Gaining experience through exploration should be a viable way to level your character

I played the alpha and I love the world so far. I think the views are amazing and it is fun just to explore and taking everything in. However, it did get me thinking that it would be great if there was more incentive to just go out exploring. I know this is an alpha and more content will be added to flesh this out. However, I feel that the open world exploration in most finished MMOs just is not good or worth while. It would be great if you could gain experience just by adventuring throughout the world and organically leveling instead of always needing to follow a quest to get to max level. I think there should be multiple ways to level your character and they should be all relevant. Whether that be through exploring, questing, pvp, crafting, etc. To make adventuring and exploring more rewarding for the player. Here are some suggestions.

1) There should be secrets in the world that are hidden away that players can find that give them a good chuck of experience and loot that makes them worth seeking out.
2) Points of Interest could have optional objectives that players can choose to complete for a reward. The objectives could be killing enemies, collecting items, solving puzzles, doing a jumping puzzle, etc.
3) Killing a new type of mob for the first time should give you extra experience so you are incentivized to seek out new areas. This could also apply to harvesting a collectable for the first time. Or crafting an item for the first time
4) Discovering new areas could give you experience as well

Are their any ways you think think exploration in Ashes could be expanded upon to make it more worthwhile?

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nanfoodle

There was a main leveling path that got you leveled in A1. Apparently it took you all over the current game. It's not in A2 for some reason.

Lodrig

As an explorer type player I certainly like some of these ideas, but feel that others are quite impractical given the existince of wiki's which effectivly destroy much of the mystery of exploration. The idea of giving out XP and leveling through exploration is I think more risk then it is worth as it threatens to break the games normal level progression if it is remotetly competetive.

I would no more expect exploration to raise my adventuring level then I would expect crafting to raise it, and if somone said crafters need/deserve adventure level XP for crafting then I would say they are thinking about crafting all wrong and trying to fix an internal problem with an external reward. In a similar sense we should think of Exploration play as another silo as distinct from PvE and Crafting as the are from each other.

1) Fixed locations present a problem of being put on Wiki's, any significant reward needs to be at randomized and personalized locations so it simply can never be reapeated and thus can not be wikied, that's what the treasure map system is for as it dose exactly that. Some modest achivement like status for climbing a mountain is a nice nod but don't try to make it a way to level up or else it will look like Everest with litteral line up to the summit.

2) Quests being dispensed at a location in the wild is fine but the challenges you list are all gameplay for achivers who want to demonstrate profficiency at challenges and then be achknowedged for it. Explorers want to obtain knowlege and then apply it to circumvent challenges, if you want to reward them do it with knowlege usefull in game and of a nature which can't be externalized, such as a tip on when/where a world boss will apear in the next hour.

3) This is a simple and solid idea, first of every kind are a time for a reward.

4) This just sounds like reiterating point 1 again in a vaguer way.

Laetitian

In an adaptive world, your reward for exploration is finding the most efficient spot to level at.

Funnily enough, the fear of inefficiency and others getting more efficient farming spots by zerging and pushing you out of their territory is a hot topic right now. Relocation and exploration are the correct answers to that problem for outnumbered groups. Exploration is already important and efficient, the problems are just that 1) the effect is inherently limited in the alpha, and 2) people rather cry to the devs than find solutions for their problems or accept when other people are stronger than them.

nsys

Laetitian wrote: »

In an adaptive world, your reward for exploration is finding the most efficient spot to level at.

Funnily enough, the fear of inefficiency and others getting more efficient farming spots by zerging and pushing you out of their territory is a hot topic right now. Relocation and exploration are the correct answers to that problem for outnumbered groups. Exploration is already important and efficient, the problems are just that 1) the effect is inherently limited in the alpha, and 2) people rather cry to the devs than find solutions for their problems or accept when other people are stronger than them.

I'm not sure "finding a new spot to grind for 20h" is what most people mean by exploration. Exploration is mostly a solo activity and right now doing anything solo past the first 2 kill quests is straight up impossible for most classes/players in a fun/efficient manner.

If you talk to ppl on the discord, the community is adamant, that the only way to play this game is to get into a guild at lvl 1 and hope that you can somehow get dragged along. I fear this has also seeped into the dev's mindset.

Early levels should be solo (guided) exploration, getting a hold in the world with group content like dungeons and raids being incentivized more and more. It's a solved problem. I can only hope that these systems are just not implemented yet, but I fear that too much of the "it's an mmo it has to be shit for 300 hours" mindset has seeped in.

Garrtok

The problem is, that everything besides grinding mobs is giving you 0,01% of a level. Quests, commissions etc. are all worthless in this form

Lodrig

nsys wrote: »

I'm not sure "finding a new spot to grind for 20h" is what most people mean by exploration. Exploration is mostly a solo activity and right now doing anything solo past the first 2 kill quests is straight up impossible for most classes/players in a fun/efficient manner.

If you talk to ppl on the discord, the community is adamant, that the only way to play this game is to get into a guild at lvl 1 and hope that you can somehow get dragged along. I fear this has also seeped into the dev's mindset.

Early levels should be solo (guided) exploration, getting a hold in the world with group content like dungeons and raids being incentivized more and more. It's a solved problem. I can only hope that these systems are just not implemented yet, but I fear that too much of the "it's an mmo it has to be shit for 300 hours" mindset has seeped in.

Correct on the first point, finding a new mob spawn aint exploration. But claim that you can't 'do anything solo' is patently false because exploration is not mob grinding, its TRAVEL and SEEING and LEARNING things, not nessarily killing them.

And the games roads are quite clear of mobs and mobs generally have very short agro ranges. It's clear that players could explore solo if they wished to do so, they just could not solo explore the middle of a mob spawn, but the other 99% of the map would be accesable.

Also don't fall into the trap of thinking exploration can only happen out in the wild. A well crafted exploration experience could be created in a Library completly based on picking and opening books if it was deep enough, and if it were repeatable and had some renumerating rewards it could be a whole proffession.

Depraved

Flashfirez23 wrote: »

I played the alpha and I love the world so far. I think the views are amazing and it is fun just to explore and taking everything in. However, it did get me thinking that it would be great if there was more incentive to just go out exploring. I know this is an alpha and more content will be added to flesh this out. However, I feel that the open world exploration in most finished MMOs just is not good or worth while. It would be great if you could gain experience just by adventuring throughout the world and organically leveling instead of always needing to follow a quest to get to max level. I think there should be multiple ways to level your character and they should be all relevant. Whether that be through exploring, questing, pvp, crafting, etc. To make adventuring and exploring more rewarding for the player. Here are some suggestions.

1) There should be secrets in the world that are hidden away that players can find that give them a good chuck of experience and loot that makes them worth seeking out.
2) Points of Interest could have optional objectives that players can choose to complete for a reward. The objectives could be killing enemies, collecting items, solving puzzles, doing a jumping puzzle, etc.
3) Killing a new type of mob for the first time should give you extra experience so you are incentivized to seek out new areas. This could also apply to harvesting a collectable for the first time. Or crafting an item for the first time
4) Discovering new areas could give you experience as well

Are their any ways you think think exploration in Ashes could be expanded upon to make it more worthwhile?

you don't follow a quest to max level in ashes. I'm against exploring only to max level, because it removes risk and interaction. just walking around every area without doing anything, other than maybe open a chest here and there to get to max? you completely avoid fighting mobs, death, death penalties, etc. I'm not against ab it of exp for these e activities, but not 1 to max.

anyways

1- these already exist. found a few this last weekend. I guess u didn't explore hard enough =D
2- they already do.
3 and 4 - not against them but they shouldn't give u a significant amount of exp.

Songcaller

Steven used to claim grinding is neither an option nor encouraged. It's excellent to see such a game pillar being in effect from the first iteration...hang on, all I've done so far is grind, grind, grind...If content is king, grinding is a peasant.

Apok

I like how WoW did it, just give players a small xp bump when they find a new area they haven't been to. The ESO way is so annoying though, makes the game feel like one of many chores in that game

askii

Guild Wars 2 has implemented pretty much exactly this. One of the fastest ways to level is map exploration (uncovering new areas of the map, vistas, point of interests, waypoints, local quests). Whether that's a good fit for Ashes I'm not sure. As someone has already pointed out, it just leads to people speedrunning the map with the wiki open on the other screen. No actual exploration involved after someone made the respective wiki entries.

Depraved

Songcaller wrote: »

Steven used to claim grinding is neither an option nor encouraged. It's excellent to see such a game pillar being in effect from the first iteration...hang on, all I've done so far is grind, grind, grind...If content is king, grinding is a peasant.

I recall him saying you have to grind. also, grinding is fun, I love it. there will be a mix of questing and grinding

Ludullu

Depraved wrote: »

I recall him saying you have to grind. also, grinding is fun, I love it. there will be a mix of questing and grinding

Nah, Intrepid did promise that grind wouldn't be the best way to level up.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Leveling#Grinding

Since these statements Steven has kinda come back to the "well yeah, you gotta grind from time to time".

And this has been exactly in line with what I expected from Ashes, because I've been saying for years that I simply do not see how soft friction in the open world can exist if there're no spots to grind.

We literally saw pvp for spots in A2 already. Exactly because grinding a good spot is the optimal gameplay. Imo this is just "system working as intended".

If Intrepid change this to "you can level through quests/exploration/artisanry" - we will barely ever see any pvp until max lvl. And then at max lvl all the people that spent 200+h leveling would suddenly be like "omfg I can be attacked by other players AND they can take my loot?! WTF IS THIS?! I've never experienced this when leveling".

Ace1234

@Lodrig

Also don't fall into the trap of thinking exploration can only happen out in the wild. A well crafted exploration experience could be created in a Library completly based on picking and opening books if it was deep enough, and if it were repeatable and had some renumerating rewards it could be a whole proffession.

Yeah this sparks some interesting thoughts and ideas. Im interested in seeing where they take the currently planned library idea. Would be really cool to have something like this, maybe thats what the goal is for what scribes will take part in.

I really like the idea of researching the findings of other players and making connections that I can apply to my own gameplay and story. It could be really cool to have some ancient/hidden libraries like something from Avatar the last airbender, which could contain some lost knowledge that could be useful to players.

They could have both npc ran ones, and player ran ones which could even get lost/recovered through node destruction and archeology. It could be pretty fun to play that detective/archeologist fantasy by digging up old knowledge to find lost lore, important story events, and world/gameplay knowledge, and leveraging that for decision making purposes within the story progression and gameplay. It could be cool if there are gameplay related mechanical tips/tricks that are stored in books to reward players who can find libraries and do their research, or other rewards like lost techniques/skills and such that have to be discovered.

I also like the idea of basically having player written guides that actually exist within the game library as opposed to looking it up online, since each server will be unique and dynamically changing, and you have to utilize the libraries for that knowledge relevant to your server.

Slipree

Flashfirez23 wrote: »

I played the alpha and I love the world so far. I think the views are amazing and it is fun just to explore and taking everything in. However, it did get me thinking that it would be great if there was more incentive to just go out exploring. I know this is an alpha and more content will be added to flesh this out. However, I feel that the open world exploration in most finished MMOs just is not good or worth while. It would be great if you could gain experience just by adventuring throughout the world and organically leveling instead of always needing to follow a quest to get to max level. I think there should be multiple ways to level your character and they should be all relevant. Whether that be through exploring, questing, pvp, crafting, etc. To make adventuring and exploring more rewarding for the player. Here are some suggestions.

1) There should be secrets in the world that are hidden away that players can find that give them a good chuck of experience and loot that makes them worth seeking out.
2) Points of Interest could have optional objectives that players can choose to complete for a reward. The objectives could be killing enemies, collecting items, solving puzzles, doing a jumping puzzle, etc.
3) Killing a new type of mob for the first time should give you extra experience so you are incentivized to seek out new areas. This could also apply to harvesting a collectable for the first time. Or crafting an item for the first time
4) Discovering new areas could give you experience as well

Are their any ways you think think exploration in Ashes could be expanded upon to make it more worthwhile?

If they add this people will just min max for the xp and just run through the areas without stopping to smell the flowers. Some things should be their own reward.

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