New Leveling Experience Option

Community General Discussion
1

Firstly, Lower the player level cap to 60.

Secondly, Once a player creates a new character enable them to select out a scenario out of all the previous expansions.
They should be very linear.
So, Wrath of the Lich King expansion starts you off as a Trainee knight (When playing a warrior), thrust into battle before your training had even begun.
You play through the expansion fighting the undead armies - from 1-60.
Then your character at Cap of 60 - is described as retiring, but the king sends his personal Royal Knights to deliver you a plea to return to fight the Insert Current Expansion Boss.

Say you choose Cataclysm to play 1-60 - This time, you are not a trainee, but a battle-hardened Death Knight - and your Leaders have commission you with a Ghoul to study.
His name is Sir Redwin - and this Ghoul is under the delusional belief he is still human.
He, at times, Drinks and eats, but it falls straight out his ribcage.
He has a personal storyline that you can do alongside the Cataclysm zones.

Ultimately, climaxing in either this companions demise or a lifelong companion that can be used as a toy to summon him and tell you jokes, or remind you of a quest you did with him.
In a ghoulish voice “remember that time you died to that spider. Haha. Truly a hilarious story to tell the family – Wait. Why aren’t you dead?”
(Obviously, they can’t be personalised, but you get my drift)

Then you create a new character, a rogue. He’s been saddled with an overseeing rogue officer who needs to audit his activity, after a scandal involving SI-7.
This companion is the Voice Actor, Mathew Mercer, doing a Mccree voice (Character Name Obviously, Mercer).
He’s been auditing you, but secretly you’ve been revealing his background - and you reveal tragic events in his past - His wife murdered, children drowned in a lake, and Home burnt to rubble.
The culprit; A High ranking official in the Horde Ranks.
To exact revenge, you must travel to the war front on the Mists of Pandaria - Where the culprit, a brilliant Assassin, outsmarts you at every turn - Leaving dead friends in his wake - and only you to smell the gun powder of his work.

I think for new players this helps build a character story arch - and gives weight to the individual character.
It also makes levelling a significantly less confusing experience.
You can emphatically say that my Shaman fought bravely against the Horde and other forces in Outland - and slew his foes leading to the protection of his homeland.

Each new character can be played in a different expansion - and each class has a unique companion at every expansion. (Such as Sir Redwin, and Mercer - As described above)
Anything is better than the current system - I dread trying new classes - and dread spending MORE money to Boost.

For the sake of the game, this levelling conundrum is in need of vital change.

2 Likes
2

This sounds like a lot more work than it is actually worth

2 Likes
3

Oh, and ‘The Culprit’ needs to have the initials as ‘JR’ - revealing him as Jake Peralta.

1 Like
4

You are suggesting a fundamental change to the entire game. Or basically saying you want a new game in the WoW universe

2 Likes
5

How is this a fundamental change?

This is just using each expansion as a character story line.
You aren’t changing the storylines of each expansion.

Just creating a character with a new starting story.
Not just a Jane Doe stumbling through all expansions and never really understanding the events of each one.

At the end of the day Blizzard is haemmoraging money NOT doing anything.
I’m sure there are many new players who drop out because of the leveling experience.

1 Like
6

Giving each and every contenent the cata treatment, and then giving you the option of where you want to start your adventure would be pretty amazing. There could be lots of subraceand background options not unlike Dragon Age that influence where you start in the world. (ex: scarlet crusader human would start in northrend).

Buuuuutt something like that is just a pipe dream. Even if something along those lines would be good for the game, the time, effort, and money involved would never see a return on investment.

4 Likes
7

Very true.

You can only dream.
The content scaling is in-place.
So I don’t personally believe the leap would be that hard.

But I agree that the leveling experience isn’t the thing that draws new players in.
However, what does draw them in?
And what causes them to leave?

I think an answer to those questions may reveal a need, and consequently, a neccesity to change the leveling experience.

1 Like
8

Friends or general curiosity bring players in.

And I’d argue that it is the leveling experience that causes them to leave/stay.

For example, I started playing ffxiv last month. The main story quest line for ARR (base game) spans from 1 to 50. You meet new characters along the way, develop relationships with them, and overall just experience a very cohesive and satisfying story. At the end of the level 50 quests I felt like I just finished a single player game because the story was so good.

Ffxiv has a fantastic new player experience. Is the end game good? I honestly don’t know yet, but because I am having fun leveling to get there, I’m going to find out.

Thats why new people leave wow…they just can’t get into it when there are so many better options out there. I realize my personal story was a long winded say of saying “you’re right” but I got carried away.

Tldr: OP is right, we need a new leveling experience, but we don’t get it because it won’t be profitable.

9

  1. Remove level scaling

  2. Revert the world to pre-Cata

  3. Profit

PS What you’re proposing is WELL beyond the capabilities of the current crew of Devs.

10

Oh yeah how I miss quests in arathi highlands sending me to STV and vice versa

1 Like
11

Leveling a char now is as good as it has ever been, esp if you go in to Warmode. It flies by with the XP slashing from a month or so ago.

I took my DI alt through all of WoD in about 5-6 hours over 2 days, and that was with a lot of derping around building up the garrison, which I cannot resist doing even though it’s largely pointless for non-tailors.