They could even make it like get a fully leveled character finish renown and clear normal raid and you get it and I would still be happy to just have to earn it instead of it not existing at all
I think it should be changed every expansion to include whatever borrowed power there is because the experience you get with and without is like night and day.
I can’t imagine trying certain classes right now without a covenant or conduits or legendary because after the legion incident the base specs are very bare bones barely kept together by borrowed powers. Feels like players are trialing a trial version of the class rather than the whole thing.
Not just that but the fact that bfa dungeons have quite a few mechanics compared to previous expansions and if you haven’t cleared bfa once you’re not even given a choice. I introduced a new friend to the game and he had absolutely no clue what to do or where to go but everyone already follows a route kinda, for example atal dazar going straight to rezan. Older dungeons are a lot more straight forward and harder to mess up with skips being a lot clearer.
ALSO(!) tanks and some healers don’t even get mitigation and dispels until like level 14? It is a bit weird considering you can que since 10 and not being able to use a core ability on a tank. Or dispel as a healer.
New players should also be automatically flagged as such for everyone imo. Right now I think you can only see the murloc above them if you have the guide status but I think it would help if everyone could see them because people expect you to do stuff in dungeons a new player couldn’t possibly know without doing it at least a couple times.
6 Likes
I agree with much of the points brought up so far in this thread. I wanted to add my own…
Speaking of new players, I think that the Newcomer Chat could stand to be fine-tuned a little bit more.
Not too much, but just a touch-up here and there.
Some of the things that I’m thinking which would enable the guides to help out the newcomers a lot more – and thereby frustrating them less – includes:
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Separating the Newcomer Chat by language – or give the option for that – because it makes me feel horrible when I couldn’t help out the South American players due to not speaking a common language with them.
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Lifting the limit on the amount of messages that guides could send to that particular channel. Many times I would be fielding multiple questions at the same time and then I’d hit that limit after 5 messages and have to either whisper the new players, or wait 1-2 minutes for the limit to lift. It can lead to a frustrating experience.
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Allowing guides to opt onto the Newcomer Chat on alts that are below level 60. I greatly enjoy leveling my alts, but I can’t access Newcomer Chat while I’m leveling alts.
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And lastly… I’m more hesitant about this, but I think it merits a discussion at the least: We probably should increase the requirements by a little bit for becoming a guide; I’m thinking something like having been an registered and active WoW player for a minimum of 6 months. The reason I say this is because over the past couple months I’ve seen guides outright admitting that they don’t know answers to most of the questions being asked because they only just started WoW a few months ago.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this, folks. I think that if we make it easier for guides to help out new players, then it would have a considerable impact on the new player experience.
10 Likes
I like this idea a LOT. I am a casual player who enjoys alts, leveling, doing old content, etc. I have considered participating in the program but it would force me to use one or two chars, which is not what I find fun.
I have done the MVP thing on the TS/CS forums now for around 10 years. So I do get my fill of it out of game sometimes. Still, I have considered helping in game but there are barriers.
7 Likes
I think if it’s simply account wide instead of character specific it would be even better maybe? It’s not like changing character you suddenly forget everything about the game.
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Yes. I won’t lie, I actually have adjusted my play-style a little bit ever since SL dropped to spend more time on my main than I normally would by this point into the expansion (normally I’d start leveling my alts by the time the x.1 patch hits), because I love hanging out in the Newcomer Chat and I just don’t want to miss out on the new players’ amazement (and fun questions… and challenging questions).
So yeah, this is probably the biggest thing I’m rooting for.
2 Likes
Is that even possible with the existing technology? Genuinely wondering here…
But either way, it’s probably better to have our individual alts opt in (as annoying as that might be) because I don’t think it’s the smartest idea to let the Horde and Alliance players share the same Newcomer Chat. I have a Horde guide (this toon) and an Alliance guide.
The Horde and Alliance channels can be… pretty different. Heh.
1 Like
Yes please. I already don’t want to drag all my 60s over to Stormwind to turn it on, (why isn’t there an NPC in Oribos?) but not being able to help on my low levels sucks when I’m playing them for months at a time. (Between 9.0 and 9.1, I leveled 7 toons from 10 to 50 exclusively through random BGs, so I was on my 60s pretty much never for 3 months)
I’m against automated silences and such, but there also needs to be a way to police the chat if enough guides report the same person in a short amount of time. The amount of times I’ve seen someone come into Newcomer Chat and just spam or start talking politics to get a rise out of people is… sad.
Like, maybe instead of an automated silence, have a system where if enough guides report you in a short amount of time, you’re kicked out of Newcomer Chat until a blue can investigate the reports, then take action based on their assessment? Not a squelch or a silence, just a temporary ban from Newcomer Chat.
Before I’d probably agree with this, but as cross faction is starting in 9.2.5 in limited environments, this might be helpful, as even if both factions are completely different with how they socialize (I rarely talk on my Horde due to it), it might be worth getting newcomers used to the comingling, especially if they expand the cross-faction one day to random dungeons, random bgs, etc.
As for the rest of the OP:
I’ve met a lot of newcomers in the chat that despise how hand-holdy the tutorial on Exile’s Reach is, and we have to guide them through how to turn off the tutorial, even though we suggest they leave it on.
I wouldn’t offer prizes for guides helping new players in dungeons or such, only because that system would be exploited and people would run for the reward even if they didn’t want to help people. I think guides who are guides just because they want to help are the best kinds you can have. The only way around this I can think of is if they have something like a pop up for newcomers (at random, so harassing a newcomer in whispers to choose you wouldn’t work) after a dungeon, etc. asking which party member they found the most helpful. And whoever they choose gets mailed a satchel.
And as for Legendary Powers, I found it very weird Sanctum didn’t have the Nathria powers added. I had to sit in a queue for like 6 hours to get the one I forgot. It wasn’t fun.
1 Like
They also need to remove the ability for someone to /ignore you but keep whispering
5 Likes
Something reddit just reminded me of that I’ve suggested a few times in other forums.
Please add a tutorial on Exile’s Reach for how to do emotes.
I’m not even kidding when I say anywhere from 50 to 90% of the chat in Newcomer Chat (varies by day) is new players typing “Wave” or “Wave to Gor’Groth”
Someone always explains, but there’s occasionally people who just don’t understand and I know of one who said they were too frustrated and were uninstalling over it 
7 Likes
Yes! And there needs to be a tutorial for how to queue up for instances — or even more practice instances with NPCs — I’ve spent a fair amount of time walking people through how to queue for that instance at the Exile’s Isle.
5 Likes
And something that just came up a few minutes ago -
It would be nice if Guides had a way to indicate what languages they speak. I had a newcomer whisper me from Newcomer Chat to ask a question - but they were speaking Portuguese. I don’t speak Portuguese. I did however, ask in Newcomer Chat if any guides could speak it, and one luckily did, and I asked if they could answer the question they asked. (I google translated and understood what they asked, but didn’t want to google translate a reply back)
I’m not entirely sure how to do this, maybe let bilingual/trilingual/etc. attach some sort of indicator to their names that only appear in Newcomer Chat? Or only appear to the Newcomer if said Newcomer is running WoW in that language?
I’ve seen French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. There’s so many different languages in NA and SA that some sort of way to signal would be nice.
(I only speak English, so this isn’t me trying to get a special name or something, there wouldn’t be an indicator for people who only speak English)
2 Likes
I agree that the language barrier is a bit of an issue. That’s why my first post in this thread mentioned the idea of separating the newcomer channel by region — but I’ll be the first to admit that this is not an ideal solution.
But at the very least, something needs to be done about the language barrier. It makes me feel SO bad when there’s only English-speaking guides in the chat, unable to help out the South American players…
1 Like
I think this is the better way. I am playing for so many years now but when i start a new alt I often chose the race and then notice it can’t be a certain class.
I’d like that. I never understood why they give pve mythic mounts with 1 % chance to everyone that is lucky enough after a season or still with 100% as long as its the same expansion (Jaina for example) but gladiator mounts are always removed after the season.
This would be a solution for long queues too and definitely nice to try stuff out also for players that are not new to the game.
I also like your idea of guiding new people trough dungeons. I think a lot of new players make bad experiences with rude players, that dont have patience for newbie mistakes anymore. And this is sure a reason to quit if you get perma kicked out of grps for pulling trash or other unimportant stuff. I also think there is a lot of misabuse in the vote to kick system especially when there is a group of people belonging together. Maybe the vote to kick should only work on afk players or something like this. For me this is the only understandable reason to kick people in lfg groups.
3 Likes
Just to note, with the addition of cross-faction play in 9.2.5, I’d probably suggest Race before Faction.
People should play the race they want to identify with. But if they would more identify with a Worgen for instance, but choose Horde, they likely wouldn’t even know Worgen exist.
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Thanks for the feedback!
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I can only speak on behalf of the new players I’ve played with, know personally, and have talked to. Primarily this is about the 1-50 experience. Only one wanted to play Shadowlands afterward and soon lost interest.
All races/classes for new players should start on Exile Island. You shouldn’t be able to skip the tutorial the game has by picking the ‘wrong’ choice.
Something that needs to be done is removing the BFA pathfinder. They find it very disappointing being told they can fly only to find out that they actually can’t because you don’t have something you can’t get access to while leveling.
I think I know why you left in BFA pathfinder in, you don’t want to rip flying away from new players whenever they enter Shadowlands. It would reasonably be a bad feeling moment for newer players. However, I think you should remove it from Shadowlands too. At the very least when the last major content patch comes out it needs to be removed on a per expansion basis I feel. It provides nothing but a negative experience for the game and each new player I know personally complained about flying.
Also, remove the unlocks for allied races. This is going to be two expansions of old content come 10.0’s release or in the case of the Legion Allied Races, already two expansions old. It is not inviting to newer players, seeing a bunch of grayed-out races they might want to be, only to be told they have to do other stuff first. Character creation is the first thing they see and a very important part of getting new players to join your game.
Here are a few things new players find confusing.
The story. You are plunged into the Battle For Azeroth Experience after the tutorial Island zone and you are swamped by a lot of characters and things you simply just don’t know about. Things just tend to happen to you for no real reason. You start off BFA With being arrested as an Alliance player.
As someone who knows the story, I know why Jaina is arrested and by extension why I am arrested but a new player can’t be expected to know that. Not only that but you don’t even need to finish all the zones to hit 50, so you’re left with even more questions as you just get shuffled off into the Shadowlands content. The BFA experience may as well be pointless to the actual handling of your character and your knowledge of the world.
It’s clunky, it’s offputting. It doesn’t let the player get invested in the world in any way. And if they want to get into the story, the game really doesn’t handle that super well.
The talents and class system aren’t explained to you very well. You are pretty much just left to experiment with them and there is no real indication of what you are doing is the right way to play. You click buttons and things die or they don’t die and you aren’t sure why.
I know of a few early roadblocks, Quite a few players I run into in the new player chat have issues with the siren in the Flynn Fairwind questline. (Not sure if you fixed that yet or not). Group quests and named NPC quests should all be made easier when the content is no longer populated by the majority of players. Across the board, for all expansions, we need things fixed like this.
I definitely agree with adding some more robust tutorials to teach players how to play their class better on some level.
And yes, please let us be in the Newcomer chat on an account-wide basis with us being able to be in it on non higher level alts.
9 Likes
New players will be forced into Exile’s Reach, I can confirm that I was not able to pick Gnomeregan as my starting area when I made this character on US servers, where I had no other characters.
You are able to pick classes like Death Knight or Demon Hunter which skip it and have their own starting zones. I would prefer all Death Knights and Demon Hunters on new accounts to start in Exile’s Reach.
2 Likes
This is actually one of the biggest topics brought up in Newcomer Chat. I do agree, if they’re going to force the Newcomers into BFA content, pathfinder for that area needs to go. If they had forced them into another expansion, it’d be fine staying until the next xpac, but if you’re putting Newcomers in a zone by force, but then don’t let them fly there when they unlock flying in the capital city, that’s just cruel.
I do disagree with this though. Remove it in 10.0, not while Shadowlands is active. There’s no reason for Pathfinder for old expansions to exist, but it works for current. And for those who didn’t do pathfinder for an expansion? They will be able to fly in the pre-patch.
I won’t lie - I was very against this for the longest time, because there are indeed stories behind them. However, with the introduction of Exile’s Reach which removes the context of any race a newcomer plays, that doesn’t really fit anymore.
However, my mind goes back to Pandaren in Mists of Pandaria - even without buying MoP, people were allowed to make Pandaren. The reason?
Here’s a few articles backing this up, in case someone thinks my memory is just foggy:
So… what if they best associate with an Allied Race? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to make it? Then leave the Allied Race quests available if they wish to explore why they joined later.
Because if they go to Exile’s Reach as a Dwarf - they have zero story about Dwarves. So what harm comes if they go to it as a Void Elf? They’ll know equally as little about Void Elves.
I would just make it so Allied Races go to Exile’s Reach until you do the corresponding Allied Race recruitment quest - at which point you can choose to skip to level 10.
6 Likes