What optional thing could make Questing more challenging or exciting?

[MoanaLisa]

Keeping in mind that you said something 'optional' I have no idea what that might be apart from something like the world events in Rift which are really pretty cool as a break from 'normal' questing.

Most people don't want the process of leveling to be longer than it already is. WoW is clearly set up as a game where most of the really interesting stuff for PVE players is at end game currently. I don't see that changing any time soon. So getting to the end is important for a lot of people.

By all means though, if someone wants it more difficult and fraught with danger, they can manage that on their own by using gear that is not optimal for their level. The default is for it to be convenient, streamlined and pretty safe. If you want it to be convoluted, take a long time and die all the time then that's something you can do through gear. And again, those that complain about it without acknowledging this option are being half dishonest.

I do agree that it could be a lot more interesting but I think a lot of the tedium has to do with stories that too many of us have seen too many times. There's really only so much you can do with that.

Ask a first-time player to MMO's--if you can find one--if his/her experience leveling through Azeroth for the first time is so tedious. The answer might surprise you.

[Duracells]

I'm thinking they should bring back group quests. There were a lot in BC. It actually made people group up and actually defeat a challenging objective for some measly blue or green. Should bring back some sense of cooperation as well.

They could also maybe make mobs a bit harder than they are now.

[mpphelps]

I agree questing is boring and grindy and way to easy. You level out the areas before you even finish the first 20 quests. I kinda wish they would make quests such that it was fewer enemies to kill, but give them bigger health pools and more abilities to have to manage. This way you could actually get a full rotation out of your spells. Kinda similar mentality to how timeless isle works.

[Spray]

Glad to see fellow players missing a challenge while questing!

My idea is the following - switchable phasing of the world enabling more difficult monsters, requiring proper movement and using crowd-control abilities. The idea aimed mainly towards parties, but single players as well.

Here's the content of my original post written 9 months ago, it's still relevant, because nothing really changed since that time. It's a bit lengthy, but I explained it thoroughly and backed with my personal memories.

EDIT: On the other hand, I'll just attach the original post since many readers will probably ignore the link.

Hi!

Let me begin with a little story first.

In 2003, I suppose, I bought a gaming magazine in my town, in which one of the main topics was about World of Warcraft. It was shortly after the release of WC3:TFT and being amazed about it myself I didn't even hesitate about buying this issue.

The article highlighted some of the features in the game, included some speculations and provided some early gameplay screenshots. But there was one particular screenshot and the caption which made me absolutely, truly excited about the game. The picture featured two dwarves by a campfire and a wendigo roaring at them in the background. The caption was: „Two brave dwarves defend themselves against the attack of the wild forest troll” (author of the caption was obviously wrong about the „troll”).

My feelings? I was absolutely hyped. Warcraft was one of my favourite franchises ever and the thought that I could actually live the adventure in third-person-perspective and fight my way through the world with assistance of my courageous and strong friends was truly amazing.

Actually, it never turned out to be like that as everyone knows here. One wendigo has never been a threat to two dwarves at once, but it's not the point.

Why am I even suggesting anything, „what's the point in this topic?” - you may ask.

Well, I'm leveling my n-th alt right now, it's a Dwarf Hunter. I think that some of you may already get a hint at this point. I'm specced Survival and currently I haven't encountered any „hiccups” on my way. Solo leveling is shockingly easy right now, I can pull 10+ mobs at once, bind them to the ground, sting them, net them with Disengage if needed and finish off with autoattacks without any trouble. But it's not the actual case, I'm not here to rant since, surprisingly, I somehow enjoy how smooth it is right now. (Since I wear three heirloom pieces I feel that it's necessary to point out that these are actually not the case. Even with regular white/green pieces you can absolutely dominate everything around you.)

The point is – what if we have friends we want to play with? Ever imagined how it feels like to quest with 4 friends? How a party of 5 people deals with the environment right now? I'll tell you – it's a breeze. The problem is, you can storm through anything without even stopping for a while. No food breaks, no mana crises, no stress at all. Right click at everything! And while some of you may find it much more enjoyable than struggling with strong enemies – there are people who actually could use some challenge.

This is why I think there should be present something like Adventure Mode. I'm not calling myself a visionnaire or inventor of any sort, I'm fairly sure that not once, not twice, but many times had it been thought of behind the development gates. How do I see that?

Let's imagine we have a group of 5 people. Party leader right-clicks his portrait and changes the world mode to Adventure, just like switching Normal/Heroic/Challenge modes in dungeons. The world phases out and replaces the ordinary monsters with stronger, more vicious, ones. The example of such mechanic can be seen in 1st stage of Golden Lotus dailies, where you need to save 15 Pandaren spirits. You use Shao-Tien Spirit Dagger to use the purple portals which phase you to the „shadow realm” with different monsters. It actually is a cancelable buff, but it shows that such mechanic is already present in the game. The point is following - it would actually provide players a choice, whether they want to level through the content normally or they simply want something more from it. It would create the situation when you can't just push the two main buttons, when you actually NEED to use the crowd-control skills obtained already, which, frankly, often just lay unused in Spellbook or get dusty in the bottom right actionbar and are never even looked at.

This way we could actually create the epic experience of leveling together and guarding each other's backs. When the lone wolf can actually be a problem if it joins midfight and starts to gnaw on the healer's leg (imagination, imagination, imagination).
Similar experience? Think Borderlands. 4 people mode is really nasty. „Badass” monsters can be really challenging and frustrating, but the satisfaction of defeating it, that relief and glory... priceless! Bringing it to Azeroth would actually require strategy, positioning, clever usage of traps, stuns, disorienting abilities, etc, etc. I am sure it would encourage many people to come back to leveling and trying out new classes. Right now, you can pretty much choose whatever class you want and level it to the max using 3-4 skills. And then you realize you don't even know how to play the character you just leveled. You wake up with a ton of skills, which you didn't even need to use, unless you played some battlegrounds/dungeons. Whether it's a problem or not – it's arguable, but not the point of this discussion.

P.S. Some of you may say: „Hey, wait a second! You know, in the real world if 5 archers fire one arrow each towards a wolf, it will die as well. What's the problem then?” - the problem is, it's not a real world. Since we need to have a proper progression feeling, we have this 86 level turtle which would absolutely beat the crap out of the 46 level battle ogre. And it's normal. So whether it's the 6 level wolf or 6 level stone golem, their health levels will be the same, so it's not really an argument. Arrows, fireballs will work the same in both situations. The question is – how to make leveling with friends more challenging? How to provide some fresh air for the experienced players, how to remove this feeling of repetition while leveling 8th alt?

What are your views on the topic, mates?

[hrugner]

Removing the hard level cap on quests, allowing people to level in content of a difficulty they decide on would be nice. Having the ability to take a fresh 85 and go kill level 90s is made awkward by the lack of additional rewards for doing so.

Just remove that hard cap and call it good.

No! You may say. Some people will cheese that system to level super fast!

So what.

Some people don't want to level and will do whatever they can to get out of it, why let that make leveling less fun for people that do enjoy it.

[MoanaLisa]

No! You may say. Some people will cheese that system to level super fast!

One would suppose that if they're killing mobs 5-10 levels higher than they are they have some idea of what they're doing. Removing the hard level cap on quests is a pretty interesting idea. Likely not too difficult to do and would probably satisfy those that want a challenge. It strikes me though that if people really want a challenge while leveling and don't read the quests anyway--either because they're not disposed to or have read them all too many times already--there's nothing to keep them from going into a zone that's above them and to start killing mobs. The XP would likely be decent. Grinding mobs to level has a long tradition in any case. Ashenvale would look a little bit like Timeless Isles to someone at level 13 in that sense. They could lose the heirloom gear too.

There are actually plenty of ways to make the leveling game harder without Blizzard doing anything. Just wear crappy gear and head into a zone that's not where you're supposed to be yet. It might be fun.

[hrugner]

One would suppose that if they're killing mobs 5-10 levels higher than they are they have some idea of what they're doing. Removing the hard level cap on quests is a pretty interesting idea. Likely not too difficult to do and would probably satisfy those that want a challenge. It strikes me though that if people really want a challenge while leveling and don't read the quests anyway--either because they're not disposed to or have read them all too many times already--there's nothing to keep them from going into a zone that's above them and to start killing mobs. The XP would likely be decent. Grinding mobs to level has a long tradition in any case. Ashenvale would look a little bit like Timeless Isles to someone at level 13 in that sense. They could lose the heirloom gear too.

There are actually plenty of ways to make the leveling game harder without Blizzard doing anything. Just wear crappy gear and head into a zone that's not where you're supposed to be yet. It might be fun.

It is pretty fun. Doing archaeology in level 90 panderan zones as an 85 is about as much fun as I've had playing WoW in years. It's annoying that I can't try my hand with 5 other 85's on the timeless isle. Would we fail and die? I don't know, which makes it appealing. Unfortunately, archaeology is the only mostly unrestricted goal available aside from just straight up grinding which is old school to say the least.

It's really just those hard level caps restricting content that make the leveling game seem simple; that and the easily available gear.

[Eats Compost]

One thing I remember distinctly is how careful I had to be not to die in classic. Lookin' at you, Defias Pillager. I couldn't pull too many or I was dead, and classes didn't have the absurd low/mid-level tools they do these days. Everything is just so mobile and strong now.

Nowadays, Blizzard tries to make killing quest mobs interesting by giving everything and its mother a frontal cone, interruptable cast or bad swirly that you can't stand in. None of it works because it all just boils down to sidestepping obvious attacks, actually interrupting and not standing in obvious bad things. And even if I DO mess up, I've got almost no reason to worry because every class these days has a way of escaping easily, whether it's a spammy slow, movement burst or whatever.

It's very easy to feel disengaged whilst question because it doesn't actually demand engagement. We can't exactly return to the days before quest markers existed and we had to read quest text, but I do hope that they can find a way to better the experience anyway, even if it's an oddball solution like heroic leveling. Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but I'm desperate here.

[Deleted]

I think a modular score like system based on certain criteria would solve this issue: Think of it as DMC Mission Result screen where you get more red orbs depending on how well you did and how much you did it the hard way. Ofcourse that would work only if all quests had one samey formula like DMC missions do so as good as it sounds on paper I do have to admit it would be a very dificult to implement.

Examples of criteria:
"no heirlooms"
"party of X members"
"Time of completion"

[Deleted]

Removing the hard level cap on quests, allowing people to level in content of a difficulty they decide on would be nice. Having the ability to take a fresh 85 and go kill level 90s is made awkward by the lack of additional rewards for doing so.

Just remove that hard cap and call it good.

No! You may say. Some people will cheese that system to level super fast!

So what.

Some people don't want to level and will do whatever they can to get out of it, why let that make leveling less fun for people that do enjoy it.

I'd agree, until people group up with their max lvl buddy...

[Myrandron]

Dunno maybe if your interested in the challenge doing the quest but stuffs elites, hits harder and has more health? As an option I guess.

[Deleted]

I'd just like to point out that heirlooms aren't really a factor. Its still really, really, really easy to kill stuff and not die in greens compared to classic/TBC.

Going to a zone 5 levels higher might work, but xp gain is so high that the effect wouldn't last. Soon you'd catch up in level to the quest mobs and be back to the same problem unless you constantly left zones unfinished.

I just miss the days when a leveling buddy was a helpful addition who could watch your back, and not someone to chat to while you each soloed your own mobs and did quests at your own pace. I remember often grouping up with people to do the Hillsbrad quests. There weren't any elites, but you could end up pulling quite a few pathing humans at once. And on your own that could wear you down and kill you.

[hrugner]

I'd agree, until people group up with their max lvl buddy...

That's inevitable. Like I said people will try to find ways to cheese their way through leveling. That doesn't mean that leveling should be made more boring for people who enjoy that part of the game, does it?

I think it's "monkey runs" now, or was that fixed? Did they fix the barrel quest exploit before mop went live? If it isn't one thing it's another.

[Deleted]

Make an option for harder questing-with some small rewards like a little more exp, vanity or whatever. That would be awesome. When notmal mobs actually had mechanics you had to watch out for, aswell as no flying till max level in the next expac. And as little "kill this collect that" as possible.

[Marston]

Just add strong Rares that feel and act like minibosses, like in MoP, to every zone. Also add small subzones with elites that require a group. Only add a few quests if any for them, but let them give a fuck ton of exp, but they should need a group to kill, basically like the group elites on the timeless isle. Also add a few lone stronger elite mobs, but which can be killed solo, to some mob packs that roam the area. Just stuff like this would spice leveling up. Could all be optional, if you don't like it ignore it.

Other then that, I can't think of anything that should just be optional and not interfere with the "normal" leveling experience. Except for maybe spice up named mobs, all of them. Not just double their health, but giving all of them a sort of boss feeling.

[Netherspark]

Merging Timeless Isle with normal questing zones would be a good start.

Dynamic events, rare minibosses, rare quests and more normal rare mobs would all be great additions. The option of making mobs stronger/players weaker would be good too, but i'm not sure if it would be viable if there's no special reward for doing so.

I'd also like to see a few bigger cross-zone/continent questlines, the kind of which we used to have before Cataclysm.

[sethman75]

Its the cry babies that think the game starts at max level who ruined leveling for the majority of us.

Blizz felt they had to speed up leveling so the kiddies can rush to max level in 2 days and camp in Org for 2 years.

The RPG players that like to spend their time and enjoying leveling like me are thr ones that miss out.

I think they should make it hard and make it take weeks if not months to reach max level.

Why?

Because reaching max level would be an achievment and not something everybody gets by default.
Not to mention if you spent months playing your class, you know it inside out

[Valnoressa]

Personally I'd like to be able to choose to stay in an older zone far longer and not be penalized for it in exp.
Like reaching level 75 but still being able to get the exact same amount of exp from quests/dungeons in Outland as I would in Northrend.
I hate being rushed through questing zones and I know this is where some idiot says "Just stay in the zone if you want to see the rest of the story" but that's not really viable if you're wanting to hang around in an older zone but also move forward with your character at your own pace.

[melodramocracy]

You see, attitudes like that make me a bit sad.

You have a ton of people playing this game that actually hate the genre. This particular attitude shouldn't surprise you at all.

[Zxzas]

They need to give each class a specific quest line for them to follow. Typically everyone will just level 1 of each class. As you gain new abilities, you may use gained abilities in certain situations.

Ding!
You have gained a new ability: Polymorph

Mage quest: On All Fours

Use your new ability Polymorph on 3 Defias Members (will change based on location), and round them up with this rope and bring them back to the farm.

__________________

Would take a lot of creativity from Blizzard to do something like this though. And if they did, it would require a revamp of every continent. But I would settle for scenarios that can be done every 5 levels that are specific to each class. Would be something to look forward to.