Confused by the mid section of this game

[bunglehaze]

Hi guys, I have been playing RO now for 6 days and amassed a pretty respectable lvl 32 on my lock, so far until now I have been really impressed but have hit that mid-level plateau and I cannot understand why the game follows this logic.

As with a number of other players I have come across I have a long history in WoW and have played for many years before getting bored with having to pay for an expansion and again for playing - with that in mind though that is the only real game I have to compare this too - on the whole RO is pretty good though, so what is my issue?

Well I noticed a couple of levels ago that quests get few and far between and leave you to grind zones to progress which is not a huge concern, however there are levels where there is seemingly nothing you can do but grind and this is hugely frustrating, tedious and takes a massive portion of fun away from the game. Now at lvl 32 I have a couple of WZ quests and one laid over from lvl 32 as it is a leader - but nothing else. This seems like a huge blank area between starting, getting levelled and eventually going to war, it is almost as if the developers have figured the start and end sections but could not get inspired about the middle. Does anyone else find this?

As a mid level player you are realistically too squishy to be in WZ for any length of time and I cannot see any benefit to going there until much higher level, similarly if grinding levels is the only way to progress there needs to be a much more logical progression with mobs within zones - too many zones are loaded with what become easy and very easy mobs and occasionally something higher may spawn which is not really useful to progression. IMO though the greatest issue here is that the quest plot during the middle of the game is weak at best and ought to be bumped up - using WoW for comparison again, the system they have where there are always more quests available for your level that you can get through is the main reason why players remain 'hooked' through to high levels. Grinding is useful for a number of reasons for drops and skilling up professions - something missing from RO that would otherwise brighten up the hours of tedious grinding with an end goal.

Please do not take this as a negative, more a feedback on where I am right now in the game. Until now I have found a reason to log in as often as possible to play a little here or there but the momentum for me has been lost because there is no clear path to follow that would make levelling 30-60 a pleasure rather than a chore.

Oh, one final thing. Where are the good drops? At level 29 I was still using a level 16 staff, gloves and hat, nothing better came up during 13 levels - that is crazy!

I look forward to hearing other peoples feedback and suggestions too - perhaps I am missing something?

[chilko]

Thanks for your constructive critique.

we where never able to address this properly as we never had the capability to create as many quests as needed to fill the void between level 30 to 60.

considering the average time to level up, if we had to do a similar amount of quests available per would have to add hundreds if not thousands of quests.
To compensate for this we added the realm task board.

Let's see what the community has to say about this issue, maybe you guys have an idea for this?

[Tamui]

Well, if you want to continue leveling, just get tasks to kill mobs and collect loots by the most common mobs. Don't go and try to finish a task "Kill X number of Y Realm." because at that lvl, will be rather difficult.
I've got an alt up to 35 so far, not doing any more quests, just try to find some support, and do tasks.
I agree with you that there aren't not so many quests around 30-40, infact quests stop at lvl40, afaik. However, recently, these Realm Boards have been added, so atleast there is something "spicing" up the game. At higher levels, you might want to buy some boosters, which I wouldn't recommend buying till 50+.
Just my opinion, hope I helped

Originally Posted by chilko

Thanks for your constructive critique.

we where never able to address this properly as we never had the capability to create as many quests as needed to fill the void between level 30 to 60.

considering the average time to level up, if we had to do a similar amount of quests available per would have to add hundreds if not thousands of quests.
To compensate for this we added the realm task board.

Let's see what the community has to say about this issue, maybe you guys have an idea for this?

That would be really nice. I'm writing(in my free time) a Regnum Storyline and writing quests from my ideas, if you want, I'll try to work on them some more and post them here.

[bunglehaze]

Chilko, I am glad it is taken as constructive I appreciate that in order to create anything larger you would need more resources and with it more staff which = more money so hats off to you for what NGD already have come up with. The realm tasks still seem a million miles off at lvl 32 though so perhaps finding a way to bridge levels 28 IIRC through to be able to grind in WZ relatively safely would be a better way. I am still finding areas to grind in WZ and have so far been fine until I was quickly despatched by a large group a second ago which has re-inforced that the mid-levels have no real place of their own in the game.

Even just keeping a zone in the inner realms with plentiful challenging, hard and very hard mobs through 30-35 would be useful but IMO just coming up with a repeatable quest chain that means you go through a few levels of mob in the same zone and return to NPC would keep things moving along.

Even finding a way to increase the motivation to grind a certain number of mobs of the correct level to achieve a goal such as a nice weapon or armour, something specific to the class etc would give a reason to keep going. It would seem that I have had better drops in WZ for the last 30% of one level than I have had since lvl 16 in the inner relams - maybe extend some of the loot onto more difficult zones that could be solo'd with a bit of skill or grouped for casual players?

Tamui, I am not following you, my point is that at lvl 32 I am given a quest to kill X number of each realm - if this is not likely to be possible at this level why is it given? It should be held back until a level where it is nearly possible to solo. Otherwise it looks to the player like NGD have thought "we havent really got much for you here - so have this token quest line you cant even begin"

Of course I am just playing devils advocate here though, I am still grinding away in game as I type this - albeit I would be preferring to have a 'purpose' though. The issue I have at this stage is seeing the big picture - is getting to WM really going to be 30 levels of this? All I can see is a future of stand in a circle, pull mobs, kill, rinse and repeat - where's the story?

regards

[Kitsuni]

Originally Posted by chilko

Thanks for your constructive critique.

we where never able to address this properly as we never had the capability to create as many quests as needed to fill the void between level 30 to 60.

considering the average time to level up, if we had to do a similar amount of quests available per would have to add hundreds if not thousands of quests.
To compensate for this we added the realm task board.

Let's see what the community has to say about this issue, maybe you guys have an idea for this?

Capturing forts could give experience. Many other acccomplishments, such as achievements, could give experience.

At the moment achivements are just for display, but what if they also behaved as quests? You would immediatley have many sources of experience to fill that void, even though they would still only be cosmetic for level 60s who do not earn XP. In other words, it would not harm the end-game.

Also chilko, the quests are kind of overpacked in the lower levels. From level 1-30 there is far too many quests compared to the effort required to complete them and the amount of experience that they give. It would be much more interesting if quests were more spread out, harder, and more rewarding. The quest distribution should be more similar to the 25-30 range, making players grind a little each level, so that they are continually grinding throughout the game, rather than not at all duirng the early levels and then for months on end in the later levels. This "great wall of grinding" is a real game-killer.

Make experience boosters from the item shop affect quests. Currently, they do not, making them relatively useless to questers.

The low level game play has also honestly lost most of its magic over the years. Many of the armors, for example, are never seen in warzone. There's too much gears for low level players, packed too close together, a player only sees an armor set for maybe a day or two, then it is never seen again. It would be better if the gear in these levels was also more spead out, so that high level players (level 40+) had acess to more gear, while low levels had access to less, where it is just wasted. Currently, once you reach level 40 or so, everything becomes so barren and spread out, with very little reward between each level.

This makes it hard to find any motivation or reason to continue grinding past this point.

I would like to see some of the gear from levels 20-50 moved to the 30-60 range to fill the massive void high levels face. It would also help the game to nor suffer from "clone syndrome" where everyone looks exactly the same because all of the high level gear is identical (elite, warmaster, etc.).

[theotherhiveking]

would be better if the gear in these levels was also more spead out, so that high level players (level 40+) had acess to more gear, while low levels had access to less, where it is just wasted. Currently, once you reach level 40 or so, everything becomes so barren and spread out, with very little reward between each level.

This. I never understood why designers do that.


@chilko:

Try rewards other than exp for leveling, so players focus on a something else other than gaining exp while grinding.

For example blacksmiths could ask for some materials for fancy armor or weapons, when you finish the "quest" you get the item, no extra anything.

Say, you ask for a helmet, then you grind for a bit and when you return you get a high quality version of whatever is available at the shops at that level. If the player is focused on completing an armor set then maybe he won't mind the leveling that much, even though he is still leveling.


Again, redistributing the content isn't a bad idea.

When i was on the level 40 range i remember that i kept leveling due to the distribution of content, i would get equipment upgrades on odd levels and extra skill points on even levels, So when i got a new item i had to level up to a odd level, and then i was tempted by the points that were only 1 level away. That kept happening again and again.

I'm still wondering if that was intentional, because i thought it was pretty clever. The grinding was awful, but somehow these "immediate" reward kept me playing.

So maybe the key to solving this problem cheaply is to distract players with more rewards in the middle level range.

[Eyfura]

Originally Posted by chilko

Thanks for your constructive critique.

we where never able to address this properly as we never had the capability to create as many quests as needed to fill the void between level 30 to 60.

considering the average time to level up, if we had to do a similar amount of quests available per would have to add hundreds if not thousands of quests.
To compensate for this we added the realm task board.

Let's see what the community has to say about this issue, maybe you guys have an idea for this?

Maybe if possible, when you have after the next expansion maybe some time, could you re-consider to rework on the quests? It might be some work, but I believe it would pay the hard job back when more new players stay in the game instead of quitting at lvl10.
More interesting stories (community really could help you with this), different quests - not all the same kill 10 mobs or run around map for 15mins etc. Some quests could take place in warzone, as example you revamped the cemetery and now it looks great but has zero use for people as you got nothing to do there actually. I don't know how the instances will be, but maybe it would be possible to add some quests to do there also.

In syrtis you really have to grind a bit when you are under lvl 10 just to get lvlup and more quests. New players don't maybe realize there is realm task board, but all who have played some mmorpg before know most likely to look for quests. Maybe there could be some quest that introduce newbies to the realm task board aswell.

Another idea would be that, once player reaches lvl50 he is supposed to join the war. Give some small xp reward for WM quests if player is under lvl60. This could encourage people to do these quests at lvl50, and we also could get more people to war which would be great for lesser populated servers.

I hope in future grinding will be history. XP boosters could remain in game, to be secondary option for people who like to kill mobs or lvl-up really fast. Boosters work in war, so they would not be totally useless. If you think this cuts down your income, get other ways to get money from people. Overall, if more people stay in game, more people will buy costumes and mount at some point, lucky boxes etc so I believe getting rid of stupid grind would do good.

Good to hear from the developers in the forum! Makes me feel like someone who have the power to change the game to better might read my post :3

[bunglehaze]

Good to hear from the developers in the forum! Makes me feel like someone who have the power to change the game to better might read my post :3

Agreed.

Levels 1-10 seem to be token quests, very basic for the most part and very easy, so much so that my alt has gone to 10 in no time and I went through the gate a little earlier than my first char to attain a bit more of a challenge. Quest lines like using the Iron Mine just seem like a non-entity, run here, look at this, run a little way, run back and done is a very simplified way to quest and easy enough to do without any work at all. I would have preferred to have had to grind the explosive off a dozen skeletons before I could blow the mine (for example)

Perhaps the starting zone should be toughened up to level 15 with the choice of subclass before you get through the portal being something to work into the plotline. It would not be too difficult to add something in to this effect and would let low level newcomers know that something exciting, a specialisation, is coming up soon.

The other example of grinding for materials for an armour or weapon piece and set are exactly the example I had in mind when I suggested a repeatable quest for grinding. You get a bona-fide reason to keep on hitting the same area over and over, XP and a level is often not quite enough - especially for those who are not used to the way MMORPG's work.

Also, I do not know the dynamics of the ximerian at higher levels but after 5 days playing I bought the 10 EUR pack anyway so the devs get some payment for the game. Perhaps incentivizing the use of premium items could increase money coming in and couple with XP increases, the idea of achievements giving XP is a great tie in to this.

[VandaMan]

@OP: It sounds like in the near future we're going to have that place for mid level players you want. I've heard things about instances, perhaps for specific level ranges, coming soon.

[Raely]

Originally Posted by chilko

Thanks for your constructive critique.

we where never able to address this properly as we never had the capability to create as many quests as needed to fill the void between level 30 to 60.

considering the average time to level up, if we had to do a similar amount of quests available per would have to add hundreds if not thousands of quests.
To compensate for this we added the realm task board.

Let's see what the community has to say about this issue, maybe you guys have an idea for this?

You could create a quest line for levels 30-60. One quest per level, 30 quests total. Each quest gives 20% of the total exp needed to level up that specific level.