Well Unknown System Error said : .....raid mechanics need to increase level caps to keep people feeding the one-armed bandit. Once a certain percentage of your population has reached that artificial cap, they don't get the same endorphin rush from the risk/reward mechanic. They then make such BiS loot obsolete,......
It does not matter what type of raid mechanics you have. New expansion will mean better gear so it will make the current BiS obsolete no matter what.
It is actually the levels that make BiS obsolete. Level 50 gear is obsolete to level 60 gear. Level 60 crafted gear makes level 50 raid gear obsolete. It also makes the dungeouns raids and content associated with the gear obsolete.
With no levels or setting level cap to 50 it would be more like this: New raid content came out. If you already have BiS gear then you will be ready for new content. But if you do not you still have to get gear from old raid and then go to new raid fully prepared. Not just skipping over it cause crafted gear is better.
I can understand the pros and cons. Leveling up to get fireball 4 which makes more damage but the monsters are also stronger: you still need e.g. 4 shots.
The leveling however has a major part which is playing in your head. You let your character grow. You get a relationship with it. Sure, this is also possible if you start with max level but I really believe this will be much more intense if you grow up slowly and get every ability one after another and not all simultaneously. And also even though you still need the same shots with a skill to kill a mob, you still know: this one is harder.
Also I like (in PvE!!!) to sometimes go back to starting areas and kill the mobs there to experience how much better my character got.
Perhaps I should also mention I play a lot of pen and paper rpgs ;-)
The reason WoW has such an issue with the grind is that it's been around for so long there is a crapload of content you have to run through to get to "relevant" content. That being said it takes a 4th of the time to get there than it used to take to get to 60, but because you're flying through it, it feels irrelevant. That is why blizzard justs announced changes to past expansion zones to have scaleable leveling to reduce the hopping around. AoC won't have to worry about that as much because they don't have 6 expansions of content to muddle through.
I WANT the grind, even if the game truly begins at higher levels, because I think that is an important part of the experience. It only FEELS bad in today's society because so many people push push push to get to the end the fastest. And here is the thing about the grind, with new games it doesn't feel that way because as long as your running into people who are your level and work up, you create that relevancy. In wow and other games now leveling is a means to an end, partially because they have been around for so long most people are maxed out, and the only people you see leveling are alts who want to zip through content.
With meaningful leveling, and people around you, and good quests and zones, leveling is extremely fun and an important part of MMOs.
The idea of zone scaling and with the nodes is perfect and great. It's important for all areas to feel relevant, and it's impressive to see where MMOs have gone since their inception.
It does not matter what type of raid mechanics you have. New expansion will mean better gear so it will make the current BiS obsolete no matter what.
It is actually the levels that make BiS obsolete. Level 50 gear is obsolete to level 60 gear. Level 60 crafted gear makes level 50 raid gear obsolete. It also makes the dungeouns raids and content associated with the gear obsolete.
This is not necessarily the case. It most definitely is the
case in modern MMOs because the power level increase is idiotic. The BiS item
of a previous expansion is replaced by a quest green! It didn’t used to be like
that, and it doesn’t have to be like that.
If the new expansion increased power only marginally, enough
for people to want to improve their gear, but not enough to invalidate the very
best gear from the previous expansion entirely you can have progression, but on
a more incremental level rather than the exponential that has become the norm
over the last few years.
New content should be the draw, with new gear available with
tiny upgrades, or sidegrades with interesting differences. There can always be
a handful of items that can become the new BiS item, but I think it is more
beneficial for the longevity of the game to have the legendary items, the
absolute peak of gear progression, to be always able to compete with the new
items released. Sure they may be one or two points of damage behind the new
legendaries, but not immediately be made obsolete.
I also think that it is not too difficult for items to have
much more of a level range during which they are useful. On a number of
occasions in past MMOs I have used the same piece of gear for almost ten levels
– partly due to plop luck, but mostly due to the item just being extremely fit
for purpose for my build. I, however, am not a min/maxer. I will gladly use a
weapon that does a few points less damage if it looks badass.
The tabletop games that I used to be a part of had campaigns
that ran for many months, stretching into years in one case. The players
increased in power over that time but not to the point where they wouldn’t have
recognised their earlier selves. This content was only experienced for a few
hours once a week.
I think the time that is spent, and the regularity, in an
MMO these days is a huge part of the problem. Daily login is the norm (and some
games actively penalise you for not doing so). The amount of time a person
spends in one MMO in one month would be the equivalent of a year’s worth of
D&D content.
Content is devoured at an often insane pace and we are
constantly clamouring for more (we do this with all media – how many people binged
Stranger Things in a day or two?). Ashes has the potential, through the node
system and a truly interconnected world, to keep players happy without a
world-redefining expansion every two years.
I am really, really hoping for a rather flat progression
schedule in Ashes. I know it can be done, it just takes commitment and
forethought.
Thank you for all your comments I have read them all. After giving it some thought I think scaling technology is the way to go. Toons could scale down for zones if needed and there could be current max level dungeouns of every dungeoun so there would be the original and the max level one. Or some other game mechanics that way we could keep the leveling experience.
Scaling can work as long as max levels when scaled down loose not only the stats, but also max rank of spells, and spells themselves that low level players don't have. Also lose points in ability trees, etc. etc. to make them really equal to lower levels on appropriate level.
Otherwise you have ridiculous BS like in Neverwinter where max level scaled down to 30 does 120 times more damage then real level 30. Now this is an extreme example, but scaling in any MMO I've seen was similary bad. Max levels when scaled down always kept all their spells, and have done huge more amounts of damage then real low level players on current level.
Scaling like that will never work. May as well not have scaling at all in that case.
Scaling nullifies the need to grind/get good gear, it made ESO boring. They did it to stop people grinding to reach max level within 17 hours to PvP, but all it did was kill a chunk of the playerbase.
With meaningful leveling, and people around you, and good quests and zones, leveling is extremely fun and an important part of MMOs
I totally agree
another comment on grinding: in many games a played you had to grind because players did not do every quest / Dungeon.
If a game is balanced in a way that you get to a certain level by either grinding or doing all quests and all dungeons, a player should not complain about grinding.
Don’t know if those fit in here but I just did not want to forget to mention it
Comments
It does not matter what type of raid mechanics you have. New expansion will mean better gear so it will make the current BiS obsolete no matter what.
It is actually the levels that make BiS obsolete. Level 50 gear is obsolete to level 60 gear. Level 60 crafted gear makes level 50 raid gear obsolete. It also makes the dungeouns raids and content associated with the gear obsolete.
With no levels or setting level cap to 50 it would be more like this: New raid content came out. If you already have BiS gear then you will be ready for new content. But if you do not you still have to get gear from old raid and then go to new raid fully prepared. Not just skipping over it cause crafted gear is better.
I can understand the pros and cons. Leveling up to get fireball 4 which makes more damage but the monsters are also stronger: you still need e.g. 4 shots.
The leveling however has a major part which is playing in your head. You let your character grow. You get a relationship with it. Sure, this is also possible if you start with max level but I really believe this will be much more intense if you grow up slowly and get every ability one after another and not all simultaneously. And also even though you still need the same shots with a skill to kill a mob, you still know: this one is harder.
Also I like (in PvE!!!) to sometimes go back to starting areas and kill the mobs there to experience how much better my character got.
Perhaps I should also mention I play a lot of pen and paper rpgs ;-)
I WANT the grind, even if the game truly begins at higher levels, because I think that is an important part of the experience. It only FEELS bad in today's society because so many people push push push to get to the end the fastest. And here is the thing about the grind, with new games it doesn't feel that way because as long as your running into people who are your level and work up, you create that relevancy. In wow and other games now leveling is a means to an end, partially because they have been around for so long most people are maxed out, and the only people you see leveling are alts who want to zip through content.
With meaningful leveling, and people around you, and good quests and zones, leveling is extremely fun and an important part of MMOs.
The idea of zone scaling and with the nodes is perfect and great. It's important for all areas to feel relevant, and it's impressive to see where MMOs have gone since their inception.
This is not necessarily the case. It most definitely is the case in modern MMOs because the power level increase is idiotic. The BiS item of a previous expansion is replaced by a quest green! It didn’t used to be like that, and it doesn’t have to be like that.
If the new expansion increased power only marginally, enough for people to want to improve their gear, but not enough to invalidate the very best gear from the previous expansion entirely you can have progression, but on a more incremental level rather than the exponential that has become the norm over the last few years.
New content should be the draw, with new gear available with tiny upgrades, or sidegrades with interesting differences. There can always be a handful of items that can become the new BiS item, but I think it is more beneficial for the longevity of the game to have the legendary items, the absolute peak of gear progression, to be always able to compete with the new items released. Sure they may be one or two points of damage behind the new legendaries, but not immediately be made obsolete.
I also think that it is not too difficult for items to have much more of a level range during which they are useful. On a number of occasions in past MMOs I have used the same piece of gear for almost ten levels – partly due to plop luck, but mostly due to the item just being extremely fit for purpose for my build. I, however, am not a min/maxer. I will gladly use a weapon that does a few points less damage if it looks badass.
The tabletop games that I used to be a part of had campaigns that ran for many months, stretching into years in one case. The players increased in power over that time but not to the point where they wouldn’t have recognised their earlier selves. This content was only experienced for a few hours once a week.
I think the time that is spent, and the regularity, in an MMO these days is a huge part of the problem. Daily login is the norm (and some games actively penalise you for not doing so). The amount of time a person spends in one MMO in one month would be the equivalent of a year’s worth of D&D content.
Content is devoured at an often insane pace and we are constantly clamouring for more (we do this with all media – how many people binged Stranger Things in a day or two?). Ashes has the potential, through the node system and a truly interconnected world, to keep players happy without a world-redefining expansion every two years.
I am really, really hoping for a rather flat progression schedule in Ashes. I know it can be done, it just takes commitment and forethought.
Otherwise you have ridiculous BS like in Neverwinter where max level scaled down to 30 does 120 times more damage then real level 30. Now this is an extreme example, but scaling in any MMO I've seen was similary bad. Max levels when scaled down always kept all their spells, and have done huge more amounts of damage then real low level players on current level.
Scaling like that will never work. May as well not have scaling at all in that case.
another comment on grinding: in many games a played you had to grind because players did not do every quest / Dungeon.
If a game is balanced in a way that you get to a certain level by either grinding or doing all quests and all dungeons, a player should not complain about grinding.
Don’t know if those fit in here but I just did not want to forget to mention it