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March 19, 2025 26 mins

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World of Warcraft's latest expansion The War Within has dramatically improved the game's accessibility for returning and casual players, abandoning problematic borrowed power systems in favor of more flexible progression options.

• Shadowlands forced weekly grinds through the covenant system with 80 Renown levels and limited catch-up mechanisms
• The War Within removes borrowed power for permanent progression systems
• Delves offer customizable solo content with scaling difficulty and meaningful rewards
• Players can progress at their own pace without strict time commitments
• Story Mode raid allows solo players to experience narrative conclusions with NPC allies
• Community toxicity remains an issue, particularly in normal difficulty group content
• Creating your own groups is recommended to avoid gatekeeping and impatient players
• Finding reliable companions transforms the multiplayer experience

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Music.
Thank you, hello and welcome tothe Pig and Whistle Tales from
Azeroth.
As always here at the Pig andWhistle Inn in Stormwind, I go

(01:00):
through a variety of subjectswith regards to World of
Warcraft.
Grab a bottle or a pint, sitback and enjoy this midweek
episode.
We'll be going over a few bitsand bobs.
We're going to be looking atreturning players on the forums.
We're going to be looking atsome PvP.
We're going to be looking atgeneral problems as well, and
this is obviously tough to putinto a category.

(01:23):
I would say it's a very varietysort of um thing I'm doing, and
these are problems that I'vesaid many times, but they do
need to be addressed multipletimes again and again, because
they are consistent problems andthey are ones that I've
certainly picked up on, you'veprobably picked up on.
So yeah, let's get straightinto it.
So, essentially, we start offvery light-hearted.

(01:45):
Returning players in uh warwithin is it worth it?
Hey, I'm thinking aboutreturning to wow.
With the current expansion onsale, is it worth returning?
I quit around late shadowlandsdue to not having much time to
play.
How is the game more casual,friendly now compared to
previous expansions?
So he quit when gearing was atits all-time worst, I would say.

(02:07):
Shuttle land was one of thetoughest gearing experiences
that recent world of warcraftexpansions have had.
The difference in sort ofgetting up to your end game
let's say so for retail end gameis the name of the game.
Essentially, you're looking togear the best that you can get,

(02:27):
the best talents and all thatstuff potentially.
Now you obviously aren't forcedto do this, but you know, if
you want to, with Shadowlandswhat you had to do was gear.
Then you had to upgrade thegear.
Now you still have to do thisin the War of In, but it's a lot
more streamlined gear.
Now you still have to do thisin the war of him, but it's a
lot more streamlined now andit's very much um.

(02:47):
Shadowlands was the firstimplementation of this upgrade
gear and it just wasn't perfect.
Um, I can't speak much aboutthe pve side of gearing, um, but
I remember bits and bobs ofshadowlands.
Now the biggest problem was thecovenant system.
The covenant system in Gearingand for Endgame in general was

(03:10):
you had 80 Renown levels thatyou had to level up and you
leveled these Renown levels viadoing weekly quests, via doing
multiple different things, andyou got probably two to three, I
think it was renowned on aweekly basis by doing certain
quests and different objectiveswithin the world of Warcraft.

(03:33):
Now, these weren't looked intomuch further than that.
The problem with this was therewas no catch-up system.
The catch-up system that wasimplemented came very late, in
shadowlands.
It was very late actually.
I think it was like 0.25 patchor 0.2 patch, so literally a

(03:54):
patch before the end of theexpansion.
And to go up 80 renown levels,um, when you get like three
renown each week, uh is tough todo.
It is very, very tough to dobecause you're immediately
nerfed on your damage, yourabilities that you can utilize,

(04:14):
because you've got certainabilities at certain renown
levels and you've got certainbig buffs at certain renown
levels.
So, at level 10 or something,renown, you unlocked a slot that
you could put in, essentially adefensive, a utility or a sort
of endurance, like conduits theywere called, and this had a big

(04:35):
impact on how tanky you were,how much utility you brought, et
cetera, et cetera.
And then, when you got to level40 renowned, you got a new
ability.
This would be your covenantability, this would be your
flesh craft, your no.
Well, it wouldn't be your fleshcraft and stuff.
It would be something thatincreases the potency of these

(04:57):
abilities, and if you didn'thave these, you're a major
disadvantage because, especiallyin like pvp, for example, this
is the biggest one flesh craftwas an insane.
In like pvp, for example, thisis the biggest one.
Fleshcraft was an insane.
Ability for pvp is now what thatwas.
It was a maldraxxus p or acovenant talent.
This is one that everyone got,okay.
So you had one baseline umability that you got for picking

(05:21):
a covenant, which was soulshape, uh, fleshcraft, what?
Uh?
The kyrian steward.
And you had the door of shadowsfor venthyr.
These are staple points thatyou, every single class, would
get, and then you would get yourown ability depending on what
class you were.
So for druids it was convoke,the spirits, orters it was the

(05:44):
Hunt for Night Phase and stufflike that.
Now, fleshcraft was very, verybig in PvP, mainly because there
was an ability in it when yougot to a certain renown level
where it would grant youimmunity to CC whilst you were
channeling the ability, and thisisn't like a small immunity.

(06:05):
This is three seconds ofimmunity and it's pretty
impactful.
Now this is really big and thisis the problem that shadowlands
had was that you couldn't catchup to these renown levels as
quickly.
You really really couldn't, andit's just so much better in

(06:26):
terms of you don't have to worryabout this stuff.
Now it is not borrowed poweranymore.
This is what makes the end gameand the gearing a bit easier,
because you aren't usingborrowed power systems anymore,
which is really really good.
Um, also, not to mention theactual gearing itself for pvp.
I've gone over it many times.

(06:47):
But you had to get to a certainuh rating to upgrade your gear
and obviously, when you gotcloser to that rating, people
might have already had thatupgrade.
So you're already fighting at adisadvantage kind of deal.
Um, not, yeah, it's.
It's a bit ridiculous.
This is also like I'm.
I'm comparing it to Shadowlands,because this is when he stopped

(07:09):
Shadowlands.
You very much couldn't switchout your covenant as easily
easily, because you had torestart your renown system,
which I've just explained is aball ache in itself to do.
Um, but yeah, that again, thatdidn't come into play until late
in shadowlands, where everyonewas um able to buy a certain

(07:33):
item that allows you to get upto renown level 40 or 60 or
something, but that was superlate.
So gearing wise very mucheasier, um, but casual friendly
as well.
Um, it's a lot more casualfriendly.
So shadowlands forced you eachweek to do your weekly quests,

(07:53):
okay, if you didn't, you wereactively weaker than every
single character that did themthe week previously.
Okay, and this is because itgave you renown, which gave you
stats, which gave gave youdifferent benefits depending on
the level of your renown, andstuff like that.
Now, for Dragonflight, youactually don't have any of this.

(08:13):
And for more casual, friendlyplayers, you can do Delves.
These Delves are actually quitea good way of making gold or
getting some gear.
They do scale very quickly andthis allows you to.
If you really wanted to do veryintense delves as a casual

(08:33):
player, on like when you haveyour time, like to play the game
, and what I mean by this iswith a mythic dungeon.
You're obviously needing fivepeople, one of them being
yourself, so four other people,and you have to either gather
this group together and you'vegot to go to the dungeon and
complete the dungeon.
Some people might not evencomplete the dungeon.

(08:54):
They might leave before, theymight rage, quit.
You know all of that.
For a delve, if you've got twohours, you can go.
Yeah, I'll do a tier eightdelve, which is pretty tough.
Okay, it's pretty tough.
Now, if you complete the tiereight and you're like I think I
can do a tier nine or ten, andthen it's like, yeah, okay, I'll
try it, and then you spend likeyour time like doing that for

(09:16):
the next two hours and that'swhat you enjoy doing, like with
the time that you have, becauseit is very casual, friendly, you
can choose how easy ordifficult these delves are for
just yourself and you cancustomise your like brand
essentially, build a brand ishow I like to refer to it as and
you can make him a tank, youcan make him a healer, you can
make him a DPS and you canreally kind of say or you have a

(09:42):
very big choice to make whendoing these delves just for
yourself.
You don't have to just walk inand it's sort of boring and your
mind like is just blanking outbecause these are tough like uh,
what?
What would they be called?
Not encounters that?
Tough things to do within thegame that allow you to actually

(10:04):
express how you want to play andreally do push you to the
limits on the higher leveldelves that you're doing.
So it is a lot more casual,friendly.
You can do what you want, andin these delves, you do get gear
at the end as well as gold, aswell as like different
profession, mats and stuff, andit's actually very rewarding.
And this is a very casual,friendly thing because you can

(10:25):
literally just walk in as andwhen you want.
You don't have to wait foranything to be open.
You don't have to wait for itto be empowered or bountiful.
You can literally do every likeany delve, any time of the day,
as many times as you want.
You are not forced to doanything at all, and this is the
best part about delves it isvery casual, friendly and this
is what they made it for, whichI think is a very good thing.

(10:48):
I think that they have donevery well in that regard.
And another thing that goesunder the radar is the story
mode raid, because the storymode raid what it is essentially
is you just kill the last bossof the raid, but you do it with

(11:08):
npcs.
You're not doing it with actualplayers.
This means that you aren'tsubject to going into looking
for group, forcing someone toinvite you almost and, you know,
maybe having the chance ofgetting kicked or yelled at
because you're doing too lowdamage or not enough healing or
the mechanics wrong, etc.
Etc.
You can go in there with aparty of npcs and kill the boss

(11:29):
and see the end game cutcinematic, as well as complete
the final quest of the uh zone,which I think is really really
cool.
So it is more casual friendlyin this regard in comparison to
when Shadowlands was out,because it didn't have this
feature.
This is the first.
This is the first iteration ofthis feature.

(11:51):
It arrived in the War Within,it arrived in the very first
patch of the War Within and Ithink it's something that is
very underrated and actually notappreciated enough.
In my honest opinion.
I think it is very more casualfriendly.
I think Dragonflight was casualfriendly, but I think this is
even more so casual friendlybecause you have Dells that can

(12:14):
boost you up to this PvE itemlevel that you might want, you
might not.
You can make gold from Dells,you can make gear or get gear
from Dells.
Dells are the way to go if youare a casual player.
It really really is.
So I think that's kind of whatI have on it.
I don't really want to get intothe pve as much because I don't

(12:37):
want to say anything, that mightjust be completely wrong, but
no matter what, it is a hundredtimes better than what
Shadowlands, like casualfriendly player base, is looking
for, because Shadowlands wasnot casual friendly at all.
It really really wasn't.
So I would say that it's ahundred times better than what
it was back in Shadowlands,which is great.

(12:57):
That's very good and I thinkthat that's what needs to happen
essentially.
Next, I want to go into thisone that kind of links with it.
But day one, normal sweating iswild.
Recently returned, like a fewweeks ago, um, and was super
excited for undermined as I waslooking.
As I always loved goblins, thisguy's completely different to

(13:18):
me.
Um, made a fresh goblin rogueand have and have had fun
playing it.
Decided to check out the newray today.
That's really good.
I'm really glad that this guy'scome back and he's enjoying it.
Made a fresh Goblin Rogue andhave had fun playing it.
Decided to check out the newraid today.
That's really good.
I'm really glad that this guy'scome back and he's enjoying it.
My God, do people hate havingfun in this game?
That's the next line and I doagree with him.
You might think that I want toargue this, and I do at some

(13:39):
point.
But I do agree with him that somany people kind of hate the
game, or they don't hate thegame, they hate the people that
they're trying to play with.
But the thing is, if you hatethe people that you're playing
with, then you shouldn't beplaying in MMO, which is
ridiculous.
Multiple groups fell apartafter a single wipe.

(14:01):
People complained about otherpeople's item level.
People upset that people don'thave every mechanic memorized on
literal day one.
I think that it's tough.
You can go in there with very Ibelieve you can go into a raid
with very minimal knowledge andbe able to do the raid.

(14:23):
I believe that and I know thatbecause last uh, last patch, I
had a guild that I joined everynow and again for pve and they
were a very good guild, very,very good guild.
And this guild did normal andstarted to do heroic and they
even wanted to do mythic, butthey didn't.

(14:44):
They just didn't have thenumbers.
Um, I helped them with normalclears, I helped them with
heroic clears.
I was literally just like ifyou need any help, if you need
the numbers, invite me, I'm goodto go.
Um, I walked in, didn't knowany sort of tactics and did the
raid.
Very simply, you know it reallywasn't that tough raid.

(15:07):
Very simply, you know it reallywasn't that tough.
Um, I think that people need totake a bit more of a relaxed
approach to it, especially ifit's on normal.
Look, if you're doing heroicprogress or mythic progress, yes
, you would expect people toknow their stuff okay, that's
fair enough.
But on normal, people are justlooking to maybe get some gear,
maybe just to see the bosseshave some fun, etc.
And that's what normal is, inmy opinion, same with looking
for rage.

(15:27):
You should just be having funand messing about.
Basically, worst one for me wasjust a normal clear getting to
third boss and having someoneliterally pull out my DPS in
chat and vote to kick me.
It was our first wipe on theboss and I was focused on
learning mechanics although I'malso new to the spec and
learning my rotation.
This is fair enough, but you, Idon't know, it's a tough one.

(15:52):
If you're going into a raidsetting, you would understand
that people have some goodunderstanding of their rotation.
Okay, now, look, I don't knowwhat this guy plays, but I'm
going to assume it's a reppaladin, because he has posted
this as a rep paladin.

(16:12):
Okay.
So in my honest opinion, you'rethey kind of have a point
because you don't need to learnyour rotation as a rep paladin.
You have very few buttons, andI mean that as nicely as I can.
You don't have a lot of buttons, so your rotation is a lot
simpler than most.
Okay, now I get wanting tolearn the mechanics and you're a

(16:37):
bit scared, so you might not behitting the boss as much or
focusing as much on that, whichis fine.
But you would need to see theuh details and the damage
breakdown or the like logsascension and see where they
came in damage for me to give aaccurate response on this, which
I can't.

(17:01):
But look, in normal sometimespeople are obviously going to
call out others when they wipe.
And it's shit, it really isshit.
They're always going to belooking at who's bottom DPS if
someone's not healing enough,and you know multiple bits and
bobs.
If someone wipes the raid, it'slike, oh, get them out of here.
They don't know the mechanics.
And the raid it's like, oh, getthem out of here.
They don't know the mechanics.
And it's like, well, they'llknow.
Now they've just wiped the raiddoing this mechanic badly,
they'll know not to do that nexttime you know it's one of them
things.
It's stupid.

(17:21):
Um, I'm just looking for adviceon what to do here.
The campaign literally requireskilling a raid boss.
But looking for raid is onlyfirst few week bosses.
This week people are sweatingnormal so hard.
It's not even fun to try toprogress.
Mythic Pugs are impossible toget into if you aren't playing a
meta spec or overgeared.
So I can't gear that way.

(17:42):
I know I can do some gearing inDells to try and push my item
level up a bit, but aside fromthat I guess I just have to wait
to progress.
So firstly, depending on theboss, you can do the story mode
of the boss, and I believe it'sto kill Gallywix.
I have no idea, I would assumeit does.
But you can do the story modeof the raid and this is located

(18:07):
outside the raid instance.
Ok, so it's not directlyoutside the raid instance.
There's usually like a littlebit of distance from the
directly outside the raidinstance.
There's usually like a littlebit of distance from the npc in
the raid instance.
Um, but yes, you can do this.
As for gearing, maybe the thebest way to get into mythics is
to make your own.
Okay, if you make your own andstart inviting people of lower

(18:31):
item level, that you would think, oh, I don't care about item
level, we'll get the like jobdone, that's fine.
But if you make your own andthen you're suddenly like, oh,
this guy's item level is too low.
Oh, this guy's like an ellieshan, all I want is like a rep
paladin or a warrior or whateveryou know, then suddenly you're
thinking the same way as thesepeople who are making the

(18:52):
mythics.
So it's not really fair, is itto call them out but not call
yourself out on it?
And don't get me wrong, I'vedone that.
I've done that when I've mademythics.
Genuinely, the higher you get,the more meta you want to get,
which is fair.
I think.
Lower mythics I couldn't givetwo shits Anything below a five.

(19:16):
I'll just be just be like yep,you've signed up, enjoy, it's
one of them.
Things.
Anything like above an eightplus is when I'm like okay, I'll
maybe consider like mythic orlike meta comps being better.
But I'm really not too botheredand, to be honest, last season I
really didn't care what wasmeta, what wasn't, I just
invited something or someone wholooked good.

(19:39):
Essentially it's like yeah,you're a decent mythic rating,
you've got good gear, sure, comealong.
As long as we had a heroism inthe group, it didn't bother me.
So it's tough, it is tough togear.
Um, so it's tough, it is toughto gear.
But my honest opinion of it andmy sort of idea make the mythic

(20:00):
groups yourself.
Okay, try and find one or twopeople that you can always like
do a mythic group with and thathave that as a sort of baseline
or a foundation for goingforward, because this, I think,
is the best way to gear, andthis is what I did last season
as well.
I found a small group of peoplethat were doing mythics.
This is from the same guild andI enjoyed their company.

(20:23):
I enjoyed playing the mythicswith them and we had a very good
, solid, like sort of a group offive in the end and it was very
fun.
Now I know that this isn'tavailable to everyone, finding a
group of five people to do amythic with, but if you can even
find just one person and havethem as sort of like your mate
that you can talk to, have funwith while doing the mythics,

(20:45):
that's good enough.
Honestly, I promise you that isgood enough.
Um, so that's my advice makeyour own mythics, in my opinion,
and if that isn't working, I Ireally don't know what to say to
you.
Um, I really, really don't.
Uh, I cleared dells easily, soI guess I'm just lost as to how
I'm supposed to learn groupcontent when it's gatekept

(21:09):
trying to find a guild.
But my work schedule makes itdifficult.
It's because it's the state ofthe season or start of the
season, and should I just cancelmy sub?
I had assumed people would beenjoying the raid and learning
it at the same at the start ofthe season, but some people but
people seem to be treatingnormal pugs like they're pushing
for server first.

(21:30):
I just want to enjoy my gobothemed patch.
I think that it's a mix.
I think, yes, people want tojust do the raid and get it over
with, and people rush thatcontent, which I don't agree
with.
I really don't agree with that.
Personally, I think that thecontent that's released is going
to be released for a while, sothere's no need to rush the
content.
And this is why people getannoyed and it's like, oh, the

(21:50):
game's dead because people haverushed the content.
And this is why people getannoyed and it's like, oh, the
game's dead because people haverushed the content and
essentially um done everythingthat then needs to be done.
And it's a ridiculous thing.
But if you're saying youcleared delves easily, you tell
me, are you clearing like plusor like 12 delves constantly,

(22:11):
every day, like with ease?
It's not taking you like awhile.
If so, then fair enough.
But for mo, for group content,you need to have the patience,
because there are so many peopleout there that want the best
specs, the best classes, thehighest item level.
You know, they want you to knowall the mechanics, they want

(22:31):
you to be the best at your classand all of that shit.
And it's just like, yeah,whatever, um, make your own
group.
Genuinely I cannot stress thisenough make your own group and
then go from there, start thatup, because once you've made
your group a few times, you'llget a few pieces of gear and
then you can start, um, lookingto join other groups because

(22:51):
you've got a higher item leveland stuff.
And then it's like, oh, okay,they might accept me now, and if
that doesn't work, keep makingyour own group.
Then you get to dictate whojoins, who leaves, uh, who you
kick, etc.
Etc.
Now everyone has a right toplay the game how they want.
I don't personally agree thatpeople should be sweating the

(23:13):
content on the first few weeks.
Genuinely, unless you are raceto world first sort of level, I
don't think you need to sweatthe content on the first few
weeks.
I think it's ridiculous.
But look, that's all I can helpwith.
People need to be more patientin the game.
They really do, because it isridiculous and I think that that

(23:35):
patience is lost.
Um, and it's an actual art formto have in the sort of mmo
games now and the people willact like dickheads.
People will be stupid, and Idon't get it when it is a mmo, a
multiplayer online game.
Um, it just baffles me.
It really really does.

(23:55):
So I don't get what people areon about, but I think that
people do need to be a bit morechill when it comes to these
sort of things.
Um, I get if you're doing heroicprogress, mythic progress,
whatever it might be, but enjoythe game.
Don't treat it as like oh mygod, I have, I have to do this.
Have fun with the game, and Ithink that's what a lot of

(24:19):
people have missed out on overthe past few years of playing
World of Warcraft genuinely.
This goes for classic as well.
This isn't just a retail thing.
So many people mid-max classicand it's like, yeah, great,
you're mid-maxing like a20-year-old game.
Now I get people do it, but noteveryone is doing it.

(24:40):
If that makes sense, noteveryone is going to be doing it
.
So I don't know.
Enjoy the game.
That's all I can say.
But that is where I will end itfor this episode.
Thank you all very much forlistening.
Do check out all of the socialmedias, stuff constantly
happening on there, as well asthe Etsy shop multiple things
being put up when they'recompleting stuff.

(25:01):
A Charlemagne weapon wasactually recently done and put
up on Etsy, so do check it out.
It's really cool.
It's one of my actual betterpieces of to this date and I'm

(25:41):
really happy with how it turnedout.
But thank you all very muchonce again and go avala friend.
Goodbye all.
Thank you.
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