Why so tediuos?

[RyanMakara]

Even casual players should have no problem leveling up. Play the game to enjoy it and the exp comes naturally. You cant LOSE exp or RR or medallions if you die so eventually everyone gets where they want to be.

*thoughts of a bygone era in EQ and actually LOSING level 40 on his Necromancer 4 times before getting enough exp buffer to keep it*

Games used to be a harsh mistress heh.

Once witnessed a level 70 troll Shadowknight that died over and over again due to his Feign Death bugging out on him...
He was level 14 by the time a GM came to help him, with hundreds of his corpses strewn all across the guild lobby. Everyone had to hide their ability to see corpses or they'd lag out as well. Bloody fantastic system.

[RyanMakara]

Now I'm not going to reply to anyone in particular, but I'd like to throw out a few things. In my personal estimation, the only gear gaps that were obviously overpowering were those in the Skaven RvR expansion pack that rose the renown cap from 80 to 100, and the gap between RR80 players at the time that got to face new players who were fresh at R40/RR40. RR100 players got 20 more spec points, a few overpowering RvR tactics, and of course the most game-breaking armor in the game; Doomflayer and Warpforged. For the record, there is no intention to make the same mistake that Mythic/EA made by upping the renown cap and re-introducing these gears.

Now this is going to bring us to an intended end-game system based on old live; RR80 max. We will have to see how powerful Sovereign may or may not be, and we won't see many players in the full set for a long time. Eventually there will be 'hardcore' players who partake in every city siege, and those will rightfully have the best possible obtained gear before anyone else. The main issue with the original system, was that your renown rank could not exceed above your career rank by much, by which a fresh level 40 player would have a maximum of 45-50 renown ranks (if I recall correctly), no matter how much they PvPed, which made them pale in comparison to fully-specced RR80s in full Sovereign. This was eventually overcome, ironically, with the patch that broke renown rank scaling; the RR100 patch allowed you to attain double the renown rank depending on your career, which led to a lot of people going for RR70+ before leaving T3 at level 39 (note that there was also a power gap in T3 because of this, with Invader armor being purchasable, and usable against fresh R27 players, at least until you hit level 40), being able to step into T4 with a set of easily attained Worn Sovereign. It didn't make much of a difference by then, since the RR80 fully Sovereign clad people of the past were now the RR100 fully Warpforged clad people, roflstomping anyone who had no group or actual Sovereign armor.

The way to overcome both failures, is to simply not repeat them. I see a lot of speculation and 'what-ifs' in theoretical situations which are all drafted by individual experiences, which date back as far as the start of the game. While this is of course good to know, this makes most of the arguments anecdotal. Proper use of patchnote infos as proof even seems to contradict with 'personal memory', so I'd say we should be going by the current system we are trying to work towards, which avoids both hyperbole situations of a power creep, be it through gear or renown rank attainment alone. We will not make the same mistakes Mythic made, or at least try to steer away from them as much we can.

[Nekkma]

For healers, the 8 piece bonus and ap procc made sov quite alot more powerful compared to other sets imo. If sov is going to be gained in the old pve king instance I think sov is too good tbh as it takes way to long to get. If it is easier to get then i guess it is fine.

[Bacta]

I see truth to his post, no real 'fail' to it. We don't provide ALL the content, we simply offer a testing platform which to build on while the community is expected to give their bug reports/feedback on things so we can tweak them accordingly, to get the best possible result as an overal in-development game.

There'd be no point to rebuilding this game if we didn't have such great people who put their time and effort into playing/reporting bugs/giving constructive feedback. <3

I don't think he was referring to us, it reads like he's saying the hardcore players generate the content by passively acting as the bar new players can measure themselves against and try to climb over.

That's how I read it too, and I agree that it's nonsense.

The only thing this game really *needs* is casual players, the pugs, the zergs. Without them there is no action in orvr, much slower scenario pops, and nobody for the hardcore players to feel superior to.
If all the so-called harcore people left today. everything would keep running along the way it does now. If the casual players all left there would hardly be anything to do outside scenarios.

What defines hardcore and what defines casual? Honestly during my play time (NA) I see almost all the same names on a nightly basis would that make them hardcore players then? I kind of disagree with the game only needs casual players argument. When most players in my Play time are on every night almost, im sure its the same with most EU guild as well. I would think casual would mean a player that can only play a few hours here and there? I think most fans of the game are in fact hardcore players from live. Casual and Hardcore players have there place in SC's and oRVR and bring balance to combating zergs and other organized groups on both sides. I think this game needs both to be healthy.

[3Form]

I'm just going to throw my opinion out there (like it matters!).

Upping the RR cap to 100 was what made me quit tbh.

I didn't play since launch, but it took some serious time to level up. *Just* as I was closing in on my first sovereign piece, Mythic announced they were upping the cap to 100 (Just clarify, the 100 rank gear. Nothing against more levels being introduced, but putting uber gear at the end of it like they did). Felt like a kick in the teeth tbh, just as I felt I could soon compete on a level field with all the long time players (bearing in mind still a massive grind from 72 to 80).

Not to mention the massive gear gap already in T4 lakes between fresh 40s and geared 80s, which was already dispririting. And, anecdotally, put a good number of people off that I or my friends introduced to the game. People who in other circumstances were usually happy to sink thousands of hours into a game.

Hearing that RR100 stuff is not being introduced here has really pleased me. Call me a pansy-casual if you like but I'm of the skill>gear pvp mindset and the suggestion made previously about gear gaps being small (6%?) appeals to me. Just make the gear look epic as compensation

[Shibirian]

What defines hardcore and what defines casual?

That is pretty simple. There are players who call themselves hardcore, and then there are those who don't - that's it.

There's a technical term for this, but I forgot. =3

Upping the RR cap to 100 was what made me quit tbh.

I am going to say something (maybe) controversial to this point of yours: That wasn't the problem.

The main problem with the RR-system was always that they linked RR-points with the RR-levels. So, in a certain sense, you could up the rr-level cap that players with RR253 could be running around posing with their progress which wouldn't be bad. The problem would be that they would have, of course, 253pts to use.

The easiest solution would have been to limit the number of points you could use to buy RR abilities. So, you have a hardcap of 80 but "unlimited" rr progress (to maybe motivate ppl to keep playing). The trainer just ignores anything above. RR then is only good to buy new goodlooking armor sets (alternative slots are there for a reason, neh?) or titles or trophies or else exclusive to this progress, maybe. I think that could have also worked for them, perhaps.

Would that have been better...? Who knows...

[3Form]

Upping the RR cap to 100 was what made me quit tbh.

I am going to say something (maybe) controversial to this point of yours: That wasn't the problem.

The main problem with the RR-system was always that they linked RR-points with the RR-levels. So, in a certain sense, you could up the rr-level cap that players with RR253 could be running around posing with their progress which wouldn't be bad. The problem would be that they would have, of course, 253pts to use.

The easiest solution would have been to limit the number of points you could use to buy RR abilities. So, you have a hardcap of 80 but "unlimited" rr progress (to maybe motivate ppl to keep playing). The trainer just ignores anything above. RR then is only good to buy new goodlooking armor sets (alternative slots are there for a reason, neh?) or titles or trophies or else exclusive to this progress, maybe. I think that could have also worked for them, perhaps.

Would that have been better...? Who knows...

Yes apologies, I should've been more explicit! It was the gear at the end of those RR which meant even more grind just to be competitive. But also I hadn't thought about the additional RR points. Good point.

You're absolutely spot on I think. There's nothing wrong with having lots more RR levels to keep people playing like you suggest, but only if they provide cosmetics / bragging-rights, or maybe minor bonuses that don't impact PVP too much.

[Marsares]

Not buying the argument of the OP personally.

I am married, have 18 month old twins, a dog and a house to look after. I have a be y demanding job and generally play 8 hours a week if I am lucky. Yes, in the last four months I levelled up an AM, WL and SM all to R35/RR40 with full Deva and one with two boundless pieces. I also got a R28 Mara and a R18 Zealot.

Yes, I am part of Kings Own but only my AM really gets any time in the WB and the vast vast majority of my time I levelled up solo through roaming and scenarios.

I really don't see how it is difficult to level anything up to a level where you can compete with most. Enjoy the journey, not the destination. Most people get bored not with levelling up, but once they levelled up.

[nydig]

I feel like most classes wanted a mix of tovl and LV gear over sov which had no rr req to use. At least back then if you had people to let you tag along you could get great gear and go out strong. Once that 100 patch hit though, welcome to cannon fodder until you painfully got carried to at least 90.

[gaymer77]

My only gripe about this game is the amount of coin you get from pve quests and the influence doesn't add up like it did on live on the pve side. If I'm remembering correctly, pve quests gave you influence for the chapters along with doing PQs. This game isn't rewarding any influence for anything other than PQs and even then half of them bug out so you can't even finish them.