New Leveling System - Problems

[Gleem]

Sorry, OP, not reading the whole thread, so this might cover stuff already covered.

First, when Ion says each level should feel meaningful, he's not talking about how much time goes into attaining that level, or how much time you spend at a given level. He's referring specifically and only to the rewards you get for attaining the level. Right now on live you can go 10+ levels without attaining anything meaningful. You don't get any new spells or abilities, and you might get a talent but in some cases they're pretty moot as well. It sucks pretty hard. So by introducing the level squish as well as introducing more abilities back, you can get a new spell or ability, a new talent, or some other key feature (like pvp or dungeons or the mastery stat) every level, or at least very close to it.

Second, I do think that they should adjust their approach to the process by not speeding up the leveling process baseline. Instead, they should keep the speed of attaining level 120 (soon to be 50) as-is, but further augment the heirloom system to allow people to adjust their leveling speed. Give people who want fast leveling the tools to go fast. Give people that like the leveling process time to enjoy it. Everyone always talks about this like it's some kind of binary, when there's already a mechanism in-game for this very specific thing.

As to your comment of people forgetting, "What this game is about," sadly, it isn't about that anymore. The game has completely changed. It's an end-game focused game now. Classic is there if you want it, but as we've seen with Classic too, everyone focuses on the fastest leveling possible to get to end-game there. The players themselves have changed. People just want a game that's different from the one you want now.

As for why people don't enjoy leveling, I can't speak for everyone. But, for me at least, leveling is... incredibly boring. Even in vanilla, leveling was really boring. Doing quests and killing mobs is a snore fest. Padding it out longer just makes it that much more tedious for me. And people say, "Well, they need to go back to the way Vanilla was, when leveling was hard." Leveling has never, and will never, be hard. It's tedious. It takes zero skill and a ton of time. Some people consider a high time investment a type of difficulty. The people who hate leveling are not those people. I don't feel rewarded for spending 8 hours gaining a single level. I feel relieved the level is finally over. Leveling can't be a high skill ceiling activity, because it's something every player needs to go through. It sucks, but there it is.

As to leveling being a key part of RPGs, I have to disagree. I play a lot of RPGs, and I generally tend to ignore levels as a whole. The only exception to this is TTRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. Leveling is far from my most focused part of the game. But leveling in D&D does truly feel meaningful. But that's due in part to the fact that you only have 20 levels, and the entire game is focused around the story that you're living right now. That isn't how WoW is. I'd argue that's never been how WoW is. Leveling was always a goal to attain. I don't know anyone that plays D&D to gain levels. As soon as you turn leveling in D&D into a goal is when people start just mindlessly doing random encounters to maximize XP gains, and suddenly it's now WoW and sucks. The only time I've ever cared about leveling in RPG video games has been... CRPGs, which literally are just Dungeons and Dragons in video game form. But I'm also still so preoccupied with everything else I'm doing in the game that getting a level is a nice fun moment. The fun parts of WoW are locked behind max level. The only thing to focus on while leveling is leveling itself. And I can only enjoy leveling when I'm focused on the things that are fun, and I happen to level.

If you could somehow make the leveling process in WoW the Mage Tower, I'd love leveling. But it wouldn't be because gaining levels is fun. It's because the Mage Tower is fun. Massacring boars for the 10 millionth fetch quest is boring. AFK AoEing in a normal leveling dungeon is boring. Nothing about the leveling process is, or has ever been, engaging. I need skill based (not time based/tedium) leveling to feel engaged. If leveling was like that, low skilled players couldn't level.

[Tartys]

"Chromie Time" is taken from the developer interview, supposedly.
Notes:
-If you aren't in Chromie time, zones will only scale up to the cap for that expansion. You can still level that way though!
-If you want to go back to Pandaria and farm for transmog or rares, you wouldn't want the zone scaling, so you need Chromie Time to scale it.
-Players will be scaled down in level in a natural way, keeping in mind the expansion milestones, such as being level 100 at the end of Warlords.
-There will not be a stat squish. It's very important that players feel just as powerful when they log in to play the expansion.

Also, I don't know if anyone noted this, but MMOC's notes of the Deep Dive state "You can still wander around all of the expansions if you want, you don't have to stick to one." (via here So it sounds like you can go do your favorite quests throughout expansions if you want from 11-50, even if it's not as efficient as sticking to one expansion.

I think this approach to leveling is amazing. I'm not a big alt guy (or WoW guy, as in I didn't play every expansion/expansions in their entirety) but this system is very appealing.

To my its amazing.

I'm levelling a Rogue only for collecting his class hall pet. It's 60 by now, so actually I must choose between TBC or WotLK, then move to others expansion till Legion.
But with the new system, I can go directly to Legion and grab my pets without go through expansions that I dont care anymore.

Also, I was Horde during Vanilla and I change faction at the end of Wotlk... I'd like to level an alt as Ally for the whole vanilla... not just a couple of zone and now I can.

[damonskye]

I can't see why ANYONE would be opposed to this. New players don't want to have to slog for weeks on end to get to the latest content... and as for the rest of us, do we REALLY want to have to level alts through Outland and/or Northrend again??

My allied race alts are going immediately to Pandaria or the Cataclysm zones and staying there until they get to Shadowlands. I can't wait.

[kattarina]

They are literally decreasing leveling time by more than half and you still go on about boost money? If anything they are trying to make level boosts less used. Same for allied races heritage armor. They keep doing things that negate level boosts but your weird blind hatred of Blizzard comes up with these illogical conspiracies.

I'm all for the lvl reworks and in no way have any "blind hatred for Blizzard" but WoD, as it is now, is the fastest lvling zone, like by FAR. If you jump to Legion and do a bônus objectives you get 4 Times less experience than the same thing for WoD. Same goes for Treasure hunting ( I don't even think you get any xp in Legion for that). Regardless of how good the lvling experience will be, if you have a zone where you can do it in alot less time, people only concerned with getting max lvl as fast as possible will use it, and those are the people boosts are for. Its sily to think that they don't want you to use the boosts. They wouldn't be there if they didn't.
I'm not saying they made the experience bad in porpose TO sell boosts (its a 15 year old game with 8 expansions, the rework is way overdo).

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Wait...I'm confused now. I thought the hard cap for levels was now 60, with no toggling on or off. Normal leveling will be from 1-50, with Shadowlands covering 50-60.

The way current "Legacy Mode" works for farming old dungeons and raids for xmog and gold is that you have to be 11 levels above the dungeon/raid for it to kick in and give you all the loot. Otherwise you're on personal loot and don't get jack shit.

If every zone is 1-50, how does that interact with "Legacy Mode"?

The lvl squich is happening to everyone. However, if you want to lvl up as you did before, you can opt out of the chromie timewalking thing and zones scale normaly (to their equivelent lvl after squich).

[WorldofWorkcraft]

To my its amazing.

I'm levelling a Rogue only for collecting his class hall pet. It's 60 by now, so actually I must choose between TBC or WotLK, then move to others expansion till Legion.
But with the new system, I can go directly to Legion and grab my pets without go through expansions that I dont care anymore.

Also, I was Horde during Vanilla and I change faction at the end of Wotlk... I'd like to level an alt as Ally for the whole vanilla... not just a couple of zone and now I can.

Yeah that's part of the agency and crazy part of it. If there's a person like you who wants to do something solely for a mount or pet or transmog or achievement or whatever, you now have much more accessible options. They even took this to endgame, saying World Quests open at 50 and you start progressing in end-game AT 50 with alts. So while the problems of possible scaling and such are going to need balance, the rewards far outweigh the risks here, unless they have an egregious error.

Even going as far as saying "Look, we're giving you this, you can level 11-50 wherever, but you can ALSO do the old way of leveling if you want!" is almost too much choice to be true, haha.

[Myr010]

Have they stated what will happen to characters in the process of leveling when this change occurs, i.e if i have a level 74 character what level will it be after this is implemented, and what will the area that im in be scaled to?

[Nurmat]

Don't pick Outland/Northrend for leveling, drop rate for quest items sucks. I'd go with Classic/Broken Isles/Kul Tiras&Zandalar

[Damien Handler]

Have they stated what will happen to characters in the process of leveling when this change occurs, i.e if i have a level 74 character what level will it be after this is implemented, and what will the area that im in be scaled to?

You'll get squished to an equivalent level to your progression. And as for the area, I assume you'll be on regular scaling unless you go and toggle Chromie Time.

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Don't pick Outland/Northrend for leveling, drop rate for quest items sucks. I'd go with Classic/Broken Isles/Kul Tiras&Zandalar

Only reason I'll be doing Northrend/Outland is I'm a new-ish player who's still working on Loremaster. Soon as that's done, yeah... I'll be taking permanent residence on Pandaria, thank you very much.

[Beefhammer]

that bs.

it might have been boring to you because you did it 21312312 times.

but leveling is never pointless

at the end of day only people who rejoice are those who are to lazy to put in minimal effort into leveling.

Not just to me but to many. They wouldn't be doing this if they haven't gotten feedback about leveling. Hence, many just wanted to get the current stuff, and how many felt it was bad that they constantly had to hop zones before the first round of scaling. So they scaled so you could stay in zones longer to finish the story. However you were still out of HFP after 1.5-3 total zones. Now you can pick one set and do it all then get right to the action.

[perkocet]

Why do you guys keep asking for longer leveling? It already takes way too long as is

I have a job and a life, I do not want to waste an entire month of playtime, or alternately $60, on leveling one toon

In any case, wasn't one of the big things of Classic that leveling was supposedly meaningful there? And they only had 60 levels. Why, when this exact same situation is applied to Live, does it suddenly become too short/too easy?

They already increased the difficulty with scaling, what do you want them to do, add an extra 10 mobs/drops to every quest? That's not harder, just more tedious

As for your "class quests every ten levels" thing, dude, you realize you're asking for the equivalent of an entire new zone right? That's 300 quests total to write test and code.

In comparison, each patch adds about 700-800 quests, so you're asking us to give up half a content patch for content that most players will never see (historically, only 15-20% of players even have two toons).

I agree with all of your points but am still extremely curious where you're getting any of these numbers from.

[Akibaboy]

Honestly, if they reduce leveling by 70%, do we still need heirlooms?

Reasons they were created in the Wrath - MoP era:
• Reduce leveling time for alts - solved! All leveling is massively cut across the board.
• Offer strong gear in the shoulder and weapon slots to compensate for poor itemization rampant through Classic leveling - solved! Cata fixed Classic world's bad itemization.
• Later, to fill gear slots as levels were increased while overall leveling time remaining the same, which lead to you blowing through content without getting appropriate gear - solved! With scaling from 7.3.5, and now with 9.0's retool, all gear you get is your level when you earn it and sticking with a full set of content means getting actual items while questing

So with all the issues that necessitated heirlooms seemingly resolved in the fast, straightforward leveling system coming in 9.0... why heirlooms?
I'd say refund the gold that was conceivably sunk into them and keep them as transmog items. They ruin one of the fundamental aspects of an RPG in pursuing gear and having said items be useful instead of vendor fodder.

[Augusta138]

Fun fact is that at lvl 10 fresh paladin human goes to broken shore for his own ashbringer and then at level 48 he returns to goldshire to kill some kobolds and change his legendary artifact weapon for some trashy hammer. Its so ridicouls

I wouldnt be surprised if artifact weapons arent a thing anymore with Shadowslands.

You can still pick em up and get them if you want, however they wont be part of the Legion storyline.
Cant get more confusing then: here is your awesome weapon and then take it away again, same with the HoA stuff.

Heirlooms got introduced to make up lvling alts a bit easier and solve the problem of leveling taking so long.
With a complete overhaul to the leveling system and the speed to level up i do think they will remove the heirlooms all together.

[WorldofWorkcraft]

Honestly, if they reduce leveling by 70%, do we still need heirlooms?

Reasons they were created in the Wrath - MoP era:
• Reduce leveling time for alts - solved! All leveling is massively cut across the board.
• Offer strong gear in the shoulder and weapon slots to compensate for poor itemization rampant through Classic leveling - solved! Cata fixed Classic world's bad itemization.
• Later, to fill gear slots as levels were increased while overall leveling time remaining the same, which lead to you blowing through content without getting appropriate gear - solved! With scaling from 7.3.5, and now with 9.0's retool, all gear you get is your level when you earn it and sticking with a full set of content means getting actual items while questing

So with all the issues that necessitated heirlooms seemingly resolved in the fast, straightforward leveling system coming in 9.0... why heirlooms?
I'd say refund the gold that was conceivably sunk into them and keep them as transmog items. They ruin one of the fundamental aspects of an RPG in pursuing gear and having said items be useful instead of vendor fodder.

That's possible, but it's also a convenience factor. You don't have to worry about those slots the entire time you level, and can make gold by selling whatever items you get from quest rewards. I think keeping it as a scaling item is fine, because it gives you that advantage to level even faster. I think a lot of the forum mentality revolves around a certain mindset of elitism. There are people who have never hit max level. There are people who only have 1 character. There are people who only RP and want to get to certain places to RP there. Then of course, there are the people who play more than that. This new system helps everyone, makes it feel more rewarding, and allows you to still feel faster than others with Heirlooms (in elitism speech, needing to go faster is always better). Keeping that separation between someone who has 1 less piece of Heirloom gear is almost needed for a certain subset of people who just want to get everything to max ASAP, while also catering to the idea of another goal to reach toward for those that aren't there yet.

Need heirlooms? No, you never really needed them. Nice to have? Yes, will still be nice to have.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Ya gotta still be a lot to learn because much of what was said just doesn't sound realistic, but I am very optimistic it will work out well in the end.
My big two questions though are how does actual instanced and gear work?
And how will party sync interact with 50-60 now with that new alt leveling catch up thing.

[pewpmeiser]

My concern is that they didn’t talk about what level we will get mounts at. Maybe they may just allow Alts to fly if your main has that ability. I am really interested to see what they do with the movement aspect of leveling.

Q&A is up soon so we will see.

Level 10 would make most sense

[mauserr]

OP, feel free to fuck off to Classic. Just go and don't ruin the game for the rest of us. Most people don't care about levelling and want it to be as quick as possible. Classic is there for you with the rest of that crowd.

[SirCowdog]

Any non current expansion profession leveling is irrelevant.

Except for goblin gliders, which are always useful, even if you have flying unlocked. ;D

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The lvl squich is happening to everyone. However, if you want to lvl up as you did before, you can opt out of the chromie timewalking thing and zones scale normaly (to their equivelent lvl after squich).

I wondered about that as I was reading it in the recap. Previously there were level ranges based on the old level cap of 120. What does that mean in terms of the new level cap of 60 though? They have to squish 120 levels into 50. Previously it was:

1-60 EK/Kalimdor
60-80 TBC/WotLK
80-90 Cata/MoP
90-100 WoD
100-110 Legion
110-120 BfA

So that would be in Shadowlands:

1-25 EK/Kalmidor
25-33 TBC/WotLK
33-38 Cata/MoP
38-42 WoD
42-46 Legion
46-50 BfA

Which seems odd, because some expansions covered a larger level range. TBC and WotLK were 20 levels! While Cata-BfA were only 10 levels. It seems needlessly complex. Really they should just dispense with "chromie time". Scale everything except the current expansion to 50, and make anything not the current expansion default to Legacy mode the second you hit level cap.

[Thetruth1400]

That's still not the right name.

I'm sorry. I'll hand over my priest card now.

[DefinitelyNotTriHard]

The problem is that nothing really changes, there's no invasion events, there's no WQs, there's no revamps.

Seems like it'll just be as bland and boring as before. This is content a majority of players have played through several times

[princeofthawest]

So if I understand this topic correctly, I'll be able to pick Warlords at level 10 (yes I enjoy questing there) and level there until 50 at a 60-70% faster rate?
Combine that with heirlooms, it'll be an altoholic heaven.