I’m enjoying BfA quite a lot. Like every expansion, I think the game is largely what you make of it. There’s plenty of content which baffles me because I see so many people complain about lack of content. I actually feel that if anything, there is too much content. Legion and BfA have been the least alt friendly xpacs in WoWs history. I’m still playing a few of my alts and have 5 120s at ilvl 350ish, but it’s hard to get to the 370+ range while focusing on so many toons. Plus we’ve got allied races, heirloom armors, rep mounts, tons of rare mob mount drops, etc. It’s nice to finally have an xpac that focuses on the faction divide. We’ve had so many of the opposite that it’s nice to see customers who enjoy the conflict getting a little attention. The return of faction pride and the bad taste it puts into many people mouths is interesting to see. But I think the vast majority of the problems people have with BfA are from a writing standpoint. Parts of Legion completely ignored or never touched on, same with the books. Dots never bothered to be connected.
There is only one thing I care about when it comes to MMOs, and that is the endgame content. In that regard, WoW has reigned supreme, unchallenged for over a decade.
With this expansion, however, WoW actually has a chance to be dethroned. While the traditional MMORPGs still cannot hold a candle to WoW’s endgame, other multiplayer games can - and there is an identifiable drop in player attention as a result.
Monster Hunter for the PC has dealt a major blow to WoW. Recent console exclusives like Red Dead 2, Spiderman, and Smash Ultimate have taken up most of the time for many fellow Community members. PC games like Rimworld and Blizzard’s own Overwatch offer both long-term and short-lived experiences, drawing away players interested in either a quick fix or a deep experience.
And, as usual, none of the PvE content is any fun on difficulties lower than Mythic. Island Expeditions, dungeons, even raids are boring on lesser difficulties. Certain PvP elements need rebalancing, and as of the current patch, many abilities for many classes are bugged to hell and back and are not working properly, making some unplayable - so, no arena is possible for me until the vanish bug is fixed.
The expansion is really fun with friends, and has the potential to be great - but, with bland and emotionless raid bosses, an uninspired story, and terrible patches planned, this expansion may be the last time that Blizzard can ignore it’s userbase before they will have to pull the plug on this project.
one thing thats notable:
faction assaults in war mode? so much fun. far more ‘YEAH FACTIONS’ than lordaeron, teldrassil or the war campaigns were
I like parts of it, and detest other aspects.
I like Bwonsamdi. I like Zandalar as a zone. I like the emphasis on War and I like the focus on certain lesser known characters (Rokhan and Rexxar two big examples).
The stat squishing isn’t bad, but the lack of secondary stats leaves me feeling bland. Not to mention I feel like someone can smash me without proper gear, rather they just have gear and BAM, they’re better in the lotto that is gearing nowadays.
I also realized something. Did we need such massive hub cities? While aesthetically pleasing, half of Boralus and Dazar’alor don’t have anything in them. They’re just set pieces. It reminds me a lot of WoD’s world, where it was massive and detailed, but little to anything inside it. (Shattrath having LITERAL housing and being empty)
Some RP will pick up when the next allied races drop.
You’ll see a lot of Troll RP and Paladin RP with Zandalari Prelates.
Lots of dinomancy potential with Zandalari hunters and druids.
Kul Tirans will open up some cool occult style RP with their druids, shamans etc. They will also shake up Goldshire with their new body type.
The idea of Goldshire as a notorious hookup joint is more of a Moon Guard thing. For the rest of us, Goldshire is in our hearts.
I think that, even though BFA has problems? They’re all being overblown. I’ve yet to run into a glitch or bug that’s shut me out of my character for a full day. I haven’t fallen through the world, I haven’t had a draenei character skin layered over my orc one, I haven’t had as many nodes of ore just vanish on me… I’ve yet to see an entire instance double spawn every mob, either.
The only real problem I have with the game is the story. All in all, I’d call it a decent expansion. Definitely not the best, but I still like it better than some expansions.
Yeah, overall I enjoy it but I don’t get to play much. The story, not so much atm, but the game itself has more than enough for me to do.
Now if I were raiding and looking to spend a lot of time in the game? Not sure tbh, I’m an altoholic so there’s always stuff to do.
From what I’ve read I’m a big outlier with the island stuff, too, because I love levelling alts through them.
I think it’s hard to gauge because we’re in a “gaming climate” where they have to cater to a wide range of player types, including streamers who play the game at greater than full-time job hours.
When there isn’t enough content for them, the game is trashed online and people are quick to parrot negativity. Maybe that is a factor? I sense it is but could be wrong.
Are they efficient? I capped my first toon A-side, tried to cap another on Horde and can’t bring myself to finish Zandalar at all. An alternative would be nice.
I pushed my druid through the last level to 120 through islands, and it seemed pretty quick. I just got my second pally to 110 and plan to use islands to do the last ten levels, so we’ll see how well that goes.
What did we all think of Scenarios back during MoP, anyway? I found them fairly compelling, but I honestly can’t remember running them that often.
they were really great. I loved the concept of bite-sized content pieces that anyone can group up for, no matter your class or role, and though I would have preferred more dungeons during MoP’s run, Scenarios were good either way.
re: Islands
It depends, personally I’m drawn to them for a few reasons:
- I usually level alts through pvp, but like collecting stuff.
- Have gotten heaps of pets, mounts and xmog gear from islands already
- Usually a 1 minute Queue time
Two runs I just did:
Solo, lvl 114 demo warlock - alliance - not rested
45% to 58% in about 7 min
2 lvl 117 BM hunters - horde - rested
31% to 48% in around 8 min.
When you solo queue, it’s hit or miss. That said, I’ve been doing it a number of alts and haven’t lost one yet. Solo, I’m usually a demo lock or an ele shaman. Both can solo the island, the lock is better for it, but I can carry the other 2 if they’re awful.
Sometimes they ARE awful. Other times, you get lucky and it’s a 120 pally or something just doing normal islands and you destroy it.
Queuing with someone is great though. Some comps we’re doing: 2 BM hunters, A DH tank and WW monk, A Shadow Priest and Blood DK
With that, it’s really straight up because the 2 of us can just destroy the island, it doesn’t matter how the third performs unless they are a bot or troll over pulling to us, in which case we kick them.
I imagine a team of 3 would just destroy.
I like to up my gear from some dungeon runs or the AH at around 116. I usually have a set of AH gear for a fresh 120 so they can bypass heroics and go right to warfronts.
I’ve gotten a few mounts, a lot of pets and a lot of xmog gear from them already.
If you’ve read this far and love islands, I really want to do the pvp ones for the achieves with you :0
I really liked the scenarios. I’m sad that Blizzard didn’t keep including them. Islands are faster-paced but a lot grindier and feel less thematically compelling.
It’s funny, but this has always been a part of what I loved about WoW. I remember when Vanilla launched and discovering people were playing WoW was exciting. You’d chat about what you loved, how much fun you were having, and then there would come a point where you were both quiet as you realized you needed to ask what faction they were. Haha. You’d laugh, but having come from pvp servers, it mattered to a small degree.
I played Horde from the very start, but after Blizzard’s excellent job at turning them into the clear villains, I switched - which I never imagined I would do. (I didn’t play much of MoP and missed out on the original terrorist leader).
“It’s an older thread, sir, but it checks out.”
I’m… tired. It’s not that BfA’s overall entirely bad; I don’t like the story, but I like warfronts, I like islands, I like the way they’ve handled incursions, I like the cities, I like a lot of the zone storylines, even if the faction war leaves me cold, especially on Horde where We The Baddies Yet Again. But it’s gotten increasingly hard to find the spark of motivation to log on at all.
I don’t want to take a break. I just want to… find something that motivates me, because the current state of affairs is not.
I took a break during the holiday season to gather and collect my thoughts. Trying to roleplay in a neutral guild is tough, because it leaves you to being away from Horde dominated communities. Made for some great story, but ultimately tired of ICly hearing the same thing. “No, no, no, no we will not help the Horde” vs “They are our people dying out there we’ve grown up with”
SCOFFS AT LOYALTY SPOKEN.
Gets really old and it derails stories I’ve written.
PVE wise, been getting back into it slowly, found a decent guild on my PvE main thats fun, PVP is great too, because you never know what to expect in battlegrounds. Yeah you may lose big time, then win the next. Assaults are fun, its a change of pace and am glad its not so buggy anymore. Im running Uldir to get caught up on ilvl. WoW is not just my primary game – I am off taking nights enjoying other things. A two week complete break, letting sub run out was what I needed, instead of logging in and watching youtube videos and barely move to level.
I guess this is probably all fine and swell as long as people aren’t psychos about it. But having been in a situation where it was not fun, I can tell you that for many, the “friendly competition” Blizzard talks about no longer exists.
You’re an Alliance sissyboi, or you’re a Horde sociopath. And will be treated as such, out of game. Blizzard is trying to foster out-of-game conflict in a sociopolitical environment that’s really, really inappropriate, and it’s become evident and obvious time and time again.
They made a crap attempt to restore the faction loyalty/pride that they killed off long ago. Prior to them removing things like faction restrictions, there was very tangible faction loyalty and pride (and the vast majority of it wasn’t douchey) but those days are long gone and I don’t see any way for a marketing team to rekindle those feelings in any sincere or innocent (??) way. They just gotta accept that they pushed it out of game so many years ago that it just isn’t part of their player bases’ culture and never really will be again.