Is levelling in MMO's a tired old system than needs to go?

[beanman12345]

If your definition of RPG is just the math aspect of it, sure; but at that point why bother with Video Games? play DnD and be done with it. Far more modularity and content in that than any RPG in existence.

Leveling is literally an artificial gating mechanic; it serves no purpose if the main goal is endgame content. If leveling is the core aspect of the game and the journey is what matters, then the endgame is irrelevant because its the end of the game. A new game gets started in its place to repeat the core leveling loop.

MMO's don't have the luxury of the latter, they need to perpetually exist to promote end game content; as a result non level cap content is made irrelevant every time. Wasting a majority of the game's content on a single one & done chore is outright bad design for any game, especially an RPG designed for level cap content specifically.

The only alternative is to find a different progression design that doesn't need leveling to progress the character. Otherwise MMO's create power creep indefinitely. Or did you enjoy having your level cut back to 60 and item level reduced back to wrath levels because stats became exponentially impossible for WoW's engine to even handle anymore?

Uhhh why would I "just play dnd and be done with it," when I can enjoy RPG's video games just fine with all their leveling glory, and have been since they've been a thing. I'm perfectly fine, RPG's just don't seem to be for you.

[cparle87]

The old moral was, the real journey in an MMO was the levelling experience the journey to get there. Now days its all about getting there as fast as possible no one wants to level, its 'gotta get there, gotta get the gear, gotta go fast, gotta see that max level stuff'.

You feel levelling just needs to go or be replaced with something else? You feel like the gaming sphere has just moved on?

So how do you propose power and secondary stat resets each expansion? Right now the amount of stat needed to get 1% increases per level which is how they do it. Do we all have our gear turned back into baseline greens each launch day and re-earn our way back up?

[beanman12345]

People bring up the "It's an RPG" thing a lot, but grinding for levels specifically as a gating process is pretty unique to MMOs. It was never a thing in RPGs, and rare in cRPGs. It wasn't until MMOs came along that the idea of grinding out thousands of enemies in a single spot for hours to go through a large number of levels was really introduced. (Or blowing through hundreds of fetch quests to get to the next area)

I would say that peoples very idea of what an "RPG" is has been heavily skewed by MMO's implementation of RPG mechanics.

I'm not saying that the implantation of leveling is the best in every game, or every MMO, but without leveling it's not an RPG. There are plenty of non RPG's peep's can enjoy, like Metroid was given as an example... Heck Metroid is even one of my fav series.

[McNeil]

I think the issue with the leveling system is that it doesn't evolve fast enough. It started out with just grindy ''collect 10 bear asses'' and traveling all over the world. Then we got more quests involving using certain mechanics like cannons and catapults, assisting NPC's while they do shit, more dialogue driven, more dynamic changes to areas. The latter is basically what we got in 2010 and it feels like it hasn't evolved since, the only thing they do extra is an occasionaly cinematic which WoW doesn't even do right most of the time due to their engine not doing animations well to make it look good. A game like Witcher 3 does this really well though and it adds to the experience immensly.

I do find questing to be an important part for any RPG which is supposedly to deliver you a social, narrative and helpful experience to also teach your class for when you get to the endgame. When I started in vanilla WoW I found most of my friends due to questing, learned my class and we ended up raiding together. So the leveling experience played a necessary part to build up my character and relationship with other players.

[beanman12345]

The concept of "leveling" is not a requisite for something being an RPG.

Yeah, it really is. And i'm not gonna argue this "it's just playing a role" yeah go play metroid than.

[Couchpotato2013]

No i think games like WoW have ruined peoples idea of mmos so everything but the endgame doesn't matter. Its trained people to treat mmo rpgs like live service looters with mechanics lifted from mobile games rather than rpgs. If the world and the journey doesnt matter you don't want mmorpgs. You want Destiny.

So long as there is no penalty (gear/exp) for death in major rpg games, leveling will always be a ritualistic chore and never be viewed as part as the main game.

And since devs know they can never sell a game that lets you lose exp in an rpg (sans hardcore deaths like ARPGs) to the masses (even before you factor in varying degrees of cash shop implementation) that will never come to pass.

[Kyphael]

Might as well, especially after the Shadowlands level squish in WoW. It killed it for me. The idea of leveling all my toons back up through 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120 over the next however many years seems insane. I know the numbers are arbitrary, but let's be honest here, the story and content isn't good enough to ignore that fact. It's like groundhog day. Which is why I unsubbed and only re-subbed with gold to burn through all the gold I have left. Even as a part-time WoW player, I think I'm finally done.

[Very Tired]

Honestly seems like the same mistake Blizzard makes allocating their resources each expansion. A ton of effort goes into making all the quests at the start designed to get the players up to the new max level, which most players burn through in less than a week after launch...

Meanwhile the places the most players spend the most amount of time get mere crumbs by comparison. Some dungeons that are meant to last them until the next expansion, a raid every half year or so, and maybe a new BG or arena.

[Couchpotato2013]

Might as well, especially after the Shadowlands level squish in WoW. It killed it for me. The idea of leveling all my toons back up through 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120 over the next however many years seems insane. I know the numbers are arbitrary, but let's be honest here, the story and content isn't good enough to ignore that fact. It's like groundhog day. Which is why I unsubbed and only re-subbed with gold to burn through all the gold I have left. Even as a part-time WoW player, I think I'm finally done.

Tbh, I think there is a rather high chance we will remain at 60. And the usual routine time to reach level cap of expansions past will be filled with a mandatory questline. Then from there, they’ll put shadowlands into the 1/10-50 level bracket. And if you happen to be between 50-60 when the new expansion drops you’ll continue to earn exp and will reach 60 before the final quest is done (just as if a fresh character were start 10.0 at 50).

And as a side note, I really do think the maw was a testing ground for rpg elements they may have wanted to put into 10.0. Namely penalty for death. However dying in the maw and not being able to get your stuff back because of bugs and activity level in the zone are likely the lowest any end game zone has ever had ever. And I would hope they don’t put that type of gameplay into the next expansion.

Honestly seems like the same mistake Blizzard makes allocating their resources each expansion. A ton of effort goes into making all the quests at the start designed to get the players up to the new max level, which most players burn through in less than a week after launch...

Meanwhile the places the most players spend the most amount of time get mere crumbs by comparison. Some dungeons that are meant to last them until the next expansion, a raid every half year or so, and maybe a new BG or arena.

It really does feel like a waste. However (and everyone whines about this), level scaling actually has been a godsend to make all areas in the new expansion useful. Otherwise like in legion we would have had only suramar as valid zone to spend in with logically 1-3 small spots near the raids in the four other zones having 110. That makes for such a pittance of content and I am happy with the alternative we got.

However I will say ilvl scaling introduced with 7.2, needs to go. This ever scaling with us throughout the expansion kills progression and is an obvious retention mechanism to go beyond being thrifty with zone/asset usage and jumps into frugal. If blizzard wants us to not mow mobs down they need more elite everywhere and set mobs up needing groups at launch with gear from pvp/m+/crafting/raid to progressively nerf the overworld mobs.

[PACOX]

So how do you propose power and secondary stat resets each expansion? Right now the amount of stat needed to get 1% increases per level which is how they do it. Do we all have our gear turned back into baseline greens each launch day and re-earn our way back up?

That's been solved by a number of games. Whether you like it or not depends on your preferences. Just eliminate equipment tiers. You can add new abilities, mechanics, and challenges without relying on gating content with stats. Stats are meaningless if they constantly lose value anyway.

[Forgottenone]

The old moral was, the real journey in an MMO was the levelling experience the journey to get there. Now days its all about getting there as fast as possible no one wants to level, its 'gotta get there, gotta get the gear, gotta go fast, gotta see that max level stuff'.

You feel levelling just needs to go or be replaced with something else? You feel like the gaming sphere has just moved on?

Nope, leveling should always remain. Instead a goal should be chosen for leveling, so say the goal is 1-60 in 100 hours. Then when a level cap is raised then 1-70 should take about 100 hours, with levels 1-60 being reduced a lot more and letting 60-70 be a normal 24 hours worth of leveling or so. Then when the cap is 80 levels 1-70 should take a lot less with 70-80 taking about 24 hours worth of leveling.

Essentially old content should be faster and faster to burn through. Especially if the story is compelling, then leveling should definitely stay.

[Berndorf]

Super high level caps never made any sense to me at all. I don't think any mmo needs a level cap higher than about 20 but I would like to see one try about 12-15 to start with. It's just that gaming companies outside of the original guild wars never had the balls to do away with the absurdly high level caps which tend to get higher with each expansion they release. I think that character progression and class design both work much better with lower level caps.

[cparle87]

That's been solved by a number of games. Whether you like it or not depends on your preferences. Just eliminate equipment tiers. You can add new abilities, mechanics, and challenges without relying on gating content with stats. Stats are meaningless if they constantly lose value anyway.

Are any of those RPGs? Cause I know the "WoW isn't even an RPG anymore cause they've removed so many RPG features!" Sounds to me like you're describing MOBAs and other arena type games.

[schwarzkopf]

Far from it - levelling is the best part, it is the only non repetitive part of the game. They need to expand on it.

The things that are tired are the repetitive things like raiding.

[Orby]

So how do you propose power and secondary stat resets each expansion? Right now the amount of stat needed to get 1% increases per level which is how they do it. Do we all have our gear turned back into baseline greens each launch day and re-earn our way back up?

I dunno, I like levelling. But the general thing I am seeing now is people wanna rush past the leveling phase and get to the end content. The way people level these days makes me think the structure of levelling may need to change if people are just going to use it as something to whizz past and not immerse themselves in. I don't have the solution, thats why I brought it up for discussion

[sam86]

no /10 char

[Daedius]

No it's not. Most MMORPGs use a rule set from D&D, leveling is a core part of RPGs for the past 5 decades.

Don't like leveling? Play something else... there's loads of action oriented games at your disposal that don't involve leveling.

[SirCowdog]

Leveling itself? No.

Leveling followed by a bait and switch to an entirely different game dynamic at level cap: Yes.

WoW is probably the worst for this, since leveling serves almost no purpose at all. Power increases specific to an expansion could be simply and easily replaced by unlocking them through story progression rather than artificial level increases. The end-game power progression mechanics could then be implemented from the moment you start the expansion instead of wasting dev and player time on a pointless "leveling" experience.

The problem is that most MMOs follow the same formula without actually thinking about WHY they're doing it. Levels themselves could serve much more of a purpose than just an artificial mark of where you're at in the story progression of zones. They could serve as lateral progression to unlock new variations on existing skills. "End game" gameplay could instead be the entirety of the game from the beginning.

Levels should be an integral part of the end-game systems, not a barrier you have to deal with before even beginning those systems.

[Lolites]

People bring up the "It's an RPG" thing a lot, but grinding for levels specifically as a gating process is pretty unique to MMOs.

and people bringing "its an RPG" thing doesnt mention gating at all (even though no, MMOs are not first or only one doing that by far), just that leveling is a part of RPGs since their begining, and that is true...

- - - Updated - - -

The concept of "leveling" is not a requisite for something being an RPG.

it kinda is, you increase your level and/or stats to be able to use better gear and fight stronger oponents, thats kinda core of RPG...

[Pakheth]

There are more people that buy the expansion pack and level up a character then get bored in endgame and stop playing than people that are all about the end game experience.

On the other hand I understand that there are a lot of players that hate leveling and just want to go straight to end game, there are also a lot of people that don't like the idea of grouping up but they want gear progression so what do you say to them?. You say tough it out and earn the gear through the grind or leave, welcome to the trades we make in an mmo.

As for immersion; if you want immersion, watch a movie or cinematic or play a single player game because any long grind in an mmo or killing a boss after 100 attempts or pretty much any multi player game where people can be trolls or have a unique modern personality breaks immersion.

This. All of this.