Dungeon XP/Leveling Nerfs...Why? p2

#1 - May 26, 2016, 3:02 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Edit: Response from Blizzard, apparently only Vanilla dungeons got nerfed.

Still don't like it. Especially curious as to whether WOD xp required is really not going to be squished on Legion release.

I have no issues with leveling being more challenging, I just dont think it needs to take any longer for those of us whove done it many times before. Challenge is great. Tedium is not challenge.

Leveling does need an overhaul, but not just 'make it take longer'.

Old thread capped. OP:

From their original stated goals:
- 1-100 should take much longer.
- Old expac xp required will no longer be 'squished' when a new expac comes out.
- Leveling difficulty increased overall.
- 60$ boosts are there for people who prefer the faster leveling experience
- dungeons should give much less xp.

EDIT: It looks like dungeon xp was also stealth nerfed, heavily. Really Blizz?

At the time it seemed that these were future goals. However by the looks of it, they could well be hotfixes about to drop. In fact, as more testing is done - some, like the gutting of leveling random dungeon xp are live. No PTR, no discussion, no notice.

Id really have preferred some notice in advance to level my alts. Especially worried about expansion exp no longer being squished, can you imagine leveling now if they hadnt nerfed xp required for Vanilla-MOP?

I get that you want leveling to be more meaningful. Lower levels were a bit silly. The thing is, though - for those of us who have done it many times, its a bit of a slog as it is, and now much worse with dungeon xp reduced.

And no, I'm not just going to buy a boost. 60 bucks is more than a lot of new releases cost.

If you were buffing heirlooms to compensate or maybe adding optional scaling to older zones it would have made this pill a lot less bitter (seriously, this would have made 'seeing the whole zone' a lot more viable). And randomly gutting dungeon exp feels like its entirely aimed at making it take much longer to level alts as I doubt many new players are even aware of them.

I guess what I really want to know is...why? For newer players, sure - but a lot (I'd say the majority these days) of people leveling have already done the content many times. Is this an attempt to make leveling take longer? Sell boosts? In any case, this really should have been done with advance notice and a chance to talk about it. There were so many ways it could have been done better, without making things a slog for alters.

I'm glad I got most of my alts to 90 at least...but I really feel for those who didn't.

How about you? What do you think of Blizzards goals for leveling? For those who've done it many times, do you like the idea of spending much longer doing it? Do you look forward to dungeons no longer being a reasonably fast way to level?
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Game Designer
#11 - May 26, 2016, 3:30 a.m.
Blizzard Post
05/25/2016 08:15 PMPosted by Lòst
What Id love to know is why this was done so stealthily.
I have no issues with 1-40 being harder, but why nerf BC and Wrath dungeon xp?

What's the basis for this claim? We didn't touch BC or Wrath dungeon experience.

One additional bullet point that should have been in yesterday's hotfix notes is that we did reduce the experience from the dungeon "scenario" objectives for Classic dungeons (levels 15-58). Those awards were new as of Warlords, but for low-level dungeons they were largely were redundant with the numerous quests available inside each dungeon. Dungeons are intended to be rewarding, and they still are, but zoning into Deadmines and completing ~5 quests, plus the kill experience for everything, plus a couple more quests' worth of experience from the dungeon objectives, was overkill. When we looked at low-level dungeons and tried to understand what had changed to make them so much more lucrative over time, that bonus objective experience immediately stood out.

There wasn't any intent to hide this change (it's not a subtle change, and obviously it was immediately noticed). There were a total of 8 different hotfixes rolled out over the past week or two as part of this entire plan, and that one just slipped through the cracks when we were writing up the documentation of the changes.