Anyone else concerned about the rate of XP accumulation seen in that stream?
After 2 hours of non-stop grinding high level mobs in a difficult dungeon, they managed just over 1 bubble of xp on a 10 bubble xp bar.
1/10th of a level gained from that amount of time and effort?
Reminds me of EQ "Hell Levels" progression, but they were only lvl 10. What on earth is progression going to look like at lvl 40+?
And add to that, 1 death at the end negated nearly all xp from that 2 hours of grinding?
Mobs killed were looking between 80-120 xp per kill.
The one death was -3,900xp
One death deletes 40! slow-burn, high level dungeon kills?
Im all for hard core, but this is looking impossibly time cosuming and punitive, and probably not 'fun' in practice.
Only the most die hard players will ever reach max level let alone have any high level alts.
Anyway, at least the games looking good and playable.
Nice stream.
Hello,
yes the XP wasn't crazy... but that will be tweeked many time before release, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
As for reaching max level, I would love at last to see a game where max level is not the goal, but the journey is.
In EQ, I enjoyed the path towards max level as much as reaching it (and admitedly, some of the old time high level raids... )
...And add to that, 1 death at the end negated nearly all xp from that 2 hours of grinding?
Mobs killed were looking between 80-120 xp per kill.
The one death was -3,900xp
One death deletes 40! slow-burn, high level dungeon kills?
You guys are forgetting how they described the death mechanics. that XP is not lost but thrown into an xp death pool for future kills. Its sort of like the rest system from WoW but fueled by your own deaths.
Unless you die back to back repeatedly in Pantheon there won't be a real xp death penalty.
I honestly want an MMO that is not about sitting at max level though. Months of leveling was the best part of EQ getting to know people and experiencing all the different zones as you progress through. Sitting at max level quickly eliminates so many things to do.
Slow leveling is a plus not a minus. This stream may have shown leveling that was too slow for level 10 - or may not have - but I do not care in the slightest because I wouldn't take any details seriously yet. This was to show how things work in general - if they gained 5 levels over the two hours I would have been a lot more worried. Once alpha comes - may that blessed day come soon (yes I know it won't) - testers can start focusing on feedback to help get the details into shape.
"Unless you die back to back repeatedly in Pantheon there won't be a real xp death penalty."
Here too I am not worried yet - but I consider a real death penalty a relatively core feature of the game. If alpha contains essentially no death penalty other than for repeated deaths that will not be a step in the right direction.
Actually I wasn't concerned, but pleasantly surprised. When I saw how slow they were leveling, I actually did a fist pump at the screen. I've been hoping they'd slow it down some. I don't want a game where you're leveling every hour or two you play. And I want death to sting. And by sting, I mean like getting hit with a truck.
But, as mentioned by others, I would take anything you see in pre-alpha with a proverbial grain of salt. Still going to be at least a few years before the game is out, and several waves of testing are still to come. Things are almost assuredly going to be tweaked some between now and then.
So, if you really didn't like something, speak... erm, type it up.
But personally, this is exactly what I was looking for.
~Hiwin
I agree, for level 10 it was horrifically slow, maybe 18-20 hours to level while grinding the higher risk/reward mobs no less. Those are numbers per level I'd expect much later on - maybe late 30s and beyond. I am all for a long meanginful journey but that should ramp up later on when players actually having meaningful choices in LAS options, places to experience, and interesting mob mechanics (coinciding with having more abilities) to interact with.
This is an absurdly slow pace for such a low level. Pre-alpha and obviously not locked-in or anywhere near final but that's my feedback on it as is.
vthorm said:Actually I wasn't concerned, but pleasantly surprised. When I saw how slow they were leveling, I actually did a fist pump at the screen. I've been hoping they'd slow it down some. I don't want a game where you're leveling every hour or two you play. And I want death to sting. And by sting, I mean like getting hit with a truck.
But, as mentioned by others, I would take anything you see in pre-alpha with a proverbial grain of salt. Still going to be at least a few years before the game is out, and several waves of testing are still to come. Things are almost assuredly going to be tweaked some between now and then.
So, if you really didn't like something, speak... erm, type it up.
But personally, this is exactly what I was looking for.
~Hiwin
I hear you, and in Principal i agree.
Im not suggesting 'leveling every hour or two', but i can almost guaruntee that 1/10th of a level every two hardcore levels of dungeon grinding at lvl 10.. might get old.
Something in between would be prudent. Cause currently its looking slower then OG EQ!
But im sure its going to be tweeked like you said.
Iksar said:I agree, for level 10 it was horrifically slow, maybe 18-20 hours to level while grinding the higher risk/reward mobs no less. Those are numbers per level I'd expect much later on - maybe late 30s and beyond. I am all for a long meanginful journey but that should ramp up later on when players actually having meaningful choices in LAS options, places to experience, and interesting mob mechanics (coinciding with having more abilities) to interact with.
This is an absurdly slow pace for such a low level. Pre-alpha and obviously not locked-in or anywhere near final but that's my feedback on it as is.
My opinion is spot on to Iksar's here.
Something else I "personally" noticed was their ideal group composition. I would expect a group makeup this perfect would be few and far between. Tank, DPS, DPS, Heal, Heal, CC. I don't think you could get a better group together to dungeon delve with relative ease (straight forward roles, with nobody really needing to "flex" into alternate roles to cover gaps).
A lesser group composition would likely progress even slower.
As others have said, I know this will be adjusted in the future, but something to take into consideration when adjusting is that not everyone will be able to have the perfect group composition.
At this level, with this group composition (not to mention everyone using VOIP, and Saicred (the DL pulling) knew the content), I'd expect this group to steamroll equal level content.
Edit: As a funny note, I compared the exp bar at 40ish mins into the stream to 2 hours in after the wipe and the exp bar was lower after all of that grinding - yikes! Over an hour of grinding exp lost - its not like people will be motivated to recover from a wipe like that (two hours into a dungeon, which means a normal player would've been playing for 3+ hours by that point)... even the devs were like "whelp, lets call it there" ~dev summon out~ aka "I've been stressed for 2 hours straight watching Roen trying to play Enchanter" (which will likely be a regular experience I'm sure). People working for hours to make the perfect group, only to discover that the player(s) aren't familiar with their class or the game mechanics - potentially causing everyone to lose hours of progress. We will see...
I do enjoy the slower pace. I'm more curious as to if there is a gradual increase in xp/hr required per level or if it's more exponential. I trust the team to tweak xp gain to the point where the leveling is slow enough that it makes the journey and your subgoals the main reason to play vs trying to fill that xp bar.
Something to keep in mind about the stream, while Darch points out they have a very ideal group composition, their class choices make for a very safe adventure. As pointed out in the stream itself, they would've been killing way faster if they had 1 tank, 3 dps, 1 healer, 1cc. Or judging by the dps Saicred was pumping out, 2 tank, 2 healers, 2 dps would've been faster as well. Sav was doing significantly more damage than everyone else. Minus was distracted by chat, hosting, etc.
All that to say, it was not a group focused on killing quickly so I could see them having gained anywhere from 20-50% more xp even at the current rate shown if they had a more dps focused composition or weren't distracted with trying to make the stream enjoyable for us.
To the team, that was a great preview and wonderful holiday gift. To Medawky, ogre shaman all the way!
A concern from me would be if progress is exceedingly slow, players may be extremely picky when making groups for dungeons. I appreciate it is geared towards a more difficult experience but as a casual player I hope to still be able to get groups easily for dungeon content. If there is a risk of 3 hours of progress being wiped I could forsee arguements and strict criteria around minmaxing/group composition even at lower levels.
Adrenicus said:A concern from me would be if progress is exceedingly slow, players may be extremely picky when making groups for dungeons. I appreciate it is geared towards a more difficult experience but as a casual player I hope to still be able to get groups easily for dungeon content. If there is a risk of 3 hours of progress being wiped I could forsee arguements and strict criteria around minmaxing/group composition even at lower levels.
I am there with you. I played intense high-end EQ in one of the top raiding guilds, and then I had this strange idea of getting kidos, a wife and such (in whatever order you may seem fit). Nowadays, I won't be able to play as much and I think I won't simply be able to endure 6 hour raids or grouping for leveling or AAs.
I think one way around this will be to create a community and join a guild where you are known and can jump in more easily. And even so, once groups have kinda regular play times, it will be difficult if you lag behind in level. I must admit that it makes me a bit nervous as well. That being said, if progression is slow, then you will not be ages behind your favorite mates, or it will be easier to go along if they are a bit higher than you. So that seems to be more of a positive thing than a negative one.
Grobobos said:Adrenicus said:A concern from me would be if progress is exceedingly slow, players may be extremely picky when making groups for dungeons. I appreciate it is geared towards a more difficult experience but as a casual player I hope to still be able to get groups easily for dungeon content. If there is a risk of 3 hours of progress being wiped I could forsee arguements and strict criteria around minmaxing/group composition even at lower levels.
I am there with you. I played intense high-end EQ in one of the top raiding guilds, and then I had this strange idea of getting kidos, a wife and such (in whatever order you may seem fit). Nowadays, I won't be able to play as much and I think I won't simply be able to endure 6 hour raids or grouping for leveling or AAs.
I think one way around this will be to create a community and join a guild where you are known and can jump in more easily. And even so, once groups have kinda regular play times, it will be difficult if you lag behind in level. I must admit that it makes me a bit nervous as well. That being said, if progression is slow, then you will not be ages behind your favorite mates, or it will be easier to go along if they are a bit higher than you. So that seems to be more of a positive thing than a negative one.
I feel people will people will ultimately take what they can get. Of course you'll find people who want a "perfect" group composition, that'll never go away. But the majority of people will simply want to group and play. Having a 6 person group gives a lot of leeway for what works and what doesn't. Don't find cc? Get a second tank or healer.
I think there will be only 2 group slots that are a must have for deep dungeon dives, a healer and a tank. Even there I may be proven wrong with the flexing some classes can do if approached and supported correctly.
vthorm said:Actually I wasn't concerned, but pleasantly surprised. When I saw how slow they were leveling, I actually did a fist pump at the screen. I've been hoping they'd slow it down some. I don't want a game where you're leveling every hour or two you play. And I want death to sting. And by sting, I mean like getting hit with a truck.
But, as mentioned by others, I would take anything you see in pre-alpha with a proverbial grain of salt. Still going to be at least a few years before the game is out, and several waves of testing are still to come. Things are almost assuredly going to be tweaked some between now and then.
So, if you really didn't like something, speak... erm, type it up.
But personally, this is exactly what I was looking for.
~Hiwin
I have to reserve judgement to see how the seperate XP death pool is introduced back to regular xp. I get that there is a nostalgia about "slow" xp but if its really slow xp coupled with big hits for xp loss, it may appeal to a small community but the reality is that times have changed since 1999 and the larger player base now that needs to be attracted does not have the patience and stamina to stick with it and will most likely leave and Pantheon would suffer longevity issues.
I look at EQ's attempt at the slow xp with its begining TLP servers and it took alot of critisicm for how bad it was and they have not repeated it in 8 years and other games also do not have an eye gouging slow mechanic coupled with large xp lossed from death. Personally I like it but I want the game to succeed so I would rather see faster lower levels gained so people get invested in their characters and learn the game and then maybe make later levels larger xp pools needed to level. By that time, they have made friends, joined guilds, gotten gear and learned the game.
All good discussion.
Personally I too enjoy the slower pace of leveling. I want the 'ding' to be surprising and worthy of the congratulations I expect to be showered. I also expect to die often as I am a complete idiot that pokes and prys. I'm going to gain XP to reach max level 10 times over I expect overcoming my foolish play style.
I want to exist in this world and interact with many people, I want to be known for who I am as a player in the areas I haunt. I do not care to be know to have the biggest sword or the thickest skull. I just want to interact with other casual gamers and tell jokes after a rat kills us.
Darch said:Iksar said:I agree, for level 10 it was horrifically slow, maybe 18-20 hours to level while grinding the higher risk/reward mobs no less. Those are numbers per level I'd expect much later on - maybe late 30s and beyond. I am all for a long meanginful journey but that should ramp up later on when players actually having meaningful choices in LAS options, places to experience, and interesting mob mechanics (coinciding with having more abilities) to interact with.
This is an absurdly slow pace for such a low level. Pre-alpha and obviously not locked-in or anywhere near final but that's my feedback on it as is.
My opinion is spot on to Iksar's here.
Something else I "personally" noticed was their ideal group composition. I would expect a group makeup this perfect would be few and far between. Tank, DPS, DPS, Heal, Heal, CC. I don't think you could get a better group together to dungeon delve with relative ease (straight forward roles, with nobody really needing to "flex" into alternate roles to cover gaps).
A lesser group composition would likely progress even slower.
As others have said, I know this will be adjusted in the future, but something to take into consideration when adjusting is that not everyone will be able to have the perfect group composition.
At this level, with this group composition (not to mention everyone using VOIP, and Saicred (the DL pulling) knew the content), I'd expect this group to steamroll equal level content.
Edit: As a funny note, I compared the exp bar at 40ish mins into the stream to 2 hours in after the wipe and the exp bar was lower after all of that grinding - yikes! Over an hour of grinding exp lost - its not like people will be motivated to recover from a wipe like that (two hours into a dungeon, which means a normal player would've been playing for 3+ hours by that point)... even the devs were like "whelp, lets call it there" ~dev summon out~ aka "I've been stressed for 2 hours straight watching Roen trying to play Enchanter" (which will likely be a regular experience I'm sure). People working for hours to make the perfect group, only to discover that the player(s) aren't familiar with their class or the game mechanics - potentially causing everyone to lose hours of progress. We will see...
The concern for me is outpacing the amazing content because leveling is sped up. I know certain areas I will be able to go back to, but I'd like to capture quite a lot of discovery in a region/dungeon/zone before it becomes less valuable to remain in. If I outpace the amount of content, I'll miss out on the experience in favor of expedited rush to endgame or feel like meaningful progress has to have been achieved.
It's a matter of perspective. I'm older with 4 kiddos. It's the journey that does it for me, and not the destination.
Steelear said:The concern for me is outpacing the amazing content because leveling is sped up. I know certain areas I will be able to go back to, but I'd like to capture quite a lot of discovery in a region/dungeon/zone before it becomes less valuable to remain in. If I outpace the amount of content, I'll miss out on the experience in favor of expedited rush to endgame or feel like meaningful progress has to have been achieved.
It's a matter of perspective. I'm older with 4 kiddos. It's the journey that does it for me, and not the destination.
Much like in the days of old, I enjoy a large world where I am (likely) going to miss a good portion of it on a single character. Then with alts I can experience the joys of other locations. Even in the relatively small world of EQ there were at least a few different paths to level up, experiencing Blackburrow or Befallen or Crushbone etc.
Doesn't need to be a blazing fast pace but really something around what I would propose (~400 hours) wouldn't be blazing fast at all.
My opinion of slow leveling is biased because my first introduction to a "hard" , adult (not porn but sophisticated-what DnD has become), MMO had a Trivial loot code in effect. Being the budding Meta gamer, We didnt have the word then, I just wanted to do everything- to do all the quests. If I had newbie quests in my home town and got faction, I also wanted to do the newbie quests in all the other starting cities- just to start BEFORE I really got adventuring. that way I would be welcome everywhere, know languages for whomever I would meet and it would make starting the game proper and questing, easier. The only hang up would be getting to those other cities while still low enough to do the quests without getting too high that I would bork them by triggering the Trivial loot code and I could not do the newbie quests in other cities because the lore items would not drop because I was too high a level. So if I am desperate to get to Aryonais rest because I want to learn to swim well but there is a PuG wanting to go to goblin caves- decisions decisions- if the exp isn't too quick, I could explore with them. Maybe there is a quest in there or someone knows about I could start? I would want to get those goals out of the way before I shift into "important" things like serious adventuring where you and your group go off and camp out, outside in the wild, to log back in at roughly the same time and continue doing the things you planned, or hoped to plan. Then maybe join a guild after we are comfortable with our class, idk.
I like a slower pace but if it's too slow, even I would get bored. They will probably play with things through pre-alpha and get into more fine tuning somewhere in alpha. A lot will depend on the player's feedback and what they enjoy. To slow and the population drops. Too fast and people eat through content. Plus, a lot of social interaction is lost if you are moving through content too fast. They have to find the sweet spot for leveling.
Early levels definitely have to provide good progress to keep new players interested in the game. There are going to be players who never played a slow leveling game, and you want to capture their interest. At some point the leveling should ramp up. That's another part to get right, at what point is the average player invested enough to stay with the game as leveling gets slower?
For me, as long as there is enough content for me to get involved with at any given level, then slow xp gain does not cause me concern. If the game becomes a grind fest so that you are forced to spend hours killing for the sake of xp only, then the it becomes a huge turn off. As long as I have new places to see, new experience to indulge in, new mobs to combat, new quests, storylines, discoveries, skill updates, etc., etc., then slow progress in xp terms is fine. If I have to spend a long time aimlessly killing for the sake of xp gain, then this is not fine and I would get bored, very, very quickly.
I would rather have too much stuff for a single character to get through than too little. Afterall, I could roll another character and do the content I couldnt get to with my first.
For me, xp grind is just tedius at best and is a sign that there is something lacking from the game.
