Should Level 120 be the final increase?

[Linkedblade]

49% of the population is below average intelligence.

A lot of them are WoW players.

And the other 51% are just as susceptible to Skinner Boxes.

Leveling will never leave WoW.

50% is below average. Ffs read a math book

[AngerFork]

The first thing it would accomplish is closure for a system that covers essentially only 1% of the time you spend in any expansion.

Guild Wars 2 actually never had levels for example until game testers said they had no idea what to do. So they introduced arbitrary levels just so people would not get lost. As far as I know, they did not increase the cap for their expansions since then, as it was clear to each player what they needed to do and what they needed to accomplish as soon as progression through the content became linear and story focused. We reached that point around Cataclysm.

Story Progression is nowadays tracked with Achievements and the Quest-Story-Line Counter in your Journal. The way leveling worked previously actually forced you to leave storylines unfinished because you progressed faster in levels than the story in plot. No levels means no reason other than bad storytelling to leave a story behind.

Therein lies the exact problem. Players generally need to be given some sort of direction unless you have a sandbox style game. WoW is very much not sandbox. You can try to put it in achievements and quest story lines, but there are a good amount of people that wouldn't know to look there. Additionally, add in the extra pressure from friends trying to get you to do the newest dungeon or whatnot to get your gear, it's very easy to lose your place.

Plus, those with alts definitely spend more than 1% of their time leveling. Not to mention that it would likely feel very abrupt to get to 120 and have extra expansions worth of content, but no real guide as to where to go next. Getting into WoW for a brand new player is already enough of a fire hose as it is without getting to 120 and having four different expansions you need to hit up next with connecting storylines, but not really knowing where to go next.

I am a stern paragon of the concept: "If you don't treat players like idiots, they will not act like idiots." That said, creating honestly hard content that forces you to play good will mean bad players will stay away from that content as long as there is OTHER content to do. Imagine having Molten Core as the raid where all the bads can learn to play instead of having to pull them through Tomb of Sargeras because it is the only content relevant enough to be challenging and easy enough to overgear to mask mistakes.

I'm not entirely sure what removing leveling has to do with treating players like idiots or not. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what much of any of this has to do with leveling. Are you proposing a system where people have to go through all the raids and beat them at appropriate gear levels to raid with their friends? Because that seems like a really fast way to take down Blizz's admitted already low new player retention numbers. Molten Core is still fun IMO, but it is very much aged content at this point. Blizz has learned a lot over the last 13 years.

Even beyond that, how does someone know to go to Molten Core first before they can go to the other raids? Is your proposal hoping for a guild to tell them, or would you need to rework questing/leveling further to do this?

[schwarzkopf]

Nah - it should be 127, so that tech conspiracy nuts will for ever think it was limited for 7 bit reasons

[Linkedblade]

My OCD tells me 100 should be the cap. 110 and 120 are icky.

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I always found that interesting. I feel like EverQuest solved that a long time ago with Alternate Advancement. Essentially a near infinite grind of minuscule increases to stats by filling a bar out. WoW got really close to that system with Artifact traits but the WoW version was a lot weaker and boring, especially with Artifact Knowledge.

Not as bad as 85. Ugh.

I know level is in the database using an unsigned int byte so the max is technically 255.

[Thelyron]

As someone who only has to level from current level cap to new level cap on all characters, i don't really care if they go up to 1000. It's always just 10 levels for me.

But i think for a new player, 120 levels may seem like quite a daunting task. It just "feels" long.

I think it'd be a compromise to go the swtor/cata/mop route, and go back, and adjust all expansions to only be 5 levels. This would make 95 the max level in BfA. But they just overhauled the entire leveling process, so i think this is off the table.

[huth]

Id say when the next expansion comes they need to do a prune of levels down to level 100, and once you hit 100 instead of giving you more levels you get some kind of artifact power grind but its an account wide leveling system, aka: Paragon Levels.

Or they could leave levels as is and introduce such a system anyway. Which is pretty much what they're doing except for the account wide part. The pruning wouldn't do much anyway, other than making leveling to cap feel longer.

This works just fine because the two systems are completely unrelated and fill different purposes. Artifacts/Azerite are max level power progression systems. Levels represent your current position in the overall WoW storyline and serve to reset player power after every expansion.

[AngerFork]

As someone who only has to level from current level cap to new level cap on all characters, i don't really care if they go up to 1000. It's always just 10 levels for me.

But i think for a new player, 120 levels may seem like quite a daunting task. It just "feels" long.

I think it'd be a compromise to go the swtor/cata/mop route, and go back, and adjust all expansions to only be 5 levels. This would make 95 the max level in BfA. But they just overhauled the entire leveling process, so i think this is off the table.

I agree with this idea. A leveling squish would feel harsh, but no more so than we are going to see with the gear squish that seems to be coming. Plus it would feel far less daunting than jumping straight to 120 as is. You could even split it straight in half here and make it somewhat feel like a WoW 2.0 if you so chose.

[huth]

I agree with this idea. A leveling squish would feel harsh, but no more so than we are going to see with the gear squish that seems to be coming. Plus it would feel far less daunting than jumping straight to 120 as is. You could even split it straight in half here and make it somewhat feel like a WoW 2.0 if you so chose.

They went back to 10 levels per expansion because 5 feels to sudden a change.

Halving the levels would make the leveling process feel longer since you would also only get levels half as often.
I also find the "daunting" thing unconvincing, since for a new player those 120 levels are actual content they've never done before. Besides, you get a boost to 10 levels below cap anyway.

[Doomchicken]

It will be the final increase....until the next increase.

[Steampunkette]

50% is below average. Ffs read a math book

Statistically 50.499999999999999999999999999999999999 are below average. But I always figured allowing a 2% variance is worthwhile.

In reality, massive quantities are at the average intelligence with some above and some below because reality is closer to a Bell Curve, and intelligence itself is by and large an irrelevancy with importance attributed to it by Western Culture, while most of the rest of the world prefers Wisdom and Cunning...

But whatever.

[Marrilaife]

I say that as a final representation of our growth, Level 120 should be the final one. Getting to 120 should place a Crown upon our character's portrait and simply say: "You. Are. Done!"

Telling people "you are done" is a recipe for a lot of unsubs.

I feel like EverQuest solved that a long time ago with Alternate Advancement. Essentially a near infinite grind of minuscule increases to stats by filling a bar out. WoW got really close to that system with Artifact traits but the WoW version was a lot weaker and boring, especially with Artifact Knowledge.

Artifact Knowledge exists and must exist to solve the crucial dilemma: how do you give people "endless" stuff to do without creating an ever growing rift between casuals and hardcores where hardcores get further and further ahead with no hopes from casuals to catch up? Wow is built around casuals, it needs to give them carrot on a stick without making them feel the goal is too harsh to reach for, while still trying to keep that 1-10% hardcores occupied without leaving them completely idle.

Same thing with ilvl / gear, we get frequent "catch up" patches for that reason.

As someone who only has to level from current level cap to new level cap on all characters, i don't really care if they go up to 1000. It's always just 10 levels for me.

But i think for a new player, 120 levels may seem like quite a daunting task. It just "feels" long.

It's still 10 levels for them because they get a boost when they buy the current expansion pack. You only need to explore past levels if 1) you want to 2) you care to level an alt and don't want to buy a boost for it.

[Moxal]

Nope. They have already past 100, so there really isn't any reason to stop.

And they will most certainly NOT squash or prune levels. Sorry.

[shaunika123]

I Like levels, I just wish they would be meaningful again.
like, they pruned our entire toolkit that we gathered over 13 years.
so maybe now we can get abilities during leveling again? or at least a new talent at 120?

[huth]

I Like levels, I just wish they would be meaningful again.
like, they pruned our entire toolkit that we gathered over 13 years.
so maybe now we can get abilities during leveling again? or at least a new talent at 120?

They never really were to begin with. Also, you still get abilities during leveling. 7.3.5 even changed some of it around slightly.

[shaunika123]

They never really were to begin with. Also, you still get abilities during leveling. 7.3.5 even changed some of it around slightly.

I ment when new expansions come out.

like in TBC/wrath we got like 3-4 abilities per class in 10 levels.

in wod we got one, in legion we got one.


also they did matter, every single level was a new talent point in the old system. which made leveling up so much more meaningful imho.

[Linkedblade]

I Like levels, I just wish they would be meaningful again.
like, they pruned our entire toolkit that we gathered over 13 years.
so maybe now we can get abilities during leveling again? or at least a new talent at 120?

Between pruning and restricting abilities behind specialization and talent choices tag they destroyed class fantasy and hybrid play styles.

[huth]

I ment when new expansions come out.

like in TBC/wrath we got like 3-4 abilities per class in 10 levels.

in wod we got one, in legion we got one.


also they did matter, every single level was a new talent point in the old system. which made leveling up so much more meaningful imho.

Which eventually forced them to start the big prunes, and even before that it had become increasingly harder to come up with new ideas that would actually be useful.

Just adding ever more isn't a long-term sustainable strategy for abilities.

[shaunika123]

Which eventually forced them to start the big prunes, and even before that it had become increasingly harder to come up with new ideas that would actually be useful.

Just adding ever more isn't a long-term sustainable strategy for abilities.

yeah, but now that they have pruned us to bits, maybe they can start expanding it a bit again.

all im asking for is a level 120 talent and maybe one ability.

some of the action bars on my characters have like such big chunks just sitting empty.

[Destinas]

I don't really see a point to having a "final level" in WoW. It's not like 120 being double the level of 60 is significant. Every expansion people try to predict/hope for a "final level" number, but leveling isn't going to go anywhere.

Levels tell players a lot more than people think. It tells players (veteran, new, casual, experienced) where they need to go to quest, which dungeons/raids are appropriate for them, what gear they could be wearing, and what content is the newest. Gaining levels also gives players a sense of accomplishment and strength. Sure, you could accomplish the same thing with only item levels - but it would be the exact same thing, and people would demand for there to be a cap on item levels as well.

Don't forget, item levels are being reset next expansion with the next item squish, as well. Presumably that will happen again in the future. So, what would that accomplish, then? People would feel downgraded by seeing their item level go down, if there were no more levels.

[Makorus]

It's literally just a number.