9.1 seems that it won't be able to convince my M+ team to come back nor half the raid members of our Mythic Raiding Team, so it's back to the recruiting board.
because they dont wanna be wrong
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i mean if players are complaining about korthia being a required grind then they are just wrong
the only downside of the patch for me is the garbage recrafting of legendaries
because nothing says "meaningful choice" more than them screwing it up because they dont wanna do tier sets
Slightly less instanced bosses, signifant less story (looks like it's pattern, 7.1 and 8.1 had much more story than X.2/X.3 patches as well). Of course 8.2 had zones and a lot more sandbox content like kill this rare, do that event.
Imo talent of art team was wasted for many X.2 and X.3 patches when they have so little story. I don't see big difference between farming rare in Nazjatar and revamped Uldum.
One raid with an aesthetic that people are tired of and still no class sets (and no new sets really, since they're just the legendary skins).
A final boss with a story outcome most people will probably hate.
A small subzone carrying forward an aesthetic people are tired of, with zero creativity or novel ideas and a bunch of bear / horse reskins (YAWN).
A dungeon that is dead on arrival for most players and will be run once or twice max.
A convoluted new system that nobody asked for in the form of Domination gems, which add zero depth to any specs and are just boring passives, plus don't seem to have been tested very well seeing all the problems that are arising.
More focus on the e-sport mindset that has plagued this game for over a decade now (raider io system).
Torghast changes that address 0 of the problems.
And...that's it. Yes, you could argue 9.1 is the biggest .1 patch of all time - but you cannot tell me that this is great content or that it's going to stem the major bleeding and negative press that WoW is experiencing right now. Wow, great, you can fly in the 9.0 zones, boy I love that I can now do a WQ in 5 minutes instead of 10 (still can't fly between zones). M+? Enjoy grinding the exact same dungeons with the exact same loot with the exact same vault nonsense and a reskinned mount reward - but you get a teleport this time!
This patch is extremely phoned in - the fact that Sylvanas's mythic mount model is yet another reskin just shows how uninspired Blizz is.
Last edited by infinitemeridian; 2021-06-24 at 12:30 PM.
As someone who hasn't been subbed for 2 months, I have the rare ability to look at Shadowlands from a outside perspective.
Perusing YouTube, I'm seeing everyone pile on the hate bandwagon of having to re-farm legendary escape if you get a piece of gear in that same slot, that happens to contain a domination socket.
People actively playing are complaining about the gri d itself rather than the gameplay loop involving the grind. Torghast is the main culprit here and not the concept of the grind itself.
People who still like and play Shadowlands keep attacking the symptoms rather than the disease at the root, which is that SL is awful at its core conceptualization.
Addicts will disagree.
The raid uses a variation of the Torghast aesthetic for some parts, but mostly in entirely new ways. Players are not triggered by metallic grays, but rather by monotonous hallways. The raid is unique with interesting bosses. The fact that the walls look vaguely similar to a different form of instanced content is the most pathetic complaint I have heard.
It's a story outcome many will hate, but it is a boss players are looking forward to defeating in a boss fight that looks suitably climactic. At worst the story is laughably bad with players curious to see how it fucks up next.
Korthia looks different enough from the Maw. Besides, most people are tired of the Maw mechanics, not necessarily how it looks. And the mechanics of the Maw are set to change almost right after starting the new patch.
A dungeon that provides new content for M+, and additionally has stuff to be farmed like mounts and transmog.
Domination gems that add spice to gearing that players think is boring, with the worst casualty being having to farm a bit more Soul Cinders to make a new legendary.
In-game raider io, removing the power of an add-on and placing players on a more even playing field when the community already damaged itself.
Torghast changes that changes stuff and adds tangible rewards in the form of transmog and more mounts. Additionally a talent system that has been proven good in the past and which addresses problems in the initial version.
Nothing will stem the bad press from WoW, because the community has gotten so used to complaining that it can no longer effectively agree on even basic questions like whether to have more or less open world content since any change in either direction is taken as effective proof of WoW being dead.
Also, Sylvanas' mythic drop mount being a reskin? It's a high definition mount that is entirely thematic to her character and which has not been used for a new mount in years. The last one added of this type of mount was in WoD as a reward for timewalking. That was over 5 years ago.
The world revamp dream will never die!
I'm sure the raid will be fine - they've been on rails for years now. Variations on the Torghast / Maw theme is not going to make you love the aesthetic if you're already tired of it.
Similar to the raid, it's still very Maw-esque in terms of aesthetics, even if it's a variation. I personally think no matter how you slice it, the zone is boring and ugly. Patch zones have never been that great looking though, so par for the course. Still doesn't help that the zone mechanics aren't that interesting or creative - world content has never been Blizz's strong suit and I guess they need to do an expansion to address that.
You have to wait for 9.2 or possibly 9.1.5 to do it on M+. Sure, maybe transmog, but when you get like 5 different reskins of the disc mount, it cheapens it and will probably have people not care all that much.
I personally don't care that much about the legendary issue, but it goes to show how little foresight Blizz has with these systems (which they told us they wouldn't add any more during the patch content, yet here we are). Everything seems so ad-hoc and not given much attention. The system is boring, I don't see how it "add[s] spice". The gems are just damage bonuses, nothing is spec / class specific, none of it changes how you play. It's a fire and forget system that has some negative consequences for players. Nobody asked for this system.
The solution is to gear the game away from the go go go e-sport mindset that Blizz has fostered for years and now is apparently doubling down on.
It still doesn't address that Torghast is a boring slog, there's not enough anima powers still, and the ones you get aren't that interesting. The talent system is fine, but it should have been there at launch and really just makes it less annoying to do, not more fun. And oh boy, more mount reskins and pets most people don't care about. The transmog is cool though, but wish there was more of it.
Nothing can stop the bad press because this expansion is extremely phoned in and uninspired. Blizz clearly has no vision of what they want the game or where it should go, and they're just throwing darts at the wall hoping something sticks. After a terrible expansion, they needed to knock it out of the park and SL has been milquetoast at best.
It's a reskin of the dragonhawk / ray models we got in Nazj / Argus. Same skeleton, new textures / 3d stuff = reskin still. It's an ugly mount that probably will come with the same problems those mounts have, where you're player sits at an angle where they look like they're falling off and stare at the sky.
I don't mind that the new raid reuses the legendary armor sets. I just wish they'd taken the development weight they lost by not having to design entirely new sets to give them some improvements.
It's not tho.It's an ugly mount
I like it, and i imagine a lot of others do too.
You personally not liking it isn't an argument, and the mount being a dragonhawk isn't an indication of anything whatso-fucking-ever.
Formerly known as Arafal
What does this even mean? It's a .2 patch disguised as a .1 patch and it should be rated as such. And as a .2 patch it's not even one of the biggest ones, it's just a decently sized content patch, nothing more or less. Both 7.2 and 8.2 had more going for them than 9.1.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
.1 patches are usually rather small and don't offer a lot of new stuff. They do not contain new zones or catch up gear, .2 patches usually contain that stuff. Guess what, this time the .1 patch contains both of that. I'm calling 9.1 a .2 patch because it's exactly that when it comes to gameplay and content.
And yes, I absolutely do not expect a 9.3 as this would delay the next expansion at least until Q2/23, which is absurd to think of.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Honestly, I don't think Korthia is a marvel of game development.
No. It’s a .1 patch.
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Legion had (arguably) a bigger .1 tbh. And it doesn’t even have a new zone.
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That just means 9.1 has the stuff of a .2 patch. Does mean it is a .2 patch.
:/
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People really love to use half-baked logic huh?
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.