Why do people still make videos on how world of Warcraft war within is also not new player friendly? And also saying how it’s so confusing or complicated for new players and so and so. Like how else would they make the game more new player friendly and any more accessible?
All of those videos on YouTube or Twitch who keeps on making these content and saying the same thing and one thing they don’t even offer is the how part. How to make the game less of a problem and so on.
These types of content is constant and I’ll bet that midnight will be called new player unfriendly as well.
I have a buddy who went from not knowing anything about the game really to being an officer in my guild, a mythic raider and high keys so it can’t be that hard.
He’s also switched specs on his druid from Feral to Balance and then changed his main to ele shaman.
They could go full mobile phone mode and incrementally add stuff to the map at max level…vs. if they joined now they would be overwhelmed with quest markers in Dornagal and out in the world. Its not as bad an x-pack launch, but by this point its pretty crazy
I would also say scrap Df as the intro x-pack and make a custom leveling experience focused on teaching fundamentals and lore exposure. Just dumping them in with the general populace and horrible dungeon/world content scaling isnt new player friendly
They literally added one-button rotation. People asking for the game to be more new-player friendly than that should stick with checkers, or tic-tac-toe
You have to remember alot of those YouTube and Twitch videos make money off of views and content about the game being bad which will get more views then about anything positive.
That being said, retail WoW is too fast paced for alot on new players, especially if they aren’t familiar with MMOs. Not so much the initial gameplay leveling up, but the endgame of raids, M+ and PvP starts being competitive. Blizz did make some improvements to make it easier for new players over the years such as: the 1-button rotation, follower dungeons, LFR, etc…
I think most anyone can learn a rotation and how not to stand in the bad and what have you. The real issue is if you find it fun or not. If it’s fun, learning the game is interesting and easy. If you are bored or not having fun, it starts to feel overwhelming and tedious.
I don’t think it’s new player friendly AT ALL. Especially if you don’t have friends playing to guide you.
The game needs a companion site to be played effectively because there are so many different directions it goes off in. In vanilla sure, discovery was fun and a big part of the draw.
But now you can end up off on so many different ways of going about the game, and many of them are just not efficient.
I don’t go around suggesting wow to anyone and if I did, it would only be if I was committing to handhold them.
It seems obvious… wow starts off mind numbingly boring for 10 or more hours of leveling. Real paint licker Peter level of difficulty. Then sky rockets into harder difficulties never teaching you how to play or your rotation.
Its a terrible game by the standards of its time much less 2025. They should really have people starting at level cap by default
Endgame content - or more specifically, endgame grinds - do NOT appeal to new players. It’s actually quite the repellent for them, doubly so if you’re not an MMO veteran.
It’s not that they’re dumb or incapable… but telling someone they have to do a certain amount of content every week for rewards from the vault?
You’ve just given them a chore.
Therefore, they don’t want to do it.
WoW’s introductory experience is an express route to the endgame, something they likely don’t want to be bothered with. There are exceptions, but they are NOT common.
And that’s before even mentioning the frequently hostile player community.
The irony here is that FFXIV, despite having a 200+ hour main story to work through, is a lot more new-player-friendly. Because that long main story is actually a worthwhile experence.
The only reason my Friend wont play WoW is because of how many other games he juggles.
WoW is easy, to be honest. I started in 4.2, during what was considered to be the peak of difficulty, solo, AND with WoW being my literal FIRST non-FPS game.
I went from being a total First Person Shooter junky, to playing WoW. That alone should have made things hard, but I did it.
And those videos are dumb. Bell had some poor dude with crap gear fight a quest objective dragon without the item needed to weaken it.
The game is pretty new player unfriendly. It’s not impossible for new players to get the hang of it especially if they have somebody to help them or are using online guides, but it’s still a barrier to retaining new players.
The game starts off by having you go through a levelling process that wont teach you anything real about how to play the game because it’s so easy you almost have to be trying to die.
Then you get to max level and the game splits off into a million different directions with very little guidance about what you should be doing and if you want to play with other players you’re suddenly in a world where you’re expected to know a bunch of stuff when the game hasn’t even taught you basic stuff about playing your class.
Ironically I think Classic WoW is actually significantly more new player friendly.
If you’ve played higher difficulty in MMOs before its likely less daunting, as you understand the challenges and how to address them. If by new player you mean younger and/or never having played an MMO then they get to level cap and no one knows they are still new and will be expected to know every stupid nuance about the game. It also sucks that you still need to use 3rd party websites or addons to help you figure some things out.
The video was about his buddy Matt, an experienced player who works with him IRL and has been on many videos, and what happens when a player like this starts a new account with no heirlooms and no skips. The guy knows how to play the game, yet they were both very surprised at what he experienced.
I’m sure he’s played other stuff but as far as I can tell he isn’t like… a savant or such, just someone who was able to take the time to learn how the game works and move up the food chain.
And the thing is, there are still things he’s learning; stuff like how big the payout for Delves can be or other tricks and such. For me, it’s a joy to see him go from being a middling normal raider to someone who’s surpassed me.
Except thats not what new players experience, not really. Nobody is going to try to fight one of those Apex protos as a new player without being told to by the quest.
