Questing in BfA

[Lei]

Okay, so while I don't have the alpha, I watched a couple of streamers playing through Drusthaven and Nazmir. I have to say questing seems really lackluster in these zones right now (I doubt they will remake it). I'm trying to be constructive and not just "whiny", but hard to pinpoint the exact problem. I would like to point out that normally I LIKE questing. At least I liked up till now.
1) Maybe it's the "samezone" feeling, they are dark zones (Alliance is dark brown, horde is greyish). While they look fantastic, nothing seems to "pop" and grab your attention along the way.
2) Maybe it's the fact that there are really small amount of quests at a time, I think the most quests I've seen was 3-4 at a time and only 2, max 3 in the same area. It is really story driven, but the story is quite boring, you can't "bruteforce" yourself through, you have to follow the questline. In WoD at least there were bonus objectives, with really good xp. In wrath there were quest hubs in the zones and you could jump in and out, and pick and choose zones, and you had like 8-10 quests at a time, 4-5 in the same area. This time it seems you get in, and you have to stay, just like in Legion, which I really didn't like at all. And let's not forget, you will have even less zones this time around. (The size of the zone doesn't matter if you have to start and finish in a very streamlined fashion)
3) the quests seem to follow a very strict storyline, which could be interesting, but in reality it just feels you wander around and killl everything killable, and the story is like a brazilian telenovela. (I felt the same with Legion, especially with the Lightforged draenei unlock questline, it was unnecessarily long, slow and boring)

I think the huge zones could be okay if there were many jump in points that are on an independent story line. Being in one BfA zone for 4-5 hours seems really depressive. Just go and watch a stream and just fast forward into it again and again.

I would like to point out that streamers won't say out loud if they are bored to death with the alpha (I brought it up in 2-3 chat rooms, and I either got simply ignored, or was told "alpha is alpha"), atm everyone is having their famous for 15 min moments.


Please keep this topic contsructive, and on topic.

[Varolyn]

It doesn't look any different than questing in any of the previous expansions since Wotlk. Questing is mainly there for story, so as long as the story is good and it's not tedious to do again on alts, I won't have an issue with it.

Also, i disagree with your opinions on the zones aesthitics. They both seemed pretty fresh imo, especially Drustvar and its theme.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Bonus objectives are not gone. They are just not added yet I guess? Also it might look a bit dull atm because there are still no cutscenes and cinematics. Overall I don't think it's going to be much different than Legion questing and Legion questing was quite enjoyable.

[Lei]

It doesn't look any different than questing in any of the previous expansions since Wotlk. Questing is mainly there for story, so as long as the story is good and it's not tedious to do again on alts, I won't have an issue with it.

Also, i disagree with your opinions on the zones aesthitics. They both seemed pretty fresh imo, especially Drustvar and its theme.

Didn't think comprehension was so hard.
Zones are fresh. For 1-2 hours. Wandering around in the same zone killing the same mobs gets old quite fast. You remember how good it felt to get out of Borean Tundra and get into Dragonblight, then to Grizzly Hills? Or in vanilla when you got into Duskwood and darkness was refreshing, but then getting to STV, the jungle theme was refreshing again? BfA zones are like watching the same painting for hours.

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Bonus objectives are not gone. They are just not added yet I guess? Also it might look a bit dull because there are still no cutscenes and cinematics. I don't think it's going to be much different than Legion questing and Legion questing was quite enjoyable.

Bonus objectives are tied to quests since Legion. They only open up when you are on the quests nearby, so you can't do what you did in WoD.

[Ringthane]

They remade Jade Forest before MoP came out, and I think they redid some of Hyjal before Cata, so they still have plenty of time to redo these zones if need be.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Didn't think comprehension was so hard.
Zones are fresh. For 1-2 hours. Wandering around in the same zone killing the same mobs gets old quite fast. You remember how good it felt to get out of Borean Tundra and get into Dragonblight, then to Grizzly Hills? Or in vanilla when you got into Duskwood and darkness was refreshing, but then getting to STV, the jungle theme was refreshing again? BfA zones are like watching the same painting for hours.

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Bonus objectives are tied to quests since Legion. They only open up when you are on the quests nearby, so you can't do what you did in WoD.

There is variety of zones right now I don't understand what you are on about. The horde zones are a big jungle, a swamp and a desert. The alliance zones are a cursed forest, green plains and a grizzly hills meets pirates zone.

[Varolyn]

Didn't think comprehension was so hard.
Zones are fresh. For 1-2 hours. Wandering around in the same zone killing the same mobs gets old quite fast. You remember how good it felt to get out of Borean Tundra and get into Dragonblight, then to Grizzly Hills? Or in vanilla when you got into Duskwood and darkness was refreshing, but then getting to STV, the jungle theme was refreshing again? BfA zones are like watching the same painting for hours.

I don't see why you had to start the response the way you did, I simply just put in my input. And I don't really understand what you are saying about zone variation. Zandalar will have a jungle region, a swamp region, and a desert region. KT has a forest/mountain zone, a Bright Valley, and a habor/cove zone. Seems reasonable to me.

[Lei]

There is variety of zones right now I don't understand what you are on about. The horde zones are a big jungle, a swamp and a desert. The alliance zones are a cursed forest, green plains and a grizzly hills meets pirates zone.

It is really simple: in wrath you had plenty of zones to pick, and you were done with them really fast, you went into new and fresh zones all the time. Now you have less zones, which means they have to spread more quests in these zones for you to level. So you stay in the same zone for much much longer, doing more quests, that are tied to a storyline. If normally a zone story is done with let's say 50 quests (with caring about quest quality, story quality, flowing etc), now you will have 150 quests for the same. There is no story that feels good with that many quests packed into one story. in my opinion at least.

Questing is questing not a valid thing in this topic, because questing can be good and interesting. Questing is good in my opinion when the story doesnt feel like a telenovela, it keeps you entertained, engaged, the quests are not dragged out for ages just because they need x amount of quests for you to cap. They have to flow naturally. This is what BfA questing lacks in my opinion.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

It is really simple: in wrath you had plenty of zones to pick, and you were done with them really fast, you went into new and fresh zones all the time. Now you have less zones, which means they have to spread more quests in these zones for you to level. So you stay in the same zone for much much longer, doing more quests, that are tied to a storyline. If normally a zone story is done with let's say 50 quests (with caring about quest quality, story quality, flowing etc), now you will have 150 quests for the same. There is no story that feels good with that many quests packed into one story. in my opinion at least.

Questing is questing not a valid thing in this topic, because questing can be good and interesting. Questing is good in my opinion when the story doesnt feel like a telenovela, it keeps you entertained, engaged, the quests are not dragged out for ages just because they need x amount of quests for you to cap. They have to flow naturally. This is what BfA questing lacks in my opinion.

But how is it any different than Legion? You are going to be leveling through 3 zones instead of 4. That's the only difference. And sorry but pre-cata questing was far from enjoyable IMHO. The quests were awfully repetitive.

[Lei]

But how is it any different than Legion? You are going to be leveling through 3 zones instead of 4. That's the only difference. And sorry but pre-cata questing was far from enjoyable IMHO. The quests were awfully repetitive.

Less is always worse in my opinion. I didn't like Legion leveling. I can't even bother to level my favorite alts to max level. I like "jump in jump out" questing. Where I don't have to stay and follow the same story for the 2nd or 3rd time. Less zone is worse than more zones, logic tells me. If you think pre-cata quests were repetitive, how will you kill blood trolls for 5-6 hours? Because Nazmir is basically textbox -> kill blood trolls here, textbox -> kill blood trolls here, and here here here, and there.

Seriously, go and watch a playthrough. I watched wowcrendor's and preach's stream (horde side), and hazelnutty and nobbel (alliance), there's not enough bants on this world enough to compensate how bland it gets after 30-40 mins.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Didn't think comprehension was so hard.
Zones are fresh. For 1-2 hours. Wandering around in the same zone killing the same mobs gets old quite fast. You remember how good it felt to get out of Borean Tundra and get into Dragonblight, then to Grizzly Hills? Or in vanilla when you got into Duskwood and darkness was refreshing, but then getting to STV, the jungle theme was refreshing again? BfA zones are like watching the same painting for hours.

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Bonus objectives are tied to quests since Legion. They only open up when you are on the quests nearby, so you can't do what you did in WoD.

Don't play the game then, or don't pay attention to alpha/beta gameplay. What you're seeing now is only a fraction of what BFA will be... At some point I think people lost the concept of what alpha/beta is and now treat it as a preview of what they're going to play when that's just not the case, not this early at least. But if you can't put that into perspective then please just drop it altogether and find something else to enjoy, or at least stop making threads about it. I'm so tired of all the QQ threads about the news not meeting expectations or not feeling interested anymore. We go through the same fucking shit every goddamn expansion.

[Lei]

Don't play the game then, or don't pay attention to alpha/beta gameplay. What you're seeing now is only a fraction of what BFA will be... At some point I think people lost the concept of what alpha/beta is and now treat it as a preview of what they're going to play when that's just not the case, not this early at least. But if you can't put that into perspective then please just drop it altogether and find something else to enjoy, or at least stop making threads about it. I'm so tired of all the QQ threads about the news not meeting expectations or not feeling interested anymore. We go through the same fucking shit every goddamn expansion.

How about you watch a stream and tell me what you like? Instead of attacking the "messenger"? Hm? If you are the type of person who basically loves everything, then that's fine too.
Fraction of BfA yes, but with having LESS zones than EVER before, means what we are seeing is a bigger fraction. If this was Borean Tundra, I wouldn't give a shit, because there would be 6 more zones to pick from, or just do half of Borean Tundra, and fuck off to somewhere else. But now this is 1/3 of the available zones and it feels lacking. Also keep in ind that in wrath you only had to do 3 or 4 zones from the 7, and you could cap. In Legion I had to do most of the zones (3 out of 4). How many zones I have to finish in BfA to cap? 2 of 3?

[Varolyn]

I think you shouldn't use someone elses stream to form your opinion on an alpha, especially since wow is not a very good game to watch on stream.

[Lei]

I think you shouldn't use someone elses stream to form your opinion on an alpha, especially since wow is not a very good game to watch on stream.

Except I'm doing this with every xpac since Cata.

Questing was never perfect imo, but something usually made it pretty okay. In bc and wrath if you got bored, you just went to a hub, where you found 8-10 quests at once, dungeons gave good xp as well. In wod storyline was strict, but you could bruteforce it with jump in bonus objectives. In cata you leveled so fast you could jump out halfway through from every zone, usually when it got superboring. Legion questing had it's own criticisms mainly beig too streamlined and BfA continues with it, with even less zones to pick from.

[Ifeanychukwu]

How about you watch a stream and tell me what you like? Instead of attacking the "messenger"? Hm? If you are the type of person who basically loves everything, then that's fine too.
Fraction of BfA yes, but with having LESS zones than EVER before, means what we are seeing is a bigger fraction. If this was Borean Tundra, I wouldn't give a shit, because there would be 6 more zones to pick from, or just do half of Borean Tundra, and fuck off to somewhere else. But now this is 1/3 of the available zones and it feels lacking. Also keep in ind that in wrath you only had to do 3 or 4 zones from the 7, and you could cap. In Legion I had to do most of the zones (3 out of 4). How many zones I have to finish in BfA to cap? 2 of 3?

I have watched multiple streams and it was very obvious to me that what I was looking at was a VERY EARLY build of the ALPHA, the version of the game that in the past wasn't even shown to most people but has now become a preview of content to come. I don't love everything WoW either, I play the game for as long as I'm having fun, then I take a break and play other things until new content comes out. Also, if the size of the zones is what bothers you, the maps have been looked at and the new zones combined are bigger than any previous expansion, that's not even counting the new scenario type content that have dozens of randomly generated islands. I don't know about your last point because none of that has been announced yet.

The only thing that matters at the end of the day is if you're having fun with the game. If you are, then great. If not, then don't play! If you have complaints about the game maybe take them to one of the multiple megathreads that already exist and share your opinion where you can maybe have a productive discussion. We don't need hundreds of new threads all stating the same tired complaints that crop up every single time a new expansion launches.

[Lei]

I have watched multiple streams and it was very obvious to me that what I was looking at was a VERY EARLY build of the ALPHA, the version of the game that in the past wasn't even shown to most people but has now become a preview of content to come. I don't love everything WoW either, I play the game for as long as I'm having fun, then I take a break and play other things until new content comes out. Also, if the size of the zones is what bothers you, the maps have been looked at and the new zones combined are bigger than any previous expansion, that's not even counting the new scenario type content that have dozens of randomly generated islands. I don't know about your last point because none of that has been announced yet.

The only thing that matters at the end of the day is if you're having fun with the game. If you are, then great. If not, then don't play! If you have complaints about the game maybe take them to one of the multiple megathreads that already exist and share your opinion where you can maybe have a productive discussion. We don't need hundreds of new threads all stating the same tired complaints that crop up every single time a new expansion launches.

If nobody complains, they probably leave it like this, and nothing changes. The streamers as far as I saw don't really express criticism, they use the new stuff to get views off of it, and I don't blame them for this. In megathreads these issues will get lost pretty fast, and questing is big enough topic to have it's own thread I think.

"Also, if the size of the zones is what bothers you, the maps have been looked at and the new zones combined are bigger than any previous expansion,"
Would you take one supersized elvynn forest with the same mobs all through that takes 6 hours to go through (6 hours of killing bandits, spiders and kobolds), or a smaller elwynn + a smaller duskwood, + a smaller stranglethorn which takes 2-2-2 hours to complete with their own mobs and storyline? To me it's obvious to say hell yeah, I want 3 smaller, more diversive zones than 1 big "samezone".

Supersized zones could be good with "jump in jump out" bigger sidequest hubs that could push you through and save from playing the zone from start to finish.


Rememeber when we had "optimal routes" for fast leveling? There were addons that would guide you through zones which gave you the most xp with the least time wasting, and you could skip half the zone... And what was conslegion? It basically put an arrow ahead of you and you just finished the whole zone with it (you couldn't skip quests in Legion and there were no hubs, nor jump in bonus objectives).

[JustaRandomReindeer]

If nobody complains, they probably leave it like this, and nothing changes. The streamers as far as I saw don't really express criticism, they use the new stuff to get views off of it, and I don't blame them for this. In megathreads these issues will get lost pretty fast, and questing is big enough topic to have it's own thread I think.

"Also, if the size of the zones is what bothers you, the maps have been looked at and the new zones combined are bigger than any previous expansion,"
Would you take one supersized elvynn forest with the same mobs all through that takes 6 hours to go through (6 hours of killing bandits, spiders and kobolds), or a smaller elwynn + a smaller duskwood, + a smaller stranglethorn which takes 2-2-2 hours to complete with their own mobs and storyline? To me it's obvious to say hell yeah, I want 3 smaller, more diversive zones than 1 big "samezone".

Supersized zones could be good with "jump in jump out" bigger side questhubs that could push you through and save from playing the zone from start to finish.

Maybe people are satisfied with the questing experience? Just because you find it boring doesn't mean everyone does. I watched streams and I can already tell that Nazmir is going to be my favorite questing zone because I love the story, I love the questing experience as it is now because there is variety in quests and every zone has a rich story and you go through it without detours. So really why are you complaining? I know that maybe you don't see it the way that I do but hey you just have to spend like I guess 1 or 2 days in those zones? Not that big of a problem. And as other people have mentioned already it's just alpha. Nothing is final.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Plenty of people complain and we can see the exact complaints you're voicing here on MMO-champ all day long. If you're sharing your complaints and critique in a megathread, if your points have merit then people will have a discussion with you and maybe even come to an agreement on changes that could be made.

Those zones you mention are tiny zones meant to tell small contained stories and present a setting and mood as you progress through the world in your early levels. Zones have become more complex and varied throughout every expansion so there's plenty of room for them to create plenty of unique experiences in these new mega zones.

There will always be optimal play styles no matter which game you play, MMOs even more so. It's on the individual to decide whether or not to use the most effective methods. If you choose to make the game trivial to play for yourself then you have no right to complain about it being so.

[Freds1234]

It is really simple: in wrath you had plenty of zones to pick, and you were done with them really fast, you went into new and fresh zones all the time. Now you have less zones, which means they have to spread more quests in these zones for you to level. So you stay in the same zone for much much longer, doing more quests, that are tied to a storyline. If normally a zone story is done with let's say 50 quests (with caring about quest quality, story quality, flowing etc), now you will have 150 quests for the same. There is no story that feels good with that many quests packed into one story. in my opinion at least.

Questing is questing not a valid thing in this topic, because questing can be good and interesting. Questing is good in my opinion when the story doesnt feel like a telenovela, it keeps you entertained, engaged, the quests are not dragged out for ages just because they need x amount of quests for you to cap. They have to flow naturally. This is what BfA questing lacks in my opinion.

Good job pulling numbers out of your ass. Also, did you play Legion at all? Are you familiar with World Quests? We've been running around the same zones for a year and a half now doing mostly the same quests, every day, on multiple characters.

I'd also really like to borrow the time machine you used to travel 7 months into the future to play through all zones in their finished state, that must've been great.

[CasualFilth]

But how is it any different than Legion? You are going to be leveling through 3 zones instead of 4. That's the only difference. And sorry but pre-cata questing was far from enjoyable IMHO. The quests were awfully repetitive.

I disagree. Recently I capped my orc warlock (3rd max character) and Legion is one of the most snoozefest expansions regarding the questing experience. There's no narrative, no subplots, even the main storylines are quite dull. Pre-Cata repetitive? Legion levelling is this: Kill 7 of X and their leader.

Where's the narrative? In Wrath you had the Iron Dwarf/Titans/Yogg-Saron subplot. In TBC, you have the Shadow Council that were up to no good. Heck, even in Vanilla the Defias and Scarlet Crusade plots were some of the best WoW storylines that live up to this day. Legion has the questing pertaining to a Michael Bay movie.