Again, I think people are reading to much into these changes. So the zones scale in level, theoretically allowing you to finish a zone story line while questing, instead of picking up the first 4-6 quests at the appropriate level, and leveling enough that the rest of the story line is already so far below your level that the quests and mobs are grey. That, to me, is the most frustrating aspect of leveling an alt, always having to find another new zone without the normal, organic progression that vanilla had. As far as slowing down alt leveling or making it harder on players, it would seem that if the mobs are harder, that they should accordingly award more xp per mob. The quests award more xp and the xp needed per level is also raised. The only real time delay appears to be that it will take a little more time to kill "x" number of mobs to loot items or finish quests. Maybe they will even make most loot items closer to 100% drop. There are some notorious mobs out there in the vanilla world that have no paws, or no teeth, or no skin to be had for leather, yet they still appear to be just another normal mob. That change alone would off set some of the increased health of the mobs. If I only have to kill 15 mobs to get 10 paws, then if it takes 15 minutes to kill them, that's the same as if I had to kill 30-45 mobs in 15 minutes to get the same 10 paws before the change. Plus if I ding between mobs 9 and 10, then the rest of the mobs award more xp... win/win as far as I can see. Of course if it is a simple kill "X' number of mobs, it will of course take a little longer but in my eyes the game was never originally designed to allow a player to level a toon from 0-110 in a couple of weeks.. It was always intended to take at least a couple of months if not more to max level a toon, and that was to level to 60... The stat "squish" really is a non event. It simply normalizes the numbers and makes the game easier for your computer to run because the numbers are smaller. Is it a microscopic change as far as your computer is concerned, yes, but it also makes it a ton easier to understand exactly how much heath your toon, or that boss over there, has. It should be 100% linear and have zero effect on boss or mob encounters or any raids or dungeons. It simply changes the scale of the numbers and takes a couple of days for players to adjust.
Seems odd to nerf heirlooms considering people who use them want to level as quickly as possible, i.e. kill stuff as quickly as possible. Not to mention how much gold we've had to sink into upgrading them.
Hmm... I think that I'm onboard with the early levels making you fully use your rotation, so that you're actually prepared and have built up muscle memory for it at max level. But I feel like they are double-dipping the odds being stacked against us. If an heirloomed player would currently two-shot an enemy, but enemy health has been increased by up to a quadruple factor as listed above, that already forces you to use a more complete rotation of your abilities. But to then nerf the heirlooms as well from roughly blue-quality stat boosts to what looks like green-quality stat boosts... that's going to make for a pretty severe handicap in combination.I mean, if quests are now going to award green on-level gear (huge upgrade to the current system btw, and appreciated), and heirlooms are basically being reduced to green on-level gear with an experience boost... then they really only serve the purpose of the experience boost, which really undermines the original incentive that we paid a HUGE chunk of in-game money for, by upgrading our heirlooms. It's one thing to spend thousands and thousands of gold, multiple times to ensure a quick, less-grindy leveling process for an alt--especially when you've already put the time and effort into loremastering all current content-- but to then remove 1/2 the benefit we paid for (stats) and half-nullify the experience boost portion by increasing experience requirements across the board... That just seems like a colossal slap in the face to us who have relied on that mechanism to avoid boredom with multiple alts and multiple server/friend groups. :( It's one thing for a fresh player to the game/ a new realm to have a "full" (effortful) experience leveling up, but for us veterans who have done it all ad nauseum across multiple toons? Come on, Blizzard, have some heart.
I'm good with everything (and great with the Flying change) except for the Heirloom nerf.The whole point of Heirlooms - You make an alt, and don't necessarily have to chase for BiS gear until you get reasonably caught up with current content. Basically, Heirlooms were as good or slightly better then any Dungeon blues your could get, making the whole alt leveling experience more streamlined.With the new allied races having a 110 requirement for the armor, this will make the experience considerably more cumbersome.
I wish Blizzard would take pity on those that don’t have Draenor flying yet and give an option to buy it.
These changes all seems awesome! Especially zone and dungeon scaling. Looking forward to level 3-6 new races come The Battle for Azeroth.
I honestly look forward to all the changes and cannot wait to get back into the world to level. These changes are bringing back at least 3 close friends and my husband right off the bat so I will not only have more to do with more progress to be seen for it but I will have more people to play with!
I remember trying to level a low level warrior, going into wailing caverns only to feel completely redundant because some loomed up disc priest would bubble up, shadow word pain everything, face tank it and not die while the mobs would... yea please buff hp of mobs and nerf heirlooms so levelling 5 mans can feel again like 5 mans and not solo show of 1 guy whose class is most suited to pulling and aoeing everything in front of the other helpless 4. I'm not asking for it to be vanilla style "carefully corner pull in scarlet monastery because if the mob runs away at low hp to call for help and pulls extras we're doomed", I'm asking for a middle ground. Levelling dungeons where tanking and healing is needed and matters, so people can learn what dungeons and party roles are about.
Judging from the videos I've seen online, these changes Don't seem too harsh. I'm leveling up a rogue right now to get a fresh feel on how it currently is. I also plan to level up another alt after these changes to compare.
I too love "difficult" content. Blizzard can't make anything difficult, all they can do is slow it down. Better buy that token instead of leveling yourself!
I'm really going to enjoy leveling my NightElf Mage when this goes live. And the flying restrictions which hadn't even crossed my mind is actually a bit of a relief,means a lil more gold in my Bag XD.
I'm hoping that this will make dungeon running fun again. Currently running dungeons as a tank or a healer annoys me when leveling up because I'm trying to learn the class and get better at it but the DPS just keep running ahead and tanking everything. Guaranteed they are the same DPS that also tell off the tank and heals for not being good enough when the party wipes at higher levels.
I see how why when I pulled 3 mobs with my 26 priest on the PTR I died even with full looms... Rip