Many of us are familiar with the Leveling Curve of City of Heroes, and how in later years it kept getting less and less steep until it eventually just became a gentle ramp that was almost too easy to climb in a particularly rapid fashion. It wasn't always like that though. Early on in the game's history, City of Heroes had some "hurdles" to clear with respect to getting up to the next Level Range of available content. I remember that the 18-20 range could be a time when your Contacts ran out of missions for you and you had little recourse for continuing to advance beyond Teaming and Street Sweeping to make up the remaining XP. Likewise, the 30s were a particularly bad range where it was very easy to run out of "things to do" in order to keep the Level Progression actually progressing. And the late 40s were just an endless slog of trying to scrape together the XP to finally (finally!) get to 50!
I know ... sounds weird, right?
So here's the basic outlines of what I'm wondering. How "fast" should players be able to advance through the Level Ranges? Should this XP gain be something that starts fast at low levels and then slow down in the higher levels? How fast? How slow? Are there "targets" for how much XP should be gained over time? Should those expected gains be "pegged" to a particular timeframe? How much XP "ought to" be gained from the Story Arcs in various zones? Enough to clear the entire zone, just by doing the Story Arcs your Contacts give you? Almost [i]but not quite enough[/i] so that you get "close" to completion and then just have to Street Sweep or Newspaper for the remainder?
Early on, in Issue 2 and 3, you could roll up a Hero and not have a great deal of difficulty in gaining Levels as you worked your way through Atlas Park and/or Galaxy City. For Levels 1-3 or 4, the basic rule of thumb was that a single Mission essentially gave you enough XP all by itself, from Defeats and Mission Rewards, to give you basically a whole Level's worth of XP just from that one Mission. Then you started needing to do 2 Missions to get another Level ... then 3 Missions ... and then you might run out of Missions because you'd gotten some Debt along the way and now needed to do some Street Sweeping because your Contacts were out of Missions and you needed to get to Level 6 in order to start King's Row and The Hollows.
Later on, you could be running missions in Brickstown and Founders' Falls and needing to run through what felt like a dozen missions in order to earn a Level Advancement.
So the first question I've got is ... how many Missions ought to be "required" to Advance through a Level, at any given Level ... and should it be "expected" that your Contacts (all of them) in a particular Level Range will give you "enough to do" during that Level Range such that you'll be on a glide path to "land" in the next Level Range just in time for the Mission Content of the current Level Range to run out just as you get there? And how "fast" should that XP gain be in the various Level Ranges?
The one constant about City of Heroes and its XP gain rate that was always well done, I thought, was that even if you didn't Level Up during a particular game session, so long as you were earning XP you always felt like you were making PROGRESS on getting towards your next Level. And what I mean by that is that you could see your XP Bar [i]actually moving[/i] over time as you played. It wasn't like you'd take out an entire Mission and your XP Bar just wouldn't move (if you were below 50). You always had VISIBLE progress on your XP ... even when the Leveling Curve was steeper in the old days, and there were times when you'd hit a "dry spell" in the available content and be "forced" to Street Sweep.
So I guess another way to put this is ... if you're playing casually and just running content for fun (as opposed to doing it for Power Leveling) ... how much clock time should it take to earn 1/10th of a Level of XP? What is the minimum rate of gain that allows you to "see" that the XP bar/bubbles are "moving" as you play?
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I agree with you, I thought CoX had a pretty decent leveling curve there at the end, maybe even a hair too fast. However one important consideration is how much 'alting' is part of the core game experience. The more the player is required or encouraged to play a different character entirely in order to experience some section of content, the faster leveling should probably be (all other things being equal). At the moment, based on the variability of the three axis alignment system as well as the character paths of connected missions, CoT might be even more alt-encouraging than CoX was.
My first character was an Empathy Defender and it took me two years to get him to 50, since I often just went around healing people. I'd like it to take as long as possible to get to maximum level, which I why I cringe when I hear people yell about endgame. Hitting 50 was like permanent character death to me.
"No death, no doom, no anguish can arouse the surpassing despair which flows from a loss of identity." -H.P. Lovecraft
I think somewhere in between the two ends of the spectrum there. The original game took forever to level it seemed once you broke into the mid teens. I don't like leveling so fast that I blow through a zone without barely getting to explore it and get a feel for the area. I also don't like what you were posting about running out of content just because you died a couple of times. I also hated out leveling a contact mid story so you could not finish the story arc. Really cheesed me off.
I think a good balance of steady, but not crazy fast progression, combined with plenty of content options as you level so that you always have a mission to do if you want would be a great way to keep it interesting and moving you forward.
Time to break out another of your "diminishing returns" curves.
To me, this is going to be defined by how quickly it takes for your character to develop, both in game mechanics and conceptually.
I follow the "Learn who you are" , "Learn where you are", "Learn to Master Both" school of thought
- "Learn who you are": Until a character as a relatively solid "action chain" (whether attack or crowd control or buff), leveling should be relatively quick. You want a player to get a chance to get a "feel" of a powerset or archetype before he invests too much, not invest a lot of time to find the role develop that ultimately isn't fun for them
- "Learn where you are": Once this chain is established, the pacing should slow, giving players longer at each level to put his character into practice while discovering the more complex elements that can enrich that basic structure (like inventions, marketplace, day jobs, supergroups, etc).
- "Learn to Master Both" Once all these elements are fully introduced, the curve should get much slower. This is the point where your character should be well-defined in both powers and in the player's understanding of the game's structure. There is still more to discover, adventures to pursue, and powers to develop, but at this tier your character should feel "whole" in playing, if not feeling 'complete." You don't want this to occur at the "level cap" as many people tend to just end a character suddenly there.
I guess for superheros, we can call these phases the "Origin Story" (where the character comes about) "Titans Among Us" (where this new world of superheros opens up to the new hero), and "With Great Power...."
I agree on all that. If they ended up decoupling the content from the level more (ala what was discussed in http://cityoftitans.com/forum/thinking-level-adjustments-are-non-genre), though, then that would make leveling rate mostly about advancing, and not so much about what you are losing.
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It's just where I am"
They could always tie the contact into your level when you get your first mission from them. If the contact is let's say level 20-22 and you are in that range you can pick up that contact and do the story arc even if you out level it after mid-story. Basicly, once an arc is started it can be brought to completion no matter your level. If you are above the contacts level before talking to them you completely miss anything they had to offer.
Well ... okay ... if you [i]insist[/i] ...
The simplest and most direction notion possible would be to have a Leveling Curve that basically set itself up as needing your Current Level in # of Mission Completes (that's the finishing bonus plus all of the XP gains for actually doing the Mission combined) in order to advance to the Next Level.
So at Level 1 ... completing your first Mission should get you enough XP to advance you to Level 2. Note that the City of Heroes Tutorials effectively worked this way for both [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Outbreak]Outbreak[/url] and [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Breakout]Breakout[/url], as well as [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Precinct_5]Precinct 5[/url] for Praetorians, before the new [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Galaxy_City]Galaxy City Tutorial[/url] was brought online. You were essentially given 1 Instanced Mission to complete, and when you finished it (and exited the Tutorial Zone) you were Level 2.
At Level 2 ... you need to complete 2 Missions to advance to Level 3.
At Level 3 ... you need to complete 3 Missions to advance to Level 4.
... and so on and so forth ...
At Level 28 ... you need to complete 28 Missions to advance to Level 29.
At Level 29 ... you need to complete 29 Missions to advance to Level 30.
[i]... and so on and so forth ...[/i]
At Level 49 ... you need to complete 49 Missions to advance to Level 50.
And before I hear wailings and gnashings of teeth that doing that just means needing to "work too hard" to earn your Levels ... consider that getting to Level 5 would only take 10 Missions, and getting to Level 6 would only take 15 Missions "worth" of XP. That's not a whole lot, really, and is pretty close to what you could have expected from City of Heroes, except that I think that City of Heroes was "faster" through the 1-5 Levels and then fell off a cliff in the 6-10 Levels in terms of slowdown, since you went from having only 2 Contacts in the 1-5 range (Atlas Park and Galaxy City) to having like 8 Contacts in King's Row and The Hollows for 6-10.
Also bear in mind that requiring 29 Missions to go from 29 to 30 means that each Mission ought to be worth 1/3rd of an XP Bubble, which would (of course) represent a [i]visible movement[/i] of the XP Bar even when completing a single Mission. Likewise, requiring 49 Missions to go from 49 to 50 means that doing only 5 Missions "worth" of Content is sufficient to earn an XP Bubble ... so again, [i]visible movement[/i] of the XP Bar for completing Content.
Establish a series of "benchmark" targets for how much XP a Mission should award (in total, if successful) at each Level from 1 to 30, with an implicit understanding that you want to continue that progression from 31 to 50, and you will have basically sketched the first [i]rough[/i] outlines of the Leveling Curve for the game.
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And then we realize that a Taskforce arc might have 3-5 or 9 or... whatever-many individual 'missions' in it and some missions will be longer, or shorter and suddenly doing 50 missions worth of content doesn't seem so hard.
I agree that some basic benchmark is appropriate. However, I don't think it should be strictly tied to 'mission' as a unit of measurement.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I think that you need have a pretty quick and easy curve initially...you want to progress pretty quickly through the initial levels...say 1-10, or enough to get to your main signature powers pretty quickly. As was stated about, I dont wanna wait until I invest a whole bunch of time into a toon to find out that I hate the signature powers.
Seems like early in CoX the AT differences were...
Blaster...I hit at 30 meters for X dmg, but I have no HP
Scapper...I hit a melee for X dmg
Tank...I hit at melee for X, but I have a sack of HP
Defender...I hit at 30 meters for 1/2 X dmg, but have a heal (or buff or debuff)
Controller...I hold people for a little dmg at 30 meters
It was not until at least level 6 that you really started to show any difference and not until level 32 or so before you really got your signature moves. I'd like to see the differences come out a little sooner.
Since CoT is a new game, there will certainly be much less content when it opens than CoH had at the end. We need to plan for what to do when a character is out of missions. My preference would be for the game to open with some team activities available as alternatives to mission arcs, like Rikti Raids, Rikti Invasions, Holiday events, and perhaps even sewer runs that enable PUGS to charge forward and get XP on an impromptu basis. Got 15 minutes? Go to it. Waiting until your buddies get back from the game? Again, just go to it. Flexible fun without defined story arcs, in a group, beats street sweeping anytime.
This certainly helps with the idea of "learn who you are."
In this sense we might think of a mission as "20 minutes of play on a team" and ask how many missions does it take to advance from level to level? Is 16-17 hours of play the right amount of effort to move from level 49 to 50? Sounds heavy to me, but things were a little quick at the end of CoH anyway, in my view.
Well, considering the game is going to be launching with only 30 Levels, getting to those Level 32 Powers might entail a little bit of a ... wait ... that has nothing to do with how steep the XP Curve is ...
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After 10 Alt's to L50, I feel appreciative of the Level Curve that CoX had. You could run "empty" until lvl 6 and get by just fine. Mounting new Level Powers from L12 to L25 was livable. Getting to L50 made you feel like you really achieved. IMHO you could tweak the Level Curve a little, but remember what happened when we had that series of Power Levelers. L50 Tanks & Blasters that did not even know where DA was. Make it easier to enter into a Power Set; but leave each Zone hard (not impossible) to start with. When a "Hero" or "Villian" first starts their career, unless they are very gifted, they should expect a certain amounts of defeat.
If you do not Feel you have really Earned your Levels, what point the Fight?
I'm probably not the right person to chime in on this topic considering I played my original CoH main for many, many years after she hit 50 so obviously the idea of "must be earning XP all the time" doesn't resonate too much with me. Sure I ended up with a few dozen other alts over my years of playing CoH, but I was never really in a mode of "must level at all costs" with any of them.
That being said I'd be happy with a rate that's somewhere in-between "2004 CoH" and "2012 CoH". As other have said it seemed a bit too hard to level at the beginning and somewhere along the line it flipped and became too easy.
Obviously there'll be some challenges with the level cap starting at 30 and then shifting up from there. I suppose as long as most people can't causally go from start to whatever the current cap is in a week I'll probably be happy with it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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This is actually a very good topic, and we've already spent a lot of time on it ourselves. However, keep the ideas coming.
I can say we want people to feel that their time is well spent: both in terms of progression over time, and in terms of the quality of the time invested. Its a delicate balance. We are also aware of issues related to out-leveling content.
I do feel there is a need for players to experience a progression, and marking that progression with "levels" provides a clear indicator. It really comes down to the effect that has on the character's capability. Its still very much in work.
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Terlin
[color=#ff0000]The Bullpen[/color]
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Leveling?
Hmm.. i would like leveling to progress in a "EaseOutQuart" momentum.
Example graphs: http://easings.net/
[img]http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6128/q32f.png[/img]
from level 1 to 8 souldnt take more than 4 hours to reach. (shoots up pretty quick, just to keep players hooked)
...etc...
from level 26 to 30 should take more than 40+ hours to reach. (slows down allot to keep the player still playing on that toon)
For the record, that's a fourth-order polynomial curve.
So you get almost everything in the first half and it effectively stops for the last quarter? Ugh.
ETA: That easings site doesn't have my favorite log curve... <_<
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I figured this sort of thing might be useful/relevant to someone on staff. The real trick though is to figure out what you're going to want to use as the "metrics" for progress. I picked the "Missions" option because that's something which can act as a guideline not only for the Content Team, so as to give rough estimates of how much Content is "needed" for a particular Level Range, but also as a way to benchmark how much "stuff" ought to be put INTO a Mission to do within a particular Level Range. It made for a handy, granular metric that didn't involve a lot of other considerations like XP per Hour and the like (which then turns into a discussion about DPS and "efficiency" of XP Gains).
Hence why I stress the need for XP Gain to always be represented as a [b]Visible Movement[/b] of the XP Bar and/or XP Bubbles so that Players can FEEL like they are progressing towards their goal(s). That was one of the major selling points for me about City of Heroes in the first place was that you could SEE that you were progressing, even if the rate of that progress wasn't all that fast over time. You didn't have the phenomenon of spending 4 hours playing and have your XP Bar move like 2 pixels in that time span, which was (of course) too small of a difference to see it happening.
Yeah. Outleveled content is basically content that was effectively "wasted" in City of Heroes until the Flashback system came along to address that particular problem. The ability to STOP gaining XP was also a big help in preventing this from happening, but it too suffered from some unintended consequences.
With my "main" Praetorian Character, Sidhe Bang, I wanted to do ALL of the Praetorian Content in the 1-20 Level Ranges. That meant mapping out a path to switch from Resistance to Loyalist and back again in a sequence that would let me do EVERY Story Arc in each of the Level Ranges. In order to do this, I needed to stop gaining XP just before reaching the Level where I'd be kicked out of the current Story Arc and forced to go see a new set of Contacts. This usually meant going to Level X.9 and stopping so that I remained "under, without going over" and could turn on XP when I finished, knock over a couple of Mobs in street sweeping, and then move into the next arc of stories.
This was a PAIN to do because what I really wanted to do was tell the game "stop giving me XP when I reach Level 9.95" but only had the controls to tell the game "stop giving me XP [b]NOW[/b]" and thus had to be very VERY careful about gaining XP when I started getting close to the Level Break Transition, because even a little bit of inattention could deny me whole swaths of Content (which had no Flashback capability!) and therefore deny me access to the BADGES that that Content bestowed upon completion.
So if possible, not only having a "Stop XP Gain" option in the Game Controls, but also a "Stop XP Gain When Reaching Level X.XX" would be a very welcome thing for those of us who want to ENJOY the Content created for the game, without worrying about outleveling that content "accidentally" because we completed a Mission and the Mission Completion Bonus was larger than we'd expected/anticipated and had forgotten to turn off XP Gain. Because there's nothing worse that getting a Ding [i]when you don't want to Ding![/i]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
To my way of thinking, a lot of responses here, while totally valid, are starting at the wrong end. For me it's not a question entirely of "How long will it take" or "How many missions to level x", but WHAT IS THERE TO DO TO GET THE NEXT BREAK POINT? If there's a wide variety of stuff do to, personally I'm going to worry less about "OMG I still need 2^n missions for my next level." If I'm grinding the same three telephone missions, for example, over and over, I'm going to get bored and switch off, and go hang in Pocket d'Jeans, or whatever.
As an example, let's take ToR. That is a game that, through decently-crafted class-specific storylines and split specialization trees, screams at you to roll alts. And yet, it has very limited starter content, making alting painful at times. Even as you gain in level, some areas are fairly sparse, making you run the exact same content in the exact same order over and over. So the curve, whatever it turns out to be, should take into account the available ways to earn that "N missions" amount of XP, not just the raw numbers, IMO.
That said, I agree with whoever it was who stated earlier that you want to get your character to a point of some individuality, power-wise, early enough to make it easy to determine if it's actually the right powerset/AT/buildout choice for you. If I'm spending 3 or 4 days getting beyond Brawl and Pew-Pew-Pew!, well...back to the club I go.
I am [b] not[/b] an altoholic! I can stop whenever I want. No, really...
I have to agree with the folks above who have mentioned the main problem is less a sense of pace and more a lack of options at any point. The only time I ever felt the pace in CoH was a bit slow was in that 30s range before they changed the curve and then added patrol xp, and even then it wasn't so much a feeling of slowness as much as the worry I was running out of things to do.
Where I feel I may be in the minority is that I always felt levelling was TOO fast at lower levels, and I was always amazed by folks who wanted faster ways to get past what they described as boring lowbie levels. I think this was probably due to two things: (1) Referring back to Chase's comments, my "Learn who you are" for each character is not just about powers, but about what I think the character is actually like as a person (or android, or demon, or whatever). I start to build this sense in the early game when their world is still rather simple. (2) Since what I love best about RPGs (and something that CoH excelled at) is not simply being powerful but the [i]progression[/i] from weak to powerful, I want to be able to remember more than one or two missions where I had to be extremely careful and even run away from small groups at times. For me, that makes the ability at 50 to take on whole hordes of enemies at once all the more satisfying. I don't want levels 1-10 to go by in the blink of an eye.
EDIT: Sorry, just read Redlynne's comment in more detail re: not so much the actual pace as the sense of visible progression. I wholeheartedly agree.
Spurn all ye kindle.
So, did you succeed in getting the whole Sidhe Bang?
I don't think I've played an MMORPG in which you could decline XP for doing level-appropriate content. But then, I've never played an MMORPG where you couldn't go back and do missions that you hadn't done before, just because they were too far below your level. If we have the latter, the former seems like a good idea.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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I did indeed! Even got to tell Protean about it at the last Player Summit. He looked at me with one of those "you're even crazier than I thought!" kinds of looks before saying he was actually impressed that I would go to the [i]trouble[/i] of playing through all of that content when there was no "need" to, even if I had a "reason" to do so that I'd come up with myself. This all happened as part of a conversation where I was telling him how much better a lot of the Praetorian content was compared to What Had Been Done Before in terms of ingenuity displayed by the writers. Things like having a Bomb that could be defused multiple ways, with the branching paths dependent upon the character's Origin, with Magic and Tech getting alternate options that didn't appear for anyone else. It was a small and inconsequential thing, but also something that Hadn't Been Done Before and therefore was something I wanted to encourage him to do more often.
Then before the next Issue came out, NC$oft shuttered Paragon Studios and Protean was out of a job.
Good grief, I *WISH* I could have declined XP Gain while playing TERA. In TERA, each zone has a Marathon Badge for it, which can ONLY be accomplished while within a narrow level range, and it requires you to do some pretty massive "farming" of particular things in each of the Regions within a single Zone. Things like "Kill 200 Centaurs" and the like. The practical upshot of going for the Marathon Badges was ... you couldn't run the Instance at the end of the Zone, because if you did, you'd outlevel the content you were racing to complete before gaining too much experience by virtue of all the kills you were making. Things like "Kill 30 BAMs of This Type plus Kill 30 BAMs of That Type" as merely ONE of the objectives to clear for the Marathon Badge could put 2-3 Levels of XP onto your character, so you needed to do everything in your power to AVOID XP Gain ... leading to this curious sort of "showcase showdown" dynamic where you had to keep your XP "under" without going "over" which then placed a pretty severe limit on what you had "room" to DO within any particular Zone. It was just bizarre.
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As many have said, it's more about what I'm doing than how fast I'm leveling. A good attack chain feels good and after I have that I can settle in for the ride. I don't want the first few levels to go too fast but then limited content will make me want to opt-out. If my Magic Guy can see different foes than my Tech Guy then I'm more inclined to alt-out and play it all again.
Many players will only balk at content if they fell they're forced into it. Some will ALWAYS want things to go faster and nothing will ever change that.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
As a side note, I got the feeling playing Tera that En Masse Entertainment (the folks who brought it over to the US market) at least doubled all the quest XP rewards, if not the other XP rewards.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I'll toss my name in with Cinnder and the "stuff to do" end of things. Nothing makes me feel antsy like knowing I'm coming to the end of the end of having completed all the level 20 to 25 zone's content when I'm not even level 24. As long as I know I've got missions to do I'm not worried. This comes with the caveat that I am not a fan of The Zone That Will Not End. Granted, if a zone starts to feel like a drag that will in large part be a matter of taste and missions that don't engage me.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I have to agree with the majority here, content wins out over leveling. If I am enjoying the story and play then the xp will come. If I'm not I'm more likely to make a new alt and go another path. I think the comparison of (player level #)(missions) = total content needed to level seems like a fair ratio provided the content is precisely the same length in each mission. Once you start running into extra long missions (thinking the cave mission in the hollows here) then the ratio starts to become a little steep. Alternatively those short little two minute missions seem would seem a bit too short. When I started COH the XP was a bit slower but I think the experience curve was good until about level thirty to thirty-three. Somewhere in there it flattened out a bit too much. I think the intent of this was to encourage teaming rather than soloing at higher levels. I can't think of a single toon I took to 50 without teaming at higher levels.
I am thinking the hard numbers for XP gain aren't that hard to find and it is really a matter of balancing the content so that each level is a challenge without being so painful as to discourage playing. Keeping in mind that if there is a "quickest" route to maximizing XP people will find it quickly and any long roads to XP gain will become less traveled. I believe it is because of farming the Architect missions that it became so difficult to find a full team with the same frequency as in the games infancy. (Note: I really don't care for farming so I didn't care for the Architect as it was frequently used to this end, at least when I played it was.)
I tend to agree with Chases comments here too. He really outlined the basic motif for the genre pretty well. Develop a character background and what they can do. Learn about what it takes for the character to survive and thrive in the game. Then learn to master playing with a particular toon through endgame. (solo and teaming) This is when you really start to either love or hate the toon. If it is one you can really appreciate then playing is more fun and the xp will come, if not then it will become less fun, and you will build a new alt. (I'm not trying to imply this is the only reason to build alts.)
Ergo, content, content, content with steadily increasing xp requirements for leveling. No dramatic drops or jumps in experience availability or requirements.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
It seems like a fair ratio to me so long as the AVERAGE length of the missions in that level range is reasonably consistent. It's less of a "rule" and more of a "guideline" ... really. It gives the Content Creators a number to shoot for and then arrange their creations accordingly to come somewhere around that number (or at least close to it). It lays a boundary for how long Story Arcs ought to run within particular Level Ranges (short and sweet early on, long and involved later on) and is thus somewhat "fungible" around the edges but offers enough guidance to make some very basic assumptions and just Get Started.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
In and WoW and SWTOR(if you are subbed). So like when would roll a toon I always seemed that by the time I have done everything in the current zone or planet. I was either the right level for the next zone or a few levels stronger then the next zone or planet suggests you to start at. Now me personally I always kind of liked that. I guess lots of people enjoy the mob farming. But I personally hate that type of grinding. I hate that during those times it feels the game sort of just stops. I like that the content keeps me moving forward and has me traveling around the area as well. In Wow the quests pretty much lead you all over the map so that by the time ya ready to move on, you have uncovered the map. SWTOR not so much due to the class specific quests. There's chunks of the map you'll never see because you don't get any quests that take you in that direction or those parts of the map are only for the opposing side.
So I like having enough content in an area that also takes me all around the area to explore and leaves me prepared for the next level range area and I wasn't forced to have to mob grind. But I also don't want to feel like i'm just flying through the game or the quests just never end. in CO you can pretty much max level in like 2 or 3 days now due to alerts. Should take longer then that to go from 1 - 40.
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Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Something that could be done...is that you dont "LEVEL" until you train. So you may have enough XP to hit lvl 10, you got the ding and everything...but until you hit the trainer...you stay at lvl 9.
It has some downsides to it, but that is a generally pretty good method of not being forced to outlevel content.
Personally, I liked the speed of leveling in CoH. I always felt like once I got to 50 I could choose to go back and play the lower level stuff. You could join any team, work any mission, etc. and not feel underpowered. I didn't see it as a "death sentence" - I saw it as an opportunity to explore the game more fully. Sure, you could sidekick to a level 50 as a low level toon, but you can't really do much with the 3 powers you have.