A Guildleve Revision Idea

[Shurrikhan]

I doubt anyone would dislike the content you're suggesting here, but just consider how those developed assets would be best introduced or showcased? Even were "leves" to be divorced from the idea of the banal repeatable content they are presently, it is worth taking the idea of a "Siege" and putting it instead into an "Ambition leve"? Which do you think would stand out more at a glance in a development road-map? What would be the context for these developments? Into what expansion would they fit, with what surrounding themes?

Many of these leve ideas seem better fit for world events, Courage, Ambition, and Charity especially, or just open world content in general or by slight revisions to original DoW/DoL leves or other hub events (especially Benevolence and Contentment). Others feel like they ought to be mini-games brought in during future MSQ (see Equity). Leves like Prudence sound both too involved and haphazard, without any grounding and oddly devoid of choice before ultimately turning into just another killing field. And finally, your journey and open battle leves do seem wholly overambitious for the near future (meaning, until at least 5.0, as well as I can guess); as much as I would love to play them, we've seen no appreciable output from map auto-generation so far and parading huge armies (by the sounds of it larger than Secure) over destructible/construct-able open battlefields is going to take some serious modifications (I hope to the rendering, not to the player count, but the latter is an issue in itself).

Others though I think are great. I would LOVE to see leves no longer quite so distinguished only by type (DoW/M, DoL, DoH), but instead work together for certain leves distinguished more by type, or hopefully best known outright by their actual names. I'd also like them to primarily be group content, even if that might end up requiring DF at most hours. Tenacity leves remind me of the old 8-man Missions in 1.x., while I also like the idea of a Valor's party-personal hunt, as long as that process itself is interesting. But this probably best represented by the Hability escort leve (though this title seems off, as that's basically just a silent h before "ability", together meaning "expertness" or... "capability") and especially the Industry leves. The Benevolence and Contentment leves are similarly good examples, but I'd recommend some slight adjustments, then—make them multi-objective, making use of all three Disciple types, such as DoHs repairing both from safety and out in the field, DoLs salvaging raw materials from otherwise unusable bits, and DoW/M salvaging the restorable bits and covering the others in Benevolence, and DoW/M, DoL, and DoH all competing individually and by type to essentially gather or refine as much food as possible within the time limit in Contentment. To some extent, that advice can be similarly applied to all of the above leve types.

Others seem of no real note. Justice (mediocre title), Temperance (poorly named, imo), Wisdom, and Munificence (well named) leves are standard the kill and collection leves that make up most of what we already have by way of leves. Piety is simply a fishing leve, while Sympathy is likewise far too general a title to be rightly limited to fish. Promptitude, like Charity, has no real interaction with the Disciple in use, and therefore sounds more like a daily faction quest. The Service leve smacks of more MSQ courier work. And finally, I feel that Truth leves' trivia components would default simply to one's browser for answers, and has no real place in a reward system. The Wit leve, if anything, should just be an alternate control system used for certain quests, or with companion NPCs.

That's about the whole of my thoughts, be them of any use to you. A lot of work clearly went in to this, so I'd hate to let it just fade out with no feedback.

If I might append an afternote, my chief advice would be to focus on the archetypal stories behind the leves, rather than their gameplay types. The gameplay behind each should be fun, and ultimately you may want additional text that acknowledges, tongue in cheek or in all seriousness, the repetition of its content, but try to make each named ("greater") leve feel like its own thing. Repeat types as needed, but be focused more on the leves themselves. They don't all have to be spammable content when released in quality. It's probably not something development would be willing to fund, but with the perfect excuse, it may become a logical choice — for instance, an expansion with a focus on paradox, or expounding on or broadening the primal concept, so that archetypes and bits of folklore everywhere are starting to incarnate themselves, myth as reality, story as fact, what have you.