Leveling in Ashes of Creation

I’m going to ask you to hear me out on something regarding leveling in Ashes of Creation. Sweaty boys and exploiters will always make a mad dash to level 25 and as we have seen there are a number of them that want to make the game unplayable you low level players. I would also posit that the mindless grind to achieve this leveling is beyond tedious. So consider this.

What if there was a leveling cooldown after level 10 which only allows you to progress 1 new level per week? From a business perspective for Intrepid this keeps players subscribed and playing for a longer period of time.

Now I hear some of you saying but I want to grind mobs! Fine make drops of equipment and glint a viable goal.

What if this cooldown made space and time for leveling your gathering, processing and crafting? What if during these cooldowns all the other dynamics of the game such as treasure maps, node wars, caravans etc became more important?

Again I am not claiming to have found “the way” but take a moment and consider these things.

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Comments

Lucascp92

This is not a good proposal but I do agree with you that grinding endlessly is very tiring.
I love if the leveling is slow and hard, but include quests and stories that force you to team up to clean up areas and elites.

Helios_Black

This is quite possibly the worst idea ever. First off, questing is intended to be a source of experience to level that is better than grinding mobs, it’s just not implemented yet. Second off, punishing players for playing your game is never going to be attractive.

Ludullu

Helios_Black wrote: »

This is quite possibly the worst idea ever. First off, questing is intended to be a source of experience to level that is better than grinding mobs, it’s just not implemented yet. Second off, punishing players for playing your game is never going to be attractive.

And to add to this, we've just seen what happens when there's way too many people existing in the same locations. Stopping people from progressing in lvls, but not stopping their gear progress would simply mean that literally everyone will just be fighting over the same 2.5 mobs in the same locations (highwayman hills in the first 2-3 weeks of P1, anyone?).

Tangent369

We had this discussion in my guild discord as well and for anyone that missed it this was meant to provoke thought and the conversations we had there did just that.

One thing I would like to see is a diminishing XP curve for killing the same mobs within certain time periods. Keep people moving.
Another thought was grinding should take the form of deep dark dungeons starting at lowers levels and increasing, building in the risk and reward that is currently missing from farming the same for hours.

Again this was meant as a thought experiment but I will never think farming a spot for hours is a skill that should be rewarded. The missing half of this conversation is PvP and it’s toxic state right now.

neobpm

I'm very disappointed with leveling in AoC, is the same boring system of a korean grinder. All the day killing the same spots with a unreal spawn time. Bad, very bad AoC...

Helios_Black

neobpm wrote: »

I'm very disappointed with leveling in AoC, is the same boring system of a korean grinder. All the day killing the same spots with a unreal spawn time. Bad, very bad AoC...

It’s still an alpha and not finished. How many times do they need to say this? Grinding to level isn’t the desired end state.

Vhaeyne

@Tangent369

Something like this was tried in MMORPGs past...

https://www.eurogamer.net/ffxiv-limits-xp-earning-after-eight-hours

It did not go well.

I don't can't imagine Steven saying anything like this would align with his vision for Ashes.

Drinuvan

So when I played another game with not restrictions on how long you could grind to max level, Ragnarok Online Mobile: Eternal Love it was a PVE with PVP in it, not a full PVX this game is.
They experience a similar issue with all the hardcore players maxing out before everyone else and began farming all the high level areas for the top gear and grief/locking out other players from those zones.
The game implemented a "combat time" system that limited out much time you could get exp & loot, it have various other things to that decreased your experience and loot after that time limit was reached.
It was very successful and beneficial to the games over all health and longevity. It smoothed out the mad rush to max lvl and opened up the high lvl exp/farming zones to other players.
Now not all of this combat time system would work in a game like this but it is something that I think should be considered as it would limit the mad rush to max lvl and smooth out leveling population.

Here is a link that explains more of the "combat time" system that was in ROM:Eternal Love

https://sites.google.com/view/romindepthguide/game-systems/combat-time

This is just my option, and what I think was a positive addition to the game I played.

Veeshan

you can easily get a level every 2 hours in a good group, like i went from 22.5 to 23.3 in an hour a half.

leveling can be rather quick if your group know what there doing. Hard part getting a good tank, good healer and bard along with a solid dps to pull for you and you just chain pull mobs constantly.

Vhaeyne

It’s like the problem they’re trying to solve is that people are actually playing the game.

Okay, hypothetically, you balance everything so everyone is at the same level...

Well, now it’s a problem that someone got better drops.

Then it’s a problem that, in a group fight, they had eight people and we only had three, so we got stomped.

Now it’s a problem that they had a better team composition.

Next, it’s a problem that, in a 1v1, their class was a hard counter to mine.

Then it’s a problem that I lost a 1v1 against my own class, even with equalized levels, because my nervous system isn’t as fast as theirs.

At some point, people need to accept that there will always be someone stronger, more skilled, or more dedicated than them. This isn’t just a feature of games—it’s a reflection of life itself.

Sathrago

Helios_Black wrote: »

neobpm wrote: »

I'm very disappointed with leveling in AoC, is the same boring system of a korean grinder. All the day killing the same spots with a unreal spawn time. Bad, very bad AoC...

Grinding to level isn’t the desired end state.

How do you know? its an alpha. You cant voice your opinions yet apparently.

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