Can they? I say this because BfA has been a mess of an expac, especially for me due to some personal stuff, but also because of all these systems, miserable balancing of classes, Azerite traits, and Corrupted gear. Lack of QA testing and lots of feedback that is oftentimes flat out ignored, with minimal testing on certain things like Azerite armor back in the beta right before BfA’s launch.
No signs of Shadowlands alpha with it being scheduled to release on or before December of this year, and this is scary because the beta will be short, it’s making me think they’ll rush it, and I don’t think the team can recover with how things are currently. 8.3 feels rushed, BfA was all over the place with the 4th War, Nazjatar and Azshara, and then N’Zoth being dealt with so quick making it very disappointing. Azshara and Nazjatar could’ve been an expansion of its own, same with N’Zoth and its Black Empire, but instead we dealt with Azshara in one patch, and same with N’Zoth like previously mentioned. The 4th War itself was very disappointing, with elements that were cinematics-only and had no impact on the game (Battle of Dazar’alor for example).
Whenever I read an interview with Ion that “the team learned lessons”, usually that’s not true, mistakes have been repeated a lot, and the devs move on from systems that worked in previous expacs and implement new ones which end up failing for the most part.
When looking at BfA as a whole, it feels like it started strong but not without issues. If we look at the cinematics in the earlier parts of BfA, we got some of the best cinematics, then at some point for example the lip syncing with in-game models in cinematics being so bad as if they rushed it, and obviously 8.3’s finale with N’Zoth being perhaps one of the most disappointing cinematics when you compare to Legion’s finale or even past expansions.
Class design and balance, and PvP balance getting worse expansion after expansion. As an example, I went from basically doing PvP all of WoD, to now despising PvP and getting burnt out of it very quickly.
The Mythic raiding dying due to the 20-man restriction and this is a problem with the Alliance Mythic raid scene. Guilds can’t recruit because the pool of players keep shrinking, either because people faction change to Horde where most of the raiding scene is, or they straight up quit. Guilds disband because the bosses are getting so mechanically complex on top of not being able to recruit.
MDI has been a disaster, and M+ while being some of the best content Blizz has added, also has it’s fair share of problems, with dungeon trash being so mechanically-heavy when Blizz literally just slapped on Legion affixes and called it a day. Most of the dungeons are so bad on certain weeks that you basically shouldn’t even try to push during those weeks, while on other weeks the affixes make them too easy to push. Class balance in M+ favoring melee, especially DHs and Rogues because of their kits, but mostly because there are so many things to kick that stacking range classes can be an hindrance when melees have a very short interrupt CD.
What’s with the expansions anyway, going from one expac being good to another that’s poorly received and then the next being well-received? Why can’t the team be more consistent and make good expansions across the board? Going from the A Team to B Team is tiring. The writing seems to get only worse, like it’s trying to make all these plot-twists that just make it dumb in the end.
I could probably go on, but can WoW and the devs recover at this point?