Hello!
First, I apologize if this has been discussed elsewhere, I couldn't see a Search function for the whole forums.
This is a topic that is dear to my heart, potentially one of the best systems I have seen in MMORPGs to encourage group play, albeit not always implemented well.
What is Level Sync?
In its most common form, Level Sync'ing means temporarily lowering your level to that of another party member. You temporarily lose access to any ability or spell that's above the level you've sync'ed to. Equipment bonuses are similarly scaled down to something appropriate to the level you've sync'ed to (that's where the balancing is the hardest). The effect stops if you quit the party, break the sync or sync on another member's level.
Why is Level Sync good for group play?
Everyone plays MMORPGs at a different pace, and invariably, you will be under or over the level of some of your friends. You could steamroll everything for the weaker character... and penalize his experience gain while also sabotaging his fun: Though you may disagree, I posit being "trained" isn't exciting and doesn't teach you anything about your class or group play.
With Level Sync, anything you do as a group will be challenging for everyone. When you sit down for a session, your party up with your buddies, you Level Sync onto the lowest level character and you help him/her out with objectives while maintaining the challenge and group play for everyone.
What about Experience gain for Sync'ed characters?
There are various ways to implement this, and it will depend on how VR designs the XP curve. In Final Fantasy XI, the "XP required to level up" curve was very slow and XP awarded was mostly based on the level difference between your foe and yourself. That way, you gained XP normally and you could increase your "real" level while under level sync. It may be something VR does not want, because it means you can theorically get to high levels without ever going in higher level zones. However, if the itemization is such that a naked high-level sucks and cannot hit anything (like in FFXI), people will still go to harder zones to get the equipment they need for their level (via named mobs, quests, crafting, etc).
In short, I believe that to pursue their idea of a group-oriented MMO, VR should seriously consider a Level Sync system that makes players happy to group up together, regardless of the free time and character level each has.
I know this was used in GW2. It worked well in NCSofts deployment. At least that was my experience. This game will be a little bit different so I am not sure how that will fit into Pantheon. I do like the idea though. That allows guild mates to come down to my level say I was a noob to assist and or just group up with. I know some games this system is totally flawed. Makes for a very poor gaming experience and worse exploitive to the max.
So how does VR do this if they choose too? Well, that is a question for the VR folks. I hope this will be implemented to some degree. How to manage the exploit side of this is the larger question. There has to be systems in place to manage that and make it fun.
I for one didn’t mind helping my lower level guild mates and found most systems like this negligible due to I didn’t care there was a system. It was part of the guilds function to help one another.
Wonder if we can intice a Dev to hop on with this one.
Good post!
Ox
Manouk said:level sync = mentoring. Try looking under "mentor" or "mentoring" in these forums
Totally forgot about that....here are some links
Mentoring-Yea-or-Nay
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1543/mentoring-yea-or-nay
Mentoring - Pre Determined CM Content
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3784/mentoring-pre-determined-cm-content
There is one other one but that may be a VIP thing so I have no access to it.
There are some great ideas in those...
Ox
I appreciate the thought put into this post Piellar, but as pointed out above by Manouk and Ox, this has been discussed quite a bit and still has active thread on the topic, so for that reason I will need to close this one down so the conversation can remain contained to those topics so the information is not spread out and is easier to find for people searching for it.
Level sync is basically another way of saying Mentoring for those who have not heard it before.
If you have the idea to create a new thread please run a keyword or two through the search function prior to doing so as in most cases you will find that with almost 3 years of discussions, most of the topics have already had a thread or two created and can still be found.