Easier... or too easy?Follow

So, I was leveling on my Warrior and noticed something...

Theremore has some new quests. YAY I thought, something new to try... that elation soon fell to OMG WTF! COme on, you kill frogs (thats right, the little ones on the ground you can 1 hit) to get some frog legs, you run around collecting plants that now sparkle if you have the quest for them making them rediculously easy to find, and you have to kill a monster who you shoot cannons at to kill it (which I admit was a little fun).

Also, all these new quests, even if they are killing NPC's, the NPC's are rediculously easy to kill, and come on, 4 quests and I leveled, I was glad they were making the grind easier, but thats a little too easy... especially now that quest givers and quest NPC's now show up on your minimap?

GOd Blizz, we needed help, but we didnt need a damn bird dog.

Lol good point, Ill have to go see what my "tougher" stv quests are like now...

Hardcore and WoW do not intermix, i'm afraid. Hardcore WoW content is a vacation for people who crossed over from EQ, FFXI or Lineage.

Heroic BM is fun, definitely wouldn't call it WoW easy ;p As for 20-60 leveling, yeh it is easier, but that's fine.

it's still too easy to level I leveled just doing the bare minimum for any of the quests in an area for the pre 40's when it used to be a slight slog to get enough quests + grinding done. used to be you could do quests in one area, go to another area and do those quests, then come back for a few extra because you leveled enough for them.

So Blizzard let us in on a little secret a while ago...

There's a new expansion coming! Huzzah!!

See, the thing is, there are more people than you might think you haven't even hit Outland yet. There are a lot of people who just started playing WoW recently. If you release an expansion with content geared almost entirely for people with level 70 toons, the people who don't even have a level 60 toon aren't going to buy it.

"OoooOOOooo!! I just spent $50 on an expansion so I can learn Inscription!!"

The content focus is on higher level for the next expansion, and unless you want every single new alt ever made to be a Death Knight, grinding through 80 levels before you can take advantage of the cutting edge stuff is simply too much to ask.

Blizzard is making the 20-60 grind faster and easier so that people can get to the newer content. That is all. It's definately not worth complaining about.

I'm really torn on how I feel about the 20-60 leveling now. On one hand, yes, it gives more people an opportunity to experience higher end content. But on the other hand, it seems as though it rushes people through- taking away time to gain REAL experience. We're going to end up with even more level 60+ players who don't know how to play their class, because they were able to get to level 60 in just a few weeks.

My best friend played for only about 2 months before she hit level 70, and she still admits that she's a complete noob, and doesn't know much about her class- or the game, really. And this was even before the leveling changes. I could only imagine what it would do to people like her if that leveling time was cut by 15%.

Also... I haven't been able to play an alt since the change. How well do quests hold up with the changes? I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to quests in zones. Even before the quests gave more exp, and we needed less exp, I would still have to occasionally have to drop quests because they turned gray before I could get to them.

Isn't a Off and On switch for knowing how to play your class at 70. If you're not smart enough to know how, you never will be any good at instances, even if it took you a week to 70. If you are, you'll either know how by the time you get there, or will adapt and become good as you grind instances.

The innate talent necessary to be a good level 70 isn't learned from level 1-69. It started way before you logged in for the very first time.

Edited, Nov 16th 2007 8:35am by Warne

Honestly, Blizzard did the right thing with these changes. They're providing fun without tedium, which is exactly what you strive for in a game.

I'm all for it, personally.

I'm confuzzled. I don't know how I feel about it.

To me the point of the game was all about leveling and pvp. I'm not a raider and I don't plan to be. I tend to abandon games that get too easy. (D2 LOD went out the window after patch 1.10) I like WoW but I don't want to move to my shammy (sitting at 24 currently) and have my fun snatched from me. 4 quests and I level? No thanks. That blue/purple bar moves too fasy and I'm sad to say I might move on elsewhere.

At the same time though, maybe this gives me a chance to be a raider. If my shammy is so easy to level, maybe I'll find a spot in a raid when she's 70. Who knows.... I also worry about it being too easy for the dumb kids to level and wind up with a clueless kid in my guild cause he flew through the first 60 levels.

Seems like a double edged blade to me.

When you look at the difference in terms of ability between a level 1 toon and a level 70 toon, it's pretty huge. When you look at the difference in terms of ability between a level 37 and a level 38 toon, it's not really all that big. For most classes, every once in a while they get that "omfg!!" ability that dramatically changes things for them, but those moments are few and far between.

Beyond that, once you've leveled a toon or two through a particular faction's main leveling areas, it becomes old hat. There's nothing new to see the next time around. You can enjoy some fresh diversity in leveling through those areas on a different job, but I'm sure if you could count the number of mobs you kill between one level and the next (even after the recent changes with 2.3) you'd find that really, you're not really experiencing much by way of new challenges when you're stuck grinding half a level of unrested HP because you've already quested through an area and you're just maybe a bit too weak to move onto the next.

I could be mistaken, but the only people who seem unhappy about the xp changes are the ones that haven't made the transition at level 70 yet. Hell, I haven't made the tranition completely yet. Level 70 is starting to weigh on me with the quickness, and I'm not even certain at this point if I plan on continuing with WoW. The idea of leveling a new toon sickens me. The idea of staying on the same toon scratching and clawing to get anything done at 70 is also losing its appeal.

If, however, I were to pick up my Tauren rawrkitty and find that leveling from 24 (25?) onwards is really expedited the way people are saying, I might get a little more life out of the game. Azeroth bores me. Outland got a bit better with the new dailies but it's still not all that exciting a place to be when your guildies are burnt out from too many heroics and you're not quite big enough for Kara yet.

I don't buy into the notion that shortened leveling times are going to gimp even the best inentioned players. If you really want to hone your abilities so badly, go find a friend to duel with or hit a lower level area and practice on mobs that don't give much (if any) xp. Get your timing/keystrokes/transitions down (or whatever you need to do) and then go refine those skills on bigger prey. You don't need long xp grinds to play the game. If you really want to kill more Naga in STV, kill more Naga in STV. If you really want to grind more elementals in Searing Gorge, grind more elementals in Searing Gorge. Nothing is stopping you from doing that.

For years SE took all kinds of flak from FFXI players saying the level grind was too much, the xp loss from death was too much...everything was too much. "This is just a time sink...a way to keep us playing longer so you can make more money from us!!" they said. So SE makes a bunch of changes, hugely ramps the pace of combat at level 55+ or so, more or less doubles the realistic xp attainable in an hour of play with a good group, and nixes xp loss from death in certain challenging instanced mission fights. What followed? "OMFG!! What's the point of playing when it's so easy?!!"

If you look on the level grind as an accomplishment that's so important to you that you get upset when the commitment involved to achieve it is reduced, maybe a little time away from the game would do you some good. Go accomplish something meaningful with your time and then when you sit down to play WoW, you'll be grateful that you don't have to spend all that extra time between levels.

I never really found the level grind to be all that challenging. Certain parts, yes. For the most part, it was travel and pewpew. For me, the challenge comes in dungeons and PvP. All that's left for me on my 70 Hunter is dungeons and PvP. I've hit Exalted with Ogri'La, Skyguard, and most recently Netherwing. I have all of my heroic keys, and whatever Outland factions I'm not Exalted with will come in time from the inevitable rep in dungeons.

Although...there's another angle I haven't considered. Sometimes level 70 can suck, and if you're not big on raid guild politics + drama and bore of running the same dungeons over and over again, starting a fresh toon might prolong the solo play options that much more. One of the best parts of WoW is the option to solo when you want to, and maybe for some people hitting level 70 "too soon" might take away from some of that.

It's almost a shame that the truly organized group play doesn't really start for most players until they hit the level cap.

My view as seen through the eyes of my hunter:

I just made it to Outland on him; my second toon there. I ran many instances up to Outland. I ran RFC, SFK, BFD, RFK, RFD, SM (all wings except GY), Ulda, ZF, ST, BRD, etc. I then made it to Hellfire Peninsula and ran Ramparts. I quickly learned that I didn't know that much about my hunter in a group role. All of a sudden I had to chain trap enemies. I even had to have my pet tank in many situations. I started having to worry about shot rotation when I got steady shot. The pre-BC dungeons taught me nothing. I didn't have to barely even trap. Even the higher end dungeons were pathetically easy. Ramparts was a tremendous jump in difficulty.

What did I do to learn how to play my class better? Ran Ramps a few more times. Ran Blood Furnace a few times. Now I'm running Slave Pens and Underbog.

Basically my point is that there's nothing to worry about with people not knowing their classes when they hit Outland. Of course they won't. The pre-BC stuff doesn't teach you enough. I'm not sure about Scholomance, Stratholme, Dire Maul and all that as I can't get groups for them so I always skip them. Everyone else does too.

The early instances in Outland teach you plenty about playing in a group setting, and everyone leveling in Outland runs them frequently, so getting groups is easy.

All this leveling change did is get people to Outland more quickly. I'm all for that. It doesn't matter if they make it to 60 and not know their role in a group that well. If they are the learning type, they'll pick it up running the first few instances. If they aren't, they'll never learn. But now? Now I can get groups even more easily as people are making it to the stuff worth running more quickly. Hooray.