Absolutely not. If anything, we weren’t hard enough on it because Blizzard didn’t go out of business.
I think shadowlands had the potential to be great, and the only major issues were the decisions behind the scenes. Story too I suppose and the Raids were too hard.
Torghast got a lot of praise in the beta and they changed it because progression was tied to it. Even the live launch version would have been fine if they didn’t tie it to progression. It never would have recieved as much hate if a player that didn’t like it never had to do it.
Covenants were fine borrowed power, but locking it behind 2 or 3 ranks per week was an absolute fun killer. You couldn’t experiment quickly with stuff. There were stretches where you might need several weeks before you got something exciting unlocked (either some key soulbind or whatever). Changing covenants basically being locked was a really bad decision, instead of just letting people do what they want.
Legendaries were fun and except for being timegated behind torghast (and prohibitively expensive for 3/4s of the expansion) it added class complexity and the fact you could choose specifically the legendary you wanted to craft, it was better than legions random drops. Even if they were still a bit random way at the beginning.
M+ dungeons were pretty solid and adding the creation catalyst in season 3 was a great decision.
Anima could have used a multiplier perhaps. But overall, most of the shadowlands issues weren’t necessarily with shadowlands content, just how that content was implemented, kept behind a time gate or forced on players that didn’t want to do it.
1 Like
Different people enjoy different things. Shadowlands very well could be in the top 3 for some players. Just bc those who scream the loudest hated it doesn’t mean everyone did.
1 Like
Yes. People are too hard on SL. The explanation is that they are and forever will be stuck in a time that has past. Like OSRS players with any update at all. No update will beat the update they constantly cling to and base off of.
SL had a good story. It had decent zones. It had good systems.
The only arguements I see people making is mythic difficulty and something about their class. In this aspect, I understand but blizzard tried a new thing with increasing difficulty and it didn’t go well. Other people will say “gray man bad” like okay? The jailer was not the best bad guy ever but he still was better than some of the other bad guys we have seen. Their take on death was new and fun to see.
3 Likes
Systemlands could have been a top expansion but the rental system shenanigans sunk it fast.
1 Like
I think it’s genuinely the third best WoW expansion. Only wrath and legion were better, everything else was worse to me.
1 Like
not sure it would rank that high for me, but i’d place it solidly middle of the pack.
WoD and Cata for sure are way worse, i’d probably put it slightly ahead of mists as well (I personally didn’t like it) and about on par with BFA. so i guess that makes it 4th or 5th best for me? with TBC, Legion and Wrath ranking higher.
It certainly had some flaws, and I get why lots of people didn’t like it (even I quit playing around 9.1 and only just came back) but there was a lot of good stuff as well, some of it good enough that its being carried forward into future games (or in the case of fated raids I sincerely hope they do carry forward)
Its funny, I remember there being just as much hate for BFA near the end as there is now for SL. and back then I said a similar thing ‘it was flawed, certainly not a great expansion, but not nearly as bad as all the nerd rage makes it out to be.’ and it seems i was right, since most people seem to have a much better opinion of it these days, considering it too was being called the ‘worst expansion in wow’ right at the end.
I suspect the same thing will happen with SL… once people get off the hate train and stop fixating on their frustrations with it so much, that it will fall somewhere into that same middle of the pack area of ‘not great, but not horrible and had some cool parts to it.’
1 Like
SL is in the bottom 3 for me. Next to BFA and WoD
1 Like
How can I ignore this person? They don’t even play the game.
SL was good at the start then they didn’t actually add anything for like 9 months, then they took another 9 month break after 9.1.
I mean it is all subjective, right? I think SL had some really cool things in it and from my perspective (an altaholic that goes through phases of normal/heroic raid pugs, arenas up to typically ~1800 on most classes in most seasons, and rare m+ participation) I had a good time with the expansion for a fair chunk of time during each major patch, so it was a successful expansion. I think I actually put more time into this expansion than any before strangely eboufh. Yeah there were some pretty big flaws (maw grind, torghast grind, legendary gold cost, late covenant flexibility, late conduit catch ups), but when I actually think about my engagement and enjoyment I got out of the game overall it was relatively high.
I see why people have issues with the xpac, and a lot of complaints are valid, but forums are also the main place for people to gripe and trashing on current expansions seems to be “trendy”. I’ve seen many people/videos etc go back and talk about how certain expansions (wod and mop come to mind) we’re/are regarded as bad but really aren’t as bad as many made/make them seem.
SL ranks bottom for me – worse than WOD, and I never thought that would happen. I hated the lore and story so much in SL I genuinely hope they retcon this whole expansion.
2 Likes
Top three worst expansions maybe.
WoD had the advantage of having a pretty decent story, at least while leveling up. I think that if it had been given the proper time to be fleshed out at max level, it would have been pretty good.
Shadowlands is pretty good despite the mistakes.
Mistakes being
- too much timegating
- not enough content between patches/not enough patches
- legendaries were too expensive which ruined the economy, most of the gold went to a few super rich players (i know because i am friends with one who made most of the highest level legendaries every patch in SL)
Anywho,
Shadowlands did some great things
- Conduits were fun but the issue is people felt like they NEEDED the highest ilvl conduits to even have fun which is unfortunate.
- Tier sets
- All three raids were excellent, Nathria is one of the best raids ever.
- The dungeons in SL were some of the most fun, everyone seems to miss them already.
- Torghast is awesome now but unfortunately it wasn’t good for a long time so that tainted it (i would love to see something like torghast in the future but not for making legendaries instead just make it for XP leveling for people who would rather level in a randomized dungeon like torghast)
- Covenants were awesome but sadly you couldn’t really be in more than one at once especially early on. I think they should have something like this in DF but instead of choosing one covenant we instead get “rep” for each of them throughout the expansion eventually having all of them “maxed out” and being able to easily switch between them. I don’t think there should be special abilities attached to the covenant but I do like the idea of having a place that I call “my home” like in SL for my characters it was Bastion.
Anyways being a top 3 or bottom 3 expansion isn’t really saying much since there’s only like 8 expansions if you count DF. So the top 3 then there’s only 5 to pick from for the bottom 3.
Anyways, the best expansions are from what I’ve gathered from fans — - Legion, WOTLK, and MOP and I haven’t even played them. TBC comes close but it doesn’t quite make the top 3.
For the dead realm of WoW, it was a bit disappointing. Nothing to do with game mechanics or systems.
Disagree. Torghast was EASY. You must have been playing it in too high of a level. You should always play Torghast at levels that are easy not hard. You made the choice to pick the ilvl that you were “high enough” for most likely but you should have picked an easier level than that based on your comments.
While I agree it was wrong of them to timegate it the way it was in 9.0 and early on the way it is now where you can keep picking a lower level and farm the ashes you need is great and I hope they have something like Torghast in DF and in the future cause I’d rather level like that then level in dungeons or questing.
Torghast is a lot easier now, but when it was first released, I know it killed a lot of the hype by being over tuned for some classes while being more doable on others. It should have been balanced to begin with. It also needed a better a reward system and still does, but it will likely be left to rot.
1 Like
Absolutely. It was horrible and what made it worse was that you NEEDED to do the highest level in order to get the most soul ashes.
The current iteration of Torghast is excellent. As usual with blizzard they almost never do things right the first time. I’m not trying to bash blizzard either with this statement it’s just something I’ve noticed. They always seem to need to polish up their ideas sometimes A LOT sometimes a bit, before the ideas are fully realized.
Diablo 2 release? It was great but the game needed a lot of polishing.
Starcraft 2 release? Same thing as diablo 2.
Torghast? Same thing.
Etc.
Idon’t expect Dragonflight to be perfect out the gate either I expect a lot of class tuning to occur over the expansion. I expect 11.0 to be extremely well done though cause by then they’ll have it more or less figured out. 10.0 will be a lot of trial and error and that’s okay, we have to enjoy the changes instead of sulk in them, if your class gets nerfed either change classes or live with it and enjoy the nerf. You didn’t need that extra power! You’re a good player! (
In comparison to all expansions that followed… Cataclysm was the best.