philo said:patboy19 said:If you don't want to scare the casual players away by making the leveling a long process, then you have to have enough for them to do in those mid levels. I dont want to grind the same dungeon a hundred times to hit 31. I wouldn't mind spending months between 30-40 if I had enough variation to keep me distracted from my XP bar.
On top of having enough to do as far as exp camps, mid lvl raid should do a lot to help break up the leveling process.
I think the biggest thing will be a game that takes you back to playing for fun rather than playing with the only goal of hitting a level. In EQ I remember you didn't expect to ding every night, so you were logging in to hang out with friends and play for fun.
Liav said:Wow, this thread is horribly detached from reality. One to several years for a casual to hit max level? Enjoy playing a game with 6 people.
If it takes any longer than a month for the hardest core players to hit cap, the average casual will probably just quit. I agree that it shouldn't take 2 days, but let's be real here. You're suggesting we take EQ's 1999 leveling curve and multiply the amount of xp required by ten times or more.
The average casual gamer will hate Pantheon in the first two hours. No floating !, no golden string to follow, a group centric required game, no instant transport to your group? These are all killers for the current casual gamer, and I’m glad to be rid of them. VR is not targeting these players. If the average Pantheon player can hit 50 in less than six months I’ll be surprised. VR has spent ...years... developing Pantheon, and you want to reach level cap in a month. Get real.
Ok, I'll bite. This can be determined by two hypothetical design goals:
Full group killing blue/white/yellow con mobs, non-stop, is the most efficient XP per hour. This means between 100 and 150 mobs per level, on average. (100 yellows, 125 whites, 150 blues)
Time to kill is somewhere between 20 and 60 seconds with a full group.
Premise presumptions:
Downtime can be reduced by moving while hunting.
There is a monk puller in the group, so single pulls and no deaths are guaranteed.
The average player will spend between 25% and 50% of their online play time in combat. The rest is travel+other.
Customers will play between 1 and 10 hours per day.
So, with that... multiply!
Most efficient: 20 sec TTK, 100 mobs per level, 50% combat duty cycle, 50 levels means... 41 hours. (20 x 100 x 1.5 x 50) or just over 4 days at 10 hours per day.
Least efficient: 60 sec TTK, 150 mobs per level, 25% combat duty cycle, 50 levels means.. 218 hours (60 x 150 x 1.75 x 50) , or just over 7 months @1 hour per day.
Adjust as required. :)
Liav's points are valid and it is absolutely critical that Pantheon isn't just a wonderful game for *us*.
We absolutely must attract many players that aren't *us* and keep a good percentage of them. Or the game will fail, stranding *us*.
Pantheon is intended as a niche game and shouldn't adopt a level curve aimed to attract the most casual players. On the other hand it shouldn't adopt a level curve that only the hardest of the hardcore can tolerate.
This said - the niche I mentioned isn't players that don't give a rodent's hindquarters about anything but raids at level cap and care mostly about how soon they can get there. If it takes 6 month to a year for a casual player to hit level cap that is fine with me if they have things to do to keep them happy as they play. We want mostly people looking to enjoy the content not max out as fast as possible. The attitude that fun is based on how fast you level is *not* our niche.
dorotea said:
We absolutely must attract many players that aren't *us* and keep a good percentage of them. Or the game will fail, stranding *us*.
Those players who are not "us" won't enjoy a game that "we" like.
Of course players can be new to the genre and still be one of "us" whether they know it yet or not. Atracting people who are not one of "us" doesn't work. "They" don't like these types of games. A game can't be built that caters to everyone.
dorotea said:
Pantheon is intended as a niche game and shouldn't adopt a level curve aimed to attract the most casual players. On the other hand it shouldn't adopt a level curve that only the hardest of the hardcore can tolerate.
Agreed, all types of players must be taken into account.
dorotea said: This said - the niche I mentioned isn't players that don't give a rodent's hindquarters about anything but raids at level cap and care mostly about how soon they can get there.
They are a part of the playerbase that needs to be taken into account. The way that comes off sounds like personal bias instead of trying to do what is best for everyone. Neither of us have to play that way to understand that there are people like that in the community. If both styles can be accomodated then why not?
dorotea said: If it takes 6 month to a year for a casual player to hit level cap that is fine with me if they have things to do to keep them happy as they play. We want mostly people looking to enjoy the content not max out as fast as possible. The attitude that fun is based on how fast you level is *not* our niche.
We should try, as much as possible, to adapt gameplay to encompass all play styles. The important thing is that everyone is happy playing the game. I don't look down on someone who thinks that it is fun to level fast. They are part of the niche who enjoys these games too.
I just sincerely hope I never have to care about this question, because I'm having so much fun playing the game.
Edited to remove unnecessary, possibly interpreted as vulgar superlatives.
I am uncertain how long it should take. It is difficult for me to gauge something like that in the modern MMORPG marketplace where there are people playing 12+ hours per day who have a ton of experience in these types of games. I'm not exactly a casual myself since I play a minimum of 3 hours every single day when I'm hooked by an MMO (20+ hours per week, at least double the average). So what is the benchmark? Do you want it to take 6 months for a "no lifer" who plays 12 hours per day to hit max level or do you want it to take 6 months for a "casual" who plays 1 hour per day to max out?
Personally I am hoping it is nothing like the modern MMOs where you fly through levels like nothing. What is the point of developing low level content if players out level it in a few hours of playing? I am hoping Pantheon is more about the journey than the destination. Nobody should be hitting max level in the first month or two unless they are whackos who play 24/7. One thing to keep in mind is the faster players hit max level the more max level content they are going to demand and if that content isn't there the faster you will lose subs.
I think it's dangerous to make assumptions about how players that aren't "us" play or what they like. This is why I dislike the terms "hardcore" and "casual".
Even in my FFXIV guild, I have players who play a lot and players who play seldom. But the time they invest doesn't always map to their goals. Many of the players who don't play as much are some of the most vocal when it comes to wanting to do "endgame" content. And many of them are ok with it taking longer for them to get there, as long as they can do it when they get there.
Likewise, some of my people who are literally online all day, every day, are the ones who will go hang out in a town dancing for hours at a time, and who at the weekly resets say things like "oops, I forgot to cap out my tomestones before the reset happened."
I'm not saying that the things that "we" want aren't valid. I wouldn't have pledged as much as I did if I didn't think Pantheon was going to do something that's been missing from MMORPGs. But I think we shouldn't fall into the trap of feeling that Pantheon's success is an us vs. them kind of scenario. Probably 60-70% of my guildies in FFXIV are people who got their start in post-TBC WoW. They've never known any other style of game. But when we talk about Pantheon, at least a few of them are intrigued. They have heard the old people like me talk about EQ, and VG, and SWG, and FFXI, and all the other games, and they wonder.... maybe there's a different way? Maybe it will be fun? Just because they've never known anything other than quick-level, race-to-the-end style gameplay doesn't mean they'll automatically hate something different, and we shouldn't assume that. There might be a little culture shock, sure.... but a good newbie tutorial and a good community (and lots of compelling content) can overcome that pretty easily.
250 hours played: 25 days at 10hours a day (power gamer)
50 days at 5 hours a day (gamer)
100 days at 2 hours a day (dirty casual)
Long enough that it feels earned, not too long as to push people away from the game and discourage alts.
Max level is where the fun should be anyway! something something Horizontal Progression
philo said:
Those players who are not "us" won't enjoy a game that "we" like.
I think the point is that people can't just put them into two buckets... either they like everything we like or they do not like anything we like... There are gray areas that are in between. We should not assume that all of *us* have the same idea as to what a challenging game means. Just like all of us may not have the same idea what an adequate amount of time to level may mean. In the end, we know it is considered a topic of concern with the design team... and they have made better games than the vast majority of us... All I am gonna hope is that they don't listen to anyone who is arguing for the extreme of either scenario.
The proverbial "we", meaning everyone who enjoys the game...regardless of how they enjoy it.
There are, of course, a lot of different play styles and individual preferences represented in the "we" that will enjoy the game. Isn't that why we are using the general "we" term? Make sure you put that in context with what was being quoted.
OneForAll said:250 hours played: 25 days at 10hours a day (power gamer)
50 days at 5 hours a day (gamer)
100 days at 2 hours a day (dirty casual)
Long enough that it feels earned, not too long as to push people away from the game and discourage alts.
Max level is where the fun should be anyway! something something Horizontal Progression
Be careful about not taking efficiency variables into account. The numbers won't be an even distribution. (though your casual number isn't evenly distributed...but its distributed in, likely, the wrong direction.)
philo said:The proverbial "we", meaning everyone who enjoys the game...regardless of how they enjoy it.
There are, of course, a lot of different play styles and individual preferences represented in the "we" that will enjoy the game. Isn't that why we are using the general "we" term? Make sure you put that in context with what was being quoted.
Perhaps I misread that. My bad.
So I'm going to go and say I'm never going to hit max level. Just going to stop at 49 on all my characters and alts. Just to mess with everyone's stats :)
OneForAll said:250 hours played: 25 days at 10hours a day (power gamer)
50 days at 5 hours a day (gamer)
100 days at 2 hours a day (dirty casual)
Long enough that it feels earned, not too long as to push people away from the game and discourage alts.
Max level is where the fun should be anyway! something something Horizontal Progression
That's pretty dang fast. At that rate a casual player could have just about 4 maxed out characters in a year, maybe more before even the first expansion.
1) Do we know what the level cap is/will be?
2) I hope (Using 50 as cap), that it would take a casual player, playing say 10-15 hours a week, a minimum of 7-9 months to reach 50.
And I say that as a casual player, in which I see only having 2-3 hours a night several nights a week to play most weeks. With the occasional longer session on weekends.
I completely agree with you Fulton, as a casual player myself. Playing a few hours 3-4 nights a week, plus a longer session on the weekend, I would like To see max level in about 9 months.
Coincidentally, 9 months was about how long it took for me to max my first toon in EQ, and it felt right. There of course will be people who perform this feat much quicker but I'm not sure if it should take any longer than that.
OneForAll said:250 hours played: 25 days at 10hours a day (power gamer)
50 days at 5 hours a day (gamer)
100 days at 2 hours a day (dirty casual)
Long enough that it feels earned, not too long as to push people away from the game and discourage alts.
Max level is where the fun should be anyway! something something Horizontal Progression
WHY should the fun be at Max level???? why cant the Fun be all the way from level 1 On up? WoW and many many many other games have made Max level the goal to reach the FUN as you put it, thats why everyone Rushes to Max level so that they can get to the FUN part of the game.
There are a plethora of these types of games and all to few of the type of classic style game that so many of us are looking for. There should be fun right from the start, deeply challenging, rewarding amazing content all the way up through the levels.
1.1 Who is the targeted player (demographic) base for this game, and why?
While some MMOs have been designed with the goal and desire to appeal to all gamers, all of the time, we at Visionary Realms believe the future of MMOs is all about making more focused games, targeting specific gamers with distinct preferences. Pantheon is first and foremost a deeply social game. Players who desire cooperative play, working together as a team, and the shared experiences that result from playing with other real people to overcome challenges will enjoy Pantheon. Players who want an MMO to be their home and to interact with communities and player-driven economies will find what they are looking for in Pantheon. Why? We feel that, at least recently, the MMO players who enjoy these elements have been orphaned. In fact, the Visionary Realms team feels they are part of this orphaned group. And it doesn’t take a lot of research to find countless articles, blogs, and posts full of players looking for the kind of experience we aim to offer in Pantheon
Realistically if they wanted to make it take months to hit level 50, it would end up being much slower than EverQuest. Back in those days no one knew what they were doing. These days you'll have optimal makeup premades in voice chat going hard all day every day. There are people who love games like these just for the level race and to be the first to do things.
I wouldn't be against something like artificially slowing the exp rate at launch for those considerably higher than the average level, though. Interesting thought, make it so that those premade groups grinding their ass off to be 10 levels higher than average have to grind twice as long to maintain their leads. :P
I imagine most people will hate that idea, though.
Lots of strong opinions here. And many strong opinions about other nameless and faceless strangers that are used as a basis for justification of their opinions. I will throw some water on that fire.
I was in EQ Beta. I was level 52 on my rogue and on my bard when Scars of Velious was released. I quit soon after that - perhaps 2 months after release. I did not enjoy the game that was represented in "Scars of Velious". I would be classified as a casual player.
That did not end my subscriptions as I tried plenty of other games. Loved DAoC (played all three realms until capping the third battleground because after the third battleground the game wasn't interesting enough to play). Played WoW solely with friends because through the years the toxicity of the playerbase in the games was driving us nuts and we basically just played in our own group.
There were others that don't mention nearly the amount of time I already spent. But I heartily paid subscriptions, as did many others of my ilk.
In denigrating part of the player base - either saying "casuals won't like this" or "hard-core will leave of boredom" what is effectively being done is that is the only criteria for why people play games - it has to be a casual game (regardless of makeup) or it has to be a hard-core game (regardless of makeup). The playerbase will be what it will be. But speaking as a casual who feels Pantheon does hold some promise for a game for me to pay a subscription (and let's be one-hundred-percent real here) the subscription I will pay for an account is exactly the same as the subscription a hard-core will pay for their account (excluding any kind of premium subscription premises) - even if that means I pay the same but play far less. I am looking for a game that will draw me in and have me partaking of the content developed. So long as I can partake of the content and enjoy that content I will gladly fork over my subscription dollars. There are others of my ilk that will do the same. And I will do it for a D&D / Tolkein style game - I may not do it for other styles like war games. I am attracted by the tenets as they are spelled out in Pantheon.
I absolutely stand by my words and I will pay my subscription month after month on a regular basis if some of what attracted me to the MMORPG genre comes back to the gaming world (EQ and DAoC are the two that come to mind and they both do so for different reasons and they were developed with different tenets - and I am aware of Camelot Unchained (just as an aside)). I also believe hard-core players will stand by their words and will pay their subscriptions month after month on a regular basis so long as there is content for them to enjoy.
I am also realistic in that Pantheon will need a subscriber base of some sort of magnitude for it to have any sort of longevity and that new subscriptions need to come in to offset the subscriptions that are lost. This isn't just for the month after release but for the year after release and even years after that. There are other self-proclaimed casuals on here who have repeatedly made mention that leveling isn't their sole attraction to the game. It may be falling on deaf ears but I believe I speak for some of the casual gamers that are attracted to MMORPGs in a vein similar to EQ and what Pantheon may be and that is leveling isn't the goal but rather adventuring is the goal. Leveling along the way is part of the adventure as is playing with others as is experiencing content as is just going about to see what is what as is hoping to discover just some little thing or easter egg that may be overlooked by others.
So while the question of how long should it take is a great question for people to express an opinion, perhaps stay clear of making declarative statements of others of opposite ilk and allow their opinions to speak for themselves. So, I will speak my opinion and I will rely on my experience in playing MMORPG of a D&D vein and subscription based and say I think hitting max level after the first expansion is released isn't unrealistic - but nor is it an expectation (say about 500 hours of playtime; but also not really based on any scientific measure - just spewing forth a number as in 10 hours per week for one year).
Time Played is a tough subject to base your leveling around, unless you meant it as Time spent exping/questing....(we don't know what the fastest method is yet for this game). I'd like to see it take about 50% of the time of the planned expac release cycle. So if we are on an annual release cycle it would take 6 months to max it out for an average amount of play time. Some folks will do this in a few weeks others will take the full year to max it out..but atleast 50% of the population catches the dragon from a leveling perspective.
As a side note, it depends how the game is made and if there is a reward for generating a more solid character other than the level next to their name. Lotro, in all it's flaws, scratched the surface of this by essentially giving you more quests than you need to achieve max level, but without grinding your Deeds by completing certain tasks or certain amount of kills your character was not nearly as powerful or effective. So a max level character wasn't the be all end all it is just the beginning and it almost shoved it in your face if you rushed to max.
*EDIT* also sour grapes come in when someone finds and exploits a leveling method that isn't resolved in a timely manner. The last one I can think of is the AA grind that happened from "moles" in EQ during the call of the foresaken expac...eseentially it gave horrible normal experience, but the way that AA Exp is calculated it allowed you to trivialize the entire expac of AA in a matter of hours if you could do any form reposite all attacks b/c of the low hp and low damage output of mobs..even if you couldn't Ripo everything you could still utilize it, but just not as efficiently...
Wandidar said:Simple question: How many days PLAYED would you like the average player to take in order to reach max in Pantheon - and why?
My answer - 50 days played... maybe even 55 or 60.
Why?
1) A very long leveling curve will slow the game down making people "live" in the game world, rather than allowing them to race through it.
This is my favorite part of what Wandidar had to say. Making the leveling curve really long creates a world where you forget about speeding through levels and you just start to enjoy grouping and having conversations with those around you. If you had just leveled you know it will be a long time before the next one so you stop thinking about it and just live in the world.
Great post!
From a vertical leveling standpoint:
I think casually speaking, 3-4 nights a week at 2 hours, and maybe 4-6 hours straignt on a Saturday or week-break day possibly 8-10 on one of those days if the grouping is good,
Should take 3 weeks to level from level 12 on-ish
early levels should be fairly quick as a confidence booster. Gear,weapons I earn on these levels should be good for at least a few levels but start to get threadbare at around 5 levels up. New spells every 4 levels- that means at level 4 you are using and dealing and learning your class on old or weaker spells. Maybe work on melee if a caster. Maybe work on skills if a melee'r
Most good exp and drops should come from questing. I dont particularly like grinding as it can get boring to me., But if I had to complete a quest by fighting through something, the fighting through can be like a grind albeit thrust upon me because of the quest with all its lore/story/catharsis etc etc.
But, I also like a good dungeon crawl and hopefull awesome drops from nameds where it is a sort of a grind disguised as exploration. So my casual playing goes two ways, sometimes I want to immerse, sometimes I want to get excited and fight and coffee.
So someone gaming 8 hours a day 7 days a week, they could probably get a level maybe every week?- if the groups are there. and faster if 10-12 hours a day
I am assuming you mean 8 hour day for days played, if 24hour then faster for sure. But this way the hard gamer can be close to max level while a new expansion is released and perhaps wil be motivated to get groups, any groups to get some exp- even down to lower level pugs to help them with their quests. it would take just under a yar for hard core to get maxxed- and allow for lots of newbie interaction. I would like to see Pantheon get a steady stream of newbies.
From a Horizontal standpoint, same period of leveling with skills or achievements if that is how it is done. a whole bunch of rewards at the end of a journey where you are a newbie again in a strange city but a much more capable newbie, so-to-speak.
Personal anecdote: I always wanted to quest the wee harvester, as a mage it made sense to have a clicky to replace the spell, but by the time I was old enought oget through kithicor the drops were trivial. I also would have liked to go through runnyeye and beholders to experience those things and be drawn into pottery from all the clay, see? being lead by the game.