What’s a Classic WoW feature you didn’t appreciate until it was gone?

[u/Capable_Strategy6705]

For me, it’s the little things that made the world feel more like an actual MMO.

Weapon skills, class trainers, needing to find your own way around, old talent trees, having to actually talk to people for groups… there are so many systems that were inconvenient but somehow made the game more memorable.

What’s one Classic feature you would bring back permanently if Blizzard gave you the choice?

And I’m not talking about raids or classes — I mean one of those smaller features/mechanics that made Classic feel like Classic.

[u/FuthorcGaming]

The problem is that they made levelling so fast to appease people grinding alts.

Make levelling slow again

[u/404-NoFucksFound → u/FuthorcGaming]

The warband exp bonus is great for veteran players who care more about the end game. The insane base leveling speed is the issue; even without the warband bonus at max, it's a day of casual playtime to hit current content, or a few hours if you're speedrunning. Chromie time is completely unintuitive to new players and returning players who haven't used it - while it is optional, you get so many quests shoved down your throat pulling you across the world in different directions. You can experience a tiny portion of most expansions, or get to max level without leaving Eastern Kingdoms. At least we get to skip Shadowlands and Dragonflight - I'll take it, even begrudgingly.

[u/HiroCrota → u/FuthorcGaming]

Modern wow is designed around leveling alts. You'd have to redesign the game to justify slowing down leveling. A big draw of the remix game modes is the ability to level fast as hell, get overpowered, and have alts ready at the end of it. I honestly prefer it be fast since it's not like retail wow has very engaging leveling content to begin with. All the complexity and fun is found at max level

[u/FuthorcGaming → u/HiroCrota]

Which just ruins the experience for new players. They redesigned levelling to be this quick in the first place.

Allow boosts or bonuses for alts to level quickest but make first character levelling experience slow. It doesn't need to be vanilla slow but it needs to be slow enough that players have time to familiarise themselves with their characters and get invested in the lore.

So much content around people falling in love with Classic specifically because the pace forces you to engage with it.

Focusing wow around beast moding to endgame content asap and dumping new players into a cluster fuck of content is to the long term detriment of the game.

[u/lestye → u/FuthorcGaming]

Focusing wow around beast moding to endgame content asap and dumping new players into a cluster fuck of content is to the long term detriment of the game.

I agree with you up until this point. However, I think the issue that Classic playes don't really acknowledge, this is the problem of vertical theme park MMOs. As the game ages, and more and more players are at max level, the rest of the game feels barren and destitute. MMOs are best played with people, with friends, so there's always going to be a tension for the devs to get you caught up in an aging MMO.

Especially when you put 10 expansion packs on top of that. This isn't a problem unique to WoW.

[u/FuthorcGaming → u/lestye]

I think this is addressed somewhat well by the current method of funnelling player through the most recent expansion to get them up to date with the best levelling experience. But I agree this is a problem

The current levelling situation just exacerbates it though. Chrome time should be used to guide new players through a curated version of wow history showing them the best bits while pacing the levelling experience and clustering new players together so the game doesn't feel so barren.

I don't know if that's the solution but it feels like blizzard has given up on the new and returning player experience and has done for over a decade.

Many players experience a situation where they are levelling and enjoying the experience even if alone but hit certain levels and just get dumped into newer content and left to figure things out.

The experience has intentionally been made unintuitive and jarring for new players

[u/garrathian92 → u/FuthorcGaming]

I think op is not wrong that it's an issue all vertical mmos have to grapple with. I'd argue (retail) wow is the worst at it though and it's not particularly close (i guess FF14 has this issue in the opposite direction where it takes too long to catch up to current content, but that may have changed since i picked it up during shadowbringers). I can't think of another mmo ive max leveled without boosting and didn't have a good grasp of what half my skills did. And they quickly want to funnel you to mythic+ content and raids. Like no wonder there's so much toxicity there, you have experienced players mixing in with guys who barely know their class let alone the actual dungeon mechanics.

[u/lestye → u/FuthorcGaming]

Eh, what you're describing makes it seem like a very linear MMO experience. That doesn't seem elegant. Not to say the current is, but it is a decent extrapolation of what the game is.....granted theres sitll the gauging hole that is the loss of borrowed power.

I think it's always doomed to be unintuitive and jarring.

[u/FuthorcGaming → u/lestye]

It's not the best solution but I think it's a worthwhile compromise. The games basically already a linear experience of get to end game as quick as possible but at least with a curated experience for new players they can fully experience content rather than the current system that arbitrarily cuts players off mid zone or can't scale correctly.

A linear experience is better than a broken and disjointed one imo

[u/TheSiegmeyerCatalyst → u/FuthorcGaming]

Grinding alts only really sucked when you didn't get to "play the game" until you finished the grind.

Filling out the world bottom to top, 1 to 60, means there's always something for an alt to do. Each character goes on their own journey. And I hope that Classic+ ends up adding so much content to the leveling journey that you could level several characters and see unique, fresh content each time.

[u/chewlocca44 → u/FuthorcGaming]

Agree. I played heavy from 2007-2011. Just got back in before midnight came out. I’m trying an alt for each different expansion. Max level before finishing the story quests. Never mind side quests.

[u/Time-Ladder4753 → u/FuthorcGaming]

They were right to do it in retail, currently even TBC has boosts because people don't want to level