It's Monday morning, but that doesn't stop the blues from posting early about new stuff coming in 2.3. Nethaera put up a sticky post this morning about leveling improvements coming in the next major content patch. We knew about the leveling speed side of things, but that's not all that's being improved - many older dungeon drops are receiving buffs. These item buffs have been long-needed, so it's nice to finally see them begin to surface.
Nethaera wrote:
As many of you already know we've been working on changes designed to improve various aspects of leveling for those making their way to level 60. These improvements, available in patch 2.3 will come in many forms and should significantly contribute to a more fluid and enjoyable leveling experience .
The first notable change was to simply reduce the amount of experience needed each level by approximately 15% between levels 20 and 60. Please note that when the patch is released, characters affected by this change will remain at their current level percentage. For example, if a character had exactly 50% of the current level's total experience before this change went into effect, the character would still have exactly 50% of the current level's total experience; only now fewer points would be needed to level.
Questing plays a very large role in World of Warcraft, especially while leveling and we felt that improvements to this front were necessary as well. Experience gained for completing quests (on average) between levels 30 and 60 is being increased. The increase becomes more substantial as you make your way towards 60. Additionally, many outdoor elite mobs will become non-elites, making many quests which were previously too difficult or required a group much easier and offer the same rewards (in some cases better!). A good example of this change would be Stromgarde Keep in Arathi Highlands, which will become a solo friendly environment when patch 2.3 goes live.
We've also added approximately 60 new quests in Dustwallow Marsh. This should help players who find themselves lacking quests in the 30-40 range. The Steamwheedle Cartel is building the new town of Mudsprocket in south-west Dustwallow Marsh, so you'll have to wait until construction is complete to learn more about these changes.
We're making other improvements to pre-bc leveling dungeons that players will likely find most agreeable. The level range for most every dungeon is being adjusted so that there is a much smaller range between the level of mobs found early in the dungeon to those found towards the end. For example, Shadowfang Keep is currently designed for levels 18-25 which means that right now, players who are towards the bottom of that range (18) will find it nearly impossible to complete the dungeon, while players towards the top of the range (25) will find most of the dungeon trivial. Using our new model (similar to what you'll notice with Burning Crusade leveling dungeons), Shadowfang Keep is being retuned for levels 18-21.
We also want to make running a leveling up dungeon more worth while. In addition to increasing quest experience for dungeon quests, we're also upgrading all pre-bc dungeon boss drops to blue quality items. Some examples are listed below:
Ragefire Chasm
Robe of Evocation old: +3 Stamina, + 4 Intelligence
Robe of Evocation new: +4 Stamina, +5 Intelligence, and +5 Spell Critical Strike Rating
Deadmines
Smite's Reaver old: +2 Strength, +1 Stamina, +1 Spirit, 11.1 dps
Smite's Reaver new: +2 Strength, +3 Stamina, +2 Hit Rating, 14.5 dps
Shadowfang Keep
Robes of Arugal old: +3 Agility, +5 Stamina, +9 Intelligence, +10 Spirit
Robes of Arugal new: +3 Spirit, +5 Stamina, +9 Intelligence, +12 Spell Damage
As you can see there is much in-store for the next major content patch, particularly a number of changes designed to benefit players who are leveling a character. Though we've given you a few examples of the things to come, we think everyone will be pleasantly surprised when they see the full extent of the changes discussed above.
Comments
Its true by what they said now it's way easy now to get through WC.
Finally! All of my level 30ish alts will have more meaning to push them to 70.
/agree but for my 26 hunter
Yes, it will affect WoW and BC..
The Pre-BC part they are talking about is everything you do BEFORE going to outlands.. They are saying that they are making changes to the parts of the game that were available prior to BC coming out.
well as it says a few times, it's for leveling to 60. some parts are changing 20-60, others are changing 30-60. BC is generally referred to as post-60, so pre-BC would be pre-60. the main point of this is to increase the pace of leveling in the Old World to the pace of Outlands leveling. Outlands leveling is already fast enough; no reason to increase it more. This is going to make it faster to get to the outlands.
is this patch going to effect BC as well or just the none extension of the game not quite understanding the Pre-BC part they keep mentioning, if this effects both WoW and BC then I'm really Happy :)
well yes and no. i still reccomend to friends and such to pick up Burning Crusade even when starting out new because the questing in the Blood Elf and Draenei zones is so much better than the old ones. Plus they just came out with the Battle Chest which gives you WoW and BC, plus the two guides (though they're obviously veryvery outdated).
All in all it makes sense that they do this though. they keep saying they like the pace of leveling in BC so it makes sense that they'd up the pace in the old world some so that it's a bit closer to the pace of post-60 content.
^^, lovely
Typical. Friday night I ding 60, today this news!
Mudsprocket lol nice name.
It's also an "economic" move from Blizzard. While the game remain one of the best-seller title in store, people need to reach level 60 (or soo) before buying the extension, and 70 before buying the next one.
However, While many new player won't see all the low-level content with only 1 character, it'll become alot more interestign to start a new one to play with some friend :)
Curse.com volounteer Moderator
Needless to say - its about time.
Better items for faster killing (some seem redesigned in really lovely ways!), more XP per quest, less XP per level...
Add that all up and you're in for some pretty fun leveling methinks...
Developer
finally something good !
I cant wait for this haha, making it so much easier for me to stick with my alts. and new low level blues!! i want to see the changes.
BRING IT SOON GIVE ME INFO
This is going to make me actually level up another toon to 70. I would have to agree that the 30-60 is probably the worst grind ever the way blizz had already created it. If you werent fortunate enough to find instance groups and you dont know the zones like the back of your hand, you were practically stuck.
Finally blizz fixes it and makes it worthwhile to lvl again as Outlands is pretty ownage questing in and worth a lot of gold doing those quests too.