Yes to the lvl squish!

[Destruct-runetotem (Destruct)]

You guys think 60 less levels is faster leveling, it doesn’t. The time to get a new talent will remain the same unless they also state they axe XP requirements without axing XP sources. Unless they state this there is no need to change it. This is just like when politicans claim a wage rise when it’s equal to or under the inflation. Break it down basic with wages it’s “How many breads can I buy?” and with leveling “How much XP do I need before I get a new spell?”. If that number remains the same or is higher with LV squish, nothing, absolutely nothing will have changed.

[Aérîth-eredar]

this isn’t really about the time it takes to level up, it is more about making leveling up more fun and rewarding…
for example between level 60 and 80 you gain nothing, but 1 talent (at 75) instead you lose stats… the gear doesn’t get better either, so these are 20 levels of nothing… if you do a level squish it becomes 10 levels of nothing… which is already better and more motivating…
if they also rework the talent system, the stat system, the scaling… it becomes rewarding and fun

[Destruct-runetotem (Destruct)]

I adressed that, it doesn’t matter if the time you need remains the same. To go and reduce levels without speeding up XP gains or reducing XP required keeping the same 120 we have now will be exactly the same. The only thing that reduced levels do then is potentially introduce alot of bugs.

See it like this from our standview, it’s like buying a ferari to get quicker to work but thanks to speed limits you only ended buying a new car and you arrive at work in the same time as you always did.

I have NP with reducing it to 60 levels but it needs more, say you need 10 million xp now to fo LV 1 > max then they need to announce it’s only takes 9 million afterwards (faster), if 1 > 60 then is also still 10 million XP it has been for naught.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Jõhn-argent-dawn

they can fix problem+ SQUISH then. Its an arguement ofc, 120 lvls is a lot. and expansion w/o leveling is basically no progress. Except if we have ab ad system with azertie something like now. 100% lvl squish is needed

I don’t have the energy to re-explain to you why a level squish is completely pointless.

Just read my other posts in this thread.

@Aérîth-eredar

your 5% more crit won’t do a thing, if it takes 10 levels to get that 5%…

It takes five. Do you even know how the old system worked…??

@Aérîth-eredar

the gear doesn’t become better in 20!!! levels… level 60 gear has almost the same stats as level 80 gear (give or take +1 primary stat) which means an upgrade is not possible here… the gear would have to upgrade to a point, where it is too high for the level

Bwhahaha and why do you think that is? Because they did a squish!!!

Why do you think that I am so against another one?

@Aérîth-eredar

remember the stat squish, this is the reason, for the need of the level squish, because the changes aren’t that bad then

It. wouldn’t. change. a. thing. because the difference between what is now lv60 and lv70 would then be lv30 and 35 and your problem of…

@Aérîth-eredar

level 60 gear has almost the same stats as level 80 gear (give or take +1 primary stat)

…Would literally still exist!

How do you not get it still? Changing the levels does nothing and any change that you can make you can make without a level squish.

@Aérîth-eredar

these legendary weapons are an example of how the gear doesn’t become better

The only thing that those weapons show is that Blizzard doesn’t care about properly balancing low-levels.

…Which ironically brings us to why leveling is so bad right now.

I told people that low-level balance was important years ago. like, 6-7 years ago and everybody laughed at me.

You’re not laughing anyone now are you?

@Destruct-runetotem

unless they also state they axe XP requirements without axing XP sources. Unless they state this there is no need to change it.

You still wouldn’t even need a Level Squish then. It’s the most pointless thing that I have ever heard anybody come up with.

@Aérîth-eredar

for example between level 60 and 80 you gain nothing, but 1 talent (at 75) instead you lose stats… the gear doesn’t get better either, so these are 20 levels of nothing… if you do a level squish it becomes 10 levels of nothing… which is already better and more motivating…

Leveling would take twice as long. Leveling those 10 levels would take as long as leveling up 20 times now. It. Changes. Nothing.

@Aérîth-eredar

if they also rework the talent system, the stat system, the scaling… it becomes rewarding and fun

If they only did that and not squish the levels then you would level up twice as fast as you would with a level squish and you would also gain the rewards from leveling up twice as fast.

[Jõhn-argent-dawn]

You might have points RAzien which i cba to read but imagine being 16556676k HP if they stop stat squishes and being 250 lvl in few years time. How would a new person feel? Yikes.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Destruct-runetotem

I adressed that, it doesn’t matter if the time you need remains the same. To go and reduce levels without speeding up XP gains or reducing XP required keeping the same 120 we have now will be exactly the same.

And if you speed up the XP gain ánd reduce the XP required just as they did not 3 months ago then why even need a level squish in the first place?

[Aérîth-eredar]

you do know, that a level squish is not a stat squish what I am suggesting here, is to leave the stats alone or completely rework them… not squish them.

and how does that take 5 levels, you suggested, that you get a skill point every 2 levels, so 5*2 =10 it takes 10 levels for 5% crit

and cosmetics already change a lot… believe it or not

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Jõhn-argent-dawn

You might have points RAzien which i cba to read but imagine being 16556676k HP if they stop stat squishes and being 250 lvl in few years time. How would a new person feel? Yikes.

Will never happen. We are at the point where we need to find a different way to progress that is not increasing the level cap every time an expansion launches.

Like this…

@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!

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Aérîth-eredar

you do know, that a level squish is not a stat squish and how does that take 5 levels, you suggested, that you get a skill point every 2 levels, so 5*2 =10 it takes 10 levels for 5% crit
and cosmetics already change a lot… believe it or not

Right, 10 in this new system. 5 in the actual old trees.

My point being… it’d still take you the same amount of time to obtain either.

[Aérîth-eredar]

you still can’t make 120 skill points, so either you do a level squish… and reduce them to 60 (for 60 levels) or you do not do a level squish and put pointless goodie bags in there, which aren’t helpful…
because if you make levelling hard again, the other players are going to complain on the forums again (remember what happened, when blizzard made levelling a bit harder in 7.3.5?)

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Aérîth-eredar

you still can’t make 120 skill points, so either you do a level squish… and reduce them to 60 (for 60 levels) or you do not do a level squish and put pointless goodie bags in there, which aren’t helpful…
because if you make levelling hard again, the other players are going to complain on the forums again (remember what happened, when blizzard made levelling a bit harder in 7.3.5?)

First of all the bags wouldn’t be useless, they’d actually be useful to many players. Even to you if they actually did something about Heirlooms filling up gearslots. Secondly, 50 bags and 60 talents would work just fine. 40 bags and 70 talent points would be the best option.

How about we test this out in practice before we judge hm? Easier to test this first than to test a Level Squish first.

They can un-do this system if it doesn’t work out but they probably won’t un-do a level squish after they did one.

@Aérîth-eredar

if you make levelling hard again, the other players are going to complain on the forums again (remember what happened, when blizzard made levelling a bit harder in 7.3.5?)

Okay, so? “People are going to complain!” is not a reason to not make the game harder or leveling better. People are always going to complain. There’s nothing you can do about that.

[Aérîth-eredar]

REMEMBER, what happened after 7.3.5?
After the other players complained so much, blizzard made it actually easier again

the goodie bags aren’t going to help… because the stat problem still exists and if I level through dungeons blue Items will be thrown at me… and even if I only level through quests, the blue items from the bag won’t be much better…
also like I said, no one is going to use these potions…

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Aérîth-eredar

REMEMBER, what happened after 7.3.5?
After the other players complained so much, blizzard made it actually easier again

Which is something they should never have done.

@Aérîth-eredar

even if I only level through quests, the blue items from the bag won’t be much better…

Actually, they would. Greens are laughably bad these days and since you’ll be outleveling the blues you get every piece that you get from leveling up will replace the pieces you out-level.

@Aérîth-eredar

also like I said, no one is going to use these potions…

Not if we keep one-shotting mobs like we do now, no.

Nobody uses food either. Let’s just remove that from the game shall we?

[Aérîth-eredar]

no they would not… I have showed you why, by looking at the legendaries… if you looked at the stats, you would know, that there is barely any difference between level 70 and 85 gear… so a blue from level 70 isn’t much better than a blue from level 68… and a blue from level 70 won’t be much better than a green from level 70… because the levels and the stats are not balanced, because we had 2!!! statsquishes before

and my point still stands, that blizzard won’t make it harder again… they got a huge backlash back then, they will get another huge backlash again

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Aérîth-eredar

no they would not… I have showed you why, by looking at the legendaries… if you looked at the stats, you would know, that there is barely any difference between level 70 and 85 gear… so a blue from level 70 isn’t much better than a blue from level 68… and a blue from level 70 won’t be much better than a green from level 70…

The items specifically differ around +2 Str/Agi/Int, +3/+5 Stamina and +2/+4 in secondary stats.

Legendary items are a ridiculous example. They haven’t been kept up to date since the first day after the expansion they were introduced in ended.

A better example would have been linking a dungeon blue item because when it comes to raid items and legendaries I can also give you several examples that have ridiculous stats.

@Aérîth-eredar

because we had 2!!! statsquishes before

Yeah and now you want a third. No thank you.

@Aérîth-eredar

and my point still stands, that blizzard won’t make it harder again… they got a huge backlash back then, they will get another huge backlash again

Part of fixing leveling is fixing the difficulty. They’re not avoiding any backlash by not fixing leveling.

[Aérîth-eredar]

@Razien-quelthalas

because we had 2!!! statsquishes before

Yeah and now you want a third. No thank you.

Again a Level Squish is not a stat squish

@Razien-quelthalas

The items specifically differ around +2 Str/Agi/Int, +3/+5 Stamina and +2/+4 in secondary stats.

Legendary items are a ridiculous example. They haven’t been kept up to date since the first day after the expansion they were introduced in ended.

no, they are a decent example, because all the dungeon gear hasn’t been updated either

Twinblade of Mastery

Twinblade of Mastery
Item Level 85
Binds when picked up

One-Hand Dagger

15 - 26 Damage Speed 1.80

(11.4 damage per second)
+10 Agility
+8 Stamina
+15 Critical Strike
+8 Haste
Durability 65 / 65

Requires level 1 to 120 ([70](javascript:;))

Sell Price: 23 51 63

Dropped by: Pandemonius

Drop Chance: 5.72%

Lightning Whelk Axe

Lightning Whelk Axe
Item Level 113
Binds when picked up

One-Hand Axe

25 - 52 Damage Speed 2.60

(14.8 damage per second)
+13 Agility
+20 Stamina
+9 Critical Strike
+9 Haste
Durability 90 / 90

Requires level 1 to 120 ([85](javascript:;))

Sell Price: 18 81 45

Dropped by: Lady Naz’jar

Drop Chance: 6.80%

but if you want, here are 2 dungeon blues from one bc dungeon and one cata dungeon

and as you can probably see, the difference isn’t big enough

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Aérîth-eredar

Again a Level Squish is not a stat squish

True! A level squish would be worse.

@Aérîth-eredar

hasn’t been updated

…that’s what i’m saying… that’s why the difference is so small… they’ve been squished… twice.

[Aérîth-eredar]

a Level squish would not necessarily touch the stats… so a levle squish wouldn’t do much more than to close the gap between improvements… it wouldn’t put the items under more squishes…

the reason we need a complete rework of the leveling experience… and this includes a level squish

if you remember, blizzard believes in exponential growth during max level, but during low level the growth should be linear… so that means, to make a difference, they need to undo the squishes, which gets as several million hp and dmg numbers… which doesn’t feel good either… so there is pretty much no way to balance the stats with the levels, except you bring the levels down to the stats… (again a level squish does not necessarily touch the stats)

[Aliandra-outland]

I want a lvl squish.

[Razien-quelthalas (Razien)]

@Aérîth-eredar

a Level squish would not necessarily touch the stats… so a levle squish wouldn’t do much more than to close the gap between improvements… it wouldn’t put the items under more squishes…

Or you could just do the opposite of a squish and increase the difference in power between levels at the lower levels. A 30% difference between 60-70, 70-80, 80-85, 85-90, 90-100 should work just fine.

@Aérîth-eredar

the reason we need a complete rework of the leveling experience… and this includes a level squish

It doesn’t.

@Aérîth-eredar

if you remember, blizzard believes in exponential growth during max level, but during low level the growth should be linear… so that means, to make a difference, they need to undo the squishes,

Oh good we’re on the same page.

@Aérîth-eredar

which gets as several million hp and dmg numbers…

Nevermind, we’re not.

Let’s do some math!

I rounded numbers off here and there and some of them are rough estimates but regardless of being exactly precise… these numbers would work.

Every level is a 3% power increase. That makes every 10 levels a 30% power increase over the last 10.

I calculated from lv60 upward because lv60 is actually at quite a sweet spot number-wise right now.

OH, and this is assuming that the player wears average gear.

Approximate/rounded off stats at levels

Level: 60
Health: 5500
Stamina: 400
Str/agi: 300

Level: 70
Health: 7300
Stamina: 520
Str/agi: 390

Level: 80
Health: 10500
Stamina: 676
Str/Agi: 507

Level: 90
Health: 13500
Stamina: 879
Str/Agi: 659

Level: 100
Health: 17800
Stamina: 1143
Str/Agi: 857

@Aérîth-eredar

blizzard believes in exponential growth during max level, but during low level the growth should be linear… so that means, to make a difference, they need to undo the squishes, which gets as several million hp and dmg numbers…

@Aérîth-eredar

several million hp and dmg numbers…

@Aérîth-eredar

several million hp and dmg

Nope. 3% increase per level kinda works just fine post-60 and that was only a random number that I thought up.

I would actually like to do the math properly just to see if the same would work from 10 to 110 but with a 5% increase per level.

It probably will.

@Aérîth-eredar

no way to balance the stats with the levels, except you bring the levels down to the stats…

I just did exactly the opposite: I changed the stats according to the levels and look… it would most definitely work!

@Aérîth-eredar

( again a level squish does not necessarily touch the stats )

So why want one in the first place

@Aliandra-outland

I want a lvl squish.

You think you do, but you don’t.

…This time for real.