Why is leveling Alts so brutal in BFA?

[ONCHEhap]

Honestly I felt like BfA's levelling was much better than a lot of the previous expansions

Most people I've heard complaining were grinding islands all the way up to 120,which feels like pulling teeth,but if you go out and actually quest,it's honestly pretty decent

[Shakana]

I used heirlooms only to 100 level, and tbh from 100 - 120 is much faster leveling.

I think problem is, that people started complain that leveling alts is not account wide. At least it is me who think that.

I personally think after level 80 is harder to level up, then 100 you just go around draenor getting treasures and then the bfa part is so disappointing and gearing them up that i almost quit, but i leveled them up to be 120 all of them for nothing, since i can't even gear them up. They stand there 120 and that's it.
I used that potion for leveling that you buy in BfA currency from darkshore etc, i forgot now the name of the potion, it helps too using that.

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@DesoPL

There you go, this one. Really helpful imo.
Leveling ain't much of a problem to be quite fair, just the interest and gearing up is hard

[SirCowdog]

Like in legion we had this thing called Artifact Knowledge was a little better in Legion. In fact i was a able to gear up most of my alts and gear them up. Almost all of my alts had no problem in getting closer to my main. I'm just comparing because i had about 6 alts with nice gear and nice AP and in BfA i can barely catch up with just 1.

Just an FYI: Artifact Knowledge still exists in BfA. It's just automatic, and server wide. Each week the amount of AR needed to level decreases. But that's also very impersonal, and has nothing to do with your own characters' progress. It's literally just something that lowers the AR requirement to level each week for everyone.

[Magicon]

sub 110? no issue imo... it's just a bit empty and waiting on lfg queue.

110-120? slightly frustrating but not that bad.

Want bad? Want soul crushing? classic servers opened up... go role up a warrior and try to solo grind.

I have a warr on classic. Haven't had this Much fun leveling solo in 14 years ☺️

[Zantera]

What are you talking about? Got maybe 9 or 10 chars at 120.

[TwoMana]

Leveling alts is extremely fast and easy in BFA and there are multiple paths to 120 so it doesn’t get boring , I really don’t know what the OP is on about.

Now, if it was getting a reroll chars ready for next raid tier, I could agree, essences are painful, but just leveling to the cap and equipping a bunch of benthic? That’s not hard at all.

[DarkAmbient]

It's not so much about the time it takes; there's just something really un-fun and tedious about it that I can't put my finger on. I never felt like this about leveling alts in other expansions.

[Thelxi]

It's also not as rewarding anymore. Alts for me used to be fun because I mostly pvped on them. Push through the leveling, then get a full honor set and then grind out a conquest set if I like the alt, or just let it sit in mostly honor gear and only occasionally play it.

These days if I want to pvp on an alt it is a whole different project. The alt will have to hop onto the rigidly timegated reward system meta like everyone else, making the gearing process much more tedious and effortful than it was in the past. As if that isn't demotivating enough, the alt despite grinding harder will actually be considerably weaker relative to more "main" characters for much longer, and unless I start seriously working on m+ with it AND raid AND push arena rating with it, it will forever be at a disadvantage in PvP combat.

In the history of this game there has never been a more blatant exchange and sacrifice of fun for greed, and Blizzard has made their choice very clear.

[Shakana]

Just an FYI: Artifact Knowledge still exists in BfA. It's just automatic, and server wide. Each week the amount of AR needed to level decreases. But that's also very impersonal, and has nothing to do with your own characters' progress. It's literally just something that lowers the AR requirement to level each week for everyone.

Ye, but legion version was better than BfA's one. The catch up ain't really that good. I think all this things should just go, azerites, necks, i don't mind essences, i quite like them, would be great if they add only essences in the start with account wide option and that's it, and no benthic gears too. I want bfa gone already, can't stand anymore this gear gameplay, hope next expansion leaves this behind. Making a weapon powerful and having certain legendaries that would empower your rotations and all it was quite fine, and even then Artifact power was already something controversial, but was better than azerite power. I'm growing tired of AP.

[Swnem]

Yes and no. Yesterday for example I jumped onto my 120 rogue that hasn't been touched since early BFA. With my main boosting him a set of Benthic gear, and the starter Naz quests, plus a run of Corrin I was able to get him to 400ilvl within 3 hours.

My AP is already 50 plus despite it being ~20 when I started the 3 hours.

So no, it's not challenging to gear an alt, it would be challenging if I were to continue and want him perfectly Mythic geared from this point. But again, that's an issue that can be solved by asking guildies for assist with boosts.

It all depends how you approach things, it's hard if you make it hard. It's SUPER hard if you're aiming for perfection right away.

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The opposing faction says hello, yes that is very different.

But the reasons for levelling an alt are many and varied. Sometimes it's just that you want to change things up and go melee/caster for a bit, other times you might want to heal for a bit. There really are hundreds of reasons to level an alt, repeating the story isn't really a factor.

Honestly, that is not competitive. You need the right azerite gear and the right essences.

Maybe i should clear up that "competitive" for me means heroic level.

[Kyphael]

After going through Kul'tiras and Zandalar a couple times, I just spam Timewalking Dungeons, especially Wrath, those are total face roll. I have like 11 120's.

[maccajoe]

Brutal? wtf are you on about? Now that flying is in the game its a cakewalk. Its so easy.... Easier than legion and far easier than vanilla.

[Irian]

I think it's a psychological thing. Scaling zones combined with the massive power loss from 116+ leaves me with a huge "why even bother" feeling when I've thought about leveling alts. The couple alts I did level just rotted at 120 because I'm not willing to waste my time with all the busywork required to get a 120 character actually ready to do current-level content.

Leveling to 120 is easy, sure, but it's the absolute opposite of rewarding. I genuinely feel punished when I reach 116 on my alts. Even if I did bother with it, there's nothing to actually bother with alts for in BfA. Legion, while I didn't care for it in a lot of ways, undoubtedly made leveling alts pretty exciting with stuff like Mage Tower, legendaries, and artifact appearances.

[probert]

- class homogenization makes differences feel minimal.
- class ability pruning eliminates any challenge; every class can be played to 90-95% of its capability with 6-8 buttons.
- mob and quest difficulty is laughable, and button click for 'instant group/raid' trivializes anything which a challenge.
- heart of azeroth grind
- same 3 zones for every character. same linear story in each zone. nothing is emergent.
- world pvp is dead.
- island expeditions are brain dead
- world campaign is tedious and horrible story
- zones are dead; low player count + phasing + flying mounts + everyone at the cap is in najazatar / gnomerrobotland / mythic instances

the amount of leveling content is a joke too. you can go from 110->120 in about 10 hours played if you have heirlooms / xp bonuses / rested bonus and just grind quests. anything less than questing isn't optimal for xp/hour.

[Sarkol]

No idea what you're talking about to be honest. I'm teasing myself with the idea of rerolling for 8.3 so i'm leveling different alts on and off, and it's ridiculously fast. Assuming rest experience the levels absolutely fly by, and this only goes faster if you use the warfront exp potion, do assaults, use Darkmoon faire buff, and maybe the exp gem.

Just questing blazes by, and you can do dungeons if you want to mix it up. People always mention islands as well and while i don't do them, it's another method, and there's timewalking. Your post reads like someone who's bored of the game, because leveling is not a problem.

[swatsonqt]

I have played every expansion since Vanilla. I can say without a doubt that BFA is the most soul crushing expansion to date when it comes to leveling Alts. Going into BFA's launch I had 5 chars sitting at 110. Just over 1 year later and the only 120 I have is my Druid that I leveled up the first week it was live. My second highest is only 114. Its just miserable trying to level up anything else and it sucks any fun right out of the game. In the past year I even took a few month long breaks here and there just to keep from burning out. I come back ready to go and then after a week of trying to level and Alt I just quit again. I cant think of an expansion that even comes close to being as shitty when it comes to leveling. I didnt really like WoD leveling either but it was at least bearable with the 300% pots. Wrath, Cata, and MoP were all extremely fun to level up in. As much as people hate on Cataclysm it wasnt even close to being this bad. This is probably going to be the first expansion where I only have a single max level character. Does anyone else feel the same way?

I think we found a new drama queen her?

First of all a year one has 12 month. if yor "took a couple of month here and there" you basically didn't play. So it's no wonder that you dont have any alts.

However. Get yourself the heirlooms and just sit down for 2 days and lvl your chars. its really not that bad. You can quest you can do islands you can do dungeons you can do assaults. There have been times where leveling was more fun (hello there 300% buff and 1 hour grind) but regardless in terms of getting an alt to 120 you are highly overreacting.

Just get your stuff together and level ffs

[Lyasandre]

Imho the lack of character progression, trainers, the pruning of abilities and weapon skills killed the leveling during the time in/after cata

[Ealyssa]

I have played every expansion since Vanilla. I can say without a doubt that BFA is the most soul crushing expansion to date when it comes to leveling Alts. Going into BFA's launch I had 5 chars sitting at 110.

That's only a "you" problem. BfA leveling is extremely simple and fast, especially for alts with the 20% XP (heirloom cloak, ring, pants) on top of warmode.

It shouldn't take more than 4 hours with flight unlocked.

Just finished my void elf monk yesterday in less than 4 hours. It's really stupidly fast and I'm loving it after burning out on classic with only 23 level done.

[Sarkol]

Leveling alts is extremely fast and easy in BFA and there are multiple paths to 120 so it doesn’t get boring , I really don’t know what the OP is on about.

Now, if it was getting a reroll chars ready for next raid tier, I could agree, essences are painful, but just leveling to the cap and equipping a bunch of benthic? That’s not hard at all.

If you're rerolling a class for the next tier, essences are incredibly easy to get and don't even take that long. This nonsense about essences has to stop.

[Accendor]

What do you mean? 110-120 is 1-2h playtime