Has there ever been an Xpac that wasn't shat on by the community

[ro9ue]

Does it click all my good buttons? Totally. Would a thing like this work in WoW? Not at all. It's simply not WoW. It's another game.

Not sure if true... but I can see why the WoW devs wouldn't want to take the risk.

I can say as a long time ESO player, I saw it start out the same way as WoW with the constant power upgrades, then they capped it and left it that way ever since. It's been much better and has allowed for other innovations like the item stickerbook where you basically can collect every item at end game power level. Their situation was much different, they had a smaller playerbase and the game wasn't in a good state anyway.

But I think about how much that would bring to WoW. Every tier set in the game is now at max level and can be selected as a gameplay choice. Every trinket can be relevant. Shit I'd like to use Soul Capacitor again on my rogue, that was a really unique gameplay effect that was just rendered obsolete. /shrug

[Relapses]

Not sure if true... but I can see why the WoW devs wouldn't want to take the risk.

I can say as a long time ESO player, I saw it start out the same way as WoW with the constant power upgrades, then they capped it and left it that way ever since. It's been much better and has allowed for other innovations like the item stickerbook where you basically can collect every item at end game power level. Their situation was much different, they had a smaller playerbase and the game wasn't in a good state anyway.

But I think about how much that would bring to WoW. Every tier set in the game is now at max level and can be selected as a gameplay choice. Every trinket can be relevant. Shit I'd like to use Soul Capacitor again on my rogue, that was a really unique gameplay effect that was just rendered obsolete. /shrug

Other games delivering experiences different from WoW's are a good thing, not a bad thing. It's why I tell people that I want WoW to be a roller coaster simulator every time they argue the "{x game} does it, why can't WoW" argument. There are so many individual experiences that other games deliver that WoW players, for whatever reason, feel are necessary to implement into WoW because WoW's already broad appeal needs to be made even broader so that nobody ever has an excuse to play any game other than WoW. I feel that kind of reasoning is particularly toxic for the game because it would lead the developers to add new features to the game instead of -- crucially imo -- just fixing or improving the ones that the game already has.

[Tikishock]

No. Video game players are some of the most miserable people when it comes to their "opinion" on video games they play. Honestly, the toxicity of any gaming community would make me NEVER want to get into the gaming industry. You have a bunch of entitled idiots that think they know what they want but then get it and bitch because it wasn't what they actually needed.

[kaminaris]

Well the guy I responded to only wanted to look at raw numbers so yeah ignoring those sorts of details and subtleties is what makes his argument a bad one. A lot of those people who tried the game out because it was the hot new thing and left early on probably did so because they thought the game was dumb/boring/not worth the money, but again that doesn't necessarily speak to the overall quality of the game.

Well, now a lot of people see WoW, do minimal research and decide its already too late. They don't even try.
That happens when you remove content or make tons of it obsolete/irrelevant.

[Steelangel]

Just as all expansions had shit flung at them at some point by one group or another, they also all have some group sending their praises its way.

There are definitely good parts to both Cata and WoD. Cata had a couple of really strong raids and also had some really good world design. But overall, it was WotLK-lite, and people hated Dragon Soul for being far substandard compared to other raids of the same size. WoD had GREAT visuals and leveling and raids. Beyond that, it was lackluster and felt incomplete.

Anyone at the time bringing these kind of positive points forward would have been suffocated under the weight of hate posts.

[Coldkil]

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The problem is exactly that - given how gear is designed in wow, if that happens it will just end with a single bis list with pieces from everywhere, and the rest would be useless. That's why i'm not advocating fornthis kind of changes - wow endgame is reliant on this vertical progression and periodic resets. I'd only change quantity and way the items are delivered.

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I feel that kind of reasoning is particularly toxic for the game because it would lead the developers to add new features to the game instead of -- crucially imo -- just fixing or improving the ones that the game already has.

Exactly. Blizzard really need to take a step back and cut the fluff made only to make people "play more". I don't mean it like "pet battles are useless, remove them", i mean "take away the useless hurdles that create attrition between the leveling experience and actually starting m+/raids". If they manage to make better the gearing in PvE and the interaction vetween m+ and raids i would be totally happy.

Hot take: imho legendaries of any sort should be just removed from the game. They were fine when they were the occasional candy to a specific class/role. Now that every spec has one, every spec MUST have one. They're like mandatory talents, which offer literally zero choice or plater agency, you have your strongest one and you have to get it.

[Relapses]

Well, now a lot of people see WoW, do minimal research and decide its already too late. They don't even try.
That happens when you remove content or make tons of it obsolete/irrelevant.

You won't stop until WoW becomes a carbon copy of FFXIV, will you?

[Kithelle]

Because at the moment they've been released, almost all expansions had major flaws that were fixed by time and Legion was no exception. Most people don't usually remember what was their early game experience during some expansion but I do. I remember being stuck in the worst spec (fury) with the worst legendary (being Sephuz) at the beginning of Legion. I remember the sorry excuse of content that was Broken Shore or how shitty it was to navigate in Argus without Prydaz / any constant absorb shield because there was monster everywhere.

But most of this content is irrelevant today since Fury was fixed to the point it became the best spec or eventually our character growth outclassed the monster stat scaling introduced in Legion.

So yeah, people tend to forget about this kind of thing. I already have friends saying BFA was the best expansion and corruption was a great thing and they were kind of right as it was refreshing. But they tend to forget about how scaling the same corruption made PvP a boring mess, how it was RNG at the beginning, how shitty it was to get azerite stuff. Even essences I used to love because they were neutral spells were flawed because of how you had to farm them and how PvP essences were more powerful in PvE.

My point is still valid, every expansion is the worse expansion ever...till the next one comes

[Zyky]

That's the thing about opinions when you have millions of players; there will always be people who shit on the game and people who silently enjoy it.

[Relapses]

That's the thing about opinions when you have millions of players; there will always be people who shit on the game and people who silently enjoy it.

Unless it's Shadowlands, where you'll get shit on by other people for not sharing the opinion that it sucks.

[roboscorcher]

There has always been toxicity in WoW forums, but vertain expansions had less of it (at least since I started playing in Wrath):

Wrath was generally well-received. Dungeon finder and ToC were the worst aspects of the game. ICC and Ulduar were fun.

MoP was generally viewed positively by the end.

Legion was enjoyed by most. The borrowed powers were fresh and actually felt connected to the class. The lore was great. Patches were fast.

[Relapses]

There has always been toxicity in WoW forums, but vertain expansions had less of it (at least since I started playing in Wrath):

Wrath was generally well-received. Dungeon finder and ToC were the worst aspects of the game. ICC and Ulduar were fun.

MoP was generally viewed positively by the end.

Legion was enjoyed by most. The borrowed powers were fresh and actually felt connected to the class. The lore was great. Patches were fast.

SL would still be riding the hype wave if its patches were faster. It's just an unfortunate reality that if you let the WoW community dwell on things for more than 77 days at a time the only thing they think about is how much the game sucks.

[tomten]

I've got my own list of complaints about the game but they are mostly big things like how the game is over-engineered and how the separate pieces of an expansion don't sync well. It's easier to keep quiet about anything you might like. Like one big one: I love rogue-like games of all kinds so while I haven't overdone it in Torghast I always enjoy running it. It's a decent translation of a rogue-like to WoW. I hope they learn from this one and do some more. Procedurally generated stuff with a bit of content or map randomness is more interesting than responding to tightly scripted bosses and trash that never varies.
.

Honestly not sure why torghast is so hated?
I've actually enjoyed it since launch. It's been fun to get all those crazy powers and just go all in.
And for a legendary acquisition grind? It's been by far the best system for me personally.
Even for alts it hasn't been all to bad with being able to jump in at highest.

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My point is still valid, every expansion is the worse expansion ever...till the next one comes

Never once felt that way outside of legion, which was also the first expansion i quit wow for.
Cataclysm is still today my favorite expansion only tied with MoP because MoP had the best rotations and raids in the history of wow, at least for me.

[kaminaris]

Hot take: imho legendaries of any sort should be just removed from the game. They were fine when they were the occasional candy to a specific class/role. Now that every spec has one, every spec MUST have one. They're like mandatory talents, which offer literally zero choice or plater agency, you have your strongest one and you have to get it.

Full stop after bolded part. Just remove that shit and add talent row. Its just one gear slot less.

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You won't stop until WoW becomes a carbon copy of FFXIV, will you?

What are you on about, said same thing during Legion, BfA and before i left in SL. Long before I started XIV.
Removing content or making it obsolete (FOMO in general) pushes new players away.

[Diaphin]

I started playing in Vanilla for one and they started giving away epics long before Wrath. You could get whole sets of gear just doing BG's in BC. The "catering to casuals" and "death of hardcore" complaints started when ZG came out it was hardly a wrath only complaint.

Yeah, but it was a complaint which got stronger and louder in Wotlk, with this idea of Classic followed by BC being the pinnacle of WoW being Hardcore and raids being challenging. Which has been disproven, pve content objectively got harder and more complex.

[Zyky]

Unless it's Shadowlands, where you'll get shit on by other people for not sharing the opinion that it sucks.

I mean I'm all for hearing people for their opinions, but I can't see any rational to Shadowlands being "good". If you're willing to discuss that I'm willing to have a healthy debate about it, but I just don't see any positives this time around.

[Relapses]

What are you on about, said same thing during Legion, BfA and before i left in SL. Long before I started XIV.

And the idea is just as bad today as it was back then. We have Timewalking dungeons and raids and there have even been rumblings of extending world content to older expansions too. But asking the developers to keep 25+ fucking Tiers of content relevant at all times is unreasonable at a level that's hard to put into words.

Removing content or making it obsolete (FOMO in general) pushes new players away.

The phrase FOMO should be banned from this community. The very existence of WoW Classic proves that Blizzard is very much aware of the long legacy of this game and is willing to provide that experience for its players. Would you prefer if Blizzard did it the way Squeenix does and just throw everything that's "FOMO" on the store after a few months?

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I mean I'm all for hearing people for their opinions, but I can't see any rational to Shadowlands being "good". If you're willing to discuss that I'm willing to have a healthy debate about it, but I just don't see any positives this time around.

The game has seen better days but it's not so far gone that it's without its redeeming qualities. Personally, I still enjoy M+ quite a bit and have a lot of fun playing alts. I don't expect everybody to share this opinion but sometimes I get flamed for just admitting that I haven't unsubscribed.

[Ielenia]

People being upset with 1-2 features is a lot diff then people hating everything within an expansion..

Every single expansion was lambasted by the community. Even TBC could not escape the fire.

[Aedruid]

After BFA and Shadowlands it got me thinking. Has there ever been a WoW expansion where the community didn't shit on it? Its always whining. Some of it is deserved absolutely, but I feel a lot of it is just ridiculous. Like I can get why Metzen quit because of negativity

Wotlk: Introduction of LFG and the first store mount

Cata: Heroics too hard, Dragon soul

MoP: "Kung fu panda and too many dailies!!"

WoD: Nothing to do, worst expansion ever

Legion: World of RNGcraft. Legendary system is terrible.

Bfa: No explaination

Shadowlands: No explaination

At this point I almost feel like Blizzard could have made the perfect expansion and people would still find a way to complain about it. Not saying that right now its not deserved, but if you think about it, there has been whining about every single expansion ever. People may even have complained about TBC and Vanilla IDK I didn't play then

I don't know, it kinda pierces my heart. I know deep down, we all love WoW and want it to succeed so why are we so hard on it? I still dare say that even during Shadowlands, its still the best MMO out there. The systems are whack, but the gameplay, the lore, the everything is just so many miles better than anything else.

Then again there is no excuse for people like Danuser and Ion

Kinda impossible to make EVERYONE happy.

I was happy with everything until Pandaland, just couldn't get into walking-talking pandas... Only because I like more "badass" things like demons and undead / werewolves.

Also BFA was so bad at the start. Just bad. I liked the concepts, but they were not implemented to their fullest potential.

[Adamas102]

Well, now a lot of people see WoW, do minimal research and decide its already too late. They don't even try.
That happens when you remove content or make tons of it obsolete/irrelevant.

Oh you mean nowadays. Thought you meant like around WotLK (people who started playing when the game was still relatively new but got discouraged by already being behind by several years).

I think you overestimate the appeal of an almost 20 year old game. Yeah, WoW has had a few facelifts over the years, but I highly doubt "a lot of people" are doing ANY research into it whatsoever if they don't already play or did so very recently. I bet the relatively small number of new players that the game still gets are from current players pulling in friends.

I do agree that removing content sucks and having "expansions" essentially nullify prior content isn't the best design.