The issue with OP’s argument even for it’s current game is simply the starting point of said argument… OP didn’t like something, or has his own subjective opinion but treats it as fact therefore deems wow unsustainable.
Like it or not, it’s got enough of a core group that stick by WoW and don’t complain on forums, that no matter what, assures them that WoW is plenty sustainable.
This isn’t the first time players show hate to an expansion and won’t be the last. Quality aside, they offer just enough to keep a portion of the player base hooked.
Yeah, but now the game is being made for a younger generation of gamers and pushing out the older generation. And the new generation doesn’t give a crap about WoW. So he may have a point in the long run.
Most new players would be playing through the story though. If you logged in for the first time and started, you wouldn’t even know about bgs, and dungeons would just be part of the questing process once you got to that point.
I’d say it’s weirder that you played till MOP and still got surprised by the fact that you couldn’t ignore the expansion storyline.
I have to disagree with you there. Depending on the area you choose the questing to 60 could be very enjoyable. Once you reach SL endgame then it all goes downhill.
No, he just doesn’t like questing. If you don’t like questing, this is not the game for you. If you don’t like killing trash mobs in the open world, this is not the game for you. Killing trash mobs in the open world is the VAST majority of the content in this game, and it has been since day 1. Only once you’ve capped out the primary growth systems (through killing trash mobs in the open world) can you “just raid”.
The singular alternative is PvP. You can “just PvP”. Shockingly, a newly leveled character is not competitive in PvP with players who have been playing for 5 months. It’s not, and never has been, balanced between new and old players. So, you have to suck up camping the graveyard from the spirit world for weeks and weeks to gear up and be more useful to the group than “incoming lumberyard” and watching the fight from the GY for the next minute.
This is not new.
Like every single version of the game. The end game has always had a separate power structure. That’s why even back in Vanilla, gear power climbed linearly until the raids started, then it took off geometrically, until, in BC, green drops for killing 10 boars crushed BiS BOE and Crafted gear from Vanilla, just so players could “catch up” to the raiders.
I’d just like to point out that no matter how they implemented something to tell you that grinding dungeons or whatever is another option to level the vast majority would just ignore it. Unless they locked you into a screen that screamed at you for 10 minutes “DUNGEONS ARE GOOD XP DO THEM NOOB”.
Leveling is my favorite part of the game. I like questing. You have to be crazy to not feel like the new quests in shadowlands feel soooooo slow to get through. Dungeons so far is my most favorite part of this expansion. Getting into it, every step forward I take I am reminded that I am at a disadvantage because oh yeah I forgot I need to get a soulbind, and the conduits I’m missing those. I don’t have a legendary. It DOES feel unfriendly because it’s not just killing mobs to get this stuff. It’s waiting until you can kill more mobs to get this crap. Then you have some people like the op point out that the things that are best for them or is most appealing to them through these systems drops off a mob that spawns once a month.
Being able to go after better gear whenever you felt like it back then to feeling like if I don’t do this and that because I won’t be able to go for better gear only slows us down and doesn’t exactly feel like a new layer of fun in the end game. Sorry but that is how I feel about it. I’m a healer. I feel like I am holding the group back when I walk into a mythic and I don’t have my extra passives to help them out.
It has been super unappealing for me and I haven’t participated in much end game content because of it in the past two expansions. It’s just that off putting. I have NEVER had a problem in the past when getting to max level. Getting to there was an exciting moment that opened up the way to gearing up and doing dungeons and collecting stuff. That’s what it meant for me. I felt like I could make a new character and jump right back into the fray at any moment I felt like it. Sure it took some time to catch up but it was by doing whatever I enjoyed doing. Mostly dungeons and then raid finder that helped me get ready for the next step whatever it may be from there.
I walk into a dungeon now… oh yeah I need this. Oh yeah I forgot I have to go get that too… oh everything is locked to this covenant so what I get is what I get collection wise.
why do they make everything take longer to do now lol
I can’t speak for the pvp stuff because it isn’t something I’ve done a whole lot of. I know in WoD I was able to jump into bgs after doing some dungeons and raid finder and I did really well actually as a healer. I got enough currency to buy a few of the pvp sets and I don’t even pvp much so the fact that I could do decent at max pvp felt good. I dunno what has changed but it honestly just sounds like he doesn’t want to have to grind out the systems to feel like he’s ready to get STARTED. That’s just dumb and I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels that way.
Yes, that’s part of onboarding new players. New players who drop into a game and are blitzed with too many options tend to get overwhelmed, not enjoy themselves, and then leave, rarely if ever to return.
OP played the game wrong by trying to min-max the leveling experience instead of following the story as he was always meant to and which the vast, vast, vast majority of player follow, and now he’s pretending that a 16-17 year old game is “done for”.
But you do realize, that all of those things are not important, right? You can run all the dungeons you want without any soul binds, conduits, or legendaries. You can run early M+ without those things. Filling out the 197 Covenant set is far more impactful than any of those other pieces. And to do that, boost renown, which means callings and a little bit of anima farming.
Are they NICE to have? Sure. Conduits Just Happen, dropping from calling caches and dungeon bosses. So, “Play the Game™, get Conduits”. Random ones, apparently, so, no point worrying about targeting them. The legendaries, have to be sought after specifically to get the drop you want and farm the soul ash. The legendary is a much more pro-active item, and it CAN be targeted, it’s not pure RNG. Once targeted, once completed, it’s Done.
The perception of NEED is a community one. These things are not atunement items that lock you out of content. Will you be “better” with these things? Yes, of course, but only marginally. Primary stat manifest as Item Level is still the single most impactful stat in the game (which is why item level is moot on jewelry that do not have primary stats).
The terrain plus quest design seems to fight against the players. But that honestly fades with familiarity. I used to loathe Revendreth, but at least now that I’ve been there a few times, and can correlate the map to the land, we’re on speaking terms. That speeds things up immensely. All of the zones suffer this. This is not the Barrens.
I can pound out dailies easily, and quickly now. I have some “hated” ones, sure, who doesn’t. But that’s not systemic. Both in the world and in the maw. I did find SL early on to be frustrating. But with familiarity, that’s all gone now.
Do the groups die? If the tanks don’t die, the healer is doing their job. If the DPS don’t die to unavoidable damage, the healers are doing their job. DPS have responsibility to “get out of the fire”, it’s not the healers job to let them soak it up. It’s the healers job to compensate when they occasionally make a mistake.
If the groups aren’t dying, healer is working. Don’t “feel bad” about slowing down groups. Remember, the entire reason you (and they, don’t forget) are there playing is to make your character better so you can advance to more content where you get to feel underpowered and inadequate. Can’t complain about not having a legendary when you’re running the dungeon that has the boss that drops the memory for it. And if your group is going “Gogogo Pull All The Things”, it’s an OP group anyway.
A lot of folks really don’t understand the beauty of SL vs, say , BfA. Yea, there’s a lot of stuff to do, a lot of “systems”, but for the most part, they are independent of each other.
You need to do the Maw to advance your renown, but you have to do so little of it (the Soul quest), it’s laughable. At that rate, the Maw is no different than any other zone. Go deeper, then sure the zone characteristics rise up. But for the soul quest? No. Barely have to step off the front porch.
No Stygia, no Torghast, no Ash, easy. It seems daunting, but the reality is much simpler. That leaves Calling and Anima. 2 systems are “all you need” to get a bulk of the power available to a casual player (Covenant set), and Anima comes “for free” just by doing some WQs (for the callings mostly), WBs, and trivial group WQs.
After that, it’s all “stuff to keep busy”.
You’re free to ignore the other systems. Do they offer power? Yes, of course. But 90% of the power is just straight up gear and iLevel.
It seems imposing, but once you know, it’s really not.
Okay but minmaxing the leveling experience is something that you used to be able to do. I started the questline and got bored so I started doing a part of the game I enjoy instead thinking it was a viable option with no way of knowing how wrong I was. Also this is not the main reason I said the game is unsustainable, just one of the many frustrations I experienced when coming back.
It just depends. I tried to get into wow a few times. First in wod. Cant remember why I quit. I got my garrison. That was probably it. I tried again in legion. Came across a timegated quest and quit. Came back in 8.2 and have been here since.
The differences between 8.2 and the other attempts were: I looked up end game stuff and decided i wanted to do it and i found a guild that raided.
8.2 was a blast. Mythic plus, so cool. Raiding, so cool. Essences, so cool. Azerite traits, wtf is this, lol. Gear falling from the sky, tyvm.
As a new player, it was fun. The issue is when you realize what the systems are. Infinite grind for HOA, gross. Azerite trait rng, gross. Timegated essences, gross. Terrible balance, gross.
The game was pretty fun for me until I learned alot more about the game.
The kids (teens) aren’t flocking here in droves at this point because there are shiny, newer games to play and the teens that did play grew up and maybe stopped playing.