The Squish, Classic, Future

So hypothetically if…

Classic = 1 - 30, BC and Wotlk = 30 - 35, Cata and MoP = 35 - 40, WoD = 40 - 45, Legion = 45 - 50, BfA = 50 - 60.

It could work. We could see a redesign of the entire leveling system that could very well bring us back to a much more rewarding leveling experience.

Now I already have 45+ characters over level 110 and while in the back of my mind I know I would hate to see them all reduced in level to 60ish I also believe it will benefit the game and players overall.

But lets be honest for a second. A squish and redesign on this scale opens up so many possibilities. Old talent trees, old weapon skills, a better glyph system, maybe even an entirely new character progression system they will make this game once again feel like a real MMORPG. I mean in my opinion it hasn’t for a long time and this kind of change could open up that door.

On the heels of Classic they will need to do something. I don’t think they are going to be too happy spending money on the current game’s development if the original version is a great success and is ultimately more popular. If I had to make any guess that was perhaps one of the greatest fears in bringing back Classic.

Time will tell with that one. Could really go any way at this point. I just want to see this game continue on at the end of the day and people to enjoy it. As I am told many do not right now. Even I only log in to raid when I can.

So the future for WoW really is unpredictable in my opinion.

4 Likes

Gryff, were going to have to make room for 25 more expansions.

1 Like

Heck, they might as well just set everyone back to level one at the start of every expansion and let them level up to 25 or something.

I mean, they’re just numbers, right?

12 Likes

You must be out of your mind thinking BFA deserves a whole 10 levels to it’s Legion Copy+Paste game play while better expansions get a measly 5 levels. And classic hoarding 30 lvls and getting their own servers? Sod off with your rose colored goggles.

Nothing you suggested here needs a squish to the number of levels to work, you could keep the 120-130 that we have and still have these

10 Likes

Well you could always do what they did in Warcraft 3 I guess. 10 levels per expansion. Yes, I know it’d make Ragnaros and MC a level 10 dungeon but…

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I would rather everything just be 1-60. That way I can go wherever I want and fully do the whole expo if I choose to. Hopefully they do class overhauls because even with a squish it wont make anything better. Its just so boring and unfulfilling. Profession overhauls as well. I should want to do them while leveling.

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They need to retool the quest system. I’d suggest getting rid of the massive amount of pointless fetch and kill quests. Quests should drive the story and guide players through the world efficiently. Fetch/kill quests are better handled via real-time events that tie in to the overall story (a la Guild Wars 2).

They could also get rid of character level, replace with iLvL and scale appropriately.

Right now it just seems like you go into a zone and level through the current content before you even finish with one zone because all you do is get caught up doing stupid fetch and kill quests.

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So what does this do to the new player or non-raider, turning the entire game into a series of grinds that one must park in and find enough other players raiding to level? Sounds like the game will never have another new player.

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But does anyone think they are going to FIX leveling and make it more fun and less of a grind? When has this team EVER made something feel more rewarding and less of a grind?

They are just going to make you take longer to ding a level. Whoopie. And no way will they tweak it to feel more exciting or rewarding. This is the team that didn’t give us a talent at max level in BFA. This is the team that wanted us to grind Island Expeditions for nothing but a roll of the dice and some Azerite, lol.

Seriously, how can any of you think that this dev team is going to make leveling better?

7 Likes

Id prefer next expac is 50-60, everything else is 1-50. Expac after is 60-70, BfA gets rolled into everything else and everything else goes to 1-60.

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How would leveling work exactly? i just imagine Bliz making it take a REALLLLLLLY long time to get to 60.

No way it’s going to take the amount of time it currently takes. Even with looms.

Too many zones.

They’d probably have to cut a lot of quests or really reduce experience gotten with quests.

2 Likes

Level squish is unnecessary.

9 Likes

I might be out of my mind but I can only assume they would want to have the entire story of the former expansion to see some form of close to complete play through but it wouldn’t bother me in the least to see it also reduced to 5 levels since it is all about number tuning and they can after all make you do the same content for those 5 levels as what was needed for 10.

At the end of the this is really only about making WoW more approachable to new players I think and in my opinion. People are far more likely to give a game with a level cap of 60 a try then a game with a level cap of 120+. Am I wrong?

That would be nice but it is kind of mandatory I think at this point for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

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All of the proponents say this, but they don’t actually say how it will make it more rewarding. Can you explain how a squish will make it more rewarding?

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You are pretty optimistic.

This is the same crew that gave us IEs as “content” as well as warfronts. Also a 2 spec class, because apparently a third spec was “too similar”.

They have just as much potential to hose this as bad as 7.3.5.

I think leveling is worse than ever. Instead of a boring fast grind … now its just a boring slow grind.

Oh and let’s not forget the model reskins as “races” in order to sell more boosts/race/faction changes.

Yeah I’m not optimistic.

This has SWG - NGE written all over it.

4 Likes

Making it more rewarding would mean a return to older systems. Such as an actual talent point every level and glyph slots that unlock every 15 levels. Then requiring us to also visit class trainers instead of having our skills magically made available as we level.

Personally I would also like to see weapon skills return. It was nice to also see your weapon skills improve as you got stronger then to need to also learn a different type of weapon skill and raise it if you wanted another weapon type. Simply put… More was better IMO. You just felt far more invested and yes even a greater sense of reward as you leveled.

Again this is all my opinion. But no matter how you slice it and no matter what they do or don’t change. Having a much lower level ceiling will be far more inviting to new players if that is the target for the squish.

I think there should be more flexibility in leveling. I would do:

Kalimdor/EK: 1-30
Northrend/Outland/MoP/Cataclysm: 20-40
Draenor/Broken Isles: 30-50
BfA: 50-60
Next expac: 60-70

No, it couldn’t!

Good god, it doesn’t address any of the issues with leveling. Stop giving it the benefit of the doubt and call it what it is: A stupid idea that solves nothing.

5 Likes

When they introduced elite ensembles during Legion which let someone upon hitting 2k be comfortable knowing they’d get the full mog at the end of the season, rather than making the player grind every week in the hopes of achieving their mog the hard way through RNG drops.