As for BFA, I’ve experienced all content without even talking to anyone, all quests are singleplayer, so np. As for raids and dungeons, there’s a convenient LFG button. So I pretty much saw everything. As for harder content, what’s the point? Even if I’d like to try it out, no one cares, because I don’t have appropriate achievements and scores. In classic at least I’m not afraid of being kicked for asking the directions.
I came to classic to play some cozy RPG, currently I’m waiting for hype to calm down and have elite toxics and trolls return to retail and take their elitism with theemselves.
So basically you’re only doing the content that doesn’t require communication (entry level stuff), and then concluding “therefore BFA needs no communication!” because you’ve deemed harder content “pointless”. it makes your argument work I suppose. Let me give it a try.
“I can level to 60 in classic without talking to anyone. I don’t do elite quests because they’re pointless, and I don’t do dungeons/raids because they’re pointless. Therefore I conclude that classic requires no communication to play.”
Is my argument acceptable?
Also your “even if I wanted to do higher difficulty” point is very telling. The automated mythic spammers in LFG can behave like that, sure. Now if you’ve actually explored communities in game (you know, being social) you’ve know full well there are SEVERAL communities in game that don’t give a toss about achis or rio and welcome such players and are extremely social. I should know i’m part of a one on each faction. But you need to actually be proactive in seeking such groups out and not expect them to come to you (which is ironically what people accuse BFA of doing). In such groups I’ve made loads of friends who I chat with and regularly group with, do mog runs or just random stuff.
Maybe stop expecting the game to construct your social encounters for you, get off your backside and try to find them yourself?
Last time I checked, I didn’t feel the worth in playing a watered-down version of a once great MMORPG with a vast open world where one had to be on their guard in the unforgiving journey that had purpose to the development of their character and their character’s overall progression to then reach the simple, yet rewarding end game content, rather than the watered-down version where the journey feels like a pointless solo chore to get to through immediately, to then progress in the same end-game instances but with upped difficulty until there’s artificial difficulty thrown into the mix (affixes)…
Also, you don’t specify what makes this open world “unforgiving”. Kick aside the flowery language and the analogies of wandering the dusty road and be specific.
If a character is levelling in content intended for them, on a pve realm, on classic, aside from the odd elite quest (group up then it’s a cakewalk) what exactly is so threatening about the open world that you need to be on your guard all the time? You make it sound like packs of bandits assault the roads at random.
Classic is all about leveling. You can do it without even communicate with nobody and just killing mobs. Retail is all about end game content. Imagine to level a toon 1-120 with classic leveling progression. As I said before, totally different games. And lets be honest. People that like classic most of them are not even try to compete at hing end retail content. Ofc achievements and raider io scores must be there to reward the players that have tried more and not the bad or good player in general. A player that hasnt achievements score etc isnt mean that you are bad, you just havent try much. My friends personally have all quited years ago and Im trying literally alone. Not have time for raids and guilds etc cause irl stuffs but I try it to compete at mythic plus as much as I can with pugs and so on. I see a challenge that I just cant see in classic. I hate autoattack and one heal spell and oom thing. Why we must argue about this? I just said it is not difficult. The one and only difficult mechanic in classic is to get 40 people together to kill a boss!
I love these journalist’s types of dialog, when they try change the meaning of what you said.
With easy quests and LFG I can visit anything in BFA without communicating.
For mythic+ and raiding I AM REQUIRED to know every boss perfectly (even if it’s my first time), be experienced, and be skilled, because even if you are experienced, accidental death = instakick (doesn’t work in m+, only because you can’t replace in M+). Therefore less talking, more working!
I can level to 60 in classic without talking to anyone, but it would be more effective and fun if I actually request people’s help. I do elite quests and dungeons, because they give XP and armor, that is actually useful. As long as you’re elite, you don’t need anyone to play classic with.
Now what is this “if you’ve explored communities”
I tried to find these communities, I don’t know where to find them. pre-made tab is filled rio and achivs desc, general or trade chats are filled with “WTS curve/15+ boost”. Where else can I find these mysterious communities?
Why do I have to look for these communities, why can’t I find them directly in places, such as cities or in front of an instance?
Now in classic for me it’s easy to find social encounter, even by meeting the guy that does the same quest as me. If you want to say that BFA is challenging and difficult in finding community, well then I will agree with you, I agree that classic is too easy for that.
Is that the only thing you could take out of my paragraph? Affixes are artificial difficulty.
It’s like a mad professor adding more arms onto Frankenstein because his two arms aren’t accurate enough.
Classic’s levelling is unforgiving if you pull too many mobs. Anybody with half a brain knows this. It may not be difficult, but it is unforgiving, especially if you level in a zone where mobs are orange, or where mobs are huddled together and have a net CC like Dragonmaw Raders where there’s no diminishing returns, and their nets can continuously lock you down until death.
That’s the great thing about Classic, if you’re afraid of risking it and want a chill levelling experience then you’ll stick to low level/green quest zones. I prefer to stick to yellow/orange quests personally, especially when you eventually run out of quests in the zone and you head to more difficult zones where specific mobs are grouped up more and over-pulling is easy.
I am sure you know what I mean if you’ve played Classic (have you, yet? and what level are you?)
And professions that are actually useful and even impact gameplay.
And talent trees that impact performance greatly.
And gear that actually feels like an upgrade without WF/TF/Sockets/Indestructible/Leech/Speed gimmicks thrown on to it.
And Classes that feel like classes rather than feel like specs that are just copy pastes of other specs, where everybody gets a CC and everybody gets an interrupt, etc, etc.
And where community building/guild & realm relationships matter a whole lot, etc. I could go on and on, but if you don’t already know the differences between the two games then is there really any point in me explaining them?
Well, no offense, but last night I died more times killed by harpies in The Barrens in Classic than I normally die in an M+ 11 on any given week. I can safely say leveling in Classic is more challenging and enjoyable than spamming M+ 11s.
Point is you changed your words, look above, you changed it into “Will be MORE REWARDING if I…” - I didn’t do that, you did. And I never disputed that point. Of course it’s more rewarding if you do that. That’s not what people are saying though, they’re saying you HAVE to communicate in classic, the point i’m making is you don’t.
The “more rewarding point” stands for BFA as well. Zero sum game. The levelling up is a slog solo. With friends, less so. Exactly the same.
And no, you do not need to know mythic+ like the back of your hand to enter it, nor raids. This goes back to my point about communities. If you look at appropriate communities, they’re all about “bring the player not the achi”. Several of them advertise in general discussion thread here (well they did, until it got taken up with WAAAH RETAIL IS DYING spam) , also look at the communities forum, they’re all there.
This is not a retail issue anyway, it’s a player issue. When classic has been manifest enough, trust me, the gatekeeping over stuff like raid entry etc. will appear. It’s just not enough players are high enough level to behave as gatekeepers, but it happens even single expansion. Whether it by your spec, your class, rio, achi etc, players will begin to set limits on what they think is appropriate to enter the content they are recruiting for and these limits always sit aside from blizzard’s own. For example there is nothing in game that says you cannot bring a protection paladin to tank a raid boss in classic, but players will never let that happen. Their reasons for doing so are somewhat justified, but my point is players demanding X Y and Z to do something has been part of the game since early days. They’ve simply changed what they ask for over time.
It’s a bit of a weird point to say that “well they’re not obvious”. many people criticise retail for essentially automating everything, and yet when I give an example of a social tool in retail, the protest is “well it’s not easy to find”. It is if you know where to look!
I’m not claiming BFA is some social paradise, but the idea it has no social dimension at all is wrong. It is there for the players who want it. Otherwise it is just players who do the bare minimum. Classic is no different. Only players who WANT the social interaction will push it, the rest will just “inv plz” and then leave when done. This is a player issue, not a game one. Just because something gives you opportunities to be social (and forces them) it doesn’t mean the result is it makes you social, not if the player involved has no desire to be so.
And this is my point. You may enjoy autoattacking in classic. I prefer to spam 11s as you mentioned cause this is what my free time offers to me. The point is that retail has its way to keep me as competitive as I can and still have lot to do if I want and have time to do. I just dont see the difficulty that people mention in classic. Are we agree that is way slower and not difficult? I never said that you are wrong that you like classic more you are free to play what ever you like.
I see your point but why do you dismiss the leveling difficulty of Classic as not relevant to the total experience the game offers. A lot of Classic is about the journey and not the destination. I actually find it a lot more thrilling not being able to kill 3 harpies at the same time on my level 20 warrior than, for instance, doing an UR 15 in time the other day (which by itself is nothing impressive either).
Feeling insignificant in the world and in constant danger is what makes the game feel more engaging despite the combat being generally characterized as “slow”.
As you asked, I played Vanilla from release. I haven’t stepped back into classic yet due to queues atm and i’d rather actually play a game than wait to play given my playtime is not copious.
I remember levelling was slow, but not necessarily dangerous, not unless I was playing risky myself. This is my point- the risk isn’t implicit, it’s player managed. If I pull smart, level on yellows, keep my gear up to scratch then there’s nothing frighteningly challenging about levelling. If I want to kick it up a gear, I can head to oranges sure. Likewise in retail I can take on more if I want to “up the difficulty level”, by doing quests intended for 3+ people solo for example. I will concede classic has a better opportunity for this because of lack of level scaling- but I still maintain the player is the one who invites the difficulty more than the game world necessarily. Smart play circumnavigates stuff otherwise. I mean, you can still die in retail if you don’t play clever and aren’t vastly overgearing the content, granted the extent is less, but it’s there.
I focussed on “artificial difficulty” because it’s an interesting way to describe it, as if trying to downplay it’s impact by saying “well, it’s not real difficulty”. Who gets to judge that? You? Me? My question is “does it make the dungeon harder?” if the answer is yes, then it is increased difficulty. That’s it.
It’s not helpful to define some things and illegitimate ways to increase difficulty and others as legitimate. I mean okay, let’s look at some of what’s been brought up. Classic levelling. I could easily go “it’s artificially more difficult because adds are significant because of player power levels, but it doesn’t actually require you to do anything more skilful to navigate, it just requires you to avoid a certain situation because you can’t actually deal with it due to numbers”. I’m not saying I believe this, but my point is it’s not helpful to decide what “real” difficulty is and isn’t, because so long as it makes something harder to do, it IS difficulty. Sure it has many flavours, but they all achieve the same.
I mean what’s the alternative? Make more mobs pop up in mythic +? Give them new spells? Why are these less artificial than affixes? Have a special new dungeon section open if you activate hardmode? Are there any options that don’t necessitate designing an absurd amount of additional dungeons to cater as the “hardmode” dungeons?
If you want to understand my comments then why don’t you bite the bullet and actually level up a character in Classic? or are you just going to sit here and debate back and forth with people who prefer Classic, while giving them your 15 year old opinions on the matter?
No point writing paragraphs upon paragraphs if you haven’t played Classic yet. It’s a different game from Vanilla purely because it’s set in a different real world timeline, so give it a try! or you could just stick with BFA and argue/debate/try and convince Classic players that their way of thinking is wrong and yours is right.
I get your point too. Leveling is more interesting in classic if you can accept the slow gameplay. But difficulty is in your hands as it is in retail too. Its pointless to argue for what you like less or more. Retail is not flawless. It has a lot of bad things like wf tf and silly ap grinding which is goint to loose it next exp either way. But it surely has more thing to do when you ding at 120 where classic lucks in it. So its classic for leveling and retail for end game content. Or am I wrong?
As for talents trees that someone mention above they removed as you all remember ( or not) cause of how unbalanced were the classes back then. All the things that missing or not from modern wow is a revolution through the years from community requests.