I had high hopes for this because leveling is really really boring, but it didn't work out like they were implying it would. The goal seemed to be increase the time played metric first and worry about fun second.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tire
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I had high hopes for this because leveling is really really boring, but it didn't work out like they were implying it would. The goal seemed to be increase the time played metric first and worry about fun second.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tire
Then how would normal leveling queues beat those? Seems like it would be obvious to blizzard as almost nobody would be completing dungeons anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by SDBoxer
The player base is always the guinea pigs... every expansion has proven so, be it the phasing mechanic all the way up to the world scaling. I don't understand why players (not saying you per se) are surprised by this. How else are they going to know if an idea is good or not without trying it out en masse?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tire
I, personally, am interested to see how this mechanic plays out with a leveling team. The biggest gripe I've hear out of people (not just multi-boxers) is that they can't blow stuff up like they used to. This makes me very happy because people would ignore mechanics and just nuke, which is stupid. Now people have to actually learn and execute the mechanics of a fight, which for me translates into more challenging puzzles to solve as my multi-boxing team goes.
The other thing that I think will happen is that the dungeons will be tuned so that people will be able to level by doing just them again, but I feel that they needed to see what that would take compared to questing. If dungeoning is the most efficient way to level, even casual players can understand that and will do that because "it's what you are supposed to do". I imagine that they will be gathering data so that if you want to level by questing you can do that or if you want to level by dungeoning, you can do that or if you want to do both, you can do that and the time it takes to progress from level to level remains about the same. They built this giant world for us to explore and play in.
Introducing the level scaling has made more of the content last longer, which translates to you, the player, having even more stuff to potentially do and explore. A lot of people think this game is about gear. They are wrong. This game is about stories and experiences with friends and overcoming challenges together as a team (whether you're a part of one or running the whole thing).
Anyway, that's my 2c. See you in game!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bgarisn
Well don't you sound like a blizzard representative.
You should quote the entire statement of mine before rebutting since they corroborate. Only reason for this change is to time gate unlocking of allied races. How much time is being tested out now.
People have leveled the same way for like 10 fucking years. All blizzard has done is taking the tedious task of leveling and made it abhorrent. This game is about how I choose to play it and how I choose to have experiences. Anyway, I dont want to dissect your opinion, because everyone is in entitled to theirs, but your opinion is wrong.
@FatTire,
I'm sorry I should have broken up my post with a hrule or something. I did not mean to upset or disrespect or anything. I was just commenting on why I thought they were using the player base to test out the 'leveling frustrations' is all. I am sorry if I offended you.
The rest of the post was merely my thoughts on the Leveling in 7.3.5 that was all. Sorry if I sounded like a Blizz fan boy to you. I like their games. I just thought we were discussing 7.3.5.
Sorry again. :-\
Well, that would be fine if scaling were just a bit longer rather than "no change for the first 60 levels." Some of us liked taking non-standard teams through dungeons after they were easier due to out-leveling them (unless we had full heirlooms which can't be assumed to apply to most of the population I would think). This change basically makes any run people would have previously done through those leveling dungeons (outside of quest completion) undesirable. The only possible positive is that if this means almost anybody can queue for any dungeon at any level then you might have more potential people in the queue. I still think that will be more than offset by people who just forego dungeons completely in favor of just questing or paying people to speed-run them through instances with 110s.Quote:
Originally Posted by bgarisn
Wow, the high road. No need to apologize and certainly no need to do it five times in one post. I just disagreed. Your post didnt sound like a fanboy, it read like a blizz dev blue post. I like their games too, I like my time even more so and I dont like seeing it wasted on time gated content.Quote:
Originally Posted by bgarisn
I once submitted to blizzard that they start all players even new players off at the highest level of the lastest expansion. Using the huge world that is underused to tell the story that way or dynamic content, instead of a leveling experience that has forced alot of us into boosts. They are sorta of beginning to do some of that with the scalability of zones. They are just stuck on this 1-100 leveling bullshit. I can go 1-60 killing boars in westfall and 60-80 killing boars in Hellfire, in fact you can level 1-100 just killing boars in their respective zones. The only thing needed is time.
Most players see leveling as a means to an end. I would do stranglethorn vale at 100 instead of level 30, same story and same quests just scaled, if only they just remove a majority of the tedious time gated experience bullshit. My time is better spent avoiding stv as is at 30. Scale all the zones 100-110 or 110-120 in bfa, they could even remove character level in that case or use another metric. It would keep the entire game world current. I might be rambling or way off base.
Light at the end of the tunnel perhaps in regards to the changes in 7.3.5 as it pertains to leveling through WoD. I ran a warlock from 90-98 last night with my 110 DK main (just one as I only had one boosted to 90 from an old RaF account) and there were some interesting things going on.
It took me 3.5 hours to get from 90-98 doing a handful of quests in Frostfire Ridge and then doing only bonus objectives while grabbing treasures and resource caches I saw along the way. This was with no rested and no other pot/boosts.
1. Mobs and quests scale but treasures/garrison resource caches/bonus objectives do not. This means if you, for instance, go to Nagrand before level 98 you will not be able to loot any treasures or resource caches and no bonus objective areas will be available to you.
2. Experience from bonus objectives that you can get is slightly better throughout the entirety of WoD because you never outlevel the area you are and so you get more experience from the actual mob kills in each area. Gorgrond quests also give better exp because no matter what level you are when you turn them in they are scaled appropriately (or so it seemed).
3. Mobs scale to 100 for the level 110 character in your group. This is the interesting bit because level 100 mobs are still green to a 110 and so the lowbie characters being rushed get full experience for kills. This was a significant bonus as far as I could tell because some rare named/quest mobs were giving between 5k and 16k experience per kill. I'd imagine that this would enhance dungeon experience in WoD substantially though I did not test that.
Anyway just figured I'd share because WoD was always the most dreaded portion of the leveling experience for me with my teams because of the lack of dungeon quests and also the issues that come with having to visit your instanced garrisons but these changes seemed to make the whole process much better in that particular expansion.
Did get my 81 team to Nagrand (WOD)(fire place timeless Isle) - and mix them up with 2 lv 110 and just killing Tamed Clefthoof, need the Sumptuous Fur amyway for bags. they have almost instans respawn - 1 lv. around 35 min - with a lv. 110 the mobs are 99/102 - just park them at Telaari station, and they get rested xp.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tin
I like that idea cheers ;)
Also in Hellfire ramparts I took my 4 locks and my 110 druid into the instance and were getting half a level per run, so I guess they only nerfed the low instances or this will get nerfed soon?
U should take the advantage of this my locks are now 73 and I will contiune to run Hellfire ramparts till im 80
In todays patch they removed the legacy buff from old raids.
I am not sure if that effects everyone or just max level toons, but it will be slowed down significantly.
Some very good info about boost/powerleveling:
https://www.reddit.com/r/woweconomy/...powerleveling/
That poster doesn't understand efficiency. I say that mostly because it's posted in /r/woweconomy, but the earn rate at the suggested prices is atrocious. Even if we assume you do 10 runs in 30 minutes, at 500 per run, that's only 10,000 g/hr (which is quite a pitiful rate, hardly lucrative as described).Quote:
Originally Posted by Tin
Although it did prompt the thought that they may have changed the group XP split formula. Specifically the character share portion of the formula due to scaling, although they might have adjusted more too. Data is scarce. The below is a digression on how things have historically worked.
Historically going for 2 to 3 equal level members is a 22.22% drop in XP and from 2 to 4 is a 35% drop. These are close to the suggested 25% and 40% rates.
However, the poster is wrong about going to 5, as that's only a 44% drop (from 2). It's not that big of an impact (versus -35% at 4). Total xp earned across all characters goes up though, so you're better off boosting with a full group than doing individual boosts. The table below summarizes the historical situation for equal level groups. It may no longer be the case. Also, adjusting for booster level makes the below only an approximation. It's roughly accurate and the general trend is a high level booster makes adding more have less of an impact than it does in an equal level group. (relative XP for all is down, but impact is more pronounced in smaller groups)
Size Factor Relative XP Total XP Relative value 1 1.000 100.0 2 1.000 50.0 50.0 44.6 3 1.166 38.9 77.7 69.4 4 1.300 32.5 97.5 87.1 5 1.400 28.0 112.0 100.0
Source: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Mob_experi...oup_Experience for the factors
Note: Yes, if charging people for this and they care about their time (not doing own accounts/Netflix and chill/account sharing/whatever where they don't care), then there is more value in doing only 1 boostee at a time. However 500g/dungeon is well off what should be charged as the opportunity cost for the booster is just too high.
Historically the split formula is also based on relative levels (character share being related to level / total party levels rather than 1 / party size). This should be changed with scaling (not sure if it has) since at level content should be 100%. A 60 and a 79 in a scaled instance are contributing equally, at least that's the theory.
I now have first-hand experience, in dungeons, with a melee-heavy mixed-class team (PLD/SHM/WAR/WAR/PRI) from levels 15 through 90, since 7.3.5 was released. I began to run into issues with a few of the TBC dungeons in the 60-80 range, but most definitely hit a wall with the Cataclysm dungeons in the 80-90 range. The increased healthpools of elites in dungeons ensure that every trash encounter lasts between 20-40 seconds, and every boss fight lasts between 1-4 minutes. Times and are dependent on class composition, DPS output, and overall multiboxing skill, and therefore may vary greatly.
Non-Heroic Leveling Dungeon List (60-90):
- Hellfire Ramparts—Complete
- Blood Furnace—Complete
- Mana-Tombs—Complete (Video)
- Auchenai Crypts—Failed
- Shirrak the Dead Watcher —highly unforgiving melee-range bite does a lot of damage.
- Sethekk Halls—Complete (Video Soon)
- The Steamvault—Complete
- Shattered Halls—Complete (Video Soon)
- Arcatraz—Failed
- Zereketh the Unbound —pools on the ground ate me alive; did not give a second attempt.
- Magister's Terrace—Failed (Video)
- Kael'thas Sunstrider —continuous unforgiving melee-range damage while fighting the Phoenix add (which has a ton of health), including the burst damage upon its death, but the Gravity Lapse ability does not properly cause your character to float, and will, sometimes repeatedly, drop you on the floor for additional fall damage (likely a bug).
- Utgarde Keep—Complete
- Notes: Did not attempt any other Wrath dungeons, as I felt they are longer, and more spread out, than most other TBC dungeons.
- Blackrock Caverns—Failed
- The trash hits incredibly hard, and I wiped to a four-caster pack of Twilight Zealots without killing a single one of them, but after failing on the second boss, twice (with Bloodlust), I decided that this place was no longer worth my time.
- Throne of the Tides—Go fuck yourself
- I didn't actually attempt this dungeon, but I thought I'd share my feelings about it.
- Halls of Origination—Complete
- Not worth the time required to simply move through the dungeon. It's gigantic, and has maybe ten total trash packs. The main objective bosses did not pose much of a problem, but the bonus bosses, the reason I thought this place might be attractive, are very, very difficult.
- Lost City of the Tol'vir—Complete
- This dungeon becomes available at level 84, and it is the sole dungeon I run repeatedly from 84-90. The trash isn't all that difficult, the bosses aren't all that difficult, and you can mount.
Now, anywhere that I failed, a ranged team could've probably succeeded, simply because when my melee team was taking massive damage there was just no way that I could heal through it. I also found that doing TBC heroics from levels 72-75 proved to be amazing for filling in the blanks when LFD chose to give me a shitty dungeon. After level 72/73, the heirlooms I was wearing scaled nicely, and allowed me to cut through heroics at a nice quick pace—it felt just like pre-7.3.5 dungeons because they don't scale. Unfortunately, you can only do each heroic once, per day.
Since the scaling update that 7.3.5 brought, every dungeon in the 60-90 range, feels, at the very minimum, like a heroic, if not harder than their heroic counterparts when the dungeons were actually relevant. Needless to say, several dungeons in this level range required that I was paying 140% attention to mechanics or I would wipe, but that wasn't always the case. Some boss mechanics did little to no damage, where as others would do immense amounts of damage, and sometimes trash was more dangerous than a boss—there was no rhyme or reason to this, just frustration.
For anyone simply looking to level, the dungeons beyond level 60 are now very difficult. If you want the challenge, then it's certainly present, but if you're just looking to get to the top level so that you can begin the grind for the expansion you've paid to play, then dungeons are not going to get you there quickly... not by a long shot.
Personally, I did enjoy some of the challenges that these changes brought, but the reward for doing them, even after the latest buff to dungeon experience, is still practically non-existent—unless the only reward you're looking for is self gratitude for doing something difficult. Although, to be fair, I'm sure Mythic+ dungeons are going to present a very similar challenge, provide a very similar dopamine rush for completing them, and, at the same time, give you the chance to be rewarded with something both useful and relevant.
Lost City should be available at level 83 if you head to it directly. 84 if you are using the LFD tool.
Thanks for your thoughts mirai. I'm surprised there wasn't more sethekk rage. I can never remember which are the fear bomb jerks and always wipe in there. I was also amused by the go fuck yourself for throne of tides. Felt that way when it came out, feel that way now!
I would really like to know why Blizzard thought it was a good idea to make obsolete (to most people) dungeons so difficult that many people can't even finish them. I don't have heirlooms; I have the gear that drops for me. It is really hard for me to imagine lots of pickup groups doing these now, or there would be more people complaining about the difficulty. Do you think these 60+ dungeons are even doable for a group in greens and quest blues? Or are they tuned for the assumption that everyone is running twinks in full heirlooms? Or did they just do this so people can't level in dungeons anymore, and are tempted to buy the level boosts?
I cannot fathom why they thought it made sense to make this game so unforgiving for a new player - or, like me, one returning after a 10-year absence.
I'm sure they thought it was a good idea at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by SDBoxer
Because a large part of the player base were in tears over how easy it was and had become an absolute joke tbf.
I'm holding off leveling lower teams right now with the hope there is another pass to come that will reduce the time to kill. I'd be happy to see a 30% reduction in that and I think they would be just right.
Their initial fix for the boosting problem is not so bad though. The end bonus from random LFD is a good chunk but doesn't make up for the time required (when boxing).
I've ran a couple 2 mans last week and they go pretty well as long as the tank doesn't go ape and the healer knows what a heal is. My 5 man box was just creaking under the weight of the trash in most instances.
Timewalking data will help them as well as the same affect is happening there.
Does anyone have any good suggestions for quest leveling 60-80? i currently have two RAFd accounts - grandfathered bonus, with 5 more weeks to go. I have run 4 teams of 2 up to 60 relatively easily through questing (but I would not have wanted to do it without old-RAF).
My goal is to ding 90 on these four duos - grant the levels to make a "5th" for each, and then when/if I pull the trigger on 3 other accounts just transfer them over to get a couple of 5 man teams for LFD from 90-110.
Thanks in advance.
There were several dungeons that I couldn't complete (listed in my prior post) with a 4/5 melee team in heirlooms (+ enchants), but I'm doing one final pass of the dungeons with two different teams to see if I can do them all (as well as record and present what I've done). I fear that, even if I can, some of these dungeons are going to require a lot of work to complete, and like you said, they will be incredibly unforgiving to any new player.Quote:
Originally Posted by SDBoxer
That's what it felt like to begin with, but then they increased the experience rewarded for dungeons, which somewhat nullified that thought, although I'm not exactly sure what they increased experience for (mob, boss, main objective, bonus objective, LFD bonus, etc.).Quote:
Originally Posted by SDBoxer
I completely understood this statement from those who didn't like it, and, on a scale from 1 to 10, pre-7.3.5 dungeons were maybe at a 2 or 3. Unfortunately, now more than some of them are 8 or 9, and sometimes the trash is more lethal than some of the bosses found in the same dungeon. It all feels awkward and unbalanced, and while the dungeons feel as if they're relevant, the reward for completing them is certainly not, and I wish Blizzard would do a second pass on these health numbers rather than just sit in silence as if the first percentage they chose was 100% correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jabberie
Honestly, I feel bad for anyone (solo players and multiboxers alike) without heirlooms (or any appropriate-level rare/epic gear) at this point, because fights are much longer than before and high DPS is desired more than ever, and I could easily see those players being kicked more often for not "pulling their weight" in the party.
As for what increased exp wise I think it was just the bonus experience for queuing randoms as that is all I noticed increase after they slashed exp to 1/10 (10%) when a character is in the group that has outleveled the current content
Dungeons get tricky exp wise if not using the random queue...basically if anyone in the group...when entering a dungeon by foot is outside the new level ranges...the penalty kicks in...
so 15-60, 61-79, 80-89, 90-100 groupings are now subject to penalty exp gain....even if the mobs are still green to say a 65 and everyone else is 59 on the 15-60 dungeons...everyone gets penalized
Exp tapers off quickly too each level over max even if the group is all the same level...so max exp may be at lvl 60 and by 61 -65 it drops by 20% each level(not sure exact % offhand but it was quickly not worth the time)
Dungeons were probably too easy before but ahead of forcing everyone to level grind for Heritage Transmog on the new races and the Vanilla servers planned...they went overboard making stuff harder
98-110 goes much faster in legion just doing the 6 Invasions quests every so often grouped with a 110
90-98 went decently in draenor doing rares and chests/treasures as opposed to dungeons on Frostfire and Gorgrond
Some old dungeons feel tougher than legion Mythic now at the correct level (110 mythic + still tougher due to some affixes and bugs) ... even in all heirlooms
Ghostlands still are fastest exp questing in 1-60 but last for only 5-10 levels worth of exp
It looks like the completion XP, for Ramparts at least, has had a stealth nerf. I'm only getting a fraction of what I was getting last week when I did some grinding with it using LFD.
Confirmed - it looks like based on the stickied thread in General Discussion on the Bliz forums stealth nerf hit Tuesday. I would guess that Stockades and Ramparts had bonus completion xp cut to 20% (i.e reduced by 80%) based on my runs through them. You will get about a 1/6th of a level for a complete run now.
Just for laughs I boosted two grandfathered RAF monks in full heirlooms and enlightenment through stockades and only got about 75% of a level. Two non RAF, non monk, Heirloom guys who were also boosted through stockades only got about 17%.
And the beat”down” goes on!
Prior to this change, people who found the dungeons or overland zones too easy had an option. They could lock their level and run dungeons that were red to them. They could lock their level and run higher level zones full of monsters that were red to them. They had choices.
So did people like me – who play a self-found style without heirlooms, who only play solo or with a friend or two, or who are simply less skilled or have poorer reflexes. If a dungeon was too hard, we could wait a level or two and try again later. We could run dungeons that were green or even grey to us if we wanted to. We had choices.
Now, no one has any choices. Every dungeon you run will be your level, and will be full of mobs your level, but with massive HP pools. If a dungeon is too hard for you to complete, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you gain a few levels, so will that dungeon – and the mobs will be even harder when you return. And if your gear didn’t improve as you leveled, you’ll be even further behind than before.
These changes took away choice – and I don’t understand why Blizzard thought that was a winning idea.
I think scaling is a great idea. The way it was implemented is what stinks. You no longer out level a questing area before you're even halfway through it and are forced to travel (slowly before you hit 70 might I add) somewhere else which is a very nice and welcome change. The added difficulty in dungeons is... a headscratcher.
You can still out level dungeons and go back to them when they are green/grey it just takes longer to do so now. Dungeon running, even as a solo character queuing with the LFD tool, is painful. If you're lucky enough to get into a group of all heirloomed up toons it can be tolerable but it's still slow even then. Running a full team yourself is quite the chore in most dungeons. Trying to do them without heirlooms has got to be mind numbing and incredibly over-tuned. 1-60 is a tedious slog at best these days.
Watched the Developer Q&A - next to last question was about leveling alts, and if BfA would be more alt friendly.
I was happy they actually took the question, and do agree with much of what he said - Legion and BfA are alt friendly (specifically around account wide unlocks). And his sentiment was that if you are leveling an alt because you have reached a plateau on your main, they dont want to make leveling an alt too easy otherwise you are right back in the same position again.
And he said - and I quote "if you are looking to level your 17th alt I dont really care". Poor choice of words as it denigrates a specific category of players that tend to have greater game longevity - the "completionist" type players that wants to try everything.
I posted on the WoW forums https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20761928053
Just wanted to share with this community if you didnt see the Q&A
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/239064071?t=01h10m07s
The actual quote is a little different I have to say......
If the main thing that you are looking for is, I'm just looking for a 17th alt that I can use to farm the horseman mount, that's less of what we're trying to prioritize or facilitate when it comes to alt friendliness. So understandable if THAT part of it can feel worse but..... sorry.
I think the sentiment is the same either way.
Why does it matter what # alt it is? And why does it matter what I want to use the alt for? Why does that have any bearing on how they approach how alts level and catch up?
If it sucks, it sucks. Doesn't matter if it's the third time through or thirteenth.
They made it better for Legion specifically over time (it was horrendous at first with AK and legendaries), but they made it worse for... the entire rest of the game.
I don't believe the sentiment is the same at all. While there is lots of ways to play the game, I guess this is confirmation that at least this type is not going to be made easy. I would imagine the reason is the same as every weekly cap to currency or time gate to a profession, or anything that slows you down, to stop it becoming "mandatory".
The people who pay with tokens generally do so with an army of alts just doing order hall missions. But they don't mention anything about that, just about using multiple alts to farm mounts.
Maybe they care nothing about money and only time-played.
They tend to never mention the thing that they are actually targeting. Like the removal of /follow in BGs for instance.Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnGabriel
Sethekk is terrible and from now on my "go fuck yourself" dungeon. Tried it here if you want to laugh :)Quote:
Originally Posted by luxlunae
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtfxs9VkUY
Looks like you have some tweaking to do with your setup. Your heal setup needs work and your toons seem to not be following when you need them to.Quote:
Originally Posted by omegared
I giggled! :p
Game Mechanics are so hot right now. :)
Glad you enjoyed watching :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pocahuntess
My healing is working ok for the most. Could be improved though i agree. But in this dungeon its not very good with all the fears and hexes :p
My movement is terrible, but i dont know how to fix this. My chars stop following me once they are in combat and only follow when i use interact with target.
I dont have these problems with my melee teams.