't Kel'thuzad not just interrupt the Sylvanas and Saurfang duel and shot both down with deus ex machina powers from the maw and do the same with the impostor LK in the SL cinematic?

Why always Sylvanas?

I never was an Sylvanas hater, but this did it for me. Blizz ruined her.

- - - Updated - - -

WoD is still considered shit so not sure what you mean?

No more, WoD got PvP Systems right and PvP decayed since legion ever since they changed it completely by removing pvp gear and pvp vendors.

Yeah its a pretty huge thing. But i know its easy to overlook this, if you never PvP.

Apart from that, Blizzard had ample time to develop BfA, WoD was developed as a 1 year expansion and a lot of contet was simply removed.(raids and continents for example)

So WoD had an excuse of beeing content wise underwhelming, while BfA had no such an excuse, afaik there was extensive beta feedback, too.

And, after a great class driven expansion like legion, that got all but pvp right, it strikes me to create this abomination that is BfA, like how can a necklace that does nothing replace artefact weapons? How, can a generic faction boat compare to class order halls? Why are there no class raid tier sets? even WoD had them.

Blizz messed up in areas that were completely uncessary like they don't even care?

[Drosul]

BfA was easily the worst expansion overall to me...

-The writing was as bad, if not worse than WoD and Cata....

-The mechanical systems doubled down on all the worst parts of Legion... Azerite armor slots where obnoxious, as where the later neck drops which just moved azerite traits to the neck.. Do you know how freaking infuriating it is to be completely useless in pvp until you have the right traits?

-PvP gearing system took like 10 steps back.... Giving an upgrade token to "upgrade" an item to 2 tiers of gear lower than you're already wearing should have gotten someone fired.

-Warmode was a bust, and wpvp continues to be an embarrassment.

-PuG bgs are 1/3rd+ non english speaking trash with 400+ pings

-Rated PvP is more or less dead. RBGs are entirely dead.

-Right Click Report and auto squelch abuse is rampant, blizz doesn't care because it saves them $$$


It's obvious at this point that they're phoning it in. They somehow managed to take an expansion with N'Zoth, Azshara, and decently credible invented villian (G'Huun) and make it all boring and forgettable. Overall, Legion was one of the stronger xpansions, but this felt like one of, and likely the outright weakest, one.

[Goradan]

As soulless as Kotick. Let me tell you y'all something, even if we do go back to how the old wow was, the new devs alongside the dumbass suits are not gonna deliver. It would be better to end Wow now and then wait for Wow 2 or a revival to happen. The longer this shit is gonna drag on, the move WoW's Legacy is gonna suffer.

[oathy]

Think not puting Nyalotha has a proper zone will come back and bite them,
As it stands there's no way this patch will keep people going till shadowlands unless they are preparing some pre expansion
events etc.

the entire "war" in BFA was a shambles right from the start it just felt very poorly thought out
Azerite just was a horrible replacement for the weapons in legion

[msdos]

WoD was worse than BFA. Imagine an expansion where the main feature is the mission table. Enough said.

[Tyrannica]

BFA is absolute garbage.
Classes were so shallow and basic that i had more fun watching windows update do its thing.
Character progression mechanics were so unenjoyable and bad that BFA would have been better without any of the azerite system.

Writing deserves a special mention as being literally the worst i have ever seen in anything ever.
GOT last season was a genius masterpiece when compared to BFA story/character development and especially the war vs N'zoth.

lol really? i rated BfA the worst expansion, but even i wouldn't go that far. GoT S8 was just another horrific vision, exactly like the N'zoth fight in normal and heroic mode and its useless cinematic. Pretty equally dumb, but at least, BfA gave me some tentacle porn.

[Medrawd]

Wrost expansion to date after WoD.
I place it just slightly above WoD just because BFA actually has some content in it, despite it being utter shit and you experience it with even shittier classes. Story is so comically bad I don't ever care anymore.

I unsubbed for most of WoD and I did the same in BFA. I returned to see 8.3 but it's so bad I'll be leaving as soon as my subscription runs out in a few days. Considering that from what they announced at Blizzcon Shadowlands is shaping up to be another dumpster, I think this is the end of WoW for me after 12 years. I'm sad, but at the same time there are so many good games out there I don't even feel the need to give WoW another try after the shitshow this game has been after MoP.

[lunethzero]

Definitely I would have to say BFA is second to worst expansion. WoD will never lose that title of being the worst.

[Metta World Peace]

This topped WoD as the worst expansion ever.

Azerite sytem had to go through a major revamp to the point that "only our best traits" will be on the azerite gear in 8.3
Expeditions are something you can easily forget it's in the game
Forgot PvP even existed after having war mode on
Last boss was a bigger letdown than Deathwing..... and that's saying alot.

The only very slight edge BfA has over WoD is the patch cycle of waiting 6+ months.

I'm appalled that people are still out here defending BfA and Blizzard after this atrocity of an expansion

[Wyrt]

One of the worst.

The story was a god awful replay of MoP's story with a slutty dead elf replacing Garrosh.

Most of the content was just a bunch of AoE spam trash killing. World quests, warfronts, mythic+, islands, etc. were all just full of trash to AoE down. It's just not interesting game play at all.

Way too many grinds between AP, essences, azerite pieces, legendary cloak, and corruption. It's just too much.

The GCD change was one of the stupidest decisions Blizzard has made in regards to class design.

I don't know if it's worse than WoD or not, but boring grindy content vs. lack of content is a fight where neither side really wins.

[Ludvig]

It made me unironically miss WoD, which I thought was the worst wow could get. Boy was I wrong.

[Grythletubs]

Bad but not as bad as WoD. I honestly feel like WoD should have been a crime, it was basically theft lol.
At least BfA has 3.5 raid tiers, mythic+ and stuff.

[Skroe]

Production values where easily the best WoW ever had by far. Beyond even Legion. WoW visually never looked better or had more visual diversity in it. Big achievement. Adding allied races was very good for the game in particular. A very smart way to add in the long requested "Subraces" in a compelling well.

Pretty good raiding all around, Uldir aside. WoW's been consistent with Raiding for a few expacs. A handful of extremely good fights.

Absolutely terrible storytelling and writing. A story that made no sense, that had little purpose, and shifted because Blizzard clearly lost interest in it.

An absolute mess of game systems. The GCD change. The abilitty pruning (beond what Legion did) was madness. The Azerite system was unbelievably bad. The neck was okay. Getting rid of Titanforging was good, but adding Corruption (and 3 levels of corruption) just shows that someone at Blizzard simply doesnt understand its game. They created RNG^RNG with it.

As a whole, BFA was a mess. Blizzard is also a mess. A deeply troubled game made by a deeply troubled company that needs to have its leadership cleaned out.

WoD has far worse content (mostly due to content cancellation and mid-expac direction shifts) but played far better. BFA had exceptional production quality and good raiding, but plays like shit.

Probably not as bad was WoD, but close. This company is deeply out of touch.

[Eapoe]

Decent xpac. Nothing amazing. Overall:
Story is fine. Sylvanas has turned out to not be Garrosh 2.0, but there are too many similarities to be completely overlooked. I’m not a fan of the peace portion of the story between Alli and Horde again. Some aspects seem like they are trying to go a route to delete factions at some point, or at least have the option later.
Artwork is top notch for the most part. Nazjatar could have been done better, but when thought about seems fitting as it would be the same artwork design as Suramar and Farondis’ area as they were built in the same era. Ny’alotha, while not being an entire zone is still designed nicely and conveys an Old God landscape well as it draws inspiration from things like Hellraiser labrynth design as well as Lovecraftian concepts.
Music is fine.
Cinematics have been amazing. Obviously the last cinematic is drawing criticism; however, I look to things like “Draenor is free!” and the ending of Dragon Soul to remember Blizzard doesn’t always make winners. I’m not using that as an excuse or a reason to give this one a pass, but I am stating that it’s not like Blizzard has some perfect track record that means this is the absolute worst ever.
Class design is a mixed bag. For the most part, I don’t mind the GCD change. I understand why it happened, but I’m not a huge fan. Some classes/specs have been pruned too much, whereas others still have so many damn buttons it’s mind boggling. Just an example: my Fury Warrior alt has a total of maybe 8-10 buttons used, and 2 1/2 action bars filled with mounts and toys. My Hunter main has about 3 full bars of things that I use for raids, world, and PvP content such as abilities, potions, trinkets, and macros. My Aff Lock has even more than that. Some specs got pruned too much and others could probably stand to lose a few more.
Overall, I’d probably give it 4.5/10. Definitely not amazing, but it kept me entertained like previous xpacs. This was also the xpac I finally accepted I don’t have to do everything. I don’t have to rush thru content. It’s also the xpac that cemented I hate RNG as Blizzard doesn’t seem to be able to balance RNG with player power. Small increases are fine, but giant power boosts for one person while another may possibly never see the same bonus is bad design.

[Crionics]

I say mediocre. It definitely lacked in a lot of areas. I think it suffered a lot of from not having a central story at it's start. It just felt like a random series of events culminating into a final fight with N'Zoth. The theme seemed to be all out war between the Horde and Alliance but it really just felt like a few skirmishes here and there, ending somewhat suddenly and to the shock of a lot of people it was labeled as the 4th war on part with Warcraft 1-3. It never felt anywhere near a war to that extent. It seemed like business as usual once the expansion got under way. Small clashes between the Horde and Alliance throughout some zones but no real large scale battles. Even the Alliance raid on Dazar'Alor felt like a small scale raid and not an all out battle. I really don't like the Azerite system and the essence system. They're too unfriendly for alts. And the PVP gearing system is absolutely terrible. I did like the dungeons though.

[Gaidax]

I think it was mediocre.

After Legion it was a step down with various ideas that did not pan out. Raids were ok and 8.2 was the highlight of the expansion with really great content, among the best patches in recent years. Shame that 8.3 was a step down from 8.2, it’s not horrible, but IMO it’s weak - new quests and invasion-like activities/scenarios are nice, but no new area is a letdown.

I really think Nyalotha should have been made a new zone, even if it was a small one like Mechagon - dailies and sandbox zone entered through portals in Vale/Uldum.

[Eggroll]

Same level of bad as WoD, only in a different way.

Very alt-unfriendly. Usually I'm an altoholic, BfA made me only level like 5 toons to maxlevel.

Story: as nelf fan and player, obviously it sucked for me

The only really good thing about this expac is the music and environment art.

Character art is horrible imo, especially with character and spell animation being streamlined so every race looks basically the same. It just takes away flavor and depht from the game and the world. Sad and unnecessary.

[Malikath]

Yep.

Even now, when an alt hits 90, my heart sinks. I try to squeeze out a bit more Pandaria but I just know . . . I have to go to Draenor . . .

Dude, just farm ore and herbs, it's faster then everything else that isn't korrak's.