The problem is that you think of it as a level grind. Most of us think of it as the adventure. That is the reason we play From starting out in a small town killing rats to being strong enough to face the evil overlord trying to destroy the world. Everything that happens in between is what RPGs are all about. If you are not an RPG fan, perhaps you should avoid trying to change them and instead play something more your style.
It all depends what aspects of RPGs you enjoy.
I personally hate the level grind in standard MMOs, but it's all down to the implementation:
Story - too many generic quests and bad writing. All computer games suffer from bad writing (films and books are much better for story telling) but MMOs simply have so many quests that the story sucks.
Progression - Gear is replaced within a few hours and enemy difficulty remains relatively constant: as I get stronger, so do they. So, progression is a myth during the leveling process.
Grouping - So little of it left, but even when you want to group, mismatched quests or wrong levels get in the way.
Difficulty - it's just too easy in standard MMOs.
The result is that I'm just bored out of my mind leveling up in just about every MMO I play. The only enjoyable bit is discovering new locations, but even then, if the MMO is very linear like Wildstar or SW:TOR, the locations aren't even enjoyable.
With every MMO I try, I do attempt to enjoy it. I always start off reading all the quest text, listening to all the dialogue / voice overs etc, taking my time in each zone, completing every quest. But, 10-20 hours in my patience runs out. The shit story plus lack of challenge are the two main things that kill the leveling process for me, so from then on I do everything possible to speed through leveling and get to the good bits.
It is only at endgame where challenge kicks in. Progression actually becomes meaningful, because the increases in power are noticeable versus other players of the same level, and against the content I'm running. Grouping becomes easier, and I finally have every skill I can acquire so I can really focus on learning my character and playing the best I possibly can do.
The last MMO I enjoyed leveling in was vanilla LotRO, so nearly 10 years ago now. Whilst it was still quest based, there was loads of grouping, loads of challenging content and the story was mostly well written. But, even before the first expansion came out, they started dumbing down the leveling process and removing the challenge and group content.
So, to summarise, it's not that we think of leveling as a grind (because we don't want to level), it is that the current implementation of leveling is a grind because the activities involved are not fun. This is obviously a subjective point of view - I like challenging group content and meaningful progression, which doesn't match the current implementation, but those of you who enjoy generic stories, relaxed combat and constant loot drops obviously would prefer the current implementation.
In all the MMORPGs I've tried I have never once run into a leveling group that was looking for hard content to grind on. Most purposely avoid anything that doesn't drop fast to group DPS. So I can't really blame devs for dropping the difficulty across the board in cases like LOTRO. When most of your players are hellbent on following a crash course through the experience, you might as well give them the good stuff to play through. Rather than have them bitching and moaning that they're bored of the mobs they've been grinding.
It's not about looking for hard content to grind on - none of us want to grind.
It is simply about looking for fun content, but sadly trivial content isn't fun for a lot of us.
In LotRO specifically, the problem was never with the difficulty level or the amount of group content. It was baked into the game from launch that player skill and grouping were important, and just about everyone accepted that. PUGs were nearly always polite and helpful, grouping was easy, and as a result LotRO ended up with a great community.
The problem with LotRO specifically became apparent about a year after launch. The problem with having group content (which is far easier to balance around player skill) is that you need other people to group with. After about a year from launch, most people had reached the cap so it became really hard to find groups. Due to mostly linear design, this prevented some people from progressing. The problem became even worse after expansions.
So, Turbine stopped producing challenging group content as part of the leveling process, and then had to go back and waste money revamping previous areas to make them soloable. The problem with solo content is you have to balance around the weakest classes, so it trivialised the content for just about everyone.
That said, I totally understand the need for Turbine to do the revamps - new players are the lifeblood of MMOs, so if your leveling experience sucks because you're late to the party, the new players will quit.
This is why scaling technology is so important. If you're game is based around vertical progression (which 99% are), then any grouping or challenging content that you put into the leveling process will quite quickly become a barrier to enjoyment because the pool of players available to take it on drops below a critical level. We need scaling technology, preferably technology that scales the content to the player and group size rather than technology that scales the player to the content. That way, if I want to level up in a group, all the quests become group-based and much more challenging and enjoyable, but 2 years after launch, I can still complete that quest solo if nobody else is around.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I do not agree with OP in the least. One of my first MMO's was Lineage 2 and I managed to grind my way to max level in that game several times. That was the grind from hell and it got much worse at later levels. I have yet to see a game come close to matching that level of grind. Not that I want too. However, I do feel that a progression system is necessary.
The thing about that, and L2 is a perfect example of this, is that "how long does it take to reach level cap" is *all* many people seem to care about. It's all they focus on. Every second they're logged in is spent on doing nothing but following the fastest and most efficient path to level cap, because "that's where the real game starts" - or so people want to argue. There's literally tons of other content, goals and such they can be focusing on along the way. But they don't have time for that! It just slows them down! All that matters to them - their entire reason for playing - is "getting to level cap as fast as possible".
Then, once they've reached level cap - their ultimate and, really, only goal - they proceed to burn through everything there as fast as possible (because it's totally a race, after all, right?). Then, they complain about "lack of content" and "boring level grind". Well, whose fault is that? Not the game's. The game offered them plenty of other content and activities to participate in. They chose not to. They chose to ignore all that, sacrificing variety at the altar of "optimal, efficient leveling".
They get bored, announce on the official forums that they're leaving the game because it's just a terrible level grind, and they're going to "shiny new MMO here" that is *way* better, whose developers know what they're doing, and it won't be a soulless grind. Look at all the cool content it has!
Several weeks later, that player is on that new MMO's forums, announcing that they're quitting, because that MMO, too, is nothing but a soulless level grind, and they're leaving to go play "insert other shiny new MMO here" which is clearly superior... and the cycle continues.
And the cycle continues.
From the outside, I'm one of those people you describe (except, I don't game hop).
In every MMO I play, I start out attempting to enjoy the leveling process. I really put myself into the game, I read all the story, do all the side quests, go off exploring etc.
You know what? It sucks! Each and every time, it sucks balls. Bad story lines, boring mechanics, trivial content and meaningless progression....I can't comprehend how people enjoy leveling in MMOs unless they don't care about gameplay at all, and only care about mediocre stories. SWG was fairly enjoyable leveling, not because of the gameplay, but because it was a social experience. LotRO, at launch, was also group orientated and so was enjoyable to level up the first time.
So, after I've been playing long enough to recognise that the game has been designed really badly for leveling, I do then search for the most efficient way to reach the cap and do everything I can to get there quickly. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you try to rush past unpleasant content in an effort to reach the parts of the game you enjoy? Isn't that just sensible?
Also, what's the problem with enjoying the endgame? Every developer that releases stats has shown us that we're a small group (average less than 10% do raids regularly, and less than 15% pvp regularly, with cross over between the two groups). We're also a fairly dedicated group and leaders of the community, so we add value to the game.
By far the largest demographic are the solo casual players. They don't rush to endgame, but when they hit it they either restart or game hop. They aren't a dedicated group, but they are so numerous that they bring in the most money.
So, i would stop moaning about the endgame crowd: we're small enough that we no longer have games that cater to us, but important enough that most devs try to appease us a little bit. We may be quite vocal in our hatred for the leveling process (well, some people anyway), but we're only highlighting very valid problems with leveling.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
You should be having fun playing the game, the progression is gravy. if its "grinding" to you then you have fallen for playing a bad game where you only get happiness from the little numbers going up. You're a heroin addict, go to Rehab and play a different game that is fun by default.
I'm playing For Honor. It has a lot of "grinding" if you play it that way. But I'm having alot of fun just playing it. If it had no progression I would still play it. It even has the dueling modes that disregard any items or feats, levels you've aquired. You are playing at "defaults". More games should be like this. For honor would make an excelent PvP MMO
You should be having fun playing the game, the progression is gravy. if its "grinding" to you then you have fallen for playing a bad game where you only get happiness from the little numbers going up. You're a heroin addict, go to Rehab and play a different game that is fun by default.
I'm playing For Honor. It has a lot of "grinding" if you play it that way. But I'm having alot of fun just playing it. If it had no progression I would still play it. It even has the dueling modes that disregard any items or feats, levels you've aquired. You are playing at "defaults". More games should be like this. For honor would make an excelent PvP MMO
True but all MMOs do have a bit of grind no matter how you play it. If you have a lot then you should indeed try to play it in another way or try to explore new places in the game but some games do have more grind then others no matter, the less content the more you will need to repeat it and the more grind you will get.
Even the right attitude wont help when you run the same dungeon for the 50th time after all or when you do the same daily quest as yesterday and the day before that...
Grind and MMOs have to live together we like it or not.
People play one MMO for years, it's common to see people going past the 1000 hours on the game. It's obvious no game can offer +1000 hours of gameplay without Grind, there has to be stuff to play for, objectives, end-game progression and so forth.
It's what keeps people playing, the only thing that can be done is provide enough gameplay to make it fun to keep playing and do not it fall into repetitive content that is not fun.
I don't mind leveling, but I like skill based better. Rather get better at something as I do it than some artificial number that makes me stronger every so often.
I've enjoyed levelling characters far more then the "end game" gear grind in MMO's since I began playing MMO's in the late 90's.
Let's face it, in between raids what else was there to do but roll an alt?
The only exception was DAoC's RvR, which I really enjoyed until Mythic fucked it up with ToA and turned the game into, you guessed it, a gear grind...
That endgame were just to keep you busy a short while until next expansion, games like EQ had plenty of them and most players didn't even have a single character maxed out.
The problem is that somewhere around the line the games made leveling faster and faster so everyone could "experience" (read: "get stuck in") the endgame but they never improved the endgame from the basic placeholder it was for new content.
Either leveling needs to take far longer or we need an endgame that is fun for more then a small part of the community (the raiders to be more specific and we are talking about the serious raiders, not the ones that make a few PUGed Wow raids of the easiest kind).
MMO mechanics were made for leveling up, not the endgame. If you change the focus you need to improve the part of the game players spend most time in.
You can see how the devs place the content, most of it is the open world for leveling, the endgame is a small portion of the game and yet most of us max our level after a couple of weeks. The devs want us to spend a couple of years in that small area util the next expansion hits and give us 5 or 10 levels that keep us busy for a few days and then start over in the small endgame. And the small endgame content is split up between a fe raids and dungeons, a couple of zones and a bit of PvP and since most6 players prefer one or two of these things the actual part of the game they spend their time in shrinks even more.
A game with really fast leveling should have the majority of the content in the places people spend most time in. If you level up in a couple of weeks then you should have at least 75% of the games content in the endgame, not the other way around.
And that is just content wise, the games also need to make the content more fun and meaningful. Leveling is a simple encouragement and while you do that you complete the games story and gains new skills and powers. Just chasing the next gear tier is not a good replacement for that.
Back in the day we use to call "grinding" playing the game... Maybe the next generation's games will start up and go straight to a Congratulations!!! You Won!!! screen...
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It's like my hatred of hockey. All that hitting a puck with a stick stuff. Take that out and you'd really have something.
I had this horrible science teacher who doubled up as hockey teacher too who used to hate me ,mutual hate club . He was trying to teach me to hit the ball right this is not ice hockey this is a different type of hockey you play on a field, I missed and hit his leg. I smiled all the way home.
Back in the day we use to call "grinding" playing the game... Maybe the next generation's games will start up and go straight to a Congratulations!!! You Won!!! screen...
I always found grinding boring. I was more into wanting to live in the virtual world and having adventures not mindless repetition. You know the stuff you can only do in a MMO.
When it comes to "Level Grind" in new released MMOs, can we finally admit that this turns off most players in New MMOs?
Especially when your game is marketed as a huge PvP game with off the chart Faction vs Faction wars, yet its totally locked behind a Level gate that say
"Sorry, but you can not play this Faction vs Faction battle until you are level XYZ"....
Now you start to look at each level as a force of labor , rather than a fun journey. Hence why this is the age of Power Grinding.
I will admit, when I was new to MMOs, and didnt know how the system of MMOs work, and all the Filler illusions, I thought levels were the coolest element. Then one day I reached the level I wanted, which was max, and played all the features I wanted to play, and realized that all that leveling and false pride of being a higher level than my friends, was just an illusion of filler, to keep me busy while developers make content.
that may be a legit reason, but at max level I still enjoyed long periods of gameplay even though I wasnt leveling. So its not like Levels are the only way to do filler.
If you want to PvP right out of the box then I suggest MOBAs or FPS. They both do a lot more justice to the business of PvP than MMORPGs have done.
I'm finding there are very few MMORPGs out there with any RPG these days. Everyone wants to just skip to the end so they can quit from boredom.
Someone is going to develop a game soon where the journey is more rewarding than the destination. I think that when you hit the level cap your character should be over the hill and it should lose power over time until it's as valuable as a fresh L1. As for what comes after that, there are several concepts already being floated around in games under development.
If you don't want to level there are so many games on the market where you can skip 80% of the content so you can get to the "end game". We don't need any more of those.
What every dev/pub should stand behind: "We're committed to creating a fair playing field for all players. You cannot gain gameplay advantage by spending real money in [INSERT GAME NAME]."
I've enjoyed levelling characters far more then the "end game" gear grind in MMO's since I began playing MMO's in the late 90's.
Let's face it, in between raids what else was there to do but roll an alt?
The only exception was DAoC's RvR, which I really enjoyed until Mythic fucked it up with ToA and turned the game into, you guessed it, a gear grind...
That endgame were just to keep you busy a short while until next expansion, games like EQ had plenty of them and most players didn't even have a single character maxed out.
The problem is that somewhere around the line the games made leveling faster and faster so everyone could "experience" (read: "get stuck in") the endgame but they never improved the endgame from the basic placeholder it was for new content.
Either leveling needs to take far longer or we need an endgame that is fun for more then a small part of the community (the raiders to be more specific and we are talking about the serious raiders, not the ones that make a few PUGed Wow raids of the easiest kind).
MMO mechanics were made for leveling up, not the endgame. If you change the focus you need to improve the part of the game players spend most time in.
You can see how the devs place the content, most of it is the open world for leveling, the endgame is a small portion of the game and yet most of us max our level after a couple of weeks. The devs want us to spend a couple of years in that small area util the next expansion hits and give us 5 or 10 levels that keep us busy for a few days and then start over in the small endgame. And the small endgame content is split up between a fe raids and dungeons, a couple of zones and a bit of PvP and since most6 players prefer one or two of these things the actual part of the game they spend their time in shrinks even more.
A game with really fast leveling should have the majority of the content in the places people spend most time in. If you level up in a couple of weeks then you should have at least 75% of the games content in the endgame, not the other way around.
And that is just content wise, the games also need to make the content more fun and meaningful. Leveling is a simple encouragement and while you do that you complete the games story and gains new skills and powers. Just chasing the next gear tier is not a good replacement for that.
Totally agree, but at the same time its funny you say that because one of the common themes you'll hear on mmo forums is that you can't judge the game/balance/combat/etc until you have reached endgame and have all the best gear (or something along those lines).
Well, I don't really agree with the OP but the only MMO that seems to have solved this issue is ESO since the One Tamriel update. You can do anything you want at level 1. You can do it easier at CP600. At last, an MMO where you actually get stronger.. instead of everything just scaling along with you, getting downscaled or enemies going 'grey'. There's no grind but there's still meaningful progression. Whether or not ESO is your type of game, this type of progression system is, IMO, what should direct the evolution of MMOs.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Well, I don't really agree with the OP but the only MMO that seems to have solved this issue is ESO since the One Tamriel update. You can do anything you want at level 1. You can do it easier at CP600. At last, an MMO where you actually get stronger.. instead of everything just scaling along with you, getting downscaled or enemies going 'grey'. There's no grind but there's still meaningful progression. Whether or not ESO is your type of game, this type of progression system is, IMO, what should direct the evolution of MMOs.
Some people argue this system is no progression at all.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Think it depends on what you mean by grind ultimately. If the levels themselves take a while and there is content for those levels then level grind is great IMO. Can't stand games where you go from level 1 to 100 in a few weeks. If that is what they are doing then yeah no point whatsoever. I usually will leave games when I hit the cap though myself, I don't like not seeing the exp bar going up myself, just a little carrot that I enjoy going after.
Well, I don't really agree with the OP but the only MMO that seems to have solved this issue is ESO since the One Tamriel update. You can do anything you want at level 1. You can do it easier at CP600. At last, an MMO where you actually get stronger.. instead of everything just scaling along with you, getting downscaled or enemies going 'grey'. There's no grind but there's still meaningful progression. Whether or not ESO is your type of game, this type of progression system is, IMO, what should direct the evolution of MMOs.
I liked what Tamriel One was on paper and then I experienced it. ESO is one of, if not, the best MMORPG at making you feel like the Hero. But the best example of how your heroism remains flat is this. At level 1 you go out and fight a mob. It presents a certain level of challenge. Revisit that same mob at L40, CP 300, 600 whatever and that mob presents the same exact challenge. How can you feel like the Hero when the bunny you beat up at L1 feels just as strong now that you are some 50+ levels "stronger".
I was all for this concept as I'm forever out levelling content and facerolling stuff has it's downsides. But this implementation is not the solution I thought it would be. I hope the practice of levelling the content to your level doesn't become the norm. Perhaps it should be a game mode choice players can make.
What every dev/pub should stand behind: "We're committed to creating a fair playing field for all players. You cannot gain gameplay advantage by spending real money in [INSERT GAME NAME]."
That endgame were just to keep you busy a short while until next expansion, games like EQ had plenty of them and most players didn't even have a single character maxed out.
The problem is that somewhere around the line the games made leveling faster and faster so everyone could "experience" (read: "get stuck in") the endgame but they never improved the endgame from the basic placeholder it was for new content.
Either leveling needs to take far longer or we need an endgame that is fun for more then a small part of the community (the raiders to be more specific and we are talking about the serious raiders, not the ones that make a few PUGed Wow raids of the easiest kind).
MMO mechanics were made for leveling up, not the endgame. If you change the focus you need to improve the part of the game players spend most time in.
You can see how the devs place the content, most of it is the open world for leveling, the endgame is a small portion of the game and yet most of us max our level after a couple of weeks. The devs want us to spend a couple of years in that small area util the next expansion hits and give us 5 or 10 levels that keep us busy for a few days and then start over in the small endgame. And the small endgame content is split up between a fe raids and dungeons, a couple of zones and a bit of PvP and since most6 players prefer one or two of these things the actual part of the game they spend their time in shrinks even more.
A game with really fast leveling should have the majority of the content in the places people spend most time in. If you level up in a couple of weeks then you should have at least 75% of the games content in the endgame, not the other way around.
And that is just content wise, the games also need to make the content more fun and meaningful. Leveling is a simple encouragement and while you do that you complete the games story and gains new skills and powers. Just chasing the next gear tier is not a good replacement for that.
Totally agree, but at the same time its funny you say that because one of the common themes you'll hear on mmo forums is that you can't judge the game/balance/combat/etc until you have reached endgame and have all the best gear (or something along those lines).
That is what people say to keep you playing, hoping you get addicted or something. If the game sucks at level 20 it will suck even more at endgame unless you are a raid fan.
Of course it is different when you write a review, some games are better the first 20 levels (AoC anyone?) others are better the last 20 so you can't make a good review otherwise. And saying that the game becomes better at level 40 might be true.
But as a player, if you hate the game at level 20 you need to try something else. Even if it gets better at level 20 it wont go from hate to love, it might get "acceptable" or "mediocre" later but it wont be good.
Well, I don't really agree with the OP but the only MMO that seems to have solved this issue is ESO since the One Tamriel update. You can do anything you want at level 1. You can do it easier at CP600. At last, an MMO where you actually get stronger.. instead of everything just scaling along with you, getting downscaled or enemies going 'grey'. There's no grind but there's still meaningful progression. Whether or not ESO is your type of game, this type of progression system is, IMO, what should direct the evolution of MMOs.
Why bother with levels at all then? Just skipping them and making a horizontal progression would actually work better.
I am not saying that the idea that making the content possible with a new character is a bad idea, as long as you make some areas harder then others but the whole level concept seems ridiculous in a game like that.
Well, I don't really agree with the OP but the only MMO that seems to have solved this issue is ESO since the One Tamriel update. You can do anything you want at level 1. You can do it easier at CP600. At last, an MMO where you actually get stronger.. instead of everything just scaling along with you, getting downscaled or enemies going 'grey'. There's no grind but there's still meaningful progression. Whether or not ESO is your type of game, this type of progression system is, IMO, what should direct the evolution of MMOs.
I liked what Tamriel One was on paper and then I experienced it. ESO is one of, if not, the best MMORPG at making you feel like the Hero. But the best example of how your heroism remains flat is this. At level 1 you go out and fight a mob. It presents a certain level of challenge. Revisit that same mob at L40, CP 300, 600 whatever and that mob presents the same exact challenge. How can you feel like the Hero when the bunny you beat up at L1 feels just as strong now that you are some 50+ levels "stronger".
I was all for this concept as I'm forever out levelling content and facerolling stuff has it's downsides. But this implementation is not the solution I thought it would be. I hope the practice of levelling the content to your level doesn't become the norm. Perhaps it should be a game mode choice players can make.
Plain and simple ESO holds no danger, mystery or feel of advanced meant outside of grinding for CP. It's not an mmo it's a railroad train wreck of a hollowed out so called mmo.
Everyone that's replied to my comment obviously doesn't know much about how ESO works. That mob is not the same level of challenge when you're CP300, it is easier because you do a lot more damage, have more health and have a lot more skills to use. YOU get more powerful, the enemies don't. At level 1, some enemies are a challenge.. but killable with effort if you are a decent player and manage how much you take on at a time. At CP600 with top gear you will destroy all normal enemies, even 10 at a time, and the more challenging things become easier to tackle. You can even solo things like world bosses or even group dungeons, things you would never be able to solo at level 1, but a group of level 1's could beat it. You guys seriously don't understand how it works in ESO at all.
The system has more meaningful progression than any other MMO I've ever played.
What is the point of gaining levels when each time you do you have to move on to a zone full of enemies that are the same level and the previous enemies become worthless to you as you outlevel content... over and over again. 'That' is false progression. Every time you get stronger, you're presented with an equally matched enemy. Why bother having levels in the first place?
Post edited by TheDarkrayne on
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Everyone that's replied to my comment obviously doesn't know much about how ESO works. That mob is not the same level of challenge when you're CP300, it is easier because you do a lot more damage, have more health and have a lot more skills to use. YOU get more powerful, the enemies don't. At level 1, some enemies are a challenge.. but killable with effort if you are a decent player and manage how much you take on at a time. At CP600 with top gear you will destroy all normal enemies, even 10 at a time, and the more challenging things become easier to tackle. You can even solo things like world bosses or even group dungeons, things you would never be able to solo at level 1, but a group of level 1's could beat it. You guys seriously don't understand how it works in ESO at all.
The system has more meaningful progression than any other MMO I've ever played.
What is the point of gaining levels when each time you do you have to move on to a zone full of enemies that are the same level and the previous enemies become worthless to you as you outlevel content... over and over again. 'That' is false progression. Every time you get stronger, you're presented with an equally matched enemy. Why bother having levels in the first place?
I get that but my question is still valid; who bother with levels? You can gain skills and become more powerful in level-less systems as well (like using EQs AA) it just wont be as much as in most MMOs.
With ESO I see no point in having the levels. None. When they changed the mechanics they should have removed them altogether.
MMOs does not have to have levels as I said earlier in the thread. ESO certanly doesn't, it would not become less fun without them.
And I never said it was false progression, just unnecessarily numbers. With some tweaking they could keep the gameplay as fun but improve the progression to offer more options.
Comments
It is simply about looking for fun content, but sadly trivial content isn't fun for a lot of us.
In LotRO specifically, the problem was never with the difficulty level or the amount of group content. It was baked into the game from launch that player skill and grouping were important, and just about everyone accepted that. PUGs were nearly always polite and helpful, grouping was easy, and as a result LotRO ended up with a great community.
The problem with LotRO specifically became apparent about a year after launch. The problem with having group content (which is far easier to balance around player skill) is that you need other people to group with. After about a year from launch, most people had reached the cap so it became really hard to find groups. Due to mostly linear design, this prevented some people from progressing. The problem became even worse after expansions.
So, Turbine stopped producing challenging group content as part of the leveling process, and then had to go back and waste money revamping previous areas to make them soloable. The problem with solo content is you have to balance around the weakest classes, so it trivialised the content for just about everyone.
That said, I totally understand the need for Turbine to do the revamps - new players are the lifeblood of MMOs, so if your leveling experience sucks because you're late to the party, the new players will quit.
This is why scaling technology is so important. If you're game is based around vertical progression (which 99% are), then any grouping or challenging content that you put into the leveling process will quite quickly become a barrier to enjoyment because the pool of players available to take it on drops below a critical level. We need scaling technology, preferably technology that scales the content to the player and group size rather than technology that scales the player to the content. That way, if I want to level up in a group, all the quests become group-based and much more challenging and enjoyable, but 2 years after launch, I can still complete that quest solo if nobody else is around.
In every MMO I play, I start out attempting to enjoy the leveling process. I really put myself into the game, I read all the story, do all the side quests, go off exploring etc.
You know what? It sucks! Each and every time, it sucks balls. Bad story lines, boring mechanics, trivial content and meaningless progression....I can't comprehend how people enjoy leveling in MMOs unless they don't care about gameplay at all, and only care about mediocre stories. SWG was fairly enjoyable leveling, not because of the gameplay, but because it was a social experience. LotRO, at launch, was also group orientated and so was enjoyable to level up the first time.
So, after I've been playing long enough to recognise that the game has been designed really badly for leveling, I do then search for the most efficient way to reach the cap and do everything I can to get there quickly. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you try to rush past unpleasant content in an effort to reach the parts of the game you enjoy? Isn't that just sensible?
Also, what's the problem with enjoying the endgame? Every developer that releases stats has shown us that we're a small group (average less than 10% do raids regularly, and less than 15% pvp regularly, with cross over between the two groups). We're also a fairly dedicated group and leaders of the community, so we add value to the game.
By far the largest demographic are the solo casual players. They don't rush to endgame, but when they hit it they either restart or game hop. They aren't a dedicated group, but they are so numerous that they bring in the most money.
So, i would stop moaning about the endgame crowd: we're small enough that we no longer have games that cater to us, but important enough that most devs try to appease us a little bit. We may be quite vocal in our hatred for the leveling process (well, some people anyway), but we're only highlighting very valid problems with leveling.
You should be having fun playing the game, the progression is gravy. if its "grinding" to you then you have fallen for playing a bad game where you only get happiness from the little numbers going up. You're a heroin addict, go to Rehab and play a different game that is fun by default.
I'm playing For Honor. It has a lot of "grinding" if you play it that way. But I'm having alot of fun just playing it. If it had no progression I would still play it. It even has the dueling modes that disregard any items or feats, levels you've aquired. You are playing at "defaults". More games should be like this. For honor would make an excelent PvP MMO
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
Even the right attitude wont help when you run the same dungeon for the 50th time after all or when you do the same daily quest as yesterday and the day before that...
People play one MMO for years, it's common to see people going past the 1000 hours on the game. It's obvious no game can offer +1000 hours of gameplay without Grind, there has to be stuff to play for, objectives, end-game progression and so forth.
It's what keeps people playing, the only thing that can be done is provide enough gameplay to make it fun to keep playing and do not it fall into repetitive content that is not fun.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Let's face it, in between raids what else was there to do but roll an alt?
The only exception was DAoC's RvR, which I really enjoyed until Mythic fucked it up with ToA and turned the game into, you guessed it, a gear grind...
The problem is that somewhere around the line the games made leveling faster and faster so everyone could "experience" (read: "get stuck in") the endgame but they never improved the endgame from the basic placeholder it was for new content.
Either leveling needs to take far longer or we need an endgame that is fun for more then a small part of the community (the raiders to be more specific and we are talking about the serious raiders, not the ones that make a few PUGed Wow raids of the easiest kind).
MMO mechanics were made for leveling up, not the endgame. If you change the focus you need to improve the part of the game players spend most time in.
You can see how the devs place the content, most of it is the open world for leveling, the endgame is a small portion of the game and yet most of us max our level after a couple of weeks. The devs want us to spend a couple of years in that small area util the next expansion hits and give us 5 or 10 levels that keep us busy for a few days and then start over in the small endgame. And the small endgame content is split up between a fe raids and dungeons, a couple of zones and a bit of PvP and since most6 players prefer one or two of these things the actual part of the game they spend their time in shrinks even more.
A game with really fast leveling should have the majority of the content in the places people spend most time in. If you level up in a couple of weeks then you should have at least 75% of the games content in the endgame, not the other way around.
And that is just content wise, the games also need to make the content more fun and meaningful. Leveling is a simple encouragement and while you do that you complete the games story and gains new skills and powers. Just chasing the next gear tier is not a good replacement for that.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I always found grinding boring. I was more into wanting to live in the virtual world and having adventures not mindless repetition. You know the stuff you can only do in a MMO.
I'm finding there are very few MMORPGs out there with any RPG these days. Everyone wants to just skip to the end so they can quit from boredom.
Someone is going to develop a game soon where the journey is more rewarding than the destination. I think that when you hit the level cap your character should be over the hill and it should lose power over time until it's as valuable as a fresh L1. As for what comes after that, there are several concepts already being floated around in games under development.
If you don't want to level there are so many games on the market where you can skip 80% of the content so you can get to the "end game". We don't need any more of those.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I was all for this concept as I'm forever out levelling content and facerolling stuff has it's downsides. But this implementation is not the solution I thought it would be. I hope the practice of levelling the content to your level doesn't become the norm. Perhaps it should be a game mode choice players can make.
Of course it is different when you write a review, some games are better the first 20 levels (AoC anyone?) others are better the last 20 so you can't make a good review otherwise. And saying that the game becomes better at level 40 might be true.
But as a player, if you hate the game at level 20 you need to try something else. Even if it gets better at level 20 it wont go from hate to love, it might get "acceptable" or "mediocre" later but it wont be good.
I am not saying that the idea that making the content possible with a new character is a bad idea, as long as you make some areas harder then others but the whole level concept seems ridiculous in a game like that.
Plain and simple ESO holds no danger, mystery or feel of advanced meant outside of grinding for CP. It's not an mmo it's a railroad train wreck of a hollowed out so called mmo.
The system has more meaningful progression than any other MMO I've ever played.
What is the point of gaining levels when each time you do you have to move on to a zone full of enemies that are the same level and the previous enemies become worthless to you as you outlevel content... over and over again. 'That' is false progression. Every time you get stronger, you're presented with an equally matched enemy. Why bother having levels in the first place?
With ESO I see no point in having the levels. None. When they changed the mechanics they should have removed them altogether.
MMOs does not have to have levels as I said earlier in the thread. ESO certanly doesn't, it would not become less fun without them.
And I never said it was false progression, just unnecessarily numbers. With some tweaking they could keep the gameplay as fun but improve the progression to offer more options.