Why Aren't YOU Enjoying the War Within?

[@eleus8715]

i dont have enough time to play wow and im unemployed

[@Negatigger]

It really is now a game for the unemployed souls out there if you want to experience everything. Everyone else has to laser focus on one slice of that pie.

[@icresp4263]

​@@Negatiggerhas it not always been that?

[@konekopon2865]

​@@Negatigger welcome to every mmorpg ever made

[@SpaceElvisInc]

have you tried breaking into a store and working

[@TheLifesentence2278]

No you don't have enough time you have to go on a quest to obtain a job.

[@Soupknivez]

Mike helped me decide whether it is "time to come home." The answer is no. Give me challenging and rewarding solo content (or 2-3 people) and I'll consider it. Thanks Mike 👍

[@oldmanbryce1909]

20 years of content and we are stuck running a handful of dungeons over and over to gear up for a patch to then gear up again doing the same thing… exhausted is an understatement. The word redundant echos in the deeps

[@foxxoboxxo1611]

Apparently you're not allowed to make this valid criticism cause its an mmo: Never mind the fact you can't even do basic content without grinding up to around heroic ilvl with how metabrain-rotted the general playerbase has become: I'm quitting this Xpac already, and hope they tone this shit down next time but they probably won't for profit margins.

[@Blackbirddc]

Seriously. Where's the BR they put out for that minute it was out? We need new gameplay.

[@foxxoboxxo1611]

@@Blackbirddc I'd take another Remix Event than play another minute of this mid af expansion. I was excited and hyped but now I just want to go back to DF, atleast you could actually do most of the content without losing your mind grinding delves for weeks now.

[@Blackbirddc]

@@foxxoboxxo1611 I'm also quitting. I'm old. I miss the old Blizzard. Why do I keep trying with every expansion?!

[@MrSheduur]

@@Blackbirddc and tbh even the old Blizzard was messy, but back then we gave them the benefit of the doubt because the game was still new'ish and there was still hype up until around Cata. I have not seen any of that ever since. Pretty much since Ion Hazzikostas got into power...

[@MiriQLMovies]

They have graphic designers designing the raids and dungeons. A purple room with purple void zones, purple orbs and explosions fill your screen, numbers everywhere, and you need to avoid everything. Also clearly they rely on people running boss mod addons to keep track of what is even happening

[@DefianceOrDeath]

I don't think that's true about relying on people using boss mod addons. There are queues to figure out what's going on without them. You just don't want to learn those queues, and opt instead of something that holds your hand-- then you blame them for you deciding to use a crutch. Tbh I am tired of people complaining about addons. Be the change you want to see, don't use them. There are hundreds of thousands of players, and I see a good portion of you whining about addons. Seek out others that also like to whine about addons. Create a guild that doesn't use addons. Beat the game the way you want to beat it. But you won't ever do that, because it'll be too difficult. Then on the other hand, if Blizzard makes dirt simple content that people such as yourself could play without addons, you'd also whine. Honestly I think Blizzard needs to stop listening to the community and focus on making a game like games used to be made. By ignoring the fucking community. I don't think Blizzard listening to the community has accomplish a single good thing for the game.

[@treeaboo]

People incorrectly blame DBM/BigWigs/WAs for Blizz's bad dungeon design but the simple truth is that M+ itself is a bad system that is not fit for purpose, which has to create artificial difficulty by just being fundamentally BS in its encounter design due to having to have a scalable difficulty level. Whether or not you have them it's still a bad experience and the fact that it's mandatory if you want to raid, the main content of the game, at a half-decent level is ridiculous.

[@Dsingis]

I'm currently playing and enjoying Star Wars The Old Repblic, and gearing there is pretty straight forward. Different endgame activities award different rarities of gear, and these activities also award currency that you can use to upgrade that gear to a higher item level. With the source of the best gear and potential highest item level, of course, being what would be the equivalnt of mythic raids in WoW. But it's pretty simple. Play dungeons, get dungeon track gear and dungeon currency to upgrade your dungeon items. Play raids, get raid track items and raid currency to upgrade your raid items. Play PvP, get PvP track items and currency to upgrade your PvP items. Play solo content, get solo content track items and currency to upgrade your solo content items. And you can exchange currency for one another. So, potentially, if you spend hundreds and hundreds of hours of farming you *could* get raid level gear by solo farming, though that would be pretty stupid and time consuming :D But it's possible. And the most important thing: it's not freaking hard capped. Who the hell thinks it's a good idea to put in a seasonal hard cap on how much upgrade currency you can farm in WoW? Wtf? This just ties back to the freaking time-gating of WoW. Let players play the game as much or as little as they want for crying out loud. I was playing with the idea of coming back to WoW, since SWTOR has reignited my love for MMOs, but after I've looked up videos on how gearing works in WoW, I was just like: "nah I'm good."

[@ragganmore6113]

The Hardcap on Crests has mainly the goal of keeping no-lifers from burning a huge gearing gap into the Playerbase. Yes it's weird to be capped. But also, it's WoW, which is a lot more "tryhard" than SWOTR for example is. If you don't put a cap on, people will run into burnout issues just to "not fall behind". Which also makes it something you can cross off your weekly activity list without being punished for not doing it straight away, as you can catch up whenever to the current seasonal max even if you take multiple weeks of breaks.

[@b151proof]

@@ragganmore6113 This is what you've been forced to believe for justification. Freedom of choice is never a downgrade to the alternative, regardless of someone telling you it's for your own good because you're not responsible enough to manage your own pleasures.

[@ragganmore6113]

@@b151proof What kind of mental gymnastics is that? What do you think the Playerbase will look like when you don't put a cap? People who got loads of spare time will just grind out enough badges to cap their char in full 636 crafted Gear within the first week and gatekeep anyone who can't keep up with it out of group content. Sure there will be splits between the players who can't grind as much, but still do a ton more than others and it will grow the divide in the playerbase and increase the gatekeeping of content. The "freedom of choice" is what is given by the Seasonal Cap, as you can choose to cap out now or later. A choice which you don't have if there would be no cap, as you will be forced into keeping up with others if you want to participate in group content.

[@b151proof]

@@ragganmore6113 No need for Gymnastics, as It's not a matter of placing a cap, but allowing more flexibility and options to achieve the same goal with relative effort placed in a different direction. It can be done regarding players who prefer solo content, especially considering the declining player base. There is a reason specific information can only be speculated now in regards to player base for the most part. Activision / Blizzard (and gaming studios/publishers in general) are wisely abandoning the generation that gave them a platform (wise from a business point of view), in order to groom a new one who will tolerate eating a sh*t sandwich, which in turn will increase profit. It's important to really differentiate incompetent game design / story vs profit driven corporate greed. My main point is that both can be accomplished and I'd like to believe Blizz is actively trying to succeed in this endeavor. I'm actually sympathetic towards the talking heads they put forth for interviews / updates... these guys are stressed tf out. Bless their hearts lol

[@b151proof]

@@ragganmore6113 To clarify I'm not saying there shouldn't be limitations, heck I even agree it should definitely be considerably more difficult. I just want to emphasize what a great accomplishment it would be to open the door to the possibility. Not saying the gear from delves should be BiS or even comparable. But it certainly wouldn't break the game to make them a decent alternative to M+ dungeons, even if slightly inferior.

[@Jovitacky]

As a new WoW retail player coming from FF14, I'm enjoying the game but God do I hate the systems surrounding M+. Takes me 1h+ to find a group for +10s(as an spriest), which is really killing my motivation to play more.

[@ruick78]

Yea your kinda expected have guild pre mades most time to run them

[@Roswend]

Gotta make some friends. I love m+, it's the reason I play wow, but there is no shot I'd be playing if I had to pug

[@leemaster777]

M+ is awful if you're trying to pug, but can be alot of fun in guild groups. It really helps to have guildies to chat with, people that won't leave in the middle of groups, and a sense that, even if YOU don't get loot, your guild is still making progress, since SOMEONE likely got gear at the end.

[@duck4658]

being a dps is hard to find groups, heals and tanks are almost guaranteed

[@Dadge42]

You'll see long-time players making various excuses for this terrible system because they're addicted to it, not because it's good. The embracing of M+ as a game mode on par with raiding or pvp is what really led to the death of WoW as a game that is interesting to play on any level. In a game that adds new classes every few years and gives the strongest buffs only to a couple of them, 5 slots is too few to allow for anything but a strict meta to form, even if you "just make friends bro."

[@cloudstrife2131]

Same old treadmill, same old miserable cock and ball torture in M+, same old guilds that last 4-5 weeks before everyone drops off the earth.

[@joveonlightbringer9684]

My guild has been continuously active since the first month of vanilla. My M+ team has 3 portals so far, and we're on a roll. TWW is my favorite expansion to date.

[@jamesn3122]

Just play other games :) GW2 is fun and F2P to start, my Dad and I just jumped in, having a damn blast

[@ChanJustWon]

@@joveonlightbringer9684 I wudnt brag abt that middle part publicly

[@joveonlightbringer9684]

@@ChanJustWon Dude I'm a pleb. I'm not bragging about anything. I don't raid mythic. I've never earned M+ title (maybe someday?). I'm a fair-to-middling, AotC/3k player. But I'm having fun and that's the only way to win this game. :)

[@manfIesh]

HAHAH

[@TheMMObro]

I wanted to play casually, but i realized that that meant playing alone. I can't keep up with my friends.

[@SpookyFaceGaming]

Same, minus the friends part, cause all my friends quit. It's not viable for me now.

[@retrorewind6042]

I took off 2 weeks to play classic with my guild. I was pretty far ahead of my friends before my break. Now im back for the anniversary even and so far behind its not even worth me trying anymore

[@d1sarm]

@@retrorewind6042 so you stopped playing? and now are upset because your friend group continued and progressed to the point where your behind? how the f*ck is that the games fault and not yours when you STOPPED playing?

[@JEROBI37]

@@retrorewind6042you can catch up. It’s why the crest upgrade system is there. Mains have a limit of crest that can earn and you could just go back grind a bit and be caught up in a week or so. People just want to write doomer comments on the internet instead of actually trying to you know play the game lol

[@knightofwhale2834]

I can't even keep up with my friends' alts playing casually. I started the expansion playing all the classes and specs I thought were cool. By the end it felt like there wasn't really a point to playing anything but one because to do anything else meant I was slowing down in trying to catch up to friends.

[@relhaz4326]

One important thing is that content doesn't have to be "hard" to be FUN and or interesting. Wow open world isn't even content at this point. Its homework

[@areharald]

Yup. Making it pretty much obligatory to engage with is not a good design choice.

[@henrikhumle7255]

"Like we did in the Sunwell" - The Sunwell, released in 2008, had better and more straightforward bad luck protections than the 2024 expansion. Blizzard continues their trend of overdeveloping their systems.

[@victorfrederiks4367]

Trying to re-invent the wheel over and over

[@lecrab8090]

Change for the sake of change is awful

[@rickmel-q7m]

devs thought copying PoE's clusterf*ck of a game was a good idea

[@khoitrieu]

I think at a basic level they need to just standardize the crest naming convention. Like why name them gilded, runed, etc. Just say mythic, heroic, normal, explorer. And I do not understand why 1) content doesn't give more crests, 2) why the crest cap is so low, and 3) why blizzard thinks the average player wants to do 8 m+ dungeons every week for 6 upgrades.

[@normannseils3936]

8 dungeons are 4 hours over a full week. Wouldn’t call that a lot. And if you don’t like the content what do you need gear upgrades? Raid gives you enough for your appropriate difficulty. And delves don’t need gear

[@titfortatpeterpan]

@@normannseils3936 lol 8 dung. 4 hour in pug as dd? u play the same game right? topic : content when u play 4 a while its hard to switch to another game and starting new. delves are boring and u alone so what the point? but i get u are the greatest so never critism blizzard

[@neretilderem7029]

It's literal time gating to keep you subscribed longer. What they still don't understand after 20 years is that it just kills your passion and makes you unsubscribe even faster

[@tw33kish]

@@neretilderem7029 i fully agree with you, to have a sustained interest in the game you need positive feedback from playing the game and not a FOMO from NOT playing

[@dudelove111]

​@@titfortatpeterpan yes, 4 hours. it is not hard to play another game at all, you just like crying. delves can be done with people. as for the last part.... lmao wtf??? someone doesn't agree with what the guy was bitching about and now they are the greatest and a fanboy?? go outside kid.

[@mobius6772]

I find it hard to do mythic + after delves. Not getting loot after 5 mythic + runs kicked me in gonads. After 5 delves I was guaranteed 5 level 603 item pieces with a chance to get 610 piece if i get a bounty map.

[@ShoteR_Omega]

Knowing Blizzard's MO, They're going to nerf the rewards for delves instead of buffing m+, to make it equally miserable...

[@normannseils3936]

After I spend a week on delves I’m done with gear if I’m not doing m+. Wouldn’t consider that rewarding. Delves are dogshit content, so nothing bad there ;)

[@illiberalautist2222]

But bro you get fifty gold in the chest. That's worth thirty minutes.

[@UltimateGamerCC]

M+ needs Buffs, it's garbage and it's been garbage since it's inception. it was better in DF but only because it had to be made easier for the Casual Player. now that the difficulty is turned back up and the M+ factors fuck you in the ass again and again, people can see it for what it really is, a 10 year old system long overdue for change,

[@stelthy3450]

5 guaranteed items that could be the same exact items over and over again? It's only good for a fresh 80 to get gear quickly. Can only get so many keys. Farming delves is a grind and quite frustrating when you don't get what you need. Same thing as m plus. Only the people doing 7s and up are the ones having fun.

[@Malforian]

The problem is, as someone who hasnt played an expansion on launch for the first time ever. I'm just bored of the gear/progression loop at endgame now, i dont want to run the same mythics for 6 months endlessly, to then just run another set for another 6 months after, I'm bored of that now. The gearing currency i thought would make it better but as Preach says, its convoluted and a mess to actually understand unless your reading guides all the time. Now they seem happy for you to play alts i wish they would go back to a more oldschool system of, this drops as this boss.. its the best, once you have it your done for that slot till next raid is out. I know it will never happen but i wish they left raid progression active for a whole expansion, so your guild felt like they were progressing and not "meh we just wait till next tier now and replace all our gear on the first boss"

[@maxw565]

Then don't. Run the content as long as it's fun and when it isnt anymore, stop. It's so easy. Every single other mmo has the same struggle. You think content in ff14 doesnt get stale? Course it does. Somehow ff14 are just smart enough to take a break and wow players for some reason expect to play t 24/7/4/12

[@FSGoingStraight]

Same. One of the major reasons I quit WoW was the reason that what I did didn't matter in the long-term. Running through the gear tread-mill only for it to be obsolete in a few months just isn't for me anymore.

[@thecozyplace1206]

@@maxw565 Yes, but WoW content gets "finished" so fast you're like "that's it?!" and you're presented with endless M+ and Raid runs until the end on your lifetime... It shouldn't be $75 bucks (game+sub) for this game, it should be a maximum of $20 at this point. I make a new char, get it to max lvl cause lvling is a chore and nobody likes it, then do some World Quests, Delves, a few dungeons to see them all, an LFR raid then done, you're done with the game. If you wanna do more, you gotta spend MONTHS to get to that "lategame"... Idk what they're getting from it, internet points?

[@SticksAandstonesBozo]

Gear doesn’t matter. It has no meaning because of transmog. There is no reward for playing the game. Period. It’s over.

[@NotClosedMinded]

The real endgame is transmog. Make your character as good looking as possible. Then just enjoy the things you like while looking awesome.

[@Mesisir]

My issues with WoW rn. 1. Too expensive, chose box price, sub or microtransaction 2. gearing system and reliance on 3rd party tools 3. addons 4. Too much RNG in combat gameplay

[@Klaidas21]

Me and my wife wanted to buy it on Christmas but seeing the early access and box price plus 90 dollar mount all over a short period made us spend it on 2 other games and the games are Pal world and Wayfinder and it has been successful purchases we having do much fun

[@Vordhosbn]

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: The game needs to be F2P already. Subs are outdated, they already make you buy the expansion to access the latest content, and it has a cash shop. Not dropping subs is just greed, because they know people will pay for it anyway. (like me, begrudgingly paying my sub)

[@yaminomarsh]

That Sub needs to go

[@ianhobbs3243]

@@Vordhosbn I've hated pretty much every F2P MMO I've ever played. I'm not in favor of WoW's cash shop, but holy hell is it not that bad, but especially they don't slap you over the head with it. Once I'm in game, I don't have to think about it. Nothing kills the vibes more than going up to a piece of content and a store front opening up.

[@Vordhosbn]

@@ianhobbs3243 But that already happens, you gotta pay for the expansion.

[@kilowhisperer5057]

Just let me queue for previous dungeons without having to timewalk. Im tired of doing the same 8 dungeons for a SINGLE piece of gear after 30 minutes.

[@veksar]

I quit after two weeks. Retail is just not made for me anymore.

[@maxstreim4612]

And that’s ok man. We all grow and change. Game is 20 years old.

[@veksar]

@@maxstreim4612 I didn't change, the game did.

[@Crenshaw41]

@@maxstreim4612I didn’t buy the new expansion cause I think classic is a more fun game. And that is actually 20 years old.

[@maskelive]

It's ok dude, you gotta learn when to let go

[@Mackanw]

Final Fantasy is right there for you. I would never touch it, but it’s a good alternative when we all get to old for wow 😂

[@karldergrosse-333]

both Valor and Justice badges were infinitely better for gearing. So simple but rewarding.

[@PrSleuth]

You know what was even better exchanging valor for a new high end piece of gear that really made your character pop. The whole upgrade this to get that to do this to then go back to do this so you can go back to this other random thing you forgot about is absolutely annoying and is what had at the end of bfa

[@rockyroche4136]

Its wouldn't fix anything as it the community will make it a problem. Remove the current a replace it with points, do we have a cap or not. Cap people don't want to waste it because its finite uncapped now its a grind community will complain about a none stop system. The COMMUNITY is never happy they will alway find something about anything being a problem.....

[@ic3t3ap3ach]

yep they changed it because for efficiency big player did +2 keys and they introduced crests and multiple gear levels🫣 because they hate fast gearing. it needs to be super complicated

[@Nightstalker314]

@@ic3t3ap3ach No, restricting crests to certain progress levels makes sure that there are always enough players around to fill groups instead of everyone just grinding the most simplistic method.

[@Nightstalker314]

@@PrSleuth Ah, yes. Capping valor for weeks and weeks to get 2 or 3 items. Your nostalgia goggles need some adjustment.

[@poz2253]

100% agree with the take on gearing and professions. I hard ignore the both as much as possible. Hate it. I'd rather level yet another alt than try to gear a character. (casual player)

[@titfortatpeterpan]

yeah me too its an mmorpg not an crafting game like landwirtschaftsimulator

[@Lenz2371]

Hahaha same. I have every class on at least 70 and 3 level 80s. The moment they got around 590 i lost interest, because Tier 8 delves are easy and Tier 9 delves are too OP, just because you get oneshot and cant outskill anything

[@kaakrepwhatever]

Ion needs to stop blaming people who haven't worked for Blizzard for a decade for training the current planners and developers wrong. He's a big boy. He's entirely responsible for what gets put into the game. Does he think he deserves another decade to figure it out?

[@silverstrings5569]

The toxicity surrounding doing endgame content is what kills it for me. I want to enjoy the challenge and be around people who also want to enjoy the challenge without being tilted that you didn't get a pixel-perfect last-second interrupt, or you didn't clutch the last boss because you burnt all your cooldowns to get to that point in the first place, or being ignored or passed over because 'not meta' or kicked from pug groups for asking about some unfamiliar tactic that they just assumed everyone knew (Spoilers: that particular one nobody knew and the raid leader ragequit.... then the group cleared the boss.), or having groups that just start sabatoging because they found out you were from a particular country..... It's like Blizzard just promotes and rewards that attitude at times, since these people somehow have BiS gear for everything. Combine that with absolutely trivial rewards for most things- After 8 keys, you figure I'd have gotten a single bit of gear, but no, just 50 gold and a kick to the giblets- and I really find it hard to justify actually playing the game at times. Honestly, part of the issue I find with WoW is that it doesn't actually teach you how to play. It gives you some basics, sure, but any deep mechanics and interactions? Not a bit. Combine that with button bloat (Looking at you, Shaman) it can get overwhelming for anyone who isn't super into reading every little nook and cranny and determining what can be ignored or is niche at best. And let's not talk about all the stuff on the ground, it's so hard to see things on the ground. The old death and decay was easy to see, easy to identify, same with the druid's efflorescence, and the Shaman's healing Rain. It's hard to see the edges of those AOE, and some of the damaging ones are damn near impossible. The valorstone situation is absurd to me. Do away with crests, keep valorstones, sure, but the crests are absolutely stupid. With the higher one gated behind a system that is broken at best? And let's not talk about removing recrafting, because that is absolutely bass ackwards to me. What was wrong with giving us the ability to change garbage stats on tier pieces to something that we need? The crafting system is stupid.

[@TimeRift609]

Personally I didn't connect with the story much at all. Maybe it's because they are slowing the pace down a bit to spread the lore over the whole saga, but this expac really didn't spark much interest in me in that department. And while I do play Horde, I don't think that the focus on Alliance characters was the reason for my lack of engagement.

[@Uko980]

They spent 20 years training a player base to ignore the story and the last like 8~ enforcing a gogogo mentality with m+. Combine all that with a large portion of the story only existing in external books and I'm with you I find it very hard to care about the story. I'm just like why care this will all be retconned before long anyway. Its all just blocking me from getting to endgame where the gameplay is.

[@fredrick1176]

I’ve read pretty much every quest in the game, and I love xpacs launches so I can see a new part of Azeroth. Side quests are always where wow shines, and the msq has for the most part sucked since legion (bfa wasn’t half bad). Dragonflight felt terrible, and this xpac felt just like dragonflight when it comes to the msq. I’d recommend people to skim the msq and to focus on the side quests. Those are great like always. Mike unfortunately has never paid attention to the story, so for him this does feel like a genuine new experience because this is the first time he has slowed down and enjoy the storied. What I find weird is, a lot of KZbinrs are saying the same thing, so clearly blizzard reached out and begged them to say what they are saying.

[@Aerinndis]

For me the story isn't connecting for a reason that can be easily explained by bringing up Xal'atath. In Legion she was focused on us, the player, and not anyone else. She was messing with us and not someone else. In short we were the center of her attention, as was also the case in BFA. Come TWW pre-patch she's suddenly hyperfocused on Alleria despite the two having zero history together, no build up to any interest in Alleria and in the expansion itself she's messing solely with Alleria while ignoring the player basically completely outside of one voiced line in a single scenario in the post-80 story. We're the ones who've been ruining the vast majority of her plans and she doesn't even react to us doing so. What made her so interesting and enjoyable, her messing with the player's character, is just gone. Basically Blizzard is too busy pleasuring their own NPCs to really give the player character their due in the story, leading to the story happening AT us instead of TO us.

[@sarooku]

It feels like i'm playing Dungeons & Dragons, but my character gets sidelined all the time while the Dungeon Master's puppet pc's do all the cool things and take all the glory.

[@Tijuanabill]

At least they told you why the raid exists, unlike Alliance players in BFA. They didn't even bother to write quests for us, to explain what was going on.

[@draagroen]

Before watching this video I was afraid that I might have turned into an old grumpy man, because many things about TWW has thrown me off to the point that I don't have much motivation to log in. I was relieved seeing that Preach sees many things the same way as I see them. I only played Dragonflight and Shadowlands very sparringly as the game went into the wrong direction in my opinion. I must say the game feels like such a mess. I'm sure there's fun to be had somewhere, but there's a ridiculous amount of systems upon systems in this version of the game.

[@LeafJFYT]

I managed to get stuck in to DF for a while with friends, but only really for the first season. I think TWW is doing a lot of 'peripheral' things right - the writing and dialogue is better, the zones are neat, etc. But I think a big part of WoW's problem is that it just can't let go of this dated design philosophy of FOMO-inducing shopping list content. I was kinda concerned that TWW might not have too much going on when its flagship features were Delves and Hero Talents. If Delves were going to be evergreen and relevant they'd have to be part of the enforced weekly progression curve or they'd throw it off - thereby becoming just another chore to do. Meanwhile, Hero Talents...I never really felt during DF that any of my classes needed more abilities. WoW's balance and class design is such that you can't just add a bunch of abilities to a character to make them feel more powerful, because they eat into the power budget of a class and therefore make every other ability feel less impactful as a result - at this point, more talents just means more things to manage and potentially be punished for getting wrong. Perhaps it's just the classes I played, but I didn't really feel like Hero Talents were that creative or interesting either. Many of them felt like I'd need an addon to properly manage.

[@Dystinction1]

Hey. Maybe we're just being grumpy old men *together*.

[@hmayonay]

Guess I'm in full grumpy granny mode

[@necnotv1683]

Keeping more than 1 character relevant while working full time and having a real life is still impossible. Gear drops outside of delves are terribly rare and if you are a dps good luck getting into a group in the first place. Finally if you decided to push through and grinded your life away, the next patch arrives and makes everything you worked for useless. This is what happens when you turn an MMO into an esport.

[@treeaboo]

Keeping more than 1 character relevant while not working and not having a real life is possible but miserable, so not worth doing either. More productive to watch paint dry, at least the paint won't turn back into a liquid and run off the wall after a couple months and painting the wall in the first place takes less time.

[@gentrelane]

The upgrade system really is the most obtuse mechanic in the game right now and there are a lot of obtuse mechanics in this game

[@Donnerbalken28]

That and the "new and improved" crafting system, especially on Professions that make gear. Professions have never felt so useless, except Alchemy.

[@chuckkoro]

I’m at like 90% on Delve achieves and maybe 610 ilvl, and that is all. I clear the map and weeklies, do my 8x8 delves, done. Delves need tweaks but other than that I think the solo vibe is fine. Also the follower dungeons are low key great for knocking out weekly on alt. NPC AI is the best they’ve ever done probably.

[@justinparker7712]

Instead of making the leveling brain dead, they should be explaining these new/changed overly convoluted systems to returning players. Regarding the story, is Anduin still a fem-boy? Is there a new female character the story is centered around? Yes? Ok, nothing changed here.

[@Emidretrauqe]

The narrative has basically been turned into a left-wing political echo chamber. And I voted Harris...

[@kyumei_]

why does blizzard reinvent how the gearing works so often? ive always found this strange

[@justin9744]

Trying to figure out ways to artificially inflate game time by making it as convoluted as possible.

[@rkempo]

@@justin9744 Well said.

[@tetrahedron_in_space]

FFXIV’s current gearing system has been consistent and makes each expansion / main patch easy to immediately dive back into. Some people may say it gets old, but in FFXIV you’re really playing more for the experience of the high-end content than you are to min-max it. Most people that are hardcore about FFXIV clear the raid week 1, maybe week 2, and then move on with their life, either doing other content in FFXIV or playing other games. I prefer that system way more than the hamster wheel WoW has been selling. I’ve played WoW twice as many years as I’ve played FFXIV and I just have no desire to come back.

[@jean-sebastienpigeon3307]

Same question class specializations why are they trying to rework them every single patch. They never get never get the balance right and it's always full of bugs for a few weeks 😂

[@inkedgemini]

Same reason they reinvent classes/specs every xpac instead of just fixing what is working and changing what isn't. They think they have to refresh everything to keep people coming back. All they do is flip which side feels alienated and which side enjoys it.

[@thomasc9036]

One problem that I have with the current M+ dungeons is that there are one-shot craps on the ground all the time. The frequency of ground effects skyrocketed compared to DF and DF was pretty bad. You spend too much time dodging and it shows with casters suffering the most...

[@DilzwieldKing]

Also (like in most cases), the AoE/swirly are the same color as the ground We have gray on gray, and purple on purple ground for some reason lol

[@normannseils3936]

Oh you actually have to play the game and can’t blame the healer? Must be bad

[@thomasc9036]

@@DilzwieldKing Oh...you are right. This drives me nuts. My eyes always had difficulty with differentiating darker colors. Stupid ground effects all look the same to me now.

[@naejimba]

@@normannseils3936 , strawman fallacy; that's not what the OP said at all.

[@Samanmotlagh]

Agree, except this hurts melee DPS even more because most effects are close to the mob (pack). I am a fury warriror and constantly moving to not die and guess wtf is going on with the result that too much of the time I end up not being able to actually hit my target and it hurts my DPS. In the graphics and mechanics mess I am often either out of range, facing the wrong way or not targeting the right mob in the pack (sometimes cause I didnt re-target the right next non-dead mob), and I dont realise it quick enough cause my AOE hits, but my single target is constantly stuttering messing up my rotation and overall DPS. It is kinda skill issue, but ffs, the skill requirement is insane for a casual.

[@Cloudstreet]

"early access" is a myth. The games $100 but if you can't afford that you can have late access 3 days later for $60

[@Jonkronn]

Exactly. It's a deliberate roadblock that you see on free mobile games. Greedy joke. It's not early if it's ready.

[@hellcoreproductions]

Even the 20th anniversary "celebration" is a bunch of boring chores. Everytime you say Blizzard needs to avoid falling into the trap of... the reality is the trap is for the players, Blizzard 100% wants to keep pushing out those hamster-wheel systems as long as players don't vanish. They will push them whenever they feel they have enough karma to do so.

[@Ruiner667]

Blizzard hurt me too many times, they ran out of chances

[@TheMorninGlory23]

I used to love WoW, I come back every expansion and I always enjoy leveling and seeing the new zones, and I stay up to date on the lore via KZbin and books (I love the world and story lol). But the end game loop just feels like a hamster wheel to me now. I dunno if I got burned out on wow - I have played it since vanilla - or maybe I just changed. But ever since Cata no expansion has held my interest for more than a couple weeks after I hit max level

[@TheMorninGlory23]

I will say tho I do wish leveling could be difficult. Just heard ya make that point Preach and I kinda prefer classic leveling where mobs can actually kill ya lol. HC WoW is my jam for MMOs these days, with the journey being the destination rather than a rush to endgame. Feels like being in a world :3

[@TheMorninGlory23]

Funny, the crafting system is one of the few things I like about retail WoW xD I just dig how realistic it is, way more fun to use IMO than the simpler professions of past WoW

[@cattysplat]

Because that's literally the design. Because since Cata the game is designed for the few not the many, to keep you playing and subbed. Since the player number kept falling, it was just about doubling down.

[@RockerBoy20045]

Basically I played the main campaign, beat the raid on LFR and.. there's not much else to see until the next patch! So I'll check in every main patch (and this time due to the anniversary) and then play other things again. I think that's the best way to enjoy the game imo. Still, it's a very solid expansion so far, LOVE the Arathi stuff.

[@Ironage99]

Want to play a new race???? What flavour of dwarf would you like?

[@xzBorn_]

Classic is like flying an airplane, Retail is like playing a flying simulator.

[@DonaldTurner]

all in all, seems like all the problems that have been there for a long time, that drove me away, remain. I migrated to FF14 in '20. cant seem to care enough to bother to come back

[@klonvomhaus]

Nah, you're pretty much spot on. I just don't enjoy logging in and having to wade through the bullshit that is gearing up. So I get to 80, play the story, log out for the year.

[@TheBaldr]

As someone who is a impaired gamer, Level 8 delves are just the perfect amount of difficulty. They were a bit challenging at first, but as I geared up they became more manageable, I can still die every now and then. Please don't take that away. I've never done mythic and doesn't sound fun to me.

[@Tuoni996]

Would love to see follower dungeons get added for all old and new dungeons n/h as well as all 10 person raids n/h.

[@VicerExciser]

Right there with you. I only do Delves and nothing else. Tier 8s were pretty hard but now that I'm geared they're not "easy" but I still have to pay attention or I'll die. I really don't like all the hardcore players asking for Delves to be harder, this content wasn't made for them, it was made for casuals and impaired people to still have a way to progress (albeit limited and slower) instead of being stuck in quest gear for an entire season.

[@txdmsk]

"As someone who is a impaired game" Just say: WoW player. As almost all the WoW player base is impaired, mostly mentally.

[@iceflame360]

Great video Mike. I agree with everything you said especially about gearing. A huge point that sums everything up is that a lot of stuff is so overcomplicated/convoluted for no reason

[@gachigasm3210]

Because the game is for the unemployed that yearn to have an unpaid job in a fantasy world, WoW youtubers, and for 40 year olds that can't let go (or somehow dont realize there are better games to play).

[@Asin24]

Wow Gearing is just such a massive chore. Part of me enjoys the idea you can keep progressing your gear and putting work into it, but they just can't execute it in a way that is satisfying at all. It becomes just such a chore to play the game that makes it feel you are constantly behind if you don't keep up. FF14 makes me wish I had more to do in game. Wow makes me wish there was less I HAD to do. 14 Might leave me wanting at times, but WoW just starts feeling like too much of a job and a very unsatisfying one that I just can't enjoy it.

[@gregquinn642]

I didn't even last two months this time around. Blizzard just can't make an inspiring game any more. I've reached the Eight Deadly Words with the WoW story: "I don't care what happens to these people."

[@playlist233]

A new expansion is always fun and I enjoyed my time experiencing the world and content, but my goodness is the pug community difficult

[@nodlimax]

25:50 - look at your face. That is what a "happy" WoW player looks like.

[@rainerwahnsinn2150]

Yes! I noticed that, too.

[@Billy.Bacsko]

Moved to FFXIV and haven't looked back. Thanks for the memories.

[@kirtonos]

ffxiv lmao, complete trash game

[@Billy.Bacsko]

@@kirtonos yeah that's must be why Preach loves it.

[@pynkfloyd8105]

The bunny ears kill it for me.

[@Billy.Bacsko]

@@pynkfloyd8105 that is completely fair. I am a professional artist working in the games industry, one of the big reason I chose that path was Wow. Many... No most of my favorite artist of all time were and are Blizzard artist. Nothing will ever replace my love for the Warcraft franchise. But from a story and systems perspective, at this point in my life, I am ultra casual, I am having more fun and enjoyment from FF.

[@eathdemon]

@@Billy.Bacsko I think thats kinda the difrence, wow is still disgined assuming everyone is teenagers (a ton of free time), where as ff14 is built for adults (more limited free time)

[@driznardelunyar5199]

since i dont raid, pvp or min/max m+ i was done with season 1 weeks ago. not having gaming chores when i come home from work is glorious

[@mass-cp6jf]

ok so you dont even play the game? why even leave a comment when it doesn't matter?

[@blueberrythankyou]

sick bro

[@Sregdod]

@@mass-cp6jf why even leave a comment when it doesn't matter? Reply

[@mass-cp6jf]

@@Sregdod yes that is what I asked, Good job you can read. gg

[@kelposo]

I'm not even done with the campaign and truly I don't think i'll even do anything beyond that. I'm one of those BFA broke with all the systems and timegating and when i came back a couple of weeks ago I felt TWW as a big improvement in some aspects but god damn is it a downgrade in the campaign progresion and general story told in the campaign imo. I don't think I'll give WoW another chance in a looooooooooong time.

[@DevoutSkeptic]

Because FFXIV is a fundamentally better game.

[@thomaslopez7470]

I’d love to see Preach do the series he did in legion where he started at lvl 1 and went all the way to AOTC.

[@Lerion92]

You just need 2 wow tokens for that. 1 for leveling, 1 for curve.

[@txdmsk]

@@Lerion92 Lies. Curve costs 300k gold!!!

[@treeaboo]

@@txdmsk WoW Token is 329k on EU.

[@kryogen76]

Mid-Core Gamer Dad here. AOTC/KSM kinda guy at BEST. My guild and I are all about the same, a simple drama free social environment of above average old gamers. Love that they're storytelling a little better. Warbands are an absolute W. I love that Delves exist and that hopefully one day they can potentially be Mage-tower-esque. I hope they stay evergreen, I really do. Do not like the current attitude that the best gear should is only obtainable from the hardest content. My guild, we're not killing the AOTC boss of any expansion without overgearing it. Period. There is no "get good", or "find a better guild" here. We've been friends for 20+ years through multiple games. We are what we are. We hit a progression wall at 619 in this expansion, and unlike DF where we could grind ~11-16 keys to trade in / trade up crests, we can't really do that here. M+ is not meant for us anymore, and it was our favorite content. Completely agree on the Valorstone thing. One currency, please. KISS

[@phulcq6716]

Excellent analysis. I've been enjoying this expansion a lot, especially at first, and the story (and even side quests) have gripped me for the first time in a long time. But in the last few weeks I've found myself losing motivation to play, and I think you put your finger on a lot of the reasons. Gearing just feels off. I'm done with runed crests (which was already a massive grind), so that means I need to do either +8s and higher, or farm two heroic bosses once a week or push into mythic... And none of those are tantalising to me at all. So I'm done with gearing I guess unless I want to put myself through multiple "cruel" systems (which is a great way of putting it), with nearly 20 ilvls below BiS. I usually call it a day on my main before the last bit of really grindy gearing (i.e. praying for good RNG from the vault), but that's usually 5 ilvls or so below BiS, not 20. Feels bad. I'm kind of excited to play alts as a lot of specs look really fun... But I know I'll hit the same issue on those, but will also be even further behind on crests. So that's really off-putting. Really I think it comes down to m+ being too cruel and delves not being rewarding enough. Mythic raid is fine and fun but logistically much too challenging for most people I think, thanks to the 20-man requirement. If m+ were more fun I'd happily grind out some gilded crests and get some myth slots in the vault and be happy, but it just feels too punishing for the meagre rewards. Delves were a good alternative early on - I remember in week 1 tier 8 was legitimately challenging (at least for DPS) and gave relevant rewards which made the next run easier. A perfect gameplay loop. Since then, though, it's felt like that loop is gone. You hit the gear ceiling really early and then you have to do really challenging content for a chance at an improvement to a single gear slot on reset day. I've had this thought before but it's never felt more relevant - they should make m+ (and now delve) loot like m0 and raid loot in my opinion - a chance for good, relevant loot for the next key/tier up on the first clear of the week, plus contribution to the vault. I feel like making loot farmable from certain places is what makes it impossible to balance - it basically has to be an irrelevant ilvl or it becomes degenerate. And I doubt many people want to do more than 8 keys/delves per week anyway - those that do will play them regardless of gearing. Long rant but basically yeah, for me it comes down to mistuned gearing systems.

[@GrandAdmThrawn]

Another expansion of the same tedious chores. It's not fun. We have the 20th anniversary event and it's full of unoriginal slog chores. It's just not fun.

[@Ennar]

Because Blizz managed to make pugging keys even worse than ever before. It's a real talent to manage to do it, but here we are.

[@TOCCL]

because wow shit on itself so many years in a row that what they've done is irredeemable

[@joeldoxtator9804]

I didn't even know this expansion released.

[@Byhythloh]

I'm in an active guild. Loving TWW. That being said, pugging is worse then ever, the punishment for deaths and difficult in dungeons is insane for pugs who don't coordinate kicks and cooldowns. The problem Blizzard has, is the majority of it's players are puggers. you have to balance the game around pugging. We need more tanks, more healers, and a better system for jumping into appropriate key levels for your skill/ilvl with pugs.

[@Madlad000]

Can’t go home to a burnt out building

[@DonaldTurner]

exactly! well said!

[@Emidretrauqe]

Or a 1-1 recreation of that home to be forever preserved as it was at that point in time.

[@robertfrederick7125]

I loved Mists of Pandaria re-mix. You have one set of gear, basically primary stat and stamina on it. Then you used one currency to upgrade it to max level. Finally, you socketed it with the gem stats that you want. No borrowed power, no set bonus's just gear how you want it to be.

[@ultikfa8971]

10-man content should be the max everywhere. Raids, BGs, World Content - everything is bad when there are more than 10 players around.

[@Emidretrauqe]

Classic design philosophy notwithstanding.

[@grapesodaboy]

I only care about PVP, while better than pre-Dragonflight, the new systems are still quite bad: Queue times for Blitz and Solo Shuffle are way too long (10 min per game) and the community is sooooo toxic with punishment in place. PVE players not playing the most basic objectives to get capped for a tier piece, while matchmaking was squished so glads were playing at 1800 rating was the worst experience I've had in WOW PVP since BFA gearing.

[@CanadianManeuvre]

Thank you. I could not possibly agree more, the crest/flightstone/crafting work order systems are so demotivating. You get excited to run some keys with the bros, but then realize you need to run 98 keys (timed lol, otherwise 235 lolol) to get crests to catch up on gear. I'm logging in, doing some math, and then promptly logging out and playing any other game.

[@DilzwieldKing]

I don't know if yall are healing m+... but it feels incredibly horrible and overtuned right now. Damage is too much and it's party wide as well, I feel like my heals are too weak in comparison. I'm popping cooldowns just to keep everyone alive. Not only that... but there is an abundance of poison/dispellables this season? So I'm also on the watch to remove them in between heals. Also, because I'm a Holy Paladin, I need to weave in my damage rotation to build holy power for my spot heal spenders. It's not fun at all, I know the healer is supposed to keep the party alive (as if per their job description), but I feel more like a doctor at the ER doing triage... or a lone firefighter fighting a forest fire lol EDIT: It's why there's an over saturation of dps... because healing and tanks (who got their self sustain nerfed) feel so bad right now

[@normannseils3936]

Tank who blame the nerfs for their performance are not good tanks let’s be honest here. You can tank 10a with 600 ilvl and a proper understanding of your class.

[@titfortatpeterpan]

@@normannseils3936 lol prot pala with 600 gear take a 6-8 mill hit is this tank fault .

[@titfortatpeterpan]

i like the ER and firefighter anolgy i feel the same

[@iamme625]

@@titfortatpeterpan Prot paladin is built around always having a CD up. It has enough of them. If you don't have a CD up and you're getting hit for 6-8m then yes, it's the tank's fault.

[@treeaboo]

M+ is god awful (it's the real killer of WoW since its honeymoon period ended in late Legion) and Retail healing is horrible, shovelling a mindnumbing 1/4 of a DPS rotation into healers feels terrible, it's either ridiculously clunky or borderline coma inducingly dull. At least in BFA in 8.3 it worked on Hpala and then with Shadowlands they decided to make it use Holy Power and remove all its flexibility, bad to being horribly clunky, instantly killed any enjoyment for the spec. It doesn't help that healers barely heal anyway these days, they've kept nerfing them since WotLK and it's got the point in Retail where First Aid probably would feel more impactful if they hadn't removed it. It's gone from the highest agency role to really surprisingly low agency (can't heal DPS through 101 one-shots), and what agency you do have feels bad anyway.

[@luja5546]

I def dont like story being locked behind renown, to me Renown should just be strictly cosmetics and also professions i feel like they overcomplicated them, DF and TWW I havent bothered with my Alchemists. I feel like whether its gearing or profession i cant just be done. I have to keep chasing. Other than that my main gripe with the game is, after the msq, its just gear chasing. SPamming dungeons, spamming delves, running the raid each week. Theres nothing really fun to do afterward. Delves i feel like would be better if they were more torghast like with fun power ups. Then ofc the dungeon community is just trash, people leaving mid pull because they messed up a mechanic.

[@DarkScreamGames]

The story is not locked behind renown in tww though, beyond the levelling campaign asking you to get to like level 3 before you progress to the last zone.

[@luja5546]

@@DarkScreamGames after you finish campaign leveling, theres a quest that says "Get to renown x on all factions to continue the campaign" is what i got when i played

[@jessicahampton4581]

I agree I'm not even maxed renown but really don't need it because I'm doing bountiful delves..that gives me everything I need../ plus vault

[@Zilldian1]

OMG THANK YOU for saying how crap the gearing system is. It's just so stupid and not needed.

[@JuanbiWTF]

Damn, these takes are so good. I love WoW right now and have been grinding M+ and Heroic raid but I resonate with a lot of the grievances you mentioned like the convoluted crest system, the lackluster raid optimization, the braindead difficulty of anything outside of endgame pve and pvp...

[@manuakasam]

I just want to chime in on the mythic plus aspect: The problem doesn't lie within numbers. It doesn't matter how hard or not the content is. The main issue M+ has is that an INSANE amount of runs don't finish. A big reason for this is that timers are really tough (though heavily imbalanced through out the different dungeons) AND - most importantly - the fact that there is absolutely ZERO INCENTIVE to finish a key for which the timer is expired. The amount of toxicity in such keys is insane and personally, I'm falling trap to it, too, because I CANNOT BE BOTHERED to finish a dungeon when we've already accumulated 10 deaths prior to the first Boss. They key is done, that's it. And we're not talking about "key pushing" here. This isn't the old +20, +25s, etc.. where it's all about bragging rights and make the .io score go big. No, we're talking about still being in the phase of gear progression (which has it's own issue because M+ does NOT drop Mythic level gear) - that's exclusive to 1 item from the vault per week. I timed it myself. Last week I've spent roughly 14 hours doing Mythic+. Out of those 14 hours, 4 hours were spent searching for a group (i have it easy, I'm a healer). So that's 10 hours worth of actual gameplay. That SHOULD accumulate to roughly 20 dungeons, accounting for a total of 30 Minutes per dungeon. I have completed exactly 8 dungeons. That's insane. 8 dungeons in 14 hours !!!! This is a level of gameplay which I just can't accept and sadly, ONCE MORE, I got baited in with big promises, only to be let down by shitty, buggy, imbalanced implementations. Delve is a trash system that completely destroyed the gearing aspect through dungeons. Making the game so goddamn easy also made it so that people are just incredibly bad at the game in general. This persists through .io/M+-scores as well. I can't even fathom the amount of really not good players at scores of 2000+. My highlight was a 650k Mage in a +9 key with 2.2k rating. I don't even know how that's possible. But this is the shit we're facing in that community. I'm looking ahead on the upcoming AddOn as more likely than not, this one's dead to me already. I'm sick and tired of playing beta versions of a game that only become playable at patch .1 or .2.

[@utopiandystopia1383]

Complainimg about easy gear in a video game is why this game is bad lmao. Grinding for 12 hours for a single piece of gear is objectively bad game design. your unemployed, i get it, but most people have jobs and dont want a secondary unpaid one

[@manuakasam]

@@utopiandystopia1383 I have a fulltime job and I am a father of an 8month old. I have but 2 hours a day on average (less weekly, more on weekends). I'm not complaining about easy gear either. I'm complaining that the delve gearing has utterly destroyed dungeon progression in it's early stages. Vastly different things.

[@IPlayVideoGamesAndNothingElse]

Congrats the crests are just ported from Diablo immortal they want you to get 20 currencies just like mobile trash.

[@rahjo7224]

I cant even upgrade my gear with 2 characters cause i dont have the +4-7 low crests. I have a lot of the better ones but im not downgradeing them. Also i have not capped the Gilded Harbinger Crest. Also why are valorstones capped at 2k? such a stupid system Also can we just get personal loot and bonusrolls back for raiding. Its not fun rolling against everyone (people even change their spec for bosses). Atleast let people decide what loot system they want to use during raiding cause group loot just sucks.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

I think things worked fine when we had 2 currencies for PvE and PvP. Easy to understand and use. PvE had justice points(farmable) and valor points(capped). PvP had honor(farmable) and conquest (capped). When a new season/ tier arrived the best rewards could be purchased with the farmable currency and the new stuff with the capped one. Easy breezy 👍🏻

[@kyrias9391]

Indeed

[@treeaboo]

Sane game design that has a distinct and set end goal for the player in mind, sadly now impossible for Retail.

[@ShadowsOfThePast]

@@treeaboo Yea it would be probably hard to implement into the way Retails reward system is atm.

[@PhaseLotA]

Few days late on this, but as someone who left for classic with BFA and SL, I came back to Metzans call lol, I came back for one last go at Retail. For the most part this is fun, but the gearing system I had to sit down with an external graph to understand the whole champion, veteran adventurer thing, and which crests were which. I still refere to it in terms of what Item levels belong to which. The difficulty curve in the raid has been noticeable. First four bosses on Heroic are cake, we accidentally pulled one and still killed it first time. Boss 5 and 6 are a step up, but not horrible, and the queen is nuts. The issue with M+ for me is the amount of interupts in crowds of mobs. It leads to certain classes being very favoured (aug) due to the aoe cc or shaman healers (for the utility and dispels), but the main thing is gameplay, without mods that focus specific targets and point out which spells are which, it's unplayable. You just can't do it due to the sheer amount of needed interrupts. It's a cluster fuck.

[@JEROBI37]

I’m fine with the gearing and I do understand it, I think the worse thing for a new player to learn is how to get something crafted, that you need someone to explain how it works or you could just do something wrong at waste gold/mats. I have taught what feels like 20 people figure out crafting and sometimes spending 30 minutes with 1 person to just explain everything and get the item crafted. The other forms of gear I looked at 1 info sheet about what gear rewards drop from all the different type of content, I reference that info sheet once in a while and it’s super helpful.

[@manfIesh]

Don't even care where the game is going, just glad Metzen is back

[@needsanameedit4982]

yep, going to just sit back and wait for Metzen to repair all the narrative damage done over the last few expansions.

[@JMulls]

MMO's once had a chokehold on the "we are a living breathing world where you can sink a bunch of time in and incrementally make progress while being a part of a larger community" and they just don't have that chokehold anymore, and their competition is more easily accessible without a subscription cost i.e. games like POE, live service games, or numerous gacha games. Why play a game where I'm reliant on other people for progress and acclaim where the others have a lower bar for entry, don't require extensive knowledge or modification, and don't devolve to repetitive time intensive grinding week in and week out of the same old content. And the new player experience for the 2 biggest MMO's is horrendous (WoW and FFXIV) either being unhelpful and lightning quick or excessively long with lackluster progression throughout giant swaths of it. It's an issue that I think MMO's are facing that isn't getting talked about enough

[@cartwright1348]

Classic really feels like a virtual world. It's dated and static (and the playerbase rushes to the endgame and hyperfixates on gear upgrades because, especially on a pvp server, it is the ultimate decider in how big your epeen is) but the bones are there. Every now and then I will go back and just make a new character and play through an early zone with 0 plans to level the character beyond the 20s. It can be a really enjoyable experience just chilling in those early areas with no stress to grind, and no goals beyond finishing those 5 quests in your log (one of them rewards a sick green weapon with +2 spirit). Even better if you grab a fishing rod and see what you can catch while out and about. It makes me really think about how things could have been different if different choices with the expansions had been made.

[@treeaboo]

@@cartwright1348 You're absolutely right. Classic has the strongest core of any MMO out there and it's not even close really, it wouldn't even be that hard to refocus it away from needing the endgame rush (I mean literally just make MC inaccessible until later, that's why people rush, to not miss out on resets - make it later and no worry of missing resets) and it's a perfect base for adding new content and features, actual content rather than Retail's "grind new currency on formulaic daily 'content'" style. You could even have Retail level (or WotLK/Cata level if that's too much) raid difficulty, it's not actually fundamentally tied to any of Retail's 101 nonsensical 'systems' as raiding's core premise hasn't changed since Classic. It's such a shame they don't really know what to do with it their golden egg.

[@dashippo5896]

Farming gold is a nightmare.

[@Direwoof]

Bc they dnt want you to pay for sub with gold any more. They want you to buy with real munny.

[@lfantt]

First time since MOP when I cancel my sub in the first 3 months of an expansion release.

[@KingJerbear]

I'm at the point my gear is completely maxed out for the crests I have... I'm completely filled up on Valorstones (for like 2 weeks straight), and I can't get into any of the content that actually gives me upgrades. I spend 30+ minutes trying to get into a M+ group, only to have it completely fall apart the second someone makes a mistake. And I'm sick of running the same exact delves and world quests every week for a CHANCE of a usable 616 item (that I don't have the crests to level up). I wouldn't even consider myself casual even though I'm a new player, just based on the amount of hours I was playing and the effort I put in to learn content... but after a few weeks I'm over it. If you don't already have a friend group or a guild to run content with it just feels hopeless, cause the solo experience is bad.

[@Serena_Lunar]

It's funny, the way you were talking about the WoW gearing systems (which is correct BTW) is also how I feel about PoE1 at this point. The barrier to entry is too dense and even though its something I could dump tens or hundreds of hours into, I just stay away instead

[@Hoytful]

I feel the same toward POE. I have stayed away from it because it was daunting trying to figure everything out and I didn't want to invest so much time into it.

[@99range92def]

@@Hoytful Hopefully poe 2 will be easier to get into if you decide to give that a shot.

[@bearrington2024]

@@Hoytful My problem, and this may just be me "not getting" arpgs, is that the way to get/craft the truly good items requires farming the hardest bosses a lot. Like, what is the point of creating these items if I have already defeated the hardest content in the game? I know I know "infinite delve", "deli maps", etc, but I hate "boring map with modifiers that make it technically harder than uber bosses". It just feels so empty to get the most powerful thing after not only defeating but farming the hardest content.

[@joshchaplin3705]

As someone who has extensive hours in both games, the complexity of WoW doesn't even compare to PoE. Just my opinion of course.

[@99range92def]

@@joshchaplin3705 I dont think many games compare to poe in terms of complexity.

[@soulward6334]

I've played every expansion since launch. I play each less and less. Lasted 3 weeks with war within. The soul of the game is just gone. Questing is mindless, theres no threat from mob to mob. The community is completely toxic. The dungeons are face roll until mythics. The game just isn't for a player like me anymore. The mmo is gone and has been gone for a very very long time.

[@EddieJarnowski]

The game died for me in BFA. the thrill was just gone. I still play a few months a year to try it out but then meh. Ive played mostly classic rather than retail idk why everyone isnt playing it. Retail is just dull. Dragonflight was pretty cool but same thing. Few months and its over.

[@Emidretrauqe]

Sums up how I feel pretty well.

[@deadclicks]

It was mentioned in the video, but theres a sizable chunk of the playerbase that would be interested in "solo aspirational content." I'm part of that group and likely won't be coming back unless I see something like it manifest. Something a little less intense than the mage tower, closer to horrific visions instead. Zek'vir was a neat idea but I'm not resubbing and clearing several hours of unengaging content so that I can experience a singular fight

[@cattysplat]

Or just had a dungeon finder for M+. Why they want to gatekeep the most popular feature behind the egotist community I will never know.

[@treeaboo]

@@cattysplat If you think dungeon finder for M+ would be any better you're either new to the game or really naïve, you can be way more toxic in dungeon finder than in a manually formed group and M+ is way too punishing to be doing with complete randoms when half the people in dungeon finder are struggling to locate their keyboard on their desk. It's not egoist by accident, it's egoist because you are massively punished if you are not egoist due to how it is fundamentally designed, which is very badly. M+ is a awful system anyway, ("the most popular feature" is just not true either, it's survivorship bias) it's been the killer of this game since the honeymoon period wore off during late Legion. It being a requirement if you want to do half-decent Raiding - let alone high end - the main end game WoW has been based around since launch, is why I quit Retail and I am very glad that I did so. I want to raid mythic on raid night and do other stuff with my life, not do annoying, badly designed dungeon grinding at end game for countless hours every day, I did that during levelling and pre-raid gearing I'm not doing it again (just as stale, but 10x as aggravating, wowie Blizzard).

[@MegaMideast]

Great great video, really well done.

[@JQ86]

I don't even care about WoW anymore but well done on the weight loss Mike!

[@gwenmh]

Valorstones are bad and unnecessary, valor would be better than crests but they want to force people to raid mythic 20 because they are insane and want there to be 'prestige' to digital items that people can buy a carry to acquire. The crafting system isn't perfect but it is miles better than has ever existed in the game because the items are actually valuable and viable endgame.

[@DarkScreamGames]

Valorstones are good and completely necessary. Without them, People would login to a fresh alt and slam up to heroic ilvl without doing a single piece of content, due to all the crest rewards from renown. People need to be forced to play through the whole progression to learn their characters before going into higher content. Without that force, people try to skip to the hardest mode well before they're ready for it. We already have a group finder shit show with PUGs because of Delves allowing this same type of behaviour - to remove valor stones would only worsen the issue.

[@iamme625]

@@DarkScreamGames Why would it be bad for alts to gear quicker? The progress you make on your main should make alts easier to gear.

[@Rakka5]

I think we need to make a very important point heard for leveling: It should absolutely not be "braindead easy" it should be "enjoyable". Treating leveling like a chore is how you lose 99% of your casual playerbase who could not give a crap about endgame raiding. The leveling of Vanilla WoW in 2004 was not "hard", but it was a long, memorable experience where it could be easily done by almost everyone but it still kicked your ass if you pulled one too many mobs. Having more people stay longer in leveling zones is how you build atmosphere, stories, legends, communities. I still remember that fucking orc rouge in Burning Crusade who had a personal vendetta against me and we ended up having a several dozen hour long war spanning over several zones. Leveling is a core experience of MMOs and it should be treated with much more priority.

[@rickmel-q7m]

i'm still wondering why MMO expansions keep raising the level cap

[@Emidretrauqe]

​@@rickmel-q7m Yeah, it all just seems totally pointless now.

[@boz123lol]

From the perspective of a Frost DK / Assassination Rogue main perspective it feels like "fun" means nothing to these people when designing the classes.

[@icresp4263]

Frost dk is fun as fuck??

[@SatchaDahmi]

Unholy is Way way more fun to me. I mostly dropped playing my DK after a few weeks as I wasn't enjoying it even if the damage is a little better. but this past week I started playing UH again on a whim and I can't stop playing my DK. Meta be damned, I only do heroic raids and up to +10 and UH damage is more than plenty. If my guild ever recruits a 2nd warlock I will drop back DK as my main which is what it always was before TWW(warlock main choice was just to fill empty spot for summons and healthstones)

[@boz123lol]

@@icresp4263 I feel like BoS is such a polarising talent you either love it or hate it.

[@icresp4263]

@boz123lol oh yeah 100%. Probably the most polarising talent in the game. At least frosts other playstyles are alright right now if you really hate it.

[@boz123lol]

@@icresp4263 yeah for sure the shattering build is great to play. With these latest nerfs is they seem to widen the dps gap between Shattering and BoS (which is what my original post was about re- fun) the changes seem to be pushing players into the un-fun BOS build

[@truton1060]

I did not play this expansion at all. The early access killed all hype I had for war within, I have the money for it so that is not an issue for me. I just hate early access so much that it removes any other excitement I have for the game.

[@b151proof]

LOL I accidentally selected 6 months of game time along with my TWW prepurchase (I bought during WoW remix). Still, I haven't even bothered to log in and play since expansion launch.

[@Greycalibur]

The current gearing system was the inevitable outcome of mythic + the belief that you should only get the ilvl once you have completed a certain lvl of difficulty. I get were they are coming from but the whole thing starts all over again at the end of the season. so what does it really matter what someone else has. They don't need to create multiple tracks of gear, with like 10 currencies, if you do high m+ you skip a few lvls of the gear if you do low lvl m+ you have the lvl it up with badges or VP. It doesn't need to be complicated.

[@apacheFX664]

Ian needs to realize TWW loop and thr anniversary grind loop isnt fun, its tedious

[@thunder9236]

Gearing right now feels awful. Even the weird gap from normal dungeons to heroic dungeons is just.. weird. You cant do normal dungeons and get in to heroic, very odd. Thats a first. Then when you get to heroic its not much harder, meaning the gear level requirement was arbitrary. But then you get to mythic dungeons and its not twice as hard, but closer to 10x harder. The difference between m0 and a +2 is stupid, keys are actually easier (+2 key compared to m0), but you're less likely to get gear. Blizz was smoking something when they made that decision. Most of the dungeons are way overtuned and there are so many curses, diseases, poisons, etc. that no specific healer can actually be competitive in all dungeons. Resto shamans are good but the rest are struggling. Ive loved the mythic+ system since it came out, it was a good idea to allow people who want a challenge, but dont have time to raid, a chance at getting gear and competing in PVE. However, now the gear you get requires obscenely high keys for the mid level player alone. The expansion is great for alts, but the grind is much higher.

[@null-211]

it's there to push people into delves

[@Mscmann]

WoW retail is like the TV series that should have ended a long, LONG time ago.

[@SirMalorak]

That kinda sums up my feelings. Like, it still gets good episodes but man, I have seen the same thing over and over. It is still well made but it is SO samey.

[@Mystic_pancake]

None force you to play it. If you don't enjoy it, why complain about it?

[@Mystic_pancake]

​@@SirMalorakright, but thats the model of MMO genre. There is no way really to change it

[@Mackanw]

Its the best game ever made. No other game come close

[@treeaboo]

@@Mackanw Retail is so far down there on the 'best games ever made list' that you're need the equivalent of Kola Superdeep Borehole to find it, maybe that's what the Coreway is ;) The only saving grace is raiding, but that's tied behind the disaster that is M+ and the we've-totally-fixed-it-guys Vault, so it's not worth playing (just play Cata, sadly it's not as hard as Mythic but at least you can raidlog while still going for 99 & 100 parses, rather than having to waste 8 hours of your life every day doing M+... or just play another, any, better game).

[@TheKanglor]

Really well thought out analysis on the state of the current game, and I agree with basically all of it. The very first point with the paid early access, if I wasn't returning only to play solo, I would have likely noped out instantly. The idea of friends/guildies/etc playing before me because I refuse to pay extra, no way. Being a casual solo player, I'm also cautiously optimistic about Delves going forward. I really hope they are able to take what I think is a pretty good foundation and take it to the next level via gameplay and also further progression.

[@seetheious9879]

Casual here: I finished the campaign and am clearing the maps of quests still. I did quite a few +7 delves and love that system. Haven't done any raids or dungeons. I really like this expansion a lot. I have no idea what all these currencies even do and I am not particularly bothered about finding out either. Once I have done all the quests and advanced to the highest level delves I might do some BG's and then I'm probably out until the next patch but it looks like they will keep my sub for the anniversary. I really like the world, the quests, the music, the talents/specs. My gear level is like 565 probably. I only bothered opening the great vault once. Anyway, this expansion is really a big step up and I hope they stay on this course.

[@MoseTM]

Why?? - Redemption arc or not, I'm done giving blizzard money. They ruined my top 2 alltime favourite franchises (among a Plethora of other things), diablo and warcraft. I'm done, they lost me as a customer. I didn't buy the expansion, and i wont in the future.

[@WesleyHughston]

Totally agree, they need to go back to basics

[@TriHard7]

This guy gets it

[@Freestyle80]

but you will still watch WoW content, screeching why people still play

[@MoseTM]

@@Freestyle80 No? I don't watch any retail content at All tbh, aside from Drama Time. This one just happened to catch my interest due to, you know.. ME NO PLAY GAME LONG TIME. The game sucking doesn't mean ill Unsubscribe from great content creators. I watch Grubby and Uthermal without playing neither WC3 or SC2 for example. And wtf do you mean "screeching why people still play"? Where in this post did i do that? I left a comment about why ME NO PLAY GAME LONG TIME and YOU get mad about it? Gtfo outta here kid.

[@Freestyle80]

@@MoseTM yeah have to announce everywhere why you dont play then claim nah you dont watch any wow vid this is the only one Its people like you that turned Preach’s comment section into a toxic cesspool

[@rayzodoom]

As someone that never left... The upgrade system is ass

[@justin9744]

Don’t fall for Ion’s bs. He’s ruining the game.

[@Emidretrauqe]

Game's been made by and for Elitist Jerks since 2014...

[@Icycrits]

Fantastic and fair criticism. Found myself nodding in unison with quite literally all of the complaints brought up as a long time WoW player who quit back in BFA to pursue XIV as a main game.

[@dukiino739]

Love the new system for BRD in the anniversary event. where you get tokens from each boss kill that can be exchanged for gear from the raid. they need to add that in the next tier

[@justin9744]

I don’t understand how you can praise the story. It’s trash.

[@MrSheduur]

he is yet another marketing victim, and they told us the story will be EPIC and the best thing since sliced bread! it sucks, just like every story in wow has sucked since the game came out. wow had one really good moment: the sad story in wotlk between Saurfang and his son and the excellent voice acting when he breaks down after you kill the son in a boss fight and old Saurfang goes on with a broken heart, to lay him to rest, as he had promised his mother...

[@txdmsk]

@@MrSheduur Legion had great stories and plenty of stories. Almost all WOTLK stories were terrible. "I'm the Lich King, look at me bro. I'm so cool and brooding. Listen to my voice, bro. It's so deep. What, you think I'm following you around during all your quests because I like you? SENPAI SO BAKA! I could kill you right now, bro. I just don't want to, because I'm so cool, bro." If you are honest almost all stories in the game are garbage. You can find some good ones in all patches, but the one that had the most BY FAR is definitely Legion.

[@Emidretrauqe]

​​@@txdmsk 99% of WoW stories boil down to "a once proud people have fallen from grace under the influence of an ancient evil and it's up to you and your plucky band of heroes to defeat the ancient evil and bring peace to the land". It's the only story they know how to tell.

[@rkramer5629]

Timegate MSQ : They somehow managed to both timegate the story AND release the final arc before the raid finale… Which is both hilarious and goddam annoying!

[@Suffer999]

This is probably the last expansion for me after 14 yrs. I feel like it's just so boring and so much content is re-used anymore. The grinds don't feel worth it, too many chores, and so many things are just not tuned right. I got AotC and KSH this season and I just feel completely unmotivated to touch the game again. The story in this game just isn't interestingor fun either anymore and hasn't been since Legion or Wrath. Feels like a fragment of the what Warcraft used to be but Idk that's my opinion. Not sure what they could do besides revamp the entire game tbh.

[@mourdinmourdin]

sounds like you got burned out, just take a break and come back when you feel like it ..thats what i did...or some people say pick up a class & role you haven't played before to get a fresh feel of things.

[@justin9744]

@@mourdinmourdinwish people would stop repeating this idiotic take. You are just invalidating everything the guy said.

[@mourdinmourdin]

@@justin9744 Just suggested what worked for me , but hey , like i always say , people should do w/e makes them happy , If playing wow isn't exciting you anymore ,maybe take a break (or) If playing the game and cribbing about how bad it is what makes you happy then do that xD

[@jab1_217]

the grinds were never worth it in any version of the game u were just addicted

[@Suffer999]

@@mourdinmourdin I wouldn’t say burned out I didn’t play a massive amount. But as someone who has played this game for so long it just feels so stagnant at this point and is on a steady decline from what it used to be for sure.

[@txdmsk]

I wonder, what the fk is good about the story of TWIW? NOTHING. That's what.

[@saevitor]

Great video Preach! I don't think I agree with the gearing changes recommended, but that could also be because I align more with the gearing philosophy post-Legion more than pre-Legion. Meaning I don't like raiding or this mindset of raids being the end-all-be-all for gearing, where dungeons serve to be just a stepping stone. I think Valor stones can probably be removed, but the crests functioning as a means to upgrade a piece of gear should remain as it provides players with a gear incentive / safety net for a lack of gear obtained from raid or the weekly vault. As for crafting, even though I agree the system can be confusing/complicated, I appreciate being able to have the customization option for gear pieces that might not exist otherwise within a given seasonal loot pool. I am also speaking partly from a PvP sense, because the crafting for PvP items opens the door to completely different gameplay designs by allowing better stat customization. Regarding Difficulty: I can't speak to raiding, I have actively avoided it since TBC, and the few times I engage with it are when the fights are semi-unfair (Painsmith on Mythic being one I personally was motivated to experience personally and overcame); so I will take your word for it there. As for M+, I think it's definitely a combo of legacy mindset + modern gaming mindset with sunk-cost. Players recall being able to push 15s - 25s in previous seasons, so being hard stuck at 5s - 8s hurts the ego despite knowing that the two sets are comparable. This leads into people being overly picky about who and what they take into a key, which in-turn leads to overly high standards placed on group members to handle everything flawlessly... simultaneously over-emphasizing capability while under-respecting the mechanics of a key's difficulty level. Combined with the mindset that "only meta comps / specs can push key levels X+" leads to a very rigid and toxic M+ experience for the average player. To compare this with PvP, this is the same argument of experience being subjective: a PUG must have higher experience as well as current rating than the lister, and the experience must be from a respectable bracket during a time period where your class/spec wasn't "OP" or "EZ". In short it's the "I'm better because I got duelist in 3s back when it was % based vs someone who got Rank 1 is solo shuffle last season because 3k is the new 2200" mindset. Preach, if you're seeing this, can you please give PvP a fair shake in War Within for your perspective / input as someone who typically does not engage in that sort of content? War Within has had quite a bit of balancing and Match Making Rating (MMR) issues across it's different brackets which has caused the community as a whole to be pretty doomer and divided. I would personally like to see MMR reworked or done away with, but I think it would be a great boon for PvP awareness to have one of the bigger MMORPG analysts make some of the strengths and weaknesses of the current system more public from a fresh-ish perspective that won't immediately doom shame the game/mini-game for existing.