What’s the reason? I think personally it’s M+
27 Likes
I disliked the zones, didn’t like the colour palette, didn’t like the travel system, didn’t like the ideas they implemented, hated the maw with a passion. It was just an all-around expansion that was not for me, not one bit of it to be honest.
160 Likes
Trash writing. Trash retcons. Trash WQs. Trash loot system. Trash systems. Trash railroading. Trash zones. Lots of modern Sylvanas, aka Trash.
Trash, trash as far as the eye can see!
165 Likes
Keys are massively popular, though. 
33 Likes
What do you consider as a ‘failure’ though.
7 Likes
for me bad story telling
53 Likes
considering most the people who stay subbed ran the crap out of keys i think you might be full of it, i honestly think it was the dumb loot nerfs they did along with how covenants were and people said bye all at once.
22 Likes
I can only speak for myself. See, I’m not too bright. I didn’t understand covenants at first. There was nothing in game that explained why they were important; that I’d be getting the occasional perk as Renown leveled, that the Sanctum features (in some cases) were useful and/or rewarded items and mounts. Then there were the conduits, which I didn’t understand until I read more about them on Icy Veins and looked at some sample setups.
It took me SIX MONTHS to absorb all that. But, once I did, I really enjoyed Shadowlands. I liked the zones, the NPC’s, and the story. Though, I’m not an “end-gamer” so I can’t speak to M+ or Raids.
18 Likes
Beyond the hacked together story, double down of borrowed power and technical issues, the expansion launched in an extremely player-unfriendly state:
- no mounting in the Maw
- conduit energy
- torghast farming was both difficult and boring
- only real way to earn anima was WQ grinding
- extremely long travel time between zones
- time-locking of content was probably the worst the game had ever seen
- launched in a close-to-unfinished state with some bugs not fixed until future patches
By the time they started repairing the damage in 9.1, a lot of people had simply had enough. And it didn’t help that each patch fixed some things but brought in new problems. Korthia was terrible and had zero replayability. Sepulcher of the First ones was easily the most overtuned raid they ever released. Just a lot of questionable decisions over the course of the entire expansion.
82 Likes
I never cared for mythic+ but I see the appeal for the hardcore players.
But honestly, the story, the timegating, the slow pacing, the zones, none of it felt like World of warcraft.
It feels like a bunch of new writers were brought on and wanted to tell their own story in their own game but couldn’t get the greenlight on their own project so they hijacked the WoW story to tell their terrible fanfic.
50 Likes
The Covenant locks lasted too long. Right before they removed them, they pilled on another system (Domination sockets) on top of it instead of giving us what we wanted : tier sets. Then when they finally caved and made the expansion good with Covenant swapping, and Tier sets, and AoE caps removed, they made the most annoying raid they ever made : Sepulcher. Then when they finally started nerfing it to decent levels, they abruptly ended the raiding season to give us the stupid filler crap that was Fated.
That’s why Shadowlands failed. Because again Blizzard’s arrogance took over.
Mythic+ was probably Shadowland’s only redeeming quality, proving once again that it’s the only thing managing to keep this game afloat.
27 Likes
The people that are left stayed for M+ but the people that hated it prob just left already
10 Likes
I personally hated the disconnected nature of the zones and the insufferable (and totally unnecessary) load times when flying between them, also the Maw was downright awful to play in, never in my entire WoW life have i wanted to play so little, get in, get what i need and get the hell out!
Also, all of the anima crap with covenants was super out of wack early on, it should have been easy to swap around and buy stuff from vendors much earlier. It’s like they made a decent expansion and then ruined it with all of their gates and restrictions (whoever suggested the Maw should be on foot only at the start should be reprimanded lol).
45 Likes
Sylvanas character being written out of character.
Breaking up the expansion into multiple instanced zones when WoW prides it self on having a vast Open World.
One missing content patch that could have helped the narrative.
No mounts in the Maw until half way through the Domination campaign.
31 Likes
now why would they leave cause of keys lol you wasn’t forced to do them and the majority of people who left were the super casual people who hardly grouped for anything blizz totally screwed them.
2 Likes
M+ was pretty much the only reason I stayed. I really enjoyed them.
What made SL fail was the same thing that made WoD fail.
Rushed/unfinished content. You can see the lore holes every where. It’s very apparently that sepulcher is meant to be 2 raids. The major content droughts.
Lack of alt support.
It had A LOT of problems in later patches.
Patch 9.0 and 9.1 were actually not THAT bad, it was looking like it was going to be one of the better xpacs, then fell flat on its face.
10 Likes
Systemlands failed because of rental systems overload.
13 Likes
Ardenweld should’ve been green, change my mind.
14 Likes
For me: terrible storytelling and every zone felt incredibly hand holdy.
As soon as you land in Bastion the game just shouts the story at you and drags you along with almost no agency.
The Covenant System also sucked butt. etc etc.
9 Likes
The Maw.
The bad story.
Being bullheaded about the terrible systems until the late patches.
Mandatory choregast.
19 Likes