Everybody agress that character progression is a must have for MMORPGs, but it seems that ever since WoW, the so called "grind" has become a big issue and a major detractor for some would be contenders.

So much focus has been placed on the end game, where everyone is finally on equal ground, and people get to focus more on their character's development past the "learning" phase. 

Leveling to the end game is a rite of passage these days, but the leveling process becomes that much of a pain in the ass once you've experienced end game in any other MMO.  When we first leveled up, it was great fun, now every other game it's just kill 10 bears, gather 6 leaves, and take this package to my buddy at the next quest hub.  It's no longer engaging, it's just routine.

So how do we make the leveling process something that's fun again?  or is it just time that MMOGs move past the leveling process and just start everyone out at end game?

Personally, my opinion is to take a hint from TV shows.  After every episode, you are left wanting more and wondering what will happen next week, and it grasps your mind and makes you talk about it and obsess over it (I know people obsessed with True Blood for example.  And that is how it used to be when we leveled up in our first MMO, ooo what are my next spells?  Who do I fight next?  What kind of weapons and armor will I get? 

But it seems that all of that has just become more of the same, we know the classes, we know what to expect, we are an educated people when it comes to games now, it's no longer your first game.  So why don't we shift the focus to story telling and the adventure of your character?  Make the leveling progress chapters instead of levels, progress through a story, not just your character's learning.  Make the story say, "I bet you are excited for what's going to happen next!".

So what do you guys think will bring back the desire to progress your character?

 Leveling never grabbed me.  It has always been a necessary evil to me.  From skilling up in UO to play in pvp tournaments and roaming with friends, to leveling in DAOC to small group roam at end game and recently ending with WoW so I can down epic bosses and play the meta game that is arenas.

If anything, leveling has always been something that just introduced me to a  classes abilities in a very very slow and boring way.  The only game I have ever enjoyed leveling in was Planetside and that's because the actual leveling part was put into the background, there were no balance issues while gaining "levels" the end game was the same as level 10.

It grabs me just fine. I enjoy leveling. I enjoy working on the character and making it stronger.

I think there's a couple reasons mainly.  Depending on who you ask, it could be either one of these or a mixture of both, but generally players are tired of the same old song and dance in terms of leveling up to the max level in every MMORPG and also because there's minimal social interaction while leveling these days.

For many of us, there's only so many times we can bounce from quest hub to quest hub, doing menial tasks all the way to whatever the max level is.  Even if we enjoy it the first time, many of us probably aren't going to be to happy to think they'll have to do it all over again for their alt, especially if said game only offers one linear path of advancement.  At least back in the days of Everquest players would, in almost any case, group with other players to level up.  For the most part, grouping with players always creates a new experience and, at least in my experience, helps ease the grind moreso than quest hopping.

In the end though, I simply think there's a limit to how many of these games we can progress through before the grind simply becomes impossible to ignore, and that point is generally right about the time players begin to take the community for granted (ie no longer get a kick out of adventuring with others) and simply do so in order to advance their character so that they can once again get to the endgame content.

I think it is because a majority of gamers have some time under their belt, perse, and they're realizing that they have lives outside of gaming.   For to long games have required players to live in virtual game worlds to compete and to just get things done because of the games inherent design - take raiding as an example.    Some raids can take hours and hours to complete.   This is OK if you can just log off somewhere inside a dungeon and come back to it at your leisure like say in a single player game.  That is not the case in most MMORPG's though.   You have to endure running an instance that can take up to 8+ hours to complete.  I hate raiding BTW in it's current iteration that plagues most MMORPG's.

Games need to get away from that type of game design and give players more flexibility.  

Originally posted by UknownAspect

Everybody agress that character progression is a must have for MMORPGs, but it seems that ever since WoW, the so called "grind" has become a big issue and a major detractor for some would be contenders.

So much focus has been placed on the end game, where everyone is finally on equal ground, and people get to focus more on their character's development past the "learning" phase. 

Leveling to the end game is a rite of passage these days, but the leveling process becomes that much of a pain in the ass once you've experienced end game in any other MMO.  When we first leveled up, it was great fun, now every other game it's just kill 10 bears, gather 6 leaves, and take this package to my buddy at the next quest hub.  It's no longer engaging, it's just routine.

So how do we make the leveling process something that's fun again?  or is it just time that MMOGs move past the leveling process and just start everyone out at end game?

 

Personally, my opinion is to take a hint from TV shows.  After every episode, you are left wanting more and wondering what will happen next week, and it grasps your mind and makes you talk about it and obsess over it (I know people obsessed with True Blood for example.  And that is how it used to be when we leveled up in our first MMO, ooo what are my next spells?  Who do I fight next?  What kind of weapons and armor will I get? 

But it seems that all of that has just become more of the same, we know the classes, we know what to expect, we are an educated people when it comes to games now, it's no longer your first game.  So why don't we shift the focus to story telling and the adventure of your character?  Make the leveling progress chapters instead of levels, progress through a story, not just your character's learning.  Make the story say, "I bet you are excited for what's going to happen next!".

So what do you guys think will bring back the desire to progress your character?

I completely understand and agree with what you are saying.  For me, questing  has also become a grind to me as well.  You run up to the quest giver, hit accept, open your quest log, scroll to the bottom to see the requirement list, skip all the story telling and go get it done asap for the experience...then rinse..repeat..blah blah blah!...and try to get to the end game as fast as you can.

I personally think they should do away with levels, I think it would be nice if they based more quests on unlocking new content, or perhaps learning new skills and gaining new attributes.  I think if they did away with actual levels and incorporated something like this then quests would be of greater importance. Have what you do in a quest have an effect on your outcome or character development later in the game ( I know SWTOR, is integrating this too).  I think it wouldn't hurt to make certain areas partially unavailable until you have reached a certain point in the game through specific quests or accomplishments as well.  Maybe have your character come to this area for one thing early in the game for particular quests, then be done with it for a while, and later on perhaps run into another quest giver that requires you to go back to this area now that you have attained certain achievements, allowing you to go back to this area and see things that are perhaps were not available to you the first time.  I think by doing this it would keep most areas active, not like most games where you have a zone setup for a specific level of character, and then once you are past that you have no reason to ever go back. 

Also, make crafting more quest required to actually become a crafter, not just click on a trainer, hit yes and "bam" your a blacksmith now, then click on a recipe, and "Bam" now you know how to make this rare axe with all these mods.  Try to incorporate learning through various places and have some pre-requisites perhaps for that trainer to even agree to work with you.

These are just various ideas, as I think they would make questing more viable and I think it could help immerse the player more into the story.  This is just my opinion though.  I realize that there may be some issues or stuff that would have to be ironed out to make this work, but that is with any concept or idea that is added to a game.

To me, the most fun I ever had in mmos is when I was leveling my characters, going through the world and grinding away. End game is boring. The fun is in the journey for me.

On another, slightly related, note, I just started playing Aion, and voila, I made it past the asian art style. Im hooked. The animations are incredibly solid and the post 30 grind just makes me wanna play it more. A game where leveling takes time is ok in my book.

To me leveling is the fun part, endgame is the boring part.  I get bored when games rush you to endgame by making it so easy to get there.  So leveling still grabs me, just not in games where they don't provide an enjoyable leveling experience.  See if they make leveling so easy, and that it's not difficult to complete content & quests, then you are just going through the motions of doing it until you've done it enough to get to the max level.  You don't feel yourself getting stronger or better, because it's not difficult and you don't necessarily need to use new spells/skills to accomplish anything.

But when leveling becomes more engaging, content is somewhat difficult and quests may not be as easy to do, you are actually playing it and using your characters abilities/skills/spells to complete these tasks.  You feel a bit more satisfied because you aren't just going through the motion. 

There's a fine line between too grindy and too boring.  Hard to find a happy medium.

Maybe the new MMO's could have a leveling process like they currently have, and also have some kind of fast-track option!

New players of MMO's and also people who enjoy the whole leveling process and storylines involved, could enjoy doing that, while people who are more experienced in MMO's could do a speeded up version of the leveling process.

Maybe the fast tracked leveling process could award 3 or 4 times normal XP from mobs/quests etc; or, maybe they have to complete certain quest chains through PVE dungeons, and after completion they would gain 10 levels and then have another quest chain in another dungeon to complete with their new skills/spells they gained in these 10 level boosts, and do this all the way up to the end level.

If you think about the leveling process as an apprenticeship to teach you your trade/class in preparation of end game.

A time served plumber wishing to re-train as an electrician need not complete a full 4 year apprenticeship to do so (TRANSLATION IN WOW SPEAK = a level 80 warlock player wishing to re-roll as a mage need not complete the whole 80 levels again, after all, a lot of the time apportioned to these 80 levels is to learn about the game in general)

Probably cause like many things doing the same old same gets old.   Many have been, "Leveling", for like 10+ years.

Leveling is still important, but it can be ruined by making it a grind.  Games can make leveling fun to do, or they can make it boring. Ideally players should always be thinking of new tactics and strategies to improve themselves.  Once they start to feel like they have the best possible play methods and there is no way to improve their tactics then it becomes a grind.

Leveling is fine.  However, there do need to be other goals happening at the same time so that your attention is not solely on the experience bar.  The alternate goals may include other areas of improvement such as crafting, quests, alternate experience levels, skill upgrades, improvement of character statistics, and exploration of new areas.

Quest hubs are good too if the quests and new areas are different enough from previous areas to give at least the illusion that it is not more of the same.

I am more engrossed in a game while leveling.

It is at maximum level that I lose interest.  Most games have the same character progression at maximum level.  There is a narrow focus  on grinding group and raid content for gear, a small subset of what you could do while leveling.

Originally posted by UknownAspect

Everybody agress that character progression is a must have for MMORPGs, but it seems that ever since WoW, the so called "grind" has become a big issue and a major detractor for some would be contenders.

So much focus has been placed on the end game, where everyone is finally on equal ground, and people get to focus more on their character's development past the "learning" phase. 

Leveling to the end game is a rite of passage these days, but the leveling process becomes that much of a pain in the ass once you've experienced end game in any other MMO.  When we first leveled up, it was great fun, now every other game it's just kill 10 bears, gather 6 leaves, and take this package to my buddy at the next quest hub.  It's no longer engaging, it's just routine.

So how do we make the leveling process something that's fun again?  or is it just time that MMOGs move past the leveling process and just start everyone out at end game?

 

Personally, my opinion is to take a hint from TV shows.  After every episode, you are left wanting more and wondering what will happen next week, and it grasps your mind and makes you talk about it and obsess over it (I know people obsessed with True Blood for example.  And that is how it used to be when we leveled up in our first MMO, ooo what are my next spells?  Who do I fight next?  What kind of weapons and armor will I get? 

But it seems that all of that has just become more of the same, we know the classes, we know what to expect, we are an educated people when it comes to games now, it's no longer your first game.  So why don't we shift the focus to story telling and the adventure of your character?  Make the leveling progress chapters instead of levels, progress through a story, not just your character's learning.  Make the story say, "I bet you are excited for what's going to happen next!".

So what do you guys think will bring back the desire to progress your character?

Ohhhh, great question, I really wonder why leveling does not "grab us".  Maybe the fact that all the new MMORPGs are dumbed down for newbies?  Is that a reason?  Go here, kill a sabretooth tiger cub, half a level! Repeat 100x -> WoW | AION etc.

Leveling was only good in games like Everquest where NPC spawns were unpredictable and other players could drop trains on your group.  In EQ anything could happen really.  But newer MMORPGs are for carebears and newbies so they make the PvE predictable and easy, that's why it is boring anymore.

Leveling a rite of passage?  Are you joking?  Did you play WoW or AION, or newer MMORPGs for that matter?  Leveling requires no skill in these games, thats why you have so many people who are max level newbies.  I swear the PUGs in WoW wouldn't be so pathetic had their leveling system weeded out the newbies.  

Leveling was only a rite of passage in games like Everquest, at least there levels said something about player skill

First of all we ofc have that "been there, done that" feeling when it comes to leveling up yet another character because the difference between mmorpg's ain't that big and a lot of players don't even read the quests anymore since those are more often than not, very badly written.

Second and I think the more important reason is the competition. In a game where gear and lvl means everything the leveling up becomes a chore instead of the main fun. I really think that there should be a seperation between pvp and pve more than there is now. I know many may see this as a carebear solution, but I think that if they removed the gear and lvl part from pvp that the leveling up becomes more fun again because it is optional. There is no longer a "lvl up fast or get left behind and ganked" feeling to games then.

In singleplayer rpg's the leveling up is still fun, you take time to read the stories and enjoy the journey instead of constantly looking at that far away endgame you need to reach. In mmorpg's you constantly have people running by that are ahead of you, if it's a pvp game you know that you don't stand a chance against them unless you lvl faster, get stronger, get better gear fast.

Singleplayer rpg means relaxing, enjoying the journey while mmorpg's means rushing to endgame if you want to be able to compete.

In a game like Lord of the Rings Online you see less players rushing through the content, more players actually reading and enjoying the storyline because there is no reason to rush. Remove the lvl and gear rush from pvp and you remove the rush.

I know many pvpers would hate this, but to be perfectly honest I don't care for gankers anyway. In a game like this the moment you enter pvp the game would see you as same strength as your enemy making it skillbased, more challenging pvp and by removing the need to rush the leveling part... more fun leveling.

The problem then becomes the pve endgame, it would still have that pull and make you rush through the content. I am not a big fan of raiding so I wouldn't mind if a game had no raiding endgame at all, but I know many do love it so a game needs it. Maybe the same thing I suggest for pvp would work for raiding as well, make the itemfarm about the looks of gear instead of the stats. Say a raidinstance is created with the difficulty fitting for people at lvl 55, the moment a raid enters that instance they all become lvl 55 no matter if your character is lvl 1 or 76. Raiding would become about fun, getting better looking gear, titles or whatever without making people want to rush through the leveling process.

Okay enough rambling from me for now. :)

I think aside from the fact of the repetitive nature of killing monsters for exp, it's the mentality of some gamers of wanting to get to endgame without the hassle. Others enjoy the experience of going through the process. But generally speaking, it's like an office job, once you've one too many grinding sessions, you're through and you feel you're not getting enough for your efforts.

I actually like the idea of doing away with levels and implementing a skill-based type of character building.

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Originally posted by Toquio3
End game is boring. The fun is in the journey for me.

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This is how I've felt ever since I played LotRO. Before LotRO, I was always racing to end-game, trying to level as fast as I could. LotRO was so nice, I decided to stop and smell the flowers along the way. Ever since then, leveling is not as important for me.

I have more fun in the journey than in the so-called end game, where you stagnate - you finish the storyline, you've played through all the content at least once, and now you'll just involve yourself in a tedious process to upgrade your equipment. Tedious because you'll be facing the same dungeon for a month or more in the search for a piece of equipment, planning and playing strategies for encounters like a machine, at 80% do this, at 60% change that, and so it goes, doing nothing new until the next patch comes bringing a new place for your to make your repetitions.

I find the unpredictable and the unknown fun, it's ironical how I can have fun in this genre where it's usually about the strategies and knowing the encounter in advance for most, yet you can find good quest stories, remote places to explore and exotic crafting to be done.

If you are playing just to rack up enough experience points to achieve the next level, then you'll surely get burnt out someday, just chill and play for fun, the levels will feel like they are going faster than before, yet you are taking more time to level.

Like others have said im always aiming for the end game but once i quit the game what i remember is the journey, and no im not a speed gamer i take my time and usually am known as the slowest lvler. What i personally think is getting annoying about grinding is the fact that, there's nothing else to do. For example in sandbox games all you do is grind but you have all the options available to you right when you first log in whereas in a themepark i must grind to make another option available after which the old option is not fast or effiecient enough anymore. It's the being forced to do it that makes it bad, if i have 5 hours of gaming time i would spend about an hour and half on forums, an hour just talking to people and then really just do what i feel like but in themeparks i can't do that because of the already planned quest for me which i must do to continue. You have to admit, when you know your coming home and then having to grind mindlessely, gaming isnt as appealing. In general i think i fairly enjoy lvling when the options and content is available to me.

 The fact it takes a lot longer to level up in new games these days has alot to do with it.. seems like everytime a game is released the leveling curve goes up. For example i'm currently playing dragonica and it litterally takes days to get 1 level after 25+.

 Also all games are pretty much 100% cashshop driven now, so unless you spend a lot of money the new equiptment you get as a reward for your efforts are hardly ever unique or visually appealing. Making leveling up far less enjoyable.

I like leveling and progressing when I feel like I'm making my character unique as well as 'better'.  Games these days are removing a lot of the choices or they are full of bad choices, and so I have little patience for the process. 

In WoW and other games like it, I learned that my character is going to be completely different at max level (and he will change periodically at max level depending on changes to the class and game and gear) and nothing that happens before max level means a damn thing.  Hence, the frustration and lack of patience with the process in new games where I spend most of my time wondering if I will regret how my class turns out .

Another sore spot is that the leveling process doesn't build any pvp, raiding or other useful skills.  In Wow, for example, if I've played a new class from 1-80, I won't have learned anything about how to use it competitively in pvp or a raid and so I largely feel like I've wasted my time.