In the living environment of an MMO, especially one as large as World of Warcraft, maintaining balance without spoiling the fun is key. However, a recent change to how leveling works in the new The War Within expansion has rubbed players the wrong way and is disrupting that delicate balance.
WoW‘s recent The War Within expansion has mostly been received well by the community, but apparently that wasn’t enough to save it from further tweaking. As is the way things go with MMOs, many players are entering The War Within expansion with endgame gear from the previous expansion Dragonflight. Naturally, this tended to make The War Within quite easy; that is, until a post-launch hotfix increased the difficulty across the board, making the expansion far more of a slog.
Adding insult to injury is the fact this change came after the paid early access period for The War Within ended, thus meaning it only applied to those who couldn’t afford one of the deluxe editions of the expansion. The fanbase was extremely quick to voice displeasure with the official Blizzard Forums post regarding the change quickly racking up thousands of posts deriding the change. Nuanced takes were abundant, but one player summed it up concisely: “Fun was detected. Fun was nerfed successfully.”
Other players pointed out alternative routes Blizzard could have taken to make that climb to the new level cap take longer without impacting moment-to-moment gameplay, such as widening the XP curve of the 70 to 80 stretch or even reducing XP rewards from certain activities.
A defense of this change from Blizzard predictably did nothing to calm players down, with a similar maelstrom of controversy brewing elsewhere in social media. “I like how this change makes it even worse for players with shitty gear and that don’t have a carry in their dungeon,” one Reddit user said.
Indeed, players who don’t have best-in-slot gear, or have not finished Dragonflight, or haven’t rushed through the entire expansion are going to have an absolutely abysmal time dealing with The War Within content on their own. It’s something Blizzard seems to be ignoring in favor of keeping that early access period as pay-to-win as possible.
At the moment, it seems like Blizzard isn’t going to reverse this change, meaning your character is going to have to be optimized to hell and back to have a chance against Khaz Algar’s dangers. Better get to power leveling!
