Now all the purists of wow have Classic to play on and can level up in snail mode so they can experience all the quests and content is it time now to reverse some of the levelling changes made on retail and speed up the process of getting to max level again, because let’s face it the experience of levelling as it currently is, is not remotely interesting or fun its just a mind numbingly boring grind which after level 60 makes you feel like watching paint drying would be more entertaining. (Yes I painted something while playing and confirm it was more interesting watching it dry)
I suggest instead of investing time in level squishing and probably breaking a lot of stuff in the process that the XP to all level is reduced by around 50% from current. Either by boosting Heirlooms or just an across the board reduction so new players can make decent progress to get to the current content and still learn enough about the class they are playing.
There is now no real argument to force players to be stuck on slow levelling in retail, anyone that wants the classic experience to play content has classic to go play on now, And if a player in retail really wants to play through expansion content they can turn off xp gain for a bit.
So please Big B, up the levelling speed again so people can level those allied races from 20 for heritage armour without having to repeat the experience maybe 6 times + over, I have levelled from 20-120 since the slow down and I swore after the second time that that I would never do it again unless it got much faster because my sanity is worth more than playing the game and I have run out of things to paint while playing now.
Levelling isn’t slow in retail. I’ve done all 4 Allied races (horde) fairly recently.
20-60 is pretty smooth (I was going for loremaster so didn’t even use the good areas)
Since the 60-80 boost it is a fairly decent experience, there are still quests that belong in classic - having to kill 50 odd minions for a piece of flesh etc. - Boran Tundra (iirc had a few of these) .
80-90 Is very fast - Mount Hydral (sp) and MoP standout
WoD and Legion are a joke
I personally don’t mind leveling in BfA (done it 16 (I think) times) without using islands. Now with flying it would be even quicker.
I was using heirlooms and do have flying in WoD and Legion. If I’d have followed Azeroth Auto Pilot routes it would have been even quicker.
I don’t think it should be a ‘gift’ but I feel at the moment it is a reasonable investment.
There is the xp boost from looms and from 90 you have extra xp from bonus objectives and the xp pots now. Plus in legion (can’t remember if WoD have it or not) the mission table has xp rewards which help too.
Honestly what more do you want? If they add much more to speed it up they may as well just give one 10 minute quest that gets you from 1 to 110 and skips the majority of the game and lets face it you can pay £49 to do that.
I´m of the personal opinion that there is need for changes to the leveling because of a few reassons.
1: When we went from 7,3 to 7,3,5 we were introduced to scaling in the world and no matter what Blizzard say they did inflate the npc´s health pool to slow down the time it takes to kill mobs so we will spend more time leveling.
2: When we went from 7,3,5 to 8,0 (Pre-expansion) the numbers were squished and they have to put it blundly overdone it alot of places with the squishing leading to the 1) problem only getting even worse.
What angers me about it is that even if I personally wasn´t a fan of 1-shoting mobs I think they have gone to far with squishing our numbers while inflating the enemy npcs, so now instead of a fast and borring grind to max level we are for the best and fastest of levelers left with a medicore at best experience and a horrible on for new people.
If I was to come with a few suggestions it would be these:
1: Slash the overall exp required to level from 1 to 120 with about 30%, this will mostly make up for the quest design of some areas where the quest take long to complete because you arent garantered quest drops. It also leassen the pain new players are gonna experience.
2: For experienced players that have leveled many times over either add extra exp bonus to the existing heirlooms or grant a full amor set to reinforce the advantage they are supposed to give.
3: In continuation of 2) heirlooms need a buff to stats either to top rare quality or early epic quality to make up for the fact that they do cost alot (in earlier expansions effort while today its gold). It´s not fair that their stats are equal to greens.
Even quicker leveling?!
Sorry, but leveling from 1-120 within 3.5 days /played is very much doable; if you find that to slow then maybe a RPG is not something you should be playing.
Levelling is to slow when it consists of bashing things which don`t offer any challenge back, level 1-60 is bareable because of lots of places to go. 61-80 is horrible, its through outdated expansions with little choices to mix it up. 81-90 a little better although CATA/MOD zones still get boring after you have done them 20 times before. 90-120 is ok, 90-100 is 2, 3 hours, legion can be done in invasions and a couple of zones and 110-120 also ok.
But 3.5 days played is to slow, that’s 84 hours play time, now an average person that has a life outside of playing games playing maybe 2 or 4 hours a day max is going to take 21-28 days to get from 1-120, that needs to come down to around 15 days at 2-3 hours a day.
As for being in the wrong game, I have levelled up from 1 many times, mostly before the level changes , I have currently 13 level 120 characters and another 9 at 100+ and another 7 between 20 and 70 so I have got plenty of experience levelling in the game, and after 20 times doing the same zones and same quests it is boring.
And there is no need to have the levelling as slow as it is, it is through out dated content and outdated expansions, If players want to spend a month in that old content they now can play in classic.
I think the OP means that it is boring and monotonous.
The reason for that is because gaining a level in Retail just doesn’t feel as rewarding as it does in Classic. It also doens’t feel as if you are really encountering any foes that are getting more and more dangerous. You can sleep your way through to 60 on retail, then 70, etc.
So it feels slow because of that, even though it is still actually pretty fast. My view is that Retail needs to completely overhaul the levelling process. Gaining a level needs to feel rewarding again (in Classic, that ‘reward’ was a talent point).
So I do actually agree with why you think it’s slow, but I don’t think that the solution is to just bump up the XP rates. If you want a good response of how I feel, see Danellos post:
When I’m playing Classic, every level I have the option to gain something new. I unlock a variety of new spells for me to learn instead of getting 1 new spell every 5-10 levels. I have the option to choose how I want my character to progress, and while I’m doing that, I have an exciting talent tree that I can develop as my character levels. Instead, we’ve currently got a system where we choose a new talent every 15 levels and we can only choose once between 3 options.
Also I think mob combat is actually a big factor. You actually have to manage your health and mana when you take on a mob, and you can’t take on 5 of them at once and alt-tab until you auto-attack them to death. I’m not saying you have to be a 200+ IQ genius to do Classic combat, but you have to at least pay attention unless you don’t mind 5 minute walks back to your corpse.
Also dungeons are exciting and great, but it should be a reward to do them. It should be a reward that you’ve earned. Reaching level 15 and just spamming dungeons in between quests is always gonna be an unsatisfying experience. I don’t actually party up and look for dungeons anymore, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone reading this does. I wonder if it’s even viable or not anymore or if it’s just a waste of time.
there are some missions that actually reward player experience. If the XP icon is green it’s for followers but if it’s purple it’s for the character. Know your stuff before "… lol"ing.
