45 days @ 4/6 hours per day, too much or too little?

Valkno

So not to start arguments or drama but healthy discussion. I couldn't find a post about it so if this is a repeat post my apologies. With the current estimate being 45 days at 4 to 6 hours played per day, do you think this is too long or too short for leveling adventure class to max? My personal opinion is I would like to see 45 days increased to 60. We don't know however if node levels will cause in game natural throttles against the pace makers leaving them with few to no quests until nodes catch up a bit. Thoughts and opinions please and thank you!

Caeryl

It seems perfectly fine to me. People are far too eager to rush into max level and ignore the actual game along the way. Forcing players to slow it down seems like a good way to also force them to acknowledge the rest of the game.

Roko

In my opinion it is too short. But I'm no game designer. And my opinion is painted by games I have played in the past that turned into a repetitive / boring, daily, weekly, quest / dungeon treadmill the moment you hit max level. So in Ashes i don't know.

Leveling has been the most enjoyable thing for me in the games I have played in the past and i don't like to see it end.

Vhaeyne

The internet is full of private servers of games trying to recreate the old days that were taken from us. Lineage 2, FFXI, Star Wars Galaxies, EQ1... These games all have a common theme where you have to "no life" the game to get anywhere. You can find a 1x server for all of them. That tells me that the hunger is there in others, not just me. There are people out there that like to grind. Slow and steady progress everyday over months and months. Only to make it to a cut throat social end game. That is what I want.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

The internet is full of private servers of games trying to recreate the old days that were taken from us. Lineage 2, FFXI, Star Wars Galaxies, EQ1... These games all have a common theme where you have to "no life" the game to get anywhere. You can find a 1x server for all of them. That tells me that the hunger is there in others, not just me. There are people out there that like to grind. Slow and steady progress everyday over months and months. Only to make it to a cut throat social end game. That is what I want.

But are those people enjoying the game for what it is, or enjoying the game because it brings back memories of when they used to play it?

The problem with a new MMO is that it can't leverage In my personal nostalgia.

tugowar

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

The internet is full of private servers of games trying to recreate the old days that were taken from us. Lineage 2, FFXI, Star Wars Galaxies, EQ1... These games all have a common theme where you have to "no life" the game to get anywhere. You can find a 1x server for all of them. That tells me that the hunger is there in others, not just me. There are people out there that like to grind. Slow and steady progress everyday over months and months. Only to make it to a cut throat social end game. That is what I want.

But are those people enjoying the game for what it is, or enjoying the game because it brings back memories of when they used to play it?

The problem with a new MMO is that it can't leverage In my personal nostalgia.

I think the continued popularity of wow classic proves that people enjoy the game for what it is

The nostalgia drop off has already dropped

blackjack2525

4-6 hours per day is good, because some people don't even have that time. If we consider the target audience of this game, it's probably more nostalgic people over 30 with few play hours per day available. Like, in my example, I come home at around 18 pm, then there's always something else to do, like dishes, cleaning or cooking, it may take up to 2 hours, then my wife may call me and ask to pick her from work at 20 pm, and we go to the groceries or something, then get back and have dinner, then boom, its 21 pm already and I only have a couple of hours to play. And we don't even have kids yet.

Wololo

As someone who comes from PWI where up untill a few years ago; It used to take well over a year to get max level. Some casuals never even reached it because dying took away a few days worth of XP 😆 It makes 45 days feel short but I understand these times you need to appeal to casuals too and ppl dont like braindead farming anymore.

blackjack2525

Wololo wrote: »

ppl dont like braindead farming anymore.

Nobody ever liked it to begin with they just didn't have much alternative.

George_Black

I would like to see it at 90 days.
People just dont seem to understand that it's the journey that matters.

Warth

60-90 would be better imo

Bakrem

I'd prefer an even longer journey to max lvl. 5h/d 100d
After 500h leveling when you hit max you should be really confident with you class and deserve to be "max lvl".
Lategame content, when you're not yet good equipped, didn't max your skills - those dungeons are truly challenging. "End"game...yeah sooner or later you get there und just faceroll the same endcontent dungeons etc.
- endgame never ends is will be the majority nevertheless. So put it far far away.

Sussurro

Vhaeyne wrote: »

The internet is full of private servers of games trying to recreate the old days that were taken from us. Lineage 2, FFXI, Star Wars Galaxies, EQ1... These games all have a common theme where you have to "no life" the game to get anywhere. You can find a 1x server for all of them. That tells me that the hunger is there in others, not just me. There are people out there that like to grind. Slow and steady progress everyday over months and months. Only to make it to a cut throat social end game. That is what I want.

I like the cut of your jib, @Vhaeyne

akabear

So lets break this down, 45 days @ 4/6 hours per day using 5 hrs as the average equates to 225 hrs to reach max level.

22.5 days > 10 hrs /day
45 days > 5 hrs /day
90 days > 2.5 hrs / day
180 days > 1.25 hrs / day
225 days > 1 hr / day

Duration feels on the short side. Journey matters and so long as end game is a range of levels rather than a specific end level, then I see no reason the journey to absolute cap can`t be much longer.

I hope to see some exponential scaling so that after X amount of time there is still some variance in player levels with only a handful on the server at max level.

If reaching cap is just opening the full set of doors then maybe.. but if there is good enough game play at all levels perhaps the cap is not the main objective.. or perhaps achievements in other areas become a focus, supplement and/or diversion

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

But are those people enjoying the game for what it is, or enjoying the game because it brings back memories of when they used to play it?

The problem with a new MMO is that it can't leverage In my personal nostalgia.

I would imagine that it is both. A few years back a friend and myself got really heavily into the FFXI nasomi private server. The server try's to recreate the game in the era when it took the most effort to do anything. That friend never played FFXI before. I played it a little myself back high school, but did not get far. Anyways we both ended up loving that game for what it was. We put years into it. We only stopped because the guy who runs the server is very moody to put in nicely.

I had no personal nostalgia for Dark Fall, and ended up playing Dark Fall: New dawn all the way up through the alpha and beta. I only stopped because the server population was worst post launch that in beta.

Those are two games that won me over with no nostalgia. Both games had a grind that I loved.

Jotaro

All of that depends what kinda of way we gonna up, if we need grind mobs for all that time gonna be to long, but if we can up doing others things can be a very good time, the initial hype dure about 2 months, after that initial rush people gonna spend less time and the game can be boring if you still need grind to get levels.

Atiqa

I don't even have kids or anything, but 4-6 hours a day is a lot for anyone who has a job or go to school.

Playing 4-6 hours in and of it self isn't extreme by any means, but if we're talking about 4-6 hours on average for one game over 45 days. That's a lot of dedication.

I'm not complaining about the 45 days, that sounds good, but I think a lot of posts here in general are a little biased towards people who are willing to spend most of their time on the game. I doubt the average AoC player will spend that much time (on average) a day.

You won't see even close to the majority of players at max level after 45 days if it's 4-6 hours a day. You're also not done by any means even when you do reach max level.

60 days would be fine with me too, but I do wonder how that will sound for the average potential AoC player. Will it turn people off because it looks like a very grindy game?

3am

I think itt depends entirely on whether or not it's engaging or a slog. Idc how long it takes if i feel like i'm not behind or I'm engaged enough to not care.

sunfrog

It's perfect

halbarz

I think it's perfect, I do not like the month journey because there is a point where I just want to be like " ok " I think is done let's start on improving my char and finish off some things I had in my quest log and etc.

I do hope that gearing up and etc will take long, I personally do not mind a 6-9 month investment to just get some decent gear that allows me to then tackle harder content such as raids.

I do hate games were in 2-3 days you're max level, then 2-3 days later you got good enough gear ... then after 2 weeks, I am bored ... these days games are waaaay to streamlined. In some mmo's I even wonder why they require us to level and not just made everything end game and give us a lvl 50 char xD

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Ulquiorra

If we consider that everything we do contributes to adventurer level, it's probably easier than it sounds and needs to be a little harder.
Anything that discourage leveling alts is desirable by me.

halbarz

Ulquiorra wrote: »

If we consider that everything we do contributes to adventurer level, it's probably easier than it sounds and needs to be a little harder.
Anything that discourage leveling alts is desirable by me.

I agree, an alt should be something people can think about after a year to a year and a half. The first year should fully engage people to the point that they forget the option to create another char.

daxiongmao87

I am quite tired of the trend of making max level the "real game," and making leveling an obstacle.

Make leveling a part of the game again. I would love more focus on lateral progression over vertical progression.

45 days isnt bad but wouldn't mind longer.

George_Black

Ulquiorra wrote: »

If we consider that everything we do contributes to adventurer level, it's probably easier than it sounds and needs to be a little harder.
Anything that discourage leveling alts is desirable by me.

I agree with this notion.
Most games these days want you to play with alts and spend money on skins and other bullshiet.
Look at ESO. People log in do all the crafting dailies with 8 or 12 or howmany alts the account fits. Zero comminity interaction. Then they log in the alts they want to play that day and do their PvE dailies.

No to dailies. No to alt/npc gameplay. Give me time to sink in my CHARACTER and make a name for myself in MY SERVER.

I rly think that the 40-50 lvs should take 60 days on it's own +30-40 days for the 1-40 lvs.

This gives time to the devs to create meaningful expansions.

Now when it comes to new players, every year, or year and a half, AoC should implement a community catch up that benefits players of 1-40 for a few months. A MILD bonus to xp/gold/drops gained.

That way new players interested in the game will feel that they can catch up to the older players.

None of that scalling bullshiet.

Lfmr

I feel like this system is really long actually, when everyone is max level, or you find out that you don't actually like the class you're playing, you have to spend 45 days just to catch up to everyone else.

Bolorny

there will be horizontal progression still to achieve after reaching max level, but 230 hours to reach max level still seem quite short to me, for a game you want players to play on the long run.

what I hope is that the xp curve will be very, very very very slow in the last levels, because max level has to be an important milestone achievement.

Actually, the xp progression needs to be like :
-Early game : slow, because you have to take the time to learn the game mechanics properly,
-Mid game : faster, because now that you know the game, you'll be grinding alot,
-End game : super-slow, because achieving the 5-10 last leves before reaching max level are important milestones.

HiddenDaggerInn

If anything it's too short, I'm tired of games letting people get to max level in 1 week, where is the accomplishment in that? Taking longer will really get you to know your class very well, and I'm sure at every level on the way to max there will be planty of stuff we can do.

Aardvark

No dev team guesses how long leveling will take correctly. Every game I have ever played their have been people at cap within 1/3 to 1/2 the min time the devs thought it would take.

Daedrik45

For me I I like the 45 days, I play 3 hrs a day but 6-8 on my 2 days off so I make up for it, also plan to take vacation at launch so I can play 10-12 hrs a day for 10 days lol sending the wife and kids to Florida to spend time with her mother. But the combat will be everything!! I won’t notice the grind if combat has my full attention.

WeavingFlow

Most of players with a hardcore inclination, addicted players, or just players used to leveling as the first thing to do in any MMO will rush for leveling anyway. So by adjusting the time required you're just making their life harder or easier, but it won't change their behaviour towards the rest of the content.

There are only a few players with a casual mindset and a bit less gaming addiction who would take their time, and for most of them 45 days is okay, just like 120 or 15 would be.

The real question, to me, is how to make hardcore et al. players interested in doing something else than leveling while they are not max level, since 90% of players in MMOs do that all the time.

I hope the node progression system will help, but i'm pretty sure most hardocore players will try to find a way around it.