So Shadowlands will bring world scaling where you can level up from 11-50 in any Xpack area.
But at that point what’s the point in leveling at all? Get to level 11 and jump straight into legion. And after finishing off Sargeras, you can go off and fight a junior panther in Stranglethorn than will feel just as hard.
Why bother with levels at all?
I’m really curious how powerful a fresh 60 will feel in vanilla content and how we will be able to farm old raids etc myself. I don’t have a problem at all with the level squish and am very much for the idea that each level grants us a new passive or activated ability so it feels like we gain something each level but I’ve always been against the zone scaling since they started it. It’s a new rpg concept that I could never get behind which is why I don’t play modern rpgs. I should be able to go to old zones and feel the progress I’ve made, modern games just don’t give me that feeling.
the game takes more control the difficulty level.
more power over the player
I hate all of this scaling. I personally enjoyed knowing I had to be at certain levels to go to certain areas. It actually was an incentive to level up.
I guess I can go back just a couple xpacs where I seriously leveled up 30+ toons each xpac. This xpac, I had like only 3 toons for the longest time, now I think I have 6. Of my 30 toons, I only leveled like 8 up in Legion. The less I or people like me level up Alts, the less time we play. If their idea of success is “time Played” as far as I can see they are totally messing up, because I am playing only 10% of the time I did even 4 years ago.
The Blizz Devs are just so out of touch.
I think with the Shadowlands changes Blizz should remove level scaling from open world. Make leveling in an expansion feel like you’re going deeper into the continent where the stronger enemies are, as opposed to everything being normalized around you.
Since leveling will be much shorter, Blizz can afford to remove the scaling now.
The 10-50 scaling is only if you talk to Chromie. It also turns off once you hit 50. So you can beat up the Legion and then that panther in STV will be easy to kill.
Where did you get that info??
Leveling is simple, easy-to-understand content that particularly appeals to casual players.
I know at least 50 people in real life who used to play WoW. And every time a new expansion comes out, if the subject of WoW comes up (and it often does), their first question is always “what’s the new level cap?”
Even mobile games like Hay Day use levels. It’s a basic gaming mechanic for the casual player, giving repeatable and easy-to-understand goals and rewards.
Blizzard’s problem is that they removed the ‘rewards’ part.
From Blizzcon and various interviews.
Once you hit level 10, you can choose to talk to Chromie and then whatever content you choose to do will scale from 10-50. Then, once you reach level 50, the scaling turns off. Or you can level the way we do now and jump from expansion to expansion.
Here’s an interview that does some explaining of “Chromie time” as Blizzard calls it.
So all of the legacy content - Pandaria and the like - that’s being scaled somehow?
Patrick Magruder: It’ll be scaled from 10 to 50.
Actually, to be clear, it’ll be scaled from 10 to 50 while you’re levelling. However, that’s where Chromie comes in - Chromie Time. As you’re doing it from 10 to 50, it’s Chromie time, it’s scaled. Once you hit 50, Chromie will show up again and say, ‘Hey, it looks like you’re done, cool - let’s bring you back to the main timeline,’ and then you’ll be 50 and Pandaria will have been scaled down to around, I’m going to guess, 35-ish in the new scheme.
Michael Bybee: The point there is if you want to run a Pandaria raid because you really like the transmog, you can still do that because those creatures will be lower level than you once you’ve left Chromie Time and you’re no longer levelling up.
And then the Blizzcon deep dive has some more information:
You can think of this as analogous to our Timewalking essentially. So you will choose a setting, we will aim you at the correct story, and you can do all of your leveling all the way up to 50 — in which of these stories you want to?
Those of you who still want to play Warchief-shuffle can go ahead and just wander around in the world. You are not forced to do this; but we think that this is going to be a much better experience and give justice to the stories that have been lost in terms of relevance over the years.
Around level 50, you will leave Chromie Time and that altered-timewalking mode, and you enter the Shadowlands with everyone else.
I never liked the idea of level scaling at all. I can see the benefits of it but overall I think level scaling just makes the entire world bland. The game loses a big dynamic of the world zones.
The biggest letdown for me now is that you never really have the feeling that you are becoming much more powerful as you level up. I always liked seeing the boost in my character performance in the zone I was in every time I leveled up.
One thing I always found fun while leveling up was daring myself to wander into areas that had much higher-level mobs. It gave a feeling that you were really in a hostile environment since you knew that if you were to get attacked or attack any mob there, you’re really going to need to use some skill to either escape or kill it. It was always a lot of fun to fight against mobs that were several levels higher and beating them after a long fight, and reaping the large XP as a result.
Conversely, I also liked being able to go through areas that I’ve leveled beyond, and just killing mobs so easily to do a relaxing grind or whatever.
I think level scaling really removes a big dynamic of the experience of becoming more powerful and that the different zones had much more in store than just new scenery.
Thank you for the info and source material. You just upped my hype quite a bit. As long as they adjust legacy legion where it’ll be legacy loot as scheduled I’ll be fantastic. Really stoked for this new leveling experience.
That’s the big question isn’t it?
Some people love the argument “it’s just a number!”, but what’s a mmo really? A style of game in which we grind exclusively to increase our numbers, these being level, ilvl, stats, pvp rating, honor, higher m+ keys, DPs, HPS etc. Hell, even collecting is just a grind for bigger numbers: more mounts, toys, pets and achievements.
On a game in which everything is nothing but a grind for bigger numbers, squishing them goes 100% against the sole purpose of said game.
It’s a dumb move, might not change anything gameplay-wise, but it’ll feel weird, it’ll feel like we’ve worked for nothing.
And don’t get me started on how we all know Blizzard will screw this up, how vanilla mobs will one shot mythic-geared players because Blizzard will just screw things up as usual and it’ll take months to fix. Fanboys can fanboy all their want, but they know I’m right, Blizzard did that twice after the ilvl squishes, imagine how bad it’ll be with an actual level squish.
I also hated the fact that all the scaling took away any form of Character Progression as you were leveling up. The whole idea was to get stronger as you leveled, not get 10 levels higher to find that you’re going to take the same amount of time to kill the same thing that you did 10 levels earlier.
It’s a huge mistake, and Shadowlands should be 5 levels not 10.
Well yes, and in actual fact scaling means you get weaker because your gear scales down as you level up. So unless you get stronger gear, it’s worse to level up.
The strongest I’ve found my alliance race toons, is right out of the gate at level 20 with their initial gear. Oneshotting everything. From then on, the gear is never the same, and they get weaker and weaker.
Not me, it made leveling so boring having to do the same rotation of levels on every single alt. No thanks.
Because it allows for a more streamlined leveling experience for long time players. In addition to that newer players will not be jarred by the constant and often jarring lore changes without becoming confused.
WoW has reached the point where the story has become less like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and more like an anthology. And I’ve never met a person who read through stories they didn’t really like to get to their favorite author.
Try and play this from Blizzard’s side to better understand their problem:
For years, the main complaint was “I’m so sick and tired of hitting 58, and HAVING to go to HFP. I hate the zone, I’m bored with it, I just want to do something else.”
It’s a valid complaint. Made even more valid when you compare the BC launch to LK, where in LK, we had TWO different starting locations. All these years later, and Howling Fjord still feels new to me, because for years prior to that, I always started in Borean Tundra.
And so now, hitting 58 and being able to go STRAIGHT to Howling Fjord feels amazing!
By and large, the player-base agrees with this. Having the option to jump around zones is MOSTLY a good thing.
I say “mostly” because there is still that element of “BT/HF used to be the starter zones, you grew and gained power and then Icecrown felt EVIL. It was where you FINISHED. Now… it’s just another zone.” There’s truth to that. But for the MOST part, I think being able to level wherever you want (certainly at this point in the game) is a good thing.
And so, this Chromie thing is an extrapolation of that. Welcome to the REAL WORLD!!! Where decisions are pretty much NEVER black and white. Every REAL problem you encounter is some sort of gray, a little give and take with this and that. So yes, we lose some of that feeling of power-growth as you level, but it allows you to level ANYWHERE YOU WANT.
I think what Blizzard is focusing on is that the “power-growth curve” is what you/they want to focus on AT MAX LEVEL. In BfA terms, how you grow in power from 40 to 120 isn’t worth the trouble. How you grow in power from 120 (greens) to 120 (epics), to 120 (M+ epics) … THAT is where Blizzard wants the focus. And… again, it’s not a black and white thing. There is some validity to it, there are some drawbacks to it.
Frankly, I think 99% of the people posting threads like this are hypocrites. They level 20+ alts, they always use Heirloom gear, and they only speak to complain about how long it takes to level. You don’t like the leveling process ANYWAY. Don’t expect me to take you seriously when you complain about the fact you don’t feel stronger at 62 than you did at 44. You only care about racing to 120 ANYWAY. Give us all a break.
Good post and I agree but you shouldn’t say things like this.
You have no idea what most people think.
If a panther in Stranglethorn gives you as much trouble as Sargeras, even with scaling, you’re doing it wrong.