Early Game Kinda Sucks In WoW Right Now... (But Here's How To Make It Better!)

This video has gotten a LOT of really positive feedback and engagement so far. Thank you, everyone! Glad to see I'm not alone in caring about the new players to the game.

Early game wow was always boring and sucked ass lol

My two cents (you asked for it).

I want meaningfull, not fast. I want a challenge.

- Give me this option "[X] I want a challenging level experience" - Scale everything up
- Open up dungeon queueing for all expansions during leveling
- Refurbish older Raids into normal leveling dungeons
- Refurbish dungeons into tactical experiences, like the magetower, a new, tactical difficulty

I want my experience to be meaningfull, to feel like i've overcome a challenge. I want the leveling to be, if the option is selected, a learning experience. Learning all that WoW and my character has to offer, not a chore to get through until endgame. A choice.

A new player does the Automatic dungeon at the end of Exiles Reach, you get your mount and Hearth stone and soon as you are able you que for Random and.....Get thrown into a BFA dungeon...with its mechanics...its story...its craziness... it makes no sense at all and would put off most new guys from continuing .

Your first take about the quest that would be a "whats happened so far on Azeroth" could be really cool and interesting. If executed properly a main stay questline for expansions to come. While adding expansions each time a new one is released. This should be something that takes a few days to complete, or equivalent to amount of time it takes to do 60-70 purely questing, can even be a bit more. Also can be repeated on any new character, and after the first completion you will unlock chromies timewalking leveling. Every other take you had was god awful im sorry. Like leveling is easy and boring and your idea is to make it easyier? Quest idea was legit though, stick to that one.

I got a better idea. Uninstall and unsubsribe. The game is 20 yrs old, Move on.

But does it get better after early game?

Never really played the game "right" (level cap content wasn't my jam) but having it cease to be what I could enjoy really has saved me money. Sounds like Classic with quality of life improvements would be the best kind of change for my specific tastes

Wait do people consider worgen players furry's? Seems like the whole furry thing is only the last like year across gaming

I like it

In all honesty, I completely disagree about your new player campaign suggestion. Although , I do agree that starting as a new player and getting into BFA is really weird and confusing since people are calling you the " Champion of Azeroth " even if you have just started the game ( That was my experience as well since I started playing in Shadowlands) . I feel like a new player getting into a campaign as the one you suggested with Khadgar and travelling through the world of Azeroth will be even more confusing . Think about it from the perspective of a new player: You start in Azeroth and you meet a plethora of new characters, then again you move into Outland where you meet new guys as well and new storylines , then again in Northrend same thing then Cata happens then Pandaria and after all of that you finally get into Dragonflight. I feel like new players will get so much information since they will always be introduced to new guys and new places that they will be completely lost about what is actually happening in the game . Too much information for someone to handle.

leveling needs to be SLOWED DOWN! Not SPEEED UP!

Love the Tour guide & Explorers Leagure idea. New players could get introduced to characters and the story in a much more interesting and simpler way. I'd love to see a NEW cast of characters take the player through the lore of the game until endgame.

This is an AWESOME idea.

As a new player to WoW, I fully agree that the biggest problem in the game I’ve found is the early game content. I hate that everything prior to the newest expansion feels useless and empty. It sucks ad a new player to have an entire world that is new to me that I want to explore with tons of cool zones, dungeons, etc and all of it is completely empty. It makes it so that 90% of the game is empty and doesn’t matter. The game shouldn’t just be focused on endgame content, that’s not fun for me as a new player who still wants to enjoy and experience things besides endgame content of the newest expansion.

My solutions might be simplistic and dumb because I don’t have as much experience playing the game for years. With that said I think a few things that would make early game content more fun for me and for veteran players would be:

1. Make questing non linear. Make it so that questing requires genuine exploration and thought and effort. It shouldn’t be as simple as checking the map where to go, doing a chore, and done. Make some quests actually difficult or intended for groups or make the player have to figure out where to go. Make it so we have the freedom to tackle quests in an order we want too.

2. Give players a reason to revisit old content. Maybe make rotariins where every month a different expansion will get an influx of new world bosses that give great gear, encouraging players to go back and spend some time there going after them, so lower level players are still there to quest and higher level characters are there for gear and fighting world bosses.

3. Make leveling slower. Most veteran players might hate this, but as a new player I hate that I’m rushed through this process so fast. I want getting to max level to feel like an accomplishment. I want to enjoy the journey getting there. I don’t want it to be done so quickly that I’m forced out of zones or continents before I finish what it has to offer.

4. This might also be controversial, but have a few different types of servers. Like maybe have some that are raid servers, pvp servers, questing and exploration servers, etc. Make it so that if all a player cares about is end game raising there are servers where that is the focus. And other servers for people who want to spend time exploring the world and questing etc. That way they can go to servers with people who want to experience aspects of the game they want to as well. That way it increases the likelihood you find players interested in the same aspects of the game as you, maybe in a questing/exploration server you will be more likely to find players out in the world looking to group up to quest as opposed to blazing through but to get to the end game content. Maybe for the questing servers make the leveling process much slower with alternating quests available in each place depending on the time you are there, giving you even more reasons to go back.

I am new to mmos but after exiles reach im like so do i just go through battle for azeroth story where they think ive been here for years and im already some sort of hero 😅 i have no clue whats going on in the story unless i watch lore videos on yt

Gosh as always so many cry-babies who cannot play the way it was intended by creators.. blame yourself because you lot wanna always rush straight to the endgame and have bis gear.

Well said dude ... I played for (10+) years since 2005, but I quit (6) years ago ... and I haven't missed it ...

So confused how people think leveling is boring…

I'm just glad I get to skip pandaria on my alts. I fucking hate the aesthetics and the dumbass story.

I just had a thought, and it's basically that when we are born in real life we are born without experience of everything that has ever happened. You're born in the moment that you're are born... I think you should get a choice... Do you want to be taking back to the past or do you just want the story review and to jump in at the present?

The homogenised exiles reach is a horrible idea imo. It's good in a way for people like me that wanna just level up fast but yeh ...

You're right it's a complete fucking mess. I thought I might enjoy the story telling when leveling my first char in 7 or 8 years.

You could drop players in by reviewing all the prior story line chronologically, I agree with you there.

I chose legion timeline but I was getting invaded with other expansion content and storylines that I didn't understand. They were asking me to go to shadowlands before I even did the legion invasion starter quest...

newish player here: currently levelling a few different characters through both exiles reach/BFA and the old racial starting areas (to find what I like playing as) and i can tell you right now that the older maps just feel dead which in turn makes the game feel/seem unpopulated

really like the idea of having a levelling faction. In a way the seed of this is already in place with Chromie. Could expand her team to include a vendor with tabards etc, and maybe other timey wimey pitstops through the world to either skip or experience some of the old content. This sort of combines with T&E's idea of a curated path through the expansions

They don't need to make lower-level dungeons harder, more challenging content is not what people want by and large. There is a percentage of the player base, but more difficulty is not the answer if you want new casual players.

I do really like your idea of a grand tour quest line for new characters. I don't think an hour to complete the whole journey is a good idea. It's simply not enough time to take in what the hell has happened over nearly 20 years. I believe having it take roughly the same time as it does now, one hour per expansion pack. So it would take roughly 9-10 hours to hit 60 and give you enough time to understand each section of the story's main plot points.

I would have them play as roughly hour-long scenarios, similar to the ones in Mists of Pandaria.

As an example, they take you through the Dark Portal and you meet the Commander of your faction in hellfire. They inform you that your help is required to kill the enemies in the ramparts. You begin by battling your way up the path of glory then head into ramparts with a fighting force eventually down into the dungeon below to kill Magtheridon. This whole thing takes about 10-15 minutes and dialogue is narrated to you as you play.

You would then move to Shattrath where Velen explains, there are 3 leaders that need to be taken care of. Illidan, Lady Vashj, and Kael'thas. You're immediately teleported to the relevant locations to defeat these big bads, in roughly 10-15 minute scenarios. This ends with you chasing Kael'thas to the Sunwell where you defeat Kiljaeden. TBC briefly explained and you head to WoTLK.

Not sure if this idea has been mentioned or not, but one idea I feel could really help early game is to give incentive for veteran or high level players to help out in old dungeons. Final Fantasy 14 has this implementation where you character is scaled to the power level of that low-level dungeon, and many raids/instances benefitted from experienced players helping out with boss fights and completion of old content for newer players who are still in the middle of their journey. They gain additional currency rewards and other benefits for helping low level players, but also gain the means to improve their own character in return. Iirc, the new players also gain additional experience if the veterans help out in their raid or dungeon.

I feel this could help give veteran players a reason to re-do old content and bring back some life to zones. It could be a daily/weekly thing

I just came back after a long time and I'm fkn shocked, I'm lv 16 in razor hill wtf. It's easy and total idiot friendly, where is the challenge?

i hate the new skill system

talent points

maybe making the old content a balanced content again with their own meta would be cool for the lvling

I've NEVER played through dungeons its boring as fuck, the only time i do dungeons is when the zone im in has quests to go there. I play wow Solo i have since 2009 which is back when i started playing, not seeing other players is totally fine by me as I legit play it like a Single Player game anyway haha
And yes some of you will probably say how do you do end game content. the answer is i don't XD i play through the questlines and do the dungeons connected to them but i don't do raiding at all. i wait a couple of years and solo it or go with a couple of friends who invited on a quick run through

I really like the idea of a "new Player" leveling experience where you essentially tour the World and learn about the history and previous expansions.

I am also all for more class-specific quest chains. I have long thought that the best feature of Legion was the Class Hall campaign.
As an aside for that, I have also long thought that there should be an option to craft open-end upgradeable gear and weapons, like the Artifact weapons, even if it requires some kind of experience-related currency. Instead of having to rely on capricious RNG gear that often is not reliably what your alt may need... have it so when you upgrade, you can pick what you need to be improved

Couldn't really agree with much of this. A while back they repaired the leveling experience, fixing the HP and damage values so that enemies don't explode when you glance at them. Of course they "forgot" to fix the character HP values, so you're never actually in any danger or have to heal, but at least half the gameplay is there. So I guess it's true that you might get bored, but only if you don't like wow's gameplay. Don't think a cookie in a cave is going to repair that.

I see that subtle thumbnail change…

Missing what this game was makes me feel 30.... oh wait.

I think the levelling should just be in the old world and then you get called to the dragon isles at level 60

you don't need to select exile reach you can select the old zone to from you race start point.

A revamped intro quest line for each race is in order.

They need to slow down levelling imo. They've been treating levelling the same way players have: a grind you need to get through in order to start playing the real game.

Making it faster isn't a solution. New players will still be bored out of their minds. There needs to be some real challenge and sense of discovery.

I agree with the sentiment of most of this stuff. I’m also wondering though why everyone so focused on speeding up the levelling process? The best thing about WoW for me was levelling, and going from Weenie Hut Jr. to Salty Spitoon slowly but surely. Questing in the open world while other people are trying to kill you, and successfully fending them off solo or with your group/friends, exploring, fucking around levelling professions. I hear people say the game begins at max level, and I’m always like… why though? Surely you have to be able to enjoy the journey or else it just feels bad.

They should do something with the legacy content. As a new player it was so fucking frustrating when you reach level 60 and Chromie teleports you back to Orgrimmar.

wow early game was never great

I tried to make new characters but it's just too much work I can't be bothered. Also, I started in New Tinkertown and there was not a single player there all the way to level 20 (COA) Went back to Diablo 3 and re-seasoning my Witchdoctor. So much fun.

What if the bronze dragonflight was conscripting new soldiers for the dragon islands campaigns and they took new recruits through time to ramp them up to speed quickly. Almost like a hyperbolic time chamber. that could be the premise of the catch up questline, tying it directly to the current expansion..

Tbh I don't want to level fast, I want it to be as long as possible cause it's so much better than endgame. I don't want to do dragonflight, I want to quest in Ashenvale, Tanaris, Barrens, Pandaria. Leveling through all the expantion was great. I want blizzard to slow levelling down so I can do every quest in every zone and only then hit max level

I love early game and boring leveling. I honestly don't enjoy raiding and pvp but just questing and adventuring through Azeroth is amazing

Why on earth would they do that? How else are the going to annoy players into paying for character boosts? A new player is either going to quit after the first month or they are going to get hooked enough into paying for a boost.

Definitely needs to change something. I came back after not playing since Legion and was forced to go do a chromie timewalk mission, and when I hit 60, then abruptly told I needed to leave to go to the Dragon Isles after I finished the beginning of the story of Shadowlands... lol

Great and well needed video nixxiom