Level squish + new leveling path idea.

[Radeghost]

Level cap = 60.
All experience reduced and new way to level opened (you chose alternate start at character creation screen).

1-10 = You start in Eastern Plaguelands investigating Scourge threat under Argent Dawn banner. You end up killing Kel'thuzad.
10-20 = After Kel'thuzad is dead, you are summoned to Shattrath as Dark Portal reopens. You gather Sha'tar reinforcements to lay siege on Black Temple (meanwhile you are informed on progress with fighting Burning Legion threats such as Kael), and you end up defeating Illidan.
20-30 = After Illidan is (presumably) dead, you go back to SW/Orgri just to discover it's invaded by undeads. You fight them off and then you jump into a boat right to Howling Fjord. You gather up reinforcements and kill KT again (a small quest), and after that you get to fight on Argent Tournament. After that you jump to ICC, see bodies everywhere and run up with Tirion to kill LK. He gets frozen, you defeat LK.
30-35 = Before you killed the LK, there are some earthquakes. After you kill him, there are even more earthquakes and you have autoaccept quest that you need to go to Org/SW to check in what's going on. You discover that when you were in Northrend, Deathwing got our and spew some havoc, but cities got at least partially rebuilt. Thrall summons you to Hyjal where you kill off Ragnaros in a questline, and after that you help Thrall with killing Deathwing in Maelstrom.
35-45 = When you're in Maelstrom, you see some zeppelins. They give you a rope, you climb on it (and they saved you) and you discover that there's a war in Pandaria and Garrosh has gone crazy. You go to the vale of eternal blossoms, discover what happened and in a questline where you kill off Shas, you get informed that you need to go to orgri ASAP. You discover dead bodies leading you to throne of Garrosh which you help defeat.
45-50 = WoD storyline, shortened - you track down Garrosh then you spy on Gul'dan, you fight his minion Mannoroth, he summons Archimonde, you kill Archimonde. Yay.
50-60 = Legion storyline

It should make leveling significant and meaningful again. It would never be outdated. Blizz would use vanilla assets for 1-10, etc. Everything would be instanced and phased like DK Starting Zone. We'd have parts of zones instead of whole zones, etc.
Levelling 1-50 would take like 15 hours of /played. 50-60 would take the same as it takes now. When theres new exp and 70 lvl cap, 50-60 experience would be reduced and would take as much time as 35-45 for example.

Pros:
- Not many resources needed - only thing to do would be questlines. We have models, voices, zones, everything is there.
- Lore-shitshow fixed - no more timejumps from Cata to TBC, to WotLK, to Cata, etc
- Level squish with stat squish, no more millions of HP. BiS tank would have 12k hp full buffed, normal dps would have like 3k hp. 500-800 dps avg.

Cons:
- prolly would take a raid tier, but it's nothing compared to Cata zone overhaul

[Traveler Voltin]

Hell no.
Level squish is the stupidest idea.

[Radeghost]

That's just a visual though. Level 120 etc is imo too big

[Deleted]

Crawl back to PlayTBC, Radeghost

[Traveler Voltin]

There is no need for a level squish.

[Radeghost]

There is no need for a level squish.

As I said before, a visual improvement. No need though.

[Zoreyai]

It'd be nice if next expansion didn't add levels. We don't need levels any more, we just need content and other ways to make our characters stronger than ilvl.

[Traveler Voltin]

As I said before, a visual improvement. No need though.

Like i said not needed.
What visual improvement? Less people?

[ScreddyLoix]

Level squish needs to happen. Another redoing of the 1 to max level experience is not necessary, however.

[Psygon]

Just like they said there would never, ever be flying in the old world (its impossible!), I have a feeling they'll clean it up at some point.

Although, not like this. Leveling right now works fine. You're still bouncing all over in your scenario.

Here's how it works: deathwing is a foe until it isn't. All the others, same thing. Changing the order you kill them is all you are doing.

So perhaps in the future the stories could be streamlined... maybe hide the fact that deathwing is an issue until the Cata levels 80 to whatever... or just ignore the threat until you can take said expansion boss on in combat.

Every alt should have a history of Aaaaaall the epic battles in WoW so I don't think it will be anytime soon... maybe 3 or 4 expansions from now?

[SoulSoBreezy]

If you're just looking for a visual improvement, you can probably write an addon to fool you into think you're leveling to X when you're actually level Y. Far less resources needed.

[Pakmanisgod]

New leveling stuff? Neat!!

*ques for the 100th dungeon*

[Cernunnos]

Would rather they bring in the level scaling tech for older zones so you can level in any of the Kalimdor or eastern Kingdom 13-60 zones you want, do TBC in any order, do wrath in any order, cata in any order, MOP in any order and WOD in any order.

After leveling a good 15 or so toons it becomes very boring doing the same things in pretty much the same order every time, until you get to legion.
For the majority of the zones and expansions there is really only one path to go you have a choice of two at 68 going into wrath and at 80 going into cata, but outside of that, it's pretty much the same zones in the same order every time.

The nerf to EXP in end leveling zones doesn't help as it just isn't worth it once you hit 58/68, moving on the newer expansion zones offer far greater EXP gains. It might be nice to quest out Shadowmoon, or Netherstorm for a change of scenery after leveling in Borean Tundra/Howling Fjord so much, but with the wrath zones giving fare more EXP it feels like too much of a slog to do the older zones.

There are certain quest chains in the game that I really enjoy and often make it a habit of doing them every time I level a new toon, but with nerfs to EXP required you often far outlevel zones, even without heirlooms on. I love doing the quests in Hillsbrad with Johnny Awesome and Kingslayer orkus and Dumas, but a couple of dungeon runs at that level (22-25) you are now level 28 if not 30 and now the quests give far less EXP.

I used to enjoy doing the mini ring of blood quest in icecrown in valhalas which I think are still group quests, but the EXP is super nerfed regardless, and now you can ding 80 really quickly and it's not really worth the time to quest almost a 1/4 of Icrcrown out to unlock the quests when Hyjal and the bonus objectives in the cata dungeons basically throw EXP at you.

[PenguinChan]

It would be nice if Blizzard did reduce the max level and scaled everything down appropriately, as the amount of levels we have now is pretty absurd... But I do know for a fact the modern audience loves to hit a new level REALLY fast, as that feels more 'rewarding' even if the entire path from Base Level to Max Level takes the same amount. But even if we did get a level squish, who knows how harshly it would be implemented? My best guess is like what OP said, 1 - 60, and then probably 61 - 70 for the new expansion. Maybe even speeding along the entire sequence of leveling through a story quest mode, such as OP mentioned. But in the end, leveling right now is pretty boring and Blizzard knows this, hence the instant max level or previous expansion level.

We probably won't see a leveling change as a whole for another expansion or two though... Maybe never. Blizzard probably saw the Cataclysm revamp as bad (even though it made leveling much more tolerable and refreshing to do). We shall see within the new few years, as it won't happen anytime soon.

[Dezminion]

Would rather they bring in the level scaling tech for older zones so you can level in any of the Kalimdor or eastern Kingdom 13-60 zones you want, do TBC in any order, do wrath in any order, cata in any order, MOP in any order and WOD in any order.

After leveling a good 15 or so toons it becomes very boring doing the same things in pretty much the same order every time, until you get to legion.
For the majority of the zones and expansions there is really only one path to go you have a choice of two at 68 going into wrath and at 80 going into cata, but outside of that, it's pretty much the same zones in the same order every time.

The nerf to EXP in end leveling zones doesn't help as it just isn't worth it once you hit 58/68, moving on the newer expansion zones offer far greater EXP gains. It might be nice to quest out Shadowmoon, or Netherstorm for a change of scenery after leveling in Borean Tundra/Howling Fjord so much, but with the wrath zones giving fare more EXP it feels like too much of a slog to do the older zones.

There are certain quest chains in the game that I really enjoy and often make it a habit of doing them every time I level a new toon, but with nerfs to EXP required you often far outlevel zones, even without heirlooms on. I love doing the quests in Hillsbrad with Johnny Awesome and Kingslayer orkus and Dumas, but a couple of dungeon runs at that level (22-25) you are now level 28 if not 30 and now the quests give far less EXP.

I used to enjoy doing the mini ring of blood quest in icecrown in valhalas which I think are still group quests, but the EXP is super nerfed regardless, and now you can ding 80 really quickly and it's not really worth the time to quest almost a 1/4 of Icrcrown out to unlock the quests when Hyjal and the bonus objectives in the cata dungeons basically throw EXP at you.

I'm into the scaling too, but with a little different way, I'd like to be able to skip expansions, like that I would not "need" to go to the TBC zones, I would do some of Vanilla, then head to NE, or where ever.
Let's hope they liked the system in Legion and will implement it to the old world too

[Vrothgar]

My answer hell no, but it is very very good idea for custom private server, only there it could work.

[Rudkobing]

I like the big numbers of 110 and 120.

[zeropeorth]

That's just a visual though. Level 120 etc is imo too big

What is this aversion to supposed big numbers.

What would be more valuable is the entire world scaling, so new toons don't have to skip around, done in a way where you still have an obvious power advantage for being leveled/geared. Let's say you are allowed to get +5 levels above the mobs in the zone or a similar power advantage so if you are farming herbs/ore in a starter zone you don't feel like you are fighting mobs in a max level zone to get them.

The original vanilla content should be put back in the game, including class quests, etc. they could add a bronze dragon to starter zones that would allow you to choose to secure the past or something, so you could follow the original storylines and lore. This would be great for post cata players to personally experience and see things like tm/ss, barrens, 1knedles as they were. You could level a new alt there or just go back at max level.

Adding old world , world quests to visit and affect old zones could make them relevant at current content levels, possibly with currencies for each era/continent as well as currency like ap/gold/mats/rep tokens etc. in fact, could make sense that some of them target specific factions and maybe even have emissary style incentives for these older factions.

Level/stat squishes are bandaids that I don't even see as needed in the first place. I find level number is irrelevant outside the number you are below the relative power to the zone or its requirement for 'max level' content gating. Squishes are similar, I have no qualms with doing 100 vs 10k vs 10 mil vs 1.0 x 10^x damage. With scaling in legion it is already shown that ho of mobs and your damage against them is fluid and feels more today like % damage than raw numbers when a level 110 and 100 can be attacking same mob or in the case of the invasion, a level 10 and 100 with their own relative power balance to the mob.


So, what is the issue with 120? Why not make each xpac 5 levels including vanilla? That would have us at only 40 for next xpac. I mean, if you find 120 too big, I'm sure someone out there finds 60 too big, or do you like that number because vanilla?

Your pros are irrelevant, as specific tank hp and raw dps numbers mean nothing in the grand scheme anyway; resources required are infinitely more than not doing it. The 'lore shit show' isn't fixed, as the old vanilla zones and quests do not exist, and you'd still have belves and drae stepping in bc and moving imto cata, then back to bc and some sense of continuity. The whole cost a raid tier is stupid bullshit I don't agree with anyway, at least not how they use it. Cata didn't change that much of the world visually and the team that would've been most taxed is the quest designers which should have little affect on raid development. It also gave no excuse for ds that used a lot of already existing resources, a small tier after a small tier. When I hear 'cost a raid tier', I really hear mismanagement of resources, human, tech, and financial.


The path I lined out would take far less time and resources, especially art team, quest/lore team, etc (outside the revival of vanilla content, ignore that for now), as it uses the tools they've recently developed, scaling and world quests/rewards and implementing them throughout all their established content; this could even be done to dungeons to make a wow-wide lfd/lfr system instead of just timewalking now and then. It doesn't require a level squish to players and mobs, which they haven't done before, nor a star squish which they do have experience with. It doesn't require creating new quests and scenarios/instances taking raid bosses out of raids to fit your scheme for cohesive narration. It would be much more efficient to find a way to use current systems and incentivize them to get participation if you want new people to see raid bosses or just to see it yourself on alts; which a invasion style scaled lfr with rewards worth it could fit; hell, just the shot at mounts/pets/transmog etc with an extra lootbag for another shot at these items for finishing it would be more than enough for many who want their Phoenix/head/invincible/glaives ex

I find your proposition is a lot of work for no real gain; just to slap a different number in a place people don't even care about outside a few days/weeks at the start of an xpac, and some number that scientific notation could make appear smaller and might actually teach people how to read scientific notation which is a plus in my book. As no matter what you try to do to 'fix' level/ilvl/stats/dps-hps, it is always a patch instead and will just come back to that point regardless unless you remove levels and numbers altogether which doesn't work in this dynamic, as levels reduce effectiveness of stats/power so you have a soft reset every expansion, to encourage progression and desire for new loots.

I may not understand why you don't like 120 vs 60 other than you just do. But how do you fix the fact we would be back at 90 in three xpacs? The fact we had a stat squish already and are already back at those high levels. The progress is inevitable. The 'feel' of continuous interval 'nerfing' every 4 years doesn't seem like a good path. In rpgs you gain power, you may never lose relative power, but as much as you have an aversion to big numbers, there are others who actually feel pleasure from the big numbers. They went from doing 5 dps in a starter zone to 500k dps at max level. They may get excited to think about breaking 1 mil or 10 mil, eventually 1 bil. You want to take them back to 500 dps. And equally irrelevant to get or not get squished in the relative damage part, but I'd guess there is a large portion that doesn't care, and to be fair, equal portions who want 500 dps to those who love their 500k+. One though, means rescaling gear and content, consistently every 4-6 years while the other means just keep doing what they are doing.

With the previous squish, it is apparent with the new direction they have either no idea how or no intention to get the bloat under control. I'd say they didn't squish far enough to start, even if I though the whole thing was pointless in the first place. If scaled down far enough, you then get to a point where smaller number increases are more meaningful, putting you much earlier on the exponential growth curve, tiers could be separated by 5s and 10s. People will always min max anyway, but the significance of +10 means more if you have 100 vs 1000 star to start off. Another solution could be a reduced effectiveness of gear between xpacs; say 80% less effective, with the starting zone being appropriately scaled down and gives a full set relatively soon, or just straight up give a set of greens at the start. This would make moving from your 100 stat raid gear down to 20 stat greens throughout neutral while giving a stat/gear reset and keeping number under control overall. The overall rate of damage increase xpac to xpac would become much more linear than the eventual rocketing upward that is the inevitable result of bigger numbers requiring bigger additions to be meaningful.

I can and do respect your position and effort for a solution though I completely disagree with it as realistic or worth it personally, too complicated and too much effort to be an eloquent solution imo.

[Deleted]

Level cap = 60.
All experience reduced and new way to level opened (you chose alternate start at character creation screen).

1-10 = You start in Eastern Plaguelands investigating Scourge threat under Argent Dawn banner. You end up killing Kel'thuzad.
10-20 = After Kel'thuzad is dead, you are summoned to Shattrath as Dark Portal reopens. You gather Sha'tar reinforcements to lay siege on Black Temple (meanwhile you are informed on progress with fighting Burning Legion threats such as Kael), and you end up defeating Illidan.
20-30 = After Illidan is (presumably) dead, you go back to SW/Orgri just to discover it's invaded by undeads. You fight them off and then you jump into a boat right to Howling Fjord. You gather up reinforcements and kill KT again (a small quest), and after that you get to fight on Argent Tournament. After that you jump to ICC, see bodies everywhere and run up with Tirion to kill LK. He gets frozen, you defeat LK.
30-35 = Before you killed the LK, there are some earthquakes. After you kill him, there are even more earthquakes and you have autoaccept quest that you need to go to Org/SW to check in what's going on. You discover that when you were in Northrend, Deathwing got our and spew some havoc, but cities got at least partially rebuilt. Thrall summons you to Hyjal where you kill off Ragnaros in a questline, and after that you help Thrall with killing Deathwing in Maelstrom.
35-45 = When you're in Maelstrom, you see some zeppelins. They give you a rope, you climb on it (and they saved you) and you discover that there's a war in Pandaria and Garrosh has gone crazy. You go to the vale of eternal blossoms, discover what happened and in a questline where you kill off Shas, you get informed that you need to go to orgri ASAP. You discover dead bodies leading you to throne of Garrosh which you help defeat.
45-50 = WoD storyline, shortened - you track down Garrosh then you spy on Gul'dan, you fight his minion Mannoroth, he summons Archimonde, you kill Archimonde. Yay.
50-60 = Legion storyline

It should make leveling significant and meaningful again. It would never be outdated. Blizz would use vanilla assets for 1-10, etc. Everything would be instanced and phased like DK Starting Zone. We'd have parts of zones instead of whole zones, etc.
Levelling 1-50 would take like 15 hours of /played. 50-60 would take the same as it takes now. When theres new exp and 70 lvl cap, 50-60 experience would be reduced and would take as much time as 35-45 for example.

Pros:
- Not many resources needed - only thing to do would be questlines. We have models, voices, zones, everything is there.
- Lore-shitshow fixed - no more timejumps from Cata to TBC, to WotLK, to Cata, etc
- Level squish with stat squish, no more millions of HP. BiS tank would have 12k hp full buffed, normal dps would have like 3k hp. 500-800 dps avg.

Cons:
- prolly would take a raid tier, but it's nothing compared to Cata zone overhaul

This is by far the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

why FORCE people to level a certain way. its fucking retarded.

[bloodmoth13]

Hell no.
Level squish is the stupidest idea.

Why? its better than just getting leveling boosts and missing most of the content in leveling zones.

I think a more streamlined questing experience that covers the most important events in wow would be an excelent idea, less bear asses more big bads.

Though i dont think i will see any of it since i have finished my leveling