Once you get to the end of leveling, the tutorial is over. You have basic gear and now you have a million other things to do. You cant max crafting until you max your adventure level. You cant have a freehold until you are max level. You cant do, insert all the things. AoC is a sandbox game, and people will create their own purpose. There could be quests to give some purpose. Node Progression, life skills, becoming a mayor, watching the world burn all give a purpose. Lower level characters will always have a purpose in the bigger picture.
Could you directly point out what other mechanics are blocked off by the adventure lvl, outside the freehold ownership (btw, I consider freehold thing stupid as hell too, but that's beside the point)?
Cause I don't quite remember anything else being blocked.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
TL:DR The leveling system is getting character to a place where they can do whatever. The real game starts at max level. You won't have the best gear or even be the best at everything because you will have to put time into those things as well. There is an investment so people can't just start out at doing whatever. That is the initial leveling experience. You will have to earn your place.
This is false. Especially for RPGs.
MMORPGs created this false perception because gamers are able to race to max level and experience all of the dev curated content within 3 months. Then they have to wait 1-3 years for new dev curated content.
Which makes most of the time played spent in Endgame.
It's actually Raid/Dungeon rewards (BiS gear) and Raid/Dungeon difficulties which have been crafted by devs to keep gamers on a repetitive treadmill to continue replaying old content/stories while waiting for new content.
BiS gear should not be a primary motivator in an RPG.
Again... leveling in an RPG is intended to replicate the Hero's Journey in a Fantasy story.
Professions are blocked by adventure level since profession level cant progress past adventure level. I would imagine that would also effect ships being built, which could impact sea content, Caravan content and would stunt gear level, though you could buy all of that I imagine.
There may not be a hard "you have to be 50 to do this." But you could be excluded because you cant heal enough, or tank enough, or dps enough.
Albion did it with adventure level. There are 8 levels and when you got adventure level 7 you did like 500% more damage to level 7 monsters and mobs. It didnt effect PvP, but PvE was next to impossible if you were 7 and you wanted to fight a level 8.
Q: In regards to character level and artisan level. We know that currently there are two separate things. That being said, what prevents a player from staying level one and partying up with a level 50 player to then gather level 50 resources in the high zones? That way, anyone who wants to take those resources will have to kill the gatherer who is level one and get a large amount of corruption for killing a level one as a level 50.
A: Gathering higher level resources requires significant advancement within a particular profession for that gatherable resource. So, if I'm a Miner and I want to access the highest possible mineral, I need to be a master miner; and in order to achieve the master minor status I am going to be gaining adventuring level experience through that process, because many of those quest lines, many of those achievements are facilitated through quest lines. Some of those quest lines interface with adventuring difficulties that are out in the wild at certain levels. So that's going to predicate me- that's going to be a predicate for me to achieve a certain level in order to complete some of these quest lines and achieve that master status. So you will you will likely not see the ability of a level one alt character having the access to high level mineral mining, or any other type of gatherable out there.[11] – Steven Sharif
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Once you get to the end of leveling, the tutorial is over. You have basic gear and now you have a million other things to do. You cant max crafting until you max your adventure level. You cant have a freehold until you are max level. You cant do, insert all the things. AoC is a sandbox game, and people will create their own purpose. There could be quests to give some purpose. Node Progression, life skills, becoming a mayor, watching the world burn all give a purpose. Lower level characters will always have a purpose in the bigger picture.
Could you directly point out what other mechanics are blocked off by the adventure lvl, outside the freehold ownership (btw, I consider freehold thing stupid as hell too, but that's beside the point)?
Cause I don't quite remember anything else being blocked.
Also, I think it's Processing that is gated by Freeholds and Freeholds that are gated by Level 50 Adventurer.
That might also prevent max Crafting? Players can only craft up to Journeyman level on Freeholds.
You can't do Grandmaster Crafting on a Freehold. I'm not sure if you always need Grandmaster Processing to be able to Craft Grandmaster products.
Q: In regards to character level and artisan level. We know that currently there are two separate things. That being said, what prevents a player from staying level one and partying up with a level 50 player to then gather level 50 resources in the high zones? That way, anyone who wants to take those resources will have to kill the gatherer who is level one and get a large amount of corruption for killing a level one as a level 50.
A: Gathering higher level resources requires significant advancement within a particular profession for that gatherable resource. So, if I'm a Miner and I want to access the highest possible mineral, I need to be a master miner; and in order to achieve the master minor status I am going to be gaining adventuring level experience through that process, because many of those quest lines, many of those achievements are facilitated through quest lines. Some of those quest lines interface with adventuring difficulties that are out in the wild at certain levels. So that's going to predicate me- that's going to be a predicate for me to achieve a certain level in order to complete some of these quest lines and achieve that master status. So you will you will likely not see the ability of a level one alt character having the access to high level mineral mining, or any other type of gatherable out there.[11] – Steven Sharif
None of this says "you gotta be max lvl to become a master artisan" though.
That might also prevent max Crafting? Players can only craft up to Journeyman level on Freeholds.
You can't do Grandmaster Crafting on a Freehold. I'm not sure if you always need Grandmaster Processing to be able to Craft Grandmaster products.
You can still become a master processor even if you don't have your own freehold. You simply need someone else to share the access to a freehold with you.
So, once again, doesn't require you to be max lvl to become a master in your artisanry.
But it does specifically say that you will need adventure levels to max the artisan class. Its not unreasonable to think that there will be a skill or a resource that isnt unlocked until level 50 artisan level and you cant unlock it until you are adventure level 50. I am just spectulating, but so are you.
Precisely. Except so far Steven's quotes point towards me being right, because nowhere did he say that we'd have to be max adventure lvl to be max artisans. He just said that you won't be lvl1 max artisan due to some quests. And previously it's been stated that artisanry and adventure lvls are separate, so you can advance in one w/o really advancing in the other.
You might be ultimately right cause they might go down the dumb freehold path, but until they directly say "you gotta be max adventure lvl to be max artisan lvl" - I don't think that is the case.
Though my point was mainly about the features themselves.
Professions are blocked by adventure level since profession level cant progress past adventure level.
This is simply not true.
And you haven't provided a source for any other features (again, outside the freehold) that are blocked by the adventure lvl. Some features will obviously be way harder to do or people might simply not invite you to them, but the game's system itself is not preventing you from participating.
Isn't gear level, or lack of skills from a skill tree still the game system preventing you from participating. I would actually expect that the game wont say "You can't enter this area because your adventuring skill is too low." because that breaks emersion, but if every time you walk into an area, you get 1 shot because of gear or level or anything else, it is a game system that has been designed that way. You are using semantics to argue both the quote and the artisan classes. You are no more correct in the interpretation until more info comes out.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
You can still become a master processor even if you don't have your own freehold. You simply need someone else to share the access to a freehold with you.
So, once again, doesn't require you to be max lvl to become a master in your artisanry.
Right, but...
Someone on the server has to have a Freehold with the Station(s) you need.
(And then they have to allow you access or provide you with the Processed materials)
you could have people helping you finish the quests and kill the high level mobs so that you can become a master gatherer without being level 50, unless the quests have a level requirement.
Isn't gear level, or lack of skills from a skill tree still the game system preventing you from participating. I would actually expect that the game wont say "You can't enter this area because your adventuring skill is too low." because that breaks emersion, but if every time you walk into an area, you get 1 shot because of gear or level or anything else, it is a game system that has been designed that way. You are using semantics to argue both the quote and the artisan classes. You are no more correct in the interpretation until more info comes out.
Again though, nothing is preventing you from going there and dying a hundred types. You're not blocked from doing that. Neither is artisanry blocked or anything else outside freeholds.
And I can say that exactly because Steven literally said "you can't get a freehold unless you're lvl 50". That is being directly blocked by an in-game system. Though even there it's only the "ownership" that's blocked, but the features of the freehold system are still available to you at any lvl as long as you have a friend who has a freehold.
So far I don't remember a single other mechanic/feature that is blocked from players in the same way. If you have a quote/link to one - I'd much appreciate it.
Right, but...
Someone on the server has to have a Freehold with the Station(s) you need.
(And then they have to allow you access.)
Yes, but that is not an adventure lvl block
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 2023
The gate is that someone on the server has to acquire a Freehoold first.
And then they have to grant you access to the Stations you require or provide you with the Processed goods.
So some Professions do have a block... initially. It becomes easier to bypass that block individually as more people gain access to Freeholds and Processing Stations.
The gate is that someone on the server has to acquire a Freehoold first.
And then they have to grant you access to the Stations you require or provide you with the Processed goods.
So Professions do have a block... initially. It becomes easier to bypass that block individually as more people gain access to Freeholds and Processing Stations.
Yes, and I've excluded freeholds from my request for a quote for any other mechanic for this exact reason You can still use a freehold when you're not 50, but someone somewhere had to be 50 to get that freehold. Dumb system, but whatever. But is there any other system that has the same kind of system-based block on players? I don't remember any.
I assumed players will distribute themselves on the entire map when the servers are launched, hoping to level their own node.
If they get clumped into a few higher level nodes, maybe they level those nodes too, faster. And leave 75% of nodes at lvl 1 and 2.
But then I bet Steven will change something, already in Alpha phase.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean.
Players will try to progress Nodes that fit the criteria they desire - region, biome, Node Type, racial, etc.
And then... each server can only have a max of 5 Metros.
But... there are 108 Nodes to start with. Vast majority of those will become Vassal Nodes.
And, there will be a decent amount of variance as Towns, Cities and Metros are destroyed in Sieges.
Only now I had the chance to watch the video referenced by the quote The developers estimate that players will reach level cap before a quarter of nodes reach Village (stage 3).[15]
Based on the quote, I assumed that most players and not some players will reach level 50 while 75% of nodes are still at level 1 or 2. I also forgot that there is artisan leveling too, separate to class leveling.
Now that I watched the video, I see that the context is about Freeholds and processing leveling was mentioned too.
Steven gave an example hinting to something which now was revealed as node currencies in the last stream.
In that example he was explaining that it makes no sense to rush to level 50 because the freeholds trickle slowly out into the world and a player which levels slowly will have an advantage over the player who rushed to reach max level faster.
And I assume players will gain more when they are in small communities because they do not have to share with 1000 other players whatever comes as reward. So players will spread over the entire map rather than moving to the high level nodes.
The region, biome, Node Type, racial preference you mentioned are even more reasons to stay in a certain node. I didn't considered them because normally I would want to try all of them so which comes first is not important. (But after playing Alpha 2 and knowing all those possibilities, I might have a preference at release)
I don't take Steven's example as a prediction of what most players will do: to reach lvl 50 leaving 75% of nodes at low level but as why that will not happen if they also want a freehold.
If they don't want a freehold, then maybe they'll have a good reason to level up the adventuring level.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
But is there any other system that has the same kind of system-based block on players? I don't remember any.
Node progression, in general...
Which is why Headstart won't be super-meaningful since Node Progression will not be turned on before actual Release day.
As in "node's lvl will determine what content you can access"? I guesss that kinda applies? Though it's not directly lvl blocking, it's more of a "when you start playing the game" blocking. If you start on release then you'll be blocked for some time, but after that I'd assume we'll always have at least one of each stage of nodes, so you wouldn't be limited by them.
It's pointless to quote one another and say "based on my view about mmos, your view is wrong. It should be done how I see it."
The Devs may read what somebodys original position is and say "it's right/it's wrong".
No amount of back and forth between us will assist the Devs.
Filling pages upon pages of irrelevant, useless things makes matters worse. You are not helping and you know it.
Finally, if you say "At eve", "At Albion", "At wow", "At NW", etc etc etc, and you choose not to say "at L2" or "at AA", you completely dont understand what made Steven want to create AoC and you are beyond hope of ever becoming reasonable.
Some smart people, over the past few years have looked into:
The inspirational mmos
The reasons for certain design pillars
and they have adjusted their path.
That doesnt mean "what's the point of discussing?" should be the knee-jerk reaction.
Steven said 45D and I disagree. There. Discussion. It's based on the agreed lillar of "the journey needs to be long. I want it longer.
But when Steven said more or less "these recent mmos fail the genre players' needs", and most of you come here and say "Oh! AoC should do this, like most recent mmo games I just finished quitting" and start talking about endgame, dont expect to be taken seriously.
The first Assassins Creed games didnt have levels. As you played the story, you became better at delivering death because you were tought things by various characters or you were given unique tools ("skills").
The latest AC games had you as the Egyptian protector, the Greek demigod, the Norse raider. You learned fuck-all from characters, nor did you discover new tools.
Just some stupid leveling and crafting systems to empower you, but zero gameplay/story character development.
We are not ready for an mmo, in which leveling (which is just stats and numbers) gives way to ingame character development, and increasing combat depth as you explore further away from the easier zones. Why get into this discussion?
Ff14 was onto something, with each class having its own quest and mentor, that would reward you with skills.
A better way would be for players to discover by chance (or by spoilers) quest givers that introduce new skills to each related class, skills that can be used to handle harder mobs, similalry to Elden Ring. But the factor of massive multiplayer needs to be taken into account for any issues that may interfere.
But for now, just deal with the levels and the skilltab (which seems to be accessible anywhere). It's not part of the discussion right now, nor is the end-game mentality up for discussion.
Since AoC wont doesnt have endgame, and asuming that they would be willing to allow FH usage before level cap, why do you want 45D until lv cap as opposed to longer?
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
As in "node's lvl will determine what content you can access"? I guesss that kinda applies? Though it's not directly lvl blocking, it's more of a "when you start playing the game" blocking. If you start on release then you'll be blocked for some time, but after that I'd assume we'll always have at least one of each stage of nodes, so you wouldn't be limited by them.
Depends on which Nodes have what you need to progress in the manner you wish to progress.
That can be any time in terms of longevity of the game - because it requires for the Node you desire to exist at the Stage you desire and have the Services and other parameters you need.
Racial progression can also be blocked, for example.
Since AoC wont doesnt have endgame, and asuming that they would be willing to allow FH usage before level cap, why do you want 45D until lv cap as opposed to longer?
If it is possible to have infinite leveling then a longer leveling would also be possible.
45D is for me close to the minimum needed
- to prevent players rolling many new characters
- to present a story for a character before having a reason to see a new story from the perspective of a new character
Also playing a new class is fun. After 45D leveling + 30...60D using it at max level, switching to a new class is a needed change for many players.
Finally, if you say "At eve", "At Albion", "At wow", "At NW", etc etc etc, and you choose not to say "at L2" or "at AA", you completely dont understand what made Steven want to create AoC and you are beyond hope of ever becoming reasonable.
While I actually do completely agree with what you are saying here (we should primarily look at the games that are stated to be influential, as well as the games developers have worked on in the past, imo), I feel it worth pointing out that you could level up to the cap in Archeage in about 12 hours worth of play time.
Thus, using only games that Steven has talked about as being an influence on Ashes, a time to max level of anything over 12 hours absolutely is valid to discuss, as that is the starting point of the games Steven has claimed to take inspiration from.
I don't want to see a 12 hour time to level cap. I think anything from 30 - 45 days is great (happens to be what EQ2 originally was). Ashes being on the high end of that is fine to me.
The thing with that goal is though, while some players will reach the cap a little faster, most will be much, much longer. It absolutely will take some players a year to level to the cap with that rate of progression. We shouldn't be looking at the speed or the slowest or the fastest is able to level, we should be looking at either the mean or the mode (depending on the curve) - which is likely to be closer to 75 - 80 days with a stated goal of 45.
I didn't say it did - I said it took 12 hours in Archeage.
You can't tell people they need to primarily look at the stated primary influencers for the game, and then ignore one of the stated prmary influincers for the game when you don't like how they did the thing in question.
I would think that the only two reasonable paths to discussion around Ashes are to only consider games that have an influence on the design of Ashes (Archeage, L2, SWG, EVE, and those we have been told developers worked directly on), or to ignore all influences and talk about what each of us would like to see.
If we opt for the second of the above, then all time ranges to the level cap are valid discussion. If we opt for the first of the above, then everything from 12 hours up is valid discussion.
I don't see any reasonable path where we can not say that it is valid to discuss the aspect of the game in question as per how one of the major influences of the game had it - unless we are just saying George wants it longer so we can't talk about it being shorter.
Based on what Stevens wants from mmos, do you really thing those last 2 posts you made abouts AA taking 12h to reach level cap, isnt one of your usual wastes of time?
Based on what Stevens wants from mmos, do you really thing those last 2 posts you made abouts AA taking 12h to reach level cap, isnt one of your usual wastes of time?
Noaani is simply doing what you told everyone else to do. Looking at Steven's inspirations and then drawing conclusions from that.
It's a stupid conclusion to think that Steven would draw inspiration from AA reaching lv cap in 12h. You cant be that bored that you got nothing else to do than talk about it.
It's a stupid conclusion to think that Steven would draw inspiration from AA reaching lv cap in 12h. You cant be that bored that you got nothing else to do than talk about it.
You were the one who started the whole "talk only about direct inspirations". Now reap what you sowed.
Comments
Cause I don't quite remember anything else being blocked.
MMORPGs created this false perception because gamers are able to race to max level and experience all of the dev curated content within 3 months. Then they have to wait 1-3 years for new dev curated content.
Which makes most of the time played spent in Endgame.
It's actually Raid/Dungeon rewards (BiS gear) and Raid/Dungeon difficulties which have been crafted by devs to keep gamers on a repetitive treadmill to continue replaying old content/stories while waiting for new content.
BiS gear should not be a primary motivator in an RPG.
Again... leveling in an RPG is intended to replicate the Hero's Journey in a Fantasy story.
Ashes is a Themebox - not a Sandbox.
There may not be a hard "you have to be 50 to do this." But you could be excluded because you cant heal enough, or tank enough, or dps enough.
Albion did it with adventure level. There are 8 levels and when you got adventure level 7 you did like 500% more damage to level 7 monsters and mobs. It didnt effect PvP, but PvE was next to impossible if you were 7 and you wanted to fight a level 8.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Artisan_progression
Q: In regards to character level and artisan level. We know that currently there are two separate things. That being said, what prevents a player from staying level one and partying up with a level 50 player to then gather level 50 resources in the high zones? That way, anyone who wants to take those resources will have to kill the gatherer who is level one and get a large amount of corruption for killing a level one as a level 50.
A: Gathering higher level resources requires significant advancement within a particular profession for that gatherable resource. So, if I'm a Miner and I want to access the highest possible mineral, I need to be a master miner; and in order to achieve the master minor status I am going to be gaining adventuring level experience through that process, because many of those quest lines, many of those achievements are facilitated through quest lines. Some of those quest lines interface with adventuring difficulties that are out in the wild at certain levels. So that's going to predicate me- that's going to be a predicate for me to achieve a certain level in order to complete some of these quest lines and achieve that master status. So you will you will likely not see the ability of a level one alt character having the access to high level mineral mining, or any other type of gatherable out there.[11] – Steven Sharif
That might also prevent max Crafting? Players can only craft up to Journeyman level on Freeholds.
You can't do Grandmaster Crafting on a Freehold. I'm not sure if you always need Grandmaster Processing to be able to Craft Grandmaster products.
You can still become a master processor even if you don't have your own freehold. You simply need someone else to share the access to a freehold with you.
So, once again, doesn't require you to be max lvl to become a master in your artisanry.
You might be ultimately right cause they might go down the dumb freehold path, but until they directly say "you gotta be max adventure lvl to be max artisan lvl" - I don't think that is the case.
Though my point was mainly about the features themselves. This is simply not true.
And you haven't provided a source for any other features (again, outside the freehold) that are blocked by the adventure lvl. Some features will obviously be way harder to do or people might simply not invite you to them, but the game's system itself is not preventing you from participating.
Someone on the server has to have a Freehold with the Station(s) you need.
(And then they have to allow you access or provide you with the Processed materials)
And I can say that exactly because Steven literally said "you can't get a freehold unless you're lvl 50". That is being directly blocked by an in-game system. Though even there it's only the "ownership" that's blocked, but the features of the freehold system are still available to you at any lvl as long as you have a friend who has a freehold.
So far I don't remember a single other mechanic/feature that is blocked from players in the same way. If you have a quote/link to one - I'd much appreciate it.
And then they have to grant you access to the Stations you require or provide you with the Processed goods.
So some Professions do have a block... initially. It becomes easier to bypass that block individually as more people gain access to Freeholds and Processing Stations.
Only now I had the chance to watch the video referenced by the quote
The developers estimate that players will reach level cap before a quarter of nodes reach Village (stage 3).[15]
Based on the quote, I assumed that most players and not some players will reach level 50 while 75% of nodes are still at level 1 or 2. I also forgot that there is artisan leveling too, separate to class leveling.
Now that I watched the video, I see that the context is about Freeholds and processing leveling was mentioned too.
Steven gave an example hinting to something which now was revealed as node currencies in the last stream.
In that example he was explaining that it makes no sense to rush to level 50 because the freeholds trickle slowly out into the world and a player which levels slowly will have an advantage over the player who rushed to reach max level faster.
And I assume players will gain more when they are in small communities because they do not have to share with 1000 other players whatever comes as reward. So players will spread over the entire map rather than moving to the high level nodes.
The region, biome, Node Type, racial preference you mentioned are even more reasons to stay in a certain node. I didn't considered them because normally I would want to try all of them so which comes first is not important. (But after playing Alpha 2 and knowing all those possibilities, I might have a preference at release)
I don't take Steven's example as a prediction of what most players will do: to reach lvl 50 leaving 75% of nodes at low level but as why that will not happen if they also want a freehold.
If they don't want a freehold, then maybe they'll have a good reason to level up the adventuring level.
Which is why Headstart won't be super-meaningful since Node Progression will not be turned on before actual Release day.
It's pointless to quote one another and say "based on my view about mmos, your view is wrong. It should be done how I see it."
The Devs may read what somebodys original position is and say "it's right/it's wrong".
No amount of back and forth between us will assist the Devs.
Filling pages upon pages of irrelevant, useless things makes matters worse. You are not helping and you know it.
Finally, if you say "At eve", "At Albion", "At wow", "At NW", etc etc etc, and you choose not to say "at L2" or "at AA", you completely dont understand what made Steven want to create AoC and you are beyond hope of ever becoming reasonable.
Some smart people, over the past few years have looked into:
The inspirational mmos
The reasons for certain design pillars
and they have adjusted their path.
That doesnt mean "what's the point of discussing?" should be the knee-jerk reaction.
Steven said 45D and I disagree. There. Discussion. It's based on the agreed lillar of "the journey needs to be long. I want it longer.
But when Steven said more or less "these recent mmos fail the genre players' needs", and most of you come here and say "Oh! AoC should do this, like most recent mmo games I just finished quitting" and start talking about endgame, dont expect to be taken seriously.
The first Assassins Creed games didnt have levels. As you played the story, you became better at delivering death because you were tought things by various characters or you were given unique tools ("skills").
The latest AC games had you as the Egyptian protector, the Greek demigod, the Norse raider. You learned fuck-all from characters, nor did you discover new tools.
Just some stupid leveling and crafting systems to empower you, but zero gameplay/story character development.
We are not ready for an mmo, in which leveling (which is just stats and numbers) gives way to ingame character development, and increasing combat depth as you explore further away from the easier zones. Why get into this discussion?
Ff14 was onto something, with each class having its own quest and mentor, that would reward you with skills.
A better way would be for players to discover by chance (or by spoilers) quest givers that introduce new skills to each related class, skills that can be used to handle harder mobs, similalry to Elden Ring. But the factor of massive multiplayer needs to be taken into account for any issues that may interfere.
But for now, just deal with the levels and the skilltab (which seems to be accessible anywhere). It's not part of the discussion right now, nor is the end-game mentality up for discussion.
Since AoC wont doesnt have endgame, and asuming that they would be willing to allow FH usage before level cap, why do you want 45D until lv cap as opposed to longer?
That can be any time in terms of longevity of the game - because it requires for the Node you desire to exist at the Stage you desire and have the Services and other parameters you need.
Racial progression can also be blocked, for example.
45D is for me close to the minimum needed
- to prevent players rolling many new characters
- to present a story for a character before having a reason to see a new story from the perspective of a new character
Also playing a new class is fun. After 45D leveling + 30...60D using it at max level, switching to a new class is a needed change for many players.
While I actually do completely agree with what you are saying here (we should primarily look at the games that are stated to be influential, as well as the games developers have worked on in the past, imo), I feel it worth pointing out that you could level up to the cap in Archeage in about 12 hours worth of play time.
Thus, using only games that Steven has talked about as being an influence on Ashes, a time to max level of anything over 12 hours absolutely is valid to discuss, as that is the starting point of the games Steven has claimed to take inspiration from.
I don't want to see a 12 hour time to level cap. I think anything from 30 - 45 days is great (happens to be what EQ2 originally was). Ashes being on the high end of that is fine to me.
The thing with that goal is though, while some players will reach the cap a little faster, most will be much, much longer. It absolutely will take some players a year to level to the cap with that rate of progression. We shouldn't be looking at the speed or the slowest or the fastest is able to level, we should be looking at either the mean or the mode (depending on the curve) - which is likely to be closer to 75 - 80 days with a stated goal of 45.
That is, imo, plenty long enough as a journey.
I didn't say it did - I said it took 12 hours in Archeage.
You can't tell people they need to primarily look at the stated primary influencers for the game, and then ignore one of the stated prmary influincers for the game when you don't like how they did the thing in question.
I would think that the only two reasonable paths to discussion around Ashes are to only consider games that have an influence on the design of Ashes (Archeage, L2, SWG, EVE, and those we have been told developers worked directly on), or to ignore all influences and talk about what each of us would like to see.
If we opt for the second of the above, then all time ranges to the level cap are valid discussion. If we opt for the first of the above, then everything from 12 hours up is valid discussion.
I don't see any reasonable path where we can not say that it is valid to discuss the aspect of the game in question as per how one of the major influences of the game had it - unless we are just saying George wants it longer so we can't talk about it being shorter.