Okay, the only thing I agree on in this list are points 1, 5, and 6. And point 1 is more an issue with the gameplay than the story itself. I was asking what issue you had with the story, not the gameplay since you made your issues with that pretty clear. Story and gameplay are separate things.
2.) YOU HAVE TO SURVIVE!!! I’m told over and over.
Then later I have to kill either another demon hunter or yourself. But…don’t we have to survive?
It was stated the reason why was because Shivarra require a much stronger sacrifice and PC and Sevis are the only ones there. There is also emphasis literally everywhere that DH’s will sacrifice anything including themselves and/or their comrades if it means stopping the Legion. So this part isn’t out of the ordinary for me.
Also, sacrificing yourself is the more interesting option here because you get an entire dialogue from Illidan while you’re running back to your corpse where he reveals that PC has a demonic soul like him which will stay in the Nether until a new body is formed. But since PC’s corpse is well intact, they could simply run right back to it. It’s pretty rare we get an in-universe explanation for why we can do that (though of course this case applies only to DH).
Illidan’s line plus the fact if you choose to sacrifice Sevis instead makes him a ghost only you can see implies this isn’t a trait common to demon hunters. And PCs always have gotten all sorts of asspulls on why they survive things that kill everyone else; that’s just the nature of them. So I don’t see anything wrong with this specific part.
3.) The demon hunter so BA. But…we just encase you because of your blood. Just stupid.
Uh, no? It’s literally because they were working for Illidan, who was perceived as working for the Legion at the time and so they were considered criminals. It’s not purely because they’ve become part demon, though that certainly was part of the reason. That’s the whole point of demon hunters. They did a LOT of questionable things to stop the Legion, including things that are outright villainous during Burning Crusade. It was mentioned a few times early on so it should give even someone who has never touched BC a good idea.
4.) They are super hated by the guys that encased them…and when it comes to the other hated guys they just kill them. So why keep DH’s around for a super long time? Inconsistent.
I don’t know who you mean by “the other hated guys”, but it was stated that the Wardens were just plain desperate because they don’t have better options. Because of their history with Illidan and their actions in Outland, demon hunters were widely distrusted. But because they know so much about the Legion and have the power to defeat them, they were allowed to join the fight. Because there just aren’t better options.
If you mean why they’re still around after Legion, there simply wasn’t any reason to imprison them again unless they do anything that warrants capture because they’ve proven themselves.
7.) The stupid mage showing up outside after its all over…how convenient.
You could argue the same for literally every class campaign because you always Khadgar always is more or less involved in each class hall’s campaign from what I understand (at least I remember seeing him pop up frequently on my druid as well). Just one of those personalized game story things.
And it makes sense Khadgar would catch on to the Illidari’s plight since he is the leader of the Kirin Tor, the organization of the most powerful wizards that keep track of everything since ye olden days of WoW. In fact, he’s been keeping track of every class order’s activities going off some of his lines.
8.) The mage can only teleport you outside the area you need to be at…apparently he thought you needed a break and was sure there was no urgency.
Again, this is something that can be said about literally every class hall’s starting experience. ![:expressionless:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/expressionless.png?v=6" ":expressionless:")
9.) You use your sight…but dang…nothing out of the ordinary is seen. But suddenly you turn to a guard and say…this one is a demon. And not just that one but at least half of them.
If you used the spectral sight, you can see demons hanging out everywhere. Although with how the game presented it, it looks like they were just invisible, I think it’s supposed to be they were always disguised as soldiers since the larger demons at least don’t turn invisible. It might just be Blizz just didn’t know how to layer the demons over the soldiers without messing up the formatting.
This is more a technical issue than a story issue, but I can understand why this is confusing like this.
10.) THESE demons are easier to kill…must have been that transformation that weakens them right?
Another gameplay thing. That’s just how gameplay always was in WoW. I’ve had plenty of other areas the mobs gave me more issue than the actual bosses.
Also, you do have better movesets by this point anyway. The starting moves were pretty crappy, but again with this being a gameplay issue.
11.) Now that all of this is done report to the demon hunter area…
AGAIN, it’s the same for every class hall, but you don’t seem to be complaining about them. Have you actually played any other class besides Demon Hunter in Legion?
Don’t get me wrong; it’s fine if you don’t find the DH starting experience enjoyable. Heck, I’m still cringing pretty hard at the thought of ever having to do it again because it was way too hard for a starting zone, especially if you’re as inexperienced at melee combat like I was (I mained balance druid and only had a basic grasp of feral when I touched it).
But it’s pretty clear you have a very intense bias against the story just because the gameplay wasn’t enjoyable. Frankly the only part of the story I found dumb was having to choose between Altruis and Kayn (I agree it was pretty pointless, and having Kayn ragequit if you pick Altruis just messes up player choice canon considering Kayn is the default person you meet in Azsuna if you’re a non-DH player). Would have been easy enough to just have Kayn being really salty but staying just to make sure Altruis doesn’t pull anything.
tl;dr - I agree with you on how awful the gameplay in the starting zone for DH is, but a lot of your story criticisms can either be explained if you paid attention to the lore or can be easily applied to literally every other class hall. Just say you were turned off by the starting experience and call it a day.