On Hunters and Rolling Casual

Oh hey, there's another month without blogging at all XD

Meet Hynemann.

Yes, there's a theme.

I started playing on a new server and rolled a bunch of completely new characters.  I'm leveling without heirlooms for the first time since heirlooms were a thing.  And I'm not really minding it, honestly.

I've been taking a much more casual approach to WoW recently.  In fact, I haven't played in almost a week because STO and I have become BFFs.  This is mostly because I realized, upon finally getting a 90, that I wanted no part of the endgame scene.  I don't want to grind reputation.  I don't want to earn points.  I'm tired of dailies and chores and making a game into a job.

I figured something out (just now, in fact) -- there's really no mechanical difference between leveling and endgame activities, presuming you're talking about the "traditional" gear-treadmill endgame.  Both activities are all about playing the game to earn incremental power increases so as to be able to tackle greater challenges.

Recently, though, leveling is just a lot more fun.  I'm going to guess there's a couple reasons for this.  One is you have milestones to shoot for.  Your character changes, you earn new powers and abilities.  There's a psychological, Pavlovian response to leveling - when you "ding," it feels good.  It feels like you accomplished something.  Whereas when you earn enough Valor to buy an upgrade, well ... that feels more like working for your pay.  Jobs suck.  There's nothing exploratory about finding a job.

It might just be that I'm conditioned from years and years of tabletop, where leveling (rather than gear) is the entire point.  There's no "cap" in D&D, no "endgame" in Star Wars.  Eventually the system breaks down, sure, but I've only ever managed to run a single campaign long enough that the characters really got to that point, so I'm not convinced that that's actually a problem with the system or the medium.

Maybe it's the difference between finally being able to do a full split, or hit a bullseye, versus being able to afford that TV you've been wanting.  One thing represents a genuine, hard-earned self-improvement, and the other is just something new and shiny.  Not that there's anything wrong with new and shiny things, but I dunno, I guess I'd rather spend my time learning something new than I would just grinding out the daily job.

Maybe WoW would be more interesting if there were no level cap, no gear to grind.  What if you could just start raiding at 60, the new raids I mean, and every level you gained just made you a little more powerful.  Or maybe you could just spend XP to improve your abilities and do away with levels altogether.  Something a bit more interesting and different from the present endgame.

I digress, and I'm getting long-winded about the way in which video games are analogous to real life.  Because apparently I don't have one. XD

Moving on.

I've decided that the hunter represents the perfect casual character.  It's a powerful solo character, the pets have great utility, and there's something about the class that makes the "lone wolf" archetype seem apt.  Granted, I'm typically attracted to the magey/paladiny/martial artist types of characters, but I guess the headspace I'm in at the moment is more the ranger.  So I rerolled, and I'm having fun with the game again.

And for the future?  I don't know.  In my heart of hearts I'm still a tank, but more and more I feel like the social scene of the game isn't friendly to tanks right now.  Not that that'd keep me from monking it up or doing the paladin thing, or whatever -- the state of the game is such that any class is able to solo right now, so maybe I'm just rambling for no reason.

Conclusion: hunters good.  Yay hunters.  I'm gonna go play now.