Nothing takes the fun out of something more than realizing you can't lose.

Nothing like standing still for 3 minutes to move forward :/

I hate PvP, but I loved Wintergrasp back in WotLK. Why couldn't Warfronts be like that? That felt more like a war than anything in BfA.

Couldn't agree more, still have no idea what is the actual point. I don't feel like I'm achieving anything or receiving any form of fun by doing it. Extremely repetitive and feels identical each time. I've lost all interest already.

I'm not gonna lie, I literally fall asleep during warfronts. So.painfully.boring.

Seems like they tried to copy GW2 meta events with only 10% of the thought or effort.

If the catapults and ballista's weren't a thing, my friends and I would have cleared the warfront within 5 minutes and had a good time. When we saw how much damage the ballista's were doing, we all assumed there had to be a way to skip it, but no. It's just the worst.

LOL 14 years of WSG and people still sit in the middle chilling... yup, never changes.

Warfront is basically LFR scenario. It's main point is the story, large battle between alliance and horde, and you're there just to see it happen, it's just like interactive movie. I heard Heroic Warfront will be a thing when Season 2 is here. I'll look forward for it. Because i can see how Warfront can be spiced up. Still don't understand why they didn't make PvP Battleground version of this though. If you read the mission table, you'll actually notice there's a lot of Skirmish between Horde and Alliance all around Azeroth. Most of the forces (where actual war is happening) are in Arathi Highland, and now in Darkshore. We at first came to Zandalar/Kul Tiran to recruit them to fight the war, but Horde/Alliance doesn't want the other faction to recruit them, so they tried to stop them, what seems to be a small skirmish escalate. We're now at Incursion level, soon it'll be large scale in Dazar'Alor. I think Kul'tiran at this point already part of the Alliance, while Zandalar still not part of Horde, but they allied with Horde. After Battle for Dazar'Alor, Zandalar lose their king and join Horde for real. The Alliance want to destroy Zandalar before they actually fully join the horde, but they failed and make the entire Zandalar actually hate Alliance for killing their King, and make Zandalar became full member of the Horde. Going back to Warfront in game. Scenario, Warfront is just a scenario. An incomplete scenario... some mechanic is obviously scrapped :/ Also, i don't get why you're confused with how you need to collect resources to finish Warfront. Yeah i get the building thing isn't great and boring. But why are you confused with how you need people to collect resources to finish Warfront? On RTS, you can spam some troops and just send them to your enemy, and you can win, and that's your approach to Warfront. Why complain when a literal wall slows you down WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A SIEGE TROOPS/WEAPON? HELLO? I think to improve this they should just let us build demolisher building from the start, honestly. i enjoy collecting resources in warfront, the perk of being a druid is that you can collect resources while in travel form! (god damn i love being a druid). If you see people already killing mob, collect resources. If you see people already collecting resources, kill mob. I just can't wait for Heroic Warfront so i can queue with my guild so i don't god damn play with these LFR mongoloid. HELL WHY WE CAN"T EVEN QUEUE LFR WARFRONT AS A RAID? REEEEEEEEEEEEE

I'm sorry, Preach, I strongly disagree that Darkshore is better than Arathi. For one thing, Arathi actually had territory for both factions. While mechanically, it was mirrored for both factions, thematically it made much more sense where both sides started from. Darkshore, on the other hand, is one of the laziest pieces of content I have seen in a long time. Both sides start in the exact same spot, capture the locations from the exact same side of the map and even seem to have special abilities on Essence units duplicated (although I haven't been able to check closely yet to see exactly how much is mirrored). It would have been much better if the introductory quests explained how the Alliance came back and grabbed a foothold they would start from, like Stromgarde Keep in Arathi. (Hell, Arathi didn't even have ANY explanation how Ar'gorok got built and we just accepted that, so it's not like this was a steep mountain of creative development to climb.) That's not even mentioning how much more streamlined Darkshore is; it's like they really wanted to eliminate any confusion whatsoever of what was going on, and at the same time, basically made ONE real strategy. The first time I did that warfront, there was ZERO downtime. The whole raid just pushed up the middle, capped the two side bases, and took the depot within 10 minutes of the scenario starting. The only wait we had was the extremely long and boring 'double siege' at the end (during which I literally found myself dozing off at my keyboard). Far from my last complaint about Darkshore is the labeling of buyable 'follower' units by role. The ones listed as TANK do absolutely nothing to grab aggro and protect you from enemies, which as you know is the entire point of a tank! One has to wonder what they were even thinking with this design. (Edited additions:) Those two Ancient Protectors are bugged AF. Their AoE stun gets to stun you both at the beginning of the cast and at the end of it. There is no way to avoid the mechanic - I've tried literally dozens of times and paid very close attention to it. With the bugged, repeating voice lines at the end, the issues with these trees, and all the other things I've pointed out here - plus the ones I haven't - there is absolutely nothing to suggest to me that Darkshore is any kind of improvement over Arathi.

It feels like a half realized idea. Both Warfronts as well as Islands sound good on paper but boy somewhere in the execution process they completely lost the design objectives.

They exist for free gear... sometimes there isn't a grand plan beyond the most obvious of reasons. For a lions share of people 340 gear is beyond what they would obtain otherwise without lfr.

To answer Mike's last question: they replaced the (bi-)weekly table quests for raids in BFA. They also serve the purpose of getting you PvP transmog items, which allowed Blizzard to split development time on PvP sets and Raid sets (hence no class sets). Game design wise, they're designed to have the time gate to even out the time it takes between good and bad players to complete the Warfront, because they're fundamentally a periodic log-in and complete content like the raid quests were, something designed to pull you into the game through shot-term interests.

Run around, spam your aoe, wait a few minutes, then hit a giant training-dummy that has a lot of health. Not to be hard or make it an epic fight, just to draw out everything. I feel like Warfronts are just hyped content to kill time, so they can say "Our average player likes wow so much, he plays 10hrs a week."I bet thats the reason they are all like "Yeah, we are satisfied with warfonts."

Warfronts are basically just extra world bosses at this point. They have a bit more time investment and a resource sink attached, but Each one functions to give a couple more opportunities for gear upgrades every couple of weeks or so. As for what they ACTUALLY are, though - I think the ones we have are prototypes for what they want Warfronts to EVENTUALLY be, so they're there for developers to study -- to see what parts of the "player-in-the-RTS" idea are fun and what aren't, and figuring out ways to adjust them so they fit what players will enjoy. You can already see that in the resource gathering, which is more slimmed down and attached to the combat in Darkshore vs. Arathi. I imagine the next warfront will see adjustments to make the buildings more optional, since you see a lot of folks ignoring some of them already in favor of a main push to get the job done. They are designed to win, right now, because figuring out how to balance a big dynamic warfront is an issue in itself - imagine if they weren't balanced to win, and you HAD to chop trees or mine iron for ten minutes, or you'd lose.

The only reason why I spammed the Darkshore Warfront on my Night Elf Mage was to get the cloth set for transmog. Once I had it all, I've never gone back to it. Warfronts are a system that only works in a warcraft 3 setting, where establishing base camps was the key to win. In an MMO, they are not working because nobody is winning anything because it always flip-flops between who controls Arathi/Darkshore. Coupled with the fact that they are so boring and it's little wonder why people afk. Building a base in this setting is not fun.

It's very simple: Warfronts are a feature to gear up for Mythic dungeons and raids. E-sport. "Merchandizing. That's where the real money are!"- Spaceballs

Even if Warfronts where made to be challenging, there is a fundamental flaw in how they work. It's supposed to be a MOBA/RTS type experience, but it has none of the aspects of those genres that make those genres fun. When I play Starcraft and Warcraft, I get the most enjoyment from the freedom to make decisions, and to see what strategies and playstyles work against different opponents and obstacles. Decisions like.. what am I going to build first? How many? What structure do I want to rush? Am I going to play agressively and attack right away? Or am I going to build an impenetrable defense and aim for the long game. What resources do I focus on? Should I risk it for the biscuit and build an outpost far over there for more resources? I can't see what they're doing over there, should I send a scout? What troops do I want to focus on making, here? Now I know that World of Warcraft is limited in what it can do. There is just no possible way they can emulate an experience like Starcraft within WoW. But still, Warfronts are so far from anything that can be considered interesting that I can't help but wonder if these are the same developers who made the Warcraft and Starcraft franchise. There is absolutely no decision making in Warfronts, and the illusion of decision they give you is so insignificant it doesn't matter what you do. The resources are mundane and uninteresting. The structures are few, and gated behind eachother so that you can't actually choose what you want to build. And it doesn't matter what you put your resources to because you'll get all of the structures anyway. The game could have one turn-in zone for all the buildings and it wouldn't makr a difference. Its an illusion of choice. And assaulting places on the roads are so underwhelming. You can capture a point but there is no sense of risk of reward for having done so. You can purchase a vehicle or summon some large patrol, but their effects on the game are negligible at best. I'm rambling now. Point being, I hate how Blizzard holds your hand in Wafronts and gives you the illusion of choice, when ultimately nothing you do matters.

As someone who has returned to the game after not playing since Cataclysm, I find it odd that so many people are unhappy with a game that seems lightyears better than the game I left. My perspective on "What are warfronts for?" 1. Warfronts provide weekly gated gear similar to the way Wintergrasp did. Sure you could run Wintergrasp multiple times a day, but you could only do VoA once per week, and you may or may not get the piece you need from it. Wintergrasp was also designed for the attacking team to win, and they even added buffs to that team to guarantee that they would eventually be successful in order to give each faction a shot at the raid on a regular basis. 2. Warfronts provide a way to tell a Horde vs Alliance battle story in a way that battlegrounds don't. 3. Warfronts provide content that every max level player can participate in regardless of gear. I can go in on my raiding gear equipped main and be a one man healing machine at the front of the battle, or I can go in on my fresh 120 and cut down trees. 4. Warfronts provide a story opportunity to remake little used old world zones into max level zones with the world quests and world bosses that available between warfront cycles. Is this the best iteration of this type of content? Probably not, but I think it's better than or Tol Barad and I am interested on what the next version will look like in the next expansion.

The aim for the glaives is for multiple people on bats to stack the 10% damage taken debuff. Makes them die quick, it's just that everyone's semi afk which draws it out. I can't blame them, if they focused on the warfront rather than their second screen they'd probably fall asleep.

They have more purpose now than they did at release. We finally got a vendor in game where we can use a currency to purchase stuff that we can grind. But the wqs that drop the currency are locked behind warfronts. I thought warfronts were going to be like Wintergrasp which would have been a lot better.

TODO lists seem to be a growing thing in games. Devs forgetting EVERYONE HATES TODO LISTS. They're a real life thing, not a thing you want in a video game >.< You want gameplay where you get rewards while you're doing the gameplay you want to do >.

Hey Mike, a minor point but I can't agree with you on the amount of work Warfronts likely required. You mentioned some of the asset changes - updating the zone visually, adapting to the new gameplay, adding new content like the buildings etc. That's a pretty significant amount of work but that's mostly just for the art/design teams. In addition to that: Design will have had to figure out how all of this works - everything from a high level summary down to the very last detail. That's a significant investment of time. Code will have to make all of this actually work, and there's a lot of stuff in there that doesn't look or work like anything else in the game. So who knows what hoops they had to jump through. Audio will have to add sound effects for anything in there that might conceivably make a noise. The VO team will have to get voice actors in to record all the new lines - for multiple different languages. Character art will have to create all the new models and they'll have to be animated, have audio, AI etc. Analytics will have to figure out what they want to get from it and put their hooks in. Lore wants to know how this all fits in with the story, add all the lines and get them all localised. Production have to tie all of this madness together and somehow produce a workable plan for getting it all done. I'm sure I've forgotten a few things but basically my point is that Warfronts would almost certainly have been a huge endeavour from multiple teams.

BFA is like demo warlock - massive ramp up

I think one way they could somewhat fix this is by making the enemies actually somewhat dangerous. Enemies that would actually come at you to wipe you out. And at the end (or on a timer) they could have a boss/big wave of strong enemies come out that would be hard *but not impossible* (let's say some kind of raid boss with a few oneshot mechanics since you can't heavily rely on gear) to defeat if you didn't make any at all or even the right basebuilding choices. That way you could completely fuck up and be unprepared but still win through skill in defeating the big bad, you could be moderately prepared and defeat it pretty handily (having something that prevents being oneshot or having tanks that do 5 players' worth of damage), or you could have been on point with the basebuilding and upgrades and blow the boss up finishing the warfront significantly quicker.

they're good for the first time you know like a nice new scenario to play but after that you're just doing them for the 370/385 Items aka afking in the base

The purpose is becoming a part of the invasion cinematics that we usually just watch. I suspect the idea came from the Wrathgate questline to become part of the ongoing story etc.

Preach, you actually spent more time making this video than me playing warfronts in bfa. It's just a mop story scenario on steroids.

Not complicated boys, it's not intended for top end raiders or pvp players or those who are well geared ( 380 and up). Need it spelled out? " Warfronts are for semi geared casuals and fresh 120s to get a chance for decent gear to help them catch up and get into harder content sooner". I do them because like many of us I work irl and do not have the hours I had 12 years ago to grind gear. In that respect it does it marvelously. It's not complicated, not intended to be. Sometimes in life between your full time job and your part time job the only chance you have to eat is the Burger King drive thru, and sometimes you can take your wife out to Gene and Giorgetti's for steak. One is not the other, and both are good for what they are good for. Thank you Blizz, this proud casual thanks you for this warfront, which allowed me to get my 375 weapon so I could get into raids, mission well done.

wait WSG is about capturing a flag and not holding middle ?

Couldn't agree more. As an iLvl 355 (I don't play Mythic because lack of guild/people to play with/simply can't be arsed), my only reason to ever play Warfronts now are the initial 385/370 pieces, and besides this I only kill the worldboss and the rares for mounts (that never drop for me anyway but hey...) on reset. And anytime I play a warfront I ask myself why am rushing in and pushing in order to get it done faster, in the hopes to catch the lucky random healer who recognises my efford and keeps me alive (I'm a Fury Warrior ^^), while I could just do it like so many others (hide afk in the mines and wait)... It's pointless and boring, but I appreciate having a catchup mechanic for my alts. I still enjoy BfA.. somehow.. even if the worldquest reputation grind is really getting to me and I sometimes "force myself" to play, but what really bothers me is the lack of "war" in the entire expansion. It all reminds me in a factions race for Pandaria back in the days of MoP, which seemed rather pointless, and BfA is essentialy the same thing. There is no "war" of the factions, there is only some "random strangers f*cking around in foreign lands", and that's it. So yeah, I still enjoy it, but it all is really really pointless.

It's for Support Class players. The WoW players who like crafting, or buffing in raids. This is a gearing path for them. It's the "I don't want to be a charging hero bringing down the giant boss. I just want to collect wood or help dps the patrol." This is progression for THEM, bypassing the horrors of LFR. And yes, there are MANY players that "just want to chop down trees." There is a HUGE player base that just want to play WoW to craft gear for others, or buff other players. That's your blind spot.

“Tending to the farm in goldshire” no Mike, she’s tending to something else entirely

I think warfronts were built with a conceptual goal and not a gameplay goal. They wanted to create a bridge to the RTS roots of the game to feed nostalgia. Whether this was intended to raise excitement for the warcraft 3 reissue or just as a pure nostalgia project is unknown. Either way, warfronts are detached from the concept of an mmo and end up as just a novelty at best or a method to farm alt gear at worst. Without the reward structure, I doubt most players would participate in the first place. Blizzard needs to aim to make content players will participate in without chasing carrots and then itemize them after the fact to help up progress towards other content.

It is a 20 minute cinematic that rewards loot. These sort of on rails walkthroughs CAN feel special, but not if you do them more than once or go in realizing there is no threat or challenge.

They really sold it and made it sound awesome, and I think maybe, just maybe the heroic warfront that is coming might be semi decent, since they claim it has more of a challenge..but I CBA to even run them on my alts to get the cache and catch up gear anymore.

most underwhelming and waste of potential content that blizzard has ever added. I think that's the best way to put it, just a huge waste of potential. When you think of a warfront that happens in darkshore... what do you think of? For me, I think of a big battle that both factions can take part of and happens in the WORLD. With npcs and real players both facing off and having a large possibility of losing. Along with affecting the REAL WORLD and having consequences if you end up losing and bonuses if you win. Each faction can hold different REAL towns and you actually to have to be coordinated if you want to take back the zone for your faction. Instead we got an instanced, face-roll of a caverns of time dungeon except with 20 people THAT YOU CANT LOSE. Nothing about them is fun and it ENCOURAGES you to just sit around and wait for the NPC's or one person to win the game for you so you can get your free lootz then leave and do it again. Garbage system and terrible waste of potential.

Fully agree, "bizarre" is the perfect word to describe warfronts. They don't make ANY sense. They're not fun, they're a shit catchup. Wait, no, I had fun once, when I was "chosen" and could control the big shooty robot.

Warfronts are like a really special and flavory worldquest. I remember people on legion complaining about the broken shore feeling dumb with just world quests, there was no territory being won or lost. I remember people suggesting systems really similar to warfronts, and most of the suggestions even mentioned "it doesn't need to be hard, it just need to add flavour to the content". The only point is to give the "factions at war" impression to the players. If warfronts weren't a thing the expansion could hardly be described as faction conflict. But I agree heavily on the cut content hypothesis.

I had the sinking revelation when i got to thinking about 8.0 and 8.1 and their lack of end game content and I realized, patroling the warfront zones was meant to be the suramar or broken shore of BFA

When 10 year old Wintergrasp felt more like war than warfronts

You hit the nail on the head. I try to enjoy warfronts, I really do. I collect the resources every time. I upgrade the stuff, buy the buffs at the circle, tell people in the chat if a specific upgrade is close so maybe someone will run back and get it(without trying to be bossy, of course. I also want people to enjoy them with me) but we hit the end and there's a wait and it feels pointless.Its a long run up to a raid boss, and thats it. A raid boss from 3 expansions ago is what you get from these, and I always manage to get high end bracers as my weekly reward.

It feels like another addition to the game that, once perfected, would be a huge stepping stone to porting WoW to a single-player console-esque experience.

1) they do give 370/385 items to people that couldnt get them otherwise. Mostly awesome for alts. Chaining them allows a fresh 120 to get to 340 in one evening, allowing them to jump into current content. At this stage in the game you almost need to be 350 to get into mythics or LFR. 2) They should have a difficulty level requiring to have done the lower ones before and a report afk feature. 3) New features takes some time to fiddle and get right. Hopefully they do because i like the concept. Just would like a bit more resistance.

It's a simple time sink for gear. It fits in the standard dungeon run bracket. It works great for the casual player just like islands do for azerite gain. Its a way to progress in the LF playstyle. You don't have to try to put a dungeon team together or join a raid since ilvl above 320 really only effects mythic level content.

I think the purpose of warfronts is to slowly revamp the old world without seeming to lose a lot of development time. You might remember that cataclysm took forever to release, and didn't have as much content as the expansions that surrounded it, and that was largely because the old world revamp took so much development time. Warfronts exist to let blizzard update the old world in a slower way, while having at least some kind of "content" attached.

Hey Preach. Been watching your channel for a long time. Warfronts are just Blizzard's way of trying to refresh the old zones in a way that does not make the old content obsolete. They learned from Cata that this would have been a mistake. Warfronts provide a method of updating the old zones in a way that scale to higher levels, without removing the old content completely. I'd say Warfronts are for sure a welcome way of revitalizing old zones. Bringing the world to life again. The main star of this story is Azeroth.

As far as the in world strategic importance of Stromgard and Darkshore, Stromgard is an established fortress in the borderlands between the Eastern Kingdoms Horde and the main forceof the Alliance. The Horxe took Darkshore to establish complete control of Kalimdor, so ths Horde can't let the night elves take back what the Horde claimed. Although with the fall of Undercity, theres less of an importance to defend the Arathi Highlands as much, unless Stromgard would become the new major Horde stronghold in Eastern Kingdoms.

The fact the older warfronts will be phased out as new ones come around combined with the fact they aren't replayable AT ALL, will mean these things are endangered already.

I may be wrong, but I feel like warfronts were an idea that a quest designer had that blew out of control. Someone was like "wouldn't this be really cool for an epic questline?" and then other people agreed, but someone at the top said "It would take far too long to develop for a one off quest" and so they set to making it a 'system' instead so they could implement it. But since it was just supposed to be a one off quest originally they didn't really have a good plan for reward structure or why its supposed to be relevant long term.

I haven't finished the whole video so you might even mention this, but the only thing I see Warfronts as is a catchup mechanic. It's a passive way to give people high level gear, so they don't feel too far behind even if they're not playing the game much.

For alliance the wood and iron is auto generated, nothing needed to be cut down. Extra iron was gained by killing the mobs on way to base.

Many people have MISSED this!!! There are seeds on the ground by the fel ballistas for horde. they deal a huge amount of ticking dmg to the enemy glaive throwers. they have insane range!

I would like to point out that we're on Kul'tiras and Zandalar to recruit a navy for the war. The war on the home continent IS the Warfronts. If you look at it, Arathi is the front line between the northern Forsaken controlled, and the southern Human and Dwarven controlled, Eastern Kingdoms. Darkshore is going to be the front line between the remaining Alliance territory (Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles) and the rest of Kalimdor. Controlled by the majority of the Horde. The battle isn't going to happen in Orgrimmar or Stormwind obviously because those cities are behind front lines, so you can't get a major army in that close.

It feels like Scenarios in MoP to which everyone reacted with: "Eh, it's fine I guess" and then never did them again. I hope Warfronts will be revitalized with HC mode like it did for Scenarios (along with the heavily increased rewards).

The Darkshore Warfront has to be the most boring gameplay I've ever experienced in my entire time playing WoW. Just stand around passively earning resources to randomly spend on random buildings. It's not like you have to actually think about what you're dumping stuff into either, because you can't finish it without having everything anyway. The entire gameplay of both Darkshore and Arathi is literally - Zerg rush/nuke NPCs with no mechanics, spend resources, repeat. At least Arathi was nice to look at and feels a little bit more like a war with siege engines going off. Darkshore just felt like I was killing quest NPCs and then waiting for 'stuff' to happen so I could kill another quest boss. If it wasn't for the free heroic loot nobody would be doing them outside of alts, and that's only because doing it on an alt is an extremely easy (although boring) way of farming gear.

It's a monthly event to capture territory to get free loot, access to more world quests, and a world boss. That's literally the whole point. I agree that they should be more engaging.

Last week I finally realized that I can spam warfronts to get fully geared on my alts. I didn't notice before because they're so dull. I make it my mission to go after the necessary materials because anything else makes it so that I don't have a goal and hate the whole thing.

I can see that the devs initially wanted to design something which could compete with raiding as a primary focus of some players.

It's very easy actually, it's LFR for PvP bgs. It's the answer for "how do we give relevant content for people who only do LFR and to make sense on a Faction War expansion". And also it's on places like Arathi and Darkshore, and not only on the new continent purely for lore reasons. Does anyone notice how the once per uptime quest for winning a warfront gives you an Elite PvP piece of gear (visually)

Weren't they going to add heroic warfronts and PvP warfronts? I know I read about it on wowhead. I do think that this will make it better. Keep in mind, the reactive NPCs are still new. So a large scale version of islands is probably gonna take a bit of time.

"It's your land we're screwing up..." US style, baby!

The only group I imagine would enjoy this are roleplayers. Warfronts give you the illusion of something without actually having the risk of failing.

Instead of doing my warfront I watched this video. worth it.

I know this probably won't count for much Preach, but honestly I like the novelty of being in a battle. I've always liked those moments of WoW where it felt like you were in a large-scale battle, even though it wasn't particularly difficult. The first few quests in the WoD intro scenario, the Warrior quest that leads to the Class Hall, the Broken Shore scenario, ect. These things aren't hard, but they're a cool environment to be in. And at least for me, I like that they're not particularly difficult because that feeling quickly drains away if AFK'ers and brainless players actually have the possibility (which translates to certainty) to ruin it. So the appeal at least for me lies in "Cool, I'm in a big battle. This is neat. And also I get race-specific transmog, which I like." I'd probably not like Warfronts that much if they were more difficult because I just don't care for very hard content outside of raiding. I want raiding to be hard, and everything else to be Medium to Easy because I can't trust other players not to ruin it. That having been said, Warfronts are something that desperately need a Heroic Mode for organized groups. I don't get why difficulty settings are not standards for most of WoW's content. It's raids, dungeons, and occasionally something else like Scenarios and Island Expeditions, but almost everything else has this "One difficulty fits all" mentality.

With the resource game within the warfronts if the collected wood was transported to the main base and the transport themselves were assaulted by the “Guerilla” units you would need someone protecting them. Incentive to fight less boring than clicking things.

you know what was really frustrating? I was in a group that pushed to maiev before finishing buildings and with 0 plague engines, and she didnt activate. even after going back to finish the buildings, nothing. the warfront broke completely and 20 people had to go do it again.

You want to make war fronts mean something what they should have done is , when your faction owns that warfront it should have a continent-wide buff for any character under level 110 that gives them a slight experience buff while leveling in that area so for example if Alliance owns darkshore all of calendar becomes an XP buff

I see the warfronts as a literal “front” or sly way for catchup mechanics for those casual players to get 340 or slightly higher gear to get up to pace quickly for gearing. I pretty much got my alts geared to 340 pretty fast with the gear drops playing for a few hours each when we have it.

The most important part you forgot to mention was that in addition to only 1-2 people being able to ensure victory, they don't do it much slower than if all 20 people are helping due to the designed time pacing in the match. 5 people doing what they are supposed to can win a warfront in the minimal amount of time, basically. This leads people to feel like they arent really needed anyway, and they aren't, but if you stand still for more than 10 seconds you get vote kicked for leeching. I'm hoping Heroic Warfronts are the content we're hoping for.

The opening is golden 10/10.

Big problem is we have the LFR difficulty, it's just there to give everyone a taste and guarantee a win. If it were something that required coordination, attack and defend, escorting resources, etc then I think it would be a potentially engaging slice of content. The only thing they really do now is feed alts gear and push the "Azeroth at war" theme.

Blizz should have looked at "Natural selection 2" as an inspiration. One player could be Commander and research upgrades, build buildings, drop supply crates and mark waypoints from a top-down perspective. The Players can still ignore them but usually it works quite well with a commander who knows what they're doing. Its quite a good blend of Individual responsibility with RTS elements.

The theme is all some folks care about and I'm enjoying warfronts in that respect. It's a different flavour of quest basically. Or a holiday event - can't lose those, just something different to knock off once in a while on the alts. Plus I kinda like being that one guy who knows what the deal is and saves the day. So warfronts don't bother me. BUT I do wish they felt more like an actual game with more interactivity. Hopefully that's something Blizz is looking to bring in the heroic versions.

Well one thing to add for Darkshore. Lumber collects itself too. I think the Warfronts are just content they wanted to keep to create some sort of war feeling? Didn't work for me but without the world would look even worse, there just isn't war anywhere. I assume the problem isn't just that they try to cater to casuals or they want it to keep simple but just that the Engine has it's limitations and the development time is just to short. There is so much content that got cut over the years I sometimes have the feeling it isn't just because of the usual cuts of boring ideas but that they have so strict development time that it isn't manageable. Then we add poor communication between different apartments and team members moving between teams. Then the promise they would deliver their content faster. And the feeling you have to play it safe so that players aren't offended or overwhelmed can create a stiff environment. Not that it helps... I think there are so many things that manifested itself in their development and then the influence from the top that they probably aren't able to change alot without delaying an addon for one or two years. Maybe it would be better if one addon lasts three years, get's several big new features for the time and a more structured content cycle in some parts to keep development times in that area small and have more ressources for other things. Maybe with more time they could realize ideas that would require some redesign of the engine. Maybe a department that is constantly creating design prototypes for fun small side content would be awesome, small minigames where they can go crazy and aren't limited to their lore and implement crossgame rewards. And tbh I don't even know the target audience that they are trying to cater to. It's all over the board and nothing is really thought out. There are so many simple and basic features missing that would keep the subs for more hardcore or more casuals gamers active that is mindbogling to me. They have a plan but at the same time they don't. They are living in their own little world and are thinking they have figured it out. The game itself and the development team is in dire need of a restructure. I just don't think they get the time and money from the fans (without massive backlash) and higher ups.

To be fair the whole point is that zandalar and kul'tiras are placed in between the horde and alliance. They are the closest to the bulk of the two factions forces and therefore easier targets

If I was told to make something that player's can't lose, but was still engaging, I'm pretty sure I'd spiral into an existential crisis when I realized the vast overwhelming ineptitude of the average player. I'd probably become an alcoholic.

the bats you ride also provide a stacking debuff that increases dmg taken by the enemy, thats why you use them

Its purpose is the fact that its another timegated way of receiving gear. You have to realize that the game is now simply about ways of getting gear and how to enjoy your time in the game with said gear. Literally all the warfronts are is: You wait for it to be ready, You queue it, You get gear to help in raids / m+.

The whole fucking up somebody else's land makes perfect sense. Exactly what happened during the cold war.

Wait. The Darkshore warfront is the same for both factions..?

Imagine a mode (pve and/or pvp) where you don't control your character, but instead are given control of a peon/peasant, tasked to do some mining or woodcutting, whatever. This rewards your team with resources, with an AI/player commander/vote choosing to create buildings and unlocking upgrades. Players will get their own resources as well, allowing them to "buy a promotion" in the created buildings, upgrade their promoted unit, or maybe even buy a vehicle to use. This would start off cheap, with a SW/Ogr. guard, hunter and apprentice, etc With more expensive options like knights, medics/priests, shamans, etc so on and so forth, maybe at some point ridiculously priced heroes They can then go on fighting the enemy, slowly trying to gain control of the middle ground (several control points) before being able to assault their main base. (also gaining resources for fighting, but not as much) If they die, they lose their unit, but keep the currency, if they did good, then they can buy another promotion right away and return to the fight. Although they may have to return to gathering if they are reckless and die in no time. When you reach the enemy base you will face defenses built by the enemy, maybe they built towers, maybe they built walls between the towers, or maybe just the wall. It could be wood, could be stone, could be a magic barrier, maybe racial variations with different benefits. NPC garrison depends on how much you invested in barracks, archery range, stable, mage tower, cathedral etc Ideally enough variation in ways that the base can be built that it feels different most of the time, so that there is no cookie cutter best way to win. (A variety of maps would help as well, with maybe buffs/debuffs in different biomes significant enough to change strategies) And in the end, when your faction wins, you gain: nothing (maybe some gold and cosmetics for in the mode) A mode that is purely made to be fun, and can be repeated without being boring. And without requiring incentives to do. Both PVE and PVP sound like fun, with pvp still having some NPCs to fill out the world a bit. And ofc remembering that you are not a super hero, you are about as powerful as any NPC of equal quality/rank. and maybe use instanced versions of existing zones to make it feel more like you are fighting over each other's territory, as if there was an actual war going on. And you join by seeing a big sign that says x zone is under attack, you travel there and enter the instance there. I'll stop here, i could go on, but i think you see where i'm going ;)

Here's an idea: make warfront pvp. The attacking side always win and gets greater rewards the faster they achieve victory. Same goes for the defenders; the more they stall for time the greater their rewards.

@Preach ... Idea for war fronts, looking to get your thoughts. Once you zone in, you get scaled to 340 item level for Arathi. Each point of upgrades doesn't just upgrade your troops. It upgrades your character as well. Like the weapon upgrades and armor upgrades. That way you progress in power based on your team's progression and adds a bit of difficulty at the start until everything is set up as you progress the team for the final push. Would feel more involved I suppose.

No "HOLLA BALLERS" at the begining... *sobs*

What i'd love to see the percentage of the resources gained for the whole warfront group are actively compared to the amount gained passively in the box.

They literally should have made the warfronts PVP based and have them come up far more frequently so that it would be more like Wintergrasp, which hands down was the most fun siege gameplay they have made. Its almost as if being able to directly control the siege and attack the fort from unique directions is way more fun than spawning 3 catapults and chilling while they shoot two massive towers, then shoot a wall for an hour. Or hey use two ballista on the shore to shoot and ballistas on a boat while some bats bomb the boats too then zerg a boss on a platform that we could have literally just gone to without killing the boat ballista. They are a let down, there is nothing to gain from capturing them since its just a comp stomp. Wintergrasp gave a buff to the winners and access to a mini zerg raid, frankly the world bosses in the war zone areas should have been an instanced raid for the victors to access. Stromgarde's world boss could have been an instanced boss where you get a sweet ass cutscene where the alliance or the horde unleash their tank in a desperate attempt to take the place back and you are being sent specifically to stop it in a pug raid ala the Archavon Vault in WG. Darkshore same thing, but the boss could be cycled out randomly every week for both sides along with a cutscene that introduces them in a bad ass way. And when you win and own the zone it should buff up those who hold it, and the way to trigger the battle again should have been world quests to stage a new attack instead of just dropping stuff off at a vendor for a few days and bam look its up again. God damn I should apply to Blizz to design these Warfronts and fix them...

I think, I understand the point of Warfont. It was planned to be experiment to introduce new type of instance, but instead of trash-boss-trash-boss sequence it would be this "battle" from beggining to end. Same as you can't loose raid. You may wipe on boss but you get back and keep trying and clear it in the end. And you Loose only if your group is to weak and have to give up trying. But think Warfornts are currently mostly failing atm because we have basially expirencing LFR version of it. Yeah, you can say many can afk through, but for each AFKer there is other person giving extra effort to make thigs get moving, as its in LFR. TBH I really can't wait to see what Blizzard learned from interation through first two warfronts and will implement in thrid with Heroic mode.

Salient and insightful as always, Preach.

Answer to your statement in 11:30 : We go to those places, cause we need ships so that we can take our armies to oposite continent. If you ask, why dont we fight near the gates of Orgrimmar or Stormwind, its pecause we need to first get there. War and moving your troops from A to B is much more complex than some may think (even in Warcraft).

"Lumber needed", "must go out to cut trees". Are you referring to the Darkshore Warfront? Because then you should try it as Alliance. After you get the "Lumber Mill", you empower Wisps to gether wood for you. You get almost 1 Timber per second and gain it far faster than you can spend it if you are also running out to take flags and kill enemy assault teams. As Alliance, your main source for Iron on the other hand is killing Shredders and Towers and looting them. The Mine has no real Iron in it and the Resource chest in camp is much much slower getting Iron than it was in Stromgarde.. This ties in with the NElf faction in WC3 where you sent Wisps off to collect timber, and they did that while not hurting the trees.

Hey, Preacher. Speaking as a very casual player, the Warfronts (while admitted riddled with problems) provide something very specific for me. Because of my work and life schedule, I have never really been able to devote time to raiding with a guild or even reliably pug. And I don’t know how familiar you are with LFR given your part on the competitive raiding scene but man it can be a nightmare. We are perpetually told (for understandable reasons) that it is easy content, and technically it very much is, but at the slightest hiccup, the community turns on itself in a flurry of toxic insults and group kicking and AFKs and dropouts. It makes LFR an unpleasant chore to do, rather than what I think it was intended to be, a way for casuals to dip their toes in raid content and get a taste for more. So Warfronts, I think, are filling a space that LFR should be. Easy content, easy and somewhat reliable loot, without as much toxicity because you aren’t punished for ignoring mechanics like you are in LFR. I’m not saying at all that players should be encouraged to ignore mechanics, but the effect is really profound. Players talk to each other in Warfronts. When I call out that I can’t hold Newstead from an incoming wave by myself, I almost always get support. This may change over time as content gets older, but it’s quite the change right now. And for a casual player, who maybe can sit down for thirty minutes to an hour a night, if that, why would I want to struggle with higher level mythic dungeons or LFR when I can get some loot and leave if I need to? (You’ll notice that a HUGE and otherwise unsaid part of my issue is Blizzard’s obsession with a purely RNG reward system.) Anyway, interesting video and thanks for consistently making engaging content.

the first warfront was in legion - it was literally the broken shore event. In other words warfronts are a way of story progression that with catch up gear and mounts / pets etc are simply repeatable.

The difficulty of warfronts is staying awake so you don't get afk kicked!

Warfront should be designed as a solo content, just like the withered training scenario. With out the puging element, they will have a lot of room to design the system to be fun

I think warfronts would bug me less if Blizzard hadn't made such a big deal of them as a feature of BFA. They were supposed to be a major new system like challenge modes/m+, garrisons (okay, so not a *good* new system in that case), and so on. Instead, we got a gameplay mode that works as kind of a cool interactive cutscene the first time or two, then turns into an "I wonder if I'll get kicked if I just sit in the base AFK" slog every other time from then on. I get this was an expansion where the devs wanted to throw a lot of ideas at the wall and see what stuck, but even that requires enough follow-through to make the systems fun from the start, and warfronts just don't have that.

My guess: It's a way for them to have some sort of content tied to reshaping old zones so they don't have to do it all at once like they did in cata.

They should make warfronts have 2 players queue up and they head to head control the npcs as top down strategy game. Like a heroes and generals kinda mimic. It would create an interesting new game mode and harken back to when Warcraft was an actual RTS game. Just this time the heroes are being controlled by other people and the units are controlled by the strategy player.

Correction: Alliance in Darkshore autocollect lumber due to Night Elf Wisps. So Horde has to put in more effort.

The flavour text on the mission table missions tells the story of the war in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. It's a pretty poor way to tell that story though since not many people actually do the missions anymore. The strategic importance of Arathi and Darkshore is made apparent in those missions.