Well, they can experience it and make their own judgements.
People did like Garrisons, even if they were a failure.
All that stuff is obsolete anyway, locked in a bubble back in its respective expansion.
New players would just go through all that stuff like the rest of us did while levelling, and if they want to stick around and see more of it, so be it.
I just think it’s insane, the amount of old dungeons and raids, 20+ years of rich content that’s just passed over.
A new player wouldn’t see any of that, and that’s a shame.
All I said is I like FFXIV’s design better personally, so that is how I would change WoW if I had the reigns. I never once claimed or implied I know who would or wouldn’t enjoy it.
It’s entirely possible you’re right, and the majority of new players would hate it. But you and I have no way of knowing that, and you’re the only one who implied you did, whether or not you intended to or even realized you did with your snarky one-liner.
I’d recommend scrolling up and re-reading the exchange if you disagree. Do some analysis of it, because you’re wrong.
If I’d had the power to redesign the new player experience, I’d first redesign Exile’s Reach. Have it teach players more about their class and the possible specs to choose from, and how they contribute. Teach the importance of interrupts and aggro and other basics the game doesn’t even mention.
Exile’s Reach teaches you to point the right way and how to kinda do the mere basics of your class. That’s it.
Leveling, as dungeons are a popular means of questing I’d like quest chains leading up to running one of the dungeons, a bit less jarring of a transition than queueing up, appearing and being bombarded with half a dozen quests. I’d also make them more deadly to again emphasize the importance of aggro and to tanks to, you know, gain experience being tanks.
I wouldn’t say Cata Heroic levels of course, just enough that there’s at least some pressure for folks to play their roles and pay attention to things.
I think it’d be a more enjoyable leveling experience, and will have players better prepared for max level content.
I’m no game designer, of course, but that’s what I would do.
If they updated old zone dialog, then kept the option to start in ER as a brand new player, I feel like that would be perfect. ER is just an introductory experience for people so new to an MMO they dont know how to walk.
“FFXIV’s experience is better for new players” I say, as someone who was once a new player to FFXIV and also WoW. The basis of this statement is I like it better.
“You must hate new players” you say, implying my idea is bad for new players, just because you don’t like it. What you should have said is “the new player experience you’re proposing isn’t better than what WoW currently has.”
That would convey what you are trying to backtrack to now. The statement you did make contains a lot of implications about how I feel, the efficacy of the change I propose, and how new players would feel about it.
It implies that new players at large would hate the change, and thus it would not be better, and thus the only reason someone would suggest it is because they hate new players.
If you don’t understand the difference, then I think we have different conceptualizations of how written English communication works. And that’s fine.
Not that anyone cares about my opinion but, I hate leveling to begin with.
I honestly don’t know what this even contributes to the discussion. I know I’m not a new player, but something about it does prevent me from leveling a new character.
The complication is a factor that I and new players might experience. It’s most of the reason I stick with only one class/spec it’s something less to learn.
Create a leveling campaign that is completely divorced from the main storyline, that way it does not interact with the most recent expansions at all and can exist on its own forever.
The player character joins a Warband with the members of Exile’s Reach of both factions, that way they only have to make one. Who the player hangs out with will depend on quest, location, and the like. The purpose of this is to create a cast of characters the new player can connect with without the unnecessary baggage attached to the existing cast.
The leveling campaign storyline involves some sort of low stakes adventurer which acts as a means to teach the player the basics of Azeroth, it’s various factions, the powers at be, ect where at the end you become a known Champion of Azeroth.
The leveling campaign will take players to specific dungeons, designed to use the Follower system.
If a new player exclusively plays through the storyline, it will get them to level 50 or whatever the current leveling “cap” is prior to the most recent expansion.
Once players hit that cap, or complete the storyline, they are given an introduction questline to give them a small questline to get them on board to the most recent expansion.
This questline can include a small in game movie that just goes “And here’s where we are now.”
The old zone questlines are put behind Chromie Time. People making alts and skip Exile’s Reach will be given to option to just forgo the Exile’s Reach Campaign and just do the old stuff, putting them into Chromie Time at the start.
I agree except I think Exile’s Reach is fine, except for the fact it is mandatory. Where now every starting area would send you to the inn of the following zone, ER should be offered to players as a “boot camp.” This is how it was designed so that new players could be quickly caught up in the basic features of the game. Not all players want that though and the traditional leveling experience, as you say, should be reinstated.
Totally agree. Maybe even buff the leveling exp bonus we get for max level characters, so that in the end there is no change for veterans. I’ve been playing on the new classic realm and I can say that while leveling was a huge pain, the time wasn’t wasted when it came to enjoyment. It also forced me to cooperate with other players and get into the community. Something that is almost if not totally lost in retail.
Absolutely. I think Blizzard is just afraid to invest the time and then it gets the reception Cataclysm did. One thing I think they have botched is not utilizing the bronze and infinite dragonflights more as a method to legitimize outdated content. Chromie time only available to experienced players means there is a lot of great content just not readily available to new players. I think even a new player would be okay with being thrown back in time and the content would then need very little updating to make sense.
If you have not played classic, you don’t know how much you miss it. Even the most “proper” leveling experience you have now is totally divorced from what leveling should be in a MMO. Blizzard made it too easy to just skip the RPG in a MMORPG.
WoW In A Nutshell: A Proposed Leveling Experience For New Players
Goal: Familiarize players with the story and with their class in a quick, fun, educational manner.
Structure:
Each segment of WoW In A Nutshell contains five scenarios (each with a companion selected from the lore of the expansion), capped off by a final boss fight with a group of AI-powered lead characters from the expansion.
Talents are explained at the start of the leveling process, and at the end of each scenario, players can choose their own talents or have their talents selected for them.
New abilities are highlighted, explained, and the key binding process is laid out tutorial-style.
No worrying about grinding mobs or purchasing gear – each scenario (plus end boss fight) rewards an appropriate amount of experience and gear, plus some gold and transmog.
By the end of each expansion, you automatically reach the target level.
Expansions:
1-10: Exile’s Reach
11-20: Artificial Vanilla Flavor
21-30: The Learning Crusade
31-40: Lich King Nostalgia Tour
41-45: Cataclysm Mini ™
46-50: Checklists of Pandaria
51-55: Legion Express: A Tale of Two Dans (Illidan, Gul’dan)
Remove all the elitist junk that is attached to the game. Mythic io raid io gearscore. Remove mythic+s and mythic raids and sllow everyones internet down to dial up while making all raids 40 man.
It has always been easy.
The hardest thing to figure out, in Vanilla->Wrath specifically, was spell rank optimization:
For mage AoE, you needed max rank Flamestrike, max rank minus one Flamestrike, then Blizzard (channeled) for max AoE DPS.
Different spell ranks for mana conservation in some cases etc.
Rank 1 frostbolt, for the quick snare (this was the easy one to “get”).
Those, I admit, only the smartest hardcore tryhard theorycrafters could figure out by themselves.
On-topic, racial zones and stories were much better.
The Vanilla leveling experience is a lot more fun than the current one.
It just needed to be more streamlined, with some quests focusing on the smart usage of some spells and teaching the basics of the spec’s rotations.
I actually like exiles reach well enough, but I’d made the following changes:
1.) have a “I’ve played this class before” option for the those painfully slow ability tutorials. Seriously they make you wait until there is 2-3 seconds left to a dot before it accepts your reapply of it. So dumb.
2.) Make a real intro dungeon with more bosses and add it to the classic rotation. Their intro dungeon teaches you literally nothing.
3.) Give the pacing a boost. I feel like every sentence they speak has like 5 second delay. “Ah champion!..Welcome to the stormbringer!..I see your a paladin…why don’t you fight some of my men!”
It doesn’t give any scope or any memorable experiences.
I want to recapture that first “holy crap” moment when you log in on your first ever nelf.
You look around and you are surrounded my massive trees, tons of greenery, other elves and architecture.
Exiles reach just doesn’t do that.
Are you talking about the elite quests? Honestly I hate those. I hate that aspect of classic where I am questing in a zone. I go into a cave, now I need a group to kill the one guy at the waaaaaaaaay far end (looking at you stranglethorn).
You should be able to solo everything.
Unless you are talking about the dungeon quests, then I absolutely agree.
The biggest issue is we have 20 years of content. It’s just not feasible to put new players through ALL of it.
We just need a world overhaul. Zones updated, quest nodes updated. We should be able to quest through azeroth and it make sense.
I’m playing it currently on several toons. It’s pretty irritating. Quest nodes are all over the place.
I miss the cata update where things were more cohesive. You’d level through the zone and that was it. Not coming back 10 levels later for another gather quest.
And the question is, how do you marry QoL with RPG aspects and incorporate 20 years of story, zones and quests together?
You would log in, and you’re in your faction/race starter zone.
A quest giver is standing in front of your character, yellow exclamation mark over their head.
You click the quest giver, and a text window opens where they give a list of games currently on the market that are actually good. After you click OK, the game exits.