This can be seen as a massive massive rant from a 16 years veteran ( I have been continueously subbed since day 1.)
There is a lot here, and in no particular order.
For those reading this, stop a second and ask yourself: when was wow the most fun period for you? What did you miss from that time that you actually enjoyed.
The conduit upgrade change is a step in the right direction. It is good you seeem to start listening to us players, please listen to the advice given in betas and please start making the game fun again without putting activities that seem to be about walls to slow down player progress and keeping players in game.
Pull that cord on covenants. we told you, we the players are right sometimes. Remove conduit energy.
Please stop making borrowed powers and work on the classes. We would like to see class sets back please.
The simplest design was the better one: the class has a spec. You enhance the spec with gear and gear set that change or enhance your spec (get that stats cap etc) . You might have one legendary (not 20) that make your class even more awesome (think mop cloak or wod rings).
Please no more diablo like design. Wow should not be about doing the same dungeon every patch to get that same trinket at higher ilvl. This is WOW, you know when the peak of play was . we had 10 and 20 man raids in normal and heroic. We had fun, we had quests for reputation. we had gold challenges and cool unique class transmogs. we had reforging!
We also had instances, lots of them. Why are we wasting 16 years worth of instances and raids that could be brought back seasonally at the same ilvl of current raid. Put season 1: uduar revisited, 10 man/20 man raid, gear reward scaled to current ilvl, 4-5 woltk instances scaled also. Then season 2, a different raid and different instances: rotate. you missed the chance: too bad, you should have been there.
Before anyone jump on me with “casual”: I have and I am systematically clearing the raids in mythic difficulty with CE achievment. Is it more fun than when we had 10/20 man raids in normal and heroic: for me no, definitely no.
all this things were fun. you removed them chasing god knows what.
WOW pve will never be esport. please stop with raid design difficulty catering for 1%? There was a time we could carry 2-3 average friends, we can no longer. they are lost to us and to you. Just put 1-2 bosses that are very very hard to let the top dogs compete then once that top 10 race is done, nerf them bosses. why not bring back ulduar style difficulty addition for some, not all, bosses, spice things up?
Bring back single class legendaries that we keep upgrading and entire xpac.
Please reduce the number of stacking systems.
Please stop with so called “parasitic ephemeral designs” that keep getting pulled: legion weapons , MOP legendaries, BFA legendary neck, WOD ring, azerite gear and now covenants and shards of domination: what do players that achieve each xpac, defeated each raid, has to show for? nothing. a giant waste of time. even mounts and transmogs can be soloed later on. sad.
Bring back desirability. pvp has unique mounts, you either get them otherwise they are gone next season. Bring same thing in pve, get it, get the title, get the mount or its gone next patch. Bring back showing stuff that takes a group, skill and coordination, without going hardcore crazy in the difficulty.
Dial back the amount of mounts. This kills uniqueness. There should be a limited amount of mounts per xpack. each desirable, each taking moderate to a lot of effort. When you put 20 mounts per patch, you devalue the whole thing. another mount, meh?
Put groups and guilds especially at the center. This is an MMO, a social game, not a single player game. Everything worth it or desirable should be done in a group.
Make raid bosses difficulty steady: no wall right smack in the middle of the raid. Please never bring back 3d fights, underwarter fights or fights with engines.
Bring back fun toys, weird ones we had in vanilla. why are they gone?
TCG card loot: bring the TCG card back.
Finally: remove the wow token. In your effort to fight gold sellers you opened up the panoras box of boosting, allowed it to be unchallenged and now the game is plagued by boosters. Entire economies are enflated, some boosting “communities” have billions of gold. Desirability cannot be achieved with boosting and the wow token. Sooner or later you will have to remove gold from the game, remove the gold token for sale and remove boosting from the game by making it against the tos. gold should only be used to buy stuff from the auction house or merchants.
I apologize for the rant. More players are quitting than ever to a game I shall not name. Here I am fighting tooth and nail to keep things afloat and It feels, at times, that some forces are working hard destroying the game trying to reinvent stuff that need not changing. The best formulae we already had it, why did you change it.