Wait a second, when did we ever ask for leveling to be long? Just hard, not long!

[alexchaos]

I don't disagree, but dude - people bitched and moaned beyond belief over the ilvl squish just because their numbers were smaller even though everything was relatively the same. What do you think will happen if their levels were suddenly squished?

There's people on both side of the fence. I know some people that use an addon to shrink numbers to XXM on the screen so it's less cluttered. Big numbers are satisfying to see but honestly if it's just to please the eye of players then Blizz shouldn't care and go with bigger shrinks.

[SirCowdog]

Similarly, you can:
Give a mob 2x Health & DPS but make it so that if you CC/Interrupt the mob he takes 4x damage for 5 seconds.
Instead of increasing mob health, give it a dispellable buff that increases damage dealt by +100% and reduces damage taken by 50%, and even allow mages to spellsteal it.

Again, you CAN increase challenge without increasing length.

As a point of interest: Wildstar does something exactly like this. If you interrupt an enemy during a power attack, they go into a small window of time where they take additional damage.

What it means is that it promotes paying attention to interrupts and enemy special attacks, but also rewards players for playing well and executing the fight correctly. You can still just get out of the way of the special attack and DPS normally, but it takes longer and you risk taking more damage. Overall it's a better system.

But keep in mind here that Wildstar also has a dodge/hitbox mechanic. The closest WoW has to that is "don't stand in the red circles". But even that would an improvement to a simple increase in hitpoints, I think we'll all agree.

However, as I said in another thread on this topic: Increasing or decreasing hitpoints is something that can be changed relatively easy. I suspect it's just a matter of adjusting numbers in a database. Increasing mob AI and combat maneuvers, however, is very likely FAR more complex and involved.

[Nurvus]

DoT specs did perfectly fine leveling before. There is no benefit to increasing the time a target stays alive just so a DoT can fully tick. There is nothing being allowed to shine while leveling and level up dungeons shouldn't take longer in order to bring "shine" to classes while leveling.

Perhaps in solo environment it isn't needed if you assume the intended affliction leveling gameplay is DoT and forget.
But for group play, even in dungeons, the mobs just died too fast for DoT specs to be effective.

Remember that in Dungeons mobs died too fast by being AoE'd down - whirlwind, arcane explosion, holy nova.
Now imagine if the mobs are being focused in single target.
So in Dungeons, an Affliction Warlock is pretty much forced to spec Triple Seed and pray the mob lives through the cast + travel time.

Now I'm not defending that 3x HP was necessary. Perhaps even 1.2x was enough. Not for me to judge. But the HP was a little too low.
However, the leveling speed was fine.
So for Blizzard to not only NOT increase XP gains to compensate, but even decrease them further by making each level between 1 and 60 require more XP, is completely uncalled for.
That, I agree has absolutely no benefit whatsoever, for anyone.

- - - Updated - - -

As a point of interest: Wildstar does something exactly like this. If you interrupt an enemy during a power attack, they go into a small window of time where they take additional damage.

There are plenty of mechanics WoW can develop inspired in other games.
Guild Wars 2 for example uses a system that allows Elite mobs to be highly resistant to CC, but still prone to coordinated CC, by having a "CC shield" that requires you to coordinate a set amount of CC's to land one.
Blizzard could get rid of the permanent immunities in a similar fashion, allowing Blizzard to design Bosses to be CC'able in a non-abusable fashion through coordinated effort.

[Proham]

Why would any one in their right mind spend so much time leveling for the billionth time? We wanted leveling to be HARDER, not longer! This would allow people to level multiple toons in different regions so that it doesn't bore us to death and make people quit. Remember, what made it worth while in Vanilla was that Vanilla was the end game, we weren't thinking of the many more expansions to come...How many more levels do we need? why not stop at 120 and introduce other kinds of leveling?? This is just stupid.

Gotta get those boost sales up bro, Blizz is seeing green and they like it.

[Zulatomten]

I mean you could just pay for a boost. If you wish to not buy boost and have the income for it, when why are you complaining. You can even buy the boost for gold aswell if Real Life Cash is your the problem.

[GreenJesus]

I was leveling a level 71 shadow priest in icecrown. Granted I had nearly full heirlooms but mobs died after about I vampire touched them, shadow pained them, mind flay full cast, casted a second and a half cast time ability that has an 8 second cooldown and then shadow death and mob died. I think that is a perfectly reasonable amount of spells to kill a mob and it requires you to actually use a rotation (I had no idea what I was doing since I haven't even touched the priest since MoP). Before I could probably cast a shadow pain and maybe do a quarter of a mind flay before the mob died.

[Hashtronaut]

HARDER, not longer!

That’s what she said.

[sam86]

5-10% increased time to level to max isn't that big of a deal. Relax people.

blizz flat out stated the xp nerf was 60%, and that not counting the buff to some mobs that reached the comical lvl of 341% in pandalands for example (they took steroids), how exactly that is "just" 5-10% increased time?

[cparle87]

Why would any one in their right mind spend so much time leveling for the billionth time? We wanted leveling to be HARDER, not longer! This would allow people to level multiple toons in different regions so that it doesn't bore us to death and make people quit. Remember, what made it worth while in Vanilla was that Vanilla was the end game, we weren't thinking of the many more expansions to come...How many more levels do we need? why not stop at 120 and introduce other kinds of leveling?? This is just stupid.

Until they can find a way to reset our secondary stats every expansion without messing them up, levelling up is the only way.

[Teri]

blizz flat out stated the xp nerf was 60%, and that not counting the buff to some mobs that reached the comical lvl of 341% in pandalands for example (they took steroids), how exactly that is "just" 5-10% increased time?

MoP/WoD health buffs getting reduced in the upcoming extra patch deploy.

-----

And also the XP only increased on level 10-60.

Level 10-20 was increased by 5-55% ,Level 21-39 were increased by 60% , lvl 40-59 by 40% , it really isn't as bad.

Now you get full XP per kill/quest & have to travel far less to other zones.

XP 60-110 was untouched for this patch.

[Omega10]

As a point of interest: Wildstar does something exactly like this. If you interrupt an enemy during a power attack, they go into a small window of time where they take additional damage.

What it means is that it promotes paying attention to interrupts and enemy special attacks, but also rewards players for playing well and executing the fight correctly. You can still just get out of the way of the special attack and DPS normally, but it takes longer and you risk taking more damage. Overall it's a better system.

But keep in mind here that Wildstar also has a dodge/hitbox mechanic. The closest WoW has to that is "don't stand in the red circles". But even that would an improvement to a simple increase in hitpoints, I think we'll all agree.

However, as I said in another thread on this topic: Increasing or decreasing hitpoints is something that can be changed relatively easy. I suspect it's just a matter of adjusting numbers in a database. Increasing mob AI and combat maneuvers, however, is very likely FAR more complex and involved.

Changing AI and making interrupt mechanics and move out of stuff mechanics a larger part of leveling mobs would definitely improve the leveling experience. But as you stated, this would take quite a bit of development time, especially considering just how many mobs there are spread out over multiple continents. There could also be "standard" areas where most of the mobs don't have these mechanics, and "advanced" mobs that involve more mechanics, and grant faster xp and/or better gear drops. However, these should definitely be soloable, as mobs that truly require 2 or more people to kill tend to never get killed.

And oh yeah... one way to get people to not use interrupts is to have nothing worthwhile interruptable. Spells and abilities that are meant to be interruptable should be 1) long in casting time so people have time to notice them and interrupt them, 2) dangerous enough so that not interrupting the spell is very noticeable, and 3) should have a cool down time less than the cool down of everyone's interrupts.

At higher levels, mob cast times can be decreased, less important spells and abilities can be thrown in (don't interrupt THIS ability because we need our cooldown for the OTHER abiity), and other features can be added to the interrupt mechanics. This gets people used to interrupts being an important part of a toon's bag of tricks. Sometimes when leveling, it felt like... Anything that was worthwhile for me to interrupt... was uninterruptable.

On a related note - mobs could debuff people for 2-5 minutes in a way that reduces our dps by say 10% or 15% if their casts are not interrupted. As long as we have the ability to interrupt ALL of their casts of this debuff during battle (though we would not be able to avoid it if we were up against 2 mobs at once).

This also would be a very expensive time consuming change to implement correctly and in a way that trains people how to be better players from the start. It would be AWESOME if it were done correctly

[Mormolyce]

*Insert hard and long jokes here*

Anyway, it's kind of silly to ask for leveling in WoW to be hard. How could it possibly be? It's fundamentally an easy thing. You want a DPS check and some complex mechanics to navigate on quest mobs? Maybe a timer like Proving Grounds? WoW just doesn't work like that.

People generally call for things like mobs doing more damage so you can't pull 100 at once and AoE them down. But obviously that makes the pace slower...

P.S. Is it actually longer now?

[SirCowdog]

blizz flat out stated the xp nerf was 60%, and that not counting the buff to some mobs that reached the comical lvl of 341% in pandalands for example (they took steroids), how exactly that is "just" 5-10% increased time?

I don't know the exact numbers, but the situation isn't as simple as just increasing or decreasing how much experience it takes to level.

Consider:

• Individual mob kills are worth more exp.
• Quests rewards and exp scale to your level(meaning they're consistently worth more since you don't outlevel them before turning in)
• You can consistently stay in the same Zone, further increasing quest efficiency by cutting down travel time.
• Dungeons can be spammed in between without wrecking quest rewards.
• Flight is immediately and always available(assuming you already have Pathfinder for WoD/Legion) without extra stops or steps for training.

This means that the overall leveling process is much more smooth and efficient. If all you do is focus on the individual details out of context, then I can see why it seems too much. But taken all together it's actually not that bad.

Now, for people who want to level through PVP, I can't comment. I don't know if Blizzard accounted and adjusted for that.

[mondoduece]

Of course there was going to be sides taken on whether this was a positive change or not. I am personally enjoying this change, I don't feel brain dead anymore with multiple attacks one shotting, and I have to make meaningful choices about my pathing on ground mounts (I often use ground mounts even if flying is available) and how many mobs I can take on. I think I might be in the minority, but after 10 years playing WOW I really do enjoy the way there just as well as end game.

[SirCowdog]

There could also be "standard" areas where most of the mobs don't have these mechanics, and "advanced" mobs that involve more mechanics, and grant faster xp and/or better gear drops.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this EXACTLY what they're doing with the islands in BfA using advanced mob AI?

Seems to me that if those are successful, it could(and should!) be applied to previous zones over time. Combine that with scaling and previous expansion content could maintain its relevance for MUCH longer.

[sam86]

I don't know the exact numbers, but the situation isn't as simple as just increasing or decreasing how much experience it takes to level.

Consider:

• Individual mob kills are worth more exp.
• Quests rewards and exp scale to your level(meaning they're consistently worth more since you don't outlevel them before turning in)
• You can consistently stay in the same Zone, further increasing quest efficiency by cutting down travel time.
• Dungeons can be spammed in between without wrecking quest rewards.
• Flight is immediately and always available(assuming you already have Pathfinder for WoD/Legion) without extra stops or steps for training.

This means that the overall leveling process is much more smooth and efficient. If all you do is focus on the individual details out of context, then I can see why it seems too much. But taken all together it's actually not that bad.

Now, for people who want to level through PVP, I can't comment. I don't know if Blizzard accounted and adjusted for that.

seems u weren't used to lvl, so let me counter it with what used to be
1) mob killing xp was never what give u xp to lvl in first place, even if it was increased 500%, 500% of zero is zero, the main way u lvl ur character since ever (beside the last few lvls way back in vanilla wow, and even that was very unefficeint but only option) was quests xp, or finish dungeon xp in LFG tool
2) since u can always get quest at ur lvl range if u don't care about 'finish zone quest' again this point is useless because there is always quest for ur lvl to give u xp u want, if u want to lvl by questing
3) traveling is only important until u get flying, then 'stay in same zone' is meaningless if ur focus was just to lvl, not to mention that even as dps dungeon queues - specially in the time between 8 pm and 1 am - is near instant, in fact all u have to do is 'try' do daily cooking/fishing quest and u may not even do them while spam dungeons
4) outside pandalands fly was always available as soon u hit a zone, and pandalands sucks, the best thing that came out from the whole 'scaling' was that u can now skip it and just lvl in cata zones, something i actually did instead of go to china

so in overall what u are stating u really have no experience in lvling before, because half of what u saying was not a problem in first place, and if u liked pandalands there was even lower problem, unless u were one of the ppl who like to log at 4 am to lvl and qq that no one around to help u or something

[VyersReaver]

Since Cata forward you could see countless threads about leveling being too fast. There were some that wanted it to be harder, but the majority wanted it to take longer so that you didn't out level a zone before the story was over.

Citation needed.

[SirCowdog]

seems u weren't used to lvl,

I've probably got ~20 or so characters of various levels between 90-110 across vanilla to Legion(this means I've capped characters across the various expansions). I've leveled plenty, if not super crackhead levels of maintaining 40+ capped toons constantly. Regardless, what I've personally done or not done is irrelevant, since we're discussing the current process in regards to the more recent years of leveling. And I have plenty of experience with the subject in order to make a reasonable argument.

ob killing xp was never what give u xp to lvl in first place, even if it was increased 500%, 500% of zero is zero, the main way u lvl ur character since ever (beside the last few lvls way back in vanilla wow, and even that was very unefficeint but only option) was quests xp, or finish dungeon xp in LFG tool

Over-exaggeration doesn't help your argument. You DO kill quite a few monsters over the course of leveling. How many quests are actually "Kill X" enemies? It's simply one more thing to add into the bigger picture of how the new system is more balanced than a lot of people seem to think. Saying that increasing the experience of kills is equal to zero is just being dishonest.

2) since u can always get quest at ur lvl range if u don't care about 'finish zone quest' again this point is useless because there is always quest for ur lvl to give u xp u want, if u want to lvl by questing

The point about this, that you seem to have missed, is that quests under the new system ALWAYS maintain their relevance and reward, regardless of what level you end up being. You don't have to worry about going out into a zone and starting quests, outleveling them, and having them be worth less by the time you get around to turning them in. A good quest leveler will be able to be EXTREMELY efficient under the new system, whereas under the old system you would waste a lot of time and exp as levels came too quickly.

3) traveling is only important until u get flying, then 'stay in same zone' is meaningless if ur focus was just to lvl, not to mention that even as dps dungeon queues - specially in the time between 8 pm and 1 am - is near instant, in fact all u have to do is 'try' do daily cooking/fishing quest and u may not even do them while spam dungeons

So your argument is that you're fine as long as you play during a short 5 hour window? Under the new system a player can play however they want. Even if the travel time was identical, allowing players to choose whether to travel or not is still an improvement. But really, this is the same point as above: A person can VERY efficiently stay in the same zone and cut down on travel time significantly, since they don't have to drop everything they're doing, periodically, and move to a new zone in order to stay efficient.

4) outside pandalands fly was always available as soon u hit a zone, and pandalands sucks, the best thing that came out from the whole 'scaling' was that u can now skip it and just lvl in cata zones, something i actually did instead of go to china

Available, yes. But you'd have to stop what you're doing and get to the capital and train it. Now it's just there, always on. No need to stop what you're doing. Again, this is a little thing, but if you had actually been trying to understand the point you'd realize that all of these little things add up. You even mention another important factor: Being able to choose which expansion to level in, based on what you're more familiar with. This is going to, once again, help you keep your leveling speed up instead of getting bogged down in areas that you hate.

so in overall what u are stating u really have no experience in lvling before, because half of what u saying was not a problem in first place, and if u liked pandalands there was even lower problem, unless u were one of the ppl who like to log at 4 am to lvl and qq that no one around to help u or something

I'm not even going to respond to this. Instead of making an actual point, you once again went ad hominem.

[sam86]

-snip-.

way too much talk
1) too long answer to just say that u 'do' lvl, still disagree with it but it is really off topic
2) not exaggerating, can u show me any lvling guide that says killing mobs give xp instead of doing quests? the only time i remember aoe farming was a thing was with frost mage with murlocs in dustwallow march and western plagueland zombie farms, and that was dead since ages, if u lvl by killing mobs xp u probably only one to do that since 2007 (not sure when did aoe farming die, but i assume with TBC introduce, or maybe silithus 'revamp' in 1.7?)
3) extremely efficient to what? I literally told u what guides tel u of fastest way to lvl, which was spam dungeons, scaling would be more 'fun' option and maybe better if they didn't nerf it to 60% at some lvls, and buff mobs hp to 341% in some zones, they seriously fucked up as they admitted on their own twitter so why u try defend what they said was wrong?
4) because that what a normal human play actually, most ppl play wow between 7 to 1am, it is because ppl like u who want to log at 4:00 am and be able to go to dungeon that we got LFG then LFR and XRzones that killed wow community forever, if u want to play at 4 am why ruin the game for majority for the extremely few minority who play at odd times?
5)saving less than 5 min of hearth learn fly and return is meaningless, specially since - at least back then - u had to hearth anyway at 'new flying lvl' because u also usually switch zone, and remember the game is now 14 years old, back at WoD over 80% of wow players who log on mmo-champ voted they have 4+ chars at lvl 100, most ppl lvled way too much to want it to be even slower, they did it at least 4 times and they don't want a slower 5th time
6) why ? I did say that most ur points were not a problem in first place, what were ur problems ? want relevant quests ? u can always find relevant quests, u just had to move a little, now instead of moving, u get 60% xp increased, no matter how 'sacling' quests are with 60% xp increased the old system is faster, if u hate a zone, u outlvl it in few hours, now if u hate a zone u avoid it but u'll stay in ur 'loved' zone 60% more longer (or until next week patch hit, 341% longer in some zones even)

The most important point, they didn't make lvling any better, they just made it take longer, mobs are nowhere near the old actual danger lvl of old times, u are nowhere at threat of dying, there is no elite mobs around dungeons, no elite gong quest mobs, u don't need to team up with anyone (except maybe that yeti quest in Hillsbrad?), u don't need to 'max' ur class and learn how to use every ability possible, there is still no risk of downtime, no need to buy water, they didn't buff mobs dmg or increased their skills, they only flat out increased hp by ridiculous numbers and say they 'improved' it, it isn't like before, every single class can heal in combat now one way or another for example

[RemasteredClassic]

Zone story? What story? how many bores need to be killed and how many broken teeth have to be collected? Please, for variety's sake, allow us to choose between different zones so can level different alts in different zones. Repetition leads to boredom, boredom leads to people quitting. And no, a boost isn't going to make you wanna quit less. A boost is cheating, and cheating doesn't feel good, we play to have fun after all, but we don't wanna be tortured and bored to death with this new scaling system even more than before.