Thinking of returning to BFA, should I?

Community General Discussion
1

Hi folks!

First of all, I’m not trying to bash either classic of retail in this thread.

I have played WoW retail for the last time in Legion, which to be honest was pretty fun but eventually got boring and caused me to quit the game for some time.
When classic released I gave the game another try and I was hooked. I slowly felt that special WoW feeling growing back that I once had when I first started the game.

Fast forward two weeks later and while I’m still having a good time, the slow pace and less quality of life features in classic start to annoy me slightly. I don’t have as much time on my hands as I used to have, and spending hours to do a single quest because people keep tagging mobs away does get pretty frustrating at times.

This caused me to wonder if I should give bfa a try. Is it seriously as bad as people claim it to be? I’m a pretty casual player and I like grinding to some extend, the azurite grinding actually doesn’t sound that bad to me. And I have always had a love for grinding reputations and collecting mount/toys.

Any input will be greatly appreciated!

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To give you an idea, the main issues in 8.2 are class design (still above classic tho), huge grind which makes it really hard to play multiple toons at the same level than your main, rep grind being held back by some daily / weekly content, RNG in Gear acquisition and too much catchup gear which makes every major patch a soft reset. (At least if you look for complains that’s what you’ll read most of the time)

Oh yeah and the BFA story, but it shouldn’t matter that much.

Unless something really bothers you from my list above I’d say just give it a try. If you have a 110 you’ll reach max lvl in 10h, then will most likely Gear through WQ until 370ilvl and then reach Nazjatar where you’ll find some decent Gear to start doing the content.

As usual doing so with a Guild will be better but you can pretty much Gear solo until the current content (Nazjatar, Azshara Eternal palace raid, M+ and Mechagon)

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It sounds like you’re open to the idea already. BFA is supposedly bad but everyone has different tastes. Even if most people dislike something it doesn’t mean you automatically would too. I say give it a shot. You might like it. And if not, you got Classic.

Not much can be done about the slow pace aside from perhaps joining a very active and social guild, but maybe have a look at some add-ons for some QoL.

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Im coming from the same place as you. Quit during legion and got back just before 8.2. Been having a great time, however I started raiding mythic and now thats the only thing i find enjoyable. Im totally burnt out on WQs farming the neck lvl. Im burnt out on pearlfarming in Naz for bentic gear. And mythic+ gear need to titanforge + socket to even be considered an upgrade so I cant be bothered doing more than 1 dung per week.

But for the first few months it was pretty great until all the flawed loot systems started to shine through and the fact that game got alot of trash content like WQs that are forced down your throat. Now I show up for raid nights and nothing more.

Not sure if casual means you are not interesting in raiding, because if you are not I dont really see much else that are quality content.

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Depends on which people you talk about. If you talk about the people who say its worse than WoD, where you spent most of your time sitting in the garrison and sent out troopers on gold missions, then no, not as bad. If you mean the people who think it’s worse then Legion then yeah, it’s true.

I mean, it’s pretty much Legion just with a much less appealing system instead of the artifact weapon system.

All you need to know about it is that most of the time you will grind your neck level to be able to use higher ilvl azerite gear while only farming them to get the exact same azerite traits you had on the previous one. The neck piece is like the artifact weapon but without the enjoyable trait system. I know it doesn’t sound exciting, and that’s because its not, its pretty boring. In 8.2 they added the azerite essences and those are pretty fun to use at least. Not really fun to farm the higher levels of those essences though.

But other than that, it still has mythic+, which i enjoy more in this expansion than i did in Legion. It still has world quests, the raids are good as usual, enjoyable boss fights. They introduced island expeditions and warfronts.

Both of those get old really fast sadly. Island expedition has a bar, and you can fill it by doing it on different difficulties, normal, heroic, mythic and pvp mode. If you fill your bar you will get xy amount of azerite and then you don’t have a reason to do it until the next reset, unless you want the weapon transmogs from them. Warfront is a pvp simulator while you are in a pve scenario, capture a few points, push back the opposite faction, kill the boss, you win, turn in the quest, get your heroic raid gear and then you don’t have a reason to do it again for 2~ weeks.

So, if you like raiding, mythic+ and doing world quests so much that you think it will keep you playing (and you feel like that you can tolerate the boring azerite grind) then try it out, because there is nothing else relevant to do currently. Having a good guild can help a lot though.

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If you’re just planning on playing bfa for the first time ever, you’ll be quite busy for a long while.

The most annoying part are the daily grinds, but let’s face it. A lot of things are daily grinds in this game. Repetitive or non repetitive.

It will take a month or two before being burnt out by the general grindy part of the game. But the fun parts, will remain fun for longer. So, i guess it’s up to you to decide.

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Dont do it, i played til i got all that i want from it, forced myself to do so bcs of a irl friend, then quit, had no more games to play and i said fine il come back just to lvl allied races for heritage, and i cant, this expansion has such a bad stench for me that i cant even lvl alts in it, def the worst expansion ever.
IMO!!!

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It’s alt and causal unfriendly. Due to months of time gated grind or World quest trackers and the infamous Rio - So, no invites for Mythic and Raids ( excluding LFR )

The classes are not fun compared to legion, The story sucks, The Azerite necklace are trash and the contents for BFA are boring…

I advice, you to wait for 9.0. It seems that BFA is getting Axed like WoD.

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BfA is essentially Legion 2.0. Whatever bored you in Legion will bore you in BfA. But before that happens, you will play for a while. I think you should give it a try if you are open to it already. When you get bored, Classic will still be there for you.

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BfA is below quality of what you expect from Blizzard team. A lot of unused opportunities and very weak story combined with horrendous state of PvP.

It is not a bad expansion when you compare with some other games, and their expansions, but the fact Blizzard can and has done better for that money - this is what and why some people call BfA bad.

It is still enjoyable to play trough and look into, but its, in my opinion, not best wow era I’ve been.

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I think the good thing about the way they’ve implemented it is, it’s quite easy to come back to BfA, and then when you need a break, you can continue levelling on Classic, which feels like a completely different experience.

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If you (I mean the OP) are looking to keep busy BfA would be for you. Since Legion was your last expansion there is quite a bit of catching up if you want to unlock flying. You have 1 of 2 story quest lines (Alliance and Horde) to complete as well as the war campaign that goes with it. After that it’s off to Nazjatar and Mechagon and a very nice gear catch up on Naztajar. Then a lot of rep grind and flying is done. All in all BfA should keep you busy for at least a month or two or a little longer if you decide to do both story quest lines.

The Nazjatar gear catch up works very well on newly leveled alts. You can gear a freshly leveled alt with ilevel 270-280 to ilevel 375+ in the few opening quests of Nazjatar. First they give you a 370 level something and if you are class is lucky like the hunter it’s a weapon. Then after a few more quests you have enough manapearls to buy a full set of 385 benthic gear from the vendor that you can level up to 420+ using nothing else but manapearls.

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Sry, but not even close, the only thing it has in common is the same hamster wheel- Ap farm, except that Legion outshines this hot garbage by far.

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Ignore a sentence like this OP this is just one persons opinion there are a few clues to 8.3 will occur so this individual is just wishful thinking.
Highly likely you’d have 12 months of nothing otherwise.

As the more rational players suggest you are partially open to it you do have a fair bit to do from 110-120 , Mythic + , Three Raids, grinding achievements, war campaign which will be continued with Wednesday 8.2.5 patch.
you may feel all caught up quite quickly and take a break again.

I’d say try it if you struggle there is always classic and Blizzcon is 5 weeks away .

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BFA in its current state and when the new patch hits tomorrow… is quite a bit better than it was at launch. There’s enough things to do now and the war story is ending finally. It’s a good time to come back and give it a go.

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No longer the case, was fixed in 8.2

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It’s worth doing for the story for sure to make sure you understand what has happened to lead us into the next expansion.

After that if you were bored in Legion you will be surely bored with BFA once you’ve done that

I suggest you sub for 6 months, play through the expansion ignoring the grinds and then unsub until 9.0 judging what you have said in the OP.

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My advice would be just give it a try!

I attempted to come back for the first time since December last year and in all fairness, i’m thoroughly addicted to classic just now. However i’d read that warriors stances were removed in BFA and I thought i’d test one out. I honestly couldn’t get passed level 7 i think, I felt like some kind of marvel superhero and so I logged out. However I do intend to give it another go!

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As long as you are subbed you should definetly give it a try. You won’t lose anything except time (I don’t personally think you will). BFA is more daily game (login, do few quick activities and you can logout).

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OP definitely give it a try, worst case scenario just play Classic or another game, it doesn’t really matter as long as you enjoy it.