Level squish; Would you be OK with it?

[rda]

No. Stupid change for no reason which breaks the sense of continuity. Change for the sake of change. Yeah, let's try to introduce a couple of bugs, we have so few of them (sarcasm). Let's also spend time trying to avoid those bugs and / or fixing a couple that still went through. Instead of doing something that actually provides gameplay.

This is pure idiocy.

[Teri]

There's no point, it's still a path from level 1 to max level, no matter if it's 10 levels , or 10000 levels.

Too few levels will mess up the pacing of abilties/talents gained.

"hey you get this skill at 65% into level 3, and this other skill at 43% into level 5" (on an example if like there's 10 levels)

Levels also spread out player power, and even with the scaling now, there's still minimum levels to enter zones which is good.

"but enemies scale with you" yes they do, but you can't go to a level 40 zone at level 1-30 and succeed.

[Claymore]

I'm not only "okay" with it, but I actually think it's something WoW *needs* to do. The idea of going beyond level 100 is just kind of ridiculous, and makes WoW seem less planned-out.

Personally, I'm also of the mind that Blizzard needs to stop raising the LEVEL cap, and instead just allow players to reach greater heights of power via item-level, or perhaps even a "Paragon-system" like Diablo III has. I don't think players actually enjoy playing content over and over again. I would say, add some prerequisites to introduce you to each new zone, to "unlock" whatever Dungeons or Raids are there, and then leave it for PLAYERS to determine what they want to do.

By all means, leave Quests there for those looking to grind Reputations out, and maybe introduce more compelling Chests to randomly come across, with more compelling BoP loot (as opposed to the static rewards found across Draenor).

Getting to level 100 should be the ultimate trial. Going above that just makes the game sound dumb.

[Aeula]

Yes, it’d help them make the spread of rewards a bit better and less sparse than they are now and as a result help leveling feel more progressive.

Maybe they’d also change scaling so it all scales properly, without the silly brackets. Whatever it takes to not have to do Northrend, Outland and the Broken isles again.

If they finally revamped the old world again then even better, with that leveling should be fixed for a good few years.

Outdated quests in addition to a lack of Progression, Choice and Rewards whilst levelling are what make the current system so poor. A level squish would help with the progression part if it was in addition to a systematic rework where every level gives you something beyond a +1 to the number on your portrait.

[Mendzia]

Who cares if it is 100m, 100k or 100 dps? Still same thing.
Legion has got much important flaws than this.

[Drungan]

Who cares if it is 100m, 100k or 100 dps? Still same thing.
Legion has got much important flaws than this.

indeed ... and when it comes to levels ...the only thing it is used for is so we feel we are getting progress when we have hit x mobs i do not care what the number says ... but my brain want a reward every x min i play and same goes for you all, less rewards less *fun* Blizz knows that and every game maker ... they only gave us 10 levels per expansion so they have to put other rewards in .... see garrisons / class halls and legend weapons.

[Deleted]

We're getting the second stat squish with BfA, along with an Item Level squish.
The question is simple, would you be OK with it if they squished Player levels, for example back to 70 or 80?
And just to clarify in case more hostiles enter: I'm neither for nor against a character level squish. It's just a number. I'd be OK with it either way.

No, I wouldnt cause that would mean all the levels I leveled are useless. then they can get rid 100% of levels.

- - - Updated - - -

Who cares if it is 100m, 100k or 100 dps? Still same thing.
Legion has got much important flaws than this.

The same people who like rp and want that part of wow NOT to die

[McFuu]

I think they should get rid of levels and base everything on zone gear so everything becomes relevant. Basically play in vanilla wow areas and gain gear that pushes your power in those zones higher. That's not to say the better gear won't make you better in other expansions content, but to be stronger in other areas you'll have to play them for the proper gear. This would make sense lore wise too, because you'd still require a raid to take down Arthas, so people can stop thinking we are stronger than the Lich King.

[MrLachyG]

We're getting the second stat squish with BfA, along with an Item Level squish.
The question is simple, would you be OK with it if they squished Player levels, for example back to 70 or 80?

And just to clarify in case more hostiles enter: I'm neither for nor against a character level squish. It's just a number. I'd be OK with it either way.

item lvl and stat squishes are needed; player level ones are not. at least not right now. maybe in 8 expansions when the level goes above 200 they might squish it down to 100 but I don't see the need even then really

[Traveler Voltin]

seriously. what the hell is with people wanting a damn level squish?

[Jujudrood]

Yes.
Scale Classic to 1-40.
Scale BC/Wrath to 40(38)-50.
Scale Cata/MoP to 50(48)-60.
Scale WoD/Legion to 60(58)-70.
BfA to 70(68)-80.
Next xpac would then be 80(78)-90.

Scaling tech works, items can go up and down with relative consistency and ease.
Squish the level range for each item and done.

the biggest problem is the sheer number of levels.
120 come BfA.
That's a big number that holds very little value in the grand scheme of things.
Gaining 100 arbitrary levels (soon to be 110) looks like a huge task, whether you are new to the game or if you've leveled 1786794 different toons.
Squishing levels would have to come with it an XP-required increase to offset a little bit, so since in the model above BC/Wrath go from 20 (live) to 10 (proposed), xp per level would need increased by roughly 40% so the levels themselves don't just breeze by, but it's still a hair faster.

Numbers are numbers.
they are largely irrelevant in raw form.
It's the % that matter.
They've squished before, but as long as X ability still takes Y% of boss health, the actual number can be 5000000 or 500 and it's no different.
Smaller numbers, though, are easier to consume and understand, in general, and even if it's an illusion, less raw number of levels (at the cost of increased XP required per) would be an improvement.

[Trickname]

Serious question. To what end?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Serious question. To what end?

Don't think anyone here would be able to speak on behalf of Blizzard in regards to this topic, really.

[Pua]

Not hugely for or against. Just a number.

Previously, this wasn't true.

It was an objective problem because too many levels meant too many pointless levels; by "pointless", I mean a level where nothing happened.

No talent.

No skill.

No unlock.

The game was simply bloated badly by levels that technically did nothing for your character, other than increasing their numerical standard by a completely trivial amount. This problem ended up being more pronounced in things like professions, where 800 levels worth simply means a huge grind with an awful lot of waste.

Another significant problem was how quickly players out-levelled zones and had to either do green/grey quests, or move on halfway through a story. This is a problem because it breaks immersion, and effectively makes zones irrelevant as self-contained (yet sometimes continuous stories). Related to this, the power jumps between expansion points made for a wholly uneven experience on the way up. What this meant was that level x8 was hugely lucrative in next-expansion content, and horribly inefficient in current-expansion content.

So, until recently, it was a clear case for: Yes. A level squish was an objectively good idea. It wasn't just a number, it was something that was having an adverse effect on the game.

7.3.whatever, of course, made some relevant changes to levelling flow by nerfing heirlooms, slowing levelling down a little, and scaling zones so that you can't out-level them and feel like you need to move on. These are good changes, made especially good by dynamically updating characters that are of dissimilar level obtaining similar experience as a percentage. Friends with toons at different levels can suddenly play together and, speaking as a beneficiary of the system, it's amazing. The expansion roll-ups was also a good idea, meaning that you didn't have to rampage through old content as fast as you could, in expansions that, quite bizarrely, were behind the current old-world timeline.

But the changes do nothing about the sheer volume of dead levels, the needless profession grind, running out-of-timeline content, and gear-to-expansion break points.

For that reason alone, there's an objective value in a level squish; but it would need to be accompanied by other changes, such as level retuning in the old world and a rework of how expansion content works. There's also the small matter of the effort it would take, but the re-scaling that was done recently didn't even need a major patch... Suggesting that an expansion-level development cycle could easily fit it in.

Sadly, none of this will persuade those who are against it "Just because". Similar to the item squish, those self-same people are likely to caterwaul that they've been playing for years and don't want to suddenly feel weaker. The snag, of course, is that those very same people will also argue that 110 or 120 is "just a number".

And we're back to the quote.

[Deleted]

I like the idea tbh.

Make everything - EVERYTHING pre the newest scale from 1-55(or 50) and make the last 5-10 levels be the new expansion.

I'd still like a complete reset as in a wow 2 at some point tho. But thats just me.

- - - Updated - - -

Who cares if it is 100m, 100k or 100 dps? Still same thing.
Legion has got much important flaws than this.

Plenty of people care. Like a lot actually. Its not the first time this discussion has been had. Have you been living under a rock or something?

[Lochton]

I don't really feel the need to do so, as well, I think during leveling you should be expected to touch upon the content of the previous as well, zones and dungeons.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Previously, this wasn't true.

It was an objective problem because too many levels meant too many pointless levels; by "pointless", I mean a level where nothing happened.

No talent.

No skill.

No unlock.

The game was simply bloated badly by levels that technically did nothing for your character, other than increasing their numerical standard by a completely trivial amount. This problem ended up being more pronounced in things like professions, where 800 levels worth simply means a huge grind with an awful lot of waste.

Another significant problem was how quickly players out-levelled zones and had to either do green/grey quests, or move on halfway through a story. This is a problem because it breaks immersion, and effectively makes zones irrelevant as self-contained (yet sometimes continuous stories). Related to this, the power jumps between expansion points made for a wholly uneven experience on the way up. What this meant was that level x8 was hugely lucrative in next-expansion content, and horribly inefficient in current-expansion content.

So, until recently, it was a clear case for: Yes. A level squish was an objectively good idea. It wasn't just a number, it was something that was having an adverse effect on the game.

7.3.whatever, of course, made some relevant changes to levelling flow by nerfing heirlooms, slowing levelling down a little, and scaling zones so that you can't out-level them and feel like you need to move on. These are good changes, made especially good by dynamically updating characters that are of dissimilar level obtaining similar experience as a percentage. Friends with toons at different levels can suddenly play together and, speaking as a beneficiary of the system, it's amazing. The expansion roll-ups was also a good idea, meaning that you didn't have to rampage through old content as fast as you could, in expansions that, quite bizarrely, were behind the current old-world timeline.

But the changes do nothing about the sheer volume of dead levels, the needless profession grind, running out-of-timeline content, and gear-to-expansion break points.

For that reason alone, there's an objective value in a level squish; but it would need to be accompanied by other changes, such as level retuning in the old world and a rework of how expansion content works. There's also the small matter of the effort it would take, but the re-scaling that was done recently didn't even need a major patch... Suggesting that an expansion-level development cycle could easily fit it in.

Sadly, none of this will persuade those who are against it "Just because". Similar to the item squish, those self-same people are likely to caterwaul that they've been playing for years and don't want to suddenly feel weaker. The snag, of course, is that those very same people will also argue that 110 or 120 is "just a number".

And we're back to the quote.

It's my opinion bro. So It's true because I can testify to being a real opinion. Gets yours away from me. It's just a number to me. So yes, true.

[Littleraven]

I voted no but actually thinking about it it really could just work now that they put scaling in the whole world.

That said though it would be no different than doing the stat squishes. It would just be changing the number next to what level you are instead of your stats. They will probably have to do something if they keep putting out expansions because eventually stat squishes aren't going to be as easy unless they just gave 1-60 like 10 item levels or something. You can only cut away at something for so long until there is nothing left.

[Saphyron]

I don't care either way.

But I would not mind having 60 be max level in BfA. Personally, I would prefer we had no levels. Since I hate levelling.

But sure Squish down everything. Make it so zone can be started at certain points. Ie Vanilla at lvl 1. Outland/Wrath at lvl 20. Cataclysm/Mist at lvl 30. Warlords/Legion at lvl 40. BfA at lvl 50.

[Pua]

It's my opinion bro. So It's true because I can testify to being a real opinion. Gets yours away from me. It's just a number to me. So yes, true.

You've just made my last argument for me.

Some people, no matter the objective evidence, will simply dismiss it away with an airy wave because it's their "opinion"; and their opinion won't be shifted by something so trivial as objective, observable evidence or logical argumentation.

Sadly, this is where millennial education has taken us.

You can say it's just a number because that's what you believe, 'bro', but I've shown why it isn't. Doubling down simply makes you part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.