Hard Mode Leveling

[Deleted]

Disclaimer - This is just for fun, should not be mandatory and you can disable it at any time, it's for people who want the questing experience to be dangerous and immersive.

The basic idea (open to discussion) is as a lvl1 character you can enable hard mode leveling which means no heirlooms, maybe no enchants, obviously no exp flask, you can only do a dungeon if you manually go there yourself, the experience you gain from monsters and quests is reduced and you take more damage (not from players)

There is 3 difficulty modes:
Medium - exp reduced 30% / you take 10% more damage
Hard - exp reduced 50% / you take 25% more damage
Insane - exp reduced 75% / you take 100% more damage / you have to do 90% of all quests in every area

If you manage to get to max level with these penalties in place you will be rewarded with an achievement/feat of strength and a title for insane, a starter set of gear, a heirloom for a gear slot like neck/wrist/feet etc

It's something I've been thinking about after leveling a few characters, I think one of the things veteran players miss a lot is the sense of progression and danger while leveling.
Before cataclysm and maybe wrath, I enjoyed leisurely leveling up a character, reading the quests/dialogue, being immersed.
And you all know what it's like now, slap on a few heirlooms, dungeon spam and do like 5 quests in an area before they turn grey, it's fun (sometimes) but not immersive.

This is just a very basic idea I have thought of, numbers are not set in stone and would be up to blizzard to test and iterate.

[Belmorn]

http://wowironman.com/

[Fang7986]

Level with only grey or white gear, no chants, pots, food buffs, or other consumables and restart at level 1 if you die and you get the same thing.

[Tehterokkar]

That isn't hard, it's only more tedious. Also highly biased towards ranged DPS classes, who don't take any damage if you just engage from 30-40 yards.

[Deleted]

http://wowironman.com/

There is no in-game achievement or recognition for that.

[Belmorn]

There is no in-game achievement or recognition for that.

Statistics panel says different. That is about as much as you are going to get from blizzard most likely.

[Lovestar]

That's actually really cute, I'd support that.

[Deleted]

Actually I would love hard leveling but in terms of enemies have like 200% more health, deal 100% more damage and all that shit but you would also gain more experience from them

[Xe4ro]

Actually I would love hard leveling but in terms of enemies have like 200% more health, deal 100% more damage and all that shit but you would also gain more experience from them

yeah , maybe they could think about a system similar to the mp thing from diablo 2/3.

[Grimbold21]

Sounds like old lvling

[Darsithis]

Honestly, everything hitting harder (or you taking more damage) isn't engaging gameplay. That's just boring and turns areas that are already dull even more dull as you have to spend three times as long there slowly killing everything. I'd rather see more quests that feature gauntlets, puzzles, or hard-to-beat special enemies that are smart, not just strong.

[Deleted]

Vanilla levelling was actually harder. Defias Pillagers two-shotting you while you are running around with +strenght cloth because of the awful itemization. Elites everywhere. Questionable talents. No mount until 40, provided you have the gold for it.

[Haywire5714]

Vanilla levelling was actually harder. Defias Pillagers two-shotting you while you are running around with +strenght cloth because of the awful itemization. Elites everywhere. Questionable talents. No mount until 40, provided you have the gold for it.

How was that harder?

[Darsithis]

Vanilla levelling was actually harder. Defias Pillagers two-shotting you while you are running around with +strenght cloth because of the awful itemization. Elites everywhere. Questionable talents. No mount until 40, provided you have the gold for it.

None of that is harder. Just really inconvenient and annoying.

[Choptimus]

No game has ever had hard "leveling".

[Bloodjunky22]

Honestly, everything hitting harder (or you taking more damage) isn't engaging gameplay. That's just boring and turns areas that are already dull even more dull as you have to spend three times as long there slowly killing everything. I'd rather see more quests that feature gauntlets, puzzles, or hard-to-beat special enemies that are smart, not just strong.

exactly that MOAR puzzles, no more in game quest helper either imo.

[MoanaLisa]

Level from 1-90 in grey or white gear only if that's the leveling experience you're looking to have.

[Deleted]

None of that is harder. Just really inconvenient and annoying.

Yeah, because facerolling everything you stumble upon is actually amusing and convenient, right? Maybe while you're rolling your 26th alt.

As a new player, on the other hand, I don't know if I'd be so interested in the actual game mechanics. I mean, an MMO where you barely notice the difference between questing solo or grouping up with another player?

And by the way, yes, it was harder. To avoid frequent deaths, you needed to learn the art of pulling, the correct usage of crowd control, how to manage your mana, and so on.

[Cinnamohn]

Never hurts to have more options.

[Egoism]

Yeah, because facerolling everything you stumble upon is actually amusing and convenient, right? Maybe while you're rolling your 26th alt.

As a new player, on the other hand, I don't know if I'd be so interested in the actual game mechanics. I mean, an MMO where you barely notice the difference between questing solo or grouping up with another player?

And by the way, yes, it was harder. To avoid frequent deaths, you needed to learn the art of pulling, the correct usage of crowd control, how to manage your mana, and so on.

I'm glad you don't do game design, because you're arguing for a classic example of "False Difficulty".

False Difficulty is the way that lazy game devs slip multiple difficulties into a game, by making absolutely no changes to the mechanics, or AI behavior, and simply amp up their damage and health. This is the laziest of the lazy, of game developer strategies.