Why is there no challenge in questing?

[Diaphin]

No, they're not. Sorry, not my fault you didn't grasp the context of the port and how it applies to the game. The point of the reply was to show you that the entire game is meant to be played solo, which is why QUESTING is so easy with no challenge. The borrowed power systems lend to this problem even more so, causing it to be worse.

Questing in theory is meant to be done together when placed inside of the environment of an MMO. Hence the reason it is you know, an MMO to begin with. And no, a lot of people don't group in retail wow to do a quest. None of my guildmates in either guild did so, and neither did any of my RL friends. All of them solo'd their way to 60 because grouping requires waiting on folks to catch up or move at your same speed, which they never do. Easier to move solo as the content is never hard.

Nothing about shadowlands is a "reboot", it is continuing the story from the last expansion. The leveling is easier, too easy IMO, and outside of 1-50, the game feels very much the same. Do this quest, fetch this item, get to this level, get to this ilvl. Exactly. The. Same. Game.

Please understand what you're replying to before doing so. Saves folks some time without having to waste energy on this nonsense.

Questing is centered around doing it mostly solo since World of Warcraft, which revolutionalized the concept of leveling through questing. Almost any modern MMO centers around solo leveling. Are you a time traveler from the early millenium or whats up?

[haiyken]

I completely get OPs point. While leveling in Bastion I got a quest where I was supposed to kill a mob. The suggested group size was 3(!) people and it was accompanied by this group finder icon. Oh boy. This might be fun. Having taken a break at the end of The Eternal Palace I had a mix of heroic / mythic gear for my retri offspec. Summed up to around 93 ilevel. Not pre-expansion power house, but still better than most newbies.
So taking on a quest that had a group size of 3 suggested looked like a decent challenge.

Nope. A cake walk. Not blowing any major defensive cooldowns, no kiting, no stress. It just took a little longer time.
I was expecting at least something that would have me on my toes or at least get some help. At this point one may wonder what the point of the leveling is, and if there even is one...
I get it. Loads of people playing WoW wants to fly trough the content with minimal challenge and social interaction, so that they may watch their favorite show on the 2nd monitor in peace. But as a player whom both love a challenge and the "multiplayer" part in "MMORPG", let me get something in return after 10 years of streamlining.

But your missing one key point here : it was an "cake walk" for you, but am I safe to assume you started Shadowlands with a full set of 100+ item levels gear and a weapon drop from Nathanos (or even better gear) ? While a lot of players from BFA will be as powerful as you, new or returning players will not. It's not even about skill, is purely about gear. New characters or even alt characters will need to group to do this kind of quests. You have the advantage of having played a lot, you're more powerful and you can blast through content. Other people do not.

You're probably going to tell me that Blizzard should make it in a way that these mobs should scale automatically to being a challenge to every player. But then, player will complain that as they're getting more powerful, ennemies get more powerful as well, and it nullifies the work they put into their character.

Your idea of basically adding "elite" group quests seems to be a solution for a problem that doesn't really exist. We already have elite mobs to kill as a group (I did a few in Maldraxxus a few hours ago), but most of the time it's a click on the group finder, 2 minutes of bashing the mob, then leaving the group. The mob can't really be soloed (maybe by the most skilled and geared players - but that's a ridiculous small part of the playerbase) so it's already what you're suggesting : we need to form a group to kill it. The Theatre of Pain in Maldraxxus also bring new kind of super elite mobs that can't be soloed because they do so much damage. We always had world bosses that require you to group as well. I mean... I just don't get it. Maybe you want all of this in the leveling process ? It kind of already is (at least all of my Maldraxxus examples are)...

In my opinion, people are just trying to find way to complain because they can't accept that the game is actually pretty good right now. They find small and personal examples that often doesn't represent how the majority of people is feeling and deeply want the game to change to suit their needs. It's okay to complain about some aspect of the game, maybe you don't like some of it, and it's okay. I don't like all of it either. And it's nice to see people suggesting ways to improve it. But can we all agree that the game is clearly not as bad as this OP wants it to be ? "Challenging" is a matter of perception. "Challenging" is not the same for a 15 years WoW veteran and a new player.

[plantation]

I rarely play anymore. Decided to level my FRESH 50 in Shadowlands. It's a complete cakewalk well past the point of being a snoozefest. Bastion is literally click on mirrors then kill 3 super weak creatures. There's no point to anything. Why are we even leveling? Wtf is the point of the rank 2 spells learned at level 58? Game is bogged down with so many mind boggling decisions and a severe lack of agency in all aspects of the game outside of raiding. You know something is awry when Guild Wars 2 is unironically more difficult than WoW. I could go on and on but from the looks of things most people still playing prefer World of Warcraft: The Interactive Movie over an actual video game.

[Nalam the Venom]

But if you actually want to be as powerful as possible you need to do actually challenging content...

Did all the boosters decide to just drop their buisness, or what makes you say that?

[Incarnia]

My friends who are ahead of me and 60 already are saying that a fresh new 60 is pretty weak, now that they got rid of all that Mythic gear they brought in with them.

Sorry for super late reply. Completely forgot to check.
I'm 60 now, I feel it has become a bit more difficult yes. I can't mindlessly pull large groups of mobs anymore, but I can do it if I plan a head a bit and pay attention. So it's not a super big difference. Some rare elites I can't solo anymore, but considering their health pool and abilities they are deliberately designed for a larger group of ppl.

[Malacrass]

I was always a fan of the Pandaria model, I thought that was a really clever compromise between the various expansions. It's difficult if you lack knowledge, but once you understood the mob type it wasn't a problem, even for casual players. Regardless of class or gear. Literal experience was rewarded.
At least I thought it was a vastly superior model to Wrath, where soloability completely depended on the class you played, or the other extreme, where you just pull entire zones to AoE them down.

[DechCJC]

I think there's enough challenging content in WoW, but the content that literally everyone takes part in has to be tuned so that even the worst players can get through it; Even more so now that you're pretty much instantly at the end-game.

There are times when I wished that avoidable attacks with massive tells did more though.

[Clermont]

Classic WoW is what you're looking for. The real answer is that when the game peaked in popularity, the range of players expanded from being mostly teenagers and young adults, to literally children and elderly. so naturally they got a lot of feedback that the game was too hard (remember back when blizzard used to send out email surveys and had a small survey asking you why you were quitting after canceling your subscription?)

i'm pretty sure it was ghostcrawler who made a post explaining all this, as to why they made questing increasingly easier, as well as dungeons.

- - - Updated - - -

There's no point to anything. Why are we even leveling?

i've been thinking about this a lot lately and i actually have a sneaking suspicion that blizzard is going to eventually do away with leveling in new expansions. basically imagine you level 1-60 and then when a new expansion comes out, you'll still have a campaign and new quests/lore/dungeons etc. everything except the leveling part. they might as well do this since they're already going to squish us back down to 50 for the next one.

[Lolites]

And you cannot argue that WoW is not a solo game, it is to some extend as you need to do your regular routine to get taken into groups. Or can i tell my raidlead "Sorry, going Maw and farming my anima or souls or whatever you get there is too boring, not feeling to do it. My numbers are 30% worse than the other guys in the raid, but see you next raid night then!" ?

or you can do the "routine" in a group...

[Sevarin]

i tanked a dungeon at 56 with a 55 druid healer. we wiped 5 times. the mage said he was trying to teach the healer, which fine. but if youre trying to teach someone to heal, could you at least teach them to push a single healing button so that yseras gift isnt their top heal on me and 25% of the total healing they do? a few pulls the hunter out healed the healer with just the spirit beast heal.

people like that exist. its actually not uncommon. to them, leveling is rather difficult as it is. how they got to 55 without knowing the most basic of basic mechanics of push a button if you want something to happen, i will never know, but it does happen.

[Lolites]

But explain why games that punish users for soloing are still so highly popular. FFXIV, EQ, Classic WoW, etc, etc.

and all of them LESS popular than retail wow...
but sure, different people liking different things must mean wow needs to change to accomodate those few who like what other games do, rather than them LEAVING and playing games they like better...

[Sevarin]

But explain why games that punish users for soloing are still so highly popular. FFXIV. require you to engage with other players during the level-up process.

its clear youve at least never played this game. the only time you have to engage with other players for leveling is for dungeons/raids it forces you to do in the msq. this is actually rather annoying when youre questing at 4am and have a 3 hour+ queue for a raid (about lfr difficulty usually, if not easier) because the raids are rarely done at that hour. usually you cant get into a raid before like 9am, unless youre incredibly lucky. you cant progress in the story until you finish said raid, which you are quite literally forced to do if you ever want to start the next expansion(s).

other than a couple raids/dungeons that are forced on you for msq, there is no punishment for soloing. in fact a lot of the quests REQUIRE you to be solo for what is essentially a scenario. when youre out in the world you can call your chocobo, which you can use as your own personal healer for an even easier solo experience.

so that makes you horribly wrong about at least one of the three whole games you listed.

i know i solod a lot in EQ 20ish years ago, but i cant speak for what its like now. vanilla was easily soloable outside a few group quests here and there, so i assume classic is as well.

if youre referring to dungeons that require other people, well id hate to break it to you, but retail wow also requires other people for dungeons.

[Brubbahlubs]

But your missing one key point here : it was an "cake walk" for you, but am I safe to assume you started Shadowlands with a full set of 100+ item levels gear and a weapon drop from Nathanos (or even better gear) ? While a lot of players from BFA will be as powerful as you, new or returning players will not. It's not even about skill, is purely about gear. New characters or even alt characters will need to group to do this kind of quests. You have the advantage of having played a lot, you're more powerful and you can blast through content. Other people do not.

You're probably going to tell me that Blizzard should make it in a way that these mobs should scale automatically to being a challenge to every player. But then, player will complain that as they're getting more powerful, ennemies get more powerful as well, and it nullifies the work they put into their character.

Your idea of basically adding "elite" group quests seems to be a solution for a problem that doesn't really exist. We already have elite mobs to kill as a group (I did a few in Maldraxxus a few hours ago), but most of the time it's a click on the group finder, 2 minutes of bashing the mob, then leaving the group. The mob can't really be soloed (maybe by the most skilled and geared players - but that's a ridiculous small part of the playerbase) so it's already what you're suggesting : we need to form a group to kill it. The Theatre of Pain in Maldraxxus also bring new kind of super elite mobs that can't be soloed because they do so much damage. We always had world bosses that require you to group as well. I mean... I just don't get it. Maybe you want all of this in the leveling process ? It kind of already is (at least all of my Maldraxxus examples are)...

In my opinion, people are just trying to find way to complain because they can't accept that the game is actually pretty good right now. They find small and personal examples that often doesn't represent how the majority of people is feeling and deeply want the game to change to suit their needs. It's okay to complain about some aspect of the game, maybe you don't like some of it, and it's okay. I don't like all of it either. And it's nice to see people suggesting ways to improve it. But can we all agree that the game is clearly not as bad as this OP wants it to be ? "Challenging" is a matter of perception. "Challenging" is not the same for a 15 years WoW veteran and a new player.

You missed my key point. I clearly stated that I was not ilevel 100++. I stated 93. If you missed that Im not sure if you got any of it. Try reading my reply once more with that in mind.

Further:
Why cant we have 1 optional difficult quest out of 100 easy ones?
Why cant I bring 16 year old veteran Dave and newbie Charles to face challenging monstrosities at level 20? Half of my circle quit WoW due to it being "hit mobs, chew potato chips and move on". What is wrong with having a challenge that my friends and I may partake? Im talking about people playing together, not people running solo, queing group finder for basicly advanced NPCs.

This is not only in regards to shadow lands, but every single piece of content from 10 to 60.

Does "Hogger" ring a bell?

[Hiromant]

What? My characters feel weaker than in early BFA.

[haiyken]

You missed my key point. I clearly stated that I was not ilevel 100++. I stated 93. If you missed that Im not sure if you got any of it. Try reading my reply once more with that in mind.

Further:
Why cant we have 1 optional difficult quest out of 100 easy ones?
Why cant I bring 16 year old veteran Dave and newbie Charles to face challenging monstrosities at level 20? Half of my circle quit WoW due to it being "hit mobs, chew potato chips and move on". What is wrong with having a challenge that my friends and I may partake? Im talking about people playing together, not people running solo, queing group finder for basicly advanced NPCs.

This is not only in regards to shadow lands, but every single piece of content from 10 to 60.

Does "Hogger" ring a bell?

My bad. I didn't noticed your "93 ilevel" precision. I'm sorry about that.

That said, I'm still aligned with what I said. A few of my friends decided to pick up the game during SL pre-patch and they are newbies in WoW, even if they're gamers. While I blast through most of the content, they did struggle to kill some rare/elite mobs while leveing and questing, because they're not familiar with some mechanics and they're still learning to play their characters. Playing with them (and having played the game since Vanilla), I don't see the same challenge as they do, and I'll never be able to. I'm much more confident when playing my character and getting out of certain situation than them, and it's normal.

So... I don't think "Dave" and "Charles" can face the same challenging monstrosities. Only because it's not the same challenge. It's not just about the mobs hitting harder or having more difficult mechanics (you have dungeons and other instance content for that). It's about differences in player experience within the game. That's my point. It a choice between making it challenging enough for everyone whitout making it seem impossible for the less experienced ones. And this is a game everyone is paying for and the devs don't want people to feel discouraged while questing.

You point about "optional difficult quests" is the exact point I talked about in my reply. It's already in the game right now. There are quests that you can't solo, except if you're very skilled at playing your character or you have the gear for. Quests you need to group up to do or quests in zones with a lot of strong mobs that ask you to play much more carefully. I started leveling an ungeared alt in SL and had to run away from rare mobs because I couldn't kill it - and I died a few times as well, a thing that never occured when playing my main.

You're talking about Hogger, but the game is in a different place right now, mainly because of shared tag on mobs that allow players to kill mobs together without having to group together, making it a more fluid way of playing together. How many time did you tag an elite/rare mob at the last second while other players were killing it, making it trivial for you to complete the quest ?

I want to be clear : I'm not attacking you or saying that you're wrong. I understand what you want from the game and I think it's a valid ask. What I'm trying to explain is that some of what you want is already in the game in some way or the other, and that creating a challenging experience for new and old players is more complicated than you think.