I remember posting a level squish suggestion ages ago, this one:
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/6621752163
I still think the idea of a level squish makes sense.
But at the same time, I am not sure if the development time spent on it is worth it. It probably isn't. At the end of the day, I would rather have Blizzard focus their efforts on making the max level experience as good as it can be, instead of tinkering with the leveling experience.
So in an ideal world where resources were infinite, then yeah, Blizzard should totally do a level squish.
But in the actual world where development resources are limited, I would prefer if they kept the focus 100% on the max level experience instead. It's just a lot more important for me to get more (and better) stuff to do on my main character, rather than getting a quality-of-life improvement for the 14th alt I choose to level.
04/11/2018 08:22Posted by Naeya04/11/2018 00:35Posted by LiriI heard that Guild Wars 2 doesn't increase levels when a new expansion is released. Can someone that plays it tell us how progression works there and how it feels?
Can't tell you about Guild Wars 2, but can tell you that expansions generally means "Adding something to the game". As in, the core game remains the core, but expansions add additional options and content to enjoy.
That's not what WoW expansions are. WoW expansions are game replacements. Like, every time a new expansion comes out, everything before it becomes completely irrelevant.
Which I hope they won't do with Classic WoW.
This is the one thing I've ever disliked in the expansions : I wish they could just "add" without "removing".
04/11/2018 00:00Posted by Naeya03/11/2018 22:58Posted by DaecimusEither people simply haven't actually thought about this; or as I said they're the type who hopes this'll be a way of massively reducing the time to reach cap.
Perhaps you're the one who doesn't think things through.
The leveling experience already feels bland because we have a limited amount of abilities and talent points that need to become available over x levels.
If you have 20 class abilities at level cap, and you have 120 levels, that means roughly every 6 levels a new ability becomes available.
Cut that down to 60 levels, and every 3 levels a new ability becomes available.
The point here is that leveling up actually feels more meaningful when things -happen- at said levels. What's the POINT of having 120 levels? Answer me that.
It used to matter because every single level gave you a talent point and you got to train new abilities and upgrades every two levels. It MEANT something to level up.
These days you go up 8 levels and literally nothing has changed - the mobs even scale with you. There's no point in having those 8 levels.
Maybe you want to think things through for a bit before you accuse others of 'not thinking about it'.
By your logic there would be nothing wrong with going to level 500 in the next expansion, because hey, why not?
Not that you GAIN anything from those levels, but hey, big epic number!
It gets even worse when you consider stats.
You want to keep numbers at a fairly reasonable level, but at the same time you need to have progression. Aka number inflation. If you want to start off at "100 damage" at level 120, what does that mean for every other level?
It means your stats need to get stretched out over 120 levels. Which is exactly why at the moment we're in this really RETARDED situation where you can get a new piece of gear that has perhaps +1 strength, an upgrade over an item you obtained 30 levels ago.
It's just plain ridiculous.
But keep telling yourself we're the ones who don't think about it.
You didn't even bring up a single argument why they SHOULDN'T do a level squish, other than the low effort "hur durr 120 isn't THAT high guys!"
Maybe you need to read the whole damn post, and not quote just one little snippet to make your 'point' look better. What I said is very much within the context of everything, including the rather important fact that Blizzard said they don't want to reduce the time to hit max level, and the fact players are obviously using this as a sneaky back door to try and do that (the levelling haters).
Halving levels from 120 to 60 - as a simple example - is utterly pointless if they then double the XP for each. Other squishes are purely a visual change, they don't actual effect the balance of combat.
Maybe when you see the glowy 'ding' animation, you are going to then see spells migrate to your action bar more often-- but you will also see that animation half as much. It's also the case that you'll do an ENTIRE zone and only make one level. That would feel bad.
This proposed 'solution' is idiotic and entirely misses the mark. Levelling most certainly needs to be improved as far as sense of progression and reward is concerned, but this in no way is the right way to do that. The game needs something like a new talent tree which you eventually fully populate at max, very like the Artefact talents in Legion. There is some choice because you can choose the order in which you get them. The fact you can get them all means balance won't be an issue.
120 is not some astronomical number which completely clutters the screen or baffles players with inconsistency. That was the case with health and damage for the former, and also the total mess of IL in the latter.
"By your logic there would be nothing wrong with going to level 500 in the next expansion, because hey, why not?"
Idiocy. The amount of levels gained per expansion is not arbitrary, it is linear. 10 levels more per expansion, and 5 for two when they were experimenting.
The levels are the canvas to put in stuff to give the player-- you don't delete the canvas itself to 'fix' the problems, you put in more stuff to fill it out.
The problem isn't just how long it takes to level, but how the number of levels affects the game as a whole. The fact that we have now 120 levels to go through, and in the future will have 130, 140, etc. levels to go through will put more and more people off levelling, including new players. Can you imagine, "Come and see Azeroth as you journey to level 150"?04/11/2018 08:32Posted by JitoI am not sure if the development time spent on it is worth it. It probably isn't. At the end of the day, I would rather have Blizzard focus their efforts on making the max level experience as good as it can be, instead of tinkering with the leveling experience.
We also have a problem of spells distribution. Ion was very clear that the devs don't want bloated specs. The result is there isn't enough spells and talents to make levelling feel meaningful. You don't gain anything as you progress and as the game piles up levels that will only get worse.
The solution, do to levelling what they did to professions. 1 to 60 would be the levelling experience, then you could progress to the other expansions as you wish. Each other expansion would be 1-10, when you reached level 10 the legacy mode would be enabled to allow people to farm tmogs. Reaching level 10 would also unlock Timewalking, giving you a reward for doing older content.
Just imagine what levelling could be, in terms of spells and power gains, if there was only 70 levels to go through instead of 120 now and even more in the future.
What a load of nonsens from ppl in favor of this 'squish'.
First of all, again, you only think about yourself. Not about the ppl that did the content multiple times...
What else is new...
Its always a question to make things easier.
Too many buttons... lets get rid of some!
Now the argument that you dont get new buttons often enough...
Yea, well, maybe you shouldnt have asked to make the game easier.
etc etc
Levelling IS the game mostly. That is when you learn to play the class. It shoud be rewarding in itself, bc it is fun to do. But bc the same ppl always want it for free, for status, or whatever, its always the same question: I (IIII) want it faster. Gimmy instant top lvl. Make the raid easier. Give me mount. Give me gear.
So i can brag to my buddies i am done in 2 weeks.
NO!
So sick of this behavior.
First of all, again, you only think about yourself. Not about the ppl that did the content multiple times...
What else is new...
Its always a question to make things easier.
Too many buttons... lets get rid of some!
Now the argument that you dont get new buttons often enough...
Yea, well, maybe you shouldnt have asked to make the game easier.
etc etc
Levelling IS the game mostly. That is when you learn to play the class. It shoud be rewarding in itself, bc it is fun to do. But bc the same ppl always want it for free, for status, or whatever, its always the same question: I (IIII) want it faster. Gimmy instant top lvl. Make the raid easier. Give me mount. Give me gear.
So i can brag to my buddies i am done in 2 weeks.
NO!
So sick of this behavior.
i'd rather get a talent or some actual progression on my character every other level, even if it takes more, than to have nothing for 15/20 levels.
problem is implementing a level squish would be a nightmare
problem is implementing a level squish would be a nightmare
04/11/2018 08:32Posted by JitoI still think the idea of a level squish makes sense.
it does. Back in days, while leveling I always looked up for a new spell from spellbook that I will learn after reaching new level.
level cap - 60 is fine, and we can go for 70-80 later.:)
04/11/2018 11:10Posted by DaecimusMaybe you need to read the whole damn post, and not quote just one little snippet to make your 'point' look better.
Oh, I'm so sorry. You think you deserve to be treated with 'respect' , for making a post that makes a blatant strawman argument?
You literally made ONE assumption as to what people who advocate a level squish want ('faster leveling'), proceed to 'refute' that, and then act all self-important about it and claim people 'don't think about it'. Get out of here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
For your education.
What I said is very much within the context of everything, including the rather important fact that Blizzard said they don't want to reduce the time to hit max level, and the fact players are obviously using this as a sneaky back door to try and do that (the levelling haters).
"obviously".
Again, strawman. Nothing in my explaination of the issue had anything to do with leveling time.
Halving levels from 120 to 60 - as a simple example - is utterly pointless if they then double the XP for each.
I literally explained why it isn't pointless. Perhaps YOU are the one who should actually bother to read my entire post.
Maybe when you see the glowy 'ding' animation, you are going to then see spells migrate to your action bar more often-- but you will also see that animation half as much.
It's irrelevant. The point is that each level -matters-, because otherwise there simply isn't any point whatsoever in having levels 30-35, when the world scales and you don't get anything from going from 30 to 35.
We're already in a situation where we didn't gain anything going from 110 to 120. They may as well have NOT made us level, capped us at the same 110 that we started on, and basically said "story progression is unlocked by completing the three zones."
LITERALLY the same effect. There is no POINT in going to 120, it's purely cosmetic at this point.
This proposed 'solution' is idiotic and entirely misses the mark.
Based on absolutely nothing. Good job.
Levelling most certainly needs to be improved as far as sense of progression and reward is concerned, but this in no way is the right way to do that.
Actually, it is.
The way I see it though should overhaul Kalimdor and EK (again) to make it more timelines instead of stuck in an outdated story limbo, squish players down to level 50, and make Kalimdor and EK the level 1-60 zones. New content being the updated zones.
And they should scale down every single expansion they made down to level 60 as optional additional content. NOT part of the mandatory questing experience to hit max level.
I would argue that part of the problem is that you are forced to grind through old content that is completely irrelevant at this point. Which is why EK and Kalimdor should be made permanently relevant - an exploration of the various cultures and lore of the races that inhabit the mystical word of Azeroth to get you immersed. Instead of them being about the latest story that will become obsolete in 2 or 3 expansions.
New players must be quite confused when they do quests involving Garrosh when in Orgrimmar they see Sylvanas being warchief.
The levels are the canvas to put in stuff to give the player-- you don't delete the canvas itself to 'fix' the problems, you put in more stuff to fill it out.
Bad analogy. Nobody is asking them to "delete" the canvas. We're asking them to use a different canvas that has better proportions.
"Putting in more stuff" only leads to ability bloat, a foolish intention.
04/11/2018 12:41Posted by KorrinaThe solution, do to levelling what they did to professions. 1 to 60 would be the levelling experience, then you could progress to the other expansions as you wish. Each other expansion would be 1-10, when you reached level 10 the legacy mode would be enabled to allow people to farm tmogs. Reaching level 10 would also unlock Timewalking, giving you a reward for doing older content.
That's actually a VERY interesting and far more elegant solution than the one I proposed.
04/11/2018 00:00Posted by Naeya03/11/2018 22:58Posted by DaecimusEither people simply haven't actually thought about this; or as I said they're the type who hopes this'll be a way of massively reducing the time to reach cap.
Perhaps you're the one who doesn't think things through.
The leveling experience already feels bland because we have a limited amount of abilities and talent points that need to become available over x levels.
If you have 20 class abilities at level cap, and you have 120 levels, that means roughly every 6 levels a new ability becomes available.
Cut that down to 60 levels, and every 3 levels a new ability becomes available.
The point here is that leveling up actually feels more meaningful when things -happen- at said levels. What's the POINT of having 120 levels? Answer me that.
It used to matter because every single level gave you a talent point and you got to train new abilities and upgrades every two levels. It MEANT something to level up.
These days you go up 8 levels and literally nothing has changed - the mobs even scale with you. There's no point in having those 8 levels.
Maybe you want to think things through for a bit before you accuse others of 'not thinking about it'.
By your logic there would be nothing wrong with going to level 500 in the next expansion, because hey, why not?
Not that you GAIN anything from those levels, but hey, big epic number!
It gets even worse when you consider stats.
You want to keep numbers at a fairly reasonable level, but at the same time you need to have progression. Aka number inflation. If you want to start off at "100 damage" at level 120, what does that mean for every other level?
It means your stats need to get stretched out over 120 levels. Which is exactly why at the moment we're in this really RETARDED situation where you can get a new piece of gear that has perhaps +1 strength, an upgrade over an item you obtained 30 levels ago.
It's just plain ridiculous.
But keep telling yourself we're the ones who don't think about it.
You didn't even bring up a single argument why they SHOULDN'T do a level squish, other than the low effort "hur durr 120 isn't THAT high guys!"
So basically, the problem is: Leveling is not rewarding enough, we don't gain new talents or new spells.
When the good solution for the game would be to add more talents, more spells and more customisation to fill the levels that are useless at the moment, your solution is simply to delet that levels.
You are the one being ridiculous. The "meaning" of every level won't change anything to the fact that, once you are at max level, your character is not fun and not engaging to play.
Nobody care about the "meaning" of every level, the one and only important thing is what your character will be at max level where 95% of the relevant content is.
Instead of making your class more interesting to play by filling the blanks, they just want to hide those blanks by deleting the levels where they should have put something. And you are supporting it.
Problem is: the expansions don't work together. And Legion is still offered as a paid service for the rep-grinds. What is of little use from a leveling perspective.
From the perspective of maintenance non-current expansions should make a pool.
This pool should be in the range of "advanced" Azeroth zones: what now is level 40..59 Azeroth. These expansions still can be unlocked by payment, like Legion is now.
I expect TBC to be beyond redemption: it is the last piece of vanilla. Just scrap it.
Level 1 to 39: L2P in Azeroth
Level 40 to 59: unlock the last talents and abilities with long cooldowns
Level 60 to 70: current content
And with the next expansion everyone's level drops to 60.
From the perspective of maintenance non-current expansions should make a pool.
This pool should be in the range of "advanced" Azeroth zones: what now is level 40..59 Azeroth. These expansions still can be unlocked by payment, like Legion is now.
I expect TBC to be beyond redemption: it is the last piece of vanilla. Just scrap it.
Level 1 to 39: L2P in Azeroth
Level 40 to 59: unlock the last talents and abilities with long cooldowns
Level 60 to 70: current content
And with the next expansion everyone's level drops to 60.
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