What wentwrongafter this expansion?
Pandaria was pretty fuckin' spectacular. It got a bit too 'Asian knock-off'-y at times, but the writing was excellent, the raids were excellent, and the world was excellent. Actually challenging dungeon and proving grounds, the mechanics of the raids were interesting on top of the great story background, and the quest hubs for each patch (the different repuations, the thunder island, the Barrens, and the Timeless Isle) were all solid.
If Siege of Org didn't last so long, the Pandaria's reputation would be perfect.
>>342196442
the game got harder
Naxx - casualized to fuck to let the entire raid become puggable
Ulduar - exception
argent tourney - lol
icc - garrosh buff, raid was easily puggable up to saurfang
cata - none of the raids were easily puggable hence why LFR was created
heroic dungeons were actually hard in the beginning
>>342196442
One of the major problems is there was a massive storyline shift. Blizzard has said so themselves after Wrath was originally going to go in a very different direction but the games userbase had grown and older content was now just a chore for alts/newbies rather than the original adventure, so they decided to do Cataclsym as the story would allow them to "reforge" the world.
From this sudden shift, they also went on to say before every next expansion pack that they wanted to do "yearly" expacs, and most of their hiring and structuring was based around this, which lead to content droughts that grew between each expansion as they still were unable to meet the yearly deadline.
They now just said last week in a Q&A that this has been a major problem - and they've finally realized not only can they NOT DO IT, but it's not what players want as it lead to shit like WoD. People want expacs that last and have tons of content patches, so that's what they're promising to focus on in Legion, and while we'll have to wait and see if that ends up being the case, it gives a huge insight on the development leading from Wrath to WoD.
I actually liked Pandaria when it wasn't focused on the fucking Orcs
Everything went wrong after this expansion.Because this expansion is what went wrong.
>>342198973
It's believed Emerald Dream may have been the next expac, as the ED mats were labelled expac3 on the PTR build for Argent Tourney, and the green dragon bossfight in Icecrown and you hopping in the dream.
Then between ICC and Cata we have Malfurion and Ysera wake up so they can do shit in Cata so we get a book solving the Emerald Dream problem to get those characters out.
This is also the moment they switched from saying "one day we'll see Emerald Dream" to "It doesn't really feel like a good idea for an expansion"
>>342196442
That there was even an expansion after this one. We should be well into enjoying WoW 2 in 2016 having already enjoyed WarCraft IV nearly half a decade ago.
Reminder that WoW is casual trash just like every other blizzard product and that you should avoid these shill threads
Why did everyone leave during Cata? And was Pandaria Blizzards biggest mistake? No one I knew that hated Cata was even interested in WoW after they heard about Pandaland
>>342199997
Most people that hate Pandaria hardly ever give a reason other than Pandas, they probably only ever played casually and didn't even do end game in Cata.
>>342199172
Oh you're going to just love what happens to Ysera in Legion. Kek
>>342199997
No one new can experience the real "world" of Warcraft because of the deathwing shit and a lot of cool landmarks wrecked
>>342199997
Some people left because the heroics were nerfed in beta and not as hard as they used to be. SOme people left because the heroics were too hard after release. Some people left because the raids were "shit". Some people left because killing the Lich King was the most natural jumping off point ever if you were looking for an out. Some people left, and for me this one's personal, because they fucked up the whole MMR system for rated battlegrounds. Some people left because there wasn't a class balance change for 4 months.
The theme of Cataclysm felt all off on a few levels. One here we just delt with the Lich King and suddenly we're hit with this world-ender. There wasn't any romancing or build up. Just straight molten dragon dong.
>>342200792
>molten dragon dong
oh baby
>>342196442
they tried to bring skill back to the game, and everyone wasn't prepared for it. They enjoyed their facerolling too much, they enjoyed doing 20k dps in under 6sec as any class not resto druid.
I was an ilvl271 holy paladin farming h LK and I would do heroics for dailies with tanks in entry level 80 gear and I could heal the entire thing with holy shock. thats not the point though, even when I was hitting things with crusader strike and tanking a mob as holy spec, the low geared tank was able to tank the room.
so what went wrong?
they made crit and haste and armor pen go way up the ass too far for every class/spec and class buffs stacked, everyone had a I-WIN button (that they could stack as well).
cata fixed that all.
cata brought back skill
tanks had to think again
healers had to execute their heals more efficiently or OOM before boss dies
dps had to pay attention to mechanics again, which they hadnt done since TBC heroic dungeons
>>342197220
I fucking loved MoP, but do not for one second ever try and say it had challenging dungeons.
The fucking scenarios were harder even.
>>342200395
is everything fucked up or did they ever fix anything in an expac? like repair everything back to normal or is thousand needles still flooded and shit
>>342200303
I saw. It's good. If we're not going to get a Emerald Dream expac at least we get to deal with the Emerald Nightmare as players that has lasting consequences.
>>342201057
It's all fucked up.
>>342198973
>so that's what they're promising to focus on in Legion,
They're already contradiction themselves though.
Legion has already has a zone cut out because "It was too similar to existing zones" but "What's replacing it will be really really cool we promise".
And they've already confirmed that there's only 3 content patches. So they're either purposely lying out of their ass, or they're just incompetent.
>>342200921
uh is that new feature in that game?
>>342201057
It is all fucked up. The only reason I am subbed is because as it is now effectively f2p, I am botting my ass off for sheckles before legion.
>>342201370
Well if they actually do replace it then that's already better than WoD, were they cut it and didn't.
>And they've already confirmed that there's only 3 content patches
No. They confirmed 3 raid tiers. Not the same thing.
>>342199997
Heroic dungeons went badly downhill during the end of WotLK, departing from marked pulls with CC, with the possibility of things going badly wrong if mishandled, into AOE zerging with zero chance of failure. They briefly hit their former glory during the start of Cata, but quickly were nerfed because apparently the vocal minority on the forum represents all players. You only have to run Shattered Halls during a BC Timewalking weekend to realise how far heroics have fallen. I care so much because heroics were my main pastime at level cap, because I find organised raiding insufferable.
>>342201906
Timewalking is great as you see current WoW players wipe on old dungeons.
How is WoW nowadays? Worth getting back into?
I've heard they casualized talent trees and class variation a fuck ton.
Last played during Wrath, enjoyed BC the most.
>>342196442
The development team thought that they needed to copy things off other successful games in order to survive.
They had a well defended Niche of high fantasy, MMORPG catering to nerds.
But they got greedy and wanted more. So they:
-Esports is succesful let's Esports focus/balance/Equality
-Everyone should see all the content
-Facebook successful, let's make Integraiton
-Call of duty is succesful, call of duty has perks, let's make talents = perks.
And so piece by piece, they sold off their niche, and adopted little bits of other games/whatever is popular at the time.
Eventually they became medicore. They don't have their niche anymore, nor are they as good at any of the other things they tried to be as the games in their respective genres. As a result subs dropped.
But honestly though, you can see the quality drop expansion by expansion. Just the mistakes they made added up faster than the good changes they made.
>>342199092
I also liked MoP, post Theramore bombing Jaina always made my dick rock hard.
>>342202000
Right, it's hilarious how shocked current players are that they can actually die in a heroic, and have to occasionally do CC, or watch out to not pull a patrol instead of tunnelling some AOE pack. But it's fine that heroics are watered down because we have mythic dungeons, right Ion?
>>342197220
I liked what they did making tanking gameplay more reactive.
Made it much more interesting that previous expansions.The downside was that every tank just felt the same.
>I will never sit late into the night (1am-5am) playing on my glad Spriest chilling and laughing with my bros who I've never seen irl and only played with for under a year ever again
It literally hurts. I wish i could go back.
>>342196442
WotLK WAS the beginning of when everything went wrong. Reused content, dungeon finder, phasing, ilvl etc. Fuck Wrath
>>342199997
I really enjoyed wrath, it had some of the best zones and i liked a lot of the gear and raids. It also allowed me to gear up decently while also working 60 workweeks. When cata rolled out heroics were more challenging and there was more grinding invlolved. I feel like a lot of people got spoiled by how easy it was to gear up in wotlk compared to cata, so they quit. plus a 5 level gain wasnt that exciting.
>>342202525
I logged into my BC Warlock a few months ago, half my friends list is missing/deleted characters, and the other half hasn't logged in in years. Best time of my life, never to be repeated
That was the point when the kikes that made the game realized that only faggots play it.
>>342201591
>No. They confirmed 3 raid tiers. Not the same thing.
Did they not learn from WoD?
3 raid tiers is complete shit, you need at least 4, and other content on top of that.
>>342203931
WoD had 2 tiers.
>>342203931
WotLK had 4 and people were pissed as fuck that ulduar was cut so short.
>>342200175
I loved everything up till WOTLK because of WCIII. Northrend was beautiful and Icecrown gave a true feeling of doom and destruction. You felt the presence of Arthus and the scourge everywhere and it all lead to a huge epic battle.
With Panda land it felt like they just dropped you into a Japanese gift shop and expected you to care about the characters. Everything seemed upbeat and happy except with some occasional conflict which was all over and done with by the end of the xpac. The whole time I went through I thought why should I give a shit about these panda's or their land?
overphasing made the story irrelevant to the game and impossible to follow without reading their stupid books.
server transfers made some servers massively overpopulated so they made mob respawns almost instant to compensate, however on lower population realms this makes it feel like you can't make any progress through hordes of enemies in zones like dread wastes, which in turn makes those zones feel cluttered and lack flavor.
the ease of availability of server transfers also makes it so that theres essentially no accountability for your interactions with other players which is a HUGE part of what makes a healthy MMO community
there is solo queue for dungeons, content you SHOULD be carefully selecting your own group strategically for but they don't have solo queue for arena or battlegrounds where people would actually like a solo queue for rateds
i could keep going but there are just too many things damaging the community aspect of this "MMORPG" to even list
>>342204050
WotLK had shitty raids in general thought.
Naxx was garbage, Eye was a glorified Onyxia, everything to do with the Argent Dawn was shit, and ICC was gated trash because Blizzard wanted to extend the time it took to beat.
Ulduar being one of the better raids in the game didn't make up for the rest of them being some of the worst.
>>342204050
Literally every raid tier has been cut short except the end of xpac patches since wrath. It's completely ridiculous.
It would be great if we could get back to a point where the gear in every raid besides the current one isn't completely irrelevant. Have the raids be a linear progression from start of xpac to the end and then on the prepatch for the next xpac nerf it so everyone else can see it too.
Running out of content for any significant stretch of time shouldn't be a thing unless you are a TOP top raiding guild
the best content blizzard has ever created for me were MoP challenge modes, and i've played since vanilla
>>342196442
Please.
This was the expansion that ruined everything.
Only wrathbabies praise WoTLK.
All lore in this expansion was fucking retarded and only got worse.
All raid difficulty started in babys first raid easy mode. See: Arthas killed in less then 4 weeks after launch. compared to something like C'thun that had to be nerfed several times before it could be killed once.
I'm too angry to continue.
It got tiring after having to put up with Trial of the Crusader. After that it went downhill from there. It became all about themepark raiding after that. I think that killed the game outright.
I mean, sure, there was a big aspect of that in Vanilla, but there was a challenge, a satisfaction of overcoming the daunting bosses that could smack you around if you weren't careful.
It was all downhill after the activision merge
>>342207846
For god's sake, you're everything wrong with WoW's community.
>inb4 "reddit post must be casual shit"
Really, though. The game was artificially difficult through most of vanilla and BC. That's not to write off some genuinely good fights (Illidan, Vashj, etc.), but WoW raids didn't just magically become terribly easy. People were finishing Nefarian encounters with 5/40 people from 50% health downward back when BWL was the most relevant raid.
>>342208512
Okay so even if the raid difficulty was artificial and being reflected upon with nostalgia goggles.
The lore being completely fucking retarded from WoTLK and onwards still stands.
>>342197591
>Heroic Dungeons were actually hard in the beginning
I always hear people say this but I never remember having much difficulty with them, but I had been playing since vanilla and remember the true pain that was BC heroics like shattered halls heroic.
>>342208979
Yeah, I won't deny that.
I'm not too huge on lore, though, so I've never been that bothered by it.
>>342207846
TBC ruined everything
wrath was TBC but mroe casual
>>342202061
>The development team thought that they needed to copy things off other successful games in order to survive.
But WoW was straight up a copy of Everquest. Blizzard even hired the top Everquest players to ask them for input.
Blizzard's always been about copying other successful games.
>2006
>pre-raid epic gear is hard to come by
>have to scrap up the best Rares you can get before raiding
>2016
>epics are more common than rare gear
>here's your free legendary have fun
The fuck happened?
>>342208512
This is pretty true especially with vanilla raids. Fight mechanics were pretty simple by todays standards in most of vanilla. Naxx started adding more difficult mechanics by todays standard but its still tame by todays standards. Mechanics did see a huge improvement in BC though.
Older raids were mostly artificially difficult by adding things like resistance gear and consumable requirements. C'thun was unkillable in his first iteration to prevent progress (rumors are the entire fight was not ready yet so blizzard made it impossible). Naxxramas was the worst offender though with fights being so difficult you had to brute force them with massive amount of consumable and world buffs until your raid is very geared in Tier 3. AQ level gear was simply not enough to handle it. Saphiron required the entire raid to have frost resist gear and the four horseman has one of the worst gear requirements ever. Requiring for most raids to have 8 warriors with 4/9 tier 3 so that taunt would not miss. If a taunt was resisted it was basically a wipe. A good example of how overtuned the place was is fights like Anub'Rekhan his damage output from abilities only received a couple hundred extra point of damage for most abilities, in an expansion that is 20 levels higher which much higher health pools.
That being said I still had a ton of fun with MC and BWL on Nostalrius before it got shut down but you definitely did see the flaws going back into these raids again over 10 years later.
>>342209619
activision happened
>>342196442
if it wasn't for cataclysm deleting the world, i might experience nostalgia and come back to see the world every once in a while, level a new character and see if there was a different path i could take, anything neat i overlooked a previous time
but, you know, cataclysm
so it never happened, and it never will happen
>>342209619
>Free legendarys
I honestly hate this more than free epics. Legendary were supposed to be that super powerful weapon that very few people have and took massive amounts of effort to gain. The newest is a fucking ring and does not even have a model.
Thunderfury is still the best example of legendarys its still one of the coolest weapon models in the game and it was matched in its power. It was literally the best tank weapon even through most of early BC content, I think it was only finally surpassed by later BC weapons because it eventually got nerfed. Pretty sure Nihiliums MT used it all through BC though.
>>342210898
hey at least you get that thunderfury ashbringer skinret pally with 1h tank legendary
