One of the things that I like about the original Guild Wars was that leveling was pretty much locked into the same speed from top to bottom, and it was almost incidental. The last new character I made and leveled hit Level 20 long before I’d finished any storylines, and I barely even noticed it until I realized that I could start getting her gear set up. I’m not saying it was ideal, but it was kind of nice that the game didn’t make half of the levels feel like a training film while making others feel like a slog.
Then again, games like World of Warcraft throw the early levels at you with almost no impact because the game is balanced around the current level band of the expansion; you’re not supposed to linger there. As it stands now, 1-90 takes only a bit longer than 90-100 by design. But that means that those first 90 levels may as well be removed, functionally – if you made the earlier levels slower, the higher levels faster, and tuned everything to have a smaller level curve, it would take the same amount of time with a smoother sense of progression.
I realize that this is something not everyone cares about. Some people like that you get all of your workhorse abilities early and lots of situational tools later; others prefer that early levels feel fast and trivial while later levels feel more impactful. What about you? What’s your ideal progression rate in an MMO?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
