Announcements

Join the ongoing conversation on Discord: https://discord.gg/city-of-titans-official-633757967899951105

Q2 Update is live. See what we've been up to.

To purchase your copy of the City of Titans Launcher, visit our store at https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/ A purchase of $50 or more will give you a link to download the Launcher for Windows or Mac based machines.

Character Level

4 posts / 0 new
Last post
JayBezz
JayBezz's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 11 months ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 10/08/2013 - 14:54
Character Level

While we're throwing out things that other games have done wrong, and things we wish MWM does right while having no knowledge of MWMs design goals I want to talk about character level and how its defined in your game.

1) Please actually use "Adding Levels" as your expansion model. Champions Online started to use gear as its expansion model (keeping the level at "40") and I realize now what this actually does is distort the combat system. For instance their Crowd Control model was based on Hit Points diminishing control on target.. well as damage got stronger the control model didn't and it made the entire mechanic fall into obscurity.

2) I would prefer it if the combat powers (casts) of our character are defined as early as possible while using the later levels to define our passives, and allowing "enhancements". This allows players to quickly understand their build and makes re-roll (retcon) choices cheaper should a player want to change early on. Also for players like me who don't want to spend so much time as gimped version of their character for too long we get to our core build sooner. I look at it this way. Jean Grey, Emma Frost and Psylocke and Karma are all telepaths. In the beginning they could all do the same things .. but they later used their training to differentiate their styles, some learning special enhancement techniques that they are much more adept at than the others. Also Jean Grey may need a lot of energy to go all "Phoenix" and take passives to give her more energy and Wider AoE and More damage. Karma however would not use extreme amounts of energy.. she may want passives to Increase Cast Range, Decrease Cooldown and Cast through walls. Psylocke would want a passive to toggle stealth, Increase Melee Damage and Increase Dodge. I think you get the point..

3) Character level in many games is a disparity that makes teaming with players of other levels suck. Sure you can program a sidekicking system but most of the time I feel that makes one person unrealistically weak just to play along. In keeping with #2 I would love a system where your character level helped define a power level. For instance Our character HP can be a static number while gaming and our defenses, and offenses can change more drastically. With more character constants like HP, and fewer performance gaps between level 1 and level 30, more of the content is available to more levels. This means if your concept is a street fighter and you want to spend all your time in Gotham there is content you can do at level 1 or level 30 or whatever your new endgame happens to be ten years from now. This is essentially using a model like Guild Wars 2 PvP system.. but for all leveling.

- -

I am writing this basically to say please think about the constants for all the systems when changing level cap. If there's a gear system please do NOT have the gear system changes become a replacement for levels.

I hope that casts become defined early and character buffs/diversification gets defined at later levels.

I hope that even if I'm an "endgame" player that I can play a new piece of content even with a level 10 character. Even if their passives are not in place to enhance them they shouldn't do drastically different numbers to my character. Basically making the entire game a sidekick system.

- -

I know it's not traditional way to look at leveing in a MMORPG so I welcome feedback from other players about what a character's level means to them..

Crowd Control Enthusiast

Brand X
Brand X's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 8 months ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 11/01/2013 - 00:26
They just need to make it so

They just need to make it so people can share missions and sidekick. Make it worthwhile for people of different levels to team. Even friends want to get decent XP when helping their friends get levels.

Cold_Iron
Cold_Iron's picture
Offline
Last seen: 8 years 2 months ago
kickstarter
Joined: 10/18/2013 - 21:53
Just so long as the old

Just so long as the old endgame isn't forgotten. When I played WoW by the time I made it to 50 the BC expansion came out so all the cool raids I had seen were left behind. I know WoW doesn't do much for the story but I was still interested. Even tried to find a guild that ran the old rads just for the fun of it but nope people only wanted to do the raids that would give the best gear.

Brand X
Brand X's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 8 months ago
kickstarter11th Anniversary Badge
Joined: 11/01/2013 - 00:26
Cold_Iron wrote:
Cold_Iron wrote:

Just so long as the old endgame isn't forgotten. When I played WoW by the time I made it to 50 the BC expansion came out so all the cool raids I had seen were left behind. I know WoW doesn't do much for the story but I was still interested. Even tried to find a guild that ran the old rads just for the fun of it but nope people only wanted to do the raids that would give the best gear.

My problem with that, was some of the old raids had the best looking gear that got out leveled! :(