The leveling experience BADLY needs fixed.

[pinkz]

So... Do I have any ideas that might fix this?

Unsurprisingly, I do.

1. First of all, the level number has got to drop. Dramatically. My belief is that the maximum level should be 70... And should always be 70. The original game should reach level 60, with the Cataclysm zones being re-scaled as part of it because they are consistent with its timeline. From here, every expansion should take you from 60 to 70 with the maximum players returning to 60 when a new expansion is released. This reinvigorates the original game itself, recreates the means with which to develop your professions, makes class design much more fulfilling, and keeps dungeons advantageous but not ludicrously so.

blizzard original plan for van wow was continuing content of van wow thru patches, KARA, COT, more instances etc. based on what was happening in van wow with gear gaps like 60's at MC vs god mode 60s at AQ/Naxx+ gear, continuing and adding to van wow "would create super 60's" that most would never catch, balancing issues, etc. they decided to go with the expansion method, this sorta gives players a clean slate to catch up to current content vs being years behind in old content.

[Kaver]

Levelling cannot be fixed in wow because the end-prize is not attactive anymore. Most people have 10 max level characters and have played through the expansions 10 times. Therefore, levelling is just an annoying barrier now. It's too late to fix because we are too used to the game being all about the end-game content so people will never care about levelling anymore.

[SirCowdog]

In order to "fix" leveling it has to be made relevant to level capped players. All of that old content sitting there is virtually meaningless once a player reaches level cap and end game progression.

So, how do you make leveling content important or meaningful to someone who's outleveled it?


Heritage armor is a decent start, although I think Blizzard missed the mark by limiting the cosmetic xmog to only those specific races. But they did set a precedent for what I think is an important way to being relevance to leveling content: Cosmetic rewards.

Creating new cosmetic rewards for various objectives that can only be done through leveling new characters, but become usable by capped characters, is a good way to encourage playing all that old content again. We already see this with xmog runs in old raids, but I think something more along the lines of Heritage Armor sets is the way to go. Special mounts, weapon appearances, or animations could all be added.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

There are some things which need a lot more development love.

Lets start with questing, op, right.

1.) the complete questing content should be reodable at max level in a more challenging version.
2.) the gameplay should be massively changed, means replacing all those old "collect 20 x and kill 30 y" quests by modern quest design with stories in the region they are about, and with choices.
3.) there should be elites and world bosses in every single questing region which drop meaningful gear for the level the player has
4.) There should be "One Azeroth", which allows you to level in every region you chose, no matter what level you have
5.) Leveling should be completely optional and give character progression or a paragon progression systen instead of being a prerequisite to play the current content
6.) Matchmade battlegrounds should have no level brackets anymore and also should not need any gear for playing them. Just stat tables, with scaled up characters to endgame level. Also they should give a lot of XP and useful rewards
7.) Crafting while leveling should not yield stuff noone needs but toys, vanity items, every kind of useful things you could use at endgame level and while leveling
8.) Dungeons should be available to solo players without the need to group up. Regarding the fact that some realm pools are dead already, and even the dungeon finder finds nothing
9.) Housing please. Real housing. With craftable stuff. And things you find in the world
10.) Mount taming
11.) A diversified talent system with a lot of choices
12.) Fun world quests and not world quests which just exist for the sake to have something to do

Currently, world pvp in WoW is in a grim state thanks to faction balance and gear mattering.
Currently, questing is dull and unfun, limiting the experience to 200x'ish game design having quests which are not fitting to modern times where games like Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2 define great quest design.
Currently, world quests are not fun to be done often, as some factions have a very limited amount of quests and those are more a pain than fun. You get that impression after you sent 2000 turtles into the water.
Currently, crafting is in a bad state as well. It is neither fun, nor rewarding. There are no crafting quests or stories. Even nomie thought about suicide alreay. So please, that system needs a lot of love. Crafting only gives good gear if you get good gear from.. raiding?
Close to all repeatable content for casual gamers is dull or toxic. World quests make you want to play Solo player RPGs again. LFR has hours of queue time. Island expeditions are not yielding gear. Warfronts are in a reused environment.
There is absolutely nothing fun about redoing reputations on alts. So make them account bound.

No predetermined stats are fucking aids and kill costumization. I just got my double dps trinket back leave them alone.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Matchmade battlegrounds should not be about stats and gearing, but about the ability to gain EXP and have fun in a fair competition. Gearing is detrimental to fair PVP.

Premade battlegrounds and rated pvp in general still would be about gearing.

Also, in a combined bracket you need to have a stat table, otherwise lower levels would have no chance at all.

They should because it adds customization, it's also easy as shit to farm gear. This is why I enjoy vanilla so much, I can customize my character in pvp more than live which increases replay value. I can equip trinkets that summon adds and they create pushback or I can get trinket or enchants that allow me to dispel buffs like soul link as a melee.

Rated battlegrounds should have templates but regular casual bgs shouldn't it because it kills creativity and fun. There should be anti-scaling majors taken and every item should have counter play. To avoid cancerous situation but stop trying to make non competitive pvp less dynamic. Go kill a dragon or some shit instead. Not everyone wants to play try-hard modes sometimes you want to have fun and as long as that fun has counter play it fine. Blizzard struggles with defintion of that word though.

I could get from base items to like 960 ilvl three weeks in legion.

[tangers58]

Yes, I did.

I recommend you both read the post.

I know it's a long one, but it'll make these points pretty needless. Pinky swear.

No one is reading that wall of text. Find a way to express yourself succinctly or keep pretending to be surprised, whichever you prefer.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Well, fun effect trinkets still could work in battlegrounds.. to a degree. What should not work is stat effects, for the reason i wrote. Or a level 70 would always destroy a level 20 in a combined bracket.



It's the other way around. Casual BGs need to be combined into one bracket as low level battlegrounds do not open anymore. As a consequence you need to even out stats with a stat table. Beside the fact that an epic geared 70 char would only dominate with his gear, which isnt really what PVP should be about. Blizzard did not learn that yet, and they pretend "it did not work".. while it would have if they didnt create any kind of gear differences. The stat tables in Legion could have worked if they would have had not added bonuses from gear at all. They just should do it right this time. And if you want gear mattering, join rated battlegrounds.



Now imagine, you would have an ilevel 960 110 level character and a level 20 character with ilevel 30 in the same bracket. If they had no stat tables, that level 110 could easily kill the level 20. So to even be able to remove level boundaries, and also to remove gear as a factor from matchmade pvp, you need to remove stats mattering. If fun trinkets still matter should be something to evaluate by the devs.

PVP is in a dire state in World of Warcraft. Rated battlegrounds are dead. Low level battlegrounds are dead. Matchmade engame battlegrounds give low level gear and are not interesting due to that. World pvp is imbalanced and unfair. The changes i talk about would change a lot to the better. At least for low level battlegrounds as a start. Endgame battlegrounds should get back a currency for matchmade players and a vendor for items. You know, like the vendor you know from classic which stands at the warsong entry in the barrens, just with way more things you could buy. Including good gear and great gear. And you should get currency from both losing and winning a battleground, so faction imbalance would at least reward the loser as well.

They shouldn't remove gear but do things to equalize stats don't make a dynamic game mode stagnant or ill quit again. I didn't pvp all of legion because the pvp was scripted. If that continues, I'm done with wow outside of legacy servers. You should get rewards base on performance espically if they want to the game more team based.

I haven't really been playing bfa currently because I'm protesting titanforging and the shit state of pvp but if they remove all forms of customization ill never comeback.

I'm fine with all gear becoming equal stat wise but leave secondary stats and item effects alone and make sure new ones have counterplay. If I want to farm vers gear for single target damage that none of your business. If I want haste and crit for aoe that's once again none of your business.

[vsb]

Game starts at 110 level. Developers are expecting that you should buy character boost and start from that point. 1-110 leveling should convince you to buy a character boost, nothing more. It's a proven technique from mobile gaming, where you're paying to skip long time investment.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Well, goodbye then. Probably a lot of other people would play PVP if it was fair. And if it even opened in low level again. Wth 12 level brackets it currently does not open anymore in the realm pool i play, and a combination of the level brackets would solve that problem.

Also, you still had rated pvp where stats would matter. Play that. If you want to dominate lowbies, either in ilvl or level, you should not call what you want to play pvp, but ganking.

And ganking should neither be honored nor be the only valid gamestyle in a MMORPG pvp gameplay.



You should get rewards for everything you do in world of warcraft, which includes gear which makes you stronger in the open world. Limiting good rewards to organized group players only is what brought us to the current state of the game.



As i said, customization still would matter outside of matchmade pvp.



There is no need for stats in matchmade pvp, it is detrimental to playing pvp with matchmade groups as it gives those with better gear an advantage. Which is unbearable in a pvp which is based on random groups, random ilevels and a range of player levels between 10 and 120.

We tried fair pvp in legion and it was boring. Casual bgs should be casual and fun save the try hard mode for ranked play. Destiny 2 tried the same-thing and its pvp community tanked there needs to a be a fun mode.

Add a solo queue function so people who want fair and balanced pvp can spam it for rating while leaving casual bgs for fun.

I want stats to matter in casual battlegrounds as well. It does add something it's called customization also getting gear is easier than ever before. They need baseline damage reduction to shrink the gap between players than. I don't want to dominate lowbies. I've ran bgs in 60 gear at level 85-90 because I was bored. I like gear mattering because it adds fun and beating someone that outgears you is rewarding. I agree with keeping it out of ranked for sure but let random battlegrounds be fun. Implement a baseline damage reduction system to make sure the advantage does not grow to large keep it between 5%-10%. Don't pull a destiny 2 where the only mode is sweating try hard or poke meta.

I'm saying regardless of what you do the reward should be based on performance and repeatable. You can't make a game more team based than fail to change the reward system. It's one of the things that annoyed me about later season of league of legends. They kept making the game more team based and shrinking my impact but still based the game on winning. While admitting htey're actually actively trying to make my chances of win less likely. Which is what wow is currently doing.

In catacylsm I ran around in high warlord gear and killed full geared out arena players between 0-1800 for fun. It's not gear that makes it unwinnable its shit game design. Every can do or use any ability in there kit when they want and they have a panic button for every situation that's the problem. I could stay out of a warriors charge and just kite them to death on my hunter or mage while only having to trinket for fear. I could beat a hunter by standing on his face so he couldn't attack.

I could shit on a mage by fucking up all his deep freezes combos because there damage outside of it was trash. Everyone had situation where they were worthless when they played poorly stuff like that needs to comeback. Pooling resource and not doing whatever fuck you want because you hit the button needs to be a thing again.

They need to bring back snap shotting and other mechanics that put a gap between players and frontload the effects of gear onto mechanics like that.

[elynos]

It is very simple, very few people level only nubs. Why change it up for the few new players, I haven't leveled in 8 years other than for the expansion we are in.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Everytime I see the thread resurface again I think "the thread title BADLY needs fixed".

[Kokolums]

Casual bgs should be casual and fun save the try hard mode for ranked play.

I've never seen this work ever. When you divide up an activity between casual and hard mode, it just causes more stress as people naturally want to define play on their own. Participation falls.

[Deleted]

Id be happy if they just gave alternative xp for other things, because right now doing anything but questing is inefficent, and doing 120 levels of questing is horrendous, its nice that during bfa levlling you can do island expeditions as an alternative.

Dungeons, old raids, brawlers/magetower, professions, bgs, battlepets all should give xp rates similar to questing, tbh dungeons should give more seeing sa they require grouping up.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

I've never seen this work ever. When you divide up an activity between casual and hard mode, it just causes more stress as people naturally want to define play on their own. Participation falls.

It worked during vanilla, tbc, wotlk though and pvp was more active. In those expansion gear mattered more but more people played pvp.

It's also currently working in destiny 2 when it was try hard mode only the game was on life support. Destiny 2 was on life support until they lowered ttk and add more customization to weapons.

League does the samething there thousand of unviable builds that people play on that game everyday. You can also choose to go the ranked route and follow the meta or do what you want.

Can you give an example of a game that died for the reason I suggested.

[Ardourdan]

This is exactly why I'm looking forward to Classic: the levelling experience. Sure I might get bored after one char but I can't wait. Levelling a char now is pathetic you end up doing 15 levels per zone.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Actually, blizzard never tried fair pvp, not even in legion, as gear still influenced your performance. It should not in matchmade battlegrounds. I remember how ilevel 1000 boe and legendary items equipped level 101 twinkers killed everything in late matchmade battlegrounds in legion, based on the fact their ilevel catapulted them to be overpowered. Twinkers should have no place in matchmade content. And neither was legion fair, nor did gear not matter. That was just something the devs talked about to bring people back. They never really tried. They implemented the stat table system badly, to pretend it does not work at all. Thats their trick. They do same with LFR not being fun.



But it is no fun for casual pvp players to get permaganked by mythic raiders or twinkers. How do you get that impression?



To see random groups being permaganked by organized pvp guilds? No, not really. Thats the same failed design philosophy as we see in World pvp.



But the truth is that better geared just gank worse geared, and worse geared have no chance. And yes, you obviously want to gank players. Am i right if i asume you played pvp twinks in the past?




Absolutely the contrary: Make a system which does not include bonuses from gear stats at all to make the gameplay fair. Then, and only then, you will adress casual gamers to play matchmade or even rated PVP.



Oh, you can. And Blizzard should. They should give the best gear to people who play most, and not to those who play best only. And you should get gear from time gated reward schedules. While all three should have the same result.. Happy players being geared with great rewards.



You also had the chance to win in a fair pvp system. And if you want all those super gear bonuses having effect, find a pvp guild to do rated pvp.



Only if the hunter used no traps, but that just as a side note. There were good hunters and bad hunters. Hunters not using Wingclip or traps always died.



They just need to seperate what competetive players want from what casual players want. Competetive players want gear mattering. So add that to rated battlegrounds. Casual gamers want fair pvp where your gear ilevel does not matter. So make that true for matchmade battlegrounds. It just needs different mechanics for different folks.

Same goes for raids. LFR should be completely different than organized raids, based on the complete different group composition tools and settings.

By allowing a massive skill difference between players again.

Not really there was a 5% difference between people with gear but the gutted everything else that separate players like snapshotting. If gear and customization don't exist then you create a world where the better team wins but when people are queued randomly that's not fair either. Twinker should as long as what they do has counterplay. It honestly didn't by very much at all. Once again good players could hit 2200 than and now with pretty bad gear.

There are solo queues currently that hit 2200 in rated battlegrounds...

If you remove customization, gear, and skill than the better team wins but even that passed out randomly. Which we'll push people away from the game. 10 minutes queues combined with a lack of indivisual impact is a great way to keep your game gaining players just ask riot recently after the changes they made. When a ton of pros and players exited the game. Why spend 20 minutes playing Russian roulette on wow when pubg and fortnite exist and can be played solo.

They should reward gear based on skill with a plateau of course you don't deserve good gear just for playing. You can spell reflect traps and wing clip was only 50 percent just like hamstring. Cone of cold and chain of ice were 70% slows, I can also dispel master call and deep free than frost bolt to stop it. There were a ton of counters to trap.

Rogues could vanish, cloak of shadow, or vanish disarm trap. In wotlk they could vanish traps with good timing.

Warriors could spell reflect traps or fear the hunter if he had trinket.

Mages can Iceblock it or use there pet to eat it.

Hunters can have there pets eat it. Balance druids can have treants eat the traps.

Shaman pets can eat the trap, or use grounding totem.

I don't need to explain the rest of the classe the have literal immunites.

I want gear stats mattering in casual pvp but I want item level to matter the least. They don't destiny 2 is a great example gear matters now and pvp is thiriving back when it mattered less the game was dead. Same for league they went full esport mode and ignored solo queue than starting losing players for the first time. When you remove those things the only thing that matters is team work but thats randomize or it requires you to play with friends which mean queue less.

I don't twink to lazy but I enjoy beating people with better gear than me. I smurf but don't twink if that makes sense because I've pvped to level alts.

[Magnagarde]

So, to summarize, the majority of the original game is skipped which is a real shame

Nothing beats the thrill and immersion of having to kill 8 birds and collect 20 feathers for some NPC for the 5th time. We need this experience to be enhanced and enforced across the entirety of the leveling process.

/s

[RangerDaz]

I finally stopped leveling around 25th alts to 120. It was pure brutal and not fun but i finished my goals where i want it to be.

I hope you multibox.

I plan to have 24 level 120 characters by the end of BfA, aka all 12 different classes in each faction. I would never achieve this if i didnt multibox. My sanity wouldnt allow it lol

[SirCowdog]

I want stats to matter in casual battlegrounds as well. It does add something it's called customization also getting gear is easier than ever before.

Have you ever played GW2s rated PVP? Everyone has access to the same level of gear. What gear does instead of letting players overpower through raw stats, it adds customization to playstyle. You can go with a heavy direct damage build, or a DoT build. You can choose defense over offense and vice-a-versa. You can customize your build to buff and support, or to be a striker.

But no one will ever be stronger than you simply because you have worse gear. EVERYONE has access to the exact same gear. It's very similar to how Blizzard runs tournament realms, although much better, IMO.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Have you ever played GW2s rated PVP? Everyone has access to the same level of gear. What gear does instead of letting players overpower through raw stats, it adds customization to playstyle. You can go with a heavy direct damage build, or a DoT build. You can choose defense over offense and vice-a-versa. You can customize your build to buff and support, or to be a striker.

But no one will ever be stronger than you simply because you have worse gear. EVERYONE has access to the exact same gear. It's very similar to how Blizzard runs tournament realms, although much better, IMO.

Its not overpowering, I want item level not to matter but secondary stats to matter. Item level is whats cancer not secondary stats.I want to be able to pick my trinkets andd secondary stats for customization reason. I want item level and character level to matter less. I still want low level pvp though its fun. It was fun I use to run around in greys and beat twinks for fun back in earlier expansion but the games been so dumbed down, I just can't anymore.