Here's what I have to say about it:
- although I do not use rest-exp bonus,
- although I've done only two dungeon runs so far and stopped doing them,
- although I only did one battleground and stopped doing them,
- although I don't use heirlooms,
- although I do not explore,
- although I stopped gathering resources,
- although I am not a member of a guild and its exp bonus,
but strictly follow questlines, I just level too fast.
I am now level 32 and my enemies are level 25. Soon they will turn grey! I had a nightmare about logging out in an inn and gaining levels without being able to do anything about it! It was out of control. Ding! Ding! Ding! Just silly.
I would like to actually do a dungeon - even though the LFD usually confronts you with strange tanks and healers. My bad for not playing a tanking class. But I wanted to play a mage this time, damn it.
I would like to test a battleground, although I'd probably be disgusted. I have several blue drops and quest rewards by now and about 900 health; at level 32. You remember that screenshot I posted about the first guy I targeted when I entered a battleground at level 10? It showed this level 11 priest with over 900 health.
I'd like to gather and sell some resources to be able to buy glyphs, but if I do, I get experience - and not just a little. Even grey resources give exp. I tested it!
I would like to actually check out what's behind the next corner. But if I do, I'll level even sooner.
No, I will not travel to another continent and pay 20 gold to switch off exp. Not that I could afford it anyway. I own 16 gold.
I considered joining a guild, but that will give me another 5% exp bonus!
What were they thinking? Honestly, how much else can Blizzard do wrong without being kicked to the moon by a competitor?
Every now and then, fighting enemies that die like insects is not a problem. But it seems that I will have to do that for the next 48 levels. That is not going to happen! I want to play my character and not just spam one or two buttons.
This is like playing soccer against a really bad team and being told that the first goal ends the match. Guess what: I just scored, and my latest WoW adventure ends RIGHT NOW - after three days!
Edit:
One last thing: They aren't even polishing as they used to (it looks even worse without jpg compression).
Oh, and the Ogres in the cave in Arathi Highlands have a bugged animation.
...
And this is what I do to pets that you put into every of my new characters' mailboxes (trying to delete the mail with that thing still in it results in a database error!):
This, more than anything, is what's wrong with WOW as it stands. It's not the end-game (which was harder than Wrath, but not insanely so), it's the levelling process.
ReplyDeleteIt's just too quick, so you end up missing out on lots of high-quality content, which is effectively wasted. It's destroying both the first- and re- play value for all the non-raiders.
It seems to me that it's the casuals that are leaving, not because raiding is "too hard" (they don't really care), but because the content they do enjoy is broken.
I guess when casuals leave, the only thing Blizzard can think of is to make the leveling faster. ...
ReplyDeleteYou can probably guess what's coming next - fully geared level 85 toon for only $15! It's only a matter of time...
ReplyDelete@ Dave - I'm completely ok with them doing that... as long as I get my levelling game for my alts back.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, everything Nils said, I agree with. I've unsubbed because I have no desire to raid or PvP in WoW. I used to love the levelling game.
I was hugely frustrated with the re-vamped content because I outlevelled every damn zone before I'd reached the end of the quest chains. I like the stories, I like seeing things through. But it's infuriating when your choices are: a) complete the last third of the zone with mobs and quests on grey, or b) not complete a zone.
The fast levelling is inexplicable to me. The whole point of Cataclysm was to revamp the old areas with new and better quests. The fast leveling means you just zip past them without really enjoying them.
ReplyDeleteWoW in my opinion never planned long term. They built a game to sell a lot of copies and keep people busy for 6 months. After 6 months they added stuff to keep people subbed a few months more. This is how they've planned ever since, just a little more.
They were clearly scared to gut Azeroth radically and remake it. So we've ended up with an expansion that makes interesting low level content and then skips you right by it because they were scared to nerf leveling speed; that dumps people in LFD groups that are horrible because the dps role is all entitlement and no responsibility and leads to raids that are all about guild-shopping for the best deal.
I don't think you made a mistake to go have a look. $15 for some interesting blog material isn't a terrible deal and now you know rather than speculate.
That's actually a good point, Stabs. Few things are worse than blogging about games you haven't played for a long time. I know several bloggers who did it: it is embarassing. And I certainly don't begrudge 12.99€ :)
ReplyDeleteIn some way a terrible crew @Blizzard is good news. If they had done everything perfectly with Cataclysm (and within the framework of WoW), I might have more fun playing WoW now .. but I would have to wait for many, many more years for a really good MMORPG. This way the market gap for a AAA sandbox gets ever bigger.
Sorry, but I just don't understand.
ReplyDeleteOne post ago you were complaining about blizzard only caring about rewards (even if the 1st point of your list was not rewards) and now you complain about leveling going too fast?
If you don't care about rewards (and levels are rewards) and care for the story, why do you care that your enemies are gray? What does it change? That the quests are not "challenging"? They are designed not to be challenging, so that you can go on with the story whatever happens.
@Helistar Isn't leveling up faster and getting exp bonuses thought of as rewards? Just saying, I don't think this goes against the last post at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand, Helistar.
ReplyDeleteI want to experience the story and the world. But I also want to play my character while doing so. When you fight grey mobs you don't play your character; you play 10% of your character.
It's just not fun to use just two or three abilities and then the mobs drop dead. Blizzard knows this: that's why we have more than two or three abilities. But they are no use if you fight grey mobs.
Apart from that: I do care about "rewards". I just don't think that a MMORPG should be defined exclusively on the basis on "rewards".
I also critizise that I can't consider levels and exp as rewards in this situation, but rather as punishment. It's a very unimmersive and rather absurd punishment.
The decision on whether you should do a dungeon now and face even weaker quest mobs afterwards, or not do the dungeon is also the kind of 'interesting decision' that I can do without. That is clearly bad game design.
LOTRO is still pretty good. I suppose it does suffer somewhat from the same dumbing down you see in WoW.
ReplyDeleteI went back to it after trying Rift, perhaps in the same way you returned to WoW ... and am enjoying the new Warden class (last time I played was before Moria when wardens were introduced).
We've just had the excitement of being moved from Codemasters in EU to Turbine in US, which seems to have gone pretty smoothly.
Right now, even when you are at the right level you need barely more than one button per class when leveling. Grey or not grey, the only difference is getting or not getting exp.
ReplyDeleteI still don't see the problem: if you care about the reward and just want to level asap, you just follow the arrows, ignore the story and level up.
If you care about the story, you ignore the levels and the mobs, read the quest texts and you can focus on the story and not on the dps rotation.
The kind of balancing you seem to want is impossible unless the zones are level-scaled to the character, and even then it will fail miserably, because in order for the quests to be "challenging" (= not require 1 button), there needs to be a slider dependent on the experience of the player. If they are challenging for a veteran leveling his 10th alt, they'll be downright impossible for a new player.
Blizzard has deliberately designed the leveling game to be like this: during the beta there were many reports on the leveling speed, all indicating that it's too fast. They clearly want to have the two options (level-rushing and storytelling) to coexists in a way which allows you to focus on the part which interests you most, ignoring the other one at will.
The only question I'd ask is how long till they get rid of the levels completely.....
@Roq: LotRO is terrible if you care about the story. Apart from the fact that the quests which are not the epic line are average, the questlines invariably end in group quests, which at low level are impossible, since you never find a group to do them, the only solution being to skip them or to call a lvl65 of the guild to help. The leveling speed is as broken as in WoW, i.e. you outlevel the zone well before having completed it, even without doing istances or skirmishes, I have not finished a single zone on my hunter....
ReplyDeleteHelistar, if that ..
ReplyDeleteRight now, even when you are at the right level you need barely more than one button per class when leveling. Grey or not grey, the only difference is getting or not getting exp
.. is your pinion that what you say is consequent. But I disagree with this assessment. It may be true if you level 80-85 in ICC epics or 70-80 in Sunwell epics or 60-70 in Naxxramas epics. But it is wrong for the 1-60 leveling game.
It is quite possible to make leveling slower (hence the requests during beta). I agree that Blizzard acts deliberately and not by mistake, of course.
But I enjoyed the 1-60 leveling during classic, TBC, and WotLK more, when your goals of experiencing the story and leveling aligned.
@helistar
ReplyDelete"LotRO is terrible if you care about the story."
I think they've done a good job of converting the story for the particular requirements of a levelled MMO - I'm not a stickler for strict adherence to lore, and in fact prefer that they use their imagination to make something familiar but new - just as Jackson did with the films (although I'm not a great fan of the films). IMOP the Old Forest & Shire are brilliantly realised.
"Apart from the fact that the quests which are not the epic line are average, the questlines invariably end in group quests, which at low level are impossible, since you never find a group to do them, the only solution being to skip them or to call a lvl65 of the guild to help."
But they've changed all the epic quests so that they are soloable (god mode is not ideal, but at least means you don't end up stranded). As to to the other quest lines - my warden (so far) can mostly solo the fellowship quests close to the level at which they were originally intended to be done. Hunter (my first toon) - not so easy!?
"The leveling speed is as broken as in WoW, i.e. you outlevel the zone well before having completed it, even without doing istances or skirmishes, I have not finished a single zone on my hunter...."
I agree and there are so many things that they really should have fixed, when they nerfed the levelling etc. Still, for me LOTRO is the best current MMO, because of the artwork, immersion and community, that's disregarding Guild Wars 1, which I loved, but have ODed on.
I wonder if those of us who have been playing RPGs/MMOs for a long time will ever again find a game that is truely satisfactory. Perhaps the gaming world moves on and the next generation of gamers want something different, perhaps also we look back with rose tinted glasses. In any case, as things currently stand we have to make the best of what's currently available.
I've been complaining to a buddy about this very thing. You can now stack a 45% xp buff (guild + heirloom stuff), but I haven't. I am in a guild getting the 10% buff, and the game is a joke. I've gotten to level 30 without a SINGLE death.
ReplyDeleteMy buddy laughed and said, "It's about time you got good at this game," but the problem is a serious one. You so quickly outlevel the content without even trying that huge swathes of the game are getting skipped.
Anything to make it easier. Anything to make it more appealing to new players. Anything to make a buck. Thanks Blizz.
@Nils: I only had trouble at the "expansion transitions", i.e. when going to outlands with/northrend/cataclysm zones without having instance gear. In those situations, the first quests require more effort (which promptly goes away as soon as half of our stuff is at the new expansion level). At low level I never had a problem, except when doing clearly suicidal things like pulling packs of casters. At the same time, my PoV is as skewed as anyone else's: I have multiple level 85 characters, so even if playing a new class I already have a lot of automatic reflexes.
ReplyDelete@Roq: the epic line is ok, it's more about the other quests I was talking about. As for soloing: the warden is utterly OP when it comes to it: I'm leveling one as well and it's a completely different game from the hunter, where as soon as you cannot kite/don't have enough CC, things get rough very fast.
LotRO is more immersive than WoW for me as well: actually I never liked the whole WoW lore, which I find to be a random mix of anything from norse mythology to Lovecraft horror. When I log in WoW it's really in "game" mode, while in LotRO the "world" part also comes into play.
I agree 1000% with what you write:
I wonder if those of us who have been playing RPGs/MMOs for a long time will ever again find a game that is truely satisfactory. Perhaps the gaming world moves on and the next generation of gamers want something different, perhaps also we look back with rose tinted glasses. In any case, as things currently stand we have to make the best of what's currently available.
The entire MMO genre shares a lot of common points: since my first MMO I've never really be able to "feel I was discovering something new". The same old gameplay shows up very fast from under the paint of a new environment.
I think that the current (and past) wave of criticism against WoW & clones comes more from this fact than from any other reason.
Helistar, please spare the nostaligia argument.
ReplyDeleteLook, I have played WoW since beta (with breaks). I leveled more toons than I can remember. It is perfectly possible to have a leveling speed that allows you to anticipate the next level with joy, while also doing all the quests of each zone you are sent to.
Thus, it's also perfectly possible to allow me to fight against enemies that don't drop dead within a few GCDs. That doesn't mean that they have to be a challenge. Please understand this: This is not about challenge. It is about being able to play more than 10% of your char while leveling, and still finish each zone you are sent to.
Now, Blizzard didn't change the game by mistake. This is a very deliberate decision that I will analyse in my next post. But it is a decision! It's not us (nostalgia) and it's not impossible to fix it. It was 'fixed' for most of WoW's history.
"Now, Blizzard didn't change the game by mistake. This is a very deliberate decision"
ReplyDeleteFollow the money...
"Everyone's bought the game and is paying a subscription, how can we get more cash from these punters?".
"Expansions?".
"Well yes, but they won't buy expansions if they are hung up on the early game play and can't yet do them".
"OK, so we make the early content trivially easy - no problem the punters already paid for that, then they finish quickly and buy the expansions".
"Good plan!"