I think leveling should be slow.

[Deleted]

Maybe when the day comes that classes are balanced or at least an attempt to do so has been done before max level. Otherwise no, leveling is just something to get you a feel of the game and learn basic mechanics its trivial besides that, unless you are a huge lore fan maybe then I could understand that.

[Nurvus]

Maybe when the day comes that classes are balanced or at least an attempt to do so has been done before max level. Otherwise no, leveling is just something to get you a feel of the game and learn basic mechanics its trivial besides that, unless you are a huge lore fan maybe then I could understand that.

Sure, but you do realize that currently leveling doesn't teach a new player at all, right?
It's not trivial "besides teaching basic mechanics" - it's trivial even for that.
But I guess that's not just about leveling speed, but mostly about difficulty curve.

The more obvious universal issues with making leveling faster are:
1 - You spend less time with any piece of equipment you get, making it less exciting to acquire.
2 - You are more likely to be already 1+ level(s) ahead of any gear drop you get, making it even less exciting/useful.
3 - You get used to very fast/easy "everything", from acquiring new gear to new abilities, and then at max level you hit a brick wall, getting everything much slower.
This can really burn players out. It's like playing with cheats 99% of the time, then turning them off against the hardest part of the game.
4 - Keeping gathering/crafting professions updated as you level becomes virtually impossible without gimping your leveling speed.
You're encouraged to just rush to max level and then use epic flying to gather at high speed and/or simply buy the materials.
5 - Less likely to encounter/befriend/group other players outside LFG.

Some of the above is partially the fault of LFG being so efficient compared to the alternatives.
If questing & going to a dungeon without LFG was made BETTER (in experience/loot/etc) than using LFG (although less convenient), then we would have some of the problem solved.

[Deleted]

Sure, but you do realize that currently leveling doesn't teach a new player at all, right?
It's not trivial "besides teaching basic mechanics" - it's trivial even for that.
But I guess that's not just about leveling speed, but mostly about difficulty curve.

The more obvious universal issues with making leveling faster are:
1 - You spend less time with any piece of equipment you get, making it less exciting to acquire.
2 - You are more likely to be already 1+ level(s) ahead of any gear drop you get, making it even less exciting/useful.
3 - You get used to very fast/easy "everything", from acquiring new gear to new abilities, and then at max level you hit a brick wall, getting everything much slower.
This can really burn players out. It's like playing with cheats 99% of the time, then turning them off against the hardest part of the game.
4 - Keeping gathering/crafting professions updated as you level becomes virtually impossible without gimping your leveling speed.
You're encouraged to just rush to max level and then use epic flying to gather at high speed and/or simply buy the materials.
5 - Less likely to encounter/befriend/group other players outside LFG.

That's why I would rather remove the leveling system. You start out as a guy/girl with no name and as your path goes on you gain better equipment and skill and your name gets know throughout the kingdom. You can do each zone just like you will be able to do in Legion ( probably not the cata and up zones.) That way you can speed up the leveling process without abandoning the character progress entirely and you can make quest items more meaningful(maybe gate some talents and abilities behind certain ilvls, so you can still gain new stuff while leveling.)

Maybe that way they can remove the extra gather 10xshit quests that they like to use as fillers everywhere. Nothing makes it feel heroic then logging in for the first time in your life and gathering some horseshit from who knows where.

[Nurvus]

That's why I would rather remove the leveling system. You start out as a guy/girl with no name and as your path goes on you gain better equipment and skill and your name gets know throughout the kingdom. You can do each zone just like you will be able to do in Legion ( probably not the cata and up zones.) That way you can speed up the leveling process without abandoning the character progress entirely and you can make quest items more meaningful(maybe gate some talents and abilities behind certain ilvls, so you can still gain new stuff while leveling.)

Maybe that way they can remove the extra gather 10xshit quests that they like to use as fillers everywhere. Nothing makes it feel heroic then logging in for the first time in your life and gathering some horseshit from who knows where.

GW1 had leveling up to 20, which served mostly as a "tutorial" and then 90% of the game was spent at max level, and you still "evolved" by acquiring skills, etc. So there's a game that was successful somewhat "without" leveling.
However, it's too big of a change to ask from WoW.
And the concept of leveling is not the problem in WoW. There's no need to remove it.

Anyway, this thread is about leveling speed.
I agree that leveling speed should not be slowed without making the leveling process more meaningful towards end game.
Having a bunch of stuff in end game that makes you want to rush to end game IS the biggest part of the problem.
If while leveling you gained end game currencies like Justice/Valor from doing activities appropriate to your level, and more so if you beat tough challenges rather than going for the easy stuff, it would be a good start.

[Nurvus]

No, that game had leveling. UO is the game you're looking for. It was 100% skill/equipment based. As you used skills you increased those skills, and their related stat(to a max of 100). There was also a stat cap at 700 points over all stats. Most people did their best to be 7x grandmaster in their selected skills.

That bias is astounding.
If for you gaining experience after level 20 to acquire skill points to obtain new skills (GW1) counts as leveling, isn't upgrading your skills and related stats "UO" the same?
It's still "leveling" with a different mask.

And I didn't say GW1 didn't have leveling. I said the first 20 levels were mostly a "tutorial" and the majority of the game was spent at max level, and you still progressed in skills after that, so it virtually had no leveling in the "WoW" sense.

[Nurvus]

No, but read what you just wrote moron. There's 20 levels of leveling in that game... It most assuredly has leveling and max level "leveling", of the type you describe, has been around since I played EQ. You'd reach max level and continue to gain exp to spend on improving skills.

And no, UO wasn't the same. You literally gained skill by using that skill, not by gaining experience and then spending the points. If you didn't use a skill is would lose points.

You're trying to say leveling = gaining experience.
In WoW you still use your skills and only gain "experience" after you kill/deliver quest/etc.
Blizzard could remove levels, make skills acquired through skill points that you gain from various sources, and it would still be leveling.
UO doesn't use the conventional leveling of today, but it's still leveling. It just uses different names for it.
But I'm not here to discuss semanthics.

And you if you didn't mean to say it had no leveling then why were you using it as an example of a successful game with no leveling? Get your head out of your ass.

I was using it as an example of a game that had 90% of its content AFTER you reached max level, and it didn't feel boring. So I was agreeing that a game can be successful without the conventional leveling.

[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.

Well i am sorry but the first part of your post i quoted sounds totally single player to me, and it looks like you enjoyed it a lot.

[GerdaroThePandaren]

Im one of those who enjoy the game for the lore and levelling, specially because i dont have the time to play the endgame (maybe some pvp ?).

That said, i would enjoy a harder levelling process.

[Kithelle]

If leveling were very fast, there must be more dailies at level cap.

That's why so many people quit this game, as infinite dailies are just too boring. Infinite Dailies are not as fun as leveling.

Maybe if those people didn't try to level as fast as they possibly could?

[Tomana]

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...

First, you often got new ranks of the same spell rather than new spells. Totally different.
Second vanilla leveling was everything but fun. Depending on your spec, it could even be fast (my BM hunter and affliction warlock had no problems whatsoever, ret paladin was a huge pain in the backside) but with disjointed quests, periods where your best bet was to grind mobs (hi, WP cauldrons, I don't miss you) and crawl speed, I don't miss it.

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.

Interestingly enough, all the newer MMORPGs that released without a group finder scrambled to get one added to their game.

And realms are not a solution, they are a problem. Next step should one single ream (maybe 2 - PVE and PVP).

[Deleted]

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.

Sorry but all you listed is only relevant for bad players. The game starts in challenge mode dungeons and raids. If you cannot participate this you should not bother wanting to restrict people who do. Leveling can NEVER be challenging. Solo player content, even 5man player content can NEVER be challenging (why do you think they had to include a timer to make it something?).

Sorry all you are talking about is content and challenge for very bad players who will never join the high-end content that is always available and the people who are there, some since vanilla.

[Tuesdays]

I don't even care anymore, make it slow, make it vanilla slow, whatever.

People will just /boost anyways.

[Deleted]

Well i am sorry but the first part of your post i quoted sounds totally single player to me, and it looks like you enjoyed it a lot.

ignorant 2012 players

[edw]

If leveling were very fast, there must be more dailies at level cap.

That's why so many people quit this game, as infinite dailies are just too boring. Infinite Dailies are not as fun as leveling.

Some players like to raid other to pvp ... some want to level very slow, my advice to you is .. just, don't use heirlooms ...

[MasterHamster]

Sorry but all you listed is only relevant for bad players. The game starts in challenge mode dungeons and raids. If you cannot participate this you should not bother wanting to restrict people who do. Leveling can NEVER be challenging. Solo player content, even 5man player content can NEVER be challenging (why do you think they had to include a timer to make it something?).

Sorry all you are talking about is content and challenge for very bad players who will never join the high-end content that is always available and the people who are there, some since vanilla.

Why the hell do you believe that leveling is solely content for bad players? Like what's the reasoning, if any?
Have mobs that hurt, that you have some need to stun, interrupt and use self-heals to minimize downtime, making fighting mobs and questing feel like a proper gameplay experience instead of playing on Baby difficulty with a de facto godmode cheat on and twoshotting them for 70 levels, how is that locking people out from endgame?

The only thing currently "locking people out of endgame" in this ridiculous discussion is the fact that a demented chimpanzee can hit maxlevel in current WoW which means they might find themselves never really learning their class. Have we forgotten Cata 5mans where people kept failing because healers never had any reason to learn how dispelling worked, or hell, using their healing arsenal in general? Because you can literally hit maxlevel using 2 abilities. Leveling doesn't need to be some lowbie solo version of mythic raiding, but it damn well shouldn't be so laughably easy and fast that it feels insulting to the players intelligence.

And why can't 5mans be challenging if properly tuned? Higher Mythic+ dungeons will probably be well tougher to beat than numerable raid encounters. It all depends on balance tuning.
You don't make any sense. Or at least seem completely unable to comprehend what I'm saying.

[Sierra85]

Some players like to raid other to pvp ... some want to level very slow, my advice to you is .. just, don't use heirlooms ...

Players who want to level slowly have the option to not use any of the Quality of Life bonuses that exist. Leveling can be slow, but as captain planet says the power is yours.

[beanman12345]

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.

30 minutes a level on your 10th alt, with no new good abilities for sometimes 20 levels at a time, no talents for 15 levels fuck that shit! I'm leveling my 10th alt, I don't need to feel accomplished every damn level.

[MasterHamster]

Yeah it's somehow always the people with 10+ alts that think they are to set the standard experience when it comes to leveling...

But yes, the talent system is not very appropriate for a (much) slower leveling experience like it used to be. Sadly the only "inbetween" talents we're getting is Artifact traits.
I wished there was 3 talents inbetween each 15 row, with the good old +% damage to X ability (nerf baseline, talent brings back), etc. You choose which to fill first, get that little satisfaction spending a talent does bring, and then those are filled by the time you reach the next tier. So nothing would change in terms of balance, but leveling would be improved, psychologically at least.

[Teebone]

1-60 did quite a bit more for player retention than 1-100 has.

Gonna stop you right there. It did *NOTHING* for player retention, the game was newer back then [hence why it was slow] and even in those days 60 was just an obstacle. You hit 60, you join a guild and you raided and later on you PvP'd (since honor didn't come until March '05).

[therealbowser]

If leveling was slow, the one strength of WoD would be gone and even more people would quit.

You're using faulty reasoning, possibly because you wish it were true.

Ask yourself why people would want a longer leveling experience? Then take a moment to realize that endgame content (for every expansion, not vanilla) has always been the deciding factor as to whether people play or quit. People have never quit playing during an expansion or kept playing during an expansion because of leveling content.