The "steepness" of the vertical progression curve matters a lot for how fast you will replace your gear. In WoW and many other games, you get a nice blue while levelling and in a few levels it's not even as good as a green. Discarded.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.
I understand your point but if the leveling is fast (in the case of AOC, 6 weeks to reach max level), no one will spend money to buy a low level rare gear. Except if the rare low level items can be salvage for end game material.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Again... this seems to mean max Adventurer level.
I expect to be pursuing different gear as I strive to reach max Social Org level, max Religion level and maybe even max Racial level.
Unlikely people will have all of those progression paths maxed in 6 weeks. Especially since some of those will require Metros.
The "steepness" of the vertical progression curve matters a lot for how fast you will replace your gear. In WoW and many other games, you get a nice blue while levelling and in a few levels it's not even as good as a green. Discarded.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
huh but you want leveling to take long..which translates into grinding...
The "steepness" of the vertical progression curve matters a lot for how fast you will replace your gear. In WoW and many other games, you get a nice blue while levelling and in a few levels it's not even as good as a green. Discarded.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
huh but you want leveling to take long..which translates into grinding...
The "steepness" of the vertical progression curve matters a lot for how fast you will replace your gear. In WoW and many other games, you get a nice blue while levelling and in a few levels it's not even as good as a green. Discarded.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
huh but you want leveling to take long..which translates into grinding...
only if you grind...
how will you level then? i like grinding mobs. i prefer it over grinding quests.
I do not mind if there is early rare gear that is desired by a non-trivial number of players but that does not have higher level, auto-obsoleting upgrades.
Going with the now-usual 'let's combine FFXI and L2', I would want:
1) some level 30-ish Elites and bosses drop rare gear/materials, with the chances of the drop being reduced as your level exceeds the mob
2) Those rare gear pieces (or level 30 gear made from the materials) have stats that generally aren't as vertically important, but can be conditionally useful in places
3) Those gear pieces can then be enhanced up to +whatever if you are really dedicated to having them as endgame options.
Economically I prefer this because it resolves the problem I understand from an L2 economy study, and the FFXI Notorious Monster hunting fault.
High level players who want this gear 'need' alts or friends to help get the base item, or the obscure ones that only very few people can be bothered to actually hunt, can be random open world challenges for small groups.
Then money flows from people who want these to enhance them, towards lower level players who are going out adventuring together (theoretically, again, this relies on the items not being meta for most people at higher level but still good).
If anything similar to this is the reality in Ashes, I wouldn't care about other aspects of 'what leveling causes' really.
The "steepness" of the vertical progression curve matters a lot for how fast you will replace your gear. In WoW and many other games, you get a nice blue while levelling and in a few levels it's not even as good as a green. Discarded.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
huh but you want leveling to take long..which translates into grinding...
only if you grind...
how will you level then? i like grinding mobs. i prefer it over grinding quests.
Some people say if you like it, is not grind...
And then there is the Eve Online way of leveling.
The "steepness" of the vertical progression curve matters a lot for how fast you will replace your gear. In WoW and many other games, you get a nice blue while levelling and in a few levels it's not even as good as a green. Discarded.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
huh but you want leveling to take long..which translates into grinding...
I never said that I wanted to grind at all costs. I said that longer leveling had positive effects on the rest of the game mechanics (Gameplay, economy, lifespan + social interactions as someone added).
You understand what you want to understand and attributing to me words that I have not said which in fact reflect your own interpretation.
It's different
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
how will you level then? i like grinding mobs. i prefer it over grinding quests.
You don't really grind quests.
Grinding is leveling by killing individual mobs for relatively low amounts of xp.
Quests are designed to eliminate grind by giving significantly more xp (and gear) then one would receive just by killing individual mobs.
Reaching max Adventurer Level by completing quests should be much faster than just killing individual mobs.
Sure, in the last 10 years, once the concept of "Endgame is the real game" became popular... gamers extended grind to leveling... as an undesirable impediment to reaching the real fun of the "real" game.
Quests are designed to eliminate grind by giving significantly more xp (and gear) then one would receive just by killing individual mobs.
Reaching max Adventurer Level by completing quests should be much faster than just killing individual mobs.
This depends on the game. Not all quests are of the same quality nor do they all give the same high amounts of xp. So you could grind quests as well.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Which MMORPGs have quests that generally give less xp and rewards than inidividual mobs?
Which MMORPGs have quests that generally give less xp and rewards than inidividual mobs?
L2 did You'd usually get waaaay more xp for killing the mobs that quests wanted you to kill than for the quest reward itself. And iirc quite often XP wouldn't even be a reward in quests, though I'd have to double-check that cause I never even paid attention to quest xp in that game.
2. Leveling and secondary archetype
I am not convinced that we should be able to change our secondary archetype after level 25. I think it should be forever.
But if changing archetype is part of the game's core and if the majority agree with that, then I'm all for a long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials. For the same reasons as resetting skill points (semi-permanent decisions, keeping the economy healthy and for all items, levels and zones).
Got to be careful with this. WOW Shadowlands tried to do this with Covenants and "meaningful choices". Problem was that there were too many systems compounding on each other and were impossible to balance. So the "meaningful choice" you made was a gimped character... Made alot of people mad and quit the game because they didn't want to redo another long and tedius quest chain to level up a new Covenant so that their character was actually useful.
Anything that gets locked under "meaningful choice" MUST be extremely well balanced. The more variations they have at the end of the trees the easier it should be to change in case some skills/options turn out to be too meta.
how will you level then? i like grinding mobs. i prefer it over grinding quests.
You don't really grind quests.
Grinding is leveling by killing individual mobs for relatively low amounts of xp.
Quests are designed to eliminate grind by giving significantly more xp (and gear) then one would receive just by killing individual mobs.
Reaching max Adventurer Level by completing quests should be much faster than just killing individual mobs.
Sure, in the last 10 years, once the concept of "Endgame is the real game" became popular... gamers extended grind to leveling... as an undesirable impediment to reaching the real fun of the "real" game.
well i had to grind 15 hours of questing every single day for 2 months in forsaken world to get from 1 to 60.
same quests and dungeons over and over everyday plus a few new ones that you would get every few levels. so yeah its possible to grind quests xdd
Which MMORPGs have quests that generally give less xp and rewards than inidividual mobs?
FFXI had no exp for quests.
At all. At best, there were maybe 1 in 100 quests that gave you an item that, when used, gave some exp.
Obviously this was later changed in a convoluted way after WoW made it the expectation of the masses. But if you wanted exp, especially in the early iterations, you had two options that were one option.
1) become good at the coordination and group combat and fight mobs
2) become good enough at RP that groups would ask you to accompany them to fight mobs, and play Bard (so you didn't have to ever interact with the mobs yourself).
(this is why I don't speak on other aspects of this topic, I'm conditioned not to notice my character level in games, it's 'irrelevant' most of the time because the game either made leveling so easy that it just flies by, or has the 'enforced options' above where you generally don't care what level you are, your goals don't change as much)
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
WoW did not make it the expectation of the masses.
D&D and EQ2 made it the expectation of the masses. I think the tech wasn’t quite ready for EQ to do that well.
The primary purpose of quests is to give more xp and rewards than grinding individual mobs.
Devs in Asia might have a different interpretation of RPGs than the Western originators of the genre.
WoW did not make it the expectation of the masses.
D&D and EQ2 made it the expectation of the masses. I think the tech wasn’t quite ready for EQ to do that well.
The primary purpose of quests is to give more xp and rewards than grinding individual mobs.
Devs in Asia might have a different interpretation of RPGs than the Western originators of the genre.
I knew I shouldn't have added that part.
Either way, you have your answer, I think?
The idea of getting exp for a quest, which in turn makes your character stronger in combat, and the quest potentially involving no combat, is not a thing that the designers of the game I'm used to considered reasonable, I think.
One is a 'soft' skill and one is a 'hard' skill. I do not mention this because I expect you to agree with their decision or even to 'accept it as part of an RPG'. Only to give the usual context, so here's a bit more.
In FFXI you get better stats and can equip better gear when you level, but you only get better at Healing Magic by actually using Healing Magic. So offering exp for quests would result in players reaching max Adventurer level with underleveled skills relative to their weapons or magic.
The philosophy is that your character improves at what your character actually does, and if the game needs to represent that numerically, it does so. When it doesn't need to do that, it doesn't.
Quests give Reputation and Fame, so if you 'interact with NPCs' you get a numeric value that improves your ability to interact with NPCs, but they saw no need to give you combat power directly for this.
So from my side, the primary purpose of quests is to enjoy and immerse in the world and interact with the characters, and has nothing whatsoever to do with grinding mobs.
This is one of those situations where I expect that interacting with your bias is going to be both frustrating and have no benefit for anyone.
So instead, I will note three points and all can draw their conclusions from that, or draw none. Yay for brevity.
1) There is generally no official 'quest exp' in D&D until 2e which released in 1989, things were open to intepretation but primarily based around 'fighting' and 'finding treasure'.
2) Final Fantasy 1 was released in 1987 with one such interpretation.
3) Both WoW and EQ2 were released after FF11.
These are the bases from which I disagree with your reasoning as to 'the purpose of quests in MMOs'.
2. Leveling and secondary archetype
I am not convinced that we should be able to change our secondary archetype after level 25. I think it should be forever.
But if changing archetype is part of the game's core and if the majority agree with that, then I'm all for a long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials. For the same reasons as resetting skill points (semi-permanent decisions, keeping the economy healthy and for all items, levels and zones).
Got to be careful with this. WOW Shadowlands tried to do this with Covenants and "meaningful choices". Problem was that there were too many systems compounding on each other and were impossible to balance. So the "meaningful choice" you made was a gimped character... Made alot of people mad and quit the game because they didn't want to redo another long and tedius quest chain to level up a new Covenant so that their character was actually useful.
Anything that gets locked under "meaningful choice" MUST be extremely well balanced. The more variations they have at the end of the trees the easier it should be to change in case some skills/options turn out to be too meta.
I agree that players shouldn't be disgusted by the game because of a mistake in their build but a good compromise should be find to make change on your char not too easy.
And at the same time, I'd be happy to rediscover the game with another fresh char.
By the way, is the double account will be allowed or it's not legal ? In case a player pays 2 accounts, he will be allowed to buff his second char with his healer ?
2. Leveling and secondary archetype
I am not convinced that we should be able to change our secondary archetype after level 25. I think it should be forever.
But if changing archetype is part of the game's core and if the majority agree with that, then I'm all for a long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials. For the same reasons as resetting skill points (semi-permanent decisions, keeping the economy healthy and for all items, levels and zones).
Got to be careful with this. WOW Shadowlands tried to do this with Covenants and "meaningful choices". Problem was that there were too many systems compounding on each other and were impossible to balance. So the "meaningful choice" you made was a gimped character... Made alot of people mad and quit the game because they didn't want to redo another long and tedius quest chain to level up a new Covenant so that their character was actually useful.
Anything that gets locked under "meaningful choice" MUST be extremely well balanced. The more variations they have at the end of the trees the easier it should be to change in case some skills/options turn out to be too meta.
I agree that players shouldn't be disgusted by the game because of a mistake in their build but a good compromise should be find to make change on your char not too easy.
And at the same time, I'd be happy to rediscover the game with another fresh char.
By the way, is the double account will be allowed or it's not legal ? In case a player pays 2 accounts, he will be allowed to buff his second char with his healer ?
yes, dual boxing is legal. but steven said as long as you keep your progress on your 2nd account and dont give it to your main.
i also agree that resetting shouldnt be easy, not as easy as it is in new world (although nw is different since every char can do everything). we dont know if changing farming areas will pretty much require us to adjust our build, otherwise farming would be too diffcult. so thats something to consider
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The idea of getting exp for a quest, which in turn makes your character stronger in combat, and the quest potentially involving no combat, is not a thing that the designers of the game I'm used to considered reasonable, I think.
One is a 'soft' skill and one is a 'hard' skill. I do not mention this because I expect you to agree with their decision or even to 'accept it as part of an RPG'. Only to give the usual context, so here's a bit more.
I dunno how many RPG designers you know.
Quests make your Adventurer stronger - especially your "class" - and that is not always about combat because classes in RPGs are not supposed to be just about combat.
In MMORPGs it's easier for designers to focus on combat.
Profession quests also make professions "stronger".
In FFXI you get better stats and can equip better gear when you level, but you only get better at Healing Magic by actually using Healing Magic. So offering exp for quests would result in players reaching max Adventurer level with underleveled skills relative to their weapons or magic.
Yeah, your skills increasing based on skill use is different than xp, though.
I'm not aware of quests that increase stats. Typically in an RPG, a new level is going to provide points that can be placed to increase stats - which will also make skills stronger.
The philosophy is that your character improves at what your character actually does, and if the game needs to represent that numerically, it does so. When it doesn't need to do that, it doesn't.
I would say that the philosphy is that your skills increase with skill usage.
You Adventurer still should improve significantly by completing adventurer quests - some of that will be combat. Some of that won't be combat. Sure, best when quests help you use your class abilities.
Quests give Reputation and Fame, so if you 'interact with NPCs' you get a numeric value that improves your ability to interact with NPCs, but they saw no need to give you combat power directly for this.
Quests were created to provide bulk xp. Reputation/Fame are intended to be additional byproducts.
XPisn't necessarily the same thing as combat power. XP should allow characters to improve stats. And stats allow characters to increase character abilities - including class abilities. Class abilities likely will include combat prowess.
But, yes, it's not unusual for Skill power to increase vertically with skill usage.
Quests typically do not have rewards for increased skill usage. Other than... if the quest asks you to kill 20 Zombies or heal 20 Soldiers, your skills will increase from usage AND you will also be rewarded a bunch of xp.
If you do a FedEx or escort quest - it should be sending you past mobs where you have opportunities to use class skills.
So from my side, the primary purpose of quests is to enjoy and immerse in the world and interact with the characters, and has nothing whatsoever to do with grinding mobs.
Quests were created in RPGs to provide bulk xp so that players can level more quickly than just grinding individual mobs. They also will provide story and immersion. And higher levels should bring reputation and fame.
Best, of course, when all of those are intertwined.
In MMORPGs, quests should be providing significantly more xp and better rewards for killing 20 Zombies than just grinding 20 Zombies. And, you should be getting the same Skill increases if the design is for Skill increases from Skill usage.
I see quests as a tool to transmit main story or smaller side stories.
And because they take time, it makes sense to get experience or something from them.
Also the sudden experience increase feels better after long slow gradual increase.
But that's because experience gain is seen as objective. If experiencing the story would be more important, then players would do the quests just for that, without feeling the need to get experience. Like exploration, you go to see. You stay and look at how creatures behave, listen to NPCs talking to each other... Once I followed two children chasing a mouse which was just a filler content in the city because I was curious what they do.
Ii is bad when players end up doing quests just because they need the experience. It means they would rather do something else and the game doesn't offer that different game-play style.
So from my side, the primary purpose of quests is to enjoy and immerse in the world and interact with the characters, and has nothing whatsoever to do with grinding mobs.
Quests were created in RPGs to provide bulk xp so that players can level more quickly than just grinding individual mobs. They also will provide story and immersion. And higher levels should bring reputation and fame.
Best, of course, when all of those are intertwined.
In MMORPGs, quests should be providing significantly more xp and better rewards for killing 20 Zombies than just grinding 20 Zombies. And, you should be getting the same Skill increases if the design is for Skill increases from Skill usage.
thats not mandatory, that just depends how you make the game. you could just make mobs give you more exp if you wanted to.
So from my side, the primary purpose of quests is to enjoy and immerse in the world and interact with the characters, and has nothing whatsoever to do with grinding mobs.
Quests were created in RPGs to provide bulk xp so that players can level more quickly than just grinding individual mobs. They also will provide story and immersion. And higher levels should bring reputation and fame.
Best, of course, when all of those are intertwined.
In MMORPGs, quests should be providing significantly more xp and better rewards for killing 20 Zombies than just grinding 20 Zombies. And, you should be getting the same Skill increases if the design is for Skill increases from Skill usage.
thats not mandatory, that just depends how you make the game. you could just make mobs give you more exp if you wanted to.
You could, but the "masses" prefer quests and quest hubs. This is one of the ways WoW managed to make an easy-to-level solo experience, and it was astoundingly popular. Both with new-to-MMO players (expected) and quite a few MMO vets. This can be a very good option if the quest can be built to tell a compelling story, as that appeals more types of players (powerlevelers ignore the story but like the xp). Or it can be a boring option as it becomes "quest grinding" where you gather 10 wolf ears then 6 thistles then 12 glowing rocks and back to the quest hub for xp.
Old-school grinding mobs in a group can have a bunch of downsides related to wasted time, like: waiting for a group in general, waiting for a healer, waiting for a tank, finding a grind spot that's level/difficulty appropriate. These downsides are particularly bad for casuals
Making solo/duo grinding mobs have an XP return rate almost as good as group mob grinding is another option. Some people prefer this, but I find it has a high rate of boredom->burnout. Especially in a game with XP debt and death losses, you will end up solo grinding very safe mobs.
Steven has in the past said that there will not be anywhere close to enough quests to cap level, and that we will need to do "other things". From what we know about nodes evolving, I can see how the quest-hub to quest-hub progression won't work anyway.
the masses dont prefer it...because masses also prefer grinding. that depends on who you make the game for. its probably the antisocials who prefer it. people stick to games for reasons, not always for the leveling process (somethign that you do once, and doesnt usually take that long).
you can solo level by grinding mobs too.
also, id argue that those games with quests, instances and stuff require you to group, or you cant progress past certain point. in games where i can grind mobs i can just sell loot and buy the stuff that can be acquired by party play
the masses dont prefer it...because masses also prefer grinding. that depends on who you make the game for. its probably the antisocials who prefer it. people stick in games for reasons, not always for the leveling process (somethign that you do once, and doesnt usually take that long).
you can solo level by grinding mobs too.
also, id argue that those games with quests, instances and stuff require you to group, or you cant progress past certain point. in games where i can grind mobs i can just sell loot and buy the stuff that can be acquired by party play
the masses dont prefer it...because masses also prefer grinding. that depends on who you make the game for. its probably the antisocials who prefer it. people stick in games for reasons, not always for the leveling process (somethign that you do once, and doesnt usually take that long).
you can solo level by grinding mobs too.
also, id argue that those games with quests, instances and stuff require you to group, or you cant progress past certain point. in games where i can grind mobs i can just sell loot and buy the stuff that can be acquired by party play
Comments
I understand your point but if the leveling is fast (in the case of AOC, 6 weeks to reach max level), no one will spend money to buy a low level rare gear. Except if the rare low level items can be salvage for end game material.
Im also not a big fan of grinding levels. But a bad economy is worst than grinding.
I expect to be pursuing different gear as I strive to reach max Social Org level, max Religion level and maybe even max Racial level.
Unlikely people will have all of those progression paths maxed in 6 weeks. Especially since some of those will require Metros.
huh but you want leveling to take long..which translates into grinding...
only if you grind...
how will you level then? i like grinding mobs. i prefer it over grinding quests.
Bilbo Baggins do have some skill at conkers, if you must know...
I do not mind if there is early rare gear that is desired by a non-trivial number of players but that does not have higher level, auto-obsoleting upgrades.
Going with the now-usual 'let's combine FFXI and L2', I would want:
1) some level 30-ish Elites and bosses drop rare gear/materials, with the chances of the drop being reduced as your level exceeds the mob
2) Those rare gear pieces (or level 30 gear made from the materials) have stats that generally aren't as vertically important, but can be conditionally useful in places
3) Those gear pieces can then be enhanced up to +whatever if you are really dedicated to having them as endgame options.
Economically I prefer this because it resolves the problem I understand from an L2 economy study, and the FFXI Notorious Monster hunting fault.
High level players who want this gear 'need' alts or friends to help get the base item, or the obscure ones that only very few people can be bothered to actually hunt, can be random open world challenges for small groups.
Then money flows from people who want these to enhance them, towards lower level players who are going out adventuring together (theoretically, again, this relies on the items not being meta for most people at higher level but still good).
If anything similar to this is the reality in Ashes, I wouldn't care about other aspects of 'what leveling causes' really.
Some people say if you like it, is not grind...
And then there is the Eve Online way of leveling.
I never said that I wanted to grind at all costs. I said that longer leveling had positive effects on the rest of the game mechanics (Gameplay, economy, lifespan + social interactions as someone added).
You understand what you want to understand and attributing to me words that I have not said which in fact reflect your own interpretation.
It's different
Grinding is leveling by killing individual mobs for relatively low amounts of xp.
Quests are designed to eliminate grind by giving significantly more xp (and gear) then one would receive just by killing individual mobs.
Reaching max Adventurer Level by completing quests should be much faster than just killing individual mobs.
Sure, in the last 10 years, once the concept of "Endgame is the real game" became popular... gamers extended grind to leveling... as an undesirable impediment to reaching the real fun of the "real" game.
I don't know what is faster between mobs and FedEx quests but I'd rather kill mobs in loops than carry parcels all over the map.
Got to be careful with this. WOW Shadowlands tried to do this with Covenants and "meaningful choices". Problem was that there were too many systems compounding on each other and were impossible to balance. So the "meaningful choice" you made was a gimped character... Made alot of people mad and quit the game because they didn't want to redo another long and tedius quest chain to level up a new Covenant so that their character was actually useful.
Anything that gets locked under "meaningful choice" MUST be extremely well balanced. The more variations they have at the end of the trees the easier it should be to change in case some skills/options turn out to be too meta.
well i had to grind 15 hours of questing every single day for 2 months in forsaken world to get from 1 to 60.
same quests and dungeons over and over everyday plus a few new ones that you would get every few levels. so yeah its possible to grind quests xdd
FFXI had no exp for quests.
At all. At best, there were maybe 1 in 100 quests that gave you an item that, when used, gave some exp.
Obviously this was later changed in a convoluted way after WoW made it the expectation of the masses. But if you wanted exp, especially in the early iterations, you had two options that were one option.
1) become good at the coordination and group combat and fight mobs
2) become good enough at RP that groups would ask you to accompany them to fight mobs, and play Bard (so you didn't have to ever interact with the mobs yourself).
(this is why I don't speak on other aspects of this topic, I'm conditioned not to notice my character level in games, it's 'irrelevant' most of the time because the game either made leveling so easy that it just flies by, or has the 'enforced options' above where you generally don't care what level you are, your goals don't change as much)
D&D and EQ2 made it the expectation of the masses. I think the tech wasn’t quite ready for EQ to do that well.
The primary purpose of quests is to give more xp and rewards than grinding individual mobs.
Devs in Asia might have a different interpretation of RPGs than the Western originators of the genre.
I knew I shouldn't have added that part.
Either way, you have your answer, I think?
The idea of getting exp for a quest, which in turn makes your character stronger in combat, and the quest potentially involving no combat, is not a thing that the designers of the game I'm used to considered reasonable, I think.
One is a 'soft' skill and one is a 'hard' skill. I do not mention this because I expect you to agree with their decision or even to 'accept it as part of an RPG'. Only to give the usual context, so here's a bit more.
In FFXI you get better stats and can equip better gear when you level, but you only get better at Healing Magic by actually using Healing Magic. So offering exp for quests would result in players reaching max Adventurer level with underleveled skills relative to their weapons or magic.
The philosophy is that your character improves at what your character actually does, and if the game needs to represent that numerically, it does so. When it doesn't need to do that, it doesn't.
Quests give Reputation and Fame, so if you 'interact with NPCs' you get a numeric value that improves your ability to interact with NPCs, but they saw no need to give you combat power directly for this.
So from my side, the primary purpose of quests is to enjoy and immerse in the world and interact with the characters, and has nothing whatsoever to do with grinding mobs.
So instead, I will note three points and all can draw their conclusions from that, or draw none. Yay for brevity.
1) There is generally no official 'quest exp' in D&D until 2e which released in 1989, things were open to intepretation but primarily based around 'fighting' and 'finding treasure'.
2) Final Fantasy 1 was released in 1987 with one such interpretation.
3) Both WoW and EQ2 were released after FF11.
These are the bases from which I disagree with your reasoning as to 'the purpose of quests in MMOs'.
I agree that players shouldn't be disgusted by the game because of a mistake in their build but a good compromise should be find to make change on your char not too easy.
And at the same time, I'd be happy to rediscover the game with another fresh char.
By the way, is the double account will be allowed or it's not legal ? In case a player pays 2 accounts, he will be allowed to buff his second char with his healer ?
yes, dual boxing is legal. but steven said as long as you keep your progress on your 2nd account and dont give it to your main.
i also agree that resetting shouldnt be easy, not as easy as it is in new world (although nw is different since every char can do everything). we dont know if changing farming areas will pretty much require us to adjust our build, otherwise farming would be too diffcult. so thats something to consider
I dunno how many RPG designers you know.
Quests make your Adventurer stronger - especially your "class" - and that is not always about combat because classes in RPGs are not supposed to be just about combat.
In MMORPGs it's easier for designers to focus on combat.
Profession quests also make professions "stronger".
Yeah, your skills increasing based on skill use is different than xp, though.
I'm not aware of quests that increase stats. Typically in an RPG, a new level is going to provide points that can be placed to increase stats - which will also make skills stronger.
I would say that the philosphy is that your skills increase with skill usage.
You Adventurer still should improve significantly by completing adventurer quests - some of that will be combat. Some of that won't be combat. Sure, best when quests help you use your class abilities.
Quests were created to provide bulk xp. Reputation/Fame are intended to be additional byproducts.
XPisn't necessarily the same thing as combat power. XP should allow characters to improve stats. And stats allow characters to increase character abilities - including class abilities. Class abilities likely will include combat prowess.
But, yes, it's not unusual for Skill power to increase vertically with skill usage.
Quests typically do not have rewards for increased skill usage. Other than... if the quest asks you to kill 20 Zombies or heal 20 Soldiers, your skills will increase from usage AND you will also be rewarded a bunch of xp.
If you do a FedEx or escort quest - it should be sending you past mobs where you have opportunities to use class skills.
Quests were created in RPGs to provide bulk xp so that players can level more quickly than just grinding individual mobs. They also will provide story and immersion. And higher levels should bring reputation and fame.
Best, of course, when all of those are intertwined.
In MMORPGs, quests should be providing significantly more xp and better rewards for killing 20 Zombies than just grinding 20 Zombies. And, you should be getting the same Skill increases if the design is for Skill increases from Skill usage.
And because they take time, it makes sense to get experience or something from them.
Also the sudden experience increase feels better after long slow gradual increase.
But that's because experience gain is seen as objective. If experiencing the story would be more important, then players would do the quests just for that, without feeling the need to get experience. Like exploration, you go to see. You stay and look at how creatures behave, listen to NPCs talking to each other... Once I followed two children chasing a mouse which was just a filler content in the city because I was curious what they do.
Ii is bad when players end up doing quests just because they need the experience. It means they would rather do something else and the game doesn't offer that different game-play style.
thats not mandatory, that just depends how you make the game. you could just make mobs give you more exp if you wanted to.
You could, but the "masses" prefer quests and quest hubs. This is one of the ways WoW managed to make an easy-to-level solo experience, and it was astoundingly popular. Both with new-to-MMO players (expected) and quite a few MMO vets. This can be a very good option if the quest can be built to tell a compelling story, as that appeals more types of players (powerlevelers ignore the story but like the xp). Or it can be a boring option as it becomes "quest grinding" where you gather 10 wolf ears then 6 thistles then 12 glowing rocks and back to the quest hub for xp.
Old-school grinding mobs in a group can have a bunch of downsides related to wasted time, like: waiting for a group in general, waiting for a healer, waiting for a tank, finding a grind spot that's level/difficulty appropriate. These downsides are particularly bad for casuals
Making solo/duo grinding mobs have an XP return rate almost as good as group mob grinding is another option. Some people prefer this, but I find it has a high rate of boredom->burnout. Especially in a game with XP debt and death losses, you will end up solo grinding very safe mobs.
Steven has in the past said that there will not be anywhere close to enough quests to cap level, and that we will need to do "other things". From what we know about nodes evolving, I can see how the quest-hub to quest-hub progression won't work anyway.
you can solo level by grinding mobs too.
also, id argue that those games with quests, instances and stuff require you to group, or you cant progress past certain point. in games where i can grind mobs i can just sell loot and buy the stuff that can be acquired by party play
Great post, @Depraved.
Yeah, if you’re “antisocial”, MMOs aren’t the best choice of game genre to be playing.
It’s more about the group content.
Which seems to be Steven’s point of view, too … solo questing isn’t going to be optimal XP.
You guys are so socialized and enculturated.