(Optional) Difficulty Settings in WoW?

[Kynario]

Hello forum,

So I've been levelling a character recently, first time in the new (Cataclysm) Azeroth actually. Last time I properly levelled an "alt" was in WoTLK, haha. I have zero heirlooms, too. Before I finished the mini quest-chains in Goldshire, I was already being sent to Westfall. The levelling is so fast I barely got to touch the quests in Westbrook Garrison/Eastvale Logging Camp in Elwynn Forest before I out-levelled the zone. Furthermore, remember when you had to go to Fargodeep Mine and had to pull each Kobold one by one and not pull like four at the same time and still be fine? Everything is just so damn easy. Anyway, I decided to head to Darkshore though at level 10. Pretty much half-way through the zone I had hit level 20 and was being sent to Ashenvale now, and the same story continued until I hit level 25 and decided to delete the character out of sheer boredom. You can't even peacefully finish the quests in a zone before you out-level it. (Of course, nobody is forcing you to leave that zone - but let's be realistic - if you're a level 25 questing in a level 20 zone it just doesn't feel optimal anymore)... Moreover, acquiring a new piece of gear doesn't make you feel stronger because you're already strong and killing everything fast to begin with. Hence equipment upgrades are pretty much obsolete at low levels too. I also tanked the Deadmines (as a Protection Warrior) and was shocked that two rogues, whose job is to be a DPS, could keep chain-pulling the dungeon and easily survive. Are tanks obsolete at lower levels now too?

I hate 1-2 shotting mobs personally, and that's coming from someone who had no heirlooms, no necklace or ring items yet, haha. Is it supposed to be this badly balanced? I had to clear out a cave to the north of Ashenvale and could easily pull like half of it and survive. Is the world not supposed to feel dangerous anymore? I see an elite mob 5 levels above me and I'm no longer scared and can easily solo him.

I guess I miss the fact that the game used to be way harder and that hitting max level was an achievement in itself. This isn't a problem with WoW not being good anymore. I think overall it's fantastic. But do players not seek challenges anymore? Is it satisfying to have everything so easy? Will they ever make it harder again?

If not, why not add optional difficulty settings like in most RPG games i.e. like Skyrim? Have current WoW be set to normal and allow players to change it "Hard" if they want a challenge - i.e. not killing mobs in 1-2 shots, having to strategically pull mob packs etc.
Should players not be given options like this?

Btw, I'm a soon-to-be dental surgeon... Hence I'm relatively short on time. Still, I prefer my games to be "time-consuming" and difficult. Despite not having a lot of time, I still love challenges and working towards something over the course of several weeks/months. Do you not feel the same way?

So my intentions are clear, I don't want to start a "flame" thread. Obviously we all deeply care about the game since we spend our time on these forums, so process your thoughts properly before you post something nasty, haha. No hate.

[Accendor]

I remember leveling my shadow priest prior to legion. I just put Shadow Word: Pain on all the Mobs and continued to run. I never actually stopped to fight until level ~30. One dot was enough to kill them.

Thats just... stupid. The basic difficulty and length of the leveling process should be much, much higher. If you want to have it shorter and easier, thats what heirlooms are for.

[Thorbalt]

its more the fact that if they didnt scale back on what it took to level it would be a good 100+ hours to even hit 80. which is not something anyone wants to do

[effs]

I think the problem is, the game is all about max level. Even holiday events revolve around max level (horseman, brewfest etc. but I think they're going to include people below max level soon). Let's not forget, 110 levels and counting is a daunting task for any new player.

[Lochton]

If not, why not add optional difficulty settings like in most RPG games i.e. like Skyrim? Have current WoW be set to normal and allow players to change it "Hard" if they want a challenge - i.e. not killing mobs in 1-2 levels, having to strategically pull mob packs etc.
Should players not be given options like this?

But, World of Warcraft isn't like Skyrim. They aren't the same genre. And I'm pretty sure there isn't a difficulty setting for TESO. If is quite difficult to add a thing to a game that is meant to offer the same thing to anyone whom might be within the same box as you.

[Louz]

I remember leveling my shadow priest prior to legion. I just put Shadow Word: Pain on all the Mobs and continued to run. I never actually stopped to fight until level ~30. One dot was enough to kill them.

Thats just... stupid. The basic difficulty and length of the leveling process should be much, much higher. If you want to have it shorter and easier, thats what heirlooms are for.

I remember leveling my priest prior to TBC.

I put SW:P and proceeded by spamming Smite and Shield with Renew on myself, else I would end up dead. Also had to eat and drink after every 2 or 3 mobs killed.

I finally laid my dear little dwarf to rest after reaching kobold mines in Loch Modan. I would always nearly kill one kobold, but as my damage wasn't enough, they would always "run away in fear" and aggro another enemy. I killed the first one, but the other one would run away again and I would soon get out of mana. That meant either running away, or dying.

Running away was fine in the first part of the quest, but the second part meant heading deeper into the mines, and by the time I reached that place, the enemies at the entrance have already respawned, meaning I would only aggro more and die even faster.

I think everyone should be required to level a toon on some "legacy server" and then be finally allowed to post such thread.

[aziras]

They are stuck in a tough spot.

They obviously cannot slow down levelling again, because then it would take months for the average new player to reach the content everyone is talking about. And many new players with attention disorders would never get past the first month's subscription.

If they use level scaling on the entire game, new players would never see any of the expansions, but play through the two main continents and jump straight to legion at lvl110 (or even cap in the old stuff and only go there to do world quests).
That said, the levelling experience in broken isles works really well.

You do not get punished for "wrapping up" a zone, not for jumping to the next as early as possible. Except for the first character, there is actually no reason to wrap up zones for rep either.

The big problem with alts is that the grind feels even worse when it is so trivial. For a new player there might still be a lot of navigation, interface, and class elements to learn on the way. But for someone who played 10+ years levelling alt #10+ it really is nothing more than a timesink.

You get the same feeling in Diablo 3. That game, even on normal is a joke (never try easy). Mobs scale, so it is purely because they made it faceroll easy. But what you do as an experienced gamer is to up it to "hard" and then you get more xp. Mechanics wise they probably cannot do the same in WoW. But if they could it would be cool.

Make use of mob scaling and increased xp. Harder to play through a zone, but it ends up giving you more xp. Skip the quest reward scaling to not upset the balance too much. Most players making use of such a feature is either:
a) looking for a challenge and will be able to do it just fine with mob drops or go to a different zone/LFD to get their gear upgrades
or
b) will have heirlooms in most slots and then it makes no difference.

People would be able to choose between completing the starter zone and hit level cap after a few zones. Or level up to around 20-30 and then be able to pick almost any zone from there on.

Another, maybe less demanding implementation, option could be:
Add an option to slow down xp gains. But instead of just getting less xp, you would only get a portion of it. Say maybe 25%. The remaining 75% would be pooled in a "bonus container" and tracked. At any time you can go to your class trainer (hey! a purpose for those again!) and turn off the xp container, pulling out the bonus xp, instantly gaining X levels.
Result would be, experienced players could play through their less favorite areas quickly, then spend more time doing quests at their favorite zones and even skip whole level brackets and repeat with their next favorite zones if they wanted to.
Awesome replay value for alts.

I would much rather spend time clearing all the cata zones and skip MoP and WoD entirely, because I power levelled all my characters trough cata zones but grinded out MoP zones to the point where I still hate hozen.

[Thrif]

Levelling hasn't been a "thing" for a few expansions now, it's just a couple of hours every expansion where you're sent out to do some world sightseeing so all the raid have somewhat of a context.

If you really want difficult levelling, do an iron man run.

[coprax]

The last thing this game needs is yet another difficulty switch. It needs less.

[Roujeaux]

While leveling shouldn't be a completed pushover, I feel like "difficult" outdoor content should be tied to max level for modern WoW. The game has changed, because people have.

[Sencha]

The last thing this game needs is yet another difficulty switch. It needs less.

This ^

/10carrots

[Shockymonkey]

I would like to see maybe dungeon spamming become the fast way to level with and option to turn off xp in dungeons. That way if you don't want to out level a friend or something like that you have the option.

As for questing in classic / Cataclysm zones (lvl 1 - 60) could use some retunning and have mobs scaled up in health and power to give more of a challenge. That way you aren't just zooming past things and they give more of a challenge. As for Burning crusade / Lich King / pandaria zones I would like to see them become scaled like the broken isles.

[Deleted]

An optional world scaling would be great for lvling and pretty much every other out door event.

Legion lvling was harder than usual especially for some specs. on my UH DK it was pretty difficult questing at lvl 110 with 792 ilvl when I first dinged but same thing on my WW and arms warr was a lot easier.

[Deleted]

They could actually make all the world "scaling" but mrh

[Natylyaz]

I'm bringing a Diablo 3 friend to WoW soon.
I've suggested him to use the level 100 boost so that his experience is enjoyable since he plays Diablo on Torment 12.
He'd rather start a character from level 1 to see the story, but that's a real problem, and many of you seem to be oblivious to this.
It will be laughably easy for him, and combat will be so boring, he won't see any of the good story because it's locked behind stupid dailies or repeatable crap, and he will think this game is a joke (which it is when leveling a new character).

Leveling does not need to take longer, since this is the main grip many of you seem to have. But it should give the CHOICE, the OPTION, to make it harder. So that you can still dot run the whole game if you please, and others can experience zones like in a normal RPG, and not a boring dot fest where all quests are grey.

[Echocho]

This is an unfortunate side effect of newer content and system updates bulldozing previous content. But Legion leveling is still way too fast and way too easy compared to how it used to be.

[Deleted]

I think the problem is, the game is all about max level. Even holiday events revolve around max level (horseman, brewfest etc. but I think they're going to include people below max level soon). Let's not forget, 110 levels and counting is a daunting task for any new player.

This is basically /thread.

The only thing i wuold like is a leveling experience like in Legion, so i can choose where to level (a lot of old world zone have wonderful quest-line). It's just sad to gray out zones after the first dungeon.

[Mad_Murdock]

I hate 1-2 shotting mobs personally, and that's coming from someone who had no heirlooms, no necklace or ring items yet, haha. Is it supposed to be this badly balanced? I had to clear out a cave to the north of Ashenvale and could easily pull like half of it and survive. Is the world not supposed to feel dangerous anymore? I see an elite mob 5 levels above me and I'm no longer scared and can easily solo him.

I love 1-2 shotting mobs, I wish they would fall over dead when I get near them. I'm going to vote very few people care about leveling and especially the below 60 leveling. If you want to slow the process down, don't equip any gear, just stick to grays and white items. There is plenty of harder content once you get closer to max level that will let you spend more time killing pointless mob # 23849234820.

[Natylyaz]

I love 1-2 shotting mobs, I wish they would fall over dead when I get near them. I'm going to vote very few people care about leveling and especially the below 60 leveling. If you want to slow the process down, don't equip any gear, just stick to grays and white items. There is plenty of harder content once you get closer to max level that will let you spend more time killing pointless mob # 23849234820.

So the whole leveling process must be completely irrelevant in your opinion? Why have leveling at all in the game? What if I want to enjoy it at a normal pace, not having all quests greyed out, and being able to cast 5-6 spells in a combat?
How about new players? Do they have to one shot every monster and think this game is a joke? Miss the story since you're sent in another zone before finishing the current zone?

[Shammyrock]

The problem is levelling is redundant in this game unless they do a level squish. The thinking is now give new players a free max level character and move them into endgame where all of the detail is. Levelling to 110 if each level took as long as it used to would be the longest grind in this games history.

Also for most players levelling isn't a high priority content. It's something you largely experience once on your main then becomes a chore on alts.