BFA is done. Time for your official review

[Kalisandra]

If you feel this was the worst expansion, you didn’t play Warlords of Draenor.

WoD's levelling experience was on alts, and just as good first time through. WoD's crafting was better (not it's gathering, because it broke the economy for gatherers). WoD's class design was better. I liked the Hellfire raid more than any of the BfA raids, but the other raids less than most of the BfA raids. WoD's PvP was better, despite Ashran blowing chunks. WoD didn't have buckets of borrowed power.

No, despite the 'lack of anything to do' (not entirely true), and 'lack of content', and the Garrisons, WoD was better than BfA. I did think it was the other way round at one point, but BfA's long last tier has proved to be worse than WoD's - my guild was raiding right to the Legion launch in WoD, but we've long stopped here in BfA because it's just not fun.

The worst feature of WoD was greatly delayed flight, and frankly the way they designed Nazjatar so it was a punishment until you got flight made it feel like we were being punished for having wanted to fly.

Yeah, I played WoD. It was the first expansion I quit for a period in (in protest over no-flight). BfA was the second, and it was for much longer, and not because of any specific event but because the expac just overall was shite.

[Relapses]

Objectively wrong opinion.

BFA was absolute dogshit.

How... are opinions objectively wrong?

[Kalisandra]

PvP: I'm not much of a PvP player so can't say much on that front, but the Warmode system made it 100% clear how crappy and imbalanced the PvP is in this game. They made the warmode system which is just not satisfying for anyone. Shards are fundamentally not balancable because the factions aren't balanced. The sides are so lopsided they actually tried to bribe the Alliance back into the content with a 30% rewards buff, but the reality is, that doesn't solve the issue. The numbers and skill are just too imbalanced that a reward is meaningless unless the power and numbers are near equal. A 30% buff, by their own words, means overwhelmingly outnumbered. We don't know exactly what Blizzard's interpretation of that is, but for the common man, it means a lot. A 10% buff means balanced, so anything greater than that means outnumbered, which is essentially a death sentence.

All the players can see it, but Blizzard refuses to see it; the only way to balance it short of force is with extreme rewards, which they can't do because that will just make Horde players cry that they don't get the rewards too.

It probably wouldn't work for Warmode, but the system they had in Wrath for Winterspring for most of the expansion had promise. The side with fewer players got buffs to health and damage done, the bigger the imbalance the bigger the buff. It needed some work, rather than being scrapped, IMO. Besides, it was kind of fun when one side was a couple of raid bosses, and the other side an army on unbuffed players. I remember Boomkins with the buff being able to scrub out whole raids with Starfall.

- - - Updated - - -

Mediocre.

I hate borrowed power and the neck/azerite system, but I also hated it in Legion with the weapons, too. The only thing Legion had going for it in this regard was the all the cool class-centric stuff surrounding it. Frankly I find it a little weird that people give Legion a pass on stuff they critique BfA for. Legion might have been a more solid expansion overall but these shitty systems we have in BfA are just new iterations of shitty systems from Legion.

That would be because the weapons were interesting, and the system was new. The legendaries were annoying, but the problems were largely fixed later in Legion. BfA has boring azerite with no lore and nothing distinguishing one classes' from another's aside from the mechanical effects. And the problems that were fixed in Legion are back and worse.

BfA feels like it was the trial expansion and Legion was the one when they got it right, the reverse of their actual timing. That should not be.

Flying took way too fucking long, but I think that's going to be the pattern from now on. I have zero beef with having to level the first character on the ground, nor with the concept of having to unlock flying via achievements that demonstrate you've thoroughly played and explored the content, but I do have a beef with an arbitrary wait time tacked on.

Likewise. I quit in WoD over that, and only came back when they brought flying in, and was seriously unimpressed with how much of a rep grind they walled it behind. Then they gated it behind the Broken Front questline in Legion, and did it again in BfA. I hate it.

But mostly importantly, I generally liked the raiding. Raid quality usually ends up being the biggest factor to me, which is also why I didn't hate Warlords, either. Uldir was the weakest, with some cool bosses but also some big annoyances, but I thought BoD was really solid (encounterwise, the story was lolwtf), and I liked Nyalotha and EP well enough. Probably the second-weakest expansion for me in terms of raiding (after Cata) but enough that I still overall enjoyed playing it.

BfA's raids were the best part, I think, but they aren't super-strong.

[snackfeat]

How... are opinions objectively wrong?

The one I quoted is an example of one.

[Tharendil]

Let him do the talking

[Kaver]

On the paper BFA looked pretty good. It definitely had much more content than WOD. But in practice BFA just felt really bad.

The good content in BFA was a result of earlier expansions. The new content added in BFA sucked.

Then we had all the gear system based on heavy RNG or boring grind that just worked against us and made it harder to simply play the game.

“Want to make a Warrior to play M+? Sure, but before you can have fun with your friends you need to farm azerite gear, azerite power, essences and corruption gear. This will take a couple of weeks or months depending on RNG and THEN you can have fun with your friends.”

They also destroyed class design and introduced the GCD to everything.

BFA was by far the worst expansion for me. But I still love WoW.

[Sharnie786]

Raids, apart from Uldir, were fun!

Dungeons were fun.

Some mounts were cool

Azerite Armour was bad
Essences were bad
Islands were bad
M+ was bad
Questing was bad
No tier gear was bad
Alt friendliness was bad
Basically everything other than the things i said were good ended up being bad. This was the first expansion i played less than a year if you add all my subs together.

[Skulltaker]

How... are opinions objectively wrong?

When they oppose quantifiable measurements. It can be your opinion that the earth is flat. But objectively speaking it would be wrong. It's a little more complicated with games, of course. People always say art is subjective, but it isn't. Not to 100%, at least. While its impression on you is 100% subjective, art can be quantified. The same goes for games. I'm fairly sure that there are people that consider classic to be the best WoW has ever been at. But by every measurable metric, BfA is superior. It has better mechanics, graphics, ease of access, less bugs, better soundtrack, better zone design, etc. Doesn't mean that the majority think it is better.

Opinions are tricky. Very often people will just add the tag 'opinion' to falsehoods they cling on to, because they live under the misguided view that opinions cannot be wrong. They can. You're free to have them, of course, but that doesn't mean you're not wrong. If it is your opinion that healing crystals are the best treatment for your cancer, that's your opinion. You'll still die, and the crystals won't do jack shit to prevent it.

[Liftbrul]

Better than WoD, worse than Legion. I had an ok time, but it's also the expansion where I think I permanently grew out of World of Warcraft.

[KainneAbsolute]

The story is a mess. Blizzard wasnt able to fully commit to faction war, naga war and old gods war.

[kranur]

Features sounded ok .. pretty much all of them turned out horrible. The only exception is essences. The rest of the azerite and corruptions were just bad. Warfronts and expeditions are not something worth mentioning either.

Other than that ... too much fucking rng

Still dislike Cataclysm and even MoP more.

[Tharendil]

BfA was alright.

I really liked the new systems:
- Azerite Powers
- Essences
- Corruptions

What did you like about them?

[Zka]

I've played about 1 year actively with BFA, which is a pretty long period compared to recent expansions.

Good points:
- class design: most specs I've played actively were fun to play, disc was in its best state ever imho. Shadow sucked but it's been bad since Cata.
- M+ with friends keeps you involved for a long time and provides fun and challenging group pve
- artwork is good as always

Bad points:
- all new systems introduced except warmode were a total failure. Azerite armor sucked, essences and corruption sucked even more.
- despite M+ being a major gameplay component, it has been neglected. Bad tuning off affixes, class tuning rarely if ever adjusted to address m+ issues.

It was definitely missing the x-factor. Legion had that - I completely ignore lore and story because I just don't give a fuck, but Legion's storytelling with the Suramar storyline still captivated me. BFA had none of that. War Campaign quests are something that I'd actually PAY $ to skip, they are soo bad and such a waste of time.

[Relapses]

The one I quoted is an example of one.

No, you didn't. You don't get to apply the concept of objectivity to something as abstract as preference of a fucking video game where people slay internet dragons for imaginary loot.

[caninepawprints]

The amazing thing is in the beginning of BFA, there were lots of people talking about how great BFA was and how it was easily the best expansion WoW released. Predictably, we're now seeing all those people who praised BFA have either quit or are talking about how crappy it was. No doubt we're going to see the same thing with Shadowlands because it happens with EVERY. SINGLE. EXPANSION.

Except Wrath of the Lich King. The majority loved that expansion both in the beginning and the end. That's no doubt the reason it was the expansion that had the most people playing. Too bad it's the final expansion before Blizzard was sold to Activision. Activision is what ruined this game.

[Muxtar]

Well WoD is still the worst expansion of all time, that's for sure. Selfie patch alone was an abomination.
But BfA is close enough to that mark - terrible terrible lore, no incentives to be involved in game outside raids at all, awful island expeditions/warfronts/most of dungeons, pretty mediocre leveling experience, and 30-sec wordless final expansion cutscene as an icing on the cake.
Expansion to forget, that's for sure.
And from what I can see now, Shadowlands don't look too promising as well.

[tehealadin]

For me, not great but not terrible.

I liked the zones, only played from an alliance point of view, but I enjoyed the zone plotlines, I especially liked the atmosphere of Drustvar.

However the other systems in the game....

I felt that this was even more alt unfriendly than Legion, I really struggled to maintain multiple alts, I really just focused on one character this expansion, which I haven't done ever. All of the grinds needed to get alts up to scratch was a pain and off putting for me. Yes, I know there are catch up mechanics in place, but it still feels too grindy for me.

The azerite system wasn't great, when you do get good pieces they can have a great impact but I felt they were too necessary. In previous expansions, getting tier bonuses were nice, and could elevate you to the next level, but you could still be somewhat competitive, even if on the lower end of things without, they didn't feel mandatory to be able to play and really take part, I felt the azerite system though and the right traits really did feel mandatory, it was extremely noticeable if someone was running with the wrong traits. It wasn't simply the difference between being good and really good, it was from being useless to usable.

Essences I didn't mind as much, especially when you got to unlock them so you could buy them on alts.

Corruption was an interesting idea, however I felt it fell a bit flat. I remember people criticising stat reforging back in the day, saying "let loot be loot" (I personally never got the hate against it and would love to see it back, but that is another issue), this system took it to a whole new level. With the rotation on corruptions at the vendor, you could get a nice new shiney that will be utterly useless for weeks until you can get the right corruption on it. This just takes things to an entirely different level. Given the impact that corruptions have, a good set of them is mandatory. To then time gate them like this, for reasons I don't get (you still need to come on to play to get the currency to buy them) is just frustrating. It is one thing to have to do things to a new piece to make it optimal (things like gemming/enchanting/reforging back in the day didn't really bother me, it was very minor in terms of what you had to do) , but to then time gate it and say "you need to wait 3 weeks before this can be of use to you" is a punishment that seems wholly unnecessary.

Overall this felt a bit like WoD, in that I feel it is just a filler expansion to set up SL, in the same way I felt WoD was to set up Legion.

Also fuck the weekly chest. I know Legion had it too, but this is about BfA. Been about 13 weeks since I have been able to do 15+ content, I've only had 1 usable item for my MS, and 1 for my OS. I have a 460 offhand that I have wanted upgraded for ages. Nothing ever fucking drops. And the 1 usable for my OS, technically isn't as I need to wait for a certain corruption to come up on the vendor before I can actually use it.

[Runstarr]

I went for mediocre though i'm leaning a little towards good, liked most of it except the corruption part and azerites were also annoying at the start.

[PaladinBash]

Okay at launch then lame for a while, good at Azshara patch and then lame at the end with Corruptions being stupid RNG trash and then stupid RNG trash that everyone has. It's completely devalued everything and while it is fun in a silly way, that's...it. It got old fast.

Overall it wasn't the worst but it was definitely weak compared to even Legion.

[Mercadi]

Everybody says WoD was worse, but (IMO) it had one of the best leveling experiences. Same with Cata, leveling was also one of the few highlights of the expansion. It almost seems like people designing the leveling zones are not involved in anything else.