Why was korthia so bad?

Community General Discussion
1

So typically in any expansion a new zone is added

In this case we got two zones added pretty close together.

However, I keep reading stuff about Korthia and luckily I skipped it, but why was it so bad?
No flying is probably a big part of the downfall but what else?

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2

Maybe because the new mechanic just sucked in general ( the new raid specific gem slots)

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I also cant remember an expansion where we got two totally new zones like this so close together
in BFA we got Mech and Nazj (at the same time) but then the horrific visions were in existing zones
in Legion we got Argus (all 3 zones at the same time)

Korthia and ZM just seem to far removed from each other

4

I didn’t think Korthia was bad. In fact, I generally liked it. Biggest downsides:

  • Drab. Very very drab.
  • Some covenant rares were inconvenient to get to (Venthyr: requiring using flight master, then running through lots of mobs), especially in time compared to others which were dead easy (Bastion)
  • Somewhat limited in quests, but far better than ZM.
  • Storyline a bit ‘meh’ and some were so transparent that you really wanted to say: My character is so stupid it would fall for this? Really? I did that quest twice with two toons (only because the friend I game with hadn’t done it.), then ignored that silly quest from then on.

I think the biggest hate were from those who M+ and Raided. The zone was not designed for them, it was designed for the casual player who was happy to slowly grind up to get better gear that they could not get any other way.

For me, it was great. You get gear. You upgrade (rather than out-right replace) the gear by grind the currency and rep. There was a sense of progression. Bosses did a good job of a zone wide announce and most of the time you could get there before the boss went down.

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5

Because it wasn’t fun

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Archivist rep sucked.

And a personal disappointment to me is that the “City of Secrets” was 95% nondescript wilderness with a few ruins here and there.

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7

I came back to SL after ZM opened up, so my experience with Korthia was mainly grinding the rep. From a hub standpoint, it’s Maw 2.0 where at least they added the ability to ride (and avoid the Jailer’s Eye), but otherwise was very much more of the same RNG grinding.

The entire “research” thing was annoying for the sheer grinding for little reward. The area is frankly cramped and feels small, along with adding a bunch of hills and LoS issues when running around doing the dailies. Glad to be done with it, honestly. Both it and the Assaults felt like added busy work.

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the incredibly boring artifact research system wich took really long to complete, then required to do same boring grind on alts if you were masochist to play alts in that patch

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9

Korthia was fun but what made it bad was the terrible gear upgrade path. As you would rank up fine but once you hit a certain level (I forget) the next level offered nothing as you would have to work up another level beside getting the upgrade.

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10

Ummmm, did you miss the part where Korthia had almost no content?? The whole zone is almost nothing but killing rares and looting a treasure chest here and there :joy:

Definitely wasn’t enough to fill the 8-9 month content drought that followed

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11

I burned myself out on Korthia because I was trying to take fresh L60s there and skip the entire 9.0 gearing. Unfortunately, the intro questline was a little rough in greens and heirlooms.

On my main, I found it a bit densely packed with mobs, but enjoyable. It’s on alts that it felt too much like the 9.0 slog of being undergeared for the content all over again.

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It wasn’t. The gearing system was actually good— but needed a few tweaks, like better acquisition of research and better availability to alts. Otherwise, it was better than ZM.

I see more people in Korthia now than I do in ZM.

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13

Yes, forgot to mention that. I never figured out if it was a bug or a design thing.

You had to get to 6 before you could buy and use level 5 (which made no sense). But that was only on the first toon. The next toon could buy level 5 at level 5 and use it.

14

They really should have taken more flak for coming up with the name “City of Secrets” to describe Korthia.

It should have been called “Tiny Floating Island of (a single) Mystery”

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15

Same here. I hate ZM. Only thing ZM has that’s better is flying and looks nicer. And higher level gear drops.

But ugh. The place makes Korthia look great, rather than ‘good enough’.

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16

Few reasons:

  1. No flying, despite unlocking flying for other SL zones.
  2. It was part of the maw, as an extension - people already had a negative perception of the maw. They just made it worse.
  3. Some korthia rares for covs were stupid and ridiculously hard to get to before people killed it.
  4. The whole zone had a very “torghast” like feeling - not too many colors, was awful and depressing as a whole.
  5. Research grind - endless infinite grind. Utterly annoying cause it had a mount tied to it.
  6. This area was supposed to be “full of secrets” but what we got instead was helping npcs discover said secrets that made no sense to us and had no lore impact whatsoever. They made it a point to say korthia was a treasure troves of secret after all…and 0% mattered to players understanding.
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17

I kept wondering: This is a city? This isn’t even the ruins of a city. What secrets? A few random useless trinkets you just hand over for rep? That’s a city’s worth?

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18

Even a skyrim city looks more like an actual city then korthia did :joy: and they got reduced from lore accuracy to fit game engine…

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19

Korthia is OK. I played it to paragon rep on 3 chars. The design of having 3 30 minute loops of rares in a no flying zone is annoying and strange, but once you learned it all it works fine. The grind is actually very short and easy compared to most grinds of that type, but it’s also not obvious as to the how. If you just do it as presented, it will take you months. You can shorten it to weeks if you do rift caches.

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All this.

At this point it was clear that Blizzard had given up on Shadowlands and started slaving away on Dragonflight.

4 Likes