With all the scaling and syncing that can be done now, how about choosing to lock to an expansion. The mechanics, talents, abilities, etc. remain the same (too complex to return to those at the time of the expansion). But difficulty will be like during the expansion. Plus the story line will be active again. Lock to Legion/WoD to play the full story with all its features (artifact weapons). And here is something else. If you lock yourself to an expansion, heirloom gear cannot be used within the levels of that expansion.
So lets say you want to reexperience Wrath. Create a new character. Level it with heirloom gear to level 70. At which point the heirloom gear will be unusable. Then play through the whole story.
Or, scale down a current character and other characters in the guild to level 80 to rerun raids in their original difficulty. Do you have Shadowmourne or Val’anyr ? Equip it. (Legendary items do not scale, they can only be used in the expansion they originated from, and they are still soulbound)
The same would apply to any other expansion. This would also be good for those who joined WoW at a later expansion so they can experience what they missed.
What about gold from other characters in the account? Or mailing items from other characters? Couldn’t that possibly kill the experience?
The user can make that call whether they want to be loaded with gold or not. As for mailing items, that would be useful because when you reach the level of the expansion, you heirloom items can no longer be used. So for a higher level character to be farming, making, or buying gear the other character can use would be helpful. Mail them a full set for level 70 from the expansion before.
You can do this now. Level to 80. Turn off xp and have at it.
Sounds like a ton of work for little actual participation.
I did not know that. Where is it enabled? Story lines would still be deactivated though.
My heirlooms worked to 80 in Wrath.
talent systems, buffs/nerfs scaling and everything are nothing like they were in WoTLK or BC
As I said before
I’m not sure what you mean by
What I’m saying is level to 80 without touching Northrend. Once at 80 turn off the xp. Wrath scales to 80 so you can run through the entire continent without being OP for it.
What I meant by story line deactivated refers to WoD and Legion. In WoD, the story line quests from Khadgar are no longer available. And in Legion, artifact weapons cannot be upgraded like they were during the expansion
OH I see. You got me there but I have always been against Blizz removing content. If they didn’t, simple xp turn off would work great.
I can already see an exploit in that. People would lock toons to wod for free garrison gold.
How would that work?
Slightly different than straight up twinking.
It almost sounds like you want the game/class design and mechanics of the locked xpac to be in force just for that character. That seems very problematic.
If that’s not the case, how would you handle grouping with non-xpac locked characters?
Check this out Gear System Post Level Squish - #7 by Àryã-proudmoore
I wouldn’t re-level my characters for some crazy idea. No way lol. Plus collections would break. I farmed all that stuff. I want access to it all. I paid for the expacs, I want access to them.
We have the Level Squish still coming which means this entire thread would be rendered moot – especially if the level gets squished to 60.
1-30: Vanilla
30-40: TBC, Wrath, Cata
40-50: MoP, WoD, Legion
50-60: BfA
I think the suggestion is for it to be optional. So you don’t have to turn it on if you don’t want to.
While you paid and played in prior expansions - not everyone has. Going back to those zones, dungeons, and raids is kind of cool once you’re max level for xmog runs - but it’s not challenging and definitely not the same as playing it when it was current challenging content.
This would allow players to be able to go back, turn on the functionality, and not over power the expansion just because they’ve hit max level so quickly.
This gearing system goes in parallel with the idea: Gear System Post Level Squish