Is leveling really needed?

[Fuzzzie]

Incremental rewards is what makes MMO's addictive. Removing the leveling mechanic would put a lot of pressure on other game mechanics to hold the players attention. It's such an engrained feature of gaming that it's removal is unlikely anytime soon.

[Ryanlol]

I've often thought the same thing. Games that don't require max level (such as PoE or the Diablo series) are very fun to level in, but when leveling is a chore that must be done before you can have any fun, doesn't teach you how to use your character, and doesn't allow you to progress your character beyond experience gained (read: get some Valor, Conquest, items you can use at max level, etc) it gets very stale.

I don't mean to champion any game for any reason, but I do think it's worth pointing out that when you play Path of Exile, you can get all of the very important currencies starting even from level 1. You feel like your character is actually progressing while leveling, rather than finishing the chore.

I've often thought it would be a good idea to allow people with max level characters in WoW to create new max level characters from scratch.

[Kiry]

I actually like leveling. I feel like its Christmas every time I level or get a new piece of gear. So I guess it depends on HOW well leveling is done. TSW was ok, it was confusing. There wasn't a lot of guidance. WoW is fine, it's an old game so leveling is a little old.
Just a matter of preference I guess.

[macdisciple]

I actually like leveling. I feel like its Christmas every time I level or get a new piece of gear. So I guess it depends on HOW well leveling is done. TSW was ok, it was confusing. There wasn't a lot of guidance. WoW is fine, it's an old game so leveling is a little old.
Just a matter of preference I guess.

Many players --see above -- like questing and leveling the old fashioned way. Blizzard would upset a fair percentage of the player base by eliminating questing and leveling.

I have only leveled one max-level character in 6 years. I do the quests once and never again. Players that become bored with leveling probably have many alts. Stop making alts. Play less, enjoy it more.

[VXFadhel]

People need to stop discussing the "questing" and focus on the "leveling" because its turning into "questing" discussion>.<
Its as Fuzzzie said though. Sad but true that most people are addicted to that system (leveling), that having no "increment" feels weird to them.

Edit: Adding that its part of some genre though^.~

[ChaoticCrownedClown]

Nah don't see a need for the level system myself. Loved what they did with TSW skill system. Would love to see a combo between the elements of the level-less TSW and the area questing/events of GW2

[notorious98]

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

Do not equate the two. In my opinion, "leveling" in The Secret World feels much more rewarding to me than in any other MMO that I've played. I get to choose just how powerful I wish to be and where I want to put that power. Instead of an arbitrary number, I'm afforded skill points and ability points that increases my power in a much more enjoyable way than "Increases X ability's damage by 15%" or some shitty skill I only get every 10 levels.

But associating the lack of levels in TSW to it's success is ridiculous. Many people already considered it to be a long shot to be overly successful before it ever released simply due to the subject matter.

---------- Post added 2013-03-16 at 10:55 AM ----------

I actually like leveling. I feel like its Christmas every time I level or get a new piece of gear. So I guess it depends on HOW well leveling is done. TSW was ok, it was confusing. There wasn't a lot of guidance. WoW is fine, it's an old game so leveling is a little old.
Just a matter of preference I guess.

In TSW's case, that really has less to do with the questing/"leveling" aspect and more with the other parts. For example, I find that crafting definitely needs a better tutorial than just a quest.

[ranku]

They really didn't. They had the same kind of leveling system as any other RPG; kill enough or complete enough quests and you'd earn AP and SP, that's exactly the same as leveling up, they just called it something else.

the key difference is that TSW isn't a game about numbers (which wow and swtor are very good examples of) and doesn't have the issue of "i can't attack that guy because the number over his head is bigger than mine so i will get roflstomped" rather than "he has more depth to him, but it's possible if i'm very good."

[notorious98]

the key difference is that TSW isn't a game about numbers (which wow and swtor are very good examples of) and doesn't have the issue of "i can't attack that guy because the number over his head is bigger than mine so i will get roflstomped" rather than "he has more depth to him, but it's possible if i'm very good."

Actually, that's not entirely true. TSW is definitely a game about numbers. The skill points make that pretty clear. The more skill points you have, the better armor/weapon you can use. The difference really comes down to the power of your own person. Your toon doesn't necessarily gain power when it gains a "level". A set of stats doesn't increase by an arbitrary number every time you increase your "level". Instead, your person remains the same. What changes is your ability to use better items. The leveling resides more in the item system and less in the questing system.

[Paladin885]

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?

Wrong, gamers have evolved into grinding machines who rush past content and do not "play" the game as it ought to be played. This is an issue Guild Wars 2 ran into because they built a game around the leveling experience and people were hitting max lvl in 2-3 days, to which they complained about "end game" as a result of it.

WoW is no different. People are even willing to buy a second account just to burn through content to get to 90 and when a new expansion comes out there are gamers who literally skip the game just to get to max level in under 36hrs... I've even heard some admit taking a sick day from work just to do it.

Developers have tried limiting this by putting a "cap" on the level grind. I think the first FFXIV did this and everyone bitched about it (go figure).


All of this has ruined the MMORPG genre.

[Redblade]

Instead, your person remains the same. What changes is your ability to use better items. The leveling resides more in the item system and less in the questing system.

The possibilities with such a system, to bad Blizzard stopped being both creative and innovative back in the BC era.

[notorious98]

The possibilities with such a system, to bad Blizzard stopped being both creative and innovative back in the BC era.

Personally, I really enjoy the freedom it allows me to have. I don't feel like I'm pigeonholed into a specific role. It really allows you to play your toon how you want.

[Doktor Faustus]

It is redundant, you could simply say by completing The Jade Forest quests you unlock a new skill, etc.

That way you would actually have to follow the story, rather than jumping to Towlong @ 88 then Dred Wastes @ 89 regardless of story progression.

This is still an RPG?

I highly doubt WoW will change that way, maybe their next MMORPG project, WoW is too old and set in it's ways to see such innovative changes at this late stage in it's (popular) life.

Oh, all the above is IMHO, Copyrighted, etc etc.

[Ghash]

Well, I personally love WoW's questing as far as the story and questline experience. However, I completely agree that outleveling quests is frustrating. I try to take a different questing route each time I level an alt for purposes of not being bored and getting to see another questline that I haven't seen before, but I have found myself many times suffering through lackluster XP because I want to see what happens at the end of the massive questline I'm currently on. I am a completionist as far as quest lines go. If I begin it, I have to finish it before moving on to another zone.

That being said, I don't think the style should be changed. I just think that they need to do an investigation of the existing quests and see if there are some fluff quests they can remove without ruining the story (kill 8 of these foxes over here for no apparent reason), or possibly make some of them easier, meaning less XP (We have ample supply of these berries, so instead of running around collecting 12 of them, just grab a handful from this basket right here). HOWEVER, I don't want them to make it possible to complete every leveling zone with one alt during the course of leveling up. It's nice to not have to repeat the same experience every time you level.

Another solution would be to expand the level range for every questing zone. So for an example, say The Barrens was intended for levels 11-13 (I'm pretty positive that's wrong; just an arbitrary number) but you hit level 13 halfway through the zone, making continuing the quest chains illogical due to lower XP gains. So change the Barrens to be for 11-14 or 11-15 and adjust quest XP accordingly. This would essentially kill two birds with one stone. You would make it fun to continue questing in that zone until its end, and you would also give players more routes to take in future leveling situations by decreasing the number of zones you'd have to complete to hit the level cap. So instead of having to go Beginning zone>Barrens>Stonetalon>Ashenvale>yada>yada>yada>Outlands>yada>Northrend>yada>Pandaria, you'd cut out the middle men, it'd be a much shorter sequence of zones. I don't have the information in front of me to make those more accurate unfortunately, but I hope you get my drift. They'd have to adjust some zones up and some down to maintain a choice of questing. So instead of a 68-71, 72-75, 76-79 and 79-80 zone in Northrend, shorten it to 68-73, 74-78, and 79-80 and adjust the others accordingly so you could potentially do just two zones instead of 3 or 4 to get to 79, and you could still end in the logical place for the storyline (in this case, Icecrown). Thoughts?

[notorious98]

*snip*

Thoughts?

That's the great thing about not basing your questing and "leveling" around arbitrary numbers. Since it's the only example I have, I'll keep going back to The Secret World. Since there are no real levels, all of the quests remain worth the same amount they were worth when you first walked into a zone. For example, you could (theoretically) spend your entire time questing in the first real questing area and max out all of your skills and abilities. The amount of XP to gain a skill point or ability point never changes, just the amount of skill points or ability points needed to level up a skill or gain a new ability. Of course, the only real questline is your main questline and that will take you to all different zones, but you get the point.

[Deleted]

The journey that is known as levelling is a core part of the 'RPG'.


Seeing as current MMOs are less and less about the RPG part and more about lobby-based wtfpwnfest, I'm not surprised at the opinions voiced here.

[Venziir]

the key difference is that TSW isn't a game about numbers (which wow and swtor are very good examples of) and doesn't have the issue of "i can't attack that guy because the number over his head is bigger than mine so i will get roflstomped" rather than "he has more depth to him, but it's possible if i'm very good."

Same difference really. If you haven't got enough SP, AP and the right gear, you'll be roflstomped by monsters in zones or instances that you aren't "ready" for.

[Deleted]

Leveling is a huge staple of the traditional MMORPG, I'd hate to see it go - in WoW it's probably what I enjoy most in the first few weeks of the expansion before heroic raiding gets going.

I'm not going to rail on anyone for not liking it - fair enough, can't please everyone, but I do believe that if you play an MMORPG and don't like leveling, then if it's there you should accept that you can't enjoy every aspect and put up with it, rather than asking the game to remove one of it's core elements because you don't like it.

[Blackdecker]

I like leveling like in Mu Online and Priston Tale, where you stay in the same spot for 6 hours, using the same 1~3 aoe skill, to gain 2% of the level. At the same time, i hate leveling like in WoW "Complete these 800 quests and you are on the max level."
MMO's should be about the time you can spent playing. If you can play 5 hours per week and other guy can play 10 hours per week, his character should be stronger than yours.

They should stop with quests and make on epic quest at every X levels and bring back the grind. Much better than "Hey you have 20 quests in your questlog, complete these and come here to get more."

[Xl House lX]

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?

It is the core of every game, earning your dues, learning the game, that is the point of leveling up. Now alts on the other hand are a different story. Leveling up time and time again is pointless and nothing but a big time sink.