Why is twinking still a thing in 2023?

[Grinning Serpent]

I mean... Do you? What are you expecting to get out of this thread? This is not an issue, Blizzard aren't going to pay attention to it, no one else in the thread cares - so I can only assume you wanted to vent here about getting battered by someone who's better than you and you were hoping that you'd get some of the other members of the he-man-wow-haters club to pump you up. I offered you a solution to your problem, one that a lot of people could do with applying in many different fields of life, and you chose to take it poorly.

You didn't offer a solution, I am aware that the solution is to just keep leveling and write off PvP. That's what I did.

But I'm saying that allowing twinking, with the way that they present the leveling experience, is terrible design and I explained why. The entire idea behind the leveling process, especially for new players, is that you are introduced to concepts and ideas during the leveling process and you begin forming habits around them. You learn that you want to use Shield Slam as much as possible because it does good damage and it gives you rage for doing other things, then you shortly get a talent that can frequently immediately clear Shield Slam's cooldown so you can use it again right away. Then you get talents that reward you for using Shield Slam even more, like a stacking damage/blocking up buff, Shield Slam extends Shield Block's duration, and so on.

It's all designed to reinforce itself and teach you good habits early on in the game. If you go into a dungeon, it's much the same. PvP *should* be the same, as well. Go into a BG and everyone is within ~10% of each other in stats, get your ass beat many times but learn a bit more each game until you're the one that's winning. Learn to integrate new talents and their effects as you level up, building habits and knowledge that will help you succeed later.

But because they didn't do anything about twinking, that's effectively barred off. It's also worth noting that it also makes leveling via PvP unlikely, unless you're pretty much just botting since if "which team has more twinks wins by default" is the way of the land, there's no point in trying to care, trying to improve.

[melzas]

There is zero reason to waste development time on leveling content. Sure, in a perfect world leveling bgs would be balanced and fun, but if I had to choose between Devs spending 3 days tweaking them or 3 days tweaking max level PvP, I'd go with max level any time.

As for twinks being a bad introduction to PvP ... I started wow in TBC, I've ran into twinks infested bgs as soon as I could queue into bgs and here I am, 15 years later, still playing wow PvP. When PvP oriented player gets one shot he goes "damn, how did he do that and how can I do that too?" and whiners go "this is stupid, I must complain about it". You are in the second group.

[marulol]

they reverted that change around Legion because well no one used it because twinks didn't actually like fighting other twinks they liked being the kid with a magnifying glass on an anthill

this is wrong. They reverted it because there wasn't enough twinks to queue with other twinks. It's not as popular as it was back in vanilla and tbc. Also Twinks aren't nearly as overpowered as they were in vanilla and tbc. A good boa set and you're doing fine. It used to be way more onesided.

[VinceVega]

Blame me for not checking before trying it, but hit lvl 30 on my new retail character, figured I'd fire up a battleground for a break from questing. Turns out, twinking is still just as bad in retail as it ever was back in the day.

But why? Didn't they make a big deal about the PvP gear grind being less of an issue in Dragonflight? So why not apply that back down to lower levels? Why can you queue in and quite literally get one shot by a single ability from someone with good gear?

With gear and level mattering so much (why not just give everyone the same stats, plus or minus like 10% for a small amount of variability based on gear and level?), why even unlock PvP activities before 70? It's a miserable experience, even for someone going into it with some knowledge of how the modes work and how PvP works. I can't imagine how fucking awful it is for someone that doesn't have prior experience with it.

At least I know now to just pretend PvP doesn't exist until I get up to 70. But it just seems damned wasteful to have a whole ass section of the game effectively walled off like that...

Twinking is the nichest of niche gameplay.
In my 19 years of wow i have never met anyone who actually does it. Only on forums.

There is no incentive for Blizz to put any Developer Time into this.

If you like it. Good for you. If you don't... well don't. Not like you miss anything. It is just gameplay without a reward.

But there is also absolutly no reason to disable it. Because people play it. And it does not take anything away from anyone else.

How about just ignoring it if it gets you so angry?

[LordVargK]

they reverted that change around Legion because well no one used it because twinks didn't actually like fighting other twinks they liked being the kid with a magnifying glass on an anthill

Or maybe because it was impossible to fill a BG with just exp-stopped twinks...

[Puri]

As evidenced by the near total extinction of twinking when Blizzard made twink only queues (despite their feverish claims that "it's not about stomping lowbies, it's about fighting other twinks"), it's very clear that twinking only exists to stroke the ego of people with a desperate need for accomplishment in their otherwise bland and unfulfilling lives.

Twinks are sad, pathetic beings, and they're not going to stop as killing defenseless people in an online game is the only thing they ever managed to succeed at

Really? There were "feverish claims that "it's not about stomping lowbies, it's about fighting other twinks""?

I think it's quite obvious that the fun part is stomping lowbies. Running around godlike is fun, why would anyone start pretending that it isn't? What would be the point to collect perfect low level gear only to be set in an equal playground?

I mean we have already gone a great way since twinking was a real thing, I remember very well that I could "onehit" people with a penance from my discipline priest, or watch them die from a few shadowword ticks. And he was far away from actual twink gear, he was just sporting fully enchanted heirlooms.
The gear difference is much smaller now, nobody is going to be level 10 and wear grey (or slots with no items at all), and after all the stat squishes the difference in low level gear is literally less than a dozen stat points.

[Noctiphobia]

Mostly because nobody cares about anything below max level. But even then, it's way, way better than it used to be before they added XP to battlegrounds. Very few people care enough to deck out a character that is going to level out of the bracket.

[Mustardisbad]

I made a level 19 twink and they are being put in a separate que than everyone else. Does that go away at higher levels or something?

[meheez]

bro better question is why party sync is a thing in bg so full conquest people can be downgraded to 69 lmao (and lower)

[melzas]

I made a level 19 twink and they are being put in a separate que than everyone else. Does that go away at higher levels or something?

Bro you are so 2010... It's not how you two twink nowadays. You take max level char with enchants, gems, consumables,.set bonuses, perfect itemization and trinkets, then ask low level char friend for invite, then you use "party-sync" option and queue for bgs.

You will be scaled down to your friends lvl but keep all this awesome itemised stuff. It's downscaled sure, but average leveling toon runs around without enchants, gems, set bonuses, good trinkets and their gear is full of useless stats giving you enormous advantage.

Alternatively you can "get boosted" on low lvl char through legion/BFA/SL content for raid gear but that takes more time and you will eventually outlevel your bracket (xp gains from bags are crap though so it will take dozen of bags, just enough before you get bored of stomping lowbies)

[Djuntas]

I thought XP turned off, meant you could not play with others besides XP off players. Was that removed.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Because it’s fun.


imagine playing something because it’s fun.

[Snowfunk]

Git gud.

/10 char

[pinkz]

Blame me for not checking before trying it, but hit lvl 30 on my new retail character, figured I'd fire up a battleground for a break from questing. Turns out, twinking is still just as bad in retail as it ever was back in the day.

But why? Didn't they make a big deal about the PvP gear grind being less of an issue in Dragonflight? So why not apply that back down to lower levels? Why can you queue in and quite literally get one shot by a single ability from someone with good gear?

With gear and level mattering so much (why not just give everyone the same stats, plus or minus like 10% for a small amount of variability based on gear and level?), why even unlock PvP activities before 70? It's a miserable experience, even for someone going into it with some knowledge of how the modes work and how PvP works. I can't imagine how fucking awful it is for someone that doesn't have prior experience with it.

At least I know now to just pretend PvP doesn't exist until I get up to 70. But it just seems damned wasteful to have a whole ass section of the game effectively walled off like that...

never in the history of WOW would it be wise to be at a x0-level and go into BGs like you did at 30 into 30-39 bracket. you assumed because you got one shot it has to be twinks. players 31-39 have way more abilities and talents points than a 30. imo you should try at 37, 38, 39 to go ino a 30-39 bracket

blizzard did a thing called gear smoothing recently. they had seriously hyperinflation again after a massive squish. gear had a slow climb and then a monster jump starting at SL. the smoothing has caused really high gear disparity at low levels if you level via quests or dungeons

i started a new player at 10 other day, it had ilvl 16 starter gear pieces, my BOAs were ilvl 24. i did some quests and they rewarded ilvl9 gear, some quest reward upgrade to ilvl 11-19. i went into a dungeon and was getting ilvl 33 blues and i got one epic upgrade that was ilvl 59 at level 10. old gear tokens from MOP, WOD, and Legion aren't even at this item level. Nazjatar starting quest rewards are ilvl 60. i was amazed to see my 10 get a ilvl 59 epic

when i hit 20 doing dungeons i was getting ilvl-61 blue gear and some random upgrade ilvl 89+ epics, there was a 29 in the group, that got a ilvl-112 epic upgrade and i believe the blue drops was in the 80s ilvl zone.

as a 20 in the 20-29 BG bracket would little chance in a BG with such a huge ilvl difference, the 29's extra abilities and talents. the only way i would have a chance at a 29 in a BG if they quest world leveled and did no dungeons and all i did was dungeon level.

[Ermelloth]

I started wow in TBC, I've ran into twinks infested bgs as soon as I could queue into bgs and here I am, 15 years later, still playing wow PvP. When PvP oriented player gets one shot he goes "damn, how did he do that and how can I do that too?" and whiners go "this is stupid, I must complain about it". You are in the second group.

This. Well said)

[pfbe]

I like twinking for running dungeons. Not so much pvp because there's just so many abilities missing the lower you are. But clapping a low level dungeon for some randoms is fun for me, and I hope they keep it around for a while.