Wishlist from an Unusual Player

[Silverleigh-drakthul]

I am also a solo player and these are my thoughts on your wishlist:

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

• Stop tying Profession leveling to quests, reputation, or other gates.

Yes, please. I am presently questing thru the Broken Isles and it is a frickin’ mess.

Or at least make the quests an optional side thing for RP and flavor.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

• Follower dungeons are great for completionists like me so please make it so all dungeons can be run with them but do allow players to build the party to what they like best and make it also like Followers in Legion where levelers can use them for party quests during Chromie Time.

Sounds great!

Would like it even more if I could use my followers from Draenor for both the follower dungeons and party quests.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

It would be even more fun if it used copies of alts with warbands and all but I know that is probably a programming nightmare.

This can be an option for folks who would want it but, personally, I would find having my characters running around without my hand at the tiller creepy.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

• Eliminate Mythic altogether.

I am assuming you mean Mythic plus.

While it has created a community of toxic tryhards, it has also given casual players an endgame progression path so…

… no.

It is an option and play options are always good because they can support and accommodate a variety of playstyles.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

I frankly do not get why anyone loves running the same dungeons with minute changes hundreds of times…

To have an easy (as in no mandatory social investment and little time investment) endgame progression path.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

…but keeping players inside instanced zones makes the world more empty and is the antithesis of what an MMO should be.

It is also the antithesis of what a RPG should be.

But, as players have prioritized convenience (which they mistakenly call Quality of Life, not understanding the nuance of the term) over the role-playing aspects of the game so that the majority of the game is now anti-RP, that that ship has sailed.

Also, you said you are a solo players so your playstyle is antithesis to a MMO. Glass houses and all that.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

• Lastly, stop with the endless dialog where my character is just standing around looking pretty.

Ah… you are another player who prioritizes convenience over RP.

That explains some of your takes.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

• Fix the XP gain to quest ratio in leveling zones. Either get rid of a ton of quests and condense the storyline of zones so players can complete all the zones in an expansion before reaching the newest expansion…

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

Content should NEVER be removed as it screws up the story and removes the ‘little stories’ that flesh out and flavor the World.

And, as a casual solo, that content is my game!

And frankly, I having difficulty believing you are a solo if you are willing to suggest your content be removed.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

… or reduce the XP gain and slow down leveling.

Then all the 'endgame is the real game ’ players would be crying.

A lot.

Better to leave it as is or give options for xp gains:
a) Explorer- original xp for each expansion (for those that want to experience the content)
b) Defender- xp for lvl 10 to present lvl is divided up per expansion (for those that want to experience an expansion in full)
c) Conqueror- present quick system (for those who want to barrel thru to endgame)

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

Right now just one zone gets you typically to 30 or more and that’s without doing any dungeons. Imagine being a new player and just starting to get attached to a place only to outlevel it and not finish the story you’re invested in.

There is a solution to that: freezing xp

I do it every time one of my characters is about to level out of using Chromie Time.

Better to add a quest, highlighting the existence of this option, that pops with the quest highlighting the existence of Chromie Time.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

• For other collectors out there, your time and effort should be rewarded and so I suggest a treasure buff for old content if you have run it a certain amount of times. Running ICC with 10 characters every week off and on for 10+ years with no stupid mount drop deserves some recognition. The buff should also mute NPC dialog and allow players to just do the fight.

This is an interesting idea.

I would make it a achievement for 100 solo runs with a reward toy that gives the characters the ability to teleport directly from the start of the instance to the end boss fight.

You can already mute NPC dialog in the audio section of your options in the game menu.

Do you mean all the RP aspects? If so, no, as some of it happens in the middle of fight and it would screw up the whole sequence of events.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

Those are the biggest wishes I have for the future. Thanks to anyone who took the time to read my long post and please share your thoughts.

Options are always better than blanket solutions.

[Opalunaiya-bleeding-hollow]

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

Stop tying Profession leveling to quests, reputation, or other gates. Leveling should be easy while getting rare patterns and other cool stuff should happen after max level to keep us interested just like back in Vanilla. DF Professions are the worst of any expansion.

This has always been a thing, even if not so much as now. Even in Classic I had to jump through hoops to get patterns while leveling.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

Fix the XP gain to quest ratio in leveling zones. Either get rid of a ton of quests and condense the storyline of zones so players can complete all the zones in an expansion before reaching the newest expansion or reduce the XP gain and slow down leveling. Right now just one zone gets you typically to 30 or more and that’s without doing any dungeons. Imagine being a new player and just starting to get attached to a place only to outlevel it and not finish the story you’re invested in.

I know they said they were making these changes to leveling when they implemented level scaling and chromie time so players would be able to complete zones. They lied. In my opinion, the game has never been designed around completing zones while leveling. Players have always had the option of moving from zone to zone. That’s why doing Loremaster is a major achievement.

You already have the ability to slow down your xp gain by shutting it off at will when you reach whatever level you want to do a zone at.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

For other collectors out there, your time and effort should be rewarded and so I suggest a treasure buff for old content if you have run it a certain amount of times. Running ICC with 10 characters every week off and on for 10+ years with no stupid mount drop deserves some recognition.

Bad luck protection of some sort should automatically kick in at some point.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

The buff should also mute NPC dialog and allow players to just do the fight.

Yes, there should be a way to skip RP and cutscenes you’ve seen before.

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

Lastly, stop with the endless dialog where my character is just standing around looking pretty. Cinematics are fine if they have a point but don’t bother with 15 second clips. If the NPCs are talking about something my character is actually included in, keep it concise because there’s nothing more annoying then waiting for the NPCs to finish talking before getting the next quest especially after you’ve heard it all before. It kills replay ability. Let players pick up the next quest and leave in the middle of the conversation if they want.

You mean like in the intro to Oribos, where the player turns in a quest to talk to somebody, who rambles for a moment and gives them a quest to talk to that guy right there, who rambles for a moment and gives them a quest to talk to that guy over there, and half the questgivers get stuck and unresponsive, so you have to run all the way to the other side to reset them?

[Silverleigh-drakthul]

I couldn’t deal with the artstyle.

I didn’t feel like I was in a fantastical world.

WoW has spoiled me in this regard.

[Fairlight-emerald-dream]

It does feel more low-fantasy to me, yeah

[Gnomenclatur-detheroc]

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

I’m a very unusual player of WoW from what I can tell

Nah, there is nothing in your post that seems unusual or weird. Seems like run-of-the-mill solo player stuff.

[Aerra-stormscale]

@Shareil-scarlet-crusade

Eliminate Mythic altogether. I frankly do not get why anyone loves running the same dungeons with minute changes hundreds of times but keeping players inside instanced zones makes the world more empty and is the antithesis of what an MMO should be. Having played in BC, I am all for a more challenging version for max level players with better loot but that is what Heroic was for.

This is the only piece that I think will be super controversial. I think all your other ideas are relatively popular though. Well not the slowing down xp, like someone else said maybe make it easier to stop xp for those that want to complete old content.

[Mungadai-area-52]

Not weird at all. Just very bad takes.

[Shareil-scarlet-crusade]

@Silverleigh-drakthul

I am assuming you mean Mythic plus.

While it has created a community of toxic tryhards, it has also given casual players an endgame progression path so…

… no.

It is an option and play options are always good because they can support and accommodate a variety of playstyles.

Okay, I can respect that though I don’t know many casuals who actually do mythics at all but that really lies in how we define casual now. Lots of players see themselves as casual but to a new player or a returnee from several years ago, even casual players are intense.

@Silverleigh-drakthul

Also, you said you are a solo players so your playstyle is antithesis to a MMO. Glass houses and all that.

Not exactly. MMO really just means a lot of players all playing in the same world together and interacting in various ways. People still buy stuff from me on the AH and I still help people with various things in game. If anything I am actually following more the RPG part where my characters aren’t controlled by metas and can have more personality because I don’t just use them as a means to an end. Unless I’m doing quick mount or mog runs, I am always somewhere to be found in the world. I also have always played on an RP server (by accident originally) so sharding shouldn’t be as big of an issue either. Playing solo doesn’t mean complete lack of interaction as you probably already know.

@Silverleigh-drakthul

Ah… you are another player who prioritizes convenience over RP.

That explains some of your takes.

Actually, I really like RP aspects of the story when it is done right. Unfortunately, DF is overkill. Especially on the first character I level up in an expansion, I am bound to miss a lot of info so I’m typically fine just leveling up quickly so I can more freely explore the zones. I listen more when I play alts. Still, SL and DF have way too many long conversations that my character isn’t even involved in. It’s awkward from an RP perspective for my character to just be watching two characters argue or being included in plans that my character really hasn’t done much to deserve being included on.

@Silverleigh-drakthul

Content should NEVER be removed as it screws up the story and removes the ‘little stories’ that flesh out and flavor the World.

And, as a casual solo, that content is my game!

And frankly, I having difficulty believing you are a solo if you are willing to suggest your content be removed.

I can support not removing the quests. It’s not something I like either but Blizzard does plenty of stuff regarding old content that I don’t like anyways. Dreading what is going to happen to the zones that are the focus for the next few expansions.

@Silverleigh-drakthul

Better to leave it as is or give options for xp gains:
a) Explorer- original xp for each expansion (for those that want to experience the content)
b) Defender- xp for lvl 10 to present lvl is divided up per expansion (for those that want to experience an expansion in full)
c) Conqueror- present quick system (for those who want to barrel thru to endgame)

I like this. I’ll support having a variety of modes. Can we add a soloing mode anytime we leave major cities as well?

@Silverleigh-drakthul

There is a solution to that: freezing xp

I do it every time one of my characters is about to level out of using Chromie Time.

Better to add a quest, highlighting the existence of this option, that pops with the quest highlighting the existence of Chromie Time.

I admit, I just came back a few months ago and did not know about this. Still, if I am questing in a starting area at a high level, it does throw off the feel.

@Silverleigh-drakthul

I would make it a achievement for 100 solo runs with a reward toy that gives the characters the ability to teleport directly from the start of the instance to the end boss fight.

You can already mute NPC dialog in the audio section of your options in the game menu.

Do you mean all the RP aspects? If so, no, as some of it happens in the middle of fight and it would screw up the whole sequence of events.

I like the achievement idea but it should be 100 runs of that specific instance and teleporters for various parts of the instance should be available at the start just like the scroll in SoO but with more options for mog runs.

You can mute the dialog but they still have it and it still takes time for them to go through it so I am recommending after getting the buff and proving you know that story well enough that you don’t need to sit through it all anymore. I think several people could survive never hearing Kael’Thas rambling or having to do the awkward phase changes for Garrosh 100+ times. The buff could also be an indefinite fix for one-shot mechanics and mechanics that prevent players from killing a very killable boss.

@Silverleigh-drakthul

Options are always better than blanket solutions.

You’re right and I should’ve chosen my wording better. I’ve had a lot of things I loved removed from the game over the years and so I am used to it. If someone had instead suggested those things still be optional, I would be very happy.