It will be interesting to have an “offline experience system” in which an account can earn experience while offline.
Condition:
The offline experience system is unlocked only after the account has 1 level 80 character
Mechanic
The game will calculate the time in which the account has been offline and for every 24 hours accumulated of this time, the account will receive an “experience jar” which will be account bound (similar to the karma jar for doing dailies)
The amount of experience gained will be equal with the medium experience gained for doing the dailies *gathering, events, mob kills, variety kills)
Its is not a game breaker, but it gives a better feeling for the players who need to stay away from the game for a few days. It is not offering the karma or mystic coins or any other rewards, so there shouldn’t be any problem with implementing it
But to give you a proper answer:
- to give casual players more freedom for leveling alts without the usual daily mandatory grind
- because not everyone can spend 15h in the game daily
- for not feeling left behind completely if you couldn’t play for 1 week
- for matching up with other MMOs
- for giving you a reason to long in the game from time to time
Why not:
- The current levelling system actually isn’t at all difficult due to it being rather normalized (to roughly 90 min per level, if I recall correctly).
- While the levelling aspect of the game isn’t the focus (re: normalized levelling speed as opposed to exponentially-increasing a la WoW – or just about any other RPG with a levelling system), it’s still a time-dedication/devotion aspect to keep the learning curve stable as opposed to casual players reaching 80 without knowing that your 4-slot Downed ability can heal you out of combat, to save you from just dropping dead after all mobs are already gone and you haven’t Rallied. (Legit example; I’ve seen it happen).
You shouldn’t feel punished just because you can’t level offline. That’s not actually levelling. The point is that you gain skill as you gain experience – hence it being called experience. You can’t actually get better at the game while not on it, so why should your character?
You’re not left behind unless you’re actually treating levelling as a race – in which case, it once again falls to time devotion. You shouldn’t call it a race if you can’t actually race.
The reason to log in time to time is to level, not to check your character like a NeoPet.
And, finally, matching up with other MMOs? What MMO rewards you for -not- playing?
Why do you think you should be rewarded for not-playing a game that you don’t pay a subscription for?
Age of Conan has this system, and for people with friends who do play actively while they-themselves don’t get online as much, it helps keep them closer together. HOWEVER, the same system made for LEGIONS of players who do not know how to play their class. Too many just sat back on a character they would play all the time, and spend their “offline levels” on a separate one. Suddenly a level 80 Guardian (tank) shows up, offers to fill a spot on a major raid, QQing shortly follows, etc etc etc.
But apply that here?? Where there’s no sub? Where it’s INCREDIBLY comfortable to level up?? Holy KITTEN no.
Karma is useless anyway, at least for me. Only use – legendary – but Im not farming for a legendary, I dont like them. Buying gathering tools with karma? = I dont care.
Offline leveling has been tried in other games, e.g. Age of Conan, and should only serve as proof to any other MMO that it kills off activity in low-level zones (ofc, not a big issue if you’ve got downscaling like GW2 but on the other hand rewards there are not on par with level 80 zones so no one goes there other than completionists) and also you get lots of people who can quickly max level an alt and haven’t got the clue how to play their class which is a grief to people trying to do dungeons.
Lord Sazed / Hasla the Huntress / Seaguard Hala
Seamarshal Belit / Initiate Xun Tsu / Mistwarden Roshone
Seafarer’s Rest | Northerner @ Dragon Season
you get lots of people who can quickly max level an alt and haven’t got the clue how to play their class which is a grief to people trying to do dungeons.
Did you actually use the basic math to calculate how “quickly” this offline leveling would be or you are just assuming it? I can tell you: It will take at least 210 days (~7 months) if the offline hours will be accumulated consecutively
Does this seem to you very quickly? I have played like 1h each day and a bit more in weekends and I got to lvl 80 in 3 months.
So leveling is quick only for those who think of the game as a work.
There were players saying in her eon the forum they get to max lvl in a week or even shorter time. Do you think they KNOW how to play their class? I doubt that.
GW2 is such an easy game that you can even beat it just using weapons skills so i don’t think it matter how people play their class.
Oh, and one more thing. This forum is saturated with people talking about “dungeons”. Dungeons are not the ONLY part of this game, because otherwise they would have called it “Dungeon Raiders”
And maybe instead of reading, I’ll just keep moving my bookmark ahead a few pages every night until it gets to the end.
You didn’t choose a very good comparison, I am afraid. You can move the bookmark ahead and not read and in the end you don’t know anything about the book, because it is finished, while the game starts at lvl 80.
You can do all personal story quests in a row without the grinding breaks between the level requirements.
You can equip any type of armor and weapons – if you afford them, which means your other lvl 80 has done a good job saving –
You can enjoy the game without the frustration you are outleved by the zone
Remember, you have already beat the game once – so to speak – you don’t need to grind it all again to learn the new profession.
Besides, every player, even those who play long time in a day will get offline hours accumulated slowly – if they ever go offline ofc – so there is a small thing for them too.
And maybe instead of reading, I’ll just keep moving my bookmark ahead a few pages every night until it gets to the end.
You didn’t choose a very good comparison, I am afraid. You can move the bookmark ahead and not read and in the end you don’t know anything about the book, because it is finished, while the game starts at lvl 80.
You can do all personal story quests in a row without the grinding breaks between the level requirements.
You can equip any type of armor and weapons – if you afford them, which means your other lvl 80 has done a good job saving –
You can enjoy the game without the frustration you are outleved by the zone
Remember, you have already beat the game once – so to speak – you don’t need to grind it all again to learn the new profession.
Besides, every player, even those who play long time in a day will get offline hours accumulated slowly – if they ever go offline ofc – so there is a small thing for them too.
The main problem is that means we’d have a bunch of players who don’t know their class suddenly at a much higher level (endgame, even!) than they should have ever made at their skill level. Even if levelling is somewhat monotonous to those who make a lot of characters, it’s still the best way to learn the profession inside out BEFORE reaching the areas where skill is required.
While you’re worried about being outpaced by people playing the game more often, -I’m- worried about the zones outpacing the players when they’re suddenly in a rut caused by them not knowing how to properly play the character in cases that they haven’t been exposed to due to skipping over them.
PuGs are already occasionally quite eyegouging when people don’t know what they’re doing. Being able to gain character experience without player experience would amplify that issue. We want the learning curve to remain stable and present. Anyone who’s catching onto the class already has the ability to breeze through the easy content just from being efficient.
TL;DR: I’m of the belief that you SHOULD have to level 1-80 normally, no matter how many other characters you have of what professions, because a new profession still needs to be learned, and detracting from the time spent learning it is recipe for disaster. It’ll discourage the less talented, and annoy those who have to deal with them being where they don’t belong.
….and annoy those who have to deal with them being where they don’t belong.
In other words, the scenario is :
“kitten off you noobs, you don’t belong here in our game and we don’t want you to play the kittening game unless you are kittening prepared accordingly to our kittening standards, capsici?”
and the required answer would be
“Sorry, we’ve bothered you. Please forgive us. We will leave and let you enjoy your small world of elitists. We are sorry we were not born ready to play this game with you. Have a peaceful life without us.. Arrivederci!
I still judge this feature in comparison to the overall difficulty of how difficult / time consuming it is to accomplish leveling – of which I do not think there is some. In fact, if there was an agreement that casual folks leveling alts did have a difficult time (which I can get on board with), then I would like to see increased rewards for doing something.
For example, you said it could help folks with frustration of getting outleveled in a zone. The game is so easy to jump around, and so many zones at each level, that I would be concerned if they were given some sort of out to learning how to do something as simple as walk in and out of LA.
I also see that this adds to the spirit of having a weird non-existant middle group between starting a character and hitting 80, which we see a lot of dead space is already.
In short – I love the spirit of the idea. Helps both casual players and those that already have some 80’s. Though, I would like to see increased rewards for actions completed if you really think that leveling gaining / progression through game is not quick enough already.
I dont like this idea at all and it seems very unnecessary in this game given how easy it is to get experience.
Each profession has a pretty unique play style and needs practice to get good at – as well as to develop in a way which suits your personal preference
I am not “hardcore” but have 1 level 80, 2 mid level 50s and several in level 20-30 range. I enjoy working between them and leveling up while I learn new tricks in the game. I recently went back to my engineer who I had abandoned in favor of a guardian when he was level 46 and have now gone back to him and am having a lot more fun now that I have learned more about how to play the game in a more dynamic way.. Having zombie leveling is not a good plan
So you will level up regardless if you have or havent explored the maps,did any events or hearts..? Bad idea ,its not hard leveling up and it certainly does not need 15h a day…
For matching up with other mmo’s…? What ? why ? Gw2 wants to be different then other mmo’s.And why would you feel left behind if you cant play for a week,you should stop comparing yourself to others,as we dont all need to level at the same pace,and as we dont all need to get a legendary aswell.
It took you 3 months to get to 80? Wow. Took me all of 2 weeks, playing about 3 hours a week. Not rushing, exploring ect. I couldn’t stop the XP rolling in
A Rested experience system where you get an experience multiplier for every x hours you’ve been logged off in your home instance (what? at least it’ll get some use) would be better than a straight up jar of XP, since you’d still have to work your way to level 80.
All someone has to do is create 4+ alts not touch the game for just under 2 months (210 days / 4 = 52 days) and bam. Insta-level 80 number 2.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
All someone has to do is create 4+ alts not touch the game for just under 2 months (210 days / 4 = 52 days) and bam. Insta-level 80 number 2.
Its only 1 experience jar / 24h offline time / account. I didn’t mention “per character” I said similar with the dailies karma jars. You can use that Experience jar on a lvl 80 character or on any other character, but its only 1 jar / 24 h.
so the number of alts will not affect the amounts of jars earned.
It took you 3 months to get to 80? Wow. Took me all of 2 weeks, playing about 3 hours a week. Not rushing, exploring ect. I couldn’t stop the XP rolling in
A Rested experience system where you get an experience multiplier for every x hours you’ve been logged off in your home instance (what? at least it’ll get some use) would be better than a straight up jar of XP, since you’d still have to work your way to level 80.
All someone has to do is create 4+ alts not touch the game for just under 2 months (210 days / 4 = 52 days) and bam. Insta-level 80 number 2.
I won’t be getting level 80 in a few weeks, even though I play more than 5 hours a day. It’s just how I roll :P I don’t mind raw grinding, I don’t mind rerolling, I don’t mind anything that limits me from getting to the level cap fast. Slow and steady I say.
* (A strange light fills the room. Twilight is shining ahead. You’re filled with, DETERMINATION.)
….and annoy those who have to deal with them being where they don’t belong.
In other words, the scenario is :
“kitten off you noobs, you don’t belong here in our game and we don’t want you to play the kittening game unless you are kittening prepared accordingly to our kittening standards, capsici?”
and the required answer would be
“Sorry, we’ve bothered you. Please forgive us. We will leave and let you enjoy your small world of elitists. We are sorry we were not born ready to play this game with you. Have a peaceful life without us.. Arrivederci!
I… What? I was saying that the levelling process is partly in place so you could learn the class. Playing less = less learning. Less learning = high chance of not knowing some necessary concepts.
If I wanted to insult casual gamers, I would’ve just said so, but I have no reason to, because I play with quite a few of them, and most of them understand that a time dedication isn’t supposed to be viewed as a bad thing, -especially- when some classes are harder than others and not all players will grasp them immediately.
There is nothing wrong with new players. There -is- something wrong with 80 characters knowing less about their class than a 40 of the same profession. That’s what I’m talking about. And while that will still occur today in this current setup, rewarding people not playing the game is begging for more of that.
We want to help others get better at the game, keep it enticing for all players. Not create more players that need basic tutoring because they skipped a majority of it.
Its only 1 experience jar / 24h offline time / account. I didn’t mention “per character” I said similar with the dailies karma jars. You can use that Experience jar on a lvl 80 character or on any other character, but its only 1 jar / 24 h.
so the number of alts will not affect the amounts of jars earned.
Touche. I forgot Daily Achievement was Account bound. Apologies.
I won’t be getting level 80 in a few weeks, even though I play more than 5 hours a day. It’s just how I roll :P I don’t mind raw grinding, I don’t mind rerolling, I don’t mind anything that limits me from getting to the level cap fast. Slow and steady I say.
Yeah, that was my plan. Except when I started doing everything (Gathering, Crafting, Exploring, Every event I could get my hands on) I found myself leveling quite fast. 20 of them levels were from crafting. Another 7 from WvW.
I didn’t craft on my other alts, and they took a bit longer to level, but it still wasn’t a struggle to level. XP is just so kitten easy to get.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
“Offline experience” is a service given in games paid with microtransactions that have a REALLY steep experience curve. So you are not left behind.
In GW2, that does not happen, since there’s downscalling so anyone can play with you even if you have a lower level, and you can get XP boosters if you want to level up a little faster.
SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!
the only point in XP after you’ve hit 80 is for skill points. What skill is involved in not playing? what experience is there? Why should people who play for 15hrs a day do so if others can get the same results for playing an hour a day?
As for “so I can get xp for my alts” sounds like you may as well suggest I hit 80 on one character so the other 4 on my account should also be 80 even though I’ve never played on them.
Map completion would be even more dull too if you were at eighty and could gear up and buy all the skills you want right away. All low level zones would simply be too easy; and completely pointless to play.
But let’s run with your suggestion and see what game we get:
You play a co-op story mode with a fair number of maps from lvl 1-80.
Upon completion, you can go ahead and play other games for a month.
Now you can now play on 4 other characters!
But you can only play on the last 3 maps from story…
Whereas I’d prefer if they got rid of leveling all together.
Roll everyone back to level 1. And leave them there. Gear can only change skin, not stats. Then the game is purely skill based. People aren’t rewarded for doing absolutely nothing. People aren’t rewarded simply for mindlessly killing the same exact mob over and over again for many hours a day using nothing but auto attack in the same location or botting. They’re rewarded by getting a legendary skin for world map completion at lvl 1.
I think the OP needs to go back to the problem they want to address. If I understand it correctly, it is something like:
I don’t have much time to play.
I had fun leveling up one L80 character, but it’s not so much fun leveling up another
→ with my limited time, I’d like this to be easier.
If that’s the case, there are other ways to address it, instead of offering rewards to people for not playing. For those with disposable income, you can already buy gems, convert them into coin, and use that to buy materials to level up via crafting. That’s faster, more efficient, and (arguably) more fun than double-clicking another consumable.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Suggestion: lvl 30+ characters receive a permanent 10/20/+…% experience boost for each character on the same account having reached lvl 80, the ‘been there, done that’ achievement and has finished the main storyline.
→ Offers players that already completed the game once an opportunity to create alts without the same repetitive grinding to level, but still gives them time to learn the basics of the class (lvl1-30).
-Only an idea-
The game is designed to be enjoyed even if you’re not level80.
Take a step back and stop gawking at the imaginary “other players” you think you’re falling behind. Chill out and enjoy the game; if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of spare time, I recommend joining a casual guild.
I only feel they could make leveling from 1 to 10 a little easier. That’s probably the slowest part of the game, cause having fewer skills is boring, it only gets really entertaining when you start messing around with traits and stuff.
If 1 to 10 were easier, and they upped the difficulty on 11 to 80 to compensate, people would be more willing to make alts or delete characters they regret to try out professions and such.
“Bleeding, Poison, Confusion, Torment, they all look delightful on you.”
Lv80s: Guard, Thief, Necro. Renewed my Altaholic’s card on the HoT Hype-Train. Choo choo~
I think the OP needs to go back to the problem they want to address. If I understand it correctly, it is something like:
I don’t have much time to play.
I had fun leveling up one L80 character, but it’s not so much fun leveling up another
-> with my limited time, I’d like this to be easier.
If that’s the case, there are other ways to address it, instead of offering rewards to people for not playing. For those with disposable income, you can already buy gems, convert them into coin, and use that to buy materials to level up via crafting. That’s faster, more efficient, and (arguably) more fun than double-clicking another consumable.
+1 to this. I’m not in favor of offline experience points, since if you don’t do it, you don’t play it, you don’t experience it → why get experience points? As mentioned above, assuming the stated problem needs a resolution, there are other ways to tackle the problem. Crafting definitely helps. After my first toon was level 80, I had plenty of mats in the bank to get my second toon nearly to crafting level 400 without having to outlay any coin. That gained me quite a bit of experience.
I don’t see how it’s needed at all in a game like GW2. I mean in terms of leveling to the cap, GW2 has probably the fastest leveling of any MMO out there, once you’ve played through once and know what you’re doing, you can blast through hearts/events/exploration/crafting/personal story really fast and hit 80 pretty quickly.
Also, “The game starts at 80”. What game are -you- playing? Seriously, GW2 has the -most- on offer to all levels and the -least- max level-exclusive content of any MMO. WvWvW, PvP, events, hearts, crafting, fractals it’s all available to all levels, the -only- thing levels really grant you are access to more weapons/armour skins, dungeons and higher level zones, that’s all, and most of -those- don’t even require to be the cap.
I don’t see how it’s needed at all in a game like GW2. I mean in terms of leveling to the cap, GW2 has probably the fastest leveling of any MMO out there, once you’ve played through once and know what you’re doing, you can blast through hearts/events/exploration/crafting/personal story realy fast and hit 80 pretty quickly.
Also, “The game starts at 80”. What game are -you- playing? Seriously, GW2 has the -most- on offer to all levels and the -least- max level-exclusive content of any MMO. WvWvW, PvP, events, hearts, crafting, it’s all available to all levels, the -only- thing levels really grant you are access to more weapons/armour skins, dungeons and higher level zones, that’s all, and most of -those- don’t even require to be hit the cap.
Adding onto this notion by saying that another gain to being 80 is that some of those weapon/armor skins have a TON of grinding – but even that doesn’t necessarily have to be done at 80; You just can’t use it until then, and it’s much faster when you can stomp through mobs.
I don’t doubt there are bonuses to being level 80 (If there weren’t any, what would be the point in leveling at all?), I’m more just saying to those who think you need to be 80 to actually enjoy the game, if you truly think that, you’re probably not going to have much fun when you do get to 80.
Yeah, I realized that too when I first hit 80. It doesn’t feel any different until you get some good gear – and you can get the tokens/materials for that gear without being 80. So the game doesn’t dramatically change just from reaching the level cap.
The most i could support is a minor boost to XP gain, something like 10% for an hour per 24 hours away from game, maxing at 3 days and stacking in duration.
It doesn’t take that long to level anyway. I’ve been playing a week and a bit now and have a level 53 warrior from playing in the evenings.
The only time I’d ever agree to this being offline is at the end of this game’s future in XX years when they won’t pay for the server anymore. Theeennnnnn I’d agree. Any other reason… not really, no.
Royal Blood Oath:
We are sworn together by our blood…
I still woudnt mind skipping 100% of the PvE so that i can play WvW instead :P PvE is level grind is ruining alot of my fun when i want another char with different class to play
