| Before Shadowlands | Complaints from hardcore community | Issues for casuals and more average players in Shadowlands |
|---|---|---|
| Personal loot drop rate was set at 25%. Weekly bonus seals (with bad luck protection) allowed players to target specific bosses or activities for additional upgrades. Players could earn a decent gear set in a few weeks and push for BiS, or play on alts. | “The game is raining loot.” “I geared up too quickly and have nothing to do.” “Gear is too easy for everyone to come by these days, and purple means nothing.” | Personal loot drop rate has been lowered to 15%. Bonus rolls were removed entirely. It will take months and luck to earn a full set of gear. On some weeks, even a full raid clear may not provide a single upgrade. |
| Mythic Plus dungeons provided 2 or 3 pieces of gear competitive with Heroic raiding iLvl. Players who enjoy dungeons could group up anytime for competitive (near-Heroic) gear progression. | “I don’t want to feel pressured to do Mythic Plus in addition to raiding.” “Mythic Plus gear invalidates the prestige of rewards earned by raiders, as the power gap is not wide enough.” | Mythic Plus dungeons only provide 1 or 2 pieces of gear that is inferior to Heroic raiding iLvl. Players will need to clear Mythic dungeons for hours every day for it to be a reliable way of gearing up. |
| Emissaries provided a daily, efficient source of artifact or azerite power and would often reward gear that was competitive with Normal raiding iLvl. | “World quests are too easy and boring.” “Why does Blizzard make me do daily chores?” | Callings do not provide any anima power, and only occasionally provide gear that is far below Normal raiding iLvl. |
| Horrific visions, warfronts, assaults, PvP quests, and other weekly events and activities rewarded gear that was competitive with raiding gear (although never as high as Mythic iLvl and many slots were not covered. | “I don’t want to have to do these boring activities for the chance that I will get an upgrade.” “Casual players do not need gear because they are just collecting toys and appearances.” | Torghast rewards no gear, yet requires a high level of gear in order to succeed at challenging levels. No activities exist outside of organized raiding, Mythic Plus, and rated PvP that provide power/gear progression comparable to even Normal raiding iLvl. |
| In Legion, players could earn even the most powerful legendaries for free through emissaries, dungeons, raid finder, and many other end-game activities that they already enjoyed. (Organized raiding still provided the highest chance of obtaining a legendary.) In BfA, even casual players could earn and upgrade their legendary cloak.) | “I want to be able to target my BiS legendary right away.” “I hate having to do chores to upgrade my cloak every week.” | Legendary recipes only drop from certain sources, such as raiding, without bad luck protection. Soul ash must be earned every week by clearing Torghast, the higher amounts of which require a high level of gear. The material necessary for crafting a legendary requires either endless hours of farming, or huge amounts of gold that casual players may not have. |
| WoW appealed to a wide variety of players. Even solo players, players without a lot of time to play each day, and players who could not commit to raiding schedules in advance were able to enjoy a variety of activities to progress their power at a satisfying pace. Players who put forth the effort could, over time, obtain a level of gear sufficient to handle challenges such as the Mage Tower and Horrific Visions, although raiders still always had the best sources of gear and artifact/azerite power. | “Why does Blizzard always cater to the casuals?” “Nothing outside of raiding should provide good gear.” | Solo players and busy players will quickly hit a brick wall when it comes to power progression. The gap between the hardcore and the casual will widen even further, and organized groups will require higher levels of gear from outsiders. Even if casuals can successfully complete content, gear progression will be so slow that players may not want to make real-life sacrifices every week for months on end and give up on the game. In Torghast, the Maw, and PvP, hardcore players will find a playground to show off and enjoy their gear. |
301 Likes
Ions response in interview made me believe that they are hitting the other extreme and will chase away the casuals. Or at least a fair amount.
84 Likes
Pve gear drops were just absurd TBH. Had a big impact on pvp, glad it was reduced.
11 Likes
This is what people don’t understand, they fixed a lot of BfA issues including this one.
2 Likes
Good changes.
17 Likes
The leggo from raiding is 100%…the same goes to torghast and wb…the drop increase with a higher key on m+…is it not better than legion???
5 Likes
Anyone remember when Ralph was saying this expansion was going to kill the raiding community in favor of RPing furry casuals?
Look at us now!
25 Likes
Eh you could get your leggo in legion by just doing …anything really and you didn’t need to craft it with absurd costs on top of that.
16 Likes
You can buy a rank 1 for 4k or even less… You’re getting something around 1.5k for each calling. If you’re doing it everyday in aweek you’re receiving. 10.5k, more than enough to buy the piece of gear and the missives.
3 Likes
This is the most perfect post ever. I hate Shadowlands, I don’t even want to log into alts anymore, let alone my main. I already have a job, I don’t need another when I come home.
124 Likes
I am very casual and I have no problems with the way things work now. Can I get the gear needed to do the content I want to do? Yes, I can, so I’m good.
11 Likes
I’m never going to be a true Raider ever again and I’m okay with this
4 Likes
The probability to getting the best one was terrible. Now we can get it from a fixed source, some of them are 100%, others from rep and some you have to gri d to get, from dgs…and, as I sad, the cost for the gear is nothing.
1 Like
At first yeah but after the fix the first patch you could get easy leggos all the time. By the time legion ended I had all of them for my spec.
1 Like
I mean yeah but…
Game will properly “unlock” in about a month or two once we can max out the Cov Renown.
I don’t think its a smart idea as balance is going to wildly fluctuate over the next few weeks.
1 Like
We’re in week 3 and I already have the second best legendary for my ret spec and a good enough for tank. By the end of expansion I’ll have a full set on max rank
And soon we can buy legos from our covenant so you don’t have to touch any content!
2 Likes
And there is this item too, forgot about it. But no, legion legendary was better…
Legion legendary was trash, no way of trying to get the one you needed till to late in the expansion. Some people I know for there bis one last and it utterly sucked.
I really dont think you remember the forums raging over legos back in legion…cause that was fire
6 Likes
This is the best post ever.
24 Likes