Why I Stopped Playing Season of Discovery (Pre-Phase 4) 

SOD felt more and more like a watered down version of retail.. it actually made me go back to retail after years. Didn't help that I had to waste so much time to get all the spells I wanted to test. More running less fighting. Was not Classic was not Retail.

I think i can answer it because every problem came out after phase 2. Which was "jesus we waited this many months for this?" So much hype behind season of discovery. Was for the cut content that was never released. The ashenvale commander open world pvp event was a good example. Removed mount colorstions good example, the point of it was to explore EVERYTHING with a new outlook at what endgame was gonna be and what leveling was gonna be with every original idea "CLASSIC PLUS" cuz we were promised even northrend to be open. And like all these cool new zones that were cut from the original classic before it became "new expansion new island". And updates were literally just entire new zones that felt like they added something to the game not just another grind for you to waste 1000 hours in. But now each new thing they add just seems to be retail daily quest grind garbage for each 10-15 levels they let us unlock after playing at level 25 for 3 months. And each phase felt more like a slog of "they updated this dungeon into a raid. And added this single world event". I hope. They actually hold up to even 5% of the hype they did before it came out for the level 60 phase. But if its just "we are gonne timegate and gatekeep each raid behind 3 months of waiting. Im done".

its fkn boring asf that's why you dont make content, classic in a nutshell, played out, old been there and done that, dont worry phase 5 will be a game changer,

I probably wouldve just not uploaded it lol little too late for this kind of video

Nixxiom please if you and a bunch of other youtubers and streamers are not happy with what SoD is make videos and tweets telling Blizzard what alot of the Vanilla players want with a true classic plus it has to be very detailed on what you want these are not the devs we had 20 years ago that had a clear vision of what they wanted and yall cant say basically we want classic but with more classic.....thats not going to get anything across to them break it down and tell them what you loved about classic and be super clear with it and what you disliked about classic or any expansions that followed vanilla.

People gatekeeping classic cause they cant make it on retail is real.

They completely ruin the game, funny how they feel the need to be try harding and parsing on such easy content, next time try a cutting edge pve game if you wanna poop sock, classic aint it.

@@joelhodoborgassadly, I cleared heroic amirdrassil and was 4/9 mythic and I didn’t come back to retail and didn’t clear the previous raids before amirdrassil and I couldn’t ever get into a raid in SoD. Every guild I joined either had no room in raid roster or I couldnt make the raid times

@@joelhodoborgasand honestly blizzard could have kept the gate keeping from happening if they actually made the lockouts loot lockouts by the boss instead of weekly lockouts. They killed it themselves no matter how much you’d like to blame the try hards

Retail does the same. I can't stand people who played 15 years of wow and expect new players to do the same. What happened to having fun?

It completely killed MOP remix for me, slamming through every bit of content in minutes is no fun. I want to feel some element of challenge and that I might die when I play the game. I run around in the open world without the cloak on just to feel that

Yep, find a group of 2 likeminded players, then just run dungeons as 3 players :P cozy chill run, but still a challenge if they're scaled for 5 but you're only 3 going in.

​@@maximus6253 To be fair, mop remix was just for leveling alts, getting mog, toys, mounts. It wasn't meant to be a difficult thing.

So your complaint is that you didn't like the people you were looking for to get wrangled by? Make your own raid group, keep the sweaty players out and your problem is solved. But no, you just want lame excuses as to why you couldn't progress a 20 year old game properly.

@@mikfhan This doesn't work. Whenever someone says stuff like this they don't understand normal human behavior. People aren't going to go out of their way to fight against game design and try to find the very small amount of people willing to engage in the game in their own niche way. They are just going to quit the game and find a different game that is catered to what they want and how they want to play.

Exactly. It misses the point of classic: the world. It incentivizes end game content and skipping past the zones/quests/story like Nixxiom said.

Current developers of the game are missing some of the aspects that made WoW so good back in the day... current day WoW is all about max level raids and handing put replacement gear constantly.. not the adventure getting there with a good story where you arent the main being on the planet just a random adventurer learning and living the story...

Not entirely their fault either ! People want to rush the game and then complain there's nothing to do as well so it's a mixture of player/developer issues lol

It was not like retail at all what are you even talking about 😂

​@@valdenn3073there barley is any Story in classic untill the endgame. Some länger Story quests here and the but most if it is just random stuff

This! Couldnt even get Mara in season 3 to get my pally runes done! I may jump back to Classic Era.

The community killed wow. Everyone got very elitist despite not having 99% parses and even ever seeing orange.

Yeah, I don't think there wasn't too much inherently wrong with the game but it was the community. Once again the community meta'd the fun out of the game and decided what was optimal and what was good and if you didn't agree then you didn't get to play with anyone. I couldn't find groups to collect my runes because just... no one even wanted to help either.

Omg you don't parse 99? One week later: SOD Dies

Honestly I don't agree, if you want to say the community killed sod then how hasn't it killed every other iteration of wow? It's not like suddenly a new group of players started playing sod that has never touched classic or retail, meta try hards are in every version of the game. They want to play with people who also want to try hard, It makes logical sense. Find like-minded people that don't mind wiping or clearing the content slower and make a group or join a guild that does so. It's not like try hards in the community are going to one day be like you know what you guys are right this isn't how I enjoy playing the game. Nope they'd just stop playing so either way if your not meta gaming those grouping with those who are will always be out of reach, because they'd simply just leave the game. The game died because of decisions made by developers. Not enough content, content being too easy. Everyone complained that ST was too hard, they nerfed it and then everybody had full BIS in about 3-4 weeks and no longer had any reason to play. The pvp event was recycled, class balance was terrible and not properly addressed, everybody hated the incursions. Ultimately, the game just quickly ran out of things to do. People have been complaining about the meta tryhards in the community for years, prior to sod. Go ahead and continue your complaints of that if you wish but to pretend this somehow killed this version of the game and not others is disingenuous and takes blame away from the true issue, poor design and decisions by the developers.

Nothing like raiding feeling like a part time job

it’s because the raid lockout system is awful literally ruined the game

What you mean you don't have the the .0001% world drop level 24 blue BiS helm for a warrior that costs 2000 gold on the Auction House? NO INVITE. Genuine brainrot in this game's community. You'd be surprised how many people get salty when you tell their raid lead to touch grass. Please do it more often if only to see the reactions.

So you want to raid while having trash gear that takes no effort to get?

@@therider990 Gear is not as important as you think. FF14 doesn't have complex gearing systems. You do dungeons, get currency, trade for the gearset for your role, get into the raid, get an item, trade that for the raid gear. There's only 2 sets really. The difference is they make up for it by having neat bosses with interesting yet simple mechanics. And doesn't make you waste 3 hours getting ready for said raid. And if you wipe, you're set right back in front of the boss ready to go again. Even Guild Wars 2, the gear stops gaining stats at level 80 and it only changes around based on the suffix of the gear. The only exception being the "ascended gear" that doesn't add much in terms of stats but is super grindy to get. If all you want to do is set yourself up for masochism and chasing numbers, go play one of the 50 million diablo clones so you can run the same dungeon 50 times for your 1 perfect drop that gives you a +2 to your strength after 20 hours of farming.

the community ruined it. Its always the community

@@xyndros No, this time it was incursions. Adding incursions was an absolute fuck up. Reason the wife and I stopped playing.

@@xyndros if all addons were removed the excuse for the community being toxic wouldn't fly. The addons allow the community to be toxic the way they are. The devs are 100% to blame for the state of the game because they build the rules.

@@paintingsbypanco but the comm is toxic, even in era. Much more than in retail. (Yes!) and isnt it the community who invents addons anyway? :p But nvm, im just chilling in classic for the leveling, nothing else Not with this wannabe elitism there :x

@@paintingsbypanco For real this game would 1000x better without addons and only basic macros.

I was about to comment exactly that. Pretty shameless, tbh. I'm sure Nixxiom can get a much better sponsor... Zygor is just dreadful.

He's literally part of the problem but doesn't care because it's $$$

its even more ironic that its a garbage addon too lol

Hahaha i cant believe anybody using that Trash Addon. What a shame

You clearly didn't get what Nixxiom is talking about. Zygor is an addon that helps you in leveling by questing. You know, what the game was designed for? Whereas dungeon spamming and level boosts completely circumvent the entire World? of Warcraft?

Incursions were running in a hamster wheel and paying a monthly sub too do it. The most braindead content, but the addicts lapped it up because it mean they could level to 50 in less then 10 hours.

I actually was really enjoying SoD until I got to incursions. Ended up quitting right after doing one. Made me realize how boring it really was.

Yep incursions killed it for me and the inflation on auction house was a joke

yep i love most open world exploring and grouping and ofc some dungeons but not chaining, sometimes i feel there need som resctrictions like not more then 4 Dungeons or something like this por Xp restruction from Dungeons. Ofc player will whine but probably get fine with it, and if it absolutly not work chanhge it back

If you love that isn't Classic still available?

@@thaive3734 loving the classic STYLE doesn't mean you don't want new content with the same pacing.

@@thaive3734 Yes bro. We've already leveled through all that content dozens of times. We want WoW 2 please.

@@ZachStachelski13 do you think if they make WoW 2 it'll be like classic? Lol

@@thaive3734 probably not. But a less bloated version of retail would at least be playable.

I know right? He's part of the problem lol

That’s not the problem. It’s simple, block APIs to combat logs and stop letting Warcraft logs record everything.

@@Mduffy-yo6rb So destroy yet another form of manifest game play to cater to the people who invest less, play less, and are faster to move on. Brilliant!!! You should be working at Blizzard. Min/maxing happens in every game. Guides, records, 100% completion, etc... are all organic player motivations that drive people to engage with the game. Every time people try and mess with these things in order to make the game 'healthy' by their standards the game gets worst.

that is so true xDD he promotes tryhard playstyle and crys about it, a real hypocrite. professional cryer. i mean if you like it play it, if you dont just dont, why talk bad about it?

@@jimmyhopkins4095because he’s a giant overweight sook

And then you work as much as possible only to find that it really didn’t help all that much

Exactly. What is this obsession with raiding? It's so divorced from what the casual player wants. Back in the day Vanilla WoW was like Elden Ring but even bigger. Every inch of the world felt brimming with high quality and challenging content. (granted we sucked back then, but the point still stands).

​@@ZachStachelski13 I mean the part that captured people most is the one thing we can't get back. Which is the discovery. When people ask for Classic+ we want it exactly how Turtle WoW is doing it. New Quests, New Zones to explore. Slight class balance tweaks (that aren't changing every month for "balance sake" ) And dungeons and raids that are interspliced with current existing dungeons and raids so you can pick and choose where you go and what you want to do. You never raise the bar to make past things irrelevant but you fill in the gaps so you can do the same type of gear progression in different ways.

They started well with giving each class a few new spells (fresh coat of paint). If they would've kept focusing on the early game I think it would've been better. But we don't even know what's possible. Could they create a new class if they wanted to? Could they create a new zone? A new dungeon with old assets? New PVP modes?

@@ZachStachelski13 I don't want them touching classes really since they don't seem to understand how to let a thing cook? ya know? Like Blizzard devs make the worst chefs cuz they'd be adding all this extra stuff to a dish ever five minutes without tasting it, and then dish it out. Just to bring it back in again and do even more things to the dish. Like bro I just wanted a ham sandwich why is there pesto, a lamb chop bone, and lobster in here? Why is everything covered in a blend of liquid smoke and vinegar. They don't know how to let things rest, and they don't know how to keep things simple. I also think it's high time we acknowledge WoW Classic Era. Is NOT the definitive Vanilla experience they promised. It's not the earliest build of WoW possible that Private Servers could never emulate (that's a lie used to discredit the quality of things like Nostraliaus) No. It's pretty obvious WoW classic at most has been a pre-patch TBC build clumsily backlogged to just have classic content. All they had to do was shut off access to the dungeons and raids in the area.

@@NotTheWheel I never cared about "no changes" to me it was always classic_ or bust. If I don't get more, new, WoW content in the classic WoW shell I won't be satisified. They could just import retail classes into classic and I'd be happy. I never forgave blizzard for making Death Knight a hero class. So you never got to level one in the best content of the game. (the early levels)

100% agree!

I very much agree on 10 mans. I had a close knit group of friends that raided each week, but when ST came out none of us were itching to start a guild to get 10 more people because it's essentially a part time job to do that.

Especially in a game that's legendary about being a long journey through an epic large world.

nope

Same, I think the problem is people complain about the cycle of mid maxing and then proceed to do that exact thing they complain about. So far I've only encountered helpful people leveling, grouping to get quests done and everything, level 32 right now as a melee Hunter, it's been a blast.

@@joshuasmith4643 yeah I think if you don’t min max and play the game like it’s meant to be played you will enjoy it. Min maxers ruin every online video game.

@@khronick3596 right, it's okay to min max yourself and enjoy it if you enjoy that, but don't force or expect others to play your way if they don't want to.

For me it took just ending up with a group I know outside the game that we all work in the same job field. We're super casual during work busy season and lean a little more hardcore when it's our slow season. Our big thing is we're playing for relaxation and laughing/venting about the unique things that happen in our job field.

It's vague statements like this that the SoD devolopers mistakenly clung on to. You say "exploration", but NOBODY enjoys combing through a map as massive as world of warcraft as if they were testing for collision bugs...that's just insane. And yet that's how they designed runes in SoD. That's garbage exploration IMO. 99% of people just looked up where runes are, because finding them on your own isn't even reasonable.

@@ZachStachelski13 That's only because the majority of players have already explored these areas since forever ago. Exploration is always more enjoyable when everything is new and shiny.

@@Thematicz I think that kind of exploration only works in dungeons. You can't check behind every tree in azeroth without losing your mind.

@ZachStachelski13 Disagree here. I believe the cause of the frustration in SOD, is the fact that you're not actually exploring, so much as you are looking for something specific. It's about the destination rather than the journey. Aimless exploration is much more relaxed.

It's really not.

Is it a fresh server?

Heard there is a strong amount of drama there too

@@Tarrimaster No. its the same as whitemane, going on since 2019, people are delusional.

@@JW-jd6sn then don’t join troll

i repicked it after phase long break since phase 2 and legit same experience its just so fun with the new abilities and im still finding some groups for dungeons. also the drama part in the video it's basic wow guild drama happens on retail on classic so its nothing new to me especially some of those leveling guilds are weird

Why is it strange though

​@@shabaranks9710very strange to rush through a classic-WoE adjacent version.. endgame sucks in classic WoW, the 1-60 experience is the main gameplay sequence

@@H41030v3rki110ny0u I mean some people just like raiding and getting their bis others like the leveling experience plus sod adds more to the end game now so idk if it's necessarily strange

@@shabaranks9710 i dont think it's wrong, because everybody plays differently, but i do think it's strange. the design philosophy of vanilla WoW is far more weighted towards the world and leveling vs the endgame lvl 60 experience. it's not an opinion, it's just where most of the effort was put in to whenever development was occurring, especially when compared to modern/retail WoW i dont think playing like that is an issue either, i think the issue comes in whenever the community takes on too many of those behaviors as a whole, and the community consequently decays because once min/max culture is embedded, it RARELY IF EVER leaves or decreases.. at least, in my 25+ years of gaming ive never seen that happen this isnt a 1:1 comparison, but imagine playing a TTRPG like D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, etc... and the DM and players are all bought-in for a Role play heavy, non-powergaming campaign... everyone except one guy who makes an uber min/max character that breaks the game or diminishes every other player's character... sure, it's cool and all, but you should be playing in a game being ran specifically for power gamers. imagine somebody playing a min/max Twilight Cleric in D&D with a group of people who picked everything purely for aesthetic or RP... the design philosophy of the DM does not mesh with this type of powergaming. it's not bad that the player likes to play like this, but they are playing a game that's not designed for them i would say in this case, that's classic & classic adjacent versions of WoW vs Retail WoW

@eyemazed This. Zygor is about a half-step from just having an auto-play "feature" like some mobile time-waster.

Still a better sponsor than Raid Shadow Legends :D Everybody has to pay some bills so yeah I don’t mind

damn didnt know zygor gave you an EXP boost

Ok Doomer. We are loving P4

@@eaglefreedom5361 all 10 of you?

Similar to phase 1?? Bruh u gotta send me the screenshots, because I don't believe that lol

cope?

im still over here actually hoping for a response lol..

@@H41030v3rki110ny0u Just jump in the game on Wild Growth server and check it out if you are that interested. I am not particularly interested in putting in the effort to send you a screenshot.

I play on wild growth and it's true. However i gotta admit i did get burned out from all the min maxing

I was coming to make a similar comment lol.

He's part of the problem, but lacks the discipline to not use it, or cares more about the $$$ or both

And there are still NPCs that defend the atrocious change to 20man.. 10 man was such a W.

Yeah, raids should have stayed 40 man.

💯😎

ewww adhd version of wow

Improvements? I'm sorry but retail devolved so hard that it's unbearable. The most fun I had on retail in 8 years was the first month of remix and anything after first month sucks due to glaringly obvious issues. I do not play seasonal games, I don't care. I want something meaningful, retail is bloated and meaningless. I started with cata, never played classic era, can't be nostalgic on something I never played and you know what? It's superior. So much more fun.

SoD is much closer to Retail than it is Classic Era. That’s where many of its issues come from.

Everything about retail is better, its the only thing keeping WOW alive sonce no one wants to play classic or SoD​@xXdnerstxleXx

@@valdenn3073 Exactly

be happy there are caps that allow you to catch up. they'd be way further ahead otherwise

@@fanaticist What I'm saying is being a random level 14 helping a farmer kill wild boars outside his farm while there are a select few raiders out there fighting Kel'thuzad himself is what creates the scale and epicness of WoW. When you allow everyone to catch up to the same playing field through time gates/phases removes all of that and it all just becomes a min-max sprint to the finish.

Theory crafting doesn't work, yet meta exists because of theory crafting the fuck?

Yea just being good at your class and playing the mechanics of the Bosses, i think thats a healthy and fun way to play. But everything else is just stressful torture for me

Yea just being good at your class and playing the mechanics of the Bosses, i think thats a healthy and fun way to play. But everything else is just stressful torture for me