Brad has been pushing for a legitimate "mid-game" including raiding for as long as back into the forums with Sigil during Vanguard's development.
One of the ways they have talked about doing this is to have raid mobs respond to the characters. So if you have a single high level character or group of characters too high, the raid mob will despawn or take some other type of action. This basically forces only appropriate level players to take on certain encounters.
I certainly would not want these systems in place for all mobs, but for certain raid ones I understand. They did something like this in EQ with the original release dragons. I think it worked out.
One of the things I absolutely adored about EverQuest was how there were these really cool items that, while it took awhile to obtain, could act as essentially a leveling grind break. They were almost like mini-epic quests.
For example, as a druid, I remember taking a break from dungeon running and leveling to hunt down the root clicky-item (would cast a low level root mana-free), as well as the vambraces clicky-item that would apply a lower level mana-free DoT. Those items helped tremendously on the path to getting to late-game, so mid-game getting to the point where you could decide to go on the hunt for the items was a lot of fun.
I'd love to see some mid-game "game-changer or quality-of-life" items that you could go on the hunt for. In my examples, sure, the effects were low level spells, but having a mana-free root on demand was incredibly useful even to the highest level, and the low level DoT was just a little extra kick in your farming. JBoots was another example, a not-needed but incredibly great to have item...though that one was a lot more difficult to obtain due to the RNG. Another example was the clicky invis item which was great for enchanters to insta-break a charm. These little "side hunts for items" helped mix it up a bit.
Ziegfried said:Just looking at statistics of various MMORPGs your statement is false. The majority of players in these games even in the new MMOs tend to end up somewhere in the mid level range. Most players did not hit max level in EQ. Most players did not hit max level in WoW (I know that sounds crazy but it's true). https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/blizzard-70-percent-of-new-wow-players-dont-get-past-level-10_1
Now if you were only talking about the small percentage of the playerbase that is hardcore, the portion I am a part of...sure. The guys that put 30+ hours per week into the game or more. But we are the tiny minority in these games. It is not the endgame that makes an MMORPG successful. EQ did not succeed because of the endgame, neither did WoW. Both of those games had an extremely rich low to mid level experience at launch, and WoW gained a lot of traction due to casual PvP appeal on top of that.
Saying my statement is false, and then linking an article that has nothing to do with mid game is kinda silly.
Everquest was 20 years ago, the mmo landscape has changed. People know what they want and how to play. Theres always going to be "new players" that dont hit max level for various reasons, theres no need to cater to these people. In fact pantheons core tenats go completely against the "modern MMO population"s idea of how gaming is.
Send anyone interested in Pantheon back to play EQ seriously and I'm sure they can hit max level.
You can have an interesting and engaging mid game without spending development time around low level raids that will provide a novelty for a while and then quickly fade away. Spend your development time elsewhere and the game will be better.
Porygon said:Send anyone interested in Pantheon back to play EQ seriously and I'm sure they can hit max level.
This is true. They should be able to excel much more than just hit max lvl given a decent play time.
I recently got back into P99. Got almost max lvl and the death penalty seems gimped. It definitely doesn't have the same feeling of harshness that it did originally...though maybe that is just the way P99 has been tuned? Or maybe because of my expectations of what it used to be? Unsure?
There are some interestging answers here.
I agree with some and some, not so much.
One reason I loved hell-levels in EQ was stuff like this. at 15,20,25,30,35,40 and 45, i knew those levels would take a good while and it also gave me TIME to enjoy a LOT of content that I simply would have just out-leveled if not for some of those levels taking longer.
I also am a very big beiliever of Death causing harsh EXP penalties and I really want want want LEVEL LOSS to be possible.
Let me tell you a story: my brother, his wife and myself all went to Unrest as Dark Elves when we Barley hit level 18. it was scary because this was our first mmo ever and we knew we couldn't get off the boat at the docks because we were KOS. so we jumped off and smuggled ourselves through Butcher Block and Dagnor Caudrin. The trip took a Long time. We waited 20 min for the boat and then to boat took about 10-15min to get TO butcher block area. It stopped at Sisters Isle and somewhere else (can't remember). We also had to be super careful near sisters island because we were KOS there too.
Finally we are there, we bound, we went in. An utterly MASSIVE train met us as we zoned in and we died instantly. Boom, welcome to level 17... Back when this zone was THE place to go, there were 100+ people in there nightly and the spawn rate of mobs was INSANE. Here is Long Story short: we started Friday night at 6pm at lev 18, lost that going in the place... Monday morning, all of us had to go back to work and we were LEVEL 18 !!!! We lived and died SO MANY times that 3 days of playing and we managed about a half a level lol. To this day it was the best time we ever had in a game. I loved it that a HAG could one shot me. Boom = Dead.
My point being, exp loss needs to be real. Level loss needs to be real. I think hell-levels are awesome ( i know, many hate this idea, and that is YOUR opinion. and I have MINE)
I think you should also need a certain level of gear to be effective 'In the Next Tier" Now I am not talking about iLevel from wow. I just mean you can't heal a lev 25-35 dungeon with cloth armor and a rock tied to a stick. Quests should force me to wander the world looking for things i NEED to be effective in my class. it should also be Hard to max out Skills like 1 Hand Slash etc after level 20 unless I slow down and smell the roses.
I wouldn't mind if they had something like hell-levels but in a different way. Like every 5 levels you have to get 5-10 AA levels before you could Ding on primary level. That is just a raw example, I am sure game designers could find a way to make that "better" - I leave the HOW to them.
I want a lot of Old but with a good mix of something new. I want levels to take a while. I don't think getting a level every 2 hours is a good thing. I think they should take 8-15 hours grouped.
I think a Lot of us old EQ players will purposely take time to do many many things in the mid levels and our goal won't be End game. Our goal will be to experience everything possible, every single level.
We do need reasons to go back home. As a dark elf, it was nearly the ONLY city that would sell my basic spells. If i went to clerics guild in Freeport, they were like, "Get lost, I don't sell to dark elves!"
I really loved having Gate but also Origin when I got to the required level. Travel should be a pain, but i never felt gate or origin was something they should get rid of.
I really hope to find Lots of quests in Pantheon that take me all over the world and the reward would be the progression of the quest, not a bunch of EXPS like wow does. Some minor exps are fine.
I loved that there were so many cool places to go at every level. EQ had it all. I hope the game has something magical like EQ had.
Flapp said:
I think you should also need a certain level of gear to be effective 'In the Next Tier" Now I am not talking about iLevel from wow. I just mean you can't heal a lev 25-35 dungeon with cloth armor and a rock tied to a stick. Quests should force me to wander the world looking for things i NEED to be effective in my class. it should also be Hard to max out Skills like 1 Hand Slash etc after level 20 unless I slow down and smell the roses.
Honestly I'm completely against this for a few reasons. One being that assuming the flow of loot will be the same as in EQ, upgrades may be VERY hard to come by. If gear is rewarded through quests and I need to grind quests to upgrade my gear I'm 100% not going to play. I want to be able to group up with friends and chill in a dungeon grinding. One of the great things about EQ was while doing group content, gear didn't matter much. Warriors were probably the only gear dependant class while leveling; almost everyone else was effective enough that it didn't matter.
Yes gear is good and it makes you better but I don't ever want to be at a point where someone can't go to a dungeon they are the appropriate level for because they don't have an item.
The importance of mid game will completely come down to the pacing of EXP gain. How long does it take to level, how long can you stay at a camp. That will factor in to how much time/effort will need to be placed on that area of content. If someone outlevels an area in one night I don't expect the same amount of time invested in its creation as something a person would spend weeks doing. You also don't want to make leveling so slow that it feels like you're making no progress.
Don't get me wrong I truly believe the mid game is important but you can't just call everything from level 10 or so until max mid game. You need to look at it in tiers.
Moving the focus of long term game design from end game to the mid game is the primary goal of logarithmic power growth by level. The below link is something I wrote a year and a half ago and needs another rewrite.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7131/leveling-exponential-linear-or-logarithmic-increase/view/post_id/132025
In terms of game play it is largely about decoupling ability scaling from character level, this includes the chance to hit and for spells to land.
If abilities do not scale to more than double after level 10 then the hit points and other resources of characters can be limited to only doubling as well. By level 10 all classes would also have all of their primary class abilities in their basic form so that they can fill their group role.
With this level 10 group as your baseline group strength and the knowledge that a level 50 with all the highest tier gear will at most have twice the hit points and do twice the brute force damage it becomes much easier to design content with staying power. Character progression becomes more about horizontal progression than vertical progression and levels become more about content gating than power growth.
The horizontal progression is focused on growing primary abilities into broader abilities that only slightly increase the primary abilities magnitude. Likewise gear will have a basic values that do not increase a tremendous amount over the levels. A low quality iron sword could be set at half the damage value of a masterwork Meteoric Steel sword which would be the best of the best base item. Added magical effects from items will give small increases to abilities magnitude but will mostly exist to be counters to new abilities mobs have or the world contains.
To give players a feeling of challenge and accomplishment monsters and environments will increase at a greater rate by level than players brute force strength. To counter mob strength increases, players will be able to seek out methods to improve their primary abilities to either counter mob strengths or to add synergy effects with other players. In order for groups to challenge harder and harder content they will need to have acquired improved primary abilities and fully utilize the ability synergies within a group. True end game content would require massive amounts of coordination and planning as well as having all the tools needed for the job.
Much of the “mid game” content would be focused on finding ways for characters to grow their primary abilities, find/improve their gear to compensate for their next challenge, and only as a byproduct level. This especially fits well with how VR intends to have all items tradeable without level restrictions. A fully twinked out character will be strong relative to a poorly geared character but not brutally so as ability will be about skill ranks which require play time, not cash.
To give levels some meaning in this format I would consider restricting the number of primary ability modifiers that can be applied to a character be a function of level. The characters will still need to go out and find/quest for the ability modifiers once they have a free slot available. For example if each class has 10 primary abilities they could be restricted to one modifier for every 2 character levels. Each of the 10 abilities may have as many as 5 possible modifiers so a character will need to choose which to learn as they will not be able to have them all.
Over time certain modifiers could be direct improvements over old ones, intended as replacements, or they could signify character specialization but not to the point of invalidating a group role. Lower tier modifiers could be learned through dropped items or simple quests but top tier modifiers would effectively be mini epic quests.
The real challenge though with keeping mid game as the focus is figuring out a good reason for a character to retire from end game content. Retirement is really dependent on the overall design of the game and what in game motivations exist for players. If there is no reason to retire playing a character then slowly the game will become dreadfully top heavy and “end game” content will become the focus.
Mid game has always been my favorite area in EQ and WoW. Your character gets a good amount of tools, you are use to the world by now, you have made several friends by then that you can communicate with, probably joined a guild already, still areas you have yet to explore, and cocky enough to bite off more than you can chew at times. Mid game has always been fun. If they add early and mid level raiding, then it will be perfect for me. Mid game doesn't need anything amazing. It is just an interesting point in your character development.
The mid game is by far the most important time, it's when people really start to build their understanding of their class, of grouping and different challenges and build their reputation.
I cannot understand a narrow-minded and simplistic selfish viewpoint like Porygon's.
Games that have you rush to the endgame just end up being all the same, very little content to do as players have a grinding mentality and eat everything up like locusts then complain they did everything.
Most MMOs lose the majority of their players during the mid game also, they never even make it to the endgame.
For a game to have a healthy endgame it needs a healthy and fun midgame to keep people going after initially being hooked by the early game.
The whole game! Which is how Panetheon is being planned luckily.
Porygon said:Ziegfried said:Just looking at statistics of various MMORPGs your statement is false. The majority of players in these games even in the new MMOs tend to end up somewhere in the mid level range. Most players did not hit max level in EQ. Most players did not hit max level in WoW (I know that sounds crazy but it's true). https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/blizzard-70-percent-of-new-wow-players-dont-get-past-level-10_1
Now if you were only talking about the small percentage of the playerbase that is hardcore, the portion I am a part of...sure. The guys that put 30+ hours per week into the game or more. But we are the tiny minority in these games. It is not the endgame that makes an MMORPG successful. EQ did not succeed because of the endgame, neither did WoW. Both of those games had an extremely rich low to mid level experience at launch, and WoW gained a lot of traction due to casual PvP appeal on top of that.
Saying my statement is false, and then linking an article that has nothing to do with mid game is kinda silly.
Everquest was 20 years ago, the mmo landscape has changed. People know what they want and how to play. Theres always going to be "new players" that dont hit max level for various reasons, theres no need to cater to these people. In fact pantheons core tenats go completely against the "modern MMO population"s idea of how gaming is.
Send anyone interested in Pantheon back to play EQ seriously and I'm sure they can hit max level.
You can have an interesting and engaging mid game without spending development time around low level raids that will provide a novelty for a while and then quickly fade away. Spend your development time elsewhere and the game will be better.
The article emphasises a point you are trying desperately to overlook, the fact that a huge number of players in MMORPGs don't even get past level 10 let alone hit max. Saying the "mmo landscape has changed" cracks me up, it has changed to become ever more casual not the other way around. Yes the most dedicated players will of course hit max level. My point was that those dedicated players are not as large in number as you seem to think! And the harsher the game, the slower the leveling, the less players are gonna hit max level. I mean that example I gave was from WoW, one of the fastest easiest MMORPGs out there. I would expect the playerbase of Pantheon to be considerably more dedicated than the average WoW player, but I think you are overestimating that dedication heh.
Ziegfried said:
The article emphasises a point you are trying desperately to overlook, the fact that a huge number of players in MMORPGs don't even get past level 10 let alone hit max.
Using this stat to really justify anything seems meaningless. It's like F2P games saying they have 20 million players because 20 million accounts were made. People that don't get past level 10 aren't casual gamers, those are people who didn't like the game and left.
EppE said:Ziegfried said:
The article emphasises a point you are trying desperately to overlook, the fact that a huge number of players in MMORPGs don't even get past level 10 let alone hit max.
Using this stat to really justify anything seems meaningless. It's like F2P games saying they have 20 million players because 20 million accounts were made. People that don't get past level 10 aren't casual gamers, those are people who didn't like the game and left.
Unfortunately you are incorrect and Ziegfried is correct. And even more unfortunate for your arguments is Brad is aware of these facts that the majority of players, the bread and butter of the subscription player base do not reach max and raid. This is a deceiving Stat to those that do becouse IMHO this silent majority also does not frequently log into forums so they're not often heard. Forums like this one are flooded with hard core race to max "I have to beat you to max level" kind of players drowning out those that just like to play the game at a leisurely pace happy to be at level 25 and enjoy it while we roll our eyes at those of you rushing to the end of the game. I often wondered in EQ "why do they want it over so fast?"
I have often said, I likely won't make it to 50 before you all do, or even before the next expansion (at least i hope not) I'll be happy at 20, 30, or 40. My hope is the high end (end game) raids are few and far between. IMHO let those "end game" racers get to end game and find nothing else to do and leave. The rest of us 70-80% of the subscription base will then be able to enjoy the WORLD witout all that "high end guild fighting over content" drama you all are bickering about all the time.
Problem for you "end game" players is a lvl 20 sub, is the same income for VR as a level 50 sub... with a lot less complaining. But cumulative it's a lot more.
Gonna have to weigh in on this one.
I'm old. I played pen-and-paper RPGs with my friends in the UK when it was a very rare and very geeky thing to do even in the US where it was (mostly) invented. I was playing computer games before there was a gaming industry. When the two got together I was ecstatic and put a LOT of time into EQ and I've played most MMORPGs since.
I often get to, or near, max level but, when I do, I hardly even get into the raid-and-repeat scene.
To me, the 'end game' is when I go back and start again, because the end isn't the fun bit. Exploring the world and getting to know your character is the fun bit. Developing a social group and becoming powerful is the fun bit. Defeating the most powerful monsters the first time (maybe the second) is the fun bit. Doing it 100 times so you can have an armor piece with 3 stat points better than anyone else in your server? Ugh.
This is partly because I am not competitive in RPGs or any games really. I love MMOFPSs for PvP action, but even then I'm not competitive. I understand that some cannot appear to play any game without 'beating' other players either directly in game or statistically by 'being better' somehow. *shrug* In my experience, which is not inconsiderable, most people are not competitive. They play games for casual fun. I am a little more obsessive and extreme than most people I know, but I still do not get the competitive need that some dedicated players have. I enjoy computer games. Whether or not someone else is better than me at them is utterly immaterial unless they stop *me* from playing while proving that point, which is only a negative, not a fun challenge.
I play multi-player games to have fun *with* other players, even when shooting them in the face. I'm the kind of guy that, when a battle feels one-sided, will switch to the losing side rather than gleefully stomp my way to a pointless 'victory'. I'm the guy that does not even look at the performance statistics site or the league tables or the eSports scene. I play to win, else what's the point, but I have more fun losing horribly and laughing with my hopeless friends than finding a powerful clan and winning again and again to prove some kind of superiority point.
There's a reason that there is a well known phrase "it's not the winning, it's the taking part". For most people, it really is more important to enjoy the game than to put all the emphasis on the end.
All that said: The 'end game' of an MMORPG isn't quite the same. I get that - but it is a move to a different kind of game. I would love it if the end game is rewarding and fun in Pantheon. I would love to get there and, this time, enjoy doing 'end game' things sometimes (though I, for sure, would also be starting over with alts). I hope the end game isn't yet another high pressure, high ego, ultra-competitive, bragging rights fuelled nastiness I've seen too much of elsewhere.
But I'm hoping from what I've heard from VR and from when I think they know of the industry that low-to-mid game is where it's at with Pantheon. I want to see the focus on the journey.
As for the whole "70% of players don't get past level 10" thing: That article clearly is emphasising that 70% of players *don't stay* longer than 10 levels, not that 70% of players don't 'reach max level'. It is relevant to this discussion, though, because it clearly says to me that a lot of people can be put off a game WAY before anything like end game or even mid game is sampled. Emphasis and effort needs to be put into the early game. The early game should not just be a vehicle to travel to the end.
How many *active* players would WoW have had if that 70% hadn't left the game before level 10?!
If that is a good stat to take note of then Brad and the guys need to make it so players have experienced the basics of everything the game has to offer by level 10. We need to see lots of grouping being necessary. We need to see a dungeon crawl. A good selection of interesting abilities. Some trading and crafting. Some exploration and travel. We need to see a level 10 raid, even. Something fun that two or three groups can throw themselves at.
As a side-note: When I played EQ Project 1999 recently I was disappointed at how little you need to group in the early game. I had perhaps forgotten about that. I would like to see much more of the 'important' mechanics be introduced early on in Pantheon.
If players leave after they've seen a short, basic version of all that, then that's fine - MMORPGs are not for them. But if VR don't use that first period to draw people in, and then don't keep that going in the mid-levels, then they will miss out on a lot of players.
If Pantheon is another race-to-end-game MMORPG then VR will have missed a *huge* part of what an 'old-school' MMO is about. I really don't think it will be.
Tanix said:By treating its "mid game" in the same way modern games treat their end game. That is, with content that is just as important in progression at that stage as it is in the final stages of the progression system.
EQ didn't have an "end game" in release, not in the sense that we know them today. Everything in EQ was important, be it at level 1 or at level 49. It was all "the game" and so all of it had equal treatment. Today, we treat the begining and end of an MMO differently because people have expectations. For instance, in the early game people think the game has to spend the early levels "teaching, training, guiding, and catering" to the player. The mid game is just fodder to fast burn through to get to the raiding game at the end. Again, treate your begining, middle and end the same with no special treatment, with all equally important content and you get what EQ was at release, just a nice MMORPG with a even progression system.
I'd like to say that this statement is personal speculation. EQ did have "end game" content - and that was either raiding the Planes at 46-50 to defeat gods or defeating dragons that would be impossible to defeat in a single group or on your own. Bringing players together for the first time on a large scale was their "end game". Once Nagafen and Vox were capable of being farmed, they expanded the content with several more raid encounters and peppered in epic quests. Then they introduced horizontal progression with AAs along with reputation grinds for armor quests to substitute the epic quests, and of course more raid encounters. The "mid-game" content of EQ was primarily to grind exp with a spatter of quests; no real new type of content (most people wouldn't call repeating the same thing over and over in a different area "equal treatment" to the end game of defeating gods and dragons, or the begining levels of learning to play your character in different situations and unlocking cool new spells/skills). About lvl 25-45 was simply grinding - People may not have perceived it as mindless grinding at the time because we had nothing to compare it to, but compared to modern MMOs, it was exactly that. Go play project1999 and tell me otherwise. EQ was far from an "even progression system" (especially with "hell levels" where the only thing you could do was grind if you wanted to advance and find out what your new skills would do or be able to finally go back and farm that one item that you were just too low to get!)
add: To address the O.P. - I think it would be cool to allow the Epic Quests (either skills/spells or items) have steps that can be completed throughout the entirety of a character's life (all levels). I also know that the devs have mentioned that they intend on having large encounters for other levels, not just at the "end game".
Flapp said:I wouldn't mind if they had something like hell-levels but in a different way. Like every 5 levels you have to get 5-10 AA levels before you could Ding on primary level. That is just a raw example, I am sure game designers could find a way to make that "better" - I leave the HOW to them.
I kinda like the idea of regularly requiring what is (or at least feels like) sideways progression.
Darch said:Tanix said:By treating its "mid game" in the same way modern games treat their end game. That is, with content that is just as important in progression at that stage as it is in the final stages of the progression system.
EQ didn't have an "end game" in release, not in the sense that we know them today. Everything in EQ was important, be it at level 1 or at level 49. It was all "the game" and so all of it had equal treatment. Today, we treat the begining and end of an MMO differently because people have expectations. For instance, in the early game people think the game has to spend the early levels "teaching, training, guiding, and catering" to the player. The mid game is just fodder to fast burn through to get to the raiding game at the end. Again, treate your begining, middle and end the same with no special treatment, with all equally important content and you get what EQ was at release, just a nice MMORPG with a even progression system.
I'd like to say that this statement is personal speculation. EQ did have "end game" content - and that was either raiding the Planes at 46-50 to defeat gods or defeating dragons that would be impossible to defeat in a single group or on your own. Bringing players together for the first time on a large scale was their "end game". Once Nagafen and Vox were capable of being farmed, they expanded the content with several more raid encounters and peppered in epic quests. Then they introduced horizontal progression with AAs along with reputation grinds for armor quests to substitute the epic quests, and of course more raid encounters. The "mid-game" content of EQ was primarily to grind exp with a spatter of quests; no real new type of content (most people wouldn't call repeating the same thing over and over in a different area "equal treatment" to the end game of defeating gods and dragons, or the begining levels of learning to play your character in different situations and unlocking cool new spells/skills). About lvl 25-45 was simply grinding - People may not have perceived it as mindless grinding at the time because we had nothing to compare it to, but compared to modern MMOs, it was exactly that. Go play project1999 and tell me otherwise. EQ was far from an "even progression system" (especially with "hell levels" where the only thing you could do was grind if you wanted to advance and find out what your new skills would do or be able to finally go back and farm that one item that you were just too low to get!)
add: To address the O.P. - I think it would be cool to allow the Epic Quests (either skills/spells or items) have steps that can be completed throughout the entirety of a character's life (all levels). I also know that the devs have mentioned that they intend on having large encounters for other levels, not just at the "end game".
There was far more dungeons, far more group content than there was raid content on release EQ. EQ was a group based game at release, not a raid one. As for "grinding", EQ was a camping based exploration game. EXP was gained from killing mobs, this was the nature of the game. If your argument is to simplify everything to such, the EQ (and WoW) raids were grinds for gear, WoW questing were grinds for exp, etc..
EQs game from level 1 was the same as it was generally at 49 on release, primarly a group focused exploration game to which you explored dungeons and sought rare mobs and loot. What you saw as "grinding" was because you saw the game as a need to get to max level. I didn't see my groupings as grinds, I saw them as explorations, group adventures, searching for items and treasure throughout a vast world. The people who saw it all as a grind were the ones that constantly complained about exping and how they should be able to get to max level faster so they could raid, because... (in their own words) "That is where the game starts" and those people were the ones that complained and drove EQ to become a "raid game" as well as pushing WoW away from its group game model into yet another fast paced to end game to raid.
So we have very different perspectives of what our experiences in EQ were and mine aren't tainted by nostalgia, rather I actually enjoyed that style of game (and yes, I have played P1999 and even ran my own EQ server, so I am not ignorant of what I appreciate).
Exactly. It was called EverQUEST not EverRAID. You were supposed to look for adventure over the whole world, not just blast through to the 'end game'.
Of course it feels like a grind if all you want to do is get to end game. How boring. When you read a book, do you hate really long ones and skim read everything but the last page?
Personally, I found, even in EQ, I would out-level an area before I had really gotten to know it, or even sometimes out level class skills before I had really used them to their best.
The 'end game' was when the game, pretty much, er... ended, once upon a time.
D&D, EQ, novels, films... once the hero got to be super-powerful was when things got boring so you'd say "Cool! That was great! Let's start again as a different hero!"
For some reason, some players just can't let it go and have to keep stomping around 'being powerful' and showing how much more powerful they are than all the other powerful heroes by doing powerful things over and over and over until they get some random loot that makes them just that *tiny* bit more powerful for the next flexing session.
Good grief I hope Pantheon reverses or at least massively overhauls the way modern games are dealing with the way an MMORPG progresses.
Progeny is not the only answer but I am so looking forward to all the tears of a certain type of player... Character bonuses for choosing to start over?! NOT FAIR! Hehe
disposalist said:Exactly. It was called EverQUEST not EverRAID. You were supposed to look for adventure over the whole world, not just blast through to the 'end game'.
Of course it feels like a grind if all you want to do is get to end game. How boring. When you read a book, do you hate really long ones and skim read everything but the last page?
Personally, I found, even in EQ, I would out-level an area before I had really gotten to know it, or even sometimes out level class skills before I had really used them to their best.
The 'end game' was when the game, pretty much, er... ended, once upon a time.
D&D, EQ, novels, films... once the hero got to be super-powerful was when things got boring so you'd say "Cool! That was great! Let's start again as a different hero!"
For some reason, some players just can't let it go and have to keep stomping around 'being powerful' and showing how much more powerful they are than all the other powerful heroes by doing powerful things over and over and over until they get some random loot that makes them just that *tiny* bit more powerful for the next flexing session.
Good grief I hope Pantheon reverses or at least massively overhauls the way modern games are dealing with the way an MMORPG progresses.
Progeny is not the only answer but I am so looking forward to all the tears of a certain type of player... Character bonuses for choosing to start over?! NOT FAIR! Hehe
Well put Disposalist, well put!
I hope that end game really is.
Darch said:Tanix said:By treating its "mid game" in the same way modern games treat their end game. That is, with content that is just as important in progression at that stage as it is in the final stages of the progression system.
EQ didn't have an "end game" in release, not in the sense that we know them today. Everything in EQ was important, be it at level 1 or at level 49. It was all "the game" and so all of it had equal treatment. Today, we treat the begining and end of an MMO differently because people have expectations. For instance, in the early game people think the game has to spend the early levels "teaching, training, guiding, and catering" to the player. The mid game is just fodder to fast burn through to get to the raiding game at the end. Again, treate your begining, middle and end the same with no special treatment, with all equally important content and you get what EQ was at release, just a nice MMORPG with a even progression system.
I'd like to say that this statement is personal speculation. EQ did have "end game" content - and that was either raiding the Planes at 46-50 to defeat gods or defeating dragons that would be impossible to defeat in a single group or on your own. Bringing players together for the first time on a large scale was their "end game". Once Nagafen and Vox were capable of being farmed, they expanded the content with several more raid encounters and peppered in epic quests. Then they introduced horizontal progression with AAs along with reputation grinds for armor quests to substitute the epic quests, and of course more raid encounters. The "mid-game" content of EQ was primarily to grind exp with a spatter of quests; no real new type of content (most people wouldn't call repeating the same thing over and over in a different area "equal treatment" to the end game of defeating gods and dragons, or the begining levels of learning to play your character in different situations and unlocking cool new spells/skills). About lvl 25-45 was simply grinding - People may not have perceived it as mindless grinding at the time because we had nothing to compare it to, but compared to modern MMOs, it was exactly that. Go play project1999 and tell me otherwise. EQ was far from an "even progression system" (especially with "hell levels" where the only thing you could do was grind if you wanted to advance and find out what your new skills would do or be able to finally go back and farm that one item that you were just too low to get!)
add: To address the O.P. - I think it would be cool to allow the Epic Quests (either skills/spells or items) have steps that can be completed throughout the entirety of a character's life (all levels). I also know that the devs have mentioned that they intend on having large encounters for other levels, not just at the "end game".
The original release of EQ was not incorporating an end game mentality, it was more of a progression game emulating a D&D progression journey, it was not until later expantions that the endgame/raiding scene came to play. One example was the teleportation spells to the planes, Verant did not phantom that palyes would play so much and level so fast thet they would reach the level the spell were designed for and so they had to change the spell levels to a higher level to have the time to produce the content for the spell destinations. It was meant as a destination to continue the journey of the characters but it was not until later that because of the unexpected success of the game and the ammount of subscriptions that they had to produce content and features to the mass of level capped players that devoured the content and had no choice but to create alts to wait for the new expantion release.
In a sence both you and Tanix are correct but the prespective come to when you started playing and how much time was devouted to playing and of course the individual style of play, this game release really brough out to light a mix of player categories many unknown to masses such as, hard core players, roleplayers, PvP players, crafters, adventurers, griefers, trolls, traders, etc., now just from memory I do recall that the raiding guild at the beguining were relatively small (original release) and most of the server communities did not have the time, will, skills, gear or any other reason not mentioned to undertake that journey, many people would simply create new characters to redo the large array of dungeons available.
I do recall the SoE boards and most of the end game gripes generally came from the raiding guilds and not necessarilly from the much larger silent majority that made the core of the revenue to the game. To think of the mid game as simply grinding rather than progressing simply makes that player a raider interested only in aquiring the best of gear there is, nothing wrong with that of course but it should not take away from all the other types of players nor should the game be designed solely based on the wishes of a small minority, a tricky thing of course once you have areas that get abandoned and player base matures in levels or player base levels off.
I totally agree. I don't know how well I can word my feelings but I'll try...
I had the same view when I started playing EQ, that it was a progression game with a D&D feel - the endgame did not, at all, feel solid or important. When I did reach max level, I found it a little chaotic trying to join other raiding guild groups. I believe I spent a month leveling other characters instead of engaging in anything end-game.
Looking back on EQ, mid-game holds a lot of my good memories. I agree about the silent majority (yes it's a real thing) but only the devs get to see what they're up to. I would guess the average character levels around mid-game or slightly under. Time will tell. I will have many alts stuck in mid-game for sure. I'll delete alts and start them over. I will progress repeatedly and I'll probably like that part of the game the most. I usually prefer to play only one (sometimes two) characters in end-game.