The only way to do this, as i see it, would be a level limitless game ( or with an absurly high level limit like 1000 or more ) where you can always become more powerful as you play, and that most of the amount of power is achieved when you reach a milestone level.. It would not allow you to fight ALOT higher level players but should slow down a big part of the community in their quest for power as to make sure the low level player has always their share of similar powered players to fight against.
To make an example.
From lv 1 to 49, you only gain 1 hp and 1 stat point per level.
At lv 50 you gain 2000 hp and 200 stat points.
Then from lv 51 to lv 99, you again receive 3 hp and 3 stat point.
At lv 100, you receive 7000 hp and 700 stat points
and so on.
Basically this would create a a community where big tiers of players can compete between each other "fairly" while still allowing the hardcore or veteran gamers, to look foward to a milestone where their power greatly increases and can difference themselves from the rest of the community.
Leveling should not be extremely hard or boring to do, perhaps requiring a fixed amount of exp to reach the next level.
(I.E: The dot hack series of rpgs, where every single lvl requires only 1000 exp, but you need to fight appropriately leveled mobs to gain any relevant exp point, so that it never gets either too slow or too fast to level up )
This would allow new players that can dedicate a big amount of time to the game and want to become part of the higher ones, to catch up or at least go close enough to compete within a not exessively long amount of time.
It would also give the veteran players power over the lower levels and feel like they are making a meaningful progression while still giving the newborn players a big part of the community to compete with.
Ofc this idea is kind of green and i am sure it could be tweaked in 1000 ways to please both factions of the community but you at least get the point on what i am trying to explain.
Because seriously, playing for 5 years only to unlock shirts, special mounts and other random non power related stuff like some of you proposed is not something that a big part of the community would enjoy doing.
And i doubt it will ever come a day where newbies will stand a chance vs 2 + yy veterans...
But the kind of idea i exposed would not leave a new player alone in big guy´s land.
Plus if you get a group of level 1 noobs they can group up and kill level 40 mobs.
Brilliant! I can't believe I didn't see the merits of this idea earlier.
Wait, why are you talking about Raids? Oh, I see, you didn't even realize you mentioned one of the current staples of a modern mmorpg - Raiding. Do you know how raiding started? It started with EQ, when the Devs created mobs that were "impossible" for the players to beat. They were there for lore or atmosphere, whatever...either way the players set out to prove they were not "impossible" to defeat and did so by being incredibly crafty, skillful and smart. They didn't walk up to these monsters, all right-click simultaneously and win because their stats and gear dictated so. They came up with chain-healing and other methods, planned out their attack and made key decisions that allowed them to do something that was suppose to be impossible.
Then it got turned into a game feature.
Welcome to the club of "People that have proven themselves wrong in this thread."
By the way, nogardnaz is my other account.
(I once lost the password to this one and created that one since I couldn't login)
_________________________________ "Fixed it. Because that wall of text attacked me, killed me and looted my body..." -George "sniperg" Light
In FFXI (and FFIV I hope), the higher level characters can change thier level to match the lower level characters, allowing you to party with anyone
I like how SE did this for a couple of reasons. Obviously, the wait for a party isn't very long. Higher level characters can now go revisit old areas without having to start all the way over from scratch. Some players in my linkshell spent 99% of thier time partied with lower levels. And that brings me to my last reason, It gives High level players something to do other than endgame things. Running the same dungeon or two over and over gets boring. Being able to revisit numerous places again, while helping others, is a good way to break the old boring endgame that pretty much every game has (except DAoC, I can still play frontiers for hours on end, been playing since launch lol)
The only way to do this, as i see it, would be a level limitless game ( or with an absurly high level limit like 1000 or more ) where you can always become more powerful as you play, and that most of the amount of power is achieved when you reach a milestone level.. It would not allow you to fight ALOT higher level players but should slow down a big part of the community in their quest for power as to make sure the low level player has always their share of similar powered players to fight against.
To make an example.
From lv 1 to 49, you only gain 1 hp and 1 stat point per level.
At lv 50 you gain 2000 hp and 200 stat points.
Then from lv 51 to lv 99, you again receive 3 hp and 3 stat point.
At lv 100, you receive 7000 hp and 700 stat points
and so on.
Basically this would create a a community where big tiers of players can compete between each other "fairly" while still allowing the hardcore or veteran gamers, to look foward to a milestone where their power greatly increases and can difference themselves from the rest of the community.
Leveling should not be extremely hard or boring to do, perhaps requiring a fixed amount of exp to reach the next level.
(I.E: The dot hack series of rpgs, where every single lvl requires only 1000 exp, but you need to fight appropriately leveled mobs to gain any relevant exp point, so that it never gets either too slow or too fast to level up )
This would allow new players that can dedicate a big amount of time to the game and want to become part of the higher ones, to catch up or at least go close enough to compete within a not exessively long amount of time.
It would also give the veteran players power over the lower levels and feel like they are making a meaningful progression while still giving the newborn players a big part of the community to compete with.
Ofc this idea is kind of green and i am sure it could be tweaked in 1000 ways to please both factions of the community but you at least get the point on what i am trying to explain.
Because seriously, playing for 5 years only to unlock shirts, special mounts and other random non power related stuff like some of you proposed is not something that a big part of the community would enjoy doing.
And i doubt it will ever come a day where newbies will stand a chance vs 2 + yy veterans...
But the kind of idea i exposed would not leave a new player alone in big guy´s land.
My gripe with this idea is that it still has a huge power gap, it's just step-wise instead of continuous. So if I had a level 100 character, I could still never play with my level 20 friend.
I know that the idea of not being ridiculously more powerful than lower level people may seem radical to those who have only played post Everquest MMORPGs, but it really was the norm back in the day. I think if you tried it, you really wouldn't miss the power gap. It's really just an illusion anyway. Sure you can own noob monsters, but who wants to do that? There's no reward.
You wind up just fighting monsters your level all the time anyway so when you think about it, you're not getting much more powerful at all relative to your opponents. In fact, you normally get weaker (they make it more difficult as you level up).
There is a lot of talks about so called end games (the actual game play starts when a player is close to the cap) as well as numerous requests of a higher cap level that obviously increase the power gap. And what to do before reaching high levels? Level as fast as you can? I am not sure that this is very interesting. The process of leveling, learning new skills, testing new combinations of spells, hunting for new armor and weapons, as well as building your unique character is very interesting by itself. Unfortunately, realized in games leveling/progression solutions are often encouraging solo play. There are no in-game mechanics to find a suitable for a particular player group or guild. In game socialization expects not only pure functional relations (let’s kill this boss, do this group quest, alone you cannot succeed) but also some human ones (find players that understand you play style, responsible in their actions, they will not leave you in a difficult situation, just interesting for you individuals, etc.).
The general goal is to find technical (preprogrammed) solutions that without forcing could help players to find their place/function/role in a massive PvP battle or in a construction of common guild objects (e.g. strongholds, mines, farms), in the game at the end of a day in such a way that newcomers as well as veterans could be involved in common actions and have mutual profit from that. Often implemented PvP battles level brackets are doing quite the opposite, they are separating server community. Some guilds/subguilds have also such level brackets. I am not saying that this is an easy task (there could be also game engine limitations). But discussions/topics like this one can definitely lead us to better understanding of the problem. Collecting different opinions might allow us to find a common nominator. The idea to search for solutions in grouping options was proposed actually by you, Creslin321 (your “cooperative abilities” abilities is one of the possible and very promising approaches IMHO). I’ll be honest with you: I am a bit scared of your proposal to enhance skills system – there are so many redundant skills (sometimes even useless or “parasite”/waste of skill points) and overcomplicated skill trees in modern MMOs. I am thinking in the direction of “revising” skill and quest system. For instance “leadership” skills for veterans or veteran specific quest to organize and lead a raid of a group of lower level players: organize a group; train these newbies, elaborate tactics, depending on the results of a raid (minimal casualties, time to achieve goals, etc.) the leader-veteran will get special rewards or points (other group members receive their own rewards/loot). In this case he/she has to blame himself/herself and not to cry “I played with noobs!”. These players will be not “n00bs” for him any longer but HIS soldiers (like soldiers for an officer in RL). For leaving his group he should be punished, dishonored. So, the same quest/raid/dungeon can be performed at least twice: as a soldier and as a leader. I have serious problems with the chaos of massive battles: no formations, no tactics, no training, no generals. A veteran in a group/server/guild with the highest level (he/she can be elected or selected by some other mechanisms) should be vitally responsible for the outcome of a battle, but he should have a chance to prepare his troops, time to explain them their duties, train them, etc.
I understand that all what I am saying is somewhat off-topic and not directly related to the power gap problem. Being a “casual” (working) player I am suffering a lot from this gap (frustration of being a helpless canon meat for gankning/griefing vets), but I enjoy learning new stuff (spells, skills), having visual (new armor, weapons) progression. So, I do not like one or the other polarized solutions. There should be some sort of a clever compromise (obviously we cannot please everybody at once), yes, there should be some “sacrifices”. Anyhow, we have to think/work together in order to make games more interesting for us to play.
Just do what CoH/V does and make everyone in a party the same level. Doesn't matter if you were 50 or 2 when your fighting on your own. In a party everyone is the same level as whoever the leader sets it to.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The only way to do this, as i see it, would be a level limitless game ( or with an absurly high level limit like 1000 or more ) where you can always become more powerful as you play, and that most of the amount of power is achieved when you reach a milestone level.. It would not allow you to fight ALOT higher level players but should slow down a big part of the community in their quest for power as to make sure the low level player has always their share of similar powered players to fight against.
To make an example.
From lv 1 to 49, you only gain 1 hp and 1 stat point per level.
At lv 50 you gain 2000 hp and 200 stat points.
Then from lv 51 to lv 99, you again receive 3 hp and 3 stat point.
At lv 100, you receive 7000 hp and 700 stat points
and so on.
Basically this would create a a community where big tiers of players can compete between each other "fairly" while still allowing the hardcore or veteran gamers, to look foward to a milestone where their power greatly increases and can difference themselves from the rest of the community.
Leveling should not be extremely hard or boring to do, perhaps requiring a fixed amount of exp to reach the next level.
(I.E: The dot hack series of rpgs, where every single lvl requires only 1000 exp, but you need to fight appropriately leveled mobs to gain any relevant exp point, so that it never gets either too slow or too fast to level up )
This would allow new players that can dedicate a big amount of time to the game and want to become part of the higher ones, to catch up or at least go close enough to compete within a not exessively long amount of time.
It would also give the veteran players power over the lower levels and feel like they are making a meaningful progression while still giving the newborn players a big part of the community to compete with.
Ofc this idea is kind of green and i am sure it could be tweaked in 1000 ways to please both factions of the community but you at least get the point on what i am trying to explain.
Because seriously, playing for 5 years only to unlock shirts, special mounts and other random non power related stuff like some of you proposed is not something that a big part of the community would enjoy doing.
And i doubt it will ever come a day where newbies will stand a chance vs 2 + yy veterans...
But the kind of idea i exposed would not leave a new player alone in big guy´s land.
My gripe with this idea is that it still has a huge power gap, it's just step-wise instead of continuous. So if I had a level 100 character, I could still never play with my level 20 friend.
I know that the idea of not being ridiculously more powerful than lower level people may seem radical to those who have only played post Everquest MMORPGs, but it really was the norm back in the day. I think if you tried it, you really wouldn't miss the power gap. It's really just an illusion anyway. Sure you can own noob monsters, but who wants to do that? There's no reward.
You wind up just fighting monsters your level all the time anyway so when you think about it, you're not getting much more powerful at all relative to your opponents. In fact, you normally get weaker (they make it more difficult as you level up).
Yes, i already stated previously i am against the whole power gap reducing issue, i am simply offering an alternative where we can both keep the power gap AND offer the lower levels more players to play with and more fun than the current system.
Sort of a middle ground.
Besides :
I think the biggest issue is not pve related but pvp related.
I do not think anyone would disagree with low and high lever players being able to play the pve parts of the game together. My girlfriend is about to start playing WoW and i would love to be able to use my main characters to play and have fun with her while still allowing her to grow up at a normal rate and experience the game the way its meant to be played, yet i am gonna be forced to raise yet another alt cause the only thing i could do with my max level mains is rush her and this would bore her and make her become an unexperienced newbie with no skills, so i am forbidden from using the chars i enjoy using in order to be by her side.
However, in pvp it´s the real deal.
Players want to get stronger and feel like the time they spend building their character has a BIG impact in their pvp performance and they do not want ( or most of them do not ) for a newbie to kick their asses for any given reason.
There is already ways to combat high level griefers and such ways are i.e asking for help to higher, more experienced players.
To make an example, in WoW i belong to a guild called "The One" in the Thunderhorn EU server, such guild is mostly dedicated to helping lower level players and making of the community a better place for everyone.
Said kind of guilds would not blink or doubt before jumping ot the rescue of the griefed newbie and there´s at least one in pretty much every server out there.
Mmorpgs always been games where you spend a great deal of time earning your power and your asskicking rights and it will continue being so because this power struggle is part of its very essence.
As i said before, i and many milion players like me do not really feel seduced by the idea of playing a game for years just to unlock achievements, diff colored shirts and other non combat perks.
I will only be positive to the power gap reduced idea once games and computers are so powerful and big that allow for tons of meaningful non power related fun that makes me feel like my time is well spent and worth enjoying online without receiving more powerful x to kick everyone´s else´s butt.
As long as the only way to really difference a player from another is about being able to do more than your rival, i am totally against it because it would take away the main goal for milions of players.
There is a lot of talks about so called end games (the actual game play starts when a player is close to the cap) as well as numerous requests of a higher cap level that obviously increase the power gap. And what to do before reaching high levels? Level as fast as you can? I am not sure that this is very interesting. The process of leveling, learning new skills, testing new combinations of spells, hunting for new armor and weapons, as well as building your unique character is very interesting by itself. Unfortunately, realized in games leveling/progression solutions are often encouraging solo play.
I completely agree. It's achieving "stuff" that is fun, not walking down the level treadmill. If I were to gain 10 levels but no new skills/gear, I would feel no accomplishment. After all, I would just be fighting monsters 10 levels higher than me, so I would be in the same boat.
There really has to be a way for games to remove the level treadmill, but retain the achieving "stuff" factor that makes them so much fun.
There are no in-game mechanics to find a suitable for a particular player group or guild. In game socialization expects not only pure functional relations (let’s kill this boss, do this group quest, alone you cannot succeed) but also some human ones (find players that understand you play style, responsible in their actions, they will not leave you in a difficult situation, just interesting for you individuals, etc.).
I agree once again. To me, the most important part of an MMORPG is the interaction with other players. Yet many MMORPGs are designed with features (such as a power-gap) that directly detract from positive interaction with other players. In addition, as you say, there should really be a focus on providing features that make it easy to find a group and get involved with other players from day 1. Features like this are often added significantly after release...I think they are more important than that.
One thing I thought of to aid with this is the concept of "drop-in quests." This basically means that any player will be allowed to assist another player with a quest they are working on AT ANY TIME DURING THE QUEST and receive some kind of (non-exploitable) reward. The same principle would work with instances as well, where a player could "drop-in" to help another player with an instance in progress. This would allow games to retain quests, which I feel are now a staple of MMORPGs, but remove the problem current MMORPGs have where players can't productively group together because one is further along in a quest line.
I also thought that it would be cool if the game provided a service wherein higher level players could actually create quests for lower level players to fufill...but that's a discussion for another thread .
The general goal is to find technical (preprogrammed) solutions that without forcing could help players to find their place/function/role in a massive PvP battle or in a construction of common guild objects (e.g. strongholds, mines, farms), in the game at the end of a day in such a way that newcomers as well as veterans could be involved in common actions and have mutual profit from that. Often implemented PvP battles level brackets are doing quite the opposite, they are separating server community. Some guilds/subguilds have also such level brackets. I am not saying that this is an easy task (there could be also game engine limitations). But discussions/topics like this one can definitely lead us to better understanding of the problem. Collecting different opinions might allow us to find a common nominator. The idea to search for solutions in grouping options was proposed actually by you, Creslin321 (your “cooperative abilities” abilities is one of the possible and very promising approaches IMHO). I’ll be honest with you: I am a bit scared of your proposal to enhance skills system – there are so many redundant skills (sometimes even useless or “parasite”/waste of skill points) and overcomplicated skill trees in modern MMOs. I am thinking in the direction of “revising” skill and quest system. For instance “leadership” skills for veterans or veteran specific quest to organize and lead a raid of a group of lower level players: organize a group; train these newbies, elaborate tactics, depending on the results of a raid (minimal casualties, time to achieve goals, etc.) the leader-veteran will get special rewards or points (other group members receive their own rewards/loot). In this case he/she has to blame himself/herself and not to cry “I played with noobs!”. These players will be not “n00bs” for him any longer but HIS soldiers (like soldiers for an officer in RL). For leaving his group he should be punished, dishonored. So, the same quest/raid/dungeon can be performed at least twice: as a soldier and as a leader. I have serious problems with the chaos of massive battles: no formations, no tactics, no training, no generals. A veteran in a group/server/guild with the highest level (he/she can be elected or selected by some other mechanisms) should be vitally responsible for the outcome of a battle, but he should have a chance to prepare his troops, time to explain them their duties, train them, etc.
Okay wow, this is awesome. First, thanks for complementing my cooperative skills idea. Second, awesome idea about the "leadership skills." I think you and I are really on the same page because this seems along the same lines as the players offering quests to other players that I put in my above response...before reading this again . I think that we may want to make a thread on "How to make MMORPGs more social" or something where we can discuss all of these feature ideas that we have in more detail...reducing the power-gap is really just one idea in that general field.
I understand that all what I am saying is somewhat off-topic and not directly related to the power gap problem. Being a “casual” (working) player I am suffering a lot from this gap (frustration of being a helpless canon meat for gankning/griefing vets), but I enjoy learning new stuff (spells, skills), having visual (new armor, weapons) progression. So, I do not like one or the other polarized solutions. There should be some sort of a clever compromise (obviously we cannot please everybody at once), yes, there should be some “sacrifices”. Anyhow, we have to think/work together in order to make games more interesting for us to play.
Me too. I'm a previously hardcore player who grew up and now has to split his time up between game, work, relationships etc. And yes, I agree there has to be a good middle ground .
I completely agree. It's achieving "stuff" that is fun, not walking down the level treadmill. If I were to gain 10 levels but no new skills/gear, I would feel no accomplishment. After all, I would just be fighting monsters 10 levels higher than me, so I would be in the same boat.
There really has to be a way for games to remove the level treadmill, but retain the achieving "stuff" factor that makes them so much fun.
Stuff like that bugs me as well. What I envision is a system of 'tests/certificates' where you advance in progression after completing a specific test. These tests could start small as you gain skills/spells but then involve more complex tactics that are expected of your class. eg. the WoW level 60 hunter epic weapon quest chain required you to be very effective in kiting as a hunter and you could not beat it without that skillset.
The "power gap" is not the problem. It's the maturity gap.
The maturity gap is when someone logs on to a new game and expects their character to be as powerful as one that someone else has been improving on for 6 months to a year or more. Or else that they should be able to do in 3 days what took that guy six months.
Instead of settling in and improving their character the same way as that other guy did, the player with the maturity deficit demands the game be made easier and the whole playing field leveled so that the guy who has been playing for a year or more has nothing to show for it.
Now there are "buddy systems' and similar devices whereby players many levels apart can group together. That's fine. But suggesting that newbies should be on par with veterans of a game is just the latest iteration of "I don't want to play I just want everything handed to me now."
Great post; This is why the OPs argument really does not hold up...
I just don't understand people who do not want to play games the way I do...
Fixed.
That could apply to the OP's side of the debate as well, could it not?
Both sides, in their own way, are arguing for MMOs to be more in line with the way they want to play them.
Yes, but I understand both sides equally, even though I agree with the OP.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Whilst it may it may interfere with player interaction I think the sense of progression is a fair more important issue. Whilst mobs you fight might be tougher at various stages whilst playing a mmo you will end up travelling through a zone you may have once leveled, this makes it immediately obvious how much tougher a character has become. This creates a sense of progressio nand defiante goals for the player, wheras mmos such as Fury (an Australian pvp only mmo using more or less the system you described) failed miserablely and servers have since shut down. However the ability to play with all the servers population is definately something that should be looked more into, however I such a system such as FFXI's level sync ffeature is much better way of going about things then lack of increase in character power.
Sorry if I repeated anything.. skimmed over the contents of the thread but there is a lot of it..
Comments
The only way to do this, as i see it, would be a level limitless game ( or with an absurly high level limit like 1000 or more ) where you can always become more powerful as you play, and that most of the amount of power is achieved when you reach a milestone level.. It would not allow you to fight ALOT higher level players but should slow down a big part of the community in their quest for power as to make sure the low level player has always their share of similar powered players to fight against.
To make an example.
From lv 1 to 49, you only gain 1 hp and 1 stat point per level.
At lv 50 you gain 2000 hp and 200 stat points.
Then from lv 51 to lv 99, you again receive 3 hp and 3 stat point.
At lv 100, you receive 7000 hp and 700 stat points
and so on.
Basically this would create a a community where big tiers of players can compete between each other "fairly" while still allowing the hardcore or veteran gamers, to look foward to a milestone where their power greatly increases and can difference themselves from the rest of the community.
Leveling should not be extremely hard or boring to do, perhaps requiring a fixed amount of exp to reach the next level.
(I.E: The dot hack series of rpgs, where every single lvl requires only 1000 exp, but you need to fight appropriately leveled mobs to gain any relevant exp point, so that it never gets either too slow or too fast to level up )
This would allow new players that can dedicate a big amount of time to the game and want to become part of the higher ones, to catch up or at least go close enough to compete within a not exessively long amount of time.
It would also give the veteran players power over the lower levels and feel like they are making a meaningful progression while still giving the newborn players a big part of the community to compete with.
Ofc this idea is kind of green and i am sure it could be tweaked in 1000 ways to please both factions of the community but you at least get the point on what i am trying to explain.
Because seriously, playing for 5 years only to unlock shirts, special mounts and other random non power related stuff like some of you proposed is not something that a big part of the community would enjoy doing.
And i doubt it will ever come a day where newbies will stand a chance vs 2 + yy veterans...
But the kind of idea i exposed would not leave a new player alone in big guy´s land.
Rawr.
By the way, nogardnaz is my other account.
(I once lost the password to this one and created that one since I couldn't login)
_________________________________
"Fixed it. Because that wall of text attacked me, killed me and looted my body..."
-George "sniperg" Light
In FFXI (and FFIV I hope), the higher level characters can change thier level to match the lower level characters, allowing you to party with anyone
I like how SE did this for a couple of reasons. Obviously, the wait for a party isn't very long. Higher level characters can now go revisit old areas without having to start all the way over from scratch. Some players in my linkshell spent 99% of thier time partied with lower levels. And that brings me to my last reason, It gives High level players something to do other than endgame things. Running the same dungeon or two over and over gets boring. Being able to revisit numerous places again, while helping others, is a good way to break the old boring endgame that pretty much every game has (except DAoC, I can still play frontiers for hours on end, been playing since launch lol)
My gripe with this idea is that it still has a huge power gap, it's just step-wise instead of continuous. So if I had a level 100 character, I could still never play with my level 20 friend.
I know that the idea of not being ridiculously more powerful than lower level people may seem radical to those who have only played post Everquest MMORPGs, but it really was the norm back in the day. I think if you tried it, you really wouldn't miss the power gap. It's really just an illusion anyway. Sure you can own noob monsters, but who wants to do that? There's no reward.
You wind up just fighting monsters your level all the time anyway so when you think about it, you're not getting much more powerful at all relative to your opponents. In fact, you normally get weaker (they make it more difficult as you level up).
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
There is a lot of talks about so called end games (the actual game play starts when a player is close to the cap) as well as numerous requests of a higher cap level that obviously increase the power gap. And what to do before reaching high levels? Level as fast as you can? I am not sure that this is very interesting. The process of leveling, learning new skills, testing new combinations of spells, hunting for new armor and weapons, as well as building your unique character is very interesting by itself. Unfortunately, realized in games leveling/progression solutions are often encouraging solo play. There are no in-game mechanics to find a suitable for a particular player group or guild. In game socialization expects not only pure functional relations (let’s kill this boss, do this group quest, alone you cannot succeed) but also some human ones (find players that understand you play style, responsible in their actions, they will not leave you in a difficult situation, just interesting for you individuals, etc.).
The general goal is to find technical (preprogrammed) solutions that without forcing could help players to find their place/function/role in a massive PvP battle or in a construction of common guild objects (e.g. strongholds, mines, farms), in the game at the end of a day in such a way that newcomers as well as veterans could be involved in common actions and have mutual profit from that. Often implemented PvP battles level brackets are doing quite the opposite, they are separating server community. Some guilds/subguilds have also such level brackets. I am not saying that this is an easy task (there could be also game engine limitations). But discussions/topics like this one can definitely lead us to better understanding of the problem. Collecting different opinions might allow us to find a common nominator. The idea to search for solutions in grouping options was proposed actually by you, Creslin321 (your “cooperative abilities” abilities is one of the possible and very promising approaches IMHO). I’ll be honest with you: I am a bit scared of your proposal to enhance skills system – there are so many redundant skills (sometimes even useless or “parasite”/waste of skill points) and overcomplicated skill trees in modern MMOs. I am thinking in the direction of “revising” skill and quest system. For instance “leadership” skills for veterans or veteran specific quest to organize and lead a raid of a group of lower level players: organize a group; train these newbies, elaborate tactics, depending on the results of a raid (minimal casualties, time to achieve goals, etc.) the leader-veteran will get special rewards or points (other group members receive their own rewards/loot). In this case he/she has to blame himself/herself and not to cry “I played with noobs!”. These players will be not “n00bs” for him any longer but HIS soldiers (like soldiers for an officer in RL). For leaving his group he should be punished, dishonored. So, the same quest/raid/dungeon can be performed at least twice: as a soldier and as a leader. I have serious problems with the chaos of massive battles: no formations, no tactics, no training, no generals. A veteran in a group/server/guild with the highest level (he/she can be elected or selected by some other mechanisms) should be vitally responsible for the outcome of a battle, but he should have a chance to prepare his troops, time to explain them their duties, train them, etc.
I understand that all what I am saying is somewhat off-topic and not directly related to the power gap problem. Being a “casual” (working) player I am suffering a lot from this gap (frustration of being a helpless canon meat for gankning/griefing vets), but I enjoy learning new stuff (spells, skills), having visual (new armor, weapons) progression. So, I do not like one or the other polarized solutions. There should be some sort of a clever compromise (obviously we cannot please everybody at once), yes, there should be some “sacrifices”. Anyhow, we have to think/work together in order to make games more interesting for us to play.
Just do what CoH/V does and make everyone in a party the same level. Doesn't matter if you were 50 or 2 when your fighting on your own. In a party everyone is the same level as whoever the leader sets it to.
Venge Sunsoar
Yes, i already stated previously i am against the whole power gap reducing issue, i am simply offering an alternative where we can both keep the power gap AND offer the lower levels more players to play with and more fun than the current system.
Sort of a middle ground.
Besides :
I think the biggest issue is not pve related but pvp related.
I do not think anyone would disagree with low and high lever players being able to play the pve parts of the game together. My girlfriend is about to start playing WoW and i would love to be able to use my main characters to play and have fun with her while still allowing her to grow up at a normal rate and experience the game the way its meant to be played, yet i am gonna be forced to raise yet another alt cause the only thing i could do with my max level mains is rush her and this would bore her and make her become an unexperienced newbie with no skills, so i am forbidden from using the chars i enjoy using in order to be by her side.
However, in pvp it´s the real deal.
Players want to get stronger and feel like the time they spend building their character has a BIG impact in their pvp performance and they do not want ( or most of them do not ) for a newbie to kick their asses for any given reason.
There is already ways to combat high level griefers and such ways are i.e asking for help to higher, more experienced players.
To make an example, in WoW i belong to a guild called "The One" in the Thunderhorn EU server, such guild is mostly dedicated to helping lower level players and making of the community a better place for everyone.
Said kind of guilds would not blink or doubt before jumping ot the rescue of the griefed newbie and there´s at least one in pretty much every server out there.
Mmorpgs always been games where you spend a great deal of time earning your power and your asskicking rights and it will continue being so because this power struggle is part of its very essence.
As i said before, i and many milion players like me do not really feel seduced by the idea of playing a game for years just to unlock achievements, diff colored shirts and other non combat perks.
I will only be positive to the power gap reduced idea once games and computers are so powerful and big that allow for tons of meaningful non power related fun that makes me feel like my time is well spent and worth enjoying online without receiving more powerful x to kick everyone´s else´s butt.
As long as the only way to really difference a player from another is about being able to do more than your rival, i am totally against it because it would take away the main goal for milions of players.
Rawr.
Please see my responses in your quote above.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Stuff like that bugs me as well. What I envision is a system of 'tests/certificates' where you advance in progression after completing a specific test. These tests could start small as you gain skills/spells but then involve more complex tactics that are expected of your class. eg. the WoW level 60 hunter epic weapon quest chain required you to be very effective in kiting as a hunter and you could not beat it without that skillset.
Yes, but I understand both sides equally, even though I agree with the OP.
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Whilst it may it may interfere with player interaction I think the sense of progression is a fair more important issue. Whilst mobs you fight might be tougher at various stages whilst playing a mmo you will end up travelling through a zone you may have once leveled, this makes it immediately obvious how much tougher a character has become. This creates a sense of progressio nand defiante goals for the player, wheras mmos such as Fury (an Australian pvp only mmo using more or less the system you described) failed miserablely and servers have since shut down. However the ability to play with all the servers population is definately something that should be looked more into, however I such a system such as FFXI's level sync ffeature is much better way of going about things then lack of increase in character power.
Sorry if I repeated anything.. skimmed over the contents of the thread but there is a lot of it..