I don’t get how is this expansion harder than previous ones.
I find the raid pretty well balanced for casuals. I only raid twice a week with no pressure to do mm+ on the guildies and everyone enjoys it and finds the content to be well balanced.
Concerning borrowed powers, I’m really not getting the frustration. First this is not the 3rd exp to have some. Every single expansion has some. They’re called raid sets, WoD perks, Artefact weapon, Glyphs, etc… This is expected for the gameplay to remain fresh and interesting.
Never loosing power would prevent us from getting more. How is this a good trade off?
Retail is for grinding gold so that you can play Classic WoW for free. Imagine having A: no flying everywhere, B: Quest areas filled with players, C: an actual leveling experience with challenging mobs and real level gaps.
D: Gear scarcity and much much better stat balance while leveling, tougher mobs. E: Fun classes with a ton of spells available by just hitting level 10, always having new spells to learn & look forward to learning because leveling is 10x more time consuming, literally.
What else can I say, Shadowlands has gloomy sadboy chores that give you no reason to do them other than more dresses for your wardrobe and Classic WoW is a complex eco-system brimming with life.
Classic WoW is the casual’s dream, it’s so much better in every sense just because the leveling carries that game & every level bracket has something interesting going on.
To understand the casual’s perspective, would you rather play Super Mario Bros on the game boy over and over by beating every level, or would you rather grind the same level over and over and over and over again in an effort to beat your score? (speedrunning)
That to me is the difference between classic wow & retail. Classic wow is 60 levels, retail is 6 levels, 1-6
It’s not harder than previous ones, they’re all similar in difficulty, a trend that started back in WoD.
Experience varies from person to person. Most people seem to think Nathria is overtuned.
Technically you’re absolutely right only that in practice it’s a lot different.
I mean compare tier set bonuses to a well timed convoke. Not even close imo.
And I don’t think the game is fresh and interesting because every expansion we have new OP stuff to play with.
Fresh and interesting to me is a good storyline, a good map, PvP balance, new class abilities and talents. Things that are actually integrated in the game and part of a class toolkit.
Overall I do enjoy Shadowlands, I think it’s fun. But I also understand it has issues and it could be much much better.
Completely irrelevant as Q4 mas hype/honeymoon phase. See what Q1 results bring.
Also further proof that only engagement rates matter aka timegating and chores. The big hammer will come soon enough. But i hope you enjoy doing pointless chores why players leave in swarms.
Just check how many people write about empty friendslists, oribos and dead guilds. This expansion is a huge failure in many ways.
I also wonder how bots fake their engagement rates as they are online 24/7 killing stuff. Must look good on paper when presenting it to the suits huh. Havent even talked about that problem yet or boosting. Another 2 huge issues growing substantially larger in SL which could alone could break the game already.
The truly scary thing is that they might already see the huge player drop off (in engagement aka not logging in) and think its only because of the loot disaster. But thats only a portion. Many will still stay away because this expansion is no warcraft anymore and has nothing besides raids, pvp, m+.
Only seen one of this. The Village. And i liked it. He does this weird Alfred Hitchcock thing and cameo’s in all his movies but you have to spot him as was not obvious in The Village.
We now have free to play accounts. We also have Classic - these guys at least pay, but they are playing a different game.
Most of all, this “best result in a decade” is on “engagement”. That’s not the number of unique players per month. That includes how often they login and how much time they spend. Yes, they got better at making people sit longer in their chairs, woohoo.
And for general perspective on MAUs, see this (they are declining):
The decline cannot be compared in the way some wants it. You can only assess their succes due to income and profit due to the fact that many Pays gametime with gold. You cannot not use subscribers to compare other than legion , if so you need to make a lot of reclassification in your comparisson data. I get that some dont like blizz and the game as it turn out for some, but due to the revenue and income it is clear that some does. Those who dont like it , it is fair to express an oppinion, but some of the anger keep one big question to me : why do you play if you hate blizz and the game so much?
I already said im not playing anymore, but would like to and therefore give feedback. Theres nothing undocumented about the fact that Q4 numbers are completely irrelevant due to hype phase. Even YOU should grasp that, no?
Also read the forums. Theres tons of people saying how bad it is, not having fun, guilds falling apart, friendlists being empty. And thats just the very small portion of people actually writing. Most are just quitting silently.
They are not irrelevant if you compare the same periods with same periods with other expansions. They wont tell you how fast players drop off, but they still indicate if the game was a succes before you get other numbers in next quarter that might tell another story. Based on the numbers we have atm there is only lne conclusion untill next time. When next time comes there might be some who said we need another quarter or another again. I really dont mind what happens in the next quarters, I still like the game. I dont defend the game, I defend what I beleive is facts and that be documented. Everything else should have a big dusclaimer on.
The TS and loads of other “I no like game, game bad, me still play, but game bad”.
Meanwhile Blizzard during the quarterly investor call:
World of Warcraft MAUs grew year-over-year for the sixth consecutive quarter.
World of Warcraft saw strong engagement across both the Classic and modern game modes throughout 2020
World of Warcraft full year franchise net bookings grew 40% year-over-year, reaching the highest level in nearly a decade.
Fourth quarter net bookings for World of Warcraft grew sharply year-over-year, driven by strong sales of the Shadowlands expansion, subscriber growth, and high participation in value added services
Guess who’s to blame for their own misery? And no, its not Blizzard…
Seriously though, I will never get people who buy goods and services that they dislike. Its like buying a coffeelike drink at your local Starbucks without liking that stuff, nor the brand and would rather be drinking a beer at your local bar. Why would anyone in their right mind do such a thing?
Still irrelevant as you need a time frame of minimum 3-6 months and SL had 2 months in Q4. I played everyday until christmas. Havent logged in since and my sub runs till june cause i made the mistake of buying 6 months.
Many come to the realisation now that this expansion doesnt offer much and has nothing to do with warcraft. Hence you will see a large drop off soon.
Also all the loot problems.
That line… it reminds me of something… Oh yeh! The “WoW is dying” profecy that has been touted a thousand million times, and somehow WoW has seen an increase in MAUs, sales and subscriber growth even during 1 of its worst expansions and during a content drought.
Wich kinda shows that WoW is either a zombie or a game that attracts bad prophets.
WoD a success? No. Quite the oposite.
But tell me, are you missing my point, or just ignoring the facts that it shows?
This seeing as it isn’t just MAUs, but also the amount of sales and subs.
And so what you are claiming about WoW has been claimed so many times, yet time and again WoW shows its doing great and is anything but dying.
Numbers should be way up at the moment, with a global pandemic going on this means many more people are at home and have more time, even if you are working from home that means no commute which gives more time available for the game.
Schools and colleges are closed or on short time therefore the game should be thriving, however it doesn’t seem to be.
I am in a few guilds on different servers and factions all of which are losing numbers or have folded. Communities that were maxxed out are now half full. I know that is only a tiny fraction of the player base but the general consensus as far as I can see it is one of disappointment and apathy towards the game in its current state. We should still be in the honeymoon period but it seems we are anything but.
I am not thinking of leaving as I have played since launch although I do think the game needs something more. Torghast was hyped in alpha and beta as the best thing going but has proved to be a huge failure in its current form, the fact that there is even a discussion as to whether it is worse than islands says it all really.
The word is extremely fuzzy. Casual - can have 101 meanings and interpretations. I raid mythic(sort of), run m+ as high as I can…yet I still consider myself a filthy casual since I dont have CE or rio 1.5k or something
Well everyone has a different way of fun but not all of us are having fun the same way being competitive i have burned out of that style of play since i was 18 and the way I have fun now is exploring and doing some casual pve with my guild leveling alts and catching up to them as much as I can it’s hard since 0% loot drops but that’s my fun.
