No it wasn’t, sure boosting was always a thing but never on this scale. Tentacular multi realm organisation funneling billions of gold (which pinkie swear isn’t sold off for real money), flooding /2 in a litteral wall of constant, undending WTS BOOST NOVA GALLYWIX ULTRA RARE SPECIAL OFFER FULL CLEAR MYTHIC AND A PONEY.
Logging in felt like being assaulted like pop up ads trying to sell you a a revolutionnary vaccum cleaner, or claiming the presence of attractive singles in your area. It made the whole game feel like a cheap late 2000 website.
And I get it, a lot of people get boosted. Maybe your really want a mount, or haven’t played for a while and want to catch up. But this was a whole new level, we had people just swipping a credit card for a few tokens and then being carried through the most challenging part of the game.
And I am sorry, but that’s just pay to win with extra steps. It completly invalidate the sense of progression, having stuff be hard to get gives them value. Nowdays if I see someone sitting on a mythic raiding mount I don’t even bat an eye, he might aswell be boosted. Before I would stop and look at it, and I knew the guy meant business, and it felt motivating to keep trying to get better so that one day I too could flex in front of the auction house (or run in circle in Oribos, please add an auction house to it blizz).
Not to mention the direct impact on the regular player experience, want to run a m+ ? Well know you have no idea what a character’s ilvl or IO means, they might aswell be with . Want to pvp and climb the ladder ? What’s that ? A fair fight you say ? Oh my sweet summer child, here take two full decked out multi glad at 1400. Have fun. Want a good economy ? Well with those billions and billions of gold floating around I don’t think we can call even call it inflation anymore.
Boosting in it’s current iteration brought NOTHING good to the game, and it’s removing was long overdue.
Boosting was the only way non-esports professionals could get access to half decent gear locked behind content that just gets more and more demanding on time and skill. You want rid of boosting, fine, but do you think that every way a casual used to be able to get decent gear should have been removed from the game as well, which is the now the case?
It’s funny how lazy people blame their inability to reach goals on being “casual”. I’ve seen several terrible players become better at their class and being able to do weekly M+ 10-15 and Heroic raids without problems.
Heck I was a dogcrap healer when I started healing for the first time ever in BFA but eventually got skilled enough to run Mythic raids, eventually got into a good enough guild to clear Ny’alotha on Mythic.
I get why you would get a last minute boost if you missed out on an expansion or were on a hiatus for whatever reason and would like to get that AoTC mount before it’s gone, but any other type of boost is just pure laziness.
and those people are wrong, it was never like that. Boosting existed yes, but not even close to this. I thought goldspammers were even less annoying, and that says alot.
I’m not an e-sports professional by any means. I spend 1-2 nights pr week doing a couple of keys with friends and I have no issues doing at least a weekly 15 on multiple tanks. If I have an undergeared character I simply do a lower key until their gear improves. One of the guys I play with has a wife and a newborn kid. Even he has found the time to fit in a few hours pr week.
If you don’t have the time or skill to do keystones or raids, why should you be entitled to the same rewards as the players who do? Should I just demand full elite PvP gear even if don’t have the skill to get it? Or maybe put in a complaint at my gym because I don’t have the same physique as the guy who goes there 6 days a week for 10 years?
I’m not against boosting but I’m glad the spam from the boosting services is gone.
It was absolutely awful for the game and anyone who isn’t happy to see the back of it obviously hates WoW and wants it to die. Brilliant change, should’ve happened years ago.
Its not about getting rid of boosting, its getting rid of boosting being front and centre, removing it from sight. It will always happen, its a small step, now, Blizz sees how it plays out.
I’m as casual as they come, but acting like there is no progression or content for us? Bull.
M+ which you can comfortably work upto 15’s with very little time investment.
A myriad of world content if that is solely your thing. Just don’t complain you don’t get the best gear.
LFR & Normal raiding. Whilst LFR I agree is a bit of a joke in terms of reward, so is the challenge.
It’s not obscenely difficult to make a normal group or join one.
PvP is probably the only territory where by if you don’t have a lot of knowledge prior, you’re going to have a hard time getting gear. But even still, you have BG’s, you then have 1k rated armour now, which has seen me to 1.2/1.4 and I’m bad.
IF boosting was your only method of achieving heroic or mythic or whatever. Then in my honest opinion - you don’t deserve it in the first place.
“I don’t have the time” tough t!tty. As an adult we all have the ability to weigh pros and cons, stop expecting an entire game to shift around you.
“Boosting meant I could do the content without the lengthy time investment of getting a group together and pushing in the evening” read above.
How can you call yourself profesional when you pay someone to give you gear
15 now is basically 10 from BFA
it’s the same EASY weekly gear
blizzard is not stupid they TUNED the 15 keys so everyone who can use their brain and know how to press their keys in right order can beat it
You don’t even need to do 10m+ every week
do it like BFA
1 m+ 15 and you will rock 252 ilvl like a TRU mythic champion
Of course it was not like that because these communities started doing this in BFA i think
because i remember in legion there were people selling but it was more of a this guild is selling this this group of people is selling m+
i don’t remember seeing communities like that in legion
but i started seeing this in BFA but i’m not sure if it was begining mid or late BFA
with 
. Want to pvp and climb the ladder ? What’s that ? A fair fight you say ? Oh my sweet summer child, here take two full decked out multi glad at 1400. Have fun. Want a good economy ? Well with those billions and billions of gold floating around I don’t think we can call even call it inflation anymore.
