Should I keep going?

Guides New/Returning Player Questions & Guides
1

Hi everyone, first post here.

I’ve been looking for some good MMOs for some time now. I’m a huge fan of Warframe and Destiny (2), and since I’ve pretty much done all there is to do in those two, I’m looking for a bigger and more long-term game and decided to give WoW a try, but so far my experience is pretty mixed.

I’ve played for the past two weeks and now I’m at Mists of Pandaria content (level 80) and I still haven’t found the ‘hook’. The combat is fun but nothing great, the quests feel like 90% filler fetch and collect, dungeons are somewhat fut too, I haven’t tried raiding or PvP yet, and at the moment I’m just forcing myself to keep going. I’ve heard that the end-game is really great and the story missions in the lastest expansions look really awesome too (seen from gameplays and Warbringers cinematics). I’m a big sucker for good stories so I’d like to try and get to Legion at least. One of my main issues is how loot (which is arguably the most important part of an MMO) is quite uninspired. So far all weapons and armor are basically the same (hunter class) and make no difference in gameplay and the feeling of ‘your character growing stronger’ isn’t really there.

But is it worth to keep going? Do the quests actually get better than the ‘outdated’ content and levelling? Is the endgame as good as eveyone says it is? Or is the rest of the game same-ish.

I’m asking because gametime is quite expensive and I’m not sure whether I’m wasting my time here or not. I’ve heard that BFA was a letdown but I haven’t gotten to it yet so it’s unlikely it has anything to do here.

Thanks for replies in advance.

2

Hi and welcome to Azeroth!

I’ve talked with a lot of folks who came from other MMORPGs, but I’m hampered by not knowing either Warframe or Destiny. However, the general opinion is that WoW has by far the best end-game, with FFXiV and maybe ESO trailing quite a bit behind. Having said that, it is also generally agreed that the current expansion, BfA, falls short of WoW’s usual end-game standards. Many people, including me, hope and expect that it will improve greatly with Patch 8.2, but we don’t have a release date on that yet - Summer sometime, we think.

I’ll add that WoW Classic is also expected in Summer, and that’s a whole 'nother thing.

OK, so that mostly confirms what you already heard. Now, what can I tell you?

Blizzard have precisely and surgically removed the feeling of your character growing stronger while levelling, quite deliberately, starting about a year ago, when they enforced scaling. I still don’t understand this, but it’s entirely clear. This means that you should not expect any feeling of progression until you hit level 120. Actually, you will experience a couple of episodes of feeling noticeably weaker - one at 90-93 and another 111-114 or so - before you hit 120, when you will feel very weak, and can then bulk up again.

That’s the worst of the news.

The stories in WoW tend to be big. And you, one adventurer, are quite small. So you can pass through whole storylines without noticing that they’re there. And because there is so much more content than you “need” to get XP to level, you can go right through WoW without ever seeing that there was a story there at all. Check out Wowpedia https://wow.gamepedia.com/Wowpedia and specifically the timeline of the universe https://wow.gamepedia.com/Timeline_(unofficial) and YouTube channel Nobbel87, starting with

for a sense of the overall stories.

Checking your armoury, I see you have completed the questline “The Guru of Drakuru” … last August? … on a previous character? Have you been trying various alts? That works for some people, but from what you’re saying may not be ideal for you.

Anyway, Drakuru was one of a number of local storylines that lead toward what is IMO the greatest story in WoW - the fall of the Lich King. But you never came across Thassarian’s sister, or the Culling of Stratholme, or the Wrathgate, or Crusader Bridenbrad, or the Knights of the Ebon Blade who freed themselves from the Lich King’s control, and all of those are threads in the overall story.

If you had played back in the days of Wrath, you would have had two years to play through and discover all of this, and all the other bits of story, and the richness of gear and stats and glyphs and gameplay, and you would have gone on to work your way through the three dungeons in which the story of the entrance to Icecrown Citadel - but levelling through it today, all you see is a small sample of quests and a couple of dungeons, with not much connecting them.

The stories are there. You just don’t get to play through them fully now.

So levelling is impoverished of story by the need to get you to max level in less than a decade. It always was, but much more so now. When you hit 120, you can go back and replay the stories solo if you want, and come to know them that way.

From what you say, I don’t think Legion will be a suitable stopping-place for you. You will want to join in with everyone else in BfA. If you don’t buy BfA, it is entirely possible to do all the stories from Legion and previous expansions at 110, but it will be mostly a solo game and lacking in excitement, since everybody is beavering away at the level 120 content.

If you do make it to 120, though, you will find a very active scene of dungeons and raids, battlegrounds and arenas. I don’t find the story of BfA as interesting as Legion - at least so far - but there is plenty for a new player to do, and as I say, I do expect it to improve in a few months.

In your immediate future, I suggest choosing the quest that brings you to Mount Hyjal, and following that zone all the way through to the end. Then, if you really like story and cutscenes, Uldum (or as I call it, Harrison Jones and the Kingdom of Cut-Scenes) might be a suitable follow-up.

And while there is a really great, long, storyline for level 110s in Suramar in Legion (that was something we did during our two years there) I don’t think it’s a destination for you. You will probably need to get to 120 to get a sense of the actual game.

There’s one other thing I should mention, though I’d rather not have to. You are Horde on Aerie Peak realm, a minority faction on a low population realm. Things must feel a bit lonely there. Do me something: make a level new 1 Orc or Troll on Draenor realm, and run to Orgrimmar, levelling a bit on the way. Won’t take you an hour. Just find the Auction House and stand there. The current action is in the current expansion capital, but being in Org on a high-pop realm will give you more of a sense of what end-game feels like, even as a level 1. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
3

Hi, thanks for the (very extensive) response :slight_smile:

I have skipped basically all dialogue in WotLK as I was trying to progress as fast as I could but from what you’re saying there’s quite a story there. If I end up getting into WoW I’ll have to revisit those areas. As I mentioned, I started working on Mists of Pandaria just today and trying to get immersed into the quests by reading stuff and talking to NPCs does make it much more enjoyable.

I haven’t made alts (other than to test out what melee classes feel like) either, as I was trying to rush to the latest expansions to get a sense of what the game is actually like. I have heard that playing melee classes is generally more fun than playing ranged ones but I’ve heard that mentioned only once so not sure about that.

I’m not sure about the Realm/Server situation since I wouldn’t like to go through the levelling all over from the beginning and I’m not in the position to pay for realm change either. Would you say it should be my priority to change realms?

Thanks for the chunky reply too, it’s expreemely helpful <3

4

Ah, the old melee/ranged thing.

Melee is definitely more fun … for people who find melee more fun. OTOH, ranged is definitely more fun for people who find ranged more fun. Odd, that. :stuck_out_tongue: What can I say? it’s a matter of taste.

As a hunter, you can become melee any time you want by grabbing a polearm and switching to Survival spec, if you’re interested. Levelling is a good time to experiment with all three specs of your class.

You’re in Jade Forest? You can get through most of your 80s there, if you actually do all the quests in the zone. Each zone has its own story, and the payoff doesn’t really come until you are at the end of the zone - another reason why story is so easy to miss when levelling.

But before you leave Pandaria, make a point of stopping off in Halfhill and saying hi to the folks there for me. It’s a change of pace. :slight_smile:

I don’t know what to tell you about realm and faction choice. I am NOT saying you should abandon that character and change realms. What I do want you to understand is that the solitude you’re probably seeing as you level is not the norm at end-game. It takes 50 to 100 hours of playtime to level from 1 to 120. In a two-year expansion, someone who plays two hours a day on average (and that is not a lot, historically) will have played about 1500 hours. The point here is that levelling is spread out over a huge world, and takes maybe 5% of your play time, which means only 5% of the total amount of people. End game is in current continent, and where the other 95% of player-hours are spent.

What this means is that while you can have something like the solo questing experience with occasional dungeon queues you’re seeing as you level, you don’t have to. At 120, you will see a lot more people around, and a lot more grouping options - especially the option to join a guild that raids as a team, and also does Mythic-Plus dungeons. If you pop in to Orgrimmar on Draenor, you will get more a sense of the kind of activity you find at 120.

5

You will be massively disappointed here. WoW’s story is in an abysmal incoherent state right now and it gets worse every expansion. WoW’s lore has some amazing things in it and there’s a lot of potential, but it’s repeatedly squandered by the narrative team. Most of the lore is also out-of-game and many events in-game don’t make sense without learning from these out-of-game sources.

As for the rest, if the core gameplay loop hasn’t interested you enough to keep going, you probably won’t enjoy the game that much at max level. World content doesn’t change much.

That said, leveling lacks any sense of progression. Especially where gear is concerned. It’s at max level that things start feeling differently and you feel your character’s strength increase. The quests should start getting better now that you’re at 80 as 60-80 is easily the worst and oldest part of the leveling experience.

If you do make it to max level then the game has enough content to keep you entertained for years, especially if you enjoy collecting things like transmog and mounts. That’ll mitigate some of BfA’s downsides for sure.

I’d keep pushing, you’re pretty close to max level now so you can try endgame for yourself.

1 Like
6

That sounds really promising.

Thanks for the advice!

7

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.