No he's saying that squishing doesn't solve the problem. The problem is not the number, it's the reward structure of lvling as a whole. Introducing a lvl squish may introduce a lot of unforeseen problems, it makes the lvling at endgame sluggish (unless you want them to do 10-lvl expansions and lvl squish every other expansion), without actually solving the real problem.
@@qianzyl that is very true i agree with you that ONLY a number a squish wont improve the game, but hopefuly blizzard will do much more work other than a simple number change. I was just arguying that bringing systems like he mentioned like master talents and box rewards will only make it worse, while on by itself isnt a bad idea, it was actually creative. Peace m8 ☺
He isn't debunking level squish as a whole. He's debunking in terms of Blizz's view that a level squish should help fix leveling and "get back to a place where levels truly matter."
I agree on the old content. Instead of letting people solo old content dungeons put rewards in them that all players can use. scale the levels so a lvl 50 and a lvl 100 can both do the same dungeon where the level 50 would get lvl 50 epics and the lvl 100 would get lvl 100 epics. But both are scaled to lvl 60 while in the dungeon, make the boss fights like they were when the content came out.
@@jamesw71 that would destroy game balance and only make a few dungeons relevant based on the gear the gave. Just get rid of titanforging, groupfinder, world quests, all of it. Bring back old talent trees, force player interaction. Slow leveling down make mobs more lethal. Turn it into an mmo again
@@V2ULTRAKill I enjoy the game. But I really do not care to know people online. Force me to interact? I enjoy the game enough to play around that. Let the lonely people have their thing. If it helps me in the game, great. If the cost is too high, forget it. I pay to have fun. Not to volunteer as a frustration test dummy.
I just love that Defenders of Azeroth idea, there is so much potential there to reengage the players with the storylne. Having an invasion/attack on zones across Azeroth, Outland, and Draenor that is based on the enemy of the expansion (Wotlk-scourge, Cata- elements, etc.) would really ramp up the excitement at those lower levels.
as long as they give a buffer between the leveling hubs and the invasion zones. Im not saying miles apart, but far enough away to not completely impede those who are leveling from progressing. that was the only issue I had with them, is the fact that things like the invasions would hamper anyone not max level from accessing key parts of the game. I mean there are people who love griefing lower level players but Id like the people leveling to have the ability to play the game as well, unimpeded.
Outland-Illidari, naga, and maybe blood elves WotLK-Scourge, blue dragonflight, and Titan-forged Cata-Elements, black dragons, Twilight Cult Mists-Mogu, Mantid and sha, saurok, yaungol, and maybe Zandalari WoD Maybe same as Garrison Invasion threats with the High Arakkoa as an extra
That would be the smartest thing everything new makes all the work they created prior completely irrelevant. Which makes no sense nowadays they make each new tiers gear far to higher instead of like 5 levels each tier they do like 25
@@Sorrior exactly! I can understand removing special rewards such as the legendary cloaks and ring but don't remove the actual questline! those questlines are an important part of the story that often laid the groundwork for future content.
I think a solution would perhaps be to scale old content down, perhaps? Make it feasible for a 5-man group. This simultaneously makes it so you don't need 15-20 people to be interested in order to even begin, and could come with the possibility of keeping old fight mechanics present, but scaled down. Put in some weekly rewards/transmog for doing old content and BAM. A game with a living world and multiple stories to engage with, not just the chapter that came out last month.
That's why the newer MMORPG will be better because they make older zones relevant still to the story and leveling experience. Merely phasing out and revamping some zones while following quests can offer a changing world so long you follow the story and can always return through chromie in this case.
Zone-specific skills and loot boxes are terrible ideas. Nothing makes me feel worse when playing a game than when I spend time earning zone-specific abilities or stat bonuses just to have them taken away from me when I go into a dungeon. Our characters should grow and gain power that we can take with us anywhere we go. Leveling isn't in a bad spot because we don't get enough flashy, cool rewards. It's in a bad spot because leveling isn't fun. Blizzard has totally neglected the leveling experience since WotLK. The end game IS the game now. Leveling, which should be a significant aspect of the experience has been reduced to a minor inconvenience. The way they fix their game is to make the next expansion FUN and to focus on the end game being an eventuality and not the sole priority. There should be things to do before and after max level and it should always feel good to be playing the game. Blizz needs to completely rethink the way they are approaching content at all levels. I know there will be hardcore players that disagree and just want to no-life the game to endgame and push raids as fast as they can, and that should be possible, but the game shouldn't be built around that ideology. If it is, how can you expect any other aspect of the game before endgame to be fun? People still do that shit in classic and it takes way longer to level. Don't make the game around the players. Make the game for the sake of making a fun game and let the players decide how they want to play it.
The problem is constantly enforcing that "this time rating decay was soooo much worse than in any other leveling phase before even though there was no difference whatsoall" and of course: Why did they have to give people 2 legendary effects, take em away and expect everybody to agree with that?
At the end of the day a level squish is a change that wouldn't effect current players, it helps removed the daunting nature of what would be 130 levels.
But those levels feel fine as far as time and flow even without heirlooms. The problem lies in the lack of rewards during those times. It doesn't matter how many levels there are if you never get anything out of them. I realize i'm reiterating him but I think it's important to get that point across. I proposed an idea on reddit of instead of trying to do any squishing or anything instead add to the Heirloom sets and make them be a real set that on top of each individual piece you can get a bonus for a full set so people can pick and mix their leveling speed and it would continue the flexibility of either going super fast or taking a slow pace and make it something that you can turn on and off so you could have heirloom gear and get the benefits of it but not be forced to level fast. EDIT: I also suggested sped up scenario based experience in a fast track story experience to give new players a chance to get all the main story and level quickly.
Level squish would just be one part of the problem solved, progression would still be shit, just for fewer levels. They need to change talent and ability progression as well.
I think if they are serious about fixing it, this would still be a good start. Like the saying goes "A thousand mile journey begins with a single step". Also if they do the level squish it will give them the perfect opportunity to change/improve the talents. I personally would love to see some of the passive stats talents back (like crit/haste//dodge etc.) to choose from because it will bring back the RPG element into a mmoRPG game like Belluar's suggestion about "prime" talents and perks. It will bring nice personalization to your character depending what style is more fitting to you.
Level squish would be amazing, and give them the ability to add more content within those levels. It would be easier to manage and also not require so much per level in regards to points ect to reduce bloat. Everyone who is opposed to level squish is a dough head. You aren't really thinking it through. You're just jumping way too fast onto the "NOOOOOO" Wagon. This is why the game won't change for the good, you never let them change it when they want to.
level squishy doesn't change anything, its the same thing as a stat squish it changes nothing, just looks cleaner. if they reduce the time it takes to level that's different, but it still doesn't fix the end game that you're rushing to.
I think the implementation would have to be done right. Are these events in every zone at a time? Random zones throughout the week? One/multiple zones each day? If you are levelling in darkshore travelling to say eastern plaguelands could feel like too much of a hassle. But I think it's a good premise and should be explored
I agree wholeheartedly. There's also a bonus in that it would help to fix one of Blizzard's other problems. You know, the one that made them think taking out some portals was the answer. Making the world feel larger and more dynamic. The answer to an empty, static world is always to give it more content. This would be a great way to do it.
@@ZapAttack323 i would say it could be implemented in phased zones. like after finishing maybe some introductory quests for the zone they can appear, lets say for the sake of diversity, every 12 hours and it shifts focus of zones every week (this week westfall, northern barrens, ashenvale, ghostlands, etc) that way it's incentivized to do more content for more rewards and if someone who isn't lvl capped hasn't been to that zone before they can be ported like with lfr or something
Same. One of their reasons for dumbing it down, then removing it was "People just go find the best builds and copy those!" which was utter nonsense. Not saying people didn't do that, but far more people experimented and found the builds that worked for them. Sure, it was incremental increases per talent point except for major ones, but it felt like progress. You were, point by point, making your build. It made it exciting to get to that next five or ten point mark, to get that next ability that helped to change and shape your spec. That all got removed for 'more meaningful choices' which literally amounted to "Three talents that all do roughly the same thing, with a little flavor for each." Sure, it made it easier for them to balance since they knew what everyone would be bringing, but ripped the soul out of the system and left a hollow mess.
I think it would be really helpful to bring back old talent system along with a level squish, that’s just me personally. Back in the day I looked forward to leveling up, just so that I could get my next talent point and new abilities. Now basically every level after lvl 80 feels like an empty number that means nothing. I really feel like a level squish and talent system rework would help the game tremendously.
Saimeren I agree, but I want to have fun whilst leveling. Also the talent system makes endgame more that two talent builds. In the end it gives more fun and more choice.
Love your idea of the perks + prime talents. This would give consistent rewards and actually make you look forward to the prime talents since you'd keep pulling up the UI each level and see yourself getting closer to them. As for the idea of world/leveling-specific abilities and perks, this worries me since it would create a further disconnect between different types of content. It's already somewhat awkward having the pvp talent system where perks and abilities from there get disabled upon entering instances.
I think a big part of that disconnect has to do with how PvP talents are directly combat and character power oriented. If these perks were non-combat things, but still tied to class, that could make a difference. However, some classes will of course be easier to design for, since you can explain some things easily with Magic. In theory, though, I think it's worth a shot.
Player: Leveling is lacking. Blizzard: We understand, and will fix it with more leveling rewards! Player: What kind of level rewards ? Blizzard: More horse mounts! Player: 🤬
Yeah listening to Bell say that we get pets/mounts for leveling and completing brackets/zones made me instantly not care. I'm not in this for another reskin of a horse/wolf/whatever. Mounts and pets have lost their coolness and wow factor.
NeflewitzInc there’s just too freaking many of them. Same with armor. There’s too much with glowing flames and shit and the designs are still the same ol’ ideas just put together in a slightly different package. Back in vanilla, your gear looked like total shite until you had tier pieces, so those tier pieces were immediately recognizable and COOL.
The problem isn't the number of levels. The problem is there is nothing to do AT those levels ... until you reach max level. The game is designed to literally funnel you through mundane grinding and then allows you to play (almost as a reward) for doing all that boring work. How is that fun? The have created a beautiful and massive online world and completely waste it. At 120 I have absolutely no real reason to go back to older levels (unless for mats, or some other non-consequential thing). Then expect you to stay 2 years in a condensed area only to leave and do something completely different (leaving all old mechanics behind). Where is the progression in that? Everquest always had the right approach. Create a (somewhat) endless progression system that trickles power immediately and becomes more noticeable over time. This allows for unique builds across the same classes and adds depth the gameplay. ESO did the same thing with much success with the Champion Point system (granted there are other issues there, but the point is there was an endgame system to worked over time that WoW simply does not have). But to me, the underlying issue isn't the progression or how they structure progress. Its the fact that WoW is no longer or quickly moving away from its ROLE PLAYING GAME roots and moving more towards a MOBA (jump in, do a dungeon or other event, progress, log off). Its one of the reasons I bleieve there is HUGE anticipation for WoW Classic. its not just rose colored glasses. its a return to a more difficult gameplay experience where playing the game was the point and not just getting to max level. Wow lost that and I'm not sure they can get it back. I'll see what 8.2 does.
Cosmetics are the easiest reward to give. They don't require any balancing. However, without stats they won't feel too rewarding after the excitement of getting them wears off. That's why he listed it as an extrinsic reward. Flashy things always attract the eyes of the masses, so adding cool cosmetics would at least put people off until they can figure out a real fix to the problem.
How? If they do a level squish, then they would squish down the talent tree. Sure you will get it faster, but we do not have that many talents to begin with. In initiating a level squish, they could just increase the experience needed to level up. Know how horrible that would be? How about just focus on making a person more powerful by increasing their stats or just giving a reward once you level max. If that is not enough, which it wouldn't be. They could make it as you level past a certain point for an area. The area that you are in will change around you. Newer and stronger enemies will move in giving more newer missions. This can be negated if you are in a party with a lower level(s), giving you a chance to help other people level up. Then once they hit the level that is needed for the change, they will also see the change. There fix the problem with making old content relevant and leveling up, stats boost, and reward system.
@@cainabel6356 I don't know about you, but not getting anything at all for 10 levels in a row feels much worse than a single level taking longer. I mean, what's the point of a level if nothing changes at all?
You hit the nail on the head in the middle of the video.... Blizzard needs to stop trying to find a perfect balance for players in the top 0.01%. Making the game fun and rewarding is far more important than making it balanced. WoW is not an esport, and never will be.
I personally would love to see a good reason for leveling players to enter level-appropriate raids again. Maybe a unique/powerful weapon enchant that would be worthwhile to keep throughout the next leveling bracket? It's just a shame to see that after all the hard work that was put into older content, a lot of it just isn't being seen anymore.
i completely agree with this. it feels like they're trying with timewalking raids. maybe they could implement a quest line that draws you to the level appropriate raids once you hit level 60, 70, etc. I know there's already quest lines for most raids, but what if players received a prompt, or an auto accepted quest that put players on the path to the beginning of the quest line. As soon as you hit 60 - CALL TO ARMS - MOLTEN CORE, just as a poor example :)
Another idea of course would be an achievement for completing the content at the appropriate level, perhaps with a title/mount/pet or other cosmetic reward attached. But I tend to favor solutions that give gear meaning and make the player feel powerful. I'd really like to see the gear in old raids become powerful enough that they remain useful up to about halfway through the next level bracket. I'd also like to see the set bonuses be reactivated, but I suppose neither of those things are likely to happen.
@@andyjames7775 I think a call to arms is a wonderful idea! It would definitely funnel people in the right direction, provided that there's proper incentive to do the content.
@@DeuceXSC i like this idea of getting 'artifact loot' from old raids - say we got Obsidian Edged Blade from Molten Core - but it's an artifact weapon (with artifact traits?) that we would use to level from 60 - 70, and as we quest from 60-70, quest rewards would include 'artifact power' for our current artifacts that we could elect to increase in power. now you got my imagination churning! :) lol
@@andyjames7775 The possibilities are truly endless! And that's why I'm glad people like Bellular make videos like this. It's important to get players thinking about how to make games better. All it takes is one person getting inspired from a little comment section like this one to potentially reshape the gaming industry for the better.
@@PrimyFritzellz I've been thinking about this idea for years, since I've tried Rift. I agree, the talents need to come back, cause every game that has them feels rewarding. Problem in WoW was, no matter what they did, we all came to use the same builds every time.
I think you've hit it pretty spot on imo. Level squishes would only provide an illusion of a fix. Everything would feel exactly the same as it is now, with the exception that each level would be a significantly larger power boost, but that's it. I also don't see why we have to leave each expansion behind every time and make everything except the current expansion irrelevant.
because 50% of these are just copy/pasted for most trees? Do you feel a difference if an ability gains another 2% damage? The mob might die a bit faster. Talent trees up until Wrath are just 70% filler with no consequence for your playstyle.
@@Nightstalker314 Spending a point was _progress_ towards a key node on the tree, even if that point did very little it _felt_ like it meant something. Not only that but even +1% damage is more interesting than literally nothing happening.
@@gubzs Totally agree. Also with the loss of talent trees you lost the ability to play hybrid for some fun during non competitive pvp. Losing the talent tree just felt like you lvld for no reason, so dumbed down, lost out on the fun of deciding which talent to take at the next lvl. It gave a purpose to lvling beyond rushing headlong to get to max lvl
@@Bramble20322 I went through every talent tree during the demo and was laughing my ass off. Maybe 5 at best if you wanted a cohesive spec. The rest is just +X% here and there.
I kinda look forward to a level squish tbh, what made leveling shit is instant gear irrelevancy, no talent or spell unlocks per level and severely outdated quests. A leveling squish won`t fix that but you also didn`t debunk the leveling squish at all. Levels to 60 bring back a more wotlk or bc style talent system, and they are just going to have to redo some more questing zones.
Have a talent system with a talent point every other level. Exactly as rewarding as talents would be with a squish, but without all the issues a squish would cause.
Why do you say unrealistic? I think WoW has the resources to accomplish this goal. Don't undersell Blizzard. I think making unique armor sets would be great.
you need to understand that if it does not see directly correlating monetary response, blizz is not willing to do anything. That is how big companies work. That means for us that we need to explain why it would make them money to do something big or give them a small solution.
@@theprophecy3732 Trooops Trooops does have a bit of a point. If everything was squished to 60, including content that was already in place, what would happen to soloing old raids that are prior to the current expansion. That's one of the things that I love to do, since usually don't have the time to do that content when it's current. In addition it provides a fun bit of challenge as you get closer to the current raid content.
@@theprophecy3732 That be like rewriting history tbh. Lvl 80 never existed, no lvl 100s or lvl 70 BC. What would happen to loot in lower expansions and certain legendary quests?
I also, agree that you didnt really debunk level squish. They already mniw that the abilities and talents are not great for how much they spread. I would assume they have an idea on how to solve it. Your ideas are cool, the talents like prime and lesser. Lets say 60 levels, 6 prime talents with 3 or 4 lesser talent to spread 10 points between getting to each prime talent. With the lesser talents being an encouragement to gain the 10 levels for the super cool prime tale t every 10 levels. This would be similar to old style as you always were looking toward that level 30 or 40 talent. A good example is in tbc with enhance shammy dual weild. You were oixking up fun relevant talent like flurry, enhancing weapon imbues and when you hit 40(?? I think) the dual weilding kicked in and you could equip those 2 1h weps you had gathered in anticipation, with the ultimaye stormstrike being a new goal to kick towards. Thats how I liked levelling. Also, getting new class quest and specifically as a warlock getting new demon quests was very exciting every 10 levels or so. This is what I think questing was really fun!!!!!!
Yup and I think it's the only way to make this game interesting again. They need to get some similar elements from those games just like they got from WoW and watch it flourish.
I love random world content, not world quests that I need to do but like Rift's world group and rift systems. I'll spend so much time on those I'll forget about leveling
Totally disagree. Their scaling didn't fix anything, it broke it further and is one of the main reasons I unsubbed. The entire game needs to be revamped and a level squish is a good idea to include in that. As it is now the game is a disconnected mess and full of redundant, pointless quests. Leveling is an unfun, unrewarding, boring chore. Gaining a level gives you nothing more often than not, you are spinning your wheels. Everything before max level is worthless. One hundred nineteen freakin' long, slow, boring, pointless, unfun levels. No thanks. Keep it.
Yeah they really need an overhaul of everything. Previous content is made meaningless evensomuch as right after a patch, leveling is tedious, classes are boring and overly homogenized, the fun and lore rich stuff has all been stripped (i.e. totem quests and other class unique quests, class trainers, etc), gear pieces become nothing more then gear score numbers instead of actual lore significant items, as well as titanforging or lack there of, ruining any sense of gratification from a boss drop because it could have been better.
I feel what would be good is a bring back of abilities and utility. Paladin needs Hammer of Wrath and Exorcism back to baseline for ranged abilities. All classes need their silence abilities around 10-20 (especially druids with Skull Bash at 70), stances/presences to come back, and just the original talent tree idea to come back. The original talent system might've been a balancing mess, but hell it felt nice. Not all classes need to balance each other out.
I had 4 max levels and a heritage armor set going into bfa prelaunch. I bought bfa, but have not played it once, i keep you subbed and dip in occassionally to see the state of the game. As a vanilla player back in the day, i think you are totally right, i want skill trees and i feel like there is way less customization and intrinsic value
BTW I believe that BFA being a dud of an expansion should be eye opening experience for blizzard and this is the time they can work on 'revamping' the game to an amazing modern MMO. And bringing literally millions back to WoW in the next expansion!
I would love to think that way. But they need more development time. This expansion and its tail end is just going to be picking up the pieces of and extremely short alpha and beta period.And then all of that work is going to be thrown away for the next expansion. Making it mostly pointless especially if it doesn't revitalize this expansion. Obviously they have other teams working on future content and I hope it's going well.
5 років тому
Letsplaylikechamps Every expansion seems to be a dud to some one lol. I don't know I see a lot of complaints about every little thing. I think blizzard will end it after this expansion. Usually by now people are dropping guess about the next expansion. Nobody has even tired to figure anything out people in legion by the middle of the expansion where talking about hits of the next expansion. Some people even got close to the name before bfa was even announced like a year before. This time around nothing. I think they are going to stop after this expansion they are going to give people wow classic, and maybe some other servers for other expansions and then that will be it. I honestly think they are done with all the whining of the player base they have.
I think one thing Blizzard should really try and do is tie in the Heritage Armor to Heirlooms, and tie them into leveling. As you grow in power/strength you can earn an upgraded set of armor based in their races aesthetic. Every 10 levels you get to reach an upgraded version and this gear scales with you (and let’s say for every max level character each piece in the set gives you 2-12% bonus XP for each max level character you have) that makes it so for people willing to do the grind, it will get easier and easier to blast through content you have already done, and for people new to WoW it will still give them a relatively small bonus overall and give them the grind that everyone else was used to going through. Plus with the stat squishes seeing stats/percentages decrease because you don’t get a new item every level is kind of disappointing, I was using cata ilvl 143 bracers on my 115 Druid I was leveling, it could solve problems like this and perhaps you could have some form of cost to upgrade it so it’s not just handing out everything for free. But the final quests could be simply heritage armor quests (thinking like the b.elf scenario) when you upgrade you armor, each time you feel like you are growing in renown with the people of the Sin’dorei. Just some quick thoughts from a budding game dev. Loved your ideas too! A mix of old and new talents could be a wonderful idea as well as making the old world mean something again with world events!
I definitely think they should do a level squish. It would make the entire leveling experience FEEL better. Even if 1 level will take just as long as 2 would, being rewarded every level just FEELS better than every 2 IMO. Plus going to level 130 next xpack would be a bit ridiculous.
Nothing would actually change though! It would still take JUST AS LONG, you'd still going just as long (Time wise) without getting a reward. It would change LITERALLY nothing except the number in the top right.
@@youstolemyhandleyoutwat Again, squishing the level does literally nothing. Its a shit solution if you take more then 2 seconds to think about it. I'm all about the Champion system however.
@@Zeik188 nah, think about it, REALLLY think about it. But that champion system is great, it truly is. Tiny little changes that make a slight significant change
Why? Because it creates a reward factor while leveling and making your feel more personalized with your character. Right now it's 1 talent every 15 levels. Back in the day, every time you level you had a talent point and you had to go learn and buy new spells and abilities, adding to the class fantasy and character building. You do not get that same reward factor by getting a whole talent point every 15 levels which is basically what was said in the video. At the end of the day, yes all you might do is sim for a cookie cutter build, but having more diverse options tells a much better story than the system that is currently in use.
@@tonic316 ok the old talent system would be a great thing to bring back it has more diversity of skills one can bring to something. The big thing this video talked about was leveling rewards not really end game stuff. Plus if you need to just sim your character to know what's good and not you didnt really pay attention while leveling. I really dont think that simming is all that helpful, tells you how to play your class' spec pretty much. #oldtalentsystem
tonic316 I agree with you to some extent, but with the old talent system you could make some interesting hybrid and niche builds. Also sometimes it’s fun to not optimize.
I feel like the only sentence you need to hear from this video that explains it all is that current WoW is more like Diablo 3 than an MMO-RPG. The two are different games and you can't just shoe-horn ideas from one into another. The underlying problem is that Blizzard keeps inventing new things and ignoring the old, leading to an abundance of shallow content. What I want as a player is for more activities with depth, things I can invest a lot of time into and get large rewards. Having tons of things that require little effort and achieve very little makes them feel like chores rather than choices. Intrinsic value should also come from just simply enjoying the actions you do in the game, I think they need to remedy this before worrying about end of level loot boxes. Finally, as a suggestion, I'd like to see more ways to add tertiary stats (perhaps something that could be earned by way of paragon points?) Choosing between speed, leech, avoidance could be an interesting concept and wouldn't necessarily be too overpowered but would lead to the game being a lot more fun - imagine being able to get +XX speed on every item? Running at 170% normal speed was great fun with the legendary plate boots for example. Or how about all your gear being indestructible and therefore no repair bills?
"The underlying problem is that Blizzard keeps inventing new things and ignoring the old" Definitely. In fact, I think you can actually trace this flawed design philosophy back to an otherwise good expansion. Did you ever do the poop-berry quest in Nagrand, in BC? That summed up the game's problems, going forward - as a vanilla player, you would have fought your way through content that was far more challenging than modern WoW... you would have run dungeons that could take an hour or more to complete. You progressed from fighting boars, to fighting dragons. Then you get to Outland, and you're given a quest... to retrieve berries, from lumps of poo. Literally. Outland was supposed to be an untamed frontier, a tormented, literally shattered world full of horrors and dangers. "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!" bellowed Illidan... And you end up calmly collecting berries from lumps of poo, in idyllic scenery. "Intrinsic value should also come from just simply enjoying the actions you do in the game" And for this to be true, the game needs to offer a hell of a lot more challenge, consistently. Fighting demons in Outland should be a whole lot harder than fighting raptors in the Barrens - you should feel more powerful, have more tools and tactical options by the time you reach outland... but there should be a greater sense of danger, requiring that you play your class more skillfully as you level up. You shouldn't just acquire power - you should feel that you NEEDED that power, and there should always be some new threat that makes you feel that you need just a little more power than you can ever get, so that you're striving to make the most out of what you have. Ultimately, WoW is supposed to be an adventure. Adventures are their own reward; it's nice if you get some epic loot at the end of a great struggle... but the lasting feeling of gratification stems not from the item, but from the challenge overcome. The victory itself.
i agree with you man , but i just wanted to point out - WoW is blatantly using ideas from Diablo 3 - you know it, you've seen it and experienced it - scooping up 'azerite power orbs' on island expos is literally Nephalem Glory from Diablo 3. And your final paragraph about paragon points - i agree with this and it would be neat to add to end game level capped players - but this also would be yet another 'shoe horned' in idea from Diablo 3 lol. at this point, im just wondering how long it will be before they try and merge the two universes via treasure goblin portal lol...
@@NicholasBrakespear I think there's a definite lack of plot cohesion when it comes to the players role in the game. It's a bit more obvious now than it was in TBC though it did exist back then too. I'm a "champion" according to Khadgar et al. but apparently I'm not above mundane quests that would normally be given to a grunt. To be honest it would make a hell of a lot more sense if they got rid of the Alliance and Horde, and we were all mercenaries of one sort or another. Instead of faction based quest content we could have race or class based quest content, as shown in Legion I have stronger ties to my class than I do my faction these days anyway. And I don't think it would be that difficult to accomplish as there would definitely be overlap - this would also mean that while some quests would be familiar, levelling alts would be a lot less boring as it would change it up a bit on each class.
@@avenage "if they got rid of the Alliance and Horde, and we were all mercenaries" Oh, I used to fantasise about this, even back in the vanilla days. As much as I loved the game, the arbitrary nature of the Horde vs Alliance fight annoyed me. I mean, even Vanilla's intro was basically a retcon (the tenuous pact between the Horde and the Alliance... what pact? There was no such pact - there was a pact between Jaina, and the Horde; the Alliance was busy being eaten alive by the undead back on the other side of the world). And while the Horde story made sense, the Human story... didn't make any sense at all. The vanilla human intro makes reference to the armies being away fighting the Horde... but... why? They just fought off a zombie apocalypse, and they're suddenly sending all their soldiers to Kalimdor to fight the "savage" Horde, for no reason? But I digress. The mercenary thing would have been cool - remember the mercenary shops in WC3? We could have had those as gathering places for dungeon groups, instead of meeting stones. There could have been a mercenary billboard, with randomised quest stuff, to fill in the vanilla questing gaps. OH, and it would have been a great way to re-introduce the original idea for language skills. You could have actually learned language skills, in order to communicate with other players from other races. In fact, they could have tied language skill progression to group activity - party up with someone who doesn't speak your language, and all xp gained while questing together would contribute to language skill. This would have encouraged people to party up with players from every race, in order to max out language skills.
Give cosmetics for every 10 levels or something like that will not fix the problem. We all know that player who has a character from each class and who collects everything possible. I'm sure some people would create multiple characters of the same class just to get a set. Those same people are going to start complaining about missing content. And with the passage of time the same will happen with the rest of the players. I am afraid that the WoW player is unique. I do not see these things happening in other MMOs. Or at least not as often. Cosmetics, pets, titles and mounts should not be a purpose. They have to be secondary. When I say content, I mean missions, dungeons, raids, professions, world events (such as the guild wars / final fantasy). Things that help improve the character. I prefer a talent point that gives me less than 1% strength or a ring that gives me 5 strength points before a mount or a pet. Getting a blue pet when I already have a red does not change anything. And for the love of god. When I read that people are "excited" by patches that bring new pets ... I lose a bit of my soul. Sorry for my English.
Vantix getting to choose talents made it far more fun, all those small bonuses added up. Having 7 talent points are lame especially since it’s still cookie cutter in most situations
They need to boost the difficulty level a bit throughout. The game is too easy. And i think mixing the new and old would work. The old system having mainly stat boosts and core abilities and the new being turned into 2 or 3 meaningful choices per level. That reduces the need to have the required skills in them and opens them up, letting people have actual builds again.
@@joshuaritter9747 the builds have always been cookie cutter. Back in Vanilla it was still cookie cutter. The old tree really didnt do anything different. Sure we got some bonuses every level, but they were so minimal you hardly noticed them.
Wow Bellalur. I have seen alot of your videos/content and this by far is one of the best. You hit the nail on the head better than I've ever seen someone do. Blizzard really needs to see this video and take some notes.
As a person whom quit WoW for GW2, thank you for referencing the Mastery system, it's a highly effective system with frankly a limitless ceiling without wrecking power progression.
The GW2 system is incredible imo. Leveling actually matters and even if you reach max level you kind of keep going. You also never feel a rush to actually reach max level or max mastery level. Also the whole map is still revelant unlike the vast majority of Azeroth, that means you can chose to level wherever you want (well... almost)
Blizzard needs to take a peek at Path of Exile as far as character progression is concerned. Their passive tree is absolutely massive and that amount of freedom and decision making per level is spectacular for players.
they would never do something like that, it would overwhelm a very large portion of the playerbase. thats not even really considering the people who ever look up websites for guides or the pplayers who will oneday log in and see a huge talent tree.
Having a passive tree like that would kill the game. Most people that play WOW are casual gamers with a tight knit group of hard core raiders. Having something so overwhelming in the game like the passive tree from POE would just scare too many people off and Blizzard would most likely find a way to make it worse. (Personal Housing)
Make professions more relevant again.. that could be used to provide an 'every level reward', without creating complex tuning problems for classes and it could require some short quest lines in completed content areas, to keep them relevant..the paragon style box of loot reward idea, is also a good one, if both where implemented it would make levelling much more fun.. I'm 50/50 on some kind of level squish, 120 is definitely far too many levels, when rolling a new character.
probably not only the talents but also a lot of other things that were removed/changed and created massive negative feedback. Perhaps they want to find the right direction - keep making the game comfortable or bring back challenges
@@lastmakc I was thinking about it also. I have a theory that since the trailer for classic is Chromie turning back time, could there also be an alternate time line involved like what they wanted to do with WoD? Like if they went into BC, Illidan would be considered a good guy from the get go, or something crazy like that
Adding an extra tree type system to add +% of something always feels good. Doesn't matter how little it is you feel like leveling did SOMETHING. Nothing wrong with that. Keep the old, updat eit, and add to it.
@@lastmakc i'd come back if everything was like BC (that is when i started playing) the leveling, ganking, talent trees, weapon leveling, ability leveling, etc. not saying all this wasn't in vanilla (which i am gonna try when its released) its just WoW now is so boring i only played bfa for month and a half then i left, haven't touch the game sense.
I'd love more talent options but hell... it seems they cant even balance the current talents. On at least 4 of my specs one talent choice is always the best option by a margin. I haven't used a tome for months and on my main I only do it MAYBE for m+ and even then its only one talent. At least bring back talent trees. Next fix/balance classes. Then concern yourself with the broken/unfun leveling. I wouldnt even mind if new character would get an option to start at 60 or why not even 110 (but with the store-boost we cant have that now, can we?). Levels mean nothing. I even had to check what the current max level was cause I care about as much as I care about my random interchangable gear. I got Ievel 417 and I dont know the name of even one piece, let alone the azerite combinations. Numbers in wow are as meaningless and bloated as AP numbers in Legion.
Talent trees did not change a thing. And example: DH can build 3 different working builds. Retri paladins can have 2 H. pallys 3. I hope you realize that if some other talents occasionally don't work for you, it's also because you have stat weights among other things that lock you down to certain playstyle. Talent trees do not change anything. You only take more things. You will still sim the most dps ones. There will still be a cookie cutter. Point being: There's a lot of builds now you can go for. Some might not be as optimal as could be, but it's literally impossible to balance things in a way where every change would make equal amounts of sense. Not when you have stats like haste / crit that might have a HUGE impact on your gameplay.
Blizz barely gets core gameplay concepts right. When they changed the holy priest for Legion, they made the AoE heal have both the highest HPS AND best mana efficiency out of all of their non-cd spells, while making their HoT have both the lowest HPS and the worst mana efficiency out of all of their spells. Its expecting too much from blizz to actually make interesting talents when they struggle so much with basic things.
Rather than Talents being must-use in their tier, I have more problem with former baseline abilities replacing other talents and Blizzard outright refusal to add more talent tiers. moving the level 100 tier to 105 (for the consistency of one tier each 15 levels) and then having all the golden traits from the legion weapons as the 120 tier would have been way better than the BS we have now.
Man talent tree arguement holds not much water as in the pst we had cookie cutter builds and had to take them for given role too! Also you dont know the name of your pieces thats also on you, i ran fh 10 11 times timed for 410ilvl Jeweled Sharksplitter so..
You fixed it. These ideas are actually how you make levelling fun! If you combined the 'Defenders of Azeroth' idea with the armor tier sets per zone, it would actually make me want to level, rather than sticking on Azeroth auto-pilot and running round as fast as I can. I'm only on 40 for my hunter and I want to die!! Literally everything in this video is a bomb shell idea. I just hope Blizzard aren't too proud and do take on your thoughts!! Great job dude, thank you!
actually really like your ideas.... nice job Bellular. Love the added Defenders of Azeroth idea. That could get folks out into old world areas and help make the world more alive when you have folks leveling new characters or alts. And by doing them you'll get rewards in return.
When you leveled up, people used to say congrats in dungeons. Now that I think about it, I haven't heard that in years. Everyone levels up once or twice every single run, at least early on. I'm down for a squish.
Last time I played, I only heard gratz (and gave gratz) to people hitting max level. Anything before was just another level to overcome on the way to max.
I'm definitely in favor of a level squish, primarily for the sake of any new player wanting to join the game. If we go into the next expansion with a cap of 130 levels, that certainly looks super scary and daunting for a new person. As someone who has played for a long time, I know its just a number and ultimately won't affect me personally that much, but it's not about me it's about helping the growth of the game and not scaring away new people because of a seemingly high level cap.
I dont like the idea of my character working completely different in different areas of the world. Little things like CC not lasting as long in PvP is fine but when spells and abilities are drastically changed based on what your are doing in game and the character feels like a different class in the open world compared to, pvp or a dungeon/ raid I dont think its good. The loot box for each level idea sounds really boring to me.
While i agree with what you say personally... if blizz sees those things as successes, i feel like we can run with it and make it into something enjoyable. It's already out there, just not during levelling. Like.. who tf plays with pvp mode off, lets be real.
Here's an idea: Have world quests available everywhere in old zones along with xp bonuses areas. Another idea would be to choose to level between Draenor or Broken isles like they did for Outland and Northrend.
That's easy to say of a game that's just a few years old. If they last 10+ years they will have these same design issues to face. This isn't a problem that happens with a young game
Great ideas! I would love it if old content wasn't immediately irrelevant every new expansion. And my all time favorite idea is paragon levels beyond level cap. Each paragon level can give you more perk points, transmog gear, special mounts, gold, etc. I hope they listen to you and take any one of your ideas and implement it.
I think that they said somewhere, some time ago that they don't want new players to see such a big number. In the next expansion it will be 130 if not squished. 60 was a good number of levels and they just kept adding more on top of it, now we are at a point where the number is twice as high. Getting through 120 levels to get to "good stuff" feels like an enormous chore when you start to do it.
blizzard trying to fix the wheel. meanwhile old systems were highly rewarding and good. just gimme back a talent tree, glyphs, gems, enchants. Maybe some baseline passive increases to fill in the gaps which will be there when lvling. Oh and take away the spells from players, which basically have all their essential spells by lvl 20, like warrior mortal strike. u could even make enchants/gems quest/lvl rewards, which players would be able to use for cool buffs and effects. Could even give gear rewards with unique passives/abilities when u reach major lvls, like 40,60,80,100, and make that gear only useable in that level window. I mean the sky is the limit. And almost nothing can be as bad as it is now. Problem is anything major will require work and thus dolleros. And blizzard simply isnt willing to put in the work to fix shit they broke years ago. It truly is a shame.
Level squish is a horrible idea considering how hard it is for blizz to balance even their stat squishes. But I'm not particulary fond of your ideas to, except for world events for leveling zones - that one would be great (though can't solve the problem entirely). What I think is that wow just became really bloated. I wasn't a fan of the idea of "wow 2" for plenty-o-years, but now I'm starting to think that maybe making a fresh start with a different game engine is a win in a long run.
I really like how they fixed the scaling in expansion zones so you could pick where you level. I also think they've done such a good job with quests overtime. So much so that I've gone back and done the quests on my op main. All your ideas sound really cool and I wouldn't mind seeing any of it put in place.
Agreed. Not to sound like a nostalgic fanboy, but honestly, I really enjoyed the Vanilla talents and even Artifact traits. Vanilla gave you a wide range of customization and tweaking, and at least the Artifacts made you formidable and granted unique skills. Now? We have 7 talents, half of which practically require a singular choice, and the other half are so situational (or PvP in a PvE world), that they are rarely used if at all.
@@DahrkMezalf I think the key to the old talents was that there were more talents to pick from than you had points for. And you weren't forced I to one spec. Feral bear was a thing, now it's feral, or bear. The availability of choice was partly what made old wow amazing. Sure there were cookie cutter builds, but if you were not playing on a raid team you could play them however you wanted. The game is on rails to the extent were really just zombies marching through a predetermined set of events.
Awesome videos man! Entertaining, informative and gives me food for thought! I hope Blizzard listens to guys like yourself and has a long, hard think about how to bring some magic back into the game. I think something along the lines of the old school talent tree would help....it proved to work in Legion with our artefact weapons, I think that was a hit. A lot of people say “You don’t want Vanilla/Classic!” But I think it will be great for players that started playing post old school talent trees to experience that system and the feeling of “No sleep tonight! Two more levels for this talent!!!” These days it doesn’t feel rewarding and doesn’t make you push for something new as your character is generally decked with heirlooms and two-shot killing most things anyway.
Also, levels should just keep you from going to far to fast, and be lowered once coming back in an old zone. I mean, this is turning to a solo game, levelling is easier, and then you can do everything alone. Where is MMO ? Only at lvl 120 ? With a finder where nobody knows each other or care for them, getting selfish and arrogant ? This is also a big deal.
depends on your situation, even vanilla was a solo leveling experience if you were late to the game, there was so much to do you rarely got help and no one was leveling because it was so grindy. how ever it was a better experience because it required your attention 'oh god the mob fucking dodged twice i'm going to have to run fuck sake' it was frustrating but it wasn't boring. so i'd argue make the leveling as fast as possible, the combat while leveling, along with your abilities and talents just aren't interesting or complicated enough to warrant a 2 week slog to max level. they'd be better off having a tutorial one what addons you need how to set them up and how to write macros; this a text based game now boys.
Totally Agree with this. What blizz does now is just trying to be amazing at story telling and having you on a rail system of progression. What I loved about vanilla was the sense of the world being HUGE and you were just moving through the world and everything going on around you. Current and last few levels just feel to compartmentalized and boring. I want to feel like I'm slowly moving toward end game stuff. It's the journey I loved. I don't get that feeling anymore.
Currently playing grim dawn and its disgusting how bad leveling up feels in wow compared to other games. Id love to see a system that somehow revives old content
I liked your idea about the zone gear, like BC and Wrath gear. I always thought it would be cool to see special gear or something if you completed the entire story of a zone, like you'd get an old fashioned Horde/Alliance guard set for doing all the quests in Ashenvale or something. Those zones feel so dead nowadays, they need to fix it somehow. I loved the pre-Legion Invasions.
The level 120 is too intimidating for returning players as well as new players, it also feels like more work when you make a new character and have to level 120 times
@@maxm8771 That's not his point, new players don't know this and they don't have the resources yet. To hit level 120, it will take awhile for new players still and most don't do it because it sounds like a lot for them
Also they know that its boring as fuck, even for new player. Ive known some people trying to get into WoW and stuff and at the early game they are all excited etc. but once they ask me: should i keep any of these item? i have to answer: No, you dont have to care for anything before hitting max level.
They need to fix the way that the only part of the game that matters in 'live' is the Endgame. They want the world to seem greater, so they remove portals and make you jump through hoops for flying rather than give you good, fun, legitimate reasons to go back to area's you've already "outgrown" in your rush to get to the newest stuff. I also personally think moving back to more of an Diablo 2/Early Wow Talent tree system would be a better fix/more fun than just squishing everything down to 60 levels again and keeping the current talent system where most of the talents per spec are useless and nobody uses them unless they clicked on the wrong one and didn't notice for a bit. Then again in D2, Early Wow I always liked mutant builds better than 'best' builds so what do I know. I play for fun, not to be the best
One of my favorite things was theory crafting my build back in they day. One of the reasons I got excited for expansions was because we would get those 10 extra points to use. I remember in DragonSoul I was able to take a "less effective" build on my unholy dk that included anti-magic zone and I was able to effectively use that as a defensive raid cooldown or to help with people being stuck in ice blocks on Hagara. It was hella cool and the choice to customize was what was awesome about it.
I absolutely LOVE the World Events from Legion. They were by far my favorite pre-Expansion content, I had so much fun leveling a new character, being weak and newb, fighting alongside max-level people, both of us fighting the same creatures, holding our own. It also made the early zones feel integrated with the upcoming expasion, because well...Demons weren't just locked to a few zones, everything was being invaded! Then when Legion Dropped, and they stopped the Invasions...it kind of took away the impact of the whole thing. It no longer felt like Azeroth was being *INVADED*, it felt like they were just travellers coming through a designated checkpoint (the Broken Isles). I think that's the biggest problem a lot of expansions had, they just don't integrate new events into old zones, and when they do, its just to wipe the slate clean and redo it in a way that's arguably worse *cough* cataclysm *cough*. I think it wouldn't be tooooo much work to spend some time throwing a new quest or an NPC or two in these older zones (not even all of them, just a few) all around the world. Maybe have these NPCs give a short quest line special to those zones that has to do with the most recent expac, and give a special reward (like Transmog gear). Then when a new expac drops, re-update the questline to make it more consistent with the modern day, update the reward to match, and voila'! The zone is more integrated with the xpac than it was before. would this be more work? Of course. But with Activision-Blizzard having laid off so many people, it wouldn't be much of anything for them just to hire back on a few more to do this. They still would be under their old employee count, but capable of taking on a slightly larger workload. Plus it could be a fun thing to train Interns and new peeps with, allowing them to work on a teeny tiny bit of the world without jeopardizing the larger expac if something went wrong. I just Hope wow can bring back some of the old spice that EQ and older WoW had in regards to the level process. Some of that good ole Intrinsic happiness. Who knows?
The problem with leveling is more on the factor that we lack skills, not that we lack talents. Of course an all upgrade would be give u both the old talent system, and multiple unique spells. I think the only way blizzard can get people interested again in WoW is to take the TBC or WOTLK philosophy into the next expansion. The number of players are just decreasing by the day at this point. They need to refocus on having a steady progression and character goals, instead of the current singleplayer win with one click of a button mechanics they have now.
Brollular (bro) I love your content and your work ethic, but as constructive criticism, I detect a hint of overconfidence in this vid. These are good solutions but its better to convey them as proposals that you believe would work, and not as proven solutions who's success is pretty much guaranteed, I suspect this may be the cause of the slightly higher than normal dislike-to-like ratio. WoW is a complex game with a complex playerbase, I think it's potentially going too far to predict things and feel certain they'll work, there needs to be an element of doubt in there to retain the ability to distinguish between good and bad predictions. Still a really good effort, and leveling is a great topic to fantasise about, I would change so much about it. I really like these ideas, in particular the world events, the class-specific world interaction and the talent point systems you came up with look soo much better (although not so keen on the level bracket armor sets, they would continually become invalidated as you move to the next bracket) ...but I feel like as players we're just sick of the act of leveling, it holds no real meaning for us anymore, and that we've changed while leveling has changed. I suppose we'll find out more about this when classic arrives, I suspect we'll initially love the old leveling again but hate it after a while because we've just grown out of that sort of reward system, I mean nowadays to me the idea of doing quests I've already done multiple times just to gain xp for a small power increase (or decrease) is thoroughly unappealing, no matter what the talents, the current max level or the other things that could happen spontaneously while you level. It's partly why I love leveling up in a new expansion, because all the quests and zones are brand new, but I just cannot stand doing the same long-ass thing again that I've already done 15 times before lol.
I had the same Idea for the Talent System, BUT I ALSO TIED IT TO A COSMETIC SLOT ITEM FOR EACH CLASS. Hunters get a quiver, Paladins get the libram, Warlocks could get like cool floating skull or something, etc they can upgrade while leveling while also having an item to unlock appearances for while leveling and at end game content.
I recommend level squish to level 60. Then make level 1-5 bracket for starting zones and 6-60 bracket for all other areas of each expansion (including current one = BFA) so players can actually feel the massive world? The Elders Scrolls Online has removed level restrictions and it is great and actually works...
We would need the massive damage buff to kick in for old world content so no, it wouldn't work. We need to be able to solo farm old world content or you will literally see millions unsub, I am sure of that.
@@RheaStorm Sure some people would leave if they couldn't solo the stuff, but then again, it is an MMO, and a large part of multiplayer games is working together after all. I'd argue that changes like theses could eventually bring more players back or retain players longer, since they'd need others to work with to accomplish their goals, and wouldn't just stomp them out with no challenge and leave. (Not like certain players in certain classes couldn't solo certain group content while it was semi relevant anyways (e.g. death knights and rogues in WotLK).) In that essence you could make it that stuff cuts down later in levels (e.g. certain areas don't scale equally up to your power once you get to 55-58). Part of it isn't that it wouldn't work based on level alone, but how they allow you to progress your character's power after you hit max level. Getting max level shouldn't be the end goal, and gear should be a reward for accomplishments at max level that make you more powerful and able to more easily clear earlier content, not just the level itself. Additionally, adding in the scaling, while having rewards for transmogs, zone specific or other content specific gear sets or perks, etc., but not making it so you could stomp it merely due to an artificial max level strength boost could encourage more community engagement/interaction among players with similar goals since they would need others to help. If it's rewarding enough, and multiple people want to do it, it will make the game feel more alive again, with more communities actively working together to accomplish their goals, much more than just some relatively godly character going back to the same old content week after week to stomp previously strong and relevant content just because they happened to outlevel it years ago. Wouldn't you find it more fun if there was a better incentive to do content together in the world again? Maybe make older transmogs actually feel more meaningful since they still had to accomplish something to do it, that wasn't just a singleplayer cakewalk?
@@iceburglettuce764 That is ignoring that WoW has largely evolved to be mostly a single player game dude. THat's the player base now. It would kill the game. Everyone loves collecting transmog, pets, etc. well almost everyone.
@@iceburglettuce764 hate to burst your bubble but the last change they tried a few years ago they did kinda same thing but a bit diff caused 6 million of the 13 quit....a lot dont play to group anymore most play for a lot of the solo aspects. if ya have not played back then you'd never know this game at times over a update has lost millions thats something this change would do.
I LOVE The Defenders of Azeroth idea and bringing new life into old zones! I know after Cata Blizzard said they'd never do a world revamp like that again, but I honestly think it needs to be done, and if things were tweaked a little in old zones with each new expansion it probably wouldn't be such a big deal down the line... like, if I dust once a week, there's less of a dusty mess to clean up than if I dust once a month.
Easiest fix would be to rewamp and bring back the old talent trees. Small rewards for each or every other level. But since leveling is such a daze. Lets think outside the box for a second. Remove levels! Okok i know, im sry, REPLACE levels with ”rank” and ”skill”. Rank increases with quests, rare/boss kills. Skill increases with combat. Lock zones and quests behind rank. And lock abilities and talents behind skill. High level weapon? No. High quality weapon? Yes. As skill increases the level of all weapons increases. Think someone more experienced with character progression could make this pretty cool. A few examples: borderlands has both exp levels and badass rank. Torchlight has exp lvls plus fame. Skyrim has skill rank and ”exp” lvls
I don't want to go back to the old talent system. Getting 1 talent point that will give me a 1% increase in my frostbolt damage isn't fun. It's not rewarding. That being said, I also don't like the fact that Blizz continually takes our baseline abilities and makes them talents. And then later takes two talents that people use together and puts them on the same line so you now have to choose between two abilities that you previously had.
I agree that simply changing 120 to 60 wouldn't solve a damn thing. But if they combined it with a larger revamp of how leveling works - everything from what you talked about with talents and making progression feel better, to making the story make sense (Cata -> BC/Wrath -> Cata/MoP -> WoD -> Legion -> BfA, quite messy for a new player) - it could work fine. I guess what I'm saying is: Is there a real reason to not scale down levels if the other issues are fixed? Like an actual reason, that's not just based on "it would feel bad with lower numbers" - cause we've already been through that with 2 stat squishes.
GW2 has a model of horizontal progression. So no new levels past 80, but you gain access to more things you can do. HEre's an idea. In the next expansion, if its a void vs light vs death sort of deal, you're character can gain alignment perks based on alignment levels. So if you side with Void, as you do more stuff for void, you'll get void themed abilities that tweak how you play your spec.
I know this isn't helpful to the conversation. but for how many expansions have they said that they realize the auction house is an issue that they want to fix? And how often have they done anything to fix it. That was substantial.....I hope the change comes and I hope it's Grand. But we've been given no reason to believe they will actually fix the game's problems. Regardless of world of Warcraft being one of their highest-earning products or not. I normally trust what Ian has to say, he's just a dude doing his job to the best of his ability and he gets a bunch of s*** for it. we also have to look at results that we've been given in the past. (8.2 doesn't exist yet we dont know if it fixes anything at all yet )
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kyubii972 whats wrong with the auction house hmmmm. no patch will fix an expansion that people don't like this is shown in almost all expansions of the game wod being the big one. If some one doesn't like an expansion from the start vary little can be done to bring them back. Now if some one likes it from the start they could possible lose these people if they try to please those that didn't like it at the start. It is a pickle no doubt and one they error on the side of keeping those that already like it happy. That is why you may not see them fix things that you think they should.
@ the auction house is essentially controled by the super rich who keep buying everything and then re-selling it for double the prize. Essentialy playing a glorified stock market minigame. Which means that for the average players everything is stupidly expensive, and it only spirals further and further out of control each expansion. And before you go say "yeah but making gold is so easy you just need to do X and then you're super rich" ask yourself if that's something that an average player would be doing. Most of those "easy" ways to make money aren't connected to the core gameplay and thus would only really be done by players specifically looking to make as much money as possible (for example in Legion running gold missions on 10 alts was a good way of making gold, but most players won't have 10 max level characters to begin with, let alone be interested in levelling those just for the purpose of running order hall missions..)
@ The issue is that the super rich constantly flipping on the auction house, as well as abusing every other mechanic they find (like the order hall missions) are what causes, and maintains, the constant massive inflation. And by playing "normally" (in this case someone who doesn't go out of his way to make gold like they do) you won't ever be able to keep up. It's great that you can sell the occasional stack of cloth cuz you can just sell it at half the current prize and a flipper is basicly guaranteed to pick it up, but that won't get you anywhere near buying something usefull yourself. Which to be honest is a general issue with WoW, and kind of inherent to MMO's. There'l Always be those players that'l try to break the system and min-max whatever they can to get the most gold/the most dps/the quickest dungeon run etc. And when nothing is done to keep those in check, and Ensure they don't end up magnitudes ahead of the "average" player (or worse, you start balancing around these outliers…) you end up in situations like this where the average player cannot even begin to compete and entire sections of the game become basicly irrelevant for 99% of your playerbase.
For me personally there are only two issues regarding leveling up new characters: 1) you replace gear much too often and 2) you don't even need the gear to survive.
Another problem with leveling you did not mention is that all of the content has had its difficulty trivialized. You can kill everything with one or two button presses until level 20ish. And it continues to be so much easier than it was when it came out all the way to max level. And without difficulty, there's no reason to socialize. And without socialization, there's no reason to engage with the world.
The good old days when I learned a new spell on my mage, then walked outside the Mage Trainer in Ironforge and took a bunch of screenshots of me casting that new spell.
The PvP talents have been universally praised for their design and simultaneously criticized for how they can only be used in PvP and the open world. They literally implemented a fix, but completely screwed it up by locking it to PvP. The fix is literally giving us more useful talents that round off our classes in a really good way. The mending bandage for survival hunter is soooooooo useful for a class that has historically been lacking in self-sustain compared to any other class. We need more talents for 120 levels and we got them.... they just only work in the open world and PvP and this is by design to encourage more participation in war mode. In order to fix the game they will have to hurt part of it. They have to stop trying to please everyone in every way, in order to actually please everyone in some ways. And this is a big way to please everyone. We need 10 talents, not 7. If you really have to have PvP talents thats fine but we can't just have only 7 talents anymore there are some really critical useful talents today that are limited to PvP and that's not good.
I feel like you didn't really debunk a level squish. You just highlighted how crap 7 talents feels even within 60 levels.
Very true, nothing against the guy but for me there isnt really a reason to NOT do a.level squish
@@SiniusAZM Which is actually the saddest part.
No he's saying that squishing doesn't solve the problem. The problem is not the number, it's the reward structure of lvling as a whole. Introducing a lvl squish may introduce a lot of unforeseen problems, it makes the lvling at endgame sluggish (unless you want them to do 10-lvl expansions and lvl squish every other expansion), without actually solving the real problem.
@@qianzyl that is very true i agree with you that ONLY a number a squish wont improve the game, but hopefuly blizzard will do much more work other than a simple number change. I was just arguying that bringing systems like he mentioned like master talents and box rewards will only make it worse, while on by itself isnt a bad idea, it was actually creative. Peace m8 ☺
He isn't debunking level squish as a whole. He's debunking in terms of Blizz's view that a level squish should help fix leveling and "get back to a place where levels truly matter."
The pre-Legion invasions were some of the most fun moments I've had in WoW and I can't believe Blizz hasn't capitalized on that mechanic again.
Same!!!!!!! Same! It felt EPIC!
The event was AMAZING, it was the most fun I've had in any World content ever in WoW
100% agree
I KNOW RIGHT THAT WAS SO FUN OMG I MISS IT
I KNOW RIGHT
here an idea - make old content relevant ^^
The game is so beautiful - but your using like 10% of the world
This has been my exact arguement for literally years!
I agree on the old content. Instead of letting people solo old content dungeons put rewards in them that all players can use. scale the levels so a lvl 50 and a lvl 100 can both do the same dungeon where the level 50 would get lvl 50 epics and the lvl 100 would get lvl 100 epics. But both are scaled to lvl 60 while in the dungeon, make the boss fights like they were when the content came out.
@@jamesw71 that would destroy game balance and only make a few dungeons relevant based on the gear the gave. Just get rid of titanforging, groupfinder, world quests, all of it. Bring back old talent trees, force player interaction. Slow leveling down make mobs more lethal.
Turn it into an mmo again
@@V2ULTRAKill
I enjoy the game. But I really do not care to know people online.
Force me to interact? I enjoy the game enough to play around that.
Let the lonely people have their thing. If it helps me in the game, great. If the cost is too high, forget it. I pay to have fun. Not to volunteer as a frustration test dummy.
@@shakenroll then why are you playing mmos. These games are supposed to be social.
I just love that Defenders of Azeroth idea, there is so much potential there to reengage the players with the storylne. Having an invasion/attack on zones across Azeroth, Outland, and Draenor that is based on the enemy of the expansion (Wotlk-scourge, Cata- elements, etc.) would really ramp up the excitement at those lower levels.
as long as they give a buffer between the leveling hubs and the invasion zones. Im not saying miles apart, but far enough away to not completely impede those who are leveling from progressing. that was the only issue I had with them, is the fact that things like the invasions would hamper anyone not max level from accessing key parts of the game. I mean there are people who love griefing lower level players but Id like the people leveling to have the ability to play the game as well, unimpeded.
Sure add more invasion type events.. they totally havent over done that at all..
Orion47 I’ve had enough of invasion in starcraft land aka Argus. I just think it’s going to like that
Hell yeah!
Outland-Illidari, naga, and maybe blood elves
WotLK-Scourge, blue dragonflight, and Titan-forged
Cata-Elements, black dragons, Twilight Cult
Mists-Mogu, Mantid and sha, saurok, yaungol, and maybe Zandalari
WoD Maybe same as Garrison Invasion threats with the High Arakkoa as an extra
how about stop making old content constantly irrelevant?
That would be the smartest thing everything new makes all the work they created prior completely irrelevant. Which makes no sense nowadays they make each new tiers gear far to higher instead of like 5 levels each tier they do like 25
@@Sorrior exactly! I can understand removing special rewards such as the legendary cloaks and ring but don't remove the actual questline! those questlines are an important part of the story that often laid the groundwork for future content.
I think a solution would perhaps be to scale old content down, perhaps? Make it feasible for a 5-man group. This simultaneously makes it so you don't need 15-20 people to be interested in order to even begin, and could come with the possibility of keeping old fight mechanics present, but scaled down. Put in some weekly rewards/transmog for doing old content and BAM. A game with a living world and multiple stories to engage with, not just the chapter that came out last month.
how many lv120 actually goes back to the old content?
That's why the newer MMORPG will be better because they make older zones relevant still to the story and leveling experience. Merely phasing out and revamping some zones while following quests can offer a changing world so long you follow the story and can always return through chromie in this case.
Zone-specific skills and loot boxes are terrible ideas. Nothing makes me feel worse when playing a game than when I spend time earning zone-specific abilities or stat bonuses just to have them taken away from me when I go into a dungeon. Our characters should grow and gain power that we can take with us anywhere we go.
Leveling isn't in a bad spot because we don't get enough flashy, cool rewards. It's in a bad spot because leveling isn't fun. Blizzard has totally neglected the leveling experience since WotLK. The end game IS the game now. Leveling, which should be a significant aspect of the experience has been reduced to a minor inconvenience.
The way they fix their game is to make the next expansion FUN and to focus on the end game being an eventuality and not the sole priority. There should be things to do before and after max level and it should always feel good to be playing the game. Blizz needs to completely rethink the way they are approaching content at all levels.
I know there will be hardcore players that disagree and just want to no-life the game to endgame and push raids as fast as they can, and that should be possible, but the game shouldn't be built around that ideology. If it is, how can you expect any other aspect of the game before endgame to be fun? People still do that shit in classic and it takes way longer to level. Don't make the game around the players. Make the game for the sake of making a fun game and let the players decide how they want to play it.
And they already did zone specific skills in WoD and they were just pointless aside from the mounted combat in Nagrand.
The problem is the ability squish, that resonated into the whole levelling experience and made it a brainless exercise.
The problem is constantly enforcing that "this time rating decay was soooo much worse than in any other leveling phase before even though there was no difference whatsoall" and of course: Why did they have to give people 2 legendary effects, take em away and expect everybody to agree with that?
Not to mention every class feels the same at level 15 as level 120.
Lol does that mean hero classes like the dk would only have to level 5 levels and dh wouldn't need to level since they already start at 98?
@@eternallegacy89 You wouldn't be able to play dh since it would be above 60 and thus cheating :o
@@PremonitionGamingVid Then that'd be reintroduced into a new expansion as a "brand" new Class? X'D
At the end of the day a level squish is a change that wouldn't effect current players, it helps removed the daunting nature of what would be 130 levels.
But those levels feel fine as far as time and flow even without heirlooms. The problem lies in the lack of rewards during those times. It doesn't matter how many levels there are if you never get anything out of them. I realize i'm reiterating him but I think it's important to get that point across. I proposed an idea on reddit of instead of trying to do any squishing or anything instead add to the Heirloom sets and make them be a real set that on top of each individual piece you can get a bonus for a full set so people can pick and mix their leveling speed and it would continue the flexibility of either going super fast or taking a slow pace and make it something that you can turn on and off so you could have heirloom gear and get the benefits of it but not be forced to level fast.
EDIT: I also suggested sped up scenario based experience in a fast track story experience to give new players a chance to get all the main story and level quickly.
Not only would it effect me but it would make me quit WoW forever.
im already playing and quitting constantly if they do this level squish im officially gone passion is sinking hard for this game
Level squish would just be one part of the problem solved, progression would still be shit, just for fewer levels. They need to change talent and ability progression as well.
I think if they are serious about fixing it, this would still be a good start. Like the saying goes "A thousand mile journey begins with a single step". Also if they do the level squish it will give them the perfect opportunity to change/improve the talents. I personally would love to see some of the passive stats talents back (like crit/haste//dodge etc.) to choose from because it will bring back the RPG element into a mmoRPG game like Belluar's suggestion about "prime" talents and perks. It will bring nice personalization to your character depending what style is more fitting to you.
Giving back old tree :
Such an easy change. Just give us old talent trees back *and still keep the new ones for Max Level toons*
Level squish would be amazing, and give them the ability to add more content within those levels. It would be easier to manage and also not require so much per level in regards to points ect to reduce bloat.
Everyone who is opposed to level squish is a dough head. You aren't really thinking it through. You're just jumping way too fast onto the "NOOOOOO" Wagon. This is why the game won't change for the good, you never let them change it when they want to.
level squishy doesn't change anything, its the same thing as a stat squish it changes nothing, just looks cleaner. if they reduce the time it takes to level that's different, but it still doesn't fix the end game that you're rushing to.
I'm sold on the defenders of azeroth idea. 10/10
Damn right O.o
I think the implementation would have to be done right. Are these events in every zone at a time? Random zones throughout the week? One/multiple zones each day? If you are levelling in darkshore travelling to say eastern plaguelands could feel like too much of a hassle. But I think it's a good premise and should be explored
I agree wholeheartedly. There's also a bonus in that it would help to fix one of Blizzard's other problems. You know, the one that made them think taking out some portals was the answer.
Making the world feel larger and more dynamic. The answer to an empty, static world is always to give it more content. This would be a great way to do it.
To bad there guild leader for us garona died
@@ZapAttack323 i would say it could be implemented in phased zones.
like after finishing maybe some introductory quests for the zone they can appear, lets say for the sake of diversity, every 12 hours and it shifts focus of zones every week (this week westfall, northern barrens, ashenvale, ghostlands, etc)
that way it's incentivized to do more content for more rewards and if someone who isn't lvl capped hasn't been to that zone before they can be ported like with lfr or something
Man I miss the old talent tree... The struggle or reaching each level and the reward of gaining a level to get a skill or talent point...
R J exactly old school tree gave so many different builds and made classes semi unique
And the fun of creating custom builds. Even finding an op spec, which was one of the reasons it was changed.
thoughtank101 exactly people had different skill set or change due to the type of battle they had it was fun.
Same. One of their reasons for dumbing it down, then removing it was "People just go find the best builds and copy those!" which was utter nonsense. Not saying people didn't do that, but far more people experimented and found the builds that worked for them.
Sure, it was incremental increases per talent point except for major ones, but it felt like progress. You were, point by point, making your build. It made it exciting to get to that next five or ten point mark, to get that next ability that helped to change and shape your spec. That all got removed for 'more meaningful choices' which literally amounted to "Three talents that all do roughly the same thing, with a little flavor for each." Sure, it made it easier for them to balance since they knew what everyone would be bringing, but ripped the soul out of the system and left a hollow mess.
I think it would be really helpful to bring back old talent system along with a level squish, that’s just me personally. Back in the day I looked forward to leveling up, just so that I could get my next talent point and new abilities. Now basically every level after lvl 80 feels like an empty number that means nothing. I really feel like a level squish and talent system rework would help the game tremendously.
So you like leveling where every time you leveled up you got 1 point that gave you a 1% increase in damage to 1 ability? That's not fun to me.
Saimeren no, I like having options and progression at every level. I like having a point to leveling
@@swaggerjack2074 Your point to leveling is end game. Getting your character to the next zone, the next story, and eventually to current content.
Saimeren I agree, but I want to have fun whilst leveling. Also the talent system makes endgame more that two talent builds. In the end it gives more fun and more choice.
Saimeren also I want old content to still be relevant
Love your idea of the perks + prime talents. This would give consistent rewards and actually make you look forward to the prime talents since you'd keep pulling up the UI each level and see yourself getting closer to them. As for the idea of world/leveling-specific abilities and perks, this worries me since it would create a further disconnect between different types of content. It's already somewhat awkward having the pvp talent system where perks and abilities from there get disabled upon entering instances.
I think a big part of that disconnect has to do with how PvP talents are directly combat and character power oriented. If these perks were non-combat things, but still tied to class, that could make a difference. However, some classes will of course be easier to design for, since you can explain some things easily with Magic. In theory, though, I think it's worth a shot.
Player: Leveling is lacking.
Blizzard: We understand, and will fix it with more leveling rewards!
Player: What kind of level rewards ?
Blizzard: More horse mounts!
Player: 🤬
Yeah listening to Bell say that we get pets/mounts for leveling and completing brackets/zones made me instantly not care. I'm not in this for another reskin of a horse/wolf/whatever. Mounts and pets have lost their coolness and wow factor.
NeflewitzInc there’s just too freaking many of them. Same with armor. There’s too much with glowing flames and shit and the designs are still the same ol’ ideas just put together in a slightly different package. Back in vanilla, your gear looked like total shite until you had tier pieces, so those tier pieces were immediately recognizable and COOL.
I submitted an ingame suggestion to have customizable mounts, similar to transmorg but for mounts.
Kyle Bennett nothing in vanilla was cool it was vary muh.
I think your premise of "abilities gained per hour remains the same" is flawed.
The problem isn't the number of levels. The problem is there is nothing to do AT those levels ... until you reach max level. The game is designed to literally funnel you through mundane grinding and then allows you to play (almost as a reward) for doing all that boring work. How is that fun?
The have created a beautiful and massive online world and completely waste it. At 120 I have absolutely no real reason to go back to older levels (unless for mats, or some other non-consequential thing). Then expect you to stay 2 years in a condensed area only to leave and do something completely different (leaving all old mechanics behind). Where is the progression in that?
Everquest always had the right approach. Create a (somewhat) endless progression system that trickles power immediately and becomes more noticeable over time. This allows for unique builds across the same classes and adds depth the gameplay. ESO did the same thing with much success with the Champion Point system (granted there are other issues there, but the point is there was an endgame system to worked over time that WoW simply does not have).
But to me, the underlying issue isn't the progression or how they structure progress. Its the fact that WoW is no longer or quickly moving away from its ROLE PLAYING GAME roots and moving more towards a MOBA (jump in, do a dungeon or other event, progress, log off). Its one of the reasons I bleieve there is HUGE anticipation for WoW Classic. its not just rose colored glasses. its a return to a more difficult gameplay experience where playing the game was the point and not just getting to max level.
Wow lost that and I'm not sure they can get it back. I'll see what 8.2 does.
Exactly
Blizzard. YOUSE THE WHOLE GAME!
Blizzard sees a tree.....
BURN IT!
Ny'alotha well...they did...
Cosmetics wont bring back interest to the game.
Honestly I dont think your ideas would fit the game.
Cosmetics are the easiest reward to give. They don't require any balancing. However, without stats they won't feel too rewarding after the excitement of getting them wears off. That's why he listed it as an extrinsic reward. Flashy things always attract the eyes of the masses, so adding cool cosmetics would at least put people off until they can figure out a real fix to the problem.
Level squish would still be great with an accompanying talent revamp, like some of the things you proposed.
If they get the Level Squish to work, reintroducing old talent trees becomes a lot more feasible.
no it would not
@@shackunn A solid argument. You've changed my mind.
How? If they do a level squish, then they would squish down the talent tree. Sure you will get it faster, but we do not have that many talents to begin with. In initiating a level squish, they could just increase the experience needed to level up. Know how horrible that would be? How about just focus on making a person more powerful by increasing their stats or just giving a reward once you level max.
If that is not enough, which it wouldn't be. They could make it as you level past a certain point for an area. The area that you are in will change around you. Newer and stronger enemies will move in giving more newer missions. This can be negated if you are in a party with a lower level(s), giving you a chance to help other people level up. Then once they hit the level that is needed for the change, they will also see the change. There fix the problem with making old content relevant and leveling up, stats boost, and reward system.
@@cainabel6356 I don't know about you, but not getting anything at all for 10 levels in a row feels much worse than a single level taking longer. I mean, what's the point of a level if nothing changes at all?
What do we want? MEANINGFUL CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION
Will we ever get it? NO
Like the old talent tree and a fallout 4 type of full customization for full uniqueness it would be beautiful
@@michaeltaylor6794 it was beautiful back in the day and it can be majestic today!
yes we are gonna get it this summer
?
@@ssj3icecap He means classic WoW.
You hit the nail on the head in the middle of the video.... Blizzard needs to stop trying to find a perfect balance for players in the top 0.01%. Making the game fun and rewarding is far more important than making it balanced. WoW is not an esport, and never will be.
I personally would love to see a good reason for leveling players to enter level-appropriate raids again. Maybe a unique/powerful weapon enchant that would be worthwhile to keep throughout the next leveling bracket? It's just a shame to see that after all the hard work that was put into older content, a lot of it just isn't being seen anymore.
i completely agree with this. it feels like they're trying with timewalking raids. maybe they could implement a quest line that draws you to the level appropriate raids once you hit level 60, 70, etc. I know there's already quest lines for most raids, but what if players received a prompt, or an auto accepted quest that put players on the path to the beginning of the quest line. As soon as you hit 60 - CALL TO ARMS - MOLTEN CORE, just as a poor example :)
Another idea of course would be an achievement for completing the content at the appropriate level, perhaps with a title/mount/pet or other cosmetic reward attached.
But I tend to favor solutions that give gear meaning and make the player feel powerful. I'd really like to see the gear in old raids become powerful enough that they remain useful up to about halfway through the next level bracket. I'd also like to see the set bonuses be reactivated, but I suppose neither of those things are likely to happen.
@@andyjames7775 I think a call to arms is a wonderful idea! It would definitely funnel people in the right direction, provided that there's proper incentive to do the content.
@@DeuceXSC i like this idea of getting 'artifact loot' from old raids - say we got Obsidian Edged Blade from Molten Core - but it's an artifact weapon (with artifact traits?) that we would use to level from 60 - 70, and as we quest from 60-70, quest rewards would include 'artifact power' for our current artifacts that we could elect to increase in power. now you got my imagination churning! :) lol
@@andyjames7775 The possibilities are truly endless! And that's why I'm glad people like Bellular make videos like this. It's important to get players thinking about how to make games better. All it takes is one person getting inspired from a little comment section like this one to potentially reshape the gaming industry for the better.
Level Squish AND Bring back talent trees. Something that makes characters unique is your progression of talent points.
Maybe do things like rift do, where you can mix classes together and create a sub class
JUST APPLY WOW VANILLA TO THE CURRENT GAME AND YOU ARE GOOD TO GO
I do not think classes have enough ability's any more for talent trees :)
The ability of being different from every other druid for eg. Thats amazing!
@@PrimyFritzellz I've been thinking about this idea for years, since I've tried Rift. I agree, the talents need to come back, cause every game that has them feels rewarding. Problem in WoW was, no matter what they did, we all came to use the same builds every time.
I think you've hit it pretty spot on imo. Level squishes would only provide an illusion of a fix. Everything would feel exactly the same as it is now, with the exception that each level would be a significantly larger power boost, but that's it.
I also don't see why we have to leave each expansion behind every time and make everything except the current expansion irrelevant.
bring back talent points. Every level mattered
because 50% of these are just copy/pasted for most trees? Do you feel a difference if an ability gains another 2% damage? The mob might die a bit faster. Talent trees up until Wrath are just 70% filler with no consequence for your playstyle.
@@Nightstalker314 Spending a point was _progress_ towards a key node on the tree, even if that point did very little it _felt_ like it meant something. Not only that but even +1% damage is more interesting than literally nothing happening.
@@gubzs Totally agree.
Also with the loss of talent trees you lost the ability to play hybrid for some fun during non competitive pvp.
Losing the talent tree just felt like you lvld for no reason, so dumbed down, lost out on the fun of deciding which talent to take at the next lvl.
It gave a purpose to lvling beyond rushing headlong to get to max lvl
@@Bramble20322 I went through every talent tree during the demo and was laughing my ass off. Maybe 5 at best if you wanted a cohesive spec. The rest is just +X% here and there.
@@Nightstalker314 back in TBC every 1% counted to get the boss down, beleive me it made a difference and it was awesome
I kinda look forward to a level squish tbh, what made leveling shit is instant gear irrelevancy, no talent or spell unlocks per level and severely outdated quests.
A leveling squish won`t fix that but you also didn`t debunk the leveling squish at all.
Levels to 60 bring back a more wotlk or bc style talent system, and they are just going to have to redo some more questing zones.
@ That`s why I also mentioned that it should be coupled with a more in depth talent system.
Have a talent system with a talent point every other level. Exactly as rewarding as talents would be with a squish, but without all the issues a squish would cause.
Worst thing about 120 was the fact we got literally nothing. No new talent, we've only lost things.
Why do you say unrealistic? I think WoW has the resources to accomplish this goal. Don't undersell Blizzard. I think making unique armor sets would be great.
you need to understand that if it does not see directly correlating monetary response, blizz is not willing to do anything. That is how big companies work.
That means for us that we need to explain why it would make them money to do something big or give them a small solution.
I don't think bliz want to squish everything in the game to below 60 like old expansion raids.
Trooops Trooops I may be tripping but I think they are reducing the level of EVERYTHING. So like MC would be a level thirty raid yeah?
@@theprophecy3732 Trooops Trooops does have a bit of a point. If everything was squished to 60, including content that was already in place, what would happen to soloing old raids that are prior to the current expansion. That's one of the things that I love to do, since usually don't have the time to do that content when it's current. In addition it provides a fun bit of challenge as you get closer to the current raid content.
@@theprophecy3732 That be like rewriting history tbh. Lvl 80 never existed, no lvl 100s or lvl 70 BC. What would happen to loot in lower expansions and certain legendary quests?
I also, agree that you didnt really debunk level squish. They already mniw that the abilities and talents are not great for how much they spread. I would assume they have an idea on how to solve it. Your ideas are cool, the talents like prime and lesser. Lets say 60 levels, 6 prime talents with 3 or 4 lesser talent to spread 10 points between getting to each prime talent. With the lesser talents being an encouragement to gain the 10 levels for the super cool prime tale t every 10 levels. This would be similar to old style as you always were looking toward that level 30 or 40 talent. A good example is in tbc with enhance shammy dual weild. You were oixking up fun relevant talent like flurry, enhancing weapon imbues and when you hit 40(?? I think) the dual weilding kicked in and you could equip those 2 1h weps you had gathered in anticipation, with the ultimaye stormstrike being a new goal to kick towards. Thats how I liked levelling. Also, getting new class quest and specifically as a warlock getting new demon quests was very exciting every 10 levels or so. This is what I think questing was really fun!!!!!!
A lot of the proposals remind me of GW2, Rift, and ESO
Yup and I think it's the only way to make this game interesting again. They need to get some similar elements from those games just like they got from WoW and watch it flourish.
I love random world content, not world quests that I need to do but like Rift's world group and rift systems. I'll spend so much time on those I'll forget about leveling
Yea I'm getting more and more tempted to just quit wow and go to eso full time.
@@scion07tcfan yeah I've been hella into ESO, playing it full time. There's just so much to do.
It does because it is working. Do you know how many of us jumped ship to ESO alone? Heck 90% of my guild are WoW Refugees.
How about every time a player gains a level they pay an employee an ethical wage and not lay them off without notice?
Totally disagree. Their scaling didn't fix anything, it broke it further and is one of the main reasons I unsubbed.
The entire game needs to be revamped and a level squish is a good idea to include in that. As it is now the game is a disconnected mess and full of redundant, pointless quests. Leveling is an unfun, unrewarding, boring chore. Gaining a level gives you nothing more often than not, you are spinning your wheels. Everything before max level is worthless. One hundred nineteen freakin' long, slow, boring, pointless, unfun levels. No thanks. Keep it.
Yeah they really need an overhaul of everything. Previous content is made meaningless evensomuch as right after a patch, leveling is tedious, classes are boring and overly homogenized, the fun and lore rich stuff has all been stripped (i.e. totem quests and other class unique quests, class trainers, etc), gear pieces become nothing more then gear score numbers instead of actual lore significant items, as well as titanforging or lack there of, ruining any sense of gratification from a boss drop because it could have been better.
I feel what would be good is a bring back of abilities and utility. Paladin needs Hammer of Wrath and Exorcism back to baseline for ranged abilities. All classes need their silence abilities around 10-20 (especially druids with Skull Bash at 70), stances/presences to come back, and just the original talent tree idea to come back.
The original talent system might've been a balancing mess, but hell it felt nice. Not all classes need to balance each other out.
I had 4 max levels and a heritage armor set going into bfa prelaunch. I bought bfa, but have not played it once, i keep you subbed and dip in occassionally to see the state of the game. As a vanilla player back in the day, i think you are totally right, i want skill trees and i feel like there is way less customization and intrinsic value
Jimmy Bish I’m enjoying bFa and am similar (5 120s) but that old talent tree seems fun so im down for fun changes
it doesn't matter wether you play or not
unsubscribe to show them you dislike the current state of the game
BTW I believe that BFA being a dud of an expansion should be eye opening experience for blizzard and this is the time they can work on 'revamping' the game to an amazing modern MMO. And bringing literally millions back to WoW in the next expansion!
I would love to think that way. But they need more development time. This expansion and its tail end is just going to be picking up the pieces of and extremely short alpha and beta period.And then all of that work is going to be thrown away for the next expansion. Making it mostly pointless especially if it doesn't revitalize this expansion.
Obviously they have other teams working on future content and I hope it's going well.
Letsplaylikechamps Every expansion seems to be a dud to some one lol. I don't know I see a lot of complaints about every little thing. I think blizzard will end it after this expansion. Usually by now people are dropping guess about the next expansion. Nobody has even tired to figure anything out people in legion by the middle of the expansion where talking about hits of the next expansion. Some people even got close to the name before bfa was even announced like a year before. This time around nothing. I think they are going to stop after this expansion they are going to give people wow classic, and maybe some other servers for other expansions and then that will be it. I honestly think they are done with all the whining of the player base they have.
Steve Jones doubt it heavily.
Steve Jones honestly I thought Legion was the end since the BC were the main baddies in Warcraft. Well at least one of the big bads
I think one thing Blizzard should really try and do is tie in the Heritage Armor to Heirlooms, and tie them into leveling. As you grow in power/strength you can earn an upgraded set of armor based in their races aesthetic. Every 10 levels you get to reach an upgraded version and this gear scales with you (and let’s say for every max level character each piece in the set gives you 2-12% bonus XP for each max level character you have) that makes it so for people willing to do the grind, it will get easier and easier to blast through content you have already done, and for people new to WoW it will still give them a relatively small bonus overall and give them the grind that everyone else was used to going through.
Plus with the stat squishes seeing stats/percentages decrease because you don’t get a new item every level is kind of disappointing, I was using cata ilvl 143 bracers on my 115 Druid I was leveling, it could solve problems like this and perhaps you could have some form of cost to upgrade it so it’s not just handing out everything for free. But the final quests could be simply heritage armor quests (thinking like the b.elf scenario) when you upgrade you armor, each time you feel like you are growing in renown with the people of the Sin’dorei.
Just some quick thoughts from a budding game dev. Loved your ideas too! A mix of old and new talents could be a wonderful idea as well as making the old world mean something again with world events!
I definitely think they should do a level squish. It would make the entire leveling experience FEEL better. Even if 1 level will take just as long as 2 would, being rewarded every level just FEELS better than every 2 IMO.
Plus going to level 130 next xpack would be a bit ridiculous.
Nothing would actually change though!
It would still take JUST AS LONG, you'd still going just as long (Time wise) without getting a reward. It would change LITERALLY nothing except the number in the top right.
Just have them copy ESO champion system. Make the cap 60, and after that increase X thing by 0.0X%
@@youstolemyhandleyoutwat Again, squishing the level does literally nothing. Its a shit solution if you take more then 2 seconds to think about it. I'm all about the Champion system however.
@@Zeik188 nah, think about it, REALLLY think about it. But that champion system is great, it truly is. Tiny little changes that make a slight significant change
@@Zeik188 the perception will change and that is one of the key issues as to why leveling is bad at the moment
Lvl 60 with talent trees, gear set bonuses, glyphs, and reforging.
Don't forget fixed sockets on gear along with BS and LW gear upgrades, as well as the return of tier sets.
I love when wow sends me into the older zones. It makes the world feel larger, changes the scenery, and makes these places feel less dead.
I wood love to see them bring back the old style talent system. You no just modernized
hypnohoe why? You'll still just simcraft your talent to the one setup that is good. More talents is fake choice. And there is no real choice.
Why? Because it creates a reward factor while leveling and making your feel more personalized with your character. Right now it's 1 talent every 15 levels. Back in the day, every time you level you had a talent point and you had to go learn and buy new spells and abilities, adding to the class fantasy and character building. You do not get that same reward factor by getting a whole talent point every 15 levels which is basically what was said in the video. At the end of the day, yes all you might do is sim for a cookie cutter build, but having more diverse options tells a much better story than the system that is currently in use.
@@tonic316 ok the old talent system would be a great thing to bring back it has more diversity of skills one can bring to something. The big thing this video talked about was leveling rewards not really end game stuff. Plus if you need to just sim your character to know what's good and not you didnt really pay attention while leveling. I really dont think that simming is all that helpful, tells you how to play your class' spec pretty much. #oldtalentsystem
tonic316 I agree with you to some extent, but with the old talent system you could make some interesting hybrid and niche builds. Also sometimes it’s fun to not optimize.
@@SirCodysseusWhy is it called Cookie Cutter anyway?
I feel like the only sentence you need to hear from this video that explains it all is that current WoW is more like Diablo 3 than an MMO-RPG. The two are different games and you can't just shoe-horn ideas from one into another.
The underlying problem is that Blizzard keeps inventing new things and ignoring the old, leading to an abundance of shallow content. What I want as a player is for more activities with depth, things I can invest a lot of time into and get large rewards. Having tons of things that require little effort and achieve very little makes them feel like chores rather than choices.
Intrinsic value should also come from just simply enjoying the actions you do in the game, I think they need to remedy this before worrying about end of level loot boxes.
Finally, as a suggestion, I'd like to see more ways to add tertiary stats (perhaps something that could be earned by way of paragon points?) Choosing between speed, leech, avoidance could be an interesting concept and wouldn't necessarily be too overpowered but would lead to the game being a lot more fun - imagine being able to get +XX speed on every item? Running at 170% normal speed was great fun with the legendary plate boots for example. Or how about all your gear being indestructible and therefore no repair bills?
"The underlying problem is that Blizzard keeps inventing new things and ignoring the old"
Definitely. In fact, I think you can actually trace this flawed design philosophy back to an otherwise good expansion. Did you ever do the poop-berry quest in Nagrand, in BC? That summed up the game's problems, going forward - as a vanilla player, you would have fought your way through content that was far more challenging than modern WoW... you would have run dungeons that could take an hour or more to complete. You progressed from fighting boars, to fighting dragons.
Then you get to Outland, and you're given a quest... to retrieve berries, from lumps of poo. Literally. Outland was supposed to be an untamed frontier, a tormented, literally shattered world full of horrors and dangers. "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!" bellowed Illidan... And you end up calmly collecting berries from lumps of poo, in idyllic scenery.
"Intrinsic value should also come from just simply enjoying the actions you do in the game"
And for this to be true, the game needs to offer a hell of a lot more challenge, consistently. Fighting demons in Outland should be a whole lot harder than fighting raptors in the Barrens - you should feel more powerful, have more tools and tactical options by the time you reach outland... but there should be a greater sense of danger, requiring that you play your class more skillfully as you level up. You shouldn't just acquire power - you should feel that you NEEDED that power, and there should always be some new threat that makes you feel that you need just a little more power than you can ever get, so that you're striving to make the most out of what you have.
Ultimately, WoW is supposed to be an adventure. Adventures are their own reward; it's nice if you get some epic loot at the end of a great struggle... but the lasting feeling of gratification stems not from the item, but from the challenge overcome. The victory itself.
i agree with you man , but i just wanted to point out - WoW is blatantly using ideas from Diablo 3 - you know it, you've seen it and experienced it - scooping up 'azerite power orbs' on island expos is literally Nephalem Glory from Diablo 3. And your final paragraph about paragon points - i agree with this and it would be neat to add to end game level capped players - but this also would be yet another 'shoe horned' in idea from Diablo 3 lol.
at this point, im just wondering how long it will be before they try and merge the two universes via treasure goblin portal lol...
@@NicholasBrakespear I think there's a definite lack of plot cohesion when it comes to the players role in the game. It's a bit more obvious now than it was in TBC though it did exist back then too. I'm a "champion" according to Khadgar et al. but apparently I'm not above mundane quests that would normally be given to a grunt.
To be honest it would make a hell of a lot more sense if they got rid of the Alliance and Horde, and we were all mercenaries of one sort or another. Instead of faction based quest content we could have race or class based quest content, as shown in Legion I have stronger ties to my class than I do my faction these days anyway. And I don't think it would be that difficult to accomplish as there would definitely be overlap - this would also mean that while some quests would be familiar, levelling alts would be a lot less boring as it would change it up a bit on each class.
@@avenage "if they got rid of the Alliance and Horde, and we were all mercenaries"
Oh, I used to fantasise about this, even back in the vanilla days. As much as I loved the game, the arbitrary nature of the Horde vs Alliance fight annoyed me. I mean, even Vanilla's intro was basically a retcon (the tenuous pact between the Horde and the Alliance... what pact? There was no such pact - there was a pact between Jaina, and the Horde; the Alliance was busy being eaten alive by the undead back on the other side of the world). And while the Horde story made sense, the Human story... didn't make any sense at all. The vanilla human intro makes reference to the armies being away fighting the Horde... but... why? They just fought off a zombie apocalypse, and they're suddenly sending all their soldiers to Kalimdor to fight the "savage" Horde, for no reason?
But I digress. The mercenary thing would have been cool - remember the mercenary shops in WC3? We could have had those as gathering places for dungeon groups, instead of meeting stones. There could have been a mercenary billboard, with randomised quest stuff, to fill in the vanilla questing gaps.
OH, and it would have been a great way to re-introduce the original idea for language skills. You could have actually learned language skills, in order to communicate with other players from other races. In fact, they could have tied language skill progression to group activity - party up with someone who doesn't speak your language, and all xp gained while questing together would contribute to language skill. This would have encouraged people to party up with players from every race, in order to max out language skills.
I honestly enjoy the feeling I get at 120 when the experience bar stops moving, and turns into a reputation bar.
Give cosmetics for every 10 levels or something like that will not fix the problem.
We all know that player who has a character from each class and who collects everything possible.
I'm sure some people would create multiple characters of the same class just to get a set.
Those same people are going to start complaining about missing content.
And with the passage of time the same will happen with the rest of the players.
I am afraid that the WoW player is unique.
I do not see these things happening in other MMOs. Or at least not as often.
Cosmetics, pets, titles and mounts should not be a purpose. They have to be secondary.
When I say content, I mean missions, dungeons, raids, professions, world events (such as the guild wars / final fantasy).
Things that help improve the character.
I prefer a talent point that gives me less than 1% strength or a ring that gives me 5 strength points before a mount or a pet.
Getting a blue pet when I already have a red does not change anything.
And for the love of god. When I read that people are "excited" by patches that bring new pets ... I lose a bit of my soul.
Sorry for my English.
I'm that player and there is already to much for me to collect
Just bring back old talent points
Joshua Ritter bring the old talent points back but allow for more options so there isn’t 1 power build, but many
Getting a level and getting to choose between 1% Crit or 1% Haste doesn't really solve any problems.
Vantix getting to choose talents made it far more fun, all those small bonuses added up. Having 7 talent points are lame especially since it’s still cookie cutter in most situations
They need to boost the difficulty level a bit throughout. The game is too easy. And i think mixing the new and old would work. The old system having mainly stat boosts and core abilities and the new being turned into 2 or 3 meaningful choices per level. That reduces the need to have the required skills in them and opens them up, letting people have actual builds again.
@@joshuaritter9747 the builds have always been cookie cutter. Back in Vanilla it was still cookie cutter. The old tree really didnt do anything different. Sure we got some bonuses every level, but they were so minimal you hardly noticed them.
Wow Bellalur. I have seen alot of your videos/content and this by far is one of the best. You hit the nail on the head better than I've ever seen someone do. Blizzard really needs to see this video and take some notes.
As a person whom quit WoW for GW2, thank you for referencing the Mastery system, it's a highly effective system with frankly a limitless ceiling without wrecking power progression.
The GW2 system is incredible imo. Leveling actually matters and even if you reach max level you kind of keep going. You also never feel a rush to actually reach max level or max mastery level. Also the whole map is still revelant unlike the vast majority of Azeroth, that means you can chose to level wherever you want (well... almost)
Gw2 reward and progression is anazing imo. Blizzard would do well to copy some of it
Blizzard needs to take a peek at Path of Exile as far as character progression is concerned. Their passive tree is absolutely massive and that amount of freedom and decision making per level is spectacular for players.
they would never do something like that, it would overwhelm a very large portion of the playerbase. thats not even really considering the people who ever look up websites for guides or the pplayers who will oneday log in and see a huge talent tree.
Having a passive tree like that would kill the game. Most people that play WOW are casual gamers with a tight knit group of hard core raiders. Having something so overwhelming in the game like the passive tree from POE would just scare too many people off and Blizzard would most likely find a way to make it worse. (Personal Housing)
Make professions more relevant again.. that could be used to provide an 'every level reward', without creating complex tuning problems for classes and it could require some short quest lines in completed content areas, to keep them relevant..the paragon style box of loot reward idea, is also a good one, if both where implemented it would make levelling much more fun.. I'm 50/50 on some kind of level squish, 120 is definitely far too many levels, when rolling a new character.
@BellularGaming
Do you think its possible that Blizz is using Classic as a test to see if we really want old talent trees back?
Zach Baldwin hopefully
probably not only the talents but also a lot of other things that were removed/changed and created massive negative feedback. Perhaps they want to find the right direction - keep making the game comfortable or bring back challenges
@@lastmakc I was thinking about it also. I have a theory that since the trailer for classic is Chromie turning back time, could there also be an alternate time line involved like what they wanted to do with WoD? Like if they went into BC, Illidan would be considered a good guy from the get go, or something crazy like that
Adding an extra tree type system to add +% of something always feels good. Doesn't matter how little it is you feel like leveling did SOMETHING.
Nothing wrong with that. Keep the old, updat eit, and add to it.
@@lastmakc i'd come back if everything was like BC (that is when i started playing) the leveling, ganking, talent trees, weapon leveling, ability leveling, etc. not saying all this wasn't in vanilla (which i am gonna try when its released) its just WoW now is so boring i only played bfa for month and a half then i left, haven't touch the game sense.
I'd love more talent options but hell... it seems they cant even balance the current talents. On at least 4 of my specs one talent choice is always the best option by a margin. I haven't used a tome for months and on my main I only do it MAYBE for m+ and even then its only one talent.
At least bring back talent trees.
Next fix/balance classes. Then concern yourself with the broken/unfun leveling. I wouldnt even mind if new character would get an option to start at 60 or why not even 110 (but with the store-boost we cant have that now, can we?). Levels mean nothing. I even had to check what the current max level was cause I care about as much as I care about my random interchangable gear. I got Ievel 417 and I dont know the name of even one piece, let alone the azerite combinations. Numbers in wow are as meaningless and bloated as AP numbers in Legion.
Talent trees did not change a thing.
And example:
DH can build 3 different working builds.
Retri paladins can have 2
H. pallys 3.
I hope you realize that if some other talents occasionally don't work for you, it's also because you have stat weights among other things that lock you down to certain playstyle.
Talent trees do not change anything. You only take more things. You will still sim the most dps ones. There will still be a cookie cutter.
Point being: There's a lot of builds now you can go for. Some might not be as optimal as could be, but it's literally impossible to balance things in a way where every change would make equal amounts of sense. Not when you have stats like haste / crit that might have a HUGE impact on your gameplay.
Blizz barely gets core gameplay concepts right. When they changed the holy priest for Legion, they made the AoE heal have both the highest HPS AND best mana efficiency out of all of their non-cd spells, while making their HoT have both the lowest HPS and the worst mana efficiency out of all of their spells. Its expecting too much from blizz to actually make interesting talents when they struggle so much with basic things.
balance in an MMO? lol, do people still believe in that magical creature?
Rather than Talents being must-use in their tier, I have more problem with former baseline abilities replacing other talents and Blizzard outright refusal to add more talent tiers.
moving the level 100 tier to 105 (for the consistency of one tier each 15 levels) and then having all the golden traits from the legion weapons as the 120 tier would have been way better than the BS we have now.
Man talent tree arguement holds not much water as in the pst we had cookie cutter builds and had to take them for given role too! Also you dont know the name of your pieces thats also on you, i ran fh 10 11 times timed for 410ilvl Jeweled Sharksplitter so..
You fixed it. These ideas are actually how you make levelling fun! If you combined the 'Defenders of Azeroth' idea with the armor tier sets per zone, it would actually make me want to level, rather than sticking on Azeroth auto-pilot and running round as fast as I can. I'm only on 40 for my hunter and I want to die!! Literally everything in this video is a bomb shell idea. I just hope Blizzard aren't too proud and do take on your thoughts!! Great job dude, thank you!
Not gonna lie I just dont want levels to be so stupidly high. In any case they could implement both the level squish and the fixes you have in mind
actually really like your ideas.... nice job Bellular. Love the added Defenders of Azeroth idea. That could get folks out into old world areas and help make the world more alive when you have folks leveling new characters or alts. And by doing them you'll get rewards in return.
When you leveled up, people used to say congrats in dungeons. Now that I think about it, I haven't heard that in years. Everyone levels up once or twice every single run, at least early on. I'm down for a squish.
Last time I played, I only heard gratz (and gave gratz) to people hitting max level. Anything before was just another level to overcome on the way to max.
I'd like to see separate servers for each expansion - call it WoW Chapters or something lol
Reason why I play on a private MoP server
@@CossackHD panda baby
@@davebernstein5788 I really like the lore, scenery and music there. Funny thing is I still haven't leveled to 85 :/
I personally just want talent trees back.
Give druids a perk that lets them spawn a forest in zones.
God damn Druids, throwing their damn trees everywhere.
I'm definitely in favor of a level squish, primarily for the sake of any new player wanting to join the game. If we go into the next expansion with a cap of 130 levels, that certainly looks super scary and daunting for a new person. As someone who has played for a long time, I know its just a number and ultimately won't affect me personally that much, but it's not about me it's about helping the growth of the game and not scaring away new people because of a seemingly high level cap.
I dont like the idea of my character working completely different in different areas of the world. Little things like CC not lasting as long in PvP is fine but when spells and abilities are drastically changed based on what your are doing in game and the character feels like a different class in the open world compared to, pvp or a dungeon/ raid I dont think its good.
The loot box for each level idea sounds really boring to me.
While i agree with what you say personally... if blizz sees those things as successes, i feel like we can run with it and make it into something enjoyable. It's already out there, just not during levelling. Like.. who tf plays with pvp mode off, lets be real.
Here's an idea: Have world quests available everywhere in old zones along with xp bonuses areas.
Another idea would be to choose to level between Draenor or Broken isles like they did for Outland and Northrend.
Better idea; remove world quests completely and bring back *hard* quests that require a party (and thus communication with others) to finish!
To be honest... ESO do it the right way. They did a amazing job with that game with their leveling system, class system and crafting system.
That's easy to say of a game that's just a few years old. If they last 10+ years they will have these same design issues to face. This isn't a problem that happens with a young game
The eso champion point system is totally fucked up, whatare you talking about?
Great ideas! I would love it if old content wasn't immediately irrelevant every new expansion. And my all time favorite idea is paragon levels beyond level cap. Each paragon level can give you more perk points, transmog gear, special mounts, gold, etc. I hope they listen to you and take any one of your ideas and implement it.
I think that they said somewhere, some time ago that they don't want new players to see such a big number. In the next expansion it will be 130 if not squished. 60 was a good number of levels and they just kept adding more on top of it, now we are at a point where the number is twice as high. Getting through 120 levels to get to "good stuff" feels like an enormous chore when you start to do it.
blizzard trying to fix the wheel.
meanwhile old systems were highly rewarding and good.
just gimme back a talent tree, glyphs, gems, enchants. Maybe some baseline passive increases to fill in the gaps which will be there when lvling. Oh and take away the spells from players, which basically have all their essential spells by lvl 20, like warrior mortal strike. u could even make enchants/gems quest/lvl rewards, which players would be able to use for cool buffs and effects.
Could even give gear rewards with unique passives/abilities when u reach major lvls, like 40,60,80,100, and make that gear only useable in that level window. I mean the sky is the limit. And almost nothing can be as bad as it is now.
Problem is anything major will require work and thus dolleros. And blizzard simply isnt willing to put in the work to fix shit they broke years ago. It truly is a shame.
Level squish is a horrible idea considering how hard it is for blizz to balance even their stat squishes.
But I'm not particulary fond of your ideas to, except for world events for leveling zones - that one would be great (though can't solve the problem entirely).
What I think is that wow just became really bloated. I wasn't a fan of the idea of "wow 2" for plenty-o-years, but now I'm starting to think that maybe making a fresh start with a different game engine is a win in a long run.
I really like how they fixed the scaling in expansion zones so you could pick where you level. I also think they've done such a good job with quests overtime. So much so that I've gone back and done the quests on my op main. All your ideas sound really cool and I wouldn't mind seeing any of it put in place.
I loved the old talent trees. There were so many customize options. Feral bear, frost fire mage, etc. So lame now.
Agreed. Not to sound like a nostalgic fanboy, but honestly, I really enjoyed the Vanilla talents and even Artifact traits.
Vanilla gave you a wide range of customization and tweaking, and at least the Artifacts made you formidable and granted unique skills.
Now? We have 7 talents, half of which practically require a singular choice, and the other half are so situational (or PvP in a PvE world), that they are rarely used if at all.
@@DahrkMezalf
I think the key to the old talents was that there were more talents to pick from than you had points for. And you weren't forced I to one spec. Feral bear was a thing, now it's feral, or bear. The availability of choice was partly what made old wow amazing. Sure there were cookie cutter builds, but if you were not playing on a raid team you could play them however you wanted. The game is on rails to the extent were really just zombies marching through a predetermined set of events.
Well...I'm not against it if it just means 2x required exp for each level, as 120 is 2x 60
Awesome videos man! Entertaining, informative and gives me food for thought! I hope Blizzard listens to guys like yourself and has a long, hard think about how to bring some magic back into the game.
I think something along the lines of the old school talent tree would help....it proved to work in Legion with our artefact weapons, I think that was a hit.
A lot of people say “You don’t want Vanilla/Classic!” But I think it will be great for players that started playing post old school talent trees to experience that system and the feeling of “No sleep tonight! Two more levels for this talent!!!” These days it doesn’t feel rewarding and doesn’t make you push for something new as your character is generally decked with heirlooms and two-shot killing most things anyway.
Also, levels should just keep you from going to far to fast, and be lowered once coming back in an old zone. I mean, this is turning to a solo game, levelling is easier, and then you can do everything alone. Where is MMO ? Only at lvl 120 ? With a finder where nobody knows each other or care for them, getting selfish and arrogant ?
This is also a big deal.
depends on your situation, even vanilla was a solo leveling experience if you were late to the game, there was so much to do you rarely got help and no one was leveling because it was so grindy.
how ever it was a better experience because it required your attention 'oh god the mob fucking dodged twice i'm going to have to run fuck sake' it was frustrating but it wasn't boring.
so i'd argue make the leveling as fast as possible, the combat while leveling, along with your abilities and talents just aren't interesting or complicated enough to warrant a 2 week slog to max level. they'd be better off having a tutorial one what addons you need how to set them up and how to write macros; this a text based game now boys.
WoW developers need to play more Dungeons And Dragons, they forget what a true rpg is
preferably 1st ed - 3.5e
Totally Agree with this. What blizz does now is just trying to be amazing at story telling and having you on a rail system of progression. What I loved about vanilla was the sense of the world being HUGE and you were just moving through the world and everything going on around you. Current and last few levels just feel to compartmentalized and boring. I want to feel like I'm slowly moving toward end game stuff. It's the journey I loved. I don't get that feeling anymore.
Currently playing grim dawn and its disgusting how bad leveling up feels in wow compared to other games. Id love to see a system that somehow revives old content
Personally I would squish XP requirements for levels and lower the levels to 80.
Belluar should be on Blizzard's dev team.
I liked your idea about the zone gear, like BC and Wrath gear. I always thought it would be cool to see special gear or something if you completed the entire story of a zone, like you'd get an old fashioned Horde/Alliance guard set for doing all the quests in Ashenvale or something. Those zones feel so dead nowadays, they need to fix it somehow. I loved the pre-Legion Invasions.
The level 120 is too intimidating for returning players as well as new players, it also feels like more work when you make a new character and have to level 120 times
Exactly why my friends don't come back to the game.
Its actually much faster than lvling so classic 60
@@maxm8771 That's not his point, new players don't know this and they don't have the resources yet. To hit level 120, it will take awhile for new players still and most don't do it because it sounds like a lot for them
Also they know that its boring as fuck, even for new player. Ive known some people trying to get into WoW and stuff and at the early game they are all excited etc. but once they ask me: should i keep any of these item? i have to answer: No, you dont have to care for anything before hitting max level.
Bobo257 exactly. There’s so many things. Like classics wows aspect of gold inside the server and the economy of the server itself. Ready for classic!
They need to fix the way that the only part of the game that matters in 'live' is the Endgame. They want the world to seem greater, so they remove portals and make you jump through hoops for flying rather than give you good, fun, legitimate reasons to go back to area's you've already "outgrown" in your rush to get to the newest stuff. I also personally think moving back to more of an Diablo 2/Early Wow Talent tree system would be a better fix/more fun than just squishing everything down to 60 levels again and keeping the current talent system where most of the talents per spec are useless and nobody uses them unless they clicked on the wrong one and didn't notice for a bit. Then again in D2, Early Wow I always liked mutant builds better than 'best' builds so what do I know. I play for fun, not to be the best
One of my favorite things was theory crafting my build back in they day. One of the reasons I got excited for expansions was because we would get those 10 extra points to use. I remember in DragonSoul I was able to take a "less effective" build on my unholy dk that included anti-magic zone and I was able to effectively use that as a defensive raid cooldown or to help with people being stuck in ice blocks on Hagara. It was hella cool and the choice to customize was what was awesome about it.
I absolutely LOVE the World Events from Legion. They were by far my favorite pre-Expansion content, I had so much fun leveling a new character, being weak and newb, fighting alongside max-level people, both of us fighting the same creatures, holding our own. It also made the early zones feel integrated with the upcoming expasion, because well...Demons weren't just locked to a few zones, everything was being invaded! Then when Legion Dropped, and they stopped the Invasions...it kind of took away the impact of the whole thing. It no longer felt like Azeroth was being *INVADED*, it felt like they were just travellers coming through a designated checkpoint (the Broken Isles).
I think that's the biggest problem a lot of expansions had, they just don't integrate new events into old zones, and when they do, its just to wipe the slate clean and redo it in a way that's arguably worse *cough* cataclysm *cough*. I think it wouldn't be tooooo much work to spend some time throwing a new quest or an NPC or two in these older zones (not even all of them, just a few) all around the world. Maybe have these NPCs give a short quest line special to those zones that has to do with the most recent expac, and give a special reward (like Transmog gear). Then when a new expac drops, re-update the questline to make it more consistent with the modern day, update the reward to match, and voila'! The zone is more integrated with the xpac than it was before.
would this be more work? Of course. But with Activision-Blizzard having laid off so many people, it wouldn't be much of anything for them just to hire back on a few more to do this. They still would be under their old employee count, but capable of taking on a slightly larger workload. Plus it could be a fun thing to train Interns and new peeps with, allowing them to work on a teeny tiny bit of the world without jeopardizing the larger expac if something went wrong.
I just Hope wow can bring back some of the old spice that EQ and older WoW had in regards to the level process. Some of that good ole Intrinsic happiness. Who knows?
The problem with leveling is more on the factor that we lack skills, not that we lack talents.
Of course an all upgrade would be give u both the old talent system, and multiple unique spells.
I think the only way blizzard can get people interested again in WoW is to take the TBC or WOTLK philosophy into the next expansion.
The number of players are just decreasing by the day at this point. They need to refocus on having a steady progression and character goals, instead of the current singleplayer win with one click of a button mechanics they have now.
Brollular (bro) I love your content and your work ethic, but as constructive criticism, I detect a hint of overconfidence in this vid.
These are good solutions but its better to convey them as proposals that you believe would work, and not as proven solutions who's success is pretty much guaranteed, I suspect this may be the cause of the slightly higher than normal dislike-to-like ratio. WoW is a complex game with a complex playerbase, I think it's potentially going too far to predict things and feel certain they'll work, there needs to be an element of doubt in there to retain the ability to distinguish between good and bad predictions.
Still a really good effort, and leveling is a great topic to fantasise about, I would change so much about it. I really like these ideas, in particular the world events, the class-specific world interaction and the talent point systems you came up with look soo much better (although not so keen on the level bracket armor sets, they would continually become invalidated as you move to the next bracket) ...but I feel like as players we're just sick of the act of leveling, it holds no real meaning for us anymore, and that we've changed while leveling has changed.
I suppose we'll find out more about this when classic arrives, I suspect we'll initially love the old leveling again but hate it after a while because we've just grown out of that sort of reward system, I mean nowadays to me the idea of doing quests I've already done multiple times just to gain xp for a small power increase (or decrease) is thoroughly unappealing, no matter what the talents, the current max level or the other things that could happen spontaneously while you level. It's partly why I love leveling up in a new expansion, because all the quests and zones are brand new, but I just cannot stand doing the same long-ass thing again that I've already done 15 times before lol.
I had the same Idea for the Talent System, BUT I ALSO TIED IT TO A COSMETIC SLOT ITEM FOR EACH CLASS. Hunters get a quiver, Paladins get the libram, Warlocks could get like cool floating skull or something, etc they can upgrade while leveling while also having an item to unlock appearances for while leveling and at end game content.
I recommend level squish to level 60.
Then make level 1-5 bracket for starting zones and 6-60 bracket for all other areas of each expansion (including current one = BFA) so players can actually feel the massive world?
The Elders Scrolls Online has removed level restrictions and it is great and actually works...
We would need the massive damage buff to kick in for old world content so no, it wouldn't work. We need to be able to solo farm old world
content or you will literally see millions unsub, I am sure of that.
@@RheaStorm
Sure some people would leave if they couldn't solo the stuff, but then again, it is an MMO, and a large part of multiplayer games is working together after all. I'd argue that changes like theses could eventually bring more players back or retain players longer, since they'd need others to work with to accomplish their goals, and wouldn't just stomp them out with no challenge and leave. (Not like certain players in certain classes couldn't solo certain group content while it was semi relevant anyways (e.g. death knights and rogues in WotLK).)
In that essence you could make it that stuff cuts down later in levels (e.g. certain areas don't scale equally up to your power once you get to 55-58). Part of it isn't that it wouldn't work based on level alone, but how they allow you to progress your character's power after you hit max level.
Getting max level shouldn't be the end goal, and gear should be a reward for accomplishments at max level that make you more powerful and able to more easily clear earlier content, not just the level itself. Additionally, adding in the scaling, while having rewards for transmogs, zone specific or other content specific gear sets or perks, etc., but not making it so you could stomp it merely due to an artificial max level strength boost could encourage more community engagement/interaction among players with similar goals since they would need others to help.
If it's rewarding enough, and multiple people want to do it, it will make the game feel more alive again, with more communities actively working together to accomplish their goals, much more than just some relatively godly character going back to the same old content week after week to stomp previously strong and relevant content just because they happened to outlevel it years ago.
Wouldn't you find it more fun if there was a better incentive to do content together in the world again? Maybe make older transmogs actually feel more meaningful since they still had to accomplish something to do it, that wasn't just a singleplayer cakewalk?
@@iceburglettuce764 That is ignoring that WoW has largely evolved to be mostly a single player game dude. THat's the player base now. It would kill the game. Everyone loves collecting transmog, pets, etc. well almost everyone.
@@iceburglettuce764 hate to burst your bubble but the last change they tried a few years ago they did kinda same thing but a bit diff caused 6 million of the 13 quit....a lot dont play to group anymore most play for a lot of the solo aspects. if ya have not played back then you'd never know this game at times over a update has lost millions thats something this change would do.
Your pretty slick on this stuff man. Love your content keep it up
I LOVE The Defenders of Azeroth idea and bringing new life into old zones! I know after Cata Blizzard said they'd never do a world revamp like that again, but I honestly think it needs to be done, and if things were tweaked a little in old zones with each new expansion it probably wouldn't be such a big deal down the line... like, if I dust once a week, there's less of a dusty mess to clean up than if I dust once a month.
Easiest fix would be to rewamp and bring back the old talent trees. Small rewards for each or every other level.
But since leveling is such a daze. Lets think outside the box for a second. Remove levels! Okok i know, im sry, REPLACE levels with ”rank” and ”skill”. Rank increases with quests, rare/boss kills. Skill increases with combat.
Lock zones and quests behind rank. And lock abilities and talents behind skill.
High level weapon? No. High quality weapon? Yes.
As skill increases the level of all weapons increases.
Think someone more experienced with character progression could make this pretty cool.
A few examples: borderlands has both exp levels and badass rank. Torchlight has exp lvls plus fame.
Skyrim has skill rank and ”exp” lvls
I want us to have damage-based discipline priests, another mail class, and wickerbeasts for hunters.
Steve Jones Druids rogues and demon hunters all wear leather
1) I love this style of intro; I say keep with it
I don't want to go back to the old talent system. Getting 1 talent point that will give me a 1% increase in my frostbolt damage isn't fun. It's not rewarding.
That being said, I also don't like the fact that Blizz continually takes our baseline abilities and makes them talents. And then later takes two talents that people use together and puts them on the same line so you now have to choose between two abilities that you previously had.
the old talent systems is best talent system. now you have 5 talents 3 pasives 2 spells
I agree that simply changing 120 to 60 wouldn't solve a damn thing. But if they combined it with a larger revamp of how leveling works - everything from what you talked about with talents and making progression feel better, to making the story make sense (Cata -> BC/Wrath -> Cata/MoP -> WoD -> Legion -> BfA, quite messy for a new player) - it could work fine. I guess what I'm saying is: Is there a real reason to not scale down levels if the other issues are fixed? Like an actual reason, that's not just based on "it would feel bad with lower numbers" - cause we've already been through that with 2 stat squishes.
GW2 has a model of horizontal progression. So no new levels past 80, but you gain access to more things you can do. HEre's an idea. In the next expansion, if its a void vs light vs death sort of deal, you're character can gain alignment perks based on alignment levels. So if you side with Void, as you do more stuff for void, you'll get void themed abilities that tweak how you play your spec.
I know this isn't helpful to the conversation. but for how many expansions have they said that they realize the auction house is an issue that they want to fix?
And how often have they done anything to fix it. That was substantial.....I hope the change comes and I hope it's Grand. But we've been given no reason to believe they will actually fix the game's problems.
Regardless of world of Warcraft being one of their highest-earning products or not. I normally trust what Ian has to say, he's just a dude doing his job to the best of his ability and he gets a bunch of s*** for it. we also have to look at results that we've been given in the past. (8.2 doesn't exist yet we dont know if it fixes anything at all yet )
kyubii972 whats wrong with the auction house hmmmm. no patch will fix an expansion that people don't like this is shown in almost all expansions of the game wod being the big one. If some one doesn't like an expansion from the start vary little can be done to bring them back. Now if some one likes it from the start they could possible lose these people if they try to please those that didn't like it at the start. It is a pickle no doubt and one they error on the side of keeping those that already like it happy. That is why you may not see them fix things that you think they should.
@ the auction house is essentially controled by the super rich who keep buying everything and then re-selling it for double the prize. Essentialy playing a glorified stock market minigame. Which means that for the average players everything is stupidly expensive, and it only spirals further and further out of control each expansion.
And before you go say "yeah but making gold is so easy you just need to do X and then you're super rich" ask yourself if that's something that an average player would be doing. Most of those "easy" ways to make money aren't connected to the core gameplay and thus would only really be done by players specifically looking to make as much money as possible (for example in Legion running gold missions on 10 alts was a good way of making gold, but most players won't have 10 max level characters to begin with, let alone be interested in levelling those just for the purpose of running order hall missions..)
@ The issue is that the super rich constantly flipping on the auction house, as well as abusing every other mechanic they find (like the order hall missions) are what causes, and maintains, the constant massive inflation. And by playing "normally" (in this case someone who doesn't go out of his way to make gold like they do) you won't ever be able to keep up. It's great that you can sell the occasional stack of cloth cuz you can just sell it at half the current prize and a flipper is basicly guaranteed to pick it up, but that won't get you anywhere near buying something usefull yourself.
Which to be honest is a general issue with WoW, and kind of inherent to MMO's. There'l Always be those players that'l try to break the system and min-max whatever they can to get the most gold/the most dps/the quickest dungeon run etc. And when nothing is done to keep those in check, and Ensure they don't end up magnitudes ahead of the "average" player (or worse, you start balancing around these outliers…) you end up in situations like this where the average player cannot even begin to compete and entire sections of the game become basicly irrelevant for 99% of your playerbase.
Honestly, Blizzard should probably just lowkey use your ideas for mechanics / systems and Taliesins ideas for story / future lore.
What I would give for GW2-style mounts in WoW... seriously the best mount system EVER been implemented.
GW2 Gliders would be nice too!
Or maybe just stop leveling going forward, and concentrate on content?
For me personally there are only two issues regarding leveling up new characters: 1) you replace gear much too often and 2) you don't even need the gear to survive.
Another problem with leveling you did not mention is that all of the content has had its difficulty trivialized. You can kill everything with one or two button presses until level 20ish. And it continues to be so much easier than it was when it came out all the way to max level.
And without difficulty, there's no reason to socialize. And without socialization, there's no reason to engage with the world.
I hope they do an level squish . but completely overhaul how progression works. questing . talent system . grouping. remove lfr.
If the amount of XP was reduced even more and you got your abilities quicker don't see why not tbh. Sounds good
The good old days when I learned a new spell on my mage, then walked outside the Mage Trainer in Ironforge and took a bunch of screenshots of me casting that new spell.
The PvP talents have been universally praised for their design and simultaneously criticized for how they can only be used in PvP and the open world.
They literally implemented a fix, but completely screwed it up by locking it to PvP. The fix is literally giving us more useful talents that round off our classes in a really good way.
The mending bandage for survival hunter is soooooooo useful for a class that has historically been lacking in self-sustain compared to any other class. We need more talents for 120 levels and we got them.... they just only work in the open world and PvP and this is by design to encourage more participation in war mode.
In order to fix the game they will have to hurt part of it. They have to stop trying to please everyone in every way, in order to actually please everyone in some ways. And this is a big way to please everyone. We need 10 talents, not 7. If you really have to have PvP talents thats fine but we can't just have only 7 talents anymore there are some really critical useful talents today that are limited to PvP and that's not good.