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I miss slow leveling
Leucent
Member Posts: 2,371
It might sound odd, but I miss games taking a long time to level. Don t get me wrong, I enjoy alot of games, and play some games now, that don t take long to level, but I truly miss the old days of games like DAOC, and FFXI. It took a long time to hit max, and well each level felt like an accomplishment.
Maybe one day a company can make a quality game that takes a long time to hit max. I just felt the communities were so much better in those games.
I know alot of people will disagree with me, but it s an observation that myself and alot of MMO players I know, agree on.
Comments
Well....we'll see how everyone likes GW2 and TSW's progression systems and see where the genre goes from there. I mention this because I think they are on to something. Make the leveling aspect a behind the scenes mechanic, where you play for the content more than getting to the next level. This way, leveling won't be your main goal and bore you to tears on alts from doing the same content. Make content dynamic and organic and scale to your level while still rewarding your current progression, that's the best way to go, from what I've seen from the beta's so far. I too liked FFXI but once you hit 55+ it got very tedious and wasn't very fun to sit in 8 hours or more parties camping one spot killing the same mobs over and over.
I dont necessarily miss slow leveling but I do miss extended levels. Instead of 50 - 80 levels I would love to play a game with 200+ levels like an Asheron's Call. Get the best of both worlds, timely progression and extended level caps.
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I will completely agree with you, and is another reason why I m looking forward to GW2. I love the idea, I won t really even notice the level of my char, outside a few things I might possibly not be able to do. I will agree with the 55+ in FFXI, it was tough. That said I still loved the feel of that game, as opposed to how the instant gratification players feel nowadays. I will say though, GW2 gave me more of a sense of community, then any game I ve played outside those 2 I mentioned. People actually wanted to help each other.
Inb4 the instant gratification crowd chime in to flame the OP because they need continuous stimuli and not one iota of downtime.
Bingo!!! That too, AC was a great game with how you could literally be anything. It hid any grind well, too with random loot etc. The sense of danger was awesome too. Loved having to retreive your stuff, was damn hars sometimes
That's why I am looking forward to The Secret World.
Gone with the levels. Just go out and play. Gain some AP and SP and spend it on skills and abilities.
The whole focus on leveling in todays themeparks gets tiresome and is also one of the major flaws, as it will inevitably split the community in two...with the existing players hanging around at max level and new players facing empty zones! That's why no levelbased/class based themepark MMO has managed to gain subs anymore. Simply because of exactly that!
The Secret World takes a bit of the same approach as games like EVE Online, so that after years a new player will still be able to catch up with the rest fairly quickly by focussing on one/two ability trees.
I'm convinced this is part of the top-heavy themepark syndrome. Once games become top-heavy, they have little choice but to shift emphasis to endgame. Since this happened, the endgame is now firmly rooted as the "fun" part of an MMORPG. People will rush to it regardless.
As long as endgames exist, the leveling process is just a tutorial.
I think it's partly this:
That to me is the key phrase. I really do not mind games where it takes long to level as long as each level feels like an accomplishment. In too many games I have gone through the XP grind and the DING when I gained a new level felt very hollow. The level of accomplishment I felt was similar to that I get after I finish washing dishes, take out the grabage or clean the cat's litter box. It just does not feel like a major milestone.
Personally, i'm not a fan of the idea. I DO believe mmorpg have become to easy in giving everything for nothing. I don't like raiding for gear, but "legendary" armors aren't worthy of that name. However, levels are usually a way to block off content and areas, and i don't like having to wait a big amount of time before being able to see them.
Making things harder to reach and obtain is ok with me, but getting block of content like that is not.
I don't miss the slow leveling, i do miss having to fight with other players rather than static NPC's to be able to level.
I agree, most things are too quick now...I mean maxing your crafting in a couple hours in certain games...Then the crafting isn't worth it anyway...Doing the same checklist of daily quests is supposed to be fun?
+1 to that!
Though I never played DOAC (not my cup of tea) and FFXI only a bit (started to late and felt rather lonely at starter area's), I used to play Lineage II (before GoD) and LOVED to level so extremely slow. It gave a feeling of accomplishment to hit level ...40 when I started... Same with EQ2 (no longer playing since SOE screwed all buyers over BIG TIME), where you could set how much XP (in %) you're recieve and drop the rest of it in Alternate Advancement.
But these days... Cap no longer seems to be the limit, while instead people tall that the 'atcual game' starts then. WTF???
Best back to slow leveling and enjoy the road for me over speeding to cap!
When the genre was about adventure and discovery and interaction with other players, it made sense to have slow leveling and a very large/long curve.
Now that the genre is mostly about acquiring things and personal gain, it doesn't really make sense to artificially lengthen the process of "getting to the good stuff."
Personally, I prefer a very flat progression curve where you can advance very quickly but the game plateaus out early on - horizontal advancement over pure vertical and the whole "the whole game is end game" philosophy.
I think UO had it "right" over EQ where in that in UO you could "max out" or get very high skills (enough to do the vast, vast majority of content in the game) in only a couple of days of smart grinding.
Once you got there, which again was really fast and easy, there were no real carrots to chase, no progression curve, just a flat plateau of game play with a very wide selection of content and a focus on systems-based game play verus content-based.
Yeah, I miss slow leveling as well.
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Noope. Don't miss it one bit. There wasn't enough unique or interesting content so big part of leveling was just pure grind.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Yep... I miss grinding in one zone for weeks & months at a time.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Sir i couldn't agree more ,i miss the same things.It is not just the SLOW factor but as you mentioned the feeling of accomplishment.I don't consider easy levels or easy handouts as accomplishment.Example ,if i challenged a friend to a game of Tennis,i definitely wouldn't ask that person to just let me win.
You can load up most games and the first 5 levels is a mere blink of an an eye,not fun and definitley not a feeling of accomplishment.I got one step further in thjat i also miss the NO HAND HOLDING that seems to be common place in games now.I really don't get it either,you would THINK people would consider the hand holding a slap in the face,like the develoepr is saying you are not smart enough to think for yourself and condemn those games.Nope seems the majority like their hands held and linear game play.
I also do not enjopy playing for example EQ2 and within an hour i have bags full of junk,keep the items,content,gear to a minumum and make the rare stuff actually RARE.Could you imagine if we got our wish and got slow leveling how much crap would be in our bags for each level?
Personally i would like to see a game come along that has EVERY level advance at the same slow pace and create exciting content for each level.I want levels to feel like an actual aging process,hence why each level should feel the same.
The biggest problem for developers is to come up with ideas that are lasting.With the internet too much information is shared so even tough or challenging ideas are soon made easy cake.I beleive developers are taking the easy way out ,they beleive that fast easy levels and lots of easy rewards keeps them coming back .It is backed up by the hand holding designs that pretty much confirm it as fact.
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I miss MMOs that weren't about grinding levels.
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I always enjoyed leveling also, especially if the reward for gaining a level was nice......I've always been a "journey is greater than the destination" type of player, and very few games hold any interest for me at end game......
This ^
Linear statistical progression should be a natural bi-product of enjoying an amazing online experience with your friends, not the soul reason to invest in the game in the first place.
I do also. Probably why Everquest is the only MMO I've played longer than nine months. I know people on this forum hate character progression now but to me watching your character grow in power and gain new abilities is one of the main things that makes an MMORPG fun. Not to mention there always being that zone or area of the world that you aren't powerful enough to visit yet.
As far as my personal tastes go, I prefer slower leveling than most games offer today, but with the caveat that there has to be a quantity and diversity of setting and content in a given level range to keep it somewhat interesting.
Developers are able to use faster leveling to reduce the amount of content that has to be created for a given level range. Incidentally, faster leveling also means that more content has to be made available -- and more quickly -- for the endgame, which has proven to be a problem.
Slower leveling also means that a level up should feel meaningful IMO, not just because one worked hard for it, but because the payoff justified the effort. That means that the character-building, gearing, perks, and ability systems need to be well-constructed, so that players are excited about what's available when they level up.
In that respect, faster leveling also masks poor, lazy, and derivative character development schemes. The mentality is such that if there's nothing compelling about dinging 27, don't worry, because you'll soon be 28 and get X. The "Don't even worry about your gear or spec until you get to max level" mentality has become increasingly prevalent. The notion of a "leveling spec" has become largely obsolete, but it did once mean something.
Try Everquest again f you haven't already, because it's still slow and might be what you are looking for. It's also free-to-play now and if you play on the Test server your account will be gold (premium) automatically.
I hate how RPG games limit my playstyle by keeping really cool or important things for the very last levels.
Slow leveling has never been my problem. Waiting 2 years to play my character the way I wanted from the start is unaccetpable.