Grinding Levels Isn't Fun

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Well then I finally have a question.

Do games like Elder Scrolls where your character COULD theoretically do without 'real levels' but still need to do things like 'Speechcraft to level 100' also cause a negative response?

Games of this type tend to have SOME form of progression, would you say that you're opposed to the 'power gap' part of it?

For example, I play one where you start with a 'basic generic' Martial Arts kit, and you still have to 'level' by finding opponents to face who know other moves, but you could theoretically win fights with just the base kit, it's not 'weaker', it just possibly isn't 'what you prefer', and even that might not be true.

Basically, is it 'having to kill mobs to raise a number' only or is 'having to work toward your customizations because you disprefer the default kit' also an offender in this?

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It's a single player game. You're not paying to "win" anything. Any content in the game can be completed w/o spending a single dime, it just takes time, just as any other rpg.

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Yes, indeed, the mmoRPG genre is saturated with people looking for a new mmoRPG, what a surprise. It's as if I said that rpgs sell well even though they have leveling in them.

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DMC is a single player game where you only learn a single set of abilities. MMOs by default are multiplayer games where you learn more than one set of abilities. Doubly so in the case of Ashes, because you not only need to learn how to play well with others, but also need to know how to fight against other classes in pvp, so you ideally need to learn their class to, if you want to be the best at pvp.

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What mmos were those? Did they have any mechanics that encouraged high lvl players to interact with lower lvl players?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mentor_program

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As Ashes will have an action combat aspect in its design, you do in fact get to "skip" quite a bit of the game. Your innate knowledge will let you win pvp more often all throughout your way to higher lvls, because, as you said, most people will be around 50th% of player skill, while you're in a higher one.

And all the people who don't just lvl up their characters to max immediately will be even more likely to be weaker at pvp, so you'll probably win even more. And Ashes will encourage them to not immediately lvl up, as have been stated in this thread a hundred times already.

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All that gear would most likely be gated by difficulty of content. And as a lot of gear in Ashes will come from bosses that would require 8-40 people, you'd need to know how to play with other people in order to acquire it. Learning how to play with people would take time. Lvls are just a representation of you spending that time in the game, nothing more.

Though no, that's not true. There is more to lvls. They're also the representation of your character's progress. And in RPGs you're playing the character and not yourself, so your pure irl skill doesn't matter as much. The lvls show how "old" and experienced your character is. By doing quests, fighting mobs and bosses, exploring the world and all the other stuff your character will grow which will be shown through your lvl#

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So you started at 3k and then were doing activities that led to you getting up to 6k? It's as if you'll start at lvl1 in Ashes, do activities in the game, and by a miraculous happenstance get to lvl50. And surprisingly enough people around you will most likely be of the roughly the same lvl, just as they were in dota.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

You'll be doing similar activities at all lvls, because Intrepid's aiming at making the leveling process fun from lvl1. So you're not in fact gated at any point. You're just moving upwards in the difficulty of the content, just as you are in dota when moving up the ladder. And just like with dota's different game modes, you'll be able to do a ton of other content in Ashes w/o needing to vertically level up.

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Shooters rely on the same muscle memory. Pvp ladder is literally the same "levels" as the mmo ones. You spend a shitton of time to create muscle memory for proper movement and aiming and you get to fight stronger enemies. It's all the same shit, but in a different package. And fps players are even more egocentric about their mmrs and ranks, because it took them THOUSANDS OF HOURS of work to get them. Except pretty much every mmo out there (outside of probably osrs) takes way less time to get to the top.

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This is also true for MMORPGs though, or at least, in some better ones it can be.

I'm trying to figure out if you have a design issue with leveling itself, or with 'a thing that comes along with it, which a game could simply choose not to do' (I am not claiming that Ashes has chosen not to do that something, so this probably isn't actually important).

So, to repeat the part that might be relevant.

I can play certain games where I need to put in time to get through the game's 'gates' to progress, such as 'gathering materials to make better gear' or 'encountering a situation in battle enough times for my character to unlock a related skill', but there are no gates based on initial level, and you could theoretically do all content without doing basically any of that through raw skill.

Is this fine? Because it's hard to tell where you draw the line here. "I like this Augment but I have to grind through this Social Organization's Questlines which I don't find appealing, I should just be able to have the Augment now because it would be more fun for me" would be a way someone could uncharitably interpret your position.

Azherae wrote: »

"I like this Augment but I have to grind through this Social Organization's Questlines which I don't find appealing, I should just be able to have the Augment now because it would be more fun for me" would be a way someone could uncharitably interpret your position.

So far this has been roughly my interpretation. Dodges of direct answers of whether they are ok with a ton of grinding are not helping.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

"I like this Augment but I have to grind through this Social Organization's Questlines which I don't find appealing, I should just be able to have the Augment now because it would be more fun for me" would be a way someone could uncharitably interpret your position.

So far this has been roughly my interpretation. Dodges of direct answers of whether they are ok with a ton of grinding are not helping.

Well yes but for better or worse you're much less charitable than me in these types of conversations. Whether that's a strength or weakness comes down to whether or not the other person is conversing in good faith, but as you've pointed out, I can't tell if that's true either.

Hence 'taking five pages to even ask any questions'.

There IS a perspective in which this works, because there are games where 'you are at full strength right out of the gate and could theoretically do all content', but time must be spent to do the customization, often you have to even earn that customization.

There are even MMOs that approach this quite quickly, by moving the 'other advancement' to non-character systems, which Ashes theoretically could do. I personally don't like this for various reasons, but I still prefer to know what @KingDDD actually has to say about it.

Azherae wrote: »

There are even MMOs that approach this quite quickly, by moving the 'other advancement' to non-character systems, which Ashes theoretically could do. I personally don't like this for various reasons, but I still prefer to know what KingDDD actually has to say about it.

GW2 probably fits that. LA kinda does too with their super short leveling. Even FF14 could potentially fit this purely because their main story quests give insane amounts of XP.

But afaik all of those games have some form of grind after you've reached "max lvl", which is why I've been saying that lvls are just a visual and have nothing to do with the underlying design of the game. The devs either backload all the content (pretty much any mmo that's older than a year) or they provide all the content in the game to all the vertical lvls (ff14).

Out of all of those options I'd probably go with ff14's one if it was somehow designed in a better way than just "you're deleveled, your gear doesn't count, most of your abilities are gone". Though I'd assume it's really difficult to design that in a different matter while also making it a viable piece of content, WHILE not making it super OP to farm for all the high lvls.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

There are even MMOs that approach this quite quickly, by moving the 'other advancement' to non-character systems, which Ashes theoretically could do. I personally don't like this for various reasons, but I still prefer to know what KingDDD actually has to say about it.

GW2 probably fits that. LA kinda does too with their super short leveling. Even FF14 could potentially fit this purely because their main story quests give insane amounts of XP.

But afaik all of those games have some form of grind after you've reached "max lvl", which is why I've been saying that lvls are just a visual and have nothing to do with the underlying design of the game. The devs either backload all the content (pretty much any mmo that's older than a year) or they provide all the content in the game to all the vertical lvls (ff14).

Out of all of those options I'd probably go with ff14's one if it was somehow designed in a better way than just "you're deleveled, your gear doesn't count, most of your abilities are gone". Though I'd assume it's really difficult to design that in a different matter while also making it a viable piece of content, WHILE not making it super OP to farm for all the high lvls.

Not quite. I would (if being charitable) assume that the issue here is 'I don't have my base kit options' which is a problem I DO somewhat have with Ashes personally.

The main thing being that in games with heavy customization, a serious player has this problem depending on what the devs think is important for an Archetype vs otherwise. The only reason I don't complain about it is that I'm too reasonable and other people complain much harder anyway.

So if a game has 'At level 25 you get your preferred tools, before that you're Generic and must go kill 10,000 mobs with your Generic Kit', I can see the problem.

Similarly for games where 'all your cool stuff is near max level' whether that be via gear or not.

I think GW2 does count, therefore. Games with very short leveling KINDA count, but my only real experience with that is BDO (I am familiar with games that let you basically SKIP leveling through resources granted by friends, or that allow you to use skill to leapfrog content massively, but aside from BDO's 'level to 56 in 4 hours' runs, nothing from the High Speed Leveling department, not my preference in games).

Azherae wrote: »

So if a game has 'At level 25 you get your preferred tools, before that you're Generic and must go kill 10,000 mobs with your Generic Kit', I can see the problem.

Oh, I definitely agree that getting the base set of tools of your archetype should come within the first few minutes of the game. The full set would come by lvl 25 and then you spend another 25 lvls specializing, learning and honing that toolset and your own skills until "perfection".

And personally I feel like "we want leveling to be long, but not boring, so we're gonna make it fun from the low lvls" would fit my preferences. There's obviously a question of whether Intrepid will succeed in that, but that's a whole other discussion.

But OP's comments come off as if they want access to any/all content in the game right from the start w/o any time investment. And I'm definitely against that.

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That's the point though. It's not a trick, it's the damn genre of the game. You're playing a role of your character. You have an avatar that fights for you, so instead of using your irl skills you're growing the avatar. And this is why we've been suggesting other genres of games in this thread, cause it definitely seems like the OP doesn't like how rpgs work.

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If this is what you are okay with, what's the concern?

What MMOs do we even have where this doesn't happen? Are there seriously still games where you don't have core abilities 10 hours in?

The grind is nearly never about core abilities or core utilities these days, aside from the occasional 'hey this lategame skill turns out to be class-defining, whoops'.

All you have to 'want' here is that Ashes doesn't put strong core abilities after level 20ish.

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But this is an assumption you are making.

Basically, you don't know that. I don't even know why you think it. Based on my time in Alpha-1, I never felt like this at all. Do you just not like fighting mobs? Even that, you could get around outside of quests. I don't get it.

Assume that I'm COMPLETELY in agreement with you on the basic idea, but I don't agree that what you are saying is even likely to happen in Ashes just because the game contains levels. Maybe then you can explain it to me, if you care?

I think you could get to level 10 in Alpha-1 without fighting a single non-quest mob.

I fought mobs because I like doing that and I didn't like certain quests. Other people did quests and didn't fight mobs. Maybe you don't want to do quests OR fight early mobs?

Or maybe you're not as familiar with the style of EXP gain that certain games use? In Ashes Alpha, if you could manage to kill something 5 levels above you, you would get 4x the exp that you get for killing something at your own level.

I didn't bother doing it, but I feel like I could have hit level 10 in 2h, and that was with at least 30 minutes of it just 'wandering all the way to the Node I was helping test' every time.

What is it that you're imagining is locked behind leveling that ALSO won't have a 'lower level version' to engage with?

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Could I get a link that shows that? I'm curious how exactly the measure that.

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Like I said before, DMC is a single player game while mmos are not. You talk to other people and learn from them how their classes work. That socialization and learning takes time. And the amount of stuff to learn is way more than the DMC stuff. Though what's more important in an mmo is how you use your abilities in cooperation with your groupmates. And just like absolutely perfecting combos in DMC takes a ton of time, learning how to play with others does too.

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Great! You can now give feedback on how Intrepid could make the best system.

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Your knowledge of the game will progress with your character's lvl. Your mastery of the game will most likely come after your character has hit max lvl.

Also, you're only a small cog in a huge Node machine, so the world changing around you will not depend purely on your singular actions. This is not a single player game where everything depends purely on you, so while your character will have its own story, it'll be a small speck in the world's overall history. The only way to increase your influence is to become a GL of a huge guild, but that would take even more time than maxing out your lvl.

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To you it isn't. To most RPG players out there - it is.

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You don't need matchmaking to match people of roughly the same lvl. You just put content of that level in the same location, so people of that lvl will come to that location to do content there.

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That will depend on how far into tab Intrepid will go with their design of mob combat. And on how tight the gear balancing will be. And on how easy/difficult it'll be to get that gear. In other words, it will depend on stuff that we don't currently know, so we don't know how skill-dependent the game will be. Though I'm fairly sure that you'll need to reach certain lvls to fight against enemies of certain higher lvls, just cause that's how rpgs work.

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Again, there's a chance that you'll be able to beat lvl 30 mobs after just a few hours of lvling, if you're skilled enough and if the mobs' attacks depend more on action targeting that purely on tab. It would be a much bigger test of your skills than fighting mobs of your own lvl, but if you're such a pro gamer I'm sure you'll handle it.

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Ok, I guess I misunderstood some comment of yours. So you're saying that you're completely fine with grinding gear/cosmetics/artisan abilities for over 200h to get stronger and be able to clear other content?

Or do you, in fact, just want all the content given to you within the first few hours of the game?

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Ok, I don't think you would find too many people who disagree with that feedback.

There are multiple reasons in MMOs to have levels, but none of them have to do with players at your skill level, and mostly, I feel like the game's goal should be to get it out of your way as much as is reasonable, while allowing it to function for others who need it.

Simple hot take:
Levels are a psychological crutch that are used to keep certain tiers of player skill/investment stratified properly, and to give players who don't do well a good 'excuse' why, because they're often casual enough to never go check 'what other people are doing'.

What you want is for Leveling to not hinder you in Ashes. Sure. What I want is for leveling to be at worst a mild inconvenience for you, and a nice huge emotional cushion for those players who get frustrated easily at failing.

I really don't know what game you played where levels meaningfully hinder your ability to follow your chosen path on a macro-level, but I hope you found something better.

Grati pur data.