Would be cool to see a way to level self mode with retail via a buff similar to hardcore’s self mode.
You could have a checklist unlock once you have a max level toon of what you’d like the buff to do for example:
Increase Damage Taken from mobs.
Reduce Damage done to mobs.
No Mail between characters till 70.
No AH on Self Mode characters.
Increase experience needed per level.
You get the point, some people believe it or not enjoy leveling & wouldn’t mind doing a somewhat challenging form of it on retail instead of being pigeonholed into playing an older version of the game.
Especially these 3. I play A LOT of alts and really enjoy the leveling experience, for the most part. The game has gotten a little TOO easy, and I agree with Capslock:
We should at least have an option to scale up the difficulty. Make the world feel dangerous. Just have 2 settings with 2 options each:
Increase damage taken by:
25%
50%
Reduce damage done by:
25%
50%
Also:
2 things: Yes, we absolutely could do all of that. I do it now on occasion lol but just like how the Hardcore and Self-Found modes came out, even though we could already just “play hardcore” on Classic prior, why not have an official setting so we can play/compete with people who follow the same rules? As for wearing white gear, it ruins any sense of progression with your character. Even though we want the game to be harder, we still want to feel like we’re improving.
It really bothers me when people just say ‘put on white gear if you want to make it more difficult’ because you still don’t get that sense of progression (unless you were to go from vendor to vendor trying to buy new white items/finding grays).
I just wish leveling felt important, as if someone took care to design a fun experience. As it stands right now every single mob is the same except for elites and you cant even fully experience any xpac before chromie is yelling at you. It doesnt need to take months but the 1-3 day affair that it is right now is very boring.
Why not just turn off exp and enjoy the zones you want to? I have a character just for chromie time. With exp frozen at 57 (scared to level it to 59 I’ve heard chromie wouldn’t work). Its great for me.
I’m not disagreeing with you though. Leveling challenge modes of any sort would be really interesting.
I think it’s a fun idea but retail is too far gone in terms of this;
So on one really boring day in the past I stood at the Alliance gate entry point in Howling Fjord where the Vrykul attack (as a Guardian Druid). Was an infinity game from 10-30 albeit slower than questing. I’m sure there could be some poor sod willing to do that the whole way.
I probably wouldn’t partake because leveling is still my least favorite thing to do in the game. So anything that would make that worse, no thank you. I don’t have an issue with this as an option for players that actually enjoy the experience. Nothing wrong with more options as to how one wants to play the game. Just like I don’t enjoy follower dungeons, but I appreciate that they are there as an option.
Personally, if 1-3 days is boring, then the solution isn’t to make it longer. Because this speaks to the fundamental aspects of leveling.
As it is, leveling in Retail isn’t equipped to handle a long time playing, given how shockingly lacking in the variety of things to do. Quests, World quests (Some times), Dungeons, Gathering nodes, BG’s and Pet battles (if one feels it) are the only things to level up via by.
You play in one Zone, you pretty much see what 90% of zones in WoW over the 20 or so years has to offer. The only time it differs is some expansion gimmick. Which either are non existent now, or doesn’t change how you approach the questlines and etc. And it doesn’t help you can’t access to any of the old content’s endgames while you level or it’s pointless to do so if it’s XP or rewards aren’t worth it.
The problem imo is that nothing matters. There are very few actual challenges. And 0 incentive to not just find something else to do that is better xp/hour. Idk how they could fix that tho. Too much content to design around i guess.
I’m not really talking about changing the speed of leveling here, just making it so that regular quest mobs are capable of killing a player, and that quest bosses require the use of cooldowns/utility to kill.
I suppose all these things could be toggles. I see no reason to copy paste some game mode that will be obsolete in a year. The ultimate self mode is the free starter mode. No friends permitted. No communication, no use of mail or the auction house. No joining guilds.
Make the game challenging to alts of the most experienced and skilled players. Require the use of cooldowns and utility to kill quest mobs by players who don’t have those yet, which they don’t get until later. Sounds like a plan to reduce the population of the game.