Shadowlands is the "players were right" expansion.

[Chromell]

finally! someone with my opinion

I remember the dungeons being hard when we started the expansion! I remember it clearly.
Well...not very hard...but still a decent challenge

I remember clearly a (badly geared?) friend tank being one shotted by a spider "backstab ability"
Cant remember much else.

Ofcourse mid expansion they were an absolute joke.

WotLK had few dangerous mechanics overall in dungeons, like that % damage dealing ability from caster spiders in Ahn'kahet that would almost one-shot players that weren't topped. Also, I recall HoR and PoS being hard when launched, FoS, not so much. I actually really enjoyed Cata with the harder heroics, while they lasted. Except Ozruk, fuck that boss.

[DemonDays]

People who complain when game developers experiment and try to improve their product don't deserve to be members of the community. Titan-forging isn't Blizzard spitting in your eye, PvP vendors aren't Blizzard slapping you in the face. If you like or love a game that you play, you shouldn't hate the people making it and you shouldn't hate the people that enjoy it.

When I see posts like this, I can only imagine that it isn't really Blizzard and Ion that you hate here -- it's yourself.

PvP Vendors aren't spitting in your face?

How about when Ion, lead designer of the game; claimed that the reason they removed PvP vendors was because "people had trouble finding them". Is that spitting in the players face? Because to me that sounds like he thinks players are incredibly dumb monkeys.

Why now have they re-implemented PvP Vendors and in the blog post even poked fun at the above statement? Basically saying they were wrong.

[Dismayxz]

They've backflipped on almost all their egregious design choices.

Almost everything every level headed person has been saying is wrong with the game is getting fixed in Shadowlands. It's almost like Ion and his legion of fanboys were wrong the whole time.

Let loot be loot.
Vendors and currencies back for PvP.
No titanforging or shitty RNG system of any kind.
Un-pruning classes.
Craftable legendaries.
Making professions matter again.
Less loot will drop making loot more meaningful - no more vendoring thousands of epics every expansion.
Potential return of class themed sets.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. ("Please stop leaving our game, you were right.")


I mean there is still some shit things like we don't know much about Anima Power(AP) and the Covenant abilities can NEVER be balanced(Blizzard is dogshit at balancing).

At this point though it turns out the Blizz Defenders were wrong. It's too early to celebrate but from a pessimist at least they're saying all the right things. Ion is a pathological liar though so only time will tell.

Let loot be loot. = What carrot are we chasing then? Get item, loot progression on the slot done. Personally, not a big deal for me. "Farming the raid is useless now, mimimi." Small example, still valid.

Vendors and currencies back for PvP. = Yeah, people had a point there imo. Nothing to say against from from my perspective.

No titanforging or shitty RNG system. = Yeah, fuck corruption and TF. As somebody who cares about the parse competition once Progress is over, all fine by me, less RNG on top of all the other shit that goes into a good parse outside of personal performance. But again. "What's the point of doing M+ in a bubble now?" "What's the point of farming raid?"

Un-pruning classes. = Sure, same thing. I have no qualms with it, I am 'happy' it's happening. Meanwhile on the warrior side of things: "Why does Fury get Slam back?" "Why does Prot have Execute and Whirlwind?". Unpruning doesn't do jackshit when half the buttons being unpruned and streamlined are useless for your specc by nature of specc mechanics.

Craftable Legendaries. = Again, nothing wrong with that. Same goes for professions, to cut it down a little.

Less Loot will make loot more meaningful. = Yeah. And when that *Insert Coral or version of whatever item you desperately need for BiS* doesnt't drop again on run 50 because they reduced the overall drop amount AND you're at the mercy of you or another raid member getting said item from their personal loot pool you have another reason to be salty again.

Potential return of class themed sets. = Cool.

Point being?
It's late honestly and I don't wanna make a big wall of text because the usual forum whiner doesn't get how it works, but a lot of the changes to the core Gameplay ultimately (as they always do) come with positives and negatives. People will bitch and whine again, no fucking question. It won't be you or 'Ion opposers' this time around, maybe, instead it will be the other way around. And then a year or two or three down the line when everything changes again you'll be sitting here again making posts about how shit the game is and how you were "right all along", while the World (of Warcraft) just keeps turning.

Titanforging and Corruption were bad because Blizzard didn't respond. The systems would've been far less annoying if they just added a single form of counterbalance to them. Literally the same thing they are planning on adding to the M+/PvP consolidated weekly chest. A guaranteed choice you can work towards. Outside of the looks hooked to Tier Sets, Legendaries can virtually fill the same roll. Or you just don't need legendaries and bring Tier back. It's ultimately all the same impact under the hood mechanically and numerically, if anything, adding more factors to the sheet is just going to make it a tuning nightmare. On which I agree, Blizzard is notoriously bad at properly balancing, albeit also not as bad as people usually make it sound like on the forums.

As for Anima Power? It's like Valor, weekly capped, as per the information given during Blizzcon. We know what their plans for it are, hence there will be 'no new AP system - Ion Hazzikostas".

[DemonDays]

If it was "players were right" expansion they would re-release Legion. Maybe with some legendary items drop fixes but that would be pretty much that.

We will see - there are craftable Legendaries in Shadowlands. Guaranteeing you can pretty much target and work towards the one you want.

[Nerovar]

I can agree to that. And in the end it is all about keeping as many ppl playing as possible. So at the moment the approach seems to be to lessen on the RNG of loot. Let's see how that works out and when we will get the first threads how unexciting and boring that is and maybe two years down the lines a "we heard you loud and clear".

There is more to discuss...but now I am just tired.

I think at this point most "regular" WoW players will probably stay pretty much no matter what Blizzard does in regards to itemization, class design etc. because people who aren't super focused on high end content and performance usually care less about these kinds of things anyway. The actual people who (from my experience) quit the game over these sorts of complaints are of the more engaged, competetive type. That's why I also think there's merit to listening to "professional" players in regards to designing these systems as these are the players who usually drive a lot of the engagement outside of WoW through videos, streams etc. and are usually what semi-competetive players aspire to be. They also tend to have more insight when it comes to how the mechanics of the game work and how certain things can have an effect on game balance.

My original point was more about class design and unpruning in particular though. Blizzard have echoed a lot of player concerns over pruning and class identity but so far (at least for the classes I play) the "great unpruning" has been pretty negligible and the implementation is very lackluster (which very well might be due to it still being alpha).

[Aucald]

You've spent the past 2 years defending this abomination of an expansion and the developers. You and countless others.

Now Ion himself is admitting his failure and a renewed dedication to listening to feedback and actually implementing things players have asked for and now you're all in agreeance suddenly? Hilarious indeed.

A proven recipe for failure indeed. MMO Champ delivers again.

No, I have not - I've been critical of quite a few things as concerns WoW, none moreso than BfA overall. I can't speak for "countless others" but I certainly can for myself. Do I think BfA has been 100% abysmal with no redeeming qualities whatsoever? No, I don't. But the overall quality of both the lore and gameplay have been shoddy, and it has been WoW's worst offering in a general sense since WoD.

And as I said above, I am glad that Ion and the other developers have 180'd on their previous stance and admitted their mistakes, pledging to go the other direction in Shadowlands. That's a good thing, and I'm not going to criticize them for doing it, either. Salt for salt's sake doesn't help anyone - it doesn't help you, or me, or WoW. That's what I think the community's real problem is, in a general sense. We put ourselves in a sunken place where we don't allow the developers to ever do right by WoW again, all because we've been burned before. I get it, but I also stand against it - it's a feedback loop of negativity, and it not only prevents you from offering constructive criticism it also makes it so that you can't enjoy the game even if it is by chance an objectively fun experience.

That, to put it succinctly, is what I am speaking against.

[Belloc]

PvP Vendors aren't spitting in your face?

How about when Ion, lead designer of the game; claimed that the reason they removed PvP vendors was because "people had trouble finding them". Is that spitting in the players face? Because to me that sounds like he thinks players are incredibly dumb monkeys.

Why now have they re-implemented PvP Vendors and in the blog post even poked fun at the above statement? Basically saying they were wrong.

It's Blizzard's duty to act upon the data that they receive from players. If the data says that players can't find something, then that merits experimenting with an alternate solution. That solution failed and they are reverting it. How are you seeing any of these as bad things?

I don't know how social you are in-game, but there are a lot of us that are, essentially, incredibly dumb monkeys. Every game has them. Developers have always designed around the challenges posed by these players. Are you really going to take this so personally?

[Dismayxz]

We will see - there are craftable Legendaries in Shadowlands. Guaranteeing you can pretty much target and work towards the one you want.

That's.. literally what they said it'd be. Do you read the information they put out there?

[DemonDays]

You say wowhead is better, then claim these forums are a cesspool. The only thing "better" (I use that term extremely loosely because they are far from better imo, something you obviously don't care about if it differs from your own) about wowheads forums are they are filled with people like you, making it a far worse cesspool than these forums.

Lmfao. Wowhead is even more pro Blizzard than the mods on these forums. They regularly clean the comments section under articles.

PS - Read. I said wowhead is better AT DATA-MINING.

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I've been content with a lot of bfa, happy with *some* of the changes for SL and unhappy with others.

What I find interesting is how the people with hardons for hating everything bfa cant understand that some people are ok with some of the systems/content in this "piece of shit" expansion, and insist on calling anyone who does like anything from this "piece of shit" expansion fanboys. Its like no one is allowed to enjoy something if you don't enjoy it. Its fucking mind-boggling.

You're allowed to enjoy mediocrity. No one said you weren't.

I'm specifically talking about the people(there are many on this forum) who repeatedly defend and champion systems and design choices that were literally designed to fuck players over.

You're clearly not one of them. You just enjoy mediocrity and/or enjoy dumbed down class design and heavy casino gameplay.

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I mean the way you speak alone you are no better than any so called fanboy. Personally i will wait and see how it turns out, there is no point speculating now what is going to happen. But the right play is to constantly try to make better systems that work for every part of the game, not return to classic, because we already have that.

When did anyone say or claim we are returning to Classic? What.

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Its a good thing we have you, random forum guy #236831, to let us know how the WoW devs really feel.

And its a good thing we have people like you to pull random %'s out of your ass to (not) bolster your argument.

So sorry indeed.

I mean if you just read or watched some interviews you wouldn't need me to tell you. But okay. Carry on living in denial.

[Belloc]

OP: You seem to see this issue as a battle between the people who didn't like the direction the game was going (you) and the people that blindly supported Ion.

You've spent the past 2 years defending this abomination of an expansion and the developers. You and countless others.

Do you really not see how disgusting of an attitude this is? As if it is despicable that someone might actually enjoy the game as it is? As if the game is utter shit and the developers are lower than dirt. Seriously, your attitude is exactly what is wrong with the community.

You don't have to like the game. You don't have to like the changes. You don't have to like any of this and you can provide feedback about it all you want... but this isn't my problem. It's not the forum's problem. It's not anyone's problem except for your own!

This isn't a competition. Rubbing your dog's nose in shit doesn't work and neither does rubbing the community's nose. Fix your fucking attitude.

[Dismayxz]

Lmfao. Wowhead is even more pro Blizzard than the mods on these forums. They regularly clean the comments section under articles.

PS - Read. I said wowhead is better AT DATA-MINING.

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You're allowed to enjoy mediocrity. No one said you weren't.

I'm specifically talking about the people(there are many on this forum) who repeatedly defend and champion systems and design choices that were literally designed to fuck players over.

You're clearly not one of them. You just enjoy mediocrity and/or enjoy dumbed down class design and heavy casino gameplay.

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When did anyone say or claim we are returning to Classic? What.

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I mean if you just read or watched some interviews you wouldn't need me to tell you. But okay. Carry on living in denial.

If you did the same, you wouldn't have to be told that half the shit you're still 'holding your breath' for is already confirmed to be gone or changed to what you very likely want it to be. Yet you're the one claiming Mirishka is in denial. ???

[DemonDays]

It's Blizzard's duty to act upon the data that they receive from players. If the data says that players can't find something, then that merits experimenting with an alternate solution. That solution failed and they are reverting it. How are you seeing any of these as bad things?

I don't know how social you are in-game, but there are a lot of us that are, essentially, incredibly dumb monkeys. Every game has them. Developers have always designed around the challenges posed by these players. Are you really going to take this so personally?

They introduced heavy ridiculous Diablo 3 RNG into the game in Legion. They needed everything to be RNG. So they removed PvP vendors. Couldn't have people getting deterministic loot from any source could they? It all needed to be RNG.

That is literally the ONLY reason the change was done. It wasn't an experiment. It was the developers developing a game for metrics. Not players.


Are you going to sit there and tell me that there is a single player that enjoys getting either an RNG piece of loot or a predetermined one from filling a conquest bar over getting to select the piece they want off a vendor?


Man it must be so hard to be a developer. If only there was some way you could develop a way to point players who have earned enough conquest for a piece of gear towards a vendor. Maybe by giving them an auto accepting quest(they're good at this) to point them towards said vendor.

Man that sounds hard.

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That's.. literally what they said it'd be. Do you read the information they put out there?

That's.... Literally what I just said. Can you read?

[Demithio]

They've backflipped on almost all their egregious design choices.

Almost everything every level headed person has been saying is wrong with the game is getting fixed in Shadowlands. It's almost like Ion and his legion of fanboys were wrong the whole time.

Let loot be loot.
Vendors and currencies back for PvP.
No titanforging or shitty RNG system of any kind.
Un-pruning classes.
Craftable legendaries.
Making professions matter again.
Less loot will drop making loot more meaningful - no more vendoring thousands of epics every expansion.
Potential return of class themed sets.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. ("Please stop leaving our game, you were right.")


I mean there is still some shit things like we don't know much about Anima Power(AP) and the Covenant abilities can NEVER be balanced(Blizzard is dogshit at balancing).

At this point though it turns out the Blizz Defenders were wrong. It's too early to celebrate but from a pessimist at least they're saying all the right things. Ion is a pathological liar though so only time will tell.

It will be the same quagmire within a few months in. The same pattern will happen all over again, until the next "great WoW expansion" starts getting leaked / advertised etc. WoW is on minimal back burner development, thats not going to change. Some people just cant seem to come to grips with that fact. Where have we heard all these great promises before x1000? Everyone should be very leery of believing anything that comes out of Blizzard's collective mouth.

[Tiwack]

The best part about trying out new things is when you fail, you get to sell back the old you're returning to as new features.
Take chances, make mistakes, get messy, alright.

[DemonDays]

It will be the same quagmire within a few months in. The same pattern will happen all over again, until the next "great WoW expansion" starts getting leaked / advertised etc. WoW is on minimal back burner development, thats not going to change. Some people just cant seem to come to grips with that fact. Where have we heard all these great promises before x1000? I would be very leery of believing anything that comes out of Blizzard's collective mouth.

I am. Trust me.

As I said - they're saying all the right things. But they've said them all before haven't they?

We just need to keep an eye on the Beta. For now it looks "promising".

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The best part about trying out new things is when you fail, you get to sell back the old you're returning to as new features.
Take chances, make mistakes, get messy, alright.

The best part about trying to force egregious design upon players to increase metrics is that you get to sell back the old, better design you're returning as new features.

FTFY.

[Demithio]

I am. Trust me.

As I said - they're saying all the right things. But they've said them all before haven't they?

We just need to keep an eye on the Beta. For now it looks "promising".

That's the point, and at what point do people finally stop buying the BS after the nth millionth time? They continuously market each new expansion with "it will change everything!". And then after it turns out to be obvious lies... err... I mean marketing.. and flops, they rinse / repeat with the same horseshit all over ad nauseam.

[DemonDays]

That's the point, and at what point do people finally stop buying the BS after the nth millionth time? They continuously market each new expansion with "it will change everything!". And then after it turns out to be obvious lies... err... I mean marketing.. and flops, they rinse / repeat with the same horseshit all over ad nauseam.

Not really.

BfA was dogshit from start to finish. They completely ignored every single piece of feedback.

Allied Races were weak re-skins. Azerite Armour was trash. I could go on and on but BfA never looked promising. It was bad and players knew it was bad. People gave feedback it was bad - all feedback was ignored.

[Highelf]

Should this expansion turn out to work and the design decisions are validated, Blizzard needs to do one thing for 10.0.

Nothing. Constant iteration has heavily damage this game as they strive to reinvent it with every expansion. If Shadowlands is the working formula, STOP ITERATING. Just create new content, new quests, new zones, new stories. If 10.0 is the same game as 9.0, what of it if 9.0 was a wild success?

If that requires a new roguelike dungeon for Torghast, just do another one. If crafting our own legendaries is a brilliant system, just do that again.

No need to continually reinvent the wheel which each expansion because there's 50/50 chance doing so will make the next expansion suck.

And just what are you doing out of your High Elf orgy basement?

[Chromell]

Is Cata or Legion being the best expansion popular? Funnily MoP kinda fights MoP AFAIK for the most popular x-pac. But yeah..I expect BfA, Cata and WoD to stay in the lower third for(ever)? Then it gets debatable for the next third. Top third usually includes WotLK, MoP and TBC (but AFAIK Legion tries to edge in...lately Vanilla not so much) - but maybe we need a new poll to settle that as a snapshot of April 2020

Can't say, my favorite expansion is MoP for a myriad of reasons. To name a few: favorite raid (ToT), awesome theme, great soundtrack (though in the music department, Blizz never fails to deliver), and the expansion which I enjoyed the most (I guess this is what matters more when judging an expansion, no?). WotLK holds a 2nd place for me, given it is the expansion where I started, so the game and the world still felt big and mysterious and everything new was mesmerizing. We can judge expansions by metrics or technical criteria, but to me, in the end, what matters most is what players enjoyed above all else over the life of WoW, and that will include different experiences from person to person.

[Cainium]

At this point though it turns out the Blizz Defenders were wrong. It's too early to celebrate but from a pessimist at least they're saying all the right things. Ion is a pathological liar though so only time will tell.

Distinction between Cleave and AoE: Hate
More Profession Materials and Cross-Profession-Crafting: A lot of hate (called it "unnessecary bloat").
Unpruning in almost all class feedback threads: Why do I have this spell? It doesnt do anything for my specialisation.
Let loot be loot: People will cry again that their BiS-items never drop, that they have to compete with other classes about them, or that stats are so badly balanced that a 15 itemlevel upgrade still isn't worth it.
Craftable legendaries: This will be the new major grind of Shadowlands. Probably locked behind rare materials which will require a lot of farming or locked behing a timegate. Then, if someone crafted the "wrong" legendary, they will complain that they will have to grind a month more to get the "right" one.

I don't want to say that these things are bad. I like most of these changes. But they aren't the holy grail to solve "everything". There is a ton of work that still needs to be done to make these changes fit into an "Everyones-WoW".

My question is: What could they do different if they wanted too? BfA was a desaster. Despite some people liked some of it's "major features" almost everything failed hard at their release and required major adjustments.

They basically copied the easy-to-implement things from Classic so far. Either it's a VERY early development phase OR that's everything they gonna do. I fear that it's the latter.

From the druid class feedback:

Astral spells getting double benefit in CA is currently intended. We’ll have to see if the mastery double-dip is too much.

This is NOT well thought through. Either it's rushed design or rushed development. And I see a lot more potential cases for this. With BfA they had very good reasoning for how they did things but implemented them very poorly. With Shadowlands I have a feeling they just doing it how "the community wants it to be" without much care for the outcome. We might see a bad implementation with good intentions compete with a bad implementation without any intentions. The latter is worse.