Funny how history just keeps repeating itself. I remember the boards were always blowing up saying the same thing about BfA:
“Worst expansion ever!”
“Storyline is trash!”
“Borrowed power suxxors!”
“Quitting WoW because…”
“FF is the game to play!”
I totally get the point and frustration over the past couple of expansions. It’s the same type of posts, saying the same thing just different Character names posting.
To me it would be funny if a lot of these posts didn’t have some merit to them.
Doesn’t mean much but my opinion of this Dev Team is very low. They appear to listen and give lip service with the over used “We hear you” then when no changes happen, that is when the frustration adds up.
Personally? I don’t play nearly like I used to. I feel for those that have valid complaints to them. Other posts though, to me, are very subjective. They do make for some entertaining reads.
In the meantime, if ya like the game? Cool. Keep playing it. If ya don’t? Good luck and find something you do like.
-H
5 Likes
Won’t lie, I did like the essence system more than I like conduits and covenant abilities.
24 Likes
Shadowlands is the least-grindy expansion since Warlords of Draenor.
Legion was grindy. But fun.
Battle for Azeroth was grindy. But not fun.
Shadowlands is NOT grindy. Most people I know are having fun.
We lost a ton of players in BfA because people hated the grinds. WoW had turned into a second job. A bunch of them came back for Shadowlands and are happily still playing. There’s really no comparison between the two in my book, Shadowlands beats BfA in every regard.
4 Likes
Yup.
All these things made it felt like I was playing Warcraft.
Shadowlands…feels like a completely different game with different lore.
9 Likes
I thought the essences were terrible. Conduits just feel like talent options you can level up
1 Like
What grind is there in SL? Weekly Renown and soul ash in Torghast? That’s like it for non-gear stuff. Anima’s completely optional, you can do it or ignore it. The rewards are cosmetic or for side features.
BfA had azerite, essences, corruptions, all of them mandatory actual grinds for endgame. 
5 Likes
Also the Torghast “grind” is over in less than a month. And takes an hour or two per week during that time.
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Shadowlands doesn’t require anything I would call grinds at all.
BFA required you to do a million island expeditions if you wanted to remain competitive.
Less grindy my butt.
6 Likes
And it required ten million island expeditions to get all the pets, mounts, and transmog from them.
So even for collectors, BfA was far worse than SL.
6 Likes
Azshara was a much better villain too…at least she was menacing for a few minutes…
9 Likes
The music and zones were better
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Uh…you like having to regrind the same conduits over and over?
3 Likes
Much better and cooler rewards to collect in BfA and that’s taking into account the horrible raid sets. All of the Shadowlands aesthetics are just a bunch of reskins which makes a lot of the content boring and predictable.
11 Likes
Nothing can be more grindy then an infinite grind, the neck was an infinite grind…
3 Likes
BFA was better by a mile.
5 Likes
At the beginning of BFA, people hated it as much if not more than Shadowlands. Then some how when they added more systems on top of systems in 8.3, people started liking it. Shadowlands is in the same spot right. We’ll have to see what 9.3 (if it occurs) is like.
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You’re forgetting that 8.1 was actually something people looked forward to and was far superior than this abomination that 9.1 is.
8 Likes
Just as many complaints against it on these forums though. 
1 Like
I hated it more and more when they kept on adding more systems on top of systems… But the pre-patch made me a happy man… making allot of dead horde corpses too!
It almost feels like they went full lazy on this expansion. Green gear is all the same, recolors everywhere, professions are gutted, enchanting is a pain to level. There are like 4 versions of each mount, on BFA i only remember the kul tiran horses and Zandalari ptred
4 Likes