WoW is 99 % instance-based content.

[XDurionX]

Just because you chose not to do world content doesn't mean it's not there. And being forced to farm shitty consumables in vanilla wasn't entertaining either.

[Kaver]

If Vanilla didnt have raids and dungeons, there would be NO TBC and every other expansion afterwards. However congrats never answering the question put to you.

Sorry I opened up a discussion that I never wanted. I hate talking vanilla vs retail. I like current raiding and dungeons. I just don't think the potential of the game is being used.

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It's a complete shitstorm. Sorry everyone

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Just because you chose not to do world content doesn't mean it's not there. And being forced to farm shitty consumables in vanilla wasn't entertaining either.

I agree.

But if we keep focus on the current version of the game, I don't think there is much reason to go into the world. And when you do it is not really engaging.

[Tiwack]

Of course, that's why dungeon fighter online can be huge game despite what it is, it's irrelevant when it's the players that elevate the games themselves.

[Kaver]

Of course, that's why dungeon fighter online can be huge game despite what it is, it's irrelevant when it's the players that elevate the games themselves.

I agree. But I just see a huge potential in the beautiful world of azeroth which I think could be used more. Raids and Dungeons are great don't get me wrong, but I think it's sad we don't have more incentive to go out into the world. And the world don't really feel engaging because it's not challenging.

[Dracullus]

We had 4 types of content in WoW:

- one-time stuff
- repeatable "grind" content
- repeatable "RNG" content
- challenging content.

Of course "challenging content" is most exciting. And for many people (especially veterans) ONLY interesting content. But it's MMO, so people could just bring more people to trivialize any difficulty. People always pick path of least resistance (this is a point that "anti-flying" side is trying to make, by the way).

How do we solve that? Easy, we separate 1/3/5/10/30 people to try challenge crafted specially for that numbers of players. How do we call part of the MMO world, where you or your group are separated from the rest? Yep, it's an instance. Case closed.

[Kaver]

We had 4 types of content in WoW:

- one-time stuff
- repeatable "grind" content
- repeatable "RNG" content
- challenging content.

Of course "challenging content" is most exciting. And for many people (especially veterans) ONLY interesting content. But it's MMO, so people could just bring more people to trivialize any difficulty. People always pick path of least resistance (this is a point that "anti-flying" side is trying to make, by the way).

How do we solve that? Easy, we separate 1/3/5/10/30 people to try challenge crafted specially for that numbers of players. How do we call part of the MMO world, where you or your group are separated from the rest? Yep, it's an instance. Case closed.

I would love if they created some world quests which had the challenge level of Mage Towers or even higher

I think the "path of least resistance" point is true but it only applies to some scenarios. Like running vs. flying where the difference is just how much time you use. But I think that if the content is actually fun, then people will choose the more challenging content because it gives a better experience. Running to your destination is of course not fun, so people choose flying

I'm the type of guy who does Mythic raiding because I think it's fun and not just to get better gear. I know guys like Asmongold always talk about BiS gear being the only incentive for Mythic raiding, but I definitely just enjoy the more challenging content even if the rewards don't add up

[Panta]

Two months ago I had like 5 pets on lvl 25. Then I tryed to battle pet and discovered that I really enjoy Pokemon game... now I have 640sh pets, from which around 300 are lvl 25... I had to run an instaced area like ZERO times!!!! in the last two months to do something I now LOVE in this game.

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And when you do it is not really engaging.

You miss the "IMO" part.

[chooi]

99% is hyperbole but if some people here honestly believe that people in Vanilla & TBC and to some extent even later expansions didn't have more incentive to do open world content at max level than Legion/BFA you have ZERO clue.

Hours and hours of open world mob grinds and farming for reputation, crafting materials, recipes and gold were required so you could tackle the instanced content. The best thing was that you had a clear goal and were done once you got what you wanted but the initial grind was so massive that you were occupied in open world for quite some time.

Against common believe Daily/World Quests are actually detrimental to open world because there is only so much to do per day, they are localized on small areas only and they serve no purpose other than artificial sub retention. Also, removing things like elemental crafting materials (Primals, Eternals, etc.) that you had to farm herbs/ores and grind mobs for surely didn't help to keep players in the world. Remember farming Primal Shadows in Nagrand/Netherstorm for days or weeks in TBC for shadow resistance gear? Yeah, that was a thing and it's only one of many things you had to do.

It was a huge mistake to remove the farm/grind aspect in an MMORPG.

[Kaver]

99% is hyperbole but if some people here honestly believe that people in Vanilla & TBC and to some extent even later expansions didn't have more incentive to do open world content at max level you have ZERO clue.

Hours and hours of open world mob grinds and farming for reputation, crafting materials, recipes and gold were required so you could tackle the instanced content.

Against common believe WQs are actually detrimental to open world because there is only so much to do per day. Also, removing things like elemental crafting materials (Primals, Eternals, etc.) that you had to farm herbs/ores and grind mobs for surely didn't help to keep players in the world. Remember farming Primal Shadows in Nagrand/Netherstorm for days or weeks in TBC for shadow resistance gear? Yeah, that was a thing and it's only one of many.

Let's just leave the Vanilla / TBC talk alone and focus on how to improve the open world experience for the current game. People are getting really mad about it and it starts to scare me. Just look to the future

[LedZeppelin]

The problem is that expansions are supposed to expand on the game (haha). The problem is that in WoW, the new expansion basically invalidates the rest of the expansions making that content worthless outside of transmogs and pets. This is why there is always seems to be a content drought. Everything resets after a new expansion and the last expansion is now worthless. With the new raid tier, the item levels everywhere in the world also increase making the last raid tier, basically worthless. When raid uldir when you can get the same shit from WQ and what not. A fresh character should want to raid the lowest tier and work their way up. Minor catchup mechanics should be available like farming badges for the gear but the gear was never super mega amazing but would definitely help. Expansions used to be gear resets. Now gear resets happen every patch.

[Kaver]

You miss the "IMO" part.

Yeah you're right.

It's just really hard for me to imagine that people can be engaged by content which is not challenging.

But people also use cheat codes in single player games so not all like a challenge I guess

[Dracullus]

I would love if they created some world quests which had the challenge level of Mage Towers or even higher

I think the "path of least resistance" point is true but it only applies to some scenarios. Like running vs. flying where the difference is just how much time you use. But I think that if the content is actually fun people will choose the more challenging content because it gives a better experience.

I'm the type of guy who does Mythic raiding because I think it's fun and not just to get better gear. I know guys like Asmongold always talk about BiS gear being the only incentive for Mythic raiding, but I definitely just enjoy the more challenging content even if the rewards don't add up

Why not just Mage Tower 2.0? ;P I still hope we will see it in BfA. (By the way, we have that world quests - 5 man rares. And people are doing them in 40 man groups - ok, maybe I went too far with it, but you get an idea - players will just bring more players to easy farm that stuff).

Don't want to change it to flying topic (please not...), but I think one zone with flying on launch (Storm Peaks/Icecrown style) would improve system a lot. Maybe in 9.0, hopefully we won't be splited again and they'll have more freedom to stuff like this or Suramar 2.0.

And about loot. I really don't get BiS guys, like at all. When you get that loot, it will only survive few months at best. And no matter how you will struggle, in 1-2 year everyone will get better stuff from killing boars. No, BiS ship sailed in 2007, when they decided to make first "reset" with TBC.

[Kaver]

Why not just Mage Tower 2.0? ;P I still hope we will see it in BfA. (By the way, we have that world quests - 5 man rares. And people are doing them in 40 man groups - ok, maybe I went too far with it, but you get an idea - players will just bring more players to easy farm that stuff).

Don't want to change it to flying topic (please not...), but I think one zone with flying on launch (Storm Peaks/Icecrown style) would improve system a lot. Maybe in 9.0, hopefully we won't be splited again and they'll have more freedom to stuff like this or Suramar 2.0.

And about loot. I really don't get BiS guys, like at all. When you get that loot, it will only survive few months at best. And no matter how you will struggle, in 1-2 year everyone will get better stuff from killing boars. No, BiS ship sailed in 2007, when they decided to make first "reset" with TBC.

I definitely just want more challenging open world content which can actually kill you. Mage Towers were so refreshing in that regard. It's doesn't have to be single player content... just make it challenging

[Deleted]

Agree Wow is terrible instanced based. The thing with vanilla you always had to go to the instance and that open up for ganking. Then we have a new playerbase that is obsessed to get gear, the faster it goes the better, hence all the toxicity in mythic plus and so on. But this means people also world pvp less since that would slow down their gear grind. In vanilla people was more prone to fuck with you. I just wish current wow would die, gameplay is so old and stale, we need something new. Just look at that Atlas trailer already looking way more interesting then current wow. Only reason to play wow now is if you either raid mythic seriously or go for high ranked arena. Grinding mythic plus every weak or do weekly arena as casual is incredible stale.

[Ardourdan]

The levelling experience is now so poor, that's the problem.

[chooi]

Let's just leave the Vanilla / TBC talk alone and focus on how to improve the open world experience for the current game. People are getting really mad about it and it starts to scare me. Just look to the future

I had to set this right first because some people clearly have no idea what they're talking about or have never actually played the game further than leveling up and running normal dungeons back then.

Regarding current game: I just told you. Bring back all the RPG aspects that wanted you to do open world stuff: actually useful & unique crafting gear, rare material drops, reputations not locked behind WQs, loooong endgame quest chains (attunements, pre-raid gear) and so on.

Though, problem is that current game design that showers you in Epics with massive ilvl inflation and removal of linear progression is not compatible with that approach anymore. So no clue unless they make a 180 degrees turn which doubtfully will ever happen.

[nlc]

Hours and hours of open world mob grinds and farming for reputation, crafting materials, recipes and gold were required so you could tackle the instanced content. The best thing was that you had a clear goal and were done once you got what you wanted but the initial grind was so massive that you were occupied in open world for quite some time.

[..]

It was a huge mistake to remove the farm/grind aspect in an MMORPG.

Was it though? There is still hours and hours of grinding required unless you buy tokens. Maybe it is significantly less than earlier expansions, I don't know, I only started playing with Legion but I do know one thing: if time spent doing chores in order to raid was much more than it is now I would not be playing at all. Who has time to sink endless hours into boring grinds just to do the fun content.

Agree with the OP though that it's a shame that the world isn't used more. It would be good if they could come up with activities that were interesting in their own right and not just there as chores for raiders or m+ players.

[Tojara]

People love to exaggerate how little the games changed in it's 14 years, reminiscing about times that didn't really exist, and not really being able to give clear examples of content they did outside of instanced dungeons. The game is quite literally the same as it was 14 years ago. Less convenient in it's earlier years, but still the same game.

The things people did in Vanilla and TBC out in the world are exactly the same as they are now. Vanilla took proportionally longer to level than other eras of the game, but the outside world is still utilized in the exact same fashion currently, as it was then.

-Leveling (exists on live obviously)
-Farming mats (exists on live)
-World PvP (exists on live)
-Traveling to dungeons/raids (exists on live)
-World bosses (exists on live)
-Max level quests, world quests, or daily quests (exists on live)
-Rep grinds (exists on live)

Aspects of the above might have been slightly more important or dragged out in earlier iterations, but at a certain point the world mostly becomes useless once you hit level cap. At that point you use it for world PvP (if you like that kinda thing), or farming raid materials. Whether you like the old formula of daily quests versus world quests is entirely up to you, but they are for all intent and purpose the same thing but re imagined.

If the game wasn't 0-4 years old to me at the time and I was still completely taken with it, I'd still be out there world PvPing because that's mostly what I did during those times. I can still do it today, but it doesn't have a hold on me like it did in the past. If I remove that from the equation, I'd argue I spend more time in the world now, simply because I have to travel to M+ dungeons. Yeah you traveled to dungeons in Vanilla/TBC as well, but there came a point in both eras where dungeon loot was entirely worthless and dungeon content became completely obsolete.

This isn't me saying you can't like the earlier iterations more, especially considering some of the 'world content' was a little bit more drawn out. To claim however, that WoW historically hasn't been 99% instance-based content right from the get go is a bold faced lie however. This is a point I keep reiterating when people over the years ever ask what do I think of WoW now versus 14 years ago, and my answer is always the same. The game is quite honestly the same game, and has been since it's inception. You level/quest, farm, dungeons, raid, world PvP, BG/arena and that's about it. Certain eras do things differently, and you're allowed to have a favorite though. Aside from balance, a lot of that shit I listed has been pretty consistent (especially dungeon/raids). Leveling also has been pretty consistent, except the time to level has shrunk substantially (vanilla being a 10 in length, TBC being like a 4, WoTLK being a 2, and everything else being a 1).

Do I think the world should be used more, outside of a vehicle for leveling once? Yeah. It's a shame how giant the actual world is, but how obsolete it becomes.

[Kaver]

I had to set this right first because some people clearly have no idea what they're talking about or have never actually played the game further than leveling up and running normal dungeons back then.

Regarding current game: I just told you. Bring back all the RPG aspects that wanted you to do open world stuff: actually useful & unique crafting gear, rare material drops, reputations not locked behind WQs, loooong endgame quest chains (attunements, pre-raid gear) and so on.

Though, problem is that current game design that showers you in Epics with massive ilvl inflation and removal of linear progression is not compatible with that approach anymore. So no clue unless they make a 180 degrees turn which doubtfully will ever happen.

Yes I agree. And add some content which is also mechanically challenging

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The levelling experience is now so poor, that's the problem.

And at max level the open world content is not challenging. We need to get mythic open world content which is actually mythic

[Byleth]

I mean, I spend 95% of my time out in open world Azeroth.

Maybe the issue is your playstyle, do you only enjoy instanced content?