Shouldn't WoW teach you how to play as you level up?

[Garymorilix]

Why are people constantly trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator?

If you read your spells you know what you need to know already.
If you want to Mythic raid you can do your own research.
Why does Blizzard need to implement a guide in-game for each of the specs when you can type "arms warrior" into google, click on the wowhead or icy-veins guide and poof, you got your basics down.

I can tell you the moment Blizzard would try to force people to do mechanics all the time during leveling the same people here would be like:
"But i don't wanna do mechanics, i play to chill, what is this elitist bullshit, boohoo, boohoo, give me mythic gear for normal dungeons".

[ellieg]

I compare your method of learning to being given a piece of wood and a knife. You know the knife is sharp and can cut the wood but you haven't been learned how to hold the knife safely or how it can be used effectively.
And sadly, not everyone are as quick to figure out things on their own. Some handle it better than others.

And I think that's fine. It's up to you to try different approaches to cutting the wood. And as this is an mmo, u join a group and learn how they cut the wood

[Pakheth]

And I think that's fine. It's up to you to try different approaches to cutting the wood. And as this is an mmo, u join a group and learn how they cut the wood

While I agree, nothing is more demotivating than having someone yell at you for a small mistake not willing to give you some slack just because you are new or unfamiliar with a certain class/spec. Honestly, toxic people is one of the reasons I don't do dungeons much anymore, and I know how to play but I am tired of having to listen and see others verbally abuse new or less than stellar players for small mistakes. If people were more forgiving then I would be fine with learning by playing but as it is it feels more like a quick way to make people stop playing altogether.

Because of this I think it's kinda disappointing that the new intro experience does not teach interrupts as that is one of the things most new players get flak for from other players.

[Bloodyleech]

Wasn't it just silver for to be able to queue for a random heroic? Like you could still heroic if you manually made a group and did things the old fashion way? And people not standing in fire has been a problem with the game for a while. Like that is the simplest mechanic as it is literally move out of this area and it's cousin don't move out of this area.

Yeah, it was for using the automated queue. The people that couldn't do silver have been the people who used automated queue primarily.

- - - Updated - - -

Minutes? I recall the major CD literally being half an hour long (shield wall, and similar dps one) at some time in the long gone past.

Exactly. Most cds took a huge amount of time to get ready again.

[mojusk]

would help alot if the default UI wasnt completely trash and outdated.
i cant imagine playing without weakauras, elvui and dbm or simliar addons.
it should also be better indicated when a mob cast something that is a good idea to interrupt or stun if not interruptable.

[Boddhi]

This is really a no issue. WoW being so simple at (most) solo content makes good sense for a mass audience game, and the players who are mentally and physically capable of doing movement, rotation, crowd control and additional situational activities at the same time and actually want to become good at that have plenty of possibility to learn/train that.

[Falkeshall]

I’m not one for alts, but I was under the impression the game did... kinda. Abilities unlock slowly as you level, and there’s no reason why a player can’t read the spell text, pop it on their bars, then try it and see how it interacts with other abilities/mobs/players.

Just, yknow... make an effort to learn?

[ellieg]

While I agree, nothing is more demotivating than having someone yell at you for a small mistake not willing to give you some slack just because you are new or unfamiliar with a certain class/spec. Honestly, toxic people is one of the reasons I don't do dungeons much anymore, and I know how to play but I am tired of having to listen and see others verbally abuse new or less than stellar players for small mistakes. If people were more forgiving then I would be fine with learning by playing but as it is it feels more like a quick way to make people stop playing altogether.

Because of this I think it's kinda disappointing that the new intro experience does not teach interrupts as that is one of the things most new players get flak for from other players.

I feel u on that but I think ppl just need a thicker skin. Most of the complaints (not that yours is a complaint) boils down to ppl having some form of social anxiety. If im new, I know I'm inexperienced. When someone tells me I'm an idiot, a worthless player, and bad, I have enough self esteem to know that's not true. For every toxic player I've encountered, i usually meet one kind player who's willing to teach. Usually in whispers right after the toxic player posted in chat.

[Darththeo]

Yeah, it was for using the automated queue. The people that couldn't do silver have been the people who used automated queue primarily.

I did silver and all I do is auto queue for Heroics. Honestly, it was far better than the Cata system where it was you needed to find the dungeon entrance to queue for it.

Silver is basic mechanics and half the time it literally told you what you needed to do. If you couldn't pass it, you shouldn't be put on randoms.

I am a very casual player, like I log in once or twice a week right now. I fully support the silver requirement coming back to queue for random heroics. I am okay with locking higher difficulties behind things so long as a lower difficulty is available for everyone to experience the content.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Just let people play for fun. Those that develop an interest in competitive/organized content, will learn how to play. The vast majority will never get into that so why do they need to learn how to maximize play? Spoiler, they don't.

Nah, waste of resources.

You know why wow was so much more popular back in the day? because it was so simple and easy to get in to. You all must admit that nowdays it's incredible rough to be a new player or someone who has skipped a few expansions to get back into it. Have you noticed that the more advanced wow gets the less people play it?

He says after SL literally hit a peak of players not seen since Cataclysm, and the past 2 expansions hit sales records. LOL'D

[Kaver]

I can tell you the moment Blizzard would try to force people to do mechanics all the time during leveling the same people here would be like:
"But i don't wanna do mechanics, i play to chill, what is this elitist bullshit, boohoo, boohoo, give me mythic gear for normal dungeons".

How do you know that?

[Hellobolis]

wow does teach you how to play as you level up.

literally.

It teaches you how to play for the purpose of leveling up.

teaching players for different types of (end game) content while leveling is a tough proposition, as even leveling dungeons aren't much like end game dungeons. every end game content simulation while leveling will be outdated in a expansions time. typically it's a less efficient way to level. etc.

i think it's much easier to just develop good proper ingame tools to herd players into a guild/community suitable for them. some questionaire with some machine learning behind it really should be able to do a quite good job at that if you ask me.

[Bloodyleech]

I did silver and all I do is auto queue for Heroics. Honestly, it was far better than the Cata system where it was you needed to find the dungeon entrance to queue for it.

Silver is basic mechanics and half the time it literally told you what you needed to do. If you couldn't pass it, you shouldn't be put on randoms.

I am a very casual player, like I log in once or twice a week right now. I fully support the silver requirement coming back to queue for random heroics. I am okay with locking higher difficulties behind things so long as a lower difficulty is available for everyone to experience the content.

I meant it in a way that those people, who were not able to finish silver, are not those, that would run "undergeared" (or at all) manually to the dungeon.
And for those people, LFR/Heroic is the highest content they would do, with heroic out of the window because of not able to do silver. Was the case for many people when this system was active.
Ofc there are others who primarily run heroics and could do it because they were able to deal with the silver challenge.

Yeah, the game told you exactly what you needed to do for the most part. I never understood why people could not deal with it, but you can see people using wrong weapons/items in general, or simply not using abilities.

I'd sign a petition to get this back instantly - doesn't really matter much for me, as I do not go into heroics these days (not needed, even as fresh 60), but this could potentially make more people a bit better.

[Darththeo]

I meant it in a way that those people, who were not able to finish silver, are not those, that would run "undergeared" (or at all) manually to the dungeon.
And for those people, LFR/Heroic is the highest content they would do, with heroic out of the window because of not able to do silver. Was the case for many people when this system was active.
Ofc there are others who primarily run heroics and could do it because they were able to deal with the silver challenge.

Yeah, the game told you exactly what you needed to do for the most part. I never understood why people could not deal with it, but you can see people using wrong weapons/items in general, or simply not using abilities.

I'd sign a petition to get this back instantly - doesn't really matter much for me, as I do not go into heroics these days (not needed, even as fresh 60), but this could potentially make more people a bit better.

I would to. I classify myself as a casual WoW player (I was more hard core Wrath into Cata where I HAD to play every day and I did everything I could in the game). For me, it took me a few tries to pass silver (partially as I returned to wow after a year of not playing), but it was simple once you paid attention. Silver isn't even a difficulty check, it was a mechanics check.

[Hisokax]

The problem is that there are a lot of systems working against each other. Back in the day, not everyone ran dungeons, raided, ran heroic content, etc. Blizzard these days is pushing everyone in PVP, dungeons, raids, heroic dungeons and mythic +. That is what they consider "content". If you ain't doing or working towards "end game content" you ain't playing their game. So levelling is rushed, massively under tuned and aside from all that, you just get skills thrown at you while you level up. How many even bother to check their spell book or read their skills? Back in the day when you had to visit a trainer, you actually had to read what you were upgrading and figure it out.

You rarely use stuns, snares, interrupts, etc while levelling so people often times don't know they have to or have those skills. Then you have people that go into tunnel vision and are so caught up with the DPS meters, they forget everything else.

I was playing Classic recently for the first few levels, you really learn to use all your abilities every pull cause its hard. You can't get away spamming 1-2 abilities. I was levelling a Warrior and a Rogue and I was being forced to use my CDs almost every pull. There is no real incentive or reason for players to do that. You can pretty much reach end game spamming a single ability with no real fear of death. That's basically the main reason as why most players don't know their class.

Rogue is a special case in classic. But you clearly are not using the majority of your toolkit for the other classes, especially not paladin and priest. But also shaman, mages, warlocks, hunters only need 2 buttons most of the time and one emergency button if they aggro too much. Hardly a good teaching. Then again classic gameplay is pretty barebones no matter how much we shit on retail pruning

[TheFirstOnes]

Maybe? But I'm sure lots of people wouldn't like that, and prefer to play the game how they'd want to play it, especially by testing out new abilities as they level.

[Greyvax]

There are 2 types of people when faced with challenge.

1. People who get better until the challenge is conquered
2. People who cry until the challenge is nerfed

[Akibaboy]

While the general mentality of the playerbase has shifted in a direction that doesn't promote learning and improving, Blizz is just as complicit in fostering said mentality.

I blame 2010 Blizzard first for gutting the game in ways no one asked for - there were plenty of great concepts in Cata like streamlining the zone-to-zone progression world wide, revamping those worthless quests that had you run all the way across the zone for nothing. But they went overboard with making everything so easy. Personally I feel that with TBC's quest additions in slow level brackets, and Wrath's talent reworks that gave them more synergy that just before Cata hit we had the sweet spot of leveling being well-paced and feeling great to play without making anything wholly trivial or "auto-pilot" when it came to engaging the world.

It addition to that, while I understand the logic of removing the talent trees because of people just making cookie cutter builds and whatnot, the magic of the Talent trees was how it put the knowledge of how your character was growing directly into your hands. Combine that with manually acquiring new abilities and I found that leveling was always giving a feeling of progression and growth. Personally, I never cared about whether I could dunk lower level mobs as my sense of "progression" and have always felt that satisfaction when I see how my capabilities have expanded and changed... not just the number next to my head. Now when I level, sometimes I have no idea why the 2-3 procs floating around me appeared. Sometimes I just pick all passive talents because I know the game will never require me to use the active ones until max level builds.

I figured for all those years that it was just my WoW noob, kid brain nostalgically telling me that all of those things had those desired effects, but then Classic came out and nope... choosing talent points and invested into the direction your character grows is just as informative and responsive as I remembered when compared to Retail leveling.

So while I blame Blizzard for changing things too drastically back in the day, in the modern era I now blame the community for rejecting any content or features that have some semblance of resistance or engagement to them that aren't tucked away at the highest levels of endgame. Reading the test forums back in 2018 when Blizzard tried to rework the balance of leveling to focus more on combat and objectives than just constantly being in transit to your next whack-a-mole experience was eye opening.

[Mentacyde]

Food for thought... why is there such a massive skill chasm in wow when it comes to content above heroic at end game?

Shouldn't skills needed to succeed be taught while leveling? Stuns, interrupts, snares, and proper rotations why is it none of these things are introduced to you as you level as individual skill checks?

It feels like wow's leveling and teaching tools are stuck fifteen years ago. I guess the question I want to pose is the following.

Should you be able to hit level cap without understanding all the tools in your classes kite? Shouldn't leveling be where you start to learn your class rather then before you decide you want to complete heroic raiding or mythic content?

Doing so would make people think it's a job instead of a nice experience..like a game.

[Pakheth]

I feel u on that but I think ppl just need a thicker skin. Most of the complaints (not that yours is a complaint) boils down to ppl having some form of social anxiety. If im new, I know I'm inexperienced. When someone tells me I'm an idiot, a worthless player, and bad, I have enough self esteem to know that's not true. For every toxic player I've encountered, i usually meet one kind player who's willing to teach. Usually in whispers right after the toxic player posted in chat.

I'm glad those nice players exist and I try to be one of those players myself, either in chat or whisper, even though sometimes it lands me a kick.

But yeah social anxiety is a bitch, especially when dealing with strangers.