Just to start this off, this is just my opinion on the game after spending years and years playing and thinking about it. If you don’t like it that’s cool, feel free to express that too. But if you agree or disagree I would like to hear why.
Part 1: The Beginnings
Let’s start off with the most obvious for now and that is a level squish. So saying that brings a few questions I would like to answer.
What level do we start at?
Short answer: 60
To me the obvious answer would be 60. Why? Well for a few reasons, one being the familiarity to old players and new alike. 60 was vanilla’s max level and it was well know by both players and non-players. It is also a low enough number that it doesn’t feel like it is an impossibly far level while starting a new character. Right now to current players 120 levels is just a boring grind (which I will get into later) and to new players including a few that I brought to the game get demoralized when they find out the cap is 120 and they are only 10 levels in. So to get rid of that sense of dread it makes sense to lower it to 60. I know to some players they will feel like that all of their progress will be negated if they get squished. But they will get over it like they do every expansion when they get new gear and every stat squish when they still kill things just as fine. It will only suck for a tiny bit.
What happens to leveling characters
Simple, they keep the same % of experience of their way from 1 to 120, so if they are 70 they get sent down to 35. Nothing complicated there as they will still be at the same time to max level.
What about the leveling time
The leveling time wont change much. If anything it should be increased to be a bit ( and I do mean just a bit) longer. I know that seems scary at first thought, especially to those that have leveled in the past few years because it is such a long and boring grind. But we will get there on how that would be a non issue in with this plan.
How do you future proof this so we dont have to do a level squish every two years?
I think the solution to this is one that people would initially disagree with, but it is to not ever increase the level cap. But think about how much time the developers must spend on all of those leveling zones? The quests that we just blow through as fast as we can during the first two days of the expansion to hit max level. I do not think most characters care about this part of the expansion after the initial “oh boy new stuff” feeling wears off. All of that time the developers spent on the fluffy leveling quests which is just a 2-4 day time gate to the real content could instead be used to make a more flushed out story chain like a better war campaign, or more end game content, which we spend 90% of our time on. It’s just a better allocation of resources to the content that has more time spent on it. It’s not like it removes any progression as the real progression is gearing. (Which I will get into later.)
Part 2: The Overwhelmed
The level squish leads to my next point, new players. After talking to many many new players I have found three common things keeping them from wanting to continue playing this game. The first is the outlandish time to level which we already covered.
Why is there so much content?
When you first pop in the game and open the map, you are greeted with 3 planets… like think about it… you join this medieval fantasy rpg and have 3 different planets, one of which has a ton of continents to chose from. Hundreds of zones to go to and keep track of. Where do I go? Do I have to remember all of these zones? — The way to fix this (which would solve quite a few issues) is to remove all of the non current content which right now would be BC to Legion. Though of course this would upset many of the players so we don’t just delete them from existence. What we do instead is just remove all quests that would lead our character to the old content, remove all the portals (Including items and mage spells) and then wipe them off of the map (as in the actual map when you press m) — Players hate when content is removed, its not fun when that happens. So to deal with this we make a small cave off in the middle of nowhere (Which we give mages a portal to) that can be flown to that has either portals to the old content or an npc. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to make sure players wont stumble across it when leveling and will only find it by intentionally looking for it. What this does is just leave the 1-60 zones and the current 60 end game zones to play with. No more over whelming and it will make fixing some glaring issues later. (Because we don’t want to do Cata quests again because they make no logic sense anymore.)
Is the game too easy?
I get it, we all like to feel like super hero bad asses that can kill a hundred beasts, but it is not just vanilla tinted glasses when I say we need to make the game hard again. Almost every one of the newcomers said the game was just too boring because of how easy it was and that no thought was needed to play. Just simply put, pulling two mobs should be a struggle when leveling. Only max level is the time to be a hero.
Part 3: I Prefer Chocolate
Now the burning question must be something along the lines of “How does forcing level only doing cata zones fix anything?” The answer is this, it doesn’t.
Then what do we do in leveling zones?
We have a second cataclysm… by which I mean revamp all of the Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdom zones. Leveling is outdated once again because mechanics change and the story changed. Like why is Sylvannas, Garrosh and Vol’jin all the war-chief while leveling? Every zone must have scaling and a self contained story and characters within. This way when the overarching story changes the quests still make sense because we wont be running back to talk to the dead war-chiefs. Story content should be for hitting max level and doing campaign quests for neat little rewards.
Won’t this just flop like Cata did?
Two of the bigger reasons Cata did not do so well is that end game content was lacking and that it ruined vanilla zones that we loved. We already have the fix to both of these. End game content is easier to make now with the scaling so that you can run around in the leveling zones and still have max level content to do in them with every zone being able to be scaled to 60. It still wont be very fleshed out as it could be as it would be essentially reworking the entire game again, but this time we are future proofing it so it doesn’t ever have to happen again. – for the latter point… WoW classic is now here boys, go wild with current zones.
How do you future proof this so leveling isn’t boring again in a year or so?
Well because all of the zones are scaled up to 60, it means you can completely revamp a zone (assuming it has quests for both factions.) every major patch or two. You add new end game content with it and leveling content while you are at it because guess what, it gives you level 60 gear and gold!~ With this, we can make sure the zones that are hurting the most can get fixed without hindering the whole team to ever having to revamp the game, keeping it fresh for old players leveling and so that new players leveling don’t suddenly get thrown a ton of mechanics they didn’t have til max level.
What is that other thing you can’t really fit in the other questions?
Ahh brilliant question dear reader, that would be to make sure we never, EVER, implement zoning again. It is so frustrating to hop on to play with a friend but they are few quests ahead so now you can no longer see them as they are zoned. If you are a new player unaware zoning, you would think it to be some odd glitch keeping you from playing. This would also help fix world pvp as people would just randomly appear and disappear. (Plus there are actually quite a few exploits you can do with phasing which I will not get into.)
Intermission
So I have a few glaring issues in what I have said so far. But rest your pretty soul as I will get into them… like how the heck is making leveling longer going to fix leveling! I also just wanted to thank you for getting this far. I may have gotten lost in thoughts at some point so I may have missed a point or two and I will make sure to try and go back and fix them as I come across them.
Part 4: It’s a Hunter Weapon
That’s right! It’s time to talk about classes and an issue with them that Blizzard seems to almost grasp but not quiet.
Can we get more than 6 buttons a class?
Yes, but lets be clear… the base rotation should remain how it is right now, 4-7 buttons depending on class/spec, but pay attention that I said base rotation. What I think blizzard is missing here is that not everyone raids and it’s okay for there to be spells that don’t get used in raiding much. In fact part of the charm of older wow was all of the flavor spells that had odd effects, not cosmetic, but ones that would only be useful under certain specific conditions which. I think they are afraid of guilds that will try to min/max those spells to fit their rotation to squeeze that extra 10 dps. Which shouldn’t be something that is seen as an issue. Why punish players because a small percentage of players want to be robots, as long as it isnt a saronite bomb on the Lich King, let them do what they need (Besides they would make more money off the min/maxers with level boost tokens or gasp class changes) Just right now I don’t think you could tell me that there is a different feeling between all the melee dps or between all the casters. Basically we need more choices, not a bigger rotation because pushing 10 buttons in a row feels no different than 6 in a row.
Are we going back to the old talent system?
That thing was an absolute mess… but it had some fun and right ideas. I think the reasons it was liked so much was that it made classes feel like classes. When you played a mage, you were a MAGE, commander of the magics! Not some weird fanatic that wouldn’t touch one element with a 10 foot pole. The idea of specs ruined the customization of YOUR character, (which is another issue that the newbie brought up is that they had no choices in what happened to them) Sure it helped streamline what you were doing and made it easier to understand on how to be a tank. — Though I cant really easily explain a solution through text, I can say basically is that we need an amalgamation between the new and old system. Maybe having 59 talent points to pick from made balancing impossibly hard for Blizzard, so why not a 30 point system where every 5 points you pick a major spell and the other 4 are used for small neat little stat or effect bonuses. This would help a lot with the monotony of leveling as you would be getting a new cool thing to choose every two levels instead of every 15. Sure a there will be people that don’t play around with their choices and just choose whichever gives them the best stats. But again I must emphasis that NOT EVERY PLAYER IS LIKE THIS nor should they be forced to play by these rules. A player should feel like they are playing THEIR champion, not the champion that was designed for them
Will giving some flavor spells and more talents fix the classes?
Nope, not at all… but what it will do is give back the feeling that a class is a class and not just a title and different pretty lights. I am no class designer so I cannot give advice on what to specifically do for each class, I can only send Blizzard on the right direction… fun. WoW does not have to be a calculator game like it is right now. It can be more sandbox like, hell you can have class spells that are not able to be used in raids so that people can still be a calculator but allow others to be fun. Even toys, dont HAVE to be nerfed to their own regions, we should be allowed to explore and choose how we experience the game as long as we are not exploiting it for ludicrous gains. Choice matters more than I think Blizzard realizes and they remove whatever weird and fun interactions we find.
Bards?
Bards… seriously blizzard, we need more support classes and Bards are like the only main DnD class you avoid… If I can make my ghost owl that I summon out of thin air somehow physically hurt an enemy, why cant I sing or play a lute that makes people feel stronger and better… like, kodo riders are a thing in WC3.
Part 5: In with the new
So we have some plan of action to de-clutter the game, make leveling somewhat more rewarding, and give it more fun quests that change every once in a while. Some small idea on how to give classes back some feeling of individuality. AAAAAND a new expansion dropped…
What happens to our characters when the new expansions come out?
Well, we scale all the pre-current gear down to level 59. It’s not really any different than it is now, you just start you gear leveling again. BUT we have to be careful that when you introduce a major patches that you dont make the previous patch’s gear completely redundant. It needs to balance being a respectable upgrade, but allowing you to skip normal difficulty if you have heroic/mythic gear from the previous raid. Making it so you can go back and do them for gear like good ol’ WotLK did.
What about the rest?
Just like all of BC to Legion, any NEW zones would be pop’d off the map, removed any form of teleportation or transportation to the content, and pop’d off to our good ol’ friend, middle of nowhere cave. That way you can go get that old loot you missed or see the story you ignored without confusing new players. — All of the updated leveling zones remain the same though, so that older zones can get the touch ups they need so that it doesn’t get outdated again.
Part 6: Let’s Wrap it Up for Now
So, you may have noticed that there was some favoritism to new players. I truly believe there should be at least for one expansion. New players are healthy for the game, and in turn that is healthy for us older players. We have grown and grown and have become busier as we have, and I am not saying it’s time to give up and pass on the torch, but it is time to welcome new blood.
Besides, everything that is changed solely for new players is pretty much usable at max level or for leveling ults so it doesn’t really hurt us much. We will have to deal with some growing pains with the level squish, and the lesser end game content with the vanilla renewal. But we have gotten through it plenty of times already and we will be fine once again… but this game is getting more and more complicated and busy as time goes on and the only way I think we can fix it is by simplifying the world itself and future proofing it.
That is key here. That once these changes are made, it is a constant effort to keep it updated so it never gets as stale as it is now… it just is not acceptable to be doing 8 year old content when you start this game now.
If you have read to this part, then holy moly I respect and love you. Thank you… I would love to hear opinions on this, I do have a few more thoughts but this is getting a little long I will end it here…
And Blizz… I am available to chat if you see any value in this. wink wink