Powerleveling Revisited

[Fensfield]

Overall I just don't understand the mindset of "power level is evil", all I see is a shortcut to the fun stuff.

If being able to sit AFK while a high level friend runs back and forth killing mobs for fifteen hours is better than playing the pre-endgame game, then the pre-endgame game needs to suck less.

Just going to quote these because... well.

If the parts of the game you'd be experiencing on your way to level 50 are not fun, then something is very, very wrong.

Now, me? I enjoy the progression aspect and have little to no interest in endgame. I take play slow, I level with friends or just hang out with them.. but I cannot understand how people can possibly justify the 'rush through levelling to get the fun stuff' mindset.

Powerlevelling, I do not disagree with, but in my opinion? It should be a conscious choice to miss out on the fun in what should be the vast majority of the game to get to a particular aspect faster, not because everything mid-game isn't fun. Now, maybe it's not fun for you, and that's fine, but there is very little more poisonous than when this mindset infects the developers and they start building their content with 'The game starts at cap' in mind.

There always, always needs just as much to be implemented for pre-endgame as there is for endgame. Because you know what a game is that only has endgame players? It's a game that's either has no new players and is desperately trying to retain those it still has, or whose ongoing development is ignoring new players, and either way it'll soon be dead in the water.

That aside, it's not EVE's classless Skill Point system, with its ability to involve new players in most any aspect of the game inside a few weeks (to a degree) and simply flesh out from there, but Final Fantasy XIV's Armoury System still has the advantage of enabling players to experience varied-challenge content because they can become low level again (I believe that was also an advantage of XI's level syncing? I've never really played it). Anyway, one way or another that's certainly one reason why there should be just as much expansion at all tiers of progression throughout the game's ongoing development.

So.. well, yeah. That's my angle; PL shouldn't be closely restricted but people that use it ought be really missing out, significantly more than those who don't, and that's achieved fairly easily by adding just as much content for all progression tiers rather than focusing on adding 'end-game' stuff. Meanwhile any harm that outlook could do should be mitigated by the advantages of the Armoury System and/or something like Level Sync should such a system be added at some point in the future.