It does exactly for the future what is happening now: you need to level 10 times to get to endgame. There is no objective difference what you call it, since leveling 10 times is required, it doesn’t matter if you start at level 100 or level 1. You have to be 110 to start the endgame of Legion, you have to be level 10 to start the endgame of Legion. In both scenarios you had to level 10 times, the only difference is that now Blizzard doesn’t need to stat squish 2 expansions later, and you can retain all of your strength when you play endgame raids in Legion down the road.
What you’re getting hung up on is just zeroes at the end of the ones. It functionally makes no difference.
Perhaps a diagram would help out to explain this one through leveling and dungeon -raids ,because I don’t understand it very well this system from WC3.
Your idea is flawed and horrible due to the reasons others have said. It also severely punishes those who aren’t altoholics. Person A has 1 main. They don’t care for alts at all. They do everything on their 1 character. They can no longer do anything from older expansions. Person B has no main but 27 characters they play occasionally. They can freely do anything and everything because of their combined level.
That’s broken and bad in many ways, how do you not see that?
I just don’t get it though.
You say this but your idea completely kills current content. It completely negates the entire gearing up bit we all do when a new expansion is released. I mean, literally. Let me go to Naxx 25 and Ulduar, get BiS. BAM! I am now geared and can do current content…using gear from a decade ago. Do you not see how that is bad?
With only 10 levels you may as well delete the game as it has lost all progression at that point since the difference between a level 1 and level 10 will be so tiny it’d be worthless. Alternatively the difference will be too big its unnatural and tacky.
The game doesn’t need a squish. Blizzard catering to people who don’t play MMORPG’s is whats killing the game. But that’s a different topic for another thread.
They already can since expansions come with a boost so they can jump right into the current expansion with their friends.
But we essentially would be everytime a new expansion released. Right back to level 1 for that expansion.
Look, I realize you put thought into this but unfortunately it’s just bad. Like, all of it. You want to punish people with few alts. You want to force a complete reset everytime an expansion is released. It completely kills transmog farming, mount farming, pet farming. It literally kills EVERYTHING unless you have 27 alts. It also kills current content since you would have no need to gear up if you could get BiS from content that was relevant 10 years ago.
Again, how do you not see those HUGE flaws that kill your idea completely?
That’s okay, I’m not trying to sound aggressive or anything, and I’m probably not explaining it well. I will try once more in a different way.
The idea is that each expansion has its own 10 levels, and depending on where you are in the game location wise, you will switch between that expansion’s levels or your cumulative level.
Say you made a new character, their levels would look like this:
Bob the Troll’s levels
Burning Crusade: Level 1
Wrath of the Lich King: Level 1
Cataclysm: Level 1
Mists of Pandaria: Level 1
Warlords of Draenor: Level 1
Legion: Level 1
Battle for Azeroth: Level 1
Cumulative level: 7
Now Bob the troll can pick which expansion he wants to play and only needs to level 10 times to get to endgame of that expansion. If Bob wants to jump right into BfA, Bob can do so immediately upon character creation. But if Bob wants to go do BC raids solo right away? Bob isn’t strong enough. He needs to level. So when Bob gets to max level in BfA, he is now BfA level 10, but all of his other levels remain 1.
The only difference is that Bob wasn’t forced to level in all of the other expansions just to get to BfA, so Bob can’t complain that he has to do more work now…he did a lot less work to get to BfA than what is required with the current system. If Bob wants to solo BC raids, Bob needs to get to level 10 in more expansions. I’ll give you an example again.
2 years later and the new expansion is out, this is how Bob’s levels look:
Bob the Troll’s levels in 2020
Burning Crusade: Level 10
Wrath of the Lich King: Level 1
Cataclysm: Level 1
Mists of Pandaria: Level 1
Warlords of Draenor: Level 1
Legion: Level 10
Battle for Azeroth: Level 10
Cumulative level: 34
Being cumulative level 34 means that Bob could easily solo the Level 10 BC raids, but that was all optional. Bob could very easily choose NOT to do this if he didn’t want to solo the raids. The only difference now is that we are FORCED to play all of those other expansions just to get to BfA, whereas this system would skip all that if desired.
The best part is that because Bob is Burning Crusade Level 10, he gets to actually benefit from having all of that BC Level 10 gear sets (that he can store freely in Shattrath for safekeeping until the end of time). Bob never has to be stat squished and never loses his power because its never necessary, the numbers will never get out of control again because Level 10 is always the cap. Bob gets to enjoy his cool gear forever, and the raids still return worthwhile rewards forever.
I believe you are misunderstanding the system. Every character gets an individual level for each expansion, and they get to choose all or one of the expansions that they wish to level up in. They can be Level 10 in all expansions on one character at the same time, and that would be equivalent to being level 120 now. The system would actually make the game more alt friendly, because you wouldn’t need to level so much to make alts.
Want a priest in BfA? You only gotta level up 10 times. Want a tank for some BC tokens? 10 levels away from tanking. Want to be good at everything and all endgames on your paladin? Level up 10 times on every expansion (this is what we have now.)
The difference is that you wouldn’t be FORCED to level through expansions that you didn’t care about, and it would remove those expansions from just being pure leveling fodder, and would add actual value to playing them beyond just to level and collect transmog. The old content would be relevant again, you could level usable alts in BfA exponentially faster, and you didn’t need to level up all of the other levels unless you wanted too.
This would open up MORE progression, because having several different endgames to play would mean you had much more to do, more dungeons that are relevant, more gear to collect, more raids, more dungeons, more reps to grind, more more more if you choose too. You can’t carry gear between expansions, but you can buy other rewards via tokens you get from playing endgame on each expansion, and those tokens can be traded for rewards ALA Timewalking.
The rewards aren’t gear, but they are other stuff you might want. All blizzard would need to do to keep the content relevant is to add new rewards once in a while so people don’t run out.
And your comment about the boost…the boost fixes the time to level, sure…the first time. And it does nothing to address the stat squishes, and like I said it transforms all of the old content into mere obstacles to get to endgame. The whole premise of this idea would
Remove the need for mandatory boosts just to start a new expansion
Add a lot more endgame to play and enjoy
Make the game way more alt friendly by only requiring 10 levels to get to where you want to be
Add more progression because you have more expansions to progress through, and you have a cumulative level that’s exactly like the level we have now, its just the sum of all your levels across all expansions. We already have this.
I think you’re misunderstanding the system. A single character can be level 10 across all expansions, and that’s exactly the system we have currently. This system is to avoid that if you do not wish to do it, it would make it far more alt friendly but wouldn’t change what you can and can’t do now. All it would do is give you more content to play and permanently avoid stat squishes in the future, that’s all.
For reference, if Bob the Troll looked like this:
Bob the Troll’s levels
Burning Crusade: Level 10
Wrath of the Lich King: Level 10
Cataclysm: Level 10
Mists of Pandaria: Level 10
Warlords of Draenor: Level 10
Legion: Level 10
Battle for Azeroth: Level 10
Cumulative level: 70
Bob could do all of the endgame in any expansion, and if Bob wanted to solo the raids (the same way we do now) then he’s way above the necessary cumulative level to do so, seeing as the proper level is 10 and he is 60 levels higher, Bob can easily solo anything he wants. Nothing changes for those who enjoy the system now.
You wouldn’t need to wait 2 years to do an old raid, it’d be exactly like it is now. You just get to pick if you WANT to do old raids, that’s all. If you don’t WANT to be cumulative level 70 you don’t have to be. You only have to be level 10 to play the current expansion, or any other expansion you want to play at its proper level.
Currently you are forced to be level 120 to play old raids (Yes I know you can do level 60 raids at level 80, but to simplify the concept let’s ignore that). You had to level through ALL of the content in order to get to 120, this is the system that is in place now.
If you were to do this new system, you can still do that if you wish, that’d be like being level 10 in every expansion on a single character. The work required would be identical, Cumulative level 70 = Level 120 currently. There is no difference, if you wish to level cap you can do that. This system would just make it to where you didn’t need to hit level cap to play endgame for an expansion…you could just do endgame of one or two expansions if you wanted too, but you didn’t have too.
If you were a big completionist (like me) then yeah, you could level to level cap (Cumulative Level 70). It’d be identical to leveling to 120 now, nothing at all would change if that’s how you want to play the game.
I admit that I could have explained it better. I’m contemplating putting together a youtube video to explain it, but the fundamentals are:
Each expansion has its own level 1-10
Every level you earn adds to your Cumulative/Common/Physical level
You can switch from an expansion 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, exactly the same as it is now.)
Playing content at the expansion level will yield reward tokens that can be traded in for unique rewards for each expansion ala Timewalking
This will make all endgames playable and relevant and will remove the need to ever stat squish again
Enjoy all your cool endgame expansion gear forever (within the expansion that it belongs to). Gear cannot be moved from one expansion to another.
You will also have to address the economy which is a big play for most wow players and what initials each level on quests. It is important in understanding vastness of a 15yrs .game that is interconnected.
This wouldn’t solve the stat squish problem because Blizz wants us spending our time in the newest expansion area. They’re never going to let WotLK gear be even remotely relevant in a new expansion.
Just look at the nerfs to portals from a while back. They can’t even handle us using Legion-Dalaran as a portal hub and you think your idea is going to fly?
Not to mention your idea in general sounds massively overcomplicated in order to function the way levels do now.
I think the economy in this game is already such trash that it really doesn’t even need to be considered. You can get 20k gold just for soloing old raids every week, its kind of a joke. Professions are pretty much meaningless in this game right now.
Though I won’t just handwave it. I feel that by creating incentives for players to play at the proper level for an expansion and thus progress through its endgame at the proper level that it will create lots of new opportunities for older items to gain value. I don’t really see any downside to having old items gain value.
Say that this new change brings the price of Silk Cloth from 2s to 5g a piece. Blizzard could very easily change the amount of money that drops from enemies, or quite simply the price of Silk Cloth will be dependent on those who buy it…and those who buy it are the people who are doing endgame of the expansion to which it is relevant, and thus its price will reflect the amount of money that those players are making.
If not, they can easily just reach a higher Cumulative Level and just go solo some old raids for oodles of gold, exactly the system that’s in place now. If that was the concern, then you could go get some Silk Cloth yourself or you could just do what we are REQUIRED to do now: get to level 120 and solo old raids for gold. It’d either improve the current status quo or leave it exactly as-is.
As I’ve said several times now, gear cannot be moved from one expansion to another. You can transmog it sure, but you cannot bring endgame WotLK gear into BfA for instance, its assigned to WotLK and it cannot leave that expansion. You can store it in a box in the Northrend-Dalaran bank, and retrieve it any time you wish, but it cannot leave the WotLK zones, and if it does it is simply redded out.
Its really not that complicated, each player character has a level 1-10 bar for each expansion and they all level independently of one another. At the bottom is a Cumulative Level (a total level for all the levels in all your expansion bars). If you’re level 1 in all 7 expansions, then your Cumulative level is 7. If you’re level 10 in all expansions, your Cumulative level is 70.
This would make each expansion its own thing, and when an expansion ends it can simply be added to this framework, so when BfA is over you will remain level 10 in BfA, you will keep all of your gear, and there are still new rewards you can come back to get by doing BfA raids for tokens.
But being level 10 in BfA will not benefit you in the next expansion, and if you wanted to make a new class when the next expansion hits, you don’t need to grind through BfA to get there, you can just start the new character. It gives a lot more flexibility, but also a lot more replayability.
I feel like the biggest problem with this game is its just a spaghetti mess of timelines and expansions, by adding these small barriers to separate expansions from one another, it’d help new players coming in quite a lot, and remove the barriers to entry.
I’d make new people start in WoD at level 1 to 10. Then Legion 10-20. Then BFA 20-30. Giving not a too long route and a decent experience for new players.
If they want to go to older zones they would scale to their levels (up to last expansion base so 20 for now). Older raids/dungeons would have “unlocked” mode (Hi FFXIV) that let you stomp them because they would basicly be level 1 or a scaled mode that let you experience them (Like Timewalking).
There’s nothing to gain though from choosing the most recent expansions like that, and it doesn’t solve the stat squish problem. What comes after BfA? Level 40? After that? Level 50? Eventually we get to the same problem we have now.
Having a system that flattens the stats into a simple reusable scale while also allowing players to choose their own adventure and what they want to do, instead of forcing them to do a bunch of leveling obstacles just to play the ‘real game’ would be a better solution. If they want to play BfA, they can just start on BfA, full stop.
If they want to solo old raids, then they are gonna have to do some more work for that, but that is no different from having to level to 120 the way things are now. No scaling required, you get a flat number for each expansion that is your level for that expansion, and you get a flat number for your Cumulative Level that adds up all of the levels you currently have among all expansions.
You can just switch them on or off if you like in order to solo older content if you wish, but if you want the cool token rewards you have to play the endgame content at level 10, which will create groups for older content once more.
Yes but we get like 10 years before having to think about, and then you can just do the same thing. Take the 3 last expansion and squish the rest.
Yes people should level in current expansion at minimum. That’s a no brainer. If you can’t agree on that just put your idea in the trash can point. When a new expansion release you don’t want people to go in old zones to level up. I understand that some people don’t like leveling, but it’s not an obstacle. It’s building your story, your character, learning about and exploring the world.
That’s still more complicated and less straightforward than what we have now. I don’t have to worry about leveling alts through every single expansion in order to solo older content, you can already skip a couple expansions depending on how you feel like leveling. And having to look up your cumulative level is nowhere near as convenient as just looking at your character’s level.
And that sounds like a giant step down from what we have now. If I’m geared up in BfA, I should have a head start in the new expansion. Forcing people to start over immediately with each expansion is going to be tiresome very quickly.
How is this really any different from the free character boost you get when buying an expansion? Also it’d be an even more disjointed mess than what we have now, and that’s an impressive achievement. At least now you only have TBC/WotLK as timeline anomalies before things get back on track, your suggestion would throw the timeline completely out of whack.
I believe I explained my meaning poorly, let me try again.
When you went from Legion to BfA, you had to level 10 times, right? That’s the basis for the 1-10 idea. You have to level just those 10 levels to play BfA’s endgame, and that’s it. You don’t need to level 1-10 in Legion first, nor do you need to level 1-10 in WoD before that.
Make a new character, pick BfA, start at level 1 in BfA and you have to level up 1-10 just like normal. The only difference is that you didn’t need to do Legion or anything else beforehand to get there, but yes you still have to level 1-10 in BfA’s leveling zones in order to play BfA.
You also need to do 1-10 in Legion to play endgame in Legion, and a separate 1-10 in WoD if you want to do WoD’s endgame. If you leveled 1-10 in all three of these expansions, then your cumulative level would be 30.
Ok, but that would be actually more complicated I feel to understand for new players than anything. Why joining another expansion resets all my power level? Also a nightmare for alts.
I actually had a similar idea (2nd idea) and that would be to bind levels to pathfinders or a new type of achievement. If you have all pathfinders up to BFA, you can create a characters 110 (or wathever level they squish it to that is base for bfa). If you have all up to Legion then you can create 100 characters (or wathever level).
Solution: Old expansions follow one power curve, current expansion follows a much higher curve. Current expansion players can solo old content AND top tier gear from older expansions, though it may still have killer set bonuses, simply doesn’t cut it in current expansion progress.
But that’s not the IMPORTANT problem. What do you call each expansion’s levels? Clearly, each expansion needs a pithy, apropros name. They can’t all just be “mastery” or “paragon” or “prestige”…
BC: Nether Nether Land 1-10
LK: Orbs Frozen Off 1-10
Cata: Mastery 1-10 (because it introduced Mastery)
MoP: Time slowed down and taken 1-10
Wod: Savage Savagery of Savageness 1-10
Legion: Preparedness 1-10
BfA: Definitely Not Fighting any Old Gods 1-10