Leveling in WoW is pretty meh - discussion

[Grevmak]

Extreme TL;DR: Leveling, with or without scaling, is old, at a lot of points boring and tedious (TBC/WOTLK mainly) and Blizz' fix of offering Boosts is mostly a bandaid. Let's discuss alternatives that aren't giving away/selling a way to get past this because it's a forum, discussions are a thing.

This is a writeup about leveling from the perspective of someone who's been playing WoW for a long time. This will cover WoW'S leveling with and without scaling tech, not just a "Legion ruined speedleveling" thread.

Leveling is entertaining at its best, and really, really dull for the most part, due to some zones being old as hell, class design for low level being pretty random, no payoff for killing the supposed big-bads of expansions and character developement ending at level 80 bar talents and currently the artifact weapon.

One option to improve upon this - besides levelboosts - would be a level squish or further World Scaling. Put Cata and MoP into the 60+ bracket, bring WoD and legion down a peg and you'd give players the ability to fully skip TBC and Wotlk which are the biggest offenders I'd wager.

Another option would be an alternative path of leveling that doesn't require going through old content would be greatly appreciated.

The tech of island expeditions with dynamically changing dungeonlayouts, bosses, or even bossabilites could be fun and not too hard to implement. Another idea would be something akin to the timeless isle but as a reward you don't gain timeless coins, of course you'd gain bonus EXP, with this whole thing starting at like level 10 or 15 (so you still do your starting zone). Add a bunch of invasion-like events and you'd have a fun thing to do occasionally.

Repeatable content that wouldn't require revamping the entire 60-100 experience some 10 years later, is what I'm getting at

I've put my thoughts into a VERY lengthy post, so I understand if you don't have the time to read through all of it and just wanted the gist of it, as such:

What are your thoughts on this? Have a nice day
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You stuck around? Sweet. So, let's go.

I LOVE levelling in RPGs, especially MMORPGs. It's fun to see numbers grow, learn interesting new spells, explore the world around you and generally feel a sense of progression.

Now as World of Warcraft approaches its 14th year, leveling is an absolute mess. A recent patch brought in the scaling tech for some of it, which helps, but also increased the length of the whole process which showed the playerbase exactly how big this problem actually is.

What are those problems, precisely?

1) The world.

...Of Warcraft

It's old. No beating around the bush, the questhub approach of TBC was great at the time and a godsend for people who barely reached Vanilla's cap of 60 via farming mobs and travelling all over the world but from a today-standpoint, there's not a lot to love here. Outland was, and still is, a pretty place with very few engaging quests or storylines (Magheridon is dead, now let's kill Illidan cause his minions are idiots and because he never told anyone why he did what he did, basically making the main baddie's reasons a misunderstanding. Also Kael'Thas is a bad guy because...Uh, fuck it let's explain it in a book 10 years down the line).

As such I'd argue that Outland just isn't all that fun after the revamped lowlevel zones. Northrend is a good bit better, with a few vehicle quests here and there but it wasn't until Cataclysm that the flow of questing was brought to a comfortable standard. Going back from this to the old design is jarring and weird, not just for new players, but for veterans as well, with many players opting for the fastest way to skip this part in particular and some even asking for a level 80 boost at a lower price.

2) Lore, Story and why do I never get to punch the bad guy!?

...Is kind of messy, too, thanks to the world advancing, but only somewhat. We're in Cataclysm, there's a huge dragon that's burning the world so that'll be the badguy! Okay, I'm 60, time to beat up Illidan...But not really because you never do low level raids, so no payoff for that or Level 80's badguy of the expansion Arthas either.

This is really dumb. The whole leveling and parts of the raiding process of Wrath were built around making Arthas appear as the ultimate villain that he is, and it succeeded at the time when you finally get to fight him mano é mano atop the ice cream citadel. Welp, guess what? Levelling's got better things to do, so back to the burning dragon world.

By which I mean some zones that were uncovered or affected by the dragon. Cool! You won't get to fight that guy either.

These 2 expansions, IMO, suffer incredibly highly from never having you fight the guys on the cover. I'd love for older raids to also get some sort of scenario, or for Blizz to speed up the timewalking process a bit and make it available 24/7 so that players while leveling can get some closure for once. Yes, a lot of people who will read this did get to these points at the relevant time, (and I realize no one wants to do dragon soul but this is more of a question of principle) but a lot of new players are just turned away from how bumpy the lore and storytelling in WoW can be.

(Also, remember how Garrosh in stone talon was all honorable-but-harsh when in reality he wasn't supposed to be but they left the whole story point in the game despite it being an error so now players are thinking Garrosh had a good site to him which wasn't Blizzard's intention at all? Good times. )

The lore in low level zones is, seemingly, all over the place and without outside help you'll have a hard time following it all.

3) Character progression

I'll keep this a tad short: Leveling up should feel fun and rewarding, and it does for a while.

You gain new spells, or new passives for spells and that's cool, but after level 80 this just...Kind of stops.

Easy fix: Remember WoD spellranks? Passives that just gave you small boosts to your abilities or gave you certain functionalities back like Lava burst critting when Flame shock is on the target. Do this for ALL of the leveling process from 1 to the current cap, and the process is way more gratifying.

Also, can we get some logic into the order of unlocking key tools, please? Druid tanks have to wait until like level 70 to unlock interrupting, which is frustrating in dungeons where you have to interrupt enemies. In general, give every class atleast some AoE in low level while you're at it. Leveling rogues via dungeons feels really sad when you have to wait until 62 until you're allowed to AoE. I'm a big fan of knives, so give us knifefans fan of knives earlier, please.

4) Age

Let's consider one thing: Old WoW doesn't look all that pleasant to gamers anymore. Yes, it has aged far better than a LOT of other competitor MMORPGs but in the end a lot of players will care atleast somewhat about graphics, especially in a somewhat pricey game like WoW. Being able to skip the first 3 expansion's zones in one way or another would already be a big boon to many players' first experience in the game. And if the game becomes even older - which I have no doubts about, as WoW is doing really well and legion was great - this will just get worse.

So how could WoW do better? Blizz has already tried a few things:

1) Sell/give away close-to-maxlevel boosts. That's what Blizz decided upon and I really dislike it, not just because I have to pay, you do get one for free with the recent expansions afterall, but because it makes you skip a very satisfying and fun experience in other games. You can save WoW from its leveling, but Blizz sadly decides against it as can be seen in a few interviews where devs state that whenever they try, they either need incredible amounts of ressources (Cataclysm) and get a ton of backlash for not providing endgame content, or they don't go far enough and just do small adjustments.

2) Broader scaling. We've already got all of Vanilla to scale which gives us a ton of options at some points, but it'd probably be a good idea to not force people through TBC/WOTLK content. This stuff, by nowadays standards, is ancient and a lot of its design is not very fun. Flying helps, but doesn't make Hellfirepeninsula all that more enjoyable from what I can gather.

Being able to pick and choose your leveling zone right now already doesn't make a whole lot of sense lorewise, so I don't think being allowed to go further with this - e.g 1-90 all being scaled - would be worse. TBC and Wotlk NPCs constantly call you the Slayer of Onyxia, Ragnaros etc. despite you probably not even knowing who those are as new players.

3) Another option would be an alternative path of leveling that doesn't require going through old content. This is the most resource intensive one.

ARPG like procedurally generated content akin to what island expeditions will be, scaling dungeons, a timeless isle-ish zone with tons of events popping up everywhere or something like that would result in a more appealing environment than the bumpy ride that is Cata->Tbc->Wotlk->Cata->MoP->WoD->Legion, both whose questing and dungeon-designs are very, very different from one another

Or something akin to the Palace of the Dead from FFXIV; an "endless dungeon". Basically: Offer some sort of repeatable instanced alternative to just spamming dungeons and questing.

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This problem will just grow worse over the years and I think Blizz would profit greatly from having a good first experience for new players. Starting as a Pandaren is just so incredibly jarring as you go from this beautiful, interesting intro into the Cata world just to go to outland.

Again, don't get me wrong, I for one love the nostalgic trips through Outland, the New-old world and Northrend but at times I wish for some alternative way to level. ARPG-like procedural dungeons, an overworld zone with events that pop up, something like that. It wouldn't require revamping the whole world, but some alternative or even just a more aggressive leveling squish would be great.

If you read all of this or even just the TL;DR, thanks a lot, it's a tad rambly but I tried to collect my thoughts and formulate them in a way that's atleast possible to follow. Have a nice day, and let's have a lil' discussion.

[Linkedblade]

I think that once you have a max level toon you should be able to just create a character at the current level of content. So right now in Legion you should just be able to create level 100 alts. Repeating the leveling for each class is asinine. Keep the heritage system as is I guess. Introduce heritage armor for all races. Cut off paid level boosts.

I'd also say leveling now is an ok pace. Increase xp from bgs and dungeons. Decrease xp to level by a bit. Fix the Draenor leveling and difficulty. Treasure hunting is bad. And then legion treasures get no xp.

[Deleted]

It's supposed to be meh so that you buy a level boost.

[clevin]

Interesting post, OP. There's another issue that I don't think Blizzard can complete alleviate - people creating too many alts.

Leveling isn't too bad the first time. The second, yeah, OK it's still not that bad. but each subsequent alt means you have fewer chances of doing something actually new and at some point you simply are doing the same thing. Over. for the 8th or 18th time. If someone insists on having 10, 20 alts... I don't see a solution to the issue, even yours which I generally like.

[Deleted]

They just have to make Dungeons "interesting"

And by interesting i mean "hard"

[taishar68]

Leveling alts via a series of world quests all over the game world, a la Diablo Adventure Mode, would be pretty amazing. Randomize the starting zones each day, and create scenarios where you can fight raid bosses solo if needed but with a group if desired.

I've long felt that you should be able to start alts at the previous expacs max level, but then, who would buy boosts? As long as people are buying them, they won't be giving them away for free.

[Sapphire35]

Leveling alts via a series of world quests all over the game world, a la Diablo Adventure Mode, would be pretty amazing. Randomize the starting zones each day, and create scenarios where you can fight raid bosses solo if needed but with a group if desired.

'tis a good idea. I'd also settle for a Rift system that somehow randomizes dungeon tiles and we can just slaughter through bosses/minion packs. OP isn't wrong about WoW's questing being pretty old and tedious at times. 100% agree WoltK and BC are the worst. I just wanna get to the point and have a fun way to play a class and slaughter stuff.

[TheRogue]

Like everyone said, it is to facilitate the purchase of boosts, I know I have done it a few times. If alts started at the previous expac level, no one would buy them.

I am currently STRUGGLING through leveling my allied races, the armor is barely worth the torture of leveling through some expansions.

[Phuongvi]

It's supposed to be meh so that you buy a level boost.

This.
/10characters

[Haywire5714]

leveling dungeons should be straight forward but hard enough so that all players are incentivized to actively play their character

That means trash packs should take a decent amount of time to kill (roughly 10 sec) and tanks/healers should have to be active in their roles.

With these criteria ... queue times would be reasonable, average players can succeed in content that is supposed to be accessible to every caliber of player and good players are rewarded. This is the best case scenario for leveling dungeons.

Making dungeons too hard makes queue times enormous by removing most of the playerbase from accessing the content in an easily consumable and stress free manner. Making them too easy reduces the enjoyment of the dungeons for practically the entire playerbase because you aren't incentivized to actively play your character, among other things (such as dungeons not feeling like dungeons, tank role and healer role being irrelevant, teamwork non-existent etc.)

[Dakara]

I enjoy leveling the first time each expansion. After that it becomes a chore, but the game direction lately rewards alts soooo....

The problem is, I don't find the gameplay overly enjoying while leveling, especially 1-90 or so. Travel times between zones, running back to quest givers for turn-ins, killing boars for their livers, it's just tedious.

The quests I do enjoy are telling a story that Auto-Complete/Accept without returning to hub.

-Edit-

As for the level boost, I've bought 5 (110 boost) in Legion. All paid for in Gold, so to those who sold me Tokens, cheers for the boosts.

[Deficineiron]

I think that once you have a max level toon you should be able to just create a character at the current level of content. So right now in Legion you should just be able to create level 100 alts. Repeating the leveling for each class is asinine. Keep the heritage system as is I guess. Introduce heritage armor for all races. Cut off paid level boosts.

I'd also say leveling now is an ok pace. Increase xp from bgs and dungeons. Decrease xp to level by a bit. Fix the Draenor leveling and difficulty. Treasure hunting is bad. And then legion treasures get no xp.

I would observe that you are supposed to PAY for boosts, not get them free. That is why they are there.

- - - Updated - - -

leveling dungeons should be straight forward but hard enough so that all players are incentivized to actively play their character

That means trash packs should take a decent amount of time to kill (roughly 10 sec) and tanks/healers should have to be active in their roles.

With these criteria ... queue times would be reasonable, average players can succeed in content that is supposed to be accessible to every caliber of player and good players are rewarded. This is the best case scenario for leveling dungeons.

Making dungeons too hard makes queue times enormous by removing most of the playerbase from accessing the content in an easily consumable and stress free manner. Making them too easy reduces the enjoyment of the dungeons for practically the entire playerbase because you aren't incentivized to actively play your character, among other things (such as dungeons not feeling like dungeons, tank role and healer role being irrelevant, teamwork non-existent etc.)

10 seconds for a PACK of elite instance trash? my memories of wow are hopefully getting the first mob down within 10 seconds, but maybe not.

your comments overall are interesting because they present a viewpoint in favor of faceroll dungeons that clearly has influenced design/tuning.

bold is the takeaway point that really got my attention - you are right. They don't want a dungeon pull to be a potentially stressful event - by stressful meaning if somewhat undergeared or screw-up the pull/cc/face-pull next group, possible wipe.

[bloomy]

the world should feel dangerous, it hasn't for a very long time, and the old systems like getting a talent point each level and spell ranks and needing to visit your trainer made it a much more engaging and rewarding system that kept people coming back for more and more leveling and character development.

currently, you just slowly move through a world filled with things that take longer to kill than just a few years ago but ultimately don't ever threaten to kill you and everything is spoon fed to you as you level, and with the pruning of abilities you end up leveling and just pressing the same 2-3 buttons over and over on what might as well be the same exact mob over and over and it's just this boring process that never seems to end.

and it was so nice of them to gut raf and remove xp potion drops too so we could enjoy the slower pace of leveling, while also adding a way to completely skip leveling by paying them... so nice of them to care about us like that. they made it sound like they were doing us a favor by slowing it all down, but if the slow story was that much fun shouldn't they pay us for a boost? after all, we are the ones losing out on those great stories.... cash grabs under false pretenses are my favorite thing.

[Soon-TM]

Why would Blizzard bother fixing levelling when they can sell those sweet, sweet boosts at half the price of a full AAA game each?

[Haywire5714]

I would observe that you are supposed to PAY for boosts, not get them free. That is why they are there.

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10 seconds for a PACK of elite instance trash? my memories of wow are hopefully getting the first mob down within 10 seconds, but maybe not.

your comments overall are interesting because they present a viewpoint in favor of faceroll dungeons that clearly has influenced design/tuning.

bold is the takeaway point that really got my attention - you are right. They don't want a dungeon pull to be a potentially stressful event - by stressful meaning if somewhat undergeared or screw-up the pull/cc/face-pull next group, possible wipe.

10 seconds is probably okay, basically because you want the dpsers to get out a full rotation at the very least. Any less than that results in a very unfulfilling experience where part of the group doesn't feel like they're adequately contributing to the success of the dungeon.

10 seconds of trash also prevents the tank from constantly running throughout the dungeon while the rest of the party chases after them. Ideally you would want an average tank to be able to pull 1 good sized pack and keep themselves alive with moderate effort, but a good tank could pull 2 or 3 packs at a time and keep themselves alive. This would offer a very rewarding and fun experience for every caliber of player in my opinion.

Having a tank run through the dungeon non stop without fear isn't fun for anyone, and having the dungeon so difficult that a single trash pack is scary for even experienced groups is clearly the wrong way to go about things.

There's one thing that people need to keep in constant mind here and that is LEVELING DUNGEONS are supposed to be accessible to the entire playerbase. If we were talking about mythic + on the other hand, my opinion would be the complete opposite of everything that I've said here.

[Kithelle]

To be honest, leveling in any mmo can be rather meh...especially if you level multiple characters.

[Enkrypt]

I don't level new toons very often. Perhaps that skews my perspective, I'll admit. That being said, leveling my Allied Race mage has been kinda refreshing. Going from rather hardcore progression raiding, to pushing 20+ Mythic keystones, a nice, relaxing level grind doesn't strike me as all that bad. It has its moments, but the recent scaling changes that allow you to skip over certain expansions really is kinda nice. Even doing dungeons that I haven't done in years can be kinda fun.

I do sympathize with those types of people who love leveling alts one after another. Maybe it's the old school MMORPG player in me that loves the hard work for the big payoff in the end, who knows. Heritage Armor was enough to motivate me to level a fresh toon, and I'm glad they still offer incentives of that fashion for players like me.

Edit: It is worth mentioning that leveling with a friend or friends can really make things a lot more fun than it would be playing solo.

I'd like to see them offer old raids as an efficient way of leveling, too. Only speaking for myself here, but if old raids offered the experience of, say, relevant dungeons of your level, I'd definitely participate.

[Deleted]

But only as option.

low level Heroic Dungeons

make it happen

[Kyphael]

Well if you've gone through it multiple times like I have, of course it'll be 'meh.' The first time I went through it, it was amazing. That was ten years ago. The leveling only changed once since, and that was eight years ago to me, and while the Cataclysm changed a lot, my first time through Cataclysm, while satisfying, wasn't as great. I like some of these suggestions of "low level heroics" and "optional hard mode dungeons" that give more XP for the extra level of skill and dedication. Kind of like "lowbie mythic." I also wish I could level with battlegrounds. I know some BG's give xp but it's not even comparable to questing and dungeons. Like, I want to be able to do a battleground and go up a whole level when it's done, maybe two if my side wins. That would be sweet!

And it wouldn't hurt Blizzard to update some questing zones every expansion or so.

[Otimus]

The only real way to fix it would be to have meaningful, fun, rewarding, and engaging content from level 1 to cap. I don't know how that is possible without changing core concepts of either how gear works or how levels work. I wish they would, but I don't think it'll happen when boosts can make them money. There's no incentive to ever change leveling now, other than to change it for the worst so they get even more people buying boosts. (Which they did!)


That's ignoring even bigger flaws like how the entire chronology of leveling is out of whack. Extremely so with some races. (Essentially having you go back and forth through time, essentially, story wise, with no story reason for it. Something that could just be fixed with a few lore NPCs)