Poll: how do you feel about level squish

[Deleted]

Ion asked for "psychological" feedback on level-squish, MMOC heard (and replies):
feel free to elaborate on ur vote, y do u feel positive, negative, what squished level cap etc.


RPGs central motive is ascendancy by challenge, not just to reign supreme, but to develop beyond any given limits. RPGs serve a from-zero-to-hero continuum, an epic succession of triumph over any trial into pantheon. XP and therefore the level is maybe the (one and only) measure (in lore) for any achieved progress on the individual path to endgame, its not just a mere number, but a symbol of a characters prowess.

i welcomed the ilvl-squishs, but a lvl-squish doesnt feel right. not exclusively in terms of loss (players dont like to lose anything), but more in (the common) sense of epicness. those actual 120 levels represent 14years of progress (sufferend, achieved and lived) tru the good, the bad and the ugly. iam not lore(-authenticity)-fascist enough to find my "immersion" disrupted when a pack of KulTiran boars pose a threat to a Titanslayer, but losing some levels feels like an integral part of my hero identity being pruned for bureaucratical reasons. 120 isnt an inflated number like an 1million autohit or a bear with 12millionen hp. there is a wide spectrum of better alternatives to fix the leveling issue the level squish is related to, the levelcap (of 120) isnt the problem, but leveling is.

do not touch my levels, bzzd

[Th3Scourge]

Level squish will happen. Ion even pointed out levels 100-120 felt like two big levels due to lack of progression. Levelling sucks balls right now

[daretobecupid]

Done right, I could support it; don't know what 'done right' would entail, but I'm not a programmer.

[Izalla]

I'm not against it, but they have to sort out exactly what to do as a real solution, not a bandaid one. So far the squishes we've had have been so meaningless in the end because we jump leagues again in a single expansion that it's clearly not a great solution to the problem. If they do a level squish, I want them to have a long term plan so they don't have to do another a few expacs later. The only thing more jarring than resetting back to a lower level/power level, is doing that over and over.

[Mirrass]

Mixed feelings

I would rather they make it so each level matters again. I am not a huge fan of at least every few levels unlocking some new move or talent or power.

BUT if its going to stay as it is in live yea squish away better than the dead zone we have now where half the levels don't matter.

[melodramocracy]

I'm fine with it, necessary evil at this stage.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Levels are utterly hollow numbers right now as they contribute nothing to your characters power progression other than meeting artificial break points where you happen to unlock new content. The numbers don't need to be that big for that to be the case. While I'm a proponent of levels meaning something and I dislike needlessly inflated numbers, I also think that we wouldn't get much from changing them other than pleasing my aesthtetic desires. The single cell organisms in the fan base would probably also revolt at the idea of losing their big numbers, not to mention the issues that will arise because Blizzard will fuck up something again like they do with all the other squishes. That makes me believe that it isn't worth it, after all Blizzard seems to have forsaken the idea of being attractive to new players anyway.

[Wyrt]

I don't care, it's just a number.

It's not like we actually get stronger with leveling anymore anyway.

[SilverCoin]

I´d welcome it. As Ion stated the leveling process in terms of numbers felt just irrelevant the last two expansions.
Also I don´t like these huge numbers which also "could" alienate newer players even if they have a levelboost ready.

Reduce the levels but make them more relevant again. We hadn´t new talents since WoD, while in Legion it was fine due to the artifact weapons in Bfa it lacks something because the azerite traits feel more like a T-Set bonus than talents or whatsoever.

I would love to see the old talent trees return in a more worked out state

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

If they balance it correctly, sure.

But I can already feel in my gut that they would completely poop the bed trying to do a level squish and suddenly we're going from Vanilla to Cata to 9.0. And there's no new levels in the new expansion.

[Tinytalon]

Mixed feelings. If they do it right, idm at all. If they fuck it up, I'm not going to be very pleased. I'll likely still continue playing eitherway, just hoping they'll do it right.

[exochaft]

Depends on what angles you come from.

In terms of time to go from lvl 1 to max level, a squish could impact this or not at all. For example, if you made lvl 60 the cap again but the amount/gain of xp was scaled with said squish, you haven't changed how long it takes to level a character. If your concern is how long it takes to level a character, the xp gains requirements being reduced would help, however you don't need to squish player level to accomplish this. All that being said, we're getting into some pretty long leveling times going from lvl 1 to 120 for your average player.

If we're talking about power scaling and how it feels gaining levels, that's likely the more interesting topic. As Th3Scourge said, going from lvl 100-120 only feels like you gained two levels, but even with prior expansions this sentiment remains true. This is partly due to a long chain of decisions over the game and how the talent and ability system works, as well as stats scaling for each expansion. The leveling experience isn't smooth, however that's not unexpected due to how expansions and power creep in said expansions are designed. It's akin to leveling from 110 to 120, and suddenly your legendary items stop working at 116 and you suddenly feel terrible... but there are many jumps like that during the entire leveling process starting from lvl 1, some in the positive, some in the negative.

I'd imagine that a level squish would work similar to how current leveling tech works: all previously lvl 1 to 60 zones would be squished into one level bracket, then the next level bracket would squish all of TBC and WotLK together, the next bracket would squish Cata/MoP together, and the expansions after that we'll see since they haven't been level-equated to each other in the leveling experience yet. That's the easy part, though. The hard part is what you do with talents and abilities to ensure that leveling up feels like you actually got a little more powerful. That's the biggest problem with leveling right now: most of the time you don't feel any sense of achievement or power gain (many times you feel weaker when you level, which is pretty weird).

[Maarius]

I'm more for turning it into a system like the new profession system:


Classic: 1-60. Each expansion after that has it's own level ranges.
BC: 1-10 BC levels.
Wrath: 1-10 Wrath levels.
Cata: 1-10 Cata levels.
...

Each expansion has it's own levels which unlock specific talents which can't be unlocked in other content. Like: Wrath level 9 unlocks Talent XY.

Content in each expansion unlocks stuff, like:


The Lich King drops a part of a collection item which when completed grants your mount a frozen aura, so all open world mobs around you are slowed when riding. Other parts of the collection can be found all around Northrend.

Stuff you don't need, but nice to have. This would make old content relevant again. Getting loremaster and completing old raids/dungeons of a specific expansion once unlocks legacy mode in old raids/dungeons, so you can farm your transmogs.

[Spl4sh3r]

As long as you know X is the max level and you are X, then it doesn't matter what happens.

[Onikaroshi]

Fully against it. It's the last form of permanent progression we have, they remove everything else, skills, stats, full on expansion systems, leave our damn levels alone. On top of that, they break the game doing stat squishes, they'll never get a level squish right.

[Kyphael]

I don't care, it's just a number.

It's not like we actually get stronger with leveling anymore anyway.

Problem is, 1-110 or even 20-110 isn't just a number, it's one hell of a time sink.

A level squish sure would make getting those heritage armors easier.

[Onikaroshi]

Problem is, 1-110 or even 20-110 isn't just a number, it's one hell of a time sink.

A level squish sure would make getting those heritage armors easier.

Except it wouldn't, level squish =/= time to level squish. If they say, went 1-60 you can be damn sure it would take just as long as 1-120 now.

[Temna]

Also from a new play perspective telling them to get to 120 can come across as daunting. Heck right now 14 only goes to level 70 and i wouldnt be surprised if they did 75 for the next expac.

On the whole though it'd come down to the execution (devil in the details) but i think a level squish might be warrented

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I'm more for turning it into a system like the new profession system:


Classic: 1-60. Each expansion after that has it's own level ranges.
BC: 1-10 BC levels.
Wrath: 1-10 Wrath levels.
Cata: 1-10 Cata levels.
...

Each expansion has it's own levels which unlock specific talents which can't be unlocked in other content. Like: Wrath level 9 unlocks Talent XY.

Content in each expansion unlocks stuff, like:


The Lich King drops a part of a collection item which when completed grants your mount a frozen aura, so all open world mobs around you are slowed when riding. Other parts of the collection can be found all around Northrend.

Stuff you don't need, but nice to have. This would make old content relevant again. Getting loremaster and completing old raids/dungeons of a specific expansion once unlocks legacy mode in old raids/dungeons, so you can farm your transmogs.

So.... what changes? If leveling an expansion unlocks talents, then it's still mandatory and you still have to do 130 levels.

The idea of a level squish is a bit oxymoronic. I feel like what people want is leveling to be faster which usually translates into "more things should be skippable."

The ideal solution to faster leveling, imo, is get us out of classic faster. And maybe make it so some expansions BC and Wrath are skippable entirely. Like maybe Classic runs 1-60, BC/Wrath run 40-60, Cata/MoP run 60-70, WoD runs 70-80, Legion 80-90, BFA 90-100, 9.0 100-110.

Though I wonder if people would look at that and say "not squished enough" since in the end it only cuts off about 20 levels.

[God Save The King]

I don't think the actual squish would matter to most people. I think the potential fallout is what is important. If they squish 1-120 down to 1-60, what happens to my level 46 alt with 6 bars of experience in? Does the time to get to 60 now take half the time or the same time? How do we assign talents, abilities, zones, dungeons, etc? Do we still gets mounts at 20/40? When do we unlock flying & epic flying? What are the new level ranges for each expansion and corresponding raids/dungeons? What happens to player power, ilvl, gear, etc?

It's a very complex issue which would in many ways be like taking the recent ilvl squish and amplifying it to the max.