The Daily Grind: Do you rush to endgame?

@Lenn
agreed 100%
and a no for me as well

@Lenn

While I don't rush to end-game, leveling in most current MMOs is mostly a single player game. Even if there is an incentive to group together, the player spread across all levels - coupled with character progression, which often removes the challenge/fun when teaming with a different level character - means it often takes too long to find someone to team up with even if both players are actively looking to group.

In other words, group play really starts when everyone is at a similar power level. And players often are only at a similar power level when they are at the current end game (it's not even just max level; a lv85 WoW character in the max level gear he gets from leveling - before starting to grind dailies/instances - is not really viable for the current end-game, where most grouping happens).

The main way I see to break this is to remove, or drastically reduce, power progression from characters. In a way, turn the whole game (or most of it) into end game. It's what GW does, to great effect, but would obviously require great changes to the whole reward system of almost every other MMO.

@Lenn +1 but I add a bit of my own to that. I procastrinate a lot in MMOs wasting time doing just nothing that makes me level but all that "other stuff" that is there, too. Like chatting, browsing AH for bargains, exploring, enjoying graphics and vistas for screenshots, socializing, just... anything that does not envolve XP. One game excellent for this kind of relax was SWG :''(

@DarkWalker Yeah, thats it exactly. I rush to the end to I can play with my friends, essentially. Also, I dont like how "non-rushers" seem to think they appreciate the game more - when in fact, they are just taking longer. That's it. A person who rushes to end game appreciates the game just as much.

@Stanimir

In most current MMOs, leveling and end game are completely different experiences. Some players like one better than the other; I prefer the leveling part myself (at least until I have done every single quest or challenge the game has to offer; most MMOs don't really have replay value).

So, there is no single "best" or "true" way to play. If someone likes the end game but don't really like leveling, he is better served by rushing (in fact, I actually think MMOs should offer a way to start at the end game, at least for players that have already reached the end game on their own before, but this is a bit too controversial for many players).

By the same token, some players have no, or limited, interest in the end game. They are better served by taking their time while leveling.

Unfortunately, the leveling experience and the end-game experience are often mutually exclusive, at least on a single character. A leveling character simply is not able to play the end game; an end game character has all the challenge stripped out of the leveling part, which often renders it boring.

What I would prefer would be a MMO that allowed players to mix both kinds of experience with the same character, but those games are quite rare. One of them, in a fashion, is GW; characters reach the power pinnacle so early, they still have ahead of them most of what would be "leveling" content in other MMOs, but are already able to play end game content. Another is going to be GW2, thanks to their idea of reducing character power level to something appropriate to the zone it is in (so a max level character going back to a lv10 zone gets thrown back to a bit above the power level of a lv10 character, and thus can still experience that leveling content at the correct challenge level).

@Lenn

Well said!

@Stanimir

I like how the one person who basically says "I like to rush to endgame." gets downvoted.

I'm with you Stanimir, I try to push through to endgame because I enjoy raiding and high level group content.

@Lenn

You should have played AC2 after the 'hero' patch.

The level cap was 150 and in the 2 years after the patch, the highest lvl was around 90.

It was awesome, whether people liked the game or not, the feeling of never having an end in sight was perfect.

There was no point in rushing, you could group with people a ton of levels above and below you, because the higher you got, the less of a difference there really was.

It was real freedom and you were always at endgame while never being there at the same time!

I wish another game would adopt this.

@Lenn Oh Lenn I couldn't possibly agree more, I feel exactly the same way! Well said brother!, well said!

@Lenn
also agreed 100%. I've only had one top level character in any game - an assassin in AoC. Scores of alts in about every game imaginable, but only one to the top. I share your sentiment about end game. I enjoy games that have a more living, breathing feel - like you could live in them.

@(Unverified)

Well what do you expect? You prefer certain parts of a game than they do, so of course you get downvoted. I mean, really, who do you think you are?


I don't rush through leveling content, but for the most part low level content in your typical MMO is mindless "GO GRAB 20 TOE NAILS SO I CAN MAKE SOUP" repetition made mildly better with paper thin plot; and usually fights you kicking and screaming if you have the gall to try and do large chunks of quests with other people. The story usually never gets any better at max level, but at least the fights tend to get more interesting and it becomes easier to get a bunch of people together and find something relevant for everyone to do.

Thankfully more and more MMOs seem to be trying to move away from this sort of thing.

@DarkWalker

You make a good point. It seems odd to me that those who rush to end game content seem to want to do it fast so they can group and get the best equipment, which leads to developers reducing the amount of time it takes to get from level to level, especially in the beginning of the game. Yet, if the amount of time required to level were increased, people would likely group more often as people would be at the same effective power level for longer periods of time. It's a good example, I think, of how people cannot have their cake and eat it, too. One precludes the other.

@DarkWalker I so agree with you. Those vertical stats progressions are just not sustainable anymore in the era of social networks where friends expect to be useful even if they are not time-rich equivalent.
Strangely I think innovation will come from FPS transitioning to MMOFPS where fairness in skill (and not time) is a requirement. BattleField Bad Company 2 gave a good hint of an horizontal progression unlocking weapons and play styles when leveling while still being able to kill a max level character.
Sure an horizontal progression is more difficult to develop to keep the feeling of progression and power (more variable than just the "dirty fix" health bar) but it's the price to pay if developer don't want to see all their game bleeding customers after the initial launch.

@Lenn

^ +1

@Lenn

While I totally agree with you Lenn, game designers are designing the mmorpgs to match what apparently most players want. Which is fast leveling to end game cap grind.

It did indeed used to be about the immersion, role-play and journey, now it isn't. I blame that on the players, the type of players who crossed over from other genres like FPS games and who brought with them the baggage that the game doesn't start until you can start working on your final gear or just having the gear to start with.

Lost were immersion or what the real definition of immersion was, because these players want immersion by and large but their version of immersion is different from ours. The journey is in the way of the end cap, slowing them down from "being there now damn it!", they miss the reason for multi-player role-playing game worlds.

We've lost that battle Lenn, years ago I might add. The various concepts that make an multi-player rpg what it is have been cast off one by one. Playing SWTOR has proven this to me without a doubt, I am not sure if I am long for the hobby that I've enjoyed since the last 1970s and since the start of the 1990s online. Makes me sad really, though I'll still have reading of fantasy/science fiction, it won't be the same as the interactive.

I actually canceled my SWTOR account, I paid for the 150.00 edition btw, plus two of the 80.00 dollar version for the wife and one of the kids. I've not asked the wife but I note she's not playing it much, our son appears to like the game fine though. I won't go into detail about why I'm not happy with SWTOR since that just causes the Star Wars fan boy Rabid Response Team to go into over drive. I'll just say that like a stand alone rpg, it was a fun short distraction.

Some day I hope to see multi-player online role-playing game worlds return to more of what was, with the better mechanics, interfaces, graphics and sound that todays games offer.

@Lenn 100% agree. I have never understood the mentality.

I remember one of the RIFT devs commenting on the beta boards, when the rapid leveling was pointed out, that they purposely designed the game to get you to end game as quickly as possible, because "That was where the game really started." Needless to say, I finished up my beta, and never looked back. I think this idea, that the only game is endgame is ludicrous, and quite frankly why the MMO genre is suffering, and so over saturated with mediocre dying games.

@djodars Why would I get downvotes just because I like rushing to endgame lol... people on the internets doesn't make any sense these days

@djodars See what I mean? The non-rushers are fascists who think you have to level like a snail to "enjoy" the game!