Leveling early on feels too slow

I started playing AOC this weekend, and the initial experience was fantastic. As a Fighter, the first five levels were well-paced and engaging, with plenty of groups to join and new skills to unlock. The combat felt great, and my abilities were coming together nicely.

However, hitting level 8 felt like running into a wall. Early levels took about an hour each, which was rewarding, but now I have to kill 147 elites just to gain one level. With quests feeling almost nonexistent, the grind is excessive and discouraging. It would make more sense for the heavier grind to come later when more abilities are unlocked.

I understand the game is in early alpha, but it seems the developers would want players to experience more of the combat system without needing to invest 200+ hours.

Is this really how to game should feel?

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Pham

Couple things:

1. the current quest system is basically placeholder atm so yes, that presents some issues. This will likely vastly change once all the quests are in the game, fleshed-out and working properly.
2. the xp-required-to-level curve is not consistent. There are "milestone" levels which are intended to be more difficult than the levels surrounding it. Honestly not sure why they did it this way? Reasons..
3. i think even in its current state, leveling is not too bad. I think it only feels bad when you compare it to the hardcore try-hard crowd and how fast *they* level. I don't really feel the need to hit max level within 5 days of a server going live or anything like that so I'm ok with the current pace.
4. If you can get in a leveling group which is farming 2-to-3-star elites, it will go much quicker. It's just kind of monotonous, IMO

Mahes

Pham wrote: »

Couple things:

2. the xp-required-to-level curve is not consistent. There are "milestone" levels which are intended to be more difficult than the levels surrounding it. Honestly not sure why they did it this way? Reasons..

They have somebody on the Staff that worked with Everquest. They did the same thing at the beginning of Everquest. Nobody liked it then either and it was evened out. Its a stupid idea. There are many things this game seems to not be learning from when it comes to what people enjoy.

Terranigma1

Pham wrote: »

3. i think even in its current state, leveling is not too bad. I think it only feels bad when you compare it to the hardcore try-hard crowd and how fast *they* level. I don't really feel the need to hit max level within 5 days of a server going live or anything like that so I'm ok with the current pace.

So far I thought - or at least hoped - it's a mere balancing issue that will eventually be addressed in the beta when they start finetuning the numbers. I certainly hope it's no designed intentionally that way, because the mere idea of perceiving reaching a certain level to be more "difficult" than any other level is absurd in the context of an MMO. The basic gameplay loop is identical whether you play a level 8, 16 oder 23 character. You go through your skill sets and kill mobs which doesn't require you as a player to become better at playing the game. There is no difficulty in this regard; there is a mere time investment, but there's nothing inherently difficult about sitting in a chair and pressing the same rotation of buttons, but simply for a couple of hours longer than you did previously.

So, I hope you're wrong in this regard that this is intended as in a similar manner I also assume, so far, that the item progression - there is basicially no lvl 2 to lvl 9 or lvl 11 to lvl 19 gear - is a mere placeholder system, and the power spike at lvl 10 and 20 isn't intended to work this way. Because that's quite ... weird?

mdk10k

Here is what I grapple with:
1) leveling is super slow.
2) i know that the progress i make will be wiped away relatively soon
3) i play other games instead because my progress is permanent in other games
4) i regret paying for early access to AoC

I would rather be able to hit max level REALLY fast ***during early access*** so that I get a sense of how a class fully comes together at max level. I don't want to grind 1500 hours *per class* to determine power curve for each class at end game. And yes, I want to be able to determine this for myself, and not rely on others' feedback about classes. I want to be able to play around with skill point allocations on my own. And right now, knowing the progress will get wiped, and spending 4 hours at Oaken non-stop chain pulling, only to make half of level 13, eff that. way too slow.

nazgull2k1

"hell" levels are trash tier, were universally hated by the entirety of the EQ Community..

and yet here they are again in Ashes. I fricken HATE it. "oh i need 1.2 MILLION xp at 2k a pop to get level 20.. but I only need 1 million xp to get to 21." (not 100% accurate, but you get the idea.) Its unbelievably stupid, tedious, and a slog. WHY they copied this garbage is beyond any sense of reason.

Adding this the the very very VERY rapidly declining server population (I see SOOOO many people begging for tanks, clerics and bards right now.) well.. if you got to 25 before the decline.. yer good.. if not.. whoo.. good luck!

SmileGurney

nazgull2k1 wrote: »

"hell" levels are trash tier, were universally hated by the entirety of the EQ Community..

and yet here they are again in Ashes. I fricken HATE it. "oh i need 1.2 MILLION xp at 2k a pop to get level 20.. but I only need 1 million xp to get to 21." (not 100% accurate, but you get the idea.) Its unbelievably stupid, tedious, and a slog. WHY they copied this garbage is beyond any sense of reason.

Adding this the the very very VERY rapidly declining server population (I see SOOOO many people begging for tanks, clerics and bards right now.) well.. if you got to 25 before the decline.. yer good.. if not.. whoo.. good luck!

Yeah, this doesn't seem like a smart move in a game focused on group content, where so many game systems can only thrive if people actually play the game. I don't think that grind is only present in the character progression. Gathering, processing, crafting, guild and node progression. It all feels rather grindy, and lacking variety. Some of it can be explained by missing game systems, like quest lines etc, but all that combined...I can see a design trend which is rather at odds with the past declarations from Intrepid that "we hate grind".

Volgaris

jb3ll wrote: »

I understand the game is in early alpha, but it seems the developers would want players to experience more of the combat system without needing to invest 200+ hours.

Is this really how to game should feel?

This! Everyone 'testing' is just playing an incomplete game. Just wait till you lose days worth of gathering time to one of several inventory bugs. Only encourage people to pay if they got the extra cash and want to basically support it 'kickstarter' style. This game could still shape up to be anything, which could be good, but is currently going down a very niche market path.

I like a grind to get to max to make the journey "earned", but it needs to be meaningful too. (side note: i don't think it'll be meaningful, this a max level only game. Rush to max level, rush to gathering spots, rush rush rush, don't slow ride it or you'll get your weewee stomped in any pvp. Lore and actual story telling will mean nothing...) I really don't care if it took me a year to get to max level playing 20 hours a week, as long as I was having fun.

I do not enjoy 'hell' levels. I think the first is 9-10. It takes as much time to get to 10 from 9 as it does from 1 to 9. I don't mind those levels being harder to get, but it's faster to get from 10 to 11, that's just dumb, horrible design choice. (maybe changed haven't leveled that low in a while)

Ashes open development idea is kind of new, but it's weird. They want open develop so we can see it develop and test it, but we're not really testing, that's what the PTR is for. Pretty sure the alpha is just a psyop... Then he says they want feedback and input, but Steven couldn't even name one thing that 'testers' requested that they changed. That alone should tell you everything. As a "tester" your value is your purchase.

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