Decrease in leveling zones.

[danildoen]

I am very dissapointed with the leveling experience the last expansions.

Now you have a very linear and poor leveling content. coming from someone who has 10 100's. The only real option you have is to skip a zone so you have 4 zones to level in.

In wrath you had 9 zones, in TBC you had 7 zones.

I miss choice. When there was 2 zones you could chose from every time, example:

70-72 Borean or Howling
67-80 Netherstorm or Shadowmoonvalley

In WoD you have a very linear questing experience, little choice, you can however skip zones so you can even less leveling content.
The zones are smaller, and they feel extremly small with the new map aswell.

[A Chozo]

More zones to choose is awesome, I agree. WoD leveling zones are small, yes. But the space usage is much better, and the outposts give some different quest lines and questing special habilities like the Gorgrond's Shredder. In a Draenor's square meter, there's more "levelingcontent" than previous leveling zones! Sadly, the same can't be said about outworld content anymore...

Also, with small space, but more content per m², the traveling times are reduced a little bit (flying or not)

[Faenskap]

Oh, I agree. There isn't much choice, and even after 1 char, you feel you've seen it all already, both MoP and WoD. I still find WoD more pleasant than MoP though. And a lack of dungeons - this has bothered me for some time. BC and WotLK had plenty of dungeons between 60-70 and 70-80. Sure, there are still dungeons, but they are all max level. So few dungeons combined with a forced "leveling pattern" makes the leveling experience quite boring and unappealing.

[Ratyrel]

Imo the treasures do liven up levelling in WoD though, giving you an alternative to questing. With heirlooms scaling to 100 you can also pick and choose the levelling content you wish to do and still be extremely quick. More work going into the environment and the questing (videos etc) result in fewer zones and less choice by default I should think.

[potis]

Zones? Who cares about zones.

The god damn tedious leveling bullshit of us seasoned players is disgusting, how many more characters am i supposed to level to do what? "Learn the skills and game?"

Dungeon Queue as a tank healer to get out of the tedious useless stuff quickly.

Or you mean "OMG VANILLA HAD SO MANY ZONES"

Yeah, 20 zones, 20 quests each.

The leveling has been getting better each expansion, zones or not.

[-Superman-]

Wrath was a far better expansion. You had your pick of Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, move into Dragonblight or Grizzly hills, then into ZulDrak or Crystalsong Forest, and eventually into Scholazar or Storm Peaks, and eventually into IceCrown. No rails, flight at lvl 77. Decent daily hubs, Dalaran was a central location, and even after 12 MONTHS of ICC, we still had 12M subs. They need to MIRROR 7.0 design with 3.0 design.

[Feali]

Wrath was a far better expansion. You had your pick of Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, move into Dragonblight or Grizzly hills, then into ZulDrak or Crystalsong Forest, and eventually into Scholazar or Storm Peaks, and eventually into IceCrown. No rails, flight at lvl 77. Decent daily hubs, Dalaran was a central location, and even after 12 MONTHS of ICC, we still had 12M subs. They need to MIRROR 7.0 design with 3.0 design.

Inb4: "But people hated Wrath when it was current content"

News flash: Wrath did most everything perfect! And I loved it back then!

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Wrath was a far better expansion. You had your pick of Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, move into Dragonblight or Grizzly hills, then into ZulDrak or Crystalsong Forest, and eventually into Scholazar or Storm Peaks, and eventually into IceCrown. No rails, flight at lvl 77. Decent daily hubs, Dalaran was a central location, and even after 12 MONTHS of ICC, we still had 12M subs. They need to MIRROR 7.0 design with 3.0 design.

Well honestly Wrath had one huge problem that I'm reminded of every time I visit Dragonblight.

After you finish the Wrath Gate, you pretty much have no direction as to where to go for the rest of that expansion because so many zones didn't perfectly overlap.

Like you can go to Grizzly Hills, but if you wanna hop to Zul'drak you have to bail on Grizzly Hills halfway in. And Sholzar starts at a point where you're not done with Zul'drak yet.

[-Superman-]

Inb4: "But people hated Wrath when it was current content"

News flash: Wrath did most everything perfect! And I loved it back then!

People only disliked Wrath at the beginning since there were so many DKs (who were drastically OP), and the zombie apocalypse was a little annoying. Otherwise, Wrath was perfect. I am a TBC baby and I even agree that.

- - - Updated - - -

Well honestly Wrath had one huge problem that I'm reminded of every time I visit Dragonblight.

After you finish the Wrath Gate, you pretty much have no direction as to where to go for the rest of that expansion because so many zones didn't perfectly overlap.

Like you can go to Grizzly Hills, but if you wanna hop to Zul'drak you have to bail on Grizzly Hills halfway in. And Sholzar starts at a point where you're not done with Zul'drak yet.

It was the beautiful part about not being on rails. You could follow the quests to the next zone, or you could just pick up and go somewhere else entirely and just start fresh. Not everyone likes rails. Especially in an RPG.

[Aensland]

I enjoyed leveling in wrath. Cata on the other hand, not so much. Blizzard having both factions share the same quest hubs on a PVP server made my leveling experience there more painful.

And in MoP, well that's what $60 boost is for...

[Deleted]

Choice in zone progression is something I miss, it was nice to take a different route on a new character. It's not game breaking to me but I would certainly not complain if it came back in the next expansion.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

People only disliked Wrath at the beginning since there were so many DKs (who were drastically OP), and the zombie apocalypse was a little annoying. Otherwise, Wrath was perfect. I am a TBC baby and I even agree that.

- - - Updated - - -



It was the beautiful part about not being on rails. You could follow the quests to the next zone, or you could just pick up and go somewhere else entirely and just start fresh. Not everyone likes rails. Especially in an RPG.

I get that it feels very off rails, but at the same time I think it hurts the storytelling when people are jumping ship every time a story is half finished. Wrath didn't have any firm storyline after the Wrath Gate, just a bunch of smaller storylines because players were jumping in and out at random.

Better option is to do what Blizz should have stuck with in MoP. Have actual options for zones, but overlap their levels. So don't turn Dread Wastes into its own zone, keep it paired up with Townlong. And don't make Karasang a 1/2 zone until it was "finished" in 5.1.

[-Superman-]

I get that it feels very off rails, but at the same time I think it hurts the storytelling when people are jumping ship every time a story is half finished. Wrath didn't have any firm storyline after the Wrath Gate, just a bunch of smaller storylines because players were jumping in and out at random.

Better option is to do what Blizz should have stuck with in MoP. Have actual options for zones, but overlap their levels. So don't turn Dread Wastes into its own zone, keep it paired up with Townlong. And don't make Karasang a 1/2 zone until it was "finished" in 5.1.

I don't really feel like it hurt my storyline. Then again, I always complete the zones for the loremaster achievements. Missing out on story has never been an issue til WoD.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I don't really feel like it hurt my storyline. Then again, I always complete the zones for the loremaster achievements. Missing out on story has never been an issue til WoD.

Well that plays into my later point. Wrath had a lot of smaller storylines post-Wrath Gate because people were jumping zones so often. Like you had your little silliness with the Vrykul in Grizzly Hills, then you had that group collecting Trolls. You had the lower tier story with that amulet, then you had that story with the storm giant. Smaller storylines that last about one hub, and then are never mentioned again.

Contrasted with MoP and WoD where every zone had smaller storylines that combined into one overall storyline.

[Kelsierx]

Choice in zone progression is something I miss, it was nice to take a different route on a new character. It's not game breaking to me but I would certainly not complain if it came back in the next expansion.

Yes I agree. It was nice to be able to take a completely different path if you were leveling an alt.

It made you feel like you had more choice and the world was a bit bigger.

[-Superman-]

Well that plays into my later point. Wrath had a lot of smaller storylines post-Wrath Gate because people were jumping zones so often. Like you had your little silliness with the Vrykul in Grizzly Hills, then you had that group collecting Trolls. You had the lower tier story with that amulet, then you had that story with the storm giant. Smaller storylines that last about one hub, and then are never mentioned again.

Contrasted with MoP and WoD where every zone had smaller storylines that combined into one overall storyline.

That was the beauty about Wrath. Each zone was able to stand on its own. The only over arching storyline was making your way to ICC to kick Arthas' ass. In MoP and WoD, the stories were lacking, and could not stand on their own. They put you on rails to keep you from getting bored with the unimportant story.

[Coronius]

I guess that the Outposts in Draenor are supposed to accomplish the same thing.

[Gadzooks]

I get that it feels very off rails, but at the same time I think it hurts the storytelling when people are jumping ship every time a story is half finished. Wrath didn't have any firm storyline after the Wrath Gate, just a bunch of smaller storylines because players were jumping in and out at random.

Better option is to do what Blizz should have stuck with in MoP. Have actual options for zones, but overlap their levels. So don't turn Dread Wastes into its own zone, keep it paired up with Townlong. And don't make Karasang a 1/2 zone until it was "finished" in 5.1.

"No firm storyline after Wrathgate"

Wow.

No, you really said that?

Go do loremaster for Wrath, and come back and say that. Don't jump in and out, this time.

[Sansnom]

I get that it feels very off rails, but at the same time I think it hurts the storytelling when people are jumping ship every time a story is half finished. Wrath didn't have any firm storyline after the Wrath Gate, just a bunch of smaller storylines because players were jumping in and out at random.

Maybe. I liked the Drakuru story line in WoTLK. Always played that one. Who doesn't like to be a zombie for a while? But they could just have short line that starts in a one and ends in another. The player can choose to continue or not.

[blackblade]

I am very dissapointed with the leveling experience the last expansions.

Now you have a very linear and poor leveling content. coming from someone who has 10 100's. The only real option you have is to skip a zone so you have 4 zones to level in.

In wrath you had 9 zones, in TBC you had 7 zones.

I miss choice. When there was 2 zones you could chose from every time, example:

70-72 Borean or Howling
67-80 Netherstorm or Shadowmoonvalley

In WoD you have a very linear questing experience, little choice, you can however skip zones so you can even less leveling content.
The zones are smaller, and they feel extremly small with the new map aswell.

Humbly disagree. When leveling the first time, I full cleared Gorgrond and was a high enough level to skip Talador outright, so in my second run through, I did the opposite, full-cleared Frostfire, did a couple instances and the intro to gorgrond, then left and cleared Talador.

You could also say that while the questing is largely the same between zones, there's lots of little goodies to collect that're worth a buck or two.