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I was really on the fence about Shadowlands. Seeing Blizzard stand up for their employee when a random cancel-culture hate-mob arose was a good enough excuse to put me over the edge.
I'm one of the characters from the Carbot BfA parody: re-upped for Classic after a decade off, and decided retail was more fun. Got to 110 just in time for the Xpac to get delayed, and wound up in exactly the dilemma that Blizzard's accounting department wanted: there's no way to get into current content without dropping $100 over the next 2 months. Either pay full price for BfA and Shadowlands when it drops, or buy the "Complete Pack" now for the same total price, or muck around on alts for the rest of the year. 50 bucks every two years isn't bad, but it's not so hot when it's a mandatory four years worth all of a sudden.
The information they've dropped about the quest structure really makes it seem like it's the worst of Cataclysm: all linear storylines, without the option to just go find a new quest hub whenever the mood strikes. Is that really the design philosophy now? Leveling through the expansions over the last few weeks really felt like watching the debate over "linear storylines" versus "freeform exploration" evolve over the years. Pandaria had a real slog of a boring linear intro, but opened up nicely. Warlords opened with Khadgar literally teleporting you back onto the path if you ever looked away for a moment while it introduced 800 characters, and then turned into a Mega-Man structure of choosing one of 6 linear storylines to follow. Legion seemed like it tried to balance all these approaches. Does Shadowlands look like they'll finally trust us to explore the world as we like? Not looking forward to being herded through setpieces all the way to level cap.
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Let's be honest, beginning of the expansion hasn't been fun for a really long time because of the borrowed power mechanics that blizzard have implemented since WOD. I just hope that they let use switch between covenants more frequently...
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Does this fix the leveling being so easy? Last time I played like 3 years ago all the world mobs and dungeons as you leveled up were just ridiculously roflstomp easy, everything's super weak. Has that ever changed or is changing in this expansion because of the level squish or something?
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I leveled a fresh Hunter in 2 days. Game is ridiculously boring rn. Going to wait for the real prepatch.
I considered getting my skinning and LW up so that I’m ready for launch but it looks to be a mess. Don’t wanna invest time into something that may get patched.
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On October 20 2020 05:03 NinjaNight wrote:
Does this fix the leveling being so easy? Last time I played like 3 years ago all the world mobs and dungeons as you leveled up were just ridiculously roflstomp easy, everything's super weak. Has that ever changed or is changing in this expansion because of the level squish or something?
Not much particularly changed around that. Before (at least this year onward), the expansion zones would scale to your level for whatever the range for that expansion was (0-60, 60-70, etc.). Now you talk to Chromie and pick an expansion to level in, and that expansion content will scale for the entirety of your 0-50 leveling experience.
I don't find it to be that off-putting personally, leveling has always just seemed to get in the way of the actual content once you're max level, and they did speed things up a bit with the level squish (you can get to 50 in ~14 hours played or so).
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Leveling has never been hard, just tedious. It's basically the same as it always was. The only difference between leveling in Classic vs retail is how much time you have to spend regening between mobs.
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On October 20 2020 12:24 Theoren wrote:
Leveling has never been hard, just tedious. It's basically the same as it always was. The only difference between leveling in Classic vs retail is how much time you have to spend regening between mobs.
That't not entirely true. E.g. if I am pulling 3 equal level mobs at around lvl 10-39 as a rogue, I either would have to vanish or run away since that amount of mobs are not soloable reliably as a rogue before 40. The general mob difficulty was something everyone loved about classic, compared to retail where mobs die in three hits.
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28092 Posts
Classic and retail are different games with a completely different focus. No one playing retail wants to take a month to reach max level.
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On October 20 2020 16:35 Neneu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2020 12:24 Theoren wrote:
Leveling has never been hard, just tedious. It's basically the same as it always was. The only difference between leveling in Classic vs retail is how much time you have to spend regening between mobs. That't not entirely true. E.g. if I am pulling 3 equal level mobs at around lvl 10-39 as a rogue, I either would have to vanish or run away since that amount of mobs are not soloable reliably as a rogue before 40. The general mob difficulty was something everyone loved about classic, compared to retail where mobs die in three hits.
People talking about classic and difficulty in the same sentence, I guess it is still 2020.
Calling reduced power levels in a slow paced game "increased difficulty" is a bit of a stretch. Something being difficult is only worth the experience if
a) you are able to control your gameplay in a way that allows it to be achievable b) its proportionally rewarding.
Neither of these are true for classic leveling. The entire process of leveling in classic for the laymen is understanding your limitations and then tediously working through them.
Leveling is an afterthought in retail. And that is the case because the game is (or about to be) 7 expansions in.
Leveling is no longer a draw. So theyve made adjustments to it to make it somewhat entertaining and fresh for the playerbase. The tediousness was removed ages ago and I am totally fine with that.
For most retail players the game starts at max level. If your just looking for a slow leveling grind there are 1232312 MMO's out there that do that. Retail wow is not it, it cant be and it doesnt want to be either.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On October 20 2020 16:57 TheEmulator wrote:
Classic and retail are different games with a completely different focus. No one playing retail wants to take a month to reach max level.
Indeed this is my answer to lol.
Speaking about leveling on retail, they announced a change on the beta to revert the xp needed to reach 60 by a lot! You should be able to easily level from 50-60 just doing the campaign now, so it should be one of the fastest leveling experiences for a new expansion in a long time i think.
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If this is true and its a full revert (Ive been travelling the last month so havent been keeping up)I dont know why they did that tbh, I think the increased XP requirement was good
With the original XP reqs you can leave half of each zone (except Maldraxxus) unexplored because all you need to do is follow the zone quest story line, and if youve got some rested bonuses you can hit 60 just before the last instanced even that finishes Revendreth, so your actually capping even before the bare minimum (even without doing the end of zone storyline dungeon quests which is worth alot of XP for the quest reward + the dungeon itself)
Ive levelled about 5 characters during the beta and it felt alot more rewarding to do it with the increased XP requirements. I actually had to explore zones on the map that didnt follow the story.
Granted you have to go do those side quest chains later anyway so you will spend time zone questing even after you level cap, because daily's will open up there. But it still felt kinda janky.
I personally dont care about leveling but I did find that I was moving on with entire chunks of a zones map completely unexplored mildly offputting.
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Leveling was very fun for me. I basically got to choose my favorite areas to level: Nagrand and some wotlk zones. Before I knew it I was 50.
Currently working on a shammy and lock.
I really hope shadowlands is around the corner. Don’t wanna burn out before it actually releases lol..
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On October 20 2020 21:20 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2020 16:35 Neneu wrote:On October 20 2020 12:24 Theoren wrote:
Leveling has never been hard, just tedious. It's basically the same as it always was. The only difference between leveling in Classic vs retail is how much time you have to spend regening between mobs. That't not entirely true. E.g. if I am pulling 3 equal level mobs at around lvl 10-39 as a rogue, I either would have to vanish or run away since that amount of mobs are not soloable reliably as a rogue before 40. The general mob difficulty was something everyone loved about classic, compared to retail where mobs die in three hits. Calling reduced power levels in a slow paced game "increased difficulty" is a bit of a stretch. Something being difficult is only worth the experience if a) you are able to control your gameplay in a way that allows it to be achievable b) its proportionally rewarding. Neither of these are true for classic leveling. The entire process of leveling in classic for the laymen is understanding your limitations and then tediously working through them.
Well but it is the case in vanilla actually because most characters are actually able to take on 2 or 3 mobs (or more) more efficiently using some multi targetting skills, AoE, DoTs and crowd control at the cost of more risk if they aggro an extra mob, make some mistake or obviously being targetted by a nearby player. If you do this well you will get more mana or rage efficiency and can quickly gather more materials from the mobs as well as XP. Especially if you target green mobs it becomes even more true. Targetting orange or red mobs is quite inefficient for most classes.
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On October 21 2020 06:05 Emnjay808 wrote:
Leveling was very fun for me. I basically got to choose my favorite areas to level: Nagrand and some wotlk zones. Before I knew it I was 50.
Currently working on a shammy and lock.
I really hope shadowlands is around the corner. Don’t wanna burn out before it actually releases lol.. I would expect it 1/8th December, with the raid opening being pushed to January.
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My main is a prot warrior. Anyone with experience in PTR enlighten me what professions I should pursue? Currently rocking Enchanting and Mining. I went enchanting because I just spam dungeons and DE everything and I couldn’t decide what my second proff would be so I went with Mining for the HP buff. I haven’t played since Legion too btw. Any input is appreciated, thx
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
You need blacksmithing to create gear pieces which i think they are continuing to do in shadowlands. In BFA it was important to create yourself a top gear piece from said profession. Not 100% sure on professions yet though but i will check it out and reply back closer to release. The HP buff from mining disappeared with Legion i think too.
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Yeah idk shit about professions these days either lol. All I've done for the last few expac is level and run dungeons/heroics mostly. I've almost got 2 fresh characters to 50 since the pre-patch (3 if you include the 110 boost that I leveled from 45->50) and haven't picked up professions on any of them...
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Picking professions now won't do much for you in Shadowlands anyway, progress in professions isn't shared between expansions, so no real harm in waiting to decide.
As far as what you pick for a Prot Warrior, the gear professions (e.g. Blacksmithing) are useful because they let you make the basic pieces you need for crafting legendaries (although you can also buy these off the AH). Inscription lets you make the things that decide the stats on your legendaries. Past that I don't think there's a lot that's all that different from how it's been in the past: Alchemy is still good for flasks + potions, gathering professions are just good money-makers, Engineering has some good utility and can get you a battle res. Don't think there's anything that's particularly mandatory for a Prot Warrior as far as professions go, though.
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On October 21 2020 06:06 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2020 21:20 Rebs wrote:On October 20 2020 16:35 Neneu wrote:On October 20 2020 12:24 Theoren wrote:
Leveling has never been hard, just tedious. It's basically the same as it always was. The only difference between leveling in Classic vs retail is how much time you have to spend regening between mobs. That't not entirely true. E.g. if I am pulling 3 equal level mobs at around lvl 10-39 as a rogue, I either would have to vanish or run away since that amount of mobs are not soloable reliably as a rogue before 40. The general mob difficulty was something everyone loved about classic, compared to retail where mobs die in three hits. Calling reduced power levels in a slow paced game "increased difficulty" is a bit of a stretch. Something being difficult is only worth the experience if a) you are able to control your gameplay in a way that allows it to be achievable b) its proportionally rewarding. Neither of these are true for classic leveling. The entire process of leveling in classic for the laymen is understanding your limitations and then tediously working through them. Well but it is the case in vanilla actually because most characters are actually able to take on 2 or 3 mobs (or more) more efficiently using some multi targetting skills, AoE, DoTs and crowd control at the cost of more risk if they aggro an extra mob, make some mistake or obviously being targetted by a nearby player. If you do this well you will get more mana or rage efficiency and can quickly gather more materials from the mobs as well as XP. Especially if you target green mobs it becomes even more true. Targetting orange or red mobs is quite inefficient for most classes.
Thats a stupid example because one can make the same argument for retail and just increase the size of the pull. The only difference is one is bat shit slow and you can use 1 hand to disengage the situation, where as large pulling on retail actually has a chance of you getting gibbed because you go for more and depending on how much you ramp up this self imposed difficulty (because thats really what it is) the greater the risk of no taking back a miscalculation.
Except in the later case it actually is rewarding because the reward (the time saved, is exponentially rewarding) whereas in your example you just managed to get an extra few hundred XP and saved what a minute?
Either way its tedious and boring. Unless its like people who enjoy minecraft or what that game Animal crossing or soe shit. Leveling is probably fun for them. And good for said people, whatever brings one joy,
On October 22 2020 04:17 tec27 wrote:
Picking professions now won't do much for you in Shadowlands anyway, progress in professions isn't shared between expansions, so no real harm in waiting to decide.
As far as what you pick for a Prot Warrior, the gear professions (e.g. Blacksmithing) are useful because they let you make the basic pieces you need for crafting legendaries (although you can also buy these off the AH). Inscription lets you make the things that decide the stats on your legendaries. Past that I don't think there's a lot that's all that different from how it's been in the past: Alchemy is still good for flasks + potions, gathering professions are just good money-makers, Engineering has some good utility and can get you a battle res. Don't think there's anything that's particularly mandatory for a Prot Warrior as far as professions go, though.
There is no Engi Battle res in SL at the moment. Big derp for running high keys and playing the class you want.
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On October 22 2020 04:17 tec27 wrote:
Picking professions now won't do much for you in Shadowlands anyway, progress in professions isn't shared between expansions, so no real harm in waiting to decide.
As far as what you pick for a Prot Warrior, the gear professions (e.g. Blacksmithing) are useful because they let you make the basic pieces you need for crafting legendaries (although you can also buy these off the AH). Inscription lets you make the things that decide the stats on your legendaries. Past that I don't think there's a lot that's all that different from how it's been in the past: Alchemy is still good for flasks + potions, gathering professions are just good money-makers, Engineering has some good utility and can get you a battle res. Don't think there's anything that's particularly mandatory for a Prot Warrior as far as professions go, though.
Ok sounds like I’ll just stick with enchanting and level up blacksmithing and use my DE mats to purchase ore.
The gathering profession niches seems watered down since Legion. But it makes sense not to pigeonhole certain roles to gathering professions
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