Why WoW Will Get Better in 8.2 (and onwards)

Community General Discussion
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EDIT: There’s a lot of people saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” I totally agree with that. I’m currently not enjoying Battle for Azeroth whatsoever. I believe what makes this different is that instead of charging onwards, Blizzard is making an attempt at fixing core systems of Battle for Azeroth that are inherently flawed and turning them into side content, all while bringing back open-world and progression content. It’s an effort that I thought really needed to be acknowledged since not a lot of people know about these changes.

(A lot of the information is based on the recent interview that Taliesin and Evitel conducted on Jeremy Feasel).

I’ll start off by saying this.

For the past few months, I haven’t been optimistic about World of Warcraft. I despise Warfronts, find the Island Expedition system boring, and I’m not having fun anymore.

Why? None of this content is rewarding or exciting, and what has finally created a sense of optimism within me about WoW’s return to form is the fact that the development team is finally addressing this in patch 8.2: Rise of Azshara. Hopefully this will make some of you feel better about the direction that the game is going in. It seems like 8.2 is fixing a lot of the major problems of WoW, which right now, I see as being:

Lack of Open World Content
Warfronts
The Azerite System

Now, here’s how 8.2 is making a valiant (in my opinion) effort to fix these major issues that have been bringing WoW down:

Lack of Open World Content:

Open world content is something very important for WoW. With the introduction of Rise of Azshara, there are many systems making a return to facilitate more healthy outdoor content.

  • Less Gating: The story is going to be considerably less gated, according to Jeremy Feasel. He explained that there’ll be a huge focus on this awesome story they’re telling with as little gating as possible.
  • Old Outdoor Content Systems: There will be old systems returning. They’re going to be having outdoor content akin to the Timeless Isle, Outland towers, and they’ll also have major pop-up events throughout the zone that breaks up content and brings people together to take down a major threat.
  • New World Quest System: They’re experimenting with new world quests that are unlike any we’ve ever seen. This will allegedly add some variation to the world quest system, making things a bit more unique and providing a new experience.
  • Bodyguard Backstory: We’ll have bodyguards that we go on quests with to learn their backstory. We’ll get to personally connect with them to learn about who they are.
  • Mechagon and Professions: We’re also going to Mechagon, another outdoor zone that, according to Feasel, has a ton of cool profession things. This could potentially be a small return to form for professions!

Warfronts… or Lack Thereof

It’s been confirmed that there’s not going to be any new warfronts in patch 8.2. This, in my opinion, is great. Let’s dive into everything and how this is a game changer for the rest of Battle for Azeroth.

  • No Warfronts… They Take Too Much Time: I think Blizzard realized that Warfronts took to much time and provided very little praise in return. They aren’t going to put their resources into a system that’s flawed. Instead, they’re working on outdoor content, which really brings back that open world MMORPG feel that BfA was sorely missing.
  • Heroic Warfronts and Why That’s Good: Heroic Warfronts are good. Why? Instead of throwing away Battle for Azeroth like Blizzard did with Warlords of Draenor, they’re trying to salvage it and make it as good as it can from here. Heroic Warfronts are honestly the best they can do to make Warfronts more engaging and exciting. Warfronts aren’t the best thing in the world, but you have to remember that they can’t just remove things like these or add in new ones until a major expansion.
  • You Can Play With Your Friends!: Heroic Warfronts will also allow you to queue up with your guild, which is a spectacular option. You can take on these improved systems with friends, which was something else they needed to do.
  • Warfronts Will Be a Side Task: As I said before, I truly think this is Blizzard straying away from making more Warfronts. They’re solidifying the system as best as they can and working on the things that will make the game’s experience better.

The Azerite System and Gear:

The Azerite system has had a lot of controversy considering it’s inherently flawed, completely cancelling out the idea of progression. That’s why we should be excited for the major changes being made in 8.2 to the Azerite system.

  • No More Grinding! All Rings Are Unlocked: Upon the release of 8.2, all Azerite rings will automatically be unlocked, which means you won’t be required to level your Heart of Azeroth to acquire new traits. You can upgrade your Azerite gear with ease now.
  • Customization to Show Off: There will be some sort of customization system to show off your accomplishments. It seems like you can earn different customization appearances for your Heart of Azeroth by doing different tasks. We’re not sure what this is exactly yet, but it’s so much better than the previous system.
  • Awesome Unique Gear: In the 8.1.5 Crucible of Storms raid, we’re getting a ton of unique gear. Blizzard is finally going back to the gear style that players want. All of the items in this raid have awesome buffs and consequences, and that’s a big step for raids, in my opinion.

Conclusion:

Let me sum this all up for you. It might not seem like insanely major changes that would make a new expansion shine compared to the last one, but that’s not what Blizzard’s goal should be right now.

Blizzard is moving back to outdoor content and straying away from the flawed Warfront system. Overhauling it to make it better would be a humongous waste of resources rather than working on the awesome new zones of Nazjatar and Mechagon, and providing a challenge for the existing instances rather than making a new one and repeating the same mistakes is the only direction they can take for now.

We’re also seeing changes in world quests. They aren’t the most exciting thing in the world, but we can’t expect Blizzard to deliver an entirely new system for a patch. I think they’re trying to make them as unique as possible so this feels like a fresh patch where the rest of BfA can start to shine.

Lastly, the Azerite system has been pretty bad up until now, but they can’t be expected to make an entirely new balanced Azerite system for a patch. They’re doing what they can to make the current system as good as possible.

What does this all mean? They’re fixing what they can. They know what they’re doing wrong, and I think they’re making an honest effort to make up for it.

We’ve heard from multiple people who went to Blizzcon 2018 that the WoW developers said that if we were to go to 1 Blizzcon in our lives for WoW, 2019 should definitely be the one to go to. They’re improving this expansion as best as possible, and they’ll definitely be making changes to the next expansion that overall reflects their new design philosophy based on player feedback.

Also, WoD sucked, but then we got an awesome expansion like Legion. I’m sure they’re going to make a good expansion again. Let’s try and be positive, at least until this patch comes out. I think we should hold out hope that things are gonna get better, because it seriously seems like they are.

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I welcome any fixes they plan, though I’m not holding my breath until it goes live. I didn’t see any mention of the requirements for Pathfinder. I also didn’t see any mention of some of the majorly broken things, such as the guild permissions: The new Guild UI and Permissions...yikes

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After years of playing, and in my opinion watching the game slowly get worse and worse, all I Can say is…

I’ll believe it when I see it. Til then ill be over here chained up by my friends, they wont untie me until I stop trying to unsub.

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Fair. I’ll admit that I’m the same way. There’s that animosity that’s in the air…

I left out the guild permissions since I hadn’t seen any fixes for that yet. I’ve actually been focusing a ton on how ridiculously outdated the guild system is and how the lack of permissions and communities are a detriment to the WoW community.

I have a feeling that they’ll be fixing something with this in the next expansion based on how huge that thread has gotten. I wouldn’t hold it past them to ignore it though, tbh.

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We may have the same friends…

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IMO Legion was a return to form for WoW. Battle for Azeroth’s major problem was that there weren’t any new engaging systems introduced that differentiated reputations. Of course, there’s the major issues in raiding, dungeons and all that. All of the major content was instanced, which left no room for the open world to be enjoyed.

I don’t blame you for waiting to see though. It’s really tough to trust Blizzard anymore.

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hmmm well 8.1 was supposed to turn things around… then 8.1.5… THATS gonna fix some things and make things better… from the PTR, doesnt look that way…

i admire your optimism, i really do. maybe im just old and jaded… but when i actually see it, ill believe it. right now its just more promises most likely to be broken.

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I’ve hated, hated, hated the trait unlocking with azerite gear. You shouldn’t have to work your tail off to get a great piece of gear and then grind like a SOB just to make it usable. That sucks donkey bits big time. Worst experience I’ve ever had in this game. And from what I’ve observed disfaction with trait unlocking was expressed early and often even during the original BfA ptr. This feels like, “it’s about time”

Yet, after having done all of the AP grinding I’ve done I don’t want all that work to be tossed away for nothing. Having heart level 41 (soon to be 42) should be valuable in some relevant and impactful way.

I noticed that nothing really addresses making bfa alt friendly. Hopefully the AP-horror is going to be a non-factor for alts but still there is reputation. This is a HUGE gate for accessing world quests, profession recipes, and some cases starter gear. Legion addressed that with Reputation Tokens that could be earned with one character and sent to others. I actually raised 3 characters to Exalted across the board with tokens only in Legion. I’ve already experienced the Ally quest side 3 times completely and I still have 4 more characters that I would like to bring to 120.
Grinding out the story 4 more times will be too time consuming to do this.

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So prison buddy, how was your day? they feedin you the same hozen gruel they feedin me?

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I get what you mean. There’s the whole long-running joke of,
“It’s only Alpha!”
“It’s only Beta, it’ll be fine for release!”
“It’s only release, 8.1 will have solid content!”

It’s moreso the direction they’re taking. We’ve never really seen Blizzard have such a massive content update like this as a .2 update compared to other .2 updates, and they’re turning away from a major piece of content they had introduced.

As many have said already, I’ll believe it when I see it. But I do think there’s something going on here.

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Dont get me started on that garbage, who thought this AP grind to power your gear was a good idea? Hell no. screw the traits, it’s not worth it. my upgrades arent even upgrades because oh look no traits.

BS

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“It gets better.”

… a phrase that goes around a little too often, especially when something isn’t out yet.
As such, I have one of my own:

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

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Most expansions typically do get better near the end and then Blizzard blows up the game and screws things up for the next expac.

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Seems like that happens for every other expansion.

Wrath was great.
Cataclysm was kinda trash.
MoP was great.
WoD was literal trash.
Legion was great.
BfA is unspeakably terrible right now.

Going by that logic, we should get a great expansion next.

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There is zero reason why Warfronts shouldn’t have had a heroic mode from the get-go, or the support to queue with your friends/guildmates in a group larger than 5.

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They should’ve been side content to begin with, and they really should’ve stressed more on open world content that feels like an actual war. Invasions are a start, but those are a slightly improved copy-and-paste from Legion. They can do better, and I’m hoping that this is what they’re doing with Nazjatar.

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I don’t agree that they should’ve been side content. They could’ve been very good main content if they weren’t bungled.

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True. I guess what I meant is that in the state that they’re in now, they should’ve been considered side content.

Warfronts had a ton of potential, and I think a major issue was the lack of challenge and the terrible replayability factor that they had. If those two issues would’ve been tackled from the start, things would’ve been much better for the gamemode.

EDIT: Another issue I see is the time it takes to actually make them, though. It drains a ton of their resources to actually do this, so it’s tough to implement them into the game when you have all kinds of other content you want to push out along with it.

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The #1 problem with the game is the deplorable state of class design. Many specs are only borderline functional and even larger number just aren’t fun.

It doesn’t matter how much they add to the game as long as playing your character isn’t fun. Our characters are the tool we use to experience the entire world, and Blizzard’s current dev team just doesn’t understand that.

Three expansions in a row of ability pruning have taken a drastic toll on the game’s enjoyment level. Until they recognize and reverse that, the game will continue to suck. But they’re in denial that it’s even happening (Ion had the nerve to say they cut back on pruning in BfA, which is just an outright lie).

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That’s a major issue with the game, though. I’m really hoping they end up fixing class design, because it’s terrible right now.

What I was saying is that these are things that will fix the broken systems specific to BfA. They can’t really add an expansion’s worth of class changes to fix things. They could hone specializations, which is what I hope they do in 8.2 to at least make it a bit more engaging.

I think this new direction they’re taking could potentially be a precedent for future design philosophy in terms of listening to player feedback, and I hope that includes class design, raiding, and the many other issues that currently plagues WoW.