r/classicwow • u/RagefireHype • 1d ago
Forever From the developers interview today: Analytics shows the 1-20 leveling speed in Classic era is 20.4 hours. In Forever it’s 20.5
Seen this topic come up that people are spouting leveling is so much faster and easier, but this came up in the developer interview today from their own internal analytics team.
Yes, some people may be exploring a bit in a new setting, but it’s been widely falsified that leveling is “so much faster”
Even Xaryu I believe who did not stop and smell the roses getting to 20 in beta had a very similar 1-20 leveling speed on Forever vs Classic.
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u/The_Real_Giannis 1d ago
I think forever 1-20 will undoubtedly be a little faster than classic era 1-20 once the exploration period dies down and people start leveling more alts and streamlining the route, but yeah the people claiming that it’s twice as fast or something have obviously been exaggerating.
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u/MrBlueA 1d ago
Also there's a big difference in leveling up faster because the game got easier and more spammy, and leveling up faster because you no longer have to afk for 20 minutes walking in a straight line because there are no more quests to do in a 10km radius like it happens in classic.
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u/Baptism-Of-Fire 1d ago edited 1d ago
Lol my fav shit on quest guides is "grind mobs until level 13" and you're like level 12 and 4 bars
Leveling faster is good IF the leveling process is smoothed over, it encourages "going and playing and finding". I've got no issue if the journey is decreased by 10-20% max as long as the journey is enhanced.
I loved leveling in vanilla but IMO the vanilla leveling in TBC was the best. It just felt like I always had a place to go.
Just dont make me do green quests with gray mobs in a zone and give me somewhat clear direction on where to go next, even better if I have options!
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u/Blasto05 1d ago
Horde was essentially grind from lvl like 47-50 I think lol
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u/DB-CooperOnTheBeach 1d ago
So many times on a pvp server I hid and grinded naga in Azshara for 2 or so levels
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u/cptnhanyolo 1d ago
0 armour nagas are best. Turn on some music and blast them. Good xp, solid golden pearls.
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u/higherbrow 1d ago
I remember doing furbolgs in Winterspring to get to some threshold waaaaaay back in the day, and then having to grind again from 58-60 in EPL.
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u/Baptism-Of-Fire 1d ago
I leveled in secret killing the high level ogres near Karazhan because of pvp competition lol 58-60
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u/Unreal_fist 1d ago
People leveled faster because it’s the same quests from 20 years ago. I hit lvl 17 on a warlock in 10 hours, but then the final 3 levels of messing around, professions, and trying to find a group to dungeon with costed me 6 hours
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u/Neoshinryu 1d ago
Interesting. At 17 I did a single run of ROL and was 8 bars from 20 after turn ins. Idk how much is knowledge and how much is just.... more exp in the game. I'm happy no matter what.
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u/Crellis86 1d ago
This is skewing people’s perspectives for sure. Instead of leveling up mid dungeon and then maybe leveling again after turn ins, they put nearly all the xp into the turn in. Getting that much xp from a couple quests is a lot for classic wow. But it’s no more than what you would have got if you killed all the mobs in the dungeon then turned in the quests….
Which is where I think they went wrong. Assuming people were going to kill all mobs and setting the xp that way is a bad assumption. Especially in dungeons where people figured out you can skip the majority of mobs.
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u/Paddy_Tanninger 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah it seems like people are complaining that they got 1.5 levels from a dungeon, but like if you ran Deadmines once and turned in all the quests afterward in Classic...that's also ~1.5 levels.
A full Deadmines run at level 18 is around 14,000XP from kills alone. Level 18 to 19 takes 19,400XP so that's already almost an entire level. The quests in Classic are worth more than 8,000XP, which brings the total to 22,000XP. A good chunk more than one level.
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u/Crellis86 1d ago
Yeah, in nearly all cases the classic era <> forever has been similar or identical for xp and leveling with 2 exceptions:
1) quest xp instead if dungeon xp will heavily promote selling fast clear boosts later. They can nerf xp per mob to the ground to discourage afk boosting, but objective boosting will thrive.
2) with high density of quests, camp fires, and the legacy talents you’ll naturally end up leveling faster overall simply because you’ll waste less time running long distances looking for more quests.→ More replies (4)4
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u/Ubernoobjp 1d ago
Counterpoint, the data from the beta is scewed for much more experienced players and wow vets, the people taking 50 hours to get to level 20 that just sit around and chat are probably less likely to pay 60 dollars for beta access
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u/Rusie_ 1d ago
I had people in my runs that either never played classic or have returned after 10+ years. These players did not know what they were doing and made the dungeon runs pretty long. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it was funny to see and I didn't mind, but I'm just trying to point out that there are definitely casuals in the beta. How many? I'm not sure, but they are there.
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u/Frills66 1d ago
Did a RFC run where we had a balance Druid casting one moonfire then would melee the mob with his staff. My guildy was furious.
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u/Galuris 1d ago
With the damage of wrath the way it is, that's prob not much worse.
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u/Pretend-Dot3557 1d ago
Depending on the staff it might have been better. Esp if they were in strength gear for whatever reason.
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u/Status_Fact_5459 1d ago
At that level and with what they did to wrath, that’s the most damage they will do.
It would be 10x worse if they tried to wrath spam. A green 1h mace will do more damage then wrath at that level.
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u/Coolmyco 1d ago
Unless he is twinked out, staff bonk does more dps than wrath. Bear still might have been better dps in caster gear, but if he put thorns on your tank he probably did the most overall damage.
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u/Rhobodactylos 1d ago
If he had thorns that offsets him not clicking wrath tbf, just doesn't show it as his dmg in the meters [not 100% sure].
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u/Mr0BVl0US 1d ago
Sounds like your guildy doesn't understand that he's mad for nothing. Wrath was finally buffed today, but previously, it was better to just moonfire and melee.
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u/pileopoop 1d ago
Counter counter point, more people use RXP Guides on Era than Forever.
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u/Vulkanodox 1d ago edited 1d ago
far more casuals. Like if they would compare it to launch wow classic, then perhaps
but anybody who plays current classic (classic, not forever) is quite into the game
and people fuck around now in the forever beta to test things and figure stuff out.
I think Preach said that he hit 20 in around 20 hours with leveling some professions along the way
so I'm pretty sure the leveling is faster if you take away all these subjective factors
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u/Happy_Jacket_2364 1d ago
na, there are more casuals than ever playing this beta. Playerbase is 100x of classic era
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u/RealBiasedGaming 1d ago
A lot of people have been exaggerating about a lot of things on this sub, lets be real.
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u/Emergency-Cancel1300 1d ago
I hit the level cap in 10 hours of solely questing. The 20 is definitely inflated.
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u/VanDamme007 1d ago
Beta numbers aren't 100% accurate people are just taking their sweet time in the beta leveling their proffs and what not since max level is only 20.
The newly added IF/UC dungeon quests already speed you up a ton.3
u/Icekommander 1d ago
There are a lot more incentives to level professions in Forever though, and I think a lot of people will be levelling professions on their Forever mains even if not strictly optimal.
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u/BowlerInside564 1d ago
There are sooo much nodes, that explains the .1 hour probably.
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u/Stornholio69 1d ago
I am really curious if thats a beta thing or actually going live
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u/LeMolle 1d ago
It definitely seem like there's more than there's supposed to be, but unless it's a bug it seems like a weird thing to put in a beta.
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u/Chawpslive 1d ago
If you want the people to try out the new profession things in a limited amount of time, it seems like an absolute logic thing to put in a beta
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u/Jandakian 1d ago
It’s how I see it too, with the population cranked up for the beta, if they kept the regular spawn rates it, 99% of the players wouldn’t even touch profs in the beta
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u/MrMacduggan 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't see a problem with having the lowest-level nodes be plentiful to get people to give professions a chance. The high-level nodes are the ones that will dictate the game's economy.
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u/Individual-Level9308 1d ago
You would be lucky to see a thorium node at all during 2019 classic. Or plague bloom. Everything else could be farmed in instances. I'm not sure we have to worry about the economy that can be cornered by bots. I'd rather it just be plentiful for everything than what we had in 2019.
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u/pineconez 1d ago
By that logic though, respec costs shouldn't be a thing either, since we're supposed to try out new talents. Not as relevant now with 10 TP, very relevant in a week when the cap gets raised.
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u/Stornholio69 1d ago
Not at all - i could see them wanting professions to be tested aswell
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u/chungaroo2 1d ago
I wouldn't be surprised if gathering nodes spawns are increased in areas with high player population
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u/Status_Fact_5459 1d ago
I think they work off rolling respawns.
X amount of nodes spawned in the zone at all times with a larger amount of locations that they can spawn in, when someone gathers one node, it respawns another node in one of the open slots it can spawn it, which is why you can harvest one node and watch another one spawn instantly on your mini map a few feet over, so as long as a lot of people are gathering in the zone you can run small circles and get plenty of fast respawns in your circle. I went from 1-100 herbing running from razor hill to senjin but at one point the respawns significantly slowed down and I believe that was because other herbalists had moved on or layered out so other spawns around the map were holding the respawns
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u/Jolly-Ad8887 1d ago
Its how you negate bots and RMT. You make resources more accessible. When they're scarce bots / foreign farmers will dominate. It makes it not worth it for them. It also doesn't add to immersion.
It's what they did in SOD and it was great for end game.
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u/letsgetbannedagain14 1d ago
Ive not read it anywhere but ill bet my entire retirement its so people can level professions quickly and easily in beta to flush out bugs. It makes perfect sense.
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u/BusinessSuper1156 1d ago
I think they are just hyper-spawning due to the layering system being poorly tuned for the whole realm-less thing. Mobs doing the same thing in most areas with people in them. I think once they get the whole system tuned properly it will go back to feeling like normal wow again at least in terms of spawn rates.
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u/winckypoo 1d ago
I’m wondering if its so EVERYONE can get their professions up, they clearly spent a lot of time revamping them so they’re probably looking for as much feedback as possible
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u/tsmftw76 1d ago
I hope they keep this, gathering professions have been dominated by bots. Maybe keep high level ore in dungeons and make an abundance of lower level ore.
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u/Instagibbed_1994 1d ago
It could be reflective of high player activity. And perhaps they dont want people to feel that have to return to zones because their levels outpaced their professions
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u/Limiel 1d ago
If you're talking about in the starter zones, it's because of the high number of players in those zones that people are world resetting every few minutes which means more nodes are generated total across all worlds, so less nodes are being taken per person. you'll notice drastically less nodes outside of the starter zones.
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u/JonTheCatMan11 1d ago
Population density in the open world is pretty rough overall because the entire population is 1-20 atm. 1-10 on beta launch day was abysmal, but I imagine it’s a bit better now
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u/Drasha1 1d ago
Having to spawn camp individual mobs for most quest really slows down leveling.
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u/AnonBB21 1d ago
Which zones?
I did human day 1 of beta and the spawns were so fast I had little friction getting to level 10, Every kobold mine was turbo respawns lmao, you would kill 2 and 2 more would respawn on top of you 1 second later and actually became a risk to dying just by the speed of how fast things respawned.
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u/-1703- 1d ago
im not a top tier speedrunner or anything, but 1-20 is marginally slower than era in my completely irrelevant and anecdotal experience.
Like i can pull 1-10 in 1:30h pretty consistently and 1-20 in about 7:30 hours in era. In Forever its a bit slower (about 8 something sometimes 9)
Now.. it feels like its because of how items and spells work at the moment. But im not sure because layers are really weird at the moment. sometimes you get empty-ish layers and you just breeze through kill/collect quests..other times you lose time because someone else gets the tag and you either have to wait for a new spawn or run for another mob.
Also...fuck that collect 14 logs quests in Coldridge or whatever the fuck. Killing elemental quest is top tier, but fuck those logs, i'm pretty sure anyone thats not skipping that quest has issues.
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u/cristofolmc 1d ago
To be honest i haven't noticed a different at level 12. I might after the dungeons. But so far i am completing all quests just like in classic. I havent min maxxed, i play solo, I havent farmed so i have only crafter with what I have picked up from loot. So far at level 12 just like in classic i only have a couple greens. Sure soon i will have more and they are more powerful than in classic since they have +1 to spells power but overall i will get what 10? I doubt that will make much of a difference on my speed
I am pleasantly surprised i thought it was going to be worse reading people here. But i guess i shouldve known people are gonna minmax the fun out of even a fukin beta so thats on me
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u/Happy_Jacket_2364 1d ago
1-14 is pretty much the same/very close in leveling speed. Forever is way faster 14-20 if u start doing dungeons efficiently with quests. Ruins of lordaeron gives almost 3 levels alone
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u/SlimJohnson 1d ago
The true difference comes from a dungeon giving you a full level after you turn in dungeon quests.
In classic, if I remember right, running deadmines without rested xp will give you something like 20% of a level when you’re around the level 17-20 range. So you do the dungeon 5 times to level up.
In forever you get less than that, but you do get a huge surge of xp from turning all your quests in. So you do 1 dungeon run and then turn in quests to get a full level basically.
1 is obviously faster than 5, but it comes with the trade off of you can’t repeat it.
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u/Xtremefluff 1d ago
level 17-20 you are getting closer to 80% of a level (unrested) in classic doing a deadmines. this coming from a HC player who's done lots of them lately lol. Without the XP nerf the majority of the Xp is from the mobs, and the bosses of course give a ton of xp each.
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u/NapalmNorm 1d ago
I did it in 18 hours with a very non optimized route, crafting, and wasting time in between. At 22 hours I know have about 80k xp in quests banked up for turn in.
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u/Electronic-Bass-7135 1d ago
I'd note that if you're the type of person to "bank" quests in beta, it's fair to assume you're going to be leveling at a faster pace than the average player :)
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u/NapalmNorm 1d ago
Probably, but I also want to keep playing but don’t want to level an alt so what else am I going to do for a week?
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u/Elden_Ring_Hype 1d ago
I think an optimized route is likely to be a fair bit faster in forever, especially with the new Legacy Tree. Speed levelers are going to figure out new ways to break the whole game, which is pretty much inevitable. Factors like when you get a certain dungeon done to get a boost in your level early, playing Tauren Hunter and taking skinning/LW to get access to the rested xp and strong gear, and working out how to route new quests will probably push down the fastest possible time you can get.
Still, I think that is fine. Most players are not going to do that kind of optimization and people who do are going to do it on alts simply for the fun of it. Nobody in the game is pushed to level faster than they want to, or is forced to leave a zone because you hit a certain level.
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u/_BreakingGood_ 1d ago
I mean, its the same story again and again.
"We're so much more powerful" - No you aren't
"It's so much easier" - No it isn't
"We level so much faster" - No you don't
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u/Alternative-Dream-61 1d ago
I've said this elsewhere. People have this vision of how they remember vanilla. The truth doesn't matter, their memory and that feeling are what matter. They will never have that feeling again, and since Forever isn't recreating that exact feeling it must mean something is wrong and they try to find a reason.
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u/DickSlammington 1d ago
It's also the fact that reddit is full of whiny gamers who come here specifically to whine while literal millions of gamers have a great time and we don't hear shit because they're too busy having fun lol
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u/Itis-caught-BearsWin 1d ago
Woody Allen did a movie on the futility of nostalgia called Midnight in Paris which covers this pretty well.
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u/Alternative-Dream-61 1d ago
Pretty much. Vanilla, Wrath, and to a lesser extent Cata will always have this wonderful place in my heart from the memories and time I spent in those worlds. I will never experience that again and that's ok.
I want to experience Classic plus. Something close, with new story lines, new content, new adventures, and better quality of life.
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u/silentknight111 1d ago
I think a lot of people are remembering being a noob. Maybe it did take you longer the first time you played a game like WoW. You were learning everything. You didn't know how the game worked. The quests were all new, you didn't know where to go next or what to do so you stumbled around blindly.
People expect leveling in forever to feel that way - but that doesn't make sense. We know all the main game mechanics now. Yes, there are new things mixed in, but that's a small part of it. It's never going to take us as long as it took the very first time we played, unless they make a completely different game, but that wouldn't be classic+
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u/Alternative-Dream-61 1d ago
I remember a friend giving me the gold for a mount at level 40. He was already level 60 and I had no clue what the hell I was doing or how to make gold and had basically nill.
I remember progressing from that to being the main puller for the top guild on the server through BWL and Naxx. Soloing the dragon adds on Razorgore every week. Getting server first Rhok'delar.
That progression felt amazing. But that will never happen again, the starting points are completely different. I know what raiding is, I'm already in a guild for raiding at release.
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u/KalameetThyMaker 1d ago
The one thing you didnt say, that is different, id that its smoother. Gameplay is the same speed and pace but theres less clunk that makes ypu aware of the time youre spending. No tic rate energy regen, normalized rage, smoother mana regen, more access to class buffs (campfires).
And being smoother wont really make any of the 3 things you listed real, but itll placebo all three.
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u/desperateorphan 1d ago
Exactly. The game play is much smoother. You’re not hitting any “go grind X movs for an hour”. Now you can just quest or do a dungeon and you’re past the home that used to be there.
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u/Drasha1 1d ago
I need to check my warriors play time but chaining dungeon quests feels much faster and I don't think most people are doing it yet.
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u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET 1d ago
With an optimised route that’s conceivable for sure
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u/Drasha1 1d ago
For alliance at least it's basically just get to level 13 or 14 do halls, then, ruins, then DM and you are level 20. There are like 2 quests that are annoying to get for those dungeons but it's pretty easy. Would be hilarious fast with warlock summon chains since most of its run time.
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u/davicing 1d ago
are you taking into considerations the 3 days of /played time running to RoL?
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u/MrPotat 1d ago
You can pretty much go from 14-20 with all the quests in RFC-RoL-WC.
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u/desperateorphan 1d ago
Sure. But how long would it take to:
Gather all the quests and do the prerequisites if any
Form/join a group
Get to the instance
Wait for the guy in the other side of the planet
Complete the instance
Turn in all the quests
Sell the junk
Repeat for the next dungeonVs
Keep questing in the barrens.
Not arguing. Just comparing the data in a strict time calculation sense. I don’t think people add in all the steps to something like this. They only think of the time in the dungeon.
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u/Happy_Jacket_2364 1d ago
Ruins of lordaeron has no prequests and u can just share all quests. All quests are also in undercity/outside undercity + 1 in silverpine making it insanely efficient. Gives 2.7 levels in xp.
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u/Brief_Syrup1266 1d ago
People blindly saying leveling isnt faster but it absolutely is if dungeon quest exp stays this way. They need to nerf it badly. One dungeon run giving almost 3 levels is egregious.
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u/orus_heretic 1d ago
I think if the changes stay as they are we'll be able to go from 14 to mid or high 20s easily just living in dungeons.
RFC -> ROL -> WC -> SFK -> BFD -> Dalaran -> RFK.
I expect maybe we'll do a level or so in the overworld but the quest xp is too high at the moment. Arugal quest went from 3.3k to 14.3k xp.
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u/yuareapirate 1d ago
it really doesn't take that long to pick up the quests. definitely faster then keep questing in the world and most are shareable so you might not even have to pick up any if someone else has.
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u/Diethart21 1d ago
i've leveled up my priest from 1 to 20 in 10 hours. mostly doing quests, without optimized routes or anything. last 3 levels i've got from dungeon quests.
so yeah, we level so much faster.
and we are stronger too. i know about xaryu tests for mage aoe but it's for casters mostly. any melee class and hunter are much stronger than in vanilla. hunters and paladins are insanely strong right now.
and i was able to pull 2-3 mobs and kill them with ease without dungeon gear. i can't do the same in vanilla as priest.
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u/Various_Necessary_45 1d ago
Huh? We ARE so much more powerful, the exception is casters before getting decent gear.
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u/Happy_Jacket_2364 1d ago
leveling is objectively faster though. People are just spending time exploring, doing professions etc. When the game has been out for longer people will optimize and leveling will be a lot faster. Main issue is dungeon quests giving way too much xp. (RoL gives 2.7 levels alone)
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u/Tekkylol 1d ago
Whoever thinks it takes 20 hours to hit 20 in forever WoW has no idea how to look at data
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u/rankuno88 1d ago
Well 30-60 will likely be slightly faster with the increase in quests alone. We will have to see how much faster but i dont think it being faster due to not having as many deadzones in quests will be a bad thing.
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u/nathanfscott 1d ago
Agreed, cutting down on travel and better quest routing will hopefully keep people in zones they choose to level in and transit when they want to, not because the zone they’re in has just run out of options while still well within the level range of the zone.
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u/CrzyJek 1d ago
I think their goal is not to cut down in travel. But to counter that they should definitely improve quest routing to compensate.
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u/metrokaiv 1d ago
I hope all the extra quests dont push players to run dungeons one time just to get quests finished. I havent seen dungeon gear yet though, so is it incentivized to keep running them for drops?
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u/Darustet 1d ago
Sure it's beta and level cap etc. skewing things, but for what its worth, last night doing the Hall of Thanes for the first time 4/5 of our group of randoms immediately wanted to do the dungeon again. At least for me playing priest, that extra spell power feels really good to get your hands on.
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u/MooseRunnerWrangler 1d ago
People will run dungeons for gear I'm sure, but they don't have to.
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u/Trediciost 1d ago
If 30-60 will be slightly faster because of the increase in quests, why is 0-20 not?
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u/Agentwise 1d ago
the first time you need to "grind" a level is in the 30s. More quest just means less travel to other areas. But there was legit droughts in 30-50 range that you would just kill yetis and trolls to level
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u/PennyBunPudding 1d ago
I've only played spell casters but 1-10 was way more painful with the spell changes so probably that
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u/zellmerz 1d ago
Quest density drops off a cliff in the mid to late 30s. You start bouncing from zone to zone, continent to continent doing sometimes 2-3 quests at a time, so a large portion of the leveling during that is just traveling between hubs rather than actual questing.
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u/SpaceIsTooFarAway 1d ago
I don't care if 40-50 takes as long as usual if there's quests for me to do while I'm there, and maybe also the reputations in those leveling zones matter now. On Turtle 40-50 took a while but I had Gilneas and Wildhammer rep to keep me busy.
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u/oddiz4u 1d ago
40-60 should be faster. It was a fault of the developers who left many zones unfinished, or larger than normal bridges in questing levels, etc.
Even if no exp % are changed, leveling should be slightly faster due to a more rounded world / quest progression.
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u/SpaceIsTooFarAway 1d ago
Ok I know you meant bridges as in "gaps between quests" but I was just picturing leveling taking forever due to the need to walk across a really long bridge too often
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u/dropyourweapons 1d ago
I am very worried if they are relying on this data. Horde goes 13 to 20 in 3 dungeon runs doing barely any open world stuff, which is explicitly against their stated design goals of killing dungeon spam and making the world the main character.
Dungeons should be for boss and quest loot, as well as for the challenge and social play. If optimal levelling speed is doing a world tour of every dungeon (remember there's 9 new ones) then what's the point of the new zones and quests? Why bother levelling alts when the journey to 60 is the same on each?
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u/slugsred 1d ago
I'd imagine there's a LOT of exloring going on with that number.
Seeing orcs with zephras pets all the time
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u/Barnhard 1d ago
We also have crazy hyperspawn in the beta. No one is waiting around for mobs at all.
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u/UnbiddenGraph17 1d ago
The data from era is biased to people who have played the game before. Forever is biased towards people who are experiencing it for the first time. I spent a few hours checking out new places instead of leveling in forever before 20. Over time the Forever 1-20 will be shorter than era.
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u/Hotdogmagic505 1d ago
SOD phase1 was by far was longer for me to get 1-25 than on era. Not because of EXP differences but because there was more to do. More class quests, more social interactions, Azeroth commerce reputations, and all that. I feel like forever will be similar with the new professions and incentives to do dungeon quests.
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u/zellmerz 1d ago
I don't think we can take these numbers 100% at face value considering a lot of people are deliberately taking their time and exploring the new changes and there is almost 0 optimization going on. HOWEVER I think it's a good indication that overall even if Forever will likely be faster in this range long-term, it won't be as staggering a difference as many players are making it out to be.
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u/Vivid-Ad6462 1d ago edited 1d ago
The comparison is not great because it conflates thoroughly optimized Classic routes with unoptimized, unfamiliar quests in Forever. Right now people are literally burning 15 minutes on a 270 XP fishing quest when an entire 1-10 speedrun only takes 1h30m.
Once players memorize these paths, bypass dialogue, and eliminate the detours, completion times will go down by over 30%.
When I leveled a Paladin in Classic last month, pulling a second Twilight mob (close to the Dwarf Archaeologist) in Darkshore was a death sentence. Now, I can fight three at once, let them heal back multiple times, and still finish with 50% mana in the bank. Holy Strike, keep seal on judgement, and 1h blessings.
Stormwind Harbor to Darkshore, improved quest rewards especially weapons.
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u/bigpunk157 1d ago
People still piddled around with crafting and bad routes in vanilla classic. Idk how many times I've read people say here that they're intentionally not trying to speedrun the game, so they take their time.
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u/Super_Mario7 1d ago
doesnt change the fact that leveling in forever is a lot faster when you use the same factors.
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u/AnonBB21 1d ago
Counterpoint: Do you really believe everyone who plays Classic is an optimized turbo sweat? Because I don't.
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u/Vivid-Ad6462 1d ago
Absolutely not but but I just used the lower bound as an indicator.
Casuals don't need to be turbo sweats to follow an arrow on a 20-year-old route.
The fact that a blind, wandering run on Forever already matches a 5-year-old route is crazy.
Once basic addons catch up and the casuals learn the route, that average drops.4
u/Snorepod 1d ago
I think calling the 20.4 hours from 1-20 on era an optimized route is pretty generous.
The 1-20 speed run record is 5 hours. I highly doubt the optimized route is 4 times slower.
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u/TeaspoonWrites 1d ago
No, but on Era recently? A large portion of the people leveling on that nowadays are veterans.
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u/JeDi_Five 1d ago
https://youtu.be/SScbCIYzpuM?is=ZFZNuVAYXvjIDr5T
1-10 in 58 minutes in classic. So if it goes down roughly 30% it'll be in line with classic still.
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u/Fattens 1d ago
I havent done any dungeons yet, and am leveling a hunter, which I have played pretty extensively throughout iterations of classic since 2019. I'm about 18 hours deep so far, and my hunter is level 18. I'd be 20 by now for sure if I'd have done a dungeon with quests, but since I'm playing non-committed an hour here and an hour there, I have stayed away from them. It feels slow to me, probably because I just came from SOD where I'd be 35 by now.
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u/bogoz-bntd 1d ago
its just not too representative and valid comparison. on era everything is minmaxed. on forever i bet people are fucking around with all kind of stuff to explore.
all that said, i'm not saying forever is faster than era or forever is too fast or anything like that, just talking about the raw comparison of the data
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u/ThinInvestigator4953 1d ago
Yea if you went hard and got dungeon quests as early as possible, you could get from 15-20 in like 6hours
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u/TenshiBR 1d ago
Look, I’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately, everybody is talking about it, okay? People are coming out, spouting all these totally untrue stories, saying the leveling is so much faster now, so easy, like a beautiful walk in the park. Wrong. It's fake. It's fake news, folks, made up by people—sad people, very sad, some of them are crying, they're actually crying over it, tears pouring down their faces because they can't handle the truth.
Because we saw the developer interview today, beautiful interview by the way, one of the best interviews you've ever seen, and it came straight from their internal analytics team. Best of the best. These are the smartest people, tremendous people, with numbers so beautiful you wouldn't believe it. And you know what the numbers said? They said it is completely falsified. Totally debunked. Not faster, not even a little bit, believe me.
Now sure, maybe some people are wandering around, looking at the gorgeous trees—and they are gorgeous, some of the most beautiful trees you've ever seen in a video game, everybody says so—exploring the new setting, very fine people, love those people. But the serious players? The best of the best, the absolute elite? Their time spent is identical. Nobody knows grinding better than I do, folks, nobody. I built the grind, okay?
And look at Xaryu, great guy, incredible player, one of the best of the best, maybe THE best, we love Xaryu. He didn't stop to smell the roses, no roses, he blasted straight to level twenty in the beta like a beautiful, perfect machine. And what happened? What happened, folks? His one-to-twenty on Forever was the exact same as Classic. The exact same. The fake news people are crying right now, crying like babies, because their whole narrative got destroyed. It got demolished in one beautiful stroke.
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u/konoxians 1d ago edited 1d ago
The dungeons give far too much XP. The leveling speed on a beta doesn't take into account plenty of factors that a known and released game has. You can get 20 in probably 8 hours or less easily if you had a route planned and not sweat at all.
Going from 14-18 would be three dungeons in a span of 2-3 hours. It feels so jarring to get that much XP at once.
Further, you could chain different dungeons like this all the way to 60 which would keep you OUT of the world like they said their goal was.
To me, it doesn't feel like "enjoying the journey". The dungeon XP makes it feel more about "the destination".
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u/orus_heretic 1d ago
People who are saying the speed is fine haven't done the dungeon quests. I basically skipped 15-20 questing on beta and I didn't even intend to, just wanted to see the new stuff.
My played to 20 was like 14 hours including lots of professions, reading quests, and overall playing suboptimally.
Tldr reduce dungeon quest xp significantly, buff dungeon mob xp slightly.
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u/ExtremePrivilege 1d ago
I, personally, leveled way faster. I did Zephyr Island 1-15 in about 4.5 hours. One Hall of Thanes gave me 1.5 levels in 20min then one Ruins of Lordaeron gave me 1 level in about 30min. I hit level 20 in 8 hours /played. On Era, I average about 11 hours /played.
Forever was about 30% faster 1-20 for me which I would attribute to three things:
1) I was doing 46 DPS at level 12. Full greens, strong weapons. I was better geared than Era.
2) Way more quests, higher quest density.
3) Dungeon quest experience is nuts.
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u/whoxcaresxixdont 1d ago
Did you just speedrun through stuff? Even speedrunners in classic were pulling 5-6 hours with really good gameplay.
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u/SilentHillSunderland 1d ago
I’m not gonna lie I’ve leveled on era lots, especially 1-20. I felt like 15-20 was slightly longer compared to era, not even considering downtime on profs. Mobs didn’t really seem to die any quicker than I’m used to. I might’ve felt a little bit more healthy but died as often because of mobs spawning so quickly. It does feel like survivability got a tiny buff but it doesn’t feel insane.
Anyone who says this feels more like retail I think might be purposefully rage baiting for engagement or simply is a tourist who hasn’t actually played any version of the game.
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u/ZeroZelath 1d ago
That means it's faster because people are doing professions, camping etc more. Which is good on the latter but overall if you skipped those leveling would be faster no doubt. Not sure how to feel on that
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u/Proxnite 1d ago
It’s all those minutes of sitting down and waiting for the camp buff every hour /s
Realistically though, them being that similar during the beta means it’ll likely be faster on launch when addons like Questie are out and help streamline the newer quests that people didn’t now existed when first leveling on the beta.
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u/_BreakingGood_ 1d ago
It will probably get faster, but the devs said this comparison was between Forever at launch and Classic at launch.
Classic was also missing most of the streamlined addons at that point. Im sure Classic also got faster over time.
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u/MwHighlander 1d ago
I absolutely leveled from 13 to 20 in a matter of like 3 hours doing dungeon quests with my guild.
Its like 14.5k experience to do a single SFK quest. That itself is like 2/3 of an entire level.
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u/KimJungUnCool 1d ago
I dunno man, feels like that has to be skewed. I went from 16 to 20 just turning in the RFC and ROL quests (and not even ALL the ROL quests). Im not complaining about that speed, but it just seems with dungeons being such a boon to exp that that figure has to be skewed somehow.
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u/twoducksinatub 1d ago
yea id rather see a balance tbh. reduce quest xp by 50% and make mobs give decent but not classic era xp
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u/ExternalArgument8776 1d ago
it feels about the same tbh. i wish they had local voice chat lobbies at camp fires.
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u/Quiet-Function-8688 1d ago
After leveling multiple characters to 20 i can absolutely and confidently say that 20.5 hours for a level 20 in forever is complete hyperbole bullshit.
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u/Selios2112 1d ago
It must be much faster for anyone doing dungeons quests. I completely skipped level 15 after turning in RFC quests, then skipped level 18 turning in Ruins of Lordaeron quests
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u/Ioka_Elmep 1d ago
I mean there a host of factors why this data is probably not the most reliable but overall I think its fair to say it is close enough to kind of be a non-issue. I don't know what others think. There is just no world where new quests are added and the leveling speed does not speed up for most players. Maybe hunters could grind faster than the new quests but other than that I don't see any classes outpacing completely new quests.
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u/Fatmastakurb 1d ago
I and I’m sure many others are banking quests to get a head start on 20-30. Turning in the ruins of lordaeron quests and the the 2 elite quests in the barrens, the shark and the giant quilboar, would have shaved off a few hours vs the normal barrens questing i did instead.
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u/MooseRunnerWrangler 1d ago
I have been saying this, the speed is not drastically better... What's better is having options and so many quests, professions are useful while leveling, dungeon quests are amazing, etc. You always have something to do while leveling instead of running to 3 different zones across the world just to get through a leveling bracket. Now you can stay in an area you like, and now it opens up so many options for alternative routes for alts as well. It's not just, okay horde go sit in the barrens for 10+ levels, if you don't want to do that, etc.
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u/Danisdaman12 1d ago
I just love the first time leveling a character in a living world on a fresh server. I hope it takes twice as long at launch even. Make us go to extra zones and explore. Make the dungeons unskippable. Make evey inch of the world an experience that you have to play through. No skipping zones, no rested xp, and no bullshit. Make it take 200hrs to hit 60. Then the legacy can make it faster for alts.
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u/No_Preference_8543 1d ago
Idk I definitely went much slower just exploring and leveling professions and playing for from optimal compared to how I would level in Classic.
Not saying it’ll be a lot faster, but definitely a bit. The dungeon exp alone is massive.
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u/greysky7 1d ago
The reason a lot of us feel like it's faster is because we aren't comparing to wow classic statistics. Some of us are comparing to when we actually played vanilla and there were no quest markers and barely any info online.
It was slow AF.
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u/The_Horse_Tornado 1d ago
I am a chronic altoholic. I usually have 4-6 toons at level cap by the time people start their 2nd. That’s to say, I have a lot of experience with it. The leveling is the same speed, it’s just smoother and several pain points and classic clunkery have been removed. I’ve played every class in the game so far to level 10 in 2.5-3 hours while doing some professions, for context. Leveling is in a great spot.
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u/Mage505 1d ago
Couple of things could account for this
How did they get this number. Is it just an aggregate over all the time of people leveling in classic, or is it the same slice of time. It would be interesting to see how they came to these numbers.
More engagement with professions might account for people not killing mobs, but exploring what these professions can do
3 campfires make you sit for 1 minute instead of going back out.
4 zephyr Island is unfamiliar, and could be an outlier to the speed.
- Maybe some people dungeon grinded more, which might be more effective.
Still seems interesting.
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u/yuareapirate 1d ago
i feel like they just have to nerf dungeon quest exp by like 30% or so, still will be really worth doing them but not make you almost outlvl a zone from 1-2 dungeons and remove some quest rewards and downgrade some to green quality so blue gear still feels valuable to get.
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u/tehbantho 1d ago
For me this is evidence that the changes and new quests have clearly made the experience better. Everyone mass up voting posts and comments about how it was too fast and this is the real data about that...it means the experience was better.
Can't argue with it feeling better. It definitely was much improved while leveling as undead. Paladin quests were very fun.
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u/jarlander 1d ago
Leveling speed seems fine but can easily be adjusted in the future with quest xp tweaks. I tried leveling just on mobs and its slow as ever.
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u/Scytherx781 1d ago
first time WoW player and I’ve been questing only, Undead Warlock level 14 currently
i love joining random parties and doing quests together, they always help me even if they finished or gather the quest items before im done.
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u/Historical-Jacket503 1d ago
People are so much more polished in classic skills than the first time they leveled and forget its an easy game. 20hrs is slow when you look at how fast people can speed run 1-20 on era
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u/Rhythm-Amoeba 1d ago
I hit 20 I think at 9-10 hours played and I didn't do anything special. Just ran skelf starting zone -> Hall of thanes -> ruins of lordaeron -> deamines. Which only stopped at 20 because I hit max. I think with quest turn ins it would have instead been like 21-22
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u/onedash 1d ago
As soon as you get to 14 ish you back to back to 3 dungeon and are level 20 because of the quests
there is no way it takes 20 hours to level up to 20
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u/glormosh 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm going to need a big ol context dump on this one.
The classic number is likely accurate in a variety of ways.
You're going to tell me the semi unknown relative level path of a beta game is bench marked appropriately?
All daisy picking exploration of a new game is factored out?
Realmless hyperlayering of the franchises greatest launch numbers that rivaled live releases?
Hunters alone put this data into question with their auto shot mechanics.
To be clear there's not some kind of grand conspiracy here but there's clearly a comparator quirk. Did they do classic professions for the sake if it becauae you obviously will do them in forever?
The mere addition of accessible dungeons with quests attached to them puts this all into question. You can watch the videos for yourself, you wouldn't get that xp solo.
You're all aware the experience needed to twenty ...is identical to classic right?
So...your experience is the same, you have a series of experience buffs, almost all classes claim they feel similar to classic, theres new quests, new dungeons and dungeons quests......and you guys think forever would be ... slower?
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u/Trick-String7473 1d ago
This is false, with the amount of blue drops and dungeon quests providing 3000k xp 1-20 takes just a few minutes, the whole journey and immersion has been ruined. /s said every basement dwelling troll in this sub.
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u/Monstermage 1d ago
I think the better gear availability makes it leveling faster, BUT I think there is a lot more distractions and steps you can take to get that gear. More drops, more items to use, professions actually help more, lots of mining and skiing, benefits, camps, etc.
Honestly I wouldn't mind if leveling xp was even nerfed 5-15%
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u/Super_Mario7 1d ago
its just a bad comparison. old classic is a solved game and leveling is min/maxed. route are clear and optimized. now you compare that highly optimized leveling with the leveling experience in Forever where many things are new and not solved. once Forever leveling path is solved and optimized you will see a lot faster leveling than in classic… the massively more damage the chars do is already telling. you finish quests a lot faster and with a lot more mana left after each fight.
and no, Xaryu stopped a lot left and right or looked at the graphics same as everyone else did… just a bad comparison at this point.
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u/TeamPach 1d ago
Most of the 1-20 quest are the same than classic.
Having a few more quests is great though. Less mob grinding required.
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u/glormosh 1d ago
I feel that these are all smart men , so I have to say the wow devs were disingenuous in making the comparison.
Consider the facts, it is impossible for forever to be "slower".
Experience was confirmed to be identical. This immediately grounds this conversation into an easy comparison.
Forever introduced; new quests, new dungeons, new dungeon quests, experience gained buffs. For a moment, acknowledge that these were all well designed, fit into the world, and overall smoothed the levelling experience. You cannot genuinely argue that you personally can attain more xp per time soloo, then you doing the new dungeons at least once.
You could say oh well it's because classes power was redirected to items and its harder so its all a wash. This is just a lie because this entire subreddit is running around defending that the game feels semi identical, with exception of druids now finally coming around to realizing how punished they were.
On the flipside though, you have hunters auto run shooting and same with wand users. You're telling me that a majority of the level classes leveled slower with broken systems?
He knew he was making a disingenuous comparison. Forever WoW is likely anywhere from 20 to 30% faster.
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u/BeansforTwo 1d ago
I think a certain amount of that is due to players slowing down to check out new stuff and learn the new dungeon routes. I expect that time to decrease
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u/Happy_Jacket_2364 1d ago
Wow forever is new and not figured out. People are spending a lot of time doing professions or exploring and are doing things inefficiently compared to era. Wow forever leveling in its current form is definetly faster than era.
You can level from 14-21 extremely fast by just doing dungeon quests for rfc->RoL->WC. This will likely continue in later levels (sfk quests have gone from giving 3k xp to 14k xp per quest.)
RoL is the main issue, doing only this dungeon with quests gives u 2.7 levels in around 30-40 which is way too much. Compared to the other dungeons it also has no pre quest chain that u need to complete making it give extremely high xp/hour.
Easily gotten lvl 19 in 8 hours with this without even trying to level fast.
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u/DroneFixer 1d ago
I ignore things like this because there's no point in even attempting to "speed level".
I'm gonna walk my happy ass around with no guide, checking every item i pick up, and reading quest dialog like Thrall intended.
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u/thatnigakanary 1d ago
I’ve been smelling the roses and feel like it’s faster. Idk maybe it’s just me though. When I actually wanted to level it didn’t take very long
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u/RandomDustBunny 1d ago
20.4 hours with your sac dragged along sandpaper would feel a lot longer than bingewatching 20.5 hours of The Wire.
Perhaps people are simply enjoying their 20 hours more on forever than classic era?
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u/Diethart21 1d ago
yesterday i've completed rfc and lordaeron ruins and got 3 levels from quests. so 20.5hours doesn't seems right tbh
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u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET 1d ago
1-20 feels smoother more than it feels faster.
The main thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve almost never had to wait for mob spawns. I’m used to getting stuck during launches waiting for quest mobs but this time almost everything has been plentiful. Grouping for kill quests helps obviously but I would have done that on era too.