I can't be the only one predicting a permanent level 60 cap

[kansor]

20th level has been the cap for D&D for decades. Nobody seems to mind.

No it hasn't....levels were limitless in D&D 3e, 30 was the cap in D&D 4e. Only the most recent edition capped it at 20.

[Segus1992]

Rofl, like WoW will last 10 more expansions. They should stop doing squishes at this point honestly and let us have our constant power increase again.

It definitely can, never claimed the expansions would be as large scale as current. Thinking anything else is naive.

However, if they did stop the squishes, you might be right. What a horrendously terrible idea.

[vertigo12]

Thats exactly what Ion said. When WoW was created the developer didn't think about the game 10 years ahead, but now they do. So they setup systems that allows them to have a scalable future for WoW.

We will be scaled back every new expansion now to level 50. They add the last expansion to the 1-50 leveling pool and the new expansion to 50-60. Infinite system - build to last forever.

But gameplay-wise it is a broken system. Not unless the integrate a timetravel expac in between , i⁦.e. reincarnation in 10.0, time travel in Ancient Kalimdor 12.0, etc. to reset leveling bracket and level up system.

If only they continued the level up system from 120 to 125, they could've still tweaked the leveling bracket and implemented a dynamic leveling system instead.

They're just making fool of themselves when implementing legacy items which scales upto level cap which is not the level for a current expansion.

[Onikaroshi]

It definitely can, never claimed the expansions would be as large scale as current. Thinking anything else is naive.

However, if they did stop the squishes, you might be right. What a horrendously terrible idea.

Opinions and such, they never should have squished past the required WoD one IMO, constant power progression is integral.

[vertigo12]

They should be just included WoD, Legion and BfA into one level bracket which is 90-100 and just said that SL is level 100-110 instead of condensing everything to 1-50. They just wasted all their effort and time in formulating a bracket system for BfA and Legion and skipped one level for an iteration of a level up system.

WoD could've been 90-95, Legion 95-100 and BfA 95-105. But all of them still fall on teir III level bracket.

[spleen1015]

I'm cool with this idea and I think it is what they are going to do.

They've gotten smarter and have built a system where it is easy for them to scale content, etc.

[Adam Jensen]

The only way they will do that is if they create an alternate advancement system. So instead of levels the next expansion starts at level 60+Paragon 1-10. Basically creating new levels that are fundamentally the same but a different starting point. There is no reason why they can't do a level squish every 2-3 expansions. Levels have really been less important in the grand scheme of things and more a way to curate the experience through the new zones prior to End Game.

I think Paragon might make a bit more sense. Hit 60, work on paragon. Paragon resets when the next expansion hits. Paragon might be spent maybe on endgame abilities or passives or something. But then that also kinda sounds like Artifact Power and how we spent it on making our HoA's more powerful and able to use more essences so I can see how people might not be comfortable with that idea.

I do not think the expansion after SL will take us back to level 70 though.

[tmamass]

NTY, leveling is part of an RPG

and we know Ion hates everything RPG in wow thats why we get a level squish in SL
because he is stupid and thinks level 120 is daunting to "new players" while in reality rplers would see the number and like the idea of having that much content.

@Omedon: yes thats what I have been saying from start. after BFA every pre-patch will squish you back to 50 so you do 51-60 in the new xpac.
so that you can do in xpac sl+1 all sl content at level 10 like you know can do bfa at 10.

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You would still have to level every xpac. Just, EVERY xpac you'd be levelling from 50 to 60. End of xpac ---> Dropped to 50 and everything rescaled.

no, thats the beauty of this one after sl pre-patch they never have to squish old content EVER again

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You would still have to level every xpac. Just, EVERY xpac you'd be levelling from 50 to 60. End of xpac ---> Dropped to 50 and everything rescaled.

no, thats the beauty of this one after sl pre-patch they never have to squish old content EVER again

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Was that not ... sort of the point?

The game isn't going to be "Levels 1-50 + SL". It's most likely going to be "Legacy WoW 1-50 + Current Expansion".. apply to as many expansions as you want. 1-50 is going to become the playground 'do whatever you want because the past doesnt matter' and 50-60 is 'the actual game as it is right now'. It removes any aspect of having to worry about squishes or anything ever again.

It still asks the question: why keep levels then at all?

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That's not fun, set it back once, and never touch it again.

tbh they should have never touch the level "its just a - " number then again Ion hates rpgs....

[Kyphael]

Might as well, otherwise they'll have to do a level squish every time "the leveling number becomes big and scary!"

[GreenJesus]

I think keeping the cap 100 would be better. Besides classic nostalgia, 60 just seems kind of arbitrary. 100 gives more room for scaling and brackets of content levels.

[tmamass]

I wouldn't like that. I don't mind a squish every now and then, but to be put back to 50 every expansion? That makes leveling feel so worthless that I wouldn't continue doing it. That's just so not the same as getting a squish after 15+ years.

and THAT is the reason why Ion hasnt told us that they squish you back to 50 for every new xpac starting with SL:
people accept one squish but beeing squished back to 50 after every xpac? :-D

[Great Destiny Man]

I think Paragon might make a bit more sense. Hit 60, work on paragon. Paragon resets when the next expansion hits. Paragon might be spent maybe on endgame abilities or passives or something. But then that also kinda sounds like Artifact Power and how we spent it on making our HoA's more powerful and able to use more essences so I can see how people might not be comfortable with that idea.

I do not think the expansion after SL will take us back to level 70 though.

Yea fundamentally AP is the Paragon level of WoW. I suppose what you could do is have something similar to how professions handles it - separate levels recorded for each expansion like Shadowlands Paragon 1/10, Next Expansion after SL Paragon 1/10 etc). Levels are never really lost and matters when you revisit content.

Only problem is when you want to steam roll over old content, can't really do that under that type of system.

[Segus1992]

Opinions and such, they never should have squished past the required WoD one IMO, constant power progression is integral.

If they hadn't squished again in BfA and SL, the numbers we'd have seen in an unsquished WoD would be lower than what we'd see if both BfA and SL were unsquished.

[Lucetia]

I would love perma 60 cap, I think even my first post here was about this. But instead of squshing everyone every 2 years, I would keep 1-50 untouched and just squish 50-60 back to level 50.

Honestly I find this idea extremely terrible and offputting. I know a lot of people still find it offputting that we are essentially being deleveled, yes same power blah blah. Then to go through this every expansion? It's like hey you reached 60 yay. 2 years later, oh we are going to put you right back at 50 you won't mind right?

What they should do and would be better if they want to keep the cap at 60 is come up with an alternative means to leveling. Like Paragon, etc but something that fits the leveling idea a bit better.

In this scenario you would level only chars that you want to play DURING Shadowlands (don't matter if for raids, current transmog or soloing Legion raids). You wouldn't have to level all classes just in case you would play it in the future expacs - if it's 50, it always will be ready for new content.

Which makes it still a terrible idea. A character shouldn't be expansion ready just because you neglected to level it. You should still need to level it in some form. That's like saying I should be at 60 right now because I'm current cap.

Opinions and such, they never should have squished past the required WoD one IMO, constant power progression is integral.

Agreed. There shouldn't have been any squish after the initial one. If people are so distraught by big numbers then find/make an addon that lowers it. The increasing in the number helps make the power level gains feel better. Nothing is worse than going from X number back down to Y number just because. The initial squish I wasn't even a fan of tbh and rather it not have happened and they just adjust the code not to be 32 bit numbers so they could go higher.

All these squishes is like telling someone their favorite game where they are at level cap 99 that years later they are pushing out an update that squishes them back to say 50, but they can still level their character back up to 99. How many are actually going to do that and be happy?

[blankfaced]

I really hope not, the level squish is already stupid and doesn't solve the problem they created of over inflated ilvls. In another expansion or two they're going to have to do another ilvl squish anyways.

[crusadernero]

I see your point and I understand why many would like it.

But... Theres something great about that DING and glow you get lol. Sometimes thats the best part about leveling chars, seeing that short span of light and hear you level up. If we could keep that when playing in a new xpac, I wouldnt bother. TBH, what level I am at max lvl doesnt really bother me much. I enjoy the journey to max level.

I would not be surprised if they did with wow as with Diablo. Have us reach max lvl and from there lvl in other ways

[Veldoranz]

This (Level cap being 60 for good) is the best approach in my eyes. It has big downsides for sure, but the alternative moves us backwards again after Shadowlands. They have stated that the level squish is meant to make leveling feel rewarding and for it to be faster, both of those things would be thrown out the window in the next expansion.

The only real way to do this is once an expansion ends, it moves to the leveling pool for 10-50. The new expansion is released and the cap is 60, meanwhile your level is reset to 50. Even typing it out seems insane, but I genuinely think that this is the only reasonable way forward.

Really think about it for a second. It could potentially be the end of the stat-squishes every other expansion and the out of control numbers. It's also not that crazy considering we have a pretty hard power reset every expansion, in that your mythic gear is getting replaced with quest greens.

Again, there are some pretty glaring issues here, but considering the net benefit I do not believe it to be that large of an issue. There has never been a mass-exodus from WoW due to the appearance of power loss, and I cannot imagine there would be one now.

I am all for it.

[korijenkins]

A permanent level cap should've been introduced in WoD and the leveling in Legion should've just been through the artifact weapons. Maybe completing each zone unlocked a trait in the weapon?

That was the best time they had to do it. This is their next opportunity, and it needs to be done.

[Hctaz]

Well, I have a feeling they might just do something like that. But I have to imagine that at some point, the scaling and squishing down will get a little difficult to make work?

Plus it would mean that old content will technically never be outleveled anymore. You would be able to get at most 10 levels above BfA content, 0 over Shadowlands, 0 over any future expansion.

That's fine. They already have "Chromie-time" to fix that issue.

I suppose they could do it where like... launch day of the new expansion you're pushed back to level 50, all of the old content gets the "chromie-time" solution, and then the new content is 50-60 again. They could keep the item levels the same between expansions that way. So like... how we have it right now with Wrath/TBC for example is that it's all mostly ilvl 100 at level 80. Just do like... 1-50 is up to ilvl whatever say 100. Then 60 starts off at ilvl 150 or something. Keep that trend going through each expansion and you also create a consistent understanding of what item level actually means.

[huth]

Nobody minds it that much in D&D because most campaigns don't even reach that level. Aside from that, D&D has had rules for Epic Levels (taking the cap to level 40) for decades. Baldurs Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal allowed some classes to reach level 40 and that ended with asking the player whether they wanted to go back to a mortal life or literally ascend and become a god.

It's not really a good comparison to make to a game where 95% of its content is packed at the maximum level.

D&D also hasn't had expansions in the way WoW has, so the example isn't really applicable anyway.