Blizzard missed the opportunity in 7.3.5

[Maggibesti]

yes but why? Because leveling is fast and easy and heirlooms exist.. if they make mobs actually do damage instead of just increase their hp and remove heirlooms, then trust me, loot will be significant again... crafted gear will be significant, bow epics will be significant...

I recently tried one of the classic private servers and I couldnt believe myself that I was actually felt excited for green loot... getting the level 20 paladin weapon was a great moment as well... I didnt think that I could get the feeling again, but it happened! Its all about game design...

Exactly, the problem is it doesn't doesn't exist in current WoW, they took out the feeling of getting more powerful, feeling stronger, even at max level. All you get now is +5ilvl and you barely feel a difference, sure in the long run you'll be way more powerful, but that's after weeks of farming those +5ilvls and correct stats. Every upgrade from dungeons/raids in vanilla I felt more powerful. If I get a +30 ilvl upgrade on retail, I don't feel that power. I just wish they had gone an alternative route with WoW, maybe they could've kept the MMO feeling, but they just keep adding QoL changes, to the point where nothing feels relevant, both leveling and max level content feels stale, for me it's just missing the MMO aspect of it.

[Marrilaife]

Exactly, the problem is it doesn't doesn't exist in current WoW, they took out the feeling of getting more powerful, feeling stronger, even at max level.

Sure there's nearly no difference between freshly dinged max level in greens doing 200k dps and a fully decked char doing 2mill+. No noticeable upgrades...

[Maggibesti]

Sure there's nearly no difference between freshly dinged max level in greens doing 200k dps and a fully decked char doing 2mill+. No noticeable upgrades...

I'm not talking about freshly dinged character to 930ilvl difference, I'm talking about the progression aspect. It's lacking, it's just about those +5ilvl upgrades.

[Kazuchika]

They don't let us fly in current content and haven't since the Molten Front in Cata. So I think the reaction would be that suckers would take part in giant two-major-patch-spanning meta-achievements to be able to use Heirlooms at the very end of the expansion... and still not in current content.

I love when people talk about this flying shit like it wasn't stuff you were already doing over the course of playing the expansion. It's not our fault you want to play for 2 weeks and then quit for 4 months. Keep up or get out of the way.

[Dormie]

I agree heirlooms never should have been added and probably should be removed. People would QQ up a storm though.

[papajohn4]

Exactly, the problem is it doesn't doesn't exist in current WoW, they took out the feeling of getting more powerful, feeling stronger, even at max level. All you get now is +5ilvl and you barely feel a difference, sure in the long run you'll be way more powerful, but that's after weeks of farming those +5ilvls and correct stats. Every upgrade from dungeons/raids in vanilla I felt more powerful. If I get a +30 ilvl upgrade on retail, I don't feel that power. I just wish they had gone an alternative route with WoW, maybe they could've kept the MMO feeling, but they just keep adding QoL changes, to the point where nothing feels relevant, both leveling and max level content feels stale, for me it's just missing the MMO aspect of it.

totally agree...

[Projectmars]

If you need 20 minutes to replace a blue with a green then they need to make leveling even slower.. but i doubt thats the case.. you are overexaggerate...

It saddens me to see so many people dont care about the thrill of upgrade even in leveling.. it seems like they see the leveling part as a whore that must be end fast and comfortable.. thats what happens when you play RPG game while you should play call of duty ... thats why wow continue to bleed... because everything must be a "let me finish this whore already"...

I remember when getting a blue weapon on leveling was a great moment and game changing... sorry if you see leveling like a torture that must end with the least investment..

The whole genre is in decline because the instant gratification side of gamers is winning.. luckily, classic will not be too late to release... i had hopes for main game to become better...

and ya kiss yer mother with that mouth? And it ain't much of an exaggeration, LFD can level you up pretty quick if you spam it.

And instant gratification may be an issue, but you're discounting the fact that people like different things. Some people enjoy leveling, some people enjoy PvP, and some people enjoy raiding. For two out of those three, the activity they prefer is at max level, so of course they would want leveling to go quicker as it's not what they want to do in the game.

EDIT:

Exactly, the problem is it doesn't doesn't exist in current WoW, they took out the feeling of getting more powerful, feeling stronger, even at max level. All you get now is +5ilvl and you barely feel a difference, sure in the long run you'll be way more powerful, but that's after weeks of farming those +5ilvls and correct stats. Every upgrade from dungeons/raids in vanilla I felt more powerful. If I get a +30 ilvl upgrade on retail, I don't feel that power. I just wish they had gone an alternative route with WoW, maybe they could've kept the MMO feeling, but they just keep adding QoL changes, to the point where nothing feels relevant, both leveling and max level content feels stale, for me it's just missing the MMO aspect of it.

Two stat squishes will do that. Now a days there isn't as much difference between drops in a lot of places in the earlier parts of the game because of it.

[lummiuster]

With the changes to leveling speed it was a good opportunity to remove heirlooms... not because of the xp buff... but because it make people not looking for gear upgrade.. thats what make leveling boring..

With the removal of heirlooms the low level economy would be alive again! All world drops, blue, epic gear... crafted items, dungeon drops...

Now you are only after xp and nothing else... no small goals.. nothing to look forward in your play session.. mob loot does not matter...

I hope they will make more changes to the future!

They should only remove heirlooms if they bring back the max level to 60 or 70. It was nice and fun to look for low level gear. But to do that for 110 levels forget it.

[RobertMugabe]

IMHO they should remove heirlooms, but let us Keep the xp bonus in some way (maybe via a toy, that you can upgrade with Gold or whatever... let's say base is 10% and then you Can upgrade it to 50 or 55%). It'd be cool if gear somewhat mattered again.

[Enkrypt]

I mean... you don't have to use heirlooms if you don't want to.

Why do you care if they're removed if you don't like them? Let me guess, "I don't like them, therefore no one should be able to have them"? Am I close?

[Dormie]

They should just ditch heirlooms and make a craftable potion that costs 3k a pop or so that doubles XP for an hour or something.

[A dot Ham]

If you need 20 minutes to replace a blue with a green then they need to make leveling even slower.. but i doubt thats the case.. you are overexaggerate...

It saddens me to see so many people dont care about the thrill of upgrade even in leveling.. it seems like they see the leveling part as a whore that must be end fast and comfortable.. thats what happens when you play RPG game while you should play call of duty ... thats why wow continue to bleed... because everything must be a "let me finish this whore already"...

I remember when getting a blue weapon on leveling was a great moment and game changing... sorry if you see leveling like a torture that must end with the least investment..

The whole genre is in decline because the instant gratification side of gamers is winning.. luckily, classic will not be too late to release... i had hopes for main game to become better...

Ah here it is... we come to the real heart of the matter.

"WoW is bleeding!"

Just curious do you have any information... any at all to back that up? Let me guess, an outdated and irrelevant data point in subs, and your perception of the tone on the forums?

You at least are not delusional enough to believe this is isolated to WoW and recognize that this is simply the progression of the game and what it and others have needed to remain somewhat relevant and appeal to the communities that play them.

Here's a newsflash for you... even CoD has a progression system. Some of the better weapons, perks, even a full loadout isn't available until you have maxed out, which takes about 48 hours. Comparable to what it has taken people to level in all of the subsequent xpacs since vanilla.

I don't understand the blindspot people have when it comes to the past. I had dabled in MMOs prior to WoW, everquest, city of heroes. When WoW hit back in 2004. I remember even THEN it was a race to hit 60. I remember my buddy who had played mmos quite extensively at that point, hounding me... "Have you hit 60 yet?" Or how he would berate me for buying a new shoulder/head gear (because itemization sucked in the early days) and how it would all be replaced at 60.

That was MY experience.

I leveled a warlock, mage, paladin, shaman, and rogue by the time TBC came out. I remember (and can still find if you're going to be dishonest about it) leveling guides that were all about maximizing xp/hr. Very few people took their time, enjoyed leveling, and allowed themselves to be thrilled by some mediocre upgrade while leveling.

Playing during the "glory days" I was always on a low pop server (because my computer was usually sub par, and my connection even worse). I rarely ran into another player. Most group quests got dropped. So for me getting to my friends and guildies that were on the verge of raiding as quickly as possible so I could actually experience the MULTIPLAYER portion of MMO was crucial.

Having a small percentage of players doing end game content, doesn't make the game feel alive for them. Having the rest of the players spread out at various stages of the rest of the content, doesn't make the game feel alive either. Having EVERYONE at level cap, doing much of the same thing, at different skill levels... DOES however make the game feel alive.

[krille20]

They're never gonna remove heirlooms. People complain that you actually have to use your abilities while leveling, how do you think they're going to react when you gain lesser exp from mobs, quests and dungeons?

[Critical92]

with 110 levels, you can not expect people to still like leveling after so many expacs.

In the past you played your first char and everything was new or everyone was new and started from the bottom.
Now people are max level and want to play a new char with their friends or guilds in dungeons and/or raids.
Thats why leveling is seen as annoying.

I respect different opinions, but forceing one way onto everyone is wrong.
Blizz should make more optional ways.

Use heirlooms for fast leveling, don't use them for longer leveling, activate a legacy xyz debuff that makes leveling a real challenge.
I would even say, when you want a challange, go get rezzsickness. Your stats are lowered and every mob is a real threat.

You can make the game hard if you like, but i see so many hypocrites with their statements "too easy" "too fast" but they still use all tools to make the level process faster. Just stop doing that and stop trying to ruin the game for 90% of the playerbase.

Yes vocal groups in this forum are the minority.

Edit: Blizz should make a toy that adds the rezzsickness debuff for 10/20/30 min. Problem solved.
Edit2: Call it "Darker Souls" or something like that, if you know what i mean.

[Deleted]

Than don't use them...

I'll repeat: It's also not fun to gimp your character compared to the vast majority of others in order to play without bullshit heirlooms.

What is transmog... They're not damaging to game play.

They damage gameplay AND the atmosphere of the game. It really anti-immersive when most of the players in the 1-99 range are bound to wear one of the heirloom sets, makinig everyone look virtually the same. This is not a MOBA, character identity and looks are important.

They're optional and really only available to people who are already max level.

Lmao, I love this one. They're hardly optional. The game has been out for so long, the gold creep is real and they're very affordable to everyone. They're not a luxury, everyone with a level 110 character have heirlooms. Even if you're leveling for the first time you can easily get a set before reaching 110 if you play around with gathering professions. You have to wear heirlooms unless you want to be absolutely destroyed in world PvP and utterly useless during the first 50 or so levels.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Just don't use your looms, catastrophe averted.

[Critical92]

I'll repeat: It's also not fun to gimp your character compared to the vast majority of others in order to play without bullshit heirlooms.



They damage gameplay AND the atmosphere of the game. It really anti-immersive when most of the players in the 1-99 range are bound to wear one of the heirloom sets, makinig everyone look virtually the same. This is not a MOBA, character identity and looks are important.



Lmao, I love this one. They're hardly optional. The game has been out for so long, the gold creep is real and they're very affordable to everyone. They're not a luxury, everyone with a level 110 character have heirlooms. Even if you're leveling for the first time you can easily get a set before reaching 110 if you play around with gathering professions. You have to wear heirlooms unless you want to be absolutely destroyed in world PvP and utterly useless during the first 50 or so levels.

Wait a minute...just wait...now i am confused.
Why are you people talking about "make leveling hard again" "make it longer" "i don't want to rush to max lvl as fast as possible"
but at the same time you don't want to skip heirlooms.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Heirlooms are optional. No one forces you to use them. You can decide if you want to be weak or be fast, but don't come to the people who want to be as fast as possible at max lvl and tell them they level too fast.

This topic about leveling too fast/hard/long is just bullshit.
Before the patch it was lightspeed fast, now it is barely fast enough but people can't have it slower enough.
You want it longer? Make it yourself.

[Deleted]

You can decide if you want to be weak or be fast

This shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. Please, tell me that you can see the obvious design flaw? Choosing between being a weak ass pleb that levels slow or a demigod with sick experience bonuses? Where's the trade-off here? If anything, heirlooms should be fairly mediocre items with bonus experience slapped on them and actual gear you obtain in the way of gameplay should be strong. I said that multiple times and I'll say it again: the lazy option should never be the most efficient one. But ideally heirlooms as wearable gear shouldn't exist at all as are lousy design. There are many ways to implement experience bonuses for seasoned players and removing the gearing aspect from leveling is probably the worst of them. People who defend heirlooms often complain about leveling being boring but heirlooms are one of the biggest contributions to that state of matter. It's not fun when you're stuck with the same items for the entire leveling process and there's no progression whatsoever. Some of us want leveling to feel meaningful but at the same time we're not desperate enough to gimmick ourselves to the point of being shat on by all the heirloom wearing mongs who spam a button with one hand and gorge on doritos with the other one. I don't know why we can't have the best of two worlds: experience bonuses in the form of paid buffs/tabards/shirts/whatever AND gear-centric gameplay that has always been at the core of WoW.

[Projectmars]

This shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. Please, tell me that you can see the obvious design flaw? Choosing between being a weak ass pleb that levels slow or a demigod with sick experience bonuses? Where's the trade-off here? If anything, heirlooms should be fairly mediocre items with bonus experience slapped on them and actual gear you obtain in the way of gameplay should be strong. I said that multiple times and I'll say it again: the lazy option should never be the most efficient one. But ideally heirlooms as wearable gear shouldn't exist at all as are lousy design. There are many ways to implement experience bonuses for seasoned players and removing the gearing aspect from leveling is probably the worst of them. People who defend heirlooms often complain about leveling being boring but heirlooms are one of the biggest contributions to that state of matter. It's not fun when you're stuck with the same items for the entire leveling process and there's no progression whatsoever. Some of us want leveling to feel meaningful but at the same time we're not desperate enough to gimmick ourselves to the point of being shat on by all the heirloom wearing mongs who spam a button with one hand and gorge on doritos with the other one. I don't know why we can't have the best of two worlds: experience bonuses in the form of paid buffs/tabards/shirts/whatever AND gear-centric gameplay that has always been at the core of WoW.

The Gear-centric gameplay really just kicks in at max-level. Before that gearing is mostly pointless as it will generally get swapped out in about 3 - 5 levels anyways unless you get a lucky BoE world Blue or Purple drop. And even those won’t likely last you until max level.

And come off it, is gear the ONLY bloody way you expect to feel a sense of progressing? You wanna know what two moments I most felt a sense of accomplishment and like I had progressed? First time was in Searing Gorge. I was in the southern part of the zone when it hit me that I was in the part visible from the flight path between SW and IF. I remembered the numerous times I had flown over, seeing the skull-level (and eventually red/orange) mobs underneath. It felt pretty good to think about how far I had came on my first actual character. The second time was when I had hit 70, which was my first time hitting level cap (I had started playing in the december before TBC.) it had taken months to get there between not knowing as much about the game (and mmos in general) and spending a bit more time on the forums than i should have. (My leveling speed seemed to have become a running gag) and it felt really good to actually be at a point where I could start doing max level content and really contribute to my guild.

Neither of those experiences involved gear. Outside of the one BoE purple I saw drop on that character (and as far as i recall period) was a bow that i was convinced to let the group auction it with the proceeds to be split between everyone (i was a hunter so I did smash the need button, but the fact that it could and did help me get my mount was a good enough argument to not keep it.)
So tl;dr: I do not buy the fact that gear != the only sense of progression at all when leveling in this game. Not when there’s other accomplishments and highlights that can envoke that feeling even more strongly.

[WowIsDead64]

One thing about heirloom, you should consider - they're account wide. Gold and BOEs aren't. I.e. if Blizzard would want to remove heirlooms, they'd need to also implement account wide bank storage, so I will be able to send gold and BOEs to my alts, so they'll have exactly the same top gear, they have with heirlooms. Or...we can just leave heirlooms, where they are, cuz it's much more simple solution.