Problem with High level gains

Munki · July 2004

Ive been thinking about what I dont like about hte mid-level high-level of mmorpgs, and I wrote it out, and I think I found why I, and probably many people get a little aggrivated at higher levels.

The rewards are too far appart.
For me playing a game for 5 hours then getting off and saying
"Gee 5 more days of leveling like that and Ill be a little more powerful"

I think what they need to do is make it, so even if you just log on for 30 min, you will log of with the fealing that you char is stronger from that little excursion.

and please lets not turn this into a flame war with
"you need to be patient" or other more insulting varients

nooblet · July 2004

lol problem is , i think its extremely difficult to do something like that with an mmorpg

egg aumlet+noob=nooblet

Homelander · July 2004

Although what you are proposing does sound very good, there is a simple reason why gaming companies cannot incorporate that inside an MMORPG, it's called lasting appeal. If you make characters very easy and quick to level, hardcore gamers will end up max'ing out the player building system and what happens next (which has happened in many MMORPG's) is that they either start pk'ing everyone in the game in a pvp oriented game or just simply pack it all up and call it quits. Both of these options are nightmares for companies so, making games more challenging is simply a way of compensating for those unfortunate events.

On the flipside, if you do like playing games with easy leveling systems, might want to check out The Realm by Sierra, www.realmserver.com , not sure how the game community is now a days, haven't played in like 3 or 4 years now. Anyways, long story short, fast leveling, fun as hell to play and lots of different skills and loots to keep you occupied for lots of time. (oh and btw, max level in game is level 1000).

-Craxy D

Anofalye · July 2004

No, this guy is right!

Instead of limiting the players, the focus should be on an unlimited thing. Yet, pure unlimited kill the interest right away, so you need many softcaps and many goals to achieve. See, you can have 20 levels for each type of dungeons in the game, and each be relatively eas to attain, but been level 20 in an orc zone give no edge in any other zone(or a a trivial edge, I think trivial edges are much more addicting, since you achieve both uberness against orcs, and an overall trivial edge, and both are necessary I think).

In order to keep the game interesting, you need many types of zones AND something more to do once you reach the level limit. I think either AAs(EQ style) or more levels for a deeper section(paste and copy identical with more stats and all, not much work).

Ideally you need:

- Players that feel what they do is important and significant no matter how advanced their toon is.

- More stuff to do, always more, but never feeling this is pointless to do them.

Level caps that bring you to the maximum levels(or AAs) for the zone and giving you a trivial edge for every extra you have is a solution to keep old zone fun for noobs and make sure nobody come and owned pointlessly the zone and make it ridiculous, nobody play the game to own a level 5 zone except level 1-5 toons! Those levels caps allow you to play with any RL friend and still work on your main character in a form or another without owning the zone to faakland, you are good in the noob zone, you are strong, but you are not overwhelmingly strong. Those levels caps also prevent PL as a side effect and I doubt anyone will regret that!

- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''

Finwe · July 2004

1. Having fast leveling wouldnt be very realistic.

2. Having felt accomplishes would be nice, but to do that, they would have to be accomplished. And well. Truth of the matter, 30 minutes being an accomplishment. Somone who plays for a week on end would be alot more powerful then somone who was on vacation or whatnot. And being alot more powerful then your friend you usually play with, etc.

"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis

//\//\oo · July 2004

Indeed, the feeling of having accomplished something or approached a limit or a supremum is crucial for mmorpgs.

What you could do is have a strongly skill based Mmorpg with the property s.t. skills can be leveled indefinitely with diminishing returns, s.t. for every constant number of swings you are guaranteed an increase.

Instead of increasing the number of swings needed everytime the skill increases in power, you merely decrease the gains per level of that skill.

=> for constant time spent (preferably to some feasible level i.e. 30 minutes) you are guaranteed an advancement.

"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred."
MP

super_me · July 2004

what i hate is when the game is in a beta version and people get high level and carry over those characters to the full version. that realy suck because everyone is high level before the game even starts.

to level in 30mins will not be so nice! if it takes you a week to level once you level you get much more satisfaction then then playing for 30mins for a level. if it takes 30mins to level up the levels are going to be huge

wel thats what i say :-)

Anofalye · July 2004

Well, you maybe can use Levels, Ranks and Abilities...some may be fast and relevant in a precise topic, other slowers but relevant on much more topics, I dont know.

Personnally I will bear with the slowest leveling grind myself, that's been said, I dont think most players will, that is why having many differents grinds ladders seem like a must to me. As long as I can grind more, personnally I dont mind to ding once every few days(worst hell level in EQ took me 4 days) or to ding many many many times, hardly change a thing to me, as long as there is more and more to do, I really dont mind checking the unity number for my levels, or to check them by 10ish, or even by 100ish.

In a system where you can focus on a particuliar dungeons level range, my lower levels RL friends may very well focus in a weaker dungeon knowing they will be much more stronger then me there and then be the hero when we group together as my toon lack developpment there, I will leave them their low level uberness and focus elsewhere, so they can always group in the highest dungeon they reach and I am uber there while they are at their limits, or we can group in a low level place and even if we are all kinda uber, they are way ahead of me there and they shine as the main heros of the day, which is fine to me. (for exemple you may have *unlimited levels* in each rank, but after 20 or 50 levels in a rank you can developp the next rank levels andor more levels without any limit, yet, past that softcap, the next softcap might be very far if anymore in the actual rank, in such a system ranks are what matter the most, but tons of levels to be hard on each rank, yet, the ranks keep it under control and someone may say: Wow, 100 levels in Goblins Caves 02, you certainly are the best Goblins hunter of the server!!! And so on, everyone can have it own agenda, it own objectives, there is no single way to complete uberness, but many roads to many objective, and yet, a trivial overall edge no matter what you accomplish).

I have a friend that took a month to level from 51 to 52 in EQ, I am sorry, but the day he ding 51, he plainly kill his interest in a near static game. I think a form where I ding a hundred times if needed and he still enjoy the game is better then a form where I ding a few times and he take a month to ding once, as long as you think of a level cap system that allow us to group together and still enjoy the game and progress both our toons in a form or another, I am tired to play twinks, and they are tired to always be lacking compare to me, they need to be able to focus on some single area and to own this area so I am the weakling there, and the best way to do so, is to put many many many objectives. In a new rank the XP might be slower to get, and the dinging slower, a player can always remain in an older rank and work there if he cant bear the slow progress in the new rank. You might need to think a system to actually handle very big numbers without writting them that big as well(using colors maybe, if the unity number is in red, maybe it mean you have 100 as well, green 200 and so on, the 10ish number in color could stand for a number in Ks, that way everything *seem* under 100, folks in the same level range know very well who is where, but folks in other levels range dont really know or care until they get into it).

- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''

Meat_Shield · July 2004

The dungeon system that you guys are comin up with is a good idea, like you can become uber strong in some areas but your still weak in others, sounds good, my idea for feeling like you actually did something while you playing and lets say your on for only a half an hour, would be the weapon-point-system that would have to be a system where you work on a certain weapon, lets say a longsword, and you play the game for a half an hour, and for evey fight that you get into you become a little better with your weapon, so you might be able to do more damage, and more damage the better you become with a certain weapon

Another cool idea would be to have some zones, or areas, or whatever that allow you to do minnie quests, like ones that wont take you very long but give you something rewarding in return, like some magic food that makes your guy stronger, or something along those lines, so lets say that your half an hour is up you can just save the food/item until the next time that you get on, so it will help you advance further and you can feel special than...

the only problem with that is sooner or later your going to run out of mini quests and you will have to start grinding or doing something else, I guess the system needs to lead towards something, i mean a normal mmorpg would be boring if you had nothing to look forward to, such as high lvl's or prestige positions, the only way to make the game fun is to have something to look forward to not something that is boring...Dunno I suppose that I fully agree with the system that they have in a lot of games like EQ and DAOC where you lvl and lvl and lvl until your purple in the face and you want to quit.

/b lvl 45 Ranger EQ,
/b lvl 30 Paladin DAOC,
/b Rodian master CH SWG,
/b Some guy E+B (Earth & Beyond)

digitydarkman · July 2004

when i quit AO i have a lvl 200enf, 200doc, and a 183mp others were around 40-50ish, took alot of time indeed lol, but i found a bug on my doc cant remember how i did it now but i was killing these stupid ass things and was getting like 500,000+xp for every kill i even got a message from an ark saying i had the higest one day xp gain in ao history ::::01::

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