One of the major guild leaders of World of Warcraft has criticism. Because Blizzard is bringing less content per addon – even if they claimed otherwise.
The race for the “World First” kill of Fyrakk in World of Warcraft ended a few days ago. Normally, this means a break of about 6 months before the next major patch arrives and a new raid is launched. But that probably will not be the case this time, because “new content” in this form will no longer be delivered by Dragonflight.
What is the criticism? On X, Maximum, the guild master and raid leader of the professional guild Team Liquid, stated that he is dissatisfied with the current plan of the developers. He says:
A year without a World First race is quite a piece of dog-[mess]. Fated is okay as an addition at the end of an expansion to spice things up a bit, but it is absolutely unacceptable to see that as a replacement for an entire patch or an entire season.
What is “Fated”? The Fated Raids system was first tested at the end of Shadowlands. In season 4 of Shadowlands, all raids of the expansion were updated to the current state and provided with special affixes. It was essentially a “Best Of” of the expansion, and players could revisit all raids. This was a good idea to bridge the content drought until the release of Dragonflight.
The idea of the “Fated” season was held by only a few developers who were given free rein.
Many find it bad that Blizzard is now taking this “Fated” season as a replacement for a patch X.3 patch.
“Shrinkflation” is indeed real: Many feel this way because the game director Ion Hazzikostas stated at BlizzCon that there should be no “shrinkflation” – meaning that addons will still have the same scope at their core, even if they are released at a faster pace.
For many, this is not the case if Blizzard now makes it “the rule” that each expansion only gets 3 raids. This was previously only the case in Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands – both expansions known for their content drought and “quick disposal” toward the end.
This is how the community sees it: In the WoW subreddit, Max’s statement is being discussed and interpreted. Here too, there are clear opinions, especially in relation to “shrinkflation.” Many are disappointed with the upcoming Fated season. Here are some voices:
- Halepeanyo: “(…) In the past, expansions had more than 3 raids! Battle for Azeroth had 4 full raids and one mini-raid, now we only get 3 per expansion (…)”
- Bigmethod: “Yep, a 1-year gap without interesting content just feels sad.”
- iCresp: “They should release a 3-boss raid or something. The Fated season can be a lot of fun, with a new pool of M+-dungeons and different raids, but I agree that it felt like they were doing everything right and now we get nothing. They are probably reallocating many resources to the development of ‘The War Within,’ but we definitely need content in the meantime, a year is just a long time. I’m not against a Fated season as long as there’s a bit more to it.”
Professional guilds are particularly suffering from this. A whole year without an exciting “World First Race” is also a strain for many large guilds and players who are otherwise looking for other eSports opportunities.
The latest raid was also a bit easier than other raids – at least on the lower difficulty levels.
