Shadowlands Positivity Thread

[frott]

Meta-commentary: I think my problem with shadowlands is embodied by the fact that you have to have "positivity threads" for it.

All of the positives are used as the selling point of WoW expansions anymore, and are dripfed and completely overshadowed by the countless negatives while simultaneously obscuring them.

It appears to me that all of these positives have a pattern across all recent expansions: suffer through the vanilla version of the game to get a dose of the aesthetic and "cool new features" while eventually, over many patches, something completely different is in place at the end that is relatively way better than the beginning. So threads like this emphasize the retcon and serve as a socially spread PR tactic of "all the good things, no bad things allowed" of which many people missed when abandoning the game.

All of this covers up glaringly intentional design to draw out subs and build the illusion that lessons learned in the expansion ramp-up will apply to the next expansion.

This became really clear to me when I devoured the vanilla shadowlands experience only to be met with time gates, zero progression and weird design choices that were eventually removed. Easy way to get prolonged interaction by offering the things that should have been in place the first months, way later...

Otherwise, yeah, the positives were all the surface things as mentioned in this thread: great themes, great potential with story/conflict, great nostalgic callbacks with interesting new ideas... but at the end of the day the core issues I have with the system of the game itself were just hidden by the idea that It's Different Now!

Of course they deserve a round of applause for how beautiful the illusion is, but it seems a bit odd to discuss how amazing the siren's song is and omit the jagged rocks they lure you towards.

examples

I loved the ability to theme your class by the groups in the shadowlands. (illusion)
I fully expected the issues with balance and how suboptimal choice of factions could be per class, but dang those rifts were massive (rocks)

I loved the concept and art direction of those themes (illusion)
I didn't at all like how the progression worked within the themes (rocks)

This expansion was one of the few that I wasn't absolutely bored to tears by the dailies and the potential they had for expanding them, why wouldn't they? they're so great (illusion)
after the veneer wore off, it revealed a grind more punishing, until tweaks, and less rewarding (rocks)


I'd say, in this case, the quality and positives of it are what drove so many people to be so emotionally negative about it. Is it a positive to say "it had such amazing potential?"

[Pakheth]

I still find Bastion an extremely calming place to spend time in. The scenery is beautiful and the music is tranquil. It was delightful for me since I have struggled with other expansions soundtrack being too noisy.

I also love our little steward friends.

Revendreth is also an extremely cool place architecture and music wise. Very cool.

Ardenweald is also beautiful but perhaps a tad bit too blue for my tastes. Still an amazing zone.

I also love the design and accent of the brokers. Ven'ari is also a lovely npc.

[Deventh]

I hated that movie!

:O

[Sariengrey]

I liked Shadowlands, there. It is not the worst xpac, I would put at least 2 as being worse, maybe 3.
Also once the hate train started for it, people just jumped right on because people are sheep
Fun xpac, raiding is good, mythic + is good, PVP is ok, Torghast = eh
Lots of systems etc yes, give or take on those
People complained about covenants because they couldn't just have everything. The theme was covenants, make a choice and play the game except people are crybabies who want everything.
SL is far from the worse, if it doesnt suit you play another game sports

[kranur]

Revendreth was pretty cool, can't really say much more than that lol.

[Galtak]

It had a few gems here and there, far and few between. But my absolute favourite was Chromie Time! Never liked lvling Alts until this xpac.

I'd like to see it expanded in the future. It's disappointing that 50-60 had to be done in the latest xpac but I had a great time casually lvling alts.

[taishar68]

I loved the art and design of the western side of Revendreth, it blew me away quite honestly. I liked some of the covenant abilities, like Fleshcraft, the DK extra limb, wild spirits, and there are tons I haven’t even seen yet.

I really like the concepts in Zereth Mortis and I hope they expand on that type of solo progression. Using Pocopoc and the Cyphers as a way to boost your power without giving out very high level gear was a master stroke.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

1-50 leveling and character customization is best it's ever been. also cosmetics are good. that's it.

[arkanon]

A false equivalency, because that thread is "I don't like XYZ feature" not "Shadowlands Negativity thread" or a "say something you hate about Shadowlands" thread.

You have to be pretty trashy to go into a thread titled "What do you like about baseball?" and post about how you "like" that it's dropped in popularity and is struggling, but someone who goes into a "I don't like baseball thread." (on a forum dedicated to baseball) to point out things they think are good about baseball definitely isn't being trashy.

Absolute drivel. The thread title in no way dictates what opinions are allowed - that's a completely unrealistic and unreasonable expectation on a public DISCUSSION forum, intended for discussions. All you end up with is a few little echo chambers and literally nothing to discuss, but instead just people listing off bullet points.

If you are insecure about your opinion (what's happening here), that's fine, keep it to yourself. If you make your opinion known on a public forum, expect varied and often opposing views to be expressed.

[catalystical]

Boss rush mode Torghast is actually fun. Seriously.

And ZM looks really good.

[Toby451]

9.2 is a legit good patch. Extremely excited to get full tier sets on my alts soon.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Shadowlands had a rough start but really started to hit a good stride with 9.1.5. Think people will look back on this expansion as something that give a TON for solo players to do between the 4 covenants and their sanctums/activities; a new player will look at Shadowlands as one of those expansions that feels like there's more to do and farm for than virtually every other expansion before it.

I mean really, think it over for a second. It's hard to enjoy what Legion artifacts offered back then now that they're disabled. Withered training and Deaths of Chromie don't scale very well. BFA's corruptions are gone and the HoA/Essences require tremendous work for buttons that definitely don't work the same way anymore. Island expeditions work but Warfronts are a pita to try and organize. Horrific Visions can be totally smoked and need too much work for a new character to even mess with.

Meanwhile the Covenant experience isn't enjoyed by everyone obviously. I won't be surprised if Torghast is totally abandoned and the scaling makes it trivial. but for better or worse the covenant activity flow can be enjoyed in a similar way now or several expansions later. It's not designed as a fomo experience. That's the benefit of a feature that's decoupled from player power.

And it's not over. Instead of leaving folks high and dry during MoP and WoD's lull periods they're doing another bona fide season. Remains to be seen how well it'll be received outside of raiding/dungeons/pvp but it gives the devs a chance to mess around at the end of an expansion where the impact ain't so bad and the feedback will come from players who stuck it out till the end (not sure if good thing).

[Caprias]

-While not perfect most classes gameplay is fun, covenant abilities also added something nice with 9.1.5.
-Step up from the degenerate occupational therapy BS that was Legion/Bfa grinds, I can finally CE raid again without cutting down on work hours or dumping my gf...
-Deterministic Legendary crafting, kinda made professions more relevant? (pls rework in 10.0)
-While horribly tuned at the beginning (and arguably way too fast come korthia), the idea of a long term cosmetic grind system with anima is great.
-Some really cool cosmetics and mounts (Hand-mount special literally playing rock paper scissors, 200 IQ idea)
-Great Vault and Catalyst are the kind of pity systems this game needs more of, good stuff.
-The season 4 idea looks fucking lit

Let's just hope they're not throwing most of that overboard and start from scratch again like they love to do..

[Baedril]

Gameplay itself is incredibly fun, I've played every healer in PvP in SL and outside of MW (It's fine but it's just getting more and more stale with every xpac as PvP MW loses a bit of its flavour every 2 years) the rest were all incredibly fun to play, including their covenant abilities.

PvP is in a pretty good state right now, if it wasn't for the whole tier set debacle (Why didn't you just give us PvP tier blizz!!) I'd probably consider it one of the best seasons ever. With literally every spec bar one (arcane mage, and even that has a small niche in RBG) viable and fun to play. The bursty meta is just really fun as a healer, gotta be on your toes at all time.

[Pheraz]

Solid gameplay. Cool raids. ZM is a top notch zone. Blonde void elves and the rest of the player customization. Yeah, that's about it for me :|

[Mferna]

The transmog for the most part was phenomenal. The art team keeps getting better and better, even compared to stuff we got in legion and BfA to some extent, the textures and added 3D pieces to make chests belts gloves pants bulkier and more dynamic made me really happy. I know they’ve been doing that for a while but they went all out this time around, except for sanctum’s gear it was pretty sh** but all of 9.1 was.

Also the new character customization options made me fall in love with certain races again. Especially love all the tattoo options they gave a lot of races like dwarves, nelves, orcs, and Tauren. Look beautiful.

[Syegfryed]

the only thing i liked, fully, in this expansion was mounts and transmogs, everything else was just half-good or total garbage, customizations were just half-good, too many races missing customizations, like troll beards

I did like Torghast, i did had a lot of fun doing it even with some bad mechanics on it, which i bet not many people did, but without rewards it became pointless.

Half-cutscenes was ok, but the one you put here was rly clunky and weird, so seems like a bad example

[erifwodahs]

Daddy D was actually a compelling enemy
9.2 in-game cutscenes look awesome, can't wait to see more of that.
Zones look amazing, sometimes I just stop in Revendreth/Bastion/Ardenweals and just look at it from my flying mount. Amazing
9.2 raid is a banger, I am no longer raiding, but it makes me want to get back to mythic
9.2 M+ affix and M+ overall in SL is really good.
Covenants are actually fun system when you can swap it around freely.

[ellieg]

By that logic, no one is allowed to say anything positive or defend SL in any way at all in a thread titled "I don't like XYZ feature"......

Thats not how the logic works at all lol but thats not surprising from you. You can discuss the feature in that thread. Now if it was titled xyz positivity thread, you're an asshole for going in there just to hate it on it.

[klaps_05]

9.2.5 crossfaction content, nothing else.