do you think there’s too much focus on endgame? i think this is a big problem with wow currently it’s such a big game and we have so much there but it is just forgotten like just for and example what if deadmines dungeon was made more relevant again rather than just the first dungeon you queue in to power level.
i would even say it would be a better idea to make all the old stuff more relevant than to make new content right now
So basically, They focus a lot more on the leveling experience than ever before.
The only reason you felt like it was better in vanilla and earlier expansions was that for the most part, you had choice on where you go and what you did in the zone (as dictated by the power creep of monsters who would detour you from overextending)
Now the campaign is a scaled, on rails, experience that lets you pick 4 defining choices and then dumps you onto the cart and says have at it. You blow through it faster, because of the linear theme park type design, and it feels shorter. Even though more effort is put into the voice acting, the pacing, and the flow of the story. It feels cheapened.
By contrast to WOTLK, which I like to cite, you tended to get one big intro hub, and then get 3-4 breadcrumbs that would send you on even further branching arcs that felt like you chose to do so.
But, to answer your question in short. No, they don’t focus too much on endgame. Its all we have now, especially now that its so much easier to progress and gear a character with the world quest systems and various loot acquisition methods.
So why can’t we, for the next expansion, remove the scaling and return to the Vanilla/BC leveling experience? They could make the quests more difficult again because you could outlevel them if you needed the content to be easier, and all the people who buy the expansion just to run through the quests then leave until the next expansion would stick around for an extra month or two, providing extra revenue to support the game.
The game is designed this way. The devs don’t want you having too much fun in old expansions because then you might not buy the new one.
Theres no reason they couldn’t. It comes down to their philosophy on how they want to approach the games story and progression of content. Itemization has been their demon to grapple with for some time. And many systems in the past that people liked, they view as total failures (IE: bades of valor)
Fun is subjective, and unfortunately it seems many players have different ideas of fun. And blizzard has unfortunately been trying to please everyone at the same time, pleasing very few in the process.
its not even a classic is better kinda thing it’s more about restoring the mmo experience
Yes. This has been a problem with WoW for a while. Getting to the current expansion content has always been their top priority, and old content falls by the wayside. There are times they remedy this, I.E oldworld revamp (If you consider that working on old content since it was technically Cata content, depends on your point of view), and level scaling on the whole world.
Obviously Blizzard can’t go back and revamp every single old world content and make it appealing all the time, however they can set some things up, like new quest areas, having the old quest givers give out newer looking armor/weapon pieces so they don’t look like garbage anymore, or even going back to the oldworld and repairing glitches in it.
A prime example of this would be Gilneas. Gilneas is an amazing starting zone, and when it came out was my favorite zone in cata. However, if you go there now, it’s rather disgraceful how glitched it is. I get it happens, but it’s been like that for years now. Doing the battle for Gilneas is basically a roll of the dice on if it works, and even if it does, it’s not like how it used to be. I mean Liam dying will always look stupid, given that Sylvanas takes half an hour to line up her shot and Liam literally looks like he walked in front of his dad and had a heart attack. But still, the entirety of the battle was rather amazing.
Big things added to the old world would be nice, but is unrealistic sadly. Small things like the stuff I listed above would be nice, to make the leveling up process feel less like a hassle/a chore to get to current content.
i just seen Wintergrasp is RETURNING its a small step of what i’m talking about and hope to see more of this
Removing old quests and instances for cataclysm did a lot of damage to the game. Additions, options, are what we should have had. Og dead mines and the new one. Old quests and the new ones.
I see a lot of people talk about leveling taking too long. That they want to get to endgame. It’s nice to see the other side of the coin, but there’s definitely some conditioning at the very least to burn through the questing and low level content fairly quickly. And once people are in endgame, they don’t seem to wish to return to older things unless the reward for them doing so is there.
Agreed. Would have been better if they phased the changed zones to give you the option of playing pre or post cata. Not sure if that was a monumentally difficult task or not, but it would have been better than just butchering the landscape.
Really just depends on how you define relevant. I personally see all content relevant regardless of how old the content is.
If you’re asking for yet another revamp of zones like in Cata-- gonna have to hit you with a hard no. We lost more content than we gained.
If you’re talking Phase revamp that starts a certain level and we keep Timewalkers to turn back time-- I’ll give you a yes.
The journey isn’t about getting to the end asap.
I really feel like a lot of the these request really aren’t about the journey-- it’s about leveling in old content that isn’t BfA because you’re already bored of it and you want old content to reward level appropriate XP.
You openly have the choice to chase the end game or not. But if you want old content to reward appropriate XP-- You’re still chasing the end game.
I think that there is too little focus on balancing and making the early/leveling game interesting. As someone who has been playing for a little over a year I feel there is a lot of game world out there just being ignored. I think it feels like most mobs may as well be the same mob - given how rare a unique ability is, and many unique and interesting challenges from older content have been removed.
I would love to see the whole game world alive and engaging, yes, but not at the expense of new content. If they could do both, great!!
I don’t agree with this.
I would like to see little bits restored - like…
Don’t expect any of it to happen, but would love to see it.
I agree with your premise but disagree with your final statement. All we have left is endgame BECAUSE Blizzard seems to only really care about endgame.
I am not asking for a revamp to the whole leveling experience - I know it will not happen. I am also not asking for slowing down the exp through old zones many of us have done 30-40 times (I know I have).
How about taking the leveling experience of a new x-pac and doubling or tripling the exp required to get to max level?
Remove the rails and force some grinding?
Make it so most of the player base hasnt finished the content of a new xpac withing 1-2 weeks and has nothing left but focusing on WQ, WF, IEs, Dungeons and ilevel so they could raid?
How about max level zones designed for players that hit max level but continue the story? You know like Shadowmoon Valley or Icecrown?
I play MMORPGs to level characters. See them grow in power and abilities. Maybe get some cool looking transmogs to dress them in. To me, Dungeons and raids have replaced the leveling game and turned mmoRPGs into MMOrpgs or even MMOAs.
So yeah I agree Blizzard focuses way too much on end game to the detriment of the game overall.
Uh, they just attempted to make all old content better by scaling it. There just isn’t much more they can realistically do.
If they made every prior dungeon relevant at end game, then we wouldn’t be able to form groups to do content with just too many options out there. It’s a struggle, for example, to get a mid-level King’s Rest dungeon now, imagine if there were 40 other options? Egads.
I think the scaling helps with making the old world stay at least semi-relevant longer.
The problem is every system in the game while leveling is designed to get you to end game. If you have heirlooms, even gearing is meaningless during the process. You’re just increasing the level number.
There needs to be more to do while leveling. Gear meaning nothing means that’s out. Mounts? More pets? Transmogs? Meaningful professions to work on?
What made vanilla feel better was not only were you gearing, you were likely also working on other things that still progressed your character somehow. Maybe professions or class professions (leveling lockpicking as a rogue or chasing down a pet with abilities you needed to learn as a hunter). There were rare mobs that were actually rare and hit like trucks. You could be finding exotic recipes. None of these things exist in the game in its current state.
I’m glad that WoW has a big focus on end game systems, because not having an end game is the worst. Take SW:TOR for example: the leveling experience, the story telling, most everything is world class (except class mechanics which have suffered major spell bloat) - and then you get to end game and . . . really not much to do.
To me, these are the RPG elements that were lost in order to make the push to end game easier.
I liked having armorsmiths and weapon smiths.
I liked having Leatherworking specializations all 3 of them.
I liked hunting down and taming rare pets for abilities.
I hated the fact you had to go into Uldamon to train Enchanting. But at least it gave a reason to run the dungeons.
In Cataclysm they spent a lot of resources updating the world, old quests and 15-60 dungeons.
The result was… some people were happy with it but there was a lot of complaining about emphasis being taken out of end game and resources being put into lower level content. IIRC Blizzard admitted they thought it was an issue and ever since they have thrown most of the focus into end game content.
