Lvling progression

[chaosdruid]

I agree, when I play an MMO and I'm leveling up my first toon, I take forever to get to max, if I make it at all.

I personally like to watch each cutscene (the lack-there-of really made me dislike WoW) and read each thing an NPC says to me just to get the storyline of the game as I move though it.

But after the first character it's balls to the wall.

[Ronald]

[QUOTE=bliss;50395]
I've seen some thread about how exp loss on death will be the deciding factor for lot of people to play aion. Exp loss on death and punishment/rewards for pvp need to be extreme. It makes people think twice about just zerging mobs or people. It makes you play harder to not die. In WoW everything is almost like a first person deathmatch. You die and res to take some minimal gold loss for durability hit then go into battle again. You don't even have to think twice, if you win/succeed good if not go try again. QUOTE]
Ultima Online has an interesting system when you die. All your items are dropped to the ground including all your armor, you need to go back to your corpse within a certain amount of time or else they will dissapear. You can pay for insurance on your items though although you need to pay for insurance again every time you do, so it can cost you alot of money!

[Cynthe]

Originally Posted by GrandKamikazi

O ya, and who said I was a boy? U said "he" in ure post.

Impression you gave me... If it quacks like a duck.

[GrandKamikazi]

Originally Posted by Cynthe

Impression you gave me... If it quacks like a duck.

Now your calling me a duck??! lol.

[Birdman]

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. I remember the day I got my FBSS. Then I got an FBR on my necro.


Oh those were the days. For as long as I've played WoW, I don't really remember anything besides going into stv with my friends when we were level 40's and just ganking people. I remember that far more than any raid or quest.

[Ecronyte]

Originally Posted by GrandKamikazi

Now your calling me a duck??! lol.

Hmmm, I thought you were a squirrel with a bazooka.

[graystar]

Ok. It seems that alot of people are split on whether it should be a harder grind than WoW or one equivilent to WoWs grind. Personally, I dont care as long it is possible to reach max in an realistic amount of time. When we talk about reaching end game, that means getting one character to the max level. When you say that, you are not including all the re-rolls you had before and decided you didnt like that class so you start a new one. In L2, this was a big problem for me. I started as a human rogue, but dss was to expensive for a bow so i rerolled to dark avenger. Got him to 40 then decided i didnt like tanking. So i leveled up a tyrant to 52 and realized i will never hit end game (without botting but didnt work on my comp) So i just want a realistic time scale for leveling up. When TBC came out for wow, I didnt like how you hit lvl 60 relatively easy, but all the sudden for level 61 a huge xp bonus was needed to level up. Keep the leveling walls smooth and such, and im ready to pwn some newbs.


P.S. i never got to reach high end PvP in L2

[Chaos_Theory]

I don't know anything about WoW's grind since i only played the 10 day trial. I hope it isn't as easy as in CoH where it took me 1 month to get lvl 50 but I don't want it to take me a full year. If it took me just a month then a secondary skill system should be implemented so there arent any noob max lvls picking on lower lvls. I think something like FFXI fame/rank system would rock if the leveling is fast. For example if a person just grinded from lvl 1-max and didn't do any quest/missions they wouldn't have access to rare armor,spells,weapons, and items making them useless in high end pvp and pve.

[GrandKamikazi]

Originally Posted by Ecronyte

Hmmm, I thought you were a squirrel with a bazooka.

I iz....y do ya think I'm so insulted? lol.

[Celebrity]

Originally Posted by VendorTrash

WoW is the easiest MMO ever made (contra is harder then WoW and you only need to push 2 buttons to play that)...
yeah.
you're a noob.
dont even bother with this game or MMO's in general. you just dont have the time to play it in full, but thats not a bad thing - if u cant get end game theres no point imo. Stick to RTS/FPS or Single player RPG's if you're into the role playing genre.

i lol'd when you said your friend spent hours playing and was only 10 lvls higher then you.


im not trying to flame you or be harsh in any way if thats how it comes off, im just telling you the truth.
good luck to you with other games, MMO does not seem like the right fit for you. cya.

Sorry if you ask me wow was the first mmo made for both casual and hardcore gamers, don't say it's a failure in any way, that mmo just have around 10 mill people playing it and it's not becouse it's a bad mmo.

And ven for pvp'rs like me it has a lot of funny things to do. i just don't like the cartunic style and still like nc way of mmo.

Originally Posted by graystar

Ok. It seems that alot of people are split on whether it should be a harder grind than WoW or one equivilent to WoWs grind. Personally, I dont care as long it is possible to reach max in an realistic amount of time. When we talk about reaching end game, that means getting one character to the max level. When you say that, you are not including all the re-rolls you had before and decided you didnt like that class so you start a new one. In L2, this was a big problem for me. I started as a human rogue, but dss was to expensive for a bow so i rerolled to dark avenger. Got him to 40 then decided i didnt like tanking. So i leveled up a tyrant to 52 and realized i will never hit end game (without botting but didnt work on my comp) So i just want a realistic time scale for leveling up. When TBC came out for wow, I didnt like how you hit lvl 60 relatively easy, but all the sudden for level 61 a huge xp bonus was needed to level up. Keep the leveling walls smooth and such, and im ready to pwn some newbs.


P.S. i never got to reach high end PvP in L2

Hah, the imbah xp jumps on L2. That was the thing that made half of my friends left L2 and the lack of things to do when you hit end game got the rest. Nice mmo, great pvp design, but made for hardcore players only.

[elliot]

Look at it this way:

Lineage II = hardcore grinding. takes a year+ or never to reach max lvl
Guild Wars = whats grinding?

-NCsoft launches Lineage II, the p-wetty characters attract a fair amount of geeks and geektresses. They try out beta, "holy crap I played for a week and I am still killing the same mob " Every casual players bounce off the barriers of grinding horror. Naturally, smart ones payed China to achieve lvl status and high end gear. Now, l2 has a slowly fading out player base with 1/3 of server population consisting of iBots.

-NCsoft launches Guild Wars. The people loved it. The press worshipped it. Oh god everybody join w/ Guild Wars pvp funz. NCsoft actually made big bucks out of this one.

Now they know what US players want. The hardcore grinding stuff stick to the I-live-in-a-pc cafe-and-sustain-my-life-with-cup ramen-and-cigarettes-Koreans, but not here. NCsoft plans to appeal to the public, while trying to keep certain grind factors alive.

Personally, I want a MMO with some amount of grinding required. It's more fun when more is at stake. Like you said, people are gonna try harder since a death could mean massive exp loss or possible item loss. Its also sometimes more fun to make people cry (insert devil smile here). However, I could not stand Lineage II grinding. It seemed I spent more time killing mushrooms than do anything fun, as if I payed 15 bucks a month to feel stressed. cuz of course, we all know we need more stress in our lives yes?

[Destrado]

Originally Posted by VendorTrash

WoW is the easiest MMO ever made (contra is harder then WoW and you only need to push 2 buttons to play that)...
yeah.

The contra games are famous for being ridiculously hard. Just thought I'd point that out.

[Marchosias]

Originally Posted by bliss

I saw the thread about grinding and wanted to see how people thought about the pace of lvling/exp to max lvl

Topic has been beaten to death... and when it was lying dead and bloodied on the floor it was violated, beaten again, and burnt. Then the ashes were ****ed upon and beaten again. But here's for one more go, anyway.

Originally Posted by bliss

I've played MMO starting from EQ then onto L2 and WoW. It's rather funny but those painful memories of lvling at a crawling pace in EQ and L2 are memories that actually stick with you. I remember having to grind mobs/exp for hours to only have it all taken away with just one death. Who remember calling out for a high lvl priest in EQ to have at least some exp back with a res?? and paying that hefty gold for it too?? Who remembers camping for that FBSS or for JBoots for hours and jumping up at the sight of the rare spawn?? I think the reward that came after these long trials were more satisfactory than the trend we see in MMO today...

Ok, maybe I'm in the minority here, but when I play any game I'm not looking for lasting memories of how much of a pain in the *** something was. I'm looking for a fun time and a way to relax after school/work. Camping out on a mob for hours might make it feel better when I get that item, but it's a fleeting boost that lasts all of about ten minutes, when I waited about half an hour for the damn thing to spawn. There are good and bad ways to make something rewarding, and waiting for a spawn isn't one of them.

Originally Posted by bliss

I lvled my rogue in WoW to 60 when it first came out in about a month... It was so easy. Getting items in Wow were too easy and every grandmother and her grandson had this item and that.

Raid much? Doesn't sound like it... I'll address the importance of this later.

Originally Posted by bliss

It just seems nobody wants to put in some effort for things...
In EQ and L2, reaching max lvl meant something...
I've seen some thread about how exp loss on death will be the deciding factor for lot of people to play aion. Exp loss on death and punishment/rewards for pvp need to be extreme. It makes people think twice about just zerging mobs or people. It makes you play harder to not die. In WoW everything is almost like a first person deathmatch. You die and res to take some minimal gold loss for durability hit then go into battle again. You don't even have to think twice, if you win/succeed good if not go try again.

Yah, battlegrounds can turn into a zerg, but if straight zerging were a legitimate path to victory premade groups would mean nothing. Rolling in a premade will make you realize how dominant you are when you're actually working together with people. Alliance pugs had a huge problem with this in my experience, and would consistently lose to Horde pugs simply because we failed to work together, regardless of how hard anyone tried to organize it. Yah, you can zerg, but against any decent opponent it's not going to work.

Then there are arenas. Don't even get me started on how horribly wrong your statements about WoW are in respect to the arena. It's completely different than other forms of PvP and simply destroys the concept of "zerging." I don't think I've seen a more fiercely competitive form of PvP. That was actually my only complaint with it. It was so intense I could only take a couple hours of it a week.

I won't even get deep into death penalties... it's a separate issue that I've spent way too much time arguing about. All I'll say is that there are other ways to encourage people to stay alive then exp loss/item drop. The key thing here is to encourage survival rather than discourage death. I'll leave it at that.

As for the feeling of being rewarded, WoW has plenty of it, and it from raiding. If you've ever raided you'll understand exactly how rewarding that first boss kill is. I still remember the first time we killed vael. Our party had about 5 people alive at the end, but it was enough. We had spent 3 hours on the boss that night alone, and had been working on him for a number of weeks.

As far as leveling in Aion is concerned, i really don't think it's about how fast you level or whether getting the max level is an accomplishment or not. It's about where the content is. If all the content is focused before the max level, then slow leveling is necessary. If a huge chunk of the content is focused on after the max level, like WoW is and Aion will be, then faster leveling is necessary. Having an easier max level then just makes it easier for them to make scripted, challenging boss fights for a group of people at a standard level, as well as well-balanced PvP. Which one is "better" is a matter of personal preference, not of fact. Obviously I prefer faster leveling. I really think it helps to standardize the characters for more balanced content at the end-game. I mean, people complain about instances before the max level in WoW being too easy, but they probably just did them at a higher level. Go when you 5-10 levels lower... not so easy anymore. If everyone's at the max level though, this kind of thing is taken out of play and they can ensure that everyone is met with a challenging encounter, and thus rewarding... rewards?

/end wall.

[Karukan]

I've played both types of games and at this point the game aspect I most enjoy is the PvP. Which is why I enjoyed DAOC, WoW, and L2. I ended up investing most of the last 3 years into L2 because I liked the brutal style of PvP more, but it didn't stop me from enjoying doing the WoW style of instanced PvP matches.

I guess the point i'm trying to make is that it shouldn't be looked at as: is lvling easy or hard. You should look at it like: Is the end-game content worth sticking around after I cap? or Is the journey gonna be fun enough to get on and grind daily? Even if lvling in Aion is easy, hitting 50 may be the beginning for an awesome PvP/Siege environment that is worth logging in for everyday. If lvling in Aion is hard, they may put enough PvE content/quests in as well as the PvP to make it enjoyable all the way through.

And since everyone enjoys different things, they won't be able to 100% please everyone, so you will just have to hope the pros outweigh the cons for you.

[Rekuja]

As long as they don't make Aion a grind-fest or group-forcing MMORPG then i'll be happy. I don't mind a little grinding if it's part of a quest (kill 30 mobs, gather 20 legs, etc)

Don't give me that "good ole days of L2" crap... Leveling in L2 was horrible :\ "want to make a new character? sure! don't eat, sleep or sh!t"

I can't believe how many times i have to repeat this. Waiting hours and hours for a group is not hard it's boring and time consuming. Same goes for grinding it's not hard it's time consuming and lazy development of an MMORPG

last time i checked, time didn't = difficulty

There's already another thread about this discussion...