Does BfA suck?

[Taernath]

There's been some rumbling that BfA is sub-par in a lot of areas, just wondering what your opinions are.

For me, I have one 120 hunter Alliance side and I'm getting my Horde DK up as well, but I don't have any motivation to do more than that. The Azerite armor system is the worst of gear treadmills, and the rep grinds for the allied races are fairly brutal. After I get my Dark Iron I'm probably going to either level him, do old content, or take a break.

Ion did an AMA on Reddit the other day:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/9fv4tk/im_world_of_warcraft_game_director_ion/

[Stumplicker]

Everything is handed to you. World quests give you raid gear, world bosses are a zerg and give you potentially better than raid gear. I made 120 and immediately didn't need heroic dungeons, went straight to mythic, did 4 dungeons on Mythic+ and maxed out that level immediately, which...gives better than raid gear.. with some more better than raid gear in the mail at the end of the week...Then went to the raid with a guild which isn't specifically the best I ever raided with...went 8/8 normal and the moved to heroic on the first night the raid was open. I didn't even watch video on the fights..it was just handed to you because you were already outgeared for the content.

There's no sense of progression or accomplishment anymore. It's just a time grind.

[SHAFT]

Everything is handed to you. World quests give you raid gear, world bosses are a zerg and give you potentially better than raid gear. I made 120 and immediately didn't need heroic dungeons, went straight to mythic, did 4 dungeons on Mythic+ and maxed out that level immediately, which...gives better than raid gear.. with some more better than raid gear in the mail at the end of the week...Then went to the raid with a guild which isn't specifically the best I ever raided with...went 8/8 normal and the moved to heroic on the first night the raid was open. I didn't even watch video on the fights..it was just handed to you because you were already outgeared for the content.

There's no sense of progression or accomplishment anymore. It's just a time grind.

Mythic raiding and M 10+ dungeons are the only real challenge any more.

[Stumplicker]

Mythic raiding and M 10+ dungeons are the only real challenge any more.

I know..that's a freaking bummer. There's no challenge or sense of accomplishment on anything leading up to the absolute endgame content. It's a 2-3 week period of mind numbing time grinds to get to anything that could be construed as enjoyable.

[Neveragain]

After a week I was back to farming transmog gear (finally crafted sulfurons hammer). I was hoping this xpac would keep me occupied through the winter, not going to happen. On a positive note, I very much enjoyed the warsong gulch brawl.

[Tgo01]

I haven't played in 7 years so I missed out on Mists of Pandaria and everything after so mythics, LFG being able to do raids, and all of that jazz is completely new to me.

I was having fun mostly just catching up on all of the changes they have made over the years plus the new content. I was excited to get into doing heroic dungeons again and did that for a while then found out that heroics are basically normal dungeons of 7 years ago and mythic+ is where all of the challenge is at now. Still it was fun doing heroics and getting upgrades, grinding rep to get upgrades, and doing world quests to get upgrades. Then the warfront dropped and a piece of 340 gear was guaranteed which meant free upgrades for quite a few slots for me, not to mention the 370 item for doing the quest. So I did that and was like okay now what? Tried out a few mythics and the gear was the same as what I already had and I didn't really feel like getting into mythic+ so I got my druid up to 120 and was immediately able to do warfronts (before they patched in the 320 item level requirement) so with mostly sub 280 gear I was able to outfit my druid with 340s in everything but rings and trinkets.

So I'm already kind of bored on my paladin main, never really got into my druid to begin with, but I decided to level a Demon Hunter and I'm having a lot of fun with that so far. Just hit level 110 so doing the new content for a third time now but it's holding my interest so far. I'm really thinking my Demon Hunter is going to be my new main so maybe I'll get into mythic+ and raids and have fun with that. Not sure. Might just go back to doing old content and finishing up some achievements.

[Ashlander]

I find myself doing more of the old content than any of the new stuff honestly.

[Tgo01]

Already getting bored with the game. I really don't want to get into raiding, doing emissary world quests everyday is getting boring, playing my capped alts is getting boring. Really the only thing I'm finding somewhat enjoyable is leveling up alts and doing the old content because I can just one shot everything.

I guess I'm not sure what I expected, while Blizzard did make some awesome changes since the last time I played and they added in much more stuff to do it's basically the same game it has always been. At this point I'm finding myself logging in not because I'm actually enjoying myself but because I feel a sense that I need to log on.

"Gotta log on to at least to finish my emissary quests."
"Gotta log on to at least kill the weekly world boss."
"Gotta log on to at least do the weekly quest."

Guilds seem largely meh now too. I used to enjoy being in a guild and chatting with people and doing quests and shit together, but now you can pretty much do all content on your own via LFG tool; raids, quests, world bosses, mythics. I have 3 maxed level alts all in different guilds and hardly anyone even says a word in any of them, and there are often times 20+ people logged on at once now. There just doesn't seem to be much point other than to gather everyone together for a raid because you can easily find a group to do literally everything. I don't know, either that or everyone hangs out in the guild's discord server but I don't use discord so I'm not sure about that.

I think I might stick around for a while longer but probably just focus on my main and leveling up alts. I logged in to Overwatch last night just to see what has changed and I've actually gotten back into that game now. I think I'm going to play a lot of Super Smash Brothers once that comes out.

[SonoftheNorth]

Wow sucks, you either have to 100% live in it or it's just button mashing easy mode, there isn't much middle ground.

[Tgo01]

Wow sucks, you either have to 100% live in it or it's just button mashing easy mode, there isn't much middle ground.

Ain't that the truth. When I first started up BfA I felt like I was 100% living it, but was having fun at least. Now it's just mashing buttons until things die so I can say to myself "Another day's worth of dailies done" and rinse and repeat for tomorrow.

[Maerit]

I miss when you had to setup your pulls with care or your 5-man wiped. Sheep and Sap, pull 2-3 and no more. An instanced dungeon could take 2 hours because it was not easy. That was almost 2 decades ago. Now it's zerg, rush and speed achievements in most MMOs. There's no finesse required, or strategy. MMOs are just pull as much as you can until you're overwhelmed, and then grind some more.

Of course, those who enjoy the old ways are the minority. Gaming companies market their game to the majority - casual players make up over 80% of the gaming market, and they will walk away from a game that requires any kind of time commitment. If the game company wants to stay relevant, they have to hand stuff to players through grind. Gemstone is trending in a similar direction, but at least most people play it for other reasons than the challenge since this game has never been known to be difficult.

[Tgo01]

I miss when you had to setup your pulls with care or your 5-man wiped. Sheep and Sap, pull 2-3 and no more. An instanced dungeon could take 2 hours because it was not easy. That was almost 2 decades ago. Now it's zerg, rush and speed achievements in most MMOs. There's no finesse required, or strategy. MMOs are just pull as much as you can until you're overwhelmed, and then grind some more.

I don't miss the two hour dungeons but I agree that I don't like the focus on speed. When I found out that mythic dungeons were all about doing the dungeon as fast as possible I was out, I have done a few mythic0 dungeons just because it was a weekly quest to do mythic dungeons but I refuse to do any mythic+ dungeons because it feels like too much pressure for a video game. Leave shit like speed for an achievement or something.

[beldannon5]

I am a little annoyed and a little bored and unmotivated with gemstone right now, so thinking about getting bfa

[Tgo01]

I am a little annoyed and a little bored and unmotivated with gemstone right now, so thinking about getting bfa

Whoa now there! Who said you could take a break from GS?

[Enuch]

I see mostly PVE talk. I live for all things PVP, how is that content? I hated the legion RNG PVP loot system overhaul but tended to enjoy the BGs on a healer, is it still enjoyable and worth doing a quick grind to mess around with a 3 month su

Still waiting on the coveted vanilla :)

[Taernath]

I see mostly PVE talk. I live for all things PVP, how is that content? I hated the legion RNG PVP loot system overhaul but tended to enjoy the BGs on a healer, is it still enjoyable and worth doing a quick grind to mess around with a 3 month su


It's still the Legion system but not RNG, there's a progression there but I don't know the order it takes. Weapon is first, though. Honor/conquest are account wide but are tied into that linear progression system so you're not spending the points at a vendor. A lot of the focus is on warfronts which are like pve versions of Alterac, or island expeditions which are like scenarios from MoP.

[Parkbandit]

We lost like 2 guys from our tribe who wanted to go back to WoW for the expansion. They were gone for about 2 weeks and came back. Said it was boring and that they've basically achieved everything they needed.

I bought the game, but never played it.

[Tgo01]

We lost like 2 guys from our tribe who wanted to go back to WoW for the expansion. They were gone for about 2 weeks and came back. Said it was boring and that they've basically achieved everything they needed.

I bought the game, but never played it.

Your tribe?

[Parkbandit]

Your tribe?

From another game. Ark Survival.

Also, since I play a game that has "Tribes", I think that makes me 1/32nd Native American.

[Tgo01]

From another game. Ark Survival.

Also, since I play a game that has "Tribes", I think that makes me 1/32nd Native American.

Just put on a headdress and I don't see why you couldn't start building your own casinos.

[Tgo01]

They were gone for about 2 weeks and came back. Said it was boring and that they've basically achieved everything they needed.

Yeah there really doesn't seem much to the game anymore. Maybe my tastes have just changed in my old age but I used to enjoy doing dungeons for the chance at upgrades, or heck just in general because I found them fun. Now the thought of doing dungeons makes me actually cringe, and I don't even have the slightest desire to do mythics as I said earlier.

BGs are still fun but even those seem to have lost their appeal. It doesn't really seem competitive or require any real coordination anymore. It's like 1 out of 10 games the match is decided by who had the most coordination and who was paying the most attention, the other 9 games is just whoever mashes their buttons the fastest wins. Maybe my biggest complaint about the game is I've always enjoyed being a tank and good tanks used to be highly desirable to guilds and raids, but now it seems you can just be a mediocre tank but as long as you have the gear it's good enough and guilds don't really seem to even need tanks anymore, surprisingly DPS seems to be what people are looking for whenever I see my guilds looking for players to fill a raid or mythic slot, neither of which I have any desire to do.

[Astray]

From another game. Ark Survival.

Also, since I play a game that has "Tribes", I think that makes me 1/32nd Native American.


Just put on a headdress and I don't see why you couldn't start building your own casinos.

Racists!

[Tgo01]

Racists!

That's crazy talk. I love American Indian culture. I go to their casinos a few times a year.

[RichardCranium]

A good guild is needed to last these days. It's the only reason I'm still playing, as I fell disenfranchised with the grind a couple of xpacs ago. But I still do things pretty regularly with my guild so that keeps me logging in pretty regularly.

[Astray]

That's crazy talk. I love American Indian culture. I go to their casinos a few times a year.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l3q2K5jinAlChoCLS/giphy.gif

[Taernath]

Maybe my biggest complaint about the game is I've always enjoyed being a tank and good tanks used to be highly desirable to guilds and raids, but now it seems you can just be a mediocre tank but as long as you have the gear it's good enough and guilds don't really seem to even need tanks anymore, surprisingly DPS seems to be what people are looking for whenever I see my guilds looking for players to fill a raid or mythic slot, neither of which I have any desire to do.

Probably because spec swapping is so easy, gear changes depending on spec, and leveling as a tank is 10x easier than dps so people at least vaguely know their rotations.

[Tgo01]

Probably because spec swapping is so easy, gear changes depending on spec, and leveling as a tank is 10x easier than dps so people at least vaguely know their rotations.

Exactly. There just doesn't seem to be much substance to the game anymore. Tanks are now basically all exactly the same, DPS are all basically exactly the same, healers the exact same. It honestly feels like there's really just 3 classes now even though they have added 1 class since last I played, and of those 3 classes everyone can do at least one role with more than half being able to do 2 or even all 3 roles.

[Taernath]

I guess alt leveling will be getting a lot easier in 8.1 with a 25-40% xp requirement reduction per level. 110-120 is mostly unaffected.

[SonoftheNorth]

I guess alt leveling will be getting a lot easier in 8.1 with a 25-40% xp requirement reduction per level. 110-120 is mostly unaffected.

Sweet more chances to mindlessly farm old content for .01% drop rates which is what the game is about now