I will say though in SL's favor, much like BFA, reviewing through my old screenshots is fun to remind myself of some of the little moments. <3
WoD suffers greatly from the missing raid tier.
But the features were great. I enjoyed the Garrison, despite how much of its potential was underused. The quests were compelling. The raids were nice. It was the first time they went hard on the amount of great cinematics. And I really loved a lot of those zone concepts.
I enjoyed the Azerite, Old God and Saurfang stuff of BfA, the model updates were awesome, but the faction conflict, and the "mystery" they tried to build around Sylvanas, and the Horde once again as villain, just took away from things.
Shadowlands is fine. I like it. It really is gorgeous. I like the themes. But they tried to milk the "mystery" more. They only showed us 5 realms. It's too early to tell, but I think it'll score just a little lower than the others.
BFA; the worst because I found nothing redeemable in it except how cool some of the zones were, even though leveling in them was somewhere between tedious and unbearable.
Warlords second worst because it had decent leveling and since I did not raid, this expansion stopped having any fun at max level.
Shadowlands was not bad in leveling but not great, the end game was a mixed bag of some fun in Torghast with friends on voice chat and the most annoying crap in the Maw. The covenants was just another thrown together time sink grind so no fun to find in that. I actually had a little fun in LFR but I actually had to look up the dungeons to try to remember them and they are not worth remembering. Legendaries are another unfun time sink with no fun reward at the end, so a continuation of the Wod, Legion, BFA experience. Overall Shadowlands could have been redeemed, but was not and that was the straw that broke the players loyalty back.
Last edited by khazmodan; 2021-09-21 at 02:47 AM.
It’s too soon to tell with SLands because the expansion isn’t yet over.
WoD was by far the worst of the 3. Every single expansion wow has ever had can be summed up with
Level>gear>grind>raid log.
Post wod has m+ to actually play the game past the first month.
It is for most who tried it out though. First impressions really do matter and SL's were really bad, never seen a drop off like this since in fact WoD.
BFA was my choice here, I only lasted a month or 2 in WoD but spent tons of time messing around with allied races in BFA so at least it had something to keep me going. SL on the other hand feels empty? Not sure how to describe SL but sterile or annoying would be a good start I guess.
For me it was Warlords of Draenor. Despite its absurd lack of content, the major issues of the expansion didn't affect me all that much. I know what I like to do in my games, and though Warlords of Draenor didn't have a lot to do, the content it had was very good, specifically raids and leveling. It also did not have any arbitrary systems or specific, dumb grinds other than the legendary ring. In Legion, I hated grinding Artifact power and I hated the legendary drop system and the level zones were dreadful, I did like Suramar and the raids though, for the most part, but class gameplay was a bit gimped because of artifacts and legendaries being necessary for complete class gameplay.
I hated BFA almost as much as Shadowlands. Azerite power sucked, Azerite traits sucked, farming the necklace powers also sucked, because someone though it would be fun to regrind the same power, with completely identical content on your alts, and I utterly despised visions. Didn't enjoy the raids all that much, though I didn't give them much of a chance, as BFA was the only expansion where I lost all interest in the raiding.
Shadowlands, pretty much has every single issue BFA had, but worse. And it's taken too long to fix anything.
My biggest gripes comes from the fact I am an Altoholic, I like trying out different specs and classes, I think that's fun, but the grinds from Legion, to BFA to Shadowlands, and the so called "Meaningful choices," just became worse and worse. No, I don't want to do the same Covenant campaign 5 times for each covenant. Feeling 'locked' into a covenant that feels good for one spec, but bad for another was awful, as I want to optimize my character, and I don't feel like leveling the same class 4 times just to have the options readily available.
WOD- JUST BECAUSE THERE WAS NO CHORES IN GAME AT THAT TIME! Which came with Legion+++ (Borrowed power, endless grinds, DESTROYED CLASSES!!!!!, DESTROYED PVP)
And if I would choose by art/style/zones/music/everything else- BFA easy (especially Ally zones).
It's just the QUALITY of game and CORE of game was 100000% different in WOD. Everything went downhill with Legion
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same systems plagued Legion, too. Just, they were "new" at the time, so people didn't see them as cancerous as they see them right now.
Only those who play(ed) alts did.
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Nope mate... That came with Legion.
Yep, there were few "tweaks" between MOP and Legion. But BIGGEST changes came with Legion and introduction of borrowed power system(s).
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What makes you play the game tho? Is it constant gear progression? Or...?
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I chuckled on this 1.
What classes did you play pre-legion?
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Lol... People say SL is alt-friendly because you don't have to grind "artifact power". It just proves how.... "smart" they are.
No artifact grind, but you have to buy 1 wow token in order to make MUST HAVE legendary item.
Then you have to grind renown
grind conduits
grind soulbinds
grind choreghast
you want to pvp? Sure, np... you have to grind 20+ hrs to "upgrade" 1 item. lol
1. Actually, whats the SL content we have? Beside covenant-related activities. It really didn't brought THAT MUCH UP. A bit more than WOD, yes. But not THAT MUCH.
2. Yep... they brought back many abilities... Like "auras" for paladins which we already had as "passive" in our spell book in BFA. They literally took away my retribution's aura and made me play devotion aura mandatory if I'm solo ret in grp/raid.
2.1 Many artifact abilities remained in BFA (some as talents, some as baseline abilities). What are you even talking about?
3. Having "bugs" and server lag/queue is not the same, mate.
4. 1-2 hrs/week? For real? Teach me how to do that, please.
What "must do" grind we had in BFA compared to SL? Azerite power? Which had catch-up mechanic? If you skip 1-2-3 weeks.... you can get all of that in 30 mins in 4th week. WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE CHORES IN GAME FFS?!?!?!?!
5. Lol? SL is 1 of the alt-unfriendliest expansions, EVER. Shares 1st place with Legion. Just above BFA post-essences. BFA pre-essences was actually super alt friendly exp.
Gear that drops form Korthia? What can you play with that? Unless you grind 300+ hrs Archivist rep to be able to upgrade very same gear to 220+
I call your post nonsense tbh.
WoD, by far. Sure, it was the epitome of the "raid or die" mindset, but it was at least honest about it, and you didn't have to grind horrifically boring 'world content' or even worse crap such as Choreghast to be able to raid at a decent level. There was no M+, which would put it at disadvantage when compared to Legion or BfA, but it's actually a plus when you think about the snoozefest that is SL M+.
Shadowlands by a mile.
I have no major complaints right now, and the problems it does have are actually being addressed, unlike WoD.
Hard to imagine anyone who picked WoD actually played it.
There was actually no content in WoD, which is scary to see people act like that isn't a problem for them.
Seems like a lot of people don't actually want to play the game regularly?
Anyway, the worst expansion out of all of them is cataclysm.
I assume you were listing expansions that you believe are the worst?
Classes have never been more fun for me, at a very basic level, than they are right now in Shadowlands.
Even if we take out the entirety of content from 50-60, I still rate Shadowlands as my favorite of those three expansions.
I could keep myself occupied sub max level for months if not years at this rate.
Could not say the same at ANY other time prior to Shadowlands.
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WoD was fun until it became it's own version of groundhogs day. BFA had a lot of issues but at least some of the borrowed powers you got made you feel exactly that "powerful" when you got something whether it was corruption or a HoA upgrade it changed how you played and you noticed it. Shadowlands made me take a 5 month break without even realizing it and I'm inching back towards another if this endless chore grind keeps up.