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Should attaining max level be a given?
dave6660
Member UncommonPosts: 2,699
With a very small number of exceptions getting to max level is nearly a given in mmorpg's. If you have enough time and patience, you will get there. It's not hard (skill wise) nor has it ever really been hard. I've never heard another player say, "I couldn't reach max level because it's too difficult". A lot of players claim the "real" game starts at max level.
So I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried breaking that trend. Instead of giving away experience and levels like they're candy make them earned. Make levels more like a belt system in martial arts. You have to demonstrate ability and knowledge to be able to advance. The majority of players will not get anywhere near the top. Some will not advance at all.
The idea is to change the focus from rushing to max to level to becoming proficient with your class.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Comments
FFXI had something similar where every 5 levels, starting at level 50, you had to perform tasks/quests in order to advance. Most of these were group based and you couldn't level any higher until you completed them. The last task at the time, when the cap was 75, was to defeat an NPC that was the same class as you. I remember so many rage inducing posts from players that couldn't do it or from ones that took dozens of attempts to actually complete.
I remember it took me around 6 attempts to beat mine due to missing interrupts and poorly timing my abilities. It felt amazing actually finally beating it. I have no doubts it made me a better player.
Getting to the maximum level is NOT a given. In the dozens of MMOs I've played I attained the maximum level once. That was in DC Universe Online. That occurred during beta. That is one of the major reasons I didn't purchase DCUO.
I lose interest a whole lot faster than it takes to get to the maximum level.
Off the top of my head I can't remember any game demanding skill for character advancement. RPGs in general, use a method where, while general (story) progression might demand skill, you can always compensate skill by out-leveling your content. I think any changes to this might cause a stir.
People are used to playing easy games, thinking they are hard because of excess grind or harsh death penalty. They take great pride in it.
You want to rattle their cages? -I'm all for it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I have a blog sitting unpublished about a concept that I think parallels this topic.
The idea behind it is that there are two distinctly different mechanics involved in the leveling process. First are tasks that require endurance, second are tasks that require effectiveness in playing the character (in the blog I use the term skill, but I'm referring to player skill, not character skill levels).
I focus on the idea that leveling as present in many MMORPGs is not difficult in the "skill" sense, but rather there is a perceived difficulty in that endurance makes the leveling process feel difficult.
A real world example:
1. Pick a marble up off the floor and put it in a bucket.
2. Pick up 10,000,000 marbles off the floor, put them in buckets (one at a time).
Is #1 difficult? No. So how is #2 difficult when it is exactly the same activity?
I think the answer is that due to the volume of work needed, the task requires endurance.
As I see it, the leveling process in most MMORPGs is like #2.
The question I have (that relates to the original post), what would it be like if leveling was changed so that lack of "skill" (the ability to effectively control a character) would make progression impossible?
See how this fits? Endurance mode leveling is burdening but not difficult. If leveling were made difficult (where it is possible to fail) I wonder how players would react to not being able to reach level-cap.
My guess is they'd quit the game in huge numbers complaining that combat was imbalanced or their character was under-powered.
Just a guess, but I think that most players have never experienced difficulty in the leveling process. Raid and PVP, of course things are difficult, but not leveling as it exists in most MMORPGs today.
An alternate way of expressing this:
1. Kill a rat, collect a rat tail.
2. Kill 2,000 rats, collect 2,000 rat tails.
Is #2 really any more difficult than #1? Does #2 require skill (ability to effectively control a character)?
In my opinion, increasing the rat's performance so it is harder (not just slower) to kill does provide a mechanism where skill is required. I would quantify this on an individual's basis based on how many attempts (on average) it took to kill one rat before succeeding.
TL;DR Cut off easy-mode leveling by increasing difficulty and many will scream bloody murder that the game is broken. A few, on the other hand, will enjoy it.
Didn't WoW do something similar with their PvP ranks way back when they launched (or soon after). People didn't like it and complained so Blizzard changed it... what does that tell you?
I ready think a lot about it and accept it is a true for currents MMORPGs .
At max level , player don't do quests anymore or don't even have quests to do and focus on gear grind in instances group .
There aren't any solo able contents at max level so "real" MMO RP Game do start at max level .
In Everquest it was pretty hard to get to max level. It might have been easy for some people, but for anyone who wanted to solo when the game first came out it was very difficult. Most of the people who got to max level easily were people who grouped a lot and grinded at certain spots that gave experience bonuses. It didn't seem like there were many max level players until a year or two after release. Even then most people wouldn't be willing to put in the time and effort required to reach max level.
I'm sure most will come in (as usual) and say time is not difficulty. The truth is time is very important and people who are willing to give it up to become good at something and show determination should be rewarded for that IMO. The reward is similar to an athlete who spends hours doing the same thing over and over again to perfect their skill.
That again ties into death penalty. Death penalties took a lot of time and effort you put into the game and flushed them down the toilet. That means you didn't want to die a lot or you might be heading backwards instead of forwards. This meant you had to find something you could kill and a strategy to kill it that didn't involve dying a lot. It was a big road block in moving forward in the game. You either had to be able to perform you role in a group well or you had to find a class/strategy for soloing.
I don't believe that getting to max level should be a given. I'm pretty sure people who don't make it to max level these days in MMOs do so because they become bored with do the many very boring quests that are available to do in these games. The other option is to do instanced PvP where you are going to die over and over again no matter how good you are. If there was some sort of resistance to getting to max level and the quests were removed people might actually find the leveling process more interesting IMO. Just joining up with other people, having to share things in game, traveling together, and having to compete with others indirectly makes things a bit more interesting. That and having options to just sit there and level fishing, crafting, or whatever you want all day long. Having other options than just questing and PvP. I don't believe questing should even be an option for leveling. It should be something you might do while leveling, but it doesn't give you an experience. You just get an item or money or faction. It shouldn't be the sole purpose in the game until max level IMO.
Athletes actually train and improve, while you grind away and learn very little. "Time put in" means very little skill-wise in most MMORPGs. Usually it just means you have higher level, better gear or more alts. You still might be well below average as a player.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Mabinogi doesn't have a max level. You can level to infinity. Still there are high levels grouping up and discluding low lvl players. I am not for elitist mentality in games. I really can't see how it can be avoided. If it isn't max level bragging rights it will be something else similar. I'm thinking more like how does a game create bragging rights without simultaneously shitting on the little guy? Also don't like this "the real game starts at max level." I didn't pay for that. I don't like being upped by others buying gold seller power leveling. I'm not saying there should not be end game content but high levels come off as arrogant jerks in a lot of mmos.
I wasn't thinking of a ladder system. It's not a competition between players who can attain the highest spot nor should the top positions be artificially limited in any way.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I played WoW back then. That system proved nothing except you played A LOT of BG's. You could have theoretically never won a match and still made the top spot.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I disagree. I believe players do improve in their execution of what they are doing the more they play. For instance there were lots of people who couldn't perform their role in a group in EQ. The ones that did well usually were the ones that spent a lot of time in group. The players that soloed best usually were the ones that put in a lot of time soloing to figure out how to do it best. This is pretty much the way it is for any game.
You didn't make it because you lost interest, not because it was too difficult.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Back in 2004 I played Ragnarok Online in the iRO servers (Chaos Server). That game had NO quests and a completely player driven economy. Getting to lvl99 (max lvl) was HARD. I remember having to solo grind mobs in Turtle Island lvl2 for 3 hours to get 1% experience at lvl95. If for some reason I died, which I did every 10 hours or so, I would lose 1% (death penalty).
Getting to max level was the whole point of the game. I remember it was quite a spectacle when a lvl99 walked into Prontera as he would have a glowing blue aura around his feet (think Dragon Ball Z power up fire thing) signifying his accomplishment.
While it is true that you had to play A LOT of BGs to attain rank 14 (Grand Marshal, High Warlord) in Vanilla WoW, it simply is not true that you could lose every match and still get there. Only 1 person a week was able to get to rank 14 (honor points were tallied up weekly and after maintanace you would see your rank go up or down accordingly.
I used to play with one of those ridiculous premade teams you always dreaded on facing, you know the ones where the BG score board was completely populated by helm and fists rank insignias. We used to organize and dictate who would get rank 14 every week by allowing that person to get more points than everyone else. So it was a bit more complicated, but yea it was basically grind BGs all day.
If you have characters grow in power, there will always be a 'max level', and chances are there will be content designed for players who achieve that.
The only way to remove that is to have players start out with a level of power capable of achieving anything in game. Character building could then be through gaining new skills to make a build you like, rather than actually increasing your power.
I don't think many players would like that, as they like to become more powerful, but hopefully someone gives it a shot. I think that was what EQN was planning?
This would make a lot of sense in an education system. You become a brown belt in Mathematics once you are tested to be proficient in differential equations.
I don't see this as something that would work well for a lot of people in video games though. Leveling to max level is a given. It's kind of like completing the single player story line is a given in RPGs or FPS games. That's the experience that most people are paying for.
I could see this being functional in a few ways, even if it wouldn't necessarily sell a lot of copies. Remove any sort of over arching story line where the player receives a beginning, middle and then finale narrative. The game would have to be repetitive, if for no other reason than players would have to keep retrying content that they had "failed". If the developer continually added content so that existing content became easier, then the narrative could be added back in, since players would eventually get to see it. So in short, you just have WoW's end game, League of Legends, DOTA2 and maybe Vindictus. The final way I can think of would be to untie leveling to the game world, kind of how Skyrim and Fallout work. You can see much of Skyrim or Fallout's world and story lines without ever reaching max level, but that just makes leveling unimportant. If leveling is actually important, this won't work.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think you are overestimating personal growth of players. Some players might get a bit better, but usually you are just good at games or you aren't. Some players will play a game for years and always be terrible. On EQ2 there were hundreds of terrible players, and they never got any better. Every expansion you would see them running the same fail groups.
Other players can jump on friends characters or powerleveled alts and play them flawlessly almost instantly.
The brutal truth is that most MMOs have a very low skill cap, if you cant figure out how to play your character in a couple of hours, you will probably never learn how to play it properly.
I didn't feel that way playing Everquest or World of Warcraft (when it first came out). I felt that I learned a lot during the course of playing. I had my good times and bad times. I felt I was a pretty good soloer, but not so great in groups. I attribute that to not playing in groups that much. The people who spent a lot of time grouping seemed to do the best in terms of being able to work as a unit and execute the actions they needed to at the appropriate time. I was able to do that to an extent, but not always. Sometimes I would miss time a heal, pull agro at the wrong time, lose taunt, miss a CC, or agro an add. These thing are all reactive skills (like people seem to want). They weren't so much based on numbers. They were based on timing and executing at the correct time. That isn't much different then having to dodge at the right time. These skills improve with practice. The same thing could be said for a solo class. You have to cast your snare at just the right time or cast your dot at just the right time, or stay just out of the mobs range, etc. It's all based on having to execute precisely. Generally that comes with practice. It's not quite as intuitive as dodging though. You have to use both your brain and your reflexes instead of just your reflexes.
There's a difference between finding a game boring and finding a game too hard to complete. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.