Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Alcsaar]

Feels like one of the most payed shill posts ever.

SL isn't anything special. In fact, its much closer to the previous 2-3 expansions than any of the "classic" expacs like TBC/WOTLK.

It has much the same problems all the previous recent expansions do. I'm already basically done playing because:
-Torghast/soul ash is a boring grind,
-Loot from dungeons is terrible (its easy to run 5-10 dungeons with out getting a single piece, and more than that with out getting a single useful piece).
-Valor system doesn't fix anything, you still have to actually get the item you need to drop, and even then its uber expensive to upgrade to a relevant item level. Why can't loot just drop like it shoud? Why does everything need a intangible currency grind?
-Raider io is still a thing and absolutely ruins any desire for me to try to pug M+ anyway.
-Covenant imbalance was always going to be an issue and remains so. In addition, grinding renown is boring and you get almost none from some catch up mechanics like arena pvp or raiding. Now that my guild is only killing the last 2 bosses of the raid, I basically have no chance of catching up with out doing the boring questing.
-Legendary crafting costs. I happened to play a leather class, and what did one of the most expensive legendary base items end up being? Leather. Ridiculously prohibitive to spend 10x+ what other classes are spending for their bases.

All in all, definitely has killed any desire to continue playing.

The only reason I log on anymore is one night a week to progress raid with my guild, but that will be ending soon too.

[OMGTwitchTV]

Feels like one of the most payed shill posts ever.

I read the rest, but this part just cracks me up. If someone supports Blizz and the direction they are going, they are a FanBoy. If they comment how much they are enjoying themselves, they are a Shill. I wonder what the name is for someone who is jaded by a game yet continues to play and even frequents forums to insult other players.

[Marxman]

The experiment "let's do everything mythic raiders want" has officially failed and should now be abandoned.

I mean... that's definitely not what they did. Mythic raiders aren't particularly thrilled with SL either.

The only reasons I can see why you would even think this is the removal of Titanforging and infinite AP grinds. Those definitely weren't the only issues high-end players had with the Legion/BfA era of design.

[Glorious Leader]

I mean... that's definitely not what they did. Mythic raiders aren't particularly thrilled with SL either.

The only reasons I can see why you would even think this is the removal of Titanforging and infinite AP grinds. Those definitely weren't the only issues high-end players had with the Legion/BfA era of design.

That wasn't the only thing they did. M+ being much less lucrative is also to the benefit of mythic raiders

[Freedom]

I have no Shadowlands experience, and it sounds worse than BfA, but I can say one thing for sure: this thread did NOT go the way OP thought it would.

[Soon-TM]

I have no Shadowlands experience, and it sounds worse than BfA, but I can say one thing for sure: this thread did NOT go the way OP thought it would.

OP started this thread when the xpac was fresh, aka "honeymoon phase", when the cracks weren't as visible as they become a few months down the road. Or just weeks, in the case of SL

[Freedom]

OP started this thread when the xpac was fresh, aka "honeymoon phase", when the cracks weren't as visible as they become a few months down the road. Or just weeks, in the case of SL

Well, even on page one, of 20 posts, there were already 5 negative anti-SL posts, and that couldn't have been a good sign for what was to come. Not so early on in the expansion.

[Swnem]

Well, even on page one, of 20 posts, there were already 5 negative anti-SL posts, and that couldn't have been a good sign for what was to come. Not so early on in the expansion.

Well, i was already warning him in page 2 that it was honeymoon drivel and that the quality of the expansion isn't judged in the first weeks. They are always fun in the first few weeks cause they are a lot of fresh content.
But, you know... good for him to get excited. Feeling excited is fun. But, it also leads to disappointment.

This xpac is suffering of content draught already. Sure, cause of covid, but it will likely lead to another xpac cut short.

[Odrareg]

this trend where 'even bfa was better!' is just so very wrong. i guess people in general will always complain about what they have today and think that the past was better.

BFA Season 1 had nothing outside of azerite gear pieces, and once getting a higher ilvl one, you would get WEAKER losing out on the powers. when they released essences, you HAD TO DO DAILIES every single damn day. and let's not forget about 8.3 with uldum and vale questing, while also having to do mechagon/nazjatar stuff to get flying or to get essences at rank 3 to be even REMOTELY competitive in the game.

How can you forget all of this stuff? Covenants+soulbinds+conduits are not even remotely as bad. i feel bad that Torghast is so 'useless' (i got my bis legendary and im just doing the layer 8s once per month or something not to miss out on too much soul ash) and yeah, the maw is atrocious. BUT I don't feel compelled to login as if my character would suck so bad as much as it would have during BFA. Funnily enough, this helps me stay subbed but that's because i enjoy arenas here and there and raiding with the guild twice per week.

Yes of course the game has got a lot problems as usual but if anyone says that this is worse than BFA then you have bad memory, you didn't play BFA, or you are not being objective. The biggest problem is that WoW was an amazing game 10 years ago when it was a chat room, you could meet people online, and a new continent/zone was amazing to us as kids / young adults. Most of us outgrew the game or we have SIMPLY had too many arena seasons, too many gear resets, too many levels to go through, 'lost' too many friends / nice people who quit on the way. and to be fair 10 years ago i felt really thrilled to kill a boss or get gladiator. now it's "ah ok" feeling that lasts 15 minutes.

think of it like marriage: will you love your wife/husband forever? if it's a good marriage yes. but will you have butterflies in your stomach forever? no

Valheim is a worse game than WoW but it's trending now because...yeah, it's popular, it's fresh, but imagine playing 17 years of Valheim.

In any case, i think that the most 'practical' problems the game has today is that you have literally no reason to do anything with your friends in the open world. everything is instanced content. it has lost the mmo feeling. i meet my guildies twice per week in castle nathria being summoned by a warlock and i literally have not seen A SINGLE ONE OF THEM outside of the raid for the whole of shadowlands - and note that we're raiding mythic and play together for some time. weakauras play for you, r.io is so annoying that i've literally done 0 mythic+ this expansion and if i wanted to get into it now, i'd have sooo many problems. i just lost hope when in bfa i had completed few dungeons, including a freehold at +19 and when applying for a FREEHOLD +15 the following week i get declined because "your overall r.io is low" even if i was fully decked in 475 gear and i had killed nzoth on mythic. These sort of things just make you feel like it's not worth your time. i clearly remember that night i just logged off and played Mordhau for 2 hours and had actual FUN with NICE GRAPHICS and then I went to bed. Imagine feeling miserable in LFG trying to join a m+ team or trying to find an arena partner instead. These are WoW's core problems, it's not "shadowlands having conduits and covenants".

[GreenJesus]

Shadowlands is great. I just get to do the content. Theres barely any grind I'm forced to do. The only thing that's bad is class balance, one shot meta in pvp, and the restriction of switching covenant/conduit. If only they had someone working on pvp and some more actual balance changes.

[Marxman]

That wasn't the only thing they did. M+ being much less lucrative is also to the benefit of mythic raiders

Mythic raiding also saw a drastic decrease in loot quantity. All loot avenues aside from high-rated PvP were screwed in SL. I wouldn't say that benefitted raiders.

[kranur]

I read the rest, but this part just cracks me up. If someone supports Blizz and the direction they are going, they are a FanBoy. If they comment how much they are enjoying themselves, they are a Shill. I wonder what the name is for someone who is jaded by a game yet continues to play and even frequents forums to insult other players.

That's basically how it works .. same way if someone is not as good as you, they are a noob and if they are better they have no life.

[shuubu]

In all honesty, without trying to troll anyone, I honestly believe BFA was a better expansion than shadowlands simply because it offered more ways to gear up your characters if you didn't have a dedicated group of people to play with. Five mask visions for example were a great way for casuals to gear up. Granted, we're still in the early stages of this xpack so things can still change. But right now if you don't have a dedicated group you're basically just screwed.

My favorite expansions was Legion though, which I believe was the pinnacle of wow's game design. It was nigh perfect (or as perfect as this game can be, not actually perfect) in all it's aspects excluding pvp.

[Wangming]

So are we really using BFA as a positive example? Ughh. Then again this might be the longest wait for the first content patch. Anyone have any data that says otherwise?

[Fkiolaris]

Mythic raiding also saw a drastic decrease in loot quantity. All loot avenues aside from high-rated PvP were screwed in SL. I wouldn't say that benefitted raiders.

I honestly don't play SL, just keeping an eye on the general WoW status while waiting for TBC Classic, but what I am quoting here is exactly what I am seeing in various channels (youtube, forums, online communities, RL friends). Nobody seems to be happy other than people that consider Arena their main activity in WoW and a select few that like to only raid once or twice a week and not do anything else.

[Yriel]

In all honesty, without trying to troll anyone, I honestly believe BFA was a better expansion than shadowlands simply because it offered more ways to gear up your characters if you didn't have a dedicated group of people to play with. Five mask visions for example were a great way for casuals to gear up. Granted, we're still in the early stages of this xpack so things can still change. But right now if you don't have a dedicated group you're basically just screwed.

My favorite expansions was Legion though, which I believe was the pinnacle of wow's game design. It was nigh perfect (or as perfect as this game can be, not actually perfect) in all it's aspects excluding pvp.

I completely agree.

[Zbrojny]

Well it's all quite simple really. A good expansion is one where:

- you log in and there's something you WANT to do
- you log in and you can immediately get to what you WANT to do without being forced to do things that you HAVE to do first

That basically means "I can progress my character by doing what I want to do".

I like raiding and I like Mythic+. So for me Shadowlands are great so far, as I have something I want to do every night, and there's little that I have to do before I get to it. Outside of that I only feel pushed to do Thorgast, but two 20 minute runs a week is not a problem (and tbh I'm just crafting legendaries for the heck of it as I only really use the one I initially made), so that's no longer a drag. I don't like that I have to do Maw for conduit upgrades and sockets, I'd prefer there was another way to get those, but for now I just ignore it like most other people. So Maw is really my only pain point with SL.

Don't know how it feels for PvPers, on one hand the loot system sounds decent, on the other there's limited choice of secondary stats so they might feel pushed to do M+ for stat optimization.

With titanforging and WQ rewards ilvl scaling in BFA (and Legion? can't remember), Blizzard has created another group of players tho, those who would focus on open world content to slowly upgrade their gear. I don't think SL has anything to offer to those people. Everything there is hard-capped below ilvl200 (WQ rewards, covenant gear). While there seems to be a lot of open world content and it's not that bad, even the most casual player will quickly stop getting any character progression from it.

[Soon-TM]

Nobody seems to be happy other than people that consider Arena their main activity in WoW and a select few that like to only raid once or twice a week and not do anything else.

Basically the same segments of the population that were more or less catered to by WoD. At least high level PvP'ers and raidloggers did exactly what they wanted to do and nothing more. Of course, everyone else had !#$% all to do.

[ro9ue]

In all honesty, without trying to troll anyone, I honestly believe BFA was a better expansion than shadowlands simply because it offered more ways to gear up your characters if you didn't have a dedicated group of people to play with. Five mask visions for example were a great way for casuals to gear up. Granted, we're still in the early stages of this xpack so things can still change. But right now if you don't have a dedicated group you're basically just screwed.

My favorite expansions was Legion though, which I believe was the pinnacle of wow's game design. It was nigh perfect (or as perfect as this game can be, not actually perfect) in all it's aspects excluding pvp.

So are we really using BFA as a positive example? Ughh. Then again this might be the longest wait for the first content patch. Anyone have any data that says otherwise?

I actually enjoyed Legion PVP because of the gear scaling. But yeah, I'd rather see people reference Legion more as a good example and not BFA. People have short memories if they're forgetting how bad it was.

Edit: or at least, because fun is subjective, link a post they made in BFA that shows they said they enjoyed it lol. Otherwise it just sounds like complaining about change "new thing isnt as good as old thing"

[Fkiolaris]

Basically the same segments of the population that were more or less catered to by WoD. At least high level PvP'ers and raidloggers did exactly what they wanted to do and nothing more. Of course, everyone else had !#$% all to do.

To be honest, as a casual in WoD the pvp gearing was 10/10 and it was the only thing I was bothered to do. It was literally 1 week for the honor pieces (as a losing faction, if you were winning it was about an afternoon's worth of BGs) and then you worked on your non-rating-gated Conquest pieces. Which again, depending on how your factions was doing in Ashran, the speed of acquisition could vary dramatically, but they were perfectly grindable in BGs (I did so with 2 characters). And then you had your mostly BiS set for pvp.