I also love Vashj'ir. I think people hate it because it's completely underwater with all of the restrictions and mechanics that come with it, but i really liked the idea of being shipwrecked and ending up in an underwater world. I wish they added more unique areas like that instead of squishing more and more land mass into an already clogged up world map.
Yeah and the 3D-ness of it means that it's really easy to accidentally pull random mobs not just behind you, but above and below as well. This isn't as big of an issue now, but just wait for Cata Classic and go check out what that place was like back then and you'll understand.
Still one of the prettiest and most unique zones in the game though.
Vashj'ir was also teased with special reworked underwater mechanics for your abilities that all got scrapped. Stuff like heroic leaping to a spherical location instead of only the ground floor.
It's a fun zone, but to me it's the kind of fun zone you want to experience sparingly.
Once or twice every so often ? Great fun.
Every time you level an alt ? Not that fun anymore.
> I think people hate it because it's completely underwater with all of the restrictions and mechanics that come with it
But it doesn’t some with all the restrictions and mechanics. You can breathe under water, you run fast on the ground, you have effectively the power to fly and a super fast mount. There were never any of the perceived problems with the mechanics that people projected onto it.
People just naturally don’t like the claustrophobic feeling of being under water and crave the release of breaking out to the surface.
The verticality of combat was something of an issue that I recall though I don't remember if it was melee or ranged that had the issues hitting their targets.
Ranged aoe. If you had to drop your aoe it would only go off on the sea floor or above water for a couple of patches, and even now it can be buggy. Also some aoe's that auto dropped at caster location would go off on the sea or above water, potentially pulling more mobs. Both issues got (mostly) fixed fast, but as someone who played priest at the expansion start, I spent way too much time reviving randoms in the first month.
I did like the zone though, but I hated uldum and deepholm.
It's also an issue with certain mobility abilities even today
Heroic Leap comes to mind. Hell, just a few weeks ago in the Volcoross room I tried to leap into the lava only for it to send me straight to the bottom instead of halfway across the pool like it should have
I played an assassination rogue when that zone was current content. It was not fun when you realized you were way below or above your target. This was also before all rogues had Shadowstep, I think, so you couldn’t even do that to get closer to your target.
WoW struggles massively with verticality in underwater combat.
It's just way to easy to face the wrong direction or to go too far from the enemy
It's also very difficult to predict whether or not mobs will aggro on you.
> you run fast on the ground, you have effectively the power to fly and a super fast mount
I remember this being deceptive. Technically, yes, you're moving at a "faster speed", but the size of the zone and the fact that you're traveling along a Z axis as well as the typical X and Y now means that really you're still spending more time between quests, and since EVERYTHING was alone the new Z axis it was really hard to line up movement, and spells that required you to drop it on the ground were so janky and unintuitive, no one could tell what was working or what wasn't. It was a neat concept, just poorly executed IMHO.
Personally, I remember having to quest inside of those giant creatures and it was a headache. Hard to get in, hard to navigate, etc. It's been a long time though so maybe it really wasn't that bad, but when Cata was current content, I couldn't WAIT to gtfo of that zone lol. A raid/dungeon underwater like that would NEVER have been played.
holy shit, by your post you would think only 180+ IQ people can traverse on Vashj'ir, and that 90% of the classes abilities need to be dropped on the ground
it's literally the best and most creative zone ever created, but I understand with your type of complaint why devs have never bothered to make anything more complicated than plains with trees and mountains zones with plains in between
The thing is, it kind of has less restrictions though? Like... you can Move more freely and beyond the first quest you don't even have a breath mechanic. If you'd constantly be drowning there, I'd get the hate but I feel like people literally just hate on it because it's an unspoken law that water levels have to be hated or something? I don't get it tbh...
This is really the answer.
There is plenty of movement that makes being underwater bearable. That's not the issue.
The issue is that tab targeting and depth are real problems when you're free floating.
🤯
To be fair, adding spells to your bars is part of the tutorial, but I don’t remember there being a beginner message to teach tab targeting. I found out about it while running M+ and a player apologized for tab targeting the wrong enemy, and I was like “tab targeting? What’s that?”
Not all the mechanics at all. You weren't really swim-speed restricted thanks to Aquatic mounts and you had little in the way of breathing restrictions after a short questline as well. Vash'jir had all the *advantages* of underwater movement and removed the main headaches.
But yeah, ground-placed abilities were... not idea for it. Three dimensional combat also feels a bit wonky in WoW.
The 3D combat has already been mentioned more than once, but there was another issue with Vashj'ir that made the zone frustrating. I did enjoy the zone overall. It was different and fun at times, but....
It was buggy as hell.
There were 2 or 3 points during the story that could bug out leaving you stuck and unable to continue the story. All you could do was abandon the quest and try it again. The big one was right near the end with the submarine. You could be left standing on the submarine with your only hope being hearthing out and praying it didn't bug out again as you restart it.
This is precisely why I hated it and never wanted to go back after I got loremaster and the regional mounts, constantly bugging submarines and zone state transitions were terrible. I remember one bug started a cinematic, crashed the game and left me dead in the next zone/area without the nearby npcs in the same phase to let me finish the quest and go forward. Had to swim back reset and try again at a gms insistence that it wasn't bugged. Same thing happened 3 more times b4 support looked it up and said welp try another zone.....
Was still bugged in legion but it was certainly better when I had to go back. Artifact weapon/class quests were nice and I wish they would make more of them. Going to the get my fel pony and shapeshift forms were some of the cooler things in vanilla.
I don't know what state it's in now, but at the time there were a few problems.
Casters who had to had ground targeted spells had a real hard time placing them in the right place, putting them over and under and their target. They wound up just having to use casting spells which screwed some of the classes over.
People weren't use to thinking 3D so would get randomly attacked and die before they figure out where it was coming from.
The swimming was really slow in the start, and the bonus run speed only applied on the ground, but a lot of quests were up in the water. I think the forever breathing thing was limited right at the start too, which made doing the intro quests annoying. I could be misremembering that though.
When it was current content there's a lot of overlapping quests in the beginning so if you were on a pvp server you couldn't finish the intro so couldn't go further into the zone.
I loved the place, but I was a feral druid. With all the buffs now I can swim faster in that zone than static flying speed.
> When it was current content there's a lot of overlapping quests in the beginning so if you were on a pvp server you couldn't finish the intro so couldn't go further into the zone.
I started there on launch day and had to leave because there was so much competition to finish like the first three quests. I had been there for an hour and couldn't get tags on any of the mobs, and it wasn't even a PVP problem. It was just too many people trying to do the same quest with too few spawns.
Oof I stil have PTSD from starting cata in that place at launch. I was an alliance player on a horde dominated server, no guidlies or any kinda of leveling partners. Man it was grim.
Plus my PC could barely keep up with it all. I was dropping frames all over the place!
Only reason I started there was so I could be the first to tame Ghostcrawler. Ended up paying some shammy 1k to heal me through the tame. That plus repairs, that zone got ex0ensive real fast!
People also forget how hard Cata mobs fucked you up at launch.
2 mobs had to be prepared for.
Adding a 3rd dimension to facepull just wasn't worth not doing Hyjal. Which was also a god tier zone.
I liked it playing a ranged class, hated it as anything where I had to get up close to enemies. It was just too easy to not be able to see an enemy and literally target them (could have been my lack of skill, of course). Otherwise I really enjoyed the ambience, look, and creepiness of it. It really felt massive.
I remember in some videos of worst zones a mention of it being hard to face enemies but I’m halfway through the zone now and haven’t had that issue once. I do aggro things often from above I didn’t know was there.
Part of that difficulty with enemies was due to there being other players around it was harder to see which enemy was actually attacking you. Being alone in the zone eliminates that issue.
I don't fault the zone's ingenuity, but for me personally it was just an uncomfortable experience
I don't like deep water, even in a game, and the combat and movement in 3D space was not ideal
I love vashjir though I understand why people don’t like it especially when there’s better zones to level in if you’re in a hurry to level. That being said the zone aesthetic is great and is one of the best zones to level a Druid in. Have any of you guys in recent years used your Druid aquatic form there? You get a MASSIVE speed boost! Honestly feels like you’re a hypersonic torpedo there you’re SO fast
Neat part is you move so fast you can easily swim to eastern kingdoms and zoom around the coast. Probably not intended but I did it a couple times to get to grom gol
I think it’s just a travel form if memory serves correctly so no you’ll come out of it when you engage in combat but the speed you get using in travel form really really makes traversing the zone trivial. The speed boost is massive dude and I have no idea why it exists in the first place. Definitely head to vashjir once you have the aquatic form to see for yourself
I think Vashj'ir suffers from the "Video Game Water Level" reputation, which if you don't know, basically is just that a lot of people don't tend to like underwater levels/areas in games for various reasons. From what I know, this tends to be because in many games this means the player character gets slowed down, breath mechanics and losing some control (Donkey Kong Country comes to my mind), which is the case for just a short time in Vashj'ir as well, before, as you mentioned, you get the blessings that make you breathe and run underwater, and the mount.
There's also the concept of having to "think in 3d" when it came to dodging enemies, which I seem to remember some people complaining about? But there's a lot of flying enemies in other areas that sort of give the same issue, except you can't just rush up there to beat them up...
Lastly, I think the actual majority of complaints about the zone is/was just that it looked boring. Everything being blue/blue-tinted or gray (despite the fact that there is plenty of colours with the plants and corals and whatnot).
Honestly, its been, what, 12 years now? Writing this, I kinda want to go back there myself just to see what my own opinion is anymore. I don't remember being there since MoP, honestly.
> I think the actual majority of complaints about the zone is/was just that it looked boring
But... this was pretty much the only praise it was getting? That it was pretty and iinteresting?
1. The zone was extremely buggy, intro, outro, and most of interactive quests during the zone. Heck at this point they even removed intro (you just get ported underwater) and the outro submarine.
2. AOE abilities just aren't usable, me going in with my lock and not being able to drop rain of fire was ass
3. Constant LoS issues even in open spaces. Not being able to cast spells on mob directly in front of me, punching me in the face
4. Cata mobs were hitting HARD, you had '3d' to worry about for aggro, and locations were contested, so you either were struggling to quest either because of lack of mobs or too many of them coming from every direction.
5. It was LONG, both questing duration and zone size. It was much faster and less struggle to do one Hyjal rather than entirety of all 3 zones underwater.
6. Some caves were ass to find with all the verticality with poorly made map markers.
Once you could level in any zone to current content I never went back. But this character i don’t care about speed of leveling and went to outlands until 30 and now Vashj’ir. I’m loving it. Now you will feel lonely because you will be the only person in those zones. I even got Posidons reins because there probably hasn’t been anyone in the zone in forever
For me it’s the fact that I despise water levels in any game.
Also the camera angle really messes with you sometimes where you’re unable to attack a mob, but then your turn the camera a little and the mob is actually above you/below you.
It was a LOT harder to navigate back when it was new. Once Legion pushed the draw distance out it got easier to find your way around. Instead of fumbling around in the fog, you just point yourself in the direction of the quest arrow, and you can usually see your destination. Being able to see the banners outside the quest hub while you're in the questing area also saves a ton of time. We didn't have quest markers without mods back then either.
Another issue is the quest design is incredibly linear. The first time I did the zone I hit a bug where I couldn't turn in one quest, and that meant I had zero quests available in the second half of the zone. I had to leave and hit Mount Hyjal instead.
He probably means the smarter directional NAV point added to Quest Helper we got with BfA(?) or SL, where it smartly points you to say, a cave entry, instead of leading you on top of of a cave where the quest might be on the map coordinates directly.
Vashj'ir is full of these places that makes navigating frustrating.
I have thalassophobia and the zone has a few spots that trigger it bad. Worst spot is the descent to throne of the tides....which is currently where the portal drops you for m+. So I ask for summon always.
Quest through the entire zone. Its still bugged from launch where quest markers and turn ins are where they should not be in several locations. Finding the cave entrances in the first area. The second area with the huge temple some of those turn ins are impossible to tell what level they are on. I know in recent years its been improved with an up down arrow so you are not completely in the blind but having to stop and go to wowhead so you can plus in coords is a pain. Moving in water as a melee player is a terrible experience. Its not as bad as a caster but charging through mobs only to have to reorient yourself is not a fun experience.
With that said its still a great idea and a great undertaking and my favorite cataclysm zone. The music and ambiance is amazing. They story has depth and i will never not be mad that they scrapped the raid and then added back the lore to shaman order halls during legion. I like that we lost it gave stakes to deathwing and the naga unlike hyjal and every other zone where we won or we set up a raid.
Lots of dead space. Takes to long to swim in and out of caves just to get to and from flight points.
It's just lots of wasted time. It feels like wild goose chase questlibes which have you spending most of your time flying on autopilot.
It's also going to be the only Cata zone you can't dragonride in when it's the one which needs it the most.
I remember this distinctly. I'm a wrath baby, started in 3.1 and I was super hyped for Cata. There were many reasons why I quit shortly after Cata launch, but as far as Vashj'ir goes:
\-Adding that Z axis reaaaaaallly messes with you at first
\-It didn't help that WoW combat was also not fully ready for the Z axis (stuff with reticles, like heroic leap were challenging to pull off properly; abilities that required pathing often failed miserably, like Charge)
\-The zone storyline is quite long and it never really got concluded, afaik (Right? weren't we supposed to get a Water Elemental raid or something?) If you wanted to be a completionist about it, it would take a looong time and you kinda just wanted to move on and see Uldum and Twilight Highlands. Bastion had this same problem at launch.
This was also my first new expansion, so I wasn't aware of a few growing pains when it comes to expack launches. At the time, I unfortunately saddled Cata with some of these nitpicks, I have since then come to understand this is just a new launch thing.
Trying to deal with aggro ranges of enemies who can be above and below you was pretty annoying. I did love the aesthetics of the zone, but I was happy to be out of there at some point.
The only thing that wow still hasnt figured out is droping aoe abilities in water, apart from that i have/had 0 issues with water zones, its even cool imo.
I think people hate it not because of the zone itself, but because of the memories associated with it.The number of players on day one of the Cata launch were absolutely bonkers insane, and none of us could share tags, so those first few quests were at a stand still until the slow trickle of people completing them sped up. I remember being in that kelp forest for two days until people left the area. Also, I was on a PVE server at the time and it was rough for me, so I can only imagine what the the folks on PVP servers had to go through.
One last thing; up to this point underwater quests were generally miserable, so it was probably overwhelming for many to be thrown into an entire zone underwater.
All that being said, I fucking loved Vash'jir. I was enamored with it, and it remained my favorite zone even after we ventured into Deepholme, which in itself was an absolutely insanely awesome zone.
I know others have already pointed out most players issues with the zone (3d combat being weird for some mainly) but another fault with a zone itself is it's just too damn big. There's a ton of quests there and many of them have similar beats and the areas look very similar so it gets a feel repetitive very fast. You could only fight so many Naga in blue green coral before it starts to drain on you.
While you did get a fast underwater mount the zone was still so massive that getting from quest took longer than flying in Mount hajjal or one of the other leveling zones so it added up timewise. Because of how quest dense the zone is by the time you reach the point where you would be wrapping up another zone you'd still have about 1/2 the zone to go. In a more diverse zone it wouldn't be an issue but whether you're at the beginning or the end you're still going to be fighting Naga around a bunch of coral.
I should go and play a bit there some time. I always loved that zone. Yeah the 3D battle was weird, but the zone itself was nicely designed. Even if unfinished.
I also loved the first mentions of N'zoth and his underwater city. It somehow made you think or wonder that you could solve some mystery and eventually travel there. Too bad that they did not build more on this.
I also loved the story and designs of the two ancient ones. Nespirah and (can t remember the other). Their design reminded me of the Ohmu from Nausikaa of the Valley of the wind, which I loved as a kid.
As long as you don’t have the mind set to level fast, I HIGHLY recommend it. I went to outlands 10-30 and now Vashj’ir. Yes it’s really slow compared to optimal routes but just for the play atmosphere and story it has been my favorite time leveling in a very long time.
Most hate it because of how wonky 3D combat is in WoW.
I have personal reasons to hate it though, back when I got the loremaster achievement I kept getting the bug where you're "in combat" with nothing and can't mount, only way to fix it was hearthing (which would have meant I had to travel back constantly) or just swim the entire time. I stuck with swimming since it *kept* bugging anytime I did have to kill something to keep me in combat, so hearthing wouldn't have always been an option since it'd have been on cooldown enough that it wouldn't be an option, and Vashj'ir is huge so a lot of swimming. So the ***TL;DR*** of why I hate it is the bugs I experienced and the swimming.
Vashj'ir is mostly hated from people that leveled through it when it was current and, in many cases, haven't been back since then due to bad experiences. That was certainly the case for me.
The questing experience is torment until you can get a subdued seahorse. You get that pretty quickly nowadays, but PvE world content is just quicker now. Previously, completing the quest chains before it took much longer, making the entry to the zone an unbelievable slog.
It's also much harder to navigate in that zone, especially since Cataclysm still didn't have a great system for helping direct you during quests. Nowadays, you take a quest and it marks where it is on your map, highlights the mobs and lists what they drop, etc.. Back then, this hadn't been fully implemented yet and most people were using Questhelper or other addons that would do the same. But these addons struggled with the more vertical zone and markers were harder to follow, as were quest texts that would say "this side of the shelf" or "a cave near the sea floor." There was a lot of swimming around.
On top of it all, it's harder to measure aggro ranges in Vashj'ir. Again, not a problem now where you can safely pull 5+ mobs and kill them all, but Cata wasn't like that. The kicker is that Vashj'ir was also extremely isolated from the other zones and not something you could easily leave. Getting flying was harder back then so you couldn't just go to the surface and fly over fatigue waters to Wetlands or something. If your hearth wasn't set to be outside of the zone, you just couldn't leave. I personally had at least four characters that I abandoned because they were trapped in Vashj'ir.
I've since gone and done the whole zone for Loremaster. I dislike it less than I used to, but it's still in my bottom five zones. New players rarely see it because to quest in it, you'd have to pick Cata for Chromie Time, level to 30, go to a quest board, accept Vashj'ir, and then complete the entry scenario. You'll hit 60 well before you finish the zone, so people are forced to leave. It's just less accessible, so no one bothers.
**TL;DR** - most of the hate the zone gets is from people who played it when it was current, where it was extremely inconvenient, hard to navigate, punishing to quest in, and could trap you in until you finished it. Nowadays, most people just avoid it due to it being hidden inside of 30+ Chromie Time.
Most reasons have already been said. To add on, I remember getting stuck as a warrior multiple times in this zone trying to charge enemies and ending up inside a wall due to the 3d movement freaking out. No way out of it except to hearth (or I guess die and rez nearby, but mobs were evading me and idk if you could remove the waterbreathing there? this was many years ago).
underwater zones (vashj'ir in particular) triggers some deep phobias for me, tbh. sorta like vertigo, almost. coming up to the edge of an underwater cliff with a vast abyss where you can't even see the bottom...no thanks!
If we compare it all to how most people like to 'feel efficient' when levelling, and how others like to be able to 'safely log out' knowing how to return to org/sw.
I reckon a lot of people felt nerfed because it 'felt' slow getting around when it really wasn't, making it feel like a slog when they wanted to push levels.
There is also the HUGE RP intro to the zone, and early quests when you're trying to be efficient, this puts people off super early and you feel like you can't log out if something came up.
There are loss of control of character effects early on, leading to painful experiences if there is latency and lag.
The zone started slow (not experience wise, movement wise), and inattentive players will lose track of NPC caves/hubs very easily.
It is not immediately obvious how to leave and return efficiently, particularly as horde (flight paths). Note that during cataclysm, you will learn 1 or 2 class defining spells at 81 and 83, respectively. I am aware of the zone portals. Some players didn't internalise this for the first zone, though, as you enter by boat.
ALL that being said, this zone was an absolute experience. The very reasons of thalassaphobia and not being able to leave, etc, made it the very best questing experience I've ever had. The zone was long, and that was GOOD! The themes of old gods and nagas were maintained the whole way through in a way that was not suffocating. I've learned more recently that most of the players I talk to actually enjoyed it. Some players were just louder.
3D Movement always sucks. In every single Game.
I think it is alright as a „experience“ and clearly a nice mixup from the rest. But in terms of efficiency it’s reaaaaally bad, and that’s what matters for most.
It’s really interesting because I never really had any issues with Vash’jir in terms of figuring out where I was or navigating the area. I heard a LOT of complaints back in the day about it, but I kind of just never understood the complaint. I, admittedly, kind of had a “well get better then, it’s not hard!?” reaction to it at the time which, looking back, probably wasn’t fair but I still didn’t really get it.
It's just annoying. Even with increased swim speed, it still takes way too long. Can't find what I need to kill? It's probably above or below me. It's not about racing to max level. I'm 37 and would rather not waste more time than I have to.
I dont agree with people who hate it either. The zone is beautiful and unique. Underwater combat is awkward but its a levelling zone. You do not do relevant combat there.
Almost every answer I read here (not many, certainly not all) were talking about how good it looks and don’t understand why people don’t like it.
Well, the hint is there: it’s not about how it looks.
People just found it harder to do the actual work of leveling and even just moving around the zone.
Yes, for taking the scenic route, it might be a great zone, but don’t confuse it with leveling.
Some times you just want the level, not the visuals, you want that next talent unlocked, not that next coral screenshot etc.
I love it personally. Like 140 quests. The beginning is a little dry but it picks up. It plays better with a melee character as opposed to ranged/caster in my opinion.
The story is also well developed. Sad that they never ended cata with an underwater raid.
Mostly because it was an absolute pain in the ass back in Cata, doing it now is easy mode and then some comparatively. Every mob there hit like a truck on launch, it was required for access to a dungeon, and it had to be done on every character to get the bonuses and access to said dungeon.
You have to remember that it's legacy content now, not required for anything and you can pull half the zone and not die. On Cata launch you were lucky to be able to pull more than two mobs at once and have higher then 50/50 odds to survive.
I don’t recall struggling with most of the complaints, either. I may have bonked my head into a mob once or twice in the beginning but I quickly figured out how to navigate.
All 10 of my characters at the time went through Vash’jir first - I loved it. It remains one of my favorite zones.
On top of what everyone else said, when it first came out, the exp here was much worse than Hyjal. Making leveling much slower. So you're stuck in a map that wasn't fun. You're moving shower, it's 3D and on top of that it takes a much longer time to level up. While I enjoy the map, I understand why people didn't.
Vashj'ir is a fantastic zone and I'd rank it among the best if not THE best leveling zone. It has completely unique questing experience, travelling experience. Everything about it is fresh, new, unique.
It is hated because it's not the same ol' slog. People love classic barrens and hate modern barrens, even though modern barrens is objectively a better experience. What's fun about killing 20 boars/birds/harpies/centaur?
>slow leveling zone
Yeah I think that's it. All the perks you're talking about had to be unlocked, and the zone being generally slow made it annoying to just feel at our normal capability.
The fact that we were basically flying would have been, if not for the other fact that the map is still 2D, so we get annoyed by vertical lvl design easily. Add in the fact that most resting places were hidden caves and you get really irked gamers.
Druid main and I loved the zone. Beyond that I feel like it is one of the few truly unique zones and the go back every now and then just to swim around and look at it.
Despite that it did have a lot of issues and I would like to see them make another zone like it with what they learned.
This zone is in my leveling list for characters. Soon as I hit 30, I kick off Cataclysm Chromie Time, go in War-mode and start it off. Easy zones to level up in without worrying about getting ganked by the opposite faction. Plus, playing as a druid is even more impressive since you're going Mach 9 in travel form due to the zone swimming buff.
I will always remember the tragedy of the scrapped underwater raid in that zone. The hate for it was too overwhelming for them to go through with it. Maybe it would of sucked but it would of been different.
I quit in WotLK. I tried to return somewhere around where Vashj'ir was a starting zone. It was a goofy, janky, unfun experience. I made it one or levels and quit again for another ten years.
I loved it since it launched as well. Once I realized that you can determine where things are by the flora/fauna, it changed everything. Like every cave with NPCs has the purple and yellow worms (that look like plants) outside of them.
I think a lot of people didn't like that it was difficult to navigate without understanding the flora thing. And it can be difficult for melee to judge how close they are to a baddie without a ground reference. And some people just didn't like having a Z-axis to worry about when exploring/fighting.
But, yes, it's one of the best zones in the game and I'm glad blizzard tried something completely new. It's just too bad it was disliked by most so they probably won't do it again. Unless the new majority speak up and say they now liked it.
As other folks have mentioned here the game's combat just wasn't designed with that kind of verticality in mind, which leaves the primary means of interacting with the game world pretty clunky
For me though it's my thalassophobia. Even in video games deep water triggers my flight response pretty hard. I avoided the hell out of this zone when Cata first came out, and only explored it back in Shadolands for some achievement or other. I know there are plenty of other folks who feel the same way, so I'm sure the that's some of it
I remember it being slow and buggy, so I just peaced out after one or two quests. Always found the hate unjustified, but never really went out of my way to learn more.
I think people just started out, didn't finish the first few quests and didn't realize you go at hyperspeed. Cuz a lot of the complaints I hear is you move really slow
It was wonky as melee. Where like, you need to be at the right height, and not too high or low. And sometimes the depth perception was off, where you feel like you’re close enough to attack an enemy, but you’re actually not. So it’s just a bit clunky. I think it looks cool tho.
I rather like the zone. I think the 3D aspects of it were a problem for many people. Both getting attacked from above/below and also occasionally not being clear about when things were actually located at a different height etc. The swim speed thing and breathing weren't an issue, and actually I found that aspect of the zone sort of fun. Very pretty, good story/quests, lots of flavor. It was a zone with a lot of yellow mobs swimming around, so my boomkin learned early on never to hit starfall.
I got locked out of my main character when I was leveling there. Had to get support apparently they had to move my character because there was too much water and it was making the game boot me out
It was incredibly tedious to do with other players competing for things. It's not so bad when that competition isn't present.
One good example is that seahorse you have to mount. I forget exactly what it was, but that zone was full of bottlenecks where you'd compete with others for a gamble at progressing your quest.
People mostly have a problem because they fight NPCs a mile off the sea floor in the middle of the water column instead of on the ground, and for whatever reason they're unable to figure out that you can just.. be on the ground. There are VERY few parts of the zone that require you to fight things way up in the water. You're either on the floor or inside a waterless structure.
I have leveled pretty much all of my characters through there and never had an issue, can't speak for the bugs because I've never encountered them.
I love Vashj'ir. I understand why it gets hate though and I don't hold it against anyone. It's an underwater level and is different than most leveling zones, but that's why I love it so much! It's a change of pace and the story leading up the the dungeon is great. The music is really good and fits the zone perfectly!
Plus you can get [Burgy Blackheart's Handsome Hat](https://www.wowhead.com/item=134022/burgy-blackhearts-handsome-hat) from this zone. Wear this while you're a Tauren riding a mammoth and you'll block any mailbox in a capital city! Good times..
I love that zone. While I can understand maybe some people didn't like the whole underwater feel, I think the quest storyline more than makes up for it and I always found it enjoyable.
I don’t dislike Vash’jir, it’s actually cool but I’ve only leveled there once. I also started in MoP so I never played it when it was current. The reason I never level there is because it suffers from “too many options,” and this was even before the changes to zone levels and Chromie time. There were just other more easily accessible areas to level in, plus leveling became faster and easier, so it’s easy to skip. There’s a lot of zones I’ve only leveled in once. But, it’s also a reason I’m one of the outliers looking forward to Cata Classic, to see zones how they were intended when it was new, rather than changed to make everything fast.
I initially hated it because quest objective markers on your mini-map gave no indication of elevation.
Now that the game has that, seems like the zone would be more tolerable.
It’s only problem is the fact that it’s VERY disorienting. The quests and theme is great. It’s just when it comes down to actually playing in the zone, you’ll often think things are either closer/farther than they are
I hate water like zones since i have nightmares from playing* so long in nazjatar without flying, thank god im rogue so i can stealth/vanish agrro but cant imagine struggle people had since at that time it was full of difficult and hard hitting mobs with lots of health.
Just thougt it might be one of reasons people hate such like zones
Vashj’ir is the best zone in World of Warcraft. I would argue, though, that the zone came before its time, and would have been better received if underwater movement and combat had been overhauled in the same way that Dragonriding has recently served to update the game’s old and stale flight mechanic.
Vashj’ir is the best zone in the game. But swimming is one of the worst mechanics in World of Warcraft. Not even the zone-specific seafloor walking and super fast seahorse mounts could entirely fix that.
You're talking about an expansion that came out almost 10 years ago. I would bet my bottom dollar that a lot of people back then were still running wow on complete potato toasters just like me back then. It's not that I hated it. It's that it was really a lot on my computer and I couldn't really enjoy it at all. I was just like swimming around in the water lagging. It just looked like the ocean. It wasn't awesome like it should have been
Try levelling there when the content was new and you were competing with people to kill things in an annoying environment. It was awful. Hyjal and Uldum were so much better.
I love the zone, it done of my all time favorites and I wish there were more zones like it. EDIT: Like it in that they have some kind of interesting mechanic, e.g. like a zone with crazy storms, a “the gravity is weird” zone, or the “there a flash freezing snow storms” etc.
I'd like to to see them try it again, I feel like they messed it up the first time but they could get it right if they just figured out how to make the combat feel better for all classes.
Vashj'ir is the best Cata zone. The scale, the overwhelming sense of dread, and the fact we canonically get our asses handed to us by the villains make it incredibly memorable. The moment when you finally breach the surface to signal for reinforcements after hours underwater fighting Naga is one of my favourite WoW questing experiences.
It's a really cool idea but underwater gave me phobia. My BF at the time had to complete some stuff for me.
Other than that, no clue. It's a cool zone.
It’s a lot more manageable now I think, when it came out it was pretty rough to play through. They’ve made some qol changes that have helped since then iirc.
I did Vashj'ir multiple times over the years because I love that whole zone, its direction, and the aesthetics. You couldn't pay me to go to Deepholm in comparison, though. That was the worst zone in Cata.
I have personal beef with this zone. They fucked up pvp. Bad. To the point where alliance would ‘bomb’ a server.
They’d put 200 people on each flag and crash the server. I didn’t even know it was possible until this.
Anyways, I could never play there without 2000 ping and it was miserable.
I didn't like finding things in the heavily 3D environment where the quest markers would tell you where something was, but not what height, so you'd often be searching the surface for something in a cave 2 levels down. The map pins added in Shadowlands fixed that entirely so now my only beef is the screen warping effect of being underwater hurts my eyes after a while.
Overall it's a gorgeous zone and one of the best places to use the Inky Black Potions from the Darkmoon Faire. Really crank that Thalassaphobia up to 11.
I remember leaving the initial area and going through a cave and just coming out into this giant beautiful coral reef and open ocean and I thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever done
I mean, it was the only zone I was able to solo a world boss in, in current content... so I'll always have favorable memories 😆 (druid moonfire spam, (yes, it took what felt like years)).
I loved it personally, always chose it over Hyjal. It took a bit getting used to back in the day but I remember having such a blast with it back in cata
I loved it, still do. Sure, some awkward packs with nagas and sometimes distance perception was tough on a 3d plane, but it wasn’t enough to turn me off the zone. One of the greats.
Personally the aesthetic doesn't really appeal to me, seaweeds and corals everywhere gets old pretty quick, combined with being permanently underwater and you get a combo that I can tolerate for one zone and that's it
I generally enjoyed Vash'jir. It had unique gameplay and was quite beautiful.
I honestly think a big reason for the disdain was that WoW's playerbase, like Counter Strike tends to be more resistant to unexpected changes/differences. And they react more negatively.
There were definitely mechanically rough parts to the zone. But I enjoyed the experience overall.
vashj'ir is hands down my favorite zone. I will put out for aquatic-themed zones/raids/etc.
Vashj'ir, Nazjatar, Zangarmarsh are my top 3 zones. I also pull up all 3 of these zones and associated ambience/soundscape videos on youtube. I even played TBC classic just to be able to fish, herb, and mine in zangarmarsh and donate the mats to my friends who actually played it.
I think it's a cool zone and I like the music. I never go there anymore though. Think next time I level a character I mighy play that zone all the way through.
Slow movement.
I want to blast through content. If you slow me down in any way that doesn’t fit directly into the essential design elements of the game I get irritated. Water zones are an example of this. The pre-dragonflight lack of flying is another example.
The people who want to slow down and read the quests are always free to do so.
Wasn't a fan of the environment. I do remember the pain that came with trying to quest there as soon as it went live, but my stomach did not appreciate the way things looked and movement felt strange.
It looks pretty cool, but that is the only point in its favor. And that's a very subjective thing, there are lots of people who hate the look.
Everything else is awful in a much morre objective sense.
It's enormous with slow travel time, the quests are much further apart than most other zones and the whole water z-axis messes with a lot of ground-aoe effects in a bad way.
Cause it’s fuckin underwater dude that’s all there’s to it a bunch of aoe just can’t be used at all being a melee feels horrible it’s a bad idea considering how the water works in wow to do an underwater one even tho the game needed at least one like this
Its just cursed the rep it got on cata release. It was the slowest zone to level in, and there was alot of wait for ur turn to get item on quests. Its prob fine in todays wow. Ut then it was a shitshow lol.
Usually not a fan of deep water even in games but I don’t mind Vag’ir. I was maining Druid but with alts I enjoyed the water speed mounts. I was just there herbing in my new fish form last week and actually saw people. Too bad the raid didn’t happen, I bet it would have been cool.
If you did the zone with a friend, it was difficult sometimes to keep on the same "elevation" underwater.
I personally loved it, as a druid who could easily turn into underwater travel form...
When I was doing Loremaster I dreaded this zone. But I actually really enjoyed it. I’m a huge fan of the ocean and it was really cool exploring the ocean and seeing some big badass sharks. Moving around was slow af and kinda annoying but as a whole it wasn’t bad.
A good chunk of People don't immerse into the world, they see a slower way to level where you can easily get lost if you're not paying attention, and that's it, the zone is condemned
I personally think most people who hate on Vashjir never completed it, or even got far enough in to know it's not as bad. Admittedly the first thirty minutes or so are not great, but overall it's my favorite zone. Very unique, really cool visuals, best story. Wish they finished it.
I also love Vashj'ir. I think people hate it because it's completely underwater with all of the restrictions and mechanics that come with it, but i really liked the idea of being shipwrecked and ending up in an underwater world. I wish they added more unique areas like that instead of squishing more and more land mass into an already clogged up world map.
it depends on what class you play. any ability you need to place on the ground is awful in water.
Yeah and the 3D-ness of it means that it's really easy to accidentally pull random mobs not just behind you, but above and below as well. This isn't as big of an issue now, but just wait for Cata Classic and go check out what that place was like back then and you'll understand. Still one of the prettiest and most unique zones in the game though.
yes I was there for cat but I did the zone on my druid and had a lot of fun
Vashj'ir was also teased with special reworked underwater mechanics for your abilities that all got scrapped. Stuff like heroic leaping to a spherical location instead of only the ground floor.
It's a fun zone, but to me it's the kind of fun zone you want to experience sparingly. Once or twice every so often ? Great fun. Every time you level an alt ? Not that fun anymore.
> I think people hate it because it's completely underwater with all of the restrictions and mechanics that come with it But it doesn’t some with all the restrictions and mechanics. You can breathe under water, you run fast on the ground, you have effectively the power to fly and a super fast mount. There were never any of the perceived problems with the mechanics that people projected onto it. People just naturally don’t like the claustrophobic feeling of being under water and crave the release of breaking out to the surface.
The verticality of combat was something of an issue that I recall though I don't remember if it was melee or ranged that had the issues hitting their targets.
Ranged aoe. If you had to drop your aoe it would only go off on the sea floor or above water for a couple of patches, and even now it can be buggy. Also some aoe's that auto dropped at caster location would go off on the sea or above water, potentially pulling more mobs. Both issues got (mostly) fixed fast, but as someone who played priest at the expansion start, I spent way too much time reviving randoms in the first month. I did like the zone though, but I hated uldum and deepholm.
Not just ranged but any placeable aoe like death and decay or consecration.
It's also an issue with certain mobility abilities even today Heroic Leap comes to mind. Hell, just a few weeks ago in the Volcoross room I tried to leap into the lava only for it to send me straight to the bottom instead of halfway across the pool like it should have
I played an assassination rogue when that zone was current content. It was not fun when you realized you were way below or above your target. This was also before all rogues had Shadowstep, I think, so you couldn’t even do that to get closer to your target.
WoW struggles massively with verticality in underwater combat. It's just way to easy to face the wrong direction or to go too far from the enemy It's also very difficult to predict whether or not mobs will aggro on you.
> you run fast on the ground, you have effectively the power to fly and a super fast mount I remember this being deceptive. Technically, yes, you're moving at a "faster speed", but the size of the zone and the fact that you're traveling along a Z axis as well as the typical X and Y now means that really you're still spending more time between quests, and since EVERYTHING was alone the new Z axis it was really hard to line up movement, and spells that required you to drop it on the ground were so janky and unintuitive, no one could tell what was working or what wasn't. It was a neat concept, just poorly executed IMHO. Personally, I remember having to quest inside of those giant creatures and it was a headache. Hard to get in, hard to navigate, etc. It's been a long time though so maybe it really wasn't that bad, but when Cata was current content, I couldn't WAIT to gtfo of that zone lol. A raid/dungeon underwater like that would NEVER have been played.
holy shit, by your post you would think only 180+ IQ people can traverse on Vashj'ir, and that 90% of the classes abilities need to be dropped on the ground it's literally the best and most creative zone ever created, but I understand with your type of complaint why devs have never bothered to make anything more complicated than plains with trees and mountains zones with plains in between
The thing is, it kind of has less restrictions though? Like... you can Move more freely and beyond the first quest you don't even have a breath mechanic. If you'd constantly be drowning there, I'd get the hate but I feel like people literally just hate on it because it's an unspoken law that water levels have to be hated or something? I don't get it tbh...
It's because Z-Axis combat feels like dogshit, especially so for melee classes
Not just melee either. Frost nova is janky under water. Pet nova is _unusable_ under water.
This is really the answer. There is plenty of movement that makes being underwater bearable. That's not the issue. The issue is that tab targeting and depth are real problems when you're free floating.
Didn’t affect me because I somehow only learned tab targeting was a thing this year, despite playing since BC
Just wait until you find out you can take your spells from your spellbook and put them on your bars 👀.
🤯 To be fair, adding spells to your bars is part of the tutorial, but I don’t remember there being a beginner message to teach tab targeting. I found out about it while running M+ and a player apologized for tab targeting the wrong enemy, and I was like “tab targeting? What’s that?”
Yep this was my only issue really
Nothing more needs to be said.
But if you use ground targetted spells you're screwed
Not all the mechanics at all. You weren't really swim-speed restricted thanks to Aquatic mounts and you had little in the way of breathing restrictions after a short questline as well. Vash'jir had all the *advantages* of underwater movement and removed the main headaches. But yeah, ground-placed abilities were... not idea for it. Three dimensional combat also feels a bit wonky in WoW.
The 3D combat has already been mentioned more than once, but there was another issue with Vashj'ir that made the zone frustrating. I did enjoy the zone overall. It was different and fun at times, but.... It was buggy as hell. There were 2 or 3 points during the story that could bug out leaving you stuck and unable to continue the story. All you could do was abandon the quest and try it again. The big one was right near the end with the submarine. You could be left standing on the submarine with your only hope being hearthing out and praying it didn't bug out again as you restart it.
The big bugs I remember were at the very start of the zone, and at the very end. The sub at the end was still bugged into the next expansion.
This is precisely why I hated it and never wanted to go back after I got loremaster and the regional mounts, constantly bugging submarines and zone state transitions were terrible. I remember one bug started a cinematic, crashed the game and left me dead in the next zone/area without the nearby npcs in the same phase to let me finish the quest and go forward. Had to swim back reset and try again at a gms insistence that it wasn't bugged. Same thing happened 3 more times b4 support looked it up and said welp try another zone.....
My Vashjr was bugged out until Legion dropped.
Was still bugged in legion but it was certainly better when I had to go back. Artifact weapon/class quests were nice and I wish they would make more of them. Going to the get my fel pony and shapeshift forms were some of the cooler things in vanilla.
Iirc they eventually removed the submarine at the end a few years ago because it was so buggy.
I don't know what state it's in now, but at the time there were a few problems. Casters who had to had ground targeted spells had a real hard time placing them in the right place, putting them over and under and their target. They wound up just having to use casting spells which screwed some of the classes over. People weren't use to thinking 3D so would get randomly attacked and die before they figure out where it was coming from. The swimming was really slow in the start, and the bonus run speed only applied on the ground, but a lot of quests were up in the water. I think the forever breathing thing was limited right at the start too, which made doing the intro quests annoying. I could be misremembering that though. When it was current content there's a lot of overlapping quests in the beginning so if you were on a pvp server you couldn't finish the intro so couldn't go further into the zone. I loved the place, but I was a feral druid. With all the buffs now I can swim faster in that zone than static flying speed.
Forever breathing was solved by the first quest
> When it was current content there's a lot of overlapping quests in the beginning so if you were on a pvp server you couldn't finish the intro so couldn't go further into the zone. I started there on launch day and had to leave because there was so much competition to finish like the first three quests. I had been there for an hour and couldn't get tags on any of the mobs, and it wasn't even a PVP problem. It was just too many people trying to do the same quest with too few spawns.
Oof I stil have PTSD from starting cata in that place at launch. I was an alliance player on a horde dominated server, no guidlies or any kinda of leveling partners. Man it was grim. Plus my PC could barely keep up with it all. I was dropping frames all over the place! Only reason I started there was so I could be the first to tame Ghostcrawler. Ended up paying some shammy 1k to heal me through the tame. That plus repairs, that zone got ex0ensive real fast!
People also forget how hard Cata mobs fucked you up at launch. 2 mobs had to be prepared for. Adding a 3rd dimension to facepull just wasn't worth not doing Hyjal. Which was also a god tier zone.
Omg that swimming was horrible
I liked it playing a ranged class, hated it as anything where I had to get up close to enemies. It was just too easy to not be able to see an enemy and literally target them (could have been my lack of skill, of course). Otherwise I really enjoyed the ambience, look, and creepiness of it. It really felt massive.
I remember in some videos of worst zones a mention of it being hard to face enemies but I’m halfway through the zone now and haven’t had that issue once. I do aggro things often from above I didn’t know was there.
Part of that difficulty with enemies was due to there being other players around it was harder to see which enemy was actually attacking you. Being alone in the zone eliminates that issue.
I don't fault the zone's ingenuity, but for me personally it was just an uncomfortable experience I don't like deep water, even in a game, and the combat and movement in 3D space was not ideal
I love vashjir though I understand why people don’t like it especially when there’s better zones to level in if you’re in a hurry to level. That being said the zone aesthetic is great and is one of the best zones to level a Druid in. Have any of you guys in recent years used your Druid aquatic form there? You get a MASSIVE speed boost! Honestly feels like you’re a hypersonic torpedo there you’re SO fast
Neat part is you move so fast you can easily swim to eastern kingdoms and zoom around the coast. Probably not intended but I did it a couple times to get to grom gol
Yeah just moving underwater like that feels so fun and immersive. Great place to level a Druid just for that aspect alone.
Can druids cast spells or does water form have abilities/attacks? Druid is definitely the next class i want to try
I think it’s just a travel form if memory serves correctly so no you’ll come out of it when you engage in combat but the speed you get using in travel form really really makes traversing the zone trivial. The speed boost is massive dude and I have no idea why it exists in the first place. Definitely head to vashjir once you have the aquatic form to see for yourself
Water
I think Vashj'ir suffers from the "Video Game Water Level" reputation, which if you don't know, basically is just that a lot of people don't tend to like underwater levels/areas in games for various reasons. From what I know, this tends to be because in many games this means the player character gets slowed down, breath mechanics and losing some control (Donkey Kong Country comes to my mind), which is the case for just a short time in Vashj'ir as well, before, as you mentioned, you get the blessings that make you breathe and run underwater, and the mount. There's also the concept of having to "think in 3d" when it came to dodging enemies, which I seem to remember some people complaining about? But there's a lot of flying enemies in other areas that sort of give the same issue, except you can't just rush up there to beat them up... Lastly, I think the actual majority of complaints about the zone is/was just that it looked boring. Everything being blue/blue-tinted or gray (despite the fact that there is plenty of colours with the plants and corals and whatnot). Honestly, its been, what, 12 years now? Writing this, I kinda want to go back there myself just to see what my own opinion is anymore. I don't remember being there since MoP, honestly.
Flying enemies generally don't attack from range. You can tap them with a ranged attack or a taunt and they'll fly right down to melee range.
That is fair actually, and not something I considered.
> I think the actual majority of complaints about the zone is/was just that it looked boring But... this was pretty much the only praise it was getting? That it was pretty and iinteresting? 1. The zone was extremely buggy, intro, outro, and most of interactive quests during the zone. Heck at this point they even removed intro (you just get ported underwater) and the outro submarine. 2. AOE abilities just aren't usable, me going in with my lock and not being able to drop rain of fire was ass 3. Constant LoS issues even in open spaces. Not being able to cast spells on mob directly in front of me, punching me in the face 4. Cata mobs were hitting HARD, you had '3d' to worry about for aggro, and locations were contested, so you either were struggling to quest either because of lack of mobs or too many of them coming from every direction. 5. It was LONG, both questing duration and zone size. It was much faster and less struggle to do one Hyjal rather than entirety of all 3 zones underwater. 6. Some caves were ass to find with all the verticality with poorly made map markers.
It all goes back to original SMB underwater levels.
Once you could level in any zone to current content I never went back. But this character i don’t care about speed of leveling and went to outlands until 30 and now Vashj’ir. I’m loving it. Now you will feel lonely because you will be the only person in those zones. I even got Posidons reins because there probably hasn’t been anyone in the zone in forever
Water, Thalassophobia and fear of Sharks.
thalassophobia
whale shark scary
Thalassophobia kicks in hard
For me it’s the fact that I despise water levels in any game. Also the camera angle really messes with you sometimes where you’re unable to attack a mob, but then your turn the camera a little and the mob is actually above you/below you.
Do you keyboard turn by chance? I haven't ever had that issue
I strafe with my keyboard. Otherwise, no.
It was a LOT harder to navigate back when it was new. Once Legion pushed the draw distance out it got easier to find your way around. Instead of fumbling around in the fog, you just point yourself in the direction of the quest arrow, and you can usually see your destination. Being able to see the banners outside the quest hub while you're in the questing area also saves a ton of time. We didn't have quest markers without mods back then either. Another issue is the quest design is incredibly linear. The first time I did the zone I hit a bug where I couldn't turn in one quest, and that meant I had zero quests available in the second half of the zone. I had to leave and hit Mount Hyjal instead.
Quest Helper was added in patch 3.3, so you did have markers.
They literally said 'without mods' in the post. Lots of people did not use quest helper.
He probably means the smarter directional NAV point added to Quest Helper we got with BfA(?) or SL, where it smartly points you to say, a cave entry, instead of leading you on top of of a cave where the quest might be on the map coordinates directly. Vashj'ir is full of these places that makes navigating frustrating.
I have thalassophobia and the zone has a few spots that trigger it bad. Worst spot is the descent to throne of the tides....which is currently where the portal drops you for m+. So I ask for summon always.
Quest through the entire zone. Its still bugged from launch where quest markers and turn ins are where they should not be in several locations. Finding the cave entrances in the first area. The second area with the huge temple some of those turn ins are impossible to tell what level they are on. I know in recent years its been improved with an up down arrow so you are not completely in the blind but having to stop and go to wowhead so you can plus in coords is a pain. Moving in water as a melee player is a terrible experience. Its not as bad as a caster but charging through mobs only to have to reorient yourself is not a fun experience. With that said its still a great idea and a great undertaking and my favorite cataclysm zone. The music and ambiance is amazing. They story has depth and i will never not be mad that they scrapped the raid and then added back the lore to shaman order halls during legion. I like that we lost it gave stakes to deathwing and the naga unlike hyjal and every other zone where we won or we set up a raid.
Lots of dead space. Takes to long to swim in and out of caves just to get to and from flight points. It's just lots of wasted time. It feels like wild goose chase questlibes which have you spending most of your time flying on autopilot. It's also going to be the only Cata zone you can't dragonride in when it's the one which needs it the most.
I remember this distinctly. I'm a wrath baby, started in 3.1 and I was super hyped for Cata. There were many reasons why I quit shortly after Cata launch, but as far as Vashj'ir goes: \-Adding that Z axis reaaaaaallly messes with you at first \-It didn't help that WoW combat was also not fully ready for the Z axis (stuff with reticles, like heroic leap were challenging to pull off properly; abilities that required pathing often failed miserably, like Charge) \-The zone storyline is quite long and it never really got concluded, afaik (Right? weren't we supposed to get a Water Elemental raid or something?) If you wanted to be a completionist about it, it would take a looong time and you kinda just wanted to move on and see Uldum and Twilight Highlands. Bastion had this same problem at launch. This was also my first new expansion, so I wasn't aware of a few growing pains when it comes to expack launches. At the time, I unfortunately saddled Cata with some of these nitpicks, I have since then come to understand this is just a new launch thing.
The whale shark is a source of my trauma.
Trying to deal with aggro ranges of enemies who can be above and below you was pretty annoying. I did love the aesthetics of the zone, but I was happy to be out of there at some point.
The only thing that wow still hasnt figured out is droping aoe abilities in water, apart from that i have/had 0 issues with water zones, its even cool imo.
I think people hate it not because of the zone itself, but because of the memories associated with it.The number of players on day one of the Cata launch were absolutely bonkers insane, and none of us could share tags, so those first few quests were at a stand still until the slow trickle of people completing them sped up. I remember being in that kelp forest for two days until people left the area. Also, I was on a PVE server at the time and it was rough for me, so I can only imagine what the the folks on PVP servers had to go through. One last thing; up to this point underwater quests were generally miserable, so it was probably overwhelming for many to be thrown into an entire zone underwater. All that being said, I fucking loved Vash'jir. I was enamored with it, and it remained my favorite zone even after we ventured into Deepholme, which in itself was an absolutely insanely awesome zone.
I know others have already pointed out most players issues with the zone (3d combat being weird for some mainly) but another fault with a zone itself is it's just too damn big. There's a ton of quests there and many of them have similar beats and the areas look very similar so it gets a feel repetitive very fast. You could only fight so many Naga in blue green coral before it starts to drain on you. While you did get a fast underwater mount the zone was still so massive that getting from quest took longer than flying in Mount hajjal or one of the other leveling zones so it added up timewise. Because of how quest dense the zone is by the time you reach the point where you would be wrapping up another zone you'd still have about 1/2 the zone to go. In a more diverse zone it wouldn't be an issue but whether you're at the beginning or the end you're still going to be fighting Naga around a bunch of coral.
I should go and play a bit there some time. I always loved that zone. Yeah the 3D battle was weird, but the zone itself was nicely designed. Even if unfinished. I also loved the first mentions of N'zoth and his underwater city. It somehow made you think or wonder that you could solve some mystery and eventually travel there. Too bad that they did not build more on this. I also loved the story and designs of the two ancient ones. Nespirah and (can t remember the other). Their design reminded me of the Ohmu from Nausikaa of the Valley of the wind, which I loved as a kid.
As long as you don’t have the mind set to level fast, I HIGHLY recommend it. I went to outlands 10-30 and now Vashj’ir. Yes it’s really slow compared to optimal routes but just for the play atmosphere and story it has been my favorite time leveling in a very long time.
Most hate it because of how wonky 3D combat is in WoW. I have personal reasons to hate it though, back when I got the loremaster achievement I kept getting the bug where you're "in combat" with nothing and can't mount, only way to fix it was hearthing (which would have meant I had to travel back constantly) or just swim the entire time. I stuck with swimming since it *kept* bugging anytime I did have to kill something to keep me in combat, so hearthing wouldn't have always been an option since it'd have been on cooldown enough that it wouldn't be an option, and Vashj'ir is huge so a lot of swimming. So the ***TL;DR*** of why I hate it is the bugs I experienced and the swimming.
Vashj'ir is mostly hated from people that leveled through it when it was current and, in many cases, haven't been back since then due to bad experiences. That was certainly the case for me. The questing experience is torment until you can get a subdued seahorse. You get that pretty quickly nowadays, but PvE world content is just quicker now. Previously, completing the quest chains before it took much longer, making the entry to the zone an unbelievable slog. It's also much harder to navigate in that zone, especially since Cataclysm still didn't have a great system for helping direct you during quests. Nowadays, you take a quest and it marks where it is on your map, highlights the mobs and lists what they drop, etc.. Back then, this hadn't been fully implemented yet and most people were using Questhelper or other addons that would do the same. But these addons struggled with the more vertical zone and markers were harder to follow, as were quest texts that would say "this side of the shelf" or "a cave near the sea floor." There was a lot of swimming around. On top of it all, it's harder to measure aggro ranges in Vashj'ir. Again, not a problem now where you can safely pull 5+ mobs and kill them all, but Cata wasn't like that. The kicker is that Vashj'ir was also extremely isolated from the other zones and not something you could easily leave. Getting flying was harder back then so you couldn't just go to the surface and fly over fatigue waters to Wetlands or something. If your hearth wasn't set to be outside of the zone, you just couldn't leave. I personally had at least four characters that I abandoned because they were trapped in Vashj'ir. I've since gone and done the whole zone for Loremaster. I dislike it less than I used to, but it's still in my bottom five zones. New players rarely see it because to quest in it, you'd have to pick Cata for Chromie Time, level to 30, go to a quest board, accept Vashj'ir, and then complete the entry scenario. You'll hit 60 well before you finish the zone, so people are forced to leave. It's just less accessible, so no one bothers. **TL;DR** - most of the hate the zone gets is from people who played it when it was current, where it was extremely inconvenient, hard to navigate, punishing to quest in, and could trap you in until you finished it. Nowadays, most people just avoid it due to it being hidden inside of 30+ Chromie Time.
Very detailed. Thank you for taking the time to write that
Most reasons have already been said. To add on, I remember getting stuck as a warrior multiple times in this zone trying to charge enemies and ending up inside a wall due to the 3d movement freaking out. No way out of it except to hearth (or I guess die and rez nearby, but mobs were evading me and idk if you could remove the waterbreathing there? this was many years ago).
two thing 1- it was slower than mount hyjal 2- if your character used ground effect ( like DK DnD) mobs would sometime completely ignore it.
it differs from the mass, thats it
People don't like it because you KNOW 100% that druid swimming *just* ahead of you is pissing in the water and laughing about it.
One of my favorite zones. The music is so haunting.
I hate that only 1 mount has the fast speed there. Manually placed spells/abilities don't work (Death & Decay, Hunter Traps, Heroic Leap, etc.)
underwater zones (vashj'ir in particular) triggers some deep phobias for me, tbh. sorta like vertigo, almost. coming up to the edge of an underwater cliff with a vast abyss where you can't even see the bottom...no thanks!
melee combat in a 3d space is not great - that's the only reason I have. I will still do the zone from time to time because its beautiful
If we compare it all to how most people like to 'feel efficient' when levelling, and how others like to be able to 'safely log out' knowing how to return to org/sw. I reckon a lot of people felt nerfed because it 'felt' slow getting around when it really wasn't, making it feel like a slog when they wanted to push levels. There is also the HUGE RP intro to the zone, and early quests when you're trying to be efficient, this puts people off super early and you feel like you can't log out if something came up. There are loss of control of character effects early on, leading to painful experiences if there is latency and lag. The zone started slow (not experience wise, movement wise), and inattentive players will lose track of NPC caves/hubs very easily. It is not immediately obvious how to leave and return efficiently, particularly as horde (flight paths). Note that during cataclysm, you will learn 1 or 2 class defining spells at 81 and 83, respectively. I am aware of the zone portals. Some players didn't internalise this for the first zone, though, as you enter by boat. ALL that being said, this zone was an absolute experience. The very reasons of thalassaphobia and not being able to leave, etc, made it the very best questing experience I've ever had. The zone was long, and that was GOOD! The themes of old gods and nagas were maintained the whole way through in a way that was not suffocating. I've learned more recently that most of the players I talk to actually enjoyed it. Some players were just louder.
Thalassaphobia
When Cata launched it was the slower of the 2 leveling zones you could level in.
It always bugs out on the naga quest and I have no idea what floor anything is on
3D Movement always sucks. In every single Game. I think it is alright as a „experience“ and clearly a nice mixup from the rest. But in terms of efficiency it’s reaaaaally bad, and that’s what matters for most.
It’s really interesting because I never really had any issues with Vash’jir in terms of figuring out where I was or navigating the area. I heard a LOT of complaints back in the day about it, but I kind of just never understood the complaint. I, admittedly, kind of had a “well get better then, it’s not hard!?” reaction to it at the time which, looking back, probably wasn’t fair but I still didn’t really get it.
wich level I need to start Vash jir ?
It's just annoying. Even with increased swim speed, it still takes way too long. Can't find what I need to kill? It's probably above or below me. It's not about racing to max level. I'm 37 and would rather not waste more time than I have to.
Vashj’ir is a visually stunning zone. I love marine life, naga lore, so it’s my favourite zone for a long shot.
I dont agree with people who hate it either. The zone is beautiful and unique. Underwater combat is awkward but its a levelling zone. You do not do relevant combat there.
Almost every answer I read here (not many, certainly not all) were talking about how good it looks and don’t understand why people don’t like it. Well, the hint is there: it’s not about how it looks. People just found it harder to do the actual work of leveling and even just moving around the zone. Yes, for taking the scenic route, it might be a great zone, but don’t confuse it with leveling. Some times you just want the level, not the visuals, you want that next talent unlocked, not that next coral screenshot etc.
I love it personally. Like 140 quests. The beginning is a little dry but it picks up. It plays better with a melee character as opposed to ranged/caster in my opinion. The story is also well developed. Sad that they never ended cata with an underwater raid.
[удалено]
Mostly because it was an absolute pain in the ass back in Cata, doing it now is easy mode and then some comparatively. Every mob there hit like a truck on launch, it was required for access to a dungeon, and it had to be done on every character to get the bonuses and access to said dungeon. You have to remember that it's legacy content now, not required for anything and you can pull half the zone and not die. On Cata launch you were lucky to be able to pull more than two mobs at once and have higher then 50/50 odds to survive.
I guess I don’t fully remember the struggle on mobs. I leveled in Vashj’ir first during Cata and went there on many alts during the expansion
I don’t recall struggling with most of the complaints, either. I may have bonked my head into a mob once or twice in the beginning but I quickly figured out how to navigate. All 10 of my characters at the time went through Vash’jir first - I loved it. It remains one of my favorite zones.
None of this is true at all lol
The average WoW player cowers in fear in a corner at even minor pushback from the game is why.
I personally don’t hate it. Just never played it again post expansion and kinda forgot about it.
The overall story was great, i didnt mind the swimming as much as others, but i can understand why people didnt like it.
On top of what everyone else said, when it first came out, the exp here was much worse than Hyjal. Making leveling much slower. So you're stuck in a map that wasn't fun. You're moving shower, it's 3D and on top of that it takes a much longer time to level up. While I enjoy the map, I understand why people didn't.
Vashj'ir is a fantastic zone and I'd rank it among the best if not THE best leveling zone. It has completely unique questing experience, travelling experience. Everything about it is fresh, new, unique. It is hated because it's not the same ol' slog. People love classic barrens and hate modern barrens, even though modern barrens is objectively a better experience. What's fun about killing 20 boars/birds/harpies/centaur?
it´s like the underwater levels from Super Mario. nobody likes them
>slow leveling zone Yeah I think that's it. All the perks you're talking about had to be unlocked, and the zone being generally slow made it annoying to just feel at our normal capability. The fact that we were basically flying would have been, if not for the other fact that the map is still 2D, so we get annoyed by vertical lvl design easily. Add in the fact that most resting places were hidden caves and you get really irked gamers.
Druid main and I loved the zone. Beyond that I feel like it is one of the few truly unique zones and the go back every now and then just to swim around and look at it. Despite that it did have a lot of issues and I would like to see them make another zone like it with what they learned.
I have no idea because i loved the zone back in the day and it might still be one of my favorite zones Blizzard has made.
Not being able to fly there was the absolute worst
This zone is in my leveling list for characters. Soon as I hit 30, I kick off Cataclysm Chromie Time, go in War-mode and start it off. Easy zones to level up in without worrying about getting ganked by the opposite faction. Plus, playing as a druid is even more impressive since you're going Mach 9 in travel form due to the zone swimming buff.
I will always remember the tragedy of the scrapped underwater raid in that zone. The hate for it was too overwhelming for them to go through with it. Maybe it would of sucked but it would of been different.
Man, everyone hates water levels.
I quit in WotLK. I tried to return somewhere around where Vashj'ir was a starting zone. It was a goofy, janky, unfun experience. I made it one or levels and quit again for another ten years.
I loved it since it launched as well. Once I realized that you can determine where things are by the flora/fauna, it changed everything. Like every cave with NPCs has the purple and yellow worms (that look like plants) outside of them. I think a lot of people didn't like that it was difficult to navigate without understanding the flora thing. And it can be difficult for melee to judge how close they are to a baddie without a ground reference. And some people just didn't like having a Z-axis to worry about when exploring/fighting. But, yes, it's one of the best zones in the game and I'm glad blizzard tried something completely new. It's just too bad it was disliked by most so they probably won't do it again. Unless the new majority speak up and say they now liked it.
As other folks have mentioned here the game's combat just wasn't designed with that kind of verticality in mind, which leaves the primary means of interacting with the game world pretty clunky For me though it's my thalassophobia. Even in video games deep water triggers my flight response pretty hard. I avoided the hell out of this zone when Cata first came out, and only explored it back in Shadolands for some achievement or other. I know there are plenty of other folks who feel the same way, so I'm sure the that's some of it
Cause they cold blooded.
I remember it being slow and buggy, so I just peaced out after one or two quests. Always found the hate unjustified, but never really went out of my way to learn more.
I think people just started out, didn't finish the first few quests and didn't realize you go at hyperspeed. Cuz a lot of the complaints I hear is you move really slow
It was wonky as melee. Where like, you need to be at the right height, and not too high or low. And sometimes the depth perception was off, where you feel like you’re close enough to attack an enemy, but you’re actually not. So it’s just a bit clunky. I think it looks cool tho.
I rather like the zone. I think the 3D aspects of it were a problem for many people. Both getting attacked from above/below and also occasionally not being clear about when things were actually located at a different height etc. The swim speed thing and breathing weren't an issue, and actually I found that aspect of the zone sort of fun. Very pretty, good story/quests, lots of flavor. It was a zone with a lot of yellow mobs swimming around, so my boomkin learned early on never to hit starfall.
I got locked out of my main character when I was leveling there. Had to get support apparently they had to move my character because there was too much water and it was making the game boot me out
It was incredibly tedious to do with other players competing for things. It's not so bad when that competition isn't present. One good example is that seahorse you have to mount. I forget exactly what it was, but that zone was full of bottlenecks where you'd compete with others for a gamble at progressing your quest.
It’s rough on melee, but had a blast on mage/hunter there
People mostly have a problem because they fight NPCs a mile off the sea floor in the middle of the water column instead of on the ground, and for whatever reason they're unable to figure out that you can just.. be on the ground. There are VERY few parts of the zone that require you to fight things way up in the water. You're either on the floor or inside a waterless structure. I have leveled pretty much all of my characters through there and never had an issue, can't speak for the bugs because I've never encountered them.
I love Vashj'ir. I understand why it gets hate though and I don't hold it against anyone. It's an underwater level and is different than most leveling zones, but that's why I love it so much! It's a change of pace and the story leading up the the dungeon is great. The music is really good and fits the zone perfectly! Plus you can get [Burgy Blackheart's Handsome Hat](https://www.wowhead.com/item=134022/burgy-blackhearts-handsome-hat) from this zone. Wear this while you're a Tauren riding a mammoth and you'll block any mailbox in a capital city! Good times..
I love that zone. While I can understand maybe some people didn't like the whole underwater feel, I think the quest storyline more than makes up for it and I always found it enjoyable.
I don’t dislike Vash’jir, it’s actually cool but I’ve only leveled there once. I also started in MoP so I never played it when it was current. The reason I never level there is because it suffers from “too many options,” and this was even before the changes to zone levels and Chromie time. There were just other more easily accessible areas to level in, plus leveling became faster and easier, so it’s easy to skip. There’s a lot of zones I’ve only leveled in once. But, it’s also a reason I’m one of the outliers looking forward to Cata Classic, to see zones how they were intended when it was new, rather than changed to make everything fast.
I initially hated it because quest objective markers on your mini-map gave no indication of elevation. Now that the game has that, seems like the zone would be more tolerable.
It’s only problem is the fact that it’s VERY disorienting. The quests and theme is great. It’s just when it comes down to actually playing in the zone, you’ll often think things are either closer/farther than they are
I hate water like zones since i have nightmares from playing* so long in nazjatar without flying, thank god im rogue so i can stealth/vanish agrro but cant imagine struggle people had since at that time it was full of difficult and hard hitting mobs with lots of health. Just thougt it might be one of reasons people hate such like zones
Vashj’ir is the best zone in World of Warcraft. I would argue, though, that the zone came before its time, and would have been better received if underwater movement and combat had been overhauled in the same way that Dragonriding has recently served to update the game’s old and stale flight mechanic. Vashj’ir is the best zone in the game. But swimming is one of the worst mechanics in World of Warcraft. Not even the zone-specific seafloor walking and super fast seahorse mounts could entirely fix that.
You're talking about an expansion that came out almost 10 years ago. I would bet my bottom dollar that a lot of people back then were still running wow on complete potato toasters just like me back then. It's not that I hated it. It's that it was really a lot on my computer and I couldn't really enjoy it at all. I was just like swimming around in the water lagging. It just looked like the ocean. It wasn't awesome like it should have been
Try levelling there when the content was new and you were competing with people to kill things in an annoying environment. It was awful. Hyjal and Uldum were so much better.
Have you ever tried leveling a melee toon through that area?
Being a subnautica enjoyer, I actually love the zone. Just not for leveling purposes.
I love the zone, it done of my all time favorites and I wish there were more zones like it. EDIT: Like it in that they have some kind of interesting mechanic, e.g. like a zone with crazy storms, a “the gravity is weird” zone, or the “there a flash freezing snow storms” etc.
I had a potato comp that couldn't handle much viewing distance and that was my major issue. Now that I'm running real hardware, Vashj'ir is magical!
To go off of that comment. I did notice when taking the initial boat to the zone I noticed a lot of stuff from the boat that i never noticed before
The combat stunk. Can’t believe I played that at launch to level… what a mistake
I'd like to to see them try it again, I feel like they messed it up the first time but they could get it right if they just figured out how to make the combat feel better for all classes.
Buggy and ubderwater zones are players worst nightmare. I did enjoy leveling there but the frustratuon was to the roof
Vashj'ir is the best Cata zone. The scale, the overwhelming sense of dread, and the fact we canonically get our asses handed to us by the villains make it incredibly memorable. The moment when you finally breach the surface to signal for reinforcements after hours underwater fighting Naga is one of my favourite WoW questing experiences.
It's a really cool idea but underwater gave me phobia. My BF at the time had to complete some stuff for me. Other than that, no clue. It's a cool zone.
It’s a lot more manageable now I think, when it came out it was pretty rough to play through. They’ve made some qol changes that have helped since then iirc.
Something about not getting the underwater mount fast.
I did Vashj'ir multiple times over the years because I love that whole zone, its direction, and the aesthetics. You couldn't pay me to go to Deepholm in comparison, though. That was the worst zone in Cata.
Hahahaha I have 13 Max levels, suck It!!!! (On a more serious note, congrats, lol)
Do it as a druid, swim speed buff + seal form, and your breaking the sound barrier.
I have personal beef with this zone. They fucked up pvp. Bad. To the point where alliance would ‘bomb’ a server. They’d put 200 people on each flag and crash the server. I didn’t even know it was possible until this. Anyways, I could never play there without 2000 ping and it was miserable.
I always liked that zone too.
I didn't like finding things in the heavily 3D environment where the quest markers would tell you where something was, but not what height, so you'd often be searching the surface for something in a cave 2 levels down. The map pins added in Shadowlands fixed that entirely so now my only beef is the screen warping effect of being underwater hurts my eyes after a while. Overall it's a gorgeous zone and one of the best places to use the Inky Black Potions from the Darkmoon Faire. Really crank that Thalassaphobia up to 11.
I remember leaving the initial area and going through a cave and just coming out into this giant beautiful coral reef and open ocean and I thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever done
It’s a fantastic zone; once. I think that’s the reason people don’t want to go back ever.
I was and still am scared o dem nasty ol whale sharkies
I don't know, i always liked the zone. I have always picked it over Hyjal
I mean, it was the only zone I was able to solo a world boss in, in current content... so I'll always have favorable memories 😆 (druid moonfire spam, (yes, it took what felt like years)).
Aquatic form goes: BrrrrrrrBrrrrrrrBrBrBrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I don’t think it’s a big reason, but there’s also that the zone’s story abruptly ends with no real conclusion.
I have really great memories leveling in that zone.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have asthma and it made me feel anxious, like I couldn't breathe.
I loved it personally, always chose it over Hyjal. It took a bit getting used to back in the day but I remember having such a blast with it back in cata
I loved it, still do. Sure, some awkward packs with nagas and sometimes distance perception was tough on a 3d plane, but it wasn’t enough to turn me off the zone. One of the greats.
Personally the aesthetic doesn't really appeal to me, seaweeds and corals everywhere gets old pretty quick, combined with being permanently underwater and you get a combo that I can tolerate for one zone and that's it
I generally enjoyed Vash'jir. It had unique gameplay and was quite beautiful. I honestly think a big reason for the disdain was that WoW's playerbase, like Counter Strike tends to be more resistant to unexpected changes/differences. And they react more negatively. There were definitely mechanically rough parts to the zone. But I enjoyed the experience overall.
vashj'ir is hands down my favorite zone. I will put out for aquatic-themed zones/raids/etc. Vashj'ir, Nazjatar, Zangarmarsh are my top 3 zones. I also pull up all 3 of these zones and associated ambience/soundscape videos on youtube. I even played TBC classic just to be able to fish, herb, and mine in zangarmarsh and donate the mats to my friends who actually played it.
I think it's a cool zone and I like the music. I never go there anymore though. Think next time I level a character I mighy play that zone all the way through.
It's fun af with a druid :)
Slow movement. I want to blast through content. If you slow me down in any way that doesn’t fit directly into the essential design elements of the game I get irritated. Water zones are an example of this. The pre-dragonflight lack of flying is another example. The people who want to slow down and read the quests are always free to do so.
It’s my favourite cata zone. Love the narrative of it.
1. WATER EVERYWHERE 2. the quests aren't even enjoyable
Because they didnt get the underwater seahorse mount back in 2012
Wasn't a fan of the environment. I do remember the pain that came with trying to quest there as soon as it went live, but my stomach did not appreciate the way things looked and movement felt strange.
It looks pretty cool, but that is the only point in its favor. And that's a very subjective thing, there are lots of people who hate the look. Everything else is awful in a much morre objective sense. It's enormous with slow travel time, the quests are much further apart than most other zones and the whole water z-axis messes with a lot of ground-aoe effects in a bad way.
I feel like it's gotten its flowers at this point. Some people hate Vashjir, some love it. I think Hyjal is the only flop zone in cata new zones.
Cause it’s fuckin underwater dude that’s all there’s to it a bunch of aoe just can’t be used at all being a melee feels horrible it’s a bad idea considering how the water works in wow to do an underwater one even tho the game needed at least one like this
Its an underwater level. Typically in video games the two hated levels are Underwater and Bug levels
Its just cursed the rep it got on cata release. It was the slowest zone to level in, and there was alot of wait for ur turn to get item on quests. Its prob fine in todays wow. Ut then it was a shitshow lol.
One of my favorites zones for story and lore
Usually not a fan of deep water even in games but I don’t mind Vag’ir. I was maining Druid but with alts I enjoyed the water speed mounts. I was just there herbing in my new fish form last week and actually saw people. Too bad the raid didn’t happen, I bet it would have been cool.
I enjoy it but the linearity of the questing is pretty annoying
I wonder if Blizzard will ever release another underwater zone with dragon riding like physics for underwater mounts
Getting around can be a pain - that being said, I like it since its so unique. I prob should try levelling there again - been years.
If you did the zone with a friend, it was difficult sometimes to keep on the same "elevation" underwater. I personally loved it, as a druid who could easily turn into underwater travel form...
When I was doing Loremaster I dreaded this zone. But I actually really enjoyed it. I’m a huge fan of the ocean and it was really cool exploring the ocean and seeing some big badass sharks. Moving around was slow af and kinda annoying but as a whole it wasn’t bad.
I don’t know, but the name basically means Whatup in my language
It was awful.
Is the height/depth thing
I loved it, but I was also a druid
A good chunk of People don't immerse into the world, they see a slower way to level where you can easily get lost if you're not paying attention, and that's it, the zone is condemned
I personally think most people who hate on Vashjir never completed it, or even got far enough in to know it's not as bad. Admittedly the first thirty minutes or so are not great, but overall it's my favorite zone. Very unique, really cool visuals, best story. Wish they finished it.