Cartman nerfed

Interesting post by Tigole on the new slower leveling in the Burning Crusade. While the overall xp requirements per level went up by 40% (he euphemistically calls that "lenghtening the curve a bit"), that is partially compensated by giving you more xp from quests and in dungeons.

As far as I can say the quest xp went up by about 25%. The xp you get to kill a mob of level X remained exactly the same. The xp you get for killing an elite mob in a dungeon went up, but I don't know by how much. I only can say that now killing a dungeon elite mob of level X in a 5-man group gives you pretty much the same xp as killing a non-elite mob outside a dungeon solo. That is about 500 xp per mob in the first couple of Burning Crusade dungeons, twice that if you have rest bonus xp. Obviously the mob density in a dungeon is much higher, and a group kills a lot more mobs per hour in a dungeon than you would kill soloing outside. Thus dungeon xp will be quite good.

Tigole says they are "Placing less emphasis on grinding outdoor creatures while not on a quest (sorry to Cartman and the South Park kids killing their 1,232,232 fel boars)". Which is true on a relative scale. Grinding xp haven't been lowered, but as everything else has gone up, the relative viability of grinding has gone down. That can only be a good thing.

He defines his "Ultimate Goal: An experience curve that does not require "grinding" outdoor mobs. So long as you are always questing through your leveling experience, we've achieved our goal. If you ever need to "stop" and kill creatures to open up quests, then we have more tuning to do. We will not require people to go into the Dungeons. HOWEVER, dungeon exp will be very rewarding for those who choose to attempt the added challenge." I can live with that, and I can confirm that in my beta experience you can level up by doing all the quests of your level. The big disadvantage is that it's *all*, or nearly all, the quests of your level you need to do. That isn't good for replayability. I've alway complained about the "Stranglethorn Hole", the fact that there aren't very many zones to level up from 35 to 45. But you *can* level two characters doing two completely different sets of quests, one doing Stranglethorn, the other Desolace. Hellfire Peninsula will be much worse. Every single character of yours you wish to level past 60 will do exactly the same quests in exactly the same zone, with absolutely no choice nor variety. And if you can't see those quests any more, you won't even be able to grind instead.

The only alternative to doing these quests is doing a lot more dungeon trips. This is something I sure am going to try in the live version, with my guild. Basically doing a dungeon is now bringing more xp per hour than soloing non-quest mobs PLUS of course the item rewards are a lot better. I can see me doing every 5-man dungeon ten times, thus not only making sure I don't miss any of the gear from there, but also contributing a good bit to my xp. But that plan stands or falls with the ease of finding a group for visiting a dungeon. The new LFG system is certainly an improvement. But the beta servers are relatively empty, and it is hard to say whether the new system isn't used because of lack of critical mass, or whether people don't like it. If you want to do me a favor, once the expansion goes live, please remind people in the LFG chat channel to use the LFG system instead. We will need to kickstart the system, once people start to use it, everybody will come, and looking for a group will become a lot easier.

Of course doing the same dungeon over and over will become boring too. But it is still more interesting, and now not only more profitable but also faster, than grinding boars. I can only recommend it to Cartman, especially since in an instance he would be safe from the player killer.
- posted by Tobold @ 10:21 AM Permanent Link