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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
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How to Actually Slow down the leveling Process - Dynamic Mob levels based on Node Progression
laloop
Member, Alpha Two
I want to address the Hot topic of the phase that everyone is complaining about and offer a solution.
From what i understand, the Dev's have tried to slow character progression by hindering item drops, increasing mob damage, and making PvE and the leveling process extra difficult. This has done nothing to stop characters from hitting 25 in only two to three days, and made the progression pretty miserable to most of the playerbase. With the changes to gear drops, the first two tiers of crafting are completely skipped, and level 20 gear reigns supreme. This results in an entire two tiers of content that is essentially skipped over in the first week by the majority of the player base. Novice and Apprentice Gear is completely skipped in the current system, entire loads of content that is just wasted, and there is no linear progression for characters. Additionally, the gear redesign system is pointless as legendary items are hardly even better than uncommon or rare items, and with diminishing returns, the upgrade is even more minimal.
My proposed solution to this, and to extend the playtime, content, and linear progression of everyones characters, is to get rid of diminishing returns on gear and
lock the entire servers mob levels behind node progression, and to increase the length of time for node progression..
Players would naturally hit a soft level cap, preventing them from grinding max level, and only when the nodes leveled, would the mob levels be raised. This could also provide unique server experiences based on the vassaling system for raids. Befallen forge for example, could be the introductory raid for Joeva 10 grind levels 1-15, but on a different server, Joeva could be level 4 and hold level max level mobs with the different bosses unlocked based on progression.
Having the nodes be the primary catalyst for player progression encourages players to take part in each of the crafting tiers as the node levels up. Players are encouraged to do this through pvp, running caravans, doing guild wars, ect. You have the gameplay loop of crafting, linear progression, enchanting, then the node levels up a month later, and the gameplay loop would start again at the apprentice level. two weeks or a month later, the node levels up to level 3 and we get Journeyman crafting, which starts the gameplay loop all over again. In this way, each crafting tier acts as a sort of "
Mini expansion", offering hard core players a leg up on the next caravan runs and PvE content, while offering a catchup mechanic of new gear options to people who maybe didnt play as much the last phase.
This, of course, all depends on epic and legendary gear being statistically important over uncommon or rare gear in terms of power level, which is not currently the case.
Overall, i think this is a much better idea to slow down character progression than by limiting gear drops and making PvE content harder.
From what i understand, the Dev's have tried to slow character progression by hindering item drops, increasing mob damage, and making PvE and the leveling process extra difficult. This has done nothing to stop characters from hitting 25 in only two to three days, and made the progression pretty miserable to most of the playerbase. With the changes to gear drops, the first two tiers of crafting are completely skipped, and level 20 gear reigns supreme. This results in an entire two tiers of content that is essentially skipped over in the first week by the majority of the player base. Novice and Apprentice Gear is completely skipped in the current system, entire loads of content that is just wasted, and there is no linear progression for characters. Additionally, the gear redesign system is pointless as legendary items are hardly even better than uncommon or rare items, and with diminishing returns, the upgrade is even more minimal.
My proposed solution to this, and to extend the playtime, content, and linear progression of everyones characters, is to get rid of diminishing returns on gear and
lock the entire servers mob levels behind node progression, and to increase the length of time for node progression..
Players would naturally hit a soft level cap, preventing them from grinding max level, and only when the nodes leveled, would the mob levels be raised. This could also provide unique server experiences based on the vassaling system for raids. Befallen forge for example, could be the introductory raid for Joeva 10 grind levels 1-15, but on a different server, Joeva could be level 4 and hold level max level mobs with the different bosses unlocked based on progression.
Having the nodes be the primary catalyst for player progression encourages players to take part in each of the crafting tiers as the node levels up. Players are encouraged to do this through pvp, running caravans, doing guild wars, ect. You have the gameplay loop of crafting, linear progression, enchanting, then the node levels up a month later, and the gameplay loop would start again at the apprentice level. two weeks or a month later, the node levels up to level 3 and we get Journeyman crafting, which starts the gameplay loop all over again. In this way, each crafting tier acts as a sort of "
Mini expansion", offering hard core players a leg up on the next caravan runs and PvE content, while offering a catchup mechanic of new gear options to people who maybe didnt play as much the last phase.
This, of course, all depends on epic and legendary gear being statistically important over uncommon or rare gear in terms of power level, which is not currently the case.
Overall, i think this is a much better idea to slow down character progression than by limiting gear drops and making PvE content harder.
2
Comments
Or, well, it at least WAS the plan before. And I fully intend to KEEP REMINDING THEM OF THAT FUCKING PLAN!
Nodes would have to take MULTIPLE weeks or even a month or more to level up and would probably require a redesign of level 1 and 2 nodes so they could include novice and apprentice crafting stations. 1 novice station for level 1 (still available in lionhold), 2 apprentice stations for level 2 nodes, keep level 3 node layout the same.
Wasn't this already working? It should be super easy to tie spawners to global conditions like node levels. They're already doing it for POI events, aren't they?
And the talk of "Jundark will be a lvl50 zone" is reaaaaal fucking dangerous. There should be no goddamn "lvl anything" zones. It should all be tied to ZOIs and node lvls.
That's probably just Alpha, since there aren't other starting portals yet, good time to utilize this type of play-flow test. Timeline documents for projects of this type can look pretty arcane if the managers know what they're doing. Big-
"Implements flying boat."
"Refuses to elaborate."
"Leaves (and one update later, so does the boat)"
-energy.
Plus, for an MMORPG, temp implementations of simpler methods that you can basically switch on and off at will can really improve the robustness of servers and design, it's just that mostly no one usually gets to see it since it's only used during Alpha like this, or years later on private servers to re-enable cool(?) features.
One distant day we may have an AoC private server with the Static Rarity Respawns toggled back on, who knows.
SOME of this is already working. There are mobs that are dependent on node levels, but you still have level 20 mobs at node level 1, and the mobs in POI's levels do not change at all. Sephillion, Highwayman Hills, Gravepak, ect have static mob levels. For this to truly slow down the leveling experience, there must be NO mobs over a much more restrictive level cap, and the nodes need to take MUCH longer to level up.