Is leveling really that slow?

[Ange]

If you can only play 5 hours a week Classic is just not a game you will enjoy. You will get nowhere with that amount of time with Classic, and honestly I wouldn't even reommend BfA to anyone who plays that little, though you can probably do some meaningful content at least.

Of course the fanboys will keep telling you that it's the whole magic to have this "journey" towards the cap for half a year, but in reality you're just doing the same quests that have been in the game for years and grinding mobs, ocassionally doing an instance if you manage to find a group that actually needs your class and doesn't have every single useful item reserved. Especially if you "slow down, read quest texts" (and don't use quest help addons I assume) you won't reach level 30 before you get bored of it.

This is true for basicly every game with above SMARTPHONE DIFFICULTY.

A simple jump and run from the 90' without many safe points allready forces the player to memorize the pathing and that simply does not work 1/week.

The OP needs either a smartphone game or some dumbed down battle-royale shooter for his tiny gaming schedule.

[xpose]

Leveling was fun when everyone was doing it and on an even field. Now you'll be lucky to find a group for any dungeons so you're forced to quest. Level 60's camping cause they are bored and have a 30 minute AV queue. Twinks running around two shot people just because.

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If you can only play 5 hours a week Classic is just not a game you will enjoy. You will get nowhere with that amount of time with Classic, and honestly I wouldn't even reommend BfA to anyone who plays that little, though you can probably do some meaningful content at least.

I disagree. 5 hours a week is plenty to make meaningful progression as long as they are aware of their own limitations and enjoy the game. If they could do it all in a single session that is where the most progress could be made however. Obviously if they can only do 1 hour sessions that will hinder any end game content they can attempt to do.

[ReVnX]

It's not that bad. If in the new expansions you had to level from 1 to 60 with no boosts, leveling gear, and in white/gray items it wouldn't be all that different from what each individual would do on thier own. It only took me about 2 weeks of casually leveling two or so hours a night after work and a longer session or two that weekend between to hit 60. So like 34 to 36 hours I think. No guides or addons holding my hand. Just memory of things from 15ish years ago. If you use those things and have a plan it's probably even quicker.

Calling major bullshit

[xpose]

It's not that bad. If in the new expansions you had to level from 1 to 60 with no boosts, leveling gear, and in white/gray items it wouldn't be all that different from what each individual would do on thier own. It only took me about 2 weeks of casually leveling two or so hours a night after work and a longer session or two that weekend between to hit 60. So like 34 to 36 hours I think. No guides or addons holding my hand. Just memory of things from 15ish years ago. If you use those things and have a plan it's probably even quicker.

Why lie about something everyone here has experienced

[Ragnarohk]

Ok, thank you everybody for your responses! There are too many to answer all of them, but in general:

After further thought I decided that Classic is not for me. While I do believe that the journey to 60 is the spirit of the game, it just requires too much time to actually progress and get things done. I started cutting down on my play time in Retail to a point that I could just log in and PuG a few Mythic+, a few heroic bosses or some random BGs. This amount of time was enough in retail, but it seems that it has little to no worth in Classic.

I'll probably steer away from MMOs for now, and play RPGs that take less time to complete (and actually have an ending). Even retail requires a high time investment now with leveling the legendary cape/neck/rep/essences, and it's not really viable to log in just to raid.

I hope that my life never gets so bad that i would only have 5 hrs/week to do the things i enjoy.

You're implying that the other 163 hours of my week suck, I'm sorry, but I enjoy everything I currently do, including my job and studies. It's just that I have to organize myself and set a schedule this year and I believe 5 hours per week is a nice and healthy number.

The "things I enjoy" are scattered throught my week and aren't solely playing videogames. So I actually wish you the opposite, a life so nice that you enjoy all aspects of it and not just 1 activity.

[lukkoth]

I've played retail since BC and always was curious about vanilla/classic.

I unsubbed 4 months ago after getting AotC Azshara and won't be subbing back for Next patch because of time constraints.

Due to my work/study load I can devote half a saturday or so to playing videogames. According to this leveling speed calculator I found online https://wowlevelspeedcalculator.com/, it would take me 10 months to reach lvl 60 (Warlock, avarage leveling speed, 5 hours a week).

Is it really that slow? With that ammount of time I could complete multiple RPGs so I'm not sure if it's worth playing stuff that I (partially?) already experienced.

This is also after seeing how there isn't anything engaging to do post 60. All I see are threads of people farming PvP ranks and how easy current raids are.

Time to max level does have some differences depending on what methods you're employing to level. The absolute fastest is going to be dungeon cleave groups. If you don't care about the leveling experience, ie questing, an occasional dungeon for gear, professions, etc, then your best bet is to find a group of mages willing to take you in and spec for AOE. After that you're going to sit in dungeons til max level.

I've leveled 2 characters to the max and working on a 3rd so far. It's not as bad as others would make it seem, but it is definitely a time commitment. Vanilla wow was all about the entire package experience, so leveling in itself is "part of the fun". If you're not interested in that, dungeon cleave will absolutely shortcut things. Good luck!

[ONCHEhap]

it's slow,but it's quite fun really,as long as you try to actually immerse yourself.
You can also use guides and addons to help you,but don't go and complain about the game being boring if you do it that way

[SkagenRora]

You're implying that the other 163 hours of my week suck, I'm sorry, but I enjoy everything I currently do, including my job and studies. It's just that I have to organize myself and set a schedule this year and I believe 5 hours per week is a nice and healthy number.

The "things I enjoy" are scattered throught my week and aren't solely playing videogames. So I actually wish you the opposite, a life so nice that you enjoy all aspects of it and not just 1 activity.

It's just the way i interperate the sentence is "I have forced servitude for 163 hrs each week" Which just sounds horrible.

Sorry if i read it the wrong way

[Geasa]

Leveling is great now that the crowds have mostly cleared out.

[HazySwayze]

can confirm it's slow as all hell. had to put my own leveling on hold until recently due to time constraints at launch. there's no way to casually cap in a short time.

[Heathy]

its not so bad once you hit 42-45-ish, then you can do maraudon zul farrak and eventually from there sunken temple at 50, that gets you to 52 and brd gets you to 55-56, lbrs/dm east gets you to 57, strath/scholo to 60. I don't like the sub 50 game that much its slow and there isn't much gear variety, uldman is one instance i don't like much very few loots in there and the whole place has a level range from 35 to 47 which makes it a total shit show. once you're past that crap I think the end game is rather chill, there is something to be said about an mmo that doesn't have a check list of dailies and 'must do this' for the most part you can just log in on raid day, then log off till the next raid day and miss, nothing.

its all journey, journey to 60, journey to dungeon bis, journey through the raid content, being there for the progress. going from t1 to t2 and then into aq and then into naxx. I think it is more fun to do this with one core team, it loses something when you're doing it with randoms you'll never see again. there is a level of comradery which you don't get when all you do is pug. I enjoy seeing ppl get gear and seeing the raid slowly get stronger over time, this is something you don't really get when your raid team is essentially a random mix of ppl. I kinda want phase 4 and zg still, it is too boring at end game, albeit, I play other games so It doesn't really bother me too much, ill likely log in and get saved to zg twice a week every week once its out. that'll be 3/4 days of raid content by then, mc/ony/bwl and zg. should be possible to do ony/mc and bwl in one raid, and then log in two other days for zg. then, it might be worth the sub cost. right now, logging in 4 times a month to clear MC, not worth the sub cost.

[kranur]

It's not that bad. If in the new expansions you had to level from 1 to 60 with no boosts, leveling gear, and in white/gray items it wouldn't be all that different from what each individual would do on thier own. It only took me about 2 weeks of casually leveling two or so hours a night after work and a longer session or two that weekend between to hit 60. So like 34 to 36 hours I think. No guides or addons holding my hand. Just memory of things from 15ish years ago. If you use those things and have a plan it's probably even quicker.

Hahahhaa. Yea, right. Can you upload a video where you do a /played? So we can calculate how much 1-59 actually took you?

[styopa]

Yes it's that slow. If you wanna level faster you gotta put in more time. If you think there's no point then don't play. It's really that simple.

Not constructive at all. I do believe there's a point and merit in playing, but I'm not sure if it's compatible with my lifestyle.

How is that "not constructive"?

Seriously, the ONLY actual question you asked in your post was "Is it really that slow?" and Reinest said "yes"? He didn't deprecate you, he just gave you a simple answer to IMO a simple question.

You included comments essentially saying 'If so then I'm not sure it's worth my time' and he agreed with you.


I suspect your real question was "how can I level as fast as retail because the projected pace of progression is too slow for my taste" and I'd say: you can't.
There's no logical reason random game X (in this case Classic) will 'suit you' in terms of leveling speed or playstyle. It may just not be your bag.

PERSONALLY, I'd suggest you'd still give it a go but don't make it about the sprint to 60 - leveling is a MUCH bigger chunk of the game in Classic than Retail. But if that doesn't suit what you want, don't play. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings.

[Ragnarohk]

How is that "not constructive"?

Seriously, the ONLY actual question you asked in your post was "Is it really that slow?" and Reinest said "yes"? He didn't deprecate you, he just gave you a simple answer to IMO a simple question.

You included comments essentially saying 'If so then I'm not sure it's worth my time' and he agreed with you.


I suspect your real question was "how can I level as fast as retail because the projected pace of progression is too slow for my taste" and I'd say: you can't.
There's no logical reason random game X (in this case Classic) will 'suit you' in terms of leveling speed or playstyle. It may just not be your bag.

PERSONALLY, I'd suggest you'd still give it a go but don't make it about the sprint to 60 - leveling is a MUCH bigger chunk of the game in Classic than Retail. But if that doesn't suit what you want, don't play. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings.

I never said it was an offensive answer. It was just not constructive, it had nothing to add. Look at the other answers in this thread. Detailing how traveling is an issue, or their experience while leveling slowly. That's constructive, it adds to the conversation.

Sure, my question was "is it?" and it can be answered by a yes/no. But most people here actually knew how to make a statement or express a concern/point of view.

Also, my concern wasn't about rushing to 60, I know that most of the content is 1-60 and endgame offers almost nothing at the moment. Others pointed out that with little time all you could do was run around the world and complete less than a handfull of quests, esentially being a waste of time. Yes, I would eventually get to 60, but sesions of just walking from A to B don't sound stimulating at all. That's what I was afraid of.

After this thread I think Classic isn't for me. I might however try it under a special circumstance. I oppened another thread yesterday pointing out that I'm looking for games to learn German and it seems like a good idea to join a guild in a German server to practice my writing and speaking skills. But that's another topic.

[ADA203]

Kind of a time sink. But it is what it is/was.
That’s sort of what makes the people that that make the speed runs so intriguing. There are multiple guides for speedy runs to end game. But you will miss out on a lot of the leveling “experience”.

[msdos]

There's a reason I didn't level an alt until Wrath. A few reasons actually, but the time constraint is the main one.
There's no way you'll have time to level an alt and have a social life and rank up in PVP, you effectively won't have time to do anything but level.

If you really only have half of a single day to play video games, then I would suggest completely dropping video games.

[justandulas]

It’s slow but a much more rewarding journey

[Loveliest]

I do believe there's a point and merit in playing, but I'm not sure if it's compatible with my lifestyle.

If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't start on Classic. Mostly because your schedule seems like it wouldn't allow much for proper group content and you'd spend most of it solo leveling. Because of this, I think single player RPGs would offer a lot more for your time.
Investing in an MMO is usually worth it if you're looking for that social aspect that comes from raiding with a guild or doing a dungeon with a group of friends (not randoms).
But you're the only one who can really say if it's worth it, you know what you enjoy.

[ghays]

Afaik the super fast levelers are doing it in about 4-5 days /played. Average person, focused only on leveling might do it in anywhere between 6 and 10, based on their skill/class. Once you start dicking around with stuff like professions, dungeons or god forbid PVP, the time goes only up from there.

You spend exorbitant amount of time traveling in vanilla. Distances are long, flight points (and graveyards) few and far between and travel speed is low. Remember you only get your slow mount at level 40 and as a warlock, you rely only on your basic run speed until that. The is also a lot less quest hubs in classic, so there is a lot of back and forth running just to turn in your quests and get the next set, that will send you back where you came from. So yeah, leveling is really that slow, mostly courtesy of running across the face of Azeroth all the time.

5 hours a week is really low time to play classic, and if you spread that to multiple sessions, you'd have to park your character wherever you happen to be at the end of your session, otherwise your leveling time would be even longer from all the running from town back to where you are supposed to kill stuff (though the rested XP might be worth it, hard to say). And there would definitely be days, where you'd accomplish nothing, but get from one place to the next.

At least he will have a week’s worth of rested XP to speed things up a bit each Saturday.

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Hahahhaa. Yea, right. Can you upload a video where you do a /played? So we can calculate how much 1-59 actually took you?

Not a chance he did it that fast. Even Joana, who has gotten a number of server firsts for leveling and has been writing leveling guides takes around a hundred hours to do it.

[Aphrel]

having done it several times be4 i tried to be as efficient as possible when leveling in calssic.

On my rouge i ended up dinging at around 6days and 4hours played.
On my 2nd char a mage i dinged at 5days 12hours.
Both chars did mostly solo leveling. No big dungeon grind on either (i wanted to on the mage but groups where scarse most of the time so ende dup trying solo aoe farm instead).

That being said, my first char in vanilla took 16days to hit 60 (a warr) and my 2nd char (mage) also in vanilla took 9 days.

So the estimate leveling time can vary alot depending on how efficient you are trying to be and how used the the game as a whole you are. The top end players who grinded dungs in optimized groups for world firsts were down around 4days /played.
Some players that abused the phasing system managed to be even faster but thats not possible anymore.

My advice is to just start, even if you never end up dinging 60 its a blast imo and leveling and doing the dungeons as you level up is imo the best part of classic wow. Its where the game really shines as a staple of the mmorpg of its time.