We’re all familiar with the “I’m quitting/have quit” and possible list of reason(s) why. So allow me to try a slightly different take on that theme and instead invite players both current and ex to think back on where the game began to lose your passion and why.
Disclaimer as well while I’m at it - I’m no hardcore raider, I’m not a high end M+ spammer nor ever have been. My time with WoW has been as casual as can be, with mostly jumping into random BGs at end game throughout the years and expansions. Stated for when someone inevitably posts “you didn’t do X raid or hit Y key at the time.” or similar.
Back to the topic and thinking on this a good bit myself, my own opinion might be somewhat controversial as the expansion was far from the worst, but for me, my passion in the game began a downhill with the content started in Legion.
Why? I feel like Legion started too many trends which diminished the progression, longevity and story of the game. Legion added:
- The last Warchief. Legion’s story overall was fine here, my gripe with “Legion’s” story is solely based on it being the gateway for Sylvanas’ Warchief arc and the absolutely horrendus plot that is still suffered of her existence to this day. Sad to blame this on Legion, but this was where she was promoted to begin it all and make Horde identity a joke.
- Artifact traits. Very cool in themselves at the time, but super grindy if you had alts to consider, whereas before as an alt addict I could just hit max level and progress, artifact power was a new barrier you had to re-visit if you wanted to be competitive, regardless of gear. It also opened the way to giving players borrowed power, which could be very fun, but would then get stripped and redundant next expansion (azerite traits, covenants). Having to re-do the same quests and scenarios for same class alts to get their weapons was particularly unfun as well.
-Mission board gated class hall progression. Absolutely awful. Being locked out of your class hall chapters until you run enough chores to then have to wait hours for a mission before you can move on. Sure, WoD started this, but add the fact that you are now doomed to suffer this for every character you have if you wish to continue, or at least those of a unique class and it’s terrible.
- Allied races. At the time, I daresay I speak for most of us on being immensely hyped for the potential of what allied races could offer us. I still love Highmountain and Lightforged to this day, and held out high hopes for awesome, long-term established Warcraft races to be given their chance to join factions, Ogres, Murlocs, Naga? Instead what we ended up getting years later was lazily re-skeleton’d additional Elves, Vulpera who had no existing lore outside of BFA, yet another type of Dwarf and the Hara-who? Shoehorned in allied ‘races’ that have the bare-minimum for animations, lore and fleshing out. Allied races eroded whatever identity each faction had left in terms of races as Alliance got Belves, Horde got Night Elves and even a skin of Dwarf. By far my biggest disappointment with what could have been one of the best additions to WoW.
Again, most of these aren’t really blamed on Legion itself; the lamer allied races came later. The story was a million times better than BfA and beyond, artifact power was okay as an initial thing, but set the precedent for just repeatedly adding and removing new, borrowed powers. It’s a harsh view of saying this is where my dissatisfaction originated, at the time it certainly didn’t; with hindsight and reflection though, these additions and their increasingly watered-down, lamely implemented future versions all began here.
But enough about my rant, fellow dissatisfied players both old and new, what expansion and its features began your own dissatisfaction? At what point did you think “this was fine for one expansion/season.” only for it to be recycled?
The few I had left playing understandably burned out in Shadowlands.