Thoughts on Leveling in WoW Part 2: What if we go off the rails a bit...?

Here's an interesting thought: what if Blizzard simply eliminated leveling entirely in Classic Plus and made everything skill based?

As in: if you do something --blacksmithing, fighting with a sword, casting spells, etc.-- your skill ranks go up. If you get high enough skill ranks, you can wield better gear, but that gear doesn't impact your abilities nearly as much as your own skill ranks do. The primary focus of the game is doing things so you get better at them. 

But here's the kicker: you can't get better at those things in instances or in PvP. You have to get better at your skills by doing quests out in the open world. Each quest is assigned a skill level --for example, the quest to kill Defias Pillagers in Westfall would be a skill rank of 30-- and if your weapon skill you're using to kill the Defias Pillagers is less than 30, it would be harder to accomplish because the Pillagers would have more weapon skill than you. But if you head back to beating on lesser enemies for a while to get your skill up, you'll find that those Pillagers are a lot easier since you are now equal to or higher than their own weapon skill. In one respect your skills are similar to class levels, but your skill ranks don't go up after completing a quest (you do get gear and/or gold for that). You go up in skill ranks by performing actions out in the world irrespective of whether you're doing the quests.

If you want gold or gear, do the quests. If you just want better skill, go beat on enemies out in the field.

If you want to gain skill ranks faster, kill enemies above your skill rank or perform actions that stretch your capabilities. People are used to that if they try to farm something in WoW (such as ore or herbs) and fail. If you only stick to killing enemies worse than you, you gain skill ranks more slowly or not at all. And if you're grouped up, the number of hits you make on an enemy determines your skill rank adjustment, so you can't join a group where one person pulls the entire dungeon, killing enemies so you get the XP.

That would eliminate the boosting process, because the only way you would be able to get better and yet not be the person doing the work would be to have someone take over your account and do it for you, which would not only be dangerous to your personal finances but likely a violation of your Terms of Service. 

However, that would also require compelling gameplay and story to drive people's interest in playing, and let's be fair, Blizzard has had its ups and downs as far as crafting a good story.

I'm probably overthinking this, because Blizz is never going to deviate from their tried and true methodology of levels and XP acquisition, because there are too many people who like it just the way it is. They may complain about it --okay, WoW players complain about everything-- but when push comes to shove they aren't giving it up one bit.

#Blaugust2024