Leveling overlooked every expansion?

[Sansnom]

I say build a huuuge new continent first, then populate with quest givers etc much like the original 2 continents in vanilla and don't design the maps around hubs and how to level most efficiently.

Anyone agree or am I just a ftard who should suicide?

Your cry would be drowned out by the "WE WANT MORE RAIDS" chants that would surely happen if Blizzard ever decides to focus on levelling rather than end game raids.

[MoanaLisa]

Leveling content is a massive waste of development resources. Players consume the content ONCE in a mostly linear fashion, then never go back. All that open world content goes to waste unless the devs can think of a clever way to get players to return to it. WoW handles this with world quests, FFXIV does it with their job system. DDO allowed players to restart at level 1, with more bonuses each time you leveled up to cap. EVE online does it by not having traditional levels at all, and I think this is the best way to do things.

The problem with WoW's content is that ALL of it is too linear. I really hope that in the following expansions Blizzard moves further and further away from that sort of thing. M+ is a massive step forward, as is world scaling. IMO the perfect "leveling" experience would be to have no levels at all, only gear and the artifact grind, and have the world scale with that. Set the story up to be consumed and progressed at the rate of those forms of progression rather than on arbitrary "levels" which don't matter after the first week of launch anyway.

Without all of the angry folderol I would agree: they should use the world much, much more than they do. Now that they can shard everything there's really no reason not to create new stuff to do in old zones at max level and expand the scope of their stories from something that's happening in an area the size of a small county to multiple story lines that encompass events around the world. And where flying would be a thing since I've heard that's an interest of yours.

[Deleted]

I could not disagree more. I hate it. I hated every second of it. The going back and forth from continent to continent to find enough quests to get you half a level only to turn around again was horrible. The quests themselves were incredibly boring kill 10 generic mobs and come back to only be sent right back to kill 10 more slightly different generic mobs. Begging high level people to help you do the group quests because no one else was in the zone sucked. Your toolkits were tiny so generally you would sit there and spam a single the same couple abilities over and over. Sure mobs took a lot longer to kill and people still say that made things harder and more fun but it was boring grindy button mashing with little strategy. Then every 2-3 mobs you would have to spend a bunch of time drinking.

If you enjoyed that, go have fun on the private servers.

I guess it just boils down to opinion then, having quests that took a long time to complete even if just traveling was immersive to me. I remember lots of quest chains that were well written och invoked some type of emotion and achievement. Now I played a warlock and might be biased but we had quests for every single pet summon, robes, weapons and other class items, the level 60 mount and other things. Sure we have all the class flavor with order halls and artifacts now and that's really good but it also feels like a grind and time sink (AK, AP...) more so than the vanilla leveling quests which were just there for flavor and the devs saying "lets make something cool that the players will love".

Vanilla leveling had it's issues though, not enough quests to reach high enough level to progress to next zone and thus needing to grind. Lots of quests inconvenient and not challenging but just confusing (the look for a tiny hidden quest item back when quest items didn't sparkle etc) so I'm well aware it wasn't perfect. I'm just saying there's a balance to be had and to a lot of players they've gone way too far to one direction and ignoring the other.

[deniter]

I would go even further and remove levels altogether, but instead of scaling content to a player i'd gate the entire game around gear. Don't wanna waste your time and run 'leveling dungeons'? Too bad, ordinary mobs will 3-4 shot you unless you improve your dps or armor/stamina.

The game has to start before max level, that's not an opinion but common sense. You could design a game and have a mandatory, unskippable cut-scene that lasts for 8 hours before you can start playing. How fun would that be? That's what most MMOs are today, more or less.

So you either cut down everything that happens before the latest raid tier, or make the rest of the game an important and meaningful part of your character's journey. Anything between is bad and lazy game design that should not be promoted or supported by anyone who plays video games in regular basis.

[Kazlofski]

I actually prefer them keeping the leveling experience, it's the most fun I am having every single expansion release.
Just love doing the questlines leveling up, it just doesn't feel the same the moment you hit max level and keep questing... hard to explain but it doesn't feel as rewarding and RPGish anymore... (Even Suramar was meh in that regard, AP wasn't enough as a reward, at least the story was superb).
Hope they don't change a thing, rather scale old zones with WQs and such.

[SirCowdog]

angry folderol

???

Sounds like a type of sushi....

I would agree: they should use the world much, much more than they do. Now that they can shard everything there's really no reason not to create new stuff to do in old zones at max level and expand the scope of their stories from something that's happening in an area the size of a small county to multiple story lines that encompass events around the world. And where flying would be a thing since I've heard that's an interest of yours.

As you said, with the sheer amount of real estate available, there'd be plenty of room for all types of different gameplay. Flying, gliding puzzles, jump puzzles, whatever. But like I said in another thread about WoW2: The investment of time and money needed to remaster the game would be a tremendous risk on the part of Blizzard. I mean, they're already making money hand over fist, but this would require an amount of dev time on the same level as an entirely new expansion almost. I don't think Blizzard is willing to do that, and it's partly their own fault that players probably wouldn't be very receptive of it.

Still, it COULD work. Especially given the regular requests for Vanilla servers. People don't necessarily want a perfectly recreated Vanilla server anyway. What they actually want is the vanilla EXPERIENCE. If Blizzard could somehow re-create that using the older WoW content, I think they could have a winning formula.

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I actually prefer them keeping the leveling experience, it's the most fun I am having every single expansion release.
Just love doing the questlines leveling up, it just doesn't feel the same the moment you hit max level and keep questing... hard to explain but it doesn't feel as rewarding and RPGish anymore... (Even Suramar was meh in that regard, AP wasn't enough as a reward, at least the story was superb).
Hope they don't change a thing, rather scale old zones with WQs and such.

What you're describing is a feeling of artificial accomplishment set by the goal of reaching "level cap". And I'll admit that this is harder to define when you're already sitting at level cap trying to grind out another point on your artifact. It doesn't feel the same at all, even though it's really just another form of "levels".

Blizzard would need to do something with the presentation. Progression milestones in the story, or gear, or artifact, or talents somehow. They'd need to give players a clear indication that what they're accomplishing mattered somehow, for those types of players who aren't motivated purely by gameplay.

[emilylorange]

I mean I would personally be fine with that but that's not the game, nor is it even really practical.

Holy crap.

This sounds great but like you say, impractical and probably takes 5 years to build, as it's basically a new game.

[oplawlz]

Don't want to turn this into a vanilla vs current discussion but I just want to say the absolute best thing about vanilla wasn't the endgame, it was the leveling experience. My first level 60 took 23 Days /played to ding max level and my only alt took about 11 Days. According to people on private servers the current average is 8-10 Days I Believe.
. . .

I happen to agree with you, but this audience is no longer playing WoW, so we're unlikely to see more content with similar design. As predicted years ago, the actual rp elements of the game have been "convenienced" out of existence, so now what we have is a few hours of fetch quests leading up to raids and daily fetchquests.

[Logwyn]

Basically, when the developers started considering raiding as the only true game experience, and everything else as just a time filler, the game started dying.

You mean from day one... Just like everything else?

[Zenlin]

I think this is an interesting topic of discussion, but I think it's something that a large demographic of people will never see eye to eye on. You have people who enjoy leveling (like I do) and people who hate it. You have people who liked the more open-ended Vanilla/BC leveling (this is where I fall), and the more structured leveling we saw in other expansions. You then have people who like leveling, in either of the aforementioned fashions, but they don't want it to take a long time because of time constraints or impatience, and then you have people who want to savor the experience and the journey, who enjoy a prolonged leveling experience. So with all that being said, even though I enjoyed the older style of leveling much more, I don't think it's ever going to change back. They've now made 5 expansions with a faster style of leveling which is becoming more structured over time, there is no way they're going to completely turn around to go back to an older leveling development style. Sure they could keep aspects of both, but it's not the type of thing the typical player that is currently playing WoW, or who will in the future, wants to deal with.

[Kithelle]

Basically, when the developers started considering raiding as the only true game experience, and everything else as just a time filler, the game started dying.

They have increased the pace of the game significantly, with short leveling, fast dungeons, dungeon/raid finders and etc. But now game content is being consumed so fast that they can't keep up with the development speed, which is causing millions of players to leave due to a lack of content. I'd say if anything is killing the game, it is bad design/development decisions.

When they started losing millions of players, do you think they made more content ? No, they virtualized the servers and they developed a a cross-realm technology so the players in the game don't feel the massive loss of active subscribers and the zones don't feel empty.

Like I've said in other threads these days the devs are developing the game they want...which is shoving raiding down your throat...they don't like PvP so they screw it over and don't work on it...they have classes or specs they don't like....so they say screw them (Demonology is a big one...they literally said they don't want people playing it). They make promises to fix and change specs which are lies and instead they just nerf the best talents and don't change a thing (Just make the best talents weaker) =

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Vanilla combat was slow, regen between combat even slower, travel times abysmal, and many quests required thotbot to look up proper instructions. The quest hubs were often disjointed and could include considerable travel times. Your character probably didn't even have "proper" gear. 1-60 today is not the same journey. Much of the padding, the "time wasting" has been smoothed out.

Today WoW is developed with a clear identity and driven by efficiency. The devs know WoW is a themepark, they do not treat it as a "world" to get lost in. They craft the leveling content to tell a zone's story. Its function as a time sink reduced to a couple days, not months. All of us players at max level have gone through the "level grind". We've been there, we've done that, we do not want another large time sink standing between us and the endgame content.

In fact, if I had it my way... every new character would start at the beginning of the latest expansion. I'd place your new characters in Dalaran at level 100.

I think the nostalgia you describe is more befitting an online world. Something large and expansive to "get lost" in. To enjoy exploration, danger, and discovery. Those are just not significant features of WoW as a game. I mean, I found some joy in exploring the Broken Isles, but that can only take us so far. Vanilla WoW had "flaws" that enhanced the idea of those features, but WoW devs never actually embraced them. The game took a different direction entirely.

I'm afraid what you are asking for is another game. Though I do ponder if WoW could be reforged to suit your desired features...
Unfortunately, one should not expect the Dev team to "rethink" the game.

Yeah...I have to agree...vanilla was SO SLOW...it didn't make for fun...it made for boredom. Leveling was made so fast and heirlooms were invented because the players wanted it faster...

[Valrysha]

Vanilla combat was slow, regen between combat even slower, travel times abysmal, and many quests required thotbot to look up proper instructions. The quest hubs were often disjointed and could include considerable travel times. Your character probably didn't even have "proper" gear. 1-60 today is not the same journey. Much of the padding, the "time wasting" has been smoothed out.

Today WoW is developed with a clear identity and driven by efficiency. The devs know WoW is a themepark, they do not treat it as a "world" to get lost in. They craft the leveling content to tell a zone's story. Its function as a time sink reduced to a couple days, not months. All of us players at max level have gone through the "level grind". We've been there, we've done that, we do not want another large time sink standing between us and the endgame content.

In fact, if I had it my way... every new character would start at the beginning of the latest expansion. I'd place your new characters in Dalaran at level 100.

I think the nostalgia you describe is more befitting an online world. Something large and expansive to "get lost" in. To enjoy exploration, danger, and discovery. Those are just not significant features of WoW as a game. I mean, I found some joy in exploring the Broken Isles, but that can only take us so far. Vanilla WoW had "flaws" that enhanced the idea of those features, but WoW devs never actually embraced them. The game took a different direction entirely.

I'm afraid what you are asking for is another game. Though I do ponder if WoW could be reforged to suit your desired features...
Unfortunately, one should not expect the Dev team to "rethink" the game.

Im shit at MMO-C and dont know how to qoute a specific section. Anyway, I completely agree with your "start at 100" thing. I think it'd make a lot more sense considering it's the only part of the game which is remotely balanced in anyway.

But then they'd lose $$ from level 100 boosts and that :/

[Cathbadh]

EVEN I, I love lore, I want as much as I can get. However... I have all 12 classes above level 100. NO WAY IN HELL would I want to lengthen the requirements to catch up my alts. I can't even stomach the thought of leveling some alts past getting their first artifact... If I was able to choose for the next expansion would I rather take 5 days or 3 months to level a character, NO way would I give more than 3 seconds to even considering leveling for 3 months.. maybe my main, but alts could all be deleted.

I feel you here. I'm more than willing to do stupidly time consuming grindy things on my main. But dammit I just want to level my alts with minimum time wasting. The way profession quests were handled this time around are a good example of this. They're in multiple zones and dungeons, rarely the one you happen to be leveling in at the time, and are annoying. I had no issue with this on my main but I have alts at 110 who still can't access most of their professions because I didn't want to deal with it.

[Bathrezz]

I always look fondly back to the leveling experience. The time it took to do quests, playing with sound on. I like to think i would level 1-60 again. Butt... I remember all the times I've tried to watch LOTR trilogy again and get bored after a good 30mins.

[SirCowdog]

Im shit at MMO-C and dont know how to qoute a specific section.

You just delete everything between QUOTE and /QUOTE that you don't want. With brackets [ ] around the QUOTE.

But then they'd lose $$ from level 100 boosts and that :/

That's actually another very compelling argument against Blizzard ever doing away with levels. They wouldn't nuke a revenue stream like that. Same goes for merging the two factions, or creating one single megaserver.

[MasterHamster]

Making leveling interesting again could actually be done in a few sweeping strokes, however players would endlessly bitch about it because these changes would involve severely rebalancing the mob-to-player power ratio, which is now a complete joke. And-- *gasp* that'd mean leveling would also become slower because players aren't running through a dungeon in 5 minutes with their health bars never moving.

Players argue that Blizzard shouldn't make leveling slower because they just want to get to maxlevel, but a major reason they just wanna get to endgame is because leveling is a pathetic joke. At least I get bored out of my goddamn mind leveling alts because there's literally zero challenge between level 1 and 100.
We're essentially demigods at level 20 so when is the leveling experience supposed to challenge you (read: activate your brain)?

Of course this would have to have some differing numbers in certain expansion level ranges, but I'd argue that mob health would have to increase by at least 200-300%, and their damage at least doubled. Mobs casting spells would need their spell damage increased by even more, as to actually make people use things like interrupts and stuns. When mobs are this pathetic, the only relevant abilities you have are damaging spells. The only way to make that no longer the case is to make mobs more threatening.

And when mobs are threatening you start making decisions and maybe even play a bit cautiously at times, not just an endless GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO. When your health matters, when your entire spellbook matters, when you can actually die if you play recklessly, that's when the game is fun. Not two-shotting mobs for 48 hours.

And yes that would indeed slow down leveling... but perhaps you'd come to realize that if you're actually having fun leveling instead of the current comatose joke of leveling every 10 minutes on Baby godmode, the increased time to reach maxlevel doesn't feel that bad.

Because right now, the leveling experience is so awful, braindead and unbalanced it's a major reason you just wanna get to endgame.

[Leih]

I mean levelling has certainly changed a lot... but considering it took me maybe like 2 weeks to level to 60 after I got the game and I played WoW non-stop for 2 years of Vanilla, I can't really agree that levelling was the main draw that kept me in the game, even back then.

[Marrilaife]

Unheard of by todays standards where everyone is max level within a week of the xpack release. It seems like such untapped potential, instead of having a final raid tier last for >1 year why not have the leveling experience in the beginning be an Epic 2 month journey or so? Remove the stress and hype to get to endgame and start raiding, let the first raid tier last a long time so people can enjoy just leveling and exploring.

The only way you can "remove the stress" is to gate away the raid by 2 months. Imagine the community uproar. "Waah I'm done levelling and I have nothing to do now! No content!"

Otherwise, whatever the day Blizzard sets for raid opening, that will be the day guilds and community set as a requirement you need to be levelled and raid-ready geared. Even if you aren't in a guild, missing few opening weeks will lead you to being marginalized from pugs because "no achi & low ilvl = insta decline".

Anyway levelling is solo content these days. Many people will argue true essence of an MMO is in playing with people, which is mostly endgame these days (dungeons, raids, arenas, battlegrounds etc.), yes you can do some group content like bgs or dungeons while levelling but it's mostly endless solo questing. Mandatory "group quests" didn't work well (most people skipped them), so they were removed. And for some weird reason, levelling through dungeons was scrapped by Blizzard as an idea during Cata and never came back, basically every expac since then we got token ~4 levelling dungeons that gave little xp outside of 1-time quests in them, and we were funneled into solo questing through zones.

[ls-]

Making leveling interesting again could actually be done in a few sweeping strokes, however players would endlessly bitch about it because these changes would involve severely rebalancing the mob-to-player power ratio, which is now a complete joke. And-- *gasp* that'd mean leveling would also become slower because players aren't running through a dungeon in 5 minutes with their health bars never moving.

Players argue that Blizzard shouldn't make leveling slower because they just want to get to maxlevel, but a major reason they just wanna get to endgame is because leveling is a pathetic joke. At least I get bored out of my goddamn mind leveling alts because there's literally zero challenge between level 1 and 100.
We're essentially demigods at level 20 so when is the leveling experience supposed to challenge you (read: activate your brain)?

Of course this would have to have some differing numbers in certain expansion level ranges, but I'd argue that mob health would have to increase by at least 200-300%, and their damage at least doubled. Mobs casting spells would need their spell damage increased by even more, as to actually make people use things like interrupts and stuns. When mobs are this pathetic, the only relevant abilities you have are damaging spells. The only way to make that no longer the case is to make mobs more threatening.

And when mobs are threatening you start making decisions and maybe even play a bit cautiously at times, not just an endless GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO. When your health matters, when your entire spellbook matters, when you can actually die if you play recklessly, that's when the game is fun. Not two-shotting mobs for 48 hours.

And yes that would indeed slow down leveling... but perhaps you'd come to realize that if you're actually having fun leveling instead of the current comatose joke of leveling every 10 minutes on Baby godmode, the increased time to reach maxlevel doesn't feel that bad.

Because right now, the leveling experience is so awful, braindead and unbalanced it's a major reason you just wanna get to endgame.

Levelling is linear af in MMORPGs, there's no branching of the main story. Going through zones in different order doesn't change the story itself. So basically on every single char one has to do the same quests again and again.

Levelling in MMORPGs might be fun only once during the first "walkthrough", after that it turns into braindead and unfun thing that one has to do.

[haxartus]

Levelling is linear af in MMORPGs, there's no branching of the main story.

That is because the development team is very lazy and they don't want to maintain several concurrent storylines.
Maybe in one storyline we defeat the legion and Azeroth turns into Argus 2.0, in another we win the battle, etc.

Now, someone is going to say "But that requires too much effort.". This is a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars from WoW each year...