What makes for a good leveling experience?

Discussion in 'General MMORPG Discussion' started by thisnthat, Mar 29, 2017.

  1. thisnthat

    thisnthat Well-Known Member
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    If you could design or change the leveling experience in your favorite MMORPG, what would that look like? What's good or bad about common trends? Would you make it more dynamic? Would you make it more balanced, or easier, or more challenging? Would you combine various aspects from different games to get a better overall feel?

    What would make a great leveling experience in your opinion?
     
  2. pwarbi

    pwarbi Well-Known Member
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    Personally I'd like to see the difficulty be more manageable by the actual gamer. It seems that in most games these days and especially in MMORPG games, the difficulty level is set by the game developer, and while that may work in games such as FIFA or games that...lets say have a wider appeal, for our type of games it needs to be more advanced.

    I wouldn't have thought that it would cause too many problems for the game developer to be able to let us gamers choose just how hard we want the game...at least then whether it be a novice or professional, we would all be able to enjoy the games at our own level.
     
  3. thisnthat

    thisnthat Well-Known Member
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    So, would you like a hard mode and an easy mode? Would you prefer that there are different paths to take, some harder and some easier?

    I think I'd like to see more dynamic questing, where the player gets to decide what happens based on their actions.

    Do you want to kill this mob or chase him away? If you try to kill it, it's a hard fight. If you decide to chase it away, you get to move on more easily. Stuff like that.
     
  4. Working Buck

    Working Buck Well-Known Member
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    I would make the game a lot more fun by not just simply gaining experience and level up. Most MMORPG games have this gameplay that makes you do a quest, level up, then distribute the points you gained to whatever stats you want your character to have. Well, that is a bit easy. I want it to run like this : go on a quest, gain experience to level up, gain experience to level up your stats or attributes. I mean, if you would just level up and leave your stats behind, your character would just have a high level but isn't quite good since you left your stats behind.
     
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  5. pwarbi

    pwarbi Well-Known Member
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    I'm not saying that it should be as simple as pick a mode...easy normal or hard, and then that's it, but I just think that the person playing the game could have a choice, rather than being told what to do. Now we start off on level 1 and fly through the first 10 or 20 levels way too quickly but then by the end of the game we are struggling to get through 1 level every few weeks.

    I just think that the level should be more dynamic than that, and by maybe answering a few simple questions to test what experience we have, we could then pick a level that we would feel comfortable with.
     
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  6. thisnthat

    thisnthat Well-Known Member
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    That's an interesting idea, @Working Buck. Some people are more concerned with power while others are not. They could choose.

    @pwarbi That sounds more fun to me as well. I've yet to see anything like that, but it could be cool.

    I like some challenge, but I don't always want everything to be super hard either. It would be nice to find a good balance. Again, I agree that the experience gains required shouldn't be so end loaded (Like in WoW). I'm almost ready to walk away by the time I'm done slogging through those last levels. It's not "hard" so much as it just gets boring, and I get burned out. That's also party due to the quests being so repetitive.

    I read once that only a small percentage of players ever make it to max level in MMORPGs. (including WoW). Maybe that should tell them something about the way the leveling experience is designed.
     
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  7. Working Buck

    Working Buck Well-Known Member
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    that is true, a lot of games I have seen like RAN online, Ragnarok, RF online and ROSE online have a small percentage of the community who are in the max level. Most of them stopped playing once the experience they gain goes so slow. I mean, doing a lot of quests and slashing a ton of monsters gets boring, it gets a lot more boring if you gain small amounts of experience doing the same things over and over again.
     
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  8. Bakanyan

    Bakanyan Member
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    I like grinding. I believe that it's fine to have a difficult leveling experience as long as the reward is also good/high (like it makes me want to reach that level not for show off but for something good that it offers). The problem with having an easy leveling curve is that people max out pretty soon and often developers cannot release content as fast so users leave the game.

    Difficult leveling also turns away some users, of course, but the ones that would have stuck with you even after difficult grinding scheme would most likely stay with the game for longer.
     
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  9. pwarbi

    pwarbi Well-Known Member
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    Don't get me wrong, I do agree with you and even if a game is almost impossible right from the beginning then I don't mind taking the time to get stuck in and it can make you appreciate the game more. I just think that a lot of people would rather choose their own levels rather than be told what they should and shouldn't be able to do.

    Many of us gamers like a challenge, but at the same time e need that challenge to be at least manageable and possible to achieve, and when the game developer chooses the difficulty it very rarely suits everybody.
     
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  10. thisnthat

    thisnthat Well-Known Member
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    Yeah, I get the time sink thing. They definitely can't churn out content as fast as people can chew through it. I think that's a fact when it comes to World of Warcraft, but I'm sure it applies to other games as well.

    I don't really mind grinding either, as long as it's still fun. By the last level, the amount of experience needed to hit max, just fries me. That's especially true if it's "busy work" quests that aren't very exciting.

    I also really think there needs to be some balance. Instead of level one requiring 1k XP and level 100 requiring 100M XP, I'd rather see level one take longer and level 100 be a bit shorter (made up numbers, just an example). The top end is too heavily weighted for my taste (my reference is World of Warcraft).
     
  11. Bakanyan

    Bakanyan Member
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    I agree. Like I previously said, I need the reward to be something good if I'm going to grind for hours and hours. I'm fine with the game developer setting up their own difficulty in a MMORPG. If every user gets to choose his own difficulty, it won't be balanced (easy users will level up faster). Perhaps you can try to make it balanced, but unless it's a single player game, the ability to choose your own difficulty sounds difficult to execute. If a person doesn't like a game's difficulty, he should just play another game. It's not possible to please everybody.


    The problem with having this scheme of grinding is that there won't be much difference in the top players anymore. For example, I regularly play a mobile MMORPG for fun called Iruna Online. There, as soon as a patch enters that introduces a new boss or more levels, it's a race between all people to reach there. If the higher levels were easier, there wouldn't be much difference between the top players and everyone would be pretty similar.
     
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  12. thisnthat

    thisnthat Well-Known Member
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    Yeah, it was the same way in WoW. I'm not saying that higher levels should be easier, just a bit less grindy (and the early levels are TOO easy). Grind isn't really challenge, in my opinion. Anyone can eventually grind it out, but that doesn't necessarily make them a better player. Someone staying up all night (or longer) to hit max level first, doesn't really make them a better player either.

    I know people in WoW that have made an art form of leveling, but you wouldn't want them on your team in group content.
     
  13. pwarbi

    pwarbi Well-Known Member
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    One thing that we're all forgetting as well is that at the end of the day, it IS just a game and so it should be fun. A lot of us take our gaming seriously (and rightly so), but we also have to enjoy what we plat as well. Grinding out level after level can be challenging but is it really fun?

    There have been many games that I have played religiously but as it's progressed I've enjoyed it less and less and given up without getting near the end because the enjoyment as gone, simply because the difficulty it was set at simply wasn't right.
     
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  14. FuZyOn

    FuZyOn Well-Known Member
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    Hmm... good question. First off, I would love it if games put a lot more emphasis in leveling up your items as well as your character. In a lot of RPGs you can finish the game without upgrading your items as long as you level up your character, which I think breaks that aspect of the game.
     
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  15. thisnthat

    thisnthat Well-Known Member
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    Absolutely right, @pwarbi, and that is basically my point. If it is so grindy that people feel burned out, it isn't really fun. If it's too quick and easy, that isn't really fun either (at least for me). I don't just want to blow everything up and move on. I also don't want the final level to feel like such a slog that I have to force myself to finish it.

    I guess it depends on the game, @FuZyOn. In WoW, for example, your character gains certain stats and more of them as you level. You also get those stats on gear, but you replace the gear for stronger pieces rather than upgrading gear for the most part. They did have "artifact weapons" which were upgradable in this last expac too though.
     
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  16. Blader70

    Blader70 Well-Known Member
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    Hmm, I would say a good level up experience would be simply taking up new quests in the game as well as completing certain missions to not only gain new items but unlock areas to grind.
     
  17. overcast

    overcast Well-Known Member
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    I think level up should give some perks not available in old level. And also it should show you more difficult approach. That seems to be some of the basic things that one can go through. And people should check that.
     
  18. Lissiel

    Lissiel Member
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    I want the game leveling experience of the gamer to be not too difficult. As a gamer like me, the reason I stopped playing that particular game is it's too difficult to level up. There are quest that is very complicated and sometimes it's very hard to understand. I'm not saying to make it very easy to level up, I still love challenges. But difficulties must set to the right level too.
     
  19. fishbate

    fishbate Well-Known Member
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    I want a balance between gaming experience and not include purchases as means of getting a high level. I think it's not fair when i see players with high levels but low experiences on the game records.
     
  20. Mildredtabitha

    Mildredtabitha Well-Known Member
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    I would make it more challenging. I would also employ more aspects from different games for a good overall experience.