The biggest thing I hated about BFA was how rushed a lot of the plot points were. Nazjatar and Azshara should've had an entire expansion about them, not a patch.
100% agree. We're going to see Azshara again for sure, but Nazjatar was so storied and anticipated. Vashj'ir seemed to set the tone for what it could potentially look like, and whilst I loved Nazjatar and had a good time with it, it deserved so much more. I would have loved an Azshara expansion.
THIS!!! And the story just didn't make any sense at time. We didn't know about the Jailer so everything about Sylvannas didn't make sense (but the reveal was even worse in SL so....) and we basically had to play both factions to understand everything (which no one did, it was hard enough to have a reroll)
@@lilyx77 I agree. The fact the dots weren't connected and when they finally were, we got what we got with Shadowlands and it just felt....rough. You make a good point about the campaigns too. It was different with Class Order Halls in Legion because they were relative to your class, but having to do both Alliance and Horde to see the full scope on the narrative was harsh.
@@briangregory8223 I think weaving and connecting storylines is something that has been encouraged from the success and growth of FFXIV. I believe that's why we're getting the Worldsoul Saga. I agree though, it made zero sense and coming off the back of the greatest threat we've ever faced in the Burning Legion, it was just odd to jump back into faction wars.
the expansion was bad on itself, but the huge problem that made it even worse was the hype beforehand, the premise of true horde vs alliance war, huge battle grounds, the fall of Undercity etc nothing of that was delivered ... another turtle has reached the ocean.
That's true. I think given the success of Legion, players were super excited for what was coming next, and the trailer obviously fit very familiar themes to what Warcraft was. It's actually sad how forgettable the scenario of the Undercity is and things like that.
The expansion was spectacular with some of the best raid bosses we've ever had and the game has never been more fun then when we were playing with corruption
Despite how bad some of the expansion might have felt. I can not deny how incredible the art design and direction were. The zones and raids were actually so good in BFA. Shout out, Drustvar, incredible zone. And Ny'alotha was such an amazing raid to just look at. It looked so alien and like nothing we've seen before
@@edd_TV The Saurfang cinematics they made for BFA are some of my favorites that Blizzard has created. They captured everything so perfectly. And Boralus has remained my favorite capital city of any expansion because of the soundtrack for that city alone.
@@TheeGoober Agree on both counts! Boralus really felt alive and the theme was everything BFA needed it to be. Some of the music that features in BFA is long forgotten about, but I had a fun time selecting tracks to use from the expansion for this video - there is a lot of slept on pieces.
I will say, as someone who started playing WoW for the first time ever in season 2 of BfA, I loved it. I know it's not for everyone, and it didn't live up to legion for a lot of people, but the M+ dungeons were awesome and 5 of the six zones (sorry vol dun) were really interesting. Mechagon and naz stayed around for just the right amount of time too. It wasn't a perfect expansion, but I had hundreds of hours of fun in it!
It's good to hear you had a great time with it. I think it's always surprising because BFA is so consumed by hate and resentment, it blinds people to any good elements this expansion had, and they DID exist, so it's great that you had a good time with it. I know I did with Season 4. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
I’m with you on this. Although, I began during season 3, and basically did the story backwards (N’zoth, Nazjatar, the war campaign/horde vs alliance). Heck, the LAST thing I did in BFA, getting pathfinder aside, was the whole thing with Sylvanus abandoning the Horde. Even now, I kinda forget that N’Zoth came after that because he sure didn’t in my game! But yeah. BFA was the first time I got into max level content (hasn’t played since Cata, and never hit max level back in the day), and given it was the middle of the pandemic, I had hours to spend grinding endgame. It was definitely a great time. Does the fact that I didn’t play prior expacs at max level help, as I have nothing to compare it to? Maybe. But I still acknowledge parts of BFA that I didn’t enjoy, even with no comparison.
@@silverwolflucky It's insane that the narrative is such an afterthought for Blizzard most of the time that you can just complete the story and patches in any way you see fit. They really should heed FFXIV's approach on this. It must have been very confusing for you. I talk about story woes and narrative struggles in my 'Island of Irrelevancy' video, which I'm sure you will relate to. I think you definitely had a better time than most due to not having anything else to compare it to, but that doesn't make your experiences or opinion any less valid. Fun is fun, and if you had fun then the game has served its purpose. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
So glad to hear you enjoyed it! I have a Legion video too if you are interested in checking that out. I do have plans for a Shadowlands one in the near future and then I'll probably backtrack with Warlords! Thank you for your support!
I was a big fan of BFA despite recognizing its flaws. I do have to say, a lot of people often bit off more than they were required to. I was a mythic raider and was often confused about my normal and heroic friends complaining about needing a BiS neck at all times which just was absolutely not at all the case. I hardly ever grinded m+ or islands, I didn’t have bis essences, corruptions or the like. All things people said you NEEDED in order to just PLAY. My guild had no complaints about me when we finished CE: Nzoth; it was a made up problem by the casual playerbase who thought they needed to have everything. Anyway, Jaina didn’t have a personality change up randomly either. She was 4-5 years past her trauma and was proven right. She showed up smug and smiling because the rest of the alliance finally agreed with her.
It's very true. A lot of it comes down to pure mindset. People have a desire to be the best and in BFA it wasn't easy to achieve. It took a lot of energy, luck and time. Players can so often be their own worst enemies without realising. Glad to hear you had such a great time with it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I have fond memories from the expansion. It was my first time back since Cata and I played it with two friends from work, one I still work with and play together. But I'm sure my fond memories are from that, and I think I started halfway through the expansion.
I think that's a good point nevertheless; I often think expansions can be defined by the people we play with, and also our lifestyle. Everybody's experience is different. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
When I recall BFA I have nothing but disdain. I resented so much of the expansion and how it felt like work, and my refusal to step away likely led to my burnout which only got worse with shadowlands. That said, now that you mention it, I went hard in BFA, and despite all the negative my most treasured achievements all came from BFA. My “Horde Slayer” title from getting HKs with an active bounty on my head, my completion of the solo 5 mask runs, mechagon hm, and the one where I killed 10 allies as a servant of N’zoth in world PvP. I forgot these were all the same expansion wtf. This expansion just had too much.
I tried to go hard too with BFA, until it got to a point where it just wasn't sustainable. I think maybe Legion might have had something to do with it too; I went REALLY hard at Legion. Maybe back-to-back was just too much, but the amount of chores and jobs in BFA was exhaustion. I think you're right. There is a lot of negativity (which is all valid) that blinds us from any prestige we may have achieved in the game, or any shining lights/fun we may have had. It can be difficult to remove emotion sometimes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
You're very welcome. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you to piece things together. There is so much content on TH-cam to help you get by and understand better, but I really wish it was all in the game for the player too! Thank you for watching!
i am soo up to the next one about shadowlands! and the dragonflight one might be needed soon too! your takes are very thought out and not really emotion-based
I'm glad you enjoy them! I do my best to be objective when making these videos and try and view things as fairly as I can. Thank you for your kind words, and thanks for watching!
Oh golly where to begin. Commenting before watching so my thoughts are for sure my own and not influenced, I’m going off of memory here CLASS DESIGN: going from Legion to BfA was the worst gameplay downgrade in WoW history. Losing the artifacts and legendaries made the leveling experience awful (everyone remembers the level 116 cutoff where it all stopped working), and the scaling at the time didn’t help either so playing your character just felt flat out bad. Sure some legendary effects and artifact abilities/traits became talents but now you had to choose between different things instead of having it all in Legion. On top of all that, BfA was when literally almost every ability got put on the GCD so not only did we lose so much of the fun gameplay from Legion, what we were left with just felt even worse to play. I can’t remember if the AoE cap came with BfA or SL so I’ll mention it here since that also isn’t too fun. Every class and spec became significantly worse to play and the replacement stuff wasn’t nearly good enough to make up for it which leads us nicely into . . . AZERITE ARMOR: everything about this just flat out sucked. You had to grind your neck level up to just unlock the abilities. The abilities themselves were pretty much all just so boring and uninteresting especially compared to what we got in Legion. So many content creators at the time during the alpha and beta went into greater detail about the specifics of why it was bad so I’ll refer to them since I’m struggling to gather my thoughts here. Just basically nothing about azerite armor was interesting or good and opened to the door to the grind . . . CONTENT/SYSTEMS: back in legion you got AP from doing literally everything. Yeah there were degenerate farming methods (Maw of Souls over and over again) but world quests (which were way more fun in Legion than BfA), M+, raids, it all gave relatively comparable AP so you could do whatever content you wanted and were up to date. In BfA that all changed so if you wanted to get your azerite you were forced to do every single magni world quest every day (needed the rep too), and then there were island expeditions, which in my opinion are the most mind numbingly dull bad content they’ve ever introduced. Everyone hated islands, everyone knows how bad they were. I’m in the minority in that I never hated warfronts but they definitely could’ve and should’ve been much better. I see what they were trying to do and what warfronts were supposed to be but it just turned into an afk fest. I think the dungeons and raids were good though. Seasonal affixes were a good idea even though 2 were not fun (the ghuun worms and azshara people) but the other 2 were great (reaping and nzoth minion portals). Battle for/of Dazar Alor is a top 10 raid for me, there were so many fun creative bosses, and Waycrest Manor might be a top 5 dungeon, the atmosphere is incredible. But that’s just the launch, what about the patches . . . PATCH CONTENT: essences were fun to unlock the first time but not having it be account wide from the start was baffling. Grinding it all again on multiple characters was awful. Mechagon was fine, not for me since I’m not a ravenous collector but those who are seemed to enjoy it from what I remember. Nazjatar is 1 of many examples of locations and stories that should’ve been an entire expansion launch content, not relegated to a single patch. The benthic lottery grind was just another terrible addition to the ever growing list of chores we had to do just to keep our power level at the bare minimum of what’s considered decent. Horrific visions were better than islands and warfronts for sure but still another thing you had to do over and over again to stay relevant. Corruption sucked, the pieces were acquired through rng, had rng levels it could be, and the effects were boring. Just because it made our characters insanely powerful doesn’t mean it was good. Having most of my damage be from a random proc on my gear that I have no control over is not good design. Infinite stars, twilight devastation, all insanely powerful, insanely boring, and frustratingly out of my hands for how much it did on the meters (but when it procced it was a high percentage of your overall dps so people liked it). Yes they eventually added a vendor but it didn’t really help fix the problems since it was on a rotation. STORY: I actually enjoyed the story quite a lot. I wanted a faction war when speculation was going crazy about what the new expansion would be and that’s what I got. The burning of Teldrassil was awesome, it’s just a shame it wasn’t done as well in game but the 2 novellas they released about it make the whole pre patch events very good. The character work and writing for Jaina and Saurfang was outstanding. I enjoyed the stories leveling up and also the max level war campaign. Where it loses me though is 8.3 since I hate how N’zoth was just offed like that. Nyalotha and old gods is another setting that should’ve been its own thing not a single patch. All in all I think BfA is the worst expansion ever released. Yes I think it’s worse than SL. Comparing the 2 in a vacuum I think BfA as a whole is slightly worse than SL, SL just feels worse since it came after BfA and we were already at wits end with the game.
I admire your passion, and I agree with so much you have said in this comment! It's really great to see people engage with the videos and put together their thoughts and feelings. I think Shadowlands is worse than BFA personally; in terms of the narrative, Blizzard's reputation and just overall life struggles during that period of time, but BFA probably isn't too far behind it. There are some shining lights in BFA, but the bad overshadows the good so dramatically, it's so easy to forget. Thank you for leaving such a detailed comment, it was a great read! And thank you for engaging with the video. I hope you enjoy.
almost every issue that bfa had can be boiled down to either "blizzard thought they were smarter than the playerbase" or "blizzard ignored feedback" so many things were problematic from the start and players literally bombarded them with feedback and all they did was ignore it
Very sad but true. I think we can apply that to Shadowlands too with the Covenants and 'pulling the ripcord'. Time and time again Blizzard have said 'We hear you', but nothing was done. I think they got lost in the success of Legion. They saw how well received everything was, but doubling down on it was just exhausting.
@@edd_TV imo shadowlands had a completely different problem, that one just starved to death from what i know, the drought between the first and second patch was the biggest ever in any expansion (8 months iirc) yes they also refused to listen regarding a lot of things in shadowlands, but the biggest problem was that they did NOTHING, bad/mediocre content is always better than no content
@@Marunylos The first patch was outrageously long, yeah. And it was so rough because players spent so long in The Maw just for 9.1 to be entirely based in The Maw. It was very rough.
This may be an unpopular opinion but I think the story of BFA is better than people give it credit for. I saw a lot of complaints that Azshara and N'zoth came out of nowhere, but they both appeared in Azshara's Warbringer short, were responsible for 60% of the problems in Zandalar and Kul Tiras, got a bunch of focus and voice lines, so I felt it was pretty clear they were gonna be fought in BFA. For reference, I am pretty sure Azshara has more voice lines in BFA than Kil'Jaeden did in Legion, if not all of WoW. I think the biggest problem with BFAs story (other than 8.3 being really underwhelming) was that it tried to be a story about Azshara and N'zoth, Pandaria 2.0, and a prelude to Shadowlands all at the same time and didn't juggle the three storylines very well so all the good parts of each storyline were undercut.
I would say it's probably unpopular but no less valid! We all have different views and opinions and I'm interested in hearing everyone's thoughts! I think it would be very naive if people thought we wouldn't be seeing Azshara and N'Zoth, as per the Warbringers you suggested. I actually believe you regarding Azshara and Kil'Jaeden! I think you have summed it up wonderfully with this comment. I didn't 'hate' them, I was really interested and invested but the juggling of all of these narratives just felt too rushed. I imagine that BFA could have honestly been akin to the worldsoul saga in a sense. It could have began with the faction war and then bled into an Azshara/Nazjatar expansion and then finally concluding with N'Zoth and Ny'alotha. I would have genuinely loved that so much. Luckily we can have another chance with Azshara and if she doesn't show up in Midnight, I'll eat my own hat! As for the Black Empire, that's going to have to continue with Xal'atath for now and we'll see what happens! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A very enjoyable and balanced read!
BFA was a slightly worse Legion. It had a lot of content just like legion. Apart from the end and the fact that each story lasted not as long as it should be, the story(ies) was(were) pretty good. The game should get harder as you level up, so I never understood that argument in BFA, and it's the same even to this day and it was the same up to and including Cataclysm. Azzerite gear was a less interesting version the legendary weapons, but they were good. And I never grinded AP, be it in Legion or BFA and I still had no problem doing Heroic Raids and M+10/15 dungeons. Essences and Corruptions were great. The daily/weekly activities in BFA were good, you didn't have to do everything. Warmode is good. The Dungeons were awesome, almost as good as Legion's but not quite, nor WoD's. Raids were fantastic though, I'd say on par with Legion, but no quite WoD level. Class design was as good as Legion, as it was the same, you just didn't need the legendary weapon. Island Expeditions were fun, both PVE and PVP. Warfronts were too easy, otherwise they would have been fun for more than the first few runs. Allied Races were and are pointless imo. Horrific visions were awesome, single player/co-op instanced content is a must for every expansion IMO.
I think Allied Races are good as far as customisation goes. I think variety is always great, but you shouldn't have had to jump through those hoops for it. I appreciate you taking the time to watch and write this up. Thank you.
Compared to Shadowlands it was fun but overall bad. I like it, i think Zandalar is the best thing about it. the PvP was ok, Azerite sucked. I liked N'zoth towards the end. I am blinded by it because its pre-covid nostalgia kicking in lol
I would agree. I think BFA (through all its faults) is infinitely better than Shadowlands. When I took the time to write the script, I did have to cast my mind back to how the world was at the time and just how important WoW was for me. It doesn't forgive BFA for its misgivings, but there was definitely some good elements to it, if you looked hard enough.
That's super refreshing to hear. I think people can be so prone to spewing hate for expansions like WoD and BFA, but they are absolutely favourites for some players and we all have a personal preference. This is what fascinates me about people who make WoW tier lists; there is no right or wrong answer. If you love BFA, that's awesome as far as I'm concerned! Thanks for watching.
I remember I started playing at the end of Legion and there was a Horde vs Alliance battle on Darkshore and it was EPIC! Players fighting over this classic zone, finally ending on Sylvanis BURNING DOWN the capital city of the Night Elves. She was SO BADASS in my eyes. I was all for it! Then... I finally got into the expansion and.... Dinosaur island.... Huh...
That's a shame because Zuldazar is so beautifully crafted. The first zones were the best imo, especially that we could go to long famed places like Kul Tiras and Zandalari Empire. Might not appreciate it as much if you're not lore-invested.
Considering that Legion ate parts of wod and bfa's betas and resources it makes sense. There was no redeeming factor in BFA. Even the seldom fun systems at 8.3 made you miserable the rest of the time and completely made you forget what and alt is and what a transmog without purple poop on top of you is.
Glad you enjoyed it! That's fair. I don't think many particularly play for the story experience anyway, but I still think it should be of a certain quality and coherent. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
This is an odd thing for me, because personally, I actually enjoyed BfA more then legion. The games expansions fall into 3 sets for me, the really good (Vanilla, Wotlk, Mop, DF), the okay (BC, Cata, Legion, BfA), and the bad (WoD, SL). BfA sits at the top of the okay set for me. Now I know taste has a good chunk of sway in anything, but it really seems that people completely handwave the rocky bits of Legion all the while dunking BfA for some justified and some odly petty or insignificant reasons. Do people really not remember the shit show that was 7.0? - Legendaries making or breaking some specs - RNG hell with legendaries - the "soft" cap making it nearly impossible to get more legendaries - exploiters of the Legendary system being ignored - the lore brakes that Legion flants around. - The Legion being stuck on the island "But trust us, it's a battleground out there too". - Nightfallen rep timegated to hell. - Emerald Nightmare being a complete joke in terms of difficulty. - Not being able to respec your artifacts, leading to some people being stuck with a really underpowered artifact until their knowledge allowed them to catch up. - Artifact knowledge being a pain to gain AND being per character - the return of the dreaded WoD mission table - only 5 zones - AP clogging your bags to hell all the time. - Some classes just flat out better by a pritty large margin - some pritty big winners and looser with artifact abilities -Maw of the infinite AP runs All that, and I'm sure I missed a few, just for patch 7.0... get into patches 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, and it keeps going. Yet now we never hear anyone bring any of that up, but ohh no if you ran heroic Uldir the first week it opened, you may have not yet unlocked your last ring of marginal buffs... completely unacceptable!! expansion ruined!!...
Everything you have said here is absolutely valid, and I do think Blizzard are notorious when it comes to elements of a storyline that were considered to be important to not even be a footnote; look how irrelevant Azerite became in the storyline for instance. I love Legion, and I can solemnly say it was one of my favourite times in WoW, ever. But I do acknowledge everything you have said here and I agree with you.
The algorithm randomly suggested you and I'm quite glad because this was a great video. BFA was one of the last expansions I played seriously and ended up quitting for many years after that. Seeing the story again and catching the things I'd missed when playing through it was nice. Edit: First thing I did after finishing this video was going to your channel to see if you had more videos showing the entire story of the expansions like this. I would certainly watch more!
Honestly I believe that BfA was as bad or even worse that we remember. Legion hyped me into oblivion that I bought it right away. When prepatch came out I lost my artifact and my spec felt way worse to play. Later came a boring story, kinda bland zones, very very badly designed warfronts and island expeditions and of course the grind. Wow there was so much grind it was unbelievable. The prize for braving all of it was boring armor sets. I felt betrayed.
Understandable. Your feelings are very valid and your opinions are shared by many players. It was disheartening and oppressive and unforgiving if you wanted to play alts. I think it's important to revisit these things though and attempt to remove emotion if possible and see that BFA did have some good elements to it; the dungeons, the raids, horrific visions for example. The bad absolutely outweighs the good though. You hit the nail on the head with the loss of the artifact weapons and the Legion legendaries too. Levelling in BFA was horrid.
I think maybe BFA Remix someday if they are feeling adventurous, but probably not for a long time. I do think we're 100% going to see WoD and Legion Remix though!
Legion introduced a new gameplay cycle of levelling -> world quests> mythics/raids. But the moment a player reaches mythics, the world itself becomes irrelevant. All those newly designed zones and creatures are all a temporary part of the game, even though that's the main selling point. WoW could be so much more if they kept the world-content going into the end game.
That is very true. I often feel like players can be quite desensitised to the world and adventure that WoW offers now due to this striving for gear/raider.io score and just generally blasting the game so they can achieve their goals as quickly as possible. I really love Legion, but it did change WoW forever. It's a huge gripe of mine that Blizzard create systems just to abandon them after an expansion ends. I talk about it in more detail in my 'Island of Irrelevancy' video.
Entirely disagree with personal loot. personal loot is way better and i think most people didnt not have a problem with it. I saw more of a backlash when they returned master loot. Totally agree with najatar and nyolotha. they should have been their own expansion. its so sad....same with argus in legion
Yeah, it's definitely a 'horses for courses' situation. I know many people who really love personal loot too. That's a great point about Legion. I really loved going to Argus, but if that was the continent for say a Legion sequel? That would have been incredible.
@@edd_TV ya I liked what they did with it, argus but idk I felt like those places deserved more. Like the maps for najzatar since wc3 or something with concept art had multiple zones. I think they strayed from it cuz people didn't like vashjir which I loved, and it's a real shame cuz I would've loved exploring the full depths of the naga empire
@@tristanmattwig8541 You might be right. Vashj'ir was a super polarising zone, and it likely evoked a lot of memories and feelings being back in Nazjatar. Vashj'ir wasn't my favourite zone, but it was certainly creative, and similarly to you I would have been interested to see how Nazjatar could have potentially looked as a continent. Definitely a missed opportunity.
I was only interested in BFA for Kul Tiras, a city-state that was finally included in this expansion. Overall it was gorgeous and I loved the art style and theme. Other than that BFA was nothing more than bantha poodoo
@@edd_TVoh absolutely. I managed a roleplay guild centered entirely around Kul Tiras so you could imagine the excitement in our guild when finally after 10 years we were finally included.
I agree. WoD levelling was actually very fun, and it has some good dungeons and even better raids. There was just a real lack of content available outside of that. I think if they re-released Classic WoD on a faster patch cadence it would unironically do well. Most people just raid log in Classic, so they wouldn't complain about being stuck in their garrison because they would unlikely be playing outside of raids. As for BFA, it's very very clear that the systems and box features were underwhelming, poor service and bluntly, failures. The game didn't respect players time and this is where the resentment and ignorance comes from, completely blinding players from some of the good things that actually existed in BFA. It was a dark time in WoW, but it did have good elements here and there.
Thanks for this retrospective it brought back some great memories! Regarding Corruptions, I think their power annoyed me because it felt like my gear was playing the game instead of my character. When you opened up details and over 50% if not 70% of your damage was coming from a RNG affix on your pants it was a pretty feelsbad moment
Thank you for watching! You are absolutely right regarding corruption. It was definitely polarising and I know it upset a lot of people. I had a lot of fun with it personally but I know it was a horror story for a lot of people too!
Daughter of the Sea Story: Awesome. Legion Calm do no harm Jaina: Bad War Chief Sylvanas restarting the war against the alliance: Was cool - INITIALLY. Reason for the War: Sylvanas allying herself with the Jailer. OBSCENELY SHIT. Memories of BFA: Were great because i started playing WoW with friends again (because of the BFA intro - i.e. a war between the Alliance and the Horde). Spent most of the expansion waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out the truth behind it all. Saw the "Horde is nothing", my heart sank, then saw the intro for Shadowlands and foolishly thought there was still good narrative reasons for BFA, played Shadowlands and then heard "I will never serve"! BITCH ALL YOU BE DOING IS SERVING!!! Dropped WoW after that sentence and havent returned since. Yes the War Within trilogy looks promising but frankly I got SOOO burnt by the shit story and the game grind that even the Metzen Magic isn't enough to pull me back. I need a fresh start. I need WoW 2, i need all the old narrative baggage to die in the fires of Azeroth being born and cracking her shell forcing us all to leave and start on a new planet, with new alliances and hordes and NONE of the old narrative obligations. This is the only way i won't remember the shit show that tarnished the WoW lore. New engine, New World, New setting/context. New Rivalries and Friendships. After the War Within Trilogy i want WoW 2 = Exodus of the World of Warcraft.
Very valid assessment and feelings. I feel in the same boat. I had a little break in WoD, but that was mainly due to the content drought,.I didn't hate WoD, I was just bored. BFA was the first time I seriously quit WoW for a good period of time. I agree, the worldsoul saga looks hugely promising but it's important not to forget that Metzen was a big part of Cataclysm, MoP and WoD, and whilst he is God in a lot of peoples minds (and I do love him too), I don't think he's capable of just waving a wand and everything will be great again. I do think you will get your WoW 2, but I think that does hinge on the worldsoul saga's success; if the saga bombs, I think WoW 2 will be all systems go, I really do. Thank you for taking the time to type this up and sharing your thoughts and feelings!
For quite a while now, I felt like WoW's "Lore" makes no sense at all. This is for once due to allot story NOT BEING EXPERIENCED IN THE GAME but instead in dime-store novellas. The whole Shadowlands Lore was for me... trash, as where the areas for the most part. It feels like the whole thing was made anti-flying. In WoD people wanted to fly and Blizzard didn't want them to fly, but had to give in. After Legion, which was still one big island, they made BfA that is split, separated by a loading screen, seemingly to influence flying, Shadowlands is split into 5 itsy bitsy islands... anti-flying pure. But apart from that, the areas didn't make sense. You have on one side some a mix of Winged Angels and Titan constructs, then a place that seems like undead with Frankensteinian monsters, a place of nature and lastly one of Blood and Aristocracy. One thing I really dislike at WoW, is the fact that there is so much content, but only very few of it you can run on a daily base. While in FF14 you can run ALL DUNGEONS everyday the way they where meant to be run, in WoW only a small selection is actually available. What they should do, is create for EVERY expansion and the base game a Timewalking event, and then have one active each week. And I hated the Seasonal Affixes.
I agree. It's super frustrating. If you didn't read War Crimes then you had no clue what was really happening from the end of Mists of Pandaria to the start of Warlords of Draenor. You think you have Garrosh bang-to-rights and then suddenly you're going back in time to Alternate Draenor. It was just...so wild. I don't think it's something that's ever going to stop, and I don't want to knock the books too much, because I'm sure for the most part they are very good. It's just such a shame that there is so much lore that isn't going to be seen in the game.
oof. I'm kinda late to this for feedback. I'll give it anyway though and it will be a lot to read. PvP in BFA was likely either awesome, decent, or painful depending on how you chose to PvP. *Rated Content* was once again, good or bad depending on where your race/class fell into the meta and your willingness to do PvE for BiS weapons and trinkets that did broken amounts of damage i.e. Geti'kku bleed procs and the Remote Guidance Device oneshot. Farming certain dungeons/raids every week for certain azerite gear was worse, warforging made it EVEN worse, and Essences/Corruptions in later patches.... you get the idea. These items were not nearly as necessary in *Unrated PvP* but were obviously great to have; the introduction of battle flag items and the various engineering items that could be used in battlegrounds made them a bit more interesting but with the absence of a dedicated PvP vendor and the universal minimum that came in SL/DF, gear was all over the place and the gap between performance was at points, glaring and daunting. This also made rated content HIGHLY inaccessible. Despite all of these issues, *World PvP* was experiencing an incredible peak, due in part to the practically mandatory War Mode system's incentives and the World PvP features in BFA zones. Personally as a member of an Alliance World PvP Community and Guild _of PC Gamer Magazine Fame_ that was thousands of players strong at the time, I was World PvPing in groups of players varying from 5 (mostly farming Horde Slayer Titles) to 120 (matching numbers for big fights. yes, it was laggy af). Cross-Realm sharding via LFG, _while indicative of the server community issues that have degraded player socialization since CR's inception,_ was necessary to chase enemy streamers and at least 10 rival guilds/communities from Emerald Dream, Tichondrius, Wyrmrest Accord, and Azralon. The fights were INCREDIBLE and weren't even limited to BFA zones; I recall 40v40s in Redridge, Crossroads, Goldshire, Darkshire, STV, Hellfire, City Attacks and Defenses, and even wargames in Epic Battlegrounds. The battles were incredibly engaging and there were multiple per day, and the resulting trash talk would spill over into social media almost every single time, often provoked by infamous agitators on both sides. BFA was a golden age for myself and the friends I played with, and it made up for the tedious systems surrounding it. I'm hoping for World PvP in this form to make a serious comeback in future expansions, though the Post-BFA "peacecraft" narrative has gained lots of traction with the PvE/RP purist playerbase, stoking staunch anti-faction PvP sentiment and as a result, causing the devs to pull support/resources from WPvP that were gaining steam to instead implement the free-for-all WPvP areas we see in DF, rendering WPvP soulless and unengaging.
You're never too late! Thank you so much for sharing anything PvP related, as it's certainly the area I'm least educated in within the game. This was really well written and insightful, and it's really refreshing to hear people speak so positively about BFA considering the brush it is so often tarred with. PvP is an area of the game I know I should tap into more because I'm a pretty competitive person, I'm not just not that great at it! I love listening to players opinions and experiences so thank you again for sharing this and expressing your thoughts and opinions objectively and honestly!
If Sylvanas and The Shadowlands stuff wasn’t hanging over the expansion, I think people would have liked it a lot more. I mean we had both Old Soldier and The Pride of Kul’Tiras in the same expansion. Both were fantastic. BfA failed story-wise because they were trying build up a mystery about Sylvanas and her true motivations. The payoff wasn’t good enough, Shadowlands was a mess.
I think so too. I think the fact BFA was a precursor to Sylvanas' power and the Shadowlands stuff, it could have been easier to enjoy or maybe forget about? I think it's quite difficult to leave things behind that are canon, it's why I struggle with the Star Wars sequels so much. It's frustrating to me. You are very right about both Old Soldier and Kul'Tiras, there is so much good in BFA but it really is tainted by the bad. Great comment!
I started my Journey of becoming a WOW player in Battle for Azeroth. and i loved everything about this Expansion. The System, The Dungeons. The Powers you get and the things you can experiment with. it was Fun and ended in Corruption. a System that was fun and brought so many fun builds i tried and played and i quickly did my first +22 Keys in the End of BFA while also Mythic Raiding. I loved it. BFA was my Reason to keep playing WoW and finding friends and love.
That's really refreshing to hear! You're absolutely not alone with that either. I think the expansion you begin your journey in WoW is always going to be hugely important, and the reason most people dislike BFA is because of everything that preceded it and how much the game has changed over the years. Players didn't feel that their time wasn't being respected. Having this fresh experience will give you a completely different stance on the game, and you will take in the world like other players used to! Glad to hear you had such a blast with BFA, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences!
Before i watch the video so my opinion is not biased It's a hard one for me. Been playing since Vanilla, stopped mid cata up to mid (well almost big update) WoD for studies and my account was stolen during that time so i had to start fresh and it was a good experience. I didn't enjoy WoD too much because i was basically solo playing but in Legion I started raiding and doing M+ a lot with a good prog guild. For BfA my laptop that i used to play got stollen and came back just for the launch of Nazjatar and oh boy, i hated it. They wasted so much potential on story, the grind overall was awful and made me hate parts of the game. Ny'alotha was fine as a raid but they also wasted the potential and did bad with N'zoth (i still hate we just kamehameha it/him) The neck? Awful, hated the entire stuff related to it, azerite powers, armor, corruptions, awful design that made raiding elitist because you didn't have X power at X level. PvP? A joke, one shoted because of corruptions (was able to get 1800+ on the last 2 seasons and just stopped after the rewards). M+? As a warr tank was an insult being able to solo a +15 with the 90% haste i had plus powers and stuff. The grinds were insanely bad, too many chores, too many reps, weekly stuff that by the end was not fun and i loved doing weekly stuff before that. Even flying was a struggle compared to legion or even WoD (and i hated getting that last one). I got burned from playing and even my guildies did, to the point that some of them carried that to SL and when we realized it was another grind/chore fest (i look at you thorgast) we lost around 70% of our players on my guild because they couldn't keep up and didn't enjoy the game, and that's one of the things that still hurts the most. I like some of the things from DF but still too much "friendship and magic" so i'm gonna leave it at that... The only "good point" i can say is that we had a few good stories, Jaina, Saurfang and what could have been a great war (that sadly didn''t deliver) Oh well, time to go farm some xmogs and mounts..wait! we still can't because some bosses are still not soloable so no fun yet with BfA ¬¬
Thank you for taking the time to write this up! I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings prior to engaging with the video, and a lot of the stuff you say I 100% agree with. I hope you enjoy the video.
story wise if they swapped around a couple of Events and completely axed the Jailer and the shadowlands expansion it could have been enough to make two expansions out of the one story, rather than Sylvanaus doing her BS for the Jailer, its the Oldgods and Azshara whispering in her ears, so she can have her "reshape the world and rewrite the concept of life and death" but more in a trap everyone in an endless nightmare kind of way. I mean she practically stabbed herself on a metal basically made out of Oldgod blood, that had to have gotten her in contact with something. BFA would end with the Bitch queen Vs Saurfang and her sending Nathanos to give the Old god stabber to Azshara and the message that its time for the tides to drown the world which then sets up a whole new expac: Darkest Depths... or Fury of the Old Gods but the TLDR is the war isn't so much for giving souls to the Gimp Zone but more to deplete and tire the f*ck out of the Alliance and Horde forces so when the old gods rise up they don't have the strength or numbers to fight back Naga attacks are on the rise, their skirmishes were nothing to brush off before but these new attacks are a whole new level of aggressive and the skittery little bug bastards are getting uppity and gathering in places where old gods used to hold court along with a weird new rise of mental breakdowns, the kind that made the doomsayers of Cataclysm seem reasonable by comparison. we the player get sent to find out the fuck is goin on and learn that through our extended exposure to Azeroths heart we are slightly more resilient to Old God Influence and can stand being in the vision of horror for longer without going batsh*t insane, so with that slight resilience we go find out the fuck is going on, where its going on and how to make it go off essentially finding out about N'zoths Plans to overwrite the world with his waking nightmare hellscape by stabbing our way up the command chain, echos of Old Gods we dealt with in he past, Sylvanas coming to realise that everyone is a Tool to an Old God, including her. and the whole expac ending with N'zoth being defeated just like the others in that kind of ambiguous "can mortals really Kill Old gods or do we just send them to their respawn zones?" kind of deal. as for mechanics: truth be told the only Raids and Dungeons I do in WoW are the LFG kind, Ive Never done a Mythic or a mythic Plus and even getting into a _normal_ level raid is absolute pain on a train because the hardcore Sweats need Maximum efficiency but when you get behind, there is _No catching up_ . I'm an absolutely Average WoW player, I explore, I run legacy content for mog and mount farming after my chores are done for the week. I don't have a really an active Guild, and most of us are never on at the same time due to Timezones or play time limitations, but even there there isn't enough of us to form a party and my other characters guilds are account only for bank reasons, so Pugs are really my Only option on my Main and most of them are fucking Awful to be perfectly frank. Blizz really needs to look at balancing the game around the Average Player, LFG and LFR should be on the same level as normal raids, you either go Premade for "optimum efficiency" or you Roll LFG for randoms because you gotta get that done and have no standards when it comes to Item Level, Mythic should just be a Optional Challenge mode that drops Cosmetics and achive titles IMO, I get some people like the skill and such, But I just wanna find cool shit and explore. like Literally this week I was going through the Premade groups looking for a Heroic SoD so I can try for that Gold quiver for my main (She's a Beastmaster Hunter) and the only ones people were running were mythic, its a new week so people are going to try for that dragonhawk mount, which is understandable so I was like F*ck it I guess I'll make a raid and see how many are down to run it. and I stated very clearly multiple times that I want to wait for at least 10 before we can start, I'm not going to Blitz this thing we're going to have a chill raid, I say this to literally everyone who joins, first two can't make it to the Raid because they haven't done the needed things to get there, which is Fair Shadowlands is the worst and a complete slog to get through. the third joins...and this one player is the reason why I was pissed off for the next 48 hours, first off: they rock up in Warmode, which means they're in an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PHASE to everyone else, so they cant help me summon the two who can't get to the raid, the ass player DM's me saying to ditch the other two because the raid can be done with two players, I tell them Nah we need 10 for maximum Loot, so we wait for the next 15 minutes or so and by the time we get 7 players...that shithead player had led the raid to _Kill the First Boss_ while I was OUTSIDE summoning the last 3 and getting the group all there to run the raid, I called them out and was like Hey, why the fuck is the first boss dead we haven't had the raid full yet and they basically are in full Blitz mode killing everything and anything in our way as fast as fucking possible, so I RW'd "whichever one of you is Backseat leading you better Knock that shit off or I'll remove you" they did not knock that shit off, so I removed them and told the raid to wait so they'd get mobbed by the next room and die so the raid had time to boot them out I got a very colourful DM that I skimmed and told them if they wanted a Heroic Blitz they can make their own group, then reported them for being a rude little assbasket because Blizz suggested I do so.
I very much agree. I don't think keeping people in the dark or connecting things with Shadowlands so late was a good idea and definitely could have been told or foreshadowed a bit later. I'll always campaign that anything that ever is illustrated in books should be accessible in game format too. It can just be so confusing, especially for new players. I'm sorry to hear about your issues with certain players in the community and it's something I have touched on in my latest video that I think will resonate with you A LOT. Especially after your story regarding SoD Heroic. Some players just want to go as fast as they can and as hard as they can. The community has cultivated a desire to be the best and optimisation is at the forefront of everything. I really appreciate you watching the video and taking the time to type this up. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
This is not mentioned a lot but I hear it every now and then: the first few months of the expansion was amazing. The art, the music, and people don't mention this a lot - but the levelling quests are very well done (better than Legion imo, it was just a more streamlined experience in terms of small pockets of storytelling). Unfortunately, it's overshadowed by the overarching story, the borrowed power system, the promised features that never came, the shoehorning of Old Gods and Azshara (who should have gotten an entire expansion), terrible PvP (despite it being the perfect expansion for it??) just to name a few. (Sidenote: the marketing was also so, so well done. They really suceeded in helping entrench that faction divide. The merch collabs were also well thought of. It's obvious they spent a lot of money in their marketing.) Really wish they focused on the political and purely violent aspect of the Horde vs Alliance war and that the loosening of the faction restriction, including cross-faction play, was done at the end as they introduce N'Zoth and an all out naga expansion. It would be symbolic and most importantly *made sense*.
You are absolutely right. I genuinely think the art, music and cinematics are some of the best WoW has ever had. I had no issues with questing personally and really enjoyed the zones, but I just couldn't fathom how much weaker my character felt post Legion. This is a really good comment. I think it's important that we can remove emotion when it comes to vision and actually look at some genuine W's and L's from Blizzard. Was BFA perfect? Hell no it wasn't, but it DID have some good elements to it. I appreciate your comment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I just simply love this game. BFA was a bit grindy, but it actually was fun. The M+ was fun, i even PVP:d in BFA again, but yeah the story was a bit confusing and i had a small break during Nazjatar. The worst part of the whole expansion was not being able to fly untill you grinded for weeks. I hated that.
Me too. I think removing emotion is sometimes important, especially during revision and looking back. Similarly to WoD, BFA is blinded by anger and hate and yes, absolutely most of it is valid! The grinding was rough and it was super alt unfriendly, but it did have some nice moments and I think it's important to document their wins as well as their losses. The pathfinder part was frustrating, I agree. BFA was brutal in the sense that it forced players to engage in content they may not have been interested in, and that really breeds resentment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
When legion was coming out, I felt wow wasn't in a good place and was honestly boring, so I didn't think legion was any good and quit till BFA came out, so I missed the artifact weapon power but based on how many people complain about the game isn't as good as artifact power I feel it's made people spoiled. As for PVP I feel is should be separated from the main sandbox as it adjustments to classes and other stats aren't based on the game as a whole instead its strictly dictated by PVP and isn't a ideal way of managing a game. FFXIV has proven this true, and Blizzard could learn a lot of game refinements by watching Square Enix's work.
I have a Legion video out too if that's something you're interested in looking at. Legion was superb in my opinion. I think you raise a very good point with FFXIV. I think there is a lot of elements they could draw on from FFXIV, and I think that's something they are trying to do with committed storytelling and hopefully evergreen features such as delves.
BFA was pretty good past patch 8.2 in terms of systems (essences and corruption were the best borrowed power systems wow ever had together with artifact weapons) , it got really good m+ dungeons (atal, freehold, waycrest etc.) and it got 2 of the best raids wow ever had with BoD and nyalotha
I think you're right. The dungeons were great and those two raids you mentioned were a lot of fun. Ny'alotha really stands out for me in BFA. I think it's really easy to hate on BFA because of how poor the systems were in the beginning and how the game didn't respect your time and asked so much of you.
I honestly had a blast in BfA. The raids were awesome, the dungeons were great, new zones were really great, and the corruption was fun to mess around with. However, the progression system and so many dailies and other stuff made the game an insane time sink just to keep up. Shadowlands was so bad that I quit, and never went back (I started WoW in '07). I'm in my FF14 era now, and I'm having a really fun time with the game.
Glad to hear it! I don't begrudge you for quitting Shadowlands, it was a really dark period generally speaking with both the lawsuit and the pandemic; the game being miserable was just the cherry on the cake in that awful time. Glad to hear you're having a blast with FFXIV, as I have so much love for that game too! I'm very excited for Dawntrail! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
BFA had a lot of good ideas that were executed poorly. Azshara and N'Zoth should've been in a standalone expansion, but the narrative with what the hell Sylvannas was doing demanded attention while also still being shrouded in mystery. She went from being one of my top favorite characters to the least with how the Jailer's character basically stripped her agency away from her, while also never being fully explained himself. I still have a lot of good memories from 8.3 for a lot of the reasons you listed, but man talk about wasted potential with N'Zoth being sidelined into a single patch.
Hard agree. I tried my best to be invested in both Azshara and N'Zoth with BFA, but this expansion just felt like a slap in the face considering how anticipated both of these characters were and what we got. They absolutely deserved to be in the spotlight in their own storylines. It is genuinely devastating how far Sylvanas has fallen, and whilst I do think she'll be a lot easier on the eye when she eventually returns, I do wonder if some of the fanbase will ever forgive what has happened to her. I hope so. I think the Black Empire just has to live through Xal'atath going forward at this point. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
Quick summary of PvP in BFA: There were no PvP vendors and the only way to get PvP gear by Blizzard's designed systems were to complete weekly quests, which awarded base level (M0 equivalent) that could only be upgraded via tokens that were obtained at a rate of 1 upgrade per month. The only other way to get better item leveled items was through the weekly vault which provided the same randomly stated versatility items that could not be upgraded. This system was so bad that players had to PvE for almost ALL of their PvP gear, which included raid trinkets because there was no PvP trinket set bonus at the time or nerfing of PvE trinkets in PvP. These were odd decisions considering that BFA was when blizzard undid the changes made in Legion regarding PvP stat templates which made gear effectively not matter outside of item level. So for the entirety of the expansion Players were forced to fully gear PvE to be able to start gearing PvP, in addition to needing to obtain azerite powers and azerite armor with not much help in the way of alt friendly game design to make this any less of a burden. Not to mention that the scaling of gear in PvP sometimes caused upgrades to make your character weaker or do less damage (which was theorized as some messy residual code from Legion's reworking of PvP). The final insults to injury was that there was no new PvP content in an allegedly PvP themed expansion (which in reality hijacked and sacrificed the theme/motif to hype people up for a PvE-Old Gods story) and in any circumstance where PvErs were asked to pay a "PvP tax" the decision was nerfed by over 50% meanwhile the "PvE tax" to PvP increased season after season. A good talking point regarding this is warmode, which seems like an overall PvP feature, but in reality served as a unique way for PvErs to obtain PvP essences without really PvPing. Some people world PvPed for the fun of it, but because PvP gear didn't really exist and world PvP provided no gear progression there was no reason for PvPers to really engage with the system. It turned into feeling like doing world content with Honor talents that made some specs MUCH stronger, while most players opted to not PvP while in warmode. It just made the entire community feel like an actual after thought, and caused enough of a wave in response to cause several major changes felt today: 1) PvP vendors returned, 2) Honor and Conquest gear returned to scale up to Heroic and Mythic item level equivalencies in PvP combat, 3) world PvP received set bonuses and upgrade systems that had bleed-over into instanced PvP (which is a current part of early season PvP gearing), and 4) PvP and PvE gear have become almost completely isolated from each other with most PvE items being nerfed by 50%+ and PvP trinkets having a pretty massive PvP only set bonus.
Wow, that sounds horrendous! I do feel this often seems to be the case with PvP. It so often feels like an afterthought. I do feel sometimes Blizzard have had really solid methods in the past, be it valor points, the badge system from TBC and wrath, or like you say the PvP vendors returning. 'If it isn't broke, don't fix it' comes to mind so often, but they insist on trying to reinvent the wheel for whatever reason. Thank you so much for sharing this!
bfa had a rough start but overall i genuinely enjoyed this expansion, had amazing times running mythic raids with my guild and we got some incredible content patches. 8.2 was phenominal. story was good but executed poorly in game. leveling was good aside from the loss of power over time. it had a rough start with azerite gear but got it right with essences. bfa certainly isnt the worst expansion. that honor goes to shadowlands.
Just hearing the story of BFA.. its so much in one freakin expansion no wonder ot delivers so bad. But it was amazing and I still love BFA. BFA has in my opinion best music zones and zone storys and the leveling experience was amazing.
Yeah, it flip-flops all over the place. It's the faction war, then it's the naga, then it's the Black Empire. They were trying to tell so many different stories, it was just too much. They sped through so much anticipated lore and characters, it was a shame. I'm totally with you in regards to the music. I think the soundtrack for BFA may possibly be the best WoW has ever had. MoP is a strong contender though!
dude idek where this community opinion comes from. i joined wow during legion so BFA was only my second expac, and i loved it. i had a blast. had next to no clue what i was doing in the game but i still had fun, to this day i get nostalgic chills when i hear the zuldazar music, idk if it was a bad expac when compared to others or not, but id give almost anything to feel the way i did about the game then, now.
I think it depends on when you started. If you take a look at the way the retail community and the classic community butt heads on what WoW 'should' be for instance. It's really tricky because I think Blizzard were just trying to build on what they gave everybody in Legion, because so many people loved Legion. They went far too hard on the grinding side of things and Azerite gear drastically underperformed. I think it's really easy to be blinded by emotion and hate with BFA. It was far from perfect, but I definitely had fun here and there when I look back. I'm totally with you in regards to the music too. BFA had one of the best soundtracks in WoW history, and the cinematics were immense. If I was going to rank it, I would probably give it a C. I didn't hate it, but it was definitely a challenging time for a lot of players. I think when you started is VERY important to the experience though. People talk about Wrath of the Lich King being the pinnacle of WoW, but if you played it, you might not understand it because nostalgia is just so powerful. At the end of the day, we're all entitled to enjoy what we want, and if you had a blast with BFA, that's awesome man. I can only hope that if people watch this people they can remove emotion and look back and see what worked and what didn't, What I can say is, you're absolutely not alone. So many people have shared really positive experiences about BFA, and it's so refreshing to read. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
After a bit of time in Legion without owning Legion, and 10 years of WotLK in private servers, BFA was fucking awesome for me. I joined in 8.2 and loved every second of it.
That's great to hear! I always find it super refreshing to hear people had a blast with BFA because it's spoken about so negatively. A lot of people just assume that it's universally hated and it's not true at all. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Thanks for summarizing the story line, I'am thinking on getting back to the War Within after leaving in Legion and it helps a lot to have the lore and the game growth summarized. Looking forward to the shadowlands and Dragonflight :D
You're welcome. I think it's important that people can understand the story regardless of how good/bad they perceive it to be. I think The War Within will be a great opportunity to get back into the game, I just hope they are able to bridge the stories so people who have been out of the game for sometime can understand what's happening! Thank you for watching!
Systems upon systems and doubling down on borrowed power made it one of the worst expansions for me. The story had its issues, but I don't think it was *as bad* as some people say. Several of its patches should have been expansions, leading to everything feel a bit disjointed.
I sometimes do think maybe I'm a bit too critical of the story, but I think I was just gutted how fast they seemed to sweep through really anticipated content in one expansion. I really do believe they could have told so much more over the course of several expansions rather than baking it all into one, but I digress. You are absolutely right in regards to the various systems, the chopping and the changing and borrowed power that really made people resent it. It's totally valid. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I was wondering why I look back on BFA pretty fondly and realised it was because I did my 1 month of free then came back in 8.2 (essences and binging the story I guess). Makes total sense now
8.2 honestly saved BFA for me, for sure. The game initially felt so drab and it's no wonder everybody called it 'Beta for Azeroth'. There were definitely consistent problems with BFA, but 8.2 really did a lot for it.
Just the fact that this video is 1 hour long, because it takes that long to go over the story, the crazy amount of system reworks each patch, the progression , etc lol. They (blizzard) just could not figure this expansion out
It was bad , not as bad as Shadowlands I just got dragonflight on a sale but probably won't go through it much I'm just gaining levels on my 26 alts to be ready for War Within if I get it.
Dragonflight is a breath of fresh air in comparison to both BFA and Shadowlands systems/chores. I hope you manage to spend a bit of time in the zones and have some fun with it before TWW drops!
I really liked doing the visions and the zones, dungeons and raids were really cool but azerite gear was a constant frustration and the classes felt a bit gimpy coming from the legion prune and no more legendary. the visions required too much busy work to get into them as well, farming for the currency etc
Very much agree with everything you have said. It was a huge downgrade from Legion. You make a good point about the visions too. It was frustrating having to farm the currency just to take part in the actual gameplay of the visions, but the visions themselves were a lot of fun!
Siege of Boralus was pretty bad for horde players. The start of the dungeon was different and worse/harder. When i swapped to alliance it was mind blowing how much better it was. Great video and hello fellow crab mount enjoyer 👍I would love to see a shadowlands video, as I enjoyed that xpac despite a lot of bad stuff. Especially the dungeons and zone designs.
I never thought about Siege of Boralus from a Horde perspective! It's coming back for Season 1 of The War Within. Thank you for your kind words, and Shadowlands is definitely something I'm planning on pursuing down the line!
BFA was one of my favorites, I came back to wow and into bfa after after not playing since Pandaria, and I had such a great time raiding again. Nyalotha was ❤❤
The zones were beautiful, the dungeons were awesome, the lore was great, the art style was great, it was an amazing expansion to play. The only thing wrong with it was the people moaning non stop about stupid meta problems.
The systems overshadowed so much of BFA, I agree. Some people can't find anything objectively positive to say about it because they were so resentful of the chores, azerite gear etc
I think the models and areas were gorgeous as were a few of the quest stories but the gameplay elements were horrendous and after stripping everyone's kits and power/class fantasies to nothing after Legion huge L.
Yeah a whole nyalotha old gods expansion would've been my wish but a zone would have been also nice. Craming it just into one raid seems like so much wasted pontential.
Island Expeditions had the potential to be small group or solo content that was engaging. The only problem that I feel existed was that in the end the expedition became a resource race against the opposing faction. While it was neat to have an enemy player group on the island with you, the rush to get azerite power completely diminished the exploration and fun aspect of the island expeditions. There were a lot of really neat things to see, like magical portals that spawned after you gathered certain items to take you to an elemental plane or a tomb with powerful monsters imprisoned.
That is very true. I wasn't sure what to think of the feature when it was announced and I didn't know how to feel about it, but I was definitely filled with feelings of adventure and exploration. I didn't know about those magical portals! I think I was probably in the mindset of 'Let's just get this done so I can get my reward'. I think this mindset is a great failing for a lot of players. I talk about it in another one of my videos 'Why Some Players Aren't Having Fun Anymore'. I think if I just appreciated Island Expeditions for what they were and not as a means to an end, I would have probably enjoyed them more. I would like to see them return in some fashion in the future. Depending on how Delves goes we will likely see more evergreen systems too, so I definitely think there's a chance for something like Expeditions and Torghast again! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Both expansions had so much potential, but failed for completely different reasons. BFA was definitely a sort of 'budget Legion' or maybe even Legion on steroids because of the amount of tasks that were being required of you. It really diminished just how good Legion was in my opinion. If Legion was the standalone product of borrowed power, I think it would be looked upon even more fondly, but because Blizzard ran with the philosophy of Legion, it really paved a cruel road for WoW to walk for a good few years.
bfa and shadowlands were meh for me, now Legion, ohh man Legion I dare to say was one of the best expansions ever, class fantasy, good lore, artifact weapons and lots of content.
I think BFA is meh and Shadowlands for the most part was insufferable. I have done a video on Legion if you're interested in that. Legion is my all time favourite! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
It was even worse at the time too because we didn't know about The Maw or the Jailer or anything like that. It just felt like an excuse for war. They obviously tried to tie in with Sylvanas' drastic gains in power but I agree, it felt bad for a number of reasons. It feels like Night Elves have had the shit kicked out of them for years now, it painted the Horde as serious villains and it just wasn't needed.
I feel like I had a very different raiding experience. Ny'alotha and Eternal palace were terrible raids in my opinion with Azhara being one of the worse final boss fights ever designed.
That's totally fine. I wasn't super hot on Eternal Palace personally, just the odd fight. I think with Ny'alotha I genuinely loved the aesthetic of it all. It just looked so alien and unlike anything we had seen before. The bosses weren't fabulous there, and I would probably put it down to my guild at the time that helped me enjoy it. It's absolutely fine to disagree and I appreciate you voicing your feelings.
Yeah, I agree. It's honestly indefensible. Both the stories of BFA and Shadowlands have insane inconsistencies and sometimes not even a full conclusion. Blizzard even admitted themselves that Zovaal was an underdeveloped villain. It was all just so bizarre, crazy high stakes and random.
I agree. I think after what we got with Vashj'ir in Cataclysm, it really set the tone and whet the appetite for a lot of players of what Nazjatar could have potentially been like. I still had fun with Nazjatar, but it was very underwhelming to what I had envisaged it to be.
@@Frankthegb I think maybe if we had sections similar to Vashj'ir or Argus, one of them could have been a fully underwater area. They probably considered it, but Vashj'ir was such a polarising zone and considering how integral Nazjatar was to the endgame of BFA, it would have ruffled a lot of feathers I think. Vashj'ir was different, it was a levelling zone and if you really hated it that much you could just do Hyjal instead and not have to worry about it. It would have offered a lot of problems, no doubt.
I do feel the potential was huge too. I feel BFA could have potentially been what Dragonflight is to the Worldsoul Saga. BFA could have told a really good story that could have bridged into both Azshara and N'Zoth but they instead decided to lump it all together in one big narrative. It felt so wasteful to me.
Legion also had a very coherent story experience, and desperately needed to thrive after Warlords of Draenor. It felt that Blizzard felt they had their fanbase back again, and the amount of disrespect for your time was just beyond anything we had ever seen before.
After 7 years I came back to BFA, I actually really enjoyed the bfa world: aztec and fairytale (theramore). Pvp felt awful. Wasn't fan of azerite power either.
I think the world is solid too. I can't really comment on the pvp side of things, but I'll take your word for it! I agree that Azerite power was both exhausting and underwhelming.
I agree. BFA had a lot of issues and didn't respect players time, but I still found a lot of positive things to say about it! Shadowlands would be quite challenging to talk about, but it's something I would like to explore.
For me, BFA had some of the best levelling and art design. Everything felt choppy/rushed, and i wish they expanded on certain themes throughout, like N'zoth and Azshara. Instead of doing the whole Naga and Old god patches, unless they were going in depth from the get go,wish they went in on exploration and had us explore new islands and cultures to secure alliances for the war. Mechagon was a good example of this.
I really disliked the levelling experience personally as I just felt my character getting weaker and weaker. In terms of art/zones/soundtrack though, absolutely phenomenal. I agree that it was super choppy/rushed and the tone changed so drastically; it was faction war, it was Naga, it was Black Empire. The pacing was all over the place and they really breezed through a lot of very important lore. I think you're absolutely right in regards to how they could have handled both Azshara and N'Zoth. It's such a shame, but hopefully there is a chance to rectify some of this moving forward. We are definitely going to see Azshara again, and I think the Black Empire now lives on through Xal'atath, so let's see how that goes! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
Shadowlands will be tough, but not impossible! My worry with a Shadowlands video is that it could appear quite toxic, as there isn't much positivity there. I try to be as objective as I can with these videos, but Shadowlands is quite hard to defend. It's something I would like to explore, but there are challenges there.
The trailers made me think BFA was gonna be some sort of massive us vs them type story where we participated in massive battles both on land and sea… I’m 20 hours into BFA and all I’ve been doing is quests for a faction I do not care about at all. Only benefit is Zandalar is insanely gorgeous
That's exactly how I saw it too. I honestly wonder what the vision of BFA was originally, because it ended up so topsy-turvy. It was constantly sold as the 'Faction War' but it was a really mixed bag. They ran through so much lore like it was nothing. Everything was such a mad dash and the pace and tone shifted so dramatically.
I loved BFA. Some things weren't great, of course. Azerite armor was a disappointment, and not having account-wide unlocks on essences made alts annoying. Warfronts were a missed opportunity. But I thought the story was great, and the dungeons and raids were all really fun to play and replay. Battle of Dazar'Alor and Ny'alotha are wonderful raids, in particular, and the little two-boss raid in the middle was a challenging treat. Mechagon was great, Waycrest was great, Atal'dazar was great. Just lots of awesome content. I think BFA really only sucked if you were a min-max type who wanted to have the highest power character. "The benthic armor grind sucked." Sure, but you could just not do that and then Naz'jatar was great. "Doing thouands of islands sucked." Sure, but you could just do one or two a week for your weekly and that felt fine. You'd still have a big heart, just not quite as big as others'. The design philosophy in a lot of BFA was to lock ever-smaller bits of power behind ever-larger amounts of tedium, so that people who wanted to do more could get rewards for doing so, but they wouldn't dramatically outpace everyone else. But this just made it so degens broke themselves on the game. (This dynamic was present in Legion, too, people just weren't sick of it yet.)
Glad to hear you had a good time with it. You make a very good point too that I think people forget. Legion was the catalyst for this type of gameplay: I think had Legion been the standalone era of Borrowed Power and chores, it would have been held in even higher regard than it is today. Legion has a bit of a hangover because of what players had to go through with both BFA and Shadowlands. Before those, everything was new: borrowed power, mythic+ etc, it was a novelty. It was above and beyond anything we had ever seen before, and I don't know if they will ever top Legion personally. I hope they do, but I just can't see it.
Yeah! BFA got shafted. Legion was all about endless grinds and borrowed power. Everyone LOVED it. So Bliz was like "Cool, let's do it again in the next one." And then everyone was like "This is the worst! Fuck this! I hate all these chores and borrowed power!" And fine: you didn't have fun, you didn't have fun. But this wasn't a fundamental design problem. You loved Legion, right?
Early BFA was crap af. This was the first time where leveling up felt like retardation of your character because you were leaving all these Legion-specific borrowed power systems behind to be replaced with... uh, nothing! Azerite armor was not balanced well on launch. Nasty AP grind (again!), crap talents that were mainly more mastery, more damage, more crit... Late BFA was good and fun to play though. I played 8.3 quite a lot and enjoyed that patch. Lots of content, corruptions were fun, raids were fun, specs were fun to play. Essence accountification came out far too late though and carried high cost of that too. Very alt unfriendly period. I played just my main and that was already a big time investment to minmax it and pad numbers. This is kinda sad because it was an expansion with the largest amount of content ever released I think. It had like 5 raids and 12 dungeons? Something actually crazy.
It was coined 'Beta for Azeroth' for a reason. You're right, I quit very early doors in BFA because it was just horrid to play. I do agree with you that late BFA was fun too, but I feel that's Blizzard's M.O with their approach to WoW - a lot of people would say the same about Legion Legendaries finally being accessible etc. The issue is, the fixes come when it's too late. The best advice you could give somebody who wants to play WoW is to play during the last patch, because everything is accessible, nerfed or fixed. It shouldn't be like that, but it's sadly how they operate. I have always played my paladin, so I thankfully didn't feel the awful rub of how damaging it was to alts, but I sympathise with you. It was clear as day to see how bad and restrictive all of this was. It's very sad, I agree, because like every WoW expansion, it's brimming with potential! Similarly to WoD, I think BFA left a very bad taste in the mouth that some people just can't even look at it anymore because it feels them with such bitterness and resentment. Thanks for taking the time to watch and sharing your thoughts and feelings!
@@edd_TV Shadowlands expansion launch was better though. Finally PVP with good reward structure, people were actually playing RBG's to gear up. No stupid warforging, no rng, your loot didn't deprecate over time - you got that 226 ilvl piece it stayed BiS throughout the entire patch. Castle Nathria was a good raid and mythic+ season was decent with prideful buffbots every 20%. It had its fair share of bullshit such as 8 layers of torghast in two wings (WTF!) and high gold cost of legendary bases. Restrictive covenant obviously being the elephant in the room - you just googled what does the most DPS in parses and picked that. Nice choice lol. Then it came crashing down in 9.1 possibly the worst patch in WoW history. Nobody found this fun, players quit in droves. Then 9.2 added insult to injury with a raid that was so hard that they needed to nerf it like 50 times.
@@alewis514 I do plan to a Shadowlands video soonish, and 9.1 will absolutely have its own section. 9.1 almost killed the game entirely. I appreciate you engaging with the video and sharing your opinion!
Amen on Naz/Mechagon saving the expansion. My guild had already fallen apart in Uldir and I tried my best to pug through BoD but eventually fizzled out. Having two pretty good zones packed with content kept me playing and vaguely gearing until I could pick back up in season 4. Edit: I wish I could like this video twice. Its such a fair and balanced take on BFA.
Answer is yes, yes it was. Every patch, from .0 to .3 were horrendous to play and progress thru, only being brought to servicable by their end. It's also what makes proper retrospections on wow expacs possible - nobody has all the different versions of the game.
That is sadly the nature of the beast with Blizzard the majority of the time. Whether it be Legion, BFA or things like Torghast or whatever else in Shadowlands. It always feels incomplete, and whilst there are always alphas and betas, the game is everchanging whilst live because it's never good enough or a finished product. I've always strongly disliked how Blizzard make the game super accessible towards the end of an expansion. They are always aware of the issues and the community has a big voice, but there was a strong refusal to listen in the past; like 'pulling the ripcord' with Covenants for example.
Aaaaand while the comprehensive story explained by you, made ABSOLUTELY no sense when told by Blizzard in the game. Tho the insanely poorly told story was not why BFA sucked. Its the lack of any real content, waste of time bs, rng warforge procs which were horrible. And just a whole load of other issues that id rather forget. Easily the worst xpac that I think had the worst negative impact on the long term health of the game.
I can't take the credit for it, I was simply reading from the Reddit post! It's interesting how it puts it into more perspective, but when actually living through it in the game in real time, it felt so confusing, disconnected and rushed. It's so hard to choose which did more damage to the game with BFA or Shadowlands. I think you might be right - BFA was the dreaded gruelling boxing match and Shadowlands was just the Knockout punch. It was clear with the success of Legion they thought they could replicate the systems, but it was such a terrible mistake. I'm trying to remove emotion and be a bit more objective about things, because there are definitely where I think 'I quite enjoyed that, oh wait that was in BFA?!', because there were times where BFA really stressed and upset me. It was the first time I quit the game properly. In WoD I quit purely because there was just nothing going on, I didn't hate it, I was just bored. There was a lot of resentment with BFA for a long time. I feel like I've made my peace with it now and can look back on it in a better mindset and see that I enjoyed certain elements of it, but it was an extremely rough time in WoW, no doubt about it.
@@edd_TV Yeah, for me at that point 17yrs of non stop WoW and a full renaissance that I got from Legion before. It was all crushed and I stopped playing at the end of BFA. It was too much. Also watching further just put me back into Vietnam all over again xD
@@easycake3251 Understandable! I felt like that with Shadowlands. I found Shadowlands extremely damaging, especially with the pandemic and the lawsuit in the mix. It was just...such a nightmare. I have definitely reconciled a little with Dragonflight, but the story is still quite poor and similarly to you, I feel a lot of irreparable damage has been done. I'm interested to see their plans going forward with the Worldsoul Saga but I really couldn't say how well it's going to perform. I don't see anything ever hitting the heights of Legion again personally.
The biggest thing I hated about BFA was how rushed a lot of the plot points were. Nazjatar and Azshara should've had an entire expansion about them, not a patch.
100% agree. We're going to see Azshara again for sure, but Nazjatar was so storied and anticipated. Vashj'ir seemed to set the tone for what it could potentially look like, and whilst I loved Nazjatar and had a good time with it, it deserved so much more. I would have loved an Azshara expansion.
THIS!!! And the story just didn't make any sense at time. We didn't know about the Jailer so everything about Sylvannas didn't make sense (but the reveal was even worse in SL so....) and we basically had to play both factions to understand everything (which no one did, it was hard enough to have a reroll)
@@lilyx77 I agree. The fact the dots weren't connected and when they finally were, we got what we got with Shadowlands and it just felt....rough. You make a good point about the campaigns too. It was different with Class Order Halls in Legion because they were relative to your class, but having to do both Alliance and Horde to see the full scope on the narrative was harsh.
And it felt TOTALLY unconnected in many ways... it was just like ok ummm SO YOU"RE ON A BOAT NOW
@@briangregory8223 I think weaving and connecting storylines is something that has been encouraged from the success and growth of FFXIV. I believe that's why we're getting the Worldsoul Saga. I agree though, it made zero sense and coming off the back of the greatest threat we've ever faced in the Burning Legion, it was just odd to jump back into faction wars.
the expansion was bad on itself, but the huge problem that made it even worse was the hype beforehand, the premise of true horde vs alliance war, huge battle grounds, the fall of Undercity etc nothing of that was delivered ... another turtle has reached the ocean.
That's true. I think given the success of Legion, players were super excited for what was coming next, and the trailer obviously fit very familiar themes to what Warcraft was. It's actually sad how forgettable the scenario of the Undercity is and things like that.
The expansion was spectacular with some of the best raid bosses we've ever had and the game has never been more fun then when we were playing with corruption
@@nolabets3130 I think a lot of people have mixed feelings with corruption, and those feelings are valid. Personally I had a blast with it though.
The Tortollen daily quests made me up a quit no joke.
"Another turtle has reached the water!"
Despite how bad some of the expansion might have felt. I can not deny how incredible the art design and direction were. The zones and raids were actually so good in BFA. Shout out, Drustvar, incredible zone. And Ny'alotha was such an amazing raid to just look at. It looked so alien and like nothing we've seen before
I think so too. I feel both the soundtrack and cinematics were on another level to anything we had seen before.
@@edd_TV The Saurfang cinematics they made for BFA are some of my favorites that Blizzard has created. They captured everything so perfectly. And Boralus has remained my favorite capital city of any expansion because of the soundtrack for that city alone.
@@TheeGoober Agree on both counts! Boralus really felt alive and the theme was everything BFA needed it to be. Some of the music that features in BFA is long forgotten about, but I had a fun time selecting tracks to use from the expansion for this video - there is a lot of slept on pieces.
Art team is always the hard carry with WoW
@@ragingfilthycasual Very true.
I will say, as someone who started playing WoW for the first time ever in season 2 of BfA, I loved it. I know it's not for everyone, and it didn't live up to legion for a lot of people, but the M+ dungeons were awesome and 5 of the six zones (sorry vol dun) were really interesting. Mechagon and naz stayed around for just the right amount of time too. It wasn't a perfect expansion, but I had hundreds of hours of fun in it!
It's good to hear you had a great time with it. I think it's always surprising because BFA is so consumed by hate and resentment, it blinds people to any good elements this expansion had, and they DID exist, so it's great that you had a good time with it. I know I did with Season 4. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
I’m with you on this. Although, I began during season 3, and basically did the story backwards (N’zoth, Nazjatar, the war campaign/horde vs alliance).
Heck, the LAST thing I did in BFA, getting pathfinder aside, was the whole thing with Sylvanus abandoning the Horde. Even now, I kinda forget that N’Zoth came after that because he sure didn’t in my game!
But yeah. BFA was the first time I got into max level content (hasn’t played since Cata, and never hit max level back in the day), and given it was the middle of the pandemic, I had hours to spend grinding endgame. It was definitely a great time. Does the fact that I didn’t play prior expacs at max level help, as I have nothing to compare it to? Maybe. But I still acknowledge parts of BFA that I didn’t enjoy, even with no comparison.
@@silverwolflucky It's insane that the narrative is such an afterthought for Blizzard most of the time that you can just complete the story and patches in any way you see fit. They really should heed FFXIV's approach on this. It must have been very confusing for you. I talk about story woes and narrative struggles in my 'Island of Irrelevancy' video, which I'm sure you will relate to.
I think you definitely had a better time than most due to not having anything else to compare it to, but that doesn't make your experiences or opinion any less valid. Fun is fun, and if you had fun then the game has served its purpose. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
Finally a retrospective essay on WoW expansion. Love it!
Please keep doing those on all of them!
So glad to hear you enjoyed it! I have a Legion video too if you are interested in checking that out. I do have plans for a Shadowlands one in the near future and then I'll probably backtrack with Warlords! Thank you for your support!
I was a big fan of BFA despite recognizing its flaws. I do have to say, a lot of people often bit off more than they were required to. I was a mythic raider and was often confused about my normal and heroic friends complaining about needing a BiS neck at all times which just was absolutely not at all the case. I hardly ever grinded m+ or islands, I didn’t have bis essences, corruptions or the like. All things people said you NEEDED in order to just PLAY. My guild had no complaints about me when we finished CE: Nzoth; it was a made up problem by the casual playerbase who thought they needed to have everything.
Anyway, Jaina didn’t have a personality change up randomly either. She was 4-5 years past her trauma and was proven right. She showed up smug and smiling because the rest of the alliance finally agreed with her.
It's very true. A lot of it comes down to pure mindset. People have a desire to be the best and in BFA it wasn't easy to achieve. It took a lot of energy, luck and time. Players can so often be their own worst enemies without realising. Glad to hear you had such a great time with it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I have fond memories from the expansion. It was my first time back since Cata and I played it with two friends from work, one I still work with and play together. But I'm sure my fond memories are from that, and I think I started halfway through the expansion.
I think that's a good point nevertheless; I often think expansions can be defined by the people we play with, and also our lifestyle. Everybody's experience is different. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
@@edd_TV I absolutely agree. I enjoyed BFA and Legion immensely but they both definitely had their faults
When I recall BFA I have nothing but disdain. I resented so much of the expansion and how it felt like work, and my refusal to step away likely led to my burnout which only got worse with shadowlands. That said, now that you mention it, I went hard in BFA, and despite all the negative my most treasured achievements all came from BFA. My “Horde Slayer” title from getting HKs with an active bounty on my head, my completion of the solo 5 mask runs, mechagon hm, and the one where I killed 10 allies as a servant of N’zoth in world PvP. I forgot these were all the same expansion wtf. This expansion just had too much.
I tried to go hard too with BFA, until it got to a point where it just wasn't sustainable. I think maybe Legion might have had something to do with it too; I went REALLY hard at Legion. Maybe back-to-back was just too much, but the amount of chores and jobs in BFA was exhaustion. I think you're right. There is a lot of negativity (which is all valid) that blinds us from any prestige we may have achieved in the game, or any shining lights/fun we may have had. It can be difficult to remove emotion sometimes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I started playing in the middle of Shadowlands an my head is still spinning. Thanks for this. It helped me a lot to understand what is going on.
You're very welcome. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you to piece things together. There is so much content on TH-cam to help you get by and understand better, but I really wish it was all in the game for the player too! Thank you for watching!
i am soo up to the next one about shadowlands! and the dragonflight one might be needed soon too! your takes are very thought out and not really emotion-based
I'm glad you enjoy them! I do my best to be objective when making these videos and try and view things as fairly as I can. Thank you for your kind words, and thanks for watching!
Yes Sylvanas character fell prey to bad writing.
I'm confident when she returns, everybody will be excited to see her. I hope!
Oh golly where to begin. Commenting before watching so my thoughts are for sure my own and not influenced, I’m going off of memory here
CLASS DESIGN: going from Legion to BfA was the worst gameplay downgrade in WoW history. Losing the artifacts and legendaries made the leveling experience awful (everyone remembers the level 116 cutoff where it all stopped working), and the scaling at the time didn’t help either so playing your character just felt flat out bad. Sure some legendary effects and artifact abilities/traits became talents but now you had to choose between different things instead of having it all in Legion. On top of all that, BfA was when literally almost every ability got put on the GCD so not only did we lose so much of the fun gameplay from Legion, what we were left with just felt even worse to play. I can’t remember if the AoE cap came with BfA or SL so I’ll mention it here since that also isn’t too fun. Every class and spec became significantly worse to play and the replacement stuff wasn’t nearly good enough to make up for it which leads us nicely into . . .
AZERITE ARMOR: everything about this just flat out sucked. You had to grind your neck level up to just unlock the abilities. The abilities themselves were pretty much all just so boring and uninteresting especially compared to what we got in Legion. So many content creators at the time during the alpha and beta went into greater detail about the specifics of why it was bad so I’ll refer to them since I’m struggling to gather my thoughts here. Just basically nothing about azerite armor was interesting or good and opened to the door to the grind . . .
CONTENT/SYSTEMS: back in legion you got AP from doing literally everything. Yeah there were degenerate farming methods (Maw of Souls over and over again) but world quests (which were way more fun in Legion than BfA), M+, raids, it all gave relatively comparable AP so you could do whatever content you wanted and were up to date. In BfA that all changed so if you wanted to get your azerite you were forced to do every single magni world quest every day (needed the rep too), and then there were island expeditions, which in my opinion are the most mind numbingly dull bad content they’ve ever introduced. Everyone hated islands, everyone knows how bad they were. I’m in the minority in that I never hated warfronts but they definitely could’ve and should’ve been much better. I see what they were trying to do and what warfronts were supposed to be but it just turned into an afk fest. I think the dungeons and raids were good though. Seasonal affixes were a good idea even though 2 were not fun (the ghuun worms and azshara people) but the other 2 were great (reaping and nzoth minion portals). Battle for/of Dazar Alor is a top 10 raid for me, there were so many fun creative bosses, and Waycrest Manor might be a top 5 dungeon, the atmosphere is incredible. But that’s just the launch, what about the patches . . .
PATCH CONTENT: essences were fun to unlock the first time but not having it be account wide from the start was baffling. Grinding it all again on multiple characters was awful. Mechagon was fine, not for me since I’m not a ravenous collector but those who are seemed to enjoy it from what I remember. Nazjatar is 1 of many examples of locations and stories that should’ve been an entire expansion launch content, not relegated to a single patch. The benthic lottery grind was just another terrible addition to the ever growing list of chores we had to do just to keep our power level at the bare minimum of what’s considered decent. Horrific visions were better than islands and warfronts for sure but still another thing you had to do over and over again to stay relevant. Corruption sucked, the pieces were acquired through rng, had rng levels it could be, and the effects were boring. Just because it made our characters insanely powerful doesn’t mean it was good. Having most of my damage be from a random proc on my gear that I have no control over is not good design. Infinite stars, twilight devastation, all insanely powerful, insanely boring, and frustratingly out of my hands for how much it did on the meters (but when it procced it was a high percentage of your overall dps so people liked it). Yes they eventually added a vendor but it didn’t really help fix the problems since it was on a rotation.
STORY: I actually enjoyed the story quite a lot. I wanted a faction war when speculation was going crazy about what the new expansion would be and that’s what I got. The burning of Teldrassil was awesome, it’s just a shame it wasn’t done as well in game but the 2 novellas they released about it make the whole pre patch events very good. The character work and writing for Jaina and Saurfang was outstanding. I enjoyed the stories leveling up and also the max level war campaign. Where it loses me though is 8.3 since I hate how N’zoth was just offed like that. Nyalotha and old gods is another setting that should’ve been its own thing not a single patch.
All in all I think BfA is the worst expansion ever released. Yes I think it’s worse than SL. Comparing the 2 in a vacuum I think BfA as a whole is slightly worse than SL, SL just feels worse since it came after BfA and we were already at wits end with the game.
I admire your passion, and I agree with so much you have said in this comment! It's really great to see people engage with the videos and put together their thoughts and feelings. I think Shadowlands is worse than BFA personally; in terms of the narrative, Blizzard's reputation and just overall life struggles during that period of time, but BFA probably isn't too far behind it. There are some shining lights in BFA, but the bad overshadows the good so dramatically, it's so easy to forget. Thank you for leaving such a detailed comment, it was a great read! And thank you for engaging with the video. I hope you enjoy.
almost every issue that bfa had can be boiled down to either "blizzard thought they were smarter than the playerbase" or "blizzard ignored feedback"
so many things were problematic from the start and players literally bombarded them with feedback and all they did was ignore it
Very sad but true. I think we can apply that to Shadowlands too with the Covenants and 'pulling the ripcord'. Time and time again Blizzard have said 'We hear you', but nothing was done. I think they got lost in the success of Legion. They saw how well received everything was, but doubling down on it was just exhausting.
@@edd_TV imo shadowlands had a completely different problem, that one just starved to death
from what i know, the drought between the first and second patch was the biggest ever in any expansion (8 months iirc)
yes they also refused to listen regarding a lot of things in shadowlands, but the biggest problem was that they did NOTHING, bad/mediocre content is always better than no content
@@Marunylos The first patch was outrageously long, yeah. And it was so rough because players spent so long in The Maw just for 9.1 to be entirely based in The Maw. It was very rough.
This may be an unpopular opinion but I think the story of BFA is better than people give it credit for. I saw a lot of complaints that Azshara and N'zoth came out of nowhere, but they both appeared in Azshara's Warbringer short, were responsible for 60% of the problems in Zandalar and Kul Tiras, got a bunch of focus and voice lines, so I felt it was pretty clear they were gonna be fought in BFA. For reference, I am pretty sure Azshara has more voice lines in BFA than Kil'Jaeden did in Legion, if not all of WoW. I think the biggest problem with BFAs story (other than 8.3 being really underwhelming) was that it tried to be a story about Azshara and N'zoth, Pandaria 2.0, and a prelude to Shadowlands all at the same time and didn't juggle the three storylines very well so all the good parts of each storyline were undercut.
I would say it's probably unpopular but no less valid! We all have different views and opinions and I'm interested in hearing everyone's thoughts! I think it would be very naive if people thought we wouldn't be seeing Azshara and N'Zoth, as per the Warbringers you suggested. I actually believe you regarding Azshara and Kil'Jaeden! I think you have summed it up wonderfully with this comment. I didn't 'hate' them, I was really interested and invested but the juggling of all of these narratives just felt too rushed. I imagine that BFA could have honestly been akin to the worldsoul saga in a sense. It could have began with the faction war and then bled into an Azshara/Nazjatar expansion and then finally concluding with N'Zoth and Ny'alotha. I would have genuinely loved that so much. Luckily we can have another chance with Azshara and if she doesn't show up in Midnight, I'll eat my own hat! As for the Black Empire, that's going to have to continue with Xal'atath for now and we'll see what happens! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A very enjoyable and balanced read!
BFA was a slightly worse Legion. It had a lot of content just like legion.
Apart from the end and the fact that each story lasted not as long as it should be, the story(ies) was(were) pretty good.
The game should get harder as you level up, so I never understood that argument in BFA, and it's the same even to this day and it was the same up to and including Cataclysm.
Azzerite gear was a less interesting version the legendary weapons, but they were good. And I never grinded AP, be it in Legion or BFA and I still had no problem doing Heroic Raids and M+10/15 dungeons.
Essences and Corruptions were great.
The daily/weekly activities in BFA were good, you didn't have to do everything.
Warmode is good.
The Dungeons were awesome, almost as good as Legion's but not quite, nor WoD's.
Raids were fantastic though, I'd say on par with Legion, but no quite WoD level.
Class design was as good as Legion, as it was the same, you just didn't need the legendary weapon.
Island Expeditions were fun, both PVE and PVP.
Warfronts were too easy, otherwise they would have been fun for more than the first few runs.
Allied Races were and are pointless imo.
Horrific visions were awesome, single player/co-op instanced content is a must for every expansion IMO.
I think Allied Races are good as far as customisation goes. I think variety is always great, but you shouldn't have had to jump through those hoops for it. I appreciate you taking the time to watch and write this up. Thank you.
I LOVED horrific visions so damn much
They are fantastic, I love a challenge mode where you are expected to lose many times before ever winning.
Couldn’t put it better, me too!
Compared to Shadowlands it was fun but overall bad. I like it, i think Zandalar is the best thing about it. the PvP was ok, Azerite sucked. I liked N'zoth towards the end. I am blinded by it because its pre-covid nostalgia kicking in lol
I would agree. I think BFA (through all its faults) is infinitely better than Shadowlands. When I took the time to write the script, I did have to cast my mind back to how the world was at the time and just how important WoW was for me. It doesn't forgive BFA for its misgivings, but there was definitely some good elements to it, if you looked hard enough.
BFA is one of my favorite expansions top 2 at least. but mostly because of corruption gear and season 4.
That's super refreshing to hear. I think people can be so prone to spewing hate for expansions like WoD and BFA, but they are absolutely favourites for some players and we all have a personal preference. This is what fascinates me about people who make WoW tier lists; there is no right or wrong answer. If you love BFA, that's awesome as far as I'm concerned! Thanks for watching.
I remember I started playing at the end of Legion and there was a Horde vs Alliance battle on Darkshore and it was EPIC! Players fighting over this classic zone, finally ending on Sylvanis BURNING DOWN the capital city of the Night Elves. She was SO BADASS in my eyes. I was all for it! Then... I finally got into the expansion and.... Dinosaur island.... Huh...
It did feel a bit all over the place in regards to its tone. I agree. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
That's a shame because Zuldazar is so beautifully crafted. The first zones were the best imo, especially that we could go to long famed places like Kul Tiras and Zandalari Empire. Might not appreciate it as much if you're not lore-invested.
The main difference between BFA and Legion was that with Legion there was polish and detail everywhere. BFA was really cheap by comparison.
There was so much more at stake with Legion too, considering how poor WoD was. Legion HAD to be successful.
This
Considering that Legion ate parts of wod and bfa's betas and resources it makes sense. There was no redeeming factor in BFA. Even the seldom fun systems at 8.3 made you miserable the rest of the time and completely made you forget what and alt is and what a transmog without purple poop on top of you is.
BFA was pretty dope imo I loved it, the lore was mostly shit but I don't play for the lore anymore
Glad you enjoyed it! That's fair. I don't think many particularly play for the story experience anyway, but I still think it should be of a certain quality and coherent. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
This is an odd thing for me, because personally, I actually enjoyed BfA more then legion. The games expansions fall into 3 sets for me, the really good (Vanilla, Wotlk, Mop, DF), the okay (BC, Cata, Legion, BfA), and the bad (WoD, SL). BfA sits at the top of the okay set for me.
Now I know taste has a good chunk of sway in anything, but it really seems that people completely handwave the rocky bits of Legion all the while dunking BfA for some justified and some odly petty or insignificant reasons.
Do people really not remember the shit show that was 7.0?
- Legendaries making or breaking some specs
- RNG hell with legendaries
- the "soft" cap making it nearly impossible to get more legendaries
- exploiters of the Legendary system being ignored
- the lore brakes that Legion flants around.
- The Legion being stuck on the island "But trust us, it's a battleground out there too".
- Nightfallen rep timegated to hell.
- Emerald Nightmare being a complete joke in terms of difficulty.
- Not being able to respec your artifacts, leading to some people being stuck with a really underpowered artifact until their knowledge allowed them to catch up.
- Artifact knowledge being a pain to gain AND being per character
- the return of the dreaded WoD mission table
- only 5 zones
- AP clogging your bags to hell all the time.
- Some classes just flat out better by a pritty large margin
- some pritty big winners and looser with artifact abilities
-Maw of the infinite AP runs
All that, and I'm sure I missed a few, just for patch 7.0... get into patches 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, and it keeps going. Yet now we never hear anyone bring any of that up, but ohh no if you ran heroic Uldir the first week it opened, you may have not yet unlocked your last ring of marginal buffs... completely unacceptable!! expansion ruined!!...
Everything you have said here is absolutely valid, and I do think Blizzard are notorious when it comes to elements of a storyline that were considered to be important to not even be a footnote; look how irrelevant Azerite became in the storyline for instance. I love Legion, and I can solemnly say it was one of my favourite times in WoW, ever. But I do acknowledge everything you have said here and I agree with you.
Preach on! I loved Legion but it was not sunshine and rainbows as people like to remember.
@@atomosk9937 I agree. I have done a video on Legion too! Legion is my favourite, but it definitely had issues.
@@edd_TV I’m watching your Legion video now 😎
@@atomosk9937 I hope you enjoy!
The algorithm randomly suggested you and I'm quite glad because this was a great video. BFA was one of the last expansions I played seriously and ended up quitting for many years after that. Seeing the story again and catching the things I'd missed when playing through it was nice. Edit: First thing I did after finishing this video was going to your channel to see if you had more videos showing the entire story of the expansions like this. I would certainly watch more!
Very kind of you to say so, thank you very much!
Honestly I believe that BfA was as bad or even worse that we remember. Legion hyped me into oblivion that I bought it right away. When prepatch came out I lost my artifact and my spec felt way worse to play. Later came a boring story, kinda bland zones, very very badly designed warfronts and island expeditions and of course the grind. Wow there was so much grind it was unbelievable. The prize for braving all of it was boring armor sets. I felt betrayed.
Understandable. Your feelings are very valid and your opinions are shared by many players. It was disheartening and oppressive and unforgiving if you wanted to play alts. I think it's important to revisit these things though and attempt to remove emotion if possible and see that BFA did have some good elements to it; the dungeons, the raids, horrific visions for example. The bad absolutely outweighs the good though. You hit the nail on the head with the loss of the artifact weapons and the Legion legendaries too. Levelling in BFA was horrid.
Whose ready for BFA classic
I think maybe BFA Remix someday if they are feeling adventurous, but probably not for a long time. I do think we're 100% going to see WoD and Legion Remix though!
Legion introduced a new gameplay cycle of levelling -> world quests> mythics/raids. But the moment a player reaches mythics, the world itself becomes irrelevant. All those newly designed zones and creatures are all a temporary part of the game, even though that's the main selling point. WoW could be so much more if they kept the world-content going into the end game.
That is very true. I often feel like players can be quite desensitised to the world and adventure that WoW offers now due to this striving for gear/raider.io score and just generally blasting the game so they can achieve their goals as quickly as possible. I really love Legion, but it did change WoW forever. It's a huge gripe of mine that Blizzard create systems just to abandon them after an expansion ends. I talk about it in more detail in my 'Island of Irrelevancy' video.
Entirely disagree with personal loot. personal loot is way better and i think most people didnt not have a problem with it. I saw more of a backlash when they returned master loot. Totally agree with najatar and nyolotha. they should have been their own expansion. its so sad....same with argus in legion
Yeah, it's definitely a 'horses for courses' situation. I know many people who really love personal loot too. That's a great point about Legion. I really loved going to Argus, but if that was the continent for say a Legion sequel? That would have been incredible.
@@edd_TV ya I liked what they did with it, argus but idk I felt like those places deserved more. Like the maps for najzatar since wc3 or something with concept art had multiple zones. I think they strayed from it cuz people didn't like vashjir which I loved, and it's a real shame cuz I would've loved exploring the full depths of the naga empire
@@tristanmattwig8541 You might be right. Vashj'ir was a super polarising zone, and it likely evoked a lot of memories and feelings being back in Nazjatar. Vashj'ir wasn't my favourite zone, but it was certainly creative, and similarly to you I would have been interested to see how Nazjatar could have potentially looked as a continent. Definitely a missed opportunity.
I was only interested in BFA for Kul Tiras, a city-state that was finally included in this expansion. Overall it was gorgeous and I loved the art style and theme. Other than that BFA was nothing more than bantha poodoo
I absolutely love Boralus and its music. The art and soundtrack of BFA was immense. It's so good! I also appreciate the Star Wars reference.
@@edd_TVoh absolutely. I managed a roleplay guild centered entirely around Kul Tiras so you could imagine the excitement in our guild when finally after 10 years we were finally included.
@@HPNomad That's so cool! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences!
I hated football boss, but I loved Hivemind, since as DK I could deal some incredible damage pulling far ahead from the rest of the raid.
I enjoyed rotating healing cooldowns on Mythic Hivemind but thought it was a real mess!
BFA and WoD arnt as bad as they remember, the worst thing about BFA was obviously the Azerite Armor
I agree. WoD levelling was actually very fun, and it has some good dungeons and even better raids. There was just a real lack of content available outside of that. I think if they re-released Classic WoD on a faster patch cadence it would unironically do well. Most people just raid log in Classic, so they wouldn't complain about being stuck in their garrison because they would unlikely be playing outside of raids.
As for BFA, it's very very clear that the systems and box features were underwhelming, poor service and bluntly, failures. The game didn't respect players time and this is where the resentment and ignorance comes from, completely blinding players from some of the good things that actually existed in BFA. It was a dark time in WoW, but it did have good elements here and there.
It was very tilting having almost 50 pieces of armor for every individual encounter
@@kharizma1734 Agreed
I loved BfA. But mostly cuz I raided mythic
My mom still listens to daughter of the sea
That's sweet. It is a great song.
Thanks for this retrospective it brought back some great memories!
Regarding Corruptions, I think their power annoyed me because it felt like my gear was playing the game instead of my character. When you opened up details and over 50% if not 70% of your damage was coming from a RNG affix on your pants it was a pretty feelsbad moment
Thank you for watching!
You are absolutely right regarding corruption. It was definitely polarising and I know it upset a lot of people. I had a lot of fun with it personally but I know it was a horror story for a lot of people too!
Daughter of the Sea Story: Awesome.
Legion Calm do no harm Jaina: Bad
War Chief Sylvanas restarting the war against the alliance: Was cool - INITIALLY.
Reason for the War: Sylvanas allying herself with the Jailer. OBSCENELY SHIT.
Memories of BFA: Were great because i started playing WoW with friends again (because of the BFA intro - i.e. a war between the Alliance and the Horde). Spent most of the expansion waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out the truth behind it all. Saw the "Horde is nothing", my heart sank, then saw the intro for Shadowlands and foolishly thought there was still good narrative reasons for BFA, played Shadowlands and then heard "I will never serve"!
BITCH ALL YOU BE DOING IS SERVING!!!
Dropped WoW after that sentence and havent returned since.
Yes the War Within trilogy looks promising but frankly I got SOOO burnt by the shit story and the game grind that even the Metzen Magic isn't enough to pull me back.
I need a fresh start. I need WoW 2, i need all the old narrative baggage to die in the fires of Azeroth being born and cracking her shell forcing us all to leave and start on a new planet, with new alliances and hordes and NONE of the old narrative obligations. This is the only way i won't remember the shit show that tarnished the WoW lore.
New engine, New World, New setting/context. New Rivalries and Friendships.
After the War Within Trilogy i want WoW 2 = Exodus of the World of Warcraft.
Very valid assessment and feelings. I feel in the same boat. I had a little break in WoD, but that was mainly due to the content drought,.I didn't hate WoD, I was just bored. BFA was the first time I seriously quit WoW for a good period of time. I agree, the worldsoul saga looks hugely promising but it's important not to forget that Metzen was a big part of Cataclysm, MoP and WoD, and whilst he is God in a lot of peoples minds (and I do love him too), I don't think he's capable of just waving a wand and everything will be great again.
I do think you will get your WoW 2, but I think that does hinge on the worldsoul saga's success; if the saga bombs, I think WoW 2 will be all systems go, I really do. Thank you for taking the time to type this up and sharing your thoughts and feelings!
For quite a while now, I felt like WoW's "Lore" makes no sense at all. This is for once due to allot story NOT BEING EXPERIENCED IN THE GAME but instead in dime-store novellas. The whole Shadowlands Lore was for me... trash, as where the areas for the most part. It feels like the whole thing was made anti-flying. In WoD people wanted to fly and Blizzard didn't want them to fly, but had to give in. After Legion, which was still one big island, they made BfA that is split, separated by a loading screen, seemingly to influence flying, Shadowlands is split into 5 itsy bitsy islands... anti-flying pure.
But apart from that, the areas didn't make sense. You have on one side some a mix of Winged Angels and Titan constructs, then a place that seems like undead with Frankensteinian monsters, a place of nature and lastly one of Blood and Aristocracy.
One thing I really dislike at WoW, is the fact that there is so much content, but only very few of it you can run on a daily base. While in FF14 you can run ALL DUNGEONS everyday the way they where meant to be run, in WoW only a small selection is actually available. What they should do, is create for EVERY expansion and the base game a Timewalking event, and then have one active each week.
And I hated the Seasonal Affixes.
I agree. It's super frustrating. If you didn't read War Crimes then you had no clue what was really happening from the end of Mists of Pandaria to the start of Warlords of Draenor. You think you have Garrosh bang-to-rights and then suddenly you're going back in time to Alternate Draenor. It was just...so wild. I don't think it's something that's ever going to stop, and I don't want to knock the books too much, because I'm sure for the most part they are very good. It's just such a shame that there is so much lore that isn't going to be seen in the game.
oof. I'm kinda late to this for feedback. I'll give it anyway though and it will be a lot to read.
PvP in BFA was likely either awesome, decent, or painful depending on how you chose to PvP.
*Rated Content* was once again, good or bad depending on where your race/class fell into the meta and your willingness to do PvE for BiS weapons and trinkets that did broken amounts of damage i.e. Geti'kku bleed procs and the Remote Guidance Device oneshot. Farming certain dungeons/raids every week for certain azerite gear was worse, warforging made it EVEN worse, and Essences/Corruptions in later patches.... you get the idea.
These items were not nearly as necessary in *Unrated PvP* but were obviously great to have; the introduction of battle flag items and the various engineering items that could be used in battlegrounds made them a bit more interesting but with the absence of a dedicated PvP vendor and the universal minimum that came in SL/DF, gear was all over the place and the gap between performance was at points, glaring and daunting. This also made rated content HIGHLY inaccessible.
Despite all of these issues, *World PvP* was experiencing an incredible peak, due in part to the practically mandatory War Mode system's incentives and the World PvP features in BFA zones. Personally as a member of an Alliance World PvP Community and Guild _of PC Gamer Magazine Fame_ that was thousands of players strong at the time, I was World PvPing in groups of players varying from 5 (mostly farming Horde Slayer Titles) to 120 (matching numbers for big fights. yes, it was laggy af).
Cross-Realm sharding via LFG, _while indicative of the server community issues that have degraded player socialization since CR's inception,_ was necessary to chase enemy streamers and at least 10 rival guilds/communities from Emerald Dream, Tichondrius, Wyrmrest Accord, and Azralon. The fights were INCREDIBLE and weren't even limited to BFA zones; I recall 40v40s in Redridge, Crossroads, Goldshire, Darkshire, STV, Hellfire, City Attacks and Defenses, and even wargames in Epic Battlegrounds. The battles were incredibly engaging and there were multiple per day, and the resulting trash talk would spill over into social media almost every single time, often provoked by infamous agitators on both sides.
BFA was a golden age for myself and the friends I played with, and it made up for the tedious systems surrounding it. I'm hoping for World PvP in this form to make a serious comeback in future expansions, though the Post-BFA "peacecraft" narrative has gained lots of traction with the PvE/RP purist playerbase, stoking staunch anti-faction PvP sentiment and as a result, causing the devs to pull support/resources from WPvP that were gaining steam to instead implement the free-for-all WPvP areas we see in DF, rendering WPvP soulless and unengaging.
You're never too late! Thank you so much for sharing anything PvP related, as it's certainly the area I'm least educated in within the game. This was really well written and insightful, and it's really refreshing to hear people speak so positively about BFA considering the brush it is so often tarred with. PvP is an area of the game I know I should tap into more because I'm a pretty competitive person, I'm not just not that great at it!
I love listening to players opinions and experiences so thank you again for sharing this and expressing your thoughts and opinions objectively and honestly!
If Sylvanas and The Shadowlands stuff wasn’t hanging over the expansion, I think people would have liked it a lot more.
I mean we had both Old Soldier and The Pride of Kul’Tiras in the same expansion. Both were fantastic.
BfA failed story-wise because they were trying build up a mystery about Sylvanas and her true motivations. The payoff wasn’t good enough, Shadowlands was a mess.
I think so too. I think the fact BFA was a precursor to Sylvanas' power and the Shadowlands stuff, it could have been easier to enjoy or maybe forget about? I think it's quite difficult to leave things behind that are canon, it's why I struggle with the Star Wars sequels so much. It's frustrating to me. You are very right about both Old Soldier and Kul'Tiras, there is so much good in BFA but it really is tainted by the bad. Great comment!
I started my Journey of becoming a WOW player in Battle for Azeroth. and i loved everything about this Expansion. The System, The Dungeons. The Powers you get and the things you can experiment with. it was Fun and ended in Corruption. a System that was fun and brought so many fun builds i tried and played and i quickly did my first +22 Keys in the End of BFA while also Mythic Raiding. I loved it. BFA was my Reason to keep playing WoW and finding friends and love.
That's really refreshing to hear! You're absolutely not alone with that either. I think the expansion you begin your journey in WoW is always going to be hugely important, and the reason most people dislike BFA is because of everything that preceded it and how much the game has changed over the years. Players didn't feel that their time wasn't being respected. Having this fresh experience will give you a completely different stance on the game, and you will take in the world like other players used to! Glad to hear you had such a blast with BFA, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences!
Before i watch the video so my opinion is not biased
It's a hard one for me. Been playing since Vanilla, stopped mid cata up to mid (well almost big update) WoD for studies and my account was stolen during that time so i had to start fresh and it was a good experience. I didn't enjoy WoD too much because i was basically solo playing but in Legion I started raiding and doing M+ a lot with a good prog guild. For BfA my laptop that i used to play got stollen and came back just for the launch of Nazjatar and oh boy, i hated it. They wasted so much potential on story, the grind overall was awful and made me hate parts of the game. Ny'alotha was fine as a raid but they also wasted the potential and did bad with N'zoth (i still hate we just kamehameha it/him)
The neck? Awful, hated the entire stuff related to it, azerite powers, armor, corruptions, awful design that made raiding elitist because you didn't have X power at X level. PvP? A joke, one shoted because of corruptions (was able to get 1800+ on the last 2 seasons and just stopped after the rewards). M+? As a warr tank was an insult being able to solo a +15 with the 90% haste i had plus powers and stuff.
The grinds were insanely bad, too many chores, too many reps, weekly stuff that by the end was not fun and i loved doing weekly stuff before that. Even flying was a struggle compared to legion or even WoD (and i hated getting that last one).
I got burned from playing and even my guildies did, to the point that some of them carried that to SL and when we realized it was another grind/chore fest (i look at you thorgast) we lost around 70% of our players on my guild because they couldn't keep up and didn't enjoy the game, and that's one of the things that still hurts the most.
I like some of the things from DF but still too much "friendship and magic" so i'm gonna leave it at that...
The only "good point" i can say is that we had a few good stories, Jaina, Saurfang and what could have been a great war (that sadly didn''t deliver)
Oh well, time to go farm some xmogs and mounts..wait! we still can't because some bosses are still not soloable so no fun yet with BfA ¬¬
Thank you for taking the time to write this up! I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings prior to engaging with the video, and a lot of the stuff you say I 100% agree with. I hope you enjoy the video.
story wise if they swapped around a couple of Events and completely axed the Jailer and the shadowlands expansion it could have been enough to make two expansions out of the one story, rather than Sylvanaus doing her BS for the Jailer, its the Oldgods and Azshara whispering in her ears, so she can have her "reshape the world and rewrite the concept of life and death" but more in a trap everyone in an endless nightmare kind of way. I mean she practically stabbed herself on a metal basically made out of Oldgod blood, that had to have gotten her in contact with something.
BFA would end with the Bitch queen Vs Saurfang and her sending Nathanos to give the Old god stabber to Azshara and the message that its time for the tides to drown the world which then sets up a whole new expac: Darkest Depths... or Fury of the Old Gods but the TLDR is the war isn't so much for giving souls to the Gimp Zone but more to deplete and tire the f*ck out of the Alliance and Horde forces so when the old gods rise up they don't have the strength or numbers to fight back
Naga attacks are on the rise, their skirmishes were nothing to brush off before but these new attacks are a whole new level of aggressive and the skittery little bug bastards are getting uppity and gathering in places where old gods used to hold court along with a weird new rise of mental breakdowns, the kind that made the doomsayers of Cataclysm seem reasonable by comparison. we the player get sent to find out the fuck is goin on and learn that through our extended exposure to Azeroths heart we are slightly more resilient to Old God Influence and can stand being in the vision of horror for longer without going batsh*t insane, so with that slight resilience we go find out the fuck is going on, where its going on and how to make it go off
essentially finding out about N'zoths Plans to overwrite the world with his waking nightmare hellscape by stabbing our way up the command chain, echos of Old Gods we dealt with in he past, Sylvanas coming to realise that everyone is a Tool to an Old God, including her. and the whole expac ending with N'zoth being defeated just like the others in that kind of ambiguous "can mortals really Kill Old gods or do we just send them to their respawn zones?" kind of deal.
as for mechanics: truth be told the only Raids and Dungeons I do in WoW are the LFG kind, Ive Never done a Mythic or a mythic Plus and even getting into a _normal_ level raid is absolute pain on a train because the hardcore Sweats need Maximum efficiency but when you get behind, there is _No catching up_ .
I'm an absolutely Average WoW player, I explore, I run legacy content for mog and mount farming after my chores are done for the week. I don't have a really an active Guild, and most of us are never on at the same time due to Timezones or play time limitations, but even there there isn't enough of us to form a party and my other characters guilds are account only for bank reasons, so Pugs are really my Only option on my Main and most of them are fucking Awful to be perfectly frank.
Blizz really needs to look at balancing the game around the Average Player, LFG and LFR should be on the same level as normal raids, you either go Premade for "optimum efficiency" or you Roll LFG for randoms because you gotta get that done and have no standards when it comes to Item Level, Mythic should just be a Optional Challenge mode that drops Cosmetics and achive titles IMO, I get some people like the skill and such, But I just wanna find cool shit and explore.
like Literally this week I was going through the Premade groups looking for a Heroic SoD so I can try for that Gold quiver for my main (She's a Beastmaster Hunter) and the only ones people were running were mythic, its a new week so people are going to try for that dragonhawk mount, which is understandable so I was like F*ck it I guess I'll make a raid and see how many are down to run it. and I stated very clearly multiple times that I want to wait for at least 10 before we can start, I'm not going to Blitz this thing we're going to have a chill raid, I say this to literally everyone who joins, first two can't make it to the Raid because they haven't done the needed things to get there, which is Fair Shadowlands is the worst and a complete slog to get through. the third joins...and this one player is the reason why I was pissed off for the next 48 hours, first off: they rock up in Warmode, which means they're in an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PHASE to everyone else, so they cant help me summon the two who can't get to the raid, the ass player DM's me saying to ditch the other two because the raid can be done with two players, I tell them Nah we need 10 for maximum Loot, so we wait for the next 15 minutes or so and by the time we get 7 players...that shithead player had led the raid to _Kill the First Boss_ while I was OUTSIDE summoning the last 3 and getting the group all there to run the raid, I called them out and was like Hey, why the fuck is the first boss dead we haven't had the raid full yet and they basically are in full Blitz mode killing everything and anything in our way as fast as fucking possible, so I RW'd "whichever one of you is Backseat leading you better Knock that shit off or I'll remove you"
they did not knock that shit off, so I removed them and told the raid to wait so they'd get mobbed by the next room and die so the raid had time to boot them out
I got a very colourful DM that I skimmed and told them if they wanted a Heroic Blitz they can make their own group, then reported them for being a rude little assbasket because Blizz suggested I do so.
I very much agree. I don't think keeping people in the dark or connecting things with Shadowlands so late was a good idea and definitely could have been told or foreshadowed a bit later. I'll always campaign that anything that ever is illustrated in books should be accessible in game format too. It can just be so confusing, especially for new players.
I'm sorry to hear about your issues with certain players in the community and it's something I have touched on in my latest video that I think will resonate with you A LOT. Especially after your story regarding SoD Heroic. Some players just want to go as fast as they can and as hard as they can. The community has cultivated a desire to be the best and optimisation is at the forefront of everything.
I really appreciate you watching the video and taking the time to type this up. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
This is not mentioned a lot but I hear it every now and then: the first few months of the expansion was amazing. The art, the music, and people don't mention this a lot - but the levelling quests are very well done (better than Legion imo, it was just a more streamlined experience in terms of small pockets of storytelling). Unfortunately, it's overshadowed by the overarching story, the borrowed power system, the promised features that never came, the shoehorning of Old Gods and Azshara (who should have gotten an entire expansion), terrible PvP (despite it being the perfect expansion for it??) just to name a few.
(Sidenote: the marketing was also so, so well done. They really suceeded in helping entrench that faction divide. The merch collabs were also well thought of. It's obvious they spent a lot of money in their marketing.)
Really wish they focused on the political and purely violent aspect of the Horde vs Alliance war and that the loosening of the faction restriction, including cross-faction play, was done at the end as they introduce N'Zoth and an all out naga expansion. It would be symbolic and most importantly *made sense*.
You are absolutely right. I genuinely think the art, music and cinematics are some of the best WoW has ever had. I had no issues with questing personally and really enjoyed the zones, but I just couldn't fathom how much weaker my character felt post Legion. This is a really good comment. I think it's important that we can remove emotion when it comes to vision and actually look at some genuine W's and L's from Blizzard. Was BFA perfect? Hell no it wasn't, but it DID have some good elements to it. I appreciate your comment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I just simply love this game. BFA was a bit grindy, but it actually was fun. The M+ was fun, i even PVP:d in BFA again, but yeah the story was a bit confusing and i had a small break during Nazjatar. The worst part of the whole expansion was not being able to fly untill you grinded for weeks. I hated that.
Me too. I think removing emotion is sometimes important, especially during revision and looking back. Similarly to WoD, BFA is blinded by anger and hate and yes, absolutely most of it is valid! The grinding was rough and it was super alt unfriendly, but it did have some nice moments and I think it's important to document their wins as well as their losses. The pathfinder part was frustrating, I agree. BFA was brutal in the sense that it forced players to engage in content they may not have been interested in, and that really breeds resentment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
When legion was coming out, I felt wow wasn't in a good place and was honestly boring, so I didn't think legion was any good and quit till BFA came out, so I missed the artifact weapon power but based on how many people complain about the game isn't as good as artifact power I feel it's made people spoiled. As for PVP I feel is should be separated from the main sandbox as it adjustments to classes and other stats aren't based on the game as a whole instead its strictly dictated by PVP and isn't a ideal way of managing a game. FFXIV has proven this true, and Blizzard could learn a lot of game refinements by watching Square Enix's work.
I have a Legion video out too if that's something you're interested in looking at. Legion was superb in my opinion. I think you raise a very good point with FFXIV. I think there is a lot of elements they could draw on from FFXIV, and I think that's something they are trying to do with committed storytelling and hopefully evergreen features such as delves.
BFA was pretty good past patch 8.2 in terms of systems (essences and corruption were the best borrowed power systems wow ever had together with artifact weapons) , it got really good m+ dungeons (atal, freehold, waycrest etc.) and it got 2 of the best raids wow ever had with BoD and nyalotha
I think you're right. The dungeons were great and those two raids you mentioned were a lot of fun. Ny'alotha really stands out for me in BFA. I think it's really easy to hate on BFA because of how poor the systems were in the beginning and how the game didn't respect your time and asked so much of you.
I honestly had a blast in BfA. The raids were awesome, the dungeons were great, new zones were really great, and the corruption was fun to mess around with. However, the progression system and so many dailies and other stuff made the game an insane time sink just to keep up. Shadowlands was so bad that I quit, and never went back (I started WoW in '07). I'm in my FF14 era now, and I'm having a really fun time with the game.
Glad to hear it! I don't begrudge you for quitting Shadowlands, it was a really dark period generally speaking with both the lawsuit and the pandemic; the game being miserable was just the cherry on the cake in that awful time. Glad to hear you're having a blast with FFXIV, as I have so much love for that game too! I'm very excited for Dawntrail! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
BFA had a lot of good ideas that were executed poorly. Azshara and N'Zoth should've been in a standalone expansion, but the narrative with what the hell Sylvannas was doing demanded attention while also still being shrouded in mystery. She went from being one of my top favorite characters to the least with how the Jailer's character basically stripped her agency away from her, while also never being fully explained himself. I still have a lot of good memories from 8.3 for a lot of the reasons you listed, but man talk about wasted potential with N'Zoth being sidelined into a single patch.
Hard agree. I tried my best to be invested in both Azshara and N'Zoth with BFA, but this expansion just felt like a slap in the face considering how anticipated both of these characters were and what we got. They absolutely deserved to be in the spotlight in their own storylines. It is genuinely devastating how far Sylvanas has fallen, and whilst I do think she'll be a lot easier on the eye when she eventually returns, I do wonder if some of the fanbase will ever forgive what has happened to her. I hope so. I think the Black Empire just has to live through Xal'atath going forward at this point. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
Quick summary of PvP in BFA: There were no PvP vendors and the only way to get PvP gear by Blizzard's designed systems were to complete weekly quests, which awarded base level (M0 equivalent) that could only be upgraded via tokens that were obtained at a rate of 1 upgrade per month. The only other way to get better item leveled items was through the weekly vault which provided the same randomly stated versatility items that could not be upgraded. This system was so bad that players had to PvE for almost ALL of their PvP gear, which included raid trinkets because there was no PvP trinket set bonus at the time or nerfing of PvE trinkets in PvP. These were odd decisions considering that BFA was when blizzard undid the changes made in Legion regarding PvP stat templates which made gear effectively not matter outside of item level. So for the entirety of the expansion Players were forced to fully gear PvE to be able to start gearing PvP, in addition to needing to obtain azerite powers and azerite armor with not much help in the way of alt friendly game design to make this any less of a burden. Not to mention that the scaling of gear in PvP sometimes caused upgrades to make your character weaker or do less damage (which was theorized as some messy residual code from Legion's reworking of PvP). The final insults to injury was that there was no new PvP content in an allegedly PvP themed expansion (which in reality hijacked and sacrificed the theme/motif to hype people up for a PvE-Old Gods story) and in any circumstance where PvErs were asked to pay a "PvP tax" the decision was nerfed by over 50% meanwhile the "PvE tax" to PvP increased season after season. A good talking point regarding this is warmode, which seems like an overall PvP feature, but in reality served as a unique way for PvErs to obtain PvP essences without really PvPing. Some people world PvPed for the fun of it, but because PvP gear didn't really exist and world PvP provided no gear progression there was no reason for PvPers to really engage with the system. It turned into feeling like doing world content with Honor talents that made some specs MUCH stronger, while most players opted to not PvP while in warmode. It just made the entire community feel like an actual after thought, and caused enough of a wave in response to cause several major changes felt today: 1) PvP vendors returned, 2) Honor and Conquest gear returned to scale up to Heroic and Mythic item level equivalencies in PvP combat, 3) world PvP received set bonuses and upgrade systems that had bleed-over into instanced PvP (which is a current part of early season PvP gearing), and 4) PvP and PvE gear have become almost completely isolated from each other with most PvE items being nerfed by 50%+ and PvP trinkets having a pretty massive PvP only set bonus.
Wow, that sounds horrendous! I do feel this often seems to be the case with PvP. It so often feels like an afterthought. I do feel sometimes Blizzard have had really solid methods in the past, be it valor points, the badge system from TBC and wrath, or like you say the PvP vendors returning. 'If it isn't broke, don't fix it' comes to mind so often, but they insist on trying to reinvent the wheel for whatever reason. Thank you so much for sharing this!
I have to say: BfA had the biggest number of cool cinematics tho :>
I agree! I think the cinematics and soundtrack in BFA was fantastic.
bfa had a rough start but overall i genuinely enjoyed this expansion, had amazing times running mythic raids with my guild and we got some incredible content patches. 8.2 was phenominal. story was good but executed poorly in game. leveling was good aside from the loss of power over time. it had a rough start with azerite gear but got it right with essences. bfa certainly isnt the worst expansion. that honor goes to shadowlands.
Glad to hear you had some great times with it! Very much agree with all of your points.
Just hearing the story of BFA.. its so much in one freakin expansion no wonder ot delivers so bad.
But it was amazing and I still love BFA. BFA has in my opinion best music zones and zone storys and the leveling experience was amazing.
Yeah, it flip-flops all over the place. It's the faction war, then it's the naga, then it's the Black Empire. They were trying to tell so many different stories, it was just too much. They sped through so much anticipated lore and characters, it was a shame. I'm totally with you in regards to the music. I think the soundtrack for BFA may possibly be the best WoW has ever had. MoP is a strong contender though!
dude idek where this community opinion comes from. i joined wow during legion so BFA was only my second expac, and i loved it. i had a blast. had next to no clue what i was doing in the game but i still had fun, to this day i get nostalgic chills when i hear the zuldazar music, idk if it was a bad expac when compared to others or not, but id give almost anything to feel the way i did about the game then, now.
I think it depends on when you started. If you take a look at the way the retail community and the classic community butt heads on what WoW 'should' be for instance. It's really tricky because I think Blizzard were just trying to build on what they gave everybody in Legion, because so many people loved Legion. They went far too hard on the grinding side of things and Azerite gear drastically underperformed. I think it's really easy to be blinded by emotion and hate with BFA. It was far from perfect, but I definitely had fun here and there when I look back. I'm totally with you in regards to the music too. BFA had one of the best soundtracks in WoW history, and the cinematics were immense. If I was going to rank it, I would probably give it a C. I didn't hate it, but it was definitely a challenging time for a lot of players. I think when you started is VERY important to the experience though. People talk about Wrath of the Lich King being the pinnacle of WoW, but if you played it, you might not understand it because nostalgia is just so powerful. At the end of the day, we're all entitled to enjoy what we want, and if you had a blast with BFA, that's awesome man. I can only hope that if people watch this people they can remove emotion and look back and see what worked and what didn't, What I can say is, you're absolutely not alone. So many people have shared really positive experiences about BFA, and it's so refreshing to read. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
After a bit of time in Legion without owning Legion, and 10 years of WotLK in private servers, BFA was fucking awesome for me. I joined in 8.2 and loved every second of it.
That's great to hear! I always find it super refreshing to hear people had a blast with BFA because it's spoken about so negatively. A lot of people just assume that it's universally hated and it's not true at all. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Thanks for summarizing the story line, I'am thinking on getting back to the War Within after leaving in Legion and it helps a lot to have the lore and the game growth summarized. Looking forward to the shadowlands and Dragonflight :D
You're welcome. I think it's important that people can understand the story regardless of how good/bad they perceive it to be. I think The War Within will be a great opportunity to get back into the game, I just hope they are able to bridge the stories so people who have been out of the game for sometime can understand what's happening! Thank you for watching!
Systems upon systems and doubling down on borrowed power made it one of the worst expansions for me. The story had its issues, but I don't think it was *as bad* as some people say. Several of its patches should have been expansions, leading to everything feel a bit disjointed.
I sometimes do think maybe I'm a bit too critical of the story, but I think I was just gutted how fast they seemed to sweep through really anticipated content in one expansion. I really do believe they could have told so much more over the course of several expansions rather than baking it all into one, but I digress. You are absolutely right in regards to the various systems, the chopping and the changing and borrowed power that really made people resent it. It's totally valid. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
I was wondering why I look back on BFA pretty fondly and realised it was because I did my 1 month of free then came back in 8.2 (essences and binging the story I guess). Makes total sense now
8.2 honestly saved BFA for me, for sure. The game initially felt so drab and it's no wonder everybody called it 'Beta for Azeroth'. There were definitely consistent problems with BFA, but 8.2 really did a lot for it.
Just the fact that this video is 1 hour long, because it takes that long to go over the story, the crazy amount of system reworks each patch, the progression , etc lol. They (blizzard) just could not figure this expansion out
Yeah, I couldn’t believe how much longer it was than my Legion video. There was just so much to talk about!
It was bad , not as bad as Shadowlands
I just got dragonflight on a sale but probably won't go through it much I'm just gaining levels on my 26 alts to be ready for War Within if I get it.
Dragonflight is a breath of fresh air in comparison to both BFA and Shadowlands systems/chores. I hope you manage to spend a bit of time in the zones and have some fun with it before TWW drops!
I really liked doing the visions and the zones, dungeons and raids were really cool but azerite gear was a constant frustration and the classes felt a bit gimpy coming from the legion prune and no more legendary. the visions required too much busy work to get into them as well, farming for the currency etc
Very much agree with everything you have said. It was a huge downgrade from Legion. You make a good point about the visions too. It was frustrating having to farm the currency just to take part in the actual gameplay of the visions, but the visions themselves were a lot of fun!
Siege of Boralus was pretty bad for horde players. The start of the dungeon was different and worse/harder. When i swapped to alliance it was mind blowing how much better it was.
Great video and hello fellow crab mount enjoyer 👍I would love to see a shadowlands video, as I enjoyed that xpac despite a lot of bad stuff. Especially the dungeons and zone designs.
I never thought about Siege of Boralus from a Horde perspective! It's coming back for Season 1 of The War Within. Thank you for your kind words, and Shadowlands is definitely something I'm planning on pursuing down the line!
Nazmir was awesome... Bwonsomdi particularly...... that's about it... Another turtle made it to the water....😐
Agreed, Bwonsamdi was a very compelling character.
BFA was the most fun I've ever had in the game. The zones and questing are out of this world. Probably tied with Legion for best expansion.
Always refreshing to hear people say positive things about an expansion that has such a dark cloud over it. Thanks for sharing!
BFA was one of my favorites, I came back to wow and into bfa after after not playing since Pandaria, and I had such a great time raiding again. Nyalotha was ❤❤
Glad you had fun with it!
The zones were beautiful, the dungeons were awesome, the lore was great, the art style was great, it was an amazing expansion to play. The only thing wrong with it was the people moaning non stop about stupid meta problems.
The systems overshadowed so much of BFA, I agree. Some people can't find anything objectively positive to say about it because they were so resentful of the chores, azerite gear etc
I think the models and areas were gorgeous as were a few of the quest stories but the gameplay elements were horrendous and after stripping everyone's kits and power/class fantasies to nothing after Legion huge L.
I couldn't agree more with you. It was a big shame. I did really enjoy some elements of it but overall it wasn't a patch on what Legion gave us.
Yeah a whole nyalotha old gods expansion would've been my wish but a zone would have been also nice. Craming it just into one raid seems like so much wasted pontential.
Yeah, it felt very rushed and the Black Empire just felt dealt with inside a patch. They deserved a lot better.
Island Expeditions had the potential to be small group or solo content that was engaging. The only problem that I feel existed was that in the end the expedition became a resource race against the opposing faction. While it was neat to have an enemy player group on the island with you, the rush to get azerite power completely diminished the exploration and fun aspect of the island expeditions. There were a lot of really neat things to see, like magical portals that spawned after you gathered certain items to take you to an elemental plane or a tomb with powerful monsters imprisoned.
That is very true. I wasn't sure what to think of the feature when it was announced and I didn't know how to feel about it, but I was definitely filled with feelings of adventure and exploration. I didn't know about those magical portals! I think I was probably in the mindset of 'Let's just get this done so I can get my reward'. I think this mindset is a great failing for a lot of players. I talk about it in another one of my videos 'Why Some Players Aren't Having Fun Anymore'. I think if I just appreciated Island Expeditions for what they were and not as a means to an end, I would have probably enjoyed them more. I would like to see them return in some fashion in the future. Depending on how Delves goes we will likely see more evergreen systems too, so I definitely think there's a chance for something like Expeditions and Torghast again! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
BFA is on the same level as WoD, but felt a lot worse since WoD at least did new things... BFA just took away from Legion.
Both expansions had so much potential, but failed for completely different reasons. BFA was definitely a sort of 'budget Legion' or maybe even Legion on steroids because of the amount of tasks that were being required of you. It really diminished just how good Legion was in my opinion. If Legion was the standalone product of borrowed power, I think it would be looked upon even more fondly, but because Blizzard ran with the philosophy of Legion, it really paved a cruel road for WoW to walk for a good few years.
bfa and shadowlands were meh for me, now Legion, ohh man Legion I dare to say was one of the best expansions ever, class fantasy, good lore, artifact weapons and lots of content.
I think BFA is meh and Shadowlands for the most part was insufferable. I have done a video on Legion if you're interested in that. Legion is my all time favourite! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I'll never forgive them for burning down the World Tree. That was so uncalled for and honestly didn't mean anything
It was even worse at the time too because we didn't know about The Maw or the Jailer or anything like that. It just felt like an excuse for war. They obviously tried to tie in with Sylvanas' drastic gains in power but I agree, it felt bad for a number of reasons. It feels like Night Elves have had the shit kicked out of them for years now, it painted the Horde as serious villains and it just wasn't needed.
idk, was kinda one of my fav expansion. i came to wow after like 5-6 years and everything was so new that it was fun. i had a lot of fun in bfa.
That's great to hear! It's good to know people had really good experiences when times were considered tough.
I think if the systems were good ,those being warfronts islands azerite armor and the heart, BFA would a been a fine expansion
I agree. I think toning the grind down would have been welcome too.
people hate me for saying it, but bfa has been one of my fave wow expansions, i had a ton of fun, but i wasnt playing tryharder, so...
There's nothing wrong with that! If you had a good time with it then that's great. We're all different and enjoy different things.
I feel like I had a very different raiding experience. Ny'alotha and Eternal palace were terrible raids in my opinion with Azhara being one of the worse final boss fights ever designed.
That's totally fine. I wasn't super hot on Eternal Palace personally, just the odd fight. I think with Ny'alotha I genuinely loved the aesthetic of it all. It just looked so alien and unlike anything we had seen before. The bosses weren't fabulous there, and I would probably put it down to my guild at the time that helped me enjoy it. It's absolutely fine to disagree and I appreciate you voicing your feelings.
i absolutely hated bfa, until we got the corruption gear it was really cool, and the m+ affix with the obelisks was fun too
The last patch was definitely the most enjoyable for me too.
I enjoyed BFA. I dont do hardcore stuff in wow. I really enjoyed the questing and the world
That's great. Glad to hear it!
Actually some of my favorite dungs are from BFA, the zones were beautiful too
They did have some goodies! Looking forward to seeing some of those dungeons return in future seasons!
Even with you explaining shadowlands story better than blizzard did, it still is so so bad lol
Yeah, I agree. It's honestly indefensible. Both the stories of BFA and Shadowlands have insane inconsistencies and sometimes not even a full conclusion. Blizzard even admitted themselves that Zovaal was an underdeveloped villain. It was all just so bizarre, crazy high stakes and random.
One of my favourite expansions, I loved the story, the maps and allied races.
Glad to hear you had fun with it!
As a casual I like bfa a lot, one of my favorite expansions. It has the best zones in all expansions.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Azshara and her whole kingdom of Nazjatar deserved to be its own expac. And fully underwater. What we got was okay but was not enough
I agree. I think after what we got with Vashj'ir in Cataclysm, it really set the tone and whet the appetite for a lot of players of what Nazjatar could have potentially been like. I still had fun with Nazjatar, but it was very underwhelming to what I had envisaged it to be.
“Fully underwater” no thanks. Exposing it like they did was perfect, it just needed to be way more fleshed out
@@Frankthegb I think maybe if we had sections similar to Vashj'ir or Argus, one of them could have been a fully underwater area. They probably considered it, but Vashj'ir was such a polarising zone and considering how integral Nazjatar was to the endgame of BFA, it would have ruffled a lot of feathers I think. Vashj'ir was different, it was a levelling zone and if you really hated it that much you could just do Hyjal instead and not have to worry about it. It would have offered a lot of problems, no doubt.
It was another expansion of potential waste - a good, but late moment to end that game once and for all.
I do feel the potential was huge too. I feel BFA could have potentially been what Dragonflight is to the Worldsoul Saga. BFA could have told a really good story that could have bridged into both Azshara and N'Zoth but they instead decided to lump it all together in one big narrative. It felt so wasteful to me.
When there is a need of separate videos about the lore behind a game, you know that is a bad game.
This. So much this.
Edd, this is quality content. You deserve a few thousand more subs!
That's really nice of you to say so. I'm glad you enjoy it. Thanks for watching!
Bfa was copy pasted legion without any of the features that made legion great
Legion also had a very coherent story experience, and desperately needed to thrive after Warlords of Draenor. It felt that Blizzard felt they had their fanbase back again, and the amount of disrespect for your time was just beyond anything we had ever seen before.
Bfa was good at least it was not about some stupid robots ruling over afterlife :D
The theme was very Warcraft, something that feels lost ever since.
Another great video. It's nice to see your feelings echo similar to mine.
Thanks for your support as always! Glad the video resonated with you well!
After 7 years I came back to BFA, I actually really enjoyed the bfa world: aztec and fairytale (theramore). Pvp felt awful. Wasn't fan of azerite power either.
I think the world is solid too. I can't really comment on the pvp side of things, but I'll take your word for it! I agree that Azerite power was both exhausting and underwhelming.
Well, it wasn't as bad as Shadowlands, if that means anything lol.
I agree. BFA had a lot of issues and didn't respect players time, but I still found a lot of positive things to say about it! Shadowlands would be quite challenging to talk about, but it's something I would like to explore.
Hi Edd just found out i wasnt subbed. Sorry for not subbing.
Hey there, no apology necessary! Thank you for your support!
Art team was at its peak in BFA. Every other team at its lowest
It really was, wasn't it? It isn't talked about enough! The soundtrack and cinematics are unbelievable.
the heart of azeroth should be renamed to the heart of eternal suffering
It felt more like a swinging brick than a beating heart.
For me, BFA had some of the best levelling and art design. Everything felt choppy/rushed, and i wish they expanded on certain themes throughout, like N'zoth and Azshara. Instead of doing the whole Naga and Old god patches, unless they were going in depth from the get go,wish they went in on exploration and had us explore new islands and cultures to secure alliances for the war. Mechagon was a good example of this.
I really disliked the levelling experience personally as I just felt my character getting weaker and weaker. In terms of art/zones/soundtrack though, absolutely phenomenal. I agree that it was super choppy/rushed and the tone changed so drastically; it was faction war, it was Naga, it was Black Empire. The pacing was all over the place and they really breezed through a lot of very important lore. I think you're absolutely right in regards to how they could have handled both Azshara and N'Zoth. It's such a shame, but hopefully there is a chance to rectify some of this moving forward. We are definitely going to see Azshara again, and I think the Black Empire now lives on through Xal'atath, so let's see how that goes! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings!
By the way, Shadowlands video would be great!
Shadowlands will be tough, but not impossible! My worry with a Shadowlands video is that it could appear quite toxic, as there isn't much positivity there. I try to be as objective as I can with these videos, but Shadowlands is quite hard to defend. It's something I would like to explore, but there are challenges there.
the azerite armor was a horrible idea. but Kul Tirans!
Agreed on both! Kul Tirans are awesome!
The trailers made me think BFA was gonna be some sort of massive us vs them type story where we participated in massive battles both on land and sea… I’m 20 hours into BFA and all I’ve been doing is quests for a faction I do not care about at all. Only benefit is Zandalar is insanely gorgeous
That's exactly how I saw it too. I honestly wonder what the vision of BFA was originally, because it ended up so topsy-turvy. It was constantly sold as the 'Faction War' but it was a really mixed bag. They ran through so much lore like it was nothing. Everything was such a mad dash and the pace and tone shifted so dramatically.
i liked azerite armor a lot. had so much potential.
I think a lot of people really bought into the hype around it; in theory it had massive potential!
I loved BFA. Some things weren't great, of course. Azerite armor was a disappointment, and not having account-wide unlocks on essences made alts annoying. Warfronts were a missed opportunity. But I thought the story was great, and the dungeons and raids were all really fun to play and replay. Battle of Dazar'Alor and Ny'alotha are wonderful raids, in particular, and the little two-boss raid in the middle was a challenging treat. Mechagon was great, Waycrest was great, Atal'dazar was great. Just lots of awesome content.
I think BFA really only sucked if you were a min-max type who wanted to have the highest power character. "The benthic armor grind sucked." Sure, but you could just not do that and then Naz'jatar was great. "Doing thouands of islands sucked." Sure, but you could just do one or two a week for your weekly and that felt fine. You'd still have a big heart, just not quite as big as others'. The design philosophy in a lot of BFA was to lock ever-smaller bits of power behind ever-larger amounts of tedium, so that people who wanted to do more could get rewards for doing so, but they wouldn't dramatically outpace everyone else. But this just made it so degens broke themselves on the game. (This dynamic was present in Legion, too, people just weren't sick of it yet.)
Glad to hear you had a good time with it. You make a very good point too that I think people forget. Legion was the catalyst for this type of gameplay: I think had Legion been the standalone era of Borrowed Power and chores, it would have been held in even higher regard than it is today. Legion has a bit of a hangover because of what players had to go through with both BFA and Shadowlands. Before those, everything was new: borrowed power, mythic+ etc, it was a novelty. It was above and beyond anything we had ever seen before, and I don't know if they will ever top Legion personally. I hope they do, but I just can't see it.
Yeah! BFA got shafted. Legion was all about endless grinds and borrowed power. Everyone LOVED it. So Bliz was like "Cool, let's do it again in the next one." And then everyone was like "This is the worst! Fuck this! I hate all these chores and borrowed power!" And fine: you didn't have fun, you didn't have fun. But this wasn't a fundamental design problem. You loved Legion, right?
@@Bugsbysix I absolutely adored Legion. I have another video based on how good Legion was if you're interested in checking that out!
Early BFA was crap af. This was the first time where leveling up felt like retardation of your character because you were leaving all these Legion-specific borrowed power systems behind to be replaced with... uh, nothing! Azerite armor was not balanced well on launch. Nasty AP grind (again!), crap talents that were mainly more mastery, more damage, more crit...
Late BFA was good and fun to play though. I played 8.3 quite a lot and enjoyed that patch. Lots of content, corruptions were fun, raids were fun, specs were fun to play.
Essence accountification came out far too late though and carried high cost of that too. Very alt unfriendly period. I played just my main and that was already a big time investment to minmax it and pad numbers.
This is kinda sad because it was an expansion with the largest amount of content ever released I think. It had like 5 raids and 12 dungeons? Something actually crazy.
It was coined 'Beta for Azeroth' for a reason. You're right, I quit very early doors in BFA because it was just horrid to play. I do agree with you that late BFA was fun too, but I feel that's Blizzard's M.O with their approach to WoW - a lot of people would say the same about Legion Legendaries finally being accessible etc. The issue is, the fixes come when it's too late. The best advice you could give somebody who wants to play WoW is to play during the last patch, because everything is accessible, nerfed or fixed. It shouldn't be like that, but it's sadly how they operate.
I have always played my paladin, so I thankfully didn't feel the awful rub of how damaging it was to alts, but I sympathise with you. It was clear as day to see how bad and restrictive all of this was. It's very sad, I agree, because like every WoW expansion, it's brimming with potential! Similarly to WoD, I think BFA left a very bad taste in the mouth that some people just can't even look at it anymore because it feels them with such bitterness and resentment. Thanks for taking the time to watch and sharing your thoughts and feelings!
@@edd_TV Shadowlands expansion launch was better though. Finally PVP with good reward structure, people were actually playing RBG's to gear up. No stupid warforging, no rng, your loot didn't deprecate over time - you got that 226 ilvl piece it stayed BiS throughout the entire patch. Castle Nathria was a good raid and mythic+ season was decent with prideful buffbots every 20%.
It had its fair share of bullshit such as 8 layers of torghast in two wings (WTF!) and high gold cost of legendary bases. Restrictive covenant obviously being the elephant in the room - you just googled what does the most DPS in parses and picked that. Nice choice lol.
Then it came crashing down in 9.1 possibly the worst patch in WoW history. Nobody found this fun, players quit in droves. Then 9.2 added insult to injury with a raid that was so hard that they needed to nerf it like 50 times.
@@alewis514 I do plan to a Shadowlands video soonish, and 9.1 will absolutely have its own section. 9.1 almost killed the game entirely. I appreciate you engaging with the video and sharing your opinion!
Amen on Naz/Mechagon saving the expansion. My guild had already fallen apart in Uldir and I tried my best to pug through BoD but eventually fizzled out. Having two pretty good zones packed with content kept me playing and vaguely gearing until I could pick back up in season 4. Edit: I wish I could like this video twice. Its such a fair and balanced take on BFA.
Thank you for your kind words and sharing your thoughts and feelings!
@@edd_TV No problem! I really loved the legion video aswell, keep up the great work!
@@Crazylegs677 Really appreciate your support! Thanks again!
Answer is yes, yes it was. Every patch, from .0 to .3 were horrendous to play and progress thru, only being brought to servicable by their end. It's also what makes proper retrospections on wow expacs possible - nobody has all the different versions of the game.
That is sadly the nature of the beast with Blizzard the majority of the time. Whether it be Legion, BFA or things like Torghast or whatever else in Shadowlands. It always feels incomplete, and whilst there are always alphas and betas, the game is everchanging whilst live because it's never good enough or a finished product. I've always strongly disliked how Blizzard make the game super accessible towards the end of an expansion. They are always aware of the issues and the community has a big voice, but there was a strong refusal to listen in the past; like 'pulling the ripcord' with Covenants for example.
Aaaaand while the comprehensive story explained by you, made ABSOLUTELY no sense when told by Blizzard in the game.
Tho the insanely poorly told story was not why BFA sucked. Its the lack of any real content, waste of time bs, rng warforge procs which were horrible. And just a whole load of other issues that id rather forget.
Easily the worst xpac that I think had the worst negative impact on the long term health of the game.
I can't take the credit for it, I was simply reading from the Reddit post! It's interesting how it puts it into more perspective, but when actually living through it in the game in real time, it felt so confusing, disconnected and rushed. It's so hard to choose which did more damage to the game with BFA or Shadowlands. I think you might be right - BFA was the dreaded gruelling boxing match and Shadowlands was just the Knockout punch. It was clear with the success of Legion they thought they could replicate the systems, but it was such a terrible mistake. I'm trying to remove emotion and be a bit more objective about things, because there are definitely where I think 'I quite enjoyed that, oh wait that was in BFA?!', because there were times where BFA really stressed and upset me. It was the first time I quit the game properly. In WoD I quit purely because there was just nothing going on, I didn't hate it, I was just bored. There was a lot of resentment with BFA for a long time. I feel like I've made my peace with it now and can look back on it in a better mindset and see that I enjoyed certain elements of it, but it was an extremely rough time in WoW, no doubt about it.
@@edd_TV Yeah, for me at that point 17yrs of non stop WoW and a full renaissance that I got from Legion before. It was all crushed and I stopped playing at the end of BFA. It was too much.
Also watching further just put me back into Vietnam all over again xD
@@easycake3251 Understandable! I felt like that with Shadowlands. I found Shadowlands extremely damaging, especially with the pandemic and the lawsuit in the mix. It was just...such a nightmare. I have definitely reconciled a little with Dragonflight, but the story is still quite poor and similarly to you, I feel a lot of irreparable damage has been done. I'm interested to see their plans going forward with the Worldsoul Saga but I really couldn't say how well it's going to perform. I don't see anything ever hitting the heights of Legion again personally.