Here’s my personal opinion on that matter for all it’s worth:
I’ve been playing since 2007 (with breaks and on different accounts) I stopped during BFA.
I’m playing on a new account now since about 2 months. I have 1 lvl80, 3 lvl70+, and a handful of low level chars.
Levelling is not as fun a it was, but I received a boost for buying TWW and used it on a character I’m no longer playing as it doesn’t mean anything to me. My pally on the other hand started in Dun Morogh and quested through all the zones I enjoyed levelling through back in the days. (bit of nostalgia involved here) But I’m enjoying playing this character so much more than the boosted one. There’s just something about playing a character from level 1 to max. I would even argue that the levelling process is too short for most people to learn their class properly before hitting 80.
How I would change the levelling process:
Make it more difficult
Make it take longer to hit max
Make it more rewarding to complete quests, explore, kill rares ect.
I agree that the current iteration of leveling is not designed for new players. It is fast enough that some player level an alt and they make money via playtime. But it is slow enough that other players buy a boost. That is why it will not become optional.
If they truely allowed level skip for everyone who wanted, then no dungeon queue would pop anymore. The number of new players is tiny
And here you’ve answered it. It’s a chore to do on every new character, with no fun implied after some point. Doubly so when the last addon’s transmogs are locked behind said levels. It’s just something to suffer before the game becomes playable at its fullest, not the journey it once was. And it will not become a journey either, not when the story is partially locked behind the removed quests and partially isn’t in the game at all. So let’s just admit that the option to remove levelling at least on levels from 1 to 70 will be only beneficial for the more experienced players.
“Please don’t bring classic” dude you started off your comment with you having the account since 2010, besides, you mean vanilla not classic, I know it’s an easy mistake to make so no judgement but just for the record.
Regarding your Vanilla ignorance, as Illidan has said “Posture if you must” but the real problem is exactly that. Things have strayed way too far from what the game used to be about and that is exactly the issue you are having as well. “It was different time and era” and you’re complaining about how it isn’t that way anymore, albeit by implication.
Though unless Blizzard removes the level boost from the shop, you’re not gonna see the leveling removed. Though it is the only logical conclusion seeing how, as you said, getting a char from 1-70 takes 3-4 hours the way you guys play. You’re a victim of your own antics though because Blizz has been catering to that type of playstyle making leveling etc all the more a joke and a tedious side hustle at best.
I still have fun leveling, but only when I DON’T speedrun the heck out of it. I wish there was an option just not get XP in dungeons so I can do world stuff and go for dungeons trying to get transmogs and recipes I may want/still need somehow. In hindisght I think I had most “fun” leveling in Warlord of Draenor (not when it was live, when I started playing again some time ago and WoD was the chromie time standard and I just went with it, though I’m not sure memory wise, could have been before chromie time as is was a thing), the story progression and all was pretty smooth for me and it’s a real pity I couldn’t finish it all when it was live, now the game is a hot mess that is ruined by people who want to dumb down the game even more. The moloch you helped create is now eating away at your fun too, kudos.
I think I would keep levels as they serve a purpose but I’d consider changing the leveling process from Experience Point to Campaign Progression. This would have some form of skip available for alts too, probably not skip the entire campaign but large chunks of it so somplating a campaing on an alt would be a lot faster (though not instantaneous).
Levels 1 - 10 would be in some form of tutorial (Exile’s Reach is ok though could use significant improvement).
Then 10 - 70 would be an expansion campaign, or a campaign that might involve several expansions (a Dragon Campaign could have bits of Northrend, some Cata and most of DF).
Level 70 to 80 would be TWW campaign.
Let’s face it, the olden days of exploring the land and leveling through experience does feel rather outdated now. I enjoyed it at the time but it does seem to be from a bygone age now.
Anything scales up .
Lvl 10 my mage 3 frotbolt to kill same lvl enemy
Lvl 30 mage 3 frostbolts to kill same lvl enemy
Lvl 50 mage 3 frostbolts to kill same lvl enemy
Has any of you have lvl up a char and doing professions lvling up? None . The professions have become irevalent to the character growth of the character…
Pick any other Mmorpg … lvling with professions have a high connection since they provide amazing upgrades …
What WoW offer ? (i gifted wow + 6 month sub to my youngest brother 34 lvl in 3 hours . In 3 days has reach 70+ lvl and quit )
There is a high reason why wow doesn’t attract new players since the game is basically a seasonal fast game with no adventure or anything that sems to be related to MMORPG.
The top and bottom of it is that changing the leveling experience could potentially result in lost profits (less time spent by players in-game, no one buying character boosts etc.), and if it has the potential to affect profits, then it isn’t getting changed. It’s Blizzard, after all.
Thing is, the leveling experience changes every time an expansion is released. And these changes are kinda random because they come as a side effect from other decisions that affect the game.
I feel they should pay more attention to the leveling experience, and not have some other systems affect it negatively without caring.
But it could also increase player engagement in game.
If leveling was done via just completing the campaign and then alts could skip large chunks of the campaign (thus vastly increasing leveling) some players would have 12 alts at 80 doing more things. Some players who currently level once, do some stuff and then unsub for months might play more.
I have only one 80 as I cba to level any more.
This happened in SL, playing alts got a pain due to conduits and essences to be farmed. So Borrowed Power did make players play more in Legion and BFA but by SL players were done with it and instead of playing more, they played less by just unsubbing.
So just because a tactic can increase player in game time it can also do the opposite.
Agreed. The one major exception being players that play specifically to ruin other’s enjoyment, that I would in fact consider “wrong”.
After all, just because you pay to be part of the football club doesn´t mean that you get to turn around and kick own-goals every time the ball gets passed to you without getting eventually taken off the field (suspended) or asked to leave entirely (banned)… or to equate it to other videogames, it´s basically serial teamkilling, which is also at best frowned upon and usually grounds for suspensions and bans.
edit PS: This applies primarily to content where you have a choice of who you play with such as M+ and Raids, not to for example people trivializing Timewalking with Level 10-20 alts … Whie I too do not usually enjoy being part of the latter, I clicked on “random group experience”, which by design means that everything outside of active sabotage is to be expected and simply dealt with
What does it take away from you that other players have 50 characters?
One of my biggest gripes with other MMO’s have been the lack of charcter slots.
For me it is important to be able to create a new character when I feel like playing something different, somewhere else, in quiet, for other goals in the game(my first priest was created to attempt get all the Alliance factions to exhalted before level 30 in TBC, without help), or I just wanted to play/level with someone else on the side etc.
I have created more than 50 characters over 18 years of playing, and a limitation to character slots would hault my experience quite a lot. These days I don’t even raid or do mythic+.
