Insights & improvements for Zygor guides: zone research, grinding, QoL improvements++
Hey Zygor,
I've been using WoW guides since vanilla. I have used J's, D's, and Zygor. Right now I'm using your classic guide and I'd like to offer some insight and constructive criticism.
Praise:
As a user of several guides (both Addon based and Text-based) generally, I use Zygor the most. Here's why:
Criticism:
That being said, having used several guides for classic, the travel and zone progression is not great. For instance, zone progression in D's is far better, and also superior in:
Hakurai's Alliance Guide
and
classicwow.live
I can't go into every zone and explain, but I suggest you have the guide writers take some time to look at these resources and study their time in each zone, and zone progressions. Specifically, focus on how they keep players in each zone longer or limit travel to close adjacent zones.
In addition, it seems many portions of your guide pre-suppose that the player is on a PVE server. The guides zone progression chooses zones that are contested and end up getting the player killed on PVP servers. This wastes a TON of time.
Some other great quality of life things to consider:
Some last things:
Thanks to you and the guide writers and addon coders for all the hard work. I know editing LUA all day can be frustrating. Also, kudos for having the guide available at launch for everyone.
As for the upcoming/new updates. I think this was done hastily as pressure mounted from forum complaints. I know it's hard to see people call your baby ugly (im a software dev, I know) but I think the general user of Zygor is not going to enjoy harder mobs to kill. As a product dev, I'd keep all addon code forked and copies of the old guide ready to revert to. If my assumption is right (I hope it's not) I would revert and I would focus the guide writers on getting parity with the guides above. One lovely thing you have going for you is your constant communication with the community. We appreciate seeing you in all the threads.
I've been using WoW guides since vanilla. I have used J's, D's, and Zygor. Right now I'm using your classic guide and I'd like to offer some insight and constructive criticism.
Praise:
As a user of several guides (both Addon based and Text-based) generally, I use Zygor the most. Here's why:
- It is in-game. While other guides offer a faster speed to 60 and better zone and sub zone progression, I have to track them in a browser without a GPS arrow in-game. This alone is a reason I stick with "addon" guides.
- Zygor includes map and route "comments". Things like "it's a small foot on the ground" or "he's on the top floor of the building". These small additions save me lot's of time leveling and I know they are made from the guide writers own experience and comments parsed from Wowhead as useful.
- Zygor has several quality-of-life features: automatic quest cleanup, vendor GPS, sell grays, and gear suggestions with black-lists.
- In general, Zygor includes quests off the beaten path others miss. This is both a pro and a con. It adds significant travel time but allows a player to chose to quest completely instead of grind.
Criticism:
That being said, having used several guides for classic, the travel and zone progression is not great. For instance, zone progression in D's is far better, and also superior in:
Hakurai's Alliance Guide
and
classicwow.live
I can't go into every zone and explain, but I suggest you have the guide writers take some time to look at these resources and study their time in each zone, and zone progressions. Specifically, focus on how they keep players in each zone longer or limit travel to close adjacent zones.
In addition, it seems many portions of your guide pre-suppose that the player is on a PVE server. The guides zone progression chooses zones that are contested and end up getting the player killed on PVP servers. This wastes a TON of time.
Some other great quality of life things to consider:
- In D's guide the target button that targets the nearest quest mob is super handy.
- Also in D's guide the model viewer to see what the mob or NPC you are searching for is also useful.
- Several text guides are quest-based but also offer a notification in the middle of the guide saying "At this point, you can continue the guide questing but be on the lookout for a fast group for X dungeon. During the X-Y level range, it offers great gear and experience".
- Like the above, when grinding is needed to progress there are some really great resources like this to reference where and when to switch to grinding.
- Map markers and spawn-dots a-la Questie and ClassicCodex are extremely useful in addition to the markers the guide writers mark. They show me more precisely where mobs can be found and allow the player to chose an uncontested area for tagging mobs.
Some last things:
Thanks to you and the guide writers and addon coders for all the hard work. I know editing LUA all day can be frustrating. Also, kudos for having the guide available at launch for everyone.
As for the upcoming/new updates. I think this was done hastily as pressure mounted from forum complaints. I know it's hard to see people call your baby ugly (im a software dev, I know) but I think the general user of Zygor is not going to enjoy harder mobs to kill. As a product dev, I'd keep all addon code forked and copies of the old guide ready to revert to. If my assumption is right (I hope it's not) I would revert and I would focus the guide writers on getting parity with the guides above. One lovely thing you have going for you is your constant communication with the community. We appreciate seeing you in all the threads.
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