It’s not just that, it’s also all absolutely irrelevant and meaningless. You end up with the very same 8/8 character anyways. The question thus: why not hand out 8/8 chars to begin with? What’s even the point?
There could be a point to it: by letting the character (at least to some degree) freely distribute stats as he sees fit while leveling/potting up. And now you have the minimum RPG elements required to justify any of this bullshit. Wanna have a more offensive build? Let’s have a char with higher ATK cap, at the cost of DEF.
In the end, it’s a question of direction, and rotmg doesn’t have any. Also I highly doubt Decker has the balls to streamline and redesign such core mechanics. It’s quite a risk, afterall.
You’re making the same mistake Nevov did: you’re assuming this is a binary proposal.
It is not. I never said this was a choice between 100% predetermined stuff and 100% pure randomness.
You can have some RNG with some aspects of the game and still keep it engaging.
What you guys don’t seem to understand is that having RNG loot drops isn’t as big an issue. It feeds the main gameplay loot of the game by encouraging players to grind and keep running the same dungeons and fighting the same bosses.
RNG stat rolling on the other hand is not engaging. Instead of contributing to the main gameplay loop, it punishes players by forcing them out of it. You’re forced to take a break from farming pots and good gear to instead go fight boring trash mobs that don’t drop anything interesting.
Imagine if every time you died in a game you had to replay the entire tutorial. That doesn’t teach you anything new, or give you a chance to gain any cool new item or skill. It’s just pointless tedium.
Since this game is permadeath, some options would automatically be worse than others or barely playable.
That system would only really be fun for players with a lot of slots, as they’d be the only ones who would have the freedom to experiment without permanently crippling themselves.
Myself, I am not really a “new” player but rather inexperienced (I’m trying to change that though, I’m just really not good at the game yet). Every time I die, I always have to level up (I die once every few days, so I might have to level my character up again maybe once or twice a week).
I don’t mind leveling up because it’s actually rather enjoyable. New players who join the game should have to level up because it forces them to meet the lower level creatures. Bandits, goblins, elves, hobbits? Would you even bother taking them on if you were already level 20? No, I don’t think you would because they’re too easy. It’s a one shot kill for any level 20 with any decent gear and they typically only do 1 damage (if any, depending on your armour and your defence).
To fix the fact that if there were no leveling system then there would be no need for these lower level monsters you would need to probably start off with very low base stats and grind for potions to raise said stats, which would be difficult considering most potions come from dungeons that are somewhat difficult.
The leveling system is kind of like a bridge where you can meet lower level creatures to learn the game and experience those zones and slowly build up to more difficult encounters with more rewarding loot.
I know that rolling can be a pain for many players, especially those who really want to max out their class. I think that a fix for this would simply be setting the stats indefinitely. For example, you start off with x and it increases by y every 1-2 levels so by level 20 you have z… If that makes no sense think of it like you start off with one stat, it increases every so often but by the time you’re level 20, it’s the same stat as every other level 20 of your class. There would be no rolling since the level 20 stats would be the same for everyone and everyone would need to get potions to make that stat better.
However, the only “problem” I can see is this might affect the trading world (I am a newbie trader so this interests me). However, with the RNG of the stats already, there’s already an average and if the system was changed so that the level 20 stats were based around that average, then it shouldn’t change the “economy” much if at all.
Which brings me to my last point, this game is very RNG based. So the leveling system does make quite a bit of sense when you think of it like that. It makes sense that in an RNG bullet hell game that your character has RNG stats so I kind of appreciate that concept and I don’t see why there would be a need for that to change.
This is just my opinion and I may not be experienced enough to know how outgoing players who have maxed several classes think but this is really something that, if changed, would have to be done in a smart manner. I don’t think the leveling system should be removed, but it definitely could be edited to suit players a bit better and so everyone is equal when starting out. But even if not changed at all, it doesn’t seem like too much of a problem even for rolling if you’re patient enough to farm out the potions you need to max that stat.
So what’s objectively more important: offensive power, so things die sooner and no longer kill you? Speed to run away? Def? Well… Sure, since the only real danger nowadays are instashotguns, everyone and their moms would go for max hp built, but you could balance this, one way or another (e.g. by granting more absolute minor stats power, or less absolute hp extra).
Besides, I’m not really advocating such a system/change. Just pointing out that rotmg is a random mess in this regard that doesn’t really go anywhere with anything. 8)
Well, pared back to its purest core function, the 1-20 level-up is a way for the game to fast track assist newly built characters by giving out free stat boosts 19 times over, for merely playing the game (and of course surviving!).
Viewed like this, the game is “giving for free” an average knight over the level-ups stats equal to drinking:
95 life pots, 19 mana, 28att, 19spd, 19dex, 28vit, 19wis. (~120 life total value if my maths is right)
(For context, to max from average a knight needs:
19 life, 12 mana, 7att, 40def, 24spd, 21dex, 37vit, 21wis)
So it’s really quite an effective system to slingshot characters so far along the path to maxed, for comparatively little player effort, enabling a 0/8 lev20 to at least participate in most content without being instad.
Maybe if you think the levelling is “pointless filler” use the pure value that it gifts as a reason to enjoy it. “Hey this 15 minutes levelling just saved me 120 life pots.”
Its other secondary function is to acclimatise the players to permadeath as anyone who really can’t make it through the levelling process, so much better to learn this with dying again and again with nothing of value in the die->level->die loop before they get into losing actual things they’ve ‘earned’/expended effort and/or spent actual money on.
So I think levelling as a concept is essential to Rotmg because its absence would make the permadeath side more brutal if characters started out straight into the pot-maxing phase of rebuilding instead of the “free stats from level up” phase.
Yep I’d enjoy levelling if it was made more interactive with choice over stat point assigning but agreeing with @RubeII that’s a pointless thing to have unless it’s done as part of a package to allow variation in max stats some way, which I would like to see, enabling different stat builds. Possibly would only work with the offensive stats due to emphasis on HP but anyway that’s a different discussion.
Now who’s taking examples to extremes?
Players learn how to level within what, the first fortnight or month? So the average player knows how to level. The average player won’t take an hour to level up.
The average player levelling is someone remaxing after a death. They’ll quickly have learned to put gear aside (mules still are tolerated for the F2P) and it’s only laziness or disorganisation (or poor play resulting in using up stored gear faster than replaced) that means a player “has” to level completely from scratch.
But players are generally more casual/lazy these days (thanks pets). All those players bitching that they “only” got a T10 drop, I wonder if they then go on to bitch that they “need” a level-up weapon after a death. Well the game does provide…
While this may be true for you, I would heartily disagree. Levelling is one of the most fun bits of maxing a character, in my opinion. A refreshing break from the grind!
If levelling were removed as you suggest, I’d be quite disappointed. It would be taking away a part of the game that I pretty much grew up with and still enjoy.
Without leveling all but the god lands would have pretty much no reason to exist. Unless there was a massive over haul of the game leveling’s needed to have the game make the smallest amount of sense.
And you think it’s a good use of resources to make the servers generate and handle massive maps that are at least 50% useless?
Everything outside spawn and godlands is only useful for leveling and completing Tunnel Rat, meaning it’s useless 99% of the time. Not to mention the Tunnel Rat part is fucking boring because by the time you get to it you’ll be massively overpowered for it.
But why though?
If you think that because you get tired of farming godlands all day, wouldn’t overhauling the entire realm so that you have a reason to explore all of it make the grind more enjoyable and less something you need a break from?
Nobody suggested to have everyone start with lvl 1 stats and farm stat pots to fully max their characters. The current suggestion, should the leveling system be removed, was to have everyone start with lvl 20 stats.
Therefore this entire part of your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
I never said we should completely remove all progression and just dump people straight in godlands.
The idea would be to change the way the realm works. Instead of funneling players towards the center of the map, each part of the map would have its own points of interest and be useful in some way. You would have to actually explore the map and learn how it works instead of just learning godlands and dungeons.
But you’re the one who said:
You were clearly talking about me, personally. So I explained why my personal experience isn’t the one most players have.
I’m not taking an example to an extreme, I’m merely explaining why your example doesn’t work.
We’re talking about a community that, in the span of what, several months? still hasn’t figured out how Parasite Chambers works. A community that, after, how many years has it been, five? after the Mad Lab’s implementation, still doesn’t understand its mechanics either.
You might be a bit too optimistic on this one.
I just don’t get how you (or anyone, really) can defend this game as some sort of perfect masterpiece when you know, just as much as anyone else, that it was made by two people in a few months and was so rushed and poorly planned out that we’re still dealing with their mistakes nearly 9 years later.
No it’s a bad Idea. Leaving in this low level content is also a bad idea if they were to remove leveling hence the game needing a complete overhaul on the maps.
Yes and I agree to that.
All I’m saying is that if leveling were to be removed then everything contributing to leveling (80% of the current maps) should also be removed but then that leaves the overworld maps with no variance.
Personally I don’t think leveling should be removed but if it were to be they would have to take a lot more steps at the same time.
And you know what, it’s actually worse than a community unable to learn new things. Knowledge also is lost. Or when was the last time you’ve seen LOTTL being stunned right before he’d spawn his annoying minions? Well, guess that’s simply not annoying enough any longer. Hu?
Not even kabam dared to touch the maps, while good old swagger mike was dreaming of thy endern realms (top kek, oh and sic!). What makes you think Deckr, the company that isn’t even able to produce much of anything original would ever put their hands on the maps? New content is outsourced to the community and we end up with lost halls and thicket trash dungeons. The only good addition was parasite, but that is a recycled dungeon done by actual pros, or so, I’ve learned.
I want Willem back. 8(
But yes, key to a better rotmg is the map. I totally agree.
So is a company who hands out crappy things and crappy ideas without community feedback better than a company that actually listens to the community and actively tries to fix problems brought to their attention by the community. Deca has done a good job so far. They’ve been patching up the little stuff while adding a big addition (like LH, an idea with MASSIVE positive community response) every once in a while. Deca doesn’t have to create every idea from scratch for the dungeon to be good. Court of Oryx will never be worth it over O2 though, so it is a shame that thicc boi is a CoO dungeon. Also, Hive sucks.
Also, Deca’s boss fights have been engaging and fun. Each new dungeon brings something challenging/interesting to the table. Tomb or OT are the only Wildshadow dungeons that bring something exciting to the table (in my opinion), and Deca made OT even more fun. All of Deca’s dungeons have a gimmick that make the boss fight memorable and fun. Sorry to go off on a tangent about a tiny section of your post.
The way I see it, removing leveling is throwing people off the deep end. Like I’ve said many times beforehand, make it so game mechanics and engaging fights teach newer players as they go along. Don’t make it a monotonous Hobbit Elf fight where you can usually blow it out of the water without trying (unless you have a pet). Yes, let’s allow new players to enter Abysses and Pits and god-knows-what-else and just tell them, have fun! (Also, without leveling, we would basically ruin the idea of item/equipment progression)
That’s besides the point I made. Willem was the last professional that worked on this game to add excellent content. No cheap one room boss dungeon(?) bullshit. No thicket eyesore cancer boss rush Ima bullet hell now crap. No. Lovely, fun, and well balanced dungeons like the mad lab, or probably also parasite, I guess that was probably also him. Nobody like that works for Deckr.
And as to the community and their feedback (including mine). It’s overrated. I’d rather have a developer that doesn’t give a shit about you, but understands his own game and focuses on his own vision. The community (including me) is mostly retarded as fuck. In the sum anyways. Just take the notion of “endgame dungeon” which is 100% community driven, take a look at the dungeons it produced, and the dynamics that followed. Holy moly. Don’t ask the community.
Several reasons actually. Nostalgia, for one - as I’ve said, I grew up with it, I can remember being really happy the first few times I got to level 20. It was a big achievement then!
Plus, sometimes I can get so caught up with all the more endgame content that it’s comforting to return back to levelling a new character when I die. I would also agree with what Nevov said, that it is a part of the punishment for your permadeath, except I would argue that it’s not a punishment for everyone.
And, as you will go on to write, I do get tired of farming godlands. It’s nice for a break.
To that I would say that getting tired of grinding isn’t the source of why I like levelling. Yes, it’s part of it, but only a fraction.
Besides, I feel DECA has more on their plates to chew on than overhauling an entire system. I could see them working on something in the far future… maybe after the port to Unity, and when everyone’s settled again and ready for new updates. But I don’t think levelling will ever disappear completely. But I guess we never know
Yes, but to newer players, that sense of progression is what they seek. Going from 2 def to like 14 def just FEELS good. You can see and feel your improvement. Later on, for new players, they get like 1 pot every 5 or 10 minutes.(Shit pets, Shit DPS) If they play for an hour, they would probably go up by a couple of each stat. That isn’t nearly as noticeable, and they die often, It just doesn’t compare to the instant progression. Yeah, sure, all you white stars can insta-max, but new players can’t. Their fun, is in progression. ANY progression.
Actually it’s even worse than that. A lot of people (even at higher ranks) still don’t understand that clearing the big static mobs makes the boss easier, or that the dungeon has trooms, or that leaving the last room before boss uncleared means having to deal with extra enemies in a minuscule room already filled with projectiles.
And so you get idiots who rush straight to the boss and fuck everything up, including themselves.
To be fair, he’s the only enemy in the entire game that works like that. There’s no way to figure that out on your own other than sheer dumb luck.
… no? You would still start with t0 and have to work your way to the top.
I’m advocating for the removal of leveling as a mechanic, I never said we should remove every form of progression from the game.
You mean aside from the fact that he’s responsible for Cemetery and LoD, and that Parasite used to be a bunch of unused enemy sprites from the WS days until Deca came along?
Getting rid of leveling wouldn’t force you to do endgame stuff 24/7. You’d still have to chill in the realm and easier dungeons to regain the pots and gear you lost before going back to Tombs and LH.
That’s not leveling though. That’s finding better equipment. You’re just proving my point that leveling is unnecessary when we already have gear progression and maxing.
I think that people generally do understand the Mad Lab’s mechanics, they just choose to ignore them (people who rush to Dr. Terrible often leave before the second boss). I do agree with you on the point of the Parasite Chambers, though.
Despite this, I think that it is worth noting that we are comparing a rare dungeon that is hard to find (no event quest marker in the realm) to something that everyone goes through all the time. Everyone levels. The good, the bad, the rich, the poor: everyone has had to level in Realm’s history. It takes one back to one’s roots and reminds them of what they used to be and can become again should they mess up, and everyone gets familiar with the process in their first month or so.
Low level players are certainly at a disadvantage when it comes to leveling: their pets are weak or nonexistent, they don’t have gear, and they don’t have the know-how to survive. However, these are the players who need leveling the most: they require more time with the game’s mechanics to learn how to dodge and defeat challenges, and leveling gives them a chance to do so without being in direct competition with more experienced players, again giving them the chance to get practice on their own.
Players with years of experience, good pets and equipment they can use on leveled characters can basically blow by the leveling process with their better survivability, skills and knowledge of game mechanics. This has been made even easier by DECA in recent updates, where exp boosters can now be easily obtained from quests and login calendars, and max level potions can be received from events. Thus, leveling becomes a 10-minute slap on the wrist for those who know what to fight and how to survive while still allowing newer players to get the experience they can apply later on in the game.
Essentially, the system already rewards those with experience and greater assets, while still giving new players the chances they need to hone their skills.
I do agree with you that the map is a little outdated in terms of enemy composition and where people like to congregate. Maybe instead of having to redo the entire map system (which could be a nightmare), enemies in the highlands and godlands could be buffed (along with their drop tables, of course) to the point where they can be a challenge to level 20s in the highlands and a threat to maxed characters in the godlands. This would help to address some of the congregation issues we currently have, and provide additional challenges for high-level players.
No big fan of cementry and lod either, but they’re still way above court of orix dungeons. And I’m really not sure who put how much work into parasite. It’s a great dungeon. And if that praise goes to deckr, so much the better. Maybe they finally hired someone capable afterall? I don’t know.
