I completely agree with OP. This massive power gap is simply a pointless and harmful leftover from single player RPGs and which provides nothing really postive to the mmorpg experience.
A large number of problems mmos face are due to this obsolete and pointless mechanic. PvP unfairness and griefing being just one. Division of players in PvE being another. It is sad to see mmos struggle against this with all kinds of gimmicky and immersion-breaking mechanics, such as sidekicking, boosting etc while lacking the courage to simply remove the true cause for all these problems.
It is the holy cow of mmorpg design and imo it should finally be dispensed with.
The level mechanic is the way in which the progression of the character is shown though. It is like starting a book: the main character is a fresh young noob and as he (or she) has adventures they gain experience and knowledge leading to their power increasing. Finally leading to that climactic battle with the dragon.
What some people seem to be advocating is logging in and waltzing straight into the fight with the dragon. I honestly don't understand that in the context of an MMORPG. They want to be that character at the end of the story with all the power straight away - without working for it.
How long will they play this game? A month, two months? And if they stuck with the game for a year only to be killed by a noob who created his character yesterday I am positive that they would not like it.
Sure the mechanic (be it levels, or skills, vertical or horizontal) is artificial and it is used for a reason. Saying MMOs need to be like real life where the most experienced and tough warrior can be killed by some skinny weakling who "got lucky" is idiotic. I guarantee that game would have about 7 subscribers, all of whom would be mentally deficient in a major way.
Besides a hell of a lot of people actually enjoy the whole levelling process - watching the avatar grow in power and reaching the heights of power that the experienced players have. As far as I am concerned that is what MMORPGs are based on.
What you just described at the beginning of your post is precisely the paradigm of a single-player game that is played from start to finish.
What I, and other posters, are arguing is that mmorpgs operate within a different paradigm, one where there is, ideally, NO big dragon at the end that you kill and thus finish the game.
MMORPGS are, in their very essence, WITHOUT a finish. Their very financial model is completely at odds with "finishing" the game. Ideally a mmo should never EVER finish.
So, if in an "ideal" mmo there is NO big dragon at the end (you can still have dragons and hero stuff but no "end" dragon) then what is the real way to motivate players to stay in the game indefinitely? EQ type mmos are perfidious in that they give you an illusion that there is an ending to strive for and then they yank it from your nose time and time again to keep you playing. UO type mmo development has been sadly neglected in preference to this basically alien game structure EQ and WoW try to stuff into a completely different medium that is mmos. EvE online, for example, does not have this big end dragon to kill at the end and it works quite fine.
But all this is immaterial because this discussion is not about abolishing player advancement and progression. This discussion is not even about "leveling vs skills". It is about the huge power gap between starter and end players which is destructive to the social structure of the game as well as PvP etc etc and which, actually, does not serve any useful purpose.
There is no reason why a WoW lvl 80 should be 1000's of times more powerful than a level1. No reason whatsoever. The game would work perfectly as well if the power gap was say 10x. There is no reason why 100 lvl 1 characters cannot kill a single 80. WoW would work as well, if not much much better if, for example, 10 level 1s could gang up and kill that lvl 80 that dropped by to gank them.
You'd still have your progression and advancement and even levels and classes.. however a pretty large set of problems plaguing todays mmos would pretty much disappear.
It's not immature, but you are being unfair. Why should the person who has been progressing their character for many months be equal to a player who has just started?
Playing: Ever quest 2 Played: MS,GW,EVE,LOTRO,WoW,Allods,Aion, CO,CoH,CoV,TQ Digital games, Darkfall,AoC,RS2. Liked: Dungeon fight online, GW, Darkfall and, Runescape. Waiting for: Link Realms(can't get my damn beta invite) KOTOR and, GW2
In the older days RPG was never about Pvp, it's strictly PvE. Pvp was only added as an afterthought to keep highest-leveled players busy while new content is being created. Realizing this will help you understand the core of this gap problem.
Gap should be smaller, not between the highest and lowest level, but between highest and high levels. No, 100 2-yr-old babies should not be allowed to kill a veteran warrior. But 10 level 70 players should take down 1 level 80 player.
Nowadays, people just want to skip all pve stuff and get right to pvp. PvE haters should seek a different genre of mmo games, seriously.
The only way to lessen the gap is doing what GW has done, by horizontally expanding the skill reservoir. But those with more skills to choose from are still advantaged, and in small-group team pvp environment where every advantage is sought after, it's still a big gap. Large number random grouping pvping may help lessen that gap.
..why would you play an MMORPG if you're only interested.
Gee i wonder... what should you need to play an MMO if being interested isn't enough?
Knowledge of RPG mechanics(commonly mistaken as "skill")? Got that, many don't, but without acquiring it first, i would have any, so with 0 skill, I wouldnt have played mmos so i wouldnt have any and still wouldnt play. So it certainly is not that.
Brains? Most people I play with can't even calculate dps rotations, certainly not that as servers would be empty.
Being a fanboi? You must love the game before it even is out because you liked the movie.... we all know games based on movies suck 99% of the time, but theres always that very (too) vocal 1%. In fanbois you always have a small minority that just cant believe another game than the one they paid for is good but they dont matter as much. Then again, there has yet to be a game that I like 100% to come out. So it must not be that either.
Boobs? I'm much older than 10, not that either.
So tell me, if im only interested in Guild Wars 2 and FFXIV, why should that not be enough for me to try them out? I might skip FFXIV due to the engine being very limited thus making evolution of the game quite stale (proof is no jumping), but I am still interested enough to be willing to try it for a month or 2, however due to ur logic here, I shouldn't even bother... what do I need to be qualified in your little mind?
Hours played should not be such a huge determining factor on whether or not A) two players can play together in a party for rewards that are acceptable for both of them and two players can engage in PvP against eachother with an acceptable chance to win for both of them. It doesn't matter if the "maxed out" character performs better or has more options, all that matters is that the new character can contribute (PvE) and compete (PvP) to at least a small degree. The reason the OP is trying to make this point is because the way it is set up now, segregates players based on the time they've played and it's irritating to not be able to play with your friends until you "catch up" because it's not even worthwhile for them to focus on the content you're doing.
Modern MMO mechanics prevent this from happening. By saying that the above is not acceptable and that this huge power gap should be there, you are basically declaring that you forfeit the one most important aspect of gameplay: decision making.
So level's and gear should be a huge determining factor on whether or not a new character can contribute and compete marginally with other players? It should insurmountable? Are you saying that if there was a game where you only had one attack throughout the entire game, and all that determined whether or not you defeated your opponent (PvE or PvP) is your level and gear you would be fine with that? Right-click and wait to see yourself win? Of course not, you want all those fancy looking abilities that you acquire throughout your journey. Why? Well, you want them because they are the decision making mechanic of the game that makes the actual gameplay interesting. Without the decision making in each fight, these games would literally be a grind the whole way through.
What the OP is saying is that this decision making should be worth more than it is currently. He's saying that if theres a 20 level difference between you and a friend, you can't even go group with him because of modern MMO mechanics. The monsters will aggro you from a mile away, and then one shot you once they reach you and there's no way to prevent. So, it's not even worth it to attempt to group together that way and if he tries to do the content you're doing, it's a huge waste of time because there are no good rewards for him.
It's even worse in PvP because the lower level character will get one shotted by his opponent. It might take 3 or 4 attacks if the lower level character is the "Tank" class and the higher level character is the "Healer" class and it still doesn't matter because the newer character can't even hit the vet. If he does, the damage is negligible anyway. That's just the way the mechanics of the game are set up in modern MMO's.
Why should it be that way? Why should decision making lack any impact on the character's performance in battle?
Why can't David beat Goliath?
_________________________________ "Fixed it. Because that wall of text attacked me, killed me and looted my body..." -George "sniperg" Light
..why would you play an MMORPG if you're only interested.
Gee i wonder... what should you need to play an MMO if being interested isn't enough?
Knowledge of RPG mechanics(commonly mistaken as "skill")? Got that, many don't, but without acquiring it first, i would have any, so with 0 skill, I wouldnt have played mmos so i wouldnt have any and still wouldnt play. So it certainly is not that.
Brains? Most people I play with can't even calculate dps rotations, certainly not that as servers would be empty.
Being a fanboi? You must love the game before it even is out because you liked the movie.... we all know games based on movies suck 99% of the time, but theres always that very (too) vocal 1%. In fanbois you always have a small minority that just cant believe another game than the one they paid for is good but they dont matter as much. Then again, there has yet to be a game that I like 100% to come out. So it must not be that either.
Boobs? I'm much older than 10, not that either.
So tell me, if im only interested in Guild Wars 2 and FFXIV, why should that not be enough for me to try them out? I might skip FFXIV due to the engine being very limited thus making evolution of the game quite stale (proof is no jumping), but I am still interested enough to be willing to try it for a month or 2, however due to ur logic here, I shouldn't even bother... what do I need to be qualified in your little mind?
Hehehe wow.
So I will admit, I made a typo. That line was supposed to read:
..why would you play an MMORPG if you're only interested in solo play.
I corrected the line with an edit.
Even with the typo though, I think it was pretty obvious that my post was not arguing against people playing games because they are interested in them. That's just...ridiculous lol.
It's not immature, but you are being unfair. Why should the person who has been progressing their character for many months be equal to a player who has just started?
Again you're missing the point of the proposal.
The idea is NOT that they should be EQUAL. It is NOT. The idea is that the difference should be much less than the ridiuclousness we have now where a whole server of lvl1s can beat on a single max lvl without even scratching him.
Personally I think that a min level should never be able to take out a max level character. However, a gang of low level characters should be able to have a chance of toppling a max level one or replacing him in a PvE situation.
This is pretty reasonable, isn't it? It won't detract from the progression and effort and everything BUT without the ridiculousness I mentioned above. The problem is that today this power gap is so crazy that it's pointless and poses serious problems in the social and PvP aspects of the game. You CAN have your cake and eat it in this case - just balance the power gap and presto.
Hours played should not be such a huge determining factor on whether or not A) two players can play together in a party for rewards that are acceptable for both of them and two players can engage in PvP against eachother with an acceptable chance to win for both of them. It doesn't matter if the "maxed out" character performs better or has more options, all that matters is that the new character can contribute (PvE) and compete (PvP) to at least a small degree. The reason the OP is trying to make this point is because the way it is set up now, segregates players based on the time they've played and it's irritating to not be able to play with your friends until you "catch up" because it's not even worthwhile for them to focus on the content you're doing.
Why is this a problem? There are many other players in a MMO. Play with them or have your frd roll an alt.
I would much rather to maintain progression than allowing every L1 toons into the same content as a L80.
It's not immature, but you are being unfair. Why should the person who has been progressing their character for many months be equal to a player who has just started?
My first question is, why shouldn't they be?
I don't understand the idea that a player should be a "winner" (progressing, in this case) simply because they are paying to play. You're paying to get something. In my opinion, that something should be being entertained by the game. Again, in my opinion that does not neccessarily equal advancement in power. I do understand that you or others might be paying with the expectation that you gain in power, that you continue to advance, guaranteed. That's a difference in game style that we each may have. Nothing wrong either way.
In my opinion, some gain should be expected simply with time spent playing, but not to extremes. And at some point, where things are somewhat balanced between old players and new, that expectation should end. For the good of the game as a whole, for the society within the game of players, as a whole.
However, at that point, there should still be possible gains, small advantages, that can be won in the game. Not guarranteed. And by "won", I don't mean the reliable, predictable, quest for gains that everyone can do. Think of it as sort of a contest between all the players, and only one can win, but with many of these contests so that many can win. The contests can be like races, like puzzles, like exploratory discoveries, and come in many other forms. These contests can be hidden, unknown, or in the form of a one time quest.
But the whole point to limiting the power gaps is to allow the game to have a more social atmosphere. To allow for players to work together for greater goals. To give players the freedom to play the entire game world the way they would like. And always be challenged in doing so. And never be a god among lower zones.
Hours played should not be such a huge determining factor on whether or not A) two players can play together in a party for rewards that are acceptable for both of them and two players can engage in PvP against eachother with an acceptable chance to win for both of them. It doesn't matter if the "maxed out" character performs better or has more options, all that matters is that the new character can contribute (PvE) and compete (PvP) to at least a small degree. The reason the OP is trying to make this point is because the way it is set up now, segregates players based on the time they've played and it's irritating to not be able to play with your friends until you "catch up" because it's not even worthwhile for them to focus on the content you're doing.
Why is this a problem? There are many other players in a MMO. Play with them or have your frd roll an alt.
I would much rather to maintain progression than allowing every L1 toons into the same content as a L80.
The having your friend roll an alt thing is such a limiting solution. You're basically forcing players to play characters they don't really want to play just so they can play with their friends. And then if they grow to like those characters, they can't even play them when their friends aren't online for fear of outleveling their friends.
I have a cousin that plays MMORPGs and we always wind up getting the other one into whatever game we are playing. The problem is, we rarely ever get to actually play the game together because of level disparity. I will invariably have more time than him to play, or he will have more time than me to play and one will outlevel the other.
I remember when we used to play UO together, we could just meet up and play together anytime. Why? Because there wasn't a ridiculous power gap. There was a power gap, but it wasn't to the point where a lower level character was just a liability.
Hours played should not be such a huge determining factor on whether or not A) two players can play together in a party for rewards that are acceptable for both of them and two players can engage in PvP against eachother with an acceptable chance to win for both of them. It doesn't matter if the "maxed out" character performs better or has more options, all that matters is that the new character can contribute (PvE) and compete (PvP) to at least a small degree. The reason the OP is trying to make this point is because the way it is set up now, segregates players based on the time they've played and it's irritating to not be able to play with your friends until you "catch up" because it's not even worthwhile for them to focus on the content you're doing.
Why is this a problem? There are many other players in a MMO. Play with them or have your frd roll an alt.
I would much rather to maintain progression than allowing every L1 toons into the same content as a L80.
Don't oversimplify it. It's already been described (earlier in this thread) that the ways quests and such are set up there is very little incentive to group up with strangers. It's actually less convenient than soloing.
Let's just imagine that you manage to make friends with a stranger and you start questing with that person. Then, the next few days you have a lot of work to do (in real life) and you can't play. So three or four days later you log in and find that your questing buddy has been playing the entire time and now he is 6 levels above you. Your quests no longer line-up, you might not even be in the same area and you're stuck in the undesireable situation that the OP is trying to eliminate by proposing that the power gap goes away.
Plus, the OP says nothing about eliminating progression. I don't know where you people are getting this from except maybe jumping to conclusions.
_________________________________ "Fixed it. Because that wall of text attacked me, killed me and looted my body..." -George "sniperg" Light
Look to the example of Magic the Gathering as an example. If you don't know how Magic works, here is a basic summary that illustrates the point of the OP: In MtG, you have a deck of cards (60 cards for tournament play). Someone with years of experience and cards to back it up can create a deck from their huge library of cards. Another player, maybe even someone with only a few weeks worth of experience with the game, can also create a deck but their options will be limited if they haven't obtained as many.
This doesn't mean he will, for sure, lose to the guy that has been playing for years because if he plans better and he plays smarter he can still defeat his opponent. He is at a disadvantage, but this disadvantage is not SO HUGE that he has no chance of winning at all. In the modern world of MMORPG's, a similar scenario (Lvl 60 vs Lvl 5 for example
I only see this logic working in strat games or card games....
"We got rid of the trinity." How'd you do that? "Now everyone can heal." Sounds like you just took the mechanic and spread it thin. "Well no, there's one class that can do it better than others." I see, so they're healers. "No. They're.." -mind asplode-
Look to the example of Magic the Gathering as an example. If you don't know how Magic works, here is a basic summary that illustrates the point of the OP: In MtG, you have a deck of cards (60 cards for tournament play). Someone with years of experience and cards to back it up can create a deck from their huge library of cards. Another player, maybe even someone with only a few weeks worth of experience with the game, can also create a deck but their options will be limited if they haven't obtained as many.
This doesn't mean he will, for sure, lose to the guy that has been playing for years because if he plans better and he plays smarter he can still defeat his opponent. He is at a disadvantage, but this disadvantage is not SO HUGE that he has no chance of winning at all. In the modern world of MMORPG's, a similar scenario (Lvl 60 vs Lvl 5 for example
I only see this logic working in strat games or card games....
Works in Guild Wars...it's more or less the same thing. You can acquire unlimited skills, but you can only equip eight(?) at a time.
If you have a game where as a person who has played for months you don't have a very significant power increase over a character that is a few days old then you lose the achievement factor. That means people will not stay with the game because they are not attached to their characters since they haven't achieved with those characters.
The massive growth in power is actually what keeps people attached to the game and has them continue playing. In a combat game that is going to be skills/ability to survive/kill creatures etc. So yes your newblet will always be a weak little guy who can barely kill a boar when he starts, where as someone who has been playing for a while can go agro all of the creatures in your lowbie area and down them all in seconds. The feeling of acheiving and growing is what drives MMOs, take it out and the game dies.
The real issue is players constantly feeling like they are competeing with other players. They get upset when other people level faster/have better items/are more powerful. If you view MMOs in that way, and you don't have a lot of time to devote to MMOs, you will forever feel frustrated. Game at your own pace and don't be mad/jealous of the things in game that players who dedicate more time to the game have over you. Time spent playing should = rewards/power earned. Otherwise people have no reason to keep logging in and playing, since they gain nothing from doing so.
Find a guild with a more lax play schedule, and one who likes to help its members level and you will be fine. I don't join guilds much at all anymore in MMOs because so many take the game too seriously and have drama, I play games to get away from drama and have fun. But when I do join a guild I actually often times find helping lowbies get through quests as more enjoyable then leveling my character, there are more people like me out there so just find them. In LotRO, I used to go to the lower level areas just to run complete strangers through the dungeons that I remembered being hard at that level, I didn't know the people at all but it was something I had fun doing. Find what is fun for you in the game and don't focus on "catching up" and you will enjoy gaming much more.
2 reasons why the power gap will likely remain a standard
1. Servers cannot handle too many players in one area. The less power gap you have, the more players are able to band together in one area, causing lag and server crashes.
2. Many players like to be exceedingly more powerful than everyone else. To them, the power gap can never be wide enough.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch in which something is very popular, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely you would have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reason there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely ou will have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reasons there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
Well Ultima Online didn't have the power gap and it did fine with spreading the players out. I agree that if you release an expansion with a single area it may be overcrowded, but you just need to take that into consideration and add larger areas with an expansion. UO had several expansions that added landmasses and once again, never had a problem.
There were so many places to go that people just spread themselves out.
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely ou will have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reasons there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
Well Ultima Online didn't have the power gap and it did fine with spreading the players out. I agree that if you release an expansion with a single area it may be overcrowded, but you just need to take that into consideration and add larger areas with an expansion. UO had several expansions that added landmasses and once again, never had a problem.
There were so many places to go that people just spread themselves out.
Just one example, when World of Warcraft opened the Honor system, there were swarms of players in Hillsbrad fighting between Tarren Mill and Southshore. This put an enormous strain on the servers. I can only imagine what that would have been like if the lower levels were able and willing to partcipate in those battles. It would have been a lot of fun, but would it have been playable? The solution? Instanced battlegrounds. I know there were several other issues, such as faction imbalance that made separating players by instancing more appealing, but I would say lag played a good part in player separation in that case.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely ou will have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reasons there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
Well Ultima Online didn't have the power gap and it did fine with spreading the players out. I agree that if you release an expansion with a single area it may be overcrowded, but you just need to take that into consideration and add larger areas with an expansion. UO had several expansions that added landmasses and once again, never had a problem.
There were so many places to go that people just spread themselves out.
Just one example, when World of Warcraft opened the Honor system, there were swarms of players in Hillsbrad fighting between Tarren Mill and Southshore. This put an enormous strain on the servers. I can only imagine what that would have been like if the lower levels were able and willing to partcipate in those battles. It would have been a lot of fun, but would it have been playable? The solution? Instanced battlegrounds. I know there were several other issues, such as faction imbalance, but I would say lag played a good part in player separation in that case.
Yah I'm not disagreeing that zone overcrowding happens, I've experienced it tons of times. But WoW is a level stratified game and you just gave an example of zone over-crowding in it. Whenever you add some highly desired content and put it into one zone, there's a good chance it will happen. I just don't see the corellation between having no level stratification and zone overcrowding.
There are plenty of games without level stratification, and they don't have any more overcrowding problems than the stratified games...I would argue that they have even less actually.
It's not immature, but you are being unfair. Why should the person who has been progressing their character for many months be equal to a player who has just started?
And you aren't paying attention
No one is asking for EQUALITY, simply not as massive a gap
I don't care how long you play you should not be immune to a lower level, you should at least need to respond to them and interact to win
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely ou will have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reasons there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
Well Ultima Online didn't have the power gap and it did fine with spreading the players out. I agree that if you release an expansion with a single area it may be overcrowded, but you just need to take that into consideration and add larger areas with an expansion. UO had several expansions that added landmasses and once again, never had a problem.
There were so many places to go that people just spread themselves out.
Just one example, when World of Warcraft opened the Honor system, there were swarms of players in Hillsbrad fighting between Tarren Mill and Southshore. This put an enormous strain on the servers. I can only imagine what that would have been like if the lower levels were able and willing to partcipate in those battles. It would have been a lot of fun, but would it have been playable? The solution? Instanced battlegrounds. I know there were several other issues, such as faction imbalance, but I would say lag played a good part in player separation in that case.
Yah I'm not disagreeing that zone overcrowding happens, I've experienced it tons of times. But WoW is a level stratified game and you just gave an example of zone over-crowding in it. Whenever you add some highly desired content and put it into one zone, there's a good chance it will happen. I just don't see the corellation between having no level stratification and zone overcrowding.
There are plenty of games without level stratification, and they don't have any more overcrowding problems than the stratified games...I would argue that they have even less actually.
I'm not saying that games with no level statification suffer more from this. I was using a specific example of what COULD happen in any game if there is some new, popular area, and everyone of every "level" was able to participate. If there were no level stratification or power gap, it would likely be worse. That's all I was saying.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The "power gap" is not the problem. It's the maturity gap.
The maturity gap is when someone logs on to a new game and expects their character to be as powerful as one that someone else has been improving on for 6 months to a year or more. Or else that they should be able to do in 3 days what took that guy six months.
Instead of settling in and improving their character the same way as that other guy did, the player with the maturity deficit demands the game be made easier and the whole playing field leveled so that the guy who has been playing for a year or more has nothing to show for it.
Now there are "buddy systems' and similar devices whereby players many levels apart can group together. That's fine. But suggesting that newbies should be on par with veterans of a game is just the latest iteration of "I don't want to play I just want everything handed to me now."
MMORPGs are not difficult, they cannot be made easier. They are just tedious. Tedious does not equal difficult. Playing Starcraft multiplayer against an equally skilled player is difficult. Computer programming can be difficult. Grinding orcs for 2 months is not difficult it is tedious.
You are literally doing the same thing over and over again. You are basically an assembly line worker. I do not think that asking that a game be made "fun" is immature.
reading this and your OP make me think that you don't actually enjoy MMORPG's & the mechanics that the genre brings. It's as if you like pop music but find yourself listening to jazz, making suggestions on how jazz should sound more "pop" like.
I think for a lot of mmorpg players the process of advancement, in a measurable and clearly defined way, is one of the fundamental points of an RPG, remove that and the game is no longer a real "rpg".
This has probably been pointed out already, but if you lessen the gear gap, you will have more players playing in a single area. It has been proven time and again in several different games that MMO servers cannot handle that sort of strain. It's unfortunate but stability comes before social gameplay. Perhaps one day some developers will design an engine that can support 100 players in the same area all casting spells, where the graphics and social environments do not suffer.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch in which something is very popular, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely you would have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reason there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
What happens is instancing.... there are already copies of zones on each server, no reason not to allow copies of zones on the same server
Many games use instancing for server load balancing, in fact almost all of them do so since it was started by anarchy online nearly a decade ago
Comments
What you just described at the beginning of your post is precisely the paradigm of a single-player game that is played from start to finish.
What I, and other posters, are arguing is that mmorpgs operate within a different paradigm, one where there is, ideally, NO big dragon at the end that you kill and thus finish the game.
MMORPGS are, in their very essence, WITHOUT a finish. Their very financial model is completely at odds with "finishing" the game. Ideally a mmo should never EVER finish.
So, if in an "ideal" mmo there is NO big dragon at the end (you can still have dragons and hero stuff but no "end" dragon) then what is the real way to motivate players to stay in the game indefinitely? EQ type mmos are perfidious in that they give you an illusion that there is an ending to strive for and then they yank it from your nose time and time again to keep you playing. UO type mmo development has been sadly neglected in preference to this basically alien game structure EQ and WoW try to stuff into a completely different medium that is mmos. EvE online, for example, does not have this big end dragon to kill at the end and it works quite fine.
But all this is immaterial because this discussion is not about abolishing player advancement and progression. This discussion is not even about "leveling vs skills". It is about the huge power gap between starter and end players which is destructive to the social structure of the game as well as PvP etc etc and which, actually, does not serve any useful purpose.
There is no reason why a WoW lvl 80 should be 1000's of times more powerful than a level1. No reason whatsoever. The game would work perfectly as well if the power gap was say 10x. There is no reason why 100 lvl 1 characters cannot kill a single 80. WoW would work as well, if not much much better if, for example, 10 level 1s could gang up and kill that lvl 80 that dropped by to gank them.
You'd still have your progression and advancement and even levels and classes.. however a pretty large set of problems plaguing todays mmos would pretty much disappear.
That's the whole point.
It's not immature, but you are being unfair. Why should the person who has been progressing their character for many months be equal to a player who has just started?
Playing: Ever quest 2
Played: MS,GW,EVE,LOTRO,WoW,Allods,Aion, CO,CoH,CoV,TQ Digital games, Darkfall,AoC,RS2.
Liked: Dungeon fight online, GW, Darkfall and, Runescape.
Waiting for: Link Realms(can't get my damn beta invite) KOTOR and, GW2
In the older days RPG was never about Pvp, it's strictly PvE. Pvp was only added as an afterthought to keep highest-leveled players busy while new content is being created. Realizing this will help you understand the core of this gap problem.
Gap should be smaller, not between the highest and lowest level, but between highest and high levels. No, 100 2-yr-old babies should not be allowed to kill a veteran warrior. But 10 level 70 players should take down 1 level 80 player.
Nowadays, people just want to skip all pve stuff and get right to pvp. PvE haters should seek a different genre of mmo games, seriously.
The only way to lessen the gap is doing what GW has done, by horizontally expanding the skill reservoir. But those with more skills to choose from are still advantaged, and in small-group team pvp environment where every advantage is sought after, it's still a big gap. Large number random grouping pvping may help lessen that gap.
Gee i wonder... what should you need to play an MMO if being interested isn't enough?
Knowledge of RPG mechanics(commonly mistaken as "skill")? Got that, many don't, but without acquiring it first, i would have any, so with 0 skill, I wouldnt have played mmos so i wouldnt have any and still wouldnt play. So it certainly is not that.
Brains? Most people I play with can't even calculate dps rotations, certainly not that as servers would be empty.
Being a fanboi? You must love the game before it even is out because you liked the movie.... we all know games based on movies suck 99% of the time, but theres always that very (too) vocal 1%. In fanbois you always have a small minority that just cant believe another game than the one they paid for is good but they dont matter as much. Then again, there has yet to be a game that I like 100% to come out. So it must not be that either.
Boobs? I'm much older than 10, not that either.
So tell me, if im only interested in Guild Wars 2 and FFXIV, why should that not be enough for me to try them out? I might skip FFXIV due to the engine being very limited thus making evolution of the game quite stale (proof is no jumping), but I am still interested enough to be willing to try it for a month or 2, however due to ur logic here, I shouldn't even bother... what do I need to be qualified in your little mind?
A lot of you guys are still missing the point.
Hours played should not be such a huge determining factor on whether or not A) two players can play together in a party for rewards that are acceptable for both of them and
two players can engage in PvP against eachother with an acceptable chance to win for both of them. It doesn't matter if the "maxed out" character performs better or has more options, all that matters is that the new character can contribute (PvE) and compete (PvP) to at least a small degree. The reason the OP is trying to make this point is because the way it is set up now, segregates players based on the time they've played and it's irritating to not be able to play with your friends until you "catch up" because it's not even worthwhile for them to focus on the content you're doing.
Modern MMO mechanics prevent this from happening. By saying that the above is not acceptable and that this huge power gap should be there, you are basically declaring that you forfeit the one most important aspect of gameplay: decision making.
So level's and gear should be a huge determining factor on whether or not a new character can contribute and compete marginally with other players? It should insurmountable? Are you saying that if there was a game where you only had one attack throughout the entire game, and all that determined whether or not you defeated your opponent (PvE or PvP) is your level and gear you would be fine with that? Right-click and wait to see yourself win? Of course not, you want all those fancy looking abilities that you acquire throughout your journey. Why? Well, you want them because they are the decision making mechanic of the game that makes the actual gameplay interesting. Without the decision making in each fight, these games would literally be a grind the whole way through.
What the OP is saying is that this decision making should be worth more than it is currently. He's saying that if theres a 20 level difference between you and a friend, you can't even go group with him because of modern MMO mechanics. The monsters will aggro you from a mile away, and then one shot you once they reach you and there's no way to prevent. So, it's not even worth it to attempt to group together that way and if he tries to do the content you're doing, it's a huge waste of time because there are no good rewards for him.
It's even worse in PvP because the lower level character will get one shotted by his opponent. It might take 3 or 4 attacks if the lower level character is the "Tank" class and the higher level character is the "Healer" class and it still doesn't matter because the newer character can't even hit the vet. If he does, the damage is negligible anyway. That's just the way the mechanics of the game are set up in modern MMO's.
Why should it be that way? Why should decision making lack any impact on the character's performance in battle?
Why can't David beat Goliath?
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"Fixed it. Because that wall of text attacked me, killed me and looted my body..."
-George "sniperg" Light
Hehehe wow.
So I will admit, I made a typo. That line was supposed to read:
..why would you play an MMORPG if you're only interested in solo play.
I corrected the line with an edit.
Even with the typo though, I think it was pretty obvious that my post was not arguing against people playing games because they are interested in them. That's just...ridiculous lol.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Again you're missing the point of the proposal.
The idea is NOT that they should be EQUAL. It is NOT. The idea is that the difference should be much less than the ridiuclousness we have now where a whole server of lvl1s can beat on a single max lvl without even scratching him.
Personally I think that a min level should never be able to take out a max level character. However, a gang of low level characters should be able to have a chance of toppling a max level one or replacing him in a PvE situation.
This is pretty reasonable, isn't it? It won't detract from the progression and effort and everything BUT without the ridiculousness I mentioned above. The problem is that today this power gap is so crazy that it's pointless and poses serious problems in the social and PvP aspects of the game. You CAN have your cake and eat it in this case - just balance the power gap and presto.
Hours played should not be such a huge determining factor on whether or not A) two players can play together in a party for rewards that are acceptable for both of them and
two players can engage in PvP against eachother with an acceptable chance to win for both of them. It doesn't matter if the "maxed out" character performs better or has more options, all that matters is that the new character can contribute (PvE) and compete (PvP) to at least a small degree. The reason the OP is trying to make this point is because the way it is set up now, segregates players based on the time they've played and it's irritating to not be able to play with your friends until you "catch up" because it's not even worthwhile for them to focus on the content you're doing.
Why is this a problem? There are many other players in a MMO. Play with them or have your frd roll an alt.
I would much rather to maintain progression than allowing every L1 toons into the same content as a L80.
My first question is, why shouldn't they be?
I don't understand the idea that a player should be a "winner" (progressing, in this case) simply because they are paying to play. You're paying to get something. In my opinion, that something should be being entertained by the game. Again, in my opinion that does not neccessarily equal advancement in power. I do understand that you or others might be paying with the expectation that you gain in power, that you continue to advance, guaranteed. That's a difference in game style that we each may have. Nothing wrong either way.
In my opinion, some gain should be expected simply with time spent playing, but not to extremes. And at some point, where things are somewhat balanced between old players and new, that expectation should end. For the good of the game as a whole, for the society within the game of players, as a whole.
However, at that point, there should still be possible gains, small advantages, that can be won in the game. Not guarranteed. And by "won", I don't mean the reliable, predictable, quest for gains that everyone can do. Think of it as sort of a contest between all the players, and only one can win, but with many of these contests so that many can win. The contests can be like races, like puzzles, like exploratory discoveries, and come in many other forms. These contests can be hidden, unknown, or in the form of a one time quest.
But the whole point to limiting the power gaps is to allow the game to have a more social atmosphere. To allow for players to work together for greater goals. To give players the freedom to play the entire game world the way they would like. And always be challenged in doing so. And never be a god among lower zones.
Once upon a time....
The having your friend roll an alt thing is such a limiting solution. You're basically forcing players to play characters they don't really want to play just so they can play with their friends. And then if they grow to like those characters, they can't even play them when their friends aren't online for fear of outleveling their friends.
I have a cousin that plays MMORPGs and we always wind up getting the other one into whatever game we are playing. The problem is, we rarely ever get to actually play the game together because of level disparity. I will invariably have more time than him to play, or he will have more time than me to play and one will outlevel the other.
I remember when we used to play UO together, we could just meet up and play together anytime. Why? Because there wasn't a ridiculous power gap. There was a power gap, but it wasn't to the point where a lower level character was just a liability.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Don't oversimplify it. It's already been described (earlier in this thread) that the ways quests and such are set up there is very little incentive to group up with strangers. It's actually less convenient than soloing.
Let's just imagine that you manage to make friends with a stranger and you start questing with that person. Then, the next few days you have a lot of work to do (in real life) and you can't play. So three or four days later you log in and find that your questing buddy has been playing the entire time and now he is 6 levels above you. Your quests no longer line-up, you might not even be in the same area and you're stuck in the undesireable situation that the OP is trying to eliminate by proposing that the power gap goes away.
Plus, the OP says nothing about eliminating progression. I don't know where you people are getting this from except maybe jumping to conclusions.
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"Fixed it. Because that wall of text attacked me, killed me and looted my body..."
-George "sniperg" Light
"We got rid of the trinity." How'd you do that? "Now everyone can heal." Sounds like you just took the mechanic and spread it thin. "Well no, there's one class that can do it better than others." I see, so they're healers. "No. They're.." -mind asplode-
Works in Guild Wars...it's more or less the same thing. You can acquire unlimited skills, but you can only equip eight(?) at a time.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
If you have a game where as a person who has played for months you don't have a very significant power increase over a character that is a few days old then you lose the achievement factor. That means people will not stay with the game because they are not attached to their characters since they haven't achieved with those characters.
The massive growth in power is actually what keeps people attached to the game and has them continue playing. In a combat game that is going to be skills/ability to survive/kill creatures etc. So yes your newblet will always be a weak little guy who can barely kill a boar when he starts, where as someone who has been playing for a while can go agro all of the creatures in your lowbie area and down them all in seconds. The feeling of acheiving and growing is what drives MMOs, take it out and the game dies.
The real issue is players constantly feeling like they are competeing with other players. They get upset when other people level faster/have better items/are more powerful. If you view MMOs in that way, and you don't have a lot of time to devote to MMOs, you will forever feel frustrated. Game at your own pace and don't be mad/jealous of the things in game that players who dedicate more time to the game have over you. Time spent playing should = rewards/power earned. Otherwise people have no reason to keep logging in and playing, since they gain nothing from doing so.
Find a guild with a more lax play schedule, and one who likes to help its members level and you will be fine. I don't join guilds much at all anymore in MMOs because so many take the game too seriously and have drama, I play games to get away from drama and have fun. But when I do join a guild I actually often times find helping lowbies get through quests as more enjoyable then leveling my character, there are more people like me out there so just find them. In LotRO, I used to go to the lower level areas just to run complete strangers through the dungeons that I remembered being hard at that level, I didn't know the people at all but it was something I had fun doing. Find what is fun for you in the game and don't focus on "catching up" and you will enjoy gaming much more.
2 reasons why the power gap will likely remain a standard
1. Servers cannot handle too many players in one area. The less power gap you have, the more players are able to band together in one area, causing lag and server crashes.
2. Many players like to be exceedingly more powerful than everyone else. To them, the power gap can never be wide enough.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I actually think the opposite is true. When you have a game that enforces strict zone/level pairings, you have VERY limited options. For example, if you are level 1-10, you can only hunting in 2 or 3 areas. In the beginning of the game, this results in these areas being SWARMED by newbies. Conversely, when most players are high level, the high level areas get swarmed. This happens because the players have no other options. They are pigeonholed into certain areas by the game mechanic. Whnever the distribution of levels gets heavily skewed, you get a big concentration of players in one area.
On the other hand, if you can go just about anywhere at any level and be productive, then if an area is too crowded you can just move on. The whole game world is open to you. As long as the game developers don't stupidly put all the resources in one or two areas, the players should naturally spread themselves out. It's basic encomics, supply and demand.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
What would happen if, once there is a new expansion or patch in which something is very popular, and everyone is able to participate, no matter the level? It is likely you would have 1000's of players in the same area doing the same things. MMO servers are notorious for not being able to handle that sort of thing, which is one reason there are a lot of instances and other mechanics that separate players.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Well Ultima Online didn't have the power gap and it did fine with spreading the players out. I agree that if you release an expansion with a single area it may be overcrowded, but you just need to take that into consideration and add larger areas with an expansion. UO had several expansions that added landmasses and once again, never had a problem.
There were so many places to go that people just spread themselves out.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Just one example, when World of Warcraft opened the Honor system, there were swarms of players in Hillsbrad fighting between Tarren Mill and Southshore. This put an enormous strain on the servers. I can only imagine what that would have been like if the lower levels were able and willing to partcipate in those battles. It would have been a lot of fun, but would it have been playable? The solution? Instanced battlegrounds. I know there were several other issues, such as faction imbalance that made separating players by instancing more appealing, but I would say lag played a good part in player separation in that case.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Yah I'm not disagreeing that zone overcrowding happens, I've experienced it tons of times. But WoW is a level stratified game and you just gave an example of zone over-crowding in it. Whenever you add some highly desired content and put it into one zone, there's a good chance it will happen. I just don't see the corellation between having no level stratification and zone overcrowding.
There are plenty of games without level stratification, and they don't have any more overcrowding problems than the stratified games...I would argue that they have even less actually.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
And you aren't paying attention
No one is asking for EQUALITY, simply not as massive a gap
I don't care how long you play you should not be immune to a lower level, you should at least need to respond to them and interact to win
I'm not saying that games with no level statification suffer more from this. I was using a specific example of what COULD happen in any game if there is some new, popular area, and everyone of every "level" was able to participate. If there were no level stratification or power gap, it would likely be worse. That's all I was saying.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Those reasons seems pretty easy to solve. If the player actually have more fun with large gap it is harder but these things are small issues.
I really don't mind some games with smaller gaps.
And please take away some of the posts in your quoth, it takes makes the thread unreadable without any benefit.
reading this and your OP make me think that you don't actually enjoy MMORPG's & the mechanics that the genre brings. It's as if you like pop music but find yourself listening to jazz, making suggestions on how jazz should sound more "pop" like.
I think for a lot of mmorpg players the process of advancement, in a measurable and clearly defined way, is one of the fundamental points of an RPG, remove that and the game is no longer a real "rpg".
What happens is instancing.... there are already copies of zones on each server, no reason not to allow copies of zones on the same server
Many games use instancing for server load balancing, in fact almost all of them do so since it was started by anarchy online nearly a decade ago