Why the Maw is a Failure as a Zone

Hating the Maw gives us motivation to conquer it and save the souls of our people. Mission accomplished. I really hate that place, and I want to free everyone trapped inside.

Motivation to never go there again.

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At least we have mounts now, so it’s much easier than before.

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This bug just needs to be highlighted to Blizz. People making groups on the Maw should be on the same phase with each other after joining the group.

It’s a bit complicated and chaotic now becoz people of differing phase with some people on warmode on and some people on warmode off trying to be on the same phase inside the Maw. It just needs to be addresses to Blizz. Have you relayed this bug to them? No. So, no changes until someone highlight this to Blizz.

The temporary solution here is people should not jump to Maw until joining the Maw group. After they join, they hop in to Maw… Then everybody would be of the same phase. People who are already inside the Maw when they join the Maw group should leave the Maw and re-enter to be of the same phase with other people.

I went to the maw today on my mage, I asked if the hunt in the beastwarrens was fixed. No one replied so I left because I couldn’t be bothered to run all the way out there to check.

They know.
They’ve known for months.
They don’t care.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/grouping-in-the-shadowlands/736070

Look at it from the bright side. They can’t possibly make any zone worse than this in the future(HAHA… haha… ha… ha… /sigh).

If you really like the maw and find it a fun challenge (are you still doing it daily at this point?), then you are the target demographic.

Other people legitimately disagree with your claim that is is incredibly fun for them.

Fun is an emotional response. You can’t order people to find something fun or challenging.

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The maw isnt really mandatory for anything.

Neither is playing the game. But without a legendary players’ progress will dead end. And they will quit if they have nothing to do.

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This. When the thought that goes through my head when I jump into the Maw is not “let’s kick some a*s!” but “sigh time to make the doughnuts…” something is not right. A lot of the Maw stuff feels like chores, not like adventures.

I avoid that place as much as possible. I go there for my weekly soul collection and while I’m there, if there happens to be a daily that’s in the same area I am standing, I’ll do that. Using group finder is impossible due to the phasing thing.

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  1. I never claimed the maw was fun for everyone. It’s fun for me.
  2. I never ordered people to find something fun.

What is this, strawman season?

People would rather ignore the means to get around easier and just complain. It’s going to happen every expansion and every content update till the game eventually ends.

Great post.

From a player perspective I detest The Maw because it’s not fun to play.

From a sheer design perspective, The Maw is perfect.

It’s The Maw. It’s exactly as it should be: a punishing hellscape in which deserving souls are forever imprisioned. The artwork is gorgeous in that it embodies exactly that.

From a story perspective the devs nailed it. As players we shouldn’t want to stay for any length of time. But instead of the zone turning into a level-capped, overgeared PvP griefer one-shotting you to the point you need to leave before you can’t even hearth out, it might have served the game better to make it more difficult to navigate the longer you stay. It could have gotten darker and foggier by degrees until you can’t see at all, and must hearth.

It should also not be so overtuned. As mortals, we should be far stronger than corpses. Having my timer run out because I’ve been overrun by mobs to the point I can’t even hearth, isn’t fun, and it wastes time. It’s just another timegate in a different form.

The second biggest problem The Maw has from a game-play perspective, is the ridiculous amount of time-gating in Shadowlands overall. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was more story/quests available.

I don’t find The Maw compelling or engaging content in any way. And as a non-dungeon/raiding BM Hunterholic, Legendaries are pointless. I usually do my Maw chores last, so I’ll hate the game less for logging off because there’s nothing else I’m motivated to do.

I might be less frustrated if there was a Skip The Maw Intro feature for alts, but I’ll never know until that happens because I hate it so much.

It’s a shame, because it’s a cool zone. It’s just not compelling from a gaming perspective, and it should be.

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I avoid that place as much as possible. I go there for my weekly soul collection and while I’m there, if there happens to be a daily that’s in the same area I am standing, I’ll do that. Using group finder is impossible due to the phasing thing.

Same. If the Maw is indeed WoW’s hell, then it should be reserved for cheaters and botters. The rest of us good players can stay out of the Maw for good.

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It has the same issues as Torghast and the expansion endgame in general. Risk vs Reward. They don’t match up at all and this is a reward based power progression game with an area that literally doesn’t offer any power just ways to avoid or get around the stuff you are apparently not supposed to be killing or engaging with despite having six quests telling you you need to. What? Defending this zone should have your soul condemned to the maw IRL

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Maybe from a story design perspective. From a game design perspective, it’s terrible. Giving you daily chores to perform in a place that’s deliberately designed to be repulsive is a real head scratcher. I honestly feel like the devs really hate us players when I set foot in that zone. It’s like they’re playing their own game where try to wear us down into simply quitting.

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Exactly.

Making it mandatory to open up more story/covenant quests adds insult to injury.

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you know what else the devs give you? they give you consumables that makes it easier to get around.

Try them. They are cheap. They’re pretty good.