Literally, You are not prepared!

[Keoren]

Well, I think class related dailies like for the monk are a good start to introduce and teach you your class abilities. They could even be a tad more unforgiving than they are now and they could be more varied.

I agree with class quests being a good way to teach the players various mechanics. I have not done the monk quests so I can't comment on that.

I am sure people will come up with suggestions how to introduce incentives to get better already at lower levels, they just really shouldn't be cockblocks.

I already mentioned the optional elite mobs on the previous page. I think that those could serve as one form of challenge at low levels. For example, Elwynn Forest could have a rare bear roaming around. It could have a frontal cone attack with an animation that you need to move out of, and on the first time killing it you would get an "Experienced Bear Hunter" buff that grants you +10% experience within Elwynn Forest for one hour.

Simple things like that could bring various new mechanics to the low levels in an interesting and soloable way, while also keeping them completely optional.

[Geminiel]

While yes, your proposal is ideal, it will never work in practice. Why? Because classes aren't equal to each other at low levels. They would have to balance each mob around the weakest class, without heirlooms, which would make it very easy for other classes.

To be honest I would never want heirlooms to be a factor in low level challenging content, that would defeat the purpose entirely. As for balancing at low levels i do understand there is a challenge in overcoming that but the mechanics don't need to be based on what skills you do/don't have it could be more elementary skills every class is capable of like :

-dodge the barrage of missiles
-Don't stand in the fire
-Run away hes gonna Aoe
-Slow him/stun him (using a quest item) he's running for reinforcements
-Hes raging run the f$#% away
-Cross the beams/Don't Cross the beams.

Don't make these mechanics one shot the person but make them feel like "Holy S#$t that hurt another one or two of those and I'm KO'd." Let the quest provide health and mana potions to prepare the player for mistakes(that zone only).

This would help improve the critical thinking aspect of early game and prepare you for some similar scenarios in the later/end game. I think one of the goals of early game should be to teach players to have a respect for some of games mechanics by introducing some consequence when ignored. At 90 a lot of players never had to get out of the fire because it really didn't matter. Hell some players don't even notice the fire because there was never a consequence in the past, and of course some players just blame everyone else and don't take any responsibility which is of course another story.

Edit: As I mentioned prior make the elite quests function like the Dungeon Journal so players are more prepared, this would also promote players reading the dungeon journal for bosses when the time came.

[Deleted]

It's not a either/or thing where mobs should be punishingly difficult to make you "learn your class" or brain numbingly easy where players can literally click any three attacking spells on their action bar and slaughter every mob until Outland and even from that point you really are only "challenged" by the few quest elites left there and Northrend. Questing in is current format is so redundant and uninvolving players need to create artificial structures on top of it like the "ironman challenge" just to derive any satisfaction at all. As someone who leveled up a rogue as his main during vanilla and TBC I'm not asking for the return of old world elites for quests where if you wern't something like a prot pala you were shit out of luck for the majority of them, but the pendulum has been swung to far in the other extreme where I have to spend hours doing foolproof content to get my character to a place where I can start enjoying playing him. Blizzard don't have to retune every mob or design special quets to get us to this, they can just allow us to tackle quest hubs when we feel we are ready to do them and not when Blizzard feels we wont get our feelings hurt by dying a couple of times. The argument isn't about slapping players in the face in the name of "challenge", but making the content we spends hours and hours doing while leveling actually involving beyond pressing a couple of random keys.

[Byniri]

I agree that TBC screwed things up by removing many elites from questing zones. I thought the elites really fostered group play.

This was in Cataclysm, and they removed it because it was annoying to have to pull in guildies to kill the elites because there was no one around.

[yjmark]

Fel Reaver's in hellfire say hi.

Also iirc there were elite giants walking around in Wrath at Howling Fjord.

If you read my post, you would see I said "most". Not all. Naming a tiny handful of leftovers does not consistute to much.

And yes (not to you, but other posters that seem confused), it was in mid-TBC when a majority of the leveling elites were turned into normal mobs that you could easily solo and AoE. People seem to quickly forget that TBC was not all about "challenge". The second half of TBC was really where Blizzard started turning the leveling process into a simple and solo grindfest. And they did it because a large portion of the playerbase complained that they had to group up, but noone wanted to group up (i.e. the community was already shifting against the leveling process and grouping with others). So Blizzard was just following the player's request, which compounded the issue...imho.

[Deleted]

This was in Cataclysm, and they removed it because it was annoying to have to pull in guildies to kill the elites because there was no one around.

And then they put in CRZ to solve this problem for group quests; except they had already taken the damn things out.

[Geminiel]

And then they put in CRZ to solve this problem for group quests; except they had already taken the damn things out.

I really am hoping that all of this new Game Tech is Blizzards way of saying "We know leveling sucked in the past so we removed the difficulty to make it easier on players, now we want to use our new Tech to go back and maximize the experience by reintroducing those challenges while not ruining the experience for beginners."

I understood at the time why they made it easier in TBC because leveling was a real bitch back then. The problem with leveling back in the day had more to do with poor class structure then to actually do with environmental issues. The classes have been completely re-done to maximize the leveling experience. You no longer feel like dying when you miss an auto attack as a pally/warrior. At this point in time I hope blizzard is planning on reintroducing some of the challenge back into the early game.

Super Mario Bros World 1 for regular Nintendo is literally more challenging in every way shape or form then leveling to 60+ in WoW as it currently stands.

[Deleted]

Why the hell did blizzard get rid of elite encounters/group quests at the lower levels, this game does an excellent job now of making you think that you are doing a good job while doing a terrible job. How are new players supposed to realize that after 60+ levels of lackluster performance and succeeding that all of a sudden they are doing a piss poor job? Elites/Boss Mobs gave players a reason to maximize their skill base(at least it did with me when others weren't available). Now their is absolutely no challenge to the early levels because blizzard decided that beginners did not need to learn this. Come on if you have used LFR it is blatantly obvious to differentiate between characters who have a clue, players that have half a clue and players that have absolutely no clue.

U have answered your own question within your original post...

The reason that players hit top level and havent learned anything is because all they wont to do is play LFR which doesnt demand much skill anyway.

Why learn to play your toon with any skill when all u wanna do is LFR with it?

[Geminiel]

U have answered your own question within your original post...

The reason that players hit top level and havent learned anything is because all they wont to do is play LFR which doesnt demand much skill anyway.

Why learn to play your toon with any skill when all u wanna do is LFR with it?

I know that experiences always differ, but I believe the reason a large majority only wants to LFR is because of the lack of low level incentive and challenge. Speaking from my experience back in the day in vanilla, when I saw a blue quest reward for killing some batshit boss in a dungeon while wearing all greens that was a good moment. My thought process was always if I want to get to the max level and play with my max level friends I would be doing myself a service to get the best gear available to me at the time to improve the overall experience. I leveled many characters from level 1 in Vanilla, TBC and Wotlk. The Magic stayed pretty consistent when getting an upgrade but like all things you earlier experiences generally feel more epic. I decided to do some low level stuff to get a taste for the lore changed by Cata because I didn't level any level 1 characters in Cata. The experience wasn't terrible but it was far from magical. You get blues simply for questing and killing some random mob with like 10% more hp then regular mobs who generally only auto-attacks or casts 1 spell. I didn't feel like I was ever remotely challenged in any way. Being experienced enough I wouldn't expect myself to falter under low level challenges but you can pretty much make a castsequence macro and level to 60 by pressing one button, this includes dungeons too. Free shit is nice but I don't think many people disagree with the fact that earning something has a much more sentimental feeling that early on this game lacks.

[Deleted]

There NEVER was "early game challenge", just quests that u needed a tank and a healer for because they were hitting too hard.

[Geminiel]

There NEVER was "early game challenge", just quests that u needed a tank and a healer for because they were hitting too hard.

I disagree, while I understand the point you are making. Elite mobs back in the day generally just hit harder and had more health but there definetly was challenge. Not all classes could Solo Elites at least not until higher levels but Solo-ing elites was definitely a challenge. Low level Dungeons while they weren't complicated could prove very challenging, you had to use a high degree of caution back in the day. You had to sap/sheep targets and make sure you didn't get adds be mindful of pats and understand the occasional boss mechanic. If you were going to challenge an Elite you had better do it wisely too because many normal mobs would often aggro and cause you problems depending on the spells they cast.

Early Game of old definitely was challenging You had to be much more mindful of your positioning and pay much more attention otherwise you would be doing a corpse run. There is barely any consequence in this game anymore, it is difficult for anyone to develop a skill without incentive/challenge presented before them. I support the reasons why blizzard changed things as I've addressed in an earlier post but they fixed the real problem with leveling now which was class structure, now they need to start bringing back some of the early game challenge to make leveling more than a long tedious grind using a castsequence macro.

[ringpriest]

There NEVER was "early game challenge", just quests that u needed a tank and a healer for because they were hitting too hard.

Nonsense. A tank and heals plus dps was a relatively easy and straightforward way to do them, sure. But I remember going through Ruins of Alterac and Jintha'Alor with pure dps groups, cc'ing and kiting all the way. Or having a pet tank. (Good hunters and locks were valuable!) Or having a shammy, fury warrior, ret pally, etc tank, especially if you had an off-healing spec along.

---------- Post added 2013-04-26 at 08:13 PM ----------

Fel Reavers are just PvE gankbots. They serve no gameplay purpose other than to, I dunno, kill bots and AFKers? You can round up a group to kill one but they drop like 10 silver so ... why?

Others have mentioned that they were part of an attunement chain. (For BT if I remember right.) But beyond that, the point of Fel Reavers was to make you afraid. Which gets back to the issue of immersion the OP talked about. WoW has been reduced from a fantasy world down to a Super-Mario like test of your skill at collecting shiny virtual objects.

Meanwhile, questing at level 90 is essentially a solo activity, so what would group quests before level 90 teach you to do?

Learn how to CC, heal, manage aggro, work with others, and force to to actually think about what you can do with your class. "Wait a sec, if I Mind Control that mob with the AoE attack, I can get the other mobs to kill it and then we won't all die!" Just as an example.

In more general terms, this is a perfect of example the positive feedback cycle that destroyed the game Warcraft used to be. "We didn't put in any group quests at max level this time, so we're removing all need to group for lower level quests, too." It's the same reasoning with the new talent stumps: "We did a crappy job with the talent system for an expansion and a half, looks like we need a whole new system that's much simpler." Or instances: "Players hardly ever run normal mode instances after they get to max level because there's nothing useful in them, so why don't we make fewer instances?"

It apparently never occurs to Blizzard (or their worshippers) that they could put in group quests at max level, do a better job with the existing talent trees, or give dungeons a purpose. Hell, no! That would require wasting valuable developer time on content that not every single person playing the game would be guaranteed to see!

[Deleted]

but I believe the reason a large majority only wants to LFR is because of the lack of low level incentive and challenge.

Its a combination of alot of factors but ultimatley its down to the playerbase back in Vanilla and TBC is ALOT different to what it is now. Back then Wow was predominantly MMORPG fans who all wanted a massive world to explore, a world to challenge them and a world to live inside as an alternate world to reality. Now the playerbase is a different animal, most players now want things on a plate in front of them and fast.

For example levelling was very much part of your heros journey back in Vanilla, something to be savoured and enjoyed. U met loads of other players on your journey, u were opened up to your realms politics and the rivalry between guilds and ofc the other faction. Now levelling is very much a means to an end, its simply something u gotta get done as fast as u can to enjoy the game, which we all knows starts at lev90.

Sure, there is a group of players who love levelling and spend most of their time levelling mroe and mroe toons, but lets face it, compared to the number who enjoyed levelling back in Vanilla thats a minority these days.

Some wise words taken from another popular thread right now, which also shows how different levelling was back then to now.

"The MMORPG genre wasn't about every single person being shuffled through the content to make sure they see everything and get every item they wanted. It was, "Here's the world, go do whatever you will do. Good luck not getting your ass kicked.""

[yjmark]

Its a combination of alot of factors but ultimatley its down to the playerbase back in Vanilla and TBC is ALOT different to what it is now. Back then Wow was predominantly MMORPG fans who all wanted a massive world to explore, a world to challenge them and a world to live inside as an alternate world to reality. Now the playerbase is a different animal, most players now want things on a plate in front of them and fast.

But - there are things Blizz could do to foster more group play during the leveling content. In it's current state, there is absolutely no reason to group up with others. All it does 99% of the time is slow you down.

Even if people want to burn through leveling, I think it would be pretty neat if you got to a zone, found others who are leveling in the zone, banded together, and were able to actually level your toon faster. So speedy leveling (to your point....is what they want nowadays) would actually be helped by playing with others. Things like that.

[Deleted]

But - there are things Blizz could do to foster more group play during the leveling content. In it's current state, there is absolutely no reason to group up with others. All it does 99% of the time is slow you down.

Do u think Blizzard would do anything to promote teamplay when every new 'feature' since Wrath has been against teamplay?

LFR and LFD r just a couple of proofs of this. Promoting smaller raid teams down from 40man, to 25man and now to 10man is another proof. No more group questing, making more items buyable/sellable on the AH, less bop items are all factors which promote solo play. Basically because theyre removing every single point of the game u might need to rely on others to get something done.

The Xbox generation of turning on your console and clicking the 'Queue' button to get an online game has infested Wow. Play a game with a load of faceless other real players u dont have to talk to and u wont meet again after the game anyway...

[KCguy]

BC and Wrath had group quests and I loved that. It made it so you needed people to help you. That would mean spamming or using the group tool to find people. I miss that. Now everything is soloable when leveling.

[melodramocracy]

But beyond that, the point of Fel Reavers was to make you afraid. Which gets back to the issue of immersion the OP talked about. WoW has been reduced from a fantasy world down to a Super-Mario like test of your skill at collecting shiny virtual objects.

Absolutely. You'd not be paying attention, and all of a sudden be running for your life from one. That's a good thing, something the game needs more of (even the elites on the thunder isle are more or less pushovers, aside from all being really slow moving)

[namelessone]

I agree that TBC screwed things up by removing many elites from questing zones. I thought the elites really fostered group play.

No it didn't. It fostered skipping elite zones, that's what it did.

[wariofan1]

I can't say I enjoyed getting mauled by the running centaur elite in The Barrens all that much, but I also have some pretty fond memories of open-world elite mobs, I was very dissapointed when they were removed. As long as they don't patrol at lightning speed I don't see why they shouldn't be there, and I never got why they bothered to do the work of removing them in the first place, and with it removing any sense of danger in the world. There's a reason many of us remember the Fel Reaver, it was an experience, I'd like more of that, memorable stuff that is.

[Eorayn]

BC and Wrath had group quests and I loved that. It made it so you needed people to help you. That would mean spamming or using the group tool to find people. I miss that. Now everything is soloable when leveling.

It's not just soloable, it's dead on easy. There is no challenge to leveling, which provokes people to call it a "grind".