I saw someone talking about this somewhere recently (I can't remember where or who, sadly) and it stuck with me:
Path of Exile has a concept called leagues, which, if I understand it correctly, are essentially temporary servers designed to introduce new content and encourage people to start fresh. So the way it works is that there's a main server that is the standard game. Every few months, a new league server is stood up, and players can recreate their character on the league server. While on the league server, they can complete challenges as part of the new content. Then, when that league ends, the league character is merged back with the normal character, and rewards from the league transfer over to the standard server.
Please note - I don't play PoE, and until last week I'd never really heard about this concept. But as I read about it, I started to think: What if progeny worked sort of like this?
So, here's my idea:
- If you reach level 50 on your character, you gain the option to recreate that character as a Progeny character.
- The Progeny character gets some minor boosts for being Progeny. You can then proceed through the game's content in whatever way you like.
- While playing as a Progeny, there are additional challenges/quests/achievements you can complete.
- Your original character record is saved when you create the Progeny. At any point, you can choose to merge your progeny back with the parent character.
- When you merge the progeny back with the parent character, all those special progeny challenges/achievements you gained unlock special rewards for the newly merged character. Rewards could be equipment with unique appearances, special crafting recipes, minor stat boosts - really anything that might be desirable as a level 50 without being super overpowering.
- You would always have the option to start another progeny and go back and try for additional challenges/achievements you might have missed on the first one.
If the game went this route, progeny would become sort of like a "new game+" mode for a character you really enjoyed, but one where you could stop at any time and go back to being level 50. You wouldn't have to destroy the character to reroll or anything like that.
The potential downside of this approach is that the progeny character would probably need to be the same race/class as the parent. But that would also mean that if you wanted to play other races/classes, each character you had could do their own progeny challenges as well over time.
It's just a thought - but it seemed like a relatively new one, so I thought I'd make a post about it and see what everyone else makes of the idea :)
The progeny is nothing like POE... the leagues in POE are meta game inside the game, where everybody plays just the metagame except newbies who learn how to play outside the leagues, and then join the leaguse if they are not bored with the game.
as far as i understand the progeny is somehing like the DDO reincarnation.
how DDO did it (at the begining before epic levels),
when you reach max level, lets say 20. you have to farm not trivial ammount of currency from end game content, average of 20 runs of endgame content ( dungeons or raids).
and with this currency, you reset your character to level 1, you can start any race you want and class you want.
what you lose:
your levels, start at level 1
when you reincarnate you have to earn more XP for each level. (for the second leveling you need ~25% xp more than for the original leveling and ~50% for your third)
what you keep:
all your bank and gear goes to your bank, so you can prepare in advance twink gear etc.
all your crafting levels stays the same.
what you gain:
you gain some extra stats at level 1.
you gain passive feat according to the class you have reincarnated. and the desriptions are what i love about the game...
in DDO these passives stack up to three times, that what makes them overpowered.
I think that the progeny system will work similarly...
whan you reach top level in Pantheon, you will have to run some end level content, and then restart the character from the begining, maybe with more starts, or with some passive or active skill that fits your previous class.
this system is really good because of replayability of the content, but instead of running an alt, you run with your original character and gain some bonuses and flavour skills.
Context: Players have requested, on these forums, leveling times varying from 90 hours to 1000 hours. (for levels 1-50).
I have never seen anyone offer a version of Progeny that makes it more attractive than leveling up another alt, especially on another account.
The power that another character holds, in a game where time investment is THE measure of power... well, that's a knife-edge.
Either everyone must do it, or it's not worth doing, and I've never seen a case (implementation, idea, or theory) where there's enough grey area (knife edge) between the black and white.
To be clear, in this scenario, the black side of the chasm of balance is where everyone must do it or be seen as lacking. It's powerful. Very powerful.
The white side of the chasm of balance is where everyone ignores it because the value proposition is so poor. It's weak. Very weak.
The elephant filling the chasm of balance is the power value of leveling up another alt (the thing that makes the entire idea illogical) on another account. This overshadows what the mechanic is trying to accomplish.
I have never understood the appeal of any progeny system.
For me, it's all about the journey. That is, beginning with nothing, in a place I know little or nothing about and gradually becoming stronger, richer and more knowledgable. So, if my first character hits level 50 and I cannot find much of interest to do, I'll gladly roll an alt. But I would want that alt to be of another race and class, starting in a different place. Otherwise, it wouldn't feel like a second journey. Why ask for "replayablity" when you can have an altogether different experience?
As a bonus, I'd get to keep my slumbering level 50 character with all his gear and wealth, whom I could wake up whenever friends needed help with something.
I've been championing many of Path of Exile's designs for a long time now. I think their developers are some of the most brilliant devs in the business, in additon to being really good at transparency and community involvment. I just made a post the other day talking about how the league system could be a new model for how MMO's operate. A league system would solve the same problem that progeny is attempting to solve, i.e. preventing new players from encountering dead zones at lower levels and offering veterans a rewarding replay experience. Unfortunately I don't think Pantheon is the right kind of MMO to use this system in, but perpaps the idea could be tweaked in some way to make it work.
post can be found here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10187/quot-top-heavy-quot-player-base-concerns/view/page/2
So I have a thought, a concern and an idea.
The thought:
I could definitely see the progeny system driving some form of meta-game competition. The reason being is that progeny will mostly be for max level players who are not interested in alts for one reason or another. It could be things like every x number of weeks a new progeny wave starts with a set number of in game goals. Awards will be given based on the number of goals discovered and completed. At the end of the competition the progeny character can either be spun off to a new alt or its rewards given to the parent max level character.
The concern:
Writing and creating content exclusively for progeny will take development time that might be better spent on just making more content if the Mentoring system is capable of giving max level players a reason to play new low level content at a challenging scale.
The idea:
Progeny exist on a time dilation server. Each server has a sub Progeny server, and maybe multiple layers deep. The progeny character gain certain amounts of history from their parents. When housing comes in maybe some plots carry over but most resources do not. This makes the progeny server almost a self-contained economy. This time advanced server may in fact have updated story lines and even new content in the time line. Each time VR advanced the time line a new progeny server becomes available and players with max level characters on the previous time line can progeny.
Tons of problems with this idea not the least of which being my concern on less valuable resource usage but its still really an interesting concept.
zoltar said:I've been championing many of Path of Exile's designs for a long time now. I think their developers are some of the most brilliant devs in the business, in additon to being really good at transparency and community involvment. I just made a post the other day talking about how the league system could be a new model for how MMO's operate. A league system would solve the same problem that progeny is attempting to solve, i.e. preventing new players from encountering dead zones at lower levels and offering veterans a rewarding replay experience. Unfortunately I don't think Pantheon is the right kind of MMO to use this system in, but perpaps the idea could be tweaked in some way to make it work.
post can be found here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10187/quot-top-heavy-quot-player-base-concerns/view/page/2
IT WAS YOU!
Thanks Zoltar :) I knew it was someone around here who had mentioned PoE and gotten me to look at it, I just could not for the life of me remember where the post was.
vjek said:Context: Players have requested, on these forums, leveling times varying from 90 hours to 1000 hours. (for levels 1-50).
I have never seen anyone offer a version of Progeny that makes it more attractive than leveling up another alt, especially on another account.
The power that another character holds, in a game where time investment is THE measure of power... well, that's a knife-edge.
Either everyone must do it, or it's not worth doing, and I've never seen a case (implementation, idea, or theory) where there's enough grey area (knife edge) between the black and white.To be clear, in this scenario, the black side of the chasm of balance is where everyone must do it or be seen as lacking. It's powerful. Very powerful.
The white side of the chasm of balance is where everyone ignores it because the value proposition is so poor. It's weak. Very weak.
The elephant filling the chasm of balance is the power value of leveling up another alt (the thing that makes the entire idea illogical) on another account. This overshadows what the mechanic is trying to accomplish.
That's one of the reasons I went ahead and posted this idea. In (the many) prior discussions the community has had about Progeny, we've always come down to a small number of sticking points:
1) The reroll requirement
2) How much it impacts character power once they level back up.
3) Whether having 'content' (and I use the term loosely) exclusive to progeny somehow takes away from the experience of non-progeny characters.
My personal opinion is that #3 is irrelevant, and I *think* taking a page out of PoE's book and allowing the progeny to "merge" back into the main later takes care of the first problem. Which just leaves #2. But that is just my opinion :)
Either way, I figured it wouldn't hurt to come at things with somewhat of a fresh perspective. Here's hoping that people will be open-minded in the discussion, however.
So, these 3/4 items would, in any meaningful implementation, make it a requirement to have Progeny(x) characters. As in, everyone would be expected to have levelling up x number of times to match the current power ceiling. That's the powerful side of the chasm of balance. :)
"
- The Progeny character gets some minor boosts for being Progeny. You can then proceed through the game's content in whatever way you like.
- While playing as a Progeny, there are additional challenges/quests/achievements you can complete.
- Your original character record is saved when you create the Progeny. At any point, you can choose to merge your progeny back with the parent character.
- When you merge the progeny back with the parent character, all those special progeny challenges/achievements you gained unlock special rewards for the newly merged character. Rewards could be equipment with unique appearances, special crafting recipes, minor stat boosts - really anything that might be desirable as a level 50 without being super overpowering.
"
If the "minor boosts" aren't more than a single piece of gear could offer, no-one would do it. If they're more, everyone would do it. Knife edge.
If the progeny specific content offers non-combat or combat advantages, again, in the same realm of power as the statement above? knife edge.
If the merging process results in non-combat or combat advantages, again, in the same realm of power as the statement above? knife edge.
There's no way to make it "without being super overpowering" and attractive enough to actually do, concurrently, is the issue. The only way to make it attractive enough is to make it overpowering. That would be the whole point, as it would need to be overpowering in order to be a greater attractant than an entirely separate level 50 on an entirely separate account. (which, by their own admission, you could two box.. however you may feel about that)
While playing as a Progeny, there are additional challenges/quests/achievements you can complete.
This is an interesting idea, especially in the context of how VR is designing Atmospheres and Artifacts:
Artifacts are legendary rare items players can discover that offer unique utility. They are necessary to explore and overcome areas of the game where Atmospheres exist.
In the Gloom example above, players would need to acquire and equip the Bone-Woven Veil to mitigate Gloom’s negative effects.
Here is another short list of possible Artifacts you may discover and the special utility they provide:
• Shield of Mirrors: Forged by the master smiths of Khadassa, it can reflect light and has a chance to reflect magical attacks when blocking.
• Skyhold Grappler: Fashioned by the Gnomes of Skyhold to assist in advanced terrain traversement, the Skyhold Grappler can latch onto special surfaces and pull you to the target location.
• Ring of Anchors: Infused with the bitterness of the Dark Myr, this ring was designed to sink the wearer to the deepest reaches of the oceans.
• Crest of Illumination: This Archai crown was imbued with a powerful, resonating light source that can shine through the blackest darkness.
Maybe the progeny bonus would be some kind of minor/stacking mitigation for atmosphere effects? Or perhaps certain progeny levels would unlock quests for alternative artifacts. Actually, I like that idea quite a bit. The question is, how rare and difficult are the normal artifacts to acquire? I wouldn't imagine that leveling to 50 again would be much easier than acquiring a single artifact. But depending on how rare & difficult an artifact is to acquire, progeny could be a reliable way to get either a similar version of an artifact, a lesser version of an extremely rare artifact, or an improved version of a less rare artifact.
Each time you would level via progeny system, you would get access to an additional artifact quest. Some of the later ones might be more powerful than the early ones, but you wouldn't be able to repeate endlessly for higher and higher stats or anything like that.
Any version of a progeny system that incorporates stacking boosts through repetition, however minor, gets a big thumbs down from me. The issue is that in the long run it creates huge power discrepancies between characters of the same level. Which in turn is going to lead to people selecting group or guild members based on how deep they've dived into progeny cycles, which means that at some point the average player or someone who joins a server late will be so far behind they'll never be viable in groups.
Trasak's idea of moving history forward for progeny characters and placing them in an alternate dimension is fairly interesting because players won't have to share the same space with overpowered X cycle progeny characters who will make them irrelevant, but I think that besides the development time complications it'd also lead to very fragmented communities.
As for rewards that do work in a shared environment without upsetting balance too much, getting access to things such as unique recipes, unique items or unique modifiers to use in your codex abilities, unique cosmetic rewards etc. is fine. Some of these items might just be sidegrades that provide situational bonuses, but in some cases these unique rewards might be better than what's available to someone who hasn't invested in progeny cycles. As long as going through progeny again doesn't reward the player with even stronger items for the same slots, the power difference has a hard limit and thus is much easier to keep under control.
Well really no matter what they do someone is not going to be happy.
I would like to see progeny not be specifically tied to class. If I start as a paladin I don't want to have to be tied to that for the rest of my reincarnations. Maybe tie it to race reincarnated as,like you choose to become a dwarf you become even more resilient to cold atmosphere's and as you reincarnate those stack.
It's interesting to me when I see the dislike for the idea of progeny offering any measureable boost(s) (especially if they affect combat performance, even minimally) but at the same time I see a fair bit more love of the idea of alternate advancement systems. I know there are some small differences but the ideas seem roughly the same to me: invest more time beyond max level and gain further power. I'd imagine that if one were considered a bad idea then the other should likewise be a bad idea.
DracoKalen said:I would like to see progeny not be specifically tied to class. If I start as a paladin I don't want to have to be tied to that for the rest of my reincarnations. Maybe tie it to race reincarnated as,like you choose to become a dwarf you become even more resilient to cold atmosphere's and as you reincarnate those stack.
This could work IF you have to sacrifice your character. If you don't, then progeny just becomes leveling alts.
zoltar said:DracoKalen said:I would like to see progeny not be specifically tied to class. If I start as a paladin I don't want to have to be tied to that for the rest of my reincarnations. Maybe tie it to race reincarnated as,like you choose to become a dwarf you become even more resilient to cold atmosphere's and as you reincarnate those stack.
This could work IF you have to sacrifice your character. If you don't, then progeny just becomes leveling alts.
sacrifice your character?
Iksar said: It's interesting to me when I see the dislike for the idea of progeny offering any measureable boost(s) (especially if they affect combat performance, even minimally) but at the same time I see a fair bit more love of the idea of alternate advancement systems. I know there are some small differences but the ideas seem roughly the same to me: invest more time beyond max level and gain further power. I'd imagine that if one were considered a bad idea then the other should likewise be a bad idea.
That doesn't solve the issues progeny is intended to fix. It only delays...and compounds...the issue.
If you are gaining perks on a character that is at max lvl that is more incentive to play that character.
You have to understand that one of the main reasons why progeny systems are implemented is to reduce the amount of max lvl characters because that becomes a major bottleneck.
Sure you relieve it temporarily while everyone plays on a different server...but during the time there aren't temporary servers up it is worse than ever because everyone wants to play their max lvl character with the new perks.
If progeny ...or any similar system... Isn't reducing the total number of max lvl characters it isn't well designed.
Perhaps the Progeny system could unlock unique class/race combos that would be unavailable to the general populace. This would act as a reward for those who worked hard to get to max level and not be overpowered or a 'must have' to the general population, as well as an incentive to those who want to be somewhat different.
Rasheron said:
Perhaps the Progeny system could unlock unique class/race combos that would be unavailable to the general populace. This would act as a reward for those who worked hard to get to max level and not be overpowered or a 'must have' to the general population, as well as an incentive to those who want to be somewhat different.
Good idea. This sounds like a fine reward because it allows people to really stand out from the crowd without necessarily being more powerful.
Of course it shouldn't completely drop all restrictions because some just aren't going to make sense from a lore perspective, but combinations like Archai Summoner, Elf Paladin and Ogre Ranger seem plausible enough.
DracoKalen said:zoltar said:DracoKalen said:I would like to see progeny not be specifically tied to class. If I start as a paladin I don't want to have to be tied to that for the rest of my reincarnations. Maybe tie it to race reincarnated as,like you choose to become a dwarf you become even more resilient to cold atmosphere's and as you reincarnate those stack.
This could work IF you have to sacrifice your character. If you don't, then progeny just becomes leveling alts.
sacrifice your character?
yes. Sacrifice/retire/etc. The point of the progeny system is to give people a reason to go through the leveling process again. Retiring the character was part of the original concept.
People already have a large incentive to level alts. So if progeny just becomes leveling alts, what was the point?
As far as unlocking race/cass combos, the problem I see is that in order for lore to be maintained, you might need to restrict it too much for it to be seen as a general game system. I do think unlocking certain race/class combos is a great idea, but I'd rather see it done via questing in a way that is specific to each race and class.
zoltar said:DracoKalen said:zoltar said:DracoKalen said:I would like to see progeny not be specifically tied to class. If I start as a paladin I don't want to have to be tied to that for the rest of my reincarnations. Maybe tie it to race reincarnated as,like you choose to become a dwarf you become even more resilient to cold atmosphere's and as you reincarnate those stack.
This could work IF you have to sacrifice your character. If you don't, then progeny just becomes leveling alts.
sacrifice your character?
yes. Sacrifice/retire/etc. The point of the progeny system is to give people a reason to go through the leveling process again. Retiring the character was part of the original concept.
People already have a large incentive to level alts. So if progeny just becomes leveling alts, what was the point?
As far as unlocking race/cass combos, the problem I see is that in order for lore to be maintained, you might need to restrict it too much for it to be seen as a general game system. I do think unlocking certain race/class combos is a great idea, but I'd rather see it done via questing in a way that is specific to each race and class.
ahh.. Got it. I guess I was looking at it as you were reincarnating your character into one of your progeny.
Progeny could be used / implemented in so many ways. They should make all the zones that require Evironmental resistances tie into progeny.
At 50 you Progeny and you go into a area that once compeleted would give you the resistance needed to in habit these areas.
You could work on each resistance at any time. Like AA sort of. I don't want to quit being a cleric and become a stat heavy Summoner.
I will make a Summoner ALT. I want lots of Horizontal character progression.
Rasheron said:Perhaps the Progeny system could unlock unique class/race combos that would be unavailable to the general populace. This would act as a reward for those who worked hard to get to max level and not be overpowered or a 'must have' to the general population, as well as an incentive to those who want to be somewhat different.
This I like a lot. Not only would I consider it for myself when I finally hit max, I would also enjoy grouping with such characters, knowing instantly that they were seasoned players deserving my respect.
Taking the idea further, an expansion motivated by the character base becoming top heavy could include entirely new races and classes only accessible through reincarnation, progeny or whatever you prefer to call them. That would be an incentive to retire your level 50 to speak of.