Power leveling in EQ became game breaking and very alienating to new players. But .... we're not supposed to talk about that anymore, at least until testing begins. See https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4528/power-leveling-should-be-prevented
The year is early 2000, a friend of mine told me about this game called Everquest and convinced me to get it.
So I went out and bought a copy, came home and installed it, made a character and started on my adventure in Freeport. My RL friend was not online at the time, so I went about on my own.
I died so much, I was forever running for my life, and we won't even get into the hour or more that I spent wandering aimlessly through all 3 Freeport zones lost. Add in the modem disconnects, Lag, etc, I was annoyed, frustrated and pissed off that I wasted money on this crappy game.
I struggled, at the time I didn't understand grouping, and I was still trying to figure out what I was doing, as well as assuming my friend would be loggin in any moment (Funny part of that is that he tried to call me to tell me he wouldn't be on, but since I was on the dial up modem, he couldn't get through :) )
Then someone came up to me and cast some spells on me, SoW, some HP buffs, etc. This allowed me to actually kill stuff at a better rate and focus on figuring out what I was doing and how to play, and less on determining how quickly to run for my life, or wandering naked looking for my corpse in front of the FP gates.
It was that person showing up at just the right time, when I was about to log out and tell that game to F'off, that gave me a few breif minutes to enjoy the game and see what was possible. The buffs didn't last long, I'm guessing that player was probably late teens, early 20's. But those buffs gave me a whole new perspective on the game, and got me hooked.
Grimix said:Question, what excactly is power leveling in EQ and why are so many people against it?
My experience with power leveling was at extremely low levels, in FFXI the only power leveling I recall was in the level 10 to maybe 25 area and that was pushing it. After that, I didn't really see any of that going on. It was just a hugh level healer whobsat outside the pt and heald accordingly, nothing really broken about that. If people want to pay for a pl, thats on them, still not seeing anything particularily game breaking...
In EQ1 you could easily plvl to someone max level, which is why im against it
Grimix said:Question, what excactly is power leveling in EQ and why are so many people against it?
My experience with power leveling was at extremely low levels, in FFXI the only power leveling I recall was in the level 10 to maybe 25 area and that was pushing it. After that, I didn't really see any of that going on. It was just a hugh level healer whobsat outside the pt and heald accordingly, nothing really broken about that. If people want to pay for a pl, thats on them, still not seeing anything particularily game breaking...
This thread is about soloing, not powerleveling. Try and keep it on topic or I'm guessing it will be closed as devs have said to not open any more topics on powerleveling. :)
I think the subject of solo play or power leveling is a bit more nuanced than yes or no. Every MMO has a life cycle, and a need to keep existing players engaged and to allow for new players to enter the game.
When a game launches, the level spread looks like a bicycle race. There are the power players who will inevitably blow through all available content as quickly as possible to gain maximum advantage over the rest of the player base. There is the majority of the player base and then, bringing uo the rear, the casual players. At launch, it is typically easy to find groups, but as the game progresses, it gets more and more difficult to find a full or balanced group if you are not doung current content. This tends to cause anyone not progressing at the same general rate to be both bored and discouraged. It erects a barrier to new subscriptions, and it even affects the power players, as once they have cleared all available content the only thing left to do is work on alts.
The game has to be designed for the long term from the very start to avoid the MMO death spiral, where declining interest equals fewer subscriptions equals less money equals less resources equals terribad expansions and poor game mechanics equals declining interest...
I favor the concept of group and social play, but there must be a balance that allows a more casual player, or a late adopter to enjoy the game as these people subsidize the game experience of all of us. The trick is to do this without catering to them, and making solo play the the accepted default. I would favor an available solo leveling pathway, but with the most meaningful gear and most powerful spells obtained through content that is so painful to solo that it’s simply not worth the trouble. That is not that difficult to do from a level design perspective. It takes only 1 extra perceptive mob to ruin a feign death run, one see invis mob to stop a solo player from bypassing trash. Couple that with meaningful death penalties, and the solo vs group question is answered without having to resort to artificial experience schemes.
Holywind said:Grimix said:Question, what excactly is power leveling in EQ and why are so many people against it?
My experience with power leveling was at extremely low levels, in FFXI the only power leveling I recall was in the level 10 to maybe 25 area and that was pushing it. After that, I didn't really see any of that going on. It was just a hugh level healer whobsat outside the pt and heald accordingly, nothing really broken about that. If people want to pay for a pl, thats on them, still not seeing anything particularily game breaking...
This thread is about soloing, not powerleveling. Try and keep it on topic or I'm guessing it will be closed as devs have said to not open any more topics on powerleveling. :)
I talking about how to prevent it, to keep it within the aspect of being a group centric game, and as for soloing i alrdy said my piece, can solo low dark blues to light blues, and up to green on named mobs, basically doint want anyone soloing whites becuase if you can than everyone will be doing it and also goes against the idea of it being group centric completely, and so does powerleveling. though im sure the devs are working their own way of trying to prevent it (i hope), doesn't hurt to throw out ideas they havent thought of, so in truth i am not talking about powerleveling in whether of how it is done or what it is, but how to prevent it and how it effects the basics of the game.
To be fair, design decisions that affect soloing will also affect power leveling. You can't really consider them in complete separation. I'd be much more comfortable with an experience system that gives full experience to a solo player if I knew there would be limitations on PL.
Cadenbrie makes good points, but I'd rather see other solutions to help casual players and late adopters find people to group at all levels of the game. For example, mentoring, progeny, creating fresh realms (yes!) are all better solutions, imo, than making the game super solo friendly.
I'm all for soloing. Having some "over-conned" mobs like animals, etc. that give less xp but are easier so that if one is playing off hours or for some other reason can't find a group works just fine. I don't think that soloing should ever be as efficient as grouping in a game like this.
I am against soloing, there are Way to many games that cater to the Soloer, and virtually none for the group centric croud ( which this game is touted as ) People will always go with the easyest Path, If you can solo and get even 50% of the Exp of a group and its easy enough, people wont bother to group, look at Wow as a prime example, how many people actually bother to group when leveling unless they are forced to by some dungeon quest or they are just trying to get some gear from a dungeon, and as soon as they get they quest done or that gear they want, its back to soloing, Even daily quests you see people all over just soloing, its rare to see groups going around.
IMHO to much solo content makes for a toxic community, people know that they dont have to group in order to progress they think this gives them licence to act how ever they like, to do and say whatever they want because "Who cares, whos going to stop me i can just solo to End game and then Queue raid finder or dungeon finder and ninja loot or grief the group by pulling the whole room killing everyone and then leave laughing because agian who cares its not like im ever going to see those guys again i can just re queue or go solo some stuff" ive seen this so many times in general chat and the forums.
Because people are able to solo easly and there is no forced group content, people can still easly progress, if they can progress without grouping, a lot of people will not bother, and thats where bad behavior begins, because there are no repercussions for said bad behavior eg: not getting a group, getting a bad reputation Etc, so people will begin to Act however they please say and do what ever they want because they dont HAVE to deal with any consequences of their actions.
This kind of behavior wasnt tolerated in Eq1, if you acted badly in any way ( EG: ninja looting, greifing, harrasment Etc etc ) you would get black listed and would NEVER get a group, Even gm's and guides would inforce the rules. But in games like wow where Solo content is everywhere, where you can level from 0-max level and Never have to group with a single person, there are virtually no consequences for peoples bad behavior, so the cominuty desends into a toxic mess.
There are many many many mmo's for the soloer, let us keep this one game for the group centric, dont ruin it and dumb down the game to cater to the solo croud, Keep to the tennets that you touted the game to us as, the game that a lot of us Payed RL money and Pledged to support you, the Hardcore, group centric, social, classic style mmo home So many of us are looking for.
if the game is designed with a group in mind, the the mobs will be tuned to a multi-person force, and therefore soloing will self tune in the sence that a solo'er will not be able to take on the same mobs or nearly as effieciently as a group.
Thusly, the solo'er will be relagated to taking light blue/blue cons with more down time between.
Now as far as those that get into the quad-kiting and such, we don't even know if such tactics will be possible, and even if they are, does it matter. If someone wants to join the game and spend 95% of their time soloing, that is their perogative, they will just be missing out on large segment of the game design. I highly doubt soloing in PRoTF will be anything like more of the modern games were soloing is a very viable way of progression.
So is there even a need to "stop" it? I don't think there is.
I myself, sometimes want to play but for some reason am feeling anti-social, or have an unknown amount of time and don't wish to join a group only to suddenly have to leave. It would suck to know I couldn't log in and go do some adventuring and stay to myself.
Fulton said:So is there even a need to "stop" it? I don't think there is.
I myself, sometimes want to play but for some reason am feeling anti-social, or have an unknown amount of time and don't wish to join a group only to suddenly have to leave. It would suck to know I couldn't log in and go do some adventuring and stay to myself.
There isn't really a need to stop it and I know sometimes I might just want to be anti-social and go out to wrestle some wilderness on my own. I just feel it should be half as efficient as grouping at its best because if you are just logging in for an hour maybe two sometimes and want to get a little something done alone, getting a half an hour to an hours worth of group exp for one or two hours solo work isn't such a bad deal. I wouldn't even be opposed to reduced coin drop when solo to help curb gold farmers who will likely be the most prevalent solo population.
Iksar said:Fulton said:So is there even a need to "stop" it? I don't think there is.
I myself, sometimes want to play but for some reason am feeling anti-social, or have an unknown amount of time and don't wish to join a group only to suddenly have to leave. It would suck to know I couldn't log in and go do some adventuring and stay to myself.
There isn't really a need to stop it and I know sometimes I might just want to be anti-social and go out to wrestle some wilderness on my own. I just feel it should be half as efficient as grouping at its best because if you are just logging in for an hour maybe two sometimes and want to get a little something done alone, getting a half an hour to an hours worth of group exp for one or two hours solo work isn't such a bad deal. I wouldn't even be opposed to reduced coin drop when solo to help curb gold farmers who will likely be the most prevalent solo population.
Maybe I just sucked at playing then, cause I wasn't making anywhere near group xp when I solo'ed. Maybe close when I was kiting with my druid, but with advanced AI, kiting hopefully won't be as easy as it was in EQ1. Playing my Paladin, I would spend more time resting between fights than fighting, and definitely did not make near the xp I could have in a good group.
As I said before, if mobs and encounters are tuned properly to groups, then soloing by default will become less efficient.
Cadenbrie said:I favor the concept of group and social play, but there must be a balance that allows a more casual player, or a late adopter to enjoy the game as these people subsidize the game experience of all of us. The trick is to do this without catering to them, and making solo play the the accepted default.
A bit off topic but this is a primary reason why both the mentor system, and the progeny system will be implemented. The combination of those 2 systems should alleviate this issue if not solve it completely.
I agree with both Fulton and Iksar. The ability most content should be tuned for groups. (I'm still not against there being some mobs that are more solo friendly, though they should be trash mobs, not named.) And, overall, working solo should come nowhere near the efficiency of grouping. 50%, at best, seems reasonable to me. (I know that balancing that all out would probably not be an exact science, but if a member in a group can make 1000xp in an hour and, all other things being equal, the soloer shouldn't make more than 500xp in that same hour, on an average.)
In addition, he's should be very likely to be downing named that would drop items appropriate to his level while soloing without considerable more risk than a group, i.e. he'll probably die a lot and risk losing the named to a group on one of those deaths.
EQ, before the introduction of Mercenaries, worked relatively like this and I think it worked rather well. I'm not in the "this should be an EQ copy" camp, but where things aren't broken, no need to fix them. And if mob AI is better and and even more factors are entered in to make other classes needed in most encounters, soloing can be made less desirable without an out-right negation of it. Add in some semi-solo friendly mobs that have even worse xp ratio and no decent item drops but provide something to do (say 5% of mob population AND I would add in a random chance of those spawning a named that would require help to handle and doesn't even drop anything greatly desirable) and off-hours soloing isn't neglected but isn't given any over attention.
oneADseven said:I think you're more likely to cause balance issues if you go out of your way to prevent solo viability for each class. Some will be naturally more inclined to solo than others, and that's perfectly okay. As long as players can't completely circumvent content (No FD flopping, please) or be more viable for name-farming or dungeon navigation than a full group, and that there is a much higher degree of risk while adventuring alone, I am onboard with players having an opportunity to solo. Just because a player is solo doesen't mean you can't interact with them. It's entirely possible that you are farming with a group and someone ends up needing to bail. Rather than having to regroup at the dungeon entrance, maybe you'll see a solo player somewhere nearby that can be added as a quick fill-in. Maybe someone isn't able to get a group so they instead opt for the much slower pace of solo XP until a spot in the area becomes available ... I would much rather see folks in that situation have the opportunity to do "something" rather than being stuck at the entrance, completely dependant on other players. Again, the biggest thing is balancing risk vs reward. I understand and appreciate the stances many have shared in regards to disapproving of a solo mentality, but grouping up will have plenty of incentives in it's own right ... we don't need to completely handicap players from solo play.
Exactly. One of the things I hate most in an MMO is when I can not progress on my character due to not getting a group. Give me the option to solo in certain areas that make sense, even if it's at a much slower pace. The highlighted part is spot on.
Anistosoles said:oneADseven said:I think you're more likely to cause balance issues if you go out of your way to prevent solo viability for each class. Some will be naturally more inclined to solo than others, and that's perfectly okay. As long as players can't completely circumvent content (No FD flopping, please) or be more viable for name-farming or dungeon navigation than a full group, and that there is a much higher degree of risk while adventuring alone, I am onboard with players having an opportunity to solo. Just because a player is solo doesen't mean you can't interact with them. It's entirely possible that you are farming with a group and someone ends up needing to bail. Rather than having to regroup at the dungeon entrance, maybe you'll see a solo player somewhere nearby that can be added as a quick fill-in. Maybe someone isn't able to get a group so they instead opt for the much slower pace of solo XP until a spot in the area becomes available ... I would much rather see folks in that situation have the opportunity to do "something" rather than being stuck at the entrance, completely dependant on other players. Again, the biggest thing is balancing risk vs reward. I understand and appreciate the stances many have shared in regards to disapproving of a solo mentality, but grouping up will have plenty of incentives in it's own right ... we don't need to completely handicap players from solo play.
Exactly. One of the things I hate most in an MMO is when I can not progress on my character due to not getting a group. Give me the option to solo in certain areas that make sense, even if it's at a much slower pace. The highlighted part is spot on.
Being able to solo does NOT mean that solo content must be created by the devs. It just doesn't. It means that there must be stuff in the game that you can kill solo. In an extreme example - people solo old raid content when that raid content gets to be low enough for them to do so. It wasn't designed to be solo content.
All that needs to happen is that there needs to be content in the game that, at some point, will be able to be solo'd and still give some nominal amount of EXP.
Wandidar said:Being able to solo does NOT mean that solo content must be created by the devs. It just doesn't. It means that there must be stuff in the game that you can kill solo. In an extreme example - people solo old raid content when that raid content gets to be low enough for them to do so. It wasn't designed to be solo content.
All that needs to happen is that there needs to be content in the game that, at some point, will be able to be solo'd and still give some nominal amount of EXP.
Excellently stated Wandidar and I agree 100%. I'll take it even a step further and if Pantheon introduces new systems like climate or improves mob AI etc., we'll most likely see even more creative methods for soloing through emergent gameplay that extends beyond the traditional solo methods: kiting, root parking, etc.
The main hurdle to soloing for Pantheon versus would be that all classes won't be able to solo as effectively (similar to EQ) due to class interdependence/resource management that doesn't exist in current MMOs. And, I've stated it before in other threads, even in EQ as a warrior or rogue (probably the two least solo friendly classes), I "could" solo overland mobs much lower than me for terrible experience/coin and use bind wound - it was just painfully slow, which, definitely encouraged me to seek a group. So, using EQ as a baseline, I doubt Pantheon's resource recovery will be as slow as EQ (even though I hope it is significant), which would allow for some level of soloing. But that would be the main difference, that not all classes will be able to solo as effectively.
I think this entire thread for the most part agrees, and is just is looking at soloing from different perspectives - by design vs. emergent. I would agree that when I am in a MMO waiting for groups or just not having enough time that I try to do solo activities (adventuring, crafting) etc. to continue to progress my character, I just don't believe content has to be created by design, I think it will just ultimately occur within the game world naturally.
From a purely statistical POV (and using EQ1 as a 'typical exponential levelling curve') ....
If you are level n (where n > 4) soloing content that is light-blue (say 4-levels below you)....
Then MOB XP = 0.5 * 75 * (n - 4)^2
While XP to level = 100 * 10 * 1.0 * [n^3 - (n - 1)^3]
Thus number of mobs soloed to level = (2000 / 75) * [n^3 - (n - 1)^3] / (n - 4)^2
Expansion and algebraic simplification gives = (2000 / 75) * [ {3(n - 4)(n + 3)/(n - 4)^2} - 37/(n - 4)^2]
If we now assume n > 4, then as n tends towards 50, 37/(n-4)^2 << 1
thus we can drop the seconds term as an approximation:
Number of mobs to level = (2000/75) * 3(n + 3)/(n - 4)
and for n >> 5, this tends towards: 6000 / 75 ~ 80 mobs.
So the question then devolves into:
How long will it take to solo these 80 mobs?
How does this compare to group killing 0.5 * (6 * 80) / 1.6 (i.e. 150) dark-blue mobs?
How many more than 2 dark-blues can the group kill in the time the soloer kills 1 light-blue?
The answer to these give you the 'viability' and 'progress rate' for solo vs group. I am sure during Alpha/Beta that VR will adjust the various metrics to get this to apoint where it is nieither too punishing, nor to beneficial.
Evoras, thinks this was a nice mini-puzzle...
Riahuf22 said:Grimix said:Question, what excactly is power leveling in EQ and why are so many people against it?
My experience with power leveling was at extremely low levels, in FFXI the only power leveling I recall was in the level 10 to maybe 25 area and that was pushing it. After that, I didn't really see any of that going on. It was just a hugh level healer whobsat outside the pt and heald accordingly, nothing really broken about that. If people want to pay for a pl, thats on them, still not seeing anything particularily game breaking...
In EQ1 you could easily plvl to someone max level, which is why im against it
Easily? In what era? EQ is now 18 years old. I can get a toon to max level in NWN, GW2, etc, etc, with no PLing in 1/10 the time it would take a level 50 druid to help a level 1 warrior reach level 50 in EQ.
This has probably been mentioned before, but I'd love groups to get better xp and loot because they are killing more complicated mobs rather than more mobs. As in there is an actual reward for doing that instead of a gimp, like there was in eq1.
So rather than it being all about how many dark blues a group can kill vs a solo player, its about how many yellow mobs a group can kill vs a solo player killing blue mobs. At least most of the time.
Krixus said:Riahuf22 said:Grimix said:Question, what excactly is power leveling in EQ and why are so many people against it?
My experience with power leveling was at extremely low levels, in FFXI the only power leveling I recall was in the level 10 to maybe 25 area and that was pushing it. After that, I didn't really see any of that going on. It was just a hugh level healer whobsat outside the pt and heald accordingly, nothing really broken about that. If people want to pay for a pl, thats on them, still not seeing anything particularily game breaking...
In EQ1 you could esily plvl to someone max level, which is why im against it
Easily? In what era? EQ is now 18 years old. I can get a toon to max level in NWN, GW2, etc, etc, with no PLing in 1/10 the time it would take a level 50 druid to help a level 1 warrior reach level 50 in EQ.
meh. pl in any old game is easy. Can PL someone in EQ to max level in less than 10 hours. "PL-ing" happens in any game. You've been away for a week and your friends are 4 levels ahead and help you get a few levels. Happens all the time. It's just an exponential curve. Level vs age of game.the older the game the faster levels can be gained.