World of Warcraft: The War Within added "training wheels" to buff new players, but accidentally went too far with a bug that's letting them constantly "cheat death"
Oct. 3, 2024It should be fixed “in the coming days”
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
New World of Warcraft players leveling after the release of The War Within expansion might have found that they’re inexplicably immortal, but game director Ion Hazzikostas has now clarified that this definitely isn’t meant to be the case.
Ashighlighted on Reddit, it was found that, with a few exceptions aside, new players leveling in the Dragonflight zone just can’t be killed – their health bars reportedly refill when brought to zero, bringing them right back from the brink.Speaking to Windows Central, Hazzikostas reveals that this stems from an intended feature, but it’s gone a bit too far thanks toa bug.
“The seemingly immortal gameplay for players in current Dragonflight leveling is a bug,” Hazzikostas confirms. He explains that when converting Dragonflight to “become the new default leveling experience,” the devs received feedback that, since some of the content was originally built for more experienced veteran players, completely new players could feel overwhelmed.
“In The War Within, we added a ‘training wheels’ set of zone buffs themed around the different dragonflights, intended to only apply if you are a new player on your first playthrough (i.e. haven’t unlocked Chromie Time, never had amax-level character, etc.),” Hazzikostas continues. “One of these buffs is a ‘cheat death’ that should save you from one death every so often. Unfortunately, there is a bug with that buff, and the cooldown isn’t working. We’re fixing this as we speak, and it should be resolved in the coming days.”
Whoops. Clearly, the feature will still be around insomecapacity – just to help new players settle into things without being constantly killed out there – but they certainly won’t be permanent, unstoppable forces for much longer. Hazzikostas hasn’t explained how long the cooldown on the buff is actually meant to last for, but it sounds like we’re sure to find out soon enough.
World of Warcraft grinder gets their 1,000th mount after 20 years of playing the MMO: “What a long, strenuous, fun and at times annoying journey it’s been.”
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
I’m one of GamesRadar+’s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield’s student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming’s news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you’re sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.
WoW veteran says the MMO’s devs had to make “ten times the amount of quests” as originally planned to sate playtesters, and now the game has 38,000 of them
World of Warcraft devs used to joke about the MMO making $1 million per month - just months before it smashed through $15 million in monthly revenue
Todd Howard “rolled his eyes” at the idea of Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones in the Great Circle, but the Bethesda boss later told him “you’re doing a hell of a job”
