BLIZZARD SHAME ON YOU! Future early game...

[Axphism]

Wow is not an mmo. An mmo has challenging leveling and dungeons. This is a raiding game. If you find challenging dungeons tedious, you dont want to play an mmo.

Uhhhh some MMO's don't even have dungeons or raids. What are you even going on about?

[Biggles Worth]

Yeah, fair enough. Everyone expects different things. I wish Blizzard would indeed put stuff in the game to do where there is no reward, you do it for the fun. See how many really follow that claim.

As for "the new players" and the house and foundation analogy? Are 5 mans the foundation of the game? Don't we have enough topics where people say it takes too long to catch up with friends that made them interested in the game. Does the lv 90 boost hint at something.

Now we can all argue what is a mistake and how games are "supposed to be designed". And I am not even saying 5 mans couldn't be a bit more challenging. Do you honestly think people would even do them if a Deadmines run is aka to mythic raiding just to show people what to expect later in the game? Especially since the majority never has taken part in the hardest raid difficulty.

So what would you prepare your average player for?

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Oh...I see...is that why we have 307 posts in this topic so far and you are taking part in it? Because there is no point?

I think we need to dig this out

WoW isn't even played by real people anymore. The game is kept afloat by botters and gold sellers selling to one another. Can't I mourn our loss in peace without you joking around with tombstones?

[Kahmal]

I would argue that the dungeons were more tedious (having to communicate with each other on nearly every pull and the over-use of CC being the biggest contributing factor to that) and took significantly longer to complete. I'm not sure that makes them difficult.

Then again, if not that, then how do you make dungeons difficult?

I disagree. Slightly.

Your right every single pull, even in Vanilla before Heroic modes needed to be approached a certain way. You would have to acknowledge what tools you had in your party and utilize them to the fullest. The pull in itself needed to be done properly. Sometimes the tank jumping the gun, or the mage not casting sheep as the tank is pulling.

What made dungeons challenging though is what you had to do when shit hit the fan.

5 mans heroics in TBC is the best memory I have of wow. Playing a hunter was amazing during that time. Every trash pull had the potential of wiping the group. Had to focus fire each mob, crowd control was a must. AOE was useless, most of the time, could not risk popping the sheep or frozen mobs. A typical pull consisted of:

1- Drop a freezing trap at you feet away from the group (no trap launching)
2-Wait a few seconds for cooldown to prepare chain trapping.
3-Misdirect on tank to initiate pull
4-Mage sheep the moon marked mob to initiate the pull
5-Shoot skull mob to tank
6-Distracting shot on blue square, lured into trap.
7-Assist tank, send pet
8-start DPS
9-Drop new trap, position yourself so new trap is in the path of currrently frozen mob.
10-Do OP beast master DPS
11-Keep an eye on healers in case they pull aggro.
12-When frozen mob get free, regain aggro and freeze again.
13-Drop new trap
14-Keep misdirecting to tank
15-Priest got aggro from 2 mobs. Distracting shot on one straggler, run him to the tank.
16-Send pet on the other, turn on growl
17- Get back in position to refreeze.
etc etc

When fight is done, 30% ahead of second person on DPS meter.

That's a quote a hunter once explained while reminiscing about TBC. As a Tank I had similar experiences, keeping aggro on multiple mobs, intervening to the healer if he had aggro to get in taunt range (lol 8 yards).

The Heroics in Cata were a decent compromise, the trash wasn't nearly as hard, but the bosses were more challenging, therefore the dungeons didn't take nearly as long. But LFG screwed that all up. 5 man content should push you to your limits so your ready for raiding. There is a reason we call them "Wrath Babies" since their Heroics were just an AoE fest, and the first raiding tier was a joke.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I'm sorry gentlemen, I thought the sarcasm was apparent. My apologies. My statement was not meant to be taken seriously.

Ah ok. Hard to get voice tones from written words. Sarcasm went right over my head. No worries.

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It's a complete shitshow for sure. On the other hand, I somehow get their intention considering there has been 5 expansions (soon to be 6) since Vanilla, and having new players get through that many levels can be pretty daunting. However, the leveling is complete and utter shite. Whereas Vanilla WoW was quite a bit too slow paced, current WoW is ENTIRELY too fast paced. With or without heirlooms, you'll outlevel zones and blast through dungeons. Before you tell me I'm lying etc, actually try and level without heirlooms for just 1 toon. When I leveled in Arathi Highlands I bloody outleveled the zone halfway through the questing experience, basically rushing me to the next zone. I could stay in the zone and complete the quest chain with little to no experience, but there's something inherently obnoxious about a game telling me "You're totally not supposed to do these quests because they provide you no experience, therefore not advancing your character in any meaningful way" and trying to finish a questline.

I don't even need to get into dungeon talk, it's complete shite. It's about as boring of a experience as it gets, but it is easy and fast experience. Even if you try to restrain yourself to certain gear, you'll have other players wearing heirlooms to blast you through it all. Heirloom gear makes no goddamn sense. Why is the gear better than what you could normally get in a dungeon at proper level?

I just leveled a new toon from scratch (Hunjabu the Seeker, my first troll). I did use heirlooms, and certainly leveled past optimal for zones before I completed favorite quest lines, but never reached a point where I was getting NO experience. If anything, it probably all evened out because the experience might have diminished but was rebuffed by my heirlooms. Either way, I didn't try to race to the top; instead I focused on playing particular content I was interested in. In this case, I was exploring my first troll so I sought out all the troll content I could remember or find, from Stranglethorn to Tanaris to Zul Drak. Now he's 91, and while I was happy to equip the 6/6 crafted weapon I had waiting for him, I'm kind of at a loss because the content ahead is still fresh in my mind from my last toon who ran it. I haven't decided yet what to do different to make 91-100 feel less repetitive.

[thatmikeguy]

You're saying the only thing to do now is 5 mans and raids... that isn't true. It's blatantly false. I am not going to placate to you playing dumb about what content exists and what doesn't exist... only to have you validate (in your mind) whether or not that actually qualifies as content.

The fact remains that if you truly wanted the social aspect of the game YOU had to put forth the effort to create and maintain it. There was nothing that Blizzard did back then (vanilla) that fostered that activity, and there hasn't been anything that Blizzard has done since that has diminished that activity, and/or your ability to create and foster such relationships/experiences.

So what your saying is that people do everything without any reason? Blizzard makes the game, and it's up to them to guide players where they want them to go, and how the players will NEED to work together. I have no idea why this simple fact escapes you, but that's how games work. There were parts of the game that contributed to the social aspects of the game that are gone now, simple as that.

[Wolfrick]

AT my home, me and my friend where having a open discussion about this topic... we read some of the posts on this forum, we talked for Hours and we came to a Solution.

Solution:

1. Implement (LEVEL SCALING FROM LEVEL 1) this will make all the content you encounter Challenging and appropriet for your level (for People who just enjoy leveling and NEW PLAYERS).

2. Implement the "Experiance Potion or Buff of 300%" this will help people who just wanna get to max level as fast as they can.

3. Remove the Experiance Boost and Starts from heirlooms (Keep them as Transmogs or maybe figuer out something Cooler).


Explaning the Solutions

1. the level scaling from level 1 will make it so that each and every zone you are in are appropriet to your current level, this will make it possible for people to enjoy an entire zone and have an Challenging envierment.

PS: also, have some "minimum low level" for the scaling, EXAMPLE: if you quest in The Barrens there will be a Minimum low level on the mobs in the Zone close to it, so that people cant just start questing at level 1 in Desolace.

2. The Experiance Potion or Buff, would be given to you in a capitol city and it will make you get 4 or 3 times more experiance then normal, in this way, people who are burned out or are not Interested in leveling and just want to get to max level, just have to do fewer quets and/or Dungeons.

3. Removing the Experiance boost and Stats from heirlooms is Very important since having people around that are at "SUPERMAN powers" Killing entire Quest areas within just 10 secons, will leaving other people who dont have that kind of gear and just want to enjoy a Challeng in the dust and kinda Destroy there fun of the game.
Heirlooms as of now, are Destroing the fun for new and Immersive players.

This is what we came up to as Solutions, what do you think? leave some ideas or Comments.

PS: Remember to get a change! you need to be the change!!!

Thanks for your time to read this,
Wolfrick

[A dot Ham]

So what your saying is that people do everything without any reason? Blizzard makes the game, and it's up to them to guide players where they want them to go, and how the players will NEED to work together. I have no idea why this simple fact escapes you, but that's how games work. There were parts of the game that contributed to the social aspects of the game that are gone now, simple as that.

As I have said numerous times throughout this thread and many others... if you have chosen to cheapen or dumb down your experience by only participating in LFR... that is on you. For those that raid (beyond lfr), mythic 5 mans, challenge modes, arena, rbg, etc... the social game is still very much alive. I think many people lie to themselves about how social they are or were during the "golden years". Interestingly its the same people blinded by nostalgia and selective amnesia in regards to our many pain points during those said "glory days".

[Linri]

I tank Gnomer on my 29 priest, and do it in 5 minutes...
Most people love it cause that place is boring.

[Alienshroom]

Fastest way to level for most classes Horde side is to just walk into Ragefire alone at level 10 and do that till 20. Sad.

[rasako]

Too bad they won't read this on this forum.
Anyways, I disagree, as leveling is not fun after you're done with your first character. It just becomes more and more painful, when you want to get other classes to the level cap. Doing the same quests and dungeons (as most people no longer go max level by questing) for the 5-10th time is just plain boring. I understand that the low-level content is not challenging enough anymore, but hey, it's not vanilla anymore.

Fun is subjective, and while I am the same type of player as you (I only ever had one main but have leveled tons of characters or helped people ingame with levelling) not everyone hates the levelling experience, and there was a lot of progression and sense of achievement in the vanilla way of doing things, even if it was a tad on the tough side at times for the average player. I started at the age of 13 and never had any issues figuring out the game back in 2004. Most of the reasoning behind all of the changes is to cater to the demands of a society that is becoming more and more entitled and demanding more and more for less.

[thatmikeguy]

As I have said numerous times throughout this thread and many others... if you have chosen to cheapen or dumb down your experience by only participating in LFR... that is on you. For those that raid (beyond lfr), mythic 5 mans, challenge modes, arena, rbg, etc... the social game is still very much alive. I think many people lie to themselves about how social they are or were during the "golden years". Interestingly its the same people blinded by nostalgia and selective amnesia in regards to our many pain points during those said "glory days".

I do Mythic raids, 5mans, at the highest achievements in Mounts, Pets, and Toys, and I do Ashran and RBGs. I played all of Vanilla, and I'm telling you the social game is NOT the same, because there is no NEED. I'm not saying that "everything" from vanilla WoW was good at all! I'm saying that MANY things had good parts that were completely taken out because a part of it was bad, or to simply allow people to do it solo. If more people are doing things solo, it's less MMO.

[Gephyrophobia]

In the end.... its all about beeing Challenging...

Fuck that shit. I play WoW to escape from how shitty real life is, if I wanted to be "challenged" I'd play Dark Souls or some dumb shit.

[Axphism]

AT my home, me and my friend where having a open discussion about this topic... we read some of the posts on this forum, we talked for Hours and we came to a Solution.

Solution:

1. Implement (LEVEL SCALING FROM LEVEL 1) this will make all the content you encounter Challenging and appropriet for your level (for People who just enjoy leveling and NEW PLAYERS).

2. Implement the "Experiance Potion or Buff of 300%" this will help people who just wanna get to max level as fast as they can.

3. Remove the Experiance Boost and Starts from heirlooms (Keep them as Transmogs or maybe figuer out something Cooler).


Explaning the Solutions

1. the level scaling from level 1 will make it so that each and every zone you are in are appropriet to your current level, this will make it possible for people to enjoy an entire zone and have an Challenging envierment.

PS: also, have some "minimum low level" for the scaling, EXAMPLE: if you quest in The Barrens there will be a Minimum low level on the mobs in the Zone close to it, so that people cant just start questing at level 1 in Desolace.

2. The Experiance Potion or Buff, would be given to you in a capitol city and it will make you get 4 or 3 times more experiance then normal, in this way, people who are burned out or are not Interested in leveling and just want to get to max level, just have to do fewer quets and/or Dungeons.

3. Removing the Experiance boost and Stats from heirlooms is Very important since having people around that are at "SUPERMAN powers" Killing entire Quest areas within just 10 secons, will leaving other people who dont have that kind of gear and just want to enjoy a Challeng in the dust and kinda Destroy there fun of the game.
Heirlooms as of now, are Destroing the fun for new and Immersive players.

This is what we came up to as Solutions, what do you think? leave some ideas or Comments.

PS: Remember to get a change! you need to be the change!!!

Thanks for your time to read this,
Wolfrick

1. I can get behind this. It gives people who want their leveling experience to be "challenging" what they want.

2. I can get behind this as well, simply because I've used RaF in the past and it was awesome .

3. I can't get behind this. If they gave that option of +300% I can get behind removing the experience gain from heirlooms, but removing the stats is counter-productive to making things easier for people that don't want their leveling experience to be "challenging". Doing this will just make it take longer to kill things, making experience gain slower, defeating the purpose of the increased experience gain.

[thatmikeguy]

1. I can get behind this. It gives people who want their leveling experience to be "challenging" what they want.

2. I can get behind this as well, simply because I've used RaF in the past and it was awesome .

3. I can't get behind this. If they gave that option of +300% I can get behind removing the experience gain from heirlooms, but removing the stats is counter-productive to making things easier for people that don't want their leveling experience to be "challenging". Doing this will just make it take longer to kill things, making experience gain slower, defeating the purpose of the increased experience gain.

Or just buy it.

[A dot Ham]

I do Mythic raids, 5mans, at the highest achievements in Mounts, Pets, and Toys, and I do Ashran and RBGs. I played all of Vanilla, and I'm telling you the social game is NOT the same, because there is no NEED. I'm not saying that "everything" from vanilla WoW was good at all! I'm saying that MANY things had good parts that were completely taken out because a part of it was bad, or to simply allow people to do it solo. If more people are doing things solo, it's less MMO.

Wrong. There is nothing about Massively Multiplayer Online that suggests the game is social... just a fuckton of people playing.

There are plenty of people talking in Ashran... probably too many.

You raid (Mythic according to you) so nothing has changed there... still social.

If you are doing any of that with your guild... the game is still social.

How does matchmaking and looking for a 5man group or raid equate to it being social? Because you have a lot more downtime and all there is to do is chat? I don't log in to chat I login to play... and if I wanted to chat with someone I have many family and friends I care a lot more about that I should probably catch up with. Especially when the people available to talk to have these inflated egos over some 0s and 1s that give their armor purple text and they think it makes them superior.

So when you say shit like the game isn't social anymore... I don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Especially given your own admission.

I didn't drop a friend request to the other 4 people I did Scholomance with over and over and over again. Also, (as previously mentioned) if you are simply adding people to your list because of the role they perform... that isn't being social, that is you matchmaking. So lets also not confuse active participation in matchmaking as being social either, nor the size of your friends list.

So you start a questing party in Tanaan and people drop in and out without even as much as a hello or goodbye... lets be real for a second... do you really want to tell people where you are and the role they should be playing each and every time someone joins? No. Actually since we are being honest, most of prefer people don't talk, less chefs in the kitchen and all... you want one person leading raids, one person leading ashran, one person calling out targets in RBG. Not only that but in this game more than anywhere else on the internet anonymity = total fucktard, so most of us would rather those people don't talk. Also in the spirit of honesty, even though I rarely have to speak to the people I am playing with (when participating in Tanaan) I probably do more dailies group now in WoD than I ever did in any other expansion. Because the amount of time spent looking for someone to group with (in a previous expansion) you could have finished it solo.

My WHOLE point to this, is nothing has really changed in the social arena of the game. In vanilla if you wanted to be social YOU had to put forth the effort. If you want to be social in WoD YOU have to put forth the effort. Nothing has changed.

So in the effort of getting to the heart of the matter. Lets think and talk about this objectively. Be very specific about your social interactions TODAY in WoD, vs your social interaction in vanilla, and exactly what has changed there.

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Fuck that shit. I play WoW to escape from how shitty real life is, if I wanted to be "challenged" I'd play Dark Souls or some dumb shit.

Amen I just wanna log in, and kill some shit.

[Caliph]

All you bloviators stating such non sense as "dungeons were never challenging" don't know what you're talking about. They were definitely challenging. Mostly because of gear and talents but they were definitely challenging. Or do you not recall wiping if even a pat got whiff of you? The bosses weren't that difficult but everything else was.

Go on a vanilla private server and run some dungeons. Even after all this time they're still a pain in the ass if you're not careful.

And yes levelling should be hard and challenging. if you don't like it buy a boost.

[Axphism]

Or just buy it.

Just buy what? I'm sorry I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[THEORACLE64]

"Blizzard shame on you!" - yes, shame the people who's game this is.



stop being a whiney little child - you got a good dungeon, the end.

[Saberstrike]

god what the fuck is with all those people saying "well durrrrr looking for challenge go raid". fuck that. Dungeons are supposed to be an exam of how a person can work in a group, a teaching tool to tell people they NEED to work with others. Not a loot pinata.

I'll agree that the complaints are late but fuck, you people are disgusting. The game is called WORLD OF WARCRAFT, not BOREDOM AND MYTHIC. If a person has legit concerns and all you have to post are meme emoticons maybe you should pause, take a deep breath and ask yourself what you're doing with your life.

To the poster above: Imagine if we had no recordings, so the only way to hear good music was to see the artists live. Then imagine if Beatles went 'ok this rock thing is just not popular any more, we'll shift to dubstep now'. It won't go over well, just like destroying the fucking fundamental aspects of a game only blizzard has the power to change shown that 'attracting a wider audience' is literally doing the opposite in the long run.

Call it whining all you want; I've unsubbed since it's as much as I can do. That doesn't mean I can't be bitter about a thing I want to like that has so much potential but ends up just rotting away in someone else's hands. Yes I am fucking biased because I love dungeons / pvp / open world / story / social / persistent world type content, and I've always despised raiding because it reduced people-focused social gameplay to numbers and tryhards.

And you know what the worst part of it is? I know for a fact the game is so shit right now because blizzard as a company is filled with yes-men, who'll defend and agree to any bad decision. No one has the fucking balls to stand up and say "ok this is terrible, this isn't worthy of our company rep, take a step back and try again. You lost it, Metzen. Maybe it's time someone else tries for a bit."

If one thing is to be blamed for killing WoW, it's those people. In the dev team and in the community. You allowed it to happen. That's why I'll agree with the original poster -- shame. pity. disappointment.

[dirtydingo222]

Preach bb. Preach. Right there with ya