A small number, who were rightly contradicted by people who pointed out it would homogenize the game, ruin all sense of progression, and lead us on the path to here.
Which makes you wonder if the entire situation wasn’t engineered to break the system so they could introduce this nonsensical “solution” to a problem they created in the first place with scaling.
Level squish has to happen. It’s been mentioned here ever since MoP, at least. Mob scaling is very late to the party in terms of what triggered the discussion.
It’s very simple why it has to be done: When I first bought the game, your character was done at level 60, and then end game started. Now it takes 120 levels, and because the time commitment is so compressed, the whole story starts to feel like a Reader’s Digest Condensed Books series.
You basically end up with one of two ways out of this: One, you can allow anyone who has leveled a toon organically to max level to be able to boost all their alts for free, whenever they choose. But that doesn’t fix the issue of new players having to get to max level (plus it robs the store of boosted toon revenue). The second way is via a level squish for everyone.
I’m going to be interested to see how much of the squish simply gets baked into the leveling experience via less XP per kill or per quest turn-in. I highly suspect not as much is going to change as people think it will. But this ever-expanding, ballooning story is a problem when you’re trying to get someone up to speed at max level. As long as the game is focused on max-level content, at least.
I would love to level my character all through mop content if possible.
…or three: they undo this horrible change that never should have been done in the first place. Anyone that actually does like it can be given a homogenized server to play on while the rest of us can actually enjoy playing a game that has a sense of progression once again.
As it stands currently there’s zero point to having levels passed 100 anyway. They just kind of… exist.
If a level squish brings back something to look forward to every level, whether it be a new ability or a talent, then I’m for it personally.
Well, there’s egg on my face now, how awkward.
Still, I hope blizzard doesn’t do it. I don’t see the point unless culling levels also makes leveling faster (which it won’t). If it still takes the same amount of time to get to the new cap at, lets say 60, as it does to get to 120 then you’re spending the same amount of time between useful upgrades. Why bother to give the illusion of change?
If they remove the homogenization they’ve brought to the game with scaling, then a sense of progression will return. THERE’S your “something to look forward to” rather than having boars that kill you after you just defeated sargeras.
And that solves us only getting two rows of talents in 40 levels how?
A row of talents is the thing that makes or breaks the game for you?
They’re just mining the player base for options as to future development.
At least that’s how I took it. May not happen, Idk. If it does, doesn’t really matter.
I agree, I wouldn’t like it but what’s the alternative and would it really matter?
I can see it being useful if we end up in a whole new world or still in Azeroth but in a whole new situation instead of just the usual faction war.
Having something to look forward to as I level makes or breaks the game, yes. I like adding a new ability to my bar after reaching the level to unlock it or picking a talent once I’ve unlocked them as well. It feels good, it feels like I’m accomplishing something with my time.
After about 75 or so when there aren’t new abilities to be earned and only 2 rows of talents to look forward to every 10-15 levels that driving factor no longer exists. It becomes a grind to reach the part of the game where I can start having fun again.
Wait what? What do you mean speculation? They literally asked if players are aware that a level squish is going to happen. This isn’t a random survey, it’s made by blizzard. I’m not quite sure how much more confirmation you’d need, not even sure how much more you can get outside of ion himself saying yes but he already mentioned wanting to do it so that along with the survey question is more than enough confirmation.
I don’t really care either way however Level 80 might look a lot less daunting than level 120 for new players or old returning players. It doesn’t affect me much though so I don’t care whichever way they go. I’m curious how this will affect leveling content though.
That wasn’t what I asked.
The sense of “accomplishing something with your time” comes from actually progressing with your character, as they overcome bigger and better challenges, move ahead to new challenges stronger than the last (by comparison), and so on.
When the world is flattened down to a homogenized flat line where a boar and a demon have the same power, there is no sense of getting better, stronger, or progressing as a character.
As you said:
To be Honest, I would rather them do a Cataclysm style update and update world for a more modern era.
Like a 5 year time jump. Update Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, The Broken Isles, Zuldazar, Kul’tias, and maybe Panderia. Travel to Northrend and Outland have been cut off (so we can then travel back to them updated for new story lines). All old-world content can be accessed viva Caverns of time so no content is lost like in the first world revamp.
That may be where the disconnect is. I tend to spend as little time questing as possible. I have no dog in the world scaling fight, since I spend pretty much no time in it aside from farming materials from time to time.
If you only farm mats…then what difference does your talent bar mean to you?
In that case, the only real question should be: when are they adding full compatibility for gathering enchantments?
I mean, even before the Level scaling, there were level 5 demons and level 5 boars. It’s not the type of threat that matters but how it’s built up to be a threat.
Legitimate surveys do not allow you to “retake” them as a few people trolling can drastically skew the results. Blizzard has done surveys via this website (well the previous version anyway) which specifically blocked this type of misuse. The most recent from memory was a survey asking players to choose a specialization for Celestalon to play in a “play with the developers” session on the PTR for WoD.
Current leveling, and leveling going back multiple expansions does not take 90 hours. (I notice you also removed your initial 120 hours number.) The game tracks your played time which you can see using /played. Blizzard has access to this data across all characters and would not use erroneous data. Unless it’s in relation to Classic leveling speed but boosting in Classic would not be the “Classic” experience.
Real, legitimate surveys also don’t go from 55% to 100% completion rates.
Most likely a legitimate hack or virus spreading attempt yeah.
I’d update all your antivirus software and run a full systems scan if I were you.
Screenshot or it didn’t happen.
However once you reach a certain level it just becomes completely empty leveling. That being said I am still neutral and have not made up my mind on a level squish yey.