The expansion made fundamental changes to the game, removing the vast majority of the RPG mechanics that added flavour and depth to the game in the name of ‘convenience’. Things like reagents, Rogue poisons, Hunter ammo, pet happyiness etc. were all removed.
Many people would consider this a good thing, as they prefer things to be faster and more convenient, but it killed my sense of progression.
Classes which previously had to undertake a progressive journey to obtain their core skills now had those core skills instantly given to them ‘for free’ either at lower levels, or at a much earlier level than previously.
Again, this was considered a positive thing by some people. Hunters getting pets at L1, Druids getting cat form at L20 made the game seem more accessible and convenient for them - but I absolutely hated this, as, once again, it killed my sense of progression/immersion.
Class quests were removed entirely.
The open world was fundamentally changed. Several zones were deliberately ruined by adding gaping fissures, pouring with infinitely-spawning elementals. ‘Theme park’ elements were added, in the form of endlessly-battling NPCs, which turned formerly tranquil, serene locations into noisy, chaotic battlefields.
Some of my most loved regions of the game were, in my view, trashed.
Most original quests were removed, and replaced by simpler, faster, far more gimmicky new quests. Many were jocular or flippant in theme, making heavy use of pop culture references, slapstick and the like. Most challenging quests were removed entirely, it was no longer necessary to fight elite mobs, as any elites you encountered always had some gimmick to resolve them, such as using a vehicle, or being part of an overpowered squad etc.
Most group quests were removed.
I hated all the above. I happen to like the original quests, grindy and inconvenient though they may be. I found most of the new quests to be extremely dumb and unappealing.
Travel and exploration was largely removed. It was no longer required to explore the world, as everything was divided into quest hubs, with everything you needed just a few steps away. Even travelling between hubs was made more convenient as you were often flown or teleported to the next zone automatically. Travelling to a quest location or travelling back to turn it in was made much faster. No more long runs through the zone, and definitely no more long runs or flights between zones as questgivers were all placed within easy and fast reach of the player.
Again, some people loved this, as it greatly speeded up their levelling. Naturally I loathed it with every fibre of my being. Travel was one of the great WoW experiences for me, as it made the world seem vast and alive.
Classes were made infinitely more powerful, and mobs heavily nerfed.
The old days of carefully approaching a camp of Murlocs, Gnolls, Quillboars, or whatever - carefully pulling them one at a time, using your class skills to deal with adds, patrols, fleeing mobs etc. were gone. Now you could just run into huge groups of mobs and AOE them down in a heartbeat, removing all challenge and making all quests trivial to complete as you were never in danger at any time, and there was zero chance of dying.
XP rates hugely buffed to the extent of racing through the quest zones and all quests contained there becoming grey after just a handful of the quests had been completed. It was rarely needed to complete the hub, unless you happen to enjoy doing grey quests for the sake of it.
The new dungeons were, I thought, for the most part OK. They were far better in the expansion’s initial release as heroics were made hard again - but this was quickly nerfed after people complained about the difficulty. They were turned back into AOE zerg fests that could be raced through.
I have no experience of the raids, as I never did any I know a lot of people didn’t enjoy the Dragonsoul, but I don’t know why.
PvP felt ‘off’ to me. But I cannot explain why, it just did. I heard this a lot back in the day. The new PvP Hub Tol’Barad was widely disliked and criticised. That said, some people say they prefer Cataclysm PvP.
Talent trees for all classes were truncated, with many of the flavour, or more situational talents removed as they were considered to be superfluous, because people who wished to optimise their spec for end game rarely put points into them.
Several more situational, or flavour spells and abilities for all classes were removed entirely for the same reason - they were not considered useful for end game.
