Ghostcrawler Calls Streamlined Leveling in MMORPGs a Mistake

[UltraAlt]

20 hours ago, Triumphant said:

Also, because I am an RP'er, I don't want to go from zero to hero every time, because that doesn't (with the exception of a few tech-based heroes, perhaps) model the way it happens in comics.  Sure, sometimes a characters looks change, more rarely they will get new powers and abilities, but basically, Captain America, Spider Man, Superman, and Green Lantern (as a few examples) have always had the same sort of powers and abilities.  They didn't "grind" to get there.  Grinding feels like D&D to me, and I want to play a comic book game.

 

I really don't see what being a roleplayer has anything to do with the need to power-level characters to 50 or better.

 

Spider-man did evolve in the comics, but that was so early on that most people haven't read that. When they do recons, they gloss over that stuff for sure. And Green Lantern and Superman have evolved and changed over the years ... even after the start of the Silver Age. Captain America had the same basic powers sure, but he went through changes as well.

And, yeah, you can say that Superman was born that way and the Green Lantern had already grinded his way into being fearless before he was given the ring.

 

Well, you can play however you like.

 

I'm a character conception player and a lot of enjoyment is in the "ding". The leveling up and characters getting more powerful is a large part of my enjoyment of the game as well as creating tons of characters and being able to play what I feel like at any given time.

 

What is boring to you is "the game" for other people. And with so many RPGs out there with leveling systems, it seems like a majority of gamers find the "ding" enjoyable.

[Triumphant]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I really don't see what being a roleplayer has anything to do with the need to power-level characters to 50 or better.

 

Spider-man did evolve in the comics, but that was so early on that most people haven't read that. When they do recons, they gloss over that stuff for sure. And Green Lantern and Superman have evolved and changed over the years ... even after the start of the Silver Age. Captain America had the same basic powers sure, but he went through changes as well.

And, yeah, you can say that Superman was born that way and the Green Lantern had already grinded his way into being fearless before he was given the ring.

 

Well, you can play however you like.

 

I'm a character conception player and a lot of enjoyment is in the "ding". The leveling up and characters getting more powerful is a large part of my enjoyment of the game as well as creating tons of characters and being able to play what I feel like at any given time.

 

What is boring to you is "the game" for other people. And with so many RPGs out there with leveling systems, it seems like a majority of gamers find the "ding" enjoyable.

 

I think your point of view and your opinion of what makes a good game (including this one) is every bit as valid as mine, even if they are different.  You may also be right about most people enjoying levelling systems.  Just because I don't enjoy them, doesn't mean that's the collective experience of most players.  

 

I appreciate you taking the time to offer a clear explanation of why you feel this way.  So many people comment in the forums with nothing more than a thumbs down, without providing any further context, and I find that incredibly frustrating.  So thank you for not being one of those.

[UltraAlt]

On 10/17/2024 at 9:42 AM, Triumphant said:

Why can't you just like what you like and allow me the same courtesy?

 

What are you talking about?

Who is stopping you from playing the way that you like?

I certainly am not doing that.

 

You seem to be getting very defensive.

 

So yes. It is best to stop this exchange.

 

[biostem]

People WILL find the path of least resistance, and developer efforts to stymie that will only result in frustration and/or people exploiting or simply quitting.  If, and this is a big "if", a developer can create content that is compelling enough across all level ranges, and/or implement systems whereby your efforts early on are still useful in the late/end game, then and only then will most players "stop to smell the roses", as it were...

[Stormwalker]

On 10/12/2024 at 1:34 PM, Triumphant said:

 

I will concede your point, but I have to say that I haven't ever played an RPG that involved levelling slowly that did not involve boring grinds.  If you can provide enough interesting material to make it fun and engaging all the way from lvl 1 to lvl *insert lvl cap here*, then swell.  I'm all for it. 

 

I've never seen that game, though.  🤷‍♂️

 

For my part, City of Heroes IS that game.

 

I don't PL characters to 50, because PL'ing is boring and a grind.  So I don't do that.

 

I play my way to 50 the old-fashioned way.  I do my story arcs.  I do newspaper and radio missions and tip missions.  I seek out different story arcs that I haven't done before (or haven't done recently, since I've done the vast majority of them at some point along the way).  I have 50-some-odd characters, and only five of them are level 50, because I'm in no rush to get them there, because I'm having fun with the journey.

 

The other day a new 50 was asking in chat "What do you do when you get to level 50?"  There were lots of different responses, with lots of different perspectives, but my immediate reaction was, "The same thing I did before I got to level 50, only with some additional options."  Because I pretty much play the same way on my 50's that I do while I'm leveling, with the exception of doing less story arcs (because I run out of them) and more radios/tip missions.

 

The only thing that really changes when one of my characters hits 50 is that the vision of the character is fully realized and I get to enjoy that.  But the process of getting there is also pretty darn fun to me.

 

 

[Stormwalker]

On 10/18/2024 at 5:00 AM, UltraAlt said:

 

I really don't see what being a roleplayer has anything to do with the need to power-level characters to 50 or better.

 

Spider-man did evolve in the comics, but that was so early on that most people haven't read that. When they do recons, they gloss over that stuff for sure. And Green Lantern and Superman have evolved and changed over the years ... even after the start of the Silver Age. Captain America had the same basic powers sure, but he went through changes as well.

And, yeah, you can say that Superman was born that way and the Green Lantern had already grinded his way into being fearless before he was given the ring.

 

Well, you can play however you like.

 

I'm a character conception player and a lot of enjoyment is in the "ding". The leveling up and characters getting more powerful is a large part of my enjoyment of the game as well as creating tons of characters and being able to play what I feel like at any given time.

 

What is boring to you is "the game" for other people. And with so many RPGs out there with leveling systems, it seems like a majority of gamers find the "ding" enjoyable.

 

Yep.  As I was discussing in another thread:

 

My energy/energy/Force blaster Skylancer got all of her powers at once - which is to say, she gained the physical capacity to manifest every superpower she would ever be able to manifest in one moment.  What she didn't get at the start was the skills to actually use all of those powers.  Which is to say, she could absorb, store, and release tremendous amounts of power from that first instant.  But the skill to actually practically use those powers?  That didn't come all at once.  She had to learn how to focus and direct, and modulate those energies.  At first, the only thing she could do was make a forcefield around herself - and she did that the first time by accident out of sheer survival impulse because the lab equipment that gave her those powers was exploding around her.  And even that, she only had "on - full power" and "off" at first, which made it not very useful (in fact, she would master a number of other uses of her powers before she really got a handle on that one).

 

Energy blasts?  She figured that out pretty quickly - it was a matter of realizing she could channel the energy flows through her nervous system and release them at a specific point.  Focusing them and aiming them enough to be effective with them... that took longer.  Hence, her early blasts were weak and not very well-focused.  She didn't have great control at first and she was afraid of hitting someone too hard and hurting them too much, so she held back a whole lot.  As she got better, she started using stronger blasts because she was more confident in her ability to precisely modulate the amount of force she delivered in each blast (and had a better sense of what the people she was fighting could take).  (Primary and Secondary powers, developing over the course of her levels)

 

Flight?  That took a lot of practice.  Much like riding a motorcycle, she found it easier to go fast than slow.  Modulating her energy release precisely enough for fine control was much more difficult than just generating great gobs of thrust.  She learned to fly before she learned to Hover, but it was a while before she could do either one safely.  After about nine moths of practice, it had become pretty much second-nature, but when she first got her hero license she wouldn't use flight in public places because she was afraid she'd go out of control and crash into someone.  She had the power, but she didn't have the skill. (The Flight pool, which she picked up in the teens)

 

As she got better at controlling her powers, she wanted to develop as a more well-rounded hero.  To this end, she started taking some basic martial arts from an instructor in her supergroup.  This benefited her in several ways - the increased awareness of her own body helped her to regulate her own energy flows more effectively, improving her control over her powers even further.  The basic understanding of how to fight made her better at avoiding hits, and better at taking them even when she couldn't deploy her forcefield for it.    (the Fighting Pool, which she picked up in the late 20's)

 

It took a long time for her to manifest more than a simple bubble forcefield.  Eventually, however, she mastered these skills as well, which gave her a number of new tricks.  She can generate a bubble forcefield (Personal Force Field, at 35), a skinfield (Temporary Invulnerability, at 38), and eventually through these efforts she learned to open up her energy tap much wider and unleash the full might of her powers in a brief but exhausting blaze of glory (Force of Nature, at 44).
 

And finally, as she became an experienced hero, and became the trusted right hand of her supergroup leader, she developed her own leadership skills, becoming the heart of her supergroup.  This thrust her into a battlefield leadership role as well, and she put in the study and practice to learn make the most not only of her own powers, but those of her teammates as well (the Leadership pool, which she picked up in her 40's)

 

So... from day 1, before she was ever level 1, she had all the power - the ability to absorb energy from her environment, store it, and project it as light and kinetic energy.  But learning to use that power to do all the things she does as a level 50 hero?  That took her more than a year of practice and day-in, day-out hero work on the streets of Paragon City.

 

Even if someone has instinctive use of all of their powers (which Skylancer didn't), even they lack experience at first.  Every hero goes through a learning process, a becoming process, that makes them the hero they will ultimately become.  In this way, heroes are just like us.  They grow every day of their lives.  Leveling up reflects this growth.

 

At least, that's how I see it.  Others can play it their way.  We all have our own ideas of what is "fun", after all. 

 

I'm just happy to have a game that makes playing the way I prefer possible.

 

 

[Stormwalker]

@UltraAlt,

 

I have to admit, I'm confused at your "confused" reaction, since I was agreeing with your statement that leveling up can be very much a part of a roleplayed character's story, by way of giving an example of how one of my characters experienced that journey of development and growth.

 

Maybe I was just too wordy?  But that's just the way I tend to be.

[UltraAlt]

On 2/28/2025 at 9:52 PM, Stormwalker said:

I have to admit, I'm confused at your "confused" reaction

 

I was confused because you necro'ed a thread from last October to post the info.

Other than that I enjoyed your post.

[Stormwalker]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I was confused because you necro'ed a thread from last October to post the info.

Other than that I enjoyed your post.

 

I hadn't even realized I'd done that.

 

I blame posting from my phone, causing me to not notice the dates on the posts, and not being used to a forum being slow enough for something that old to still be on the first page.

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

I blame posting from my phone, causing me to not notice the dates on the posts, and not being used to a forum being slow enough for something that old to still be on the first page.

 

Yeah, well, tight-knit community we are, there aren't all that many of us posting.

[Lunar Ronin]

21 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Yeah, well, tight-knit community we are, there aren't all that many of us posting.

 

The forums have really slowed down over the past few years.