If you don’t feel stronger by level 110, then you’re doing it wrong.
Um, that wasn't the point at all
Do you feel stronger and did you unlock fun new skills say every ten levels? Or does it feel pretty much the same until you hit the cap and get real progression?
WoW leveling feels boring and uneventful because you dont get new abilities or talents every level like you did back in the old days. But, there is also a problem with that - if you got new abilities and talents every level while leveling it would have dire ramifications at max level?
Could you imagine the horror of what the game would be like they never got rid of the vanilla talent system or if they didnt prune abilities?
Classes having 50+ abilities would be an absolute nightmare. And just the thought of having 101 talents points to distribute makes me want to retch.
Random forum posters do not comprehend cause and effect and unfortunately game developers sometimes foolishly take the advice of random forum posters which has led us to this current situation.
Unless you are new to the game why in the world would you level another character? Especially since you have to go to 110. The legendary nonsense just ruined it for me. The constant need to repeat dungeons over and over again. The game has become worse than some Asian games.
If this was done on my 2nd-5th other classes alts than my main I might just enjoy it, or not i don't know. But after leveling 11 classes to 100 in the past. and again to 110. I can say leveling another alt from 20 - 110 can wait or won't happen at all.
Currently Leveling a void elf monk (66) and lightforged draenei warrior (70), and I already feel exhausted, dragged, and unmotivated, everything feels so slow, I can't tell whether the scalling, the skill sets, the gameplay, dungeons or probably everything. All these just for the sake of 1 achievement and an armor set (per race) that can only be used by the default race. Losing the carrot here. And these are just the 1st two of alliance races. I know they are releasing another bunch of new races on actual expac release.
Can't Imagine if Blizzard would offer us another sets of achievements and armour just to fresh level all the new races, lol. It's a no no for me. Might be a good catch for people starting to play in draenor or legion or even pandaria, but not for old timers who had hundreds of alts in the past I guess. Good luck to you guys.
It sounds like the Auther's woes are tied more to abilities than the new levelling system. That's a symptom of WoW's dumbing down of the talent trees more than anything else. It's the same problem I've had with the game for several expansions. The old 31 point talent trees were far better and afforded a much wider range of options for how you built your character. Add the pruning of rotation abilities and it's no wonder things feel underwhelming.
It sounds like the Auther's woes are tied more to abilities than the new levelling system. That's a symptom of WoW's dumbing down of the talent trees more than anything else. It's the same problem I've had with the game for several expansions. The old 31 point talent trees were far better and afforded a much wider range of options for how you built your character. Add the pruning of rotation abilities and it's no wonder things feel underwhelming.
This is an old problem, not a new one.
Options on how you built your character....there was only ever a few viable options.
If you don’t feel stronger by level 110, then you’re doing it wrong. I absolutely love the new leveling system. Enjoying quest lines, spending time exploring areas, and my favorite...not sprinting through dungeons. It forces everyone in the group to use their class as inteded. Interrupts, stuns, cc, and mechanics play a part at all levels, and sometimes even forces pugs to communicate. Awesome. Sure it’s difficult to make this perfect since the game has so much content and been out for so long, but it’s exactly what WoW has needed for a long time.
quests are lol zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz garbage and boring.
Play your class as intended,yeah because there is so much choice lol
scaling removes ANY immersion the mobs and world have and then if you are going to start scaling you need to allow players to scale so they can be of equal level as their friends but Blizzard wouldn't understand friends or grouping because they are a single player game designer.
I can look just at Hunter pets,they are pretty much 99% automated where as in FFXI they are anything but and have way more abilities and YOU have way more control over your pet as well.
Blizzard does a poor job of designing classes and combat and questing for xp is lol..NO CLUE what they are doing.Weapon skills, dodging skills,accuracy where is it?No clue how to design a game,they just slop in a bunch of quests and automate where the mobs get jotted down on the map and cal it a mmorpg.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Once you have leveled through any system a few times they all get boring and tedious and you just want to get where you want to be faster. Same as traveling the same route multiple times in the real world, you just want to get there.
I don't agree. I think this happens mostly with Quest Hub games because the leveling is tied too much to the story that it becomes like reading the same book over and over again. Your character itself doesn't really matter, so it doesn't really change. They've removed most character-based progression stuff from the lower levels in an attempt to make it as easy as possible for newer players.
In grindy games, at least you have new places to grind in later updates, and a plethora of choices when the game has been out for 10+ years. Lineage II is awful, in a general sense, but I get a LOT less boring grinding MOBs in that game than I do leveling in any Quest Hub game (WoW, FFXIV, AoC, etc.).
Also, ability pruning has made it more boring to level. There are a lot less character, tactics, etc. to discover. They give you the end-game skills at low level now - so that carrot dangling at the end of the old Talent System doesn't exist. They destroyed the Talent Trees, so there is a TON less variety in builds and play styles between characters. It just feels like menial labor, now. It's not the same as it used to be. There is really nothing to look forward to other than another level, and they don't mean much since it's still stupid easy to level - it just takes considerably longer than it did before this patch. This annoys people.
For Example: Remember when you leveled a Warlock and there were Quests to unlock your demons and mounts? Yea, those are gone.
It sounds like the Auther's woes are tied more to abilities than the new levelling system. That's a symptom of WoW's dumbing down of the talent trees more than anything else. It's the same problem I've had with the game for several expansions. The old 31 point talent trees were far better and afforded a much wider range of options for how you built your character. Add the pruning of rotation abilities and it's no wonder things feel underwhelming.
This is an old problem, not a new one.
Options on how you built your character....there was only ever a few viable options.
Define viable. If you mean end-game raiding, you won't ever alleviate that. Raiders are generally also the theorycrafters and min/maxers. Good luck creating numerous builds within a class that all have the exact same damage/heal/mitigation output. So long as one of them are superior, that will be the "viable" build for high-end raiding.
I played a Ret Paladin at release and was well able to contribute, though I doubt I would've made a whole lot of raid rosters.
I was initially excited too but the dungeon experience was as miserable as before. I would not have minded everything else if the dungeon experience was fun . Instead it was the usual rush, rush, no talk, kill, kill and finito. I gave up after a week. I have started WoW so many times now I can honestly recite the dialogue even. Rather sick of it.
It sounds like the Auther's woes are tied more to abilities than the new levelling system. That's a symptom of WoW's dumbing down of the talent trees more than anything else. It's the same problem I've had with the game for several expansions. The old 31 point talent trees were far better and afforded a much wider range of options for how you built your character. Add the pruning of rotation abilities and it's no wonder things feel underwhelming.
This is an old problem, not a new one.
Options on how you built your character....there was only ever a few viable options.
Define viable. If you mean end-game raiding, you won't ever alleviate that. Raiders are generally also the theorycrafters and min/maxers. Good luck creating numerous builds within a class that all have the exact same damage/heal/mitigation output. So long as one of them are superior, that will be the "viable" build for high-end raiding.
I played a Ret Paladin at release and was well able to contribute, though I doubt I would've made a whole lot of raid rosters.
And now you would be even worse in Mythic runs where you are not covered by other people carrying you. I am sure before they made the decision Blizzard could see the builds..heck you could seem them on old armory. A small % were not using the major builds.
It sounds like the Auther's woes are tied more to abilities than the new levelling system. That's a symptom of WoW's dumbing down of the talent trees more than anything else. It's the same problem I've had with the game for several expansions. The old 31 point talent trees were far better and afforded a much wider range of options for how you built your character. Add the pruning of rotation abilities and it's no wonder things feel underwhelming.
This is an old problem, not a new one.
Options on how you built your character....there was only ever a few viable options.
Define viable. If you mean end-game raiding, you won't ever alleviate that. Raiders are generally also the theorycrafters and min/maxers. Good luck creating numerous builds within a class that all have the exact same damage/heal/mitigation output. So long as one of them are superior, that will be the "viable" build for high-end raiding.
I played a Ret Paladin at release and was well able to contribute, though I doubt I would've made a whole lot of raid rosters.
And now you would be even worse in Mythic runs where you are not covered by other people carrying you. I am sure before they made the decision Blizzard could see the builds..heck you could seem them on old armory. A small % were not using the major builds.
Point being- the idea that you can create a system in which one build won't be the most popular is a fool's errand. Merely making the other builds enjoyable is what's needed. You'll never get them to the point where there isn't a "preferred" build for raiding and other end-game activities.
"leveling an alt had become tedious necessity and one to be rushed through via dungeon runs" Not really, have leveled full set of all my alts via questing only. I always loved quests in Wow. Up to including MOP I also had full scale of horde alts, but after WOD probably I will never have again full set of alts on both factions. After all this years Wow feels fresh as at start, it has been constantly upgraded and was always fun. Actually I do not think any expansion was bad just some were much better.
Called this one from day one. Level scaling is a cheap cop out that ruins progression, and MMO = (social) & progression. ESO and now WOW crapped their pants with this one. If I could take my daily crap on Blizzard's front doorstep or on the desk of the guy that decided to do this, I would return the favor every day for the next year.
IMO wow already had plenty of low lvl zones to level in, and I could slow down and or turn off exp if I so chose, to avoid outleveling any zone i was particularly interested in. Run the other zones next character.
I would never come back to WOW and create a new character now.
Also wtf who is in charge of fixing this editor. I have to use HTML to get it to show paragraphs again now? Seems like this is broken every other week. Maybe it is just the feature comments editor that is separate from the forums post editor.
To be honest the scaling is just fine. Its the content you level through and lack of skills that makes it a chore.
ESO has scaling and its great. Definitely the future, Blizz needs to tweak the recipe a bit.
It sounds like the Auther's woes are tied more to abilities than the new levelling system. That's a symptom of WoW's dumbing down of the talent trees more than anything else. It's the same problem I've had with the game for several expansions. The old 31 point talent trees were far better and afforded a much wider range of options for how you built your character. Add the pruning of rotation abilities and it's no wonder things feel underwhelming.
This is an old problem, not a new one.
Options on how you built your character....there was only ever a few viable options.
Not true. Conventional wisdom provided one or two cooky cutter builds which everyone would swear were the only options but anyone willing to experiment could come up with perfectly viable builds outside the norm. I was playing a combat rogue, sword spec, when everyone swore blind you had to use daggers and I did huge damage. Same deal with a blood spec DK in dps gear in BG's, months before anyone cottoned on that it was a rock hard build. Our MT had a build built around crit and shield slams, WTF? But it worked.
When they took away the old talent trees all those options were lost. Now it's a case of picking the one talent that is blatantly obvious from the three available. That's no choice at all. Add the pruning of actual activated abilities from rotations and it's obvious why the Author found things a bit stale.
As I said, this isn't a new problem, it goes back to Cata, when they "locked" the old talent trees before they finally removed them. Restrictions are not good, taking options away from players is not good. Have to stop before entering rant mode.
Personally, I'm more upset that I need exalted with a faction that wasn't even in the game when I quit just to play the new race. Also, have a 110 on that side. Thankfully I do but the faction grind has been quite annoying especially since Army of Light hasn't been one of the daily world quest sets since I returned to the game. All of this just to start over?
Army of the Light and Argussian Reach reps are gained on Argus. If you haven't opened the planet, you aren't ever going to see them. In addition, with the arrival of 7.3.5, world quests on Argus provide both Argussian Reach and Army of the Light reputation at a much higher level than previous to the patch. Lastly, you should frequently be getting either or both on your mission tables in your order hall.
As for Allied Races being "gated", Blizzard said all along they were tied to Legion reputations only for Light Forged Draenei, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Void Elves. I would imagine that both Dark Iron (by virtue of their presence already on the Kul'Tiras) and the Zandalari will require a certain status level with those factions in BfA -- and that can easily be earned through normal progression question. Any subsequent Allied Races will probably be tied to other reputations, or to none at all.
I'm good with Allied Races as they are. SWTOR "gates" their races behind a pay wall. These you can unlock in game and if you're not willing, well... *shrug*
Or Blizzard could start be decent again and just unlock them. Argussian Reach has nothing to do with emo elves and yet, you need to be exalted with them. Sure, for somebody who played legion it is no biggie. Lets imagine than a returning/new player see those heavy promoted allied races and wants to buy expansion - he now need to GRIND reputation from previous expansion to get feature from a current expansion. This is fucked up.
Allied Races are 100% optional. No one's forcing you to get them and, let's be totally forthcoming here: They are only reskins of other existing races with no structural difference and only loose lore differences. You like Nightborne? Make a Night Elf with the dark purple skin. Like Velves? Make a Belf and so on. High Elf wannabes have been doing this for YEARS by making a Belf Paladin with ultra pale skin.
It is a feature, heavy promoted mind you by Blizzard, of UPCOMING expansion. Fact that 4 of those were released with pre order doesnt change this fact. They are not optional, you get them when you buy expansion, just need artifical time gating to unlock them.
Cant wait when Draenor Orcs would require exalted in all orcs clan from WoD. That would be fun right?
* shrugs * If I want one, I'll do what it takes to get it the SAME WAY I did in the past when there was a mount I wanted or a pet I needed to buy or whatever. It's not as if gating things behind reputation is a new concept in WoW. LOL!
In the past, as well as in the present, the mount and pet from collectors edition are unlocked the second you make a purchase. If you mean pure reputation mounts then for one: never any feature of upcoming expansion was gated behind previous expansion rep grind, and second: now mounts are gated behind rng, because remember, rng is fun and exciting.
When you argument is challenged you quickly go into strawman.
Taking time is one thing, abysmal battle skills without the artifact are not. The prune is what has hurt the leveling, not the pace. The pace, as I mentioned in the article, is great. I really like it. I don't like how the class plays. Too many missing abilities. Too many lackluster talents.
This is where I will 100% disagree with you. I've leveled a Highmountain Tauren through the new experience. I never missed having missing abilities, because I knew they were coming. I know the game is tuned for end game and don't expect to have a bars full of skills. There wasn't much I couldn't take on, and the few things that I was struggling with, I was able to find a group for.
The inflated amount of time to level, even with a full set of heirlooms, is completely ridiculous. The mob damage changes would have been enough to slow the pace of leveling down, but the xp nerfs were over the top.
I actually used to like leveling. I have every class at 110 on alliance, and I'm missing just 3 classes at 110 on the horde side. Suffice to say, I've seen this content quite a bit. Attempting to now level a Nightborne, Void Elf or Lightforged feels like such a drawn out process. Makes it hard to want to keep going.
Level scaling was their Rubicon. Called it months ago. Not only was it poorly implemented, they also increased the time it took TO level, (via exp), crushed dungeons (boring), nerfed RAF, AND made Heirlooms (stat-wise) about as good as questing greens.
MMORPGs are both an art and a science. Blizzard has lost the former, and mis-understands the latter.
But hey, them time-played metrics ain't gonna boost themselves.
I could probably recite all the quests in the first few areas from memory and I've always played Wow casually and in spurts. I'm playing now and one thing I like about the scaling is I can take my 20-40 lv character into the higher level zones that I don't know as well. The last few years I'd level through the vanilla end zones quickly and not really see them. /edit: Also its a big plus to run instances with guidies/friends who are all at different levels.
Like two years ago, I went back to WoW for a nostalgia run. Started a Monk Gnome and got to 110 in like two weeks. Started doing the Legion stuff then just quit again.
The only people who think the leveling has improved are those who haven't leveled hardly any characters from 1-MAX. Anyone who has, will tell you that the pacing is about the same as it ever was, only now you can choose to spend the preponderance of your time in Northrend or Outlands.
They didn't add all the quests they eliminated in the past when they sped up the leveling process. They didn't really reduce the amount of XP you get for doing said quests compared to the XP you used to get when it was originally released. The mobs scale but are still as stupid as ever. You still can round up mobs and kill them with little to no threat of death (if you play your class well). You can still solo mobs that required a group to take down. And you can still use heirlooms to boost your character.
Leveling is still as meaningless as ever in the lower zones because everything changes when you hit the relevant content. Then the game actually starts. It would be different if the talent trees remained as they were originally. The content was tuned to those talent trees as were the mobs. But now it's all screwed up because you start out with the very talents that you will be using at level 110. It's like making a Star Trek movie before Kirk in which the technology far exceeds that of the original series. The timeline gets all screwed up. The talent tree changes have forever screwed up the lower levels and they can't fix them without screwing up the higher levels.
What's wrong with the vanilla talents whilst leveling in vanilla? The TBC talents in TBC? Et al? You'd have more fun learning new skills if they didn't stay static throughout your journey. You'd get a taste of talents that came and went... for good or bad. Just as in real life, things changed over time. But no, they can't do that. It would be too complicated for a player to switch talent systems from zone to zone... not like they don't force players to do it every freaking expansion and they didn't all die of brain aneurisms.
Give players a little credit. They do have brains. They will use them if you ask them to. You don't have to lobotomize the game in order to herd everyone to end game. They will all get there eventually.
Suzie does have a point about the artifact impacting the rest of the game's progression. Stuff that was in the game for 10+ years was essentially stripped making your class barebones to progress and "re-filled" in the artifact system, which will honestly just repeat in BfA. The point of an expansion is to add to the existing game not redistrubute everything to the backend, which honestly makes leveling useless if 90% of your class is functional at the end (yeah yeah, I know people dont even bother learning how their class functions until cap anyway, nothing new). Even worse was stripping out stuff and tying them to legendaries which in turn were completely RNG based on how to get. Bad design all around. The leveling revamp is alright for some content (some content it made me hate more like WotLK and BC, but some it made me love going through more like WoD).
This is my number one reason to skip the next expansion. It's basically a reskin of Legion, substituting Azerite for Artifact Power and dangling reskins of existing races/armor as incentive for buying into the retread.
Suzie does have a point about the artifact impacting the rest of the game's progression. Stuff that was in the game for 10+ years was essentially stripped making your class barebones to progress and "re-filled" in the artifact system, which will honestly just repeat in BfA. The point of an expansion is to add to the existing game not redistrubute everything to the backend, which honestly makes leveling useless if 90% of your class is functional at the end (yeah yeah, I know people dont even bother learning how their class functions until cap anyway, nothing new). Even worse was stripping out stuff and tying them to legendaries which in turn were completely RNG based on how to get. Bad design all around. The leveling revamp is alright for some content (some content it made me hate more like WotLK and BC, but some it made me love going through more like WoD).
This is my number one reason to skip the next expansion. It's basically a reskin of Legion, substituting Azerite for Artifact Power and dangling reskins of existing races/armor as incentive for buying into the retread.
Well, there's also going to Island Expeditions and Warfronts, so it's a bit more than a reskin.
My biggest issue is that they keep sticking to Azeroth and showing every little nook and cranny. sure they add new mobs and update the art a bit, but it's just more of the same. They can take the story ANYWHERE, but this is where they choose to go. This feels like another filler expansion like Cata and Pandaria.
I don't like scaled content. I like feeling like a raid boss one shotting mobs in early zones idk just feels good. It's one thing I didn't like about gw2
Comments
Do you feel stronger and did you unlock fun new skills say every ten levels? Or does it feel pretty much the same until you hit the cap and get real progression?
Could you imagine the horror of what the game would be like they never got rid of the vanilla talent system or if they didnt prune abilities?
Classes having 50+ abilities would be an absolute nightmare. And just the thought of having 101 talents points to distribute makes me want to retch.
Random forum posters do not comprehend cause and effect and unfortunately game developers sometimes foolishly take the advice of random forum posters which has led us to this current situation.
Currently Leveling a void elf monk (66) and lightforged draenei warrior (70), and I already feel exhausted, dragged, and unmotivated, everything feels so slow, I can't tell whether the scalling, the skill sets, the gameplay, dungeons or probably everything. All these just for the sake of 1 achievement and an armor set (per race) that can only be used by the default race. Losing the carrot here. And these are just the 1st two of alliance races. I know they are releasing another bunch of new races on actual expac release.
Can't Imagine if Blizzard would offer us another sets of achievements and armour just to fresh level all the new races, lol. It's a no no for me. Might be a good catch for people starting to play in draenor or legion or even pandaria, but not for old timers who had hundreds of alts in the past I guess. Good luck to you guys.
This is an old problem, not a new one.
Options on how you built your character....there was only ever a few viable options.
Keep drinking that koolaid.
They will sell more level boosts than ever, except to those RPers who want Heritage Armor.
Play your class as intended,yeah because there is so much choice lol
scaling removes ANY immersion the mobs and world have and then if you are going to start scaling you need to allow players to scale so they can be of equal level as their friends but Blizzard wouldn't understand friends or grouping because they are a single player game designer.
I can look just at Hunter pets,they are pretty much 99% automated where as in FFXI they are anything but and have way more abilities and YOU have way more control over your pet as well.
Blizzard does a poor job of designing classes and combat and questing for xp is lol..NO CLUE what they are doing.Weapon skills, dodging skills,accuracy where is it?No clue how to design a game,they just slop in a bunch of quests and automate where the mobs get jotted down on the map and cal it a mmorpg.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't agree. I think this happens mostly with Quest Hub games because the leveling is tied too much to the story that it becomes like reading the same book over and over again. Your character itself doesn't really matter, so it doesn't really change. They've removed most character-based progression stuff from the lower levels in an attempt to make it as easy as possible for newer players.
In grindy games, at least you have new places to grind in later updates, and a plethora of choices when the game has been out for 10+ years. Lineage II is awful, in a general sense, but I get a LOT less boring grinding MOBs in that game than I do leveling in any Quest Hub game (WoW, FFXIV, AoC, etc.).
Also, ability pruning has made it more boring to level. There are a lot less character, tactics, etc. to discover. They give you the end-game skills at low level now - so that carrot dangling at the end of the old Talent System doesn't exist. They destroyed the Talent Trees, so there is a TON less variety in builds and play styles between characters. It just feels like menial labor, now. It's not the same as it used to be. There is really nothing to look forward to other than another level, and they don't mean much since it's still stupid easy to level - it just takes considerably longer than it did before this patch. This annoys people.
For Example: Remember when you leveled a Warlock and there were Quests to unlock your demons and mounts? Yea, those are gone.
I played a Ret Paladin at release and was well able to contribute, though I doubt I would've made a whole lot of raid rosters.
And now you would be even worse in Mythic runs where you are not covered by other people carrying you. I am sure before they made the decision Blizzard could see the builds..heck you could seem them on old armory. A small % were not using the major builds.
To be honest the scaling is just fine. Its the content you level through and lack of skills that makes it a chore.
ESO has scaling and its great. Definitely the future, Blizz needs to tweak the recipe a bit.
When they took away the old talent trees all those options were lost. Now it's a case of picking the one talent that is blatantly obvious from the three available. That's no choice at all. Add the pruning of actual activated abilities from rotations and it's obvious why the Author found things a bit stale.
As I said, this isn't a new problem, it goes back to Cata, when they "locked" the old talent trees before they finally removed them. Restrictions are not good, taking options away from players is not good. Have to stop before entering rant mode.
If you mean pure reputation mounts then for one: never any feature of upcoming expansion was gated behind previous expansion rep grind, and second: now mounts are gated behind rng, because remember, rng is fun and exciting.
When you argument is challenged you quickly go into strawman.
This is where I will 100% disagree with you. I've leveled a Highmountain Tauren through the new experience. I never missed having missing abilities, because I knew they were coming. I know the game is tuned for end game and don't expect to have a bars full of skills. There wasn't much I couldn't take on, and the few things that I was struggling with, I was able to find a group for.
The inflated amount of time to level, even with a full set of heirlooms, is completely ridiculous. The mob damage changes would have been enough to slow the pace of leveling down, but the xp nerfs were over the top.
I actually used to like leveling. I have every class at 110 on alliance, and I'm missing just 3 classes at 110 on the horde side. Suffice to say, I've seen this content quite a bit. Attempting to now level a Nightborne, Void Elf or Lightforged feels like such a drawn out process. Makes it hard to want to keep going.
MMORPGs are both an art and a science. Blizzard has lost the former, and mis-understands the latter.
But hey, them time-played metrics ain't gonna boost themselves.
/edit: Also its a big plus to run instances with guidies/friends who are all at different levels.
They didn't add all the quests they eliminated in the past when they sped up the leveling process. They didn't really reduce the amount of XP you get for doing said quests compared to the XP you used to get when it was originally released. The mobs scale but are still as stupid as ever. You still can round up mobs and kill them with little to no threat of death (if you play your class well). You can still solo mobs that required a group to take down. And you can still use heirlooms to boost your character.
Leveling is still as meaningless as ever in the lower zones because everything changes when you hit the relevant content. Then the game actually starts. It would be different if the talent trees remained as they were originally. The content was tuned to those talent trees as were the mobs. But now it's all screwed up because you start out with the very talents that you will be using at level 110. It's like making a Star Trek movie before Kirk in which the technology far exceeds that of the original series. The timeline gets all screwed up. The talent tree changes have forever screwed up the lower levels and they can't fix them without screwing up the higher levels.
What's wrong with the vanilla talents whilst leveling in vanilla? The TBC talents in TBC? Et al? You'd have more fun learning new skills if they didn't stay static throughout your journey. You'd get a taste of talents that came and went... for good or bad. Just as in real life, things changed over time. But no, they can't do that. It would be too complicated for a player to switch talent systems from zone to zone... not like they don't force players to do it every freaking expansion and they didn't all die of brain aneurisms.
Give players a little credit. They do have brains. They will use them if you ask them to. You don't have to lobotomize the game in order to herd everyone to end game. They will all get there eventually.
This is my number one reason to skip the next expansion. It's basically a reskin of Legion, substituting Azerite for Artifact Power and dangling reskins of existing races/armor as incentive for buying into the retread.