So I Leveled an Alt in Dragonflight

Community General Discussion
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I cannot replicate the “new player” experience for myself b/c I’m not a new player, but I decided to level this new one through Dragonflight, as recommended, to see how it went.

I assumed that it would be like other Chromie Time experiences and that I would get to endgame long before I finished the story in any kind of satisfying way.

I rolled the toon (Drakthyr Frost Mage - OMG, I made the dargon white with blue marks and the hooman pale with white hair and blue highlights…/squee).

I got myself spat out into Stormwind at level 10 and commenced to doing the Dragonflight things.

I stuck to the campaign and any bonus objectives/WQ’s that I happened to run into while doing the campaign. I did not do ANY dungeons or side questing or purposeful xp grinding, but I do already have 3 level 80 characters, so there was some extra XP going out from the warband bonus.

I hit the end of the DF campaign right at level 54, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it all went. I chose to go to WoD for my 54-70 so I can have a decent garrison set up for this toon in case I use it in future. It’s all going smoothly.

Observations:

  1. The cooking does not scale, so you shuffle new players into this content, but they can’t eat the food they cook. This makes ZERO SENSE AND WE’VE KNOWN ABOUT THIS ISSUE SINCE YOU STARTED CHROMIE TIME. What the actual, Blizzard? FIX IT!

  2. Imagine hitting that problem as a new player. Just…close your eyes and picture it. Does that sound fun? Intuitive? Immersive? Or just flat-out frustrating and confusing? I think we know, don’t we?

  3. I did not bother with professions, but I think I can guess how that would go, as well. If they come across it and try to pick it up, will they even be able to use the stuff they craft? I don’t know, but if they didn’t scale cooking, it is reasonable to assume they didn’t scale the other profession goods.

  4. The DF Campaign line is a solid, cohesive story, and even though I already did this a couple years back, it was a good time. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

  5. The pacing of talents and new spells was a lot less daunting than I imagined it would be. I think a new player would have enough time with each new ability to understand what was happening when talents come along to change it later/make combos out of it with other abilities. Even leveling as fast as I was, it was a spec I haven’t played since Classic era expansions. I had no idea how anything in frost mage worked, but the way the game fed it to me felt pretty solid.

I still think the game is a failure for new players in many ways, but I was pleasantly surprised by the DF leveling experience from 10-60, and it is absolutely a better introduction to the game than the BfA funnel was. Getting plopped into DF is just a much better experience than getting plopped into BfA was for uninitiated WoW players, and I say this as a person who preferred BfA to DF.

Anyway. I feel like it’s one step in the right direction, but we need more steps…tout suite.

EDITED TO ADD:

Since reading the initial responses, it occurs to me that while DF gives the player a really decent introduction to Khadgar, Kalecgos, Alexstrasza, Wrathion, Sabellian, Nozdorumu, Merithra, and Chromie, it also discusses several major characters in passing in a way that would confuse new players.

Neltharion is mentioned many times but never explained–I don’t even know if they call him Deathwing.

Sindragosa and Malygos are both mentioned. Sindragosa’s image is a big part of the Azure Span story, as well. It is never mentioned, however, how she died, what Malygos actually did, or clearly stated that these are literally Kalecgos’ biological parents.

In addition, after we leave DF and get sent to TWW’s opening sequence, we’re going to hit Anduin, Jaina, Thrall, and Alleria almost immediately without ANY explanation of who they are. New players who have just leveled their characters up from 1-70 will have never seen these NPCs, heard their names mentioned, or have any context for who they are.

That’s…a big deal. Dontcha think?

They leave this world of dragons and all these really important leaders with a sense that they know where they are and immediately get dumped into a cinematic opener with longstanding main characters they’ve never even heard of until they hit the short cinematic with Khadgar and Kalecgos, who are the only two NPCs they have ever seen before in this cast of characters…who then promptly disappear from the storyline for a while.

Some kind of transition is REALLY needed there.

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If you think about it, because of leveling speed and only really needing one xpac to get to TWW, new players miss about 90% of what happened in this game, probably have no clue what’s going, then have NPCs thrown at them they’ve never seen before. And I’m sure most of whatever xpac they choose is incoherent to them and the systems like profs and battle pets aren’t built to be something they can participate in while leveling.

WoW needs a serious revamp for new players, and I don’t see how it can be done without cutting massive amounts of content that we have for farming/nostalgia or doing some sort of overhaul reset.

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Agreed 100%. I mean, I can’t even pick a portion of what you wrote to quote because I agree with all of it.

It’s HORRENDOUS for new players. There is no longer any path to introducing new people to the stuff that came before, and so I think some serious drawing board stuff needs to take place.

  1. Perhaps until the first character reaches current endgame, every new major NPC (Anduin, Thrall, etc.) should have a speech option “I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you?” or something that gives a mini cinematic (it can be a low-quality one) where the character and NPC are depicted standing together while the NPC gives them a brief rundown of who the heck they are.
  2. If we continue with Chromie Time, then it needs to be revised and restricted to 2nd + characters (in other words…not their very first toon) so that a player can reasonably follow that expansion’s campaign with follower dungeon versions of the raids that can be done solo to see the entire story. That way, there could be some closure/a satisfying ending.
  3. There should be something near the embassies–maybe call it a museum or whatever–with an intuitive quest chain for new players that leads them to it with a banner or something for each expansion. Let it be a Bronze Dragonflight thing or even just a Library situation. Whatever they pick, it should contain a list of cinematics for the new player to watch - again, in order - to encapsulate the lore for those who want to see what they missed/what it was all about.
  4. Yes, these things exist on YouTube. They should exist within the game.

There is so much more than this, obviously, but just…good grief, it’s 20 years of content, and so much of the new stuff takes for granted that players have some familiarity with everything that came before.

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In my opinion food need to heal and buff according to a percentage. Yes, this will mean that classic food can still feed a high-level character, but the idea is generally that you throw together something using local ingredients. Also, I want ALL areas to have a max level version.

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If I remember my new player days like in vanilla ( hold a sec, feelin the years) my first ever toon was a druid LW/skinner. Hunted her prey trough the various forested zones of Azeroth. Professions was a driving force into making me change zones really. Grinded whole levels on light leather and combining them into medium leather… Very much the noob thank you very much!

Cooking? Cooking I leveled that well into that toon’s 60s, same for first aid and fishing. I cant speak to the modern new players, but think there was a logic to my approach no? Secondary profs are… Secondary.

You are a veteran player, and you are very much aware of the secondary profs and the impact it can have on the experience. I have a veteran friend, and unless tis a feast being popped in a raid or some delves objective, he is NOT cooking or fishing! It is still secondary if you leave it there.

Enjoy the journey to 70, then start cooking as you level in TWW zones yes? No idea if my post makes sense tbh.

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Yes. I remember my noob days very well, and someone eventually showed me that professions exist somewhere around level 25-ish?

They dragged me to Ironforge (I’d never even gone to the city…that’s how noob I was), and hand-held me into the profession trainers.

Cooking and tailoring were huge things for me in my first leveling experience, and I dislike the idea that they are now so un-tended by Blizzard that a new player would not have that same opportunity.

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Actually a good suggestion

Cuz of you just start and everyone’s all super buddy together, you’d be rightfully confused

Just a little “I am thrall, I once lead the horde bla bla bla” intro

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I don’t really know if wow should be anyone’s first game to be honest. Its an expensive game to play and requires a subsciption.

I wasn’t lost when I started playing wow and I was eight years old. Mostly because I played other RPGs before it. Sure I made mistakes but I can’t imagine someones first game being wow.

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First game, no. I mean, I’ve played video games since I was old enough to hold a controller (my first game was literally Pong at roughly age 5-6).

I’d played all kinds of games before WoW, including WC III and Diablo II along with all sorts of other RPGS. It was, however, my first MMORPG, and it still has the potential to be a person’s first MMORPG, even if they are an experienced gamer in other genres. Even for gamers, WoW is very large and spread out and can be confusing without a bit of guidance. The Vanilla game provided quite a bit of funneling that simply does not exist in the current game, simply because the sheer size of it has outgrown any intuitive systems that originally were in place.

There is no longer any universal, “the story starts here, moves over there, and ends here” type of linear progression.

That has to be either re-worked, recreated, or at least explained to new players.

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I would agree with that… I think the concept of selling boosts shouldn’t exist and the default leveling experience should be the current expansion. Allow people to level in older ones if they choose to but it feels like a determent to the game they have decided to monetize over fixing.

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Just realized I never had a true first player experience in a MMO, since I always had my dad as a built-in trainer and guide.

I’ve been playing since I was a little, so it’s pretty fuzzy to me. I bet I’ll be in a nursing home with dementia and still remember this game.

I have had 2 people that I’ve introduced to WoW and I gotta add - they HATED Exile’s Reach. I wished I could run them through Elwynn Forest and let them explore there without all the UI pop ups. It’s overwhelming for them. That’s the only thing I can add, since neither finished it with me.

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This is an issue of the whole game simply being so massive, the only realistic solution is what we have now, letting players choose the expansion they want to play. It serves double purpose of enticing them to make alts to experience the expansions they haven’t seen yet

Also given the speediness of leveling now, professions have no value while leveling anyway, so spending time to make them “work” is kind of a waste

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For a character who isn’t using heirlooms, crafted gear would be a huge help. In leveling this mage through DF, I frequently had item slots that were 50+ item levels behind before a quest gave me something to replace it.

And cooking for buff foods is always helpful and a good thing to learn right from the off.

I just disagree with this. I mean, I get it. I normally level an alt as quickly as possible in TW dungeons, and you’re absolutely right that professions serve no purpose when leveling that way.

For veteran players–or even for newer players who have been here long enough to figure things out–professions are not crucial to the leveling experience and may actually be of no value until they get to the current content.

For brand spanking new players, however, it’s a different ballgame.

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I’m not so sure.

You have different kinds of players. Some will care about the story and want to know more, others will only care about the slices of life stories and ignore the main story line and then there’s those who don’t care at all.

In that case I’d think that for those who care about who Jaina, et al is, how they came to be where they are, etc… and yada yada, google is a new players friend for that.

I think that works out. Now if Blizz wants to add some kind of optional catch up that explains more, great but as it is now, I think Wowhead and others have the story line covered.
Indepth, too.

  • Also, there’s always Classic which is free once you pay for a sub.
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Gathering ones do, if you want to speed up a little. Mining and Herbalism give XP for each node, and you can sell the materials or send them to a crafter alt.

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I gave up and level locked myself halfway through, because I realized I couldn’t possibly finish the campaign before I leveled out of it. Worked great, now I’m finishing the Bronze dragonflight. Follower dungeons have made completing storylines a dream.

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They aren’t though. The only child between Malygos and Sindragosa that we know of is Umbrelskul. The final boss of the Azure Vault dungeon.

in fact the only other children Malygos had (that we know of) are Arygos, Kiragosa and Balacgos. In which for the former two, their mother was Saragosa and as for the latter, his mother is unknown.

So I am curious to know where you got the idea that Malygos and Sindragosa are Kalecgos’ parents.

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I’ve got this theory that by the end of the Last Titan, we’re seeing some sort of old world/content overhaul because this has been an issue for a long time now.

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I don’t know what Blizzard can do to even attempt to fix it. The new starting zone is a band aid at best and not a good one. The best word I can use to describe leveling in WoW now is disjointed in both story and gameplay a player interacts with. New or old to boot.

The only thing that I’ve been able to ever think of is making some sort of campaign that has the player going through condensed versions of the WoW expansion as they level. Have Jim Cummings reprise his role of Lore Walker Cho or a sound a like to narrate the story as the player levels. Ensuring to hit the key points of each expansion in a level increment that gets the player to the new expansion at or around the starting level for said expansion then that expansion gets added in some time later.

It gives blizzard a chance to shore up all of the lore/story issues, trim the fat and anything else that is just too crazy can be chalked up to tale tales or something. If the new player wishes to see the expansion as it was once hitting max level they can just go back to chromie time.

Overall I don’t envy the person or team of people who are eventually tasked to fix the mess.

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Thank you! I no longer remember where. I thought that I read it somewhere–in one of the novels or chronicle books (clearly, I was mistaken). I’ve thought it for years, but I’m sure it was simply a misread or misunderstanding of something somewhere. I’ve thought this since somewhere around the end of BfA when I first became aware of Kalecgos’ character, so I know I didn’t come about my mistake from anything ingame. /shrug

I read several WoW books around that time b/c I’d taken a long break after MoP because my university work got really busy and I didn’t have time to play for a few years. I couldn’t say for sure which one it was or what specifically–just that ever since that time, I thought that’s who he was.

I will go and have another look at the books at some point, but I appreciate the clarification.