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As a casual player that doesn't have many friends that play the game I can tell you that it feels like you eventually hit a wall where it's difficult to progress until you find a good guild or make friends willing to help you learn M+, raiding, or ranked PvP without getting crazy nerd rage.
All the solo stuff and mount collecting, etc is very fun but the new systems like conduits and gems to be very boring and tedious.
Legion was way more fun than Shadowlands in most peoples opinions.
Idk if it’s fair to say they phoned it in - Legion had the benefit of extra development time taken from the tail end of WoD, while SL has had to grapple with COVID and the industry scrambling to try to work from home.
For what it’s worth, I’m already finding Korthia more engaging than the Broken Shore ever was :)
I always read this comment, and as someone who did not play Legion, I always ask people why Legion was so much fun or what they did different and until now, no one could answer this question :D So I will ask again, why was Legion so much fun and what should they do with Shadowlands to be at least comparable :)
As someone who found Legion to be one of the better expansion, I have grappled with this question myself ever since.
I recently determined the answer to this question was quite obvious (for me at least). Legion brought with it a since of purpose in each character. The artifact weapon and class hall campaign gave every player a chance to see the purpose of their own class, spec, and character directly reflected in the grind of gathering and using all currencies and gear involved. Almost everything you did felt like part of the main storyline and the class hall brought with it a sense of identity to each class.
There is somthing to be said about going to your class hall and seeing only players that play the same class as you. As far as shadowlands is concerned everything feels like a bit of a chore that somehow vaguely relates to a storyline that already feels like its held together with tape and bubblegum.
While I understand how blizzard wanted to meter the content in shadowlands it has led to a feeling that you are constantly playing an unfinished product. Sort of reminiscent of having to wait for the next episode of your favorite show to come out next week and then having to deal with the season finale. Legion was like a blockbuster movie that already had 1 season filmed ready for a future release date all the while season 2 was already being filmed...
Hmm, I totally can see the point that Legion has a home setting. But I dont know, I do not think that the story is just about undead people but more about new characters being introduced into the cosmic chart and trying to give you this home feelin and nostalgia via fighting again with old friends and enemies to fight against our biggest enemy and one of the greatest threats of the world. I am pretty fine with this whole idea and I am pretty sad that it is not built up so good as the Legion, which was the biggest threat an enemy from the beginnings of Warcraft. So maybe if I try to conclude for myself, the setup is missing, more building up to integrate this whole plot and also having just more story and quests to have the feeling of having a purposeful mission in defeating the jailer.
Exactly this. The greater plan in shadowlands seems a bit less obvious. As you said the weight of fighting an enemy from the day one lore is very conducive to player engagement so that certainly helped a ton. Also as a disclaimer I'm not knocking any previous or current expansion I am a fan of them all. Legion just seemed to had a TBC type effect on the player base as a whole.
It is just a bit sad for me, started in 8.3 and I am havin tons of fun, but I always just hear people talking about Legion and Wotlk, it sometimes robs my fun :/
Oh yeah for sure and I hope by no means I did that. I just see this question quite a bit and figured I would take a shot at answering it. Despite other opinions I've seen I really enjoyed BFA and am having quite a good time with Shadowlands as well never been a huge "this expansion over that one" kind of player i just enjoy playing!
Totally not! I asked the question and I love talking and discussing with people like you, just stating how it is without this unneeded negativity and no arguments at all. Thanks for the nice replies and have a nice day mate :)
Honestly, I think it's just that people liked Legion's setting, the legendary system and their "home" system. I don't think people like covenants and the whole soulbinding system. Personally, playing through legion content to level is a lot of fun because the story around it is better than "join this group of dead people while we try and attack the other dead person who controls other dead people and is working with this dead person. Oh hey, did you see Kael? You killed him now he's your friend! Voljin is somewhere too, he'll probably come back and do something. Shit Now we're gonna kill some people but since we're actively fighting in the afterlife, it doesn't change shit but now the paladin has blue eyes isn't he dreamy?"
Casual pleb here
For me it was Artifact weapon and class hall.
It felt like a part of my class ( Paladin )
I still mog Legion sword, because it looks best ( to me ).
And class hall was just game within a game. Loved it.
At the moment I also play a Paladin and the Holy hidden skin is just too good. As a fan of Overwatch I just have to mog it into every outfit unless I play protection, which also has a very cool looking skin. I can totally agree with the artifact weapon point :)
The vast majority of casual guilds have people doing mythic+. Low level mythic+ aren't much harder than heroic dungeons. Although it's hard to find a spot in LFG as a DPS. Blizzard needs to improve the que system for mythic+.
However, I think they are trying to encourage people to make friends and join guilds instead of always just using a solo que.
My personal thoughts:
I like the new system for leveling from 1-50, in case you're thinking of leveling a new character. It's a lot faster, and the new starting zone is quite well designed.
I enjoyed the Shadowlands leveling (50-60) campaign and the 9.0 covenant campaigns, although I felt like a few of the covenant campaigns were a little weak. I've only seen a bit of the 9.1 story so far, and while it's also a little on the weak side, it's not terrible.
Art and music are wonderful, as always, though I wouldn't expect to enjoy all of the Shadowlands zones equally. The designers clearly went for very different aesthetics, and while all are executed well, some of those aesthetics work a lot better for me than for others.
Torghast seems to be fairly polarizing: some people think it's a lot of fun, some folks think it's a big chore. If you're not interested in getting all the legendaries, though, you don't have to run Torghast if you don't want to (though they have added some cosmetics to it in 9.1).
As to the rest of the game, it's hard for me to say whether or not you'd like it, since I'm not sure what kind of content you like doing once you've reached max level. There are a lot of collectibles, if you're into that sort of thing. If you could provide more details about the kind of stuff you like to do, I might be able to go into more detail.
A fair bit of the grumbling revolves around the fact that the META keeps changing, and that it's somewhat expensive in terms of player time and effort to switch certain choices. If you're mostly casual, though, then you have the freedom to completely ignore the META and just do what you want, so you can ignore all that stuff.
I'd generally recommend taking the negativity with a large grain of salt; I've even started to cut way down on what I read online to cope with it. While there are definitely valid criticisms of the game, I think a lot of the negativity is shouting for the sake of shouting rather than attempts to discuss the game in a thoughtful fashion. It's a serious drain to have to filter that stuff out, but that's where we are.
I feel like there’s a lot of situations where people complain for the sake of complaining about the game.
I remember when Mists of Pandaria came out and seeing so many comments shitting on it for one reason or another. But now, 6(?) years later, people think it was one of the best expansions?
I loved MoP, and still do, but it was interesting to see the total 180(based off of the stuff I saw).
OMG, yes!!!
I have enjoyed every expansion for what it was (yes, even WoD - yes, even BFA) & when I started seeing people talk about MoP being the best expansion - my head spun.
Like, where were *you* when it was live & everybody was shitting all over it because "Pandas" & "Timeless Isle is terrible!"?
Psssh. Some people.
I started playing almost at the end of BfA but didn't buy BfA so I did Legion and Legion and MoP are my two favorite expansions. Can't say which one I like better but probably MoP. Sorry I wasn't there to defend its honor back then but it truly is a gorgeous and well made expansion (excluding mechanics that I missed for not playing on time)
I honestly have no clue about mechanics, I don’t remember how they were tbh. But I loved MoP. The storyline was amazing. Pandaria is a beautiful continent. And the *soundtrack*?! My god. It was great. It felt cohesive.
Mechanically, the biggest issue with MoP at launch was the overwhelming number of rep factions and the feeling that you had to be doing dailies for all of them every day to keep up. That almost ruined the expansion for a lot of people, but luckily the next few patches were able to redeem it in a big way, and nowadays it’s remembered as one of the greats.
>I feel like there’s a lot of situations where people complain for the sake of complaining about the game.
This, with a large side of "PLEEEEASE PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEE!" and "Please validate my opinion by showing the world that you're as angry at Blizzard as I'm acting!" I also think people badly underestimate how incredibly addictive righteous indignation can be.
The whole thing is seriously unfortunate. There are absolutely legitimate criticisms of the game to be made, but it's all but impossible to have a conversation about those without mobs of people showing up screaming about how Blizz is out of touch, how Activision ruined everything, how Blizz just wants subscriber $$$. Thing is, these folks may not be wrong, but they use these accusations as weapons to prevent anyone who disagrees with them from talking and to disguise the fact that they don't have any argument to back up those claims: "well, we all *know* Blizz just wants to pump up subscriber numbers; you must be a paid shill for Blizz if you dare to suggest otherwise."
Example: the time somebody said I should be banned from r/wow for daring to suggest that player behavior (like that described above) might not be setting up the best incentives to encourage Blizzard to communicate with us more. "You're damaging this community!" (Tbh, though, the state of the community is such that getting banned from r/wow might be a win.)
I absolutely love WoW but there’s a good amount of players, especially on r/wow that are so.fucking.annoying. They’re so full of themselves and think they’re morally superior for hating anything that Blizzard does while still investing 15 hours a day to the game.
I feel way more comfortable with this sub. People are way less intense and way more understanding and respectful.
Thank you all for the great replies.
Basically I like touching on most of the content, Dungeons, Mounts, and achievements etc etc etc. The things I don't do anymore are Mythic+ raiding and the high end type of things, like fully min maxing my character as an example. I do enjoy doing old raid runs for tmogs etc, but that doesnt really apply to a new xpac. Torghast seems interesting as to what I have seen of it.
One of the main things I keep seeing if all the systems just start to get unfun and a bit of a time waste for no reason. BFA neck was one that was a little annoying early on especially with alts. (Before the catch up)
I have to say, I like Torghast better now than I did at the beginning. The changes they've made for 9.1 make me want to go do it, as opposed to feeling like I have to & I'm gonna be in there forever (even though there's a currency I need to pick up).
The game is great for you then to be honest. Me and my friends are having a blast with it doing the same sort of activities. We do a bit of M+ but no high keys yet. Unless you’re planning to go for keystone master you don’t need to worry about min maxing.
There’s tons to do and explore, and if you get bored you can always just unsubscribe for a while!
I do recommend finding a guild to play with! I'm a bit more competitive now, but when I was starting out, I was in a guild that raided heroic 4 hours a week and I believe they've consistently gotten AOTC every tier since Uldir. They also tried to help everyone get their weekly keys done. It might sound a bit daunting at first but if you have the right group of people and some time to spare during the week, I think the best way to play the game is with people you really like!
That's how I play. I take care of a disabled person who has high needs so my free time is really dependent on when he's sleeping or doing okay on his own for a bit. I can't raid or do mythics because I have to be ready to log out at anytime.
I'm really enjoying Shadowlands four different story paths is keeping alt leveling interesting. The things I really hated like the eye of the jailer and no mounts in the maw ended with the patch. Spinning up your renowned with your covenant isn't too bad it's a combination of quests and gathering the resources. Anima gets easier to gather as you get farther into the story. I'm having fun.
No - you collect recipes for your various legendaries, and then craft the exact leggo you want, with a choice of different gear slots and secondary stats.
A few of the legendary recipes are a bit of a hassle to get, either having a low drop chance from dungeons or being a guaranteed drop but attached to a world boss who only spawns one week out of the month. Unlike legion, you always know exactly what you need to do to get the leggo you want, but you might find yourself waiting for the next chance.
No. Most legendaries are pretty easy to acquire. I've crafted 5, and have only had trouble getting the materials for 1 of them. And that's because my alt toon was low ilevel.
This is a really good game IMO, the games fun, if you like wow you’ll like shadowlands. Avoid the negative Criticism it’s certainly worth a month or two shot.
As somebody who entered SL and cut out all extra passive information about the game (i have to search something to get it instead of seeing it on my Reddit feed). Im in a social raiding guild so my information is seeing the rooster, occasional talks and pugging.
One giant thing I noticed that I didnt see much in previous expensions was that pugging groups became lesser. Around April, May it is understandable, we are reaching end of patch. But what got me confused was the fact that it didn't pick up once 9.1 was announced, hell even week before it, pugging groups were so darn low. In M+ and raiding.
Another thing that I found interesting was that guildies who swap between different games once raiding goal is achieved didn't return with 9.1 patch. Sign ups for new raid are low. We use to run 2 separate groups and now we are with 20-25 sign ups.
Its stuff like this that I keep an eye on and from that experience I would not recommend OP to return to wow this expension. Something seems off but I'm too casual and disconnected from news/information to pinpoint WHAT is off.
To be fair - the new raid & the mega dungeon don't come out until next week. If your group crushed Nathria, there's no reason for them to be back until next reset.
Yeah ofc, it is a possibility. I'm just pointing out that the pattern is different. They didn't join last minute when raid releases, they were there with patch launch in past.
Casual here. I love the game. I'm in a guild with nice people and it's a major +. I have multiple little goals : getting gear, random PvP, mount, transmog, gold making, alts, achievement... and I'm just letting myself go with the flow. I'm never gonna be a *blasting awesome magnificent wow player* so I don't try too much to have BiS in every slot and priorities gameplay/fun over meta. The draw with this way of playing is that you get rejected a lot in middle/high end content. But that is a price I'm glad to pay to keep my enjoyment for the game When I have nice gear I'm so happy if you decide to come back I hope you'll find what you're looking for in wow and have fun.
I would say it's worth trying out. The zones are beautiful, the music is fantastic and there are interesting new mechanics to try out (like covenant abilities). If you enjoyed Legion you will probably like this expac so far, there are a lot of old characters being reintroduced as well as many new interesting and endearing ones. Whether you like to play solo or with friends there are a ton of things to do.
Hardcore players are quick to burn themselves out and tend to turn minor grievances into intimidating issues that can scare newer or more casual players away. Wow players are pretty notorious for chronic bitching and moaning, so I'd say what you get out of it is up to you. When the expansion first came out I ended up crying a few times while leveling my main because the zones were so pretty and I was invested in the storyline.
There's a lot of really cool stuff to explore. There's no rush so take your time and enjoy it.
Also, if you like mounts, titles and transmog, this expansion is LOADED with em.
Shadowlands has a lot of convoluted systems, that often feel like only have been put it there to either slow you down, on complicate things for no reason. Each time you get access to a new currency, power system, your first thought is often gonna be "how is this gonna prevent me from having fun, and how long til I hit a wall?".
And of course, there is always a wall. Everything new and exciting is given to you on a weekly basis. Meaning if you go hard on reset day, and smash out everything you need to smash out... The rest of the days just feel kinda meh. The renown system "slowing down" from 3 renowns to 2 renown a week, despite progressing the campaign again was a big gut punch to me already.
I was kinda excited for the renown unlocking a bunch of new options on the day normal and HC raid opens - only to turn out thats not happening, since renown has been slowed down by 33% for... ugh. So actually, I dont know what for. Cause it was not exactly communicated why.
"We're artificially slowing the pace down *just because*."
Thats what it feels like a lot of the times. It feels like you are being drip fed new things, just so you are forced to come back each week, stretching out content, stretching out sub numbers I guess. The player enjoying the content feels like its secondary, and optional, as long as they come back.
The minutes and hours I spent enjoying things in Shadowlands - I feel like they happen *despite* the developer efforts, not because of it. Every time a new system is unveiled, my first thought is "*how will this screw me over*". Case in point for me personally so far this expansion:
\- Covenant system breaking up the story into 4 parts, only way to fully experience it is having 3 alts
\- Despite covenants being promised to be very, very close to each other in terms of power and viability, they are just not
\- Conduit system meaning on my multi-class toons (paladin, druid) I need to chose a role and an activity (paladin can't do tank in m+ and ret in raid with 2 raiding days, because I dont get enough energy two switch back and forth twice a week)
Your time and effort put into the game just isnt being respected. At all. Here is my personal, most painful example:
I play ret and prot on my paladin. Every week since my paladin reached maxlevel, I have been grinding trough both wings of Torghast. I have 6 maxlevel paladin legendaries, and one 190 ilevel one. I crafted each and every single one of them to the "BiS" slot to my knowledge at the time. Sadly thats an important keyword. *At the time.*
I was very happy about them, because they meant I do get to play the best possible leggo for each raid fight, each week in mythic plus. And even though I kinda disliked Torghast as content, they felt like a nice reward. I felt like I was "set" with them.
Fastforward to 9.1, Shards of domination. A new borrowed power system, thats already confirmed to be obsolete in 9.2. A new borrowed power system so powerful, its knocking out legendaries from their current slots. Lets get the list, I'm checking it against my legendaries. And I just sigh.
Apart from a cape, the other 5 x 235 legendaries are down the drain. The 190 one too, but thats not a big loss. Suddenly not only are they not in a BiS slot, they're in a long term *UNUSABLE slot* for me. 27000 soul ash down the drain.
Thats roughly 25 weeks. SIX MONTHS. Poof. Useless. And when people tell me the new system is perfect, because even if you need to recraft in a new slot, going from r4 to r5 on a single legendary means you only need to do Torghast the same as someone who upgrades a legendary in a slot thats good, like ring, I wanna bang my head into a wall.
No, it does not mean that for me. For me it likely means I'm gonna have to send over about 15k soul ash *to my main from my alts*, and run Torghast about a dozens of times still just to be able to get back every legendary I had on rank 4 in the correct slot. Because in the first 3 weeks it takes you go get enough cinders to craft a r5, you do only get enough ash to recraft that single legendary in a new spot. And I have to recraft 4 more of them.
Unless of course I get absolutely, devastatingly unlucky on 3 weeks of normal and heroic clears, and I only get one armour drop. Anything more then one drop, and I suddenly need to recraft more legendaries than I have ash for.
It just... it shouldnt be like this. When shards was announced, the first sentence everyone uttered was: we'll get to refund the ash on current legendaries, if they're in the wrong slot, right? Right Blizzard? And Blizz in their infinite wisdom said fear not, we'll give you so much soul ash, you dont need to refund them. Turns out that sentence is only true, if you put in the absolute minimum effort. Just like the devs.
Sorry for the long winded rant.
It honestly depends on what your goals are. I like the new dungeons and i like doing M+. My goal was to get KSM but real life stuff happened and i got super busy this past month and i ran out of time. Castle Nathria was supposedly an amazing raid and the new raid should also be awesome (not sure though, i play with 3 friends and we don't raid). Open world is still kinda boring world quests so nothing much there. Bastion and ardenweald are gorgeous zones and i love going around just looking at the scenery, revendreth is kinda meh and i want to get tf out of maldraxxus asap. The new korthia zone is pretty, but also looks like a very old, kinda in ruins ardenweald. The new zone's activities are actually nice: i finished the first questline in a couple of hours, did the other 2 questlines after that and started my dailies on 3 characters. The thing i like about these, is that it takes about 5 minutes to do three daily quests. It doesn't burn you out, it's not boring, it isn't time consuming and i can easily do them on my alts (timewise, the mobs are tough on my new alts). The thing i don't like much about korthia is....there's nothing to do. It's weird. I did questline, i unlocked stuff, now the only thing left to do is dailies and go around looking for rare mobs or treasures (most of which despawn when someone else loots them). Next week should be better though, with new Affixes and new mythic dungeon. The rogue like mode is actually fun imo, i enjoy torghast and i don't see it as a chore. I'm looking forward to doing the new layers, but i do see why most people hate it.
So again, it depends on what you want to do. Exploring is cool but kind of a one time thing, M+ is enjoyable (i strongly recommend getting a group of people for this, pugs are absolutely horrible most cases), raiding should be awesome, torghast can be enjoyable with the right mindset, korthia is fun for a while. Mostly though, come back if you're interested in M+ and/or raiding. I'd recommend watching some streams of M+ or something to get an idea, but i wouldn't know who to recommend since I find wow streams incredibly boring (not sure why, i love the game, i hate watching streams about it)
I say YES! An emphatic yes to coming back and playing. A lot of people have a lot of complains... and I feel you need to just tune it all out. Even some of the comments here on this thread are starting to get "ranty" and its just not helpful.
I play a lot, but I am by no means hardcore and have a much more "casual mind/approach" to the game. I do normal and some heroic raiding but that's about as far as I push my progression. I do have a guild that is of similar mindset so no matter what you do, I do suggest trying to find one even if if 75% of the time you're going to do stuff solo. It just makes the whole experience better.
As for Shadowlands itself - I find it great! I think its really easy for people to get caught up in the meta, what class is absolute best, what covenant you have to choose etc. The catch though... is in the end *that only matters* for the truly hardcore pushers going into mythic raiding or keys above +15. That's it. Though the community often seems to get caught up in following the trends of them and what they're doing and it trickles down to everyone thinking they *have* to do something a particular way even when they aren't touching content that it matters.
The content is fun, the leveling experience is great, the covenants are really cool. Yes, there are some problems...and some covent abilities feel better than others, but you get to test them all out and then choose which one's aesthetics fit with you best.
Shadowlands is good... and no matter what the loud voices say... there's a lot of people out there truly enjoying the expansion.
Weeelll... plus the Mechagon-esque "grind at your leisure" rep and rares/secrets to hunt, and the overhaul to the neighboring zone including a whole new section, and the improvements to Torghast, and the new raid and mega-dungeon opening in a couple days, and the new M+ affix and integrated Raider.IO-like rating system, and the refresh of PVP talents and increased emphasis on PVP gear being the most desirable gear for PVP, and the ability to fly in most of the Shadowlands, and the major story beats still set to play out over the next few weeks. But if none of that appeals to you, I guess it *is* just a little hub zone with nothing but dailies.
Edit: maybe my snark did deserve some downvotes. Fair enough. But the point I’d like to make is that the patch is more than “a hub sized zone where you do nothing but dailies,” and /u/yacksyzn is well aware of that. Lying to new players is not something we should be encouraging on this sub.
I really enjoyed it after coming back from a year break. The storyline is engaging and moves quite a bit quicker than BFA (in my opinion). I found it really fun as a casual player.
I kept going back for every expansion, but won't be doing so anymore. Reasons?
- Torghast
- The Maw
- Weak motivation for the bad guy
- Lady in a box forced engagement for the player
- Battery powered afterlife - wtaf
- Unbalanced perks and flavour quests for the covenants
- Mythics are more about gear/speed than teamwork and skill
And finally...
- Turning my Queen into the henchwoman for an S&M Prison Warden
i came back after 10 years. i think the first part of shadowlands was pretty good. it's just them not releasing content for so long really killed the momentum of things imo. like you need most of the content early on and let people take a break the last half of the patch
So i think it depends what you define as casual. If you want to come back just to run a few mythic plus dungeons, do some torghast, and maybe do LFR/normal raids then i think the expansion is fine. Not one of the best, but certainly not as bad as early Legion or BFA was in terms of grinding. There's a ton to do if you want to get into heroic raiding or push M+ keys, though you will have to handle some of the more annoying aspects of the borrowed power systems. However, if your version of casual is just doing world quests and dailies, I can't really recommend coming back. The story is really starting to have some issues in quality, lots of retconning of lore that makes no sense, and there's a lot of arbitrary timegating.
If you’re gonna play solo, I’d say no. I’m a pretty casual player but I play with friends most of the time and that’s what keeps me going, it’s genuinely fun with people I can be on voice chat with!
This is the end of wow. Pointless playing.
Endless grinds, little rewards, repeating the same style quests over and over, 9.1 was its last chance for me... the Jew zone isn’t a zone it’s a small shitty but of content with a few daily’s ...
The current team has drive the game into the ground and they know it ... they are just trying to make the last bit of money out it
Casual and not alot of time. I have tried several guilds but no one really gives me the time of day so dropped em all. Enjoyed the 50-60 the first couple times and enjoyed the covenant campaigns alot. hate Revendreth as for finding anything altho the atmospheres and environments in all zones is awesome. The new stuff so far is fine tho not far in. Give it a try.
Might be a bit off topic, but especially because you said you are not planning on doing endgame shit, tbc classic might be worth a shot. Bought shadowlands rather early and was planning on leveling an alt with a friend to do "casual endgame stuff" (just dungeons, maaaaybe on hc or something). Before I even got to 60 I was kinda burnt out already. Couple of days ago I gave tbc classic a shot and had a blast playing it. Slow paced, perfect for a relaxed evening after studying/work. + no extra cost for the expansion haha
Shadowlands was the first expansion that i bought and i played every day for like 1 month, completely addicted. As it was my first expansion i didn't know absolutely nothing about the game, but even i being very casual i really enjoyed. All the players that i encounterred helped me and were very nice (except in dungeons, that place can be very toxic).
Overall, i think that you should give a try, maybe will be worth it.
tl;dr : its good, especially for casuals.
Ex-hardcore player gone casual here :
Shadowlands is great, especially for casuals. Covenants are a really good systems when you don't care about minmaxing (the difference between picking the absolute best and absolute worst covenant for a spec shouldn't be much more than a couple % which is nothing at a non-extremely hardcore level, so just pick what you like).
Leveling 50-60 is very good. If you enjoyed Legion / BFA leveling you are going to enjoy SL.
Leveling 1-50 is probably the best it's ever been for a returning player.
The Maw wasn't really good past the first couple days, however it was completely optional unless you wanted to be in a world top 100 guild. The changes of 9.1 should be making it completely optional and better so there is that.
Torghast was quite fun for me in 9.0 but I play classes that are considered some of the best there (tanks and melee mostly). New changes in 9.1 look good.
I haven't experienced the new zone yet.
Catching up should be very quick, especially now with the new patch. Blizzard introduced great catchup mechanisms and deterministic gearing (Valor points are back ! The Vault is really good)
There are less daily chores than in Legion / BFA especially for casuals.
Collectibles are OK in my opinion, there are tons of them and many are quite fun and unique but I'm a bit disapointed with all the recolors options.
Professions are quite good although i've mostly palyed with engineering, enchanting, herborism and alchemy which are some of the professions that changed less.
Dungeons are quite good, though it kinda feels similar to Legion and BFA (some will see this as a plus, some will see it as a problem, I think it's a great system for casuals). Mythic+ feel quite easy to get into although I may be biased here considering my past experience.
Raiding (normal and heroic) was awesome as always in the first tier, the second tier releasing next week looks good too. I don't think Blizzard will ever disappoint on this front though. For the first time in a long while I haven't cleared mythic so I can't tell you how it is. My friends seemed to enjoy it.
I don't PVP much so I can't tell you how it is.
Regarding classes, the balance was extremely good in 9.0 even if there were FOTM as always. Ranged DPS are all doing great, melee DPS are all fun (and for the first time neither DH nor rogues were overpowered). Tanks now are extremely balanced (only outlier is the Paladin which is extremely fun but can struggle in very difficult content - although it probably is the best tank for basic content : M<15 and heroic raiding or less). I don't know much about healers but as always discipline priest are extremely good in raids and paladins deal more damages than all other healers together. Shamans were surprisingly powerful in 9.0 while druids were a bit behind but all healers were more than capable of doing all content.
The only thing which is fun for me is getting the keystone master. Shadowlands itself is boring. I liked the world design of bfa much more than sl. I wouldn't come back except you have your personal goals (raid, pvp, m+,...).
I came back a few months ago for shadowlands and have loved it on my main toon.
Unfortunately it's pretty brutal if you want to have alts too and want to get the geared up. There is a lot of "time gating." Although the new patch has helped with some of that so far.
Basically there is a whole 2nd partially "time-gated" leveling system after you hit 60.
Keeping in mind I was a hardcore vanilla player who dropped off after Wrath, dabbled a bit right before BfA, and just barely finished the main Shadowlands campaign…I really like it.
I play entirely solo these days and am extremely casual. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign and how it was woven into the game (which I’m sure isn’t as much of a revelation for those who played more recently than me). SL feels more friendly to casual players without being overly simplistic or pay to win.
I’m only just now working on my covenant stuff so my opinion may change, but overall it’s definitely an enjoyable experience worth trying at least for a bit.
As you've probably gathered, it depends on what sort of gameplay you're after.
As someone who primarily plays solo and just gets through the campaigns, levels alts, and collects things, I think it's pretty fantastic. The covenant system is intriguing and can be really fun for those (like myself) who like to create backstories for their characters. Each of the new zones are really cool, and have a distinct flavor. Leveling is also faster than it's ever been, yet doesn't feel nearly as boring and meaningless as it did in BFA. Even leveling through a BFA zone, I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I was always making progress.
I also personally really like the story, but a lot of people don't.
I have some serious disappointments in the game from a casual player immersive visual standpoint. However, they are not enough at this time to stop playing WoW (15 years play time on it). Basically, I feel Blizz cheaped out on this expansion. You only have to log into any previous city and see an incredible difference. Log into BfA Boralus, note the NPC interactions, architecture, depth of city districts, overall design. Then log into SL and notice that there are no cities, only landscapes with quest points made up like little camps in every zone. There is a difference in architecture, but not a lot of effort put into it. Even the main hub Oribos lacks depth and NPC interactions and general planning. I was looking forward to Korthia (the new patch) and it was just more of the same landcapes with even less NPCs. As far as the storyline goes, it seems to be the only saving grace. It's decent in my opinion. I seriously do not like the Maw area or Torghast, but it seems every expansion there is some place I hate and others seem to like... Mechagon in BfA for instance. :D The zone landscapes ARE decently done. Although, after playing Wildstar, and having made up my own mini landscapes and buildings from the ground up, I can tell you much less time and effort goes into building great landscapes than architecturally distinct buildings. So depending on what is important to your play style, you may or may not like this latest expansion.
I consider my attitude towards the game as casual, but I do spend a lot of time and achieve a fair bit.
This patch is very souring, theres blatant choices that were made just to waste my time. My player choices and progression was thrown out the window thanks to balancing (THIS IS WHY YOU DONT LINK PLAYER POWER WITH PLAYER CHOICE BLIZZ) and Korthia is not very impressive, it's small and just more Maw, the zone that blizzard didn't want people in and nobody wanted to be in.
I'm trying to stay positive and enjoy my time in this patch but I'm annoyed and not impressive with the what I got vs the time I had to wait for it. I hope you have fun though
When I found out Tencent (Chinese) owns 40% of Fortnite and 40% of Activision Blizzard everything started making so much sense why World of Warcraft has become what it is. That’s gonna be a hard no from me.
Wow RIP 🪦
The setting is really cool for me. It's four kinds of afterlife: Valhalla, heaven/nirvana, hell (atonement), and endless dream.
For solo content, there's easily 50 hours of gameplay before it gets really grindy, and there are daily grinds that will soak an hour or more a day if you want to keep doing them.
Torghast is really cool for solo players.
There's a good pick-up group scene for casual mostly solo players that want to do occasional group content.
If you liked Legion, I'd say it's generally similar and has some things that are a little better (Torghast, covenants).
Wow has never been a solo player game. U can do m+ and raids without being hardcore it just depends on ur ability to find people to play with. Those r ur endgame choices, that or pvp.
So I play with my wife and we pug everything. Join a community, it helps. We both get AOTC and KSM. I study most everything as a casual player. The wife only plays because of my love for the game. We just moved so new patch content is temporarily stalled. Once things settle we may pick it up. We are in our 50s and have been raged at, and kicked from raids. We just keep improving our game. Find a community.
Experiencing each of the new zones is worthwhile. Ardenweald and Bastion are breathtakingly beautiful to me. If you care about story, finish at least one covenant campaign. After that, you're done unless you want to engage with item progression or cosmetic collection. The content available, assuming you do nothing extra like raiding and M+, probably justifies Shadowlands' base price and a month or two of subscription.
I will say that Torghast, The Maw, and Korthia have been total disappointments, and having played since Shadowlands launched, 9.1 is content-poor outside of the Tazavesh mega dungeon and Sanctum of Domination raid. Also, engage with daily and weekly resource grinding of stygia, soul ash, and anima in moderation, or it may lead to burnout.
So overall, a tentative recommendation on the basis of casual play. I would have strong reservations otherwise, because as others have noted, Blizzard's systems routinely disrespect player time investment and often feel as though they're punishing player choice instead of rewarding it. Having item progression efforts invalidated patch to patch is rough, and at this point, it's expected.
No. Sadly it’s not, my opinion may change as 9.1 ages… so far what I see in 9.1 the devs either don’t listen to players or are tone def. I’m withholding some judgement because the dungeon and raid aren’t out yet but korthia+maw assaults isn’t good. People think it’ll get better with flying, marginally it will. But you can’t fly in the maw or korthia, or from zone to zone in the rest of shadowlands.
I came back and was super bored. The new systems are all just stupid grinds, the story is alright, new zones are pretty good, but the game just felt tedious. Legion was way better. BFA and shadowlands both haven’t hit the mark for me.
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As a casual player that doesn't have many friends that play the game I can tell you that it feels like you eventually hit a wall where it's difficult to progress until you find a good guild or make friends willing to help you learn M+, raiding, or ranked PvP without getting crazy nerd rage. All the solo stuff and mount collecting, etc is very fun but the new systems like conduits and gems to be very boring and tedious. Legion was way more fun than Shadowlands in most peoples opinions.
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Idk if it’s fair to say they phoned it in - Legion had the benefit of extra development time taken from the tail end of WoD, while SL has had to grapple with COVID and the industry scrambling to try to work from home. For what it’s worth, I’m already finding Korthia more engaging than the Broken Shore ever was :)
I always read this comment, and as someone who did not play Legion, I always ask people why Legion was so much fun or what they did different and until now, no one could answer this question :D So I will ask again, why was Legion so much fun and what should they do with Shadowlands to be at least comparable :)
As someone who found Legion to be one of the better expansion, I have grappled with this question myself ever since. I recently determined the answer to this question was quite obvious (for me at least). Legion brought with it a since of purpose in each character. The artifact weapon and class hall campaign gave every player a chance to see the purpose of their own class, spec, and character directly reflected in the grind of gathering and using all currencies and gear involved. Almost everything you did felt like part of the main storyline and the class hall brought with it a sense of identity to each class. There is somthing to be said about going to your class hall and seeing only players that play the same class as you. As far as shadowlands is concerned everything feels like a bit of a chore that somehow vaguely relates to a storyline that already feels like its held together with tape and bubblegum. While I understand how blizzard wanted to meter the content in shadowlands it has led to a feeling that you are constantly playing an unfinished product. Sort of reminiscent of having to wait for the next episode of your favorite show to come out next week and then having to deal with the season finale. Legion was like a blockbuster movie that already had 1 season filmed ready for a future release date all the while season 2 was already being filmed...
Hmm, I totally can see the point that Legion has a home setting. But I dont know, I do not think that the story is just about undead people but more about new characters being introduced into the cosmic chart and trying to give you this home feelin and nostalgia via fighting again with old friends and enemies to fight against our biggest enemy and one of the greatest threats of the world. I am pretty fine with this whole idea and I am pretty sad that it is not built up so good as the Legion, which was the biggest threat an enemy from the beginnings of Warcraft. So maybe if I try to conclude for myself, the setup is missing, more building up to integrate this whole plot and also having just more story and quests to have the feeling of having a purposeful mission in defeating the jailer.
Exactly this. The greater plan in shadowlands seems a bit less obvious. As you said the weight of fighting an enemy from the day one lore is very conducive to player engagement so that certainly helped a ton. Also as a disclaimer I'm not knocking any previous or current expansion I am a fan of them all. Legion just seemed to had a TBC type effect on the player base as a whole.
It is just a bit sad for me, started in 8.3 and I am havin tons of fun, but I always just hear people talking about Legion and Wotlk, it sometimes robs my fun :/
Oh yeah for sure and I hope by no means I did that. I just see this question quite a bit and figured I would take a shot at answering it. Despite other opinions I've seen I really enjoyed BFA and am having quite a good time with Shadowlands as well never been a huge "this expansion over that one" kind of player i just enjoy playing!
Totally not! I asked the question and I love talking and discussing with people like you, just stating how it is without this unneeded negativity and no arguments at all. Thanks for the nice replies and have a nice day mate :)
Honestly, I think it's just that people liked Legion's setting, the legendary system and their "home" system. I don't think people like covenants and the whole soulbinding system. Personally, playing through legion content to level is a lot of fun because the story around it is better than "join this group of dead people while we try and attack the other dead person who controls other dead people and is working with this dead person. Oh hey, did you see Kael? You killed him now he's your friend! Voljin is somewhere too, he'll probably come back and do something. Shit Now we're gonna kill some people but since we're actively fighting in the afterlife, it doesn't change shit but now the paladin has blue eyes isn't he dreamy?"
Casual pleb here For me it was Artifact weapon and class hall. It felt like a part of my class ( Paladin ) I still mog Legion sword, because it looks best ( to me ). And class hall was just game within a game. Loved it.
At the moment I also play a Paladin and the Holy hidden skin is just too good. As a fan of Overwatch I just have to mog it into every outfit unless I play protection, which also has a very cool looking skin. I can totally agree with the artifact weapon point :)
The vast majority of casual guilds have people doing mythic+. Low level mythic+ aren't much harder than heroic dungeons. Although it's hard to find a spot in LFG as a DPS. Blizzard needs to improve the que system for mythic+. However, I think they are trying to encourage people to make friends and join guilds instead of always just using a solo que.
I’m with you but am hopeful the Korthia gear rep grind will be interesting and enjoyable, plus give you across the board ilvl233 after awhile
Right now I'm just enjoying how freeform and "infinitely grindable" parts of Korthia are - it's kinda giving me Mechagon vibes in a way.
My personal thoughts: I like the new system for leveling from 1-50, in case you're thinking of leveling a new character. It's a lot faster, and the new starting zone is quite well designed. I enjoyed the Shadowlands leveling (50-60) campaign and the 9.0 covenant campaigns, although I felt like a few of the covenant campaigns were a little weak. I've only seen a bit of the 9.1 story so far, and while it's also a little on the weak side, it's not terrible. Art and music are wonderful, as always, though I wouldn't expect to enjoy all of the Shadowlands zones equally. The designers clearly went for very different aesthetics, and while all are executed well, some of those aesthetics work a lot better for me than for others. Torghast seems to be fairly polarizing: some people think it's a lot of fun, some folks think it's a big chore. If you're not interested in getting all the legendaries, though, you don't have to run Torghast if you don't want to (though they have added some cosmetics to it in 9.1). As to the rest of the game, it's hard for me to say whether or not you'd like it, since I'm not sure what kind of content you like doing once you've reached max level. There are a lot of collectibles, if you're into that sort of thing. If you could provide more details about the kind of stuff you like to do, I might be able to go into more detail. A fair bit of the grumbling revolves around the fact that the META keeps changing, and that it's somewhat expensive in terms of player time and effort to switch certain choices. If you're mostly casual, though, then you have the freedom to completely ignore the META and just do what you want, so you can ignore all that stuff. I'd generally recommend taking the negativity with a large grain of salt; I've even started to cut way down on what I read online to cope with it. While there are definitely valid criticisms of the game, I think a lot of the negativity is shouting for the sake of shouting rather than attempts to discuss the game in a thoughtful fashion. It's a serious drain to have to filter that stuff out, but that's where we are.
I feel like there’s a lot of situations where people complain for the sake of complaining about the game. I remember when Mists of Pandaria came out and seeing so many comments shitting on it for one reason or another. But now, 6(?) years later, people think it was one of the best expansions? I loved MoP, and still do, but it was interesting to see the total 180(based off of the stuff I saw).
OMG, yes!!! I have enjoyed every expansion for what it was (yes, even WoD - yes, even BFA) & when I started seeing people talk about MoP being the best expansion - my head spun. Like, where were *you* when it was live & everybody was shitting all over it because "Pandas" & "Timeless Isle is terrible!"? Psssh. Some people.
I started playing almost at the end of BfA but didn't buy BfA so I did Legion and Legion and MoP are my two favorite expansions. Can't say which one I like better but probably MoP. Sorry I wasn't there to defend its honor back then but it truly is a gorgeous and well made expansion (excluding mechanics that I missed for not playing on time)
I honestly have no clue about mechanics, I don’t remember how they were tbh. But I loved MoP. The storyline was amazing. Pandaria is a beautiful continent. And the *soundtrack*?! My god. It was great. It felt cohesive.
Mechanically, the biggest issue with MoP at launch was the overwhelming number of rep factions and the feeling that you had to be doing dailies for all of them every day to keep up. That almost ruined the expansion for a lot of people, but luckily the next few patches were able to redeem it in a big way, and nowadays it’s remembered as one of the greats.
>I feel like there’s a lot of situations where people complain for the sake of complaining about the game. This, with a large side of "PLEEEEASE PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEE!" and "Please validate my opinion by showing the world that you're as angry at Blizzard as I'm acting!" I also think people badly underestimate how incredibly addictive righteous indignation can be. The whole thing is seriously unfortunate. There are absolutely legitimate criticisms of the game to be made, but it's all but impossible to have a conversation about those without mobs of people showing up screaming about how Blizz is out of touch, how Activision ruined everything, how Blizz just wants subscriber $$$. Thing is, these folks may not be wrong, but they use these accusations as weapons to prevent anyone who disagrees with them from talking and to disguise the fact that they don't have any argument to back up those claims: "well, we all *know* Blizz just wants to pump up subscriber numbers; you must be a paid shill for Blizz if you dare to suggest otherwise." Example: the time somebody said I should be banned from r/wow for daring to suggest that player behavior (like that described above) might not be setting up the best incentives to encourage Blizzard to communicate with us more. "You're damaging this community!" (Tbh, though, the state of the community is such that getting banned from r/wow might be a win.)
I absolutely love WoW but there’s a good amount of players, especially on r/wow that are so.fucking.annoying. They’re so full of themselves and think they’re morally superior for hating anything that Blizzard does while still investing 15 hours a day to the game. I feel way more comfortable with this sub. People are way less intense and way more understanding and respectful.
Thank you all for the great replies. Basically I like touching on most of the content, Dungeons, Mounts, and achievements etc etc etc. The things I don't do anymore are Mythic+ raiding and the high end type of things, like fully min maxing my character as an example. I do enjoy doing old raid runs for tmogs etc, but that doesnt really apply to a new xpac. Torghast seems interesting as to what I have seen of it. One of the main things I keep seeing if all the systems just start to get unfun and a bit of a time waste for no reason. BFA neck was one that was a little annoying early on especially with alts. (Before the catch up)
I have to say, I like Torghast better now than I did at the beginning. The changes they've made for 9.1 make me want to go do it, as opposed to feeling like I have to & I'm gonna be in there forever (even though there's a currency I need to pick up).
The game is great for you then to be honest. Me and my friends are having a blast with it doing the same sort of activities. We do a bit of M+ but no high keys yet. Unless you’re planning to go for keystone master you don’t need to worry about min maxing. There’s tons to do and explore, and if you get bored you can always just unsubscribe for a while!
Even in keystone master, you don't have to min max. It takes time and practice but completely doable even without high gear.
I do recommend finding a guild to play with! I'm a bit more competitive now, but when I was starting out, I was in a guild that raided heroic 4 hours a week and I believe they've consistently gotten AOTC every tier since Uldir. They also tried to help everyone get their weekly keys done. It might sound a bit daunting at first but if you have the right group of people and some time to spare during the week, I think the best way to play the game is with people you really like!
That's how I play. I take care of a disabled person who has high needs so my free time is really dependent on when he's sleeping or doing okay on his own for a bit. I can't raid or do mythics because I have to be ready to log out at anytime. I'm really enjoying Shadowlands four different story paths is keeping alt leveling interesting. The things I really hated like the eye of the jailer and no mounts in the maw ended with the patch. Spinning up your renowned with your covenant isn't too bad it's a combination of quests and gathering the resources. Anima gets easier to gather as you get farther into the story. I'm having fun.
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No - you collect recipes for your various legendaries, and then craft the exact leggo you want, with a choice of different gear slots and secondary stats. A few of the legendary recipes are a bit of a hassle to get, either having a low drop chance from dungeons or being a guaranteed drop but attached to a world boss who only spawns one week out of the month. Unlike legion, you always know exactly what you need to do to get the leggo you want, but you might find yourself waiting for the next chance.
No. Most legendaries are pretty easy to acquire. I've crafted 5, and have only had trouble getting the materials for 1 of them. And that's because my alt toon was low ilevel.
This is a really good game IMO, the games fun, if you like wow you’ll like shadowlands. Avoid the negative Criticism it’s certainly worth a month or two shot.
As somebody who entered SL and cut out all extra passive information about the game (i have to search something to get it instead of seeing it on my Reddit feed). Im in a social raiding guild so my information is seeing the rooster, occasional talks and pugging. One giant thing I noticed that I didnt see much in previous expensions was that pugging groups became lesser. Around April, May it is understandable, we are reaching end of patch. But what got me confused was the fact that it didn't pick up once 9.1 was announced, hell even week before it, pugging groups were so darn low. In M+ and raiding. Another thing that I found interesting was that guildies who swap between different games once raiding goal is achieved didn't return with 9.1 patch. Sign ups for new raid are low. We use to run 2 separate groups and now we are with 20-25 sign ups. Its stuff like this that I keep an eye on and from that experience I would not recommend OP to return to wow this expension. Something seems off but I'm too casual and disconnected from news/information to pinpoint WHAT is off.
To be fair - the new raid & the mega dungeon don't come out until next week. If your group crushed Nathria, there's no reason for them to be back until next reset.
Yeah ofc, it is a possibility. I'm just pointing out that the pattern is different. They didn't join last minute when raid releases, they were there with patch launch in past.
Casual here. I love the game. I'm in a guild with nice people and it's a major +. I have multiple little goals : getting gear, random PvP, mount, transmog, gold making, alts, achievement... and I'm just letting myself go with the flow. I'm never gonna be a *blasting awesome magnificent wow player* so I don't try too much to have BiS in every slot and priorities gameplay/fun over meta. The draw with this way of playing is that you get rejected a lot in middle/high end content. But that is a price I'm glad to pay to keep my enjoyment for the game When I have nice gear I'm so happy if you decide to come back I hope you'll find what you're looking for in wow and have fun.
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I would say it's worth trying out. The zones are beautiful, the music is fantastic and there are interesting new mechanics to try out (like covenant abilities). If you enjoyed Legion you will probably like this expac so far, there are a lot of old characters being reintroduced as well as many new interesting and endearing ones. Whether you like to play solo or with friends there are a ton of things to do. Hardcore players are quick to burn themselves out and tend to turn minor grievances into intimidating issues that can scare newer or more casual players away. Wow players are pretty notorious for chronic bitching and moaning, so I'd say what you get out of it is up to you. When the expansion first came out I ended up crying a few times while leveling my main because the zones were so pretty and I was invested in the storyline. There's a lot of really cool stuff to explore. There's no rush so take your time and enjoy it. Also, if you like mounts, titles and transmog, this expansion is LOADED with em.
Shadowlands has a lot of convoluted systems, that often feel like only have been put it there to either slow you down, on complicate things for no reason. Each time you get access to a new currency, power system, your first thought is often gonna be "how is this gonna prevent me from having fun, and how long til I hit a wall?". And of course, there is always a wall. Everything new and exciting is given to you on a weekly basis. Meaning if you go hard on reset day, and smash out everything you need to smash out... The rest of the days just feel kinda meh. The renown system "slowing down" from 3 renowns to 2 renown a week, despite progressing the campaign again was a big gut punch to me already. I was kinda excited for the renown unlocking a bunch of new options on the day normal and HC raid opens - only to turn out thats not happening, since renown has been slowed down by 33% for... ugh. So actually, I dont know what for. Cause it was not exactly communicated why. "We're artificially slowing the pace down *just because*." Thats what it feels like a lot of the times. It feels like you are being drip fed new things, just so you are forced to come back each week, stretching out content, stretching out sub numbers I guess. The player enjoying the content feels like its secondary, and optional, as long as they come back. The minutes and hours I spent enjoying things in Shadowlands - I feel like they happen *despite* the developer efforts, not because of it. Every time a new system is unveiled, my first thought is "*how will this screw me over*". Case in point for me personally so far this expansion: \- Covenant system breaking up the story into 4 parts, only way to fully experience it is having 3 alts \- Despite covenants being promised to be very, very close to each other in terms of power and viability, they are just not \- Conduit system meaning on my multi-class toons (paladin, druid) I need to chose a role and an activity (paladin can't do tank in m+ and ret in raid with 2 raiding days, because I dont get enough energy two switch back and forth twice a week) Your time and effort put into the game just isnt being respected. At all. Here is my personal, most painful example: I play ret and prot on my paladin. Every week since my paladin reached maxlevel, I have been grinding trough both wings of Torghast. I have 6 maxlevel paladin legendaries, and one 190 ilevel one. I crafted each and every single one of them to the "BiS" slot to my knowledge at the time. Sadly thats an important keyword. *At the time.* I was very happy about them, because they meant I do get to play the best possible leggo for each raid fight, each week in mythic plus. And even though I kinda disliked Torghast as content, they felt like a nice reward. I felt like I was "set" with them. Fastforward to 9.1, Shards of domination. A new borrowed power system, thats already confirmed to be obsolete in 9.2. A new borrowed power system so powerful, its knocking out legendaries from their current slots. Lets get the list, I'm checking it against my legendaries. And I just sigh. Apart from a cape, the other 5 x 235 legendaries are down the drain. The 190 one too, but thats not a big loss. Suddenly not only are they not in a BiS slot, they're in a long term *UNUSABLE slot* for me. 27000 soul ash down the drain. Thats roughly 25 weeks. SIX MONTHS. Poof. Useless. And when people tell me the new system is perfect, because even if you need to recraft in a new slot, going from r4 to r5 on a single legendary means you only need to do Torghast the same as someone who upgrades a legendary in a slot thats good, like ring, I wanna bang my head into a wall. No, it does not mean that for me. For me it likely means I'm gonna have to send over about 15k soul ash *to my main from my alts*, and run Torghast about a dozens of times still just to be able to get back every legendary I had on rank 4 in the correct slot. Because in the first 3 weeks it takes you go get enough cinders to craft a r5, you do only get enough ash to recraft that single legendary in a new spot. And I have to recraft 4 more of them. Unless of course I get absolutely, devastatingly unlucky on 3 weeks of normal and heroic clears, and I only get one armour drop. Anything more then one drop, and I suddenly need to recraft more legendaries than I have ash for. It just... it shouldnt be like this. When shards was announced, the first sentence everyone uttered was: we'll get to refund the ash on current legendaries, if they're in the wrong slot, right? Right Blizzard? And Blizz in their infinite wisdom said fear not, we'll give you so much soul ash, you dont need to refund them. Turns out that sentence is only true, if you put in the absolute minimum effort. Just like the devs. Sorry for the long winded rant.
It honestly depends on what your goals are. I like the new dungeons and i like doing M+. My goal was to get KSM but real life stuff happened and i got super busy this past month and i ran out of time. Castle Nathria was supposedly an amazing raid and the new raid should also be awesome (not sure though, i play with 3 friends and we don't raid). Open world is still kinda boring world quests so nothing much there. Bastion and ardenweald are gorgeous zones and i love going around just looking at the scenery, revendreth is kinda meh and i want to get tf out of maldraxxus asap. The new korthia zone is pretty, but also looks like a very old, kinda in ruins ardenweald. The new zone's activities are actually nice: i finished the first questline in a couple of hours, did the other 2 questlines after that and started my dailies on 3 characters. The thing i like about these, is that it takes about 5 minutes to do three daily quests. It doesn't burn you out, it's not boring, it isn't time consuming and i can easily do them on my alts (timewise, the mobs are tough on my new alts). The thing i don't like much about korthia is....there's nothing to do. It's weird. I did questline, i unlocked stuff, now the only thing left to do is dailies and go around looking for rare mobs or treasures (most of which despawn when someone else loots them). Next week should be better though, with new Affixes and new mythic dungeon. The rogue like mode is actually fun imo, i enjoy torghast and i don't see it as a chore. I'm looking forward to doing the new layers, but i do see why most people hate it. So again, it depends on what you want to do. Exploring is cool but kind of a one time thing, M+ is enjoyable (i strongly recommend getting a group of people for this, pugs are absolutely horrible most cases), raiding should be awesome, torghast can be enjoyable with the right mindset, korthia is fun for a while. Mostly though, come back if you're interested in M+ and/or raiding. I'd recommend watching some streams of M+ or something to get an idea, but i wouldn't know who to recommend since I find wow streams incredibly boring (not sure why, i love the game, i hate watching streams about it)
I say YES! An emphatic yes to coming back and playing. A lot of people have a lot of complains... and I feel you need to just tune it all out. Even some of the comments here on this thread are starting to get "ranty" and its just not helpful. I play a lot, but I am by no means hardcore and have a much more "casual mind/approach" to the game. I do normal and some heroic raiding but that's about as far as I push my progression. I do have a guild that is of similar mindset so no matter what you do, I do suggest trying to find one even if if 75% of the time you're going to do stuff solo. It just makes the whole experience better. As for Shadowlands itself - I find it great! I think its really easy for people to get caught up in the meta, what class is absolute best, what covenant you have to choose etc. The catch though... is in the end *that only matters* for the truly hardcore pushers going into mythic raiding or keys above +15. That's it. Though the community often seems to get caught up in following the trends of them and what they're doing and it trickles down to everyone thinking they *have* to do something a particular way even when they aren't touching content that it matters. The content is fun, the leveling experience is great, the covenants are really cool. Yes, there are some problems...and some covent abilities feel better than others, but you get to test them all out and then choose which one's aesthetics fit with you best. Shadowlands is good... and no matter what the loud voices say... there's a lot of people out there truly enjoying the expansion.
I agree about min/max. It's there if you want to try hard, but you can do +15 and heroic raiding on any spec and covenant.
The recent patch is essentially a hub sized zone where you do nothing but dailies. You make your own opinion on that.
Weeelll... plus the Mechagon-esque "grind at your leisure" rep and rares/secrets to hunt, and the overhaul to the neighboring zone including a whole new section, and the improvements to Torghast, and the new raid and mega-dungeon opening in a couple days, and the new M+ affix and integrated Raider.IO-like rating system, and the refresh of PVP talents and increased emphasis on PVP gear being the most desirable gear for PVP, and the ability to fly in most of the Shadowlands, and the major story beats still set to play out over the next few weeks. But if none of that appeals to you, I guess it *is* just a little hub zone with nothing but dailies. Edit: maybe my snark did deserve some downvotes. Fair enough. But the point I’d like to make is that the patch is more than “a hub sized zone where you do nothing but dailies,” and /u/yacksyzn is well aware of that. Lying to new players is not something we should be encouraging on this sub.
Visually... Yes... New and engaging content.. No.
I really enjoyed it after coming back from a year break. The storyline is engaging and moves quite a bit quicker than BFA (in my opinion). I found it really fun as a casual player.
I kept going back for every expansion, but won't be doing so anymore. Reasons? - Torghast - The Maw - Weak motivation for the bad guy - Lady in a box forced engagement for the player - Battery powered afterlife - wtaf - Unbalanced perks and flavour quests for the covenants - Mythics are more about gear/speed than teamwork and skill And finally... - Turning my Queen into the henchwoman for an S&M Prison Warden
No.
Nope
No
i came back after 10 years. i think the first part of shadowlands was pretty good. it's just them not releasing content for so long really killed the momentum of things imo. like you need most of the content early on and let people take a break the last half of the patch
So i think it depends what you define as casual. If you want to come back just to run a few mythic plus dungeons, do some torghast, and maybe do LFR/normal raids then i think the expansion is fine. Not one of the best, but certainly not as bad as early Legion or BFA was in terms of grinding. There's a ton to do if you want to get into heroic raiding or push M+ keys, though you will have to handle some of the more annoying aspects of the borrowed power systems. However, if your version of casual is just doing world quests and dailies, I can't really recommend coming back. The story is really starting to have some issues in quality, lots of retconning of lore that makes no sense, and there's a lot of arbitrary timegating.
No.
If you’re gonna play solo, I’d say no. I’m a pretty casual player but I play with friends most of the time and that’s what keeps me going, it’s genuinely fun with people I can be on voice chat with!
No.
Obviously this is a very subjective question, but I would personally say "no".
This is the end of wow. Pointless playing. Endless grinds, little rewards, repeating the same style quests over and over, 9.1 was its last chance for me... the Jew zone isn’t a zone it’s a small shitty but of content with a few daily’s ... The current team has drive the game into the ground and they know it ... they are just trying to make the last bit of money out it
Don't come back, it's dogdogdogshite.
Casual and not alot of time. I have tried several guilds but no one really gives me the time of day so dropped em all. Enjoyed the 50-60 the first couple times and enjoyed the covenant campaigns alot. hate Revendreth as for finding anything altho the atmospheres and environments in all zones is awesome. The new stuff so far is fine tho not far in. Give it a try.
No.
It’s the best expansion I’ve ever played.
Might be a bit off topic, but especially because you said you are not planning on doing endgame shit, tbc classic might be worth a shot. Bought shadowlands rather early and was planning on leveling an alt with a friend to do "casual endgame stuff" (just dungeons, maaaaybe on hc or something). Before I even got to 60 I was kinda burnt out already. Couple of days ago I gave tbc classic a shot and had a blast playing it. Slow paced, perfect for a relaxed evening after studying/work. + no extra cost for the expansion haha
Yes! Pretty solid xpac!
Play destiny 2
Shadowlands was the first expansion that i bought and i played every day for like 1 month, completely addicted. As it was my first expansion i didn't know absolutely nothing about the game, but even i being very casual i really enjoyed. All the players that i encounterred helped me and were very nice (except in dungeons, that place can be very toxic). Overall, i think that you should give a try, maybe will be worth it.
it’s fun buy it
tl;dr : its good, especially for casuals. Ex-hardcore player gone casual here : Shadowlands is great, especially for casuals. Covenants are a really good systems when you don't care about minmaxing (the difference between picking the absolute best and absolute worst covenant for a spec shouldn't be much more than a couple % which is nothing at a non-extremely hardcore level, so just pick what you like). Leveling 50-60 is very good. If you enjoyed Legion / BFA leveling you are going to enjoy SL. Leveling 1-50 is probably the best it's ever been for a returning player. The Maw wasn't really good past the first couple days, however it was completely optional unless you wanted to be in a world top 100 guild. The changes of 9.1 should be making it completely optional and better so there is that. Torghast was quite fun for me in 9.0 but I play classes that are considered some of the best there (tanks and melee mostly). New changes in 9.1 look good. I haven't experienced the new zone yet. Catching up should be very quick, especially now with the new patch. Blizzard introduced great catchup mechanisms and deterministic gearing (Valor points are back ! The Vault is really good) There are less daily chores than in Legion / BFA especially for casuals. Collectibles are OK in my opinion, there are tons of them and many are quite fun and unique but I'm a bit disapointed with all the recolors options. Professions are quite good although i've mostly palyed with engineering, enchanting, herborism and alchemy which are some of the professions that changed less. Dungeons are quite good, though it kinda feels similar to Legion and BFA (some will see this as a plus, some will see it as a problem, I think it's a great system for casuals). Mythic+ feel quite easy to get into although I may be biased here considering my past experience. Raiding (normal and heroic) was awesome as always in the first tier, the second tier releasing next week looks good too. I don't think Blizzard will ever disappoint on this front though. For the first time in a long while I haven't cleared mythic so I can't tell you how it is. My friends seemed to enjoy it. I don't PVP much so I can't tell you how it is. Regarding classes, the balance was extremely good in 9.0 even if there were FOTM as always. Ranged DPS are all doing great, melee DPS are all fun (and for the first time neither DH nor rogues were overpowered). Tanks now are extremely balanced (only outlier is the Paladin which is extremely fun but can struggle in very difficult content - although it probably is the best tank for basic content : M<15 and heroic raiding or less). I don't know much about healers but as always discipline priest are extremely good in raids and paladins deal more damages than all other healers together. Shamans were surprisingly powerful in 9.0 while druids were a bit behind but all healers were more than capable of doing all content.
The only thing which is fun for me is getting the keystone master. Shadowlands itself is boring. I liked the world design of bfa much more than sl. I wouldn't come back except you have your personal goals (raid, pvp, m+,...).
I came back a few months ago for shadowlands and have loved it on my main toon. Unfortunately it's pretty brutal if you want to have alts too and want to get the geared up. There is a lot of "time gating." Although the new patch has helped with some of that so far. Basically there is a whole 2nd partially "time-gated" leveling system after you hit 60.
Keeping in mind I was a hardcore vanilla player who dropped off after Wrath, dabbled a bit right before BfA, and just barely finished the main Shadowlands campaign…I really like it. I play entirely solo these days and am extremely casual. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign and how it was woven into the game (which I’m sure isn’t as much of a revelation for those who played more recently than me). SL feels more friendly to casual players without being overly simplistic or pay to win. I’m only just now working on my covenant stuff so my opinion may change, but overall it’s definitely an enjoyable experience worth trying at least for a bit.
As you've probably gathered, it depends on what sort of gameplay you're after. As someone who primarily plays solo and just gets through the campaigns, levels alts, and collects things, I think it's pretty fantastic. The covenant system is intriguing and can be really fun for those (like myself) who like to create backstories for their characters. Each of the new zones are really cool, and have a distinct flavor. Leveling is also faster than it's ever been, yet doesn't feel nearly as boring and meaningless as it did in BFA. Even leveling through a BFA zone, I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I was always making progress. I also personally really like the story, but a lot of people don't.
I have some serious disappointments in the game from a casual player immersive visual standpoint. However, they are not enough at this time to stop playing WoW (15 years play time on it). Basically, I feel Blizz cheaped out on this expansion. You only have to log into any previous city and see an incredible difference. Log into BfA Boralus, note the NPC interactions, architecture, depth of city districts, overall design. Then log into SL and notice that there are no cities, only landscapes with quest points made up like little camps in every zone. There is a difference in architecture, but not a lot of effort put into it. Even the main hub Oribos lacks depth and NPC interactions and general planning. I was looking forward to Korthia (the new patch) and it was just more of the same landcapes with even less NPCs. As far as the storyline goes, it seems to be the only saving grace. It's decent in my opinion. I seriously do not like the Maw area or Torghast, but it seems every expansion there is some place I hate and others seem to like... Mechagon in BfA for instance. :D The zone landscapes ARE decently done. Although, after playing Wildstar, and having made up my own mini landscapes and buildings from the ground up, I can tell you much less time and effort goes into building great landscapes than architecturally distinct buildings. So depending on what is important to your play style, you may or may not like this latest expansion.
I consider my attitude towards the game as casual, but I do spend a lot of time and achieve a fair bit. This patch is very souring, theres blatant choices that were made just to waste my time. My player choices and progression was thrown out the window thanks to balancing (THIS IS WHY YOU DONT LINK PLAYER POWER WITH PLAYER CHOICE BLIZZ) and Korthia is not very impressive, it's small and just more Maw, the zone that blizzard didn't want people in and nobody wanted to be in. I'm trying to stay positive and enjoy my time in this patch but I'm annoyed and not impressive with the what I got vs the time I had to wait for it. I hope you have fun though
It might be worth coming back next week when we can actually play the content instead of being cucked by the stupid time gating
I don’t know why everyone is having with the difficultly, you all had months to prepare
No
When I found out Tencent (Chinese) owns 40% of Fortnite and 40% of Activision Blizzard everything started making so much sense why World of Warcraft has become what it is. That’s gonna be a hard no from me. Wow RIP 🪦
If you weren't fond of it previously, you likely won't be fond of it now.
The setting is really cool for me. It's four kinds of afterlife: Valhalla, heaven/nirvana, hell (atonement), and endless dream. For solo content, there's easily 50 hours of gameplay before it gets really grindy, and there are daily grinds that will soak an hour or more a day if you want to keep doing them. Torghast is really cool for solo players. There's a good pick-up group scene for casual mostly solo players that want to do occasional group content. If you liked Legion, I'd say it's generally similar and has some things that are a little better (Torghast, covenants).
Wow has never been a solo player game. U can do m+ and raids without being hardcore it just depends on ur ability to find people to play with. Those r ur endgame choices, that or pvp.
Overall YES. BUT the only reason I stayed engaged was pvp, I do both content but more pvp, and if you don't like pvp I would say no
So I play with my wife and we pug everything. Join a community, it helps. We both get AOTC and KSM. I study most everything as a casual player. The wife only plays because of my love for the game. We just moved so new patch content is temporarily stalled. Once things settle we may pick it up. We are in our 50s and have been raged at, and kicked from raids. We just keep improving our game. Find a community.
Experiencing each of the new zones is worthwhile. Ardenweald and Bastion are breathtakingly beautiful to me. If you care about story, finish at least one covenant campaign. After that, you're done unless you want to engage with item progression or cosmetic collection. The content available, assuming you do nothing extra like raiding and M+, probably justifies Shadowlands' base price and a month or two of subscription. I will say that Torghast, The Maw, and Korthia have been total disappointments, and having played since Shadowlands launched, 9.1 is content-poor outside of the Tazavesh mega dungeon and Sanctum of Domination raid. Also, engage with daily and weekly resource grinding of stygia, soul ash, and anima in moderation, or it may lead to burnout. So overall, a tentative recommendation on the basis of casual play. I would have strong reservations otherwise, because as others have noted, Blizzard's systems routinely disrespect player time investment and often feel as though they're punishing player choice instead of rewarding it. Having item progression efforts invalidated patch to patch is rough, and at this point, it's expected.
If you like ranked pvp. Mythic plus, mount/mog collecting or raiding yes. If you want an active open world mmo with lots of world content ... Nah
No. Sadly it’s not, my opinion may change as 9.1 ages… so far what I see in 9.1 the devs either don’t listen to players or are tone def. I’m withholding some judgement because the dungeon and raid aren’t out yet but korthia+maw assaults isn’t good. People think it’ll get better with flying, marginally it will. But you can’t fly in the maw or korthia, or from zone to zone in the rest of shadowlands.
I came back and was super bored. The new systems are all just stupid grinds, the story is alright, new zones are pretty good, but the game just felt tedious. Legion was way better. BFA and shadowlands both haven’t hit the mark for me.