I decided to give cata a try and thought I’d level a new character from scratch to give it a proper go.
Frankly, the leveling experience is so bad compared to pre cata world. The moment you hit lvl10 everything dies in 1 shot, you have many dps abilities on your bar to form a rotation but it doesn’t matter because everything dies instantly.
Questings feels so tedious and boring. You can only pickup 3-4 quests at a time, you have to quest the way the game tells you to rather than questing however you want. You can’t jump ahead to higher or lower level quests because questing is so linear and has to be done in a certain way. Literally no freedom on how to play. Not to mention you constantly outlevel zones your questing in and it feels dissatisfying.
All flavor is removed from classes, we went from having cool and fun class quests to getting a “class” quest at lvl20 to go into a dungeon, collect some mats and get a blue. Literally zero flavor. Class quests from before not only gave items but also progressed your classes abilities but that doesn’t matter anymore because all your class abilities are baked into your class with 0 effort invested and 0 backstory to why you’re getting this ability.
I could’ve pushed through one character to lvl80 because I know the game will get better once I get there but honestly at lvl38 I wanted to get some wool to level my first aid a bit to get to silk cloth and saw the prices on the AH (15g per stack at the time). I had 38g on me and was saving for the epic mount at lvl40 and I was like yep the servers economy is so damaged. It made me feel like I won’t be enjoying the end game content with how the community is on these servers so I exited the game and uninstalled.
Maybe I’d try cata if they did it in a mop remix fashion for the 80+ zones otherwise the expansion earned it’s reputation and it’s no wonder blizz lost so many players during it. They literally axed a large portion of the playerbase to please the players who like to rush to max level.
Just some thoughts I wanted to get out so if you’re enjoying cata all the best to you. Personally I’ll stick to era and hc + play some retail every now and then.
Era and cata are complete worlds apart and no one pretends they’re similar I don’t know why you classic fans can’t accept that cata is not classic! If u want the boring same old quests go back to era
Even without heirlooms, characters are too powerful during leveling. Leveling a hunter through Azeroth during the prepatch, explosive shot basically did all the work, didn’t even get time to finish a complete rotation before the mob was dead. This could have been improved, make abilities less strong, or increase the general power of mobs.
You also outlevel the zones too quickly, indeed. I realise I belong to a very small minority here, but what I did was to turn off my xp gain when I started to outlevel the zone (usually with 20-30% left of the zone), finish it for the story and then turning on xp gain when going for the next one.
I don’t agree with quests being tedious and boring though. Subjective ofc, but you should try to follow the storylines, take your time to read descriptions etc. Some stories are actually interesting, I really liked Azshara, Stonetalon and WPL in particular.
As for the prices, I mean wouldn’t it be the same in every version of WoW that isn’t strictly fresh? From what I heard, era realms are terrible in this regard.
Mentioning a damaged economy and high prices for wool etc, meanwhile on Era a friend of mine had well over 1.5k gold at lvl 35 by farming some low lvl ores/herbs while questing, cause he could sell stacks at 10-20g per
As someone who dislikes leveling, getting to max level asap is crucial for me.
I want cata leveling over vanilla leveling, any day.
I understand that missing some items for your profs can suck, when you dont get it while leveling.
But i usually just level to max, and then worry about profs then. Easier farming profs at max level, than at the appropriate (or intended?) levels.
As soon as I witnessed the heroic raiding and how this toxic community is managing it since blizzard ruined the realms and merged everyone to the toxo servers its unplayable, guilds die, no prog guilds that will invite you in later stages, only GDKP scam for payers or pumpers and to be a pumper you have to have BiS and prog knowlage in the first place what nobody has except a small amount of people and the 0,1% of hardcore guilds that have litteraly no job no social life and play the game 60h per week. If you only play normals enjoy but thats the endgame nothing to do there till Firelands no wonder it failed back then it was never “LFR” it was the unforgivable raise in difficulty in heroic raids that litteraly wipes the whole raid when 1 guy in 25 messes up, so in reality nobody will boost newbies trough this content, he will never learn it and quit, its the first step towards the broken retail we have today.
Raid gear in normals is litteraly garbage and a waste of time to gear, because everyone in some BOE + dungeon / valor gear can start heroic raiding, trinkets that are BiS and start changing something to ya dps meter are litteraly BOE drops in the raids or in hc and sold on Ah or in GDKP’s for ludicrous prices same with the pre raid stuff, because the economy trough gold buying and GDKP’s is broken.
And no sry blizzard I don’t want to farm or buy ya tokens and waste 130k around 120€ worth of gold for trinkets.
Everything else like the hc dungeons the faster leveling, the new capitals +++++ but endgame content a huge LLL.
Thing is leveling profs while leveling in vanilla, bc and wotlk doesn’t feel like a chore and grindy. It just flows alongside your leveling experience because profs add value to your character and your leveling experience in those expansions especially vanilla. Obviously, in cata it’s different because you don’t need profs at all while leveling. You’re one shotting everything and barely take damage for the most part until you get to level80 then you start getting a proper leveling experience.
In terms of time leveling your char then leveling your profs would be faster yes but it feels more chorey and boring that way. Like you’re playing your max level character killing low levels to get mats to level up your profession is not fun. There is a reason they made it so that you can immediately get the newest expansion profs later on because it feels intuitive to level up your profs while leveling your character and people probably stopped bothering picking up profs during cata and mop because they had so much catch up to do it was discouraging.
So ya kinda hard to want to level in cata seeing how the leveling experience and servers are. I can probably push a char to max level but then I ask myself “is it worth putting that time into my character?” Like I’m sure I can easily buy my epic flying mount and dual spec and all that jazz since the AH is inflated but am I going to be able to afford consumables, enchants etc… to be able to be competitive and enjoy the endgame especially with how hard the community gatekeeps content?
I think this is where you and i differ. I dont mind running lowbie dungeons, pulling everything to the end and just aoe down. To loot silk/wool etc.
I mean, if you care more about leveling than end-game content, then i wouldnt say its worth putting time and effort into a char.
I havent bought a single consumeable for raiding. My guild provides it for me, they sell the boe’s nobody want on the ah to fund it. Easy cash (specially in the early raid days, abit harder the further you get into the phase)
I cant stress this enough, pugs are the worst. They have been for years. If you dont want to get a guild, then i dont think cata will be enjoyable.
Half the point of this game is to make friends/connections i guess. Doing that is hard in pugs
at level 85 its worse. And you will never form a group for raid or get in a guild.
Healing even heroics with bad gear, feels awful. No one uses defensives (yes, I track them). nor do interrupts. Tanks don’t know how to play either. I would assume the game lost some subs because no one wanted to heal or they were dying all the time because they are bad
I really don’t think class quests were something that carried the subscriber numbers. It’s a small thing that was cool, granted. The old world was definitely more immersive and much less formulaic than the Cata revamp. But hand on your heart, how much time did you spend in the old world in WLK? If you levelled alts I’ll bet they were decked in heirlooms to make the levelling experience as fast as possible – with the express goal of getting to Dalaran and twiddle your thumbs inbetween being teleported to various activities.
… may sound like I’m unduly harsh to you in particular, but the “you” I’m talking about is not really directed at you, but the playerbase as a whole. I think Cata improved the game in many areas. The gameplay in WLK was spammy, it’s somewhat more cerebral in Cata. Even in post-nerfed dungeons, people in the RDF will still struggle. Can’t say it’s much fun playing with RDF folk though, as people would sooner votekick than talk to people.
Ahh, a kindered spirit. Did this as well, back in 2011. And again when I levelled from scratch in 2017. Again, I don’t think many people care to stop and smell the flowers, they just want to reach end game asap.
Kind of a pity that the EXP pause has to be so damn obscure. Some random stealthed guy in the capital, and it costs 10g (if I recall). Could’ve just been a button on the interface with a popup window warning you that exp is going off.
For wool you can farm Duskwood I think, silk is stranglethorn vale I think, there are guides on the internet that help you farm (humanoids) of the appropriate level for cloth.
Nope, I never had Heirloom in all my time play WoW. I love leveling! And like Babasiltz I gave much G to Behsten or Slaats Only I payd before going Dungeons.
Not sure why ppl compare Cata to literally the worst and oldest version of WoW, Era.
The complaints are usually “its not WoW” Ok. To me Cata is still in the “Classic” family. Its a very clear progression of the talents, spells, and the class feeling.
Starting from MoP to WoD its another generation of WoW.
And from Legion onwards its a 3rd gen of the game.
Had you played all of them you could easily see when the things clearly change. Now ever, going back to the original complaint of Cata v Era. Not sure how anyone can really complain ? On Era if you are not A) Warrior, B) Mage or C) Rogue as a dps player ? You are 100% useless. Or if you are not a Priest or Pala ? Same thing.
Cata ? You almost have every single spec +/- 5% from each other. Now thats amazing balance. The specs still feel unique and not homogenized like they will become for a while later.
So “Omg I just starded and the inflation is too high + the horrible class quests are no longer here” is not a valid example of “This is bad”. If I chose to play Era now id probably have the same inflation issues.
I don’t feel you can earnestly say that. That’s like saying enchants and consumables don’t improve dps/hps while yes you knowing your rotation and cooldowns is what’s going to do most of the damage having enchants and consumables adds value and power to your character. It’s the same with class quests since they add value to the game. Taking away value from the game is never a good thing. There is a reason why Legion was extremely popular as an expansion and one major reason was that they gave class exclusive content. We literally had 36 legion artifacts with 36 unique questlines in order to get them as well as order halls questlines even though some order hall questlines overlapped. That’s the kind of content that everyone enjoys whether you were a raider, pvper or a casual leveler/achievement hunter.
I did all the zones on retail during mop back in the day. During mop I was mostly a casual player that didn’t do end game content and just replayed old parts of the game. I remember Stonetalon specifically because of how in the end on the horde side at least you can see blizz developing Garrosh’s character but ultimately that didn’t matter seeing how he eventually turned out.
What I’m talking about is if someone wanted to try wow cata and start from zero they’re not going to enjoy the gameplay experience. They’re not going to have wow experience like Barnemonster and rush to the parts they like in the end game and they’re not going to know about cutting experience either or even have the gold for it. The experience I mentioned is what they’re going to get and it’s not a good experience which is why I state it’s no wonder blizz lost half it’s subs during cata. I’m a long time veteran of the game and I do have a lvl70 character I can start with if I wanted but thought about starting fresh to truly see what it’s like (without assistance from my higher level characters) and it’s not a good experience.
I am starting to level a new character because I want to experience the leveling experience in cataclysm. I have leveled the vanilla experience so much and even though I think it is really great and it really feels like a rpg game. I am curious how this new one feels.
When I have done more of it I will come back and comment.
I cannot disagree more with this. I see alot of prog guilds still looking for players. For heroic and for normal. I play on Pyrewood. I get into a pug with heroic prog guild, raided with Unprepared, really cool guys, very helpful and understanding. Explained stuff for me immediately, I had not on Conclave done it as Dk on the nature dude with adds. They even called out when i should use AMS. I wiped them twice, no problem, we cleared it on 3rd try.
I think it’s more about how you are as a person and what type of people you engage with. I’ve raided lots with my alts to, everytime people explain things, discuss mechanics & strats.
Maybe it’s just a Firemaw issue tbh. And just ignore the GDKP or BoE reserved runs.
25man is the size that allows for most mistakes. Do 10man, thats where 1 death = wipe. 1 mistake = wipe.
25man 3 people can die np. You got countless of players to deal with the mechanics, like interrupts and killing adds. Tons of CC.
GDKP & boes have been an issue since Vanilla. Not much of a Cata issue. But this issue is plagued here to yes. Should have been banned during Vanilla imo with GDKP. It was prob the worst during ICC.
This is not necessary either. Don’t need to buy any BoE whatsoever. Sure Angerforge is your bis, but you do not need it for clearing any heroic content.
Ye capital would be more fun if it was something unique & not just SW or Orgrimmar.
That i agree with & was complained about even in OG Cata.
But I’m not sure it’s a valid Cata classic complaint, we knew this was the case since before, we hardly expected them to develop a new capital city. This content is 14 years old, don’t act like any of this is a surprise.
Only I payd before going Dungeons.