Nah it’s just a skill issue. Even in classic leveling wasn’t hard. It was just super
Time consuming.
3 Likes
We are talking about new players, so they have no skill. I would much rather be a new player leveling in retail than in classic in terms of difficulty.
2 Likes
Are you a new player?
2 Likes
No, but the thread is about new players. That’s what we are talking about.
1 Like
I wouldn’t even call it hard when its just kind of a stat check constantly
Either you have the damage to win the fight or you just lose, skill entirely irrelevant
Unless the player knows what they’re doing, in which case its chain pulls and mass aoe depending on the class
1 Like
True enough, if you’re a frost mage in classic you can pretty much handle most situations.
2 Likes
Here’s my take, and I’ve been playing since late 2005, and I came from Star Wars Galaxies to this game.
The only real “challenge” in vanilla/classic is the leveling, mixed in with world PvP (I played on a PvP server) You had to eat, you had to drink, you used First Aid, had to be smart on how many mobs you pulled, and quests had you going back and forth a lot. Again, as people said, tedious, not hard.
To me, that was the only real difficult thing, that and finding a raid. Sure, you can say having LFG/LFR today makes things easier, but for the most part when MMOs were starting out, most people were social, because every MMO prior you had to be.
Other than that, raiding was easier.
Retail though leveling is just pure autopilot and incredibly easy. But I will say raiding and dungeons are more challenging, but that’s due to the evolution of the game.
I personally didn’t find retail raiding to be challenging until Ulduar released, which seemed to be when Blizzard experimented and got their groove on with fights. Not to say BT, SW, AQ40, etc weren’t challenging, but they were challenging due to scaling most of the time, not mechanics.
1 Like
Weren’t there groups clearing vanilla raids with undersized groups and not even being max level? Classic isn’t hard if it’s essentially a speedrun version of the game by modern standards.
2 Likes
You really think because you might have to sap an add on a quest that it is harder on classic? That’s a pretty low bar.
2 Likes
Oh boy, the sweet sweet memories of being corpse-camped in the barrens for thirty minutes straight.
This is true for dungeons at the endgame, leveling them is usually a super quick face-roll though. Where as vanilla resulted in all kinds of wipes from not pulling carefully or managing mana.
1 Like
Hot take: Neither Classic nor Retail are new player friendly.
3 Likes
Maybe not anymore, but vanilla was revolutionarily friendly for it’s time.
1 Like
Notice the “I”
2 Likes
Doesn’t really hold up in 2024.
Compared to 2004 UO and EQ yea by far. Although I would say Age of Shadows Ultima Online was very new player friendly as well. They added a whole island dedicated to teaching new players pretty much everything.
2 Likes
My friend has dragged me to play Classic for about a year now, and every time I try it, I just want to log out immediately. It’s so boring. Classic is much easier, retail is hard but it’s not hard to learn.
3 Likes
I played a game called Ashen Empires before wow. That game was so hard even playing for over a year I never made it to max level.
That game was super fun though
1 Like
Yeah, I got it, you’re trying to accuse me of being unskilled at WoW. I am unimpressed.
1 Like
There’s nothing to accuse. You admitted it.
Then backtracked to say the convo was about new players.
2 Likes
Except your point is completely self-defeating, because by accusing me of being unskilled you admit there is skill involved in leveling. Therefore if I am unskilled at WoW and don’t die in retail but do die in classic, it means that classic is harder.
edit: I apologize for the spelling mistakes
1 Like
Nope. Now you’re just reaching. In classic or retail if you die while leveling its 100% a skill issue.
Leveling is designed to have a 100% completion rate which means it’s so simple anyone can do it.
Nah it just means if you die at all you’re just bad.