Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Osmeric]

So are we really using BFA as a positive example? Ughh.

Yes, BfA is actually a positive example, compared to SL. SL is just that bad, if we are to judge by the unprecendented apparent groundswell of negative reaction. The devs had a low bar to meet and couldn't even.

[OMGTwitchTV]

That's basically how it works .. same way if someone is not as good as you, they are a noob and if they are better they have no life.

People who forcefully use labels are simply walking ad hominems. They have no solid argument and feel the only way they can build up their own opinion is to tear down others publicly and cover their trail by attempting to spout opinions as facts. Of everything wrong with the game, it's people like him who can't simply address the topic but also have to insult the player. I guess that is why Shadowlands is so popular for me. I'm not seeing the negativity in the game that I saw with WoD and BfA, and people like him are unsubbing and running here to bitch about it.

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I actually enjoyed Legion PVP because of the gear scaling. But yeah, I'd rather see people reference Legion more as a good example and not BFA. People have short memories if they're forgetting how bad it was.

Edit: or at least, because fun is subjective, link a post they made in BFA that shows they said they enjoyed it lol. Otherwise it just sounds like complaining about change "new thing isnt as good as old thing"

BfA had potential with sprawling zones, new allied races, and quirky accents; however, I am in agreement that Legion (even though I hate everything about the invasion as it happened in 3 different expacs) was a much better expansion and more well rounded in terms of things to do, places to see, and large scale raiding. For me, Tomb of Sargeras was on par with scale and bosses for something like Ulduar, even though nothing will likely ever dethrone Ulduar in my world.

[Elkas]

I really don't understand how people can say that SL is just as bad as BFA. I fucking loathed everything about BFA, SL simply takes too long for the next content patch to land.

I hated BFA more each day I played it, I don't have that with SL.

[Wangming]

I really don't understand how people can say that SL is just as bad as BFA. I fucking loathed everything about BFA, SL simply takes too long for the next content patch to land.

That makes two of us. I guess it depends on how your specific favorite piece of content works in both expansions. The overall plot is even worse and 9.1 is still not on the PTR but on the other hand the leveling changes, the ability unpruning and the new character creator options are most welcome.

[callipygoustp]

I haven't actively stopped playing.... yet. But my play time has dropped, some weeks, to single digit hours worth. I do, usually , clear H.CN and do a couple of M+ but that's about it. The travel time, in particular, just kills my desire to play; and no, that's not a "I want flying" comment.

One of the few that liked, and misses, both BFA and Legion.

[Marxman]

I really don't understand how people can say that SL is just as bad as BFA. I fucking loathed everything about BFA, SL simply takes too long for the next content patch to land.

I hated BFA more each day I played it, I don't have that with SL.

Yeah, I just don't see how anyone but an *ultra* casual could possibly think SL is as bad as BfA. Don't get me wrong, I unsubbed early on during both expansions, so I don't think SL is good, but BfA is a dumpster fire the likes of which the game has never seen, and hopefully will never see again.

If you do any sort of actual content, be it casual BGs, M+, raiding, or arenas, SL is better pretty much across the board than BfA. It's only when you get into the turbo casual, "I log in and do WQs for 20 mins each day" crowd that I could understand disliking SL more than BfA. SL world content is truly dogshit in every sense.

[Elkas]

I agree that world content is dogshit in SL, but it's been dogshit for a long time. The only difference to me is that this time, it's not forced on you every day.

[Marxman]

I agree that world content is dogshit in SL, but it's been dogshit for a long time. The only difference to me is that this time, it's not forced on you every day.

I agree, but I imagine there's a not insignificant crowd that *only* does world content, and for them, this version is worse.

I'm not saying I think Blizzard should encourage that style of gameplay. It's an MMO, group content should be encouraged.

[Bee76]

In all honesty, without trying to troll anyone, I honestly believe BFA was a better expansion than shadowlands simply because it offered more ways to gear up your characters if you didn't have a dedicated group of people to play with. Five mask visions for example were a great way for casuals to gear up. Granted, we're still in the early stages of this xpack so things can still change. But right now if you don't have a dedicated group you're basically just screwed.

My favorite expansions was Legion though, which I believe was the pinnacle of wow's game design. It was nigh perfect (or as perfect as this game can be, not actually perfect) in all it's aspects excluding pvp.

Well, i would take back bfa asap.

I used to sub for 6 month, everytime. Now my sub runs out. SL is terrible. Timegating, broken balance. Great Vault lottery, the player is substracted from gearing up. Al you can do is fill your great vault lottery if you are not into pvp.
Torghast = pointless, boring, unbalanced and unrewarding
Maw = see above

The Story is low aswell. I mean i dont care about those covenants and their fate. Im a proud horde member, but wrynns death in legion was way harder for me. The jailer doenst feel like a villain, more like an evil looking muppet....dunno. and all you can do in endgame is farming cosmetics if you are into dressing virtual barbie dolls....

so, yes i totally agree with you. pls legion 2.0 or at least bring bfa back blizz. sl is fail

[ro9ue]

That makes two of us. I guess it depends on how your specific favorite piece of content works in both expansions. The overall plot is even worse and 9.1 is still not on the PTR but on the other hand the leveling changes, the ability unpruning and the new character creator options are most welcome.

I think that's precisely it. Certain pieces of the game are more important to different types of players. If you like PVP for example, SL is a clear winner. If you prefer story and lore, BFA probably wins out. And I think if you're a casual player, BFA wins as well. Covenants have issues but I prefer Soulbinds and Conduits much more than Magni and the Heart of Azeroth / Azerite system. However, the anima currency is way too restrictive overall and kinda hurts Covenants so in that way it's worse than Azerite in terms of distribution.

Yeah it's kind of a nuanced thing, but at the end of the day I still consider both BFA and SL less than ideal.

[Wangming]

I think that's precisely it. Certain pieces of the game are more important to different types of players. If you like PVP for example, SL is a clear winner. If you prefer story and lore, BFA probably wins out. And I think if you're a casual player, BFA wins as well. Covenants have issues but I prefer Soulbinds and Conduits much more than Magni and the Heart of Azeroth / Azerite system. However, the anima currency is way too restrictive overall and kinda hurts Covenants so in that way it's worse than Azerite in terms of distribution.

Yeah it's kind of a nuanced thing, but at the end of the day I still consider both BFA and SL less than ideal.

Yeah well obviously it is a choice between shit and crap so even the winner is a massive failure. Hard to imagine BfA as winning in the story department, but what SL did to the Lich King's story is mind blowingly dumb. Also I'm still not sure why we should care about the Jailer or whatever he wants to do. Hell I don't really care about those we had to rescue. Thrall, Bane, Jaine and Anduin? I'm sure things are much more interesting in Azeroth now that they are out of the picture.

[Cosmic Janitor]

That makes two of us. I guess it depends on how your specific favorite piece of content works in both expansions. The overall plot is even worse and 9.1 is still not on the PTR but on the other hand the leveling changes, the ability unpruning and the new character creator options are most welcome.

I'm not sure I would call the overall plot worse. At least we didn't casually commit genocide after starting a completely nonsensical war over a miracle mineral that had nothing to do with the target of the genocide, and everyone was somehow okay with it for no reason, only to forget about it for most of the expansion to fight off hentai monsters. Yet, anyway.

While the premise of shadowlands is a writing failure on the level of time traveling mecha-nazi orcs, completely demystifying the concept of death, the plot has really only one gaping hole and that is the forced covenant choice, because the dipshit in charge really wanted there to be this faux choice to justify his sYsTeMs. Technically even BfA itself was't that illogical once you ignore the starting point and only look at the first chapter of the expansion. We try to gather allies, because we need a new fleet and we can't be arsed to build one, while we fight other side to not get theirs first, not much room for error there. The way to achieve this is showing off to the respective faction while sabotaging the other faction .. okay we still had the whole dying planet thing going on and all that (which is why I'd argue it's worse than SL), but at the end of the day it's on the same level as the covenant choice; it's only there because the dipshit in charge really wanted us to use his sYsTeMs. At least in SL you don't have to pretend to be a complete rube all the time so the plot can actually happen.

I mean it can still change, but so far we haven't seen anything like following Nathanos willingly into a trap that might as well have been sucide (for us and him) or giving Sylvanas known eldritch artefacts, because surely nothing bad will happen..

[Wangming]

I'm not sure I would call the overall plot worse. At least we didn't casually commit genocide after starting a completely nonsensical war over a miracle mineral that had nothing to do with the target of the genocide, and everyone was somehow okay with it for no reason, only to forget about it for most of the expansion to fight off hentai monsters. Yet, anyway.

While the premise of shadowlands is a writing failure on the level of time traveling mecha-nazi orcs, completely demystifying the concept of death, the plot has really only one gaping hole and that is the forced covenant choice, because the dipshit in charge really wanted there to be this faux choice to justify his sYsTeMs. Technically even BfA itself was't that illogical once you ignore the starting point and only look at the first chapter of the expansion. We try to gather allies, because we need a new fleet and we can't be arsed to build one, while we fight other side to not get theirs first, not much room for error there. The way to achieve this is showing off to the respective faction while sabotaging the other faction .. okay we still had the whole dying planet thing going on and all that (which is why I'd argue it's worse than SL), but at the end of the day it's on the same level as the covenant choice; it's only there because the dipshit in charge really wanted us to use his sYsTeMs. At least in SL you don't have to pretend to be a complete rube all the time so the plot can actually happen.

I mean it can still change, but so far we haven't seen anything like following Nathanos willingly into a trap that might as well have been sucide (for us and him) or giving Sylvanas known eldritch artefacts, because surely nothing bad will happen..

True. But on the other hand all the retcons about the Lich Kings are just.....ehhh. Where do I even start?

[Soon-TM]

I mean it can still change, but so far we haven't seen anything like following Nathanos willingly into a trap that might as well have been sucide (for us and him) or giving Sylvanas known eldritch artefacts, because surely nothing bad will happen..

Yeah, the part where my fluffy, goody goody Panda shammy was forced to give Sylvanas a powerful relic was one of the many facepalm-worthy moments of BfA's story. I mean, Sylv is a totally trustworthy gal, why wouldn't I entrust her with an Old God artifact?

[Marxman]

What i manage to learn from myself after getting Shadowlands (My sister gave it to me as a Birthday present, she didn't knew i stop playing WoW), is that Shadowlands = BFA.

I don't agree with this at all. It's still modern WoW, so it still has many of the same trappings (WQs, focus on competitive/timed content, time-gating, over-reliance on "systemization"), but it's FAR less systemized, random, and frustrating than BfA was.

Shadowlands sucks for entirely different reasons imo. The content isn't very good, there isn't enough of it, and Covenants have just fallen down on the job completely. It also has a hint of that WoD-style "Do rated arena/RBGs/M+/Raiding or don't bother playing at all". I personally don't have much problem with that, but I can see how someone who plays WoW much more casually than I did would find that unacceptable.

[Wangming]

Edit 1: I can't believe, that with all the money they made from this game (since is the only game in the world that actually charges you a monthly fee), they cant make better content or introduce new things (or systems) to the game. Is Legion 3.0 again. After my monthly sub ends (that i paid with gold), i will return to ESO. I can't believe Zenimax is doing a better job than Blizzard.

I'm fairly certain Blizzard has the most funding out of all the major MMOs now. Makes it weird how shit like this happened.

[Wangming]

Yes!!!. For real, i mean....Zenimax started with ESO at 2014. And the game has created tons of new systems to the game. On the next expansion they are creating a new "Mercenary" system, that allows you to have a companion. Why blizzard can't do something like this?

Also we have Houses (+furniture collection), Armor style collections (+costumes), Set items collection (+Momentos, Mounts, Pets, Skins, Personalities, Tattoos, etc.). We only got recently Tattoos and some more racial features in WoW, that looks so few that everyone ends up using the same. Try finding two players that actually looks the same in ESO, and you won't be able to do that!.

Also, it feels like in WoW you are playing 10% of the game all the time, like the rest of the world is useless and pointless to the point that you are stuck in 1 place and it gets boring right away.

To be absolutely fair I don't know the situation of most of the games. The reason I bring up FFXIV all the time because it is my new main game so I know the situation there the most. I don't have to talk out of my arse to make a point. And there when Yoshida is asked for example about a proper glamour log he says "Yes that is among the things I would love to do if only I had WoW's funding". All he accomplished, bringing back a game from a WoD/BfA level disaster and turning it into Wrath, he did on a much smaller budget than what Blizzard is using to create....SL.

[Soon-TM]

@Wangming it would seem that SL's budget isn't as plentiful as Blizz would have us believe. After all, that sweet $200M paycheck for Kotick had to be squeezed out of somewhere... Chances are that WoW's budget wasn't spared

[Osmeric]

If you truly enjoyed BFA, then Shadowlands is for you.

I enjoyed BfA. Shadowlands wasn't for me.

[kaminaris]

If you truly enjoyed BFA, then Shadowlands is for you. Like i said before, it does not possess any new feature to keep yourself playing it. It's actually the same old boring system of World Quests + Dungeons + Raids and now this scenario called "Torghast". They made changes to the UI to look better, but that is all.

How can someone even remotely think that those expansions are similar? Like literally blizzard took U-Turn. Aside from usual has-raids, has-dungeons, has-bgs, has-arenas everything else is different, sometimes even completely opposite.