Wow has lost its touch. Is cata responsible?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

WARNING!


I don't think Cataclysm was responsible for all of the ills of late as there are a lot of folks still enjoying parts of the game. I do think that Cataclysm went downhill in a few ways:

• Instance mechanics adopted a lot more "one mistake and you get one-shot" mechanics and TONS of gratuitous AoE damage.
• Instance trash became a pain in the ass with no particular rhyme or reason.
• All of a sudden, CC became a requirement unless you outgeared the content.
• Healing drastically changed from a sliding scale of capability to a "you must be THIS HIGH to heal THIS INSTANCE" setup.
• 4.0 over-homogenized talent trees and, thus, the options classes had to play variable roles. Sub-specs/hybrid specs were effectively gutted by this.
• Stamina and mob damage scaled like mad, while healing output stayed largely constant.
• Fewer items seemed to be available per faction to outfit folks for heroic entry, meaning you had to grind more factions for gear.
• Mana regen was dramatically nerfed, or rather, was moved into an "active regen" scheme and away from passive regen talents/gear/stats.
• Many rotations were turned into WHACK-A-MOLE instead of logical ability progressions.

I also think Cataclysm screwed up playing with friends as I'll describe as part of my reply to the next comment.

Some of the reasons are boring questing that is incredibly linear.
But the questing process is relatively quick, compared to say 10 levels of WotLK... and people complained of the collection quests there, then the very next expansion complain of the rail-roading of Cataclysm.
Once the leveling is done, and that is a very small percentage of the game, Cata is essentially the exact same as BC or WotLK or whatever the next one will be.

Assuming I am reading that right, I'm going to take exception to what you insinuate is an inconsistent position vis-a-vis questing/leveling. Lemme break down the way things differed with regards to quest chains in the various expansions from my experience (I almost exclusively leveled all my boxing teams through questing):

Classic WoW:

• Most quest hubs were not chained. You could start at Crossroads, Taurajo or any of the others as soon as you met the minimum level was met.
• Zones were completely separate with no breadcrumb quests required.
• Everyone could play together, including your high-level friend who had done the quest several times and could speed you through quickly.
• There were lots of "chains" but the only really linear ones were those that led into "lore" or "story-line" quests, many in instances.
• Breadcrumb quests were extra XP but they absolutely were not required.

BC:

• Zones did not require breadcrumbs from previous zones.
• Some quest hubs (maybe 30%?) needed breadcrumb quests from previous hubs but this varied wildly by zone. (see: Nesingwary & the faction hubs in Nagrand for examples)
• Your friends could bring their high-level alts to play with you and help you through quests.
• Instance quests usually did not require breadcrumb quests and many were from NPCs right outside of the instance.
• Most quest chains outside of lore/storyline quests were only limited by meeting minimum level requirements.

WotLK:

• Zones were 50/50 on whether you needed breadcrumb quests to start them.
• Most of the hubs in a "sub-zone" were all part of the same chain of quests, which required a drop quest or breadcrumb quest from an NPC. Some quest hubs could be partially started without breadcrumb quests but others required lots of them, even multiple breadcrumb questlines AT THE SAME HUB.
• Friends could play with you in about 80% of areas, though some of the most fun quest chains (see: Icecrown Ebon Blade series) were phased, so your high-level friends that were on different parts or had completed them could not help you with them.
• With the exception of the Dropship Crash Site in Hellfire, WotLK had a lot more onerous collection quests than BC.

Cata:

• 90% of quest hubs in a zone _required_ breadcrumbs from previous hubs or you could not even SEE the NPCs, let alone interact with them.
• Friends on different quest lines could not help you as phasing was heavily prevalent, preventing them from seeing you or the mobs you were tasked with killing..
• Many entire zones or sub-zones required breadcrumbs to start them, though some of the lower-level zones weren't quite as railroaded.
• Phasing in the lower-level areas was absolutely nuts, especially for multiboxers where some collection quests would kick each character into a completely different phase just from picking up the last item! Meant you could have all guys help with the first one, 4 guys with the second, 3 guys with the third, two guys with the 4th and your last poor schlub was left to solo the last drop by himself.

So, as you can see, questing got consistently more linear and railroaded, taking a giant leap into WTF-dom in Cata with the overuse (IMO) of phasing on an almost per-quest and even sub-quest level, especially in the lowbie zones (goblins was my only experience).

So those of thus that bitched about WotLK linearity of questing and the even more linear Cata quest lines are entirely consistent and justified in that position.

Or did you have a non-obvious point you were making?


In the end, all of the above killed Cataclysm for me, though the changes to questing were probably my biggest gripe as that was where I spent most of my time multiboxing.

Congrats to those who still find it an exciting game. It doesn't suck completely and is still probably the best option in the MMO market for folks who aren't experiencing burn-out on WoW in general.