I was thinking recently about how many devs over time destroy the leveling experience of their MMOs for the folks playing that have been there done that. You can see examples of it in almost any game to where it takes less xp to level or you acquire more xp per kill/quest, travel times are lessened to almost trivial, group quest/monsters are made solo and items that were handed out normally are now deliberately made overpowered to ease leveling. These also include items that you would normally obtain at higher levels. Again this is to ease leveling for players that have been through the game before and to give new players a fast road to the top.

Now here is my beef with this. It isn't optional. A new player will not be able to play the same great game that older players got to play leveling. What if they would like to? They can't it is now changed. Now for the solution to me would be to make skiping content optional instead of destroying practically the beginning and middle of the game and only making the end count. Face it, after most of the changes are made to "speed" up the leveling process they have made it trivial anyhow, let the players who do not want to do it skip it. If the game gets older please don't destroy the game, before doing that just give an option to create a character at the desired level you want the players to be.

You are not perserving anything by trying to make leveling trivial yet still exist you just ruin the experience for the folks that truley enjoy it. With what I suggest the players who truley want to experience the whole game will still have the opportunity to do so and the players who really just want to be at the top levels would get their wish. All you are doing by destroying low level content for the sake of convenience is hurting both parties. The developers could put in a quest tutorial a player could decide to do that would walk them through how to play the game and then put them at a certain level. The player like me that likes the journey can say no thank you I will play from 1 - (top level). Thanks for reading.

Originally posted by qombi

I was thinking recently about how many devs over time destroy the leveling experience of their MMOs for the folks playing that have been there done that. You can see examples of it in almost any game to where it takes less xp to level or you acquire more xp per kill/quest, travel times are lessened to almost trivial, group quest/monsters are made solo and items that were handed out normally are now deliberately made overpowered to ease leveling. These also include items that you would normally obtain at higher levels. Again this is to ease leveling for players that have been through the game before and to give new players a fast road to the top.

Now here is my beef with this. It isn't optional. A new player will not be able to play the same great game that older players got to play leveling. What if they would like to? They can't it is now changed. Now for the solution to me would be to make skiping content optional instead of destroying practically the beginning and middle of the game and only making the end count. Face it, after most of the changes are made to "speed" up the leveling process they have made it trivial anyhow, let the players who do not want to do it skip it. If the game gets older please don't destroy the game, before doing that just give an option to create a character at the desired level you want the players to be.

You are not perserving anything by trying to make leveling trivial yet still exist you just ruin the experience for the folks that truley enjoy it. With what I suggest the players who truley want to experience the whole game will still have the opportunity to do so and the players who really just want to be at the top levels would get their wish. All you are doing by destroying low level content for the sake of convenience is hurting both parties. The developers could put in a quest tutorial a player could decide to do that would walk them through how to play the game and then put them at a certain level. The player like me that likes the journey can say no thank you I will play from 1 - (top level). Thanks for reading.

I say leave the leveling experience alone and keep it the same the whole time.

You don't need to increase Xp on quest completes and Mob kills so the vets could level alts faster.

Just the knowledge Older players have since they already ran through that content is a speed increase enough.

Originally posted by JGMIII

Originally posted by qombi

I was thinking recently about how many devs over time destroy the leveling experience of their MMOs for the folks playing that have been there done that. You can see examples of it in almost any game to where it takes less xp to level or you acquire more xp per kill/quest, travel times are lessened to almost trivial, group quest/monsters are made solo and items that were handed out normally are now deliberately made overpowered to ease leveling. These also include items that you would normally obtain at higher levels. Again this is to ease leveling for players that have been through the game before and to give new players a fast road to the top.

Now here is my beef with this. It isn't optional. A new player will not be able to play the same great game that older players got to play leveling. What if they would like to? They can't it is now changed. Now for the solution to me would be to make skiping content optional instead of destroying practically the beginning and middle of the game and only making the end count. Face it, after most of the changes are made to "speed" up the leveling process they have made it trivial anyhow, let the players who do not want to do it skip it. If the game gets older please don't destroy the game, before doing that just give an option to create a character at the desired level you want the players to be.

You are not perserving anything by trying to make leveling trivial yet still exist you just ruin the experience for the folks that truley enjoy it. With what I suggest the players who truley want to experience the whole game will still have the opportunity to do so and the players who really just want to be at the top levels would get their wish. All you are doing by destroying low level content for the sake of convenience is hurting both parties. The developers could put in a quest tutorial a player could decide to do that would walk them through how to play the game and then put them at a certain level. The player like me that likes the journey can say no thank you I will play from 1 - (top level). Thanks for reading.

 

I say leave the leveling experience alone and keep it the same the whole time.

You don't need to increase Xp on quest completes and Mob kills so the vets could level alts faster.

Just the knowledge Older players have since they already ran through that content is a speed increase enough.

 

 

In a perfect world yes I agree with you. I would love for them to just keep it the same. I know though that they will eventually after an expansion as they usually do make leveling trivial in the original game so I offer a better solution that doesn't affect the player who wants the journey.

Originally posted by qombi

Originally posted by JGMIII

Originally posted by qombi

I was thinking recently about how many devs over time destroy the leveling experience of their MMOs for the folks playing that have been there done that. You can see examples of it in almost any game to where it takes less xp to level or you acquire more xp per kill/quest, travel times are lessened to almost trivial, group quest/monsters are made solo and items that were handed out normally are now deliberately made overpowered to ease leveling. These also include items that you would normally obtain at higher levels. Again this is to ease leveling for players that have been through the game before and to give new players a fast road to the top.

Now here is my beef with this. It isn't optional. A new player will not be able to play the same great game that older players got to play leveling. What if they would like to? They can't it is now changed. Now for the solution to me would be to make skiping content optional instead of destroying practically the beginning and middle of the game and only making the end count. Face it, after most of the changes are made to "speed" up the leveling process they have made it trivial anyhow, let the players who do not want to do it skip it. If the game gets older please don't destroy the game, before doing that just give an option to create a character at the desired level you want the players to be.

You are not perserving anything by trying to make leveling trivial yet still exist you just ruin the experience for the folks that truley enjoy it. With what I suggest the players who truley want to experience the whole game will still have the opportunity to do so and the players who really just want to be at the top levels would get their wish. All you are doing by destroying low level content for the sake of convenience is hurting both parties. The developers could put in a quest tutorial a player could decide to do that would walk them through how to play the game and then put them at a certain level. The player like me that likes the journey can say no thank you I will play from 1 - (top level). Thanks for reading.

 

I say leave the leveling experience alone and keep it the same the whole time.

You don't need to increase Xp on quest completes and Mob kills so the vets could level alts faster.

Just the knowledge Older players have since they already ran through that content is a speed increase enough.

 

 

 

In a perfect world yes I agree with you. I would love for them to just keep it the same. I know though that they will eventually after an expansion as they usually do make leveling trivial in the original game so I offer a better solution that doesn't affect the player who wants the journey.

I never understood why developers would speed up leveling. Even if a game has three or more expansions if a new player started today shouldnt they get the same full leveling experience the rest of us did?

If an older player decides to reroll, would the fact that they know their way around so they don't get lost and know the fastest route to take be enough of a speed increase?

Lets say a new players takes from a month to two months to hit cap an experienced player could probably do it in three weeks. Thats fast enough imo.

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Originally posted by JGMIII
I never understood why developers would speed up leveling.

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For reasons of socialization. It's a multiplayer game, yet levels stratify the player population. Players want to play with other players, but after a while most players end up with their characters grouped somewhere near or at maximum level. Developers introduce expansions for the players near or at maximum level. That's where all the content comes in. New players want to join in on all the things that the other players are doing. So they want to level up quickly and join in.

I predict that in five or ten years somebody is going to eloquently point out how stupid the current formula is and everyone is going to declare that person a genius for "figuring out how the industry had gone wrong".

Take WoW for example.  Leveling to 60 has been nerfed twice, you get rested experience, and even a significant, albeit temporary, boost to exp gains if you go the RAF route.  The nerfs were done to get you through vanilla WoW faster so you'd still have a desire to keep playing and buy the expansions while subbing for however many more months.  It still takes some time to break level 60, but a completely new player will have a much better chance of reaching that goal and playing the content that the majority is enjoying right now.

Of course, it's partially Blizzard's fault for creating two expansions that didn't contain any new 1-60/70 content and focusing purely on endgame, but I suppose that's what the majority of the playerbase wanted.

I agree, this is what eventually kill the game. When the new players just can rush through the content the game loses a lot of it's feeling and many people just quit before coming up to the latest stuff.

As I see it, they should not raise the level cap. That is the problem, and the gear in the new expansion can't be 20% better than the stuff for same level in the older ones.

This is the thing that finally killed EQ 5 years ago, what is left is just a shell of the original game and it is on the way to kill both Wow and EQ2 now also. A 10 level increase will help selling the expansion and make older players happy for the next 3 months but in the long run it will just hurt the old game.

You can of course allow players that have a character of a certain level make new characters that start half way in the game like the death knight, that is a lot better than making all the old stuff worthless but I rather have them fill out more content for the existing levels and focus on adding more and better endgame.

But the usual system eventually makes everything but the last expansion crap and turn new players of the game.

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Originally posted by Loke666
As I see it, they should not raise the level cap.

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Hear hear.

That's the first step that I'd like them to take.

The next step is to eliminate leveling. Retain achievement, but eliminate it as the lifeblood of the game experience. Give players a reason for playing the game that is not focused on power accrual. Once that's done, new content can be tossed into the game and all players will be able to work towards it immediately and experience it.

Rather obviously, that's a different game.