Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

Well there's an issue with this. Every area needs to have a different level of difficulty otherwise why move on? The problem with people going back is that they tend to wipe out the area quickly and new folks coming along have nothing to kill and have to wait for the repop. Make the repop too fast and players end up getting slaughtered.

 

In those games the only reason I'd go back is to seek revenge and do my own 1-hit kills back on those boss MOBs. Oh man, back in the EQ days I swore vengeance on Ambassador D'Vinn. Far too often was my dying shout "D'Vinn to zone!!!!" to wearn the other noobs. And man did it feel good to back much later and wipe him and his minions out in one spell, much to the ooohs and aaahs of the noobs there

But yeah, aside from just level curves, they need to continue to add content to give further motivation to return to areas already explored.

 

SWTOR Agent story line (maybe the others too) had you go back to the starting planet which you left at level 10. At this point you were around level 30 or so. You had to go through the old areas to get to a new instance that was built for your current level. Along the way, however, you were able to easily kill the things that you were scared to face alone "way back in the day." I think it's a great reminder of how far you have come along, and a good way to reinforce that you have made a lot of progress.

 

New content to consume is enough for many playes to branch out, but there is other reasons to do so other than out leveling. Quests. Better choice of tradeskill gathering. Different beasts to fight. New dungeons to explore. Items that can only be found in certain areas.

 

I read somewhere, if areas actually change over time. I can't remember where I read it, but curtain scenarios may require(if you chose to participate)you revisit areas being raided. That's a good concept to bring me places.

 

The only changes I'm aware of are cities/villages undergoing siege, rivers over flowing and volcanos erupting. I'm sure there are more, but this is what I know of. The changes are just temporary of course; although homes damaged during sieges will need to be repaired.

 

Ugh, please don't make it so that each character has unlimited skill points and can learn everything.

 

I'm all for being able to learn multiple spell/skill paths. It should just take a very long time, something I don't see in mmo's anymore, Long does not mean 1 week of hardcore playing, or 1 month. More like 1 year but even then not learnt by using alone because of macro cheaters. Using PLUS can only learn X in skill in 30 days of real time so macroing 24/7 doesn't help you, the 7x7 grid in uo didn't solve the problem

 

If we only get one Avatar. I want it to be able to do more than just one specific task.

 

Is it possible to play as a summoner by summoning various minions?

 

I agree fully!!

If zones aren't level-based, then hope fully the rate of content consumption by players will be slower, extending the lifetime of the game (player dependent, of course). However, players will naturally move on, exploring new areas and doing new things. But the whole 'gain xp, level up' is so childish and passé. A newb should should not be one-shotted by a max-lvl player, on the contrary, a newb should stand a chance fighting a max-lvl character.

 

At least 8 of the schools of magic have one spell to summon help when called. For instance the Sun school has a Phoenix summonnig spell. Moon School has Will-O-Wisp summoning spell, Earth as a spell to summon an elemental. This probably doesn't match exactly with what you want, but you can summon for help.

 

Your joking right? Me as a white belt in tiger kung fu goes against Bruce Lee and I should stand a chance? NO WAY!!!

 

He might die of laughing, you have a chance!

 

Yet it still stands to reason that a newbie character should never have a chance against a seasoned one. Especially in PvP! Even well skilled characters shouldn't be able to stand a chance against the player with equal skills but has more experience in PvP tactics.

It just works out that way. I think they did say that the newb characters will be able to venture out into tougher locations with the cost of greater consumables. Thats player vs environment. PvP on the other hand is a totally different experience, and maybe that's why some PvE types don't like it. It requires experience doing it so you will break a few eggs while trying to learn the ropes in PvP. YOu will die a few times before you learn.

However once you do go the PvP path you have an edge over every non PvPer in the game. There's no way a vetran PvPer should find themselves in trouble in a PvE experience unless he gets careless, at least that's how it was in UO. People who lived in Trammel their whole lives would never be as skilled in combat as a PvP oriented player. Maybe that's another reason they don't care for PvP? WoW made PvP focused gear which made people better vs players, but worse vs environment. I hope SotA never does anything like that.

 

You are assuming that a "new character" is an unskilled combatant. I don't believe that is going to be the case. Adventurers tend to be the "cream of the crop" in a fantasy world, so they can take the challenges.

So, more like a black belt in Kung Fu against Bruce Lee. You'll still get destroyed, but it will be closer. =)

 

You're just talking one off which is usually not an issue. I was also not talking about PVP in the original post you qouted. I was referring to higher level people returning to much earlier areas and destroying all the mobs/bosses and new folks having to sit around waiting for repop.

 

The solution to this is to make it punitive. If you're such a high level that you can 1-hit MOB bosses, the game can penalize you in some way. Virtue hit, temporary stat debuff, etc. While your reward is the thrill kill of wiping out bosses who gave you a hard time when you were a newb, the risk is that you impact your game in some way, if only temporarily.

 

Or selective multiplayer "match rules" work on NPC's outside of civ hexes, too.

 

That could work as well, but man, I think I'll take that virtue hit.

If I return to a "lower level" area, if there is such a thing, because some of my noob friends are there, I don't want the game to selectively remove them from my "game". Let me take the virtue hit if I help out my friends or wipe out the area unecessarily for the thrill kill.