It's Shit
It's lit
They really need to remove visible gearscore/iLevel numbers. That'd solve many issues.
it would solve completely nothing since it doesn't matter if its ilvl, Raider.IO score or whatever, they are all ways the community developed to judge other players.
It doesn't matter what steps Blizzard takes, people are going to find a way to exclude you from their groups because your a scrub.
It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death
Leveling: is really quick, however that is more than offset by other systems: anima and timegating aka renown.
Covenants: add a lot of flavor to the game, however if your friends pick different ones than you then this means that you cannot do certain things with them.
The Maw: is as it is supposed to be - an unwelcome and threatening place. You do what you need to for the day and get out. Designed well for what it is meant to be.
Torghast: I liked horrific visions in BfA and thought they had designed it well. I tried Torghast once in Beta and thought it was similar and so I was looking forward to it. Then I tried it in retail and was I wrong! I made it through the first set on my mage, then couldn't make it past the second set boss. Apparently I hadn't bought the smoke canisters. Then my friend came through with me. Even worse! The difficulty ramps up quite a bit when you have more than one player. Again couldn't take down the set boss. So this is easier to do solo. (Look at the number of deaths allowed, the number goes down per player. )
It takes a long time to go through a set of floors, and since there is no real loot - apart from the odd grey item - it can be an exercise in futility.
Loot: Be prepared to run dungeons and get very little. You need to run certain dungeons for memories, I finally got mine on about my 12th run. The ilvl on loot is tied to your renown.
Soloing old raids: Nope, not fixed yet. While the mob remains a lvl 50, its health has scaled up to 60.
Final thoughts: it seems like SL has been designed around those who can run mythic raids / dungeons. Since I'm not in that group, the game has lost a lot of its fun factor.
I don't know, a bit mixed.
Maybe it is just that spec I main is dogshit but been just logging in to do missions after I got 10 m+.
I already hated WQ ever since they were introduced, now I hate them even more. Have not done a single wq calling after first week, I think I would quit if I had to. 1,5k gold in junk is not worth it.
Torghast feels torture to do with three characters. Not hard, just long and boring. Some people don't seem to understand difference between tedious and hard.
Really disheartening doing whole day m+ and getting one loot.
Or just burnout leveling too many character to 60 and trying to decide which of them to gear/keep up with renown.
Working customer support really has made me support genocides.
I'm equipping my 4th char right now.
Did m+ a lot this week, did the raid on normal.
Tried tanking, healing, dpsing.. Still it feels unsatifying and I can't even tell why.
Also every new char gets more painful because pugs are getting more and more casual and lazy with every day. Wanna go m+ without even knowing how the bosses work. If you tell them what they do wrong, they flame you, because we "just need to dps harder to ignore mechanics". (like not soaking woe and stuff like this)
This has been my favorite expansion launch period since Wrath, which was my first. I feel like I'm making meaningful character power gains without having to play constantly, which is important for me as An Ancient Being (read: old).
Also I just really love Ardenweald and I don't care who knows it :')
Overall, its pretty great. Some things stop it from being top notch like it could have been though. If you want details...
STORY
Good story stuff:
Leveling is solidly built, and very "crisp". Story is finally interesting and has mystery again. No one shouts "ghuuunnnnnn" at second nazmir quest, spoilling everything for no reason. The mythos is expanded beyond Titans, Demons, Void Lords and Old Gods.
Bad story stuff:
nothing notable thus far, i would have liked much more "hidden lore" like pandaria had scrolls with awesome side stories. Think the Maw and covenant zone had potential for lots of those. But that's not a big deal.
PvE
Good pve stuff:
-Torghast is pretty cool.
-You can pick your desired legendary and aim for it.
Pvp legendaries are never useful for pve, meaning you'll ussualy just get it doing things you like anyway.
-Gearing is slowed in comparison to bfa and legion so you dont outgear hc the first week its out, which makes it much more interesting for people not in mythic raid guilds.
-There's ton to do if you wanna, mostly covenant stuff but also the Maw and Torghast, but if you don't the only neccessary things for player power are Torghast and whatever endgame you like (m+/raiding/solo). Even renown has catchup for it that lets you practically ignore world quests.
Bad PvE stuff:
-Multi speccing is somewhat discouraged through covenants and legendaries. Its not as bad the more weeks pass, but its there, unlike Legion, WoD or MoP where the only things limiting your specc was gear that suited it and could be farmed.
-Covenants generally won't make or break a specc, but they can rarely be quite significant. In this case you have to make a choice what kind of content you want to excel at, and for many who dabble in lots of content,myself included, that's not a fun choice to make.
-As fun as Torghast is, some may not like farming it even if its once a week. Some people just don't like that kind of gameplay. If you're one of those, it can get annoying.
PvP
Good PvP Stuff
Vendors are back! praise Sargeras. If you love pvp and need more gear for it, you can finally get it from pvping rather than feeling like bgs are a waste of time. You also upgrade Conquest (rated gear) itemlevel with honor, meaning if you love bgs you always have a reason to come back. This comes with some huge caveats though...
Tragically bad PvP stuff
-There is no PVP stat. Versatility functions as one partially because pvp trinkets give it a 40% boost in pvp, but you can still find it on pve gear, which is significantly easier to aquire(though also more rng). This means PvP players who raid will have a big advantage in gearing as they'll likely luck out on several high ilvl versatility pieces. For Wrath players this might be acceptable, but ever since MoP until Legion wow moved towards a healthier "just pvp if you wanna pvp" place, and its sad to see they're still unsure about it after BFA's fuckups. And because there is no raw pvp stat that would be bad in pve, blizz has to make pvp gear hard to aquire even though its essential to compete to prevent PvE-only players from being forced to grind pvp, leading us to...
-Good PVP gear requires rating. The rating is somewhat lenient (1800 for almost best gear, 2100 for best), but if you have friends new to wow who wanna get into arena, or just medium skilled people who hate pve, tough luck because they'll have to pve first. This wasn't an issue several expansions ago and again, its sad to see devs can't seem to grasp a "pvp can be fun on its own" mindset.
-Honor gear is lackluster. It can only be upgraded to m0 ilvl, meaning from this week on its pretty useless, so as with the previous points, new people or people who wanna get into pvp are kinda forced into pve.
The pvp system this expac is better then BFA, gives you actual power for spending time in pvp, and pretty alright for people who do both pvp and pve, but it kinda sucks for people who just wanna pvp, which you used to have lots of in mop/wod times. It's just a hairs breath from being excellent, but falls short.
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Not my buisiness but on the offchance you'd appreciate the perspective, all of this things sound like problems outside the expansion itself, unless its all due to specc design. Sounds like you don't enjoy the character/game. Could be a time for some change.
Pretty much only thing I truly enjoy is raiding. Very glad that normal and heroic actually was fun now. M+ with good group is fun but with bad one it is just torture.
But you can't do only raiding, until certain point and getting to that point is.. not as fun.
But yeah, it makes you wonder if it is worth it.. Like good view top of hill but hill is covered in shit.
Been bit of a problem for several expansions tbh. "prep for raid" is very boring and raid level that does not require prep is very disappointing.
Actually cancelled my sub, couple weeks will decide whether I resub or not and If I don't, not likely coming back for expansion/until addiction jitters overwhelm after several months.
Last edited by Thokri; 2020-12-13 at 10:02 PM.
Working customer support really has made me support genocides.
Its pretty ok. I wish they rid us of the covenants (or just have one covenant) and instead focused on making these stories for everyone to enjoy.