"Character advancement" suggestions

[SodiumChloride]

Shorten leveling. It should be gotten over and done with ASAP. It's just a roadblock to level cap content (heroics and raids). Leveling should introduce the new expansion's story and let player practice new abilities but that should be it.

Need non-RNG character advancement system parallel to RNG gear at level cap.
Maybe let Path of the Titans = class lore/quests + "power increase" (e.g. Maybe increase stat conversion rate; 600 crit rating = +1% crit -> 600 crit rating = +1.05% crit)
Gated with catchup mechanism of course.
Can be implemented with resources freed up from having less leveling content.

[Wayne25uk]

We dont all live to bum 90 content sadly,some of us like levelling alts and playing around in old zones. Too many impatient people these days its ruining the game.

[SodiumChloride]

We dont all live to bum 90 content sadly,some of us like levelling alts and playing around in old zones. Too many impatient people these days its ruining the game.

Well, overly long leveling hurts people trying to get their alts to cap too.

I have played this game for nearly 8 years. Kind of burned out on leveling in general I'm afraid.

The issue with leveling as it exists now, is that it blocks you from content. I say with move the "leveling" to level cap in a form of non-RNG character advancement. We will have access to all content and have a way of advancing our characters without being completely at the mercy of the RNG gods.

[Deleted]

The thing is, when you're leveling you get new skills, you read the tooltip and try to use the skills from that moment on. If you kill enough mobs, do enough dungeons, you start to understand the skill/spell. This is quite ideal since when you do that, you get better in the game. If you just surge on to lvl 90, you'll lose the basic knowledge that you need to raid/ do dungeons. Simple as that

[Incrediberry]

Leveling is about to be shortened in 5.3 Leveling has been shortened constantly throughout the game since it's been released. You can play the game however you want but just raising alts and complaining about having to level shouldn't be something you complain about. It's part of the game and I think it's hurting the game over all by making it so much easier to level your characters all of the time.

Blizzard constantly lowers the XP reqs for leveling all the time. Don't complain for them to do it more.

[SodiumChloride]

The thing is, when you're leveling you get new skills, you read the tooltip and try to use the skills from that moment on. If you kill enough mobs, do enough dungeons, you start to understand the skill/spell. This is quite ideal since when you do that, you get better in the game. If you just surge on to lvl 90, you'll lose the basic knowledge that you need to raid/ do dungeons. Simple as that

Leveling is about to be shortened in 5.3 Leveling has been shortened constantly throughout the game since it's been released. You can play the game however you want but just raising alts and complaining about having to level shouldn't be something you complain about. It's part of the game and I think it's hurting the game over all by making it so much easier to level your characters all of the time.

Blizzard constantly lowers the XP reqs for leveling all the time. Don't complain for them to do it more.

I'm not asking leveling to be removed. It's just that I feel it's too long now.

FYI, I currently don't have any "operational" alts. So alts aren't really a problem for me. Just pointing out that it's a problem for some people out there.

However, getting 85-90 on my main really started to drag on when I hit 88. 89 seem like it was never going to end. The last 2 levels weren't fun.

[Deleted]

Personally, I want Blizzard to remove everything that makes levelling an alt faster.

In tandem, I want them to remove everything which requires (or encourages) players having an alt.

The sooner Blizzard finds a way to get players to stick mostly with one class (because they love playing it), the better IMO.

[Deleted]

I think some good ideas would be:
-content that can be done by both low level people and high level ones, so the leveling doesn't feel so boring when you're at x alt
-more dungeons for lower levels
-path of titans was a good idea, no clue why they didn't put it, hopefully that might make a comeback, it could truly make everyone unique if done right
-either player or guild housing/ships, since this could help both get rid of much of the money in the economy as well as give people a reason to work to advance something, in this case their/their guild's house/ship.

[Deleted]

Sort of agree with both Wayne and OP. Levelling as it stands is just a really long unfun roadblock to most of the fresh content of the game. However, Like Wayne, I quite enjoyed levelling when it was novel (different racial starting areas, class progression, quests and zones. The problem is, once that stuff isn't novel anymore, then level blows. I like Belves, I've rolled a few- I'm sick to shit of the belf starting experience. What filled me with wonder once now bores the shit out of me.

Blizz is reluctant to do away with levelling alts because they see it as a valid form of enjoyment they'd be disappearing. They're sort of right. It'd be almost disappointing to just autoroll level capped toons. Heirlooms is their approach at a compromise to this, but I do think they could go further. A slight further bump at levelling speed so the process doesn't take too long would be cool (either through heirlooms, or a static alt xp bonus). You could even give that momentum (+20% xp for each level capped toon you have capped at +100%)- so players who really enjoy levelling alts get real velocity doing so. That's cool for RPers too, who may not necessarily enjoy levelling, but nonetheless want many toons of different race class combos capable of wearing certain sets.

This all al minor tweaks, though. My big suggestion would be to add a daily questing zone for each major level bracket. The idea comes from the Argent tournament. Several times I've levelled a toon up to 80 on heirlooms, then kinda lost a bit of steam when the 'looms (and their awesome stats/xp buffs) are obsolete. I don't run straight into Cata, and instead level someone else on 'looms whilst just doing argent tournament on this lvl 80 toon. Get this- while I just do these dailies and unlock cool mounts and pets, the character levels passively. Not super fast, but still. Totally unintended as a game design feature, but it was a nice surprise to finally come back to getting this 80 up to 90 and having him already be lvl 86.

What if there was a considered and intentional approach to game design for alt levelling like this? First of all, the starting experience is basically a tutorial with a noob bridge at the end of it. Alt levellers can skip that, roll a lvl 1 and talk to the person who gives you the first quest, just like in a lot of dungeons thatlet you skip cutscenes after you've seen them once with a text option have a text option where the noob trainer says something like "Oh, I see you're a little bit more experienced than these recruits, why don't you run along and report straight to Razor Hill (or equivalent)". Accept and you'll get bumped straight up to lvl 10. This isn't as crazy as it sounds- it just saves you like 45 minutes of tutorial content (or to think of it differently, the first ten levels are worth less than a dozen or so honor points, gold pieces, or random farmed currency).

Next, a new game+ mode is essentially unlocked, where each day a handful of levelling dailies are now available in the questing hubs. These levelling dailies pay out generously in xp, but not only that, offer a fresh experience each time. Kinda like Cata dailies in the Molten front, there'll be different ones offered each time (selected out of a pool of several options). Additionally, a complaint heard from a lot of lore fanatics is how a lot of these great old zones are stuck in time. Players crave an update but Blizzard rightly points out that it's a suboptimal choice for them to redo old content at the expense of release new content. Dynamic levelling daily quest hubs could form a compromise; Unlike the 1-60 zones which are locked in vanilla/Cata, the daily quests could be 'current' reference current affairs, and if strategically deployed to avoid lore inconsistent landmarks/characters, basically be a short little episode covering what is happening in that zone at that time.

To save people from feeling like they have to run around to every quest hub in ever zone every day, just make it you can only do one zone's worth of levelling dailies per day (kinda like how you can do the shadow wardens or the druids of the Talon dailies in the Molten front, but not both). If there are several different random quests in each zone, there's something fun and novel to do (keep doing each zone's dailies until you've done them all (and gotten relevant achieves) then switch to other zones to check out their levelling dailies.

What else? Let these dailies give you rep to a Horde or Alliance levelling faction- name it something cool, and stock the quartermaster with some cool shit. The levelling dailies themselves pay out xp and faction currency, which can then be spent on pets, mounts transmog sets, and heirlooms (perhaps recoloured?). Every levelling milestone you get a quest which is basically 'reach level x', when you do, you get a bind on account container, which can be opened for useful end-level mats for your main.

Finally, make the quests interesting or modular. Example; scavenger hunt quest. One of the potential levelling quests would be a where in the world is Carmen Sandiego style scavenger hunt, where you need to follow clues and directions to find quirky locations and NPCs that you might've missed whilst levelling. Make it like 5 steps long but there are a pool of 20 possible steps (comprising points of interest and NPCs within the Zone, of which there'd be plenty).

All of this would require an initial outlay of work, but once put in place, would greatly expand the replayability and enjoyment of alt rolling. I've been vague, and WoW fans tend to panic and assume the worst, so I'm going to provide the template I'm suggesting:

Each WoW levelling quest hub features slight variations of these 3 dailies:

1) The scavenger hunt. The player must follow hints and clues to find 5 points of interests/NPCs one after the other. Knowing lore and the zone's geography will help with this. Reaching the last step completes the quest- doing so within a timeframe earns a bonus reward. (There are ~20 possible steps this 5 step scavenger hunt can feature, you get an accountwide achievement for doing them all. Get all such achievements for all zones and you earn the title 'inspector' and a fedora hat).

2) The boss kill. The player must kill an elite mob which is really quite challenging and presumes heirlooms. (Each Zone has 3 challenge bosses- taking all 3 down wins an accountwide achievement. Getting all such achievements awards a title of some sort).

3) The current affairs update. The player must do a plain old quest for an NPC, but it has something to do with xpac current affairs for a faction or region. (Each Zone has just one of these, do 'em all and you get an xpac-specific title that isn't attainable once the new xpac drops and all the current affairs quests are updated. Or if that shits people off too much, then perhaps if you get the achievement for the current xpac, you can talk to a gnome who has a 'time dilator' which changes the xpac setting for these levelling dailies worldwide).

Meta chievements a lot like Cata had in it's questing achievements could be woven through too.

Presuming this layout and equal chance of options, doing dailies in a such a hub for 4-5 would likely mean you'd covered all the options. Pace levelling such that without hadcore grinding and just logging in to do your 3 levelling dailies on a toon, roughly each week they'd graduate to the next tier. If those tiers are 5-15 levels each (bigger in the lo levels, smaller as you get higher, just like zones in the game)m then you're looking at about 4-6 weeks of dailies to get your toon to 60, and if they were implemented in old xpac zones ( I think they should be) then that long again to get to 85 and be prime for MoP. Sure you can level much faster than that by grinding, the benefit of this is that it doesn't take too much of your time. If you're patient and you consistently do dailies, you can level an alt in a reasonable timeframe whilst having fun and still being able to play on your main. Or, for powerlevellers, by mixing grinding with levelling dailies, the levelling process is all the more faster.

TL;DR: Small levelling dailies that introduce you to lore, cool NPCs, and points of interest in each zone, payout generous xp, provide new game+ challenges for 'loomed alts, and offer current updates on what is happening 'now' in time-locked zones.

[Miykul]

Personally, I want Blizzard to remove everything that makes levelling an alt faster.

In tandem, I want them to remove everything which requires (or encourages) players having an alt.

The sooner Blizzard finds a way to get players to stick mostly with one class (because they love playing it), the better IMO.

I agree with this to an extent. I love making alts. I have 5 warriors just because I love to level them. I DO however want to see something to give me more incentive to stick with a single main character.

Personally I would like to see it something outside of the main level up, gear up path. Something that adds more depth to your characters. Professions and Achievements were good but are too similar to the regular grind. I want some kind of epic adventure my character can do out in the world, alone or with friends. Something like a "choose your own adventure" book where you can take alternate paths down the questline based on your own preference. The reward down the road can even be completely aesthetic so that people won't be funneled down a single path for want of a specific reward

[Seranthor]

Shorten leveling. It should be gotten over and done with ASAP. It's just a roadblock to level cap content (heroics and raids). Leveling should introduce the new expansion's story and let player practice new abilities but that should be it.

Need non-RNG character advancement system parallel to RNG gear at level cap.
Maybe let Path of the Titans = class lore/quests + "power increase" (e.g. Maybe increase stat conversion rate; 600 crit rating = +1% crit -> 600 crit rating = +1.05% crit)
Gated with catchup mechanism of course.
Can be implemented with resources freed up from having less leveling content.

No, just no, leveling 1 to 90 is shockingly easy, even if you do it alone, with no help from a single soul.... Making it even easier is begging for rainstorms of tears of 'QQQQQQ there isn't anything to do, Blizzard sucks, QQQQQQ'

[SodiumChloride]

Actually my main concerns were,

a) Leveling in a new expansion. Too long IMHO. Blizzard is wasting resources making content people aren't enjoying. Alts didn't really come to mind.

b) RNG gear being the only form of character advancement at level cap is incredibly frustrating. Some weeks you get the motherlode. Some weeks you get nothing but repair bills for your effort. RNG is great for "bonus" stuff IMHO. But there need to be a "salaried" reward too - preferably one that doesn't clash with RNG drops *cough* VP gear *cough*. Leave the RNG gear as a bonus way to advance your character, rather than THE way.

[Bombino]

After just recently leveling my priest, I can definitely agree that OMG leveling takes way too long at least 85-90, of course the xp nerf has to come 3 patches in, but nvm that lol.

As far as the RNG part, I must say it doesn't feel that RNG'y. Early in the 2nd week of being 90, my priest is already 494 ilvl, I think up to this point if you can do isle dailies and mainly get the treasure chest little scenario thing and stock up on elder charms, you can blow them on MSV/HoF/ToES LFR as well as open raid normal versions. PvP a bit to replace your crap pieces, easy 476 or even get crafted 458 if you're desperate. Considering completely LFR'd out is 502, I think 494 is pretty decent, still got 3 blues though haha.

[Seranthor]

Actually my main concerns were,

a) Leveling in a new expansion. Too long IMHO. Blizzard is wasting resources making content people aren't enjoying. Alts didn't really come to mind.

b) RNG gear being the only form of character advancement at level cap is incredibly frustrating. Some weeks you get the motherlode. Some weeks you get nothing but repair bills for your effort. RNG is great for "bonus" stuff IMHO. But there need to be a "salaried" reward too - preferably one that doesn't clash with RNG drops *cough* VP gear *cough*. Leave the RNG gear as a bonus way to advance your character, rather than THE way.

A) Leveling in a new expansion is hard? Really? What? World first 90s occurred within the 16hrs... Any brain dead keyboard turner can level in less than a week. Anyone with any clue can do it in less time than that... Again... Who the fuck wants to spend 2 or more years designing and creating an expansion that entitled little whelps consume in a week then sit there and bitch that there isn't anything to do.

aa) you mean to say Blizzard is wasting resources making content YOU aren't enjoying. Sorry, last I checked, astronomers have concluded that there is no center of universe, and since there isn't one then you aren't at the center.

B) there IS valor gear... has been all expansion, just because someone cant be assed to meet the requirements doesn't mean that the gear doesn't exist...

[Shampro]

I mainly Raid (with my guild) when I reach the level cap its what I enjoy, that doesn't mean that everyone thinks like me and thus leveling should be basicly erased or trivial. That sounds awfully selfish

[Golden Yak]

I have found that level cap is pretty arbitrary and grinding out a huge chunk of XP can be dull. I had a few ideas about how to change level progression.

http://www.wowpedia.org/User:GoldenY...The_Art_of_War

Instead of a flat stat boost at the end of a level, you gradually gain bonuses as you progress through the level, with a smaller reward at the end. It also unlocks a 'Path of the Titans'-esque window to provide further customization possibilities.

[Anjerith]

I say bring back skill points for weapons.

[Amerissis]

Composemail, that's an awesome idea! It should have it's own thread. And one on the official forums.

The only downside I see is the scavengerhunt. You could find out where to go as soon as the quests appeared on a PTR, which would defeat the purpose.

[Deleted]

I disagree, and yes, levelling can be very tedious, but it allows you to learn your class and growto know what to do and when. Because you get one ability at a time, you slowly become familiar.

Perhaps an xp bonus towards classes you already have at 90? That would be fine IMO.

[Ratboy]

We dont all live to bum 90 content sadly,some of us like levelling alts and playing around in old zones. Too many impatient people these days its ruining the game.

I think they should allow everyone to do the daily quest that Monks get for the extra 50% XP for an hour. That way if you don't want to use it, then don't use it.