The Daily Grind: Do we level too fast?

I don't think we level to fast, but then, each game has their own pace.
For example, Guild Wars catapults you to level 20 quickly because most of the content is at that level. You get fun out of leveling and the enjoyment of learning something new, and then you're surprised, because level 20 is just the tip of the iceberg.

We will hit an extreme of quick leveling and people will stop feeling satisfied and look for a challenge.

The next big thing will be skill based progression worked out so it's not an unbelievable soul sucking grind.

The key will be finding that happy balance. Levels will be a thing of the past soon.

Until leveling, as xBludx said, is replaced by skill-based progression in general, I'd have to say that yes, leveling happens too quickly. There's no point in having several scores levels when half of them are achieved relatively effortlessly.

This came up in the City of Heroes community a couple of years ago, about the time they were rebalancing the level 30-35 stretch, and my opinion hasn't changed since then: "how fast do you level" is the wrong question to be asking. The questions that should be asked instead are, "is there something fun and rewarding to do in the game at all times?" and "how brutal is the difference between early and late leveling speed?"

Question 1 is a killer. If "the real game begins at level (n)," for some value of n > 1, the game sucks, period. If the "real game," the one people are subscribing to play, doesn't start until they've put in some ungodly large number of hours, then you're shooting yourself in the foot as a designer; the best you can hope for is cultivating a rampant culture of cheating so that people cheat their way up to the point where your game is worth subscribing to before they give up, and the worst and more likely thing that will happen is that 99% of your potential subscribers will quit long before they ever see "the real game." That's just as true whether it takes 200 hours to get to "the real game" or 1,200 hours, and it would probably still be true if it only took 4 hours.

The 2nd question flies in the face of conventional wisdom of game design, which says that you give level-ups and rewards every couple of seconds at first to get people hooked, then stretch out the time between rewards after that, eventually going asymptotic at some point to the point where you only have to give them some reward once a month or whatever. Because you've "boiled a frog" on them, because you increase the boredom level slowly, you're hoping they won't notice. You're counting on only having to reward them once a month or whatever when "the real game" starts as a way to keep your development budget under control, as a way to only have to develop new rewards once month. Well, guess what? People do notice the increasing boredom, no matter how slowly you increase it. And you DO NOT want to bore people you're counting on getting a monthly subscription fee from. And that's just as true whether you're slowing down the leveling curve after 100 hours as it is if you do it after 1,000 hours, and probably still true, to at least some extent, when you start doing it at 10 hours.

It's not about the number of hours. It's about the boredom.

EQ was that. The end game was from level 1. The leveling was the game.
Today the games are the end game and everything on the way is boring. Besides Wow maybe with the new cata quests.
Either the game let u just right into end game almost immediately (after small tutorial time - say a week to get familiar with the basics) and stop wasting even dev time on the in between. Or make the leveling it self the end game. but then people get to the top level in 2 weeks.
Overall people didnt like hell levels and thus the first option makes more sense.

As for skill based I agree. that is a better way to go. hind the levels in exp gain towards skills.
BUT have a skill cap - dont allow learning all and allow to get to the first option above ... make it so that a novice player can team with say 3 more friends and do "max" level solo content.

May we stop levelling?
Is there someone that's trying to make a game where levelling is completely removed from the game?
Can we focus on "things to do" more than grinding to increase a "number"?
Can we suffer from alt-itis and still continue to play with friends without having to repeat the grind again and again to reach them?

It really depends on the game. I know with my limited gaming time, it usually took me about 2-3 months to level all the way up in a game like WoW. But a game like STO, only took 3 weeks to reach max level which just lead me to done with their game before the 30 "free" days were even done.

Even in DCUO's beta (this was back in October, things might have changed or could still change) on my limited schedule I was still able to reach level 30 in under 8 days. Granted there was a lot more to do at max level than STO, but it still felt way to quick and like everyone else, I got easily bored with the level 30 "raiding" after the first few times running them to grind for the gear.

if devs put as much effort into low/mid level content with dungeons and raids and quality group content as they do for end game content then I say heck yeah slow leveling down but as long as the "meat" of a game is at the top end then i say level fast.

I believe leveling should be what you to do to learn to play your class/role. How long that takes is completely subjective to the game you are playing.

I think it depends on the game. I like a nice, brisk leveling pace... but in some games (Star Trek Online, for example) it's possible for a relatively casual player to reach max level in two weeks, and if there's nothing really to do except level another character through the same stuff, that's when it becomes a problem.

I do like Imollea's idea, but I have a hard time imagining such a game. I'd sure like to see it, though.

I was thinking about this very idea last night as I explored Enedwaith some more with my wife out here in Middle-earth.

I thought about how much I've enjoyed this latest zone at the level cap because I feel free to explore to engage different parts of the zone at my leisure, rather than feeling that need to complete every quest at hub A before moving on to hub B, and so on.

However, I like leveling up. I like the little pat on the back, accomplished feeling when I hit that next number. But it's also apparent that leveling should be a secondary reward to playing the actual game. For MMOs this means an immersive world, interesting stories, and fun situations to fight through. My best moments in MMOs have come when I realize that I had broken through to the next level or completed a "dungeon" and hardly realized it because I was so engaged in the scenario at hand.

So keep the leveling, but make me want to level and not even know it. Remember, these are roleplaying games and that means growing your character, gaining skills and power while taking part in a fictional world. Otherwise it's just an "online" game.

No I have never leveled to fast in an mmo so far.... have leveled too slowly in a couple though, which generaly made leveling more of a chore then a gameplay experience.

As a general rule I think I should always be able to make at least one level every 4 hours of playtime. If I spend four hours in a game and am the same level when I log out as I logged in and not already at the cap I feel dissapointed that my time spent was so unproductive. Lower levels should naturally come faster of course.

Is "we" the 6+ hour a day every day player, or the 3-4 hours a week player, or somewhere in-between?