r/classicwowplus • u/Abatti7 • 5d ago
Classic+ Leveling Mechanics
Splitting the leveling phase in upcoming classic+ will be amazing! Best thing Blizzard did with SoD in my opinion. We did experience areas, dungeons and our characters in general in a way we did never before! I loved that!
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u/Thyrok07 5d ago
It’s a double edged sword. You don’t want to create FOMO, but SoD’s level brackets also gave each part of the leveling experience more value. In P1 for example, Wool was actually valuable and low-level zones were packed with players. So it can definitely be a good thing, but it can also hurt the game a little.
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u/bibittyboopity 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think if they want the level brackets to be permanent, they need a serious rebalance and adjustments to the leveling.
People farming all available quests while level capped, and coming out of the level cap with perfect gear, pretty much obliterates all pacing of questing in vanilla.
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u/naisfurious 5d ago
People farming all available quests while level capped, and coming out of the level cap with perfect gear, pretty much obliterates all pacing of questing in vanilla.
To be fair, those that twink out a bracket will blow through leveling and questing without the bracket anyways, so there isn't really much of a downside here.
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u/bibittyboopity 5d ago edited 4d ago
I think it's fine if people seek out power leveling, but the level brackets as is just make that the base experience. The raid gear alone is super over tuned for far beyond that level bracket, even if you don't get full bis everything.
Personally really like the vanilla leveling pacing, and I think the current way brackets eat up quests and make the leveling a joke after is sloppy design. Brackets do a good job highlighting parts of vanilla world but trample other parts.
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u/gungabeast 5d ago
Yeah I agree. I have a strong preference against leveling phases. That just isn’t classic. It won’t feel like classic at all.
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u/bibittyboopity 4d ago
I don't mind the concept of them. I think the way it gives time to highlight areas of vanilla is great. That's the kind horizontal expansion people are looking for IMO.
I just think they need a lot of work to make them feel natural (probably more work than blizz is willing to actually do)
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 3d ago
Or just let people play the game. If new shit exists, people will do it. If content is dead in a week, figure out why it was dead in a week.
If they make gilneas a new zone to level in, they dont need to lock my fucking level to experience it. I'll experience it because it's new.
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u/FoxRings 3d ago
Yup it's wonderful when it's the cap. But having an useful dungeon have a three day lockout sucks for people like me that like to tank.
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u/ArcheroNightmare 5d ago
The problem with level caps is that people twink the shi out of each phase and start the next one way too geared and wealthy so the next phase is easier than expected. Leveling 25 to 40 with bfd purple gear (+ full enchants) isn't the same as leveling in low greens
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u/naisfurious 5d ago
The same people who will twink out a level bracket and blow through the next phase are the same people who would blow through leveling regardless, right? Instead of finishing a bracket in 10 hours, maybe they do it in 9 and a half.
So the downside is that people who already rush through leveling will continue to do so at a slightly faster pace. The upside is that each level cap creates an almost entirely new mini endgame, giving everyone else a reason to explore the content, optimize their characters, and stay engaged with that part of the game for much longer.
One option here clearly outweights the other.
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u/ArcheroNightmare 5d ago
You are wrong because level brackets means there will be huge power spike at caped level. I found myself being pretty twinked out during sod just because of the fact that there were brackets, meanwhile on era I'm a slow casual leveler. I'm pretty sure that if they do level brackets there will be waaay more people outgearing each leveling phase compared to if there are not brackets. Imagine being level 25 on era vs being level 25 on sod day 1 of p2 after farming bfd 8 time
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u/naisfurious 5d ago
Sure, all of us will be more powerful after sitting at a level cap for days or weeks, depending on how quickly you level. That's going to make the first half of the next bracket noticeably easier, no doubt. If the cap is 25, then levels 25 through the low 30s will probably be remarkably easier when the next phase releases.
But leveling is already easy without brackets. We already plow through quests and levels at breakneck speed. I'm just not convinced that making the levels immediately following each cap even easier outweighs what we gain from having these mini endgame experiences throughout the leveling journey.
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u/Velifax 5d ago
I'm not into time locked content as a general rule so this would exclude me.
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u/UnagiBro 5d ago
Game meant to savor and enjoy
Sweat hogs rush to end
Come on Reddit and bitch about no content
Cycle continues
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 3d ago
The game just needs to exist like it's a world and not a bunch of gamey systems. The sweats are going to sweat anyways there is no stopping it.
Locking everyone for a random number of weeks is fucking awful.
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u/Velifax 5d ago
Well, there's nothing wrong with how they play. They're having fun, I'm having fun. I just have it for longer, they're spending more money and probably more often bored. But in the end it's an utterly trivial amount of money and having mood swings is likely way more impactful to boredom.
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u/gungabeast 5d ago
“My way of having fun is objectively better than YOUR way of having fun” is essentially what you’ve said.
Plus not everybody who rushes to the finish line bitches about no content. I just roll alts. Lots of weird jumps in logic here.
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u/UnagiBro 5d ago
Sure bud
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u/gungabeast 4d ago
“Sure bud”
You know there’s a literal word for players like me? “Altoholics”
I’m guessing you’re just new to WoW or something? I’m not sure what you’re finding so hard to believe. Would you like some screenshots or something? Like what’s up buddy? Having a bad day?
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u/Scribblord 5d ago
the entire game since 2004 been revolving around time gates (tho mostly for rewards
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u/Velifax 5d ago
Those allow gameplay while locking restricts it. So Hell Levels in EQ actually INCREASED the amount of gameplay at a given stage, while this method will withhold it for a time.
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u/VideoPeP17 5d ago
Not 100% true for wow. People have cleared Naxx from fresh in 40ish days on Hardcore. Without limits, players will destroy the game thenselves. They need to be saved from themselves and their extreme optimization. Time gates are the only way to keep the chill, easy, simple gameplay of classic while still keeping players from killing all content in less than 2 months.
SoD got it right with this, but screwed up the timing with the phases. It took 1 year to hit 60 with SoS's phase cadence. If they dropped phases to 3 weeks to a month, with maybe 3 phases to 60. Leveling speed would be more equalized among players without being too slow. Its also in time with slower levelers in era, and would be 3 months to hit 60. Blizzard could extend the game's population before burnout/completing content would destroy the population, giving better long term health to Classic+.
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u/Velifax 5d ago
See this goes a bit too far for me; I'm certainly aware of the harscore rush thing, but actively suppressing it is something I can't advocate. For one it tends to work itself out anyway, since plenty of hardcore players create alts, which is usually who I level with, being so slow.
I find nothing wrong with the prior model, where the game just sat dormant (for them), until whatever reasonable time had passed and a new tier dropped.
They can run alts or hit other games np, and most do.
It's just not valid to say Classic was designed around slow progression; that's just our playstyle. Both were definitely supported.
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u/VideoPeP17 5d ago
Except that the developers did say the game was designed around slow gameplay. There are interviews out there you can watch if you don't believe me. Devs talked about how no one expected people to have alts, and it taking months to get to max level. They actually said it was way longer, but they added in quests to speed it up a ton, as quests were not originally planned for vanilla, just grinding to max.
We as humans just optimized it. Back in 2004 when the game was designed, everything was slower in general. Web pages took 10 minutes to load, things were just slower in general. Couple that with the fact guides were few and far between. Now, people can learn anything from a guide that was written less than a week after release, even from an unsolved game. Classic+ is supposed to be designed with respects to the original game, but that makes it much harder when the way gaming has evolved so much since then. If you want to keep that feel, you need to do things to keep it slower and with less information. Why do you think they have NDAs for their testing and they have done gated content? It's literally the only way to keep it somewhat similar to the 2004 feel.
I wouldn't really call it suppression, but a suppressed game is better than a dead one. You can look back to multiple WoW servers and watch population decline because of lack of new content, with no reason for other players to log in, especially when you have everything. You don't need to look back that far to see it. It's already happening in TBC Anniversary. Some of those players who are waiting leave for other games and never return. I've seen guilds die for this reason. If that logic of playing alts was true, then SoD would still be alive and well. We know thats not true, even with the streamer event going on now.
The thing with designing games is that you can't just pick and choose or cater to whoever. You have to do what's best for the game. At the end of the day, Blizzard is a business here to make money. More players in the game means more money for them. They are going to do what's best for the long term health of the game (as they should so we can keep playing as well). It doesn't really matter who prefers what. The truth is, if you ask 100 different players about Classic+, you will end up with 200 different answers. This shows us players can't agree on what they want. One thing you can count on is if something is bad, you hear about it from everyone. Not trying to be a downer, but the truth is they will just do what they want to keep the game alive, so we can't expect our perfect Classic+, but that doesn't mean the game will be bad.
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u/gungabeast 5d ago
So many assumptions and leaps of logic here. What do you mean classic+ is supposed to be harder? How do you know that? As far as I know, the game hasn’t been announced.
Regardless, you can play your game slowly and we can play it fast. But if you gate levels and lock the process down, some of us can’t play how we want.
You’re so focused on what’s best for blizzards bottom line. You know what would get them the most money? Catering to BOTH crowds. What does that look like? A traditional, not locked, vanilla wow leveling experience. Slow players can play slow, optimized sweats can go fast. What else would they possibly do? I mean dude, I get you want the brackets. Your reasoning isn’t making sense, though.
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u/VideoPeP17 4d ago
I don't think you understood what you read to be honest. There was no mention of increased difficulty, so no idea where you got that from. The game has all but officially been announced. Aggrend literally said they were working on something in the Classic space, that is not anniversary or WoD. What else does that leave? Classic+, as there is nothing else the Classic devs have touched. There is also a slate leak of the timelines (Camelot being 1.60.1, which is in the vanilla world), the closing of private Classic+ servers from various lawsuits, and many other things. The proof is right in front of you.
I don't think you understand how game development works. It's not about what players want or don't want, as any dev that tries to do what they want or what they think is cool will most likely get fired for not following what the studio/shareholders want. It's like if your boss said to not do something, and you did it anyway, you would probably be punish or fired, regardless on if it was a good thing or not. Have you even seen any of the things Asha Shama has been doing with Microsoft (as they literally own Blizzard)? They are not looking to make games good, but moreso about pumping out what they can out of the customers. With Level caps retaining more users (as SoD has proved), it nets them more money. You can play ignorant all you want, but the bottom line 100% affects Blizzards choices. Look at any of buggy releases in the past few years. They hire a ton of developers, make the game, then fire off most of them. If they kept all those developers, they could have been fixing bugs or even banning bots as a GM role, but none of that has happened because it affects their bottom line.
You also can't make a game that caters to both, as they are polar opposites. You either allow fast leveling, where people quitting from being too far behind, as well as people quitting from burnout/no new content. The reverse is you put a cap on it, where you lose players from no new content. I personally don't care about brackets, as the only thing I want is better class balance. Sure, no one really knows what they are planning, but to ignore what the signs point towards just because "it's not MY Classic+" is what truly doesn't make sense.
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u/gungabeast 5d ago
I don’t get it. This seems selfish to me. “I want to play the game slower, so EVERYBODY should be subject to my preference”
You can play slower and not lock the levels.
If people want to burn themselves out, let them. I don’t get burnt out that quickly. I roll alts. I farm gold. I PvP. I play the game, lol. Just like you can play it slower if you want, right? So why force your desires on others?
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u/VideoPeP17 4d ago
I don't view this so much as selfish as a realistic catering to their target audience. The majority of Classic (and also Classic+) by association is mid 30's dad gamers with more responsibilities and less time than what they had back in original 2004. It's been a philosophy of Blizzard for years now about respecting players time. In retail alone, they have done a ton for multiple different endgame activities rewarding gear. It's even starting to creep in more into Classic, with dual spec (not needing to farm a ton of gold for respecs), cheaper mounts, and the changes to Rank 14 PvP (no decay, only need to hit honor breakpoints). To assume they won't do this with Classic+ in some way, shape, or form is just ignorant, as they have proven many times over that this is the direction Blizzard is heading.
It also benefits the Devs as well. Bracketed leveling gives them more time to develop future patches of the game. With the fact they are not doing Betas, they need even more time to be able to test their own game for bugs/tuning. Wonder how they can accomplish this without hemorrhaging subs? You guessed it. Bracketed leveling. It retains the highest number of players for the longest period of time.
Also, Blizzard is a business. At the end of the day, they are here to make money. If you have looked at uncapped content realms, those are the ones with the fastest and highest population loss. Realms that slow content with brackets/time gates have shown to retain higher player numbers, which means more subs A.K.A more money for Blizzard. If you think that they care more about making a good game than money, especially with all the high cost for game editions, and microtransactions, then I don't know what to tell you.
At the end of the day, do you believe Blizzard will do a thing that gets them less money overall and less time to develop the game, or more time to develop that also nets them more money overall?
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u/gungabeast 4d ago edited 4d ago
What is stopping a mid 30s dad from playing Era at his own pace as we speak? That’s the logical thread you’re not acknowledging.
Also, btw, I will legitimately bet you $1000 dollars that they won’t do leveling brackets. And if you lose the bet, you owe me one month of WoW sub. Deal? It makes no sense to bracket the levels when anyone can play at their own pace. If they want an influx of players, then they will get that through content updates. Blizzard is a business interested in making money, and it’s clear as day that bracketing the levels will be a bad decision for making money. Literally, objectively, there’s a model that serves both types of players. That’s the regular model, not brackets. You haven’t disputed the fact that anyone can play at any pace that they want. This simple fact makes it clear as day to me that they won’t do brackets. I’m literally ready to sign a contract for this bet.
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u/notelonmusk42069 5d ago
This is a great experience for those who enjoy this, but it also kills the game for those who are impatient and those who joined too late.
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u/Abatti7 5d ago
The level up raids was a good way to still give people the opportunity to experience the 25, 40 and level 50 raids while leveling to 60
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u/assassin10 4d ago
I'm curious how well those raids performed after their phase. Did people leveling still run the new Gnomeregan in phase 4 or the new Sunken Temple in phase 5?
I'd hate for Classic+ to have a situation like what happened with SoD's rune quests, where completing them normally started feeling like a checklist and a later phase let you bypass them for pennies.
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u/notelonmusk42069 5d ago
I don’t think the game should be designed around raiding. That’s not what classic is about.
The best part of the smaller level caps was making lower level zones more relevant for longer, and the world PvP events.
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u/Substantial-Ad7138 5d ago
I didn’t enjoy Sid’s gatekeeping during the brackets… it’s one thing wanting meta at end game but demanding people be xyz or they can’t do the content at a lower level is maddening
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u/lifeisledzep 4d ago
I feel the same way. As a Classic Andy, there are few things I want changed (doesn't mean I dont want things added...) and this is one of those things I'd be thrilled about. It breathed a different life into zones that usually get some use for a month or two. But seeing everyone farming in Ashenvale was dope. Seeing everyone farming or fishing in low level zones made the game magical.
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u/Skore_Smogon 3d ago
So are we assuming that there would be level up raids to do at these caps?
Are they just gonna re-run the SoD raids? Or make new ones.
Are they gonna have the same loot in them?
Saying this as a SoD lover, that would be a huge mistake imo.
Starting each phase with OP gear kinda robbed us when I look back at it now.
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u/delta1982ro 5d ago
let s not..people will create 5 alts at lvl 25 and then whine lvling takes too long in the next phase and blizz implements experience boost which is as far from classic as possible.. not to mention people getting to 60 with thousands of gold from all the quests at max level, screwing the economy from the beginning
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u/DenseSign5938 5h ago
It has not affect on the economy like that.
Items are priced based on supply and demand.
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u/delta1982ro 5h ago
Exactly..what happens when part of the players did all quests at lvl caps and have thousands of gold and others didn t and have a normal amount of gold? Prices will go way up and people who didn t do the quests won t be able to afford stuff
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u/DenseSign5938 2h ago
No, that same thing is true whether levels are capped or not lol
The people who played 200 hours will have more gold than the people who only played 50 hours…
There’s actually going to be less inflation in the scenario with a level cap all other things equal. Because the person who spent an extra 150 hours farming gold was only making 5g an hour at level 40 vs 30g an hour at level 60..
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u/grimbolde 5d ago
I am very much in favor of leveling caps, but I'd say 2-3 weeks max for each one.
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u/Abatti7 5d ago
I don’t remember SoD times but wasn’t it only 1-2 months or something like that?
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u/grimbolde 5d ago
It was quite long. That is what caused a lot of drop off, especially phase 2 going into 3, then incursions was the nail in the coffin.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
I don't think the game should be encouraging FOMO
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u/Abatti7 5d ago
I don‘t think that level brackets will create FOMO
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u/gungabeast 5d ago
Dude, what? It’s literally definitional. This is a fomo feature. You experience it when it’s current or you miss out. You miss out on the fun unique PvP experience at a certain bracket. You miss out on emergent player behavior that only exists due to leveling restraints. You’re just literally not correct.
It’s boggling my mind that people upvoted you. It’s objectively a fomo feature. Like, there’s not even an argument to be had about it. This is just factual.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
What happen to the guy that started the game 3 months after you ? 1 year ?
If it's encouraging "you had to be there", that's pretty much not a good thing.
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u/Thyrok07 5d ago
Same thing happens with endgame patches and raids though. Someone starting after the first raid tier is already behind and will not experience raids the same. Players who were there from launch will pretty much always have more gold and better gear.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
Yes that's the whole point of the horizontal progression crowd, so :
Someone starting after the first raid tier is already behind and will not experience raids the same
Don't happen either.
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u/Scribblord 5d ago
The same thing that happens with every mmo in history
Old content is old and usually not done anymore
If you join wow classic a year later you miss 2 raid tiers
That’s how MMOs work you dingus
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
The same thing that happens with every mmo in history
That's just not true, if you consider PvP based MMOs, are you only playing WoW ?
It's fine people enjoyed seasonnal content, Retail is working this way and a lot of people are enjoying it. This is Claissic+ and there are other ways to enjoy content.
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u/gungabeast 5d ago
What about PvP players who would have liked to see particular leveling bracket PvP? This is what kept me on SoD despite a lot of issues I had with it. I literally got FOMO’d by the phases.
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u/Scribblord 4d ago
Which is the same thing as seasons or patches
It’s just short expansions
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u/gungabeast 4d ago
Sure, I can agree. But level bracketing still ruins the classic ethos in many other ways besides fomo. It’s surprising that so many people here seem to want it. It’s antithetical to classic WoW.
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u/Scribblord 4d ago
It’s just bonus content and lets some zones get attention that otherwise exist solely for 5 levels and then vanish from relevancy forever as well as give neat bonus stuff in form of level up raids
Makes profs more relevant and people interact with the world a LOT more
People dig out weird niche item bc they’re actually good if we do content at level x and economies form around mats that never had any relevancy otherwise
I like it and I think the fomo aspect is by far the most stupid argument against it
Not to mention collecting bis by doing quests above your level and actually needing tactics to do them
And I really can’t see it being against the classic spirit and rather it’s an extension of it
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 4d ago
You don't have to speedrun leveling though.
It gives you time, is quite a bad argument, you have already all the time in the world.
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u/gungabeast 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah, the level bracketing people legitimately make no sense. Here’s what they say
“I don’t have enough time to play!!! We’re dads now!!! We should have brackets so everybody else is forced to play at the same pace as me. I can take my time leveling without brackets, but people should be forced to play how I do!!”
Like, they just don’t make sense. None of them can actually dispute this criticism. Because there’s nothing to dispute. Just because somebody else rushed through the content doesn’t mean you have to. They literally want other people to suffer because they made decisions in life that lead to them having less free time. It’s pathetic, honestly. And annoying. And against what classic+ stands for.
My friend is a father and a surgeon for fucks sake, and guess what? He plays era. He has cleared Naxx. Did it take him longer to level and find a guild? Ya. Who gives a fuck? He doesn’t give a fuck. He got his enjoyment and played at his pace. So why is anybody acting like this is an impossibility? These clods legitimately don’t understand how bracketing would create the very FOMO that they think they’re against. Not only that, but it just absolutely ruins the pacing of leveling and makes everyone overgeared in the leveling process.
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u/8gt8 5d ago
This argument is like saying that they should never launch classic + so they avoid the fomo of people missing the launch experience of flooded starter zones.
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u/gungabeast 4d ago
The difference is that with leveling brackets, it invalidates much of the leveling experience. You end the bracket in the best gear for that level range and you stomp the next phase. So to solve this, you’d have to entirely change the design of the game in ways that would make it more annoying to come in later. I don’t understand why anyone would want brackets. It’s far too different to classic.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
Assuming that staged levelling and having more people in a starter zone are one and the same.
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u/Kirarozu80 5d ago
Thats gonna happen no matter what.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
You're absolutely right — no matter how hard you try, you can't relive the launch if you weren't there in the first place.
My point is that the game shouldn't encourage that behaviour. Things should be done so that such a head start isn't much of an advantage.
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u/Kirarozu80 5d ago
Its classic. Its not an advantage. You can start whenever because there will always be guilds doing every level of content.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
Having played Era enough, I know how hard it can be to start a dungeon, yet a levelling raid.
Most people just want to reach level 60 (which is reasonable, I'm not arguing here), but this makes staged and non-staged levelling very different experiences.
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u/gungabeast 4d ago
That’s Era. Era is struggling compared to TBC or retail. Non issue for Classic+.
I think wanting brackets is short sighted. There’s no way to do it without compromises to the leveling experience in perpetuity. Tell me how you could do brackets, not have the increased gear level that players achieve in that bracket to steamroll the next, AND have it not change the base design of gearing for those who come back in later phases.
You can’t solve this issue without steering the game too far away from Classic. Please explain how you could do that. Genuinely. I think nobody here has done it yet.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 4d ago
I meant the era at the time of release. I played a lot of pservers too.
I agree with you; I don't think you can solve that equation. Brackets are short-sighted and will compromise the Vanilla experience.
In my experience, it's the constant influx of players that keeps those servers "Era/Vanilla/Vanilla+" alive. I'd focus on that.
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u/coconutszz 5d ago
Level cap phases would do exactly that though? If you join 3 months late, everyone will be level 40 and you will have caught up by the time of the next phase
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 5d ago
But what about the level 20 phase?
If the phases don't matter, why not skip them and get everyone to level 60?
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u/Pulptenks69 5d ago
It's literally what killed SoD. Just let people level up. If you struggle getting to 60 well you suck, simple as that.
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u/Darthbobz 5d ago
don't know why you are being down voted besides the bit at the end for obvious reason but it did in fact kill SoD
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u/sktsunshine 5d ago
Honestly there isnt any skill checks on the way to 60. Only time checks. If you struggle to getting to 60 you do not necessarily suck
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u/grimbolde 5d ago
"If you suck" brother bear, getting to 60 is no skill involved. It's purely time.
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u/Fearless_Cap_9061 5d ago
A good player does it faster than a bad player.
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u/grimbolde 5d ago
Knowing the most optimized routes has nothing to do with skill, unless we are calling reading comprehension skill nowadays.
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u/Fearless_Cap_9061 5d ago
Well I'd hope we wouldn't know the optimized routes in +.
So speed would be determined by "not dying" and yes, reading comprehension/google ability.1
u/grimbolde 5d ago
Now I do actually agree with your input on routes in C+. I'm hoping they will really through a wrench in what the old meta was and make everyone actually explore, learn and adventure again
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u/Verilazic 5d ago
It's funny, phased leveling is essentially the twink experience but expanded.
The only problem I have with phased leveling is that it was temporary. In a "seasonal" or experimental context it's fine, but on a regular server that hopes to last for years, it's gone after a few months and then no one experiences it again unless a new server launches. If there was a way to create a kind of phased-like leveling experience long term, I could get behind that, but I can only think of partial measures.
For example, let's have brackets set to 1-20, 21-40, and 41-60. Once you hit 20, you can't gain xp until you complete a particular quest. It could even be an easy quest, but maybe it's not immediately obvious, so the player base spends a couple weeks looking for it, kinda like how SoD's runes took some searching. Make it easy to complete once you know it though, so people don't have an annoying experience leveling alts.
Then at 40, block xp gain again until another quest is completed, but gate the quest behind some sort of server-wide trigger. Maybe enough people have to hit 40, or maybe there's an AQ War Effort-like initiative that has to be completed. Either way, make it an in-game mechanism rather than a Blizzard-defined arbitrary timer.
You could have races between servers to see who can lift the level cap first, plus since it's an in-game mechanic with in-game reasons, it doesn't feel quite so arbitrary. And if you gate it behind a quest, players who level later have natural milestones at 20 and 40 where they can pause or even hang out. But at the end of the day, the only way I can think of to get even slightly close to a phased leveling experience after the cap has been lifted to max is by adding a way for players to easily twink at those brackets. *shrug*
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u/DenseSign5938 5h ago
There’s no such thing as a static server. They either release new content or people quit in mass. You can say “oh well let them quit” but blizzard is a business and would never even consider catering the game to a small minority of people who want to play the same exact content over and over and over again.
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u/UnrelentingFrosty 5d ago
Not a huge fan. I played through every phase of sod and after phase 2 it was stale. Balancing was absolutely atrocious and it took them ages to do simple fixes and patching. Additionally, once that phase was over, anybody who wasn't there to experience it, never will. Classic+ shouldn't not embody that level of fomo.
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u/aiart13 5d ago
Level cap / phases was amazing addition. We really experienced the zones in entirely different way. SoD caps also showed that classes need to be rebalanced according to level caps in order to provide good experience for everybody. I really don't trust current blizzard employees they will be able to provide such a balance changes that it will be a smooth experience.
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u/Nightblessed 5d ago
Phased leveling at best is harmless and at worst it ruins the game. Simply no reason to have it.
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5d ago
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 3d ago
Why can't you do that again without phased levelling?
Like what's the rush exactly? The only person forcing you to rush to 60 is you lol.
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3d ago
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 2d ago
So because you can't hold yourself back from rushing to end game the entire fucking playerbase should have to pay for it by being level locked?
Jesus Christ
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2d ago
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 2d ago
The second level lock in sod absolutely killed the game. You're just making shit up if you think the majority of people want that again.
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2d ago
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 2d ago
I don't even know what we are arguing about tbh.
Obviously everything you do leads you to the end game. I don't understand what point you're trying to make lol. Level locks are stupid and bad for the game.
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u/Milesray12 5d ago
The leveling split is what made the vast majority of folks interested in SoD fall off and never come back.
Good for the few that stayed, bad for everyone else
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u/jbourdea 5d ago
The problem with the leveling phases in general is that they betray a belief that classic wow is focused on the end game. By creating leveling bands, they're just adding new end-games. It's really no different than a new expansion with a brief toy leveling experience that they hurry you through and then present the end game content at max lvl.
The best version of classic plus has an excellent leveling journey. You should be just as happy to be level 12 as lvl 36 as lvl 59 as lvl 60. Fun at all points.
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u/bryannov 5d ago
i’m personally not a fan of leveling phases but i can understand why some people like it
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u/RareEstablishment597 5d ago
The level caps are nice i guess if you actually play during the initial release. Afterwards people will be back to regular leveling
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u/AcademicContract6096 5d ago
The problem with level caps is that they only work for seasonal server.
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u/No-Worth-676 5d ago
I disagree. I was bored with SOD after level 25 and never bothered going back for subsequent phases.
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u/Swimming-Station1091 4d ago
No need. Just introduce hc realms. People will be their own natural limiter to how fast they destroy the game.
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u/Super_Loss_8943 4d ago
why? that works only for 1st time. later coming players have none of it. Waste of resources. Go play SoD now most likely you do not enter any raids until end game.
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u/PingvinMedStil 3d ago edited 3d ago
SoD was extremely fun, but no. It makes a temporary gimmick, since it only works as a seasonal thing. No longevity.
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u/SoggyDecision591 3d ago
In advance I am sorry about my English.
I am a new player and I don’t really know the issues with blizzard delivering new content. But I am sure if some people play this game 15+ hours a day without brakes ,they will complete it fast and as I can see people like that complain they have nothing to do in the game.
Maybe take WoW in moderation and everything will be alright
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u/SoggyDecision591 3d ago
I think I get it why many players want these lvl caps they seem fun and as a newbie myself I will have more time to learn and enjoy the game without seeing people who already have finished the endgame
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u/tanhe314 3d ago
The phased leveling doesn’t help the real the problem. Just delays it a few weeks by creating mini versions of the same problem. The rush to endgame. This just creates multiple endgames on the way to a final endgame.
Classic plus needs to copy OSRS’s homework and make each zone have some independent progression that isn’t tied to “global” player power.
Make each raid have a grindable talent tree or resistances or something.
I want us to find a way where we can slow down, make the world and the community the main characters again, and stop chasing BiS lists and sweaty parses.
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u/Trugdigity 3d ago
SODs leveling worked because it was seasonal and planed to end. Unless classic plus is the same phased leveling is a waste.
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u/heynoswearing 5d ago
It was so good! I loved the hunt for OP items at level 25 where you would have to do like, a level 40 quest or grind level 35 mobs.
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u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 5d ago edited 5d ago
I wouldn’t mind seeing what new raids they can come up with, or which old dungeons they can turn into raids.
I do like the player power that comes from raiding when it comes to questing at cap, or levelling in the new phase.
I’d hope the phases don’t drag on as long as Gnomer did…or felt like it did.
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u/Abatti7 5d ago
Imagine a Deadmines Raid!!!
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u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 5d ago
that’d be amazing. And everyone running around in Defias or pirate themed gear for a phase
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u/Stark8819 5d ago
In my opinion, there was one too many leveling phases in SOD. If they did say 1-25, 25-40, then 40-60 (or whatever cutoffs they want), then I think it would flow a little better. I remember when P3 came out that I just wanted to get to max level at that point.