I’d prefer that over going from 1 to max in a single zone… which some people seem to be advocating for.
This whole thread is about avoiding the cycles of the past. Blizz should instead cap levels at 60 and reset players to 55 at a new expansion so that we level up with whatever the new mechanic of the expac is and keep 55-60 solely endgame.
My suggestion would actually greatly reduce level time since players could use the best routes for leveling rather than going through Hellfire or Borean once again.
I dont 100% agree with this statement as anything can happen.
But there is simply no way that Ion would have tossed this out without there having been serious conversation and work into it being feasible.
I’de give it 75/25 in favor of this already being an approved and worked on change.
What you’re suggesting is for them to repeatedly squish levels with every expansion. That’s not ending the cycle at all and would lead to all sorts of problems as you squish more and more content into an inflexible number of levels. That would utterly annihilate any sense of player progression. You might as well delete levels entirely at that point.
But it wouldn’t reduce /played time between abilities since you’d still have the same overall amount of experience to reach the level cap. You’re acting like the level squish is a magic bullet that can solve every problem with the game.
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Why squish? Its not like the average player is stupid. We understand numbers higher than 100 and the whole process will make people frustrated even more when they realize that it will take just as long but you wont see the levels climbing as fast during the experience.
Im sorry, but I levelled through the expansions at a slowrate, I sure as heck dont want to do that again.
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Exactly! It is not that number by my character portrait that is daunting, it is the xp needed to get there and how long that will take.
Basically, if they cut the level number in half, and don’t also cut the xp needed in half, then it will just feel bad to me, as if I had lost something.
I played a MMO once (which has since shut down their servers), where I never did hit max level, and I look back on that game with nothing but fondness and have only pleasant memories of it.
Oh, I see you haven’t even read my post and seem to think this entire thread was intended to be a thread on level squish.
Your questing route is one of the biggest factors to reducing leveling time and by scaling the world and allowing players to level in any expansion they choose addons like AAP (whose routes I help test) would greatly reduce your time compared to now.
Why are we talking about “time” right now? The whole concept of spreading abilities across levels to make levels feel more relevant has nothing to do with the time it takes to get those levels.
Everyone who’s dissenting seems to be focusing on this arbitrary concept that if the abilities aren’t coming “faster” then it’s not going to do what it’s supposed. It’s supposed to make abilities, talents, and other systems come more steadily and frequently. The goal isn’t to make the system faster, the goal isn’t to make you get abilities faster, the goal isn’t to make rewards happen faster.
The goal is to make every level feel more meaningful by providing an actual reward for leveling up besides a number and a sound.
Whether it’s faster, slower, or in between isn’t relevant to the discussion of whether or not it would be more meaningful.
It seems as though the smarter choice would be to lower both the exp needed per level AND the exp gained to make that part more manageable. The actual level is what, a third of most peoples item level. I think we can handle that.
I don’t regard any of those points as “advantages.” I hate level scaling with a passion to begin with, and even given the way they have scaled the zones now I am finding that I feel apathetic about playing.
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You talked about squishing levels to 60 and I’m supposed to somehow gather that you’re not talking about the level squish? How else do you plan for them to get us from a level cap of 120 down to 60? Will they just press the magic “not really a squish” button to make it happen?
Most players aren’t going to use an addon to plan their leveling, and the ones that do aren’t going to be interested in how leveling “feels”, they just want it done as quickly as possible. And that can be changed without reducing the total number of levels.
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Exactly. If you need an addon to level, then they have at best traded one irritating system for another. Either way, it is not going to make people enjoy levelling their umpteenth character.
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Which sounds good, till they have it so you have the abilities at that specific level you scale down to so you have less and less abilities the lower you go.
The real question isn’t whether we as individuals would like it, but whether or not it would be better for the game if it were done.
I’ve discovered in my life that, as people, we have a hard time accepting that things we don’t like might be better than things we like. I like fried chicken but I don’t like eggplant. One of those is clearly better for me even if it’s not better to me.
That said, we’re all prone to this. Not just those of us on my side, your side, or Rastlin’s side. I can’t say which side is right, definitively, just what I think would be better.
There are parts of scaling I don’t like, and there are parts of a squish I don’t like. There are parts of everything that I don’t like. I’m just trying to argue in favor of a squish because I think it would help the long-term experience of the game, not your or my immediate reaction. We’re all “reacting” to this, not actually playing it, which makes it much harder to assess. Alas, the problems with hypothetical situations. (I don’t want to go to the party because I’m grumpy and don’t want to socialize can sometimes turn into “Ugh, yes, OK!? I had fun a the party!”)
Because it’s what matters. If it takes the same amount of time to get a new ability, then squishing the levels is meaningless. And if anything, it makes it more depressing to level up because the bar will barely move compared to now.
Because it’s a very important part of the argument. You can’t just look at the levels in a vacuum, you have to look at the whole picture. Leveling won’t become smoother if it takes the same amount of time to gain new abilities and talents. It’s just a placebo that covers up the overall negative effects of the squish.
I don’t want more “meaningful” if it means turning in a whole pile of quests will barely move my xp bar. That’s a fast way to turn off any interest in leveling again.
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By reading? My topic is about the pros and cons of scaling Legacy in the event Blizzard decides to squish everything to 60.
My idea resolves both issues. Want to level faster? Go to WoD and skip Wrath entirely.
Want to know what really “feels” bad? Leveling a new Dark Iron and being forced into Loch Modan to kill Dark Irons. Allowing players to choose what expansion to spend the bulk of their leveling time would also feel far better than completely outleveling MoP in a single zone before being shuttled off to the Dark Portal.
All I can say is, if they did scaling the way Ollin suggested, I would shake the dust from my feet as I left. I’m sure that I am not the only one who hates scaling this much. If permanently losing all of those who feel the same way that I do about this would be “better for the game” is debatable.
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That doesn’t fix anything. And they’ll never let us level through WoD like that, at least not without massively nerfing the treasures so we have to do quests. Blizzard giveth and Blizzard taketh away a lot more than they giveth.
There are good Dark Irons and bad Dark Irons. Which is something you would know from the Dark Iron intro scenario that you had to have done in order to even play a Dark Iron.
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I think what most people are not quite getting is that the game has matured to the point that levelling is not the main part anymore. If people are going to be so bent on a “meaningful levelling experience” then they should wait for classic. Retail has long since moved past that.
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The Dark Irons we play are from BfA. I’m literally sent back in time (but not really) to kill past Dark Irons (but not really) until I’m level 120 and back in my characters natural timeline.
It’s no different than every new alt having to level in a post-Arthas world before suddenly finding themselves on the shores of Northrend to kill Arthas.