Is BfA that bad?

Community General Discussion
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Here is a little bit of context before I get into things. I started in Vanilla WoW and do have many fond memories of it. I played through to the veeery end of WoTLK and quit just before Cata came out. I found Vanilla, TBC, and Wrath to be fantastic. Wrath was a masterclass in dungeons and raids. I came back just in time to do AotC Kil’Jaeden. As I understand, I was not here for some… not great expansions. I came back for Legion because a few people said the theme reminded them a bit of Burning Crusade, and I would be lying if I said didn’t want to be a part of finishing off the demon horde. I enjoyed Legion quite a bit.

Enough of that. Let’s get into BfA.

  1. Launch and leveling.

When BfA dropped my guild was incredibly active. We had a ton of people on and leveling together. Many of us helped each other out with professions. Running normal dungeons while goofing off in Discord has been as enjoyable as the days of being on Ventrilo and goofing around. Playing with people you like makes WoW… WoW. I took a couple days off work and hit max level pretty quick and began the gear grind. All in all, I enjoyed leveling. This coming from someone who normally hates leveling.

  1. Gear and Professions

I am putting these together for a reason. At the start of BfA there was a famine when it came to weapons. As a blacksmith I made… a not small amount of gold selling 300 and 310ilvl weapons. I felt this was a good and bad thing. It made my profession feel valuable, but I can understand the frustration some had.

Now for the big elephant in the room. Azerite armor. I personally liked having tier. I did not care if it was always best in slot. It gave me something to work for and something to look forward to. Tier has always been something to strive for. It made you feel powerful when you got the bonus. Now, I am not a doomsayer when it comes to Azerite though. Having some traits be not great and some be amazing isn’t a terrible thing. The best gear there is shouldn’t just be handed out on a platter. On top of that, most of the best Azerite gear comes from Uldir anyways. I used my bonus rolls to get them and it wasn’t an issue. If you don’t raid, don’t expect the best gear. As for not having a high enough neck level to unlock all the traits, I never had that issue on my main.

After Azerite, the biggest complaint I see is warforge and titanforge. Yes, It can feel like a gamble on getting something amazing. Yes, some people who are terrible at the game may get lucky and get a few titanforge pieces. Who cares. Gear will never mean more than skill. I’ve seen 380+ people I would never want in my m10 and 360s I would love to have again.

  1. Island Exploration

I will admit that I ignored IEs for the first month and a half. I did not do a single one. I was not interested. Then, two of my guildies who were really into farming the BoEs and mounts wanted me to tag along. I also felt the need to get it done for the research chain. Once again, the best part of the IEs was BSing with friends in Discord and just killing IEs. Again, doing the content with people I like made the content great.

  1. Dungeons and Raiding

I like the design of many of the dungeons. Doing the story line for each zone as Horde made me care about them. When I entered Atal Dazar and saw Rezan get turned, it was something I cared about. I will admit though, the Alliance side dungeons didn’t mean as much to me. I think that is normal. As for the design of the dungeons, I think most of them are good, if not great. Atal is fun to speed run, Freehold has a fun setting, and Underrot feels like you are really seeing what the corruption of GHuun is doing before you enter Uldir. There are a few annoyances, such as Temple with its really dumb orbs and Waycrest changing every time.

Raiding is a hard thing to delve into so early into an expansion. There is only one raid. The world bosses are easy. Plain and simple. Bygone are the days of Vanilla world bosses that would curb stomp uncoordinated groups. They are essentially loot pinatas, which is a shame. But, I understand for better or for worse, WoW wants those catchup mechanics for people to get gear.

Now for the meat and potatoes, Uldir. Uldir is not bad. My last experience raiding something to do with the Titans was Ulduar. Ulduar was literally a masterclass on how to make an amazing raid. Is Uldir comparable to Ulduar? No. but, Uldir has a completely different tone. This is a place not as it should be. It has been overrun and corrupted. the further in you go the more you feel that corruption. My only issue is how simplistic the layout is. Just a ring of bosses. As a research facility it makes sense though.

Bosses! Taloc is a fun fight on normal, heroic, and mythic. He is not hard and not boring. Slowly delving into the facility past lasers is fun. M.O.T.H.E.R. is less interesting on normal and heroic, due to the fact that you can just kill her in the first room. Mythic is where she gets interesting. There are some cheese strats, but al in all I enjoyed pacing how we went over and then getting rewarded with a burn phase in room three. The ring of three. All three bosses around he ring are good fights, but none of them really stand out. Zul. As a fury warrior, I LOVE Zul. I get to bad he heck out of my numbers. Zul is also where the difficulty starts to go up a bit. Adds need to be nurned, Hexxers need to be CCd, circles need to be soaked, and people need to be dispelled. It feels like a good ramp up of difficulty for who Zul is. Mythrax is easier than Zul. As long as the raid kills adds then the fight is not a problem. It is still an enjoyable fight. G’Huun is such a ramp up from Mythrax. Runners need to be good, interupts are a big help, avoiding balls, moving in and out, dancing in the final phase. It was a fight that made me feel really good getting the AotC very early.

  1. Wrapping it up TL;DR

I feel like there is so much more I could go into. Assaults, Warfronts, War Mode, etc. Maybe I will go into them some other time. I feel like BfA is getting a worse rep than it deserves. Is it perfect? Far from it. I feel like BfA really shines when you have others to do things with. There is so much you can do with a group of 3-5 people who are friends or guildies. IEs, mythic zeros to farm mounts, m+, raids, assaults, and even farming old content.

If you aren’t enjoying the content solo, ask yourself if you are doing enough to make events or get guildies involved with your play sessions. For me, so far BfA is good with the potential to be great with upcoming content. That is just my two cents though.

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Holy post Batman!

Everyone has their opinion.
They want the next Expansion to be as good as the last. It never will.

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Its not “that” bad, but its closer to “that” bad than I would like it to be.

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The story is boring compared to an universal threat devouring planets and cutting planets in half. Bring on the old gods and you will see the sentiment shift immediately.

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They aren’t going to bring the Old Gods for the start of an expansion. They are ramping up to it.

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Except when it is. I would say BC was better than Vanilla, and Wrath better than BC. Mists and WoD were turds, Legion better than WoD! So never say never…

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wrath had amazing story telling. BfA has had decent story telling considering there is only one raid. With upcoming content and what has already been teased, I think the upcoming story will be quite good.

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Legion had this end of the world doom and gloom to it. We had artifact weapons, class specific storylines, mage tower and legendaries that changed your playstyle. The cherry on top was tier sets.

Bfa has no tier sets, no legendaries, no mage tower, no class storyline and no artifact weapons…It’s a massive downgrade compared to legion…I’d say slightly better than Wod, worse than MoP.

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I’ve written posts about this, so I wont go into depth as I did before, but from what I’m seeing we have a decent side that is enjoying the expansion Vs a big chunk that is displeased Vs a chunk that have left. At this point, Devs know what players really want, but in the end, its really what they are going to put out, which is what we see now.

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It’s not really that bad. People just always do this every expansion.

It’s definitely not the worst expansion ever, nor in the top 5, but people will always cry about current expansion.

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BFA does have tier sets (Head, Shoulders, Chest). Actually tier sets sucked anyway because the good piece(s) of gear I had that had good stats were completely useless due to the set bonuses and its stats. Tier sets are Azerite traits with bonuses to them its just a different system added. The only difference is that you have “little” choice in what you want to work around. Nothing is new. I don’t get why players don’t sit down and see this.

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BFA isn’t bad. The leveling and questing is fantastic. The zones are all beautiful. The non-faction war story is very compelling. WQs are better than Legion’s. The dungeons are decent. Uldir is great.

Simply put, it’s an expansion that took all the things that worked from previous expansions and made them less fun and less interesting.

• Island Expeditions are a less fun version of MoP scenarios, devoid of story and with no sense of direction. The point is to “explore” but since you literally have to race the opponent in gathering Azerite, you just chain pull everything on the island and kite/mow it all down. It’s AoE farming with a fancy name.

• Azerite armor is the artifact weapon system and tier gear mixed together into a ridiculously simplified, dumbed down version of both that neither allows for complex, new gameplay for classes nor adds new abilities to classes. There’s no sense of progression nor carrot to chase like artifact tints or a full tier set.

• Warfronts are 20-man scenarios with a clear story and sense of direction… but are less fun than dungeons, raids, and Island Expeditions (subjective; my humble opinion). They’re just not fun to me. I’m just there with a bunch of people, going where the crowd does, not caring about anything. I’m not engaged by any of it.

• Incursions are Legion invasions that reward 370 ilvl gear (too high, IMO) and much less XP for leveling characters and a small XP buff.

• The two Allied Races that are the focal point of the expansion’s story and one of the main selling points on the game’s ‘key features’ won’t be availble until 6 months or longer after launch, even though they have joined the factions and players have finished their story very shortly after launch. That’s just crazy. There is actually no good reason for this.

So, all in all, BFA isn’t that bad. It’s just frustrating because it could be SO MUCH better. It’s like WoD in the sense that there is so much POTENTIAL that is just not realized yet.

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TLDR: It’s better w/ friends. Cool.
BFA’s content is still crud IMO compared to past releases.

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As much as GD loves overly exagerated hyperbole, the only person that can tell you if it’s good is you.

Depends on what you usually do with WoW, if you like collectables or achievement hunting, PvP, PvE, etc.

That’s enterely up to you, you decide what to do with your time, do not be afraid to have your own opinion, things others enjoy might not be your thing.

Personally i’ve had a blast with BfA so far, regardless, it still has glaring faults and several things i’d like changed. Lore and class balance have never been this weak and i played BC and WoD.

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That means its bad man… Haha

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That’s it right there. You nailed it.

I got dragged back into WoW by friends who begged and begged. I bought a new machine (the old one wouldn’t support the new req’s). I bought 6 months of game time. I leveled a toon to 120. We started doing dungeons and put our toes in mythics…and then they all ghosted.

I leveled a toon on a different server where two of my friends were playing (They’re icky Alliance, but what’re you gonna do?). We have pulled in people one at a time, and now we have a five-man. Our fifth is getting geared for Mythic +, and we’re about to start. Finally.

In the meantime, EVERYTHING has been fun again. WQ’s with a friend or two means always having fun WPvP encounters. It means getting through the pathfinder grind faster. Island Expeditions with just one friend mean no angst, no kicking, and being able to just enjoy the activity. Running 5-man normals and heroics to help the new guy get into 320 gear is fun. Title chasing or achievement chasing is fun.

All it takes is a handful of you on comms to laugh, help each other out, and work the various puzzles presented to you by the content. It’s a MULTIPLAYER game. Add people to your playtime, and it gets fun really fast.

That doesn’t mean people don’t have legitimate complaints, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth is overwrought and ridiculous.

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I had to resist the urge to just quote your entire post. You summed it up perfectly in my opinion. Great post. I think that was a beautiful and rational summary of exactly what the issues are.

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Bfa is pretty horrble

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Tier sets had way more creativity that was on par with legendaries from legion. The new azerite traits look similar. So I guess it’s a wait and see for now.

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Yeah, it really is that bad.

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