Best of all worlds? A linear phased progression from expansion to expansion starting with original Vanilla.
This would allow for new content to then take place in the old zones (cue Battlefield Barrens in MoP) and not just in some newly discovered and completely disconnected, instanced island, subcontinent, alien planet, etc.
That sounds even worse since you would be spending longer between abilities at earlier levels just to have a couple more later on.
if xp needed/rates to get it not changed level number means nothing. Its the total XP.
You can call the total xp number of 120 60âŚits still the same work.
Call it 30. Hell call it 15. If level x needs 1 million XP you can call it whatever you want. its still 1 million XP to get there.
Why this needs more than squish. that level number means nothing. Its the xp and how fast we make it.
As others have pointed out this likely wonât change the time required to hit level cap.
But one thing to consider is with less levels to gain, and a slower rate of levelling to compensate, you wonât out level your gear as quickly. And with mob scaling I think that makes it the only real positive effect this can have.
Sayi start levelling in duskwood, currently I can make maybe 6-7 levels in that zone, by the end of it improvly still wearing half the gear I started the zone in, but all the mobs are 7 levels higher. With a lower level squish I would hit the end around 3-4 levels higher than I started, with the mobs scaled up the same amount.
I think thatâs the only positive thing that an come out of a level squish, everything else changes nothing.
Knowing blizzard theyâll someone broke everything if they try this.
I but Iâm firmly in the crowd of people who believe the problem isnât the amount of levels, itâs lack of meaning these levels bring do to not enough abilities and talents to make each level meaningful.
If Blizzard does decide to squish the levels (which Iâm not attempting to debate the pros and cons of) they should go ahead and scale everything so that you can decide which expansion to spend the most of your time leveling. Hate BC but love WoD? Why not level 5-50 in WoD?
As it is right now if they cap levels at 60 BfA will likely get slammed with Legion or Legion will be paired with WoD just like BC/Wrath and Cata/MoP. They should scrap these arbitrary tiers so that we can, instead, choose our own adventure and how we want to progress our characters.
or maybe⌠just maybe 120 levels is a bit outrageous? Hmm.
I read the post.
My comment was in relation to the discussion about level squish vs non level squish happening in the thread.
Start us at level 60.
After the events of BFA, we are all âveterans of warâ. Start at level 60, mounts available. All talents and skills now have to worked into the 60-120 range.
Hire me Blizz.
I misread and I apologize I went and removed that part.
Blizz needs to stop taking baseline abilities and using them as talents for the next expansion.
Iâm looking at you Dire BeastâŚ
Thereâs nothing wrong with the current system! Donât like leveling? Fine. Use your free 110 boost that you get with the Battle Chest. Still want to experience easy leveling at a later time? Fine. Use your high level character to purchase heirlooms for your alts. The current system is fine as is.
The idea Iâve been kicking around in my head is to do separate leveling and gearing for every expansion and just scale them all the same.
So, for example, you squish levels back down to 60 with 1-50 being vanilla or âcore contentâ.
When you hit the core level cap you are level 50 in all vanilla zones.
When you enter an expansion zone, you track your level in that zone from 1-10 starting at level 1, and all expansions start and scale the same. So if you enter TBCâs outland after hitting 50 in the core game, you would enter TBC at TBC level 1 with all gear scaled to a minimum ilvl for TBC zones.
By the end of TBC you would be TBC level 10, with whatever gear you earned along the way.
If you then went to Cataclysm, you would be counted as Cata level 1 upon entering a cata zone, with all gear scaled to entry level cata ilvls (the exact same ilvl as entry-level TBC). If you went back to TBC, you would immediately become TBC level 10 upon re-entering any TBC zone with all gear scaled back to your TBC ilvls.
The complicated part:
Gear would be tracked by slot, by expansion, and all visible gearing would be handled through transmog. So if you get awarded gear and equip it so that it becomes soulbound, your effective ilvl for that slot would become equal to the ilvl of the highest piece you had ever soulbound in that slot, in that expansion. With all expansions tracked separately.
Advantages:
Scaling would cease to be an issue as every expansion would scale independently of every other expansion. You would start every new expansion at the base ilvl of a fresh level 50 character, and would end an expansion at level 60 with a raid-tier based ilvl.
Content would widen because all expansion content would be scaled the same. While you would want to try to concentrate all players into current content, thereâs nothing stopping people from hitting up older expansions as all old expansions would be scaled the same as the current expansion.
'mog hunting would become a community event instead of something you did alone encouraging more people to join communities and interact with other players.
Disadvantages:
'mog hunting would become a LOT harder as out-leveling content would be literally impossible.
Solo-farming old instances would be impossible.
Timewalking would have to be completely re-designed and re-built from the ground up.
It would be necessary to corral players into the most recent content. The widening of content would risk spreading out the playerbase to a toxic extent. Iâm not sure how you could do this.
Other Ideas:
I would re-design talents and abilities so that you received new ones every expansion. 2 talent rows, and 3 abilities.
The two talent rows just get tacked onto the end of your core talent trees.
Of the 3 abilities you learn you can âslotâ two from the current expansion, and any one ability learned from any other expansion. And yes, your first expansion would only allow you to slot two abilities. This would allow for variety AND flexibility, and would also allow the devs to keep giving us new toys to play with without having to worry about bloat to the point that they prune the classes to death.
Should be 10 levels per expansion with increasing exp rewards the older the expac. Max exp bonus would stay at 75%. Next expac after BFA gets 90 to 100 levels with no exp gain.
For example current squish:
1 to 10 Vanilla w/+75% exp bonus
10 to 20 TBC w/+60% exp bonus
20 to 30 WoTLK w/+50% exp bonus
30 to 40 Cata w/+40% exp bonus
40 to 50 MoP w/+30% exp bonus
50 to 60 WoD w/+20% exp bonus
60 to 70 Legion w/+10% exp bonus
80 to 90 BFA
And squish after new expac:
1 to 10 Vanilla w/+75% exp bonus
10 to 20 TBC w/+75% exp bonus
20 to 30 WoTLK w/+60% exp bonus
30 to 40 Cata w/+50% exp bonus
40 to 50 MoP w/+40% exp bonus
50 to 60 WoD w/+30% exp bonus
60 to 70 Legion w/+20% exp bonus
80 to 90 BFA w/+10% exp bonus
90 to 100 New Expac
If theyâre going to do this, Iâd say leave Vanilla 1-60, then 5 levels per expansion.
People donât get that. They think levels are the problem. When in reality we will still have the exact same problems if they squish it to 60. My vote will ALWAYS be no to go back to 60 as max level
People seem to think that a level squish wonât also result in faster leveling. We donât know yet about that but I would think that faster leveling would be part of the change.
A level squish is only one thing, but it wonât magically make leveling better. They wonât make you level quicker, they are totally against leveling quicker if anyone hasnât noticed.
Introducing talents quicker, possibly making them a bit more interesting for your specific spec/class.
Updating the disjointed mess of a collage of stories that span so many expansions so it doesnât bore you to death.
Making the questing system a little more engaging and not make me feel like Iâm still playing a 2004 version.
The implementation alone for a level squish, paired with their scaling system and stat squish will create as per usual, a lot of bugs and issues.
I do want a level squish if I continue playing, but not if itâs only going to be a half-hearted implementation with the sole intention of it being just an optical illusion because itâll still bore me as well as keeping the speed slow as usual.
(Donât kid yourself, Blizzard isnât in the Business of wanting you to level quickly by the wayâŚ)
No. Squish is bad. Donât pander to people who think 3 digit numbers are scary.
The problem is time and enjoyment. Some people like levelling up, some want to burn through it as fast as possible, without âpaying $60 to winâ.
It absolutely does not take 120 levels and 40+ hours of solid /played time to master the choice of 7 different talents. Stretching it out that long as âmotivation carrotsâ is pretty thin gruel.
If it were my decision, youâd unlock all your talents during your 4 hours of average solid /played time. Every major story line conclusion in most zones would then have a CLASS SPECIFIC heirloom or special cosmetic item that could be earned by doing the full story content up to that point. Maybe youâre a druid, thereâs âDruid specific stuffâ on this story path⌠or Warlock specific stuff levelling up via a different path.
Take the heritage armor âreplay carrotâ and expand on it. And have meta-pieces for having done all the paths as well. Because some of us will do just that.
And donât worry about scaling or level caps or whatnot. Let people find their preferred way of levelling up and gearing up⌠and focus on fixing things that need fixing, not changing things that donât benefit anyone.
-slightly- faster. They may reduce the level cap by half, but Iâll bet cold hard cash that they only reduce the time investment required by no more than 10%.
Besides, can you imagine the mess that would result on wowhead, wowpedia, etc, ⌠as they scramble trying to get -all- the level requirement changes fed into their database and guides?
Youâd basically invalidate most of the 3rd party information sites for anything and everything Warcraft by doing a level squish.