Is leveling really needed?

[Thes]

I'm seriously starting to think that the leveling experience in most MMOs is pretty much useless. Back in the day (and some still exist) there has been games where leveling has been near never ending and the system revolved around your characters level (or power). Now, with most mainstream MMOs being casualized to the point of having the leveling phase last for just a few days played, whats the point? Can't we have a story line and quests without it being a means to gain levels? I for one can't enjoy the leveling of WoW or most other games because I'm already spoiled to what the endgame might be. And the endgame just tends to be so much more interesting that the leveling phase is just a drag and something to get done with quick.

However when I do quests at max level it is whole different story. I can actually get immersed and take my time with the stuff.

Thus, I believe the next awesome mainstream MMO(RPG) shouldn't have actual levels at all. I believe a system similar to Guild Wars (the first one) where you gain skills by doing things would be pretty decent to start off. Gearing is one thing, but I believe wide array of customizeability and how your character would work is way better than straight off power upgrades (item levels in wow).

Thoughts?

[Adam Jensen]

WoW-style leveling needs to go, especially with the whole problem of outleveling quests. There should always be character progression but its ridiculous that you either lose half the storyline or blow through it mindlessly at high level because you outlevel shit. Trivial questing is no fun.

[Termak]

When it has been current content and you havent been hoarding rested or using all kinds of levelling speed buffs you havent needed to skip anything really.
This only happens when you really grind the instances or battlegrounds, nowdays its different people using all kinds of heirlooms and old content levelling speed has been drastically increased.

Levelling and questing shows you the world, you learn how to play, what the story is and so on, it only comes issue when levelling your nth alt through all the same stuff.

I think i dinged 60 in vanilla after completed most zones, i think it actually happened in Orgrimmar bank, there was some quest which somehow dinged me there.
In TBC i maybe missed couple quests here and there but when i was 70 i had almost everything done again. Same deal in Wrath, think i only missed Borean since i started from Fjord side. Cata i dinged somewhere near the twilight citadel doing quests in the mine up there, and finally in Pandaria i dinged somewhere between Townlong and Dread Wastes.

SWTOR was actually worse, every second planet was grey, this was prolly due to the massive amounts of warzones i did on all chars, now with F2P penalties its actually nice, content doesnt grey out.

[Razael]

I agree , a GW1 system or even like The Secret World.

[Achaman]

age of wushu doesnt have levels or leveling

nor eve

[Sephiracle]

WoW-style leveling needs to go, especially with the whole problem of outleveling quests. There should always be character progression but its ridiculous that you either lose half the storyline or blow through it mindlessly at high level because you outlevel shit. Trivial questing is no fun.

I think the Questing in WoW was always fine in the case of having a max level player and entering a new expansion.

The problems have been though is leveling a new character through vanilla and expansions to the new max level. The old stuff gets outdated, they lower the required xp and you blaze through it.

Pair that with the fact that Blizzard really stopped caring about the quality of content after BC didn't help either.

[glowpipe]

Leveling shouldnt go. Look at games like the secret world. Failed big time.

But for wow. you should do it like 5 times. and after that. insta 90's.

if a new mmo comes out without leveling. Its a no no for me.

[brirrspliff]

I'm seriously starting to think that the leveling experience in most MMOs is pretty much useless.

[...]

Thoughts?

i think you should play xbox games.


Please post constructively. --Sj

[Voodoo328]

While I don't particularly like leveling, I don't think it would be a good idea to get rid of it. I see leveling as a way to keep me from trying to gear out as many characters as I can create. If you could just create a level 90 character and start running them through dungeons (not only would you probably be terrible at the class) you would burn yourself out of content extremely quickly because there is nothing inbetween creation and spamming the dungeons.

[worsthitmanNa]

Leveling teaches you nothing about your class honestly. Linking people sites like elitest jerks and forcing them to read the information until they understand it is much better then leveling. Watching videos of top tier players teaches u more then leveling ever will honestly. Now burning yourself out is a valid complaint.

[WarpedAcorn]

I'd like to see less levels, but the level-ups be more meaningful.

Alternatively, I'd like to see the leveling process be something like Rift's Planar Attunement. In this way there would be small upgrades over the course of gameplay. This would provide incentive to continuously play and advance your character, but give very minor advantages over others who haven't played as much.

[Voodoo328]

Leveling teaches you nothing about your class honestly. Linking people sites like elitest jerks and forcing them to read the information until they understand it is much better then leveling. Watching videos of top tier players teaches u more then leveling ever will honestly. Now burning yourself out is a valid complaint.

Leveling doesn't teach rotations/priorities at max level no, but it does slowly introduce all of the spells the class has to offer so you aren't just bombarded with 1800 spells and expecting to know what to do with them at what point. Granted if you don't try any of them out or even look at them there is no difference between leveling vs instant max level.

[Deleted]

Leveling teaches you nothing about your class honestly. Linking people sites like elitest jerks and forcing them to read the information until they understand it is much better then leveling. Watching videos of top tier players teaches u more then leveling ever will honestly. Now burning yourself out is a valid complaint.

5 levels in mop doesnt "teach you how to play your class" anymore. Nor the new abilities. This is no longer the case. 1-70 maybe does this still, but after that its pretty breeze. Mobs die fast, you can round em up, aoe em. That doesnt teach much anything. You will use pretty much same skills for 60-89 at least. Maybe even lower on some classes!

What I would like to see is that next expansion wouldnt add leveling at all. Sort of "mini expansion".
You would have storylines, sure. But no leveling. If you bought the expansion you would be able to unlock new raids and zones - but you could just hop there straight up where you wanted. Want to raid first second? Go right ahead, try. Storylines would give gear tho.

Would that even work with wow?

[Varyk]

There's something to be said for the feeling of improving and enhancing your character over time. Whether or not you stay the same "level", getting new abilities or stats is always going to be "leveling up" regardless of what you call it.

[Redblade]

There are tons of way to have character progression without levels, doubt any of them will be implemented unless Blizzard wakes up and starts to be creative, going by recent blue posts I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen though.

[Treline]

Leveling shouldnt go. Look at games like the secret world. Failed big time.

But for wow. you should do it like 5 times. and after that. insta 90's.

if a new mmo comes out without leveling. Its a no no for me.

Have you played The Secret World? Sure it doesn't use the typical level model other games use. But it has a more rewarding way to do it, via gear, new ability's and Weapon skills. I would argue that it is a way of "leveling", only a smarter and more exciting way to do it.

And it did not fail big time at all. They make money of the game with the new model and their players are quite happy with the game.




OP: I agree. I some games leveling just seem to me like a thing they make you do to keep you longer in game. I find the model you're talking about more interesting.

[Fencers]

No, leveling isn't needed. Just a familiar device.

Leveling is pretty overused in single player games. Somewhat tedious in modern MMOs where the max level is an absolute goal to access content.

Secret World did level-less MMORPG fantastically.

Guild Wars 1 did leveling spectacularly.

Just as an example of how two MMOs can have level/level-less systems and do so extremely well. Stuff like SWTOR, Rift, WOW is quite tiresome and dull though. Leveling goes on for too long- making the game a 50/60/80 level long tutorial. Pretty bad design.

[papajohn4]

It depends the game..If leveling is very trivial and meaningless then it can sure go away. Although my opinion is that we need a difficult and meaningfull leveling system that will give you a nice journey to remember. Lotro for example..while not exactly difficult, is very meaningful. Except the great lore and immersive world, while leveling you enchance your abilities(by using them often) and you complete deeds and virtues which is what you are gonna need in max level..is like you make your end-game character while leveling and it is very interesting..

Vanilla wow had good leveling and difficult. Your items had value...you could stop at 44 and create the phandom blade and that was not a waste of time but it was a meaningful upgrade that would help you further. Socialize for group quests, frequently stop to upgrade your gear cause it did matter, all of these made the leveling more interesting and a great journey. Even the new ranks on skills had value, you were waiting to ding to get that +rank because you need it..

[Arkenaw]

I think it depends on the game. Levels are pretty important in a game like WoW to keep new players from just going straight to end game, Guild Wars 1 had a nice system and I think Guild Wars 2 COULD have had a nice system with the linear leveling curve that was ruined by the level downscaling (which undermined the entire point of leveling)

[Redblade]

I think it depends on the game. Levels are pretty important in a game like WoW to keep new players from just going straight to end game

You could just remove levels but have the player go through X amount of quest chains to gain the abilities needed for participating in the end game, as such learning their class.

That's just one way of doing it...