I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but it seems like a lot of this expansion is overly complicated and overly annoying. I just recently came back to the game and I really enjoyed the leveling experience. And, unlike a lot of people, I am really enjoying a lot of how the classes play and feel, especially on my arcane mage. But, it seems like a lot of the gearing systems and end game content is overly complicated and obscurantist. Furthermore the zones, while incredibly beautiful, are really annoying to move around in if you don’t have the Pathfinder Achieve (and therefore can’t fly). There just seems like there’s too must stuff in general and too few obvious ways to get a lot of the places you want to go.
I really, really hope Blizz has some sense of the fact that maybe they need to streamline things a bit. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes a simple elegant experience is best.
Not sure what is so complicated about it. Pretty easy to understand imo. Naz is the only zone that can be tricky to navigate on the ground but easy to pick up as you go. Pretty much just the lower area (southern) part of Naz was the pain part of the zone.
RNG isn’t complicated it’s just luck based nonsense that infuriates people that put the time in when they get nothing only to watch some scrub walk away with a max Titanforge with a sockets.
In my opinion: Too many systems. Too many gadgets on those systems. Too much RNG systems on top of RNG systems on top of the gearing systems. Too many non-obvious things that need to be investigated via 3rd party website or sim calculator.
Sorry, “Overly complicated.” So basically you are just upset because of RNG. Nothing complicated about it just more of a pain than complicated.
For your other part, I don’t see though how this is so different than Legion about needing a sim calculator. I agree that higher ilvls again didn’t mean an upgrade in gear, but like I said, not any different than Legion nor WoD.
In terms of pure game play, BFA has felt very try-hard. Some of the content has been fun and interesting, but it’s few and far between. And most of the things to aspire for are blocked behind gating. Once that grind is over and done with, the game play starts to feel monotonous or like a chore.
Azerite in general is overly complex to someone coming back to the game. There’s no good in-game way to tell which power to pick, respeccing it is cost-prohibitive and that discourages experimentation.
I played BC-WoD and came back in BFA; I could tell what was an upgrade without outside help til Azerite gear came along (though trinkets could be tricky). Now I gotta sim everything/use aggregates like bloodmallet for 3 slots.
As to getting around without flight- Zuldazar is also pretty bad. Lots of herbs/minerals that are geographically very close but if you go for them it takes 10+ minutes to get back to where you were with all the terrain in the way.
Streamlining everything is why we are where we are. There is no complexity in the basic game, classes are bland and homogenized, world content is nothing but a linear ladder towards pathfinder, the only depth that the game has is at the bleeding edge of mythic raiding and M+.
So they have to create systems like AP and covenants which are intentionally counter-intuitive and artificially complicated as well as time gated to keep us toiling. Nothing about BFA is really complicated, it is just layered with artificial difficulty, nothing more nothing less.
What have you found to be complicated about BfA exactly? Personally I find modern WoW to be a login and be rewarded kind of game. Everyone gets a participation trophy. You basically can’t spend an hour on the game without accidentally earning an achievement or upgrade for it.
Instead of having complicated skill trees, you now have complicated equipment choices. You can choose what seems good, or what fits your particular play style, even if it’s not fully optimized.
I’ll admit, it can be confusing, especially if you boosted to 120, or got there via AV, to suddenly be hit with the options of Naz, War Campaign and regular storyline, in addition to Island Expeditions and Warfronts, but I’d much rather have too many choices than too few.
And this is speaking as someone who’s alt made it to 120 via the Korrak’s route and has pathfinding.
Too confusing? Nah. Just have to figure out what your priorities are.