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A Different Game Design (Think Outside of the Box)
qombi
Member UncommonPosts: 1,170
Leveling in current MMOs is pointless. The developer designs all this content that is just rushed through to get to this magical "end game". It has gotten to the point that the developers make leveling so fast and pointless you may ask yourself when playing why does it even exist?
Players get to the end game in no time and begin the "real meat and potatoes" of the game. Players begin to play through small 5 man dungeons and larger raid content to gather equipment to improve their characters. After doing so the player usually sits around bored waiting for the next patch to role out some more dungeon content.
Why not remove leveling in the traditional sense? If it isn't going to count for beans, "pretend" to remove it. Developers need to trick the user into believing they are always playing epic end game encounters. Here is where my ideas come into play.
Leveling is no more, you start the game in a world were all monsters are relevant to your level. You are in this tier until you gather a certain set epic set of dungeon gear and are keyed after completing a set amount of content. After doing so you are able to cross the portal/door/path or whatever is currently locked preventing you from progressing to the next tier. The next tier there will be similar requirements. This is the overview of what it takes.
There will be several dungeon sets needed to reach those final epic 5 man/raid dungeons to get the epic set of dungeon gear. Before stepping in dungeons though you will need to perform multiple quest in the world or fight named monsters or PvP or find crafting material to create a decent set of starter equipment (1st Gear Set). I want multiple of ways of obtaining the same thing so everyone can do what they like to gear up.
Once you have the 1st Gear Set, you will be eligible to enter the 1st dungeons (5 mans, 10/15/20/25 man raids, goal oriented PvP (Both sides will basically have elite mobs you have to keep alive to complete the instance zone. The NPCs through out the instance zone will engage the other NPCs and you!, only one side can win.) Over time you will have to complete a number of dungeons/arenas/instanced zones and build your 2nd Gear Set to be eligible to enter the 2nd dungeons/arenas/instanced zones etc.
I don't want it linear, you have to complete many of these 1st but not all and obtaining your gear sets will not be a quick task. All content will be elite in nature, some more difficult than others. The chance for gear set items to drop will be relevant to the difficulty. There may be even some long quest chains for solo that has a low chance of dropping set pieces.
Only players of certain classes will be eligible to roll on their set pieces and will not be able to all if they have that set piece already (equipped, in inventory, in the bank, etc). Items will be no drop and not for sale. Only thing money would be good for is repairing your gear and buying potions/food/water for vendors. There would be no item transfer in this game.
There could be multiple dungeon sets 1-25 or whatever to finally getting the epic dungeon set that will allow you to enter tier 2. This tier would be set up similarly. I hope you enjoyed reading. I would rather play end game content all the time if leveling is now pointless.
Lastly, yes this is a gear based game. The required sets are needed for the next dungeons or you would die. The gear is leaps and bounds better than the set before. If you walked into a 2nd level dungeon with 1st level gear, you would be smashed to bits. And on top of this, you can't because to unlock the next dungeons requires meeting requirements including having your set.
You have all abilities and different talent builds available to you at the beginning of the game for your chosen class. You may change your talents when in a city.
Comments
First off I do agree that in most games the leveling process really is silly and new concepts should be tried to change that. Though I really don't think that this approach is one that I personally would enjoy. In the end it in my eyes isn't even any different. You still play within certain areas at a time only, although it is based on your "gear level" rather than "character level". You still plow through content (even if it might be grindy) and eventually it will get terribly hard for new players to scratch together the manpower to run the stuff they need to progress because everyone else is working on higher tiers.
Progressing in such a game design sounds even harder. I'm nobody wishing for easy and quick progression but a shortage of people to group with that is the result of game design once the flow of new players decreases, should not be an issue. If a new concept is made then this difficulty should definitely be taken into account.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This is precisely why the OP's idea won't work. It works great for everyone who enters the game in the first generation, but the subsequent generations simply don't have anyone to 'progress' with. After the 3rd or so generation of new players, the game dies due to attrition.
I do agree with the OP about the pointless leveling. It's almost like a prerequisite to see if the player wants to really play the game. But a gear grind is almost as pointless. I don't know if I've seen a good solution that removes the repetitive grinding for levels, faction or gear and still retains a degree of progression and accomplishment that are the 'rewards' of RP games.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
There could be ways to encourage people to re-run these older dungeon levels. The person with a higher gear set when entering a different lower level would have their gear stats reduced to match the level of that dungeon. When running lower tier dungeons the person would have a chance of their needed gear set dropping just as they would at their dungeon level. No content level would be harder than the next and with gear downgrading it would still be challenging. Everyone would already have all their skills at every gear level because there is no leveling.
This way all content in the game is always relevant to everyone. The person at dungeon level 10 may have enjoyed running one of the dungeons at level 1 and so on. Also please do not forget I did mention a variety of different content to obtain your sets; solo, 5 man, 10/15/20 man raids, and PvP content. PvP would never be imbalanced because of gear. If you enter a PvP dungeon level 5 and you are working on dungeon level 9, your gear would be downgraded to match gear of that level temporarily. You still would be recognizable higher because of the looks of the gear but that would be it.