Before the Level Scaling System was introduced in Wow. You needed to go into a different geographical Zone to find higher or lower level enemies. Exploration through dangerous areas of the map could be exciting. You discovered where you could adventure relatively safely and where you couldn’t go. This was what could be considered the normal RPG game mechanic in leveling progression.
This was all changed, with a new leveling system that made it so no matter where you went the enemy was within the same level as your character. “Chromie time.” was also introduced.
My question is: At this present time. After experiencing both the Original Leveling System and the New Level Scaling System. What is your opinion as to which Leveling System you prefer? Which do you think is the better leveling system?
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Scaling made the game into a theme park where you’re always tall enough to ride all of the attractions. It took the concept of “progressing” through world content and threw it in the bin while making all of the cogs and springs behind the game jump out at you and be incapable of being ignored.
Don’t like it, never have, never will.
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Prefer The Old one but imagine leveling your character through all the expansions till you hit max lvl in DF.
I can see why Blizzard did it , why they went for squish but I don’t see it as a viable solution. You can have expansions without level/gear resets .
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Objectively speaking, the leveling system IS in fact the better system in the context of this game and this game alone. We are pretty much 20 years into this world. You just can’t make QoL changes to the leveling experience without significantly making it trivial in one way or another no matter where you slice it.
I do prefer the original system, but we do not live in 2004 anymore. As the good goblins say, TIME IS MONEY friend. And if you make a leveling experience engaging and challenging… you risk burning out your players when you then throw this gargantuan amount of end-game grind content as well.
In my opinion, to have a great leveling experience that challenges you on the way to max, you gotta sacrifice the complexity and difficulty of Raiding and M+ encounters, you can’t really have them both and retain players for a long time.
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From a development perspective it solved the problem of having to test and adjust how much content there is for each level range. It was pretty easy to run out of content in classic/vanilla.
But it did turn leveling into the exact same fight start to finish. And it allows you level where you want. They’re not going to make expansions with multiple non-scaled leveling paths.
And it does do bizarre things with expansions if you start over geared. You just keep getting weaker and weaker as you level up.
IMHO…it hurt WOW. It removed a slice of immersion.There are so many other ways they could have dealt with the ‘daunting task’ of leveling from start to max. It IS one of the very minor reason I no longer log in as often and play less when I do …
/Thinks to self: “Why do they do these things ??”
immersion-breaking, waters down the value of levels.
I think it would have been awful if level scaling was always a part of WoW.
Moving to new zones of mobs with different levels was great.
That said, when full level scaling was introduced to the entire world at the end of Legion, I also think it made sense.
But that point we were level 110 and 6 expansions deep. Leveling speed kept getting increased and entire zones would go from orange to gray in a few hours.
By then it was making sense to just let people level where they want.
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As a long-time player who has seen everything a million times? I prefer scaling at least in the low levels where I can easily choose where I want to go.
Thinking about the new player experience? No scaling would be way more immersive. I admit I would have liked to see no scaling in Dragonflight, too. I remember seeing the Cobalt Assembly when I was hitting the zones for the first time and being like “wow, 70s I’ll have to come back for that!” We just don’t get that anymore.
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Level scaling is a terrible system.
The rest, are worse.
It’s the only way to make leveling and the expanded totality of WoW relevant to anyone but transmog farmers and Loremasters.
I wish there was a way to actually have the geographic leveling zones, I know when leveling I prefer to quest a bit below my level, just so they’re that much easier. Rather than being always on the edge of difficulty. Its nice to be able to take a breather.
But it’s simply not practical. We’re leveling too fast. Scaling is the only mechanic that lets the characters stay in the story at all. Otherwise, you’d ding “next zone” level and on your way.
With scaling you can leave anytime, go anywhere. Or you can stick to it and grind it out in a single expansion. That’s about as much choice as is practical at this point.
In general, I like it and think it works great in games like SWTOR and GW2.
In WoW I like the freedom it gives me when I level, which is something I do a lot. However it seems to have been slap dashed together with little attention to detail, so there are issues with inconsistent damage, loots that can’t be used or equipped for several levels, etc.
To be honest, I played the old system via classic and I loved it. But the current system is cool if I want to finish a zone (because leveling is so fast). I think both systems have their advantages, both pleasant in their respective era.
In the past, the leveling was more of a long journey and finishing the zone was expected given the amount of quests/mobs you needed to grind to make a level. Then leveling became much quicker, and I would outlevel zones before I even started the story there. So the posed solution was to make the zones last for more levels. I prefer this to the other solution (make leveling long again). But then they came up with a third solution via chromie time which is to reduce the amount of zones and make each zone last for several levels.
For me, Chromie time is my favorite solution so far. I am a fan.
Though, yes, it would be nice to feel the zones getting progressively easier as you play in them again. The only problem I have with leveling now is that my characters feel weaker as they supposedly progress - and I feel this way because the same enemies become harder to defeat as I level up. Maybe they could stop scaling the level of the mobs but make the zones have a natural range of 15/20 levels. Then mobs are still hard for you when you get there but you gain power and eventually (gradually) overpower them.
always bad. it is a full counter to the purpose of an rpg - especially one focused on power progression.
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Think level scaling is fine gear scaling isnt.
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I hate level and mob scaling. Instead of growing stronger each level i Instead get weaker because mobs, no matter where, are just damage sponges. And the higher level you get the more gear you need. It devalues your level and makes me wonder why we even have levels. Because it’s only to gatekeep abilities and skills?
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