I have bad news for you…
You’re making it a lot more complicated than it is. If your levels look like this:
Burning Crusade: 1
Wrath of the Lich King: 1
Cataclysm: 1
Mists of Pandaria: 1
Warlords of Draenor: 10
Legion: 10
Battle for Azeroth: 10
Cumulative Level: 34
If you are Cumulative Level 34, you can go solo TBC raids alone even if your TBC level is 1, because you can just switch to your cumulative level. If you want the cool token rewards (ala timewalking) you have to switch to the expansion level (in TBC its 1, so you’d have to level up in order to be able to do TBC endgame at level for the tokens.)
You still have to do the work and level SOMEWHERE (just like it is now). But you have to level somewhere to begin with, as long as your Cumulative Level is high enough then yes, you can still farm old raids to your heart’s content, exactly as things are now. But as things are, you are forced to level up through a lot more than what you WANT to do. This new system would allow alts to be far easier to create, create more endgame content for people to enjoy, would remove barriers to entry for new players.
As for “looking up your cumulative level” you could just put it on the interface lol, just because you have to put 2 digits on the character panel that’s a pretty lousy reason not to try to fix the huge problems with leveling in this game.
Its different from level boosts now because:
- It fixes stat squishes permanently, they never have to do another one because its always 1-10
- New players can start BfA without the need for any boost
- Old content can have new life because it has its own 1-10 and endgame progression now
Your point about gear and moving into a new expansion is fair though, however I do not agree that it invalidates what I’ve listed. There could be a simple system that provides you better level 1 starting gear, based on the ilevel of the gear you had in your previous expansion. Very simple fix.
The cumulative thing is a dead-end, imo. Too much abstract complexity. Simply artificially inflate the current expansion’s levels compared to the old expansions by the same amount as the current expansion power jump, and then have it level out once the expansion’s over.
Have a toggle in old expansions to use either your ACTUAL gear power, or to have it scaled down to your current progress in that expansion.
1 Like
I would hate to have to start over at every expansion… Wow would become a rinse and repeat kind of game. I don’t like rinse and repeaters.
3 Likes
You… you realise that’s how the game currently… know what? Never mind.
whistles innocently
I fail to understand how adding 1+1 is “too complicated.”
You have an XP bar for each expansion, and you add those up to a Cumulative level. That isn’t complicated at all. Being level 120 with this system your XP bars would look approximately like this:
Burning Crusade: 17
Wrath of the Lich King: 17
Cataclysm: 17
Mists of Pandaria: 17
Warlords of Draenor: 17
Legion: 17
Battle for Azeroth: 17
Cumulative Level: 120
Putting the decimals aside, if you used level 120 instead of level 70, this is what it would look like. If you wanted to just play BfA, then you could level 1-17 in BfA’s zones, and that’s all you needed to do. I hope that this clarifies it. You can go to the full 120 if you want, but you don’t have to in order to play BfA, you just need to do 17 levels.
This is an example using 120 to compare it to what I was talking about earlier. If you reduced all of those levels from 17 to 10, then level 70 would be the Cumulative Level cap, and you can do that if you wish, but you’d only need to hit level 10 in order to play an expansion. If you were a high enough Cumulative Level, you could still do old raids if you wished, even if you were only level 1 in the particular expansion that the raid was in.
Exact same amount of effort for the same payoff, but way more alt and new player friendly and fixes the stat squish for good.
Irony.
Stop pushing your cumulative thing, and start again with your base idea, except using my post to answer
Specifically,
and
You’ll find it also allows people to cross gear from one expansion to the next, say, using a Wrath tier set to do Molten Core, which is fun, without letting people use that same set to trivialize current raids.
1 Like
Sorry but no, the Cumulative Level thing is the absolute simplest you could possibly do this. This would give us all the benefits of the current system and the new system, and it would reward you more and more for each expansion you completed. Its a vastly superior system than exchanging permanent character progress for more temporary gear dependence, which has inflated stats to the point where we need the stat squish in the first place.
I rebuke and reject the idea of ‘gear power’ completely, adding up your levels (something you worked for) into a permanent character upgrade is better. There is an Expansion specific Level and your Total Level (Cumulative), and each time you complete a new expansion you get 10 more levels to your Total Level. This is the best way to use your levels, full stop.
You cannot convince me otherwise. It just makes sense.
Once again, you did not read my explanations. I said repeatedly, at least FIVE TIMES now, that you CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. Maybe if I type it in all caps you will finally read it.
YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER. YOU CANNOT CARRY GEAR FROM ONE EXPANSION TO ANOTHER.
Having good gear in Cataclysm will NOT HELP YOU in Burning Crusade, because you CANNOT TAKE THE GEAR WITH YOU. YOU CANNOT TAKE THE GEAR WITH YOU. YOU CANNOT TAKE THE GEAR WITH YOU. How many times must I repeat this?
There IS a benefit however. If you have Cataclysm gear, you can use that to get a blue level 1 starting gear set for TBC instead of the typical green; you get a headstart for having better gear from a different expansion.
Adding up your levels for a total level is way simpler than some arbitary ‘gear power’ system. This game doesn’t need any more gear dependent stats, powering up your character permanently is far superior.
Somebody is having a mental breakdown.
Please take a break and sleep on it.
Your opinion is not the only valid one.
2 Likes
This is not a rebuttal to my points, I’m understandably getting frustrated because I’m talking in circles and giving multiple examples and rephrasing my meaning over and over only for you to just handwave it as “too complex” when its quite literally SIMPLE ADDITION. I refuse to believe you are having this hard of a time understanding, nor do I believe all of my different explanations are incomprehensible enough to require so many different reiterations.
Nearly every single rebuke that’s been given to me has been a product of a lack of reading on the rebuker’s part. If you’d just READ then you’d quite easily understand, and if there’s a part you don’t understand then ask me to elaborate, but don’t sit here and skim through it and then say things like “it just doesn’t make sense” or “it’d be a nightmare for alts” when time and time again I’ve listed refuted these points without any acknowledgement from you about why they are invalid, all you do is sit there and chant “its invalid” and do not say why. Unproductive and unconstructive criticism.
These are the types of posts that have made it impossible to communicate ideas with Blizzard, because they have to sift through endless oceans of responses like, “it’d be a nightmare for alts!” but maybe 1 out of 100 people actually read the response to that. Its a nightmare trying to have an exchange of ideas like this.
I read it. At least five times now. Aside from using old raid gear to outlevel current content, I think that’s a bad restriction. Why not let people mix & match? That sounds fun. And your original explanation for this restriction is:
Well, I answered that. BfA, being the current expansion, would be an order of magnitude higher power level than Sunwell. So even if you did, there would be no chance of it ever being BiS.
The best chance of finding an old item that’s BiS under my solution would probably be a Legion legendary trinket with a crazy %-based modifier or effect. But that’s easy enough to nerf on a case-by-case basis. The only other chance would be Legion artefacts, assuming they were “repowered”, but I see no reason you couldn’t just ONLY have them empowered in Legion content. Canonically, they didn’t have the empowerment you put into them either before or after Legion, so that makes sense.
In fact, if my Paladin COULDN’T use Ashbringer in Molten Core or Sunwell, and it WASN’T BiS there, even just from ilvl alone, I’d be pretty disappointed.
Honestly, I really like your original premise. Everything above “Cons:” in your original post is solid. But your solution to your cons list is way too convoluted. Every solution added another con, which needed another solution, which added another con, until it became hard to even parse.
If you read it then WHY did you respond with “well you could go into MC with TBC gear!”? I refuse to believe that you read it, now you are backpedaling. If you’d have just read it in the first place it would have made sense, I can’t make you read, and I cannot help you understand because you do not wish to. You are making a choice to simply call me wrong and deny any legitimacy to my posts.
Since exchanging ideas is impossible I will not bother reading your posts. You obviously do not care to read mine, so I will no longer waste my time acknowledging you. Good day.
But what’s the first baseman’s name?
Omg, I missed the part where YOU put the ironic parts together for me! I apologize for not properly reading your posts. XD
I’ll be honest I don’t feel like you’re explaining you’re idea the best way. So I’ll try to reformulate.
You want people to be able to level up in all old expansions. Each expansions has a maximum level, unlike now that you have a single level.
Your “single level” now become a cummlative level which means that to get all levels you would need to do all different expansions? Or that you can skip some? Which means that you could in the end be able to skip the newest expansion? Because else you have to redo the system each expansion to make it so new expansion is needed for your cummulative level to work. Or is the cummulative only for old content? And new expansion is separated?
Look I don’t know if you realise how messy it can get. It’s clearly not simple to follow, would be even more hard for new players. I would try to simplify your explication and to be understandable in less than 4 lines or 2 sentences. If you can’t do that, find another.
1 Like
That is less straightforward than “just be level 80”.
But it doesn’t get rid of the stat squish. It just applies a stat squish every single expansion. We will never grow more powerful. You start each expansion with X amount of Agility and you end each expansion with X+Y amount of Agility. Our stats will always progress the same amount in each expansion. It basically destroys what little RPG is left in the game. At least the current system lets us grow a bit between squishes. It’s also why I’m against squishes in general.
And that’s why this will never happen. Even with the level squish they’re still concerned about being able to sell boosts.
Why can’t old content just stay dead? It’s old, let it rest.
Again, that just makes it more and more complicated as you try to address every situation that works with the current system. Take PVP for example, how is that going to work in this new system? Will someone who is WotLK 10 only be grouped up with other people who are also WotLK 10? Where does a new player get sorted into?
2 Likes
I am sorry if I am coming off too hot, I’m actually suffering from tendinitis in my right hand and I apologize that it has me a bit more snappy than I’d like to be. I will go through each of your responses individually:
That is less straightforward than “just be level 80”.
You’re right, it is. If you want to get the tokens, you have to do the content at level, and that level is 10. If you want to just solo it, you right click your portrait inside the instance and press “Use Cumulative Level (70)”. That will let you solo the instance but you won’t get tokens for it, but you can still get the transmog.
But it doesn’t get rid of the stat squish. It just applies a stat squish every single expansion. We will never grow more powerful. You start each expansion with X amount of Agility and you end each expansion with X+Y amount of Agility. Our stats will always progress the same amount in each expansion. It basically destroys what little RPG is left in the game. At least the current system lets us grow a bit between squishes. It’s also why I’m against squishes in general.
I’m sorry but I’m not going to argue the necessity of stat squishes. It is evident that Blizzard believes they are necessary, regardless of what you or I believe. This system however would create a stat squish system that would preserve what we gained in the previous expansion so that we could still play and enjoy what we had earned in a way that preserves the experience far better than the destructive type of stat squish that is currently being considered and has been done before. It is a far lesser of two evils, and may actually benefit the game in other ways that could tip the stat squish into a positive light in other areas.
And that’s why this will never happen. Even with the level squish they’re still concerned about being able to sell boosts.
This is a reason that it will be even more appealing to Blizzard, rather than selling a single high-priced level boost, they can sell 7+ individual level boosts for a cheaper price, which is adding more microtransactions to the game. As more expansions are added, more level boosts will be needed to reach the Cumulative Level Cap, and thus the earning potential is unlimited. This system would be far more profitable, and because of the much lower price point far more players would find it appealing to purchase, especially with guilds running older endgame content. 7 expansions worth of level boosts, 7 endgames worth of boosts, that’s a lot better than 1.
Why can’t old content just stay dead? It’s old, let it rest.
Because to new players and for players that haven’t seen it in years, old content is effectively new. Its fresh, unseen, and its an overwhelming waste of wonderful content to just let it sit there and rot. There is objectively no reason to choose only having 10 dungeons and 3 raids over having 100+ dungeons and 100+ raids to experience, why limit ourselves? If you don’t want to do it, you don’t need too, it isn’t going to help you in BfA. Its the same reason people to Timewalking; they want something different and there’s other rewards they want that aren’t gear. There is no reason to deny the option of putting old content to good use.
To add an example, City of Heroes and Final Fantasy XIV do this with a similar “Roulette” system and its incredible, and adds a ton of variety to the game. You can be running dungeons all day and never get the same one twice, its an incredible feeling and makes dungeon grinding not feel like grinding at all. There simply is no reason to look down on repurposing old content, and if you feel that it shouldn’t be used then I don’t know what to tell you. Shouldn’t you be outraged that blizzard forces you to have it on your HDD at all then? Shouldn’t it just be deleted from the game? I can’t agree with that.
Again, that just makes it more and more complicated as you try to address every situation that works with the current system. Take PVP for example, how is that going to work in this new system? Will someone who is WotLK 10 only be grouped up with other people who are also WotLK 10? Where does a new player get sorted into?
I disagree, it seems quite simple. You level 1-10 individually in each expansion region, your levels add up into a cumulative level that you can choose to use if you want to solo old raids. You can’t carry gear from one expansion to another, you get a free chest in the major city of each expansion to store your gear.
If you do expansions at their proper level 10, you get tokens for rewards for doing so. If you have a a high ilevel, you get better starting gear for another expansion.
As for PvP, it just goes off of stat templates anyway, right? All the skills are the same as they are for the current expansion, so it makes no difference. The classes are the same, the stats are the same, so it wouldn’t matter which expansion you were leveled up in. It wouldn’t affect BGs or Arena at all, all of that is universal and updated to the current expansion. No need to make that complicated.
That’d actually be kind of neat, because you could have players leveling in every expansion all doing bgs together. Cool!
Literally what we currently do.
“Higher numbers on my stat sheet is role playing.” Facing devastating odds, growing in strength (or Agi or Int) and ultimately overcoming them is role playing. Which is exactly what would still happen.
Seriously, take a math course. Learn how exponential curves work.
Remember my “Do the level squish by making 1-60 content still be 1-60 and then jump straight into current content” thing that you absolutely hated? “Why can’t old content just stay dead? It’s old, let it rest.” is a beautiful summary of it.
It’s also a beautiful summary of this suggestion, where old content is an optional thing that has no bearing on levelling or current content.
Do you know what is exactly contrary to “Why can’t old content just stay dead? It’s old, let it rest.” though?
Because level 80 happens in Cata/MoP. Which is old content.
This is why you’re an old man yelling at clouds. You have no consistent goal or preference. You simply don’t like things other people suggest and rally against them with the first thing to pop into your head. You don’t consider other ideas, weigh the pros and cons, try to offer amendments that may alleviate an idea’s specific shortcomings. You don’t ever try to work WITH someone. You just think they’re wrong for having a thought.
You just yell at clouds. You, sir, are a naysayer.
Get some new content already. Oh wait, you’re stuck in the past and that’s why you can’t come up with anything new.
Stop fitting it so perfectly.
Damn, Fayara, you just lost your title as irony champion of this thread.
I mean, that’s literally a criticism you’ve levelled against me before. That’s as direct as irony can possibly get.