Completely agree with this ^
Sharding and War Mode made WPvP and open world a lot better than it ever was in Legion. It feels alive, there is always someone to fight with and against, and everybody knows that turning it ON is a decision made by player so they are a fair game now, etc… It’s awesome and really good, but there is a downside, unfortunately it’s quite huge.
Social aspect and structure were kicked by sharding really hard. Sometimes it goes to the point that it feels like it’s some weird “LRF ganking” mode - just LFG, random ppl, almost all of them interested only in completing their quests or, at best, clearing area of an enemy group to complete quests, then scatter until the next random group.
And if you want to play with other players on a good shard to have good fights, sometimes you have to ether wait in hopes your shard will be filled with opposite faction, or play a “game of sharding” before you can play the actual game. And because sharding is complete RNG with zero player control and quite a lot of bugs on top of it - then you could play this “game of sharding” again and again because something else out of player control occurred.
I don’t think servers are ever coming back, nor I think they should, because sharding + War Mode is a superior system overall. Plus we have other social structures that can fill current void of social aspects for WPvP, all of them just need to have an effect on sharding and matchmaking.
- Sharding player with their Friends / Guildies should have a highest prio, no matter what. Right now sharding doesn’t take any of it into account, and it has to change.
- We have communities, new social feature, yet they don’t have any effect on sharding - almost no social effect on actual environment around the player in-game. Improvements here could also be done.
- Guilds! The staple of social structures in WoW, yet there are zero possibilities for players/guilds to have at least some control of sharding. One option could be like this - [Suggestion] Guild Wars + Sharding
Ofc, server upgrades to have more players per shard are also very very welcome. But the main focus for sharding improvements should be about social aspect and to give players at least some control of whom they are sharded with. Current RNG sharding is just way to much RNG, and it’s not good for anything social …