I've never understood leveling (or difficulty) curves. I think that what's fun at the beginning of a game tends to be equally fun towards the end. What's appropriately difficult (or tedious) at the beginning stays appropriate until the end. So why do so many games start out ridiculously fast and easy, and then ramp up to excessively difficult and/or time consuming?
Getting rid of the curve makes perfect sense to me. If you want to slow down leveling, you can make it slower, just make it equally slow at all levels.
(note: when I refer to difficulty, I'm mostly referring to action games, like shooters. Not talking about the sort of difficulty in MMOs that you overcome as you learn your class. In a shooter, generally, you've either got good aim and reflexes, or you don't, and it doesn't change that much from beginning to end. I only mention it, because it seems to be based on a similar core principle of how games are supposed to work.)
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Actually this levelling curve they present there for other MMOs, isn't enitrely true. On most MMOs the next level needs more XP but monsters/quests give more XP too, so the time you need to spent remains almost the same.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
Actually this levelling curve they present there for other MMOs, isn't enitrely true. On most MMOs the next level needs more XP but monsters/quests give more XP too, so the time you need to spent remains almost the same.
Not true at all. Very very few games do that properly, and its neve rmade sense to me. It's true mobs/quests increase in XP given, but while they might for example double the amount of xp given, they will require you to gain 5x as much xp to reach the next level, making it take even longer. As many have stated, generally the progression from say level 1-10 is nowhere near the same rate as the last 10 levels. They amount of time to grind out each level continually increases in most games, even when you keep up with only doing stuff like killing the highest possible level mobs you can get xp from.
I really like this idea of static progression that they are discussing. It allows you to set a steady pace and know that each level will take about the same amount of time to reach and you can get a general idea of when you can expect to reach level cap and access certain content, etc. getting to higher level will not = you have to start grinding repetetive content over and over no matter how bored you are of it for weeks simply so they have this required lengthy timesink to keep you paying next months sub in hopes of getting high enough to access that next set of equipment, or that next dungeon, or whatever.
Actually this levelling curve they present there for other MMOs, isn't enitrely true. On most MMOs the next level needs more XP but monsters/quests give more XP too, so the time you need to spent remains almost the same.
I think the chart is pretty accurate. I've been waiting for a MMO to show up with the whole '1000 xp' per level design. Worked in a lot of single player RPGs I've played. Nothing really surprised you. Discover something cool 2 to 7 xp. Kill a mob, 5 to 15. Finish a quest 25 to 50 maybe even 100. Bosses and what not a lil' more or less. Such a design can make crafting the experience streamlined. In particular when the goal is to simply get to the top to kill other players anyway.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
All of this makes sense to me. And knowing Arenanet, they'll make it work.
Regardless of anything announced from this point until launch, I will be buying this game. If it's just a graphics update of GW1 with build restrictions and no second profession (which it's not), I will be buying this game. Simply put, I trust the franchise and developers enough to make a one-time payment of $60 for indefinite access to the game.
I think the chart is pretty accurate. I've been waiting for a MMO to show up with the whole '1000 xp' per level design. Worked in a lot of single player RPGs I've played. Nothing really surprised you. Discover something cool 2 to 7 xp. Kill a mob, 5 to 15. Finish a quest 25 to 50 maybe even 100. Bosses and what not a lil' more or less. Such a design can make crafting the experience streamlined. In particular when the goal is to simply get to the top to kill other players anyway.
I agree, it sets the mind to work, how it will be done and sounds promising.
I hope several things are resolved by it eg: Reducing Grind the higher up your level is; allowing lots of different types of content to yield xp ie variety not quantity or exclusivity of xp drops; reducing the sharp division between level tiers; more freedom to level up generally and a wide range of levels all able to contribute in WvWvW.
Guild Wars 2 only continues to impress. I'm glad I won't be spending my time mindlessly making an experience bar move - something that everyone else in the game can do pretty easily, making it a chore more than an achievement.
Im of the impression that the only reason Anet is bothering with adding lvl's to this game is because only going up to lvl 20 was such an issue to a lot of potential players that they feel they missed out on. It still amazes me that people didnt take a moment to notice that once you hit lvl 20 in GW, you still continue gaining xp and continue to ding when the xp bar hits the end leaving you with yet another skill point to use to gain another new skill. You still "level up" every 20k xp or so. but since it didnt actually make the number over your name ever hit 21 in the process they werent satisfied. Hell by lvl 20 you only had 15% of your available skills possible. You still had to "lvl up" a great deal beyond that point to continue to obtain skills. Of course given the sheer amount of content available to xp from in GW, and the fact that you likely were maybe 50-15%(depending on campaign) of the way through the storyline by the time you hit 20 still left you with lots to enjoy without any repetitive grinding or repeating of content.
It just seems like there may be a good chance that lvl's will still be similar to the same feel as GW1 in GW2 with the exception that they will let the number over your head continue to count up to 80 so the grind adicts dont hit a low number again and claim that since they hit max lvl, the game must be over and go looking for gear grinds instead of content. You know "content". That thing that almost every mmo player complains about a game not having and call it grindy when it doesnt have enough. Then when a game focuses on content, they complain there isnt enough grind. Then they sit around and complain and moan about how no one makes a game they like and how developers never listen to them.
I love all these people that try GW and complain about lack of endgame. Yeah its only 80-90% of the game (not counting Hard Mode). If it was any more based on endgame, they wouldnt even have lvl's.
I've played very many MMO's for about 12 or more years and I have to agree that Leveling the second, third, fourth time is a pain after getting one of your characters up there. So I pretty much like the way they are headed with GW 2. I would rather see content and story line then grind grind grind to get more of a story. Most of the MMO's out right now are mostly grindfests to keep players subscribed to LEECH off the players.
The level cap was so low on guildwars 1 was because they didn't want it to be a lvl based game specially for PVP. The game was very very very competitive and they wanted everyone to play against one another based on SKILL of the player not how high the characters level is. Most pvp based mmo's when it comes to pvp usually the higher levels have the greatest advantage over lower players especially if a player had just bought the game and wish to compete but it'll take some time to catch up just to compete with the other players that have had the game longer.
The thing that most people complained about with gw1 and why they left was because of the nerfs. People don't like change, Perhaps a majority of people don't know how to adapt to changes and so forth. Also it was the instancing for me. I hated not being able to run around in a giant world seeing others run by or probibly saving someone along the way that you happen to pass that have around 10 mobs attacking him/her or maybe even being pked by another player or hell you could even decide to pk that person. I think that would be alot of fun and thats where alot of the fun is at for me at least for mmos. It gets lonely specially when you play the game alot by yourself because no one is around where your at or no one is doing that certain mission.
I'm excited about the game i wish it was out already i've been waiting for awhile since eye of the north for it to come out lol. I trust the developers and I know they are going to astonish gamers with their crazy ideas and their work.
The only way you can actually understand this idea is if you actually played the game, for those who are giving up on GW2 merely because of the level cap, I'd say that's a silly reason to give up on it. With all the things they are putting into the game, I'd like to believe you'd hit lvl 80 before you even knew what happened. If I were you I'd wait for feedback on what's what when the game comes out.
Im of the impression that the only reason Anet is bothering with adding lvl's to this game is because only going up to lvl 20 was such an issue to a lot of potential players that they feel they missed out on.
...
[End-game] Yeah its only 80-90% of the game (not counting Hard Mode). If it was any more based on endgame, they wouldnt even have lvl's.
- LA : In the first GW character progression was very fast if one were to compare it to a classic MMO. However, as the maximum level in GW is not an end in itself, this was not a problem. How will character progression in GW2 be concretely implemented? Will it be via a conventional system of levels and experience, or did you find something more innovative?
Eric Flannum: Much like the first game, Guild Wars 2 will feature a system of levels and experience. Although early in the development process we played around with some alternate ideas, we felt that experience points and levels were the way to go. Given all of the other areas in which we are taking players out of their “MMO comfort zone,” we thought it best to go with something that was familiar and easy to understand. Even with the standard experience and levels system, progression in Guild Wars 2 is still much faster than other MMOs, even though we’ve raised the level cap substantially. We still don’t regard reaching maximum level as the end of the game, and we’ll be providing players with a lot of things to do once they hit the level cap.
People like leveling, so knowing that level 1-2 is going to be just as long as 79-80 means that yet again, leveling in guildwars means nothing, its not going to feel like an acheivment.
lol /played
They've got us in a cage Ruined of grace and senses And the heart roars like a lion At what they've done to us "Bukowski"
Well, when you take out the subscription based model out of the equation, this makes sense. No single player games cares if you finish the game in a day or 3 months. You bought the box, end of sale.
Keeping the interest in the game so future expansions can be sold will be the key
Yea I'd say your spot on there. I'm really interested in experiencing their leveling scheme and can't wait to see how it impacts my game play.
actually, this type of non lvl based system works. its known to most people as FPS style. in most fps there is no real achievement except in pure kill number and better weapons. true better lvl better weapon but lvling in fps's is sort of common place with prestiges and what not so thats not what the focus is on. the focus goes back to skill and content.
this will be seen in guild wars 2 with new skills that have to be hunted out and new skill trees made. it makes it more like an fps where skill and precison are involved and less based on this player has no life and plays 22 hours a day against the casual players.
I guess I'm too old-fashioned from my Pen and Paper D&D days, where gaining a level was huge and exciting. In thiose days, the next level would take weeks or months. Leveling was pretty much the point back then, and it was exciting. This "rush to end" game is not my bag. That's why I quit WoW with a bunch of 80s. End-game was "work".
I think there are just camps of people want "end-game" right away, and then there are people that like to play RPGs with other people. It appears that GW2 is going for the instant-end-game crowd. Those, those are not my kind of people. So it stands to reason that GW2 is not going to be my kind of game. Crap. It was atop my list. I thought it was going to be the game I was looking for.
Guess I'll be hopping on the LotRO F2P when it comes along instead.
I grew up playing Role playing games as well (AD&D, Shadowrun, Paladium Games, Vampire etc) and in no way in any of those games did leveling seem amazing or fun.
The content and the playing the adventures, getting loot and enjoying what your imagination was producing was what they were about.
Leveling was just some 'by product" of playing and advancing while having fun so we could enjoy more content as we progressed through adventures.
One thing Arenanet is amazingly good at is making a game that doesn't follow the "generic" junk that everyone else seems to make before and after WoW came into being.
I grew up playing Role playing games as well (AD&D, Shadowrun, Paladium Games, Vampire etc) and in no way in any of those games did leveling seem amazing or fun.
The content and the playing the adventures, getting loot and enjoying what your imagination was producing was what they were about.
Leveling was just some 'by product" of playing and advancing while having fun so we could enjoy more content as we progressed through adventures.
One thing Arenanet is amazingly good at is making a game that doesn't follow the "generic" junk that everyone else seems to make before and after WoW came into being.
Edit sorry for the double post no idea what happened
Leveling in GW1 was at first exiting and I have to admit then when I hit 20 there was a letdown...untill I realized that this is where the 'real' game starts.
Being max (20) was not even close to the power a player would have if they spent a little time to see what would make them stronger. Eq differences for different situations, gaining skills..gotta have Elites! Ahhh, and skill! It counted!!!
In GW1 a team of new 20s wouldn't stand a chance of a snowball in hell agains 20s who had gone on to gain skills and at least 4 weapon sets for different opponents. Not an overnight task!
Btw, the time to reach 80 is ( according to the dev team about 160 hours plus. I plan to take longer and savor all I can on the way!.
I agree that leveling is not an achievment..it is little more than time invested. My pref is to be able to go where I choose, knowing I am ready.
Comments
I've never understood leveling (or difficulty) curves. I think that what's fun at the beginning of a game tends to be equally fun towards the end. What's appropriately difficult (or tedious) at the beginning stays appropriate until the end. So why do so many games start out ridiculously fast and easy, and then ramp up to excessively difficult and/or time consuming?
Getting rid of the curve makes perfect sense to me. If you want to slow down leveling, you can make it slower, just make it equally slow at all levels.
(note: when I refer to difficulty, I'm mostly referring to action games, like shooters. Not talking about the sort of difficulty in MMOs that you overcome as you learn your class. In a shooter, generally, you've either got good aim and reflexes, or you don't, and it doesn't change that much from beginning to end. I only mention it, because it seems to be based on a similar core principle of how games are supposed to work.)
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Actually this levelling curve they present there for other MMOs, isn't enitrely true. On most MMOs the next level needs more XP but monsters/quests give more XP too, so the time you need to spent remains almost the same.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
Not true at all. Very very few games do that properly, and its neve rmade sense to me. It's true mobs/quests increase in XP given, but while they might for example double the amount of xp given, they will require you to gain 5x as much xp to reach the next level, making it take even longer. As many have stated, generally the progression from say level 1-10 is nowhere near the same rate as the last 10 levels. They amount of time to grind out each level continually increases in most games, even when you keep up with only doing stuff like killing the highest possible level mobs you can get xp from.
I really like this idea of static progression that they are discussing. It allows you to set a steady pace and know that each level will take about the same amount of time to reach and you can get a general idea of when you can expect to reach level cap and access certain content, etc. getting to higher level will not = you have to start grinding repetetive content over and over no matter how bored you are of it for weeks simply so they have this required lengthy timesink to keep you paying next months sub in hopes of getting high enough to access that next set of equipment, or that next dungeon, or whatever.
Have you ever played Aion?
Steam: Neph
I think the chart is pretty accurate. I've been waiting for a MMO to show up with the whole '1000 xp' per level design. Worked in a lot of single player RPGs I've played. Nothing really surprised you. Discover something cool 2 to 7 xp. Kill a mob, 5 to 15. Finish a quest 25 to 50 maybe even 100. Bosses and what not a lil' more or less. Such a design can make crafting the experience streamlined. In particular when the goal is to simply get to the top to kill other players anyway.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
All of this makes sense to me. And knowing Arenanet, they'll make it work.
Regardless of anything announced from this point until launch, I will be buying this game. If it's just a graphics update of GW1 with build restrictions and no second profession (which it's not), I will be buying this game. Simply put, I trust the franchise and developers enough to make a one-time payment of $60 for indefinite access to the game.
The art will be quality, at any rate.
I agree, it sets the mind to work, how it will be done and sounds promising.
I hope several things are resolved by it eg: Reducing Grind the higher up your level is; allowing lots of different types of content to yield xp ie variety not quantity or exclusivity of xp drops; reducing the sharp division between level tiers; more freedom to level up generally and a wide range of levels all able to contribute in WvWvW.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Guild Wars 2 only continues to impress. I'm glad I won't be spending my time mindlessly making an experience bar move - something that everyone else in the game can do pretty easily, making it a chore more than an achievement.
Im of the impression that the only reason Anet is bothering with adding lvl's to this game is because only going up to lvl 20 was such an issue to a lot of potential players that they feel they missed out on. It still amazes me that people didnt take a moment to notice that once you hit lvl 20 in GW, you still continue gaining xp and continue to ding when the xp bar hits the end leaving you with yet another skill point to use to gain another new skill. You still "level up" every 20k xp or so. but since it didnt actually make the number over your name ever hit 21 in the process they werent satisfied. Hell by lvl 20 you only had 15% of your available skills possible. You still had to "lvl up" a great deal beyond that point to continue to obtain skills. Of course given the sheer amount of content available to xp from in GW, and the fact that you likely were maybe 50-15%(depending on campaign) of the way through the storyline by the time you hit 20 still left you with lots to enjoy without any repetitive grinding or repeating of content.
It just seems like there may be a good chance that lvl's will still be similar to the same feel as GW1 in GW2 with the exception that they will let the number over your head continue to count up to 80 so the grind adicts dont hit a low number again and claim that since they hit max lvl, the game must be over and go looking for gear grinds instead of content. You know "content". That thing that almost every mmo player complains about a game not having and call it grindy when it doesnt have enough. Then when a game focuses on content, they complain there isnt enough grind. Then they sit around and complain and moan about how no one makes a game they like and how developers never listen to them.
I love all these people that try GW and complain about lack of endgame. Yeah its only 80-90% of the game (not counting Hard Mode). If it was any more based on endgame, they wouldnt even have lvl's.
I've played very many MMO's for about 12 or more years and I have to agree that Leveling the second, third, fourth time is a pain after getting one of your characters up there. So I pretty much like the way they are headed with GW 2. I would rather see content and story line then grind grind grind to get more of a story. Most of the MMO's out right now are mostly grindfests to keep players subscribed to LEECH off the players.
The level cap was so low on guildwars 1 was because they didn't want it to be a lvl based game specially for PVP. The game was very very very competitive and they wanted everyone to play against one another based on SKILL of the player not how high the characters level is. Most pvp based mmo's when it comes to pvp usually the higher levels have the greatest advantage over lower players especially if a player had just bought the game and wish to compete but it'll take some time to catch up just to compete with the other players that have had the game longer.
The thing that most people complained about with gw1 and why they left was because of the nerfs. People don't like change, Perhaps a majority of people don't know how to adapt to changes and so forth. Also it was the instancing for me. I hated not being able to run around in a giant world seeing others run by or probibly saving someone along the way that you happen to pass that have around 10 mobs attacking him/her or maybe even being pked by another player or hell you could even decide to pk that person. I think that would be alot of fun and thats where alot of the fun is at for me at least for mmos. It gets lonely specially when you play the game alot by yourself because no one is around where your at or no one is doing that certain mission.
I'm excited about the game i wish it was out already i've been waiting for awhile since eye of the north for it to come out lol. I trust the developers and I know they are going to astonish gamers with their crazy ideas and their work.
The only way you can actually understand this idea is if you actually played the game, for those who are giving up on GW2 merely because of the level cap, I'd say that's a silly reason to give up on it. With all the things they are putting into the game, I'd like to believe you'd hit lvl 80 before you even knew what happened. If I were you I'd wait for feedback on what's what when the game comes out.
This is not a game.
I think you might be on the money:
Progress:
- LA : In the first GW character progression was very fast if one were to compare it to a classic MMO. However, as the maximum level in GW is not an end in itself, this was not a problem. How will character progression in GW2 be concretely implemented? Will it be via a conventional system of levels and experience, or did you find something more innovative?
Eric Flannum: Much like the first game, Guild Wars 2 will feature a system of levels and experience. Although early in the development process we played around with some alternate ideas, we felt that experience points and levels were the way to go. Given all of the other areas in which we are taking players out of their “MMO comfort zone,” we thought it best to go with something that was familiar and easy to understand. Even with the standard experience and levels system, progression in Guild Wars 2 is still much faster than other MMOs, even though we’ve raised the level cap substantially. We still don’t regard reaching maximum level as the end of the game, and we’ll be providing players with a lot of things to do once they hit the level cap.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
lol /played
They've got us in a cage Ruined of grace and senses And the heart roars like a lion
At what they've done to us
"Bukowski"
I'm geeked.
Therefore I am.
That's all I need to know that I'll have my paws on a copy of Guild Wars 2.
Yea I'd say your spot on there. I'm really interested in experiencing their leveling scheme and can't wait to see how it impacts my game play.
level 1 - 2 in wow takes about 20 seconds.
level 79-80 in wow takes about 6 hours+.
Chart is right.
Please do not hype any gam.. oh wait, nevermind... forgot what forum I was on.
Finally a game that focuses on other things that leveling...
Crafting is going to be so much fun!
Please do not hype any gam.. oh wait, nevermind... forgot what forum I was on.
actually, this type of non lvl based system works. its known to most people as FPS style. in most fps there is no real achievement except in pure kill number and better weapons. true better lvl better weapon but lvling in fps's is sort of common place with prestiges and what not so thats not what the focus is on. the focus goes back to skill and content.
this will be seen in guild wars 2 with new skills that have to be hunted out and new skill trees made. it makes it more like an fps where skill and precison are involved and less based on this player has no life and plays 22 hours a day against the casual players.
I grew up playing Role playing games as well (AD&D, Shadowrun, Paladium Games, Vampire etc) and in no way in any of those games did leveling seem amazing or fun.
The content and the playing the adventures, getting loot and enjoying what your imagination was producing was what they were about.
Leveling was just some 'by product" of playing and advancing while having fun so we could enjoy more content as we progressed through adventures.
One thing Arenanet is amazingly good at is making a game that doesn't follow the "generic" junk that everyone else seems to make before and after WoW came into being.
I grew up playing Role playing games as well (AD&D, Shadowrun, Paladium Games, Vampire etc) and in no way in any of those games did leveling seem amazing or fun.
The content and the playing the adventures, getting loot and enjoying what your imagination was producing was what they were about.
Leveling was just some 'by product" of playing and advancing while having fun so we could enjoy more content as we progressed through adventures.
One thing Arenanet is amazingly good at is making a game that doesn't follow the "generic" junk that everyone else seems to make before and after WoW came into being.
Edit sorry for the double post no idea what happened
Leveling in GW1 was at first exiting and I have to admit then when I hit 20 there was a letdown...untill I realized that this is where the 'real' game starts.
Being max (20) was not even close to the power a player would have if they spent a little time to see what would make them stronger. Eq differences for different situations, gaining skills..gotta have Elites! Ahhh, and skill! It counted!!!
In GW1 a team of new 20s wouldn't stand a chance of a snowball in hell agains 20s who had gone on to gain skills and at least 4 weapon sets for different opponents. Not an overnight task!
Btw, the time to reach 80 is ( according to the dev team about 160 hours plus. I plan to take longer and savor all I can on the way!.
I agree that leveling is not an achievment..it is little more than time invested. My pref is to be able to go where I choose, knowing I am ready.
Sweet! another Gary Gygax ism gotten rid of !! I am so sick of the D&D Legacy finding its way into every game.
maple story anyone? lvl 199 -> 200 is only a little over 2 billion XP...
Now what would be killer is if level 1 ---> 2 is also a little over 2 billion XP
;-P