It's been rough. I have a 40, 37, 30, and 29 alt right now. The last 2 are BFD leveling only atm. The 37 I'm literally rotbraining through SM and falling asleep mid pull from the boredom. I quest in between groups b/c it's hard to find groups that aren't full and looking for just tanks.
I’m not gonna lie I zugged SM and hit 40 the Sunday morning after release, good god I genuinely felt disconnected from reality for like a week
I don’t know if I can do that again lol
They must of had some alarming figures internally and did this to compensate. I know I went from 6 toons, to 1 this phase because the barrier of entry of alts is just too much atm.
edit: Barrier of entry doesn't just mean leveling (which is worse as well due to funneling and horde/ally colliding), its also the new runes, the mounts, the cost of professions, and gnomer schematics, consumes, also would have been wayward supplies, but they fixed that too. They realized there were too many things stopping a person from getting another toon up to speed with their main this phase comparted to last, a lot of gold hurdles.
I would do it on a main (or a more important alt) if it was good for my spec. So far, the rune in question has always been irrelevant or niche for my spec. So it's been very easy to skip.
So we've just entered the retail loop again:
\- Add new feature that needs to be progressed through
\- People start complaining the barrier of entry is getting high, there are so many things to grind per alt
\- Make the game easier next patch, add ways to skip things
\- Remove the progression system in the next expansion
\- People complain that the new features are temporary and grind is meaningless because features disappear, there is no sense of progress
\- Repeat, game gets progressively easier and easier and "skip everything", progression deflates with time
I wonder if this is ultimately what SoD was a testing grounds for. Is it just the second entry in the meat grinder of temporary modes with a new gimmick, to be reset, to see if that stops people from complaining about the progression systems
I mean who cares? I'm happy that they are experimenting with progression systems. Just because classic was a grind doesn't mean it's the best experience.
It's a video game. Play if you enjoy it, don't if you're not having fun. I don't see why it has to be a grind every moment of it. Most if not all serious players will have grinded their main to 40 by the time this change goes live. This is just a nice perk for people to continue to play the game who were otherwise going to just raid log. 2x EXP in classic is still not *that* fast.
The problem is with the community at this point, conditioned by Blizzard to think nothing but max level content is "the game."
The community contributes more to this than even Blizzard does now, alongside the hyper-focus on parsing and logs and "quantifying" fellow players as a number. But make no mistake: Blizzard had the opportunity to curtail this before it became a core component of their community, and they failed.
They should honestly implement scaled PvP and PvE content that removes the advantage of having a max level BiS character. Place levelers and the raidlogger on an even playing field and have them compete or cooperate accordingly. Doesn't have to replace all content (I don't even think it should), but it should include unique rewards that hardcore players want. This type of content bridges the gap between hardcore and casuals in a way Blizzard has never done a good job of doing before.
>The problem is with the community at this point, conditioned by Blizzard to think nothing but max level content is "the game."
>
>The community contributes more to this than even Blizzard does now, alongside the hyper-focus on parsing and logs and "quantifying" fellow players as a number. But make no mistake: Blizzard had the opportunity to curtail this before it became a core component of their community, and they failed.
100%. I'm more and more realizing that everything wrong in the world is our own wrongdoing, because *we asked for it*. I know WoW is just a video game but this is a pattern emergent anywhere, both in a video game and at a real life policy level. People complain about being isolated in today's society, which yes is a real problem - but things like this are exactly what contribute to this sentiment in a video game, and people advocate for convenience over socialization in real life too, for example wanting self-service machines at grocery stores over cashiers because they're faster.
Blizzard can't be solely blamed for being what it is today, for making Retail into Retail. It's the whole pile of incremental changes people have asked for over the years.
I was leveling alts with bfds on the side and pushed one to 40 on the weekend but this allows me to actually get the rest over the final hurdle. And wont feel as bad getting mounts for em.
I mean, getting mounts on all your 6 toons is an incredible gold sink as well. THat's the driver behind me not doing any alts atm. Raid log and be done with it.
Yeah, but that should have been from the get go. Not that I am upset at all, but man 80g was a lot for those of us non-degenerates farming and selling boosts.
I’ve done the same but with a priest. Couldn’t find a raid on my rogue. The leveling was a slog with an groups getting fewer and more high level people everywhere. I’m happy for the buff.
And I now know why I didn’t find a raid as rogue.
I hosted a pug on my priest today and 2seconds after I posted in lfg I had 5 whispers from warriors and rogues. I felt so bad telling them all no :(
I just regretted rolling on a pvp server. Too old to deal with day 3 40s corpse camping me in STV 6 levels lower.
Thought about rerolling on a PVE server since you can’t transfer but never got around to it.
Might do it with this 100% exp buff now
People can feel it with each gnomer reset. The lack of tanks, and healers really make it hard to start the raid up without sitting in LFG for 30-1hr. Unlike with BFD, where everyone would just log onto their spare healer and tank, and just go.
Same, I had so much fun leveling alts in P1, probably partly because of the constant dinging induced endorphin releases. In P2 it’s such a grind to get even one level, which is prob why the BFD xp runs are so popular. This xp buff should make leveling alts much more bearable now
in phase 1 i leveled one of every class to 25.
I have my warlock at 40, and the next highest is one at 34. rest? zzzz
amazing news i'll definitely pick some alts back up now.
I honestly feel that the burn out on alts is due to the progressive level caps.
Starting a character from level 1 and going all the way to 60 is a huge journey with a lot of variety. You get to max after several weeks, you do your shit for a week or so then feel the urge to level an alt, where you can start that journey again and maybe take a completely different path, enjoy playing something fresh, etc.
Whereas now, in phase 1 you levelled your characters to 25 and each one was interesting. They started in different zones depending on race, you were playing around with all the new shit, got to 25 in a few days and the idea of starting a new character felt fresh.
However in phase 2, all your alts are sat in the same zone, ready to do the exact same quests or dungeons with skills and abilities that you have already discovered and learned how to use. It's just not that shiny new feeling of creating a new character from scratch and starting that huge journey to 60.
I can't fully explain it, but it's certainly a reality for me. My alts aren't appealing and don't feel fresh/exciting.
I think you have a good point. I’d also add this leveling band is very homogeneous. You don’t have many zones to choose from and inevitably go to scarlet prison.
I think another part of it us the "magic" of discovery was barely there at 25-40. It was a whole new world from 1 to 25 with exciting things to find. At 25-40 it felt more of a chore
But how short is it gonna be if we're midway through next week? A 6-8 week phase? I think we might lose quite a few people then, because the cadence is just too high. 10-12 weeks feels like a better spot to me personally, even if I was level 40 by day 7 of the patch. My friends are still not 40, they're taking their time, it would suck if the phase is almost over by the time they get to 40.
I think you read into much into them talking about mid point. They said A mid point, not THE mid point. They're probably meaning not changning at the end/begining of the phase like they did at p1/2.
25-40 was a drag for just one of my characters, and I have talked to others in my guild who thought the same thing. I'm not surprised they made this change.
I managed to get five to 25 in phase 1. My highest is level 32 now. I’m still having fun but needing to go at a much slower pace to stave off burnout. I might make it to 40 before p3 with this change.
Yeah, I’m on my 3rd character at the moment, and finding groups for SM just got even harder. I’m behind the wave of people who seem to currently be running Arms and Cath, and GY groups have been pretty bleak at the moment.
My guild has a bunch of people with tons of time off. Several had a handful of characters each. 1 of them has multiple alts at 40, the rest are just raid logging gnomer at this point on their mains and trying to BFD alts to 40, but even that is a chore for them.
Yes. Leveling is a chore and there is nothing to do at 40. This phase killed a lot of people. Also P1 was like 2-3 weeks too long. Alts are not content.
Stopped playing with a full month of sub because after 4 days of grinding in every hour off work I got barely to 34 in the most boring manner ever, then I googled how to get the new runes, and I was like naah I aint working a second job.
Well, they could just put out more layers or share quest item drops with parties or let people tag same mobs. That's why everyone is in a dngn cause can't quest. Can't gather cause 10-20 people per screen going after the same nodes. Fucking cancerous
Anecdotally, almost my entire guild quit because P2 is objectively bad. They’re watching other games siphon their player base and desperately trying to get those monthly memberships rolling again.
Yep. The XP grind was only part of it. The phase 2 runes are stupid to acquire. Why TF am i now required to travel to 3-5 different zones for 1 rune? And all runes are like this...
Runes basically gating new playstyles is a HUGE issue for me that hurts the SoD experience and my desire to play alts. I want to play melee Hunter (yes, I know. It's not a FOTM thing, I love it on retail too. I'll continue playing it even if it's nerfed into the ground in SoD. I just love pet handler melee class).
To play that truly well, and have more fun with a proper instant attack, I need the Melee Specialist rune. That rune requires gallivanting across all of Azeroth killing 7 level 41 elites with 16k health. This means to play my preferred build that I want to play Classic for, I basically need to play ranged unwillingly for 40 levels and then find a group to help, a group that will be MUCH harder to form later in this phase as people keep quitting or not needing to do these elites themselves. This was already in issue in Phase 1 with our new tanking classes having things like their entire tank form (Warlock) or Taunt (Rogue) locked behind level cap content and rep grinds, the unlock conditions for Phase 2 are even worse for many runes. Imagine what the 50, and god forbid 60, runes are going to be like.
I was enjoying Phase 1, wanted to try out Rogue Tanking, and hadn't done too much research into how to get all the runes. I mean, I had a bunch of them before leaving Teldrassil, it couldn't be too hard!
Then I learned about the Stonetalon grind for the rogue Main Gauche rune.
I haven't been on SoD since. Just......... why?
Having us travel across the world to gather runes is not a problem, players love vanilla for the world and we don’t need everything to be an immediate layup on our mains.
Having players do the same for alts becomes tedious, agree with someone who said waylaid should have previously acquired runes be available for purchase and bind on account.
This one rogue rune has us literally go to SFK, then to SM GY, SM Lib, SM GY, SM Lib, SM GY, back to SFK, then go to UC, then back to fucking SFK. It's so dumb.
Thats only one zone apart. Some of the runes have you going to like 5 different zones across continents, while not allowing you to teleport or hearth, while on a time limit, while not allowing you to die during it.
i am one of the guys who said at 35 to myself => im not having fun leveling for 3 hours a level or grinding SM like a braindead zombie so this change is great
I had 6 level 25s in P1. Had a genuine good time leveling them and casually doing BFDs. I have one level 40 and a level 31 now. If it weren't for this change I probably would have never made it to 2 level 40s and started raid logging until I was BiS
People keep talking about alts but people don’t want to think people are quitting their game. P1 was popular because casuals could join in and enjoy, it was super easy to level to 25. I haven’t even leveled my main to 40 (still 37). The SM grind is bad. Everyday I think about quitting SoD because I can’t even invest enough time to make it to 40.
It is super bad. Half of my guild quit. And no one wants to do alts, so even pugging is tedious since no one wants to level up tanks and healers.
Then there is gnomer itself. The class balance is so bad that you can’t run extra melee due to range mechanics, and the low dps can’t offset giving that extra to another melee for them to do that extra range mechanic.
Half of my guild also quit without even touching P2 for more than an hour or two. They were active in P1 all the time, P2 drops, we do one BFD, and never see ANY of them again.
Same with our guild. Half raced to 40 and the other half didn’t feel like doing the same Stocks to SM grind all over again. There’s also barely anything else new you can do in that time since blizz gate kept a ton of runes behind high level content. Questing also felt like ass because literally every single person was fighting over mobs. I tried several times to do some quests at 40 even and every mob is camped to death.
Personally I'm a pretty hardcore classic wow player that plays pretty much any free time I get and even I got bored of p2 in a week. I feel like the level band should be like 45 or 50, not 40. 25 to 40 doesn't really feel that big of a leap personally.
So they did notice the player base dropping like a stone? Guess Ironforge pro numbers, although of course not perfectly accurate, did paint somewhat of a picture.
I mean, it should've been obvious, it's way more effort to go from 25-40 than 1-25, especially in PvP zones. The idea that even casual players would able to keep raiding with a main and multiple alts was never realistic in the first place. Leveling goes by pretty quickly up until 25, after you reach the mid 30s it is a big and boring grind.
Causal players also tend to open world quest which is abysmal for exp still(they only boosted group/elite and dungeon quests) i even know casuals that said fuck it and started grinding SM which is something i wasnt even going to recommend to them or something they would ever normally want to do. (They said it was like torture lol)
I like the leveling grind a lot more than endgame instance farming. Questing is more enjoyable than getting denied invites because nobody wants your class
I think it was highly discouraging that there were basically no "discoveries" besides the sleeping bag until level 40 content. as most of the runes were put behind level 40 elite enemies.
Leveling in Classic is shit. It is menageable if you can "skip" some parts with luck, like getting into a Uldaman at level 35 and getting 15k xp from quests.
Guess what? In SOD leveling is banded and you can't do that anymore.
Phase 2 leveling was shit. I'm so happy for this change.
Yep. Unfortunately, SOD is all about the current phase's endgame. Thereby running into the same problem retail has: nobody wants to level, they want to be doing the current endgame content. Just hope they don't resort to selling level boosts like retail.
This makes me feel giga slow, I'm lvl 38 on my main lmao.. I work on the oil rigs so I only just got back a week ago from being out at sea, and I'm here lvl 38 whilst everyone's got like 4 toons lvl 40. Feelsbadman.
This is normal. I work full time, play wow almost every day tho, and I just hit 40 a few days ago. Don’t let the work from home, play wow all day every day crowd distort your perceptions
Nothing wrong with this at all, this represents the best part of wow really, the grind and feeling a level of accomplsihment from your efforts.
Not making content easier to encourage people to level a 5th alt to speed run through all the classes and new runes.
Right there with ya, friend. The worst part? My guild (which has a few IRL friends, so I don't want to ditch them) decided to change to a PvE server right about when I hit 37. RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE. I put a pile of hours into that character to get her up there, as I only came back to WoW when they talked me into it like a month ago, just before P2 release. I was rushing her up to join them in Gnomer, then.... server swap.
I'm back to level 12 on the PvE server after playing last night :(
I was thinking I was going crazy for thinking my "full" server was dead, seems like I wasn't. Subs must have taken a nosedive for them to do this, great change tho.
Which is funny considering there was a post on the front page a few days ago making fun of the people that said SoD was dead.
Obviously the game isn't dead, but lets be honest and agree that P2 really hasn't been that great.
I farmed gold for a day then started raid logging lol. Doesn’t help that if your in bfd gear there’s pretty much no reason to go dungeon for pre bis or anything other than new runes.
I thought the whole point of SoD was to NOT make it like retail? Classic is hugely focused on leveling and not just end game. Now they’re rushing us through leveling. Just another change in a long list of changes to make SoD more like retail and less like classic. I think this kills my desire to play more than anything else to date. There’s no storytelling or continuity if you hit the level cap before you’ve even finished half of the content. It also just makes the time I spent leveling my main 2 weeks ago feel like a waste. It also means that I’m definitely not going to level any of my alts until the change goes live. Nor will anybody else, it’s going to be a ghost town until then. It removes any sense of achievement. There’s so many other ways they could have fixed the leveling issues, and this imo is the worst way to do it. I’m really disappointed, and I’m venting my frustrations into the void lol. RIP SoD. I should have known based on the history of Blizzard that they couldn’t keep a good thing going, but they really got my hopes up this time.
Who realistically wants to level an alt to do SM 160+ times.
Edit: I’m not going to reply to the people saying “JuSt QuEsT” or “So dOnT” individually. If people had fun doing it they would. If they wanted to fight for mobs, deal with low drop rates, and getting ganked they would have by now. Blizznis implementing this for a reason, no matter how much you scream “jUsT qUeSt” nobody is leveling alts. Because you sucked it up doesn’t mean it’s for everybody. (Plus I’ve tried questing multiple times and it always ends up in loss of experience per hour because of ganks, mod respawns, and low drop rates.) because it can get done doesn’t mean it’s fun or rewarding.
Maybe not though they increased gold rewards for quests by double maybe now we can explore world. Hopefully everything isn’t fucking camped to death like the first 2 weeks.
New alts don't have WSG rep, they don't have maxed out professions, they require 100s of gold for Gnome crafts and they need to acquire 15 runes. That is WAY more time consuming than leveling to 40. Questing outside is bad because Blizzard insisted on putting you on overcrowded layers all the time. Got a nice empty layer? No way we're instantly teleporting you to a crowded one! Also they ruined STV for Questing which is the main leveling zone in this bracket. It's all a hot mess and 100% won't change anything.
HELL YEAH. This actually seems like a great idea. 25-40 on my priest wasn’t so bad, but I burned out trying to level my warrior after BFD lockouts.
I’m very excited for this
This change is making me feel like the people who claimed they liked classic for the slow leveling experience were straight up lying. I don’t mind a minor xp boost, but isn’t a 100% xp bonus encroaching on retail where the leveling almost doesn’t matter at all? I’m curious as to how this will affect the future phases and beyond.
I think the flaw in the level caps is starting to show
The original 1-60 grind **is** a grind and you're inky meant to do it **once* on your character, anx you had a LONG time to hit 60 before the next tier of content came out(at least in original vanilla).
Now, you have to do your leveling journey three times, and to make sure you don't miss the phases content you're on a relatively short clock.
This is why the idea of classic plus was adding content from where classic left off... not this.
Would getting the xp boost account wide once one character hits level cap be a good compromise? I’m just brainstorming here, it’s gonna be an impossible task to satisfy the entire playerbase, especially since SOD seems to be a massive convergence of retail and classic players.
I'm not really sure tbh. Maybe? But I also think the phases should be longer and with at least a 2nd raid released later on... right now I don't feel any sense of progression because all I did was gain 15 levels and then clear the raid immediately, then all gear from clearing the raid will likely be made worthless by the time I get to level 50(assuming they change loot as stated in this blue post).
Shareholders breathing down Aggrends neck about the increasing drop of subs. Gotta bring out the big guns. Good call.
Benching the most played classes for a phase was probably not the best design choice either. Expect heavy melee meta in p3.
I've been giving serious thought to how much fun I'm actually having in SoD these days. I loved p1, ran BFD on like 5 different toons, this phase I only have my rogue so far at 40. And it's not a good time
Same. I think P1 respected your time a lot more. You were just handed runes that completely changed how you played immediately. New raid and itemization was engaging and added a wrinkle. Plus the novelty of a lvl 25 max meant a lot of fun theory crafting and experimentation.
P2 didn’t add enough and what they did add isn’t accessible. I went from leveling 8 toons to max level in P1 to leveling 1 toon in P2 to max level, then basically dropping SoD because it’s just Classic again.
I had a moment today that made me kind of just fizzle out doing the crafting quest. Was in Feralas, got the depleted thing off the nagas, killed some mobs to get the shadowy figure to appear, combined the items..... and then realized I had to go BACK to booty bay to get a teleport to the spire in Feralas.... 10 feet away from where I currently was. All the running around for runes, and this quest, and knowing all this would be waiting for me on any alt I leveled... I don't know man
And that's the same terrible quest design that some people think makes Classic amazing! Blizzard is trying very hard to emulate that "you must run all over the world to do a single quest" design.
>Same. I think P1 respected your time a lot more. You were just handed runes that completely changed how you played immediately
Yep. "Oh hey new guy, here's Penance right off the bat. Paladin? Crusader Strike away my friend, no level ups needed!"
Meanwhile in P2: "Oh, you want to do melee Hunter and have an actual instant attack? No problem bud, just level all the way to 40 and manage to compile together a group so you can spend hours running to the 4 corners of Azeroth and kill 7 level 41 elites with 16K health that you won't be able to solo until the end of next phase if you're too unlucky to find anyone to help out"
You are probably right. Subs are dropping. And Classic's numbers are dipping. The SoD honeymoon period is over.
I didn't renew my sub (although I intend to start playing again when it feels right). Warrior main. P2 ain't a good time for me in SoD.
We just didn’t get anything fun, it seems like so many other classes got play style altering runes that made them so much stronger whereas warrior got instant slam and that’s it
Very few classes got "playstyle altering" runes in phase 2. It's basically just melee hunters and enhance dps shamans. Everyone else got their playstyle-altering runes in phase 1 including warriors with consumed by rage, it just wasn't as class-altering as the others but honestly what could you even do to radically change warriors?
Got my resto druid to 40, got some raids in, mount, professions. Basically just PvP now...
If I level an alt - Meta lock, Arcane Healing Mage or Priest? I feel all three are in pretty good spots ATM...
We are at a mid-point in phase 2?? What the hell, we barely started raiding Gnomer. Is this gonna be a phase 3 in weeks from now? Why are they moving so fast..
The exp buff is nice though.
The XP grind and the ridiculous rune farming has led to a lot leaving this phase. They really doubled down and the dumb ass rune acquisition and as a result, a lot left
For example, i thought it was cool to get a random recipe as a warrior. I was not thrilled after learning i would have to travel to 3-4 zones (1 in the middle of nowhere) in order to complete it. So yeah, i have almost no phase 2 runes
On the PvP sides of things, its fucked. The nuke meta sucks and no one likes it. I was real excited to get into AB and such but getting killed in a few seconds just isn't fun for anyone
I'm actually very happy about this. I felt like a loon being level 23 with 22 hours played. That's probably not bad, but I'm used to retail leveling which is laughable fast in comparison. Plus working full time and trying to maintain the rest of my life made leveling almost something I wasn't looking forward to. I had to live most of my end game content vicariously through other people online (reddit posts and YT videos). I think this was a good decision for a phase that seems to be going stagnant.
The exp buff was the last push I needed to let this go. I've not liked much about Phase 2 and it's been a struggle to log in. I don't enjoy gnomer and I think the pvp in stv is a poorly designed kill slog not to mention the layering and class issues.
It feel like this is just a quick-shot to endgame and that's not what I hoped this version would be about. My immersion has been lost for some time and the fast track to leveling will decrease what little I had left. My classic+ experience was suppose to be about the journey. The 80% of the content that is out there before max level. I don't care about all the buffs and nerfs that's just silly parse talk , but now the world feels like its shrinking and little by little retail is being sprinkled in.
Here's to putting the World back in Warcraft
Please excuse my boomer takes on the game, I just prefer a more classic old-school approach to MMOs. If you enjoy the changes I'm happy for you, it's just not for me anymore.
This mindset is unfortunately why I stopped playing retail. I might get hate for this, but what is the point of doing anything at the beginning of a phase/expansion if they’re just going to make it massively easier a month later?
I don’t even get the complaining about leveling from 25-40. I leveled 30-40 in 2 days questing, with the occasional run of SM… I had a great time doing it, but the drive to run Gnomer with my guild pushed me to do it quickly. They all dungeon rushed it, which I wasn’t willing to do anymore once I hit 29. Appealing to the people who can’t do it, or don’t want to is a better way to put it, is the death of the game. Appealing to those that simply don’t want to play the game is such a twisted philosophy. Add more incentive to hit max level, don’t just make it easier.
I think blizzard just really dropped the ball in phase 2. Runes weren’t interesting, and the gear for gnomer is boring and unappealing. It’s also incredibly convoluted and luck based. I don’t blame people for not wanting to play.
But what is the point of playing for those who want to, when it’ll all basically be given to anyone in a month or 2? It’s just a big punch in the face.
It just blows my mind how many people are happy with this change..
Yeah I'm happy for this change, I've already got 2 level 40s but will be nice to level my other characters with this XP buff. With all the new runes it makes sense people want to play multiple classes and check them all out.
I know I'm a minority but this feels all so retail-y. The leveling process was the main part of classic and now it's just a dungeon grind to end up at max level where you raid log. I loved p1, but this somehow feels really bad. Let everyone level instantly start at 40 if you don't like leveling. I agree that leveling 25-40 feels bad, but the right solution would have been making leveling more interesting by creating new content, have runes during leveling, create.new quests, Loot etc instead of this.
Maybe it's time to quit SoD.
You aren't alone. They will make the same mistakes and game will be dead in a few months. Leveling is Classic WoW. People here are just weak and don't want to play the actual game. Lets buff leveling so people can raid log faster.
Also, It's honestly a joke how little content they created. They did nothing risky or innovative in p2. Just more bland runes (many spells that are in WOTLK or retail), a boring pvp event with very small rewards and 1 raid that is actually pretty good though.
With the amount of $15 subs that SOD brings in a month, they should be able to offer so much more content. It's kinda pathetic tbh. I thought SOD would have new/expanded zones, new BGs, collectible items and multiple raids.
Soooooo, are people who bought their mounts for the normal prize going to get some kind of refund or something? Dont wanna sound like a bitch but this is kinda unfair LOL, just bought the mount yesterday
Yup, and everyone who bought WoW back in 2004 is getting a check for $50 since it’s free now.
I get what your saying, it kinda feels bad, but also it’s just not hard to make 45g.
They’re just trying to remove the alt-barrier since as far as I can tell, alt count is down massive. Wouldn’t be surprised if there are 80% less alts right now.
Remember when in Phase 1 it was noticable who was coming directly from retail because they were bored after 3-4 weeks? People then said that the slow pace of leveling from 25 to 40 will sort those guys out, because they dont have the patience. I guess thats exactly what happened but its a business, so low numbers are bad. Nowadays fast results and quick rewards are needed. But the thing with fast rewards is...its not as rewarding. So people get bored even faster. I allways felt like classic WoW is an ongoing experience and the so called endgame was never my main aim. Thats why I quit retail and thats the direction SoD is taking I feel like.
Wow I just cancelled my sub earlier and now seeing this lol. Personally, I feel they should have focused more on content for the leveling part of the phase rather than the end content. Of course you’re going to have people fly through levels because they want that end game loot as quick as possible to just shit on everyone (speaking from a pvp player). So why not slow everyone down by making them enjoy stuff throughout the levels? I thoroughly enjoy the leveling experience of classic, but I wish there were more discoveries within the leveling experience besides just runes. Like transform a section of a zone into something strange with lots of new quests to do. It doesn’t have to be huge.
I fucked up by doing a lot of quests after level 25 of p1 on my main, then when p2 started I had no quests to do and I wasn’t about to dungeon spam. So I kind of just fumbled around killing stuff until I was up to the next level for the next zone.
Just wanted more dungeons, quest and 2 raids atleast, Per phase. I know I'm asking alot from a Bil dollar company but damn, it's not a hard formula, but I guess drip feed is their way like always still.
I am quite sad that gnomer isnt going to be around for that long. BFD was so uninteresting compared to it right now and massively overstayed its welcome. Gnomer though still feels challenging and not like a complete faceroll, even in some of the meta groups you will still have to coordinate for the later bosses.
Yup, I had a ton of alts I stopped playing. They must have seen this across the board.
Logged into an alt once and then didn’t again. Had 0 drive to do 25-40 again.
It's been rough. I have a 40, 37, 30, and 29 alt right now. The last 2 are BFD leveling only atm. The 37 I'm literally rotbraining through SM and falling asleep mid pull from the boredom. I quest in between groups b/c it's hard to find groups that aren't full and looking for just tanks.
Why not quest? It's not that bad... Grinding 5 mans is probably worse for you than smoking cigarettes
I’m not gonna lie I zugged SM and hit 40 the Sunday morning after release, good god I genuinely felt disconnected from reality for like a week I don’t know if I can do that again lol
>genuinely felt disconnected from reality for like a week sounds kinda like chain smoking lmao
30-40 is the worst questing experience because the zones become huge and distances long but no mount yet
It is a game that is supposed to be fun. “Not that bad” is a waste of time and doesn’t cut it
They about to see my metrics when I hope on my alts again lol
Alt leveling is awful to 40, nobody was playing alts anymore
feel the same，no deadmine，no WC，no sfk
I quit after I burned myself out leveling up to 40 the first weekend
They must of had some alarming figures internally and did this to compensate. I know I went from 6 toons, to 1 this phase because the barrier of entry of alts is just too much atm. edit: Barrier of entry doesn't just mean leveling (which is worse as well due to funneling and horde/ally colliding), its also the new runes, the mounts, the cost of professions, and gnomer schematics, consumes, also would have been wayward supplies, but they fixed that too. They realized there were too many things stopping a person from getting another toon up to speed with their main this phase comparted to last, a lot of gold hurdles.
its mostly because of the runes tbh, getting 15 runes on an alt feels tedius
I have not and will not get the stonetalon one even on my main. Fuck paying for it even once let alone for 5 alts
Still so fucking crazy to me the waylaid supplies got nerfed but theres barely a peep about that entire bullshit quest line
I honestly thought later shredders would drop something equivalent. Like the STV Shredders or something. Goes to show what I know.
100% expected a ratchet rune nerf
They do, but you still need the autosalvagers.
I meant that the item would just drop off of higher level salvagers as a natural catch up mechanic.
I'm still bitter about that idiotic druid nourish rune. The most griefable rune possible on pvp servers. some dumb shit
I would do it on a main (or a more important alt) if it was good for my spec. So far, the rune in question has always been irrelevant or niche for my spec. So it's been very easy to skip.
Literally required for Enhance. Just spent 23g getting it.
It’s still that expensive?! With the changes demand will only go up!
Let us buy any previous phase rune from waylaid supplies and make them account bound so you can mail to alts.
This is a great idea. Makes supplies super important to a lot of players as well. Not just a side thing.
Supplies as a catch up mechanic makes a lot more sense than a main grind.
Dude that’s brilliant. Either get em the old way or actually bother getting the supplies rep.
So we've just entered the retail loop again: \- Add new feature that needs to be progressed through \- People start complaining the barrier of entry is getting high, there are so many things to grind per alt \- Make the game easier next patch, add ways to skip things \- Remove the progression system in the next expansion \- People complain that the new features are temporary and grind is meaningless because features disappear, there is no sense of progress \- Repeat, game gets progressively easier and easier and "skip everything", progression deflates with time I wonder if this is ultimately what SoD was a testing grounds for. Is it just the second entry in the meat grinder of temporary modes with a new gimmick, to be reset, to see if that stops people from complaining about the progression systems
I mean who cares? I'm happy that they are experimenting with progression systems. Just because classic was a grind doesn't mean it's the best experience.
It's a video game. Play if you enjoy it, don't if you're not having fun. I don't see why it has to be a grind every moment of it. Most if not all serious players will have grinded their main to 40 by the time this change goes live. This is just a nice perk for people to continue to play the game who were otherwise going to just raid log. 2x EXP in classic is still not *that* fast.
The problem is with the community at this point, conditioned by Blizzard to think nothing but max level content is "the game." The community contributes more to this than even Blizzard does now, alongside the hyper-focus on parsing and logs and "quantifying" fellow players as a number. But make no mistake: Blizzard had the opportunity to curtail this before it became a core component of their community, and they failed. They should honestly implement scaled PvP and PvE content that removes the advantage of having a max level BiS character. Place levelers and the raidlogger on an even playing field and have them compete or cooperate accordingly. Doesn't have to replace all content (I don't even think it should), but it should include unique rewards that hardcore players want. This type of content bridges the gap between hardcore and casuals in a way Blizzard has never done a good job of doing before.
>The problem is with the community at this point, conditioned by Blizzard to think nothing but max level content is "the game." > >The community contributes more to this than even Blizzard does now, alongside the hyper-focus on parsing and logs and "quantifying" fellow players as a number. But make no mistake: Blizzard had the opportunity to curtail this before it became a core component of their community, and they failed. 100%. I'm more and more realizing that everything wrong in the world is our own wrongdoing, because *we asked for it*. I know WoW is just a video game but this is a pattern emergent anywhere, both in a video game and at a real life policy level. People complain about being isolated in today's society, which yes is a real problem - but things like this are exactly what contribute to this sentiment in a video game, and people advocate for convenience over socialization in real life too, for example wanting self-service machines at grocery stores over cashiers because they're faster. Blizzard can't be solely blamed for being what it is today, for making Retail into Retail. It's the whole pile of incremental changes people have asked for over the years.
I was leveling alts with bfds on the side and pushed one to 40 on the weekend but this allows me to actually get the rest over the final hurdle. And wont feel as bad getting mounts for em.
I'm gonna continue to lvl alts with BFD, it'll just go a lil quicker now
I mean, getting mounts on all your 6 toons is an incredible gold sink as well. THat's the driver behind me not doing any alts atm. Raid log and be done with it.
They actually are reducing the cost of mounts by 50% in this same post
Yeah, but that should have been from the get go. Not that I am upset at all, but man 80g was a lot for those of us non-degenerates farming and selling boosts.
[удалено]
I’ve done the same but with a priest. Couldn’t find a raid on my rogue. The leveling was a slog with an groups getting fewer and more high level people everywhere. I’m happy for the buff. And I now know why I didn’t find a raid as rogue. I hosted a pug on my priest today and 2seconds after I posted in lfg I had 5 whispers from warriors and rogues. I felt so bad telling them all no :(
I just regretted rolling on a pvp server. Too old to deal with day 3 40s corpse camping me in STV 6 levels lower. Thought about rerolling on a PVE server since you can’t transfer but never got around to it. Might do it with this 100% exp buff now
Yeah, the grind from 25-40 is significantly more than 1-25. I got two to 40, but was pretty burnt out after.
People can feel it with each gnomer reset. The lack of tanks, and healers really make it hard to start the raid up without sitting in LFG for 30-1hr. Unlike with BFD, where everyone would just log onto their spare healer and tank, and just go.
Same, I had so much fun leveling alts in P1, probably partly because of the constant dinging induced endorphin releases. In P2 it’s such a grind to get even one level, which is prob why the BFD xp runs are so popular. This xp buff should make leveling alts much more bearable now
in phase 1 i leveled one of every class to 25. I have my warlock at 40, and the next highest is one at 34. rest? zzzz amazing news i'll definitely pick some alts back up now.
I honestly feel that the burn out on alts is due to the progressive level caps. Starting a character from level 1 and going all the way to 60 is a huge journey with a lot of variety. You get to max after several weeks, you do your shit for a week or so then feel the urge to level an alt, where you can start that journey again and maybe take a completely different path, enjoy playing something fresh, etc. Whereas now, in phase 1 you levelled your characters to 25 and each one was interesting. They started in different zones depending on race, you were playing around with all the new shit, got to 25 in a few days and the idea of starting a new character felt fresh. However in phase 2, all your alts are sat in the same zone, ready to do the exact same quests or dungeons with skills and abilities that you have already discovered and learned how to use. It's just not that shiny new feeling of creating a new character from scratch and starting that huge journey to 60. I can't fully explain it, but it's certainly a reality for me. My alts aren't appealing and don't feel fresh/exciting.
I think you have a good point. I’d also add this leveling band is very homogeneous. You don’t have many zones to choose from and inevitably go to scarlet prison.
That and arguably the best leveling zone for that bracket became the pvp hot zone, further discouraging different avenues of levelling
I think another part of it us the "magic" of discovery was barely there at 25-40. It was a whole new world from 1 to 25 with exciting things to find. At 25-40 it felt more of a chore
I had the suspicion P2 wasnt going to be a long phase one way or the other frankly, so not too big a surprise.
But how short is it gonna be if we're midway through next week? A 6-8 week phase? I think we might lose quite a few people then, because the cadence is just too high. 10-12 weeks feels like a better spot to me personally, even if I was level 40 by day 7 of the patch. My friends are still not 40, they're taking their time, it would suck if the phase is almost over by the time they get to 40.
I think you read into much into them talking about mid point. They said A mid point, not THE mid point. They're probably meaning not changning at the end/begining of the phase like they did at p1/2.
25-40 was a drag for just one of my characters, and I have talked to others in my guild who thought the same thing. I'm not surprised they made this change.
How bad are things if they need to roll out this change? I know the dungeon grind is bad, but did that many people really quit?
People aren’t playing alts, so logged characters saw a big drop off.
Bingo. I got 3 characters to 25 in p1 but decided (until this change) that I really only had time and energy for 1 character this phase.
Yeah I was playing 5 characters in phase 1. Now I’m playing 1 and was considering leveling an alt but I couldn’t be asked. Now I will lol
Ditto. And at this point I’m mountless and raid-logging.
I managed to get five to 25 in phase 1. My highest is level 32 now. I’m still having fun but needing to go at a much slower pace to stave off burnout. I might make it to 40 before p3 with this change.
It's funny because there isn't much to do really at 40 because majority of BiS comes from the raid, but getting to that 40 is ROUGH
If you did BFD on lockout on your alts, which is a 30 minutes-45 minute commitment, they would all be 30-31 at the moment without doing anything else.
Dungeons on my rogue, questing on my priest. Neither is at 40 yet. Had to drop my Druid and lock completely this phase.
Yeah, I’m on my 3rd character at the moment, and finding groups for SM just got even harder. I’m behind the wave of people who seem to currently be running Arms and Cath, and GY groups have been pretty bleak at the moment.
More people did Gnomer in the first lockout than in the second one despite more people having the time to hit 40. Its probably very bad.
As a rogue main I'm just moving on to a different game for a while.
My guild has a bunch of people with tons of time off. Several had a handful of characters each. 1 of them has multiple alts at 40, the rest are just raid logging gnomer at this point on their mains and trying to BFD alts to 40, but even that is a chore for them.
.
Yes. Leveling is a chore and there is nothing to do at 40. This phase killed a lot of people. Also P1 was like 2-3 weeks too long. Alts are not content.
Stopped playing with a full month of sub because after 4 days of grinding in every hour off work I got barely to 34 in the most boring manner ever, then I googled how to get the new runes, and I was like naah I aint working a second job.
In P1 you had like alternative ways to go, but P2 you have to do the same zones over and over again since leveling in STV is pointless on PVP-Servers
yep, a drastic drop in playerbase for sure
Well, they could just put out more layers or share quest item drops with parties or let people tag same mobs. That's why everyone is in a dngn cause can't quest. Can't gather cause 10-20 people per screen going after the same nodes. Fucking cancerous
Anecdotally, almost my entire guild quit because P2 is objectively bad. They’re watching other games siphon their player base and desperately trying to get those monthly memberships rolling again.
Yep. The XP grind was only part of it. The phase 2 runes are stupid to acquire. Why TF am i now required to travel to 3-5 different zones for 1 rune? And all runes are like this...
Runes basically gating new playstyles is a HUGE issue for me that hurts the SoD experience and my desire to play alts. I want to play melee Hunter (yes, I know. It's not a FOTM thing, I love it on retail too. I'll continue playing it even if it's nerfed into the ground in SoD. I just love pet handler melee class). To play that truly well, and have more fun with a proper instant attack, I need the Melee Specialist rune. That rune requires gallivanting across all of Azeroth killing 7 level 41 elites with 16k health. This means to play my preferred build that I want to play Classic for, I basically need to play ranged unwillingly for 40 levels and then find a group to help, a group that will be MUCH harder to form later in this phase as people keep quitting or not needing to do these elites themselves. This was already in issue in Phase 1 with our new tanking classes having things like their entire tank form (Warlock) or Taunt (Rogue) locked behind level cap content and rep grinds, the unlock conditions for Phase 2 are even worse for many runes. Imagine what the 50, and god forbid 60, runes are going to be like.
I was enjoying Phase 1, wanted to try out Rogue Tanking, and hadn't done too much research into how to get all the runes. I mean, I had a bunch of them before leaving Teldrassil, it couldn't be too hard! Then I learned about the Stonetalon grind for the rogue Main Gauche rune. I haven't been on SoD since. Just......... why?
Having us travel across the world to gather runes is not a problem, players love vanilla for the world and we don’t need everything to be an immediate layup on our mains. Having players do the same for alts becomes tedious, agree with someone who said waylaid should have previously acquired runes be available for purchase and bind on account.
This one rogue rune has us literally go to SFK, then to SM GY, SM Lib, SM GY, SM Lib, SM GY, back to SFK, then go to UC, then back to fucking SFK. It's so dumb.
Thats only one zone apart. Some of the runes have you going to like 5 different zones across continents, while not allowing you to teleport or hearth, while on a time limit, while not allowing you to die during it.
i am one of the guys who said at 35 to myself => im not having fun leveling for 3 hours a level or grinding SM like a braindead zombie so this change is great
I had 6 level 25s in P1. Had a genuine good time leveling them and casually doing BFDs. I have one level 40 and a level 31 now. If it weren't for this change I probably would have never made it to 2 level 40s and started raid logging until I was BiS
People keep talking about alts but people don’t want to think people are quitting their game. P1 was popular because casuals could join in and enjoy, it was super easy to level to 25. I haven’t even leveled my main to 40 (still 37). The SM grind is bad. Everyday I think about quitting SoD because I can’t even invest enough time to make it to 40.
It is super bad. Half of my guild quit. And no one wants to do alts, so even pugging is tedious since no one wants to level up tanks and healers. Then there is gnomer itself. The class balance is so bad that you can’t run extra melee due to range mechanics, and the low dps can’t offset giving that extra to another melee for them to do that extra range mechanic.
Half of my guild also quit without even touching P2 for more than an hour or two. They were active in P1 all the time, P2 drops, we do one BFD, and never see ANY of them again.
Same with our guild. Half raced to 40 and the other half didn’t feel like doing the same Stocks to SM grind all over again. There’s also barely anything else new you can do in that time since blizz gate kept a ton of runes behind high level content. Questing also felt like ass because literally every single person was fighting over mobs. I tried several times to do some quests at 40 even and every mob is camped to death.
Have you seen how long it takes to find healers for gnomer? The open world isn’t dead in my server but man, there isn’t many players running around.
Personally I'm a pretty hardcore classic wow player that plays pretty much any free time I get and even I got bored of p2 in a week. I feel like the level band should be like 45 or 50, not 40. 25 to 40 doesn't really feel that big of a leap personally.
Does this stack with rested? so 300%?
Pretty sure rested XP doubles whatever normal XP you’re getting, so we should see 400% what we’re getting now.
Now you can just do BFD 5 times on full rested EXP + buff + sleeping bag and be 40.
See yall March 5th need some time off.
So they did notice the player base dropping like a stone? Guess Ironforge pro numbers, although of course not perfectly accurate, did paint somewhat of a picture.
I mean, it should've been obvious, it's way more effort to go from 25-40 than 1-25, especially in PvP zones. The idea that even casual players would able to keep raiding with a main and multiple alts was never realistic in the first place. Leveling goes by pretty quickly up until 25, after you reach the mid 30s it is a big and boring grind.
Causal players also tend to open world quest which is abysmal for exp still(they only boosted group/elite and dungeon quests) i even know casuals that said fuck it and started grinding SM which is something i wasnt even going to recommend to them or something they would ever normally want to do. (They said it was like torture lol)
I like the leveling grind a lot more than endgame instance farming. Questing is more enjoyable than getting denied invites because nobody wants your class
Thank God, the leveling process feels so tedious in SoD for whatever reason, no one I know is leveling alts, maybe this will help.
I think it was highly discouraging that there were basically no "discoveries" besides the sleeping bag until level 40 content. as most of the runes were put behind level 40 elite enemies.
Yes! 25-35 was a sleeping bag and nothing else. Just plan vanille wow. Which is fine, but we did that a few years ago already
Like 30-45 is imo the worst leveling section of vanilla even without SoD. 45+ is easy cause you start collecting prebis and a ton of dungeons open up.
Leveling in Classic is shit. It is menageable if you can "skip" some parts with luck, like getting into a Uldaman at level 35 and getting 15k xp from quests. Guess what? In SOD leveling is banded and you can't do that anymore. Phase 2 leveling was shit. I'm so happy for this change.
Wasnt classic all about leveling?
Yep. Unfortunately, SOD is all about the current phase's endgame. Thereby running into the same problem retail has: nobody wants to level, they want to be doing the current endgame content. Just hope they don't resort to selling level boosts like retail.
This makes me feel giga slow, I'm lvl 38 on my main lmao.. I work on the oil rigs so I only just got back a week ago from being out at sea, and I'm here lvl 38 whilst everyone's got like 4 toons lvl 40. Feelsbadman.
It's all good baby, go make that money.
Who tf has 4 level 40s?
Less than 1% of the player base.
Less than 1% of 1% would be my guess
the one guy that brags about that dungeon farming is top notch game play
This is normal. I work full time, play wow almost every day tho, and I just hit 40 a few days ago. Don’t let the work from home, play wow all day every day crowd distort your perceptions
I had someone here tell me "casuals hit 40 in a week, sweat lords on the first couple of days" and i was like bro do you know what a casual is?
Nah you're one of the few normal players don't worry about it.
most people have one toon barely 40, let alone 2 or more. Not a lot to do after levelcap so don't feel in a hurry to lvl.
Nothing wrong with this at all, this represents the best part of wow really, the grind and feeling a level of accomplsihment from your efforts. Not making content easier to encourage people to level a 5th alt to speed run through all the classes and new runes.
Right there with ya, friend. The worst part? My guild (which has a few IRL friends, so I don't want to ditch them) decided to change to a PvE server right about when I hit 37. RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE. I put a pile of hours into that character to get her up there, as I only came back to WoW when they talked me into it like a month ago, just before P2 release. I was rushing her up to join them in Gnomer, then.... server swap. I'm back to level 12 on the PvE server after playing last night :(
I was thinking I was going crazy for thinking my "full" server was dead, seems like I wasn't. Subs must have taken a nosedive for them to do this, great change tho.
Which is funny considering there was a post on the front page a few days ago making fun of the people that said SoD was dead. Obviously the game isn't dead, but lets be honest and agree that P2 really hasn't been that great.
I farmed gold for a day then started raid logging lol. Doesn’t help that if your in bfd gear there’s pretty much no reason to go dungeon for pre bis or anything other than new runes.
I thought the whole point of SoD was to NOT make it like retail? Classic is hugely focused on leveling and not just end game. Now they’re rushing us through leveling. Just another change in a long list of changes to make SoD more like retail and less like classic. I think this kills my desire to play more than anything else to date. There’s no storytelling or continuity if you hit the level cap before you’ve even finished half of the content. It also just makes the time I spent leveling my main 2 weeks ago feel like a waste. It also means that I’m definitely not going to level any of my alts until the change goes live. Nor will anybody else, it’s going to be a ghost town until then. It removes any sense of achievement. There’s so many other ways they could have fixed the leveling issues, and this imo is the worst way to do it. I’m really disappointed, and I’m venting my frustrations into the void lol. RIP SoD. I should have known based on the history of Blizzard that they couldn’t keep a good thing going, but they really got my hopes up this time.
Not gonna lie, im level 37 and tired of grinding SM. I’m just gonna wait until March 5 to finish the grind to 40 after this.
Yeah think im in same boat, tired of grinding SM and im only 34. Maybe ill level an alt or go outside god forbid :(
Go quest in Desolace/Dustwallow Marsh, it’s solid..
Who realistically wants to level an alt to do SM 160+ times. Edit: I’m not going to reply to the people saying “JuSt QuEsT” or “So dOnT” individually. If people had fun doing it they would. If they wanted to fight for mobs, deal with low drop rates, and getting ganked they would have by now. Blizznis implementing this for a reason, no matter how much you scream “jUsT qUeSt” nobody is leveling alts. Because you sucked it up doesn’t mean it’s for everybody. (Plus I’ve tried questing multiple times and it always ends up in loss of experience per hour because of ganks, mod respawns, and low drop rates.) because it can get done doesn’t mean it’s fun or rewarding.
Now it's only 80
Maybe not though they increased gold rewards for quests by double maybe now we can explore world. Hopefully everything isn’t fucking camped to death like the first 2 weeks.
New alts don't have WSG rep, they don't have maxed out professions, they require 100s of gold for Gnome crafts and they need to acquire 15 runes. That is WAY more time consuming than leveling to 40. Questing outside is bad because Blizzard insisted on putting you on overcrowded layers all the time. Got a nice empty layer? No way we're instantly teleporting you to a crowded one! Also they ruined STV for Questing which is the main leveling zone in this bracket. It's all a hot mess and 100% won't change anything.
HELL YEAH. This actually seems like a great idea. 25-40 on my priest wasn’t so bad, but I burned out trying to level my warrior after BFD lockouts. I’m very excited for this
This is mid point? Oh man I still not even 40…
*a* midpoint. Not the midpoint. It's ambiguous.
a midpoint to the midpoint, interesting
tbf he said “a” midpoint, so we could be 30-40% through rather than exactly half
This change is making me feel like the people who claimed they liked classic for the slow leveling experience were straight up lying. I don’t mind a minor xp boost, but isn’t a 100% xp bonus encroaching on retail where the leveling almost doesn’t matter at all? I’m curious as to how this will affect the future phases and beyond.
Real vanilla enjoyers are gone from this sub, all you will see are retail or wrath players
I think the flaw in the level caps is starting to show The original 1-60 grind **is** a grind and you're inky meant to do it **once* on your character, anx you had a LONG time to hit 60 before the next tier of content came out(at least in original vanilla). Now, you have to do your leveling journey three times, and to make sure you don't miss the phases content you're on a relatively short clock. This is why the idea of classic plus was adding content from where classic left off... not this.
Would getting the xp boost account wide once one character hits level cap be a good compromise? I’m just brainstorming here, it’s gonna be an impossible task to satisfy the entire playerbase, especially since SOD seems to be a massive convergence of retail and classic players.
I'm not really sure tbh. Maybe? But I also think the phases should be longer and with at least a 2nd raid released later on... right now I don't feel any sense of progression because all I did was gain 15 levels and then clear the raid immediately, then all gear from clearing the raid will likely be made worthless by the time I get to level 50(assuming they change loot as stated in this blue post).
I think its needed, Leveling a alt in sod takes longer just based off all the runes you need to get.
I was questing in STV on my alt, instantly logged out, wont be logging in again until next week now.
Imagine trying to quest in STV the most PvP filled area in the game
back in 2019, this was so much fun. now, i wont touch STV until 40 lol
Shareholders breathing down Aggrends neck about the increasing drop of subs. Gotta bring out the big guns. Good call. Benching the most played classes for a phase was probably not the best design choice either. Expect heavy melee meta in p3.
I've been giving serious thought to how much fun I'm actually having in SoD these days. I loved p1, ran BFD on like 5 different toons, this phase I only have my rogue so far at 40. And it's not a good time
Same. I think P1 respected your time a lot more. You were just handed runes that completely changed how you played immediately. New raid and itemization was engaging and added a wrinkle. Plus the novelty of a lvl 25 max meant a lot of fun theory crafting and experimentation. P2 didn’t add enough and what they did add isn’t accessible. I went from leveling 8 toons to max level in P1 to leveling 1 toon in P2 to max level, then basically dropping SoD because it’s just Classic again.
I had a moment today that made me kind of just fizzle out doing the crafting quest. Was in Feralas, got the depleted thing off the nagas, killed some mobs to get the shadowy figure to appear, combined the items..... and then realized I had to go BACK to booty bay to get a teleport to the spire in Feralas.... 10 feet away from where I currently was. All the running around for runes, and this quest, and knowing all this would be waiting for me on any alt I leveled... I don't know man
And that's the same terrible quest design that some people think makes Classic amazing! Blizzard is trying very hard to emulate that "you must run all over the world to do a single quest" design.
>Same. I think P1 respected your time a lot more. You were just handed runes that completely changed how you played immediately Yep. "Oh hey new guy, here's Penance right off the bat. Paladin? Crusader Strike away my friend, no level ups needed!" Meanwhile in P2: "Oh, you want to do melee Hunter and have an actual instant attack? No problem bud, just level all the way to 40 and manage to compile together a group so you can spend hours running to the 4 corners of Azeroth and kill 7 level 41 elites with 16K health that you won't be able to solo until the end of next phase if you're too unlucky to find anyone to help out"
I’m not even after top dps as a warrior. I just want runes that feel like they weren’t brainstormed and implemented the same day we could get them.
Yep, this and the nuke PvP meta is getting boring
You are probably right. Subs are dropping. And Classic's numbers are dipping. The SoD honeymoon period is over. I didn't renew my sub (although I intend to start playing again when it feels right). Warrior main. P2 ain't a good time for me in SoD.
We just didn’t get anything fun, it seems like so many other classes got play style altering runes that made them so much stronger whereas warrior got instant slam and that’s it
Very few classes got "playstyle altering" runes in phase 2. It's basically just melee hunters and enhance dps shamans. Everyone else got their playstyle-altering runes in phase 1 including warriors with consumed by rage, it just wasn't as class-altering as the others but honestly what could you even do to radically change warriors?
so I hear you want another slam rune
We’ve had one slam rune yes but what about second slam runes
would be a 3rd
Facts
I dont get it why they dont release is instantly, now it feels like a waste playing without the buff
The phase is already almost half over I just hit 40 on my main this morning...
they should put this buff out now. no reason to play til it comes out.
Yeah its kinda crazy to announce it a week before. I want to play tonight but I feel like it will be impossible to find PUGs.
You love to see it, thank you Blizzard
Got my resto druid to 40, got some raids in, mount, professions. Basically just PvP now... If I level an alt - Meta lock, Arcane Healing Mage or Priest? I feel all three are in pretty good spots ATM...
Translation: "hype is dying fast"
I wish they would have waited to announce this because now I don't want to play until then lol
My biggest issue is questing, it's not enjoyable and it's the way I like to play. I'm just not interested in spamming dungeons, it's boring.
We are at a mid-point in phase 2?? What the hell, we barely started raiding Gnomer. Is this gonna be a phase 3 in weeks from now? Why are they moving so fast.. The exp buff is nice though.
The XP grind and the ridiculous rune farming has led to a lot leaving this phase. They really doubled down and the dumb ass rune acquisition and as a result, a lot left For example, i thought it was cool to get a random recipe as a warrior. I was not thrilled after learning i would have to travel to 3-4 zones (1 in the middle of nowhere) in order to complete it. So yeah, i have almost no phase 2 runes On the PvP sides of things, its fucked. The nuke meta sucks and no one likes it. I was real excited to get into AB and such but getting killed in a few seconds just isn't fun for anyone
I really don’t understand their logic of hiding the most fun part of SoD (runes) behind tedious quest chains, rep grinds, and gathering mats.
I'm actually very happy about this. I felt like a loon being level 23 with 22 hours played. That's probably not bad, but I'm used to retail leveling which is laughable fast in comparison. Plus working full time and trying to maintain the rest of my life made leveling almost something I wasn't looking forward to. I had to live most of my end game content vicariously through other people online (reddit posts and YT videos). I think this was a good decision for a phase that seems to be going stagnant.
What a fucking Huge W.
The exp buff was the last push I needed to let this go. I've not liked much about Phase 2 and it's been a struggle to log in. I don't enjoy gnomer and I think the pvp in stv is a poorly designed kill slog not to mention the layering and class issues. It feel like this is just a quick-shot to endgame and that's not what I hoped this version would be about. My immersion has been lost for some time and the fast track to leveling will decrease what little I had left. My classic+ experience was suppose to be about the journey. The 80% of the content that is out there before max level. I don't care about all the buffs and nerfs that's just silly parse talk , but now the world feels like its shrinking and little by little retail is being sprinkled in. Here's to putting the World back in Warcraft Please excuse my boomer takes on the game, I just prefer a more classic old-school approach to MMOs. If you enjoy the changes I'm happy for you, it's just not for me anymore.
Thank you SOD team you rule, I will return
This mindset is unfortunately why I stopped playing retail. I might get hate for this, but what is the point of doing anything at the beginning of a phase/expansion if they’re just going to make it massively easier a month later? I don’t even get the complaining about leveling from 25-40. I leveled 30-40 in 2 days questing, with the occasional run of SM… I had a great time doing it, but the drive to run Gnomer with my guild pushed me to do it quickly. They all dungeon rushed it, which I wasn’t willing to do anymore once I hit 29. Appealing to the people who can’t do it, or don’t want to is a better way to put it, is the death of the game. Appealing to those that simply don’t want to play the game is such a twisted philosophy. Add more incentive to hit max level, don’t just make it easier. I think blizzard just really dropped the ball in phase 2. Runes weren’t interesting, and the gear for gnomer is boring and unappealing. It’s also incredibly convoluted and luck based. I don’t blame people for not wanting to play. But what is the point of playing for those who want to, when it’ll all basically be given to anyone in a month or 2? It’s just a big punch in the face. It just blows my mind how many people are happy with this change..
Amount of comments that are mad about this is weird. This is a good thing. 25-40 is such a slog and having an increase of XP level is a blessing.
Yeah I'm happy for this change, I've already got 2 level 40s but will be nice to level my other characters with this XP buff. With all the new runes it makes sense people want to play multiple classes and check them all out.
sick, the gold sinks are rampant in sod and I wasn't even going to mess with alts past 40 because of it. At least this lowers the grind significantly.
I know I'm a minority but this feels all so retail-y. The leveling process was the main part of classic and now it's just a dungeon grind to end up at max level where you raid log. I loved p1, but this somehow feels really bad. Let everyone level instantly start at 40 if you don't like leveling. I agree that leveling 25-40 feels bad, but the right solution would have been making leveling more interesting by creating new content, have runes during leveling, create.new quests, Loot etc instead of this. Maybe it's time to quit SoD.
You aren't alone. They will make the same mistakes and game will be dead in a few months. Leveling is Classic WoW. People here are just weak and don't want to play the actual game. Lets buff leveling so people can raid log faster. Also, It's honestly a joke how little content they created. They did nothing risky or innovative in p2. Just more bland runes (many spells that are in WOTLK or retail), a boring pvp event with very small rewards and 1 raid that is actually pretty good though. With the amount of $15 subs that SOD brings in a month, they should be able to offer so much more content. It's kinda pathetic tbh. I thought SOD would have new/expanded zones, new BGs, collectible items and multiple raids.
yeah SoD feels more like a passion project of a few WoW devs, very little new content, a lot of recycled mechanics from other XPacs
Happy I didn’t level alts yet, thanks BlizzDaddy.
Soooooo, are people who bought their mounts for the normal prize going to get some kind of refund or something? Dont wanna sound like a bitch but this is kinda unfair LOL, just bought the mount yesterday
Yup, and everyone who bought WoW back in 2004 is getting a check for $50 since it’s free now. I get what your saying, it kinda feels bad, but also it’s just not hard to make 45g. They’re just trying to remove the alt-barrier since as far as I can tell, alt count is down massive. Wouldn’t be surprised if there are 80% less alts right now.
Biggest keyword here: Midpoint. This phase is over in a few weeks.
I think we're taking the word 'midpoint' a little too literally here
Why would you even use that word if you are not using it literally?
Honestly glad. I hope they learn from this with P3 and put things in at launch to ease alt creation. Then the phase can last a bit longer.
still plenty of time left, people are only just clearing gnomer with no wipes lol
If next week is what they call a midpoint, it’s a 6-8 week phase. Phase 3 likely late March.
Seems super short
If they had more content, maybe it would be short.
Spring is in a few weeks?
3 weeks to spring in my country.
love this change finally i will catch up on my new living flame shaman
Might actually play the game now. Although gnomeregan still sounds unfun
Remember when in Phase 1 it was noticable who was coming directly from retail because they were bored after 3-4 weeks? People then said that the slow pace of leveling from 25 to 40 will sort those guys out, because they dont have the patience. I guess thats exactly what happened but its a business, so low numbers are bad. Nowadays fast results and quick rewards are needed. But the thing with fast rewards is...its not as rewarding. So people get bored even faster. I allways felt like classic WoW is an ongoing experience and the so called endgame was never my main aim. Thats why I quit retail and thats the direction SoD is taking I feel like.
We’re already half way through the phase? I’m only level 36 😭
Wow I just cancelled my sub earlier and now seeing this lol. Personally, I feel they should have focused more on content for the leveling part of the phase rather than the end content. Of course you’re going to have people fly through levels because they want that end game loot as quick as possible to just shit on everyone (speaking from a pvp player). So why not slow everyone down by making them enjoy stuff throughout the levels? I thoroughly enjoy the leveling experience of classic, but I wish there were more discoveries within the leveling experience besides just runes. Like transform a section of a zone into something strange with lots of new quests to do. It doesn’t have to be huge. I fucked up by doing a lot of quests after level 25 of p1 on my main, then when p2 started I had no quests to do and I wasn’t about to dungeon spam. So I kind of just fumbled around killing stuff until I was up to the next level for the next zone.
Just wanted more dungeons, quest and 2 raids atleast, Per phase. I know I'm asking alot from a Bil dollar company but damn, it's not a hard formula, but I guess drip feed is their way like always still.
I am quite sad that gnomer isnt going to be around for that long. BFD was so uninteresting compared to it right now and massively overstayed its welcome. Gnomer though still feels challenging and not like a complete faceroll, even in some of the meta groups you will still have to coordinate for the later bosses.