What if Blizzard means "breaks the cycle" in the WORST POSSIBLE WAY?

[Nostromo93]

Ask 10 players, and you will get 11 answers. Here are mine:

WoW - Meh
BC - Good
Wrath - Meh
Cata - Good
MoP - Good
WoD - Good
Legion - Good
BfA - Good

[therealbowser]

There is no pattern, it is all subjective. For me MoP is still the worst expansion to date.

It's subjective, but for the most part you can find which expansions the playerbase as a whole likes or dislikes more.

Mists of Pandaria was a mixed bag--people either loved it or hated it. And it absolutely improved substantially by the end of its cycle. Almost no one thought Warlords of Draenor was a great game, or even a slightly good game. Lots of people hated it. Warlords of Draenor also was not given time to improve, and instead was the first and only expansion to ever have a 2 patch/2 raid tier cycle (since I am not considering the selfie camera a "patch").

WotLK is considered the best expansion by the majority of players (who have played it, at least), and Cataclysm is considered by many one of the worst... and also is very obviously the expansion where WoW's playerbase started declining. For the first time ever consistently, I might add.

Legion is a bit mixed, and it has had plenty of problems. But overall, more people had fun with it than did not. BFA is absolutely hated but we won't truly know if it was a good or bad expansion until the next one comes out. Legion kind of had the same problem, but even during that expansion people knew it was at least decent.

So you can say subjective things like "I didn't like that expansion, and I liked that one", but data will still show how people felt about a given expansion overall. And you don't exactly need data to be able to see most of these things. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Warlords of Draenor was an unpopular expansion, lol. Nor does it take one to see that Cataclysm caused subscriptions to drop.

Opinions are subjective, but get enough opinions and you can get a general census of how a population feels. This isn't quite a fact but it's damn close.

[JoshuaNLG]

Cataclysm was great, it was just dragon soul lasted way too long.

[Vrinara]

I think it depends on where in BFA you look. Just imo, the beginning of BFA when warfronts came out, was one of the worst/most depressing times of WoW. It felt like the xpak had launched unfinished and everything just felt bad, unrewarding, and boring. They made BFA a LOT better since then, but you've got to think those who quit during those relatively early days will remember BFA like that from now on.

However, I could also see a meh for BFA.

Same could be said about WoD. Raids were great, and the leveling content was some of my favorite, but at the end, there was just very little content. I remember the patch where you had to go down and manage boats, and that was my second lowest point in wow, lol.

On Cata, one of my favorite things ever in wow were those early ghostcrawler mythic dungeons. They were so hard and fun, lol. However, the xpak went down hill after those were nerfed, and never really got its legs under it.

Most of the other xpaks started and stayed strong. Overall the game has had relatively few slumps over the years, but I have a feeling that it isn't really "A Team or B Team" but more like bad ideas cause a panic with the devs to swap back to content types that they know are loved by the community and iterate on them. They try something, it works, they try something else it doesn't, they panic and really work hard to make sure the next thing will work. That type of thing. It's an ebb and flow imo.

I agree with you on the most part.

- - - Updated - - -

BC-best expansion
Wotlk-good
Cata-fine
MoP-ok
WoD-bad
Legion-bad
BFA-belongs in trash

I agree with BC, and Wrath, but I disagree with Legion being bad. I thought Legion was Good. Not amazing, but still good. It had a ton of content. I also don't think BFA belongs in the trash, I'd say it's more Meh to me. There are some good, but a lot of bad with BFA. As for WoD, In my opinion, that is the worst expansion.

[LuminaL]

If you don't think WoD was the worst expansion your opinion is useless and can be discarded into the dumpster where it belongs. All of the other expansions are debatable except that one.

this, but in a more harsh truth way!

[ryanmahaffe]

To those who keep going "I liked wod. There is no pattern" or whatev.
The pattern refers to the clear general consensus of the player base seen across polls and just general conversation.

Obviously there are levels to it, cata isnt considered had by as many people and is considered less bad than wod, but it still falls under the negative side of the pattern.

[kaminaris]

To those who keep going "I liked wod. There is no pattern" or whatev.
The pattern refers to the clear general consensus of the player base seen across polls and just general conversation.

Obviously there are levels to it, cata isnt considered had by as many people and is considered less bad than wod, but it still falls under the negative side of the pattern.

general consensus LOL



Protip: there was never ever a general consensus in WoW. The only exception I could say was camera changes where they straight up restricted max camera distance.

[Alexplode]

MoP - OK
WoD - Mediocre
Legion - Ultra garbage
BfA - Good

There is no cycle.

whaaaat???

WOD: Bad
Legion: good
BFA: ultra garbage

what is wrong with legion?. Raids where pretty fun, we had templates on pvp so just dinged to max level and start to do bgs/arena, the AP system was great compared to idiotic Azerite system.

Clearly it is subjective....

[kaminaris]

whaaaat???

WOD: Bad
Legion: good
BFA: ultra garbage

what is wrong with legion?. Raids where pretty fun, we had templates on pvp so just dinged to max level and start to do bgs/arena, the AP system was great compared to idiotic Azerite system.

Clearly it is subjective....

Obviously it's subjective. And for me, everything was wrong in legion except for mage tower:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post51746399

[ryanmahaffe]

general consensus LOL



Protip: there was never ever a general consensus in WoW. The only exception I could say was camera changes where they straight up restricted max camera distance.

Of course there is. It's what the majority opinion is

[kaminaris]

Of course there is. It's what the majority opinion is

No there is no such thing. Majority you mean vocal forum minority. Not even blizzard knows what majority thinks as they haven't send out appropriate poll asking what they think about all these expansions.

[Yamuri]

What? [blank] expansion was amazing! [blank] expansion was terrible!

opinions are over rated I suppose. I liked BC pvp, WotLK raiding, Cata raiding, MoP class design, WoD quests and world mechanics, legion weapon system and class halls, BfA I like the allied races. Not everything was good in them but hey, not everything about every expansion was garbage in my opinion.

[FoxyAnatoliy]

vanilla - mediocre
bc - good
wotlk - mediocre
cata - garbage
mop - meh
wod - meh
legion - good
bfa - mediocre

[Hekazi]

Same, except for BfA.

For me it would be:
Vanilla - Good
TBC - Bad
Wrath - Mediocre
Cata - Good
Mists - Bad
Warlords - Good
BfA - Bad

vanilla - mediocre
bc - good
wotlk - mediocre
cata - garbage
mop - meh
wod - meh
legion - good
bfa - mediocre

[Aristai1723]

People rate whole expansions only? Since WoD I haven't been subbed or rading for an entire expansion since patch quality varies so greatly:

6.0 Great
6.1 unsubscribes
6.2 OK
7.0 Great
7.1 Great
7.2 Unsubscribes
7.3 OK
8.0 Great
8.1 Unsubb
8.2 Best since mop
8.3 ???

[kaminaris]

People rate whole expansions only? Since WoD I haven't been subbed or rading for an entire expansion since patch quality varies so greatly:

6.0 Great
6.1 unsubscribes
6.2 OK
7.0 Great
7.1 Great
7.2 Unsubscribes
7.3 OK
8.0 Great
8.1 Unsubb
8.2 Best since mop
8.3 ???

Yeah well people have tendency to compare new expansion to last patch of last expansion. Honestly speaking, I loathed legion BUT 7.3.2 when waking essences was added - was a lot better than 8.0-8.1

Thing is unlike some people here i don't have goldfish memory. I remember very well how shit and frustrating legiondary system was, and how it was softcapped at 4, how it took me a damn year to finally get my bis boots. It was simply too late.

[Shinrael]

You have good points here, and I still loved WoD, it is just my least favorite. A least favorite of a favorite game is still a beloved game, haha! And another fair point: Not sure which meaning of "architecture" you meant here, but the tech advancements in WoD were pretty massive to be fair. It is the expansion that made the game into the highly responsive version we have today, adding faster server pings and better tech for knowing where players, objects, enemies and AoEs are. So that was pretty massive for the future. The expansion just didn't grip me like many others did. I'd put most of that into professions and the garrisons making it so I just didn't see other players all that often outside of occasional trips to Warspear. And while Tanann Jungle was good content, it was only at the end of an expansion with very little to do in the world before that and couldn't survive the content draught.

Oh yeah, I am not even very familiar with the tech advancements. But yeah they made many system and other changes that we thank for today. It's just that people decide to focus on one bad thing and satanize it. It is kind of the same with me - it might be my least favourite but as you said, still a favourite and a beloved game. And to me content draught = more time to level alts, do legacy raids, make gold, grind old reputations, roleplay, etc. Opposite to that we have too many things to do now I often don't have time for anything else xD

[Nyel]

I liked Cataclysm, Warlords of Draenor and Battle For Azeroth.

Compared to their predecessors/successors they are still the bad expansions.

[ping-pong]

Compared to their predecessors/successors they are still the bad expansions.

And if you don't compare them they are good? So the exp is good, but you start comparing and it gets bad? Game's problem or yours?

[Nyel]

And if you don't compare them they are good? So the exp is good, but you start comparing and it gets bad? Game's problem or yours?

It’s definitely WoW‘s problem and not mine or that of the players. You can definitely see which expansion was blessed with a lot of dev work and which wasn’t. That alone makes a good vs bad comparison possible.