How good is WoW: Shadowlands after the end of season 3? “It’s at rock bottom,” explains one popular YouTuber.
Who’s speaking? The information comes from the YouTuber Bellular, who in turn evaluated data from “Warcraft-Logs” or from “Raider.io”. Bellular has been publishing interesting analysis videos on the current status of various MMORPGs for years, with World of Warcraft being mentioned particularly frequently.
In one of his previous videos, Bellular already dissected the raid counts for the mythical raids, but they only affect a small percentage of the characters. Now he has turned his attention to the more accessible variants of raids – normal and heroic raids.
Normal and Heroic Raids: Participation drops by over 66%
What does Bellular compare there? Bellular mainly looks at the numbers from the normal and heroic raids of the last patches, but sometimes also refers to old expansions like Legion. He looks at how many active guilds have each defeated the first boss of a raid and then how many of these guilds were later able to defeat the last boss within the same raid tier. The absolute numbers indirectly indicate the loss of players – because it shows a clear decrease.
What is striking is that Castle Nathria is off to an extremely impressive start. From this point of view, it was one of the most successful raids of all time and even eclipsed the Legion raids.
The figures for the heroic variant of the raid speak a very similar language, the drop in participation is about the same, as this chart shows:
Where does the loss of players come from? For one thing, some player attrition over time is normal, but in Shadowlands it was particularly severe between patches. There are a number of reasons for this, all of which are intertwined:
The fact that the final boss kill was much less common in the Sanctum of the First may also be due to the fact that the Sanctum was particularly hard and had some strong blockages on the way. Especially fights like Anduin or Halondrus or the jailer himself were difficult. There were many mechanics that would instantly fail a raid if just one person made a mistake. That alone should have broken some raid groups.
What is not included in the data? Note that the data doesn’t include the current Season 4, which is only a few weeks old. But Bellular says himself that he’s having a lot of fun with the current season and that it’s easier to get started. The whole season feels “rounder” and better than previous Shadowlands patches.
However, it remains to be seen whether this will ultimately lead to a better balance sheet. As a rule, patches only manage to dampen the departure of players and not to attract new players again. This usually only happens with the release of a new extension.
Last but not least, it must also be said that the number of raid guilds can only be used to derive a limited number of players. Many casual players probably never get into the raids or only see the LFR variant of it, if at all. World of Warcraft supports many different playstyles, and the pursuit of better gear and tougher battles isn’t for everyone.
Still, of course, the data shows a trend that it’s hoped Dragonflight can break. After all, the beta has started there, so that more players can get an impression of the next WoW expansion for themselves.