Does the leveling feel too quick?

[Grahamington]

Hey friends.

So I am curious what everyone thinks about the new leveling the last few expansions have had. Does leveling feel too fast?
After playing WOTLK classic, it reminded me how much leveling was a part of the expansion where it would take about a week to 80 instead of the 6 hours it takes some people to hit level cap on Dragonflight.

Do you like the fast leveling or do you wish it was a little longer of a process?

[Biomega]

Leveling is an outmoded concept. Progression can be done in ways that doesn't translate to doing meaningless shit for 1-2 days on every character you want to play, before getting to the parts you'll ACTUALLY be doing for the rest of your time with them. It's a holdover from a history that's long been transcended, and the main reason they're keeping it around is nostalgia and tradition. It has no significant functional component to it anymore, because anything you THINK leveling does you can just do better now in ways that don't include a bunch of throwaway content.

[LedZeppelin]

Leveling is an outmoded concept. Progression can be done in ways that doesn't translate to doing meaningless shit for 1-2 days on every character you want to play, before getting to the parts you'll ACTUALLY be doing for the rest of your time with them. It's a holdover from a history that's long been transcended, and the main reason they're keeping it around is nostalgia and tradition. It has no significant functional component to it anymore, because anything you THINK leveling does you can just do better now in ways that don't include a bunch of throwaway content.

Looks like we have a late entry for worst post of the year! Congrats!

[Grahamington]

Leveling is an outmoded concept. Progression can be done in ways that doesn't translate to doing meaningless shit for 1-2 days on every character you want to play, before getting to the parts you'll ACTUALLY be doing for the rest of your time with them. It's a holdover from a history that's long been transcended, and the main reason they're keeping it around is nostalgia and tradition. It has no significant functional component to it anymore, because anything you THINK leveling does you can just do better now in ways that don't include a bunch of throwaway content.

I understand what you're saying, but I have to disagree. This could be my ignorance, but the game was much more popular when it wasn't a "Get to the end content as fast as possible" game. Hitting level cap and having all the gear I need for raiding 1 week into the expansion feels... ehhh... I worry I'm going to just get bored much quicker now.

[Garymorilix]

I understand what you're saying, but I have to disagree. This could be my ignorance, but the game was much more popular when it wasn't a "Get to the end content as fast as possible" game. Hitting level cap and having all the gear I need for raiding 1 week into the expansion feels... ehhh... I worry I'm going to just get bored much quicker now.

1) When was this exaclty? Vanilla? Literally everything after that was end-game focused.

2) Yes, it is your ignorance. There is no connection between leveling and popularity. WotLK was the expansion with the most players AND it was also the first expansion with heirlooms to speed up leveling for people (and also major XP nerfs to have a faster leveling by default).

3) What you described there, having done everything 1 week into an expac, is like top 5% of the playerbase. If it's boring for you maybe don't play 14 hours a day?

[Donald Hellscream]

Other than hitting max level before even finishing Azure Span, not really.

I suspect the reason why I capped so early relatively speaking, is because I did every single quest I came across and also did a ton of crafting since I can't help but to zoom straight for a node whenever I see one, which I imagine also contributed alot since crafting and gathering does give a fair amount of xp.

[Biomega]

I understand what you're saying, but I have to disagree. This could be my ignorance, but the game was much more popular when it wasn't a "Get to the end content as fast as possible" game.

It was also more popular when we didn't have Monks. Does that mean the Monk class is WHY it's no longer as popular?

This is just correlation vs. causation, unless you have some evidence that it's specifically that aspect of the game that's the cause for its decreased popularity compared to whatever time you're talking about.

Hitting level cap and having all the gear I need for raiding 1 week into the expansion feels... ehhh... I worry I'm going to just get bored much quicker now.

But that doesn't mean you need LEVELING, it just means you need CONTENT. That doesn't have to be leveling, it could be any number of things.

[Relapses]

Nah, this system is way better. The only minor complaint I have is that I did the campaign and finished at level 68. Kinda weirdchamp but not that big of a deal.

[Sableye]

I'm at day 3 and I've done 1/2 of the first zone story so far and am lvl 64, I think the current setup is far better than the older one of going from hub to hub since you can run through the campaign as fast as you want or slow down and do side stuff, and some of the side stuff is worth it like flying around for an hour upgrading dragonriding

[Thes]

Quick leveling is better, as for me it's not particularly interesting content...

[Khaza-R]

Leveling isn't popular with the remaining playerbase. Most of them are either tryhards who instantly want to jump into endgame and consume it as fast as possible or hyper-casuals who are unwilling to invest into any form of grind.

Reality is that leveling represents a totally different mindset to progression. Something from old school MMOs where hitting max level was a feat in itself.

[MrLachyG]

I really enjoyed the levelling process. got to 70 within 2 days, which is the fastest I have ever levelled (I very much go at my own pace). Compared to SL levelling this just felt very relaxed and much more enjoyable.

[Hctaz]

You're going to get pretty mixed responses here.

I enjoyed Vanilla leveling because that content was actually part of the game, and classes were even balanced around how strong they were in the open world at that stage in time.

Afterward, leveling became mostly irrelevant. There were plenty of other things that you could do to make progressing through the new areas meaningful, but they opted to go for leveling for a few reasons.

I don't remember if there was an interview or where this was spoken about, but I do remember that the WoW team was worried about selling an expansion.

Something like, "How do we make sure that players will want to buy the new expansion instead of playing the old content?"

So that's probably one major reason why they chose to have an "expansion" to the game actually center around removing all of the old content and funneling you into brand new content.

[Xilurm]

Leveling is an outmoded concept. Progression can be done in ways that doesn't translate to doing meaningless shit for 1-2 days on every character you want to play, before getting to the parts you'll ACTUALLY be doing for the rest of your time with them. It's a holdover from a history that's long been transcended, and the main reason they're keeping it around is nostalgia and tradition. It has no significant functional component to it anymore, because anything you THINK leveling does you can just do better now in ways that don't include a bunch of throwaway content.

Speak for yourself without assuming that's what everyone wants. Jesus...

[Grahamington]

Thanks for all the replies homies.

I might just be in the minority on this one then. I personally enjoyed the leveling in BC/WOTLK more as it felt like more of an adventure and not a race or quick task. Playing classic only reminded me of that enjoyment. To each their own though.

[Biomega]

Speak for yourself without assuming that's what everyone wants. Jesus...

Ah, I see. "Geez, that's only YOUR opinion. MY opinion, on the other hand, is what EVERYONE thinks."

Certainly a novel way to argue :P

[Xilurm]

Thanks for all the replies homies.

I might just be in the minority on this one then. I personally enjoyed the leveling in BC/WOTLK more as it felt like more of an adventure and not a race or quick task. Playing classic only reminded me of that enjoyment. To each their own though.

It's two different design philosophies. In retail you have all these markers and guides and the quests are pretty linear in the way they want you to go. They made this even more apparent with the addition of the "campaign" feature. It makes sense that it's fast and not a slog.

Meanwhile on from 1.x to 3.x these things weren't in place, you had to explore the world for yourself in order to find quests and what not. You just prefer a different narrative design.

It's like comparing Elder Scrolls/Fallout way of narrative to something like the new God of War games.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, I see. "Geez, that's only YOUR opinion. MY opinion, on the other hand, is what EVERYONE thinks."

Certainly a novel way to argue :P

Well that's why I never stated my opinion on the matter, just that yours isn't good for everyone.

[Unlimited Power]

I think it's a strange comparison.

Much as some people delude themselves into thinking otherwise, retail is essentially a completely different game than classic.

In classic, especially vanilla, the leveling experience was a core part of the game.

Meanwhile in retail, it has long been a way to have players experience the core aspects of the expansion story while the power level gets reset to a new baseline.

I really enjoyed leveling a character when classic first launched. When TBC classic launched, I greatly enjoyed leveling a Draenei shaman 1-60 during the pre-patch.

But level 60-70? It was frankly a dreadful experience. And 70-80 wasn't much better when WotLK launched.

I'd take retail expansion leveling any day over the classic expansion leveling experiences.

[Kikazz]

I understand what you're saying, but I have to disagree. This could be my ignorance, but the game was much more popular when it wasn't a "Get to the end content as fast as possible" game. Hitting level cap and having all the gear I need for raiding 1 week into the expansion feels... ehhh... I worry I'm going to just get bored much quicker now.

you do realise Classic has devolved into this HIT MAX AND LEVEL FASTER.

if you dont believe me, the first 2-3 days of Wrath launch EVERY streamer was dungeon grinding to hit max.

if they told everyone,

yo hit max level and the only content that gave character progression was dungeons at MAX level,

and we were opening M0, in 2 weeks, then raids 2 weeks after that with M+.

people would take it a little slower.

Leveling only adds grind, it doesnt give you anything except a wall towards the next content.

some games dont even have levels, but have power brackets you need to reach to get to the new content aka Lost Ark etc... after a certain point their new expansions didnt add levels, but new gear brackets to move on with the storyline.

same with some other new MMORPGS that didnt last.

leveling is an outdated model, and just forces most people to do something they dont want to,

if you like playing 5-6+ alts, like me and most others do, you dont have the time in your lives to lvl all those toons to max to start playing them.

you have to remember WOW is an ageing population, that has more and more limited time,

this is why more and more things are being timegated and sped up, so you can do them with mininmal login time.

[Varitok]

Leveling is an outmoded concept. Progression can be done in ways that doesn't translate to doing meaningless shit for 1-2 days on every character you want to play, before getting to the parts you'll ACTUALLY be doing for the rest of your time with them. It's a holdover from a history that's long been transcended, and the main reason they're keeping it around is nostalgia and tradition. It has no significant functional component to it anymore, because anything you THINK leveling does you can just do better now in ways that don't include a bunch of throwaway content.

Twitch/Youtube spreadsheet culture truly ruined all games. A whole breed of people who have such short attention spans and patience they can't bother to go through a progression of story and power before "GOGOGOGOGO" sets in.