What did BFA do better than other expansions?

[Newname1234567890]

Zone art. But that always gets better so

[Firebeast]

Warfronts are pretty cool.
Zandalar had a great story.
Rastakhan and Bwonsamdi were especially great throughout.
Mag'har Allied Race recruitment quest-line I really enjoyed.
Goblin Heritage Armor quest-line I also really enjoyed.
Vulpera are a really fun new Allied Race: great addition.
Worgen Model update was 12/10, way better than expected.
Overall armor quality of expansion was very high.
It was cool Echo Isles got a boat to Zandalar.
Portal Rooms are pretty convenient, I like them.
Vol'jin cameo was really nice and cool and great.
Sethrak are cool, made for fun allies and enemies.
Krag'wa is the best and biggest frog. Good loa.
Cool to see more Undead Skeleton variants.
Flynn Fairwind was a fun NPC.
The Motherlode and Temple of Sethraliss were fun dungeons.

Well that's terrific for you. However, I felt most of what you said was wrong. Bland and awful story lines. The dungeons and raids were mediocre at best. Storylines were idiotic and childish. You can argue that WOW was always a grind, but not like this

[Katchii]

The overall questing experience is amazing, additional races and race/class combos are also good and Warmode is a better overall concept than PvP/PvE servers IMO.

[Laqweeta]

Uhh.. Art.

Yeah, art.

[Wondercrab]

The art and music have never been better. Some of the themes in Zandalar and Kul Tiras still make me pause and listen for a while even after all this time. The first night the expansion launched consisted almost entirely of me wandering around Dazar'alor marvelling at the city in awe. That kind of exploration is always a highlight of my time with WoW, and BfA had more of those moments than any recent expansion since Pandaria.

Allied Races were a great feature as well. Using existing assets to cut down on the dev time was a very smart move, and honestly something I've wanted more of for a long time now. I hope we get to see more of them again in the future.

The auction house update in 8.3 is also a woefully overlooked feature of BfA. The entire thing is *so* much more user friendly now, and it's one of those fundamental systems changes that's going to continue serving the game well for years to come.

Edit: And Mechagon. Gosh, that zone was fantastic. Probably the most rewarding and engaging open world content they've ever implemented. I really hope we see more zones with the same design philosophy in the future.

[Katchii]

Well that's terrific for you. However, I felt most of what you said was wrong. Bland and awful story lines. The dungeons and raids were mediocre at best. Storylines were idiotic and childish. You can argue that WOW was always a grind, but not like this

Every storyline was bland, awful, idiotic and childish?

Some of them, yes...but all of them? I thoroughly enjoyed most of them, and the ones that ARE idiotic and childish are STILL a fun experience for the most part, like the goblin and troll in Zandalar trying to act as matchmakers for two brutosaurs. Everything doesn't have to be deep, mature, and complex.

[kabshiel]

I think Mechagon was the best Timeless-Isle-esque zone that the game has added.

[Thetruth1400]

I guess some zones were pretty well designed

but that's it

Alliance side maybe. Horde side felt like three mashed together zones that didn't really have much to do with each other.

That aside, I agree, the zones were pretty good this expansion.

Raids were pretty good this expansion too, but frankly are losing a lot of their pizazz as the raid sets are gone, instead replaced with 1 set per armor type, which not only makes everyone look the same but eliminates the draw of entering raids to complete a set. At the same time, they have made gear too easy to obtain from other, much easier sources, which also negates the need to go and do them, especially on harder difficulties. Likewise, the fact that a next patch comes out and everything starts dropping gear at or above normal raid level from the previous tier makes me seriously wonder why they're still stuck on offering 4 raid difficulties instead of just 2 or even 1 at this point.

Beyond that, I'm not sure there was much BfA did better than, or frankly even on par with, other expansions.

BfA is the first expansion I would have actively quit if it weren't for the token system.
BfA is the first expansion in which I've gone, "If the next expansion is as shitty as this one, I really will struggle to justify my continued support of Blizzard."

[Villager720]

I liked the raids.
I thought Boralus was the best city they’ve ever made.
Dinosaurs are fun. And we got plenty.
I enjoyed the cinematics even if the story they told didn’t live up to their visual splendor.

[HuxNeva]

Mythic +, marginally, because of better dungeon designs and affixes.
Still sad they ditched gear swapping completely.

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

Mythic+ and the new ways they delivered story in some points, even though the story itself had inconsistent quality imo.

[Tazr]

I really enjoyed leveling (the first time, each faction) for the first time since maybe Cataclysm (flying while leveling was awesome). Unfortunately, once I hit level cap, that was the end of it. And I will say that some zones (like Zuldazar) would have been more enjoyable with flying. Without, they were gorgeous, but annoying AF.

- - - Updated - - -

I would make a real argument that the zones are among the best in the game. Every expansion they more or less get better at world design from a "look" perspective.

That said that means jack shit when they do nothing with it. Sure the world quests are there but that's just a bandaid. Its a shame too cause I love the zones they built. Same issue I had with WoD. Beautiful world to look at but nothing to really do in it.

Agreed. Also, they keep making the words more annoying to traverse without flying. "Don't worry, we're removing flying, but we'll make sure you don't even miss it" - massive lie, per usual.

[Itori]

Bfa did zone storytelling far better than previous expansions, especially regarding the alliance side, drustvar is the only time since vanilla that i stopped to read quests because they were generally interesting, and the themes hit all the right spots.

[Astator]

Auction House redesign
Warmode and warchest drops (when zone is balanced)
Alliance capital city
Drustvar zone and quests
Account based honor levels
Mythic+

[Metrox]

Auction House improved (once the bugs got fixed)
Ease of alt gearing (NOT including essences)
War Mode leveling

[Kathranis]

Honestly, I don't know that it really did anything better than Legion, apart from maybe a more measured content release pacing and the amount of high quality tie-in media, with the cinematic shorts.

It was pretty much a repeat of Legion's formula, but with worse core systems and a worse overarching story.

That's not to say it's devoid of value.

The world design, zone quests, art, and music were all good.

I think War Mode is a good idea, but still needs some iteration, especially on the server engineering side.

In a similar vein, I think the BG adjustments and brawls are nice additions.

Warfronts and Island Expeditions were a big miss, but Horrific Visions are a solid first attempt at a roguelite mode, and I'm hopeful that they can use both the latter and former as stepping stones with Torghast in Shadowlands.

I think Allied Races and Heritage Armor have been hits, for the most part, and I certainly hope they carry them forward, while perhaps easing unlock requirements for old ones once the expansion ends.

I think the themed weekly and bi-weekly variations to Uldum and the Vale are a great way to make world content a bit less repetitive from day to day, week to week -- though I definitely prefer WQs to dailies, and I'm not thrilled with the rep grind pacing or the implementation of rare spawns.

The AH improvements are welcome and, frankly, overdue.

Mythic+ being fleshed out is nice, though I've never been a big dungeon guy personally.

And on the optimistic side, the expansion is hopefully a learning experience for Blizzard when it comes to the mistakes and weaknesses, which I think mostly overshadowed the good:

There really isn't room for error with core class design and fundamental gameplay systems. If the game doesn't feel fun, people won't want to play it. They really can't launch with busted systems that take two content patches to fix, they can't leave unfun specs untouched for entire expansions, and they just generally need to be more open to responding to player feedback with timely changes.

On the story side, again, I think the individual zone and continent stories were pretty great. It was the War Campaign that, frankly, sucked. They really need to make sure the overarching story ties together and make sense, they need key players to be directly involved with the player. Legion had a pretty damn solid story arc, characters had consistent motivation, there were good surprises, and there was a lot of stuff to make you feel personally invested.

BFA got to a point where it started feeling like we weren't even really involved in the main story -- that everything important was happening behind closed doors, in secret. And don't get me started on the whole moral ambiguity thing, which got the whole story off on a bad foot. Nuance is not their strong suit, and they really ought to recognize that and play to their strengths: iconic characters and cool moments.

[Kuja]

I enjoyed warmode very much. But only when leveling. Too inbalanced to have on afterwards.

New auction house seems PogChamp as well, but haven't had the chance to try it yet.

[Lilija]

I can't think of any positives that BfA did better than the previous expansions. Everything felt like a downgrade.

I have very similar feeling. I feel like playing a beta all the time. This expansion I've made the longest breaks from the game ever.

P.S. I guess I could point at warmode.

[Sharpbladez]

Give me a few days and maybe Ill think of something.

[kieraTM]

I thought that the art and music team did a fantastic job. Kul'Tiras is absolutely beautiful. Drustvar in particular was my favourite. They really excelled themselves there.