Rate Shadowlands

[Nivena]

I quit a month into the expansion, so I am not really entitled to vote :P

Same for me, I played a month during the Christmas break and decided to unsub because I have already 'seen' all the content (leveling, new factions, quests, raid).

I also burnt out from the anima farming (yes, only after a month). Better wait until they buff that thing and I can get the things in a fraction of the time it would take me now.

[LedZeppelin]

I give it 8/10. raid was great, m+ is whatever, and pvp is the closest its been to wrath in a long long time. Everything still needs some tuning but i have some faith

[M1r4g3]

Its a bit hard to judge tho, if i take class design/mechanics into consideration its a 2, with bfa/legion being a 1/4, but if im looking at just the xpack and its features/dungeons/raids its probably a 4, everything just feels bellow average, castle nathria is just unfun, dungeons are a overdesigned mess(cause blizzard hates it when players don't do them their way), the world feels meh cause 4 separate islands, maw is a soulless trash filler zone, troghast is alrite but i hate the fact that it feels already abandoned and that its tied to a power grind instead of being made for fun and cosmetics, its 1-alt friendly(tho gearing at 200-220ilvl was awful before valor, and i stopped playing recently so not sure if it managed fix it), im glad anima wasn't really tied to character power but it was kinda pointless, professions are again awful(and will keep being awful until they figure out that not everyone should have the same recipes for stuff, also worthless crafted gear as usual except legendary bases).

[dope_danny]

I think Revendreth as a zone is the only thing thats held up longer than a month and everything else is going to increasingly be seen as bfa 2: why is everything a bowl or flat plain now?

[arkanon]

Yeah this is really sad to see - SO many people saying "hey I voted that it was good/ok/whatever but would totally change my vote to bad now". I think that's a real shame - I voted middle of the pack - right from the outset SL was "ok" for me - nothing at all grabbed me - nothing jumped out and made me think "oh wow that's totally awesome!"

BfA had the same impact on me "oh yup - so.......nothing special, nothing really new and exciting.........more of the same". I am NOT some legion fanboi - in fact, i dont rate it that highly (i know i know, opinions and all that - who woulda thunk it) but one thing that WAS cool about legion was the NEW stuff - new ways to play, new class, new weapon system, new abilities - it was a LOT of new stuff, and it was very high quality stuff.

BfA did try to add some new things - IE and Warfronts - it just so happened they both fucking SUCKED. Warfronts seemed doomed from day 1 - to the point where they had to keep clarifying "nonono, they are NOT pvp, its pve" because everyone was like "wait, so its a new BG system or what? wtf is this shit?".

IE on the other hand had huge potential, but they completely fucked the whole thing up, at least in my opinion. It SHOULD have been something a bunch of friends could have done, with no pressure, no timer, no race; just go and explore a procedurally generated island, with some rares, some bosses, and a final boss that summons when you trigger it that is like a pretty tough challenge, but tuned so a full dps team can still down it. They could have added 4 new "adventurer" style gear sets - that could be drops/purchased with currency or whatever. Look obviously im not putting much effort into this, it didnt happen and wont happen, but when it was first announced, thats what i pictured in my head, not just an "open world" m+ dungeon with the difficulty turned down, but still just zerg around gathering everything up burst it dead and rush around like headless chooks.

What exactly did SL introduce? I mean specific, NEW gameplay systems - not just system systems, but actual new ways to play the game.

- - - Updated - - -

I think Revendreth as a zone is the only thing thats held up longer than a month and everything else is going to increasingly be seen as bfa 2: why is everything a bowl or flat plain now?

Complacency, possibly arrogance. That's the only thing I can think of. They have the talent, and the ability to produce stunning zones / gear / weapons, and they release this generic shit? I dont HATE the zones, but it absolutely feels like they are not being allowed to be creative.

[Sithalos]

A very solid 7/10.

Would be a bit higher if the Maw didn't exist.

[Nerovar]

I still don't think SL is bad, but it's now only the second time since Beta that I've unsubbed and uninstalled. It's not the expansion itself that is bad to me, it's the design philosophy that emphasizes manual grouping so heavily to the point that automated queueing is now worthless as a gameplay style. I've found other games that respect me as a player and want me to play their game however I choose to play it, rather than constantly telling me I'm worthless and unwanted unless I play their way. That's always been the case with WoW to some degree but it's gotten much worse and more overt as time has went on. MoP was the last time I really felt the designers actually wanted me to play their game my own way and offered me content and progression in a manner that I enjoyed.

I don't feel like Blizzard actually has a design philosophy for WoW at this point. It's like they just stitch together random contradictory talking points from the forums with data they gathered and think it will create an expansion that can provide meaningful experiences to the players. They don't have a vision for their game. Hell, they don't even know what constitutes a fun experience - just look at Island Expeditions, Warfronts and Torghasts. The team seems genuinely lost and directionless.

[SNES-1990]

Just okay for me. Bland is the best way I can describe it. I feel no resonance with the characters they introduced - be it the covenants, brokers, or jailer. Someone in the thread mentioned "hollow" and that fits for me. The zones are disjointed and feel visually monochromatic.

It doesn't feel like the afterlife, it just feels like another set of planets where things live, eat, fight, sleep, and die. Some things in WoW are best left a mystery.

[Zorachus]

LOL anyone giving Shittylands a review score over 5/10 is just a fanboy troll, or they haven't actually played this expansion. Blizzard just did paint by numbers, creating a generic lame expansion, they thought the players would buy up anyway, because of the pandemic. They half-assed this one.

As of now, I would rate all WoW expansions in this order;

- Wrath #1
- BC # 2
- Legion # 3
- MoP #4
- BfA # 5
- SL # 6
- Cat # 7
- WoD # 8

[Donald Hellscream]

LOL anyone giving Shittylands a review score over 5/10 is just a fanboy troll, or they haven't actually played this expansion. Blizzard just did paint by numbers, creating a generic lame expansion, they thought the players would buy up anyway, because of the pandemic.

And anyone who can't even bother to hide their obvious bias shouldn't be taken seriously at all.

As for the topic, my score has dropped somewhat, if I were to give an arbitrary meaningless number it would be I dunno 6/10, better than WoD and BFA but worse than Legion.

[Soon-TM]

I feel no resonance with the characters they introduced - be it the covenants, brokers, or jailer.

I think this is the worst aspect of SL imo: that it's almost impossible to care for the story or any of the main characters. I just want Sylvanas and Anduin gone no matter how, and I can't bother to worry about the oh so evil, totally not a last minute asspull Blue Man.

It doesn't feel like the afterlife, it just feels like another set of planets where things live, eat, fight, sleep, and die. Some things in WoW are best left a mystery.

Not only this, but I also hate the fact the overall "X but X-ier" leitmotiv of SL. Ardenweald is entirely NE themed (DOS is a sad excuse for a Troll afterlife) , but night elf-ier. Maldraxxus is Scourge, but even Scourgier. Bastion is very paladin-ish - as a matter of fact, moreso than the freaking class hall from Legion. The Maw is... Too close to Diablo for my taste (aside from being possibly the worst zone ever introduced in the entire game), which leaves Revendreth as the only novel zone.

[rybat117]

Definitely a 5-6/10. As a casual player, I haven't necessarily been disappointed by Shadowlands, but there isn't a whole lot of exciting stuff here. I think Torghast had/has to be one of the best additions to the game in years, but it's both underutilized and poorly executed so that it hardly adds anymore value to the game than islands did in BFA. Instances are average, but like many others here have said the endgame is growing stale from a lack of additions or development. Lots of great small changes, but the base systems are still the same as Legion just without Legion's flair and wealth of content to back them. I also dislike the Anima/Renown system, which seems far more detached from actual gameplay than AP.

The zones and aesthetics are well-made as always, but feel more like an alternate Azeroth than a different dimension, falling short of the real 'alien' feel I was personally hoping for. Lore-wise I felt it was very under-explained to a similar degree to WoD; they had a lot of potential with expanding the WoW universe, but I don't feel they pulled off what they were aiming for. There haven't been any memorable cinematics or story moments, which at least WoD had many of.

Overall, like BFA, Shadowlands feels like a stripped-down Legion, and even though I wouldn't call it horrible, it feels pretty mediocre. Unless the patches can seriously expand on the current systems and content and get them closer to the place I think Blizzard intended them to be- which I think could be done- Shadowlands might fall alongside BFA as being pretty disappointing.

[Adam552]

Snoreghast, legendaries and covenant are my biggest issues.

Torghast is just repetitive trash killing, takes longer than island expedition, so I actually prefer islands now, never thought I'd say that...

Legendaries get rebalanced mid-tier/season in a minor patch... pain in the arse having to grind and buy another one. Half the legendaries are useless to begin with and there's only ever going to be a couple that you ever need - only the BiS ones. So why bother with the rest, apart from being a load of bs when you buff the bad ones so I have to buy yet another one.

Covenants in PvP are a pain, I really cba changing covenant on my rogue now, it was night fae, now the goto is necrolord after the massive buff. Pain in the arse.

Conduits/Soulbinds, yea can these be spec specific? feels like an ill-thought out system and a pain to swap around if you play different specs or pve and pvp...

[Velerios]

Personal rating:

#1 MoP
#2 TBC
#3 WotLK
#4 Legion (Without Suramar this would be on #6 place)
#5 Cata
#6 Vanilla
#7 WoD
#8 SL
#9 BfA

MoP was hands down the best expansion blizzard ever created. Shadowlands right now is still better than BfA (at least the classes are a bit better) but surely not better than WoD. WoDs initial content (after all of their cuts) was at least OK (heck, leveling in WoD was more than a decent experience), if we compare WoD and SL to release, WoD was still a ton better. It's their cuts of Farahlon and the initial cut of the endgame zone of Tanaan that was used as patch-content and no content at all for a year that made WoD so bad. No Content except for the SELFIE-Cam.

But right now SL doesn't even have this: NO CONTENT and even the initial content had probably the worst leveling experience since Vanilla.

[Soon-TM]

even the initial content had probably the worst leveling experience since Vanilla.

I concur. No matter which expansion I look at, they all seem to have a better levelling experience than SL. Yes, that includes WoD and BfA. I've levelled three toons to 60, but I'm sure af I won't do it again, and that is something new - in a bad way, since I've never had a problem with levelling 5 or 6 toons to max level. But not in SL.

[Velerios]

I concur. No matter which expansion I look at, they all seem to have a better levelling experience than SL. Yes, that includes WoD and BfA. I've levelled three toons to 60, but I'm sure af I won't do it again, and that is something new - in a bad way, since I've never had a problem with levelling 5 or 6 toons to max level. But not in SL.

I excluded Vanilla, because the Vanilla-Leveling-Experience was horrible, maybe even worse then SL. But yes, for the rest of the xpacks, every expansion was better in the Leveling-experience than Shadowlands. Threads of Fate is horrible, levening through Shadowlands was horrible too, especially because of the forced MAW-Route, then we got to Bastion, hands down, this is the worst leveling they have ever created, Maldraxxus, visually so extremely boring and blant and takes so extremely long, after this Ardenweald, it's better, but it has the same issue that more than half of the zone is unused while leveling and it finishes off with an RP-Walk that should be skippable after the second time. And then the best zone in Shadowlands, Revendreth; it's quite good, but when you are there, you are probably already 60.

[Zantera]

LOL anyone giving Shittylands a review score over 5/10 is just a fanboy troll, or they haven't actually played this expansion. Blizzard just did paint by numbers, creating a generic lame expansion, they thought the players would buy up anyway, because of the pandemic. They half-assed this one.

As of now, I would rate all WoW expansions in this order;

- Wrath #1
- BC # 2
- Legion # 3
- MoP #4
- BfA # 5
- SL # 6
- Cat # 7
- WoD # 8

If you put Wrath as your nr1 you don't really have much ground to stand on when mocking other people's opinion lol

[Zorachus]

If you put Wrath as your nr1 you don't really have much ground to stand on when mocking other people's opinion lol

Wrath rocked. Added Death Knights, my fav class. Had the cool ICC raid. The giant continent of Northrend was breathtaking first time going there with the giant wide open zones.

And that was the last expansion with a strict rotation, pressing like numbers 1 through 5, rinse and repeat for your spells casting. That was the best.

Then Blizzard F'd up in Cat going to the stupid priority and proc spell casting we have today still.

Blood DK dps back in Wrath was my favorite class and spec.

[Zantera]

Wrath rocked. Added Death Knights, my fav class. Had the cool ICC raid. The giant continent of Northrend was breathtaking first time going there with the giant wide open zones.

And that was the last expansion with a strict rotation, pressing like numbers 1 through 5, rinse and repeat for your spells casting. That was the best.

Then Blizzard F'd up in Cat going to the stupid priority and proc spell casting we have today still.

Blood DK dps back in Wrath was my favorite class and spec.

Setting aside the fact Wotlk would be in my bottom 3, just comparing Wrath to Shadowlands on the first tier/launch alone, it's an easy win for Shadowlands IMO and i'm not necessarily super excited about it. (Its in the middle somewhere overall) Wrath is the only expansion that launched with an already existing raid as its first raid which is incredibly lazy and the whole first tier was massively disappointing. Could you imagine if Shadowlands had launched with Antorus or something re-used as the first raid? Castle Nathria might not be one of the better raids but it's miles better than Wotlk-Naxx, and for a starting raid I think it's probably among the better ones. In terms of dungeons there's definitely more difficulty to be found as well.

I didn't love ICC personally (though I did love Ulduar) but with every expansion the raids tend to get better the further in. Northrend was cool and it's one of my issues with Shadowlands that the zones are separated and I would have preferred a continent for sure, but the individual zones are pretty good on their own. In terms of rotations I feel like that's just a very subjective thing and depends on the class you play. I loved my warrior in TBC, had to quit it in Wotlk cause I felt they ruined it and then along the way they have just gone back and forth so much. If you are one of those who think they shouldn't re-design the classes every expansion I'm kinda with you there. If it aint broken don't fix it.

[Varaben]

Setting aside the fact Wotlk would be in my bottom 3, just comparing Wrath to Shadowlands on the first tier/launch alone, it's an easy win for Shadowlands IMO and i'm not necessarily super excited about it. (Its in the middle somewhere overall) Wrath is the only expansion that launched with an already existing raid as its first raid which is incredibly lazy and the whole first tier was massively disappointing. Could you imagine if Shadowlands had launched with Antorus or something re-used as the first raid? Castle Nathria might not be one of the better raids but it's miles better than Wotlk-Naxx, and for a starting raid I think it's probably among the better ones. In terms of dungeons there's definitely more difficulty to be found as well.

I didn't love ICC personally (though I did love Ulduar) but with every expansion the raids tend to get better the further in. Northrend was cool and it's one of my issues with Shadowlands that the zones are separated and I would have preferred a continent for sure, but the individual zones are pretty good on their own. In terms of rotations I feel like that's just a very subjective thing and depends on the class you play. I loved my warrior in TBC, had to quit it in Wotlk cause I felt they ruined it and then along the way they have just gone back and forth so much. If you are one of those who think they shouldn't re-design the classes every expansion I'm kinda with you there. If it aint broken don't fix it.

I actually really liked Sartharian and the 1/2/3 drake mechanic for "heroic" mode. It wasn't a super difficult fight by any means, but for a first tier, single boss encounter, it was a great raid I thought. Naxx was really weird though, like they released the biggest baddest Vanilla raid...and it was steamrolled by every guild and pug group immediately. Definitely not a great tier overall.