Early Content: Leveling Scaling - Pls No Blizz! (Ideas On How To Fix Level Progression)

I really like your videos, and this one's also very well made, however I actually completely disagree with literally every statement made in this video. First you try to debunk the idea that a levelling squish would solve anything by saying that it'd still take the same amount of time anyway, and the rewards would be the same, and that scaling fixes it all anyway. The problem with this argument is transparently obvious, and you go on to mention the problem 5 seconds later, then brush it aside. The problem is that levelling up makes you weaker against the exact same mob in the exact same location every time you gain a level. Levelling up therefore stops being a reward and becomes a punishment. This generally happens because you gear gets worse relative to your level, and mobs scale to your level. Therefore levelling up twice and getting 1 reward feels worse than levelling once and getting a reward for that. Next you come up with a lot of systems that have complicated UI's, that you have problems explaining, that require tons and tons of new items to be created, which aren't an intrinsic part of the character you're levelling and doesn't confer strength to the character, but just play into the collectibles madness. Some of them confer strength to the item level, but this is temporary and undermined as soon as you level. There's no in-game reason or explanation as to why this item should appear, the item reward is a cache and therefore full of RNG, and levelling up again directly nerfs its effectiveness. Look, the last thing this game needs is more temporary BS rewards that get removed as you progress further or the 500th collectible mount recolour. Almost all your systems have the same pitfalls as the Azerite system. They're all bad except for the one where you'd get signature abilities from quests every once in a while. That's cool, but it can't stand alone. The scaling and the extreme amount of levels is the combination that's causing the problem. We're doing a lot of levelling down, and we're doing it overwhelmingly against extremely easy enemies that aren't fun to fight. Our professions aren't useful, because the items are bad - and even if they weren't, how could they possibly be useful in a world that's so easy you don't need anything from them anyway? And then you start talking about the game leaning on power progression too much. I mean, yeah - it has ridiculous power progression. No doubt about it. But every single time you get power progression, the game undermines the fun effects of power progression. Why should I care about getting 100 new item levels in 6 months (which I did) if I just end up running Atal'dazar M+16 instead of Atal'dazar M+5? It's still Atal'dazar. It's still the same bosses doing the same things in the same order in the same story. I haven't progressed anywhere. I'm in a hamsterwheel where numbers are going up. I don't care about numbers across the board going up. What's the point of that? If that's what we want why don't we just make an addon that reads the combat log and multiplies everything that comes through it? (Look up an old addon of mine called SquishMe. Now set the factor to be positive instead of negative. Wow, so much power progression! Fun fun fun amirite?) Getting power needs to mean something again. Yes, there should be less power gain, but whenever I do gain power it should enable me to conquer where I'm at and cross over to the next hill. All this scaling directly kills that, and that's why the game is in this state. Showering me with mounts and armour sets and transmogs and pets is what they're already doing right now, and it's just not working. Are you engaged by the current systems that shower us with all these pets and achievements and mounts and whatnot? No, you're not. You quit over Azerite. You quit over the levelling system you're advocating for. Scaling has to go. The level squish helps us get there by making each zone able to span a wider range, and then we can use the breadth of content to make many different zones overlap in levels, so people get choices, while still feeling that power progression. I believe that's the way to go, genuinely.

Ishayu

Third, I would use something similar to SWTOR catch up mechanic of buying into an XP boost system that affects your account. Last, I would change the rep grinding system to be account wide. Meaning that once you get Exalted with a faction you don't need to grind out that rep again for an alt. However, if you have an Alliance and Horde toons only the shared faction reps are shared. So you will now have to still farm the Alliance-only or Horde-only reps on the first alt for that faction.