WOTLK zone + quest design is some of the best in the entire series. But honestly, why is this experience levelling from 70-80 just so boring?
I am not advocating for levelling to be a frustrating, ridiculously hard experience. I don’t think that would serve anyone’s interest. However, playing through this content again just made me realise how WOTLK missed the mark big time with regards to finding the balance between accessibility and meaningful engagement with levelling in the open world.
Even in quest greens + blues, everything just… falls over. There’s nothing compelling about it. You are nothing short of a demi-god, carving through mobs like they’re not even there. Chain pulling one pack after the next with absolutely zero thought, care or concern. I can’t even imagine how trivial everything has been for people in Sunwell Plateau gear.
I suppose it’s just been an eye-opening experience coming back to this. Without quick and convenient access to dungeons via RDF to break up the pace, it’s become quite evident that 70-80 levelling is just monotonous beyond belief.
This isn’t a gameplay criticism. I think every class objectively improved in their rotations, design, class fantasy and fun factor between TBC and WOTLK. The world just didn’t change enough to accommodate this power creep. Everything feels so lacking in danger that it makes everything feel, as a whole, quite trivial as a consequence.
I know certain people will vehemently disagree with this. That being said, I do wonder if the idea of a Vanilla feeling world with WOTLK class design would have served this project better in the long run?
17 Likes
Too much xp is needed. The leveling itself would be better than classic zones, if you would not need to complete 5 zones fully to level up.
They should increase the xp gain by 50-100% then it would be fine experience, but now it’s kinda aids.
24 Likes
I just think that would paper over the cracks of what is, frankly, a hollow experience.
I am NOT a fan of Vanilla and TBC. I think the class design and combat is dire in both iterations and the class design was not truly complete or fun until WOTLK.
However, what those versions of WoW had was a certain sense of danger when out in the open world. You’d encounter bumps in difficulty that you’d need to gear up to overcome, you’d have to think about pulls. Levelling felt a bit more of an accomplishment.
In WOTLK it feels like nothing more than a time gate. You cannot possibly screw up unless you try to. There is no danger.
My Paladin is 70, same as you. He is just in quest blues and greens, nothing special. Nothing outside of group quest elites puts up even the slightest bit of resistance. No thought is required at all. I don’t need to enter a dungeon to get some gear to brute force past a particularly troublesome quest, I don’t need to ever worry about pulling too many mobs. I am a complete wrecking ball and that’s fine if that the end point. It becomes a big problem when this is the baseline you start out from.
The whole experience just feels insignificant and that wouldn’t change with an exp buff, in my view.
4 Likes
No it isnt 
Design is most boring actualy.
Vanilla and tbc were much better.
Who needs them anyway when you can gear through dungeon lol.
Soloing group bosses is prob only interesting content.
2 Likes
Each to their own. I think every era had some fantastic zones and quests. I think WOTLK set a consistently high bar though.
My point is that you don’t even need to do that. If everything just disintegrates with quest rewards then I have a greatly reduced incentive to do a dungeon to acquire better gear while levelling.
And that’s the big problem sadly, it’s true.
I was thinking the same today. Im full Brutal geared, and damn the mobs melt like butter. Im killing 10+ mobs at the same time, or better to say i kill all that i can gather around. Its really booring…
Edit : i do dungeons just for the xp, and some change from questing lol
4 Likes
well you can always go naked if u want to kill mobs slower, it’s your choice…
4 Likes
I understand the need of rdf for heroics for emblem farming for solo players ,casuals,alts etc. But i will never understand why people want it for leveling ,especially in wotlk
Reaching friendly for tabards so you can do heroic championing is not gonna magicaly happen on it’s own , you need to do around 65-70% of the Northrend quests ANYWAY .
And not just that . Some dungeon related quests are locked behind huge solo quest chains , to unlock the 2 quests for halls of lighting for example, you need to do a whoopin 41 quests in storm peaks .
As for if leveling in general is boring , which areas are better , if the open world mobs/grinds/solo questing should be ez pz , if you ask a million people you will get a million answers
3 Likes
they removed rdf and now the game is just a tedious grind of already beaten old content… simple as that
5 Likes
If you have to cripple yourself deliberately and not engage with the game as intended in order to have a meaningful experience, then something is clearly wrong.
3 Likes
yes that som
yes that is called lack of RDF
1 Like
I agree. It is so painful to quest. There is absolutely NOTHING fun about it.
The people I see say it is fun…curious what about the following is fun:
- go hunt xyz animals for a drop, get xxx drops and return (painful when you can’t share mob tagging, in groups the drop is 1/5 people so it doesn’t encourage group questing, and usually you need to kill 5-10 mobs for one item to drop)
- go see xyz who will then ask you to do the above or to take something to abc and return.
Thus far the vast majority of the quests have been to kill mobs for getting a kill tracker to fill or getting drops to return.
Absolutely repetitive and BORING.
The xp required should be 100% less. Let us go out LATER if we want to actually quest to bang these out. Endgame is 80 and getting raid ready, not spending a week grinding quests which are soul crushing and absolutely no fun at all.
Sadly alternatives don’t work. Dungeons give almost nothing for xp/hour. PVP is the same. I wish mining/herbing gave xp…that helped me a lot in retail get over the quest hurdle of absolutely hating questing.
1 Like
Terrible, experimental, quest design which they thankfully trimmed in Cata onwards.
Too much exp per level.
No LFD to fill in the gaps when you get sick of a zone.
Honestly 70-80 has always been my least favourite levelling bracket and playing it while it was ‘current’ was the single worst questing experience I have ever had.
2 Likes
It’s not all bad, and actually a little fun if you pay attention to lore of quests. What makes it boring is too much time and effort you need to put. Sometimes it feels like it’s never gonna end, I get it.
But, comparing to vanilla leveling its paradise. I lost half of my hair while leveling in the classic (I would believe if you say thats because I was playing warrior but still…)
And some of the quests now even rewards you with emblems! now they are actually meaningful to do even if you don’t need xp.
Questing is fun in Azeroth cause every place and every quest tells us some story or more about world.
Quests in Lich not only gameplay worst but they are not interesting to read especially in starting zones and esp in Grizzly.
Most questing fun in Azeroth was due to variety. You could take orc do quests in Duratan. Or take undead and visit completely different areas up to 30. There was content specific to your race and class.
Now you are just random noname delivery boy without identity from Shipping to northrend up to Lich King.
1 Like
Vanilla was barely more dangerous, you just ran out of mana faster.
Ohh man if you think leveling is too easy and braindead wait till you get to the “endgame content”
2 Likes
It actually 7-10 hours gametime per level
100 hour of ingame time to level 10 levels, this is so boring, insane
4 Likes
I dont understand why 100 hours of content is a bad thing
2 Likes
At least it’s better than 1-60 slog in vanilla. Leveling was, is and will be absolute worst content in WoW, it’s pretty cool when you play the game for the first time but replay value is close to 0 for anyone who wants to focus on end game content (aka most players that stick with the game)