Everquest II

www.massively.com/2008/09/17/everquest-2-leveling-from-20-70-to-become-drastically-faster/

Whereas it currently takes on average around 164 hours for a player to advance from 20 to 70,

it will soon only take around 100.

To compensate for this change, Adept I spell drops will increase.

Experience Changes

forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m

With GU 49, we're changing the level curve. Traditionally, we've only quietly lowered it a little bit with expansions. This will be the first time we've significantly changed it. With that in mind, I'd like to give a little insight into the changes, and some of the additional related things that will be going in to support and enhance them.

Why are we making this change?

Quite simply, we want people to have a better play experience. When you think about levelling through a 10 level spread when we do a level cap raise, there are a lot of other players around. The game feels really alive, and vibrant, because you've got people around you making your experience different every time you log in. Now look at levelling alts, especially in the 20-70 range. It's a completely different experience, especially if you don't have a few friends doing the same thing with you. What we want to do is to get new players into the game faster, give them a better experience while they're levelling up, and at the same time, give some of you folks who've been with us for a long time a chance to level up new characters without spending forever doing it. More on this later. This change to the level curve should also help veteran players choose which content they want to play through rather than always playing the same levelling path every time you create a new character.

We'll also be slightly increasing the drop rate of Adept I spells while solo to compensate for the increased pace of levelling. I'm sure this will also help out all those folks trying to level up transmuting too. The 1-59 item changes that went in recently should also help lower level gear drops be more useful to newer players.

To also try and get people interested in going back and maybe helping new folks a bit, we're increasing the amount of achievement xp earned by the the person mentoring the lower level player. This amount increases as the level difference increases, from 50% at 6-10 levels difference to 300% at a 50% level difference. Now, this achievement xp increase only applies to combat & loot achievement xp, not quest & exploration achievement xp. We don't want to encourage people to find someone to mentor only for a few seconds, we want to encourage mentoring during an adventuring play session. Between 1-5 levels difference, there is no bonus. This is going to be a delicate balance here, because we also want to keep level-appropriate adventuring being the primary source of achievement xp.

So about the curve!

We track a lot of data about how much xp is gained while actively out adventuring (questing, grinding, etc.), which gives us a pretty clear idea of how long the average person takes to get to level 80. That amount of time is 260 hours on average. I'm sure many people can do it faster. I'm sure many people are slower. But that is the average time it's taken over the last 35 days. A large part of that time is the 70-80 period of time. I'm not particularly eager to change that - there are a lot of players in that level range, and there's a lot of content for people to play through. The big sticking point is actually from 20-70, and that's where people will see the most change in time to level. To give you an idea, the old average from 1-70 was ~164 hours. The new time sits at ~100 hours. What we didn't change much were the bookmarks, which is to say, we didn't change the 1-20 experience much, nor did we change the 70-80 a whole lot either.

The last thing I want to talk about is unlocked xp bonuses. This won't be coming in 49 at this point, but they will be in 50. The process is simple - for every character that you have at the current level cap (80 for right now), you will unlock an account-wide +10% xp bonus for your other characters. This bonus will stack for each character you get to the level cap, up to a maximum of 50% bonus.

If you log onto Test to check these changes out, please also keep in mind that Test has an increased rate of experience gain, so Test will always be faster than the real level scheme. Also please try and keep in mind that players more experienced in EQ2's content already level at a vastly increased rate - not just through knowledge of where to go to xp, but also through friends to power level new characters and money for collections. Right now, this change to the curve will result in lower level characters receiving an xp bump based on where they were in the curve. We'll have to see how this shakes out and whether we want to look into changing how it works before 49 hits live.

This is not about making the game "easier", I think very few people find themselves challenged by levelling a character. It's about making it more approachable, getting a better player experience through the mid-levels, and getting newer players to interact with veteran players. =)

Have a good evening, and hope the new stuff on Test treats everyone well!

On the one hand, it makes it seem alot like WoW. On the other hand, it will be quite a relief to get an increase since its been taking forever to gain xp starting level 50 and its been kind of annoying.

I'm not sure if this change is good or bad.

Since they have raised the level cap a lot since the release they will be forced to do this to get new players. most players do get a bit turned off to spend that long time to get to the level cap, that's why wow did the same before.

If it's a good thing or not? It is a good thing if they trying to get new players. 

But the game still needs more work, the graphical revamp, they need to make all the items in all areas equally good (Look on an item lvl 15 from antonica and one of the same level from Kunark), and they need to use effects like lightnings, shadows and fog better. EQ2 is still a quite good looking game but it could look a lot better with some work.

Interesting changes ahead, and good news for all my alts. I just wish they'd do something about the kill xp for the level 70+ content in Kunark too. Being forced to quest-grind through all those faction lines seriously turns me off. I don't mind soloing and small grouping through it occasionally, but the option to go on large group killing sprees would make the process a lot more bearable. With only one dungeon designed for low 70s (Karnor's Castle), and the rest designed for later 70s, it can get a little boring. A couple more instances and some decent kill xp in these areas would benefit imo. Being forced to quest grind to get to 80 sucks, and I've only done it the once, with a second character about halfway through the Kunzar Jungle stuff. Everytime I log that character in I'm just put off by the amount of questing I still have ahead of me.

Here's hoping the next expansion doesn't go down the same route as far as xp gain goes. I do not like being forced to quest all the time.

Smart move by SoE! I just wish they changed it to 20-60, since 60 can start raiding and I'd think you would reach 70 much before having the right Fabled gear. Another thing they should change is not apply this change to Live Gamer servers, because character prices will go down for sure.

Other than that, great change.

Well I guess it will help them with most players today.

However the reason I quit EQ2 was because of the changes they made early on like no real death penalty,  getting rid of the strong mobs not in dungeons, and dumbing down the crafting.

I am not a hard core player.  I played only a few hours a week, but I was never in a hurry to reach the highest level.  I was just looking for a long term game and thought I had found one. Oh well.

I guess the needs of the many really do outweigh the needs of the few. :)

Originally posted by DarthHoob

I do not like being forced to quest all the time.

See, thats the difference between you and most of the other people that play EQ2. WE realize that the game is called EVERQUEST for a reason. The game is ABOUT questing.

I'm a chronic EQII quitter over the time it took to find groups, get stuff rolling, quest and level. So I'd get stuck solo'ing or duoing levels. On top of that, ALMOST everytime I left the game (bought the game before DoF was released. Never played more than 2 months at a time) I left with two or three late 20's or early 30's and got frustrated at the curve to level.

My zerker's in his 40's and seeing an update like this stuff massively posted... makes me think about rejoining norrath after I have my fun with Lich King, or have the 100 play hours needed.

They did hit the nail on the head by saying it's not fun for 164 hours, so... will it become fun for 100 hours?

Time will tell I guess.

  Very tempting, now if they can add a few character slots per account so we can benifit from this I'll rejoin.