Power Leveling [Feedback]

I'm not a fan of the current methods used to prevent power leveling. I understand why preventing power leveling is a concern, but I really feel like it could be done differently than the current direction.

At the moment, if I'm in a party of players all at my level or just 3 levels apart from one another the exp we get from mobs is pretty good. It's split up amongst us plus a little bonus it looks like to make partying feel 'worth it'. If one of these party members was replaced with a member 4 or so levels above me though, there is a pretty drastic drop in how much exp we gain. It could be the same number of party members but just the wider level difference is cutting our exp gains by over half sometimes.

I get why you'd want to prevent higher level and fully geared players from being able to just quickly level a brand new character quickly and easily, basically skipping all of the grind that had to be done originally. But I still feel like this could be done in a way that doesn't punish the lower leveled players in this party.

Ashes is geared towards being played while in a party, with certain party compositions being pretty important to have in most cases. If your party does not have a Cleric or Tank you're probably going to have a rough time in areas players at that level could reasonably grind in. I highly support this type of game play, it gives all the archetypes some actual usefulness to parties, but at the same time if I got a party of level 10 characters in my guild, and no one in my guild has a Cleric around level 10, that party is kind of screwed. Similarly, if I'm a level 20+ Tank and I see lower level groups in my guild could use a Tank, I still probably shouldn't help them as that'd cut into their exp.

All of the sudden I'm now put into a situation of having to gatekeep parties just based on levels as well as archetypes if I want to get any meaningful exp gains that night.

I'd much prefer a system where maybe I as a high level player could still join and help lower level parties grind. Personally I'd be completely happy accepting no exp for myself in that situation, as long as the low level players aren't getting punished for it.

Recently I've had others tell me that games like Ravendawn or ESO have some systems that allow higher leveled players to party with lower levels without hindering them by just lowering the higher level players stats to match their party's. Something like that sounds great to me as those players wouldn't really be getting power leveled by some overpowered character, and I'd still get to party with and help out the lower level/newer players I come across. I've never played those games so I'm not entirely sure what the downsides to a system like that are, all I know is I don't like the one Ashes has atm.

TLDR: Lower level players shouldn't be punished for partying with higher leveled ones, definitely not as drastically as they are at the moment. I'm not saying to let the low levels get much benefit from it either, power leveling is still something that should be avoided, but if there are just ways to nerf/debuff the higher level player without hindering the lower leveled ones that'd be great.

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novercalis

Flashfirez23 wrote: »

The change made to prevent power leveling just made the game way less social and fun. I’d argue that it was a step backwards overall. I feel like not being able to play with friends or guild members due to this arbitrary change. Is not worth going this extreme in trying to prevent power leveling. The gaps in player levels are only going to get larger and only being able to group up with player 3 levels apart from you is insane! This is promoting antisocial behavior that is corrosive to Ashes’ vision. There needs to be ways higher level players and lower level players can play together without being punished or else this game is going to have some serious problems.

this is not promoting anti social. go socialize with non guildies members now!

Smaashley

novercalis wrote: »

Flashfirez23 wrote: »

The change made to prevent power leveling just made the game way less social and fun. I’d argue that it was a step backwards overall. I feel like not being able to play with friends or guild members due to this arbitrary change. Is not worth going this extreme in trying to prevent power leveling. The gaps in player levels are only going to get larger and only being able to group up with player 3 levels apart from you is insane! This is promoting antisocial behavior that is corrosive to Ashes’ vision. There needs to be ways higher level players and lower level players can play together without being punished or else this game is going to have some serious problems.

this is not promoting anti social. go socialize with non guildies members now!

We want to play with our friends, not random people...

Xuri

Vhaeyne wrote: »

If they really wanted to entertain the idea of party scaling. I would encourage them to do it the FFXI way over the WOW way.

The basic concept in FFXI is that when you "sync" your party. You pick a member. In the case of what Tenguru said the level 25 would pick the level 8 as the sync target. The game then essentially makes Tenguru temporary level 8. With level 8 gear, abilities, and XP gains. In every aspect Tenguru becomes level 8 temporary.

The reason why I would want this over the WOW way is because it would help to maintain the PvX nature of the game. You are accepting the risk of vulnerability for the reward of being able to help your friend.

There would also have to be timers on jumping in and out of sync to prevent abuse in PVP.

WOW sync method is kinda the opposite. The mobs just act as if you are on level and take and deal proportional damage as if you were the level of the mob. You get to be level 25 While fighting level 8 mobs. While I think the WOW system is less difficult to implement. It also means that a level 8 will be protected by a level 25. The integrity of low level pvp would be lost.

I am not really for any scaling. I would just like it to be around 10 levels for level range in groups. If they really want to try it. FFXIs method makes the most sense to me for Ashes.

Forgive me if my brief summary of these systems is not perfect.

100% agree. This would be a substantially better system than what we have currently to allow people to play together without being penalized.

Xeeg

Smaashley wrote: »

We want to play with our friends, not random people...

Speak for yourself. I like playing with randoms and making new friends! But then, I can't play with them the next week because we aren't the same level anymore.... =(

golovir

I'm sure it will evolve over time, but as it stands i agree that trying to grind in groups doesn't feel great. Last weekend i was with a group and sure, as we added people we were burning down mob faster, but it wasn't fast enough to make up for the exp loss of having more people in the group. I also found i could move faster by actually killing mobs 1 level under me solo than i was in a group handling things a couple levels over.

Rinta

Can someone explain in details what exactly is wrong with social power levelling (higher level character helping lower level character), why would we want to prevent it at all?

On paper, it abides by the goal of the game - making levelling a social experience.

If the amount of experience lower level person gains scales proportionally to their level - i.e. whole of the earned experience stays the same, but lower level gains proportionally smaller part of it, while higher level gains more of it - then any significant gain they may have over level-appropriate grouping will be mitigated.

Sure, with higher level person in the group they can go and challenge higher level monsters that give more experience. So make that higher level person get most of that experience (level-proportionate) and lower-level person get lower amount, proportional to their theoretical contribution.

I imagine that would be the goal - to make this kind of skewed grouping roughly similarly efficient to having a larger group of lower levels, while still leaving it as a valid option.

Gizban

Rinta wrote: »

Can someone explain in details what exactly is wrong with social power levelling (higher level character helping lower level character), why would we want to prevent it at all?

On paper, it abides by the goal of the game - making levelling a social experience.

If the amount of experience lower level person gains scales proportionally to their level - i.e. whole of the earned experience stays the same, but lower level gains proportionally smaller part of it, while higher level gains more of it - then any significant gain they may have over level-appropriate grouping will be mitigated.

Sure, with higher level person in the group they can go and challenge higher level monsters that give more experience. So make that higher level person get most of that experience (level-proportionate) and lower-level person get lower amount, proportional to their theoretical contribution.

I imagine that would be the goal - to make this kind of skewed grouping roughly similarly efficient to having a larger group of lower levels, while still leaving it as a valid option.

We want to prevent it because it becomes a real money trade service.
You send me $$ though venmo and then I carry you to lvl xx.

Veeshan

give an alt all legendary gear of they level and they level fast

Flashfirez23

Having to group with people only 3 levels away from you in a group based game. It’s just bad game design. The system was better before. Atleast open it up a bit more to 5 levels apart so you group up with more players without getting punished.

nanfoodle

I'm frustrated as well. All anyone talks about is your level. A game designed for teaming feels very disjointed when it comes to making teams. It's not fun.

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