This, exactly.
Stopping at 49 (which was the workaround being used on the PTR until the recent change) left you missing some endgame content (e.g., Legion artifact weapons gain their third relic slot at 50). And getting to 50 pushes you out of Chromie time without any chance to say “no!!!”
Preferably, as has been suggested in the PTR threads, a nice popup saying “you’ve reached level 50, do you want to continue (warning, will not gain XP) or proceed to the current content (warning, will not be able to come back to Chromie time)?” would be the solution. (Okay, I’d like to have Chromie time – the scaling part, at least – continue to level 60. Leveling can stop at 50.)
OP, if you intend to continue your journey past level 50 you need to party sync with someone with chromie time enabled. I tested this on the ptr. You can make an allied race toon on another account (free to play) activate chromie time then activate party sync with your main character.
Enjoy! I know its a crappy way to play the way you want but blizzard doesnt think too much about level content or people thay play differently.
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The zones won’t level to 50 without Chromie Time.
Yeah each zone has a range which really makes no sense. Party sync used in conjunction with chromie time fixes this.
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Thank you for the heads up. Hopefully Blizzard just fixes it though.
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Disabling chromie time with xp off is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
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I don’t understand, you guys want to do all the content at a low level?
I’m genuinely more upset by the nerf to what Chromie Time was presented as, than I am any of the Shadowlands systems. I know the Covenants are going to be a see-saw of buffs and nerfs all expansion, but if we get this truncated leveling experience now, I doubt they’ll revisit it later.
I would love to have those storylines back, as well. I don’t need the rewards, I just want to relive as much of the older expansions as I can.
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Personally, I like to occasionally trample through low-level content. (E.g., those quillboars in Mulgore have died MANY TIMES to my tauren hooves…)
But sometimes, I like to have a nice fight. And gearing up in end-game content, even for legacy xpacs, is kind of fun.
Here’s the explanation of Chromie Time from Blizzard by Ion Hazzicostas when the feature was announced:
"Since Pandaria was the current Live expansion, you have not been able to play through that level up story, start to finish in a way that was relevant for your character.
At this point, and I checked the data on this, most of you who chose Pandaria to level in the 20 level band it has, will get through the Jade Forest — which is a very big starting zone, and then half of the next zone, before you have outleveled that band, you have already moved on; and I don’t think that does justice to all of these expansions we have released before.
Along the way, we would like to capture those expansion levels’ stories again, and give you and opportunity to complete one of those"
“In a way that was relevant to your character”
Outleveling / trivializing content you want to do has been an issue since Cataclysm. With the way that xpac’s update handed out XP, simply having the desire to complete an area would have you 1-shotting green and grey mobs as the natural progression of quests pushed you 5-10 levels above what you were doing. Despite all the leveling reworks, we’ve simply never been given a system that’s recovered from Cata’s gutting of questing. 7.3.5 had something feasible for a hot minute where if you didn’t use heirlooms, you could complete ~75% of an expansion before trivializing it, but that was quickly nerfed away into oblivion (I can complete the entire Cata bracket in 3/4 of Vashj’ir alone).
But you can just go back and do the quests after. Nothing’s stopping you.
Again, “relevant to your character”. I’m not interested in 1-shotting everything. That makes the game whack-a-mole / visual novel. That’s like saying “You can just go watch the questlines on Youtube. Nothing’s stopping you.”
Not to mention the fact that in the multiple times I’ve tested the insta-boot from Chromie Time, in several occasions it’s happened DURING QUEST RP that I then completely missed.
Nothing about this system on PTR is intuitive. Nothing about it fulfills the design goal stated at Blizzcon. For me (and I suspect several others) this feature was actually my #1 most anticipated addition for 9.0… and now it’s dead on arrival. I simply WILL NOT make alts that I know after a few session that the only relevant content for them to digest is the same thing that my 15+ other level 50s have to do.
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Wait, what’s stopping me from going back to the zones without using Chromie time?
Absolutely nothing. You’ll have been teleported to your capital city, from what I understand, but the normal methods of travel back to the xpac should still exist.
And you’ll be a level 50 character, and unless you’re going through BfA (tops out at 50), you’ll be at least 5 levels above the normal mobs (elites can be up to two levels higher).
You probably won’t one-shot your opponents if it’s BfA mobs/elites or Legion elites. If it’s WoD elites, it’ll be close to a one-shot. If it’s MoP, Cata, WotLK, or TBC, hopefully you won’t be trying to keep them alive. Post-Cata “Classic,” you can get the nerf sword to keep them alive (e.g., Durotar quest to gather scorpion venom, you need them alive long enough to sting you a few times).
The thing is, aside from BfA content at level 50, there will be no challenge. It’ll be like going back and doing Legacy content now, on Live.
If that’s what you want, there’s nothing wrong with how Chromie time works. It can be fun to go around and tearing through mobs like you’re a demigod, I’ve done it many times. (Legion is more fun for me than BfA.)
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Ah so that option still exists, but the scaling will be an issue. The simplest fix would be to let people just carry on at lvl 50 instead of automatically kicking them out (pretty harsh tbh), then quests/mobs stop providing xp.
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I’ve been trying to find a link to what happens outside of Chromie time. Everything on Wowhead only seems to talk about what happens inside of it. Nothing about the zone level brackets outside of it.
Below this table, there were many, many other tables showing each individual zone and what level range there was.
Vanilla Zones: 10-30
Burning Crusade Zones: 10-30
Wrath of the Lich King Zones: 10-30
Cataclysm Zones: 30-35
Mists of Pandaria Zones: 10-35
Warlords of Draenor Zones: 10-40
Legion Zones: 10-45
Battle for Azeroth Zones: 10-50
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Excellent! That’s what I was after! I’m guessing the hidden scaling damage and resist buff must have been greatly increased to deal with the fewer levels to compensate.
Yeah there’s isn’t much changing under the hood for the main game’s handling of levels and calculations - a pretty straightforward squish of levels, ilvl, and stats but the modifiers in place to ensure a high level character dunks a lower level one at appropriate speeds.
I’m on the like GCD so 
but I can’t like your post enough. Spot on.
So much this. This is what I don’t want either and I want to experience the entire xpac of my choosing. I would also like to keep certain characters locked to that xpac at 50, I’ll even give 49.
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I mean, on my main and my level 110-120 alts, sure. I want to rush through the content of the legacy xpacs.
But I’ve unlocked 7 out of the 10 allied races (mechagnomes just needs the quest chain; dark iron dwarves and kul-tiran humans need the achievements, SL launch, and the quest chains). And there’s new race/class combos. Some, I’ll want to rush to SL-level 50 (to get the heritage armor sets).
But others, I want to experience the xpacs.
The problem with 49 is, it’s not endgame for an xpac. Some quests and zones only open up at max level. (E.g., I’m pretty sure that VoEB and Tanaan are both max-level only.)
I know. Letting us lock at 50 and stay in Chromie Time is the way to go. What did I expect. After all we’re talking Blizzard here,
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