Newcomers are quitting World of Warcraft. Why? Because it’s too hard. Don’t believe it? Just give it a try and see what’s wrong.
There’s always a discussion about whether World of Warcraft is too easy or too hard. Those who have been playing for many years often think that WoW is a piece of cake and the game has no difficulties at all. However, newcomers frequently quit before reaching the maximum level.
Currently, it’s worse than ever – and that’s because one cannot handle the “newbie” experience without substantial prior knowledge.
What’s the problem? Veterans and long-time fans of WoW might find it hard to understand, but newcomers are struggling significantly when starting in World of Warcraft. Once again, the issue is the balancing and the prescribed path that new accounts must take. They lack gear, causing enemies to quickly become overpowering.
The catch: New accounts are forced to level their first character in Dragonflight and remain there until level 70.
However, acquiring gear in the Dragonflight expansion is highly regulated. During the main questline, which lasts approximately until level 40 for new accounts, players receive a complete armor set. But they must stay in Dragonflight until level 70. After that, obtaining new gear becomes difficult, as only a small fraction of side quests provide gear.
In many cases, this means that characters are still using their starting gear up to level 50 or 60.
This, in turn, leads to their character being far too weak. Quest mobs suddenly feel like boss fights, and for some “named” NPCs, one has to use all abilities just to survive.
Deaths while Questing – Maximum Frustration
This is extremely frustrating for newcomers, and anyone who dies multiple times during regular quests – getting weaker with each level-up – is likely to throw in the towel.
YouTuber Bellular made an interesting video analyzing these problems:
Are there alternatives? Of course, there are ways to manually fix this: You can buy gear from the auction house, learn a profession and craft gear, or try your hand at dungeons. These are methods that are absolutely obvious to veterans – but not to newcomers.
And when their first experience in World of Warcraft is: “I can’t even reach the maximum level through questing and mobs are killing me constantly,” then that’s a major problem. Because there are MMORPGs everywhere – and why should one stay in one where the entry is so painful?
How absurd this is becomes clear to most when they take a step into the current expansion “The War Within.” Gear there is so powerful that you swap items with values like “+15 Intelligence and +20 Stamina” for items that have “+1,200 Intelligence and 1,800 Stamina.”
How can this be fixed? One way to address the problem would be the return of the leveling event, which provided additional loot. This loot could drop from all mobs and ensured that you regularly received better gear that perfectly matched your character’s level.
Another option would be vendors selling “quest sets” at the current level of a character. This was available in “Mists of Pandaria” and ensured that players were adequately equipped for quests and didn’t feel completely helpless.
However, Blizzard seems to be aware of this issue. They want to completely overhaul the experience for new players – probably with the expansion Midnight. This is also urgently needed because if the entry is so bad, many won’t even enjoy the exciting content that WoW has to offer.
That WoW is too difficult for newcomers is not a new phenomenon: For years, Blizzard’s MMORPG has been too complex for newbies.
