Doubtful. It was never really tougher. It just took longer back then. And that was mostly because, if you didn’t find just about every bread crumb quest out there, you would spend a very good portion of the time just mob grinding for xp. Pretty much what a lot of people are doing in classic now lol. Nope they gave the folks that need a tedium addiction fix just that with the classic servers.
Im more hopeful, i think 9.0 will be based on what they learned from Legion, not BfA. 10.0 will be based on what they learned from BfA/classic.
If they do anything that results in leveling taking even 1% longer the torches and pitchforks will come out amidst hollering about MAUs etc etc.
They’ve actually admitted that in the past. They have teams starting to work on the next expansion sometimes as early as 4-6 months after launch.
Which is why their lines of “we’ve learned from our mistakes” are hard to swallow because they usually don’t say that until 3/4 through an expansion. By that point, any mistakes in expansion 7 are so heavily drilled into expansion 8 that its just not feasible to fix things.
Ergo, any huge mistakes they learned from expansion 7 won’t be fully corrected until expansion 9.
Yea i don’t think being the Chosen One works in a MMORPG where you have 4+ other people in your group. It’s just hard to dial the power level of the game back after Legion and BfA.
Would prefer not to have an infinite power grind.
Would prefer server communities be given more tools, and matchmaking systems being removed. Social interaction is the only thing separating a multiplayer game from single player, and retail has no incentive to search for a guild. There’s no server communities, and nobody has reputations or needs to be held accountable for their actions.
Like if somebody is a jackass in retail, it doesnt matter. They dont develop a reputation, and there’s no natural punishment. If I run into a ganker in classic, i put him on a kill list. If somebody’s bad or a noob or a ninja, you blacklist them and watch as they struggle to find a group, spamming “dps LFG ubrs” for 4 hours because he’s pissed off 4 raiding guilds and nobody wants to play with him.
Community features and the necesity for social interaction to expedite progress is what makes Classic great.
LFR, RDF, sharding, and all cross server tech does more harm for WoW than blizzard knows.
All this said, blizzard is already learning. Titanforging is gone come 8.3, which I’m stoked about.
I think they’ve admitted it goes further than that. They have the story roughed out 3 expansions out and the general systems advancements maybe 2 in advance? Its been a while since I read the interview. But I believe they said they have people working on the next one even before the launch of the current expansion.
Its a power fantasy. Everyone wants to be the most important character. Its human psychology. But that works best in single player games, where you’re the only hero and every other hero is either helping you, doing their own separate thing, or competing against you.
I’ve seen a few good RPGs where it implied that other heroes you meet are on their own quests, and they are the “chosen one” for their story. That doesn’t mean they can’t help or hinder you on your quest as the “chosen one” of your story.
Personally I wasn’t a fan of Legion though. BFA just took the worst parts of Legion and expanded on them.
Azerite armor sucks - sure, but so did AP farming. So did paragon rep. The over emphasis on retention mechanics. The quadrupling down on the store. The list goes on and on.
We’ll see… but this monetization is hard to deal with.
Honestly - SC2’s new monetazation interface almost entirely turned me off from the game. Get a win, “sweet xp - guess that’s a thing again… oh you have to buy the skins to use it…pass”.
Only a matter of time before it happens to WoW. We already have it featured prominently in the launcher. Not too long before it happens in game too.
I just remember a discussion during Warlords where they talked about how they started doing specific work on the next expansion within 4-6 months TOPS after they launched Warlords.
Storyboard ideas, yeah, they’ve probably planned Sylvanas’ betrayal for 3-4 expansions. I mean, if you’re writing a long series, you have to consider what will happen in chapter 16 when you’re currently on chapter 4.
Mechanics … I think they don’t plan them out more than one expansion in advance because changes in technology can maul a mechanics ability to function.
THis goblin gets it
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Okay, and what about the power famtasy of being 1 dude in a grand army? Classic offers the fantasy of being a member of a grand and powerful organization, through making raids hard to get into and complete.
There’s a rule in DnD, the allfather of most modern RPGs. Chosen One plots do not work in party play.
The way WoW does it is immersion breaking and leaves me detached. In Classic, I do things with other people, and that union of strength is so much greater than solo play that it doesnt need to be a fantasy, it IS power through unification. I dont need it to be a fantasy when it can be reality through mechanics.
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They said that back during wolk. There is probably a video out there on it( Youtube maybe). They already know what the story will be for 10.0, but wont actually start putting it together until 9.0 has been out a few months. Cant remember which dev said it. Probably one that is no longer involved with this game.
I wasn’t saying chosen one storylines are good. In single player games, they work. But in games where you group up with other players, it can be a problem.
I was simply pointing out the reason behind it. It’s human psychology, we all want to be the most important character.
However, even in tabletop RPGs, it can work where one character is the focus of attention. I’ve been in games where one player basically drove the plot, and everyone had fun. So it CAN work in a party format, but it requires a lot more work to keep everyone having fun.
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If they make retail like classic I am gone. Who in right mind wants to have leveling take 300% longer? Who wants to go back to classic drop rates? Who wants to go back to getting four or five quests done a day like in classic?
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Why would they want to reduce the available content by emulating Classic and removing dailies?
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No! No! No!
I remember one quest. You needed a single drop. I farmed the area for almost 45 minutes, killing the correct mobs. Just to get a single drop. That’s not fun. That’s wasting my time! And I’m sorry, but MY time and MY money are more important than the DEVS ego in regards to what makes a “good” and “fun” quest.
And the quest? It wasn’t a raid quest or anything, just a normal quest for the zone. Only reason I did it was I didn’t know better. Sure, I still got gold and XP but it was not a fun day for me.
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I agree these trash rental systems are left overs from legion, but considering how soon after an expac launch they start coding the next, they didnt have much time to learn from legion before BfA. This time though they had the full run of Legion and the complete fumble of BfAs launch to learn from.
Like i said, im just hoping they learned the right lessens. If you cant be hopeful the week leading up to blizzcon, when can ya right.
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Did the Tarren Mills quest Humbert Sword. Needed to get a sword off an elite. Teamed up with a druid and it took us 76 kills for it to drop.
I genuinely hope you are right and I’m wrong.
Before the pitchforks and torches come out you’ll have to get you all your reps up to revered complete all aspects of Pathfiner pt 1 , massively increase the power of your new artifact the Ring of Never Ending Grinding by farming mass amounts of the new ap material known as CRAPperite. Then wait 6months to a year when the remaing requirements come out with PF2 and then after completing those parts may you bring out your pitchfork and torch.