RNG-players-around me is a problem - it doesn’t even take into account players from the same guild or friend list (even bnet friends). I play on RP realms, players pool is smaller than Normal, so at least I have better chances to meet same players again and again.
But I don’t think you can look at sharding without LFG, because by itself it doesn’t have many problems, only with addition of LFG - all the bad stuff truly shines.
When I killed some players on an Assault, got a bounty and quite often - some player is very offended, but they don’t go for local/general chat, they go for easy-LFG near some WQ and hot drop me with RNG players appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing without any chance for revenge, or ever meeting them again - that’s not fun. Yeah, I can kill/troll/piss off that player again, but it still wasn’t fun or enjoyable.
Same, when you meet in local a few players, you all join together, proceeded with killing as a group, but in return even with more than enough enemies for a counter group - couple of them LFG drop you from a nearby WQ - also kinda sucks. Yeah, I can do the same, but the thing is - appeared out of nowhere, disappeared, and all that just a hollow meaningless experience.
That phasing anomaly place in Nazmir assault was fun for first 1-2 times, then it’s just annoying BS. But at least it doesn’t clear bounty/assassing buff, like water near tortollan/CoA WQs in Drustvar does. So annoying, about 40yd into the water and bye bye buff/bounty, so you stand there thinking is it worth it to chase that DK/Shaman/etc into the water… Similar problematic places in Voldun and Tiragarde.
But… there are also good things.
From sharding - only one - there is always someone to pew-pew at, well, at least much MUCH more often than not.
From LFG:
In any situation, when there is no one to call. Like, with only me online in Community/Friendlist, no willing Allies in local, and me with a bounty on my head thinking it’s a good idea to go in Drustvar with CtA quest in it, solo… hehe
Group to hunt me was very quick, so with flying from FP to FP evading them, the only group I found was LFG from normal realms on our RP shard - and it was fun, we fought, killed, died, killed more - awesome! Even if after that they disappeared into nothingness - we still talked, used strategies, etc, and played together long enough for it to be meaningful.
Just like all those raids to protect/loot bounties and/or counter-camp FPs in 8.0 - that was really fun, again, probably because players were playing together for more than just quest/WQ.
Or when you just want to snowball-stomp everything in your way, but not many in local want to do the same…
So in the end (maybe as a summary of all surveys):
To me, it looks like, current War Mode/WPvP is chaotic (as it should be), but it’s also quite scripted (WQs, Assaults, new objectives…), and because of “sharding-RNG-player-meaningless” way to much - it’s holding on those scripted elements to provide incentives for WPvP to happen.
Sandbox should provide tools, without hand holding or “go there do that” scripting. Just tools for players, who are playing in that sandbox - to build their own sand castles so to say - if players want to hunt, they should be able to, if they want rivalries - just as much, etc.
Current approach is more of “here we built sand castles for you - go play”. Curated experience and sandbox do not mix together well, they are way to opposite for it. I don’t mean that WPvP objectives are bad, not at all - they are great, but only when there are players for meaningful interactions around you, in a MMO.
I think, all off the good things could still be there, without all of the bad things, if system similar to that was implemented - [Suggestion] Use Layering from Classic to improve Sharding
Just look at Classic WPvP videos from current Beta - chaos and fun, because players around you mean more than “appeared/disappeared” - with that you have community and that community can create WPvP objectives on the fly, again just look at videos from current beta.
When you have that - scripted things, like Assaults & Towers, will be additional tools for organization and fun, and not main attraction as looks like they are designed to be in modern WoW.
Blizzard probably thought that something like that would happen with Communities, but unfortunately, even here they underestimated a power of RNG - I don’t see it’s working, it’s way to inconsistent for anything meaningful to happen naturally, and it requires way too much effort to even try to make it happen.
Plus make Bounty/Assassin buff more persistent, so you couldn’t drop it by phasing/queue/porting/etc. Because it’s so flimsy right now that you can drop it even by going in current content zones like Darkshore/Arathi…