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Feedback Solo past lvl 20 is slow and painful (Defender)

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Xavure

Xavure

Well-Known Member
Soloing past lvl 20 for defenders is almost unplayable, painful and boring for many reasons:

- Lack of 1 up camps, scarce of 1 up, too much running around to find white cons
- Slow combat, slow regen, (I don't want to watch a movie while playing....)
- Experience slow down is way too slow
- Mobs infinite leash is painful if you have no CC (running the whole zone with that mob following you is awful)
- Lack of players in beta is a letdown at the moment
- Night time is unplayable this weekend
- Mob nameplate visibility is not far enough
- Lack of goal for solo play.....only grinding levels and mats grinding is getting old

Suggestions:

- Multiple camps of 1 ups, not just side road roaming (for every lvl from 20-25)
- More Action bar slots, to make up for the slow combat
- Higher xp gain for white cons
- Goals (Engaging fights, Mini Boss, quest maybe, title achievement, treasure chest....imagination is limitless)
- More people to play with, in different timezone....(give some free copies, we need more testers)
- Remove the infinite leash on mobs, so class without CC are not at a disadvantage.
- Farther visibility for Mobs nameplate

At the moment, I get that burn out just because of those solo play sessions.....group play is great, but not solo.
 
Xavure said:
Soloing past lvl 20 for defenders is almost unplayable, painful and boring for many reasons:

- Lack of 1 up camps, scarce of 1 up, too much running around to find white cons
- Slow combat, slow regen, (I don't want to watch a movie while playing....)
- Experience slow down is way too slow
- Mobs infinite leash is painful if you have no CC (running the whole zone with that mob following you is awful)
- Lack of players in beta is a letdown at the moment
- Night time is unplayable this weekend
- Mob nameplate visibility is not far enough
- Lack of goal for solo play.....only grinding levels and mats grinding is getting old

Suggestions:

- Multiple camps of 1 ups, not just side road roaming (for every lvl from 20-25)
- More Action bar slots, to make up for the slow combat
- Higher xp gain for white cons
- Goals (Engaging fights, Mini Boss, quest maybe, title achievement, treasure chest....imagination is limitless)
- More people to play with, in different timezone....(give some free copies, we need more testers)
- Remove the infinite leash on mobs, so class without CC are not at a disadvantage.
- Farther visibility for Mobs nameplate

At the moment, I get that burn out just because of those solo play sessions.....group play is great, but not solo.
Click to expand...
Above a certain level it becomes pretty much the same for all classes albeit slightly less painful.

Population is a real issue for a game so group centric. 6 people on including me earlier when I was playing. I know it is beta but even if it was 10 times more that is still not enough.

Agree on the chevrons. Very little in the way of meaningful camps if you are solo. They did do a balance pass on the roaming mobs to make them more solo friendly but no real camps to get your teeth into.

I am concerned that they are talking about increasing the levelling time above 10. I tried some potions before the last wipe and levelling seemed very slow mid to high twenties. Not chronically so but still very slow even by old school MMO standards. I think the issue is that any data showing levelling speeds is based on a pretty hardcore group of players that know all the stuff. It might be better to get some free weekends in, give new players some levelling potions and see how they get on at different levels.

The answer is that it is not a solo game and not much will change in that regard it seems.
 
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Superbitsandbob said:
I think the issue is that any data showing levelling speeds is based on a pretty hardcore group of players that know all the stuff. It might be better to get some free weekends in, give new players some levelling potions and see how they get on at different levels.

The answer is that it is not a solo game and not much will change in that regard it seems.
Click to expand...
I'm part of that hardcore group actually and we did some powerleveling last weekend. That is due to population issue, because we lost some players and needed to get some more healers replacement.

I know that this game is not solo friendly, but the population is so low, that group is almost impossible to make, unless you are constantly switching characters. And even then, group is not always possible.
 
Superbitsandbob said:
I think the issue is that any data showing levelling speeds is based on a pretty hardcore group of players that know all the stuff.
Click to expand...
I looked at the level progression times for all players. Some are quicker than others, while others are much slower, and obviously the data gets more scarce as we head to higher levels. Given that the current xp curve is an exponential and players aren't really encountering "the curve" until around level 20, it is highly unlikely that the xp rate at higher levels will be viewed favorably. My goal is to spread that burden out to the lower levels (10-30) so that the higher levels are more manageable once you get there.

Even if players know exactly what they are doing I still think things are tiny bit too fast. Our last wipe was roughly a month ago which means players have had less than a month of play time available to them and we still have more than 50 characters that have reached level 20, 11 that have reached level 25, and three that have reached level 28. And if you look at the difference between in play times between those who have gotten to level 20 and those who have gotten to 25 it's a pretty considerable difference. I recognize that the sample size is relatively low for these two groups, but I still believe that it could be smoothed out a bit.
 
Undone said:
Ideally we would be "solo friendly" but still "group encouraged" if that makes sense. I'll have a chat with Adric about how we can improve this without breaking everything else.
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I hope so!

Obviously, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'm a mother of an Adult Special Needs daughter who needs attention at multiple, random times and I have to watch her nearly constantly. As a result, 95% of my play time ends up being solo, because I'm just plain "unreliable" in a group (most times). I would DEEPLY appreciate you guys making this game playable for both solo players AND groups. Thanks.

Rachel
 
Undone said:
I looked at the level progression times for all players. Some are quicker than others, while others are much slower, and obviously the data gets more scarce as we head to higher levels. Given that the current xp curve is an exponential and players aren't really encountering "the curve" until around level 20, it is highly unlikely that the xp rate at higher levels will be viewed favorably. My goal is to spread that burden out to the lower levels (10-30) so that the higher levels are more manageable once you get there.

Even if players know exactly what they are doing I still think things are tiny bit too fast. Our last wipe was roughly a month ago which means players have had less than a month of play time available to them and we still have more than 50 characters that have reached level 20, 11 that have reached level 25, and three that have reached level 28. And if you look at the difference between in play times between those who have gotten to level 20 and those who have gotten to 25 it's a pretty considerable difference. I recognize that the sample size is relatively low for these two groups, but I still believe that it could be smoothed out a bit.
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Thanks for the feedback.

Do you think in general, even looking at something like classic EQ for example, that levelling is too fast? Even considering EQ's reputation a class that is considered a slow starter could easily get to that level within a month. Obviously we know a lot more about EQ but some players have been around a long time. Can you give any data on what the play time is of those character? Obviously playing 10 hours a day for a month as opposed to 10 hours a week is massive.

My only concern is that often these balance changes (in other MMO's) are made based on wanting a more hardcore player to slow down a bit but the impact is felt more keenly by casual players or players not at it hours a day.
 
I've been refactoring a handful of camps as I go for this reason. Although depending on the level range there may still be some gaps that rely on roaming mobs. As far as the camps it's a work in progress.
 
Superbitsandbob said:
My only concern is that often these balance changes (in other MMO's) are made based on wanting a more hardcore player to slow down a bit but the impact is felt more keenly by casual players or players not at it hours a day.
Click to expand...
I looked at all of the data for all players; fast and slow alike. My emphasis is on spreading the time requirement out from the high levels --> lower levels. And it's something we can easily change so I fully expect feedback on the pacing when these changes go in.
 
I love the progression speed; however, I don't think the major issue is how slow you level (after 20) but the things you get or do each level.
 
I don't think leveling faster or slower is the problem. If they pushed people to max level faster what would that even do? The leveling process is the journey.

The problem is why does it feel grindy? The reason is there are not enough mechanics in the game to make it feel fun.

Things like better loot, traits on loot, skill book drops of mobs, recipe drops off mobs, random elite packs or spawns that feel epic and drop really cool loot that feels like it makes a difference. Finding treasure chests, rare weapon/armor enhancements, finding shrines that add 2hr buffs that make your grind feel better. There are all kinds of subsystems that could be added to make your leveling process actually feel fun.

Also why do the skills you use in this game feel like absolute trash. I swear I cant even tell if 90% of the skills of this game even do anything at all. Have a buff where your guy is literally attacking faster for 1 minute and you can actually notice, see the faster swing speed, feel the quicker hits, watch the damage numbers .... I want to see and feel the skill happen. Don't tell me it working, but I cant even tell if it works or not, but theoretically its working.
 
All of that sort of thing probably has/is being considered and is WiP or back burner/scrapped depending.

Barring being able to implement alot of those ideas quickly or whatever, more feedback for the players would be good for like Worldbreaker2 impression wise.

Click on codex and like "Oh I have lvl 3 in that skill already how did that happen? I totally missed it".

Not just sidebar notifications but the uhh banner screen splash with sound, it already looks pretty good. If ability is on hotbar do a swirly graphic around the hotkey too with a "XYZ abilty is now Level 4" zoom zoom swish lol
 
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