EU+US Oct 2020 level squish - f2p now

[Slynx]

(Not happy with the title, and this thread may get burned as it probably repeats others.)

It was flagged up, but after being shut out for a while and things generally going very haywire, had a WTF moment of finding all my (f2p) alts had been reset to level 10. After very short spell of gaming, outcomes/thoughts so far.
1) EP and level has been wiped out (or reset); looks bad, but just have to work these back up.
2) Talents (alts much weaker), HP and quest rewards have been correspondingly scaled down; hope these return when back up to level.
3) Mobs (NB: tried very few zones) also scaled down (and proportionally even weaker).
4) Equipment levels scaled back, and unlikely to reset (i.e. replace later). (However, my inability to use some items was simply due to talent change.)
5) Professions have not been scaled back, but look open to being leveled up to 300 (NB also below).
6) Almost no dungeons accessible (may just be due to now being low level).
7) Loads of expansions now seem to be open; Draenor, cataclysm, Outland. Portals are now open to new zones (even at level 10) and you can train professions for these zone (NB also below). There are also quest chains that lead you to these zones (e.g. see Ironforge Commons, outside auction house). Kul Tiras also looks to be on accessible via a separate quest chain.
8) Professions; be slightly cautious. After training for expansion zones, noticed that experience in these zones has replaced the 'standard' experience bar (which if I had not trained for new zones would have been rising). It may be better to hold off learning new zone professions (e.g. Cataclysm cooking, Draenor fishing) until AFTER you've maxxed out on the standard ones.

Initial reaction was that the reset gives a lot more headroom and zone access, but quite a bit of 'work' to get characters back up to strength.

The interesting stuff will be (later) looking for holes and workarounds for f2p's to go beyond the current (rather larger and easy to access) accessible zones.

 

[Syrayeda]

old level 20 became the new 10. new level 20 is around old level 40, maybe a bit higher, but those few levels do not make much difference. all expansions except cataclysm start scaling from 10, so we get a bit of each expansion, except classic where all zones are available. no raids are available though, min level 25.

will definitely need to regear cos old level 20 gear is nothing compared to new level 20 gear. there are also a number of items that are stronger than they should and might be hotfixed later.

to queue for dungeons you need to enable chromie time, there is an hourglass icon on the map in stormwind or orgrimmar. you can only choose 1 expansion at a time. this seems to be grandfathered for old f2ps, might not be available for new f2ps. without chromie time you can only queue for bfa dungeons, but you need to level up or complete some quests first.

professions were changed in bfa, not recently. just that f2p now has access to all profession levels, not capped like before. each expansion has their own progress bar, classic goes to 300, other expansions go to 75 or 100. so you could have 50/300 in classic, 10/75 in outland, 30/75 in northrend and so on. mouseover the bar in the crafting tab to see the numbers.

and gold cap is now 1000. unlocks a lot more options

 

[Fritoplay]

"Scheduled maintenance" incoming fixes to F2P

 

[Dwait]

this seems to be grandfathered for old f2ps, might not be available for new f2ps. without chromie time you can only queue for bfa dungeons, but you need to level up or complete some quests first.

Do you mean that old f2p can talk to chromie ? I am old pure f2p lvl 20 , and cant tqalk to him.

 

[Infomerc]

professions were changed in bfa, not recently. just that f2p now has access to all profession levels, not capped like before. each expansion has their own progress bar, classic goes to 300, other expansions go to 75 or 100. so you could have 50/300 in classic, 10/75 in outland, 30/75 in northrend and so on. mouseover the bar in the crafting tab to see the numbers.

and gold cap is now 1000. unlocks a lot more options

Anyone have an idea why they did this for f2p? It's a huge increase in available content and capabilities and a f2p could play for years and never sub. Why would Blizzard open it up so much to f2p? smh

 

[Shadevoid]

Why would Blizzard open it up so much

It seems that they have a big plans: since WoW moving to a "cosmic" level; "old" stuff go to chromie-backet, so new players suppose to level up through BfA and reach stars (endgame) - right to the Age of Sigmar
p.s.: sorry for warhammer reference, i just love this analogy)

 

[Syrayeda]

Do you mean that old f2p can talk to chromie ? I am old pure f2p lvl 20 , and cant tqalk to him.

i have a vet account and a pure f2p account, using different emails. both my accounts can talk to chromie. i have not logged on to my pure f2p for years. i am not sure whats the difference with your account, and what are the conditions for pure f2p to have grandfathered chromie time
[doublepost=1602792402,1602792262][/doublepost]

Anyone have an idea why they did this for f2p? It's a huge increase in available content and capabilities and a f2p could play for years and never sub. Why would Blizzard open it up so much to f2p? smh

noone knows. we were expecting new f2p cap to be level 10, level 20 is a huge increase because of the squish and other expansions scaling from 10

 

[Vandiir]

Anyone have an idea why they did this for f2p? It's a huge increase in available content and capabilities and a f2p could play for years and never sub. Why would Blizzard open it up so much to f2p? smh

The below are just some of my guesses, due to at least 3 possible [and compounding] reasons, among other possible reasons.

One reason could be due to WoW age, which is now more than 15 or 16 years old [though with many changes since vanilla], with Shadowlands being its 8th expansion now.

Plus the pool of players who continue to play in the MMORPG genre has been slowly, though very surely, shrinking for some time, with growths seen in other genres of games. Part of that is also due to newer generations of players [on average] preferring other genres to time-consuming MMORPGs, as there’s more choices now than back then.
Other game genres that come to mind as examples include: MOBAs, FPS games (including battle royales, at least for a decent stretch), and games for mobile devices instead of PC come to mind.

IMHO, Blizz/activision had [CoD: Warzone], [Heroes of the Storm], and [Hearthstone] be F2P specifically so they can compete other other popular F2P games of those genres. CoD: Warzone's "competition" being Fortnite, PUBG, and other FPS battle royale games. I was thinking those 2 at least, as they were around and had a level of hype and popularity before CoD: Warzone or [CoD's version of a FPS battle royale for mobile platforms] entered the FPS battle royale genre. Heroes of the Storm vs LoL, DotA2, and other MOBA games out there. Hearthstone?


Another possible reason, from other MMORPG games: I conjecture this move on expanding what F2Ps can access in WoW was partially due to [paired with above reasons] competition from other MMORPG games out there [paired with the above reality for the MMORPG genre now], as the other popular non-WoW MMORPG games have been a lot more generous for F2P/trial players than WoW [and in a way still are, even with these changes for F2Ps on WoW].

To give one example [among other examples], FFXIV's trial restrictions used to have a level cap of 35, though since around Q2 or Q3 2020, or relatively recently, it allowed trial players to level to 60 [while its max level cap is now 80, with level 60 being the level cap of its previous expansion]. Given the timing of FFXIV's changes to its trial restrictions and Shadowland's changes for F2P restrictions, I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a coincidence [though I'm not too familiar with FFXIV yet as a game, other than being one of the only other "popular" MMORPG game out there which requires a sub to play its endgame].
SWTOR, GW2, ESO, and many more other popular [or semi-popular MMORPG games out there are also quite generous for F2P/trial players as well, in contrast to WoW's trial before Shadowlands prepatch. Improving character customizations as well [especially if one looked at character customizations for other MMORPG games out there way before Shadowlands] also can be seen as another example.

 

[Dark]

The below are just some of my guesses, due to at least 3 possible [and compounding] reasons, among other possible reasons.

One reason could be due to WoW age, which is now more than 15 or 16 years old [though with many changes since vanilla], with Shadowlands being its 8th expansion now.

Plus the pool of players who continue to play in the MMORPG genre has been slowly, though very surely, shrinking for some time, with growths seen in other genres of games. Part of that is also due to newer generations of players [on average] preferring other genres to time-consuming MMORPGs, as there’s more choices now than back then.
Other game genres that come to mind as examples include: MOBAs, FPS games (including battle royales, at least for a decent stretch), and games for mobile devices instead of PC come to mind.

IMHO, Blizz/activision had [CoD: Warzone], [Heroes of the Storm], and [Hearthstone] be F2P specifically so they can compete other other popular F2P games of those genres. CoD: Warzone's "competition" being Fortnite, PUBG, and other FPS battle royale games. I was thinking those 2 at least, as they were around and had a level of hype and popularity before CoD: Warzone or [CoD's version of a FPS battle royale for mobile platforms] entered the FPS battle royale genre. Heroes of the Storm vs LoL, DotA2, and other MOBA games out there. Hearthstone?


Another possible reason, from other MMORPG games: I conjecture this move on expanding what F2Ps can access in WoW was partially due to [paired with above reasons] competition from other MMORPG games out there [paired with the above reality for the MMORPG genre now], as the other popular non-WoW MMORPG games have been a lot more generous for F2P/trial players than WoW [and in a way still are, even with these changes for F2Ps on WoW].

To give one example [among other examples], FFXIV's trial restrictions used to have a level cap of 35, though since around Q2 or Q3 2020, or relatively recently, it allowed trial players to level to 60 [while its max level cap is now 80, with level 60 being the level cap of its previous expansion]. Given the timing of FFXIV's changes to its trial restrictions and Shadowland's changes for F2P restrictions, I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a coincidence [though I'm not too familiar with FFXIV yet as a game, other than being one of the only other "popular" MMORPG game out there which requires a sub to play its endgame].
SWTOR, GW2, ESO, and many more other popular [or semi-popular MMORPG games out there are also quite generous for F2P/trial players as well, in contrast to WoW's trial before Shadowlands prepatch. Improving character customizations as well [especially if one looked at character customizations for other MMORPG games out there way before Shadowlands] also can be seen as another example.

I just wanted to share my input from being an old-school WoW veteran, since stress Beta (and a F2P/Veteran acct player), who took a break from WoW towards the beginning of BfA.. to go play FFXIV Free Trial:

The increase of FFXIV's previous level cap of 35 to 60 is huge. Keep in mind that in that game, you can learn all the jobs (aka: classes) on one character (as long as you have that expansion, if necessary) and simply switch jobs at the press of a button as long as you're not in combat or in an instance.. you can even switch classes in PvP when you die and respawn.. but I digress..

So with FFXIV's recent overhaul of their Free Trial, not only did they increase the level cap from 35 to 60, but they also included the entire Heavensward expansion and post-expansion content as part of the free trial, including all the zones, raids, and jobs that come with that expansion, which is huge. Literally hours upon hours of content, which is very generous to their players indeed, as you've noted.

So even if I was previously addicted to my veteran and F2P twinks in WoW, prior to BfA.. FFXIV seemingly gave me enough to keep me busy and never look back, or even give WoW a second thought. (It really is nice that they have so many dungeons, raids, and content to keep you busy).

But last week I found out about all the changes WoW is making to F2P accounts and all the content they're opening up for players to access. So after reading up on these forums and diving into the new character creation, I can honestly say that WoW has [finally] gotten me excited to play it again; and it's long overdue!

I totally agree with your post and how the MMORPG market is more competitive than ever (all of gaming as a whole, really) in regards to giving F2P players a generous portion of content to sink their teeth into, thus increasing the chances of getting players hooked and invested, rather than just enticing them with a measly free sample.

I'm really looking forward to jumping back into WoW to try to finally finish BfA, and to unlock the Allied races on my F2P account!

PS: Sorry if I missed it, but is learning how to enchant Mark of the Hidden Satyr viable as a F2P player? Also, is there a best order to do the expansions in, or should I just go straight into Legion, for the artifact weapons?