Seriously, explaining to my friends, who are new to wow, that they have to go trough this weird rigmarole with Chromie just to play maybe 2 zones of an expansion and ding 70 basically within a couple play sessions even without any experience bonuses is ridiculous.
One of them asked if there is an option just to “play the game instead of getting yelled at to go to the dragon isles immediately”, and there just isn’t one! Instead you have to jump trough 26 uniquely colored hoops and lock your character out of gaining exp to SOMEWHAT pull the breaks on this crazy train.
I get that most people who make a new character are vets who just want to play the endgame asap, but the way this works right now is really not doing actual newcomers any favors. Out of this group of friends 3 out of 5 have already completely turned their backs on retail in favor of Cataclysm Classic, where they can actually get to grips with the game a little bit, but imo it’s crazy that that’s necessary.
I’d rather it be the way it is than something like FF14 where u have to go through 200h of poorly written, generic J-rpg slop story to access any endgame content
It would be even more of a whirlwind tour if you had to do all the expansions to get to cap. Which is exactly why they changed it. Or you’d do a handful of quests in a zone then move to the next.
I agree that that’s also not the way, and this is a difficult thing to solve. I’m just baffled by the fact that there’s no option to just play trough the vanilla game, then move on to TWW. Perhaps with a lore recap of the expansions.
I don’t get why the option of chromie time even exists if you ding 70 halfway through the second zone anyway. And ignoring it is a no go because the vanilla world stops scaling at level 30 and you start doing 100k damage auto attacks which is super jarring.
Any sense of journey or growing in power is just lost.
I don’t know anyone who wants very long leveling experience. A solution could be to nerf the XP on the quests I guess but the same people who complain now, would still complain anyway. It’s never good enough.
But I guess this kind of people could play 1-2 expansions in order to level and then play other expansions on other chars? That’s probably not a solution too tho, right?
Tbh it’s not a loss for the community. Looks like your friends are not interested in group content like M+, PvP and raiding anyway if they are so obsessed with leveling experience (and/or story?).
Sorry but that’s a horrible take, people need to get a chance to get into a game before looking to get into group content. Saying they are “probably not interested anyway” because they get turned off by this disastrous new player experience is honestly just ignorant.
You have the chance tho? Questing for 1000 hours is not gonna increase said chance.
If they value leveling experience over actual gameplay and group content, that’s just a logical conclusion.
I never care about leveling experience, in any game… because I know that no MMORPG is focused on that and the selling point is somewhere else.
Take FF14 as example. The gameplay at low level is horrible. Probably the worst in gaming history. But the story during the level experience is nice. But I don’t care about the story as much as I care about gameplay in a MMORPG. That’s why I am playing WoW and no FF14.
That’s called priorities. So, no. My take is not ignorant. It’s just logical.
Also, WoW leveling experience in the very early expansions was kinda horrible too. It’s not fun killing 1-2 mobs and then sit down and eat for half a minute. But I suffered through it back in the days, because I was interested in the end game. I don’t want to suffer again for no reason.
They can’t value anything over anything, they have no idea what the endgame is like. Players like you and me have been through this grinder enough and gotten used to the horrible mess that the leveling experience is in this game. But new players who might never have even played an MMO before just get absolute pacing whiplash and put the game down before they get to experience any of the fun endgame. First impressions matter.
I’m also not here to tell anyone they’re playing the game wrong. If you make an alt and blast to 80 and go do whatever content you want to do, that’s great, you do you. But new players coming in to an MMO is important. Those that stick it out hopefully eventually become players that we can run endgame content with.
And FF14 is a great comparison because it has exactly the opposite problem where the base game content and early levels are so mind numbing that a lot of players never make it through that as well.
In a good game you should never have to tell new players to hurry up and get through the bad parts so they can play the good parts. If a particular stage of the game sucks to get through that’s something that can and should be improved, ESPECIALLY i it’s the beginning.
They get so quick there and still can’t figure it out? Well… why is that, hm? Maybe because they are not interested in it, just as I said before?
That’s a wrong assumption. I’ve been through the old days of WoW and the new days. I have the comparison of both. It was not good back then, especially when you wanted to play the end game. It’s much better now and much more casual friendly.
WoW is old. Retail is for endgame gameplay, Classic is for leveling. I don’t see how I was wrong with my conclusion? Your friends obviously value leveling over endgame content.
I understand where you come from but it’s a very delusional point of view. Everyone who played MMORPGs knows that you should not pay too much attention to the leveling phase and early gameplay. Games are not designed around that.
And that’s why WoW offers you a quick leveling phase so you can experience the actual game. If you want to be stuck at early phase for ages for no reason, it’s the wrong game.
Look, I am not a fan of “quick” MMORPGs too, but that’s what people asked for and it works in WoW. If your friends lose interest because of something that irrelevant, they would never ever bring what’s required for group content.
Trust me, if you think THAT’S bad, then you don’t want to get to know the real issues WoW actually has.
The thing is that WoW is simply too old. Most people just don’t want to level up for ages, that’s why it was not changed. If they reduced the XP on quests, there would be probably a lot of people (who don’t want to play with other people in dungeons and such) complaining how Blizzard wants to sell level boost.
WoW is not a “unique” game anymore with a vision. It’s just a game for the masses. Many people are just here because of the good gameplay (yes, sadly it’s still the best in comparison) and wait for a proper MMORPG to come out.
Maybe because they are not interested in it, just as I said before?