So, what's with this forum's hatred of Shadowlands?

[Malkiah]

Let me get this out of the way up front: I'm not defending SL, and I'm not starting this thread to try to white-knight the expansion.

So, notably in a thread or two discussing DF, it's been coming up in comments a lot that SL was just the shits and I've been curious about why people hate it so much, just because to me it was a serviceable expansion that wasn't that great overall, just kind of faded into the background of the years-long blur of my history playing WoW.

I get the folks who hate it due to lore and due to Sylvanas, and I get that there is a particular strain of player that hated Legion/BFA/SL because their only metric for self-gratification in life is the color of their parse of warcraftlogs.com, and those 3 expansions required those people to spend more than 17 seconds doing something that wasn't raidlogging in order to have the bestest color that they wanted their parse to be, but are those really the only two things that make SL seemingly the MMO-C community's most hated expansion?

I'm curious about opinions and stories and perspectives here, again not to defend SL or try to argue with anyone, I just don't get it and would love hear some explanations about it.

[Jester Joe]

Korthia existed as the only update for far too long after waiting far too long for anything new to do.

I'm saying this as someone who usually doesn't mind the state of the game as long as it's fun, but the content gap was far too wide and not enough at the start.

[Ghostile]

It started with pretty good story but horrendous mechanics and ended with horrendous story with pretty good mechanics.
It was never just decent.

[Uvania]

i found Shadowlands very good and on the same level as Dragonflight, i barely did any expansion content and took time off to farm old world mounts, x-mogs, battle pets and achievements

i kept on a LFR/Normal ilvl on conduits, gear, legendaries e.tc. through the expansion and didnt do any m+ or challenging raid content and still had a good time.

I'm also an altoholic and i had all classes at 60 in the last patch with the catch-up mechanics that was added it made it pretty good and i had a 226 ilvl set on all of them as minimum.

I do believe the biggest issue modern WoW players has that they try too hard and often over their own limits since its pushed by blizzard to do so and that leads to people feeling like they must spam "choreghast" for 10 hours a day or farm korthia each day for a conduit... just don't do the time-wasting content!

Thats why some people prefer Classic, you have one raid per week that is cleared in a few hours and all ur upgrades is from it and the rest of the week can be spent doing something else.

[Pyrophax]

Hehe, its already, yes? I thought threads about "SL wasn't so bad" will come in early 11.0 min. But here we are.

[Hotmail]

For me it was the cheesy dialogue and cringy events. I remember rescuing Jaina inside Torghast went something along the lines of "Hero?! No, it cannot be you! It must be the tower's master tormenting me with the visions of a trusted ally!1!!1!"

This is a problem with modern WoW in general but for me it reached its peak with Shadowlands.

[Malkiah]

Hehe, its already, yes? I thought threads about "SL wasn't so bad" will come in early 11.0 min. But here we are.

I certainly hope this thread doesn't devolve into that, and I won't be doing any of that myself.
My intention here is genuine curiosity about the animosity folks around here have towards SL, not about arguing with anyone over WHY they feel that way.

[loras]

Let me get this out of the way up front: I'm not defending SL, and I'm not starting this thread to try to white-knight the expansion.

So, notably in a thread or two discussing DF, it's been coming up in comments a lot that SL was just the shits and I've been curious about why people hate it so much, just because to me it was a serviceable expansion that wasn't that great overall, just kind of faded into the background of the years-long blur of my history playing WoW.

I get the folks who hate it due to lore and due to Sylvanas, and I get that there is a particular strain of player that hated Legion/BFA/SL because their only metric for self-gratification in life is the color of their parse of warcraftlogs.com, and those 3 expansions required those people to spend more than 17 seconds doing something that wasn't raidlogging in order to have the bestest color that they wanted their parse to be, but are those really the only two things that make SL seemingly the MMO-C community's most hated expansion?

I'm curious about opinions and stories and perspectives here, again not to defend SL or try to argue with anyone, I just don't get it and would love hear some explanations about it.

Shitty stories, characters and lore in general.

Isolated zones, most of which were shit bar Revendreth.

Gameplay sucked pretty badly, though not as bad as early BfA.
Gameplay customisation was quite literally all over the place, "systems stacking", pretty terrible.

PvP decided by gear alone, effectively.

Grind was mostly optional but pretty bad.
Torghast would've been fine if it hadn't been a mandatory time and gold sink for literally every part of the game in addition to not rewarding gear either.
Though honestly generated content in general just sucks pretty bad.

And then i'm probably still forgetting stuff.

Oh and everything felt timegated somehow.

I think i played three months worth of gametime of it in total.
Contrast that with DF's ~7 (i think).

Not a fan of the most recent patch though, story and stuff seems as bad as SL again. Or maybe it's just time for another break, this kind of WoW playing is unusual for me.

Edit: Oh and it had easily the weakest musical cast in WoW's history bar none, even DF's generic stuff is at times worthwhile, especially Aberrus which sadly seems to be an exception rather than a rule.

[Malkiah]

Not being able to switch your covenant immediately was the most moronic design decision ever made.

Interesting - what was the issue there? A FOMO type scenario? Like, why did you have an issue with that, specifically?
I mean don't get me wrong, I agree it's pretty bad design to lock out player customization in an RPG, and I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling that way - I don't just don't align with your feelings so I don't have a natural sense of what the details were of your dislike of it, and I'm interested.

[Zelk]

Disconnected zones, horrendous system design, terrible class design, storytelling that did irreperable damage to the lore, Korthia, Torghast, The Maw, Covenants.

[Malkiah]

Disconnected zones, horrendous system design, terrible class design, storytelling that did irreperable damage to the lore, Korthia, Torghast, The Maw, Covenants.

Yeah but... what about them?
You listed things that existed in SL, and I understand you didn't like them, but - Ok for example: Korthia. What about it?

[Malkiah]

Korthia was a dreary Maw reskin. It's not even aesthetically part of the Maw it's ripped from somewhere else.

Ah Ok, so just... on an aesthetic level?

I'm not trying to be coy or contrarian here, I'm feeling somewhat paranoid because of the nature of forums in general, these forums in particular, and a long history of bad actors and hit-and-run posters and such and I'm really worried about coming across like... well I won't name names because the rules, but you know who I mean.
I for reals was just sort of casually indifferent to most of SL so I find the passion some folks feel towards it fascinating.

[Lazerbrain]

Personally for me there are a few points that made it a bad expansion for me;

1. The level design, I did not enjoy any of the zones except Zereth Mortis and that came way to late and was to small to carry the expansion for me, the problem with the zones were to many to mention really, but a short list, Bastion made little sense to me, and falling through the land to certain death while autorunning was infuriating. Ardenweld probably the zone i liked the most, but it was also to tightly packed making it feel really small. Maldraxus was just plain boring, but the leveldesign was decent. Ravendreth could have been so much more if it made sense, instead it felt like dracula we have at home.

2. The story. Never has wow had such a singleplayerdriven story, the mawwalker. It just made no sense to me that there was only one champion this time.

3. Covenant skills breaking the classes, some for good, some for bad, DF turned it into the talents they probably should have been to begin with.

4. The Maw. man spending anytime in that place felt like punishment not enjoyment.


This is just my opinion man!

[vian]

It sucked, not much more to it.

[Sentynel]

Are we already in the stage when people start glorifying Shadowlands? How time flies...

[fazaim]

From the introduction of covenants, I knew it would be a shit show and that we'd be farming the same passives as we had in both Legion and BfA already, now locked behind yet another system. My main concern was balance, that there wouldn't be freedom in choosing your favorite themed covenant because of their specific abilities. They reassured us it wouldn't be a problem, if I remember correctly, but it did become so. Then the choice of themes, borrowed from certain classes only to be given to all classes, was an awful idea. Night Fae was basically druid, Kyrian was paladin, Venthyr was Blood DK and Necrolord was Unholy DK.

On top of that, quest design was really tiresome in that we were consistently CC'd to witness retconmania unfold. The obligatory chores you had to do, namely Choregast, for your obligatory legendary was absolutely the worst time I've had to endure in this game. Then the gold you either had to spend time farming or God forbid buy a token for to then spend on these crafted items for your legendary. Not to mention find the legendary memory or whatever they were called in certain locations. If it were so for a legendary, so be it, but these were obligatory to have.

Then the Soulbinds and the forced campaign you had to be CC'd through while occasionally suffer through an escort quest where the NPC wouldn't even die if you didn't perform the expected task. Then the weeks if not months of imbalance in PvP, getting one-shot by a single Full Moon in druids' flurry of 16 spells in a Convoke, and the FotM and predictability in comps you'd meet as a consequence of these awful imbalances. Then of course the drought of content. But worst of all, during all this suffering gameplay wise, when we first got story it seemed to consistently shit on all existing lore. Retcon here, retcon there, you ain't happy yet? Retcon everywhere!

[Accendor]

Interesting - what was the issue there? A FOMO type scenario? Like, why did you have an issue with that, specifically?
I mean don't get me wrong, I agree it's pretty bad design to lock out player customization in an RPG, and I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling that way - I don't just don't align with your feelings so I don't have a natural sense of what the details were of your dislike of it, and I'm interested.

Not at all, it had nothing to do with cosmetics. Covenant changed how you played your specc and how smooth it felt. They gave immense player power. That was the huge issue here.
Fomo was never an issue because it was lretty clear Covenants were not going away, so we had all the time in the world to collect everyt

[Mr. Smith]

These are just the opinions of someone who played it casually for a month at launch before uninstalling, the things I remember disliking were:

• The quests (and WQs) were really bad. Some were obnoxiously gimmicky, the spawn and drop rates on others were horrendous, a lot of them were buggy. None of this was new, but it felt like these things were happening way more than other expansions. And the fact that they made you finish the entire main campaign to unlock endgame features compounded all of these issues: You couldn't just skip a main story quest if it was sucky, you had to do it.
• The story was irredeemable, smarter people than me have explained this better than I could.
• The Maw, the only endgame zone at launch, was designed to make you want to spend as little time there as possible and even had a soft timer built in to reinforce this. I mean, they succeeded, but I don't think "We want our players to not want to be here" is a great design goal.
• I actually had a lot of fun with Torghast, but it was kneecapped by the fact that it was primarily used for character progression: I did it until I had my BiS legendary, did a full run of Twisted Corridors for the mount, and I had no reason to run it any more. If they had given it more cosmetic rewards, I probably would've lived and slept in there.
• The raid was decent. Not bad, but it wasn't enough to keep me playing.
• Even as a mount-collecting degenerate that ground out shit like the Bone-White Primal Raptor and Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent when they were current content, the amount of grinding they expected you to do for the cosmetic Anima rewards at launch was absolutely inhuman, and probably the biggest contributing factor as to why I quit.

[arandomuser]

lots of things i think could of made shadowlands a better expansion
1. torghast should of given loot atleast normal to heroic for higher tiers. (this is somthing i think that will be good about delves blizzard in the past has been philosophically against none raiders getting raid level gear but has changed their philosophy with the war within)
2. you should of been allowed to equip 1 defensive and offensive legendary, you had a bunch of interesting defensive legos but you could never equip them without suffering a huge dps loss, (this problem is kind of fixed in the talent system for SOME talent trees, but still very much a thing for alot of classes)
3. covenents should of been swappable day 1 in hindsight, but atleast alot sooner, alot of potentional for swapping for different fights/specs ruined and made everything more cookie cutter and then after that there was almost never any re balacing of covenant abilities clearly ahead/behind ( i think hero talents in TWW will hopefully be something similar to what covenents should of been and they have been quicker with tuning)
4. as for story the biggest dissapointment was there was a ton of "checkhovs gun" breadcrumbs you could take and speculate upon about the jailer and his true plans and if he secretly had a good motiv etc, but it turned out those were all just nothingburgers and he was just " heh generic bad guy take over world brrr" I think in TWW if they do these kind of foreshadowing in the future they will have a clearer vision of what they are doing hopefully

so what im saying is i think the war within should take some promises of shadowlands and make them actually work

[Mysterymask]

Series of compounding bad decisions I think.

Covenants: The sell was "Pick which one you like doesn't matter" which ended up being "Pick the one that was best for your class or your wrong" This was Blizzard misreading the community with the rule "Wow Players want to win over everything no exceptions" which led to "Pick the Covenant that was mathematically best" Made things worse for those who happened to be in classes where that was different between specs or PVP and in the beginning changing Covenants was made intentionally terrible! Speaking of intentionally Terrible!

The Maw..hell Zones in general: Narratively speaking the zones made sense for the area. Most of the zones we went to was essentially a Hell or a Purgatory so wouldn't make them much of either if one could legit walk away BUT it also meant if you wanted to go to another zone you HAD to take a flight path. The Maw was meant to be terrible and not somewhere you wanted to be for long but...in a game that just felt bad. The main hub NARRATIVELY SPEAKING made sense but a lot of people didn't like that our main city was basically a big utilitarian circle. For the Denizens of the Shadowlands who don't live and just work for all eternity this was perfect for them. For us this was a boring visually uninspiring area.

Narrative: Probably the biggest problem in Shadowlands. Had a few highs like Sire Denathriaus was very beloved and Garrosh legit went out in a way that Garrosh should, BUT not to many folks here appreciated Sylvannas's redemption arc, Tyrande's Vengeance ar..(Just Kidding she's fine now), The Jailer being the sneaky guy who actually caused all the problems JUST KIDDING it was the dreadlords and Sire Denathrius all along! The first appearance and talking of Elune and "oh yeah I had Sylvannas burn that tree down to give you some extra souls....oh oopsie doodle didn't realize The Arbiter was broken and I just damned an entire population to Super Hell!" Oh look its Arthas..and he's gone, Anduin was the bad guy but he's not now but he might of liked being a dick for a bit! Oh btw there's now just a portal to the afterlife and technically you can just take people there for vacation or something. Oh remember Muzella that we absolutely teased in BFA he's a 5 man boss in a dungeon that also has Milhouse Manastorm, lol remember that guy! Oh now you get to see the afterlife! The afterlife is A job where upon entry they take away everything you are and you work for the rest of eternity, Valhalla but zombies, Fairy Reincarnation Land, Castlevania Psalm of Purgatory, AND SUPER HELL! oh and a side note this happened probably at the height of the woke mind virus and them proclaiming Pelegos as Arbiter rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, I don't care but a good subset of the forum lost their collective shit for that.

PVE: I think the only major problems with the instanced PVE side of things was this was the height of the "Weak Aura" raids where a chunk of the mythic versions of raids were actually so hard that the addon was basically Mandatory and this really riled up the conversation of raid difficulty. Dragonflight raids have shown that even Blizz thought they went too far but we'll see.

PVP: PVP always seems to either sway in the "Nobody dies" style and "Everyone dies in a global" style. Shadowlands if I remember right was in the "everyone dies in a global" style ...I dont think people like everyone dies in a global style.

Torghast: People REALLY didn't like Torghast. Honestly I don't think it was that egregious if you were strong enough you just did enough to get your legendary and once you got it that was it. But I get the raidlog folks not liking ANOTHER thing to run that didn't even get you gear.

Anima: From a world player perspective...Anima kinda sucked. You needed SO MUCH of it to get anything good and then you basically had to go back to your place to dump it in a bucket or it didn't count and it was all this awkward mess if you changed covenants and yeah it just kinda blew.