WoW & Leveling: Why is it Treated as a Nuisance?

[Whatever Dude]

Perhaps there are just too many levels?

I've been thinking about a level squish for a while, and it could be done with scaling. Make 60 the max level again.

EK & Kalimdor are revamped and go from 1-60 again with the addition of the Cataclysm zones. Outland, Northrend, Deepholm, Pandaria, Draenor, and Broken Isles become 'Heritage Content' that can be done at 60 and optionally, and is not required whatsoever but brings a few additional bonuses and benefits like achievements and mounts if you complete them.

[Aydinx2]

Because all new, interesting and competetive content is concentrated at the highest level.
Leveling is just the journey there. It used to be that leveling was part of the path there, but now it takes either way too long, or way too short (heirlooms).

[hulkgor]

In vanilla you weren't "leveling", you were actually PLAYING the game. Leveling professions, exploring the world, helping buddies out. The average joe took months - MONTHS - to get to max level, and there was no concern whatsoever about it.

The problem is, all those aspects were made trivial by blizzard (professions are leveled with single recipes in 30m), leveling takes 6h play time, the world got smaller... so, there's no real interest in playing in that level range, even if its 90-95% of the existing content in the game.

They should make strides to make the world relevant, instead of just adding a continent with 5 zones that people funnel into, maybe leveling wouldn't be irrelevant as it is now.

[owbu]

I assume blizzard has some data on when players quit. They probably discovered reaching the endgame makes people quit less.
I would assume its because you start playing with your friends and start feeling like you reached the actual game.

Leveling felt nice the first time around. After reaching max level once, adding more levels just feels like they put an abitrary "quest for 10 hours" block into your way, so that you can continue playing, where you have already been. I honestly would like them to just remove levels all together and tie the questing experience into the max level conent. Like they do when a new patch comes out.

[Tackhisis]

Not only have they made characters absurdly strong compared to enemy mobs while leveling, they've also introduced Heirlooms and character boosts to further trivialize this aspect of WoW.

Because different classes, with different health and armor amount should be able to kill the same mobs.
Heirlooms are needed because gear in WoW is very scarce, is not sold in stores, and should stay relevant to the character level for the character to remain effective.

[Svisalith]

You're gonna love scaling everywhere then. Problem literally solved in 7.3.5

Nah, that doesn't solve that particular problem at all. A level 40 will still oneshot level 40 mobs, they'll just have level 40 mobs in half of the zones in the world.

They'd have to rebalance player damage and/or mob HP to fix it; it's way off (>3x, sometimes >5x) the balance that it had when doing level appropriate content in those expansions pre-squish (vanilla TBC WOTLK Cata).

[Pickynerd]

End-game is where the game really starts.

Leveling is just hoops.

[bryroo]

Go play classic

[Molvonos]

Here's the thing.

Leveling was and will always be treated as a nuisance, depending on who you ask. The reason why Leveling (and the introduction of Heirlooms) was introduced, was because Leveling was a nuisance. It started in Vanilla, when people were complaining about how long it took to get from 56 to 60, since Silithus hadn't yet been cleaned up and quests added, leaving only a few max-level zones to funnel everyone into (and most level 60s were in EPL grinding out Scourge Stones, making it difficult for anyone else to find good places to grind). It only took 'months ( @hulkgor ) if you fucked around and didn't try to get to end game.

Which was what "everyone" was striving for, anyways.

Leveling through Vanilla once TBC was introduced, for those guilds who lost members or needed to shift their roster due to the raid-group size changes, was atrocious too, though it was marginally better for those hybrid classes who had previously been pigeon holed into healer spec because their other two specs sucked hardcore. So more people complained. Raiders and Altoholics, especially, who wanted to experience the game through the 'eyes' of different toons (which at the time, actually had differences).

Long story short, Time is a flat circle and we've come to the point where the vocal minority are complaining about leveling because the people who aren't saying anything are happy with the changes.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I was hoping for a mythic plus leveling system but ya as others said it's been done so many times by so many people that if it was any longer or more complicated it would really wear on you.

[kamuimac]

Blizzard have gone out of their way to completely trivialize leveling content, in order to funnel players into the max level endgame as quickly as possible. Not only have they made characters absurdly strong compared to enemy mobs while leveling, they've also introduced Heirlooms and character boosts to further trivialize this aspect of WoW.

My only question is: Why? Why take a big steaming shit on a part of WoW's content that a lot of people used to love? I remember years ago, and I mean 5+ at least, a majority of players were actually just interested in leveling, and most didn't even have a single max level. Now everyone has several characters at max level, not an insignificant amount even have like 10+ at 110. Are you really invested in all of those characters and care about them as much as you would have, if you had taken the time to level them up and grow with them? Probably not.



I know for me, I'm not nearly as invested in my max level characters as I used to be. They mean almost nothing to me, as I can essentially create a copy of them in a few weeks time at most. The characters have gone down in value a lot since the years have passed by. This feels just wrong.

because we have been playing this game for 14 years.

maybe if you leveled 30-50 chars like some people did over year you would understand why they dont give a single fuck about old content leveling.

[Brautigan79]

Less is more. Reduce the sheer number of quests required to level (i.e. amp up the xp per quest), but make the mobs and objectives more challenging or interesting. That would give people more options on which quests/zones they want to do.

I am also a fan of level scaling. The approach Blizzard is taking on that front seems reasonable.

[Aeula]

The questing content is outdated. Even the newer stuff is pathetic compared to what other MMO's have achieved in both storytelling and the content of the quests themselves.

Blizzard refuse to fix it and are only throwing level scaling on as a band-aid. Several years after all the other MMO's did.

[Deleted]

Blizzard doesn't know how to make engaging and interesting quests. I mean, I loved FFXIV's main questline and it was nice that you really didn't need to do any side-quests to get to max level. Side-quests were optional, with some experience and usually fun or useful rewards thrown in there. Also, I have leveled more than 10 alts in World of Warcraft and I just can't be arsed anymore.

[FireVoodoo]

You're gonna love scaling everywhere then. Problem literally solved in 7.3.5

In new 110 heirlooms 101-110 mobs die as easy as 1-100 do. I really doubt it'll change in 7.3.5

[Kaykay]

They need the leveling to be quick but tedious. A tight balance to justify the paid skip button.

It needs to be quick enough, that people wont start crying p2w and stop playing.

But also tedious enough that people will pay to not engage with the mindnumbing experience that is wow leveling post cata.

[Nurvus]

It's self-destructive to make 99% of WoW's content obsolete every new expansion, to the point of making players feel forced to rush to end game as soon as an expansion launches.

Blizzard should actually do a 180º on that and make content from as early as level 1, including professions, relevant for End Game.

This is easily accomplished with a Badge of Justice-like currency awarded through level-appropriate content and even gathering/crafting for NPCs as a "war effort".

[Darktbs]

Because most people already did it a hundred times?

Skyrim's opening scenes are cool the first couple of times, after that, you just want to skip it and go straight to the part that interest you.
And the community's response is a mod that let you start elsewhere:https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557/?

Blizzard's responde is giving players option to level faster or skip it entirely while allowing other to still level if they so enjoy.

[BEYR]

In vanilla, leveling was a large portion of the game. They were designed (sometimes poorly) to take you all over both continents. Some places had a coherent story line and some were a jumbled mess of random quests. And it was the main focus of the vast majority of the players. Once BC came out (pretty much where I started) Leveling zones became more linear and tied to the dungeons and raids in that zone. The zones were still a bit disconnected from each other but there was an overall theme. By Wrath, the entire expansion pointed you in one direction and painted a finish line at the end. It was, in my opinion, the best story telling overall that WoW has seen. But it also changed what leveling was on a fundamental level. It turned into a path to the end of the story, not the story itself. Legion has changed some of that and made leveling considerably more interesting but I don't think that genie goes back in the bottle. Add to that the 109 levels that you have to wade through to get to the end of that story and you start to see why people are keen to plow through it.

[Phantombeard]

Honestly, I think its considered more of a stumbling block on the way to the real action. End Game content. Why the hell would I want to kill 10 boars for a mana flask when I could be in a Raid with 10+ friends having the time of my life. My best memories from WOW is from raiding. TBH though I leveled all my chars past 60 before Cata so the leveling XP may have changed. I do plan on making a new char. and while leveling do every quest in game I can find (No shit I really want to do this). I credit this to Youtubers such as Nobble87 and others like him for their great wow videos on lore... on second thought. Fuck it, leveling sucks I'm not doing it.