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Power Leveling through BlizzardFollow

#77 Jan 22 2014 at 1:04 PM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
A zone like Vashj'ir was probably 100% acceptable on a Hunter or Warlock, since they didn't really need to play the range game, and they had pets keeping the mobs where they needed to be.
Why must you be so different from me all the time? Smiley: glare

I hated Vashj'ir on my Warlock, but loved it on my Warrior. The whole depth thing was off, and I had one heck of a time judging distance, especially in places like that starting kelp forest. Is that a big fish in the distance, or a little fish up close? Smiley: confused

Warrior was easier since there was little reason to judge distance, just get up close in their mug and click rend. None of this watching and trying to judge aggro distance with both you and a pet in 3D space.


Smiley: lolSmiley: lolSmiley: lol

But the mobs would move! And getting into melee range could be really annoying. Nothing like thinking you were going towards the closest mob, only to discover it was actually further than other ones.

I suppose Warrior would be much better than Paladin and Rogue, though, since you could charge into range.

God forbid you liked playing as a stealth rogue, though. My god that would be awful.
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#78 Jan 22 2014 at 1:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I suppose Warrior would be much better than Paladin and Rogue, though, since you could charge into range.
Yeah that was a saving grace, no need to really know where the thingy was, just get "close enough" and charge. No range issues, no bigger aggro area, none of that. Was actually a fairly enjoyable zone at that point. Smiley: lol

Edited, Jan 22nd 2014 11:52am by someproteinguy
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#79 Jan 22 2014 at 3:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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I absolutely loved Vashj'ir. Leveled both melee and range characters through it. Had zero problem with depth perception and disorientation. The only reason I don't really bother with the zone in MoP is due to the speed at which one can plow through Hyjal.

Also I tend to avoid the jousting quest in Hyjal. I hate how you constantly have to spam the flight key to stay in the air. Nice homage to Joust and worth a play through on one character (plus you can get the other pet if you do the daily 10 times... don't quote me).
#80 Jan 22 2014 at 5:54 PM Rating: Good
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Criminy wrote:
I absolutely loved Vashj'ir. Leveled both melee and range characters through it. Had zero problem with depth perception and disorientation. The only reason I don't really bother with the zone in MoP is due to the speed at which one can plow through Hyjal.


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#81 Jan 22 2014 at 7:29 PM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Criminy wrote:
I absolutely loved Vashj'ir. Leveled both melee and range characters through it. Had zero problem with depth perception and disorientation. The only reason I don't really bother with the zone in MoP is due to the speed at which one can plow through Hyjal.


Are you a god?


Some people call me that. Smiley: nod
#82 Jan 22 2014 at 7:32 PM Rating: Good
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I loved that Aerial Jousting!

I was one of the few people who got the hang of it, because I'd see idiots crashing into the lava all the time and/or they'd be in there long after I got done (tho I can understand having lag...network latency screws you bigtime on that). Always thought it comical myself.

Never had trouble gauging distance or anything like that, either.

Edited, Jan 22nd 2014 8:33pm by Lyrailis
#83 Jan 22 2014 at 9:20 PM Rating: Good
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I didn't have a problem with Vash either. I just never do it because it takes so much longer than the crazyfast Hyjal for leveling.
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#84 Jan 22 2014 at 9:22 PM Rating: Good
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IDrownFish of the Seven Seas wrote:
I didn't have a problem with Vash either. I just never do it because it takes so much longer than the crazyfast Hyjal for leveling.


^^
This. Vashj'ir was good to see the story and the beautiful scenery once or twice.... but they simply had too damn many quests in there, and the quests themselves took too long to do (because moving through water is slower than moving through air, sea legs or no sea legs).

I liked the zone, it just wasn't practical for the purposes of leveling (which is why you quest in a zone to begin with 99% of the time).

Edited, Jan 22nd 2014 10:23pm by Lyrailis
#85 Feb 25 2014 at 9:09 AM Rating: Good
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Because it's still on the front page, I might as well bump this thread.

The leveling boosts are $60.
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#86 Feb 25 2014 at 9:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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While that's pretty steep I think it is rightly so. If it was in the 15-20 range, many would boost their characters instead of playing level 1-90. This way, only the people who really really don't want to level the normal way, will buy it.
#87 Feb 25 2014 at 9:52 AM Rating: Good
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TherealLogros wrote:
While that's pretty steep I think it is rightly so. If it was in the 15-20 range, many would boost their characters instead of playing level 1-90. This way, only the people who really really don't want to level the normal way, will buy it.


I really really really don't want to level 1-90, to the point that I very likely won't do it again. But for $60, I'll go buy a different game and play that.
#88 Feb 25 2014 at 10:09 AM Rating: Good
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Keep in mind that this is the price for additional boosts beyond the first one that you get with WoD.
#89 Feb 25 2014 at 10:15 AM Rating: Good
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I still hold that it's a P2W scenario.

So the only possible mitigation for me would have been a super cheap price tag. This is just insane.

Blizz says it's so not everyone would do it and depopulate the lower levels. Well then, don't implement a level boost.

And definitely don't implement a level boost and then make it stupidly expensive so only the people with a lot of free cash with nothing better to spend it on can afford it.
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#90 Feb 25 2014 at 10:40 AM Rating: Good
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Smiley: disappointedSigh. No, it is not pay to win. You get a character ready for the *start* of the next expansion. Winning is at the end of a race, not the beginning. Besides, as I noted above, everybody gets one boost with WoD ... except in all likelihood Chinese players.
#91 Feb 25 2014 at 11:56 AM Rating: Excellent
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Raolan wrote:
I really really really don't want to level 1-90, to the point that I very likely won't do it again. But for $60, I'll go buy a different game and play that.


As Rhode has pointed out, you get a free boost to 90 for a character of your choice the moment you buy WoD. Also, if you are so sick of leveling, I'd guess you already have some leveled characters.
The paid boost is for when you want additional characters on 90, beyond the free one and the ones you might or might not possess beforehand.

And as much as I have pissed and moaned about Blizzards paid character services in the past, this price tag (in my eyes) is actually not a sign of greed. Only few people will pay 60 bucks for this. If it had cost 20 dollars/euro in all likelyhood many more people would have used it. And the people at Blizzard surely know that.
#92 Feb 25 2014 at 12:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I still hold that it's a P2W scenario.
I'll vote "no" as well. The worst part is people are going to be grouping at late levels with no idea how to play their characters. Remember all those DKs in Hellfire back in WotLK? Same thing, same place, different time, different expansion.

I still surprised they went with the straight "boost to end-game" instead of the XP boosts most other MMOs sell. Then again WoW is really end-game orientated.


Edited, Feb 25th 2014 10:20am by someproteinguy
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#93 Feb 25 2014 at 12:32 PM Rating: Good
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Show me a single P2W game where fast-tracking it to endgame isn't a fundamental part of the entire monetization structure, and I'll agree with you.

This doesn't make WoW a P2W game, overall, but this is DEFINITELY a P2W service.

The game doesn't begin at endgame. Bypassing a massive amount of content to get direct access to endgame content is definitely "winning." It's hours upon hours upon hours of effort you don't need to invest if you're willing to pay a fee.

Whether or not you can pay to be the absolute best doesn't matter, because we're talking about whether or not the service is P2W, not whether or not the game is. Those are very different things. For the game to be, P2W services and features would need to be systemically implemented on a wide scale and ultimately provide equal or superior access to endgame stats and content.

But if they put entry-level gear for sale in the cash shop, that would still be a P2W service. It's a specific leg-up compared to what is possible without spending money, aka, paying to win compared to the non-payer.
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#94 Feb 25 2014 at 12:45 PM Rating: Excellent
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Maybe it's all about what you mean by winning? It doesn't get you Gladiator or Herioc raid clears, but it does let you a serious leg up on anyone else.

Maybe we can have a discussion about whether or not it's more ethical to have P2W elements in a subscription-based game versus a F2P one.

How far we've come from stacking clams and server transfers. How far we've come... Smiley: disappointed
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#95 Feb 25 2014 at 1:28 PM Rating: Good
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with 6 guys already at level 90 and most are LFR geared at least(and a bunch more mid 70s to mid 80s), the one toon i would get free to 90 is good with me only dilemna i would have is which server and horde or alliance...Sounds like a steep price to me....
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#96 Feb 25 2014 at 1:51 PM Rating: Good
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Maybe it's all about what you mean by winning? It doesn't get you Gladiator or Herioc raid clears, but it does let you a serious leg up on anyone else.

Maybe we can have a discussion about whether or not it's more ethical to have P2W elements in a subscription-based game versus a F2P one.

How far we've come from stacking clams and server transfers. How far we've come... Smiley: disappointed


See, I don't think there's anything about P2W that demands you have to "be the best."

By nature, PVE is not competitive. Players might turn it into a competition of elitism, but it's about personal character progression. You aren't in competition with other players, but it's important to the value of personal accomplishment that all players be on the same page. You need a community characterized by a return-on-effort; the people walking around in the best epics stand to add context of what you stand to gain by putting in that effort, and the new players in their 40s characterize the path you've traveled (for many of us, through multiple endgame scenarios on top of that).

So in terms of definition, a PVE P2W scenario is any scenario that lets you significantly jump the mark on the progression scale. In essence, you "win" by bypassing the content that is integral to the actual contextualizing of progress for players overall.

It's not like a PVP scenario, where a player buying better gear than you is a problem because it actually impacts your ability to perform. It's about cheapening the value of your accomplishment by monetizing it.

Sure, there are ABSOLUTELY different levels of insult with the P2W model, and fast-tracking to cap is probably the least egregious of them (except selling rate boosters, which I'm still against outside of F2P games).

But paying for an entry-level gear set for raiding, paying for an entry-level gear set for hard mode raiding, paying for BiS gear (or BiS gear that's better than raiding potential) are still all examples of P2W scenarios.

They're paying to bypass the content in place to force subscribers to invest time and energy into an accomplishment.

Because that's the thing. Those subscribers ARE paying to hit the level cap. They're just paying with both time and money. The P2W model is removing the time component and adding more money.

That's realistically all ANY P2W model, with the sole exception of the "best gear" scenario, is.

I'm willing to accept limited P2W models (like exp boosters) in a F2P game. I'm absolutely not in a subscription game. That's crap.

If you think there needs to be a fast-track to cap for experienced players who don't want to level anymore, then you put in a quest line that unlocks that system, but requires them be at cap with one character already.

If you don't think that, YOU DON'T MAKE IT AN OPTION.

Making it an option and monetizing it is what's crap in a subscription model.
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#97 Feb 25 2014 at 4:36 PM Rating: Good
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Having leveled three characters through Pandaria, I'm tempted... but I'm not going to pay the price of a brand new game just to skip a couple of weeks of leveling up.

What's that? Yeah, I'm one of the few who didn't particularly enjoy this latest expansion. I'd even go so far as to say I enjoyed Cataclysm more than Pandaria. And before you yell at me, let me just tell you why real fast, because it's oddly relevant:

The leveling experience.

It sucks, because everything is the same. Same character types, same atmosphere, same jokes, same damn music. Everywhere tea, and bamboo, and meditation, and monkeys, and celestial gods (lolwut?), and freakin' panda bears! I'm not enough of a fan of Asian culture to enjoy that. It was pretty cute for the first 20 quests, but then it got old, and then it got annoying. Especially since the first three dungeons are such a massive overload on everything you've just been exposed to in excess via questing. Honestly, the Pandaren accent is grinding my gears by now.

"I am not Zan, I am Chen Stormstout!" I don't care! Shut your damn mouth already!

The best memory I have of Pandaria questing was when I got to kill some Horde/Alliance while doing one of the quests that open up for a phased faction zone on the island. But I didn't get to do this quest until after I'd hit level cap. Wooh. Smiley: oyvey

I'm tired of this expansion. I want me some old school Warcraft story, so I'm looking forward to Warlords of Draenor. If that expansion doesn't strike my fancy, my World of Warcraft days are numbered. I'm enjoying Rift leveling so much more, anyway. Random Adventure LFG* is the best thing ever. Every MMO should have it, in my opinion.

*It's like LFG for dungeons, except it's for questing. You queue up, get put into a raid group with people roughly the same level as you, and then you get teleported to the raid group's location where the game gives you random quests to complete, as a group, around the zone you're in. The zones available change depending on your level, although the game does support down-scaling to allow you to do level 10 quests as a level 50, for instance (though not the other way around). If the game gives you some quests for another zone, the entire raid group will get teleported there. It's such a relaxing way to do quests while promoting the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Edited, Feb 25th 2014 11:40pm by Mazra
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#98 Feb 25 2014 at 6:10 PM Rating: Excellent
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Random Adventure LFG sounds like a nice way to shake the questing routine up. WoW desperately needs something like that. I would welcome the dynamic events from WAR, too. Only played it for a short while but those added so much to the questing experience.
#99 Feb 25 2014 at 10:06 PM Rating: Excellent
Why does it matter if someone wishes to pay to have their characters start at 90?

Anyways, wowhead/mmo-champ it if you want blue. People who who use the service will be "flagged" in two types. Group one: People who have at least one 90 (on account), and group two: people who do not. Abilities are suppose to be locked on Group 2 people, so they slowly get use to the abilities (they start off with 4) while people in Group 1 are considered experienced and I don't think they have the ability lock.
Speaking of abilities, it sounds like they are removing a good chunk of abilities for each spec. Abilities may "upgrade" into other ones as well. IE: My DK used a different skill set at 56 then he does now. All them skills he no longer uses are pointless (and were replaced, only a handfull are used, mostly in PvP..when I PvP [not often on him]).

Mathmatical Time:
$60 = lv 90. 90/60 = 1.5 = $1.50/per level. That is what each level equals out to. Totally not worth it. Leveling from 1 to 2 takes no where near the same amount [of time] as leveling 89 to 90.

WoW = $15/month. $15/30 = $0.50/day ($180/year)
Last character I leveled from 1 to 90 was my Monk. Granted he had full BoA gear (so a fresh new player would NOT have BoA), it took me almost 3 weeks. Exactly 21 played days? No. 2-3 hours each week night and almost all day/night on the weekends. I basically did nothing social during them 3 weeks. Woke up, went to work, came home and played WoW until I needed to go to sleep, for work. It cost me $10.50 over 504 hours of real world time.

Where am I going with this? I don't know, does it really matter?

I go to work, it is my free time. If I want to pay $60 to go from 1 to 90 and then quest the last 10 (?) levels why can't I?
If my youngest bro who has watched me play for a bit the last few days decided he wanted to play (actually play: do quest/dungeons/etc) with me. Should I take a 4+ week break? I have 0 plans to level another character from 1 (unless new classes come out down the road). RAF, Power Leveling, anything like this...is exactly like paying for a $90, just a little slower and cheaper.
I say 4 weeks... I have no idea how long it took me to level my 1st character to 70 (when that was cap). It took awhile. Sure I could give pointers, but in the end all that grinding to catch up could burn him out.
Burn anyone out.
I know this. See I said I do not have plans to level another from 1. This is probably a lie*. I did start a druid about 2 months ago. He hit 83 last night. For a few levels I was able to quest/dungeon with friends. It was great. I did tell them to not let me hold them back, as we rolled on a new server. After about 2 weeks I found I liked the server way more than the dead one my main(s) were on, so I transfered...5..characters to the realm. In doing so, I no longer had a huge need to level a druid I was only leveling to play with friends. When (and 2 of the 4 are) they hit 90 and we start raiding, I would have/will been using my already 90/LFR geared ready for flex/normal DK.

*WoD gives a free 90. I will probably use it on a Shaman. I'd like to play one, but I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to start at ******* level 1 again.

So yea.. P2W. I just can't agree with that. Saving oneself 45-60+ Hours of grinding to get to the new stuff on number Nth time around. Go for it if you can afford it. If not, have fun, take a different route. Or do the same path that you know and hate, and see if you can do it faster.

I mean lets face it, I could sell my account right now to someone who has never played WoW. He would get 3 90s, 3 in the 80s, and a few lower ones I've been PvPing on for ***** and giggles. He would have NO IDEA what to do with them, but I bet after a few hours/days of playing or hell..even reading about a class/spec online, one would not be able to point him out and say "Fool, you bought your toons." Roll a new character, you have to learn the class. Start learning at level 1 or 90, still have to learn it.
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#100 Feb 26 2014 at 12:45 PM Rating: Good
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So yea.. P2W. I just can't agree with that. Saving oneself 45-60+ Hours of grinding to get to the new stuff on number Nth time around. Go for it if you can afford it. If not, have fun, take a different route. Or do the same path that you know and hate, and see if you can do it faster.


"Go for it if you can afford it"
"Save yourself 45-60+ Hours"

And... Not P2W?

How is it not P2W? I mean, I literally don't understand the argument. It's a paid service to let you bypass one of the gating mechanics to access endgame on a new character. Something you HAVE to do if you don't want to pay the service fee for it.

What would you place as the point where a gate-bypassing service crosses into being P2W?
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#101 Feb 26 2014 at 1:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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But the gating mechanism a player could bypass with this service is not that big a hurdle anyway. Many people already have one or multiple level 90s. And even if I had no character whatsoever I would get a level 90 the second I bought WoD. If the paid boost was to level 100 and the free one either to 90 or non-existant I'd see it different. But this way...

That said, I'd have prefered it if there weren't any character boosts but I understand how that would discourage new players.
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