BFA: What was the point?

Vixie-burning-blade · December 4, 2019, 1:33am

The point of BfA, as well as all the prior expansions, was to keep me entertained and amused.

Which they succeeded for the 14+ years of my uninterrupted subscription.

The stories are all just stories - kinda comics and paperback novel quality. Read and toss, but I do read them (like 6~7 novels a month). Nothing wrong with fun fantasy stories.

The point is that they keep making more of this game I started in 2005 and have no intention of quitting.

Dharkside-area-52 · December 4, 2019, 1:54am

It’s pretty clear they’ve been wanting this to happen for a while. Ever since Sylvie was named Warchief, it was obvious that she was going to take a very hard stance against not just the Alliance, but all living things. (Heck, the forsaken have been chanting, “Death to the living” for over a decade now.)

People that think she was some kind of “good guy” are in denial. She’s always been the prototypical mustache twirling bad guy. It’s just that she’s hot, and it’s easy to look past all that when she’s so fine.

So basically, handing over the keys to the horde was the setup way back in Legion for the events that unfolded in BfA.

Serefim-sisters-of-elune · December 4, 2019, 2:02am

The Draenei are notoriously bad pilots. Maybe they crashed into Teldrassil and made the fire better. I could accept that, and the comedy would at least make it more palatable.

Kegeo-drenden · December 4, 2019, 2:04am

I found myself asking this a lot during BFA. The entire expansion feels aimless.

It was advertised as the faction war expansion - despite finding the war rather tired by that point, I was open to seeing them really focus in on it, maybe add some interest. Even though I felt the world tree thing was a little too on the nose, it was fairly interesting to play through!

Come BFA’s actual release, and the war is immediately sidelined. Save for a few, clumsily written questlines, it may as well not exist. The only thing to even remind you that narrative is still there, is a ‘war campaign’ - the rest of the world seems to chug along without a care.

So it felt extremely odd to be told, by the end of it all, that this war was important enough to be the fourth war. It barely felt like a war at all. And that’s not even getting into the ‘breaking the cycle’ junk.

Faradenza-tichondrius · December 4, 2019, 3:11am

I have absolutely no idea why we’re doing anything that we’re doing in this xpac, and I’ve stopped trying to analyze it.

Used to be, I was the champion of my class order and we worked to defeat the Legion. Clear purpose.

In BfA I seem to flit between unrelated chores without a thought. No idea why I ended up in Nazjatar, didn’t really care, and then suddenly Lady Ashvane.

Faction pride, my butt.

Gaiazhel-bonechewer · December 4, 2019, 3:37am

Serefim:

These threads are a dime a dozen, so I apologize. But allow me a moment to ask a few questions that hang from the title of this thread:

What was the point of Battle for Azeroth?

Before I go into why I’m so bothered about this, lets look at the “point” of Warlords of Draenor and Legion.

What was the point of WoD?
In WoD intent of the story was to give Azeroth an extra pool of bodies to call upon to fight the burning Legion. Instead, we had to deal with the repercussions of a bad deal which ironically caused the Legion invasion it was trying to fortify against. This did not create any amnesiac scenarios I will explain further down, nor did it destroy any built story arcs.

Consequences: Guldan escaped, players establish footholds and connections in an alternate timeline, players also became prominent members of the story which continued into Legion.

What was the point of Legion?
In Legion we, well, fight the Legion. The factions have failed miserably to defend Azeroth. Players are called upon to join with their class halls and unite against the greatest foe Azeroth has ever known, even more so than the old gods. This is probably the best expansion with a fairly well-thought narrative we will get for a while. There are no amnesiacs and no destruction of world building.

Consequences: Players acquired legendary artifacts, became major lore heroes, united their classes regardless of race or faction, defeated Sargeras, recovered the Army of Light, and stemmed the demise of Azeroth itself.

Then we get to Battle for Azeroth… Hold on to your butts.

In Battle for Azeroth you would assume the point of the story is to heal the world while the factions quarrel over Azerite. But no. Sylvanas convinces Saurfang to go on a wanton slaughter through Ashenvale in a pre-emptive strike in a war that doesn’t exist yet. Now that isn’t entirely on its own beyond the realm of disbelief. It happens, genocide happens, sure, okay, whatever.

It is almost everything that happens afterward that makes no sense, but ultimately negates the point of not only this expansion, but also causes harm to the growth we received as characters in the previous two expansions.

I’ll begin here.

Where was the Vindicaar?
The Exodar, where I presume the Vindicaar parks, is right next to Teldrassil. Why didn’t the Draenei intercept the Horde and obliterate them from orbit? This is something that could have happen repeatedly through the story. Zandalar fleet? Nuke from orbit. Zandalar city? Nuke from orbit. Undercity? Orbit. Nuke. Sylvanas having a chat with Anduin dramatically in the throne room? Nuke from orbit mid-monolgue, everyone laughs, we go focus on Azerite. The failure on behalf of Blizzard to even try and explain this one away makes it even more egregious. Tell us that it was damaged escaping Sargeras or something, anything. But no, instead that gigantic plot hole lingers.

Non-sensical Genocide Participation:
Are you a priest? A druid? A paladin? How about we all go do some genocide today completely unprovoked because: factions. If you are a Horde player, regardless of whether you supported this first shot or not in BFA, you had no choice in the matter narratively speaking. Your character was there, it did a genocide, it was a great time. Even better? Druids that participated in burning down a world tree full of other druids and innocent civilians after saving the world from Sargeras and largely growing past your faction divide. This completely obliterated the progress made by Legion’s narrative, which brings us to…

Player & Narrative Regression:
Legion set players on a very promising path. The factions became less relevant, players became the true heroes of the story and active participants in their classes, and the door seemed wide open in terms of possibilities. Instead, after Legion players are suddenly nobodies again and without even the slightest amount of sense put into the expansion transition, we are all randomly happy and willing to kill each other and re-engage in a very, very , very contrived faction war. And I can’t even say contrived in the hyperbolic sense, it was literally contrived just to do Shadowlands it seems: which make actually, sadly be the “point”.

Lore Characters Amnesiacs:
Lady Liadrin it seems is content to forget that not only was she my subordinate, but that I was/am for all Highlord. Unless suddenly I’m not? Because I’m not sure when that happened. Or, not only is she an amnesiac, she is ready to kill you for no particularly good reason if you’re on the Alliance this time around. And this is just the one I’m most familiar with.

No Consequences:
So, what was the point of this entire expansion? We didn’t change… anything? N’zoth is primed to be a one and done after millennia of, hilariously, anti-climactic scheming. The only thing that seems to have changed is the Horde leadership structure because they all looked at each other and said: “Yeah, we really kinda muderalize everything around us every 2 years, we should prolly do that less often.”

Aside from that, what changed? What did this expansion accomplish? We aren’t ushering in an Old God expansion, which would actually make the most sense and serve as a better “point”. Instead we are getting a Shadowlands expansion which makes sense and serves as a “point” to the expansion only because it appears that this entire expansion was put into place only to justify the left-field emergence of Shadowlands.

And to me, as a player who loved Legion and weathered WoD… isn’t enough.

Ever since Warcraft III the “cycle” has been effectively broken. In Wotlk Tirion crossed the faction divide. In Cata Thrall crossed the faction divide. In Pandaria Baine and Chen crossed the faction divide. In WoD and Legion Khadgar crossed the faction divide, followed by countless other heroes. In BFA, THE FACTION WAR EXPANSION, generals and faction leaders are supporting each other in the end themselves.

In this game where “faction identity” is paramount to the design philosophy that players on opposing factions can’t/shouldn’t interact 15 years after its inception, and where design lynchpins have been rolled back more and more (legendary transmog most recently), it is becoming extremely tiresome to see this rhetoric after such an exhausting expansion as BFA.

The expansion needs a lasting consequence. And it was built up for so long that something would change after “breaking the cycle”. I’d like to see something change, some kind of interaction to open between factions, even if its just chat for god’s sake we can already do that if we add another player to our friends list, it isn’t some huge leap of logic to lift that veil and have it make sense narratively.

I’m disappointed because there doesn’t appear to be any point to what we went through as players, and we actually regressed a bit and hand-waived some plot points in the world away.

Thanks. I hate it. See you in Shadowlands.

Ever read any Harry Potter books?
Same mindless crap kinda plotlines.

Tabaqui-wyrmrest-accord · December 4, 2019, 6:22am

I fully agree with that. Killing the faction war in Legion only to immediately bring it randomly back in full swing was A+ stupid.

I fully believe that cross-faction grouping would make 100% sense after Legion. After all, we were actively questing with members of the other faction in our class halls.

Now the Alliance and Horde have some really valid reasons not to want to have anything to do with one another (from a story standpoint) so it’s easier for them to say no.

Murdawg-area-52 · December 4, 2019, 7:04am

I really hope Shadowlands is the next Legion

Jehngshi-silver-hand · December 4, 2019, 7:11am

There’s a very nice story arc if we re-arrange the expansions to go MoP>WoD>BfA>Legion.

After the devastation of the Cataclysm, both factions try to take advantage of the rich resources found in the newly discovered land of Pandaria, only to have a larger threat loom in the form of old gods and Garrosh giving in to corruption. After Taran Zhu reads everyone the riot act and we unite to take Garrosh down, the factions try to de-escalate hostilities…but the discovery of whatever Maguffin we were fighting over in Ashran brings us to the brink of war in alternate Draenor.

Things only grow worse once everyone is back home on Azeroth, with open hostilities breaking out and no need for anyone to go completely off the rails and burn a world tree, allowing both factions to feel like reasonable people who are just protecting what is theirs. Unfortunately, our continued squabbling leaves us vulnerable to the Legion, which takes advantage of our depleted armies and attacks. Seeing that the factions are too wrapped up in their own conflict to protect the planet, the players and their class halls unite to drive the Legion from Azeroth once again.

It’s a real shame the dev team decided to tell the story out of order.

Aevelamue-arcanite-reaper · December 4, 2019, 7:14am

the point of BFA was to sceem another 50$ out of you

Kypookins-baelgun · December 4, 2019, 7:22am

The point of BFA was grinding, for the sake of grinding, on top of your grinding.

They seemed to do that with every facet of the game, even a “fluff” mog you get for the preorder of Shadowlands.

Shelldin-zuljin · December 4, 2019, 7:24am

Playable Zandalari, new troll mounts/mogs, and hanging with everyone’s favorite loas: Bwonsamdi and Jani

Pípíkaula-proudmoore · December 4, 2019, 7:33am

For blizz to make $$$.

Melaroi-alexstrasza · December 4, 2019, 10:03pm

This is why I like Brandon Sanderson’s books so much. The Cosmere books all share the same creation myth and have very detailed, almost scientific magic systems. If magic saves the day, it’s because someone found something in the rules that allows it to. Magic is never a deus ex machina in the Cosmere.