Frankly, there was some good and some bad in the update. This was definitely on the good side of the news for me.
Listening to him talk about the systems though… ugh… if it looks like a talent tree… why isn’t it just part of the ridiculous talent tree already!? I don’t like gaining abilities, losing abilities, being forced to relearn that which my character already had… ugh. And the grindy bits - like anima and the relationship thing. All of those are time-gated and metered out throughout the expansion (or at least that was my take on it).
Those are the things I didn’t like in Legion and I hated in BfA… not gonna lie… Shadowlands looks like a dumpster fire of them.
You’re obsessing! You’re all worried about losing something and you don’t even know what it is. Calm down dude, it will be ok.
And to answer OP, GD is the place to come to whine and/or cry. Secretly, most of these people are excited but that would never fly here. I think they worry about losing “edge” points.
Its more like they are repeating systems that many players dislike:
Major power from Rental abilities instead of permanent class changes. At the end of the xpac you’re no more powerful than you were at the start.
Anima Power, the new Azerite/Artifact Power
Another Mission Board
Another set of Followers who will regularly regale us with insipid dialogue.
Covenant Sanctums are a combo of Class Hall 2.0 and Garrison 2.0
Some stuff said about alt-friendliness but really not enough.
#1 and #2 just annoy the heck out of me.
For me I want SL to be a home run on day 1 for me or I may quit wow. I don’t care about server issues on day 1 (fully expecting that) or perfect class balance but I want to see core game mechanics that are good. No repeat of early bfa azerite gear which was awful and ignored by Blizz.
What happens if there’s a server disconnect through no fault on anyone and they lose their progress? It’s not a fun design unless there are checkpoints installed so that if progress is lost via hardware issues we’re not dinged in the process.
Covenants are an RPG choice tied to a large portion of character power progression, and you’re penalized if you wish to switch them, and from what I’ve heard from some of the Alpha testers, some of the conduit builds are pretty much monstrously stronger than others, to the point where if you’re chasing damage, there’s absolutely zero choice for some classes.
But I expect the conduits and soulbinds will get balanced a bit more before launch, however it’s a problem that confirms some of the worst fears presently:
Covenants aren’t going to be balanced among each other.
It’s not about the gameplay for me, it’s about the story. It’s entire hook hinges on the worst elements of BFA. Blizzard dragged the game’s narrative through the mud to get to where we are now, and I’m avoiding Shadowlands out of principle because I don’t want to see things get any worse.
The writers seem to have given up on trying to make a cohesive, sensible, and compelling narrative; half the plot hooks of BFA were dropped, the other half made no sense, were forced, or twisted character motivations to fit a ridiculous (and rehashed) plot - and I’m tired of it.
I’m happily sitting out Shadowlands, and will wait for reviews halfway through to hear how much worse its gotten; I’d rather not waste my money just to be disappointed.
Blizzard needs to earn back the trust they’ve lost if I’m going to make any more expansion purchases, and they can do so by actually putting the story up near the top of its priority list (which I don’t expect to happen, unfortunately).
First, it was Bolvar getting owned despite the fact he was never shown to be nearly as powerful as Arthas.
Then it was speculation about a Sylvanas redemption.
Then it was gating Torghast.
Then it was the debuffs in Torghast.
Then it was a corporate statement on BLM.
Then it was “OMG A TRANS CHARACTER!!!”
Then it was “OMG I HAS TO BE A TRANS CHARACTER!!!”
Then it was “Too many systems!!!”
Then it was “OMG BLIZZ DOUBLED DOWN ON THEIR CORPORATE MESSAGE!!”
Next week it’ll be “I didn’t get MY beta invite! BLIZZ FAVORS STREAMERS!”
Not sure what the fire will be the week after that but I’m sure the faux outrage is sure to be both depressing and hilarious; or to quote Mr. Popo, “I call it deprarious!”
A lot of us were really disappointed with the collectors edition. I was hoping to actually become a blue angel person or at the very least a sparkly fox that could run very fast irl.
Plus ion looked at the teleprompter a lot.
Conduits are not available for testing yet.
Also, they took 5 minutes out of the stream to address tuning and general balance.
There is no proper way to balance this whole system though, and that’s actually a good thing at this point.
This isn’t just balancing two abilities against each other. It’s balancing like 2 dozen things against another 2 dozen.
Some thing will be stronger but some thing will be weaker too.
Basically, there are so many choices you can make that the likelihood they are all the right choice is impossible.
Might work out, honestly.
Uhhh, I really don’t think that’s why people are hating on Shadowlands. For me, it was listening to him explain covenants and all the boring grinds associated with them for over 10 minutes. I couldn’t watch any further, I don’t understand their desire to constantly push forward with slightly redesigned daily AP grinds.
Nothing about Shadowlands is appealing to me. At least with BfA, I really liked the aesthetic, there’s nothing I’ve seen from Shadowlands that piques my interest.
I’ll be playing Classic until a better MMORPG releases. It’s looking like that may never happen.
I’m fine with this, it makes you actually think about your surroundings and pay attention. Adding difficulty to the game is good instead of being handed everything to you.
