A small change in the upcoming patch of World of Warcraft will ruin island expeditions for level groups. That is fully intentional by Blizzard.
Anyone who wants to bring a second or third character in World of Warcraft to level 120 might level through island expeditions. This gives a lot of XP and is relatively quick. However, those who rely on premium twinks for help will soon find themselves out of luck. An XP penalty will ensure that island expeditions will no longer be worthwhile for such players in patch 8.2 Rise of Azshara.
What was the problem? Many players used twinks at level 110 who still had legendary items and their artifact weapon from “Legion.” With the best possible gear, they activated an XP stop, so they would not gain experience points. Since enemies in island expeditions scale with the players’ level, these “super-twinks” could clear islands solo. Two other characters that needed to be leveled quickly just had to follow along and could be showered with experience points.
Many players also used these super-twinks to quickly level other players from level 110 to 120 for gold.
What exactly will change? From now on, all players will receive a debuff when a teammate activates the XP stop on island expeditions. The experience gained will then be reduced by a whopping 95%, making it virtually nonexistent.
Why is Blizzard making this change? There has been no official statement from Blizzard on this so far. Considering previous statements from the developers, it seems that the reason is that they want the respective content to be played. The “turbo leveling” through island expeditions with super twinks was probably just too effective and did not align with how Blizzard envisions the leveling experience for players.
Normal island expeditions are unaffected: Anyone who wants to level “normally” through island expeditions, that is, who plays with other characters that have not activated a level stop, will continue to receive the full experience points. So nothing will change for these players.
The change goes live with patch 8.2. There is no exact release date for it yet, but it is expected to be released in a few weeks.
What do you think about this change to island expeditions? Is it a sensible adjustment because an exploit was previously being abused? Or is it a typical case of “fun detected” where Blizzard strikes again?
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