More accelerated leveling news
by Dan O'Halloran 
Sep 9th 2007 at 6:00PM
Player Maruine of the Magtheridon server wanted to know if the pre-60 accelerated leveling mechanic was going in with the next patch (2.2). Community Manager Drysc confirmed that it will NOT be in the next patch and he could not give confirmation of which patch it will go live. The only future patches we know of right now are 2.3 that introduces the new 10-man Zul'Aman and 2.4 with the Sunwell Plateau including its 25 man raid and 5 man instance.
Though many players are happy with reduction of experience for each level and the increase in experience gained from questing pre-60, some questioned the impact of this change on other aspects of the game.
Reputation gain was one concern. Since quests granting rep will go grey faster, will rep gains be buffed? (No.) Hunter pets were also brought up. There is already a problem with the Hunter outleveling their pets. Will this also be tuned? (No.) Lastly, will gold and loot drops be increased since some classes have much higher training costs then others? (Again, no.)
Drysc did say that if any of these factors become an issue, they will be addressed, but at this time, they don't have plans to do so.
Filed under: Patches, News items, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Shotgunbadger Sep 9th 2007 6:40PM
Lord forbid Bliz do any work that distracts them from more instances.
jappaex Sep 9th 2007 7:03PM
and this is why blizzard is losing some of its playerbase.....
VegasHorde Sep 9th 2007 7:42PM
(I'm cranky because I just woke up, but)
They seem to take their time in addressing shoulder size, AV fairness and their AFK fix(?) & now I am to expect they may address rep gain when I level up an alt?
As Britney would say, "It ain't gonna happen, y'all!"
Seraya Sep 9th 2007 7:54PM
Hunter pets should not be a problem. They require 1/4th the XP to level as their mistress and gain the same XP (excluding rest bonuses). This must assume the XP values to level for pets will not change while player values will.
Fletch Sep 9th 2007 7:56PM
I don't really see the rep gain as being a huge issue, but training costs are definitely going to be a problem. New players especially often have difficulty buying all their skills as it is, the fact that they're going to be having to buy their skills more frequently with the same amount of money is going to be an issue. I'm not sure why Blizzard is so reactive about this sort of thing instead of trying to predict problems before they come up.
i.p.freely Sep 9th 2007 9:31PM
They can make leveling bearable if they one change.
If the quest requires you to get X number from Y. Make the drop rate 100%.
Nothing more frustrating than killing 20 things to get 5 pieces of quest items. If Bilzz wants us to kill more to get experience... then tell me to kill 20 things. Nothing makes me more frustrated than that.
Slayblaze Sep 9th 2007 8:16PM
But still - the overall exiting issue of Hunters outlevelling their pets - I thought I heard that this *would* be tuned at some point in the future. It really does need to be, but now we have confirmation that it will not? Not cool...
VerticalEvent Sep 9th 2007 10:31PM
Why not just do this:
If player has a 60+ character on the sever/on any server, then that character get's an automatic 100% rest EXP while levelling any character 10 levels or more below the highest character (ie. a 70 character means double exp up to 60, a 65 means to level 55 worth of double exp).
This means that all new players get the original exp rate, while more veteran players get the chance to level at a faster rate, and can rely on their higher characters to transfer money (if they wish) to their new characters, to cover monetary concerns.
Necromancer Sep 9th 2007 10:41PM
Lol what frustrates me about questing is when you need ears and a monster has none. I can see 2 on it's head... These type of quests should be 200% drop rate. Just like getting livers or ribs etc should be 100%. But an xp increase will help a lot of people who have problems leveling and it was stressful for them to get the main to 70.
Gill Sep 9th 2007 10:57PM
I don't see rep as an issue anyway. I don't really care for any of the reps in Azeroth aside from my faction's. The hunter pet problem can be resolved if the make pets level with the hunter (like with Warlocks) from levels 10 to 60 only.
Cal Sep 9th 2007 11:08PM
@8 I like it... Blizz shoudl do something like that.
Rizel Sep 10th 2007 1:16AM
@7 and 9:
They don't give it 100% or more droprate because they made it so that while fighting one of those things CAN be damaged and won't drop.
If you kill kill somebody with a sword, how can you make sure you're not hitting any organs you would like to have lol.
john3103 Sep 10th 2007 5:58AM
Here's what I'd love to see:
1.) Buff the exp you get from Group-quests and dungeons for ALL characters. This might help fix some of the trouble with finding groups while leveling up.
2.) IF you have a level-capped character, you can do the follow to any character on your account:
a.) Adjust the rested-exp to however much you want.
b.) Toggle on/off "Super Rested Exp" giving say, +100% exp from quests, +200% from mobs, and an extra bonus for group-quests and instances
c.) Give a once-per-character 10 level boost. I.e. go from Lvl 30 to 40 instantly, if you're craving a mount.
draeth Sep 10th 2007 8:04AM
@13 a 10 level instant boost is a little excessive, that would make outlands useless. When everyone hits 60, click click, instant level 70 there bypassing the hardest portion of the game.
@9 I am one of those casual players who have several alts but have not gotten any toons to 70 yet so reducing the xp requirements per level would be a godsend for me lol
And if you guys are worried about making the cash for your training, just pick up 2 gathering professions and spend a day gathering mats and auctioning them, then you can have a nice bulk of cash to work with as you level.
p3ngu11 Sep 10th 2007 8:07AM
yeah, your comment about them fixing hunter pet leveling is a bit off. he said it shouldn't be a problem.
if you get more xp from kills, so does the pet...
and pet xp required is based of a percentage of what the hunter needed to level
Vestras Sep 10th 2007 8:53AM
I think the main thing that needs the be handled with the new leveling is to make sure the quests range is adjusted so they don't go gray as fast as they used to. That will encourage players to finish them rather than grinding there way up.
I'm looking forward to this since I have a priest and a hunter alt, both mid 20s that I just don't wanna grind right now. But when this hits, I can catch them up in no time.
Jusk Sep 10th 2007 9:07AM
Rep gains were made independant of level a long time ago...
As an example, my wife went and did all the newbie quests in darnassus to get her tiger mount at 40.
Todd Sep 10th 2007 9:52AM
So... is it my understanding that Blizzard wants characters under 60 to level up to near 70 as quickly as possible? Why?
Does Blizzard want the old school content to be breezed by that much?
Paw Sep 10th 2007 10:16AM
I'd just like to see the games balanced according to the new level caps. And to see that balance implemented at the time the new cap is. It only makes sense. By rebalancing the game at the introduction of a new cap, the resulting averages should solve the issues relating to multiple difficulty spikes in attaining previous cap milestones.
Erica Olson Sep 10th 2007 11:05AM
They already upped the rep gain by a lot for some quests when BC came out. Toons that did the same quests BC got way less rep than my toons that did them post BC.
What does it matter anyway. Blizz thinks it's FUN to rep grind. Let's add more factions and have you grind rep.