This is every expansion ever for me all over again.
Super stoked at patch n.0 Fire burns hot and heavy for several months until progression grinds to a halt. Then it’s revealed there is no more content that interests me planned the foreseeable future. Then I realize it might be 1yr before the game is fun. Then I start thinking about the inevitable gear reset looming before I’ve even been able to enjoy my characters at their peak potential. Quit. Lose interest. Regain interest when new expansion is announced. Come back and be completely lost for several months leading up to new expansion is released. Rediscover my love of the game. Everything gets reset and my newfound fun gets cut short. Run headlong into new expansion. Super stoked at patch n.0
The two leveling experiences are incomparable, and you know it. There is no sense of progression while leveling in SL. I know I’m not alone in saying that there is actually a sense of regression while leveling up. Twinking used to be something that was done purely for PvP reasons. Now it’s being used to do old PvE raids, too.
What stuff is he going to collect while leveling? The only materials worth collecting are only available from 50-60, and not only do you get them in reduced quantities at lower skill levels, the system that makes you get weaker and weaker as you level from 50-60 makes it the most inefficient form of collecting imaginable. The style of play you just described is far more viable in Classic, where you need to collect a bunch of lower-level mats to reach a point where the higher level mats become useful.
This used to be my end game too, but guess what? After it being my fallback content since 2010 and on, you kinda run out of things to level.
Do I want 4 of something that isn’t monks? Maybe another monk? I started deleting things I leveled after a while, just leveling them for allied race sets and then I had no intention of actually playing them once I got them to max level.
We need something new to work on outside of group content. Something new to build up over time and something lasting. Like pets, xmog, and mounts. Give us a crap ton of new customization options to hunt down and unlock if they want. That’d kill two big complaints with one resource.
And because I know it’ll get discussed. I have nearly every pet, xmog (outside of Legion) and mount I can farm or grind that I want. The woes of a long-term dedicated player. All I’m asking is for something new.
People want player housing. I’d love that.
I want some meaningful content in my professions to work on. Doesn’t have to be “good” gear, it just has to be unique to it, look good, and feel like I tangibly worked on something and earned it.
I want something new to do constructively that feels rewarding while I’m not in a raid or a piece of group content. I have to play other games for this feature, because everyone does this better than WoW right now.
Do you realize how involved leveling was in Vanilla? Everything back then was severely limited by modern standards.
But sure. When I played Vanilla by myself I:
Leveled
Treasure/Pet hunted
Worked on my professions, which were tailoring and herbalism at the time.
Spent a LONG time working on my epic mount quest for my warlock (which admittedly, ended with a group. But most of it was solo). But I didn’t finish this until BC.
Group content was
World bosses
Dungeons
Raids
I never raided in vanilla. But I had more to do by myself than I ever did in a group. Would I enjoy that right now? No. That was the low expectations of the market over 15 years ago.
Point being, however, that group content was never enforced in this game. Never. I could tell you how I played solo mostly during every expansion if you truly wanted to know.
When I am active in this game, I raid. That’s MY group content and that’s usually it. Sometimes I’ll run dungeons, but I don’t plan on logging in and doing dungeons. I plan on logging in and playing by myself and having fun.
Nothing about the current state of the game fills that need. So I don’t raid either right now, because I’m either invested in the game or I’m not.
They said they’re added more stages and more powers to Torghast… but nothing about rewards. Hopefully rewards are a part of that plan, but nothing concrete at this time… and it seems unlikely given that it would’ve been a really easy win for them to say something quick about ‘we’re planning to make Torghast more rewarding for people who want to do it more often but don’t have specifics hammered out right now!’ or something.
I’m not sure what your argument is other than “there are far better games to play casually” but I’ll agree with you. Right now that game is another MMO, because Blizzard is failing at this part of the game that others are succeeding at.
The other MMO I’m playing, I’m back to where I was here. I have a lot of interesting stuff to do by myself, and then I have the option of participating in group content. Two different, yet beautifully co-existing game modes.
Heck, having a wider variety of world quests available would make the solo end game more interesting to me. I think BFA had World Quests done right. Shadowlands seems like a regression. Don’t remove the longer world quests. Add more to the system.
Being able to complete Venari’s quests in The Maw solo would also help. On a quest right now that requires 3 people. I don’t even know 3 people that play this game anymore.
This expansion is not very interesting to me, or fun, or rewarding. I can’t help but think they want to lose customers because this is how you’d design it if that was your real goal.
Just because it’s an MMO doesn’t mean everyone necessarily wants to do large groups for content.
Sometimes people want the MMO environment for purely social reasons - keeping in touch with friends and guildies while playing primarily alone or with one or two friends in a big world that is full of other people.
Especially during a pandemic, this type of just ‘passively being reminded other people exist’ has been really helpful for a lot of people who normally spend a lot of time away from home.
You don’t necessarily need to be doing cooperative/competitive content to enjoy being in a world with other people.
I do miss working on my garrison. First on my main, then on my alts.
I do miss going out and trapping wolves or certain other beasts for resources.
I do miss working on my professions and them feeling valuable.
But perhaps I was a little over the top with that comment you quoted me on. The group content in this game is really good from what I’ve played, and 9.1 seems to bring a lot more of it to the table. I love raiding, but it has been the emptiest-feeling expansion for anything I used to do outside of raiding. I stand by that much.
WoD early on was a great-feeling expansion for the casual player, Garrison launch issues aside. It didn’t start to feel really bad until the middle.
Shadowlands still has time to shape up for me, so that’s why I’m here being (perhaps a little) passionate about what I want to see in this game. 9.1 was overwhelmingly disappointing sounding on the surface, for those of us waiting for something meaningful to do outside of group content, that also does enjoy group content from time to time.
Then you don’t miss Warlords of Draenor, which completely destroyed professions. Gathering was near useless and the production professions were severely marginalized given that you could create most of the items from a profession without actually having it by using Garrison buildings.
I don’t think everything about Warlords of Draenor was bad … but I think it was a lot worse than many people on this forum seem to remember …
Toeghast should’ve had some sort of gear progression and I think if the anima prices weren’t so absurd, people would find they have more to do. I chose not to do anything anima related because of the immense grind. Even the weekly events could’ve been better if they were more rewarding. I’m glad I’m a raider so I’m personally enjoying SLs but it’s gotta be rough if you don’t do end game content.
No. WoW has never provided a robust or particularly rewarding solo experience. This game shifted to endgame group focus almost immediately with the introduction of MC.
They have attempted to add things like archeology, pet battles, mission boards, visions, mage tower or garrison’s in order to provide solo players with activities and are met with criticism because they are too hard and/ or don’t provide relevant rewards. Or if they do provide relevant rewards, are considered “forced content” by another group of players.
To say nothing of the fact that vanilla, bc and wrath provided none of that content. This game is better with friends. It always has been. The classic trailer is not a solo guy or gal walking alone in a forest…
But the cinematic for it was - a lone dwarf, a lone night elf, a lone mage, etc.
Personally, that solo adventure of leveling up in a big unknown world was the biggest reason I fell in love with the game. First time I took a boat from Teldrassil and realized how big this world was, I was in awe. We all interpret the world our own way, through our own respective lenses. Historically, I’ve had goals to work towards that kept me engaged and satisfied, that were all done solo. It appeals (or did) to a broad community.
I feel this expansion has disappointed many in the community that loved the world part of world of warcraft.
as someone who’s played WoW almost exclusively solo for the past 16 years with 650 days /played, i assure you you’re 100% wrong. leveling/questing/progression, collecting, profs (pre-Legion), and solo farming old content was rewarding and engaging to the point of addiction. whenever i wanted to do group content, Group Finder is all i needed. i have never needed friends or a guild in this game. i think you just don’t understand how solo players play this game.
