wow What the Community Thinks About Shadowlands 7 Weeks After Launch

[Stan 5,018]

Shadowlands has been out for almost 2 months, so we are looking at various player opinions to find out if it's still fun to play and what bothers them the most.

Some players still enjoy the game but can't find an alt to enjoy. The "damage window" design of certain classes can be boring, and many players despise the unskippable Maw intro.

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Others are having trouble finishing everything due to time constraints, and there's only so much content they can complete each week.

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Xiadz and others enjoy playing the game because they do not feel forced to play, as there is no mandatory farm, contrary to BfA.

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Little-Beatrice thinks Castle Nathria and Torghast are fun, but the latter takes too much time to finish. The player is also not really fond of the new "less loot" philosophy. It doesn't feel rewarding to get 35 Anima from Mythic+ and raiding, especially if you try hard playing a tank/healer and only get 1 piece of loot after 3-4 dungeons.

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LullabyGaming thinks the game is currently in the best state it has been since ever with very little mandatory stuff to do. Many players have problems with the overall slower pace of earning gear, but it's because they were used to getting loot from every corner in BfA. The only downside, in their opinion, is the Mission Table.

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Rucati thinks the expansion is good but finds Torghast too tedious and not alt-friendly. The amount of Honor needed to upgrade gear is also too high, according to the player.

On the other hand, they find Arenas and the Covenant system fun, along with dungeons.

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Forfai ranks Shadowlands above BfA but slightly below Legion. The downsides include no Great Vault loot that suits their gameplay, the Maw being too tiresome, Torghast becoming a chore, and more.

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Zombebe says Shadowlands is the most melee-unfriendly expansion Blizzard has ever released, probably referring to Mythic+ and the new affixes.

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RoboModeTrip considers Shadowlands the least alt-friendly expansion to date.

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DarkLavoine thinks writing is horrible and the narratives are not interesting. Mythic+ and the raid, however, are great, and so are Covenants.

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What do you think about Shadowlands so far?

Source: Reddit

[Macura 5]

I am mostly enjoying Shadowlands though not a huge fan of Torghast or The Maw. Game looks great. Don't really understand the mentality of "If I'm not the correct covenant then the spec is unplayable" but I suppose that's what many folks think about different aspects of wow. If you're not 100% perfectly setup to play that spec, why bother.

[Mishmish 65]

Overall a very good expansion, my biggest complaint is no pvp stat, covenants not being like talents and no catchup for torghast. Making pve and pvp geared intersect causes a lot of pointless problems, for no gain. Making the pvp gear rating gated, if the rating req is low, just doesn't make sense for pvp. 

Torghast not having catchup is self explanatory. Some of us have jobs, some of us have alts, we will miss soul ash weeeks and i dont think it needs to be punishing, just let us grind it some other week. 

Covenants were discussed a whole lot as well, they're not aeful but i would enjoy them more if i could switch them on the fly. 

But actual gameplay, content, classes etc, all very solid. Only MoP and Legion were better in my eyes. 

[Migol 425]

Overall good, but the Maw is a flop out of the gate and the "pick the covenant you like" is rubbish with the lack of balancing going on.

[DahFemur 14]

I played 5 week and it was enough , visualy one of the best but thats about it , almost everything else in my opinion feels like a mish mash of other xpac with bug and balancing problem , the raid and dungeon design are fun but not incredible either and the lore trope worry me a lot , its not immersive , and i won't even talk about pvp , to me its not worth the subs and time anymore.

[Llanryhian 2]

Not a fan at all. You never know what your doing. The quests lack vital information. Blizz touted the making of legendary armor then basically blocked it behind Enchanting and Inscription, then blocked Enchanting behind more eternal crystals which you cannot easily acquire and have been price gouged in the AH since day 1. Then further, made SL the least Alt friendly xpac to date.  Whoever dreamed up no mounts in the Maw should be banned from ever working in MMORPG's for being a sadist. I have enough expansions under my belt and read enough Beta testers critiques to see the Blizz ignored the lions share of them and put out a product that really shows a lack of fine turning and polishing. No one minds some grinding, but the amount of plain banging your head against a wall in this expansion is ludicrous.

[Swiftstyle 1]

Lame expansion. You feel so powerless on legacy raids, especially legion raids. I stopped playing this horrible xpac.

[Thejaargh 15]

I dont understand, I am in love with Shadowlands. Big difference from previous expansions is that i am barely touching raid/m+/pvp. Just world content and to be able to achiev reasonable ilvl (195 now) without raid/m+ is just sweet for my 40h workweek life. Normally I am pushing and pushing but shadowlands is just awesome outside in the world. + i can be godlike in thorgast.. sweet

Joining raid or m+ is getting harder and harder tbh with that rio *filtered*. Prob. the reason im not touching it

[Ragingwolf 286]

The daily Routine that I've been doing on just one Character:

-Covenant Calling

-Major Anima Quest Rewards via World Quests

-Maw Dailies/Weeklies

-Keys (2-5+ pending on group composition from Guild)

*This doesn't include the 2x I raid out of the week or doing Twisting Corridors in Torghast or farming the Layer 8's for Soul Ash on the normal wings.

The other two alts that I've basically vicariously been playing on here and there have been sticking and completing the Covenant story.  Not enough time in my schedule to repeat the same things that I do on my Main to get them equivalent caught up as well.  Mainly the Anima farming can be tedious at times.  Gearing alts is slow and mundane due to the lack of loot.  Even if I were to opt to upgrade the Covenant Gear it takes time due to the amount of Anima that is needed to upgrade it all.  Not to mention the time it takes being in flight to move from point A, B, Oribos, then to C, and D to complete said quest.

[Toky 36]

The travel system is ridiculous. you can go take a shower in the time it takes to travel from your covenant home to another covenant to do your callings. I know. I've done it. We need portals, not some ridiculous ride on a cloud serpent. It is not fun.

[Pandabuffel 152]

4 hours ago, Toky said:

The travel system is ridiculous. you can go take a shower in the time it takes to travel from your covenant home to another covenant to do your callings. I know. I've done it. We need portals, not some ridiculous ride on a cloud serpent. It is not fun.

At the very least I expected the level 3 teleporter in your covenant base to create a portal to a major point in every zone, like the Theater of Pain or Hero's Rest. I think only to Oribos is just not cutting it and it also gives an extra motivation to get that one to level 3. The very first time I flew that serpent to a zone it was phenomenal, but I immediatly thought this would get boring/annoying real quick. And it indeed already is.

[Alexizonfire 7]

Having a blast despite the poor state of FDK.

The covenant system is fun and it makes your choices matter even if it is a shame that means you dont get to experience the others.

I absolutely love torghast, spend hours in there and dont even care.

Haven't played like this since early Legion and even then. I even started farming mats again which i haven't done since Wrath.

Also probably the fact that i found a guild that has a schedule that suits me helps. That and they are 100% free speech, curse like sailors, give each other sh*t and joke around making every raid just such a fun time.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Alexizonfire

[laeknir 0]

It feels empty of content and people, and therefore not very engaging or interesting. I thought the first playthrough up to choosing a covenant was good, but it's so entirely on the rails that a third time is hard. And the alternative is slower, not easy to understand in-game, and boring.  I dislike the covenants, I don't really feel like helping them from a story standpoint, I've never enjoyed PvPing, and pugging for dungeons is less interesting than BfA... with far less loot.

Torghast feels like a waste of time. It's a weird blend of Islands and Diablo, with nothing much as a reward.

Even worse, the lore reveals from youtubers and sites just convince me more and more that I don't really need to be paying for this. It's a disappointment in every way, and it's no longer even fun leveling alts through legacy content. Sad, honestly.

[Valhalen 1,484]

I'd say I'm near the end of my "honeymoon phase". I'm still enjoying the game more or less, but there are some things that are bothering me.

The daily activities are starting to get tiring, and the fact that Anima looting doesn't scale with the Adventure Level from the Command Mission Table is very troublesome, as you need to grind even more for Anima to send followers to missions.

Mythic+ is fun, and most of the dungeons are fun (save for Plaguefall, the Underrot of Shadowlands), but the drop rate is abysmal. I agree with princetacotuesday there. Gearing a healer is very hard, specially since for some reasons there is a lot of gear with Versatility in this expansion. I hope they bring back the Emblem system and Tier Sets from old expansions, which gave you a long-term goal: collect Emblems dropped from bosses and buy your set for a powerspike.

Castle Nathria is a pretty cool dungeon, but I feel that the bosses are very overtuned, and it is too damn long. I honestly don't get why Blizzard loves to make raids that take 5 hours to complete, with a bunch of trash between bosses. I miss stuff like Vault of Archavon, where you have a small arena, kill the bosses, get the loot, all in around 1 hour or less.

I actually enjoy Torghast a lot, and it is probably my favorite part of the expansion so far. The whole deal with the Anima powers adds some really interesting gameplay mechanics and allows developers to go wild with ideas that they can't really implement in the main game (but some few they could, but with not as powerful effects). But my gripe is that you can't log out while inside Torghast; if you do, your run is over. This is specially troublesome at the Twisting Corridors. As an adult with little time to play, this is very frustrating.

My final point is that I feel that healers are very undertuned in this expansion, and it boils my blood that hybrid classes can pull higher burst healing in DPS spc than the actual healer specs. Healers really haven't been the same since Wrath of the Lich King, and I keep hoping one day they return to the former glory.

[Whiterhino 31]

After 16 years of playing I think I'm quitting. Not just because of game related issues, but I'm one of the 40+ hours a week adults with a family now and just cant enjoy the constant catch-up and grind to stay on par with other people. With the personals aside, I also cant stand supporting the company how it takes insanely long / if at all to fix huge bugs and balancing issues. Just not for me anymore. So its a mix of the state of the game/company and personal reasons.

[Libraridan 36]

It keeps me coming back, and the only time I feel underpowered is when I see other players burn through quests like Disloyal Denizens when I skip the elite mobs unless I am in a group. And here's a secret; I haven't run Torghast on any alt past the intro quest on one (I currently have 7 60s). The Maw is a "hold your nose and get those weekly lost souls."

Perhaps more than any other expansion, this one needs an Instruction Manual, or at least an org chart. There are so many different things to do and to keep track of and currencies to pay attention to.

The upside is that there is so much to do. The downside is that it's easy to get bogged down. Pro Tip: Just play one character.

 

 

[Rodoeht 0]

"frost dk is completely fine"

[Kyrshin 2]

Overall, I think Shadowlands is great. Definitely the best core game experience that World of Warcraft has had in a very long time. There are a couple glaring issues, however, that I personally see.

• Less Loot, Same Timeframe. One problem that I foresee is the fact that Blizzard operates on a "limited time only" paradigm when it comes to PvP rewards and M+ rewards; to a lesser extent, Ahead of the Curve is like this too, but Ahead of the Curve is bragging rights this tier so this isn't as big an issue. But in regards to things like the Sinlord Title, the M+ Death Elemental mount, and the Sinful Gladiator elite set, giving less lot means that players have less of an opportunity to earn the cool reward because as far as we know, the amount of time in the Season isn't changing. Personally, I think Shadowlands needs to do away with limited-time rewards entirely. I'm fine if things become rare (such as guaranteed mounts becoming rare drops in Mythic Raids) or if they get changed so they have limited windows of availability (such as Mage Tower only being available during a theoretical Legion Timewalking week), but I think that a modern game that wants to engage new players can't be constantly saying, "Sorry, you weren't playing when that was a thing, so it's gone forever." (For example, I have a friend who really wants to do the Flame world boss on the Timeless Isle, but he can't because he wasn't playing for Mists of Pandaria.)
• Alt Grind. To me, the covenant sanctums feel really grind-heavy, especially once we start talking about, "Fill your anime reservoir to near-full and spend it all on a single set of gear." I wish that covenant sanctum rewards were account wide, so if I unlocked the Mushroom Network on my Ardenweald Warrior, all my Ardenweald characters would have those systems automatically too.
• Managing Expectations. Blizzard did NOT do a great job managing expectations for how the end game systems will work. Like, they haven't told us if their intent is that we spend the rest of the expansion earning anima and spending it on the cosmetic rewards they have here, or if they're going to add new ones regularly and we're going to have to work our tails off now to get them.
• Class Imbalance. I, personally, am still REALLY salty that Ion had the gal to get up on stage at BlizzCon, tell the audience that Shadowlands would have no new class so they could refine the classes WoW already has, and from that all we got was a redesign of Shadow Priest, significant changes to Elemental that were reversed, significant changes to Enhancement that don't appear to have made much of a difference for the spec, and new talent design for Retribution paladins and a few others. Instead, we got "class design" in the form of heavy emphasis on four different borrowed power systems, and at the end of the day those systems have very little actual choice; the legendaries and conduits that are BIS for every class and spec are miles ahead of all the other options, so why bother making the options in the first place? More than during any other expansion, I feel that Blizzard's "we only make major class changes / redesigns between expansions" rule has got to go, because now if they're going to spend all that time doing borrowed power systems, when WILL classes get fixed? Once every four years? That's unacceptable.