I can't be the only one predicting a permanent level 60 cap

[Ealyssa]

I really doubt they would lock max level to 60.
While clearly what the number attached to the max level means nothing anymore. Their is still a imaginary sense of progression that would be lost if each pre patch coming forward take us back to 50.

It took them 16 years for a level squish, I think we a have some time before another one is needed. And most importantly, they can just tweak the experience gain for the leveling to always be at the same speed with chromie time (so that when next prepatch comes, you can level 1->60 doing just one Chromie zone at the same speed as current 1->50)

And since they will most likely never add any new talents rows, there is also no need for a 10 level jump. Going forward I think a 5 level jump is what would be best. Just for the feeling of progression and it even integrates well with how leveling is now (3-5 zones in expansions "continent", so a bit more than 1 level per zone sounds good to me)

With 5 level gaps it will take ~8 years to reach max level 80 (accounting for ~2 years expansions). At that point, we could squish back to 50 if wow's still alive.

[Danvash]

When the numbers get huge, they stop making sense to our intuition. This especially goes for new players who aren't already enmeshed in the world of fansites, WoW YouTube, and Discord servers.

It's already a problem when people start playing and realize they'd need to go through 120 levels to play with their friends, over half of which are done in zones with outdated, grindy quests and dungeons that the average player is so bored of that they'll vote to kick anyone who gets lost or does bad damage. It makes people dislike the game and its community before even getting to experience the strong points.

And then it comes to damage numbers and how little sense they make when they get huge. A tooltip may say an attack does 30k damage when it regularly hits for 200k. Players went from doing 100k DPS at level 100 to 2M DPS in Antorus. If they didn't squish anything, we'd be doing billions by now and just filling up the screen with these huge numbers on every aoe pack.

[Qstall]

In my original WoW manual from 2005 it says that the future level cap will be higher than 60, so you are wrong!

[rrayy]

The aesthetic and feelings beside, there is an actual technical limitation of how high the numbers can go. You guys seem to have forgotten or not noticed, but the end of Throne and complete Siege was built around the maximal possible health pool of bosses. This is why Garrosh heals himself 5 times back to full. Simply because they couldn't increase his HP anymore.

That was because the client was still 32 bit. That issue does not exist anymore because eveything has been increased upgraded to 64-bit. That hasn't been an issue for some time and multiple expansions.

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It definitely would be a consistent theme. 1-50 is the starter experience, 51-60 is the current expansion experience - and being level 60 is the new end-game always and forever. So when a new expansion comes out, you don't level up anymore (Unless it's needed) and instead go straight into the new expansions leveling scale.

Consistent does not = better in this case. Progression is completely killed off. There is absolutely no point in leveling if you are going to be immediately reset to 50. You can deal with increasing the cap every expansion until 100 then resetting back to 50 again. Keep some form of progression over multiple expansions.

[Unholyground]

They are going to go back to 5 level expansions I am guessing, it makes the most sense with this squish.

[PenguinChan]

That was because the client was still 32 bit. That issue does not exist anymore because eveything has been increased upgraded to 64-bit. That hasn't been an issue for some time and multiple expansions.

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Consistent does not = better in this case. Progression is completely killed off. There is absolutely no point in leveling if you are going to be immediately reset to 50. You can deal with increasing the cap every expansion until 100 then resetting back to 50 again. Keep some form of progression over multiple expansions.

I meant where you stay at level 60 and never delevel. Instead they only level us up when new content warrenting it exists. Like a new talent row, more spell ranks, things like that. Then when the previous expansion is scaled back down on expansion release you stay at 60 and progress sooner on endgame borrowed powers and such. At least that'd be my guess if it happened.

[Omedon]

There is absolutely no point in leveling if you are going to be immediately reset to 50.

Um... well... the uh... endgame stuff... is at 60. That's a pretty good reason, isn't it? I mean if you need your "leveling to matter," within the model I've posited you can just say at 50 forever and sit on those hard earned levels that are never going away. And miss the endgame.

[Nero Duskwind]

I guess we'll see a Paragon-System like Diablo

Isn't that basically what Artifact Power, Aazerite Power, and Renown are?

[PenguinChan]

Isn't that basically what Artifact Power, Aazerite Power, and Renown are?

Not him, but they don't last. I'd like to see a paragon system that sticks around forever on your account. Things like reputation bonuses, vendor sell prices, Mount speeds, etc.

[Xilurm]

Or they can take us to 100 each time and do a squish. If we get 10 lvls per expansion from now on then we will reach lvl 100 in 2028.

[prwraith]

I guess we'll see a Paragon-System like Diablo

Everquest AA's say ohaiii haha

[Sfr528]

I think always raising the level cap is silly and I would be happy to see it remain at 60.

The idea that players can't get a sense of progression without gaining levels is a flawed one. Leveling is the gating process at the moment, it gates the players access to abilities, dungeons, and the like. There is nothing stopping Blizzard from shifting that paradigm of gaining levels to just questing. They could implement in each expansion quest-chains for unlocking new abilities, dungeons, and raids. Instead of focusing on creating hundreds of quests that amount to just being experience funnels, maybe they could focus on creating more tailored experiences for the class you are playing while leveling up. Give each class a different experience so that when you go out to level your alts ... it isn't just doing the exact same thing over and over again.

[Stormgnoef]

I dont really care either way.Just put some light lvl like destiny have

[rrayy]

Um... well... the uh... endgame stuff... is at 60. That's a pretty good reason, isn't it? I mean if you need your "leveling to matter," within the model I've posited you can just say at 50 forever and sit on those hard earned levels that are never going away. And miss the endgame.

There is no point in doing that if you are going to be reset to 50 no matter if you do it or not. You just illustrated my point even further.