AT World of Warcraft Thread (Mists, Where do you play, General BS and all that)

[BoberFett]

And of course I disagree again.

In vanilla WoW, the path of leveling and questing was much less predictable. Today's questing has a very strict pattern.
Let me give you the recipe for the secret sauce:

enter new area.
you find a quest-hub as soon as you enter the area.
pickup 5 quests at the hub.
2 quests are "kill 6 of these mobs".
1 quest is "kill these other mobs, and pick up an item from them. need 6 items".
2 quest are "go get 6 magic mushrooms that lie around the mobs you're gonna kill anyway".
all mobs and items are within 100y.
do 5 quests simultaneously. return within 4 minutes. turn in all quests.
1 new quests opens: kill a named mob, but still not elite.
go kill the 1 named mob solo.
get a fedex-quest to the next hub.
which happens to be 400 yards (40 seconds run) from where you are now.
repeat this 4 times, and you get sent to the next area, with mobs 1 level higher.

Now give me one example of an area post-WLK where the questing does not follow that pattern. It's the same everywhere. No group quests. No elite quests. Never ever a quest where you have to find a wandering NPC. No inefficient fedex-quests where you need to go back and forth between continents. Never a quest you get early, but which is too hard to right now. Never quest-chains that send you into a dungeon. All dungeon-quests are given right at the start of each dungeon, without any prerequisites.

And don't get me started on quest-markers on the map and minimap.
There used to be a quest "go find something small under a bridge in Swamp of Sorrows". Nowadays you get arrows pointing you towards the bridge, a yellow mark on your mini-map, and the little thingy is now sparkling.

It's boring.
Yes, gamers got better. Yes, we have more tools out-of-game.
But the really big change is that Blizzard now makes games for the mentally challenged.
Sometimes I almost feel ashamed that I play this game.
That was not the case 9 or 6 years ago.

So your complaint is that they got rid of the boring crap quests everyone hated?

You think WoW now is for the mentally challenged, but somehow taking flight paths back and forth between two continents was a challenge?

 

[Phoenix86]

So your complaint is that they got rid of the boring crap quests everyone hated?

You think WoW now is for the mentally challenged, but somehow taking flight paths back and forth between two continents was a challenge?

I'll agree with him here a bit. Leveling is 100% on rails, just as he described. There's little to no choice, or fun to questing. There's a middle ground between what we have now and the original alliance missing diplomat chain.

 

[Gryz]

Did you really enjoy traveling continents at level 25 (no mount by the way, all run) to deliver some package that didn't lead to any other quests? That run alone would take you 1-2 hours.

Yep, I really enjoyed running all over the world. I never cared how much xp per hour I got. I wanted to experience the game. When I play a single-player game, I also don't rush to the finish. And no distance between any two points in Azeroth would take 1-2 hours. 15-20 minutes tops maybe. And that includes waiting for the Zeppelin or taking a flight-path. The cool thing is that these trips make you feel how large the world was.

Elite quests and group quests were cool if you were on a new server. If you weren't, finding a group for them was next to impossible.

True. But that doesn't mean they had to be removed ? I hate Blizzard's design strategy: "this content has to work for everyone, or else we won't make it. or even remove it altogether". I like diversity. If you don't wanna do group quests or elite quests, that's fine. As long as you have something else to do. As long as you have a choice. Having two choices is more fun than having only 1 choice. Only idiots don't like choices, because it confuses them. Blizzard knows this, and has made all paths as linear as possible. So the choices in the game don't confuse the idiots.

you can't tell me you did all of your quests without alt-tabbing to thottbot every couple of minutes.

Yes, I used Thottbot. But not every couple of minutes. Only when I really got stuck. I never used the questing-addons. I would not even think of that. If you want to automate the game you're playing, maybe you should find another game.

I think the flow of quests is a much better thing. It lets Blizzard tell a story rather than having a disjointed run around. I wouldn't mind if they were a tad more difficult but the problem is, if you're final raid epiced out at the start of a new expansion, it all comes easy until you're about halfway done leveling.

I don't think there is much flow in the leveling. It goes so fast, you stick at most places only for a few minutes. (Unlike The Barrens in vanilla, where I spent days). And with all the heirlooms, bonus xp, rested xp, nerfed xp-per-level, etc, you will out-level every area by so much, that you have to leave each area before you finish the quests in that area. Remember, I had to constantly freeze my xp in Pandaria, or I would have only seen a third of each area on my way from 85 to 90.

I agree that having epic gear at the start of the expansion is a problem. But there would have been other solutions to that problem. Unfortunately Blizzard has lost their imagination many years ago.

I'll give you an example:
Suppose leveling from 91 to 92 takes 10 million experience points.
Why not make it 50 million xp during the first 3 days after the release of WoD ?
And then make it 30 million xp during the next week.
And then make it 20 million xp during the week after that.
And then finally make it 10 million xp a month after release.

That would give all the power-levelers something to do. That would negate the gear many of those players have. It would keep them busy. And then the players that are leveling at a more normal speed will have it a bit easier. And then after a month, all the later-comers will have a much more casual game.

Blizzard isn't even trying to do something remotely new. Just more of the same old same old.

 

[Gryz]

So your complaint is that they got rid of the boring crap quests everyone hated?

I didn't think those quests were all boring. I do think that the current quests are a lot more boring. Are quests now only more interesting because they have a few cut-scenes ? Or more interesting because they give more xp per hour ?

I always wondered why Blizzard seems to cater to two kinds of people:
1) People who hate every aspect of World of Warcraft.
2) People who are not playing WoW.
We got Farmville and Pokemon. Why ? Because Farmville had 100m players. Blizzard rather invested their development budget to try and attract those Farmville-players, than to try and make content for WoW-players. It's weird. It must be that upper management designs their games now, and not the game-developers.

You think WoW now is for the mentally challenged, but somehow taking flight paths back and forth between two continents was a challenge?

When did I mention challenge ? I hate that word. It means nothing.

One of the big attractions of WoW was the fact that the world felt like a real world. It was big. Flight paths and zeps/boats helped with that. Even when it is unrealistic to step on a boat, and be on the other side of the world in 10 seconds. It was something. Nowadays, I can get from the Shrine to anywhere in the world within 2 minutes.

I also liked it that the game would give you a few moments of rest. When on a flightpath or waiting for the zep. Just a minute or two to look around, talk to others. Or maybe alt-tab and look something up. Or go afk and make a cup of tea. It felt much more natural than the constant "moar xp moar xp" race that seems more common now.

 

[BoberFett]

I'll agree with him here a bit. Leveling is 100% on rails, just as he described. There's little to no choice, or fun to questing. There's a middle ground between what we have now and the original alliance missing diplomat chain.

I found the Cataclysm/Pandaria phased quests where you actually affect the world (even if it's only visible to you) to be light years beyond almost anything in vanilla. There were a few good quest chains back then, but mostly it was the same dull "Kill 10 Village Idiots" and "Deliver this bag of crap" quests we have now, only you had to hunt all over for them with no clues as to where they might be, totally random locations of NPCs, etc.

Which reminds me, I'm still looking for Mankriks wife. Has anybody seen her?

 

[BoberFett]

I didn't think those quests were all boring. I do think that the current quests are a lot more boring. Are quests now only more interesting because they have a few cut-scenes ? Or more interesting because they give more xp per hour ?

I always wondered why Blizzard seems to cater to two kinds of people:
1) People who hate every aspect of World of Warcraft.
2) People who are not playing WoW.
We got Farmville and Pokemon. Why ? Because Farmville had 100m players. Blizzard rather invested their development budget to try and attract those Farmville-players, than to try and make content for WoW-players. It's weird. It must be that upper management designs their games now, and not the game-developers.


When did I mention challenge ? I hate that word. It means nothing.

One of the big attractions of WoW was the fact that the world felt like a real world. It was big. Flight paths and zeps/boats helped with that. Even when it is unrealistic to step on a boat, and be on the other side of the world in 10 seconds. It was something. Nowadays, I can get from the Shrine to anywhere in the world within 2 minutes.

I also liked it that the game would give you a few moments of rest. When on a flightpath or waiting for the zep. Just a minute or two to look around, talk to others. Or maybe alt-tab and look something up. Or go afk and make a cup of tea. It felt much more natural than the constant "moar xp moar xp" race that seems more common now.

Completely missing the point.

The world felt big because it was new. MMOs were still in their infancy. It's 2014, the world has moved on beyond walking from one end of the continent to the other forever, with no improvements in travel technology after you've made the journey 150 times.

 

[lupi]

Cruised to northrend to pick up another damn egg before bed. Since I was there hit up ruby sanctum to do the 25 man achievement as I hadn't done that yet.....silly me forgetting to check 25M and not 25MH. Minibosses and the large trash packs did feel a good bit grindy, and for some reasons my spells hit for a good bit less than a standard MoP mob. Realized I had it on the wrong setting after wiping on halion. Went to check the difficulty and looks like most vids I saw had people with a ilvl of at least a couple heroic org pieces and the comments say it's the toughest fight of the expansion (mechanics excluded) to go back to do now. So said it was time to go to sleep, can just finish it today about backing down to 25 normal.

Also noticed that I need to finish BFD to completed my vanilla dungeon achievement. Found that kinda funny as I do have probably 2 dozen or so clears on other chars, just non on this one.

 

[ewdotson]

Yep, I really enjoyed running all over the world. I never cared how much xp per hour I got. I wanted to experience the game. When I play a single-player game, I also don't rush to the finish. And no distance between any two points in Azeroth would take 1-2 hours. 15-20 minutes tops maybe. And that includes waiting for the Zeppelin or taking a flight-path. The cool thing is that these trips make you feel how large the world was.

For me, the problem was less that it would make you travel, and that it would frequently make you travel over the same routes repeatedly for no reason other than to stretch things out. I mean, ok, I did the Stitches questline every time I ran through Duskwood because it was a cool questline. But while exploration is good, the trips back and forth and back and forth and back and forth between Darkshire and Raven Hill quickly ceased to be exploration. I actually don't have a problem with the idea that they may have gone too far in places, but a certain measure of consolidation was a good thing, imo. There's making you feel the size of the world and then there's just tedium.

This actually ties into the whole flying thing, imo. I rather approved of the way they did it in WotLK where you had to use your ground mount the first time through but could buy the heirloom tome of cold weather flying for subsequent characters. As an alt-a-holic, doing things the "hard" way the first few times is a good thing, I'll agree. (The leveling portion of the game was *never* hard. No, not even in vanilla.) It gets repetitive after a while though.

I don't think there is much flow in the leveling. It goes so fast, you stick at most places only for a few minutes. (Unlike The Barrens in vanilla, where I spent days). And with all the heirlooms, bonus xp, rested xp, nerfed xp-per-level, etc, you will out-level every area by so much, that you have to leave each area before you finish the quests in that area. Remember, I had to constantly freeze my xp in Pandaria, or I would have only seen a third of each area on my way from 85 to 90.

In fairness, heirlooms are completely optional. I recently resubbed and am going through with a horde character that I am deliberately not using heirlooms on. And the game always had rested xp. I do tend to agree that they went too far with the nerfed-xp-per-level. Even with my deliberately gimped character, I'm outleveling areas long before I finish them. Which is a shame, imo. There are plenty of quests in the leveling experience that are better than most anything the game had in vanilla.

 

[lupi]

Vanilla fedex'en was the worst. It'd didn't justy send you to a new mini-hub. It would have you go, comeback, go find another and come back again, the finish the one you are at and repeat process at the ones you just discovered.

 

[Bradtech519]

I play on deathwing pvp for Alliance (90 warlock, 85 DK) and illidan pvp for horde (90 Rshaman & 90 Mage). Mainly been playing a Restoration Shaman getting all my ilvl 550 pvp gear. Missing five pieces, but have the ilvl 522 gear. I've also been leveling a Rogue and Monk on each server. I've stayed away from the heirloom gear to try to make the game more of a challenge.

 

[Rhezuss]

Just started a Draenei Paladin yesterday but didn't played much. I have to give Wow another serious go because it's still enjoyable even though i'm mainly playing solo et LFG/LFR when I need to.

I'm on Fenris for Alliance (Paladin 3 ) and on Twisting Nether for Horde (Lock 90)

 

[chitwood]

What if, for expansions... they never increased the level cap. It just stayed 60 forever, and all of the content they designed for each expansion was nothing but endgame. So instead of 4-5 raids, we'd get 9-10. Or even more. And they all released at the same time, but you had to progress through them 1 to 10. And no new continents. They just kept us on Kalimdor and EK, and slowly changed/evolved the world kinda how they did in Cata, except only a zone or two at a time with a patch, instead of the whole entire world with one expansion.

Just rambling. But it is an interesting thought, no leveling in expansions. And what that would free them up to design instead.

 

[Phoenix86]

I was really hoping for the "change your world" aspect of phasing. In LK the quests to open the frozen area north of the main town was pretty cool. While it created all sorts of "oh, you can't quest with me until you open X phase" and some pvp issues related to that it was really interesting.

 

[lupi]

Except some areas where phased only for quest and if you needed help you were SOL unless you found someone else on the quest.



Has anyone managed to solo the four horseman achievement?

 

[Anubis]

Except some areas where phased only for quest and if you needed help you were SOL unless you found someone else on the quest.



Has anyone managed to solo the four horseman achievement?

is it the one where you can only get a certain number of stacks of the debuff?

it might be doable as a pet class using your pet to tank 2 when you zerg the other 2 but im not sure

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Which reminds me, I'm still looking for Mankriks wife. Has anybody seen her?

 

[lupi]

The one where they all die within 10 seconds.

 

[BoberFett]

I imagine it's possible, but extremely difficult. Your timing would have to be perfect with DoTs ticking on the caster on the other side of the room so it went down right when you took down the three that were right on top of you.

 

[Gryz]

I did those (10-man and 25-man) in 2011. So I imagine during Cataclysm. Can't remember. I just saw that the window is 15 seconds, so you have a bit more time.

Don't use DoTs. Don't use bleeds (can you do that as a warrior ?). Don't use poisons. Don't use anything-over-time. I think the damage the mobs do to you is so low, that you have enough time to precisely take off a specific amount of health from each boss. Bring them down to 30-15% one-by-one. Then finish them off within 15 seconds.

I also think that the four Horsemen run to their positions at the start of the fight. But after that, the 2 in the far end of the room stick to their positions. But the 2 in the front part of the room will actually run to the player. So use that to your advantage. Pull, then run to the back of the room. Wait a few seconds. And you can then pile up 3 mobs on top of each other. Kill them, but don't use your big cooldowns. Then they are dead, race over to the last mob. And use your big dps-cooldowns on him.

I'm not gonna try this, but I imagine it's not too hard.

 

[Phoenix86]

I'd imagine the trick is to get the 1 that you're leaving by itself at 1-hit's worth of damage (disarm and punch him if you have to). Burn the three down together, run over to the one, tap him to kill.

 

[BoberFett]

Yep, the problem is the two casters who stay on opposite sides of the room. My daughter and I haven't even duo'd that achievement, but that's mostly because we were severely uncoordinated.

 

[lupi]

if you realize you are going to screw up and 1-3 has already died, will you be able to leave the room to reset?

 

[AznAnarchy99]

What should I level to 60 and boost? A lock or a priest?

I completely forgot I had an 85 shaman and paladin as well. I forgot that they were pretty geared out from DS too. I kind of just want to boost my 85 Shaman and get skin/leather maxed out lol.

 

[Sixguns]

The four horseman achievement can be soloed. I did it a few months back as a spriest. They still split but just DoT them and watch the bars. They don't have very much health, even on 25.

 

[blackened23]

And of course I disagree again.

In vanilla WoW, the path of leveling and questing was much less predictable. Today's questing has a very strict pattern.
Let me give you the recipe for the secret sauce:

enter new area.
you find a quest-hub as soon as you enter the area.
pickup 5 quests at the hub.
2 quests are "kill 6 of these mobs".
1 quest is "kill these other mobs, and pick up an item from them. need 6 items".
2 quest are "go get 6 magic mushrooms that lie around the mobs you're gonna kill anyway".
all mobs and items are within 100y.
do 5 quests simultaneously. return within 4 minutes. turn in all quests.
1 new quests opens: kill a named mob, but still not elite.
go kill the 1 named mob solo.
get a fedex-quest to the next hub.
which happens to be 400 yards (40 seconds run) from where you are now.
repeat this 4 times, and you get sent to the next area, with mobs 1 level higher.

Now give me one example of an area post-WLK where the questing does not follow that pattern. It's the same everywhere. No group quests. No elite quests. Never ever a quest where you have to find a wandering NPC. No inefficient fedex-quests where you need to go back and forth between continents. Never a quest you get early, but which is too hard to right now. Never quest-chains that send you into a dungeon. All dungeon-quests are given right at the start of each dungeon, without any prerequisites.

And don't get me started on quest-markers on the map and minimap.
There used to be a quest "go find something small under a bridge in Swamp of Sorrows". Nowadays you get arrows pointing you towards the bridge, a yellow mark on your mini-map, and the little thingy is now sparkling.

It's boring.
Yes, gamers got better. Yes, we have more tools out-of-game.
But the really big change is that Blizzard now makes games for the mentally challenged.
Sometimes I almost feel ashamed that I play this game.
That was not the case 9 or 6 years ago.

I agree with you so much here. I remember loving vanilla so much because of the sense of unknown. Some quests you really had to figure out on your own, whereas like you said.....the game is designed for mentally retarded people now. I like how WoW is customizable but come on....some of the addons these days, freakin really? They practically tell you what to do and when to do it, especially in raids. Stupid.

Now i'm sure some people like the new direction of WoW. Personally I don't. Then again, it's a case of MMOs being beaten and beaten to death which wasn't necessarily the case in 2004 when I first started playing Vanilla. Man...vanilla in 2004, I don't care what anyone in this thread says, that game was so fun and addicting. There was a lot more exploring, a lot more unknown stuff, and a lot more quirks in the game that you and your friends discovered on vent. It was a lot more fun, although I really enjoyed TBC and Wrath as well. The best part about those earlier WoW days is the sense of accomplishment. When I got my first epic horse in vanilla....it felt like I had earned it, whereas gear is practically given away these days.

I'm sure some like the new direction and i'm not here to debate with anyone. I find the new direction of "que up for random dungeon or raid while AFK'ing in org" to be boring and stupid. I like exploring. Yes, I know some people prefer the play for 30 minutes at a time mentality, if you like it , good for you. Anyway..... MMOs are just TOO long in the tooth now. The entire genre needs to be left alone for a long time until someone can do something REALLY fresh and new. I felt that WoW was fresh when it launched, it was a real joy to play. It built on all the greats prior to WoW such as EQ and UO and just made everything so much better. I hope EQ next can do something like that, something new and fresh to reinvigorate the genre - but I kinda doubt it.