WoW is too easy? - discuss

[kevagron]

I've been playing for 18 months now and have 2 x 60, and a few 50+ and I don't consider myself hard-core although I play quite a bit (maybe 25 hours/week).

My first 60 took me about 15 days /played and I only grinded about 2 levels of that, the rest was questing & instances. I can now get a character to 60 in <8 days (10 days max) without any problem, even on a new server.

Compare this to my original Everquest character, shortly after release, which took me 50 days /played!! to hit level 50 - and people were wondering how I leveled so quick :grin: .

I think EQ was too slow, especially the "hell levels" (those old time ex-eq-ers will know what I mean) but conversely I think WoW is too quick/easy. EQ got wise after a while and eased the leveling slowness to a degree but is there a case for WoW to increase the time it takes to get to level 60?

Take instances, in EQ you lived in them for weeks at a time, in WoW you run them maybe 2-3 times at most and then you have a) got all the items you need from them and b) normally have levelled past the point where they are useful (generalising there, some people will do instances a lot). I've been in groups at lvl 60 with people who have never been in an instance before and it usually shows, badly. At 60 you may run Strat/Scholo dozens of times to get what you want but this post is about getting to 60.

So, is WoW too easy, is getting to the "end game" and level 60 something that should be slowed down so people will experience more of the content and/or spread out the levelling curve?

Discussion appreciated, flaming will be ignored :tongue:

[Loriel]

Some background: I've never played Everquest, although I've dabbled a bit in City of Heroes, SWG and also Guild Wars (which is strictly speaking not an MMO). Like you I have played for 18+ months now, and I have 2 x 60 and a 50. Both my 60s are or have been active raiders.

Compared to other MMOs, the leveling curve in WoW is a lot more casual friendly - which I think is a key part of its huge success. A game that requires 50 days /played to get to level 50 would certainly not manage to keep my attention, and the same is probably true of other "casual" gamers who weren't into MMOs in the first place. WoW has captured a much wider audience on this factor alone.

Personally I think WoW strikes the right balance with their leveling curve, as you feel you're rewarded as you increase levels - and you don't really have to put in that much time to achieve the next level. 15 days played is 360 hours, which is a fairly significant chunk of time for a casual gamer. Artificially extending that process without adding content to back it up would in my opinion just dilute the gaming experience, and it would probably involve extensive grinding - which I never particularly enjoyed.

I don't know much about the Everquest endgame, but the design of WoW is certainly fairly top heavy. There is a lot of stuff to do at 60, so the leveling up process is seen by some as simply the tutorial of the game. Add in the old cliche about "life starts at 60", and you might appreciate that there is no need to extend that tutorial.

I will say, though, that the current WoW endgame is very raid oriented, and in my opinion the game is sorely lacking in character advancement for those who can't (or won't) get involved in raiding. Many of these casual gamers end up rolling an army of alts, and achieve maybe 5-6 lvl 60 characters - all in pre-raiding blues and greens. You could argue that for these players the 1-60 process should be extended and augmented in some way, but then they are simply walking though familiar territory once more, killing the same mobs and doing the same quests/instances. As such, extending the leveling up process would add little value, in my opinion.

As for instances, it is true that most players run some instances once or twice, just to get their quests done before leveling beyond them. Other instances can be skipped entirely, if nothing else for their tediousness (Uldaman..). I don't really see a problem with this, though. That instance is a one-off experience that you can run with your friends and/or guildies, and there are so many instances to choose from that you'll soon find a new challenge. Forcing you to spend weeks in a single instance would achieve little beyond adding frustration to many players, so I don't really see any reason to change this system.

Regarding the thesis that WoW is too easy, then yes - I would have to agree that the lvl 1-60 process is pretty simple, and even casual non-MMO'er can easily get to 60. All it requires is time, there's not a lot of skill involved. If you want challenging content, you'll find it in the lvl 60 endgame instances (Strat, Scholo, Dire Maul) and also in raiding. I ran BWL with my guild last night, and we downed Nefarian - an accomplishment that I would not classify as "easy".

Just my $0.02 :)

[Krald]

Slowing the leveling process is not a good thing. As it is now, someone can play two characters to 60 without overlapping too much content (barring instances) because there is a nice amount of zones to choose from. That is a good thing, it takes away some linearity to it and it's mildly fun, plus you're always going to different places all the time.

I've played everquest2, and I've been in some places for so long that it almost made me physically sick to go back to them again, because leveling took too long given the amount (or lack) of content there and there were not really any viable alternatives either.

Fast leveling curve is not a weakness for this game, I'm fine to progress only by gear at 60 too. It is possible to "cap out" your gear depending upon what you like to do (if you don't like to raid at all that cuts out a lot) but.. it's all fine I think.

[bwirum]

If levelling a character to 60 in WoW took much longer than it does today, it would drive away 75% of the playerbase, including me. Blizzard said somewhere, sometime that only 25% of the accounts had ever seen a Ragnaros kill, that should give some insight to how many people are actually stepping on from the casual state.

My best bet is that if levelling to 60 took more time than now, you'd also loose he casual raiders here, meaning probably only 8-12% of the accounts would have seen a Rag kill. That is given that they'd still have as many players, which I highly doubt.

I think the levelling process is fine as is, it gives options as to getting more chars to 60 if you like. More work on it would mean that if you finally got your char to 60 and you found that you actually didn't like raiding or doing late-game instances with that char, you'd more likely quit the game, thus freeing Blizzard of $15/month, than start a new char.

[Mordivine]

I would say that the standard levelling speed is okay, what i would personally get rid off is the rested xp bonus.
I often found myself log on with almost a levels worth of rested after being away for a week and found that in no time at all i had out levelled the area i was questing in.
In a sense blizzard where pushing me faster through zones than i would have liked. Yes i could have stayed around and beat up on green mobs but i like a challange and killing greens just isn't it.
Remove rested and add in more inventive quest lines and it would probably be a perfect levelling speed for a game of WoWs design.

[Kuroishi]

You can get a Char from 1 --> 60 in 8 Days!

And you're saying you ain't hardcore, yeah right...

[wiganer]

I think Blizz have done quite well with the levelling curve but if anything it is a shade too slow for me.....

I took a warrior to level 60 to find that I dont enjoy tanking in 60+ instances so had to go back to the drawing board and reroll.........

I am now up to 43, 36 and 36 in my three alts and I have been playing the game since pretty soon after release..... If anything I'd say levelling a second toon is too slow as I have already seen most of what there is to see on the way up and the leveling 'reward' happens too infrequently as you get to higher levels to keep the enjoyment level as high as it was first time through......

I'd also like to play some of the other classes to 60 but will never have the time with the level cap raising, hell it will only be 12 months or so until the second expansion is relased with a level 80 experience cap......

[Mordivine]

You can get a Char from 1 --> 60 in 8 Days!

And you're saying you ain't hardcore, yeah right...

If for example i only played 2 days a month getting 1 --> 60 in 8 days /played would be easy.
Rested XP would mean that you are probably pulling 40-50k an hour grinding and questing.
Its how long in RL it takes to do thost 8 /played that counts :P

[kevagron]

Yes, 8 days /played usually means a lot of rested xp as I mess around with a lot of alts and alternate :smiley: between them.

Also having leveled 4 characters to 50+ and others to some levels between 20 - 45 mean I know exactly what order to do areas, which quests not to bother with because they are time consuming grinds etc.

For example, I know to go to Shimmering flats at lvl 30-31, do those quests but bank the turtle meat I collect, then when I go to Southshore I can just hand in 10 turtle meat and complete a quest as soon as I get given it. Xp/hour goes way up when you can complete a quest in 2 seconds.

Also, doing the right rotation in STV, combining Grom'Gol (horde) quests with Nessingwary and Booty bay quests often means completing 2 or even 3 quests at the same time.

My personal opinion, leveling is a bit too quick, hence the reason for my original post. 50 days played to reach 50 is insane, but maybe 25-30 would present more of a challenge while still allowing people to get to 60 over time.

Seems like not many agree with me :rolleyes:

[deamian]

I'm just going to say that My wife and I enjoy in WoW, many things that just were not possible in Everquest. Soloing, Duoing, instance duo to gear up alts, Soloing...not being forced to group... and Soloing.

And I played EQ for 4+years, there wasn't really anything else. But I went back in Sept during the free acct activation, played a caster.. out of mana.. sat down for 5...5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! minutes to get mana back.. screw that.

[djiss]

My personal opinion, leveling is a bit too quick, hence the reason for my original post. 50 days played to reach 50 is insane, but maybe 25-30 would present more of a challenge while still allowing people to get to 60 over time.

Seems like not many agree with me :rolleyes:
It's depend of player motivation. If I'm leveling a new toon to 60 to raid, I don't want to waste month to do it. But also, when we want to powerleveling, we often need to go grind instead of questing and then leveling become boring.
And keep in mind it also depend of the class... You can't level a pally at the same rate than a rogue. I know, I'm doing it and it freaking long. /salute all lev 60 pally

Blizz stated somewhere they added enough quest we shouldnt "need" to go out and grind xp from mob. I just wonder if they talk about 61-70 only of the whole thing.

[Mallstrop]

There's no challenge in leveling up to 60 since you're allways moving fowards and never backwards.

Personally, I'm working on my 5th,6th and 7th level 60 at the moment, they're all stuck in the mid levels, 33,37 and 41. The only challenge for me is to keep pushing until I get past these annoying levels. These are the levels that tend to hurt me every time, all the running around to find things worth killing tends to change my feelings towards the class.

My paladin took 18 months to hit 60 since every few levels I'd go and make an alt, and 3 of them hit 60 in that time. The otehr 3 made it to the 30's in that time, now I've gone back to try and finnish them off. In the end I pushed through to 60, even taking a month off when I hit 55 and 58.

I played EQ2 for a while, at around level 15 all my classes really started losing the ability to solo level. Since I don't allways have time to get a group together, or the patience I quite like the current system.

The only difficulty comes into the game when you either PVP or raid. PvP difficulty is set by the other faction.

End game raiding is the only place Blizz can really set the difficulty, looking at the current ladder of instances, most people can't make it into AQ40 or Naxx, but these days, a lot of guilds can get upto atleast razorgore.

[Krald]

My first character took like 21 days /played to 60, my second character I took to 60 took something like 26 days. This was simply because I took my time and enjoyed everything I could such as battleground PvP (on the 2nd 60 at least) and instances. My priest was at like 16 days though, my third 60 that was.

Anyway, if you don't "grind" and just play to have fun, you don't have to cap out so fast, but it's an option if that is what is fun for you. So my suggestion is, if leveling is too fast, just.. don't go so fast then :p.

[mesonm]

Getting a toon to 60 in 8days /played isn't tough at all...

As for WOW being too easy...If it was harder, I doubt 30-50% of the casual players would be here...Thus blizz has made a goldmine out of a game where EVERYONE can make it to 60, and where there is no end, no place to win.


My personal opinion, leveling is a bit too quick, hence the reason for my original post. 50 days played to reach 50 is insane, but maybe 25-30 would present more of a challenge while still allowing people to get to 60 over time.

Seems like not many agree with me :rolleyes:

I am one of those that disagrees.

:thumbsup:

[NOYB]

There's already a game(s) that appeal to those that want a slow/gradual progression.

I find that WoW isn't too fast, but just about right. It still takes somewhat of a committment to level to 60. Besides, you'll be getting your wish with the increase to 70. Lots more quests and grind. Yay!

[rgirty]

The reason that wow is so popular is because it is easy, and believe me it is cheap and very easy. Let us take some other real world examples. I doubt very many people sit down to play wow and say "they should make this hard!"

1# food restaurant = mcdonalds, because it is cheap and easy.
1# product retailer in the world = wal mart it is cheap and easy.

[Trepidation]

The reason that wow is so popular is because it is easy, and believe me it is cheap and very easy. Let us take some other real world examples. I doubt very many people sit down to play wow and say "they should make this hard!"

1# food restaurant = mcdonalds, because it is cheap and easy.
1# product retailer in the world = wal mart it is cheap and easy.

True. Best way to get money out of someone’s pocket is to make them feel that something easy and reasonably priced was an accomplishment.

Doesn't anyone ever wonder why furniture stores don't ever not have sales? Make somebody think they are getting a good deal when you are really robbing them blind is brilliant IMO.

[Seeo]

I made a fr00b acct on Anarchy Online... it's still "good old AO" :)

Although the graphics are out of date, it's still fun as hell. And complicated as hell to get the hang of tradeskills and nano clusters and implants and all that jazz...

All in all I give Anarchy online a 8/10
But I give WoW a 9/10

One game I want to try is Neocron 2.0... Underground n' cool...

[kreyson]

It's depend of player motivation. If I'm leveling a new toon to 60 to raid, I don't want to waste month to do it. But also, when we want to powerleveling, we often need to go grind instead of questing and then leveling become boring.
And keep in mind it also depend of the class... You can't level a pally at the same rate than a rogue. I know, I'm doing it and it freaking long. /salute all lev 60 pally

Blizz stated somewhere they added enough quest we shouldnt "need" to go out and grind xp from mob. I just wonder if they talk about 61-70 only of the whole thing.

After playing beta TBC a while (I know the leveling curve has been softened for beta only), that there is a TON of quests and dungeons to hit. I can totally see how at least 75% of your xp is going to come from quests/instances with little "Grinding" solely for XP.

After exploring the majority of the zones. The amount of content they have packed in is staggering.

[Skumhesten]

I can accept the time it take to level a 60 but hate the way you got the "good" stuff. All the best stuff only come for raids who normaly take 3+ hours or so.
There is many players like me with family (wife and kids) who dont can sit down and play for so long time every day. Wish you could get so nice stuff some other way than have to raid for a little chance to get a wanted part of your equitment (If you dont lose in a roll).

[rgirty]

with the new honor system and 1 hour 5 man runs casuals like myself will be able to get equipment easier, making hte game more enjoyable for sure.

[djiss]

After playing beta TBC a while (I know the leveling curve has been softened for beta only), that there is a TON of quests and dungeons to hit. I can totally see how at least 75% of your xp is going to come from quests/instances with little "Grinding" solely for XP.

After exploring the majority of the zones. The amount of content they have packed in is staggering.

Ah man, that's very good news for leveling from 60-70.

I wonder if they added quest for lower level. They surely added some for the starting Dranei/Blood Elf zone but elsewhere?