I have tried the PTR in great length and I have discovered that Patch 9.1 doesn’t change the paradigm of the current sinking direction of WoW. In fact what I discovered is regression.
Historically, the first patch is a building block towards the rest of the expansion and something to be optimistic about. But with patch 9.1. there is more confusion than clarity.
- Not enough class balance happening.
This is self explanatory and BlizZard has argued you need to wait for a season to balance classes. Well the season ends with patch 9.1 release so a new season can begin right? Not so fast where is the class balancing? Patch 9.1.5 could have balancing of classes but by then the season is under way. And if the season is under way that would violate the core goal BlizZard has of not doing balancing passes during a season.
Furthermore, if patch 9.2 is going to be a late 2021 or early 2022 release that implies that class balancing if not sufficient for patch 9.1 is on the backburner. Why?
- Covenant legendaries and reworking of torghast is sucking all the developmental energies.
It seems the opportunity cost of working on covenant legenaries and torghast is not giving enough time for class balancing. In fact where is the balancing of existing legendaries that no one uses? And why do legendaries exist that can be a trap for new or inexperienced players?
- Korthia isn’t going to be appealing to people that want more content. Korthia is the type of content for super casuals to engage.
Korthia in theory should have broad appeal but you quickly find out that Korthia is very niche in appeal.
In addition, Korthia introduces multiple currencies and this feels very punishing to new and returning players to navigate. It feels like you are spending more time swimming against the stream than having a game play flow in a positive directoin.
- PVE gearing still feels bad.
Korthia gearing isn’t bad but it is still sub par and then you have to factor in that PVP gear is still going to be the best entry level due to being deterministic.
The flipside though is where more problems lie.
- PVP gear being a lower ilevel is not a solid plan.
In theory PVP gear being a lower ilevel would accomplish three goals. First is to ensure PVE players do not feel forced to do PVP. Second is to reduce boosts which plague rated PVP experience for legit PVP players trying to climb rating. Third it is supposed to make PVP gear the best in PVP.
The first goal isn’t going to work as I stated in point 4 that PVP gear even with lower ilevel is still going to be coveted by PVE players. The second goal may reduce boosts by PVE players but boost by PVP players may increase. And the third goal of PVP gear being best in PVP may hold true only for gear that is fully upgraded in theory. Because PVE gear like Korthia may be easier to obtain and use in PVP!
- Domination…? NO.
The point of systemlands expansion was to have all the systems in at the start of the expansion. This is a betrayal of that primary objective. Furthermore, this now impacts the legendary system and people may have to regrind legendaries. Also this impact the vault which also means to me that there was no planning with domination involved.
If there is no planning with domination that to me also indicates that the future of patch 9.2 is also murky and up in the air. 50/50 that it even releases as a full fledged patch. And if it does release as a full fledged patch I do not see the expansion after this expansion coming out for a loooooooong time IMVHO.
Overall patch 9.1 is a solid patch to have to come out a few months after launch of expansion. But at this point the patch comes too late and doesn’t improve the core game either.
More specifically scaling in the old world and legacy raids are broken.
The level squish is still rife with problems from launch.
And yes bugs reported in beta and PTR still exist.
