The leveling experience BADLY needs fixed.

[Pua]

Alright. These are based on what I experienced on my mage that I got through to 110 just this past week, so some of this is still a bit fresh in my mind, actually.

This is the type of response I deeply enjoy from people who disagree with me.

Thank you.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Leveling is currently designed by people who hate leveling. All the innovations to leveling are about skips or making it faster. People try to improve it by adding even more skips and making it faster still. This isn't innovation, this is just killing leveling as a game design.

Reading through a good chunk of this forum it sounds like that's not going to change. In fact it's probably going to get easier.

Just look at the hubbub about "I want my 30% War Mode Exp Boost without having to PvP."

If Blizz started selling 120 boosts tomorrow they'd be rolling in money and not have to cancel Heroes of the Storm esports.

[MasterHamster]

Leveling is broken, but it's kept broken because keeping it broken lets people get through it faster,
so they don't notice quite as much how broken it is.


There's few other rational reasons why Blizzard would otherwise let such an obviously broken but still major (yes) feature of the game become this braindead buttonmashing ARPG where you just AoE everything down without a seconds thought. I mean the only character customization you have in practice is choosing a talent every 15 levels so it's not like you can have leveling be balanced, in it's current state. The overall design of the game now dictates that leveling must be lightning-fast and absolutely braindead.

[Molis]

Leveling does not BADLY need fixed. End game needs fixed.

No one gives a shit about leveling except you and 3 other people that made a post like this every 6 months.

[Deleted]

The only major gripe I have right now is the WoD starter zone is bloody dreary, I love the rest of the expansion leveling zones but it never gets a chance to redeem itself because you go to the next zone, kill 2 mobs et voila, legion. Sure you can hop through early but it always pisses me off leaving a zone half done. Yes WoD is currently a black hole on the leveling process.



I am not even sure what this is supposed to solve. I wanted to go through outland on my Mag Har, hit lvl 68 before getting out of hellfire. Likely wont make it through another zone before having to move on. Post patch you are going to get 12+ levels from this one zone? How fast does it need to be? It only takes a few hours to do Hellfire.

I disagree.

Wod is the only good thing about leveling. I usually stay until 105 by just collecting stuff.

And I don't get why people measure the leveling process on the level per zones. I don't care if I can do 8 level in HF, if it takes 6 hours.

I like leveling - fast leveling.
I like XP Potions, Kara Trahsfarming, dungeon boosting by a highlevel friend, recruit-a-friend-bonus, premade 5 man leveling groups and rushing trough dungeons.... but they removed it all. I get that some people like slower leveling, but why remove all the stuff that was optional?
A few years ago, I had the best time by speed leveling an alt in 7 hours from 1-90. I liked to have that option.


On top of that the talent system sucks for leveling. It's not fun to get so many abilities at 90/100. That's too late. The class feel slow and boring in general, but it's worse if you have just half of the talents.

[evogsr]

I don't really disagree with much here. OP highlights some specifics at the broader problem:

The WoW game world has become so massive that it is largely irrelevant. I think WoW is too far in the development process, rather too close to its developmental end, to correct course. At least not until the current pre-endgame and end-game content is fixed first.

[Pua]

The WoW game world has become so massive that it is largely irrelevant.

Reality wise, this is what it boils down to. Too much of this game is now utterly irrelevant, and that's never a good spot.

[Dubba]

Leveling does not BADLY need fixed. End game needs fixed.

No one gives a shit about leveling except you and 3 other people that made a post like this every 6 months.

I highly disagree. Leveling and the content of pre "current" endgame is 90% of the content of the game.

I'd say some 50% spend a majority of their endgame just running old instances, raids, quests (=leveling content) while running a raid with the guild every now and then.
One really cannot say that professions are in a good place at max level either. People who need mats don't have them and who don't fill their banks with them. Crafting doesn't really allow gear upgrades in a sensible phase, learning recipes feels like joke when suddenly you spam learn or learn 100 recipes of no-one cares at once.

Long gone are the days of rpg. Sure this is my opinion and people are allowed to feel differently.

[RundinO]

I quite like the levelling process, although 60-100 is a drag. A possible fix would be an iterative xp squish depending on how many max level characters you have (i.e. alts level faster, perhaps significantly so, as you collect 120s).

I couldn't agree more and have felt this way since TBC and WotLK. I also think the same should be done for all reputations.

[Deleted]

You should probably just quit if you have reached this point, because you will get yourself stuck in a loop. Why play 8.0 when you can just get 8.0 level gear for free in 8.1? Well, why bother playing 8.1 because you'll be able to get 8.1 gear in 8.2? Well why bother playing 8.2 when you'll get 8.2 gear in 8.3? Well, fuck it, why bother playing 8.3 when 9.0 will invalidate everything anyway?

Maybe just stop and find something with a reward loop that you actually enjoy.

Or maybe go back to TBC style of progression where all raids stayed relevant and remove all rewards from raids when content become absolote? Yes making everthing you do now absolote next patch is one of the reasons why people quit.

- - - Updated - - -

Scaling is what makes those levels feel empty. When a level 14 can kill an elite in 3 globals and a level 56 takes closer to 40-60 secs... something feels very wrong. No amount of additional abilities will fix that. However, a passive increase in power to be one shoting those mobs would. In short scaling needs to go the other way. Your level should be a metric to determine how much damage you do to a mob. Gear is a bonus above that... without that progression levels are meaningless.

There should not be scaling at all. Just let people level 1-60 for about month just like back in vannila so it feels as acomplishment than have some sort of char progression where instead of exp for new levels you will earn skill points for completing quest to unlock new skills etc. Leveling fixed thank you very much.

[SirCowdog]

Leveling isn't a "game design" in terms of it being "the game" itself. Leveling is a means to an end, to get you to where you will spend about 80% of your characters lifetime. Leveling can be enjoyable if done right, but it is never a long term game element. It is like saying they should really make more engaging low level gear. Why? Once you level, which is inevitable unless you turn off XP, in which case, you likely don't care about "leveling" as a sense of progression, all that content is effectively meaningless.

Systems of "leveling" CAN be used as part of a game mechanic to keep things interesting rather than simply being a super-linear process. Branching trees like Path of Exile can make every single "level" interesting, but more importantly, a system like EVE online in while you NEVER stop "leveling" can create very interesting choices and gameplay paths.

WoW has simply taken a path of weak leveling design. Blizzard COULD overhaul it using scaling and a better talent system to make leveling content relevant all the way up to level cap and beyond, and not a disposable linear path that becomes pointless the moment you leave the level bracket.

For folks like me (of which is very much a more common attitude), WoD is, sadly, the best leveling experience 1-110 right now because you can burn through it quickly by flying around, picking up treasures and doing some bonus objectives and get through it all really quick, avoiding all the bullshit that leveling normally brings. And when WoD is the best at anything other than being the shittiest expansion, you know you messed something up.

I think the best part about the pre-7.3.5 leveling was that there was variety. You could solo dungeons, dungeon spam with groups, quest, whatever. WoD leveling maintains part of that, since it changes up the normal process of "Go to quest hub, get quests, kill X, return". WoW's leveling process badly needs that variety, especially for players who are not necessarily interested in walking the path and smelling the roses along the way.

[Loveliest]

I've leveled a few of the allied races and notices some levels drag a lot - I guess that's why they're doing the XP cut.
I've read your post and I agree with some:
- levels feel kinda weird because you only get rewards (abilities/talents) at some random levels and the gaps are bigger and bigger the higher your level; after 80 you have mastery at 85 I think, then talents at 90 and 100. 85-110 go by pretty fast though
- professions - yeah, I think WoW has the worst profession system of all mmos, could do with a rework from the ground up; but professions are kinda useless at max level anyway, so leveling's not really its issue; I started playing about 10 years ago and even then people were telling me only to level professions at max level, because it's not worth it during leveling - they also told me not to care about leveling gear, because I'd replace it all at max level anyway


What I don't understand is what you want out of leveling.
For example, you mention that doing dungeons is faster - and that's a bad thing why? I have done Loremaster twice - once before Cata changed it and once again after Cata. Now, when I level I sometimes choose certain zones to redo completely, to recall the story and sometimes I just level through dungeons. I have 20 characters and I bet some have even more, I wouldn't even be leveling anymore if not for Allied races. Having options is a good thing - I can choose what zones I want IF I want or I can use the fast method.
I mentioned that I don't get what you want out of leveling because your proposed solutions don't seem to address the issue from above. Actually, all your proposed solutions sound truly ok and except for the first one I don't see a downside. Mostly you ask for old systems to be fixed so there isn't such a silly huge gap for a new character and I agree.

[Thagrynor]

Systems of "leveling" CAN be used as part of a game mechanic to keep things interesting rather than simply being a super-linear process. Branching trees like Path of Exile can make every single "level" interesting, but more importantly, a system like EVE online in while you NEVER stop "leveling" can create very interesting choices and gameplay paths.

WoW has simply taken a path of weak leveling design. Blizzard COULD overhaul it using scaling and a better talent system to make leveling content relevant all the way up to level cap and beyond, and not a disposable linear path that becomes pointless the moment you leave the level bracket.




I think the best part about the pre-7.3.5 leveling was that there was variety. You could solo dungeons, dungeon spam with groups, quest, whatever. WoD leveling maintains part of that, since it changes up the normal process of "Go to quest hub, get quests, kill X, return". WoW's leveling process badly needs that variety, especially for players who are not necessarily interested in walking the path and smelling the roses along the way.

I agree that leveling, in general, can be part of the game design. Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPG are proof that the leveling progression is integral to the game design, as it is definitely is a major part of the game. I should have made more clear that I was talking specifically about WoW with those comments regarding leveling not being part of the game design, but merely a means to an end currently.

To be honest, I would love to see a proper overhaul of leveling without just "we are leaving it mostly the same except making it take longer and scale." Including different outcomes in terms of benefits depending on which path along the leveling track you take would be interesting too. Perhaps you have one track that makes sure your gear is top notch before moving on while another track just gets you through it fast but everything is a bit of a chore as your gear sucks and thus things are more difficult.

Perhaps you have a path that builds your rep with certain factions along the way, giving you different sets of rewards in terms of having access to different pieces of gear from them. In the end, each path with the reputation track might get you, say, 6 pieces of nice gear, but which reps you get will differ which pieces you get and which professions you get special recipes from and stuff. And yes, certain rep tracks might be best for a specific class, but that is what would make it interesting, since you are likely leveling different classes each time. Or you have it where different "level brackets" have different rewards in terms of like .... well, it will take about, say, 6 zones to level from 1-60, so the first zone rep gives you gear, the second you get gives you profession stuff, the third is back to gear, and then maybe more gear and then some profession stuff. By either alternating or having it be different each rep, you then can alter the progression in terms of "Well, I am a Paladin and a Blacksmith, so ABCDEF is good, but if I were a Paladin and an Enchanter, maybe I would go AGCDHI, and if I were a Warrior and a Blacksmith, maybe it would be JBKLEF or something".

Or they make a path that focuses you on questing solo, rewarding both a title if you complete the path (say like ... "the Hermit" or something). Or maybe a path that focuses on Lorewalker type achievements.

There are options to make leveling not suck. Unfortunately, Blizzard has decided that leveling is not really something they want to focus on and are content with leaving it as merely a set of stepping stones to get to max level, where the content "really starts".

[evogsr]

Reality wise, this is what it boils down to. Too much of this game is now utterly irrelevant, and that's never a good spot.

This is really one area that I love about GW2 game world in relation to it and high/max level. A high level player can still go back to the lower level zones, be scaled to the content & enemies of that zone (albeit stronger than a new player) and still participate and benefit in doing activities in that zone. I wouldn't say there's a strong direct reason to do this, but it does reinforce relevancy for older and lower parts of the game world outside of leveling up, exclusively.

In WoW's case, it would take changing other systems to make something similar to this work. I've seen others suggest that dropping WQ's in other zones and add scaling in. It'd be a good start, but it'd need other supporting system changes/additions/removals, even then I believe the scope would be too small for how many zones simply exist in the current WoW game world (far too many).

WoW doesn't really have anything like GW2's "Living Story" which gives course for the player to travel and explore all different parts of the game world, even after hitting max level. I'm not sure that Blizzard could do anything similar given the basic need to create stories from the ground up to serve just this one purpose. It'd also likely devalue any of the redeeming lore that is left. In a similar vein, Blizzard used to do this with those long quest chains in Vanilla, and it worked fairly well for that point in game development.

[Kokolums]

Level scaling is a strong contender for the worst idea they've ever had. I mean it totally killed my desire to level in wow. I leveled characters quite a lot but I haven't leveled one since scaling was added. I don't even think about it. I go play other games to level that don't have it.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Level scaling is a strong contender for the worst idea they've ever had. I mean it totally killed my desire to level in wow. I leveled characters quite a lot but I haven't leveled one since scaling was added. I don't even think about it. I go play other games to level that don't have it.

Sounds like a personal problem, heard plenty of people who like it because they no longer need to deal with stuff like Outland. And it allows people to do zones they maybe usually wouldn't because it's in the same level bracket as a muuuuch more popular zone.

[Kokolums]

Sounds like a personal problem, heard plenty of people who like it because they no longer need to deal with stuff like Outland. And it allows people to do zones they maybe usually wouldn't because it's in the same level bracket as a muuuuch more popular zone.

What are you talking about? The playerbase has collapsed....

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

What are you talking about? The playerbase has collapsed....

I don't think it collapsed because Tanaris scales 40-60...

[Voltsmasher]

I don't think it collapsed because Tanaris scales 40-60...

Oh no, that's what did it for me. When I found out they expected me to spend 20 levels in that desert I quit.

/s

[Deleted]

Level scaling is a strong contender for the worst idea they've ever had. I mean it totally killed my desire to level in wow. I leveled characters quite a lot but I haven't leveled one since scaling was added. I don't even think about it. I go play other games to level that don't have it.

I disagree 100%. Scaling level should have been in cataclysm. As is, blizzard created there wonderful stories (Silverpine, Stonetalon etc) but players can get through them....because they outlevel the zone by 5 levels just by questing.

Leveling is a massive mess, because we now know exactly what it is: A massive gate towards getting to the real endgame content. Its an irritating arbitrary barrier of things you have already done on your main that blocks you. Atleast with scaling, you can actually experience the entire zone before moving on. And that alone is a massive improvment.

Also the idea that leveling scaling is causing subscription numbers to drop in large numbers...no, just no.