Gating leveling progression behind levels - is bad thing?

[WowIsDead64]

At the end I finally decided to level my first alt. I don't like Threads of Fate thing, so I decided to do story again. But this time I wanted to try doing story quests only. Because I thought, that may be my leveling experience was so long, slow and boring, because I was doing all side quests to complete loremaster. So, yeah, I started to do story quests only. And everything was completely fine and I liked this process, till exact moment, when... I had 52.5 and next quest was gated behind 53. So, now I need to think, why should I do to get this 0.5 level as fast, as possible. May be I should do dungeon? May be I should do some side quests? But wait! I didn't wanted to do them!

Isn't this design flawed? We have 4 covenants and I have a little bit more, than 2.5 levels. Wouldn't 2.5x4 be perfectly enough to get 60 level by the end of story? When I was leveling my main, I had to waste 2 more days to complete story after hitting level 60. So, something is really wrong with this design.

[quite an expert in wow]

cant you progress in another zone / do story quests there?

kinda weird tho, usually stuff is not locked on levels


i dont play wow so i cant give better advice

[Queen of Hamsters]

I got to 60 and had finished every zone's main story just fine.

But I was clever (pretty basic, actually) and only did the main story with 1 or 2 bonus quests to top it off. Seems to work as intended.

[Littleraven]

There have been complaints since beta that following the "golden path" was kinda busted. They have made some tweaks to it but yes it has been a common complaint that if you just try to mainline the campaign quests you likely will come up short on XP sometimes.

Is it bad? I can't really say for sure because I am the kind of person who typically likes to check off all the boxes before I move on but if they are offereing this mainline path they probably should make sure you can hit max level just following it. I don't think it accounts for drop rates etc so it can vary wildly. Some people may get all their drops quicker and not need to kill mobs as much which in turn means you are getting less XP just from the drip of killing mobs.

It just kinda shows the seams that they didn't really account for this and it still probably needs some tuning to feel just right.

[Nevcairiel]

Zones have been locked behind levels since the first day of WoW. You have to get to a certain level for new quests to unlock. And doing "campaign only" was never an entirely feasible thing to do, just that before SL the game didn't tell you which ones were pure campaign quests.

The complaint that you can't do "campaign only" is entirely fabricated and is never how the game worked.

As for the level progression as a whole, not all zones are entirely equal in length, hence some requiring you to do 3 level, and some only 2, thats not a wrong design, just adapted to the amount/length of quests in them. You don't even need to do much side quests. Basically just do the bonus objectives you come across, and side quests that look like they are in the exact same area as you are questing in anyway, and its all fine. It doesn't even slow you down.

PS:
Two days to finish the story? It took me 8 hours from 50-60, and 2 more hours to finish the campaign on my main. And I wasn't even particularly fast. You did something wrong.

PPS:
On an alt with rested bonus (because why wouldn't you have that now), I got to 60 at the end of Ardenweald and then skipped the remaining campaign using the Threads of Fate feature (which you can use at 60 to skip the campaign, still), it was very fast and I only leveled using the campaign quests. Rested Bonus was enough to not need to bother with anything else.

[Krakan]

It's not really a good fit if your going for a narrative experience like sl is. It works when it's more of a free range mmo but shadowlands has you handheld by npcs for most of the campaign so it feels jarring to find out you have to suddenly grind.

[WowIsDead64]

There have been complaints since beta that following the "golden path" was kinda busted. They have made some tweaks to it but yes it has been a common complaint that if you just try to mainline the campaign quests you likely will come up short on XP sometimes.

Is it bad? I can't really say for sure because I am the kind of person who typically likes to check off all the boxes before I move on but if they are offereing this mainline path they probably should make sure you can hit max level just following it. I don't think it accounts for drop rates etc so it can vary wildly. Some people may get all their drops quicker and not need to kill mobs as much which in turn means you are getting less XP just from the drip of killing mobs.

It just kinda shows the seams that they didn't really account for this and it still probably needs some tuning to feel just right.

Dunno. It just looks weird. At the end I finished Bastion at level 53.5. But certain quest chain was locked behind level 53, so I needed to do side quests to get around 0.5 level. Yeah, at the end it was fast enough. But I just don't see valid reason for that gating, other than gating just for the sake of gating. And, as I've already said, I wanted to completely avoid side quest this time. Because leveling main felt stretched and therefore boring. Currently I have a feeling, that I won't have enough mental health to complete this leveling on all my characters. Yeah, I've investigated info about Threads of Fate. But I just don't like it. That "pick zone, fill bar and get XP for it, then pick other zone". Meh. At the end I don't like WQs so much. I do minimum only. Minimum, required for emissary. I guess, I wouldn't survive leveling via doing WQs only. I would like some mixed system, where you can do both story quests and endgame ones.

[Malania]

At the end I finally decided to level my first alt. I don't like Threads of Fate thing, so I decided to do story again. But this time I wanted to try doing story quests only. Because I thought, that may be my leveling experience was so long, slow and boring, because I was doing all side quests to complete loremaster. So, yeah, I started to do story quests only. And everything was completely fine and I liked this process, till exact moment, when... I had 52.5 and next quest was gated behind 53. So, now I need to think, why should I do to get this 0.5 level as fast, as possible. May be I should do dungeon? May be I should do some side quests? But wait! I didn't wanted to do them!

Isn't this design flawed? We have 4 covenants and I have a little bit more, than 2.5 levels. Wouldn't 2.5x4 be perfectly enough to get 60 level by the end of story? When I was leveling my main, I had to waste 2 more days to complete story after hitting level 60. So, something is really wrong with this design.

You knew it would be the same thing when you started to story again and chose to discard threads of fate. No it's not flawed, your logic in expecting something you knew wasn't there, is.

[WowIsDead64]

You knew it would be the same thing when you started to story again and chose to discard threads of fate. No it's not flawed, your logic in expecting something you knew wasn't there, is.

Not all side quests, but many of them are designed to be intentionally ineffective. I.e. it's just "waste of time" when you do them. And I don't understand reasoning behind this design. Are they optional or not? I guess, they should be optional by design. If Blizzard wouldn't want them to be optional, they would make them part of mandatory main storyline, as it was back in Cata, when all quests in linear questlines were mandatory. But at the same time all of a sudden Blizzard require you to do some of them to get missing XP. I just don't understand, what purpose this design servers? To force you to "try" other content, like 5ppls? I personally just hate that mandatory "try this, try that" things. I know, what I want. I don't want to try anything.

[Azerate]

So you're literally missing half a level that you can easily get by either doing quests, or whatever else. How is this a problem?

Zones have been locked behind levels since the first day of WoW. You have to get to a certain level for new quests to unlock. And doing "campaign only" was never an entirely feasible thing to do, just that before SL the game didn't tell you which ones were pure campaign quests.

This is my thought exactly whenever people try to play this new situation up as something unprecendented. Quests were level locked for ages. There have been countless situations where you followed the story in the past, and suddenly it turned out you were done and had to backtrack to search for something else to do because you couldn't do another zone. I always ask myself if I'm even playing the same game as those people leveling those criticisms.

Both in MOP and Cata (afaik) I actually stumbled across this problem. I needed a higher level to start the next zone, and didn't reach it through just following the bradcrumb quest of the previous zone. In MOP I actually ended up grinding mobs for like 30% of the level in the last zone cause I was out of quests.

The only difference now is that you have this "main story quest" clearly marked, like in FF14. For whatever reason people are expecting this to give you the max level suddenly and never stop you to do anything else, where this has never before been the case before.

So YES, there has always been level gating on zones and main story quests in WoW. It's not new by any means.

[Malania]

Not all side quests, but many of them are designed to be intentionally ineffective. I.e. it's just "waste of time" when you do them. And I don't understand reasoning behind this design. Are they optional or not? I guess, they should be optional by design. If Blizzard wouldn't want them to be optional, they would make them part of mandatory main storyline, as it was back in Cata, when all quests in linear questlines were mandatory. But at the same time all of a sudden Blizzard require you to do some of them to get missing XP. I just don't understand, what purpose this design servers? To force you to "try" other content, like 5ppls? I personally just hate that mandatory "try this, try that" things. I know, what I want. I don't want to try anything.

They're entirely optional and offer you an XP reward which means they aren't a time waste. If you don't want to do them you have the option of spamming the dungeons you have unlocked. I will agree it's not the best system but I still kinda think the flaw was the logic used to make the decision. You knew what you were getting into. Change to threads?

[Revamp Man]

if you do the side quests in bastion then you dont have to do any side quests at all in the other zones
you dont have to do anything if you are in warmode

[WowIsDead64]

They're entirely optional and offer you an XP reward which means they aren't a time waste. If you don't want to do them you have the option of spamming the dungeons you have unlocked. I will agree it's not the best system but I still kinda think the flaw was the logic used to make the decision. You knew what you were getting into. Change to threads?

I've already explained several times already, that I don't like threads. Overall WOD solution is the best. Garrisons are available after short introduction quest line. Leveling is pretty fast. But then you have an option to complete story at your own pace. If you wish to. Same would be great in SL. Just give me access to covenant, it's abilities and weekly quests, but at the same time let me level via story quest line.

So, overall "try this, try that" design is good for new players, because developer wants them to actually try different kinds of content, they might like at the end. But it's not ok to make such design mandatory for all. It goes against it's purpose.

[WowIsDead64]

Situation is even worse in Ardenveld. Now I have level 57 and need around 0.7 level to continue main storyline. This is complete BS. Amount XP is perfectly enough to get 60lvl by the end of main storyline. Because you need 2.5 level per location on average. So rounding it towards 3, while still having some quests left in this location to do - is just waste of my time. I don't like this leveling system and now I'm 100% sure, that I won't level another alt till it won't be fixed.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I don't like this leveling system and now I'm 100% sure, that I won't level another alt till it won't be fixed.

You realize the "Threads of Fate" exist for people like you right?

[WowIsDead64]

You realize the "Threads of Fate" exist for people like you right?

Correction. They exist for people, who like WQs, chests and other crap. I'm not sure, if I'd bear such leveling. And I can level via 5ppls even without Threads. Biggest problem - due to some personal reasons I can do 5ppls only at night. Because it's only time, when I'm sure, that nothing would interrupt me. I did one 5ppl yesterday, because I also needed to complete Torghast on my main, and now I need only 0.5 level. So, now I'm done with my daily stuff on main. I'm logged in on my alt and I just can't force myself to do side quests. Problem is - if I won't do them, I'll lose whole day of progress. See, how bad current system is?

- - - Updated - - -

Same thing happened in Revendreth. Again. I need around 0.4 level.

[Zig Zug]

I'm not sure, if I'd bear such leveling.

Then quit?

[Baroclinic]

Wait, this makes no sense at all. They already effed the whole concept of leveling. Used to be that you got stronger by leveling, where now you get weaker by leveling. This "should" have alleviated the need to gate content behind levels since the content just levels with you.

[Flatspriest]

On my first 60, I had to actually do a few side quests to get to specific levels to continue on. Once in Ardenweald, and then again in Revendreth. That was partially due to not having any rested XP when I started leveling her. My 2nd 60 went much smoother as I still had plenty of main zone quests left when I hit 60. That was due to having full rested XP on the character when I started leveling.

[darklogrus]

I took a second toon thru the leveling story with full rested Exp and I can honestly say that the Exp awarded is all over the place and it makes no sense. Same amount of leg work and it was 2500, 3500 6900 or 10k. Come to think of it the 10k was miles easier then the 2500 ones..