Time for a level squish

[Seranthor]

I can understand opposing a stat squish, because you might actually feel like you got weaker if seeing those 7-8 digit numbers really means that much to you, but a level squish is literally irrelevant.

If a level squish is literally irrelevant, why is it needed? Sounds like an attempt to create problems for very little gain.

[Deleted]

So do you intend for leveling to be completed faster? Because if not it'll take a long time to reach a new level if you're just a brand new dude learning how to play the game, and that's not an experience they want new players to have.

This.

Let's say every level requires 1000 experience. Now someone at level 110 right now would have 110000 experience. You squish him to level 60, that means he has 60000 experience. Now if the new level cap is 70, he would have to gain 10 more levels, meaning 10000 experience. But you just took 70000 experience away from him. Why take 70000 experience away from someone, and then tell him to go earn new experience again so he can reach a level he's already been at prior to the squish?

Alternatively if you say he keeps all of his experience, that would mean rearranging how much experience is needed for each level. So a level 60 squished character would still have 110000 experience, which means that per level that would roughly be 1833 experience per level. So all you'll do is make each level take longer, and in the end the whole leveling process will take just as long.

A level squish is a retarded idea, get it out of your head. It is never a good idea to take things away from people. All a level squish would do is make the leveling process seem even more pointless, because people would be left with the feeling that Blizzard is gonna take away their achievements at any point anyway, however they please.

"It's just a number" is a dumb response, as it's not about the number, it's about the work you've done being nullified.

[shaunika123]

its strictly my opinion but i despise it and it kills a sense of progression, if we are going to do world scaling i see no point in making us lvl up anymore really.

here's the thing tho, any sense of progression during leveling is already kinda dead
but with zones not scaling, you cant even get through the zone's story before you outlevel it and have to go to the next one.
that kills immersion way more for me than, being able to go to more zones than just 1-2 on every level.
not only that, but the fact that it works like this also makes instances much more appealing because you cant stay in a zone long enough for it to be worth it. instances during leveling should be something the zone story culminates to, not something you spam all day.

obviously it should be done with some restrictions, like expansions zones should be restricted to the levels of that expansion, maybe even break vanilla in half.

you'd still progress through the game, just by story and not arbitrary level caps put on zones.
i dont want to do grey quests just to finish the story of a zone, that's just dumb.
I'd much rather get through 5-6 zones that i finish than leave 15 half finished ones

[Magistrate]

If you reduced the numbers of levels, the "Blizzard took away flying from zones that never had it to begin with" crowd would say Blizzard stole levels from them.

[cuafpr]

here's the thing tho, any sense of progression during leveling is already kinda dead
but with zones not scaling, you cant even get through the zone's story before you outlevel it and have to go to the next one.
that kills immersion way more for me than, being able to go to more zones than just 1-2 on every level.
not only that, but the fact that it works like this also makes instances much more appealing because you cant stay in a zone long enough for it to be worth it. instances during leveling should be something the zone story culminates to, not something you spam all day.

obviously it should be done with some restrictions, like expansions zones should be restricted to the levels of that expansion, maybe even break vanilla in half.

you'd still progress through the game, just by story and not arbitrary level caps put on zones.
i dont want to do grey quests just to finish the story of a zone, that's just dumb.
I'd much rather get through 5-6 zones that i finish than leave 15 half finished ones

my solution to out leveling would be a main story focus per zone that may or may not carry over to the next, and side quest that are optional. You get the choice of focusing on the story and they stay yellow in difficulty maybe orange, those that want to can do the petty side quest (these would be the go find my old shirt / kill 10 boars for livers type quest) which would result in over leveling the zone / next zone. Side quest would offer little in terms of reward besides XP and no achieves to help push them being optional, or needed only when a players skill and/or gear hit a cap on the main story quest and they needed to lvl a bit before progressing it.

but once cleared and a zone or 2 past i don't want to come back and see the mobs my same level, if anything i want to back and destroy that one mob that gave me issues (though that's hard to find now).

[rda]

Leave it alone and spend effort on what actually matters. Like adding gameplay.

[shaunika123]

my solution to out leveling would be a main story focus per zone that may or may not carry over to the next, and side quest that are optional. You get the choice of focusing on the story and they stay yellow in difficulty maybe orange, those that want to can do the petty side quest (these would be the go find my old shirt / kill 10 boars for livers type quest) which would result in over leveling the zone / next zone. Side quest would offer little in terms of reward besides XP and no achieves to help push them being optional, or needed only when a players skill and/or gear hit a cap on the main story quest and they needed to lvl a bit before progressing it.

but once cleared and a zone or 2 past i don't want to come back and see the mobs my same level, if anything i want to back and destroy that one mob that gave me issues (though that's hard to find now).

that would require reworking every single zone, that's a way bigger and more costly thing than just making the levelcap on them fluid

[notraakaakaa]

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?

Poll indicates otherwise...

[cuafpr]

that would require reworking every single zone, that's a way bigger and more costly thing than just making the levelcap on them fluid

oh it would be for the next "cata" type world revamp which re-worked every zone anyways.. or next xpac zones only.

[THEORACLE64]

They've already said the expansion after Legion will be getting a squish, so yah.

[Jorah]

I agree with OP. Levels need to squish.

1 - Current 1-60 change to 1-20;

2 - All expansions ranges (TBC/WotLK/Cataclysm/MoP/Wod/Legion) change to 5 levels (Like Cataclysm and MoP now). So current max level would be 50.

3 - All next expansions should add +5 levels to max level.

PS Why Blizzard decided make only +5 for Cataclysm/MoP?

[Deleted]

They've already said the expansion after Legion will be getting a squish, so yah.

I am fairly certain it was in regards to the stat squish (again!) not the actual character level reduction.

That being said the next expansion would be perfect moment to do so though, especially considering that we would most likely bump the number to 120 otherwise. Split that in half, and you have a nice round number of 60.

With so many reworks to the progression system (mainly talents and stats) throughout the years, most of those levels are fillers anyway, they do not present any rewards and therefore are meaningless for a player, shrinking the number down seems like a logical step forward.

[kibil]

I really would love to see the day when blizzard would make every inch of Azeroth was escalabe, to level from whatever level to whatever level till max anywhere i want would be awesome. Go whatever maps you love the most and level there, when you finish quests, go the 2nd you love the most and move to the 3rd and keep that till you are max level. That would be awesome, I would love to do all quests in Wetlands for example, that is my 2 cents. Azeroth is vastly awesome to all tastes and preferences it's just a matter of blizzard providing us that.

[shaunika123]

oh it would be for the next "cata" type world revamp which re-worked every zone anyways.. or next xpac zones only.

i also like the idea that making zone progress more horizontal would mean that ever character you could do a different journey
"i did the story of these zones on my last char, I'll do these ones on my next one" is a kindof nice way to make the game not only more replayable, but a lot less linear

[cuafpr]

i also like the idea that making zone progress more horizontal would mean that ever character you could do a different journey
"i did the story of these zones on my last char, I'll do these ones on my next one" is a kindof nice way to make the game not only more replayable, but a lot less linear

that does help a bit, honestly my idea is modeled of SWTOR leveling, the class stories are epic and you can actually level to max level doing only those. To this day i think SWTOR has the best leveling of any mmo.

edit: though they always started scaling there as well

[mistahwilshire]

Squishes of any kind make the game worse to me. I'm against all future ones and every past one was a mistake.

[GathOfBaal]

Because it's just a number and doesn't really mean anything? The goal here it to make the game look less daunting to a new player, who would think "man, 120, that's a lot of levels". To us, functionally NOTHING CHANGES, to them, it looks less mountainous of a task to get to level cap.

As I explained, my kid is a new player, never touched an MMO in his life before this. He has played Pokemon games where the pokemon can level from 1-100 and has never complained that that is too much. And then he starts playing WoW and has never said that that is a lot of levels. So making a general accusation that the character levels is too daunting for new players is false. Why do people think that getting to max level as quickly as possible is a good thing?

When I was a new player, I enjoyed the leveling from 1-60, all new stuff I have never seen before. I dinged 60 and still had areas I had never seen and there was new content that I could do. This hasn't changed from 60-110 it just puts you into different zones, different dungeons and what not.

[ATZenith]

It's just a number.

Yeah, Ilvl is just a number, my dps is just a number.

It's a number that has a meaning. Just like the stat squish. Was your logic "It's just a number"? You get what I'm saying? It's kind of more than just a number.

[Lochton]

No, I do not think it is time for a level squish. If we were to squish it would though make leveling more hard as it should increase the XP pool needed for leveling. But no thanks, rather not have it squish. Maybe when the levels are actually high.

[rhorle]

But people who don't play won't know and will give up before trying, because 110 on paper is such a staggering number.

But they have a boost. The number of levels is irrelevant because if 1-40 takes the same time as 1-110 it is just as big of a hurdle to players. If a person is daunted by the number and not the time it takes for that number then the problem will never be solved. Because they are judging it based on an arbitrary factor. It isn't the number you level to but the time it takes to level to that number that is the important factor.

Squishing the number of levels doesn't mean you will level any faster.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, Ilvl is just a number, my dps is just a number. It's a number that has a meaning. Just like the stat squish. Was your logic "It's just a number"? You get what I'm saying? It's kind of more than just a number.

The level number isn't that important. It is the time it takes to level that is the big thing. If 1-40 after a squish takes the same times as 1-110 before the squish is it not just a number? And yes much of the complaints about the stat squish turned out to be stupid since we kept our relative power. It even worked out better for old raids because of the buff we get.