1. Callings do not reward anima
—Anima can no longer be farmed endlessly for power, so raiders are already protected from having to do boring daily chores.
—During the covenant introductory questline, the example calling that you complete rewards a cache that contains anima, which you will then deposit into the reservoir as part of the questline. This may mislead players into thinking that callings reward anima.
Callings do not need to award anima there is a lot of alternative sources. What is the hurry?
2. Torghast bosses do not drop gear
—The current most popular content for solo challenges does not provide means for progression within that content, and highly favors players raiding in organized groups.
—Titanforging and corruption are gone, so raiders would not feel forced into farming for upgrades.
It does not need to drop gear. You can solo que for every activity in the game. This is an MMORPG
3. Maw sharding issues
—Players who group up after entering the Maw do not appear in the same shard, and must travel back to Oribos or Torghast and then back to the Maw to appear in the same shard as their group members.
—This is a large source of inconvenience and confusion in a zone that is already punishing.
Yes this is a problem. Probably the only thing I agree with you on.
4. Permanent loss of Stygia for dying in the Maw
—20% of the Stygia you carry is dropped upon death, and if you die again before looting this, the first Stygia that you dropped is gone forever; and considering the area is dangerous enough for you to die twice, you may lose the second drop of Stygia as well.
—There is no way to store Stygia before heading into dangerous areas, and you must save Stygia for days or weeks as you work towards the next level of reputation that would allow you to spend it; rewards are important and include permanent account-wide upgrades.
—Even if you are careful, some deaths go beyond your control, such as game glitches or server lag, friendly players pulling dangerous or high numbers of enemies into your abilities with the result that those enemies then attack you, or players of the hostile faction griefing you.
This is a good thing. The Maw has been since the announcement of it been released as a dangerous area. FINALLY there is something in the game that actually punishes you for not playing well…Can’t there be one area of the game in the open world that requires skill and planning to play in? People have already got Torghast nerfed and it was amazing. Is it because you can’t watch netflix while playing?
5. Lowered loot drop rates for raid bosses
—Personal loot drop rates have been approximately halved in order to artificially extend progression.
—Players can easily spend hours doing challenging content without receiving any upgrades.
Its not artificially extending progression. There are currently too many loot sources. The Vault, Mythics, Mythic+, 4 tiers of raiding, PVP, WQ, crafting. That is 13 different sources to acquire loot.
6. Lowered rewards for Mythic Plus
—Timed dungeons reward 1/3 of the loot that they used to, while untimed dungeons reward 1/2 of the loot that they used to.
—Players can easily spend hours doing challenging content without receiving any upgrades.
I would like to see where someone spent a full two hours of downing bosses and didnt receive anything. And I mean nothing. No gear, no memories, no soulbinds. I doubt this is happening.
7. Removal of bonus seals
—Players can no longer target certain bosses or activities for certain items.
—Players receive less loot overall each week.
The vault is there. This was a good change. People would gear up and then quit the game in Legion and BFA. Working together and doing harder and harder content is fantastic. It has made for a smoother progression and steadily got gear. The gear has also felt more rewarding.
8. World quests no longer offer significant gear supplementation or progression
—Solo players and players on their alts can no longer rely on World Quests to help gear up as gear rewards are less common and lower in power level, and caches from calling rewards rarely if ever provide power-related rewards.
—Titanforging and corruption are gone, so raiders would not feel forced into farming for upgrades.
Uh, Yes it does? And it shouldn’t be as good as other sources.
9. Crafted legendaries (as currently implemented)
—Many legendary recipes rely on RNG to drop, the timing of certain world bosses spawning or Torghast layers being available, or the completion of activities such as raids that not all players participate in.
—Base items sometimes cost more gold than some players can afford, or would require hours of grinding materials and training professions for players to craft on their own.
—The main source of soul ash is Torghast, which some players may not enjoy doing twice every week.
Its a legendary item. None of what you said is a bad thing. Gold is easy to aquire. It should be semi grindy and difficult to get.
10. Threads of Fate (as currently implemented)
—Players who have completed the main leveling storyline in Shadowlands can choose to level up future characters by doing activities in the zone of their choice, but without an organized, efficient group this method of leveling up is far more repetitive and time consuming than the main storyline.
—Players who chose Thread of Fate cannot revert back to the storyline mode.
—In comparison to past expansions, many players felt that the Legion invasions and BfA faction assaults provided open-world activities for leveling that felt more rewarding and interesting than leveling up through those expansions’ respective storylines.
Once again. This is great. It offers the old dungeon grind plus good gear throughout for leveling for doing world quests without have to follow a linear storyline.
Note to other players: It is my personal opinion that the above 10 design choices are bad for the health and popularity of the game, but my descriptions are based on facts. Whether you agree or not with someone’s opinion, you can’t argue away facts because they don’t support the sugarcoated narrative that Shadowlands is a return to the good old days.
Note to Blizzard employees (if any happen to read this): The above 10 issues could easily be fixed immediately or in future patches, and then you would have a nearly perfect expansion. I do not think that casual, new, or returning players are going to appreciate your new design philosophy of punishing the average player as the price of keeping the raiders overstimulated until the next patch. Some players just want to log in, play the game, and progress in power when they have time.