Trollin'

Hell I can't remember how many times I did the death run through Menethil when I would start a new Druid in order to train two handed maces in Ironforge. It's no where near as bad now that you can go to Exodar, or take a boat to SW but back in the day it was something I'd dread. For some reason I do miss it though.

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Q u o t e:

It's more based on the data we've collected. We've looked at what many players just getting started in this game are doing when they first enter the world. A large percentage of players are doing things very wrong (i.e. what I mentioned in my previous post with the Attack button and the idea of giving wands to casters at level 1). As Ghostcrawler mentioned in a thread yesterday:

We've looked at what the average player does when getting started. You'd be surprised how many folks are running around not understanding their role in the game, or even what they're supposed to be doing. The changes we're making aren't necessarily to make the game easier, but to make sure that the objectives of leveling, questing, exploring, learning one's class, and figuring out the user interface are better presented to those who have little experience with games like this. We don't want to discourage new players because we're not doing as good a job as we could with easing them into the World of Warcraft experience through better tooltips, more sensible introductions to each class, etc.

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In other words, they are trying to teach people how to play, which will be better for all of us in the end. It might lead to less horrible pugs, or a better recruitment pool for your guild, or just an overall better community to play with.

I know it might be hard to recall, but we were all terribad noobs once. Some of us got to where we are because we had good gamer instincts, or good mentors, or both. Not everyone new to gaming is going to know what the expectations are, about the research or the theorycrafting that more advanced members do. And how would they?

If the game is fun, and new players are better educated, its just win win for the entire community in the end.

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Q u o t e:

The damage output from the early spells is also weak and a good wand is required to survive early encounters (unless it is the intent for priests to learn how to die often *grin*).

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I think it is the intent for a Priest to learn how to heal him/her self...

Rogues should be able to wield polearms. You can totally backstab with that mother.

I started playing the week after BC came out. I started as a human warrior because the description of them made them out to be a strong class.

There was no way to know between agility, strength, and attack power. Based on the character sheet all 3 seemed like good choices. I had a miserable time leveling my first character because you got a sarcastic answer from everybody in trade channel and installing addons was a foreign concept. Spirit even seemed to make sense at the time based on what the character sheet said. I am all for easing the leveling process for new players.

People whispered me if I was prot or dps and I had no idea what either of those meant, or how to know which one I was.

Once I found N-Mod, something that installed addons for you, I loved them, but still had too limited of knowledge of how they work to take full advantage of them and macros. When I hit 70, after a long painful process of misunderstanding, I camped AV before it was illegal for welfare epics. As more and more 70's gave em crap about how bad I geared, etc, I found WoWwiki and learned, as slowly as it goes, but did learn how to play an arms warriors. I ended up sucking and rerolled a mage.

I got to 70 considerably easier, and was able to gear myself through the tailoring items available at the time. I slowly geared myself enough to get into Kara. Once I was introduced to DamageMeters. The thrill of competition got the best of me, and I slowly learned what stats I needed to make me better than others, and why hit rating mattered. After a very long process of learning to play from the resources available, I found a guild doing TK and SSC that I joined, with the upgrades I got from there I ended up being a good player and beginning to understand my class.

A problem I see with people that were like me is that they want to play their way, and not the right way.
In BC I played a constant game of catch-up, and I promised myself not to let this happen in WotLK. I chose to level as a Paladin in Wotlk, wanting to play the game from a healer point of view and have loved it so far. I have over 1200 screenshots of when I leveling the warrior and mage, and love reminiscing about back when everything was simple—there were no headaches because I didn’t understand why I was doing x wrong. Now, after many hours of work, and external resources, such as plusheal, curse, elitestjerks, and the healing forums, I’ve been able to work my way up to one of the best geared holy paladins on my server. Looking back, though, I know I would be farther along in the game now, had I known what I was doing back then, for example, why not to use spirit on a warrior, or why I needed hit rating on the mage. I’ve found that it took 2 things to become a good player: ambition and trial & error. Please do implement things, especially the in game quest helper that there have been rumors about.

Have we finally reached a point where we're asking to have Level 1 rogues nerfed? :)

I know. I know. It wasn't actually about that, but the subject line looked like that was the case.

I'm still kinda confused about all the "do that for my class too" talk. I don't know about you, but I usually spend less time at level one that it takes to respond to this thread.

Really people?

/facepalm

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Q u o t e:

They can smash things with a fishing pole ;o

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Bruce Lee would be proud.

Can we please talk about how bad it is that Rogues start out at level 1 with a dagger, but the only CP-building skill they know is Sinister Strike? Of the weapons a Rogue can use, a dagger is the WORST weapon to Sinister Strike with, and having the game start out this way seems to go against the "make the game more understandable to beginners" theme that has been happening lately.

All the changes blizz are making to tutorials and what not are good for those who need it. If you don't need it, then no harm is done to you.

I personally don't see what was so hard in the first place but i played games before this one wheras other people may not have. Also, some people just dont grasp games very well.

I remember trying to show my friend how to play Diablo 2 back in the day and i was dumbfounded as to why they could not figure out the simpelist of tasks. I tried to get them to play world of warcraft sometime after it came out but when she tried it she was even more confused than when she was tryign to learn diablo 2. This was years after she had played diablo non stop.

this thread is going places

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Q u o t e:
I think it is the intent for a Priest to learn how to heal him/her self...

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I just leveled a new priest (new server) and in the first levels (1-10) it takes ALL current mana to kill ONE mob equal level which means there is NO MANA to use for healing.

It was so frustrating I borrowed gold from a friend to buy decent gear and a wand to make the process bearable.

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I completely understand what Blizz is doing. Kudos on trying to teach people how to play their classes.

Though I do agree with the guy that said that hunters should start off with pets. We're a class based around pets, much like warlocks but to a greater extent, pets should be available at level 1. Perhaps even "You can't get ANY quests until you get a pet" sort of thing.

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Q u o t e:
As one aspect of the many changes we're making in patch 3.3 to improve the learning curve for brand new players, we're making it so that rogues, by default, know how to dual wield.

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Don't suppose you're considering allowing Hunter's to get their pets earlier? An early wand reward for casters in all starting zones would also be a good idea, especially for Priests

Leveling a Hunter 1-10 sucks horribly, it's better than before the deadzone was removed but still pretty bad and Priests, even after 3.3, will probably be a lot better off with wands at low levels.

This doesn't really effect the ease of leveling, but lowering the level Mages learn Arcane Blast and the level Shaman learn Lava Burst would also be a good idea.

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Q u o t e:

As far as wands go, we definitely do not want to give them to casters at level 1. Wands play a very different role for casters than melee weapons do for melee classes. They're generally used as mana conservation DPS. We are removing the Attack button from level 1 casters' action bars specifically so new players aren't inclined to walk around trying to melee foes without learning the way the spells available to them function. Giving them a wand and placing the Shoot icon on the action bar would lead to the same issue for players new to the game rolling casters. They might be inclined to run around using their wands rather than learning their class spells.

With mana regeneration being greatly improved for the level 1-10 experience in patch 3.3, mana issues should not warrant the use of wands too often when players are getting started. Because of this, we want to make sure new players are focused purely on learning how to use spells to kill enemy targets.

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You are aware that wands at low levels do more damage than spells, at least for priests right? Basically the first thing any caster should do is get a decent wand.

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Q u o t e:

As far as wands go, we definitely do not want to give them to casters at level 1. Wands play a very different role for casters than melee weapons do for melee classes. They're generally used as mana conservation DPS. We are removing the Attack button from level 1 casters' action bars specifically so new players aren't inclined to walk around trying to melee foes without learning the way the spells available to them function. Giving them a wand and placing the Shoot icon on the action bar would lead to the same issue for players new to the game rolling casters. They might be inclined to run around using their wands rather than learning their class spells.

With mana regeneration being greatly improved for the level 1-10 experience in patch 3.3, mana issues should not warrant the use of wands too often when players are getting started. Because of this, we want to make sure new players are focused purely on learning how to use spells to kill enemy targets.

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Alright, so rogues get dual-wield at level 1 now, shaman get their totem relics early on now.. what about paladins and druids? No lower-level relics for them?

Also we should be able to start any class that we have an 80 of at level 55. This is the single biggest reason I dread creating a new toon. Sorry, going 1-55 on another shaman is neither new or fun, but there are times I've been tempted to help friends by playing a class I know well rather than wing it on one I don't. Please consider this.