9.1 Torghast - Why Make It More Annoying?

[@Towelietowel]

"Is that all this is? Have you made this worse so you can sell us on a talent tree that makes it less annoying?" You already know the answer, Mike. We all do.

[@UltimateGamerCC]

well Torghast IS a Roguelike experience, and Roguelikes are always rough at the start.

[@_Lis25]

Darkest Dungeon in nutshell

[@nhagan001]

Oh no no. Darkest Dungeon was always an RNGfest. 95% accuracy doesn’t mean shit in that game. The game decides you hit or you don’t. Just like when you reach peak insanity, and a negative perk is chosen 75% of the time over a positive, and your entire run is scuffed because your healer is insane and would rather bash an ally than heal the party. We’re nowhere near as bad as Darkest Dungeon.... But we are taking the first steps on the wagon to the estate.

[@jong.7944]

I saw that “Adamantum Vaults” pop up as a secret bonus area and for a second I thought... wow, did they bring back like that bonus treasure area from Isle of Thunder as a reward for 4 star completion? And of course, no... it’s just another layer of annoyance...

[@Saaunn]

thats it, yeah. They didn't know how to make the time investment for Torghast rewarding, so rather than coming up with something rewarding they made torghast unbearable and decided "the reward is making it not annoying again"

[@thenoodelman]

I think we need to accept that the devs have a different idea of fun than we do

[@Durgenheim]

I strongly doubt they even know what "fun" is.

[@Brekner]

Can't argue with that.

[@iweartophots]

I think they have conflated difficult and annoyance. So often it seems, at least outside of raids, their version of adding difficulty is just adding in annoyances. Then when you are doing something that isn't particularly difficult, like Preach doing this run, it is still going to be annoying. I don't think they know how to make difficult non-raid content anymore.

[@nuggsy7085]

In that case I wish they’d accept that and just build/design for their players, the people paying to keep the game running. Blizzard needs to stop with the “We think/want/feel” and just listen a LITTLE more. Not to every little thing, but at least on the things a large amount of players seemingly agree on.

[@MrOPD]

Blizzard have obviously stumbled upon Plankton's lyrics of the FUN song - quick, someone send them Spongebob's version.

[@KarmaPaym3ntPlan]

Meaningfully choosing to watch this

[@Flacopro40]

LMAO This comment is underappreciated

[@Flacopro40]

Can I meaningfully choose to like other comments AND this one?

[@Sam-es2gf]

@@Flacopro40 No. And don't even think about liking this one.

[@Fleato]

And I will meaningfully choose to do as little tourghast as possible.

[@facetentacles6528]

Frankly, that’s a skill issue.

[@Fourside__]

"Some people probably think were out of touch" Yes Ion, yes we do

[@Kelenae]

When preach is holding back. You know it is not good.

[@buscava]

Yah goddam. More to the point, he's this angry AND that's holding back. Big yikes lol

[@jandolezel2585]

@@vornamenachname6282 watch latest drama time

[@butterflysrage]

I'd love a "preach just unloads" videos.

[@naotembiscoito27]

When Preach is holding back. You know it IS good.

[@cas6382]

"This is my 9th Torghast run today" That's kinda gross

[@Heero_effect]

Idk how he does it. I’m uninterested after one floor

[@cas6382]

@@Heero_effect I used to moderately enjoy it but after I did all the Twisting Corridors for the mount it completely killed my enthusiasm to go in there since it was such a grueling experience that made me dislike the whole thing far more overall. I get that it's supposed to be the whole point of that part of the system but it was way overboard and failing after almost 2 hours hurts your overall enjoyment of the system. Also I think it was like 2 weeks later that they announced you could use any mount in the Maw which kinda made it feel pointless even though it's a cool mount ngl

[@sagacity1071]

@@Heero_effect it's his job. He hurts his soul so we dont have to :)

[@GbrBy]

@@cas6382 That's not account level

[@sr7olsniper]

@@cas6382 YOu know what the worst part of TC is? The fact that we did it for the mount only for it to be meaningless in 9.1 Literally the shittiest content I have ever done in WoW bar none.

[@dylanfarris7647]

"I have so much hope for what Torghast could be" "I have so much hope for what Islands could be" "I have so much hope for what Warfronts could be" Some day Preach will learn to have no expectations lol

[@Ellierienna]

Think it’s even worse for Torghast because it actually was great at one point, but only those who played the beta got to experience that.

[@gscgold]

So true

[@Shyranelch]

Unfortunately Preach and his team realized that long time ago, they only did not give up hope until just now by quitting covering WoW altogether ...

[@SupachargedGaming]

I don't think any of us are happy, Preach.

[@acousticnoisemachine]

Torghast feels like Blizz trying to fit a square peg in a round whole. You nailed it when you compared it to Hades. Blizz is taking design without understanding why the design works in those other games and just sort of slapping it into their game. Diablo 3 content is satisfying because you're literally mowing through hundreds of enemies you can insta-kill with an AOE. It doesn't stop to make you do a puzzle or hold the animation while you break open containers. The containers break during the course of natural combat because you're a moving hurricane of minion death followed by the brief speed bump of an elite or boss. Torghast, on the flip side, takes forever to traverse through, even if you're spending your powers on speed upgrades. The rooms and halls are built for raids and it ends up feeling just as slow and empty as when you solo old dungeon content at max level. Diablo 3 runs take minutes. Torghast runs can take half an hour. The result is that you can lose time running Diablo content because of the "sure, I got time for one more" factor. This also applies to Hades. It may seem like a long dungeon, they're not actually that long. The Hades speed run records? Around 7 minutes. Torghast? Around 13. Nearly twice as long. Then you throw in the inherent choice in Hades about which direction to go and you can't go back. The result is a meaningful choice. Choosing a path in Torghast just means backtracking to the other path to get more power so you can breeze past the boss. I know it's always a 'Monday morning quarterback' situation, but I don't understand how people can try to borrow mechanics, but not spend the brain bandwidth to consider what makes those systems work.

[@GOWxSnIpRzZx]

Torghast runs don't feel like they take half an hour, they feel like an absolute eternity. Very daunting when weekly reset comes along and soul ash is needed for an important system like legendaries.

[@Durgenheim]

This game is now a Frankenstein's Monster of Diablo 3 and mobile game elements with whatever other watered-down, flavor of the month derivative Blizzard wants to cram into it to keep it "fresh". There's just nothing unique, boundary-pushing, or even fun left anymore.

[@kyrias9391]

So well said !

[@daniellucas5522]

Torghast speed run records are 4 minutes.

[@Abundy]

@@daniellucas5522 Also very class dependent how fast you can be

[@zacm1488]

I wish the interview had taken place after this video.

[@LV426Survivor]

I’m just speculating but it’s possible he intentionally delayed PTR updates like this until after the interview so he wouldn’t have to comment on them.

[@Valvad0ss]

@@LV426Survivor facts. This is completely within his knowledge to be able to do so you HAVE to ask the question.

[@ChinnuWoW]

This happens every time. Ion’s interviews always happens right before they add dumb shit.

[@pmkaboo2446]

why? the changes seem to go hand in hand with what he said in the interview.

[@ChinnuWoW]

@@pmkaboo2446 It was before he was able to test them tho

[@Taalanos]

Nice to see the people responsible for Diablo III at launch were promoted to create WoW content

[@electricmayhem8147]

git diablo outta my warcraft goddammit!!!

[@ImLegendaryMike]

Maybe it wasn't a promotion

[@BellularGaming]

Wahooooooooooo AHHHHHHHHHHHHHWHYYYY

[@3lit3gn0m3]

Time for fun fun fuuuuuUUUUUU!!!

[@biffington]

S Y S T E M S

[@lukeluckynblue1873]

@@Banks698 During BFA i was a little hater of classic but man o man ..when they will go this way forward i will rather play TBC all day long than this becuase THEY for FUKIN SAKE don't know what they are doing with the game..they lost the TOUCH and changed wow into this monstrosity...from classes not fun to torgast being annoying to open world bein annoying where everymob is TP behind me every mob is dazed me every fukinzone is build so that i need flyin but i dont have it for 1 years of this expansion...MAN im so angry .. when i think about this stuff

[@kremaytux4072]

@@series9234 nono they're coming for that too. They're adding store mounts soon lul

[@VeeDubBeetle]

@@kremaytux4072 oh no not the easily ignoreable cash shop mountarinos

[@Sharkofspace]

Ion really seemed hung up on people thinking Torghast was too easy. That would explain these changes, but that really wasn't ever the problem to begin with...

[@ic3t3ap3ach]

yep it was just straight forward bad gameplay. always the same shit run nothing special. every run was start from zero without progression.

[@UltimateGamerCC]

isnt it though? a lot of feedback did imply that it was boring on account of being too easy.

[@oplawlz]

@@UltimateGamerCC But it's honestly the community manager and developers jobs to interpret the real issues.

[@shaharpinhas5495]

@@UltimateGamerCC i got bored with torghast as a balance druid real fast because you just dont get any good powers, the best powers are just flat stats upgrades or some really really dumb powers for rotations the make you change forms all the time which sounds intresting on paper but in the end was just annoying more then anything

[@B-...]

Ion is rarely hung up on what players think. The devs live in their own world.

[@punker2534]

Public "Well atleast Torghast couldn't be any more frustrating..." Blizz "Hold my beer"

[@free29ct]

All they had to do was add cosmetic rewards... like Mage Tower or islands expedition transmogs... I don't want a Horrific Visions 2.0 :( They literally added more systems to Torghast rather than rewards...

[@NerdlySquared]

The worst part is they seem to genuinely think the system is the reward.

[@free29ct]

@@NerdlySquared I just don't get it they spend all this time and energy coming up with these convoluted systems to make the run "fun". You know what's "fun"? Grinding Torghast to get a reward. Cool mounts or weapon transmog, or druid skin :/

[@ZeroiusProduction]

It's okay, for the next +2 years with this you'll love it, just wait! *probably what blizzard is thinking*

[@free29ct]

@@evildarc0 Yeah I have finally gave up farming anima, I am a casual player but I just cant do boring content for cosmetics. I liked Legion where you just had to do achievements to unlock artifact tints. Like one was to do 30 legion dungeons. Easy. In Shadowlands I have to farm 10,000 anima, hard pass...

[@electricmayhem8147]

@@free29ct exactly, like what color do you want your death and decay to be, do you want your druid served up with sparkles or spray paint, not this incredibly locked system of uncoolness.

[@reinaldons]

"Let's put two things that players hate most in the game together and see what happens." - Blizzard 2021

[@damonrojas83]

I'm done, if this and Korthia are what they're shaping up to be i won't bother... To anyone still clutching their memories of WoW's good times, i've got over it, this is what the game has come down to: 1- Make it harder for below average players 2- Make it more tedious for collectors and completionists 3- Make it more frustrating and disappointing to high end players (either raiders, PvPers or m+) 4- Make it grindier and chore-ier for anyone who wants to be top notch with their characters Basically WoW is aimed for competitiveness, i feel they're telling me "if you want to have fun, go somewhere else!!!"

[@sr7olsniper]

and THIS is how we get our second coming of the "Cynical Brit"

[@BarbaricProtector]

Preach should start an podcast called "Ion Plz"

[@Kelio22]

"WTF Blizz"

[@Kelio22]

ok im leaving

[@JS310]

Oh my days what would the great Biscuit think of all this

[@sr7olsniper]

@@JS310 yeah, we lost a good man

[@NickMK]

You know what gamers love? Being "tormented"

[@ninjaman0003]

unironically we do but only when we ask for it! that's why games like dark souls exist. wow was never meant to try to be dark souls...

[@s0515033]

It's not supposed to be easy. Being easy made it worse. For content to be meaningful, it needs to have challenges and hurdles to overcome.

[@OmegaSoypreme]

@@s0515033 I don't play games for meaning. I play them for fun.

[@kevinwestermann1001]

@@s0515033 Challenges and hurdles don't make content meaningful. Rewards do. And Torghast never had that.

[@s0515033]

@@kevinwestermann1001 It actually did, because a large % couldn't do it. Too hard. By definition, it presented hurdles and challenges to most people. That is why it got heavily nerfed. The reality is that people pretend they want difficult content, but they actually don't. They want highly rewarding, easy content, but the ability to say they are doing hard content for prestige. And they want it infinitely replay able. Any time there is any difficulty or effort required, they moan and bitch about elitism or it being " a job." People are lazy. A lot of people will not be satisfied until they can just log in for free shit and have every alt be max power like their main minutes after creation. And then, they will be bored and quit anyway. This whole generation is about instant gratification and has no kind of work ethic.

[@Hahkil]

I was hoping the score system would just be a fun thing for friendly competitions, self-challenges, realm leaderboards, guild leaderboards, friendlist leaderboards etc., and then maybe with some cosmetics at certain score levels. Seeing that their real main reason for implementing it is instead using it as a cheap way to gate progression just feels gross.

[@andrewperez9672]

The reason they added the affixes is a symptom of modern WoW developers and management: they mistake systems for content. its the difference of mindset in game creation between Creators and Managers. the Creators of WoW, all of whom are gone now from the company, created content, story, character, plot, and then systems to bring these to life. Now, the Managers of WoW, like Ion, who came in after the Creators had made the content, are faced with adding more, but they see systems as the way to do it, not adding something new or changing things up, or putting more story in the game or risk taking with classes. That's why you have soulbinds, covenants, and last expansion the azerite traits. if you stack enough systems that require management of them on the player, this adds time to their game commitment, keeping them occupied. But it isn't creative or innovative, its derivative and iterates on existing ideas. It was successful with the Legion artifact, so they just added more, thinking this is what people enjoyed in Legion. Its like adding fifty pages of math equations to the end of Lord of the Rings: yes, the book is longer now, there is more to read between the covers, but it isn't entertaining story like before...its just equations, its just systems to make you spend time before finishing.

[@sev327]

Never EVER apologize for making videos like this Mike. We need more of this, this is the reason we've seen the changes that we have and hopefully, with more people highlighting how terrible this Torghast addition is, we can get changes again.

[@ryanmorten6153]

9.1: “We literally don’t want you to play our game”

[@electricmayhem8147]

omg it hurts too much...

[@Ace3260]

Lamo .... well put

[@kevinwestermann1001]

A.k.a. "Chains of Disconnection"

[@sagacity1071]

They want you to buy the next 6 month Bobby mount then duck off.

[@murderface941]

Bro theyre following up the longest opening patch with this lmaoooooooooooo

[@Kashizzler]

They took a selling point of the expansion that was sold as a playground for no rules and no limits for your character and they added a bunch of rules and limits...

[@grahamvandyke]

This comment sums it all up perfectly.

[@uncleflansy5621]

SL will be the first expansion I don't bother coming back for after flying gets unlocked. I have no idea what they're doing with this game, and I don't think they do either.

[@boomerwow8482]

I’m not a creative person and I guarantee i could set a list of five changes on Ion’s desk that, if implemented, would bring back half the people that left. I’m sure everyone has a few ideas for things that would make the game more fun. How can they continuously make changes that are less fun!? I’m getting ready for tbc, unfinished business in that xpac and i had fun back then

[@sly9263]

Quit months ago

[@ZeroiusProduction]

@@boomerwow8482 Let us hear then, i'm curious what kind of ideas you got on the table.

[@Durgenheim]

Remember when SL first came out and everyone was screaming about how it was going to be the best expansion ever? L M A O

[@superuser8075]

problem is thousands of players say that every xpac. Its not the first bro

[@MacFernor]

The irony of running Hades' music in the background is breaking me...

[@ChinnuWoW]

Wasn’t Torghast supposed to be an infinite tower to climb, yet they’re not adding an endless floors mode?

[@mokaa151]

it’s such a disappointment, i was looking forward to blizzards take on a rogue-like. it’s supposed to be modeled after a rogue-like yet they stripped the system so bare and added so much unnecessary shit that it’s turned into a 15 min chore with buffs you don’t even notice.

[@MsNefelim]

They gave up on that even before the SL release

[@lc9245]

I don't get it, why don't they implement the feature exactly like that big post in the forum? Infinite floors, every end of floor boss drops soul ash, with soul ash reward increases with the floor, allowing anima and stygia to drop in Torghast, allow players to buy soul ash using honour and valour so players can get their soul ash by playing the contents they already enjoy, Torghast infinite floor, layers is just which floor you want to start with, so good players start at higher floors which is more challenging but take less floor to cap the weekly, while casuals can start at lower floor and work their way up with all of their powers they collected. The 6 floors structure with end boss the only thing that matters is absolutely stupid. Getting all the fun power in one run and having it ends as you reach last boss feels extremely lame, while having a terrible run and unable to kill the end boss because the power you got is bad since you got bad RNG getting a lot of short floor is horrible. Ion talked about it being suck, but his solution is convoluted and ultimately not as fun as the one proposed. They themselves turned it into a chore by tying very important reward in one place, thus having to make it possible to the vast majority of players is just baffling. Sincerely hope Blizzard consider that post seriously at add this in as an OPTION for better players to get their new arbitrary currency faster than casuals, rather than forcing everyone to go through this annoyance.

[@booradley6832]

Jared, please see the term: "Roguelike"

[@kaalionrjest1059]

I recall, though maybe incorrectly, when it was first announced it was supposed to be a fun and alternative way to gear. It would be roguelite, and made to be *fun* and *optional.* They made it a point to say fun and optional as the highlights. I don't think I've been able to enjoy torghast since it went live :/ I was amazingly hyped for the idea of a roguelite option in wow where I could gear (I would have assumed slower) or even just for fun to do things...it's actually a HUGE reason I got Shadowlands. I feel like we were lied to on the announcement of shadowlands about a lot of it...feels bad, man...

[@xzygy]

It's like they've never heard of "Sunk Cost Fallacy"

[@xzygy]

@Cthulhu I'm not saying they should remove it, just stop shoveling dev time into something that isn't working. But let's say hypothetically that they did remove it? Do we really believe that this would be something that players would mourn the loss of? If they put little bits of soul ash on everything so that it came from any content you did, I probably would never go back to torghast.

[@Mallerky]

Of course they have, all retail players are still subscribed because of the sunk cost fallacy.

[@MrSilvershane]

Make the torments kiss/curse. For example, Chaos bolt could have no cast time but each cast deals 5 percent damage to you. The talent tree could reduce the damage. Eventually, you are like a chaos bolt machine gun.

[@Xfacta12482]

I don't think that would feel great. You're essentially starting out super powerful... but arbitrarily gimped on top of the buff. So instead of the progression being in the context of becoming more powerful, it'd be in the context of sucking less. Its like handing players a carrot and then pooping on the carrot and going "there's your carrot, you gotta clean all that shit off first though"

[@MrSilvershane]

@@Xfacta12482 The carrot is the instant chaos bolts. The progression is being able to instant cast with less personal damage taken the further you spec into it.

[@gubbinsgaming992]

This stuff just makes me glad I'm not playing anymore...feels good to have jumped off this pain train early on.

[@Stinkydinky666]

Interesting how ion didn’t mention these affixes yesterday

[@AndrewNajash]

He did say in the interview that there were M+ like affixes, he just didn’t specifically say what they were

[@nhagan001]

Oh yes. Good ole Ion and his lawyer talk. “I never said you were going to get murdered in Torghast in the future, but you may consider suicide for your Player Character.

[@kiwifan6002]

@@nhagan001 I liked "Class sets (the word Tier never mentioned) coming next adventure" (next adventure = next patch? next expansion?) He never commits and always gives himself an out.

[@CaptainIcebeard]

I am super not surprised that Ion said one thing and then literally a day later it turns out he wasn't telling the truth. It's really telling that Blizzard tried to fuck up Torghast, scored good boy points for listening to us tell them how much of a mistake they were making, and then STILL try and fuck it up in the same way a while later.

[@zebrion5793]

I was one of those people who was really hyped at the introduction of M+ with all the affixes and repeatable harder content. Now this many years in, I think I'm just over it. I'm tired of affixes, tired of timed and scored content. I just want to relax and run dungeons with my friends and get something out of it that doesn't feel like my time isn't being respected. I stopped playing 9.0 a month ago and it was such a relief to just drop the chore list and find games to enjoy again. If this is what 9.1 is about, I don't think I'm coming back, and that's with having my best real life friend still actively playing and with my guildmates still raiding. I just don't enjoy the game as it exists now and don't think I'll enjoy the direction it's going. Maybe I'm aging out of the demographic, or the things I enjoy have shifted some - all I know is that WoW isn't the fun, relaxing time I used to have with my friends anymore. It's all over-stressed, timed, min/max cookie cutter everything. I don't want more Dark Souls or Diablo in my MMO. I want the methodical, planned crawls where everyone has to contribute, to think - not just overpulling zoom fests where if you get hit by anything at all you die. Honestly seeing WoW like this makes me want to give FFXIV another go.

[@zebrion5793]

@@Grarlic I think more than the reward structure I'm just burnt out on the "gotta go fast" mentality that M+ produced. Nobody takes time to enjoy the content, have fun with their friends anymore. You're penalized for trying new and creative stuff. It also widens the meta gaps as people figure out what the best performers are. The reward structure for M+ is just a whole other beast that I also find disappointing. In many cases it feels like the average player needs better gear to time a key than actually drops from doing that level of content. Too much of WoW's content has been tailored to throttle the top 0.5% of players. It's become overly punishing to the average player to the point that it just feels like a list of unrewarding chores you have to be in a perpetual cycle of completing. I want my fun back.

[@4doorsmorewhors]

So you want to do less but get the same? Got it. And for your methodical, go raid

[@4doorsmorewhors]

@@zebrion5793 but if you do a +2-3 it'll be easier? Enemy will die faster so more time to "enjoy" the game

[@Davivd2]

Gotta love how Ion talks to Priest and then waits to drop this bomb the day after. "Let's make a game mode for people who don't like mythics and Visions, and then take all of the stuff they hate about mythics and visions and put it in that game mode."

[@Haunsa1]

players; objective make torgast more fun more powers and op make it a laugh. blizzard: SO MAKE IT MORE ANOYING AND LESS FUN check.

[@ZeraTheRedRogue]

I heard you'd done a video talking about this, so figured I'd check in. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with the sentiments I had about it as well. The only thing the empowered/hotstreak/score system does is punish you for taking too long to kill things and doesn't make it feel like an accomplishment or a rewarding experience in the slightest. The talent tree (for the most part) is just to help counteract a lot of the handicaps being put onto your Torghast progression. I also thought the same when testing this on the PTR- Once you unlock layer 12 by slogging through and killing everything in every floor, you will just be back to your normal runs of running in and killing the floor 5 boss for your weekly reward and that's it. (Unless they make Adamant Vaults give something worthwhile, possibly.) It's just a very sad and unfortunate direction for them to have taken Torghast.

[@Kiwicrack]

Become horrified for 3 seconds....I'm becoming horrified right now, reliving the worst bits of Horrific Visions. SHIT dude, why!

[@robertfancyman3873]

Can't even cleanse or immune Horrified with most things, right? Pretty sure AMS doesn't do shit, at least.

[@OMGITSJAD]

The devs are soooo uncreative it's sad. NOBODY LIKES BEING STUNNED TO DEATH BEYOND THEIR CONTROL. It's such a lazy only works on paper way to increase difficulty.

[@gusp1456]

I like It with good play visions were a cakewalk

[@shadowlife15]

@sadag fagag no, no they weren't

[@_Lis25]

@@shadowlife15 yes they were

[@DrQuadmaster4000]

Mike whenever you go meet Ion for that beer, make sure you "accidentally" knock it over in his lap.

[@sr7olsniper]

More like Roofie and drop him in the middle of the Desert.

[@Xfacta12482]

Ion's the kinda guy who'd promise one of his game's most loyal content creators a beer and bail

[@Veolynn13]

@@sr7olsniper please don’t. littering is a serious environmental hazard.

[@alittlebirdi]

*_How to Improve Torghast_* 1.) Log out of WoW 2.) Open Steam 3.) Buy Hades for $25

[@Terrabreak133]

Hades is so good and torghast is so bad that I couldnt put 2 + 2 together and realize they are the same kinda genre until a guildmate pointed it out.

[@Lancun]

Step 1.5) Cancel sub and uninstall WoW

[@tarbaphon5799]

if someone wants to play a roguelike, they can just go into steam and play one. it would be cool if we could just play wow.

[@WondderWaffel]

This is what baffles my mind so much. Blizzard, the company that's well known for taking other's concepts and making their own improved version. Cannot for the life of them figure out how to do a rogue lite experience, when there's so so so so so god damn fucking many good examples available, that they could flat out copy paste their systems and it would be good. But instead we're stuck with current snoregast and this if what they're showing as their direction on the PTR? Blizzard, if any of you are reading this kind of feedback, please please please, sit down and play Binding of Isaac, play Hades, play Dead Cells, play any of the good rogue like/lites available and ask yourself after playing em for a few hours/days, why are these fun. Then put that into Torghast. It's not fucking rocket science. You've done this process so many times in the past, all the way from WoW's original inception. Borrow shit, make your own improvement on them if you'd like. Just fucking borrow other developers systems, cus you're clearly not going in the right direction with your own diablo/m+ influenced system here.

[@sagacity1071]

Blizzard really needs to go back to making good core systems and stop wasting thousands of hours on a game mode that wont exist in 10.0

[@Kiauze]

When he read Thanatophobia's description, you could almost see the exact moment Preach's mind snapped and his soul left his body.

[@NotGuilty0808]

This is why i love watching you and really respect your opinion...because its genuine and honest. unfortunately they are rare traits among WoW content creators nowadays

[@MrBrinkyboy]

Dammit Blizzard! This was probably the most depressing start to a day I have had in a long time. Thank you Preach for making the videos both for when you like it, but also the tough ones that needs to be made, love your content.

[@joaoleite1456]

Preach idk if you know but you have a PvP talent slot avaliable

[@kevinwestermann1001]

That HUD remark is the reason why choice dialogues need three buttons: Yes, No and NO, FUCK YOU!

[@superuser8075]

I bet if you addressed that notification your gameplay experience will increase tenfold. Let's be real, torghast isn't the problem its your pvp abilities /s

[@joaoleite1456]

woooooooooooooosh

[@Byhythloh]

I know it gets said a lot, but so many of my guild mates and friends have already jumped, more then usual at this stage of an expansion. I feel like Shadowlands maybe a big step into the final years of WoW. It's really highlighting that the higher ups making these game decisions, don't actually know what players want anymore.

[@nhagan001]

0:28 I should add this to my repertoire whenever I first meet people.

[@bigrikstube]

Yet blizzard wonders, out loud, why half the player base leaves.

[@henriquerodrigues7795]

This is so funny, blizzard tried implementing hades's heat but forgot to implement the rogue-like LMAO

[@Branimal101]

This after the Ian interview really makes me sad

[@blackbeard5588]

God I’ve been playing wow Since the beginning and I don’t understand why they are actively trying to make their games not fun. Here’s an affix that will make you want to do one dungeon a week!!!!

[@Durgenheim]

The people who still play SL at this point will never quit the game until Activision completely pulls the plug. All the current dev team has to do is release the barest minimum content.

[@andrewpaul8732]

So if I gotta answer the phone or take a shit I can't just hide in a corner now because I'll lose my ranking? Brilliant

[@PsyrenXY]

Well, the "afk zone" at the start of every floor seems to still be there (12:51) but outside of that, yeah, it doesn't look like AFKing entirely is a good idea anymore.

[@ben-64]

So glad I stopped playing. I feel like WoW is being designed by an AI that is trying to solve what "fun" is. It seems so simple to me. Do what old Blizz did - copy the best games and do it more polished. Instead we have the complete opposite - Half-baked, unfinished, "we'll fix it in 9.1.2.3.etc, jk get hype for 10.0" hand-holdy BS. Shadowlands released almost half a year ago and we're still complaining about how lackluster Torghast is. Holy shit, make a good game and release it. And don't blame this on covid, this has been a pattern for WoW for much longer. I'm so over this mobile game.

[@SilverKnight16]

Players: "Torghast sucks. Make it fun." Blizz: "Oh, you said you wanted more systems?" Players: "No, I said--" Blizz: "More systems it is!" Players: "*sigh*" Edit: It feels like Blizzard has lost all creativity. It's just rehashing of systems that existed in Legion with different coats of paint--and often, worse versions of them. I so wanted to love Torghast, and then I saw what they did in beta, and lost all hope for the expansion.

[@Udane]

Oh, I think I figured their logic out. I think in their minds... The 1% reduce of max hp would be to try to prevent people from idling too much in the tower to get the instances closed up quicker. The anti melee/spell caster torments is to try to get more people into groups to avoid more instances being opened. Then throw in some more other ones to try to disguise that concept while also trying to get it popular into the idea of being watched for a potential competitive scene of sorts. Regardless, I personally do not like any of these changes except the concept of having to do well to unlock more floors.

[@LlibertarianGalt]

*choreghast intensifies*

[@raf0419]

Honestly man I'd just give up. It's not worth the effort anymore. They won't change anything that doesn't suit their terrible vision.

[@Zucca2011]

For Mike its his youtube and twitch career (I believe?). For everyone else that are somewhat sane and not paid to compete at top level in this game - get the hell out. I used to be super addicted to wow and it will have a place in my heart for what it used to be. But i do have some sense of pride and I refuse to have my money fund Bobby's new yacht. They massacred this game and the only language Activision understand is cash. People are free to spend their own money the way they see fit, but this one-sided relationship people and addicts have with the game still frustrates me.

[@Giliver]

@@Zucca2011 Mike has a big enough following on twitch that he'd likely be fine dropping WoW. Atleast for me personally I always skip his WoW streams and exclusively watch him play other games. Wow gets me depressed enough when I'm playing myself, I don't wanna watch anyone play it. Lol

[@uvicadam8241]

I recently unsubbed, but was intending on coming back for 9.1. After watching this... I don't think so anymore.

[@Freestyle80]

yeah give up his job and livelihood are you stupid?

[@raf0419]

@@Zucca2011 Agree entirely. I'm more suggesting he pivot to a different game or a different type of content.

[@UFL3]

The song playing in the background at the end is "Good Riddance" from the Hades OST. Link here: Hades - Good Riddance (Eurydice Solo feat. Ashley Barrett) - KZbin

[@edwardfearan5708]

I love that you use the Hades soundtrack. Its such a great soundtrack.

[@stifledmind]

"Let's introduce pain points, then offer a reward system that mitigates those pain points"

[@aerohokie24]

That's basically the definition of a roguelike... they just need to change the rewards to make it so you don't have to complete layer 12 to get all the power based rewards. Make it something you can progress over the course of the patch not something you're trying to get done in week 1.

[@patrykpryce]

Good that I withheld judgement 'till actual testing started. Boy I'm at the 7:28 and already shows me they just have no idea what they are doing, communicating etc... I was annoyed with visions and it seems I'll continue to be annoyed with Torghast. Hopefully they change it but not holding my breath.

[@Cuppat1337]

Holy shit that transition of the affixes slowly going back into place and it lines up as you move the camera, well played editor, bravo.

[@cYYAN88]

I am tired of World of Systems to be honest. Its getting harder and harder to just login and enjoy the game.

[@RockandStoneVForKarl]

Try Guild Wars 2, they have an expansion coming this year and are getting ready to do an event where they catch new and returning players up on the story thus far.

[@ilunc]

I just quit, more time for painting my warhammer and playing monster hunter with friends. Don't regret it at all.

[@lordcoagula3077]

@@ilunc Waiting on Chivalry 2 currently. Honestly I just want to enjoy a game when I log in. I don't need a second full-time job.

[@OMGITSJAD]

Quit and enjoy your free time instead of giving it away to a dev team that doesn't respect your money or time.

[@s0515033]

@@OMGITSJAD Who thought people have to do stuff in game. Crazy.

[@bronwen4693]

His reaction in the first part of the video was my reaction right before I cancelled my sub and went to ESO

[@ThatRedHusky]

You know what makes Heaven on High and Palace of the Dead fun? They don't have any required items come from it for upgrades, has random tmogs, mounts, weapon skins. Oh and YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THEM AT ALL.

[@sergezede]

And it's something you can do whenever for some experience and it let's you try out job abilities that you will get at higher levels.

[@DreamGamingS2]

I mean, you do have to do them if you want to level characters in that range outside of small amounts of experience from daily dungeons etc. They are very repetative and get really boring really fast. Admitedly, my main criticism is the very slow leveling of alts in ffxiv designed to sell character level boosts, but since this is that content you do to level I think it is still a fair criticism.

[@sergezede]

@@DreamGamingS2 I dont think leveling combat alts is that slow. You get almost a level for MSQ, plus leveling and the other roulettes. At level dungeons give a lot. The DD can be faster but there are a lot of ways. I have everything at 80 and I kinda miss popping in there.

[@williampounds5191]

That doesn't make them fun, because they're not. But it is nice they don't tie any meaningful character progression behind it, because its just as mind-numbing as torghast.

[@ThatRedHusky]

@@williampounds5191 Man sorry for peeing in your cereal. Good lord.

[@zerti86]

i didn't think they could do it, but they actually managed to make torghast worse. incredible.

[@scorpiowarrior7841]

So what I'm hearing is I'm not coming back and I should find an FFXIV static for friday and saturdays. Okay blizz. Got it. Real talk this is cutting any hope for 9.1 and shadowlands. This expansion is offically dead to me and I'm not gonna stand it anymore. Their just repeating the same mistakes. If I'm gonna be forced to do this, then I just won't play. Raiding was all I was playing for but this is it. I'm not being gated anymore.

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

Solid plan.

[@TayloredRedWing]

FF isn’t perfect but the devs respect players time and money, that’s refreshing nowadays.

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

@@TayloredRedWing It may not be perfect, but it IS pretty damn good in my book!

[@TwistedErrors]

Love the music in background xD good choice

[@Matraxea]

Demo warlocks: I guess i get my damage nerfed every 60 seconds since its based on max health. Aff Locks with Absolute Corruption: Gets Corruption reflected. Welp, I guess i'll die.

[@boomerwow8482]

It’s an idea that an intelligent person, or someone that actually plays the game, would think about for 30 seconds and then feel embarrassed for thinking it up.

[@needsanameedit4982]

I just pictured a Druid's convoke getting bounced back.

[@Sarth1s]

@@Finish303 you couldn't wait anyways... gotsta stay empowered to get that score lol

[@diogokorok3512]

The fact that they are spending the money I'm paying them on this kind of thing is depressing.

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

If you think that's bad, you should see what your taxes are funding.

[@Jackpkmn]

I'll tell you what they are thinking, they are thinking that if it takes you longer to do everything they won't have to make as much content. Literally no respect for your time...

[@hairysticks74]

This

[@Hekk.]

I remember discussing with of mine why would they have such a high mob density everywhere in SL... and after realizing that if out of supposed ~5 millions of players 4 million stop for even 10 seconds to kill that annoying mob that just stood in the way at least once, blizzard already WASTED enough OF PLAYERS' TIME to fill over 15 subsriptions giving them 225$ essentially, and now think about how many times you actually get forced to stop and kill those annoying mobs that simply "are there" for apparently no reason at all.

[@Weslicus]

Thanks for the honesty mike. I know you dont enjoy it but its important to speak up about this stuff.

[@raeanna451]

I am glad I keep up with wow content creators. It reminds me why I quit the game and reaffirms that I'm definitely not missing anything great 😆

[@MrMrTravman]

Saame lol. I quit during mythic sludgefist progression because the game felt like a job. Havent looked back :)

[@gamerjaqi7873]

have they added any rewards for doing this or is the reward opening the 6th floor and getting points for their tree? also with the extra layers and gear recommendation do you really need gear that level to be able to do it or are we punishing people who arent mythic geared raiders from getting the resources they need in a timely manner?

[@BoredomReigns]

Thanks for being honest. I feel this is a continuation of your eyebrow rub from your Ion interview.

[@JakeSezz]

This is why I respect Mike’s point of view. When something is bad, you can tell he’s not wanting to dog the game and he’s not wanting to be “just another negative creator”. (And it helps not putting out negative content 3/5 videos.) It makes my Twitch/YT subs, my views, and my own time well spent. Appreciate the perspective ✊🏻

[@krucible9369]

I’ve watched the Ion interview twice now... and came away with absolutely nothing. He’s good at talking without really saying anything.

[@B-...]

He basically said the same thing they said all of BFA, all their intentions and goals are "good", the implementation needs improvement... It's like, no. Your basic ideas are flawed at this point. Nobody wants all this crap they've added to the game..... balanced or not. At this point every expansion is a new garbage system that takes 3 patches to 'fix' ie. make it not completely suck.

[@SilverKnight16]

I actually stopped watching the interview halfway through for that exact reason. He was lawyering the answers so hard that judges were falling asleep out of reflex.

[@kaimeraprime]

i dont normaly comment on video editing but that ( zoom in to fit ) of the affxes was well nice.

[@daryl3261]

Blizzard has been devoid of imagination for quite some time.

[@mebrandonb]

I've accepted torghast as just an annoying chore that needs to get done weekly, the last thing I want is it to become more annoying. I appreciate your optimism towards blizz, but for me once I heard Ion reinforce their stance on conduit energy that was the last straw for me. I know videos like this usually attract the crowd that hates wow and loves to slam it, but I love wow! I want to keep playing it. But honestly while I try to remain optimistic towards the game year after year, even when they announce things that seem like huge misses like azerite armor, like island expeditions, like warfronts, like visions, like torghast, like conduit energy... it's always Ion that is the one reinforcing these philosophies that just don't make sense to the game for me. It's not fun, and while shadowlands has had a few improvements, the philosophies driving the game just make it bad compared to other games out there now, which really just makes me sad..The game is just bad for some of us who really care about it, and that exasperated vibe you're giving off I completely relate to.

[@EDHCoffee]

They clearly have NO IDEA what they are doing. I want Torghast to be infinitely playable without bullshit....why can't they just make greater rifts from their own game, diablo 3.

[@prophet246]

The real conversation had a blizzard isn't "how can we make this fun" it's "how can we keep people playing this content but change it from they didn't like" the aim is to keep people playing to keep subs not to make the game enjoyable

[@TaikanzGames]

oh wait... I didn't realise until he talked about hades that the negatives weren't optional... wtf they literally 180'd on what Ion said yesterday.

[@LilianOrchard]

I give it two weeks before there's an addon that plays DMC style sounds and displays tied to the score bar

[@Veolynn13]

how does it feel to objectively be the sexiest gamer girl who plays WoW?

[@Shiirow]

**guitar riff** Excellent SSS

[@AnaseSkyrider]

Best addon idea I've heard.

[@skkim0217]

Instead of adding more torments, Blizz should invest more time making additional anima powers wacky af.

[@sagacity1071]

It really is sad how boring most of the powers are. As a priest most of my powers either buff shield, SWP, or scream. Why does nothing interact with smite????

[@thunderball11111]

100% agree make tourghast easy because the powers are dumb powerful

[@crimspace4832]

Thank you for your honesty. These are things that needed said. Needs must.

[@Red1Green2Blue3]

RIP Shadowlands

[@huuminbloodborn7570]

I think one of the best ways to look at this on whether it is in any way acceptable is, if you go back and do your crazy challanges, like where you were racing torghast or when you were just picking movement speed altering stuff, if you can do that and get all the content consistantly still.

[@sownyp9980]

You could tell that they have no idea of what direction people want to go when Ion said that they were happy with how people chose their covenants.. maybe they are happy, but no one else is. This is just another example.

[@StrobeFireStudios]

Blizzard, watch this feedback and PLEASE take it into serious consideration.

[@eonarose]

Preach, can you make a community post asking for suggestions for torghast? Maybe we could give blizz some ideas.

[@TheBull300]

the ability to refuse a power. This is a staple or rogue lites as they may make your build bad or not your preferred play style. I got 3 "bad" power options on a run last week and chose the least bad one being the ability to bonk someone onto your side. I would have rather had none.

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

What for? Blizz doesn't read the EU forums. We don't even have a designated section for bug reports, like the US forums do.

[@Escorducarla]

Once again, the player base makes suggestions and Blizzard hears entirely the wrong thing. The streak continues. I would have been happy if they'd made it something a little more like islands, with a bit of replayability for cosmetic rewards. I thought that's what Twisting Corridors was going to be; more floors, so we could just kinda go ham and have a chance to get a bunch of pets or transmog pieces or mounts. But no, didn't even do that right.

[@tarawright4339]

Imagine having an idea and the idea was this

[@Xfacta12482]

Preach, I feel like you could have some awesome success taking your "Legacy" format and applying it to other awesome games.... RPGs come to mind. Aside from my fav wow creator, you make some of my favorite video-essay type videos on youtube.

[@Vyomesh839]

I already detest Torghast as a Rogue, and half these affixes you have shown me just make me want to smash my face into my desk until I lose consciousness.

[@liam3104]

i mean as a rogue u can just stealth past everything and kill last boss EZ

[@sr7olsniper]

@@liam3104 nah, knowing blizzard they will make all the mobs see through stealth.

[@XiLock_Alotx]

Well……

[@Vyomesh839]

@@liam3104 yes, and then i have no Powers. This might work on layer 4 or something

[@user-ve4gr4jd7s]

I love the fact that you used music from Hades as a background for this video

[@HavocParadox]

All i want is never ending floors with never ending power increase.. and never ending mobs.. And rewards based on how far i make it.. Like imagine.. spending like 3 hours powering though to like floor 75.. and getting rewarded for it.

[@denzildk]

How about using the NPC's that was trapped in the maw to give buffs? Or just use cool NPC's for it, thrall gives shaman stuff, boy king gives priest stuff, and stuff combines and upgrades, your spells can lightning bold -> your lightning damage has a chance to summon dogs -> your summons radiate earthquake. Or the equiv for every other cool NPC.

[@FireSwordable]

That fear torment gave me visions of Nzoth flashbacks

[@Mysticmanaged]

playing this on launch and I'm literally speed running insanely fast times with no deaths but its impossible to get 5 stars outside of doing their stupid task system like, "DONT PICK UP A PURPLE POWER" LOL???? God I'm sooooooooo over this game already, like why can no other game make something better than THIS?

[@chinaman1]

I am really appreciative of Shadowlands, it's allowed me to play the backlog of the games I've bought on Steam from last time. I'm really enjoying most of them.

[@GdotWdot]

It made me quit WoW for Runescape lol

[@lostheboss7938]

Yet here you are

[@GdotWdot]

@@lostheboss7938 So? I can still have attachment to a game I've played for 12 years, even if it's not fun anymore.

[@kitchentroll5868]

Mike, long-time viewer and long-time Wow-addict here. After watching this and the interview video from the day prior, I gave it 24 hours of thought and decided my only option to communicate my dissatisfaction to Blizzards was to cancel my sub. Final Fantasy 14 is now downloading in the background.