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Has leveling in other games dulled your interest in MMO progression?
mmoguy43
Member UncommonPosts: 2,770
I know for me it has. It is like every game now has some form of character progression, usually in the form of levels, that I can't even remember the last time I was excited to level up or get skill advancements. Everything seems to have barrowed some from RPGs that it's own genre doesn't feel adequate.
Comments
Yes, without question. TSW changed how I felt about traditional levels. Age of Wushu did away with questing for levels entirely (as did EVE years before) and made the concept of levels abstract.
I can never go back to a quest to cap game no matter how much I try. That design is old and tired. I won't/can't do it.
Now that being said, I LOVE progression. I love my time spent meaning something. I just wont do questing for progression.
as did EQ years before that. In fact EvE came out before questing was common. Had EvE released 2 or 3 years later it probably would have been quest driven in some way.
Yea i worked on a really simple 2d game... for me at least, the best form of progression would be skill based like AC1.
you gain xp and place it on whatever skill you want. At the same time, an action involved with a certain skill would give you xp for that skill. There needs to be SOME form of pgression but the level based system and basic role system is played out too much and gets boring.
I'd have it that the player can take anything (like runescape) but new spells/skills require a certain skill value in one or more skills.
This would be in a sandbox enviroment, if it were a mmorpg.
Progression no.
Quest hubs yes.
AC1 and AO had good level/skill mixed systems for sure. I don't think you can go purely skill based but you certainly can blend them better than most games do.
My answer is no. I'm tired of meaningless easy content though. The quest hub system rewards you with everything you ever need and you level up so fast that nothing ever has value. It is just there to funnel you to max level which usually results in a very unrewarding item hunt with nothing else to do. This is completely the wrong way to build games. If anything they need to make the worlds bigger, the levels take longer and everything much more open.
I am certainly tired of leveling and quest hubs. I am tired of games based only around quest hubs and leveling. Especially since most of the closed in worlds the levels don't make much difference since the challenge remains the same level 1-whatever and you're likely not to encounter a level 50 monster at level 30. Its essentially flat line encounters which allows balancing of the game to be easy because your just moving numbers around and adding powers.
I don't mind progression just not massive vertical ones.
A month is long enough. For me, of course.
No.
Each game is its own thing. There are many types of leveling and levelless, gringing and grindless, harsh and easy play I've encountered. I have preferences and moods, but I've managed to find some fun in most of them.
Well I'm sure you are enjoying yourself in this era of what DamonVille would call "disposable games"
Quite the opposite for me. Al these easy mode leveling games like GW2, SWToR, Rift. AOC and so on where one can level 1-max at release in 2 days played or less without even looking at the screen knowing it is virtually impossible to die makes the games seem pointless.
The last game I found leveling enjoyable was Vanguard. All the new easy mode games leveling is just simplistic short ride to endgame. But then do these games even have an endgame? Rift of all the modern games was the only one with an actual tested worthwhile endgame at release. I don't understand the point of playing these modern games where everything is simply handed to players and the skill level is so dumbed down you could literally stick a monkey at the keyboard randomly hitting keys and they would still win every fight.
Too many people take pride in their ignorance. If you don't understand something, that's *your* problem.
Very much so. For example, i finished the main story content on Marvel Heroes in about 30 hours. 30 hours of free fun. I may go back since they have some more content, but i am not beholden to just play that game.
Tired of progression, not at all, in fact, it's really one of the biggest reasons I play them and once it appears to come to a halt (such as reaching level cap) I quickly lose interest unless there are alternate forms of advancement that I can pursue.
Gear grinding doesn't really do it for me. I mean sure, fine tuning your gear on an occasional basis is OK, but have to replace your set ever time there's some new content is just not for me.
DAOC's realm abilities that you earn from PVP takes far longer to maximize than the first 50 levels do (even when it was hard to do it) so you always have a carrot to chase.
EVE has a nearly limitless amount of skills to progress, and I am one of those odd folks who really like the real time aspect associated with it.
There are other forms of progression as well, such as crafting skills, or even fun skills such as fishing that I enjoy as well. (though I like them better if the fish are worth something of value)
Progression that I don't really care about include titles, awards, collectibles, cosmetic gear, housing items, and other things typically associated as being horizontal. If my avatar isn't advancing in terms of power, I'm not really interested.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It is obvious that it is your personal preference, and that you will see lots of responses from people that prefer progression and people that do not. What is here to discuss? Some like this type of game, some like other type
I would argue if rpg without level progression will be even still rpg, but that is also my personal thought, since there is no real definition.
Ding, 10 mins later Ding, 15mins later Ding.
Dinging doesnt make you happy. You should be really happy when you level up, meaning u need to work for it. Leveling today is waaaayyyyyy ttooo fassssttt....
Slow it down!!.
I'm not sure why you or others are interpreting this thread as "Do you like progression?". I never said I don't like progression, it just isn't that fun anymore in MMORPGs ever since all OTHER types of games have it.
This genre is officially called MMORPG, so not sure what your topic is about.
If it would be a game without progression in what ever way then it stops being a MMORPG.
Sure if you are playing a single player game. MMOs are about long progression. What is the difference or rushing to the top and sitting there board and playing for months with things to do. If you mean you don't want boring progression I agree. I would love entertaining dungeons at almost every few levels for groups to enjoy.
An MMO isn't a single player game you play casually for a month and then put it down, it should be years worth of fun to build a community and a world.
The problem that I noticed in mmorpgs is that they are packed with months worth of content at the leveling stage, but leveling itself takes few weeks at most. If the leveling was slower, people would be able to take their time and enjoy the leveling content more. At least until they get bored of it.
Now it is like quick shoots of entertainment, you unlock new content every few minutes, and get locked out of previous content you could do an hour ago or it is simply not profitable anymore, or you just want to see what's next. You reach the cap and a very restricted and poor end game awaits you, while you barely managed to scratch the surface of the content that was before. It's very wierd way to desing games in my opinion.
It should be made in one of two ways. You either design a game where leveling is quick formality, and you pack all the content to end game, or you pack all the content into leveling stage, but you make leveling long enough for people to get through all the content. It is totaly out of balance right now.
I find it bothersome personally that people so often take the misnomer that progression is somehow integral to role playing games.
As Chris Crawford puts it.
<span book"="">"In some ways, the emphasis on character development has impeded progress in storytelling with RPGs. The central premise of these [computer RPGs] is that the player steadily builds his abilities by acquiring wealth, tools, weapons, and experience. This emphasis on character development tends to work against the needs of dramatic development - dramatic twists and turns clash with the prevailing tone of steady development. Fortunately, this impediment is not fundamental to the RPG genre; it is a cultural expectation rather than an architectural necessity."
It is the very notion that a RPG is defined centrally by the progress a character makes statistically that is perhaps always been the most flawed. If the focus was on the progress of the character and world within a more narrative context, I would be much happier.
Leveling has very much so become a tired concept, one that I was never fond of to begin with, as I feel there are much better ways of generating personal progression that can come more naturally.
Though as John Kim states.
"PnP RPGs are an example of interactive narratives. The rules and fictional worlds that form the basis for these games function as a vessel for collaborative, interactive storytelling. This is possibly the most important feature of PnP RPGs, and one that CRPGs have yet to reproduce."
Interactive and collaborative narratives are something that are still eluding us, and that's an issue. You have at best a pick your adventure type situation following finite paths. That's another part of the issue, that our ability to create and develop narrative is still stunted, and in large the developer base still only think to deliver prepackaged stories.
Consequently the role playing aspect has to be picked up elsewhere, and that's usually by the meta game of statistical progress. All in all it makes for a stagnant state of affairs that I personally am not fond of.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
You can only make leveling slow - if you make the grind very enjoyable. The reason why games like WoW speed up leveling so much is because the 'game' part itself is not that strong. These hot key MMOs don't even use FPS targeting - its just hit some random group of keys while being within so many yards of mob. At best its hit some keys in some specific order..
MMO developers need to go back and really THINK about how to shape encounters with people in a way that doesn't revolve around camping static 'nodes' of creatures or endless easy mode quest 'grinding.'
"They went from a system where you improved your archery or your swordmanship or your cooking based on YOUR choice to a system where you globally improve your character by killing stuff, for no real good reason, and skills magically appear when you gain levels. Modern games aren't the main culprits, this comes from D&D, and from EQ which introduced that botched system to MMORPGs."
Meh. Skill acquisition games are not naturally more exciting - and they introduce balance problems most of the time. This is why they moved away from this system in MMOs. Some tank shows up in a dungeon without his axe 'leveled'.. Ouch.
Again the only problem with leveling is that the leveling process itself becomes boring - especially with the primitive gameplay MMO players have to endure.. A skill acquisition game could suffer from the exact same problem. It's not any worse or better..
You have to think of gaming as a kind of little puzzle solving experience for your brain..Without the right amount of challenge and ingenuity - the same old thing becomes terrible dull.
Your right. but from my perspective also wrong. Your right about it when leveling or skillgaining is slow you have to grind it will become boring. So you have to put something in to get around that boredom. in MMo's of the past that has been a community. Because combat was slow (compared to these days) we had abit of time to type alot of text to eachother just chatting about while killing stuff. i honestly never felt bored.
i find the opposite leveling of today boring. i just look at my map all day long go from point A to B not even care about what im doing. Do what im suposed to do at point B and then return to point A. That is a thousand times more boring then grinding with a fun group tbh.