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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
There could be expert guides in your forums. Seen People say that google already does this. Well google does have expert knowledge but is spread out over to many videos. Some vidoes are in accurate. For example you can move camera diagnaly in League of legends but skill cap video does not even mention it.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BXxyPd5EEX0 now if you go to about 14 min in this video you see the narator telling you how to pan camera in the river up left up left when all you have to do is move your camera diagnaly by putting mouse pointer in the corner. and it will move up the river. Read all comments at the time I watched this video no one even caught it.And it is a SkillCapped video. So Google does not work.
Ashes of creation has a tendency to ask questions in the broadest possible sense. Think myabe should take my advice and be more specific. But you know what your question initially is about how much time a player should spend. Now remember that is the question you asked.
Answere to that is really simple. (Now remember question not how to become expert
or how much time it should take to become and exert for the average player) It is a players personal choice of how much time they should invest.
Player should endeaver to be an acceptable player when they first start the game and after that player should allot a certain amount of time for player developmen. Like 15 min every log time. It is more of a marathon. This basically the answer to your question which is useless.
But let me give the information that you are looking for. First of all there should be a skill grind a very long one. After a person masters their class then the (progressive value of that tune is over. This is one of the things that keeps WoW players going.
with the the macro system and the abilities the skill cap is so hight that might take you 6 months to a year to become a good raider. As far as PvP well takes longer.
But just to give you an example it takes a very long time to become an expert of your class in LoL learning strengths and of your class cause they have so many chamapions plus have to learn builds and composition. Pluse lots of champions to learn. In a way skill grind for LoL is kind of infinite. So players in theory will keep progressing their skill forever. (in theory).
Just to be clear this is a great way to keep people online. For example having a not meta build environe werw player has to learn the in and outs of different builds and find their strenghs and weaknesses. Rangers have 8 subclasses. Are all 8 viable so that ranger has to learn all 8 for different situations. Or just has to learn one of them cause it is meta. (Actaully already posted about this in other posts)
Well what is the opposite of this. Well let say classes are easy to master and after 6 months skill progression has hit a platue for most players. Let say player only has to learn beastmaster cause it is meta. Then that is it basically it is the end game as far as skill progression goes. Player might decide to go play another game cause they feel they have beaten the game.
Just to give an Idea of what I am talking about when I stopped playing WoW on my hunter I had about 90 keybindings that I used and was still looking to make new macros that would give me a pvp edge. (played for 3 years) So I was not done. This is one of the things that RETAINS WoW players.
That is me personally but. I could easily play an mmo 20 to 30 hours a week.
What is problematic is that casual players do not have the time to spend that amount of time. Do have the time to watch tons of videos. I mean if you make it too difficult then those players might go and play other games. Casual players will make the majority of your player base.
Thing is as an expert hunter I can tell you it would be very easy for me to let say take a casual player and get him raid ready. And do decent dps. Real easy. Now as far as
PvP is concerned would take a lot longer. I could also make a 2 page post and to show them what they would have to do get raid ready. Inluding things like drills. setup. tatics. So could a lot of other hunters. Thing tisis more of a distribution problem.
Heard the phrase easy to play hard to master.
Casual players after lets say six months should be contributing a certain amount of dps heals and so on.
If you make it to hard to learn class then there will be friction between people that have the time to invest and the people that do not (Toxicity)
Sorry have to go now.
Experts come in all shapes and sizes, I think the one thing that would truly separate the casuals and the hardcore players is time restraints. some groups run 5 days a week at the same time every week. some do 3 and others can be more laid back doing events and raids when they can.
the same can be said for the casuals, if I'm playing with time restraints but also have a lot of MMO knowledge I can usually get by on my own but will avoid static groups do to wanting to enjoy my time playing more so then if I was in a dedicated group. I would be considered "casual" in this sense. a casual might also be new to MMOs in general and could get overwhelmed fairly easy.
that being said all these kinds of people, the Experts, hardcore and casual players all exists on a spectrum and you really can't cater to anyone specific. FF11 lost out on players by being to unforgiving where FF14 caters to what people call casuals too much by remixing classes and cutting back on ability kits
There's also an issue as to how a game is designed which can separate players based on skillsets
FF11 was slow in combat and utilized skill chains and players working with one another - good communication and pre planning works best here
FF14 does the same in a sense but with movement and avoiding obstacles while fighting - muscle memory and situational awareness are best for FF14 boss fights
New World.. hate it if you want I loved the combat, very basic and simple you can use 2 weapons each weapon has 20 points you can put into a tree. simply put it's 3 skills + passives for each of your two weapons. as simple as it was over time my build changed and evolved because of the way its played ie: no tabbed targeting and your shield doesn't block unless your actually blocking, that kind of thing.
New world's combat changes how MMOs work where being good was devoting time to raids and getting the best gear where now a skilled naked player could take out a very well geared amateur who has never fought someone.
so again who would the expert be, the one who can dodge all the obstacles, the one who can lead an 18 man raid, or the guy who can run circles around you and embarrass you. I just feel it's important that if you want people to dedicate time to you're game you allow them to become an expert and enjoy getting to that point.
One game I feel that did a great job of this was FF11 because from the core game and their first expansion, all the content it had stayed relevant over the years with all the other expansions that came out. hardcore or not you could always take your time with that game. eventually i got burned out on it
now let's look at 2 other games I spent thousands of hours playing (new world and FF14) both I walked away from because nothing you ever worked for stayed relevant in any way with how they design the game and keep making you pretty much work for what you already have just a number of levels higher then yesterdays content, add in the battle passes and it feels like a chore playing them more then anything, like I'm doing it cause I have to.
all in all play styles change between 100 hours and 1000 hours in a game, anyone can become an expert at something over time as long as they dedicate themselves to it. and you're always gonna have people who struggle no matter how easy you make it for them
as far as what I like to see from casual play would be the ability to work on my character at my own pace and not feel rushed into things or feel like I have to do new content every couple months without being looked down on by others.
as for high level play I would prefer to see something that is competitive but not to rewarding from it. one thing I learned from playing survivals and MMOs is that mega guilds always pop up, the best and most time dedicated players will usually flock to one big group to maintain dominance rather than fights always going on
from the PvE side of things I prefer to see a diverse amount of equipment to collect and play around with but also not become so overpowered I can take on everything in the wild and only need help in dungeons. I wanna see things that will kick my ass regardless of how well built my character is. maybe there's a rare material for niche build no one uses and you need 3 people to get to it kind of deal.
And even if they'd have you believe that God created the Earth in 7 days... it's not true, he had to farm a lot more than that! (approximately 13.7kkk years).
The point of an MMO isn't the HL, the point of an MMO is the journey to the HL, the creation of a community.
When you play this type of game, you want to have time to discover the world and the other players, you want the world to evolve slowly, you want to make friends (yes, many of my friends are people I've met in-game, on L2) or enemies...
An MMO is like a sports club, like a regular class, a passion that several people want to share.
In a football club, do you only need 1 month of training to play in the Champion League? Or do you need just 2 months to form a close-knit group ready to take on the Olympics?
Why does it have to be different in an MMO? Why do devs/some players think that the easy way out will make them stay, that the easy way out means "not having to think about anything"?
A good MMO needs hardcore gamers/experts to shape the macro aspect, we need them to showcase the game, we need them to dream and say to ourselves "this guild is so cool, one day I'll be part of it".
What I think is important:
- Evolution should be an almost exponential curve
- Very, very distant goals (for stuff/boss/construction/craft/lore)
- Features that are necessary/facilitating (e.g. you need to have a castle to unlock an item that gives you temporary power, or access to a crafting resource, or the key to a dungeon room, etc.) that allow you (or make it easier) to reach the ultimate goal.
- A feeling of freedom to avoid frustration (example: why not remove the loss of items for players who get pk'd, and at the same time remove the pk's characteristic malus, with the other malus remaining unchanged?)
Of course, we mustn't forget the less invested players, and this is also where a longer timeframe can make the game better for them.
Each mega-objective should have a lower level, for example: You don't go to Aden castle the first week, you go to Gludio castle first (Reference L2). You don't go to Imperial Tombs in 1 month, you have to go through Elven Ruins.
This I think it's necessary that the evolution we make meet the same objectives HL but in version weaker, less "brighter" and more evolving, the more you invest, the more you'll have sumptuous castles, bigger monsters, more flamboyant weapons...
And then it will be possible to have casu/hardcore players playing together. The almost exponential curve will allow the casu players to 'catch up' with the hardcore players... but over several months. (Still in L2, a lvl 70 can play/help with lvl 78, every hit count)
Finally, if it's possible to rush the game in 1 month, it will be rushed, built and then abandoned. If it takes 6-12 months of rush, it won't be rushed because it's too valuable... and it will live a long time.
So maybe we need to reduce the flamboyance and save some for the next chronicles, make the game more superb rather than trying to maintain a high level from day 1.
All this may make you laugh, but for me it's the most important aspect of an MMO: creating a solid, resilient space that's conducive to the creation of a community. A universe that will nurture a community for years to come.
(English is not my language, thx to deepL
(I'm on discord if need)
True, Steven is taking alot of ideas from "his" game Lineage.
Lineage is an "ok" game at most imo. Its PvP is not that good, and i dont like the zerg mentality in it.
Its a bit to Asian for most of us Western players.
I would rather take stuff from EQ, DaoC, Asherons Call, SWG etc.
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Additional time in-game doesn't fix this for every player. Some people are just built to be amazing gamers, others aren't, or at least don't care enough to put the effort into shaping themselves to be one. So part of being a well respected, expert player is knowledge, but anyone can have that. Acting on that knowledge with physical and mental prowess is the difficult part. You can train those physical skills and learn more beyond just facts and data to act with wisdom hand-in-hand with knowledge, but there are no guarantees that spending more time in-game will have any tangible effect on those skill sets.
Progress players don't care about story, fancy quests or a full soundtrack.
They want to level up quickly and use the endgame. They want to lv fast and rock the leaderboards.
Casual players usually make full use of the mmorpg. Roleplay, story, exploration and more.
You simply appreciate a mmorpg more. the little things of the beautiful world of Verra.
What's your opinion? Sorry for my English, Deepl translate
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
1000 hours to be an expert. That's about 3 hours a day for a year, or 20 hours a week for 50 weeks. By this time they should have a max level character with mostly optimized gear, professions and buffs, understand all of the game systems (node, religion, guilds, quests, etc.), know/recognize the main spells/abilities for all 64 archetypes, and be doing end game content designed around preparing for and executing big node seiges.
Expert as described above.
Casual, likely to be someone who has friends that invited them to game, they like to play with their friends and like the game but aren't competitive or investing a lot of effort into improving. They are playing for fun and enjoyment. They have some favourite systems that they like to do in the game and aren't interested in much outside of that unless they are pulled along by friends.
Difficult to say. A noob might not be a casual player, but they aren't an expert YET. To me this is evident in the mindset and not the result. Hard to say if someone who did someone "bad" is a noob or just hasn't bothered learning how to play better.
I met someone in Orgrimmar the other day that hadn't played any of the shadowlands or dragonflight content and was just trying to have fun. He had no interest in the current game content level, he was just trying to get a recipe from a quest in an outlands zone and needed help. I would consider that pretty casual. No idea how many in game hours he had. I offered to help get him caught up with the latest systems but he wasn't interested.
Yes, to some extent. Part of the reason we play MMORPGs is for the character progression aspect. I want an MMO to have more hours of content in the game than a human can reasonably do, but in a variety of areas so that most players don't have any need to do most of it unless they want to. Time spent to max character power should be something like 500 hours maybe? Don't know. I can spend hundreds of hours in pvp matches with no increase to player power and not care at all, as long as it is fair pvp. I am a starcraft player and one of the things I always enjoyed about that game is that each match is a pure skill vs skill game.
There will come a time where the majority of the players are max level and maxish gear etc. At that point the game has to have enough interesting skill based systems to keep the player wanting to play their character. This is part of the appeal of Ashes of Creation. The end game loop is supposed to be around node seiges and stuff like that. You don't need to release a lot of new content/patches when the players are making the content through their interactions. The mastery at this point will be around how to accumulate resources for node seiges and attack/defend in pvp.
I really like the idea of including an unranked, instanced, rewardless, max level arena that lets characters enter and immediately get boosted to max level/gear/buffs and able to create different character loadouts, similar to guild wars.
This serves a variety of functions;
These are all aspects that can help people become pvp combat "masters" with limited time. Keeping it unranked and rewardless removes the rank chasing drive so that players see the arenas as a utility and complement to the World of Verra, rather than a replacement.
I'd say i'm an expert in WOW. I'm not the best player in the world, but I know most of the classes abilities. I have addons (Like Plater) set up to help me recognize when they are being used in pvp situations, I have maxed gear and power before in previous patches, I've killed a bunch of raid bosses throughout the years and understand how to play my role in a raid. Never got into pet battles or cooking/fishing or that stuff. I had a bunch of friends/family that liked those systems and didn't like pvp. My favourite things are pvp arenas and battlegrounds.
I am a masters sc2 player. I am fairly good at Rust.
I am a complete and total god emperor of the mud called MajorMUD. (kind of like an MMO) It was a full loot pvp MUD. I learned all the boss fights, knew the maps almost by heart, knew how to find awesome exping locations. There was a 3rd party addon that the devs supported and provided database updates on patches that had all the maps, room triggers, monsters, bosses, items, character simulators, and you could sort by damage, hps, armour etc. It included a hit % calculator so you could see which areas could possible work for you before going out there. Dying in the game was absolutely brutal so having the tools to be completely safe was very important. Basically you dropped all your items in the room when you died. Most of the time it would be hard to get it back unless you had friends help you because monsters agro in every room along the path and you would be naked. In order to be an expert at this game you had to be able to use the database utility effectively. I had found many bugs in the game by testing the limits of the game design according to the database and reported to the devs, who fixed them.
You can't become an expert at something that you can't obtain knowledge in. Information is key to expertise.
If you want people to be able to become experts at this game they have to have the tools to obtain game knowledge, which means numbers and formulas. We should know what the base crit and dodge is, for example. Or we should know what +1 crit power means. Or if there are soft/hard caps or diminishing returns on +crit power. All of these types of things should be available to be learned in order to become experts.
Tank class and support Class. As far as tanking in PvE well tanks have to keep track of many many things like mana and health of entire party, how they are going to pull, kite mobs use abilities. And healers well have even more to keep track off. So would not make these classes too complicated. Players already have a lot to learn just cause of role. But should be interesting.
As far as the rest of the classes. Let me talk about casual players. Or players that do have a lot of time to learn class. At about the 6 month point casual players should feel skilled enough so that they feel that they are significantly contributing to PvE and PvP environments. Now in LoL there are champions that have skill shots and combos that do take a while to learn. So every class besides healers and tanks
should have those type of skill shot ability that takes time to master.
I am going to list some examples. Now in another post I was posting about the bear trap how there should be an inner circle and an outer circle. With different effects will not repost, but in that specific case, casual players might not be able to be accurate enough to hit the inner circle all the time (bulls eye) and get the full effect. But even when they are off by a bit still get rewarded by a slow or whatever effect the devs think is appropriate. So this ability benefits casual players and veteran players.
But in this case it pretty simple. In another post I was talking about a charge ability
of one of LoL champion named Sion. (Q ability decimating smash) Seems pretty straight forward just hold button to charge up ability and discharge before enemy player gets out of area of effect. Sion uses Axe or hammer dependign on skin.
So the animation for this is he starts charging, and he lifts his hammer above his head and when player releases button, hammer decends and then the damage takes place. So the reality of the situation is the hammer has an actual travel time. So if you wait until an enemy player as at the very edge of the area of effect and release the button, you will miss. Becaus it takes time for hammer ot reach the ground. So you have factor in the travel time when releasing the button. You have to anticipate where the player is going to be by the time the hammer or axe actualy hits the ground. Not overly complicated but still have to develope skills. Thing is toons get speed boosted and slowed and at different times of the game toons have boots and there are different typs of boots. So an expert player would learn after many hours of play just exactly how long they can hold the charge down before enemy palyer goes out of ranged. So this ability is good for casual players and for veteran players that play a lot they will get more out of it cause their timing is fine tuned.
So this is an ability were the timing matters but stilll good for casual players and veteran players.
I want to share a personal experience. Now I am an expert hunter in WoW but it is the amount of time I had to invest is well ridicoulus. I did not know this when i started playing but in order to be an effective hunter when i was playing; but you could not master just one aspect of the class you had to master most aspects of class, like kiting, pet control, and so on plus hunters had a lot of abilities. So as far as PvP is concerned if you play a lot and you sit there and do a ton of PvP you are looking at about a year of just practicing pvp before you really start being effective and enjoying the PvP experience. Notice I did not say Expert I said effective. As far as expert took three years. Expert meaning that as far as learning pretty much hit a hard plateau as far as learnign class is concerned. PLaying toon at about 90 percent its full potential. For a casual play you can double or possible triple the amount of years.
Could be 6 years to become expert for casual players as far as PvP. For me personally
it was taking so long to get good at hunter pvp (WoW )I almost gave up. And I played a lot so really could not imagine a casual player going through same process.
So as far as bieng effective at your class so people and around you and your self are satisfied with the amount that you are contributing should be 6 months to less than a year. Notice I did not say expert.
Now as far as becoming an expert. Well there should always be something to learn.
You coul just say two years which isabout the the time it takes for an MMO to come out with expansions and with new expansions there could be new mini games and skill shots to learn.
Looks like Ashes of Creation is already set up for a skill grind, because of skill shots so every class should have skills shots and possible skill based combos to matter.
Thing is if you have abilities were the timing matters then class will alway be interesting to casual players and veteran players. Or League of Legends style abilities.
The reason time is often a good correlation to this is the more time spent the more opportunities to learn you are likely to encounter.
My ESO experience includes extensive raiding and raid defenses. I hope this translates to a headstart when it comes to PvP large scale ops. I think my extensive crafting has allowed me to define an AOC crafting plan suitable for me. I already know what kinds of toons best suit my play style. Lastly, I am active with an AOC guild that I expect matches my play style and goals.
I want this game to feel fresh for as long as possible, and I think this should inherently mean 'mastery' should take an IMMENSE amount of time and dedication.
I stated in other posts how would get cut from raids well I was also the type of player that got kicked out of leveling dungeouns. It took a while to get better Wish I just had a list of things I had to do to get better. Just practice, no secret to it. No huge stratagem. Really Casual players just need direction. ( a list of thingsf to do).
Like for hunters you got trap everywere you go. (maybe kind of hard in this game cause every one is flagged for pvp. But in WoW hunters should trap everytime ability comes of cool down. I mean every time. Just to build up accuracy and muscle memory. So if you start doing it at level one by the time you get to max level you should be pretty good at trapping. Instead you can que up for pvp and see quite a number of hunters that do not even trap. Never heard this in any youtube video.
You should also run drills everywere you go as far as targeting is concerned. Change targets even if you do not have too just to build muslce memory as a hunter., cause of numerous cc abilities your targeting system has to be sublime. Should start at level one. And I could just go on and on and on.
I spent a lot of time developing my hunter. Think things would of gone a lot better and taken a lot less time if there was a guide a simple list of things to do to improve your gameplay. Drills.
So casual players do not play a lot so they should optimize their time. Well there is something called a portable target dummy if every one had one they could pull it out whenever they could to pratice. Like speding five minutes practicing every time you log in or log off or whatever time you have.
Casual Players literally need like a work out routine for MMOs to stick with , so it does not take so long time for them to be effective. Not a matter of skill, but a matter of time spent developing your skill. As far as the information to be like a good raider for a certain class. There is nothing to it. Really simple in fact just a matter of getting MMO workout routine to players and have them actually do it. How do I know this cause I did it. There is really nothing to being a good raider. Raiding just takes average skill at best. All you have to do is drills. Now PvP is lot different. For me raiding is a fun activity not an experssionof skill I really cannot beleive how rude the raiding community is to non raiders. Those guys actually think they have skill, that is not the case ; they just have more time to play and as it turns out most them are not even that good.
And of course players need to know that they need to do this.
~30 hours to get in the groove of the game and fully on the path of continued improvement.
200 hours to get "good/ish," fully competent in the basics, already versed in some or many of the intermediates, and in the case of very skilled players, perhaps already dipping into some, but not all, of the most advanced aspects of the game.
500+ hours to get very good or "expert" in the main ways in which you play the game. Knowing your class in and out, knowing the other classes to a decently high degree, understanding combat, the economy, how to make money, how to pve/quest efficiently, understanding social dynamics etc etc etc, whatever that individual's main gameplay features that they participate in and practice near daily, they're very good at them.
1000+++ hours to truly master all aspects of the game. Maybe more.
That's just what I'd say off the cuff, but I dunno. This is a pretty broad and open ended question. My main feedback is to just make the game challenging, aka hard. I think Intrepid has said that's what it intends to do, to give us a harder game than what we've been used to in recent years from other games. So I say do that then.
Chart out the difficulty level of all these current and recent mmos that are viewed as too easy or...lacking depth. Find the hardest one of these mmos on the chart.Then slot Ashes in a few or several notches in the direction of harder. No not one notch harder, at least a few notches, if not several. It has to be an obviously perceivable difference from the strongest weakling on the chart.
But don't go overboard with it. There's "cool I like this, a game where you have to think, you have to plan, you have to use your brain, like more than just a little bit," and then there's "holy fk this is a tedious slog." Tough to balance that out but it's doable.
So the answer is...We are all Experts already...just listen to us explain how we are
He is much more patient, even if he has to do the same thing repeatedly, if it leads to improvement, no matter how boring it is, he will do it.
- The casual player on the other hand will play within that established goal, maybe also looking for fun, he plays much more in the short term, looking more for instant satisfaction.
Main differences in MMORPG's that I have played:
- For example in Archeage, while I was looking to create a merchant to multiply profits I had companions who said they did not want to risk tradepacks by going to the pirate island to exchange tokens, they were looking for precisely that instant gratification of delivering the tradepack in a nearby area, I was looking for the long term, even if it meant more effort, risk and not instant gratification.
- Another example I can give in WoW Classic, while everyone had already bought the epic mount, I took 3 months to buy it (some may think it is counterproductive) but I was a Druid, so I invested daily all my gold in the AH, just in the second phase to sell consumables for raid, and other materials that would go up in price and when I reached phase 2 I was able to buy the epic mount for my druid, for my mage, and both characters to raise engineering to the maximum.
- Time is important yes, it is not the same to dedicate to a game 4 hours than 16 hours, theoretically with 16 hours you should be able to advance much more.
But with what was mentioned in the first paragraph if you take someone with a hardcore mentality playing only 4 hours a day, and a casual playing for example 16 hours a weekend, it is very likely that the progress of both players will be very similar, even the expert will advance more than the casual.
And sincerely I hate the current pseudo-MMORPG's that are not real MMORPG's, which put you a hardcap of item lvl so you have to play many hours doing a boring and repetitive content, if I have 4,8,12 or 16 hours I want to invest it in different areas to develop, I don't want the main objective to be subject only to the equipment I have, we have forgotten that this genre is composed by many different contents, in which you can reach many times the same objective in different ways, in this case for example, professions to create those items instead of having to go to a raid.
- I trust that Steven and Intrepid will value the effort of the players, sincerely, today you are the only hope to see a functional old school MMORPG.
- I don't want to see how after months of playing the game, the content and the effort made by the pioneer or expert players is devalued.
- I don't want to see how people who play for 2 hours and don't optimize their gameplay demand the same as the player who plays 16 hours a day, and get the company to make these changes.
- I also don't want to see raid nerfs or difficulty nerfs that make the game shorter in "playable" life because everyone equips fast.
- I don't want to see all the content in Alphas, nor betas, this would mean taking information from everything, and we would optimize the gameplay too much, so much that the professions and raids would become boring, we would get everything easy, and they would lose a lot of value.
- I hope not to see a data mining either, that is something to keep in mind and let's hope Intrepid manages to avoid it.
Time is the most important thing we have, I hope that Intrepid knows how to take care of it and above all value it, that has to be noticed when you get something in-game, easy things get boring.
My concern is the ease of access to content (i.e., PvP, PvE, and crafting). I am not saying that anyone should be able to reach endgame content in just a few hours, or even a few weeks. Conversely, one should not need to be a "hardcore" player (30, 40+ hours a week) just to be able to reach certain content. There are 3 key components/requirements I see when it comes endgame content: (1) Level; (2) Gear; and (3) Knowledge (e.g., mechanics, how to traverse, build/gear synergizing, etc.). I think most MMOs put too much emphasis on level and gear, and the "knowledge checks" are as simple as knowing when to block, avoid the red circles on the ground, etc.
There should be more emphasis on "knowledge checks" than gear. And leveling to max level should not take someone years to reach if they can only play around 10 hours a week. There will be some people who feel the real game does not start until endgame. This unavoidable despite the amount of low and mid-level content. Having a heavy focus on level and gear would preclude many "casuals" from reaching any endgame content until it is basically outdated and it is more difficult to find groups for.
All that being said, we should not do away with some extent of level and gear requirements. But reaching max level should not be put out of reach of casuals. Gear, likewise, should be accessible. Maybe not "best in slot" gear, but at least gear that reaches the minimum requirements of endgame content.
When I think of an expert. It is a person with vast knowledge and skill in doing that specific task. This comes from countless hours in their profession perfecting their craft. Those that I have viewed as experts (in other mmos) have typically played 5+ years in that specific mmo and spent thousands of hours logged in.
A casual player is that player that comes home from work. Logs in for 2-3 hours and then logs again. They may also spend 15 or so hours over the weekend also logged in. These players can still be good players and they may even be skilled players. However because they do not live online.... they may take 8 months-1 year to get to the same level of progression, that another player did, by living online for the first 90 days.
The truth of the matter is that most players will not be a casual or an expert. They will be good players who are smart in networking or finding answers online resulting in success. However the experts.... are the ones that found those answers and continue to find answers to solve problems. The experts do not need the wiki, you tube, and other resources to complete a task efficiently and quickly.
First is leveling. Whether doing over playing a full week, or a few hours everyday, the player will eventually level up to end-game.
The second part is however end-game events are scheduled. From raids, to holidays, to node cycles for attacks and upgrades.
The second part needs to be engaging, while not time consuming.
Of the MMO's out, SWTOR does a good job. SWTOR has holiday events, but also a rotation of weekly events to help keep things fresh. Also, every few months is a monthly event for various things, from large events than the weekly events, to PVP seasons.
I remember meeting a group of adventurers in Everquest 2 that chose to only level on PVP kills. ( It was a seriously slow boat to level cap) But they had the option to do so, and that was how they played, and it made them happy. Give players multiple paths whether it be quests, PVP, grinding NPC kills, Gathering, crafting, or even bar games to gain EXP. and the players will entertain themselves. All these options come down to making the path to level cap REWARDING for a player experience
Right now I am playing LoL and play malphite real simple champion. Thing is this champions ultimate ability is really op under certain conditions When it hits 2 or more targets. So player is looking to get two or more targets. Player has to pay attention to get 2 or 3 targets could be game winning. So even though is not a high skill champion. Players have to look for windows of opportunity to get mutlple targets which can win team fights and possible the game. So it is enjoyable for both veteran and casual players.
I also play thresh which some say is a really difficult champion, but all you have to is spend some time in practice Mode. You can just google thresh combos to get an idea ,but the most difficult thing about this champion is the spacing of threshes ultimate ability. ( a hexegon that spawns around champ and if enemy player runs into those lines then gets damaged) I do not want to get into to much but, A player has to know excactly how to use their ability to get ememy players into the lines. If you are being chased then you have to know the spacing so that it spawns right in front of enemy palyer so they run into it. And you just have to know there there is no range or area of effect indicator (could use attack range but that is a circle plus could hover mouse over ability but that is not practible.)
Actually LoL has a lot of abilities were the Spacing and the Timing matters So as long as you have this type of abilities in your game then you should be alright. As far as how much time it should to master well already talked about that.
Here are some additional thought-starters that might help you with this discussion:
"Expert" and "Casual" can be subjective terms. What does being an expert or a casual mean to you?
i would say the "expert" is someone who plays average for the week of 4-6+ hours a day and a casual is 1-2 a day.
What are the differences you see in casual vs expert-level play on a day-to-day basis in your favorite MMORPGs?
usually, the expert has achieved better gear and is further along because they spent more time getting the stuff.
Is total time spent in an MMORPG an important factor to you?
yes, i think the game should be able to take years getting up to maximum because when you have reached that the game is "over". if you play DnD while you may play once a week you play for hours, and it can take years to reach max level. the problem comes down to when you have to "grind" level, gear, resources.
Do you feel you're an expert in some MMORPGs or systems within them, but not in others? If so, please explain.
after playing eve for 13 years i am still not an expert and i still don't have maxed out skills as some of them to get the last point of skill is 54 days but it was easy to get into doing some of the stuff. in new world i was maxed out in 1 month and then was just on these grind loops so the game was no longer fun so i stopped playing.
when you hit a games "endgame" loops of repeating dungeons just to get the last maxed out pieces of gear, doing pvp zones over and over, no longer doing crafting because you have maxed out the skills and can craft everything you wanted, you are usually an "expert" in the game.
i can't remember the name of the game, but there was one i played where you could be like level 12 fighter and level 10 in your profession like blacksmith and the levels in blacksmith were like another class that increased specific stats and gave you their own abilities and gear for that profession. so, you could only have 1 adventuring and 1 profession class for your character.
The MMO genre has become a standard of "The game doesn't truly begin until you get to cap level and end game content" I absolutely hate this.
When FFXI first came out, it was an insanely slow grind for each level, and it really brought a sense of value, achievement, and respect for every single level you gained that put you one step closer to the cap level. Every milestone of reaching a specific level that allowed you a really important spell/ability made it so that the game was fun to play at ALL levels, not just at the cap.
This means that veteran players leveling a secondary class were able to play side by side with beginners for decades. This same slow grind was also applied to crafting.
I honestly feel like having an entire realm of cap crafting and cap levels on multiple characters, seriously destroys the game. My achievements in levels or crafting mean nothing if it's just handed to every Tom, Dick and Sally that play.
The game doesn't have to be fun only once you get to the cap level, the journey itself should be just as fun. and the only way I personally feel that can be achieved with longevity is by making the leveling process really slow and arduous.
This is also the reason people get bored with games like WOW and only start playing again when an Xpac comes out. It's also the reason that game developers are having to constantly pump out new content and xpacs. With an arduous leveling system, you should not have to put out a real first Xpac for at least 5 years after the game first launches.
I believe I'm pretty balanced with skill across the whole market of another MMO i have played.