I’m certainly happy that leveling has been made much simpler in recent years.
I still enjoy that 1st character in an expansion but on alts I’ve never liked it.
Blizzard could get a lot of my money if level boosts were max level from the start (should only be this way if you have one max level IMO)
Personally I still love leveling. I’d love an option to restart at level 1 and get to choose one piece of gear after I hit the level cap. That would be way more fun to me than running keys or raiding.
But I do understand why plenty of others don’t like leveling. At the end of the day it’s basically just extra-work for those who don’t enjoy the process.
I’m already buying a new expansion and paying a monthly subscription fee. I think I’ve spent enough money on wow to get fun content. Obviously, they can’t cater to everyone, but I’m curious who else is feeling the leveling fatigue.
I like leveling, but I like a measured amount. For example, I don’t mind the requisite new expansion 10 levels at all. However, at some points in the game the leveling grind got so long that it put me off starting alts. Even in the wrath era, 80 levels was just painful. When we were, what, 120 levels in BFA, that must have been just ridiculous for a new player. I had full heirlooms so it moderated it a bit, but in the years from Wrath to BFA I think I only leveled [correction]two alts from scratch to max level.
Then with the level squish and Chromie time, that was a big improvement. I leveled like four alts to 50 in the pre-patch era and it was nice because the leveling experience was more coherent than the previous heirloom deal of out leveling every zone/expansion before you really got very far into it.
I think it’s a mistake to add another 10 levels. My hope was that there would be an eternal 50-60 leveling for each new expansion, a squish, and the previous expansion gets moved to 1-50 Chromie time.
Number of levels doesn’t really have that much bearing on time to cap, it’s the XP curve that matters.
Point in case, though DF adds ten levels the XP curve was nerfed such that hitting cap just barely takes longer than it did with the Winds of Wisdom buff enabled.
But the problem when they ramp the XP curve up very high is that the leveling experience is incoherent. As a new player, Shadowlands would go by in a blur and you’d have no idea what’s going on. You may think that’s a good thing if you’re not a fan of Shadowlands, but it’s a bad experience for a new player.
The beauty of Chromie time is that they can make the leveling curve equal a more or less complete story line.
Oh yeah no argument there, Chromie Time is a massive improvement over the xpac soup situation we had before. I can’t actually imagine leveling without it now.
I think leveling is an important requirement of RPG’s. It forces the player to pace themselves and learn their character, class, professions, traveling to different zones, etc. You have to put yourself in the shoes of a brand-new player. If you were to jump into a different game for the first time, you would have to level up.
Yes, you can pay for a boost. But they also added heirlooms to make the leveling grind easier.
I think WoW did great things to allow leveling in any expansion. I also enjoyed hitting level 50 on an alt, skipping the main story lines, and choosing where I want to level from 50 to 60. I leveled up an alt just in Torghast.
I mean would it be better if they had arbitrary targets you’d have to hit while exploring the new world? Maybe 400 quests, explored all new zones, friendly with reps etc? The game can not survive on end game alone, we’ve seen this time and time again where a month or two after launch people are already getting bored. Without the lvling gating and having to complete the new zones it would just make it that much faster.
I disagree with their decision to force new players into BFA. I know they think that’s “putting their best foot forward,” but I think they should give the new players more credit and let them make their own choice. They could even put some bigger optional explainers for players read or experience to tell them about each expansion and how they fit together.
Questing and leveling are my favorite things of the game, hence all of my alts, so I would be very unhappy if either stopped happening.
this is me that last few expansions cured my altitis
I think the reason the players are “forced” into BFA is because that’s the current timeline. I think what you’re suggesting is allowing players to choose a timeline during the character creation?
Part of leveling is making progression while leveling effective and satisfying. Having talent trees back in the game makes leveling feel more satisfying but I still feel like major footholds in leveling are missing to make it feel like a cohesive experience.
Things like class quest milestones, abilities that lean into your class identity, and so forth.
I think people would not be so opposed to leveling if Blizzard made it an actual experience instead of a means to reach the endgame fast.
For me it needs to be more challenging. The current open world pve experience feels pretty much like farmville. It’s entirely too casual and mind-numbing.
I imagine my DF leveling experience will consist of me binding a castsequence macro to click casting so I can eat chips and watch youtube videos at the same time.