It’s really nice running around exploring Azeroth after playing Classic. But the leveling experience feels too sterile and boring. Everything scales to your level. There’s no challenge if you are under leveled. Can we just go back to each zone having a set level bracket like in Classic?
It’s better being able to level up in your favorite zones regardless of level.
6 Likes
Nah it’s terrible, mob scaling is bad and the result of lazy developers in every game its in.
3 Likes
Scaling is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it removes any sense of progression from the game. If you are always at relative power to your enemies, there’s not really much feeling of growth. In fact, you get weaker because as you level up and get new abilities, you’re expected to know how to use those abilities, and inefficient use of abilities makes you weaker, and also as your gear falls behind, you’re getting weaker relative to your enemies. At lv11, you could kill stuff in ~3 seconds flat with 2 abilities. At level 75, it takes you 10-15 seconds and going through a whole rotation to kill that same enemy. You actually end up feeling weaker. If it weren’t for scaling, you could hand-wave it as being simple rats and dogs that you’re killing, but with scaling, you can jump right into killing level 11 dragons and other “powerful” monsters.
Without scaling, you start in a zone, and it might be upper yellow and it’s a struggle to win fights, but by the time you’re done with the zone, stuff is either almost green, or green entirely and you are effortlessly blowing stuff away as you wrap up the zone. You mastered the zone, and you can easily feel your new power, and you can go to a new zone that was red before and now it’s yellow, do-able but with some difficulty.
However…
Scaling also alleviates worries when it comes to finding gear, especially weapons. Some bad RNG, or bad quest design, means your character could be struggling for 3-4 hours because your weapon is 2 levels out of date, especially if you’re a dual-wield class.
But sometimes I think scaling is an overall detriment. I played through TBC Classic and some of Wrath Classic, and I tell you, it makes a HUGE difference when stuff isn’t always your level. Sure, that limits you to where you can go when, but yet the payoff is that you can feel your power growing.
2 Likes
This is a problem at max level too. I noticed in Shadowlands that it became more difficult to kill mobs in the Maw as I got more geared. It’s kind of like punishing you for playing the game.
Though I have to disagree about the benefits of scaling. I think the majority has spoken by the recent popularity of Classic leveling.
Well, I mean, when I did my TBC Classic Paladin, there were several “dry” spots in which the lack of a weapon was really holding me back and making stuff hard to kill. But I suppose that’s more of bad quest design than scaling that was the problem, but still.
Scaling does alleviate that.
Shadowlands was egregious when it came to scaling based on i-level.
They didn’t do that in TWW, they used some other method. I remember stuff suddenly getting significantly harder as I got more gear up until a certain point. Heck, I remember taking max level characters (who got their XP with Archaeology and Pet Battles) wearing gear from 2 expansions ago and finding it easier to kill stuff in Shadowlands than my alts that leveled IN Shadowlands lol.
It’s just ashame because “retail” has so much polish and these zones look so good. But then when the rubber hits the road, I just want to log off and go back to Classic, if that makes sense. Because it’s actually fun to level there.
I guess “retail” is more just buy a boost and mythic+.
I prefer a decent TTK and good graphics over anything that Classic could ever offer, but I’m glad people enjoy it.
Cata Classic isn’t too bad. Vanilla and TBC Classic absolutely stunk, though especially if you were an unfortunate soul trying to play a Ret Paladin.
Just go buy a weapon from the AH or do a dungeon. You really want to ruin the entire experience because you have a bit of an uphill battle with a bad weapon?
Until most of the way through Wrath Classic, there’s no LFD tool.
And there’s big gaps in weapons over the I-levels especially in the AH. It wasn’t always that simple, and sometimes the weapons that were in the AH were like 20+ gold and quests gave you like 20 silver and vendor junk was like 5 silver or something stupid like that.
Also, doing a dungeon, there’s no guarantees a weapon is gonna drop at all.
My game stops at Dragonflight and as long as I don’t visit SW/Org, I can keep most of the game at level 70-73 Chromie Time and it is a blast! Scaling in some areas is on par while others destroy me in ways that I can’t overcome solo, adds some level of difficulty I enjoy. Not everywhere scales to 70, most areas that are meant for max level don’t.
Particularly WoD, Legion, and BFA are great at permanent level 70; I’m not one-shot killing everything while still progressing through the stories with the Dalaran Defender gear, so most of my alts are ilvl 480. I’m enjoying myself, as long as I can keep this up I’ll stay subbed.
Yeah, I have a character frozen at 69 and it’s nice that I can set the whole world to 69 and do all the stories with her at relative level and probably make a crapton of money by the time I’m done.
If they removed the level scaling, they would also have to remove the gear ilvl scaling with it.