"not fun game environment" blizzard creates and does not fix what they cause

[pinkz]

there are several issues on leveling xp on BGs

Party sync by high level players mostly 80s who are considered xp on by blizzards expac cap, they party sync into BGs as low as 10-19 with abilities enabled that players level 10 to 19 of that bracket do not have. to make the problem worse the damage is not scaled correctly. this occurs in other brackets as well.

xp on built twinks to abuse leveling BGs, predominantly the 10-19 bracket, there are what some call roller, disposable, leveling twinks. due to lack of enforcement of high level gems, loopholes on gear, etc.that imo low levels should not have use of. many of these type players delete and reroll after hitting level 20.

- SL gems and doublets that boost speed or provide auto healing
- DF necklaces that a player as low as level 10 can equip, that are considered high level end game this enables 3 sockets to be added using DF JC items
- M+ dungeon seasons are affecting some items like rings that a player as low as level 10 can equip are considered endgame, see next
- TWW JC items that can add up to two socketsto each ring, adding up to 4 sockets


Korrak AV allows players level 20-79 to enter this holiday, the scaling of HP and power is way off and unfair. this has been this way since inception

[Biomega]

Not entirely sure what your point is.

Yeah the low-level PvP experience has issues and skews, but not unequivocally so. People enjoy roflstomping low-level brackets. Why does their fun matter less than other people's fun? Yeah it's not exactly a zero-sum game, but this content is so niche and so transient, it seems like a small price to pay to have minor annoyance for some people for an hour or two while leveling if it means other people get to unlock a whole new area of content for themselves in the longer term. Most people won't spend any appreciable amount of time there, so it's not like this has to be balanced perfectly. Demanding resources to do so is distracting from other forms of content more relevant to more people.

It's an imperfect world. Sometimes other people having more fun means you have less fun, that is just how it is. Can't all be perfectly tuned, and definitely can't all be perfectly tuned around you personally. Best accept that quickly and move along, I say.

[Zodiark]

Not entirely sure what your point is.

Yeah the low-level PvP experience has issues and skews, but not unequivocally so. People enjoy roflstomping low-level brackets. Why does their fun matter less than other people's fun? Yeah it's not exactly a zero-sum game, but this content is so niche and so transient, it seems like a small price to pay to have minor annoyance for some people for an hour or two while leveling if it means other people get to unlock a whole new area of content for themselves in the longer term. Most people won't spend any appreciable amount of time there, so it's not like this has to be balanced perfectly. Demanding resources to do so is distracting from other forms of content more relevant to more people.

It's an imperfect world. Sometimes other people having more fun means you have less fun, that is just how it is. Can't all be perfectly tuned, and definitely can't all be perfectly tuned around you personally. Best accept that quickly and move along, I say.

Someone taking the time to Twink and have fun by roflstomping others who DON"T practice that kind of thing is like shitting in someone else's cornflakes and your telling the OP to just eat it. If someone wants to do that then I have zero problem shitting in their cornflakes in return by supporting a stricter scaling that caps everyone's stats and action economy is normalized. Make it so that the lower less geared player can counter the twinks more easily. The only thing that should matter is a players personal skill. Prepping of any sort should be discouraged because not everyone wants to do that.

In real life sports or contests there are checks and balances to stop this type of thing. Of course there will always be better players and that's fine. You can spend that prepping time learning new strategies or some such but gearing through loopholes to destroy other players who haven't is like a bunch of minor league baseball players on a team all taking steroids and using weighted bats.

Players left up to their own devices will do all sorts of crazy stuff without regard for how it makes other players feel. This is true in real life sports and doubly so with online competitive activities where players are shielded by anonymity.

[pinkz]

from a leveling BG https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...52/clownclass/ level 16 monk with 24 gems mixed from CATA and SL

samples like this were used as reasoning to remove xp off twinks from leveling BGs, yet a purpose built twink to farm honor and 1-2 shot levelers is ok? because you would impede on his/her fun? leveling twinks like above use XP management, AFK out before the BG ends so they can farm kills etc for days even weeks, especially if they build them continuously

same with a 80, you consider it okay when they go into a bracket, with power/abilities/CD skips that can make next three abilities instant.
a player like this was on my team, right at the start wiped 8 players instantly. probably would have 1 vs 10 wiped the other team, but that they had 2 players in the FR on defense.

[SpaceMistakes]

Should probably post this kinda feedback somewhere that Blizz will actually see it.

[Biomega]

Someone taking the time to Twink and have fun by roflstomping others who DON"T practice that kind of thing is like shitting in someone else's cornflakes and your telling the OP to just eat it.

That would only be true if this was some kind of mainstay content you spend considerable time doing. But it isn't. Most people will outlevel the twink brackets very quickly. Like, less than than hour or two quickly. And then they will never interact with that content again (on that character). To that end, it's an acceptable downside to enable the people who do choose to spend a lot of time there intentionally to have a better time. That's not a bad trade-off, even if it annoys the visitors to the bracket.

I'm not saying it doesn't feel bad to get roflstomped by twinks. I'm saying it's okay for that to feel bad, because you'll be done with that in an hour and then never experience it again, and the twinks get to play there for longer and have their own fun; even if it's at other people's expense.

If someone wants to do that then I have zero problem shitting in their cornflakes in return by supporting a stricter scaling that caps everyone's stats and action economy is normalized.

That's just spite, though. Not everything has to be balanced all the time. The goal above all is FUN, not balance. Sometimes balance leads to fun; sometimes imbalance leads to fun. It's just a matter of trade-offs. Some leveler who'll be 10-19 for all of forty minutes getting upset that a twink who's been farming the 10-19 bracket for two years is kicking them into the stratosphere is okay.

The only thing that should matter is a players personal skill. Prepping of any sort should be discouraged because not everyone wants to do that.

And if this was any kind of competitive, mainstay type of content, I'd totally agree. It isn't, though. That's not how low level stuff works. It's niche of niche, super marginal content. It's okay for that to be wonky, because that makes it more fun for the people who actually choose to spend a lot of time there. Almost no one else does.

In real life sports or contests there are checks and balances to stop this type of thing.

Yeah. In real life competitive events, there are. No one is going into, idk, some local pickup basketball game complaining that one guy has a $200 pair of shoes while the other people have to make due with $20 ones and how this ruins the competitive integrity of this sporting event and we need checks and balances. That's grade-A Karen behavior. This is not the place for rigorous checks and balances, because no one actually cares.

[Cynical Asshole]

Blizzard doesn't give a shit about anything that's not "rated". Like...you cannot possibly imagine how little of a shit Blizzard gives on all content that's not M+, rated PVP and heroic+mythic raiding.

[Zodiark]

That would only be true if this was some kind of mainstay content you spend considerable time doing. But it isn't. Most people will outlevel the twink brackets very quickly. Like, less than than hour or two quickly. And then they will never interact with that content again (on that character). To that end, it's an acceptable downside to enable the people who do choose to spend a lot of time there intentionally to have a better time. That's not a bad trade-off, even if it annoys the visitors to the bracket.

I'm not saying it doesn't feel bad to get roflstomped by twinks. I'm saying it's okay for that to feel bad, because you'll be done with that in an hour and then never experience it again, and the twinks get to play there for longer and have their own fun; even if it's at other people's expense.


That's just spite, though. Not everything has to be balanced all the time. The goal above all is FUN, not balance. Sometimes balance leads to fun; sometimes imbalance leads to fun. It's just a matter of trade-offs. Some leveler who'll be 10-19 for all of forty minutes getting upset that a twink who's been farming the 10-19 bracket for two years is kicking them into the stratosphere is okay.


And if this was any kind of competitive, mainstay type of content, I'd totally agree. It isn't, though. That's not how low level stuff works. It's niche of niche, super marginal content. It's okay for that to be wonky, because that makes it more fun for the people who actually choose to spend a lot of time there. Almost no one else does.


Yeah. In real life competitive events, there are. No one is going into, idk, some local pickup basketball game complaining that one guy has a $200 pair of shoes while the other people have to make due with $20 ones and how this ruins the competitive integrity of this sporting event and we need checks and balances. That's grade-A Karen behavior. This is not the place for rigorous checks and balances, because no one actually cares.

Listen. I hate when people call others a Karen first of all. I feel like MOST of the social issues we face today are because no one wants to hold anyone else accountable for anything because they might get labeled. When I grew up in the 80's and 90's if you did some dumb shit you got called out for it plain and simple.

Yes this is just a piece of finite content. I get it. So do others I'm sure. But therein lies the problem. When you don't check one area of the game then that attitude invariably spreads to other areas. It compromises the integrity of the game overall to some degree. Look at the mess the Timewalking events became. It got to the point I loathe TW runs now. In the past I would look forward to them to level up my alts or just have fun running through some older content. NOW it's like a total shit-show.

Sometimes you get a Twink who probably made them for PvP or who knows and got bored and started running TW. Or they want certain pieces of loot, whatever the case. They basically rape the dungeon at breakneck speed, if you somehow can keep up great, you get a quick but chaotic run that's over in a few minutes. IF your lucky. If your unlucky then you get left behind, killed by some random mobs and have to spend the few minutes waiting by the entrance for the clear bonus. Sure this is only one dungeon maybe next one will be better? Right? Well once again if your lucky. I have literally done hundreds of TW runs and most of the time players leave randomly if there isn't a twink running or they leave IF one is in there because of how annoying the whole experience is. On top of that it's like no one can be bothered to even try.

I'm sure some of this is bleed over from people who twink for PvP brackets. Yes maybe this is just a temporary area of the game and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter too much. But it's just one more drop in the bucket of things that Blizzard doesn't care about correcting. How may drops before the bucket is full?

This is why in certain games you can't do certain things. Yeah it kinda sucks to an extent but it's for the overall good of the game. Sometimes players need to be protected from themselves.

[Biomega]

Blizzard doesn't give a shit about anything that's not "rated". Like...you cannot possibly imagine how little of a shit Blizzard gives on all content that's not M+, rated PVP and heroic+mythic raiding.

I mean, there's a correlation between it having rating systems or other forms of structure and the popularity of the content - things like M+ got ratings because they were popular and ratings made things more comfortable (which is why it was initially a community idea via an addon).

That being said, it's not really quite the same here because low level BG content for people who just want to level is incredibly niche. Like, people may do one or two of them, ever, on a character. The vast majority of people probably never ever do it at all. It's unreasonable to demand balance and attention for every conceivable form of content at every conceivable level - not only is this impractical to do, but as I pointed out above, it may actually not be in the interest of maximizing fun, because while the average player may do 0 to 2 leveling BGs ever, the people who play twinks etc. do them all the time. So why should the content be balanced around the fun of hypothetical one-time visitors instead of people who want to stay there for the long run? In practical terms, striving for perfect balance there is not only not feasible but not desirable.

I get that there's this abstract idea of equity and balance, but those are never goals in and of themselves. We sometimes use them as shorthand for goals because of certain correlations in certain contexts, but make no mistake: the goal should be FUN. And being balanced is only one way of SOMETIMES achieving that in SOME contexts. It's not some kind of universal, abstract absolute.

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Listen. I hate when people call others a Karen first of all. I feel like MOST of the social issues we face today are because no one wants to hold anyone else accountable for anything because they might get labeled. When I grew up in the 80's and 90's if you did some dumb shit you got called out for it plain and simple.

You still get called out for shit, and should be. We just deal with it differently. And it's about reasonableness above all else. Unreasonable demands are what Karens are all about.

Yes this is just a piece of finite content. I get it. So do others I'm sure. But therein lies the problem. When you don't check one area of the game then that attitude invariably spreads to other areas.

So your argument is the slippery slope, that's it?

I don't buy this. If there's problems in other areas, deal with those problems. But the idea that somehow we must fix every small thing in order to address big things is patently absurd and nothing but a coping mechanism. This game isn't a giant, complex ball of impenetrable systemic opaqueness. If there's an actual problem, bring it up to be dealt with. Don't get bungled up in irrelevant problems because of some fear about hypothetic future problems. That's not only inefficient, it's also not feasible. The result is LESS effective problem-solving - not more. With limited resources, focus efforts on where they're most needed. And that's not "I got killed by a twink while leveling in a 10-19 BG" because that's the textbook example of niche of a niche of a niche problem. WoW has enough other, real issues, gods know it does.

And that's entirely aside from the fact that as I explained, I don't even think this is a net problem to begin with and in fact may be a net positive - even if it's at the expense of some people.

It compromises the integrity of the game overall to some degree. Look at the mess the Timewalking events became. It got to the point I loathe TW runs now. In the past I would look forward to them to level up my alts or just have fun running through some older content. NOW it's like a total shit-show.

You know what would help there? Fixing the issues with TW, whatever they are.

You know what won't help there? Spending limited development resources perfectly balancing low-level BGs.

You're making a case, just not the one you think

However, it may well be that the same thing applies to TW: it's a niche activity, and having some imbalance there can be fine because it gives regular players something to do even if occasional players may have a slightly worse experience. I haven't played TW recently so I can't evaluate this in more detail; however the situation of bad TW balance existed before so unless something fundamental changed I don't think it's that different.

I get that it sucks for your experience, but again my question becomes: why is your experience more valuable than someone else's experience, who might enjoy twinking the shit out of a TW dungeon (or a BG, as it were)? You may be running a TW here and there when it's up, but they may be going pedal-to-the-metal ham on that content. As a "power user" of sorts why isn't it fine if they're twinking there?

This is why in certain games you can't do certain things. Yeah it kinda sucks to an extent but it's for the overall good of the game. Sometimes players need to be protected from themselves.

But who are you to arbitrate that? Those people enjoy twinking. You're not trying to protect THEM - you're trying to protect YOURSELF, or at least people with similar preferences as yourself.

Don't couch this in terms of oh no I need to save these people. You aren't concerned about THEIR experience. You're concerned about YOUR experience. Let's be clear about that.

[kranur]

This is no different than encountering twinks 20 years ago.
It's actually even less of an issue now because leveling is fast, there is no real reason to try and do bgs outside of max level, it's going to be a clown show.
Sure, it sucks ass because it's available to do, but it's whatever, you can shrug it off and queue in a few hours when max level.

[Puri]

Yes, I agree those are rather bugs or flaws that could be looked at.

But I also see that it takes less than an hour to go from 10-19 on any char today, so unless you are planning on twinking yourself in that bracket I don't see how it would affect you apart from being roflstomped in the two or three BGs you would try by then.

So I'd say there's better things they can spend their development time on.

And by all means, let's not claim they are even trying to balance anything for low level PVP, even without abusing systems that would make you overpowered.

[procne]

Considering how flawed, unbalanced and neglected leveling experience is in retail wow I think twinks in BGs would be least of my concerns

[LordVargK]

Not sure what you expect. Leveling content is and was never balanced. I remember when I as a level 19 hunter with full heirlooms could oneshot everyone not wearing heirlooms. Same with dungeons. This is nothing new and I would not call it a solvable problem.

[Zodiark]

I mean, there's a correlation between it having rating systems or other forms of structure and the popularity of the content - things like M+ got ratings because they were popular and ratings made things more comfortable (which is why it was initially a community idea via an addon).

That being said, it's not really quite the same here because low level BG content for people who just want to level is incredibly niche. Like, people may do one or two of them, ever, on a character. The vast majority of people probably never ever do it at all. It's unreasonable to demand balance and attention for every conceivable form of content at every conceivable level - not only is this impractical to do, but as I pointed out above, it may actually not be in the interest of maximizing fun, because while the average player may do 0 to 2 leveling BGs ever, the people who play twinks etc. do them all the time. So why should the content be balanced around the fun of hypothetical one-time visitors instead of people who want to stay there for the long run? In practical terms, striving for perfect balance there is not only not feasible but not desirable.

I get that there's this abstract idea of equity and balance, but those are never goals in and of themselves. We sometimes use them as shorthand for goals because of certain correlations in certain contexts, but make no mistake: the goal should be FUN. And being balanced is only one way of SOMETIMES achieving that in SOME contexts. It's not some kind of universal, abstract absolute.

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You still get called out for shit, and should be. We just deal with it differently. And it's about reasonableness above all else. Unreasonable demands are what Karens are all about.


So your argument is the slippery slope, that's it?

I don't buy this. If there's problems in other areas, deal with those problems. But the idea that somehow we must fix every small thing in order to address big things is patently absurd and nothing but a coping mechanism. This game isn't a giant, complex ball of impenetrable systemic opaqueness. If there's an actual problem, bring it up to be dealt with. Don't get bungled up in irrelevant problems because of some fear about hypothetic future problems. That's not only inefficient, it's also not feasible. The result is LESS effective problem-solving - not more. With limited resources, focus efforts on where they're most needed. And that's not "I got killed by a twink while leveling in a 10-19 BG" because that's the textbook example of niche of a niche of a niche problem. WoW has enough other, real issues, gods know it does.

And that's entirely aside from the fact that as I explained, I don't even think this is a net problem to begin with and in fact may be a net positive - even if it's at the expense of some people.


You know what would help there? Fixing the issues with TW, whatever they are.

You know what won't help there? Spending limited development resources perfectly balancing low-level BGs.

You're making a case, just not the one you think

However, it may well be that the same thing applies to TW: it's a niche activity, and having some imbalance there can be fine because it gives regular players something to do even if occasional players may have a slightly worse experience. I haven't played TW recently so I can't evaluate this in more detail; however the situation of bad TW balance existed before so unless something fundamental changed I don't think it's that different.

I get that it sucks for your experience, but again my question becomes: why is your experience more valuable than someone else's experience, who might enjoy twinking the shit out of a TW dungeon (or a BG, as it were)? You may be running a TW here and there when it's up, but they may be going pedal-to-the-metal ham on that content. As a "power user" of sorts why isn't it fine if they're twinking there?


But who are you to arbitrate that? Those people enjoy twinking. You're not trying to protect THEM - you're trying to protect YOURSELF, or at least people with similar preferences as yourself.

Don't couch this in terms of oh no I need to save these people. You aren't concerned about THEIR experience. You're concerned about YOUR experience. Let's be clear about that.

Actually I do care about other's experiences. I am kinda sort-of taking a break right now from WoW. Few months off to play some other games and such. Helps keep me form getting burnt out. I have been playing since Vanilla. 20 years now. To my point though I do care about other players because I enjoy doing some group content and when people aren't having fun with a system they won't enjoy it. It has to be organic. Meaning that they have to genuinely be enjoying themselves with a given system to make it something that they want to do, which in turn makes it so I personally want to run TW or other bits of content because it feels like a more healthy atmosphere. So yes this has something to do with myself sure. Even people that want to help old ladies cross the street are doing so because it gives THEM a feeling of doing something good. Doesn't mean that at the heart of things I'm only thinking about myself. A healthy game is not only good for me but for everyone.

I feel like the slippery slope argument is valid. Where one system gets exploited so too does another. Do you really think that people STOP once they found a way to exploit something? That's like the bank robber who figured out a way to pull off a clean heist and then gets greedy and tries to repeat the trick. Yes he may now get caught in the end but in doing so the whole system gets changed.

Right now I have seen this in real time like I said with the whole TW thing. In the past sure people would kinda breeze though them of course. But there was SOME interaction and I actually made some friends and had some funny conversations with people I met in protracted TW runs where we wound up staying grouped for multiple runs together. Nowadays though that's becoming less and less of a thing because whenever a TW event happens now since the anniversary event thing, it is basically zoom zoom zoom, maybe you can keep up, maybe your left in the dust. It's not enjoyable like that. SURE WOW you got to 80 fast! But it was a crappy ride there.

How does this effect the rest of the game though you might ask ? Well for one it doesn't do much to help players learn a class. Back in the day if you died in a dungeon first time maybe okay it's a mulligan. Two three four times though? People would be at best bitching at the healer at worst they would get kicked. Nowadays it's like a common thing. Healers don't even use their abilities. I see it. Most just spam one or two spells. I know this is kind of a thing anyhow but not when people are dying left and right. This bleeds over into other areas like Delves, Mythic +, Raiding, etc.

So the Twinking community who might start out in PvP brackets then start carrying over into TW runs. Now that the leveling experience is even more diluted and corrupted by their shenanigans by making mobs feel trivial other players stop caring too. It creates a bad precedent.

We are at a point now where this is a very real thing. Mid expansion a lot of players start to get bored and try other classes/specs, or roles. Like healing, or Tanking or whatever. Yes the game has to do a better job at teaching mechanics during the leveling process but the process becomes that much worse when twinks subvert the systems and content. Sure Blizzard can just apply stricter enforcement for scaling content, but that's what this whole conversation was about in the first place. Make scaling difficulty an actual thing, not another system that can be gamed.

It's not like there are two separate game modes for each server. Lulz mode where anything goes, and normal mode where you play the game as intended. There is a good number of normal players who just want to play WoW in any and all modes as the game is presented, while there are those that that isn't enough for. I will never be on board for a system that allows people to have fun at another's expense.

Right now though it is what it is. I'm just doing this as an exercise in debating more or less. I play when I play and don't when I don't I won't let it bother me too much when I do. However IF Blizzard ever DID decide to actually implement some changes that would make twinking not worthwhile I wouldn't stand against them.

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This is no different than encountering twinks 20 years ago.
It's actually even less of an issue now because leveling is fast, there is no real reason to try and do bgs outside of max level, it's going to be a clown show.
Sure, it sucks ass because it's available to do, but it's whatever, you can shrug it off and queue in a few hours when max level.

Yeah I get this argument but SOME players who want to focus on PvP want to learn the ropes while leveling up. This is kind of what this mode was for. Otherwise it would be so you couldn't even DO pvp till you hit max level. Twinking ALWAYS sucked no doubt. I played 20 years ago in those BG's where lvl 19 twink rogues ganked me and I realized this games player vs player wasn't what I had imagined/hoped it would be. Coming from WCIII I had envisioned that it would be more organic. Like Orcs and such would be about in the world defending their strongholds and such and could go about questing and while their stronghold was in tact/defended they would get a bonus or something. Same for all races/factions. In fact open world pvp was basically just random ganking with no real benefit other than the lulz from killing someone. Actual PvP was done in instanced BG's. So this is what we have.

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Considering how flawed, unbalanced and neglected leveling experience is in retail wow I think twinks in BGs would be least of my concerns

I understand but if they made it so TWINKING was basically broken by normalizing instanced stats to the point they can't be gamed then that would effect MULTIPLE areas of the game. Not just low level PvP. Fix one broken aspect (level scaling), and fix many problems. You are right though that many areas are unbalanced and neglected but doesn't mean that things can't be addressed.

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Not sure what you expect. Leveling content is and was never balanced. I remember when I as a level 19 hunter with full heirlooms could oneshot everyone not wearing heirlooms. Same with dungeons. This is nothing new and I would not call it a solvable problem.

Normalized and better scaling systems. Yes Heirlooms were a thing I remember taking advantage myself but then realized that it was getting boring. I feel like this problem solved in the current iteration of WoW's leveling system would be harsh. However IF they were to do it as a two-fold thing where first the leveling experience was drastically changed to make it more fun and engaging THEN tack on a change that would basically make it so twinking couldn't be a thing anymore, then it would go over better. Like maybe a new dynamic system that would basically allow for a custom leveling experience each time. You could start out by picking a zone and have a path laid out for your character based on that initial selection AND have choice nodes of some sort along the way that allowed you to either stay on THAT leveling path OR diverge to a different path. So for one it would be partially random and two be a different path based on your choices. With a little story to guide your character on to keep it interesting.

Shit I have literally made so many alts JUST to do the new island Exiles reach. Just because you get a nice little beginning, middle, and end story that takes you in a clean way from start to finish and shows you little things that help teach you along the way. I wish the rest of WoW leveling could be like a continuation of this but MIX it up. Make it so if you WANT to start doing PvP there is some story tie-in's that make it fun and engaging for all. Twinking is a thing partially because the content is boring and players want something else to do.

[procne]

I understand but if they made it so TWINKING was basically broken by normalizing instanced stats to the point they can't be gamed then that would effect MULTIPLE areas of the game. Not just low level PvP. Fix one broken aspect (level scaling), and fix many problems. You are right though that many areas are unbalanced and neglected but doesn't mean that things can't be addressed.

My point is mostly that Blizzard doesn't care. They broke leveling long ago, and it's a feature they don't really like or care about. If anything, it's this mundane and boring thing they use to push people into buying level boosts. I bet they still haven't fixed the lvl 70-80 scaling they broke at the start of this expansion

[Ereb]

Not sure what you expect. Leveling content is and was never balanced. I remember when I as a level 19 hunter with full heirlooms could oneshot everyone not wearing heirlooms. Same with dungeons. This is nothing new and I would not call it a solvable problem.

I wouldn't even call it a problem at all. Leveling these days is finished in a matter of hours of gameplay.

[Zodiark]

My point is mostly that Blizzard doesn't care. They broke leveling long ago, and it's a feature they don't really like or care about. If anything, it's this mundane and boring thing they use to push people into buying level boosts. I bet they still haven't fixed the lvl 70-80 scaling they broke at the start of this expansion

Pretty much all scaling is borked. the big brackets are 10-11, 40-41, 70-71. I have run many, many TW groups and if those are borked there then they surely are in PvP.

I know there is probably something to the boost thing but idk. I just feel like the leveling experience is sort of on the backburner for them. They want to keep making NEW content and forgetting about the stuff that came before.

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I wouldn't even call it a problem at all. Leveling these days is finished in a matter of hours of gameplay.

It can be argued that leveling in hours alone is a problem in itself. Playing a different character and going through the world should be both FUN and an option. IF you already did your thing but just want to jump back into the fray of high level stuff but with a new toon then you should be able to just more or less skip the leveling path. However IF you want to actually go through the world it should be both engaging and enjoyable to do so while helping to brush up or teach mechanics that will be important later on for higher level content.

[Biomega]

Actually I do care about other's experiences. I am kinda sort-of taking a break right now from WoW. Few months off to play some other games and such. Helps keep me form getting burnt out. I have been playing since Vanilla. 20 years now. To my point though I do care about other players because I enjoy doing some group content and when people aren't having fun with a system they won't enjoy it. It has to be organic. Meaning that they have to genuinely be enjoying themselves with a given system to make it something that they want to do, which in turn makes it so I personally want to run TW or other bits of content because it feels like a more healthy atmosphere. So yes this has something to do with myself sure. Even people that want to help old ladies cross the street are doing so because it gives THEM a feeling of doing something good. Doesn't mean that at the heart of things I'm only thinking about myself. A healthy game is not only good for me but for everyone.

The problem is that you're presupposing here that twinks are "unhealthy", and that you're discounting the fun that twink players have. Why does THAT fun not matter, or matter less? They're the ones spending the most time in that content - everyone else barely touches it. Why shouldn't their fun be prioritized there, even at the expense of the fun of people who barely ever interact with that content? What is wrong with that? You're assuming implicitly that if that kind of sporadic, niche content was perfectly balanced, everyone would have more fun - but I don't think that's true. All the twinks would have less fun, not more. You are equivocating maximum balance and maximum fun, and/or "a healthy game". I don't think that's always the case. Unbalanced content can also be fun, precisely because it is unbalanced; it's just not the same kind of fun for everyone, but that's okay if and as long as everyone also doesn't participate in that content equally. Which is precisely why this is fine for niche content like low-level BGs, but of course would not be fine for main-line content like M+ or whatever.

I feel like the slippery slope argument is valid. Where one system gets exploited so too does another. Do you really think that people STOP once they found a way to exploit something? That's like the bank robber who figured out a way to pull off a clean heist and then gets greedy and tries to repeat the trick. Yes he may now get caught in the end but in doing so the whole system gets changed.

The slippery slope argument is almost always fallacious, because it makes predictions and assumptions that are usually not unequivocal or outright untrue. That being said, the slippery slope at least has SOME validity in extremely large systems where resource allocation is fairly trivial and not a strict zero-sum game. It is very different in a small system confined by resource allocation, because there you have to prioritize. That's why in, say, society at large we can afford to worry about small things without compromising larger things - fixing potholes, say, won't exactly impact our ability to, say, help fight world hunger or something. The system is too large for these things to cause resource allocation issues. But WoW does not work like that. Dev time is limited. Even small things take a lot of hours. Trying to balance all low-level content is not some thing you can just do on the side and for free - it takes away real and substantial resources that you now can't use elsewhere. Because WoW is such a complex machine of interacting parts, it is extremely difficult (and therefore resource-intensive) to balance all the things that interact with each other against all different forms of content. You might fix balance in low-level PvP, say, but then suddenly PvE leveling is unbalanced. You fix solo PvE leveling, and all of a sudden dungeon performance is all over the place. And so on. It would take absolutely ABSURD amounts of work to balance all that, and that for content that most players spend almost no time on because they move on so quickly from things like leveling. It would be inefficient and take substantial resources away from things that players actually spend most of their time on.

You are trying to make some kind of abstract point, without thinking about the actual implementation and the concrete situations at play. That's the problem with slippery-slope arguments: they play on an abstract truism and appeal to general principle, but in terms of concrete implementation they are almost always nonsensical and unusably inefficient. Identify concrete problems - find concrete solutions - weigh up efficiency. That's the way to go about it.

How does this effect the rest of the game though you might ask ? Well for one it doesn't do much to help players learn a class.

That's another red herring. Leveling content or trivial dungeons do not and have never taught people how to play their class. You learn either by direct information, or by being forced to do things right; and that only happens in content challenging enough to require it. TW was never that, is not intended to be that, and shouldn't ever be that. And the same goes for things like leveling. That's not fun, it's not conducive to the new-player experience, and it's not helpful for seasonal events made to relax the usual routine. Could/should WoW do more to help people get better? Sure. But you don't do that by making fun and trivial content more difficult. You do it by giving better feedback and establishing learning mechanisms in the type of content that actually demands performance - I've advocated for e.g. a system that gives you a splash warning if you mess up a mechanic in M+, or if you miss something you should have handled like a kick or a fight-specific mechanic. That would actually TEACH people - making TW harder and less twink-able would do nothing but make that kind of content less fun for a lot of people.

That's not to say there aren't SOME balance issues with TW to iron out, I'm sure. I don't know the current situation, but TW used to be all over the place. Some dungeons you could solo, others would oneshot you with bullshit mechanics. That's not great, but the same principle as outlined above applies: this content is too transient and too sporadic to warrant heavily investing resources into. That sucks, but such is the way of things. I'd rather they spend more time balancing raids, M+, and so on than trying to get TW just right. And that is, unfortunately, the choice they're faced with a lot of the time. They can probably find SOME resources to put behind this, and it'd be nice if TW was a bit better - but we should not expect significant balance efforts. That kind of content is just not worth it.

It's not like there are two separate game modes for each server. Lulz mode where anything goes, and normal mode where you play the game as intended.

It's not as simplistic as that, but absolutely there are forms of content where lulz anything goes, and forms of content where performance matters. That is horizontal segmentation at work, and that's a GOOD thing. Because people want different things out of the game, and some people want to work on getting better while some other people just want to do whatever and chill. It becomes complicated primarily when other people are involved (because you have to respect each other's time), but at the principal level, having these different ways to play is a very good thing indeed.

[Ereb]

It can be argued that leveling in hours alone is a problem in itself.

Just like it can be argued that leveling in hours is not a problem, but a feature. Given that they have held the stance of making leveling faster and faster over the years and decades, never slower and longer, speaks for itself imo.

Especially under the context that, if you prefer leveling instead of endgame, there is another version of wow readily waiting for you that does just that

[Zodiark]

Just like it can be argued that leveling in hours is not a problem, but a feature. Given that they have held the stance of making leveling faster and faster over the years and decades, never slower and longer, speaks for itself imo.

Especially under the context that, if you prefer leveling instead of endgame, there is another version of wow readily waiting for you that does just that

I mean to each their own. I like the current version of WoW. I can't bring myself to play Classic. Sure it's cool for a hot second but I feel like I'm giving up too much. I wish I had a middle ground personally where I could play in Modern WoW but have leveling be a BIT more slower but more importantly than that is to feel more meaningful. The game shouldn't stop or begin at max level. Your character's journey isn't / shouldn't be a chore to get over with. It's about going out into the world and engaging with it. Feeling like your helping a little bit along the way. I used to be that player many years ago who thought everything STARTED at max level. Then I learned the ONLY reason there is ANYTHING to do at max level at all is because the developers WANT you to keep playing / paying.

Think about it like this. MOST of the dungeons and dragons campaigns are designed for lower level characters. There are high level campaigns for sure but the problem is that after a character gets too strong you run out of things to do. It's hard to challenge them in a fun meaningful way. When every playing session is filled with extraplanar godly powers and such it dilutes the experience overall.

These aren't even my own words. I'm paraphrasing but that was a quote more or less from one of the older dungeons and dragons Dungeon Master guides I think 2nd Edition. That was a word of warning for current and future DM's to take consideration before launching a High level campaign.

All that being said lets bring it back to the main point here. When MMORPG's first came to the forefront people were in love. Me included. There is a reason I used to play 10-12 hours a day or more back in the day. Because it was NEW and exciting just going through a world that didn't have a direct end to it. Nowadays it's a thing of the past and passe. Which is why people are looking to game systems and either get to max asap or twink their toons out so they can stave off getting to max level but still play out their power fantasy at the same time.

BY making a dynamic experience for leveling and PvP and making it so the system couldn't be gamed your adding fun, value, something NEW each time (with regards to leveling paths) and addressing the PvP problem with regards to twinks even being a thing in the first place.