I think leveling should be slow.

[Tomana]

With CRZ I see loads of people in old zones? Problem is I can't stand them because my character is so powerful I can clear everything in sight by myself. So other players are obstacles instead of potential group players.

Other characters used to be seen as nuisances long before CRZ was around. But the problem is not the levelling speed, it's the fact that a) most key quest monsters weren't multi-tap (until a few days ago) and b) WoW does not favor leveling in group because of silly xp modifiers. There was literally no incentive to level in groups from the start on. Which, incidentally, was one of vanilla's selling points compared to MMOs where leveling had to be done in a group.

I'm not sure whether this is written after some strawman mega nerf where lowbies are now almost unable to kill more than one mob and then having to stop and eat food or not. Let's not use absurd extremes.

That's not absurd extremes, that's how leveling e.g. a fire mage was in vanilla. You literally had to drink every 2 or 3 mobs.

Who needs to stun a mob below max level nowadays to minimize damage taken, they hit for like 1% of your healthpool.

They cast annoying heals or other spells and interrupts can be on CD

Honestly? Wildstar?
What exactly is "hardcore" with what I suggested. I want enemies in the world to pose threats, so there'd be actual gameplay fighting them. Nowadays there isn't, and mobs are complete jokes.

Again, my concern is about the time it'll take to level up if you make "enemies in the world to pose threats". This being said, I think that at this point, levels should just be scrapped because either choice (long leveling time or easy mobs) are bad, so we need something else.

Heirlooms are too powerful and needs to be toned down anyway. When you're given the choice to double, triple or perhaps even quadruple your damage with heirloom weapons and enchants, something is broken. And on top of that you level 50% faster.

I agree, heirlooms need to be redone somehow. Personally, I always was in favor of a straight +xp% buff on your account/realm once you got a max-level character.
Or better yet, allow character to have multiple professions so I don't have to level a bajillon of alts just to supply my main.

Extremes aren't a good way to argue against something

Again, this is vanilla leveling experience.

[Everwake]

I'd rather them triple the exp gained in battlegrounds/pet battles, as that would make for a nice change of pace for people who are tired of questing/dungeons.

[Wow]

With CRZ I see loads of people in old zones? Problem is I can't stand them because my character is so powerful I can clear everything in sight by myself. So other players are obstacles instead of potential group players.

Gonna have to call bullshit on that I've lvl'd something from 1 back when they first added crz and as recent as a few weeks ago and it's rare to see anyone occasionally I'd see 2-3 people but as I said it was rare the most recent one was even on a high pop server but with crz that shouldn't even matter right?

You see a few early on but once you go past 15ish they get really rare to 100 lol, but at no point have I seen loads of people with crz.

[dextersmith]

Maybe for players like you (no offense) but I would rather my mages and rogues know how to sap

Would rather take the 2 minutes it takes to cc something then the 10 wen tanks pull the whole gd room

What does cc have to do with what I'm talking about?

[Nurvus]

Many people enjoy different things in the game. I play for endgame, leveling is just an obstacle to me.

It's the other way around.
You play for end game because leveling feels like an obstacle.
If what you do while leveling actually felt meaningful from an end game point of view the game you would probably not mind slower leveling.

Blizzard has been destroying their own game because they are pushing all the value towards end game, and it simply doesn't work, because they corner themselves into making leveling lightning fast, which destroys the learning curve for new players, while also making it so that when you hit max level you are "used" to everything being fast, so they started handing out gear. It's a never-ending cycle of handouts and destroying the value in the very content they design.

[Shakari]

It's the other way around.
You play for end game because leveling feels like an obstacle.
If what you do while leveling actually felt meaningful from an end game point of view the game you would probably not mind slower leveling.

Blizzard has been destroying their own game because they are pushing all the value towards end game, and it simply doesn't work, because they corner themselves into making leveling lightning fast, which destroys the learning curve for new players, while also making it so that when you hit max level you are "used" to everything being fast, so they started handing out gear. It's a never-ending cycle of handouts and destroying the value in the very content they design.

Umm try not to tell other people what they like, your doing what blizz is doing.

For many people its not the other way around,

I have levelled 1-100 on 4 chars, 1-90 on 4 more and 85 on 3 more...

I've seen all I want to see of the story and game pre-lvl cap more than once.

I now want to lvl a warrior on another server with people I know who are at 100.

I want to get to 100 ASAP, not interested in the story and levelling is an obstacle to me at this point.

I really dislike it even to the point of when a new expansion comes out, I dislike it. its a chore.

But I do love the game once I get to the level cap.

All that this slowing lvling down is going to do for me is in the long run lessen my wish to play.

[Deja Thoris]

It's the other way around.
You play for end game because leveling feels like an obstacle.
If what you do while leveling actually felt meaningful from an end game point of view the game you would probably not mind slower leveling.

Blizzard has been destroying their own game because they are pushing all the value towards end game, and it simply doesn't work, because they corner themselves into making leveling lightning fast, which destroys the learning curve for new players, while also making it so that when you hit max level you are "used" to everything being fast, so they started handing out gear. It's a never-ending cycle of handouts and destroying the value in the very content they design.

Thanks for force feeding me my opinion!

I started in cata. Levelling was a chore then. It's a chore now. I've never known it to be otherwise. I don't care for collecting grizzly bear testicles in each zone and crap like that.

[Nurvus]

Thanks for force feeding me my opinion!

I started in cata. Levelling was a chore then. It's a chore now. I've never known it to be otherwise. I don't care for collecting grizzly bear testicles in each zone and crap like that.

I agree with you. It was already shit in cata. It was already shit in WotLK. Everything you do while leveling is worth nothing for end game.

I think it started becoming like this at the end of Burning Crusade when dailies with "Badges" were introduced.

[Deleted]

get rid of your heirlooms and leveling is quite slow.

[MasterHamster]

Gonna have to call bullshit on that I've lvl'd something from 1 back when they first added crz and as recent as a few weeks ago and it's rare to see anyone occasionally I'd see 2-3 people but as I said it was rare the most recent one was even on a high pop server but with crz that shouldn't even matter right?

You see a few early on but once you go past 15ish they get really rare to 100 lol, but at no point have I seen loads of people with crz.

I logged onto my level 21 yesterday to check a few stats for this thread and I saw about 7 players in the span of 30 seconds from logging in (in a quest area)
But then again that was Redridge and one can't expect that kind of population when you get to higher levels. But you DO see plenty of other leveling players in my experience.

With all the tweaks to CRZ I can't say I ever feel like zones are as barren as they were before they added CRZ to the game. Problem, as I mentioned, is that my character is so powerful I only get annoyed when I see players in "my" quest zones because compared to the mobs my character is a god and having to wait for respawns is no all too rare occurrence.

4 times more health, oneshotting with a mortal strike crit...

[Deleted]

Well I believe they should add a proving ground feature to their new trial characters. Imo most people who want slow leveling are very bad players who are just not good enough to explore all the max level multiplayer content and so if you could do proving grounds, let's say at least gold or up to wave 20 you can enable a 300-600% exp boost (like RaF-/+Exp-Potion) on that class for the entire time till you reach current expansion content. The regular leveling should follow their new policy, it should take a large amount of time and mobs should die a lot slower and it should be even more annoying. All what the guys want and hell even more "challenging" if they want.

This would provide a optional quick leveling process for people with basic skill level to bruise to annoying and never-challenging content while not being an option for people who want slow leveling and do not have the basic playerskills to get the boost - heirloom dilemma wouldn't happen again. Also it would make pretty clear that leveling and playing the multiplayer aspect on basic skill-levels on max level do not share the same term of "difficulty".

[MasterHamster]

Well I believe they should add a proving ground feature to their new trial characters. Imo most people who want slow leveling are very bad players who are just not good enough to explore all the max level multiplayer content and so if you could do proving grounds, let's say at least gold or up to wave 20 you can enable a 300-600% exp boost (like RaF-/+Exp-Potion) on that class for the entire time till you reach current expansion content. The regular leveling should follow their new policy, it should take a large amount of time and mobs should die a lot slower and it should be even more annoying. All what the guys want and hell even more "challenging" if they want.

This would provide a optional quick leveling process for people with basic skill level to bruise to annoying and never-challenging content while not being an option for people who want slow leveling and do not have the basic playerskills to get the boost - heirloom dilemma wouldn't happen again. Also it would make pretty clear that leveling and playing the multiplayer aspect on basic skill-levels on max level do not share the same term of "difficulty".

Right, the bads are the ones who want leveling to be part of the game again. Because when leveling is this stupid easy it becomes so insanely boring because it's like playing a singleplayer game on the lowest difficulty with unlimited ammo. Those that don't find much satisfaction or fun in getting a new character leveled, killing every mob in 2 seconds and be near invincible along the way, because mobs and elites alike are pathetic compared to a player with a decent weapon.

But those that do enjoy 1-100 without a single challenging moment or requirement to think along the way, those are the good players. Grabbed some heirloom gear in WotLK and voila, leveling is a joke forever after. Because it's a "choice" to use the best gear one have access to in an mmo. Derp.

And then we complain that people in PUGs don't know their classes. How can you blame them when you can reach maxlevel without ever using anything but damaging abilities? Leveling felt a lot more like a game when you used stuns, interrupts and self heals to maximize your efficiency and cut down on recover time. But right now I have zero use for stuns outside of dungeons, mob spells hit for like 3% of my health so I don't care, and my self-healing spells crit for like half my healthpool. Woooooo.......

Now it's
Hit damage ability 1
ability 2
loot

And then we wonder why we hate leveling and want it to be over with ASAP. So instead we argue for less exp per level, more powerful heirlooms, just to get it over with even faster... not realizing it'd just become even more dull as a result.

[beanman12345]

it's fine being slow the first time, maybe second, but when your on your 10th alt you just want that xp potion + heirloom goodness.

[MasterHamster]

it's fine being slow the first time, maybe second, but when your on your 10th alt you just want that xp potion + heirloom goodness.

It can be very satisfying to have means to level faster, but not when the base experience is already lightning-fast and zero difficulty along the way. That's when you just start feeling like you have to rush rush rush

I'm fine with 50% heirloom bonus if a level took around an hour of effective questing, so that bonus actually feels like a noticeable bonus "ah it took 30-40 min instead of 60~ min, nice." not "uhh, I dinged 3 times instead of twice in one AoE-rush dungeon"

It loses all sense of accomplishment when each level both feels, and ultimately ends up being, insignificant.

[Icaras]

Personally I like a middle ground in all this.

On the one hand, when you level up so quickly that you've barely even started a zones storyline quest chain (let alone the sub stories or even dungeon runs) you know something is wrong.
Sometimes it feels like a 3 page choose your own adventure book, where page 1 says "go to page 2 or go to page 3" and both 2 and 3 state "you win!".

I don't really see why the leveling experience has to be so un-important, I've paid for it, what's wrong with expecting something on the level of a single player RPG where I get at least 20/30 hours of gameplay (Assuming you're not sidetracked of course).


On the other end of the spectrum, I don't want punishing difficultly that feels like it's actually punishing me. Having to stop and eat/drink after every mob because they're so buffed versus players isn't fun...it's boring! I want to play my character...not watch him eat a generic bread roll >.<
I like a happy medium, where I can chain a few encounters together, but in such a way that I will eventually need to stop and heal, or at the very least, be required to sue abilities like self healing or cooldowns so I can keep going.

At the end of the day, there are always going to be those who research the quickest way to end game during beta and then marathon their way their day 1. That's fine, let them. But don't design the game accounting for those guys because they're the loud minority.
Why design the game for the people that want to skip half of it?

[Deleted]

Leveling should be like in Vanilla... you didn't rush because leveling was fun... every 2nd level you got new spells, every level past 10 you got a talent point...

when you looted a new weapon that was better than the one you had, you even went through the trouble to get to Orgrimmar just to get beast slaying weapon enchant to make it glow... you felt so awesome and you'd keep the weapon for atleast a few weeks becuase you don't get new and better weapon after 2 hours like you do today.

Vanilla needs to come back... Crossrealm needs to disappear. that is why all new mmorpg flop... cuz crossrealm makes new games have no community and you feel like it's singleplayer and no one wanna pay subscription for a single player game, that's just stupid.

[Deleted]

Is it really a defense to say that leveling gets boring for your 10th character and it should be fast? That there should be fast alternatives?
If you have time enough to enjoy TEN characters, perhaps you should be in the camp of people that want to have stuff to do for your main...

This is my opinion, but I think having one main character is a lot more enjoyable than having to care about all those alts.
Your character choice should matter, you should be attached to that character and it's class and not be able to change it on a whim.
Leveling like in Vanilla where you get important abilities early to give you a taste of what that class is like, while still having nice abilities to unlock in mid-game as carrots on a stick to keep you going while being in a world in which you need to make use of your abilities... that grows attachement to a character.
You get known for your character. You ARE your character.
If you can change from a healing druid to a healing priest on a whim just because they are better right now - that feels absolutely awful to me.
I would still stick to my druid and hope that I still have unique stuff that makes me wanted - and then I would try to get the very best out of my class even if it is not the theorycrafted "best class".

having many alts is a terrible solution to not having enough content for your main. And wow has been a victim of it for quite a while.
(I would say it started in wotlk with dungeonfinder, but perhaps it already started with 2.0 and it's welfare gear).

If you want more content instead of having tons of alts then also think about what you want exactly.
Ten times as many dungeons in wod would not have made me happy. having 10 tiers of content would not have made me happy.
I personally want content that matters. content that you need time to digest. content that is not spammable.
Dungeons that can take 1-3 hours depending on the group are something I like. If they need coordination and I play with people that I know are people.
Dungeons that are 10 minute pain-trains running through don't keep my interest.

[Tomana]

Is it really a defense to say that leveling gets boring for your 10th character and it should be fast? That there should be fast alternatives?
If you have time enough to enjoy TEN characters, perhaps you should be in the camp of people that want to have stuff to do for your main...

One word: professions. On low-pop servers at least, you HAVE to get all of your professions available, otherwise you get gouged in the AH pretty mightily. That's the only reason I level alts for (besides some minor stuff like old legendaries).

I'd love to see a mechanic where I can do all the stuff only on my main.

[deniter]

I have leveled a dozen or so characters in vanilla/tbc content, and i'm still waiting the chance to do it again. My Latest character hit 60 a month ago and the first one in early 2006. I have played some 10-day trials in Cata and MoP when you could level up from 1 to almost max for free, and every time i got bored before lvl 40.

Surely they did something right in original design if i'm still looking forward to it even tho it takes longer and is less convenient than now.

[Nurvus]

Umm try not to tell other people what they like, your doing what blizz is doing.

For many people its not the other way around,

I have levelled 1-100 on 4 chars, 1-90 on 4 more and 85 on 3 more...

I've seen all I want to see of the story and game pre-lvl cap more than once.

I now want to lvl a warrior on another server with people I know who are at 100.

I want to get to 100 ASAP, not interested in the story and levelling is an obstacle to me at this point.

I really dislike it even to the point of when a new expansion comes out, I dislike it. its a chore.

But I do love the game once I get to the level cap.

All that this slowing lvling down is going to do for me is in the long run lessen my wish to play.

I think since we're all intelligent people around here (I hope) I don't have to explain that everything I say is my opinion.

To reinforce what I said, if the various activities we do while leveling weren't useless for end game - there are many ways to accomplish this - then we wouldn't see fast leveling as a necessity, and instead be able to better enjoy the journey.
Right now the game pretty much blindfolds us and pushes us towards the destination - end game.