That’s absolute bull sh*t. There are singleplayer games with hundreds of hours of content that isn’t just doing the same thing every day or week. The fact is, Blizzard is content with providing the bare minimum content because they know that because it is a ‘live service’ game that people will accept it for some reason.
Look at classic and all the content it had. It was $60 at launch. These ‘expansions’ can even go up to $120 and have not even a quarter of the content classic had. Its a complete rip off.
Wait…what? Every expansion is $60 flat. It’s always been that. I am yet to see a $120 price tag. You can buy bigger packs of level boost and mount, but that’s entirely up to you.
Vanilla has so much less content, what are you talking about?
Do you not remember rep grinds in vanilla?
Current game has almost a thousand mounts or more IDK. Vanilla had like 50.
Do you not remember the insane grind to get 100% mount?
To top it all off, besides reps, mounts and professions, Vanilla had no dailies. The very first daily Q was introduced in TBC. Pet battles, transmog, arena (Was also added in TBC). Vanilla such primitive content by today’s standards.
Hence, Naxx, being the hardest raid, that only about 2% of playerbse has actually cleared it back in 2005 (or w/e year it was), now was cleared in 3 hours off its release.
Needed for crafting recipes, but yea, I agree. Rep is in a decent spot in shadowlands.
Tbh the problem with the maw is that it’s pointless content. It isn’t rewarding and it isn’t fun.
The problem with anima is similar to the problem with the maw. It takes a lot to do anything, but for very little reward. Tbf though, I guess that’s more of a covenant feature problem than an anima problem.
The main problem with the expac is nothing feels rewarding. Sanctum features “reward” more weekly quests. That isn’t a reward.
And I am sure more content will come out. And more zones will come out, just like it was in BFA. Expac launched 5 weeks ago. Content will be rolled out as it always has been.
Wait…what? Every expansion is $60 flat. It’s always been that. I am yet to see a $120 price tag. You can buy bigger packs of level boost and mount, but that’s entirely up to you.
I’m saying they make far more on expansions with these added versions than they ever did with classic. So there is no reason for the expansions to be so bare bones in comparison.
Vanilla has so much less content, what are you talking about?
Go on a wotlk server and try to get the old version of loremaster. The amount of quests in the game back then was insane.
Do you not remember rep grinds in vanilla?
The only two I remember doing were the Thorium Brotherhood and Argent Dawn. Both of them were entirely optional and I only did them because I liked those factions.
Current game has almost a thousand mounts or more IDK. Vanilla had like 50.
I don’t really consider cosmetic rewards to be ‘content.’ At least not content worth my 15 dollars a month.
Do you not remember the insane grind to get 100% mount?
Yeah? So what?
To top it all off, besides reps, mounts and professions, Vanilla had no dailies. The very first daily Q was introduced in TBC. Pet battles, transmog, arena (Was also added in TBC). Vanilla such primitive content by today’s standards.
This is a GOOD thing! Dailies are garbage content that should have never been added to the game in the first place.
Hence, Naxx, being the hardest raid, that only about 2% of playerbse has actually cleared it back in 2005 (or w/e year it was), now was cleared in 3 hours off its release.
Even in bfa content was more rewarding this early. Islands at least had a chance at cosmetics, we don’t have that with torghast yet. Warfronts gave gear. The “endgame zone” (the other faction’s island) had way more to do than the maw does. And obviously m+ and raids dropped more rewards in bfa. Shadowlands seems to be designed to be unrewarding.
I know this is why things are designed the way they are, but personally I absolutely detest when a game makes me feel like I have to log in every single day to complete tasks.
The move to important stuff being 100% weekly was fantastic.
Using your bias you can say that you didn’t really need to grind azerite bfa in similar how you don’t really need to grind maw/torghast. Reps were given from leveling up in the campaign anyways. Sure you can say that’ll bring you down not grinding it, but so will not grinding anima/torghast.
By that logic you never really needed azerite either. Just get through the time gated campaign and get your starting neck piece. Just do whatever after.
I will admit Shadowlands is better for alts so far.
How does that make sense?
That’s the opposite. Azerite was a grind - the more you farmed, the stronger you were. Anima doesn’t affect your strength.
Anima =/= Azerite
Anima = War Resources
Use anima for armor upgrades tho. Makes perfect sense.
And still, you don’t need to grind azerite. You’ll be weaker, but you don’t need it any less than anima gear or anything from torghast/maw.
First you can’t stay with a 190 legend that is your main stat stick and should be brought up too 225+ soon as possible. Unless you have no intentions on being competitive and raising your item level to even a moderate level of 210+
Most people are crafting multiple Leggos for different content. Which means you are grinding Torghast every week. Also you will be farming Stygia and need Exalted Rep for 6+ sockets (43,200 Stygia)
The big takeaway is… and this is from someone that loves grinding gear. The actual grind we have isn’t rewarding. Torghast is incredibly bad. The Maw is incomplete and very bland. The Callings/WQ feel even more lack luster. They removed a lot of QoL features like Whistle to return to a FP as well as just make all the zones “Slower”. Not challenging slower but just painfully slower.
So the actual grind is reaaaaaaalllly annoying. Then often at times whether you are doing M+, Raid, etc you don’t get the gear you actually want or feel like you were rewarded for your time spent.
Overall pretty unenthusiastic about the current state of SL. It needs tons of QoL changes, Gear changes and better rewards for the activities you do. Then actually finish these zones and add better rewards.
Game feels really incomplete and there is tons of content but all the content feels half finished.
The prime difference that Neck offered insane powers AND it was BIS - so everyone had to have it, while Anima gear, arguably, is starter gear that is easily replaced. Maybe, and its a big fat maybe, towards the end of the xpac, Blizz will make Anima gear BIS. But i strongly doubt this will ever be the case.
Exactly. Not everyone is competitive. I find Torghast fun. I enjoy. I run 2-3 a week, one solo for reward and other 2 runs to help guildmates and IRL friends.
Shadowlands is not grindy. Yes, it is repetitive if you want to achieve that high level of competitiveness and you should prob do it if you are going for Top 3 guilds/teams/player status.
But for a casual player, SL is a breeze and is very lovely expansion.
I do not disagree with you that SL can be underwhelming sometimes. For 3 weeks I’ve been farming Plaguefall to get trinket from there. My week’s vault (and last week as well) were all Plaguefall runs. A few other places here and there. And still nada. Yes, it is annoying. I don’t deny that.
imho, it is important to have a goal. Right now, I am going for 25,000 anima to get my transmog set. So it keeps me busy. In BFA, my goal was to get PF2 to fly. kept me busy. but right after it got a little boring. A lot to do with the fact that I’d never be able to catch up to “older” players in power.
The way SL now, i feel like, everyone stays on somewhat similar level. with an exception of a handful few who really farm content inside out, clear maw daily - only those really ahead. Rest, stay somewhat on the similar level. And I think it’s a good thing.
Check chat.