Recently, like most of the people here, I've been looking for an MMO to play with the most recent game I played being Rift.

And what gets to me more than anything is how inaccessible almost every MMO is to play with someone else unless you work tireless to be the same level and only play at the same time.

In rift we leveled at slightly different paces he had more free time at first. He got about 10 levels higher than myself. We could PvP together that was OK but when it came to questing he would be done with an area and I’m not. Basically we never were able to both work on our characters together it was always someone sacrificing some form of progression to play together. we did it but it wasn't really something we wanted and if we were far too much of a level difference we basically soloed while talking on vent.

Just looking around almost every MMO suffers from this issue. There are a few that have some things that work, such as ffxi with level sync, once that was implemented my friends are I almost always were able to play together no matter what. but ffxi is an old game where that doesn’t really work for quests.

There seems to be nothing out there where if two people logged on they could do stuff together most of the time. Sandbox games it's easy to do but why not theme park games. why is endgame the only time people can do stuff together, why can't I level with friends must we all do it solo.

I've been playing vanguard which has some useful things to help people level together but I still can't just tell my friends to come join without saying o yeah you guys need to catch up a first and then we can level together.

I had this issue with WAR RIFT WOW tons of F2P games, almost every theme park mmo in existence. I just want to enjoy an MMO with my friends why is that so hard.

Originally posted by jezvin

Recently, like most of the people here, I've been looking for an MMO to play with the most recent game I played being Rift.

And what gets to me more than anything is how inaccessible almost every MMO is to play with someone else unless you work tireless to be the same level and only play at the same time.

In rift we leveled at slightly different paces he had more free time at first. He got about 10 levels higher than myself. We could PvP together that was OK but when it came to questing he would be done with an area and I’m not. Basically we never were able to both work on our characters together it was always someone sacrificing some form of progression to play together. we did it but it wasn't really something we wanted and if we were far too much of a level difference we basically soloed while talking on vent.

Just looking around almost every MMO suffers from this issue. There are a few that have some things that work, such as ffxi with level sync, once that was implemented my friends are I almost always were able to play together no matter what. but ffxi is an old game where that doesn’t really work for quests.

There seems to be nothing out there where if two people logged on they could do stuff together most of the time. Sandbox games it's easy to do but why not theme park games. why is endgame the only time people can do stuff together, why can't I level with friends must we all do it solo.

I've been playing vanguard which has some useful things to help people level together but I still can't just tell my friends to come join without saying o yeah you guys need to catch up a first and then we can level together.

I had this issue with WAR RIFT WOW tons of F2P games, almost every theme park mmo in existence. I just want to enjoy an MMO with my friends why is that so hard.

There are games that have built in mechanism for members of different levels to do things together, such as temporarily buffing your level or scaling down your friends' level.

This is one of the issuess some of the new MMORPGs are looking to improve. Rightfully so, I'd say.

I agree..

I level at a slow pace at first, but then it really picks up later on.

Some of my friends have a consistent level pattern.

Some others have just level up so fast they're level 40 in a week.

It's really conficting, but since MMORPG's today don't even care to fix it,

the only real solutions are:

Play with friends who have similar level consistencies.

OR Play different MMO's not under the RPG genre such as League of Legends.

Welcome to the modern world of linear themepark mmo's...

Questing & socialising together with friends is crucial to online gaming ESPECIALY

in rpg's & mmo's, this is one of MANY reasons to which i feel the mmo genre has taken

more steps back than forward imo :(

Sounds more like a friend issue than a MMORPG issue.

The friends I play with wait. They don't level ahead. If the game is THAT good, that they can't help but to log on. They play alts or work on crafting until we are all together. That's what good friends do

This is always going to be an issue in level based games. Mentor systems seems to work but are far from perfect. Your "friends" still possibly have to go through content they are already done with.

What you are describing is level segregation.  To some (many?) it is integral to their design.  They don't want level 50s and level 30s playing together.  They go out of their way to make it difficult.   In some, even 5 levels apart is impossible.

Originally posted by Starpower

Sounds more like a friend issue than a MMORPG issue.

 

The friends I play with wait. They don't level ahead. If the game is THAT good, that they can't help but to log on. They play alts or work on crafting until we are all together. That's what good friends do

 

This is always going to be an issue in level based games. Mentor systems seems to work but are far from perfect. Your "friends" still possibly have to go through content they are already done with.

Very true.

In my old days in WoW, we form a guild and each of us create an alt that is specifically for events.  An alt to play only when we 5 log on, scheduled timing.  During other times, we play other alts.

Simple solution.  You just need o find your friends.

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

What you are describing is level segregation.  To some (many?) it is integral to their design.  They don't want level 50s and level 30s playing together.  They go out of their way to make it difficult.   In some, even 5 levels apart is impossible.

There are good reasons for that. Game companies don't want you to faceroll content so your friend can level faster. The faster you complete the content the faster you will be on the forums telling everybody how bored you are and need more content

Guild Wars 2.

The game doesn't have quests, it has events that run all the time whether players are there or not.  It's not like quests where you have to be on the same stage, you can just decide to help out or leave any time.  People get rewarded for helping after every stage, so it doesn't matter if someone did half a dozen things before you even got there.  The game scales up in dificulty with more people who show up, so it's always challenging no matter how many people are there.

The game automatically mentors you down in power if you go do an event lower level than you (you'll be slightly stronger than the content but won't be able to grief it by 1-shotting it).  You can outlevel your friends yet still meaningfully group with them in any event or dungeon.  Or in the open world you can sidekick them up to your level.

The events run on cycles and can be repeated (or you might see new ones in an old area) so you never run out of older content.

The game is purely cooperative.  You can group to make things easier to coordinate, but you don't even have to.  Everybody gets xp and loot for helping kill a mob or participating in an event.  The game is designed around making you want to see other people and there's plenty of other aspects which support that as well.  Should be not only plenty of opportunities to play with friends, but also make a lot of new ones as well.

Conan is one of the few games I've played recently that has a "mentor" system, which raises the lower player up to be one level below the highest level player.  It works well enough.

Originally posted by jezvin

I had this issue with WAR RIFT WOW tons of F2P games, almost every theme park mmo in existence. I just want to enjoy an MMO with my friends why is that so hard.

You can.  It's called GuildWars 2.  Wait for it.

Yeah I know guild wars 2 will help with this I can't wait.

But to the people that said my friends are the problem, wow guys really? the games are perfect and im the issue I think you got the wrong Idea here. Why is it a good thing that I can't play with my friends. What makes a game better by segregating the population.

Dose it makes no sense if I could play with my friends in an mmo I would probably play that game?  I don't like singleplayer I can't stand them. I'm the hardcore player of all of my friends I usually out level people besides that particular case in rift. so I am usually the one that groups with the lower level people to make sure it's enjoyable for everyone but why do I have to suffer progression inhibitors because I want to play with friends.

It's more so been an issue with quest based games but it was an issue in grinding games before things like level sync and mentor.

It's a problem in MMOs it has been since leveling existed, why doesn’t anyone care? why do you blame me and my friends for not being able to play together instead of the game?

endgame content helps, but that’s another issue when you want to invite people to play your MMO it's like o I’m with this awesome raiding guild w/e and you need to do all this shit before you can play with me k thanks.

Do i have to apologize for having casual playing friends? should I dump my friends? screw that I will dump the game before that shit.

EQ2 and I'm sure there are others that have a mentoring system so that no matter what level you or your friends are, you can still have fun together. As long as you keep playing games with the restrictive class/level system you will either be forced to have an alt for every friend or wait til everyone is max level to play together and both options suck.

Originally posted by Murashu

EQ2 and I'm sure there are others that have a mentoring system so that no matter what level you or your friends are, you can still have fun together. As long as you keep playing games with the restrictive class/level system you will either be forced to have an alt for every friend or wait til everyone is max level to play together and both options suck.

Yeah that worked for a little bit while I played the problem was I was on vox which brought the PvP issue into it and it ended up not working out so well.

City of Heroes easily took care of this issue. You can mentor other players to one level below you or even the reverse where you are brought to their level. They updated it so that everyone thats a low level is brought up to the team leader's level.

I have no idea why more games aren't doing this.

Originally posted by jezvin

Recently, like most of the people here, I've been looking for an MMO to play with the most recent game I played being Rift.

And what gets to me more than anything is how inaccessible almost every MMO is to play with someone else unless you work tireless to be the same level and only play at the same time.

In rift we leveled at slightly different paces he had more free time at first. He got about 10 levels higher than myself. We could PvP together that was OK but when it came to questing he would be done with an area and I’m not. Basically we never were able to both work on our characters together it was always someone sacrificing some form of progression to play together. we did it but it wasn't really something we wanted and if we were far too much of a level difference we basically soloed while talking on vent.

Just looking around almost every MMO suffers from this issue. There are a few that have some things that work, such as ffxi with level sync, once that was implemented my friends are I almost always were able to play together no matter what. but ffxi is an old game where that doesn’t really work for quests.

There seems to be nothing out there where if two people logged on they could do stuff together most of the time. Sandbox games it's easy to do but why not theme park games. why is endgame the only time people can do stuff together, why can't I level with friends must we all do it solo.

I've been playing vanguard which has some useful things to help people level together but I still can't just tell my friends to come join without saying o yeah you guys need to catch up a first and then we can level together.

I had this issue with WAR RIFT WOW tons of F2P games, almost every theme park mmo in existence. I just want to enjoy an MMO with my friends why is that so hard.

Just like what other people have posted.  When GW2 releases, this problem that you see, will be easily adjusted and you and your friends will level around the same and even if your friends get in a few levels more then you, the level can be adjusted back down to yours.  I do see what your saying, I have had this in the past with a few MMO's, and having to do a lot of catch up, luckly for me, I had guild mates and friends that worked with me to get me to where they were.  Hopefully in the new MMO's to come and in GW2 if that game interests you, you will find a balance.

:O

This is soo damnin' true ...

Originally posted by jinxxed0

City of Heroes easily took care of this issue. You can mentor other players to one level below you or even the reverse where you are brought to their level. They updated it so that everyone thats a low level is brought up to the team leader's level.

 

I have no idea why more games aren't doing this.

They are. Guild Wars 2's "sidekicking" system is a direct result of influence from the #1 super powered MMO. :P

And it seems like a few other MMO's have a similar system as well.

Originally posted by cali59

Guild Wars 2.

The game doesn't have quests, it has events that run all the time whether players are there or not.  It's not like quests where you have to be on the same stage, you can just decide to help out or leave any time.  People get rewarded for helping after every stage, so it doesn't matter if someone did half a dozen things before you even got there.  The game scales up in dificulty with more people who show up, so it's always challenging no matter how many people are there.

The game automatically mentors you down in power if you go do an event lower level than you (you'll be slightly stronger than the content but won't be able to grief it by 1-shotting it).  You can outlevel your friends yet still meaningfully group with them in any event or dungeon.  Or in the open world you can sidekick them up to your level.

The events run on cycles and can be repeated (or you might see new ones in an old area) so you never run out of older content.

The game is purely cooperative.  You can group to make things easier to coordinate, but you don't even have to.  Everybody gets xp and loot for helping kill a mob or participating in an event.  The game is designed around making you want to see other people and there's plenty of other aspects which support that as well.  Should be not only plenty of opportunities to play with friends, but also make a lot of new ones as well.

Real jealous you keep getting spotlight featured posts, lol