In Newcomer chat there is a lot confusion from players once they leave Exile’s Reach.
I’m not sure what the ideal leveling path for new players should be but it’s definitely breaking down for new players.
It also seems like a lot of new players don’t want to level in BFA. They’ve heard BFA wasn’t good and really want to see the iconic locations in the old world.
FFXIV’s MSQ is an absolute slog that plays on the worst tropes of the JRPG genre. That being said… it immediately tells you what kind of game it is from the outset. That garbage start does pay off if you make it to the end. Does the WoW leveling experience display what kind of game it is when you reach the endgame? In WoW’s case, it is both garbage and completely non-representative of what kind of game WoW actually is. At least FFXIV’s start is honest garbage. 
There’s no good solution here, unless the re-add the old world as it was pre-Cataclysm. Which, again, I don’t think is indicative of current quality.
If it’s like previous expack, then I’m expecting a free boost.
But again… that’s another band-aid solution. It’s probably the best one available, but if someone hasn’t played an MMO before? Throwing the whole class at them immediately probably isn’t the best idea.
I agree.
If a boost isn’t needed then a new player will be required to run exiled reach, then BFA.
After that chromie time can be used on any expac 1-60.
I would love for wow to implement a ff like trust system to run at least some mock-up dungeons so new and seasoned players can practice any role.
I think replacing the proving grounds or adding this as an option after finishing silver or so would go a long way
Are you kidding , recently I put 80 houirs into FF and a lot more into Swtor . Wows leveling is soooooo much better ( I have delete FF --its just rubbish but still play SW )
The only thing that WoW has going for it that FFXIV and SW:TOR don’t is the pacing of combat in the early game. But the pacing and quality and continuity of the actual content you’re playing through? WoW is outclassed on all fronts.
So here recently, I was feeling nostalgic. I made a new character, a human warrior. And I leveled him up through just questing in cata zones (post-remake Westfall → darshire → Stranglethorn → tanaris → ungoro. No heirlooms, just quest gear. No dungeon spam. In fact, the only time I used LFD was for class quests, which honestly I was surprised were still in the game. My goal was to read all the quests.
I dinged 50 in ungoro. I didn’t really do that much in the way of side quests, unless they were convenient, but the pacing seemed pretty good to me. Maybe a bit less efficient (or a lot) than WoD or whatever, but it felt good.
The pop up breadcrumb for shadowlands explains what’s going on pretty well and in a way that makes sense. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a truly new player who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into with buying the 8th expansion to a nearly 20 year old game.
Overall, I think BfA would honestly be better than SL for setting up the state of the world for a new player. Aside from wrapping up Sylvanus’ story and explaining why Turalyon is ruling SW instead of Anduin, not a whole lot happened in SL that overtly affects Azeroth.
Not to say that it’d be good because they never include post-launch stuff in the leveling cycle, so really they’d just be unifying Zandalar/Kul Tiras to help fight the enemy faction, ding 60, and then go “Oh I guess the war is over and we’re sailing to help dragons now?” But that’d be just as much an issue in any other expansion tbh. None of them come to a conclusion in the initial process of leveling.
The most relevant story to Dragonflight is actually probably going to be the Cataclysm stuff about Deathwing and the other Aspects. Hopefully they give a good summary of that events before you get there.
Which reminds me, GW2 has a whole video (in-game iirc) to explain some removed content that bridged the launch story and the first expansion. Perhaps that would be the least messy way for WoW to catch people up or get them somewhat invested? Maybe make a series of those animated shorts that explains the story so far and throw them all into the UI somewhere or have an easy to find NPC that triggers them.
My bet would be that in the expansion after Dragonflight, Dragonflight becomes the default evergreen leveling experience. For now though, BFA is the closest substitute as it is modern but Azeroth based.
Honestly it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let them do 1-10 Exiles Reach and then 10-70 Dragonflight.
My only concern is if 60 levels could actually be squeezed into 4 zones like that, the modern dungeons certainly being more difficult (Not that BFA is any better), and a fresh 70 getting smacked around because their last chestpiece was a level 58 green.