This came up in a conversation over on Pantheon Crafters about how long it should take to master crafting, but I wanted to post and expand on my response here as well, just because I feel like it's one of those Important Things That Should Be Said. Maybe that's conceited of me, but perhaps it will spur a good discussion.
Whether it's adventuring or crafting, I don't think the goal should ever be to say "it should take X number of hours to progress". Instead, we should say "it should be fun to do, and there should be enough depth to the progression to it that you feel like you always have more goals to reach."
As gamers, we have a really bad habit of thinking in terms of the destination, rather than the journey. We're concerned about reaching the level cap so we can do the "endgame". We're concerned about mastering crafting so we can make the best stuff. This is limiting, and this attitude leads to bad design decisions that hurt the games we love in the long run.
What I would rather see is design decisions not based on the end, but on the steps along the way. The pace we should be concerned about is not how long it takes us to get to the end, but how long it takes us to get to the next step. That's true whether there's 50 steps or 5000 steps in the progression. As long as taking each step is fun, and the time required to do it feels appropriate in the context of everything else,, then who cares whether it adds up to 400 hours or 4000 hours in the end?
To put it another way, it's not the time to get from level 1 to level 50 that we should be thinking about. It's the ratio of the time it takes to go from level 22 to 23, against the fun that we're having while we do that. Leveling up too fast can be just as bad of an experience as leveling up too slow. Each level, each step in the progression should be meaningful, and the work we do to get to the next step in the progression should be fun and engaging.
I don't know about the rest of you, but what I want out of Pantheon is to be a game where I don't have to care about how fast or slow I'm leveling, because it's just fun and fulfilling to play. Whether I'm at level 11 or level 47. Sure, I want those next steps to have as a goal, and I want the feel of steady progress towards that goal, but I don't ever want to care so little about the gameplay along the way that I only focus on the end. If I think back to the games that I really, really enjoyed - the ones that I played for multiple years - the focus was never on getting to the end of things. It was just on seeing what was next. The next quest, the next dungeon, the next story, the next group. That's what really mattered.
Anyway, this is just something I felt the need to say. Some of you may agree with me and some of you may not, but If nothing else I hope that this post gets everyone to think a little bit about what's really important to them - and that this helps us give feedback so that we can insure that Pantheon launches as the best game it can possibly be.
This is just a fancy way of saying the game should be designed around leveling instead of max level.
The gamers that are "concerned" with hitting max level and max crafting are that way because that's the area of the game they enjoy. Much like you (or others) enjoy leveling. I do not. I feel leveling is just a task I need too accomplish to get to the endgame. And no changing of mechanics or lengthening of leveling will change that.
As far as "never ending progression". That's just not feasible. Gamers now are far to dedicated to "winning". You either design bosses that are un beatable in current gear (think Tunat in Tacvi) or you are ok with guilds smashing your progression in weeks to a month. But again, that's not VRs problem, hardcore guilds know that it's 2 months of grinding followed but months upon months of farming. We are prepared for that.
Progression should be challenging, yet beatable once you have the proper gear and strategies. I don't expect to waltz into a tier 1 boss and beat it the first night..
I think one way to have slow progression feel meaningful is to offer rewards that see a fairly long time in use - rather than every time you level, you end up swapping out most of your gear. Not saying you should be decked out in gaudy rare baubles that you don't replace for 20 levels all the time, but getting one or two of these here and there as a reward for a hard-fought victory, and knowing you'll hold onto them for quite some time, could perhaps alleviate the feeling that you NEED to level for some folks.
On the other hand, not getting new shinies somewhat often is a pretty big fun killer, IMO. But replacing that super cool sword you just got last level with some generic quest reward a day later also isn't too cool. Just have to find a balance.
I realize this is not directly related to progression in terms of levels, but I thought it could be a piece of the puzzle that made it feel not so urgent for some to hit level cap and enjoy the journey more. I also think the unlocking of abilities via exploration/adventure will help with this.
To 'take in the air, there".
That is an expression I have heard used by those who are wealthy to describe their motivation to travel to various destinations for vacation like reasons where money or time away from work is not a limitation. "Yes, I was away, I went to Chatillon sur-Seine to take in the air, there"
I think you are saying to spend some time in areas once you get there, as well as spend some time learning the various recipes of the area while there.
From a crafting perspective I like the idea of how many different recipes you learn or invent provides skill ups, and not so much number of times you make a high skill item to get skill ups.
Likewise with adventuring, once you get to a place you have to stay there for a bit and "take in the air, there" maybe have weapons or spell skills also increase with use in other areas.
However this means in order TO progress you HAVE to go everywhere no matter how long it takes. Personally, I dont mind that forced mechanic or guiding in game. Faction choices would be how the player customizes their experience in those areas.
It was always a sign of 'modern' MMORPGs to me that you would find yourself 'outlevelling' areas long before you had explored everything there was to explore.
I think perhaps because producers felt the need to design for the lowest common denominator, ie. people who missed, wouldn't do or couldn't do content would be able to race to 'end-game' and feel quick 'progression'.
Personally, I feel it should work the other way.
If you miss content or intentionally ignore it you should have to grind for an age in order to level up and move on. Even the people that search every nook and cranny and do all there is to be done in an area should propbably still be needing to 'grind' a little before being powerful enough to comfortably move on. At least I'd rather it tend that way than the other.
This means, of course, if there is a lot of fun questing to be done (which I'm sure we want), you need to be very careful of the XP awarded for completion. It either has to be generally low or has to have very diminishing returns as you level up.
As for the end-game: I am very much one that prefers the journey. In MMORPGs I very much do *not* look to *win*. End-game generally means PvP or massive raids, both of which take the game in a direction that involve competitive elements I'm not keen on; PvP tending toward nasty gank-fests and raiding being guild politics, logitical difficulties, pressure and stress. Both usually involving relentless gear arms-races.
I would like to see 'raids' at all levels ranges and see them work so that the usual logistical nightmares, political struggles and inter-guild squabblings are side-stepped.
I'd like to see the 'best' gear not necessarily be only delivered by raiding because raiding is perhaps not the most challenging content.
Perhaps group dungeon crawls should eventually be the most challenging? Who knows what VR will come up with.
It seems to me that completionist players will always keep tabs on their progress and often try to get to the end as fast as possible. Whatever it is. Usually no way around their personal struggle. That said, if VR treats crafting like the perception system who knows how long it could take as clues will be discovered over time.
I've always wanted to see more of a completionist theory to crafting. Once you master making a certain item your mastery of that skill goes up. So more of a checkmark system. Did you create a full set of this type of armor, mastery +10. Did you make a full set of this other armor that is pretty much the same, mastery +10. The more complete sets you make or the more items you check off the list the more mastery you gain. This way there isnt so much of a set skill cap, but just a progressive skill system based on availability of supplies based on levels to obtain them? This would also allow for those "hidden" sets of armor that can only be discovered through epic means. In the end, yes, there would be a skill cap just based on available items, but you wouldnt be progressing through making the same armor over and over just to skill up.
With a system like this those first combines would almost all be failures, once you create an item you move on to another item. Completing a set would give you a bonus is basically what i am getting at. So at first you will waste a bunch of money on those first combines, but as you slowly gain skill and completions you get more comfortable with the next higher level of combine. And certain stuff can have a skill rating before being able to attempt. This way you have to complete those random sets of armor to move on to certain epic armors.
Thinking about the journey is great and all, but at the end of the day, if you get something from progressing that makes life easier or your character awesomer, most players are always going to be most concerned with reaching the end game. You want your SoW, your mount, your access to all the content/story, all the gear, to have seen and made all the possible choices, etc. You will always, therefore, care what level you are, what quests you've done, what factions you have, how much money you have, what gear you have, etc.
You can "alleviate" it some, by making gear last longer or by making each individual piece of progression mean less overall power (think level 50s not necesserily wiping the floor with level 1s), but again you will still have the same issue. Players at max level will be better, because the game wants you to want to level. Experience bars are addictive, but I'm not sure they would be if they didn't give you anything at all.
The only way to remove the need to progress is to remove the progress, in the case of OP's post that would be leveling. Some games like Zelda BOTW don't have leveling and do great at it. They gate progression behind quests, obtaining fancy gear, and obtaining stats from some other means than leveling. The stats aren't even strictly necessary for most of the game's content. But in mmos that would be very extreme, the community has its expectations. Lots of potential subscribers probably wouldn't even try the game out, no matter how well VR pulled it off.
Need I mention that even if you remove leveling you still have progression in the game that players would definately feel the need to conquer ASAP? I can't even imagine a game without progression of any sort besides skill and exploration managing to keep players for very long at all, sadly. People, me included, just like progressing.
Now one thing I will say is that considering highest level end game is not strictly necessary. Lots of players consider the game to start when you reach highest level, at which point they progress through quests and gear. You could definately find ways to circumvent that and have the end game actually be the end game-when you have everything. You could make it so that a player at highest level also happens to have accomplished all the raids and quests-possibly many times, and already gotten all the gear. But again the community has their expectations, it'd be a dangerous move with no clear cut benefit.
If you can create a need to play, people will stay.
That's simply put what I think is an economic view on what the main idea would be in a game.
What that "need" might be, can differ for everyone. It's up to the dev's of a game to decide which audience they are aiming for and find ways to keep those players playing and uphold a steady flux of short term players.
One easy way of creating such desire/need to play is to give players that need by putting out things they'll struggle with, putting out new content/bosses at a steady pace has done the trick in many games so far.
That need for playing could also be realised by needing to explore and find all the wellhidden things burried deep in the game. A big But here is that many players do not have that patience and do not seek such trade off. (Exploration can be through worldtravel, craft, npc's, quests, items, mobs, events, still broad but just not for all players applicable).
Personally, I enjoy to have my walk around the world and discover new npc's, tribes, races and whathave you.
Best time so far was in Landmark where I spent hours running around in all kinds of terrain, just harvesting.
End game can be fun, journey should be more fun. (as it allows for alts and still enjoy the world)
Keno Monster said:Fun is fun. Leveling is fun, if it's fun. Crafting is fun, if it's fun. Being max level and raiding is fun, if it's fun.
This.
Designing content to be "fun" typically has led to where we are today. Design the world, as sandboxy as possible and let players find their own fun. Some will rush to max level, some will be die-hard raiders, and others will take it slow and easy. I'd rather there be multiple avenues within the game that allows for different playstyles to excel - Vanguard had great ideas with the diplomacy sphere, rather than worry that every mechanic has to be "fun."
I know I'm a broken record here, but going to down the fun path usually adds limitations on the virtual world, and more creating a game where you can login and immediately have "fun."
I get too much joy from the journey with friends more out of grinding as quick as possible. Recently in the vanilla WoW servers I wouldn't level up my character if my gear wasn't maxed, this was a ton of fun with crafting / dungeons and I developed a name for being hyper useful in dungeons.
Savor the experience, you can only max out your level for the first time once.
Raidan said:Keno Monster said:Fun is fun. Leveling is fun, if it's fun. Crafting is fun, if it's fun. Being max level and raiding is fun, if it's fun.
This.
Designing content to be "fun" typically has led to where we are today. Design the world, as sandboxy as possible and let players find their own fun. Some will rush to max level, some will be die-hard raiders, and others will take it slow and easy. I'd rather there be multiple avenues within the game that allows for different playstyles to excel - Vanguard had great ideas with the diplomacy sphere, rather than worry that every mechanic has to be "fun."
I know I'm a broken record here, but going to down the fun path usually adds limitations on the virtual world, and more creating a game where you can login and immediately have "fun."
You don't post enough anymore to be a broken record!
Honestly, I feel like progression should just have Hard limits and put an end to the race for the carrot. Minimum 3 years to max level would be ideal (for launch Toons). This would provide ample time in level to experience content, explore, and even give time for new content to be developed. There’s no point in a level a 10,20,or 30 dungeon when your barely that level to get one piece of gear before its grayed out.
Porygon is correct - some of us enjoy the endgame more and some of us enjoy leveling more.
I think this game is intended to, and will, focus a lot more on getting to level-cap than on being there. But this may be slanted because very unlike Porygon that is the part of the game I focus on.
Obviously time to level-cap will be a function of amount of time actually playing the game, at least for players trying to reach level-cap. Other things are important too - choice of character, player skill, number of friends or guildmates available to help you and to group with, focus on leveling (even those aiming for level-cap may do other things like crafting unless they frantically race to be the first on the server to get there) etc.
But if I play 10 hours a day (no job or school) and you play 2 hours a day (family, job and/or school) I will get there a *lot* sooner unless I am pathetically inept or you are enormously good.