In pretty much every level based game, the "real" game begins at max level. So I ask, why even bother having the rest in the game?  It seems leveling from 1-max is simply some kind of fraternity initiation. It's not really fun, not really rewarding... After all, every 10 levels the gear you worked for is obsolete.

I just don't get it. In the past months I've played WoW, L2, Aion, Runes of Magic, Atlantica... all look like totally amazing and fun games...... once you reach cap. Its degrading. I walk around the cities seeing all the high level people PvPing and doing everything actually fun. Meanwhile, I'm doing kill 15 boar quests and in the back of my mind I know that it takes months to reach cap. To be honest its the reason I end up saying screw it and uninstalling.

Why? Why must we painfully grind for weeks or months to join the rest of the game community? When someone new comes to a game do they think, "Wow, killing these wolves like a part time job to someday enjoy the real content is fun!" No, they say "Fuck, I want to get through this crap so I can play with my max level friends who told me to play this game in the first place!" The leveling process just feels like time sink bullshit to make you subscribe longer.

If a game wants to have levels, make it like Guild Wars where a player can CHOOSE to play the middle content. If not, let him join the majority of the player base at max level.

Am I off my rocker or do other people feel the same way?

Its not that end game is where the fun is at, its just that end game is where people decide to remain subbed to the game. The journey needs to be fun, and end game needs to be fun. Its not one or the other.

You'd be a perfect sandbox fan. But the thing is, these are RPGs, and one of the aspects of an RPG is developing your character. He starts off weak and then becomes stronger. Whether that's through levels or more advanced systems (like skill systems), the #1 problem is the feeling of grind. You have to put variety into the "leveling" process; otherwise, people will get burnt out quickly. If you can't, then you need to make that process as short as possible.

In a level-based game, "end game" is usually where the fun's at. That's true. You'd think this was a bad system, and MMOs should let people do everything from level 1. Well, WAR tried that and we know how it turned out. Everyone complained, "You're doing the same things at level 1 as you're doing at level 40!" Well, if they made a bunch of content for level 40 only, then level 40 would quickly become end-game and people would complain, "Why do I have to level at all? All the fun is at 40."

So, you can't win. In a level-based system, anyways. If you're going with that model, you need to have the journey as fun as possible and the end-game needs to be solid to retain subs after max level.

Sounds like a skill-based system would be the obvious solution, right? Well, no. Only a well-implemented skill-based system would work - Darkfall doesn't quite succeed, and it's skill-based. As I mentioned above, whether it's skill or level-based, the process needs to have variety or it needs to be very short.

It doesn't have to be this way, but unfortunately most developers create their game in a way that makes the journey to level cap so short that focusing on endgame is the only viable way to keep customers.

In all MMO's that I've played, the road to level cap was always more fun than the destination. Thus I wouldn't mind if the devs made the journey to the cap longer and fleshed out low and midgame as well- so that it'd feel fun rather than boring to level your character.

This is where the word "grind" comes from. people have their eyes on the end game and everything along the way is just grinded through. The people that take their time and enjoy the game are the ones who never grind.

The levelling process is supposed to be a learning curve.

In theory: your character starts at level 1 with a couple of basic skills and during the course of the levelling your abilities are fleshed out and the combat becomes more strategic and challenging. It's supposed to get tougher so that the person behind the keyboard learns to play their character better and use all of their abilities to overcome obstacles.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. In WoW in particular, the vast majority of extra abilities that you are awarded during leveling are just upgraded versions of ones that you already have. Killing a mob as a mage at level 20 isn't much different than at level 80. You can spam frost-bolt 'til most stuff dies and because the learning curve isn't there, you end up with a lot of max-level people who are really pretty useless at playing their characters.

 i know exactly

people claim Aion is all about the end game

so why doesn't NC soft just start us at max level?

leveling up is boring as hell in that game 

Originally posted by dhayes68

Its not that end game is where the fun is at, its just that end game is where people decide to remain subbed to the game. The journey needs to be fun, and end game needs to be fun. Its not one or the other.

This is it!

Eh that is why I enjoy LotrO. The story based gameplay is more enjoyable.  That also is why I think I will enjoy TOR.  A story based game, and I won't have to rush to end game to have fun.

It's too bad so many people rush to end game, just because they think it is the only thing to do in a game.  Which causes their friends, who may wish to enjoy the game, feel they need to rush to help out or whatever.

And everygame needs some sort of end game to keep people.

The best mmorpgs will be the ones that have a natural character progression instead of this artificial leveling type.

It only becomes a grind once the enjoyment disappears.  I'm pretty sure if some of the developers came along with a novel way to give you progression through the game while taking the focus off of end game or dare I say it, never mention end game or make a new mechanic to play toward or with then I bet you a lot of the people who claim they have to "grind" will disappear. 

I'm pretty sure that if a game came along that no matter what "level" you were you were just as viable as the person at max you'd see some of these issues go away.  I am at a loss when it comes to ideas on how to accomplish this but I suppose this is a start.

Originally posted by Illius

It only becomes a grind once the enjoyment disappears.  I'm pretty sure if some of the developers came along with a novel way to give you progression through the game while taking the focus off of end game or dare I say it, never mention end game or make a new mechanic to play toward or with then I bet you a lot of the people who claim they have to "grind" will disappear. 

I'm pretty sure that if a game came along that no matter what "level" you were you were just as viable as the person at max you'd see some of these issues go away.  I am at a loss when it comes to ideas on how to accomplish this but I suppose this is a start.

damn the game felt like a grind after level 5 cause i was using the same 3 skills over and over and killing mobs didn't require any strategy and just time 

Personally the end-game is the most boring for me. Its either raid-or-die, or pvp in BG. That is grind. I prefer the leveling part where i get to make my charc stronger and gear is just a reward for finishing a said task.

Game that only focus on end-game only will not go far, eg. War. WoW makes the leveling much more enjoyable and that's where alot of players get hook, couple with the class, different story for horde and alliance, a huge world they have, it makes re-rolling much better.

Of course all games after you do it in X amount of time will start to make you feel bored, that's where the creativity of the Devs comes in, instead of being lazy and keep recycling the old concept or instances over and over again, and yes, like WoW...

an MMORPG should not have an "endgame"

well, that is how it has turned out though :(

The question is: Does a mmorpg really have to have character advancement in it. Well, rpgs always had character advancement in it, single player rpgs have it, and pen & paper rpgs have it too. But what is good in a single player game must not be good in a mmo-game.

If there was no character advancement a newbie character could immediately start playing together with most of the players that are already on the top.
It’s not that the content is better on level cap it’s just that the top level is where the most players are. In fact, in wow for instance, you can do most the stuff you can do at level cap already on lower levels.

The problem with this is that reward and advancement is what makes players play the game. So if there is no character advancement, there need to be other goals that players can focus on. Maybe this could be by creating new game mechanics for advancement as a group. A reason why endgame raids are more fun is that the key for success is not only improving the own character but also taking care that ones guild mates advance too.
 

Originally posted by Sengi

The question is: Does a mmorpg really have to have character advancement in it. Well, rpgs always had character advancement in it, single player rpgs have it, and pen & paper rpgs have it too. But what is good in a single player game must not be good in a mmo-game.

If there was no character advancement a newbie character could immediately start playing together with most of the players that are already on the top.
It’s not that the content is better on level cap it’s just that the top level is where the most players are. In fact, in wow for instance, you can do most the stuff you can do at level cap already on lower levels.

The problem with this is that reward and advancement is what makes players play the game. So if there is no character advancement, there need to be other goals that players can focus on. Maybe this could be by creating new game mechanics for advancement as a group. A reason why endgame raids are more fun is that the key for success is not only improving the own character but also thanking care that ones guild mates advance too.
 

Eve gets along just fine with that system 

Early/mid game is necessary to teach new players how to enjoy the game.  Without showing players how to have fun, they won't.

The problems at hand are:

1. There are two groups of players: New Players and Alt-Makers.   Their needs are different.  The new player needs to learn everything.  The alt-maker merely needs to learn the specifics of his new class.

2. Difficulty.  The alt-maker will quickly tire of the same old content (which was balanced with a new player in mind.)

3. Familiarity.  Familiarity isn't totally bad (players like things that are familiar.)  But inevitably stuff gets old.  Thankfully most games give you some options here already, by providing enough quests that you don't have to run all the same ones each time you roll an alt.

4. The Ole Switcheroo.  Games like WOW switch to almost an entirely differnet type of game at endgame.  If you're a solo player, you're going to have a blast til you hit endgame and there's little/nothing for you to do.  If you're a group player, you're going to be disappointed by inefficient grouping while leveling, then be happy at max level, then be sad once the only advancement left is raiding.  If you're a raider you don't even get a game til endgame.

Problems #1 and #2 would be helped by offering Hard Mode Quests.  And naturally the higher difficulty results in greater rewards, which results in quicker progression.  Because the advanced player is only learning half as much as the new player, so it doesn't make sense to keep him in that early gameplay for as long.  I don't know that this is enough to fully solve the problem, but it will certainly help.

Problem #3 is solved pretty well by most games currently.

Problem #4 I feel is just a blatant offense to be avoided.  If your game is about grouping, let players efficiently group while leveling.  If it's about soloing, let that be an option for advancement at all points in a character's development.  If it's about raiding, consider employing game mechanics to make raiding something characters of any level can access (sort of like the sidekick system and recent Architect missions in CoX.)

It's important and desireable to keep your gameplay varied, but offering an entirely different game at endgame is too extreme a "variation" :P

Originally posted by rr2real

Originally posted by Sengi

The question is: Does a mmorpg really have to have character advancement in it. Well, rpgs always had character advancement in it, single player rpgs have it, and pen & paper rpgs have it too. But what is good in a single player game must not be good in a mmo-game.

If there was no character advancement a newbie character could immediately start playing together with most of the players that are already on the top.
It’s not that the content is better on level cap it’s just that the top level is where the most players are. In fact, in wow for instance, you can do most the stuff you can do at level cap already on lower levels.

The problem with this is that reward and advancement is what makes players play the game. So if there is no character advancement, there need to be other goals that players can focus on. Maybe this could be by creating new game mechanics for advancement as a group. A reason why endgame raids are more fun is that the key for success is not only improving the own character but also thanking care that ones guild mates advance too.
 

Eve gets along just fine with that system 

I never played EVE (maybe I should give it a try) so I don’t now much about it. But considering what I heard about it, it seems that EVE has a good way to let both newbie and advanced players participate in the same tasks. If one has a capital ship and the other only a fighter craft both can still play their roles in the same battle.

One could have this too in a fantasy setting. Didn’t knights always have squires running behind them?

 

A handful of Warcraft maps work in that way, including the most famous, DoTA.

I ask myself the same question all the time.  Leveling to max level doesn't mean shit anymore.  It takes minimum time and effort and the characters power show that lack of well anything.