Leveling experience is good now.

[Toybox]

Didn't try Islands as the first couple didn't do much, Freehold however is insane, my husband boosted me from level 10 to 50 in 3 hours and 22 minutes yesterday.

Oof, nice. Might trade boosts with a friend or two then!

[infinitemeridian]

I disagree. I was under the impression it would take you through an expacs entire story to go from 10-50. Instead, you hit max level about halfway through. It doesn't seem like this was tested or thought out at all. The tuning is completely all over the place and it was not ready to go live.

I thought the whole point was to let you choose so you could experience the ENTIRE story of an expansion, not just pick a flavor to go 25% through.

[SirReal]

I disagree. I was under the impression it would take you through an expacs entire story to go from 10-50. Instead, you hit max level about halfway through. It doesn't seem like this was tested or thought out at all. The tuning is completely all over the place and it was not ready to go live.

I thought the whole point was to let you choose so you could experience the ENTIRE story of an expansion, not just pick a flavor to go 25% through.

Yeah, that's a you completely misunderstanding thing. Think about the difference in xpacs: number of levels, number of zones, number of quests, etc, etc, etc. How did you think that would get remotely balanced? The point was so that you could at least finish more than one zone before you had to move on - not finish the whole xpac.

[infinitemeridian]

Yeah, that's a you completely misunderstanding thing. Think about the difference in xpacs: number of levels, number of zones, number of quests, etc, etc, etc. How did you think that would get remotely balanced? The point was so that you could at least finish more than one zone before you had to move on - not finish the whole xpac.

I never said it would be easy. But hitting max level before reaching Talador seems extremely phoned in and lazy. I'm not even going to hit Spires of Araak, let alone Nagrand. That's just dumb.

Even taking you through an entire expac's worth of quests is still faster than what we have today.

If players want to just hit max, then they can choose a legion or a bfa. If they want to experience the story and the leveling experience of olde, choose WoTLK.

[ohwell]

Can I ask which expansion you did? Because I can imagine the originally 5lvl expansions can feel rather short compared to the 10lvl ones in terms of content.

WoD you can finish leveling by like Gorgrond or shortly thereafter assuming you do all side quests and garrison. It's actually the fastest of all of them. Legion seems more matched up. Pandaria it's hard to tell since it's more spread it feels like.

[Lucetia]

Didn't try Islands as the first couple didn't do much, Freehold however is insane, my husband boosted me from level 10 to 50 in 3 hours and 22 minutes yesterday.

Can you provide some more info? I took my prot paladin (who is sitting at 130; so pretty geared) in there who could clear it in about 10-15 minutes before the pre-patch and do it in about 2-3 pulls (to prevent the constant teleporting). Went in today to do it and it took about 30-40 minutes and I had to do 4-6 pulls before each boss which results in about 30 or so pulls. Each pull including boss took way longer. At the end of the dungeon the other character received 2.81% and that was them being fully rested with heirloom bonuses reducing the rate it drains.

At that rate it would take 14.23% runs resulting in around 7 hours if they were rested the entire time. I can't see any way possible of going 10-50 in 3.5 hrs.

Especially when as a tank I would get shredded once I started going past 4-5 packs.

[alturic]

I haven't read up too much on this, but if 120 is the new 50, wouldn't that mean that leveling is *extremely* quick now? How exactly did the scaling down of 70 levels "work"?

[Die]

For Blizzard to make questing more interesting and relevant over a longer period of time, they would have to invest development time in updating old zones. When they are working on a new xpac they would also have to refresh the old quests in EK/K, BC, WotLK, Cata, MoP, Wod, Legion, BFA, SL++ for it to stay relevant and interesting. They would have to do it, cause a lvl 1 character can choose what zone to play in. Who would justify spending resources on that? no one.

Questing and leveling is always interesting and relevant when you do the the first couple of times. After that, its old and it gets old quick. So people just grind it out quickly as possible. Even in classic, people are screaming in lfg channel for boosts in dungeons. In a version of the game were leveling is supposed to be a big thing. Why do people do it? more effective and the quests has already been done.

Issue is, as xpacs and new lvls come into the game, the leveling gets more and more convoluded. The higher the lvl cap, the longer it feels to reach max lvl. The streamlining of the leveling now will 100% help new players to have a better understanding of whats going on+ veteran players can change it up at theyre own leisure how and where they want to lvl.

Other games have systems to make leveling very interesting. They don't have to make up something new, just borrow what works elsewhere.

[SynDethroc]

I agree completely! I am almost done leveling a shaman (a class that I have never before been able to get into) to 50, and I'm working on a warrior at the same time. It feels good to just pick an expansion and stick with it 'till the end.

[Harbour]

Leveling is extremely fun now and its the best time to dust off the old dropped characters.

Except its Discipline Priest. Attonements healing is broken right now, heals for 1-4 hps and you have to heal with Flash Heal mostly. It sucks.

[dawawe]

I felt kind of dickish in exiles reach 1 shotting everything when a new player was running up to attack a mob

[shoc]

I haven't read up too much on this, but if 120 is the new 50, wouldn't that mean that leveling is *extremely* quick now? How exactly did the scaling down of 70 levels "work"?

[Pearstriker]

Gotta say, I agree with OP. I understand some people enjoy the leveling process but for most of us it's the quicker the better lol

[javierdsv]

It's good, I just think mobs should do more damage to you.

In Exile's reach, this big Elite bear was absolutely a joke.

[Toybox]

It's good, I just think mobs should do more damage to you.

In Exile's reach, this big Elite bear was absolutely a joke.

Isn't Exile's Reach designed for newbies? Someone that's played for more than 10 years is obviously going to find starter content trivial.

[Armakus]

It can be a little jarring if you haven't read up on it prior, in particular the whole booting you out of Chromie time at 50 (honestly feels like a warning should trigger at level 49 that informs you of XP pause option to finish campaign). But aside from that, and a few other teething problems, I think it's great.

If I have only one complaint with this new system, it's that. I just finished leveling a new toon yesterday and I was absolutely SHOCKED that this made it live.

[javierdsv]

Isn't Exile's Reach designed for newbies? Someone that's played for more than 10 years is obviously going to find starter content trivial.

I was judging all its content from a new player point of view... I thought it was great how it showed a little piece of most of the substantial things WoW has to offer. But having an Elite doing less damage than a quest boss was a little underwhelming. And well, this is not an isolated case, it's the case of almost any other zone right now. The "Recommended players [3]" warning in the quest log is not really accurate at all.

It shouldn't be Classic level of difficulty because we know this "Era" of players appreciate instant gratification in games, but it could be just a little more difficult.

[Fritters154]

Pace feels nice, although having some abilities (like the last talent row) gated much deeper in the process than before is kind of sad. The Chromie Time 1-minute warning and exit teleport at 50 is atrocious though. Especially since you need to be a somewhat experienced player already to access the Chromie Time stuff, and I would really hope any experienced player knows how to use their own hearthstone and/or find their own way back to Org/SW with minimal issue... Blizz doesn't need to forcibly teleport us there.

At most you should get a quest and teleport scroll added to your inventory when you hit 50. Being forced out with no choice is just jarring.

[Pearstriker]

Pace feels nice, although having some abilities (like the last talent row) gated much deeper in the process than before is kind of sad. The Chromie Time 1-minute warning and exit teleport at 50 is atrocious though. Especially since you need to be a somewhat experienced player already to access the Chromie Time stuff, and I would really hope any experienced player knows how to use their own hearthstone and/or find their own way back to Org/SW with minimal issue... Blizz doesn't need to forcibly teleport us there.

At most you should get a quest and teleport scroll added to your inventory when you hit 50. Being forced out with no choice is just jarring.

I will confess that I hadn't hit 50 on any alts up until now, so I was unaware of that bit. That's not great.

[Tylanthia]

I'm 40+ and I can't imagine spending any time leveling in this game. If you've been playing for a long time, what could you possibly get out of it? (serious question). Like at least in something like swtor there is a personalized story. In wow it's just running chores for x hours.

Sometimes it's nice to re-experience the journey---remember fond experiences, etc. It's like when I start a new Baldur's Gate 2 campaign. I've started dozens over the year--but I only ever beat the game once. I don't really consider that time wasted because I enjoyed those playthroughs--however short or long they were. I don't play RPGs to see the ending--sometimes I do and that's cool. I spent hundreds of hours on Morrowind/Oblivion and never once did the main campaign quests. Mostly I just want to have a good experience exploring a story/world. I honestly enjoy questing (Suramar was my favorite part of legion end game, for example).

For a new players, I like what FF14 does--no matter when you start--you get to progress through the entire game's story, including patch stories. It doesn't matter how much you do--do a bit and then come back latter--I play it intermittently and enjoy the story when I have the time. Due to the way it is designed, at no point does the world or content feel unpopulated. I feel bad that WoW didn't take that path--that so much old content was discarded. But many players do focus on end game and prefer to play multiple characters at end game. I understand why they did it--it's just not for me.