Warfronts Confuse Me

[@cbm19601]

Nothing takes the fun out of something more than realizing you can't lose.

[@Tauroi]

you can´t win would be one thing

[@killval849]

Not only that, it simply feels like a different variation of like a grouped up world quest... there's nothing groundbreaking in this expansion there's no cool new feature like how legion introduced mythic plus and the mage tower scenario's... BFA is a complete bust.

[@sulimanz7067]

dogshit game by dogshit company

[@Traumglanz]

@@Tauroi You can't win will cause sometimes a "challenge accepted mentality" Though I admit, I would be tempted to accept the warfront challange as well and build a raid who wants to lose the warfront. Just to have this achievement in my character stats. ^_^

[@mjshorty101]

@@Traumglanz Casual players dont have 'Challange accepted" ideals anymore. They take the path of least resistance.

[@Halliden88]

Couldn't agree more, still have no idea what is the actual point. I don't feel like I'm achieving anything or receiving any form of fun by doing it. Extremely repetitive and feels identical each time. I've lost all interest already.

[@TheeFreakiishlyz]

It's a 100% win game mode,, there is no risk of losing, with gear rewards.

[@zickbone]

world quest heros luv it

[@sarazan2586]

Warfront is good idea, but they are boring now, enemies do nothing, bosses do nothing and you cant lose. This is just boring weekly "quest" for treasure. This difficulty is more easy than LFR. Warfonts need harder version and maybe PvP mode.

[@xXRazorbacksXx]

The point is making sure the people who literally drool on the keyboard get their mythic gear because we have to include everyone.

[@Catjamfan]

Fun story: Go to forums (at least EU ones) and look at threads there, especially the "Casual" thread. People get 395 and aren't interested in even doing normal dungeons, but they say the game is fine and we who have played since Vanilla with effort to get our gear - and we who are raiding and still haven't gotten a single 395 (cause titanforged... casino) - we are at fault and we are the whiny people... It's idiotic. They don't understand shit. They also argue that grinding for progress that you can see is worse than grinding RNG. I'm done with people, honestly, cause majority are just fucking idiots and ruin anything they touch.

[@bastinelli443]

I'm not gonna lie, I literally fall asleep during warfronts. So.painfully.boring.

[@lonniegibbons8857]

i feel you had such a hard time staying awake during the one i just did, just a massive AOE fest

[@thekillnoobwtf]

Yup staying awake is more difficult than actually doing it which is really bad as it's one of the main content for the expansion.

[@njdss4]

I hate PvP, but I loved Wintergrasp back in WotLK. Why couldn't Warfronts be like that? That felt more like a war than anything in BfA.

[@blyjd91]

Agree completely. Sounds like a great idea since Wintergrasp was universally enjoyed.

[@thewu910]

Count me among the many. WG was just one of the things that made WotLK great. It’s amazing how that xpac nailed so many things, and Blizzard has yet to replicate that standard.

[@skizilla]

Cross realm populations ruined any chance of recreating WG.

[@silvercro]

WG was only great if your faction was heavily favored on your server. If it wasn't then it sucked so badly.

[@burningisis]

Totally agree. I am not a fan of PVP but Wintergrasp gave me "baby's first PVP" without feeling like it was PVP. (and I have PVPed before but in organized groups because pugs are scary) Warfronts to me could have been so much more. They could have been a Wintergrasp style PVP where you battle for control of that area, but maybe do the turnins as well. Go to the mines, mine up ore, ooh there's a mini boss in there blocking your path to the really good ore places bring ore back build turret for your fortress walls to help kill enemies flocking in. It could be so much more. Even the free 340 participation trophies arent really worth it. Because it requires a 320 already. So people are buying crap off of the AH just to make that item level to go get those free 340s by nearly AFking by the town hall.

[@calenda8471]

Nothing like standing still for 3 minutes to move forward :/

[@julianbeek]

I know right, thought is was a bug on the first go.

[@calenda8471]

@@julianbeek I was too slow to get on the demo... So I had to go get a cuppa and wait.

[@Amplifymagic]

David Gandaria I literally just sat there and organized my transmog sets on top of my Grand Expedition Yak and watch KZbin

[@calenda8471]

@@Amplifymagic Fun stuff ain't it

[@dandosapershing6103]

You could do damage to the turrets lol

[@cloudstrife2131]

Seems like they tried to copy GW2 meta events with only 10% of the thought or effort.

[@Desolaytore]

LOL 14 years of WSG and people still sit in the middle chilling... yup, never changes.

[@robertrozanski1206]

As the designated FC, I don't mind that in random BGs, sometimes people are so occupied it's a freebie base run ;)

[@SoulOfFenrir]

I never get that lucky, I start escorting the FC on my pally, then SUDDENLY once you get to the buff building all of a sudden the middle turns to you and goes all "u wot m8!?" and comes and kills us.@@robertrozanski1206

[@Desolaytore]

@zimalin Then blizzard needs to make TDM only maps for that crowd that doesnt ever play the objective.

[@staropramen478]

@@Desolaytore i havent played RBGs in years so the tactics might have changed but i clearly remember every single game being basically 8v8 in the middle so you can get the upper hand to kill their fc. sometimes you went risky mode and sent a rogue to try and burst their fc but if that didnt work you lost the middle and in turn lost your flag.

[@Heroasteral]

War. War never changes

[@davidbrkic5548]

If the catapults and ballista's weren't a thing, my friends and I would have cleared the warfront within 5 minutes and had a good time. When we saw how much damage the ballista's were doing, we all assumed there had to be a way to skip it, but no. It's just the worst.

[@goran77ish]

That is why I go farm, none does it and when they are at the gates it takes so long to build the base. Makes it 30 minutes and if you have few farmers it makes it like 20. I can watch movie and do that and be out quicker to do something that is fun.

[@sulimanz7067]

dogshit game by dogshit company

[@andrechartrand2749]

@@NovaisTired Because all current ActiBlizz cares about is the loot treadmill, and being able to spam guaranteed 340s that can titanforge in a few minutes would open the gates too much for their liking.

[@TheRealCeeJai]

I'm sorry, Preach, I strongly disagree that Darkshore is better than Arathi. For one thing, Arathi actually had territory for both factions. While mechanically, it was mirrored for both factions, thematically it made much more sense where both sides started from. Darkshore, on the other hand, is one of the laziest pieces of content I have seen in a long time. Both sides start in the exact same spot, capture the locations from the exact same side of the map and even seem to have special abilities on Essence units duplicated (although I haven't been able to check closely yet to see exactly how much is mirrored). It would have been much better if the introductory quests explained how the Alliance came back and grabbed a foothold they would start from, like Stromgarde Keep in Arathi. (Hell, Arathi didn't even have ANY explanation how Ar'gorok got built and we just accepted that, so it's not like this was a steep mountain of creative development to climb.) That's not even mentioning how much more streamlined Darkshore is; it's like they really wanted to eliminate any confusion whatsoever of what was going on, and at the same time, basically made ONE real strategy. The first time I did that warfront, there was ZERO downtime. The whole raid just pushed up the middle, capped the two side bases, and took the depot within 10 minutes of the scenario starting. The only wait we had was the extremely long and boring 'double siege' at the end (during which I literally found myself dozing off at my keyboard). Far from my last complaint about Darkshore is the labeling of buyable 'follower' units by role. The ones listed as TANK do absolutely nothing to grab aggro and protect you from enemies, which as you know is the entire point of a tank! One has to wonder what they were even thinking with this design. (Edited additions:) Those two Ancient Protectors are bugged AF. Their AoE stun gets to stun you both at the beginning of the cast and at the end of it. There is no way to avoid the mechanic - I've tried literally dozens of times and paid very close attention to it. With the bugged, repeating voice lines at the end, the issues with these trees, and all the other things I've pointed out here - plus the ones I haven't - there is absolutely nothing to suggest to me that Darkshore is any kind of improvement over Arathi.

[@DirtCheapFU]

Id rather sit Arathi than Darkshore. Even farming resources gave my alt gearing alittle distraction than just watching my resource tick up mindless with my running around mindlessly in a straight line.

[@ruibonifacio5094]

wait WSG is about capturing a flag and not holding middle ?

[@fabiank4396]

Capture the flag? Naah just noobs doing that.

[@lootmaster1337]

Its to camp the other team at the ghost healer until you break their spirit so they leave. And like one dh that just jumps around with the flag for extra style points

[@Jackson110010]

most underwhelming and waste of potential content that blizzard has ever added. I think that's the best way to put it, just a huge waste of potential. When you think of a warfront that happens in darkshore... what do you think of? For me, I think of a big battle that both factions can take part of and happens in the WORLD. With npcs and real players both facing off and having a large possibility of losing. Along with affecting the REAL WORLD and having consequences if you end up losing and bonuses if you win. Each faction can hold different REAL towns and you actually to have to be coordinated if you want to take back the zone for your faction. Instead we got an instanced, face-roll of a caverns of time dungeon except with 20 people THAT YOU CANT LOSE. Nothing about them is fun and it ENCOURAGES you to just sit around and wait for the NPC's or one person to win the game for you so you can get your free lootz then leave and do it again. Garbage system and terrible waste of potential.

[@steve81937]

This was exactly what I expected from warfronts, I was so dissapointed to find out it is just a battle against NPC's you can't lose. I don't care about the participation rewards, if it's no fun i'll not play it. Garrisons were bad but even that was mildy enjoyable to some extend, warfronts are not.

[@joshsteinmann2363]

Everything in your post is exactly how I feel...except for one thing. I do it once for the initial quest turn in for free lootz but I don't do it again. Sad :/

[@LordFakeGodz]

Warfront is basically LFR scenario. It's main point is the story, large battle between alliance and horde, and you're there just to see it happen, it's just like interactive movie. I heard Heroic Warfront will be a thing when Season 2 is here. I'll look forward for it. Because i can see how Warfront can be spiced up. Still don't understand why they didn't make PvP Battleground version of this though. If you read the mission table, you'll actually notice there's a lot of Skirmish between Horde and Alliance all around Azeroth. Most of the forces (where actual war is happening) are in Arathi Highland, and now in Darkshore. We at first came to Zandalar/Kul Tiran to recruit them to fight the war, but Horde/Alliance doesn't want the other faction to recruit them, so they tried to stop them, what seems to be a small skirmish escalate. We're now at Incursion level, soon it'll be large scale in Dazar'Alor. I think Kul'tiran at this point already part of the Alliance, while Zandalar still not part of Horde, but they allied with Horde. After Battle for Dazar'Alor, Zandalar lose their king and join Horde for real. The Alliance want to destroy Zandalar before they actually fully join the horde, but they failed and make the entire Zandalar actually hate Alliance for killing their King, and make Zandalar became full member of the Horde. Going back to Warfront in game. Scenario, Warfront is just a scenario. An incomplete scenario... some mechanic is obviously scrapped :/ Also, i don't get why you're confused with how you need to collect resources to finish Warfront. Yeah i get the building thing isn't great and boring. But why are you confused with how you need people to collect resources to finish Warfront? On RTS, you can spam some troops and just send them to your enemy, and you can win, and that's your approach to Warfront. Why complain when a literal wall slows you down WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A SIEGE TROOPS/WEAPON? HELLO? I think to improve this they should just let us build demolisher building from the start, honestly. i enjoy collecting resources in warfront, the perk of being a druid is that you can collect resources while in travel form! (god damn i love being a druid). If you see people already killing mob, collect resources. If you see people already collecting resources, kill mob. I just can't wait for Heroic Warfront so i can queue with my guild so i don't god damn play with these LFR mongoloid. HELL WHY WE CAN"T EVEN QUEUE LFR WARFRONT AS A RAID? REEEEEEEEEEEEE

[@primalmatter7904]

They exist for free gear... sometimes there isn't a grand plan beyond the most obvious of reasons. For a lions share of people 340 gear is beyond what they would obtain otherwise without lfr.

[@christophermccutcheon2143]

Lmao, that makes no sense. You can get 340 gear without LFR or Warfronts. They're called Mythics (without the keystone). These are hardly beyond anyone's capability. "Lion's share" - are you on a server of 80% toddlers?

[@Sly_404]

It feels like a half realized idea. Both Warfronts as well as Islands sound good on paper but boy somewhere in the execution process they completely lost the design objectives.

[@JDGraphics0]

they're good for the first time you know like a nice new scenario to play but after that you're just doing them for the 370/385 Items aka afking in the base

[@TehFiishy]

maybe if you helped it'd be quicker. But overall I agree, first couple of times its fun. then its just another trudge through for weekly gear.

[@Eventzz0]

JD They were boring the first time when I realized u can just afk and win.

[@Traumglanz]

Most nice scenarios play themselves or are are just requiring you to press a few buttons, while you literally watch youtube instead of your screen. They usually are another "you can only win" thing.

[@stultzzachary2]

You can get gear over 340?

[@juliansmit3770]

Eventz “u can just afk and win” you can do that because others will do your work for you. If everybody thought like you the warfront wouldn’t be completed

[@Rizerr96]

Even if Warfronts where made to be challenging, there is a fundamental flaw in how they work. It's supposed to be a MOBA/RTS type experience, but it has none of the aspects of those genres that make those genres fun. When I play Starcraft and Warcraft, I get the most enjoyment from the freedom to make decisions, and to see what strategies and playstyles work against different opponents and obstacles. Decisions like.. what am I going to build first? How many? What structure do I want to rush? Am I going to play agressively and attack right away? Or am I going to build an impenetrable defense and aim for the long game. What resources do I focus on? Should I risk it for the biscuit and build an outpost far over there for more resources? I can't see what they're doing over there, should I send a scout? What troops do I want to focus on making, here? Now I know that World of Warcraft is limited in what it can do. There is just no possible way they can emulate an experience like Starcraft within WoW. But still, Warfronts are so far from anything that can be considered interesting that I can't help but wonder if these are the same developers who made the Warcraft and Starcraft franchise. There is absolutely no decision making in Warfronts, and the illusion of decision they give you is so insignificant it doesn't matter what you do. The resources are mundane and uninteresting. The structures are few, and gated behind eachother so that you can't actually choose what you want to build. And it doesn't matter what you put your resources to because you'll get all of the structures anyway. The game could have one turn-in zone for all the buildings and it wouldn't makr a difference. Its an illusion of choice. And assaulting places on the roads are so underwhelming. You can capture a point but there is no sense of risk of reward for having done so. You can purchase a vehicle or summon some large patrol, but their effects on the game are negligible at best. I'm rambling now. Point being, I hate how Blizzard holds your hand in Wafronts and gives you the illusion of choice, when ultimately nothing you do matters.

[@Traumglanz]

"There is just no possible way they can emulate an experience like Starcraft within WoW." Actually, yes, you could emulate that experience in WoW. This can be done. For an example how, check out natural selection 2, which brings RTS to FPS games. It's not even hard to do, but it does not work with PUGs as auto-win game. It would be more of a pre-made group thing. At least within the WOW communiy, for the NS2 community PUG commanders work mostly fine, but that is small community which got into that game precisely because of the RTS/FPS mix.

[@jamessalvatore7054]

your criticism is valid BUT they could fix this flaw by removing the gating and making enemies much harder so we need to choose. Keep fighting using our player strength or shall we buff our NPCs. With that in mind they could allow us to build defensive towers and such. And we could go from there. Prioritize defense over offense. If NPC armies were insanely tough getting NPC help from our own would be welcome and practical. Tactical elements are totally insertable and WoW CAN handle it. Problem is Blizz are fucking lazy and oblivious and DEATHLY afraid to make some of their lazy players cry and quit even though they will anyway. They could make this the best content ever but they wont because they are so fucking clueless and afraid of giving players a challenge. I hope Im wrong and that in 8.2 we get other modes like with Islands... but I wont be holding my breath honestly.

[@OmegaShanic]

To answer Mike's last question: they replaced the (bi-)weekly table quests for raids in BFA. They also serve the purpose of getting you PvP transmog items, which allowed Blizzard to split development time on PvP sets and Raid sets (hence no class sets). Game design wise, they're designed to have the time gate to even out the time it takes between good and bad players to complete the Warfront, because they're fundamentally a periodic log-in and complete content like the raid quests were, something designed to pull you into the game through shot-term interests.

[@pldcanfly]

Run around, spam your aoe, wait a few minutes, then hit a giant training-dummy that has a lot of health. Not to be hard or make it an epic fight, just to draw out everything. I feel like Warfronts are just hyped content to kill time, so they can say "Our average player likes wow so much, he plays 10hrs a week."I bet thats the reason they are all like "Yeah, we are satisfied with warfonts."

[@Corrupted]

When 10 year old Wintergrasp felt more like war than warfronts

[@Gandoan]

They have more purpose now than they did at release. We finally got a vendor in game where we can use a currency to purchase stuff that we can grind. But the wqs that drop the currency are locked behind warfronts. I thought warfronts were going to be like Wintergrasp which would have been a lot better.

[@irakhlin]

I think warfronts were built with a conceptual goal and not a gameplay goal. They wanted to create a bridge to the RTS roots of the game to feed nostalgia. Whether this was intended to raise excitement for the warcraft 3 reissue or just as a pure nostalgia project is unknown. Either way, warfronts are detached from the concept of an mmo and end up as just a novelty at best or a method to farm alt gear at worst. Without the reward structure, I doubt most players would participate in the first place. Blizzard needs to aim to make content players will participate in without chasing carrots and then itemize them after the fact to help up progress towards other content.

[@raphael2407]

Couldn't agree more. As an iLvl 355 (I don't play Mythic because lack of guild/people to play with/simply can't be arsed), my only reason to ever play Warfronts now are the initial 385/370 pieces, and besides this I only kill the worldboss and the rares for mounts (that never drop for me anyway but hey...) on reset. And anytime I play a warfront I ask myself why am rushing in and pushing in order to get it done faster, in the hopes to catch the lucky random healer who recognises my efford and keeps me alive (I'm a Fury Warrior ^^), while I could just do it like so many others (hide afk in the mines and wait)... It's pointless and boring, but I appreciate having a catchup mechanic for my alts. I still enjoy BfA.. somehow.. even if the worldquest reputation grind is really getting to me and I sometimes "force myself" to play, but what really bothers me is the lack of "war" in the entire expansion. It all reminds me in a factions race for Pandaria back in the days of MoP, which seemed rather pointless, and BfA is essentialy the same thing. There is no "war" of the factions, there is only some "random strangers f*cking around in foreign lands", and that's it. So yeah, I still enjoy it, but it all is really really pointless.

[@Inshokuten69]

The aim for the glaives is for multiple people on bats to stack the 10% damage taken debuff. Makes them die quick, it's just that everyone's semi afk which draws it out. I can't blame them, if they focused on the warfront rather than their second screen they'd probably fall asleep.

[@Sammonoske]

Wait. The Darkshore warfront is the same for both factions..?

[@dylanrussell4158]

Weren't they going to add heroic warfronts and PvP warfronts? I know I read about it on wowhead. I do think that this will make it better. Keep in mind, the reactive NPCs are still new. So a large scale version of islands is probably gonna take a bit of time.

[@LearningtoDoThings]

I think PVP warfronts in 8.3 or future xpacs is a certainty.

[@booradley6832]

You hit the nail on the head. I try to enjoy warfronts, I really do. I collect the resources every time. I upgrade the stuff, buy the buffs at the circle, tell people in the chat if a specific upgrade is close so maybe someone will run back and get it(without trying to be bossy, of course. I also want people to enjoy them with me) but we hit the end and there's a wait and it feels pointless.Its a long run up to a raid boss, and thats it. A raid boss from 3 expansions ago is what you get from these, and I always manage to get high end bracers as my weekly reward.

[@Mg95a]

The only reason why I spammed the Darkshore Warfront on my Night Elf Mage was to get the cloth set for transmog. Once I had it all, I've never gone back to it. Warfronts are a system that only works in a warcraft 3 setting, where establishing base camps was the key to win. In an MMO, they are not working because nobody is winning anything because it always flip-flops between who controls Arathi/Darkshore. Coupled with the fact that they are so boring and it's little wonder why people afk. Building a base in this setting is not fun.

[@billyhyde1415]

Warfronts are basically just extra world bosses at this point. They have a bit more time investment and a resource sink attached, but Each one functions to give a couple more opportunities for gear upgrades every couple of weeks or so. As for what they ACTUALLY are, though - I think the ones we have are prototypes for what they want Warfronts to EVENTUALLY be, so they're there for developers to study -- to see what parts of the "player-in-the-RTS" idea are fun and what aren't, and figuring out ways to adjust them so they fit what players will enjoy. You can already see that in the resource gathering, which is more slimmed down and attached to the combat in Darkshore vs. Arathi. I imagine the next warfront will see adjustments to make the buildings more optional, since you see a lot of folks ignoring some of them already in favor of a main push to get the job done. They are designed to win, right now, because figuring out how to balance a big dynamic warfront is an issue in itself - imagine if they weren't balanced to win, and you HAD to chop trees or mine iron for ten minutes, or you'd lose.

[@JoeJacksonJr]

Darkshore is even more boring for the Alliance.. After you take the lumber mill the WISP gather everything for you.. There is not shit to do but just kill the mobs until you get enough crap in the chest and then go get it out and add to the building construction.. IT SUCKS.. Stromgarde was/IS way more fun than Darkshore..

[@bracksza]

BFA is like demo warlock - massive ramp up

[@6105boe]

I think one way they could somewhat fix this is by making the enemies actually somewhat dangerous. Enemies that would actually come at you to wipe you out. And at the end (or on a timer) they could have a boss/big wave of strong enemies come out that would be hard *but not impossible* (let's say some kind of raid boss with a few oneshot mechanics since you can't heavily rely on gear) to defeat if you didn't make any at all or even the right basebuilding choices. That way you could completely fuck up and be unprepared but still win through skill in defeating the big bad, you could be moderately prepared and defeat it pretty handily (having something that prevents being oneshot or having tanks that do 5 players' worth of damage), or you could have been on point with the basebuilding and upgrades and blow the boss up finishing the warfront significantly quicker.

[@jwinsatt]

TODO lists seem to be a growing thing in games. Devs forgetting EVERYONE HATES TODO LISTS. They're a real life thing, not a thing you want in a video game >.< You want gameplay where you get rewards while you're doing the gameplay you want to do >.

[@Dave.666.]

Salient and insightful as always, Preach.

[@Anomaly-33]

If warfronts were PvP they could have been a revolutionary feature IMO. Just don't sell them as being at all important to the war, make them always available with attack/defend cycling daily, let bad players on both sides serve as a natural difficulty balance and have a maximum group-que of 5 or something so one team isn't full of cutting edge raiders. It feels like they were kinda on to something amazing with the cross between RTS, MOBA and MMORPG but it's just completely scuffed because of the never lose bullshit.

[@alirezasaliani5165]

Luke Grim yeah it would actually be fun to sort of combine island expedition system with warfront. No guaranteed win, the winners would get decent gear and ap and potentially mount plus more ap based on the time spent as their reward, and the loser side would still get ap based on the time they spent. This way players are certain that their time is not being wasted anymore. Its also the perfect way to go with the "base building" idea. Do you agree with me?

[@Xfacta12482]

Go figure. Amazing potential gimped in the name of "accessibility". Welcome to WoW, unfortunately.

[@TAVROSH]

have you ever HAD to win a random BG that was sabotaged by idiots on your side every time? you really dont want a shitshow like that.. random BGs are like the LFR of pvp. I would love pvp warfronts as an option, they would exist in the same space as pvp island expos!

[@rickeyryan303]

No othe rmmos have stuff like this with pvp nothing new.

[@Calphurnious]

PvP would probably be amazing. Blows my mind it isn't.

[@russellmedeiros7927]

It's a simple time sink for gear. It fits in the standard dungeon run bracket. It works great for the casual player just like islands do for azerite gain. Its a way to progress in the LF playstyle. You don't have to try to put a dungeon team together or join a raid since ilvl above 320 really only effects mythic level content.

[@robowarriorx]

They really sold it and made it sound awesome, and I think maybe, just maybe the heroic warfront that is coming might be semi decent, since they claim it has more of a challenge..but I CBA to even run them on my alts to get the cache and catch up gear anymore.

[@literallypuni4091]

It's for Support Class players. The WoW players who like crafting, or buffing in raids. This is a gearing path for them. It's the "I don't want to be a charging hero bringing down the giant boss. I just want to collect wood or help dps the patrol." This is progression for THEM, bypassing the horrors of LFR. And yes, there are MANY players that "just want to chop down trees." There is a HUGE player base that just want to play WoW to craft gear for others, or buff other players. That's your blind spot.

[@Catjamfan]

You mean there is a huge amount of players that want things for free. They do not want to learn anything. They want stuff they do not deserve for no effort. They don't even need the gear.... Get they waltz around in 395 cause sheer luck casino rules the game now and it can give it to you via afk sources... I'm depressed over the state of Wow, once an MMORPG with a learning curve and dedication, progress. Now a casino, Mmorng, made for the people who honestly don't care jackshit about improving or learning or getting friends to do things with.... They need it all to be solo. Consumable within 30min of playtime. Gear they don't need or deserve...

[@lolimadethisvid]

i'm sorry, but this "alternative gear path" nonsense is just that. nonsense. I don't even play WoW anymore but I can promise you that giving out free epics to players who don't want to participate in difficult content is one of the main reasons the game is so watered down. Back in WoW's hayday, there was no lfr. You ran normal dungeons while leveling, then you ran the heroic version at max level for your BiS pre-raid gear. After that you got into the raid with your guild or pug and THEN you could earn epic gear. Anybody who didn't participate in this either didn't need the gear cause they played the game differently and without need for better gear, or they do PvP and earn gear that way. Nobody got free epics or welfare epics from doing stupid content like warfronts, loot pinata world bosses, lfr and other things of that nature. These "catchup" mechanics have virtually annihilated character progression.

[@James-xo8dl]

Hey Mike, a minor point but I can't agree with you on the amount of work Warfronts likely required. You mentioned some of the asset changes - updating the zone visually, adapting to the new gameplay, adding new content like the buildings etc. That's a pretty significant amount of work but that's mostly just for the art/design teams. In addition to that: Design will have had to figure out how all of this works - everything from a high level summary down to the very last detail. That's a significant investment of time. Code will have to make all of this actually work, and there's a lot of stuff in there that doesn't look or work like anything else in the game. So who knows what hoops they had to jump through. Audio will have to add sound effects for anything in there that might conceivably make a noise. The VO team will have to get voice actors in to record all the new lines - for multiple different languages. Character art will have to create all the new models and they'll have to be animated, have audio, AI etc. Analytics will have to figure out what they want to get from it and put their hooks in. Lore wants to know how this all fits in with the story, add all the lines and get them all localised. Production have to tie all of this madness together and somehow produce a workable plan for getting it all done. I'm sure I've forgotten a few things but basically my point is that Warfronts would almost certainly have been a huge endeavour from multiple teams.

[@laertesindeed]

What I hate about the warfronts is that they have no consequence in the lore or the story. Me defeating Lady Liadrin at the end of the Arathi warfront means absolutely nothing because she is not dead, she's right back there participating in the blood elf heritage armor scenario weeks after I already supposedly killed her. Same with Rokhan and Eitrigg and Turalyon and Muradin. Nothing happened to them. Moreover......I completely disagree with the dialogue used by the voice actors and the things we are doing there. Arathi does "not" belong to dark spear trolls...when I heard that on my horde character I literally stopped moving and stood there aghast. And I don't agree with conquering darkshore with blight and soul raping night elves.....that is not something my horde character would do. I should have been striking down the evil banshee queen the first moment of the pre-bfa darkshore scenario....but they don't let me do that. It is ridiculous how they keep making my horde character participate in things I totally disagree with.

[@laertesindeed]

@Keith False...it did not belong to the Amani Trolls either. Rokhan is a Darkspear...not an Amani. The humans were living in Arathi before there was ever any such thing as an alliance. The Amani are enemies of the Darkspear...so don't start claiming that any species wandering around an area gives you the right to murder and soul rape the inhabitants.

[@benp9793]

@@laertesindeed what

[@Lickerman85]

@@laertesindeed Keith is right. The troll empire had it. Nothing Rokhan said was claiming otherwise either. Read what the guy wrote. lol

[@laertesindeed]

@Lickerman Read what I typed....your wishes don't become reality.

[@Lickerman85]

@@laertesindeed I did, you were wrong, and ignored what he had said, it's ok to be wrong sometimes, no one is pooping on you, no defense required.

[@alexeykostyuk8797]

Mike also you might help me out a bit. Im a cut edge player but i cant find a solution. So I use addon called Dominos. U seems too. When I sit in a vehicle with special buttons usually 1 to 4-5 of them. I dont have a key bind shown. So I have to guess and thats horrible. I see that u dont have such problems any advice? thank u in advance

[@jedijeffp85]

As someone who has returned to the game after not playing since Cataclysm, I find it odd that so many people are unhappy with a game that seems lightyears better than the game I left. My perspective on "What are warfronts for?" 1. Warfronts provide weekly gated gear similar to the way Wintergrasp did. Sure you could run Wintergrasp multiple times a day, but you could only do VoA once per week, and you may or may not get the piece you need from it. Wintergrasp was also designed for the attacking team to win, and they even added buffs to that team to guarantee that they would eventually be successful in order to give each faction a shot at the raid on a regular basis. 2. Warfronts provide a way to tell a Horde vs Alliance battle story in a way that battlegrounds don't. 3. Warfronts provide content that every max level player can participate in regardless of gear. I can go in on my raiding gear equipped main and be a one man healing machine at the front of the battle, or I can go in on my fresh 120 and cut down trees. 4. Warfronts provide a story opportunity to remake little used old world zones into max level zones with the world quests and world bosses that available between warfront cycles. Is this the best iteration of this type of content? Probably not, but I think it's better than or Tol Barad and I am interested on what the next version will look like in the next expansion.

[@ThatGenericCanadian]

I haven't finished the whole video so you might even mention this, but the only thing I see Warfronts as is a catchup mechanic. It's a passive way to give people high level gear, so they don't feel too far behind even if they're not playing the game much.

[@NightpireVideos]

Preach, you actually spent more time making this video than me playing warfronts in bfa. It's just a mop story scenario on steroids.

[@ismajlmaqastena909]

The purpose is becoming a part of the invasion cinematics that we usually just watch. I suspect the idea came from the Wrathgate questline to become part of the ongoing story etc.

[@54tisfaction]

It's very simple: Warfronts are a feature to gear up for Mythic dungeons and raids. E-sport. "Merchandizing. That's where the real money are!"- Spaceballs

[@valkarien4528]

The Darkshore Warfront has to be the most boring gameplay I've ever experienced in my entire time playing WoW. Just stand around passively earning resources to randomly spend on random buildings. It's not like you have to actually think about what you're dumping stuff into either, because you can't finish it without having everything anyway. The entire gameplay of both Darkshore and Arathi is literally - Zerg rush/nuke NPCs with no mechanics, spend resources, repeat. At least Arathi was nice to look at and feels a little bit more like a war with siege engines going off. Darkshore just felt like I was killing quest NPCs and then waiting for 'stuff' to happen so I could kill another quest boss. If it wasn't for the free heroic loot nobody would be doing them outside of alts, and that's only because doing it on an alt is an extremely easy (although boring) way of farming gear.

[@fabiank4396]

Yeah it's boring.

[@sandy1636]

You want to make war fronts mean something what they should have done is , when your faction owns that warfront it should have a continent-wide buff for any character under level 110 that gives them a slight experience buff while leveling in that area so for example if Alliance owns darkshore all of calendar becomes an XP buff

[@sandy1636]

I will also add this you actively have to participate in the war front to benefit from the buff

[@gabrielpvc]

Warfronts are like a really special and flavory worldquest. I remember people on legion complaining about the broken shore feeling dumb with just world quests, there was no territory being won or lost. I remember people suggesting systems really similar to warfronts, and most of the suggestions even mentioned "it doesn't need to be hard, it just need to add flavour to the content". The only point is to give the "factions at war" impression to the players. If warfronts weren't a thing the expansion could hardly be described as faction conflict. But I agree heavily on the cut content hypothesis.

[@Monique-iz8lp]

Hey preach, found your channel only pretty recently and watched some of your older vids. Is Drama Time dead?

[@matsmekker1132]

No. Should come out a new episode every friday. I think he has missed some recently.

[@theghostshark_]

you know what was really frustrating? I was in a group that pushed to maiev before finishing buildings and with 0 plague engines, and she didnt activate. even after going back to finish the buildings, nothing. the warfront broke completely and 20 people had to go do it again.

[@faithdimmer4034]

Not complicated boys, it's not intended for top end raiders or pvp players or those who are well geared ( 380 and up). Need it spelled out? " Warfronts are for semi geared casuals and fresh 120s to get a chance for decent gear to help them catch up and get into harder content sooner". I do them because like many of us I work irl and do not have the hours I had 12 years ago to grind gear. In that respect it does it marvelously. It's not complicated, not intended to be. Sometimes in life between your full time job and your part time job the only chance you have to eat is the Burger King drive thru, and sometimes you can take your wife out to Gene and Giorgetti's for steak. One is not the other, and both are good for what they are good for. Thank you Blizz, this proud casual thanks you for this warfront, which allowed me to get my 375 weapon so I could get into raids, mission well done.

[@troqu]

I may be wrong, but I feel like warfronts were an idea that a quest designer had that blew out of control. Someone was like "wouldn't this be really cool for an epic questline?" and then other people agreed, but someone at the top said "It would take far too long to develop for a one off quest" and so they set to making it a 'system' instead so they could implement it. But since it was just supposed to be a one off quest originally they didn't really have a good plan for reward structure or why its supposed to be relevant long term.

[@damonrojas83]

It's very easy actually, it's LFR for PvP bgs. It's the answer for "how do we give relevant content for people who only do LFR and to make sense on a Faction War expansion". And also it's on places like Arathi and Darkshore, and not only on the new continent purely for lore reasons. Does anyone notice how the once per uptime quest for winning a warfront gives you an Elite PvP piece of gear (visually)

[@Fiery891]

Correction: Alliance in Darkshore autocollect lumber due to Night Elf Wisps. So Horde has to put in more effort.

[@bloodsongsToolreviews]

“Tending to the farm in goldshire” no Mike, she’s tending to something else entirely

[@beardyface7977]

I had the sinking revelation when i got to thinking about 8.0 and 8.1 and their lack of end game content and I realized, patroling the warfront zones was meant to be the suramar or broken shore of BFA

[@skizilla]

The fact the older warfronts will be phased out as new ones come around combined with the fact they aren't replayable AT ALL, will mean these things are endangered already.

[@projectlifedog1459]

Answer to your statement in 11:30 : We go to those places, cause we need ships so that we can take our armies to oposite continent. If you ask, why dont we fight near the gates of Orgrimmar or Stormwind, its pecause we need to first get there. War and moving your troops from A to B is much more complex than some may think (even in Warcraft).

[@NeflewitzInc]

Last week I finally realized that I can spam warfronts to get fully geared on my alts. I didn't notice before because they're so dull. I make it my mission to go after the necessary materials because anything else makes it so that I don't have a goal and hate the whole thing.

[@WayneCraft]

Hey Preach. Been watching your channel for a long time. Warfronts are just Blizzard's way of trying to refresh the old zones in a way that does not make the old content obsolete. They learned from Cata that this would have been a mistake. Warfronts provide a method of updating the old zones in a way that scale to higher levels, without removing the old content completely. I'd say Warfronts are for sure a welcome way of revitalizing old zones. Bringing the world to life again. The main star of this story is Azeroth.

[@dominosix1722]

Would it have helped, do you think, If they major ideas of warfronts and islands had been a single system? An large pve OR pvp environment with procedurally generated ai and random events.

[@jfh667]

1) they do give 370/385 items to people that couldnt get them otherwise. Mostly awesome for alts. Chaining them allows a fresh 120 to get to 340 in one evening, allowing them to jump into current content. At this stage in the game you almost need to be 350 to get into mythics or LFR. 2) They should have a difficulty level requiring to have done the lower ones before and a report afk feature. 3) New features takes some time to fiddle and get right. Hopefully they do because i like the concept. Just would like a bit more resistance.

[@AnimeIsMyThingz]

Warfronts are just an excuse to use the new art/models for the different factions. Maybe next expansion is catacylsm like ? and they needed to create new models for the different factions while meanwhile they want some form of content to use it in.

[@sulimanz7067]

dogshit game by dogshit company

[@SirNikurasu]

that wouldn't excuse the little thought and effort

[@Matikz007]

Its purpose is the fact that its another timegated way of receiving gear. You have to realize that the game is now simply about ways of getting gear and how to enjoy your time in the game with said gear. Literally all the warfronts are is: You wait for it to be ready, You queue it, You get gear to help in raids / m+.

[@rowdyrager-9403]

Have a Happy Holidays Preach!

[@karlzone2]

It feels like Scenarios in MoP to which everyone reacted with: "Eh, it's fine I guess" and then never did them again. I hope Warfronts will be revitalized with HC mode like it did for Scenarios (along with the heavily increased rewards).

[@blech71]

I see the warfronts as a literal “front” or sly way for catchup mechanics for those casual players to get 340 or slightly higher gear to get up to pace quickly for gearing. I pretty much got my alts geared to 340 pretty fast with the gear drops playing for a few hours each when we have it.

[@Kevashidaz]

I think the purpose of warfronts is to slowly revamp the old world without seeming to lose a lot of development time. You might remember that cataclysm took forever to release, and didn't have as much content as the expansions that surrounded it, and that was largely because the old world revamp took so much development time. Warfronts exist to let blizzard update the old world in a slower way, while having at least some kind of "content" attached.

[@TheCudmaster]

It is a 20 minute cinematic that rewards loot. These sort of on rails walkthroughs CAN feel special, but not if you do them more than once or go in realizing there is no threat or challenge.

[@neildoerdan2298]

For alliance the wood and iron is auto generated, nothing needed to be cut down. Extra iron was gained by killing the mobs on way to base.

[@coreym3149]

The purpose is story nothing else. For arathi, Horde are trying to reclaim their bufferzone between Northern territories and the south which is alliance land and the alliance wants to prevent it. For Darkshore the NE are seeking vengence with a swift strike and the horde are...i dont get their purpose. Stop Tyrande i guess? The horde version feels disjointed. For gameplay i like the feel of Arathi The pacing isnt bad for the story. It makes sense you are waiting on the demos to break the fortess walls so troops can flood it. That's realistic and with a few people gathering resources, demos are doing their job about the time middle is capped. This gives time to go cap the other 2 lanes if wanted. Darkshore is a lot more fast paced and that's the biggest problem. Iron is almost nonexistant to gather and alliance don't cut trees at all because of WC3 elves. Everything just shows up in the chest. You cap all bases very fast then constantly have to remind people to open their chests so it can actually be finished. I spend most of darkshore waiting around, arathi there is usually something to do to contribute.

[@xkankesx]

I would like to point out that we're on Kul'tiras and Zandalar to recruit a navy for the war. The war on the home continent IS the Warfronts. If you look at it, Arathi is the front line between the northern Forsaken controlled, and the southern Human and Dwarven controlled, Eastern Kingdoms. Darkshore is going to be the front line between the remaining Alliance territory (Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles) and the rest of Kalimdor. Controlled by the majority of the Horde. The battle isn't going to happen in Orgrimmar or Stormwind obviously because those cities are behind front lines, so you can't get a major army in that close.

[@Qwerds7]

To be fair the whole point is that zandalar and kul'tiras are placed in between the horde and alliance. They are the closest to the bulk of the two factions forces and therefore easier targets

[@staffsarge192]

As far as the in world strategic importance of Stromgard and Darkshore, Stromgard is an established fortress in the borderlands between the Eastern Kingdoms Horde and the main forceof the Alliance. The Horxe took Darkshore to establish complete control of Kalimdor, so ths Horde can't let the night elves take back what the Horde claimed. Although with the fall of Undercity, theres less of an importance to defend the Arathi Highlands as much, unless Stromgard would become the new major Horde stronghold in Eastern Kingdoms.

[@TheMazuro124]

Happy holidays mike!

[@deadmanfred]

Many people have MISSED this!!! There are seeds on the ground by the fel ballistas for horde. they deal a huge amount of ticking dmg to the enemy glaive throwers. they have insane range!

[@iCharli92]

With the resource game within the warfronts if the collected wood was transported to the main base and the transport themselves were assaulted by the “Guerilla” units you would need someone protecting them. Incentive to fight less boring than clicking things.

[@Myrmazon]

The theme is all some folks care about and I'm enjoying warfronts in that respect. It's a different flavour of quest basically. Or a holiday event - can't lose those, just something different to knock off once in a while on the alts. Plus I kinda like being that one guy who knows what the deal is and saves the day. So warfronts don't bother me. BUT I do wish they felt more like an actual game with more interactivity. Hopefully that's something Blizz is looking to bring in the heroic versions.

[@ChazShinRa]

I wish they made it so there was two queues for the same instance in which one queue would be people fighting in the warfront with their toons and the other was for a sort of watered down warcraft 3 style mini game in which you controlled groups of troops or something similar. No idea how that could be achieved but anything close or similar to that would've been fantastic in my eyes.

[@veggiemitegames9044]

the bats you ride also provide a stacking debuff that increases dmg taken by the enemy, thats why you use them

[@mr_yoru5834]

It's a monthly event to capture territory to get free loot, access to more world quests, and a world boss. That's literally the whole point. I agree that they should be more engaging.

[@Przymiot]

Warfronts are just scenarios that are somehow interesting the first time you play them. Other than that, it's boring weird shit. I'm glad that with warfronts we also have the whole control over the zone thingie and withi it, lots of rares to farm for collectibles. It's like having multiple Argus-like zones. The warfronts are basically cockblocks on the collectible farming in the zone.

[@Silvertaurus_]

I think, I understand the point of Warfont. It was planned to be experiment to introduce new type of instance, but instead of trash-boss-trash-boss sequence it would be this "battle" from beggining to end. Same as you can't loose raid. You may wipe on boss but you get back and keep trying and clear it in the end. And you Loose only if your group is to weak and have to give up trying. But think Warfornts are currently mostly failing atm because we have basially expirencing LFR version of it. Yeah, you can say many can afk through, but for each AFKer there is other person giving extra effort to make thigs get moving, as its in LFR. TBH I really can't wait to see what Blizzard learned from interation through first two warfronts and will implement in thrid with Heroic mode.

[@coreym3149]

We had scenarios in Pandaria which were the same set up but with only 3 people. These are a larger scale version of those.

[@TheamazingHotdots]

@Preach ... Idea for war fronts, looking to get your thoughts. Once you zone in, you get scaled to 340 item level for Arathi. Each point of upgrades doesn't just upgrade your troops. It upgrades your character as well. Like the weapon upgrades and armor upgrades. That way you progress in power based on your team's progression and adds a bit of difficulty at the start until everything is set up as you progress the team for the final push. Would feel more involved I suppose.

[@sheepalot9924]

My guess: It's a way for them to have some sort of content tied to reshaping old zones so they don't have to do it all at once like they did in cata.

[@welshman100]

I can see that the devs initially wanted to design something which could compete with raiding as a primary focus of some players.

[@davidmcfall9169]

What are warfronts for? I'd like to say they're to get a transmog set that look sort of "meh" on one side or "really great" on the other. The Arathi plate set and the Darkshore cloth (on alliance anyways) looks awesome. I use the plate set for my warrior because it makes me look like a faction champion, and the cloth set on my priest makes me look like a priestess of Elune. The other sets for both the Arathi and Darkshore warfronts look underwhelming in some aspects and don't seem to fit towards either the theme from the warfront or, they have one or two items that ruin the set entirely. One thing I would say about warfronts is they are alright the first to fifth time doing, because it's a new scenario and you want to get some 370-385 items. After that though, they've lost their interest. Why? because it feels like you're just sitting on your ass for close to a half hour for the whole thing to be played for you by other players or the game itself. And that isn't fun. I'd rather do mythic+ where i know there's at least a chance I won't make the timer, a chance that i've landed on multiple times through either my team or my own faults. Warfronts have no chance to lose when you start, and that's something that needs to happen.

[@briancatt7813]

It feels like another addition to the game that, once perfected, would be a huge stepping stone to porting WoW to a single-player console-esque experience.

[@FluffyMeowington]

Fully agree, "bizarre" is the perfect word to describe warfronts. They don't make ANY sense. They're not fun, they're a shit catchup. Wait, no, I had fun once, when I was "chosen" and could control the big shooty robot.

[@therealbacalao1402]

Big problem is we have the LFR difficulty, it's just there to give everyone a taste and guarantee a win. If it were something that required coordination, attack and defend, escorting resources, etc then I think it would be a potentially engaging slice of content. The only thing they really do now is feed alts gear and push the "Azeroth at war" theme.

[@Kalrell]

The main thing from my point of view is remembering how Warfronts were in beta. When you bought units from a Barracks they would come out and go join an attack wave, and wait till that attack wave was built up before heading out from base. So you actively helped build up the attack waves. It had player interaction! Now on live for some reason the Barracks only gives you a max of 2 bodyguard units that just follow you? why?? I also remember how laggy the first Warfront test was on beta, and how many more attack waves were spawned on both sides, maybe they just had to cut the whole system back so it wouldn't lag and destroy computers?

[@Ferdawoon]

"Lumber needed", "must go out to cut trees". Are you referring to the Darkshore Warfront? Because then you should try it as Alliance. After you get the "Lumber Mill", you empower Wisps to gether wood for you. You get almost 1 Timber per second and gain it far faster than you can spend it if you are also running out to take flags and kill enemy assault teams. As Alliance, your main source for Iron on the other hand is killing Shredders and Towers and looting them. The Mine has no real Iron in it and the Resource chest in camp is much much slower getting Iron than it was in Stromgarde.. This ties in with the NElf faction in WC3 where you sent Wisps off to collect timber, and they did that while not hurting the trees.

[@lugzx]

My confusion is on a different level. Have you tried the Darkshore warfront on the Horde side? The mine doesn't work and 1/2 of the map is useless, there nothing going on there and there is nothing you can do with it. and there is is no clear direction for war, we just spread out and do our own thing because there isn't any clear goals other than chop wood.

[@coreym3149]

Darkshore feels like a fast lethal strike scenario that had resources thrown in at the last minute to slow it down. Try the alliance side where you dont even have wood to farm. Whisps just send it to your chest.

[@Desolaytore]

I agree though, they do need to show the War happening all over Azeroth. Maybe extend the Assaults to other zones, I know more warfronts are still coming. But yeah... not enough WAR happening in the rest of the continents.

[@veksar]

For me personally, the whole "unloseable content" encapsulates everything I dislike about WoW these days. I subject myself to 20 to 30 mins of this forgettable stand alone content because the reward is worth it once a week. It makes people log in, that's about it. My biggest beef is that it teaches people nothing. Players get worse and don't learn anything. It's not fun, it's barely palatable for 30 minutes a week.

[@Sight0fDawn]

on the war not being at home point, with war mode (and being alliance) when leveling it does feel like the war is everywhere. I ended up skipping STV after several fights, the last escalated to us both bringing mains, me winning, but then the other guy getting friends. I don't want to turn off warmode so I just went to a different zone (thank god for that new scaling leveling), so I have felt the effects of a war that is spread everywhere

[@coreym3149]

Your STV experience pretty much summed up PvP servers in general before warmode was added.

[@CornbreadPops]

I tend to play the resource guy... I'm fine with getting the wood and iron b/c I figured most people will want to go and fight. However, maybe they are designed like this b/c they plan to make the heroic ones for a real challenge. The ones we do are like a step above a LFR raid still below a normal raid but with heroic loot once. I think they are mostly designed for catch up since you probably couldn't God mode them like your druid did if you are 320, but I think the ability to lose wouldn't have hurt them.

[@Saluuntv]

I was honestly hoping when they announced warfronts that it is going to be like a new version of Winter's Grasp.. a big battle with vehichles and multiple bases to capture etc in a PvP fashion.

[@LacTV-videos]

The flavour text on the mission table missions tells the story of the war in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. It's a pretty poor way to tell that story though since not many people actually do the missions anymore. The strategic importance of Arathi and Darkshore is made apparent in those missions.

[@sionroberts1454]

What i'd love to see the percentage of the resources gained for the whole warfront group are actively compared to the amount gained passively in the box.