Is WoW's leveling system to blame for bad groups and bad players?

[Lilicia30]

Please dont take this as a flame and ban me lol. I just want to point out some stuff WoW was the first game I ever played where you could go from level 1 to max level without ever interacting or grouping with another player. Because of how simple they made it to travel from quest hub to quest hub as well as having very good rewards you never had to even think about a group or dungeon really. You used your same boring 3 ability rotation with no real need to CC because most quests you will pull maybe 3 mobs max that are non elite that are just a joke to solo. And in today's WoW even if they are elite almost any class rolling with heirloms will have no trouble soloing them.

Yes I am about to compare WoW to another game so please dont go all fanboy and please try to read what I am trying to say. Back when everquest first went live there was hardly any soloing at all and definitely no quests. Well there were stuff like CB orc belts to turn in for EXP but even then you needed a group to really farm them. Even as early as level 6/7 you started grouping and you continued grouping all the way to max level. Because you were actually grouping in dungeon environments from very early levels you understood the need for assist macros and CC, which was in the form of enchanters Mezmerizing mobs( Mez for short) You had special classes designed to pull so instead of getting 5-6 mobs in camp you ended up with only 2, one was mez'd leaving one to kill. Also some mobs would haul ass if not ensnared when low health and would bring back all their friends from half the zone. This was called a Train and it usually wiped out every group it came across including your own. Because of all those factors people knew what spells they needed to have ready and made they also knew what their group mates were capable of. You knew the strengths and weaknesses of each class, even if you never played one, just from constant groups. By the time you were max level and ready to do high end dungeons and raids you knew your character like the back of your own hand as well as a lot about other classes as well.

So fast forward back to WoW. Do people think if the game relied less on quests and more on getting people into dungeons at an early level(yes I know LFD was a huge step in the right direction) people would be better group players once they hit 85? If they made dungeons starting at level 10 with RFC and all the others tougher with actual CC and thinking required, people would continue to learn their classes and become better. I mean when have you seen hunters trap, druids shift out to root, a spriest shift out to heal in an old world instance? Well one reason is probably because they are so easy its not needed. But thats why they need buffing. If all these players ran mostly dungeons and came to learn every single ability in their spellbook and also a lot about the different specs and classes they group with wouldnt the end game be a lot better? Most of the problems with not assisting thus breaking CC, or not CCing at all, or offhealing, or kiting, or offtanking would have been learned many many levels ago. I cant really blame mr. fresh 85 in his quest gear for not knowing what the hell to do in an instance if all blizzard has done is shove the kicks ass quests with awesome rewards in front of him for the last 84 levels.

[Deleted]

I actually agree with this, on my Feral Druid with a SPriest partner we duoed most dungeons whilst leveling, and that really didn't take long. Soloing RFC on a level 12 warlock too etc.

The problem is that every class has been buffed a crazy amount (for balance issues at 85) but none of the low level dungeons have been. Whilst i think it would take a lot of (maybe unwanted?) effort to buff these dungeons, if it could be done in such a way that it would teach the 'noobs' how to do half decently in an 85 dungeon, then thats great.

90+% of the playerbase is terrible at their class, in 8/10 occasions i don't blame them because the faceroll content up until level 85 doesn't prepare anyone for it.

[Powerogue]

I get the feeling that the zones push me to "go ahead, do the dungeon here, it finishes off the storyline of the zone!" which is nice, but as far as benefit from running the dungeon, that's minimal and evaded.

[Deleted]

I find your thoughts very interesting tbh. While I don't know anything about the other game you refer to, I too see the issue with new players knowing little to nothing about even their own class.

To add another reason; RAF makes it alot more easy and more appealing to just quest away with your buddy.

The lower lvl dungeons can for the most part be done 2-3 persons, even if it takes longer. Meaning that having 2 ppl who know nothing about their class/abilities/the game in whole in your group, wont really impact on the run. As long as they can push a few buttons and do some sort of dps, it's all possible. So when said ppl get grouped with experienced ppl on an alt decked in Heirlooms, they wont have any issues, thus wont even know, that they were doing anything wrong. They wont know, that had they been grouped with 4 others like them, they would probably have failed at completing the dungeon.

But how to balance it, so ppl will actually choose to use the dungeons more actively? Should blizz make the lower lvl dungeons harder and more rewarding? Not sure what would be the right answer tbh......

Cause for experienced ppl it would really suck to feel "forced" to lvl through dungeons to gain more XP, when you know all the quests and therefore will do those quests alot faster than a person new to the game.

But agree, the way the leveling system works, alot of ppl reach lvl 85 with little to no knowledge what so ever about their class, about grouping, about other classes etc.

Good post OP

[Orodoth]

WoW doesn't encourage you to learn your class to its fullest, that is a given. They made a somewhat laughable effort with the new tool tips (i.e. heroic strike for warriors - use this abilty when your gaining rage faster than you can spend it) and they make you "practice" your level 3 move 1 to 5 times depending on your class.. What NEEDs to happen, and it wouldn't take much of anything to do, is to implement more "use this move, then that move, then this move till this procs" quests. Make the player do simple, high exp yield quests (to encourage doing them) that involve stringing together chains of moves, activation and using procs, etc. Show that person who is new to WoW that their arsenal isnt just full of useless attacks. To start the entire chain, simply implement a new quests at level 10, that picks your spec. then bam shabam, the chain begins with the requirement of picking a spec. Players could always go back to their trainer under a new spec, and get the equivalent quests based on spec.

but thats just my 2 cents. A simple start of a fix for a complex and on going problem.

EDIT: just thought of this, with the easy and nearly free exp for trying out a spec, guess what, we now have players who are at least trying and looking at all 3 specs. You might play a prot pally at a mediocre rate, while never knowing you'd be awesome and have a blast playing holy.

[souplix]

What wow has done very well is make the game very easy when you start out. People can pick it up quickly, and you unlock different class aspects (talent points, glyphs, dungeons) in a staggering manner that allows you to get the hang of something. Instead of games like Eve where "the basics" are 90% of the game.

I think Blizzard has made it obvious that they are going to cater to the less hard core players with the string of nerfs / buffs. Not that it's a bad thing, it will keep people playing and they are a business.

I just really wish I could have seen how Cataclysm was received if it had been launched after BC. Aka, no easy mode face roll heroics for gear to get used to. And use of CC not so unheard of.

EDIT: Since there was mention of Everquest in this post I figured I'd mention sony added another progression server that will be mostly controlled by week long voting sections. Polling the community if they wish to advance to the next expansion.

[Deleted]

I fully agree with the OP on every matter in the post.

I remember back in the day when I started with EverQuest as my first real MMO and how hard it was to learn the game in the beginning. People died to level 1 mobs and it took ages to get to max level. Even the good groups had a hard time in the later dungeons gaining exp since the fights were just so hard and dying took away 10% exp while you earn like 0.1% per mob and was barely visible in your exp bar. I remember that Visible Exp was called Good Exp! Take that you WoW kids that call yourselfs pro. The community was always understanding, patient and helpful, no matter at what age the people were. Today you find millions of idiots in WoW that are even older than some EQ folks.

WoW was interesting in the beginning, because it was so frakin easy to play, even in the endgame content and the people were nice and helpful in the beginning. It all shifted when blizzard began to destroy the game entirely by making content trivial even at appropriate level and gear. However, the raids were always good, even if they were too easy.

But yes, the game would be way better if it had group leveling. As it stands WoW is a single-player game with many people who CAN play Coop if they want to. And even if not, they do it anyway to get to the shiny blues and epics, but they are not willing to work for it. In my opinion that defeats the purpose of having character-progression of any kind if you progress your character without actually communicating with other people.

Developing your character actually means what it says: It develops YOUR character (the polygon/pixel-thing and the one in real life).

[Deleted]

most other games I have played, you hit a wall during leveling if you dont learn to play. Wow levelling is so mindlessly easy it doesnt pay to learn anything, mobs are dead too fast to matter. They only challenge in wow is to not pull too many at once if you cant handle it. the fact is new players are learning the game at 85 and not at 25, where they should be.

hard mobs, small grind = challenging yet fun game
easy mobs, long grind = boring as hell grind
easy mobs, small grind = WoW
hard mobs, long ground = korean games (translates to learn to bot usually)

[Zarasthura]

As much as I like the revamped old world, it zooms you through 1-60 so fast that you don't get enough time to learn your class. On top of that there's very little places were you'd need to use every skill in your tool box until heroics. I can't tell you how many times I've had dps/tanks that told me they've never CC'd or interrupted before. Or they fail hard to do so when the time calls for it.

As far as tanking and healing go, you are required to learn your class to be successful in the average pug raid/dungeon because you're thrust into a demanding role from the getgo. Not so much for dps, because you're set on cruise control 1-85 leveling and gaining little experience along the way (unless you go out of your way to learn everything you have to know about your spec/class).

Extra skills like last-minute CC to save the healer, offhealing and offtanking in emergencies are unheard of nowadays. People wonder why they're called bad when raids discover just how terrible they are at their class.

[Ssith]

didn't read, just going to answer the title question:

yes. i'm fairly confident that any class that wears better than cloth gear could auto-attack it's way to 85.

[Twotonsteak]

I think the Cataclysm changes made to the Talent Tree's and the ease of overall questing have contributed. I mean you can solo up to level 85 with little to no skill. Once at 85 you can farm normal dungeons and heroics Wrath-style as long as you follow two simple rules:

1. Don't hit the sheep/CC mob
2. Don't stand in the "fire."

Follow those two rules, as DPS, and you can farm your way to Raid-ready gear with little skill or work.

[ishootblanks]

you guys don't remember playing pre-2.9 do you? the playerbase hasn't gotten any worse..

if anything can be blamed for the current divide between "decent" players and total scrubs it would be the dungeon finder..

how many of you instead of taking 5 minutes to TEACH a person what they could be or should not be doing.. you just vote kick them?

how many of you would come across that player who is terrible.. but wants to learn.. and since they are on your realm.. chat with them for a while to help them with their class?

ultimately the problem is impatience and selfishness.. chances are if someone doesn't know they are bad.. they won't know how to get better

but as for the questing experience? nah.. that doesn't make people better or worse.. I know people that have been solo'ing since WoW Beta and could tell you anything you'd ever want to know about thorium mining routes and quest locations.. but can't figure out what they are doing in a dungeon

[Twotonsteak]

Extra skills like last-minute CC to save the healer, offhealing and offtanking in emergencies are unheard of nowadays. People wonder why they're called bad when raids discover just how terrible they are at their class.

I can't tell you how often I've seen PuG's crash and burn because the Spriest, Boomkin, or some other "hybrid" class didn't pick up on the healing when the healer died. And I can't tell you how often people look at my oddly when I say that all healing-capable classes SHOULD be using healbot/clique/some other addon at all times.

[Deleted]

Rf

I actually agree with this, on my Feral Druid with a SPriest partner we duoed most dungeons whilst leveling, and that really didn't take long. Soloing RFC on a level 12 warlock too etc.

The problem is that every class has been buffed a crazy amount (for balance issues at 85) but none of the low level dungeons have been. Whilst i think it would take a lot of (maybe unwanted?) effort to buff these dungeons, if it could be done in such a way that it would teach the 'noobs' how to do half decently in an 85 dungeon, then thats great.

90+% of the playerbase is terrible at their class, in 8/10 occasions i don't blame them because the faceroll content up until level 85 doesn't prepare anyone for it.

Rfc isnt soloable at level 12 in cataclysm we wiped often with a full group of level 11 players unheirloomd. Me and some mates are running a 5 man group for leveling with alot of fun. Doing the new rfc at lvl 10 sfk at level 15 are hard. We wiped on sfk at last boss. Healer doesbt have decurse till 18 and has to spamheal our undergeared tank.

[Kreetoon]

So fast forward back to WoW. Do people think if the game relied less on quests and more on getting people into dungeons at an early level(yes I know LFD was a huge step in the right direction) people would be better group players once they hit 85? If they made dungeons starting at level 10 with RFC and all the others tougher with actual CC and thinking required, people would continue to learn their classes and become better.

I like the idea, but it just won't happen that way, check out the number of posts regarding nerfs to cataclysm heroics. New content shouldn't be easy, but yet there are so many players who play casually and would rather have their epics in the mailbox once they ding 85. While I do think the lower level instances should be buffed as not to be such a walkover as they are today, I just dont see it happening. While we are on the subject of the LFD tool I might add something here as well.. Lately I have been leveling a holy priest, spamming instances day in and day out, and I see so many players performing so bad it should be fundamentally wrong to ever interact with said person. On a not totally unrelated note it seems the LFD tool promotes slack.. Instances from 16-85 does not need luck of the draw. It's faster with it yes, but not nearly neccessary to finish a dungeon.

TL;DR: Never going to happen, enjoy grping with noobs with heirlooms and no knowledge who seem to call out noob to the first player to open their mouth.

[Deleted]

most other games I have played, you hit a wall during leveling if you dont learn to play. Wow levelling is so mindlessly easy it doesnt pay to learn anything, mobs are dead too fast to matter. They only challenge in wow is to not pull too many at once if you cant handle it. the fact is new players are learning the game at 85 and not at 25, where they should be.

hard mobs, small grind = challenging yet fun game
easy mobs, long grind = boring as hell grind
easy mobs, small grind = WoW
hard mobs, long ground = korean games (translates to learn to bot usually)

Long ground?

[Vetis]

forcing groups to quest is stupid. the odd group quest is fine but you shouldn't have to spend half your tine just trying to get a group before you can quest.

dps lfquest group 30 min wait etc ..

[Deleted]

90+% of the playerbase is terrible at their class, in 8/10 occasions i don't blame them because the faceroll content up until level 85 doesn't prepare anyone for it.

you know 95 % of 7/12 statistics are just made up to make a point?

[Cairm]

I can't tell you how often I've seen PuG's crash and burn because the Spriest, Boomkin, or some other "hybrid" class didn't pick up on the healing when the healer died. And I can't tell you how often people look at my oddly when I say that all healing-capable classes SHOULD be using healbot/clique/some other addon at all times.

Screw healing addons, its called class awareness, and actually knowing how to react in given situation. Too bad most of the community is bad at either focusing or reacting accordingly to a situation.
For exemple : Its not a wipe if your doing regular mode 25-man and someone dies. Too often i heard my guild say : Wipe it its done, when say one mage died randomly from fire on the ground... It's not a wipe, pick it up, Brez the bad and keep going.

---------- Post added 2011-02-20 at 04:39 PM ----------

Rf

Rfc isnt soloable at level 12 in cataclysm we wiped often with a full group of level 11 players unheirloomd. Me and some mates are running a 5 man group for leveling with alot of fun. Doing the new rfc at lvl 10 sfk at level 15 are hard. We wiped on sfk at last boss. Healer doesbt have decurse till 18 and has to spamheal our undergeared tank.

Excuse me, but that looks too much of a fail to be true. With all these high level character i'd expect you to overcome the situation in any possible manner.

[Deleted]

Screw healing addons, its called class awareness, and actually knowing how to react in given situation. Too bad most of the community is bad at either focusing or reacting accordingly to a situation.
For exemple : Its not a wipe if your doing regular mode 25-man and someone dies. Too often i heard my guild say : Wipe it its done, when say one mage died randomly from fire on the ground... It's not a wipe, pick it up, Brez the bad and keep going.

---------- Post added 2011-02-20 at 04:39 PM ----------



Excuse me, but that looks too much of a fail to be true. With all these high level character i'd expect you to overcome the situation in any possible manner.

it could be true alot of these old dungeons have been changed, the mobs give far less exp than before and cant be facerolled as easy.... by that i mean it takes more than one attack to kill them