Ion take my levels!

[Siyressia-saurfang]

Yea and why? How would just removing levels make it smoother?

It’d see you ding less, and potentially it would take half the time. Neither of which is ‘smoother’.

You know a common problem here with the level squish advocates is they ask for it but apparently have no idea of what it actually means in practice.

Maybe they just heard Youtubers say it and they’re just repeating it? Well, you see that A LOT in WoW.

[Herandi-argent-dawn]

In my oppinion the sense of progression in starting a new char is musch rewarding gaining a new spell every lvl instead every 5 lvls or so

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

perhaps should follow a simple story through each of the zones instead

Already does. Have you even leveled through every zone?

In my oppinion the sense of progression in starting a new char is musch rewarding gaining a new spell every lvl instead every 5 lvls or so

Then you need to ask for the vanilla-tbc-wrath-style Talent Trees. Not for a level squish.

Level squishes don’t change anything to achieve the result that you want to achieve.

[Quokel-draenor]

He can have them all.

For only 1 million gold a piece.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

He can have them all

Why do you want to have a level squish?

[Quokel-draenor]

I need the money.

Seriously though, I believe an ever increasing level cap doesn’t add much value. At the end of the day it is just a bigger number.

I’d rather progress in terms of abilities, talents and possibly different gear stat combinations.

[Berserka-arathor (Berserka)]

I dont care im playing Division 2 a far btter MMO with an amazing end game.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Quokel-draenor

Seriously though, I believe an ever increasing level cap doesn’t add much value. At the end of the day it is just a bigger number.

Sure but you can just put a cap at 120 then and figure out a way to continue releasing content and give players something else than levels every expansion.

@Quokel-draenor

I’d rather progress in terms of abilities, talents and possibly different gear stat combinations.

That’s precisely what I suggested in the other thread. Consider the following:

@Razien-quelthalas

Yeah something like the PvP Prestige system but one you unlock after hitting max level on a character. Every max level character would automatically get access to it.

That would probably work but then there’s still the issue of a power increase or rather gameplay differences of new expansions.

“Why” would a player want to go do the new content when all items in the game give the same stats?"

This is why you need to have the vanilla-tbc-Wrath-style Itemization back.

They “designed themselves in to a dead-end”, so to speak. There’s no way to go but backwards now because all the things that would actually solve their issue of “We can’t keep increasing the level cap forever” are systems and designs that were used in Classic-tbc-Wrath and have already proven themselves to work succesfully .

I am now going to bring up the biggest, most ironic thing ever: The solution to the biggest problems that WoW faces today lies in Classic WoW and in Classic/Tbc/Wrath WoW’s itemization.

Hear me out on that before you laugh me out of the room.

Remember, Ghostcrawler , At the time the Lead System Designer for World of Warcraft stated " One of the important philosophies of game design is that interesting choices are fun. The word ‘interesting’ is key ."

Back in the day a player would design a character specifically to do what they wanted the character to do.

Rogues are an incredible example of this.

Back when set effects still worked at low-level you would see Rogues with a lot of interesting builds.

• Tier 1 would reduce the cooldown of Vanish, healed you on-vanish and increased baseline Energy.
• Tier 2 would increase poison application chance and damage.
• Tier 2.5 increased the damage of Eviscerate (Yes, that ability only) and reduced the cd of Evasion.
• Tier 3 increased your energy regen and had a chance to give 100% Crit Chance for your next Backstab, Sinister Strike or Hemorrhage.

What rogues would do back then was pick a specific set effect that they liked and then proceeded to use the old Talent System and other items to specifically tailor their character to do a specific thing that they enjoyed doing.

Tier 2.5 for example worked incredibly well with the talents that increased the Crit chance / Damage of your finishing moves and increased your combo point generation and Eviscerate damage.

With this build your point builders would be weaker in damage but your burst would lie in your finishing move: Eviscerate .

So where am I going with this?

Rather than implementing something that is purely a power increase (Level cap increase, Item level increase, etc…) … They could make level 120 the permanent level cap from here on out but still introduce new content that brings us new Gear sets and other items.

This would mean that with every new content patch and expansion they implement a “new playstyle” for each class that people could choose to play, rather than a level cap increase that would only increase your power.

You could experiment around with these Set Effects, too. You could make them thematic for example! Make a gearset with effects relating to the Void, or Old Gods or Dragons.

As long as their effects are interesting, cool and changes up a playstyle then they can work.

It would still give people a reason to do the content and It would still give people a reason to use that gear if they want to go with those set bonuses .

This is currently the only way in where I can see a world where there are no new level cap increases work.

Will every single build and set effect be high-endgame competitive worthy? No. Probably not. But that’s okay!

[Mahmeya-darkmoon-faire (Mahmeya)]

There’s one significan reason why your vanilla-like idea with talent-set synergy can’t work. These days, there are big gaps between tiers. Now, let’s presume they’d return to set bonuses and some kind (whether current system or old trees) of weapon specialization.
If there was a set favoring swords in one tier and set favoring daggers in the other, there would be no choice due to the ilvl gaps - everyone would just go with what is the higher ilvl set. And I doubt they’d make different sets for one class in the same tier to support different builds.
And we both know they’ll not reduce the ilvl gaps between tiers, let alone to make them irrelevant enough to offer this type of choice.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

If there was a set favoring swords in one tier and set favoring daggers in the other, there would be no choice due to the ilvl gaps - everyone would just go with what is the higher ilvl set. And I doubt they’d make different sets for one class in the same tier to support different builds.

Actually you could simply implement items that allow you to upgrade the ilv of previous tier raid sets up to the max of whatever ilv the current tier is at.

Legion had a system exactly like that with crafted gear and Obliterum.

Apply it to Raid tiers and voila.

[Fragglenads-draenor]

Not through EVERY zone.

My point is that, bit BfA for example; you dont have a level, but if you want to raid, you must unlock and complete all of the dungeons, and to access the dungeons you must complete set quest chains in the area. So it makes questing have a point to it. But removes the pointless and arbitrary levels. I mean… levelling 113 to 114… nothing happens at all really. but completing a quest chain/quest hub in Drustvar to unlock a new dungeon make sense. It would make “levelling” relevant again. Currently doing 1-110 serves no purpose at all. Just there to get in the way. But being able to start a new character and dive straight into BfA content, similar to how a boost works would be great, then going about completing the zones to unlock dungeons, to get into the raids, essentially getting attuned I guess. Pretty simple really.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

if you want to raid, you must unlock and complete all of the dungeons, and to access the dungeons you must complete set quest chains in the area. So it makes questing have a point to it.

You’re talking about attunements?

But removes the pointless and arbitrary levels. I mean… levelling 113 to 114… nothing happens at all really.

Well if they squished the levels like some people want and they do it according to my numbers… you’d be getting a talent point every time you level up.

Currently doing 1-110 serves no purpose at all. Just there to get in the way.

Can’t argue with that.

But being able to start a new character and dive straight into BfA content, similar to how a boost works would be great

Gotta disagree there. The leveling process from 1-120 (currently) or 1-60 (after level squish) is important. It’s still an MMORPG – not a MOBA. Your character needs to start from nothing and you have to progress it. That’s kind of the point of the game.

essentially getting attuned I guess.

Yeah there we go. While I personally don’t mind attunements… I doubt many people would enjoy them.

[Akurenia-draenor (Akurenia)]

But being able to start a new character and dive straight into BfA content,

So BfA’s backstory is you’re a hero of your faction and whatever, and you’re proposing that a level 1 wielding a stick is worthy of that title?

There needs to be somewhat on a level limit for various expacs

[Fragglenads-draenor]

That’s where the current game is flawed… I have slain the Lich King, Ragnaros fell to my sword, Garrosh was defeated… yet, regular as clockwork come new expansions release, some random guys out there wants me to go collect 14 flowers, or slay 8 pigs for their eyeballs or something. So regardless of your god-like status prior to a new expansion, we are all treated the same at level 1, as we are level 120.

[Fragglenads-draenor]

What is to be achieved by me doing MoP content 7 years later?

If you use a character boost, you unlock things progressively, and you tart off with very basic gear, no hardship there is there. I agree there still needs to be a MMORPG aspect to the game, but it is an OLD game, with an absolute sh*t ton of content… of which the vast majority of irrelevant. Does anyone really care about the faeires in Blades Edge from TBC? Or perhaps picking up mud from the elementals in Twilight Highlands, or how can I forget about making sure that Panda in Krasarang Wilds is rolled back to hut. It’s all irrelevant now, but we have to do it, and it is just a case of going through the motions. Blizz should really work on a linear adventure to expedite leveling 1-110 fill in important bits, learn to play your class, but not have to deal with the monotony of it all.

Imaging them creating an on the rails experience, which lasted several hours for all the old content, which was filled with solo and group scenarios to tell the story of whats going on to get you up to speed. There’s probably flaws with that idea too, but old content is old, you don’t go and play fifa 05, then 06… 07 and so on just so you can play fifa 19. You just dive right in. Imagine being new to the game and using your boost on shaman only to find you absolutely hate them, and have the dread of now levelling 1-110 before you can start on current content again. Brutal.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

I have slain the Lich King

Your main character did, your alt character did not.

Ragnaros fell to my sword

To your main’s sword. Not your alt’s sword.

Garrosh was defeated…

Not by your alt he wasn’t.

some random guys out there wants me to go collect 14 flowers, or slay 8 pigs for their eyeballs or something.

Because you start out at lv1 as a rookie adventurer? Your fresh characters have accomplished nothing yet.

So regardless of your god-like status prior to a new expansion, we are all treated the same at level 1, as we are level 120.

You forget that the game treats your characters as individuals, not your account as a single entity. That’s actually a good thing.

If you are playing on a lv1 then you are playing a fresh character. A character that has never done anything remotely of note yet. It is perfectly reasonable for a quest giver to send you to go slay some pigs.

If you use a character boost, you unlock things progressively, and you tart off with very basic gear, no hardship there is there.

First of all: There’s no hardship in the current leveling process either. It’s incredibly bland, quick and eventless.

I agree there still needs to be a MMORPG aspect to the game, but it is an OLD game, with an absolute sh*t ton of content… of which the vast majority of irrelevant.

So then let’s make it relevant. See, that’s another thing. Everyone keeps saying that but the second that Blizzard implements scaling to make all content relevant again because now it lasts longer people start crying about it.

You can’t have it both ways. Either deal with the scaling or deal with content being dead and out-dated.

I prefer the former.

Does anyone really care about the faeires in Blades Edge from TBC? Or perhaps picking up mud from the elementals in Twilight Highlands, or how can I forget about making sure that Panda in Krasarang Wilds is rolled back to hut. It’s all irrelevant now, but we have to do it,

You’re cherry-picking quests to inflate the importance of your argument. None of these are story-related. They’re filler quests.

Blizz should really work on a linear adventure to expedite leveling 1-110 fill in important bits,

I would prefer it to not be linear at all. Linear questing zones are arguably the worst ones. I prefer vanilla-barrens over any legion zone in a heartbeat simply because it felt a hundred times more adventurous to be sent all over the place by different npcs. It actually felt like the entire world didn’t revolve around a single story.

Imaging them creating an on the rails experience, which lasted several hours for all the old content, which was filled with solo and group scenarios to tell the story of whats going on to get you up to speed.

You want to go from lv1 to lv110+ within only a few hours? No thanks and that’s the least of my problems with that idea even.

you don’t go and play fifa 05, then 06… 07 and so on just so you can play fifa 19.

You could just go and play fifa 05. They’ve been re-releasing the same game since 2005. That’s also not even the same Genre. Not even remotely close. It’s a horrible example and the comparison doesn’t work in the slightest. You couldn’t possibly have picked a more different game.

Imagine being new to the game and using your boost on shaman only to find you absolutely hate them,

Another reason why I believe instant-max level boosts shouldn’t exist in the first place. If you level from scratch you actually get a feel for how your class is going to be at endgame. If you don’t like it by the time you hit, say, lv40 or 50 (which only takes a few hours) then you can always just re-roll.

People with opinions like yours are part of why this game is so bland nowadays.

You all want instant-gratification and quality of life changes. It’s already really bad as it is, stop asking for changes that make it even worse.

[Fragglenads-draenor]

Fair point… my “character” killed all of those. But you missed my point. Re-read that post. I have slain all of those bosses… so why when a new expansion comes out, as the hero of Azeroth, do little fox people ask me kill some roly poly bugs or getting two dinosaurs to mate… is that really a job for someone who has slain elemental lords? As I said at the end of that post… “regardless of your god-like status prior to a new expansion, we are all treated the same at level 1, as we are level 120”. We all get sent to do the same mundane crap be it level 1 collecting fruit from cactus’, or bein it level 113 collecting flowers.

There is a hardship to the levelling process, that’s the point, there are 6 expansions to get through, plus vanilla content, just to get to experience the current expansion, that is a big problem, no only for new people, but for old players too, most of us have done Hellfire Peninsular to death, we’ve all been bored to tears with Borean Tundra, and if I have to do Jade Forest once more it will be the end of me. An MMO shouldn’t be battle of wills to see if I can muster up the energy to level a character though all that content AGAIN. I have a huge range of characters from on all sorts of servers, and not in a financial position to blow £100’s realm and faction changing the highest just to make it easier for me. But as it stands, the thought of creating a Mag’har at level 20 and levelling it just fills me with dread, I simply can not be arsed to do the same stuff I have done a million times before.

The old way without scaling was much better, you actually felt like you were making progress. Doing 1/4 of the quests in a zone and moving on, got the idea of what was going on in the area and done, onto the next place. I don’t even know who was asking for zone scaling? It came as a surprise. But really, there is no reason to make it relevant is there, I can’t think of a reason why you would need to bring relevance to Dire Maul in 2019? Or perhaps one of the Sha’s is acting up… who cares, it’s not 2012 anymore.

Can you imagine the frustration of picking up quests and being told ah sorry mate you gotta go ALLLLL the way over the other side of the map to hand this one in, then come back again so you can continue the story, but all the time. You are not seeing that 15 years ago the game was new, MMOs were booming, people had time to sit and read quest texts and decipher where they needed to go for the quest mobs. Unfortunately with the advent of more intelligent addons and more recently blizz straight up just adding questing addon baked in, meaning to auto accept a quest, look at the map for the highlighted area, go there kill or collect and move on. I do miss the days of going on Thotbot to find out which of the quillboars I need to kill. But that’s gaming evolution, all those MMOs that were around have died or are on life support, SWG and EQ2 are two examples, nameless others have fallen by the wayside, and WoW has had to adapt.

Why not go from 1-110 in say 5-10 hours? What is being achieved by dragging it out over 48hours? Nothing at all.

No my example works perfectly… go play fifa 12 and see how many are on for an online game, similarly log onto a level 90, and see how many people are up for a raid to MSV. Now log on to Fifa 19 and get an online game instantly, similarly how easy to find a pug for BfD. There ya go.

My opinions are not at all why the game is so bland. If I could create a new character to play, and know I dont have to slog through all the crappy 1-110 content JUST to enjoy current content, I would be playing a whole lot more that’s for sure. But only logging in 9 hours a week to raid is no fun at all. If anything stream lining levelling, would open up so much more end game for alt runs, playing different roles/classes in M+, as well as dipping my toes back into PvP. But, since I only have 1 120, and 3 110’s (classes I don’t want to play right now) on my current server, I’d rather just not bother starting a mage, than have to slog my way to 110 to get up to date.

You know why people want instant gratification? Because that’s the way of the world. We are all not 21 anymore, and can survive on 3 hours sleep a night. We all have work in the morning, we have the school run to do, kids to take to dance classes and judo, we then have dinner to cook, gotta spend time with the wife, gotta take the dogs for a walk, wanna go watch the Newcastle match, going away for the weekend in the caravan, so my little hobby, which I already spend 9 hours a week on, I don’t wanna spend MORE time doing content I was doing 10 years ago! It’s not a lot to ask is it really. I’ve made my point and it’s pretty clear you’re just nitpicking and twisting things to suit your agenda.

[Zandelia-tarren-mill]

Take my Levels Blizz!

[Nerika-quelthalas]

Does anyone really care about the faeires in Blades Edge from TBC? Or perhaps picking up mud from the elementals in Twilight Highlands, or how can I forget about making sure that Panda in Krasarang Wilds is rolled back to hut. It’s all irrelevant now, but we have to do it, and it is just a case of going through the motions.

Perhaps that’s how it is for you, but yes - some of us do still care about these things. Some of us still enjoy taking alts through this old content. I like to try and do the things maybe my other characters missed and even if they didn’t miss them, see how differently they cope with certain aspects of the game compared to others.

While I do agree that rewards for levelling need to be addressed, and I have liked many of Razien’s suggestions since these several threads opened, I don’t want to see any restrictions or changes to the actual levelling gameplay/experience or however you want to phrase it. (To be honest, I don’t even consider it ‘levelling’ - to me that implies it’s just something people do to get to endgame which I’m in no rush to do. I consider it just playing the game.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that is what you or anyone in favour of a level squish is suggesting, but my fear is that is what might happen if Blizzard do implement a level squish.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

so why when a new expansion comes out, as the hero of Azeroth, do little fox people ask me kill some roly poly bugs or getting two dinosaurs to mate…

They don’t know you. You’re a stranger to them. Why should they trust you with important tasks? Go prove your loyalty first.

You’re also still nit-picking minor quests that have nothing to do with the story quests.

is that really a job for someone who has slain elemental lords?

If a random stranger walked up to you and claimed to have killed dragons, would you believe them just on their word? I wouldn’t. Their claims mean nothing to me.

There is a hardship to the levelling process, that’s the point, there are 6 expansions to get through, plus vanilla content, just to get to experience the current expansion, that is a big problem,

It’s really not a problem at all. The only issue that there is is that they all focus on already concluded issues and conflicts and because of that the story feels out of whack. As if you’re living in the past.

most of us have done Hellfire Peninsular to death, we’ve all been bored to tears with Borean Tundra, and if I have to do Jade Forest once more it will be the end of me. An MMO shouldn’t be battle of wills to see if I can muster up the energy to level a character though all that content AGAIN

An MMORPG should be about players having a choice when it comes to what zone to go and whenever they want to go there.

People keep asking for a linear leveling path when that’s ironically also the same thing they’re arguing against. We need the opposite: Being able to go to any zone, whenever we want, at whatever level that we want to.

What you really want is the opposite of a linear leveling experience.

the thought of creating a Mag’har at level 20 and levelling it just fills me with dread, I simply can not be arsed to do the same stuff I have done a million times before.

Which as I said… wouldn’t be a problem if you could actually choose which content you want to do while you level up.

The old way without scaling was much better, you actually felt like you were making progress. Doing 1/4 of the quests in a zone and moving on

See what I mean? You’re arguing against your own point. Now suddenly you want a linear leveling experience while completely forgetting that if you have this kind of leveling path you’re forced to do the same exact content at the same exact time every time that you want/need to level a new character.

If Blizzard scales all the zones to a person level then there’s nothing theoretically stopping them from removing the minimum and maximum level requirements and just letting players go anywhere they want to, at any level, at any time. That is why scaling is a great thing to have.

I can’t think of a reason why you would need to bring relevance to Dire Maul in 2019?

You don’t need to, it would just be amazing for everything to be relevant so that you actually feel like the World of warcraft is a world and not < current expansion’s zone > of Warcraft

Can you imagine the frustration of picking up quests and being told ah sorry mate you gotta go ALLLLL the way over the other side of the map to hand this one in, then come back again so you can continue the story, but all the time.

That’s what vanilla was like and it was glorious. Quest Chains taking you all over the place was great.

…Weren’t you just asking for Vanilla leveling?

The old way without scaling was much better, you actually felt like you were making progress. Doing 1/4 of the quests in a zone and moving on, got the idea of what was going on in the area and done, onto the next place.

Yeah, you were.

You are not seeing that 15 years ago the game was new, MMOs were booming, people had time to sit and read quest texts and decipher where they needed to go for the quest mobs. Unfortunately with the advent of more intelligent addons and more recently blizz straight up just adding questing addon baked in, meaning to auto accept a quest, look at the map for the highlighted area, go there kill or collect and move on.

Those addons, instant quest text and highlighting areas are part of what made the current game so incredibly boring in the first place. There’s no exploration aspect to it anymore. You’re being spoon fed all of the information that you need.

I do miss the days of going on Thotbot to find out which of the quillboars I need to kill. But that’s gaming evolution

It’s actually de-evolution. These changes made it worse, not better.

Why not go from 1-110 in say 5-10 hours? What is being achieved by dragging it out over 48hours? Nothing at all.

It’s not the time that it takes that’s the issue, it’s the fact that the entire experience is incredibly boring and completely without danger and sense of progression.

That’s a problem that is caused by not only the things that you just mentioned (being spoon-fed where to go and what to kill all the time, not having to read quest text, etc…) but it’s also caused by things like not having a proper talent system, the world not being dangerous at all, there not being any difficulty spikes, etc…

It’s not a time requirement/investment issue.

No my example works perfectly… go play fifa 12

It’s an incredibly bad example. You can’t compare two entirely different genres to each other like that.

My opinions are not at all why the game is so bland. If I could create a new character to play, and know I dont have to slog through all the crappy 1-110 content JUST to enjoy current content, I would be playing a whole lot more that’s for sure.

You can. You just have to pay €60 every time that you want to do that.

If anything stream lining levelling, would open up so much more end game for alt runs, playing different roles/classes in M+, as well as dipping my toes back into PvP.

There is no indication whatsoever that streamlining leveling would do anything of the things that you claim it will do. If there is then please give me a source that backs up your claims.

You know why people want instant gratification? Because that’s the way of the world.

MMORPGs and ‘Instant gratification’ do not go together. Blizzard deciding to design the game to please players like you is why the game is where it is today in the first place.

It’s not a lot to ask is it really.

It is too much to ask for. You are asking the entire game to be designed to your own personal schedule and that’s not how the world works.

If you don’t have time to play MMORPGs anymore then that’s your problem.

I’ve made my point and it’s pretty clear you’re just nitpicking and twisting things to suit your agenda.

“Everyone that disagrees with me is just nitpicking and twist my words to suit their agenda!”

Nope.