As it stands right now, there are three main aspects to WoW: PvE, PvP and Leveling & Exploration. Only two seem to be really recognized by Blizzard. Leveling & Exploration is a really fun part of WoW, but it feels very neglected as compared to the other two. There have been improvements in the form of improved itemization, heirlooms and increased leveling speed. Still, I think this area of WoW could use further attention and I have some thoughts. Please keep in mind that there are many people who play WoW and never reach 80, and therefore never experience the parts of the game which receive the most attention.
1) Adjust dungeons to be doable with smaller groups
It’s almost impossible to get a group to do a dungeon in the old world. You have to either get a friend or pay for a run-through if you want to do them. In this regard, the dungeons lose their value as being fun and interesting. If the dungeons required only an off-spec healer and an off-spec tank and any dps who might want a drop, it would be much easier to get a group together.
2) Heirlooms are not available during leveling
It’s fine to have heirlooms be a new game+ kind of reward for leveling a second character. However, I think Blizzard will recognize that that in this game, where level and items never decay and players are constantly left behind when they take a break and other players jump ahead, that a decision like this increases the gap. There are several old dungeons which are cool, but are never done anymore because the time investment versus reward makes running them a non-choice for players. Certain bosses which require long-quest chains to unlock and are in relatively long dungeons, I think, should drop heirloom items as bind on pickup. Two suggestions are Hakkar in Sunken Temple and Emperor Thaurissan in Blackrock Depths.
It might also be interesting to provide some of the bosses whose drops have become heirloom items and give them a small chance to drop those items, such as with Herod and Herod’s Shoulder.
3) Improve leveling loot
Blizzard obviously has an idea of what stats are useful to leveling. They’ve put them on the heirloom items. Going out of your way for loot while leveling is usually relatively unnecessary. Either you are pampered by a level 80 or you aren’t. Dungeons and quest chains using rewards as incentives may be more interesting if they were itemized specifically for leveling and exploration. Stats which should be looked at: increased run speed, %health/mana return on killing blow, increased experience, teleport to a leveling hub. Some other drops that would help levelers would be: caches of trade materials, gear enchant scrolls, etc.
4) Give players the option of leveling in a PvP environment
Although you can PvP in WoW before max level, it is not encouraged or even fair. In world PvP you will find yourself most often against skulls who kill you in one hit. In battlegrounds you’ll find yourself against twinks. Quests for PvP give experience, why not kills? Blizzard has mentioned this possibility before, and I understand Blizzard doesn’t want to upset their twinks; my personal opinion is that twinks exist because of broken mechanics which ruin pvp for other players. There are rogues with 90-100% dodge rates in early brackets. There are death knights and paladins in higher brackets who can gib you in a single hit. However, if it really is important to Blizzard to keep this aspect of the game alive, my suggestion is to make it a toggled feature.
The main point here is that people want to pvp while leveling, but because it offers no reward other than a distantly accessible item, it’s a complete waste of time. Choosing to PvP at a low level is just choosing to impede your progress toward the actual PvP that Blizzard pays attention to and improves.
5) Decrease travel time in the old world
In WotLK you spend maybe 10-20% of your time traveling. In BC is was also about that amount of time. While leveling to 60, especially during certain ranges which require you to bounce around the world and hit several zones, you spend as much as 50-60% of your time running. Running is not fun except for 30 minutes after getting your mount and another five minutes after getting your epic mount. There are some ways to cut this time down. Namely, increase the amount of quests in each area, especially the later areas, and means of traveling quickly. Also, it’s possible you could make the traveling feel more rewarding by adding rewards for doing it.
Some areas which need attention for quests are Azshara, Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands, Badlands. Those areas contain only a handful of quests. After leveling several characters, I have found that there is little reason to go to areas outside of the few which have a sustainable number or quests, or you are just subjecting yourself to an unnecessarily large amount of travel time. Some acceptable zones are: The Barrens, Stranglethorn Vale, Thousand Needles, Western Plaguelands, Eastern Plaguelands.
As it stands, aside from going to those unacceptable zones for the fun of seeing them, there is no reason to go to them, and there are several reasons not to. Adding more quests would add a reason to go there. Adding some leveling or exploration itemized items (read: not useful for pve or pvp) that could be acquired by exploring the reaches of the world would add incentive to go to them. Creating a faster means of traveling to places you’ve already been in the old world would decrease the penalties for going. One way to decrease travel time around the old world might be to provide an NPC who offers to teleport you to a main city once you’ve completed the quest hub, or to provide items which allow the player to return quickly either to that quest hub or a main city on a shared cooldown.
6) Make tradeskills useful while leveling
It’s possible you may get a marginal upgrade while leveling if you level a tradeskill at the same time. What you are really doing is bankrupting yourself for little benefit. It’s very fun to have a tradeskill while leveling, but not practical at all. Many players take two gathering skills while leveling and wait until max level to even think about investing in a tradeskill, and they’re correct to do so: max level is when a tradeskill develops any use or money-making potential. My suggestion would be to streamline the requirements for most recipes and have certain recipes which provide top-notch leveling equipment using items that drop from bosses or certain named enemies 100% of the time, or are available in a particular place (like the quest Warsong Supplies in Ashenvale).
Also, part of the problem is that the way tradeskill leveling tends to work out, by the time you can make level 20 gear, you’re level 30 and it’s useless. By the time you can make the cool blue gloves for level 30, you are level 40, and probably wearing the blue gloves that dropped in the dungeon at level 30 and still outclassed the tradeskill gloves.
Perhaps the main problem though is that going out of your way for loot while leveling is pointless. You may spend two hours making gloves which have an extra 4 strength, but the actual gain is that you kill a monster in 4.999999 seconds instead of 5 seconds. It will take you a thousand years of killing monsters to make your time investment back. Although many people find tradeskills fun enough to work toward while leveling, the investment is not reasonable as compared to the reward.
7) Make exploration continue to be fun after max level
PvP and PvE are fun, but what about the people who enjoy leveling and exploring and the atmosphere that comes with those things? Once you are 80, if you want to continue to play WoW, you have to decide whether to PvP or PvE. Leveling and exploring simply cuts off, even though that’s what you’ve been doing 90% of your time so far. It’s possible people want to be done with it and move on, but many people I’m sure want to continue to do it. I know I do; that’s why I start new characters. Quests, achievements and tradeskills are some things which keep the world alive outside of dungeons and battlegrounds. I think there can be improvements.
What if there were areas which were difficult to gain access to and gave the player an achievement for reaching them? For instance, maybe you have to swim through a long stretch of lava while healing yourself, or do a difficult platforming game or puzzle? What if you got a nice exploration themed item or recipe from a treasure chest in these areas? What if these hard to reach spots were hidden all over the world? What if your achievement points could be spent on items that would be useful for these kinds of pursuits? The itemization could be for things like improved flight speed, more underwater breathing time, etc, so they don’t overlap with the gear currently in the game.
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To conclude, I am someone who has played WoW since the original open beta. I have done PvP and PvE and those things are okay. What really keeps me playing WoW is leveling characters and trying out new classes. That is my favorite aspect of the game, and I see it get improved only very rarely, or only as a side-effect of improving the other areas of the game. At the same time, I see aspects of it dwindle over time. Please respect the investment I have made in this game and in this post by giving some thought to the arguments I’ve presented here whether you agree with them or not.