Levelling in ARR

[Seraphe]

Pardon me but I can't figure out what you mean by IP. Would you mind explaining?

[Zumi]

Intellectual property, Like the Final Fantasy series, Warcraft, Star Wars, ect.

[Seraphe]

Thank you. Makes sense now.

[stanleyyoung]

honestly for me i really don't prefer only one type of leveling to another ie: solo questing, leves, FATE system, behest, escort, dungeons, exp mob grind parties, etc etc. What im looking for is a good balance between them all because at the end of the day which ever you do "a grind is a grind" no matter how you look at it which has been said over and over from you guys in all these types of threads. If SE could have them all pretty much on par with each other rewarding almost the same exp but have some variables that can boost how much more they can get ie: ideal camp location, ideal party set up, skilled players, well geared ppl, all camp locations unlocked, etc etc. Really i personally would like it if it were balanced to the point where its either personal preference or your just tired of doing the same over and over again thus choosing which type of grind you wanna do not just doing the one that's the best. Because it doesn't matter which one SE will mainly focus on each one of them has pro's and con's for the short and long run so having a select one is not really the way to go.

What i don't want to happen in ARR is that anyone of those becomes a primary/only efficient source to leveling , because then whether you like it or not it forces you to only level that set way. yes you could level a different way but lets be honest ppl why the hell would you level in a less efficient way: for the shit and giggles or you are too stubborn to go with what is best or for some other damn reason you have. If exp mob grind party is the best why in the world would you level by quest or leves when they give less exp or vice versa when leves & quest give more exp then the mob grind does(and be honest to yourself)

my main concern for ARR is that it will be too easy/short to get max level not just necessarily the way you have to grind & progress to get their. i want the feeling back that i had in XI when you would see high level person and say: damn that person is good , then further finding out they had X amount of jobs at cap too thus making them even more badass. And before someone says you can be at a high level and still suck, i know that ppl can be at a high level and still be bad so no need to say high level always= good player. but i just would really like to have that feeling back since in 1.0 especially once we had strongholds, exp chain, food bonus, etc etc it was way too easy in my opinion to get max level.

In all honesty i would like to see at level 30 the amount of exp you need to level is vastly greater then the previous levels, which will only get bigger and bigger as you go higher so in a sense we hit that brick wall and will have a long climb ahead to get over it. Its sucks when everyone has everything at 50 DOW & DOM wise because then its really isn't an achievement when ppl go he, she, you, & me are all at 50 why are you trying to make it seem like something special and trying to show your E-Peen. Im not trying to say no one should have everything maxed out but when i look back at XI ppl mainly had jobs capped that were their main and any jobs that further enhanced it or complimented it and that had gear that was interchangeable between them etc etc.

[Arcell]

Still dont remember him saying that but that dosent mean it didnt happen. If thats the case then maybe thats what behests, Hamlet defense, and LeveQuest linking is for. That all includes a party and give you focus instead of the static usual boring mob grind.

EDIT: That was my beef with party mob grinding in the first place. I would rather have a reason to be doing it aside from just gaining exp. Maybe thats why i liked quests so much, even if it was a pathetic excuse at least there was one. "farmer bob has slimes eatin' his crops, can you kill 6 of 'em and bring me back the jelly?" just do the same thing for Party mob grinding. "This hamlet is under attack! Protect it! Here comes wave 1/10 BRACE YOURSELVES!"

It's because he didn't say that, to my knowledge at least. He said that questing would be a good way of gaining XP, he never said it would be the one and only true optimal way of leveling. Quests run out eventually, what then?

There will be other ways to gain XP viably. If you do the dungeons at the appropriate level (with others of the appropriate level) you should be able to level just fine. Worked in 1.0, with the added benefit of getting seals from duplicate drops. Only reason no one ever did it is because party grinds gave WAY more XP than anything else (in 1.0).

Means of gaining XP in 2.0 are: quests, dungeons, F.A.T.E., grind party, leves and the various main scenarios. Questing might be a fast way but, as I mentioned before, there are only so many quests. Eventually they'll run out and you'll have to do something else.

Because we haven't experienced this first-hand (other MMOs don't count), we should chill. I mean yeah if the ONLY viable way of leveling is questing then we have a problem, I don't see that being the case though. Wait for beta, actually experience it THEN give feedback.

[AlexNiculaie]

He didn't say that. He said that Quests/FATEs/Dungeons would be primary, but that you could still level in xp parties. XP parties just won't be the most efficient.

[Ksenia]

we pretty much know how it will work. Exactly the same way as every other WoW like MMO. And in my mind this is a killer for Grinder type of players.I 100% agree with this post. Questing is something fun, but when its the only or best way to level its kinda kill the game immersion. Good for solo'er but after 300 quest in row its turn Totally boring :/

It's the biggest show stopper for me in LotRO. Quest rails, mandatory. I've tried a dozen different ways to open world level in that game. It just takes too bloody long. I don't care if they make me gear for it, I'd applaud that. An OW gear set or foods with stats that cripple you in a dungeon or quest but buff and give you ranger ability to just roam.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I've heard from some people that crafting is a lot easier in ARR. We do have that Alpha video of crafting and it showed how the new process is. My crafting classes are low, so these new methods of crafting should really bring me up to speed in ARR. It was way too tedious in 1.0 for crafting, so I'm hoping it'll be easier in ARR. Oh, and the gathering looks easier, too! I'm not sure if you guys were ever going to talk about either crafting and gathering classes with grinding or any forms of quests, but I am sure that gathering will be much better and easier to do, too

[Destinova]

Make a lot of the quests scalable by the size of the group you are in!!

[Xatsh]

IF XP partys is not as efficient as questing then it is NOT an option at all. The if you like that style you can still do it does not fly. Would be like having quest only reward 50-100xp per completion all the way to cap. IF there is enough quest you can still do them to cap.... but who would it is not effective.

Forced solo leveling / dungeon grinding is what is killing this mmo genre. FATE (GW2) style content is ok for a break but it is also not something that can be focused on. It simply gets mind numbingly boring.

SE needs to 1 of 2 things.

1) Make group grinding worthwhile. This is the easiest fix and causes no harm to any solo quest or other content. They have absolutely no reason to screw over the XI fans when it literally has no side effects of keeping this style of leveling. This honestly does not even involve more coding. Honestly this is a big middle finger to anyone who is not a casual or anyone who wants to level from 1 to cap in a party.

2) Make all quest sharable. Meaning same rewards but with a group you obviously can do them quicker so more xp/hr. Example if one player picks up an item from mob needed for the quest all players in the party get it. (just have to prevent pwrlvling with this). Leve sharing alone is not acceptable because there is a limit to them. If all quest can be done in a party then this will also work. (No mmo to date does this effectivly, solo is always more efficient)

Grouping in dungeons/instances as the only group based content is simply not acceptable in a mmo. Fate (Gw2 style content) is not grouping it is 2+ people soloing together.

WoW is a great game, but this forced Solo style mmo needs to die and never be resurrected in the genre again. It is the 1 aspect of WoW that is killing all mmos.

Yoshida thinks he is making the right move removing this. As players and, for most, future testers we need to voice our opinions to convince him to give us a choice to solo or play in partys in the open world. This IS A GAME BREAKING ELEMENT TO MANY PLAYERS, especially to XI ones... the dedicated ones who played another SE game for 5+ yrs who will just write this off as another fail wow clone solo mmo. This is not new content that needs to be added, this is a simple forumula so the time to address this in terms of development is really small, but the effect is really major. There is a reason the community cheered in version 1 when party xp was added to the game outside quest a huge part of the SE fan base wants the option to do it.