Instead of level cap and max level per day cap, make a game with no level cap. My idea is to seperate class rank/level from skill rank/level. Make class rank/level slow by making fewer and more meaningful quests.
Roses are red Violets are blue The reviewer has a mishapen head Which means his opinion is skewed ...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
I feel the "ease of leveling" complaints we see from players over the years isn't the core issue. I would say that the ease of leveling is a misnomer and mostly comes down to boring leveling. People attribute boring to easy, sometimes because it is and most often because the leveling process is just to get to the other half of the game.
Vanilla WoW leveling was easy, and it took a decent amount of time. However, you also had the option to do elite quests which were more involved (aka needed a group), rewarded better and provided a nice breakup to the boring leveling portions. It was also the players choice whether or not to do those elite quests.
GW2 with the downscaling mechanic could have a wonderful PvE leveling experience if the actual events that were in the game weren't super repetitive and/or rare. I could easily walk through a zone and not see many events going on while other times I am scrambling to catch events in time because there are so many going on. Once you reach Orr and Silverwastes there's a ton going on. Again it's repetitive, but it's also very rewarding if you're looking for farm gold and/or crafting materials. More of the lower level zones in GW2 need to operate like Orr and Silverwastes, tons of events going on and more dangerous foes...either through mechanics or sheer numbers (Orr is pretty good at swarming you).
First we need more involved leveling. It's okay to challenge players from the get go. Allow them to be able to take on more as they level, but always have an innate risk of failure right around the corner. Asheron's Call is a good example of that. Weaker and less geared players usually hunted near lifestones or near entrances to dungeons. The more powerful your character became and the more skillful the player became the more you were able to take on. I remember sitting in a corner for hours with dozens of Olthoi all over me. Repetitive sure, but it was fun too.
Secondly, give players more options for leveling. If people want to quest, have quests. If people want to sit and grind, make that equally rewarding. If people want to group up for leveling, allow them to do that and provide areas where that can be done. The more leveling options available, the more people will be willing to try new things. Additionally, find ways to make lower level zones usable once you're out of that level zone. Low level zones being ghost towns is never good for anyone.
Anyone else remember how leveling worked in ffxi when it came to crafters/gatherer's? There was 100 levels each consisting of 0.1-1.0 to gain one lvl. As you craft or gathers you would ocationally get a .1 or .2 skill up.
I remember at one time I did nothing but fish for like 2/3 months to level it from 25-100 ( if I remember right) Every day I fished I got a total of like around .4 - .6 skill up's. That was less then a level some days.
Crafting was the same way if you were lke 4 levels lower than the reciepie you were doing there would be a better change of getting a skill up, as you got closer to the level though I think it got rarer. Also the success rate wasn't 100% either. Peaple spent a TON of money to skill up crafts in ffxi.
They even tied crafting to the days of the week plus weather. Like if you used fire crystals on firesday it would have a better chance of succeeding. If you crafting on Darksday would get better skill ups, but the success rate would go down. On lightsday you had a better chance to HQ.
Wish they would bring back systems like that, to bad ffxiv is nothing like that.
Eidit: the skill ups didn't just pertain to that it also worked like that with all your skills, mind int, dex, ect.... even weapons skilled up seperatly and gave you new limit breaks once you reached a certain skill level.
Plus skill level wasn't tied to your characters level either at all.
So lets say you leveld to 30 using a sword, but now you wanna use a dagger instead, well if you never used a dagger before it would still be at 0 skill so you wouldn't be able to hit anything your current level until you went back and skilled up that dagger on lower lvl stuff. That is what created skill up parties in ffxi. If you level'd to fast your skills would get behind.
I really liked the way ffxi progression system worked the best.
Any subscription based game with a cap to your advancement per day is essentially a pay to win game. Also, it would give a whole new meaning to "dailies".
Difficulty is not tied to leveling speed. Players would have nothing to gain from such restrictions.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
If someone wants to craft pointy sticks all day, let them do it.
If someone wants to kill bumblebees all day, let them do it.
If someone wants to explore and do nothing all day, let them faffin' do it
The biggest mistake you can make is tell people how to play your game. It's the most fundamental lesson every game designer has to learn. Let the players play the game how they want to play it.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling." - Michael Bitton Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about." - SEANMCAD
Comments
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
I feel the "ease of leveling" complaints we see from players over the years isn't the core issue. I would say that the ease of leveling is a misnomer and mostly comes down to boring leveling. People attribute boring to easy, sometimes because it is and most often because the leveling process is just to get to the other half of the game.
Vanilla WoW leveling was easy, and it took a decent amount of time. However, you also had the option to do elite quests which were more involved (aka needed a group), rewarded better and provided a nice breakup to the boring leveling portions. It was also the players choice whether or not to do those elite quests.
GW2 with the downscaling mechanic could have a wonderful PvE leveling experience if the actual events that were in the game weren't super repetitive and/or rare. I could easily walk through a zone and not see many events going on while other times I am scrambling to catch events in time because there are so many going on. Once you reach Orr and Silverwastes there's a ton going on. Again it's repetitive, but it's also very rewarding if you're looking for farm gold and/or crafting materials. More of the lower level zones in GW2 need to operate like Orr and Silverwastes, tons of events going on and more dangerous foes...either through mechanics or sheer numbers (Orr is pretty good at swarming you).
First we need more involved leveling. It's okay to challenge players from the get go. Allow them to be able to take on more as they level, but always have an innate risk of failure right around the corner. Asheron's Call is a good example of that. Weaker and less geared players usually hunted near lifestones or near entrances to dungeons. The more powerful your character became and the more skillful the player became the more you were able to take on. I remember sitting in a corner for hours with dozens of Olthoi all over me. Repetitive sure, but it was fun too.
Secondly, give players more options for leveling. If people want to quest, have quests. If people want to sit and grind, make that equally rewarding. If people want to group up for leveling, allow them to do that and provide areas where that can be done. The more leveling options available, the more people will be willing to try new things. Additionally, find ways to make lower level zones usable once you're out of that level zone. Low level zones being ghost towns is never good for anyone.
Said it once, I'll say it again.
Time to level =/= difficulty of MMO.
I think the word you guys are looking for is 'long'.
MMOs used to be 'long.'
"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power....."
Anyone else remember how leveling worked in ffxi when it came to crafters/gatherer's? There was 100 levels each consisting of 0.1-1.0 to gain one lvl. As you craft or gathers you would ocationally get a .1 or .2 skill up.
I remember at one time I did nothing but fish for like 2/3 months to level it from 25-100 ( if I remember right) Every day I fished I got a total of like around .4 - .6 skill up's. That was less then a level some days.
Crafting was the same way if you were lke 4 levels lower than the reciepie you were doing there would be a better change of getting a skill up, as you got closer to the level though I think it got rarer. Also the success rate wasn't 100% either. Peaple spent a TON of money to skill up crafts in ffxi.
They even tied crafting to the days of the week plus weather. Like if you used fire crystals on firesday it would have a better chance of succeeding. If you crafting on Darksday would get better skill ups, but the success rate would go down. On lightsday you had a better chance to HQ.
Wish they would bring back systems like that, to bad ffxiv is nothing like that.
Eidit: the skill ups didn't just pertain to that it also worked like that with all your skills, mind int, dex, ect.... even weapons skilled up seperatly and gave you new limit breaks once you reached a certain skill level.
Plus skill level wasn't tied to your characters level either at all.
So lets say you leveld to 30 using a sword, but now you wanna use a dagger instead, well if you never used a dagger before it would still be at 0 skill so you wouldn't be able to hit anything your current level until you went back and skilled up that dagger on lower lvl stuff. That is what created skill up parties in ffxi. If you level'd to fast your skills would get behind.
I really liked the way ffxi progression system worked the best.
Any subscription based game with a cap to your advancement per day is essentially a pay to win game. Also, it would give a whole new meaning to "dailies".
Difficulty is not tied to leveling speed. Players would have nothing to gain from such restrictions.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Restrictions are always a bad idea.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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