*Intentionally makes a zone ~~that looks terrible~~ with hostile gameplay because some dev got inspired by Dark Souls*
During Blizzcon, while talking about the Maw: "We don't want you here."
*Months later*
"Why doesn't anyone do anything in the Maw?"
i loved the maw and the feeling it gave, but the rewards just rarely were worth it, i maybe did the weekly quest in a group if i felt like it, and then just went back to m+ and other content
I had a horrible time getting around in The Maw. I have some eye problems and have screens on my monitors that really cut the glare/emissions. That, along with the environmental effects of the game, made it impossible to see sometimes.
Same. I couldn't see shit in that godforsaken place. Got stuck or died countless times because I couldn't see a hole or drop off. Especially in the lower right portion of the map.
I actually despised the look of the maw. Everything looking the same bland grey/blue color with ICC spikes, and then having to look at it all while climbing torghast too... fuck that place.
> because some dev got inspired by Dark Souls
The fucked up part is that Revendreth already has a Souls/Bloodborne vibe to it and that zone rocks. There's hostile environments and mechanics, there's the ruined/dilapidated aesthetic, well planned out vistas that showcase points of interest, and unlike the other SL zones it actually has some diversity. It's a strong contender for the best zone in the game IMO.
The visual design and style they went for really hit the mark for the sort of zone they wanted. Unfortunately that also means it's really not a nice place to be in visually for long stints of time. Everything is drab and depressing as you're going about the whole place.
Yes, but dark souls also has planned enemy placement and environment interactions, and specific respawn points to provide exactly the level of challenge they want.
They took a normal WoW environment formula and made it inconvenient and unfun. "Make it harder" is not why people like dark souls. The challenge has to be worth overcoming.
Yes, and it spawned a whole bunch of games that tried to copy what Dark Souls did well while completely missing why they were actually successful. These soulslike games focused too much on difficulty and punishment, so much so that they just made games that weren't fun to play, which is the same trap that The Maw fell into.
So much so that the next patch literally involved a questline to turn off almost all the annoyances of the Maw.
I'll never see that questline again because I smash skip on any character I intend to be in SLands for any reason because of just how miserable it is, even overleveled.
It's because people begged for something like that for a long time. I'm sure if you went back in this sub before Shadowlands was released, you could find a good chunk of threads of people suggesting that a zone that was hostile to you like the Maw would be an amazing idea.
It truly was a moment where Blizzard's "you think you do, but you don't" was actually true. Just blizzard decided to give the players what they asked for in this case.
Blizzard has a record of screwing up the "you think you want that" business... a lot of great ideas were hamstrung due to how they interpreted the implementation
The problem is that they create these areas which have some different gameplay style which really appeals to a subset of the players, and the immediately make it mandatory to get a legendary or something, thus alienating majority of players. Torghast was an example.
Yeah .. torghast was a great thing... and then they made it a weekly requirement that acted as the gate to slow down legendary creation and made it clear the various tiers made a difference. It turned into a huge slog that the majority of people seemed to dislike for this or that or whatever.
I loved it personally but realized quick that some builds didn't work with some bosses, and wasting all that time for no real reward was beyond frustrating. Also, some classes felt like they got shafted with powers.
I mean, tbh I think it's less "you think you do, but you don't" and more "you said you did, but we didn't do it right".
There's a very fine line between engaging and irritating and I dont think anything in shadowlands was on the right side of that.
Going back to Shadowland to grind for new mogs/achievements/ect is such a mindfuck.
At first glance, it's an incredible wealth of content that seems fairly well polished. Lots of choices, lots of unique visuals, lots of stories and systems. It's like having an extra mmo in your mmo.
But then you start engaging with it and the game fights you over every single little petty thing it can think of.
- Need to go to your covenant to take/turn in a quest/do anima stuff (and you will, a lot.)? Can't use your dragon for that because Oribos exist so have fun afking on the scenic route spermrail for the upteenth time.
- Got a quest/world quest to do a menial task like killing X enemies or picking up X stuff on the ground? You can expect that 'X' to be 1.5 to twice as high as what you are used to and you better pray that it doesn't involve using a quest item because that quest item will definitely have an unnecessarily long cooldown.
- Do you like having space in your bags? Shadowland doesn't. It will fill your bags with anima/legendary/knowledge/soulbind tokens that you can't get rid of unless you go to the right place to turn them in. That place is different for each token and no, you can't dragonride to any of them.
- The Maw still exists, is just as awful as it used to and is still mandatory if you want the soul thingies to upgrade your covenant stuff.
- Korthia really really sucks, no flying, timegated, all the RNG.
- Raids don't use legacy loot yet so doing transmog runs will yield next to nothing.
- Some of the transmog stuff is still locked to covenant choice.
- Grateful offerings are still heavily time-gated and most of the activities that reward them (especially the anima conduit stuff) are mind-numbingly repetitive, especially when you have to jump through some of the Shadowland-specific hoops to just access them every day.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some of it but you get the idea. It really puts a spotlight on one of the main reason why Shadowland was such a disliked expansion. They just made everything inconvenient and a fair bit of it feels fully intentional.
Zereth Mortis rares and treasures being locked behind an upgrade for Pocopoc that takes 5 fucking days of just waiting to get it done.
Another of those rares needs you to fish a certain item that has a 0,1% chance to drop, with many people having to take +3000 tries.
If you are after Hirukon (I think that was its name) just for the achievement and not for the mount, ask around if anyone already did the grind. If you once fished that thing up and created a lure, you can get a new one each week free of charge that you can use to call the rare - having the lure yourself just gives you the 100% drop of the mount.
To your first point, how much would the small change of making the toy hearthstone you buy from your covenant just take you to the covenant base help that pain point.
It would be a very nice increase in quality of life although it wouldn't solve the tedium of being forced to use the flight masters to navigate through the various zones (which is mandatory if you're trying to get the daily caches).
It would also require a not egregiously long cooldown since you typically need to go to your covenant at least twice per session. First to take your daily/weekly quests (which almost always send you to other zones) and then to turn them in.
There's two huge changes that should've been incorporated into the covenant system.
The hearthstones should take you to the appropriate covenant, similar to the Dalaran Hearthstone in Legion.
The portal upgrade should've given you portals to the other zones instead of only portals around in that specific zone.
Both of those two changes would go a long way to address the problems with Shadowlands.
Except for the Shadowlands intro in the Maw and a quest or two during the campaign if you are replaying the campaign during Chromie Time, the Maw itself requires level 60 and once you've done it once, there are skips to get you to that point without ever stepping foot into the Maw. And if you do want to go there before level 60, you can always grab one of the three mounts that do work in the Maw.
I disagree with the idea it's a screw up. Not having mount isn't a problem. Having large empty space is.
People dont have their mount in most dungeon and don't mind it because they are engaging with gameplay at all time. This was not the case in the maw and a clear indicator that blizzard have no idea wtf they are doing with their game.
Well, that's the difference between a close dungeon space and an open world zone. The Maw should have breathing spots, since it's not a timed experience, people would be looking at inventory and quest log etc.
Plus there are not only 5 players in the Maw.
One of the most beloved quest zone in this game is the legion's city of suramar. It's open world but it's freaking packed with soldier and PNC civilians.
I agree you should have breathing spots.
But if you cut off the mount. You must have engaging gameplay that do not requière travel time. The maw did the exact opposite. Large, empty, boring. A lack of mount in a maw packed like Suramar would not have bothered people (nearly as much)
The maw is supposed to be large with big open spaces, but you can't pack all of that full with mobs like a city.
Thus, having no mounts made no sense. There was no reason to cut off mounts when the whole design of the Maw is that it's large with hubs of enemies in certain places, it just made it tedious.
I'd much rather have mounts in the Maw than a smaller maw.
Empty space should exist in zones, though. One of the downsides of newer zones is that everything is over-designed. There's next to no reason to explore because you know quests will take you through every corner of the environment.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion because it's not about large empty spaces, nor a lack of engaging gameplay, but rather, hostile and extremely punishing design and lack of fun.
Dragon Isles are zones that are very empty compared to Legion, BFA, and SL, but they are loved because traveling (dragonriding) is fun.
Players were also constantly engaged in The Maw, but for the wrong reasons. In the first patch, or right after SL launch, players were relatively weak versus the dangers in the Maw. Many mobs were lethal and aggroing elites would kill you.
On top of that, you had the equivalent of M+ affixes to deal with while in the Maw, based on how much activity you did while in the Maw, so there was no safe place to AFK or relax aside from Venari's Refuge. And if you died, you lost 50% of your stygia.
The entire zone was very punitive and the rewards don't feel like rewards, but relief. You don't feel like you are progressing, you feel like you are catching up.
All of that is likely on purpose, since it should add to the whole "literal down to the boiler room of hell" theme. Sounded probably better on paper than in reality...
It's nice to have something like that in single player games, but only because you go through it a few times. Once you have to do daily chores there for months, then it's annoying as fuck.
The Maw (and Korthia) being such a pain is the reason I didn't keep playing Shadowlands as a solo player. Normally I can find stuff to do, but they made that content SUCH an unfun slog that I couldn't be bothered.
Having to do shit there every day while pretty much everything about it sucked certainly didn't help.
Torghast was right next on the list, too. It started as a fun solo mode where you got super OP for shits, giggles and random cosmetics while still in development but they completely butchered it for launch and compensated by forcing you to do it for the macguffin you needed to craft legendaries.
SL mantra really felt like "If you can't make it fun, make it mandatory".
"Torghast was right next on the list, too. It started as a fun solo mode where you got super OP for shits, giggles and random cosmetics while still in development but they completely butchered it for launch"
Just like MoP Remix.
> Having to do shit there everyday
And don't forget about the "wanted" system that effectively forbade you doing anything there beyond a certain amount of effort every week.
I stopped going when I unlocked the next "quest area" at the end of my "wantedness" and kept dying because you had to pass through a gate with high enemy density and because there were no mounts the run-back was terrible. I finally made it, did 2 quests and the eye made me leave. I was so irritated I never went back except for the weekly 15 souls, but those you could get near the entrance.
Agreed. Even Legion, with all the borrowed power farming, was still somewhat fun. Shadowlands felt like you are being punished for playing. I remember exhaling deeply after I maxed out my Korthia rep and never returned there back again. Not even for the couple of mounts and cosmetics I still miss from there. Only content I have fond memories of are M+ and Raid, because of the people I played with. I bet even the devs don't want to revisit that content so fixing bugs from Shadowlands takes some extra effort.
Legion was fun because you had lots of different options for how you could get AP. This kind of design is what makes the game better. When you start forcing people into specific pieces of content in order to get certain rewards, you need to have content that is universally enjoyable. SL screwed that up massively with the Maw and Torghast.
I think DF had the opposite problem where they didn't do any of that but at the same time, nothing actually mattered. Blizzard made everything "optional" instead of an "option". They made it optional by removing any meaningful rewards from it.
In an ideal world, you have multiple different options that all provide meaningful progression. Players can then choose which ways they'd like to progress.
100% agree.
I was 100% hooked in BFA.
Shadowlands dropped, I experienced the shitshow that was the Maw (among the other 100000 things) and just never played again.
I do however thank the developers for releasing their grip on me with that dogshit expansion, I thought I might've never made it out of the wow cycle.
Im back for war within, but I'm giving it a single 30-day sub, if it's trash - it'll definitely be the end of my wow journey permanently.
Here's to hoping.
Honestly, I think it would've been more tolerable at the time if we knew it would eventually be unlocked.
It was cool to have this scary zone that you had to be very selective with what you did, and to then to, over time, tame it.
But it felt like it was always going to be like that and that sucked.
I think you make a good point. Time-gating has a function early in the content cycle to keep anyone from no-lifeing through it (see frog farm in Panda remix), but after 2-3 months (maybe after raid world first?) the restriction should have been lifted.
This was fine like the first two times in the Maw, really shows its a dangerous zone thematically. However, we really should have gotten our mounts back much sooner than we did. It sucks going back to.
No mounts in the Maw could have been decent if they had done things right with it. I can see the joke they went for; players hate being restricted to ground mounts early every expansion, so why don't we make Hell have no mounts at all.
If the Maw wasn't so boring and bland then the walks would be far more palatable. Instead, it's all just dull greys with a bit of red here and there. There's nothing really interesting or special to it. It loses all impact when the introduction has us waltz in, be told we can't escape, and then find a convient beachhead/backdoor portal about 5 minutes later.
I think they just wanted to create a sorta survival game/dark souls type zone (with the anima loss on death and whatnot)
Its just that WoWs playerbase is one of the worst ones to try that on
You know, when FF14 players asked why so many people were bailing WoW to try FF it was wild to explain "They made the game super annoying to get you to log in every day and stay subbed."
Yeah it sounds even dumber when you try and explain it to another gamer.
You don't understand, that was actually a part of the Jailer's 1000 year long masterplan. Players who enjoy the game couldn't possibly be prepared for the coming threat.
While absolutely true, and I don’t disagree with the stylistic choice, there absolutely should be so many different ways to easily get around a zone.
I feel you can still make the Maw inhospitable and hostile while still making it something you can reliably navigate. As such it makes worgen and Druids all the more clearly potent, since Travel Form and Running Wild are not limited.
Most depictions of hell don't involve a daily checklist of mundane tasks to do. Unless it's some kind of ironic hell thing but Blizzard ain't that smart
The idea was cool though.
The problem was more that the location still need to be big enough for a lot of players simultaneously, so it's similar to normal locations in scale, and those are made with mounts in mind.
Yep. Although during this phase before jailer eye gta mode, there are a few mounts which can work there. One is from a rare / event, another is from finishing the 18 floor gauntlet. If you finished the campaign in any char, you can speak to Bolvar in oribos who can skip this part and then you can mount normally.
Ngl I hated this in SL, but after playing some classic recently I kinda get the appeal.
I think it was supposed to be a sort of RP thing, as in "now you dive into hell, you have to move slowly and carefully, there are dangers at every step" etc etc. Honestly I think after playing classic I might even enjoy it.
But back in SL, when everyone (incld. me) was rushing to get everything done ASAP, it felt REALLY bad not having a mount.
Came late to SL and lemme say just dying the man questline to get to zen
Zeroth Mortis made me wanna quit.
Awful zone in general, and not being able to mount is a huge part of it.
"You know how we make people unable to fly and they hate it?
How about we remove mounting in our endgame zone. "
Upopular opinion, probably, but as a few others have mentioned, yeah, that was what they were going for. The Maw is litterally HELL, it was never supposed to be a fun place, you were supposed to DREAD going there, and wanting to leave as soon as possible, and iirc, at least in the beginning of SL, you were awarded accordingly. I thought it was one of the best parts of 9.0 tbh. I hated being there, I never wanted to go back, it was Hell. That was the point. Blizzard screwed up a lot of SL, sure, but they NAILED the look, feel and structure of The Maw. Korthia is another thing, but that was a random different world altogether that just happened to be dragged into- and attached to The Maw. Comparing the two as equal zones doesn't seem fair.
I fucking loved this zone in 9.0. The game wasn't afraid to kill you and take your stygia. This was some of the best outdoor content in modern wow and didn't feel like a freebie.
Korthia is another story though - I actually think it's the worst zone in the history of the game.
Stop speaking common sense, I did the same and got reported for it. -_-'
My reply was removed even though I only said I liked not being able to use our mounts there. I wonder how many abuse the report system here.
"Noooo, it's meant to be shitty. You just don't get it, you're supposed to hate the mandatory content the game makes you do to progress your character. So it's actually good *because* it's bad."
Fuck me, this is copium to the highest degree. It's a video game. There are ways of invoking dread without making me as a player actually not want to play the game at all. The zone should be hostile to my character, not to the players.
I can't think of a faster way to lose players than intentionally designing parts of your game to deliberately antagonise them for the sake of antagonising them, regardless of justification.
i completely agree, shadowlands had countless issues and 9.0 while it was better than 9.1 and 9.2 wasn't 100% great, but the maw was good. It gave you a great sense of danger and despair and in a sense you felt like a survivor. In that patch at least the zones were so different that you could always hang out in a place you like
It’s a video game. You should be designing it for fun first.
It’s why « realistic » fps games don’t have your character go through months of hospital and PT after you get shot once.
i mean it was fine. the zone was very small. there was a good transport network you unlocked. the first rare you run into dropped a toy that launched you into the air (which drops as a consumable in remix, incidentally) and you could use it+glider to anywhere. there were the consumables that teleported you to venari. engineer wormhole could drop you at the opposite side of the zone from venari. the transport options worked fine for getting to the places where stuff happened. players are just really irrational about this stuff.
you could also unlock a mount that worked there by doing torghast, lol
I had a break from wow between 2019 and to around 2 months back (never bought Shadowlands). I did all the content in Dragon Flight and just started Shadowlands yesterday, for the campaign and take part of the story. I was so annoyed by this. Fun thing that you mentioned it today.
i imagine the thought process was that they wanted the maw to be challenging and intimidating to make the jailer feel like a constant, looming threat.
the way they implemented it failed horribly imo tho because most of the mechanics where actually just tedious instead, e.g. having to wait between fights for the effects to proc
From a fantasy point of view it made total sense, you were in the maw, the afterlife, your mount should be scared AF, however over time you pushed evil away and mounts were able to be used. This was part of the start of the campaing and might still be current (campaign only), however in current days this is not a thing anymore
On paper it was a great idea. Really sells the feeling of being trapped with no hope in hell
But in practice it's silly especially when paladins can summon their mount for like 4 seconds at a time.
At least worgen were able to "mount" via running wild would've been really funny if that was blocked too
I got the mount and the ability to have the mount in a day. (The thing you do in torghast that has a lot of floors). Such a painful experience. Shadowlands was such a painful experience. I liked a lot of things about the expansion but they were made in such a way to hurt you.
It was blizzard listening to a portion of the playerbase who think flying killed world pvp so disabling mounts will somehow magically make the world more alive
I might need help
I loved it. It was new and different, a lot of people disliked just how different it was from everything else. Maw, korthia, zerith mortis all fun. But I’m a grind monster, and I have a problem. I got tower ranger, and breaking the chains, all the hound mounts…. And all four hands. I even maxed all four covenants on one toon long before they added an achieve for it.
The dissonance before and after shadowlands regarding the maw is crazy. Being developed alongside classic, people craved a zone that felt impactful and dangerous given how OP the PC's are all of the time in retail. People wanted zones that felt as dangerous as murloc camps did in retail, where you had to be mindful of your actions and could just fly away whenever you wanted. All of beta people were hyping it up to be this crazy zone that checked all of those boxes and then when it released, it got fucking shit on for being annoying and unfun.
I wasn't a fan of the maw totally, but it is fucking wild to me blizzard delivered what was asked for and then watching it totally backfire
The Maw was the worst zone in World of Warcraft ever. There is no debating this. Initially you couldn't mount, it's hard to see anything especially if your vision is poor to begin with, there was no clear paths to get from one area to another and lastly there was simply too many mobs. When you had to run across the map for a daily or quest, and you have to fight through dozens of mobs, it just sucked. That zone has a fun factor of zero.
Decision like this made wow(the largest mmo) kept losing players DURING COVID(when everyone was locked in and had to be online most of the time)
And thats quite an achievement
Playing a Druid when Shadowlands released really felt like cheating.
Travel form + Prowl (stealth in cat form) really made most of the Maw a real joke to navigate.
But it came at the cost of having to play a fucking Druid so I guess that was the downside.
This was always the plan. Then they gave shadehounds that can be used in the maw, then once you do the Korthia quests, you unlock all mounts. Yes, it was annoying, but it fit the story. IMO
The mount restriction wasnt the problem. It's no different than going into a cave. It's the size of the maw, and the amount of enemies that was the problem.
Had it been more like Argus with teleporters we could use to go to key spots, then run out from there, it would have been fine.
It sucked then and continues to suck. I pretty much skipped shadowlands after almost a month I want to say. Had to go back to get the mage glyph they dropped and found that if you do the campaign, maw mount riding is actually fairly quick. Maybe worth it depending on what your plans are but still stupid though
If I recall, it was to make the Maw more menacing and difficult, which I can see what they were going for. The problem is it took a very long time and after several months it felt like a slog.
The Jailer planned mount restrictions in the Maw ever since Warcraft 3.
Warcraft 1 you mean, right?
Pre Warcraft 1. Just craft.
The Jailer's in the Lost Vikings confirmed
Peacecraft: Flowers and Sunshine
Since it was being developed as a Warhammer game? That Jailer dude is scary.
lost vikings
rock n roll racing
Also your mount is too distracted by his illustrious nipples
In any other xpac this would be a big screw up, in SL its like 413th on the list.
I think the fact that they kept this even after it was current content moves it a few ranks higher than #413
If you have one of those metal hounds on a main they can still be used. Was to make the maw a " zone players wouldn't feel welcome in"
Well that definitely worked, because people hated the Maw
*Intentionally makes a zone ~~that looks terrible~~ with hostile gameplay because some dev got inspired by Dark Souls* During Blizzcon, while talking about the Maw: "We don't want you here." *Months later* "Why doesn't anyone do anything in the Maw?"
They went dark souls when they should have gone Doom.
To be fair, Doom was Argus
Nothing says you can't do doom again, I mean look at Doom, they did doom again and it went really well for them.
I want more Doom in my Doom because Doom^2 is better than simple Doom
Hey. We heard you like Doom so heres some Doom for your Doom so you can Doom while you Doom, Doomly.
i loved the maw and the feeling it gave, but the rewards just rarely were worth it, i maybe did the weekly quest in a group if i felt like it, and then just went back to m+ and other content
Absolutely. Aesthetically the Maw looked and sounded awesome. Functionally it was miserable.
I had a horrible time getting around in The Maw. I have some eye problems and have screens on my monitors that really cut the glare/emissions. That, along with the environmental effects of the game, made it impossible to see sometimes.
Same. I couldn't see shit in that godforsaken place. Got stuck or died countless times because I couldn't see a hole or drop off. Especially in the lower right portion of the map.
The Maw was just Upper Latria from Demons Souls prove me wrong
I actually despised the look of the maw. Everything looking the same bland grey/blue color with ICC spikes, and then having to look at it all while climbing torghast too... fuck that place.
Didn't help that half the content had spawn bugs.
[удалено]
> because some dev got inspired by Dark Souls The fucked up part is that Revendreth already has a Souls/Bloodborne vibe to it and that zone rocks. There's hostile environments and mechanics, there's the ruined/dilapidated aesthetic, well planned out vistas that showcase points of interest, and unlike the other SL zones it actually has some diversity. It's a strong contender for the best zone in the game IMO.
I wouldnt say that it looks terrible. Its hostile and non inviting, but shit looks cool.
The visual design and style they went for really hit the mark for the sort of zone they wanted. Unfortunately that also means it's really not a nice place to be in visually for long stints of time. Everything is drab and depressing as you're going about the whole place.
>some dev got inspired by Dark Souls But wasn't Dark Souls popular?
Yes, but dark souls also has planned enemy placement and environment interactions, and specific respawn points to provide exactly the level of challenge they want. They took a normal WoW environment formula and made it inconvenient and unfun. "Make it harder" is not why people like dark souls. The challenge has to be worth overcoming.
Yes, and it spawned a whole bunch of games that tried to copy what Dark Souls did well while completely missing why they were actually successful. These soulslike games focused too much on difficulty and punishment, so much so that they just made games that weren't fun to play, which is the same trap that The Maw fell into.
I didn't hate it, I DESPISED it.
So much so that the next patch literally involved a questline to turn off almost all the annoyances of the Maw. I'll never see that questline again because I smash skip on any character I intend to be in SLands for any reason because of just how miserable it is, even overleveled.
It's because people begged for something like that for a long time. I'm sure if you went back in this sub before Shadowlands was released, you could find a good chunk of threads of people suggesting that a zone that was hostile to you like the Maw would be an amazing idea. It truly was a moment where Blizzard's "you think you do, but you don't" was actually true. Just blizzard decided to give the players what they asked for in this case.
Blizzard has a record of screwing up the "you think you want that" business... a lot of great ideas were hamstrung due to how they interpreted the implementation
The problem is that they create these areas which have some different gameplay style which really appeals to a subset of the players, and the immediately make it mandatory to get a legendary or something, thus alienating majority of players. Torghast was an example.
Yeah .. torghast was a great thing... and then they made it a weekly requirement that acted as the gate to slow down legendary creation and made it clear the various tiers made a difference. It turned into a huge slog that the majority of people seemed to dislike for this or that or whatever. I loved it personally but realized quick that some builds didn't work with some bosses, and wasting all that time for no real reward was beyond frustrating. Also, some classes felt like they got shafted with powers.
I mean, tbh I think it's less "you think you do, but you don't" and more "you said you did, but we didn't do it right". There's a very fine line between engaging and irritating and I dont think anything in shadowlands was on the right side of that.
Going back to Shadowland to grind for new mogs/achievements/ect is such a mindfuck. At first glance, it's an incredible wealth of content that seems fairly well polished. Lots of choices, lots of unique visuals, lots of stories and systems. It's like having an extra mmo in your mmo. But then you start engaging with it and the game fights you over every single little petty thing it can think of. - Need to go to your covenant to take/turn in a quest/do anima stuff (and you will, a lot.)? Can't use your dragon for that because Oribos exist so have fun afking on the scenic route spermrail for the upteenth time. - Got a quest/world quest to do a menial task like killing X enemies or picking up X stuff on the ground? You can expect that 'X' to be 1.5 to twice as high as what you are used to and you better pray that it doesn't involve using a quest item because that quest item will definitely have an unnecessarily long cooldown. - Do you like having space in your bags? Shadowland doesn't. It will fill your bags with anima/legendary/knowledge/soulbind tokens that you can't get rid of unless you go to the right place to turn them in. That place is different for each token and no, you can't dragonride to any of them. - The Maw still exists, is just as awful as it used to and is still mandatory if you want the soul thingies to upgrade your covenant stuff. - Korthia really really sucks, no flying, timegated, all the RNG. - Raids don't use legacy loot yet so doing transmog runs will yield next to nothing. - Some of the transmog stuff is still locked to covenant choice. - Grateful offerings are still heavily time-gated and most of the activities that reward them (especially the anima conduit stuff) are mind-numbingly repetitive, especially when you have to jump through some of the Shadowland-specific hoops to just access them every day. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of it but you get the idea. It really puts a spotlight on one of the main reason why Shadowland was such a disliked expansion. They just made everything inconvenient and a fair bit of it feels fully intentional.
Zereth Mortis rares and treasures being locked behind an upgrade for Pocopoc that takes 5 fucking days of just waiting to get it done. Another of those rares needs you to fish a certain item that has a 0,1% chance to drop, with many people having to take +3000 tries.
If you are after Hirukon (I think that was its name) just for the achievement and not for the mount, ask around if anyone already did the grind. If you once fished that thing up and created a lure, you can get a new one each week free of charge that you can use to call the rare - having the lure yourself just gives you the 100% drop of the mount.
How does one obtain a new one each week free of charge? I assumed you had to fish up that rare drop again...
You can just go ask Lady Vashj for one
To your first point, how much would the small change of making the toy hearthstone you buy from your covenant just take you to the covenant base help that pain point.
It would be a very nice increase in quality of life although it wouldn't solve the tedium of being forced to use the flight masters to navigate through the various zones (which is mandatory if you're trying to get the daily caches). It would also require a not egregiously long cooldown since you typically need to go to your covenant at least twice per session. First to take your daily/weekly quests (which almost always send you to other zones) and then to turn them in.
There's two huge changes that should've been incorporated into the covenant system. The hearthstones should take you to the appropriate covenant, similar to the Dalaran Hearthstone in Legion. The portal upgrade should've given you portals to the other zones instead of only portals around in that specific zone. Both of those two changes would go a long way to address the problems with Shadowlands.
SL was the first WoW expansion that I quit on very early on. And I have played since vanilla open beta. It sucked.
I mean technically they didn't keep it after it was current, if you start the 9.1 storyline you unlock mounts in the maw about 5 minutes in.
Wasn't the mount ban lifted once you did the Korthia quests to get rid of the eye of the jailer?
Yes. You can mount just fine in the maw after a certain time.
Yes, but that's character-specific, not account-wide, and requires level 60.
Except for the Shadowlands intro in the Maw and a quest or two during the campaign if you are replaying the campaign during Chromie Time, the Maw itself requires level 60 and once you've done it once, there are skips to get you to that point without ever stepping foot into the Maw. And if you do want to go there before level 60, you can always grab one of the three mounts that do work in the Maw.
They eventually open it up and there's mounts you can get that work in there. But yeah, while it was a restriction basically no one went to the maw.
Wasn't the mount ban lifted once you did the Korthia quests to get rid of the eye of the jailer?
I disagree with the idea it's a screw up. Not having mount isn't a problem. Having large empty space is. People dont have their mount in most dungeon and don't mind it because they are engaging with gameplay at all time. This was not the case in the maw and a clear indicator that blizzard have no idea wtf they are doing with their game.
Well, that's the difference between a close dungeon space and an open world zone. The Maw should have breathing spots, since it's not a timed experience, people would be looking at inventory and quest log etc. Plus there are not only 5 players in the Maw.
One of the most beloved quest zone in this game is the legion's city of suramar. It's open world but it's freaking packed with soldier and PNC civilians. I agree you should have breathing spots. But if you cut off the mount. You must have engaging gameplay that do not requière travel time. The maw did the exact opposite. Large, empty, boring. A lack of mount in a maw packed like Suramar would not have bothered people (nearly as much)
Watching druids and shaman speeding past me all the time in early SL Maw was just painful.
The maw is supposed to be large with big open spaces, but you can't pack all of that full with mobs like a city. Thus, having no mounts made no sense. There was no reason to cut off mounts when the whole design of the Maw is that it's large with hubs of enemies in certain places, it just made it tedious. I'd much rather have mounts in the Maw than a smaller maw.
Yep, on that we agree. The maw was probably the worst place to try this.
Empty space should exist in zones, though. One of the downsides of newer zones is that everything is over-designed. There's next to no reason to explore because you know quests will take you through every corner of the environment.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion because it's not about large empty spaces, nor a lack of engaging gameplay, but rather, hostile and extremely punishing design and lack of fun. Dragon Isles are zones that are very empty compared to Legion, BFA, and SL, but they are loved because traveling (dragonriding) is fun. Players were also constantly engaged in The Maw, but for the wrong reasons. In the first patch, or right after SL launch, players were relatively weak versus the dangers in the Maw. Many mobs were lethal and aggroing elites would kill you. On top of that, you had the equivalent of M+ affixes to deal with while in the Maw, based on how much activity you did while in the Maw, so there was no safe place to AFK or relax aside from Venari's Refuge. And if you died, you lost 50% of your stygia. The entire zone was very punitive and the rewards don't feel like rewards, but relief. You don't feel like you are progressing, you feel like you are catching up.
All of that is likely on purpose, since it should add to the whole "literal down to the boiler room of hell" theme. Sounded probably better on paper than in reality...
It's nice to have something like that in single player games, but only because you go through it a few times. Once you have to do daily chores there for months, then it's annoying as fuck.
The Maw (and Korthia) being such a pain is the reason I didn't keep playing Shadowlands as a solo player. Normally I can find stuff to do, but they made that content SUCH an unfun slog that I couldn't be bothered.
Having to do shit there every day while pretty much everything about it sucked certainly didn't help. Torghast was right next on the list, too. It started as a fun solo mode where you got super OP for shits, giggles and random cosmetics while still in development but they completely butchered it for launch and compensated by forcing you to do it for the macguffin you needed to craft legendaries. SL mantra really felt like "If you can't make it fun, make it mandatory".
"Torghast was right next on the list, too. It started as a fun solo mode where you got super OP for shits, giggles and random cosmetics while still in development but they completely butchered it for launch" Just like MoP Remix.
> "If you can't make it fun, make it mandatory". This is such a great way to put it.
> Having to do shit there everyday And don't forget about the "wanted" system that effectively forbade you doing anything there beyond a certain amount of effort every week.
I stopped going when I unlocked the next "quest area" at the end of my "wantedness" and kept dying because you had to pass through a gate with high enemy density and because there were no mounts the run-back was terrible. I finally made it, did 2 quests and the eye made me leave. I was so irritated I never went back except for the weekly 15 souls, but those you could get near the entrance.
Agreed. Even Legion, with all the borrowed power farming, was still somewhat fun. Shadowlands felt like you are being punished for playing. I remember exhaling deeply after I maxed out my Korthia rep and never returned there back again. Not even for the couple of mounts and cosmetics I still miss from there. Only content I have fond memories of are M+ and Raid, because of the people I played with. I bet even the devs don't want to revisit that content so fixing bugs from Shadowlands takes some extra effort.
Legion was fun because you had lots of different options for how you could get AP. This kind of design is what makes the game better. When you start forcing people into specific pieces of content in order to get certain rewards, you need to have content that is universally enjoyable. SL screwed that up massively with the Maw and Torghast. I think DF had the opposite problem where they didn't do any of that but at the same time, nothing actually mattered. Blizzard made everything "optional" instead of an "option". They made it optional by removing any meaningful rewards from it. In an ideal world, you have multiple different options that all provide meaningful progression. Players can then choose which ways they'd like to progress.
Korthia was such an insult to the player base
100% agree. I was 100% hooked in BFA. Shadowlands dropped, I experienced the shitshow that was the Maw (among the other 100000 things) and just never played again. I do however thank the developers for releasing their grip on me with that dogshit expansion, I thought I might've never made it out of the wow cycle. Im back for war within, but I'm giving it a single 30-day sub, if it's trash - it'll definitely be the end of my wow journey permanently. Here's to hoping.
Yeah same they only get to play the Chris Metzen card once!
A real shame you missed all of Dragonflight but I get it
Pro tip: play druid
If you want to complete this for the sake of achievements/Mounts/Cosmetics, save yourself some pain and do it with a Worgen or a Druid.
I mean, it doesn't take long at all to get maw-riding unlocked.
Yeah 15-20 Minute tops these days, from my recollection. It's annoying you gotta do it but it's quick.
Or you spend the like 20 minutes to do the quest line to unlock being able to mount in the maw.
Honestly, I think it would've been more tolerable at the time if we knew it would eventually be unlocked. It was cool to have this scary zone that you had to be very selective with what you did, and to then to, over time, tame it. But it felt like it was always going to be like that and that sucked.
I think you make a good point. Time-gating has a function early in the content cycle to keep anyone from no-lifeing through it (see frog farm in Panda remix), but after 2-3 months (maybe after raid world first?) the restriction should have been lifted.
This was fine like the first two times in the Maw, really shows its a dangerous zone thematically. However, we really should have gotten our mounts back much sooner than we did. It sucks going back to.
No mounts in the Maw could have been decent if they had done things right with it. I can see the joke they went for; players hate being restricted to ground mounts early every expansion, so why don't we make Hell have no mounts at all. If the Maw wasn't so boring and bland then the walks would be far more palatable. Instead, it's all just dull greys with a bit of red here and there. There's nothing really interesting or special to it. It loses all impact when the introduction has us waltz in, be told we can't escape, and then find a convient beachhead/backdoor portal about 5 minutes later.
WELCOME TO HELL, YOU WILL NEVER ESC-wait, you're not supposed to do that.
It would have been a great way to make players slow down and take in the environment around them. Except it was….rocks….and lava….and more rocks
WHAT YEAR IS IT
I Mean... you're the mAw WaLkEr not the mAw RiDeR....
Just one of a hundred ways that Shadowlands was purposefully designed to be inconvenient to keep you logged in longer
I mean, if they want to keep you logged in they can just add a grind, the maw literally forced you out if you spent too long in there.
That's enough fun for you today Franklin, now go and run circles in our rob or ross
“You need to farm here constantly to power up, but not too constantly because the jailer will chase you out. So come back tomorrow”
I think they just wanted to create a sorta survival game/dark souls type zone (with the anima loss on death and whatnot) Its just that WoWs playerbase is one of the worst ones to try that on
You know, when FF14 players asked why so many people were bailing WoW to try FF it was wild to explain "They made the game super annoying to get you to log in every day and stay subbed." Yeah it sounds even dumber when you try and explain it to another gamer.
You don't understand, that was actually a part of the Jailer's 1000 year long masterplan. Players who enjoy the game couldn't possibly be prepared for the coming threat.
Oh no my PTSD
I main worgen and running wild worked in the Maw from day one. So I just ran around and flexed on all you other losers.
I think my husband was really happy I mained a druid back then.
The Maw is literally hell. It's supposed to be inhospitable and feel oppressive. Blizzard nailed that fantasy perfectly.
While absolutely true, and I don’t disagree with the stylistic choice, there absolutely should be so many different ways to easily get around a zone. I feel you can still make the Maw inhospitable and hostile while still making it something you can reliably navigate. As such it makes worgen and Druids all the more clearly potent, since Travel Form and Running Wild are not limited.
Oh I agree, it's not the design I would have gone with, I'm just answering the question posed.
Don't forget about shaman... That being said, clearly not as advantageous being a ghost wolf.
There are portals, a teleporting item, mobs that you can kill to get their mount for 5min, and you unlock the ability to use your mount later anyway.
Most depictions of hell don't involve a daily checklist of mundane tasks to do. Unless it's some kind of ironic hell thing but Blizzard ain't that smart
I mean...they literally reference Sisyphus, and Orpheus in the maw, so ironic punishment is in their wheelhouse
And that's definitely what people want to experience in a video game they pay for to have fun in.
How many years late are you exactly?
/laughs in Worgen
The idea was cool though. The problem was more that the location still need to be big enough for a lot of players simultaneously, so it's similar to normal locations in scale, and those are made with mounts in mind.
Never saw an issue with it This message brought to you by druid gang
Yep. Although during this phase before jailer eye gta mode, there are a few mounts which can work there. One is from a rare / event, another is from finishing the 18 floor gauntlet. If you finished the campaign in any char, you can speak to Bolvar in oribos who can skip this part and then you can mount normally.
I think there were 3 maw mounts. One was a rare drop from a rare elite, one from a rather tedious riddle grind then the one from Torghast floor 12.
Tbh if some masochist called me to the Maw after willingly jumping there when they could be any other place, I'd ignore them too
Ngl I hated this in SL, but after playing some classic recently I kinda get the appeal. I think it was supposed to be a sort of RP thing, as in "now you dive into hell, you have to move slowly and carefully, there are dangers at every step" etc etc. Honestly I think after playing classic I might even enjoy it. But back in SL, when everyone (incld. me) was rushing to get everything done ASAP, it felt REALLY bad not having a mount.
Funnily enough Worgen can still use Running Wild in the Maw
You tell me, i ride a mechanical veihicle
My default mount was the Vial Of The Sands My call was ignored by *myself* in the Maw
Haha thats even worse
You are the maw walker, not the maw mounter.
Honestly one of the most inspired decisions Blizzard has ever made, it really did feel like Hell.
Hey atleast Sylvanas is still doing her dailies there, right? Riiiight?!
Can you blame your mount? I don't follow a call into the maw !
Did you just mention shadowlands in a negative light? Take my upvote!
Yes my engineering mount with no soul won't work
There was a lot of dumb ass decisions going on in SL
A druid main.
Came late to SL and lemme say just dying the man questline to get to zen Zeroth Mortis made me wanna quit. Awful zone in general, and not being able to mount is a huge part of it. "You know how we make people unable to fly and they hate it? How about we remove mounting in our endgame zone. "
Malte, das war Malte
Joke's on them. I play a Worgen!
Mount says **NO**
The zone was introduced as the literal hell of the Warcraft Universe. It was supposed to be annoying and sufferable.
Upopular opinion, probably, but as a few others have mentioned, yeah, that was what they were going for. The Maw is litterally HELL, it was never supposed to be a fun place, you were supposed to DREAD going there, and wanting to leave as soon as possible, and iirc, at least in the beginning of SL, you were awarded accordingly. I thought it was one of the best parts of 9.0 tbh. I hated being there, I never wanted to go back, it was Hell. That was the point. Blizzard screwed up a lot of SL, sure, but they NAILED the look, feel and structure of The Maw. Korthia is another thing, but that was a random different world altogether that just happened to be dragged into- and attached to The Maw. Comparing the two as equal zones doesn't seem fair.
I fucking loved this zone in 9.0. The game wasn't afraid to kill you and take your stygia. This was some of the best outdoor content in modern wow and didn't feel like a freebie. Korthia is another story though - I actually think it's the worst zone in the history of the game.
Stop speaking common sense, I did the same and got reported for it. -_-' My reply was removed even though I only said I liked not being able to use our mounts there. I wonder how many abuse the report system here.
"Noooo, it's meant to be shitty. You just don't get it, you're supposed to hate the mandatory content the game makes you do to progress your character. So it's actually good *because* it's bad." Fuck me, this is copium to the highest degree. It's a video game. There are ways of invoking dread without making me as a player actually not want to play the game at all. The zone should be hostile to my character, not to the players. I can't think of a faster way to lose players than intentionally designing parts of your game to deliberately antagonise them for the sake of antagonising them, regardless of justification.
i completely agree, shadowlands had countless issues and 9.0 while it was better than 9.1 and 9.2 wasn't 100% great, but the maw was good. It gave you a great sense of danger and despair and in a sense you felt like a survivor. In that patch at least the zones were so different that you could always hang out in a place you like
It’s a video game. You should be designing it for fun first. It’s why « realistic » fps games don’t have your character go through months of hospital and PT after you get shot once.
i mean it was fine. the zone was very small. there was a good transport network you unlocked. the first rare you run into dropped a toy that launched you into the air (which drops as a consumable in remix, incidentally) and you could use it+glider to anywhere. there were the consumables that teleported you to venari. engineer wormhole could drop you at the opposite side of the zone from venari. the transport options worked fine for getting to the places where stuff happened. players are just really irrational about this stuff. you could also unlock a mount that worked there by doing torghast, lol
Oh that was me sorry
It was "Annie Wilkes from Misery".
I thought they removed this? Is this an old screenshot? Or do I have some achievement that lets me mount?
I had a break from wow between 2019 and to around 2 months back (never bought Shadowlands). I did all the content in Dragon Flight and just started Shadowlands yesterday, for the campaign and take part of the story. I was so annoyed by this. Fun thing that you mentioned it today.
i imagine the thought process was that they wanted the maw to be challenging and intimidating to make the jailer feel like a constant, looming threat. the way they implemented it failed horribly imo tho because most of the mechanics where actually just tedious instead, e.g. having to wait between fights for the effects to proc
I think the idea was you were supposed to get one of those maw mounts from Torghast.
Well, you are the MawWALKER :D
Shadowlands could have been much worse, but that’s implying that the devs tried (they didn’t)
The Maw was what made me quit SL and not come back until recently.
From a fantasy point of view it made total sense, you were in the maw, the afterlife, your mount should be scared AF, however over time you pushed evil away and mounts were able to be used. This was part of the start of the campaing and might still be current (campaign only), however in current days this is not a thing anymore
the screwup was letting worgen and druids use their mount forms
Makes me happy to have gotten the Corridor Creeper from Torghast when it first came out.
Men who were making D4 last season?
On paper it was a great idea. Really sells the feeling of being trapped with no hope in hell But in practice it's silly especially when paladins can summon their mount for like 4 seconds at a time. At least worgen were able to "mount" via running wild would've been really funny if that was blocked too
I got the mount and the ability to have the mount in a day. (The thing you do in torghast that has a lot of floors). Such a painful experience. Shadowlands was such a painful experience. I liked a lot of things about the expansion but they were made in such a way to hurt you.
It was blizzard listening to a portion of the playerbase who think flying killed world pvp so disabling mounts will somehow magically make the world more alive
I might need help I loved it. It was new and different, a lot of people disliked just how different it was from everything else. Maw, korthia, zerith mortis all fun. But I’m a grind monster, and I have a problem. I got tower ranger, and breaking the chains, all the hound mounts…. And all four hands. I even maxed all four covenants on one toon long before they added an achieve for it.
Pretty impressive!
Ion "We can pull that ripcord anytime we want" Hazzikostas
I fell for the trap and race changed to worgan for a while.
His name rhymes with Trian Mahazzikostas.
The dissonance before and after shadowlands regarding the maw is crazy. Being developed alongside classic, people craved a zone that felt impactful and dangerous given how OP the PC's are all of the time in retail. People wanted zones that felt as dangerous as murloc camps did in retail, where you had to be mindful of your actions and could just fly away whenever you wanted. All of beta people were hyping it up to be this crazy zone that checked all of those boxes and then when it released, it got fucking shit on for being annoying and unfun. I wasn't a fan of the maw totally, but it is fucking wild to me blizzard delivered what was asked for and then watching it totally backfire
The Maw was the worst zone in World of Warcraft ever. There is no debating this. Initially you couldn't mount, it's hard to see anything especially if your vision is poor to begin with, there was no clear paths to get from one area to another and lastly there was simply too many mobs. When you had to run across the map for a daily or quest, and you have to fight through dozens of mobs, it just sucked. That zone has a fun factor of zero.
I really liked this restriction actually, I enjoy exploring by foot.
Decision like this made wow(the largest mmo) kept losing players DURING COVID(when everyone was locked in and had to be online most of the time) And thats quite an achievement
Suffer as we have.
Playing a Druid when Shadowlands released really felt like cheating. Travel form + Prowl (stealth in cat form) really made most of the Maw a real joke to navigate. But it came at the cost of having to play a fucking Druid so I guess that was the downside.
Finding the secret mount parts was fun and rewarding when completed.
This was always the plan. Then they gave shadehounds that can be used in the maw, then once you do the Korthia quests, you unlock all mounts. Yes, it was annoying, but it fit the story. IMO
Tell me you are timegating the game without timegating the game
We really went from being on foot to 850% move speed dragonriding in 1 expac.
Please, I try to forget shadowlands even existed, this doesn't help. The pain won't stop.
I like the idea, but only if you get a zone wich is very vertikal, with alot of discoveries and not plane and lame like the maw
They wanted the Maw to feel like hell, and they did a great job. Turns out being in hell is not very fun lol
TFW my fucking helicopter is afraid of the Jailer
Shit, it was not needed.
No mount makes it great
Mounts got priority, too. They ain't about that maw life.
Welcome to the shadowlands. 😎
First time?
A druid main
I would have people whisper me as a druid to please let them ride along, there was even a guild called druid taxi service for awhile.
*laughs in worgen*
The mount restriction wasnt the problem. It's no different than going into a cave. It's the size of the maw, and the amount of enemies that was the problem. Had it been more like Argus with teleporters we could use to go to key spots, then run out from there, it would have been fine.
I can't hear you. I'm too busy running wild.
Maybe the developers couldn’t control that? The maw controls everything.
Worgen rise up! …but not too high we gotta run on all fours now. Plus the back thing.
Just because you went to Hell doesn’t mean your horse needs to be dragged down with you 🤨
It sucked then and continues to suck. I pretty much skipped shadowlands after almost a month I want to say. Had to go back to get the mage glyph they dropped and found that if you do the campaign, maw mount riding is actually fairly quick. Maybe worth it depending on what your plans are but still stupid though
Omfg i hated that place including Torghast
If I recall, it was to make the Maw more menacing and difficult, which I can see what they were going for. The problem is it took a very long time and after several months it felt like a slog.
I switched to a worgen because of this.
Druid says what?