Doing a character level squish via paragon levels?

[Berndorf]

I think that might be the best thing to do at this point. Here is the manner I wouldn't mind seeing it done:

Level 1-60 as it is now.
Outland-Northrend becomes paragon level 1. Maybe squish the xp needed to get there down to like a million or something like that for each paragon level.
Cata-Pandaria becomes paragon level 2.
WoD-Legion becomes paragon level 3.
BfA would become paragon level 4 or gets added into P3 content.

All creatures in the world are scaled down to lvl 60 in all of those zones.

The next expansion we level up to 65. No more 'omg 130 levels' for people who are just trying out wow for the first time. Less time leveling for everyone else. Profit?

[Onikaroshi]

No squish, most horrendous idea ever. They never should have squished anything, but unfortunately at the end of mop they had to until they fixed the coding.

[Schizoide]

They are absolutely going to do a level squish. Whether you or I think it's a good idea or necessary is completely irrelevant, they are not interested in our opinions. It's happening.

[Onikaroshi]

They are absolutely going to do a level squish. Whether you or I think it's a good idea or necessary is completely irrelevant, they are not interested in our opinions. It's happening.

Well, that'll be my permanent out regardless, it's such a stupid idea.

[Schizoide]

Looking back to past experience, I expect they'll think up a reasonable enough plan to do it and then implement that plan roughly 80% successfully, causing lots of squishing problems for 2-3 months into the next expansion.

I doubt it'll be paragon levels or anything similar. My guess is 50 character levels in 9.0 and than the cap for the next expansion will be 60. But if they were ambitious, they could do 20 levels in 9.0, asking players to level up in any one expansion, and then cap of 30. So you would start at level 1 in Jade Forest, play through MoP, and then you're level 20 and ready for Ashes of Azshara or whatever they call the next one.

[rhorle]

The next expansion we level up to 65. No more 'omg 130 levels' for people who are just trying out wow for the first time. Less time leveling for everyone else. Profit?

But they will here level 60 Paragon X then level 65. Why even create paragon levels? Why not just have normal levels? Time to level has nothing to do with the amount of levels that exist in a game. Time to level has everything to do with the Experience needed per level. You can level with only a day or two of play time. New to the game players get a level boost which means they are not going to be overwhelmed with leveling until their second character.

At that point Heirlooms, better knowledge, friends, etc all play into reducing the time it takes to level.

[Teri]

So you put 10 levels worth at 1 "paragon" level, with 0 progression except a single XP bar, sounds like the most boring thing to play.

At least those 10 levels gives some power change, and even with scaling gear/monsters/talents theres some progression, minor but better then nothing at all.

[Onikaroshi]

Haha, 80% would be lucky, we were lucky to get 80% of the stat squish working. Level squish would be a whole other ballgame.

Be prepared for broken quest chains, unequippable gear that you should be able to equip, spells not being learned properly, being unable to enter level appropriate dungeons, etc etc

[prwraith]

Well, that'll be my permanent out regardless, it's such a stupid idea.

Why would this be such a hard no for you ?

[Berndorf]

But they will here level 60 Paragon X then level 65. Why even create paragon levels? Why not just have normal levels? Time to level has nothing to do with the amount of levels that exist in a game. Time to level has everything to do with the Experience needed per level. You can level with only a day or two of play time. New to the game players get a level boost which means they are not going to be overwhelmed with leveling until their second character.

At that point Heirlooms, better knowledge, friends, etc all play into reducing the time it takes to level.

I'm well aware of your point but
a. Bliz has already stated they think its probably necessary at this point
b. I think its less daunting to have lower levels than to keep the higher levels but just drastically decrease xp. Also, I think most people new to the game are going to want more than one character and to experience some of the content they just skipped over.

[rhorle]

Be prepared for broken quest chains, unequippable gear that you should be able to equip, spells not being learned properly, being unable to enter level appropriate dungeons, etc etc

With scaling level squishing takes place every day. A level squish would be changing the numbers that the scaling tech uses. Certainly there will be bugs and things that need to be fixed or adjusted. But it isn't as big of a task prior to having scaling technology in the game.

[Onikaroshi]

Why would this be such a hard no for you ?

It's our last piece of character progression, they've taken all of our abilities, they've taken our stats, etc. Level is the last thing that carries over from expansion to expansion, taking that would mean we're resetting EVERYTHING between expansions and would just be a huge turn off.

It's also one of the last RPG elements left.

[Schizoide]

The stat squish was maybe 90% successful the first time and 95% the second. 80% is far lower than that.

You heard a lot about people getting one-shotted by trash mob spells and whatnot, but they were a fairly small proportion of the massive amount of content in the entire game.

[Berndorf]

So you put 10 levels worth at 1 "paragon" level, with 0 progression except a single XP bar, sounds like the most boring thing to play.

At least those 10 levels gives some power change, and even with scaling gear/monsters/talents theres some progression, minor but better then nothing at all.

Paragon levels could easily be placed on things like talent pages/trees and used to reward learning new abilities. Most classes learn nothing past level 80 which could just be called P1 or P2.

[Onikaroshi]

With scaling level squishing takes place every day. A level squish would be changing the numbers that the scaling tech uses. Certainly there will be bugs and things that need to be fixed or adjusted. But it isn't as big of a task prior to having scaling technology in the game.

There's so much more linked to level then what is linked to things they've already put into scaling, it'll be a shit show of enormous proportions.

- - - Updated - - -

The stat squish was maybe 90% successful the first time and 95% the second. 80% is far lower than that.

You heard a lot about people getting one-shotted by trash mob spells and whatnot, but they were a fairly small proportion of the massive amount of content in the entire game.

The stat squished fucked up farming low level dungeons and raids immensely, both times, that's a HUGE part of the game for a lot of people.

[Teri]

It's also one of the last RPG elements left.

Exactly this, even with scaling, there's minor power/talent/stats and gear progression.

It still matters if you complete a quest at 61 or 79, the same questreward will be different, with some dungeons/talents/skills unlocking along the way as well.

[Schizoide]

The stat squished fucked up farming low level dungeons and raids immensely, both times, that's a HUGE part of the game for a lot of people.

They deliberately made them more difficult. That's a design choice that pisses you (and me) off, but it isn't a bug.

[Onikaroshi]

They deliberately made them more difficult. That's a design choice that pisses you (and me) off, but it isn't a bug.

Oh it was bugged out for quite awhile too though, they've since toned it down immensely. The whole thing is probably a bug but they're too lazy to fix it so they label it a feature.

[Kyux]

The issue isn't the amount of levels but the lack of reward in between. I suggest an old-school talent system that exists only for levels 1-119 then then converts to baseline.

[Sorshen]

Enough with the shitty D3 features.