Post#16 » Sat Nov 18, 2017 2:34 am
You asked "Why is the leveling painfully slow?", and the answer you've mostly gotten is "That's the way the system is". That's true. It's true that RoR leveling does go by relatively slowly compared to World of Warcraft these days, and it's true that the leveling is still quite a bit quicker than older games like Dark Age of Camelot. "Painfully slow" is a relatively subjective phrase anyway, as the replies here have demonstrated. I suspect the real question you want is the one you only implied which, forgive me if I'm wrong, I take to be: "Why isn't the leveling system quicker?" So let me try to answer that.
Disclaimer: I recently came back to RoR after being gone a while. My highest rank character is 37. I have no characters at, or above, RR 40. I've only been back about a week. I'm pretty terrible at RvR. I have had trouble deciding whether I want to play a Witch Hunter, a Black Orc, a Marauder, a Witch Elf, or a Squig Herder. So, I've been bouncing between those characters scattered over various ranks the past week. Also, I know precious little about game design and even less about the intricacies of this project in particular.
The obvious answer to "Why isn't the leveling quicker?" is "Because that's the way it was on live." Most of the players here, I assume, were involved in the live play of the game to one extent or another and, a further assumption here, is that a large goal of this project is to recapture the feel of that game. A sort of interactive museum of this slice of videogame history. Obviously there have been changes to certain things, but the general feel seems to be to recapture that feeling of being immersed in this kind of Warhammer-focused, RvR-centered game. Part of that nostalgia is keeping things the way it was, which has a certain appeal to it. We can see that through Blizzard's recent announcement of World of Warcraft: Classic. Some people live for the nostalgia, and RoR would appear to be a prime example of people suffering from a heavy case of nostalgia. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Let's put that aside, then. Why else couldn't it be quicker?
It is clear that the people who have been involved in this project have spent a lot of time, care and attention on it. Look at the recent patch notes, for instance, where a large section is dedicated to PQ changes. Crafting changes. Items stacking. Each little piece of the game required someone carefully tinkering with it to get it working (or pseudo-working) order. It would be pretty rough to spend hours, days, weeks, or even months working on crafting your piece of RoR only to have players want to blow through it as quickly as possible, or bypass it altogether, just because it's not The End Game. There's legitimately probably someone on the staff who is at least a little let down that no one has commented on that one clever piece of dialogue they slipped into a quest text, or that no one has brought up how amazing the Ekrund orc camp looks. Imagine if you wrote a book and everyone just wanted to skip to the last chapter. What about all that other stuff you spent so much time working on? Like that one scene in the fifth chapter when the Marauder is being chased down by his former brethren as the "Kill for Khorne" chant carries on the icy wind whose bite is only slightly worse than that of the javelins it's carrying towards your hiding spot. But screw that, I want to talk to my friends about the last chapter. That's pretty hurtful, I imagine. In short: people have worked hard on getting every aspect of the game up and running, so they want people to be playing with all those aspects along the way (For sense of pride and testing, of course). Again, only my assumption as a scrub.
But whatever, it's not like anyone thought IT people really had feelings anyway. So what else?
I have seen it mentioned in a few places on this forum that balance feedback is only really given attention if you have a character of that career at RR 40. Why? Because, presumably, at that point you have spent enough time playing your character that you understand how it works, what it's supposed to do, what it isn't supposed to do, and what the obstacles are if any. Part of the reason you start at level 1 and get trickled your various abilities is so you don't get overwhelmed, and you can get used to how the abilities interact with each other as you go along. The time spent getting to 40/40 isn't just some arbitrary time tax put on fun, it's time you're supposed to be investing toward figuring out how your character functions and how to play them well. I mean, it doesn't work for me that way but that's the general idea. If your friend was instantly boosted to 40/40 when they logged in and you skipped all the power leveling altogether, they would still have to put in the time to figuring out what his abilities do. Figure out his keybinds. Build muscle memory. Learn the meta game. I imagine the time to do those things, and the time to get to 40/40, has a large degree of overlap. A brand new person to the game, boosted to 40/40, and given free top gear with talismans, would still get destroyed in T4 by similar people just because the new player lacks experience. Something they would have if they leveled to 40/40 in a conventional way. Unless you're me, in which case lots of experience and gear just means you feel worse when you get stomped. Feelsbad.
The last, and perhaps most important, reason is one we tend to forget. RoR is in alpha. It is constantly being tested, and things which are not being interacted with cannot be tested properly. If the goal was to only have T4 RvR working, then boosting everyone and handing out gear would make sense. But the goal seems to be that the -entire game- works, which means the -entire game- must be tested. Quests, dungeons, PQs, RvR lakes, keeps, BOs, mob AI, crafting, all of it from the first time you stomp a Nurgling to the last piece of BiS you strap on. That means it all has to be played through, which means not encouraging people to bypass it entirely. We've seen some evidence of this through things like champion mobs near warcamps having their XP lowered so it's not a constant AoE grind fest through two areas of the game.
I understand the frustration, though. I know it sucks coming in fresh and new, and dealing with people who are Rank 40, Renown Rank Over Nine Thousand, with lots of sweet gear and talismans and you're barely scraping a few pieces of leather together for a chest piece. It sucks for me hopping on my 35 Marauder or 37 Witch Elf and getting annihilated in scenarios or RvR because I haven't played in a long time, I don't have great gear, my renown ranks are fairly low, and I don't have great class knowledge. It sucks when you have friends you want to play with but feel like you can't really because of a level barrier. I know that feeling all too well, as I bounce from one career to another trying to figure out what I want to be doing.
So why stay then? Well, a good guild helps a lot. I don't have one at the moment, but I used to play with some great guys on Destro side. We'd be on voice, charging around, defending keeps or whatever. It's fun. And your friend can do that with R40 buddies at level 16, which is better than having to wait until 31 or whatever it used to be. There's also nothing stopping those friends from having low level characters and joining you along the ride, because it's the social interaction that helps the most. The Warhammer feel is great, and the whole grimdark fantasy thing is always fun to dive into. The RvR is fun, and you can do that from level 1. Nordland is always hopping (Played my Black Orc in it the past week and my young Squig Herder today), the scenarios tend to pop pretty quick (at least in T1, T4, and T2 seems to as well for me). Defending/taking keeps is not something I've seen replicated well in any other game, despite whatever flaws they may possess.
Hopefully that answers your questions in a helpful manner. Again, some of these are pure assumption on my part. My experience with the game is pretty minimal, and my ability to play the game slightly less than that. Just some opinions I've formed from reading the forums for a while, even when I wasn't playing, and a few of the Dev Diaries/patch notes I've read. Take liberally with salt, but at least it might help offer a more positive perspective on why the leveling is "painfully slow".
