The thing that makes these quests particularly annoying in Classic is that you can't even be sure that you are in the right area. If you can't find any mobs, it might be because:
- You are in the wrong area. Classic directions are often somewhat vague.
- You might not get close enough to the mob to detect it. This is especially true if you are under-leveled.
- Someone else may have come through just before you and killed the mobs, so you're waiting for them to respawn, but you don't know that.
In retail, the minimap displays the area where you can find the mobs. So at the very least, you know where to search.
In Classic, there's just too little information, and that makes the whole thing a frustrating exercise. These sort of quests really need something to offset that loss of information. For example, a tracker that told you if you were hot or cold.
Or possibly if the geography was constrained to make finding the mobs easier. For example, stealthed mobs in an underground mine or complex. Here you can traverse the corridors, and be reasonably certain that you've found or not found any mobs in the paths that you've already taken.
But stealthed mobs out in the Classic open world are just overly frustrating.
I suppose the real answer is for Blizzard to create inherently more interesting stealth detection mechanics, but that's obviously not an option for Classic.
ReplyDeleteI suppose, in addition to a Hunter's Flare ability, targetable AOE like Blizzard is also an option. Perhaps more classes should have options to deal with a situation like this, but maybe it's okay for a class like Warriors to be weak here, and be forced into just clumsily run about.
Retail has mostly obsoleted the need for extra mechanics by displaying the quest area on the minimap. That's enough to at least assure you that you are in the right section of the map.
DeleteI think any extra mechanics would be clutter unless maybe Blizz started using stealth more in dungeons and raids.
Well, if you think this is frustrating, imagine trying to find the NPC necessary to complete the Onyxia attunement questline (at least on the Alliance side). All you know is that such a person exists, but no other hints are given. And if you're like me and trying not to look at hints online to keep the experience alive, it can take quite a while to find this person.
ReplyDeleteLuckily for me I used to travel all over on Az, my rogue, so when I got the quest I suspected I knew where to go. But if you didn't just wander around Azeroth? Yeah, good luck on that.
Heh, yeah, Vanilla did like to be vague at times. Though I'm finding that there were a lot of hints which may not have been directly tied to the main quest. Like a different quest or NPC says something which is a clue.
DeleteIn this case, at least, there's a quest from a dungeon that leads you to the relevant NPC. So if you've done that, you hopefully remember it. If you haven't done it, then when you do it you'll find the same NPC for two quests.
DeleteThis is one of the times when being a hunter is OP. After a few minutes of frustration is Classic on this quest I remembered using track stealthed in Vanilla and used it again in Classic.
ReplyDeleteWoW, I didn't realize that Hunters could track stealthed mobs! I thought they had to use Flare or a similar targeted ability.
DeleteOther classes could also track mob types most relevant for them, e.g. paladins could track undead. And humans had racial ability to improve stealth detection for 15 seconds. ;)
DeleteYeah, I remember that. I just didn't know or remember that stealthed was one of the categories. I thought it was all creature types for hunters: beast, humanoid, etc.
DeleteStealthed is not a category. You just track creature type and the creatures of this type appear on your mini-map, stealthed or not. You don't get to see them in the world, but you can mouseover them on the minimap and read their name, and of course navigate to the place where they are and reveal them by aoe or walking through them.
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