How did we put up with this for so long?

There are a lot of negative things I could say about patch 4.0.1. I could talk about Warlocks losing the names of pets that they have had since long ago, names they grew attached to, before a bug took them away (but that's going to be fixed, anyways). I could talk about how atrocious I find the new tree of life model, but time and accepting that I'm probably done healing on my druid has turned my abhorrence into utter indifference. I've already talked about the loss of tree of life as a permanent form, so no point in belaboring that point. Of course, the fiasco of post-4.0.1 class balance is a topic rife with discussable points, but I can't be angry about any of these things. I can't be angry about them because of the changes this patch has made to my warrior alt.

You see, I rolled my little warrior (currently residing at level 25; he was level 22 when the patch hit) as a way to enjoy this game before Cataclysm comes out, but leveling him was a very trying process. Heroic strike, the ability we were supposed to use while fighting one-on-one, consumed so much rage that using Thunder Calp, an ability meant for AoE combat, was actually more rage efficient, even against one enemy. Of course, this meant the damage of a low level warrior was incredibly sub-par, for there weren't many other abilities I could use to increase my damage. I could use Rend, a damage over time ability; Overpower, which I could only use after one of my attacks was dodged, i.e. not all that frequently; and Victory rush, which I could only use once per battle, anyways. In short, at low levels, warriors lacked the abilities they needed to be viable in one-on-one combat.

With patch 4.0.1, however, that all changed. My warrior went from level 22 to 25 (granted, I was two bars away from 23 when 4.0.1. hit) probably as quickly as he went from 21 to 22 thanks to the new move set he has. What you might not know if you've only been following the level-cap changes in patch 4.0.1 is that this patch brought with it changes to how and when we learn abilities at low levels. We only need to learn an ability once, after which it scales as we level. Because of this, Blizzard spread out the rate at which we learn new abilities, so that we have more to learn at higher levels than we would if they had kept it the same. In the process, they reevaluated the order in which we learn abilities and shifted it a bit. This was also the patch where they changed the nature of our abilities. What this all adds up to is that, thanks to the new (new for my level, at least) and improved abilities this patch gave my lowly warrior, he is suddenly viable in combat and--dare I say... fun.

Yes, I said it... ok, I really implied it, but I'll say it now: leveling as a warrior was just not fun in the 1 to 22 range before this patch. Having abilities that weren't viable sitting unused on my bar while using abilities that weren't meant for the situation I was in because the abilities that were meant for the situation I was in were practically useless wasn't fun. Now, all of a sudden, leveling as a fury warrior actually feels like playing a berserker. We have a lot more rage now, thanks (I think) to the rage normalization, and we have abilities that we actually want to spend that rage on. Playing as a fury warrior in low levels is now a frenzy of trying to use the abilities available to you as quickly as possible, since you actually have the rage to do so, rather than an exercise in waiting for Thunder Clap to come off its cooldown and hoping you have enough rage to use it when it does.

So why am I gushing about the new playstyle of low-level fury warriors? Well, after playing as my warrior for an hour or two last night; after surviving a battle against seven enemies of my level, all attacking me at once, when four doing the same thing could have easily done me in before the patch; I had to ask myself: why did we put up with the absolutely terribad playstyle of low level warriors for so long? In fact, I'm sure warriors aren't the only class whose low-level play has been vastly improved by this patch, so I have to ask; why did we put up with bad low level playstyles for so long?

Well, part of the answer is that many people didn't. I know quite a few players who hate the leveling process, and the way some classes play at low levels played no small part in their hatred of that part of the game. Of course, alt-aholics like me really had no choice other than putting up with the bad low-level content, hoping it would be worth it with the higher level content. Part of it could be the idea that we are somehow earning our fun, that the bad low-level playstyle is the price we have to pay to get to the more fun playstyle. That idea is reinforced by the idea that any sort of bad experience we go through makes us able to better appreciate the good experiences we go through, a truism I have often heard in real life.

It could also have something to do with a little condition called learned helplessness. The idea of learned helplessness is that if we accept that we have no control over a situation, it causes us to accept the misery that situation brings upon us, even if a way out is presented. There wasn't a lot we could do to improve the playstyle of classes that were not at all fun to play while leveling, other than not leveling those classes, so those of us who wanted to level those classes just had to accept that the early levels were going to be unenjoyable. (And boy were they. Priests? Paladins? Warriors? Druids? I'm looking at you.) So we gritted our way through those early levels, because we had no other choice if we wanted to get to the part where the classes become fun to play (and I can tell you from personal experience that priests and druids got much more fun to play as you approach the later levels).

Could it really be that bad, though? Could us hopeless alt-aholics really be suffering from the same condition that keeps battered spouses and depressed people in their predicaments? As the blog post I linked to mentions, when someone suffering from learned helplessness does get out of their situation, they often have a hard time committing to anything afterward, and tend to continue believing in nihilism and futility, rather than having hope and being optimistic. When I first logged in to my warrior, I had my doubts about whether he would be any more fun to play, but I gave it a try anyways. As you can tell, I was blown away once I did, but the important thing was whether I hesitated at all. Well, I did find it a bit tedious to need to go to the trainer and learn new moves, and viewed rearranging my action bar with the same weary view. In fact, that fact that I started playing again after rearranging my abilities doesn't really do much to disprove the learned helplessness theory, because I still expected playing to not be all that enjoyable; the surprise came from the fact that I enjoyed play my warrior, not from the fact that I did, in fact, play him. Thus I was engaging in old behaviors with the same kind of futile outlook; all that changed was the result.

So perhaps we alt-aholics who braved our way through the early levels of the unfun classes did suffer from learned helplessness, but patch 4.0.1 is here now, here to liberate us from the previous doldrums of the early levels. Along with this forced liberation comes the force relocation (metaphorically speaking) to a much more fun game design; in other words, we are being flat-out prevented from going back to the situation that caused our learned helplessness in the first place. We have been forced into our escape, forced into a more hopeful situation, and though we might not have been cured of that helplessness, at least we have been saved in spite of it. What this means for the future of low-level playing and us alt-aholics, though, remains to be seen.

Alts for their own sake?

Full disclosure: I'm a recovering alt-oholic. For as long as I have been playing WoW, I have always felt the temptation to see how the other nine sides live. The sheer number of alts I rolled that never made it past level 20, or even level 15, astounds me sometimes. I used to go through a very predictable pattern with my alt-itis: I'd grow envious of one class, roll alt of that class, give it a profession I was envious of, play it, get board with it somewhere in the 10-15 range (or sometimes even before then), and repeat that process about six times, give or take. I would then have a mini existential crisis where I would look at that screen of alts and wonder, "Why do I keep rolling alts that I never play? No more of this!" I would then log in to each alt individually, sell all of their stuff, send the money to my main, and delete them. I would then promise to myself that I would not roll another alt without having a good reason to do so. I have gone through this whole process at least four times thus far, enough times to have gained some insight into how and why it happens.

One thing that is consistent with most of the alts I roll is that I never roll them for the sake of just leveling them. In most cases, what motivates me to roll an alt is the desire to use that alt in end-game content. It's usually jealousy of that class's abilities and perceived strengths that draws me away from my druid. Perhaps a class looks fun to play as a DPS, or perhaps the class's healing or tanking style looks more varied than my druid's and thus more engaging. Inevitably, though, I realize that it will likely take me months to reach that point (that point being level 80), and I realize that I will likely never be able to use my alt for group content. (What's that you say? Run dungeons on the way to 80? Um... no.) And with the possibility of using that alt for level cap content gone, my motivation to level it goes as well.

So it seems the issue is a disjunction between my motivation for rolling the alt in the first place and the amount of effort I am willing to put up with to get it there. After all, when you roll an alt, you start with a very small selection of that class's abilities, and if the goal is to play the class because of the class's playstyle, it's disheartening to only be able to start with a skeleton of that playstyle (it's really just the ribcage, if we want to stick with that metaphor). That's part of the reason that I've always thought that a good middleground between the people who want to be able to start alts at level 55 and the people who think we shouldn't be able to do that would be the ability for us to start our alts at level 20. That way, you skip the most boring levels and start at the point where most classes start to come into their own and feel like the class they are. In other words, you could skill the lol-smite/lol-wrath/lol-judgment stages in which the classes are incredibly boring to play. But that's a topic for another time.

Of course, the obvious answer is to just roll an alt for the sake of playing the alt, for the sake of experiencing the class as it evolves and comes into its own. My most successful alt, my shaman, who is now level 66, was rolled for exactly this reason, which is part of the reason why I have stuck with him for so long. So why isn't this enough of a motivator for me to stick with an alt? Why isn't playing an alt for its own sake enough to motivate me to roll an alt?

I think it has something to do with the issue of meaning. Perhaps in WoW, as in life, we desire a meaning for our actions, a motivating factor to motivate us to play. Fun can certainly be that motivating factor, but I see fun in WoW as similar to happiness in real life: they're both one answer to the question of what to live for, but for some, they are insufficient answers, not enough to make all it worth it. Perhaps you don't know what I mean, but maybe some of you reading this do; maybe you have experienced the dissatisfaction with living for day-to-day experiences rather than for something greater. Life isn't constantly enjoyable, so living only for the moment can backfire when that moment isn't a particularly good one.

Alts are the same way. They are certainly fun, but some parts of the leveling process are just plain grueling, including the lol-phases listed above, the 40-50 stretch, quest items with aggravatingly low drop-rates, etc. In those moments, it can be easy to forget the fun times you had with your alt and the fun times you will have if you continue playing. That's where that long-term goal comes in. That long-term goal is what will keep you playing through those uninteresting stretches, because achieving that goal will make it all worth it.

So the real question becomes, are those long term goals necessary, or are the fun moments themselves enough motivation to keep playing one's alt? I guess this is just a question that every player needs to answer for themselves.