if MMOs are designed primarily to be social experiences, then why have such strict tiers of progression? for example if I’m level 30 in WoW and I want to introduce my friend to the game, I can’t go into their level 1 zone and level with them. I’ll be massively over-leveled and we’ll both have a bad time

and even if we’re both at the level cap (which would require my friend to grind for at least a week, when they may not even like the game), we might have different tiers of raid gear - or maybe one of us doesn’t raid at all. so there will always be a power imbalance that makes things much less fun

the only thing that makes sense to me is that leveling is meant to be a solo activity, and you aren’t meant to bring your friends into the game. but instead you’re meant to reach the level cap and then join a guild, and make new friends that way. which, for me personally, is a very unappealing way to socialize

but imagine telling someone “hey do you want to try WoW with me? you just have to grind for 20 hours and then we can actually play together in-game!” like who would say yes to that

for context, I really like WoW but only as a singleplayer experience. I also like to do dungeons sometimes but the other players may as well be bots

@kasdeya it's always seemed like the type of game that's either completely inscrutable or you started playing it in 2005 and have your entire social life and marriage built on it

@kasdeya This is my problem with most leveling multiplayer games. If I start a game with friends, and then only some of us have time to grind throughout the week, the rest become a lot less useful on a team when they come back.

It's even worse when it's a game that's been around for a long time (ie WoW and Warframe) and someone who's played for 10 years wants to shotgun you through the main campaign. I wind up feeling lost the whole way through.

@kasdeya it's by no means a panacea, but FFXIV at least has a bunch of situations with level sync, like PvP and zone FATEs and deep dungeons and of course duties (dungeons) and trials (bosses), so there's actually a lot two differently-leveled characters can do together!

@kasdeya unfortunately all of that is gated behind varying degrees of main storyline progress, which is largely a solo experience for many, many hours (other than required dungeons and bosses, which you only start hitting after a while). so the criticism still holds for a very long time into the game.

i can't try current tier extremes with a friend until i finish post-Endwalker and the entirety of the current Dawntrail expansion 🫠

@kasdeya FFXIV has its own issues, but one thing i really like is being able to change jobs on the fly (each of which has its own level) and, even if i'm overlevelled on that job, level sync with my party (in Duty Finder) or even without (doing FATEs in the open world). keeping new players company isn't the most fun i can have with the game, but it is fun

@kasdeya this is something that's addressed both in Guild Wars (which is less of an MMO and more of a online RPG) and Guild Wars 2

Both have the same philosophy of horizontal progression, where the character and its gear are max level early on, and then the progression is made by learning to play, finding nice skill combinations, and stuff like that
In GW, there are skills you don't get before almost end game, but depending on your builds they can be less interesting than skills you start with
Even more, on the leveling part, GW2 made it so you get almost the same XP if you kill mobs or complete events from lower levels, as your character's level always gets scaled down to the zone's level

It's not perfect, but I think the philosophy of "make most of the content challenging regardless of your level" is pretty unique in the MMO genre

@sly_vi that sounds like a really good approach! I love OSRS, which also has horizontal progression (but in a different way), and I’ve always felt like horizontal progression was a very under-appreciated concept - especially for MMOs

@kasdeya then you should totally try them out!

GW's gameplay is definitely more of a traditional rpg with limitations that make it feel a bit like a deck building game (you choose 2 classes then pick a total of 8 of their skills for each adventure, so you need to think hard about synergies (or pick a build on internet, nobody judges)). It's also the first game I encountered when growing up, with significant African-coded representation, as one of the campaigns takes place in a continent with cultures inspired by different African and also Persian ones

In opposition, GW2, which still has updates and new extensions, is more of an ARPG in the gameplay. They toned down the builds system to focus on simpler synergies (fire zone + arrow = fire arrow). To be noted that their mounts system is the best I've seen in an MMO, each one having pros and cons (one for long horizontal jumps, one for vertical climbing, a water hover, etc). The dragon flying in WOW Dragonflight has been _heavily_ inspired by the 2 flying mounts from GW2. And it has plenty of representation, maybe to the point where it sometimes feels forced, but most of the time it's kinda subtle (ex: an ambiant npc says "I'm Sya, but you may have known me as Symon" during a whole dialogue)

Sorry for info dumping, but those have been some of my favorite games for most of my life, and where I've met plenty of nice people!

@kasdeya fuckin amen. I had a bit of a runescape phase last year and joined a multi-game furry clan who touted they were "friendly to all skill levels" and sure met a few decent friendly goobers but they'd always have bossing events and I didn't waste my life away enough on that game where I could even participate at all. and outside of that they did some kind of penguin spotting D&D and i had no fuckin idea what to do and was scrolling the wiki and begging anyone in the voice chat to explain what I was supposed to be doing and everyone just kinda fucked off and muted me one by one because I was in the way of their Efficiency. i remember i got along really well with a dozen-ish people from the runescape division of the group before ever trying to participate in any of their 'social' group activities, before they all realized i was a NOOB and then nobody wanted to talk to me anymore even outside of the game except for like 1 person that kept in contact after all that and just barely even them because I don't even remember their name anymore after just a year. never had a more ostracizing experience in my entire fuckin life. like this was actually abnormal that not knowing enough about the game or having grinded enough to be max level meant these people were somehow finding it to be a social faux pas to even be caught chatting with me beyond the scope of runescape anymore. no other game genre does that shit to anyone, indeed the other games in their server had actual normal fuckin people who didn't let game skill dictate their entire social lives and I was socially accepted in those subgroups even if I was ass

@kasdeya had to go google the name it was Furry Valley if you need recommendations of places to avoid

@sly_vi @kasdeya GW2 is great. I think one of my favorite things about it is how the non-story questing stuff works, with renown hearts and meta events and such, which naturally encourages players to work together ad-hoc to complete goals in the open world. Especially the big multi-stage meta events.

Even if you don't talk to people, the game still feels more social and alive because you end up spontaneously working with other players in a sort of ad-hoc way.

@sly_vi oohh interesting! Guild Wars 1 sounds like I might enjoy it tbh - I’m kind of intrigued by the concept of synergies in an MMO. unfortunately it looks like Guild Wars Reforged has never gone below $20? so I’ll definitely need to wait for it to go down in price if I want to try it

I tried Guild Wars 2 in the past and it didn’t really hook me - but I think that’s because I was looking for a solo class fantasy (like how I play World of Warcraft). but I wonder if I’d enjoy it as kind of a hangout game for me and my friends instead - since it looks like it’s free-to-play so they wouldn’t need to buy anything

also I love how much representation it has! that’s amazing. and I’m glad you’ve had such good experiences in both games too

@vivi omg that sounds so unbelievably toxic. I’ve heard of cultures like this - there’s a very enlightening video called Why It’s Rude to Suck at Warcraft about this culture of “we’re going to treat you like a pariah if you aren’t treating the game as a serious full-time job like we are” and it’s so disgusting

@kasdeya
My feeling is that Blizz is now focused mostly on endgame, and leveling is considered just as a boring intermission, that you should manage soloing - dungeons aside - and complete in a few hours, or few days at the most.

I guess in Blizz's mind "real players" should get at level cap as soon as possible, then start grinding to get the best raid gear. Community, friends = raiding. WoW is a "serious game", just tolerating "filthy casuals" (like me, btw).

Investors like metrics of engagement, and they require the "endless grinding treadmill" approach. I think that's also why WoW gradually lost interest in slow leveling, side questlines, storytelling ("game mechanics trumps story"), RP, group activities outside raiding.

Probably, also, the newest generations of players want this endgame/grind/raid/pewpew approach. For the rest of us, there is WoW Classic.

@kasdeya yeah, the Reforged "version" just came out so it hasn't been on sale yet, and I don't think it'll go on sale before at least 6 months…
It's basically a rebranding of the Game of the Year édition, which has been on sale a lot of times https://steamdb.info/app/29600/

For GW2, it definitely works as a hangout games. I've been burnt out since 2021 because I binged the raiding (at one time I could do almost every role on every boss), and I definitely connect once every two months to run some story missions, check out the new stuff since last time, and hang out with people on discord while trying to glitch into every wall of the Mists lounge (it's funny, you get a spell that kind of catapults you where you aim, so with the right angle you can get into every wall)

@sly_vi @kasdeya gods Guild Wars 1 really did it well having the level cap so low and making the game so much more about what you do with the resources a capped character has than how many levels you have makes the whole game so much more enjoyable, and the 8-skill limit spawned near-infinite amounts of creativity

(I am sad I lost my builds folder, though )

@kasdeya @sly_vi wait, you haven't played GW1? if you ever do, if you want a friend to play with, I'd be up for it (if my body lets me, anyway )

@OctaviaConAmore @kasdeya If you like build-crafting and don't already know, they recently added some awesome mods for weapons, the "... of the <Profession>" suffixes, that grant +5 for the primary attribute of profession, even if you're not spec'd as the profession.

So you can have like a assassin with a "... of the Warrior' weapon so you can have a flat armor penetration on everything, a N/Rt minion master with 5 Fast Casting (as minions spells take a long time to cast), an E/Mo healer with Soul Reaping for energy management, and so and so (I don't vouch for my examples, I'm bad at theorycrafting)

This, and this addition of /bonus items as lootable skins, was a huuuuuge update for the 20th anniversary!

@kasdeya a (long) time ago my friends played City of Heros/City of Villains all the time, and they asked me to play too. I’d only played WoW so expected I’d have to grind for ages cause they were super high level, but that game had this awesome mechanic where you could temporarily be a “sidekick” which would level you up close to your superhero friend while in battle. You’d gain a lot of XP very quickly that way too, which made it much easier to properly join an established party.

@sly_vi @kasdeya wait, wait, 5 casting speed is a lot... that would increase Ele damage output by so much sweet fuckin' hells, now I'm really sad I lost my builds folder because I'm going to have to re-do all of the farming builds

but... I wonder how many builds that opened up hell, +5 soul reaping would be huge for caster heroes

@kasdeya Just make a new character and level up with them, trying not to go too fast and letting them enjoy the game a bit. In my experience, if you want casual players to join you, don’t expect them to invest their time in anything beyond basic instances and quests, and maybe low level bgs and arenas if they get a bit more into it and are able to snatch some decent gear for it. They are not going to like grinding for anything else and guilds are too strict with that shit (which in part it makes sense but… it sucks). Guilds are almost like the army. Fuck that.

@OctaviaConAmore (removing kasdeya to prevent notifications spam)
Still, for energy management, the best way is still to have a BiP necro in the team, with some healing skills for bar compression

For the farming builds, I'd advise to not bother doing them by hand, as you can get them from PvX wiki (which sadly became a Fandom site), and focus on more "interesting" builds (unless you like crafting peculiar farming builds, which is respectable on its own IMO)

@sly_vi honestly, I probably don't remember non-mesmer classes well enough to make even a passable farming build

hmm... I wonder if my heroes still have the triple-necro/rit heroes build that was popular however long ago if they do, I can just save it off of them, I guess?

@OctaviaConAmore @sly_vi omg I had no idea you were so into the game! that sounds amazing but unfortunately I’m probably way too shy to play a game with you for now T_T I’m always working on my anxiety though so hopefully eventually I can do stuff like that

@kasdeya this might be a hotter take but i think levelling up as a concept is kinda stupid

like, in most games as you progress, things are meant to get harder and harder over time so that as your skills improve, the game gives you a similar/increasing amount of challenge throughout

adding levels on top of that means you need to make the later parts of the game tougher to compensate, but at the end of the day it just makes numbers bigger without actually changing difficulty - there’s basically no difference between dealing 10 damage to a 30 hp enemy and dealing 1000 damage to a 3000 hp enemy, beyond simple “ooh number go up” monkey brain triggers

a well-designed game should be able to increase difficulty without needing such pointless number inflation

@enigmatico @kasdeya Wakfu has a fun system called "modulation" which allows players above the level of 51 to reduce their levels to specific caps (like, 20, 35, 50, 80, etc). Makes going with lower levels friends to do dungeons a lot more "balanced" and fun, and you're not penalized as an higher level character in doing so, since there's usually a lot of benefits from doing dungeons that way (better drop chances and xp boosts, as well as tokens that can be used to trade cosmetics, consumables or equipment). I think this system isn't perfect but it's a direction I wish more mmos would take inspiration off.

@kasdeya @sly_vi GW1 is probably among the top 3 games I've ever played I still consider it one of the crowning achievements of rpg combat, and far prefer it over GW2, as much praise as 2 gets

the best part was that enemies get access to basically the same set of skills you do, so the fights feel intense and somehow both lightning-fast where even 200 miliseconds matter and also strategic over full minutes of combatting the same group of foes

also, I've yet to find another caster class in any game that holds a candle to mesmers

@frawst I agree with this so hard omg. I’ve been complaining about this kind of thing for years lol - all it does is make it so that there’s only a thin slice of the game that is an appropriate challenge for your level at any given time, instead of letting you explore the whole world and making the entire world be an appropriate challenge

I think there can be certain progression systems in games that are actually worthwhile, but the “number go up” style of progression is pointless at best IMO

@wasabi @kasdeya That could work in MMOs where the gear is not really that important (idk about Wakfu, I never heard of it). But in games like WoW the gear matters a lot, so even if you lowered your level to 10 or 20, having a full purple set will still give you an enormous advantage. Heck, even the skills can be leveled up, giving you a big advantage. Specially the buffs.

@kasdeya yes! And you also can’t play them solo because then you miss out on all instances/raids and end up just grinding, with low quality equipment because you have to either raid (can’t do it solo) or trade (can’t do it solo either) to get anything better

Well, you could have alts ofc, but that makes a grindy game even grindier

@kasdeya

if MMOs are designed primarily to be social experiences, then why have such strict tiers of progression? for example if I’m level 30 in WoW and I want to introduce my friend to the game
A lot of these games let you buy level skips, and gift them to your friends, too

@kasdeya the only appeal of WoW outside of that is the lore+exploration, but:

• you miss out on big chunks of it if you can’t do instances/raids
• you’ll be able to explore half of it, so you’ll have to have alts - at least one for horde, one for alliance - even more grind!

So the game kinda discourages that too

And ofc it’s not very well written - but that’s the cost of being an mmo - every character has to be turned into a raid boss, whether it makes sense or not, and they have to add more and more content (increasingly less well justified in every update) so the people don’t get bored playing the same version

@enigmatico @kasdeya In Wakfu, gear is based on levels, so whenever you modulate to a lower level you have a different "gear page" equiped. The goal is to optimized each page so you can crank the dungeon's difficulty higher. I see how that couldn't work on most mmos, it does require a lot of balancing.

@kasdeya @OctaviaConAmore Oddly enough, the Final Fantasy based MMOs were ok at this. The job system means that if a friend joins, you probably have an underleveled job that you can run old content with them with to level.

This falls apart with the story though, which in the case of FFXIV is interminable and mostly must be suffered alone to progress and unlock dungeons and content. So, same problem, different reasons.

@kasdeya @OctaviaConAmore FFXI was different back in The Old Days, though, because leveling was mostly done in the field with a group. You’d again could switch to an underleveled job and play with a newbie friend.

However, the problem is that it was GRINDY and the systems were very unfriendly, so if you weren’t into hours of slaying the same monster over and over again with 5 other people, you’d drop out pretty quick.

@trashwizard @kasdeya honestly, the way FFXIV does the auto-level-down during dungeons is really nice, alongside the way the queueing and rewards shstem let you help even low-levelled strangers

the main story quests are... uh... I have no memory of what happened during the quests between ARR and Heavensward(?) because I skipped the dialogue because I was tired of waiting for access to astro the main story after I got astro was nice, though

@OctaviaConAmore @kasdeya Yeah, I don't remember either, aside from the major spoiler events. But ARR takes -forever-, it's a massive hurdle for new players to get through, especially because Heavensward's story is 1000% better.

I remember crashing out at the gates of Ishgard because I thought I'd completed ARR and it turns out I'd only done the front nine of the ARR MSQ chain... D:

Which, given there's like 50+ quests after that was pretty warranted

@trashwizard @kasdeya riiight!? it's an absolute heartbreaker and a slog

for a while, I was against the quest skip, but knowing what I know now, I encourage people to get it if it means they can enjoy the rest of the frankly really enjoyable game FFXIV has to offer