- The Undead starting experience is really good now. Having said that, I wanted to play a Druid in Cataclysm to be able to fulfill each role. Therefore I stopped playing my Undead when the starter story was finished. Highly recommended for everybody, though.
- I somehow dislike the look of the Troll feral forms (except for flight form!). I also didn't like their starting zone. It feels wrong to fight lvl 85 bosses at level 6.
- The Tauren starting zones are not so well. I still made a tauren Feral Druid and got him to level 34.
My impressions:
- Mulgore hasn't changed a lot.
- Azshara is concentreded coolness. Too much for me. I liked to play through it, because it was new, but I won't do it again. Coolness is good. To concentrate it like that is a mistake. It hurts immersion.
- I dismissed Durotar, as I hate to quest by onehitting mobs.
- Northern Barrens haven't changed much.
- Ashenvale has changed quite a bit and also is a lot of fun.
- Stone Talon Mountains. WTF! Phenomenal. Was there a moment were Blizzard excelled at story telling? For the first time since - I don't know. That big bomb has a story that you will not be able to foresee. Incredible for WoW.
- Southern Barrens has changed a lot. Also nice story line so far.
I generally like the leveling a lot. I do, however, have a big, really big problem.
I level too fast. (No, I do not use heirlooms).
There is no way I can do battlegrounds without outleveling a zone. In fact, I can only do each dungeon once when it is green, if I want the questmobs to stay yellow/green. Things like heirlooms/resting experience or even RAF look like a penalty. This is really a problem. Not just for me. There is a large threat at EU forums about it.
My suggestions on how to fix this:
- Cut exp gain by 50%.
- Require all characters to do all important questlines in a zone before being able to level beyond it.
My practical, diplomatic suggestions on how to fix this:
- At character creation allow me to lock a certain exp penalty. For example by 25%, 50%, 75%. If such a character reaches max level he receives an achievement and a title (yeah, yeah and a lot of pets).
- Eliminate or drastically reduce exp gain from doing dungeons/battlegrounds.
- Increase character power at level 1 massively, to be able to reduce character power gain during leveling. There is no reason a mob 5+ levels below you is a onehit.
It has to be hoped that Blizzard sorts this issue out. It is no fun to have to pick between doing battlegrounds/dungeons or having yellow mobs to kill. Leveling is already too 'easy' to be immersive. It becomes absurd if killing a mob feels like killing a mosquito. Actually I killed a few green mobs yesterday with resurrection penalty and it was enjoyable. I got to use my abilities and there was no danger of dying whatsoever.
Generally, I want to be able able to do at least one finishing move every now and then and I would like to enjoy becoming more powerful. The last few days I often forgot to go to the trainer, because the only thing I could do to kill mobs, anyway, was mangle spam.
Oh, one last thing:
The dungeon mobs have been iterated and now those bosses sometimes live up to a minute. As a healer you sometimes even need to watch your mana. Not as 'hard' as I would like it, but a definite improvement. Let's just hope they do the same with open world mobs.
I experienced (and mentioned in my last post) the problem of levelling too fast even without heirlooms or restedness as well. Thanks for pointing out that thread on the EU forums - maybe if enough people speak up, Blizzard will actually think about adjusting the pace.
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