Personally, I'm more upset that I need exalted with a faction that wasn't even in the game when I quit just to play the new race. Also, have a 110 on that side. Thankfully I do but the faction grind has been quite annoying especially since Army of Light hasn't been one of the daily world quest sets since I returned to the game. All of this just to start over?
Army of the Light and Argussian Reach reps are gained on Argus. If you haven't opened the planet, you aren't ever going to see them. In addition, with the arrival of 7.3.5, world quests on Argus provide both Argussian Reach and Army of the Light reputation at a much higher level than previous to the patch. Lastly, you should frequently be getting either or both on your mission tables in your order hall.
As for Allied Races being "gated", Blizzard said all along they were tied to Legion reputations only for Light Forged Draenei, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Void Elves. I would imagine that both Dark Iron (by virtue of their presence already on the Kul'Tiras) and the Zandalari will require a certain status level with those factions in BfA -- and that can easily be earned through normal progression question. Any subsequent Allied Races will probably be tied to other reputations, or to none at all.
I'm good with Allied Races as they are. SWTOR "gates" their races behind a pay wall. These you can unlock in game and if you're not willing, well... *shrug*
Or Blizzard could start be decent again and just unlock them. Argussian Reach has nothing to do with emo elves and yet, you need to be exalted with them. Sure, for somebody who played legion it is no biggie. Lets imagine than a returning/new player see those heavy promoted allied races and wants to buy expansion - he now need to GRIND reputation from previous expansion to get feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
Personally, I'm more upset that I need exalted with a faction that wasn't even in the game when I quit just to play the new race. Also, have a 110 on that side. Thankfully I do but the faction grind has been quite annoying especially since Army of Light hasn't been one of the daily world quest sets since I returned to the game. All of this just to start over?
Army of the Light and Argussian Reach reps are gained on Argus. If you haven't opened the planet, you aren't ever going to see them. In addition, with the arrival of 7.3.5, world quests on Argus provide both Argussian Reach and Army of the Light reputation at a much higher level than previous to the patch. Lastly, you should frequently be getting either or both on your mission tables in your order hall.
As for Allied Races being "gated", Blizzard said all along they were tied to Legion reputations only for Light Forged Draenei, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Void Elves. I would imagine that both Dark Iron (by virtue of their presence already on the Kul'Tiras) and the Zandalari will require a certain status level with those factions in BfA -- and that can easily be earned through normal progression question. Any subsequent Allied Races will probably be tied to other reputations, or to none at all.
I'm good with Allied Races as they are. SWTOR "gates" their races behind a pay wall. These you can unlock in game and if you're not willing, well... *shrug*
Or Blizzard could start be decent again and just unlock them. Argussian Reach has nothing to do with emo elves and yet, you need to be exalted with them. Sure, for somebody who played legion it is no biggie. Lets imagine than a returning/new player see those heavy promoted allied races and wants to buy expansion - he now need to GRIND reputation from previous expansion to get feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
It is a feature, heavy promoted mind you by Blizzard, of UPCOMING expansion. Fact that 4 of those were released with pre order doesnt change this fact. They are not optional, you get them when you buy expansion, just need artifical time gating to unlock them.
Cant wait when Draenor Orcs would require exalted in all orcs clan from WoD. That would be fun right?
Taking time is one thing, abysmal battle skills without the artifact are not. The prune is what has hurt the leveling, not the pace. The pace, as I mentioned in the article, is great. I really like it. I don't like how the class plays. Too many missing abilities. Too many lackluster talents.
Completely separated issues.
No absolutely two sides of the same coin. I'm not in a hurry, but I'd like to enjoy the gameplay from a combat perspective as much as I do from a story/quest/lore perspective.
Personally, I'm more upset that I need exalted with a faction that wasn't even in the game when I quit just to play the new race. Also, have a 110 on that side. Thankfully I do but the faction grind has been quite annoying especially since Army of Light hasn't been one of the daily world quest sets since I returned to the game. All of this just to start over?
Army of the Light and Argussian Reach reps are gained on Argus. If you haven't opened the planet, you aren't ever going to see them. In addition, with the arrival of 7.3.5, world quests on Argus provide both Argussian Reach and Army of the Light reputation at a much higher level than previous to the patch. Lastly, you should frequently be getting either or both on your mission tables in your order hall.
As for Allied Races being "gated", Blizzard said all along they were tied to Legion reputations only for Light Forged Draenei, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Void Elves. I would imagine that both Dark Iron (by virtue of their presence already on the Kul'Tiras) and the Zandalari will require a certain status level with those factions in BfA -- and that can easily be earned through normal progression question. Any subsequent Allied Races will probably be tied to other reputations, or to none at all.
I'm good with Allied Races as they are. SWTOR "gates" their races behind a pay wall. These you can unlock in game and if you're not willing, well... *shrug*
Or Blizzard could start be decent again and just unlock them. Argussian Reach has nothing to do with emo elves and yet, you need to be exalted with them. Sure, for somebody who played legion it is no biggie. Lets imagine than a returning/new player see those heavy promoted allied races and wants to buy expansion - he now need to GRIND reputation from previous expansion to get feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
It is a feature, heavy promoted mind you by Blizzard, of UPCOMING expansion. Fact that 4 of those were released with pre order doesnt change this fact. They are not optional, you get them when you buy expansion, just need artifical time gating to unlock them.
Cant wait when Draenor Orcs would require exalted in all orcs clan from WoD. That would be fun right?
* shrugs * If I want one, I'll do what it takes to get it the SAME WAY I did in the past when there was a mount I wanted or a pet I needed to buy or whatever. It's not as if gating things behind reputation is a new concept in WoW. LOL!
feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
I think Void Elves and Nightborne are Blizzard's answer to allowing the opposite faction to experience their counterpart Elf race. Void Elf? a blood elf in the Alliance. Nightborne? a Night Elf in the Horde. There are two reasons i personally want to buy BfA, the Lore, and the new races.
I'm totally OK with unlocking the new races through a nice quest line, but grinding rep is not why i play WoW. If they want to keep them locked behind reputation, i hope they make it easy enough to max. I want to enjoy playing the new race, not get bored of rep grinding and give up/unsubscribe before unlocking them.
Suzie does have a point about the artifact impacting the rest of the game's progression. Stuff that was in the game for 10+ years was essentially stripped making your class barebones to progress and "re-filled" in the artifact system, which will honestly just repeat in BfA. The point of an expansion is to add to the existing game not redistrubute everything to the backend, which honestly makes leveling useless if 90% of your class is functional at the end (yeah yeah, I know people dont even bother learning how their class functions until cap anyway, nothing new). Even worse was stripping out stuff and tying them to legendaries which in turn were completely RNG based on how to get. Bad design all around. The leveling revamp is alright for some content (some content it made me hate more like WotLK and BC, but some it made me love going through more like WoD).
Personally, I'm more upset that I need exalted with a faction that wasn't even in the game when I quit just to play the new race. Also, have a 110 on that side. Thankfully I do but the faction grind has been quite annoying especially since Army of Light hasn't been one of the daily world quest sets since I returned to the game. All of this just to start over?
Army of the Light and Argussian Reach reps are gained on Argus. If you haven't opened the planet, you aren't ever going to see them. In addition, with the arrival of 7.3.5, world quests on Argus provide both Argussian Reach and Army of the Light reputation at a much higher level than previous to the patch. Lastly, you should frequently be getting either or both on your mission tables in your order hall.
As for Allied Races being "gated", Blizzard said all along they were tied to Legion reputations only for Light Forged Draenei, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Void Elves. I would imagine that both Dark Iron (by virtue of their presence already on the Kul'Tiras) and the Zandalari will require a certain status level with those factions in BfA -- and that can easily be earned through normal progression question. Any subsequent Allied Races will probably be tied to other reputations, or to none at all.
I'm good with Allied Races as they are. SWTOR "gates" their races behind a pay wall. These you can unlock in game and if you're not willing, well... *shrug*
Or Blizzard could start be decent again and just unlock them. Argussian Reach has nothing to do with emo elves and yet, you need to be exalted with them. Sure, for somebody who played legion it is no biggie. Lets imagine than a returning/new player see those heavy promoted allied races and wants to buy expansion - he now need to GRIND reputation from previous expansion to get feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
It is a feature, heavy promoted mind you by Blizzard, of UPCOMING expansion. Fact that 4 of those were released with pre order doesnt change this fact. They are not optional, you get them when you buy expansion, just need artifical time gating to unlock them.
Cant wait when Draenor Orcs would require exalted in all orcs clan from WoD. That would be fun right?
Personally, I'm more upset that I need exalted with a faction that wasn't even in the game when I quit just to play the new race. Also, have a 110 on that side. Thankfully I do but the faction grind has been quite annoying especially since Army of Light hasn't been one of the daily world quest sets since I returned to the game. All of this just to start over?
Army of the Light and Argussian Reach reps are gained on Argus. If you haven't opened the planet, you aren't ever going to see them. In addition, with the arrival of 7.3.5, world quests on Argus provide both Argussian Reach and Army of the Light reputation at a much higher level than previous to the patch. Lastly, you should frequently be getting either or both on your mission tables in your order hall.
As for Allied Races being "gated", Blizzard said all along they were tied to Legion reputations only for Light Forged Draenei, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Void Elves. I would imagine that both Dark Iron (by virtue of their presence already on the Kul'Tiras) and the Zandalari will require a certain status level with those factions in BfA -- and that can easily be earned through normal progression question. Any subsequent Allied Races will probably be tied to other reputations, or to none at all.
I'm good with Allied Races as they are. SWTOR "gates" their races behind a pay wall. These you can unlock in game and if you're not willing, well... *shrug*
Or Blizzard could start be decent again and just unlock them. Argussian Reach has nothing to do with emo elves and yet, you need to be exalted with them. Sure, for somebody who played legion it is no biggie. Lets imagine than a returning/new player see those heavy promoted allied races and wants to buy expansion - he now need to GRIND reputation from previous expansion to get feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
That's true for the *most* part, but the Nightborne models actually are slightly different than the Night Elves. The Nightborne are more slender, the Night Elves are more muscular. It's more obvious with the male models, the females have a different posture altogether.
Void Elves are just purple Blood/High Elves with cooler hairstyles and have virtually no other differences than the customization options and color palette.
Taking time is one thing, abysmal battle skills without the artifact are not. The prune is what has hurt the leveling, not the pace. The pace, as I mentioned in the article, is great. I really like it. I don't like how the class plays. Too many missing abilities. Too many lackluster talents.
For someone starting new the struggle isn't as real. I mean I don't know what I'm missing so it's not that painful. However, I have noticed, reading through the affliction guide, I can see I'm waiting to actually become a real warlock. Finally, at level 52, I'm finally starting to feel more complete.
The Rift Prime experience suffers the same problem as well. The game and classes are tuned for end game. My builds there all feel empty and broken in the mid levels. It's very frustrating. It also makes running dungeons on level less attractive.
The problem is a Catch-22. Players want to be at cap, so the game tunes for level cap. Tuning for level cap makes the progression leveling experience tedious and boring. Characters, builds, and powers feel incomplete so players just want to be at cap where their characters work well.
With new characters on a new server I do feel progression through the zone from start to finish. When I start a new zone I'm struggling. By the time I've finished a zone I'm taking on mobs fine. I get a few levels and some quest gear that bumps the stats. The boring part of that process is drops.
Events are neat for getting stuff and I do get the occasional cool wardrobe piece, but that's it. Not a lot of neat useful drops on the journey.
I think the standard fare for MMORPG expansions encourages the Catch-22.
When you focus 80-100% (guesstimated based on personal experience) of your expansion content on adding a few new levels on the end over and over, you continually neglect the journey for the ending and going back after neglecting it for so long isn't a simple matter anymore. It also becomes jarring for long-term players.
Hopefully we see a new generation of AAA MMORPGs one day that look to identify and improve on issues facing current MMORPGs such as this one.
The level scaling doesn't seem so bad. The crazy class pruning and weird balance and over/under tuning that has gone on in wow over the years really is though.
When considering abilities and tuning from a pvp point of view in particular, the game used to be much more "action" orientated where you had to actually be fairly quick at responding to opponents with your cc, stuns, escapes, counter spells etc... because it was tuned so that if someone isn't on their toes and reacts to you fast, then you are dead.
Nowadays it seems things are tuned so you get multiple chances to redeem yourself in light of mistakes and come off on top. Seems like a type of balance which adheres to casuals much more and is very forgiving... too forgiving if you ask me.
Started playing mmorpg's in 1996 and have been hooked ever since. It began with Kingdom of Drakkar, Ultima Online, Everquest, DAoC, WoW...
I recently returned after quitting a month into Legion. I had to do the entire Suramar questline and rep grind, which took about 3 weeks to get to exalted. The thing that pissed me off the most was being done with everything and still being about 9k xp from exalted.
I was basically time gated into waiting for more world quests or emissary quests. I actually had to rely on a order hall mission and my minions to bring me back a rep token for the final 100 rep. I was really pissed off during that one because I was so close and basically it was just give up and go to bed to wait for tomorrow when my minions would bring me back my last 100 rep so I could make my Nightbourne new character.
I always wanted the leveling experience to be longer and love how I don't out-level zones. I see the points being made in the article and agree, but I must say I don't feel it as badly with playing a Hunter. It's faceroll 3 buttons no matter what so I was prepared for that. The length of time that it takes with heirlooms is a lot longer and I couldn't imagine for poor new players who haven't gotten heirlooms yet.
Then again, when you buy BFA you do get a free 110 so there isn't a reason why you shouldn't have heirlooms. I guess basically, for the first time ever I have nothing to complain about. I'm just enjoying getting back into the lore that I love so much.
Taking time is one thing, abysmal battle skills without the artifact are not. The prune is what has hurt the leveling, not the pace. The pace, as I mentioned in the article, is great. I really like it. I don't like how the class plays. Too many missing abilities. Too many lackluster talents.
For someone starting new the struggle isn't as real. I mean I don't know what I'm missing so it's not that painful. However, I have noticed, reading through the affliction guide, I can see I'm waiting to actually become a real warlock. Finally, at level 52, I'm finally starting to feel more complete.
The Rift Prime experience suffers the same problem as well. The game and classes are tuned for end game. My builds there all feel empty and broken in the mid levels. It's very frustrating. It also makes running dungeons on level less attractive.
The problem is a Catch-22. Players want to be at cap, so the game tunes for level cap. Tuning for level cap makes the progression leveling experience tedious and boring. Characters, builds, and powers feel incomplete so players just want to be at cap where their characters work well.
With new characters on a new server I do feel progression through the zone from start to finish. When I start a new zone I'm struggling. By the time I've finished a zone I'm taking on mobs fine. I get a few levels and some quest gear that bumps the stats. The boring part of that process is drops.
Events are neat for getting stuff and I do get the occasional cool wardrobe piece, but that's it. Not a lot of neat useful drops on the journey.
I think the standard fare for MMORPG expansions encourages the Catch-22.
When you focus 80-100% (guesstimated based on personal experience) of your expansion content on adding a few new levels on the end over and over, you continually neglect the journey for the ending and going back after neglecting it for so long isn't a simple matter anymore. It also becomes jarring for long-term players.
Hopefully we see a new generation of AAA MMORPGs one day that look to identify and improve on issues facing current MMORPGs such as this one.
Suzie has said she thinks MMOs should have a shelf life. Run for 5 years and be done. I'm not sure the specifics of what she has in mind for that, but it got me thinking. I like the idea of game servers staying open, but I do think maybe they should go into a maintenance mode after that 5 year window. Tell a story, lead players through a journey, and then let them inhabit and play around in a virtual world.
That would make progression planned and thought out to the end. Most every aging MMO we know has gone through multiple combat revamps, stat normalizations, and combat formula adjustments. The original design scale, at some expansion point, fell apart and the math and stats stopped working.
Maybe how we think about progression and how to deliver that will change. In the early days of PnP the point was to get through the adventure and hopefully get some treasure along the way. Levels were attractive because they made accomplishing those possible. They were like waypoints on the journey, not the destination itself. Somewhere along the way, getting more power became the sole destination, and the adventure is there to facilitate that.
Either getting more power has to stop being the focus, or the scope of that journey needs to have a finite end so the system can be intelligently designed from start to finish. That's why I think single player games feel so much more cohesive than MMOs.
I would love the design to return to the PnP roots of a journey and not a destination. Some of the most vivid memories I have of DAoC weren't even at cap; it was things like running around in Stonehenge Barrows or taking on Slavers in the Plains with a group. In fact, most of my memories from MMORPGs come from things I experience on the journey, not at the destination.
Taking time is one thing, abysmal battle skills without the artifact are not. The prune is what has hurt the leveling, not the pace. The pace, as I mentioned in the article, is great. I really like it. I don't like how the class plays. Too many missing abilities. Too many lackluster talents.
For someone starting new the struggle isn't as real. I mean I don't know what I'm missing so it's not that painful. However, I have noticed, reading through the affliction guide, I can see I'm waiting to actually become a real warlock. Finally, at level 52, I'm finally starting to feel more complete.
The Rift Prime experience suffers the same problem as well. The game and classes are tuned for end game. My builds there all feel empty and broken in the mid levels. It's very frustrating. It also makes running dungeons on level less attractive.
The problem is a Catch-22. Players want to be at cap, so the game tunes for level cap. Tuning for level cap makes the progression leveling experience tedious and boring. Characters, builds, and powers feel incomplete so players just want to be at cap where their characters work well.
With new characters on a new server I do feel progression through the zone from start to finish. When I start a new zone I'm struggling. By the time I've finished a zone I'm taking on mobs fine. I get a few levels and some quest gear that bumps the stats. The boring part of that process is drops.
Events are neat for getting stuff and I do get the occasional cool wardrobe piece, but that's it. Not a lot of neat useful drops on the journey.
I think the standard fare for MMORPG expansions encourages the Catch-22.
When you focus 80-100% (guesstimated based on personal experience) of your expansion content on adding a few new levels on the end over and over, you continually neglect the journey for the ending and going back after neglecting it for so long isn't a simple matter anymore. It also becomes jarring for long-term players.
Hopefully we see a new generation of AAA MMORPGs one day that look to identify and improve on issues facing current MMORPGs such as this one.
Suzie has said she thinks MMOs should have a shelf life. Run for 5 years and be done. I'm not sure the specifics of what she has in mind for that, but it got me thinking. I like the idea of game servers staying open, but I do think maybe they should go into a maintenance mode after that 5 year window. Tell a story, lead players through a journey, and then let them inhabit and play around in a virtual world.
That would make progression planned and thought out to the end. Most every aging MMO we know has gone through multiple combat revamps, stat normalizations, and combat formula adjustments. The original design scale, at some expansion point, fell apart and the math and stats stopped working.
Maybe how we think about progression and how to deliver that will change. In the early days of PnP the point was to get through the adventure and hopefully get some treasure along the way. Levels were attractive because they made accomplishing those possible. They were like waypoints on the journey, not the destination itself. Somewhere along the way, getting more power became the sole destination, and the adventure is there to facilitate that.
Either getting more power has to stop being the focus, or the scope of that journey needs to have a finite end so the system can be intelligently designed from start to finish. That's why I think single player games feel so much more cohesive than MMOs.
I would love the design to return to the PnP roots of a journey and not a destination. Some of the most vivid memories I have of DAoC weren't even at cap; it was things like running around in Stonehenge Barrows or taking on Slavers in the Plains with a group. In fact, most of my memories from MMORPGs come from things I experience on the journey, not at the destination.
That sounds amazing. I think the playerbase as a whole is ready to go back to the days where your were in it for the story and the journey. A game that you would just get lost in for hours on end. You didn't feel like you had to give up on sunlight just to accomplish something, instead you GLADLY gave up on sunlight because of the sheer amount of fun you would have grouping up with friends and going on an adventure.
I personally think those times are coming back in the next couple of years.
Its great now, stop with the need to be max level uber in a day crap. Its far superior to what it was.
except it's not...it *could* be awesome if Blizzard actually went back and updated quest rewards (both XP and items) to be meaningful and relevant. Except they didn't- same old garbage quest rewards that have little to no meaningful value ("yo do that questline you get a sick (insert powerful and/or cool looking item here) for doing it!" Instead, all they did was just make boring leveling (same quests, same rewards, etc) that any WoW veteran has done ad naseum since 2009 (cataclysm) old world revamp take longer, that's it. Outland is some of the worst/most boring questing I have ever done in an MMO (save a few questlines with good story.) Northrend has its moments but has gone well passed it's "best by" date. Cataclysm is fortunately still over with fairly quickly. I could go on...but you get the point. It is 110 (soon to be 120!) levels...it needs to be FUN AND/OR FAST. Currently, it is neither - and that is the problem. It was at least fast until 7.3.5...now it is not only old/unfun/irrelevant but way too slow as well.
Good article. I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't like it exactly, but this nails it for me. It wasn't the speed, exactly. I mean, I played FFXI, so leveling speed in WoW was never a big deal for me. My character remaining static for 70 levels is what turns me off here. It's like one big hell level that takes 20 times as long as the previous.
I think a better solution would have been to implement scaling as they did, but increase time to level for only the new allied races. Increase rewards for doing so obviously, but leave leveling speed the same for the old races. Boom, choice. In my experience choice is a good thing. This would give the achievement folks something meaningful to chase, while not taking a giant step backwards for the rest of us.
As it is, I just can't bring myself to play. ESO is still new for me, so I'm working my way through all of its quests, and having a blast despite the similarities between the systems. I wonder if someone new to WoW would have the same issues as many of us do.
They wanted WoW to be an action MMO similar to Diablo. They also wanted it to be the most simple MMO in the world. Hence limited abilities (some classes got wrecked with removal of abilities, like Shaman)...and the most basic talent tree I've ever seen in an AAA MMO.
On top of that, every expansion moved from ADDING abilities to "renting" abilities. You'll never keep the abilities post-expansion, and maybe some will end up in talent trees from Legion...but then as far as I've heard its pretty shitty with...removal of more abilities to make room for some of the artifact ones.
Also crafting is shit in WoW. It was way better in vanilla, BC and WOTLK. They made crafting useless. Further dumbing down the game.
Lets look at other MMOs. ESO is adding an entire new skill (Psijic Order) AND a new crafting profession (which WoW hasn't had a new crafting profession in ages). How many abilities is ESO removing to make "room" for the new skill tree and crafting line?
zero. They are removing 0 abilities.
Hmm, I wonder if its gonna be rent the abilities till next expansion?
Nope
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
Once you have leveled through any system a few times they all get boring and tedious and you just want to get where you want to be faster. Same as traveling the same route multiple times in the real world, you just want to get there.
If you don’t feel stronger by level 110, then you’re doing it wrong. I absolutely love the new leveling system. Enjoying quest lines, spending time exploring areas, and my favorite...not sprinting through dungeons. It forces everyone in the group to use their class as inteded. Interrupts, stuns, cc, and mechanics play a part at all levels, and sometimes even forces pugs to communicate. Awesome. Sure it’s difficult to make this perfect since the game has so much content and been out for so long, but it’s exactly what WoW has needed for a long time.
Called this one from day one. Level scaling is a cheap cop out that ruins progression, and MMO = (social) & progression. ESO and now WOW crapped their pants with this one. If I could take my daily crap on Blizzard's front doorstep or on the desk of the guy that decided to do this, I would return the favor every day for the next year.
IMO wow already had plenty of low lvl zones to level in, and I could slow down and or turn off exp if I so chose, to avoid outleveling any zone i was particularly interested in. Run the other zones next character.
I would never come back to WOW and create a new character now.
Also wtf who is in charge of fixing this editor. I have to use HTML to get it to show paragraphs again now? Seems like this is broken every other week. Maybe it is just the feature comments editor that is separate from the forums post editor.
I agree that it is a cheap cop out but not for the same reasons.
Wow has an enourmous powergap, both with levels and gear. That is really the problem, it layers up the playerbase in a zillion of layers that can't really play with the ones over or under it which splits up the playerbase rather horrible.
It doesn't really ruin progression since you still have your power in the correct zone, it is just that you can't autokill anything below you. You still progress after all.
However, what Wow really should do is to revamp it's level system, who needs 110 levels anyways? Start by cutting the number of levels in half (at least). Then lower the powergap and the gear power. 55 levels would not make the game less fun.
I am not really against downleveling as such but I don't think it really is what Wow need at the moment, at least not as much as fixing the entire levelsystem. It is not like people bothered to go to grey zones before anyways so I don't see what people loses on the mechanics, now if you want to you could go back or you could just skip it like you would anyways without the mechanic.
Leveling in Zones isn't bad, dungeons are a bit rough. The gear is alright but pretty sporadic if you're leveling up questing without heirlooms. Leveling as a whole is a lot slower than what I'm used too. 1-60 is still kind of boring, if there was a main quest line to follow it could be different buts everything is mixed up.
My issue with leveling these days is 0 progression, I really do miss talents even after they've been gone so long, now I have nothing to really look forward too as I level up.
Yep, this exactly. I wish they'd do the SWTOR thing and clearly mark the main story quests throughout and that players could level to 100 just doing those without the side quests. I'm not sure, however, if that would work with WoW?
I do love the pace and, tbh, it's more the missing abilities and talents that glare forth in the journey. It's just kind of sad when taken in totality.
The new leveling is a step in the right direction. It needs a lot of tuning, though most of that would be tuning classes and I think everyone here understands that they tune for end game raiding, not Little Bobby Jones's level 20 Nightborne.
Dumb article really because despite whatever you say against it. The way it was before was that every single zone was a ghost town. Now it isn't. They are revitalizing the whole levelling experience so both veteran and newbies get to see each other frequently as they're actively encouraged to level traditionally.
The cop-out was the levelling boost. Now they've tried to change face about their philosophy. It used to be that they'd try to make it as easy as possible to get to the endgame which they considered at the time of several expansions the height of the game alone and what came before is simply the treadmill to get to. Nowadays, they want to make the experience from day 1 as in level 1 relevant. This is how they do it.
I began my journey with World of Warcraft back in 2010 and fell in love with the game. I am not much of a battleground, pvp or raid type of player. Instead I focused on quests, an occasional dungeon and leveling my professions. I eagerly awaited MOP and love that content and area to this day. Grinding out my levels was an accepted and in most cases enjoyable task to accomplish. Then came Draenor and WoW was broken in my opinion. I ended up canceling my subscription because of the never ending grind to make levels and accomplish tasks. I came back to try my hand at Legion but after max leveling my favorite character I again gave up the game in disgust. With all the hype and promotional information being put out about the newest expansion I figured I would try things out and resubscribed last month. I leveled a new Alt to 110 and really tried to get engaged with the game, the lore and the story line but was unable to fully commit to pre-purchasing the new expansion simply because, as you have pointed out ,the game has become boring. I feel the focus of the game is not in the continuation of a fantastic story via quests and exploration but a game that is heavily invested in raids, pvp and battle grounds. The professions are still a boring grind. I used to get a thrill every time I unlocked a new recipe for my jewelcrafter or inscriptionist but not now. The whole focus of the game is centered around the players artifact weapon. When one needs billions and billions of points to complete the weapon the whole game becomes a never ending disappointment. I realize long running games change and that point is even more evident when the developers of the game leave and new decision makers enter the story. This is very evident by the focus and direction WOW has taken in the last two expansions. Hence the reason I have moved on to other venues for my entertainment.
Comments
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cant wait when Draenor Orcs would require exalted in all orcs clan from WoD. That would be fun right?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm totally OK with unlocking the new races through a nice quest line, but grinding rep is not why i play WoW. If they want to keep them locked behind reputation, i hope they make it easy enough to max. I want to enjoy playing the new race, not get bored of rep grinding and give up/unsubscribe before unlocking them.
Just my thoughts on the new races specifically.
Edited some typos
That's true for the *most* part, but the Nightborne models actually are slightly different than the Night Elves. The Nightborne are more slender, the Night Elves are more muscular. It's more obvious with the male models, the females have a different posture altogether.
Void Elves are just purple Blood/High Elves with cooler hairstyles and have virtually no other differences than the customization options and color palette.
When you focus 80-100% (guesstimated based on personal experience) of your expansion content on adding a few new levels on the end over and over, you continually neglect the journey for the ending and going back after neglecting it for so long isn't a simple matter anymore. It also becomes jarring for long-term players.
Hopefully we see a new generation of AAA MMORPGs one day that look to identify and improve on issues facing current MMORPGs such as this one.
When considering abilities and tuning from a pvp point of view in particular, the game used to be much more "action" orientated where you had to actually be fairly quick at responding to opponents with your cc, stuns, escapes, counter spells etc... because it was tuned so that if someone isn't on their toes and reacts to you fast, then you are dead.
Nowadays it seems things are tuned so you get multiple chances to redeem yourself in light of mistakes and come off on top. Seems like a type of balance which adheres to casuals much more and is very forgiving... too forgiving if you ask me.
I was basically time gated into waiting for more world quests or emissary quests. I actually had to rely on a order hall mission and my minions to bring me back a rep token for the final 100 rep. I was really pissed off during that one because I was so close and basically it was just give up and go to bed to wait for tomorrow when my minions would bring me back my last 100 rep so I could make my Nightbourne new character.
I always wanted the leveling experience to be longer and love how I don't out-level zones. I see the points being made in the article and agree, but I must say I don't feel it as badly with playing a Hunter. It's faceroll 3 buttons no matter what so I was prepared for that. The length of time that it takes with heirlooms is a lot longer and I couldn't imagine for poor new players who haven't gotten heirlooms yet.
Then again, when you buy BFA you do get a free 110 so there isn't a reason why you shouldn't have heirlooms. I guess basically, for the first time ever I have nothing to complain about. I'm just enjoying getting back into the lore that I love so much.
I personally think those times are coming back in the next couple of years.
except it's not...it *could* be awesome if Blizzard actually went back and updated quest rewards (both XP and items) to be meaningful and relevant. Except they didn't- same old garbage quest rewards that have little to no meaningful value ("yo do that questline you get a sick (insert powerful and/or cool looking item here) for doing it!" Instead, all they did was just make boring leveling (same quests, same rewards, etc) that any WoW veteran has done ad naseum since 2009 (cataclysm) old world revamp take longer, that's it. Outland is some of the worst/most boring questing I have ever done in an MMO (save a few questlines with good story.) Northrend has its moments but has gone well passed it's "best by" date. Cataclysm is fortunately still over with fairly quickly. I could go on...but you get the point. It is 110 (soon to be 120!) levels...it needs to be FUN AND/OR FAST. Currently, it is neither - and that is the problem. It was at least fast until 7.3.5...now it is not only old/unfun/irrelevant but way too slow as well.
I think a better solution would have been to implement scaling as they did, but increase time to level for only the new allied races. Increase rewards for doing so obviously, but leave leveling speed the same for the old races. Boom, choice. In my experience choice is a good thing. This would give the achievement folks something meaningful to chase, while not taking a giant step backwards for the rest of us.
As it is, I just can't bring myself to play. ESO is still new for me, so I'm working my way through all of its quests, and having a blast despite the similarities between the systems. I wonder if someone new to WoW would have the same issues as many of us do.
On top of that, every expansion moved from ADDING abilities to "renting" abilities. You'll never keep the abilities post-expansion, and maybe some will end up in talent trees from Legion...but then as far as I've heard its pretty shitty with...removal of more abilities to make room for some of the artifact ones.
Also crafting is shit in WoW. It was way better in vanilla, BC and WOTLK. They made crafting useless. Further dumbing down the game.
Lets look at other MMOs. ESO is adding an entire new skill (Psijic Order) AND a new crafting profession (which WoW hasn't had a new crafting profession in ages). How many abilities is ESO removing to make "room" for the new skill tree and crafting line?
zero. They are removing 0 abilities.
Hmm, I wonder if its gonna be rent the abilities till next expansion?
Nope
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Wow has an enourmous powergap, both with levels and gear. That is really the problem, it layers up the playerbase in a zillion of layers that can't really play with the ones over or under it which splits up the playerbase rather horrible.
It doesn't really ruin progression since you still have your power in the correct zone, it is just that you can't autokill anything below you. You still progress after all.
However, what Wow really should do is to revamp it's level system, who needs 110 levels anyways? Start by cutting the number of levels in half (at least). Then lower the powergap and the gear power. 55 levels would not make the game less fun.
I am not really against downleveling as such but I don't think it really is what Wow need at the moment, at least not as much as fixing the entire levelsystem. It is not like people bothered to go to grey zones before anyways so I don't see what people loses on the mechanics, now if you want to you could go back or you could just skip it like you would anyways without the mechanic.
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
I do love the pace and, tbh, it's more the missing abilities and talents that glare forth in the journey. It's just kind of sad when taken in totality.
The new leveling is a step in the right direction. It needs a lot of tuning, though most of that would be tuning classes and I think everyone here understands that they tune for end game raiding, not Little Bobby Jones's level 20 Nightborne.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The cop-out was the levelling boost. Now they've tried to change face about their philosophy. It used to be that they'd try to make it as easy as possible to get to the endgame which they considered at the time of several expansions the height of the game alone and what came before is simply the treadmill to get to. Nowadays, they want to make the experience from day 1 as in level 1 relevant. This is how they do it.