Level and stat squishes: a permanent solution

  1. Each Campaign (expansion) has its own level 1-10, you can level up all of the Campaigns on a single character if you wish, or just a single one. You can choose to start on any Campaign you wish, including just starting at BfA immediately.
  2. Every level you earn adds to your Cumulative/Common/Physical level. You can switch from a Campaign (expansion-specific) level to your cumulative level at any time (switch to your Cumulative level to solo old raids, you still need to level up your cumulative level to be strong enough to solo old content, it has nothing to do with your Campaign level so it doesn’t matter what your current Campaign level is.)
  3. Playing content at the Campaign level will yield reward tokens that can be traded in for unique rewards for each expansion ala Timewalking
  4. This will make all endgames playable and relevant and will remove the need to ever stat squish again
  5. Enjoy all your cool endgame expansion gear forever (within the expansion that it belongs to). Gear cannot be moved from one expansion to another, though having high ilevel gear in one expansion can be used to gain a better set of starting gear for another expansion.
  6. All of the individual levels for each expansion are added into a “Cumulative Level” pool that you can switch on or off anywhere you like save for the current expansion, and thus as long as you had leveled up, you could switch on your Cumulative Level to solo all the old raids in any expansion just like we can now.

I’ve altered this original post because I was able to refine the ideas into a far more condensed format. I feel that this system would permanently fix the stat squish problems while adding a lot more playable progression content to enjoy, as well as eliminate the barrier of entry for new players, and make the game far more alt friendly.

“I already have 24 Alts. Others have many more. I’d rather stick with the ones I have, than make a new one just to continue the game, each time an X-Pac is released.”

4 Likes

DOA right there.

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Sorry but I don’t follow what you’re trying to say. You wouldn’t have to make a new character it’d be like this:

Joe the Human Hunter:
Burning Crusade: Level 1
Wrath of the Lich King: Level 1
Cataclysm: Level 10
Mists of Pandaria: Level 1
Warlords of Draenor: Level 1
Legion: Level 10
Battle for Azeroth: Level 10
Cumulative level: 34

Each time you start a new expansion, you are level 1 for that particular expansion. The benefit would be that you’d never need to stat squish again, because level 10 would be the cap for every individual expansion. The benefit would be that you could benefit on current expansions by gaining currencies (similar to timewalking) for doing endgame on different expansions.

“I still don’t like it. I love being able to take leveled Toons back to do stuff I couldn’t before. I don’t enjoy starting over every time either.”

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I proposed possible solutions and even how this could be used to improve the game further down in the post.

TL;DR, you could earn expansion-exclusive currencies that will give you inter-expansion benefits for playing an expansion at its proper level. So you could have people playing Wrath of the Lich King at a more proper level (level 10 in this case) and receive rewards that would assist them in Battle for Azeroth.

And if you wanted to solo the older expansions just like we can now, you can do that by simply using your cumulative level (if you had level 10 on three different expansions, then your cumulative level is level 30). Then you could just solo it like normal, and you can still get the transmog gear, but you just can’t receive the shop currencies that way.

The gear would also be relatively simple: tag it so that its either nerfed or cannot be moved from one expansion to another, and instead you can actually exchange the gear for more currency and rewards for inter-expansion benefits.

You wouldn’t be starting over, you’d already be ahead where you wanted to be ahead, and again you can use a cumulative level to solo any content that you wanted. Functionally nothing would change, if you wanted to do what you do now you would be able to do so with no changes, all it would do is benefit the game as:

  1. You can still solo all the content you want by being overleveled, same as it is now
  2. Old content would now receive value from running it at the proper level with other players
  3. Even better, you wouldn’t have to level up a new character to begin in the expansion you want to play. You could just start BFA immediately at BFA level 1, no Cata leveling zones required.
  4. Blizzard would be able to sell more level boosts this way, because they could sell 1-10 for individual expansions instead of a single 1-110 once.

I really don’t see any downsides, it doesn’t change a thing other than make things more convenient and expand the current endgame possibilities and completely removing any need for future stat squishes. Its win/win/win.

Its really unfair that you guys don’t even finish reading my post, everything you’ve pointed out was answered in the original post. Please read that and try to actually add something or criticize something that isn’t already covered. Neither of those responses were valid because I answered them both in the first topic, you just skimmed the first paragraph and responded.

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Typical troll. You don’t agree so what you said doesn’t count.

No, I read the whole convoluted “idea” and it’s just a bad one. I was trying to be nice and just tell you that your two cons make the whole concept dead on arrival
 I value my TL3 more than putting you in your place, so I’ll just leave it at this:

There’s nothing wrong with leveling as it is, but if blizz wants to trash everything they’ve built, that’s on them. I just hope it doesn’t bring the entire title down with it.

6 Likes

This is not a constructive post, and I’m not trolling. You didn’t read my ‘convoluted idea’ and it isn’t even complicated. Just a very simple 1-10 individual level for every expansion with unique tokens for playing endgame for each individual expansion while disallowing bringing high level equipment from one expansion to the next.

The payoff would be numerous:

  1. No need for stat squishes ever again
  2. No need to grind 1-110 just to be able to play the newest content
  3. Old content would become relevant again
  4. New players could hop right into the new stuff without any barriers
  5. Blizzard could sell more level boosts for more revenue

Some productive replies would be nice, I don’t know why you’re out for blood but please if you don’t have anything productive to say don’t flame me just for trying to come up with a solution.

And it isn’t “dead on arrival” because I already told you (twice now) about how to get around those cons, you are just choosing not to acknowledge them.

First con: Use a cumulative level so that old content can still be solo’d, the way it is now.
Second con: Disallow moving endgame gear from one expansion to the next.

Since most of the zones scale, why not just have new characters start at Level 20 or Level 40? Or, hell, Level 60? That way you can start your journey with everything up to WotLK open for exploration.

I think opening up options is great, the basis of this idea would be that players could start in literally any expansion they wanted at any time. You could begin in Wrath if you chose too, but you could choose to start right at BfA if you wanted to as well. Either way, completing the leveling on either of them would require leveling 1-10 in that particular expansion.

If you wanted to solo old content, you’d still have to achieve a high enough cumulative level to trivialize it, same as it is now. The payoffs would be that you’d never need to stat squish again because level 10 is always the max level on any expansion, and even better yet by doing content at level 10 on its expansion, you could do older content with proper groups and get inter-expansion rewards for it.

There is literally no downside that I can see.

I read it and they’re right. I’m against a squish in general (full disclosure) but the two points quoted are the killers. It’s the worst of both worlds:

Casuals will hate it because they won’t be able to farm, and Elites will hate it because it trivializes current content.

I’m not sure what more needed to be said, but if you require a full refutation with footnotes the journals are that way —->

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  1. You can still solo old content by using a cumulative level. Say for instance Black Temple is Level 10 Burning Crusade, if you had a cumulative level of say 30+, you could solo it. By simply having level 10 in 3 expansions, you’d be strong enough to do it the same way that it is now. You have not refuted this point.

  2. Current content will not be trivialized because you cannot carry gear into other expansions, you can only use that gear to get tokens for inter-expansion rewards, exactly the same as what’s offered by Timewalking vendors.

Neither of these points have been refuted.

How are you planning to make skills/talents/etc. work? At the moment, you get skills progressively up until
100? Whenever the highest talent point is. So are you planning to just make all level 1 have the same skills and all level 2 have the same skills etc.? If so, it seems like every time there is an expansion out, I have to lose a bunch of stuff (which didn’t feel very good to a lot of people in the Legion to BFA transition.) If not, then I’m not sure how you’re thinking this would work.

That’s all fine and good, but you have forgotten that whatever Blizzard’s actual plan is, finance is going to demand that whatever changes take place, they do so for the lowest bid.

They’re already flirting with breaking the spaghetti-code that is WoW entirely and this squish is going to strain their limited abilities in the first place. I have serious doubts about their willingness to spend the money it would take to implement everything you’re talking about, so as grand as it seems to you
no “plan” survives contact with the suits in finance.

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I thought of something similar. You’d have a “common” level that caps at 50 or 60 that’s intended to teach you how to play. Once you’re capped you can jump to ANY expansion you want instead of running through 110 level just to do current content, BUT the levels you gain from there only count towards that expansion. When they release a new expansion you are inherently reset because the common level cap is still 60, and you level the new expansion from there.

The biggest problem I see (and it is a big one) is that, in order for expansions to remain a “progression reset”, the gear from the previous expansions needs to stay in that expansion. But this would force the players to keep a gear set for every past expansion they plan to return to. That’s not acceptable.

Also, Blizzard would need to keep all mythic raids progressable even when they’re no longer current content. Is it realistic to expect Blizzard to keep the Molten Core raiding experience intact? This is 15 years old content.

The plus, of course, is that they could, for example, have artifact weapons and legendaries require level 61 in Legion. So they’d never need to destroy what’s already in the game to make room for those because as soon as you leave Legion territory you wouldn’t meet the requirements.

They could also use that “require level 61” trick to keep canned ideas from old expansions in the game without carrying them to the other expansion. (The WoD protection warrior’s Gladiator Stance is a good example of a canned skill that could be put back in the game.)

Yup,Op,take all the fun out of the game.we already went through a stat squish another one would make it worse.

1 Like

As I said it needed some work, I don’t have all the answers. All I’m saying is that its a far more effective solution than letting things go out of hand over and over and having to squish repeatedly, and they could turn it into a huge boon for the game and to bring people back by making older expansions relevant again. Imagine how many people would come back if they could start and play just the Wrath of the Lich King content and that would actually benefit them in the current expansion in some way? So much of the content of this game is just going to waste for no reason at all, if we can do Timewalking dungeons for rewards, why not harness the same idea for all of the expansions as well?

As for answering your question, they could simply be 1-10 of whatever class mechanics the current game has. Perhaps after unlocking your skills on your first 1-10, you’d never need to do it again, and any level 1 you had after that would already have all their skills, and you could simply get stat increases from levels 1-10 after that. Getting a new skill every level would be great for new players, they’d power up a lot every level and it’d feel more meaningful.

I think it wouldn’t be that bad, yeah it’d cost us a patch probably but they have the tech already demonstrated in the game. They could just squish everything to be 1-10 on a by-expansion basis and then give each expansion individual XP bars, add some vendors, tokens, and its up and running. Plus Blizzard would sell a hell of a lot more level boosts for a lower price, and that would incentivize more people to buy them. More microtransactions = more revenue, so this would totally pay off for blizzard.

This is a great idea, and I feel that yeah they are extremely similar. Having a common level of 60 is a pretty great idea as well, and I feel that storing gear wouldn’t be that hard. Just give us a bank chest for each region that’s contained within that particular expansion’s main city. You could put your BC gear in Shattrath, your Legion gear in Legion-Dalaran, your Cata gear in Stormwind, etc, then if you needed it you could just visit that city and withdraw it. A simple chest could fix that.

Nothing would change though, it’d only benefit the game because:

  1. New players could jump right in without needing to level to play with friends
  2. Alts could jump right into the expansion they want to do without needed to grind up to 110 first
  3. Blizzard would never need to stat squish again, so you’d never be powered down again

If anything it would make the game more fun because you’d get more endgames to play while also having less barriers to play with your friends.

In your proposal, there wouldn’t be any leveling because it would be reset to 1 and recycled up 10 then back to 1 again.Do you realize this is self defeating? going from 120 to 1 isn’t going to be liked by endgamers at all.

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It’d functionally be identical to being level 100 and having to level to 110 to begin a new expansion. All it would do is remove the idea that older expansions are just leveling obstacles, and would actually grant some value to those older expansions beyond just being a hurdle for them to climb on their way to level cap.

Endgamers should realize that this is a massive boon for their endgame, because its adding a lot more endgame. Instead of being limited to 1-3 raids for two years, you could have every raid in the game be relevant and worth playing, because you get rewards for playing them that’s more than just gear for the current expansion, you’d get permanent rewards that do not lose value like outdated gear does.

If anything, it would dramatically increase the value of gear from older expansions, because now you could use that gear to get more tokens to buy more unique rewards. Like a permanent Timewalking, and it just quintupled the amount of available content for you to play. If you’re getting hung up on the number 1, then that’s a fine criticism, you could do what Meo said and create a ‘common’ level of 60 or somesuch, in the end it would achieve basically the same thing. You could also go with the Shadowbane method and instead of levels call them “ranks”

So a Rank 10 in BC, Rank 10 in Cata, Rank 10 in Legion, something like that, and keep the cumulative/common/physical level in tact so that old content can be solo’d.

One problem when we do get the expanses fallowing them then what we would be at the same spot we are now ,with the same problem again,because everything moves on in time ,even if this system seems good for the older content it does little for the future.