How to Incentivize Grouping or Accelerate Solo Catch-ups?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Nobildus, May 19, 2021.

  1. Nobildus Journeyman

    I was going to start this with my experience playing the game as an attempt to help illustrate my stance on the issue but will jump right into the question this time. If there is something specific about this post that I can clarify, please quote it and ask your question.

    Preface: This is a group game, grouping should be the standard.

    With growing level, AA, gear, and skill/knowledge gaps between new/returning, "behind-the-curve", and "current" players, I think the need for either increased group incentivizing or accelerated solo catch up growing.

    Are there any practical ways to encourage "current" level cap/raiding players to include the other players in their groups? Is their any way to specifically target new/returning players in order to avoid just making it easier to level another alt for a box crew? Is it worth attempting to incorporate these new players into "current" groups if it makes boxing too rewarding?

    The other question about this issue becomes about solo catch-up mechanisms. Are there enough in place to effectively allow a returning player to catch up to "current" players at an acceptable pace? AA Auto-grant is good, I don't think this feature needs work. Two expansions behind leaves enough room to give players something to work for. Heroic characters aren't the best solution to the problem, especially when capped at 85, but DBG needs revenue streams so it's a necessary evil at this point to provide the service for established players. I don't think returning players should be forced to go this route just so they can be eligible to jump into grouping range though. I know that 1-60 can go "relatively" quickly with a mercenary but at that point it becomes a solo game. If that's what the norm should be while trying to catch up to current content then I'd like to see catch-ups available all the way to 10? levels below the cap. If the game is meant to be played as a group then let's try to keep as many people in that range as possible. I have a few ideas about how it can be achieved but would like to see what others have to say regarding the topic.

    Thanks for your input.
    radclifc likes this.
  2. Thraine Augur

    bringing the heroic characters up to 100 would be a nice start and giving them 2000+hps gear like that CotF stuff.

    The real problem is eq used to be about the leveling, now its not it all about getting to max lvl and then finally getting to play the game lol so the leveling has just become a hassle when a returning player comes back or a new person tries to start playing.
    Petalonyx, Bardy McFly and Skuz like this.
  3. jiri_ Augur

    Can we start by defining catching up?

    Is catching up getting to the lowest level in which someone can group with a 115, or is it getting to a point where the character can do T1 group content in the most recent expansion? If it's the latter, are we talking about going from 85-110, or from 1-110? (It's not much of a difference, but 75-85 is harder and takes longer than 1-75.) Should the catch-up cutoff instead be somewhere after the character has gotten most of the abilities that are core to the class? For example, lots of classes have critical spell lines or AAs that weren't introduced until 91. Currently, starting a Heroic character teaches the player to play in a particular way that can become obsolete fast enough that the time from 85-91 is wasted, but slowly enough that it's still tedious.

    As far as the knowledge gap, I mean, goodness. That's the biggest thing to overcome on Live. A lot of people think the grind up to max level is valuable because it theoretically closes that gap. I don't believe that; I think the entire time period spent for a new player between leaving the tutorial zone and, like, level 85ish is a waste of time. House of Thule's early zones are practically a second tutorial anyway (the J5 merc quest literally is a second tutorial).

    My never-gonna-happen wish would be for Heroics to be bumped to 110 or 115, and for regular new characters to have the option to start at either 1 or 85.
    Skuz and radclifc like this.
  4. Zarkdon Augur

    I dont feel that catching back up is impossible or really even that difficult. I came back to EQ last Thanksgiving and going from 1-115 by February.

    Defiant provided base gear that allowed me to level in old world zones to 65 quickly as a f2p account. Even the tutorial gear is OP for classic EQ in the mid 30s.

    Autogrant worked fine for AAs once I went to a gold account about level 70.

    Gear is really pretty affordable until you get to velious and they have those stupid 30k blocks for snowbound.

    The biggest roadblock to new/returning players is knowing where to go/what to do. The tools are already there.

    As for incentivizing grouping at lower levels, if they could come up with a way to allow my gear to scale back to a lower level, cap what spell levels/AAs I could use, but otherwise allow my AA xp to accumulate i would be all over grouping with lower level players.
    Jumbur and Skuz like this.
  5. jiri_ Augur

    Did you box any of this? If not, how much did you solo/molo, and with what classes?
    radclifc likes this.
  6. Soulbanshee Augur

    They know there needs to be a higher level heroic at this point, but because of resource constraints they would have to forego a huge chunk of an expansions content in order to have the time to create all the items and balance necessary for a higher level.

    An argument could be made that any reasonable guild would be willing to help powerlevel a main to get them to current content. A guildless character would either have to OOC for groups or do it the old way of just grinding out exp with a merc. A guilded character would have a better chance at a fast catch up opposed to a slow grind.

    Part of the issue is if you are starting from level 1, they would have to balance for over 20+ years of content, and have to figure out how to gate/restrict it especially when looking at TLPs. Main reason heroics were created number of years back for that "catch up." I can't see a reasonable mechanism at this point that won't negatively impact the current live game other than another round increased heroics as possibly the least amount of work required.
  7. Silver-Crow Augur

    This is an important question, and one which i'm kind of working through personally at the moment. I last played during COTF, so my gear is pretty much ROF raid gear with a couple of nicer bits from COTF raids. So i returned as a lvl 100 bard and a 92 bst box (in House of Thule gear).

    I was able to run through some dead hills gribbles quests which weren't bad xp to begin with, but are now dropping to pretty awful xp. I've got up to 104/97, but am kind of scratching my head what to do next. My gear is woefully inadequate for anything past cotf, so have to rely on mercs (104 tank with 97 heals). Additionally killing stuff is just plain terrible xp.

    The power gap between 104 and 115 has just become insane, which makes grouping out of the question, and getting enough group gear as a duo with mercs is going to be difficult as the cotf nameds just eat the mercs.

    As i see it there's only 2 options at the moment to get any further.

    1. Swallow your pride and ask for guild charity groups, assuming your guild can/will help. This will get you up in levels but doesn't solve the gear issue.

    or

    2. molo/box through every expansion trying to get enough gear together to move on to the next. Not a very fulfilling experience if all you want to do is group and feel a useful member of the guild, and would take forever.

    11 levels behind doesn't sound like much, but it feels like it may as well be level 1 if i want to contribute anything to a group.

    What i think would be a huge leg up is to have a vendor in each of the old expacs that sold T1 group level gear for that expansion, or add something to the loyalty Vendor that offers a T1 'starter' pack containing T1 Group gear for that expansion... almost a bit like the gear bundle you get with a heroic toon. This will give you the boost you need to get through the levelling process, without being a drag on guildmates, or if you prefer do go it alone.
  8. radclifc Journeyman

    When people can pay about 5 Krono to go from 85-115, or 3-6 box to experience group content on their own, or join a TLP where grouping is happening within content, live grouping seems to be dead or a liability for most of the player base. I don't know if I can justify spending weeks to months catching up to 115 with no group. TLP or boost to 100-110ish seem needed, otherwise a complete overhaul of how the game works might be needed. Someone suggested a new TSS zone from 75-110 in the Newbie Zone forum, but unless it is very streamlined or trivialized (Or closed off to 115, and have raid gear or big boosts within groupable content) I don't know if that would work well for grouping or be a ghost town. I also love the idea of incentivizing updated low level shrouding with other players is an area locked off from the main game.

    Right now TLP, or Get a PL to 110-115ish, find a group of friends that happen to have the same play time as you on social media (good luck) right now seem to be the standard. Finding groups 1-100 is brutal on Live, and yet that was the original purpose of this game. A labor of love, an homage to D&D or social MUD.
  9. jiri_ Augur

    Having a guild is the best way to catch up, but unfortunately your pitch to that guild basically has to be something like 'take a chance on me, I'm useless but nice to be around, and if you help me maybe I won't be useless.' That pitch will have... mixed success.
    Skuz and radclifc like this.
  10. FrozenWater Augur

    Merge all live servers into a single server.
    Raptorjesus5 likes this.
  11. Zarkdon Augur

    No boxing. Molo beastlord, so it is an easier class to molo with.
    Elyssanda and jiri_ like this.
  12. Zarkdon Augur

    Don't do that, I like the lower population.
    Coagagin likes this.
  13. jiri_ Augur

    This is, I think, opposed by lots of people who don't want to lose their names, and also not necessarily a great solution to the problem. How many open xp groups are happening outside the most recent expansion across every live server simultaneously?
    Skuz likes this.
  14. Slasher Augur

    Upgrading heroics to 105 or even 110 would be a good start.
  15. Nobildus Journeyman

    One shouldn't have to rely on guild charity groups or guild power leveling to level a main character, that just illustrates the point that under-leveled/geared characters are of no use to "current" players, unless that guild specializes in non-raiding content.

    The expansion gaps that are created are huge blocks to a solo/molo player. One can grind through it with certain classes but the game is designed to be played in groups and slow solo/molo grinding isn't fun past a certain point, (illustrated by drop-off in TLPs after certain expansions).

    Level 1-60ish is in an alright spot because it's quick enough to get done with a merc. It's not the most fun but it goes quickly enough so it wouldn't have to be balanced. I'd like to see increases in experience granted from the achievement missions, tasks, etc. so that one could level in certain expansion brackets effectively. (i.e HoT-VoA, RoF-CotF) The only issue with that is after a certain point they become mandatory groupable because of monster power. Obtaining gear does become an issue. Sometimes it's cheap, especially on free trade servers, which shouldn't be used to talk about this problem, but it gets rarer as the expansions go by.
    jiri_ and radclifc like this.
  16. FrozenWater Augur

    I think there needs to be an acknowledgement that a critical mass of players at certain level ranges is necessary to have ANY experience groups at those level ranges.

    I don't expect the mass merge to gain any traction, so this isn't really a request for it, just what I think is a reasonable supposition.

    If you want a group game at lower than max level, then a mass merge is your best bet. If you want low pop servers, then the status quo is the best. But you can't have both.
    Corwyhn Lionheart, radclifc and jiri_ like this.
  17. jiri_ Augur

    Free trade servers have strange economies for gear. There are certain levels that, for a new player, are practically gear deserts; there's so much plat available on the server that nearly everything is out of reach. And then there are certain level ranges where T1 or even T2 group gear is practically free.

    Yes, I agree. What's the end goal? Is it creating a vibrant group game at levels <110? Or is it taking players who are below the levels, AAs, gear and knowledge to effectively participate in the most recent expansion (or two expansions, potentially) and getting them that stuff so they can join the players who are already there? The solutions to these problems aren't, I think, the same.
    Skuz likes this.
  18. Nobildus Journeyman

    This attitude is what I think is the worst for the game. None of those options are engaging to players, TLP aside, but DBG likely is in no hurry to curb the amount of kronos purchased for this activity. It's frustrating that it's existed as long as it has, this is obviously a problem.

    Consolidating the population would help some, it's probably necessary to do more merges at this point but I'd like to see free transfers to certain servers as opposed to forcing moving or name changes.

    As I'm writing this I like the idea of a 75-110 newbie zone more and more. Sort of like a "story mode" to catch up on what has happened while giving players a chance to learn about skills while preparing them (with hard and harder situations?) for the latest expansion or two. I like the way ToV was approached with larger exp gains to missions and think that should be more common but they can't expect people to be geared for them by the T1 zones. They should almost incorporate "weak" mobs into the storyline quests until the player is equipped with gear and is of use to people to start grouping with.
    radclifc and jiri_ like this.
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Making the Heroic Template is the easy part, some hours of work for one dev, heck they do it for every beta pretty much so that's not a huge problem or resource drain at all.

    The hard bit is a decision over how much help/education/tutorial to give to a truly new player who buys a 100 Heroic upgrade given the vast knowledge gap someone doing that would have and whether its a good use of resources to create a "L100 Tutorial mode" at all or just let people figure the crap out for themselves with community intervention being the fall-back option.

    Great point, if your guild wants fresh blood it has to be willing to get it to a useful state, its why most players will say "join a guild" if someone says that they actually want to catch up. Grinding 1-115 solo is fine if you are happy to solo/molo/box your way there, for everyone else there's guild-help & the ubiquitous Power-level.
    What does happen though is guilds will say "get to 85 and we will help you the rest of the way" there's definitely some fatigue associated with helping a player to level up & gear up only to see them disappear 2 weeks after, or then start a new character & try to repeat the process.
    If they at least buy a heroic upgrade they can delete it & try another class until they find one that they enjoy before advancing in levels or wasting other people's time helping them level the rest of the way.

    Good point, balancing all those expansions probably does need to be done steadily over time at least for some of the worst discrepancies and I am definitely in favour of reducing some of the power creep seen in the early eras.

    On live servers there's TSS 1-75 levelling route with the bonuses of free gear sets as you work through the hero's journey that is tied into all of that expansion if you don't want to take the heroic upgrade route, but you'd want to be boxing at least 1 other character & ideally 2 others to have your very own full group (with mercs).

    I've suggested in the past having multiple "character upgrades" on TLP/live appear at strategic points, such as
    L51/50aa once PoP unlocks
    L70/***AA once SoD unlocks
    L85/****AA once VoA unlocks (down from CoTF)
    L100/*****AA unlock once ToV unlocks
    radclifc likes this.
  20. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    I think an improved shrouding mechanism would be a great idea. The common reason people worry about "catching up" is because low-level groups are hard to come by.

    The game doesn't start at level 105+, it starts at level 1!! If there were level 1 groups to be found.

    Let us shroud down "as ourselves", and give us a non-stupid amount of AA/hour, then low-level groups would be more common. :)
    radclifc, Skuz and jiri_ like this.