So the standard practice of the day for an MMO is to sprint you to max level as fast as possible (with maybe the exception of FF XIV) to get you into the "meaningful" content that gives you the "sense of reward and accomplisment". I am just curious, in a slower paced like Pantheon, what people would like to see at the lower levels to still be able to have that feeling since you will probably be "lower level" for a while. Things that can still make your character feel epic even if they aren't at max level in the best gear.
Personally one thing I like is lower level open world raid bosses. Starting at a low-tier level you can come across these tougher than usual encounters and get more/better rewards than you would normally. I don't know if the gear will have grades or ranks but you would give good gear appropriate to the leve of the encounter obviously. This allows lower levels to have something to do as they grind up, gives them something to look foward too as they level up i.e a bigger stronger challenge, and also helps you learn about raiding as a lower level so people can be more familiar with how it works and not thrown into it for the first time at max level.
I also like the idea of a good player hub for lower level characters. Obviously this is largely based on the player community but having a general location where low level characters go to for the first time upon leaving their respective starting area's is a good way to give a sense of community to a group of people who may otherwise be ignored. Lower level materials and weapons would be for sale in the hopefully player setup stores that were aquired from the raid encounters mentioned above. A place to get together to form groups for lower level content.
What are some things, if any, that people would like to see geared towards lowbies to keep the game fun and exciting and now just a grind to max level? I know a lot of people like to have a lot of alts and make characters that are specifically kept at lower levels for various reasons.
Can I challenge your thinking a little bit? :) I think you're on a good track here but we could get even further away from the game-begins-at-max, level-treadmill philosophy :)
What if we do away with the concept of hubs altogether and instead, Pantheon attempts to provide a compelling, meaningful, and challenging experience for players of each race, on each continent, at all levels. Roads are relatively safe, and travel is implied regardless of your level. It's just a question of how far off the road you might go. And the experience you have builds an identity for you not based on your level, but on your race and class and the path you take through the game.
Change the focus of the experience from leveling and progressing, and instead, to experiencing:
An example of what I mean:
Some other MMO:
- Starting out I did stuff in the newbie yard.
- Then I hopped on a ship and went over to Dungeon X, because it's popular and I could do the quests there for gear.
- As I leveled up I started following the path from one quest hub to the next.
Pantheon, as you've described it:
- Starting out, I did suff outside my starting city
- Then I got on a ship and went to the stronghold in the Silent Plains because the XP rate was faster there and that's where everyone else my level was.
- Later on I took another ship to Whitethaw to do high level content.
Pantheon, as Neph thinks about it:
- I started out in Faerthale. I had to decide whether to side with the Ashen or the Ember pretty early on. Either way though I had to fight, since the monsters kept coming north from the Vae Wood.
- After some adventures, I was feeling stronger, so I struck out south. In the Silent Plains, I met some people playing humans and halflings. Hearing their stories about their adventures near Thronefast and Wild's End was pretty cool. Even though we're all in our 30s now, none of us have done the same stuff so far.
- As we leveled up, we decided to go see the Tower of the Reckless Magician. We realized pretty quickly that we needed to work on our acclimation and faction to even have a hope in there, so we've been doing that. We also saw a really cool event happen in Avendyr's Pass with the orcs there. I thought that was just a low level zone, but wow was I wrong. Anyway in the last two weeks we've been all over Kingsreach trying to get the drops we need from different dungeons.
- We finally did it! We made it to the top of the Tower. When we beat the boss we spent some time snooping around his room. There was this big glowing gem thing and a book that mentioned two more just like it - one somewhere in Whitethaw and one somewhere in Reignfall. We're going to go look for the one in Whitethaw first. Our wizard thinks there's some sort of wizard school there where he can learn advanced spells, too.
My point is, break yourself away from thinking about things in terms of levels and hubs. Instead think about providing unique experiences. Starting an alt shouldn't just be about trying a different class - it should be about taking an entirely new journey through Terminus, and working through different content along the way. Even if your alt is the same race as your first character. The last game I saw do this somewhat effectively was Vanguard, but it can absolutely still be done and I think Pantheon is on track to achieve it.
If you give players varied and overlapping objectives that require them to travel - first locally, then within their own continent, and later to other continents, then you don't need hubs. Players will naturally find each other wherever those shared and overlapping objectives exist. It also doesn't help if level progression is slow enough so that people are focusing on other objectives (like acquiring gear and spells) instead of just on leveling up.
Nephele said:Can I challenge your thinking a little bit? :) I think you're on a good track here but we could get even further away from the game-begins-at-max, level-treadmill philosophy :)
What if we do away with the concept of hubs altogether and instead, Pantheon attempts to provide a compelling, meaningful, and challenging experience for players of each race, on each continent, at all levels. Roads are relatively safe, and travel is implied regardless of your level. It's just a question of how far off the road you might go. And the experience you have builds an identity for you not based on your level, but on your race and class and the path you take through the game.
Change the focus of the experience from leveling and progressing, and instead, to experiencing:
An example of what I mean:
Some other MMO:
- Starting out I did stuff in the newbie yard.
- Then I hopped on a ship and went over to Dungeon X, because it's popular and I could do the quests there for gear.
- As I leveled up I started following the path from one quest hub to the next.
Pantheon, as you've described it:
- Starting out, I did suff outside my starting city
- Then I got on a ship and went to the stronghold in the Silent Plains because the XP rate was faster there and that's where everyone else my level was.
- Later on I took another ship to Whitethaw to do high level content.
Pantheon, as Neph thinks about it:
- I started out in Faerthale. I had to decide whether to side with the Ashen or the Ember pretty early on. Either way though I had to fight, since the monsters kept coming north from the Vae Wood.
- After some adventures, I was feeling stronger, so I struck out south. In the Silent Plains, I met some people playing humans and halflings. Hearing their stories about their adventures near Thronefast and Wild's End was pretty cool. Even though we're all in our 30s now, none of us have done the same stuff so far.
- As we leveled up, we decided to go see the Tower of the Reckless Magician. We realized pretty quickly that we needed to work on our acclimation and faction to even have a hope in there, so we've been doing that. We also saw a really cool event happen in Avendyr's Pass with the orcs there. I thought that was just a low level zone, but wow was I wrong. Anyway in the last two weeks we've been all over Kingsreach trying to get the drops we need from different dungeons.
- We finally did it! We made it to the top of the Tower. When we beat the boss we spent some time snooping around his room. There was this big glowing gem thing and a book that mentioned two more just like it - one somewhere in Whitethaw and one somewhere in Reignfall. We're going to go look for the one in Whitethaw first. Our wizard thinks there's some sort of wizard school there where he can learn advanced spells, too.
My point is, break yourself away from thinking about things in terms of levels and hubs. Instead think about providing unique experiences. Starting an alt shouldn't just be about trying a different class - it should be about taking an entirely new journey through Terminus, and working through different content along the way. Even if your alt is the same race as your first character. The last game I saw do this somewhat effectively was Vanguard, but it can absolutely still be done and I think Pantheon is on track to achieve it.
If you give players varied and overlapping objectives that require them to travel - first locally, then within their own continent, and later to other continents, then you don't need hubs. Players will naturally find each other wherever those shared and overlapping objectives exist. It also doesn't help if level progression is slow enough so that people are focusing on other objectives (like acquiring gear and spells) instead of just on leveling up.
I think I am missing the point you are trying to make. I don't see how what you described is any different, except you added more flavor text to it. Obviously this is a sandbox style game and you can play it however you want, but as you specifically described certain areas are going to be harder and more dangerous than others. As a result you would need to get stronger by leveling up in order to take on those tougher challenges.
What I am asking is how to make it fun and engaging at lower levels so people still feel like they are having fun as they level up and it doesn't just feel like a job or something they are forced to do to get to the fun part. Literally what you described is basically just typical MMO fair as far as I can tell. To give every race its own continent with all its own quests specificaly for them kind of defeats the whole MASSIVE aspect of the game as that is supposed to be the social part, bringing people together.
I'll just do a quick summation of things that can make me feel engaged with the game world, some of which Nephele already covered.
- Learning the lay of the land and finding out about its secrets. The perception system should really help to flesh this out, as it can give information and allow interaction with the game world based on your class, race, items in your possession, reputations, etc. The game world should be allowed to have intricacies that most modern MMO's seem to lack. There can be too much information for any single person to know everything. It's perfectly fine if there are areas that are HARD to navigate, rather than convenient. Just climbing a mountain to the top or finding a hidden passage through the city's sewers can be a challenge.
- Learning about the NPC factions and what they stand for. Then building affiliations for my character based on what suits my character best. This should be more involving than just grinding reputation with everyone because why not, 'good race' vs 'evil race' or whatever faction hands out the most powerful rewards. I want to see factions for city guards, trading organisations, thieves guilds and even various religious cults and political powers within the game world (such as the city council, noble families and royalty). And what friends you choose should affect the way the rest of the world treats you.
- Dynamic events (either GM run or through automated systems, such as perception) that may drastically change various zones within the game world. Orcs might attack an NPC outpost and burn it to the ground unless players intervene. Players could assist in building a bridge across a ravine, keeping nearby threats at bay. Or maybe players can get involved in a series of sabotage and assassination missions that undermine a certain faction's hold over an area, or even assist different NPCs to claim positions of power and cause changes in the diplomatic landscape between factions. I'm aware that some games try to do this with 'phased content' so everyone can have their own little world, but that's dumb. Changes like these should affect everyone. Even if there may be other events that change things back to the way they were in some cases, so the events could still be reused (particularly if automated systems are involved).
None of these things necessarily requires characters to be high level to take part and all of them can feel meaningful/epic. You don't need to fight dragons for your efforts to feel impactful (one could argue that killing big bosses that leave the rest of the world alone and respawn anyway isn't all that impactful to begin with)
Bankie said:I think I am missing the point you are trying to make. I don't see how what you described is any different, except you added more flavor text to it. Obviously this is a sandbox style game and you can play it however you want, but as you specifically described certain areas are going to be harder and more dangerous than others. As a result you would need to get stronger by leveling up in order to take on those tougher challenges.
No worries. Let me ask you a bunch of questions and see if it helps you understand where I am coming from.
Why are you assuming that low level players will need a central hub location? What problems does having such a location solve? And what does having a "low level" hub mean for mid-level players or for high-level ones?
Further, should level be the sole determining factor for what content you can attempt? Should there be other factors? How many other factors? Should those other factors be present at all levels of progression? Should they be emphasized more only at high levels?
Is the goal of your ideal game to give people a meaningful path of character progression, or to give them a meaningful cooperative adventuring/roleplaying experience? Which aspect do you think is more important? How fast should progression come? What about for players who have more or less time to play?
Do you define social interaction as interaction between players in a group? In a guild? In the same town or city? In the same chat channels? When fighting, should there be breaks in the action where players need to regenerate resources, or is that boring, and downtime should be minimal so that the group can move on to the next fight? Is it important for players to see that there are other players in the world or is it more important for them to have access to the content they're trying to attempt, without interference? How do you balance this?
Bankie said:What I am asking is how to make it fun and engaging at lower levels so people still feel like they are having fun as they level up and it doesn't just feel like a job or something they are forced to do to get to the fun part. Literally what you described is basically just typical MMO fair as far as I can tell. To give every race its own continent with all its own quests specificaly for them kind of defeats the whole MASSIVE aspect of the game as that is supposed to be the social part, bringing people together.
What you described originally is what nearly every level-based MMO released in the last 12 years or so has done in its initial launch product. The design philosophy was to funnel players into a single path so that they would encounter each other and have opportunities to socialize. So that they would never feel alone, even in worlds full of instanced content that intentionally separate players. If you look at any major MMO that now feels top-heavy and asocial today, and you roll it back in time, you see low level hubs, and mid level hubs, and high level hubs, and content placed around those hubs. Those games were designed to be social when they launched. What happened? They got old, and since everyone was funneled through the same content they'd done a dozen times before, no one needed to socialize any longer.
So, I'm challenging you because I think you're asking for something that's not actually going to give you what you want in the end. I am saying is that if you want Pantheon to be a social game that lasts, what needs to happen is this: Rather than design the world to support progression along a linear path as you described, you need to design the world to support varied and overlapping experiences with many different paths to take. When you look at the details of how to do that, it doesn't seem like a big difference, but when you look at the bigger picture, you get a much more complex game world out of it.
One of the reasons that so many people look back to EQ as the pinnacle of social gameplay is that EQ purposely didn't try to shove everyone along the same path (at least, not until years later when they started trying to "incentivize" content). Instead they provided a world with plenty of things at all levels, and lots of overlapping goals for players to pursue, and they let players choose where to go.
If I'm still not making sense, then try to imagine a game without defined levels or quests to follow. The world is interesting, the content is challenging, and the loot is shiny, but there's no gauge to fill up for a ding at the end, and no checklist of things to do provided to you by the game. How do you build a game world that's fun and interesting and has replay value if you don't have the progression/quest crutches to fall back on?
Like I said up above - I think you've got the right goals. I just think you're asking for the wrong things because you're thinking about those goals in the wrong terms.
If none of that helps at all, don't worry. As many others around here will remind me, sometimes I get a little too deep in these design philosophy discussions :)
@Bankie, Would you experience a large valley like a questhub if the npc's or questopportunities are spread out in such a way, that it's just not possible to have a direct overview?
The only thing, you might know is, that this valley is a big place to discover. Plenty of players running all over, doing different things.
If travel by means of caravan or hiddenpathways is a thing, it could connect zones of the same 'level' content with each other. And going from one valley to another and consuming its content might be enough to progress to higher levels. Again, you wouldn't have that overview, so there is no knowing if you've covered it all.
Raidbosses as a tease might be fun, as long as you create it so that those can not be farmed by higher levels. (perhaps trigger spawns)
Spreading content of all levels around the world could help as wel. For example a questline which one could follow that will lead you across many regions in the world. Every time you get somewhere, there might be other things within your level range to be consumed. But not in a way that you'll experience it as stops at a trainstation on your railway to max level.
It might just be that, because things are going at a slower pace, you'll experience it not so much as a rush towards max level. Because it is just that, a slower paced game.
The fact is, you are a level 2 warrior. No one is expecting to slay dragons or defeat raidbosses with 24 people at that level. Even that level 2 warrior isn't. The aim here, might be to provide the player with more depth in their class. Explain and experience why the warrior has certain abilities, how to use them and when not to. How to shift between abilities and skills and why they should think about alternating abilitie sets. Challenge them to use them. Solo as wel as in group. Now those things can be written into questcontent. A warrior at that level, will want to learn more about how to play, but perhaps it will take more time in this game then in others. They might not get far, if they choose to just smash any button with the aim of lots of kills and lots of xp and levels. If you see where I'm going with this.
In the long run, those players will become valueable and you will not hit a brick wall when coming across the difficult stuff that Pantheon has to offer. Content where strategizing, thinking ahead is in fact important. The same goes for alts.
A sense of accomplishment can be found, when you've mastered those abilities through content that demands you to master it.
I don't expect to be rewarded with a legendary sword because I've slain 10 wolves. I'll be happy accepting a reward such as a nice batch of coin or some slightly increased gear. That's ok. I don't see why a new player would expect otherwise.
A quick idea would be to allow a sneakpeek into higher level (not much higher) abilities or gear. This could be through a storyline, npc's outfits or emotes. Or even hints towards higher level content. "There is talk about warriors performing Unyielding battleformations in valleys south of here..."
A great tease for me in games it 'unlocking' connectivity between areas or factions. This might be a trigger to motivate players along the way.
A personal achievement design might be sufficient enough to become proud of your character very early on in the game. Npc's might reward you that, or the game in general might.
Nephele said:Bankie said:I think I am missing the point you are trying to make. I don't see how what you described is any different, except you added more flavor text to it. Obviously this is a sandbox style game and you can play it however you want, but as you specifically described certain areas are going to be harder and more dangerous than others. As a result you would need to get stronger by leveling up in order to take on those tougher challenges.
No worries. Let me ask you a bunch of questions and see if it helps you understand where I am coming from.
Why are you assuming that low level players will need a central hub location? What problems does having such a location solve? And what does having a "low level" hub mean for mid-level players or for high-level ones?
Further, should level be the sole determining factor for what content you can attempt? Should there be other factors? How many other factors? Should those other factors be present at all levels of progression? Should they be emphasized more only at high levels?
Is the goal of your ideal game to give people a meaningful path of character progression, or to give them a meaningful cooperative adventuring/roleplaying experience? Which aspect do you think is more important? How fast should progression come? What about for players who have more or less time to play?
Do you define social interaction as interaction between players in a group? In a guild? In the same town or city? In the same chat channels? When fighting, should there be breaks in the action where players need to regenerate resources, or is that boring, and downtime should be minimal so that the group can move on to the next fight? Is it important for players to see that there are other players in the world or is it more important for them to have access to the content they're trying to attempt, without interference? How do you balance this?
Bankie said:What I am asking is how to make it fun and engaging at lower levels so people still feel like they are having fun as they level up and it doesn't just feel like a job or something they are forced to do to get to the fun part. Literally what you described is basically just typical MMO fair as far as I can tell. To give every race its own continent with all its own quests specificaly for them kind of defeats the whole MASSIVE aspect of the game as that is supposed to be the social part, bringing people together.
What you described originally is what nearly every level-based MMO released in the last 12 years or so has done in its initial launch product. The design philosophy was to funnel players into a single path so that they would encounter each other and have opportunities to socialize. So that they would never feel alone, even in worlds full of instanced content that intentionally separate players. If you look at any major MMO that now feels top-heavy and asocial today, and you roll it back in time, you see low level hubs, and mid level hubs, and high level hubs, and content placed around those hubs. Those games were designed to be social when they launched. What happened? They got old, and since everyone was funneled through the same content they'd done a dozen times before, no one needed to socialize any longer.
So, I'm challenging you because I think you're asking for something that's not actually going to give you what you want in the end. I am saying is that if you want Pantheon to be a social game that lasts, what needs to happen is this: Rather than design the world to support progression along a linear path as you described, you need to design the world to support varied and overlapping experiences with many different paths to take. When you look at the details of how to do that, it doesn't seem like a big difference, but when you look at the bigger picture, you get a much more complex game world out of it.
One of the reasons that so many people look back to EQ as the pinnacle of social gameplay is that EQ purposely didn't try to shove everyone along the same path (at least, not until years later when they started trying to "incentivize" content). Instead they provided a world with plenty of things at all levels, and lots of overlapping goals for players to pursue, and they let players choose where to go.
If I'm still not making sense, then try to imagine a game without defined levels or quests to follow. The world is interesting, the content is challenging, and the loot is shiny, but there's no gauge to fill up for a ding at the end, and no checklist of things to do provided to you by the game. How do you build a game world that's fun and interesting and has replay value if you don't have the progression/quest crutches to fall back on?
Like I said up above - I think you've got the right goals. I just think you're asking for the wrong things because you're thinking about those goals in the wrong terms.
If none of that helps at all, don't worry. As many others around here will remind me, sometimes I get a little too deep in these design philosophy discussions :)
It seems like you want a world where at level 1 I can go do the toughest encounter in the game and be able to do it if I "believe in myself" enough. At the end of the day that just isn't how the game mechanics work. There will most certainly be zones that are meant for certain levels. It would be silly think that Frodo and Sam could have made it through Shelobs cave and into the mountain without first gaining experience and getting better gear in the less dangerous areas of the world. It also seems as you are CLEARLY missing the point.
We will use the example everyone knows. Funneling low level people into a major hub area like Storm Wind is not what I am saying at all. A central hub for lower level players in lower level areas where they can meet up to form groups and sell gear that only lower level people will want. I am talking about creating engaging content at the lower levels of play to keep it exciting and not just have it be a grind fest. When a level 10 characters enters into Storm Wind or Iron Forge for the first time there is nobody there shouting that they are selling the best weapons and armor for level 10 characters. Its all people wanting to sell all the top tier items and gear that they have.
Like if you want to play Minecraft go right ahead, but I think most of the people who are excited for this game want it to have levels. What is the point of making ANY OTHER CONTENT if I can skip right to the most difficult thing and do it as soon as I create my character. On the other side of that what is the point AT ALL of playing the game if there is no clear path of progression? Even in a sandbox style MMO there still needs to be some sort of idication of "Oh those monsters are way stronger than me perhaps I need to get a friend, or need to get stronger before coming back here". If the toughest zones are meant for level 50 people I have no problem with a group of level 40 players being able to explore that region. For some reason you are reading as I am trying to RESTRICT players to certain areas, but what I am asking is how to ENHANCE the lower level experience of the game.
I completely get your concern Bankie. VR definitely has their work cut out for them. If this were an instanced game it would be much easier to keep all levels of players engaged without having to be in the top 5 or so levels of the level cap (like FFIX did expertly). I truly hope that the level 1-45 content will be more than just "find a group and dungeon grind until max level... then raid and do an epic quest to get the best gear"
On the optomistic side, I'm hoping to see quest lines go throughout a character's entire existance. Like perhaps start quests for iconic abilities and epic weapons at lvl 10 that reward you with something decent/useful (not the spleen of an enemy that you need to hold in your inventory for 2 years) that eventually evolves into something iconic/epic. With that said... I'd be a little dissapointed if every level 10 Paladin had a holy avenger too; but perhaps a brilliant greatsword that they kept imbuing/blessing through multiple quests to eventually become a holy avenger. They did something like this in original EQ but aside from the epic quests, the rewards were absolute garbage and made the quests pointless time sinks. (They had armor "quests" that were more of just grinding and praying to the RNG God than actually questing, and it usually required you to be max level, so I don't count that as engaging/entertaining gameplay.)
At the risk of annoying the "grind mobs from level one to level cap" crowd I think that much of what we want in terms of immersion can be done best if there are many quests scattered around to give us a feeling that we are doing something useful (or harmful if we wish to be more ...evil). Killing pigs for 50 levels is not going to work for many players no matter how large the world or how much exploration there is.
But quests are so WoW and we want an older and better style game comes back the reply. Nonsense I say.
We do not want a game where quests drive you to level cap in weeks or even months (unless you play 20 hours a day 7 days a week). Agreed. Nor do we want a game where killing pigs does such.
We do not want a game with a relatively small number of quest hubs and the ability to quest to level cap (even if it takes a year) without going to many parts of the world. Agreed. Nor do we want a game with 10 sets of pigs each a different level and no need to leave the 10 sets of swine to hit level-cap.
But agreeing that quests should not give excessive experience and there should not be a few major quest hubs does not mean quests are unimportant. It means the quests should be scattered around and we should need to explore and visit all or most factions to find them. It means we should do them because they are interesting, because they tell stories. because they give us reasons to do things other than purely to benefit the character. It means they should not give so much experience that we can find a quick path to level-cap using them.
And, of course, and here I am as one with the "do it the way EQ did it" crowd - some should be epic, take enormous amounts of time, and give comparable rewards.
What’s always funny to me is people talk out of both sides of their mouth on this subject. I want a large immersive world that feels huge but I also want a golden path quest line throughout to give it purpose and direction - thus effectively reducing the world size (Not directed at anyone here).
The question I ask is why? Why do you need quests to give you direction? Why do you need quests to make progression feel meaningful. Sure, a few grand quests scattered here or there are fine, but why have generic X quest to make Y zone usable. Itemize the zone right and players will create their own quest. Ex. Zone A is level range 15-25 that has that awesome caster hat - I’m going to go there. Why do you need a quest that says the Magi drops that hat go there? The same can be said for content in general. Players will congregate around well-made zones, if they’re garbage people will avoid them. Those would be the zones that I’d argue instead of always expanding outward on expansions - improve them to keep the playerbase closer.
There should be plenty of lore scattered about - and maybe talking to the locals will give you hints of a rat invasion in the caves to the east, but do you really need please kill X rats and return? Or even a chain quest that leads to killing the rat king? Let the loot and experience be the guide, don’t funnel people through quests. If players have shared goals for which to congregate they will naturally.
And again the argument for slow progression but people claiming to want to avoid “the grind.” Contradictory also - sure you can have some horizontal progression but the grind still will be inevitable - and also why I’d argue EQ was as social as it was.
Bankie said:
Like if you want to play Minecraft go right ahead, but I think most of the people who are excited for this game want it to have levels. What is the point of making ANY OTHER CONTENT if I can skip right to the most difficult thing and do it as soon as I create my character. On the other side of that what is the point AT ALL of playing the game if there is no clear path of progression? Even in a sandbox style MMO there still needs to be some sort of idication of "Oh those monsters are way stronger than me perhaps I need to get a friend, or need to get stronger before coming back here". If the toughest zones are meant for level 50 people I have no problem with a group of level 40 players being able to explore that region. For some reason you are reading as I am trying to RESTRICT players to certain areas, but what I am asking is how to ENHANCE the lower level experience of the game.
You missed my point entirely.
To make the lower level experience of the game more fun, you simply make that content meaningful and challenging, and give players multiple choices, just like you do for higher levels. No hubs needed. No "guided tour" questlines needed. Give players freedom to take their own path through the game without being led by the nose or funneled into "appropriate" areas. They'll figure out what they can do and what they can't do (yet) on their own.
((The question I ask is why? Why do you need quests to give you direction? Why do you need quests to make progression feel meaningful. ))
Good question - let me try to give an answer that explains why many of us like quests even when they do *not* speed leveling up.
1. They give a reason for doing things that is larger than just the direct benefit to the character. Take an isolated hamlet with a herd of sheep being preyed on by wolves. Sure I can kill wolves (or maybe the sheep) for hides and some experience. But as a "good" player I will enjoy killing the wolves a lot more if I know I am protecting the hamlet and its cash crop and maybe keeping babies from starving. As an "evil" player I will enjoy killing the sheep a lot more, and maybe some of the townspeople if I can target them.
Just one very simple example but more than a few of us want the feeling that we can wander around and explore but also the feeling of doing good - or evil. Or maybe neither good nor evil just helping certain groups whether such groups are good, evil or neither.
2. You mention golden path. But in my example no quest sent me to the hamlet. No one in the hamlet sends me on to anywhere else. The quest rewards are moderate - if I kill 10 wolves I doubt if the shepard will give me more than some crappy wool gloves and maybe the experience that I got by killing 2 of the wolves. Not even worth the time to talk to her twice - once to get the quest and once to cash it in.
3. Some people - not necessarily you - read the word quest and think of huge amounts of experience and a path to greatness that may permit the character to explore outside of quest areas but discourages it because the character advances so *much* more slowly than the average character.
But I do not want Pantheon to become WoW lite (or WoW heavy) any more than you do. Having many quests scattered around without large rewards and without a limited number of large quest hubs is no threat to your way of playing.
Raidan said:The question I ask is why? Why do you need quests to give you direction? Why do you need quests to make progression feel meaningful. Sure, a few grand quests scattered here or there are fine, but why have generic X quest to make Y zone usable. Itemize the zone right and players will create their own quest. Ex. Zone A is level range 15-25 that has that awesome caster hat - I’m going to go there. Why do you need a quest that says the Magi drops that hat go there? The same can be said for content in general. Players will congregate around well-made zones, if they’re garbage people will avoid them. Those would be the zones that I’d argue instead of always expanding outward on expansions - improve them to keep the playerbase closer.
I can only speak for myself to answer this question, (in regard to my post about epic quests for iconic skills/items) but my answer is that I personally don't "need quests to give me direction", but rather a "purpose" to explore outside of the areas I'm comfortable with. A purpose to visit that level 15-25 area other than in search of a hat that I may not be able to use or even want. Quests also promote higher level players interacting in areas of lower level that they may not otherwise go to. Some people enjoy grinding for gear or rep or flat out grinding to gain levels, while some people may want to RP their reason for exploring the game (instead of systematically moving from lvl 5-15 area to 15-25 area to 25-35 area etc etc etc).
dorotea said:At the risk of annoying the "grind mobs from level one to level cap" crowd I think that much of what we want in terms of immersion can be done best if there are many quests scattered around to give us a feeling that we are doing something useful (or harmful if we wish to be more ...evil). Killing pigs for 50 levels is not going to work for many players no matter how large the world or how much exploration there is.
Yesyesyesyesyes.
Grinding mobs endlessly to level feels contrived and the opposite of an adventure. Exploring and progressing my character by uncovering and completing quests feels much more like I'm experiencing the world.
Raidan said:The question I ask is why? Why do you need quests to give you direction? Why do you need quests to make progression feel meaningful.
Because a lot of us don't actually enjoy the thought of just killing things with no purpose. Sure I'll kill mobs in my way if I'm set on exploring something, but the thought of sitting down and just grinding XP for hours on end makes my brain melt out of my ears. If I'm playing an RPG, I want to be able to learn about the world and engage my character with the world - and that happens best with exploration and quests.
To sidetrack a little on questing:
As some mentioned, I also like graduated quests where the item gets a bit better as you progress through it- sort of like an epic quest- not as someone also mentioined, where you have to hold the 7th part of an umpteenth subcombine for 2 years to turn in for the item but rather where the 7th part is useable (kinda like coldain shawls/rings) untill you can make the final turn in.
However primarily, I think quests should be story telling / adventure guides. A quest is something I want to get emotionally involved with, or become conflicted because of the decisions I have to make. I like cathartic quests. The item becomes a mnemonic of the adventure, no matter how trivial the item. if a good item, the better.
Bonus, if the quests make you learn things, like goblin language. or gnoll faction that end up being serendipitously imporant later.
The game will always begin at max level. The only way to stop that is to have a never ending leveling system (which will not happen). The reason for this, is that every player will eventually hit max level in time and need things to do.
Raids specifically designed for level 12 are cool on paper... but will soon become meaningless with the exception of people gearing their alts. I'm not saying we should ignore the path of leveling. But the lower the level, the less time should be spent trying to find something unique to do with it.
Satisfaction while leveling comes in many ways... you get it from actually singing, acquiring a new piece of gear, killing a new named mob, visiting a new dungeon/zone. You also want your leveling experience to be am instruction manual for how the game is played and your character class is developed.
1-5 should be relatively easy, even when solo, allowing you to learn the basics of combat.
6-10 should be when you first need to start looking for other players to assist you and learn how group combat works.
11-20 should be refining your role in a group and beginning to learn what makes your class different from others.
21-30 should be when you really start to see your class defining skills pop up and you start to deal with more complex group mechanics.
31-40 should net you all of your class skills and abilities and you should begin to see slight differences in how you play your class (stat and gear allocation and spell selection) vs another, all while refining your role in groups and taking on more and more challenging content. You should begin to see fully fleshed out gear sets and potentially even spend time farming for them to begin gearing up your character.
41-50 you should begin to see a strong need for acclimation, while beginning to learn about epic abilities and how your class plays in a max level group.
Each level should obviously take longer than the last. And I've always been in favor of a "75-25" split (the first 75% of your levels will take roughly the same amount of time as the last 25%
The reason i feel this way, is because any level below max level your character is not "complete". Once you hit cap, you begin to see the ways in which your cam augment your character to become better... while leveling, 1 more level is almost always better than a single piece of gear or an additional spell. At max. You have various roads to choose from in which you can potentially see increases to character power because "levels" are no longer on the table.
Porygon said:The game will always begin at max level. The only way to stop that is to have a never ending leveling system (which will not happen). The reason for this, is that every player will eventually hit max level in time and need things to do.The reason i feel this way, is because any level below max level your character is not "complete". Once you hit cap, you begin to see the ways in which your cam augment your character to become better... while leveling, 1 more level is almost always better than a single piece of gear or an additional spell. At max. You have various roads to choose from in which you can potentially see increases to character power because "levels" are no longer on the table.
This is really only the case in pure themepark MMO's where your character progress is pretty much on rails.
Themepark MMO's are designed in such a way that you keep replacing things you've found previously, else there would be no carrot on a stick to keep following the rails since you'd reach the end of the road. Most content that's introduced is intended to be experienced by everyone, as well. Though some might get to it faster than others.
In a more sandbox style MMO, a single piece of gear or an additional spell you can get access to halfway through the leveling process might still be useful when you hit the level cap, even if it's situational. Personal goals and progression aren't necessarily limited to the statistical combat potential of your character either. You might choose to do a quest (or choose a particular solution for a quest) not just to get xp and phat lewt, but maybe you want to ally with a certain NPC faction and get yourself involved in the story revolving around that faction. And in choosing that direction, you might close a few doors along the way (unless you go through a ridiculous amount of grinding to change factions afterwards, which almost nobody does in practice because it's easier and more fun to make a new character to start with a clean slate). Your goal might also just be to explore, hang out with people, discover things you've not seen before and take XP and loot as it comes. You'd be surprised how much less people feel rushed to reach a level cap when it's going to take a long time to get there anyway and there isn't a carrot dangling in front of them all the time to lead them along.
VR has already stated, multiple times over 5+ years that quests are not going to be prevenent in this game. Yes, there will be some, but they will not be a driving factor nor even a good source of XP. Think quality over quantity. Basically, you're going to need to find your own sense of purpose, your own path. They give us the world, we decide how to go about using it and how we want to experience it. The name 'EverQuest' really was a misnomer because there were not that many quests! You weren't only ever doing quests rather you were mostly killing NPCs here and there.
Excellent way to have meaningful accomplishment for low-mid level players is having some rare drops they can work toward obtaining that hold value until max level (and sometimes beyond, like one of a kind clicky/proc items). Throw out the gearing treadmill of the past 15+ years and go back toward the EQ model of having powerful/lasting items spread across all levels of content.
Raidan said:The question I ask is why? Why do you need quests to give you direction? Why do you need quests to make progression feel meaningful. Sure, a few grand quests scattered here or there are fine, but why have generic X quest to make Y zone usable. Itemize the zone right and players will create their own quest. Ex. Zone A is level range 15-25 that has that awesome caster hat - I’m going to go there. Why do you need a quest that says the Magi drops that hat go there? The same can be said for content in general. Players will congregate around well-made zones, if they’re garbage people will avoid them. Those would be the zones that I’d argue instead of always expanding outward on expansions - improve them to keep the playerbase closer.
There should be plenty of lore scattered about - and maybe talking to the locals will give you hints of a rat invasion in the caves to the east, but do you really need please kill X rats and return? Or even a chain quest that leads to killing the rat king? Let the loot and experience be the guide, don’t funnel people through quests. If players have shared goals for which to congregate they will naturally.
I'ld like to reply to your question with this; massive multiplayer ROLEPLAY game.
The reason people expect there to be quest, might (amongst other) be because this game is characterized as : this is a game where you can play a role.
Quests are a tool that provide content and a story. This in turn could provide the player a way to fit into a role of some sorts. Be that of a helping hand or a true hero, in the greater scheme of things, that doesn't matter. The point is, the player is able to attune himself with their character and the actions they are performing.
I'm not saying this is the only reason what quests are there for, nor that you can't be playing a role without. It's a tool. Some people enjoy being "guided" by accepting quests and npcs telling them where to go. Others might be able to invent their own story and rely on quests to suit them up with a role in the game. I'm pretty sure that not everyone is able to play a game without quests and make the content up themselves as they explore. They just might give up on the game, as there is nothing (obvious) to do or the game is not requiring them to do things. This too is an expectation of certain players, not only in the way of quests but general content, like you suggest as wel.
Quests to some degree, can trigger some sort of competitiveness in a person. It plays into the nature of us human beings.
You can have that sense of achievement or accomplishment when you succeed in playing out the role, this quest or npc is asking from you. This has effect on all levels in a game.
@Bankie
Content for lower levels might be returning events. Or build up events.
When I'm thinking of reasons to rely on lower level players, I quickly end up with.. what can I ask for them that is within their current skillset (be that player skill or actual character skill).
If I'm able to pinpoint this, I can try and move on to building a story around it.
So far, a starting player is able to harvest in different ways, defeat a small amount of combat enemies (before it becomes a grind), support local authorities or other factions, retrieve and place items, deliver messages or construct in a primitive build. All this in a fairly riskfree environment.
Exploration would be a very big thing for new players or low level players as everything is new or mostly unfamiliar. This however has of course its limits. But the amount of available exploration might be sufficient to get past this low content if they would choose to do so.
I'm not going to rely on a starting player to build me a house or an epic weapon, or to defeat a legendary monster just off shore. To me that would make little sense.
But creating content with the earlier topics might work well enough for that new player to feel engaged. If they can actually get passed a certain treshold,barrier,blockade or drive back some force...then it will surely provide them with that sense of reward.
This is not limited to lower levels, but it can applied there as wel; risks or conflict moving back and forth. If enough starting players have pushed these mobs out of a region, they might dissappear and new events might occur that occupy this region. In time they themselves might be pushed out again and need to retreat.
Something that I found incredibly fun in EQ2 was the ability to reduce your level and mentor others or just experience areas that you may have outleveled previously. They somehow figured out a way to also allow level advancement toward their higher level as if they were gaining experience at their current level. i.e. A lvl 48 Dark Myr may want to explore the lvl 30 area of the Vae Wood with their buddy that is lvl 28... target their buddy, hit 'mentor' and boom, they are now locked to lvl 28 with their lvl 48 gear at the game's capped stats for lvl 28 (if their gear was good enough to max those stats), and they still get a little bit of exp toward lvl 49 while having fun with their buddy and possibly helping out others in the area as a beefy tank or well geared DPS. I think the "mentor" recipient got some kind of small exp boost too.