I'm not sure how the majority of this community feels, but I have always hated when MMOs implement bonus exp weekends or other events that give an advantage to players who happen to be able to play during that time period. In a game where leveling is hard, and a big deal, I think exp bonus weekends are kind of a slap in the face to players who achieved those levels without an arbitrary bonus.
Do you guys agree?
Liav said:Not in the first year or so, but after that I think it's fair game.
No MMO with vertical leveling progression will ever be anything but top heavy after some duration of time. XP weekends help people level alts or help new players catch up once games have gotten older.
I remember after the first 3 or 4 years after EQs release, there were PLENTY of players in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and many of them didn't feel a strong need to get max level, because they so enjoyed the content available at their level.
If it's not fair to give XP bonuses in the first year after release, it is still unfair 5 years later.
Just my opinion though :) .
Linkamus said:Liav said:Not in the first year or so, but after that I think it's fair game.
No MMO with vertical leveling progression will ever be anything but top heavy after some duration of time. XP weekends help people level alts or help new players catch up once games have gotten older.
I remember after the first 3 or 4 years after EQs release, there were PLENTY of players in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and many of them didn't feel a strong need to get max level, because they so enjoyed the content available at their level.
If it's not fair to give XP bonuses in the first year after release, it is still unfair 5 years later.
Just my opinion though :) .
That mentality has changed in this post-World of Warcraft world. Players before might have enjoyed the content where they were but then again games before WoW were less raid heavy and there were things to do at any level. Now, games are aimed towards end game progression.
I support these types of events because it does something for the community. It gets people to log in. I know some will argue that weekends make it unfair for people who cannot play during those times but it is statistically proven that weekends have the highest volume of players so that is when they would want people to log in.
Now, with that said. I liked how World of Warcraft offered events that didnt just apply to leveling. It might have been increased faction gain, special currency dropping, etc. This got the community together in a similar area to do those events.
A difference between EQ when it launched and WoW when it launched...
With EQ, the game was a journey.
With WoW, there was (BEFORE launch) a mantra in the player base of "The game begins at max"
The implication there is that in the case of WoW - players espousing that mantra believed there was nothing of value until you hit max level. As more and more people in WoW wanted more and more things handed to them (blues weren't good enough - everyone wanted purple) - the game changed to accomodate...
I think if Pantheon bucks that line of thought - if it can avoid the notion that the whole game doesn't have value... can resist the call by some that their being able to attain less than others is not fair, etc... then NOT having things like EXP bonus weekends becomes a natural extension of that. Why would such a thing come up if the whole game was designed with different principles in mind.
Wandidar gets me :) .
One of the game tenants:
Bonus Exp weekends seem to contradict this tenant if you ask me. By taking your accomplishment, and making it much easier for someone else to accomplish the same thing with an arbitrary weekend easy-mode patch, you are destroying the meaning of those accomplishments.
I never liked double experience weekends. Not necessarily out of a sense of unfairness. I would want to be careful about invoking "fairness" as a lot of things that we actually advocate for here can be seen as "unfair."
My objection is similar to that made by others - if we agree that leveling should be meaningful, and that the journey is as/more important than the destination, then the double experience weekend events allow people to skip past all that and go straight to the end and trivialize all content below X level.
If the game is healthy after 5 years you probably wont need a mechanism to skip content. If the game is unbalanced after 5 years you might need to introduce something to help balance it out. But I think at this point I would try to design the game to avoid the need for such mechanics.
If they do this game right, why would you want double xp. EQ added content at low and mid level which offered items you would use into max level (Jboots, Manastone, etc), you also attained gear that you might use for months, that is part of what made the journey to max level in Everquest so great, it never felt like a waste of time doing a quest or acquiring gear. The current situation in any MMO right now is who cares about gear, it's going to be outdated as soon as I kill the next mob and I don’t need it to move on. I literally ran around naked or with completely broken gear during my short stint in ESO because it wasn't worth the cost of repairing it. In EQ, good armor and a weapon was necessary for a warrior class, in a group, it might make the difference in holding a camp and solo, it could mean the difference between being able to solo or not.
Linkamus said:Liav said:Not in the first year or so, but after that I think it's fair game.
No MMO with vertical leveling progression will ever be anything but top heavy after some duration of time. XP weekends help people level alts or help new players catch up once games have gotten older.
I remember after the first 3 or 4 years after EQs release, there were PLENTY of players in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and many of them didn't feel a strong need to get max level, because they so enjoyed the content available at their level.
If it's not fair to give XP bonuses in the first year after release, it is still unfair 5 years later.
Just my opinion though :) .
I agree with this, Based on one memory. When I got to the level where I could summon a ring fo flight, like in the mid 30's I think, I felt- thatls it, I dont have to worry about levelling anymore. And to be honest felt I was levelling too fast. the world was still big, Giants were challengingly groupable, but not always a success, and I could actually make it to other cities and maybe "take in the air", there and do some factioning while it was still non trivial.
Dont get me wrong, I also got caught up in the levelling groove as new expansions came out, but to me the mid-range levels were the most memorable and important.
I'm going to disagree with you guys. Not because i want there to be double exp weekends... that usually happens on holiday weekends and I'm usually away with family on holidays. You can ask the guys I play with... I'm ususally the last guy that wants to leave the exp watering hole and find a new camp.... I am saying I like to hang out as long as possible through the levels.
The truth is I don't care that much because these events are generally to incentivize people to come back to the game if they haven't been on and feel like they have lagged behind. Some people will have less play time than I will, a lot of people will have more... but when I reach max level... and it may take me a while between work, school and family commitments... then it is my achievement. If it takes me 200 hours of game time, I don't really care if it takes someone 190 hours of gametime because they played on a double exp weekend. To me it just sounds like whining for equality in a world that isn't always going to be equal. Some groups will give better exp, some groups will give worse. Some group setups will work better than others... classes will never be 100% balanced. Life isn't fair... deal with it. If having double experience once or twice a year is the biggest thing that goes wrong with this game... then I will be ECSTATIC with this game.
I hope this game gives an opportunity to show people the merit of challenging games, though... and maybe rather than trying to find reasons to exclude every possible demographic... we can draw more people from the current crop of instant gratification gamers to show them why these types of games are so dear to our heart... I'm not saying give them what they want... I'm saying we don't have to come up with reason after reason to alienate people who are new to this type of thing.
However... I will say one thing for bonus exp... I DO hope they put in bonus exp for underused zones, to encourage people to make the longer trip and check out content. I hate to see somebody put months of work into making a zone, and then no one uses it because it's a little out of the way.
The great thing about EQ when it first launched is that there really was no "end game" the notions of raids was elementary compared to what we have now, the biggest draw of the game was enjoying the content with friends (or making new friends) and not the rush to "end game". EQ also had well laid out and thought out dungeons that at lvl 10 felt the same as at lvl 50 (crushbone/blackburrow felt the same to me at least as LGuk/Sol B did, both where challenging for the group but do-able, both dropped good/great gear for the level and challenge).
The problem with a lot of games in the post WoW age is that they treat lower level dungeons like just leveling areas to get to the next tier. This leads people to just do them to get the quest done, and move on and not sit in one dungeon for 20 hours over the course of 4-5 days.
Rubezahl said:I'm going to disagree with you guys. Not because i want there to be double exp weekends... that usually happens on holiday weekends and I'm usually away with family on holidays. You can ask the guys I play with... I'm ususally the last guy that wants to leave the exp watering hole and find a new camp.... I am saying I like to hang out as long as possible through the levels.
The truth is I don't care that much because these events are generally to incentivize people to come back to the game if they haven't been on and feel like they have lagged behind. Some people will have less play time than I will, a lot of people will have more... but when I reach max level... and it may take me a while between work, school and family commitments... then it is my achievement. If it takes me 200 hours of game time, I don't really care if it takes someone 190 hours of gametime because they played on a double exp weekend. To me it just sounds like whining for equality in a world that isn't always going to be equal. Some groups will give better exp, some groups will give worse. Some group setups will work better than others... classes will never be 100% balanced. Life isn't fair... deal with it. If having double experience once or twice a year is the biggest thing that goes wrong with this game... then I will be ECSTATIC with this game.
I hope this game gives an opportunity to show people the merit of challenging games, though... and maybe rather than trying to find reasons to exclude every possible demographic... we can draw more people from the current crop of instant gratification gamers to show them why these types of games are so dear to our heart... I'm not saying give them what they want... I'm saying we don't have to come up with reason after reason to alienate people who are new to this type of thing.
However... I will say one thing for bonus exp... I DO hope they put in bonus exp for underused zones, to encourage people to make the longer trip and check out content. I hate to see somebody put months of work into making a zone, and then no one uses it because it's a little out of the way.
200 hours? I probably put upwards of 1000 hours in EQ and never reached lvl 60, in fact I think I ended at 55, what would double xp a weekend do for me. Peronsally I dont care about the fairness of it, what bothers me is the idea that this could be an incentive. Doubling XP implies something is wrong with the content you are in. Whether that means everyone level'd past you or there is nothing worthwhile to do or there is just better stuff ahead, this should really not happen and doubling xp for a few days probably can't fix it anyway. If it's just fluff to get more people on from a marketing standpoint then do it, i don't think any veteran would have a real problem with it, since it's just "fools gold" they are giving away.
geatz said:200 hours? ...
I was pretty much just throwing out arbitrary numbers. I played for five years 5 or 6 days a week and didn't touch a good portion of the content. Some will, but I'm a gawker... in that kind of context ... I don't see how a double exp event once or twice a year really breaks anything, and if it brings in a few bucks in subs... sweet.
If it's a problem of not everyone getting it... that could be solved by just giving everyone an 8 hour GM buff that they can log in, grab, and log off and use when able. I dunno... I need sleep. I know that.
Linkamus said:I'm not sure how the majority of this community feels, but I have always hated when MMOs implement bonus exp weekends or other events that give an advantage to players who happen to be able to play during that time period. In a game where leveling is hard, and a big deal, I think exp bonus weekends are kind of a slap in the face to players who achieved those levels without an arbitrary bonus.
Do you guys agree?
I agree. This kind of thing undermines the integrity of the game.
Don't need exps bonuses if the game is as good as EQ1. Even lev 5+ had dungeons (befallen) that were large enough that, at the bottom, was good exps at lev 10, 11, and 12.
Want faster exps vs soloing? Get a group. Done. It's a lot better exps than trying to solo. The bonus? You meet new people that you may become friends with.
no exps pots, no bonus exps weekends. Just play the game.
Wandidar said:A difference between EQ when it launched and WoW when it launched...
With EQ, the game was a journey.
With WoW, there was (BEFORE launch) a mantra in the player base of "The game begins at max"
The implication there is that in the case of WoW - players espousing that mantra believed there was nothing of value until you hit max level. As more and more people in WoW wanted more and more things handed to them (blues weren't good enough - everyone wanted purple) - the game changed to accomodate...
I think if Pantheon bucks that line of thought - if it can avoid the notion that the whole game doesn't have value... can resist the call by some that their being able to attain less than others is not fair, etc... then NOT having things like EXP bonus weekends becomes a natural extension of that. Why would such a thing come up if the whole game was designed with different principles in mind.
Exactly. Games designed around the journey rather than the end need no exp bonus.
Years later if old content is becoming stale, they should consider the ongoing story and then revamp the original content to reflect those changes. While truly dynamic content may still be a ways out, I don't think its unreasonable to to hope for some changes according to the saga that is unfolding in Terminus.
My desire: absolutely no forms of bonus exp whatsoever. No bonus weekends, no bonus weekdays, no bonus mornings, no bonus holidays. No bonus exp zones (aka 'hot zones', if zones are underused, give players a real reason to go there, ie. a coveted item that drops there). No bonus exp potions, no bonus exp food, no bonus exp for mentoring a lower level player (cause there won't be mentoring, right??), no bonus exp for the anniversary of launch.... get the picture? I'll lose respect for the game and the developers if they installed a garbage gimmick like this.
geatz said:If they do this game right, why would you want double xp. EQ added content at low and mid level which offered items you would use into max level (Jboots, Manastone, etc), you also attained gear that you might use for months, that is part of what made the journey to max level in Everquest so great, it never felt like a waste of time doing a quest or acquiring gear. The current situation in any MMO right now is who cares about gear, it's going to be outdated as soon as I kill the next mob and I don’t need it to move on. I literally ran around naked or with completely broken gear during my short stint in ESO because it wasn't worth the cost of repairing it. In EQ, good armor and a weapon was necessary for a warrior class, in a group, it might make the difference in holding a camp and solo, it could mean the difference between being able to solo or not.
You win the thread, imo.
I don't explicitely hate bonus events (or in this case exp events) but if pantheon is even remotely how I imagine it to be I don't feel like this is the right environment for it. They started throwing around all kinds of events late in the game in ffxi (never while the game was still great) and it just killed the value of everything for me. Why take pride in working hard on your character when you could get work cut in half for an event (yes I know it would be unlikely that a person would do ALL of their leveling durring an event but this is really just to explain the sentiment)? Or to have rare items much more easily and widely distributed through events which is equally as bad. There was one exception to this called mog bonanza where it was held 1 time per year and was basically the lottery. You had to pick like 5 or 6 numbers or something (don't remember exactly) and 1 number would be selected at random. There were kindof cheapo cosmetic rewards for matching the first few numbers (in the correct order), some mid tier rewards for most numbers and very rare things for matching all numbers. The reason why I felt that one was ok was because it was such a rediculous stretch to actually win that thing (maybe 1 or 2 people out of every server matched all numbers and I think there were actually a couple where nobody won the big prize). So something like that is acceptable but ultimately unecessary for me.
In addition to that (and what reminded me of this thread) I found this comment from blizzard regarding diablo three recently which I found relevant to this discussion:
"Hey guys – just wanted to pop in and say that we don’t have any community buffs planned for this season.
The main reason is the one highlighted by other members of the community - while 2x buffs are super exciting while they’re active, they have negative effects at other times. The biggest is how demoralizing it can feel if you miss out on the community buff. One of the strengths of Diablo is when players feel they can play on their own schedule, when they feel like it. The 2x buffs really detract from a sense that any time is a perfectly good time to play. It can also cause people to burn themselves out trying to get the most out of the buff."
Diablo is a very different kind of game than pantheon aims to be (where diablo I actually am more in support of the occasional buff than not) I still think this brings something to the table.
Dullahan said:Wandidar said:A difference between EQ when it launched and WoW when it launched...
With EQ, the game was a journey.
With WoW, there was (BEFORE launch) a mantra in the player base of "The game begins at max"
The implication there is that in the case of WoW - players espousing that mantra believed there was nothing of value until you hit max level. As more and more people in WoW wanted more and more things handed to them (blues weren't good enough - everyone wanted purple) - the game changed to accomodate...
I think if Pantheon bucks that line of thought - if it can avoid the notion that the whole game doesn't have value... can resist the call by some that their being able to attain less than others is not fair, etc... then NOT having things like EXP bonus weekends becomes a natural extension of that. Why would such a thing come up if the whole game was designed with different principles in mind.
Exactly. Games designed around the journey rather than the end need no exp bonus.
Years later if old content is becoming stale, they should consider the ongoing story and then revamp the original content to reflect those changes. While truly dynamic content may still be a ways out, I don't think its unreasonable to to hope for some changes according to the saga that is unfolding in Terminus.
100% agreed...I hope to heck that Pantheon is designed around the journey and not the end game. You want raiding thats fine..I hope there are raids but I hope that is not what this game is about. As soon as it becomes just another "The game doesnt begin till max level" is when I hang it up
Double EXP days, events, whatever, devalues the time spent prior during non-EXP days, events, whatever.
With that said, while I have totally benefited from double EXP days, events, whatever, I think it's a terrible idea but if it's there I will take advantage of it -- sometimes begrudgingly.
I take advantage of it wherever possible because if I don't then I'm losing out.
Solution is to not put me in a situation where I could lose out to begin with, thus, don't have double EXP days, events, whatever.
I am totally for incentivizing zone utilization through ZEM's, zone experience modifiers since the time limit is well beyond a weekend, typically into multiple months.
I kind of feel like this post is premature. There is almost never a double xp weekend in the first year of an MMO. Also, double xp weekends do not seem like a thing that you should expect from VR. The game is designed for a niche, I can not imagine a double xp weekend which is designed to draw players. Personally I do not care, I will have a main at max level long before any sort of double xp weekend talk comes about, but I do not those talks to ever come.
AgentGenX said:My desire: absolutely no forms of bonus exp whatsoever. No bonus weekends, no bonus weekdays, no bonus mornings, no bonus holidays. No bonus exp zones (aka 'hot zones', if zones are underused, give players a real reason to go there, ie. a coveted item that drops there). No bonus exp potions, no bonus exp food, no bonus exp for mentoring a lower level player (cause there won't be mentoring, right??), no bonus exp for the anniversary of launch.... get the picture? I'll lose respect for the game and the developers if they installed a garbage gimmick like this.
I agree (execpt for I like mentoring :) ) . I am not a fan of xp boosts of any form.