As Battle for Azeroth comes to a close and Shadowlands appears on the horizon, it’s time to take a look at what players loved and hated about the expansion. The latest World of Warcraft expansion features many exciting new systems and game modes, although they left some players feeling jaded.
With loads of new races, content, and systems, what worked and what didn’t? Blizzard has a sordid history with systems design, and players can feel that in the expansion. That isn’t to say the azerite and corruption systems were all bad, as they certainly have both merit and potential.
10 Loved: New Races
As if Azeroth wasn’t crowded enough, at the launch of the expansion, players met several new races, never before seen. It makes one wonder just where some of these races have been all these years and why they’ve made seemingly no contact with anyone outside their home.
The Sethrak are a serpentine race who used to own a grand empire in Vol’dun. They’ve since fallen into a bit of disparity as the race split into the two factions called the Faithless and the Devoted. Along with the Sethrak live the tiny but fierce Vulpera. This fox-like race are a nomadic people, though some succumb to slavery at the hands of the Sethrak. While not a new race entirely, Alliance players discover the mysterious Drust, a dark-magic obsessed clan of Vyrkul the Kul’Tirans pushed out of Drustvar. Their threat still lingers from the shadows.
9 Hated: The Azerite System
Continuing their love for so-called borrowed power, Blizzard introduced a new way to enhance characters in Battle for Azeroth. The world soul and Magni Bronzebeard grant players with a gift called The Heart of Azeroth. It’s a legendary necklace that grants the ability to unlock azerite traits on specific pieces of azerite gear. These traits grant class-specific boons and enhance abilities. The necklace also makes use of essences which, when paired with the necklace, grant special abilities, and other enhancements.
The problem is that the system is heavily RNG-based as some equipment traits are randomly generated and others default. Additionally, azerite gear has a lesser drop rate than other pieces of gear. For players to get the most out of their class and specs, they had to pay a growing fee to reset the traits.
8 Loved: Expansive New Cities
This expansion tried something a little different with the faction war at its core. Logically, it didn’t make sense for Horde and Alliance players to quest in the same areas during a vicious war. To combat this, Blizzard introduced two new explorable regions called Kul’Tiras and Zandalar, with the capital cities of Boralus and Zuldazar respectively.
Coming off the creative steam of Suramar City in Legion, both cities dwarf the likes of Dalaran and Shattrath. In fact, players primarily stay in particular districts while the rest of the city leaves room for quests. At first glance, they’re both aesthetically beautiful, but Zuldazar isn’t perfect. Instead of having one hub housing everything players need, such as Boralus, it splits into two different areas with a flight path-worth of distance between them.
7 Hated: The Corruption System
Blizzard loves their complex, unnecessary systems, but they almost never work as intended. The same is true for the corruption system introduced by the infamous patch 8.3. On top of azerite gear, players have the chance of earning gear with N’Zoth’s corruption on it. The higher the player’s corruption percentage, the better they perform. The trade-off is that more corruption equals more negative traits as well such as sudden slows or even a damaging N’Zoth eye.
The problem is RNG. Some players consistently earn gear with more negative benefits than positive, leaving many with no clear path to improving their characters. Additionally, RNG comes into play with corruption’s random procs. It increases the damage output of some abilities by a very wide range, making overall damage output vary drastically and unpredictably.
6 Loved: Faction War-Centric PvE Content
The faction war is a staple of the WarCraft universe. Not counting the periods in which Horde and Alliance worked together, the faction war, up to Battle for Azeroth, was all but forgotten in most content. This changed with the dungeon, Siege of Boralus, and the raid, Battle for Dazar’alor. The enemies in both cases are none other than the rival faction.
It’s a concept unseen since Icecrown Citadel when both factions fought each other during the gunship battle. Blizzard brings this idea to the forefront even more with world quest assaults, warfronts, and island expeditions.
5 Hated: Story
As years pass and new stories told, WarCraft lore continues to evolve, retcon, and convolute. While the War Campaign introduces some greatly desired storytelling to the game, the overarching story encounters several pitfalls. The first point is Sylvannas becomes another warchief to go evil and another strong female character to have a breakdown such as Jaina’s insanity during the attack on Theramore (or Tyrande’s darkening during the battle for Darkshore).
After the burning of Teldrassil, the Alliance attacks Lordaeron, Sylvannas’ seat of power. How do the Alliance have the strength to do this after so many night elf (and other Alliance races’) deaths at Darkshore? The Horde also convinces the Zandalari trolls to ally with them even though the empire historically hates both factions. After the events involving the Thunder King in Pandaria (and the destruction caused by the united nations of trolls led by the Zandalari after the cataclysm), why would the Horde ally with them and vise versa?
4 Loved: New Playable Allied Races
The expansion introduces two new allied races at the heart of the faction conflict. The Alliance earns the respect of the Kul’Tirans, a hearty and proud people, and the Zandalari, a historically war-mongering people who now welcome the aid of outsiders. Along with the Pandaren, the Kul’Tirans add much needed curvier folk to the roster of playable races. Additionally, the Zandalari add up-right male troll options.
Kul’Tirans come with the Haymaker ability, punching like a monk and stunning their target. Zandalari trolls come equipped with two active abilities known as Pterrodax Swoop, which temporarily reduces fall speed, and Regeneratin’, which heals all health over several seconds. Additional allied races include Vulpera for Horde and Mechagnomes for Alliance.
3 Hated: Warfronts
When announced at Blizzcon, the idea of warfronts seemed rather exciting. For the first time, players engage in action-packed faction war content in a PvE setting. However, with little creative love given to the concept, it’s now a boring experience.
The warfront assaults cycle weekly, changing which faction attacks and which defends. When one faction takes control of a warfront, the other spends the week collecting resources through dailies. The problem is that warfronts are nearly impossible to fail. With little challenge, they barely seem worth the effort. As the player base grows in item level, this disparity gets worse as groups zerg through the content in record time. For now, they’re only useful for collecting rare mounts in the warfront zones as well as purchasing them with badges from warfront wins.
2 Loved: War Campaign
The introduction of the war campaign brings more in-depth storytelling to the game. In the past, players needed Warcraft books to understand the full story of each expansion. The war campaign puts players right at the center of it with multiple voiced cutscenes as well as memorable characters to follow.
While the overarching story suffers from its flaws, much of the war campaign introduces players to exciting moments over the course of the expansion. Similar to the Insurrection questline in Legion, the story develops over a long period of time with new patches adding new chapters. In contrast to the overarching story, Sylvannas plays a massive role in this expansion, appearing in almost every major cutscene, but players barely see her in the actual game.
1 Hated: Island Expeditions
Similar to warfronts, island expeditions bring additional PvE content for players to choose from and remain occupied. Expeditions are three-player scenarios with the goal of obtaining azerite on an uncharted island. Additionally, a group from the opposing faction also comes to the island, competing for azerite. The group who reaches the maximum wins.
The problem is that they’re boring. They’re islands filled with random enemies but no real story to tell. Drop rates are also very low, leaving some players wondering what the point even is. Those who actually want to take a real look at the islands and fully explore them can’t due to the fast-paced nature of the scenario. If they slow down, the other faction wins. They’re no more than a weekly grind now with players doing the absolute bare minimum each week before getting as far away from them as possible.
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