Reach Max Level, then what?

My understanding is level cap is quite readily obtained in a realively short period of time.
So upward progression is short and simple.

So once cap is reached, what is next ... horizontal progression?

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Ludullu

Pvp, gear acquisition, artisan stuff, node support, chilling in your freehold, RP. Those are the first and obvious ones that come to mind.

akabear

Hope then there is a hard and long duration to obtain these

George_Black

Hopefully, during transportations of goods there will be frequent losses, setting players back from crafting proper gear to help them beat mobs. Hopefully, the areas that provide the best xp and raw mats/drops will be locked behind Node progression, which would mean that people would have to waste a portion of their mats (which otherwise would go towards crafting gear) to the development of the node.
Hopefully some quests that add to a characters combat progression (perhaps learning some strong abilities) or even related to crafting/gathering progression can be locked in areas with good xp/mats/drops which would also lead to pvp.
Then there is the gathering/processing and building of things like caravans, ships and homesteads, that would take time from players, time that otherwise would go towards lving up.
There once in a while guilds would waste time in trying to get a castle. Even more rarely a node siege could happen, and regardless of whether it is destroyed, a lot of resources from both sides would be wasted, either for preparing defences, or making the declaration scroll for attack.
I hope that all those things should delay reaching max lv, way more than what steven said with the whole "45d 8h a day".

And then there should be new content. The max lv should be increased by 5, new map areas perhaps, a new castle for guilds to fight for. New gear and new abilities (in order to learn some of these abilities maybe players would have to devote time to travel the dangerous seas, reaching some quest related islands).

By that time the xp grind should be a lot harder. The new gear way harder to craft. And that should give players another 3 or so months. Then a new update.

And once again I will say that IS should create fresh servers for new players every now and then.

PlasticLemons

akabear wrote: »

My understanding is level cap is quite readily obtained in a realively short period of time.
So upward progression is short and simple.

So once cap is reached, what is next ... horizontal progression?

I'm curious where you got the understanding that leveling will be fast? Here's a quote from Steven countering what your understanding is:

"The idea is not to be a game where somebody can essentially no life for a week and be max level. The idea is to incorporate some significant chunk of time but still respect the casual player, because you know the way we respect the casual player is not everything is driven in our game through the adventuring progression line. Not everything is driven through your class level per-se. There's a lot of different progression paths that are available and make you relevant within certain systems and mechanics within the game; and some of those paths are more casual friendly and some of those paths are more hardcore friendly. So with regards to the adventuring class, the idea is to make sure that investment needs to be pretty significant and that the reward then is respective of that investment." Source

Ludullu

PlasticLemons wrote: »

I'm curious where you got the understanding that leveling will be fast?

That's still fast in the grand scheme of things.

PlasticLemons

NiKr wrote: »

PlasticLemons wrote: »

I'm curious where you got the understanding that leveling will be fast?

That's still fast in the grand scheme of things.

It seems either longer or more on par with the norm of levelling speed in other MMORPGs. Fast compared to what? WoW for example is ~5 days of in game time for a fresh character not being speed run to reach max level. Games like EVE and Albion basically take no time to get into the swing of things. BDO is now pretty fast to get to where you're grinding for end game. Ashes seems like it will be more daunting than most every other MMORPG

Ludullu

PlasticLemons wrote: »

Fast compared to what?

Compared to the potential years of you playing the game. A month of vertical leveling (cause I'm sure that people will outgrind the "45 days" number) is nothing. And with no deleveling you won't lose your progress so you'll always be moving upwards with new updates (unless you go so deep into XP debt that you'll need several weeks to get back up, though even that is hiiiighly unlikely).

akabear

PlasticLemons wrote: »

I'm curious where you got the understanding that leveling will be fast? Here's a quote from Steven countering what your understanding is:

Fast compared to L2.. approx 5,000 -7,000hrs played and never reached the level cap!
Near end of time playing, was obtaining 0.25% of level Xp per hour, with a good few backward XP from pvp deaths.

All MMO`s since have been a cakewalk to get to near max level compared to L2.

For AoC, I think it was quoted as about 40hrs or something.. so once players learn the xp area sweet spots, you can probably already get that to 15hrs.

And nowadays, there will be a powerlevel walkthough online for all to see within a few weeks.. so neglible grind!

Ludullu

akabear wrote: »

For AoC, I think it was quoted as about 40hrs or something.. so once players learn the xp area sweet spots, you can probably already get that to 15hrs.

You should reread wiki or relisten to what you heard. It's gonna be ~180h to top adventure lvl, and that's w/o potential XP debt stops or any distractions in farming.

Yes, most likely that'll be brought down to maybe 120-140h with some optimizations, but it's nowhere near 40 or, let alone, 15.

akabear

Ah. Wiki states". On release the developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days if playing 4-6 hours per day..."

Dygz

akabear wrote: »

My understanding is level cap is quite readily obtained in a realively short period of time.
So upward progression is short and simple.

So once cap is reached, what is next ... horizontal progression?

Ashes has many forms of progression:
Adventurer
Node
Racial
Social Org
Religion
Naval
Artisan
Guild
Tavern/Freehold

Node progession is not particularly short - and it has to be maintained.

Rando88

From the data I've seen it will take me about 3 months the to hit cap if I play 2-3 hours a day since I'm not one to rush to cap and am forced to adult. Players no lifing to cap will probably do it in 1 month. Idk if I'd call it relatively short. Seems about average, if not a bit above.

It's good to ask about endgame though. Probably similar to other games, just in Ashes of Creation style. Pvp stuff, pve stuff or social stuff lol. Depends on how it's implemented if it's fun or not.

Asgerr

NiKr wrote: »

PlasticLemons wrote: »

Fast compared to what?

Compared to the potential years of you playing the game. A month of vertical leveling (cause I'm sure that people will outgrind the "45 days" number) is nothing. And with no deleveling you won't lose your progress so you'll always be moving upwards with new updates (unless you go so deep into XP debt that you'll need several weeks to get back up, though even that is hiiiighly unlikely).

You don't de-level, but you will get penalties for death, especially XP debt. For instance, if you have from 0 to 1000 XP for the current level, if and you're at 500 XP points and die, you may accrue something like 200 XP debt. Meaning that now, instead of leveling after another 500 XP points, you need 700 XP.

So your progression is also in part tied to your skills and gameplay style. If you die to a mob as a Green, you gain more XP debt than if you died to another player as a Purple. So depending on whether you're PvP centric or PvE focused, you might lose more or less and grow faster or slower. Solo players will likely take longer to level than groups. But groups will have a harder time gearing up from PvE than solo players, as they'll need to share the loot.

We still don't know the difficulty of random mobs in the world. If it's like WoW vanilla where 3 sudden mobs attacking you spelled death if they were around your level, then it may take longer for people. If you can wipe scores of enemies without falling below 50% HP, then it'll be much faster.

Grinding zones may also be contested between players racing to level up faster than the other, and PvP may incur, leading to the aforementioned death penalties for one of the sides.

As a reminder of death penalties:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_death

Experience debt (negative experience).

Skill and stat dampening.
Lower health and mana.
Lower gear proficiency.
Reduction in drop rates from monsters.
Durability loss

These all serve to slow down your progression. So the 45 days of 8 hours per day of gameplay, may take longer depending on what you encounter and how much you die.

Strevi

akabear wrote: »

Ah. Wiki states". On release the developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days if playing 4-6 hours per day..."

That seems quite fast to me.
Maybe is a good choice to be like this, else players cannot participate or be very useful in PvP

Decidendi

akabear wrote: »

My understanding is level cap is quite readily obtained in a realively short period of time.
So upward progression is short and simple.

So once cap is reached, what is next ... horizontal progression?

Well, from my past experience in Lineage 2 at least: Crafting and grinding for gear, raid bosses, castle sieges, clan v clan pvp etc. In ashes, you'll also have node politics, wars, caravans, sea content, node sieges and freehold content.

I'd assume, gearing will not be as easy, or I at least would hope so. In Lineage 2 early days, you'd spend years gearing up to a max and would require team effort to obtain materials needed to craft top level gear. But we'll see.

Decidendi

akabear wrote: »

PlasticLemons wrote: »

I'm curious where you got the understanding that leveling will be fast? Here's a quote from Steven countering what your understanding is:

Fast compared to L2.. approx 5,000 -7,000hrs played and never reached the level cap!
Near end of time playing, was obtaining 0.25% of level Xp per hour, with a good few backward XP from pvp deaths.

All MMO`s since have been a cakewalk to get to near max level compared to L2.

For AoC, I think it was quoted as about 40hrs or something.. so once players learn the xp area sweet spots, you can probably already get that to 15hrs.

And nowadays, there will be a powerlevel walkthough online for all to see within a few weeks.. so neglible grind!

Mate, forget the days of L2. We, players in their 20's and 30's perhaps enjoy it, but younger generations will hate spending 2 years to level to max and lose 4% of exp upon death. It's just the reality of it. I remember us trying to craft DC robes with a 60% success recipe in Lineage and it was painful. I don't think any game developer will bring those things back - it's too brutal for today's gamer demographic.

akabear

Ah agree.. probably still have the stamina and patience for the slow grind but not the time..

Highly time deprived nowadays.. but trying to wind down.. so if this releases in a few years time, timing might be good

WHIT3ROS3

akabear wrote: »

My understanding is level cap is quite readily obtained in a realively short period of time.
So upward progression is short and simple.

So once cap is reached, what is next ... horizontal progression?

Leveling in a SandBox is a very different beast compared to leveling in a Themepark. "What is next?" Is like a Kid looking up at its mother whilst sitting in a sandbox. "I made the castle you told me to make, what's next" I dunno kid, use your imagination. Go forth and play!

Warth

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

My understanding is level cap is quite readily obtained in a realively short period of time.
So upward progression is short and simple.

So once cap is reached, what is next ... horizontal progression?

Leveling in a SandBox is a very different beast compared to leveling in a Themepark. "What is next?" Is like a Kid looking up at its mother whilst sitting in a sandbox. "I made the castle you told me to make, what's next" I dunno kid, use your imagination. Go forth and play!

Kid: *Starts eating the sand*

WHIT3ROS3

Darwin approves.

Child Item