So I’ve noticed over the past few expansions that content just gets removed instead of improved. Instead of scrapping a failed concept, why not make it better? There has been tons of content that had huge potential, but flopped on release because it missed it’s mark, for instance Garrison’s. When I heard about Garrison’s, it gave me hope for player housing in wow(which I still hope we get) but when it failed to meet expectations, it was removed for future expansions, only really leaving the command table to carry on. Order halls were similar in some aspects, but all of the player housing aspects had all but been removed. I’m not saying I have the answer for how to implement it right, but giving up on the idea seems like a waste of design time and resources.
There’s some other examples too, but I’d rather get into failed content from bfa that shouldn’t be removed, but rather improved.
Island expeditions- they have amazing potential, especially with the ai that the enemies have(which is amazing btw), I feel they missed the mark though, and I don’t think it’s the reward system either, it’s more down to the fact that it strays from the holy Trinity(healer/tank/dps), along with the fact that it feels like mindless grinding accompanied by random rng of the spawn on the map. I feel like if each expedition had it’s on unique mechanics, mixed with an even better ai, it would make the experience extremely better, and the rewards targeted towards those who would enjoy that style of play.
Warfronts- again this has amazing potential. This was one of the things I was most excited for, but again it really missed it’s mark(arguably more than islands). This I feel could go two ways. Either shift it more towards a pvp battleground(or world pvp zones like ashran/wintergrasp), or make it more of a defense of the ancients style play where you start with limited gear, and get items through the battle to gain an advantage over the enemies(maybe adding the island enemy ai as well?). Both ways would be amazing, and would be better than a complete removal of the content.
Azerite armor- I can see the issue being addressed with the implementation of azerite armor, and the idea in general is amazing, but again implementation of it missed the mark. This one would be easy and hard to fix at the same time. Tier sets offered a set bonus that made you rethink how you played your spec, meaning each raid tier you weren’t playing the same version of say a beast mastery hunter. One tier you could be focused on cobra shot spam to reduce cool down on kill command, and another tier you could be focused on making sure you had maximum uptime on barbed shot buff. But with azerite armor you’re not making meaningful changes to your rotation or playstyle. So the only thing that would change how you play is a talent or two, otherwise every beast mastery hunter is doing the exact same thing with maybe a haste proc here or there, or even worse a flat stat boost. So adding in more playstyle altering azerite traits would easily fill the void tier sets left. But at the same time I understand the balance standpoint and how hard it would be to keep things from getting out of hand, so some middle ground could be made.
All in all though I feel that content shouldn’t be scrapped, and I hope going forward I can see some of the things I got so excited for when bfa was announced live up to expectations in the future.