The current state of WoW vs. me

[Smyelmdar]

So, I have had a break for over a year and I returned a few weeks before Battle of Azeroth was launced.
The reason I lost interest in the game was mostly because I started feeling like I was a robot doing the same thing over and over again. It got too boring.
For a while I held on to doing PvP at the lower brackets, but the extreme imbalance gave me more frustration than joy. So I finally just stopped playing and moved on. I actually ended up moving back to the game I had left for WoW when it launched. Ironic.
But when I heard of the allied races it made me exited to try getting those. How silly of me thinking that it would be easy.. It turned out to be yet another grind. I started on Nightborne and I'm not even done with those yet. I have a feeling that I won't make it even to one of the new races. I just give up when things gets grindy.
I guess it's worth noting that I am diagnosed with both ADHD and Aspergers, so it can go both ways. Either I get distracted very easily or I get sucked into things and forget everything around me.
So I am actually a little unsure. Has the game gotten more grindy or is it the same? To me it feels more of a grind, but maybe that's because I'm a little annoyed at the way the game has been going for the last expansions. I mean, before you just bought flying and that was it. Now you have to do a lot of achievements and whatnot just to get it. To me that is grindy..

I don't know if this was a rant, a whiny post or a hope for feedback. I just had to get it out.

[Smyelmdar]

I actually ended up giving it another go, and now I have unlocked the Nightborne and I'm close to unlocking Kul Tirans and Dark Iron dwarves as well. But though I mostly play horde I am unsure if I'm up for another lengthy grind for the other horde allied races. We shall see.

[GormanGhaste]

I know what you mean about being either bored or completely absorbed. At the beginning of bfa, I levelled toons on both sides, got exalted with all the starting reps...and then drifted away, until the bee mount came out. Got the bee mount, played catch-up with mechagon and nazjatar, and then got bored again. I've unlocked Nightborne, Void Elves, Dark Iron, and Vulpera, but never finished that dungeon quest chain for Kul Tirans--probably do that next expac. I love the old gods so you'd think I'd like this patch, but I don't like fighting them or the gameplay, so the only thing I've been doing on my main is my larva daily when I remember--mostly me and the other half have been leveling a pair of Vulpera together and having a blast.

[Noguchi]

So, I have had a break for over a year and I returned a few weeks before Battle of Azeroth was launced.
The reason I lost interest in the game was mostly because I started feeling like I was a robot doing the same thing over and over again. It got too boring.
For a while I held on to doing PvP at the lower brackets, but the extreme imbalance gave me more frustration than joy. So I finally just stopped playing and moved on. I actually ended up moving back to the game I had left for WoW when it launched. Ironic.
But when I heard of the allied races it made me exited to try getting those. How silly of me thinking that it would be easy.. It turned out to be yet another grind. I started on Nightborne and I'm not even done with those yet. I have a feeling that I won't make it even to one of the new races. I just give up when things gets grindy.
I guess it's worth noting that I am diagnosed with both ADHD and Aspergers, so it can go both ways. Either I get distracted very easily or I get sucked into things and forget everything around me.
So I am actually a little unsure. Has the game gotten more grindy or is it the same? To me it feels more of a grind, but maybe that's because I'm a little annoyed at the way the game has been going for the last expansions. I mean, before you just bought flying and that was it. Now you have to do a lot of achievements and whatnot just to get it. To me that is grindy..

I don't know if this was a rant, a whiny post or a hope for feedback. I just had to get it out.

I actually understand your dilemma and as a person who deals with ADHD as well it can be a tough thing to deal with. Add in the fact that my time is limited in terms of playable time because of other responsibilities in my life its kind of imperative that i have a game that suits my kind of needs (and yours apparently) as well.

I do hate that in some zones you have to have guild achievements to get flying, etc. It makes it harder for those of us who dont have the time to do guild and group runs to get those kinds of achievements. Im fine with paying for it just so as long as there are other options available in those circumstances. Never the less, despite my gripes ive been a player since 2007 so the game is apparently doing enough to keep me invested. But with some of the issues with low pop servers im not sure how much longer that will last.

[Ana]

It's a lot more grindy imo. I stopped my subscription last month because of the grinding. I feel wow has become more and more a high lvl grind for gear game than it was. Took me less than a week to lvl from 110-120. No real sense of character development other than the endless quest for higher. Item lvl. .
It's just lost some of it's charm. At least that's how I feel right now

[Sigrah]

BfA is *definitely* much more of a grind than Legion was. It's not just grinding out your artifact weapons like in Legion. It's grinding out your Heart of Azeroth. It's grinding out the HoA essences for your spec(s). It's grinding out power-up attempts for your Legendary Cloak from Wrathion (again). It's grinding out Corrupted Mementos to power up your "Visions of Orgrimmar / Stormwind" runs to help your power-up attempts for your Legendary Cloak. It's grinding out Coalescing Visions via Vale of Eternal Blossoms / Uldar dailies to get a power-up attempt for your Legendary Cloak in the first place.

I just don't know how much more "Grinding" I can take. It just feels like you have to be committed to one character in full, and that there's little room for developing alts on a high level like past expansions.

[MaximumOverdrive]

I played for about 3 months then let my sub lapse back in Dec. It's definitely very grindy, and unfortunately the biggest killer for me is trying to grind flying. It took me nearly all 3 of those months just to finish pathfinder 1, and when I went to Naz to work on part 2, I just couldn't stand being in that place. That place is so unfriendly towards not flying, I couldn't stand being there. I wish they could figure out a way to incorporate flying into the expansions instead of being a dumb achi after-thought. LK did a good job of having no flying for most of it, then the later zones requiring flying to get around. Be nice to go back to something like that.

And also, this expansion feels very...not alt friendly. Between the reps and grinding for items like that, I can pretty much only focus one character to get anything done. While I did have fun a first when I came back after being gone a year, it kinda died off pretty fast. I unlocked nearly all the Ally allied races, which was neat, but I really wanted to play some of the Horde ally races, but just the thought of redoing the same crap again on another toon (especially once that I can't send any gold to to help with anything or whatever) just destroyed my motivation to work on it. It would be nice if ally races unlocked on each side, especially after all the stuff I went thru to unlock Kul'Tiran.

When you have a full-time job with overtime and your only play time is on the weekends, the grind is agonizingly and painfully long. Unless you got lots of free time and can focus on grinding, this game has gotten less friendly towards casuals. And this is coming from someone who did the Netherwing rep on multiple toons in TBC and TLK, as well as the Cenarion Expedition for that dang hippogriff in TBC and the Wintersaber rep before the buff.

There were a lot of great ideas in BfA, but the amount of grind for so many things kinda just bogged everything down for me.

[Ana]

I 100 % agree Maximum. I hate the pathfinder requirements ... much rather buy it like we did for outlands.
Wow become a game for ppl with a lot of time as you mentioned. Right now I won't resubscribe and I regret prebuying Shadowlands. ..

[Smyelmdar]

I agree with all of you. Specially on the flying achievement. I have completely given up on that. I managed to get it in WoD on both my accounts. (I have two battle.net accounts). But in Legion I didn't even bother trying. As for this expansion I'll just have to see how it goes once I'm done with Kul Tirans and Dark Iron dwarwes. I am a multi boxer so I do have a slight advantage when it comes to doing world quests and the likes. But it's still a pain doing them when you can't fly.
And I am too an alt hoarder. Some of my old alts are dating back to 2005 and even though some of them are under level 30, I still can't bring myself to deleting them. And since Blizzard refuses to give us more than 50 characters per account I have had to make yet another new account just so I can make the allied races.
I really hope Shadowlands will change some things and make the game less 'grindy'. Or it might be the end of it for me.