Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
It is not pointless lol, The biggest the loop that more variety people have to do and that way they people won't say there is no content.
You are looking at it like a single player game and someone playing it a lot, I'm looking at loops around max level with a variety of content.
IF your loops vary enough for people at 10+ hours a day you are in a good state. Path of exile for example has a large loop with a lot of different things and challenges people can do that don't make it feel boring.
Spending time creating content people don't do for artificially inflated leveling won't be a benefit for the same. Elden ring one of the best games but had this issue with scaling where if you do all the dungeons almost all content is under your level and becomes much more boring.
So anyway yes there is a cap on max level content example being Path of exile. It depends on your loops around the game and why i talk about it based off my experiences.
So you want "shitty" low level grinding content instead? Unsure where that came from if you are going to suggest that is an exclusive high level thing I'll argue the same about lower levels.
Also i feel you are not understanding what I'm talking about to come up with that conclusion in anything i said in my post. Feel like your points are contradicting yourself.
Everyone goes through the leveling process, so there won't be any "don't do" content. If anything, making the leveling slower literally makes sure that there's no skipped content, because people have more time to do all the content at their lvl.
Skipped content is created when your progression is so damn fast that there's not enough time to see all the content before you outlevel it.
Did PoE have all that max lvl content at release? And what exactly is the difference in that content? I've only played a few hours of it, so never looked into endgame loops. From what I know about the game it seems like it'd just be running mobs/bosses over and over again. Ashes will have more content purely in variety alone, w/o even counting the amount of any given option.
So if you are saying top level content is shifted down you shouldn't be saying it is shitty grindable content...Though in fact since it is being moved down that content has complexity removed or not created to begin with so it is doable at a lower level as less tools are available to the player including gear customization. To effectively you are actually making less complex pve content to bulk more lower level content.
As a means to not have it feel artificially inflated and creating more custom lower level content for people to do makes less higher end content. Instead of worrying about lvl 50+ varying gear levels. You are now looking at chunks of every 5 levels of content trying to flush them out (15,20,25,35,40,45,45-50) on multiple level brackets and per locations in the world on top of it. Reducing the the area availability for where high level content can be placed, on top of do to the share amount of content also a more watered down PvE experience in attempt to offer quality and reducing both quality and quality of high end content.
It is a lot easier to just say something like make more content without looking at the game, limitations, time, and other elements how it effects. Which of course there is more and not a whole lot of reason for leveling to take so long it becomes extreme. From level 1-49 it should feel fun and not too repetitive, but there needs to be a reasonable point where people are hitting lvl 50 and good content is designed around it where player have all their tools and the content difficulty can account for that without feeling bad.
Making sure there is no skipped content means you are talking about them not really add much more content potentially. Also that depends the increase of leveling that we are talking about since there isn't really a number people just say increase leveling but that is solo based on intent to take large time off work and play more so than an average person. Its a bias and skewed point without more general feedback more multiple groups.
Even if we are talking about them not adding a bunch more content then you are effectively meaning people need to wait for different nodes to expand, and spending a insane amount of time running around the world to get towards different content to do quest. And their idea if people will be getting max level before all the nodes are fully up meaning less quest around and such.
Skipped content is created through multiple ways, including too much content being made. We are talking about a giant world that needs to hold a large amount of players, multiple spawn location, dynamic world, etc. It is quite clear there is going to be a lot of different areas to do things. Making that experience longer and having a level of content be interesting enough to not become more boring means a large increase of content * player level * world.
POE didn't have end game on release it was a indie studio, the only thing that matters is the game as it is now. There isn't a game that has more variety than PoE in terms of content imo. That is the core of most games you can take any game and say you are just killing mobs and bosses (you can say the same for rift mmorpg wise or swtor). I'm not a expert on the game i play it time tot time because it has a lot to learn from.
The differences in the content is it has a general loop of gameplay which is maps that have random modifiers (that can be tweaked and adjusted with a ton behind that) on top of an added gameplay loop to it based on the season that effects the player, player skills, the effects of mobs, added special dungeons to that map. On top of over 15 different loops that can pop within the maps and different objectives to do that have their onw modifiers added ontop of other mods.
Honestly just way to much too talk about and no AoC won't have more content than PoE in variety that literarily is impossible unless they looked at PoE and started taking things from it. Which would most likely it it one of the best mmorpgs ever.
Back to leveling, its not a trophy but anyone who is saying that but honestly just going to have to say you are wrong. Its not an achievement or anything special, but it is a great feeling to be at max level and finally be done.
Hitting max level or racing yes it is fun, but leveling is just a glorified thing for sweaty people to be grinding away and throwing countless hours into.
The only way that changes is if the is severe consequence as you are leveling (PoE for example when you die you lose a lot of xp and you can quickly lose an entire level of xp you don't de level though). Not something any mmorpg is going to introduce as they don't view that as the point of level and not trying to make it so hard to scare off casuals ($$$) saving the harder content for once you are max level and have all your tools.
As usual I'm not making random comments this is based of experience of knowledge of other games. I get the appeal of leveling over a long period of time and having growth and reason to explore. If this was a purely pve game my view would be a bit different. But there is PvP involved and it has a large impact and not something I'm just going to ignore.
By design, it's not really even possible to experience all of the (max level) content because some of it is gated by Nodes, Racial governments and which Services are active. As well as by Verran Seasons and Events.
And the devs intend to introduce new content every 3 or 4 months.
Ashes is an MMO RPG.
So it's literally the same content but with slightly different effects? And how exactly could Ashes not just have a few options on their own content? If anything, that's the "dynamism" that Dygz loves to bring up. This shit is already planned for the game. Node setup, weather, season, whatever else modifier - all potentially influencing the content in some way, which makes it more variable (though not for me personally).
And this is purely pve and gathering. There'll still be all the quests, exploration, factions, node-related stuff, artisanry, pvp, caravans, sieges (and prep for it) and guild wars. All of that is "more content" than PoE. At the very least, more variety of content.
Yes, and I'm also speaking from experience of playing different games. I've played a bit of FF14, where you fly through lvls through quests. I've played a bit of NW, where you grind your way through lvls by doing the same shit over and over. I've played through Genshin, exploring the entire map before even touching quests. I've played a bit of Classic WoW, which was somewhere between FF14 and Genshin.
And out of all of those, I still had more fun in L2, because slow lvling simply meant that you interact with people at all lvls, you have pvp at all lvls and the quality of content is equal across all lvls (though Genshin is a very close 2nd). And all of that will be even better in Ashes because it'll have more variety and better base quality of its content.
You want the game to start at lvl50, I want it to start at lvl1. The quality and complexity of the content doesn't need to be dumbed down for lower lvls - it simply needs to be appropriate for it, with a slight requirement to punch upward in power. If anything, having that kind of content at lower lvls could allow to, in a way, repeat that content but with an even higher complexity at a higher lvl. Which could definitely tie to cross-lvl interactions, which I hope Intrepid is keeping in mind when designing their content, otherwise the game will have big problems later on in its life.
This. Apparently, a big part of (if not the whole) discussion has two sides and opinions of those who never played Lineage 2 and those who did.
It took a lot of time to grind the max level in L2 but it was fun, despite the fact that there wasn't really that much of other activities (especially comparing to AoC). Open world PvP, PvP for farming spots, crafting, trading, castle sieges once in 2 weeks, a little bit of quests, but that's about it.
There were some truly hardcore quests like quests for subclass or noblesse (those who know, they know) and on some servers back then it was a nightmare (ask any 18 y/o Fortnite kid to complete them and they'll book a therapy after a day). But it was fun. It was challenging as hell, but the amount of satisfaction you got eventually was enormous.
There is a reason why games like Dark Souls gained so much popularity. How come people enjoy playing them when it's a single player game, but afraid of risks or challenges when it comes to MMO? It's not scary to lose to a mob, but it's scary to lose to another person?
I'd rather not get into disccusion on studios and different development practices. You are free to do your research on what AoC has in terms of manpower compared to PoE at the start.
Ashes of creation is going to have around 250 hours on just leveling your main character not including anything else, unsure where you are trying to get at with barely any leveling. If you are trying to make a argument someone plays 15+ hours every day for over 2 weeks has no more leveling to do you are correct. Now they have all the other elements in the game they skipped out on to power level and the gear chase and content to do from that point on. That is by no means most the players so it means not much in this disccusion.
Same can be said if someone decides to play for 48 hours straight in 2 days.
You are trying to dumb down my points or not understanding them, i welcome you to actually play poe and get towards end game to have a proper understanding of what I'm talking about. Not really in the mood to make points (and talk about gameplay loops) and then you take the assumption it is slight effects and saying aoc can do it. While D4 on the market can do it being a triple A studio let alone any other dev having done what they have done. And boiling it down to its just slight changes which is incorrect.
Most mmorpgs are wow clones so playing more mmorpgs doesn't mean much if they are all the same type. Its different experiences of games which I'm talking about. I'm not even that big a poe person but that is just one example that it has a lot of elements there to learn, from fighting games, to mobas, etc. (though i don't expect most people to really do that kind of stuff).
When did i say i want the game to start at lvl 50? i don't remember making that point. I said an extended leveling time for the sake of leveling is not needed and can take away other elements of the game based on how this mmorpg is being designed even more so with lack of instances. I reference my points exactly in tandem with elements of the game or design that we know of.
My default if you go to a door with just your hands and you need to pick lock the door but it has to be doable by you it can only be so complex. If you go tot he door with a bunch of tool ((levels and what you grain from it) the door can greatly increase its complexity and level as you have more ways to tackle the challenge.
This becomes that case even more strongly the higher tab is relied upon in the game (why i also advocate for more action combat).
So you want them to take the same mob and just increase it, i feel this might be you L2 experience coming into play. L2 should not be used as any kind of standard for PvE (that also includes BDO, or any general korean grinding mmorpg). It is a lot more than punching it up unless your pve experience is easy and you consider elite mobs as good pve.
If you have more tools you need to have mechanics around dealing with those tools else the content will feel easy. IE someone using mass res to remove any danger of a phase change with aoe nuke it does a certain amount of times allowing you to skip it and a power of increased dmg to it means nothing since you can just res, Being able to mitigate all the dmg do to your higher level skills. Less complexity added to the boss because you aren't expected to have certain tools that would make the challenge unreasonable for players to do.
I don't really want to get in a whole PvE disccusion, but the point is you have more tools with more levels, you don't just increase some dmg on the boss and life and its a wrap. If you say add more mechanics to higher level bosses than you would be agree the content is dumbed down.
And my whole point is "why offload the good content to the end when you can have it sooner". I'm sure the game will already become like that later on, because all games become that, so why do that from the very start.
You want or desire to have the game be completely different and not follow the western tradition it is leaning on even more so in terms of growth. Is not the reality with the game, points need to be made on the reality of what we are actually going to be playing that they are designing.
More than likely you will have all abilities at lvl 35 and augments will be after that point. Which will have again significant effect. This was literarily shown to us during the ranger showcase in its bare bones frame. (Ie 50% reduce cooldown on headshot)
At some point we need to be acknowledging the things they are showing and how it will effect the overall gameplay. Leveling again will be a big deal in terms of PvP and PvE.
And no one is arguing for leveling taking one week to get max. Level needs to be a pace that makes sense and eventually does come to a end. It doesn't mean you need to start removing lvl 50 content to add more just to make leveling longer just cause though.
If they can make it take 250 hours to get max level and its one of the best leveling experience ever than would be amazing and also very heathy for the game. If they make it 400 and 60% of the people quit being before getting to max level, than that would not be good.
Then its about making that loop for players and keeping retention meaning more money from subscribers. You don't want people to feel because of pvp they are behind and end up quitting because of that and how pvp effects them. Which will lead to boost to leveling to catch power up, or more restrictions on pvp.
And what if those 400 hours are as good as those 250 can be, because instead of spending 150h at lvl50 you simply have that content slightly sooner?
And longer lvling allows Intrepid to release an update to the game before people even get to lvl50 (obviously not hardcore grinders, but still).
The pvp part relates to gear scaling that has been discussed before several times, so that's a whole different thing.
You have a very unique perception of things being "the same" even when they are significantly different.
Along the lines of, "Well, a watermelon is still the same thing as a grape because they are both fruit."
(I'm pretty sure we will still be gaining Active Skills through Level 50 - we can expect Augments continuing to be available from a variety of paths besides just Classes. And we can expect more Augments to be implemented each real world season, rather than needing to wait for an expansion with increased Primary Archetype Levels.)
Wings on a "caterpillar" is not slightly different.
Actually i realized arguments are level 25, but i do see you gaining more skills past 25)
So ya you will most likely still be getting new skills past that point. Though its my feeling eventually that will stop and to push further you will lean into augmenting skills. IE a skill from lvl 4+ is a augmented one. And you have a limited amount of skill points to spend so of course you can't have everything.
What if a single player game was 800 hours instead of 300. But we are talking about a mmorpg with character growth, creating a larger divide between players isn't a good thing even more so with pvp. Do to character growth content will be made according to progression meaning more time spent on that if the experience is longer (money doesn't grow on trees) one has to ask what is the benefit of it and at what point do you want people converging on the same point, the world size isn't infinite, every chuck of levels needed to make content for a large amount of hours takes a bit out of the world and having lvl 50 be a even smaller chuck is not going to help. Quality over quantity.
I feel like this kind of point on saying what if they just did more and did everything better feels very imaginary. Levels is just an illusion anyway. Its kind of ironic you want to have all skills at a lower level which in a way is close to what if there was no leveling and you had everything and just did the content. but at the same time you are trying to argue for some extra extended leveling time.
If you had everything you wouldn't need levels.
I'd expect them to release an update before most people hit lvl 50 sure. but that depends what we are talking about in terms of update. I feel like you are thinking you will have a fear of content which in truth has nothing to do with level at this point, and snot something leveling solves. Unless you are talking about using a certain method some games used like one a buddy of mine had in their game with Anthem. And you create meaningful missions and distance travelling to try to waste hours of time or have pointless grinding.
This tread is fun
Its bad its making me procrastinate hard when i was meaning to be doing some portfolio related work.
I don't want Intrepid to magically make 2 times more content or whatever. Whichever amount of hours you think is fine for someone to "finish" the initial release's content - I want the same amount of hours, but instead of a bigger fraction of that time being spent at lvl50, I want it to be a much smaller fraction.
If not - then I don't think you're talking about me.
You know the thread it was the pve one where noaani talked about going to multiple and you said you would just sit in one.
I don't see how we can't the same thing as well. I dont' want level 50 content moved away with less mechanics / challenge to artificially increase the amount of leveling time..
We would want the same thing if you wanted a bigger faction at lvl 50 and not a small one. As that would lead to less gameplay loops and people saying no content to do. If anything I already feel like there might be a lack of content but I will have to wait and see if that will end up being true or not.
As Dygz content is opened up based on growth of nodes, that means a lot of the level 50 content might not even be open. This issue only gets worse over time if there is not enough space for that level of content. More focus on lower level content and increase area it takes by a large amount continues to make this issue worse.
As i said before that means spending time on multiple chunks of lvl 15,20,25,30,35,40,45,45-49 on top of each location on the map as this is not a theme park rail roads mmorpg with instances. The win condition is when that person that rush to max lvl does not get bored of the game with plenty of content to do. It gives you a slice for the future that even if the most hardcore people keep enjoying things, everyone else will be able to have fun at their own pace.
But to me this is no different from grinding caravans or instances or gathering.
Whichever content you had in mind as your "endgame loop" would most likely be simply seen as grind by me, because I'm looking at it from the perspective of someone who'll be repeatedly doing said content, which is grind.
You yourself have just said that you think we'll have all abilities by lvl35 (or there abouts). So how exactly would this content have to be less complex if people will already have all the tools by then?
Precisely. Which is why slower lvling would mean that there's more time for nodes to level up and provide people with proper level-equal content, instead of people grinding lvl30 mobs at lvl40++ because there's no lvl5 nodes around, let alone metros.
People who rush to max lvl know the consequence of their actions. Intrepid would simply need to advertise their game properly. Just say "this is not Lost Ark, so you won't get max lvl in 4h and majority of content won't be at that max lvl". If anything this is already the case, because Steven's been saying that "leveling is rewarding and enjoyable".
You said yourself, those who rush lvls will have a ton of other content to do at max lvl. The same thing I've said already as well.
That was based off me thinking augments were 35 so you most likely won't have all abilities at lvl 25. Lets say based on what i was saying though you had all abilities at 25-35 my point was augments will further change your abilities on top of gear + other progression. So again you won't have all the tools.
You can make a argument that new nodes not being up could increasing leveling time or slow down very sweaty players. Even more so if xp gain is greatly reduced for killing lower level mobs increasing the leveling time and giving them reason to explore more places. Over having higher mobs people can kill and level up faster. So I don't view that as a port towards it. Pretty much can create a fall off where spending 5+ extra hours than others doesn't mean you are leveling twice as fast.
This is the biggest issue with my point is you want a mmorpg that has most of its content in leveling. That is the biggest red flag for 0 reason. I could write a lot on that but I'll have to say not o having a lack of content at max level lmao.
Again, I want this on release, because the game will inevitably become end-heavy in the long run.
If majority of people do not reach the max lvl content (let alone clear it fully) before Intrepid can release their first update (supposedly just a few months btw) - there's no red flags. And those leveling players won't complain that the game is shit because the leveling process is better than all the other games, exactly because the leveling process is more meaningful than simply "a barrier before beginning the real game".
I am hoping that AoC is able to successfully disabuse this concept and, once again, make the journey its own reward. The player at level 11 and the one at 32 and the one at 44 should all be having a great time. I'll feel sorry for the ones who rush to 'max' because they will miss so many great times in their foolish rush to be able to have great times.
In L2, I started a few months after launch and never quite caught up to max as the level caps increased as new Chronicles came out. It was a wonderful journey and I am hopeful that AoC will be as well.
Im on the side that goes off charge and become a teleport on warrior instead of just running straight. So you can take that how you want.
That is a funny comment on games in last 15-20 years for multiple reasons lmao. Games have improved and so have gamers in their skill and ability and desire to play.
Its just that more people are getting to the end faster and grinding it out, this will be no difference for try hard people even if hours are increased. Even more sow hen you are talking about a mmorpg with PvP.
That doesn't mean people don't' enjoy the leveling experience, but its still a fact as i pointed about in the other pages with having more tools with raids being dedicated to when you have those tools. Rushing to max level doesn't really mean you are skipping content anyway if we are talking about a new mmorpg.
If there is no end game people would end up quitting with nothing to do, or just full pvp.