Reasonable discussion about Northrend Leveling

[5fingersofdoom]

I was annoyed and frustratd with Northrend MB lvling until I dinged 80 looked at my total played time and realised at about 10 days played divide by 5 isn't so bad ,2days per char)considering what I have at the end of it.
Now i'll hit dailies and farm that gold like a fat goblin.
You tell me what a single player really has at the end of it?
I didn't enjoy the process TBH it was hard,but i'll be doing it again sure,im back in OL now and its strange but I kind of miss Northrend already,the old world seems a bit bland.
I say give it a little time enjoy your gold and instance farming/pvp,and come back to it in a month or so.

[Multibocks]

I played at home as a Multiboxer and at work as a solo player(no computer can handle it here.) I think my perspective is unique in that I did both routes and let me tell you something. Solo in northrend is EXTREMELY fast leveling. I got rewarded the same for each quest however that mob xp adds up to a lot of xp after playing a full night. Also the dreaded collection quests weren't so bad, one in particular that I just HATED was the collection quests in Grizzly Hills.
They went something like this: Hmm collection quest.. ugh it's a series that I need to do to get the pit quests to open up. Ok I'll do it. Hey I only need 6 bear pelts, sweet! Ride to area listed by wowhead.... OMFG THERE ARE ONLY 8 SPAWNS?!! JFC! Ya, that quest went much faster on one character. That quest ALONE took me 50 mins with my group. So lets add up what my group won. Let's say it was a 50% drop rate(yeah right) so 20 mobs per collect times 500ish xp, 10k xp for mobs 20k for turnin = 30k exp for 50 mins of questing. Wow color me underwhelmed.

Paladin by himself: Quest took about 10mins, 1500 per kill with 20 kills and 20k xp turn in... = 50k xp for 10mins work... SWEET. While a few of these numbers are guesstimates I did actually stop and look at my clock after doing it with my full group. This is just dumb. Blizzard is clearly penalizing you for grouping on collection quests.

When I do my 3 other groups to 80, I won't touch collect quests and I will do as much instance leveling as I can stomach.

[daviddoran]

What I decided to do, after leveling from 68-71 on my main team in northrend, is to do all of the Outland stuff I didn't get a chance to do. I am having a blast going through some of the nice quest chains and instances, and getting exp the whole time (albeit not as much as i would be in northrend) I also assume that having slightly better outland gear on my team before I really dig into northrend can't hurt. I need to get some flying mounts on my team, and then I can finish the Karazhan key quest, which I then plan on trying to 6 man Kara. If I get really crazy, I will reactivate some old accounts, xfer some toons, and try and 10 box kara, just for kicks.

I really like a lot of the outland content, and am very happy to be experiencing it. I will get to northrend eventually, and when I get on to team 3 and 4, I will be more inclined to level faster, as I will have already experienced a lot of the content, but for now, Slow and steady is fun for me. I think I will be 73-74 before I really dig into northrend on my main team. That leaves team 2, which I might do the same, and team 3, I will hit up northrend the moment I ding 68.

[OzPhoenix]

I played at home as a Multiboxer and at work as a solo player(no computer can handle it here.) I think my perspective is unique in that I did both routes and let me tell you something. Solo in northrend is EXTREMELY fast leveling. I got rewarded the same for each quest however that mob xp adds up to a lot of xp after playing a full night. Also the dreaded collection quests weren't so bad, one in particular that I just HATED was the collection quests in Grizzly Hills.
They went something like this: Hmm collection quest.. ugh it's a series that I need to do to get the pit quests to open up. Ok I'll do it. Hey I only need 6 bear pelts, sweet! Ride to area listed by wowhead.... OMFG THERE ARE ONLY 8 SPAWNS?!! JFC! Ya, that quest went much faster on one character. That quest ALONE took me 50 mins with my group. So lets add up what my group won. Let's say it was a 50% drop rate(yeah right) so 20 mobs per collect times 500ish xp, 10k xp for mobs 20k for turnin = 30k exp for 50 mins of questing. Wow color me underwhelmed.

Paladin by himself: Quest took about 10mins, 1500 per kill with 20 kills and 20k xp turn in... = 50k xp for 10mins work... SWEET. While a few of these numbers are guesstimates I did actually stop and look at my clock after doing it with my full group. This is just dumb. Blizzard is clearly penalizing you for grouping on collection quests.

When I do my 3 other groups to 80, I won't touch collect quests and I will do as much instance leveling as I can stomach.

This mirrors my experiences exactly, as I've levelled the 5 x Shamans, but I'm also solo-leveling a Paladin (currently 72) to join them at 80 as a dedicated tank that Wrath seems to need (and I'm happy to do it). The leveling speed of the Paladin - Prot-Speced! no less - is incredibly faster than my Shamans could make. Very often I would struggle to keep my xp/hr over 100k with the Shaman group - as I use Titans Panel, it's there with me the whole time. The Paladin is typically over 300kxp/hr - over three-hundred thousand XP per hour - and often topping 400kxp/hr or more!

The Paladin scores close to 2k per mob kill (it's all rested). So let's compare with a recent example.

The quest is Motes of the Engaged (http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=11649). A particularly unfun for Shammies given the mobs lightning immunity, but I'll admit, not a massive problem when you've got 5 x Shocks to fall back on.

The Shamans needed 25 Motes, at a drop rate of roughly 50%. At 400xp per kill, killing 50 mobs, they get 20,000 XP plus 20,100 XP for handing the quest in, totaling a rough 40kxp.

The Paladin needs 5 Motes, at a drop rate of roughly 50%. At 1500xp per kill, killing 10 mobs, she got 15,000 XP plus 20,100 XP for handing the quest in, totaling roughly 35kxp.

Now, there's not an unlimited supply of these mobs, so it's not like the Shammies can ride around, gather 50 up, and fire away as I roll my face across the keyboard. In fact, there's not nearly enough of them to support the Shamans theoretical kill rate. For the Pally, it's much less of a problem, as always I try and fight the mobs 3 at a time if I can (since she kills 3 mobs about as quickly as she kills 1). About half the time I was able to gather together multiple mobs on either the Shamans or the Paladin, the rest of the time being single mob kills. Given (and I admit here I'm really stretching the detail of my recording of this event) a rough time of around 15 seconds in between fights, this means that both the Shamans and the Paladin kill around, on average, 5 mobs a minute.

At 5 mobs a minute, the Shamans complete the quest in 10 minutes.

The Pally does it in 2.

So, for this particular quest, the Shamans XP/HR rate stands at (40kxp/10)*60 a grand total of 240kxp/hr.

The Paladin runs it in at (35kxp/2)*60, or a staggering 1,050kxp/hr!

In other words, she's 4 and 3/8th's times faster than the 5 Shamans. For this quest, I would have been very nearly no worse off just doing it 5 times over with one Shaman after another.

I'll admit, I've taken an extreme example here - it encompasses the worst of possible quests for 5xShamans, lightning immune mobs, low density and refresh of mobs and a less than stellar drop rate. About the only way to have made it worse would have been to put it underwater. While this is an extreme example to highlight the point I'm trying to make, the figures would be worse for the other primary type of collection quest, the sort where you pick items up off the ground, since you'll have little to no mob XP accumulating at the same time

The point to all this, is that WoW is an MMO, a game that should always, always reward grouping. I have no problem with certain quests not working well for multiboxers, I accept flat out that there will be bosses and some quests that are just impossible for me to do, or so difficult for me to do that it's not worth it for me to do them. I don't ask that WoW be re-designed to cater for us multiboxers specifically either.

What I am so amazed to see however, is how an MMO of all possible games goes so anti-group in it's leveling strategy. I see this time and time again with the rest of my guildmates, most of whom do not multibox, they level alone, for the simple reason that it's faster and less tedious to do so. They group only for group quests (and then only when they need to, as many can be solo'd) or for dungeons.

I really wish Blizzard would wake up to this fact, that as an MMO, WoW should always reward it's players for grouping together at all times, even when grouping together often is specifically required.

[Stealthy]

Ok, you can't take an extreme case of a bad quest and base your argument around that. There are plenty of multiboxing friendly quests as well where a significant advantage is given to multiboxers. Hell, I max out my daily quest limit every day on boxing friendly quests.

Any by the way, I have done the quest you mentioned - the respawn rate on the elementals was fast enough so that I never ran out of them to kill. I just ran a big circuit around the quest area. The previos quest in this chain, where you killed 2 named mobs is boxing friendly, and I guarantee you'll blast through that quest much quicker with your boxing team than you would going solo.

The point I'm trying to make is that yes - there are some collection quests that really suck for a boxer, but the flip side is you'll rip through the boxing friendly quests in a fraction of the time taken compared to soloing.

Let me give you an extreme example on the other side of the fence. In Icecrown, there is a daily quest called Leave Our Mark. The quest requires you to kill 15 vykrul and plant a banner in each corpse. Now if you 5 box, you can kill one of the mobs, and macro to use the banner on each toon and you get get an update for each toon. In other words you only need to kill 3 mobs to complete the quest, as you can effectively plant 5 banners in each corpse. 66g15s for less than a minute's work....oh yeah, I'm lovin' that!

Cheers,

S.

[OzPhoenix]

Stealthy,

I completely agree there are some very multiboxing friendly quests around and in fact in my later experience having dinged 80 and started working my way through the Basin and Storm Peaks, I've found those zones to be much less focused on collection quests than the earlier zones.

And I freely admit I picked an extreme example to prove the point I was trying to make which at it's simplest comes down to these two things:

1) Player-Only Drop/Collection quests are anti-group.
2) An MMO should never be anti-group.

Things crunching down on multiboxers I can understand since while it's an allowed form of play, the game is not designed with it in mind. Things hitting groups however just does not make sense. The solution is simple to for the drop ones: change them to be group-based drops.

PS: Thanks for the tip on the Icecrown quest. I'll be sure to put it into practice.

[Gadzooks]

As someone who soled most of vanilla and BC, I would say Wrath is....pretty balanced.

Yeah, some of the quests are a pain, but *nothing* like Nagrand - the Basin starts to seem to recreate the Crater and Nagrand, then it redeems itself.

Grizzly Hills was pretty fun - despite the bear flanks quest. Havent had any problems, so far - I was irked by the "chased by the wolven" one, but it turned out to be so much fun, I did'nt mind doing it 3 times - and I'm running into that a LOT - the quest is so much fun, I have a blast doing it 3 times. Others, like the one in Dragonblight where you ride the dragon, irked me at first, until I found out the other two could grab the scythe after one killed the elite and then the boss - and I cheated, I parked two on the road below, headed in on a dragon on the main and killed the elite, and then in the time the boss spawned, ran in the other two and nuked him down.

Oh, wait. The dragon bones in Dragonblight...worst one so far, worse than the zeppelin parts in Hellfire. *shudder*. That one hurt. But, I got a small fortune in worm meat, and got a ton of levels making meat feasts, so it was'nt a complete loss.

I've just developed this method: followers on pass on loot, main is looting and is master looter. When I get a collection quest, I first grab one on the main to see if the item is "quest object", or just a white. If it's just a white, the main loots and distributes. If it's a quest item, then the main scouts for sparklies, and then the followers loot - one at a time. When they're done, the main loots. Yeah, it's a pain, but I just think about the extra cloth and leather and exp from having to kill extra mobs. The only one that caused me problems was the bear flanks in GH, because they were being camped by what seemed like a 100 DKs, and the dragon bones, because they were so few and far between.

The pain in the neck quests are short though, for the most part, and over soon, if you do them, and then it's on to fun ones - or good ones, like the herb gathering for Silverbrook in GH, where all of the party members get credit for picking the roots.

The only thing I don't like, so far, is the forced PvP in Grizzly Hills. Interesting idea, but I havent been paying any attention to PvP gear, and I don't PvP my team, so stepping into the zones on my server is insta-death, and I'm seeing a lot of Horde types loitering waiting for players like me to come along. I was gonna try Wintergrasp when I was 80, and could craft the PvP sets (leather and cloth), but I'm irked a questline requires going into PvP to complete. I'll probably grin and bear it, and sneak in some early morning when nobody is on...I wanna finish up GH, so I have to do it. (Plus, okay, I admit it, I havent put one ounce into thinking *how* to PvP my team...don't know if my builds are even any good for it)


Each zone so far has had a seeming balance of traditional gather quests, a few escort quests, morethan a few info-gathering quests, and then some new types, like the harpoon one in HF, or the "throw the lamp oil at the wolven" one in GH. Or the baby murlocks. Funniest. Quests. Ever. It seems too, that there's more rational reasons *why* you're getting a lot of the gathered stuff this time around. I love the opening quest in SB, where you help *build* the flightpoint! More of that! Or the mule quest in HF. Or the DEHTA quests.

Come to think of it, Wrath has been a blast so far!

[OzPhoenix]

Gadzooks,

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Certainly I'm posting from my own personal viewpoint here, and completely respect that others may have differing opinions.

I guess you're Alliance right? The reason I ask is that how you described the zones and quests sounds very different to what I went through, especially Grizzly Hills, which seemed to me to be (outside of the pit) one uninteresting collection quest after another.

As to all party members getting credit, I've found so far, exactly one quest that did that, it was in Borean Tundra, and I can't remember the name. I seriously wonder if the quest is just bugged, since it stands out (on Horde side anyway) singularly for it's group-reward method.

[Gadzooks]

Gadzooks,

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Certainly I'm posting from my own personal viewpoint here, and completely respect that others may have differing opinions.

I guess you're Alliance right? The reason I ask is that how you described the zones and quests sounds very different to what I went through, especially Grizzly Hills, which seemed to me to be (outside of the pit) one uninteresting collection quest after another.

As to all party members getting credit, I've found so far, exactly one quest that did that, it was in Borean Tundra, and I can't remember the name. I seriously wonder if the quest is just bugged, since it stands out (on Horde side anyway) singularly for it's group-reward method.

Yup - I have this wierd attraction to Alliance toons. I start Horde toons, but lose interest pretty quickly, dunno why. I'm not one of those "I hate the Horde!" jerks, either. I'm thinking of making a 3-DK team, and this time, go Horde, though, I like the look of DK Blood Elves.

I understand where you're coming from, though - I experienced the pain of collection quests in vanilla and BC, leveling.

I think the key is, Blizzard allows us to multi-box, and supports us doing it when attacked, but I don't think they consider us at all when designing quests and instances and abilities/buffs. Like it's been discussed, the leveling mechanics are designed primarily for solo players (or so it seems), with some regard for groups, but the issues have been there since release of vanilla - I distinctly remember grouping with friends in my old guild, and the "Are you done yet?" comments in vent on collection quests - but they were more bearable then, because we'd entertain each other while doing them.

Some things, you have to grin and bear it, I guess. And you are absolutely entitled to an opinion - I would'nt bother writing here if people's opinions were'nt respected - this community is a shiny gem of equality in a morass of snob forums and the insanity and uselessness of the WoW forums. There are some genuinely talented and intelligent people here, I may not post much, but this forum makes the difference between sucking it up and trying again when I fail at something, and hitting "cancel" when the jerks in the game and the WoW forums get to me.

My New Year's Resolution this year is to stop going to the WoW forums completely, and hang out here more.

[Owltoid]

I modified my macros/script and am now using a leaderless setup. Collection quests are about 1/10 of the pain in the butt they were before. Now I just collect with Owltoid until done, hit F1 which switches my main screen to another druid and then collect with that druid until done. Since I'm only 3 boxing I do it one more time and the quest is complete.

Although I have to collect three times the amount of items than a solo player, the fact that I almost never die, can AoE the whole area down with treants and starfall, and cruise through kill quests extraordinarly quick, all in all my questing time is less than a solo. Between level 70 to 71.5 I have earned 2.5k gold through questing (quest rewards, selling unusable items, vendoring everything else).

It does get boring to constantly quest, but using a leaderless setup makes it much, much easier.