Patch 4.3: Leveling 71-80 will be shorter
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 29th 2011 at 3:30PM
Zarhym
We'll be decreasing the experience needed for levels 71-80 in patch 4.3. That's all I have for now. ;)
Whether you love Northrend or hate it, it's becoming more and more common to hear that Northrend is where alts go to die, even from some of us on staff here at WoW Insider. Leveling from 1 to 70 moves so quickly nowadays that the enormous leap in experience required to go from 71 to 80 is rather jarring. 71-80 may not have been a slog when we all first worked through it in Wrath of the Lich King, but that leap in XP required can certainly make it feel that way nowadays, especially when all you want to do is try a new class at the level cap.
Reducng the XP required to get through Northrend and smoothing out that leveling process will be appreciated by many, we're sure.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
redfoxm18 Aug 29th 2011 3:37PM
Wow are you kidding me? It can be done in 12 hours played. Isn't that short enough already?
devilsei Aug 29th 2011 3:42PM
Playing Wrath of the lich king on release, it only took me 3-4 days of casual play to hit lvl 80. And that includes me not leveling optimally because I went through both of the starting zones.
But hey, why not? Though at this point, Blizzard should just start considering allowing players who have max-leveled tunes to spend a chunk of gold in-game or something and allow those people to skip some levels if they wanted.
Kunikenwad! Aug 29th 2011 3:57PM
Amen. I don't think they're addressing the problem here. By making the playtime even shorter, they lessen the impact of leveling. It's too much of a race to 85 as it is; there's no sense of accomplishment. In fact, they do the opposite. By making leveling increasingly inconsequential, they're taking the RPG out of the MMORPG.
Just my two cents though.
Noyou Aug 29th 2011 4:03PM
I kind of like it but I always felt 60-70 took longer. There are also less zones I like, but that's more of personal preference. Ah well. /roll with the changes. Another great example of Blizzard quickly cheapening what they worked so hard to create (see also Shatt and Dalaran)
Zabre Aug 29th 2011 4:17PM
Didn't they already nerf the xp needed from 71-80 at 4.0? Are they nerfing it even more?
Ice Aug 29th 2011 5:12PM
For me 12 hours played is too much when 68 TO 75(!?) is PURELY utgarde keep on random dungeons for no real reason at all.
And yeah questing..uuh.. Done it too much to enjoy it anymore. But hey, thats me. I really hate leveling. Which is why I like this upcoming nerf.
thepiratester Aug 29th 2011 5:32PM
Everyone hurry to 85 then stand around and complain that there isn't anything to do.. Great plan!! GOGOGOGOGOGO
Elmo Aug 29th 2011 6:01PM
If anything the time it takes to level should be way higher imo.
my first char took 4 months to reach level 60.
now I can do it in 4 weeks easily.
There are Heirlooms for those who want to level an alt quick buff the gain from those during the levels 71-80 for all I care, but I don't like how they force faster levelling upon us all.
I really like questing and it's just not as much fun to go back later and faceroll the quests or having a questline go green on you because you did a dungeon.
and I think it's disrespectful to their own work aswell, just because it's older it should not be obsolete.
really hate this announcement.
vereonis Aug 30th 2011 11:44AM
I don't play WoW to spend ages levelling, levelling is the worst part of the game, they should stop trying to make quests interesting, because levelling is just down right boring, and I feel no achievement just annoyance and grind.
If anything they should make it so if you have 2 lvl 85s you can just start of at lvl 55/60 like when you make a DK, but 1-50 is eZ, its 60-85 which is the mind numbingly boring part of the game.
I play WoW for end game content raiding, achie whoring, proffing, running old raids etc. People QQ about this taking away the RPG aspect, just go back at 85 and do all the quests, RPG to your heart's content.
When you start a new character, the goal is to be 85 and to 85 things, unlike maybe irl the journey is not interesting or fun, its all a waste, nothing you do matters. If they put in some character and class development points and quests along levelling that would give it some meaning. People want RPG then stuck some meaningful unchanging faction choices in, character model altering quests, even abilities for your class depending on what you do; because right now levelling is exactly the same regardless of what you are.
Just like before the shattering, theres only roughly two 1-60 leveling paths, then you've seen all the content.
slim1256 Aug 29th 2011 3:35PM
Excellent news, Blizz!
My two fresh level 80s thank you for this :sadface:
Twowolves Aug 29th 2011 3:35PM
But that means it'll be faster to get to the Cata zones, which aren't so great IMHO.
DarkFinch Aug 29th 2011 4:37PM
*except for Hyjal
GuyverIV Aug 29th 2011 4:40PM
A-bloody-men, brother! I'm no 'Wrathbaby,' I came in just before the Burning Crusade (was just barely too low level to participate in the rather-weak opening-of-the-Dark-Portal demon invasions, but I do remember seeing piles of bones at the front of Ironforge from Doom Lord Kazzak(or was it his replacement?) randomly anihilating folks) but I have to say the epitome of Zone Design has so-far (IMNSHO) been reached with Northrend.
A few compelling stories and questlines per zone that flow pretty naturally from one area to another. Zul'freezingmybuttoff and Storm Peaks were kind of diversions to me, but well told stories none-the-less. The Cata zones are just TOO self-contained. 1 or 2 stories, usually wrapped up, and then "Thank you brave adventurer, your work is done here. What, you want something else to do? Oh. Uh. Go talk to so-and-so, I've heard they've got a problem even though there's no real reason for me to know this."
The fact that they're scattered all over the world doesn't help either. (Gogogadget Run-On-Sentence!) It kind of disrupts what little immersion there is when I go from the peaks of Hyjal (or the depths of the ocean) to Stormwind (tradechatfunnytimez!) to Deepholme to Stormwind (moretradehijinkslulz) to Theramore, fly to Gadgetgazan, join a caravan, save a lost-race of titan creations and then be demoted to sidekick as Harrison Jones saves the world (or vice versa), fly back to STORMWIND where you FINALLY get a questline that gives you a half-gorram-good reason for your next move to the middle of no-where, things get exciting with an assault of the forces of Twilight, you take out one of the higher ups of the Twilight Clan/Cult/Gentleman's Club, and then... nothing. A quick acknowldgement that you fought a freaking Gronn that had no reason for being on Azeroth (Seriously! How the crap did he get through the dark portal?!) without any mention of the REST of the Twilight Badness that's left to be taken care of.
No breadcrumb leading to a raid, not even a quest "wrapping up" what happened in the highlands and implying that maybe just maybe you may want to help assault the various raids where naughtiness is happening. You're just left in a limbo of daily quests related to prior plots that were mostly resolved or jumping into raids you have no REAL reason to hit beyond that's where teh purpulz are, d00d.
That "Hero's Call Board" is crap, too. It's a lazy way for starting chains, and while I can appreciate that sometimes you lose the trail of quests, creating or re-utilizing an NPC (remember the town criers?) for the new stuff... Gah.
I'm feeling crotchety today, I guess.
Whatever. I guess my point is, while it's lovely they're shortening the grind to 80, it's not all love and lollipops afterwards.
I love the refresing the low zones got with Cata. Heck, I don't think they let Deathwing blow up ENOUGH. But the 80+ stuff got stale real quick. The next expansion needs to come fast, I hope it is next spring as the rumors imply.
And I hope they learn from Cata and step BACK a little in their philosophy, to a more BC/Wrath style quest approach. Cata tried too hard to have each zone have an EPIC QUESTLINE with an EPIC CONCLUSION. That just resulted, I think, in stories are too CLOSED, too limited. What you do in a zone doesn't matter beyond that zone. Let big stories flow from zone to zone. Seeing Fordring defiantly casting off his disguise in the Howling Fjiord and then seeing him again in Icecrown, discovering the destruction wreaked by the Blue Dragonflight in Coldara and then their wasteful assault on the in temple in Dragonblight while the Accord attempted to deal with the simultanious threat by the scourge from the opposite direction (I mean, come on, even the BLACK dragonflight wasn't screwing around for once), leading to freaking WRATHGATE... THAT was the way to tell the stories. Great connected arcs. Folks who don't care about lore still won't care, but those of us that still like a story will be much happier with you, and will stay for more.
...huh. I'm feeling text-y today. Sorry folks.
Hurbster Aug 29th 2011 8:14PM
Applauds GuyverIV.
It's not so much the slog to 80 but the yawnathon to 85, seriously the 'channeled/funneled' quest system they have now is awful.
Arann Aug 30th 2011 2:54AM
GuyverIV's post is wonderful. Post of the year, IMO.
zweitblom Aug 30th 2011 3:03AM
Thanks for putting my rumbling thoughts of discontent into coherent sentences, GuyverIV. I too feel strangely disconnected to this expansion. So... there's a dragon somewhere. And there are some cultists - somewhere. And Hitler in the desert. Yeah... uhm.
What I loved back in the day was the huge plotline concerning the Silithid thread. Whether you were Horde or Alliance, you were sucked into the story if you quested on Kalimdor, and it spanned the entire continent south of Stonetalon Mountains.
I remember the first time I came across it, I was actually scared pantsless by the bugs, and became even more so the further south my adventures took me. A great touch was that the Silithids didn't qualify as any type of mob. They weren't humanoids, nor beast, nor critters. It contributed greatly to the unsettling 'WTF *are* these things' feeling.
Ah, those were the days... Maybe we are just too jaded now to appreciate the changes Blizzard is doing. I certainly never had that feeling of utter horror again that struck me when I had made my way through Un'Goro and entered Silithus *and that constant buzzing noise set in*...
But, oh at me, I am rambling.
Revnah Aug 30th 2011 3:51AM
It's not so much the quests from 80-85 that bother me, they are mostly nice enough. The problem is that I feel I HAVE to do ALL the quests in ALL the zones on EVERY character because of rep and my characters' first 359 purples, and of course every character has to do Deepholm and the Therazane grind anyway because those damn shoulder enchants still aren't BoA.
During levelling, the big "bump" lvl 60, because frankly, 1-60 has become a little *too* smooth and fast. After that, suddenly every level drags on forever. But at least, from 60-80 you have the option to quest and/or run dungeons which makes it bearable. The next "bump" at level 80/81 is far worse, for the above reasons.
I just got 2 more characters to 80 and I'm surprised at the extent to which I loathe the prospect of doing the Cata quests, every zone, AGAIN. Uuuuugh. And I'm not one of those that say Cata is a fail expac, I love it for the most part. The raids are great, for one thing, I enjoy the changed class mechanics and the way almost every spec is viable these days. But the levelling and rep-grinds are too much imo.
Kirke Aug 29th 2011 3:36PM
Hooray!! My level 71 shaman will rejoice!
xyna Aug 29th 2011 3:37PM
Personally i would just increase the mobs exp from dungeons from 68-74 because they almost give nothing..
Haggi Aug 29th 2011 3:38PM
what, again? i freaking FLEW through northrend on my DK, and the only reason my hunter might be taking it slow is because my wife and i are leveling a hunter/shaman combo(surprisingly effective pairing, too). i'd like to be able to take the time to, you know, experience northrend a little instead of have to go back like i'm going to with my DK.