Idea for fixing level bloat in retail.

[Drusin]

lol I had forgotten all about the level squish.

[RobertMugabe]

Would each level feel rewarding? About as much as it does now.

No this isn't true. This is the main reason people want the level squish.

According to your logic it feels about the same if you advance to the next level and that's it vs advancing to the next level and getting a new spell or talent or a more significant boost in power etc... even the new gear you'll get through the scaled content would be way better than than the +1 int or whatever they usually have in low lvl zones.

[Nhodjin]

Overall I like the idea. I see two challenges to it. I realize this is just thought experiment territory here, but what the hell.

1) All post 60 progression becomes temporary. This is a complaint about the current philosophy we've seen in Legion and now BfA, where a given xpac provides some new progression system that disappears at the end of the expansion. Implementing expansion specific levels would bake this issue into the underpinnings of the leveling process, so that would need to be addressed somehow to prevent it from feeling like we "reset" after each expansion.

What might actually work a lot better than each expansion having 10 levels would be to introduce a system that takes inspiration from masteries in Guild Wars 2. Improvements to your character that are not expansion exclusive but aren't the same as "+1 level", instead giving you new abilities or traits that can be used anywhere. Sure many might have little to no use outside of a given expansion but they'd be persistent instead of temporary.

And if there's one thing Blizzard tends to do well, it's copying someone else's game mechanics and giving us a better version

2) Not so much a challenge, but perhaps an opportunity. One big issue with leveling is how disjointed the story has become. We have Cata to thank for a lot of this, but that's its own story. If you implement a set up where 1-60 is "old world" and all other levels are expansion specific, this introduces a simplified path to keeping the old world in sync with the latest expansion. Instead of doing Cata-level changes, you could tweak some dialog here, move an NPC there, but not necessarily need to do massive overhauls of old zones. This can set you up to, from a story perspective, logically transition into the current expansion. Once an expansion ends, it can still be accessible, but through the Caverns of Time, and Old World content is adjusted for the next expansion.

Yeah there's plenty of problems that this system will cause but just as a baseline. My thought behind this was exactly just like you say, to make sure the old world is connected and we can avoid the TBC/Wotlk etc being disjointed from the rest. Each expansion could even have a "Click here to know the story up to this point " video.

To prevent resetting, maybe they should add talents/itens that's expansion specific? like "increase dmg by X% against BfA mobs" just as an example. To keep the powercreep inside the current expansion.

[Raetary]

If the time spent is still the same then what's the point of the level squish, it's just smoke and mirrors. What does it matter if it takes 10 hour to reach 3 new levels for a reward of it takes 10 hours to reach 10 new levels for a reward?

What matters is that the lvling feels rewarding, that there is a sense of progression.

With what we have currently, you literally just stop gaining anything significant past lvl 85/86, it just makes you feel like you lose power instead of gaining it.

Not to mention the pace at which you gain an ability sucks.
What do you think feels better? to see that you need just 2 more lvls for an ability and 4/5 lvls for a talents, or having to wait another 8 damn lvls for 1 ability and another 10 for a talent.

well earned

Ah yes, those very hard and well earned lvls.

Cause you know, they are sooooo super challenging or something.

introduce new rewards, new skills, a proper talent tree to spend points? The problem isn't with the number of levels, it's how they gutted the whole experience and turned it into a hollow shell.

Oh please, we both know Blizzard doesn't intend to do any such thing.

A lvl squish would solve some of the problems with their current philosophy in mind, it would solve the entire coherency and continuity problem we have with if it came with a revamp as well.

[Kyphael]

And what exactly is the problem with a simple level squish to level 60?

Because then how does Blizzard determine what level to set our level 80/70/60 twinks to if the new max level becomes 60? Took me way more work and time getting a lot of those characters from 1-80 to just end up with a bunch of level 40's which would be a mere 20 levels above an allied race starting level now.

[MoanaLisa]

Jesus Christ you are a mod here, you are supposed to be better than this. I am talking about the character's stats, obviously... You either know that and choose to ignore it, or you truly are ignorant of that. I don't know which one is worse.

No, 120 is fine, but jumping from doing 3k damage, to 10k, to 100k, to 1million etc. and so on is clearly getting out of control really quickly cause numbers increase exponentially.

The thread is about "level bloat" not power creep. As I've said any number of times power creep doesn't have anything to do with the number of levels in the game.

[Nnyco]

Considerin we get a boost every xpac to start you right off at the new xpac theres really no need for a squish.

[MoanaLisa]

It seems less of an issue than forcing players through 120 levels for several weeks, possibly months, depending on how much time they have to play, before they can finally join their friends in the current content. Also don't forget that newer content is often better in many ways. Players would experience Cataclysm, TBC and Wrath content for the first 80-90 levels. Especially TBC and Wrath content is extremely outdated and might just make them think "wow, the game is getting worse and worse". Friends might even suggest they go create a Death Knight first, which means they will immediately get to experience the awesomeness that is Hellfire Peninsula. Granted they can also make a Demon Hunter once the DK is 70, which is the only silver lining, but what if that's just not the class they wanna play? Level boosts certainly are a good thing, but they exists because of the problem of having so many levels to go through.

To be clear since we're speaking of how daunting it must be for new players, none of this applies to them. New players get a boosted character when they buy an expansion. They aren't forced to spend weeks, possibly months before they can finally join their friends in the current content. They can choose to roll another character if they want to level up from zero but no one is forcing them. I mean jeez...it said that in the quote you used to start your answer.

[Fenreki]

The thread is about "level bloat" not power creep.

Connected.

As I've said any number of times power creep doesn't have anything to do with the number of levels in the game.

Nonsense.

- - - Updated - - -

To be clear since we're speaking of how daunting it must be for new players, none of this applies to them.

Again, nonsense. You are either a fool or trolling. Stop wasting my time.

I just read through the last couple of your posts to make sense of this mess.

You were basically saying that the number of levels isn't such a big deal for new players, but that it's actually the fact that the level boost "cuts the game in half" that is really the problem for new players. To which I replied that, no, being overwhelmed by having to level through 120 levels is worse, and the level boost is a small fix to that, one that makes the situation a bit better. And to add to what I already said, players can still go and level up a second character from level 1.

Then you say "none of this applies to new players cause they get the level boost". But I was talking about a scenario where there isn't a level boost. That was the whole assumption. To describe the scenario players have to face without the option of a level boost, in order to show why the level boost is a good thing. Do you now see how foolish your ignorant comment was? Maybe you should moan less, and think more.

[Puri]

What does not getting new abilities have to do with leveling? Maybe I missed something but to me it has nothing to do with that but rather ability bloat, difficulty of balancing and redundancy. They added new abilities through the BFA neck just this patch and they could add now abilities whenever they feel like it. They're not bound to levels.

So? New abilities give you more power, in fact it's pretty much the only thing that can give you that in the current game. And there were none from 110 to 120, and I can hardly come up with any new that do not unneccessarily bloat your set or are boring as some passive damage increase which we had in WoD. Even in the current game getting new talents while leveling feels great and (yes, depending on the talent row) can make you significantly stronger. So how could they come up with new ones when we level to 130? 150?

And mob scaling? I still feel way, way, WAY more powerful now than when I had ilvl 260 gear. The mobs scale but not as much as your damage. It might feel dumb but I really like it. If that system wasn't in place people would just look at things and they'd die, at least they now take maybe 3 hits which gives someone else time to tag the rare etc.

I am talking about mob scaling while leveling, not from getting better gear. I explicitely explained that gear is the only way of progression while leveling, not levels. In Classic for example you can level to 15 and even with the same gear you will dominate earlier zones. If I return to Voldun 5 levels later I will be just as powerful as I was before (or, as I explained, actually weaker due to loss of secondaries and in case of BFA even legendaries).

Sure, it felt a bit like I became weaker when I leveled from 110 to 120 due to me being decked out in highend gear from Antorus and legendaries. It's okay though because you switch zones when questing. You don't grind the same mobbs over and over. Before the scaling you were in a zone til it became green/gray then moved on to the next zone where the mobs were at your level or higher. I fail to see the fundamental difference here. You still switch zones and you still have even opponents. Care to elaborate?

I am not sure how you cannot see the difference there. There is no feeling of progression right now except the increase of number of levels. Without level scaling you start in a zone and get progressively stronger with every level. And when choosing a new zone after finishing the old you can choose to go to a zone where the mobs and quests are below, the same or above your level, depending on your capabilities - and not just "even" opponents. You can help a friend and rush through a zone that's five levels below you. You can do instance quests solo or in a smaller group simply because you overleveled them.
But just to point out that this is not a discussion about mob scaling yes or no, because obviously mob scaling also has great advantages. But one of the big disadvantages is that it removes character progression from leveling, and they failed to come up with an idea to compensate for that (not that I had one).

[Fred Skinner]

You could have leveling systems OTHER than character levels though. Not for WoW but as a thought exercise you could easily have a system were you level specific skills separately through an array of tasks. You could also have a non-xp system for leveling were your Character level (which would set your base attributes, removing them from gear) would depend on your level in different areas through an achievement-like system, subject to a cap (either a hard cap or a soft cap past which further levels offer very diminished benefits); a system like that would probably be far more organic if your intent was verisimilititude.

Another idea would be a paragon leveling system, with a softcap and a hardcap, which could be raised every new expac. Even if you did not level up, you could participate in endgame content. Sure, with a loss of character power, but not with locking out new chars from endgame progression completely.

Add to that the ability to quest and re-quest content in regions you freely chose on different difficulty levels with more rewards (gold, paragon xp) as more harder the difficulty is set.

Paragon xp would also be available from whatever content you play. Raids, quests, dungeons.. you would be free to choose where to go and what you like to play. Well, and it would have no time gate. I believe neither reputation nor experience of any kind should be time gated.

Leveling up a level would give gear, the better the higher you get, gold, vanity items, and minor stat raises. A mount, for example at every 5th paragon level.

[Kagdar]

Instead of a level squish how about Blizzard make 1-60 the base for all leveling? 60 is the new "max" level ALWAYS but then each expansion has their own set of levels. So once you hit level 60 you can play the newest expansion and that expansion has like "10 Legion levels" and you still need to level up in that expansion to experience it. But you could say 1-70 is the max amount of levels you will be leveling regardless of the amount of expansions coming out.

There's obvious problems with this but i think the benefits could outweigh the negatives. What do you guys think?

Had an idea like that.
1-60 levels.
Each expact you don't get new levels per say, you instead get levels to the new gimmic grind stuff they introduced.

So example your BfA levels would all be related to your neck level for the purpose of unlocking new stuff. Did we even get anything new from 110 to 120 as a level reward? just shows how useless "levels" are nowadays.

[SkagenRora]

Who the fuck wants to play 80 levels of "story mode" in world of warcraft. That sounds insane

Well i hope they at some point add "forced" completion to certain things so you can't just LFD or "Freehold Boost" yourself to max level. Tbh i like how Final fantasy has their leveling

[Dudenoso]

I don't think a level squish is needed. I have a feeling that most of the advocates just want the ability to level their alts faster and know that if Blizz ever did a level squish leveling speed would probably be further improved.

Going 30 levels with only 1 talent to show for it feels pretty bad, though.

Even if levelling speed was the same, it would suck less compared to the current model of levelling up and the only thing happening is your character getting weaker.

NO.

I have said many times that an MMO has THREE aspects: PvP, PvE, and leveling. When you reduce leveling to 6 hours, you are destroying 1/3 of what makes an MMO. This is a big reason why vanilla is so good. Vanilla actually has a leveling game. Leveling in an MMO should never ever takes merely 6 hours. It should even be in Diablo 3 because it destroys that game too.

Some of us only see levelling as the X amount of time we have to dedicate before getting to the meat of the game. We wouldn't feel like that if levelling in general wasn't such a boring-ass experience.

BfA did it better than the other expansions IMO. There's still a lot of shit before getting to it with any non-boosted character.

[Twdft]

I think leveling should be organized per expansion, like professions, 20 being max level for every expansion.

Azeroth 1-20
Outland 1-20
Northrend 1-20
Pandaria 1-20
... you get the idea.

With a fresh char you could then choose whichever old content you want to or begin with the current expansion (we get a boost every time anyway). If you have leveled an older expansion with one char you get a toy to boost every new char in that expansion to 20, similar to the flight point. Gear should scale as it is now, meaning with current BfA gear you should still be able to solo farm Northrend raids provided you are level 20 Northrend.

[Rozz]

I don't understand why it's even a problem. Big numbers indicate a vast game; which taken altogether WoW is. This terror in recent years of big numbers is mystifying.

For me it's aesthetic. If you just keep adding more onto the end, it makes everything between 1 and the new max meaningless. I'd prefer if levels never went over 100, but a practical solution is needed.

[Nfinitii]

I don't think a level squish is needed. I have a feeling that most of the advocates just want the ability to level their alts faster and know that if Blizz ever did a level squish leveling speed would probably be further improved.

The point of the lvl squish is to decrease the number of lvls, not the time to max lvl. Wow has a huge bloat problem, many zones and lvls r completely pointless.

[lollerlaban]

And what exactly is the problem with a simple level squish to level 60?

All the other systems has to accommodate for such a thing. Just like the scaling tech had a few flaws with items and some mobs

[Tharkkun]

I don't think a level squish is needed. I have a feeling that most of the advocates just want the ability to level their alts faster and know that if Blizz ever did a level squish leveling speed would probably be further improved.

Blizzard wants it. Because next expansion will be level 130. Levels really mean little until you get to the final 10 so decreasing that number could be done in a way to make the lower levels feel meaningful again. Blizzard won't speed up the leveling experience if they squish. The levels will take longer to compensate so the time sink will be the same.

[Akibaboy]

• Squish to 60 max level.
• 1-10 is intro zones (All of Elwynn, All of Durotar) for standard races, allied races start at 10. DKs starting zone goes from 28-30, Demon Hunters from 48-50.
• At 10, pick an expansion to level from 10-60. It takes roughly 1.5 expansions' worth of quests to level 10-60... or alternatively 1 expansion's worth of quests, and doing all the dungeons and side activities.
• Once an expansion is done, roll it into the "legacy" pool, it can be used to go from 10-60
• A new expansion gets its own unique "Paragon of _____" levels - the first 10 are static and required to open dungeons and "max level" content. After earning 10 paragon levels, you keep going but these levels are more akin to Artifact levels - small stat increase, doesn't affect your require stat weights to gain percentage, etc.
• You always keep these paragon levels for an expansion experience, but when going into a new expansion, you're still "60". 60 is always the required level to access a current expansion. If you skip an xpac on a toon, they can come to the new one right away if they're 60. They just won't faceroll a previous xpac's content the way a toon who did play through it did.

This way, you can play where you want and finish the experience you want completely while leveling... or jump around to whatever is most efficient for those who don't care. I personally hate what amounts to reading the first chapter of 6 books to level a character. For example, I did all of the 80-90 bracket, which used to encompass two expansions... just in Vashj'ir. Then I went to WoD and did 90-100 just in Gorgrond. Legion doesn't even get through half its experience and stories with the order hall before it's over. It'd be amazing to start an Order Hall questline at 10 and actually play through it as you level, since they were some of the better story content pieces in recent WoW.

Furthermore, it opens up options for actually role-playing much better. Your new Void Elf can just start in Boralus, and not have to go to lands in time periods where they literally didn't exist. A Mag'har or Draenei could roleplay as a native of Draenor and play all of WoD. A new shaman could live the fantasy of trying to mend the world amidst the Cataclysm, in ALL its zones instead of one. A Pandaren can... well do Pandaria. Take that level 10 Warlock to Legion Dalaran and experience some of the best class quests and scenarios in the game... and experience a demon focused storyline for them.

Whatever your preferred method of leveling is, it can go back to being an actual immersive video game experience... not a haphazard mess of leaving content behind before you've even slightly sunk your teeth into it. Detractors usually respond with, "You can always stay and finish the stories, no one's forcing you to leave." Except that's an either or scenario... you can either level, or you can experience story. Why not both?