Did Cataclysm improve WOW

[Nostalgia]

Most would agree that solo content, especially Azeroth, is amazing now. Quests are a lot more streamlined, varied, and have better story content than they did in the past.

Burnout is still common in end-game Cata though. Many players are still burnt out from raiding during Wrath. (completing 10 and 25 man lockouts weekly, one year of ICC content, ease of raiding so much so that pugs were common and gave accessibility to their alts, etc)
Heroic content and this tier of raiding especially has been one of the hardest in a long time too, having guilds that gone from completing Lich King to not even being able to clear this tier's normal modes and making things like actually adhering to boss mechanics necessary for 5-man content, especially in the first month (or anyone with entry 5-man gear really).

I don't play nearly as much as I used to, but I don't really see this as much as a flop. If anything, I'm grateful that I have time to do other things. Besides time dedicated to raiding, I probably put an additional three hours into the game a week doing things like dailies, archaeology, professions, or using the AH when I'm actually in the mood to do so, but otherwise, I go offline and do things that I simply wouldn't during Wrath because I was simply used to inputting a lot of hours already.

I'd say that solo content is definitely nicer and would be good enough to try out for a month if you were to subscribe again. Just because it's an MMO doesn't mean you need to sacrifice everything else to get the most out of it. I mean, this is WoW we're talking about here.
I do see way less pugs happening, so people must be keeping to their guilds, which potentially means less idiots or whatever. End-game has been met with mixed feelings so I can't really give you a 100% answer.

 

[NinjaTigerXIII]

In some ways, yes, in other ways, HELL NO!

Let me explain. Cata in some ways improved on the leveling system and made huge strides in the questing process. But when it comes to end game raiding, they shit the bed on that one. If your in a raiding guild then you've probably already beaten every raid, but if you're in a casual guild like I am you probably won't even see a raid because your Item level isn't "high enough". Thanks to guild rep, people who have hit honored or revered with their guild don't want to leave because they feel that they wasted a lot of their time getting it, so they won't join a hardcore guild just to see the content. So overall it has improved the experience a bit, but they still have a long way to go.

 

[Alrocsmash]

Long love arena seasons 2 - 4. Cata blows.

Signed, an arena master warrior

 

[ZeroMachine]

Vash'jir did.

Other then that, it wasn't all that fantastic. But seriously. Vash'jir was fucking amazing. Best time I ever had with the game.

 

[Aviyur]

No. Endgame now is a joke. Its reminiscent of a Korean grindfest mmo, except you're not grinding levels. You're grinding epix.

The currency gear system has to be the worst feature introduced ever.

The leveling experience however was fun.

 

[Sean951]

No. Endgame now is a joke. Its reminiscent of a Korean grindfest mmo, except you're not grinding levels. You're grinding epix.

The currency gear system has to be the worst feature introduced ever.

The leveling experience however was fun.

You clearly have no idea how little grind there is in WoW compared to any game before it and most Asian MMOs after.


I would say Cata was an improvement on what came before, however I am still suffering from major burnout after playing 12 hours a day over Winter Break. I did it for 2-3 weeks and then I just couldn't take it anymore and don't touch it much. My only complaint about the game is that heroics got much harder than they ever were in Wrath, and I always viewed heroics as that annoying speed bump between me and raiding. I really don't like the heroic bosses that are loaded down with 1 hit kill mechanics. As a tank, I have too many particle effects going on beneath me to always see the little icon that means I should move 10 feet to avoid being crushes or what have you. In a raid, those effects are a bit more spread out and the icons tend to be much larger.

 

[Random Argument Man]

You'll enjoy to level between 1-60. It will be a little boring with the BC content (other than you have flying right off the bat). WOTLK has loss some quests due to Cata( Imagine my sadness when they removed Battle of the Undercity).

 

[Aeshi]

The only people who can say nothing changed at this point are the dedicated WoW bashers who believe that everything it does is EVIL!

I do miss a few of the old Pre-Cata zones though (R.I.P Shimmering Flats)

 

[Mnemon]

IMO the answer is a complicated one and will depend on the type of player you are.

The new 1 to 60 is awesome (especially the undead starting area) and worth trying out. 80 to 85 was also a lot of fun, especially the Uldum Indiana Jones rip off quests.

61 to 80? Same old horribleness made worse by how good the redone and new content is. A lot of folks scream through 1 to 60 on alts and then hit a brick wall.

End game? Horrible. I thought the combat that first came out with the expansion pack was pretty good. It was decently balanced and felt a lot like old WoW. Not to say there weren't some imbalanced classes (DPS druids, mages come to mind) but combat needed a small screw driver to fix, not a sledge hammer.

And I was having a lot of fun in arenas - which is something I can't say has occurred since TBC.

Blizzard however decided to go all sledgehammer on combat, however, and screwed up the works (actually making mages some how better in the grand scheme of things, and greatly overpowering warriors).

IMO Blizz also screwed up the pre-raid heroic grind. Running those a ton was fine in WotLK when you could steam roll through them in 30 minutes. But you need about the same amount of badges this time around as you did in Wrath, only the heroics took between 1 and 2 hours to finish.

Maybe its a sign i'm getting older. or maybe i'm just tired of the WoW, fantasy, Diku MMO. but i'm done running the same place repeatedly so i can get some currency to buy gear so i can do some other raid repeatedly to get currency to buy gear so I can do some other raid repeatedly, etc.

 

[Raijha]

I had fun leveling two new chars to 60 (one alliance, one horde), enjoyed leveling one 80-85, and then it died. Now I only log on for raids, same as I was in Wrath and BC. Just cant force myself thru TBC and Wrath and Cata content after seeing the new shiny stuff.

So yea, other people have basically said it already, the changes are neat and fun, but end game is just business as usual (if maybe a bit harder then wrath was)

 

[Yojoo]

PvE is improved due to increased demands of DPS, resulting in a raid environment with much better balanced responsibility. A mage dying thirty seconds into a boss fight is often just as damning as a healer dropping.

PvP is a joke now, however. Arena rewards are passed out like candy, with no reward difference between scrubs and actual competitive PvPers until the competitive players break 2200 in 3v3 or 5v5. The new BGs are reskins of AB and WSG, only accomplishing an increase of frustration for anyone shooting for Battlemaster (me), there are no new arenas, and TB is a zerging, idiotic POS. Wintergrasp had its flaws at 80, but at least the concept of defending a fortified structure with turrets and gates versus an onslaught of tanks from all edges had a cool feel and multiple ways of achieving victory. Winning Tol Barad just takes luck in getting people to join who can zerg more effectively than the other team, it's a sad joke.

Edit: Oh, pre-cap content is improved significantly, I couldn't bring myself to level an alt until this xpac. And the guild leveling system brings a great sense of purpose and unity to the guild community. My guild hit the realm-first level 25 last night, and it was a great ride.

 

[Tilted_Logic]

Better than Wrath; still nothing compared to BC.

 

[jackknife402]

The only thing that can fix WoW now is if it returned to being a challenge....

 

[Innegativeion]

The only thing that can fix WoW now is if it returned to being a challenge....

So cataclysm, basically.

Yeah cat has drastically improved questing with more variety and overall fun. Much less grind in quests now. The new zones are also absolutely beautiful,

and endgame raids are some of the most challenging we've seen in years. So yes, I'd say cataclysm was definitely an improvement.

 

[jackknife402]

The only thing that can fix WoW now is if it returned to being a challenge....

So cataclysm, basically.

Yeah cat has drastically improved questing with more variety and overall fun. Much less grind in quests now. The new zones are also absolutely beautiful,

and endgame raids are some of the most challenging we've seen in years. So yes, I'd say cataclysm was definitely an improvement.

oh? okay, well I'm still not playing it again. I'm waiting for The Old Republic.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Have not played WoW in almost 2 full years. Prior to that, I played for almost 5 years. I don't miss it at all.

This.

What finally got me to quit was that I looked around and realized I wasn't having fun. I hated running instances over and over and over for gear, I had no interest in PvP, endgame was absolutely repulsive to me... I was just in a cycle of 1) make new character 2) hit max level 3) repeat. I even tried RP servers and it was the same thing, only with an abundance or rediculous Mary Sues running around cybering in public places.

I would basically log in on a non-healing, non-tanking character so as not to be bothered, ignore my guild so I didn't have to raid, and scurry off to go hunt for minipets because that was the only thing that gave me pleasure any more. I couldn't bear to keep giving Blizzard 15 bucks a month for that.

If WoW suddenly became F2P, though...? Yeah, I could probably go back.

WoW can't survive as F2P, it would be awful.

OT: Yea cata is ok, 1-60 is fun and the news areas are ok. Heroics are hard again and epics actually mean something so that's cool. I don't know much about raiding yet, but yea...probably the best expansion.

 

[dsawyers9]

I quit wow about 1 1/2 months ago. I will tell you that nothing has improved as in Game Play Experience. What blizzard did was take all the old content, slapped a new and improve look and marketed it. Further proof of this is the new 4.2 Heroic Dungeons and Raids, which are using old dungeons which blizzard claimed to say they would never touch, just to wipe them and re-use them.

PvP is controlled by 2-3 classes like always and like every season, one of them is the OP Warrior class. Only different from this expansion from any other expansion and original game: Fury Warrior>Arms Warriors. Blizzard increased Health Pools and for most part, at the start of WoW, people were able to handle the 15 second fight on average between every class. But with gear now advancing players, we have our 3 power houses: Warrior, Deathknight, Mage. Some may say Hunter has moved into position and dropped DK's from their spot, but I didn't see that when I left about 2 weeks after the most recent patch.

Overall, Blizzard made a game that went with lore. I loved the game for the Lore. Cata has nothing to do with Lore because the RTS games ended with the LK and to be truthful, it should have ended there and had an end patch for 3.9 to introduce the Maelstrom incident.

Would I suggest you to go back? No. You quit because you were bored. Stop going back to a game that has already lost you. You don't go back to your wife you divorced or the GF you broke up with do you? There are reasons beyond anything else in the life of gaming: Go Play New Games. Look, there are so many games out there and I know you haven't played 5% of them. Go enjoy something new or an old game.

WoW needs to die and from the claims of the Forums, it is getting its just deserve. The Devs ignored their players too much and they did the same slow fixing and when they did fix it, it wasn't fixed, in fact they caused even more issues. Look forward to the other SC2 expansions and Diablo III because Blizzard's MMO (IMO) is finally dying and I'm happy for this. I want this game to end before I decided WoW was the largest mistake in my life. Aka, worst choice of money use ever.