Baulkin said:I like a scaling system.
4 Hours 1-10 (1 level per 4 hour session) = 40 hours
8 Hours 11-20 (1 level every 2 sessions) = 80 hours
12 Hours 30-40 (1 level every 3 sessions) = 120 hours
16 Hours 40-50 (1 level every 4 sessions) = 160 hours
That would be about 400 hours of xp grinding, or grouping. Add to that travel times, LFG time, crafting, exploring, gear farming and any death penalties... It would take most people 6 months to a year to reach 50, depending on playtime.
This is a comfortable leveling scale for the average player in my opinion. An experienced gamer should be able to cut off 1 hours from this for each session.
3 Hours 1-10 (1 level per 3 hour session) = 30 hours
7 Hours 11-20 (1 level every 2 sessions) = 70 hours
11 Hours 30-40 (1 level every 3 sessions) = 110 hours
15 Hours 40-50 (1 level every 4 sessions) = 150 hours
A total of 360 hours for the experienced player vs. 400 hours for the average players. Still seems like a good scale to me! That's 15 played days to reach level 50.
Even for a hardcore gamer playing 8 hours a day it would take them a month and a half to reach level 50.
10-20 even /con mobs max from level 1 to 2. After that, scale exponentially.
Off the cuff, for every level after level 2 = (level *10) + (last level total / 2) = total number of even /con mobs for the next level.
Then, scale the difficulty of the mobs like in EQ1. At level 1, killing a yellow /con solo in 30 seconds is possible, and at level 50, you solo at the edge of light/dark blue and kills average 70-90 seconds.
Basically, level 1 to 2 takes 15-20 minutes max? The ding sound needs to happen frequently at first, and slower and harder with each successive level. Standard MMO exp curve, except scale the mobs with the level too.
shihiro said:I believe level 1 should be long enough to be relevant, but not so long as to be boring.
And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou will select thy Holy Class. Then shalt thou level to two, no more, no less. Two shall be the number thou shalt level, and the number of the leveling shall be two. Three shalt thou not level, neither level thou one, excepting that thou then proceed to two. Four is right out. Once the number two, being the second number, be reached, thy Holy Class shall be leveled in the appropriate amount of time."
I will reiterate some of the points already mentioned. The most important being that the length of the 1st level should be defined by what skills are available to a player at creation. Am I running around with only basic attack or will I have some rudimentary offensive, defensive, and/or utility skills? If I start off with skill options and enough interesting content to drive me forward then I won't mind if it takes me 8 or more hours to level.
Secondly, what is the purpose of a level? Is it a major or minor milestone? Are skill-ups given at level or do skills progress on use? If everything is tied to leveling it should occur more frequently. If a level serves as major milestone with a significant advancement or change then it should be less frequent. I am a big proponent of progressively more difficult leveling. The longer you play an avatar the more invested you become. Weighing risk/reward becomes more important forcing players to slow down and put more thought into actions. The higher your level the more difficult it should be to push forward and progress more. Mastery is not an easy feat.
As mentioned in other posts there is a difference between being challenged and becoming bored. I understand that the target player base for this game is hard-core, old-school gamers. However, everyone wants to see progression; hold that off too long and the game is no longer fun. The worst thing in the world is having to slay 100 rats for enough xp to level. Even worse is having to slay 1000 rats because someone thought the level should last longer.
In terms of pure grinding instead of more mixed gameplay, I like the idea of each level taking 10-30 minutes more than the last. It's simple, doesn't seem like much at low levels, but adds up well.
Using the average of 20 minutes, it means about 490 hours to level 50. So almost 2 months for the stupid hardcore 60 hours/week, or almost 6 months for the average 20 hours/week.
But I'm speaking as someone who's never been to an MMO's max level... or even 60% of the way. I like dawdling, smelling flowers, etc.
I am of the camp that the journey to end level is the fun part. While I would not want to spend 20 hours killing rats with a rusty short sword to get to level 2, the later mid and final levels should take awhile. I like some of the schedules mentioned above. Certainly you should spend enough time at level one to skill up some basic weapon use and defense skills to survive at the next level.
More importantly, there needs to be enough time at each skill level to make a person learn the skills of the character. Learning different play styles, according to the character class is important.
I am all for a long journey in pantheon but I think 8 hours for to gain level 2 is a little long. I recall reading that they want to strive for an average 2 hour game session being able to accomplish something so I doubt level 1 will take longer than 2 hours. That being said, I think 4-5 hours per level, at early levels, as long as they are significant, works well for my tastes.
People get caught up in this... If a game is fun, lots to do solo or with friends, it does not really matter if it takes 6 hours. I do not want a game that is all about tunnel visioning yourself into getting the "next" skill. To be honest, when it takes longer, the player tends to do more stuff and not focus on the exp bar, which makes for a MUCH better gaming experience. When you DO finally make next level, you feel like you have earned something. I will not be a part of any level race when I play this game, bring on the fun and multi experiences instead, the levels will naturally come along!
I remember in EQ2 at around lvl 40 when we were xp grinding with a group chainpulling mobs it was around 10%xp/hour. i think thats a good length.
for lvl 1 i don't know, not too long.
I'm going to revive this thread... STAND CLEAR! *Paddles*
The reason I'm bringing this thread back is because I am currently playing the newest Everquest Time Locked Progression Server... And the exp is slow... I mean SLOW. While it is still faster than Everquest than it was back in '99 it took over 3 hours of straight mob grinding to get level 3-4. This was a HUGE turn off for so many players returning to EQ after so many years.
Now, please do not mistake this as a complaint about the time required to get levels - it isn't. It is just a cautionary tale that when all we can do is /attack and then watch the combat log for 3+ hours straight - it's a nightmare. The lower levels should be relatively fast in comparison to the rest of the game. I would imagine 1-6 should only take 2-3 hours and THEN we start hitting that real world leveling. It simply comes down to the fact that EQ classes start becoming a real class around level 10 (For meele especially!).
@Kilsin please take a look into the forums on Daybreak to see all of the complaints about the slow exp rates and use this as a word of caution.
Now that I'm level 15 it's about 1 - 1.5 hours in a 6 person group to level which is a fine pace. At level 40+ it's over 4 hours a level. Server firsts were done in 114 hours using 25% exp potions the entire time. This is a pretty great leveling timeline EXCEPT for 1-10 because quite frankly there is just nothing fun about /autoattack for 10+hours while we slowly unlock our class abilities.
- Furor
Furor said:I'm going to revive this thread... STAND CLEAR! *Paddles*
The reason I'm bringing this thread back is because I am currently playing the newest Everquest Time Locked Progression Server... And the exp is slow... I mean SLOW. While it is still faster than Everquest than it was back in '99 it took over 3 hours of straight mob grinding to get level 3-4. This was a HUGE turn off for so many players returning to EQ after so many years.Now, please do not mistake this as a complaint about the time required to get levels - it isn't. It is just a cautionary tale that when all we can do is /attack and then watch the combat log for 3+ hours straight - it's a nightmare. The lower levels should be relatively fast in comparison to the rest of the game. I would imagine 1-6 should only take 2-3 hours and THEN we start hitting that real world leveling. It simply comes down to the fact that EQ classes start becoming a real class around level 10 (For meele especially!).
@Kilsin please take a look into the forums on Daybreak to see all of the complaints about the slow exp rates and use this as a word of caution.
Now that I'm level 15 it's about 1 - 1.5 hours in a 6 person group to level which is a fine pace. At level 40+ it's over 4 hours a level. Server firsts were done in 114 hours using 25% exp potions the entire time. This is a pretty great leveling timeline EXCEPT for 1-10 because quite frankly there is just nothing fun about /autoattack for 10+hours while we slowly unlock our class abilities.
- Furor
Oh I'm watching and have been since before the launch, watching all the requests and excitement and then all the complaints and requests to change things ;)
I think the first few levels are very important for a new game. I also feel slower exp rates in a brand new game will not be noticed near as much as in Everquest, where everything is not new. It can be boring, but the rate of exp isn't what is making it boring. It's more the lack of combat options in my opinon. I, personally, have been soloing my cleric and taking on white and yellow con mobs. It's definitely been interesting and I can't zone out or my cleric will be dead.
Having said all that, I don't disagree with Furor, I just believe it's not the leveling rate which needs adjusting but the way leveling is achieved.
In order to make zones worthwhile to be in, it should take a while to level up each level. I think the sweet-spot should be about 1 ½ - 2 ½ hours of playing time to level up in the low levels (example 1 – 15). However, the later levels should take longer so that zones are meaningful and prevent players from out-leveling a zone too soon. All the work that goes into creating a zone and if players can out-level it in a few hours will basically make many of these zones dead like much of EQ’s back in the day.
Furor said:I'm going to revive this thread... STAND CLEAR! *Paddles*
The reason I'm bringing this thread back is because I am currently playing the newest Everquest Time Locked Progression Server... And the exp is slow... I mean SLOW. While it is still faster than Everquest than it was back in '99 it took over 3 hours of straight mob grinding to get level 3-4. This was a HUGE turn off for so many players returning to EQ after so many years.Now, please do not mistake this as a complaint about the time required to get levels - it isn't. It is just a cautionary tale that when all we can do is /attack and then watch the combat log for 3+ hours straight - it's a nightmare. The lower levels should be relatively fast in comparison to the rest of the game. I would imagine 1-6 should only take 2-3 hours and THEN we start hitting that real world leveling. It simply comes down to the fact that EQ classes start becoming a real class around level 10 (For meele especially!).
@Kilsin please take a look into the forums on Daybreak to see all of the complaints about the slow exp rates and use this as a word of caution.
Now that I'm level 15 it's about 1 - 1.5 hours in a 6 person group to level which is a fine pace. At level 40+ it's over 4 hours a level. Server firsts were done in 114 hours using 25% exp potions the entire time. This is a pretty great leveling timeline EXCEPT for 1-10 because quite frankly there is just nothing fun about /autoattack for 10+hours while we slowly unlock our class abilities.
- Furor
Well....
Almost everyone you speak to IN GAME is loving the slow EXP. Matter of fact, the people on the boards are not playing & are there complaining, because they had hopes to run the game in 2 week and be selling warez already. The people complaining on the forums act if they are entitled... if they want fast leveling, they could already be lvl 50 on a NON-Progression server in 2 weeks.
In fact, in nearly every group I am with, I have heard how people love the slower advancement on Phinny and how it creates a COMMUNITY. Log in game, join a group and about an hour later, ask the question. People love the slow leveling. MMOs are a long term investment...
Most of the people complaining want to finish EQ quickly, so they can move on the next game.
BTW.. the Difference between a lvl 30 and a lvl 40 on Phinny, is about 26h. The problem with EQ is that it is so limited and so small in scope & 18 years old. In EQ there really is nothing to do.. given other games like Arche Age, or Vanguard. There is no where to hang you hat, or call a place home in EQ, & no actual goal other than gaining levels, which is the only barometer in such a small scope game like EQ. Ding! is the only reward for your money.
As noted earlier in this thread and more logical.
scaling system:
4 Hours 1-10 (1 level per 4 hour session)
8 Hours 11-20 (1 level every 2 sessions)
12 Hours 30-40 (1 level every 3 sessions)
16 Hours 40-50 (1 level every 4 sessions)
That would be about 400 hours of xp grinding, or grouping. Add to that travel times, LFG time, crafting, exploring, gear farming and any death penalties... It would take most people 6 months to a year to reach 50, depending on playtime.
Rint said:In order to make zones worthwhile to be in, it should take a while to level up each level. I think the sweet-spot should be about 1 ½ - 2 ½ hours of playing time to level up in the low levels (example 1 – 15). However, the later levels should take longer so that zones are meaningful and prevent players from out-leveling a zone too soon. All the work that goes into creating a zone and if players can out-level it in a few hours its will basically be a dead zone like much of EQ’s back in the day.
Again, this seems like an ideal sweet spot in theory - but when you're actually doing it that is an extremely long amount of time to use only 1 ability. I don't like nor would I want having access to excessive amounts of abilities at the start of a game. Having a 4 button rotation starting from level 1 (Well level 4 really) will be an ESO clone. However, you also need to consider long term implications of having level 1-10 being 1 ½ - 2 ½ hours per level. The final levels would be around 4-6 hours of straight grinding each.
That philosophy follows this pattern based off of your "sweet spot" theory:
lvl 1-9: 1 hour each level
lvl 10-19: 2 hours each level
lvl 20-29: 3 hours each level
lvl 30-40: 4 hours each level
lvl 40-50: 5 hours each level
That is a total of 149 hours... Now those numbers I threw out earlier are NOT - Oh let me explore this, and do that, talk to these friends - We are talking mob after mob, non stop group exping (except respawn downtime) to give us the time of 1 - 1 ½ hours per level. This is the pace for a hardcore player.
That would realistically put casual players on pace for 180+ (a 20% markup based on numbers above) hours to reach maximum level. 180 hours at 2 hours a day, every day, would take 90 days to reach maximum level. 2 hours of just pure, non stop, exp grouping. That is a long time to keep the attention span of a player. Even for the hardcore players. That would take 24.8 days at 6 hours each day, again, of just pure, non stop, exp grouping. These numbers DO NOT take into account travel time, socializing, tradeskilling, random exploring... You'd be well over 250+ hours of played time to reach maximum level with these things included.
And when all is said and done it still took the Everquest TLP server first had 114 played hours (With a 25% exp potion always on!!) to reach level 50. And you have this to consider too - Everquest has been around for 16 years... People know where to go, people know what equipment to get, people know their classes and their abilities... And it still took 114 hours. Really it should have taken 142.5 hours (Pantheon won't have exp potions) from the same player.
Now... Again, please do not mistake ANY of that for thinking I do not enjoy a challenge nor that I'm not willing to put in the time to achieve maximum level. But it just comes down to a simple truth - While Pantheon is being designed for a niche of players, time spent DOES NOT EQUATE TO CHALLENGE. I would rather kill 25 mobs at 4% experience each (With an entire group) where each mob takes 2 minutes to kill individually than to kill 100 mobs at 1% experience each that take 36 seconds to kill (Which is what it's like on the Everquest TLP).
- Furor
Hieromonk said:Well....
Almost everyone you speak to IN GAME is loving the slow EXP. Matter of fact, the people on the boards are not playing & are there complaining, because they had hopes to run the game in 2 week and be selling warez already. The people complaining on the forums act if they are entitled... if they want fast leveling, they could already be lvl 50 on a NON-Progression server in 2 weeks.
In fact, in nearly every group I am with, I have heard how people love the slower advancement on Phinny and how it creates a COMMUNITY. Log in game, join a group and about an hour later, ask the question. People love the slow leveling. MMOs are a long term investment...
Most of the people complaining want to finish EQ quickly, so they can move on the next game.
I too am loving the slower exp. But the only word of caution I was trying to make is that if there isn't a challenge to the content - simply having you kill more of something doesn't add challenge. See my above post for more detail :D
- Furor
I look at it like this, If I do not have enough time to explore lands / dungeons / quests / things available for my appropriate level, then experience gain is too fast. If someone chooses to camp in several spots only, and not explore to these other areas, that is up to them. I do not want a game where I find myself level 10, because I got involved with dungeons, quests, explorations all over, and discover that there were two more major areas or dungeons etc. around level 4-5 that I could have enjoyed.
My point is, if experience is slow enough, it forces you to get involved... wow, amazing... get involved. That is what it is all about. Finding friends, groups, each day is something different, new experience (good or bad). This all amounts to immersion, something you think about when not tapped into the game world.
On EQ Phinny server yesterday, it was a rough time. First time this happened in my 22 levels so far. We ran all the way to MM Castle, die once due to train. Area we could fight in was taken. Ran to Unrest and tried basement. I forwarned we were not high enough level, group tried anyway. We died again. Then we ran to Upper Guk. Horrible time getting to Ancient Croc area. Finally we got there, wiped because tank was not grabbing RED con mobs first (which cannot be mezzed, controlled easily). All in all, 2 1/2 blue bubble exp loss. I almost logged for the night, but decided I would make a run over to check out Lavastorm on my own, joined a guy boxing the Lavaspinner area. We ended up making a full group and made up all the exp loss plus hit my next level. Made new friends and we had a great time.
I agree that EQ is all about exp grinding and gearing. But it is still so challenging and fun. Throw in some extra features like Pantheon is working on, wow watch out!
Could it not be possible to have an XP level based off something else other than filling up an ever larger sized pool of XP? What about only going to the next level when you've maxed out your skill caps to fit that level? Early on you have very few, so you go out, fight and your skills go up and finally reach their cap..ding! Lvl 2. But as you go further you get more and more of them so moving them all up every level would take more and more time. It wouldn't be based on a static quantity of experience needed and would have some degree of variability that would be affected by your stats. Raising a DEX based stat would go quickly if you have a high DEX but by the same token raising that INT based skill when that stat is back down in the single digits would be quite slow indeed.
I'm just taking another look at EQ as well, although not on the progression server. Playing a monk, the game started off quite slow, with only basic autoattack and kick skills. Good for a real new player (because you don't get overwhelmed with dozens of skills right away), but for more experienced folks it does not make for very exciting combat. So its probably better if this level range doesn't take excessively long time. The pace picks up around lvl 10 or so when you get more (interesting) skills, and then the leveling speed is fine for a while. It actually gets too fast (at mid levels it can be quite some work to max out all attack skills every level). At higher levels (lvl 75+) the pace slows down SO much however that the game becomes un-enjoyable for me again. So the leveling speed definitely isn't easy to get right :)
I suppose its better for the devs to err on the slow side, because you can always lessen the exp curve later. Also, I think its quite important that the exp curve during alpha/beta should NOT be less than it is in live.
Sarim said:I'm just taking another look at EQ as well, although not on the progression server. Playing a monk, the game started off quite slow, with only basic autoattack and kick skills. Good for a real new player (because you don't get overwhelmed with dozens of skills right away), but for more experienced folks it does not make for very exciting combat. So its probably better if this level range doesn't take excessively long time. The pace picks up around lvl 10 or so when you get more (interesting) skills, and then the leveling speed is fine for a while.
This was exactly the point I was trying to get across!
And all I can say is just imagine this... Exp on the new Time Locked Progression server is 50-60% slower than the live servers. Imagine doing exactly what you did... But doing it twice as long :D
Krixus said:I was the 11th? person to hit 50 on my server, and I was a monk. My /played was 29 days. I don't think that is too much. That journey remains my favorite part of the entire game.
I agree. Especially considering that half of the time it took to level was time spent learning how to play and trying to find groups. Going into a game with the current level of knowledge of MMOs in general combined with the premade groups many people will have in long term guilds, people would hit 50 in a fraction of that time. Having leveled many a character on the project 1999 servers, its pretty easy to hit max level in under 10 days played (240 hours).
I think even the most hardcore players shouldn't see max level for at least a few months. That will put the average player at 6 months to a year. This is, of course, assuming that the game will be fun, the journey memorable, and so the time spent leveling, worthwhile.
Furor said:
Now... Again, please do not mistake ANY of that for thinking I do not enjoy a challenge nor that I'm not willing to put in the time to achieve maximum level. But it just comes down to a simple truth - While Pantheon is being designed for a niche of players, time spent DOES NOT EQUATE TO CHALLENGE. I would rather kill 25 mobs at 4% experience each (With an entire group) where each mob takes 2 minutes to kill individually than to kill 100 mobs at 1% experience each that take 36 seconds to kill (Which is what it's like on the Everquest TLP).
- Furor
I know I continually harp on this point, but I only do so because I feel it is "extremely" important to recapture early EQ and it appears so many people who played EQ at launch disagree or overlook it. Time spent does not directly equal challenge if the gameplay mechanics don't support it, but time spent absolutely increases challenge if they do.
I'll use the example I used at MMORPG and have used a few times here. Many other features of EQ could be used as well.
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@Torval
At some point Mob HP directly effects challenge if the game mechanics are designed similar to Vanilla EQ - especially without in-combat mana/endurance/(whatever character resource) regen.
Example: Resource management was a big deal in Vanilla EQ, and, if mob hps were extremely low, or player DPS would have been scaled much higher in Vanilla EQ - that never would have been the case. You couldn't simply spam skills/spells/abilities (as a caster) and melee DPS wasn't overpowering. So fights, took longer, which caused a lot of strategy within the combat.
If Pantheon was designed with Spammy combat with no fear of ever running out of resources in combat (like many MMOs today), then increased HPs would do nothing to "add' to the challenge other than being more tedious, but, hopefully, that won't be the case, and where I'm in agreement with Sinist's "slower" combat.
That, at least, is how I'm reading into Sinist's points.
So, in my above scenario, the added "time" of dealing with increased HPs added directly to the challenge because it magnified another aspect of EQ gameplay - Resource Management.
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You can't take the element of time in a vacuum and say it doesn't add to challenge, because, in and of itself it doesn't, but how it synergizes with other core mechanics is where the challenge can be added.
And, back on topic, I know a baseline of time/exp gain has to be developed in order to gauge progression, but along with Pyye's post, if the game is built well, like EQ, progression will be slower because people are exploring, questing, tradeskilling, etc. etc. instead of just /powerleveling to max level. Will that happen still with power gamers, sure, but, built in slow progression is one thing, having ridiculously slow levels just to slow it down is another. Basically, if the only thing slowing people down was because levels took longer, the game failed already. I want levels to take longer (I'd be ok with longer than EQlaunch), but also progression be "much" slower because Pantheon has so much "meaningful" content to complete (not trivial quest hubs). Basically, make it feel like a game world again, and the progression will slow down naturally.