Is combat becoming more annoying than fun?

[Balgarath-garrosh]

As a frost mage where my only defense is a short slow this makes me angry at times overtime in recent xpacks

[Shadowfang-dathremar]

The constant bombardment of mechanics is way over the top. It’s my number 1 hate in Shadowlands. I think Shadowlands is a great xpac but I don’t think it’s ‘fun’. Dance Dance revolution is what it’s become, turn it down Blizz.

[Vararei-argent-dawn (Vararei)]

Time-played, my fellows. Time played.

And the devs keep pushing: how much more will players take in Swallowlands.

[Rahkeetahp-aerie-peak]

@Kegeo-drenden

Almost every enemy had a way to slow you, or god forbid blind you (which made all your attacks miss until you cleared it), and that was combined with heavy mob density. Some players argued it made the game more fun, and ‘challenging’, but I always thought it took the fun out of the game. It’s when I lost interest and came back to WoW.

That kinda crap completely ruins strategy when everything has it.
its that same ‘homogeneity’ we were all whining about over the water striders and now every mount can have water walking.
This game is turning into Mario Cart.

@Kegeo-drenden

It’s important to have ups and downs when it comes to mechanics like this - without any downtime it just feels like an overwhelming, stressful mess. But having things like this come in occasionally and surprise you can be really fun.

Some things should slow. Spiders make sense with their web attacks.
But I honestly dont think Ive yet crossed a single thing in this game that cant slow me up like Im walking thru peanut butter.
I dont know what I was expecting. the slow and root is obviously there to drag out play time. This company is beyond bothering to make great content and settles for cheap effects to keep you playing, not because youre enjoying the game, but because it takes 4 times longer to get where youre going and back

[Rahkeetahp-aerie-peak]

@Kyuta-moonrunner

unless you’re more focused on your second monitor with Netflix streaming.

…and if you are focused on Netflix, that kinda tells us where the game is as far as holding interest.

[Toadwart-zuljin]

@Thequixote-staghelm

The mechanics are just so constant and overused. No texture to it, just mechanic mechanic mechanic mechanic.

Things like being assaulted for standing still in the maw and torghast really make this hit home. Cannot even type a conversation to someone as you will get hit for 50% of your life if you arent moving every 30 seconds.

I find myself spending the majority of my free time (when im not doing forced shadowlands chores) in the older zones as they are far more enjoyable.

[Thahl-whisperwind]

@Thequixote-staghelm

And the god damn player vs’ camera this expansion.

This. Bliz didn’t reveal this new game mode, but I agree it is probably the most prominent, PvC. I think camera needs a nerf…

[Mevaar-destromath]

@Pantherheart-dalaran

I play super, SUPER casually

@Pantherheart-dalaran

usually just grabbing my elite set

I feel sorry for myself.

[Fartharus-tichondrius]

Oh man the very beginning of launch I hated fighting things, Assassin Rogue just couldn’t keep up and Survive, I don’t even know if it was my Gear since my Alts that weren’t as geared seemed to have ran through fine but this was a Month after so.

[Ashazzar-moon-guard (Ashazzar)]

Combat has been a lot of things over the years, but “fun” was never one of them, and I’ve avoided it as much as quests and circumstances allow (exceptions being cases like Torghast where you might as well clear everything for Phantasma).

It’s a necessary evil, but unless something requires me to kill mobs, mobs are just roadblocks to getting things done. Nothing in this xpac changes that.

[Thequixote-staghelm (Thequixote)]

@Kyuta-moonrunner

These days it’s super shiny in your face spell vomit and impossible to miss… unless you’re more focused on your second monitor with Netflix streaming.

More like 10’s of super shiny things mixed with everyone else’s super shiny things and some of them are good and some of them are bad.

Just losing focus for 1-3 seconds causes wipes on a lot of these fights.

Unless your going into things extremely over geared or AFK’ing a LFR, sitting around watching videos isn’t a thing.

[Kholin-drakthul (Kholin)]

@Toadwart-zuljin

I find myself spending the majority of my free time (when im not doing forced shadowlands chores) in the older zones as they are far more enjoyable.

This is interesting. I just realized I have not logged onto my level 60 for a week. I have been slowly leveling lower level chars. Mostly just doing WoD stuff and fishing. lol. One of the things you notice is that you can get to a safe place if you have to do something. (Take a phone call, answer a whisper.)

Sometimes SL just feels like a giant PITA…

[Verothus-stormrage]

@Thequixote-staghelm

@Purge-bloodsail-buccaneers

and even many trash pulls, are just so hair-pulling with the ridiculous amount of sensory overload.

That’s definitely part of the issue.

And there is no consistent IFF design guideline to all these abilities flying around. Then you got things like adding tar trap to hunter’s damage rotation, which is already problematic in how it hides visible ground AoEs but when you get to things like those barely visible grey AoEs in spires they just disappear.

And the god damn player vs’ camera this expansion. With everything else you have fights were your having to reposition because the camera is stuck in a tree, a corner, behind a wall, in a door or behind some flapping angel wing that is that close because?

I agree with this too. To me the game was never designed around these crazy mechanics and instant reactions. This means you have to fight the camera a lot as well and download an army of addons.

There are some players who have perfected it inspite of all this, but I personally hate it. I often feel like I am fighting the game more than the mobs.

[Verothus-stormrage]

@Kyuta-moonrunner

@Verothus-stormrage

I have noticed people tend to overstate their skill in this game. And because of this I think that Blizzard thinks that means everyone wants it to be even harder.

You may be right, but can you say it’s not nice to have more variety in difficulty? Nobody’s forcing anyone to git gud, just as nobody’s forcing anybody to stay on that lazy river lfr ride.

@Rapidstrike-malganis

They’re gonna hit you with “I SHOULDNT NEED 3RD PARTY ADDONS TO PLAY THE GAME I ONCE LOVED”.

Let’s be honest, they’re needed less these days. For example when I was running that Ulduar timewalking, during one of the encounters, there’s an important mechanic I kept missing because I couldn’t see any indication of it. It was just a tiny, pale blue swirly on the ground.

These days it’s super shiny in your face spell vomit and impossible to miss… unless you’re more focused on your second monitor with Netflix streaming.

I mean that’s just not true at all, and its the exact point I am making. People are obsessed in this game at telling the rest of us how easy it is now when its obviously getting harder and harder.

I mean its known that Blizzard are making it harder to fight addons, not easier.

There are way more mechanics and way less room for error. But again people beat on the drum that its easier and its everyone else that is the problem.

At this point I am just a spectator but by all means make it harder if its so easy. All that will happen is people will get more frustrated and treat each other more like trash.

[Kyuta-moonrunner]

@Verothus-stormrage

There are way more mechanics and way less room for error. But again people beat on the drum that its easier and its everyone else that is the problem.

I guess I just don’t get it.

[Thequixote-staghelm (Thequixote)]

This seems to hit the casual player harder than anything.

I’m in a casual old farts guild but I’m also a semi hardcore try hard. While I’m all for meritocracy and things like RaiderIO, I just prefer the lack of drama that comes with more tolerance and inclusiveness of casual guilds.

This difficulty level and loot progression has created a brick wall in helping gear up the caboose of the guild.

In BfA when we were carrying people though a higher key for their weekly it usually wouldn’t go well. Definitely missed on the time and sometimes with a very painful number of wipes. But we could almost always get through it.

This is just hard fail after hard fail. Can’t even complete the key a lot of the time. The mechanics just overwhelm and the low gearing makes those mechanics excessively dangerous.

I’m really starting to think that the loot is a big cause for this. What M x drops and what M x+1 requires aren’t matched up.

[Rahkeetahp-aerie-peak]

@Rahkeetahp-aerie-peak

Some things should slow. Spiders make sense with their web attacks.
But I honestly dont think Ive yet crossed a single thing in this game that cant slow me up like Im walking thru peanut butter.
I dont know what I was expecting. the slow and root is obviously there to drag out play time. This company is beyond bothering to make great content and settles for cheap effects to keep you playing, not because youre enjoying the game, but because it takes 4 times longer to get where youre going and back

LMAO…finding stuff I didnt realize that slows.
This crap is getting REALLY old blizzard.

[Kaeltiras-area-52]

I miss slow, methodical, game play that is more cerebral than fast paced, haste is everything, go go go game play myself.

[Teksuo-grizzly-hills]

imo, combat is the only fun thing left.

everything else screams phone game lol

[Rimeheart-bloodhoof]

@Thequixote-staghelm

It really seems like there’s a disconnect between the game they want to make and the game they have.

For me the trend started in 8.3 with horrific visions and specifically Alleria, and what I’m seeing is extreme back to back, no pause, no change in tempo, just turn it up to 11 dance dance mechanics and excessive use of CC on players.

For some classes this can work, but for a lot of classes that have to be watching resource bars, when CD’s are ready, and juggle 20+ abilities while getting interrupts in when they need to happen, this constant run out circles with mobs warping and running everywhere is more anxiety inducing and frustrating than fun.

The mechanics are just so constant and overused. No texture to it, just mechanic mechanic mechanic mechanic.

I suspect they’re trying to combat all the Add on aids we have but it’s really just pushing everyone to use more of them.

And I see you coming with with your git gud/you suck replies. This isn’t about stroking your ego but if you need that ego stroke, here you go, this has nothing to do with if combat is fun, it’s because I suck and you’re gods gift to WoW.

Absolutely but it was outside of visions too (the 8.3 daily zones were full of it) and even before 8.3.

There was a thread a while back talking about the irony of adding support for controllers and touting it as a helpful addition to the accessibility community.

I laughed at this because movement is usually one of the trouble spots and the Activision devs have doubled and tripled down on the tedious and obnoxious movement and combat mechanics which has infiltrated every single facet of the game from lowly daily quest mobs to dungeons to raids.

It’s got to the point where a player can’t relax anywhere, not even while doing a stupid daily quest.

Let’s hop into the Maw to do a daily quest or two. Look here, this mob does a huge frontal cone attack every 3 seconds. MOVE! The next one shoots white circles on the ground that do massive damage every 3 seconds. MOVE MOVE! The next one casts a highly damaging spell every 5 seconds. PUMMEL! PUMMEL! Now you got things diving at you from the sky every 15 seconds. MOVE! Oh hey what’s this? Now this mob knocks you back with every auto attack? MOVE MOVE!

LOL let’s not even talk about normal dungeons where trash mobs fill your screen every few seconds with garbage like WoW is Radiant Silvergun. This on top of whatever else they cast that has to be constantly interrupted…

I don’t know what games the fresh dev hires are playing but they should stop trying to copy it and turn WoW into some kind of twitchy arcade bullet hell game designed to drain people’s quarters.