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....I think less XP is a GOOD idea
trinitycompleted
Member Posts: 108 Arc User
While it may be unintentional, at long last an end to "a weekend and a 6-pack of Red Bull" to get to level cap has happened. And it's a good thing, especially for new toons.
Now, now, hear me out!
One of the biggest problems I've always had with this game is how utterly pointless levels 1-39 were. You spend so little time at each line rank, the things unique to gameplay at those ranks have no meaning. Might as well just start all new toons at Rear Admiral, because they'll be there anyway (if not Vice) before getting to DS9.
Yes, I could by a super-sweet T1, T2, T3 and T4 C-Store ships, but seeing as they'll be used for a maximum of 10 missions (fewer if I DOFF or any other extra game content), there's little reason to even slot gear drops or mission rewards, as I'll be getting obviously better stuff later that afternoon. There's no point in touching a damn thing until it's Mark X, and in DR, that threshold has probably increased to Mark XII.
The value of most of the special gear on C-Store ships has diminished greatly over the years as more powerful stat-boosting consoles and better options for powers and clickables have rendered buying a low-Tier ship for the console almost entirely obsolete.
Perhaps people would be less anxious for a T5 Connie if the level progression allowed them to spend more than two hours flying T2 ships. (Disclaimer: This thread is not about T5 Connies)
We have more than enough non-endgame content to get somebody to level cap at half XP gain or less.
They way I see it, players will be able to enjoy the mission crawl better, there will be more value for lower-Tier items when the next free, geared-out ship upgrade isn't always just around the corner.
Perhaps a compromise for those who sees using the missions to level up as a grind, especially with less XP being rewarded (which could be everybody once they'd been around the block), a person who already has a capped toon in a particular faction can generate a new toons of that faction at level 50 and just start at endgame, which is what they wanted to do in the first place.
TL;DR: There's no point to having a leveling up mechanic (and gear, missions, etc. only useful at the lower levels) if you don't level up slowly. Either outright eliminate XP, start everybody at cap and ditch the useless junk, or keep the curve slower so low-level stuff isn't useless junk you'd only use for an hour.
Now, now, hear me out!
One of the biggest problems I've always had with this game is how utterly pointless levels 1-39 were. You spend so little time at each line rank, the things unique to gameplay at those ranks have no meaning. Might as well just start all new toons at Rear Admiral, because they'll be there anyway (if not Vice) before getting to DS9.
Yes, I could by a super-sweet T1, T2, T3 and T4 C-Store ships, but seeing as they'll be used for a maximum of 10 missions (fewer if I DOFF or any other extra game content), there's little reason to even slot gear drops or mission rewards, as I'll be getting obviously better stuff later that afternoon. There's no point in touching a damn thing until it's Mark X, and in DR, that threshold has probably increased to Mark XII.
The value of most of the special gear on C-Store ships has diminished greatly over the years as more powerful stat-boosting consoles and better options for powers and clickables have rendered buying a low-Tier ship for the console almost entirely obsolete.
Perhaps people would be less anxious for a T5 Connie if the level progression allowed them to spend more than two hours flying T2 ships. (Disclaimer: This thread is not about T5 Connies)
We have more than enough non-endgame content to get somebody to level cap at half XP gain or less.
They way I see it, players will be able to enjoy the mission crawl better, there will be more value for lower-Tier items when the next free, geared-out ship upgrade isn't always just around the corner.
Perhaps a compromise for those who sees using the missions to level up as a grind, especially with less XP being rewarded (which could be everybody once they'd been around the block), a person who already has a capped toon in a particular faction can generate a new toons of that faction at level 50 and just start at endgame, which is what they wanted to do in the first place.
TL;DR: There's no point to having a leveling up mechanic (and gear, missions, etc. only useful at the lower levels) if you don't level up slowly. Either outright eliminate XP, start everybody at cap and ditch the useless junk, or keep the curve slower so low-level stuff isn't useless junk you'd only use for an hour.
Don't phaze me, bro!
Post edited by trinitycompleted on
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Right now it's just painful...
We don't have enough content to warrent that kind of grind. We'd be repeating the same patrols over and over just to continue. Might be able to mitigate that if all of the original patrols in Sirius block and others were repeatable, but so far the only ones that are live in Tau Dewa and the Delta Quadrant.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Then, come back and please do tell us more about how the new leveling mechanic slows down your leveling so you can enjoy sub-40.
I'm all full right now, so I'll have to do it on Tribble, assuming XP values there are in synch with Holodeck.
Well I'll give you the results of my test:
Skipping tutorial
From Cadet to Level 1: click "Interact" button 1
From Level 1 to Level 2: click "Interact" button 2
From Level 2 to Level 3: click "Interact" button level 3
From Level 3 to Level 4: SS Azura mission
From Level 4 to Level 5: complete the next mission along
In other words, 3 button clicks in Academy plus two missions gets you half-way to Lt Cmdr.
The slowing of leveling up is only at upper levels so nothing changes at those leveling up points anyway. However, check the differences:
3000 XP for a mission at Level 5 versus 1500 XP at level 60, versus 750 for a repeated mission at level 60
3,000 XP to achieve one level at Level 5, versus 60,000 to achieve a Specialization point at Level 60
This is ignoring NPC-based XP for both levels.
So, it would take 20 missions at Level 60 to get a single Spec point. However, at 750 it's 80 missions. So the real difference in levels is if we keep the concept of 3000 XP to level up at the start, the equalized comparison would be in the vicinity of 240,000 at endgame.
The XP nerfing and Leveling logarithmic means that the difference has no effect at start, and an overwhelming effect at end.
What I do mind, is the slow xp to get each and every spec point that has now made this game, for me, very alt unfriendly. Out of the 20 alts that I have, I now only use 3 as the grind is simply too much (talking about farming for upgrades, reps, fleet marks etc). IMO the amount of xp required to get spec points should be reduced.
Not so much. It seemed as though it would have solved an old problem with the lower levels, but I seem to have been very much mistaken.
At the very beginning, either the 'leveling up' should have been promoted purely as an elongated learning curve; or alternatively, the leveling should have been a single straight line. To do the latter, the points should remain static (e.g. say, 3000 XP for each level and a mission worth 1500 XP, and those not changing), AND importantly, either way, the more options to level the better. For example, keep the "Brave New Worlds" missions for levelers-up purely on the basis of "You'll need to do basic missions in between the adventure". But no, those got removed. So you can't slow XP levels and leveling at lower levels, because there's literally nothing else available unless people were to do SS Azura 2-3 times to level, then the next mission 2-3 times, etc.
It's just been really poorly implemented, that's all.
^ This right here
I couldn't care less how much exp I'm getting if I had a steady stream of non-repeatable content to keep me entertained and get me, eventually, to the next level. Sure it may take me a day to get a level, but if I'm having fun and with a good story and maybe some friends, I wouldn't care.
But that's not what DR is. It's 30 minutes of story followed by HOURS of grind, just to get to the next 30 minute clip of a story... and so on and so on and so on... it's simply not fun. Then bny reducing the XP needed to do it, it creates more need for people to do the same thing over and over and over again, which after a while gets old. I'm all about sick of Argala and Borg Disconnected, and I've been sick for months of the old Queues, and years of the Borg queues.
Sure give me less XP, but give me non-repeatable content to move the story along consistant. Instead they got lazy, spread out the story among a huge leveling experience, then told us to get to the next one we get to do... the same thing we always do. Lazy and bad design.
... but then again I'm not using XP boosts , so I'm probably doing it wrong , if not downright exploiting ...
The elephant in the room though, is that levelling 50-60 and 60+ spec points is tied together. Levelling 50-60 should be faster, but 60+ spec points should remain the same.
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It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
1) Players who aren't at end-game level now have longer to go.
2) Players who were at end-game level are now not at endgame level, and feel like they have been robbed, as all of their MK XII equipemt is not the pinnacle of equipment levels anymore.
Here is the issue, the focus is on the "end-game".
Some MMO's get round this issue in different solutions. For example on World of Tanks, They have tanks which you use in combat ranked from Tiers one to ten. But here's the interesting bit, they have challenges and battles which are Tier-specific, so if you have a tier ten tank, then you can't use it in a tier six battle. This is something which STO should recogise more, making tier specific content/queues/PvE/PVP battles which give the appropriate rewards to promote using lower tier ships.
Yes there are event queues for lower tiers but nobody uses them, as there is no real reward.
I'd go for that.
Yes, the point is that the upping of everything doesn't introduce new, but rather is more like things we had are now all "damaged", where to get back to where we were requires repair but it's been called "upgrade". If it added new stuff (e.g. keeping the same DPS/dmg, but upgrading your Phaser Mk XII to Mk XIII let you add one new proc like [Borg], to XIV can add [Vaaduwaar mine chain reaction] etc) then it would have been really cool rather than really a repair.
Adding Specialisations that really were (e.g. career/faction specific), especially if they were interesting but not just "more of the same" power creep could have been fun.
New battles for higher tiers (not just difficulty levels) could have been cool and added that all-important sense of progression (e.g. Klingon/Federation at 25-40, Tal Shiar at 35-50, Omega at 45+, Vaaduwaar at 55+)
And creating a new level (not just moving up the HP for Elite) which requires you to have completed all optionals on all available Ground and Space PvE unlocks a special mission arc?
Lots of options... I really don't know why they're not exploring this stuff. Burnt out, out of ideas, not enough money, too much greed... I don't know, but something's going on.
But there is one big "BUT".
And it's called "It is too late".
Several years ago it could have worked, but not now.
STO-players already got used to certain gameplay connected with fast levelling, and if you take it from them overnight don't expect them to be happy about.
Major chunks of gaming activities and fun for a large part of community are build upon fast-levelling - having a number alts of different races and professions for different story or gameplay style (ground, space, etc), creating Dil-farming alts (for maximum efficiency these should quickly reach 50 lv), etc, etc
Nerfing XP and slowing level progression at this point also vastly increases the gap between pre-DR players and new ones, who are coming after it. Post-DR levelling will require from them much more effort than that the "old" players invested while levelling.
Slowing levelling, increasing at the same time enemy HP throughout the whole game (which makes more difficult to use NPC settings higher than "normal" while leveling for a completely new player) and at the same time leaving the other parts of the game as they were is not a very thought-out decision in my opinion. If you make the players stay at certain levels longer - you should provide the content that will occupy them at that time. And post-lv 50 levelling shows major problems with that - basically all the game proposes to do while waiting for an next episode is grinding patrols and grinding out yet another reputation system.
In the present state of the game, nerfing the XP needs major changes to other parts of it in order to be more acceptable and understandable for the players.