How I keep some control when LVLing

Community General Discussion
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There’s been a lot of back and forth between how classic and how retail handles leveling, often with people saying “if you want to play classic, go play classic and stop bugging us”. But that’s the thing. I don’t WANT to play classic. I quit WoW 15 years ago, when MoP was released. I’m just jumping back in now to see my old characters dropped to lvl 32. That’s fine. I enjoy leveling. And I really enjoy the new features of retail. I’m perfectly fine with the talents/abilities. the new flying system is AMAZING, and getting access to flight so early makes the game way more fun. I don’t have time to run from point A to point B for 10 minutes straight. Heck, sometimes I forgot what my objective is when I’m flying because I’m having such fun with it. I really have practically zero complaints about where the game has gone at this point.

Except for the leveling and enemy scaling. As far as scaling goes, I’m on the fence. it has it’s positives and negatives. The “fear” of running into enemies that you can barely take on is gone. Things are way too easy, whether you want them to be or not. But also… you can join friends anywhere and play together, which is pretty nice. And I don’t see much of a solution that would be easy to implement.

So to the leveling itself… it’s not just too fast. it’s INSANELY fast. there’s no way you could possibly play through any reasonable amount of content, even sticking only to campaign, and not reach lvl 70 at what would otherwise be vanilla lvl 15. Part of the fun of leveling, especially for someone newer to the game, was to get new gear to become more powerful, and to get new abilities to learn and enjoy “taking in”. Leveling this fast really noticable loses that novelty.

So what’s my current solution? Disabling leveling all together, play until I’m no longer getting upgraded gear, and then enable it again. Lvl about 5 levels (which takes like 20 minutes), then disable again. Now you have some new talent points/abilities, and the gear you get from drops/quests are all upgrades. Then repeat. Yes. it’s a pain, but it gives me back some of that fun of new gear and progression while experiencing the older content that I am catching up on. Also… I WANT to get my characters to end game. But I also want to play out the expansions I missed with some friends new to the game and pay my 15 bucks a month to do it. Then join the rest of you in end game stuff. So that’s how I manage to do this.

So how to improve this, if blizzard ever cared to do so? Well, first… let us scale our lvling experience. You already let us turn it on or off. So we already have SOME power there. Which, mind you, is taken away if we get the expansion and reach lvl 70. which sucks since lvling in the expansion is also super fast. But anyways… let us scale it as we wish. let me chose to get 1/20th the experience that I’d normally get (or whatever feels “right”). it doesn’t impact anyone else, especially since people can already just turn off leveling and back on (10 gold a pop… that’s a whole other discussion).

Anyways. those are my thoughts. Maybe they’re dumb. Maybe they’re not. but they’re mine.

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They are not dumb, I agree with you about how inane and insane in the membrane leveling is

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They are introducing Shattered Timelines into Lemix as a test to see how people like a challenging mode for leveling.

If it does well, my hope is that they add it as an option to Chromie Time.

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you hit on the answer in your post, if you want to spend more time at a level blizzard has put the option in game.

you can stop and start whenever you want and people that just want to get to max level can do so quickly.

The only thing blizzard needs to to is make it more clear to players that they can and how to halt their leveling if they want to stay at a level to go through a zone/expansion/all of them.

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swtor already has optional hardmode world/story mode, 99% of players only use the easy mode and only turn on the harder setting for instance content.

edit: to be clear I don’t have a problem with the option, just saying people mostly don’t want it no matter how much the forums make it seem like something widely desired.

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I have never seen an option to level with a hardmode.

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Been a couple years but iirc its a button on the mini map that lets you set the world to something like veteran/legend mode or whatever.

I only tried it once because with a healing buddy it is mostly just that you take x5 as long to kill stuff, but it is much closer to how swtor launched.

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This has been something asked for in WoW for a long time now, which is why Blizz is testing it out in Lemix. So I’m not sure where you’re getting this “people don’t want it” frame of mind.

That was only options added to go back into Eternal Throne content for scenario style playthrough at max level.

Flashpoints are Story Mode, Veteran and Master Mode. Operations have a couple of different options, as well. But there is no leveling mode like that.

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After trying, more than once, I’ve reached the conclusion that there’s no good options in the retail version of the game here.

The best compromise I could find or otherwise come up with (within WoW’s existing systems) comes down to one of three options… and frankly, none of them are that great.

Option 1 - Level Lock at 69

The simplest option, level a character to 69 through Chromie Time then lock XP. Why 69? You get booted out of Chromie Time after hitting level 70. It’s no longer instant, allowing you to finish you what you were doing… but the clock is ticking.

The following actions will automatically and PERMANENTLY end Chromie Time:

  • Using the teleport scroll that gets sent to your bags.
  • Entering a major city. Or maybe just the main city, but just walking into it is enough.
  • Using any kind of teleport or hearthstone.
  • Logging out. You’ll be ejected from Chromie Time after logging back in.
  • Hitting Level 71 triggers the instant boot-out that used to happen before they allowed you to “wrap up”.

Once this happens, you’re not allowed to reactivate Chromie Time. Not until the next expansion raises the level cap, and only if you’re level 79 or below; you can see the pattern here.

So you’re stuck at level 69. The good news is that this is MOST of your toolkit and gameplay. It’s actually not that bad… but yeah, you’re going to very quickly run out of ways to improve your character’s progress.

You’ll spend the first 2-3 zones after hitting the level 69 just “filling out” your character’s slots with level 69 gear. It’s actually a bit ridiculous with the leveling right now, you burn through levels so quickly that you end up with gear pieces that are obtained 30+ levels ago… and I wish I was making that up. After that, it’s a slow & random crawl to item quality upgrades until you’re in all purples.

Then… nothing.

Of the ways available, I still think this one actually works best, if only because you get to use the full toolkit. Or close enough to it.

Option 2 - Expansion-Bracket Level Locking

This is a variant of the above, but setting multiple break points where XP is locked based on the default levels of the expansion:

  • The “old world” zones (post Cata revamp), TBC and WotLK are levels 1-30. Bad news is that the first zone is going to take you to level 15-18, no matter which one you pick.
  • New Cata Zones and MoP are levels 30-35, I believe.
  • WoD is levels 35-40.
  • Legion is levels 40-45.
  • BfA is levels 45-50.
  • SL is levels 50-60.
  • DF is levels 60-70.
  • TWW is levels 70-80.

The first problem should be obvious, especially if you want to do everything - Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Outland and Northrend are ALL in the level 1-30 range. Then you have multiple expansions covering only 5 levels each. And despite them taking longer, it takes no time at all to level up in the 50-70 range and you’re still level-locking. You’re also stuck with a very limited toolkit for absurdly long stretches.

To cover another detail, going without Chromie Time doesn’t really solve… anything. XP gain is somewhat slower, but you’ll eventually run into level-based damage scaling. I actually tried this approach, and once I hit level 35, it was clear EVERYTHING was broken. I went from mobs taking ~10 seconds to beat is one-shotting entire crowds with a (x10) damage multiplier.

Option 3 - 1 Zone = 1 Level

This one is only hypothetical at the moment, I haven’t tried it yet. You can probably argue that you can do the first level lock at either 10 or 11. It involves turning XP on and off the most, at set times. Here’s an idea of the process, just using an Alliance/Human character as a basis:

  1. New human character in Elwynn Forest.
  2. Hit level 10, go to Stormwind and lock XP.
  3. Finish zone, unlock XP and go to Westfall.
  4. Hit level 11, go back to Stormwind and lock XP.
  5. Return to Westfall and complete zone.
  6. Go back to Stormwing and unlock XP again.
  7. Go to Redridge Mountains, hit level 12.
  8. Once more return to Stormwind and lock XP.
  9. I think the pattern should be obvious by now.

It’s absurd with the back-and-forth, but it turns each zone into a milestone so that you’re not at least going through zone-after-zone with no progress. But it will make progressing through all those zones a painfully slow process.

That and all the trips back-and-forth to Stormwind or Orgrimmar is going to drive you insane.

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I’m all for leveling options. As long as they are options. I don’t want to spend a long time leveling. I would hate it and end up not doing it anymore. I know my opinion isn’t shared by everyone.

Blizzard has a track record of not liking giving players options. It’s a choice between what we have now or “challenging”/slow leveling I’ll take what we have now all day everyday.

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They’re implementing an option into Lemix, though. So for this, there is an option.

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Wow isn’t an rpg anymore. It’s a seasonal theme park game with RPG elements. I’m all for lobbying to change anything you feel like changing if you make a good argument.

I tell my kids all the time when they decry the unfairness of the world: You’re right. Men should be able to cry, a 40 hour work week should pay for living. Wish for it to change. Lobby for it to change. But being right doesn’t bring peace.

Live in the world you have. Not the world you wish you had. I wish wow still felt like playing a super long rpg. I wish 10 man raids hadn’t been relegated to second class. I wish I could be happy. But I can’t.

And you can’t. So what to do? “Get over it or die from it”, another bit of wisdom from my father.

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I am mostly doing option 2 here… but one issue I have experienced creating a new character, is that enemies are incredibly easy to kill up to about lvl 35 or so. Which is the upper range of all zones. Perhaps I’ll try to lock my level right below a zone’s higher range (by a couple levels), and try to fight those enemies. it’s just a LOT of planning just to have slightly more powerful enemies. And what happened to this auto level scaling thing. once you hit 70, enemies in older expansion zones are lvl 35 (no more chromie time). it’s all absurde and confusing. I just wanna play older content, but have the current fun game features, damn it. Sigh.

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I hope for and am a fan of options.

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Well if you are that good, you should contact Maximilian at Team Liquid and tell him to make room for you in the next Race for World First. No doubt he will throw someone off the team and give you their old spot.

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You don’t have to leave if you want to continue questing wherever. You want slower xp gain, well you can’t get much slower than zero. Lock xp before that point if you want enemies to pretend to put up a fight, they still won’t really.

Most players want faster leveling, faster even than we have now, because it’s just a dumb drawn-out tutorial level. It will never have challenge because there is nothing to do at middle levels except keep leveling. No reason to stop partway. No reason to roadblock players partway either, especially back whenever that content was current.

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Stick to just the story quests and ignore everything else.

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Well I must be remembering wrong, it has been many years since I tried it, and I very likely did it on a max level character so probably assumed it just worked on the whole game.

and again, I don’t have a problem with the idea of adding a “hard mode” type of setting for world content. I just don’t want blizzard to attach a bunch of cosmetics and mounts/pets/toys to completing something like lore master with it on. Which is almost guaranteed to happen because they have to get enough players to use the mode to justify putting in the work to make it.

The Legion remix is different because of the nature of it, being a fun short silly mode with optional challenge for a title or something.

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There’s nothing attached to Warmode Chromie Time. This wouldn’t be any different.

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I know it’s said here that ‘people’ often want slower levelling, more difficult levelling, etc. But I can’t recall ever hearing that from anyone I’ve spoken to about it in the game. None of my guildies, none of my friends who game, have ever said they want it to go slower. Not saying there aren’t people playing who do want it, just haven’t heard it myself.

I suppose for a new player they might want some of that but for all the old players who’ve done the zones and the stories so many times before, I can’t understand why you would want to grind (and it would be a grind, say what you will) through those old stories and zones.

I experimented with it myself last week. I created a human rogue and worked at completing the collection of as many old gear items as I could starting in Elwynn, including questing since that also awards gear. I set myself some rules - no heirlooms, no items purchased off the AH or sent to my character, wearing only what I found along the way. She has very basic gear, very basic weapons, some slots empty because she didn’t find any trinkets or rings and is still missing a hat. Combat is harder and I still can’t solo a number of the rares to try for those rare drop items.

I think there are options for those who want to slow down. You could, for example, not upgrade your talents. Those make the characters stronger, so don’t take them. Have less abilities available, play with just what you get now and then.

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