I know the forums are typically where you gripe and complain but I just wanted to post that despite some major issues that DO need addressing for patch 11.1.5, overall the season has been just peak WoW, like an evolution of all of Blizzards ‘fun but…’ mechanisms.
In M+ not a single dungeon I absolutely dislike with DFC being the only one I slightly like less (due to the pacing at the end). Climbing has been fun, resilient keys are great for protecting your progress, a lot of loot diversity that allows M+ only players to find some absolute BiS items (Signet of the Priory looking at you)
Havent raided this tier but I think the music confidence of WoW is taking a step up. I feel like WoW’s music is afraid to be engaging or active. They always seem married to ambience that you just ctrl-M off and put off spotify but some of the fight themes have been engaging and active and has me listening to it more often. I do think WoW should just go all in on creating more active battle themes and not presume - ‘well players will just mute and put on spotify anyway’. Thats not the case with FF14 or hell certain fights in OSRS are catchy. If its good players will listen.
PVP - Best of the worst TBH BGB is a great concept and Solo Shuffle is a step in the right direction for more pickup engagement but I think being married to 6 rounds is a bit excessive especially since you can get tiled after 2 or 3 bad rounds and essentially botch the rest. Id love just a rated solo queue for 3s thats 1 and done. The law of large numbers will even out the w/l ratio with a proper mmr system. Allows people to take a break or chill on a bad streak rather than alt-f4 out of frustration or unintentionally grief by playing like crap (even as a gladiator ive often succumbed to tilt). Overall I do think the balance is probably the best its ever been aside from a few outliers.
The midpoint of the season with supercharging or whatever its called is great. I do think the caps on crests and stuff is dumb but I love that they came to a point where they just let us have fun and pull the ripcord. I think in future seasons they need to just uncap crests from the get-go.
The belt hasnt been released yet but I like the idea that in the tail of the season, they throw in a fun item to overpower our characters.
Overall, I like that their just throwing things at the wall and giving up content. I took a break from WoW in season 1 to play… sigh… New World with some friends and dabble in ESO and both of those games made me appreciate how the WoW dev team actually does TRY.
I think the game is much better than the worst crybaby threads in the forum suggest overall.
I’ve enjoyed S2 as a solo player. I’m close to finishing the 3 mythic sets I’ve been going for (would have been done by now but took a 2 month break to play Terraria).
Wow’s in a good place right now. It has meaningful progression for both solo and group players.
As a more casual player this season has kept me interested much longer than most. The gearing options and pace are great, the content is accessible, there’s things to do either solo or with the guild. I’m always looking forward to logging in and working on something lately.
I hope they can put a little more effort into bugs though, especially next seasons delves. Issues have persisted since 11.1 started.
It’s surprising to me how much PvP is neglected by the developers. I feel like with the right effort put behind it, Blizzard could actually make it into a draw for attracting non-WoW players to want to play WoW.
It all feels like they’re incredibly slow and way behind benchmarks. Like solo shuffle and BGB should have been something in the game 10 years ago, and iterated on much more aggressively to have a much more polished system today.
We’ll see if Ion can launch an expansion in a solid state. Truth be told, I think almost literally nothing could get me to play The War Within. I’m waiting for Metzen to take over as narrative lead and to see some changes that reflect they’re on a new path when it comes to game design.
Delves rocked this season. Tank Brann allowed me to enjoy healing in delves, better access to gilded, fun curios(RIP Pacifist Rig), a seasonal nemesis with a hilarious personality, and new stories made S2 an incredible experience.
S2 is peek “let’s eff over that hunter with constant DIVIDE BY ZERO errors despite everything she does to fix and just be silent on the tech forums because eff her, amirite?”
Naw, peak was in Shadowlands when we got to Zereth Mortis, the Cornerstone of Creation.
In fact, I go even further and say that it was the pinnacle of all video games in it’s lore, story, and depiction of “Heaven”.
You run around, learning the inner secrets of the universe and its creations…then you learn to read the first languages of the universe, you get to meet the prototype animals and bipeds.
At first you can’t understand anything anybody says except Cartel Ve and such. THen you learn, and adapt and become more familliar with the way they talk, which is via what we hear as musical notes. That’s why, in the Sepulcher of The First Ones…you don’t know you are the bad guy at first. You don’t realise you are making a mistake fighting them, that you were playing into The Jailers’ plan. And once we do, it’s already too late.
The music. The storytelling of the zones (note, not the main overarching crap story) the ambience, the quests…everything was peak WoW. Until the very last 1%…and then it all fell apart becauses Alex can’t keep the stories straight. Glad he’s not here anymore. If it weren’t for his decisions and Ion…Shadowlands would have actually gone down as the best expansion ever, excluding BC and Wrath of course. You literally can’t beat those.
