Level Packs

[MajorOutage]

Why did you post a picture of Jackie Chan getting ready to stop a bullet with his hands?

[Cago30]

So you can buy the levels for whichever character you want levelling? Nice try

Nope! Wrong! Nice try yourself. I don't need this at all right now. I would have liked this maybe 18 months ago for myself but not anymore. Remember I proposed they do this AFTER the new engine. I only brought this up now because people have no real data to back up their over-the-top backing or rejecting of the idea.

My point is is that if FC is lacking in statistics, having this available MAY help them with determining a final decision on what they deem to be a proper course.

Ex. What was the percentage of active accounts used the service? Did it cause subscriptions to be renewed? Did it cause subscriptions to drop? Was it used more in one region than another? Did all the people that charge ingame for heckler afk-noob-leveling complain that their credits cow was taken away from them for that time period? Etc. etc.

Regards,
Guapo

[Raggy]

I only brought this up now because people have no real data to back up their over-the-top backing or rejecting of the idea.

Do you even play this game? Even if this idea comes to fruition after the engine, the underlying issues are still going to exist.

I'm going to break this down for you, nice and simple, so you can understand why level packs are a completely retarded idea.

Population

With the current state of the game, the population is at an all time low, making teams hard to find for any content at all. Players currently rely on incredibly sympathetic Org members/friends or multiple accounts to advance their new characters.

This is a FACT and has been stated, not only by myself, but many people with multiple accounts/org members etc.

Levels packs would only exacerbate this issue and make it even harder for people to find teams. Even after the engine release in 2024, the population will most likely not reach pre-SL levels ever again.

Teaming and Content

Most of the content in the game has been designed with teaming and multiple players in mind. This include outdoor SL mobs, instances/statics, quests and recently, elite dailies. Sure some profs/twinks can solo this content, but most cannot. Offering level packs reduces the 'pool' of players that a prospective team leader may have to choose from, making content undoable or just not accessable. This ties into the section above.

Those with and those without

Quite a simple thought that stretches back as far as the dawn of man. Those without will band against those with and it will divide the community even further and blur the line between player achievement and RL wallet size.

Individual player skill

Lets say you have just rolled that Doc and really can't wait to get it to 220 and get into Pande raids. So, you buy a level pack. You have no just missed out on the most crucial part of any profession: Learing to play it. I choose a Doc for this example because while levelling a Doc, you learn the idea of watching your nano, UBTing mobs through tab cycling, when to use a single or team heal, best time to pop your healing perks etc etc. You lose this experience if you skip teaming, making you effectively, as useful as a chocolate teapot to a 220 team.

First levels, then what?

What is to say FC can't change their mind later on down the road? -20% off on all BoCs? Buy one set of AI armour, get one free? Arguing against this change might stop this from happening.




There are all your facts, all the arguments against this are not over the top. They are well thought out and frankly, true.

[Cago30]

Hi Raggy,

Of course I play the game, Raggy. Here we go again with another over-the-top comment!

Your comments regarding Population, Teaming and Content, and the impact of "Those with and those without" are very valid arguments for not having leveling packs. I may argue a little about the have and have not because one could twist the argument in either direction because it appears the industry is trending towards the haves (and not just the gaming industry - ie how can a company maximize it's ROI?).

I'm not sure I buy the idea of Individual Skill as a strong enough argument against level packs because I have come across plenty of people ingame who don't know what to do at 220 who have played the game for awhile. At the same time I have run across many froob players who are very skilled for example.

Lastly your argument about "First levels, then what" is something is something I feel is not pertinent to this discussion of level packs and here's why from MY perspective. Any NODROP loot that currently can only be required via raiding should NOT be offered up for sale no matter what. So for example, Beast Loot, Sector 7 or any of the APF, Alappa, Albautraum. Etc. etc. So long story short I agree with you. FC should never put that loot up for sale.

Again, your first few points were very valid cons to the argument. Your last two I have a different perspective on.

So to put a little bit of fun back into this thread here's an argument for allowing level packs. I created a level 200 toon for the level 200 content playfields. However, I made him too small and I think he's ugly. Ha ha haaa. I did it on purpose but sometimes I regret doing it. I probably wouldn't use a level pack to replace him but I'm wondering how many people would because they didn't like how their toon looked?

Regards,
Guapo

[Thorneee]

I have come across plenty of people ingame who don't know what to do at 220 who have played the game for awhile. At the same time I have run across many froob players who are very skilled for example.

Have you wondered why ? Here's my theory : froob players actually play the game. They do dungeons, missons, dailies, (unfortunately, all of those often solo due to the lack of population on RK, so that makes it even harder) and do not rush through the content to reach 150/200/whatever.

[Kuegen]

...

I agree that the last three points aren't strong in themselves, but they are merely supplementary to the points you do agree with.

Level packs are a solution to dealing with the grind of a new toon, but they do not actually fix the grind. Theoretically, the grind could be "fixed" to a point where leveling a new toon is less of a hassle and is quick enough without needed to dual log and such.

Adding such an alternative will have consequences to some degree. There will be a decrease in the population of leveling toons, even if it is only a few people, its not a problem we need.

It's hardly a fix, and it causes problems?

[Cago30]

Have you wondered why ? Here's my theory : froob players actually play the game. They do dungeons, missons, dailies, (unfortunately, all of those often solo due to the lack of population on RK, so that makes it even harder) and do not rush through the content to reach 150/200/whatever.

Don't get me wrong, heh. I've seen the opposite as well. A Borg-'PL'd froob with starter weapons for example. I've also met people with paid-toons that have nothing above 220 who know a lot!

I guess this is the reason I don't like PvP or Tower Wars in AO, I find it hard to take sides sometimes especially since I know plenty of very nice people across all factions.

[MajorOutage]

smart stuff

If I could heartclick you, I would.

stupid stuff

Bottom line: We need less noobs, not more.

Letting people skip content by buying levels doesn't help.

[Utopian]

Actually, what the game needs is more players - period.

The elitism in this thread is laughable. There are a whole lot of things that don't help and skipping levels is only one of them. The daily missions are a greater problem of "leveling by skipping content" - unless folks consider the 10 minutes it takes to do the same 4 quests each day "playing the content". Really - whats the difference other than it takes longer doing the dailies than buying the levels?

[Kuegen]

Actually, what the game needs is more players - period.

The elitism in this thread is laughable. There are a whole lot of things that don't help and skipping levels is only one of them. The daily missions are a greater problem of "leveling by skipping content" - unless folks consider the 10 minutes it takes to do the same 4 quests each day "playing the content". Really - whats the difference other than it takes longer doing the dailies than buying the levels?

That...it takes longer doing dailies than buying levels? RK xp was hard to come by, then they introduced RK missions, wtf this is like buying xp. Then they came out with SL and upped the XP, wtf this is like buying xp. People got sick of the inf heck grind so inf missions began gaving nice rewards, wtf this is like buying xp. Population slowly declined, not everyone could play several hours a day, but wanted progress. So they introduced daily missions, wtf this is like buying xp.

[MajorOutage]

Actually, what the game needs is more players - period.

That's awfully convenient to say now that all the experienced players have been driven off.

LFT is looking pretty dead these days, yes, and that's sad. The sadder part has been that for a long time now you'd see the same people on there all day. Why? Because people have learned not to team randoms if they don't want to risk getting screwed by their idiocy. Or they're already known to be an idiot.

[viperuws]

I still see people complaining about noobs. the chance of FC letting you buy your way to 220 is highly unlikely. This means you would probably buy a lvl 200 char which still means you need to run a bunch of inferno missions which gives you plenty of time to learn your job. Even in a doc's case where, lets face it, most of the time inferno missions don't need a doctor to heal it.

Arguably an enforcer would have the toughest time learning to tank properly but that wont change if they were level bought or pocketed to 200. And if you think otherwise you haven't played any char lvl 1-200 recently. I have played 3 chars to 150 since I came back and the majority of the time I was on lft while pocketing myself. And when I did get a team, it was a pocket team (not my pocket)

**For those that wonder, i started engie and got fed up with the survivability in SL since my bot couldn't hold agro even with trimmers. Then I switched to MA and survivability was better but something about it was boring to me. Finally I started a fixer and am very happy with it. Dual wielding smg's makes it enjoyable I think**

Killing off the ability to pocket will simply make it harder to level not easier to find a team so that doesn't solve the problem.

The only thing I see solving the problem is having instances/missions that are level capped (no one that is not within the teams range can enter or just a straight cap like pen missions are) and have significant rewards for them similar to pen/inferno missions. This would mean fixing ado missions to not suck and adding missions to ely, schoel, and maybe even nas. This would also keep the whole leveling is faster in SL thing going and I would welcome breaking pocketing completely if this was implemented as well as not needing leveling packs. Solo and team missions would be a must of course.

I also for the first time did dark ruins solo and I loved it. It was a challenge for me to complete but I admit I started it at lvl 150 which was the minimum level for it.(I died to the rafters shield once since I didn't read the quest and died to the spirit boss at the end because I didn't use the bottles on the adds fast enough.) Sadly I can never find anyone to do the team version but I still have 30 more levels to go.

[Kuegen]

I also for the first time did dark ruins solo and I loved it. It was a challenge for me to complete but I admit I started it at lvl 150 which was the minimum level for it.(I died to the rafters shield once since I didn't read the quest and died to the spirit boss at the end because I didn't use the bottles on the adds fast enough.) Sadly I can never find anyone to do the team version but I still have 30 more levels to go.

Off topic, but I totally agree with you. DR is awesome, and fast xp as long as you are decently geared. Its a good chunk of solo xp and the teaming option afterwards is nice. I agree, not enough people team for that. I imagine an xp boost to the team instance might help. More instances like DR (or a revamp of alapaa/alb would be cool too)

[pontusen]

Have been levelling chars with no issue the past month

With the current state of the game, the population is at an all time low, making teams hard to find for any content at all. Players currently rely on incredibly sympathetic Org members/friends or multiple accounts to advance their new characters.

This is a FACT and has been stated, not only by myself, but many people with multiple accounts/org members etc.

It's obvious you have a lot of opinion on most things, but two contradicting in one thread seems a bit over ambitious.

Lets say you have just rolled that Doc and really can't wait to get it to 220 and get into Pande raids. So, you buy a level pack. You have no just missed out on the most crucial part of any profession: Learing to play it. I choose a Doc for this example because while levelling a Doc, you learn the idea of watching your nano, UBTing mobs through tab cycling, when to use a single or team heal, best time to pop your healing perks etc etc. You lose this experience if you skip teaming, making you effectively, as useful as a chocolate teapot to a 220 team.

There are barely any newbies around any more who needs to learn this stuff and those few that do rarely gets the chance between OSTs in nasc/ely, inf mishes with 220s and dailies anyway.

Adding some req. as a previous 220 or w/e on the account makes that argument kind of irrelevant.

[Traderjill]

Being a good 220 doctor doesn't mean that you know how to play a Shade effectively.. or even mean that you'll be profecient at being a good Enforcer (tank).

What would be cool, though I know they dont' have the time resources, is if there were some sort of in-game experience that you are required to master before being able to enter the world with a leveling pack toon. So you roll a straight to 199 toon and you are given a temp set of ofab, temp nano programs for that level, a temp weapon, default set of imps or symbs and you have to complete DR (or some experience like that) before you are allowed to go into the actual game and play that toon. When you master that experience, you lose all of your temp armor/symbs/weapon/nanos and have a nude toon with reset IP/perks, etc. Or they could go the sorta WoW route of a deathknight where you have a series of quests that get you starting gear and then you enter the regular world ready to go.. despite not having leveled up from 1.

[Raggy]

It's obvious you have a lot of opinion on most things, but two contradicting in one thread seems a bit over ambitious.

You can level solo fine. Doesn't change the fact it's hard to find people to team. They are not contradictory.

There are barely any newbies around any more who needs to learn this stuff and those few that do rarely gets the chance between OSTs in nasc/ely, inf mishes with 220s and dailies anyway.

And like has been said already. Fix the levelling system before introducing a bypass.

[Utopian]

That's awfully convenient to say now that all the experienced players have been driven off.

LFT is looking pretty dead these days, yes, and that's sad. The sadder part has been that for a long time now you'd see the same people on there all day. Why? Because people have learned not to team randoms if they don't want to risk getting screwed by their idiocy. Or they're already known to be an idiot.

Its the experienced (long term) players keeping this game alive. Thats one reason LFT is dead - long term players power level new toons, dailes with 220 help, etc.

The last comment about not teaming randoms is just...

[Speedytrox]

while I loved the idea at first so I didn't have to go through the first 50-100 levels on some profs but then I realized how barren the noob zones would be. TOTW would be impossible to get a team for some memories or azzy which is already difficult outside of the occasional engineer soloing it.

Really isn't hard to get memories. A lvl 25 Enfo can solo both GoT for belt and Lien for mems very fast.

[Rurounin]

Really isn't hard to get memories. A lvl 25 Enfo can solo both GoT for belt and Lien for mems very fast.

Not a chance for a new and inexperienced player, not even with dhq running.

[drainbamage]

Lets say you have just rolled that Doc and really can't wait to get it to 220 and get into Pande raids. So, you buy a level pack. You have no just missed out on the most crucial part of any profession: Learing to play it. I choose a Doc for this example because while levelling a Doc, you learn the idea of watching your nano, UBTing mobs through tab cycling, when to use a single or team heal, best time to pop your healing perks etc etc. You lose this experience if you skip teaming, making you effectively, as useful as a chocolate teapot to a 220 team.

The prevalence of powerleveling and the low difficulty of PVM means that there are already plenty of endgame docs that royally suck.