No replacement for Thorghast/Islands/Warfronts/Legendary systems

[Venziir]

I never had a single issue with Warfronts, I know some people would prefer to have them in PvP but I don't think the issue was just "oh players didn't like it" because they had plans to do more Warfronts in later patches (based off of datamining) and some of them were plans for Warfronts in the Barrens, Eversong Forest... The big issue with making a Warfront is the fact that they'd have to update an old zone as aa result to match. Between this, Island expeditions, Nazjatar, Mechagon, N'zoth, along with the war campaign that has unnecessarily fully animated CG cinematics that could've been done with just in-game cutscenes... There wasn't much of time or budget to keep it going.

Island Expeditions, the issue with that one was how short they felt. Normal it would be done in 5 minutes at most while in Mythic it could take about 15 minutes.. and the PvP aspect is really more of a race to pull everything and kill large groups before everyone else. Though it isn't like they stopped after that point since they added more maps and what not in 9.1 (or was it 9.2) Though the rewards were nice especially the reputation weekly and the extra stuff like pets and mounts and transmog.

Torghast, on the other hand, had a lot going for it, but the rewards just didn't feel worth it in my eyes. All you get is Soul Ashes and sometimes a legendary depending on which route you took but that was it. A large part of it is to do with the whole aesthetic of the place, it was cool and intimidating at the start of the expansion, but we've gotten so used to it by now that it gets watered down. At least with Horrific Visions, Warfronts, and Island Expeditions there was a vendor that you could buy additional mounts and other stuff... Torghast doesn't have that outside of Ve'nari selling you buffs (but all that is from doing stuff in the Maw, not Torghast)

Personally I liked Warfronts (well at least Arathi...), but they weren't well recieved, that's why we only got those two.

People didn't like Islands either because of the endless AP grind and the odd logic behind drop rates - both were fixed but way too late.

Torghast suffered from odd class balancing and again, no actual reward structure until way too late.

[Iain]

As players we might not realise how much resources Blizzard sunk into developing islands and warfronts. These ideas need research, trial and error, whole new systems have to be invented for it. To then see players hardly take part in it, or only if bribed with shiny items, must be a major blow to them.

And that's the problem with trying to come up with new things for a game. How many familiar quests, dungeons, battlegrounds or even whole new zones could have been built with the allocated budgets for Warfronts and Islands? That's the call Blizzard has to make.

It's not all a sunk cost either though. Islands turned into Thorgast, and procedural gameplay is still going to be the future of MMO's, so this is definitely going to be continued at some point.

Warfronts too are a prototype of something else. They're dynamic territories. It's not difficult to imagine a Warfront in an open-world, requiring days or even an entire week to complete. Just a zone under a constant change. Other people might be doing quests or whatever in that same zone, but they too will be affected by how the scenario slowly progresses.

These are all experiments that might not be worthwhile in isolated parts of the game, but the lessons Blizzard draws from these can permeate into the rest of the game.

[Armakus]

so far they have said the reputations are all linked to a single renown which is timegated like in shadowlands. DF will be a very straight forward raid logging expansion.

They said it was *not* timegated, as there is not player power tied to it. Was in that Q&A thing Ion did with Taliesen

[Woggmer]

Personally I liked Warfronts (well at least Arathi...), but they weren't well recieved, that's why we only got those two.

People didn't like Islands either because of the endless AP grind and the odd logic behind drop rates - both were fixed but way too late.

Torghast suffered from odd class balancing and again, no actual reward structure until way too late.

Eh, I think people were expecting for the Warfronts to have a PVP element, but if you really think about it.. there is that faction imbalance issue, and it might be the reason why Blizz isn't doing those Epic BGs like Wintergrasp or Ashran anymore so that one faction won't hold constant occupation of it. Even if they kept it as it was in-game but with an added PvP mode, it probably would have a lot more issues with it... I'm not saying it was a missed opportunity, more like they probably wanted to try PvP, but something happened that just didn't work for it.

Actually the drop rates in Island Expeditions were more confusing after they fixed it. Originally you could've had a good chance by killing a specific set of enemies, but instead they changed it up to be more RNG based but they added in a vendor which was a plus, but it was still RNG. The AP grind was unnecessary (I'm wasn't even one of the types that really cared about the whole "AP = Player Power" deals.) When I first did it, it just felt lackluster because of how short the bar you filled up was. So I avoided it because of just that... least until I ran out of things to do.... that and also player opinion had a factor in it.

Torghast, on the other hand, it just felt exhausting to do. Like they could've had all the bosses drop specific covenant toys, mounts, or even the cosmetic covenant gear could've been hidden away instead of...putting all that stuff into those side covenant stuff like Stitchmasters, the Fungus thing, and the Trials of Loyalty.

[Guyviroth]

Good. This was basically the whole point of the expansions features; to work on the games core systems and not expansion exclusive bloat that we lose in two years time.

Think of it like building a house. You can build the most amazing house ever, with ten bedrooms all with en suite bathrooms, a massive dining room and kitchen, living room, your own cinema room with bar and wine cellar, and a three tier swimming pool overlooking the sunset. But, if your foundations are shit, your wiring is fucked, and your plumbing just pipes in raw sewage, you have a house that no one wants that will collapse in a few years.

This is Blizz attempting to fix the foundations of the house of WoW.

[Djuntas]

Thank gut - remove all these systems, back to basics...good gear loop and progression that matters!

[Niwes]

We will have no legendaries. No "expansion system" like Islands/Thorghast/Warfronts.

Is really having some work done on talents and professions a good excuse for this?

At 70, what are we farming outside of new mount customizations?

At least they tried making something new and fun in the past few expansions. This expansion, we get nothing.

Let me paint a picture of this expansions endgame. You have some reputations to farm to get some toys/transmogs. Then you have some world quests. Outside of this, you're supposed to want to do M+/Raiding/3v3 arenas. Don't like that? Too bad, they spent all their focus to make the ugly dragon race and the talent system you already decided on when you looked up the best spec on Icy-veins in the prepatch before the expansion released.

and you think that’s a bad thing?

At 70, what are we farming outside of new mount customizations?

This question implies we WANT that „farming“. i don’t know if you heard the news. or if you read even anything the last 5 years. but it looks like, that „some“ ppls not enjoy that type and amount of farming and grinding that much. to use some tame words.

short version: ppls don’t want a Mega-Pint of grind.

„but but but what i shall do then?“ you may ask.
A: maybe the same things (alts, pvp, pet battles, achievements, etc) the ppl, asking for that change, wanna finally have time for, instead of grinding their ass of. play another class and have fun with it. after that you can have fun, with NOT doing all that grindshit again and again and again.

[GreatNameForSmurfingExTee]

Having a system to grind for power -> bad
Having a system to grind for cosmetics -> bad
Having a system to grind for optional stuff -> bad

Having no grind from the above categories- > bad
Having one grind from the above categories -> bad
Having two grinds from the above categories- > bad
Having three grinds from the above categories- > bad

Having only m+ -> bad
Having only pvp -> bad
Having only raid -> bad

Havon two -> bad
Having three -> bad

Getting stuff for free -> bad
Having to do the most difficult tier to get the best -> bad

Just pick one, add some opinions to it, call it a fact and there you go, your new thread

[NineSpine]

You know the game is fucked beyond repair when this many people start arguing that Blizzard is bad at making content so less content is good.

[McNeil]

Islands/Torghast/Warfronts are not systems but features, stuff for people to do outside the usual dungeons/raiding/pvp. I don't see anything new coming with Dragonflight which is rather worrying. Don't care much for systems but after having a few expansions of them going completely overboard I'm glad that they are taking a break from it.

[Celement]

You know the game is fucked beyond repair when this many people start arguing that Blizzard is bad at making content so less content is good.

It is the truth of it though. Islands for as great of a source for transmogs were little more then here simulators for azerite. Warfront seemed benign to me not good but bad. While torghast was pathetic a long slog with overly tanky mobs that had one spell or 2 If a boss.

When all you do is fuck up doing nothing is an improvement. There last win was arguably mage tower or visions if you squint.

[Trumpcat]

I don't see how some features from previous expansions flopping means they shouldn't make new features. This is some new era logic.

[Kalisandra]

We will have no legendaries. No "expansion system" like Islands/Thorghast/Warfronts.

Is really having some work done on talents and professions a good excuse for this?

At 70, what are we farming outside of new mount customizations?

At least they tried making something new and fun in the past few expansions. This expansion, we get nothing.

Let me paint a picture of this expansions endgame. You have some reputations to farm to get some toys/transmogs. Then you have some world quests. Outside of this, you're supposed to want to do M+/Raiding/3v3 arenas. Don't like that? Too bad, they spent all their focus to make the ugly dragon race and the talent system you already decided on when you looked up the best spec on Icy-veins in the prepatch before the expansion released.

Improve your dragon. Improve your flight. Okay, it's not extra power for your raiding/m+, but at least that means you don't have to grind it if you don't want to.

Farm mats for crafting like we did in the old days. Compared to the current "must log in daily to keep up" BS, I'll take it.

[Xeerah]

We will have no legendaries. No "expansion system" like Islands/Thorghast/Warfronts.

Is really having some work done on talents and professions a good excuse for this?

At 70, what are we farming outside of new mount customizations?

At least they tried making something new and fun in the past few expansions. This expansion, we get nothing.

Let me paint a picture of this expansions endgame. You have some reputations to farm to get some toys/transmogs. Then you have some world quests. Outside of this, you're supposed to want to do M+/Raiding/3v3 arenas. Don't like that? Too bad, they spent all their focus to make the ugly dragon race and the talent system you already decided on when you looked up the best spec on Icy-veins in the prepatch before the expansion released.

TBH - the legendary system we have now is not good imo. Its just a massive goldsink. I liked the questline legendarys like Tarecgosa - or even the MoP Cloak.
Thorgast was just tedious and I am so happy I dont have to run it again - still missing the mount and stuff but oh man I am not going to go in there anymore.
Islands was okay-ish but just there for azerite farm and warfronts were little more than scenarios for raidsized grps.

I get where you are coming from, but lets see, what gets revealed in the future for DF as its not even in Alpha yet.
If we get info from there or later the Beta that will be when the interesting discussions can start - at the moment most is just speculation on the rudimentary reveal of the new expansion.

[Dioporco]

At 70, what are we farming outside of new mount customization?

All the stuff you didnt farm in previous xpac when were relevant.

[Celement]

I don't see how some features from previous expansions flopping means they shouldn't make new features. This is some new era logic.

It's the success to failure rate and blizzard bad habit of making new content mandatory by adding either a required reward like leggos or an absurdly high ilv like warfronts.

Blizzard wont allow experimental content live or die on it's own merits not since mage tower and challenge modes.