World of Warcraft: Current Year

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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The whole point of the change was for new players not existing ones RAF'ing themselves. The old world leveling had become such a joke that you leveled so rapidly it did almost nothing in showing you how to actually play your class and for new players the whole experience until you started slowing down near max level felt really fucking weird and bad. As much as they cater to existing customers they also need to make sure they are still attractive to new customers and the old leveling system while fast and easy for people who have done it a lot was really not very fun for people just being introduced to the game.

The changes did nothing to help new players "learn how to play". The class trials accomplish that just fine and new players get a free boost to 110 anyway. So what exactly does the leveling change accomplish for new players? There are so few abilities for most classes these days that you don't need very much time with a class to learn how to play it properly. Leveling was fine as it was for every player, new or old. The scaling world was a great change because you could do entire zones without things going grey except they also made it so you get such little exp that you wouldn't outlevel zones even without scaling now.

I cannot even imagine how brutally slow leveling is now without heirlooms because even with every heirloom (including the dread pirate ring) giving 55% bonus exp it is absolutely, unbearably slow.

The changes are indefensible. What exactly is a new player learning about their class while they press the same 3 buttons over and over again for 100 levels? This game is not complicated. Why are we pretending it is and using that to apologize for Blizzard and their shitty, profit driven leveling change decision? I mean, why the fuck can't we get a pre-patch event that has experience perks and benefits? The Legion pre-patch event was one of the best events they've ever put in the game. So because people loved it we should take it away because it's not good for the game? What kind of backwards ass logic is that?
 
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kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
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That is fine and dandy, but it is blatantly not true.

They capped maximum bonus XP at +50%. Heirlooms can already put you at +55%.

They also removed the XP bonus potions that dropped from various places. (Examples 1, 2 - The one they left is pitiful 3).

So do not tell me they did it just to make the experience better for new people. New players did not have access to those potions, which regularly sold for 15-20k, if not more.

They flat did it to artificially increase playtime for people leveling their Allied Races, particularly as there are at least four (Mag'har/Dark Iron, Zandalari/Kul`Tiran) more of them coming through the life of the expansion, if not more.


Those changes are also to help new players by making older players playing alts actually be in those zones so they look alive and not like ghost towns. I won't lie my pandarian monk after I got high enough to do dungeons never left stormwind until max level. I just specced BRM guzzled my potions had my heirloom shit on and hit max level in a day. My pandarian monk never even stepped foot in pandaria after the initial wandering isle shit. I was not the only one doing that because it was one of the fastest ways to level especially if you had a tank or healer spec option. But get enough established players basically opting out of leveling content and new players come in see nobody around while questing and nobody to talk to or ask question figure the game is dead and cancel and go elsewhere.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Those changes are also to help new players by making older players playing alts actually be in those zones so they look alive and not like ghost towns. I won't lie my pandarian monk after I got high enough to do dungeons never left stormwind until max level. I just specced BRM guzzled my potions had my heirloom shit on and hit max level in a day. My pandarian monk never even stepped foot in pandaria after the initial wandering isle shit. I was not the only one doing that because it was one of the fastest ways to level especially if you had a tank or healer spec option. But get enough established players basically opting out of leveling content and new players come in see nobody around while questing and nobody to talk to or ask question figure the game is dead and cancel and go elsewhere.

I don't think you understand the effect this has. Instead of existing players taking alts through older content they are literally ignoring it. Players are saying "Fuck this" and not leveling alts at all. Not in dungeons, not in the open world. People don't typically do things they dislike unless they are quick and painless. Make something tedious, long and boring and they will stop doing it altogether. This helps no one.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
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The changes did nothing to help new players "learn how to play". The class trials accomplish that just fine and new players get a free boost to 110 anyway. So what exactly does the leveling change accomplish for new players? There are so few abilities for most classes these days that you don't need very much time with a class to learn how to play it properly. Leveling was fine as it was for every player, new or old. The scaling world was a great change because you could do entire zones without things going grey except they also made it so you get such little exp that you wouldn't outlevel zones even without scaling now.

I cannot even imagine how brutally slow leveling is now without heirlooms because even with every heirloom (including the dread pirate ring) giving 55% bonus exp it is absolutely, unbearably slow.

The changes are indefensible. What exactly is a new player learning about their class while they press the same 3 buttons over and over again for 100 levels? This game is not complicated. Why are we pretending it is and using that to apologize for Blizzard and their shitty, profit driven leveling change decision? I mean, why the fuck can't we get a pre-patch event that has experience perks and benefits? The Legion pre-patch event was one of the best events they've ever put in the game. So because people loved it we should take it away because it's not good for the game? What kind of backwards ass logic is that?

Prior to the changes up till close to 60 most things were dying to one swing of your weapon and until about 40 your weakest instant casts were basically one shotting things. You basically never used anything more than your fast tapping shit because it was the only thing you could get off before stuff died. The mobs having more HP at least make you do your rotation at least once to actually feel like you are doing something. Sure this slows it down for experienced players but it was fucking silly as shit how fast things died before.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
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I don't think you understand the effect this has. Instead of existing players taking alts through older content they are literally ignoring it. Players are saying "Fuck this" and not leveling alts at all. Not in dungeons, not in the open world. People don't typically do things they dislike unless they are quick and painless. Make something tedious, long and boring and they will stop doing it. This helps no one.

Given the amount of people I see sporting heirloom armor and them adding more and more allied races there pretty clearly are older players playing through all the old content up to max levels. This is one of the reason they are doing the allied races like they are and giving a carrot to play them all the way up and not just race change.
 

Rime

<Donor>
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...sitting in town and chain running dungeons is still an option, particularly if you are a tank or a healer. So you have no point there. It still takes more time.

And everything out there is nerfed to be able to be soloed, until you get into current content. There is no magical grouping up of experienced players mentoring newbies, outside of very isolated, rare incidents.
 

Rime

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And sharding already accomplished your 'make the world feel alive'.

This is all just smoke and mirrors. 90% of the servers are DEAD. Trying to force people out into the world makes them resent the company, not enjoy the experience, particularly when it is a huge slog. I know maybe five people, out of the 58 on my friends list, who have bothered to do the Heirloom Armor grind. The others just race changed if they felt like it and said 'oh well' to missing out.

Blizzard is playing with things to try and keep people subscribed, as they know that once any new content dries up, they drop half of their subscribers. This is not the way to do it.

Merge servers. Continue the Suramar/Legion style Major-Story-Major-Story patches. Those are good for the game.
 
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Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Prior to the changes up till close to 60 most things were dying to one swing of your weapon and until about 40 your weakest instant casts were basically one shotting things. You basically never used anything more than your fast tapping shit because it was the only thing you could get off before stuff died. The mobs having more HP at least make you do your rotation at least once to actually feel like you are doing something. Sure this slows it down for experienced players but it was fucking silly as shit how fast things died before.

You can still pretty much global every quest mob you run into. You are wrong. and honestly I don't even know why you're defending it.

How many characters have you leveled from scratch since the changes?

Given the amount of people I see sporting heirloom armor and them adding more and more allied races there pretty clearly are older players playing through all the old content up to max levels. This is one of the reason they are doing the allied races like they are and giving a carrot to play them all the way up and not just race change.

Yea, more players than ever are leveling. The people complaining about it are clearly the minority here. All the characters I won't be leveling are in full heirlooms too. That's interesting though. You just run around in vanilla content scoping out the scene seeing how alive the game feels with your max level characters? "Bros I was just out in desolace and my god, the leveling changes are working. You've never seen so many herod's shoulders in your life"
 
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Rime

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The Blizzard that did things for the 'good' of the game is long gone. It is all about player retention statistics and maximizing their recurring subscription models.

Overwatch is their prize pony, with Hearthstone the runner up. Warcraft is the old cow they keep around because it produces a steady, if not stellar amount of revenue. Diablo 3 is the old goat that eats the garbage, so they let it live. Starcraft 2 was sent to the glue factory.

And if you think otherwise, a 'special promotion' to buy 6-Months of Gametime and get a FREE PRIZE was recently datamined. Expect that around December/January.

EDIT: And by no means am I a 'WoW Hater'. I have been subscribed since TBC launch (with a few months off during Cata for health reasons). I enjoy the game. I play it most days. I just do not agree with the way the company has been doing things since Warlords.
 
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Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Well they increased the amount of exp needed to go from 1-60 by 60%. They increased mob HP. They nerfed heirloom stats. I don't know why they needed to do all 3 of those things. The increased mob HP doesn't make much of a difference in the open world but it's painful in dungeons.

This is basically how I feel about leveling new characters now:

 
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kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
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...sitting in town and chain running dungeons is still an option, particularly if you are a tank or a healer. So you have no point there. It still takes more time.

And everything out there is nerfed to be able to be soloed, until you get into current content. There is no magical grouping up of experienced players mentoring newbies, outside of very isolated, rare incidents.

You can but whereas before it was the fastest route to leveling now questing while throwing some dungeons in to make sure you do every one at least once is better and faster.
 

BoozeCube

The Wokest
<Prior Amod>
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Still who the fuck cares about the leveling, fast, slow, new, old, the only thing people want is for it to be fucking over as soon as possible. If anything Blizzard should do an expac without adding new levels since they go apeshit retarded with ilvl anyways. The slog to max level sucks dick. The stories and quest zones in Legion were awesome the first time, then every other time they sucked did.

Who leveled up through the new system and was like holy shit I got to quest in STV holy shit that was awesome as balls. Fucking nobody that's who. Who made an alt because they wanted to do a zones questline again tucking nobody.

People make alts to run dungeons and raids and shit with alternate characters not to slog out rep grinds like cunts.
 
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xzi

Mouthbreather
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I don't know why you keep coming back to this. Shit still dies stupidly fast in the open world, except now you get like 1/3rd the exp. Watch the exp you get for kills next time you level a character. You get about 170-180 exp per kill with full heirloom at level ~35 and it scales all the way to a whopping 190-200 by the time you get to level 70... except you need way more exp to level up by then. It takes fucking forever to get through 14 year old content for no good reason at all.

There is nothing interesting about the lower level game, some classes don't even get their interrupts or any interesting skills until they are in their 50s. Fuck, balance druids don't get their silence until level 80. Dungeons absolutely suck because lower level characters have about 3 buttons they can press and literally can't even do anything about shit that's happening in certain situations at lower levels. None of this was good. It was a short sighted knee-jerk "fix" to keep people from being able to level their allied race characters in a day or two. It's just another artificial, unintelligent time sink.

This whole "Oh if it takes longer it must mean it's more interesting!" shit needs to die. Levelling new characters absolutely sucks now. From 40-60 you will get, on average, 2-3 levels per zone. An entire zone's worth of quests in vanilla will only give you 2-3 levels in full heirlooms.

I didn't read your post except the last part but I mentioned in 2 other posts that it's not more interesting now either. I agree leveling sucks, but it's literally never been good and never will be
 

xzi

Mouthbreather
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I can't wait to get the same relic 3 times from the exact same chest
 
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kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
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well ironically relics are still pretty handy until we start getting weapons that out ilevel the artifact. Once the artifact gets disabled the only thing that really matters for it is raw relic Ilevel. You will probably be using the relic till 115 or so depending on your luck in dungeons.