Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
However, I don't think Ashes needs to accommodate every possible player.
I will somewhat rush subsequent characters through the content. Like in ESO I have 8 max characters so the content starts to get a little repetitive about the 3rd time through so I tend rush through it more.
Try to please everyone and you'll end up please nobody. That's why I admire games like Secret World Legends that aren't afraid to go against the norm and deliver a more unique questing experience.
I also think that quest markers decrease my need to read the text. If it's going to show me where to go why bother, right?! But it's an interesting dilemma. I, personally, will try to read what I can so that the experience is more enjoyable...and remember-able. There aren't many MMOs that I've played, that I can honestly remember a great moment from it. It was just content grind. And I wish to change that with my time in ESO and with AoC in the future.
I very much hate rushing to “end game”, but I still do it.
We don't talk about the days before a realm reborn. But yes that was awful.
There definitely needs to be a balance between immersion and information-overload. Working my way through FF14's main story, I'm getting constantly bombarded with information to the point where I struggle to keep track of the important events. It's all just a blur. I'm praised for all my heroic deeds and yet I can barely remember any of them, and I'm only about a third of the way through the story. The other problem is keeping track of all the characters you are introduced to along the way. I will be introduced to a character, given a ton of exposition about them, and by the time I have forgotten most of what I was told.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you just give the bare bones information about what you are doing it's a lot harder to get immersed in the story. For example, there was one quest I did in FF14 where I went to a farmer who asked me to find a treasure chest, which contained a seed. If that was the only information I was given I would dismiss the whole thing as pointless filler. But when I accepted the quest I was told that the people of the village were suffering because none of their plants would grow, and the seed I went to find was the only plant that would grow. Me retrieving that seed essentially saves the village was starvation.
Again, if you haven't already I would definitely recommend playing through the main story of GW2, as it does a fantastic job of immersing you in the story without overloading you with information and lore.
With regards to quest markers, what other options could developers use to direct players where they need to go for a quest? Either you give them markers and accept that a lot of players are going to skip through the quest text, or you take away the markers and make people read the text (or do "google-fu" to find the answers from someone else).
Im pretty sure Blizzard's greatest gift to mankind was removing that feature. I remember starting one in Thousand Needles and literally eating dinner the whole time it played.
You haven't read much about the systems Ashes will have did you ? nodes level as the player do activities in them, in other words if you level you see the entire node grow bigger and more/bigger events will occur in that node. There are no levels on the zones either, you can get fucked by a level 20 monster where level 10 mobs are plenty. Intrepid is literally trying so that this game will not be like every other mmorpg out there.
Just out of curiosity what mmorpgs have you played? If your answer is only WoW then I can fully understand your jaded attitude towards leveling, because the leveling in that game is amongst the worst of any mmorpg I have played.
..but, conversely and typically, you've got the most content open to you at max level..totally understandable why people would rush to get there
I want to enjoy the game in a way that I get a life time subs worth of game, and I don't want to burn out early because I feel like I've done all the content in the first month and I didn't enjoy any of it because I skipped reading text, and rushed to be max level.
What I will do is try to be first to engage with hidden areas of the game, and to find interesting locations and POIs(points of interest) and I will breath deep the good earthy smells of the caverns.
PURPLE PARALLEL
If, on the other hand, profession levels are not linked then we should see a wide variety of player levels (level 20 character that is a Master Miner, etc).
That said, one can expect that since crafting materials are going to be harvested from some of the dungeon and raid bosses we can expect some master gatherers to be max level and part of the raid group.
My number 1 reason I can’t stand the idea of throttling leveling is because it encourages solo play. Why even play an mmo? Max level is the only real grouping level. Not that you can’t find some random people your level and group with them. I’d just prefer playing with my friends I game with who all have different speeds in which they level. Not everyone will wait and level with you.
So in your opinion we should get rid of leveling entirely and just skip everyone straight to max level? If we did that then that kind of defeats the whole point of playing an RPG in the first place. It would be like going into Call of Duty and saying "I hate the fact everyone uses guns, we should only be allowed knives instead".
That said, I do see your point regarding wanting to play with friends who are different levels to you, but this is easily fixed with scaling technology that a lot of mmorpgs use now-a-days.
You can't have a system where a character can grow stronger indefinitely, so wherever the stopping point is, that is the end game.
Vertical leveling is basic and not really creative. I believe rushing to max level is a bad thing so why not just remove it all together. 1-59 in my opinion is fluff content that's easy to develop. It makes for a questionable world too... for example why is this staving level 60 zombie wolf so content on staying in a zombie land with no food when a 5 minute walk away is a starting zone filled with farmers and pigs like right next to it. Not having to craft swords youll never use over and over only to break them down and recraft the same thing. Also being ganked by someone 10 levels higher than you and have the feeling that you just encountered the actual God of death and you and your gang of 7 friends cant even hit him because 10 levels means he is immune to anything you do, All you can do is cry Nani as he calmy says Omea wa mou shindeiru and Aoes you all down with one ability when all the guy does in his questing is kill elder versions of the monsters you kill in the next zone over. I think its an old system that needs to be improved.
The OP stated all mmorpgs not just ashes so some of my examples ashes may have some interesting mechanic for instance the zones are changing and have high level and low level mobs which i agree is a step in the right direction but Id love to see vertical leveling get thrown out the window someday. Its unnecessary and I havent seen it done well in most mmos I have played. Level scaling I like but I also think its a bandage to the actual problem. All of this is my opinion of what the next generation of mmorpgs should be. Id like to see more of how Ashes will be different in terms of leveling. I expect pretty much the same old thing though.
Reaching max character level is max character level - but that should not be the end of the story and should not be the end of the game.
With Ashes, we have racial progression, social progression, religious progression and naval progression.
In addition, we have Node progression which dynamically changes the world - building and destroying villages and metros, which in turn dynamically changes the content available in the world.
So, no, the cap on how strong a character grows vertically is not the end of the game in Ashes.
CoE also puts and end to endgame.
One of the mechanisms there is having characters eventually die from old age, thereby needing to progress an heir. CoE also has a dynamic world rather than a static world.
I love this! I, too, would love a horizontal system. If I want to be great at magic, I need to practice my magic, not just level up. ESO has a small amount of this in the skills systems. Unlock your skill, and after using it enough ( earning xp) you can morph that skill. Unfortunately that horizontal progression ends there. There needs to be a game that tries to do this, and do it well.
Thanks for mentioning this @Beardo
Don't get me wrong. I'm always falling behind the endgame chase because I love that optional content. I find however that I am often rejected by the groups/guilds playing for that strategic advantage. For instance, I've been kicked from groups in dungeons because I slow things down by reading npc comments or can't even find a group because i don't already have the best-in-slot gear.
Also with Ashes I have 2 characters anyway and will be splitting time between them. My character I will be playing with my wife because we love doing a tank/healer duo in MMOs. And my solo character when they feel like doing something else or I'm gaming and they aren't.