One of the biggest WoW streamers talks about the current state of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. He mentions many points of criticism. Above all, he is bothered that players can no longer work towards loot, but that everything depends on RNG.
If you take a look at Reddit or the official forums, the World of Warcraft community is currently “underwater”. There is a flood of criticism and accusations. Now even the streamer Asmongold joins in and discusses in a half-hour video all the things that he believes are going wrong.
Who is Asmongold? Asmongold is a streamer and YouTuber who has made a name for himself in the scene. He has been playing World of Warcraft for years and entertains viewers with interesting stories from his gamer life or hosts fun events, such as the community completion of numerous achievements. His opinion holds high value in the community.
“Warforged” destroys true joy
This is Asmongold’s criticism of the loot system: No one would remember that they got “this great warforged weapon 5 with socket” in Warlords of Draenor. But when a player finally got that one weapon from a boss in Classic, The Burning Crusade, or Wrath of the Lich King, that is a memory that sticks.
The reason for this is that additional layers of randomness have been introduced. There was randomness before as well; for example, a weapon had a drop chance of 8% – but then it was also exactly the weapon that players wanted.
Today, a weapon may also have a drop chance of 8%. But then it can also be warforged, and the chance that it has the optimal item level, a socket, and the desired tertiary stat is far below 0.1%.
And that destroys the true joy that one felt back then when receiving a desired item. Today, the joy lasts only a short time, as the thought soon arises: “Couldn’t the weapon have had a few item levels higher?”
The developers are not listening
This is Asmongold’s criticism of the developers: Another point of criticism from Asmongold is that the developers have long stopped listening to the community.
It is not about blindly implementing every wish of the community, but about individual requests that have been criticized by a large number of players.
For example, the change to the Global Cooldown has been completely decided against the player base. WoW feels slower and more sluggish since then.
PvP fans have been demanding for years that they get a vendor for armor back. They want to earn tokens or currency and then be able to choose exactly which item they receive. But here too, pro PvP players are largely dependent on RNG.
It’s all about playtime now
This is what Asmongold criticizes about the general direction of WoW: In summary, Asmongold believes that everything boils down to the fact that the development of World of Warcraft is no longer about the players having fun, but about making them play as long as possible. All systems require long farming, and most of them have extreme luck components (farming Azerite gear, items, rewards from island expeditions).
Blizzard falls into the typical cycle of gradually loosening these things when they become too much for the players. But this time, that moment has come sooner, as the protests on Reddit and in the forums are louder than ever before.
For Asmongold, it seems that Blizzard determines the game content through statistics and calculations, not whether it is really fun for the players.
In his video, Asmongold mentions many other aspects, such as the Azerite system, which he believes has failed, or the “boringly” necklace (Heart of Azeroth), which “cannot even be right-clicked”. Anyone proficient in English should definitely watch the whole video.
Not everything is bad – but a lot is: In the end, Asmongold emphasizes that despite everything, he likes some aspects of the expansion and still has fun.
However, he believes that he could have much more fun if the developers finally sought an open dialogue and would address the community’s feedback.
Do you share Asmongold’s opinion? Or is WoW without major faults for you, and has Blizzard taken the right path?
