Time for a level squish

[cparle87]

Stat scaling is possible without tying it to level. I thought that was pretty obvious.

So, what? Our gear just randomly gets weaker as time goes by so we have to keep getting stronger gear to even keep the same stats we have currently? Like an auto levelling up cap that never ends?

[Deleted]

I don't think it's a technical challenge at all. If you have a 60 and a 110, and 110 gets scaled down to, say, 55 (for an 8.0 max of 60), your scaling factor is quite trivially 1/2. So the level 60 becomes level 30.

The effort you put in got you halfway to cap, whatever that cap is.

It may be true though, as you suggest, that people would feel bad about this. I guess my argument is that the status quo also feels bad.

I didn't say it's a technical challenge, I say no matter what you do it's gonna end up being shit. Reducing the level 60 character to level 30 is even worse, because you have a character that leveled from level 1 to level 60, then you squish it to level 30 and say "now do it again". How about no?

[jackofwind]

So, what? Our gear just randomly gets weaker as time goes by so we have to keep getting stronger gear to even keep the same stats we have currently? Like an auto levelling up cap that never ends?

Literally read my posts in this thread.

There's no difference between gear randomly getting weaker at arbitrary points in time and players getting power spikes at arbitrary points in time (ie: expansions).

[GathOfBaal]

I decided to let my kid play wow for a few hours a week (yeah, I don't play like that, but I make sure my kid does).

He doesn't care about how high the level is, he doesn't say, "man I wish I can stop leveling or I wish this item had better stats". In fact, he gets excited when he levels, it means he can equip different gear, or get a new ability or new <insert something cool that everyone has overlooked after years of playing end-game>

he realizes he has a long way to go, but he is actually enjoying the game and exploring the content. He is not in a race to get to the max level, nor does he care about stats. That might change eventually, but there is so much content for him to see.

Most people are stuck in the end game content world and have blinders on to what a new person actually would think about this.

Your opinions are of course your own, but we are very biased on this leveling and stats because we have done it before for far too many years.

In my actual experience of a new person experiencing wow, it hasn't been an issue at all. My opinion is that squishing levels would be a bad thing for a new person, at least for my kid it would be.

[Selah]

This is a really hard subject. There's a lot to consider. I'd be in favor of it with a few stipulations. There must absolutely be a few changes to the game.

Here's how I would implement it and the systems to accompany it.
-Zone scaling implemented in every zone in the game
-command board similar to class hall board to let people choose their leveling paths, these would be based on race and and based out of racial capitals
-each character would get a unique hearthstone to take them back to their racial capital similar to the Dalaran hearthstone
-zone events, continental events, azeroth events, and world events are a thing for every zone/continent/planet in the game and there is multiple ones per set
-A secondary progression system similar to AP is in place
-Weekly events similar to the timewalking events are in place to encourage players to go out into the world and engage in all of above mentioned events and to help newer players
-Argus teleport system in place along side FPs
-When starting a new zone from the board, players must first take a FP to the zone and then will gain access to the teleport network
-Compensation for levels lost during the squish

I wanted to elaborate on that last point a few extra lines. The reason Blizzard would have a hard time doing the squish is because players have put a lot of time into gaining those levels. I'll use myself as an example, I have 11 Alliance characters at level cap, 5 horde at 80, 4 at 70, and 3 at 100. If the cap was reduce to 60, I personally would lose 810 character levels that I fairly earned (if my math is off, let me know). So for this to go over smoothly, Blizzard would have to adequately compensate players for their losses. So, my solution would be to give players currency for every level they lost. They can spend this currency at a vendor that is up in the game permanently. The vendor rewards can be things like mounts, skins, heirlooms/upgrade parts, WoW tokens, transmog sets that are otherwise lost to time, and so on and so forth. Basically a set of rewards that speaks to the players and says that Blizzard cares about the time we've put into their game.

[Ajax Epic]

As long as I can go back and solo old raids and dungeons I'm happy. Also old reps occasionally, don't want to have to find groups to farm old zones filled with elites because I'm forced to scale down. Some people mentioned world scaling so I'm addressing it.

Since we have scaling technology, I think it'd be cool if it was applied to old content as an OPTION. You could turn it on and never have to worry about out leveling a zone while questing. You could play with friends regardless of level without worrying about trivializing the experience for them if they are new. If you did old content at max level while scaled (quests, dungeons, raids) I think it'd be cool to get a special currency to unlock purely cosmetic things like mounts, mog weapons and armor (even if it's just different color variations for current models), hair styles, hair colors, dance moves, gnomes to punt, etc. OR just let me straight up purchase gear (within reason, no baron mount unless it's crazy expensive) from old school loot tables. It'd be a nice RNG protection plan I think.

Like OMG tier 1 and 2 because no tokens >.< My shaman only gets warrior tier, my warrior only gets priest, my priest only gets rogue, my rogue only gets paladin, my paladin only gets warlock, my warlock only gets mage, my mage only gets hunter, my hunter only gets druid, my druid has actually been fairly lucky.....it's a viscous fucking cycle.

[SirCowdog]

In my opinion, there are too many goddamn levels. The delta between 100 and 110, or 110 and 120, starts to feel kind of meaningless. Also it's no secret that the leveling grind feels a tad excessive to most players at this point.

Given the likelihood of level scaling tech spreading throughout existing pre-Legion content, thus obviating the need to have enough levels to reasonably cover available content, doesn't it seem like it's about time for a level squish in WoW? Freshen things up a bit, ya know?

I would personally like to see max level squished to 20 at the end of Legion and have 8.0 cover levels 20-30. But I have no idea what I'm doing, so what do you think?

Good luck getting any agreement on this topic. Too many people think that there's no other way to make a game good besides how Blizzard does it.

Another problem is that too much of the game is too heavily based on levels. Over a decade worth of content. The only way to really do a "level squish" would be to release a new expansion without any new levels, and simply have progression in some other form.

[Soon-TM]

They fucked up with the stat inflation in Cata, and then again with the stat squish in MoP. And here we are again with several million HP.

The MoP item stat squish had absolutely retarded effects on gear. The numbers are too small especially at lower levels, when you don't see practically any kind of stat increase when getting so-called upgrades. Even ilevel 200 and 400 items have nearly identical stats. They should have kept the item stat progression more linear from Wrath.

And the item level in general -- do we REALLY need such a ridiculous inflation on it? Vanilla ilvl was ~100, TBC ~135, Wrath ~270... and then Cata ~410, MoP ~560, WoD ~720, and now people run around in 930+ stuff... over 200 item levels during the course of a single expansion?

Are they trying to compensate for something or what?

Nah, it's the effect of having 4 separate raid difficulties plus TF. It exacerbates the power creep.

[Taeldorian]

Personally I've always felt the max level should have been 120. That's double the amount from which we began our adventures in Azeroth.

This is assuming the next expansion is the LAST expansion and it's 10 levels.

Or they can do 2 more expansions, each 5 levels more. Either way, for some reason, 120 is a solid number for me.

As for reasons for a level squish, I see no reason for that because the issue of massive, inflated numbers doesn't come from your level. Sure your level increases your STATS as you level up.

So that means you need to squish the STATS.

Yeah. They're suddenly going to stop a game that brings in around 1bil a year to the company. Yep. Last expansion is the next one for sure! That's an interesting assumption

Regardless I'd like to see a level squish. It is just a number but it feels better to say I'm level 80-90 rather than 120. Not a big deal though

[Deleted]

My solution would be as follows. Condense BC WOTLK CATA WOD and LEGION to 30-70 leveling, chose whichever you desire in whichever order. WoW now has too much content. Blizz seriously needs to consider the whole zone scaling thing.

[huth]

If it's just a number then it shouldn't matter either way, correct?

And if it doesn't matter, not changing it takes less effort and is thus the better choice.

[Logwyn]

Don't we technically have this already? Since everyone current "levels" with you?

I still wonder if having everything become max level all over the place... Then add in world quests or something everywhere would work. We could just level up our armor or weapons with Ilvl drops or just runes to increase the stats.

And just earn or collect appearances to transmogs our gear.

[jackofwind]

And if it doesn't matter, not changing it takes less effort and is thus the better choice.

Things that take effort aren't always the worse choice. Change for the sake of change can be good.

[Seranthor]

In my opinion, there are too many goddamn levels. The delta between 100 and 110, or 110 and 120, starts to feel kind of meaningless. Also it's no secret that the leveling grind feels a tad excessive to most players at this point.

Given the likelihood of level scaling tech spreading throughout existing pre-Legion content, thus obviating the need to have enough levels to reasonably cover available content, doesn't it seem like it's about time for a level squish in WoW? Freshen things up a bit, ya know?

I would personally like to see max level squished to 20 at the end of Legion and have 8.0 cover levels 20-30. But I have no idea what I'm doing, so what do you think?

I think you have the perfect plan to shed what few subscriptions that Wow has left.

[huth]

Things that take effort aren't always the worse choice. Change for the sake of change can be good.

That would mean that it does matter, though, and is therefore not relevant to my comment.

[Manabomb]

Ahh yes, disillusion yourselves further, lift the grand veil of petty numbers and cast their value from your eyes. It is all meaningless, arbitrary. The tempest of mathematics, the swirling vortices of multiplicative exponential equations will be the tomb for your once pure soul.

[Deleted]

So getting a skill every other level instead of only once ever 5 levels is no difference in gameplay? Or being able to choose where to level, instead of being forced to go to continent X for the duration of levle Y to Z?

these days you are not forced to level anywhere specific apart from tbc content. and no it doesnt make a difference if you get a skill every level or every 5.

- - - Updated - - -

WoW now has too much content. Blizz seriously needs to consider the whole zone scaling thing.

^^ this is whats wrong with people! too much content? a good game can never have enough content and you CLAIM wow has to much? why dont you play something simple like OW or HOTS then? ^^

[cparle87]

Nah, it's the effect of having 4 separate raid difficulties plus TF. It exacerbates the power creep.

Would you prefer the classic-BC strategy where like 5% of the raiders even get to SEE the raids? Transplant BC to now over half the raiders would still be doing EN after all this time with a few forays into ToV. Half of the remaining half would be Nighthold. About 10% would be doing Tomb right now. And only like 3% would ever even set foot into Antorus.

We NEED multiple raid difficulties. Otherwise raiding would be more dead than ever before. Didn't Blizz say several times that without LFR raids wouldn't be worth the time investment to make anymore?

These days we have people complaining that new zones/raids are boring/old/lame the day they came out. Can you imagine if for a full half of the raiding community they were still doing EN because that's all they were good enough to do?

[Oneirophobia]

They should gate early character "level" behind zone chapter completion, similar to how unlocking flying works.

For example, to go between level 1 and 20, complete a starting zone of your choice. From then on, every zone you complete grants you another 10 levels until you hit the newest content, then leveling resumes as normal.

So basically if you want to level to 100 in, say, Northrend or Pandaria or something, you finish your starting zone, pick up the beginning quest from the adventure bulletin board thing and then you can go to that continent and do so.

Consider it like a "choose your own adventure" thing. Also alleviates the timeline-jumpiness problem.

[SirCowdog]

Ahh yes, disillusion yourselves further, lift the grand veil of petty numbers and cast their value from your eyes. It is all meaningless, arbitrary. The tempest of mathematics, the swirling vortices of multiplicative exponential equations will be the tomb for your once pure soul.

Strangely enough, if you view everything in wow as percentages, the actual numbers end up not really mattering.