To me, rambling is never optional - rambles are what keep these forums moderately interesting.
I totally agree with you on equipment though.
The only gear that should be replaced on the leveling parth from 51 to 60 is gear that was obtained during the leveling path from 41 - 50.
I can see the occasional solo or group item obtained at the level cap being replaced before hitting the new level cap, but this should be the exception rather than the rule. The only time someone with top end group or raid gear should even consider swapping in an item obtained in the leveling process is if that new content added in a new stat or mechanic, and that new piece of gear provides the player with that stat or mechanic.
I am even all on board with there being the occasional item that remains irreplaceable across several expansions - as long as it is done because the item in question is amazingly useful rather than simply because the developers couldn't/didn't add in a better item.
Guys, if I have spend months of excellent open world gameplay on 20-30 zones with 20-30 lv gear, and then 40-50 zones with 40-50 gear, I look back at those zones and they are full of good memories.
When the 50-60 expansion comes along with new zones and gear, that doesnt mean that now the old content is obsolete and useless.
It is there for the new players to enjoy. If I am in a guild and new blood comes along I might create a new char to help their group, or simply stand guard with my high lv while they xp safe. Again, I had played in those zones and enjoyed them for months.
Look at games like ESO for example. You literaly finish a new map in hours. 0 memories.
Going back there to the older zones, because that's where werewolf hide gear drops, without a challenge takes a day of rng. Is that your successful definition of retaining players interest in older zones? And is this a good reason to oppose new lv cap and gear with a yearly expansion?
That expansion would bring months of gameplay with true rewards in the form of new gear and abilities within the new lv increase.
Unlike ESO, in which a CP increase would mean that your New Moon Acolyte cp160 golden out is sliiiiiiiiiightly worse than if you crafted within 15minutes and goldened a New Moon Acolyte cp170, and 10 more cp points to spend as opposed to brand new class abilities with new function and animations in games with true expansions.
Anyway... if a group of humans was used during their whole lives to seeing shadows on the walls of a cave, they will either be terrified or would ridicule the open world outside if they were ever told about it.
-Plato
Google for detailed account.
I think you missed my point, I sad that ESO is an example where not increasing the lvl cap can work. And yes, I know ESO isn't a perfect game, I mean I no longer play it for that reason. But I must say that ESO has a pretty good leveling experience with all the quests and interesting storylines, and eso has a good gear design with the interesting set bonuses.
In my opinion increasing the lvl cap with each new expansion like WoW did, you will most likely make the older "end-game" irrelevant. Just look and retail wow, if you ask players how many relevant raids there is they will say one, maybe two, and the game has been out for 15 years with countless raids and zones that are currently dead.
My friend, again you look at/mention two mmorpgs that are a very far cry from the mmorpg type that AoC wants to revive.
I imagine that many things you see here are a foreign concept.
Dont worry, lv cap increase and new high gear entries per expansion will not be as mindless as it would be for example, eso changing CP160 to CP170 and maxCP points to 850 from 810.
I like esos gear system model F O R eso.
But AoC is going to be completelly different.
You cant judge just the expansion additions alone, without understanding the whole game experience.
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MerleMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Guys, don't forget that the node system in AoC probably (hopefully) changes quite a few things with regard to the whole discussion.
If a new expansion comes out, old areas won't be deserted because the veteran players move to the new areas - they will still be playing in the same world as the newly beginning players, maybe just go to a different dungeon.
But newly beginning players will still contribute to, say, leveling of the nodes since they also contribute exp to them. So maybe new players won't have a big feeling of "missing out" (of new content, whatever) compared to the veteran players.
Depending on how node sieges work, maybe new / low level players can even contribute meaningfully to them, again dampening their possible feeling of needing to catch up with the veterans.
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I still think people have yet to change how they think about how Ashes will work. There is no "old content" and "new zones." A few individuals seems to still be stuck in a themepark mentality when it comes to how content will be experienced. Content comes and goes as nodes level and are sometimes reset to 0 due to sieges. The "OMG I will NEVER run that raid again because the dragon was only level 50, but now the level cap is 60!" is not a thing. All they have to do is adjust the encounter spawn to make it relevant again. Before you are going to see a map increase with new nodes, they would have to increase the concurrent server population caps for nodes to support the exp needed to maintain what was already there.(not an easy thing on already full servers to say add 30% more active people) If their calculations are based off of a max 10k concurrent population doing X amount of activity to stave off node atrophy, and then you spread those clusters out even more, the whole system starts to break down. Then you would have huge swathes of basically empty map at node level 0. Which is pointless.
My friend, again you look at/mention two mmorpgs that are a very far cry from the mmorpg type that AoC wants to revive.
I imagine that many things you see here are a foreign concept.
Dont worry, lv cap increase and new high gear entries per expansion will not be as mindless as it would be for example, eso changing CP160 to CP170 and maxCP points to 850 from 810.
I like esos gear system model F O R eso.
But AoC is going to be completelly different.
You cant judge just the expansion additions alone, without understanding the whole game experience.
It's very true that AoC will be a different mmorpg compared to eso and wow. And I'm not sure how the lvl Increase will affect the game since the game will probably be more "alive" in a sense. It was just a concern that I had and was wondering what other people thought about it.
As you sad, we can't judge the game before understanding the whole game experience, so maybe it's batter to ask this question after they have fully released the game.
But also remember that AoC will still have raids, dungeons and world bosses that will probably drop specific gear just like previous mentioned games.
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MeowsedMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2023
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HartwellMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Level cap increases are a great way to invalidate progress without making players feel like their progress has been invalidated. Oh look, a number increased. Moving on up, guy who needs to replace all of his gear now.
Guys, if I have spend months of excellent open world gameplay on 20-30 zones with 20-30 lv gear, and then 40-50 zones with 40-50 gear, I look back at those zones and they are full of good memories.
When the 50-60 expansion comes along with new zones and gear, that doesnt mean that now the old content is obsolete and useless.
It is there for the new players to enjoy. If I am in a guild and new blood comes along I might create a new char to help their group, or simply stand guard with my high lv while they xp safe. Again, I had played in those zones and enjoyed them for months.
Unfortunately that is exactly what it means. If new content is released, at a base level it has a shine of novelty to it, not to mention if it has actual statistical benefit. Like all the new gear being better. Old players will want to stay strong, and new players will want to get to the big game as soon as possible. That old content, though level appropriate for them, is now just another obstacle in the way of them getting to the content that most everyone else is currently enjoying.
What makes MMO's unique in gaming is that First M, the living world you can run around in and see a group in the distance and know they're players off to do something you could go do as well, or even go converse with them. Content systems that carelessly introduce new, overpowered areas have tended to create dead worlds in modern MMO's.
[quote="unknownsystemerror;c-222200"If their calculations are based off of a max 10k concurrent population doing X amount of activity to stave off node atrophy, and then you spread those clusters out even more, the whole system starts to break down. Then you would have huge swathes of basically empty map at node level 0. Which is pointless.[/quote]
I seem to remember a comment at one point about how they would be able to alter the level of atrophy on lower population servers in order to reduce the need to merge servers.
If this is the case, then they could just as easily alter the level of atrophy upon adding new nodes, meaning a servers population could go from being able to mostly maintain 5 metropolis level nodes to being able to maintain 6 metropolis level nodes with just a few numbers changed in a database (after careful consideration and a whole lot of math).
The "OMG I will NEVER run that raid again because the dragon was only level 50, but now the level cap is 60!" is not a thing. All they have to do is adjust the encounter spawn to make it relevant again.
This would work just fine for event based raids - anything where community participation is expected or desired.
However, for raid content designed on the notion of an organized guild making plans to take on a specific encounter, this would see raid guilds leave the game. I also don't imagine people at the group level would be happy with all the content they have spent the last few years taking on at level 50 is now the content they are to take on at level 60.
A new level cap is a time to add new mechanics to the game, as you are (or should be) in a position where you are adding both new abilities to players, and a full range of new content - and both of these are needed to successfully add new mechanics to a game.
Simply increasing the level of existing content is the develers way of telling players they aren't getting any new mechanics. While an argument could be made for adding these new mechanics to existing encounters, the rebalancing of the encounter that then needs to happen to take these new mechanics in to consideration is actually about the same amount of consideration as creating a new encounter.
While it is absolutely possible in a technical sense to do this, it is more a case of what players will and will not accept. In that regard, this would work just fine for the occasional encounter that has a story to back this up (such as EQ2's Avatar encounters - literally gods personified), for the more generic run-of-the-mill dragon raid boss, this kind of thing won't keep players happy.
If you add a new level cap, you need to add new content, not just buff old content.
This is where Ashes will have issues with a level cap increase. Not insurmountable issues, but issues that need to be worked though.
If the game isn't getting new land added to it, that means there needs to be some space created in the existing node structure for content at the new level cap. Some of this could be by removing content at the old level cap, as content in this range is now only needed for leveling purposes. However, this means that there is less space for content at the new level cap than there was at the old level cap.
They could increase the ZoI of metropolis nodes (or add a new tier of node), which would open up more area within the ZoI of these nodes in which to add content. This would seem to me to be the option with the best outcome. If the node/ZoI/content system is designed with expansion like this in mind, it may even prove to be the most efficient method for adding in content at a new level range - and if done in conjunction with lowering the amount of content at the previous level cap, the ZoI would only need to be increased every 2 or 3 level cap increases.
The other way I can see content for a new level range being added without adding new land mass is to keep content in that new level range underground. It is perfectly concievable to me that they could just open up a large area of underrealm that has content for the new level range in it. This could be done in a way where the content is affected by the node system, but the level of the content remains the same. THe problem there is that it would obviously mean all players would focus in that area.
As an alternative to that last method, they could simply add extensions to all dungeons in the game, opening up space for max level content there. I don't like this idea much at all either, but it would be possible.
Level cap increases are a great way to invalidate progress without making players feel like their progress has been invalidated. Oh look, a number increased. Moving on up, guy who needs to replace all of his gear now.
In Ashes, every player needs to replace all of their gear, all of the time.
Unlike some games, a level cap increase in Ashes isn't going to mean you go off to the new zone, talk to an NPC and at the end of the conversation they give you a piece of gear that is better than the raid drop you have from the old tier.
The most likely actual situation in Ashes is that when a new level cap is added to the game, people will keep the gear they have and only upgrade it to items from that new level range when the item in question is in need of replacing anyway due to item degredation.
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darthadenMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
This is one area Ashes can use BDO as a inspiration. BDO managed to add new content without making old content completely pointless and instead of adding new levels they simply made it less work to reach higher levels. They managed to do this through a system where crafting mats and items from starter areas are still in demand for late game crafting and killing mobs in some low level areas still awarded decent xp......At least thats how it was last time I played the game but that was over a year ago
Comments
I totally agree with you on equipment though.
The only gear that should be replaced on the leveling parth from 51 to 60 is gear that was obtained during the leveling path from 41 - 50.
I can see the occasional solo or group item obtained at the level cap being replaced before hitting the new level cap, but this should be the exception rather than the rule. The only time someone with top end group or raid gear should even consider swapping in an item obtained in the leveling process is if that new content added in a new stat or mechanic, and that new piece of gear provides the player with that stat or mechanic.
I am even all on board with there being the occasional item that remains irreplaceable across several expansions - as long as it is done because the item in question is amazingly useful rather than simply because the developers couldn't/didn't add in a better item.
I think you missed my point, I sad that ESO is an example where not increasing the lvl cap can work. And yes, I know ESO isn't a perfect game, I mean I no longer play it for that reason. But I must say that ESO has a pretty good leveling experience with all the quests and interesting storylines, and eso has a good gear design with the interesting set bonuses.
In my opinion increasing the lvl cap with each new expansion like WoW did, you will most likely make the older "end-game" irrelevant. Just look and retail wow, if you ask players how many relevant raids there is they will say one, maybe two, and the game has been out for 15 years with countless raids and zones that are currently dead.
I imagine that many things you see here are a foreign concept.
Dont worry, lv cap increase and new high gear entries per expansion will not be as mindless as it would be for example, eso changing CP160 to CP170 and maxCP points to 850 from 810.
I like esos gear system model F O R eso.
But AoC is going to be completelly different.
You cant judge just the expansion additions alone, without understanding the whole game experience.
If a new expansion comes out, old areas won't be deserted because the veteran players move to the new areas - they will still be playing in the same world as the newly beginning players, maybe just go to a different dungeon.
But newly beginning players will still contribute to, say, leveling of the nodes since they also contribute exp to them. So maybe new players won't have a big feeling of "missing out" (of new content, whatever) compared to the veteran players.
Depending on how node sieges work, maybe new / low level players can even contribute meaningfully to them, again dampening their possible feeling of needing to catch up with the veterans.
It's very true that AoC will be a different mmorpg compared to eso and wow. And I'm not sure how the lvl Increase will affect the game since the game will probably be more "alive" in a sense. It was just a concern that I had and was wondering what other people thought about it.
As you sad, we can't judge the game before understanding the whole game experience, so maybe it's batter to ask this question after they have fully released the game.
But also remember that AoC will still have raids, dungeons and world bosses that will probably drop specific gear just like previous mentioned games.
Unfortunately that is exactly what it means. If new content is released, at a base level it has a shine of novelty to it, not to mention if it has actual statistical benefit. Like all the new gear being better. Old players will want to stay strong, and new players will want to get to the big game as soon as possible. That old content, though level appropriate for them, is now just another obstacle in the way of them getting to the content that most everyone else is currently enjoying.
What makes MMO's unique in gaming is that First M, the living world you can run around in and see a group in the distance and know they're players off to do something you could go do as well, or even go converse with them. Content systems that carelessly introduce new, overpowered areas have tended to create dead worlds in modern MMO's.
I seem to remember a comment at one point about how they would be able to alter the level of atrophy on lower population servers in order to reduce the need to merge servers.
If this is the case, then they could just as easily alter the level of atrophy upon adding new nodes, meaning a servers population could go from being able to mostly maintain 5 metropolis level nodes to being able to maintain 6 metropolis level nodes with just a few numbers changed in a database (after careful consideration and a whole lot of math). This would work just fine for event based raids - anything where community participation is expected or desired.
However, for raid content designed on the notion of an organized guild making plans to take on a specific encounter, this would see raid guilds leave the game. I also don't imagine people at the group level would be happy with all the content they have spent the last few years taking on at level 50 is now the content they are to take on at level 60.
A new level cap is a time to add new mechanics to the game, as you are (or should be) in a position where you are adding both new abilities to players, and a full range of new content - and both of these are needed to successfully add new mechanics to a game.
Simply increasing the level of existing content is the develers way of telling players they aren't getting any new mechanics. While an argument could be made for adding these new mechanics to existing encounters, the rebalancing of the encounter that then needs to happen to take these new mechanics in to consideration is actually about the same amount of consideration as creating a new encounter.
While it is absolutely possible in a technical sense to do this, it is more a case of what players will and will not accept. In that regard, this would work just fine for the occasional encounter that has a story to back this up (such as EQ2's Avatar encounters - literally gods personified), for the more generic run-of-the-mill dragon raid boss, this kind of thing won't keep players happy.
If you add a new level cap, you need to add new content, not just buff old content.
This is where Ashes will have issues with a level cap increase. Not insurmountable issues, but issues that need to be worked though.
If the game isn't getting new land added to it, that means there needs to be some space created in the existing node structure for content at the new level cap. Some of this could be by removing content at the old level cap, as content in this range is now only needed for leveling purposes. However, this means that there is less space for content at the new level cap than there was at the old level cap.
They could increase the ZoI of metropolis nodes (or add a new tier of node), which would open up more area within the ZoI of these nodes in which to add content. This would seem to me to be the option with the best outcome. If the node/ZoI/content system is designed with expansion like this in mind, it may even prove to be the most efficient method for adding in content at a new level range - and if done in conjunction with lowering the amount of content at the previous level cap, the ZoI would only need to be increased every 2 or 3 level cap increases.
The other way I can see content for a new level range being added without adding new land mass is to keep content in that new level range underground. It is perfectly concievable to me that they could just open up a large area of underrealm that has content for the new level range in it. This could be done in a way where the content is affected by the node system, but the level of the content remains the same. THe problem there is that it would obviously mean all players would focus in that area.
As an alternative to that last method, they could simply add extensions to all dungeons in the game, opening up space for max level content there. I don't like this idea much at all either, but it would be possible.
In Ashes, every player needs to replace all of their gear, all of the time.
Unlike some games, a level cap increase in Ashes isn't going to mean you go off to the new zone, talk to an NPC and at the end of the conversation they give you a piece of gear that is better than the raid drop you have from the old tier.
The most likely actual situation in Ashes is that when a new level cap is added to the game, people will keep the gear they have and only upgrade it to items from that new level range when the item in question is in need of replacing anyway due to item degredation.