Technical issues put a damper on World of Warcraft leveling experience

Blizzard prepares for the imminent release of World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth on August 14. In anticipation of this milestone, a new patch rolled out two weeks ago, adding new content for the fans. Most of those who play the MMORPG focus on the new content, but there’s no shortage of players willing to start from scratch. Since patch 8.0 was introduced, things took a turn for the worse and instead of an exciting leveling experience players found themselves struggling.

It’s been a while since Blizzard first lowered the numbers in the game, to simplify matters but the veterans remember the moment. Many were looking forward to see how the second stat squish would work, but that enthusiasm has all but vanished. Instead, players were left with a plethora of problems that made it more difficult to level up and unexpected in-game issues appeared. The videogame developer is diligently working on addressing those problems through hot fixes and things are definitely on the mend.

Leveling beyond 60 is a challenge

It’s all fun and games if players start from scratch and level their characters, until they hit the dreaded level 60. From this point onward until they reach level 80 they need to spend 15% more time in-game than before the patch. There are slight problems affecting the leveling process beyond level 80, but these pale in comparison to the ones described above. Blizzard is yet to find a definitive solution to this problem but is making progress by addressing one issue at a time.

What makes it really frustrating for the videogame developer is that the root of the problems is not self evident. It is obvious that somewhere mistakes were made and scaling doesn’t happen as it was supposed to. Whether it’s a problem with the scaling curve, the baseline values or even the armor and abilities of roaming creatures, leveling between 60 and 80 takes longer. Developers are careful not to create more problems as they try to address this issue, which explains why it takes so long for them to solve matters.

Two weeks until World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth

Casual and new players are probably frustrated by these leveling issues. Some have expressed their frustration over the Internet and were not satisfied with Blizzard’s response. The company acknowledged the fact that the current game experience is not what they intended and promise to make amends. At the time of writing, there is no clear timeline but small changes are being made all the time. Players notice that they will earn more XP points after levels 60, which should help mitigate the 15% delay in leveling.

Meanwhile, those who have played the game since its inception and love vanilla World of Warcraft are far more relaxed. Back in the day the leveling process took much longer, but the voyage was every bit as exciting as the destination.

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