Level Squish Survey
Reddit user Nivens reported that they received an interesting survey from Blizzard regarding an upcoming level squish. The wording of this survey makes it seem that a level squish is already slated to happen sometime in the future. This has not been confirmed by Blizzard.


During a previous Battle for Azeroth Q&A on Twitch, Ion Hazzikostas said the team was exploring the idea of a level squish, as new players may be deterred by seeing such high levels needed to reach the endgame. You can watch the full answer to the level squish question here, where they discuss the pros and cons



Arena World Championship - Summer Cup #1
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The Summer Season of the 2019 Arena World Championship (AWC) is here!

Following the end of an intense Spring Season, it’s time for the world’s best PvP-ers in World of Warcraft to compete for the Arena Cup, a challenging series of tournaments leading into the second LAN of the year: the AWC Summer Finals. At the Summer Finals, teams will compete for $100,000 and two qualification spots at BlizzCon. The first Cup has already begun, and the top 8 teams have already been decided in NA and EU after an explosive Open Bracket.

All Top 8 series will be broadcast on Twitch.tv/Warcraft on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays during the Summer Season. Each Top 8 broadcast day will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT / 7:00 p.m. CEST, live on Twitch.

These teams are competing for a $10,000 prize pool each week, and more importantly, AWC Points which qualify teams for the Summer Finals.

Start Times

EU Top 8:
Friday: 10am PDT, 1:00pm EDT, 19:00 CEST

NA Top 8:
Saturday: 10am PDT, 1:00pm EDT, 19:00 CEST

Championship:
Sunday: 10am PDT, 1:00pm EDT, 19:00 CEST

Resources


Top 8 Teams




Schedule




Diablo Sale
Diablo III titles are up to 50% off on the Battle.net Shop, as well as some in-game content!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Level Squish Survey, Summer Cup #1, Diablo Sale started by Osiris View original post
Comments 230 Comments
  1. Topornic's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by itzLCD View Post
    I legit just don't understand why they can't just invest in a WoW2 or another MMO at this point instead of continuing to lower stats and levels every expansion essentially destroying the entire point of an MMO which is to increase your characters power.

    Think about it this way, they continually put more and more time into fixing and adjusting the current game engine instead of putting that effort into building a new one...
    These games are all about invested time. MMOs are a niche genre and not many people are even going to try out new MMO if it were to come out these days. Current multiplayer market is quick come and go matches. Now imagine all these „WoW1” accounts that milions of people had invested tens of thousands of hours in suddenly perish. Many of these people wouldnt start again. I don’t even know if I would.

    Making new WoW would be very costly with low probability of success.
  1. Shaqthefat's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Osiris View Post
    Former Blizzard CM Yisthens had a decent perspective on it that he mentioned on twitter: https://twitter.com/CadenHouse/statu...07256166133760
    Unfortunate if that is a case, because that is likely someones job.

    Although it would seem weird for someone to jump the gun or misunderstand. If the misunderstand that means that from the Q&A to this point they believed a level squish was happening and prepared a survey to put out without anyone telling him. Jumping the gun means he really jumped the gun (Unless the announcement about a level squish was coming before blizzcon) and that more than one people probably had been jumping the same gun.
  1. Frostyfire14's Avatar
    About damn time, they squish player levels.

    The game never needed to go over 100 player levels.
  1. Papanacho's Avatar
    I am happy about the stat squish. It would make leveling fun and meaningful again where your character gets more powerful each level, not like now, where you get a higher level, but after 60+ nothing happens, you get the odd unlock of new talents, but for 14 levels you do absolutely nothing. I am leveling a rogue and ohh god I am already bored with it, dinging after every dungeon it doesnt feel like I have achieved anything, but at the earlier levels I was excited about new skills.

    Wow will have a problem in the future if they dont do that. Leveling is not fun at all and meaningless, this could make it a little bit more exciting and interesting. It would be also a good idea to reduce the time you take to max out a character or if you could just do it in any zone moreless as you wish, ( Similar to ESO) There are so many amazing quests out there in the world that are forgotten or not played at all.
  1. Cavox's Avatar
    50% discount on D3?
    What a steal.
    I mean literally - they're stealing money for trying to sell you a dead game.
  1. Prokne's Avatar
    Level squish is not needed. If they reduce the xp required to level, people will see that the levels come fast and a higher max number will not be so intimidating (if it even is).

    Stat squish is bad enough. Level squish is so anti-rpg. Just make WoW 2 and do it right.
  1. ArmatisUlv's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by itzLCD View Post
    I legit just don't understand why they can't just invest in a WoW2 or another MMO at this point instead of continuing to lower stats and levels every expansion essentially destroying the entire point of an MMO which is to increase your characters power.

    Think about it this way, they continually put more and more time into fixing and adjusting the current game engine instead of putting that effort into building a new one...
    Depending how they handled a WoW2 with character transfer/progressions transfer. Having to start completely fresh would most likely kill their game because no one wants to just let go of everything they've worked for. Take a look at how many people were upset with the transfer from Destiny 1 to Destiny 2 when you lost everything just because the Tower was blown up.

    About the engine thing though. If the rumour about Diablo 4's new engine is legit then there could possibly be a chance that they somehow port WoW over to it if it works out. Rumour that Diablo 4 is an open world adventure version of Diablo is why the engine is being built and how many similar systems the two games share now then we could hope for such a thing. With it being rumours though there isn't much reason to listen to it until the truth is revealed but one can be hopeful.
  1. Th3Scourge's Avatar
    They are some damn good team names.

    The Boys
    Meow Meow Kitty Cats
    Psychic Memes
    Change my mind (with a mug as well)
  1. deadman1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Frostyfire14 View Post
    About damn time, they squish player levels.

    The game never needed to go over 100 player levels.
    Agreed but I don't think the game should have ever gone over 76.84 player levels!
  1. wargone's Avatar
    I get that people dont want to be "depowered" but, the levels in wow is getting out of hand. It hard to tell my friend who might considering playing wow "oh yea. There is only 130 levels you have to go though"
    I want a level squish, First of all, it would make leveling feel better it Fucking stupid, that for some classes between level 58 and like 70 or so, you get no New abilitys Expect a taltent at level 60. IT stupid that Some classes first get core mechanics in the 70's or 80s. you dont learn shit by that.
    the fact we dont have skill points anymore that means there are most levels you dont gain an ything from leveling up. sometimes long distances of levels with Nothing. it does not feelgood to just "oh i leveled up, 6 more and i get a something..."
  1. MrExcelion's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrLachyG View Post
    I mean what is the actual point? it isn't like it's going to take any less time to hit max level. if they squish it to 60 they will still maintain the amount of xp needed to hit 120. so it's not going to save time or anything. complete waste of time doing it
    I believe the intention is to make levels reward abilities more frequently something, otherwise its an optics change and not a change to leveling speed, because they still want you to get through X zones and storylines without it being breakneck fast. They might consolidate some continents though for scaling, picking whatever, so you'd have less in that regard but probably the same number of quests done. Don't really get why they decreased leveling speed way back in 7.3.5 and then they've just been walking back on it ever since. Only reason I can think of was because it made the Heritage Armor take longer, and that was essentially 'content' for a lot of players.

    I've never really considered the gaps between abilities being rewarded to be that big of a deal, but there's people out there who constantly give feedback on this matter, not that I think it's a big deal.

    The devs might think the optics change will make the game more interesting for brand new players and retention and all that, and seem less daunting, but yeah, we know it's just optics


    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by wargone View Post
    I get that people dont want to be "depowered" but, the levels in wow is getting out of hand. It hard to tell my friend who might considering playing wow "oh yea. There is only 130 levels you have to go though"
    This is what I'm referring to, yeah. People think 130s going to be seen super negatively even it's just optics and the levels have been nerfed over time. Which is still weird because they offer a boost with the game
  1. Kaver's Avatar
    I always hate hearing them talk about “new players this.. and new players that..”. What about your current players? At one point you had 10 millions... maybe if you had focused on keeping those players instead of always attracting new ones, WoW would be in a better state..

    That said, I think the lvl squish is a good idea.
  1. Drynix's Avatar
    Aside from a level squish they should add an exp squish. Currently most classes do not get anything between 58 and 70. But if after the squish this gets condensed to level 40-41 but still take the same ammount of time it will still suck. The issues isn't just the ammount of levels between meaningful development of your character, its also the time invested to develop your character.

    And I do recall from one of the streams or a blue post that it was purely a level squish while still needed the same total exp from 1 to whatever the new cap would be as it is currently from 1 to cap.
  1. Onikaroshi's Avatar
    Already figured that BFA would be my last expansion, I barely play it it's so bad... but this just seals the deal, oh well, no king rules forever.
  1. Merie's Avatar
    Let players opt in for a level squish if they want it so bad. I prefer to keep mine.
  1. h4rr0d's Avatar
    Gaining a level should be an exciting event in a rpg game, directly tied to a character power increase. With scaling world and no new abilities, your character actually gets weaker with every level, and the only real power gain happens with better gear. At that point leveling becomes basically just another time gate for access to endgame content
  1. MrLachyG's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrExcelion View Post
    I believe the intention is to make levels reward abilities more frequently something, otherwise its an optics change and not a change to leveling speed, because they still want you to get through X zones and storylines without it being breakneck fast. They might consolidate some continents though for scaling, picking whatever, so you'd have less in that regard but probably the same number of quests done. Don't really get why they decreased leveling speed way back in 7.3.5 and then they've just been walking back on it ever since. Only reason I can think of was because it made the Heritage Armor take longer, and that was essentially 'content' for a lot of players.

    I've never really considered the gaps between abilities being rewarded to be that big of a deal, but there's people out there who constantly give feedback on this matter, not that I think it's a big deal.

    The devs might think the optics change will make the game more interesting for brand new players and retention and all that, and seem less daunting, but yeah, we know it's just optics
    well they can add new stuff in. abilities that have been pruned over the years. and adding talent rows in for 110/120/130 wouldn't hurt either
  1. Osmeric's Avatar
    I would be totally ok with a level squish.
  1. kappalol's Avatar
    Guess its just a number squish. You will still need the same amount of experience to get to max lvl as now. Also, it will take the same amount of time. You will just not get lvls so fast.
  1. Super Kami Dende's Avatar
    Trash decision, Glad I've moved to FFXIV fulltime now.

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