I unsubbed at the end of 9.1 because of PvP gating by Torghast, rating and renown. Usually I consume all casual PvE content on my main and play army of PvP alts, but Shadowlands killed that.
And even PvE wise it was very monotonous. I just did low M+ is instead of all that Korthia grind. Torghast could’ve been a fun thing, but they made it a source of important currency and I had to run it even when I didn’t want to.
I wouldn’t have unsubbed if I could run random heroics for currency that I could buy gear with like in Cata, and if PvP gear worked like in WoD. At
least running a quick dungeon was a core WoW experience.
I didnt QUIT quit…but I did do like BFA and just go into auto pilot, not caring about story or anything anymore. Just zoning out and doing the bare minimums to get what I needed.
I just tried to level up my HM tauren druid minor from 56 last night, up to 60.
I really tried to run some quests and daily crap, but the nausea started again and I decided to just mine ore until I got to 60. At least mining is tolerable and doesnt bring my lunch up.
I ignored the maw and torghast most xpac and at the start. I think i only did the soul daily in the maw. Even 9.1 invasions werent a good source of gear if you did m+. Took me until 9.2 on my main to get venari at exalted
Ppl werent really forced into torghast after 9.1 changes unless you went leggo crazy but that was just a waste of gold. I stayed spec locked on the cple classes i maxxed and actively bothered gearing. Not all i bothered gearing got 2 leggos either. If it wasnt in a raid or pushing beyond 15 it didnt matter
Ive stayed subbed but i think its more because im addicted or its i have ppl i play with lol.
I thought the maw was kinda fun, and I was actually a little disappointed when I hit the point in the 9.1 stuff that made the eye of the jailer go away completely. it took away all sense of urgency or planning for what you wanted to get done that day, and I kinda liked the whole ‘you have x amount you can do here, choose wisely’ aspect of it.
Torghast was a great concept, and it can be a lot of fun, but being -forced- into doing it was the part I didn’t like. it should have been a fun side activity that you had the -option- of doing, (with sure, maybe a handful of quests that sent you in there. or a single weekly or whatever) but tying it to legendary progression with no alternatives made it feel like a chore instead of something fun.
They had a great idea, and they should have just trusted in it being a good enough feature to get peoples attention rather than shoving it down our throats and making it mandatory, because all that did was cause burnout and resentment.
What made me quit playing after a couple months was the abysmal drop rate for gear. I could go weeks sometimes without an upgrade (even from vault if I happened to get unlucky.) unless I slammed every type of content I could, raid, m+, and pvp. and it just got to be too much work for not enough reward.
The maw in 9.1+ without the eye was so good. No more worrying about idiots pulling trash on to you bricking your like twice that month venture into the maw. Alot of my play time in shadowlands has actually been in the maw since then.
I’ve subbed twice this expansion, once at launch and the leveling content was so dry and the story absolute garbage, I parked whatever the wing people place is and unsubbed until August this year, struggled to level again, but did it.
I used up all the boosts I had from previous expansions
Tried to get reps, and mounts, but got burnt out and lost interest in the game, pre-patch is okay, broke a lot of stuff imo. I’ll probably just keep up with the game via YouTube.
I just haven’t been interested in story, or really gameplay since BFA.
There are I think, several reasons why so many people quit SL early: anima grind for a year; this was beyond horrendous, the Maw being a pain without mounting, for RPers the lack of sensible story and complete lack of material in SL for their mostly mortal pedestrian characters, world content that was tedious beyond reason (flying TO each zone was bad enough, but then the WQs also have a lot of hidden steps not shown making those longer as well).
Essentially this last expansion tried as hard as it could early on to burn people out. Ironically SL had all if not most of the things a game needs to be replayable and a good game, the problem is how these things were implemented:
Torghast uses procedural generation but because the assets in art are so limited and grey it doesn’t matter, the covenant systems are a good branching system but we told them how to fix them and they didn’t lister till the end, etc.
I was pretty much absent for the 3 rd season after a month it launched ,the zone Zerith Mortis was boring and the raid felt it was done in a hurry , there was nothing really worthwhile for me to chase . My leggo belt is still 265 ilvl
I enjoy Shadowlands more now that I have better armor and a better understanding of Stygia, Anima, and other aspects of the rewards in Shadowlands. When it first came out, I found the zones frustratingly difficult and confusing, and while I left for other reasons, Shadowlands didn’t do anything to incentivize me to stay.
At this point, the reasons I left are no longer an issue, and like I said, I understand Shadowlands better now, so I enjoy it more. There have been better expansions, but I don’t agree with those who say Shadowlands is the worst expansion we’ve had. For me that’s still Warlords.
If i hadn’t gone into SL hyped for the new pvp season and with a very strong willed group of friends i 100% would have quit over maw, torgast, renown gates, rating locks and conduits
As a solo bg player i would have just gone back to runescape lol
