(1)
On his way to Brill he encounters the Cold Hearth Manor. He gets a new quest near the road to kill some of the undead.
He succeeds. Here's the video. As you can see, he does fairly well. (Look at the health bars!) Even extensive theoreycrafting would not increase his performance by much. He survives the fight barely. His enemy in the video is a level 7 normal undead he needed to kill for the quest.
Then he encounters Ressan the Needler on the field. Ressan is a level 9 rare mob. Laszarus decides to kill him. The smart new player that he is, he first clears the area. Then he starts his first attempt. As you can see, Laszarus did the mistake to pull with Shadow Word: Pain. This mistake seals his death.
But Laszarus doesn't give up. This time he does everything right. He pulls at max distance, casts Power Word: Shield on himself first. Lets his mana fill up again. Then he first casts a Smite followed by a Shadow Word: Pain. He then continues to keep the Shadow Word:Pain on the target while recasting the Power Word: Shield on himself when it falls off. He also allows his health to drop to about 50% to allow for higher dps and more mana, doesn't panic when his health/mana gets low and chains casts without latency delay. Here is the video.
Just barely, Laszarus prevails. This is a high-quality screenshot of his stats after he killed Ressan the Needler. And once more via google.
(2)
What do we learn? WoW for the new player is a thrilling experience. He can win most fights he encounters, but some require him to do everything right. It's exactly the kind of game I used to love. Until about level 10. And unless you use heirlooms.
WoW was not dumbed down for the new players. It wasn't dumbed down at all for new players. Or Blizzard spectacularly failed at dumbing down at level 1-10. Honestly, that sounds less probable than it is ... Of course, WoW was absolutely dumbed down after level 10!
WoW was dumbed down for, and more importantly by, the hardcore. Only the hardcore have an interest in leveling extra fast with their twinks.
(3)
My interpretation (remains): WoW is maintained by hardcore raiders. And these raiders have no idea about the casual or new-player experience. They are forced by their management to also maintain the leveling game and normal raids and stuff. But they don't really care. They just want heroic raids and high-end PvP. They half-heartedly dumb down arbitrary content trying to fulfill their obligations.
From a hardcore raider's point of view there is no way to make leveling more interesting. A hardcore raider sees no point in solo-kiting mobs for two minutes. It's trivial. That's why they just make it shorter and more trivial, so that it's less of a pain in the ass.
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In case you want to test this yourself: just doing quests, it takes about an hour to make it to level 6 and Ressan the Needler (without reading quest texts, of course ..)
In the following posts I give much more proof and high quality videos to further strengthen my point. You should especially take a look at this post.
1-10 areas *have* been dumbed down since classic. I can't exactly back it up with hard evidence (or I'm too lazy to at the moment). But at the very least I seem to recall that they made all of the mobs in the immediate starting areas non-hostile, and that they toned down much of the content in the 6-12 range so that you had to go way out of your way to pull more than two mobs at a time.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I agree with your overall point. Very interesting (and sad) observation.
While I agree that the leveling experience in WoW was made easier because people demanded to be at level cap as quickly as possible, I'm not sure that the definition of "want to be at level cap" is "hardcore".
ReplyDeleteI know lots of people who don't raid or play very little who would absolutely just make a level-capped character right out of the box if they could.
Liore, I think whether a player considers himself hardcore mostly depends on whether he wants to be hardcore and less upon how he plays a game.
ReplyDeleteI could have used a less contentious term. .. But I didn't feel like it :)
Agreed, mostly, just look at what they're about to do in the next patch by cutting Northrend experience needed to level by 1/3. As is even with one or two heirlooms I barely see half the content of any Northrend zone, if that, until I'm high enough to move on to the next.
ReplyDeleteJohn Andrew has a point about the mobs in starting areas, they're now non-hostile. I remember my first days trying to gather some berries or something in Northshire when these dudes with red names over their heads kept attacking me, and I, being totally new, just tried to run away as fast as I could only to run into a couple more on patrol.
But nostalgia aside, I too agree with your point about what's driving the nerfing/dumbing down of leveling content. It's a shame too, cause I enjoy the process of going through entire zones; but unless I force myself to that experience is gone now.
"I soloed mobs".
ReplyDeleteOk?
In 2004 you could not solo Hogger at-level.
I mean I get it, there are examples left in WoW where you can't roll your face across the keyboard and succeed (assuming you don't use heirlooms), but the fact that the best examples you could find are still solo content is making my point more than it's making yours I'm afraid.
Syncaine, you are assuming that I think that WoW wasn't dumbed down. I don't. What I show here is an exception! Starting with level 10 the game becomes incredibly trivial.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for this post is to demonstrate that the common explanation for the dumbing down (to attract new players) is wrong.
WoW absolutely was dumbed down. But not for and certainly not by the 'twitter generation' Or anything. It was dumbed down by hardcore raiders who wanted a trivial and fast leveling game.
> My interpretation (remains): WoW is maintained
ReplyDelete> by hardcore raiders. And these raiders have no
> idea about the casual or new-player experience.
> They are forced by their management to also
> maintain the leveling game and normal raids
> and stuff. But they don't really care. They
> just want heroic raids and high-end PvP. They
> half-heartedly dumb down arbitrary content
> trying to fulfill their obligations.
I think that's quite obvious. Otherwise a lot of things wouldn't make sense, stuff like not getting a blue set for normal dungeons. Yes, I'm repeating myself but with such small and unimportant things you can see if someone cares or not.
The whole achievement and loot system is designed to put the raider at the top. Yes, it was always like that but it doesn't make sense. It only makes sense if you're in the group that ends up on the top.
There's another part that shows this hardcore focus of Team B WoW. There urgent and always happening class rebalancing. (Casual raider don't really care if their class is 5% below hunters because his casual guild won't have a replacement anyway.) I was regular EJ reader and knew about every game mechanic detail of my main class. But even I reached a point in Cata where I didn't know what Holy Shield (on my paladin alt) is supposed to do THIS WEEK. They changed the mechanic of holy shield with about every patch. They even changed it from an important threat mechanic to a passive proc to an important mitigation mechanic. How is a casual player supposed to tank a heroic if the way he's supposed to play his class changes every two month, substantially, and the game doesn't even tell him what he's supposed to do now.
Why would players at the skill level of a raider care for such changes? They were not the ones getting killed by Hogger and complaining. The twits were, just like the twits were the ones complaining about being 'excluded' from raiding and how that was so unfair.
ReplyDeleteRaiders don't need an easier 1-cap game; it was already (relatively) easy in 2004.
> But at the very least I seem to recall that they
ReplyDelete> made all of the mobs in the immediate starting
> areas non-hostile
That's correct and they've unlinked mobs. Everything could be pulled alone. In the beginning the mobs where linked. The human warlock imp class quest was very hardcore (impossible at level without a group) and then the quest got much easier (mobs got unlinked) and with Cata you buy your stupid pet with 1 copper...
"Why would players at the skill level of a raider care for such changes? They were not the ones getting killed by Hogger and complaining."
ReplyDeleteBecause they want to raid and they want twinks. And because the leveling game, of course, always was arguably trivial. I mean, even Hogger could 'easily' be kited to death by many classes and was 'trivial' when done with others. If everything failed he could be outleveled.
There's no way to create a balanced and challenging leveling game for all classes/speccs in WoW. If any content is too hard for some specc it is automatically trivial for another, and vice versa. No melee mob in the leveling game could ever be too hard for affliction Warlocks, for example, because they could easily kite everything to death, no matter how many HP or how hard they hit.
But more importantly, because they (the hardcore-raider game designers) are misguided. Many hardcore raiders actually believe that dumbing the content down makes it more popular with the masses. They "don't get it", because they don't actually play or even enjoy this content!
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"The twits were, just like the twits were the ones complaining about being 'excluded' from raiding and how that was so unfair."
Where they? You see, I read many blogs and forums at the time. I didn't see much whining that raids were too hard or inaccessible (except for Tobold perhaps, but even he has a more sophisticated opinion on this matter nowadays).
Just to make sure you understand me correctly: That does not mean that Blizzard should dumb all the leveling challenges down as much as they did (after level 10).
The original WoW leveling game made WoW grow to 12 mio subscribers. Excluding level 1-3 content perhaps, it was good and not too hard. If anything it should have been made more interesting and challenging. But the raiders didn't care about the leveling and took the supposedly easy way out: making it trivial for the masses. Looking at sub numbers that didn't actually work out so well!
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Raiders don't need an easier 1-cap game; it was already (relatively) easy in 2004.
Correct, but they also don't care. WoW is split in two halfes. And the hardcore raiders despise the leveling (among other reasons, because it is trivial and boring). But since they despise it, they also don't try to improve it by other means than dumbing it down and making us level through it at record speed.
The whole achievement and loot system is designed to put the raider at the top. Yes, it was always like that but it doesn't make sense. It only makes sense if you're in the group that ends up on the top.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Kring! The main reason for this terrible badge loot system is that raiders can get their twinks and friends equipped faster to do the top-notch content.
Most WoW designers are top-level raiders. I don't have an interview link right now, but they mention it often, trying to appease other top raiders. From a top raider's point of view there is no way to make leveling more interesting. A top-raider sees no point in solo-kiting mobs for two minutes. It's trivial. That's why they just make it shorter and more trivial, so that it's less of a pain in the ass.
That's acceptable to them and they hope to appeal to the masses. In fact, it doesn't appeal to anybody, least of all to those who like to level.
They were not the ones getting killed by Hogger and complaining.
ReplyDelete/sigh
You have a seriously malformed straw man with this twit generation thing. They have no attention span, but they apparently have enough to complain on the forums? About Hogger... when they could walk 10 yards into Westfall and start on Blanchy? Was it even actually the twit generation who complained about this (especially since Twitter didn't even exist until mid 2006)?
Your twit generation isn't a group of players, it's a vague idea - a boogeyman, a patsy, like 1950s "commies."
Nevermind the open question of whether Hogger (etc) was actually badly designed as a quest from a design standpoint. Apparently these sort of things are sacrosanct, not to be questioned. That they were "difficult" is all that matters, not why.
It might be helpful to give another example which I think supports Nils' case.
ReplyDeleteTBC originally featured an attunement system. To enter Karazhan a player needed a key obtained from running three moderately tough dungeons on normal mode. (Arcatraz in particular was considered very difficult and avoided by most players).
The Tier 5 instances required attunement which included Heroic dungeon runs at a time when heroics were really tough.
I think this was a very good system because it meant we only got raiders who were reasonably proficient and motivated.
However it was particularly unpopular with one small section of the community - raid tanks. Time after time tanks (shortage role even back then) were asked to run another alt or new member through Heroic Slave Pens. They got very sick of it and strongly lobbied for attunements to be removed.
Raiders making alts also disliked attunement. But not many new players or people playing just one character objected - completing your attunement was part of the game and had a clear value in ensuring that a player knew how to play his class.
Developers developing a game for themselves, not the typical player, is the sort of think Kotick railed against in his famous bit about taking the fun out of game development.
ReplyDeleteIronically, Blizzard has gotten into trouble not because of Kotick, but in spite of him.
Doing an attunement was fun for a lot of people.
ReplyDeleteWaiting for the rest of your guild to complete their attunement wasn't fun.
Good point, Kring. Maybe it would work to have only a percentage of a raid need to be attuned, so that a few stragglers aren't completely stopping the raid. To give some incentive to still do it, completing the attunement gives 1% damage/healing/health when in the raid instance. Not so much that people will absolutely need it to even attempt the raid, but everyone will want to have it.
ReplyDelete@Klepsacovic: Well, they did change Kara at later point that you didn't need key to enter, as long as someone with key could open gates for you. Attunement quest still remained if you wanted to have your own key, but you could enter without one as long as at least one person in your raid had it.
ReplyDeleteIn current system attunements could even be guild-bound.
@stabs but of course in Cata, playing your class has little impact on your dance skills like feather management or web rappelling. I.e., I think it is @neowolf2's making a game for the developers not the customers.
ReplyDelete@Shalcker please no more guild perks; they are enough problems with guilds these days. One of the few guilds I was in that survived to this point is only level 21 and it is going soooo slowly. What is going to happen with the new expansion; even more guilds will fall apart before 5.0.3 and who will want to bring more personal rep with the guild or the guild itself.
Great discussion. I agree entirely with its premise. I'll withhold comments until I read the other 2 sequel articles :)
ReplyDelete"Raiders don't need an easier 1-cap game; it was already (relatively) easy in 2004."
ReplyDelete"Correct, but they also don't care."
They do care. They actively dislike the levelling game and would like to get rid of it entirely.
I've resubscribed to WoW after a 6 month break to check out patch 4.3, mainly transmogrification. Here's something I've noticed.
ReplyDeleteI've had two characters which were ready to raid T11 content. My main warlock and an alt paladin tank. Both of them were not allowed to join the new LFR. They weren't even allowed to join the new 5 man heroics.
I had 4000 JP on my main which I used to buy some gear with the highest item level difference. Then I had to do some fireland (4.2) dailies to get some more gear to be allowed to run the new heroics.
Completing the fireland daily hub takes one month. That's about the time it took you to level an alt in vanilla...
They did not make it easier to have an alt, they made it harder. Now you have to "level up" your alt multiple time per expansion, not level it once and be done like it was in vanilla.
They just shifted the work from the fun part (leveling an alt in the world) to the unfun grind (repeating the same daily ad nauseam).
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Leveling an alt to the level cap is much faster with Cataclysm, but the time you are required to invest into an alt to be able to use it is much higher then what it was in vanilla.