Why is leveling Alts so brutal in BFA?

[Lilly32]

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?

[Enan1981]

It really isnt as horrid if you want to compare it since Vanilla. Like come on now. Thats a total exaggeration on your part. Ive played multiple alts more than youll have in a pinky. All of your alts are already 110... It shouldnt be this hard. Just do invasions every now and then. Theyre up for 6 hours at a time. You can choose between 3 different zones to level up. Joining Island Expedition as well... There are looooooooooots of other ways to get experience...

[Azerate]

You realize you don't have to quest through the zones when bringing your alts to the cap right?

Islands are a good way to level your chars from 110 to 120, running dungeons also isn't that bad. Then there are those faction assaults, which albeit aren't as good as legion invasions back in Legion, they give you about 20% of a level and give you an XP boost for your islands/dungeons.

I have 12 characters at 120 and I only did quests on maybe 2 or 3 of them. There are different ways to level, choose the one you like the most, or hate the least.

[Lilly32]

Islands are a good way to level your chars from 110 to 120

I thought they nerfed Islands?

[Foolicious]

I thought they nerfed Islands?

It's only nerfed when you are in a group with someone who disabled xp gain. You can still do it solo or with friends, but you can't get carried by a legion 110 char.

[mickybrighteyes]

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.

[Dilbon]

Leveling isn't so bad but I just can't be arsed to play Nazjatar with my alts.

[Relapses]

Legion pre-ToS would like a word with you.

[schwank05]

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 completely agree, leveled a Monk and tried to level 4 different characters after and it was horrid, Honestly Legion was the same though I despised leveling in Legion as well haven't really been able to effectively level alts since WOD.

[Swnem]

It's not. 10 levels is easy cake. It's nothing. You can do it in one or two days easily.

What's soul crushing is to keep them competitive with the wall of RNG, AP and essences.

[tmamass]

Why is leveling Alts so brutal in BFA?

NO ONE feels that way seeing how EASY and QUICK it is to level toons to 120 in BFA.

now try that on classic and come again :-P

[Steelcryo]

I leveled a rogue from 110-119 and it didn't seem bad. Only reason I didn't finish it was because I took a break from the game for a long while, but that was more to being burned out on WoW than BfA being bad. Personally, while I despise being given AP for a second expansion in a row, I've found BfA to be alright. Not the best expansion, but not the worst.

Also, slightly off topic but related to these kinds of threads. Why do people never give reasons why they dislike something. Every time I see a thread like this it's just "It's bad" with no explanation. What makes leveling alts in BfA any more of a chore than leveling them in previous expansions?

[Xemioza]

What ? Invasions and Assaults boost your exp like f...you got 10% exp from last quest in BFA

[Nathasil]

Leveling is not hard or takes long, but there is simply less content to level in than in previous expansions and there is FAR less reason to even do it in the first place. No class gains anything while leveling. You just lose. The more active you were in Legion, the more you will lose. And yes, that is always the case when going from a BIS decked character of the last Tier of the last expansion into the leveling phase...but in the past there was always something you GAINED on the way. Not in BFA. It's losing all the way.

What i think is much more "soul crushing" than the actual time/effort it takes to drag yourself to 120 is what you can actually do afterwards:
Want to use the table? That's the same Warcampaign you already did 10 times already!
Want to play some actually challenging content? That's the exact same amount of effort to get Essences than it took you on every other character and they are currently the most important factor for end-game viability.

The only thing you can reaslistically do on an Alt without putting exactly the same amount of time and effort (much of it spend grind the most boring worldquests...) into it than your main is Islands and Warfronts, because LFR does not open anymore and even if it does...what would you get there? Nothing.

So if you think Islands, Warfronts or Worldquests are the most exciting and best content in this game, Alts will be a lot of fun!

[SirCowdog]

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?

Timewalking dungeons. When that event comes around, just spam those dungeons over and over.

BfA invasions are also very good exp as well.

The upcoming WoW anniversary is also going to have bonus exp. And there's always Darkmoon Faire buffs at the beginning of the month, as well as War Mode commendation EXP pots for 1 hour bonus.

[Th3Scourge]

none of it is brutal. It' the essence system that puts me off playing any of my 120 alts

[crazyman2]

I don't find levelling to be an issue, but I don't have time to commit to more than one character at 120 itself. Azerite seems to be a bigger time sink than artifact weapon, if only because I didn't actively farm artifact points after reaching concordance

[Powerogue]

The only thing I can think of that's changed is you don't have order halls, so you don't have class-unique content for each alt to experience.

One alliance and one Horde alt are fun, but past that it's pure repetition with no sense of reward for it.

Exactly like it was literally every expansion ever except for Legion.

[Throwme]

Let's pretend heirlooms aren't usable now. That way it's so much easier to blame it on.....


Scaling.



Scaling zones is annoying as hell to me. I much prefer to go the old fashioned way of leveling through zone 1, then 2, then 3, instead of having a choice. Sure, it's nice being able to go where I want to as I level up, but since there are some phased things here and there that are really useful to have unlocked, you kinda have to play through the zones anyway, so why not just make them with the old level ranges?


If you totally disregard scaling and the issue that I personally have with it, then I will return to the heirloom argument. Use them and it's NOT horrible. Combine them with the other means of skipping the process mentioned in other posts and you can easily have all classes at max in a really short amount of time.

[Azerate]

I thought they nerfed Islands?

Dunno, but they are still a good way to level up, maybe less so without premades, but still.

Overall, if you're sick of quests, for whatever reason, just queue to normal islands and bfa dungeons at the same time. The dungeon queue is paused while you are at an Island, but you will get higher priority once you are out, which results in you getting a dungeon invite after about 2 islands done (for dps). Varies things a bit.