Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of systems in the game?

[Tyron]

Hey all, what the title says.

Personally, it's come to a point this expansion that I no longer feel like playing. I've been trying to get in the mood for S2 M+ and the new raid but each time I think about legendaries, soulbinds, conduits, renown and now shards of domination I feel like it's not worth the effort. Past expansions added one or two systems over all the patches, but I think this time is getting ridiculous.

How do you guys feel about it?

[Rageonit]

Hey all, what the title says.

Personally, it's come to a point this expansion that I no longer feel like playing. I've been trying to get in the mood for S2 M+ and the new raid but each time I think about legendaries, soulbinds, conduits, renown and now shards of domination I feel like it's not worth the effort. Past expansions added one or two systems over all the patches, but I think this time is getting ridiculous.

How do you guys feel about it?

If you enjoy playing the game in general, it's not bad.
If you only enjoy portions of it, like raiding, but can't stand things like open world questing etc., it can be arduous. There are plenty of catch up mechanics at this point, things like anima or soul ash are plentiful, but you will have to spend some time and effort to get raid ready.

[Wuusah]

Honestly it's not as overwhelming as you make it seem. It looks like a lot but most of the stuff you get eased into step by step or you get just on the side while playing.

[Ryzek]

Its not overwhelming to me but I can see how it would be to others.

[dirtyjokes]

Not really. You get soulbinds and renown as you go. Legendaries are kind of annoying but I'll do two torghast runs and the biweekly assaults and that's it.
What about domination gear is overwhelming for you?

[Rageonit]

Not really. You get soulbinds and renown as you go. Legendaries are kind of annoying but I'll do two torghast runs and the biweekly assaults and that's it.
What about domination gear is overwhelming for you?

Out of curiosity, cause I'm away and can't play the new patch yet - what about conduits? Do new wq's drop high level item versions right off the bat?

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I don't no, a lot of it you get from playing and I'd imagine if you are playing higher end parts of the game, you're getting your info from a website anyway, so its not like you sit there and sweat over what you are going to pick when it's already been done for you.

[Lochton]

Hey all, what the title says.

Personally, it's come to a point this expansion that I no longer feel like playing. I've been trying to get in the mood for S2 M+ and the new raid but each time I think about legendaries, soulbinds, conduits, renown and now shards of domination I feel like it's not worth the effort. Past expansions added one or two systems over all the patches, but I think this time is getting ridiculous.

How do you guys feel about it?

No really that overwhelming since they are limited. If they were just kept on for the whole duration of the game, then yeah but right now, they are just part of adding to the game until they are gone.

[Puri]

Hey all, what the title says.

Personally, it's come to a point this expansion that I no longer feel like playing. I've been trying to get in the mood for S2 M+ and the new raid but each time I think about legendaries, soulbinds, conduits, renown and now shards of domination I feel like it's not worth the effort. Past expansions added one or two systems over all the patches, but I think this time is getting ridiculous.

How do you guys feel about it?

Well, personally I hate it when we get bombarded by new systems like now. What from the quests is mandatory? What is timegated and should be done now or you miss a lockout? Are the rewards one time or every time? Do I lose currency if I do torghast first without getting the quest first? What are those different legendary currencies for? How do I get the new legendaries? Do I need to do the covenant assault on alts?
Those things are especially important when you play several alts and the steps are rather time consuming, you really want to know what is optional.

But in the end it takes one or two weeks and the systems become clear, it's not like they're rocket science. Wow traditionally makes them simply hard to keep apart when they introduce several new systems at the same time, imho a major part to blame has the outdated ui of the quest log.

[Arinoras]

I think it all comes down to being honest with yourself about what you want out of the game. There's nothing wrong if it feels like a lot to manage for your gaming time. I've definitely had phases where I stepped away from the game because I wasn't interested in the systems grind. Sometimes you just want to game and chill, which you can do in WoW, but if you want to be getting the best gear and performing at your best, it demands a bit of effort that may or may not be relaxing to expend.

[Tziva]

I play WoW almost entirely for end-game pve (raids, keystones) and even though I consider myself more in the loop than the average person (I mean, I'm on MMOC every day almost): sometimes, mainly right after a patch that dumps a bunch of new stuff. And that is as a person who has played this game for like 16 years!

I think my biggest particular issue is the different currencies, especially since it's not entirely made clear what is for what when you first encounter them. Most go in the currency tab, but a lot of things that function like a currency don't. If you didn't read the patch notes, you could be three days into this patch and still not know what Soul Sinders are for or why they are different than Soul Ash, likewise for Sygian Embers, and you might guess these legendary crystals are for crafting legendaries but I don't think the game actually explicitly says that anywhere when you start acquiring them.

I also find the weird alternative reps-that-aren't-reps to be a little problematic too. I get they dont want rep bonuses to work on them -- that's the only reason I can think of to make them function differently -- but I can see how it would be really intimidating or confusing to players to have some show in your rep tab, some not show unless you're talking to the NPC, and all of them earn rep in different ways. While I think they did a decent job at introducing the new research dude and breadcrumbing you there, but it's still very annoying to have 948570489754 types of research items to turn in, to gain rep that you can only see while talking to him, for rewards that you may not be entirely clear how important they are.

BFA was really bad with systems on top of systems -- particularly with gearing: azerite and essences and neck leveling and cloak leveling and corruption -- but I think they did better before and after. At least expansion systems tend to be replaced with new ones rather than just added to (which to be clear, has other problems, but at least keeps the number of them more reasonable).

I've played this game since classic and I read patch notes so I can keep up, but it's also very easy for me to empathise with players who are newer or who don't and see how intimidating all this shit can be to someone who hasn't spent years getting used to it.

[Razion]

No. They're just boring.

[Daedius]

Was an avid collector and achievement hunter, but Blizzard keeps adding more and more things to get with absurd drop rates and grinds to the point of being beyond overwhelming...

Case and point, 45 mounts in 9.1

Called it quits, stopped playing WoW.

[callipygoustp]

Overwhelmed? No. Irritated by? Yes. What a freaking nuisance.

[Relapses]

The game itself is fine but the systems we keep getting are less and less intuitive and serve only to complicate an already complicated game.

[Jastall]

No, but maybe because I'm only a pleb (according to some anyway) who aims to get AOTC and KSM and nothing more. 3 or 4% less DPS in an ideal scenario won't change much in any situation I'm realistically going to face, so I don't optimize the ever loving shit out of the systems and instead just play ball until I'm bored of them which tends to happen fairly quickly. Let others min-max and worry about their logs, I'll be the casual that downs bosses in their own time and gets to actually play other games because I'm not farming my ass off in this one to increase a number on a spreadsheet, I do enough of that at work.

I do think about half the systems they make don't add much to the game. For example I truly don't see the point behind the overly complicated and RNG Conduit upgrade process from a game design perspective. Legendaries by contrast I've no issue with in Shadowlands.

[Tziva]

The game itself is fine but the systems we keep getting are less and less intuitive and serve only to complicate an already complicated game.

Yeah I guess maybe that is my ultimate complaint with all of this: none of it is intuitive, and a lot of stuff just seems needlessly convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. Blizzard seems to think that things being obfuscated is adding depth, and it isn't. If stuff was more transparent and intuitive, then it kinda wouldn't matter how much of it there was because it would be obvious how to approach it.

Veteran players read patch notes and dev blogs (which honestly shouldn't be necessary unless its a thing you like to do) and can figure out a lot of stuff just from familiarity with similar systems, but new or more casual players are just going to be completely overwhelmed trying to figure it out in-game. Checking third party sources when you get stuck on a quest now or aren't sure what an item is for is fine, but no one should feel like they have to constantly be reading summaries and explanations for everything they encounter in game to even understand what is going on.

[Krakan]

Overwhelmed? No...

Annoyed? Yes.

Figured I would use the down time between tiers to gear up a new character and I honestly forgot how time consuming torghast and renowned is... I just want to play a new class not be bored.

New fear catch up system helps a lot though. Starting at 200 compared to 160 is much nicer.

[Osmeric]

The systems made it easier to walk away from the game.

[mrcodez]

Hey all, what the title says.

Personally, it's come to a point this expansion that I no longer feel like playing. I've been trying to get in the mood for S2 M+ and the new raid but each time I think about legendaries, soulbinds, conduits, renown and now shards of domination I feel like it's not worth the effort. Past expansions added one or two systems over all the patches, but I think this time is getting ridiculous.

How do you guys feel about it?

Thing is, if the systems are fun then it doesn't really matter. I can think of other games that get complex with systems but it all results in something really fun. Currently the systems we have are about controlling and shaping the way we play, or maybe more accurately preventing us from playing "the wrong way".

The systems in shadowlands aren't built to add to the fun and entertainment of the game.