Leveling Changes, and Why Should I Care?

Community General Discussion
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Blizzard recently introduced a leveling nerf/buff in 8.1 where you can level at the speed of sound to get to level cap (especially if you’re alliance with that juicy 30% warmode buff), and when I heard this, I was initially glad to hear it and excited just like many others.

My Lightforged Draenei would no longer be stuck in the torture of levels 60-80 and I could get their heritage armor unlocked. My Dark Iron Dwarf could see beyond level 22 so I could get their heritage armor as well! Maybe, with these quality of life improvements with the Heart of Azeroth not being gimped on my alts due to reputation, I could play these two new classes that I haven’t gotten to level cap and gear them for funzies?

All these thoughts were exciting for me to a point where where the changes were introduced I hopped onto my Lightforged and began to level - but then couldn’t finish the quest I was on. No problem, maybe I wasn’t feeling the class, I still had a Dark Iron to level. That went alright for a few levels and all was well, until I got bored with that, too.

Leveling is faster, sure, and I can race to level cap with a blinding speed, but these fixes to the deadzones of some experience brackets didn’t address an underlying issue I’ve had with the game for some time. It’s not an engaging experience and I don’t get anything from leveling other than some gold fanfare and maybe an ability to use every 15 levels if my talents don’t suck.

I’ve recently been leveling a character in SWTOR for comparison, and it’s a fast as lightning experience for me, just like WoW is currently, but I also get more from the experience because of the class storyline that is pushing me to each planet/zone. I don’t mind getting to the endgame because I’m experiencing a good story to go with it. And while this is not a fair comparison, since I’ve never played SWTOR and it’s a new experience for me compared to WoW that I’ve played for over a decade, but each zone in WoW kind of just exists outside of my experience as a player. I make choices to which zone I want to go to based upon if I think one zone’s quests are less annoying than another rather than going to them because there is a story suggesting that I should go.

I don’t think that there is a perfect fix for this, especially with the state that WoW is in with a whopping 120 levels, but I feel like nerfing exp requirements so I can get to end-game content (or lack-thereof) faster doesn’t motivate me to level anymore than it did before the change.

Maybe I’m leveling wrong, maybe I need a new point of view for this, or maybe I’m right. All I can say for certain is that I’m glad that it’s not like pulling teeth to level anymore, but I still can’t find a reason to level.

3 Likes
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Leveling speed is just a band aid fix to make the pain last for a shorter period. The real problem is that over the last 10 years they’ve removed everything there was to be enjoyed about leveling.

Almost all your gear slots are occupied by heirlooms, so you don’t really progress your gear.

Enemies in the open world don’t really post a threat unless you pull their entire species, so while your rotation might be more complex, you aren’t actually engaged with the game.

The lack of buying abilites and the irrelevance of profs while leveling means you never have a reason to visit town and catch up on things.

The removal of class quests and mount purchases means you don’t really have any big milestones to look forward to.

LFG, the lack of mob tagging restrictions, and the removal of difficult quests means you probably won’t talk to a single other person while leveling.

And worst of all, scaling. You no longer feel any power growth. You’re always the same as whatever you’re fighting. It feels like you’re just trying to get a number to 120 so you’ll be allowed to play the “real” game.

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The scaling and pruning of abilities majorly hurt leveling. I want to level my allied races but why bother .

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Yeah, leveling is a huge, huge mess right now.

What I would like to see:

  • Cut the number of levels in half, putting the cap back down to 60. There’s really no practical benefit to having 120 levels no matter how you look at it.
  • Revamp old zones to be timeless. The time-bubble problem grows worse by the day and it feels weird and kind of bad for each continent to be tied to an expansion and stuck in time.
  • Make non-max-level zones relevant to max levels again. Back in vanilla, you found yourself visiting lower level parts of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms for all sorts of reasons. Make this true again! Give my 120 good, non-fluff reasons to visit old continents.

These three things would improve the situation quite a bit, I think.

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I really think that this would help a lot for my main, sure. They are kiiiind of doing this with the warfronts in Arathi and Darkshore, but it doesn’t really work, since it’s an instanced version of the actual zones, rather than having them legitimately changed.

But I don’t think that this ultimately helps my alts when I’m leveling either. I think it goes back to the crux of my issue with not feeling like a zone is worth my time going to outside of which quests are less annoying to deal with.

I think your other two points might help a lot, though, especially with revamping old zones to not be relics from Cata, BC, Wrath, or WoD. When I was doing these quests in the current expansion, it was nice to see how Arthas was being a threat or something - but Arthas is dead, everyone knows that already. It feels strange going back in time to be introduced to a villain that is already dead and then never actually fight him.

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Yep. And I think it’s critically important that the updated questing for these areas AREN’T tied to the story of the newest xpac or any point in any kind of timeline – each zone should have local self-contained story “episodes”, a lot like how EK/Kalimdor were in Vanilla. We should be able to level through these zones 5 years from now and everything still make sense without resorting to various mental acrobatics.

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i dont mind anything after level 60 tbh, i just hate 1-60, or 20-60 for my allied races

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There has to be an obvious reason people are finding "alternative " leveling methods etc. Blizzard has to realize this .

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speed of sound leveling? my xp must be broken.

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Gotta go fast. Zoom zoom, lickity split!