Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Snugglebutt]

Right, so not long enough to understand why leveling potions were needed for that game, but just enough to have an opinion and a knee jerk reaction. They were needed there, not necessarily needed here (yet).

Level skip potions did not solve WoW's problems, it added to them. You imply 4 years is not enough time to have a valid opinion on this so let me ask you what arbitrary number do you think is enough and how long did you play it for? Adding such a feature to this game will do more harm than good, just because there will always be a few people who want shortcuts to fulfill their desire for instant gratification does not mean they should always get them and in this case regarding level skip potions they should not. As shown by how much opposition there is to this in here, SE should take note and not head down that path.

[Talligan]

Level skip potions did not solve WoW's problems, it added to them. You imply 4 years is not enough time to have a valid opinion on this so let me ask you what arbitrary number do you think is enough and how long did you play it for?

As I explained in an above post: The level skip potions were implemented after vanilla+4 expansions, 90 levels, and around 10+ years of being an mmo. During that time people had leveled up many, many characters through that same content a ton of times. So much so, that for Blizzard to introduce a new class they had to give people a way to skip that content for the umpteenth time so they could quickly get to the new content on a new class - a better, fresher experience to keep them playing and paying. It was one of their better decisions for WoD actually. And by the time you played 90-100 to get to end game you had learned all your abilities anyways.

[TankHunter678]

It was one of their better decisions for WoD actually.

As denoted by them losing 50% of their subscribers only 3 months into the expansion? Cause you could hit level cap in a few hours to a couple days and see everything and have nothing left to do besides facebook garrisons in a week flat.

People complain about how empty and lifeless the world is in WoW. Cause every new player gets to skip that world to go right to the latest expac zone where they then get bored and leave the game within a week of playtime. If they stick around and make an alt they get to see the world for the first 15 levels, then they go sit in their faction city and run dungeons till they hit the level cap. Then they leave because there is nothing to do at level cap besides raid.

[Talligan]

As denoted by them losing 50% of their subscribers only 3 months into the expansion? Cause you could hit level cap in a few hours to a couple days and see everything and have nothing left to do besides facebook garrisons in a week flat.

People complain about how empty and lifeless the world is in WoW. Cause every new player gets to skip that world to go right to the latest expac zone where they then get bored and leave the game within a week of playtime. If they stick around and make an alt they get to see the world for the first 15 levels, then they go sit in their faction city and run dungeons till they hit the level cap. Then they leave because there is nothing to do at level cap besides raid.

That was the primary issue that lead to sub loss.

[TankHunter678]

That was the primary issue that lead to sub loss.

And its also a serious problem here. There is a lack of content to do at level cap besides things connected to raiding. What helps pad the game out is the need to level certain classes up for specific cross-class skills needed for raiding.

Should we really replicate a problem that makes another problem even worse?

[Lorielle]

And its also a serious problem here. There is a lack of content to do at level cap besides things connected to raiding. What helps pad the game out is the need to level certain classes up for specific cross-class skills needed for raiding.

Should we really replicate a problem that makes another problem even worse?

And I've been pretty much going around the forum echoing this. While everyone's focused on exclusive items, housing, glamours, etc. This game is dying in actual content, losing its subscribers because of lacking world. Lacking immersion. Lacking meaningful content. Interesting ideas, but they won't last for more than a week. The content we get is literally something we do for like a week and then are like "K. That's boring. Now what?" Palace of the Dead is literally going to be a Glamour reward(will probably be sellable and thus killing off a playerbase of actually running the thing in the first place). Meanwhile we get maybe another dungeon or two, more tome caps, more gear to be bought with tomes, etc. The endless hamster wheel we've been on since 2.0.

I'm literally tired of some people just being so freaking lazy when it comes to MMOs. Actually work for your reward. Learn. Evolve. You will find more enjoyment if things actually are earned(Also if they actually last for more than just one patch...COUGHRELICCOUGH). There's plenty of issues, but here we are.

But on topic, this level skipping junk is stupid. The game is EASY to level up in. It doesn't even take that long. People are mentioning it takes time to play with your friends and raid with them...have you friends help you out from the get go. Let them help you experience a world that is supposed to be beautiful. Freaking interact with each other. Cause god forbid we have a community that actually wants to interact with each other. No. Why do that when we can just do everything from within our rooms.

/rant

[mirta000]

Lacking meaningful content. Interesting ideas, but they won't last for more than a week. The content we get is literally something we do for like a week and then are like "K. That's boring. Now what?" Palace of the Dead is literally going to be a Glamour reward(will probably be sellable and thus killing off a playerbase of actually running the thing in the first place). Meanwhile we get maybe another dungeon or two, more tome caps, more gear to be bought with tomes, etc. The endless hamster wheel we've been on since 2.0.

The thing is, if you're going to critique everything they make, it would be nice if you would suggest what they could make instead. Because while I understand the complaint, I can not point a finger at an MMO that does anything better or different. As for Palace of The Dead, I think I would run it without the reward. It reminds me of GW2's fractals and honestly I would love to relive something similar here

[RiceisNice]

Judah_Brandt explained the reasons why saying "there already unskilled players so it doesn't matter" is not the right way to go about this quite well so there isn't much need to explain my point of view beyond this.

You and Judah missed my point. I'm saying that its not going to increase the amount of bad players because of the level jump, but rather its going to occur for the same reason it's occurring now. The jump in mind isn't going to straight up drop you off at level 50 or 60 (with a 70 cap), but rather have a series of introduction quests where it introduces your job abilties. How long do you genuinely think it takes to understand the foundations of positionals, 1-2-3 combos, and job mechanics with an npc and tool tips explaining it to you? What exactly are you expecting in a EX roulette, because there is a huge difference between someone who doesn't understand basic gameplay mechanics (and deals sub 400 dps at i220) and those who do but don't optimize it (which would hover around 800 for example)

entire kit dumped on me over like, 4 quests. with no pseudo flowchart and nothing but tooltips to go off of. I had an ability book list of all my abilities, I had talents I could select, and that was it.

So I wound up just hitting buttons, and hit the buttons that light up. Carried me through dungeons (when bear tanks were not soloing the dungeon for me), carried me through the open world.

You're not looking hard enough, there's literally a tab in your spellbook that shows your core abilties, recommended usage and when/how to use it.
The interface is all there, and you can always click the exclamation mark for more information on skill setup. This is no different from FFXIV where you read your abilities as you gain them.

As denoted by them losing 50% of their subscribers only 3 months into the expansion? Cause you could hit level cap in a few hours to a couple days and see everything and have nothing left to do besides facebook garrisons in a week flat.
... Then they leave because there is nothing to do at level cap besides raid.

You even mentioned it yourself that people leave because there's nothing to do at level cap. That and a level boost are not mutually exclusive to each other.

Again, I'm not advocating for a level boost as of now, it's far too soon into the game's life for it to be necessary. However I feel taht they do need to trim down the fluff on the MSQ, because that;s ultimately the bottleneck to how fast you can progress, not your level. Though alot of the reasons people keep saying it's a bad idea just doesn't make sense provided that the boost is properly done, nor do people acutally understand why WoW blundered as bad as it did (and its not because of the level boost, I can tell you that right now considering I've played my fair share of it).

[The_Last_Dragoon]

snip

Unfortunately Rice, not only are you dumping a lot of programming onto SE by saying that they'd have to pump out ~30 min tutorial for each class along with the level jump, but you are defeating yourself through your own logic. Sure, the bad players that are already trickling through to the lv60 content would be there regardless of a level skip, but I've known quite a few players who learned a lot during their climb to lv50. A 30 min tutorial will not prepare a player to think on their feet and respond with the same experience that someone who has been playing the class for 50 or 60 levels beforehand has. As I stated much earlier in this thread, I do approve of them skipping the Patch storylines and letting new players opt for a recap cinematic instead, but I DO NOT approve of any skipping of the MSQ. This means that I hope that they never implement a level skip, though I would approve of something with "Recruit a Friend" giving a major experience boost (Pretty much as if that player had the Armory bonus for their first class) as long as you are in a party with the friend that recruited you.

[RiceisNice]

Unfortunately Rice, not only are you dumping a lot of programming onto SE by saying that they'd have to pump out ~30 min tutorial for each class along with the level jump,

That's on them if they want to make something to work positively for a change. Everytime they try to cut corners with designs it's always turned out terrible, things like WM and diadem are perfect examples of that.

but you are defeating yourself through your own logic. Sure, the bad players that are already trickling through to the lv60 content would be there regardless of a level skip, but I've known quite a few players who learned a lot during their climb to lv50. A 30 min tutorial will not prepare a player to think on their feet and respond with the same experience that someone who has been playing the class for 50 or 60 levels beforehand has.

Again, how long do you genuinely think it takes to grasp the concept of a 1-2-3 combo without anything more than the ingame hints and tooltips? How about NPCs describing it throughout the way? Sorry if I'm overestimating the average player's competency, but it's not that foreign of a concept for a game, especially with skill highlights. For most classes they don't even get their third hit combo until level 26. Nor is there any resemblance of "thinking of your feet" when it comes to playing your class because its almost entirely rotational, the few exceptions which don't actually happen until post 52 (and in this case, we're not boosting them to cap in the first place, but somewhere around like level 50 on one job). Likewise with dungeons, with their habit of undertuning the mechanics, not to mention as something as telegraphed aoes should be a universal knowledge after the first time you see one in the open world.

As I stated much earlier in this thread, I do approve of them skipping the Patch storylines and letting new players opt for a recap cinematic instead, but I DO NOT approve of any skipping of the MSQ. This means that I hope that they never implement a level skip, though I would approve of something with "Recruit a Friend" giving a major experience boost (Pretty much as if that player had the Armory bonus for their first class) as long as you are in a party with the friend that recruited you.

The MSQ thing is so integral to the plot that you possibly can't skip it without breaking the lore, even job quests are tied to it. This is the primary difference between a boost here vs WoW. However, if the game does last long enough to have a rather high level cap (and consequently, loads and loads of MSQ), the option should be available for people to get straight into the new expansion with friends/personal experience if they so desire, and catch up on the lore via supplemental materials.