Respectfully, talking about 1-80, I have done the exposition to death. I quest-levelled something like 9 alts during the vanilla-Cata period, and I’m never going to want to do that again.
I did quest 1-60, because it is fast, and frankly the lower level zones are pretty fun and atmospheric (Westfall, Loch Modan, Darkshire, etc). I never want to go to Outland or Northrend again, and I’ll do my best to skip WoD zones as well.
If dungeon levelling hadn’t got me through the 60-80 range, I’d probably have caved and paid for a boost.
Which I admit is a symptom of levelling via questing being tedious - but some of it is just over-saturation and can never be remedied.
My friend and I quest solo the first time round in a new expansion, then will team up on alts. Because neither of us likes to disturb our immersion. Saves on all that awkward feeling rushed or having to wait around for the other.
Okay? Just because you’re done with that content doesn’t mean the content should be trivialised, ruined, and otherwise glossed over for everyone else. It just means you shouldn’t do it anymore. You’ve levelled up 9 times. That’s fine you don’t want to do it again.
But here’s the rub: Blizzard’s levelling structure means you must, or at least you must do something else you’ve also done 9+ times. It would make sense to focus on how we can give players more choice and less linearity while also not destroying the sense of progression.
The current structure of forcing you into areas based on 6 brackets while simultaneously scaling everything within those brackets such that you never actually feel like you’re getting stronger in each bracket is obviously not the way to go.
Maybe there’s some useful feedback in this urge you feel to avoid certain parts of the levelling experience. Funnily enough, I share the exact same preferences.
Of course it can.
In the past I’ve suggested a “level squish”, where basically the game has less levels, everyone gets to have a lower level, and there would be many expansions to choose from in each bracket. No scaling tech needed.
Guild Wars, the original, had a level cap of 20. They never raised it. Now I’m not saying that’s the right model for WoW, but a 120 levels with nothing to them except repeating the same old zones we’re already tired of is not the right model for WoW either, and telling us that we can have more fun if we just pay for a boost really undermines the notion that WoW is a premium game without microtransactions that increase your power.
The obvious solution is to purchase a two seater mount, both on it, when you accept the quest you skim the info for a general direction and tell your friend (read:personal chauffeur) to go there. While you are on the way you read the quest text in peace.
I honestly really like linear storytelling because it really makes clear where u should go next based on the story and characters (also how to avoid sidequests) and also think the game has come a looong way into implementing lore into quests for it not to be boring!
Using bfa as an example, my first character got 115 just from Voldun (both main and side quests) and I felt rushed cause I dont wanna be doing exp quests when I am already 120.
My next level up I got all Zandalar areas and “Zandalar Forever” and the toon was still 117 halfway to 118.
So yeah people are immersed by different styles, and some like exploring etc but as far as lore implementation into quests, I believe they did a good job so far
I think your expectations are a bit too high to be honest, show me the MMO that has mastered questing.
Granted you might come across one or two quest that you like but for the most part it will always be you killing X amount of mobs to complete the quest.
Actually (at least for ally) most of the quest of bfa are centered on helping and gaining favor of the kultirans, which have no clue on us being uber champion of azeroth. It’s not totally unreasonable as a justification for classic quest.
I still agree that something more epic should be done.
Still it was a good drive to properly explore the world and different zones. It needed refinment, sure, but at least is not like bfa were you could hit 120 having explored less than half of the continents (or none at all if you simply push islands/dungeons).
The quests in WoW have always been one sided and quite linear. it’s strange that they haven’t put more effort into making variations on the quests, especially taken into consideration how much they’ve modified the engine over the years.
I would say that The secret world has a perfect balance on quests with all sort of quests to choose from. From the standard kill X quests to mystery quests that involves puzzling out the truth. The quest variation is quite good, and that’s how I wished WoW was as well.
I think a lot of the quests in recent expansions have a nice flow tbh, and a lot of them are their own little side story. Some are still just get 10x filler quests, but how many truly unique quests can the game make?
Vehicle quests are the ones that grind me down, they always feel like you have to kill about 30% more than is really needed.
The most annoying linear thing to me are not the quests, but the exploration.
You can predict how the zone will explored, and only rarely is a part of the map left undiscovered… no reason to check what’s there, let alone be surprised by what’s there. Too much hand-holding imho.
I find it most annoying when it feels everything is linked to one big chain. I have always liked to explore and end up somewhere where i find quest hub with some folks needing my help for something. It makes me feel like adventurer where as long linked questlines make me feel little bit like having a job where someone keeps telling me where to go next. But i don’t mind long lines either if they got good story.
I think there is some really nice side quest hibs in BFA and some of them feel like part of the linear chain is just because every single hub seems to have breadcrumb quest leading there. Just removing those breadcrumbs from other than main queslines would make it feel better for my adventurer soul. I especially liked that alliance quest where you find that gnome who wants to make holiday resort of that polluted valley and you gotta help him to clean up there and even take some promo pictures. It would have been even more fun if there was no breadcrumbs leading there but just finding the place when adventuring.
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