The Daily Quest: Enough already
by Anne Stickney 
Jan 24th 2011 at 4:00PM
WoW Insider's on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
Blog Azeroth had another one of its shared topics this week for the blogging community: Was it really a good decision on Blizzard's part to only offer five new levels of content with this expansion, instead of 10? It's a really good question, all things considered. Personally, I think the sheer amount of material Blizzard gave us in the 1-60 revamp was more than an expansion's worth of material by itself; adding 10 levels on top of that might have made the whole thing a little too daunting. But that's just me -- how about we see what the rest of the blogosphere had to say about it?
- Good Morning Azeroth takes a look at the topic from the view of levelers and endgamers.
- The View through the Branches looks at it from the altoholic's perspective.
- Corath's Blog ponders whether or not Azeroth has the space for any additional leveling zones now.
- Fun in Games wonders if that's even the right question to ask.
Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites. Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
threesixteen Jan 24th 2011 4:10PM
an interesting question that'll likely fall out according to playstyle (end gamers vs lvl/altoholics)...
the one issue that's become prominent on the realm i play on is the fact that there is no difference (in titles or loots) between 10 and 25 man raiding. Exacerbating this disincentive for 25man teams is the shared lockout for 10s/25s.
It is a real shame that any distinguishing marks of achieving success on 25 man raids has been withdrawn. While the realm i'm on isn't among the top realms, we do have about 7 or 8 top 25 man guilds all competing for progression bragging rights (Good naturedly of course)... sadly, all but two of these guilds have moved to ten mans with the cata release.
While the guild i'm in continues to remain committed to 25s, we're being outpaced by all the ten man guilds on the realm (ten man versions of raid content is MUCH MUCH easier to raid than 25s regardless of what blizz's intent here was) and it's extremely disappointing to see our guild slipping in the rankings to these ten man cakewalkers.
Even on wowprogress, there's no significant way to distinguish yourself as a leading 25man team.
Any one else feel the same?
Killik Jan 25th 2011 10:42AM
I get that you're holding onto a way of playing that you've really loved - but if 10 and 25 raid sizes are equal in difficulty then there is no longer any particular prestige attached to completing a 25 raid.
So I guess I'm saying what is lost if only a sense of occasion, not of having achieved something on a higher level of difficulty.
threesixteen Jan 25th 2011 10:47AM
Actually Kill, the point is that the difficulty IS harder on 25 man. 10 mans are easy-peasy. Plus if you can't understand the bond a 25 man team shares versus the other ten man guilds, then perhaps you haven't had the same wow experience as i have. which is fine.
your comment is slightly patronizing because it's not about "holding on to a way of playing". The fact is blizzard offers two modes, a harder 25 man mode and an easier 10 man mode. I htink there should be relevant distinctions made in game vis a vis loot and titles.
most of the players who don't get this are 10s. fair enough.
Ray Jan 25th 2011 2:33PM
I'm confused by people that say 25's are harder then 10's. I've not raided much at all either way with cata yet, so I can't say anything firsthand. What I have seen though, is that lower ilvls have been reported required for 25's. If they can be done with lower ilvls, are they harder? Allmost all of the world firsts have been done in 25's, if 10's were easier would this be the case?
Like I said, I've not done much of either sense cata, so just food for thought, or yelling at me.
threesixteen Jan 25th 2011 3:05PM
hey ray.
great points you raise. i've been running 25s and 10s with my guild and tho it's anecdotal there are some key elements between the two approaches that make the fights easier on 10.
First, and likely most obviously, there are less people. Less roles to co-ordinate, less incoming damage to mitigate, greater health pools of bosses and adds, etc... while it's true that average ilvls maybe lower in 25, i think that's a bit misleading because of the difficulties in actually getting 25 people.
the prog guilds that are downing world firsts are doing so on 25 BECAUSE that's the hardest way to go. It's a point of pride i'd suspect. plus, world first are done by the absolute best of the best raiding guilds. I'd be willing to wager these guilds would be the first to down these bosses in either raid size.
in the 10s i've run, it's much easier to move to safe zones (many of the boss mechanics involve AOE damage effects, situational movement requirements etc) the boss health pools are smaller and we still have the same raids buffs (class overlaps here make all the difference) so unlike previous ex-pacs, being in a ten group doesn't hurt you from a buff/talent pov.
Anyway, i know that many folks disagree with me, but i still feel like 25 man teams are the prestige raid unit and it's a disservice to those of us that commit to this raid size to not distinguish us from the 10 man teams.
And let me also say i'm not disparaging the ten man raid team accomplishments; not at all.
maybe blizzard has already offered a rationale somewhere of why they felt like no distinction was neccessary but i'd love to hear them weigh in on it now.
Squelchy Jan 24th 2011 4:27PM
I encourage everyone to click though and try out the rest of the shared topic responses on the Blog Azeroth thread, as well.
*ahem*
Corath Jan 24th 2011 5:09PM
Very much this. There's a ton of great bloggers who participate in Blog Azeroth's Shared Topics, and I'm very honoured that I was chosen to make the "front page" today. Take a look into other people's responses!
Tank Jan 24th 2011 4:34PM
I was 80 when Cata came out... The 1-60 content is for new players or because you get bored at 85 so fast, you need to make another alt. The lowbie content was well overdue, but that's a "revamp", not an "expansion". New players and altfiends got a whole new game. I got 20-25 hours of leveling content and another gear grind to get raid ready yet again.
omedon666 Jan 24th 2011 5:32PM
Tales from the Void is sad that so many roleplayers succumb to Euphemasia: the killing of one's own roleplay opportunities through being perhaps too strict with their personal euphemism filters!
http://omedon666.livejournal.com/79589.html
Merinna Jan 24th 2011 6:29PM
Please consider a recent blogpost I wrote about the current healing mechanics in WoW
How Hard is Healing? And Is it Any Fun?
http://meriheals.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-hard-is-healing-and-is-it-any-fun.html
It is largely from the point of view of the Restoration Shaman who is my main, and I would like to suggest that Blizzard is failing the healing classes of WoW right now.
Josh Jan 24th 2011 7:06PM
The amount of work that went into this expansion is staggering. Seems like they re-did the majority of the old-world quests, to say nothing of all the changes to the zones, the old dungeons, and the capital cities.
You want 10 levels? Push the release date out another couple of years. I don't think that would make sense to anybody - not to players, not to Blizzard's accountants, no one.
Since a lot of the new stuff is for lowbies rather than high-level players, this is a bit different from previous expansions. I think Bliz did a pretty good job of distributing their efforts.
Naithin Jan 24th 2011 8:52PM
They could have shoe-horned 10 levels into the content they released easily enough, methinks.
It would've even come with some benefits given how large the power scale is from 80-85, but it also would've come down with a fair number of negatives as I pointed out in my post. Mainly though, it would either be an increased rate of leveling which would have felt completely off, or we would've lost even more choice in what we could do.
The zones themselves are quite linear in terms of quest flow; but we do at least have some options in which zones to do. If they didn't want to make each of the 10 Cata levels feel trivial, they could've forced us into doing everything up to the end of the Twilight Highlands, but then what little choice we had left would've been taken in the bargain.
So, my conclusion was that 5 levels was probably the right call; despite the attendant issues.
---
As an aside from all that, Thank-you Anne for including me this week. Was a (very pleasant) surprise.
I do hope everyone enjoys the reads on the topic and clicks through to the Blog Azeroth topic to see some of the other takes; I have to admit this probably wasn't really my best post in the world and had I known it'd end up here likely would've done a bit more with it.
But hind sight is 20/20 and all that, I suppose. :) Hope people enjoy it nonetheless.
Take care,
-Nait,.
Doc Jan 24th 2011 7:30PM
The wife and I, which are die hard WoW fans since BC but are casuals, find ourselves playing League of Legends lately because our choices in wow gaming consist in order of fun as:
1. Pug Heroics (30-45 min que) and we are both max geared at 346 ilvl already
2. daily and rep grinds
3. Tol Barad as world pvp (never win and rarely get in, we almost never get play together)
4. roll another alt
Two months into Wolk, with the our same exact Cata gaming hours, and we still hadn't been to Dalaran yet. Maybe being able to fly from the beginning of this expansion sped us through the content but were already bored.
If you have not tried LoL check it out, it's free and I can play on my old XP laptop just fine, unlike Cata.
Boozard Jan 25th 2011 1:32AM
i agree with this. i don't know if the top guilds were downing raids within a month of WOTLK release. but definitely our guild was not. in fact, i think we only started running through heroics a good 3 or 4 months after the release.
it's a little more than a month since Cataclysm released and our guild is at the point where we're just ready to start raiding. and to think we are still slow as far as guild progressions go. if you're not into raiding, you're probably bored already. i think 5 levels may have been to small.
still... there is always a possibility that blizz will release additonal levels in future patches. the theme i'm getting from catac is that everything is still under development and that blizz chose changes in small doses.
Killik Jan 25th 2011 10:49AM
All available WotLK raid content was cleared by top guilds within three days of the release date (obviously they'd been practising on the beta). In comparison, It was about a month and a half until all available Cataclysm raid content was cleared (I believe it was hard-mode l'Akir). So it seems raiders are well catered for - as are altaholics. Not saying it's perfect, but...
Turncoat Jan 25th 2011 8:34AM
I really don't get why everybody is so bent out of shape about the 5 level jump this time around instead of 10. Blizz made it so that 5 levels feel like 10. It's supposed to take the same amount of time, you get huge jumps in base stats between each level instead of smaller ones, but in the end it makes no difference whether they made it 10 levels or 5. ie. If it took us 10 million xp to get from level 70 to 80, then maybe with stat inflation blah blah blah, we would expect to see maybe, 50 million, or 100 million xp to get from 80 to 90 right? So, what's the difference if it takes 50 or 100 million xp to get to 85 instead? It's just a number. They could have made it take 6 months to get to level 81 if they really wanted to.
Now people are saying that it's not taking long enough to level to cap? People used to complain that it took too long, so they shortened the level cap. Being in a guild gives you extra xp to level up faster. That's why it takes less time. You get to level cap, you grind regulars till you're geared for heroics. Then you do heroics. Then you do raids. Nothing has changed!
I just don't under stand why everybody thinks we got this terrible deal with the new expansion. Really, everybody says that every expansion. The fundamentals are still the same, and the difference between an 85 and a 90 level cap is *only* the number. Blizz makes the rules, they can make it take as long as they want, plain and simple.
But that's just my 2 cents.
wmdistraction Jan 25th 2011 10:13AM
I would have liked more levels in order to experience more (harder?) content, but the path Blizzard took makes complete sense to me: They put a lot of work into revamping and balancing current zones and content for this expansion that they may have neglected some aspects of the game if they had five more levels of content to work and re-work. I'd rather have a higher quality 1-85 experience than a mediocre 85-90 grind.
TheDude Jan 25th 2011 12:53PM
I think Blizzard knew they were giving a lot less end game content to casuals, Cata was even $10 cheaper than Wolk at release if you remember.