New player, finding it hard to understand the game

[Rentora-argent-dawn]

I TOTALLY get how this guy is feeling. I remember not so long ago I found the game confusing and contradictory. What really bugged me was that things everyone else found “obvious” was totally lost on me.

My advice to you would be; explore and just do “random stuff”. You’ll learn more in the game that way I think. When it comes to the abbreviations people use… don’t get me started on that. TLDR, LOH, LFR, LFG, PUG, DOT, WTS, AOE. Guys… not even experienced players know what ALL these mean so how the heck is a new player going to know?

I used to always have a notepad and a pen next to me, helped a LOT.

When it comes to the social side it’s potluck, the server I’m on, Argent Dawn, is a role play server and people GENERALLY are friendly and chatty, but there are plenty who won’t respond, or who give you grief or something.

[Radium-dragonblight]

@Drepop-burning-legion

Though in actually playing retail for a week or so now, I’m kind of hooked on the progression and find myself looking forward to later content more and more :’)

Just remember you can play both if you find that fun! That is what i am going to do. Now that classic launches i expect retail to be bit more silent untill next content patch comes, so it might take longer to find groups for dungeons and such but not impossible.

You can find different things that bring you enjoyment from classic and retail.

• Classic will bring you more complicated and interesting skill systems (talent trees, weapon skills, hunter pet skills etc.), more interesting and usable professions, old world in Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor that is not present anymore in same form in retail (areas were changed in cataclysm expansion). Just to mentioned few. In general there might be less things to do, but they are more interesting to do.
• In retail you can adventure further than lvl 60, you get much more continents and lands where to explore and play. There is lot of quality of life things that you might find fun (barbershops, transmogs and such), there is queuable group finding system for dungeons if you like that stuff, flying and flying mounts, more different dungeons and raids to do, more classes and races to play and so on.

You can pick best for both and play which ever you feel that day. They are both available to you with your sub and once again, you don’t have to choose just one.

[Bulldozer-neptulon (Bulldozer)]

Classic is not my cup of tea. Too much quality of life features are missing. It has no looking for group tool, no transmog, no mythic plus dungeons wich are one of the best features and no heritage sets. Those three features are the most important to me and i cannot abandon them.

I have no time to spam in chat that i am looking for 1 more tank for a dungeon (making a group takes too much time) and then travelling to that dungeon wich can take like 20 or more minutes.

[Transmoggu-antonidas]

@Drepop-burning-legion

I Subbed this month was because of classic,

I probably will get flamed for saying this , but if you be classic be careful and avoid guides or anything similar. While the game is fun playing it blind , once you find out that the best way to play your class is smashing the same button over and over again, it becomes a little stale.

Aslong as you play just how you want and ignore your dps , it’s a lot of fun

[Leroch-earthen-ring]

@Steamedhams-frostmane

if you get stuck and feel like you’re wasting time wondering around, go check the mission board in Orgrimmar

You can also check the adventurers guide (found in your action bar, below your bags) and even start the initial quest from that book. No need to go to Orgrimmar’s mission board. I just learned that yesterday

[Redoctober-frostmane (Redoctober)]

@Drepop-burning-legion

Where does endgame typically begin? I know that LFR is unlocked at 85, though I don’t yet own BFA (was planing to get it when I hit level cap). Is endgame basically gated off to players who don’t own the expansion?

End game begins at max level, currently 120. LFR does unlock at level 85, but you will most likely not get the queue to pop before lv 120 raids.

@Drepop-burning-legion

When can I feasibly begin farming for more impressive mounts and transmogs? It seems like most of the unique looking mounts and characters are owned by level 120 accounts, is there anything for me to grind out now for a cool look, or is it just a matter of reaching max level to do the endgame content for nicer rewards?

Feasibly? Around level 80 you can already do raids and dungeons of the previous expansions solo, some of which drop mounts. But it would be advisable to get to level 120 first and then you can farm mounts to your heart’s content with much greater efficiency.

@Drepop-burning-legion

I’ve been told that flying unlocks at level 60, though read in the forums of people being frustrated at having to farm it in BFA. Will I have to relearn flying to use in BFA, or simply not able to unlock it at all until I get to that expansion?

Flying works like this:

• you have to unlock flying globally, which you can do once you reach level 60. This will work in the old world (zones designed for levels 1-60) as well as TBC zones.
• you will have to purchase the flight training for specific pre-Warlords of Draenor expansions;
• you will need to complete the pathfinder achievement, consisting on questing, exploring and reputations for the expansions Warlords of Draenor, Legion and Battle for Azeroth, to unlock flying in each expansion respectively.

So, bottom line on the flying, you can purchase it at level 60, but that purchase won’t enable you to fly in e.g. any Draenor zone. You will need to also complete the Draenor flight specific achievement to fly there.

[Sholah-hyjal]

@Drepop-burning-legion

When can I feasibly begin farming for more impressive mounts and transmogs? It seems like most of the unique looking mounts and characters are owned by level 120 accounts, is there anything for me to grind out now for a cool look, or is it just a matter of reaching max level to do the endgame content for nicer rewards?

You can start soloing a dungeon a raid once you’re at least 11lvl higher than the raid original level (classic => 60, Burning crusade 70, wrath of the lich king 80, cataclysm 85, mists of Pandaria 90, warlords of draenor 100, legion 110, BFA 120)

It also unocks the legacy loot system, which gives you all the loot a party of (raid size -5, so 5 for 10m raid or 20 for 25m raid) would’ve gotten. It means that every raid boss prior legion will drop 2 to 8 items while the legion ones will maybe drop one every 3 kill.

This also turns old raid into a valuable source of raw gold : clear your bags, do a cata / mop / WoD raid in 25m (LFR will be faster but each difficulty reward a different color/version of the raid set and Heroid/mythic may have exclusive rewards), loot everything (if you miss a loot it’ll be send to you through the mailbox) and sell every soulbound item to a vendor.

Some Bound on Equip item you may loot from mobs may sell for a high Price on the auction house too (mostly for epics but WoD greens have a decent value). That said selling transmog Gear on the AH require a lot of patience as you’ll most of the time only sell 1% of your auctions.

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

@Bulldozer-neptulon

Dont waste your time, mon. Game starts at lvl 120. Just do your best to get there as soon as possible.

This is fine for an experienced player, perhaps even someone returning from Wrath, or transferring from FFXIV. They know the MMORPG ropes, and can make their own decisions.

This is terrible, terrible advice - the worst possible - for a new player.

New players need time to mess about, experiment, chase things, enjoy.

I’m currently keeping an eye on a newcomer who recently hit 120.

Ma-an, trying to explain the basic endgame systems to a new player is HARD. They make no sense, unless you have been learning them for years. (Even then, most of them don’t make a lot of sense if you think hard about them.) As I explain them, I keep thinking to myself “Who thought that was a good idea?”

Anyhow, he’s just dinged, and he was asking what was his next step. So I explained open up World Quests, and I checked his armoury, and he needed some rep with Zandalari and Voldunai, and a third foothold.

Now, if that was you or me, we’d be like “How much rep?” “What’s the fastest way to get it?”, and laser focused on the goal.

Not him.

He banged around and eventually did his third foothold, though he mixd up Drustvar with Darkshore in the process, not figuring out how to get to, and from, the places he needed to be.

I thought he said he had done Zandalari. I’m pretty sure he did say that, but he must have misunderstood something, and found his way to start Vol’dun, where he mentioned the going was slow. So I logged in to bodyguard him for a while.

And I watched. Here is some footage I recorded:

Cute Puppy Playing in Snow

OK, so that is not actual footage. But it’s close. He was running everywhere, bodypulling everything, going into every nook and cranny, and just generally having a great time.

Remember, this is the same guy who said he wanted to get to some gear ASAP.

So he hit Friendly in Vol’dun and I said time to fly down to Zuldazar to polish off that bit, so he could get into world quests and warfronts and like that. Didn’t want to. Just kept following quests, killing stuff, would have died several times if I didn’t step in, and generally enjoying himself.

Let new players have their WoW childhood. They’ll be strapped in to the inflexible artificial constricting endgame systems soon enough!

[Roniin-ravencrest]

Yeah social aspect in game can be a pita.
But players are around that are always up for a good chat cough

A good tip for racial mounts is to buy the Tabards in Ogrimmar and wear them whilst you quest and dungeon. Especially dungeons the rep gains are great.

A sneaky tip is to create a DK of each race you want the mounts from and complete the intro then buy the mounts for that race. You can use these across all characters of the same faction on your account, I am unsure if class trial works with this, if so even easier!

Once you hit level 90 or 100 upto you, feel free to go back over some old raids, you’ll get gear, transmog and if you’re lucky rare mounts. Some raids give you titles to or guranteed mounts if you do specific tasks.

The obsidian Sanctum drops two different drakes for example and a title.

Feel free to take your time and explore each region and dungeon before you progress, there is no rush.

[Drepop-burning-legion]

Thanks for the advice I agree in terms of not rushing through the content, though it can be difficult to take in some of the lore aspects of dungeons when all anyone wants to do is run through as fast as humanly possible haha I can understand it can be monotonous for experienced players.

And you say endgame is frustrating and difficult, why is that? And is this something that changes as expansions come out or am I stuck with it in retail forever?

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

@Drepop-burning-legion

it can be difficult to take in some of the lore aspects of dungeons when all anyone wants to do is run through as fast as humanly possible

Yeah, that seriously sucks for new players. It’s a race to the bottom, a tragedy of the commons. The people who want to go fastest inevitably end up setting the pace of the group, so everyone else is just collateral damage.

@Drepop-burning-legion

And you say endgame is frustrating and difficult, why is that?

No, I didn’t say that, exactly.

I said endgame systems are inflexible, artificial, constricting, and make no sense.

Endgame is as difficult as you want to make it. There certainly will be some frustrations, but you can mostly avoid them if you want, since there is a large range of activities, and you can choose the ones you want to pursue.

There are two sets of endgame systems:

1. Systems designed in by Blizzard. These are of three forms:
   a) To get reward X, you must do Y. These tend to be fairly straightforward and easy to understand. If you want a quest reward, you must complete the quest. If you want a specific weapon, you must find the mob that drops it, and kill him, and you will have a chance to get it, at least. You may be looking up Wowhead a lot, but there is a clear path.
   b) To be able to do X, you must complete A, B, C, D, F, Ѭ, Q, M, 字, H, and α, in that order, where almost none of the things relates to X in any way.
   c) Layered RNG. You’ve heard of quantum weirdness? The double-slit experiment? That’s just a warm-up for layered RNG.

2. Systems informally enforced by the community. These do in a way make more sense than the most Kafkaesque of the Blizzard systems, since they all boil down to “If you wnt to join my group, you need to prove you’re going to make my life easier.” However, knowing exactly what will make people believe you are going to make their life easier can be full of nuance and cultural context.

[Giambalin-anachronos]

/OT mode on
I like Gràinne: helpful to others and she have always a words of wisdom (not ironic). It’s really a pleasure read her posts. Hey Blizz, there are a MVP, what are you waiting to turn her in green?
/OT mode off

[Jurgenhan-quelthalas (Jurgenhan)]

@Drepop-burning-legion

Thank you

1. Where does endgame typically begin? I know that LFR is unlocked at 85, though I don’t yet own BFA (was planing to get it when I hit level cap). Is endgame basically gated off to players who don’t own the expansion?

2. When can I feasibly begin farming for more impressive mounts and transmogs? It seems like most of the unique looking mounts and characters are owned by level 120 accounts, is there anything for me to grind out now for a cool look, or is it just a matter of reaching max level to do the endgame content for nicer rewards?

3. I’ve been told that flying unlocks at level 60, though read in the forums of people being frustrated at having to farm it in BFA. Will I have to relearn flying to use in BFA, or simply not able to unlock it at all until I get to that expansion?

Thank you for the help

1. As you are a lower level, you have quite a bit to get to the current end game which is the new raid in Natzjatar and the dungeon in Mechagon, as you have to get to level 120 to access these w places. As you do not own the expansion you will not have access to anything BFA related.

2. You can start farming mounts at your current level, see this link: https://www.wowhead.com/all-warcraft-mounts-and-pets-guide

3. You initially get flying but once you hit Warlords of Draenor you will not be able to fly until you unlock pathfinder parts 1 and 2, which was Blizzards way of gating flying. Every expansion since Draenor has a flying pathfinder requirement, so hence the complaints.