The Maw, a step back in time

Nanfoodle

Part of the end game in Shadowlands is a zone called The Maw. For old school gamers this is a step back in time but with a modern spin. No mounts, death penalty is heavy, game play is changing but you know your playing a modern MMO by the fun things you face.

As an example, you progress your daily grind in The Maw, you have a scaling debuff. Starts out small with random swirls under you randomly that cause damage. So as you fights mobs it adds a slight challenge. 

Soon you have NPCs swooping out of the sky trying to carry you as high as they can as you fight to kill them, so they try to drop you to your death. 

It's PvE that has you on the edge of your seat, much how I feel while PvPing. This is a welcomed part of my daily WoW gaming session. It's just one small part of how Blizzard has gotten it right with the Shadowlands expansion. 

This has this old school gamer, very happy and excited. 

Nanfoodle

Xodic said:

Interesting. I've heard through my circles that it's just as terrible as the last 5 installments. If I didn't immediately regret going back to WoW every single time I have,  I might have given it a try.

Though I am pulling up a video of The Maw just to see what this is about.

This is the first expansion I have really enjoyed since WotLK. Walked away from MoP within a week or two of play. 

phoenixfire2

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

Nanfoodle

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

I always play a game that's been gifted to me This expansion I subbed for a month at a time. I just dropped a 6 month sub because I'm having so much fun. I have not dropped that much on a sub in many, many years. 

xpsync

Great post! i mentioned this in a few posts but felt like it just lands on deaf ears.

With the i hate wow and nothing will ever change my mind, and yeah sounds like someone i know lol, i mean everywhere i go there i am too haha

I didn't know what to make of the zone at first, but as i spent more time there, yeah classic 2.0, one of my favorite zones no doubt.

I keep mentioned it as i'm surprised af i guess but not doing much group anything, so much to do solo, but getting into the casual crowd so to speak i'm floored at the cooperation solo players exhibit, i mean helping the patrol as an example.

I don't know an easy way in to help the patrol, if you do let me know but, always hooking up with other players, and faction helping faction with no credit for one side happens a lot. That's just one example i must group up with at least a dozen or more strangers over the coarse of a night, it's f'ing fun af and as awesome.

The first time encountered the patrol, then realized how brutal the maw is, it started to dawn on me this is by design, i mean this is wow that can't be the way it is, that's like difficult af i mean blizz you can't be doing that to wow babies, can you? Sure af they are, NICE!!

The torghast nerf was a bit of a oh no moment don't cave to cry babies blizz, don't do it, yet i was one of the cry babies, sort of, my only grip was spending well over an hour soaking up every nook and cranny exploring smelling the roses, to only be one shot by the boss was i think a valid complaint. An across the board nerf, i dunno i haven't climbed that high yet, i really only have time in the week to do the two chambers. edit: 4 is my highest atm, and it's a when i have time like this week i'll try the next climb to 5, outside that have stuck to what i know i can do when time is a constraint.

phoenixfire2

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

I always play a game that's been gifted to me This expansion I subbed for a month at a time. I just dropped a 6 month sub because I'm having so much fun. I have not dropped that much on a sub in many, many years. 

Glad to hear it.  I don't hate WoW or anything just doesn't sound super exciting to me at the present.  I'm sure I'll sub for a month or 2 before this xpac is over.  When they add some juicy catch-up mechanics or something

Wizardry

The MAW idea was done years ago in FFXI.
However the idea of scaling is just lazy work,it doesn't matter if levels or debuffs to accomplish the same result.

Blizzard's take on this sounds to me really dumb and completely ruins the immersion of the world and it's inhabitants.
I am not surprised at all because over most all Blizzard games they enact stupid silliness,bad designs and ZERO clue how to create immersion in a world.
Blizzard also likes to cut corners on a lot of it's design ideas and of course just lazy work like the scaling idea they already implemented in WOW zones.

I am all for trying to keep ALL zones in a game relevant but scaling of any kind is NOT the answer,well not unless your just too lazy to do it any other way.

Trying to pull them up into the air to drop them,sounds as stupid as GW2/Anet adding a super Mario themed zone.it's like a bunch of teenage kids designing these ideas.

Nanfoodle

phoenixfire2 said:

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

I always play a game that's been gifted to me This expansion I subbed for a month at a time. I just dropped a 6 month sub because I'm having so much fun. I have not dropped that much on a sub in many, many years. 

Glad to hear it.  I don't hate WoW or anything just doesn't sound super exciting to me at the present.  I'm sure I'll sub for a month or 2 before this xpac is over.  When they add some juicy catch-up mechanics or something

Catch up mechanics are already in place. 

xpsync

The thing with the maw, and other SL zones as well but not as much as the maw is that you can't just rush in.

As in "oh i need to be over there at that guy or whatever" and in wow for the last decade'ish you'd just run over with no concern at all because you're so fucking broken after a couple quests it mattered not, here it matters, you do that and you die.

Like EQ2's golden years, you have to be strategic, take your time, plan your moves, wait if necessary, always being careful, be ready for anything, and why i love the maw.

Broken record time i find it hilarious that blizz is bringing back the challenge it stole from all mmorpgs, because easy bake oven, fisher price difficultly level isn't sustainable, so yeah they are now trying to be more EQ2 golden years, where EQ2 destroyed itself chasing wow pie. Had EQ2 stuck to its morals. it probably would be the most popular mmorpg today, because we all grow up and away from our fisher price toys, well most do.

Nanfoodle

xpsync said:

The thing with the maw, and other SL zones as well but not as much as the maw is that you can't just rush in.

As in "oh i need to be over there at that guy or whatever" and in wow for the last decade'ish you'd just run over with no concern at all because you're so fucking broken after a couple quests it mattered not, here it matters, you do that and you die.

Like EQ2's golden years, you have to be strategic, take your time, plan your moves, wait if necessary, always being careful, be ready for anything, and why i love the maw.

Broken record time i find it hilarious that blizz is bringing back the challenge it stole from all mmorpgs, because easy bake oven, fisher price difficultly level isn't sustainable, so yeah they are now trying to be more EQ2 golden years, where EQ2 destroyed itself chasing wow pie. Had EQ2 stuck to its morals. it probably would be the most popular mmorpg today, because we all grow up and away from our fisher price toys, well most do.

Ya, I can't count how many times in a play session my wife and I are yelling instructions at each other as we almost die. The run we did today, we had 4 or 5 moments where we almost died. I'm having a blast, my wife says she has not been this stressed playing an MMO since ESO battle grounds in RvR. 

phoenixfire2

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

I always play a game that's been gifted to me This expansion I subbed for a month at a time. I just dropped a 6 month sub because I'm having so much fun. I have not dropped that much on a sub in many, many years. 

Glad to hear it.  I don't hate WoW or anything just doesn't sound super exciting to me at the present.  I'm sure I'll sub for a month or 2 before this xpac is over.  When they add some juicy catch-up mechanics or something

Catch up mechanics are already in place. 

How's Torghast?  That was the feature I recall reading about like a year ago that sounded interesting

Iselin

phoenixfire2 said:

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

I always play a game that's been gifted to me This expansion I subbed for a month at a time. I just dropped a 6 month sub because I'm having so much fun. I have not dropped that much on a sub in many, many years. 

Glad to hear it.  I don't hate WoW or anything just doesn't sound super exciting to me at the present.  I'm sure I'll sub for a month or 2 before this xpac is over.  When they add some juicy catch-up mechanics or something

Catch up mechanics are already in place. 

How's Torghast?  That was the feature I recall reading about like a year ago that sounded interesting

Torghast is also great and will be better when it's balanced a bit more. It is never the same twice but there's just a little bit too much RNG on which temporary perks you find in a given run since some of those perks are trivial and others are game changing.

If you're lucky with the drops you'll breeze through it including the final boss for your run. If you're not it can be a struggle, especially that final boss fight.

Nanfoodle

phoenixfire2 said:

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

Nanfoodle said:

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

I always play a game that's been gifted to me This expansion I subbed for a month at a time. I just dropped a 6 month sub because I'm having so much fun. I have not dropped that much on a sub in many, many years. 

Glad to hear it.  I don't hate WoW or anything just doesn't sound super exciting to me at the present.  I'm sure I'll sub for a month or 2 before this xpac is over.  When they add some juicy catch-up mechanics or something

Catch up mechanics are already in place. 

How's Torghast?  That was the feature I recall reading about like a year ago that sounded interesting

It's required to craft your legendaries. I love a good Dungeon crawl so I am happy with it but I do wish it was a little more challenging. I know others would disagree as this would slow down the speed you can fly through the content. 

The power up are fun to play with but as stated above, if you get the right RNG it just becomes boring as it's way to easy. To the point you can just button mash and always win. 

They also did a great job of tying the main story into Torhast, so it never feels pointless. 

achesoma

Mobs are only slightly harder to kill and the agro radius is larger.  Mostly still more of the same quest hub, daily grind. Also loot is non existent. 

Torghast is cancer and everything I despise about modern mmos. Just mow through a hundred mobs and kill a few bosses with ease. It’s basically a third person Diablo. But without the loot and just a currency grind. 

xpsync

Nanfoodle said:

xpsync said:

The thing with the maw, and other SL zones as well but not as much as the maw is that you can't just rush in.

As in "oh i need to be over there at that guy or whatever" and in wow for the last decade'ish you'd just run over with no concern at all because you're so fucking broken after a couple quests it mattered not, here it matters, you do that and you die.

Like EQ2's golden years, you have to be strategic, take your time, plan your moves, wait if necessary, always being careful, be ready for anything, and why i love the maw.

Broken record time i find it hilarious that blizz is bringing back the challenge it stole from all mmorpgs, because easy bake oven, fisher price difficultly level isn't sustainable, so yeah they are now trying to be more EQ2 golden years, where EQ2 destroyed itself chasing wow pie. Had EQ2 stuck to its morals. it probably would be the most popular mmorpg today, because we all grow up and away from our fisher price toys, well most do.

Ya, I can't count how many times in a play session my wife and I are yelling instructions at each other as we almost die. The run we did today, we had 4 or 5 moments where we almost died. I'm having a blast, my wife says she has not been this stressed playing an MMO since ESO battle grounds in RvR. 

I'm still 170 and loving it. Content is still engaging, challenging, and i'm on my destruction warlock now, switched out from affliction, which is normally what i do thinking about it.

One difference now being at 170 is i can roll with my imp about 75% of time, where i like to roll with the imp 100% of the time and only pull the void when necessary. Starting out i had the void up 100% of the time.

Haha "stressed" very true, but i like to look at it like "that was intense af!!!" lol

Scot

phoenixfire2 said:

I had the xpac gifted to me, and still can't bring myself to subscribe.  Doh.

What happens when dad says "You winning in the Maw son?" That's gonna be a tricky one to get round.

Scorchien

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

No mounts ? I missed that memo.

I'm a Worgen

This said, I enjoy both The Maw and Torghast.

The Maw = as you said, old school gameplay, drop items on death, not to mention mobs hurt quite a bit more than in the outer world.

Torghast = finally challenging content for when you feel like soloing, with a very good rewards (legendary crafting !).

Games need that kind of content. Blizzard did it again.

Lets be clear..

 Its a Baby Step backward at best .

 Losing "some"   Stygia , an easily obtained currency  .. Is not losing ITEMS ...

  And there are the mounts from NPC which i think i grab 2-3 everytime im in there , stacked with shapeshifting etc .. Its no big deal getting around this small zone ..

 Torghast is repetitive and a bit Boring after 50 runs ..

  That being said , altho the journey thru the new expansion was Utter shit imo ..

 The end game Dungeons and systems has been fun .. Starting to get a bit bored with Carrot on a Stick again tho .. that Blizzard did again ..

Scot

We know though that Blizzard has taken no lessons from Classic to apply to the "modern game" have they not nearly said as much? In their minds each game appeals to different sorts of players and they intend to keep it that way to maximise the respective player bases.

Scot

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

Scot said:

We know though that Blizzard has taken no lessons from Classic to apply to the "modern game" have they not nearly said as much? In their minds each game appeals to different sorts of players and they intend to keep it that way to maximise the respective player bases.

I'm glad if they don't take too much from Classic...

All the people saying classic was better, modern is all about grinding dailies, dungeons and raids, seem to forget the TERRIBLE grind that was necessary to have the reagents for high end raiding in Classic (AQ40 and mostly NAXX).
I take diverse dailies to do in less than an hour anytime versus grinding the same plants and mobs for hours to craft potions of resistance.

The only things I'd like back from Classic is the old talent trees and skills (more from WotLK actually, they were perfect then) and the no flying mounts which I get at the beginning of each expansion.

Some of the old pre-cata world would be nice too, maybe it's time for Blizzard to "mend" the land a bit and remove some of the scars of cataclysm in the next expansion. I mean, those dwarves can rebuilt their dam, those tornadoes will end disapearing in westfall, etc...

How many of us on here say everything about old MMOs needs to be brought back? I have always favoured a hybrid, some things just have to be left in the past. The problem is that Blizzard has indicated if obliquely that the "modern game" will not be informed by classic at all. Classic was never made to try to see if any forms of old gameplay could be brought back, it was only made to give old players somewhere to go while the modern game forges on. Not being facetious, I am sure they are happy that players who they probably see as old farts are not playing and endlessly complaining about the modern game.

Nanfoodle

Scot said:

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

Scot said:

We know though that Blizzard has taken no lessons from Classic to apply to the "modern game" have they not nearly said as much? In their minds each game appeals to different sorts of players and they intend to keep it that way to maximise the respective player bases.

I'm glad if they don't take too much from Classic...

All the people saying classic was better, modern is all about grinding dailies, dungeons and raids, seem to forget the TERRIBLE grind that was necessary to have the reagents for high end raiding in Classic (AQ40 and mostly NAXX).
I take diverse dailies to do in less than an hour anytime versus grinding the same plants and mobs for hours to craft potions of resistance.

The only things I'd like back from Classic is the old talent trees and skills (more from WotLK actually, they were perfect then) and the no flying mounts which I get at the beginning of each expansion.

Some of the old pre-cata world would be nice too, maybe it's time for Blizzard to "mend" the land a bit and remove some of the scars of cataclysm in the next expansion. I mean, those dwarves can rebuilt their dam, those tornadoes will end disapearing in westfall, etc...

How many of us on here say everything about old MMOs needs to be brought back? I have always favoured a hybrid, some things just have to be left in the past. The problem is that Blizzard has indicated if obliquely that the "modern game" will not be informed by classic at all. Classic was never made to try to see if any forms of old gameplay could be brought back, it was only made to give old players somewhere to go while the modern game forges on. Not being facetious, I am sure they are happy that players who they probably see as old farts are not playing and endlessly complaining about the modern game.

I think some things from the past really need to come back. Like classes that shine at roles to the point it creates class's unbalance. But that also have huge flaws that make them rely on other classes to get jobs done. 

But seeing modern systems are really needed as no one wants stagnant games that don't look at new ways to entertain. It's why Pantheon and Ashes are the games I look forward to most. 

Scot

Nanfoodle said:

Scot said:

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

Scot said:

We know though that Blizzard has taken no lessons from Classic to apply to the "modern game" have they not nearly said as much? In their minds each game appeals to different sorts of players and they intend to keep it that way to maximise the respective player bases.

I'm glad if they don't take too much from Classic...

All the people saying classic was better, modern is all about grinding dailies, dungeons and raids, seem to forget the TERRIBLE grind that was necessary to have the reagents for high end raiding in Classic (AQ40 and mostly NAXX).
I take diverse dailies to do in less than an hour anytime versus grinding the same plants and mobs for hours to craft potions of resistance.

The only things I'd like back from Classic is the old talent trees and skills (more from WotLK actually, they were perfect then) and the no flying mounts which I get at the beginning of each expansion.

Some of the old pre-cata world would be nice too, maybe it's time for Blizzard to "mend" the land a bit and remove some of the scars of cataclysm in the next expansion. I mean, those dwarves can rebuilt their dam, those tornadoes will end disapearing in westfall, etc...

How many of us on here say everything about old MMOs needs to be brought back? I have always favoured a hybrid, some things just have to be left in the past. The problem is that Blizzard has indicated if obliquely that the "modern game" will not be informed by classic at all. Classic was never made to try to see if any forms of old gameplay could be brought back, it was only made to give old players somewhere to go while the modern game forges on. Not being facetious, I am sure they are happy that players who they probably see as old farts are not playing and endlessly complaining about the modern game.

I think some things from the past really need to come back. Like classes that shine at roles to the point it creates class's unbalance. But that also have huge flaws that make them rely on other classes to get jobs done. 

But seeing modern systems are really needed as no one wants stagnant games that don't look at new ways to entertain. It's why Pantheon and Ashes are the games I look forward to most. 

The sort of things I am talking about are corpse runs and a death penalty which meant you could end up losing a level.