Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Who doesn't spend a month or more in a raid zone in the current MMO space anyway? Stupid complaint.
The Elder Scrolls Online
- Thread starter Anomander Rake
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Erronius
<WoW Guild Officer>
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i really don't get your vitriol over longer leveling curves. if the game is fun and challenging from the very first moment that you log in, then why is longer leveling curves a problem? i had a blast leveling through EQ and it never felt like a chore or something that i hated (except for the hell levels). think it took me 6 months or more to actually hit level 50 but i had so much fun the whole time i was playing i never really cared about how fast i was actually leveling. the point is, if you make the game enjoyable, with meaningful loot, interesting gameplay, large, sprawling dungeons and tons of areas to explore at all level ranges, then leveling up can actually be the best part of the game. i had more fun playing EQ while i was leveling up than when i actually reached max level (at least initially. the raiding part of the game got much better when ROK was released). doing crushbone, befallen, unrest, mistmoore, najena, oasis, guk, solusek, etc... made leveling actually an enjoyable experience. was it always fun? fuck no. it was frustrating at times, especially when dying and getting hit with exp loss and having to run back to a dungeon and do a CR, but it also made the game more rewarding as well. i'd rather play a game that takes a lot longer to level up than a game where you reach max level in 2 days and chew through the "end game" content over 2 more days and there is nothing left to do but grind the same old dailies and dungeons until you'd rather masterbate with broken glass than log in one more time.
Its because people like Draegan, Tuco, and others here only care about max level content. Someone could create the most engaging, most fun game ever to play, and folks like them will do anything at all possible to skip the actual game part and be max level as soon as possible.
Ive been in FoH on EQ1, EQ2, and various other forum guilds across multiple games and the playstyle is usually the same. Do anything at all possible to bypass any and all content to reach max level as fast as possible so you can start the farming / pvp / content blockage farm etc. Thats the type of people that are the most vocal here.
Content pre level cap is meaningless to these people, regardless of how fun / engaging it is.
Their fun is bypassing content as fast as possible, whereas yours may be to have the most fun as possible.
Erronius
<WoW Guild Officer>
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It's pretty subjective, but longer the leveling curve, the more your playerbase can stretch out and the longer it takes to go from say LVL 1-10 content to LVL 11-20. And if people played in a vacuum and the content was interesting, then sure there would be no issue. But MMOs aren't played in a vacuum, and if you are behind the curve and you can't group with friends or guildies because they're in a higher level zone or dungeon, then yeah, it isn't as fun, enjoyable content be damned. Then it is no longer a"it isn't about the destination it's about the journey"deal and it does change to"it isn't about the journey it's about the destination", especially given the number of players in an MMO, and the competitive nature of most people.
I still think that a lot of the mechanics that came directly from PnP RPGs via MUDs to EQ1, don't exactly work as well with MMOs as they do with those PnP RPGs. In MMOs you have numerous things that stratify your players, from gear to XP to AA to levels and whatnot else. If you jump into a friends D&D group when they are already lvl 10, it isn't like you have to go find someone else's low level group to go level up with BEFORE you can even play with your lvl 10 friends, you just go ahead and roll some new char that if not the same level, is close enough that you wont die instantly.
To me the entire appeal of an MMO is to play with any set of players at any time in any zone WITHOUT a bunch of ridiculous arbitrary roadblocks that make that difficult or impossible, and to me level progression is at the heart of it (both of content and players). I'd love to see a fantasy MMO without level progression altogether, but all anyone knows anymore is this current paradigm and even Developers don't seem to be able to see beyond that. It's all one big giant treadmill that everyone is in a footrace on, and making the leveling curve shorter only makes that less apparent while making it longer makes it seem less appealing to the people that aren't at the front.
Erronius
<WoW Guild Officer>
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No. The challenge isn't in skipping content, it is to progress through that content as fast as possible. But the blame lies with the level progression itself - many ultra-competitive people don't want to be second best, and in MMOs many of the metrics for success are based solidly on your position compared to other players on your server (whether that be HP, Level, AA, etc). Remember the race to 10k HP in EQ1? This has been a fact of life since we started playing level based MMOs. Expecting many of these people to simply be happy with falling behind the rush and piddling around in places like Wailing Caves after they've finished all of their quests and when there is better XP elsewhere is simply unrealistic.
I guaran-fucking-tee that players in MMOs would feel less pressure to race through content, if the games weren't set up to encourage that in the first place. And if you think continually moving the goalposts of level caps and higher level content doesn't encourage people to rush through content all the faster, then I don't know what to tell you. If it was a single player RPG, then everyone would move at their own pace and there would be no issue. But when you throw a gagglefuck of players onto the same server, expect there to be social pressure to progress as quickly as possible.
I certainly dont see what you are disagreeing with in my post. I simply stated that the crowd here, for the most part, will skip any and all content possible in their race to max level...thus making the majority of the game ( ie..lvling ) nothing more than something tedious that has to be done.
Erronius
<WoW Guild Officer>
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Part of it is that I'm making a distinction between skipping content wholesale, and rushing through it. But it's a far more complicated issue than that - some people take alts back through and go through that content at a more leisurely pace while they raid with their main (skipping now to do later), other people HULK SMASH through dungeons, do the bad ones once and the good ones multiple times, all while trying to level as fast as possible.
I don't think you were being quite fair to people who put a high value on the end game content. Endgame and low level content aren't mutually exclusive, and each person has to judge how much time to spend leveling, and how much time to spend doing anything but. I would actually say the players that skip content wholesale (and never go back to it later) are probably few in number. Usually people figure out what the best dungeons are, where to get the best loot and XP, and do those while leveling to max.
Obviously leveling is tedious, and it always will be as long as levels are used. But you just cant cast your net over all raiders and declare that they skip content altogether - I think it would be more accurate to say that they have high expectations for themselves and their groups, and most aren't going to spend an entire week fumbling through Maraudon like you might see some pug players do.
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More importantly I think, until devs add meaningful/interesting content while leveling, why would you not rush to max level where most/all of your actual long term character progression happen. When you design your game with a 3-4days /played to cap, you can't expect people who can actually play a lot to not rush because there is very little to do, you replace your gear in a matter of a few hours, there is no impact on your character anyway and a lot of the content is designed as trash filler content to begin with(crappy quests that supplement the usual mobs grinding). But yeah regardless, rushing to cap doesn't mean skipping content in fact in many cases it's actually the contrary and the most efficient way to level is to complete most/all of the content, because it's tied to quests. In some cases some people will grind instead of questing because it's more efficient, but games have strayed far from that for the most part so if you want to rush to cap, you actually have to go through the content.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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The problem then isn't levels; it's a power differential. Basically, you have exactly the same problem at "end game": level 60 people in "levelling greens" will have difficulty grouping with their guildies in Blackwing Lair. Theoretically, they can, but they die. In the same way that they can group at 40 and go to Winterspring, but they die if the monster look at you funny.
Of course, your friends can come and run you thru Scholomance for fast loot, but, curiously, they're not allowed to group with you in Tanaris for fast XP: Powerlevelling is not allowed, but power-"stuffing" is.
So what does this tells us? That the problem to solve isn't a problem of levelling time, but a problem of reducing power differentials, and reducing the barriers to content. Sure, you can do that by making levels fly. You can also do that by flattening the power curve and eliminating barriers.
Right now, a level means something like an extra 5% crit per level (on lower critters), and an extra +3% hit on about everything, and some more dmg (and the reverse; monsters hit you less, and their base dmg suffer relative to you. Oh, and I'm not talking about WoW post-80 levelling where each level adds 40% more HP and 10% dmg and whatnot). It's so much power that you need to trivialize xp gained fast. Instead, you can simply make levels give you some small amount of stats, have level differential meaningless (no level delta-linked boni/mali), and presto: you can group across a wide range of levels, which opens up a lot of potential content, reduce barriers, etc, etc.
The problem is then psychological: you DO have to retrain your players, because they expect levels to provide enormous amount of power, they expect needing to be able to group only on a very narrow range, and to have one or maybe two zones available for levelling. If you tell them they can level in 12 different zones ranging from easy to somewhat challenging and group with essentially anyone despite not being max level, they suddenly become lost. OMG! WHAT SHALL I DO?
(note that, by reducing the power curve from levels, I'm essentially "soft-removing" levels. Levels still exist, but they matter less)
Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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The bolded part is the key to your argument and the problem that endgame rushers always ignore. There are many types of mmo players and most are NOT endgame rushers.
Most players never reach max level in any mmo and most players never raid. The like to play alts, explore the content at leisure, craft, etc. Endgame rushers are the bane of most mmos because they are the first to chew through content, the first to run out of things to do and the first to leave the game and call it a failure because THEIR specific gameplay metric wasn't catered to. They are the minority but they are also the most vocal minority.
Mmo devs have to cater to as many play styles as possible to maximise their profit potential. Only focusing on endgame rushers is bad just from a basic business standpoint. So when endgame rushers like Draegan pronounce that devs are "wasting time" producing content that doesn't cater to THEIR selfish view then he they are being myopic and forgetting that they are in the minority.
All that said, mmo devs have done a terrible job of catering to most play styles, especially the endgame rushers. SWTOR is a perfect example of that. Even casual players reached the endgame in a very short time and found themselves bored enough to leave the game. If you don't have a vibrant and extensive endgame ready to go at launch in a modern mmo then your game is most likely doomed to failure. There are no second chances.
But that isn't enough, devs also have to cater to the casuals who like to level slowly, the players who love to have multiple alts, the crafters, the fashion crowd, the housing crowd, etc, etc, etc. Fortheyare the majority of the playerbase.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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Or theirs might be to have the most fun possible as well doing the first. No one is right. It's all how you want to play. Designers get into trouble when they don't realize the genre they are in.
With that said the equation is pretty simple. Longer leveling curve, more zone content, no instancing, server based = player community, interaction, and less accessibility. The other way is getting content you want to play and having it there when you want it. I don't think we will see much of the former anymore - not because it is bad, but because the market content consumption model has shifted and shown enormously advanced profits and revenue towards the latter. When you get a company that doesn't care about blowing it out of the water from a profit center but can still have enough resources to design a game of this calibur, there will be move movement.
For example, if I win the lottery, I guarantee you I will make one.
Best "leveling" system: No levels, no experience. You advance your character via completing challenges/achievements. The design evolution seems obvious to me. EQ was just killing mobs over and over again in a single area gaining experience. WOW masked killing mobs over and over again by adding quests and other tasks to do to gain experience and rewards. Now take out gaining experience and allow players to be rewarded by completing achievements.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Guilty as charged. But one aspects of MMOs that exacerbates this tendency among my demographic is that the best way to level is now usually following the questing chain. If you're starting out with a hardcore group of people it's rare an MMO comes out that lets you farm very difficult areas for massive XP rewards.
Like I said before, if there's no challenging gameplay to be found, at least make it quick. I'll enjoy the quality of leveling content when I feel like it, on an alt.
I'd love to see this tried and think it'd be a good change of pace.
I think the problem would be balancing the world such that you can do the content at achievement level 1 but it's still challenging at achievement level Sean. One option is to steal from Bastion and have items you can equip/select that give +progression/magic find but also make the game much harder. This is also used in Path of Exile in a way (and WoW in raids with hard modes, which is a different problem) and I think giving the player the option to make things harder and get better rewards is a really good choice.
They would have to steer away from achievements then that are of the kind "kill a 100 gnolls". Or worse, kill a hundred Sabretooth Gnolls, which would mean you have to kill them pretty much in the same location......
I guess the whole concept of "achievements" makes me a bit dubious since every MMO nowadays have these huge lists of achievements that consist of the most boring shit ever, very repetitious stuff.
I can see how every newly gained ability or jump in power (new spell) could be tied to achieving something, like finishing a long Quest, or killing a worldboss or craft a certain item. I am just not sure if they can manage (or afford) to stay clear of killing a billion mobs with these achievements.
Like having to kill hundreds of mobs in order to get enough mats to craft that wondrous item. Having said this, I like random aspects in MMO's (the Luck factor) so if you can get lucky with your drops and manage to craft that item (and gain that achievement + next step in progression) in a single session, I would be all for that. On the other hand, if the RNG is against you, and you are kept from getting that specific achievement (jump in power/progression) for weeks on end, then the shit will hit the fan too.
To Tide and etchazz:
Before I say anything, there is no right way to enjoy a game because I can't tell you how you have fun. But I dislike the leveling process for many reasons.
1) I love character building. For me to begin character building I need all of the blocks and in most cases, all those blocks are only available at level cap. I will rush as fast as possible until I have all the talent points, ability points or whatever system you use so I can start thinking of the best way to piece everything together. Anything before that is trivial to me as far as content. It's just a treadmill for me to get to where I want to be.
2) It doesn't matter if it takes me 1 hour to get a level or 2 days, I will always know my gear will be outdated as soon as I leave a certain level range. The simple act of enjoying and playing the game is creating a cycle that automatically obsoletes my gear. I hate that. I'd much rather play a game for a week to get a better piece of gear that allows to me to get an even better piece of gear.
3) Leveling content is transient, it's built so you work your way through it. This content is not challenging and typically the only way you conquer it is just spending a lot of time repeating it. Boring.
And Grim, I know it's hard for you to grasp certain concepts, and it's difficult for you to follow complex thought processes, but let me break it down for you one more time. In the context of current games, where the leveling process is quick, creating the majority of your content for leveling is a waste of time. Why not create content where the majority of your player base is sitting at?
If you put the context of the game that long leveling times are good and you make a game based on a very long leveling curve; then yes, leveling content is not wasted dev time. However no one is making a game like that today, at least not on the AAA level. So forgive me if when I say "a lot of leveling content is a wasted resource" because games today are designed for you to hit level cap within the first month of gameplay while the game is designed to be exciting and entertaining for months.
And to everyone else, yes I fucking love rushing to the level cap. There is nothing more entertaining than racing to max level. I love racing. The most fun times I've had in online games is that first weekend where I spend 80 hours of almost no sleep playing a stupid game.
Before I say anything, there is no right way to enjoy a game because I can't tell you how you have fun. But I dislike the leveling process for many reasons.
1) I love character building. For me to begin character building I need all of the blocks and in most cases, all those blocks are only available at level cap. I will rush as fast as possible until I have all the talent points, ability points or whatever system you use so I can start thinking of the best way to piece everything together. Anything before that is trivial to me as far as content. It's just a treadmill for me to get to where I want to be.
2) It doesn't matter if it takes me 1 hour to get a level or 2 days, I will always know my gear will be outdated as soon as I leave a certain level range. The simple act of enjoying and playing the game is creating a cycle that automatically obsoletes my gear. I hate that. I'd much rather play a game for a week to get a better piece of gear that allows to me to get an even better piece of gear.
3) Leveling content is transient, it's built so you work your way through it. This content is not challenging and typically the only way you conquer it is just spending a lot of time repeating it. Boring.
And Grim, I know it's hard for you to grasp certain concepts, and it's difficult for you to follow complex thought processes, but let me break it down for you one more time. In the context of current games, where the leveling process is quick, creating the majority of your content for leveling is a waste of time. Why not create content where the majority of your player base is sitting at?
If you put the context of the game that long leveling times are good and you make a game based on a very long leveling curve; then yes, leveling content is not wasted dev time. However no one is making a game like that today, at least not on the AAA level. So forgive me if when I say "a lot of leveling content is a wasted resource" because games today are designed for you to hit level cap within the first month of gameplay while the game is designed to be exciting and entertaining for months.
And to everyone else, yes I fucking love rushing to the level cap. There is nothing more entertaining than racing to max level. I love racing. The most fun times I've had in online games is that first weekend where I spend 80 hours of almost no sleep playing a stupid game.
Byr
Potato del Grande
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Darkfall is actually using this and its worked pretty well. Of course its open world though and has no levels, just skills you level up
That would be difficult to do in an open world, I think. My idea of progression is still zone based. You're still hiding leveling and progression in a different way like WOW hid exp grinding with quests. You start off in one area and completing the zone 100% allows you to gain gear to move on to the next area. Completing it 50% gives you enough gear to make it the next zone challenging, but still doable. Completing some challenges in the next area allow you to come back to zone 1 to hit 100%.
You can hide gear, abilities, spells, talent points, whatever you gain by leveling normally, behind specific challenges. You beat Super Bad-ass Raid Dragon that completes a quest that you've been on for a month, you gain a super badass spell that fucks shit up and you're very special.
I'm not against giving certain people better spells and skills because they can PVE better than other people. So PVP becomes lopsided. I don't care because my game has no factions and is more like AOC than anything else. Make some friends that have badass skills.
I agree 100%. No LOTRO style achievements where you get bonuses after you killed your 1000th orc. Achievements in this system would have to be on the order of killing the big bad guy of the zone (typically the end guy in a zone quest line in today's game). But in order to kill him you need to collect pieces of a staff to break his magic shield, so that may take like 10 steps. Completing each of those 10 steps is an achievement.
Then you can toss in fun shit like, jump off a cliff that is higher than 200 feet. Or kill 10 mobs in 10 seconds. Or run from Point A to B in 1 minute. Or complete dungeon X in 5 minutes. I like simple challenges like that to augment to fun story stuff.
This way you have people focusing on the zone and story, not the task list to the side of your screen. You start paying attention to the world around you and not your day job. Just my opinion though.