Blizzard has been implementing a world of changes to World of Warcraft with the recent prepatch and beta. The prepatch, set to prepare the game for the upcoming release of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands finally hit the playable servers on Tuesday, October 13th.
Since then, things have been up and down. The servers have mostly stabilized, though a few restarts still pop up. Still, after much-needed maintenance this morning, the servers are in much better condition than they were.
Among the many changes made, Blizzard paid close attention to the leveling system, rehauling it entirely with the level squish. They’ve also added the new Chromie Time and Exile’s Reach systems to help players of all skill levels, with the former letting experienced players skip old content and the latter helping new players learn the ropes of the game.
But with so much changed, it seems Blizzard isn’t about to sit back and rest to watch the sun rise on a grateful universe. Instead, they’re making leveling even easier with the latest update to the Beta.
At the moment, the following isn’t confirmed – it could be Blizzard trying to make leveling easier for the Beta so that players can test more, if nothing else. But whether the change hits the live servers or not, it remains notable.
Blizzard has drastically reduced the amount of experience needed to level from 50 to 60, the last ten levels in the game. This makes it so that players are able to reach the endgame content significantly quicker – twice as fast, if the numbers are to be believed.
The following is the before and after of what was required to what Blizzard has set the requirement to, courtesy of Wowhead:
- 50: 178,215 – 177190
- 51: 205775 – 194600
- 52: 238935 – 205465
- 53: 272185 – 216600
- 54: 307435 – 228005
- 55: 344739 – 239680
- 56: 384120 – 251625
- 57: 425665 – 263840
- 58: 469405 – 276325
- 59: 515400 – 289080
If the above chart is implemented in the Live servers with the release of Shadowlands, then leveling to 60 will be an unbelievably easy task. It’s also difficult to say if this is also intended to be part of reducing the amount of experience needed overall in a further squish.
Again, it could also be so that Blizzard is able to get the proper amount of testing done. Blizzard recently implemented a strong increase to the experience beta testers were gaining in Revendreth and Ardenweald to make it so that they were able to get the content done properly.
With the expansion still approaching, we’ll likely find out if this is confirmed before too much longer. One thing is for certain – difficulty leveling is no longer going to be much of a factor in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.
