Poll: how do you feel about level squish

[Lucetia]

They should just do it so you can level just how you want. Whatever zone you want to be in, you can level. Like 1-120 in EK/Kalimdor. I know I would probably level more alts if that happend.

My whole thing is I have at least 15 who are 100+. I don't really like how you need to spends hours on end leveling. I still think you should get an account wide XP boost after each threshold. For instance

For every toon above 60 you get +5% until you hit 60.
For every toon above 90 you get +5% until you hit 90.
For every toon above 100 you get +5% until you hit 100.

Operates just like heirlooms, except there would be a cap up to the current maximum heirloom bonus (currently 55%)

Problem is people feel the need to not turn it off and then complain it's too fast for them.

[crusadernero]

My whole thing is I have at least 15 who are 100+. I don't really like how you need to spends hours on end leveling. I still think you should get an account wide XP boost after each threshold. For instance

For every toon above 60 you get +5% until you hit 60.
For every toon above 90 you get +5% until you hit 90.
For every toon above 100 you get +5% until you hit 100.

Operates just like heirlooms, except there would be a cap up to the current maximum heirloom bonus (currently 55%)

Problem is people feel the need to not turn it off and then complain it's too fast for them.

Yes that would be awesome, and bth about time. Theres enough of us that has played the leveling content to death and just want it to get over with. If someone got lets say 10 characters at lvl 100+, why make them lvl slower? Should be a big xp boost.

I got so many characters between lvl 65-95. I just cant do it. I have done the old content so much im tierd of it. Give XP boosts and let us level wherever we want.

[digichi]

If it makes leveling more fun, and reduces the time from the slog that is 0-max level, then I'll support it. Last time i had fun leveling was somewhere in cata and a little bit in mop. I used to lvl a new character just to chill out and enjoy the adventure again but it hasn't been enticing to lvl up since wod.

[Deleted]

100% yes, you just can't, right now in the game, make 120 lvls relevant. Squish it down to 80 or 60

[Deleted]

Fine with me, but what's the point?
Ilvl and stat squish is another story but level squish for what? Make leveling faster? Reduce the xp needed ...
I don't mind it but I fail to see an actual purpose other than just squish it.

[vsb]

In modern WoW level does not matter anything. It's an obsolete concept. I'm getting weaker as I'm gaining more levels. It's just ridiculous. The only thing that matters is gear. They should squish levels to some reasonable number, so new players will have their tutorials and stop there. 50 level or something like that. Then you just grind more gear. New patch = squish old gear, that's all. Addon is not even needed anymore, content could be delivered by patches.

[Deleted]

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

I remember those good old days when you had real talent trees, those were removed with the excuse of players being forced into cookie cutter builds, permit me to have a real loud laugh, what are todays talent choices? check any guide and you'll notice there is no choice either, same old cookie cutter builds.

I for one, and it seems i'm not alone, would love to see the old talent trees back, in a more worked out state ofc.

[Lime]

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

Summed up perfectly. This sounds like something gigantic to take on and bugs could be disastrous, but if done right, it could be so good.

[Lucetia]

I remember those good old days when you had real talent trees, those were removed with the excuse of players being forced into cookie cutter builds, permit me to have a real loud laugh, what are todays talent choices? check any guide and you'll notice there is no choice either, same old cookie cutter builds.

I for one, and it seems i'm not alone, would love to see the old talent trees back, in a more worked out state ofc.

Talent trees didn't give you choice. Majority of the talents were just dumb and everyone took the same thing.

You can do the same now with the current talent tree, but it also offers variety. The current talent tree is basically the old one just baked together more. Old one it took 5 points to be equivalent to the power of 1 now. Giving a talent every level wasn't meaningful. It was essentially "Oh in 5 levels I get to finish this talent. Just like it is right now in various aspects. Every 5 levels is usually a talent, spell, training of some sort.

Even playing the classic demo reminded me of all those times I thought it was dumb leveling up. Just let us put 1 point in every 5 levels and be done with it.

[Bryntrollian]

I guess it doesn't really bother me anymore.

[Flintston]

With scaled content it's not a big deal anymore. If they do it right, it's fine by me.

[Sunderella]

totally positive. leveling need to be halved. not only because is boring as fuck as it is but also because the feeling of power increase is non existant.

[Daetur]

I would vastly prefer few levels with more "frequent" rewards- eg. instead of a new ability every 4 levels, getting a new one every 2. Actually getting something each time we level up is far, far more enjoyable than just the number increasing.

Completely in support of a level squish.

[SirCowdog]

The number of levels doesn't matter. What matters is what happens during those levels. The reason why 100-120 is garbage is because nothing happens. Your character doesn't actually change in any meaningful way.

[Ashkaandi]

Idk what version of SWTOR you played, but when I did it had standard leveling and you couldn't go to new planets if the quests were over your level.

You're right. What I forgot to say was trying to remember is that their levels capped out at like 60. Maybe I'm still wrong but I give up if that's so. lol

[omegaffxi]

There are people who won't play the game because of the massive amount of levels, since they feel like they are too far behind everyone else and they'll spend way too much time leveling at this point. That alone is enough of a reason to do a level squish. Leveling has been OK for most people because they only do it when an expansion launches every couple of years. But when you take all of that leveling time and put it into one long stream of leveling, it's discouraging.

However, it also matters whether or not they actually reduce the amount of EXP required to level, and is one reason I'm weary of using the word "squish" regarding this, because the stat "squish" literally did nothing to our character's power - all of our abilities were still doing the same percentage of damage to enemies, despite a drastic change in what those damage numbers were. I do not believe that simply doing a level "squish" without also making leveling faster is going to achieve enough of a change.

But we also need to look at the issues that may arise. The first one I think about is the Vanilla content. Vanilla makes up around levels 1-60, but after that each expansion makes up about 10 levels. The level squish would probably make most of the higher level Vanilla zones completely unused. What level would we be finishing Vanilla content at? 20? Finish Vanilla, unlock mount, go through the Dark Portal? The flow of how this is going to work is something we really need to be thinking about.

Second would be the levels of dungeons. Probably not much of an issue here but it'll be weird queuing for RFC at level 5 or so. :P Which brings me to another point: leveling in dungeons needs to be brought back. They can either greatly increase the 1st time completion reward, greatly increase the random dungeon reward, or just flat out buff all dungeon EXP period. I think there are many of us who would prefer this (dungeons may require adjustments because some of the times I tried to do low level dungeons, people couldn't seem to handle it). IMO I'd enjoy leveling a lot more if I didn't have to quest at all, and could just do every single dungeon once, all the way up to the current expansion. Plus it gets players used to playing in groups, rather than leveling to max level and THEN starting to group, which does NOT feel good. Questing should still be a perfectly viable way to level of course, for those that prefer it. But dungeons don't feel rewarding enough when leveling.

I do have to say that the idea about each expansion having content that unlocks your abilities and talents is intriguing.

[MoanaLisa]

I'd like for them to do something really radical like removing levels altogether or disguising them so their mostly invisible. It would require a lot of retrofitting of the older world but skills could be parsed out based on completed quest chains or number of quests completed. Or you could have them all available and receive skill points for completing stuff that could be used in a dozen of them to improve them (sort of like choosing skills in old-school ARPG's and leveling those skills up). The system they've had is really archaic now and actively keeps them from easily using the entire world for things.

Personally I would love to see some plotlines that are world spanning. Teldrassil burns down. Well, how do the elven communities on Northrend and Eastern Kingdoms feel about that. Just stuff like that that makes the world be alive. Big order but it's doable.

Let's think of a way just to do away with levels altogether. Squish them to zero.

[Kyranna]

I wouldn't trust the current team to get anything "done right", especially something so delicate as level balancing. I had the impression for 2 expansions, namely legion and bfa, that I was losing power with every level instead of gaining it, to the point where hitting 120 was similar to a huge nerf. Of course gear fixes it, that's not a matter of discussion, but what's totally wrong is the lack of vision in what means levelling and what means gaining power.

For each person who played D&D pen and paper, in its original incarnation or the AD&D versions that followed, gaining levels was ALWAYS a power boost. Many mmo developers think that every expansion we have to start from collecting the proverbial bear asses and end it killing gods, semideities and all the weird kind of dragons. Almost 45 years of pen and paper RPG taught nothing to these guys, all they need to do is get a clue.

The number representing my level means nothing, what is important is, in 3 points:

1) always gain power, be it in the form of skills or customization to skills (talents for WoW).
2) important heroes don't restart from menial tasks every 2 years, no more running errands. It doesn't take a top novelist to run an epic story.
3) don't take away skills that people give for granted: offer customization option to morph them (similar to diablo 3 runes), but don't remove them.

Let us just grow inpower from 1 to cap, stop this roller coaster bullshit.

[Malikath]

why? its not like levels give us skills anymore.

[Soulwind]

Mostly indifferent. Wouldn't mind if they squish them, wouldn't mind if they don't.

They can reduce the amount of XP needed to level up by half and not change the amount of levels, so changing them would be a purely psychological and aesthetic change, especially if they don't nerf the XP requirement.

And the game doesn't have as many brand new players anymore, so while 120 levels may scare some people away, it's not like most wouldn't know that the squished 60 levels would take just as long, since gaming news sites everywhere would have told them so.