So is Shadowlands good?

[jonatron]

For some reason blizz thinks they need weekly caps and locks to keep people subbed, while in reality people blasting trough everything usually just start leveling alts and do the same on them, for..... fun.

Now i log in on reset and woohoo i can get my weekly dose of soul ash i need to recraft a lego because it seems the spec i chose in the beginning sucks balls.

[Kasmyn]

I'm having Fun But I got a Group Of friends to play with again. Everyones mileage will vary. so...

[Stormspellz]

same old, same old. In short its BFA 2.0 with less stupid designs

[Soon-TM]

Shadowlands is the epitome of "one step forward, two steps back", compared to the utter mediocrity that was BfA. With all its flaws, I stayed subbed for 3/4 of BfA, whereas now it's been less than two months from launch and I'm already bored to tears because of the horrible story, extreme timegating, return to "raid or die", loot drought, Boreghast, etc.

[Cazze]

You are aware that justice points don't exist anymore and when I said I farmed them it was the only way to buy some of them (cata/mop)? And you somehow managed to think I'm doing this now? What? Where was timewarped badge in cata/mop please enlighten me.
Then you bring up WoD as an example of what didin't happen in that expansion. Well, a almost nothing happened in that expansion so not getting extra dungeons is not unexpected. Where's the 3rd raid tier for example? Or the outdoor content in 6.1? Where was 6.3 for that matter?

Here's a transcript of Blizzcon 2015 wher they announced mythic dungeons.
https://www.wowhead.com/news=249795/...panel-liveblog
You can also find it on youtube as Ion himself talks about it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1agHGVNWVlE It starts at 1 hour 24 mins.
"But of course if you are going to be doing dungeons for the entire expansion it's important to have some variation in the experience." He also talks about how they tried to keep dungeons fresh and focus of interest throughout the expansion.
Funny thing is how Ion also talks about "the mechanar problem" where they want players to NOT seek the easiest and shortest dungeon because that pays the most, they want players to pick dungeons they like. Maw of souls would like a word. It's always funny to watch these back at the end of the expansion or later, and chuckle a lilbit.

Thinking I said you farmed jp RIGHT NOW is plainly dumb when it is obvious i meant there are better(and some similar) ways to earn heirlooms in the current game.

And your wod point is hollow, why didn't they add dungeons in MoP? How does it show we are getting less and less dungeons?

Are you really basing your whole argument on a thing Ion said, which is objectively true, why not bring any other dev discussion on the topic in the 4 years the system has been going on? Are dungeoms shit now because of MoS?

[The Saar]

I was excited for shadowlands at first... but when I hit 60 I realized it will just be more grind than fun. Think I just play cod mw until next expansion. And I really hope blizz can reinvent the game somehow... make it less grindy and more... well... fun :P

All grind and no play makes Jack a dull boy

[kamuimac]

I was excited for shadowlands at first... but when I hit 60 I realized it will just be more grind than fun. Think I just play cod mw until next expansion. And I really hope blizz can reinvent the game somehow... make it less grindy and more... well... fun :P

All grind and no play makes Jack a dull boy

i recently hit 60 on my mage and retri - and i left them there - when i think about iditic amount of time i have to put into renown catch up , thorgast , gearing with how idiotic gear is .. i just dont want to do it. sticking to my hunter and DH but its only because i can raid normal/starting hc + do m+ with my guild . if it wasnt for them i would be unsubbed now. the irony that hunter that i barely play got 9 items out of ulduar and is hhigher itlv then my raiding main :P

[DeusX]

After doing all L8 portals, I will prob stop doing it since I sit with 4730 Soul Ash.
After doing Twisted Corridors a couple of times, to face the challange, get the mount and ... dunno, depends what other cosmetics are there, I will not do it unless I just need Soul Ash for future Legendaries.

I am afraid you did not understand the Twisted mechanics: you don't get any ash from running layers. You should also run only ONCE any layer. There is no point to run anything "a couple of times", the cosmetic reward is given only once per lifetime and also the mount is account wide.

The only ash you get is 50 ash for the quest that sends you there for the 1st time. And that's it.

[The Saar]

i recently hit 60 on my mage and retri - and i left them there - when i think about iditic amount of time i have to put into renown catch up , thorgast , gearing with how idiotic gear is .. i just dont want to do it. sticking to my hunter and DH but its only because i can raid normal/starting hc + do m+ with my guild . if it wasnt for them i would be unsubbed now. the irony that hunter that i barely play got 9 items out of ulduar and is hhigher itlv then my raiding main :P

Yeah it all just feels like a mess right now tbh. Lol im surprised that you even got the willpower to play on more than one character.
I unsubbed two days ago :P

[topitopi]

Ive posted about it a lot but with each week i grow more and more convinced it sucks. I started at about a 6 or 7, down to like a 2. It's basically BfA again. Slightly better in some places, a lot worse in others. I also keep saying this but the only true shining light is 1-50. New leveling keeping me subbed so I can make alts and farm *legacy*. I put asterix around legacy because there are tuning issues that SL introduced which Blizzard totally ignores, but whatever cest la vie

[Kel_Sceptic]

I am afraid you did not understand the Twisted mechanics: you don't get any ash from running layers. You should also run only ONCE any layer. There is no point to run anything "a couple of times", the cosmetic reward is given only once per lifetime and also the mount is account wide.

The only ash you get is 50 ash for the quest that sends you there for the 1st time. And that's it.

Actually I was talking about normal L8 Torghast. For examaple, this week, I've done just 1 portal, and I'm sitting at 5600 Soul Ash. Adding the fact that I've no need for Soul Ash and got the Terror of Torghast, I see no reason to run normal, Soul Ash, Torghast for the moment. I will run it only when I will run out of Soul Ash and need a new legendary.

At the same time, yesterday, I've runt Layer 1 and 2 of Twisted Corridors (FULL CLEAR, ALL MOBS, ALL LOOT etc.) and had a great feeling about it. I was afraid that being longer will make it feel much more of a choore then a challange, but in fact I was feeling much better then normal 6 floor Torghast since we got 80-100 anima powers and it is just fun and challanging at the same time.

I had almost the same feeling I used to have in 1999-2000 when I would run Startcraft:BW, Big game hunters vs 7 AI with max resources in every node of the map. When, if you could resist the initial attacks, then you would build a couple of dozens of Carriers, Observers and some Arbiters and you start cleaning out the MAP. What good days they were.

As for Torghast: Twisted Corridors, I play it for what it is, just like Mage Tower Challange but with much more levels of difficulty. Actually, I probably wasted more time in Mage Tower for all characters, and some specs required me to do between 20 to 100 tries before downing.

Hell, I've even run Layer 3 and had last boss down to 15-20% a couple of times, but it wasn't a FULL CLEAR, it was a rushed one (feral, stealth), since .... you know, same day 18x3 + 6x1, kind of too much Torghast for one day But every time I will be boored and not PvP, that is my only other activity in the game for the moment.



Short: Just like Mage Tower, either you like it or not.


LE: BTW got into a bug myself, that made me loose ~5k Stagya yesterday from 13k to 8k. Died twice while doing the covenant weekly (Night Fae) quest with having full 5 marks in The Maw already The problem was that my body was not available to recover the Stagya since the quest made the cave be phased. Made a ticket, no succes, so I lost 5k Stagya.

And another thing, I think that making people miss Twisted Corridors on release, because they were 1-2 weeks behind on the Bolvar Quests, it is a shitty move Blizzard made.

As I said, I understand power being gated, since it keep everybody in line, while only gear differs from one to another, and one's time invested then another one's.

Even if I don't like gated quests, I somehow understand them, and comparing to War Campaign in BFA, at least here we get an actually RENOWN from the covenant weekly quest. BUT, while I get Bolvar's quest be gated every week until T:TC (Torghast:Twisted Corridors) is released, I really don't get it why they didn't let people get all quests after T:TC released. But at the same time, every xpac that had pathfinder for flying, it didn't mater when you joined the xpansion, you still had to do every part to acces flying, and still had to wait ~2 weeks until reps were done.

[callipygoustp]

I keep going back and forth on this.

On days when I decide to do some questing I feel a bit more negative about SL. Why? Cause when I'm questing I feel like I'm spending half of my playtime, or more, traveling. Seriously, often when questing I wander off to do some around the house, browse the web, or put on some streaming episode while I wait for my character to get someplace. The amount of time spent traveling is a bit too much at the moment. Don't need flying, imo, but having the flight whistle upgrade would be a huge change/remedy for this. Not to mention, why the fuck is the covenant hearthstone not a hearthstone to your covenant home? Similar to how Legion worked. Come on Blizz, QoL: look into it.

However, on the days when I can hook up with some friends, or some cool randoms, and accomplish some M+'s or a few raid bosses or even a couple rated BGs, I certainly feel more positive about the game. Which, of course, isn't all that surprising.

While undecided, and with the SL honeymoon period getting stale, I'm still feeling more positive than negative about SL.

[Kel_Sceptic]

The amount of time spent traveling is a bit too much at the moment. Don't need flying, imo, but having the flight whistle upgrade would be a huge change/remedy for this. Not to mention, why the fuck is the covenant hearthstone not a hearthstone to your covenant home?

While I can understand this comeing from people who started playing durint Legion and BFA, at the same time, even if I used the whistle, man it gaved me a feeling that this is not WoW anymore. I mean, wtf was that, go to WQ, kill 1 mob, then whistle, no sight seeing, no "seeing people fighting mobs, leveling, while I run to the fly master", it seemed it took so much from the "MMO".

But, if you played all other expansions pre Legion, then you probably know that flying from one Flight Master to another is part of the game. While flying, you see someone getting ganked, someone dinging his first level in that xpansion and so on, it is part of the game. When a flight from 2 distant points, zones, could even take 30mins, I mean, these 3-5min flights from 1 zone to another or 2mins from oribos to any zone, seem really ok. And this comes from a guy that plays only PvP, and would love this game to be queue pop based, just like CS:GO, Dota, HS, Overwatch, Fortnite, Warzone and any other multiplayer game based on matchmaking.

[Dawon]

It's probably the most dull expansion in the last 10 years, I'm not saying it's BAD, it's just dull... Mission tables are watered out, we've done them enough, please fucking remove them from the game now. World quests are the same as always but less useful, personally I dont do ANY of them except what's needed to complete the Emissa.... sorry.. CALLINGS (yeah, more reused crap). Working on your sanctum,.. uhm.. i dont know anyone that actually care about that shit, I dont even do the "go do a puzzle and get a reward" daily, I am totally ignoring it. The necklace and the essen.. sorry again.. I mean the Covenant tree and the Conduits are just a copy paste of the BFA necklace and essences, there is always a cookie cutter and works 100% the same way as the necklace in BFA. Maw is complete bullshit and nothing I do more than the weekly quests and tbh, I have no idea why I even do those as they are rather useless after you bought the permanent Torghast upgrades (yeah cba to farm 7.2k for a gem socket). Torghast was fun the first 7 times but is now only a chore that I eventually will stop doing as well, simply as I dont give a shit about the leggos apart from my BIS, when that is done, I'm done with Torghast.

On the flipside, the 5man instances are pretty entertaining and looks great. The raid is also very nice, the scenery is cool, the bosses are not over complicated but still require you to keep full focus, they're actually all pretty damn nice and well tuned imo. The scarcity of loot is freaking AWESOME, finally I'm getting a good feeling again when I loot something as it's probably an upgrade and more importantly, it's something I wont replace after 26 minutes. Epic loot is almost feeling epic again and I dont feel forced to spam-run m+ to gear myself to outgear the raid and make it trivial. The gear/loot change is probably my absolute biggest pro in SL, it's just an awesome direction of the game.

[callipygoustp]

While I can understand this comeing from people who started playing durint Legion and BFA, at the same time, even if I used the whistle, man it gaved me a feeling that this is not WoW anymore. I mean, wtf was that, go to WQ, kill 1 mob, then whistle, no sight seeing, no "seeing people fighting mobs, leveling, while I run to the fly master", it seemed it took so much from the "MMO".

But, if you played all other expansions pre Legion, then you probably know that flying from one Flight Master to another is part of the game. While flying, you see someone getting ganked, someone dinging his first level in that xpansion and so on, it is part of the game. When a flight from 2 distant points, zones, could even take 30mins, I mean, these 3-5min flights from 1 zone to another or 2mins from oribos to any zone, seem really ok. And this comes from a guy that plays only PvP, and would love this game to be queue pop based, just like CS:GO, Dota, HS, Overwatch, Fortnite, Warzone and any other multiplayer game based on matchmaking.

Started playing 2nd week of TBC. WM on/PvP server since beginning of Cata. So, yeah, I've got a good feel for the game.

The travel issue is really a minor thing and I know it. But, if while playing a game, spending some of my allotted free time, results in me spending a considerable amount of time doing something else while playing the game (completely subjective of course), well, hard to say that's a positive for the game. Maybe for some people that's a good thing(for me its not), or not enough of an issue to even think of it(for me it is).

edit:
Thinking on this a bit more, the big issue, imho, is that you have to fly through Oribos so often. In any other expansion if I want to change which zone I wanted to quest in, hell, often I didn't even bother traveling to a flight point I would just mount up and run over; that's an action that makes me feel "in the world". AFKing activities take me "out of the world".
(yes yes, I know, Cata and BFA had disconnected zones too.)
:edit

However, as I said in the other part of the post you quoted, regardless of the current amount of AFK travel time, I still look favorably on SL.

----

I look forward to someone else taking issue with my subjective opinion.

[Kel_Sceptic]

Started playing 2nd week of TBC. WM on/PvP server since beginning of Cata. So, yeah, I've got a good feel for the game.

The travel issue is really a minor thing and I know it. But, if while playing a game, spending some of my allotted free time, results in me spending a considerable amount of time doing something else while playing the game (completely subjective of course), well, hard to say that's a positive for the game. Maybe for some people that's a good thing(for me its not), or not enough of an issue to even think of it(for me it is).

edit:
Thinking on this a bit more, the big issue, imho, is that you have to fly through Oribos so often. In any other expansion if I want to change which zone I wanted to quest in, hell, often I didn't even bother traveling to a flight point I would just mount up and run over; that's an action that makes me feel "in the world". AFKing activities take me "out of the world".
(yes yes, I know, Cata and BFA had disconnected zones too.)
:edit

However, as I said in the other part of the post you quoted, regardless of the current amount of AFK travel time, I still look favorably on SL.

----

I look forward to someone else taking issue with my subjective opinion.

I feel you about wasted time, I surely said this about BFA's choores, since I only want to play PvP, I don't want to be forced to have do something else for 40-60% of my game time, since it doesn't fit my gaming perspective.
But if you played alliance in BFA, flying to Mechagon .... WOW, I mean, horde was having the teleport submarine, but alliance, afiak had just ... FLYING

It is clearly that with "great responsabilities (kids, job, housework, etc) comes fewer hours to play" and we all want those hours to be what we want them to be ... but this is an MMO after all it is by definition a TIMESINK genre


HE HE

Time sink
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In video games
In massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), time sinks are a method of increasing the time needed by players to do certain tasks, hopefully causing them to subscribe for longer periods of time.[3] Players may use the term disparagingly to describe a simplistic and time-consuming aspect of gameplay, possibly designed to keep players playing longer without significant benefit. Time sinks can also be used for other gameplay reasons, such as to help regenerate resources or monsters in the game world.

Negative connotations
Many players consider time sinks to be an inherently poor design decision, only included so that game companies can increase profits. For example, one Slashdot article describes time sinks as "gameplay traps intended to waste your time and keep you playing longer".[4] In most games, boring and lengthy parts of gameplay are merely an annoyance, but when used in subscription-based MMORPGs, where players are paying recurring fees for access to the game, they become a much more inflammatory issue. Game designers must be prudent in balancing efforts to produce both involving gameplay and the length of content that players expect.

Time sinks are often associated with hardcore games, though whether this is a positive or negative association depends on the context.

Trade-offs
Implementing time sinks in a video game is a delicate balancing act. Excessive use of time sinks may cause players to stop playing. However, if not enough time sinks are implemented, players may feel the game is too short or too easy, causing them to abandon the game much sooner out of boredom. A number of criteria can be used to evaluate use of time sinks, such as frequency, length, and variety (both of the nature of the time sink and the actions taken to overcome it). What is considered a good balance depends in part on the type of game in question. Casual games are often expected to have less in the way of time sinks, and hardcore games to have more, though this is not a hard and fast rule.

A good timesink has you interacting with the game on some level, earning some level of enjoyment or moving the story along. It might be “realistic”, but keep in mind that you are trying to entertain people here and useless timesinks tend to do the opposite of entertain.

— Matt Miller, MMODesigner.com[3]"

[Kel_Sceptic]

i think you misunderstood

i mean the weekly quests like free Baine/ Thrall.

you cant speed it up .

you will be literaly 6-7 weeks behind always

I know what you meant. But those missions are started with the Crystal, in the middle.
I don't think they will still be gated when Twisted Corridors will launch. At least not for alts "I've seen this story before .... just take me to Twisted Corridors". Or you prob could just chain the quests one after another, just like War Campain worked. BUT if they will be gated for alts, after release, that will suck big time. Blizz has done so good catchup things in this start of expansion, I doubt they will fail that miserably.

Only time will tell.

So, Twisted Corridors is account bound, so if you unlocked it on one char, it is unlocked on all. Even the layers are unlocked as the main.

[Deadite]

So, Twisted Corridors is account bound, so if you unlocked it on one char, it is unlocked on all. Even the layers are unlocked as the main.

Twisted does sound more fun than normal Torgash but my main is only on the Thrall bit still since i could not be arsed slogging through it as a mage. So if i want to do them it will be another two weeks or longer as my new main is my Hunter and he just did the Jaina bit. Not that i care as my hunter is a Worgen so the mount if pointless for me. I would hate to be just jumping into this expansion.

[GMZohar1]

Yes. Far better than Bfa and it's not even close.

[Kel_Sceptic]

Twisted does sound more fun than normal Torgash but my main is only on the Thrall bit still since i could not be arsed slogging through it as a mage. So if i want to do them it will be another two weeks or longer as my new main is my Hunter and he just did the Jaina bit. Not that i care as my hunter is a Worgen so the mount if pointless for me. I would hate to be just jumping into this expansion.

I rejoined BFA in december 2019, and had to farm 3 weeks for rank 3 essences, since it was the first time doing them.
I think it is kind of normal to be asked to do the content one time as it has been created.

I leveled 3 other lvl 60 and I think I'm gonna switch main, but until the new "main" will be at the same spot as first main, I will still do stuf on the first main, just to be on track with whats happening.

It is just like if you joined BFA or Legion after 1 year and half, you still needed to to all the stuff necesary for flying, same amount of time.