WoW players discover leveling exploit for phase two of Season of Discovery
Blizzard EntertainmentThe staggered leveling system in World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery has primarily been seen as a successful choice, but a newly identified potential exploit could derail the entire process.
The level cap in original Classic WoW is 60, and it takes players anything from a few days to a few months to get there. As part of the refreshed experience in Season of Discovery, the leveling system has been divided into separate phases.
The first phase (which the game is currently in) allows players to level to 25 before the following phases increase the cap to 40, 50 & 60, respectively. The idea behind this is that it will allow those with less time to grind ample opportunity to play with their friends and guilds.
Unfortunately, this does leave the door open for new potential exploits, and players have started to identify ways to reach the level 40 cap almost as soon as it’s released.
PvP could allow players to stockpile experience points
In a post on Reddit, one user shared that players they know in-game have started to item restore Marks of Honor from PvP activities to turn them in after phase two launches.
In Season of Discovery, each Mark of Honor rewards 1200xp, and missed Marks can be restored to the mailbox via Blizzard’s internal system for recovering expired mail. These will then be safe in the mailbox for a further 30 days before expiring again.
Theoretically, this allows players to stockpile Marks, which they can turn in as soon as phase two launches, effectively bypassing the leveling system and the developer’s intentions.
Many questioned why people would want to do this in the first place and miss out on so much of the experience. One said: “I find it strange that WoW players consider skipping leveling “beneficial.” To me, leveling is the game haha.”
Others quickly pointed out the likelihood that this could result in significant bans for players: “This seems sick, but very obviously would get reversed and possibly punished. There’s no way Blizzard would let their current WoW golden child see abuse like this.”
Whether this potential exploit will work when phase two of Season of Discovery does arrive remains to be seen, but it’s difficult to see why it wouldn’t unless Blizzard directly does something to combat it.
