wow Zone Scaling in Patch 7.3.5 & Zone Level Caps

Zone scaling is one of the highly-anticipated features of Patch 7.3.5. Check out the new zone caps in more detail!

Zone Scaling TL;DR:

• All starting zones scale up to level 10.
• World of Warcraft Vanilla (Eastern Kingdoms & Kalimdor) scales up to level 60.
• At level 58, players can choose between Outland or Northrend (capped at level 80).
• At level 80, players can choose between Cataclysm or Pandaria (capped at level 90).
• Zones still have a minimum level requirement.
• Quest rewards scale up to your level.

Starting Zones (1-10)

Eastern Kingdoms (10-60)

Kalimdor (10-60)

Outland (58 - 80)

Northrend (58 - 80)

Cataclysm (80-90)

Pandaria (80-90)

Draenor (90-100)

This is honestly a better way to do it than I could have hoped, with the minimum level so that you cant just go to "high-level" zones right away.

That's interesting, but ultimately quite strange for someone like me who's always enjoyed engaging into world pvp while leveling. This'll certainly make leveling require less traveling around and quest hunting, thought it could be argued this is also a pretty big thematic downside. In the end, Blizzard isn't really interested in building an epic legacy anymore; everything feels more and more streamlined.

10 hours ago, Stan said:

 

• At level 58, players can choose between Outland or Northrend (capped at level 80).
• At level 80, players can choose between Cataclysm or Pandaria (capped at level 90).

Does it mean new players won't know full story of wow? And they just spend more time in one zone which may gets boring? And oh lol from vanilla to wotlk or from northrend into pandaria it looks like a joke.. less adventures less fun.. GJ blizzard

I for one welcome these changes.

1 hour ago, MZLICH said:

Does it mean new players won't know full story of wow? And they just spend more time in one zone which may gets boring? And oh lol from vanilla to wotlk or from northrend into pandaria it looks like a joke.. less adventures less fun.. GJ blizzard

Do you think current new players really get the full story of WoW right now lol

(If they get bored staying in one zone, this doesn't prevent them from heading to a different one, also.)

Your post shows so much disconnect towards the current state of the game tbh.

Also: in the same paragraph, you raise "not getting to see the full story of WoW" as a negative, but you also raise "staying in the whole zone" (which lets you see the whole story of the zone) as a negative, presuming that it is boring. Hmm...

2 hours ago, MZLICH said:

Does it mean new players won't know full story of wow? And they just spend more time in one zone which may gets boring? And oh lol from vanilla to wotlk or from northrend into pandaria it looks like a joke.. less adventures less fun.. GJ blizzard

Well.. now with heirlooms you outgear and outlevel a zone pretty quickly and you really don't know what is really happening in that zone, raising level cap to 60 is the better way to prevent outgeared and outleveled player within low level zones, since the gear from both quest reward and dungeon scales with our level

4 hours ago, Sesyl91 said:

Well.. now with heirlooms you outgear and outlevel a zone pretty quickly and you really don't know what is really happening in that zone, raising level cap to 60 is the better way to prevent outgeared and outleveled player within low level zones, since the gear from both quest reward and dungeon scales with our level

Couldnt agree more, I miss some of the quest achievements for zones for my loremaster cause i outlvl them. I'm sick of lvling through outland for example, about 20 max character lvls kill the fun of some zones. I couldnt imagine the scaling to be better, I'm definitely skipping outland and pandaria with the new allied races i will lvl :)))

Zone Quest achievements are also being changed. Instead of needing X amount of quests, you need to complete the main storyline in the zone.

Any idea when this will hit live servers?

1 hour ago, Archimage said:

Zone Quest achievements are also being changed. Instead of needing X amount of quests, you need to complete the main storyline in the zone.

This looks interesting, nice Blizzard. 

Hmm, then we need lowlevel alts for XMog farming?

57 minutes ago, Pavnik said:

Hmm, then we need lowlevel alts for XMog farming?

You'll still be able to go there with max level characters and lay waste to everything.

2 hours ago, Calysia said:

You'll still be able to go there with max level characters and lay waste to everything.

It's more that certain transmog appearance sets only drop from mobs within a certain level range.  Though what I imagine will happen is that the drops will simply be tied to specific mobs instead of level-ranges of mobs.

14 hours ago, Stan said:

• At level 58, players can choose between Outland or Northrend (capped at level 80).
• At level 80, players can choose between Cataclysm or Pandaria (capped at level 90).

Thank Jeebus

I guess this is alright. It worked for legion because it was just ten levels. But I guess it's a moot point for me, I only level up through dungeon queues.

6 hours ago, krapmyself said:

I guess this is alright. It worked for legion because it was just ten levels. But I guess it's a moot point for me, I only level up through dungeon queues.

Dungeons scale now too. So it'll be the same speed or if anything, I think from the experience squish, questing will now be faster!

On 1/12/2017 at 11:49 AM, Dvanom said:

I'm sick of lvling through outland for example, about 20 max character lvls kill the fun of some zones. I couldnt imagine the scaling to be better, I'm definitely skipping outland and pandaria with the new allied races i will lvl :)))

I'll be with you, especially for the outland part, I like Pandaria, at least lookwise

I for one can't wait to spend the first 60 levels in Westfall.

This is a great idea.  Previously, between resting and heirlooms, you'd see maybe 2 zones per expansion.  3 at "best" if you like content.  So due to the entry requirements to open up the area and quests, you'd see the same couple zones over and over contributing -- IMO -- a huge portion of the boredom of leveling a new toon.  And, if you decided to do some dungeons to add variety, you'd be dumped back into areas with too-low level content thereby exacerbating the problem.

That said, leveling in dungeon finder is way more fun that world quests, but it's not always as active as one would like.

56 minutes ago, Savistik said:

This is a great idea.  Previously, between resting and heirlooms, you'd see maybe 2 zones per expansion.  3 at "best" if you like content.  So due to the entry requirements to open up the area and quests, you'd see the same couple zones over and over contributing -- IMO -- a huge portion of the boredom of leveling a new toon.  And, if you decided to do some dungeons to add variety, you'd be dumped back into areas with too-low level content thereby exacerbating the problem.

That said, leveling in dungeon finder is way more fun that world quests, but it's not always as active as one would like.

I've levelled a couple toons through dungeon finder and I'm over it now haha. 

There is definitely something to be said for just being able to shut off your brain and run around a zone doing quests.

Aren't there PVP changes coming too? Will I no longer be insta-ganked every time I go near Redridge Mountains?

On 12/1/2017 at 12:33 AM, Ammako said:

Do you think current new players really get the full story of WoW right now lol

(If they get bored staying in one zone, this doesn't prevent them from heading to a different one, also.)

Your post shows so much disconnect towards the current state of the game tbh.

Also: in the same paragraph, you raise "not getting to see the full story of WoW" as a negative, but you also raise "staying in the whole zone" (which lets you see the whole story of the zone) as a negative, presuming that it is boring. Hmm...

Rightttttt!!! I thought the same thing... I leveled on PTR today and w/o heirlooms & dungeons it took eons just to get to 25... there was never a point I was like “mannn this story line is rad” I was like “is it over yet?... when...I...110...

7 minutes ago, Violentravi said:

Rightttttt!!! I thought the same thing... I leveled on PTR today and w/o heirlooms & dungeons it took eons just to get to 25... there was never a point I was like “mannn this story line is rad” I was like “is it over yet?... when...I...110...

Saaame! Either I boost or try to level it up... then I end in 60... and still, I end up boost just with professions. 

Haha, I need help.

But I like it.

Eastern Kingdoms - Deadwind Pass is levels 55 - 56.

Missing Zone - Eastern Kingdoms - Isle of Quel' Danas, part of the Outlands  - Level 80.

Eastern Kingdoms - Blasted Lands is levels 40-60.

Thank you for this post, its a big help. Now i can happily level my alts.