There is no point in leveling an opposite faction character in SL

Community General Discussion
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The Shadowlands storyline is so boring and linear, that it completely halved the amount of content that was offered in SL. I don’t know if people noticed this, but SL is offering a fraction of what other expansions have been offering in the past.

Vanilla: Multiple ways of getting to (well, close to) 60. Sure, everybody ended up in Silithus, but the paths to get there were plenty.
BC: Multiple ways to get to 70, multiple zones had the same level requirements and the story wasn’t linear.
Wrath: 2 starting zones on each end of the continent with completely different storylines, both were available for both factions and ended up at the middle in ICC.
Cataclysm: 5 different zones to level in, with 2 being introductory zones, both with different stories and were not connected linearly.
MoP: 1 entry zone, but then it branched out to multiple different options so playing with Alts would keep the whole thing fresh. Also, Horde and Alliance had different stories.
WoD: Kinda sucked that Horde and Alliance had the same intro story, but it was redeemed with different starting zones with different Garissons for both Factions. Again, keeping things different and fresh for both factions.
Legion: We had a choice to start in any zone of the Broken isles and it made the story interesting and different for alts.
BFA: Entire continents devoted to each faction with an entire storyline for each.

Shadowlands: Everybody does the exact same storyline with absolutely NO difference between Horde and Alliance other than a couple different voice lines from Jaina. (Thread of Fate doesn’t count, it’s literally a grind.)

This sucks. I’m super disappointed in how inflexible and ultra-linear the story has become in SL. Everybody rides the same rollercoaster and after 2-3 alts you’re so incredibly burnt out of it all. Give us an option to choose where we want to start. Sending every. single. character. to Bastion just sucks. Also, most, if not all alts completely skip Revendreth. This is something that could and should be done in a content patch. Otherwise, SL is literally just ONE story. I thought this game would offer us MORE, not LESS.

We’ve already had to make peace with class tier sets in BfA, now we’re being funneled all into a singular storyline with absolutely NOTHING that makes it feel like an MMO where we get to choose our own adventure. It’s becoming this weird, single-player campaign sprinkled with a few online players all doing the same thing you are.

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There’s no point in me leveling an Alliance alt because the Alliance is so boring.

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This might just make you go off some more. so here goes.

But what about the 4 different covenant stories?

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I found a point to level alts both sides.

I need 60’s per armour class for BOE green mog unlocks lol.

Needed to find something. Sure as hell wasn’t story. All my chars want to smack the smurfs on roids silly. You, slap, need to, slap, stops sending souls, slap, to the damned maw (combo of 10 slaps).

Need to pick what first clothe gets 60. VE s. priest or the NIghtbourne lock.

Lock would be affliction since the recommended leveling spec. So any input as to which DoT setup I run? Not firmly attached to either.

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A valid point, but I’m talking about leveling. Covenant stories are only available at level 60. If they could make these available at level 50 then it could (slightly) balance out the lack of content for 50-59.

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Oh, we have noticed.

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And even counting covenants it doesn’t change the main point of the OP, there isn’t a point to do the other side in this expansion.

In all prior expansions I always leveled both sides to see all sides of the story, and enjoyed doing it to see the story differences. This I will eventually level up the other side, but there is no feeling that I need to or should because besides some minor text differences when talking to a NPC acting hostile to you (Horde in one covenant in particular) or not hostile (Alliance in same covenant), there isn’t any real difference doing them between the two.

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This expansion’s leveling should be called the alliance experience.

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yes we have.

Some of those covenant mogs…need to be presents. For doing say dungeon work. Or rep work. for a few mogs…I will spam dungeon.

Why today wth a half day of work I will take the rogue and DK to legion dungeon. the complete 8 dungeon item unlock. Its either free or gold (can’ remember).

2 mains weeklies are done. this alt work…would be a better and more fun use of time. Think both lack 2 dungeons (both are order hall and mount complete as of yesterday) and pretty sure its the suramar ones.

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Jaina and her Friends ™

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Why in the world would you want there to be a point? You traitor.

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I’ve not been overly fond of this expac from the start, and that’s been pretty disappointing. But it’s just been over the past couple weeks that it’s really dawning on me all the little reasons for why that is, and this is one. :frowning:

This is my only Alli character so far, and I’m sad to say he’ll probably remain the only one for the foreseeable future because of this reason.

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This post has a good point. I never thought about this. You are so correct nothing is different at all :joy:

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We’ve basically cleared and finished all the launch content, and it’s now blatantly evident that the core storyline is unfortunately lackluster.

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I think there is a difference in the dialogue of De Other Side…

There is a difference in who is blue and yellow at certain parts…

As for the story differences, yeah, it’s pretty much the same as Legion, really.

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Vanilla was the base game, the base game , obviously, has more ways to get to endgame content than any expansion after
if it were to make a fair trade, then you should count vanilla endgame content, and you’ll realize there’s just PvP and 1 raid… that’s it, that’s all there is to it.
All zones before i think wod, had zones level restricted, so you didn’t exactly had “many ways to get to max level”, you had one path and could do other way but with underleveled content. You had to level in netherstorm that was high leve, as nagrand was not on par with higher levels, you could but it would have been slow for no reason

Wrath, the same, boring trundra, you forgot? you had to go there as that’s the starting point, and do quests there before travelling to sholazar basin or other zones, other zones taht were a mess to get to since there was no flying until higher level and flightpaths were locked out.

Cataclysm had zones for each level bracket, but also, only 5 levels dude, what’s the point? you could get to 85 with 2 zones only, when you have half the need to level up.

MoP also had zones with marked level, desert of fear or something, wasn’t a zone you could enter at the start, you had to go through the designated zones over and over, playing on rails

WoD also had linear story progression, but very fast leveling, hence why WoD is big part of the route in speedruns

Legion also had Suramar level restricted, no flying like WoD and many story bits to complete before moving forward to each zone
BFA, you had to complete all the story line to even get access to world quest, fkin horrible

Shadowlands, you do the main storyline once, and then you don’t have to ever do it again, and can start doing endgame content at lv50, not 60. You call it a grind, but doing “vanilla leveling” that for you somehow isnt a grind, is just killing mobs in silithus and doing “kill X minions” quests until you get to lv58 then run out of quests and kill mobs forever, yey! fun!, diversity :smiley:

you’re not being objective at all, sorry, this post is wrong

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NGL I do kind of want to lvl an ally toon Nightfae to see if the part with Shandris and Tyrande is different. Bc I do remember Shandris making a comment about being a member of the Horde when I did the quests on this toon before switching to Kyrian.

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A lot of people preferred the Fjord, actually. So an option there.

2? I often did it with one.

Really? I usually got 3 levels out of Jade Forest if I rushed it. At which point you could go middle, south, or north to get to max level. Didn’t take long at all.

Of course, for Mop and Cata, the first time I ran through those areas when they weren’t the max expansion, so my experience may be off.

Not quite. You can do World Quests at level 50, not endgame content. You have no access to the Covenant storyline at all. Still, you get a leg up on Renown for when you do start the Covenant storyline.

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if it were to make a fair trade, then you should count vanilla endgame content, and you’ll realize there’s just PvP and 1 raid… that’s it, that’s all there is to it.

I’m talking about the story, not the endgame. There was dozens of way to get to raiding. Also, there wasn’t just “1 raid”, there were 4 (MC, BWL, AQ25 and AQ40) + Nax (moved to Wrath afterwards).

Wrath, the same, boring trundra, you forgot? you had to go there as that’s the starting point

Um, no, you had the choice to go to Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord (the boats and zepplins in each capital went to a starting zone).
Borean Tundra > Dragonblight > Scholazar or Howling Fjord > Grizzly Hills > Zuldrak were popular paths. You could even go from Howling Fjord to Dragonblight if you wanted. There was a lot of variety.

Cataclysm had zones for each level bracket, but also, only 5 levels dude, what’s the point? you could get to 85 with 2 zones only, when you have half the need to level up.

You could start in Hyjal or Vashj’ir without ever having to do the other one afterwards. I don’t know why you’re completely ignoring this very simple fact. Also, a lot of people were able to skip one zone and get to 85. I’ve had quite a few characters in Cata go from Hyjal to Uldum and hit 85 there (with a mix of dungeons and PvP), without needing to clear Deepholm or Twilight Highlands entirely.

MoP also had zones with marked level, desert of fear or something, wasn’t a zone you could enter at the start, you had to go through the designated zones over and over, playing on rails

I never said you could enter any zone at the start. MoP had multiple zones with the same level requirements. You could go from Jade Forest to Krarasang Wilds and skip Valley of the Four winds if you wanted. The overlap was pretty massive, a lot of zones you could access between level 86 and 89, without having to do all the content to get to 90.

WoD also had linear story progression, but very fast leveling, hence why WoD is big part of the route in speedruns

And you didn’t need to finish every single zone in a linear fashion either. You’re basically just showing how correct my deductions are at this point.

Legion also had Suramar level restricted, no flying like WoD and many story bits to complete before moving forward to each zone

Suramar was meant as an endgame hub. This isn’t what this thread is about. Again, you had the CHOICE at your class hall to select the zone you wanted to start with. Did you forget about the “Scouting map” quests?

BFA, you had to complete all the story line to even get access to world quest, fkin horrible

This has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

Shadowlands, you do the main storyline once, and then you don’t have to ever do it again

I’m sorry but you’re completely off track here. You basically said I was wrong (I wasn’t), and then you proceed to confirm what I just said in my original post: there is only one story for all classes and all factions. There is a lack of content and story and we don’t have any selection anymore. Everybody does the same linear storyline and we have no choice to branch out or start in a different zone, or skip one entirely.
Also, threads of fate doesn’t unlock endgame content at level 50. You can’t raid at level 50. I don’t understand what you’re talking about here.

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But you entered in boring tundra all the time, mandatory, you could go there, which was on the other side of the world, but you had to enter through zeppelin or boat to boring tundra

yeah well, you can I guess, the point was the levels needed were so minimal there really wasn’t much to do other than forcibly swap to experience more leveling in other areas if you liked, but could as well get all done on Hyjal

We played MoP almost 8 years ago, our experience might be off, but the idea remains, zones were level restricted, the illusion of choice was gated by higher level mobs being so hard to kill it was not worth trying, and having a linear pathway anyway.

you can get anima, that works for your covenant gear that you get once you reach lv60, that takes around 2 days at best, doing dungeons that each one gives a massive chunk of XP as well as appropiate ilvl for the level you’re on, and with bad scaling, you blast through dungeons super fast. For experience, my pala alt leveled with ToF and went from ilvl 140 to 180 in a couple of hours, just with the anima i had stored (over 2k) and world quest drops, also having lots of renown from the dungeon spam and covenant story once i reached 60. The only part you don’t get is the maw, aka, torghast and stygia, stygia is useless, just minmaxing stuff, and torghast can be done fairly easy with 140 once you reach 60, i did with boomie, both layers 8 with a party in an hour, got my ash ready for lego just like that.