Ol' grey mare, she ain't what she used to be...Follow

Meh, forget about Outland and Northrend. CATACLYSM is easy. Are there even group quests anymore? I remember the first few weeks it was maybe half challenging (okay, I was on a ret paladin), but from then on I've noticed everywhere so boringly easy its hideous.

By making everything super easy in an attempt to "remove the grind" we went from a tedious grind of skill to a tedious grind of brainlessness. I mean, quests never were the end all be all of skill tests. At least not since I've played it, but the occasional quest here or there that killed you 20 times was good to break the monotony. Now you could quest naked and still beat these jokes.

I'm by far not an elitist jerk... but seriously. It takes SKILL to die anymore. This holds true for the latest "end game" leveling. I can't even convince myself to do another quest after hitting 85 because even in places like Twilight Highlands there aren't any challenging quests. At least in Wrath you had a zone chalked full of group quests that at least made you look for someone other than yourself. Now its a disgrace.

You obviously never tried soloing the troll quests in Hinterlands (where the elites were), or the Ogres in Stormgarde, or Bangladesh prior to its nerfing. Or the days of when being a stupid caster and aggroing one of the monks in Scarlet Monestary meant you were going to take a dirt nap as opposed to now being able to tank the dang thing (did it, done it).

I'm not saying the entire leveling experience was one big test of skill, but there were elements that required skill. Even the group quests in Hellfire DID take some skill such as the Horde quests at the base of the citadel.

To label them all as novelties is an over generalization.

Personally, even as novelties, I would much rather have to spend the time of forming up a group and killing a mob once or twice per zone than the current status quo of mindless brainless spam two skills and watch it die. At least those quests had the illusion of effort.

Any requirement of skill or understanding of your class has been removed from the leveling experience. I didn't enjoy the days of dying the first 50 levels of my mage, but I do look back and miss having to actually work for my level instead of it being an after thought. If we're going to turn leveling into an after thought, lets just please cut the leveling requirement out altogether. If all Blizzard cares about is level 85, start everyone off at Cataclysm content. Otherwise, make the previous 80 levels something more than just a boring, drooling, brainless grind.

Edited, May 31st 2011 7:37am by ekaterinodar

"Solo" elite mobs? In Vanilla/TBC?

How many classes were actually capable of that, while the mobs were still at least green?

Hint: Very few. Very. Few.

Back in Vanilla and TBC, most classes were lacking vital survival tools and had an abysmal chance of ever doing it. Like another poster responded, Warriors. You weren't soloing ANYTHING elite as a Warrior in Vanilla/TBC, unless maybe it was a mob meant to be fought as a 2-person group and that's only if you throw Retaliation and just pound it to death and pray it dies before you do. That doesn't really take skill, though.



If you have a group, you mow through the group quest. I will admit, that I solo'd that quest in Hellfire you mention with 3 classes, Paladin Hunter and DK, and it was mildly challenging, but that's only trying to clear the trash before pulling him. Common sense, I wouldn't really call it "skill". Also took some luck too.



Not me. I hate doing the whole "/1 LFG XXXXXXXXXX!" for hours until I actually get a group. As it is, one of my mains is missing the CoC achievement, and I'm wishing I had done it sooner... I plan on doing it soon, but how much you wanna bet I'm going to have trouble getting a group even though she's capable of tanking a heroic dungeon...



The problem lies within the assumption that people are dumb as bricks.

If you're dumb as a brick, no manner of group quests are going to suddenly make you smart or competent.

If you are smart and competent, you don't need group quests to teach you how to play your class.

Oh, and people are leveling through the LFD tool nowadays. Those work MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better than the old group quests did, half of them were 2-3 person group quests, which doesn't even begin tot each anyone how Grouping in dungeons work, as dungeons are all 5+ man content.

tl;dr:

You want to have fun leveling your character in group-based play? Use the LFD Tool.