I would make levelling actually be meaningful. A new player can blast their way to level cap in a day and still have no idea what to do (like I did) at level 80.
Gear is pointless because in a few months it’ll be worthless, collectibles are fun but also confusing to new players. Hitting max level should take a few days playtime, with alts being quicker.
Not a new player thing, but I’d love them to put some more attention into pet battles.
For the leveling experience, let me use an alt as a companion who gains a minor amount of xp as I do solo player content at max. Or just enable chromie time the last 10 levels.
New player experience? Create a scenario for a new character where you’re dropped into bfa/legion battle at max level with your abilities set up, each spec has its own mini tutorial that takes you through basic elements like interrupting, mild kiting, healing, dispels etc. after completion chromie zaps you to the starter zone.
Also add an npc that increases damage/health of enemies in the open world but increasing xp gained, so if you want to fight things 3x as strong for 2x as much xp its an option. Could even turn it all the way up to 10x so you have to group with other players.
I have an inkling this will eventually be done. The current Amirdrassil zone was designed with all the amenities necessary for a starter zone. Gilneas was redone recently. Midnight was advertised as focusing on the revitalization of Quel’Thalas and Silvermoon.
replace everything in tutorial zone with a sign that says “LEAVE NOW.”
Opening scene of WoW experience
You’re a nameless peon. Faceless and formless. You arrived by a prison ship. The captain tells you that you’ve arrived in Azeroth.
Your ship capsizes and you are taken prisoner to your new race specific starter camp with other races
You have no spells or abilities except auto attack and a stick. The world is introduced SLOWLY as your UI becomes larger.
Eventually you explore your new surroundings by gathering Zhevra noses and Boar duodenums. You cook your first meal in the shadows.
Suddenly the flames of war appear. The mists clear and reveal that you’re now in the middle of a fight not with undead dragon ogre gods, but your arch nemesis. The male human paladin or the monk gnome coming to steal your supper
You fight and fight all the way to the top of some frozen mountain where you finally slay the human, but your body is broken but sent back by {insert your racial god} could be Hakkar, could be Johnny Awesome
You join some prisoners on a wagon ride and get waylaid by a dragon god of time. Nozdormumu who you bargain with by dying exactly 17 times claiming your soul is immortal but the flesh is weak
Then you finally choose your name. {insert your racial hero} who throws you a crossbow, an axe, a bowl of spaghetti as your main weapon.
You are then lead through the tunnels of infinite timeways passing the ages like Troll wars, beast wars, Star Wars, StarCraft, Ancient Kalimdor, Well of Eternity, Korthia, some cave in STV and find yourself in the capital city.
You are given a choice. The blue mana bun sends you on happy days quests of helping gormlings hatch and doing dragon daycare.
The red pill, however, pulls back the curtain of death as you fall into the Dalaran crater, Rez into new Dalaran. Get punted off that Dalaran as it craters in Dornagal whereby you are immediately lambasted by the NPCs for not having a RIO of 6,000
Thusly you are sent to dungeon of trails of get gud tears. 16 hours of non stop dungeon crawling against 400 brand new affixes like what the sigma where you must quickly type /wave or die. Or my favorite make a crafting order with an appropriate amount of tip for which you will be in debt for 3 months
Have fun, GL, DD no Rez
My changes would be retroactive and give a better overall curve to WoW.
I.e, in current expansion, TWW…
There would be an into experience in Dflight, easy;
“You are a member of the Dragonscale Expedition, sent out to explore the Dragon Isles”
-introduction to the main characters of Dflight go here.
-every campaign quest is part of the leveling experience from 1-70. Follower dungeons and story mode raids are expanded to help new players experience the events of 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2 (this also naturally gets their feet wet with Dungeons and Raids). Dungeons are done in each zone when it logically makes sense. I.e, Nokhud Offensive takes place at the conclusion of Ohn’haran Plains campaign. Vault of the Incarnates takes place at the end of campaigns but before Tyr’s body is remade.
-the ‘end game renown campaigns’ are now part of the leveling experience. This allows new players to fully experience the events of 10.0 before they are logically moved on to the events of 10.1 and 10.2, thus creating a logical and cohesive story that doesn’t feel like you are entirely being thrown into random places, not missing any story threads, etc.
-in this example, the new player would be hitting 68-70 as they start or finish the ‘hunt the harbringer’ questline which NATURALLY leads them into TWW.
70-80 is played as normal.
Copy FFXIV.
Designate an MSQ path through all the expacs and make people play through it to unlock endgame. You play the MSQ for each expac in order.
Offer an MSQ skip/alternate leveling path for alts once you are caught up on one character.
I played FFXIV a few years ago, and I only played through the ARR MSQ–considered the weakest of the MSQ’s from what I have read–and the experience was still 1000x better than what WoW has become.
I’d make people play through the entirety of each expansion before they could go onto the next one.
I’m biased of course, because I did all that stuff myself. I think everyone else should.
So, basically FF14’s approach with the Main Story Questline stuff.
Only because the player wouldn’t feel ‘disconnected’ from all the stuff that’s going on, and the characters. They can fall in love with their own, there’s a lot of good old story stuff in WoW.
I feel like new players just generally don’t understand the lore lol, not that it’s deep or anything, but I still think it impacts investment in the overall game.
Most mmos, people stick around for that sense of community and ‘what’s next’ in the overarching story, so they can experience the next chapter together.
I feel like, lore pulls half the weight, and gameplay pulls the other half, in terms of interest and keeping folks around.
Leveling does suck, for new players and veterans alike, but for very different reasons.
I would slow all leveling for new players and/or have a proving ground type of leveling process, where every 10 levels or so you enter a follower dungeon of some sort and actually learn your newer abilities.
Also popups or something giving an more in depth description of when an ability should be used, ie when to use a defensive, or a movement ability, or a stun/escape. We as vets know this (mostly) but a new player might not have any idea.
Something explaining your stats and what they mean would be useful to new players as well. I remember when I first started playing ret paladin back in wrath I had some intellect on my gear and got made fun of. Hell I thought judgment was a spell and intellect improved spell power so I figured why not…
I think pushing new players to 3rd party websites or even the official forums is a bad design.
Once you have leveled a max level character you get the option to boost XP or just buy a max level character(high cost imo), no more boosts to the previous expansion max, just a fully loaded character with low ilvl quest greens and small bags. Keep the sweat lord speed levelers away from the new players. It will turn them away.
This is all assuming there are so many new players coming to wow with zero MMO experience to warrant an overhaul, and I am just not sure there is.
Man. Yall hate new players eh
Man, not even “veterans” do.
Wow, you are clearly the pinnacle.of new player retention.
FFIXV’s new player experience is much, much better than retail WoW’s. So no, I think that’s not an accurate assessment.
I think what you meant to say is I hate your projection of how all new players feel, which may or may not be correct.
FFXIV is a game that you play. WoW treats 80% of its game as if it’s a chore, and that’s why people think it’s a chore.
There’s not a main story quest line in wow. Honestly, you couldn’t do it as vanilla really didn’t have a story. You’d have to start at bc and go forward. That leaves out all of warcraft 1, 2 , and 3 though leaving everyone more lost. Meh, I’d say forget the lore train.
I disagree.
I also think telling a new player they have to go through 20 years of expansion quest lines to play with their friends is pretty daunting.
I found the MSQ of FFXIV a chore.
Fair enough. But you don’t represent all new players.
I was just responding to the thread prompt.
Happy trails, friend.
I think it’s more about seeing how the game evolved, rather than the lore of Warcraft itself.
See what did and didn’t work, and why Warcraft plays how it currently does, over how it did back then.
Yeah, the lore, especially for the first two expansions, is basically a big bag of random stuff that we take down. Wasn’t until Wrath where we had an overarching story for the whole thing.
And yeah, you’re right, it pretty much starts with the RTS games.
To be honest, there isn’t really a way to experience all WoW lore in a cohesive manner- too much of it in books, and stuff like Battle for Undercity (WoTLK) has straight-up been removed from the game.
I wish there was an in-game Wikipedia/library with links to lore videos and stuff made by content creators, I think that’d be cool.
I don’t think I ever claimed to represent all new players
But isn’t this weird to subject a new player to?
We want them to see the bad ideas that didn’t work?
You implied it.
“You must hate new players” implies you have inside knowledge of how new players would feel about it. Which is something you don’t have.
But I implied it no more than you did.