Returning Player getting "Overwhelmed"

[Laughingjack]

I sincerely doubt that. You would have a problem to find a group willing to do old content.
You would end up being extremely frustrated and quit, like new players who tried to jump in middle of expansion.

I can't say I ever experienced this. That said I simply lead my own raids back then since i didn't want to join someone else's pug raid so my perception might be skewed.

[kaminaris]

I can't say I ever experienced this. That said I simply lead my own raids back then since i didn't want to join someone else's pug raid so my perception might be skewed.

Because you never joined in the middle of expansion while being completely "naked".

[shuubu]

No, it is definitely better. You won't have to worry about corrupted items or the cloak or stuff like that. It will be a thing of the past and you can chose where to quest.

Yes, but we don't know what kind of systems they will includen in the later patches

[Laughingjack]

Because you never joined in the middle of expansion while being completely "naked".

I commonly rolled alts on different servers up to wod to get a "fresh experience".

If you knew what you were doing you could make massive skips in early wow. This "grind.grind.grind" mentality really didnt hit till legion.

[kaminaris]

I commonly rolled alts on different servers up to wod to get a "fresh experience".

If you knew what you were doing you could make massive skips in early wow. This "grind.grind.grind" mentality really didnt hit till legion.

As if you can get a fresh experience like that. Once you discover how to play and what you need to do, there is no way to turn back time and learn it again.

[Laughingjack]

As if you can get a fresh experience like that. Once you discover how to play and what you need to do, there is no way to turn back time and learn it again.

It's true sadly. It is why I find classic a bit tedious as people fret over gathering so many buffs and gear for bosses that fall over easily to blues.

Still my point stands. In the past if you walked the walked you could easily bypass most grinding compared to today wow was a lot less grindy.

[kaminaris]

It's true sadly. It is why I find classic a bit tedious as people fret over gathering so many buffs and gear for bosses that fall over easily to blues.

Still my point stands. In the past if you walked the walked you could easily bypass most grinding compared to today wow was a lot less grindy.

Going with that logic there is zero grind today, like literally zero. If you knew how to make gold you could buy yourself a boost and don't farm anything.
Nzoth will fall over you with blue gear.

Outside of that, you don't really need to farm anything as you can get decent gear without any grinds.

[Laughingjack]

Going with that logic there is zero grind today, like literally zero. If you knew how to make gold you could buy yourself a boost and don't farm anything.
Nzoth will fall over you with blue gear.

Outside of that, you don't really need to farm anything as you can get decent gear without any grinds.

The only part of that even remotely true is the being able to kill nzoth with blue gear in normal and maybe heroic... would have to see that would be quite difficult (assuming 425 blues)

[arkanon]

The only part of that even remotely true is the being able to kill nzoth with blue gear in normal and maybe heroic... would have to see that would be quite difficult (assuming 425 blues)

A full group of experienced players would do ok in normal if they were all at 425 - tanks would certainly get hit hard by a couple of bosses, but nothing too scary, and the fights would drag on a bit putting pressure on tanks and healers, but i would think it was manageable.

We often take a few ppl at that level for normal alt runs, but we usually also have a few around 450-460, and that would include 1 tank and 1 healer. Many other factors would come into play though - a 425 dps with BiS essences can still pump out some pretty respectable numbers thanks to the (imo) disgusting tuning of essences.

[Tronski]

Uhh, the 2% of the player base that does cutting edge raiding? You think they're the ones who want that type of grindy content? Are you delusional? It's the whiny casual players who keep complaining about "there's not content!!!!" While they struggle to clear LFR that that type of content is for.

It's hilarious to me that people whine about grindy content but somehow think classic is better. While completely unnecessary to clear the "hardest" raids in classic, there is much more grinding involved if you were to actually min/max your character for every raid in classic compared to now.

This here is what is referred to as a strawman argument, and tends to make the user look like a fool or an american politician (same thing really).

I could probably try to explain that there are several sets of 2% in 100% of the playerbase, or use a venn-diagram to illustrate what we call overlap, but that feels wasted on a fool.

And no. No, I did not refer to the cutting edge raiders, although i cannot completely rule out some overlap.

[Gorsameth]

I wonder how people complaining about WOW's despite it's catch mechanics would handle the FF 14 MSQ. Gratz on hitting 50, now go do about 80 quests to unlock the ability to start doing Heavensward content.

And every single FF player that I know will readily admit that the gap from the end of Reborn to the start of Heavensward is absolute dogshit and its something the devs have said they will change.

[Swnem]

I get you. I just went back to farm a few reps and the gear has me overwhelmed. I'm not even trying. Doing my bee rep and going on a break again until shadowlands. Can't be bothered with these crappy gear systems that will be gone in 6 months.

[LazarusLong]

They really need to ease up the essence acquisition. Just let returning players buy them with echoes on nylotha without requirements and cheaper or something.

[Kalisandra]

And every single FF player that I know will readily admit that the gap from the end of Reborn to the start of Heavensward is absolute dogshit and its something the devs have said they will change.

I did most of it before Heavensward dropped, and still when I came back and started Heavensward is was an awful grind. FFXIV is a very different style of game from WoW, in that a lot of it about about the journey, and if you don't like questing and doing story it's going to suck.

I tend to play FF for a few months, then quit again for a while, because the quest design feels annoyingly old and slow - too much go there, come back, go there, come back (this may have changed - I never got to L70 due to irritation with the game). Also I don't much like the way the combat rotations have evolved, but that's a personal thing.

[TrollHunter3000]

This here is what is referred to as a strawman argument, and tends to make the user look like a fool or an american politician (same thing really).

I could probably try to explain that there are several sets of 2% in 100% of the playerbase, or use a venn-diagram to illustrate what we call overlap, but that feels wasted on a fool.

And no. No, I did not refer to the cutting edge raiders, although i cannot completely rule out some overlap.

all you're doing in this post is insulting me and America as a whole.

[Bigbazz]

The catch-up does take too long, Blizzard dumps a million new systems on returning players and then leaves them in a neverending grind where they will progress more than an expansion's worth in player power. It's convoluted and unnecessarily grindy, but it keeps players with stuff to do, BFA content might be grindy but there is probably more content than any other prior expansion.

The corruption/essence system is crazy, given how Blizzard have wanted players to know what an upgrade is without simming and now you have 3 entirely separate systems that all intertwine with hilarious levels of RNG involved that need a hilarious amount of simming to get to the bottom of.. It's excessive, but at least the overpowered corruptions are fun, if not balanced.

[deenman]

A million visions to level up your cloak? Months long grind to max cloak? Your aware they just cut the cloak grind by 2/3 right? I got my cloak from rank 6 to 15 this week... solo I might add. And with the corruption vendor they just put in you can have solid corruptions in 2-3 weeks.

As for gear catch up. My resto druid dinged 120 on saturday and was ilvl 445 and ready for heroic raiding come Tuesday.

dang u were unlucky,when i came back in 8.3 my guild got me to 460 first week and mythic ready for next week and i wasnt some carry in mythic i was healer,but a shaman so pretty chill

[Bigcountry11782]

So i came back a Week ago after i took a break Shortly before the Eternal Palace Patch (8.2 - 8.2.5 i think)

And i totally got overwhelmed with all the stuff i have to do to get back into the Game (cleared BoD on Mythic aswell as pushed ~20keys)

Ranking up Essences takes so fucking long (5 Weeks for Conflict and Strive if your Arena rating is under 1600 and i cant manage to break the 1600 and it would still take 3 Weeks, yeah i suck at PvP, but never had that much trouble getting to 1600)

I'm kinda lucky i have a friend that carried me through my 15+ Key for the Weekly Chest aswell as Nya'Lotha HC with his Guild, but still since 1 1/2 Weeks i'm doing nothing else than Dailys (Yay Lucid Dreams is pretty much mandatory for Fire).

Or am i Missing something, since if not the New player Experience in BfA is utter Garbage, no Wonder WoW dosnt get any New Players :S

Its not just you.Even though they have added a ton of catch up mechanics it still is a huge grind and confusing mess.You gotta get gear that is easy enough but then there are essences,the neck to level,the cloak,and dumb corruption.Its just to much and makes me not want to play anything but my main.

[Huzzaa]

For me the catch up mechanisms weren't the issue. I went during the first raid tier and came back a few weeks ago.

Let me stress I don't want this to come across as "theres to much to do!" rant. But I found while it was a decent chunk of stuff to do, there was absolutely no clear direction to go. I was bombarded with quests on log in, I found myself doing one thing, then being ripped away to do the sunken city content w/e its called. But then I found out I had a core mechanism missing that was achieved before that patch. I found out what it was called and read up on it on wiki, but again, no clear way on where to find it and start with it.

I think the best word I can think of trying to navigate everything was suffocating. It just put me off wanting to do any of the story

That explains this entire expansion rather well.

It's just a mess. Not gonna lie, my alts are overwhelmed with the amount of stuff thrown in their faces as well when I started prepping them. Now that they're basically ready to step into mythic, they still have almost all of the quests up in Boralus, there was like 2 that really needed doing.

It's hard to pinpoint what's exactly wrong, but I agree with the sentiment that it's overwhelming and very, very off putting to go to Boralus, and here you go, do all this stuff, with no sense of achievement/reward behind any of them, idk.

[Gorsameth]

That explains this entire expansion rather well.

It's just a mess. Not gonna lie, my alts are overwhelmed with the amount of stuff thrown in their faces as well when I started prepping them. Now that they're basically ready to step into mythic, they still have almost all of the quests up in Boralus, there was like 2 that really needed doing.

It's hard to pinpoint what's exactly wrong, but I agree with the sentiment that it's overwhelming and very, very off putting to go to Boralus, and here you go, do all this stuff, with no sense of achievement/reward behind any of them, idk.

The pinpoint for me is easy. The layers upon layers of borrowed power.

Prior to Legion there was only 1 thing you needed to worry about with an alt or returning character. Gear. Yes there was rep that gave gear or some sort of badge system for gear. But they all flowed into getting gear.
Now you have that same need for gear, but you also need to worry about Essences and Corruption and because both are often locked behind daily grinds you have a huge set of 'mandatory' daily activities that simply don't leave you with time/energy to do those 'worthless' quests in Boralis where previously you did a little work for gear and then had some fun doing a bunch of quests.
In order to keep people constantly engaged Blizzard added a lot of stuff that means you now have a constant reminder that you could be doing X/Y/Z for power instead of having fun and its tiring.