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Thoughts on expansions... and especially the effects of raising level caps...
ArchivedUser
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So I've looked (briefly) on here about thoughts about expansions and what this can do to a game, and I've seen bits and pieces of it in certain thread's but not one devoted to it, so I figured I would start this.
I wanted to get the communities opinions on a few things, and honestly just kind of ramble about stuff while I'm bored at work.
Firstly I will say what I have seen throughout other MMOs. Generally when a MMO (or any game really but for this I will focus on MMOs) is released there is a lot to do at "max" level. Throughout the time developers might add additional content, new dungeons/zones, additional crafting recipes, and so on, but without raising level caps. Then time goes by, population is doing very well, companies making money and decides, lets make a new expansion! What does this do?
Well for one all the content at the vanilla level cap is kind of forgotten, but what does this really mean? Think of it like leveling, how often do you grind low level dungeons for the best possible gear, at said level, then once you get said gear, start leveling and do it all again on the next non max level dungeon? I know there might be some people who do this, but I will say a majority of players don't? What I see happen, is the people run the instance once or twice for quest purposes, if they get a unique item, awesome, if not they don't care too much, and then continue to level. Generally the lower levels have 1-2 dungeons for any given level grouping (ie one level 10-16 dungeon, one 15-22 dungeon and so one). However at max level there is generally multiple dungeons, which is what the player will focus on, getting specific items from the different dungeons to get the best combination of gear. The same can really be said for crafting, there might be really unique crafting recipes for lower levels, and I know there are people who pride themselves having all the recipes (I am one), but again I say the majority of people will only focus on getting to the max tier of crafting and get the recipes for said max tier. So when a new expansion comes out that increases the level cap, all the content that was there for late game becomes kind of like "why do I care" for new people or people starting new characters, because the gear is just meh compared to the new max level/tier equipment.
In my opinion, companies add level caps to essentially force players into playing the new quests/zones. This, again in my opinion, isn't a good method. The players who are rushing to max level aren't going to care, they are just going to fly through it all to get to the max level, and the people who really care about the stories, are going to play through it regardless of if it is needed for getting to the next level. All of this while make a larger amount of content when compared to any other level set, non essential or not cared about.
Another thing that tends to happen is they make the items exponentially better than the previous level cap, and in a sense they have to because the vanilla max level items have a tier system in and of themselves. Where the stats of a level 20 sword might be 15% greater than a sword of level 10, the difference between level 60 (new cap) has to be 150% greater than the level 50 sword of the same rarity because the epic raid level 50 sword is 125% better than the random uncommon level 50 sword. This not only makes it feel like the accomplishments of the previous content is worthless, it also makes non instanced PvP essentially useless for anyone leveling. You can argue that the over powered raid weapons always make it harder for PvP at low levels but think of it like this. Lets be generous and say 5% of players at max level have the crazy OP raid gear that's 125% better than the regular level 50 item, which is 15% greater than the level 40 item. This means that 5% of the time you will be disintegrated by a player with OP gear, but 95% of the time you will be fighting at a disadvantage (more than likely still lose) but it will feel very differently than someone just running around one shotting you. Now lets look at the raised level cap, because the new level 60 uncommon sword is 150% stronger than the level 50 uncommon sword because it has to be better than level 50 raid gear that means the people leveling up are fighting people with exceptionally better gear that wouldn't be the same scaling as say fighting a level 20 as a level 30.
I have my own ideas on how these issues can be remedied, especially in regards to Ashes due to the system they are striving for, but I want to hear from you all! (I will edit this post with my thoughts on how I would change things, I just want to get it out there for other)
What do you all think of my assessment of other MMOs?
What are your thoughts on increasing the level cap when a large amount of content is released?
What are you thoughts on how to make old max level content not become redundant if the level cap does increase?
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So in my opinion, level caps shouldn't be raised (surprise surprise I know...). So what can we do to make people care about new content such as quests and such? Well, that's where Ashes has quite an advantage over other MMOs, namely the node system. With the node system (to my understanding) players are going to have to do quests and other activities in said zone to level the node, well if they make an expansion with new land areas, there will most likely be new nodes, which will then make players do quests to level said nodes.
You could argue that this will leave some players to just not care and let the masses level the nodes if they are solo or small group/guild. Then I would suggest this, and this is what I suggest to other games that don't have the node system, make reputation or dungeon specific gear matter.
What do I mean by this? Well lets say there's this epic op guild that has mastered all the raids, has all their members with the best gear, and are just straight ballers. A new raid comes out, and they just go in day one and CRUSH it because they have all the baller OP gear, how do we stop that? Well I would suggest something similar to WoW and the need for resistance gear. If you have the baller OP gear from dungeon one and have no fire resistance (or whatever you want to say) and then the new dungeon, all the enemies do fire damage and if you don't have fire resistance gear, you're screwed. This type of thing doesn't have to come from all new pieces of armor either, this could be something from new zones that you get to enhance armor or something along those lines, perhaps another gear slot to put crafted/dropped/quest loot items to add to fire resistance. I know Ashes is wanting to go back to the days of hard MMOs, which I 110% support, and I truly feel the need for raid tiers (not raid A with difficulty tier x y z, I mean to do raid 2 you have to have gear from raid 1, 3 from 2, and so on). That being said I don't think the items from raid tier 6 should let you go around pi$$ing on raid tier 1, it can make it easier, but not a cake walk.
This makes it to where you are always working towards a new objective, but also makes it to where a fresh level 50 doesn't get one shotted by the epic tier 6 full raid gear level 50, it should feel VERY uneven yes, and I would even say that there should be little to no chance for the fresh level 50 to win 1v1 but if the content is hard, and I mean HARD, then the people who have gotten that gear deserve to be that strong. I know this is a difficult thing for some people to swallow, namely the people who want to just pvp and not have to worry about getting the raid gear to be numero uno. That's how it was with the older generation of MMOs, and if you're solely looking to PvP and expect to be on even footing while doing so, MMOs really shouldn't be the place you look for it.
This really is laid out the greatest, I know (at work and get little distractions here and there - side note love IT!!)
I wanted to get the communities opinions on a few things, and honestly just kind of ramble about stuff while I'm bored at work.
Firstly I will say what I have seen throughout other MMOs. Generally when a MMO (or any game really but for this I will focus on MMOs) is released there is a lot to do at "max" level. Throughout the time developers might add additional content, new dungeons/zones, additional crafting recipes, and so on, but without raising level caps. Then time goes by, population is doing very well, companies making money and decides, lets make a new expansion! What does this do?
Well for one all the content at the vanilla level cap is kind of forgotten, but what does this really mean? Think of it like leveling, how often do you grind low level dungeons for the best possible gear, at said level, then once you get said gear, start leveling and do it all again on the next non max level dungeon? I know there might be some people who do this, but I will say a majority of players don't? What I see happen, is the people run the instance once or twice for quest purposes, if they get a unique item, awesome, if not they don't care too much, and then continue to level. Generally the lower levels have 1-2 dungeons for any given level grouping (ie one level 10-16 dungeon, one 15-22 dungeon and so one). However at max level there is generally multiple dungeons, which is what the player will focus on, getting specific items from the different dungeons to get the best combination of gear. The same can really be said for crafting, there might be really unique crafting recipes for lower levels, and I know there are people who pride themselves having all the recipes (I am one), but again I say the majority of people will only focus on getting to the max tier of crafting and get the recipes for said max tier. So when a new expansion comes out that increases the level cap, all the content that was there for late game becomes kind of like "why do I care" for new people or people starting new characters, because the gear is just meh compared to the new max level/tier equipment.
In my opinion, companies add level caps to essentially force players into playing the new quests/zones. This, again in my opinion, isn't a good method. The players who are rushing to max level aren't going to care, they are just going to fly through it all to get to the max level, and the people who really care about the stories, are going to play through it regardless of if it is needed for getting to the next level. All of this while make a larger amount of content when compared to any other level set, non essential or not cared about.
Another thing that tends to happen is they make the items exponentially better than the previous level cap, and in a sense they have to because the vanilla max level items have a tier system in and of themselves. Where the stats of a level 20 sword might be 15% greater than a sword of level 10, the difference between level 60 (new cap) has to be 150% greater than the level 50 sword of the same rarity because the epic raid level 50 sword is 125% better than the random uncommon level 50 sword. This not only makes it feel like the accomplishments of the previous content is worthless, it also makes non instanced PvP essentially useless for anyone leveling. You can argue that the over powered raid weapons always make it harder for PvP at low levels but think of it like this. Lets be generous and say 5% of players at max level have the crazy OP raid gear that's 125% better than the regular level 50 item, which is 15% greater than the level 40 item. This means that 5% of the time you will be disintegrated by a player with OP gear, but 95% of the time you will be fighting at a disadvantage (more than likely still lose) but it will feel very differently than someone just running around one shotting you. Now lets look at the raised level cap, because the new level 60 uncommon sword is 150% stronger than the level 50 uncommon sword because it has to be better than level 50 raid gear that means the people leveling up are fighting people with exceptionally better gear that wouldn't be the same scaling as say fighting a level 20 as a level 30.
I have my own ideas on how these issues can be remedied, especially in regards to Ashes due to the system they are striving for, but I want to hear from you all! (I will edit this post with my thoughts on how I would change things, I just want to get it out there for other)
What do you all think of my assessment of other MMOs?
What are your thoughts on increasing the level cap when a large amount of content is released?
What are you thoughts on how to make old max level content not become redundant if the level cap does increase?
-----------------------------------------------------
So in my opinion, level caps shouldn't be raised (surprise surprise I know...). So what can we do to make people care about new content such as quests and such? Well, that's where Ashes has quite an advantage over other MMOs, namely the node system. With the node system (to my understanding) players are going to have to do quests and other activities in said zone to level the node, well if they make an expansion with new land areas, there will most likely be new nodes, which will then make players do quests to level said nodes.
You could argue that this will leave some players to just not care and let the masses level the nodes if they are solo or small group/guild. Then I would suggest this, and this is what I suggest to other games that don't have the node system, make reputation or dungeon specific gear matter.
What do I mean by this? Well lets say there's this epic op guild that has mastered all the raids, has all their members with the best gear, and are just straight ballers. A new raid comes out, and they just go in day one and CRUSH it because they have all the baller OP gear, how do we stop that? Well I would suggest something similar to WoW and the need for resistance gear. If you have the baller OP gear from dungeon one and have no fire resistance (or whatever you want to say) and then the new dungeon, all the enemies do fire damage and if you don't have fire resistance gear, you're screwed. This type of thing doesn't have to come from all new pieces of armor either, this could be something from new zones that you get to enhance armor or something along those lines, perhaps another gear slot to put crafted/dropped/quest loot items to add to fire resistance. I know Ashes is wanting to go back to the days of hard MMOs, which I 110% support, and I truly feel the need for raid tiers (not raid A with difficulty tier x y z, I mean to do raid 2 you have to have gear from raid 1, 3 from 2, and so on). That being said I don't think the items from raid tier 6 should let you go around pi$$ing on raid tier 1, it can make it easier, but not a cake walk.
This makes it to where you are always working towards a new objective, but also makes it to where a fresh level 50 doesn't get one shotted by the epic tier 6 full raid gear level 50, it should feel VERY uneven yes, and I would even say that there should be little to no chance for the fresh level 50 to win 1v1 but if the content is hard, and I mean HARD, then the people who have gotten that gear deserve to be that strong. I know this is a difficult thing for some people to swallow, namely the people who want to just pvp and not have to worry about getting the raid gear to be numero uno. That's how it was with the older generation of MMOs, and if you're solely looking to PvP and expect to be on even footing while doing so, MMOs really shouldn't be the place you look for it.
This really is laid out the greatest, I know (at work and get little distractions here and there - side note love IT!!)
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Second, again unless major systems of the game get altered, adding new nodes and giving players a valid reason to move to them will see the old nodes become deserted and decline. The additional distance players would at times need to run caravans would also be problematic, potentially making it non-viable to even collect resources in old parts of the world.
Since content is tied to nodes, would also mean a decrease in overall content as nodes deteriorate.
A far better way to do an expansion, in my mind, would be to add 10 levels, itemize things properly (a common level 60 item does not need to be better than a rare level 50 item - this is a WoW-ism), and add a new tier to nodes.
Since nodes will have a new tier, that inherently means new content at a higher level, and a reduction (though not to nothing) of lower level content. As a bonus, this doesn't spread out the population at all, meaning everything players have built up to that point are not artificially rendered useless by Intrepid adding a shiny new node on the other side of the map.
New parts of the world could be added to the game, perhaps with new dungeons or instances, but adding nodes to the game post-release is asking for a dead world.
A level cap increase serves a very specific role in an MMO - it allows players to catch up.
Without level cap increases, players are required to first of all level up, and then to gear up in order to catch up to existing players. If a game like WoW or EQ2 had no level cap increases, players starting the game now would have to level up to the level cap of each game, and then try and find a way to make up 14 years worth of gear progression that characters would have.
That is an obviously impossible task.
So instead, developers add a level cap increase, meaning new players only need to level up to this new level cap, and then only have the gear progression that people have made from that new level cap - a much more reasonable thing to ask a new player to do.
When a game only has expansions every few years (WoW) that level cap increase kind of needs to be every expansion - but when a game has expansions every year (EQ2) level cap increases only need to be every few expansions.
However the level cap raise, you said you could itemize properly and that it was a wow-ism type of view that the new level capped items have to be better than old level cap god items. That has happened in ever mmo expansion I have played, not just WoW, and it's pretty much to make it to where the geared out old level cap players don't destroy the new content. A better thing you could say is make the raid gear not so insanely powerful, which would work, but it would also irritate the people who spend all the time doing the raids. If someone spends hours a night in a raid, for weeks/months, getting the best of the best gear, and it is only marginally better than a regular crafted item of the same level, that's going to leave people asking what's the point?
I know you can reference my original post calling me a hypocrite with me saying "I don't think the items from raid tier 6 should let you go around pi$$ing on raid tier 1, it can make it easier, but not a cake walk." but this is where I wanted to see other peoples ideas. Do you all think there should be raid tiers for items, if so, what happens when there is a new expansion and the level cap is raised? How do you make it to where the people with that gear don't just go around 1 shotting everything until they get to the max level again, and more importantly in my opinion, how do you make that content relevant at the new max level. We could take your idea of itemizing weapons so the best level 50 raid gear is still better than level 60 uncommon gear, this doesn't hurt because in my opinion the people with that gear don't care as much about the leveling process and want it done as fast as possible, and hell we could even make that gear better than most level 60 gear and needed before you do the new raids, but it still doesn't answer the other issues with expanding a cap.
I want to expand on the the idea of level 50 raid gear being better than level 60 regular/uncommon/what have you gear. If this is the case, when you get to level 60, then you go into the level 50 dungeons/raids what happens? Is the content challenging because its giving you better gear? If so then why was it level 50 and how was it done at level 50? It essentially comes down to, making it easy mode for people who couldn't complete the dungeon/raid, and personally, I don't want this game to cater to people who can't complete the content (unfavorable opinion I imagine but it is what it is).
Nodes are a complex system, so I guess I'll quickly try and explain a few points about them so you better understand where I am coming from.
Nodes have a Zone of Influence (ZoI). The higher level the node, the bigger the ZoI. As a node gains levels, it's ZoI gets so large that other nodes fall within it. Once a node is within the ZoI of another node, the larger node becomes the parent node, and the child node is unable to level up to the level of that parent node. A node that is the child of a higher level node can also be the parent of a lower level node within it's own ZoI, as long as that lower level node is not also within the ZoI of the intermediate level nodes parent node (assumption).
The content around a node changes based on the level (and type, I believe) of node whose ZoI that content falls within. This means higher level nodes have higher level content, lower level nodes have lower level content.
Due to the mechanic of node parent/child, nodes of all levels need to exist. You will have a higher level node, surrounded by rings of nodes of ever decreasing levels.
Now again, the content within the ZoI of a node changes based on that ZoI. In some cases, it changes to the point where dungeons will exist or not exist based on what nodes nearby are doing. If a dungeon is within the ZoI of a high level node, the content of that dungeon (as far as I can tell) becomes high level. If it is a low level node, the content is low level.
Now, with that system, if you add one more level that nodes can gain, it means all of those rings of nodes of decreasing level are one level higher meaning more higher level content. This in turn also means fewer lower level nodes, which obviously means fewer lower level dungeons.
On the other hand, if you add new nodes to the game, you will have fewer people at these nodes. Fewer people means the nodes can not be maintained at as high a level - and they will delevel. Nodes deleveling means content within the ZoI lowers in level.
So, basically, adding more nodes to the game thins out the population, reduces the level of nodes due to not enough people to maintain them, and in turn reduces the level of the content around the nodes - a net gain in low level content - the exact thing we wouldn't want.
The above is an overly simplistic description of nodes, their ZoI, and the influence they have on content around them, but I think it maybe illustrates the idea a bit better than my first post.
It is also worth noting that we have no reason to assume *all* content will fall within a nodes ZoI. There may well be dungeons and instances in the game that are exempt from this system, and an increase or addition to these is always welcome.
Basically any game should want to cater to 2 categories of players:
1. New(ish) players that haven't reached the level cap. All you need to do is provide additional rewards (that can be anything meaningful, not overpowered) to any quest that is in your level range, when you have reached max experience. This will make people go to those areas and explore/do the quests. Those who don't like doing it - and are only interested in reaching the level cap - aren't going to care anyway!!
2. Veteran players that have been at the level cap for a while. Here, they can be split in 2 categories: raiders and non-raiders.
For non-raiders it is easy - the additional rewards from new max level areas, for the quests that are in your level range, should be incentive enough, because most of them are curious, like exploring, like discovering secrets etc. They are basically "new players" with the specificity that they are at max level.
For the raiders, you can add new raids, of course, as long as the power level of the dropped gear is not over the one from the older content. I could take a risk and say that raiders want to clear those raids because of the fame it brings, because of the CHALLENGE each encounter provides, etc. So, you don't need to add better gear from raids, but just make the fights HARDER or different. With so many class combinations and additional effects abilities can have from allies, even gear can become more specific - yet equal to that from the old raids.
Overall, you don't need to raise level caps. When the max level stays the same, people aren't going to care as much about reaching it, but about the JOURNEY. There will be no hurry to go to the most effective area to level up, they might even get more involved into the lore and the quests etc. Each new area could simply become something new to explore, not something that makes you more powerful.
Yet, I do not see this system able to reach "infinity". The concept of "level caps" simply doesn't allow this, no matter if the new gear/areas/etc are increasingly more powerful or not. The only way around it, in my opinion, is to actually level up skills instead of characters. Not going to go into details about this as it will end up in a huge post. I'll just say that "The Repopulation" was on the right track with this and maybe "Project Gorgon" is too (not sure yet - too low level).
And yes in a perfect world, it's always changing, and always going to be something new. While I have high hopes for this game, I also live in the real world. You are going to have people that figure out, the gear you want comes from X dungeon at Y node and will work to get that available a majority if not all the time.
Lastly, just because most of my experience is in lotro and rift, doesn't mean I've not played pretty much every MMO that came to the west outside of the WoW expansions since 2007. You talk about WoW clone as if it's a bad thing, but the thing is, it works 14 years after WoW was released. No other MMO can claim that. Does that mean I think Ashes should just be another WoW clone, no, but does it mean they will not take any aspects from WoW?
Honestly I like the idea of a WoW clone that does 2 things:
1) Doesn't cater to the masses to make everyone equal and the game easy - life isn't easy or fair, gotta learn to deal with it
and
2) as someone who posted while I'm writing this, content is expanded horizontally, very good way of thinking about it.
Basically, adding new levels neutralizes the gear progression players have made since the previous level cap increase.
I mean, as I said in a previous post - imagine having to catch up with 14 years of gear progression rather than only having to worry about the gear progression gained since the last level cap increase?
You'd have to run tier 1 dungeons or raids to get the gear, then run tier 2, all the way up to what, tier 30? tier 50?
Instead, at tier 47, developers can just add a level cap increase, putting everyone in the game at tier 47 when they level up to that level cap, and everyone can work their way up to tier 50 from there.
If that isn't killing power creep, I don't know what is.
I would argue that a game needs both.
In a perfect world, one that isn't overly worried about low level content being empty (not the end of the world), the ideal situation to me is to have a high level content expansion, a level cap increase expansion, a lower level content expansion, and then maintain it in that rotation of three for as long as the game survives.
As I've mentioned in this thread a few times, this means that players new to the game only need to level to the current level cap and then are on more or less the same footing everyone else in the game was when they leveled up to that point.
Since most MMO's alter the experience curve when increasing the level cap, this also means that the time and effort spent leveling to the new level cap is usually roughly the same as the time and effort needed to level to the old level cap.
As an expansion strategy, this absolutely *could* work with the node system. It would need to be reworked slightly, but it *could* work. I make very few assumptions, and when I do I point out that I am making them (you'll notice this in my posts).
Players will naturally level up a node to max, this goes without saying. Players wanting to be citizens of a different node type, or players wanting housing no longer available in that max level node will, over time, crowd around the max level node as the nodes closest to it are the nodes that will be able to level up the highest. This is just how players will naturally gravitate. It won't be everyone, but the bulk of players will move to the highest level node available that fits in with what they want from their node (and likely that is close to where their guild is based).
It is entirely possible that there may be times when guilds want nodes set up a specific way in order to gain access to content - and if they manage to do that, good for them. I'm not sure what it has to do with this discussion.
That max level node will obviously lose a siege and be de-leveled at times - but when that happens, one of the max level-1 nodes next to it will be the first node to level up and take it's place, and the whole system will then realign itself to that node.
If Intrepid add new nodes to the game, they would need to add a full cluster of nodes big enough to form another max level node.
One node (or even a small cluster) by itself wouldn't be able to be added. If it is placed too far from other nodes, it would be too much time, effort and risk running caravans to it. On the other hand, if it is simply added near existing nodes it may well already be under another nodes ZoI when released, preventing it from leveling up much - or even at all.
If there is no way any of the new nodes can become max level, there is no incentive for players to move there. If enough players move there to level the node to max level, the nodes over the rest of the server would have lost too many players to be able to sustain themselves.
Now, I am not saying this is an impossible situation, nor am I saying there is no way Intrepid could ever add more nodes to the game. If you note in my first post in this thread, I specifically said that if they did do it, *they would have to do so with major system changes*.
Players will probably not scale as much vertically at max level so there wont be as much of a need for fresh toons to be instantly caught up. We also don't have bound gear so it will be easier for players to at least get "last generations" gear. There is also a strong emphasis on horizontal progression so gear progression will also be more about getting the right stat, passive, and set bonuses then getting higher level. Theorycrafting and making different builds might be more of what it's about then getting a higher item level.
A lot of things here will be different and it's hard to tell how everything will play out. I don't think the game has proven that we need a reset button on progression yet.
The more you add to the game the more there is to do and it doesn't have to be locked behind a week of grinding levels.
Also, a lot of the gear/items will be made by players. So with a bit of gold farming players should be able to acquire decent gear. Some players will always spend time grinding for rare drops, the system shouldn't be responsible for adding endless rare items (more and more powerful) because some players feel they had a late start.
"...use to, when you were late to the game, you tried harder to keep up. Others didn't give you special attention to help you out..." (is my age showing?)
New recipes can be unlocked with expansions, but they could be unlocked at all existing levels. So maybe maxed out level 50 crafting guru doesn't notice that there are new level 10 crafts available, that the pop. of level 10 players are more interested in because they can both utilize and afford them. Even if they did notice it would be odd to just assume they automatically had all the components on hand to make those items.
Dungeons can be turned over in this type of system too (nodes affecting their own ZOI). So we should not (hopefully) expect there to only be a handful of max level dungeons that never change. I know the boss battles will be different to prevent mastering just one technique, but I hope that the monsters/boss actually change according to surroundings. This means that a group of max level players could potentially 'go around the world' and by time they got back to where they started it could be a different dungeon (to me this is the best outcome for the node system).
Max level increases are, again imo, not necessary. In fact, I would argue, most conventional MMORPG systems are not necessary but instead are used due to familiarity and customization. Not to mention nostalgia from players which I feel often hinders development of new things than it helps.
I am not against Ashes having max level increases. It would be nice if they were able to do something different to encourage players to not just sit around and wait for the next level of content to occur.
Also the fact that the new horizontal content shouldn't be more powerful than the "old" content.
So... there is NO NEED to catch up to 14 years of playing the game.... because the gear provides the SAME/SIMILAR things. It simply gives you a choice on where to level up to 50 (maybe) and what areas to leave for doing after reaching 50. Put in those "extra" fun rewards I was talking about earlier in the thread and you get an incentive to do those areas too, even at 50. Not everyone is a raider and not everyone likes doing dungeons.
Horizontal content doesn't mean you have to do it all, provided the gear drops are similar in power level. It just means you get to CHOOSE and to better decide on what your character does.
Expansion is called expansion because it usually comes with new lands, new classes, new player races and new levels.
I expect we will get new classes and new mobs with some of the larger DLCs.
I'm not expecting new lands, new player races and new levels til a couple years after launch - if ever.
But how can you have progression as a sense of power progression without breaking the game in such a way ? You level individual skills through vertical progression instead and add more and more skill 'variety' (horizontal progression) to the game. You limit how many of those skills you can use in a set, so that it gives you an almost limitless variety of builds due to the toolset-size vs pool-size. That way you only need to have enough skills to fill your toolset to be competitive with any veteran, but the veteran has a much wider array of skills to choose from (more of the pool unlocked/levelled).
The problem we have is entitlement. Vets demand they have better power (in a combined DPS/MPS/HPS sense) rather than better variety. And in a static sense rather than a dynamic one. They expect god mode by default in effect, so they can one shot new players. Rather than requiring dynamic skill to beat their adversary. Often justified with 'PvP' players that want global parity shoudlnt play an MMO
I have been silent for a while because I am working on a system that should keep every one happy. A live and dynamic 'quality' system where amplitude of effect is graded and relative via reactionary skill use instead. The quality of your attack and defense determines the grading of the effect, rather than an on/off switch with hard numbers. It uses the skillshot system, but for grading not for combos. Its a user defied RNG system based on reflexes, skill familiarity and feedback awareness. Combat gear quality will be intimately dependant upon it and vice-versa.
The main problem with jumping level caps is all in game gear must be regraded at the same time. Stuff has to be re-scaled in effect, to define the 'new' 100%. You could rescale gear power by level and fix quality relative to tiers of the 100%. That way quality and power are independently scalable. But you would still be left with legendary gear suddenly being demoted to epic gear instead.
So how can you have quality levels without impacting power and still make it feel like more power ? AoE caps. 1-50 should be invidiual levelling of 1v1 skills. Quality level should be 50+ and based on levelling teamplay by group size. Content that requires more players to work together require larger AoE caps. And 1v1......having a max AoE cap of 1 or 50 makes absolutely zero difference on the outcome of that 1v1. So you must progress from 1v1 team play through to 32v32 teamplay and get the rare tailor-made gear quality required to enable that. If you can justify the maintenance of such gear. Because that would make legendary players desired by everyone, except the legendary player trying to maintain their status. No free lunch here.
I really like the thought of more options through skill leveling vs. general leveling. That's also why I am a fan of Ashes (as of now) limiting the number of hotkeys available on the toolbar.
Over all I don't like gear that enhances base stats. Swords that do fire damage in addition to regular damage to enhance DPS I am good with, swords that enhance the characters Strength Stat I don't understand. Shields that enhance AC and offer more reflection/absorption are nice, but those that increase a characters HP I don't understand. We're not building mechs, imo.
Skill progression + unlock should be able to counter the need for max level increases. As for late start players, if the level cap has been increased a few times before they started playing they just have a longer grind to feel competitive.
Level 50 already seems way too high to me and basically the same mistake that EQ and WoW started.
We shall see.
(Swords that enhance Strength are enchanted to enhance Strength - magic in a high fantasy setting.)
Without knowing they are going to get a boost to revenue from selling expansions, things like level cap increases, major new overland areas or major new systems of any kind are somewhat more unlikely to ever happen.
That said...
@Rune_Relic
I'm not going to get in to too much detail of your post, but I can say that this statement...
...is totally bunk.
Every single major western MMO to increase the level cap has done so with an accompanying shift in the experience curve. These shifts are done in a way where the total experience needed to reach the new level cap is roughly comparable to the total experience needed to reach the previous level cap, and where the total time required is usually slightly lower.
This is why when playing games that have not drastically altered their lower level content post launch (as WoW has - which is a good thing), players are able to level up faster, without needing to run through as much content.
This is why lower level group content isn't needed a few years after a game gets released. This is why many people that wish to experience (or re-experience) lower level content later on in a games life complain of out-leveling it too fast.
Basically, the expected amount of time to reach max level in every western MMO to date has either stayed the same or gone down, regardless of any level cap increases.
If you make getting to the level cap easier (i.e. altering xp as mentioned) then what's the point of even doing it?
I am a firm believer in equality, and reducing the time it takes to reach a level because the level cap has increased, imo, makes no sense.
Even if Ashes does add level caps it would be nice if they took longer and longer to achieve. Why the need for assisted instant gratification?
The complaint about out-leveling too fast is that endgame while waiting for next expansion takes 2 years.
The ratio of leveling to endgame is intolerable.
But, also leveling needs to have a steady rate of progression (horizontal or vertical) without hell levels and/or overly grindy obstacles like "Kill 10 Wormy Skeletons (but 1 Wormy Skeleton only after 50 Laughing Skeletons are killed)".
I know this seems counter-intuitive, but that is only the case until you think about it.
Most MMO's have more progression at the level cap than before it - in terms of required time. You hit max level and then you run what ever content you enjoy in order to get what ever rewards you are after, and this takes up substantially more time than the leveling process took.
For a new player, having to spend all that time leveling, then having to spend all that time at the level cap progressing on that same content that others have been on for perhaps years - it could quite easily be impossible to ever catch up - I mean, lets not forget that the existing players are still progressing away.
So, in order to allow newer players to catch up to older players, the developers add a few new levels which acts as either a full or a partial gear reset. This means that our new player no longer needs to worry about having to gear up through all the content, and can simply level up to max and then work on the content that everyone else is doing.
I mean, without level cap increases, a new WoW player would need to progress up through all vanilla content, then on to all BC content, then Cataclysm etc just in order to get to where people are up to now.
This is obviously not a sound business practice. Any product needs to try to continually expand it's sales, and in terms of MMO's, that means attracting new players and getting them integrated in to the game in it's current state as fast as possible.
Now, there absolutely *ARE* other ways to achieve this. That should go without saying, but I will say it regardless. However, while there are other means to the same end, a level cap increase is as valid as any of them.
As has always been the case for RPGs.
The point of endgame content is to have something to keep players busy while waiting for the devs to create and implement new content.
Sure, eventually their gear/stats/etc. might all level out, but the player with 2 additional years should have greater resources to pull from. So why would you also not be giving new players bonus starting resources?
If you start playing WoW today, why would you not expect to have to play through all the same content everyone has (or imo should have) played through?
I agree, it's a marketing ploy. It's to reward those who start later so they don't feel disfranchised, what a shame it would be to play a game and not be able to quickly catch up with everyone else.
I understand why games do this, hopefully Ashes can change things up and find a better way. I am obviously against helping others burn through content quicker just because someone is more powerful than they are (especially if they earned it).
It would suck for an artifact level item to be reduced to sub-standard use after 1 or 2 level cap increases.
All MMORPG's prior to Trion releasing Rift allocated server resources based on in game zones. As zones become less populated, it is possible for publishers to have several zones running off an individual server blade, but only if the zones in question were lightly trafficked.
So in a game like EQ2 as an example, it could be possible that at release, each instance of The Commonlands had a dedicated blade, but after a few level cap increases, the Commonlands, Wailing Caves, Fallen Gate, Nektulous Forest and Nektropos Castle could all be run off a single blade.
This obviously made it financially advantageous for publishers to make sure older zones weren't trafficked as heavily as newer zones, as it allowed them to add new zones to the game without needing to add new blades to the server - but it only worked if older zones remained under-populated. In order to add new zones to a game, developers needed to either invest massively in new hardware (not worth it), or they needed to do something to make existing zones less populated than they were pre-expansion, so they could run more zones off of fewer blades, freeing up hardware for the new zones they want to add.
Adding new levels to the game, along with shortening the time players spend in lower levels, is a fantastic way to do this.
This is why I always have a small laugh to myself when people complain about the "bad design" that sees old zones become less used in some MMO's.
My posts in this thread up until this one have been based on AoC and why they *may* want to add new levels. This post, however, is more a means of pointing out to those that care that there are actual good reasons developers and producers do things in games that go beyond what we, as players, see. Sometimes, something we may see as a negative (low population in low level zones) is actually done specifically and deliberately.
Now, as I said at the start of this post, I don't believe AoC will use it's server resources in this manner. I'm fairly convinced they will have a system closer to that of Rift, where resources are allocated to the player, not to the location. This is why Rift was able to have far more people in a small area than other games of it's era, something AoC will need, which is why I expect AoC to use something closer to the system from Rift.
Whether AoC will have a level cap increase or not is totally dependent on what the game as a whole needs. There is no one thing that would make a level cap increase an absolute requirement, but there absolutely are circumstances that could all add up to making it the best thing for Intrepid to do - and we, as players - may not even be aware of those circumstances.
To address your last point - simply add in a recipe for a level adjusted version of the legendary item, using the lower level item as a component along with a few more level appropriate components. Problem solved.