What are everyone's thoughts (VR Inlcuded), on the pace of progression? I have always felt that in most modern MMO's the pace is way way too fast. In WoW I was able to solo my way to 50 in something like 2 weeks and I'm not really super hard core anymore... I can't play 6 hours a day like I used to. In SWTOR I was able to hit 50 in a bit over a week and while I LOVED my character story line quests I felt really let down that it was over so quickly and I felt like SWTOR really did themselves and their players an injustice by letting the pace be so quick. And yet afterwards they claimed they had problems keeping up with the demand for content. Well DUH!
I have also felt that too many people get to max level, get bored, and then quit. As people say 'content is king', but then other people say 'you can't keep pace with the rate at which people are able to consume that content'. I say BS.
IMHO, I think the reason that people are able to consume your content to quickly is because you allow them to level too quickly. If you make your stuff harder, slow the pace of experience points, and make the lower level content just as engaging and interesting as the higher end content they won't be in such a rush to get there.
Now I am not advocating for 'hell levels' or the grind / treadmills of some games. But let's take EQ1 as an example. I never really felt like leveling was a grind, except for certain level ranges in certain areas. Most noteably 'The Overthere' and 'Dreadlands'. I think the reason for that is because I enjoyed the content for the most part and I only spent so much time in a given area before I had out leveled it... The net result was that it didn't feel like a grind. OT and DL on the other hand I think should have been broken up into smaller level ranges and into different and more unique areas because after 5 levels in OT and 5 in DL they were definately getting dry, overcrowded and boring. But I never once felt in any other part of the game that I was grinding, even at high levels. Hell levels ok yeah that was a grind...
Anyway, all that to say I think it's really important to SLOW the pace of progression from what we see today. I want to feel like I've EARNED level 50 when I get there, not been handed it on a silver platter.
In addition I think it's just as important to provide alternative forms of advancement to give people things to do when they've level capped. AA's in EQ1 I thought were brilliant as they gave everyone something to work on after you'd level capped. But whatever the mechanism there need to be places to go see and things to do without reusing content over and over. Daily quests SUCK. I am so sick of daily quests in games making me repeat the same stupid quests and content that I have done 1000 times just so I can get some faction item or some piece of gear. By all means make the gear hard to obtain, but please for the love of all that's holy find a way to do that without reusing content to death. And that's not to say that you can't reuse content a little... just don't burn it out like the radio burns out music when they play it over and over.
So what is the right pace? A four hour a day player playing for a week? a month? two? four? eight months? What's the right pace in your opinion? What are some things that can be done to slow that pace aside from simply giving less exp or requiring more to level?
This was discussed in length here > https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2037/how-long-should-level-1-take
That said, I think it should take as long to reach cap as there is content to make the experience meaningful. I would prefer for it to take 6 months of playing on a daily basis to hit cap, or a year playing super casually. The most important thing to me is having a variety of options until I get there. We should not get stuck in a "bad grind" when we have nothing left to achieve or look forward to during the process of gaining experience.
Original EQ1 had it right...mostly. The hell level thing was, put simply, something I hope to never experience again. I play casually and never made it to the top in EQ1. Heck, I have a mystic in eq2 that is someething like 4 levels from max currently, and I've played that game alot.
Is it really that today's games level too fast? Or is it that people just blow through stuff so quickly because that's all the games have to offer...levels? Believe it or not, I am currently playing WoW and I usually play an hour a day. My shaman is only level 29 after 2 months. I hear people say they can make max level in 1 week in that game (or less) and I ask myself "How in the hell do they do it?" I just can't see spending so much time in front of the keyboard for a week straight just to go "Ta-Dah! I'm max level! Now what?"
As long as I am having fun in a game, I really don't care how long it takes to level. In some ways, I wish levels were taken out and everyone just powered up by gear and/or spells, but not sure how that might be any different.
There is nothing worse then outleveling content too fast. So slower progression, while having differend options to advance at any given time is key for me.
EQ was great for this. You usually had at least 3 dungeons and several world zones to choose from at any given level. Dislike that one dungeon? No problem, go to the other. At the same time leveling up took enough time so you could enjoy ALL options before outleveling them. Or focus on the one you enjoyed most.
Id love to see the same in Pantheon. Not every person will like every zone or dungeon. But with enough to choose from you will satisfy a big junk of the population and the broad mass will say "leveling was fun" in the end.
Make every level rewarding, but make it special as well. Getting a few fast levels to begin with is fine as a kind of tutorial / progression into the class, but the majority of the leveling should come slow.
Obviously this only works of the path to max level is as much fun as Endgame. If the path boring, noone wants to take forever. So reaching a balance here is important.
To have a slower pace of progression it's really important that the world is designed for that. So we have many things to do.
Example 1. In EQ it was quite wide level range in many zones and often really High level mobs was in low level areas, which did so even high level players could come back and kill the mob they feared so much before. Even high level zones can sometimes have lower level camps in the beginning of zones. :) So the low level players will have some excitement with great rewards.
Example 2. It's also important that the loot is diverse. What I mean with this is not that we shall fill our bags with trash, but more as it was in EQ that no weapon had the same DPS or armor had the same Armor, so there was always a better weapon or armor to be found even from mobs of same level. So you had always something meaningful to do. Compare to WoW where all equipment of same level have more or less identical stats (DPS, Armor, etc..). Just so the game becomes 100% balanced as it's focused around PvP. That's really boring and remove all fun. I really hope pantheon will not be balanced at all, so they focus on what's making the game fun to play (unique loot (no weapon or armor shall be equal good) and smaller round robin loot tables for mobs (less trash and less randomness -> don't need to travel back to town every hour just to sell trash as in WoW).
Anistosoles said:As long as I am having fun in a game, I really don't care how long it takes to level. In some ways, I wish levels were taken out and everyone just powered up by gear and/or spells, but not sure how that might be any different.
This is also how I feel. It should not matter what level you are or why you NEED max level. There should be so many different fun adventures you can go on at any level, that you are not thinking or dont care what level you happen to be.
I dunno... it definately matters to me. I would hate to be max level in two weeks no matter how much I enjoyed the journey. Hey I loved the SWTOR inquisitor story line. It was awesome, but I soloed the entire thing and I was there in like two weeks. And I really wasn't even racing to the end. I was just playing. And then I get to 50 and after doing the max level instances and running all the raids then nothing... wait for an expansion to come out. In EQ1 I never once ran out of content. I was always just trying to keep up with the current content.
Example: When I played SWTOR I leveled to 50 in about two weeks. I really don't think I raced to the end. Certainly I think there is that pitfall. I think some people race to the end so they can raid, depriving themselves of the fun of the journey. But I just don't think the journey in some games is really that fun. In EQ1 the dungeons were immense and confusing and awesome and dangerous and you spent ALOT of time there crawling around and exploring. In SWTOR all of the solo content you were in and out and done. Objective achieved and finished. With the dungeons (flashpoints) yes, you found a group and ran through the dungeon, and I did enjoy those, but they were over in an hour or so. Now don't get me wrong I really enjoyed that. But I consider that kind of content to be junk food, like LDON was. Quick and fast and over quickly. Lower Guk on the other hand. No one in their right mind would even bother making the trek all the way out there through upper guk then to the bottom where the frenzied ghoul camp was unless they had a couple of hours to spend... Or how about Sebilis.... wow now there was a dangerous dungeon.
I would much prefer having the exp crawl along so that I could enjoy zones longer, enjoy content more instead of a passing glimpse. But in order to do that the content has to be compelling and interesting and the style of play has to allow that.
I really and truly believe that's why people stuck around in EQ1 so much longer than in other games. Sure... yeah they didn't have any competition until EQ2 and WoW... but still people could have left and played other non MMO games and they didn't. I think that was because the pace was nice and slow and the play style and dungeon design styles allowed for that. I don't really think EQ has incredibly more content than any other game... they just controlled the pace at which it was consumed a whole lot better. I spent weeks and months in certain zones and gone back to old zones after the fact for quests, etc.
Not another thread about how fast or slow people should progress through content. Who's speed are you wanting to slow down? Yours? Mine? If you want to level slower, go do other things that don't directly translate into XP or just do everything slower. Someone or some group will always level faster than everyone else.
You know who is least likely to 'out-level' all the content available to them? People who start playing 4-5 years after a game is released. They have some number of expansion available to them so the content is far broader than what is available at release. The earlier adopters are the ones who will always have the most limited of content to enjoy if they just focus on 1 character primarily.
In EQ I had a few alts and took years to get a couple to high level with epic weapons. Slow is good and of course you can enforce that - you just don't give out much XP for 'free'. Other MMORPGs you can rush through the content getting quest XP and barely encountering a challenge. If there is genuine risk in completing quests (if you rush you'll much more likely die) then sure hand out the XP, otherwise don't.
Im thinking that we will get what most of us are after here, which is a slower rate of progession (probably akin to EQ). If you recall in the twitch stream, I believe the party was all level 7. There was a good 2 hours of play and not a single person dinged. Heck, they had to dig up the DING audio just so that folks could hear what it would sound like when you level cause noone was going to during the twitch stream.
If that was any other game, that party would have leveled about 3 times during that play experience. But then again, if it was any other game out there they would have all been soloing not partying LOL.
starchildren3317 said:Im thinking that we will get what most of us are after here, which is a slower rate of progession (probably akin to EQ). If you recall in the twitch stream, I believe the party was all level 7. There was a good 2 hours of play and not a single person dinged. Heck, they had to dig up the DING audio just so that folks could hear what it would sound like when you level cause noone was going to during the twitch stream.
If that was any other game, that party would have leveled about 3 times during that play experience. But then again, if it was any other game out there they would have all been soloing not partying LOL.
LOL, sooo true..haha
I believe I posted this in the thread linked but I'll say it again.
A slow pace of gameplay has multiple benefits. Obviously, it retards inflation and preserves content. Less content can support more people for longer. But perhaps MOST IMPORTANT(to me) is the fact that a slow pace of leveling/gameplay/combat/etc engenders a sense of attachment, a bond, between player and world. If you are just rushing through content, the less you will appreciate any of it. This all goes back to less is more. The fewer phat lewts you get, the more each one you DO get matters. The harder levels are to come by, the more meaning they have, the more "status" there is.
To a point, the slower the game is, the more meaningful, long-lasting, fun and memorable it will be(to me).
From memory, EQ1 was fine from a pace of leveling perspective. I recall not enjoying the hell levels much, and I've played games since that had a more exponential leveling pace. Level 1 might take a session (your first in a shiny new realm)...level 2 a session or two...level 20 might take a few weeks...all the way up to level 50 taking a few months of solid play..Coupled with XP loss from deaths, this system really shined for me as levels seemed like a achievement and death was something more than just a speed bump.
The way I percive it, lvls 1-10 are simply an increasingly difficult tutorial that builds up your knowledge base of your class / UI / how to play the game. Lvl 1 should last just long enough for you to figure out how to move your toon around, how to interact with PC / NPCs, and learn how to use auto attack / the 1 nuke your class started with ( or 1 skill for melee ). lvl 2 should focus on learning where your class trainer is, where the bank is, how to sell and buy from merchants and how to use your new skill / spell you got on lvl up. You see where im going with this.
Something I would like to discuss thats similar but slightly a tangent is expansions. I know its dangerous to praise WoW for anything, but I think they did a great job as they released a new xpac. They broke it into thirds and released it piece meal over the course of 8 months - year. So when Pantheon is ready to drop the 1st expac, I would like to see them drop the 1st part which is all the new features / low lvl content and the 1st 1/3 of the end game raiding. Four months later drop the 2nd 1/3 of the end game raid content, and 8 months from initial xpac release drop the last 1/3 of end game raid content. I think Devs wouldnt mind more time to work on each section in order to make sure the content they delivered was as perfect as it could be on day one.
Also, think of the PoP expac for EQ1. Remember how content for the lower planes was so diverse and well done? ELE planes though.. they could have used more development time to make them less cookie cutter as well as improved the zones in general, and then at the end PoTime was unique in lots of ways. Thoughts? Comments?
If you play EQ, you'll find pretty much one type of player - the type who's sole reason for being is racing through the levels, so they can play through the end game content. EQ just didn't give people much reason to play through the earlier content after the first few expansions, as higher level gear started trickling down to lower level players. The first 50-levels (now more like the first 85) became a grueling formality. When I first started playing, quest rewards like Journeyman's Boots were absolutely coveted, and people would work their butts off to complete the quest to get a pair, enjoying every minute of it. After several expansions, I could hardly give that kind of stuff away, because everyone was running around with something twice as good, received for a fraction of the effort.
There should always be a compelling reason to play through the content appropriate for your level. This is the number one reason I've always been in favor of no-drop gear. You want that cool new piece of armor? No amount of gold purchased from gold farmers is going to get it for you. You have to play for it.
I said it in another post and think it is as simple as this...
I want my level 1 thru 5 experience to be just as epic and memorable as my level 45 thru 50 experience... None of which should happen super fast. When looking back at my max character which took XX amount of time to accomplish, I want the thoughts to be too many to think about and extremely memorable.
A new character or alt should not be something you can blow through... It should be a serious consideration and investment to build it, due to the extreme scale of the game.
GeekVerve said:If you play EQ, you'll find pretty much one type of player - the type who's sole reason for being is racing through the levels, so they can play through the end game content. EQ just didn't give people much reason to play through the earlier content after the first few expansions, as higher level gear started trickling down to lower level players. The first 50-levels (now more like the first 85) became a grueling formality. When I first started playing, quest rewards like Journeyman's Boots were absolutely coveted, and people would work their butts off to complete the quest to get a pair, enjoying every minute of it. After several expansions, I could hardly give that kind of stuff away, because everyone was running around with something twice as good, received for a fraction of the effort.
There should always be a compelling reason to play through the content appropriate for your level. This is the number one reason I've always been in favor of no-drop gear. You want that cool new piece of armor? No amount of gold purchased from gold farmers is going to get it for you. You have to play for it.
I agree Geek: BTW, I logged onto my toon on EQ a few weeks back after a very long time and what you describe is exactly what has happened. My JBoots and Robe of Icicles are still in the bank, two cherished items for my Wizard back in the day.
Skycaster Crimsonhands