Level Squish?

Community General Discussion
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Ion mentioned the possibility of a level squish and how they want to work on fixing leveling to make it fun and meaningful again. This is honestly the only thing that got me excited for the Q and A.

How do you guys feel about a level squish to make each level a bit more meaningful? I’m really hoping they go through with this.

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lvl squish mean lots and lots of pruning.

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It would really depend on how they wanted to do it and what went along with it.

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I think the last leveling and skill revamps received a tepid reception at best. Reordering and revamping the entire game on the premise it will “make things feel better” seems like a fool’s errand, but I suppose they have to give work to all those new devs now, why not fix wasn’t isn’t broken.

People want a change to character progression as they level, not a leveling revamp. It introduces more problems than it solves, and removes all the freedom the level scaling gave us.

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Wouldn’t need any pruning, just adjusting what level you receive new abilities, rather than going 10-20 levels with nothing.
As it is now your rotation is basically set at level 20 and doesn’t change significantly for 100 levels.

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I hope they don’t do it. I’d rather they actually fix what we have than to give us some half baked band aid solution of a level squish.

Some levels already take way too long as is, a level squish will just make them take even longer, and the gaps between levels will grow exponentially… don’t fool yourself into thinking that the XP from 1-60 now will be the XP to the new 1-60 after a level squish… the new 1-60 will have the same XP required as the current 1-120, that means the XP from 118-120 will be the XP from 59-60.

There will still be a lot of dead levels too… and a level squish will undoubtedly result in yet another reshuffling of skills to “insure that you get new skills and talents on a regular basis”… a reshuffling that will yet again ignore requirements for mechanics of early & mid game content leaving you without the tools needed for certain areas until you are much higher level and it’s no longer relevant, but making the leveling process even that much more unbearable.

What needs to be done instead of half-baked level squish:

  1. Re-evaluate skill requirements for early and mid-game content and ensure that every class has access to the skills required to complete the content effectively. We were given access to certain skills at specific levels for a reason once upon a time. Now, the skill allocation feels completely arbitrary and random. Return it to how it was and stop changing it.
  2. Fill the gaps in our spellbooks… we don’t have to get a new skill every level, but we also shouldn’t ever have to go more than 3 levels without something new. An easy and good option for many of the gaps would be skill upgrades. Improvements on abilities we already have, giving them extra little quirks to them in the form of conditional procs and some improved visuals.
  3. Commit to giving us a new talent row every expansion, and return talents to every 10 levels. That’s right, return the 3 talent rows you removed when you changed it to every 15 and add in the 2 you neglected to give us for the last 2 expansions. When you didn’t give us a talent row in Legion, we were lead to believe that the Lv100 talent row was going to become 105 with BfA and that we’d get a new 120 row to carry on with the 15 level progression. Clearly that never panned out and with how things seem to be going, we will have nothing to look forwards to skill wise or talent wise in the next expansion either.

A level squish won’t fix these issues, it’ll only mask them, and they will continue to do the same thing and before you know it people will be demanding a new level squish every expansion just to retain the illusion of progress since we arn’t ever getting anything new again. Quit trying to deceive us and just fix the problems and commit to giving us new skills and talents again.

7 Likes
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come on you know blizzard will break out the prune hammer.

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It’s pointless. Buffing xp and changing level unlocks could fix it just as well without ruining player levels.

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My productive feedback is that a level squish is a lazy solution that will just escalate the problems the game is facing. Instead, here are some better options:

a) More Harald of the Titans style achievements, why not make old content and leveling goal oriented again by attaching a rare, fat reward for actually playing the game at that level range? Level locking and Working to get HoT had to be one of the most fun few weeks I had in the game while I leveled to 100 on my hunter. I wish this kind of play was replicated elsewhere in game.

B) give players an option of leveling from 1 or starting at 50? If they choose from 1, their character gets a fat reward at max level or maybe an account bound chest?

c) make it super easy to level from 1-100, that way we can still play and learn but also not hit the lv. 70 slog.

d) Gradually make hitting max level easier. My alt is in this slog right now and I have no motivation to quest yet again. Perhaps a 10%-15% leveling buff for each toon at max?

Just throwing out some options because apparently it will be considered.

4 Likes
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I have said this in a bunch of threads, but I think a lot of pro-squish people aren’t seeing the down side. Without reducing the overall experience needed to level, the xp bar is going to move at half speed. It’s still the same amount of work being puttin in, but it’s going to feel like it’s much more of a grind.

To me “more meaningful levels” just means that you have less milestones to celebrate along the way and is going to make leveling feel like more of a chore than it already is.

1 Like
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“Meaningful” is used so often to justify changes like the GCD and Azerite grind, that ironically, it has lost all meaning.

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I wish Blizz would sticky one of these threads and close all the others. Think I’ve commented in like 3 level squish threads lol.

2 Likes
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Leveling does need help. Level squish is probably an easier fix then actually adding new content to the old world. They really need to do both.

As far as abilities, and concerns with pruning. We should still get our basic rotation fairly early. With the added bonus of getting new abilities more often.

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I think at this point this should be turn into a Mega thread I dont want to post this over and over again as my opinion on the matter lol :sweat_smile:

I think they should add something to gain for each expansion… Like how they did with professions. Abilities, Talents and Special Heirlooms that you gain as you level but also tied to the story of each expansion. For example:

  • Blizz use to add here and there quest like Warlocks Green Fire Cosmetic to spells, the DK blow up dead bodies spells, or mages different polymorphous etc…’
    Maybe reward player progression with expanded passives, enemy specific resistances or effects, cosmetics and existing abilities ( many old/new enemies have the same abilities as players but they just look different ) that don’t impact new content but more of the old one in a meaningful PvE way? Without limiting your ability to bring up new Heroic and WC3 long awaited classes…of course.
    That said you can give Warlocks a quest that would unlock their long forgotten Meta or like Verdant spheres/Floating Soul Gems etc, just to name a few that had been sourly miss… other classes suffered much more.

Like artifacts, legendary Class items and soon Azerite armor… we know one was retired and the other will be soon ones the expansion is over. Soooo, why not move does and turn them into specially Class Heirlooms only unshockable after reaching that content…Powers and all?

  • And with that in mind with the adding of new Allied Races Rehabilitate/update (even give new models to NPC’s if necessary) the Caverns of Time ! Create a linear quest that would have them level through all those expansion in a specific order where they try to stop the Infinite Dragonflight from interfering with the timeline, this will also address the problem of adding new classes that “Don’t have an artifact weapon or their own Class Hall in Legion?” when or if they have to level up or unlock the stuff mention before.

You can even update certain parts where being an Blood/Void Elf would turn you into a High/Darkfallen/Felsworn Elf etc…depending what timeline your doing or if your acting as a double agent to sabotage the enemy and being a Demon Hunter would just change your skin to look that of any of the mention or take one a similar look like the humanoid from of Nozdormu, etc. Point is we don’t freeze up when doing DH abilities! lol
You did it already with battle of dazar’alor you can surely do it with this, you even gave each class a cool gear look! I could even have its mini scenarios or be solo dungeons if queuing would be a problem…
Reward for running the content: You can keep the look as a permanent on and off toy. ( That is if your not planning to add them ever as a race, then again as a toy it would not matter I guess )

However the problem still stands that Classic, Cata and all other expansion before Legion would need to be look at seriously and upgrade not only the zone quest content but some of the NPC scenes and enemies… some need new models as they look god minecraft awful!

(IMO) Blizz you already have the content you don’t need to squish anything, you just need to updated it and re-arrange it.

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Wouldn’t there be more milestones, getting a talent every ten levels, getting abilities at closer levels, gaining new dungeons every other level? Also, no one ever said exp wouldn’t be adjusted. If they cut it down to 75%, which I’ve suggested a long time ago, things would move slower per level, but overall, faster than now.

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No, that isn’t more. You get all those things already, but you would lose half your leveling milestones.

Totally made up example:
Without squish- work 10 hours, gain 10 levels, earn one talent
With squish- work 10 hours, gain 5 levels, earn one talent

You aren’t getting more milestones, you just get less “yay another level completed” milestones and your xp bar moves slower.

If they cut xp required, I’m all for it.

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They do this and I quit. Permanently. Ion is a terrible developer.

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The problem with extremely high levels is the rate at which ilvl grows, something the anti squish crowd doesn’t get. If the ilvl keeps going the way it is, the stat squish will have to happen more and more. If we squish levels, and ilvl along with it, ilvl will grow far slower than it is currently, resulting in less squish overall. At this rate, we will see a stat squish every other expansion, at very most, ever second expansion. The crying from the first two was ridiculous, and the bugs that came were many, and long. If we adjust the ilvl to be 100 (or something close) at 60, we can eliminate a lot of this bug creation for the future.

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Stat squishes are a separate issue entirely. If you get squashed from level 120 to level 60, you are going to have the exact same stats as you do now. There will be no difference.