Should the game really start at max level?

[draynay]

I liked how it went with WoD where they later added mechanics to accelerate leveling, 300% XP elixir, lvl100 heirlooms, flying. I don't mind taking a little time early on, but an altoholic like me has probably seen it all after max leveling a few toons and likes to see things speed up later.

[Lothrik]

It actually makes sense that 10 higher levels take the same time than the 60 first.

Not that I defend a 3 month leveling each expansion. Simply pointing out that this is exactly the RPG logic

When's the last time you actually levelled 1-60 without heirlooms or other boosts?

I don't know about you but after practicing on the beta I could probably level 2-3 characters from 100-110 in the time it would take me to level one character from 1-60 in that situation.

WoW doesn't have an exponential levelling curve like you're suggesting (heirlooms and other EXP boosts may skew your perception here), and that isn't an intrinsic part of RPGs either. I think you're confusing RPGs with F2P asian grindfest MMOs.

[Deleted]

Even though you only play a small propotion of the time as not max-level, I still consider the time you level as important. It is when you level you do most exploration and most quests (lore). It adds foundation to the max-level game.

[Fiftyonred]

Playing at release, virtually everyone in my guild had something in the order of 12-18 days /played to hit level 60.

Now, obviously, how long it takes in you in calendar time to rack up 12-18 days /played will vary considerably! But most people did indeed take months (since most people weren't playing as a full time job)

18 days played over a 6 month period is 2,4 hours per day. One might say thats on a the short side of what the old school wow player played daily, meaning 3 months seems very likely for the average old school wow player. subjective opinion, of course.

[Jewsco]

If we start at max level and only worry about max level stuff we get the same situation we got in WoD where there won't be enough if anything for most to do. Most players still don't raid so being at max level for that means nothing to them. A lot of the story and lore of the game is in the leveling quests if you don't bother paying attention to that it is on you. Leveling in wow has always been easier than most other MMO's and is even easier now a days what is the big deal?

[ReVnX]

When's the last time you actually levelled 1-60 without heirlooms or other boosts?

I don't know about you but after practicing on the beta I could probably level 2-3 characters from 100-110 in the time it would take me to level one character from 1-60 in that situation.

WoW doesn't have an exponential levelling curve like you're suggesting (heirlooms and other EXP boosts may skew your perception here), and that isn't an intrinsic part of RPGs either. I think you're confusing RPGs with F2P asian grindfest MMOs.

I think you are missing the point.

I know leveling from 100-110 doesn't take as much as leveling from 1-60.

I'm only pointing out that making those last levels last the same as a large number of low levels is not illogical RPG-wise as the original person I was replying to was stating. I'm not talking about the current state of WoW in any way but rather discussing RPG logic

[Spl4sh3r]

You're right, considering it took most players closer to 4-6.

Someone obviously didn't play in Vanilla.

If you actually sat down and focused on leveling, no it doesn't take that long. I dragged a lot and played other things, but I hit 40+ in a week then I hardly played much and hit 50 or so in my next session a half year after then I hit 60 a half year after that

With that said, I would say it should be a 20/80 split. 20% should be the focus on leveling and 80% on the max level content. Because otherwise you run out of content faster once you hit the max level. This is also on the release of new leveling and not over time for an expansion. Then it is more like 5/95 split. Having more content so you can play the leveling more on more character still doesn't change that you will have to do the same content multiple times. At least we got the artifact weapons quest now and different order halls as well as choosing which zone to level through.

[FlemmMinis]

How did this even turn into yet another vanilla discussion?

In my opinion, Leveling is fine as it is. For the first time. I started 3 alts since 7.0 hit and all of them are stuck at around 40, just because I can't bear to do Outland/Northrend again.

[Leih]

If Blizzard killed the XP gains so that it took your weeks/months to level up to 110 the first post on MMO-C would be "BLIZZARD EXTENDS LEVELING TIME TO ARTIFICIALLY PROLONG CONTENT!!!!1 MILKING CUSTOMERS ERRYDAY!"

[Vaelorian]

So 5-10 levels should take aslong as 60 levels? Great logic right there....

No getting from 1 to maxlevel should be as long as vanilla leveling from 1-60. Get it?

- - - Updated - - -

It actually makes sense that 10 higher levels take the same time than the 60 first.

Not that I defend a 3 month leveling each expansion. Simply pointing out that this is exactly the RPG logic

It does not make sense. It makes sense that leveling from 1 - maxlevel should take the same amount as from 1-60 in vanilla.

It would be very boring to see (psychologywise) that it takes you a few months to reach 10+ levels. Your brain needs more rewards in that period for it to enjoy it like that.

[Einzweidrei]

If Blizzard killed the XP gains so that it took your weeks/months to level up to 110 the first post on MMO-C would be "BLIZZARD EXTENDS LEVELING TIME TO ARTIFICIALLY PROLONG CONTENT!!!!1 MILKING CUSTOMERS ERRYDAY!"

That's being narrow-minded. If Blizzard changed XP so significantly, they'd be idiots to not also change other parts of the game too, so that it wasn't a months-long trek to 110 and only when you hit 110 can you start acquiring gear that'll last longer than a few days, do heroics, do raids, etc.

Slowing down leveling so that level is as important a part of your character's strength, without being so crucially important that you can't do anything except work on leveling if you aren't at max yet, would be like leveling was in EverQuest. It was a loooong slog to 50, 60, etc back in the day. But along the way you found items that were still great at max level. And your class evolved over the course of levels so that it was fun to see milestones approaching other than ONLY the final milestone. And older content remained (relatively) balanced for lower levels instead of getting downright silly because the dev changes all the core mechanics of the game every 1.5 years but doesn't go back to revisit old content balance at all. Etc.

Wow could do that, but they won't. They try to REMOVE extra variables that might affect the difficulty they have balancing both PVE and PVP content, so adding level as a factor instead of just having questing as a time sink for some people and a diversion for alts with others and whatever is never going to happen.

[Logwyn]

Yeah, is this guy high? World first took 10 days, and most hardcore decent players were within a few days. The slow but decent players that played a lot were at MOST a couple weeks later.

3 weeks to hit 60 was your average joe decent guy playing a bit.

6 months? Lmao.

I'd agree. When we recruited back in vanilla and it was brand new player just starting. We'd normally say about a month of calendar time was expected before they hit 60 and ready to join for Molten Core. Some were less some were more depended on the player, their job, school, etc.

This was back when there wasn't the guide to level 60 fast. 7/8 days played is 168/192 hours played time. If you played 6 hours a day then 168 played comes out to be 28 calendar days and 192 comes out to be 32 days. Which isn't out of the question for those with a job that only got to play after work.

[ReVnX]

I'd agree. When we recruited back in vanilla and it was brand new player just starting. We'd normally say about a month of calendar time was expected before they hit 60 and ready to join for Molten Core. Some were less some were more depended on the player, their job, school, etc.

This was back when there wasn't the guide to level 60 fast. 7/8 days played is 168/192 hours played time. If you played 6 hours a day then 168 played comes out to be 28 calendar days and 192 comes out to be 32 days. Which isn't out of the question for those with a job that only got to play after work.

You get to play 6 hours a day on workdays? Do you even cook, shower, eat, etc..?

[ItachiZaku]

I'll answer more broadly, I do not believe the game starts at max level. Sure, some toons i'll fast track to max (I love Ashran, so some toons were built strictly to get to 100 and do Ashran), and I don't really raid for realsies anymore (not server firsts or progression much anymore, and no plans on it) so I don't really rush. However, with Legion... I will be for the PVP presto system. I wish we could level it while leveling, seems idiotic that it isn't. Twinking is a thing (I'm not much of one) but they should still be able to level their prestige and get their perks, just like top level.

[Vaelorian]

You get to play 6 hours a day on workdays? Do you even cook, shower, eat, etc..?

How is this so weird? Look at my schedule I kept until after Firelands 25 man heroic:
weekdays:
06.00 woke up
07.00 at work
15.30 go home and do groceries
17.00 have dinner at the pc and do some admin stuff for our guildsite, recruitment and general planning of the evening
18.00 actually play stuff
20.00 raid
0.00 finish raid - go to bed

weekends:
sat: 11.00 wake up and eat breakfast at pc and play the game (eating dinner etc)
03.00 go to bed
sun: 13.00 wake up and eat breakfast at pc and play the game
17.00 have dinner at the pc and do some admin stuff for our guildsite, recruitment and general planning of the evening
20.00 raid
0.00 finish raid - go to bed
- repeat

[ReVnX]

-snip

Just by getting ready to work, commuting and work hours, I clock about 11 hours. Add to that cleaning, cooking, etc..

Anyway, playing wow is the only activity in your life? To me that's kinda shocking

[Varaben]

Note: a discussion about 100-110, not 1-100.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the leveling content has transformed with each expansion and it now takes significantly less time to level to the point where the leveling content has become filler content. The problem here though is that it has taken a disproportionate amount of time to create the content vs. the time to consume the content. If the 100-109 experience was more paced and took longer to accomplish, players will not race through the content and burnout and unsubscribe so quickly.

Should 100-109 be more relevant? Or should that experience be over as soon as possible so players can get to 110 as soon as possible?

It would be a complete 180 for WoW to be about leveling up instead of max level. It has always been focused on end-game even in Vanilla. It was certainly slower to level, so people took more time and there were more dungeons and quests to do, but despite that, it has always been about end-game.

Part of the reason for that is because of balance. You can't really make challenging dungeons at every level, because every class gets skills and perks at different times. It's simply not worth their time to balance it.

Should blizz slow down leveling? I think so. Some folks want there to be "catch-up" mechanics for alts or alt-specs, but personally I think that's a huge mistake. What that ends up doing is incentivizing people to play alts and alt-specs, leading to burnout. I'd rather they focus on making more content than I could possibly do on my main, thus negating the need to play an alt and giving me unlimited things to do if I did choose to play an alt.

So should the game start at max level? I think it would flip the game upside down otherwise, so I guess it has to. For the game to be challenging, it has to be able to be balanced, thus they have to focus on a particular level range, so they can assume things about gear, talents, etc. So yes, it should start at max level.

Edit: Also, I wish they would slow down raid progression, so it was more meaningful to defeat a boss, rather than wanting us to go through the same raid 3-4 times. The "end-game" isn't really even the end-game because you have to go through so many tiers of the same dungeon/raids to get to the end. I'd rather they slowed down the whole process instead of making repeatable content. Dailies included (i.e. stop with the dailies unless they are longer or rotate on a longer cycle).

[Lilija]

The problem isn't in the game design. The problem is among players. As Cataclysm has shows, vast majority of players doesn't care about leveling content. So Blizzard took that leasson and they put much more weight in the end game now.

[FraterN]

I think the way they're going about Legion is a refreshing and good way to go. To me it feels like the 100-110 leveling is really mostly getting a feel for a lot of the class changes, lore, etc. But the artifact weapon progression feels like the real "leveling" the way leveling felt back in the old days. Something you have to work on over the period of the entire expansion, but that wont stop you from experiencing raids and 110 content. The fact that quests at 110 give artifact experience helps to make them feel relevant towards gaining power at max level.

They really need to re-work the old expansion stuff with the scaling tech to make leveling feel better though.

[Lady Dragonheart]

In all honesty, I don't think that the game needs the leveling system anymore. I think that item-level and talents are enough to dictate character power, and that simply investing that style of growth would be more interesting and realistic (for a fantasy setting).