Returning player struggling to find my place and purpose

Hi all, hoping this is the right place to post to get some inspiration/help. I’m a returning player who previously put some serious time into Wotlk and Cata but stopped for while after that. Lately I had the itch to return and I have a pretty decent laptop I use for work that allows me to squeeze in an hour to play on my lunch most days.

So I’ve been playing again for past month, I got my warrior and shaman up to 120 and managed to accumulate some basic gear but the games changed from what I used to know and I’m struggling to find the enjoyment I’m craving.

I was a big pvp player in the past but right now with 20+ min queues for BG’s and brawls every time it’s really hard for me to find time to get these in plus pvp seems in pretty poor state right now. Also with the way conquest gear is now handed out I could waste a week of playing to be rewarded with gear I already have when it’s actually shoulders or gloves I need. This seems a really terrible system compared to the old honour/ conquest vendors?

I’m not an amazingly skilled player and I know this so The appeal of mythics and raiding isn’t there for me because I would only hold people back and possibly ruin their experience which is the last thing I want to do. Also these can often need a lot of time to get groups and run the dungeons and as I said earlier, I usually can only jump on for an hour a day during the week.

I want to keep playing because I love this game but I’m at a loss of what I can aim to achieve right now. I know I can’t get the best gear without mythics and I accept that So I’d be happy to just spend my time aiming for other things. I know some people mount hunt or transmog hunt but is there anything else you experienced guys could recommend for me to aim for to keep my entertained and that gives a sense of achievement? Also I don’t have any friends anymore that play or a guild so if anyone plays horde on Draenor and doesn’t mind a guy who likes a bit of fun casual chat in /G every so often then let me know. always enjoyed the game more when I had people to speak to :slight_smile:

Thanks for your time and any suggestions you can offer x

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Welcome back!

I’m not sure there was ever an era when you could just squeeze in an hour each day and still get sense of achievement. Vanilla maybe, levelling through quests, but even then finding dungeon groups and then doing dungeons took a lot more than an hour.

I’m impressed that you even got as far as you seem to have with these limitations.

The awfulness of the PvP system has been widely agreed and discussed. The devs say they’ll do better in Shadowlands, but who knows? They seem to be in the grip of very strange ideas.

Nowadays, you really need to do at least low Mythics and LFR to get starter gear. World Quests will get you to 415 very fast, but climbing from there to 450-460 with Emissaries is terribly slow - and you want that level of gear to be vaguely survivable in PvP.

On the upside, on a day when there is a gear Emissary up, it only takes 15 minutes. I hope you’re keeping an eye out for those.

Where is your gear at right now? You have decent Essences? Got the Cloak? Couple of useful Corruptions? Ilevel 440+? If not, you can work on that a bit.

Have you done Ny’alotha LFR? Groups for the last boss can be unpleasant in LFR, because of bad group cohesion, but something can be gained from the previous bosses maybe? If you queue for all three wings together, then as soon as you get out of the first, you will be called for the second, because you have been deemed to be in the queue all that time, and then the third. That might be do-able in an hour.

There has been a huge increase in the amout of Collections added to the game - mounts, pets, toys, appearances to transmogrify. That may not give you a sense of achievement, but it is a reliable way to fill time.

Honestly, I think you need at least some fairly regular 2-3 hour sessions to make the most of the game, and it’s very tough to go anywhere when you have an hour and you can’t exceed that, and you’re watching the clock all the time.

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Thank you for your reply, occasionally on a weekend I do get a couple hours free to play but it’s rare. As for gear I have 449 on my warrior on 440 on my shaman. I’ve played warrior for most of wow but it seems a bit boring at the minute so have been playing my sham a little more.

I do need to unlock more Azerite powers and have barely leveled up my cloak so I guess these are areas to focus on for slight improvements and ways to spice gameplay. And As for LFR I have not done nyalotha, I have queued a couple times but the groups often wipe 3 or 4 times so it can be frustrating.

I have considered trying for mounts as I do enjoy running the old raids that I missed (and ICC for nostalgia) so maybe this is something to peruse, or maybe levelling some professions like engineering, I’m kind of just looking for things I can do that don’t require top ilvl gear as it’s going to take me a long time to get anywhere near 460+.

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Hello!

You seem like the type of player I used to be up until a couple of months ago so I can completely relate to your situation. As much as I love the game, I always had problems holding onto something. Progression raiding never worked out, rated PvP neither… And there was always a problem of not having friends in the game…

What really worked for me was “allthethings” addon (tracking achievs, mounts, toys, pets and so on), which suddenly sparked some sort of a “purpose” in me. When you think about it, gear and rating will go away in time, but the items, achievements, mounts etc. will always be unlocked for you, no matter how many expansions will come and go. There is just so much stuff to do and it feels so good once you achieve what you want, even simply pushing another % in the overall allthethings counter. Plus, you get bored of farming achievs, you can farm mounts. You get bored of mounts, you can start doing pet battles. You get bored… You get what I mean. :slight_smile: My personal approach was setting up a daily goal - 1 mounts, 1 toy, 4 achievs, 5 pets - per day. It keeps you motivated and encourages you to come back and get something again the next day.

For me personally, being a completionist solved the issue of me feeling alone, since (selfishly) the fastest way you can get things done and farm different stuff is when you do your own decisions and do not rely on anybody else. However, since some runs are faster to do with more people (plus for some achievements you need more than 1 player), you may wanna join an in-game community that is focused on farming achievs or mounts.

Here is a link to my own in-game community: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/invite/ZmYAvzheKK?region=EU&faction=Horde

I will be setting up scheduled runs for old raids and maybe completing old glory achievs that require more people. Literally only 3 people so far but hey, gotta start somewhere am I right? Also I am on Draenor with one more player that is in the community, so that would be kinda cool. :smiley:

Whatever you choose however, I hope you will have fun in the game. Good luck!

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AllTheThings https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/all-the-things is a scary addon :smiley: Every time I look at it, it reminds me of all the little things I haven’t done!

Much depends on how much of the collector gene you have.

I turned to pet battling and collecting as a fill-in during the long long drought at the end of Mists, and found I really quite liked it, but others won’t.

Relatable… But if you take it slowly, you will avoid the crippling depression.

The moment I downloaded it I had only like 20% or so even after playing the game for 5 years. Made it to 33% in a month following the daily goal. Greatness from small beginnings. :slight_smile:

It also greatly helps to have no life lol :sweat_smile:

i can always offer u a place in our guild over on dreanor eu because we talk allot on discord and riad without real requirements we also help our guildies with item progressions and such so youre free to join if you want to i myself know how hard it is to also play this game on your own just message me ingame and we can help u out and maby give you the love back u lost

That would be fantastic, thank you I will be sure to message you next time I get online :slight_smile:

Thank you for your response, I will be sure to download the add on and try it out and will certainly be joining the community. I love going back over old content especially things I missed out on during my break like warlords and legion raids so I’m sure I’ll be able to jump in from time to time!

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A hour a day will In all honesty make progression brutal.

There’s so many progressive systems currently

  • essences
  • level 80 neck
  • cloak

Which all have their separate content to progress within.

Essences demanding you to progress several systems simultaneously

The cape requiring you to participate in assaults and more to generate a currency to partake in visions for upgrades

The neck requiring a feed of azerite to level up over time

That I think if you walked into the game today you could quite literally sink 5 - 6 hours into just daily progression.

  • emmisary quests
  • nazajtar reputation
  • mechagon reputation
  • several forms of PvP for blood of the enemy
  • assaults
  • uldum/vale dailies
  • 1 mythic+ a week
  • weekly island expedition quest
  • raids for essences
  • nazajtar questline/companion levelling

All of these things are realistically needed in progression, which is a major problem in BFA and I don’t think any prior system was this demanding, mainly because this is the first expansion we have seen blizzard have to try and bandaid a borrowed power system.

I think SL will be more tame, although on a 1 hour a day play schedule you may lose a whole day to doing your power progression due to torghast and things but currently BFA is so layered with systems it will make moving forward brutal

Your best bet would be focusing on the bigger parts individually

  • Find your BiS essences and only work on unlocking those, don’t try unlocking em all

  • get your weekly azerite quest done

  • complete assaults and ignore dailies.

  • maybe consider not bothering to unlock flying this late in. Would likely overwhelm you with the quantity of factions you are forced to keep doing rep with

I’m guessing blood of the enemy essence would be a good one for you as that demands playing PvP :smiley:

Finding good guild will grant you place and purpose :slight_smile: there is no worse thing in mmo than being alone and having no one to speak with.

This patch has too much catch up to do. I advise to either find a guild to carry you in raids or m+, buy wow tokens and boosts or just level up an alt army to play in Shadowlands

Hi Kie, pleasee drop me a message on Battlenet @ yarddog10#2114

I think i have just the place for you :slight_smile:

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