What expansion made leveling content faceroll?

[Dergiab]

I quit in WotLK pre-patch and played very little sporadically from then on for every expansion release so I have a not so good grasp on what happened to the state of the leveling, all I know is that when I tried to start a level 1 in 2012 it wasn't engaging enough for me. Anyone that can fill in the details when this happened or when it started?

I played on some WotLK PServers and there were some stuff that changed, such as looms (optional though) and some TBC spells that came in levels 10-20 (Victory rush for example).

I should add that I'm talking about combat and combat pacing, and not about xp per level or mount availability.

[Kynario]

In WoTLK leveling still took pretty long, albeit before heirlooms were implemented. It took me like 7-10 days on average to level up to 80 in WoTLK taking my time with everything.

Otherwise from Cataclysm levelling was pretty much a faceroll

[cparle87]

BC did. 2.3 was when they non-elited almost every outdoor elite mob. Like the caves outside BFD, the maze outside RFD, the part of the temple outside the instance portal of ST, and of course Jintha'alor.

[beanman12345]

I leveled my druid in WotLK and it was pretty faceroll. Maybe because it was my 3rd toon to max, but it was pretty dang easy.

[Blamblam41]

WotLK was pretty faceroll as retridan for very obvious reasons, but felt very faceroll on alts especially deathknight.

I always felt like TBC's overall gear power creep and leveling pace was the best out of the whole game, personally.

Vanilla just had way too many auto attacks, or way too much kiting. Felt like I was playing a simulator more than a game.

[ingsve]

it was a gradual thing I believe. In TBC I think they did a couple of XP nerfs to make the levels shorter as well as the mentioned removal of elites in many places. Wrath also saw XP nerfs I Believe but I'm not sure about that. The whole cata revamp made things much more streamlined so it removed a lot of the travel and confusion in questing in the old continents so that made things even easier.

[Deleted]

I feel like every time they did a rework of a spec, the relative power of a lower level character went up more than the content itself. I can't think of a singular point where it coalesced into what we have now, but heirlooms and the easy gearing up through dungeon finder really compound that increased base strength.

[Thoughtcrime]

It was BC when they started to reduce the experience requirements for 1-60 as well as turning 3 - 5 player group quests to solo and reducing damage and health in all earlier dungeons. This trend continued in every expansion, combined with all classes gaining extended tool kits and stronger itemisation which further pushed the game in the direction of allowing almost any class to 3 shot mobs until level 100. Wrath nerfed BC in the same way BC nerfed Vanilla, Cata did the same to Wrath and so on.

Heirlooms greatly exacerbate the issue and honestly at this point I wish they'd get rid of them completely. They take out a huge and important part of the reward loop that makes games like these feel worthwhile to play and players are just far too strong with them in all aspects of the game.

I really hope they can pull off their goal of making levelling fun again because there's a huge amount of content there that is basically seen as a barrier to entry rather than the great game that it could be if there was some challenge and investment in the story of each zone.

[Deleted]

BC did. 2.3 was when they non-elited almost every outdoor elite mob. Like the caves outside BFD, the maze outside RFD, the part of the temple outside the instance portal of ST, and of course Jintha'alor.

^

Not only did they remove almost every Elite NPC, almost everything was lowered and made easier with this patch. Of course the time it took you was still pretty high compared to this days, but this patch made a lot easier and from this day I started to level more alts.

[beanman12345]

^

Not only did they remove almost every Elite NPC, almost everything was lowered and made easier with this patch. Of course the time it took you was still pretty high compared to this days, but this patch made a lot easier and from this day I started to level more alts.

I do agree, the BC changes certainly made it easy, but many of the class reworks in 3.0 and removing the "hybrid tax" and such just made the level experience quite the roflstomp.

[HumbleDuck]

It started back in BC, however I'm ok with that, you can't expect new players to spend half a year leveling, they feel excluded and will leave the game pretty fast.
The real hit was the introduction of XP heirlooms in during wrath.

[Lidenbok]

I am grateful of heirlooms in the fact I have now leveled hundreds of characters and obviously, nothing of that whole experience is new or exciting to me anymore.

I have been leveling a new character with my Nephew without heirlooms and I didn't realize how much I have missed getting excited by obtaining new gear and looking forward to looking cooler. However I also bumped in to a group that were absolute dicks to me because I was a tank without heirlooms, so I couldn't pull as much and the healer had to actually heal me. This was only RFD, so early 30s? Heirlooms has birthed a whole other issue, other than the leveling being quicker, trust me.

Other than reconnecting with a community, the whole gearing journey and collecting new items and feeling that immense bond with your character is what I am most excited for.

[cparle87]

The real hit was the introduction of XP heirlooms in during wrath.

Not just the addition of heirlooms. I think Wrath was the first time they did the whole "reduced the amount of exp needed to reach the previous expansion's cap" thing that they now do every expansion.

[solshine2510]

Cataclysm took out everything that would pose a slightest threat when doing quests or low level dungeons. Leveling became dull and boring. No way to actually get to know your class if you are starting with it, for example in dungeons everything dies within 1 hit from a tank Casters can barely cast 1 cast. Pre Cata one could die multiple times in starting zones if careless.

[Deleted]

Leveling always faceroll just took enormous time in the past, you fought far less mobs with far more time and you can die more easily. It wasn't "hard" , never. Leveling always a tedious grind, time consume activity not always equals challenge. Grind is not challenge.

[munkeyinorbit]

BC did. 2.3 was when they non-elited almost every outdoor elite mob. Like the caves outside BFD, the maze outside RFD, the part of the temple outside the instance portal of ST, and of course Jintha'alor.

This is also when they did their first experience rejig. They reduced the XP needed for each level, even from 60 to 70. They did another experience rejig half way through WotLK. Heirlooms were introduced at beginning of WotLK. The Cata revamp finished it off. All of the quests were redone so they were in a logical order and they filled in areas where there was not a lot of quests.

[Dergiab]

I should add that I'm talking about combat and combat pacing, and not about xp per level or mount availability.

[RobertMugabe]

Definetly Cataclysm...

That was the xpac where you could just start mindlessly killing mobs and queue for dungeons, get the quests at the dungeon entrance etc.

That being said, lvling was already SIGNIFICANTLY easier in TBC (like a lot easier) and especially even more in Wrath, where they made it even more trivial and even added dungeon finder (though it was still a different experience compared to Cata and onwards...). Though overall the lvling in TBC and Wrath and was still challenging and felt like 'vanilla'.

[Thoughtcrime]

Leveling always faceroll just took enormous time in the past, you fought far less mobs with far more time and you can die more easily. It wasn't "hard" , never. Leveling always a tedious grind, time consume activity not always equals challenge. Grind is not challenge.

I remember when I first levelled my mage as fire that if I pulled 3 mobs by mistake I was going to die. I could keep one poly'd and kill the 2 I was fighting but I'd need first aid to do so, and then I'd run out of mana and be unable to kill the third.

Likewise with my warrior at the time it was an actual struggle sometimes as my level outstripped the gear I was wearing and I'd have to periodically stop to farm a level appropriate dungeon like scarlet monastery to prepare myself for the next 5 - 10 levels.

The game was objectively harder, and you learned your class along the way. Was it Cup Head? No, but it had the right amount of challenge to make you better at the game and prepare you for the end game content. Nowadays the learning curve is a flat line until 110 and beyond until players hit a road block at the actual content because they were never prepared for it.

[Tekkommo]

It started in BC, but I wouldn't call that faceroll. Depends on your definition of faceroll though, vanilla wasn't hard to level, just time consuming.

I would say WotLK was the proper start of faceroll, when you could just start pulling many mobs and not care.

WotLK, while a great expansion, was really the start of the downfall of the game as well, making the game so easy and bringing in LFG.