Shadowlands leveling faster than retail with 100% buff?

[Collected]

The "fix" is simple to me but whenever I say it people lose their minds. But I'll say it anyway.

They should remove heirlooms from the game.

Why? A few pretty good reasons IMHO.

- They're an outdated system that was built for when the game took much longer to level alts.
- You'll finally be able to equip all gear that drops whilst levelling and go into Shadowlands with a half decent item level instead of trash when you're forced to remove all your heirloom gear. How many times has an item procced epic and you've gone "Damn I wish I could use that".
- It removes the XP buff that's allowing people to ding 50 in silly times. Even the power level god took about 13 hours without heirlooms in alpha. That feels just right to me.
- 10-50 already seems to take you far enough into BFA content with the current scaling. I'm not sure how they could adjust the scaling to add a bunch of hours.
- How would the heirloom upgrade system work across 50 levels of content? It wouldn't.

The obvious question is "But mah gold!". Simple fix. They calculate how much you've spent on all heirlooms which is easily done. And then they have the heirloom NPC refund you on a character of your choice.

But what about the future? What about when there are lots of levels again? I doubt there will be. My other hunch is whenever a new expansion is launched the cap will drop back down to 50 and we will always level between 50 and 60 in new content. No one is ever going past 60 in retail ever again. IMHO. It just makes sense.

[beanman12345]

Well a good indication is how fast is it to level from 110-120 in BFA with full heirlooms? pretty fast. It might take a bit longer to 10-50 in SL but not much. Without heirlooms you don't even have to finish all 3 zones. First time, maybe 15 hours, second time, much faster, with heirlooms, should be about 10 hours max. That's pretty much how it was with most of the expansions when they launched so it shouldn't matter which you do it should be a much shorter time to get to max then now. So about 15 hours to get from 10-50 and probably 15 hours to get from 50-60 for first time. not bad imo.

[ReVnX]

Yes, I've read that. But seeing how it takes me 20 hours with a 100% buff for 20-110 right now, a "probably too fast 7 hours" means to that it'll take 10 hours or so to level 1-50 (which is 1-120). That's still a LOT faster. Feels like I'm wasting my time leveling Allied Races now. And I thought now would be a good time because of the buff... lame.

A friend and I have leveled two allied races from 20-110 in under 12 hours each. No speed-leveling nor any other bullshit.

You may be doing something wrong.. that is the time it took without the 100% buff

[Segus1992]

I've just read in that interview with Ion that the entire leveling process seems to take around 7 hours. Is this for real? I've leveled two Allied Races and even with the 100% buff following Azeroth Auto Pilot I took around 20 hours each to reach level 110.

Is Shadowlands leveling really that much faster? If it is I'll stop playing right now. No point in wasting my time when it takes less than half in a few months.

edit: I realize Ion also said that the leveling isn't tuned yet and they think 7 hours is too fast. But even 10 or 15 hours would be almost twice as fast as it is right now with +100%.

They stated at Blizzcon that leveling would take 1/3 of the time that it currently (pre-buff) takes. That means it'd still be 50% faster than live with the buff - which isn't 7 hours maybe, but it is definitely worth waiting for the pre-patch to level alts. The buff is there to get people to play during the times when the game has the least amount of subs normally. Only the rep buff is worth utilizing, as long as you don't use it for allied races (won't require rep in SL).

[Flarelaine]

They recognized that the long time it takes to level to reach max level is one of the main problems that turns new players off from the game.

Markets change, nobody appreciates the 'slow journey' as it existed in Vanilla.

I very much enjoyed the slow journey for the first time after Classic launched. For alts... I don't mind shortcuts.

[Flurryfang]

This scares the crap out of me. I know people sees WoW as a game, where 98% of the fun is at max lvl, but as a person who loves leveling, going through the old zones when they are current level, i fear that the leveling experience will be destroyed by this "squish".

Like, if i choose to level in TBC, if i am already at lvl 30 (the breakpoint where you go to BFA) when i hit Nagrand or Blades edge, i will feel like some of the fun is being taken away. I hope they tune the experience, so it matches with that you hit the breakpoint, as soon as you are done with 1 single expansions content fully. It would then already be more than double the speed of before.

[Ninix]

That still seems very fast compared to the speed with the 100% buff right now, doesn't it? If you follow Auto Pilot I'd say 1-120 is about 25-30 hours at the moment. If it takes 15 hours after tuning that's another 100% buff on top of the current 100% buff. Seems really weird to me that they have this promotion now if it's going to be twice as fast with SL.

You do understand the current 100% buff is here as an incentive for players stuck at home because of Covid situation, and not a renewed levelling design (like SL is), right ?

[Collected]

This scares the crap out of me. I know people sees WoW as a game, where 98% of the fun is at max lvl, but as a person who loves leveling, going through the old zones when they are current level, i fear that the leveling experience will be destroyed by this "squish".

Like, if i choose to level in TBC, if i am already at lvl 30 (the breakpoint where you go to BFA) when i hit Nagrand or Blades edge, i will feel like some of the fun is being taken away. I hope they tune the experience, so it matches with that you hit the breakpoint, as soon as you are done with 1 single expansions content fully. It would then already be more than double the speed of before.

I'm not sure what you mean by a breakpoint? The intention is you pick any expansion at Level 10 and can go all the way to 50 in that single expansion experience. There is no point where you're forced into BFA content. The only exception is new players who have no choice but to level their first character in BFA.

- - - Updated - - -

It'll be interesting to see if they also 'retune' some of the previous expansions to slow down levelling in them. WoD specifically - takes me about an hour to get from 90 to 100 doing the bonus quests in Shadowmoon Valley and Gorgond (admittedly with the increase XP by 300% pot for 15 mins buff).

I think MoP can also be done pretty quickly through just finding treasures?

Would I be able to do Exile's Reach -> WoD -> Shadowlands?

Oh for sure the other expansions will be tweaked. The objective will be that you can level via questing/dungeons in each expansion and for it to take roughly the same amount of time regardless of which expansion you pick. So then it becomes free choice as to which story you prefer to level in. So they'll need to re-tune the bonus objectives and treasures in some expansions.

[TheLucky1]

If you read/watched it he also says this:

Seven hours to level is probably too fast, but powerlevelers who are trying to do it as fast as possible are an outlier. Leveling speed hasn't been tuned on Alpha.

They think seven hours is too fast and leveling speed isn't tuned yet.

They actually can't tune it that much higher if you think about it.
1-10 is just a small tutorial/starting scenario, after that you must be able to level from 10-50 within one expansion without heirlooms/buffs, else newer players would have problems.

They can tune it so that the newer players need every single quest/zone in there to get to 50 but this still means that ppl with full heirlooms/buffs/enchants can probably still cut that time in half, i will bet that you can level a toon to cap in the prepatch within a prolonged gaming afternoon-evening.

- - - Updated - - -

However with the current pandemic going on +100% buff... why not do it now? most of us have the time now.

Edit: im actually wondering if they will still sell the level boost after the revamp.

- - - Updated - - -

The "fix" is simple to me but whenever I say it people lose their minds. But I'll say it anyway.

They should remove heirlooms from the game.

Some good points but you can handle that differently (for example a tabard or toy that you upgrade instead of the armor/weapons, like that you can still use the gear you aquire along the way.)

However i must disagree that leveling is too fast (for veterans) or it is bad for the game when veterans powerlevel a new alt, there is a ton of stuff to do in the endgame for several years now, no need to bother me with boring content i already did several times, instead of grinding through it i will either make no alt or take a break, it's always been like that, also with how much progression there has been in Legion and Bfa in the endgame there is absolutely no need to worry about fotm meta, the real game has been the endgame for a long time now.

For newer players that is something different of course, the pacing should be slow enough that you don't just get spammend with new abilities/ranks and feel overwhelmed, this could currently be the case on alpha.

[Revamp Man]

[QUOTE
Blizzard never encouraged to use level boost. Price is set VERY high to discourage people. They would earn a lot more money with 30-40$ boosts, but game would be hurt in long run.

#1. If you believe that the price was set high to discourage people from buying it then I have a Corona virus vaccine to sell you, and #2; it did hurt the game in the long run and that is why they are making leveling fast enough for even the laziest mmo players.[/QUOTE]

If they made the boost so ppl would buy it instead of leveling

1. Why did they speed up leveling recently

2. Why add more heirlooms

3. Why make allied races ineligible to get the heritage gear if they were boosted

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They actually can't tune it that much higher if you think about it.
1-10 is just a small tutorial/starting scenario, after that you must be able to level from 10-50 within one expansion without heirlooms/buffs, else newer players would have problems.

They can tune it so that the newer players need every single quest/zone in there to get to 50 but this still means that ppl with full heirlooms/buffs/enchants can probably still cut that time in half, i will bet that you can level a toon to cap in the prepatch within a prolonged gaming afternoon-evening.

- - - Updated - - -

However with the current pandemic going on +100% buff... why not do it now? most of us have the time now.

Edit: im actually wondering if they will still sell the level boost after the revamp.

- - - Updated - - -


Some good points but you can handle that differently (for example a tabard or toy that you upgrade instead of the armor/weapons, like that you can still use the gear you aquire along the way.)

However i must disagree that leveling is too fast (for veterans) or it is bad for the game when veterans powerlevel a new alt, there is a ton of stuff to do in the endgame for several years now, no need to bother me with boring content i already did several times, instead of grinding through it i will either make no alt or take a break, it's always been like that, also with how much progression there has been in Legion and Bfa in the endgame there is absolutely no need to worry about fotm meta, the real game has been the endgame for a long time now.

For newer players that is something different of course, the pacing should be slow enough that you don't just get spammend with new abilities/ranks and feel overwhelmed, this could currently be the case on alpha.

You also have to take into account the fact that most expansions only have a half a dozen zones so you’re going to be covering a very large level range during each one

[RobertMugabe]

7 hours for someone that optimises their leveling is fast, of course, but again it's really not a big drama. I don't give a shit if it takes me 2 days to level or 1 day or whatever. I just level shit in dungeons and zones I haven't done in years. Shadowlands will be no exception. The difference between leveling in 7 hours or 12 hours or whatever is of no consequence to me and if it's something that puts you off leveling, that's fair enough but I don't think it's really a big deal to worry about.

I wonder how lvling through dungeons is gonna work in SL. I mean you will be able to pick 8 expansions (incl. vanilla) from 10-50 lol

[TheLucky1]

If they made the boost so ppl would buy it instead of leveling

1. Why did they speed up leveling recently

2. Why add more heirlooms

3. Why make allied races ineligible to get the heritage gear if they were boosted

Don't engage into discussions with conspiracy theorists, it will keep you sane.
A few months after the level boost introduction they did the Legion pre-patch for example, i leveled a dozen characters in no time with that and never ever had to buy a level boost, even new players and players without heirlooms could do it.
Yet you still have ppl like him chanting "aCtIvIsIon bAd" in their echo chambers.

[Revamp Man]

Don't engage into discussions with conspiracy theorists, it will keep you sane.
A few months after the level boost introduction they did the Legion pre-patch for example, i leveled a dozen characters in no time with that and never ever had to buy a level boost, even new players and players without heirlooms could do it.
Yet you still have ppl like him chanting "aCtIvIsIon bAd" in their echo chambers.

My favorite is when they use “its to boost the MAUs” argument

I honestly think people don’t even understand what that is

[Tesshin83]

The 7 hours used to level to max is world record stuff. You can't take that as a standard leveling speed.

Its same stupid mistake people do when comparing themselves to Method, Limit for how to do mythic raiding or MDI.

I am actually sad that people wants the leveling prosess to be as fast as possible.

The leveling is something that should be enjoyed all the way and you should take different routes for each alt to make the experience as different as possible.

[Neuroticaine]

If your intent is to level a character from scratch, it would probably be more efficient to do it in Shadowlands. If you're looking to level some characters you neglected in BFA but previously had capped, in preparation for playing them seriously in Shadowlands, it would be a good idea to get them taken care of now, unless you're not worried about getting into raids ASAP.

[doodle90]

That 7 hours is from a speed runner, currently the speed runs without the 100% buffs are around 20-25 with 17 being the record. With the 100% buff that would be 8ish and 10-12ish. So a 7hour speed run seems pretty on par with 100% faster.. give or take an hour.

[TheLucky1]

The 7 hours used to level to max is world record stuff. You can't take that as a standard leveling speed.

Its same stupid mistake people do when comparing themselves to Method, Limit for how to do mythic raiding or MDI.

I am actually sad that people wants the leveling prosess to be as fast as possible.

The leveling is something that should be enjoyed all the way and you should take different routes for each alt to make the experience as different as possible.

This game is very old and most "loyal" players have a ton of alts by now, i have every class on horde and alliance side for example and that's not even on the extreme end.

But to be honest, it already started to suck on my 3th or 4th ever alt, and i think everyone should be able to experience every class in a decent time frame, leveling is just far too easy/boring and once you have done it 3-4 times you probably also have seen it all, no need to artificially slow it down for veteran players that just look to get a new class to cap (and don't tell me that i should just buy a boost lmao.)

I don't mind the speed increase at all, the only folks that should get a good pacing are new comers.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

lvl 10-50 is designed to be done in 1 expansion with no looms and the 10%/20% exp pot so it will take about ~10Hrs

[Greengrim]

Yes please, leveling sucks slimey donkey balls...

[Kuja]

That might be why the buff exists. To give a taste of things to come, see how players react and tune the leveling experience based on that.