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Advancement speed
Nightbringe1
Member UncommonPosts: 1,335
One of the big things that I feel is wrong with most MMO's is the speed of character advancement. In my opinion, it is far too rapid. A race lasting only a few days to a couple of weeks to max level and end game. I am hoping Pantheon bucks this trend and significantly slows the leveling process to a rate closer to that of Everquest at launch.
I feel a slower leveling speed has a number of benefits: players become more familiar with their characters and the world in which they live. Characters have time to acquire nice gear, and enjoy the benefits of that gear before out leveling it. More time can be spent in each area before madly dashing off to the next location, time most efficiently spent in a group.
Personally, I would prefer to see 8+ hours of active game time in a group required to gain a single level starting in the mid-levels and 24+ hours of active game time in a group required to level as character start to approach the level cap. I also fully support the idea of hell levels and experience loss upon character death. Solo players could be looking at double to triple these time requirements depending on class and player skill (not efficient, but possible).
What is everyone else's opinion on the subject?
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Comments
The crowd that is following this game wants an old style MMORPG, so I suspect the vast majority are on the same page as you. I would be pretty upset if someone rushed to max level in less than a week like they do in modern day MMO's.
There is very little doubt, for me, that Pantheon will follow the slower leveling structure of the older games.
You can force players to go slow but not to enjoy doing it. It depends on the quality of the levels. There will always be players who rush to max usually because it gives them an advantage in PvP, just as there will always be players who take their time. A lot also has to do with their gaming time.
Some people don't have to work and could if they wanted play a game 20 hours a day, others with family and many commitments might be able to play on Saturdays, sometimes. It really doesn't bother me what other players are doing as far as their leveling goes. I have more problems with players who try to influence the developers based solely on their own play style. I've seen a lot of games become niche or empty because most players aren't hardcore or elite.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The devs though are aiming for a slower leveling experience though. The people who don't like to go slow will either power level to max and grow bored when there aren't enough players with them to make end game content fun or they will leave stating that this game is dumb. Either works fine for me since Pantheon is not trying to fool itself into thinking it is the next coming of WoW but rather will be a niche game.
I don't care for the speed of leveling at all. Hell, if it takes a month to reach level 2 it is fine. IF the road is fun.
Everquest did a great job at this. Dungeons where huge, fun, OPEN, NOT INSTANCED and you found new friends in there usually. Chatting the whole day and then suddenly did a level and everyone cheered.
It was fun. Noone cared for fast leveling. Why would you? Today we want to level fast because the road is WORK and the endgame is the only fun a game offers. Put the fun back on the road to max and pacing will be ignored either way.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
^
this + 1
This is a good topic and I can tell you that our internal builds are very slow, things will change for balance reasons of course but right now it took me well over 3 weeks to get to level 3 with GM hacks and the team just increased the difficulty even more.
So I do not think you will have anything to worry about in this regard, we also want the game to be slow and more meaningful for progression and your characters journey, Brad is also very big on this too and wants to follow on from EQ.
I fully agree with the OP,it usually does not feel like an adventure or a role playing game but instead just a speed platform to gain levels.
How can one enjoy a level if it doesn't last long enough to eat your snack at the PC?Why would anyone care about gear if you are trading it in every 25 minutes.The whole design behind gaming right now is just super sloppy.
I guess i can't totally blame devs since having watched millions enjoy SIMPLE 1-2 shot combat ,there is definitely a large market full of easy mode gamer's who want no challenge,no thinking and no effort.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
good to hear. really the only thing from original EQ, that I would like to see tweaked is the CR.
Well, 3 weeks for level 3 definitly sounds extreme lol. How many levels are there to get to put this into perspective?
I am usually a fan of SLIGHTLY faster leveling 1-10, kind of tutorial style, giving access to new mechanics and possibilities each level. All at a pace that allows to learn the last "thing" you got, but fast enough to do that stage in a solid evening.
After that i like it to slow down exponentially. So 11-20 should take a week. 21-30 a month. 31-40 three months or so.
Kind of like a shift in what you do. Fast learning of basic concepts, slower learning of basic grouping, dungeons ect. (about level 11-20ish),.. even slower progression once in the age of discovery and exploration (level 21-30ish) and slowest progression towards the end, once all the world is open for you to explore and roam.
I fear people getting scared away if they are level 1 for days. On the flip side, if you make level 1 actually able to DO something, it might hurt the feeling of progression very early on. A solid tutorial guiding trough a few levels goes a long way usually. Just don't make it as quick as other games do... god i hate leveling up 4 times before even reading my first skill lol.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
People dont want to group that much, I think a game forsing you to group will allways loose.
I noted later in my post that I feel leveling outside a group should be possible, but slower.
To be honest, I don't always want to group either, for a variety of reasons. Maybe I'm doing housework, or just can't commit 3-5 hours for a good group. I don't really care about advancement speed, but I would still like to log into my summoner or shaman and make a little progress.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Your perception of grouping is exactly what WoW and others did to the genre.
Back in Everquest you WANTED to group. You got to know new people. You had fun. There was no FORCING in grouping. Everyone just wanted to because it provided faster xp, better loot, less downtime, seeing more content, seeing harder content and most important SOCIAL INTERACTION.
Back then we played a MMO for *gasp* social interaction. That was the only point MMOs had going for them. Singleplayer games used to be better (and are still better today) from a story and gameplay standpoint. But playing in a team was more fun then playing a superior singleplayer game.
If you take all that as "forcing to group", then MMO is the wrong genre for you. Massive MULTIPLAYER. I agree tho, current so called MMOs offer a terrible grouping experience. I try to avoid grouping at all costs most of the time. Actually stopped playing these kind of MMOs alltogether.
Guess what i want to say here: Imagine a MMO where grouping is actually enough fun that it does not feel like something bad, but like something you activly look forward to. At least that is (my) vision for Pantheon.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
I am usually a fan of SLIGHTLY faster leveling 1-10, kind of tutorial style, giving access to new mechanics and possibilities each level. All at a pace that allows to learn the last "thing" you got, but fast enough to do that stage in a solid evening.
After that i like it to slow down exponentially. So 11-20 should take a week. 21-30 a month. 31-40 three months or so.
Kind of like a shift in what you do. Fast learning of basic concepts, slower learning of basic grouping, dungeons ect. (about level 11-20ish),.. even slower progression once in the age of discovery and exploration (level 21-30ish) and slowest progression towards the end, once all the world is open for you to explore and roam.
I fear people getting scared away if they are level 1 for days. On the flip side, if you make level 1 actually able to DO something, it might hurt the feeling of progression very early on. A solid tutorial guiding trough a few levels goes a long way usually. Just don't make it as quick as other games do... god i hate leveling up 4 times before even reading my first skill lol.
Lol yeah it is and it will not remain like this, hence why I included "things will change for balance reasons of course" in my post
It is fun though and makes you forget about your level and let's you focus more on the challenges that you face, instead of just concentrating on how much exp until the next ding and all the cool shiny new stuff you will be getting it takes your mind away from that and allows you to focus more on your character and the world around you.
I cannot say yet what our max level will be but I am guessing around level 50, that is not official though so please don't hold me to that number.
Its all about providing enough content to make a slow leveling process viable.
Pantheon has talked about many forms of horizontal progression (that is gear and abilities) to make a slower vertical progression (levels) viable. In other games you automatically get welfare gear for doing next to nothing, and meanwhile you make more than enough money to learn every class ability at a trainer. Thats not the way it will work in Pantheon, so already theres more to progression than just filling up progress bars. As long as we have stuff to achieve, and have an enjoyable time accomplishing those goals, I don't care if I never hit max level.
If I get any indication that the game is being built for solo play or for the rush to max level/end game, then many people I know including family and friends would stop supporting the game. There are plenty of games out there for the people that don't want to dedicate the time and want rush to end game. This game however will be the one that isn't one of those many out there already.
I personally believe that the slow leveling progression and group centric focus from start to finish will make or break the community in a bigger sense than most people seem to think.
It's pretty easy if you ask me... if you don't want to group or dedicate the time, then this isn't the game for you. Please move along lol... There are plenty of games for you already... go play them and leave this one diamond in the rough to us.
Hopefully leveling will be paced like it was in ffxi. When you start out you were soloing mobs till around lvl 10. You got around 30-50 xp per kill, and xp to next level was like 450. But as you got higher level while in a party you would get around 100 or more xp per kill.
Plus each level required more xp, yet at the same time you were still getting the same xp per kill. If I remember right, the last few levels required like 26,000 xp to level, while you were getting like around 120 xp per kill in a good group offa kill chains.
Basically the higher level, the longer the next level took to get. Up to were it took um like 10+ hours to gain each of the last few levels.
Oh and there were road blocks, starting at lvl 50, where you had to do a quest every 5 levels to unlock your level cap, plus level 70 for the final quest you had to fight the same job npc called Maat, which was pretty challenging for some. To prove your worth to get to go to lvl 75.
I miss that system, hope pantheon is similar.
You are in luck, because every few (maybe 10 or so) levels your class will have a particular class achievement to accomplish to continue your progress (xp/levels) and gain new abilities. These class trials, if you will, are probably going to be pretty tough and require the help of others, so if people are planning on soloing their way to max level in Pantheon, they will eventually need to seek out others at some point.
I'm hoping without the character progression achieved from grouping, soloing won't even be a long term possibility. In other words, without the proper gear (which should not be obtainable solo), players will hit a wall where the strength of mobs exceeds their own. Its not that I'm against soloing altogether, its just that I think soloing should be a luxury afforded to those who've grouped and obtained items/abilities in order to be capable of soloing. That alone will make the world more enjoyable and believable, as well as keep the rate of advancement to a somewhat slower pace.
They may not be as rigid or "hardcore" as I am suggesting in Pantheon, but I've played enough MMORPGs to know when you can achieve everything solo, it has a negative effect on everything on a fundamental level. When this happens, the rate of progression always ends up being much faster. Its imperative therefore, that soloing be considerably harder and MUCH slower progression-wise, than grouping. Otherwise this will upset the entire design having a negative effect on everything from group play to the rate of advancement.
I think the most important things are to make sure there are fun things to do at all levels of game play coupled with non-level based progression.
Factions, gear, trade skills, alternate advancement. All should play a meaningful part of a character's life at all levels of play.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
once more information is available and this is indeed how Pantheon will be played then I won't have a need to pay attention to this game any longer
this is the exact reason I quit FFXIV - forced grouping - not only forced grouping but instead of actually playing through the forced grouping segments of the game you actually are expected to have done a run through by way of youtube - yeah, that's fun
and playing solo does not equate to fast leveling by the way
if a game has lots of variety and you are not restricted - such as just one or two crafting specialties (or gathering or whatever) then who cares if you're leveling or not - you're having fun, and that is what a game is for after all
currently playing "project gorgon" and you can group or solo - and for some this game would be considered a really long slog since there is a nice variety of elements to gameplay which can really distract a player from a focused end point - for others of course this is a fantastic way to play - yes, solo or otherwise
That's exactly how it's been stated several times and the creators are fully aware that some people may not like it. This game is attempting to build a community, not just another solo game with a chat room. That community is built from interaction with others. If you aren't forced to depend on one another then you have no reason to even talk or wave to anyone. So while I understand your preference, I can tell you now that you can stop paying attention if you like.
I don't see how group socializing will work in this game when they plan on doing action combat with limited skill bars. Whose going to have time to do anything but press their 6 buttons and move on to the next mob / quest.
For me, it was the slower paced combat as well as the downtime that made EQ such a social game, since you could chat both during and after combat. Then again, I'm not a fan of voice chat and prefer to type in game for many reasons, the main one being for better immersion in an alternate world.
The trick is who set's the bar for leveling. Will it be based on hardcore binge levelers or the more casual / medium road approach. You base it on no-lifers and you'll have a pace that is painful for everyone but that niche. Seek the latter and you appeal to more people, but you alienate that hardcore following as they think it's too easy. Whatever they choose, stick with it or you end up pissing off everyone.