I unsubbed last night, I plan on playing until it runs out sporadically but I am just totally not interested in the x pac at all. It sucks to say but its just a chore to play outside of raids.
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I think the problem is Ion is a literal minded overachiever. And to such a person chores are fun. His joy comes from the completion of the tasks set before him. So he gives players those same kind of chores to do, assuming the rest of us will like it just as much as him.
Good game designers treat players like human beings, and consider what the player experience is like for them. They must give players something to aspire to. There must be long term goals which are only achievable thru socializing, cooperation, commitment and Guilds.
Bad game designers treat players like flies to be trapped via brain-science and chores. The difference is completely obvious to all. I think this is at the heart of the Devs antagonism towards its player-base. We are seen as flies to be trapped, and not people to be won.
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When I started playing in Wrath I came to the conclusion that there were two distinct parts to the game:
A) The road to 80 (at the time), and
B) Getting BIS gear.
The leveling path has been gutted, this isn’t new as they started doing this in Cata. IIRC I didn’t find the leveling process in Cata to be as much fun as in Wrath.
I remember getting the achievements for most quests in Twilight Highlands because it took so long to level.
Now in SL, the road from 50 to 60 is measured in a few hours. But they need to keep you playing so the little stuff that is there is being gated.
I’m sad they spent so much time finessing the time-gating and small incremental upgrades instead of creating a big world that had lots of stuff to do.
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Forums is the last resort for the lost souls.
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I think there’s a lot of heart put into Shadowlands, but there is an evil businessperson doing a Mr. Burns evil grin and finger teepee behind the scenes messing it up.
The worst part about it for me is how nothing feels rewarding. Most recent example:
Yay! I got my third soulbind which looks really fun to use. But BOO I can’t really use him yet, because he won’t be better than my first for another 2 weeks because of conduits. I mean, I already waited 2 months to use him. Why gate him even farther? It’s totally arbitrary and feels like crap.
Another example: Yay! I can get the cool weapon transmog I’ve been wanting. But… if I do that I’m going to be 2 weeks behind on my anima reservoir to be able to upgrade another covenant thing. That choice feels like crap.
And that, along with many of the things OP mentioned, is why this expansion feels bad, even though it also has truly cool story elements and beautiful zones.
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If Retail doesn’t have the GM having an affair with his second girlfriend and funnels loot to her while his old girlfriend robs the gbank and gquits, then why play retail?
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Low gear drops would be more understandable if they weren’t dangling infinite grinds like M+ in front of us for it.
Gearing in general would be funner for alts if we didn’t need to grind things other than gear to be viable. Soul Ash is capped, why? Renown is … semi-reasonable, but I just want to do low MMR RBGs and arenas on my alts.
And low MMR no longer feels like low MMR; it’s just full of people with heroic+ raiding gear farming people in 184’s and people who are trying to learn. It’s sad watching beginners have to lose so much in what’s supposed to be their bracket, get frustrated, and never bother again.
Everything’s getting so needlessly complicated ith borrowed power and legendaries. “Loot will be loot” doesn’t matter when there’s other systems ontop of it.
The end game is stagnate as well;
M+ was a great addition, but again, no weekly cap + low drops = burnout. Fast.
Mythic raiding is absolute hell if you’re not on one of like 2 servers for Alliance. I regret being okay with the removal of 10 man “heroic” - MoP’s system was fine. That seemed to kill off the last few groups on my current server even if they weren’t cutting edge.
PvP hasn’t had any real changes outside the Prestige system (a huge boon, imo) in forever, and has become a cesspit that’s more frustrating to try to push in than any other game I’ve played.
It’s literally just the same stuff with new skins, and them experimenting with features that have gotten them backlash.
Where’s our RPG flavor? This isn’t a raid and dungeon simulator. Where’s player housing? Where’s the new battlegrounds? Where’s expanded timewalking? Where’s the actual warmode rewards? Where’s cross-faction play?
At least we got new customization options…
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This is my favorite part of your post. Im not being adversarial. I just mean there IS a lot of heart put into this expansion. I watched alpha through beta and enjoyed seeing the devs genuinely respond to feedback and change things that they considered weren’t working. Alas, the audience they listened to was incredibly narrow. Thus we have the game we have based on a narrow scope of potential feedback. If they could learn one thing from this, its that perhaps they need to target a broader audience during beta to elicit more viewpoints and understand their audience a little better.
That all being said, i dont particularly disagree with anything you wrote on ‘rewards’. Ive got 6 days left on my sub. My sub was cancelled because i have some divine power of prophesy and can see the blindingly obvious. Right this second, i need 1.5k anima to upgrade all my covenant items to 197. I need about 3K honor to upgrade the rest. I havent even equipped my lego (i wanted a proper one at 235 and im doing level 3/4 every week - when i can be bothered - last week i couldnt be bothered). But im almost there. Venari is almost cordial despite ignoring the maw dailies for at least the last two weeks.
So in two weeks, with even the lightest of touches and basic upgrades through pvp/pve and lego), im at 200ilvl (im currently at 188), and completely capped outside of lfg.
THEN. WHAT. ?
Blizzcon is the big 9.1 dump. Thats in 4 weeks. Then we need to ptr it (because the ptr will not want to spoil the reveal). So thats, AT BEST, late march/early april? After that we MIGHT see updates to the core gameplay experience. But here’s the thing… We wont likely see actual changes to the core gameplay until 9.1.5 (if it comes), or even 9.2. Whats that? Fall 2021 at the earliest?
Pre 9.1 interim, i expect only minor balance changes. So what am i supposed to be doing in the interim? Farming anima for three/six/nine months? Yeah, nah. I mean, i suppose the game wants me to jump into LFG… lets see how that works out competing against consistent LFG players in 210-220 for spots with an actual raiderio score?
Maybe they wont be doing 2 or 3 keys by then. Hooray! Zero upgrades even with the current drop rate! This isnt exactly a wonderful time investment. Farm venari? For what? Improvements to streamline torghast and the maw? Farm Torghast? For what? A mount i can use in the maw which i dont even do because the rewards are self contained and completely limited to torghast/the maw?
How did they honestly miss all this? Its legitimately embarrassing. And i want you to know, i only jumped into this thread because of a potential positive avenue.
This expansion was made with love. I honestly think that. I believe wholeheartedly that they wanted to redeem the game following bfa. But they fell into the trap of critique: they pandered to their most vocal and influential critics (critics writing to appease other critics trying to snipe them) instead of their mainstream paying audience. And its probably gonna cost them, and us (either in the next iteration, or simply in the hurrying of the expansion mid way through (a la draenor).
I wish them all the best. I’ll certainly be back. But it wont be for several months (i downloaded ff14 on my trashy laptop and realised its pretty well optimised - plus, ZERO random DCs in any instance i join… man, how did i put up with this in wow for so long?).
By then, perhaps, i can just enjoy the expansion for what it is and at my own pace whilst the core are off doing their thing that they’re barely a spot on the horizon. I always knew this game was at its best for casuals around the x.2 patch. Ive no idea why i broke the tradition this time. I kinda wish i hadnt.
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It was a good run for a while but WoW doesn’t feel like a fun D&D style MMORPG anymore and hardly feels like I’m playing a ‘game’ at all. Instead, Blizzard’s version of the afterlife is playing out like a worse version of the rocky horror show with grind elements and other bits glued on where they don’t fit.
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If theres one thing you want to scream at the devs, its this: Its just not fun. Its incredibly habitual and time consuming. But its not fun (unless youre super ladder minded, then its probably super fun - not the game itself mind you - but being on the ladder and climbing it).
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The vast open world piece hits home for me. It feels like this game has been chasing every trend over the last 20 years in an effort to not be niche – to appeal to a huge range of folks that want different things. This winds up leaving those of us that love the adventure MMO niche wondering why resources are spent on so many things that just don’t resonate, a feeling that seems to be backed up by subscriber numbers over the years.
I was never a big endgame guy, but the journey used to feel amazing enough to be satisfied even without much raiding. Leveling a new character was a commitment – now, it’s a single-day romp to get to endgame content asap. The desire to make every aspect of this game competitive – world first race, MDI, arena, ranked BG – doesn’t feel good for folks like myself that don’t enjoy that approach to gaming. It’s given rise to a toxic culture that demands total knowledge and flawless performance at all times and it just bums me out. I’m certain that culture has always existed, but it seems to be concentrated by attrition of the player base, content creators, and meta worship.
I still enjoy playing with friends, but the ones that are big into the high M+ grind are losing me, and that’s most of what people do during the week now. I enjoy raiding since we get to learn and explore while indulging in a few beverages, but I’m logging less and less for the stuff between raid nights. We typically run a group Torghast because that’s actually pretty goofy fun – definitely one of the bright spots for me, soulash grind notwithstanding.
Sidenote: I miss getting gear for doing content. The weird relegation of rewards to a random weekly dice roll is just bizarre to me. I don’t want or care about full BiS anytime soon – we have months to work toward this – but it would be cool if loot actually dropped from bosses so the group can “ooh” and “ahh” and the reward for downing the boss feels real and immediate. Now, I know my upgrades are likely coming in the form of me standing alone on a Tuesday morning, right-clicking the roulette wheel, and seeing what comes out. Just doesn’t feel like “loot” to me anymore – now it’s an “engagement reward”.
TL;DR, I miss the journey and the people being the point. I miss the world not being fully documented, min-maxed, and tied to leaderboards. I miss fun being the point rather than an occasional side effect. Maybe this is just a generational/industry shift that I need to adapt to, but I think there will always be a place for adventure.
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Yes I feel you man , I played wow just about everyday from mid Wrath until a few months left In BFA , where I took a break for 3 months . First time ever . I feel it coming with this expac . The time gating gets boring , and that’s what it is , your no longer having fun . The game is just more of the same . Blizz does it because they were told by Activision , Time gating is time played which equals fun . So the people running the games don’t actually play them . It’s some accountant , counting cash that’s destroying WoW. Now they compound it with less loot equals more time played which equals fun . They just don’t get it .
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I kinda feel like Activision wants them to be pushed more toward the e-sport type of games. They want to be dominant on twitch. Meanwhile there’s developer visions and really the vision this Dev team has had hasn’t changed since Legion. Everyone seems to praise Legion but really if you think about it, you’re playing the same expansion just different flavor since Legion.
There’s nothing that’s truly been added to the game except new skins, new zones, new art, and music. Other than that you’re playing a Massive Dungeon Crawler game that lacks any of the meaningful character development that other RPGs have.
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Exactly. Blizz now charges a hefty admission price in order to be allowed to do almost any end game activity. Of course, no one is forcing anyone to constantly run Torghast and the Maw to be able to get and upgrade a legendary, no one is required to keep advancing their covenant, etc.
But you must do these things if you wish to engage in any end game group activity such as raiding, Mythic+, PvP. And you must do these things every day and every week just to be allowed to continue doing the actual stuff you enjoy.
In fact, I would argue that the Vault system actually adds to the perceived pressure to do things you do not enjoy. By drastically curtailing drop rates for loot in raids, for example, raiders now feel if they do not do multiple M+ every week or run several rated PvP activities, they will not be able to keep advancing their gear sufficiently to be a responsible raid member. (I am not arguing either for or against the Vault, just noting how it contributes to player perception of “too much”.)
When you feel you have to do something you do not like or perceive as boring, it seems like a job and not a game. Blizz has been ramping up this approach now since Legion, but it really has hit a new level in Shadowlands.
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My son (at age 9) and I started Arena at the beginning of Cata. We were so bad. lol I mean we were bad. We didn’t have voice comms, and had no PvP gear when we started. (He was in Montana with his Mom and I was in Oregon.)
I remember being in arena and watching the teams we were up against keyboard turning. To be honest we weren’t much better. I’m not sure, but I think you started with an MMR of 1500 and then dropped to where you could hold your own. Which for us was like 400 if I remember right.
It was cast a spell. They’d do something. We’d think and do something, then they would. It was so slow it was like watching a board game.
The ladder was just full of people of all skill levels. So you could find your spot and have fun.
Best I ever did was maybe 1600. My son made it up to around 2100 on his feral and DK. Then later on in MoP he carried several of our guild members through the PvP portion of the legendary cloak quest.
Now the number of people in the ladder is no where near what it was. So I think if you are new and starting out it is a much harder introduction to PvP. (I don’t PvP at max level any more, so I have no idea what is going on now.)
Game has changed, people have changed.
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I did not expect this thread to go in this direction!
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Wows raiding and dungeon bosses are probably some of the best they have done in SL.
Everything else is probably the worst they have done. Story, rewards, game systems etc all terrible. No engaging solo content.
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This 100% Game has changed drastically. a Lot of people that say WoW was always the same should read this post.
This is all gogogo grind grind grind endgame nonsense now. People doing mythic dungeons first week of the expac is insane to me. All that time spent on content creation and Blizzard lets you roflstomp it in days. All so we can sit in the same 8 dungeons for the next 2 years grindingy stats slowly.
What type of mmorpg is this? Pure insanity.
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I remember when Rep grinds would yield a powerful item when you finished the grind. Now the Rep items are much weaker than they used to be.
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