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Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Remove leveling up or make it harder and fun
Strevi
Member
1) Why do we have leveling up in MMOs?
2) Why Ashes of Creation needs the leveling up phase?
In single player RPGs leveling gives a sense of progression while presenting the story.
When the player reaches max level, the end of story might also be close.
The fun comes from seeing how the fight style changes when a new skill is added.
In MMORPGs knowing how to play against other classes makes us read and watch videos to learn them too.
And makes sense to go through the story only once, for the first character.
Maybe different races have different stories?
Anyway I like pressing the ESC key to skip everything. I don't care about story when I see players running around skipping content too.
On release the developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days if playing 4-6 hours per day.[14][15]
I think the 45 days leveling in AoC is very short. Some players will definitely reach max level in half that time.
So why do we have it in this game?
I think the life of the character at mid levels should be fun too.
But as it is now, the leveling up phase is a disadvantage for AoC.
How can this game, based on caravans, nodes wars and risk vs rewards be adjusted to let players see and enjoy these aspects while leveling up?
Why would anyone go through this 2nd and 3rd time?
2) Why Ashes of Creation needs the leveling up phase?
In single player RPGs leveling gives a sense of progression while presenting the story.
When the player reaches max level, the end of story might also be close.
The fun comes from seeing how the fight style changes when a new skill is added.
In MMORPGs knowing how to play against other classes makes us read and watch videos to learn them too.
And makes sense to go through the story only once, for the first character.
Maybe different races have different stories?
Anyway I like pressing the ESC key to skip everything. I don't care about story when I see players running around skipping content too.
On release the developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days if playing 4-6 hours per day.[14][15]
I think the 45 days leveling in AoC is very short. Some players will definitely reach max level in half that time.
So why do we have it in this game?
I think the life of the character at mid levels should be fun too.
But as it is now, the leveling up phase is a disadvantage for AoC.
How can this game, based on caravans, nodes wars and risk vs rewards be adjusted to let players see and enjoy these aspects while leveling up?
Why would anyone go through this 2nd and 3rd time?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
1
Comments
But I understand this isn't for everyone even if the leveling content is good and that a balance needs to be reached.
I think 45 days of 4-6 hours a day (I will feel lucky if I get to play 2-3 hours a day, every other day) is a pretty decent balance assuming their leveling content will be good.
I would still boost it to 50-55 days but regardless...
In the mmos I played so far, most recently WoW classic, leveling was the most dynamic and fun part.
I can see lower level players having a role in node sieges by using cannons/balistas/catapults, by activating traps (pouring burning oil from the wall for example) and stuff like that.
As for caravans, yeah thats' definetly going to be harder.
1. Wanting to see how other cool classes play and feel.
2. Wanting to have alts with various professions and to bank stuff.
3. Wanting to level again with your buddy.
4. As I said, leveling is the most dynamic and fun part of the game. You keep finding grear and getting talents, feeling like your birthday every time, the questing is fun and you keep moving to place to playce enjoying the world and its stories, the world pvp is awesome, etc
I mean, I might just not even bother much with max level but instead keep leveling 2-3 chars just to see what I like most and to enjoy the process.
Removing any of these components will effectively ruin the journey.
I think this is correct, I am 100% certain that there will be some "path" to max level that will be discovered over the life of the game. It might be grind this mob for levels 1-15, grind this mob for 15-30. But sandbox games remain open in the fact that you can run caravans at level 15 the same as you can at 50. So you aren't "missing" anything the first time around and it's not like a theme park where you go to x city and pick up these 5 quests then rinse repeat. If you want to level an alt you can run it through whatever content you want or follow the "alt level guide" and get your alt to 50 in a week or whatever but there will be content all the way through especially with the landscape of the world looking possibly much different the 2nd time you level so new quests and areas are open to you.
Ultima Online because there's no level, you can just play and you will get to max, but let people to run afk macros non stop for days just to get the character ready... so for the community was a bad thing
EVE Online has no levels and you slowly gain skill points passively even if you are offline, so you can do whatever you want and on the side you can train something entirely different. A guy trading in a station could be actually training combat skills. EVE Online has no problems in this, except for the fact that it takes between 25 and 27 years to level all skills.. but if you train for 5 years only you are kinda all set in most cases.
Leveling systems have the advantage of rewarding you for your efforts, on the bad side if you don't play then you dont level! That's I liked that in World of Warcraft would receive bonus xp for taking a break, that is awesome.
So yeah, leveling systems are ok... telling people to take a break and rewarding them with xp bonus when they come back is also nice
Only if the content is good, when the content is poor then it's just a grind
In most cases player driven content is superior, until today no company could create content that was better than player driven content
Time gates are all the same, some better than others, but still, time gates.
The majority of the players where doing that, there was an invisible force who holds on to you balls and pulls tighter when you don't follow along.
Where is the balance between the important Milestones but still aiming for a more passive leveling experience? The game won't run away the Map is huge you will have so much content shoved up your botty and that in a positive way ofc.
Folks I know there always will be Hardcore Guilds and Hardcore players. And if they decide to do so, sure why not, a game is there to be played and that in any way you want, as long as you don't bother other people with it. But it would be awesome if this invisible force stops sticking to your balls. Meaning that choosing to not speed level would give you little to no disadvantage.
Edit : Dungeons and Raids which fit to your Gearscore instead to your level, would be a big help already !
absolute disgusting
Okay ! You prefer the easy way? Going into a Dungeon/Raid with a level 10 recommendation with your level 50 group and oneshotting everything?
yes and looting 2 copper, an apple and a green item worth 5 copper.
I am not sure what part of this is what you are thinking is the "easy way". Sure you as a level 10 can run with a group of 50s through some content, but if you are in a dungeon there is a good chance there is another team in there and the risk is that you get absolutely dumpstered by the guys in there that are all 50. The reward is that level 10 is experiencing high level content and maybe getting large amounts of exp. Or if you are speaking to instanced dungeons, not even sure how the level 10 will survive/get in or if it's gated in some way.
The whole point and the main pillar of this game is risk vs reward. Every choice carries risk in the hopes of equal reward. I may be missing your angle here, but I am not sure what you are getting at with this "easy" way.
Seems pretty unbalanced to me.
But if the Dungeon adapts to your Gear - not the other way around, People will always have the challenge inside there. PvP and PvE sided. This would prevent spaming because you will be in there for a long time.
Of course to that would come a loot adaption aswell. When you are running "Joses garden" with 1000 GS you should get more than You probably would get Mithril Ores to gather or enhacement stuff
And if you run "Joses Garden" with 100 GS you would get still get more than like Iron Ore, Gear, Weapons with 120 GS or so
In a perfect world, character leveling (and classes) will be thrown out altogether, and the better player/party is the one who customizes and optimizes for the occasion and has earned their abilities, gear, and titles through player-selected & curated achievements/quests -- (not through quest lines that almost everyone has done or easily repeatable by a quick wiki search). But this is just me.
As a pvp player, it would take next to no thought on my part to run to whatever dungeon is being camped by a high level party and get my 5 best friends to beat them up if they were cutting off a large experience for low level guildmates. Heck even just someone in gen chat saying "we can't get in someone is camping the entrance" would probably be something I would take a bite at. I just don't see how camping a low level dungeon would reap any reward. In this case I forsee it being marked as a low risk/ low reward for those 50s and while they are doing that, I am raiding high level caravans and they eventually just fall behind. Of course this is assuming good game design and that it isn't in their best interest to sit in a low level dungeon (balance/game design). But if everything scales you end up with a horribly same-y experience where people are gear checking you at the door to meet x threshold for "hot lootz". I like the idea of creating soft friction with no scaled dungeons/ow areas and creating an environment where these people are exploring other parts of the world and don't really have time to be multiboxing a dungeon or afk farming low level mats for their bud.
I don't want people to be able to hit max level via Main Quest / Side Quest or just 100% Questing.
BUT a significant chunk of XP should be via quest. Maybe 50% of XP is doing quests.
BUT finding these quests arent easy. I know AOC isnt going to have quest giver to be obvious, and it's just a nameplate color - however I DISAGREE WITH THIS.
Just Like EQ - you really didnt know who had a quest and who didnt. You had to INTERACT with the NPC and type command prompts.
I believe this style of questing FORCES players to read and learn the story.
I do not remember if AOC will have a "QUEST LOG" but I hope it doesnt or doesn't give the full answer of what the quest asked of you.
Basically, you would forced to read the NPC chat, get the context clue or location and then figure it out. Some of the Questing in EQ was difficult and some were SUPER LONG.. The Epic Weapon Quest Line was notorious and awesome and had you travel all over the world. This made Questing and the RPG element in the MMO feel EPIC.
So your concern is aobut why we have questing and most players (including me in almost every mmo) hits the ESC to skip the story, cause we get a TL;DR quest log with the location and answer.... EQ questing doesnt do that.. you gotta READ it, get the context clue and then go there. No Quest Log or if so, just title of the quest name. No Clues / requirements is shown. People will become invested in the story. And hey, if you don't want to do Quest for XP - you got other avenues. Since this only covers 50%. You can grind or whatever.
All of that being said, I can sympathize with wanting to shake up leveling as a concept. I proposed an idea where XP bars were hidden or just provided ~20% progress markers for each level to discourage min/maxing lvling or hunting optimal strategies. Not quite the same motivation or outcome as your proposal but you know. Though, one of the IS mods pretty much said they are not likely to do anything quite that dramatic. Link here if you're interested.
So it discourage players looking if my bar is moving fast or not.
Hell I would move it to 25 or 33%
Then getting corrupted will be fun, as you can do the last steps of the journey over and over.
I never thought about not seeing my experience level. I try to imagine how I would detect that I improve my skills. I remember running or falling from heights in one of the Elder Scrolls games. Also in Valheim, running and jumping to raise my skill. I don't know if making a 2nd character and doing that again is fun.
The anticipation you mentioned is indeed a valid reason but is not enough.
The leveling for me would be fun if the path would contain stages which a high level character cannot experience. Then going from a stage to the next would be something new, and also a veteran player would want to start an alt again to go through those stages once more.
Discovering what other classes can do works only if I do not watch youtube videos.
Or in case of AoC, if I do not play the Alpha 2 and I stop watching the monthly updates.
* You level up to 50 and unlock skills and combat options as you go.
* Every player and every mob is combat leveled to 50 at all times. So there is nowhere in the game that you can go to kill low level mobs
* Combat leveling takes your gear level, as compared to you player level, into account. So a L30 in L30 gear is more powerful than a L30 in L20 gear.
* In PvP all players technically have the same level, same base stats and same gear stats (assuming gear level = player level), so you don't just insta-kill lowbies. But higher level players usually have a small advantage due to more skill options. Max level players have the skills advantage and also an optimized gear advantage, but it's still less than having that plus a level difference advantage.
* In PvE everyone is combat leveled to 50, so grouping anywhere or with anyone is possible
* Twinking (gearing out a lowbie) and gaming the combat leveling system can be an issue (IE, hatchet masters at L15), but that's addressable with tweaks to the combat leveling system
* Gear drops relative to your level. This can be an issue with shared gear drops, but could be worked around (gear level is set when claimed)
One thing you lose with this is the ability to lock out content for the player based on character level. Which doesn't seem like a problem with the node leveling system. You can lock out higher content by tying it to node level. Another disadvantage is that leveling up doesn't feel as good, as your gear ends up -1 level now and you actually lose a little bit of stats. But you get skill points and possibly new skills.
I honestly think this is a better system than having mobs combat levels be tied only to node level or geographic area, since that effectively makes every L2 node trivial for a L40 player. Node difficulty could be setup to be relative to max level. IE, L1 node has L45 mobs (on average). L2 node has L47 mobs, L3=49, L4= 50, L5=51, L6=52. In order to make certain areas of a node more/less difficult, there could be a level modifier for the area (ie, a goblin tribe lair) that goes on top of the node level.
That's fair. Keep in mind that the game is intentionally not going to be super alt-friendly. I don't recall exactly when Steven said this but for the sake of the artisan system and the limited specializations (and generally to avoid self sustaining/independent players) there is not meant to be very easy ways to level an alt. Systems like node citizenship also make it less advantageous to have alts, removing or attenuating some of reasons for having them. It is supposed to take considerable effort to have a second high level character. No comments on if that is a good or bad decision.
As to your question of why any player would go through the same leveling process a second time, I actually agree with you.
However, good games give many different paths for gaining levels. One game I played a while in particular had it so you could level up 80 characters to within 10 levels of the games level cap - without ever having to repeat any content. There were multiple full quest paths for solo players, a quiet path for those with a group of friends, multiple places in each level range to just grind out some levels if you preferred doing that solo, and even more places to just grind if you were in a group.
Since the game didnt have 8 character slots per account, the only way you would do the same leveling content twice is if you actually wanted to (many people loved the group quests, people would roll alta just to do them all again).
This is how a game does leveling properly.
I think leveling to max in 45 days will be only possible, if everything is already set and you won't need to wait for content to open. Otherwise, players that would get to max level after 15 days would rule the server. They would get hands on best mats, equip and could possibly lock you out of end game by monopolizing it.
I don't have a clear image about how quests will work in AoC.
But on wiki, in the design pillars section, "engaging and immersive story" is on the first place.
I hope to be great at least once, during the first leveling up.
I think this would cause a HUGE amount of player dissatisfaction among the sweaties and streamers. I mean, you're playing a game, leveling and even doing other things, but just playing so much that you're going faster than the node systems allows...and all mobs eventually become grey to you. You're unhappy, can't even craft because there's no mats available for where you're at, post a bad review of the game and wait.
Then one node finally gets to a higher level and gets absolutely SWARMED by players waiting for, lets say, the first level 4 node to appear. Now, you're unhappy for another reason, but at least you can level. Then it happens again waiting for a L5 node, and again waiting for a L6 node.
The best mats may have to wait for nodes to level up, but hopefully players can still push their own pace to L50 in "greens" if nothing else
My take on this is that Intrepid have plans for the story to be player driven, rather than quest driven.
Rather than completing quests to read about some intricate story that Intrepid writers have crafted, Intrepid will be more about the actions of players making up the story of your server.
The "story" in Ashes will be immersive because you are a character in it, rather than someone reading it - for better or worse.
The way I imagine this feels weird. Would be like living in a story generator where I am the story for Steven who watches from above
And he wants all these different servers to entertain himself with different stories.
But regarding leveling, I see a quote on wiki
We want the game to be a living game, which means that all content should be relevant at all times. I’d say that we try to make as little distinction between the leveling up experience and the end game experience as possible. The whole journey is important to us, in order to maximize the fun people have during different stages of the game.[15] – Sarah Flanagan
I can read this in more ways.
"should be relevant at all times" can mean: "even one year after server launch, what a lvl 25 player does is important for his community"
That could be true.
Right now, I could be much more effective in my other 'game with nodes' if I had four or five 'additional newbies' at 'low level'.
My 'Node'/faction doesn't need any more high level people right now. And those low level pilots would definitely have a large and meaningful effect on 'my Node's ZoI' while they leveled up. Then they could be rewarded by the levels themselves, and anything 'I' chose to give them as extra.
We're currently more than a year in, and this won't really change either. I think it would be difficult to design Ashes in a way that would entirely make this useless.
It's not really that 'a high level player wouldn't be just as useful', it's that they wouldn't be much MORE useful, the task doesn't require them to be high level, so their time is better spent elsewhere.