World of Warcraft: Shadowlands’ endgame is not fun — Here's why

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands' endgame is non fun — Here'due south why

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands starts out impressive, possessing gorgeous fine art direction with novel ideas, a compelling main questline, and a side of the Warcraft universe we've never witnessed. It felt peculiarly invigorating after the Battle for Azeroth expansion, which was rather bromidic.

However, later getting to max level, finishing the main quests, and going through my Covenant entrada, I've had trouble sticking with Shadowlands. Its endgame encourages an egregious amount of grinding, the Earth Quest system is frustrating, and many of the rewards required to progress are expensive. Shadowlands' endgame feels similar Blizzard is deliberately turning what should be a fun game into a tiresome task.

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Covenant Campaign grind

As soon as the player finishes the main Shadowlands questline, they're expected to pick between 4 Covenants: Kyrian, Necrolord, Night Fae and Venthyr. Once you pick a Covenant, you're put on their campaign, which consists of eight questlines. To continue onto the side by side quest when you finish ane, you lot'll need a certain amount of Renown. Renown is generally earned through your Covenant'southward weekly and daily quests, which means you're frequently time-locked before y'all can go along your entrada. You lot can also earn Renown randomly but past playing the game, but there'south no agreement in the community about the consistency of this arrangement.

These Weekly and Daily quests are oftentimes grindy themselves, requesting that players practise a number of Globe Quests or collect 1,000 Anima to complete them. World Quests are naturally occurring events around the world that request the role player complete certain objectives for a advantage. And Anima tin be one of those rewards, providing anywhere from 35 to 250. Anima is used to purchase high-quality Covenant equipment, send soldiers on missions to gain more rewards, and upgrade your Covenant area for minor to major bonuses.

Subsequently I had finished a Covenant Entrada quest, I'd sometimes have to wait a few days earlier the adjacent one. It's even more frustrating considering non every daily quest gives the histrion Renown, meaning I was oftentimes unsure when I'd be able to move on. Whenever I'd log onto Globe of Warcraft for the 24-hour interval, I was essentially taking a chance to see if the daily quest was going to give me enough Renown to continue playing the game.

And to make matters worse, the Covenant Campaign isn't fun. Information technology ofttimes encourages players to revisit spots of the world they've already been to, and non in ways that evidence you new sides of old areas. The Night Fae campaign even takes y'all back to a Battle for Azeroth (the previous expansion) zone. This felt like a full waste of time, specially when considering how much grinding and waiting around players have to do for mediocre questlines.

World Quests need reworking

World of Warcraft's World Quest system is not something I've enjoyed previously, but with Shadowlands, information technology feels especially grindy due to its reliance on the Anima currency. If you're looking to do annihilation throughout Shadowlands, yous're going to need Anima, and that is more often than not earned through Earth Quests. A standard globe quest can give you anywhere from 35 to 140 Anima later on completion, while an Epic quest gives 250 Anima (these simply respawn one time a week). Additionally, only 5 to vi standard World Quests will be bachelor in a zone at a time, with some taking effectually a day to refresh.

And fifty-fifty then, not every World Quest gives Anima. Sometimes you'll go a slice of armor, gilded, a crafting textile, or another miscellaneous item. For case, out of the 34 World Quests active throughout Shadowlands as I'yard writing this, only nine give Anima. This means merely well-nigh one-fourth of these Globe Quests provide the reward most players intendance about.

A new World Quest seems to announced in each zone every five hours, but at that place are some that respawn on a longer rotation, whether that be a few days or once per week. Later a total 24 hours, most of the World Quests that provide Anima will have returned. Including the one weekly quest that gives you 250 Anima, you'll have the chance to do effectually eight Globe Quests that provide this currency every day. If you do all these quests, yous're probably getting anywhere between 700 and g Anima a day. Globe Quests rarely feel fresh, either. I chop-chop gave up trying to grind Anima, and even then, I experienced many of the same World Quests up to two to three times. It doesn't help that certain objectives are unnecessarily long, which is and then worsened when tons of other players are trying to do the aforementioned matter and interfere with your progress.

You can likewise receive Anima past sending troops on missions, simply this costs 10 to 15 Anima and often provides only 30 in return if you lot're successful, which is low because these missions can take anywhere from four to twelve hours to consummate. You can also receive Anima by opening chests, doing dungeons, and killing rare monsters throughout the earth, just these aren't reliable plenty sources to make the grind worth it.

With Anima, you tin upgrade your Covenant'southward Sanctum, which provides all sorts of important bonuses. I joined the Night Fae covenant, and in social club to fully upgrade my Sanctum, I need 93,500 Anima. Even if I was dedicated enough to log on every day and do each World Quest, this could take upwards to 100 days of grinding. This equation even ignores purchasing other rewards with Anima, like new equipment, cosmetic items, and other fun stuff from the Renown vendors.

Y'all also demand Redeemed Souls to purchase Sanctum upgrades. You can obtain Souls pretty rapidly, but you can only practice it once per week. You besides need a lot to successfully upgrade later tiers. For example, the final tier of The Queen's Conservatory costs 70 Redeemed souls. The base weekly quest for receiving Redeemed Souls only provides 5, but it can be upgraded to receive upward to xx. Putting in all the work to get these currencies would require an extreme amount of dedication and grinding.

Torghast is unsatisfying

Torghast, which is a massive role of Shadowlands' endgame, is disappointing. It takes the player through a number of randomly generated floors, with each fly boasting its ain unique themes. Some can be located in foggy prison courtyards where players will advisedly step between giant chains and grapple onto ledges, while others lie in a fiery castle with pools of deadly lava scattered well-nigh.

Torghast sounds cool, but it speedily became a vapid experience due to a lack of satisfying rewards. Players earn Soul Ash by doing Torghast, and with it, they tin can craft a Legendary piece of armor. However, yous can merely receive a set amount of Soul Ash from each wing per twenty-four hour period.

I've done nearly ten or so Torghast runs at present, and I take absolutely nothing tangible to prove for it. I possess a tiny bit of Soul Ash, but unless I grind a ridiculous amount with my Leatherworking profession (or cough up 80,000 gilt), I won't be able to do anything with it. I'd also demand to do far more Torghast to even get shut to the corporeality I need for a single piece of the armor.

Blizzard turned what should take been an entertaining fleck of endgame content into another daily grind. It doesn't assist that the content nowadays within Torghast itself isn't particularly exciting. If you do a wing once, you've pretty much seen everything it has to offer, every bit the aesthetic of chains, soulless jailers, and prison halls never changes. Certain elements, similar the presence of lava or the grappling mechanic, vary every now and then but not significantly enough to be as different and engaging equally queuing for a Dungeon. In that location also aren't that many unique bosses or enemy types, every bit each standard Torghast run only nets you 1 actual dominate, and after ten runs, I've started to meet repeats.

This design is soul-sucking

During the calendar week where I was withal spending my time with Shadowlands' endgame, logging into World of Warcraft felt akin to cleaning the dishes. It was simply a duty I had to commit to for the sake of "making progress." Doing recycled Earth Quests, queuing Dungeons I had already completed, and farming leather in the same spot I had been for weeks made me feel empty. There was not a moment during this time when I witnessed something new or exciting.

These elements add up to an experience that feels more like a daily job than what it should exist: a mentally stimulating experience, 1 which involves the player wholeheartedly engaging with a work of fine art. I thoroughly enjoyed what Shadowlands had to offer prior to the endgame, but at this point, I'thousand just hoping patch nine.i has enough new content to bring me dorsum in meaningful ways. I don't want to waste product my time doing dozens of reused Earth Quests or grinding for Anima.