How do you feel about the leveling curve?
By
AmazingMOO,
Posted on: 2009-12-03 17:27 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I find levelling way too fast now. I get characters to 50 so quickly I barely get to know them. I'm constantly turning off XP, taking the double inf when exemped, and avoiding teaming too much. My static team, where I can't turn off XP because I have to keep up with everyone else in levels, has become a joke due to the levelling speeds.
I guess it comes down to personal choice though, as I do have the option to turn my XP off. You can make yourself level slower, but you can't make yourself level faster without PLing.
Can I just ask one favor of all the people who enjoy levelling fast? If I'm teamed with you, I don't need to hear about how awesome the XP is every five minutes. I already know, and you should be fighting.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
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Yes. Energy Melee/Dark Armour Brute (before I9 and Inventions). I did so because everyone I asked told me that it's a "great set at the higher levels". I assume level 50 is high enough.|
Originally Posted by Plug_Nickel
Did you ever get a character to 50 that you DIDNT like? If so, why?
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I still don't like the character, but I keep her around so I can point to her and say "look, I already tried this powerset combination and did not base my dislike on the early levels".
Current main:
Schrodinger's Gun, Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster, Virtue
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And I'm of the opinion that nothing in a game should ever be "hard work." This is exactly what I log on to AVOID, why on Earth would I be looking for it in-game?|
Originally Posted by Plug_Nickel
I just think (and I'm almost surely in the minority here) that if you want to reach maximum level, you should have to work hard for it.
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The point of faster levelling isn't to get to 50 and be done. The point is to get to 20, to get to 30, to get to 40, and generally to be able to make decent progress to where it doesn't feel like you're spinning your wheels. Back in the old days, getting even a single level in the 40s was an epic struggle, and despite what people may say, that is NOT a good thing. Day after day after day spent with no progress made but a couple of purple bars is not my idea of fun. I like getting new powers, I like getting more slots, I like making actual, meaningful progress via milestones, NOT via small increments in a bar I have to fill.
And if I get a character to 50? So what? I move on to the next one. At last tally, I had almost 40 characters, only 7 of which are level 50. That's 7 characters in 5 years. I'm not running out of things to do any time soon.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I team almost all the time. It just isn't very much time. Some people play 80 hours/week. Some people play 80 hours/year. People tend to measure xp based on how many levels they earn per day, but that's only partially dependent on the rate of xp. The other half of the equation is playtime/day, and the devs can't control that.
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Originally Posted by Westley
You don't team enough then. My FIRST 50 took me a year. In the last 6 months, I've brought at least THREE more characters to 50, one at a time. Leveling has indeed sped up far more than it used to be.
Also, teaming rules. |
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Good point.
As a much more part-time player than I have been for most of my CoH career, I like the new EZ-LEVEL philosophy. Even with my limited play time I can still make an appreciable chunk of progress if I concentrate.
For new characters, getting past the junky old content is a lot faster, which is great. For established characters, it has eliminated 'dead zones' that previously stalled many of my characters who weren't optimal soloists.
I like our new world order.
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I'd rather it be too fast than too slow. In the early days the levelling curve was so brutal that you HAD to take those trash patrol missions, and even then you might run all your contacts dry. Statesman used to say he didn't want one character to be able to experience everything, but Positron's was the one who made it happen.| Even with this handicap, he found leveling very fast, and had to turn off xp multiple times. This is strictly soloing. |
it feels weird in those places you mentioned because he specifically tackled the xp curve in ranges people used to slowdown/quit at (probably just looked at data mining) and slapped down the teen and 35-40 range XP grinds. It left it feeling kind of lumpy.
I wish they'd expand the level ranges for the 10-14 Cap Au Diable contacts.
It was already too easy to level straight past them unless you went to Cap at level 10 and ran the gauntlet of +2/+3 goldbrickers while doing your newspapers and mayhem. Now, if I do one story arc in PO I'll be 11 or 12 by the time I hit Cap, and 14 or 15 by the time I've done my newspapers. That's solo, on moderate difficulty settings (+1 or x 2)
On the subject of PO, has anyone ever done Billy Heck's second story arc without turning off XP? I didn't even know it existed until someone pointed it out in another thread on a similar topic. Same question applies to the guy that Marshall Brass is supposed to intro you too in Cap, since I'm usually nudging 20 by the end of Brass's first arc, never mind his second.
I find the leveling curve perfect as it is now.
And if it's to fast, you can always turn off the xp gain, or pact with another toon that doesn't play to slow it down to a crawl, and still not turn it off.
If I want to really speed level a toon, I could level one to 50 in no time without PLing, just by going sewer team to TF team.
I've had more than a few toons who pretty much lvled their way from lvl 35-50 with ITFs. Seeing as how I LOVE this TF. I don't find it boring at all. For others, repeating that TF over and over is boring.
Me, I love it. Lots of enemies, with difficulty usually depending on the team make up.
My average time on an ITF would be about 90mins.
Only once have I done it in a time of under 60mins, and that was a 33min one with a randoim PuG, which is how I usually do most of the content in the game. PuGs!
Yeah, likely to have 1 or 2 friends on the team as well, but the rest of the team is people we've never met.
That said, I can't believe there's many people who want to slow down leveling. I still see people complain about debt! Alot of them!
I've seen people cry about their patrol xp being wasted on a team, when it just takes a bit for teams to learn to mesh well sometimes.
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Speed demon. I have managed to get 1 level 50 in 6 1/2 years. I really need to see about getting one of my villains up there, so I can start a couple VEATs and let them languish at low levels with the rest of my alts. |
Originally Posted by peterpeter
Yeah, I got my fourth level 50 this fall. It takes me about one year of steady playing to hit level 50. You won't see me complain that the level speed is too fast. I did outlevel one of the early Kheldian arcs on my new Warshade, but I don't mind flashing back for that.
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Originally Posted by NightshadeLegree
I wish they'd expand the level ranges for the 10-14 Cap Au Diable contacts.
It was already too easy to level straight past them unless you went to Cap at level 10 and ran the gauntlet of +2/+3 goldbrickers while doing your newspapers and mayhem. Now, if I do one story arc in PO I'll be 11 or 12 by the time I hit Cap, and 14 or 15 by the time I've done my newspapers. That's solo, on moderate difficulty settings (+1 or x 2) On the subject of PO, has anyone ever done Billy Heck's second story arc without turning off XP? I didn't even know it existed until someone pointed it out in another thread on a similar topic. Same question applies to the guy that Marshall Brass is supposed to intro you too in Cap, since I'm usually nudging 20 by the end of Brass's first arc, never mind his second. |
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Far as I'm concerned, the "sense of accomplishment" in doing hard-slash-tedious tasks in MMOs is something that needs to go the way of the dodo, at least as far as mainstream content is concerned. Leave the major accomplishment badges and TFs and Sets for the hardcore, but make the game easy to play, hard to master. Reaching level 50 shouldn't be some kind of monumental accomplishment. It should be within anyone's grasp multiple times. Knowing that you can get to the "end" of the game multiple times before you die of old age is a great booster in replayability, at least in my eyes.
I don't believe the levelling curve is bad right now. About the only thing that slightly bugs me is that it slows down so harshly at level 25, but that's not that big of a thing. It's just fast enough to where you always feel like you're making progress, yet not fast enough to where you don't get to use your new power before you're picking up two more. Double experience would be a complete mess, on the other hand, and I wouldn't shed a tear if we never got another double experience weekend.
MMO players are a strange bunch, wanting their games to run forever so they can never see the end at all. Me, I'm glad we have a game with faster levelling where all content is within your reach. It's not a question of getting to the end, it's a question of what you do along the way, which is how it should be.
Like a lot of people, I've got a pile of characters. If I get one all the way to 50, it's because I really love playing him. And if I really love playing a character, I'm in no particular hurry to reach the level cap since no matter how much fun he is, I know that once he dings 50, he's "done" and I'll never play him again. I only have one 50 that's into IOs and badges - the rest are collecting dust.
It might take me a week to get from 42 to 43, but as long as I know I'll eventually get there, I'm happy. The levels themselves aren't as important to me as the carrot they represent. I need to know that I'm working towards a level goal. If I'm not terribly jazzed about the character I'm playing, I couldnt care less how fast he levels since I probably won't be taking him the distance anyway. But if he's one of my favorites I always dread 50 because I know the ride's about to end, and the next character I make might not be as cool as the one I just finished.
Not every character has to hit 50. However, for me, the one's that do are special because they were my favorites. Did you ever get a character to 50 that you DIDNT like? If so, why? I just think (and I'm almost surely in the minority here) that if you want to reach maximum level, you should have to work hard for it. There's nothing special about getting there, except that you've got nowhere else to go (Officer and a Gentleman), so what's the rush? That's why power leveling, just for the sake of having another 50, always baffled me.
Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but if I manage to get a character to 50, I just like to know I earned it.
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Owen: Well I don't want to say on the phone - all I can tell you is that I killed her last night.