Character Progression

When EverQuest II's first expansion, the Desert of Flames, launched a couple weeks ago the players who were under level 50 were presented with a kind gift: double experience points for adventure experience for a week. Subsequently, when that week ended the shift changed to tradeskills and now that is about to end if it hasn't already.

I always thought that the implementation of this was very interesting in more ways then one. The first was a reinforcement that the expansion truly was aimed for adventurers level 45 and above, and it is, but at the end of the day this was a very nice gesture.

That thought, however, didn't last very long.

What is perhaps most interesting about the implementation is simply timing, no question about that. Inevitably, when an expansion launches it creates a large amount of interest through marketing and the media (I felt we did a good job in creating our end of the excitement) and not only do you have new players from this enthusiasm but returning players as well.

Regardless of whether you look new or returning players there is one thing that stays certain: there is a large unfamiliarity with the game. For new players it is easy to understand this argument: they simply haven't experienced it before. In the case of returning players, in most cases, they've been out of the game so long that they often forget many things about the game including progression.

A week is also a lot longer than you'd think, especially if the game is creating an incredible amount of interest (which results in increased amounts of playing time for instance) and couple that with the vitality bonus, character progression is going to be much higher than usual.

Personally, I leveled my Troubodar from 18 to almost 24 in one day, I think it was the Saturday and having played this game for months and months, I can say I really felt the progress hasten tremendously. So much so that when the double experience period ended I felt experience point accumulation crawling, at least at first.

So the question that is derived from this, and it definitely is being discussed on every single message board devoted to EverQuest II, is whether or not progression is fast enough?

A very, very good question.

There has always been two sides to this argument but I like to think that there are three actually: fast, moderate and slow leveling.

In the case of fast leveling, all you have to do is look towards World of Warcraft, especially when rest experience is taken into the equation as well. In that game you can gain levels tremendously fast which results in reaching the level cap in under two months, even one month if you really tried. The point is obvious: the developers want you to get to end game content and experience it right away.

Then there is the matter of slow leveling and this takes place in two parts: slow accumulations of experience and a large amount of levels. In the later stages of the original EverQuest, past Kunark, the former was evident while in Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online the latter is quite evident. Neither is more right than the other and both end up in the same result: it takes a long time, sometimes years, to reach the level cap and hence exhausting all the content in all areas.

Then there is moderate leveling which I feel that EverQuest II has today, and will have for a very long time. This is simply the result of developers recognizing that not everyone wants to be at the same level for a week or two and at the same time not wanting everyone to hit the level cap in a matter of months.

Yes, this is the level where the game should be.

There are two things that I've been hearing from the EverQuest II community in regards to character progression (this is adventurer experience of course) when the double experience ended a week ago: leveling is too slow (right now) so it needs to be increased and experience gain should go back to the way it was when the double experience bonus was in.

Sorry folks, neither is going to happen for good reason.

As I said earlier in this article, I leveled my Troubodar from 18 to 24 in one day - Saturday - and even though this is the lower echelon of levels in the game it was simply way too fast. Even in the higher levels, which I won't spend time citing all the examples, the progression rate was simply too fast.

There is one good reasons for it as well: content.

EverQuest II, ever since its conception, was heavily focused on providing content for the player. Sure, I will admit (as I have written about this before) that some level ranges don't have as many content as others (which leads to populations problems) but in terms of absolute numbers, there is a lot of content available and if we stuck with the double experience point week we would blow through so much of it.

All of that would lead to a cumulative effect of players complaining, the very ones who wanted faster leveling rates, that there isn't enough content to keep them occupied.

Sound familiar? I think you must've played World of Warcraft at one point.

As I stated earlier in the article World of Warcraft is not only an example of a fast leveling game but is perhaps the poster boy of the whole concept. With this concept as well, when fast leveling is put in place, often times there just isn't enough content to experience and this has often been the major complaint of that game.

We don't want any of that in EverQuest II.

I enjoy the fact that it may take me a few weeks to go through the Enchanted Lands and Zek. I love the fact that I can explore every inch of Nekultos Forest. I also am thrilled that I am able to trek the snowy and icy terrain of Everfrost.

Content is the real gem here, not a number.

So once again I wish to emphasize that we will not see leveling rates increased. Will we see another shot of bonus experience? We probably will but not for some time, save a disaster.

So until then turn off the experience point meter and stop worrying about how much experience you need to gain your next level. Simply experience all the content that is available to you and by the time you're done all that it'll be time to move on to the next land mass where more content and fun awaits.

As I said, content is great and numbers are not.

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Posted by Ktok at 2005-10-05 08:57:26

XP is almost too fast as is... servers are already flooding with 60th level power gamers. Back in EQ1 the crawl from 65 to 70 was insanely ugly. 50 to 60 here isnt even nearly as brutal as those five levels in EQ1 and 1 to 30 honestly if you know where to hunt is a joke.

Posted by Hexfate at 2005-10-05 15:18:03

Heh back in EQ1 I did the crawl from 65 to 70 in 5 days mostly solo. 50 to 60 in eq2 is much more lengthy.

Posted by Ujiram at 2005-10-19 16:25:36

I agree with Ktok EQII 1 to 30 is really easy even in solo if you did it once and you know where your level belongs to.

Posted by Ahia at 2006-01-11 12:43:32

Well personally i think the level progression is too slow... Having a lot of content is fun when u start out but in the end EQ2 seems to become one long grind to reach the end game even longer now with the expansion for example killing giants is fun if u do it for like the first 4 times after that u just do it for the exp u get and dont even notice them anymore.