I'm posting this here because it exceeds the character limit on the official forums, and MMO-Champion's forums usually attract a high caliber of discussion than Blizzard's official forums. If this is the wrong place to post this in than I apologize.
Before I begin I think it's important that I say that I'm not a game developer, I don't have a career in the industry, and it's probably not my place to tell blizzard how to design their game. I'm simply a person who plays too much World of Warcraft and is somewhat unsatisfied with some aspects of the 1-90 leveling experience on live. I hope that someone at Blizzard might potentially see this post and find some of my suggestions valuable.
Furthermore the ideas in this post aren't intended to address the very large and very vocal group of players who want legacy realms. The wants and desires of those players are equally valuable, I just don't happen to share them. I enjoy live WoW, and I want to see it continue to improve.
The Speed of Leveling
Even Without heirlooms leveling speed is entirely too fast. The new player and the veteran who levels 1-90 will frequently find themselves outleveling zones. This is compounded even more if the player chooses to take part in normal dungeons while leveling.
I think that the rate of leveling without heirlooms should be reduced to it's original rate in the expansion zones, and reduced by ~30%-40% in 1-60 zones. I also believe that the amount of experience gained from 5-mans should be greatly reduced, and that quests in these dungeons should give equal experience to a quest in a equal level zone. The incentive to complete dungeons while leveling should be socialization, gear, and adventure.
But what about the player who wants to breeze through leveling, and is only interested in endgame content?
Some people simply don't enjoy leveling, and that's okay. For these players more options should be given to speed up their experience leveling. Furthermore, having the ways to gain these leveling boons be only available to high level or capped characters does not significantly inconvenience these players as everyone who has purchased WoD in the past or has purchased legion has access to at least 1 high level character to work towards these items with thanks to the level 90, and level 100 boosts, as well as the ability to create a nearly level 100 Demon hunter.
First off I would have more experience heirlooms added, and more ways to acquire them implemented. Complete the sets already available in game with gloves, boots, belts, and bracers. Make all endgame PVE content drop valor, and add opportunities to come into the possession of these heirlooms through, gold, valor, professions, pvp, old raid content, and world quests.
In addition I would like to see a reliable way to farm, or craft +50% +100%, and +200% xp potions. Make them cost the legion equivalent of felblight/savage blood, and make them battle.net account bound.
The Difficulty of Combat While Leveling
Recently I've been leveling a survival hunter in preperation for legion, and while leveling, and I've found combat as a whole to be entirely unsatisfying. This isn't because of the quality of the class design or Legion's combat design as a whole, but because combat doesn't last long enough.
Survival's design centers around mongoose bite. You're initially given three charges on a 12 second recharge. Each time mongoose bite is used the player is given a stacking buff that increases the damage of additional mongoose bites. The issue while leveling is that I find 99% of mobs I've encountered so far have been dead either immediately after I've opened up combat with flanking strike or after the first application of mongoose bite. Enemy health is entirely too low to the point where my class feels unsatisfying as a result.
In addition to the issues with enemy health, enemy damage is also far too low. As a hunter with a pet who tanks most of the mobs I pull I have never died, and my pet has never felt at risk of dying. Enemy damage done should be greatly increased to a point where the player should at least feel at risk of death fairly frequently. I'm not saying that leveling in WoW should be like Dark Souls, but the player should not feel invincible either. Extreme lack of difficulty does nothing to help a player learn the game, and is damaging to quality of the player base in the long run.
Conclusion.
I hope that my post hasn't been too long or excessively verbose, and that in reading it some value has been gained by someone. I believe that these changes would be beneficial to World of Warcraft as a whole, and would help to improve player satisfaction. Thank you for reading, and have a good day.
-Irollou-Stormrage, Level 100 Alliance Mage
(Looking for a semi-casual Heroic guild on Stormrage for Legion )