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Shadowlands has been out for almost 3 months. Now that the honeymoon period is over, it’s time to evaluate the expansions wins & losses, as well as what Blizzard can (and is) doing to improve it.
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I quit before twisting corridors because of the Maw, Torghast and the insane grind I would need to keep up with people… I no longer have 3-4 hours a day to grind hoping that I get something useful or lose in BGs …even if I had 3 hours it would feel a waste to play this…
Thank you thank you a 10000 times thank you! I couldn't have summed up my experience any better than how you articulated the issues! now review Valheim 😀
do you even play the game ? lol
It's funny the mmo system part is probably better than we have seen in about a decade (except covenant shenanigans). But the rpg part is WORST than BFA, imo. And that's a bigger problem! Because even if the game systems are somewhat improvements seen since the days of MOP, I have no motivation or wish to exist in the current expansion's narrative. If I don't want to play in the world or live within the content, then why would I even login to mess with the systems?
Followed development closely, didn't really see any trends I really liked and so I haven't bothered playing it at all.
just remove all the systems and go back to being simple, it works.
Give us solo-queue arena! I have no delusions about becoming some amazing pvper but it's the content I most enjoy and because of class and work I don't have the time to sit in LFG looking for someone to do arena with and I'm not in a good guild because I'm just a casual. I always end up at this point where I can't really progress much more on my rogue main so I just level up a different character that I don't really enjoy as much but at least I feel some sense of progression, but inevitably I get bored of that and I end my subscription. Eventually I get an itch to play again down the road but down the road could mean years.
If the maw was Surumar City I would love going to the maw, but the maw is a desolate uninteresting place
I've honestly been complaining about the lame and recycled content that Blizzard loves to take advantage of. They reuse models and skimp on details/customization. Honestly, how long has this game been out and we now just got tattoos? And only for some classes?! The aspects have cool cosmetic areas, lots of characters like Valeera Sanguinar, Varian Wrynn, Aleria Winderunner, Sylvanas Windrunner, etc, all have really nice armor sets and cool unique things like Tattoos, cleaner more realistic looking armor vs the clunky ass warstomper boots straight out of Gears of War…. I want armor similar to Aleria and tattoos customization liker her on my hunter… Not some clunky ass warboots that look like they are plate. I'd rather have Dragonscale armor not some fricken Naga or Squid Cthulu looking shit….
I want cool capes like Alexstrasza and Ysera with a neat flow. Unique piercings, tattoos and even dyes would be a nice addition to the game to change up old boring armor. Take notes from Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, and other big games that are also fellow MMO's… Stop being lame and recycling content. Retexture old armor and make a render option for all the old boomers who want the shitty flat body paint looking armor and give a raised detailed textured rework of armor/weapons that make old content look fresh.
And stop killing off all the awesome characters like Varian, Suarfang, Voljin, and leave us with lame ass characters like Thrall…. Getting Game of Thrones Season 8 Vibes with this game now… Rushing content and making it sloppy.
Change the loots system too… tired of getting nothing for multiple raid boss kills that take hours… and when I do get loot it's another item I've ALREADY GOTTEN 4 TIMES IN A ROW! Getting a belt from raid 2 times, and getting another belt from vault… and the only upgrade i get is slight upgrade of like 1 ilvl? Weekly grinding for a letdown doesn't make me want to play the game more. lol Grinding and working towards thing is great, but maybe add armor/weapon tokens that can be used to pick 1 of 3 item choices so you actually don't get the same loot over and over… Almost like Class Tier pieces from BC or WotLK. Add more ways of getting Soul Ash… or let us break down legendaries for a portion of soul ash or let us change our missives…. Let us break down armor/weapons for each crafting profession to potentially get resources to make more crafting items… Take notes from your competition, no matter how little you think they are. Improve and Adapt.
Keep ff14 out of WoW please. SL levelling experience was awful, but FF14 levelling experience is a trip through hell.
I like the expac as a whole. I think the expac is slacking in some aspects but it looks like those areas are being fixed in 9.0.5. Also, 9.1 has tons of content that I am looking forward too. I really think we should have tier sets so there is something to raid for.
My review: Most boring expansion created.
This expansion is worse than the final state of BfA. Gearing sucks, Choreghast sucks, the Maw sucks, and covenants are a waste of everyone's time.
Maybe the game engine is holding the devs back
Conduits… are like azerite traits, power ups, how is it a waste of time? not being limited to gear means you can freely change pieces without losing "tier sets" like before, or enchantments
I like torghast once im inside torghast. Does this make sense? Once im in the run, i feel invested and immersed. I dont mind getting a group together and making two runs for my weekly soul ash cap. Im actually relieved i dont need to go there 'til the following week. Twisting Corridors? Nah. Im a druid, so the maw mount isnt actuallty necessary, plus I can steal one from the mobs along the way lol The Maw sucks, btw. what is that ginormous mob densitty. Feels like Argus all over again. Jesus Christ you cant walk a step without aggroing the whole zone > < Good thing i have stealth, tho. feels great being able to all that shit ton of mobs.
And then Valheim came out…and I haven’t logged on since.
If they had enough ingenuity they could make it so mounts can become pets and they could allow aerial mounted combat and so much they could do but it requires some immersion and that's something they frown upon because it requires engine upgrades and actual work.
The Youtube wow content creators were so enthousiastic, so i wasted money on shadowlands + gametime, since i hated it. Idk if it's the game anymore or just me. I haven't enjoyed wow since cata (and in cata only rated BG and early raids).
The veil that disguises the game systems gets thinner each expansion and the systems themselves move closer to simulating microsoft excel.
Uhmm… Bellular? Bro? Why are you asking Blizzard to make Torghast mandatory like Islands? Could you, y'know, NOT do that?
Torghast runs don’t make you better in Torghast?
You get a mount that is usable in the Maw in order for you to get your Stygia at a much faster rate..
The same Stygia you make your Torghast runs better with, and your time in the Maw, and your time in the game in general.. But you (or anyone who backs this argument) actually want it easier than that with more rewards? I back the “more rewards” part in some degree, but don’t make everything so fucking easy.
I remember back in the day someone calling a certain weapon he long farmed for the “Destroyer of my Life” in forums. Stuff like that made the game what it was so good at but now Blizzard is trying to give the playerbase more and more what they want.
That’s taking all the fun out of everything. Once the players figure that out it’s probably going to be too late.
I rather have them make the game harder in a simple way rather than making it easier in a complicated way.
I played BfA longer than Shadowlands, which is surprising, since everyone agrees that BfA was bad. I had big hopes for Shadowlands, but then I had a realization: Blizzard isn't interested in making a game that I'd enjoy, or my tastes in gaming have really changed. Whatever the case, Shadowlands is also a poorly executed expansion, at least for me.
I really hate the Maw and that jailer. It annoys me to no end!
Played the expansion for about a month and then got bored. I'll come back for the next one.
I love the honesty I would say even more probably with some f bombs. It's just not fun for me anymore
No offensive Bellular, but not everyone is a youtuber, with a whole guild of nice lads willing to carry you through Heroic raiding 😉 The rest are forced to run the agonizing systems or they risk getting benched or even declined from joining a guild.
Most of these reasons are what contributed to me and my friends leaving WoW during Shadowlands. We're all fairly casual players who would talk about getting back into raiding again… but in the end, it just wasn't worth it. Combat in WoW isn't as fun as it is in other games. Isn't as rewarding. So the draw of playing the game and spending money each month just to raid wasn't there. The actual gameplay of Shadowlands was, as one friend put it, "Logging in to do chores." That's all it is. There was nothing fun about it. And logging in every day turned into logging in every 3 days to catch up on Callings, then just not logging in. And Blizzard lost 13 subs between my friends and I. Some of us went back to Final Fantasy, others to ESO. Because those games are good. With systems that are fun to do that aren't strictly combat-oriented. Gathering, playing the market, collecting things, making gold/gil/credits, and ahem HOUSING are all major draws that WoW has just consistently failed on time after time for the last decade. Not to mention specific things to each game, like the player-driven story narrative of SWTOR or the casino, games, and chocobo racing at the Golden Saucer in FF14, or the sheer, awesome scale of PvP in Cyrodiil in ESO. WoW isn't the leader in anything anymore. It's just bland, boring nonsense. It's the unflavored oatmeal of the MMORPG world. And after a decade of tasteless pap, people are hitting up Denny's.
I really don't understand how you can say daily repeatable rep quests are any different then world quests in the same zone?
I am so sick of "we can't do X or Y" with M+ because it's spammable. M+ is my end game, and all the people I do it with have lives and jobs that mean we can't spam it. Balancing the reward system exclusively around the people who can no-life M+ means it sucks for the rest of us. I do a handful of M+ per week. You know how many drops I've received from M+ since SL launch? ONE, just yesterday, and I'm past that gear level by now. VP isn't going to fix this. You can't upgrade what doesn't drop.
yo is Bellular going through some hard times???? Dude has looked like a complete mess his past couple of videos
I think the problem I have is, Blizz really isn't listening and not sure that they want to. Here is my reasoning:
1- They have not really done anything "new" in the way of professions – yes, they gave new mats and made it so the profs were a little more dependent on each other, but they really haven't brought anything new. No, no new professions, just the same ones, different xpac.
2 – Nothing new in the way of guild rewards – some stuff different xpac – do something to make it fun and more competitive within the guild itself
3 – Torghast(Choreghast/Boreghast) – seriously – would it be asking that much to make it a fun experience for the player? Make it a timed run/a Heroic/Mythic – more differences in the maps? Make it a global competition? Different from MDI?
4 – Customizable armor sets? Seriously again – this xpac has some awesome looking sets – but why can we as a player not have the ability to give it the color with different effects that we would like to make it unique?
5 – Player housing – Blizz come on, there is some serious potential for fun here…
6 – Mods – Blizz another huge missed opportunity here. I am not saying having people go completely crazy making armor sets that are OP, but mods that follow the WoW cannon and can you imagine the talent you could possibly recruit with the talented people that are out there?
7 – The Covenants – yes you can pick the one you want… yawn… but if you want to go with the best for your class, that's it, you have one pick and one only. It should be designed so that it is a choice that will work for any class
8 – Execution of storyline – Blizz in all honesty, take a step back and look at other MMO's. The storyline in Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy is done and told far better!
To cut this short, you are Blizz! You guys have a crazy amount of resources at your disposal and this is what we get with this xpac? Use what got you this far, your imagination!
END OF RANT!
And then Valheim was released…and I haven’t played WoW since.
Might quit soon. Anyone know any good good farm so I can start buying wow tokens with gold?
Torghast was mad tedious and from the start put me and my friends off of it early but still had to do it. I never liked mythic + and always liked raiding more but even raiding didn't feel rewarding this expansion when I was getting 2 pieces of loot a week and 1 of those items being useless. It felt like I was doing content just for the weekly vault every Tuesday so I started to care more about raid logging but Power Infusion and Kindred Spirits are too impactful when you aren't getting the buffs. Eventually, all of my friends got bored after a month and left to play POE so I did too.
Twisted corridors has another issue… I tried 2 times… got to level 14 and 15 and just because the game did not RNG enough bonus HP powers… i was a 1 shot … very funny after that long of a time with 0 rewards
Remove soulbinds. Make player able to chose one of the four covenant abilities, at any given time (like talents).
Thank you! I thought it was me. I am a player since the beginning. This expansion makes me feel stupi.
The game keeps saying "follow the path", which would be much easier if they did not keep changing the path!
RANT TIME
50-60 was an amazing experience for me. I can't wait for the story that will come, and finding out about Anduin/Sylv/Garrosh/Uther/Arthas etc is almost 100% all I care about. Until then:
-Torghast is boring and takes too long.
-I don't care about soulash, or memories, or anima. The rewards for farming them mean nothing to me.
-The Maw is f***ing awful and I hope I never have to go back ever again unless they bring back mounts – even then unless the story brings me back I wont go. It isn't even remotely scary or challenging, just hyper boring bullsh!t. "Wow this 20cm wide strip of spikes on a 30 metre wide bridge really puts the fright in me, how will I overcome this dire obstacle??!?".
-Farming covenant levels is boring, I was burnt out after doing just my main. I have to do those exact same repetitive quests on EVERY other character, minus a few catch up points I get from random quests? No thanks.
-I don't care about daily quests, their rewards also mean nothing to me.
-Soulbinds and other covenant systems are also nothing to me, just useless grinds for passive unnoticable rewards.
-I don't care about mythic instances or anything outside of what I can queue for with LFG/LFR. Gear is almost irrelevant to anything other than the ability to que for harder instances to get more gear…. so you can queue for harder instances to get more gear.
-The level squish has ruined my character emersion. I am somehow this Azerothian legend of old, and NPCs constantly reference my great world saving feats – despite having done none of them and only having been alive for 20 hours. The emersion is absolutely broken.
I dunno man. This game…. cool concept and characters. Just the ENTIRE premise of this whole game – even in "good" or "better" expansions like SL – is SO freaking boring that I can't fathom how people willingly spend their free time doing this sh!t. Outside of the main campaign and story, this game is nothing but a money, time, and happiness sink.
Go get a hobby or learn something from Udemy, and stop wasting your precious life farming anima.
WoW needs a WoW 2.0. Put it in a FPS and in unreal engine then I wont have to look at trees with graphics from 2003, even on a high end gaming PC.
Every expansion follows the same failed formula. 2/3/4 weeks of fun after launch, then spiral down down down until we all realise we don't care and will check back in 2 years for the next xpac. Rinse and repeat.
RANT OVER