I’m sure you have read dumber, especially if you join pugs or read this forum.
agree that a lot of the maw is just a constant negative feedback loop
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exactly this…
It really makes me facepalm that the people who have issues with zone’s the the Maw and Torghast, completely ignore the lore and story reasons why they are unpleasant experiences…
They aren’t suppose to be fun, bright, and colorful zones that you’d want to spend all your time in… they are literally suppose to be wow’s equivalent to Hell and lorewise, two of the most dangerous and hostile places in all of Warcraft… and by the sheer number of the posts complaining about the experience and how unpleasant the Maw and Torghast are, I’d say Blizzard really out did themselves and nailed achieving making a zone’s visuals and player experience that for once matches it’s lore.
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My issues are:
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The counter builds up way too fast and so your gameplay is limited to 15-20 minutes a day, which is poor design.
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Killing the beefy named elites is a colossal waste of time since they do not drop anything of value while greatly increasing your counter.
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There’s too much garbage falling from the sky and mobs are too tightly packed. It is simply aggraving being in combat all the time and getting blasted by random AoE you can’t even avoid because doing so would mean pulling even more mobs.
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Oh hey its the guy that likes to disagree with everything
Just stop doing the Maw.
I unlocked Perdition Hold on this character and ive never gone back
Just got the ring from the raid to reduce Jailer sight or whatever today
Still not going back
Except, this is a video game, where having fun it the entire point. If it’s not fun then you’ve failed at game design. Theme and aesthetic do not trump enjoyment (see also, Nazjatar.)
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Wrong.
MMORPGs are different than just a regular video game whose sole focus is fun/entertainment… MMORPGs are a different breed of video game whose main focus also includes immersion. So this may include unpleasant experiences, frustration, and other negative feelings, not just positive feelings, etc.
Even going back to the granddaddy of all rpgs, Dungeons and Dragons, there are points in a game session that are downright horrible or blood boiling to the point that it causes players to get frustrated, flip the table or swipe their arm across the board knocking everyone’s pieces to the floor, and storm out the room and go home.
So simply put, there’s a balance between game play for the sake of immersion and gameplay for the sake of enjoyment in RPGs. So with intentionally good experiences there is also the intentionally bad experiences to help sell the lore/storyline where required.
Maybe you haven’t played WoW long enough - but this has been the theme starting in BfA; which has been a reverse course from Legion.
This is modern WoW’s problem in a nutshell. It’s gone from a game that invited you to adventure your way to greater heights to one that actively discourages adventures. Your daily routine has been reduced to a list of chores that you tick off:
- Maw Dailies
- Callings
- Anima Conductor objectives
Once you’ve completed those chores, you’re free to time a key, which is another misery on its own. There’s no time to take new players through a sprawling dungeon with time to appreciate finer points or explore bonus objectives. Instead, it’s a mad rush through trash mobs and bosses with raid-level mechanics so that you can tick off that box and repeat the experience at an even harder difficulty. The adventure is gone. It’s all about ticking boxes.
Right, but the good parts have to outweigh the bad or frustrating parts or what’s the point? A focus on immersion doesn’t mean you can just ignore fun and entertainment. Fact is, this is a game that people play for the sake of enjoyment. If I’m not enjoying it why should I bother playing? Frustration with a satisfying payoff at the end is fine (finally killing a hard boss, getting a difficult achievement, etc.) Frustrating with no payoff makes me wonder why I’m wasting my time.
This isn’t real life where I have to go to work and do chores and stuff even if I don’t like it. It’s a hobby that I choose to spend my time on, and the more I feel that time is wasted the more likely I am to just up and quit.
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the maw is only 1 area. there are more areas in shadowlands than the maw that are very nice to look at and fun.
Just sounds like you’re one of those people who cant help but to focus on the negative aspects of a thing… Disregard all all numerous more fun and enjoyable aspects and instead allow this to be overshadowed by the proportionately smaller negative aspects.
An example of this in rl is you go to a restaurant that you’ve enjoyed for years, you love the food, you love the atmosphere, but one day you get a server who’s having a bad day who gives you lousy service or accidently spills a drink on you, or maybe simply one day the food was cold or there was a hair in it… after this, you vow to never return to the restaurant due to a single negative experience and disregard the countless positive experiences over the years.
I agree, but this conversation isn’t about the other areas. The thread is called “Why the Maw is a Failure as a Zone”, which is why we’re specifically talking about the Maw here.
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Then that’s kinda dumb to complain about an intentionally designed zone meant to be hostile and unfriendly and designed to look unappealing, for being hostile and unfriendly and visually unappealing.
Pretty counterintuitive and lacking logic if you ask me.
It’s kind of dumb to make a zone that’s intentionally designed to be unfriendly in the first place. The Maw is fantastic at being unfriendly and unappealing, which is unsurprisingly a turn off to most players. Being bad on purpose doesn’t make a thing not bad.
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Then what do you think a should a zone that’s suppose to be wow’s equivalent to hell suppose to be designed like?
Bright, colorful, chill and calming, push over mobs, bountiful rewards and loot bursting out the seams from everything, and overall a pleasant place to be?
The maw isn’t suppose to be heaven or somewhere between. It’s literally hell. It’s where all irredeemable souls get sent to, to be tortured for all eternity… personally when I think hell, I don’t think of a pleasant place.
The Maw is a “failure” as a zone because, like everything in wow it is a compromise.
Yes. Players complained about being “forced” to endlessly farm MoS or Islands. So they put a cap.
Yes. This is an mmo. There are group things. But unfortunately there are also players that will exploit phases for advantages, like classic. Because of them, we don’t get nice things.
That is your opinion.
No, this is a compromise between players who want hello kitty adventure island and those who want to raid log.
And that’s the problem. You have to balance theme and aesthetics against player enjoyment. The Maw is great at being hell. It’s dark, foreboding, unpleasant, and all around a bad place to be. Unfortunately that also makes it unpleasant and a bad place to be for the players as well, which is why people don’t like it.
I don’t know how Blizz could have done it differently or better. Maybe there is no better way and this is all they could envision. But in that case they probably would have been better off not trying to make a “hell” zone in the first place. The Maw is really cool conceptually but in practice the design falls apart almost instantly.
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I don’t understand the maw defenders who say “yah but the maw is supposed to suck, it’s literally hell lol”. Look at the diablo franchise for a comparison. There are plenty of hell themed levels but are they designed in a way to be unfun to play through? No.
The maw is just bad game design through and through. If your daily grinding zone is this tortuous to the point people refuse to go there, then there is a problem.
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Unfortunately you fail to realize this is Blizzard’s intention.
Why else do you think they also included a mechanic that forces people to leave. Blizzard doesn’t want players to stay and enjoy the zone. They intend for players to dislike the zone… Hell is not pretty, hell is hostile, and overall isn’t a place where you want to or should be. The maw is this.