This game does not feel inviting for new young players

Community General Discussion
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If one has basic internet usage skills (something shockingly rare based on the posts on these forums, apparently) then WoW isn’t difficult at all to navigate or learn.

Some folks would rather pout in a corner or throw a tantrum than type a question into google though…

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My meaning there is the opposite, I feel like the two parts of the game are too isolated from each other.

Alright, so, I think I understand what you are wanting to express here, the problem is that its a battle that was lost a looong time ago, and developers have moved on from a number of the integration methods you would probably find to be interesting.

Classic Quests in dungeons generally ran into 3 categories: Unlock, Class Advancement, and Story Chains. To unlock a boss in Zul'Farrak you had to gather components from half a world away, or gather components in the world to get access to your class mount which culminated in the dungeon, or complete a multi-step chain requiring random drops across fifty different runs of the same dungeon. Immediately there was pushback regarding tying player power to quests that slowed the group down or required special runs to try and get, so player power was consolidated into books that would drop, which would eventually fizzle into all class mechanics/rewards not requiring further unlocks other than questing or principally activities which did not require a group to complete (Exception of raid legendaries). A recent example of somebody having to learn this lesson again was the Warlock Tank Spec Rune in SOD, which initially locked an entire spec design behind the first raid and was quickly changed to not require said raid. Also see pushback against dungeon requirements to unlock Allied Races.

TBC The game then went hard-mode into locking things behind other things. Raids had to be done in a certain order, and most of the level cap dungeons had a key, hence the call for 'Key Rings' (Steam Vaults, Shattered Halls, Arcatraz all required a quest chain and key to unlock the door, though generally one person could complete and unlock the barrier for anyone else). This got some HARD pushback, and we haven't had a dungeon or raid locked behind a door with more than 1-2 de minimis requirements since.

Wrath/Mists - This left Story Integration for dungeons, which was pretty much killed off in Wrath and finished off in Mists with the introduction of Scenarios (and finished off in Warlords). This was an accessibility change over time rather than a backlash event, as everything that was done in a dungeon could now be done in a separate scenario that did not require completing the dungeon and escorting the NPC around, or the presence of other people. The last separate multi-step questline I remember involving completing a dungeon in full was the Noodle Cart quests in Mists (One of the final steps involved beating an optional/unlocked boss in Temple of the Jade Serpent). Additionally, these expansions were the beginning of the nonlinear storytelling expansions, where players could start the expansion at a couple of different locations (Wrath) or branch out from the linear start to tackle the myriad stories (Mists). This came crashing to a halt after pushback in BFA of not having a cohesive story, which resulted in Shadowlands and Dragonflight having a linear campaign (Which opens up after first completion).

Additionally, the integration of linear end-game was dispelled after Mists, as it was originally designed to have players complete a singular reputation (Golden Lotus) to then unlock the ability to do end-game rep grinds and stories in other places. That was the last time we saw a gatekeeping rep used.

Additionally, the addition of Dungeon Finder made it more difficult to justify locking dungeons. There was, at one point (and I genuinely cannot remember when the change occurred or if it was a short lived experiment), a requirement of completing the zone storyline up to a certain point to unlock a dungeon in Dungeonfinder. The problem was that players would refrain from unlocking anything but the shortest dungeon with the highest reward, and proceed to use the system to grind that dungeon alone. The Mechanaar effect.


Cataclysm Cataclysm kicked back on this trend slightly with the introduction of the story development method Akston is referring to, integrating the bosses and story into the surrounding zone, with the capstone zone quest being the defeat of the big bad of a dungeon (which was killed as a requirement after pushback from Legion/Shadowlands, now its optional for completion of a zone). This was in response to dungeons being too separate from the zones they were in, with Random Encounter Table levels of shenanigans in regards to what we were fighting. Bosses and storylines would from this point on come out of their dungeon, sneer and twirl their mustaches, then wander back in so we had an idea as to what we were going to fight.

Conclusion to the History Lesson Because of the experiments in nonlinear storytelling (being able to choose a zone to complete rather than having a set story path) it is difficult to create a cohesive grand narrative for WoW. Every player's experience can be and potentially is different, depending on what they tackle. That's a feature, and prior attempts to 'integrate' dungeons and raids at the levels you appear to want have been replaced with player preferred nonlinear approaches. Shadowlands and Dragonflight are the exception, with hard-linear campaign experiences when done for the first time. I would personally love to see the return of 'some' of the integration mechanics they used to have, but used sparingly and delicately. Otherwise, I would love to get a better idea what you would see as appropriate integration that isn't a FF14 linear progression method (cannot complete MSQ without doing X,Y,Z).

TLDR: It has all (/sarcasm) been tried and discarded before, but if you have new ideas how to further integrate various story elements, speak up!

They have begun putting ‘Who in the world is this person?’ dialogue prompts in some circumstances, like with the Retaking of Gilneas, and they did have in-game backstory dumps in Mists with the Lorekeepers. Perhaps something like that in more parts of the game would help?

That being said, the irony and perhaps disheartening nature of having somebody regale you with multiple paragraphs of design history for the game where the complaint is that it is not new player friendly is not lost on me.

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284

Most of the people I play WoW with are mid to late 20s. Me? I’m a dinosaur now.

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Wow is inviting to new players.

The player base is not.

Why people that play games for a long time think anyone can just jump on and play at their level think that way is beyond me.

The majority of them couldn’t tie their shoes till 20. But expect people to be able to walk into a mythic 20+ and be the best ever.

These same people probably had to wait multiple xpacs for the better players to leave finally to become the so called top players. Which most are still horrible players.

And that’s just their playing of the game. Their social skills went out the window after birth I think.

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287

Convoluted and complex are the same thing…

And wow isn’t hard to learn to play. Even without all the sites and all the outer 3rd party stuff out there.

The learning curve to do the mass majority of content in wow is minimal for the majority of classes and specs.

To become top 1%. Sure there is a little learning curve. Still not much. That takes more time than actual skills…

The main way to learn to play wow is…READ.

Read you spells. Read the talents. Read the glyphs. Read the buffs. Use some common sense and put two and two together…if this spell does damage and gets an increase from another spell you use first. Then you use the other first then the second one. That’s how you make a rotation…

After that everything is easy to learn.

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I didn’t comment to argue, but will only say this…convoluted means difficult to follow… and complex means a lot to follow.

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they can

which is what i said if you weren’t singling things out to disagree with on the forums

but that’s exactly what it is, you /simc and paste the garble of text in the website then sit in a queue until your results come up so you can make a decision.

Maybe not as active as they once were, but they are still the thing that they were. Wow distinctly is not the same thing it was 5, 10, or 15 years ago.

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The meaning of convoluted…extremely complex and difficult to follow…it means complex and hard to follow. Not one or the other. Both.

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I’m 21 and I’ve been playing since MoP. Just get gud.

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You’ll notice, that you replied to me first in order to argue against my point. Methinks thou protests too much

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On different guilds across several servers - I have only encountered this a few times - most guilds that indicate social/casual/leveling tend to be very helpful and inclusive of players at all levels of familiarity of the game into groups - my alts with little to no recorded achievements jump into preformed groups and see all sorts of content. YMMV - I hope you continue to play and enjoy the game - there are a myriad of things to enjoy and some really great people to meet and play with - new or old - welcome to Wow :sunglasses:

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I protest your tactic of lying about what I actually said. It’s a deplorable thing to do in a discussion. I’ve been nothing but honest with you, and I did not treat you poorly. I especially didn’t lie about what you said in order to attack your character as you’ve done to me.

Calm down and reset for your own ease, reflect on why you immediately went into attack mode with me, then maybe you can think about apologizing to me for the rudeness of your replies.

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That’s fair. My point was that a lot of us were hooked early enough, and that it seems like the older the player, the likelier they are to weather the storm with something they spent money on before tossing it aside.

Not everyone of course. But it does seem like moving around from new thing to new thing is less appealing to folks in their late 30s+. That demographic seems like it’s looking to settle with comfort more often. MMOs kinda hit that vibe. The one you choose is familiar, it’s usually reliable. It’s appealing to people who aren’t chasing the new entertainment dragon.

The difference between generations is that the older ones really never had that dragon to chase at an impressionable age.

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Says 21 years old.
Recommends twitter to communicate.
Says to block those that disagree with you.

Checks out.

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297

Alright alright, calm down. We’re not all THAT old. I’m down with it.

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Me, to no one in particular: The issue is people treat new players poorly instead of either providing the information needed, or properly guiding them to the resources containing said information as well as information on anything else they may wish to know

You, specifically to me: Then they aren’t smart enough to just look it up and want their hand held call me whatever you want

Me, in response: Ok, then you’re the problem

You: Bro why you bullying me bro?!

Mmmmmhm

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I’ve been playing since Cataclysm when I was 11-12 years old, I’m 25 now. The majority of WoW’s player base may be old farts but there’s… a few of us that have been playing for over a decade that are not old.

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Are you not aware of the Newcomer Chat system? As a Guide on many of my characters, I can tell you that new players are being given help constantly across the game day.

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I am not, no, and I can only assume it’s about as useful as the Novice Network in FF14 (that is to say, not at all)

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clicking a few boxes to select talents, is not a time gate.

who are “they”?