Making level through 1-29 content too easy/fast

I personally think that making level 1-29 content so that leveling is faster is not good for DCUO.

I know that some players feel that the game doesn't even start until level 30. I know that some players complain that players were reaching level 30 without really understanding the mechanics of the game.

Rushing players through the level 1-29 content wastes work that has already been done on the game and focuses more on the end-game content (level 30 content, but more specifically level 30 T5 or higher content).

It does nothing to improve leveling. There were no rough spots where players were caught with missions that were too difficult. I have the feeling that the only players that didn't have enough missions were F2P or Premium players that didn't have access to all the DLCs; one would think that this would be one of the benefits to subscribing to the game.

I guess my perception was that some players felt that the game was drawn out and that some people creating alts felt it took to long to reach level 30, or that forcing players to reach level 30 faster would prompt them to think about subscribing sooner or paying money faster due to the cash cap and inventory storage size.

I have stated before that I enjoy the level 3 (is that when you are off Brainiac's ship?) to level 29 content more than the level 30/30+ content.
The reason for this is partially because other players don't tend to be as much of a rush as they are in later content. Some players are taking time to enjoy the genre emersion and don't want to be rushed through the experience. This is how some people enjoy the game.
You are less likely to run into other players that are going to "tell you how to play the game" at lower levels. Players have time to explore and figure out things work instead of being told "how you are supposed to play". How you play should be your choice.
If you a game is well designed, the system should reveal to you how to work as part of a group. The secondary role structure (non-DPS) is not clearly defined or enforced. Nor is the load-out mechanic; I've run into new players that had no idea about the load-out mechanic - let alone how to change into their secondary role. Work in this area would greatly improve the dynamics of the game and, hopefully, work to avoid some of the DPS-centered mentality of the game. Players are funneled into DPS mode just as much as they select to remain in it on their own. No attempt is made to explain group dynamics or role synergy. This is completely over-looked in low-level content - in fact, anywhere in the game - even as far as to not enforce roles selected when queuing for an alert.
New missions should be added with new (or alternate) feats for lower level content to improve the alternate character experience. This is a step to make the game more re-playable and, hopefully, help to keep content more focused on the character's mentor relationship/origin and not straying their heroic endeavors too far away from character conception (mystics battling the supernatural, detective/street-crime fighters battling thugs, and metas battling the super-powered and mutated).


My feelings are that the work of 1-29 content should have gone in another direction. Instead of working on ways to make low-level content go by faster, work should have been done to make the low-level content a more enjoyable and satisfying experience that teaches group dynamics and the benefit of playing roles (secondary roles - aka not DPS) to a group's success. In fact, work to make the game more grouping friendly when not in Alerts - where the grouping mechanism is badly broken and poorly explained.
I play DCUO because I love the super-hero genre. I enjoy interacting in a super-heroic world.
Frankly, level 30+ content starts losing that super-heroic appeal and turns into a rush for Marks and better armor with players that appear to be more and more self-involved and focused only on their own gain and needs - players focused on the end-game highest-tier gear and have forgotten the genre they are playing in just to rush through content in the fastest, most efficient manner.

Yes, I think rushing players to the end-game is the wrong idea.

i am not sure how I feel about that change either. The levels get harder as you progress because, reasonably, the enemies are higher level too - and you are supposed to learn how to play your class in a variety of ways versus the same old chain of button mashing.

It slows wayy down after level 20, but that's - that's gaming! Once you hit the last stretch to max exp level in any game it's Supposed to slow down.

I have a ton of alts and Part of that is because I want to play the world over and over in different classes on different team sides with different mentors - and I enjoy the ride. If all my alts hit 30 right away it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

I am glad they are slowing down and drip feeding the missions once you hit 30, that might help the feeling some. However I don't think levelling needed to be sped up at all. Why? It takes a lot of people 2 days Tops to hit 30. I have a friend whose non-gamer girlfriend came in and with her FIRST character and no clue how to spec or combo or anything, hit 30 in a week with an EXTREMELY flawed loadout.

Oh well... *sigh* I'll make a new char and go at it from scratch to see what I really think. But I tend to feel it was unnecessary and may actually impede some game enjoyment / ability to learn a class well before the heavier 30+ content.

When I level a new alt with a power I haven't used I don't even figure out my loadout until I do duos. I feel like not many people like the starter missions and want to focus on end game content. So of course they're going to want to level an alt faster.

I understand what you mean about people not knowing anything about their power or about loadouts when they hit 30...but that's always been an issue. At least it has been since I started playing 1 and a half years ago..

HEAR HEAR! As it is there is NO reason to group even once before level 30. In fact, lower level grouping can be annoying as heck. Roles beyond DPS to save your solo butt mean nothing until half way through the level progression - and only IF grouping regularly, which most people who are powering through to hit 30 don't bother with anyway.

I keep trying to create alts and play their actual roles- but I get sucked into the DPS spiral every time because it's the way to solo and survive. Something should be addressed that helps players understand their roles, and gives them a real incentive to group by say, level 15 - and experiment / learn how to play their roles in groups.

It's completely lacking right now - I honestly don't understand how to learn how to play a role before level 30 - and then you have to fumble through PUGs unless you have friends who will help you along with some knowledge (or the desire / ability to slog through jargon heavy guides here on the forums that can read like japanese furniture instructions sometimes LOL)

Holy carp, GU31 has been live for less than 4 hours?!

Hmm...well...

It is true that there are no active help tutorials to help players through the lower levels. When COH shut down and I moved to this game, I felt that the leveling was too fast and easy. This update makes it faster and easier to get to level 30. If the total purpose of this game is to only participate in end content, why make players go through the motions of getting to 30 in the first place? The devs should just start players at level 30, and create mission content from that point.

So, I guess we will see players reaching end content in 3 days, and complaining at the end of the week how bored they are because nothing new is out yet.

I have been playing for almost a year now (COH had shut down on Nov. 31, 2012) and my main is cruising at CR 65. This game is only 3 years young; more content will go live as time goes on and I want to have a something to look forward to instead of waiting for something new.

It was made to be easier. That way people can get to 30 and start doing the fun stuff.
If you wanna take your time, to ahead. But many new players want to be powerful, sooner, rather than go through the painful leveling process for hours and hours more than necessary.

I bet that the players who want to rush through levels 1 - 29 are the same ones that folks on this forum complain about not knowing their role or how to play the game. People should enjoy the leveling process not see it as a burden. Also, the leveling storyline, IMHO, is far superior to the end game storyline.

My only comment is that the only thing you learn how to do pre-30 is bad damage dealing. You don't really learn your power's PI, clipping, rotating, and using weapon combo (with clipping) until your post-30 or your into reading guides. The reason you learn it post-30 is because you are working with people and actually have to do roles in alerts/raids.

Also, you don't really get any support gear until post-30 so you can't learn healing/trolling/tanking until then. Keep in mind, my favorite part of this game is pre-30 too but I'm kind of tired of it after 30+ characters in 3 years (a lot of leveling and deleting and redoing before power respec tokens (I like having certain names haha)).

By fun you mean spending hundreds of dollars on RB to get the gear for your role. Or hundreds of vault runs to get the last piece of style to finish a feat. Or to be kicked from raids because you don't have hundreds of feat point(ties in with the hundreds of vault runs) but you spent hundreds of dollars on getting gear to boost your CR. Mmmmm, this is not fun. This is a master blowing a whistle so his dogs will act on a command.

Seriously? People actually buy RB to gear up? Who's in that much of a rush? I've only used free replays I get from being legendary and I gear up just fine on 3 different characters. Granted, I've been playing for 3 years so they are natural progressions but I've never needed replay badges for wave/nexus.

I know I'm not 103CR but I'm full t5 with 4 or 6 pieces of purple gear from nexus/wave. There's no need to rush or use replay for anything. It's there for people who wants to get lucky from RNG more often. On the note about skill points, nobody even knows your skill points and you certainly don't have to tell anyone or use replay to gain them. Also, most of your skill points is from doing either grind (like 500 duos) or certain things from raids.

I leveled 1-30 on the test server before this went live heres what i found.

• missions are easier to find.
• the consumables that you get allow you to try them and explore.
• the more missions you do the more marks youll end up with at 30.
• with side kicks and back ups it takes away some of the getting mobbed by adds less dieing.
• while the xp was decreased a little there have been xp boosts that drop you level a bit faster but there is minimal differance
• I leveled mine in a bout 18 hrs but i had more of the exploration stuff done because of the scanners.
• you cant just farm bounties for xp you must do story content.
• with all the mentor missions available to everyone once you hit level 15 there are more rods to take on your way to 30.
• The journals work better so do the reward selections.
• i found myself looking for the side missions instead of watching my level.
• When i hit 30 i was able to get 3 pieces of t1 right out of the gate this should help curve the buying pvp gear and running duos in it.

Overall i think they did a great job with it. I also dont feel anyone can make an informed opinion until they have leveled an alt with the new system. It moved a little faster and usually i level an alt in about 20 hrs if i take my time this way shaved 2 hrs off but i ended up with more skill points from the exploration feats than i did.
The mission rewards are better makes you want to not skip over them.

Funny i dont think were playing the same game. sounds like your a little jaded i hear wows got a new expansion coming out.

Players rush thru leveling content as is. I don’t feel the updates are that much of an issue in the grand scheme of thing.

The issue is more players being able to rush through the end-game content towards the highest level while not gaining the experience needed to be proficient with their powerset either in their chosen role or their off role.

Especially when faced with group content…

Completely disagree with the OP here. Players can still take their time and do everything if they want (I probably will not immediately start the lvl. 30 content for a bit), but the level 30 cap is the springboard for everything else. It's not designed to need grinding at any point, it's in effect the "get used to the game" period. The earliest raids, duos, etc. are where players begin figuring out their roles, not the pre-lvl. 30 content.

Oooo, like Virtues Knight or Checkmate or Sharpshooter. Also I happen to be a honest player/person, if the LFG is looking for CR98 and i am CR96, I am not going to lie about it. Anyway there are to many SP tied to styles, which you will only get based on a random generator tied in with a bucket load of luck and, wait for it.... hundreds of RB that cost real money. A simple solution would be to put it in the marketplace, but then you can only buy it once, and that will limit the income that DCUO need to generate to make SOE happy.

Oh and thes are the only changes that were made outside of cosmetic to leveling

Leveling Content Update!

·Players should no longer find themselves without a mission when completing leveling content.

·We now guide players to level 30 better, by giving them the most important missions first and then granting missions that are relevant to their Combat Rating.

·Missions granted at level 30 are now chained to prevent players from receiving an unreasonable amount of missions at once when they reach level 30.

·Reduced the amount of experience required to reach levels 8 through 29. Players within this range may log in and find their level increased. The experience required to reach level 30 remains unchanged.

·We did a pass on leveling content NPCs, removing abilities that seemed unfair and updating abilities and visual effects where needed. Weaker enemies in leveling content may now use attacks that are vulnerable to block or interrupt and can be countered. However, weak enemies still cannot inflict counters on you and only have vulnerability to counter mechanics.

·The level of enemies in the three final episodes has been reduced.

You didn't read my post.

I enjoy the level 4-29 content. It is the fun stuff to me.

Why is getting yelled at and called noob/scrub/etc the fun stuff?
Why is the farming and redundancy of the end-game more enjoyable?

I don't think the it is hours and hours more than necessary. I certainly don't think the lower levels are painful.
I think my point was that it already is a rush and the game doesn't take time to explain role functions, role synergy, or much of the mechanics of the game. It also lacks ways to truly experience the game in the 3 mentor sub-genre settings in the 1-29 content.

I also pointed out that there are players like you.
To go into detail, players that appear to want an "instant win" button rather than role-playing the experience of gaining skills and powers because they have no fun developing a character.
You may even be the kind of player that plays cookie-cutter load-out characters (maybe only one) to get the most out of mini-maxing powers and skills. You may also play your character by using a preplanned pattern of power usages that repeat indefinitely.

I, on the other hand, do not think that experiencing the super-hero environment in the game is a waste of time. Nor do I come to the forums to learn the prefect predesigned build for my characters.

I'll add that I try not to make assumptions that they way that I like to play a game is the way that a majority of other players want to play a game.
I would hope that because this is a super-hero game that players would find the super-hero interaction enjoyable and not think it painful.

I do understand the Pokémon mentality. I think that is a sad state to be in, but to each their own.

And I think the fact that most players don't have an incentive to learn to play their role until level 30 only means that they are used to playing DPS by then and aren't wiling to try anything else.
I've seen players quit a team simply for being asked to try playing their secondary role for the benefit of the group.
Let's face it, DPS does more damage. Why **** your damage to play another role?
The answer is obvious to most people, but what is obvious isn't the same.
Form experience, I know that team synergy wins out in the end over a bunch of solo-artists doing their own thing and blaming others for their failures. But to each their own.

I had quite frequently group below level 30.
Most of the time it was to do bounties - which now have all be raised to level 30 (Gee, thanks, DEVs. I did the bounties because it was a way to get to team with other players to defeat opponents that they couldn't defeat on their own. Not because I wanted to level up faster!)/. It looks like that is shot at this point.
Second most often has been to help with the Bane mission that says something to effect "You probably should get help to defeat him."
And then the stray, "let's team up" because another players is doing the same kind of mission in the open world that will lead to a door mission which will go easier with a partner or two.

Most players of MMOs never go to the forums. They would rather spend time playing the game than reading or writing about it. If they come to the forums, they are looking for specific information or technical help. Specific information that generally should be accessible in game or in the official documentation or are questions specific on how to defeat some in-game content.
Generally, it is a very small minority of an MMO game's community that actually come to the forums to discuss things.

Some missions were also shortened due to environmental changes.

So basically, it makes leveling from level 8-29 faster, and the same or slower between level 29 and 30.

I guess I misnamed this thread by stating level 1-29. I apologize.