Because there is no reason to be there. We can’t level to the max in those zones. The gear in Mythic Nyalotha was immediately replaced by questing greens in Bastion. It is just “oh, you hit Max_Level - 10, go to these new areas and abandon everything you were doing before”. You liked those dungeons for leveling? Now you have only 4 to go through until you hit Max_Level, then you get 4 more to play through for two years until they’re completely abandoned until you see Shadowlands Timewalking week in 2026.
This is a problem created by Blizzard, and a problem only they can solve. Unfortunately it’s highly unlikely they would want to invest more in the Timewalking tech they just revamped for 1-50 leveling because then they can’t force you to engage in the latest underhwelming over-engineered crap they spit out because that’s the only reason people engage in the new content.
Sorry Blizzard. Finding out that there are more than 9 dungeons and 1 raid to do in Final Fantasy at max level really, really does not make me want to go back to the absolutely pathetic “endgame” that is SL Dungeon #6 at Mythic+ 8. Or farm Current_Tier_Raid for 5 months. You’ve got Timewalking. USE IT. Don’t limit it to one week every month. Let me play through MoP dungeons for the 50-60 slog. Let me skip the Maw Intro.
Well, they did do this in BFA. Arathi Highlands, Darkshore, Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Uldum.
The issue is that designing a new system to make the gameplay interesting while keeping the current stuff relevant is a novel trick to pull off and can’t be done over and over. You have core gameplay that must be abided by, so you have to design systems to work with those components.
They’ve stuck with borrowed power for the last 3 expansions, which have just boiled down to adding a button or cd for you to push. It was fun when we had great, class specific reasons to have that power. I think the lore aspect of the system helped immensely.
I think the professions being the same way is a worse choice. It negates the feeling of actually liking a profession. Every xpac leads to the same deal, and you don’t need any prereqs from day 1 to start. I’d much rather see a standardized professions area where your max level items to craft remain useful. Your potions will always give a baseline boost and adding additional components from the current expansions makes it a bit better. As you move to the next expansion, your baseline usefulness increases to match the new gearing curve, but progress doesn’t reset.
Well, kinda. The simplicity of catching up to end game with everything began in Legion IIRC. Before then you had to level things like professions from the ground, and when things like xmog , mount, and pet collections rolled out it got us back into the old world for a while.
But that’s having diminishing returns every expansion.
Nowadays every patch feels throwaway as well. Do the new content if you want to have any value in your play session, if you’ve been playing for any length of time.
The game keeps growing larger, but it never feels like it’s ever any bigger.