New level requirements for Legacy raids

[CrawlFromThePit]

Blizzard haven't suggested they won't squish stats along with levels, AFAIK. So assuming they won't is setting yourself up for weird disappointment. They almost certainly will.

They showed some new skills of the Covenants and they had dmg in line with the skills we do today, nothing looked like lvl 50 stuff. Of course this could still change, but everything points to no stats change whatsoever.

[Onikaroshi]

They showed some new skills of the Covenants and they had dmg in line with the skills we do today, nothing looked like lvl 50 stuff. Of course this could still change, but everything points to no stats change whatsoever.

I mean, you have a better chance right now of walking out of your front door and getting hit by a train since they flat out said they have no plans for a stat squish (they just did one going into BfA, they plan them every 2 expansions now is what they've said, so 10.0 will have one)

[Eurhetemec]

It was during the what's next panel so you'd have to be able to go back and watch that. Basically they were talking about the "warchief shuffle" and how the chromie time gets rid of that and said something about how you can forgo it all together and level through the "warchief shuffle". Each expansion will still have a set level cap, so it makes sense.

They already said there wouldn't be a stat squish going along with this, also at blizzcon.

I'll take your word for both but I'm pretty sure that in a few days you're going to be like "WHY DID BLIZZARD LIE TO ME AT BLIZZCON!!!" and I'm going to be like "Thought so...". We shall see!

I totally don't for a second believe that there won't be stat squish because the difference in stats between a brand new level 120 (i.e. level 50) and a geared level 120 (i.e. still 50) is completely insane. It might be the biggest gap in WoW history.

[Onikaroshi]

I'll take your word for both but I'm pretty sure that in a few days you're going to be like "WHY DID BLIZZARD LIE TO ME AT BLIZZCON!!!" and I'm going to be like "Thought so...". We shall see!

The chances are extremely low as we just had one. As for leveling, it's a horse a piece, it's just a better to bet to go with something they said vs. something that wasn't said.

[Eurhetemec]

The chances are extremely low as we just had one. As for leveling, it's a horse a piece, it's just a better to bet to go with something they said vs. something that wasn't said.

I agree and I will be interested to see if you're right re: leveling. I think that's a lot more likely than there being no stat squish. They just won't call it that. But all their post-Blizzcon messaging (I didn't buy this Blizzcon so can't go back and watch unless it's on Youtube) about leveling has avoided mentioning any non-Chromie Time option. Which is suggestive at least.

[Onikaroshi]

I agree and I will be interested to see if you're right re: leveling. I think that's a lot more likely than there being no stat squish. They just won't call it that. But all their post-Blizzcon messaging (I didn't buy this Blizzcon so can't go back and watch unless it's on Youtube) about leveling has avoided mentioning any non-Chromie Time option. Which is suggestive at least.

for the stat squish itself, we're not really doing that much damage so that part isn't a big deal, health is a bit inflated, but loosing the neck and azerite gear might change all that.

The neck has inflated Stamina for the slot, as well as % stam.

But my god are azerite pieces inflated, over double the stats of a similar ilvl piece (my 445 legs have 1000ish stam, vs 2702 on my azerite pieces), i guess because they have no secondaries.

I wouldn't be surprised if a tank rocking 700k hp in an 80 neck and 480 azerite gear would only have 400k or less after removing it.

[CrawlFromThePit]

for the stat squish itself, we're not really doing that much damage so that part isn't a big deal, health is a bit inflated, but loosing the neck and azerite gear might change all that.

The neck has inflated Stamina for the slot, as well as % stam.

But my god are azerite pieces inflated, over double the stats of a similar ilvl piece (my 445 legs have 1000ish stam, vs 2702 on my azerite pieces), i guess because they have no secondaries.

I wouldn't be surprised if a tank rocking 700k hp in an 80 neck and 480 azerite gear would only have 400k or less after removing it.

I'll trade the semi-useless HP for a bunch more secondary stats any day. Sure the HP will go down but that chunk of secondary stats for more tank will be more dmg than the garbage traits we get. At least for Blood DK that's true there's no good traits.

[Yarathir]

I think the big mistake a lot of people are making here is assuming raids will scale down BEFORE 50.

That basically contradicts what Blizzard have said. They've said, when you're in Chromie Time, i.e. leveling through an expansion, stuff scales with you. That means a raid would be full of terrifying high-damage elites and bosses who are two levels higher than you during the whole of 10-50.

When you hit 50, the content all scales down. It doesn't stay at 50 (I guess BfA might, but their example was MoP I believe, and they said it would scale down to 30 or 35).

That's what we're looking at here. No-one should be expecting to do this content WHILST LEVELING. You'll need to get to 50, and then it'll scale down. This is what Blizzard have said.

Well, I assume that even before hitting cap, you can jump out of Chromie time if you wish and everything will scale to its respective place, just from 1-50 instead of 1-120. But yeah, otherwise I agree with you.

- - - Updated - - -

for the stat squish itself, we're not really doing that much damage so that part isn't a big deal, health is a bit inflated, but loosing the neck and azerite gear might change all that.

The neck has inflated Stamina for the slot, as well as % stam.

But my god are azerite pieces inflated, over double the stats of a similar ilvl piece (my 445 legs have 1000ish stam, vs 2702 on my azerite pieces), i guess because they have no secondaries.

I wouldn't be surprised if a tank rocking 700k hp in an 80 neck and 480 azerite gear would only have 400k or less after removing it.

There is, so far, no indication of a stat squish.

In the demo, characters at 50 did Uldir-levels of damage in Uldir ilvl gear. Might still be coming, of course, but since a level and stat squish aren't tied together, there currently is no indication either way.

Removal of Azerite stuff will definitely hit our output a bit, though.

[ShmooDude]

I think the big mistake a lot of people are making here is assuming raids will scale down BEFORE 50.

That basically contradicts what Blizzard have said. They've said, when you're in Chromie Time, i.e. leveling through an expansion, stuff scales with you. That means a raid would be full of terrifying high-damage elites and bosses who are two levels higher than you during the whole of 10-50.

When you hit 50, the content all scales down. It doesn't stay at 50 (I guess BfA might, but their example was MoP I believe, and they said it would scale down to 30 or 35).

That's what we're looking at here. No-one should be expecting to do this content WHILST LEVELING. You'll need to get to 50, and then it'll scale down. This is what Blizzard have said.

I think we actually need to look at it more broadly than this. From my understanding, you can only be leveling in one expansion at a time (you can change that expansion, but it's still one at a time).

The question is, what happens when you enter a zone that you're not leveling in? It might seem obvious from an experienced players point of view that it all scales, but what happens in vanilla zones for a "new" player? They're not allowed to level there. Are the quests simply hidden/unavailable? If the quests are inaccessible, why do the zones even need to scale.

I suspect that each expansion is going to have a natural level. This is the level all enemies will be if you are not in "Chromie" time for that content. Based on the levels pointed out in the OP, we can guess where each expansion might lie under such a system:
Vanilla - 15?
BC/WotlK - 20
Cata - 25
MoP - 30?
Wod/Legion - 35
BfA - 50

Under such a system, you could presumably run old raids and/or dungeons at these fixed levels before 50, with the old raids bonus applying every 5-10 levels.

[Gleem]

A point of clarification for why the leveling brackets do actually make sense:

The 9.0 patch that will introduce the level squish still maintains the zone/expansion level brackets and current live level scaling we have right now.

On live, vanilla is levels 1-60 which each zone starting at a level (e.g. Westfall starting at level 10 and scaling to 60, Duskwood starting at 20 and scaling to 60, etc. The same is true for BC and Wrath starting at 60 and scaling to 80, Cata/Wod starting at 80 and scaling to 90, etc.

This scaling will still exist in 9.0 where vanilla starts scaling at 1 (or whatever specific zones start their scaling to) and end scaling around 15. BC/Wrath start their scaling at 15 and end at 20. Etc etc. This is the default world behavior for all existing accounts.

Blizzard realizes that jumping expansions every 5-10 levels feels very jarring, as that's not enough time to complete a continent, or even more than 1-2 zones. So they also created a new, OPTIONAL feature everyone's referring to as Chromie Time, where Chromie sets special scaling for you within a given expansion (or vanilla) that scales the entire expansion from 10-50. This feature is forced on new accounts for their first character to take them through BfA Chromie Time. But beyond that it's an optional feature you opt into.

So why the level brackets of raids? Because those raids become available at the level their respective expansion content stops scaling up outside Chromie Time.

[Yarathir]

A point of clarification for why the leveling brackets do actually make sense:

The 9.0 patch that will introduce the level squish still maintains the zone/expansion level brackets and current live level scaling we have right now.

On live, vanilla is levels 1-60 which each zone starting at a level (e.g. Westfall starting at level 10 and scaling to 60, Duskwood starting at 20 and scaling to 60, etc. The same is true for BC and Wrath starting at 60 and scaling to 80, Cata/Wod starting at 80 and scaling to 90, etc.

This scaling will still exist in 9.0 where vanilla starts scaling at 1 (or whatever specific zones start their scaling to) and end scaling around 15. BC/Wrath start their scaling at 15 and end at 20. Etc etc. This is the default world behavior for all existing accounts.

Blizzard realizes that jumping expansions every 5-10 levels feels very jarring, as that's not enough time to complete a continent, or even more than 1-2 zones. So they also created a new, OPTIONAL feature everyone's referring to as Chromie Time, where Chromie sets special scaling for you within a given expansion (or vanilla) that scales the entire expansion from 10-50. This feature is forced on new accounts for their first character to take them through BfA Chromie Time. But beyond that it's an optional feature you opt into.

So why the level brackets of raids? Because those raids become available at the level their respective expansion content stops scaling up outside Chromie Time.

Yeah, this is understandable.

But I don't think TBC raids would be 20. Seems like Vanilla should be 25.

[FlubberPuddy]

That may not be the case since there is no stats squish announced in Shadowlands, we carry the same stats but only the level lowers. Yes, lvl 50 tanks with 1m hp.

By definition each level will be more meaningful since there's a condensed amount. A lvl 50 in SL might be equal to a lvl 120 right now. But a lvl 40 in SL is going to feel more powerful than a lvl 40 right now.

That is what I mean by each level making the player feel more powerful.

In SL, a lvl 1 -> lvl 2 is going to feel like a lvl 1 -> lvl 4 right now.

[Amnaught]

currently it's 11 levels to trigger legacy.

There's no reason to expect that that number wouldn't also be divided by 2.4.

[Onikaroshi]

There's no reason to expect that that number wouldn't also be divided by 2.4.

They seem to not like the previous expansions raid to be legacy, so idk. I'm betting BfA raids will NOT be legacy.

[shadowmatrix]

BFA raids - Level 50 since that is where BFA will end.

Pre BFA raids - Level 40 which allows people logging into alts to go back and solo old raids right away.

Will stats be scaled down? Of course, why leave that issue till later when they can tackle it right now.

[ShmooDude]

But I don't think TBC raids would be 20. Seems like Vanilla should be 25.

It only seems that way because you're trying to retain the old breakpoints (60/2.4 = 25) The whole point of doing a leveling squish is to remove unnecessary levels. Where are the most unnecessary levels? Vanilla.

Since the intro experience is 10 and already serves to push everything forward. We're basically talking about 110 levels in 40. To then take 15 of those 40 and attribute them to vanilla makes no sense to me. That would mean you now have 25 levels for 7 expansions.

To me it makes the most sense would just be to give everyone 5. So Vanilla ends at 15, BC 20, WotlK 25, Cata 30, MoP 35, WoD 40, Legion 45 and BFA 50. But maybe that's too different from what we have now.

[Onikaroshi]

Will stats be scaled down? Of course, why leave that issue till later when they can tackle it right now.

HIGHLY doubt it, as we just had one and they've already stated that they have no plans for one for SL.

[Eurhetemec]

Well, I assume that even before hitting cap, you can jump out of Chromie time if you wish and everything will scale to its respective place, just from 1-50 instead of 1-120. But yeah, otherwise I agree with you.

Yeah, I just don't think that's at all a safe assumption and nobody should be counting on it being the case. I think a lot of people are.

Under such a system, you could presumably run old raids and/or dungeons at these fixed levels before 50, with the old raids bonus applying every 5-10 levels.

Yes - under such a system - but I can't find a single quote which suggests such a system exists. Maybe that's because Blizzard is thinking "Well duh obviously you don't HAVE to use Chromie Time!". Maybe it's because journalists haven't asked the questions they probably should. But literally all the actual quotes and actual messaging I've been able to find from actual Blizzard people suggests basically two scenarios:

1) Old player levels 10-50 with Chromie Time, can pick expansion, can change expansion, whatever, hits 50, Chromie Time stops, can go back and do scaled content (specific example being MoP which was 35).

2) New player levels 10-50 with Chromie Time, has to be in BfA, hits 50, Chromie Time stops, can go back and do scaled content.

What's missing is "Just ignore Chromie Time and jump into whatever content you want which will be scaled via the 50+ scheme". It's quite possible it exists. But it hasn't been mentioned outright that I am aware of. It would also create an unfortunately complicated mess with the start of various expansions which I think Blizzard is seeking to avoid.

On top of all this, the schemes people have been mentioning for how they think it should be scaled DO NOT match up with CURRENT scaling. Which makes them even more unlikely. Right now, both TBC and Wrath are the SAME level bracket. Every scheme I've seen in this thread and others tries to make them into different level brackets. That's fine if you have to hit 50 before the scaling kicks in, and have to pick a Chromie Time before that. It's not fine if you let people not do scaling, because you could easily have a situation where someone was, right now, doing Wrath content, but was a level that was a TBC level under schemes you guys have suggested.

So if you can skip Chromie Time, we can guarantee the brackets will remain:

Vanilla bracket
TBC and Wrath bracket
Cataclysm and MoP bracket
WoD bracket
Legion bracket
BfA bracket

The could get more simple - you could combine WoD and Legion, but they can't get more complicated, and every single scheme I've seen listed here makes them more complicated (correct me if I'm wrong).

Your point re: useless levels is interesting. If they made the Vanilla bracket very low, as you suggest, then you could have a situation where nobody was the wrong level for Wrath, but the right level for TBC (for example), because they'd both be in Wrath or Cata brackets or the like, so that might save this.

A point of clarification for why the leveling brackets do actually make sense:

The 9.0 patch that will introduce the level squish still maintains the zone/expansion level brackets and current live level scaling we have right now.

Source? It's a not a point of clarification unless it's definitely because Blizzard said it. Otherwise it's just the same as the rest of us - an attempt to work out exactly what is going on.

The fact that you seem unfamiliar with the BLIZZARD* term "Chromie Time" (it's not our term), means I think it's unlikely you know more than we do. But I could be wrong, so what's your source?

* = As explained here: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...t-level-squash - You clearly haven't read this so it's confusing as to how you think you're "clarifying" given it's Blizzard's own attempt to clarify.

[glowpipe]

Could not think of a dumber way to do this.


New characters level up during a key area of the game, by picking which era they served the Alliance/Horde.
In whichever one you choose, you go from 1 to 50.

It does not make sense to be leveling in Northerend and suddenly be told you could/should now go check out Molten Core at some random level 20 or whatever.
Midway through leveling in BC and having access to the raids makes no sense, nor does it make much sense that once you reach 48 or whatever you can now do BFA raids.


Makes more sense to me
You level 1 to 50 in whichever era/expansion.
Raids are 50. Full stop. All raids prior to Shadowlands. Or 45 perhaps to enter and completely soloable at 50.
Once Shadowlands is over, it slots down into that system as well.

This rescaling of the world treats each era as its own time bubble. It doesnt make sense to be able to venture off into other raids at arbitrary levels. After completing your leveling to 50, you are a 'veteran' of that war/expedition/etc, the previous ones wernt harder/easier, the future ones are simply just in the future, not harder but more current (level wise).

if they are all 50, you won't get the legacy loot system. its 10 levels or above. lvl 50 raid boss would be lvl 52.

But you are looking at this all wrong, The zones and raids will keep its leveling structure out in the world and the scaling only happens when you talk to chromie. Think of it like a timewalking event you turn on and off yourself. If you are lvl 11 and want to do bfa, it will only scale to 11 when you talk to chromie, Out in the regular world, it will still be around lvl 50 ish

[Yarathir]

Yeah, I just don't think that's at all a safe assumption and nobody should be counting on it being the case. I think a lot of people are.

Why not? Given that's how Blizzard described Chromie Time.