High and low lvl players in the same location

Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-14 22:04:43

In the past few days the mentorship system has been brought up in a few threads and it made me think about evergreen content that could apply not only to a particular range of lvls, but to pretty much everyone.

We know that Nodes will have mobs with a wide range of lvls, but what about other types of content like quests, bosses and gathering. Should they somehow adapt to the server population's progress and have parts of the content that would attract both high and low lvl players?

I was mainly wondering about it because this will be very important after the game's release. Even if artisanry is separated from the adventure lvls, sooner or later all the people who started playing at the release will become high/max lvl. And the further away from the release we go, the higher the % of those high lvls will be.

The recent thread about leveling was right about one thing, it's really difficult to begin your journey in an old game that's filled with purely high lvl characters. Most mmos choose to only introduce content at max lvl and pretty much remove the entire lvling process from the game, so that anyone new could immediately join up with other players. FF14 lets high lvl players downgrade themselves to the dungeon's stage of progress (and might be giving some additional rewards? I'm not sure about that).

I personally dislike both of those solutions and think that Ashes will be in the perfect spot to try something new with their Node system. They'll already have the wide range of mobs in most locations, so, in theory, it should be somewhat easy to just relate any low lvl quest/boss to a high lvl reward (by including high lvl mobs in the content), even outside of the mentorship program. I feel like this would not only make the game way easier to pick up, but would also encourage early relationships between new players and veterans. And I think that this could allow Intrepid to develop new content for all lvls of players, instead of just the max one.

The main issue with this that I can see is, obviously, the balancing of rewards. If the rewards are too great, most max lvl players will just make alts and help each other get the rewards quickly, w/o really interacting with the new players. And if rewards are shit - no one will help the newbies.

Do you have any ideas how this could be balanced? Do you think that the mentorship should be the main and only system that addresses this issue? Do you have your own idea of how to design content that could bring all lvls of players together? I think we're still at the stage of development (the non-existent stage that is :| ) where this kind of feedback could help Intrepid plan for the future much better.

Post by Strevi on 2023-01-14 22:20:11

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-14 22:29:48

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Right, I should've mentioned this in the post. I think this cross-lvl interaction should be optional on the side of the low lvl player, exactly to prevent this kind of forced situation. But even with its optionality, there's a high chance that any new player would have to somehow lvl up to max purely solo, which in a game like Ashes might be extremely difficult and would probably take way longer than the party option. And imo this is a pretty big problem for any game that wants to live for more than a year.
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Which is why I think that there should be at least some kind of reward for the high lvl player, cause I know that most people just wouldn't care otherwise.
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But Nodes will already bring those people together, so there's gonna be a chance that a flagged lowbie gets killed by a high lvl passerby.

Also, if the game is known for great low lvl content, it would have a much bigger chance of constantly attracting new people, which would remove the need for lowbie alts, which imo would be a great thing.
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The pvp would only be fair towards the veterans. Any new player would immediately die to the alt character, because that alt would be wearing the best possible gear for their lvl (most likely OEd too). I've seen, and done, this waaaaay too many time in L2.

And that's also a reason why I'd prefer if Intrepid could figure out a great way of keeping the low lvl content evergreen.

Post by Mag7spy on 2023-01-14 22:30:56

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-14 22:36:40

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Not feeling dead is great, but playing an mmo solo for, potentially, 200+h is kinda bad. Especially when Ashes is trying to bring back the socialness of older mmos.
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How many people do that though? Especially to random players and not their guildies or friends. Strevi is a great example here - just doesn't care about lowbies.
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By powerlvling do you mean just going through the lvls super fast, because the game stops having low lvl content, or do you mean someone helping you grind through the lvls super fast?

Cause the former is super bad imo and removes a huge part of the game (a wholeass 200h of it in AoC's case) and the latter would still be available even with what I'm suggesting, though I'd personally prefer some limiters on how big the difference in lvls can be.

Post by Strevi on 2023-01-14 22:47:06

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-14 22:57:52

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This might be true, but in my experience those alts would either already be in their own alt party because their guild is doing some needed low lvl content, or the alt would be so overgeared and overprepped (and sometimes supported by high lvl support chars) that they can just solo most of the low lvl content w/o ever needing a group.

And outside of the times where people make alts purely for fun and because they have literally done everything at max lvl (definitely hope this can't be the case in AoC), most alts are created for some particular reason, so doing random content with other newbies is unwelcomed.
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This is why I'd personally want to separate the mentorship program from the general all-lvl content. I agree that mentorships should be taken up only by those who want to help others.
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Yeah, there's a chance that this ends up happening after some testing. Though the only thing that can prevent it is the fact that artisanry is separated from the adventure lvl. If high lvl players can't touch lowbies at all - we're back to the good ol' discussion of "lvl1 top gatherer exploits".
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It doesn't have to be the best, it should just be good and involve other people, so that the newbie doesn't have to solo the whole game up till max lvl. And I addressed the twink situation above.

Post by Strevi on 2023-01-14 23:16:26

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-14 23:29:44

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But like you said yourself, the high lvls would have no need for or care about those lowbies. If there's no benefit to teaming up with rando lowbies - the majority of players won't do that.
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It was in the "overgathering mechanics" discussion. People will make low lvl gatherers who always stay green and gather anything they want/need w/o ever fearing that someone will attack them.
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Yes, that's one solution to the problem, but it doesn't always work. Guilds would have to plant lowbie chars at certain locations to prevent other guilds from farming those locations for free, otherwise you'd never get to those lowbies in time with your own low lvl char. And while this is possible, only a few guilds would be able to execute this in a proper manner, which would usually snowball into them dominating other guilds.
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And this was the exact issue brought up in that discussion. We don't know if Intrepid will somehow address this problem in their design, but so far it seems that separating artisanry from leveling could bring some exploits with it.

Post by novercalis on 2023-01-14 23:30:01

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-14 23:36:54

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As was the case with WoW vanilla, most people didn't have a clue about best possible quests, but overall the game was all about grinding mobs. Even most quests were just about grinding mobs for the quest.

Here's a video of a private server of the, pretty much, "vanilla" L2. You can auto-translate CCs to understand what he's saying, but just by scrolling through you'll see that 99% of the gameplay is fighting mobs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIaNjWUXcPE

edit: the last part of the video shows sieges and there's a ton of people in all kinds of gear and at all kinds of levels (most of them low enough that they couldn't even defeat the NPC defenders of the castle at first). So I'd imagine that Ashes will be somewhat similar, with the majority of servers taking months to capture the first castles. I can't fucking wait for that >:)

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Post by Azherae on 2023-01-15 00:13:32

I disagree with your opinion of Level Sync options and I think they are a great method for both sides.

Lowbies can level at their own pace with friends or other random players who enjoy lower level content.

Then when they don't feel like doing that, everyone goes back to normal without a care.

I think Level Sync would be 10x as good in Ashes.

Post by Strevi on 2023-01-15 00:13:44

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-15 00:19:40

I disagree with your opinion of Level Sync options and I think they are a great method for both sides.

Lowbies can level at their own pace with friends or other random players who enjoy lower level content.

Then when they don't feel like doing that, everyone goes back to normal without a care.

I think Level Sync would be 10x as good in Ashes.
How would this work mechanically, considering that there's gonna be barely any instanced content. What about all the gear combos and values and abilities and all that? And, most importantly, how would those high lvl players be encouraged to even go down to lower lvls, especially if the switch takes any amount of time or effort.

Those are my main issues with Syncing in a game like Ashes.

Post by Azherae on 2023-01-15 00:28:45

I disagree with your opinion of Level Sync options and I think they are a great method for both sides.

Lowbies can level at their own pace with friends or other random players who enjoy lower level content.

Then when they don't feel like doing that, everyone goes back to normal without a care.

I think Level Sync would be 10x as good in Ashes.
How would this work mechanically, considering that there's gonna be barely any instanced content. What about all the gear combos and values and abilities and all that? And, most importantly, how would those high lvl players be encouraged to even go down to lower lvls, especially if the switch takes any amount of time or effort.

Those are my main issues with Syncing in a game like Ashes.

Yes, sorry, I was referring primarily to the specific way it is done in FFXI and FFXIV where it is 'one button, choose target party member, everyone becomes that player's level'.

It's harder for me to see the problem with all those things because the game I play now just... does it. It just works. So maybe it'd be better if you told me what you felt the challenges were (relative to gear combos and abilities and so on).

As for encouragement, if you enjoy lower level content, then aside from the inventory nightmare it can cause, you enjoy it. You can carry special gear to do it, or just rely on the gear sync. All that really matters to you is that stuff drops. And it's true that it does NOT drop at higher levels, as far as I understood L2 (I obv think that's the better system and required for a PvX game).

So if I want X Meat that only drops from level 20 Toucans and I'm level 40, and I feel like spending time and not money, it's 100% in my best interests to find a level 20 player to Sync with and just split the drops entirely normally because I enjoy that content anyway.

If you incentivize doing this MORE than 'hey here's a game loop you liked once, you can experience it again and help another player all at once!' then I think it'd be bad.

Also, it deals with the problem of high level people making Alts even moreso. If you want to make an Alt to gather Toucan Legs at level 20, sure, that's probably easy, but why go to all that trouble when you can just party up with someone who is already level 20? It can be your friends' Alts or not.

I'm definitely oversimplifying, and almost certainly letting my bias cause me to glaze over the problems you may be seeing, but I can't see them YET, so help me out.

And for context ofc...

https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Level_Sync

Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-15 01:12:10

If you incentivize doing this MORE than 'hey here's a game loop you liked once, you can experience it again and help another player all at once!' then I think it'd be bad.

Also, it deals with the problem of high level people making Alts even moreso. If you want to make an Alt to gather Toucan Legs at level 20, sure, that's probably easy, but why go to all that trouble when you can just party up with someone who is already level 20? It can be your friends' Alts or not.
I think these two are the main reason for my dislike. Though the problems I see are kinda contradictory here.

My main desire is for the game to have and keep having good low-mid lvl content throughout its entire life. As I see it, this kind of thing is achievable if low lvl content rewards are required for high lvl stuff, but are unavailable to high lvl players. This interaction keeps low lvl players always important to the overall economy of the game.

I personally want high lvl content to be "endless", so that people who've reached max lvl and have done a ton of stuff already still have smth interesting (for them) to do, and not only interesting but also valuable. And if they have that content at all times, then in theory they should've have the time to go down in lvls to farm the low lvl content, which in turn (imo) should have a relatively lower value.

This would put even more importance on any low lvl player/character on the server. And usually this results in alts, because at some point that importance overshadows any kind of value that a high lvl player can reach. And the alts become the main solution because, seemingly, most games where this interaction is possible die off really quickly and lose any kind of inflow of new lowbies, so the high lvl players HAVE TO go and make alts for themselves.

And if those players can easily go to their alts or just Sync down with their main - any newbie loses all of that importance, because the high lvl players have become self-sufficient within their line of content/needs.

And this is where the contradiction comes in. I want to keep the importance of low lvl players, while also minimizing their value enough that high lvl players don't just go and make alts. And the first thing that came to mind was the combination of low lvl content with high lvl mobs/rewards, so that high lvls still get their highly valued content while also helping out lowbies with their importance and just general gameplay.

The dislike for your first line here comes mainly from my pessimism towards people in general. I don't trust them to help others for no real reason. Maybe that's just me projecting, but my L2 experience tells me that most hardcore players would rather spend a bit more time doing something themselves (if they can) than sharing any potential spoils with a random person.

This kind of thinking might've also come purely from the CIS culture, so it could be completely unfounded when it comes to US/EU servers. @JamesSunderland what's been your experience in L2 with relation to newbies and lowbies. Did people help each other much or just tried to do everything themselves, through alts or just within their guild?

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-15 19:32:20

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Yeah, most L2 dungeons had a fairly wide range of mob lvls in them too (especially in later updates). And with how Nodes will work I'd assume we'll see this even more in Ashes. I was just trying to think if it was possible to design it in a way where players would need to cooperate, rather than just coexist in the same place. Coexistence is an amazing first step and is definitely very important for the perceived liveliness of the game, but imo cooperation is the more important step if you want to keep your low lvl content attractive.

Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-15 19:32:36

I think Gui brought up a good point. You could have tie-ins with different social organizations and general quests/tasks, maybe even node-based ones.

The game is supposed to somehow track how well the players manage to beat dungeon content, right. So there's gotta be some backend system that either puts marks on players with relation to mobs/bosses or maybe tracks what happens in certain rooms of the dungeon and relates that info to the players that were present in/around the room.

What if that system could also track levels of players and their current quests/tasks/social org allegiances. Say there's a dungeon that has mobs ranging from lvl20 in the first few rooms up to lvl 40-45 in the last few ones. And Group A is full of ~lvl40 players who're farming near the end of the dungeon. Then Group B (~lvl25 players) come into the dungeon and start farming their own room.

The system sees that these groups are present, it sees what quests or org tasks those players have and it spawns a lvl40 mini-boss in Group B's room. The system then sends an announcement to Group A that a mini-boss has appeared in one of the rooms and that if they kill it, they'll get a bonus to whichever quest they currently have and could get a point in some huge progression system that rewards a cool title/cosmetic at the end.

This would be a kind of personalized mini event. The mini-boss would be passive so it won't just attack the lowbies. If Group A comes to kill the boss, the event would spread to Group B, make the surrounding lowbie mobs a bit more difficult but would also announce to Group B that killing those mobs will reward them with some general boons (a bit faster XP mb, or a good buff for 20-30min, that kind of stuff). After the boss dies, both parties would get a message that the roles have been reversed and that a room deeper in the dungeon have opened up for them and it has a lowbie boss with high lvl guards, and that the current rewards will be doubled if these parties choose to team up and go fight clear the room.

To me this seems like a good way of making players cooperate across lvls, w/o Syncing them, while not removing them from their preferred content (cause they came to the dungeon themselves and they had their own quests). It also helps the lowbies to progress faster after this interaction, so they get kinda powerlvled further w/o a direct influence on their gameplay.

This same mechanic could apply to solo gatherers or other artisans within any given node. When a lowbie is doing their own stuff, there'd be a chance (based on how many high lvl players are in the area) that they trigger a high lvl event that would not attract high lvl players to the lowbie (which might help with socialization), but would also help the lowbie to progress through their profession faster.

What do yall think about this kind of system?

Post by Azherae on 2023-01-15 20:07:12

I think Gui brought up a good point. You could have tie-ins with different social organizations and general quests/tasks, maybe even node-based ones.

The game is supposed to somehow track how well the players manage to beat dungeon content, right. So there's gotta be some backend system that either puts marks on players with relation to mobs/bosses or maybe tracks what happens in certain rooms of the dungeon and relates that info to the players that were present in/around the room.

What if that system could also track levels of players and their current quests/tasks/social org allegiances. Say there's a dungeon that has mobs ranging from lvl20 in the first few rooms up to lvl 40-45 in the last few ones. And Group A is full of ~lvl40 players who're farming near the end of the dungeon. Then Group B (~lvl25 players) come into the dungeon and start farming their own room.

The system sees that these groups are present, it sees what quests or org tasks those players have and it spawns a lvl40 mini-boss in Group B's room. The system then sends an announcement to Group A that a mini-boss has appeared in one of the rooms and that if they kill it, they'll get a bonus to whichever quest they currently have and could get a point in some huge progression system that rewards a cool title/cosmetic at the end.

This would be a kind of personalized mini event. The mini-boss would be passive so it won't just attack the lowbies. If Group A comes to kill the boss, the event would spread to Group B, make the surrounding lowbie mobs a bit more difficult but would also announce to Group B that killing those mobs will reward them with some general boons (a bit faster XP mb, or a good buff for 20-30min, that kind of stuff). After the boss dies, both parties would get a message that the roles have been reversed and that a room deeper in the dungeon have opened up for them and it has a lowbie boss with high lvl guards, and that the current rewards will be doubled if these parties choose to team up and go fight clear the room.

To me this seems like a good way of making players cooperate across lvls, w/o Syncing them, while not removing them from their preferred content (cause they came to the dungeon themselves and they had their own quests). It also helps the lowbies to progress faster after this interaction, so they get kinda powerlvled further w/o a direct influence on their gameplay.

This same mechanic could apply to solo gatherers or other artisans within any given node. When a lowbie is doing their own stuff, there'd be a chance (based on how many high lvl players are in the area) that they trigger a high lvl event that would not attract high lvl players to the lowbie (which might help with socialization), but would also help the lowbie to progress through their profession faster.

What do yall think about this kind of system?

A bit too 'strong' of an incentive system, I think.

Based on my experiences I'd expect this to have negative effects, it would work fine, but it would not work for the groups you probably want it to work for.

I will also throw in that in my design experience, it isn't actually necessary to go this far. Games of less quality/fun have issues here. I wouldn't innately expect a game like Ashes to have such issues, for many reasons.

But I haven't played a good 'high activity' MMO in so many years that all my information is out of date...

No issues with the 'core concept' though. I actually don't know how this works in most other games because they're not the same scale/type, but as always, this is 'what I'm used to from FFXI'. You hang around an area farming mobs, the lottery pop Notorious Monster eventually spawns, the lowbie exp party goes 'oh man it's up' and retracts their pulls while they wait for or call for a higher level player/group to come take it down.

But because this is all 'reward dependent', I would tie it to Node stuff, not gear.

Ashes should, imo, lean a LOT more on the 'rewards that go to the Node' for this sort of thing. Because a high level player 'rewards the node' a lot by doing their own thing, but that's a lot of dedication compared to 'hey come kill this mini-boss we spawned'. The High level player can spawn the miniboss themselves, but since (I assume) just killing enemies 10 levels below you doesn't give Node Exp (it doesn't in FFXI), the optimal situation is 'lowbies spawn it, high levels pass by/detour to kill it, everyone wins'.

Post by Ludullu on 2023-01-15 23:56:43

But because this is all 'reward dependent', I would tie it to Node stuff, not gear.

Ashes should, imo, lean a LOT more on the 'rewards that go to the Node' for this sort of thing. Because a high level player 'rewards the node' a lot by doing their own thing, but that's a lot of dedication compared to 'hey come kill this mini-boss we spawned'. The High level player can spawn the miniboss themselves, but since (I assume) just killing enemies 10 levels below you doesn't give Node Exp (it doesn't in FFXI), the optimal situation is 'lowbies spawn it, high levels pass by/detour to kill it, everyone wins'.
Yeah, it would most definitely have to be properly tested and balanced. And node related rewards would be perfect, cause it would both help the node and make lowbies get accustomed to the "help your node" design faster. But yeah, definitely 0 gear or, imo, even enhancement or enchant items should be given for those bosses.

I mentioned quests and stuff mainly because that's usually what people do outside of a city and/or in a dungeon. And improving your chosen content felt like a nice encouragement. Though if Intrepid succeed with their main goal of pushing node relations onto people - node rewards should be enough.

Post by novercalis on 2023-01-16 00:47:46

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