I always looked at levels kinda like I am aging......Level 8 was kinda like being 8 years old....I was better than I was at 5, but not as good as I will be at 12....Unfortunately that only works up to a certain point......Level 85 would be pretty painful if we use the age reference.....
Thats actually not so bad because it demonstrates that if you start something like that, it also tends to end when the numbers run out or get long in the tooth.
Nowadays the levelling is usually so fast it seems almost dangerous to put the "end" aspect into the players minds. What do we see? Rush to endgame and then be disappointed with lack of content.
Isn't that a good thing? Make leveling so fast, it essentially removed the level.
I'm more troubled by the gear treadmill and alternate advancement. It just seemed like an endless amount of carrot and you'll never reach the end.
I always looked at levels kinda like I am aging......Level 8 was kinda like being 8 years old....I was better than I was at 5, but not as good as I will be at 12....Unfortunately that only works up to a certain point......Level 85 would be pretty painful if we use the age reference.....
Thats actually not so bad because it demonstrates that if you start something like that, it also tends to end when the numbers run out or get long in the tooth.
Nowadays the levelling is usually so fast it seems almost dangerous to put the "end" aspect into the players minds. What do we see? Rush to endgame and then be disappointed with lack of content.
Isn't that a good thing? Make leveling so fast, it essentially removed the level.
I'm more troubled by the gear treadmill and alternate advancement. It just seemed like an endless amount of carrot and you'll never reach the end.
Its a terrible thing because in many cases from a players perspective the game could be finished as soon as you get that last level. I doesnt have to be real, just perception. That can easily happen before the next billing cycle. That's a mmo developers worst nightmare.
I believe in every way the "build" method ( eso has a build method for equipment for instance compared to wow ever obsolete method) is superior.
so why not apply the superior system to other things like building your base, building your skills and even building your character.
I would also add survival elements because they really do add atmosphere to the game.
My opinion is that part of the death of mmos is the over reliance on levelling and levelling mechanisms instead of focusing on making the worlds...more worldly. To me levelling is a crutch to keep players interested when designs are very weak and shallow, and covers up the general lack of interactivity with the world.
are you sick of "levelling" yet? I am.
Regardless
of how worldly a MMORPG is characters must still progress in it,
requiring a mechanic for that whether it be overall levels, based on
skill use, or whatever else.
So, if you are sick of advancement over time, whatever levelling mechanic underlies it, MMORPGs are not for you.
Oh im not against a character progressing, but you may be right. MMORPG's have become boring and stale.
At least we have survival games. Only a matter of time before theres a MMOSG.
And what's the difference between MMOSG and survival games?
I remember people talking much about warz dayz, how it would revolutionize if they make a mmorpg out of it.
The way I see mmorpg right now is everything is build upon character progression which never end. So people just keep grinding forever. And mmorpg players are seemingly in this infinite loop on chasing carrots.
the difference is one of scope and content. MMO's usually have regular content and larger scope with permanent servers. So a mmosg is just a bigger survival game.
You have to waste your time at something. My other hobbies can only get me so far . Especially in the winter. If you read anything I write you obviously know I don't chase carrots or care at all for those kind of systems that exploit human weaknesses.
For me its more of a downtime filler. My expectations are low. I know they are poorly designed but they are still a bit of fun and its really the only place I can chill with my buds who live far away. So in that regard its worthwhile, as much as anything is these days as we descend into the abyss.
The carrot mechanism is broken with that model. It deceptively causes players to play improperly by over promoting the linear progression.
I think mmorpg are generally unhealthy. It exploit the worse human behavior. I keep telling you to check people's playing hour because for many it is an extreme unhealthy amount.
As unfortunate as it is, most of the people playing mmorpg right now are carrot chaser.
For those that don't want to do it.... and thankfully I think it is the majority, they simply play other genre.
I think the detest of linear progression is many people simply don't have that much time. But they actually do want progression, just easily achievable. But unfortunately the baseliner for most mmorpg are crazy addicted gamer who are like mice running in a wheel.
I never liked it. Progression in most MMORPG is pointless. You either zooming through it because for most people it sucks. Or you are grinding just to be grinding.
When you zoom through the end game is the real game which is like 90% repetition of a tiny portion of content. So you give players familiar but quick and trivial gameplay. Then you have some end game based on tiny portion of content with half that a majority don't participate.
Then you have the grind method. A minority of players like this. It can bring a sense of community because you have players doing an activity together throughout the whole game. To me it's the most boring way it can be done.
These are the themepark only and EQ style games. They are IMO limited and more than 20-15 years later predictable and stale. It makes the world a surface level event no matter how pretty or detailed.
At the end of the day it seems like the genre is packed with stuff players don't want to do. It's work or rite of passage. Some like this. The con is the genre's growth with it has come at the cost of lack of fundamental change and a casual base that doesn't really like most aspect of the genre.
I rather have the genre had gone sandbox and integrated developer and procedural content. "Leveling" would be an activity of learning your character only. End game is building your "castle," specializing your equipment and character and respond to threats, discovery and quest spun up by developers and the systems.
A raid should be something special. Your town and surround civilization NPCs complain and get quest about minions and sightings of raid boss. Interruptions to local trade. You scout and find likely location. You form raid. You kill boss and split unique resources to be used to craft and unique one of a kind drops. It's done.
I would actually save "raids" ( traditional go kill something raids) for one time community events where it doesn't matter who does the killing, everyone benefits in some way. If the task isn't completed, no one benefits.
This way you can have different kinds of "raids". You can still have the big bad boss it takes a bunch of players to take out but it doesn't have to be that. Perhaps the raid is a bunch of players racing to build something. Perhaps the raid is a large numbers of players collecting something and using it. Perhaps the raid is an attack on some area.
so as you go down the exclusive instance for gear mode i think you've lost the spirit and gameplay as to what a raid should entail and encompass.
so you don't build a bunch of instances and fil them up with scripted monsters. You build an event system ( a true event system where the event can be anywhere and be anything) where the rewards are real and anyone can participate in some way.
All you need is one employee, the event coordinator, and your set.
I was reflecting on this topic while I was playing Everquest 2 yesterday.
Granted it is pretty dead if you want to group with anyone at low levels but I am going back and doing the older quests and dungeons and having fun believe it or not. Of course you must have a love for quest completion like I do. It also helps that Everquest 2 can completely stop the level mechanic. You can freeze your level at a certain point and do all the content and not outlevel it this way in an area.
Yesterday I decided to tackle two quests in Crushbone Keep and I have a mercenary who is a Warden. The quests were to track down the pages of some history text this orc has been collecting in secret. Apparently the upper echelons aren't too pleased with him and have relegated him to a little corner of this dungeon. Mobs are heroic in here and I tackled them from blue to yellow. Mind you some are linked and 4 heroics wailing on you is a death sentence without the mercenary.
The other quest is the release of dead elves that the orcs have risen to serve them. These are group quests but between the warden mercenary and the warder pet ( I am a Beastlord) I took about close to 3 hours to complete one quest and part of the history one. All that remains is the throne room but the mobs were turning orange and heroic orange is way too hard for me even the yellow were touch and go. The colours mean blue is below your level but green is much lower and considered an easy kill, grey does not give you any challenge at all and loot either. White is your level even con and yellow above your level. The heroic mobs are 3 ^^^ meaning they are hard mobs and almost all the mobs in the dungeon were heroic or harder and some come with the ^^^ and * and the latter is intended for a group.
I went very slowly because if I used anything but a body pull I could get 6-8 mobs on me and I only can manage at most 4 heroic blues at a time. You have to be very patient to play like this but I really enjoyed the challenge although I used my scout base class Escape ability to get out when I managed to pull like 7 blue mobs and the second time when an orange heroic joined a yellow heroic I was killing my hp started to tank alarmingly and I hit escape. The way you body pull is also important because if you get too close you still risk pulling too many so by trial and error I managed to get it down.
I am in a guild but the last time I mentioned doing the Heritage quest where you get the Dwarven ringmail plans for a dwarf in Kelethin, a guild member just came and slaughtered the mobs to my dismay as I had wanted to complete it on my own when I could handle it and him killing them like that really just completely cheapened the Heritage quest completion. He was just trying to help and he was actually so puzzled why I am still taking so long to level because I am stuck at the lower levels and not getting to play and raid at 110-120 the top tier in the game right now. Oddly enough two other people joined just a few nights back doing the same thing I am and just locking their levels and playing to just enjoy the old quests and areas.
See what this whole wall of text is trying to convey is that levelling in itself is not a bad mechanic especially when you can control it as you can do in Everquest 2 because it allows you and your group to go at your pace and one you can tailor to suit you. There is also mentoring down to enable a high level to join in questing too.
More's the pity that the game has such a small population and it is quite desolate in the lower levels and grouping is non existent. So far though I am still enjoying the game although I am soloing through the content but between the entertaining quests and reading the interesting lore I am hooked for now.
You obviously have a genuine love for questing, but the "level" isn't why your doing that content. Its just the gate system for the content. ESO proved beyond any doubt that it really doesnt matter what level you are.
You obviously have a genuine love for questing, but the "level" isn't why your doing that content. Its just the gate system for the content. ESO proved beyond any doubt that it really doesnt matter what level you are.
you said youself you can turn the level off.
I just want to do that permanently.
I can turn the level off but the relationship between my current level and the mob stays. That is part of the challenge if there is no level the mob I am killing would be no different from one area to another something I completely detest as a mechanic. Here I can see by looking at the colours of the mobs vis a vis my level how much of a challenge they will pose. Without levels there would no such gauge and I would not be actually doing something interesting at all because the mobs will all be completely indistinguishable and hence I cannot actually challenge myself doing this dungeon.
I don't think you actually get the relationship between just a level based game and one where the level is there for you to use as a means to chronicle your progress through the game. For instance in City of Heroes you can go to any level as long as you're sidekicked and experience the game at any level but that does not mean that the game does not have levels.
I think you are hung up on the level mechanic and not really seeing the forest for the trees.
its illogical to put something in just to override it to make the game work better. Why have it at all?
Eq2 has alternate advancement so your experience goes laterally instead of vertically. So even if my character does not level up vertically I am still progressing on my alternate advancement.
Precisely why I am able to do group content on my own the alternate advancement when done properly is a great tool to further customize your character and each of my warder pets get an AA tree too. I have 5 types of pets now.
I am on the boards because game is down for 24 hours today. Otherwise I would be playing.
i never liked eq2, i thought it was garbage. I am pretty picky when it comes to games though. Sometimes the boards for the games are better than the games themselves!
i never liked eq2, i thought it was garbage. I am pretty picky when it comes to games though. Sometimes the boards for the games are better than the games themselves!
If you put it that bluntly I cannot really say much then. Well just my point of view is all on how levelling alternatively sideways is still levelling.
I think most will agree that "levelling" is a linear progression process. Allocating resources you have is not really levelling in the general sense since its not linear.
when I say level I really mean out of control linear progression, which i believe, is really bad for mmo's.
wow is like the worst offender for me. level up--->get level gear-->expansion-->level up--->get new level gear. Repeat forever.
A game like eso is not nearly as bad scaled level up-->level off--->get gear. Perfect your loadout. Not a huge fan of the alternate advancement but even that levels off and stays there.
ideal game play a role or multiple roles, uncover perks, build training select a subset, share with all your characters. Uncover it all, if you want. collect gear, uncover perks, select a subset build a base, uncover perks, select a subset
perfect your loadouts.
if we go back to 0-->1 then it has levels. If we consider it in the linear sense, not so much . Its more like uncovering a map than climbing a ladder.
You obviously have a genuine love for questing, but the "level" isn't why your doing that content. Its just the gate system for the content. ESO proved beyond any doubt that it really doesnt matter what level you are.
you said youself you can turn the level off.
I just want to do that permanently.
I can turn the level off but the relationship between my current level and the mob stays. That is part of the challenge if there is no level the mob I am killing would be no different from one area to another something I completely detest as a mechanic. Here I can see by looking at the colours of the mobs vis a vis my level how much of a challenge they will pose. Without levels there would no such gauge and I would not be actually doing something interesting at all because the mobs will all be completely indistinguishable and hence I cannot actually challenge myself doing this dungeon.
A game without levels can still have enemies of different difficulties. Likewise, a lack of levels doesn't mean enemies in different areas have to be the same, you can have as much diversity as you can imagine.
An early example would be SWG. Not the greatest combat mechanics, but no levels and a wide variety of enemy difficulty.
A later example would be LotRO. Sure, it had levels and a level disparity between you and the enemy did factor into the combat mechanics. But, it also had different ratings: swarm (v easy), normal, signature, elite, super-elite etc. Also, enemies had different skill sets, so an orc in one zone might hit you with certain attacks, while an orc in another zone would do something different.
The only thing that would change, if you removed levels, is the difficulty of a given piece of content wouldn't change based on what you've been doing. You wouldn't be able to take on a dungeon "under level" to make it harder, nor could you wait and do it "over-level" to make it easier. You'd just have to do it the way the devs intended.
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Leveling is the only fun and worthwhile thing left in these games, imo. Endgame has become a bad joke, compiling all the worst mechanics and attitudes the genre has to offer.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I'd much rather play a game where skills train with use and there are no actual character levels. Character levels are so year 2,000-ish.
You might like that but those who complain about character leveling would complain about that instead. What they want instant play at "end game" all leveled up and equal to everyone else. They want a MOBA or Fortnite or one of the countless shooters that have always worked this way.
Some people don't get that RPGs are about growing a character or a build. Whether you do it with character levels or skill unlock and growth it's irrelevant.
Also, ESO is way ahead of you. They do still have character levels but with full level scaling that is more legacy than anything else. ESO is all about unlocking skills and leveling those skills by using them. It's been that way actually since long before level scaling. You have dozens of skill lines to choose from and level independent of each other. Only one of those lines, and a very minor one with skills hardly anyone bothers to use (EDIT: I was conflating the "Soul" line which is a main quest based skill line with the Racial Passives - it's only the racial passives that follow your character level), depends on your character level. They did that 7 years ago
RPGs are about playing a role. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with growth or accomplishment. My characters can actually degenerate on a path of self-destruction.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I'd much rather play a game where skills train with use and there are no actual character levels. Character levels are so year 2,000-ish.
You might like that but those who complain about character leveling would complain about that instead. What they want instant play at "end game" all leveled up and equal to everyone else. They want a MOBA or Fortnite or one of the countless shooters that have always worked this way.
Some people don't get that RPGs are about growing a character or a build. Whether you do it with character levels or skill unlock and growth it's irrelevant.
Also, ESO is way ahead of you. They do still have character levels but with full level scaling that is more legacy than anything else. ESO is all about unlocking skills and leveling those skills by using them. It's been that way actually since long before level scaling. You have dozens of skill lines to choose from and level independent of each other. Only one of those lines, and a very minor one with skills hardly anyone bothers to use (EDIT: I was conflating the "Soul" line which is a main quest based skill line with the Racial Passives - it's only the racial passives that follow your character level), depends on your character level. They did that 7 years ago
RPGs are about playing a role. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with growth or accomplishment. My characters can actually degenerate on a path of self-destruction.
OK. You go ahead and do that lol.
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Go try Second Life .. It has no Leveling................ Boring as fuck
People play it so it must have its merit.
that's the problem with discussions like this, it's all opinion.
Everything posted on a forum like this *is* opinion. That's not a bad thing; it's almost the purpose of this forum, to share opinions. It only becomes a problem when someone takes a post as *fact*. Posts may contain factual information, but the only *fact* that most posts have is that person X said Y at a specific date-time. The smart person verifies factual information before using it.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
I'm more troubled by the gear treadmill and alternate advancement. It just seemed like an endless amount of carrot and you'll never reach the end.
I believe in every way the "build" method ( eso has a build method for equipment for instance compared to wow ever obsolete method) is superior.
so why not apply the superior system to other things like building your base, building your skills and even building your character.
I would also add survival elements because they really do add atmosphere to the game.
So, if you are sick of advancement over time, whatever levelling mechanic underlies it, MMORPGs are not for you.
At least we have survival games. Only a matter of time before theres a MMOSG.
And what's the difference between MMOSG and survival games?
I remember people talking much about warz dayz, how it would revolutionize if they make a mmorpg out of it.
The way I see mmorpg right now is everything is build upon character progression which never end. So people just keep grinding forever. And mmorpg players are seemingly in this infinite loop on chasing carrots.
You have to waste your time at something. My other hobbies can only get me so far
For me its more of a downtime filler. My expectations are low. I know they are poorly designed but they are still a bit of fun and its really the only place I can chill with my buds who live far away. So in that regard its worthwhile, as much as anything is these days as we descend into the abyss.
When you zoom through the end game is the real game which is like 90% repetition of a tiny portion of content. So you give players familiar but quick and trivial gameplay. Then you have some end game based on tiny portion of content with half that a majority don't participate.
Then you have the grind method. A minority of players like this. It can bring a sense of community because you have players doing an activity together throughout the whole game. To me it's the most boring way it can be done.
These are the themepark only and EQ style games. They are IMO limited and more than 20-15 years later predictable and stale. It makes the world a surface level event no matter how pretty or detailed.
At the end of the day it seems like the genre is packed with stuff players don't want to do. It's work or rite of passage. Some like this. The con is the genre's growth with it has come at the cost of lack of fundamental change and a casual base that doesn't really like most aspect of the genre.
I rather have the genre had gone sandbox and integrated developer and procedural content. "Leveling" would be an activity of learning your character only. End game is building your "castle," specializing your equipment and character and respond to threats, discovery and quest spun up by developers and the systems.
A raid should be something special. Your town and surround civilization NPCs complain and get quest about minions and sightings of raid boss. Interruptions to local trade. You scout and find likely location. You form raid. You kill boss and split unique resources to be used to craft and unique one of a kind drops. It's done.
This way you can have different kinds of "raids". You can still have the big bad boss it takes a bunch of players to take out but it doesn't have to be that. Perhaps the raid is a bunch of players racing to build something. Perhaps the raid is a large numbers of players collecting something and using it. Perhaps the raid is an attack on some area.
so as you go down the exclusive instance for gear mode i think you've lost the spirit and gameplay as to what a raid should entail and encompass.
so you don't build a bunch of instances and fil them up with scripted monsters. You build an event system ( a true event system where the event can be anywhere and be anything) where the rewards are real and anyone can participate in some way.
All you need is one employee, the event coordinator, and your set.
Granted it is pretty dead if you want to group with anyone at low levels but I am going back and doing the older quests and dungeons and having fun believe it or not. Of course you must have a love for quest completion like I do. It also helps that Everquest 2 can completely stop the level mechanic. You can freeze your level at a certain point and do all the content and not outlevel it this way in an area.
Yesterday I decided to tackle two quests in Crushbone Keep and I have a mercenary who is a Warden. The quests were to track down the pages of some history text this orc has been collecting in secret. Apparently the upper echelons aren't too pleased with him and have relegated him to a little corner of this dungeon. Mobs are heroic in here and I tackled them from blue to yellow. Mind you some are linked and 4 heroics wailing on you is a death sentence without the mercenary.
The other quest is the release of dead elves that the orcs have risen to serve them. These are group quests but between the warden mercenary and the warder pet ( I am a Beastlord) I took about close to 3 hours to complete one quest and part of the history one. All that remains is the throne room but the mobs were turning orange and heroic orange is way too hard for me even the yellow were touch and go. The colours mean blue is below your level but green is much lower and considered an easy kill, grey does not give you any challenge at all and loot either. White is your level even con and yellow above your level. The heroic mobs are 3 ^^^ meaning they are hard mobs and almost all the mobs in the dungeon were heroic or harder and some come with the ^^^ and * and the latter is intended for a group.
I went very slowly because if I used anything but a body pull I could get 6-8 mobs on me and I only can manage at most 4 heroic blues at a time. You have to be very patient to play like this but I really enjoyed the challenge although I used my scout base class Escape ability to get out when I managed to pull like 7 blue mobs and the second time when an orange heroic joined a yellow heroic I was killing my hp started to tank alarmingly and I hit escape. The way you body pull is also important because if you get too close you still risk pulling too many so by trial and error I managed to get it down.
I am in a guild but the last time I mentioned doing the Heritage quest where you get the Dwarven ringmail plans for a dwarf in Kelethin, a guild member just came and slaughtered the mobs to my dismay as I had wanted to complete it on my own when I could handle it and him killing them like that really just completely cheapened the Heritage quest completion. He was just trying to help and he was actually so puzzled why I am still taking so long to level because I am stuck at the lower levels and not getting to play and raid at 110-120 the top tier in the game right now. Oddly enough two other people joined just a few nights back doing the same thing I am and just locking their levels and playing to just enjoy the old quests and areas.
See what this whole wall of text is trying to convey is that levelling in itself is not a bad mechanic especially when you can control it as you can do in Everquest 2 because it allows you and your group to go at your pace and one you can tailor to suit you. There is also mentoring down to enable a high level to join in questing too.
More's the pity that the game has such a small population and it is quite desolate in the lower levels and grouping is non existent. So far though I am still enjoying the game although I am soloing through the content but between the entertaining quests and reading the interesting lore I am hooked for now.
you said youself you can turn the level off.
I just want to do that permanently.
I don't think you actually get the relationship between just a level based game and one where the level is there for you to use as a means to chronicle your progress through the game. For instance in City of Heroes you can go to any level as long as you're sidekicked and experience the game at any level but that does not mean that the game does not have levels.
I think you are hung up on the level mechanic and not really seeing the forest for the trees.
Precisely why I am able to do group content on my own the alternate advancement when done properly is a great tool to further customize your character and each of my warder pets get an AA tree too. I have 5 types of pets now.
I am on the boards because game is down for 24 hours today. Otherwise I would be playing.
thats levelling too.
I think most will agree that "levelling" is a linear progression process. Allocating resources you have is not really levelling in the general sense since its not linear.
when I say level I really mean out of control linear progression, which i believe, is really bad for mmo's.
wow is like the worst offender for me.
level up--->get level gear-->expansion-->level up--->get new level gear. Repeat forever.
A game like eso is not nearly as bad
scaled level up-->level off--->get gear. Perfect your loadout. Not a huge fan of the alternate advancement but even that levels off and stays there.
ideal game
play a role or multiple roles, uncover perks, build training select a subset, share with all your characters. Uncover it all, if you want.
collect gear, uncover perks, select a subset
build a base, uncover perks, select a subset
perfect your loadouts.
if we go back to 0-->1 then it has levels. If we consider it in the linear sense, not so much . Its more like uncovering a map than climbing a ladder.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
just because you dont have traditional levels i.e 1-50, doesnt mean you dont have a progression system.
that's the problem with discussions like this, it's all opinion.
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Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.