The Nixxiom video talks about the problems with modern MMORPG game design where leveling is an afterthought / chore that needs to be done to reach a better point in the game. Something that has never been right and probably one of the reasons so many people drop off so quickly when playing the game.
In short the problem is there is no sense of engagement. Nothing specifically to lose, nothing to gain. Everything feels like wallpaper in the world.
Then you find this player made theme for Classic which is basically hardcore Classic. Now all of a sudden there is loss potential. Enormous loss potential which makes the gains more remarkable and engagement is much more important.
Iâve known this for years having played many games hardcore mode. Terraria and Subnautica are two that come to mind. Itâs one of the easiest ways to raise engagement. Itâs not for everyone of course.
But there are other ways. Reducing item bloat would make what is found more interesting. Reducing enemy bloat would make what is found more engaging. Adding a mythic level world difficulty would make things more engaging as well. Just some random thoughts Iâve provided input on before which got triggered when I saw this.
I like leveling, and I would probably enjoy a torment Diablo three esque version of the world.
But then again, a lot of people do not want to be stuck in the leveling grind. They would rather get to the max level and then do all the dungeons, raids and events.
Best you can get as a mix of both. I do like how other MMOâs take advantage of the open world being equally a challenge.
If, and only if it makes the zones feel more alive. The problem I have with classic now is that the open world is totally and utterly dead and the mobs are designed for group play.
Then you come to retail and you can solo most of the old world leveling in Chromie time. Which kind of makes the whole challenge gone but at the same time you can go to your own pace, so itâs a weird mix of love and hate.
there is a reason why the games you mentioned are mostly single player sandbox games and not MMoâs or anything like that.
leveling might be fun for you but it was been a major grip with the comunnity, long leveling feels awful generally speaking thats not what the players want.
samething with the items, there are a lot items because players want a lot way to gear up, nobody wants to farm world every day for months to get their bis.
Kill 1 mob drink and eat to recover
kill 1 mob again rinse n repeat
pull 2 mobs and dead. Runback to corpse eat n drink.
Yeah that aint fun.
Hardcore leveling is just a fad the streamers are doing to get hits n clicks.
Its a boring grindy way to level.
Saying classic WOW isnt grindy or boring to level discredits him 100%.
What was fun about classic WOW leveling was getting into a group to level as a team.
The social side of it was fun.
A symptom of a bigger design problem for WoW in general. The original team came from EverQuest 1 and had major gripes over competing for world bosses. So they implemented a self-serving instance design where nobody would compete for those important kills.
The unfortunate side effect to this now is what you state. Everyone disappears into the instanced mode away from the world which makes new players feel like theyâre in a ghost town.
I feel you man. Iâve been kinda having a crisis recently because I had that annoying itch to play an MMO again, then I installed WoW, leveled through the extremely unfulfilling and challange free leveling of retail, got to 70 and got hit with that despair of âOh god⌠I donât enjoy the end game anymore! Why did I even bother to level??â.
Safe to say, havenât been feeling really motivated to do anything further on this character. So I decided to just do the equivalent of a detox and try to make a character and get all Alliance loremaster on him, lock my level at 58(or 59, canât recall) to stay in Chromie time and do things in chronological order. Donât know for how long will it last but Iâll try at least, maybe do some RP on the side to keep things fresh.
This is one of my biggest issue with WoW to me, the more end game focused it became the more Blizzard abandoned the RPG elements, minor incoveniences removed so people could rush and get those dopamine hits from the gear treadmill. The trivialization of leveling was itâs most severe sins if you ask me. They didnât even bother to add a âJourney Modeâ for those that want a slower and harder leveling, just made everything so brain dead the majority of players quit because all their friends keep telling them âDonât worry man, itâs super fun at max levelâ. To this day I havenât managed to convince a single friend to try out Retail but convinced even my FPS and MOBA only friend to level up in Classic when it came out.
I donât expect Blizzard to ever bother, but man, I hope they rethink their philosophy on Leveling one day.
Meh. The whole thing with the hardcore server is that youâre a nervous wreck the entire time due to the massive risk youâre taking whenever you step foot outside a capital city. Far more so on a pvp server or if dare to enter a raid or dungeon.
I get the appealâŚfor a little while. But I imagine it just gets exhausting after a while due to the heightened tension youâre always under. And thatâs without mentioning the death by stupid accident situation like fall damage etc.
Fun for a visit. But I wouldnât want to live there.
Never camped mobs for epic item pieces in EQ, did you. Waiting 2 months for a chance to kill a mob that might drop a rare item because there is a waiting list controlled by the top 3 guilds on the server was not what I would call âfunâ.
If you think about it, dungeons used to be in the state leveling is now.
Once you had sufficient ilvl, you never stepped foot in a heroic. Why would I want these dungeon blues? Even LFR heroes are wearing better stuff.
Then Mythic+ came along and made dungeons into an actual endgame.
Maybe itâs time for âMythic Levelingâ to do the same for what ostensibly is the main thing thatâs supposed to be putting the âRPGâ in âMMORPGâ
