Is zone scaling just a polished turd?

[PuppetShowJustice]

I never have to level through Hellfire Peninsula again so imo it's flushing a turd.

[Deleted]

Anyone placing Legion in the same box as WoD automatically paints himself as a laughing stock.

No he is right, Legion is a polished version of WoD.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

Probably not. The zones still have a minimum level, which means at the start of Cata you will be forced to do something in one of those.

False. MoP zones now match Cata zones, both are scaled 80-90, so you can completely skip Cataclysm if so desired.

[Queen of Hamsters]

No he is right, Legion is a polished version of WoD.

Like I said, laughing stock.

Nice to see that you're honest though, makes your kind easy to weed out.

[Deleted]

Probably not. The zones still have a minimum level, which means at the start of Cata you will be forced to do something in one of those.

nope check leveling ranges. jade forest opens up at 80.

[Shelly]

I'm both impressed and a bit disgusted at you for knowing such detail about this.

I did post a video which is basically my source material.

[Magistrate]

You're enjoying the game for years and you are calling the game you are so invested in, "a turd". I have no idea what you aim to achieve by such an aggressive, insulting and frankly stupid way of expressing yourself.

I'm happy about the scaling, and as someone who has leveled 12 characters to 110 (many of them have existed since wotlk too) outleveling a zone before finishing questlines has always been a major issue. Very often I did 1/5 quests in a given zone and had to leave it. Definitely an improvement.

What I'm worried about though is that it seems they have increased the HP of mobs multiple times in comparison to what is in the game now, so the leveling will also take longer now. Not sure I want that.

They also increased the amount of XP required to level. Previously, they'd buffed XP gains (or reduced what was necessary) in many patches so that people wouldn't have to play content at low levels--back in like, Cata and others, when they only saw max level as the content people should be allowed to play and enjoy. (Source: see bulleted list: "XP to level has been increased for levels 10 - 59.")

[Deleted]

Like I said, laughing stock.

Nice to see that you're honest though, makes your kind easy to weed out.

Yeah keep telling yourself that, its common knowledge that Legion is the polished version of WoD. Even Blizzard said Legion is what WoD was supposed to be.

[Zyrinx]

I have 12 110s also. They hope that players like us will level up allied races to get their transmog gear. I won't be doing that.

Thing is, the allied races have mounts too. If you just need exalted rep with them then great, I'll do that. But if they require you to level from 1 to 110 to get the mounts... sigh... I guess I'll probably end up doing it. Not enthused.

Yeah i hear you.

[Orby]

Zone scaling is the best thing to happen for a qwhile to questing. Shame the scaling only ends at MoP... would love to skip over WoD and jump straight to Legion personally lol

[SirCowdog]

... Does not compute.

If you consider the content to be a turd and anything done to improve it simply equals "polishing a turd", why include the first sentence where you praise zone scaling...?

Anything they do to improve upon the experience, make it more engaging and less pushover, make it feel more relevant etc = a good thing. But that of course only applies to people not considering the content a "turd" to begin with.

Weeellllllll.....to be completely blunt, WoW leveling isn't really all that great to begin with. I'd call it mediocre at best, with a few bright spots during certain very specific quests. So in a way, level scaling is kind of polishing a turd. ;/

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It will be if Blizzard doesn't use the opportunity to significantly rebalance low-level leveling in the process, because while outleveling zones in 20 minutes is the smell, the disgustingly poorly balanced world content is the shit-pudding beneath. This talk about "finishing a zone before seeing 25th of the quests" is a symptom of.. what?

Ah right, you're leveling up 3-4 times per hour, mowing down mobs like they didn't exist at all. And being able to run through a dungeon in 5-10 minutes not caring about the loot because you're already in fully enchanted heirloom gear, killing bosses in 10 seconds that are complete pushovers even if 2 people are on /follow

But sadly I am far from convinced Blizzard has actually realized the scope of how detrimental lowbie leveling is. And the feedback is nothing but "make it faster I want it over with" without seemingly trying to understand why people just want it over with. If leveling was actually engaging, and you had to make decisions, or respond to threats, I can guarantee they'd be less inclined to whine about how they aren't oneshotting everything like a demigod anymore, but actually experiencing a world that can be dangerous at times, not this Baby-train-on-rails difficulty mode leveling has been stuck with for years.

The worst thing is that people genuinely don't seem to understand why they think leveling is boring as they are NEVER facing anything remotely difficult along the way.

Unless Blizzard slows down how quickly we earn exp, through a mix of slightly less exp per quest, reduced player power relative to mobs, and end-of-run dungeon bonuses, zone scaling will turn out to be nothing more but leveling 10-15 times per zone instead of 5, for people that still aren't immersed anyway because nothing can kill you anyway.

tl;dr Zone scaling will accomplish nothing if Blizzard doesn't fix levelings underlying power:mob power ratio that is completely screwed up and has been for the last half decade.

For once I actually completely agree with you! And I think that the reason why leveling is so bad is because the focus has always been on the "End Game". Slower leveling is mutually exclusive with that focus, hence things like character boosts and making each new expansion completely invalidate the progress of the previous one.

And in more recent times, they REALLLLY want to sell you that new expansion and get you grinding away as soon as possible.

[Deleted]

Pro tip. make your title more "neutral"

But for me and some of my friends we are super exicted about scaeling leveling in low levels. I love leveling it is relaxing and now i can finish zones, going to be great

[Queen of Hamsters]

Weeellllllll.....to be completely blunt, WoW leveling isn't really all that great to begin with.
.

Matter of opinion.
It must have something going for it, given it's been the first experience players meet upon picking the game up.

I'm hard pressed to think of a single MMORPG that managed to make me give a shit about the leveling story and world aside from WoW.

[beanman12345]

On one hand, Yes Id guess you could say it's a "polished turd" though maybe not the best description. For leveling, it's pointless. Sure doing zones in different orders is cool, but you are still doing all the zones and same ol quest each time for the most part. However where it shines imo is max level.

Before you had regular leveling, then a few spots that were always reserved for max level. Now however the whole world is available for max level content. And for that zone scaling is one of the best things they've added imo.

[SirCowdog]

Matter of opinion.
It must have something going for it, given it's been the first experience players meet upon picking the game up.

Not necessarily. Remember that Blizzard is giving out one free character boosts with the purchase of the current game, specifically to skip the leveling process and go straight to the most recent expansion's content. Level up through all the rest of the game is completely optional at this point.

I'm hard pressed to think of a single MMORPG that managed to make me give a shit about the leveling story and world aside from WoW.

Given what scale of time? Level up each expansion give context to the story of that expansion, and makes it worth doing at least once(although generally only once). Level up through TBC, WOTLK, CATA, MOP, and WOD right now is just a pain in the ass that's highly skippable and irrelevant to the story of Legion. WoD ties some things in via Gul'dan, but all that stuff about the warchiefs of Draenor, or the ogres, or Garrosh? It's completely disconnected from Legion's story.

And gameplay as well. If you're not getting into Legion and starting that AP and Leggo grind, you're wasting precious time. Even crafting gets a reset in each new expansion. Things which are unlocked with reputations in older expansions are largely irrelevant as well.

This is the problem Blizzard has created by making each new release completely contained within its own context so they can sell what is effectively a completely new game each time. Improving the leveling experience of older content is basically a "Free" content release.

[Halyon]

I r8 8/8, but poor b8.

[Teri]

Zone scaling is the best thing to happen for a qwhile to questing. Shame the scaling only ends at MoP... would love to skip over WoD and jump straight to Legion personally lol

It doesn't end at MoP exactly.

It's just WoD is it's own level bracket, all WoD zones scale to 100.

Frostfire/Shadowmoon 90-100
Gorgrond 92-100
Talador 94-100
Spires of Arak 96-100
Nagrand 98-100
Tanaan 100

Not that much changed on the entry-level but overall there should be more relevant xp.

At least it means always full kill/quest XP, and probably treasures/bonus objectives too which is a good way to skip a lot of content on alts with flying.

You can enter Legion at 98.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Not necessarily. Remember that Blizzard is giving out one free character boosts with the purchase of the current game, specifically to skip the leveling process and go straight to the most recent expansion's content. Level up through all the rest of the game is completely optional at this point.



Given what scale of time? Level up each expansion give context to the story of that expansion, and makes it worth doing at least once(although generally only once). Level up through TBC, WOTLK, CATA, MOP, and WOD right now is just a pain in the ass that's highly skippable and irrelevant to the story of Legion. WoD ties some things in via Gul'dan, but all that stuff about the warchiefs of Draenor, or the ogres, or Garrosh? It's completely disconnected from Legion's story.

And gameplay as well. If you're not getting into Legion and starting that AP and Leggo grind, you're wasting precious time. Even crafting gets a reset in each new expansion. Things which are unlocked with reputations in older expansions are largely irrelevant as well.

This is the problem Blizzard has created by making each new release completely contained within its own context so they can sell what is effectively a completely new game each time. Improving the leveling experience of older content is basically a "Free" content release.

I'm willing to bet that far more people clueless to the game go "the regular route" over using the boost, which they're unfamiliar with, along with the daunting task of also knowing about classes and specs. Everyone I know that's got friends joining the game, including myself, advice players to not use the boost. And the boost doesn't come with playing the free trial either.

As for the rest, my point stands. I know I wasn't faced by the "irrelevance" of Outland content when I was new to the game, I was too busy admiring the world around my "cow me", as it were.

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Zone scaling is the best thing to happen for a qwhile to questing. Shame the scaling only ends at MoP... would love to skip over WoD and jump straight to Legion personally lol

Can basically skip it by buying the XP potions from the Garrison (brrrrr) and just doing the treasure + bonus objective hunt. No questing needed. That's more than can be said for Northrend, Cata zones and MoP zones... :<

Not that I mind, I'll take being able to skip Outland entirely and be happy with questing in Cata/MoP zones!

[Evaddon]

Nope
Its something the game needed badly. Feel free to complain though like the usual trend of complaining about problems that aren't there.

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I don't know, zone scaling fixes some issues but on the other hand its another thing that removes the feeling of progression of your character.

Lmao WHAT? That make no sense at all.

You're still progressing. You still are leveling and getting better gear, new skills. You can just now finally see the full story of zones, and not out level 3 different zones by doing one or two dungeons.

[Teri]

Cataclysm I have gone from 85 to 90 in under 2 hours in just hyjal. This will hopefully start sending me elsewhere and allow me to again experience content I haven't seen in years such as Twilight Highlands.

Fully agree with Twilight Highlands, since it's 84-85 on live, you just simply will not finish it before running into a 75% xp reduce at 85.

Now Mop/Cata are fully open after 84. And the choice of 3 zones to go to at 80 is always better then just 1. And then more zones open up at 81/82/83/84.