World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery phase two just launched on Feb. 8, and players agree Blizzard Entertainment needs to learn an important lesson ahead of phase three.
According to Reddit user Nospar and others who agreed with them in a Reddit post to the WoW Classic subreddit on Feb. 15, Season of Discovery developers should pay close attention to leveling in phase three. At the beginning of phase two, level 25 players crowded in Thousand Needles, Hillsbrad Foothills, Ashenvale, and Stonetalon Mountains to complete quests, and there simply weren’t enough mobs to go around. It easily took double the usual time to complete a quest. And that’s not to mention lootable quest items and taggable bosses at the end of quest chains.
These weren’t the only problems with leveling in phase two. Players also noticed how disappointingly easy it is to take down mobs just by pressing two or three buttons, and the severe lack of gear progression from questing makes leveling up feel unrewarding. I spend more time looking for mobs than killing them, and nobody likes mindlessly running around zones. Questing has always been a huge part of WoW, and it traditionally took skill and knowledge to defeat enemies stronger than you. Now, you can easily kill them without even breaking a sweat.
So, many players hurried to The Stockades and Scarlet Monastery, a dungeon with four separate wings, to power-level, and the end result was that leveling boiled down to “a lifeless rush to 40,” according to the OP of the Reddit post. You simply pull entire rooms and nuke enemies down with just a couple of AoE abilities, then rinse and repeat until you ding max level.
Hopefully Blizzard will use this as a learning opportunity and tweak how leveling works. First of all, mobs should respawn faster during the first weeks of the next phase. Next, the devs should look into improving quest rewards and buffing mobs so you don’t mop the floor with every enemy using just two to three abilities.
