So during the weekend I discovered I had gotten access to the beta, and have managed to get in some testing. Most of it actually testing, since it actually felt like a real beta and not some blizzard marketing ploy that they call beta. So felt usefull reporting bugs and whatnot. Doesnt exactly feel like a release candidate or whatever they call it these days. Especially since I am now stuck something like halfway through the main storyline that needs to be done to unlock most of the stuff you wanna do at max level...
To start with the most positive thing (and possibly the most important for me playing this more than a month), is that the instances have been well, interesting. The bosses have mechanics that arent just "dont stand in fire", trash also has mechanics you cant just ignore, but not just some stuff you need to interrupt. Which sucks for melee since they cant just kick it and continue with uptime, while ranged seems to get it easier. So perhaps itll be the opposite of BFA where you wanted a bunch of melee and ranged was a bit meh, and have a rogue and a couple of ranged instead? If pugging the group at least, playing with friends you make do anyway. And most of all, the group chat here says it all..
The other major selling point for me is the setting/the zones. I really like cosmology/afterlife/religion stuff in games, so yeah. Interesting to see Blizzard's take on this kind of high fantasy stuff.
However, the problems kinda outweigh the positives here. While the zones are interesting and fresh at first sight, some of the themes seems like straight out copies from elsewhere, so the feeling of having done it before starts seeping in really fast. The Maw really reminds me of D3: Reaper of Souls for example.
The quests, while having the mentioned lure of wanting to know how blizzard will deal with the whole afterlife thing and sylvanas and all that, is really slow going. You cannot mount in The Maw at all. There's a LOT of forced dialogue you have to sit there listening to, so if you don't care or you are on your alt, it gets boring fast. There's also cutscenes, but that's skippable. And not in the beta, so cannot gauge if they are interesting or not. There's also a lot of going from A to B, and running around clicking on things. Adding to that, everyone is doing the same main quest in the same order at release. Including the other faction; so the kill quests (and fill out bar events) will have the good old massive tag wars to create bottlenecks on top. Had tagwars at some point when there was like 5 of us there, god knows what it will be once there's 20-30 people fighting over a few limited mobs. Especially if you play the side that's low on numbers in the shard....
The factions have also been pretty.. dumb so far. First impression of the "meaningful choice" is that I'd like to be covenantless, please. I generally enjoy factions being "regular" people, and the enemy being some splinter group and/or some larger than life character doing something naughty. Here the factions are anything but regular, and often their splintergroup has some warranted grievance but it somehow puts them in bed with the big bad evil guy. That they put in old, familiar and beloved faces just makes it feel like they are doing yet another Terminator movie to cash in on franchise name, only to have it give you a fetch quest.
My biggest problem is however that my planned main, protection paladin, is a dissapointment to play, flowwise. Numberswise they seem to be better in m+ than they have been, with the damage they do and what seems like better defensive uptime. But adding auras, sense undead and hammer of wrath, but having to choose between shield/selfheal with the holy power and losing a lot of the cd reductions you have in BFA and seemingly not having a way to get it back is a big letdown. When retribution and holy was a letdown aswell, it might be the first time since vanilla I have to play another class as main from the start. Divine Toll, some talent changes and the legendary that gave Avenger's Shield a 50% chance to give back charge seemed like great fun. Just a pity all of it felt terrible after having fun with prot pala for all of bfa, and the little I played it in Legion.
I'm hoping to level to max level on the paladin anyway in the beta to make sure I ain't missing something and try out all the dungeons a few times with a legendary, conduits and all that jazz. If it's just as dull I need to rethink main/alt for Shadowlands...
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