Suggestion: Streamline leveling and content progression

Community General Discussion
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Intro
I have always loved the leveling and discovering part of the game experience. But since the game introduced level scaling in Legion and the first level squish with the release of WoD, I have not liked it as much. I think we all can agree that the leveling experience today is horrible. I have given it some thought and have some suggestions as to how we can make all this a better experience now, and for future expansions.

Today, you rush through the starting zone, get thrown into an old expansion, level through two zones before you again are thrown into the latest expansion. All whitle you get no satisfaction from being any stronger on level 60 than you were on level 20, but rather the opposite. This is confusing for new and old players, and generally not a good experience.

This experience needs to be streamlined and improved alot.

These are my suggestions:

  • Remove Chromie time
  • Remove level scaling for leveling.
  • Remove all previous level squishes
  • Make every starting experience level 1-10
  • All legacy expansion has a level range of 10-70
  • Current expansion has a level range of 70-80

For my example, I have chosen level 80 as a cap, this can be any level, but it feels like the most balanced experience. I will explain in a bit more detail below.

Level 1-10
This will mostly stay the same as it is today. Just need som finetuning of the XP-gains. The intent is that you ding level 10 right before or just after you have finished the main questline and some sidequests in respective starting experience.

Level 10-70
When you are finished with the starting zone. You should not be picking up quests right and left to go to Darkshore, Barrens, your capital to see your leader and have three quests wanting you to do different expansions and events. This is where it all goes wrong today.
My suggestion is that when you are finished with your starting zone experience, you get a follow up quest to go see an armorer/emmisary/warlord or something where you can choose your next step. Don’t send me to the current king and treat me as a champion, I have just started my experience.
When you have chosen what previous expansion you want to play you will get a brief introduction video, explaining what has happend up to that point and what quest you are about to embark on and then you go there and start questing.
The main zones of each expansion will be streamlined to a level 10-70 experience, with high level zones be level 70. I will use Pandaria as an example here:

  • 10-25 Jade Forest
  • 25-35 Valley of The Four Winds or Krasarang Wilds
  • 35-50 Kun Lai Summit
  • 50-60 Townlong Steppes
  • 60-70 Dread Wastes
  • Lvl 70 Vale of Eternal Blosssoms, Thundering Isle, Isle of Giants, Timeless Isle

The main thing here is to get you through the main story of the first zones of the expansion. When you hit level 70, you will get a splash screen informing you that you are free to continue questing in your selected expansion if you want to finish the content you have started. But you will also be informed that if you stay, you will not gain any more levels since you can’t level beyond level 70 in previous expansions. You will also be given a quest to go back to your armorer/emmisary/warlord to start the recent expansion and your journey to max level. By doing it this way, you give the player the option of finishing their experience instead of forcing them to move on.

Level 70-80
When you want, you can start the “latest content experience” which will send you to the starting questgiver for that expansion. Here you will level and experience everything as it is today, including level scaling. I recommend keeping level scaling for the current expansion to keep the zones alive and challenging throughout.

New expansion & level squish
When a new expansion releases, the previous expansion gets reworked into the level 10-70 experience. This way you can always choose to level through the most recent content before the current expansion. This also means that ON LAUNCH DAY of the new expansion, all max level characters will be set back to level 70. This way you are on par with the content you are in currently, and are set up for the new experience where you will feel increasingly powerful through the leveling experience.

Old content as max level
My favorite part and burning desire. I want to play old content without steamrolling through everything. There will be some different options here. But it will be different from leveling wich will need to be kept as a separate experience. Imagine a toggle for the old content, just as the toggle we have now for skyriding/steady flying.

  • If you want to have a more challenging experience. Go back to your armorer/emmisary/warlord and enable “level scaling” for old zones. This is where level scaling is most logical and most rewarding for the player. This will bring all “old content” up to level 70 and when you are in those zones you will be temporarily squished to level 70 as well, just how timewalking dungeons work today. This will also affect dungeons and raids in these zones. You will be able to experience them on a more challenging level. Maybe not as challenging or demanding as when they were current content. But there would still be a need to bring more people. This is a great place to throw in some new cosmetic rewards and achievements. Ultimately, this would probably replace the whole “timewalking”-experience/event.
  • If you do want to steamroll through the old content. Go back to your armorer/emmisary/warlord and enable “solo mode” for old zones. This will enable you to easily kill ragnaros and onyxia for those sweet mount drops. But instead of doing 25 Billion damage in one hit, maybe you would actually have to use a couple of spells to kill them.

End notes
I know this is a major task to ovehaul everything. But in my opinion, this would make the experience soooo much better, for both new and old players. Steamrolling outside chromie time is boring. Level scaling inside chromie time is not rewarding. And if this change would come to pass, I think many players would actually like to try out the previous expansions and experience them as well.
And just maybe, this would make the “world” of world of warcraft feel more alive again.

3 Likes
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Great post. Not what I’d like for the New Player (or alt) experience, but definitely better than what we currently have.

I don’t want to hijack the thread, so very briefly I’d change the following:

  • All New Players funnelled into 1 and only 1 expansion. No option given. This will reduce the chance of running into problems and incosistencies. Once a player is no longer considered new, they will be given the options to pick an expansion of their preference for their other characters
  • I’m against level squish every time there’s a new expansion. While it is necessary at times due to how high numbers are getting, it should not be a regular occurence. If there absolutely has to be such a thing, then instead there should be a “borrowed power” system, where we level individually in every expansion (similar to professions) from 1 to 10. But I disilike even this idea. Squishing us back to 50 when we reach 100 is the lesser of all evils I can think.
  • Regarding Old Content as max level, I am not against the idea, but I am weary of exploits with it.
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Very good input :slight_smile:

I would really love this as well. But that would result in a few things, first they’d have to develop a separate leveleing experience, like Exiles Reach but for the whole experience. And secondly they’d have to make it connect in a way that makes the player feel connected to the main story, but not important enough that old players need to start a new chararcter. This would be a tough balance to achieve. But I agree, a concetraded leveling exeperience could be awesome.

This is a great alternative. But effectively the same thing. The difference would be the number you see at the start of an expansion. Other than that, I don’t see the benefit of doing a major squish every three to four expansions in favor of a small one beginning every expansion. The point of my post is trying to find a streamlined experience that would be repeatable and expectable every expansion, instead of having a fluctuation that rises your power to the millions and billions, demanding a squish. It would be better to have consistency.

I don’t think it would be a problem exploit-wise. Firstly, it’s only for legacy content which means it not usable in current expansion. And secondly, I would recommend all rewards etc. stay on a cosmetic level and nothing else.

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This already happens, they are funneled into DF as of prepatch. Previously they were funnelled into BfA. After their first character they were free to choose any Chromie period or none.

This does not stop individuals who do not wish to be herded into one expansion from going off plan though.

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Wasn’t this changed with Dragonflight to allow even entirely new accounts on their very first character to use any expansion they like to level up?

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We (kinda) had this. Nobody seemed to like it, and they were still confused.

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I always prefer giving the player the option to do what they feel like. However, in the selection of what expansion to play, there is every opportunity to give a brief recap of every expansion, to give a recommended expansion for the best experience, and so on. You don’t have to leave the player in the dark in their selection. Help them with their desicion, but ultimately, let the player make i themselves.

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There was another thread that asked what would make people stop playing, and you just presented something that would make me stop.

I intensely dislike the idea of having my progress removed at the beginning of a new expansion, and then work up to the exact same point I was at before. For me there’s no “brain goes happy” in having to do the exact same ten levels I just did in the last expansion.

I do, though. That’s the whole point of them being “old”, I get to one-shot the mobs and be able to solo old dungeons and raids on my own time and however I feel like.
Make an NPC that can give you that experience, sure, but having it the default mode? No thank you.

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I think you are focusing on the number of the levels to much. It’s effectively the same thing leveling from 70-80 as it would be 80-90. The current “max level” is just a number, not anything that actually measures anything. Your progress is not going anywhere, you are the same as before. We will obviously have a major squish with the Midnight expansion. When that expansion releases, you will be squished to the ground and feel wildly underpowered and alienated from your character. That is an experience that would make me want to stop playing. A gentle squish every expansion is not as brutal as you make it seem.

This is what I refer to in my post. Make it a toggle so I can choose. I also want to be able to quickly make a solo run of an old raid just for the content and loot. But I’m just suggesting an “expansion wide” timewalking feature that scales you and legacy content to the same level. Again, making it the players decision.

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No. I am focusing on what makes “brain goes happy”. And your brain might not mind, but mine would go “we just went 71, 72, 73 etc, why are we going 71, 72, 73 AGIAN?”
Yes, it’s “just a number”, but if the number is the same then it doesn’t feel like there’s progression - I get your point, I just disagree with it. I’m still annoyed with the level squish pre shadowlands, I will be annoyed if they make one come Midnight being announced, but I’d rather have that than being set back ten levels every expansion and having to regrind those exact same levels.

This happens every expansion. Back in bfa (before the level squish was implemented afair) everybody was killing rares and world bosses happily, then from one day to the next we got our butts handed to us by those same mobs, and then they threw us in the Maw. There was clear power difference between SL and DF, just as there’s going to be between DF and TWW, that feeling’s not really unique to a level squish.

It’s not the squish in an of itself I’m against, it’s the feeling of losing what I had and having to regain that and then not getting anything better.

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I get what you are saying. Maybe people would not like that. I wouldn’t mind it though.

But in exploring the streamlining-feature furhter, I can even get a few steps further and say that I wouldn’t mind if we removed levels completely. Just let me do a main campaign and some exploration when a new expansions drop and then I’m ready to do heroic dungeons and start raiding. Those 10 levels are so unimportant in itself when you look at a whole expansion lasting two years. I think it’s better to make sure you are invested in the content. It is a RPG after all.
(This would incentivize the developers to acutally make good and engaging in-game story as well)

This way, to make your first “max-level” character, your only requriements would be:

  • 1 starting zone completed
  • 1 choosable legacy expansion main campaign completed (last expansion recommended)
  • Current expansion main campaign completed

And since everything is “warbound” now. When you have a main character who has done the latest campaign. Any alt you make can immediately go from starting zone to the current expansion. This way you can level alts faster than your first character.

Radical thought, but I like exploring options :joy:

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It has gone through various phases. However at the start of Dragonflight it was still BfA. They did experiment for a season or so to remove this requirement because not all new players like to be told where they have to level.

With Prepatch DF is now the default.

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I support the topic - I came here to the forums just to cry out about how I’d love to go through all of the old zones and quests as my MAIN character and NOT oneshotting everything.

I am feeling so frustrated being unable to use Chromie Time at level cap. It feels like blizz did EXTRA JOB to CUT OUT THE FUN.

Please let us play at least the questing at intended difficulty. And, on top of that, I am dreaming of old dungeons and raids adjasted for soloplay and utilising companions just like DF normal dungeons are.

And as a final mindblowing suggestion blizz would deffinately never implement - streamline the addon cycle in other game systems, like crafting. For example, unite all, or most of the reagents for professions into a single system, since they are all almost logically the same. Like, there were a great approach with justice/valor points in Cata, where older valor content were put to justice content as soon as new content arrives. This would drastically reduce the game bloat

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