Class Advancement Rituals and Mastery Ceremonies

maouw

A story element I've always loved in games are the ceremonies and challenges where you have to prove yourself capable of greater power before you can have access to it: coming of age challenges, proof of mastery, etc.

Is it just me?
I find when new mechanics become available just because I levelled, they're not as valuable compared to things I had to overcome to earn access to.

In AoC, I imagine hitting level 25 to be a coming-of-age moment, requiring you to seek the approval of the gods to grant you the ability to augment <-- with a reasonably difficult challenge (which you might need to attempt ~3 times if you're not careful)
And again at level 50, as a capstone to your progress and veneration of unlocking exclusively end-game content.

I like to compare it to our car license exams - it sucks to fail, but when you finally get your license you wanna drive everyone everywhere. (I dunno how strict the tests are in other countries - in Sydney not many people pass first try)

Is it too early to talk about this?

daveywavey

Yeah, it gives it that feeling of importance, rather than a stunned anti-climax wondering if you missed something.

winner909098

I hope they have something like this.

Hurtmei

Maybe when you hit 100% exp in lvl 24, You need to go out into the world and find a Master of your class and train under him for a while and then ends with you picking a quest from a choice of x epic quests that fit your class and you get a spell fitting the quest on completion (Clericy classes has to save a village infected with a plague and gets some sort of mass detoxification ability, Fighters has to participate in a war and help them win and gets a stacking attack ability that gets a stack and a recast when you kill someone and x time to use it again, summoners goes out into the world and finds a creature to make a pact with for a summoning spell that fits your chosen class etc etc) in order to breakthrough to 25. This makes the ''64'' classes more unique since they would have a spell that only that classcombo has.

Sathrago

I would be down for this.

Tragnar

What is wrong with a popup menu with 8 choices when you ding 25?

Just kidding xD it would be amazing to have secondary archetype quest - or even a chain quest, but I would not stop the player from gaining experience. Rather the quest should be difficult enough so that you cannot complete it on your own at that level, but you would need others to help you do at least the finishing part.

Hurtmei

I mean, needing people to help you kind of defeats the purpose of it being a trial to allow you to become the class you want, since it should be based on your individual skill aka '' if you're ready''. And 25 should be the level where you need since you need to make that breakthrough in both ability and character to keep growing stronger. Being able to keep leveling makes it feel more like a sidequest imo.

Tragnar

This unlocks a big part of your player power and identity so from that alone it will never feel like a sidequest. Also needing help for the finishing part doesnt mean that the previous parts of it should not be challenging at all.

However these quests will never be a true challenge, because this is intended for all players to complete with relative ease and to further their character identity. The true challenging stuff should be at max lvl when you already have secondary archetype and it should be some challenge to unlock your most powerful augments.

daveywavey

Hurtmei wrote: »

Maybe when you hit 100% exp in lvl 24, You need to go out into the world and find a Master of your class and train under him for a while and then ends with you picking a quest from a choice of x epic quests that fit your class and you get a spell fitting the quest on completion (Clericy classes has to save a village infected with a plague and gets some sort of mass detoxification ability, Fighters has to participate in a war and help them win and gets a stacking attack ability that gets a stack and a recast when you kill someone and x time to use it again, summoners goes out into the world and finds a creature to make a pact with for a summoning spell that fits your chosen class etc etc) in order to breakthrough to 25. This makes the ''64'' classes more unique since they would have a spell that only that classcombo has.

Reminds me of unlocking the secondary professions in Guild Wars, completing the different trials in the Elona Desert.

Hurtmei

Never played GW but cool that someone else has done it ^^

Hurtmei

Tragnar wrote: »

This unlocks a big part of your player power and identity so from that alone it will never feel like a sidequest. Also needing help for the finishing part doesnt mean that the previous parts of it should not be challenging at all.

However these quests will never be a true challenge, because this is intended for all players to complete with relative ease and to further their character identity. The true challenging stuff should be at max lvl when you already have secondary archetype and it should be some challenge to unlock your most powerful augments.

They dont need to be challenging, i just dont think that this type of quest would be as fun with friends, especially since they wouldnt get anything from helping you if they arent the same class. It should be an epic solo Journey to unlock your full class. Since as you said the most challenging content should be at endgame, and all of those are done with parties, i dont see the need for a class quest to be done with others.

Tragnar

I have always enjoyed more grouping up with other people to do specific tasks rather than to do generic zone dungeons. Also I do not think that you should make a case around solo play in MMO - it is going to be possible to play endgame solo to your liking, but that doesnt mean that the game should not force the players to group up a few times during their whole playthrough

maouw

tbh, I'm a fan of the idea that you do something as a group to finish advancement.
I bet you that would spawn a few guilds from the people who tried to help each other advance.

It could even play into AoC's mentoring system.

Marcet

I loved this in other games, big yes from me.

Medrash

@maouw

press z ... Congratulation now you are the hero of the world, champion of the city and master of war ... you got all this amazing powers .. now go away from me.
Achievement : LvL 25 reached .

I don't think anybody like this at all. Sure, for each great power-up you receive the game should introduce a skill test and some lore to the character. The lore is important.
An example for me is the Druid in classic WoW, when you need to compleate a quest to get your druid powers , that's amazing becouse you work to get your class feature, to build the class, it's not automatic, and doesn't break your immersion by telling to you:" hey it's a computer and not a living world".

In AoC i immagine the player having to go to an npc of a certain Class to get your challenge for the secondary class. It's simple and effective.

One of the good things about the older mmorpgs is that you need to seek for your spells and ability, or simply buy them, but now your set of skills only depends on your level.
In the past your level was not the direct reason of your power, it just served for the most as a restriction for items and spells to be used.

Tragnar

I definitely agree that levels should give only small amount of stats and skill points to unlock new/upgraded skills.

I would not be apposed to the idea that 50 lvl naked and lvl 1 naked deal max 5times different damage. I dislike overblown power scaling where you get quickly into thousands. Personally I would be glad if first hits above thousands can come with endgame gear.

The most impactful perception of player power comes from critting the most damaging ability the player has. It is literally intoxicating when you crit for a new highest amount.

Hurtmei

I didnt make a case for playing AoC solo. Just that i preferred the class quest to be solo, i love grouping in both leveling and endgame but that doesnt mean that grouping should be required for a questchain thats directly about your own character.

Tragnar

I really disagree with that idea, in Classic wow I have helped many leveling warriors to get their class quest for ridiculously powerful twohanded axe. They stand literally no chance on completing that quest solo until level 45+ however they can complete it on level 30. These quests bring players together and make ingame debts and gratitudes that result in friendships and guilds.

Forced grouping in MMO is the best thing in this genre, I am not saying that you cannot do anything solo. All I want is that even when leveling that many powerful powerups like unlocking secondary archetype would be only beneficial to have locked behind group effort.

You want that thing that powers you up immensely? Then get a friend to do it

Hurtmei

Theres a difference since in my idea atleast you would be level locked until completing. But i can see how some People want it to be group based, just not for me

Damokles

I would like Classquests like they had them in WoW Classic back in the day.
They were hard, forced you to group up some times, and rewarded you with cool gear/spells.
I will always love you Ritual of Doom.

bloodprophet

Rift at launch you got to pick 3 of the 7 possible "Souls" as you did the starter area. After you made it to the main city in order to unlock the others you had to visit the class specific trainer for the soul you wanted. Go out defeat a death rift you the soul net the trainer gave you. Catch a soul and kill it before the rift closed. Then take the item back to the trainer to unlock the soul.

I would like to see something along these lines that makes sense the The Ashes world. Want Cleric for your second find the trainer and do a smallish quest of some sort. I like this better then Ding grats you hit 25 what second archetype would you like to pick.

Not held emotionally captive either way just make it more challenging/ fun for me.

Tragnar

@bloodprophet well this is kinda confirmed, because we know that respecing secondary archetype is going to involve some type of quest to prevent spamming the respec for every activity that you want to do. So it makes sense to have a quest for learning the first one as well

Balrog21

I had a similar idea and made a thread a few years ago about it. I called mine, Life Quest.

Mojottv

Well, lineage 2 used to have very lengthy and annoying class advancement quests, which i used to hate, but at the same time, it made the game harder and more interesting, as after doing that shit for a week, you would finally change the class and get all these cool skill n stuff. So i think, it would be cool if they took inspiration and do similar thing.

primagoosa

I always loved class based questing/advancement. GW1 was awesome, totem quests in WoW were awesome. They felt like actual adventures that resulted in a unique reward instead of a kill/gather XP farm.

Songcaller

I'm all for action quests for advancement and masteries. I dislike Talk to quests when they exceed more than once at a time in sequence. Some of BDOs awakened quests were a real joke and full of talk to quests. I don't mind stories, puzzles, riddles, loot, capture, contain and kill quests for advancement and masteries. I've seen awesome examples in L2, Rift and Vanilla WoW.

Edit: Age of Conan did a good job of weaving story and character progression together if memory serves me. Of course, 9 times out of 10 you'd select Damage Increase as the reward but Ashes will have different rewards anyway.

WoodOx

+1 for this idea! I loved the challenge in classic wow, helping others with their bear form quest really did form a class bond- for the rest of my wow "career" i still remember those that helped me and those I helped with these challenges. I hope to get feelings of skill, accomplishment, and camaraderie from AoC quests too!