Levelling. It’s about 5 times faster then it was in original classic (2-2,5 times faster because of buff 100-150%, and also much faster because of incursions). Yes you can say that long levelling is boring but let’s go to (2).
End game content. I am speaking as PvE player, so don’t speaking about PvP aspects here.
2.1. Runes. It’s interesting new content but it’s doable in 1-2 evenings. I think that blizzard should do longer quest chains for getting runes, such as T0.5 quest chain.
2.2. Pre-raid gearing. For most classes you can get almost full pre-raid set from incursions that you do on levelling. Absolutely most of dungeon gear is useless. I remember pre-raid gearing in classic and really enjoying it, in SoD - just brainless level in incursions and you are ready to raid, no need to get any of dungeon gear.
2.3. Raiding. It’s just too easy. And we have 7 days cooldown.
So what we have? We have very fast levelling, 1-2 evenings to get all runes for endgame, and all endgame is 1 easy raid with 7 days cd.
Lets now compare it with other more successful game versions by those 2 factors (levelling or other preperations for end-game, and end-game). Retail has easy levelling BUT have a lot of end-game content for all categories of players, casuals and tryhard. Classic (era - which have more online then SoD now btw, just compare SW in Livin flame and on firemaw, and it’s very big success for era because it’s very old version with 0 content updates) doesn’t have hard end-game content but it has slower levelling and raid preperation (including pre-raid gearing). Wotlk/cata - have medium levelling speed (faster then classic ofc but longer then SoD and retail), and medium content difficulty. When SoD have nothing of it, levelling and doing runes is very fast and no real end-game content (it shouldn’t be too hard aka retail mythic, but also it shouldn’t be raid logging once a week for 50 minutes). And this is real problem of SoD and why players leaving 3-4 weeks after phase start.
No. It didn’t kill game in classic and TBC. Also HC (which keep online very well for 3,5 month before SoD release, without any content patches), and it was game for 90% of players only about levelling. Also era online is growing now and it’s game with slow progression also.
it’s not only reason. just a fact that classic era has almost same online as SoD now. When SoD is hype project, with last update only 1,5 months ago, and era is project with 0 content updates but players still playing it. So why players leaving SoD but era online not going down, even after cata release?
I dont say that fast levelling is “good” or “bad”. But if levelling is fast game should offer more end-game content such as retail. And also game can be focused on levelling as well, and dont offer hard end game content (such as classic or especially as HC), and it’s also a valid game concept. SoD doesn’t match any of those concepts. It has fast levelling and nothing to do in end game. So it’s reason why SoD failed.
Lets be real here, in todays society we want and expect things to go fast. Nothing else to it, and it’s nothing new and it’s only increasing.
Same thing applies for games, especially mmo which simulates a virtual fantasy secondary life.
And in SoDs case, i’m not gonna lie there aint a damm fun thing to do at this point for a plethora of reasons that the community have talked about for months now.
The only thing that could ease the boredom and flock people back perhaps in the waiting room for p4 would be:
Letting us level to 59, or increase the experience gains to atleast 300%. It’s a seasonal server, so things should infact happen at fast rates especially in a critical moment like SoDs situation.
Because Era is “safe”. You know what to expect, you know balance / meta is X and you play within this known frame.
SoD brought changes (good) and did not get any balance beside p1 (bad). The result is a complete s**show. With a lead dev completly OK with premades, gatekeeping, lack of balance, racial issues etc
On top of that Era / Classic / vanilla is more chill. No retail boss mechanics, dungeons are relevant, no one shot full shaman premade pvp nonsence. Etc etc.
I do not play era as i lost the window frame to transfer my Classic 2019 druid (and no way i level another toon), but my understanding is people playing it are wow lovers. Not m+ speedrunners from retail, contrary to SoD.
People want things to be fast, but then complain that “nothing to do” and leave. It is good example of “you thing you do, but you dont”. We see examples of WoW classic and TBC with slow levelling and ppl playing it, we also see good example of HC. Long levelling is really working strategy to keep people in game even in 2024.
Why levelling in retail is so fast? Because in retail people have a lot of activities in endgame. In SoD we dont have many activities in end game. We have runes that can be completed in 1 or 2 evenings. And we have 1 raid that can be cleared in 50 min. SO if game doesn’t offer a lot of end game content it should be focused on something else, for example levelling.
It’s seasonal. But pre-60lvl phase will be 6-7 months total. And 60lvl phases to naxx will be AT LEAST 8 months. So total SoD duration will be at least 14 months, maybe more. Classic duration in 2019 was 21 month. But levelling in SoD (including incursions) is already accelerated in about 5 times, isn’t it too much?
Most points i agree on. But i dont agree on runes with longer quest chains.
Its fine if you could do runes in 1 time with ur main. But it becomes tidous when you have to do it on every alt you create.
And some runes are longer than others. Like the mage rune where you have to travel around the whole map to collect 25 books. With traveling time takes hours.
but most runes are different quests for different classes. Or you levelling an alt of the same class?
But main point of season of discovery was exploring the world, and also if you levelling normally (not incursions or buying boost) you can do this while levelling.
Get your head out of your ***. SoD is not like Classic or TBC, this is trying to be as alt friendly as possible, thats why we have the increase XP rates, ppl have 5-8 50 by now EASLY. Myself only miss a rogue at 50 but I dont even made one yet.
I have 4 toons I am playing on and doing stuff on every week etc.
If runes required tier 0.5 long quest chains people would probably not bother with SoD altogether. The main thing SoD is missing badly is new, original content.
Putting essential abilities behind a ton of hours of playing without is one of the few things the devs did right, even if they did go overboard with a few particular runes.
I don’t know if you heard, I wouldn’t fault you if you didn’t, but there was a thing called Season of Mastery, before SoD, that tried more or less what you are asking. It was supposed to be a harder version of classic.
Making everything more tedious won’t make “content tourists” stick around, they will do just like they did in SoM and leave even faster.
Not a chore for me. Collecting gear, doing professions, world pvp ganking, making friends ingame for dungeons/raids and pvp. World pvp while lvling is the most fun thing the game has to offer. Creating small skirmishes is the open world is amazing
Blizzard should’ve just added new stuff to do while lvling to make it more fun for others. I.e new rare tokens which drops from mobs to exchange it for new profession stuff, buffs or green/blue gear pieces for that specific zone item lvl
You must be kidding, some runes are too hard to get even with guide. If you personally think it is too easy and fast then please do us a favor and try to find all your runes without using any form of guide to help you. It will take you weeks to find all of them