Exile's Reach was a waste of dev time in its current state

[javierdsv]

I think exile's reach is not fully done yet. They just rushed it a little (like everything else nowadays).

They could slow down the leveling there a little and add more elements in the future, which is perfectly fine.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

(For the record it was obvious the guy was trolling when he said Battleground Objectives.)

My only issue with Exiles is... who is picking WoW up in the year 2020 with no clue how an MMO plays? Like sorry but WoW isn't that popular anymore. Like instead of being about "teaching you how to play an MMO" it should be "how much does this make me want to play more WoW?" And in that regard it... kinda works? At least until you run face-first into BFA and then quit.

[Dakara]

How could a level 1 to 10 experience cover LFR raiding and complex encounters/strategies? Blizzard also gives you pretty much all you need to know in the encounter journal. You don't even really need DBM if you are just doing LFR but it helps with situational awareness. The problem is that Blizzard can't teach the things you and others want at levels 1 to 10. Even more advanced ways to play your class won't work because you don't have your full abilities.

Blizzard could create a more advanced proving grounds with scripted scenarios to teach things but it still will be worse then a guide, videos, or what ever else you can find out of game. And there is nothing wrong with using outside tools to learn. That really is the best thing a player could learn if they want to do more advanced end game activities.

That’s kinda my point though. WOW is mostly about the endgame, something the game doesn’t teach you about. Instead, it teaches you how to /wave on exiles reach... but levelling was never the problem. Any idiot could mash random buttons and reach cap.

Encounter journals help, but some specs are nigh unplayable (reasonable performance at endgame) without addons such as weakauras. Do you need them for LFR (or normal?), of course not. But we’re talking about the WOW Community here. Healing and Tanking are particularly unfriendly to new players while the community is ever moaning that there “aren’t enough tanks”.

Not so much of a complaint, more of an observation on my part. Almost all games have excellent 3rd party resources to better your gameplay, I just believe Blizzard relies on them a bit too much, but they definitely rely way to heavily on addons for certain specs (and healing).

Take the new Enhance Shaman for example. Maelstrom weapon is a stacking buff, it doesn’t show up on the default UI as a resource. It’s just lazy (IMO) because they know we’ll all use a WA.

[rhorle]

That’s kinda my point though. WOW is mostly about the endgame, something the game doesn’t teach you about. Instead, it teaches you how to /wave on exiles reach.

So because it doesn't teach X, Y, Z it is terrible when it can't possibly teach X, Y, Z because you are only levels 1 to 10 and don't even have half of your abilities yet. Also maelstrom weapon shows up on the default UI. Both as a buff on the buff bar and as lightning bolts above your character. It even shows up above the floating health bar complete with stack count and cool down spiral. So 3 places with the default UI and no addons.

Yes we are talking about the WoW community here. Where a veteran player is whining about a starter zone. The problem with the WoW community is your jaded out look that many have instead of willing to teach new players since apparently you haven't even taught your wife the "real WoW".

[Speedlance]

Ive heard nothing but good things about it, except its a bit daunting for experienced players, but its not content made for them either. I havent played it yet but will try it soon.

[Mendzia]

I'd love to know how many new people will start their WoW journey from Shadowlands...
If this is the first thing when you begin.. i'd quit before even ending this shit.
AFAIK there is completely new transmog set so they will say that it was huge succes because many people did it atleast once...

[cparle87]

Teaching interrupts would have been amazing along with giving them earlier. It's amazing how many people don't interrupt. Either because they don't know or because they don't find it worth the time. For those that don't know about it or its impact teaching them might help increase the amount that do it.

Same goes for dispelling too.

My first toon was a rogue and was one of one of my favorite self-challenges. Between cheap shot, kick, blind, gouge, and kidney shot to prevent an enemy caster elite from even getting a spell off before I killed him.

Dispelling is one of my favorite parts of healing. "Hey, you. You just throw some bad magic on my buddy? Think again."

[Nnyco]

What a troll. They teach you even such tiny things like charging back at your enemy midair.

[Viikkis]

So you think that the game should hold the wittle pwayers hands? Screw that.....this game started out with ZERO tutorials, it was GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN!!!! That is what made it better and made it thrive, the fact that you werent handed shit and you had to work for it and figure out how to do something.

Not true. The very first tutorial anyone laid their eyes upon when vanilla launched was the game manual. Thats right. Every copy of the game shipped with a comprehensive tutorial booklet telling you everything you needed to know to play the game. Now the question whether you actually ever read the manual is another thing but to say that there was no tutorials is simply incorrect.

[Kathranis]

At least until you run face-first into BFA and then quit.

What's wrong with BFA's questing experience? The zones are great overall. Certainly better quality questing and visuals than the old 1-60 zones.

[Dakara]

So because it doesn't teach X, Y, Z it is terrible when it can't possibly teach X, Y, Z because you are only levels 1 to 10 and don't even have half of your abilities yet. Also maelstrom weapon shows up on the default UI. Both as a buff on the buff bar and as lightning bolts above your character. It even shows up above the floating health bar complete with stack count and cool down spiral. So 3 places with the default UI and no addons.

Yes we are talking about the WoW community here. Where a veteran player is whining about a starter zone. The problem with the WoW community is your jaded out look that many have instead of willing to teach new players since apparently you haven't even taught your wife the "real WoW".

I was referring to how it doesn't show up on the Player Frame as a resource. Although it's an interesting talking point. Maelstrom was on the Player Frame, as are most (all?) other resources. So why was MW not added to the player frame like Combo Points / Holy Power / Runes etc are all displayed? Perhaps not the best example, but a recent one as today she asked me where her Maelstrom resource had gone as she was accustomed to her resource being on the Player Frame, and not looking elsewhere for it. Again, a very simply concept to us, not so to everyone. What parameters do Blizzard use to decide where each Resource is and isn't displayed between the Player Frame, Spell Alerts, Resource Bar and Buffs.

I came here to make an observation. I never said Exiles Reach was terrible, but if you want to read that out of my post and make assumptions as to how my wife and I play WOW then I can only assume you're here more to look for arguments than discussions. Personally, I think Exiles Reach was a solution looking for a problem.

[Wuusah]

Not true. The very first tutorial anyone laid their eyes upon when vanilla launched was the game manual. Thats right. Every copy of the game shipped with a comprehensive tutorial booklet telling you everything you needed to know to play the game. Now the question whether you actually ever read the manual is another thing but to say that there was no tutorials is simply incorrect.

what else were you going to do when you were forced to sit at your computer to install the game because it shipped with 4 CDs in a time when Youtube and social media didn't exist yet?

[Raisei]

I really liked it.

I started playing MMOs in SWTOR and that one had a similar starter area with some quests and teaching you the first few tricks, felt very nostalgic to play something like this in WoW.

Quality-wise it felt very polished and you even have most of it fully voice-acted with a decent enough story. Basically what I expect from WoW in 2020. There are a few bugs here and there (like the "hint" tooltips not disappearing even if you did what they ask) or the NPCs not actually reaching the final boss with you and you getting your face punched in because you have to tank him yourself (which might actually serve as a lesson of overeager dps not to pull ahead).

All in all it is great addition and well worth the Dev time.

[Thage]

Exile's Reach is designed for someone who's never played an MMORPG before, and with this design goal in mind it more than does its job. It gives you an introduction to the game's various playable races, allied races aside, some of the hostile factions you'll be encountering, a personal-scale conflict to invest in (surviving a shipwreck and trying to secure an escape route), a character-driven external conflict to invest in (finding the expedition captain's son, a leader in his own right), gives you a good rundown on the basics of how your class functions as well as how your spec functions once you pick it, gets you used to poking your head around out-of-the-way places for treasure boxes or rares for loot, and finishes in a short dungeon experience with NPCs filling in empty ranks who give you audio cues on the basics of your role.

No, it doesn't exhaustively teach you about advanced game knowledge, or intermediary things like BG objectives that only become relevant once you're beginning to dip your toes into game activities outside leveling up your first character, but again, it's not intended to. It's intended to drip-feed the basics to people who would stare at you with glazed eyes when you start talking about rotations and DoTs and dungeon roles because they have no clue what the fuck you're talking about so these players don't feel overwhelmed from the word "Go" and so they're not an active hindrance in dungeon groups as they level up their first characters.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd love to know how many new people will start their WoW journey from Shadowlands...

Missing the forest for the trees on that one. Exile's Reach is long-overdue futureproofing. In all frankness, a lot of Shadowlands's levelup changes should have come with Warlords of Draenor, to account for a pop in subscribers as the movie hit and curious filmgoers cashed in on that free copy of WoW that came with their movie ticket.

This time around, they're pulling the trigger and getting it done because WoW tends to experience waves of new and returning players around an expansion launch, and with younger players now hitting their teens/early 20s, there's a new potential demographic to tap into among Gen Z players looking for something with a little more meat to it than bite-sized Fortnite or Fall Guys matches. Hence why they designed Exile's Reach to be more or less idiot-proof because any new players are going to be players who simply have never played an MMORPG before.

Also, if the rumors of a second Warcraft film hold true (it's likely, the scooper who broke the story has a track record of reliability in these leaks), there's going to be an inevitable pop in players checking the game out after seeing the movie.

[Elias01]

See, I thought the opposite. I think its a much better tutorial than anything previously in the game. It might be enough for a few of my non-gamer friends to not be overwhelmed when they try wow out.

Its not. Best tutorial is to give player tools and let him play with it, fugure stuff out, deal with dangerous situation. Thats how you will teach player how to play. No by telling him in some sort of guide then let him faceroll enitre thing. There is again no player interaction, no challenge, no sense of the world or exploration. Its hollow experience.

[Pakheth]

Its not. Best tutorial is to give player tools and let him play with it, fugure stuff out, deal with dangerous situation. Thats how you will teach player how to play. No by telling him in some sort of guide then let him faceroll enitre thing. There is again no player interaction, no challenge, no sense of the world or exploration. Its hollow experience.

Sorry but that is so far from reality you can come. Creating a good introduction to a game that explains how to use abilities can make or break a game for new players. Just handing them tools and telling them to figure it out is, sadly, too much for a lot of people and doesn't work for all game types. WoW isn't Minecraft where you have the luxury of only having a few commands and systems to work with. You have no idea of how many players who stop playing games because they encountered something in a game that wasn't well explained and left the player without a clue to do what next. It might have simply been to click a button on your controller but if the game never pointed it out it's hard for the player to find out without just mashing buttons. God forbid if it is a combination of buttons.
Heck, from my own experience in playing WoW it took me years to figure out how to use chat channels. It was poorly explained in the manual and I had no one to ask. Same with the early group finder tool. I was also afraid of fooling around with things because people would get angry if I did something wrong. In mmo's consequences have actions outside your own which is why the simple stuff is so important to learn early on, even stuff as simple as /wave.

A good tutorial gives you the basics and then let's you loose and Exile's Reach does this wonderfully.

[haiyken]

I think Exile's Reach is a great new zone for all players. All the tutorial stuff are a bit much for long time players but it goes away pretty quickly after a few quests. I think it's way better than old race specific introduction zones, better pacing. It's not only about the gameplay but also about the story and character Exile's Reach adds. I really like when they introduce all kind of side characters that can come back on later stories (Nazgrim, Taylor, etc.). The Exile's Reach storyline is resolved quite quickly but it still made me like the characters. I especially like that each character is a different class and interact with me using some of the flavour of their class. It made me think about the different Legion class questlines. I wouldn't mind them coming back as side characters on upcoming storylines.

My only issue with the zone is the rarity of ogre spawn on the last few quests before the mini dungeon. Had to run around the place a few times to complete killing all the mobs. It not that big of a deal and can be fixed quite easily.

I would love to see the overall questing experience evolve in that direction if/when they start to work on revamping old content. I think the storytelling is much better, more dynamic and engaging this way. It already changes we've seen on Legion/BFA/SL content but old content still lack a lot of this new style. I'm okay with Outland or Pandaria not being up to date regarding this, but I think they need to focus on making the two main continents more relevant to the overall player experience. Engaging story with some repeatable content in old zones could really be nice to play.

[Elias01]

Sorry but that is so far from reality you can come. Creating a good introduction to a game that explains how to use abilities can make or break a game for new players. Just handing them tools and telling them to figure it out is, sadly, too much for a lot of people and doesn't work for all game types. WoW isn't Minecraft where you have the luxury of only having a few commands and systems to work with. You have no idea of how many players who stop playing games because they encountered something in a game that wasn't well explained and left the player without a clue to do what next. It might have simply been to click a button on your controller but if the game never pointed it out it's hard for the player to find out without just mashing buttons. God forbid if it is a combination of buttons.
Heck, from my own experience in playing WoW it took me years to figure out how to use chat channels. It was poorly explained in the manual and I had no one to ask. Same with the early group finder tool. I was also afraid of fooling around with things because people would get angry if I did something wrong. In mmo's consequences have actions outside your own which is why the simple stuff is so important to learn early on, even stuff as simple as /wave.

A good tutorial gives you the basics and then let's you loose and Exile's Reach does this wonderfully.

Only one far feom reality is you. If you think people enyoj this hand out faceroll experience where mobs do not represent any sort of danger which makes playing your class youbare supostu completly pointless than i dont know what to tell you. Vannila did great job at this. It never expained to you anything l. If you died you died. Next time do better or die again. Yeah in Exile reach your learned to mash your buttons but you didnt learn how to play game.

[Unholyground]

They did a great job with it OP, it is over fairly quickly and you get a few of the basics to each class, not sure what you want out of an old game engine that uses mostly LUA scripting lmao.

[Pakheth]

Only one far feom reality is you. If you think people enyoj this hand out faceroll experience where mobs do not represent any sort of danger which makes playing your class youbare supostu completly pointless than i dont know what to tell you. Vannila did great job at this. It never expained to you anything l. If you died you died. Next time do better or die again. Yeah in Exile reach your learned to mash your buttons but you didnt learn how to play game.

You seem to think your opinion about how a game intro should be equals everyone else's, but reality is that a lot of players want to be eased into things gently. Not every game needs to be harsh to get a point across. I have heard enough tales about players in Vanilla who ended up deleting their characters because they managed to die over and over due to wandering into an area too high level or just too near a cluster of tough mobs. I got killed so many times by the wolves in the Tauren starting area and seriously considered quitting myself. At that point the game wasn't fun as I spent most of it corpse running than anything else.

Exile's Reach is for NEW players who have never played an MMO. It was not made for you.