I would rate them in this order for the worst expansion.
WoD. Started out great, then went bad fast. Then they gave up on it and just started working on Legion. Storyline was horrible. (Draenor is freeeeeeee!)
Shadowlands. I’m just not having much fun. No need to rehash why it’s in this state…it’s been done to death on these forums already.
BFA. Storyline all over the place. Broken system after broken system. But despite all this, I still enjoyed the zones and played the entire expansion, so it wasn’t garbage.
Honestly, I’d go and say so far at least Shadowlands is the worst. WoD wasn’t bad overall, garrison and lack of content. What it had outside of the garrison was good, just not enough and they scrapped it.
I was pretty casual in Cata and didn’t mind it. Didn’t do any raiding while it was current, so I can’t judge that. I enjoyed the mini event and seeing Deathwing fly over a zone randomly. Vash’jir was bad and probably just put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth right off the bat.
BfA was bad, but at least it was in Azeroth. Mechagon and Nazjatar were really good, and Battle for Dazaralor was probably one of their best raids ever. The problem with BfA was their systems. Sure, Warfronts were boring and people didn’t like islands bc of the mandatory grind of ap. They were fun to do now and then for mounts and such but not to grind out AP constantly.
Shadowlands has almost no content so far. 9.1 offered almost nothing. Couple mounts and that’s it. Korthia is a complete waste of time other than the one mount from the vendor for Tier 6 research. There’s no other reason to do anything in the zone outside of that and renown. Covenants were a flop (thus the ripcord). The maw was a flop. Torghast was a flop (at launch, still is to an extent). Story was a flop. Everything they had in this expansion failed. Due to the length of patch cycles and the big drop in subs, 9.2 will probably be the last patch and they’d have to do something as big, if not bigger, than 8.2 with 2 new zones and such to end on a high note and I think they’re just gonna give it the WoD treatment and finish it off as quickly as they can. Thus, I think Shadowlands is worse.
Could be THE worst since that’s a matter of opinion
All xpacs are the same to me, they bring some dumb changes and some good changes No one can quantify ‘worst’ in any way that’s applicable to what all players care about.
I hardly think a “fun tip” that may appear on your loading screen cancels out all of the deliberately manipulative design that is present in modern WoW to artificially inflate your playtime and therefore subscription time and “engagement” metrics.
FFXIV isn’t designed like that because their philosophy isn’t geared toward that goal. They design a myriad of content that isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but simply hope that you’ll find elements you like and, when you’re through with them, they encourage you to unsubscribe until they have more content you enjoy.
Whereas WoW? Arbitrarily gating content. Flying. Questing. Renown doesn’t even pretend to have gameplay attached to it - it exists solely as a carrot-on-a-stick holding back content and player power from you for absolutely no reason other than to make your subscription roll into the next month. The vault is a glorified loot box to keep you checking in: what if it contains that missing piece next week? And don’t get me started on how randomized loot has become in general…
I mean, if modern WoW floats your boat, all the more power to you! I’m happy for you, truly. But don’t pretend that these predatory mechanics have become an element of philosophy with WoW to keep you hooked, and WoW is arguably the only game in the MMO space that resorts to these tactics.
Oh, they missed the landing. They were lucky to land on the mat at all, but now they’re trying to climb back onto it, dust off, and try to make a victory pose and save some dignity.
Also for the original OP - I would put SL behind only BfA so far. But that’s coming from someone who enjoys PvP, which WoD did pretty well, so I’m a bit biased.
I dont disagree with you, i was just pointing out ya gotta be fair when its due. And i know what i asked, but the real life scenario would play out that of course Square would have to answer like that.
In lieu of any developer commentary, the differing design philosophies speak for themselves. Honestly, I even find that particular loading screen message to be more than a little patronizing when I encounter it during the wealth of busywork that I’m doing to tackle content that I actually enjoy.
And most developers would give you some platitude about trying out different content and the like. The last thing they’d say is, “Unsubscribe!”
I’m going with shadowlands is the worst expansion ever. Simply because all of these systems. Bfa is next to last. Because it had a few less systems. And wod 3rd from last. Pvp was fun in wod at least.
No one can quantify ‘worst’ in any way that’s applicable to what all players care about.
