New Player Concerns

[Pantheaeu-area-52]

Disclaimer this is going to be a giant post with lots of small and inter-connected points.

The inspiration behind this post was the below video:

The Quit Moment - Why Games Lose Players

For this I gathered feedback from friends who started/joined the game again and my perceived perspective of the state of the game:

Leveling

Starting a new character

The act of picking a race and subsequently a class is quite overwhelming as your first action into the game. This process could do with some additional filtering, such as a role filter.
Each spec in the game is defined into one of three categories: Tank, Healer, DPS.
These three categories of playstyle are pretty universal in many games, so allowing players to pick from these instead of Race first could help with allowing new players to understand what they want to play.

Currently the process is:
Faction > Race > Class

I would suggest having a process as below:
Role > Class > Faction > Race

Class Trials

When you are starting the game and are not sure on what you want to play Class Trials are ideal, but as someone starting the game from scratch how am I supposed to know this exists? The amount of on-screen real-estate given to it is absolutely minor to the point that I actually didn’t spot it from a glance and had to look around my screen for it (it’s in the bottom right for those that did not see the red square I drew).

Upon starting the class trial I immediately get a gigantic splash screen of all the new stuff this patch. This is not relevant to a new player, it’s clutter.

The voice-acting makes a fantastic intro to how the spec functions (however there isn’t one for Tank/Healer?). But I only ever learn how a couple of spells work?

Feedback: Spells are not automatically put into your stance bar they’re put onto your main bar instead (which as a Druid can be problematic). I had to drag each spell from my spellbook which once again is really bad for a new player to feel stuck.

I do a trivially easy battle and then get chucked into expansion relevant content. This part is really lacking. As a Moonkin how does knowing how to put moonfire, sunfire on targets, using wrath/starfire (no mention of how eclipses function btw), and bashing out Starsurge prepare the player for the wider game?

The player is set up for failure.

Class Trial Revamp?

The class trial should have levels imo and be expanded. The new player experience (and new to each spec experience) is vital to the retention of players.

To me it should be as follows:
Stage 1: Basics of the spec
Stage 2: Unlock cooldowns and briefly explain how they work (also explictly stating when you gain these abilities).
Stage 3: Talents - Picking some, moving spells to your action bar, using the spell (util spell for example).
Stage 4: Show how to change specialisation (and offer to repeat Stage 1/2/3)
Stage 5: Complete Class Trial and offer choice of moving to Exiles reach (Level 1), Deleting Character, Using Level Boost (with appropriate warnings to say this is a one time action per account and more can be purchased from the store).

If I were a new player and I engaged with the class trial and really vibed with my given choice, my next step is to. Delete the character and make it again? There should be an option at the end of the tutorial segment to either delete or push to level 1 in Exiles Reach.

Solo Challenging Content

The Mage tower was a huge success in this area as it provided the player with a true challenge that ultimately led to the player becoming better at their class/spec.

Whilst in Legion this could be outgeared and the challenge was no longer there, the Shadowlands iteration was better as it had the player at a kind of template, but I would say that if more content were to be added to the game like this, it should be a full template and the focus is on player optimisation.

A full template will also mean that there is a low barrier to entry (level and which ever story-related content is required to unlock if any).

The initial levelling process

Exiles Reach is a huge step up from just being chucked into the world. However, once you are chucked into the world you are pretty much forced into Story content. Some people just want to blast through dungeons and the LFG system is not built for this.

Players have to wait a very long time to get into groups and a cross-expansion LFG is only offered once you have been in the queue for a long time. This should be the default and there should be some preference for dungeons where you have quests.

This can be a quitting moment. You are just stuck very early on, having to sit in long queue times which gives the perception of a dead game

This can also be expanded by making level dungeons permanent Timewalking for the normal mode variants, heroic should be explicitly for Timewalking events, but normal dungeons should be perpetually available for higher-level players to queue into and expand the pool of content significantly.

I’d even say that these for max level players should always offer a satchel containing expansion relevant goodies.

• Crafting Materials from that expansion
• Gold
• Rare chance for Mounts/Pets/Toys from that expansion.
• An extremely rare chance for recoloured glad mounts from that expansion’s PvP seasons (to keep it evergreen/incentivise people to engage who have got all the stuff already)? Similar to the Timereaver incentivising people to do Timewalking.

So this would mean that people who are farming Invincible/Mimirons Head would want to do WotLK normal dungeons for the satchels as an alternative means of obtaining the mounts and also increase the pool of players in those levelling dungeons as an example.

Max Level

There are already many bits of feedback detailing the poor max level systems and how they are detractors from what should be the core gameplay loop and have instead become the core gameplay loop.

When you hit max level as a new player/character you are immediately many steps behind what a true max level character is and this has been the case for the last few expansions.

To use examples from this expansion before you even consider gear.

• You are ~15% throughput behind at a minimum from not having a fully unlocked soulbind
• ~10% stamina behind from not having renown
• ~5-15% behind from not having a legendary (2 legendaries next patch)
• not able to upgrade gear you get from M+ (even if you have done the score requirements on another character) .

When you’re faced with this giant mountain to climb before being able to engage with the wider game, why climb?

After all of this, when you’ve overcome this challenge you have to gear up. The way that gearing is set up in WoW is that you need to do grouped content. Whilst this can be argued as a necessity of the genre, players need to build confidence and solo content facilitates this.

This reddit thread summarises the experience better than I could:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/pya027/recently_came_back_and_started_levelling_a_pally/

Other games handle this concern by allowing players to queue into dungeons with NPCs. Whilst the dungeon run will be slower, its a stress free environment where the player can familiarise themself with the game before playing with others.

New Players in Dungeons

I would also personally lean into this harder than it is now with “Newcomer Chat” imo not being as much of a success as it could have been.

Have a flag in the LFG tool to allow you to find groups with newcomers in them to act as the dungeon guide (which is already in the game iirc, having multiple of these are fine but is right now restricted to one and just makes this person group lead) .

This would make it a clear opt in to play with new players who are flagged in the newcomer chat and need guidance. Should provide a reward for the guides to opt into what is absolutely 100% going to be a slower experience but encourages a more welcoming game experience.

However, there comes an issue with policing and abuse. Right now in the game this is absolutely minimal and I can see something like this being exploited or people remaining to be harsh to newer players. Should there be a desire for manual review of these cases in particular then that’d be great.

The punishment for being rude in game simply isn’t there, and if you come across a group of rude people and you decide to talk back? Well you’ve got yourself a chat ban which was completely automated and orchestrated by this group. The player who was doing the right thing is punished and has to actively waste their time to remove the ban from their account which leads to the bystander problem.

Character Development between Expansions

The last few expansions have not iterated on the classes much and instead this iteration has happened to expansion level systems (Artefact Traits, Azerite Power, Conduits). When the expansion ends you’re left with a shell of a character rather than the fully fleshed out character you had weeks prior.

Current Expansion LFR issues

A seperate point to raise about this expansion is Legendary Recipe acquisition. There are many tied to Castle Nathria and the easiest way to get these are to sit in absurdly long LFR queues for Castle Nathria.

I’d argue that old tiers should offer Satchels as a way of incentivising people to run this content. Currently there are no groups, but also no incentive to do it? Seems kinda weird when this was the reason for the Satchel in the first place.

Whilst you could use the random legendary item to learn these powers the odds of you getting the one you need are low as you can get ones from any spec, so the best time commitment for the player is to sit in these queues for Nathria.

Suggestion: Add legendary powers to all raids?

[Worldpvp-nerzhul (Worldpvp)]

I agree with some of this stuff but PLEASE do not bring back the glad mounts for people. Its suppose to be extremely hard to get and seeing someone on an old glad mount knowing they just got lucky would really be a let down.

[Bluster-area-52 (Bluster)]

Definitely agree with Worldpvp here. While I don’t have much to say about the rest of your suggestions, returning glad mounts or even recolors for any content are bad ideas IMO, especially if it isn’t even PvP content. Blizzard was originally going to use a recolored green MoP gladiator mount for one of the cloud serpents introduced in 8.3 world content and got a lot of backlash for it and so changed their minds. I’d really prefer they didn’t try to do it again.

[Halite-bonechewer]

This is a really good topic - I play with new players from time to time, and returning players more often than not, and you’ve made some excellent points that have been brought up to me by these players as well. I mostly agree with everything in here, but a couple of points I thought to add/challenge:

@Pantheaeu-area-52

Starting a new character

One thing I thought to mention is the in-game tutorials that more or less every experienced player promptly disabled a long time ago: these could use some updates as well. While some of them do show relevant and important information (such as showing how to select talents and put them on your bars, as was used in the example), some of them are easy to miss and disappear if you close the relevant window. However, I don’t necessarily want to advocate for pop-ups during gameplay, as that is a very annoying form of tutorial. It would, of course, be better to include this in a properly designed tutorial, as was suggested.

@Pantheaeu-area-52

This can also be expanded by making level dungeons permanent Timewalking for the normal mode variants, heroic should be explicitly for Timewalking events, but normal dungeons should be perpetually available for higher-level players to queue into and expand the pool of content significantly.

I’d even say that these for max level players should always offer a satchel containing expansion relevant goodies.

I do agree that timewalking old dungeons should be made a permanent feature, but I don’t quite agree with the way it has been described here. I don’t think normal and heroic modes should be separate, so that timewalking weeks have something to differentiate themselves from non-timewalking weeks. You would actually want the players who play during timewalking weeks to play with the low-level players; if it went live like this, levelers would have longer queues during timewalking weeks and that would sort of ruin the point of it all. Besides, the difference between normal and heroic is almost negligeble at this point - I would like to have more challenging content for timewalking, but perhaps it would be better to consider a ‘mythic’ mode for timewalking dungeons for that - ones you can only do with premade groups - instead of using the group finder tool.

I also don’t quite agree with the rewards; if it’s completely random, you’ve already lost a chunk of players who don’t want to engage with the system, especially if the randomness is there to make it evergreen, because you would need to make the drop rates really low in the first place. I think there’s a place for randomness in here, though, I don’t actually think it is a bad idea to have satchels with these sorts of rewards - because this content will always be “current” content (assuming timewalking as it exists today will play a part in it). Instead, I think you should also be able to collect an evergreen currency, such as timewarped badges, by participating in the system. If timewarped badges were to be used, obviously it would be at a reduced rate compared to timewalking weeks - perhaps that would be timewalking weeks’ new identity, simply a bonus to existing content instead of adding new content, which would also make it more in line with the other weekly events. This would of course mean that the currency would need to be usable for something; how about greatly expanding the timewalking vendor pool by adding mounts/pets/toys/transmog/crafting materials/expansion-related items to them - items that would be farmable elsewhere, but now something you can do while participating in the leveling experience of others.

On the gladiator mount recolours: I have no opinion on this :>

[Letholas-veknilash]

@Pantheaeu-area-52

Class Trial Revamp?

The class trial should have levels imo and be expanded. The new player experience (and new to each spec experience) is vital to the retention of players.

What would you think of a separate tutorial experience?

Something to the tune of the Proving grounds, where when you first activate an account you have the option to engage in the tutorial before starting your first character. This is common in many games and in most cases goes through the base elements of the game on a very fundamental level to add to familiarity before the player fully engages in the game.

My thoughts for this system are this:

Completely solo experience, similar to scenarios.
Have the player zone in as a Human Paladin (no customization, yet)

Walk the player through the game systems.

• Movement
• Targetting
• Spells & Talents
• Basic Combat (Tanking / Healing / DPS’ing, hence the choice of paladin)
• Finding, Accepting, and completing a quest
• How levelling works (and learning new abilities, mounts, etc)
• UI Configuration / Keybinding (or clicking)

These things make up the pinnacles of how the game functions. Once complete, take the player to the character creation screen and have them pick:

@Pantheaeu-area-52

I would suggest having a process as below:
Role > Class > Faction > Race

and allow them to customize.

Once “create character” is clicked to proceed, assign the player to a “New Players” realm (or show the list of realms at this point to allow the player to choose)

Then have them pick a name that is available on that realm.

Obviously this is very different from the current character creation system, which I don’t think needs to be changed for alts/new mains etc.

But I do think that this would help alleviate some of the “barriers to entry” that exist, although I do agree that Exile’s Reach was a step in the right direction.

[Mirasol-mannoroth (Mirasol)]

I have recently gone a bit alt crazy and started several. While I am not a “new” player, I have been trying to evaluate what a new, returning, or alt friendly player would experience.

I had posted in General in a thread about fresh starts but it all would fit in here.

@Spottedcalf-senjin

But the only bad thing was having to go to BFA. Eventually I used the command boards to get to where I wanted to level at. But should of had that option instead of being forced to go to Zuldazaar.

I have been doing some testing of this myself with a new character or two.

Just hit level 30 today. I have never played Hunter so, learning that with help from guides and such.

• I did get a quest to go to SW castle and start the BFA line, but it did not force me to do it. Instead I just went outside town to Goldshire and started the quests there and went through zones until I hit 30 and could fly!
• Quest gear I got was actually mail for my class and reasonable to play with.
• They have added some helpful things to the quests like warnings that you need to make your pet STAY to work the mechanic.
• I got a lot more gold than expected from quests. I was able to buy all my riding skills, including flying, with just quest gold and selling greys.
• Quests have been re-worked since 17 years ago and are a bit more streamlined. I found it easier to figure out where to go and what to do.
• When you gain skills it tells you and puts it on your bar. Anything you did not have on the bar stays lit up in the spellbook to remind you. I found that useful - esp if new.
• Quest sending you to get your flying training is excellent. Makes sure people are aware and go do it.

What I did NOT find friendly and really wish they would change

• FLIGHT WHISTLE NEEDED! Please don’t make me trudge back through murloc infested waters to the other side of the zone to turn in 3 quests. I just want to call an Uber to the nearest flight point. I want this for ALL ZONES. Huge QoL improvement IMHO. I may even just ask in the CC forum.
• Profession leveling for gathering skills in Vanilla zones. There is nothing telling you what the fishing or herb levels are in order to actually catch fish or get full flowers instead of petals. That was a bit counter intuitive. I remember it from Vanilla so knew what to go for, but new players would not.
• Duel requests. Please for the love of everything let us turn those off in the game interface instead of with an addon. (if this is done and I just don’t know please tell me). It is very annoying standing there trying to actually read a quest with someone spam duel nonsense at you.
• I find I have to look up HOW to play my class and how to handle pets. Still quite confused about a lot of pet stuff. I get button overload and resort to Wowhead which a new player might not know to do.

I did not do any dungeons so can’t comment on how those go for the under 30 set. I don’t do group content.

I would say WoW is a lot more leveling friendly for new players than it used to be, by far. I don’t play the other MMOs though so I can’t compare to how that goes. I also have not used the Newcomer chat although I think it is a great idea. The game is so complex nobody can ever sort it all out.

My biggest request. FLIGHT WHISTLE PLEASE! All zones.

[Worldpvp-nerzhul (Worldpvp)]

Yeah the flight whistle thing is so weird like what a great idea and then they just scrap it. It actually made people fill up towns and FPs but now once again its a ghost town for every little spot

[Worldpvp-nerzhul (Worldpvp)]

Even if they made it fit for the expansion like with a portal I would still prefer it over having nothing for absolutely no reason

[Mirasol-mannoroth (Mirasol)]

@Worldpvp-nerzhul

Yeah the flight whistle thing is so weird like what a great idea and then they just scrap it.

It was a fantastic quality of life thing. Especially when you are grounded at low levels, or until you finish Pathfinder (or whatever unlock for that phase of content).

It makes being grounded a LOT more manageable and less punishing. You still get to experience the adventure getting to the quest site, doing the quests, etc. It just lets you hand things in easily and jump between quest sites easily. It has also gotten me out of many situations where I was lost or stuck.

I could not believe the ditched it in Shadowlands. Not only could we not fly quickly, there was no flight whistle!

Doing the Eastern Kingdoms again on foot made me really appreciate how useful the Flight Whistle was. I actually still use it, despite being able to fly, in zones that have it.

[Worldpvp-nerzhul (Worldpvp)]

They could even make it like get a fully leveled character finish renown and clear normal raid and you get it and I would still be happy to just have to earn it instead of it not existing at all

[Bababoey-draenor]

@Pantheaeu-area-52

Class Trial Revamp?

I think it should be changed every expansion to include whatever borrowed power there is because the experience you get with and without is like night and day.

I can’t imagine trying certain classes right now without a covenant or conduits or legendary because after the legion incident the base specs are very bare bones barely kept together by borrowed powers. Feels like players are trialing a trial version of the class rather than the whole thing.

@Pantheaeu-area-52

This can be a quitting moment. You are just stuck very early on, having to sit in long queue times which gives the perception of a dead game

Not just that but the fact that bfa dungeons have quite a few mechanics compared to previous expansions and if you haven’t cleared bfa once you’re not even given a choice. I introduced a new friend to the game and he had absolutely no clue what to do or where to go but everyone already follows a route kinda, for example atal dazar going straight to rezan. Older dungeons are a lot more straight forward and harder to mess up with skips being a lot clearer.

ALSO(!) tanks and some healers don’t even get mitigation and dispels until like level 14? It is a bit weird considering you can que since 10 and not being able to use a core ability on a tank. Or dispel as a healer.

@Pantheaeu-area-52

This would make it a clear opt in to play with new players who are flagged in the newcomer chat and need guidance.

New players should also be automatically flagged as such for everyone imo. Right now I think you can only see the murloc above them if you have the guide status but I think it would help if everyone could see them because people expect you to do stuff in dungeons a new player couldn’t possibly know without doing it at least a couple times.

[Watermist-skywall (Watermist)]

I agree with much of the points brought up so far in this thread. I wanted to add my own…

Speaking of new players, I think that the Newcomer Chat could stand to be fine-tuned a little bit more.

Not too much, but just a touch-up here and there.

Some of the things that I’m thinking which would enable the guides to help out the newcomers a lot more – and thereby frustrating them less – includes:

1. Separating the Newcomer Chat by language – or give the option for that – because it makes me feel horrible when I couldn’t help out the South American players due to not speaking a common language with them.

2. Lifting the limit on the amount of messages that guides could send to that particular channel. Many times I would be fielding multiple questions at the same time and then I’d hit that limit after 5 messages and have to either whisper the new players, or wait 1-2 minutes for the limit to lift. It can lead to a frustrating experience.

3. Allowing guides to opt onto the Newcomer Chat on alts that are below level 60. I greatly enjoy leveling my alts, but I can’t access Newcomer Chat while I’m leveling alts.

4. And lastly… I’m more hesitant about this, but I think it merits a discussion at the least: We probably should increase the requirements by a little bit for becoming a guide; I’m thinking something like having been an registered and active WoW player for a minimum of 6 months. The reason I say this is because over the past couple months I’ve seen guides outright admitting that they don’t know answers to most of the questions being asked because they only just started WoW a few months ago.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this, folks. I think that if we make it easier for guides to help out new players, then it would have a considerable impact on the new player experience.

[Mirasol-mannoroth (Mirasol)]

@Watermist-skywall

Allowing guides to opt onto the Newcomer Chat on alts that are below level 60. I greatly enjoy leveling my alts, but I can’t access Newcomer Chat while I’m leveling alts.

I like this idea a LOT. I am a casual player who enjoys alts, leveling, doing old content, etc. I have considered participating in the program but it would force me to use one or two chars, which is not what I find fun.

I have done the MVP thing on the TS/CS forums now for around 10 years. So I do get my fill of it out of game sometimes. Still, I have considered helping in game but there are barriers.

[Bababoey-draenor]

@Watermist-skywall

Allowing guides to opt onto the Newcomer Chat on alts that are below level 60. I greatly enjoy leveling my alts, but I can’t access Newcomer Chat while I’m leveling alts.

I think if it’s simply account wide instead of character specific it would be even better maybe? It’s not like changing character you suddenly forget everything about the game.

[Watermist-skywall (Watermist)]

@Mirasol-mannoroth

I like this idea a LOT. I am a casual player who enjoys alts, leveling, doing old content, etc. I have considered participating in the program but it would force me to use one or two chars, which is not what I find fun.

Yes. I won’t lie, I actually have adjusted my play-style a little bit ever since SL dropped to spend more time on my main than I normally would by this point into the expansion (normally I’d start leveling my alts by the time the x.1 patch hits), because I love hanging out in the Newcomer Chat and I just don’t want to miss out on the new players’ amazement (and fun questions… and challenging questions).

So yeah, this is probably the biggest thing I’m rooting for.

[Watermist-skywall (Watermist)]

@Bababoey-draenor

I think if it’s simply account wide instead of character specific it would be even better maybe?

Is that even possible with the existing technology? Genuinely wondering here…

But either way, it’s probably better to have our individual alts opt in (as annoying as that might be) because I don’t think it’s the smartest idea to let the Horde and Alliance players share the same Newcomer Chat. I have a Horde guide (this toon) and an Alliance guide.

The Horde and Alliance channels can be… pretty different. Heh.

[Maizou-proudmoore (Maizou)]

@Watermist-skywall

Allowing guides to opt onto the Newcomer Chat on alts that are below level 60. I greatly enjoy leveling my alts, but I can’t access Newcomer Chat while I’m leveling alts.

Yes please. I already don’t want to drag all my 60s over to Stormwind to turn it on, (why isn’t there an NPC in Oribos?) but not being able to help on my low levels sucks when I’m playing them for months at a time. (Between 9.0 and 9.1, I leveled 7 toons from 10 to 50 exclusively through random BGs, so I was on my 60s pretty much never for 3 months)

I’m against automated silences and such, but there also needs to be a way to police the chat if enough guides report the same person in a short amount of time. The amount of times I’ve seen someone come into Newcomer Chat and just spam or start talking politics to get a rise out of people is… sad.

Like, maybe instead of an automated silence, have a system where if enough guides report you in a short amount of time, you’re kicked out of Newcomer Chat until a blue can investigate the reports, then take action based on their assessment? Not a squelch or a silence, just a temporary ban from Newcomer Chat.

@Watermist-skywall

But either way, it’s probably better to have our individual alts opt in (as annoying as that might be) because I don’t think it’s the smartest idea to let the Horde and Alliance players share the same Newcomer Chat. I have a Horde guide (this toon) and an Alliance guide.

Before I’d probably agree with this, but as cross faction is starting in 9.2.5 in limited environments, this might be helpful, as even if both factions are completely different with how they socialize (I rarely talk on my Horde due to it), it might be worth getting newcomers used to the comingling, especially if they expand the cross-faction one day to random dungeons, random bgs, etc.

---

As for the rest of the OP:

I’ve met a lot of newcomers in the chat that despise how hand-holdy the tutorial on Exile’s Reach is, and we have to guide them through how to turn off the tutorial, even though we suggest they leave it on.

I wouldn’t offer prizes for guides helping new players in dungeons or such, only because that system would be exploited and people would run for the reward even if they didn’t want to help people. I think guides who are guides just because they want to help are the best kinds you can have. The only way around this I can think of is if they have something like a pop up for newcomers (at random, so harassing a newcomer in whispers to choose you wouldn’t work) after a dungeon, etc. asking which party member they found the most helpful. And whoever they choose gets mailed a satchel.

And as for Legendary Powers, I found it very weird Sanctum didn’t have the Nathria powers added. I had to sit in a queue for like 6 hours to get the one I forgot. It wasn’t fun.

[Worldpvp-nerzhul (Worldpvp)]

@Maizou-proudmoore

I’m against automated silences and such, but there also needs to be a way to police the chat

They also need to remove the ability for someone to /ignore you but keep whispering

[Maizou-proudmoore (Maizou)]

Something reddit just reminded me of that I’ve suggested a few times in other forums.

Please add a tutorial on Exile’s Reach for how to do emotes.

I’m not even kidding when I say anywhere from 50 to 90% of the chat in Newcomer Chat (varies by day) is new players typing “Wave” or “Wave to Gor’Groth”

Someone always explains, but there’s occasionally people who just don’t understand and I know of one who said they were too frustrated and were uninstalling over it

[Watermist-skywall (Watermist)]

Yes! And there needs to be a tutorial for how to queue up for instances — or even more practice instances with NPCs — I’ve spent a fair amount of time walking people through how to queue for that instance at the Exile’s Isle.