[Survey] Level squish IS coming per Blizzard

[Lei]

The problem isn't having to level. The problem is that the current leveling system is boring as hell because of how the systems have been set up. You can already see it in the Nixxiom comparison from Classic to BFA leveling experience of 1 hour.

In BFA when you level and new equipment you get from quests doesn't really matter as you already are overpowered from the get go and you're able to fight several enemies at once. You also automatically get new abilities and passives without even noticing that you have them. There is no real sense of discovery or accomplishment during the leveling phase of BFA. In Classic you literally start as some no name trash adventurer. You have nothing. Every piece of equip helps you to actually survive longer especially if you are a melee. Every new reward and every big enemy you killed give you a sense of "I've done something!"

Did vanilla have problems? Sure, but they were of a different nature and I think the current problems are worse than what vanilla had.

Also let me just give a quick overview of how many zones I visited the last time I leveled a character from 1-110.
1-60 => three vanilla zones
60-80 => two WotLK zones
80-90 => one Cataclysm zone
90-100 => 1,5 WoD zones
10-110 => 2 Legion zones (I think)

So overall I completed the quest content of 7,5 zones until I reached level 100. Do you think by cutting the numbers in half in terms of the amount of levels it would change all that much? Btw. with that character I visited each dungeon only once to complete the quests.

Anyway the leveling has already been reduced to an absolute minimum in what you have to do and where you have to go. Just changing the numbers is not fixing the core problem.

You can cut the levels by half and still add the xp required to level together. So
atm:
level 1 to level 2 = 400 XP (let's say, too lazy to look up the exact numbers)
level 2 to level 3 = 600 xp

after the squish:
level 1 to level 2 = 1000 xp. Or 800 if you want a slight nerf. See?

After the squish they could actually add meaningful rewards, because the itemlevels have to climb much less/player level. I'm intentionally ignoring the elephant in the room which is the idiotic gear hike on max level.

But whatever you do, you can not put THOUSANDS of quests from vanilla to BfA on the players shoulders as mandatory to reach max level. It would never work. Inevitably, they have to let us skip stuff.
They could revamp the zones again and actually cut the zone's story to half of what it's been, JUST to make players to go into most zones, but would that be good? So 15-20 quests / zone. I don't think so.

Nixxiom is my least favorite (disliked even) wow youtuber. Can't watch his stuff, irritates me and I don't value what he says, seeing his past tendencies...

[cuafpr]

Interesting idea

I would kill to have more tw raids or just scaling raids
GIVE ME MoP!!!!

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah by the end of the expansion we will be maybe around t16 numbers possibly t17

That's just because blizzard can't handle the power creep caused by their need to constantly give players huge number buffs each tier

- - - Updated - - -



They could give players a magic hat that gives them their perfect gaming experience and ppl would still complain about the color of the hat

LOL i almost spit my coffee out

[Kazlofski]

So they are basically too lazy and cheap to put effort into fixing leveling and making it a fun and rewarding experience. Great.

[SirCowdog]

The real problem here is also that there's going to be absolutely no possible way to condense the story progression into a reasonable leveling process.

I've been thinking about this all day at work. Even if you took TBC and WotLK out of the loop by making it optional timewalking or something, you'd still have the normal post-cata leveling zones of 1-60 worth of story, which could be blended straight into level-capped zones of cata(Hyjall, Vashj'ir, Deepholme, uldum, etc). Then in order to keep the story consistent, a player would have to go to MoP to learn why Garrosh went through the dark Portal into WoD, which leads into Legion and the aftermath of Sargeras stabbing Azeroth....causing the events of BfA.

Trying to start a new player at any other point carries its own problems.

MoP: Starting a new player with Pandaria is going to set an odd tone for the rest of the World of Warcraft experience.
WoD: Starting with assaulting the Dark Portal and instantly becoming a commander with a garrison makes almost no sense.
Legion: Other than the odd reason why a brand new character gets handed an artifact, this starting point has some potential.
BfA: Same issue as Legion. Why is this new character getting the Heart of Azeroth.

Basically Blizzard almost has to completely overhaul the entire progression and flow of the story, with hundreds of quests being changed to fall in line, in order to make the process of going from level 1 to 120(or whatever number it's crunched to) actually make sense to a new player. And they have to do it in such a way so that it doesn't take 100+ hours to progress through the story just to get to the current content.

It's a bunch of mutually exclusive goals that I don't see any good way to reconcile outside of letting the player choose their starting point in the story, giving a short scenario or cutscene to explain why their character is a super-champion of the Horde/Alliance, and go from there.

[nodlimax]

I've been thinking about this all day at work.

At least someone is using their time at work in a productive manner.

[Krille]

So they are basically too lazy and cheap to put effort into fixing leveling and making it a fun and rewarding experience. Great.

They work fulltime with this game. I'm sure they've already thought of whatever mindblowing idea you have and came to the conclusion that a level squish would solve more problems than any other kneejerk band-aid fix

[This One Time At Bandcamp]

Yeah I should have gotten a screenshot, but I'm sure other people got that survey (I got mine about half an hour ago) so hopefully somebody else that got the survey can confirm too.

Where did you get it from - I wan't to make my voice heard

[Geckoo]

The real problem here is also that there's going to be absolutely no possible way to condense the story progression into a reasonable leveling process.

But you don't need to do anything about it.

Ignoring the fact that every single piece of leveling is done through outdated lore, you don't get to experience how we get from point A to point B when you are leveling, you jump straight from A to B with the game assuming that your character was there, saved the world, killed the bad guys...

You don't go to MoP to learn about Garrosh, actually Garrosh has nothing to do with MoP leveling.
Just as WoD leveling is about the iron horde not about Gul'dan and the legion.
And Legion's leveling is about collecting certain relics to close a portal, not about using that same portal to go to their homeland and eventually imprision Sargeras just before he stabs the planet.

The current 1-60 azeroth zones already work as a good introduction to the game, specially some of the zones from 1 to 20 because they have a heavy focus on the race history. Let all the leveling up to the last expansion be done in those zones and make old expansion optional content aviable at some point between level 10-20.

[Dotality]

As long as they rework talents to go with a squish, I can't be happier.

[Isilarya]

The real problem here is also that there's going to be absolutely no possible way to condense the story progression into a reasonable leveling process.

I've been thinking about this all day at work. Even if you took TBC and WotLK out of the loop by making it optional timewalking or something, you'd still have the normal post-cata leveling zones of 1-60 worth of story, which could be blended straight into level-capped zones of cata(Hyjall, Vashj'ir, Deepholme, uldum, etc). Then in order to keep the story consistent, a player would have to go to MoP to learn why Garrosh went through the dark Portal into WoD, which leads into Legion and the aftermath of Sargeras stabbing Azeroth....causing the events of BfA.

Trying to start a new player at any other point carries its own problems.

MoP: Starting a new player with Pandaria is going to set an odd tone for the rest of the World of Warcraft experience.
WoD: Starting with assaulting the Dark Portal and instantly becoming a commander with a garrison makes almost no sense.
Legion: Other than the odd reason why a brand new character gets handed an artifact, this starting point has some potential.
BfA: Same issue as Legion. Why is this new character getting the Heart of Azeroth.

Basically Blizzard almost has to completely overhaul the entire progression and flow of the story, with hundreds of quests being changed to fall in line, in order to make the process of going from level 1 to 120(or whatever number it's crunched to) actually make sense to a new player. And they have to do it in such a way so that it doesn't take 100+ hours to progress through the story just to get to the current content.

It's a bunch of mutually exclusive goals that I don't see any good way to reconcile outside of letting the player choose their starting point in the story, giving a short scenario or cutscene to explain why their character is a super-champion of the Horde/Alliance, and go from there.

Theyve already wholesale broken "cohesive story." You can go 1-60 then do BC to 80 and never experience Wrath. Wrath has alot of throwback references and plots in later stages of the game especially Legion. Vice versa with BC just being skipped. Then you get to skip Cata or Pandaria AGAIN with references that would just make no sense.

The outdoor world story is dead, it no longer matters atleast not to Blizzard.

[Eurhetemec]

No idea why people are so fixated on WoW having to tell a consistent story with a specific chronological order and so on. We haven't had that for a very long time and it was of limited value. Even FFXIV only does that to a limited degree and only on your first playthrough. So long as each zone has a story, that's all you need, really.

I've read some interesting options for how it could be done, like doing 1-60 as normal then just picking an expansion to do 1 to 70 with a level cap at 70, and all zones either scaled 1 to 60 ot 60 to 70. At 70 you could have a legacy mode to let you make the 60 to 70 content trivial for non-current expansions.

Or you could develop a story, perhaps class or race based, that took you through selected zones. But I think you need to allow for dungeon and PvP based leveling. So you need something with some flexibility.

Anyway this seems to me to be a case of go big or go home, and if they do it, they should do something dramatic. I might even propose permanently capping the max level like DAoC but it might be too shocking.

[SirCowdog]

But you don't need to do anything about it.

Ignoring the fact that every single piece of leveling is done through outdated lore, you don't get to experience how we get from point A to point B when you are leveling, you jump straight from A to B with the game assuming that your character was there, saved the world, killed the bad guys...

You don't go to MoP to learn about Garrosh, actually Garrosh has nothing to do with MoP leveling.
Just as WoD leveling is about the iron horde not about Gul'dan and the legion.
And Legion's leveling is about collecting certain relics to close a portal, not about using that same portal to go to their homeland and eventually imprision Sargeras just before he stabs the planet.

The current 1-60 azeroth zones already work as a good introduction to the game, specially some of the zones from 1 to 20 because they have a heavy focus on the race history. Let all the leveling up to the last expansion be done in those zones and make old expansion optional content aviable at some point between level 10-20.

You basically just described everything wrong with the leveling process, and how utterly and completely disjointed it is.

Garrosh is the entire reason we go to WoD in the first place. He caused the Iron Horde. His actions lead directly to AU Gul'dan bringing the Legion back to Azeroth. Which in turn leads to Sargeras plunging his sword into the planet.....which leads to why our characters have the HoA.

You can't just cut one piece of that story out and have it still make any kind of sense. As I described in the rest of post you quoted, dropping a player in at any point after cata, but without context, is just as bad of a situation as the current leveling "story". And the speed of leveling is almost mutually exclusive to telling that story in a way that makes sense; the faster you level, the more disjointed it gets.

I'll be REALLY interested to see how Blizzard resolves it with a level crunch.

- - - Updated - - -

Theyve already wholesale broken "cohesive story." .

Yes, they have. Take a look at this ridiuclous situation from Reddit, where they describe just how badly broken the situation is: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...rofessor_whom/

But as long as they're going to do things like mess around with level scaling and level crunch, they might as well go all the way and completely overhaul and redesign the leveling experience. If all they're going to do is just leave things as it is and smash 120 levels down to 60, they might as well not bother.

[Zka]

Yeah please fuck the game up for everyone else because you can't be strong enough mentally to not wear heirlooms.

My proposal was to not fill up most slots with heirlooms, that's not the same as nerfing heirlooms. I actually want to have the same XP boost effect, but in very few slots. This way you could still have the xp boost but also enjoy quest rewards/dungeon drops. I guess that would not fuck up anyone's game, right?

[Isilarya]

You basically just described everything wrong with the leveling process, and how utterly and completely disjointed it is.

Garrosh is the entire reason we go to WoD in the first place. He caused the Iron Horde. His actions lead directly to AU Gul'dan bringing the Legion back to Azeroth. Which in turn leads to Sargeras plunging his sword into the planet.....which leads to why our characters have the HoA.

You can't just cut one piece of that story out and have it still make any kind of sense. As I described in the rest of post you quoted, dropping a player in at any point after cata, but without context, is just as bad of a situation as the current leveling "story". And the speed of leveling is almost mutually exclusive to telling that story in a way that makes sense; the faster you level, the more disjointed it gets.

I'll be REALLY interested to see how Blizzard resolves it with a level crunch.

- - - Updated - - -



Yes, they have. Take a look at this ridiuclous situation from Reddit, where they describe just how badly broken the situation is: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...rofessor_whom/

But as long as they're going to do things like mess around with level scaling and level crunch, they might as well go all the way and completely overhaul and redesign the leveling experience. If all they're going to do is just leave things as it is and smash 120 levels down to 60, they might as well not bother.

They made it even worse with the scaling change and choices though, back when he wrote that you still atleast kinda had to play the game linearly. Now, you get to choose zone A or B, implying that skipping an entire xpac doesnt matter. Which is saying that the entire story doesnt matter. The game has reached a point where the story is relevant only if you experience it in real time. If you join late sorry about your luck is basically where Blizzard is at.

I mean lets look at BfA when the next xpac comes out. Almost all of the massive story drops happened post level cap but a new player most likely wont see it. you will hit 120 from leveling zones then transition to the new xpac. The War Campaign and all its associated story and cutscenes is just not experienced.

So we have to ask the question should we really make the story something that matters to leveling?

[SirCowdog]

So we have to ask the question should we really make the story something that matters to leveling?

That really depends on how badly you want to attract new players. And I mean totally new, not just someone returning who's familiar with the WoW setting already.

Because what's the alternative here? Dropping a player into BfA with a free boosted 110, with no context? Why would that person care who Sylvanas or Anduin is? Magni and the Heart of Azeroth...wtf is that, a glass dwarf with a bad scottish(?) accent?

This is the same problem as the rest of the game has: It's just another instance of drop-in, no investment, instant gratification. Level up 119 times, once every 20 minutes. "PING! DING! Flashy graphics!!!! YOU LEVELED UP!!!!! "

It's completely meaningless, and without any context. So yes, storytelling absolutely should matter. Otherwise people won't ever get invested or interested, and they'll just go play fortnite for their dopamine hit. End game story doesn't matter if you never reach it.

[derpkitteh]

this is just gonna make leveling feel even shittier than it does now.

but it's whatever. don't think there's any saving leveling. need to just get over this mindset that leveling must be a thing that takes time, because it's shit, it's been shit since cataclysm, and it'll remain shit going forward.

just give us a main quest at level 1 that shoots us up to max pretty quick, teaches us basic things, and tells a story that seamlessly glides into the newest content.

[xStevooo]

I assume anything I can't authenticate is BS until I can authenticate it.

That said, if Blizzard ever DID do a major level squish, I'd be down. Dump the max to 60 in 9.0. Let current content take us back up to 70, and let all the old content (from vanilla thru bfa) serve as 1-60 levelling.

I'd absolutely roll a new character and level him entirely in one expansion pack's content. Next character, different content entirely. It'd make it a bit more manageable to collect all the allied race armour, especially for new players.

That's such a sad childish approach

OT : For the people saying it's fake there's hundreds of people reporting receiving this survey plenty with proof attached.
I received one, why i'm not sure can't remember the last time I ever played the game, it was a survey gizmo link "World of Warcraft Sentiment Tracker Q2-2019".

[Isilarya]

That really depends on how badly you want to attract new players. And I mean totally new, not just someone returning who's familiar with the WoW setting already.

Because what's the alternative here? Dropping a player into BfA with a free boosted 110, with no context? Why would that person care who Sylvanas or Anduin is? Magni and the Heart of Azeroth...wtf is that, a glass dwarf with a bad scottish(?) accent?

This is the same problem as the rest of the game has: It's just another instance of drop-in, no investment, instant gratification. Level up 119 times, once every 20 minutes. "PING! DING! Flashy graphics!!!! YOU LEVELED UP!!!!! "

It's completely meaningless, and without any context. So yes, storytelling absolutely should matter. Otherwise people won't ever get invested or interested, and they'll just go play fortnite for their dopamine hit. End game story doesn't matter if you never reach it.

Right and I agree with you. But say a new player with no context now skips Silverpine goes through a bunch of expansions where it doesnt matter but then gets to Legion with Genns massive hardon for fighting Sylvanas. They are just like woah wtf is happening here. It makes absolutely no sense. This happens alot through alot of the expansions.

The only solution is Cataclysm v2 on a storyline level but noone is willing to tolerate that anymore. The amount of sacrifice to whatever expansion its tied to is too much for most players to be ok with. So I dont know how we address this anymore, theyve layered so many bandaids ontop each other leveling and storyline wise I dont actually think you can do a narrative fix so really focusing on the gameplay experience is all they can do.

[crewskater]

I welcome this with open arms. 120 does seem to be on the high end considering other MMOs aren't even close to these levels. This should hopefully prevent stat squishes in the future.

[Akasha64]

Don't think a squish would be in order.
it would ruin allot of the leveling flows.
+ some ppl just love leveling.

Yeah, but leveling 1-120 is too much. It was nice back in vanilla when you just had to level 1-60. They should make it 1-60 leveling again, and remove level boosters. Make all expansion content level 60 content, merge all battlegroups/servers and make the endgame the biggest feast in history of MMOs. Endgame of MMOs should be a feast, with tons of options for content to do, and not feel like you're just waiting for the next raid instance to come out.