Hello everyone. Since the forum is usually filled with smaller complaints in general, I want to draw your attention to a truly impacting issue that is creeping invisibly most of the time in front of us. And that big problem is that World of Warcraft is not in a good state for new players to get into the game. Here is why!
Before I start with the topic, it is of course a lot smarter to create an outline of topics I want to talk about in this thread. So here we go:
- Exiles Reach and the discontinuity of story
- Skill Unlocks need structure for beginners (All-Classes)
- Chromie Timewalk for Campaigns and its issues
- Social aspect of WoW in public groups (Group Finder)
- Missing Beginner/Veteran-Guide reward system
Now that this is done, let me start with the first topic. Let us talk about some lore!
Exiles Reach and the discontinuity of story
When a new player starts World of Warcraft and creates their first character, they encounter the starting zone selection. As far as I know, the starting zone selection recommends the Exiles Reach Island as the tutorial zone. Perhaps it even auto-selects it.
That is the mistake number 1.
Gameplay-wise the Exiles Reach Island is ok for the most part. But it has it’s problems.
The biggest one is that Exiles Reach was connected to BfA story. Story that is no longer relevant since 2 DLC drops.
A unified starting zone should not be connected to a War that is no longer present in the current story of the current patch. Also it should not give the player the false impression on the overall story.
When I was reading through todays comments in the Newcomer Chat, we had a few new players (that tried WoW for the first time) being irritated what the story of WoW is about.
From their perspective the story introduced them on the Islands to an “Island adventure after a ship wreck where the focus is on solving the problems on the Island”. They have no real clue what WoW is about, they have no explanation what the background of their chosen race is and also no idea what Alliance/Horde are and why they are seemingly fighting for them against each other.
That is a problem. Because the story of the tutorial island as it is right now introduces the player to the environment of the Island, but not of the Universe itself.
Solution for this problem:
Add a story cutscene BEFORE the player is spawned on the faction ship summarizing the story of Warcraft in a rough way.
A cutscene in the same structure as Destiny 2: The Light and Darkness Saga – Destiny Calls Cutscene (not present ingame with Season 21 added ingame) should do just fine to outline what this game is about.
For WoW such an intro cutscene could start with same story telling as the “Warbringers”-shorts from BfA, using images/voiced summaries of…
- The Invasion of the 1st Horde through the Portal
- The Fall of Medivh, the Guardian
- The Fall of Stormwind (introducing Anduin Lothar, Varian Wrynn, Terenas Menethil and his son Arthas)
- Orgrim Doomhammer dethroning Gul’dan and his Shadow Council
- The Formation of the Alliance and Orgrim’s Campaign against them (introducing all to-this-day relevant leaders such as Greymane)
- The Siege of Quel’Thalas (introducing Highelfs and Trolls to the player)
- Gul’dans betrayal of Doomhammer (to explain how MU Gul’dan died)
- The Siege and defeat of the Horde at Lordaeron
- Doomhammer’s and Anduin Lothars fall (character closure, including all relevant characters)
- The Pushback to the Portal and Beyond
After that, you can outline the most important characters and their history via additional cutscenes at a NPC in the main capitals of Alliance and Horde. That could be basically a Bard-character (perhaps perfect time to add such a class to the game too, just saying). Also add a quest leading to those NPCs for the new player of course.
Because a 30-minutes long video would be too overwhelming for a new player when starting the game. And we all know Warcraft story is long and big. But remember to not spoil the player without warning for the DLC/Story we can still play ingame to discover.
Now, back to the other problem with the Exiles Reach.
The Dungeon on the Island doesn’t explain how combat in dungeons/endgame works.
Mechanics are not well explained/not existing in the first place. It is just a boss with a few target attacks and no explanation when and why you should use interrupts, cleanse spells, etc.
Since those are usually not highlighted as important in the skilltree and therefore not unlocked by the new player (that likely never played an MMORPG) before a certain level due to skillpoint overflow. They fail to learn the important lesson how combat rotations in WoW in PvE work.
Solution for this problem:
Add a proper tutorial for the spells to be used.
Skill Unlocks need structure for beginners (All-Classes)
This is a rather simple problem, yet one that is tied to the dungeon problem from earlier. Said problem is that the game has no guide window or anything that a new player can be pointed at to understand how their class rotation works fully.
Solution for this Problem:
- Add a glow to the recommended skills in the skill tree for new players when having a skill point
- Add unified icons for spells with unified/similar-relevant functionality (Cleanse, CCs, Buff spells, etc.) for new players to understand the importance of such skills
Now, with that out of the way, onwards to the next point.
Chromie Timewalk for Campaigns and its issues
Chromie Timewalk for Campaigns is a useful feature. But it’s main problem is that it deactivates itself once a player reaches the level of the current expansion (or the one before if not owning the currently active DLC). For both Veterans and new Players alike this results in being cut off from a chronological experience of the past story after reaching the current expansions base level for the introduction.
A player these days levels a character faster to lvl 60 (DF starter level) than they can finish the entire timewalk of a DLC story. That is bad. VERY, VERY BAD!
Players should not rely on addons like “BtWQuest” to tell them what quest is the next one for the past DLC story they want to play. Especially new players very likely have no idea WoW supports community-made addons in the first place and where to get them.
Solution for this Problem:
- Remove the level deactivation for Chromie Timewalk and embrace Evergreen-Story
Aside of that, the game should either…
- Force a new player to play at least on 1 character of the account the complete base game main story and all of the DLCs owned via gametime in chronological order (like Final Fantasy 14 does!)
OR
- have NPCs that optionally summarize the story of past base game and DLCs in the same way as the Warbringers-cutscenes do as mentioned above, so new players can jump right into the new content with enough relevant information about the past history of the game universe to understand what is going on and why
Onwards!
Social aspect of WoW in public groups (Group Finder)
This was another issue brought up by a new player in the Newcomer Chat. That people don’t respond enough or at all to players asking questions while in a dungeon.
Look folks, we all know that most of you have been running most dungeons a few thousand times already. But the new players haven’t. They need help because they simply don’t know! Also, for a new player it does suck a lot for the experience if people skip all bosses but one in dungeons like Freehold because they want to farm XP for the XY alternate character on their account.
I know my preaching here won’t stop people from doing so…
So let us discuss a suitable solution for all.
One I can offer is adding another matchmaking filter, similar to older Halo Games to the group finder.
In older Halo shooter games there was in matchmaking for PvP games a filter-selection with options for voice chat. A similar filter could be adapted for the group finder in various activities for a “social type”-factor.
Said factor could be separated by:
- Talkative = For players that are chatty in both voice and/or text chat
- Silent = People that wish to play with others silently and only talk/write when needed
- Mute = For people with no intention of talking/writing at all
- Beginners = For players that need advise within the content
- All = No preferences
If group matchmaking would be filter-able for Veterans and new Players alike, this surely will result in longer matchmaking times for people selecting a specific filter. But also in a better experience for those players utilizing said options.
People that just want fast matchmaking times for activities with such a filter system integrated can simply select “All” and be sorted into all forms of those groups as needed as filling population. People selecting “All” should have only slightly differences in matchmaking for dungeons and such.
I want to make clear I am speaking about PvE-matchmaking only!
PvP should not be affected/integrated for this filter system!
Now, onwards to the last topic.
Missing Beginner/Veteran-Guide reward system
Also this topic is simple. But first let me reach out a bit…
- In Final Fantasy 14 there is usually only a unified dungeon playlist for veterans and new players alike, including all dungeons you as player have access to based on your level. This includes all dungeons from beginning to end if you are maximum level.
Now, that itself is nothing special. However, what now follows is.
1.1 When you as a veteran player get grouped with new players, you get put into the first dungeons those new players have access to, alongside receiving a level-restriction for your character to be in line with the new players and the dungeon difficulty.
1.2 BUT (big but!) because you are both level restricted and are playing with new players, you as a veteran get additional rewards when completing with 1 or more new players the dungeon.
This feature should be 1:1 copied imo from Blizzard as a new dungeon pool playlist in the dungeon finder to encourage veteran players to actively play with and help new players to get settled into the game, learn their class roles, etc. in exchange for appropriate rewards.
The exchange is simple, a veteran helps/plays with new players and gets additional rewards like gold, crafting mats, reputation, etc. in fair amount per dungeon completion.
- Another potential idea could be for Veterans to take new players into a “mentorship” within an in-game system, similar to the refer-a-friend-feature.
Now this might be smarter to only tie to the voluntary Player Guide program for Guides to have more to do than just moderate a Newcomers Chat.
2.1 Said system could allow listed Veteran Guide Players to actively play with and help new players via group sync in exchange for additonal rewards and a guide-rating score
2.2 Guide-rating score and rewards will be exclusively obtained while in group-sync during activity completions (quests, dungeons, etc.)
2.3 Said guide-rating score could be displayed visually as tiers on the guide flag for newcomers (they can see guide flags as only player party ingame, as same as we guides see their murloc icon as only players) so that new players can see what guides are especially helpful for them.
The idea with both suggestions regarding this topic is that as a veteran you get a bonus for helping the next generation of WoW Players get settled in the game.
New players means new fresh blood for our realms, our guilds and communities.
New blood that can be formed and trained to help with our interests in return, may it be more backup-players as fills for your guild raid team, new mythic+ friends, rated arena backup for grind-sessions or simply for having new, fun company.
If you have read so far I want to express my thanks for sticking with me on this topic.
The new player experience in WoW is for me personally very important because as someone that did join not so long ago (in 2019) I remember the struggles of being a new player in this overwhelming game quite a lot.
Feel free to support the ideas in this thread by liking this post (I never ask for likes usually) and for sure leave some comments below on the ideas proposed and including your own. 
Thanks for reading. (Typing this post did take 2h with links and all!)