The leveling experience BADLY needs fixed.

[crusadernero]

I used titanpanel to track exp per hour, and kept a log over different styles of leveling.

Questing is a level every 15-30 minutes and is reliant only on yourself.

Dungeons are 15-30 minutes per run, and generally don't give a full level, even with the bonus, AND relies on randoms who might not be as dedicated or skilled as you.

Dungeons might feel faster, but when you crunch the numbers they really aren't. That might change in 8.1, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

I always do every dungeon atleast once for the quests. I figured its worth doing atleast for those.

Beyond that I do quests. I know the zones so it goes rather quickly.

[DarkAmbient]

You can't fix leveling without fixing the fundamental design of WoW right now. A talent point every 15 levels instead of every level, gutted classes, infinite mana, easymode mobs, I could go on. The game itself is fucked and no tweaking is going to fix leveling.

[Deleted]

They should reset all levels with each expansion.. They could create ladders for each "season".

[SirCowdog]

I always do every dungeon atleast once for the quests. I figured its worth doing atleast for those.

Beyond that I do quests. I know the zones so it goes rather quickly.

The interesting thing is that even with those quests it's often not worth the time to do a random dungeon. Some of the shorter runs like Ramparts, sure, if you're lucky enough to get them in the random queue. But again, a LOT depends on who you group with, and which dungeon you get. Ultimately it still ends up being faster to just stay really focused on pure questing.

I really think dungeons should be worth more. It's a larger investment of time, effort, and coordination.

[crusadernero]

The interesting thing is that even with those quests it's often not worth the time to do a random dungeon. Some of the shorter runs like Ramparts, sure, if you're lucky enough to get them in the random queue. But again, a LOT depends on who you group with, and which dungeon you get. Ultimately it still ends up being faster to just stay really focused on pure questing.

I really think dungeons should be worth more. It's a larger investment of time, effort, and coordination.

True. I often queue up for the dungeons I know are quickly done. I lose the random dungeon XP though. So it might not be worth it. Its also a nice change of pace, going from questing and then do a random dungeon.

[Akka]

Gonna be honest, I stopped reading when I saw you complain that LFD is best for leveling and then complain it's worse for leveling at later levels. Pick a lane.

Gonna be honest, quoting a wall of text just to say "I didn't read it" doesn't make you look good.

[Afrospinach]

I just could not disagree more. Wait, I get to choose what zones I level up in? Fantastic.

I don't think I have ever managed to level a profession in lockstep with my level progression. There is just no point, you can do it much faster later. I am also not seeing this dungeon queue phenomenon with any role. DPS you just wait all the time, but not that long. Tank is mind reading level instant queue, healer seems hit or miss but usually rather fast, too fast to actually get anything done in the world.

Gear scaling argument is old. If you want to be a wrecking ball from the get go go hack diablo 2 or something. Funny thing is you even talk about flat character progression from 80-120 and probably do not realise the irony. I have always had the most fun at max level, where interestingly, you gain only gear and no new abilities.

The only major gripe I have right now is the WoD starter zone is bloody dreary, I love the rest of the expansion leveling zones but it never gets a chance to redeem itself because you go to the next zone, kill 2 mobs et voila, legion. Sure you can hop through early but it always pisses me off leaving a zone half done. Yes WoD is currently a black hole on the leveling process.

I guess you didn't see the part about 8.1 having a 30% *40% being from lvl 60-80* exp nerf?

I am not even sure what this is supposed to solve. I wanted to go through outland on my Mag Har, hit lvl 68 before getting out of hellfire. Likely wont make it through another zone before having to move on. Post patch you are going to get 12+ levels from this one zone? How fast does it need to be? It only takes a few hours to do Hellfire.

[Heldamon]

Leveling as a mechanism is outdated, it used to be good at D&D and pen n paper rgps but now that they're into pcs after so many years something must change.
I'd prefer character development through character's options, either by different choices on quests or different paths to take (maybe subclasses or good/evil balance)

[Ielenia]

I'd like to address some of your points, here. First:

1. First of all, the level number has got to drop. Dramatically. My belief is that the maximum level should be 70... And should always be 70. The original game should reach level 60, with the Cataclysm zones being re-scaled as part of it because they are consistent with its timeline. From here, every expansion should take you from 60 to 70 with the maximum players returning to 60 when a new expansion is released. This reinvigorates the original game itself, recreates the means with which to develop your professions, makes class design much more fulfilling, and keeps dungeons advantageous but not ludicrously so.

No. People already complain about "loss of power", and it would be twice, if not thrice as bad if, on top of "losing power", players would also lose actual levels. Removing levels from the players is negative progression. It wouldn't "reinvigorate the game", it would actually help "kill" it since, in a game based on progression, going backwards is antithetic to its core.

2. All expansions, once passed, should be made part of the Caverns of Time. In-game mobs therefore give players a chance to go and experience them at level cap, with all mobs scaled to the level cap... But have large powers removed in order to maintain the cosmetic availability to players. Not only does this remove a HUGE stack of bizarre problems, it gets rid of the item scaling issues, gives players choices, rebuilds the entire story, and lets players choose what they want to be involved in. The choice then becomes the full game to the current expansion, rather than the full game, to Outland/Northrend to Cataclysm/Pandaria, to Draenor, to Legion... So on.

Pushing the expansion leveling zones to the dark, rarely explored corners of the game (I.E. Caverns of Time) is basically a disservice to the work done to develop those zones. They should remain part of the leveling experience. As for "re-scaling Cataclysm zones"... again, no. This would cause a big gap in the lore.

3. Drop the numbers in professions. Honestly, it's gotten silly. We're now in a system that effectively guts the early versions, where there is some really nice cosmetic items, and creates a 'current' level of 150 for the most recent expansion. It removes the depth, the fun and the variability. The original level of 300 is just fine, with the current expansion jumping to 375, and the drops happening with the new expansion the same way character levels do. Suddenly, there's a chance to wholly recreate the depth the systems once had, and even let the system build powerful items that can be competitive given a players expertise. It makes sense, and could relaunch professions. I also support a change to one creation profession, and all collection ones.

What you propose offers no "depth" at all on top of having the underlying problem of how would the "current" profession level in your idea (i.e. past 300) would incorporate to the "past" profession level (i.e. at or below 300). Does that mean that, if your profession is at level 300, but you don't level it at all in the current expansion (it remains at 1), when the next expansion hits, you can just hit the trainer and learn all the recipes that you didn't learn the previous expansion?

The current system is much better. Before, if, back in Legion, I changed my profession to, say, leatherworking, I'd have to work all the way from level 1 to 850 if I wanted to learn the mount recipe. This time? All I had to do was level from 1 to 150.

5. Item enhancement is removed. It's great when those quest rewards proc into something more powerful, isn't it? Well... No. When you're leveling, it's absolutely and completely pointless. Once you hit the cap, it'll be gotten rid of extremely quickly or, even worse, if you get it too early, then all it'll take is a couple of levels to see it gotten rid of. It could have an impact on enchanters, but it would do nothing for anyone else, so there's effectively no argument, at all, to keep doing this. Personally, I dislike it at level cap, but I understand the intent; I've no intent what it's supposed to be doing for people who are leveling.

By "item enhancement during leveling" I assume you're talking about the possibility of a quest reward "upgrading" to rare or epic quality. If that's the case... no. Keep it. It does give the player a good benefit because it kind of feels like winning a raffle, of sorts, and the player always benefits. If it's an upgrade, it's an upgrade. If it's not, then it's extra gold that it'll net you if you sell it. And if you're an enchanter, you get better materials.

And (anecdotal, I know) I have progressed all the way to heroic G'huun without a single trinket dropping for me. I was fighting heroic G'huun with an epic trinket that upgraded from a quest, and a rare trinket I got from a heroic dungeon.

7. Drop the maximum of the achievement pane. Given that the entire game, other than the current expansion, is being skipped effectively, the number of achievement points make it a fundamentally broken piece of content. Even if a new player nailed every single one from the current expansion, he or she is absolutely miles behind and will never catch up. Cut the number in half, dramatically reduce the ones that have been needlessly expanded, and then turn current expansion achievements into the pointless rewards when the expansion is replaced. That keeps the achievements for those who earned them, but doesn't count them to make the content so broken.

Objectively false. You can catch up. None of the achievements that grant points are permanently unavailable. All achievements that were made unavailable were "Feats of Strength" that awarded no points to begin with, or the ones that granted points but were removed also had the points removed from those that had it.

[SirCowdog]

I am not even sure what this is supposed to solve. I wanted to go through outland on my Mag Har, hit lvl 68 before getting out of hellfire. Likely wont make it through another zone before having to move on. Post patch you are going to get 12+ levels from this one zone? How fast does it need to be? It only takes a few hours to do Hellfire.

If you want to spend more time in a level bracket, you can always turn off exp. Or just keep leveing regardless of exp gains.

[Afrospinach]

If you want to spend more time in a level bracket, you can always turn off exp.

To be fair you do not even need to do that, xp gets curbed to like 10% once you hit "zone cap".

[Cracked]

The real problem is content obsolescence and, by transition, playerbase fragmentation if you attempt to solve it.

The unfortunate reality is that WoW is based around playing end-game content. Look at what 110-120 leveling is like. You don't get more powerful, with each level, you lose power. You don't feel accomplishment at any step of the way, until you finally reach 120 and are relieved that you're there. You could make an argument that it's fatigue and that after so many expansions of just playing end-game, you don't want to level. But imo levelling is intrinsically rewarding and good, except when you literally lose power instead of gaining it.

See how people are excited to reach level 20 or 40 in vanilla to get new abilities and talents. Just open up that talent tree and you know that at that level, it will get real cool, and change the way you play. That doesn't happen 100-120 currently.

I have no big issues with 1-100 levelling, you can't make people take forever, cause you do want them to spend majority of time doing end-game.

[hyphnos]

They should fix current max level content before they touch the leveling experience. :P

True. But they could also make the levelling experience less of a pain in the ass by reverting back to pre 7.3.5 XP/RAF/heirloom power while enabling an optional level scaling feature for those players want to quest through and keep things relevant.

The thing any idiot could have told them to do in the first place...

[barrsftw]

You have some interesting suggestions. That said I'd rather the dev team focus on the endgame content instead of revamping the leveling process for new players. WoW is no longer a game for new players, and the game should not be tailored for that.

[SirCowdog]

The real problem is content obsolescence and, by transition, playerbase fragmentation if you attempt to solve it.

The unfortunate reality is that WoW is based around playing end-game content. Look at what 110-120 leveling is like. You don't get more powerful, with each level, you lose power. You don't feel accomplishment at any step of the way, until you finally reach 120 and are relieved that you're there. You could make an argument that it's fatigue and that after so many expansions of just playing end-game, you don't want to level. But imo levelling is intrinsically rewarding and good, except when you literally lose power instead of gaining it.

See how people are excited to reach level 20 or 40 in vanilla to get new abilities and talents. Just open up that talent tree and you know that at that level, it will get real cool, and change the way you play. That doesn't happen 100-120 currently.

I have no big issues with 1-100 levelling, you can't make people take forever, cause you do want them to spend majority of time doing end-game.

This is why WoW needs a system like Path of Exile, or a job system like FFXIV. You should never really stop gaining experience. The artifact system from Legion came SO close to hitting the nail on the head, but instead of Artifact Power it should simple continue to be experience. You should continue to gain experience exactly like you did while leveling, only each "level" of progress along the artifact tree also continues to take more and more. None of this catch-up mechanic bullshit needed. You replace catch-up with a talent tree or job system that has enough depth to keep players chasing new builds for months, if not years at a time.

I really don't understand how anyone, player or dev alike, can look at the difference between WoW's AP system and something like FFXIV's job system, or POE's talent maze, and still think AP is good.

- - - Updated - - -

You have some interesting suggestions. That said I'd rather the dev team focus on the endgame content instead of revamping the leveling process for new players. WoW is no longer a game for new players, and the game should not be tailored for that.

It's not about revamping the leveling system for only new players. It's about overhauling the entire progression system for ALL players so it doesn't stagnate in the first month of each new expansion.

[Kaver]

Okay, so, I finally put together the time to get my Mag'har orc to 110, but it's also allowed me to look at the ridiculous pile of problems that the current "leveling" experience currently has. Here's a short list:

First of all, the actual game itself (rather than expansions) is now almost completely ignored. The scaling of mob levels and experience helps the problem by keeping a single zone appropriate for all of your levels, but what this does is effectively remove three quarters of the original world. If you're random-queuing for dungeons, it will remove even more than this. Not only does this dramatically reduce the encouragement to play a far bigger game than any expansion, it makes basic profession development practically impossible.

Then, of course, there's the random-queuing for dungeons. The opportunity is wildly out of line throughout, as it's not up to you which one you get, which means the potential time-demand can vary dramatically. Despite this frustration (or continually getting the same dungeon), random-queuing for dungeons as a tank or healer is by far the fastest route to level 60, at least. Because of the travelling that general questing requires, random dungeon-running is extraordinarily more beneficial, particularly for those with the heirlooms. The provision, of course, then changes dramatically when you reach level 90. Not only do the waiting times seem to rise, potentially even slightly earlier, the next two past expansions are considered singular which unloads substantially less dungeons than the rest of the game. The 90 to 100, for example, drops to a single dungeon every two levels... Making questing suddenly worthwhile, especially for damage dealers who have longer queues.

Of course, there's the class development. It stops at level 80. That's when pretty much your entire class skills package has been unlocked, and is on your button bars. That means there are effectively FORTY levels about to be worked through, without a single development. Sure, you could include the additional two talents, but two 'choices' over forty levels and no choices over the live expansion? That's extremely poor and smacks of lazy design. Of course, class performance also randomly changes due to the scaling that gets randomly applied as far as the character is concerned. Moving into Warlords drops item quality, as does the live game, which has a nuisance impact on the heirlooms you've piled gold into.

So, to summarize, the majority of the original game is skipped which is a real shame, you can't develop your professions which guts the content's depth, random-queuing for dungeons obliterates the pace of any other content which demands random groups you won't get to know, the dungeon experience then changes dramatically at level 60 which is wholly pointless, class development ends at level 80 which is fundamentally absurd, while the gear scaling changes see your character drop its power for no explicable reason whatsoever.

It's little wonder that new players are being boosted, but that essentially gives them barely any content or experience, makes the achievement screen utterly pointless, provides precious little experience or learning environments, guts other systems (particularly ALL professions) and destroys the means in which that new player can learn some actual lore that'll help them understand why things are happening.

As far as I'm concerned, I think this is potentially the biggest damage to new player retention. There's no way that I can prove that, of course, but there seems a huge pile of issues that would stop anyone from retaining their subscription.

So... Do I have any ideas that might fix this?

Unsurprisingly, I do.

1. First of all, the level number has got to drop. Dramatically. My belief is that the maximum level should be 70... And should always be 70. The original game should reach level 60, with the Cataclysm zones being re-scaled as part of it because they are consistent with its timeline. From here, every expansion should take you from 60 to 70 with the maximum players returning to 60 when a new expansion is released. This reinvigorates the original game itself, recreates the means with which to develop your professions, makes class design much more fulfilling, and keeps dungeons advantageous but not ludicrously so.

2. All expansions, once passed, should be made part of the Caverns of Time. In-game mobs therefore give players a chance to go and experience them at level cap, with all mobs scaled to the level cap... But have large powers removed in order to maintain the cosmetic availability to players. Not only does this remove a HUGE stack of bizarre problems, it gets rid of the item scaling issues, gives players choices, rebuilds the entire story, and lets players choose what they want to be involved in. The choice then becomes the full game to the current expansion, rather than the full game, to Outland/Northrend to Cataclysm/Pandaria, to Draenor, to Legion... So on.

3. Drop the numbers in professions. Honestly, it's gotten silly. We're now in a system that effectively guts the early versions, where there is some really nice cosmetic items, and creates a 'current' level of 150 for the most recent expansion. It removes the depth, the fun and the variability. The original level of 300 is just fine, with the current expansion jumping to 375, and the drops happening with the new expansion the same way character levels do. Suddenly, there's a chance to wholly recreate the depth the systems once had, and even let the system build powerful items that can be competitive given a players expertise. It makes sense, and could relaunch professions. I also support a change to one creation profession, and all collection ones.

4. Heirlooms should be renumbered. The fact that they change, as expansions change, is just a nonsense. And because the character level has been cut in half, there doesn't need to be a 50% to 60% increase. Remove the levels of each heirloom (while returning the gold to the players that spent it), they always work to level 60, and increase your experience to a maximum of 10%. It's a simple one.

5. Item enhancement is removed. It's great when those quest rewards proc into something more powerful, isn't it? Well... No. When you're leveling, it's absolutely and completely pointless. Once you hit the cap, it'll be gotten rid of extremely quickly or, even worse, if you get it too early, then all it'll take is a couple of levels to see it gotten rid of. It could have an impact on enchanters, but it would do nothing for anyone else, so there's effectively no argument, at all, to keep doing this. Personally, I dislike it at level cap, but I understand the intent; I've no intent what it's supposed to be doing for people who are leveling.

6. Fix the PvP reputations. It seems unrelated to this thread, because it is, but the reputation demands have become really needless given the number of battlegrounds that now exist. Rather than having a separate reputation for all of them, or the random no reputation found with a few, group them all up and reduce the number of reputations that the game has linked to PvP. So battlegrounds that are similar should be applied with the same reputation.

7. Drop the maximum of the achievement pane. Given that the entire game, other than the current expansion, is being skipped effectively, the number of achievement points make it a fundamentally broken piece of content. Even if a new player nailed every single one from the current expansion, he or she is absolutely miles behind and will never catch up. Cut the number in half, dramatically reduce the ones that have been needlessly expanded, and then turn current expansion achievements into the pointless rewards when the expansion is replaced. That keeps the achievements for those who earned them, but doesn't count them to make the content so broken.

At this point, there are so many other things I'd like to suggest but a great many of them are more of a level-cap, current-expansion argument so I'll leave them out. Of course, it's also noteworthy to remember that this post is too big for the vast majority of people to read, but maybe a designer will. And lastly, because I reckon new players are now less likely to stay than ever before, buying games that encourage you to skip the overwhelming majority of the game just shouldn't be chased.

That's the start of this thread - what do you guys want to continue with?

I don't think levelling is going to be great again.

When WoW released in 2004, the game was 70 % levelling and 30 % end game. Many of the dungeons were not created for max level and many people never reached max level, but they still enjoyed the travel through Azeroth. Levelling was a grind but you still stuck by it because reaching level 60 was a great achievement and many people could only dream of ever getting so far.

Today the game is 95 % end game content. All (almost) new content are created for max level and all dungeons are meant for max level. Most players have multiple max level characters so it is not a prestigious to have a max level character like it used to be. Therefore there is not really a prize in the end of the levelling experience and levelling has then just become an annoying barrier in the way of content instead of a great travel through the game.

[Pieous]

Good conversation going on and one I think is really important. Those of us playing don't wish the game to end and it doesn't have to. WoW has made it 14 years and could easily get to 30 if it were to continue updating and iterating along with it's community.

First off, I understand those who are max level and want the end game fixed first. I don't know the specifics of Bfa issues well enough to comment on that so I'll leave that to those who do. That said, I do believe it's in the end game player's best interests for Blizzard to resolve what I perceive to be a lull up to the current expansion. Without helping new players along the way, our game is digging it's own grave without a clear date.

My main concern is one of sustainability and something that Jeezo is trying to address. While levels could increase forever, what is the purpose except to increase the level of commitment to get to the current max level? I haven't gained a sense of accomplishment when hitting cap unless that journey meant something and often that requires challenge and a true sense of progression. For me, I don't feel 120, 200, etc makes the cap more impactful. I also don't believe that scaling the levels back to 60, 70, etc would dimish the players achievements. It's solely a number attached to player's achievements and not necessarily those in the achievement tab. I think a 60-70 revolving level cap could work but that could come with odd caveats. What happens to the iLevel of the gear you're wearing and the stats on them? Stat inflation and the squishes that keep happening are a part of this discussion as well.

I think I'm more partial to having a permanent cap followed by the infinite leveling previously provided through Artifact Power and now Azerite. Why this is attached to the Heart of Azeroth necklace is unknown to me, it could just be part of your character on a new pane. Either this or a more significant revamp that allows itself to scale considerably better moving forward. I don't believe that leveling is forever gone, it needs to be updated to match what the game has become and that is possible with enough thought and work. To have a more sustainable and impactful progression system seems in the best interest of all of us.

Thanks for putting your thoughts out there Jeezo, I know it's a touchy topic to discuss. I'm the type to even consider removing leveling from the game entirely so some consider me an anarchist in those terms.

[darklogrus]

1-119 Class design needs a major overhaul and without that pretty much everything is mute.

[Pieous]

Would you mind giving some thoughts on why you think it's poorly implemented? I agree that this needs changes too, I'm honestly curious of your musings toward this so I can add them into what I've been thinking about.

[Segus1992]

Here is someone that gets it.

Well I think they should do only cinematics. What's that, Blizzard is a big company that can do more than one thing at a time? What?