WoW: Great freedom in the endgame ≠ great freedom in leveling?
When I die in the past few days Patch Notes for WoW Hotfixes for Update 10.0.5 I rubbed my eyes in fascination for a moment. It said, “Enemies associated with the Cobalt Convent have had their experience points greatly reduced.” The background is the following, there was even a statement from the developers of World of Warcraft, so I’ll just quote:
“The Cobalt Coven was intended from the start as a max-level player feature, and the Shardflame enemies shouldn’t have been granting significant amounts of experience points. If a max-level player kills enemies while in a party with lower-level players who only standing around doing nothing but gaining XP and reputation isn’t the type of game we want to encourage We’ve adjusted the XP rate, rather than removing it entirely, to encourage players to do so in a more fun, interactive way to level up while we no longer leave this option as the best option.”
I think I wouldn’t have stumbled upon this nerf if nobody at Blizzard felt like commenting on it. But as it was, I raised my eyebrows after I finished rubbing my eyes. On the one hand, I understand why the devs are nerfing the AFK XP farm. And then again not. Because given that there are a thousand and one ways to max level in WoW and given that the developers don’t even want to dictate us to play the campaign even when leveling, I ask myself a question: Why nerf AFK XP farm?
Again, this farm is just one path players can take to reach level 70. Admittedly, it’s boring. But doesn’t it – pardon my French – give a shit whether the characters reach max level in this way, or only through crafting, dungeons or picking herbs? Why is it that Blizzard folks are so concerned about shared XP within groups? Because they secretly don’t want to give us absolute freedom and decision-making power?
Who says these aren’t twinks?
Let’s take a look at the type of characters that appeared to appear shortly after the release of WoW: Dragonflight in the northern plains of Ohn’ahra to leech from a max level character the XP gained after killing Tarasek workers, von Enforcers, Runebinders and whatnot, but mostly Shardflame. Most likely it will not be about main characters, because active WoW players have long since reached the maximum level.
Rather, it can be assumed that these are twinks; alternative characters who just want to be brought to max level as quickly as possible. That would mean that the folks driving an alt have already leveled in a “more fun, interactive way” – with their main. So is it bad then that they skip quests and want AFK farms instead?
Who says there aren’t boosters at work?
Of course you can stop the hustle and bustle north of Maruukai if you look at the characters who knock out the mobs at max level for other heroes. Because it is quite possible that this is a boost service for which the booster is remunerated – either ingame or externally. That the folks at Blizzard aren’t too big fans of boost services being offered in their online role-playing world hasn’t just been apparent since last year, as a full-scale anti-boost campaign was kicked off – Boosting communities, for example, have since been banned by the EULA.
So has the AFK farm been nerfed because of boost services? It’s possible, even relatively likely. But that could have been communicated openly and clearly in my opinion. But no, instead the devs decided to promote more fun and interactive level types, determining that AFK farming was stupid. Like a guardian who wants to make his child’s spinach tastier by taking away the candies. Not that spinach isn’t tasty. I hope you understand the parable I am trying to use here. Logically, the AFK farm is not exciting, I don’t have to fool anyone.
Who says bots don’t benefit from this?
After alts and boosters, what’s left? That’s right, bots. Of course, people with bot armies behind them want to reach the maximum level as quickly as possible in order to farm the items that are particularly popular among the normalos of Azeroth and to sell them as profitably as possible. Just… well, the leveling phase of World of Warcraft (buy now ) has never been so overwhelmingly strenuous that botters would have completed it at breakneck speed, even if they followed the normal quest path.
At the end of the day, it will come down to the fact that the Shardflame XP nerf happened to make AFK farming highly uninteresting – presumably primarily for boosters and botters. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been at odds with the character level system for years, and there are arguments for and against this feature. I only see the regular character level increase as a gate for the WoW endgame. Yes, at least the feature with Dragonflight has been expanded to include a somewhat more significant character strength component thanks to the dual talent trees, but our character mainly draws this strength from the ever-rotating spiral of items. So, assuming Blizzard did away with character levels, wouldn’t that put a stop to such AFK XP farm occurrences as well? Just as an idea. At least then nobody would have to explain to me that it’s possible to “level in a more fun, interactive way”. I already know that ^^.
Reference-www.buffed.de