Just a (crazy) Idea, No more levels for new expansions .

[Obelisk Kai]

The thing that bugs me is that, level 100 just FEELS final doesn't it?

I've raised a character from 1 to 100, when you say there's a bit of weight to that achievement.

Whereas 105 is...well...fluffy. It's higher than 100 but it's just another number.


Something else, why level 100 for this expansion when the previous expansion relied on increments of five?

Sure, they said 100 was cooler than 95 but we would have reached level 100 at the end of the next expansion...so why the rush?

Maybe they think level 100 is the end of the traditional levels too.

Maybe they're planning something for 7.0, a new way of going about things.

Or maybe it'll be level 105...

[ZeroWashu]

I would prefer that experience would be more linear and not drastically change from zone to zone to encourage people to complete zones. With WOD I felt I needed to hop zones to keep the experience flowing at an acceptable pace. I would more like the game to take longer to level than WOD which felt as if completed too quickly. My first character zone hopped but subsequent characters did not and even they leveled through content at a pace I felt was too quick. I do realize many only seek to reach end game as quickly as possible but a design that facilitates that also leads to players quickly having nothing to do.

Yet having no levels wouldn't be much fun as you would need a new gate to end game and likely that would be reputation grinds or a long arduous series of quest lines similar to the epic ring/cloak

[Dahij]

I've got a SUPER crazy idea! How about they make the next expansion as big as vanilla was and everyone gets to rebirth to level 1 in the new world and then level up to 60, next xpack to 70 and so on! Would also automatically squish the large numbers as it would be like starting from the beginning! Woohooo!

[Deleted]

I have always thought that after level 100 we will get some type of class advancement.

Examples:

Paladin > Templar -- lvl1 Templar = lv101 basically
Monk > Sage -- lv1 Sage = lv101 basically
Mage > Archmage -- lv1 Archmage = lv101 basically

And so on..

[Obelisk Kai]

I have always thought that after level 100 we will get some type of class advancement.

Examples:

Paladin > Templar -- lvl1 Templar = lv101 basically
Monk > Sage -- lv1 Sage = lv101 basically
Mage > Archmage -- lv1 Archmage = lv101 basically

And so on..

Maybe...but Blizzard would not want to affect the identities of each class. Calling a Monk a Sage would not be something they would.

[fixx]

Um, what? There are quite a few people who play GW2 who have or do play other MMOs. I was in WvW the other day with a few LoL, SWTOR, ESO, and WoW players.

Horizontal progression is unworkable for PvE which is why there are only PvP players left in the game.

Paladin > Templar -- lvl1 Templar = lv101 basically

And because it's basically the same there's no point in it.

Next expansion will go to level 110.

[Varabently]

I think the whole idea of levels and even classes makes very little sense. From a balance and development standpoint, it does, but from a practical standpoint...why can't a mage learn how to swing a 2h axe? I like games like Ultima Online where you have a skill cap (on some servers) so you can re-do your character completely if you want. Tired of being a mage? No problem, you can be a paladin or warrior or whatever, just pick the associated skills and off you go.

For WoW? It'll never happen. They won't make any monster changes like this unless the game takes a really bad turn and they have nothing to lose. I agree that adding more levels is sort of silly and arbitrary, but it helps sell expansions and it's a linear progression that keeps people playing.

[Sorrior]

I have always thought that after level 100 we will get some type of class advancement.

Examples:

Paladin > Templar -- lvl1 Templar = lv101 basically
Monk > Sage -- lv1 Sage = lv101 basically
Mage > Archmage -- lv1 Archmage = lv101 basically

And so on..

This COULD work like shaman becoming farseers and we basically become more specialized.

Essentially we become hero classes.

[delus]

I like levels. They reset the playing field every expansion. All they need is an option to level down the character and stats to match the content for those who want it. The tech is already in place.

[coldrain]

Next expansion you just afk in garrison and login every 4-8 hours to see how much your xp bar goes up when farmville missions complete

keep in mind 100% does not guarantee success

[Iflash]

That would be interesting. The only requirement to raid is leveling, without that u could being back attunements or other story related stuff.

[Shandita]

OK , I understand the dissatisfaction of some, but I see their proposals. I know some prefer levels but keep in mind that what I propose is not removed adventure level up, only I propose that and stop at 100 and delivered another incentive in place.

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That would be interesting. The only requirement to raid is leveling, without that u could being back attunements or other story related stuff.

That is what I meaning

[blackblade]

I must say that my first language is not English. So I apologize in advance.

The idea I propose is because I'm just bored senseless leveling up and forget the content that often have not even reach each expansion.

My proposal is based on a new dynamic where we stay at lvl 100. Instead of performing missions to gain levels, change to clean all the quest of a map for that we got a new skill or improve it (like WoD level perks).

Thus, in addition to new areas and history, I will have new skills to test in the old content remains the same difficulty.

What I mean is that they should stop thinking vertically and start thinking horizontally.

Broaden our possibilities of adventure, that is the purpose of an RPG. Not only level up to fulfill a requirement.

I know this idea will have its pros and cons, but we do not say lies, no longer makes sense to force us to climb 5, 10, 20 or even 50 levels where adventures are reduced to a new lore.

It's just a crazy idea. Maybe you have some better . ( Expose them ) . But the point is that since leveling up is pointless.

The big problem with this line of thinking though, is gear bloat.

Imagine this: We exit wod, and your average agility DPS is hovering somewhere between 40-60% crit. Maybe higher.

Instead of adding two new tiers plus a middleing "gear-up-while-questing" adventure, and you start seeing dps with ~80-100% crit by endgame.

While it certainly is possible to do things other ways (for example, give creatures crit resistance that counters out obscenely high crit chances) wow is largely a fixed thing, and changing things around radically causes lots of tears. Look at the item squish. Mechanically very little actually changed (health pools got bigger relative to player deeps), but people were kicking and screaming the whole way through that they wanted to end wod doing bazillions of damage per second.

[Lamora]

Patch 7.0.3 - Level cap: 110. Completing dungeons, killing mobs and winning pvp battles no longer grants experience.

There we go, I sorted out the implementation of this idea.

[beanman12345]

horizontal progression does not work in RPG's. People have tried, and failed.

[SodiumChloride]

OK , I understand the dissatisfaction of some, but I see their proposals. I know some prefer levels but keep in mind that what I propose is not removed adventure level up, only I propose that and stop at 100 and delivered another incentive in place.

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That is what I meaning

The main problem with WoW's leveling is that the story line sucks.

The characters are not only cliché (I can tolerate that), but their characterization is inconsistent (which just destroys the whole thing).

Vanilla was still alright, Thrall was a somewhat pleasant guy to work for as are most of the NPCs (both factions). But after that it was just downhill. Metzen doesn't even remember the lore that he himself wrote - and can't be assed to double check to make sure he is keeping everything straight.

Right now, I simply don't care about the characters, ergo, have zero motivation to do what quests ask of me. Leveling is now just "requirement", a chore.

[Role Unknown]

horizontal progression does not work in RPG's. People have tried, and failed.

Blizz has been very innovative in the past, if any company could pull it off they could.

I could easily see us remaining level 100 and "leveling" something else, perhaps Blizz resurrects Path of the Titans as something that we level.

[Zerg217]

Final Fantasy XI had 200k+ subscribers from 2002-2010 (think it peaked at 500k in 2006). 2010 is when they raised their level cap. The game had four expansions (Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urgan, Wings of the Goddess) while keeping the level cap at 75.

Now the game is at 20k~ subs, mostly due to a JP fanbase. Waiting for it to die.

It may have died anyway (Probably due to FF14), but keeping the level cap at 75 certainly didn't kill it.

FFXI's Seekers of Adoulin I consider the best era of XI (and I played since 2003), and I also consider FFXI's Seekers of Adoulin the best RPG of all time and the best MMO of all time.

Also it has more than 20k subs, around 40k subs (yes, it's small but the game is definitely still alive; they have been doing monthly patches which makes even WoW and XIV's patches look small). The game is still making a profit (having only like 3 full time developers and 10 part time developers).

I made a really long post about this before but tl;dr version is:

1. There's monthly patches.

2. It's innovative. Tanaka was and still is an innovative person. Sadly he has retired now but he was still a big part of the development for Seekers of Adoulin before he left. Most MMOs (WoW and FFXIV) follow the formula of "you're actually doing the exact same thing you did a year ago except in a different place". Not FFXI. FFXI is one of the few games that continue to impress me. With each new expansion, new patch, etc they introduced completely new things to do.

Assaults (like Scenarios or mini dungeons with objectives) are an example. Something not expected at all that came out. They are like instanced dungeons but superior them since there is much more variety of objectives, rewards, and etc.. Einherjar, Nyzul Isle, Abyssea, Voidwatch (the ultimate band-aid fix to balance problems - Voidwatch is various instanced boss fights in an alliance setting - the gimmick is that you want 1 of every class as the all Voidwatch bosses rotate weaknesses based on abilities of a class), Reives, Campaign Battles, Delve, Skirmish (two types in fact and six areas total), etc.

Basically XI always introduce some new content altogether. Also nothing was (still is) ever gated. Dynamis and other stuff used to be once every 72 hours but besides that, there's no gating either which is nice.

When Blue Mage, Corsair, Puppetmaster, Scholar, and Dancer all came out, I was really impressed with how they design the jobs. Now, they are probably not as good as WoW jobs but the fact that the game went so long and kept impressing is something.

With WoW, I feel like it has reached its peak a while. Nowadays, Blizzard seems to be randomly breaking stuff and/or fixing stuff for no reason. They aren't impressing me as much but there is still potential.

XI (even still in Seekers of Adoulin) impresses me still. The new content. The fact that there are these instances where you can accidentally trigger hidden bosses, etc. There's lots of exploration in XI (more than ever) which is good for a RPG.

FFXI actually adds new content that goes alongside old content.

Here's trailer for Seekers of Adoulin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKCe5rQNAco

Here's monthly updates.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/fo...ersion-Updates

Also I disagree with the whole FFXI's level from 1-99 in a day. If people enjoyed auto-attacking and going afk for hours on end to gain 1-2 level back in the day, then that's fine. Yes, I enjoyed leveling the old days and even theorycrafted builds and stuff at low levels (like subbing Corsair was superior to most other subs as a DPS class since Hunter's Roll even subbed gives a 2.5% hit rate increase on average to parties - So even in Valkurm Dunes, I was contributing to an overall 3% DPS increase by increasing everyone's hit rate by at least 2.5%!) but it is silly to say that as the definite moment of FFXI as it was really boring and I was afk all the time.

In MMOs nowadays, I say leveling isn't required but it can be useful. For most players though (for people who play MMO to only level up and see the content once), I say it is a requirement for there to be leveling.

I doubt WoD would get as much (early) positive reception if there was no leveling at all. Leveling is definitely a requirement for a lot of people when it comes to new expansions.

For most RPGs, it is mostly about the adventure or obtaining something. Being able to Level Up is one of the simplistic and best ways to achieve this. Of course as for this topic, I don't think it's a requirement. As other stated, XI has been around for a while had a level cap of 75. It was later raised to 99 but it was and still mostly popular.

Seekers of Adoulin (latest expansion) came out and they did not raise the level cap. Instead, what they did was let you unlock new abilities and stuff that allowed you to travel through the areas of Adoulin more easily (Adoulin areas are a dangerous place). They did a good job IMO and it was fun (when the expansion came out) grouping up and gathering 50-100 people to try to get past trees and rocks to go to new areas and unlock them.

Additionally the missions, quests, coalitions (missions which affect the surrounding area, etc) are all part of the early Adoulin experience.

Seekers of Adoulin early game (even at max level) really delivered.

My major argument against leveling up is "alts" or other classes that you want to get up to the max level. In Seekers of Adoulin, if I had to level up 22 different jobs to level 105 (for example), then that would be boring. That'd take the time away from me exploring Adoulin.

In XI, I enjoyed that I had 5 jobs I played at level 99 and that I didn't have to worry about getting them up to a higher level. Instead, I explored Adoulin, did quests, unlocked missions and new areas, contributed to the coalitions, etc.

So that is probably the best argument against leveling (in expansions). The fact that if you have more than one main, it can actually make everything more tedious. Playing XI, WoW, and XIV, I actually do dread leveling. There should be leveling up from level 1 to a specific level but if each expansion added a higher level cap then suddenly I have to level up 5 different classes I usually play to the next level cap, it makes things tedious.

In XI's Seeker of Adoulin, I am glad I didn't have to worry about leveling and I could explore and do as many quests as I can (it affected reputation, unlocked new areas, gave me new abilities, etc). Once I did that, I didn't have to do it again (In XI, your one character can just switch classes any time).

Of course it seems for most players (in WoW), they enjoyed the leveling experience in WoD. They really want the leveling experience. I say it fits in XI but I am not sure if it would fit in WoW since it has been this way since every expansion from WoW. Of course, it can change in the future. Though one major advantage of having leveling up in new expansions are for getting new players interested.

There were probably a lot of completely new players to WoW. In WoD, there is a level boost to 90 and you can level from there. For most people, WoD was their first experience of WoW and when you play an RPG for the first time, you are used to be able to level up. So I say for WoW, they need the leveling experience. The character boost to 90 from WoD, then level up from 90 to 100 is a great idea from Blizzard and it actually help get new people to the game.

Anyway I am going to go a talk about XI some more since it was mentioned to describe the experience (since XI is probably the MMO that has done horizontal progression the longest, it still does it to an extent as while item levels go up, it's only done in two year intervals now). (The current highest item level right now is 119. The max character level is still 99.)

I have played WoW, FFXIV, and XI and I am playing XI more than the others.

XI did MMORPGs right. With most MMOs (WoW and FFXIV included) they recycle the exact same thing you are doing 5 years ago and as new content. XIV ARR since release has not changed at all. It's still "3 dungeons, 1 primal, 4 boss battles" and it has a lot of randomness in drops too.

WoW is similar too (which is why I stopped playing WoW as much after MoP, it was basically the same exact thing over and over).

In XI Seekers of Adoulin you are encouraged to explore rather than forced. In WoW, there's no flying but what's the point of taking a long time to get anywhere? In Seekers of Adoulin, you can teleport anywhere (there are now waypoints everywhere) but there are these things called Reives which are like dynamic events on the field that you can do for rewards.

The best part of XI is the theory crafting and the gear hunting. FFXI has three ultimate weapons which grant unique stats and abilities and can alter a job's play style significantly or allow you to play a class in a different way (WHM with Mijolnir can be a great melee DPS class).

Also gears have a lot of different and unique stats.

Here are three summoner armor sets:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Convoker%27s_Attire_Set_%2B1
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Glyphic_Attire_Set_%2B1
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Caller%27s_Attire_Set_Plus_2 (This one hasn't had an upgrade to item level yet). There's also more item sets too.

FFXI's SoA has 10-20 different armor sets at item level 119.

Difficulty wise, SoA is definitely harder than old FFXI (which was mostly auto-attack while you go afk and do other things).

Bluegarter (not the forum but the guild) did not even defeat the first Delve (raid) boss in Seeker's of Adoulin until after a month of the world first. (Bluegarter the guild was server first (of Azshara) kill of Cthun in WoW and also world first in XIV on Coil of Bahamut T5 and T9). The fact that a guild that did so well on two MMOs (WoW and XIV) took weeks (even after the first world first) to defeat the Delve (Raid) boss in SoA shows how far FFXI has advanced.

Old FFXI was really an afk fest. Even Absolute Virtue and almost every boss had no mechanics (it was mostly stand still while auto-attacking fights with no mechanics at all). New FFXI (while still clunky and jobs do play really slow) has come a long way and has lots of mechanics.

I have to say that FFXI SoA has the most content out of any MMO (beats WoW). The main reason is that they never replace content. Old content is still relevant or gets updated to have a higher difficulty along with actual new content. The typical modern day MMO content cycle is the same stuff you have been doing just in a different place. There's almost nothing new. The raid bosses are different and have different mechanics. The dungeon bosses have different mechanics. But the dungeons and raids are still the same. So it's just "memorize a new pattern" and that's basically it. Here is a link to an FFXI wiki, and if you look at the left side of the page under "Battle Systems", you can see all the various different types of content that XI has.

So I say horizontal progression definitely works. It's why FFXI SoA is still pay to play. It is also why they keep doing monthly updates.

As for levels, I honestly think it has to be kept for WoW. People would complain they aren't getting an expansion if there are no more levels. I say it works in WoW and probably in XIV too (we'll see in XIV's next expansion). And like I said before, it is actually a good idea from Blizzard to keep levels (if they keep doing their boost thing. Lets say the level cap is raised to 110 (for example). And in the new expansion, lets say it comes with a boost to level 100. Now poeple that are new to WoW that want a leveling experience can still get it if Blizzard keeps increasing the leveling cap and adding character boosts to each expansion. They get to level 100 and they get to do the expansion right away with everyone. And they can also level up from 100 to 110 (for example). Just like WoD's 90 to 100.

So overall, I do say levels are a good thing for WoW.

However if they do remove levels, it can work. I had a lot of fun exploring the new areas of Adoulin in XI even though the level cap was never raised again after the Abyssea era. Instead, you had to unlock and learn new abilities which allow you to travel to different places and unlock waypoints.

[Traveler Voltin]

The thing that bugs me is that, level 100 just FEELS final doesn't it?

I've raised a character from 1 to 100, when you say there's a bit of weight to that achievement.

Whereas 105 is...well...fluffy. It's higher than 100 but it's just another number.


Something else, why level 100 for this expansion when the previous expansion relied on increments of five?

Sure, they said 100 was cooler than 95 but we would have reached level 100 at the end of the next expansion...so why the rush?

Maybe they think level 100 is the end of the traditional levels too.

Maybe they're planning something for 7.0, a new way of going about things.

Or maybe it'll be level 105...

100 is just a number

[Deleted]

I would prefer that experience would be more linear and not drastically change from zone to zone to encourage people to complete zones. With WOD I felt I needed to hop zones to keep the experience flowing at an acceptable pace. I would more like the game to take longer to level than WOD which felt as if completed too quickly. My first character zone hopped but subsequent characters did not and even they leveled through content at a pace I felt was too quick.

Emm that is interesting I fell exactly the opposite, and was one of the big changes I really liked in Warlords

In mists and cata the quests from the next zone gave way way way more xp and you needed way way more xp to level, I 100% felt I had to move onto the next zone as soon as I could.

In warlords the xp and quest xp curve is way flatter (and I 100% like the fact that it is).

A standard L90 quest (start of Frostridge) gives 13690 xp.

A standard L98 quest (start of Nagrand) gives 14520 xp.

I felt zero pressure to move onto the next zone, maybe you were still stuck in Cata and Mists mentality?