Too many important things like flying and new races put behind time gates, it’s frustrating and makes it completely impossible for me to enjoy the game anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried.
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Well. They’re not changing classes or pathfinder, and they’re charging ahead with another AP scheme.
What exactly do people think will change other than the scenery? Tetris with fruit is still Tetris.
Extra Credit - Will PVP in the afterlife even matter? Is your toon double dead? Shadowlands is going to be a joke.
Most of the forums are always full of people who hate any new stuff. I personally loved BFA: the story, the heart, the zones, the whole thing and my wife and I have both been playing and did both the Alliance and Horde sides to see the different content. Still enjoying it with Nazjatar and Mechagon - 2 very fun areas.
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But again. Look at the feedback. They clearly spent a lot of time on the artifact. In my opinion they planned to keep it longer than legion and it could have been expanded on.
But we complained. So they removed it. But it wasn’t a complete failure so they made the neck. Based on our complaints they nerfed it to seem less important so players wouldn’t feel like they had to grind all day.
They moved it to a slot that wasn’t as controversial as weapon. They capped its levels so the grind wasn’t endless, made the ap grind easier, increased the catch-up, allowed it to work cross-spec. Replaced the artifact ability with a choice between several similar abilities we could pick depending on content.
Now we complain that its boring. Now we complain that we miss the artifact…
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Again, I get what you’re saying, but complaints alone wouldn’t have launched the man hours it took to change HoA. They must have used other metrics to show it was a fail.
No one knows that answer but them. And I think they are starting to see that regardless of what they do, a group of players is not going to like it.
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The amount of grinding needed to complete your class (AP and essences) coupled with being very alt unfriendly are big problems.
What is most irksome about these is that Blizzard received similar feedback in Legion and dialed it back a bit, but then doubled down on the problems and made them worse in BFA.
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Well spoken and I agree 100%.
It shows how fixing things very often makes things worse. They could have:
- Rolled Legion Artifacts forward into BFA.
- Not removed talents specifically for PvP.
- Not shaped M+ around e-sports.
Just those three things as-is would have made a huge difference for me personally. My resto shaman and warlocks got hit hard by the changes and M+ tuning was just the match on the dumpster fire. As a multiboxer I used to be able to do much higher keys than I do in BFA on that team and I really do think it shows how it impacted everyone else that plays the same classes. For example warlocks having a hard time finding groups.
Doing nothing in this case is the most cost-effective return on investment they could have gone with. Zero development dollars spent and mostly everyone is happier than they are now.
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- Azerite system vs Artifact system: the latter came with a spec-specific storyline and offered a simple choice system of which path to follow first. Azerite on the other hand is so impersonal and had too many options (overly complex) and tied them to specific gear (RNG).
- Daily chores: things like locking follower rep behind daily caps. I can only login 3 days a week, so I’ll be waiting 6-7 months before I rank my essence up - which is too long for something so meaningless in terms of the value it gives.
- Raids: there are way too many encounters that make me feel punished for not playing a class full of instant abilities or dots. It just becomes unfun.
- Mythic+ replacing raiding as dominant source of gearing up, I know many people like this but the game is turning into a e-sports event with small teams and timed encounters and it’s just gross. That’s not was MMORPGs should be about. Overwatch is where that should be.
2 Likes
I personally have enjoyed BFA, but it’s undeniable that the bets they placed on Islands and Warfronts failed miserably.
Both had potential that Blizzard failed to capitalize on.
Islands could have had multiple win conditions and been a fun PvPvE competition that played between traditional PvE and PvP content.
Warfronts were so undertuned as to be laughable. They should have been introduced as a PvP game mode with some catch up mechanics if one faction dominated. But they wimped out and served up content my dog could play.
Beyond that the gearing systems were over designed and grindy.
That said, I have really enjoyed the dungeon and raid design. The seasonal Mythic+ affixes are great.
So the content is there, they just need to tighten up the gearing and supporting features.
Everyone hates every expansion in my experience. Seriously, if you’ve been with the game as long as I have (since shortly after the release of BC), you see in every expansion tons of people line up to complain about what’s wrong. And it is actually true, each expansion does have some serious flaws, but also each expansion has some pretty strong wins, too. It just depends on what sort of content you engage with the most and if that content is what is suffering or has been implemented in a way you don’t like, then the whole experience is going to be worse for you. Personally, I’m sort of on the “dislike” side for this one for literally the first time ever largely because I don’t like the lore very much and I find some of the gear mechanics to suck for alts. But again, for me personally, I’m big into WoW lore and I’m an altoholic. It doesn’t mean I hate the expansion and I am playing quite a bit right now, but the content isn’t really up to par with what I’ve enjoyed in previous expansions. WotLK and Legion are still my favorites. I’m also more on the ‘casual’ side so of course some of what’s bad isn’t going to affect me as much as other more committed players since I likely won’t even see that content.
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This is a very good point - I’m sorry to reply so freaking late, but I feel like it needed dredging up.
Legion may have had the same grind as BFA, if not even worse (leveling your artifact weapon, initially, was pure hell) - but it provided so much new story content via both said artifact weapons, the class halls, and just a wealth of secrets and things littered about the world that made up for it.
BFA is totally lacking that intrigue, that sense of adventure and discovery, the novelty that keeps you going. I don’t mind a little grindiness if you give me a reason to keep doing it every now and then, and giving us juicy little plot tidbits, or new places to explore every now and then is an excellent way to do that.
The grind in BFA, by comparison, feels sterile: almost identical from beginning to end. Mechagon tried, with the zone opening up a little as you got further, and I don’t entirely hate it, but it’s definitely not my favorite zone of all time.
Basically, this is the reason I keep calling for the return of treasures. Even if they all just contain cheap little toys, or trash items with fun flavour text, it’s still better than literally nothing. I want the world to feel like a world, even if it’s just a vessel for grinding reputation and XP.
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Azerite gear is an inferior version of class tier armor.
No alts.
They are trying to destroy pvp.
Gutted classes.
7 Likes
WoD felt like it went on for at least 4 years, even though it was shorter than Legion, however, there was stuff to do up until the end, and it was very alt friendly. Take the PVP vendors for example. The sets they offered made it motivating to run BGs and such on alts. Same went for running raids, there were tier sets to get.
In BFA, those things are gone, and it really doesn’t matter if you run the raids because the gear in there isn’t worth getting. Also in BFA, the reward system is terrible. Back in WoD, you could get some good stuff when you did the daily quests. Compare that to a few azerite pieces you get for doing BFA world quests.
So while WoD was a bad xpac, I and my friends stayed in played. Right now, I’m the only one who is playing, and I’m only logging on to run the AV event.
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Glimmer as a 4 piece bonus. “OMG SO COOL!111!”
Glimmer as an azerite talent. “OMG TRAINWreCK BLIIZZARD SucSK!”
Early Legion artifact grinding was bad and legendary acquisition was absolutely horrendous, but the game had enough going on besides that to still be worth playing. BfA has the same kind of rotten core without the redeeming factors.
For instance, Suramar vs… Nazjatar I guess? Or Mechagon. Suramar had fun quests and a great story with characters and progression that actually made you care about what was going on.
Nazjatar is what, just go here for reasons and give your follower a bunch of kelp balls or whatever until he evolves into his new form and you can continue the zone, and really the only thing that will change the whole time is eventually you’ll unlock another flight point outside the raid.
That’s just one example but it really does feel like BfA is lacking in almost every comparison to Legion.
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Lots of really lack luster grind content being used to gate keep the content people actually want to do.
For me the fun factor fell drastically from the end of Legion to the start of BfA. Loss of flying, loss of easy grouping, loss of great replay value through putting each spec through mage tower, rotations got slower and clunkier, switch to a “plot” I found difficult to care about or necessarily believe/understand, zone content split between alliance and horde so I was only seeing half of it (and the less good half), and a seemingly endless series of blue posts that too often read like the proverbial “fun detected - fun deleted.”
I could see a player who did not directly experience that transition not having all the same bad feelings. Even when it’s bad WoW has its good points. My aggravations are usually about it being less great than it can be / has been, vs. its absolute state.
So you just came back and have lots to do… Oh man, if you’d only been here since the start you’d see why.
Warfronts: big highlighted feature that turned into a repetitive peon simulator.
Islands: cool the first two dozen times you’ve done them. After doing them 3X a week on multiple characters (so 6-9 a week?) you want to blow your brains out.
World quests: tooooooo many, garisons were less repetitive.
Warmode: endless anonymous lfg raids combined with phasing to completely dismantle server identities.
Story: average at best. Legion was infinitely better.
PvP: gearing is still complete crap (no residum or pearls and RNG). Basically zero balancing done in a year.
Seriously wtf is there to even like about this expansion? That’s my question. Mop>>>>>bfa
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This and also I hate the azerite gear and the necklace. I felt the best version of the azerite system was with the Legion legendary weapons. I liked the weapons and most importantly when I progressed them my alt felt stronger. With this BFA system it takes a long time before my alt felt decently strong in world content.
Removing portals was also a pain in the rear, do not like being funneled into Orgrimmar. I merely ‘tolerate’ it because I do not have a choice otherwise, the world felt bigger before. The game play improved for me with flight (…and it was a ‘Finally, **** Blizz’ moment).
Also these points! Adding on, I miss the ability to group for world quests with ease like we had before.