Post by LunarenAt some point, they will probably have to look at providing a leveling
shortcut of some sort to ease reaching 70 or so, such that joining the
majority of remaining active players in a game this old is doable either for
someone new or existing player's alts.
DAoC allowed players with one level cap toon to start alts at something like
level 20 or 25 I think it was. More recently, WoW ramped up the experience
If you had a level 50 (which is the max level) character somewhere on
your account, then there was a "/level" command you could use on other
characters, that would, if they were under level 20, give them enough XP
to put them in level 20.
There were some limits, though. In particular, when they introduced new
classes, they started restricting /level on those classes. They would
remove the restriction when the classes had been in the game long enough
that plenty of people had reached high level with them.
There were some amusing consequences of this. Like level 20's wandering
around the newbie area, begging level 2's and 3's for silver so they
could afford a horse ride to a major city. :-) (The smart way to do it
was to not /level right away, but rather kill things to level 2 (takes
about 5 kills), then talk to a guard to get a kill task. The guard will
give you some local animal to kill. Kill it, then go /level, and come
back to the guard for your reward. He gives you a reward appropriate
for a level 20 kill task, not a level 2 kill task, and that gives you
plenty of money for a horse ride).
However, this kind of thing would not really help with the problem you
are trying to address, unless you could skip a lot of levels. Just
skipping 20 or so wouldn't make all that much difference on the way to
70 or 80.
City of Heroes has an interesting solution to the problem of your
friends being too high level for you to play with them. But first, a
very short note about powers in CoH. As you level up, you get new
powers, but your old powers also get stronger, so you don't stop using
them. It's not like EQ, where when you get your new spells, you are
likely to completely stop using some of your old spells.
CoH has the concept of a sidekick. Say you are a level 30 hero. I'm
level 10. We want to play together. You invite me to be your sidekick.
What happens then is that my powers are boosted to near level 30, when
I'm within a certain distance of you. I don't gain any new powers, so I
only have the powers that a level 10 of my class could have--but they
operate as if I were around 30. I believe other stats are boosted
appropriately, too. The net result is that I will be able to meaningful
contribute, and not be so fragile as to be a burden, on level 30 fights.
CoH also allows you to do it the other way. Instead of me being your
sidekick, you could be my mentor. That temporarily *lowers* your skills
and abilities to just above me level, so we can go on missions
appropriate to my level, and you can help. This is particularly nice.
Say I have a level 10 quest that I'm having trouble with. I could ask
my level 30 friend for help, and he can mentor me and help.
This kind of thing could work in EQ, with some tweaking of how spell
effects scale, and things like that.
--
--Tim Smith