Character leveling is best to be in sync with node leveling.
Then once the character reached Max level, will also have access to high level content in his node.
If the node is destroyed, some players might choose to start leveling a new character in a new place and experience a new story.
With so many races, it could take a while until a player will go through all variations with each race.
And if is done well, maybe even the same race in a different node will have different paths to choose.
Al Steven has to do is to hire a good storyteller.
I think this would be something to test in practice and see how it feels during alpha 2 when we can give critical feedback.
This thread seems a little too spicy for me at the moment so I just want to remind everyone what the true end game is that is more important than slaying demons or saving the world:
Fashion
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Ours truly should know that on this day and age people play videogames with one screen on youtube, watching what's around the corner even as they play a game (spoiling it for them).
People will know what suits them.
Mmos arent alt-friendly by nature.
Alts are a product introduced to cover the lack of content that wow eso ff14 and the likes have.
That and the end-game treadmill that KingDumbDumberDumbest is addicted to.
RPG players should know that alts are available because it allows players to RP different characters.
Alts have been available in MMORPGs at least since EQ.
Any MMORPG where alts are possible is alt-friendly.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I've never played a quest or story based game - EQ and EQ2 are content driven, not quest or story driven.
I guess EQ bosses were completely removed from its story or quests. The point remains the same, because I was talking about bosses (or at least encounters) in the first place.
This is also about good design of the encounter. Ideally the game would adjust to the raid composition. If only one lowbie came to the farm - he'll just have his own part of the content, while vets have their own experience with it. The content itself is the same, but it's "seen from different angles".
But then you have already lost that epic feeling, which was your original point here.
Encounters should never bend to match players, it is on the players to meet the requirements of the encounter.
Wouldn't this mean that vets just keep redoing the same kind of content (mechanically speaking)?
Also, a question for you. Would you care if the same boss "evolved" throughout several expansions through getting new mechanics added to him? Or do you want those mechanics only added to new bosses? Loot would obviously be appropriate as well.
Two questions here, one answer.
Having a few expansions go by and then coming across a boss that is based off of one that was enjoyed is a good thing.
I've never played a quest or story based game - EQ and EQ2 are content driven, not quest or story driven.
I guess EQ bosses were completely removed from its story or quests. The point remains the same, because I was talking about bosses (or at least encounters) in the first place.
EQ2 is a quest and story-based game.
EQ2 had a lot of quests, but much of the content wasn't based around quests or story.
It was a content first game, with quests then added in to tie things together.
There were a handful of zones that went against this design, but the bulk of the game was content first, story/quests second. The game also did have a very high level story that was maintained throughout expansions that then had some content derrived from it, but most content wasn't tied to it at all.
But then you have already lost that epic feeling, which was your original point here.
The newcomers wouldn't have though. If anything, for them it would probably be even more epic because they're a part of a raid with high lvl players, while those vets were just farming the boss on their own. The legacy is deeper with the new farm of the boss.
Encounters should never bend to match players, it is on the players to meet the requirements of the encounter.
It's a two-way street though. Devs make an encounter that's meant for a certain amount/composition of players and then players gotta "solve the puzzle" of that that amount/composition is.
The overall challenge would still be upkept. It's just that the particulars of the challenge itself would be changed, depending on the composition of player lvls.
In other words, it'd be somewhat similar to the anti-zerg mechanic, but just from another angle. Anti-zerg mechanics are seen as a positive thing, are they not? And those are usually meant to "match players", because w/o such mechanics players would just overwhelm the boss easily.
Having a few expansions go by and then coming across a boss that is based off of one that was enjoyed is a good thing.
Ok, but would you care if it was the exact same boss? You say that you only played EQ for the content. I'd imagine that the content came in the form of boss mechanics and the class tools you used to counter said mechanics.
Would it matter at all if the new mechanics were now on an old boss? In other words, do you care for the visuals of an encounter or only for the substance itself?
Terrible, leveling is easily the worst part of any MMO. Id rather not spend 120 days to get to the part of the game i want to play.
You only have this opinion because games have copied the "the game truly starts only at max lvl" from post-vanilla wow (at least from what I've heard of vanilla).
WoW classic is still quite popular exactly because people like leveling in a game where that leveling is fun all throughout. Hell, there's even the hardcore stuff now, and that is ALL LEVELING.
Because WoW Vanilla has by far the best leveling phase of all games plus low levels matter (gathering low level ressources)
Terrible, leveling is easily the worst part of any MMO. Id rather not spend 120 days to get to the part of the game i want to play.
I shouldn't be surprised to read this, but I am haha
To me, the leveling experience is one of core aspects of a MMORPG. A slow-paced leveling so you can actually have a sense of progression, feel the difference between each level, truly experience each zone to the fullest, meeting and uniting with people along the way in the open world. Games like classic WoW, classic Aion, LotRO, etc, those are games that I actually miss the leveling experience.
But then you have already lost that epic feeling, which was your original point here.
The newcomers wouldn't have though. If anything, for them it would probably be even more epic because they're a part of a raid with high lvl players
The theory of this is all well and good - the practical implementation of it doesn't work well, though.
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
If it is the first of the above, guilds would have alts that they take.
If it is the second, a guild willing to run an encounter for the benefit of a lower level player would mean that they could have just done the encounter the way it originally was.
If the third, they would never take the lower level player.
Trying to do things like this with content means you will always end up with content that is actually less enjoyable than if you just concentrate on making content for one player segment.
I agree with the OP. I wish they went for at least 400 to 500 hours of game time for max level.
what do you prefer and why?
100 hours to hit max level, but after 1 hour of farming xp you cant really level up anymore because you have to wait for new content(nodes leveling up), so you just go do other stuff in the game and you will need 3 months to hit max level.
or
500 hours to hit max level but no limit on how much exp you can get per day, so someone who plays 10 hours a day will reach max level in less than 2 months and someone who plays 15 hours a day will hit max level in 1 month, and then you can go do other stuff in the game.
I agree with the OP. I wish they went for at least 400 to 500 hours of game time for max level.
what do you prefer and why?
100 hours to hit max level, but after 1 hour of farming xp you cant really level up anymore because you have to wait for new content(nodes leveling up), so you just go do other stuff in the game and you will need 3 months to hit max level.
or
500 hours to hit max level but no limit on how much exp you can get per day, so someone who plays 10 hours a day will reach max level in less than 2 months and someone who plays 15 hours a day will hit max level in 1 month, and then you can go do other stuff in the game.
Of these, I would by far prefer the second.
Reason being, it keeps more players roughly around the same level for longer.
If we have a server with 10k players, I'd rather have 9k of those all at the level cap (even if just a soft level cap due to nodes), than having 2.5k at that cap, and the remaining 7.5k spread out over the remaining levels.
More people at the same level as me means more people to do PvE with, more people to PvP against, basically just more game.
To me, leveling is basically just a tutorial to the game. It is there so you can learn the class and it's mechanics, the game systems, the lore, get to know a few players and that is about it. Any leveling that takes longer than it takes the average player to pick up those things is superfluous imo.
I agree with the OP. I wish they went for at least 400 to 500 hours of game time for max level.
what do you prefer and why?
100 hours to hit max level, but after 1 hour of farming xp you cant really level up anymore because you have to wait for new content(nodes leveling up), so you just go do other stuff in the game and you will need 3 months to hit max level.
or
500 hours to hit max level but no limit on how much exp you can get per day, so someone who plays 10 hours a day will reach max level in less than 2 months and someone who plays 15 hours a day will hit max level in 1 month, and then you can go do other stuff in the game.
Here is the thing...
People complain that grinding is cumbersome, but AoC has so many things to do that our time will be more like 25% leveling up and exploring (looking for more effective xp/loot), 25% questing and improving our build (look up correct gear and farm mats towards that), 25% partaking in the economy and 25% unique AoC content never seen in other mmos. And all that with the constant danger of pvp.
Why would people like to rush to the max lv? Why would they want in 45D to have reached level cap? It would upset the balance. Take the 25% of leveling and seeking fertile grounds and you are left with 75% of gameplay without the prospect of new character power goals.
Why rush? And I dont give credit to the arguement of "why prolong it when I could be leveling the next alt or exleriment with a different build?"
In true mmos people did not make alts so easily. It would be a surprise to learn that JoeRogue Lv25 is actually the alt of KnownWarrior Lv45. "Where did you find the time?"
Shallow mmos allow people to churn out alts every other week. Like eso.
As for the people saying "high level can play with the lower lv friends" it's just a case of "I want everything, now!".
Mmos need fresh start servers for new players and yearly additions for older players.
Not content that high and low repeat over and over and over.
That entire post is countered with an "and what do you expect to do at max lvl"? Do you not expect to have the same grind? With the same power disparities? With the same investment differences that would put newcomers waaay behind vets?
Nothing changes when you move all of your "meaningful content" to the max lvl.
I think you were present in the threads where I posted videos from L2 sieges and when I said that those videos have people in gear at 3 different tiers of progress. Yet they still all participated in the siege and brought something to the table. And Ashes will go even further with that cause it'll have siege tech that can be operated by lowbies.
Moving the entire game to the max lvl only works when your game is years-old w/o any inflow of newbies. Though even that is a shit design imo, cause then you have to add super strong catchup mechanics, otherwise newbies will obviously never catch up to the vets.
EVE is a fairly good example for what I'm suggesting. Pretty much endless leveling that still supports newbies having fun, because the content is meant to be enjoyed by players at a wide range of progress. I want the same concept for Ashes, just properly adjusted to its own designs.
You are missing the point of end game, and i really don't want to do a large post to explain everything. So i will bring a few more points and it would be up to you to critically think on the issues present.
infinite levleing
Going to start i already mentioned infinite leveling and I'm assuming AoC is not taking that approach. I'm pretty sure i referenced black desert online already in this. If we are looking at korean style with infinite leveling (soft/ hard cap) that will work in a different way than western style of a level cap. We can't make arguments while not explaining this to people as they both have big differences on the gameplay experience. Levels almost mean nothing up to a certain point if we go the infinite leveling part and everyone should know Black desert online as a reference for this if that is what they want.
Going forward I'm talking about western style and not Korean (black desert online infinite leveling.
- Everything just moves to end game instead -
First off not everything is moving to end game, AoC is already having a long leveling experience..
That is actually false as with my point earlier suggesting leveling experience can still be fun. The point is that you make a negative experience by compounding progression on extreme levels by making the leveling experience again extreme levels that at the end of it that is all pointless as you have end game gear progression no top of it.
Budget
You don't have infinite budge to create content for thousands of hours before end game content, only for all that content to not be repeated when end game starts. All that development time could have be set to creating content to have a stronger end game that will be designed around as more of a cycle, than straight vertical progression.
Extended leveling experience for no reason
Wanting leveling to take longer needs to be asked why and what purpose are you wanting it to take extreme levels? If the point is you are making the game last longer because it takes longer to level that isn't' true, it means more people get bored along the way and stop before they reach end game and communicates around doing that content.
Same content for no reason
Brought this up already, extended leveling time just had you repeating the same content over and over again. We can already assume that you will be repeating content as AoC currently is, to suggest *3 leveling times means you will be doing that to even greater levels. This is why it is important to have enough content on end game so you have enough mix up so you aren't do the same thing every single time or people will say there is no content.
I agree with the OP. I wish they went for at least 400 to 500 hours of game time for max level.
what do you prefer and why?
100 hours to hit max level, but after 1 hour of farming xp you cant really level up anymore because you have to wait for new content(nodes leveling up), so you just go do other stuff in the game and you will need 3 months to hit max level.
or
500 hours to hit max level but no limit on how much exp you can get per day, so someone who plays 10 hours a day will reach max level in less than 2 months and someone who plays 15 hours a day will hit max level in 1 month, and then you can go do other stuff in the game.
Of these, I would by far prefer the second.
Reason being, it keeps more players roughly around the same level for longer.
If we have a server with 10k players, I'd rather have 9k of those all at the level cap (even if just a soft level cap due to nodes), than having 2.5k at that cap, and the remaining 7.5k spread out over the remaining levels.
More people at the same level as me means more people to do PvE with, more people to PvP against, basically just more game.
To me, leveling is basically just a tutorial to the game. It is there so you can learn the class and it's mechanics, the game systems, the lore, get to know a few players and that is about it. Any leveling that takes longer than it takes the average player to pick up those things is superfluous imo.
i think the first option would keep more players around the same level...but yes everything else i agree
I agree with the OP. I wish they went for at least 400 to 500 hours of game time for max level.
what do you prefer and why?
100 hours to hit max level, but after 1 hour of farming xp you cant really level up anymore because you have to wait for new content(nodes leveling up), so you just go do other stuff in the game and you will need 3 months to hit max level.
or
500 hours to hit max level but no limit on how much exp you can get per day, so someone who plays 10 hours a day will reach max level in less than 2 months and someone who plays 15 hours a day will hit max level in 1 month, and then you can go do other stuff in the game.
Here is the thing...
People complain that grinding is cumbersome, but AoC has so many things to do that our time will be more like 25% leveling up and exploring (looking for more effective xp/loot), 25% questing and improving our build (look up correct gear and farm mats towards that), 25% partaking in the economy and 25% unique AoC content never seen in other mmos. And all that with the constant danger of pvp.
Why would people like to rush to the max lv? Why would they want in 45D to have reached level cap? It would upset the balance. Take the 25% of leveling and seeking fertile grounds and you are left with 75% of gameplay without the prospect of new character power goals.
Why rush? And I dont give credit to the arguement of "why prolong it when I could be leveling the next alt or exleriment with a different build?"
In true mmos people did not make alts so easily. It would be a surprise to learn that JoeRogue Lv25 is actually the alt of KnownWarrior Lv45. "Where did you find the time?"
Shallow mmos allow people to churn out alts every other week. Like eso.
As for the people saying "high level can play with the lower lv friends" it's just a case of "I want everything, now!".
Mmos need fresh start servers for new players and yearly additions for older players.
Not content that high and low repeat over and over and over.
i like that too. i liked that l2 leveling was slow, buttttt levels mattered in l2. same class had a higher chance of victory if they were 1 or 2 levels higher than you, especially if that level was a level where you would learn skills, and even more especially if that was a level where you would get the next tier of gear.
but most people here arent prepared for that conversation, they just want leveling to take longer just because.
that doesnt automatically make leveling more meaningful.
i also dont like playing alts even tho ill try all classes in a2.
but we need to see how slower leveling will impact other aspects of the game. will each level be meaningful in aoc? will i be much stronger than someone who is 1-2 levels below me?
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
As I envision it, it would be an optional additional thing rather than a replacement of someone in the raid. It would be beneficial for guilds to bring lvl-appropriate people to the raid. But not so highly beneficial that majority of that guild's players would make alts just to run that content.
L2 had a low lvl epic boss that gave one of the best items in the game. So obviously majority of guilds would make specific alts that could easily farm that boss (on top of general recruitment practices).
And the game also had an "academy" system that gave the guild benefits for having lowbies level up to a certain lvl while being a temporary member of the guild. This did lead to some alt leveling, but I'd need @JamesSunderland to tell me if this was widespread on the official servers, where leveling was way slower than in my usual experience.
But my point is this. The lowbie addition should be less beneficial than "high lvl players doing what they usually do". The boss itself would have new mechanics for those high lvl players, so it would be farmed repeatedly by all interested guilds, but on top of that farm they should also be interested in bringing lowbie/newbie players to the fight, so that those players can experience the fight and the guild can benefit from them being there.
And this is why I keep asking you if you'd care if new boss mechanics were added to older bosses.
You are missing the point of end game, and i really don't want to do a large post to explain everything. So i will bring a few more points and it would be up to you to critically think on the issues present.
Let's have an abstraction for a second.
Say there's no levels in the game
Player power is determined by gear
There's 5 tiers of gear
Each subsequent tier requires more time to acquire, so it's obviously backend-heavy
Each tier has its set of bosses/mobs/locations/quests where you can acquire it
In that setup you'd be grinding the last tier for way longer than the previous one. But at all stages of progress you'd be repeating the same activities until you get the gear, right?
So now, in the context of the release version of the game, what exactly would be the difference between those tiers all being at "max lvl" or all of them simply being spread over the entire leveling process?
The grind for gear doesn't change. The repetitiveness of actions doesn't change. The power disparity between those who're getting tier3 and those who're already full tier5 doesn't go away. So what exactly would be different here?
I guess the obvious answer is skills and general stat differences, right? And that is exactly why I would prefer if we got all of our skills by lvl25 and would then just add augments when we level up. This would give everyone the tools to fight each other as early on as possible (while being reasonably distanced from the start of the game, to let people learn their characters) and the augments would just bring specialization to the tools that players have.
As for stat increases, I'd imagine gear will give those as well, so, once again, there wouldn't be much difference between having several tiers of gear all at max lvl or spread out.
And my reasoning for this logic comes from my experience in L2, which was kinda different to this
i like that too. i liked that l2 leveling was slow, buttttt levels mattered in l2. same class had a higher chance of victory if they were 1 or 2 levels higher than you, especially if that level was a level where you would learn skills, and even more especially if that was a level where you would get the next tier of gear.
In my experience I was able to kill players several lvls higher than me. Yes, it was difficult, but doable. And most of the time people who'd gotten to a lvl with a higher gear tier step would not be able to immediately get the full set of it, which would just help me beat them despite the lvl difference.
I do remember that in some updates of the game skill lvl mattered A TON, because skills could fail against a high lvled enemy (especially spells), but, once again, this is exactly why I want us to max out our skill lvls by mid stage of progress. Imo this would just let people fight upwards easier, which would in turn invite more lower lvled people to participate in pvp events, even if it was mostly filled with higher lvl players. Which I've seen in L2 during sieges and hope to see in Ashes as well.
And the game also had an "academy" system that gave the guild benefits for having lowbies level up to a certain lvl while being a temporary member of the guild. This did lead to some alt leveling, but I'd need @JamesSunderland to tell me if this was widespread on the official servers, where leveling was way slower than in my usual experience.
It was present but not very widespread till around The Kamael/The Hellbound version where the leveling process became reasonably faster/easier (and even more in Gracia part 1 with vitality and extremely more in High Five with nevit).
The harsher/longer the leveling process, the less incentivized alts become(considering a reasonable resource per level scaling), and that's a big positive in my book.
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
As I envision it, it would be an optional additional thing rather than a replacement of someone in the raid. It would be beneficial for guilds to bring lvl-appropriate people to the raid. But not so highly beneficial that majority of that guild's players would make alts just to run that content.
L2 had a low lvl epic boss that gave one of the best items in the game. So obviously majority of guilds would make specific alts that could easily farm that boss (on top of general recruitment practices).
And the game also had an "academy" system that gave the guild benefits for having lowbies level up to a certain lvl while being a temporary member of the guild. This did lead to some alt leveling, but I'd need @JamesSunderland to tell me if this was widespread on the official servers, where leveling was way slower than in my usual experience.
But my point is this. The lowbie addition should be less beneficial than "high lvl players doing what they usually do". The boss itself would have new mechanics for those high lvl players, so it would be farmed repeatedly by all interested guilds, but on top of that farm they should also be interested in bringing lowbie/newbie players to the fight, so that those players can experience the fight and the guild can benefit from them being there.
And this is why I keep asking you if you'd care if new boss mechanics were added to older bosses.
You are missing the point of end game, and i really don't want to do a large post to explain everything. So i will bring a few more points and it would be up to you to critically think on the issues present.
Let's have an abstraction for a second.
Say there's no levels in the game
Player power is determined by gear
There's 5 tiers of gear
Each subsequent tier requires more time to acquire, so it's obviously backend-heavy
Each tier has its set of bosses/mobs/locations/quests where you can acquire it
In that setup you'd be grinding the last tier for way longer than the previous one. But at all stages of progress you'd be repeating the same activities until you get the gear, right?
So now, in the context of the release version of the game, what exactly would be the difference between those tiers all being at "max lvl" or all of them simply being spread over the entire leveling process?
The grind for gear doesn't change. The repetitiveness of actions doesn't change. The power disparity between those who're getting tier3 and those who're already full tier5 doesn't go away. So what exactly would be different here?
I guess the obvious answer is skills and general stat differences, right? And that is exactly why I would prefer if we got all of our skills by lvl25 and would then just add augments when we level up. This would give everyone the tools to fight each other as early on as possible (while being reasonably distanced from the start of the game, to let people learn their characters) and the augments would just bring specialization to the tools that players have.
As for stat increases, I'd imagine gear will give those as well, so, once again, there wouldn't be much difference between having several tiers of gear all at max lvl or spread out.
And my reasoning for this logic comes from my experience in L2, which was kinda different to this
i like that too. i liked that l2 leveling was slow, buttttt levels mattered in l2. same class had a higher chance of victory if they were 1 or 2 levels higher than you, especially if that level was a level where you would learn skills, and even more especially if that was a level where you would get the next tier of gear.
In my experience I was able to kill players several lvls higher than me. Yes, it was difficult, but doable. And most of the time people who'd gotten to a lvl with a higher gear tier step would not be able to immediately get the full set of it, which would just help me beat them despite the lvl difference.
I do remember that in some updates of the game skill lvl mattered A TON, because skills could fail against a high lvled enemy (especially spells), but, once again, this is exactly why I want us to max out our skill lvls by mid stage of progress. Imo this would just let people fight upwards easier, which would in turn invite more lower lvled people to participate in pvp events, even if it was mostly filled with higher lvl players. Which I've seen in L2 during sieges and hope to see in Ashes as well.
Gear and levels are going to matter, we need to go off what the game is aiming to be like. There is no indication that won't be the case, in fact in live streams you can find reference that there won't be power scaling and you will feel stronger when going to lower level zones.
I get what you are saying but my point stands in the time of content shouldn't be higher in the lower levels but it needs to have that extended progression at the end game. Where you work much harder, spend even more hours and improve little by little. With enough content so it does not feel repetitive.
Please explain the reason why a long level grind needs to be increased for the sake of level grind. Because hardcore players view time differently and will easily throw hundreds of hours at a game. While people without as much time will have even less effect on the world having to spend for them a year to even touch end game.
Part of the whole point is getting people closer to power so more people can do content together, not further increase the gap. Just because someone has tier 3 gear does not mean they are doing tier 1 dungeons and one shotting everything.
Again i mention I'm talking about western style games. Korean mmorpg are completely different in their approach. It is pretty clear they aren't trying to do a infinite leveling approach with soft/hard cap. It clearly is leaning towards a western style. Mixing wester and korean mmorpg and their styles is just a messy convo that won't make much sense in this aspect with levels.
What is it you want exactly, what is your purpose for wanting levels to take longer, how are players suppose to adjust to it, how is it going to affect players doing content?
I make this point in my other post and this one as well. You need to have enough content so the cycle does not feel repetitive or people say your game has no content. This is why the idea of spending resources to have more content early game to match this 120 days of 4-6 hours will reduce quality else where with their budget. That type of content that is not repeatable or you wouldn't go back.
Unless you are saying they add no additional content but instead stretch things out and have people doing the same grinding of mobs and content just to level? They have stated its not going to be "grindy" in terms of mob killing and repetitive quest another point they are not going the korean route.
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
As I envision it, it would be an optional additional thing rather than a replacement of someone in the raid. It would be beneficial for guilds to bring lvl-appropriate people to the raid. But not so highly beneficial that majority of that guild's players would make alts just to run that content.
So, in other words, an encounter where guilds just bring an alt.
That really is all that guilds would do.
L2 had a low lvl epic boss that gave one of the best items in the game. So obviously majority of guilds would make specific alts that could easily farm that boss (on top of general recruitment practices).
Quite honestly, that is really bad game design. Players should never be punished for progressing, and that is exactly what this encounter seems to be doing if you level past it without getting the item in question. Even if there is a method for going back to get the item, it is still adding barriers that players need to overcome simply because they progressed.
I wouldn't expect a western developer to do this, nor a western audience to accept it. While this is acceptable for quest items (you aren't at a disadvantage here) every lower level dropped item should either be made also available at higher levels, or have a direct replacement made at higher levels.
My first thought with the acadamy that you talked about was also that guilds would just have alts in their guild as temporary members in order to get the bonuses offered. James' reply to your post kind of cements that notion.
Every single game that I have ever played that tried to get existing players to bring along newer players (which both of the above are all about) has simply failed. Either the system has been pointless and no one has used it, or the system has had viable rewards, and people have just run it with alts.
IMO, the entire notion is simply pointless. Developers should just come to the realization that in a level based progression system, players will stratify themselves based on their level. Develop the game with that actual base notion that has 25 years of MMO proof, and don't attempt to mess with it.
Please explain the reason why a long level grind needs to be increased for the sake of level grind. Because hardcore players view time differently and will easily throw hundreds of hours at a game. While people without as much time will have even less effect on the world having to spend for them a year to even touch end game.
A better illusion of progress.
Getting a new piece of gear that you worked 3 weeks to get is cool and all, but that'll be only 1/16 of your progress (more precisely a 1/80, if we have 5 tiers of gear). Getting a lvl that you worked 3 weeks to get is fucking huge. You get a new augment point, you get a direct visual representation of your efforts and it's a 1/50 of the overall progress, so it feels more impactful.
Getting to lvl50 super quickly and then realizing that you now have to purely grind for gear feels way worse imo than just leveling up, doing content and getting gear along the way. In other words, it's a more holistic experience.
Part of the whole point is getting people closer to power so more people can do content together, not further increase the gap. Just because someone has tier 3 gear does not mean they are doing tier 1 dungeons and one shotting everything.
That is literally what I'm asking though. You're still thinking along the lines of "if I'm one level above this dude I'M GONNA DESTROY HIM". I don't want that, because in my experience that was never the case.
I make this point in my other post and this one as well. You need to have enough content so the cycle does not feel repetitive or people say your game has no content. This is why the idea of spending resources to have more content early game to match this 120 days of 4-6 hours will reduce quality else where with their budget. That type of content that is not repeatable or you wouldn't go back.
You do realize that in order to do that Intrepid would have to put a ton of content at the endgame, right? So it's literally the same as having it in lower lvls and people doing that repeatedly, but instead it's at the max lvl and people doing it repeatedly.
And if Intrepid can in fact make a ton of content so that it doesn't feel repetitive - then why the hell not just spread it over all the lvls?
Unless you are saying they add no additional content but instead stretch things out and have people doing the same grinding of mobs and content just to level? They have stated its not going to be "grindy" in terms of mob killing and repetitive quest another point they are not going the korean route.
It's an mmo. It's going to be grindy. I won't believe that they'll somehow succeed at preventing that until they prove me wrong (which is yeaaars away at this point).
I'm just saying that grind throughout your leveling process feels better than grind when you're done leveling. It ruins the feeling of finality imo.
And as for added content, you can read my discussion with Noaani here. I want Intrepid to come up with a design that doesn't just leave the old content on a dusty shelf forever forgotten. I want new mechanics added to old bosses and mobs, in the context of allowing new players experience that same content but w/o the insane inevitable powercreep of "if you came to the game one year late - you can forget about having a challenge on these older bosses, cause you'll get all their gear through easy quests and you'll outlevel them in a few days".
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
As I envision it, it would be an optional additional thing rather than a replacement of someone in the raid. It would be beneficial for guilds to bring lvl-appropriate people to the raid. But not so highly beneficial that majority of that guild's players would make alts just to run that content.
L2 had a low lvl epic boss that gave one of the best items in the game. So obviously majority of guilds would make specific alts that could easily farm that boss (on top of general recruitment practices).
And the game also had an "academy" system that gave the guild benefits for having lowbies level up to a certain lvl while being a temporary member of the guild. This did lead to some alt leveling, but I'd need @JamesSunderland to tell me if this was widespread on the official servers, where leveling was way slower than in my usual experience.
But my point is this. The lowbie addition should be less beneficial than "high lvl players doing what they usually do". The boss itself would have new mechanics for those high lvl players, so it would be farmed repeatedly by all interested guilds, but on top of that farm they should also be interested in bringing lowbie/newbie players to the fight, so that those players can experience the fight and the guild can benefit from them being there.
And this is why I keep asking you if you'd care if new boss mechanics were added to older bosses.
You are missing the point of end game, and i really don't want to do a large post to explain everything. So i will bring a few more points and it would be up to you to critically think on the issues present.
Let's have an abstraction for a second.
Say there's no levels in the game
Player power is determined by gear
There's 5 tiers of gear
Each subsequent tier requires more time to acquire, so it's obviously backend-heavy
Each tier has its set of bosses/mobs/locations/quests where you can acquire it
In that setup you'd be grinding the last tier for way longer than the previous one. But at all stages of progress you'd be repeating the same activities until you get the gear, right?
So now, in the context of the release version of the game, what exactly would be the difference between those tiers all being at "max lvl" or all of them simply being spread over the entire leveling process?
The grind for gear doesn't change. The repetitiveness of actions doesn't change. The power disparity between those who're getting tier3 and those who're already full tier5 doesn't go away. So what exactly would be different here?
I guess the obvious answer is skills and general stat differences, right? And that is exactly why I would prefer if we got all of our skills by lvl25 and would then just add augments when we level up. This would give everyone the tools to fight each other as early on as possible (while being reasonably distanced from the start of the game, to let people learn their characters) and the augments would just bring specialization to the tools that players have.
As for stat increases, I'd imagine gear will give those as well, so, once again, there wouldn't be much difference between having several tiers of gear all at max lvl or spread out.
And my reasoning for this logic comes from my experience in L2, which was kinda different to this
i like that too. i liked that l2 leveling was slow, buttttt levels mattered in l2. same class had a higher chance of victory if they were 1 or 2 levels higher than you, especially if that level was a level where you would learn skills, and even more especially if that was a level where you would get the next tier of gear.
In my experience I was able to kill players several lvls higher than me. Yes, it was difficult, but doable. And most of the time people who'd gotten to a lvl with a higher gear tier step would not be able to immediately get the full set of it, which would just help me beat them despite the lvl difference.
I do remember that in some updates of the game skill lvl mattered A TON, because skills could fail against a high lvled enemy (especially spells), but, once again, this is exactly why I want us to max out our skill lvls by mid stage of progress. Imo this would just let people fight upwards easier, which would in turn invite more lower lvled people to participate in pvp events, even if it was mostly filled with higher lvl players. Which I've seen in L2 during sieges and hope to see in Ashes as well.
i forgot to mention the exceptions. if you had more buffs, you would kill a higher level. also some classes had an advantage over others, but i was talking about the same class. and yeah sometimes you didnt have the gear for your grade as soon as you reached it, but if you did (i thought that was implied!), it would be very hard to win against that person. it would be a matter of luck with crits tbh.
ive killed people higher level than me as well, but because i had better gear or because of other factors. but those are exceptions. i decided to spend my money but they decided to save it xD.
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
As I envision it, it would be an optional additional thing rather than a replacement of someone in the raid. It would be beneficial for guilds to bring lvl-appropriate people to the raid. But not so highly beneficial that majority of that guild's players would make alts just to run that content.
So, in other words, an encounter where guilds just bring an alt.
That really is all that guilds would do.
L2 had a low lvl epic boss that gave one of the best items in the game. So obviously majority of guilds would make specific alts that could easily farm that boss (on top of general recruitment practices).
Quite honestly, that is really bad game design. Players should never be punished for progressing, and that is exactly what this encounter seems to be doing if you level past it without getting the item in question. Even if there is a method for going back to get the item, it is still adding barriers that players need to overcome simply because they progressed.
I wouldn't expect a western developer to do this, nor a western audience to accept it. While this is acceptable for quest items (you aren't at a disadvantage here) every lower level dropped item should either be made also available at higher levels, or have a direct replacement made at higher levels.
people werent punished for progressing. if i was higher level than you i could easily kill you even if you had QA ring (the jwel nikr is talking about). also, you could get at higher levels a jewel that anyone could get and would give you the same mdef and because it was much easier to get, you could even overenchant it without worries, and end up with better defensive stats. the qa ring mostly just helped daggers and archers (specially daggers) because it gave some crit damage and auto attackers, thats it. most of the good jewels were acquired by high lvl characters.
also, eventually, there were other methods to acquire the qa ring.
also, at first, iirc, you could go with your high level character and just disintegrate the boss, but they added a mechanic to prevent this. but you still wanted your high level characters there for pvp...
on top of that, progressing more = you make more money = you can buy the jewel and you dont even need to farm it.
and then at some point, no one cared about it because there were better stuff to get (in later expansions)
So, in other words, an encounter where guilds just bring an alt.
That really is all that guilds would do.
If they have additional players who are so completely done with all of their high lvl progression that they're free to make an alt and play on it instead - yes, guilds will get alts for this. But at that point it would simply mean that the game has not introduced any new content that's valuable enough to make those high lvl players ignore their alts.
And just to make sure, that second group of lowbies would have their own difficult mechanics to clear and all that stuff. It's not like they'd just stand there and do nothing.
My first thought with the acadamy that you talked about was also that guilds would just have alts in their guild as temporary members in order to get the bonuses offered. James' reply to your post kind of cements that notion.
Again, the same thing from above applies. If those players have nothing better to do than to run alts over and over - the game already has bigger problems. James' comment pretty much confirmed that. Once the alt leveling became trivial more people started doing that, because the value/time ratio went way up.
If leveling remains slow and new content keeps coming - max lvl players should have things that are move valuable than leveling an alt and wasting their time on it.
Every single game that I have ever played that tried to get existing players to bring along newer players (which both of the above are all about) has simply failed. Either the system has been pointless and no one has used it, or the system has had viable rewards, and people have just run it with alts.
The game's content should be the attractor to new players. The feature I'm talking about is the thing that should serve as an integrator and a holder of those players in the game.
Throughout my years of playing L2 I can't remember a single server where newbie towns weren't just absolutely filled with high lvl guilds yelling "looking for new players; will give starting money; high potential of getting into the guild".
And this was true on all types of servers, from super fast-paced ones to the most official-type-loyal as possible. Yes, some players did in fact do this on alts. Some used those alts to then spy on the guild (another great part of this feature btw). Some just did this to boost their guild as much as possible cause they didn't have to do anything else at the time (usually on high-paced servers, where leveling was super trivial).
But I always saw this as one of the most community-welcoming features of the game. I've not only joined cool guilds through this, but have also made friends by inviting newcomers and then learning that they're great people with high skill. None of that would've been possible if the game didn't encourage and reward my interaction between high lvl guilds and new-/lowbies.
i forgot to mention the exceptions. if you had more buffs, you would kill a higher level. also some classes had an advantage over others, but i was talking about the same class. and yeah sometimes you didnt have the gear for your grade as soon as you reached it, but if you did (i thought that was implied!), it would be very hard to win against that person. it would be a matter of luck with crits tbh.
ive killed people higher level than me as well, but because i had better gear or because of other factors. but those are exceptions. i decided to spend my money but they decided to save it xD.
But that's gear power, not directly lvl power. Yes, L2 limited what gear you could wear at which lvls, but unless you were coming into the game way later and had max lvl friends - ya weren't getting all that cool gear immediately upon reaching the proper lvl.
I'd like the same for Ashes. Low lvls can still kill higher lvls if the great disparity is not that huge. And AoC could potentially be even easier in this regard cause we'll have action abilities that might let you win through skill.
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Then once the character reached Max level, will also have access to high level content in his node.
If the node is destroyed, some players might choose to start leveling a new character in a new place and experience a new story.
With so many races, it could take a while until a player will go through all variations with each race.
And if is done well, maybe even the same race in a different node will have different paths to choose.
Al Steven has to do is to hire a good storyteller.
This thread seems a little too spicy for me at the moment so I just want to remind everyone what the true end game is that is more important than slaying demons or saving the world:
Alts have been available in MMORPGs at least since EQ.
Any MMORPG where alts are possible is alt-friendly.
Encounters should never bend to match players, it is on the players to meet the requirements of the encounter. Two questions here, one answer.
Having a few expansions go by and then coming across a boss that is based off of one that was enjoyed is a good thing.
EQ2 had a lot of quests, but much of the content wasn't based around quests or story.
It was a content first game, with quests then added in to tie things together.
There were a handful of zones that went against this design, but the bulk of the game was content first, story/quests second. The game also did have a very high level story that was maintained throughout expansions that then had some content derrived from it, but most content wasn't tied to it at all.
Show me one MMO ever that hasn't both lost existing players as well as tried to attract new ones.
What? You cant? Thought so. Perhaps think before you hit "post comment".
It's a two-way street though. Devs make an encounter that's meant for a certain amount/composition of players and then players gotta "solve the puzzle" of that that amount/composition is.
The overall challenge would still be upkept. It's just that the particulars of the challenge itself would be changed, depending on the composition of player lvls.
In other words, it'd be somewhat similar to the anti-zerg mechanic, but just from another angle. Anti-zerg mechanics are seen as a positive thing, are they not? And those are usually meant to "match players", because w/o such mechanics players would just overwhelm the boss easily.
Ok, but would you care if it was the exact same boss? You say that you only played EQ for the content. I'd imagine that the content came in the form of boss mechanics and the class tools you used to counter said mechanics.
Would it matter at all if the new mechanics were now on an old boss? In other words, do you care for the visuals of an encounter or only for the substance itself?
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it doesnt
I shouldn't be surprised to read this, but I am haha
To me, the leveling experience is one of core aspects of a MMORPG. A slow-paced leveling so you can actually have a sense of progression, feel the difference between each level, truly experience each zone to the fullest, meeting and uniting with people along the way in the open world. Games like classic WoW, classic Aion, LotRO, etc, those are games that I actually miss the leveling experience.
The theory of this is all well and good - the practical implementation of it doesn't work well, though.
From a design perspective, there are three scenarios where this content could exist. Either the encounter needs that lower level player and is content the guild would run, the content needs that lower level player but is only content a guild would run for said lower level player, or the lower level player is optional.
If it is the first of the above, guilds would have alts that they take.
If it is the second, a guild willing to run an encounter for the benefit of a lower level player would mean that they could have just done the encounter the way it originally was.
If the third, they would never take the lower level player.
Trying to do things like this with content means you will always end up with content that is actually less enjoyable than if you just concentrate on making content for one player segment.
what do you prefer and why?
100 hours to hit max level, but after 1 hour of farming xp you cant really level up anymore because you have to wait for new content(nodes leveling up), so you just go do other stuff in the game and you will need 3 months to hit max level.
or
500 hours to hit max level but no limit on how much exp you can get per day, so someone who plays 10 hours a day will reach max level in less than 2 months and someone who plays 15 hours a day will hit max level in 1 month, and then you can go do other stuff in the game.
Of these, I would by far prefer the second.
Reason being, it keeps more players roughly around the same level for longer.
If we have a server with 10k players, I'd rather have 9k of those all at the level cap (even if just a soft level cap due to nodes), than having 2.5k at that cap, and the remaining 7.5k spread out over the remaining levels.
More people at the same level as me means more people to do PvE with, more people to PvP against, basically just more game.
To me, leveling is basically just a tutorial to the game. It is there so you can learn the class and it's mechanics, the game systems, the lore, get to know a few players and that is about it. Any leveling that takes longer than it takes the average player to pick up those things is superfluous imo.
Here is the thing...
People complain that grinding is cumbersome, but AoC has so many things to do that our time will be more like 25% leveling up and exploring (looking for more effective xp/loot), 25% questing and improving our build (look up correct gear and farm mats towards that), 25% partaking in the economy and 25% unique AoC content never seen in other mmos. And all that with the constant danger of pvp.
Why would people like to rush to the max lv? Why would they want in 45D to have reached level cap? It would upset the balance. Take the 25% of leveling and seeking fertile grounds and you are left with 75% of gameplay without the prospect of new character power goals.
Why rush? And I dont give credit to the arguement of "why prolong it when I could be leveling the next alt or exleriment with a different build?"
In true mmos people did not make alts so easily. It would be a surprise to learn that JoeRogue Lv25 is actually the alt of KnownWarrior Lv45. "Where did you find the time?"
Shallow mmos allow people to churn out alts every other week. Like eso.
As for the people saying "high level can play with the lower lv friends" it's just a case of "I want everything, now!".
Mmos need fresh start servers for new players and yearly additions for older players.
Not content that high and low repeat over and over and over.
You are missing the point of end game, and i really don't want to do a large post to explain everything. So i will bring a few more points and it would be up to you to critically think on the issues present.
infinite levleing
Going to start i already mentioned infinite leveling and I'm assuming AoC is not taking that approach. I'm pretty sure i referenced black desert online already in this. If we are looking at korean style with infinite leveling (soft/ hard cap) that will work in a different way than western style of a level cap. We can't make arguments while not explaining this to people as they both have big differences on the gameplay experience. Levels almost mean nothing up to a certain point if we go the infinite leveling part and everyone should know Black desert online as a reference for this if that is what they want.
Going forward I'm talking about western style and not Korean (black desert online infinite leveling.
- Everything just moves to end game instead -
First off not everything is moving to end game, AoC is already having a long leveling experience..
That is actually false as with my point earlier suggesting leveling experience can still be fun. The point is that you make a negative experience by compounding progression on extreme levels by making the leveling experience again extreme levels that at the end of it that is all pointless as you have end game gear progression no top of it.
Budget
You don't have infinite budge to create content for thousands of hours before end game content, only for all that content to not be repeated when end game starts. All that development time could have be set to creating content to have a stronger end game that will be designed around as more of a cycle, than straight vertical progression.
Extended leveling experience for no reason
Wanting leveling to take longer needs to be asked why and what purpose are you wanting it to take extreme levels? If the point is you are making the game last longer because it takes longer to level that isn't' true, it means more people get bored along the way and stop before they reach end game and communicates around doing that content.
Same content for no reason
Brought this up already, extended leveling time just had you repeating the same content over and over again. We can already assume that you will be repeating content as AoC currently is, to suggest *3 leveling times means you will be doing that to even greater levels. This is why it is important to have enough content on end game so you have enough mix up so you aren't do the same thing every single time or people will say there is no content.
i think the first option would keep more players around the same level...but yes everything else i agree
i like that too. i liked that l2 leveling was slow, buttttt levels mattered in l2. same class had a higher chance of victory if they were 1 or 2 levels higher than you, especially if that level was a level where you would learn skills, and even more especially if that was a level where you would get the next tier of gear.
but most people here arent prepared for that conversation, they just want leveling to take longer just because.
that doesnt automatically make leveling more meaningful.
i also dont like playing alts even tho ill try all classes in a2.
but we need to see how slower leveling will impact other aspects of the game. will each level be meaningful in aoc? will i be much stronger than someone who is 1-2 levels below me?
L2 had a low lvl epic boss that gave one of the best items in the game. So obviously majority of guilds would make specific alts that could easily farm that boss (on top of general recruitment practices).
And the game also had an "academy" system that gave the guild benefits for having lowbies level up to a certain lvl while being a temporary member of the guild. This did lead to some alt leveling, but I'd need @JamesSunderland to tell me if this was widespread on the official servers, where leveling was way slower than in my usual experience.
But my point is this. The lowbie addition should be less beneficial than "high lvl players doing what they usually do". The boss itself would have new mechanics for those high lvl players, so it would be farmed repeatedly by all interested guilds, but on top of that farm they should also be interested in bringing lowbie/newbie players to the fight, so that those players can experience the fight and the guild can benefit from them being there.
And this is why I keep asking you if you'd care if new boss mechanics were added to older bosses.
Let's have an abstraction for a second.
- Say there's no levels in the game
- Player power is determined by gear
- There's 5 tiers of gear
- Each subsequent tier requires more time to acquire, so it's obviously backend-heavy
- Each tier has its set of bosses/mobs/locations/quests where you can acquire it
In that setup you'd be grinding the last tier for way longer than the previous one. But at all stages of progress you'd be repeating the same activities until you get the gear, right?So now, in the context of the release version of the game, what exactly would be the difference between those tiers all being at "max lvl" or all of them simply being spread over the entire leveling process?
The grind for gear doesn't change. The repetitiveness of actions doesn't change. The power disparity between those who're getting tier3 and those who're already full tier5 doesn't go away. So what exactly would be different here?
I guess the obvious answer is skills and general stat differences, right? And that is exactly why I would prefer if we got all of our skills by lvl25 and would then just add augments when we level up. This would give everyone the tools to fight each other as early on as possible (while being reasonably distanced from the start of the game, to let people learn their characters) and the augments would just bring specialization to the tools that players have.
As for stat increases, I'd imagine gear will give those as well, so, once again, there wouldn't be much difference between having several tiers of gear all at max lvl or spread out.
And my reasoning for this logic comes from my experience in L2, which was kinda different to this In my experience I was able to kill players several lvls higher than me. Yes, it was difficult, but doable. And most of the time people who'd gotten to a lvl with a higher gear tier step would not be able to immediately get the full set of it, which would just help me beat them despite the lvl difference.
I do remember that in some updates of the game skill lvl mattered A TON, because skills could fail against a high lvled enemy (especially spells), but, once again, this is exactly why I want us to max out our skill lvls by mid stage of progress. Imo this would just let people fight upwards easier, which would in turn invite more lower lvled people to participate in pvp events, even if it was mostly filled with higher lvl players. Which I've seen in L2 during sieges and hope to see in Ashes as well.
It was present but not very widespread till around The Kamael/The Hellbound version where the leveling process became reasonably faster/easier (and even more in Gracia part 1 with vitality and extremely more in High Five with nevit).
The harsher/longer the leveling process, the less incentivized alts become(considering a reasonable resource per level scaling), and that's a big positive in my book.
Aren't we all sinners?
Gear and levels are going to matter, we need to go off what the game is aiming to be like. There is no indication that won't be the case, in fact in live streams you can find reference that there won't be power scaling and you will feel stronger when going to lower level zones.
I get what you are saying but my point stands in the time of content shouldn't be higher in the lower levels but it needs to have that extended progression at the end game. Where you work much harder, spend even more hours and improve little by little. With enough content so it does not feel repetitive.
Please explain the reason why a long level grind needs to be increased for the sake of level grind. Because hardcore players view time differently and will easily throw hundreds of hours at a game. While people without as much time will have even less effect on the world having to spend for them a year to even touch end game.
Part of the whole point is getting people closer to power so more people can do content together, not further increase the gap. Just because someone has tier 3 gear does not mean they are doing tier 1 dungeons and one shotting everything.
Again i mention I'm talking about western style games. Korean mmorpg are completely different in their approach. It is pretty clear they aren't trying to do a infinite leveling approach with soft/hard cap. It clearly is leaning towards a western style. Mixing wester and korean mmorpg and their styles is just a messy convo that won't make much sense in this aspect with levels.
What is it you want exactly, what is your purpose for wanting levels to take longer, how are players suppose to adjust to it, how is it going to affect players doing content?
I make this point in my other post and this one as well. You need to have enough content so the cycle does not feel repetitive or people say your game has no content. This is why the idea of spending resources to have more content early game to match this 120 days of 4-6 hours will reduce quality else where with their budget. That type of content that is not repeatable or you wouldn't go back.
Unless you are saying they add no additional content but instead stretch things out and have people doing the same grinding of mobs and content just to level? They have stated its not going to be "grindy" in terms of mob killing and repetitive quest another point they are not going the korean route.
That really is all that guilds would do. Quite honestly, that is really bad game design. Players should never be punished for progressing, and that is exactly what this encounter seems to be doing if you level past it without getting the item in question. Even if there is a method for going back to get the item, it is still adding barriers that players need to overcome simply because they progressed.
I wouldn't expect a western developer to do this, nor a western audience to accept it. While this is acceptable for quest items (you aren't at a disadvantage here) every lower level dropped item should either be made also available at higher levels, or have a direct replacement made at higher levels.
My first thought with the acadamy that you talked about was also that guilds would just have alts in their guild as temporary members in order to get the bonuses offered. James' reply to your post kind of cements that notion.
Every single game that I have ever played that tried to get existing players to bring along newer players (which both of the above are all about) has simply failed. Either the system has been pointless and no one has used it, or the system has had viable rewards, and people have just run it with alts.
IMO, the entire notion is simply pointless. Developers should just come to the realization that in a level based progression system, players will stratify themselves based on their level. Develop the game with that actual base notion that has 25 years of MMO proof, and don't attempt to mess with it.
Getting a new piece of gear that you worked 3 weeks to get is cool and all, but that'll be only 1/16 of your progress (more precisely a 1/80, if we have 5 tiers of gear). Getting a lvl that you worked 3 weeks to get is fucking huge. You get a new augment point, you get a direct visual representation of your efforts and it's a 1/50 of the overall progress, so it feels more impactful.
Getting to lvl50 super quickly and then realizing that you now have to purely grind for gear feels way worse imo than just leveling up, doing content and getting gear along the way. In other words, it's a more holistic experience.
That is literally what I'm asking though. You're still thinking along the lines of "if I'm one level above this dude I'M GONNA DESTROY HIM". I don't want that, because in my experience that was never the case.
You do realize that in order to do that Intrepid would have to put a ton of content at the endgame, right? So it's literally the same as having it in lower lvls and people doing that repeatedly, but instead it's at the max lvl and people doing it repeatedly.
And if Intrepid can in fact make a ton of content so that it doesn't feel repetitive - then why the hell not just spread it over all the lvls?
It's an mmo. It's going to be grindy. I won't believe that they'll somehow succeed at preventing that until they prove me wrong (which is yeaaars away at this point).
I'm just saying that grind throughout your leveling process feels better than grind when you're done leveling. It ruins the feeling of finality imo.
And as for added content, you can read my discussion with Noaani here. I want Intrepid to come up with a design that doesn't just leave the old content on a dusty shelf forever forgotten. I want new mechanics added to old bosses and mobs, in the context of allowing new players experience that same content but w/o the insane inevitable powercreep of "if you came to the game one year late - you can forget about having a challenge on these older bosses, cause you'll get all their gear through easy quests and you'll outlevel them in a few days".
i forgot to mention the exceptions. if you had more buffs, you would kill a higher level. also some classes had an advantage over others, but i was talking about the same class. and yeah sometimes you didnt have the gear for your grade as soon as you reached it, but if you did (i thought that was implied!), it would be very hard to win against that person. it would be a matter of luck with crits tbh.
ive killed people higher level than me as well, but because i had better gear or because of other factors. but those are exceptions. i decided to spend my money but they decided to save it xD.
people werent punished for progressing. if i was higher level than you i could easily kill you even if you had QA ring (the jwel nikr is talking about). also, you could get at higher levels a jewel that anyone could get and would give you the same mdef and because it was much easier to get, you could even overenchant it without worries, and end up with better defensive stats. the qa ring mostly just helped daggers and archers (specially daggers) because it gave some crit damage and auto attackers, thats it. most of the good jewels were acquired by high lvl characters.
also, eventually, there were other methods to acquire the qa ring.
also, at first, iirc, you could go with your high level character and just disintegrate the boss, but they added a mechanic to prevent this. but you still wanted your high level characters there for pvp...
on top of that, progressing more = you make more money = you can buy the jewel and you dont even need to farm it.
and then at some point, no one cared about it because there were better stuff to get (in later expansions)
And just to make sure, that second group of lowbies would have their own difficult mechanics to clear and all that stuff. It's not like they'd just stand there and do nothing.
Again, the same thing from above applies. If those players have nothing better to do than to run alts over and over - the game already has bigger problems. James' comment pretty much confirmed that. Once the alt leveling became trivial more people started doing that, because the value/time ratio went way up.
If leveling remains slow and new content keeps coming - max lvl players should have things that are move valuable than leveling an alt and wasting their time on it.
The game's content should be the attractor to new players. The feature I'm talking about is the thing that should serve as an integrator and a holder of those players in the game.
Throughout my years of playing L2 I can't remember a single server where newbie towns weren't just absolutely filled with high lvl guilds yelling "looking for new players; will give starting money; high potential of getting into the guild".
And this was true on all types of servers, from super fast-paced ones to the most official-type-loyal as possible. Yes, some players did in fact do this on alts. Some used those alts to then spy on the guild (another great part of this feature btw). Some just did this to boost their guild as much as possible cause they didn't have to do anything else at the time (usually on high-paced servers, where leveling was super trivial).
But I always saw this as one of the most community-welcoming features of the game. I've not only joined cool guilds through this, but have also made friends by inviting newcomers and then learning that they're great people with high skill. None of that would've been possible if the game didn't encourage and reward my interaction between high lvl guilds and new-/lowbies.
I'd like the same for Ashes. Low lvls can still kill higher lvls if the great disparity is not that huge. And AoC could potentially be even easier in this regard cause we'll have action abilities that might let you win through skill.