◊ Xerophyte

Taken at face value it shouldn't be that hard to implement and other games have certainly done it. FFXI - my main mmo before wow - had instanced content simply reduce your level and most players kept properly twinked L30 and L50 gearsets banked. I think the main issue is the potential time it might take to implement an inherent scaling, which I couldn't really begin to guess. At this late date it'd certainly be non-trivial. I'd be very happy if it was done, I like doing the lower instances with decent groups but right now it's very rare that 4 other people I know have alts the same level as the one I happen to be playing.

As for alternative solutions, the easiest possible I can think of for WoW would probably be to instead of only allowing players to create L1 alts allow character creation of characters at any level between 1 and [highest level character of that class you have on server] - 10 or so. The problem would then be reduced to a couple hours spent generating apropriate preset gear for all classes & levels and then either forcing some sort of semi-significant deposit for retrieving said gear or making it unsellable & undisenchantable.

 

Starfire

You know, FFXI sort of did this. But it was done from the start conceptually, I believe.

I do, however, think the FFXI model could work with WoW. The only thing I am uncertain of is how to deal with talents.

But first, let me explain.

FFXI had missions/dungeons/quests or some thingamabob that had level caps to them. And anyone completing said questmabobs needed to be at or below the level. If they were above the level, they would receive a debuff that would lower their level for a certain amount of time ~ this doubles as a timer to complete the mission too, as losing the debuff would cause you to forfeit.

The caveat? You lost any skills or spells above the debuff level (easy to do, I imagine) and the harsh part. You could not wear gear for above the level. ~ What people did was maintain sets of gear in their bank to be used when they level down. Albeit, this was also somewhat easier as Bind-on-Pickup items weren't too common.

Of course, as mentioned above, still two issues: Talents and Storage Space for gear. That said, I also like one of the things FFXI did do for gear. There were "suits of armor" that was used to store entire sets and easy to switch too. Would be nice if in WoW we could just "store a Shadow resist" set or something. Could then, ideally, say store L19 armor, L39 armor and L59 armor or something. /shrug

But you know what? Maybe it's not such a bad thing to allow higher levels to keep their full talents - if we keep the restriction that "debuffed" characters still can't use higher level spells, will it really matter if someone is 41 point shadow? Probably not. 15% crit won't hurt -that- much. Perhaps there could be a slight (small maybe 10-25%) exp penalty involved or something to compensate for this.

 

• Nurru

I liked how City of Heroes did it, personally. It was short, simple and let people play with lower levels.

Frostfire Bolt does Frostfire damage all the time.
< manly> warning: TALBAIN POSTED IN THE WOTLK THREAD
< manly> IT CAN ONLY CONTAIN ENTERTAINMENT
Nuru <Notorious> lvl 77 on Lich King.

 

Denogran

You obviously have never had friends join the game some time significantly later than you whom play at a substantially more casual pace.

Your solution here is basically "Suck it up till they hit max level." You're missing a whole lot of the argument. A lot of people find WoW fun because you get to play with others. For me, it's a way to stay in contact and interact with friends across the country. Right now, the only way for me to play with them is to completely dominate their play with one of my 70's, which isn't very rewarding for either the helper or the person being helped. It becomes less of playing together and more welfare leveling to get to the "cool stuff" at level 70. That's fine, it works, but it makes the game less fun for all parties involved.

The analogy with the different age levels was good (i,e, grandma, pops and son won't be able to do every fun activity together), except that it neglects the fact that there are fun activities that all 3 can do at the same time without one completely dominating the experience( cards with my grandparents). Right now, that option isn't available in WoW.

I guess my main point is that something of this nature would make playing with real life casual friends more fun (or hell, even helping my hardcore friends alts). Is it necessary? Of course not, WoW has 9 million odd subscribers, so something must be working. Would it make the playing experience significantly better for a substantial amount of people if it was implemented? From my experience, and that of my friends both in real life and in-game, that answer is a fairly resounding yes.

A final note. I think it would be in Blizzard's best interest to implement something of this nature. A game like WoW dies off without a fairly constant stream of new subscriptions. And focusing everything on new, high level content, while being great for those of us enjoying it, basically boxes out new subscribers. Telling people "You're going to have 15ish game-days of content that isn't that enjoyable and we're not focusing on before you get to do the cool stuff" (my main took 20-odd to get to 60, think that was fairly average for people I knew) doesn't accomplish getting new people hooked at all. 2.3 is addressing this somewhat, but that doesn't mean that that's all Blizzard should do.

 

Caligula

I think altering the ilvl of gear would be the easiest way for blizzard to implement a mentoring system. Say you are wearing ilvl 150 items and you want to join your level 20 friend in the Deadmines.

20/70 ~ 28%

ilvl 150 * 28% = ilvl ~43

Remove the set bonuses and make the stat bonuses equal to an ilvl 43 item. This person is going to outgear the instance (in this case by about 15 ilvls but that's sort of irrelevant in a mythical test case) but their level will still be appropriate for the instance and probably their HP/Mana and to hit rolls.

I don't think this would be that hard to develop.

 

Jeffrey

I think some kind of "binding" system could be interesting. You and your partner would both get 50% of normal XP - but even if offline, you get XP for what the other does. If you're grouped, you get ~65% (and keep in mind, both will be gaining XP from kills and quests so it ends up being ~130% per member) instead. Then allow this to go further, 5 people with 20%/33% sounds good.

To prevent exploiting, require players to be in the same guild (or unguilded) and add a max 3 level difference at creation/add. Make it so that you can only add or disband entirely, no remove/quit (anyone should be able to disband). Make the costs like talent resets but progress at a faster increase rate (triple every time starting at 5g sounds good, first one's free).
And last but not least, add the same restrictions as used for signing charters plus require some kind of object which is in every major city - this pretty much stops random screens for popping up unless you decide to stand near the object all day (this could be some kind of registry or something, place it near the guild NPCs).

As additional benefits, you could think of stuff like gold sharing and a shared bank. Maybe allow characters which already have a high level character to create a "premade" lower level character if they agree to bind with a character of a similar level (but after 2.3 XP this is bordering on "extremely lazy" - I disagree with this idea myself but want to mention it anyway).
Just keep in mind that this system is meant for people who trust each other, not for people who "might just very maybe be friends.. if they get xp bonus". This means that there doesn't need to be much security like needed for guilds (so it's more like arena teams without the leader part).

I can see some problems: Powerlevelling services would love it. It wouldn't help characters who want to level up with someone higher, just group rerollers. But rerolling as a group just becomes much more interesting with a noticeable XP bonus and premades would mostly solve the level problem (unless you're way higher level but don't have premade access, lv25 and lv40 for example - guess you'll just have to suck it up and wait then... too much exploit potential to allow this).

 

• songster

It would be monstrously hard. And what do you do when you have stull like passive haste or armor pen that just don't *exist* on lower level gear? What do you do about enchants and gems?

I've yet to see anyone say why there's anything wrong with my idea of being able to zone in as a copy of your previous self. It would simply ensure that every high level character had a whole set of lower level "alts" they could log in at any time, without having to go through the pain of grinding all the alts up separately.

Only problem I can see is bootstrapping - anyone with a current 70 won't have the necessary copies in place, so it would only apply to characters implemented after the mentoring system was put in place.

 

Douglas

Okay, let's summarize some options for equipment:

1) Keep equipment, alter ilevel down to something appropriate, spend item budget in the same proportions as the real item, but with the lower level budget.

Example: a 68th level "of the eagle" green item ends up being precisely the same as, say, an 18th level "of the eagle" green. But the 20th level version of the "Wildheart Kilt" ends up with something like an average of 3 or so points per stat, ending up at about the same power level as "Leggings of the Fang".

(Personally, I like this one best. If you give each instance a target gear ilevel, it even lets you revitalize endgame content -- imagine turning on mentor mode once we're 80th level and going back to both regular and heroic Steamvault. They both set you to 70th level. But do they both get the same target ilevel for gear?)

2) Keep equipment, cap the stats you can obtain from them on some level-related formula.

Example: A 68th level "of the eagle" green item does not change, but regardless of what you're wearing, no more than maybe 12 or so points of intelligence will actually get added to your stats for any purpose. The rest is "clipped off".

(This is pretty easy for people to understand, I think. Might also be easier to code, since it could be implemented as a single debuff without complex formulas? Dunno, that's speculation.)

3) Issue new (edit: or "old", as per songster's suggestion) equipment. This one has come up in both "let people kit out their character" and "issue standardized equipment" forms.

Example: Are you a warrior who's going into deadmines? Regardless of what you're really wearing, when you zone in you'll be wearing "Defender Gauntlets of the Bear" with no enchantments.

(I think there's not much to recommend this one, except that, if the other options are too complex, this one would still be good enough to get the job done. This one can also work well with the various ideas people had to "checkpoint" characters rather than truly attempting to scale your current character down -- eg. "I have a 70th level warrior, so let me create a temporary 18th level warrior to tank for my buddy".)

Did I leave any out?

So, what about talents?

 

• Kve

I hate to agree with him here i do not see alot of people going back to their late level 30's or low level 40's to refeel the instance again so to speak , i can however understand the original posters feeling about how it can be annoying to be higher level but being a higher level also means you can help the level 54 in this case get to a higher level easier of help him with a hard quest , because for example :

If you would both be level 54 (he is a genuine level 54) and you are a "fake" 54 and you are doing a quest and it is to hard , what do you do? switch of your mentor system mode or get help? And what if you cannot find help wouldn't you just go to 70 and completly tear apart the quest?

I personaly think that being a higher level would be more enjoying for your lowlevel friend , because he can get alot done with the aid of a 70 . Rather than with a fellow level 54.

Also i do not think anyone would really use the system unless somebody is bored and wants to go back to his lowby levels , which only occurs when EXTREMLY bored.

 

• JohnLocke

I have. I made an alt. The OP mentioned that he has multiple friends spread across multiple level brackets and it's hard to get a level teen something, 30 something, 50 something, 60 something, and a 70 playing together, but there's really no solution that wouldn't take an inordinate (for the size of this "problem") amount of time. I say that any solution would take too much time because this is not a large enough problem and it already has a few, though less than ideal, solutions.

I wish I knew how to say "no shit" without being a dick, but I don't. This is like pointing out that the sky is blue on nice days. You can still play with them, either at their level or above their level. Roll an alt if you want to play with them 1-cap, wait for them to catch up to an existing alt, or just plain wait for level cap.

This is the question, and I really don't think the problem is as big a deal ("resounding yes") as you make it out to be. Would it make life slightly easier on a very small portion of the player base? Absolutely. Is the relief that it would bring on the portion of the population it applies to worth the development time? I think the answer is a resounding no.

 

Douglas

Let me check something here.

You agree that it would be beneficial for some people. Maybe only three people, but some people.

In fact, I have not heard anyone suggest that the set of people this might help was 0.

So, whether this should be implemented or not is a matter of comparing the non-zero (clearly) cost of implementing it with the non-zero (we agreed!) benefit derived from doing so. Right? I mean, doesn't this follow?

Now, people disagree on how that cost/benefit analysis would come out. That's fine. We don't have to answer that here. That's of course Blizzard's decision to make.

So, can we agree that we don't know whether it makes sense for Blizzard to implement this, and instead focus on "if they implement this, what should or could it look like?".

We can think through some of the balance issues, and we can think about multiple ways of doing it that might have different costs associated with them. Then, we can point Blizzard at a reasonably thought out discussion of the issues. They can evaluate the cost in more objective terms. They can evaluate the benefit in more objective terms. We can't do that for them, but maybe we can help them brainstorm.

I do not understand why people are trying to persuade me and others as to how that cost/benefit analysis is going to come out. I do not know (but have an opinion), and you do not know (but have an opinion). Argument back and forth about that doesn't really help anyone, does it?

If someone is completely convinced it's not worth doing this, then why participate in this discussion at all? Why do they feel a need to convince me of how it'll come out? Are you trying to help me in some way? Are you trying to get me to just give up and quit the game permanently instead? Just what is the motivation for trying to shut the discussion down entirely? I can't quite wrap my head around it.

 

Darjin

Yes, we understand that you think that this benefits a small population and that the cost isn't worth the benefit. You've already made your point, it isn't helping that you are just repeating your opinion ad nauseam. Its apparent to me that, just from the replies on this board, that people would be interested in this feature and are interested in discussing how it could be done in the best/simplest way possible. Just repeating how you think its not worth the time isn't adding anything to this discussion.

Back on topic: I think that scaling is complicating things a bit much. I think that either the idea of premades or simply pre-set stats accomplishes the task at hand, to play with friends at a power level roughly equal to what the dungeon was designed for. This way you can simply (through debuff or premade) set stuff that doesn't exist pre-TBC (spell haste/penetration) to zero and not have to worry about it.

 

Angeron

Douglas, your intentions are good. Yes, but the fact is that anything that requires a time investment by you, the player, means potentially more money for Blizzard, in terms of a renewed subscription. There is literally no impetus for the manager's at Blizzard to force this kind of development when in the current situation you have the option of rolling an alt to level up/play with your friend(s).

The creation and leveling of this alt means (likely) a healthier server economy (not necessarily, but something to think about), the user spending more time in game (how this time is distributed is of particular consequence to Blizzard), and a reduction of server stress on outland zone-servers. Now if you spend a set amount of time playing each day, rolling the alt will consume part of this time, and thus you will have to extend whatever playtime you have either in the short term(play more), or long term (continue to subscribe), in order to complete whatever goals you have.

Now, the first option does not mean you will cancel your subscription, but the second option does mean they have you for another billing period, guaranteed. This, to me, seems like they would want you to roll that alt, since leveling that alt and THEN playing with your friend takes more time (money!) than just mentoring and playing with your friend. Add in the fact you rolling an alt costs zero design team dollars, that this is not an issue that plagues the majority of players, and you have intertia working against you.

As to why people want to shut down this discussion, I think that most feel that this change would contribute little to the overall game in comparison to the cost to THEM in terms of resources that could be spent on things that matter (to them), like raids, and max level 5-mans, etc. You can clearly see that anyone posting here has a strong opinion on the matter, so getting raged yourself isn't going to change the tone of anyones posts.

Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.

On your server, causing econo-trauma.

 

Jeffrey

Server storage space and bootstrap. Blizzard doesn't like stuff without a bootstrap. Consumables can be a problem too - which inventory can you use them from? Your real character? Your copy? Do you get it reset once you log off (leading to possible inflation - free consumable use if you go lower level instances)? And what do you do with the loot (DE in particular)? Durability? Missing out wouldn't be a very "genuine" experience.

Storage space is probably more than you'd think at first. Stuff like reputation, bags (especially for classes with multiple gear sets), bank all need to be stored. And this is on servers which probably already have well over 10000 characters (bank alts and really low but barely played characters).

Altough I like the idea, nothing is more real than the real thing, I just don't see how it can be handled without changing economies.

 

Denogran

O come on, you can't tell me that I should just sit and not play with them till they're level capped on the one hand, and then tell me that I'll telling you obvious information on the other. If I had thought you understood that WoW was more fun in groups, I wouldn't have made that statement. Your comments seem woefully unaware of that aspect though. Your solutions predominantly have the word "wait" in them, which I don't consider a very fun group game myself. I could just as easily take your comment that you can just wait for them to hit the level cap and apply "no shit" to it as well. That's not the point, the point is that the solutions that you listed aren't fun. And I dunno about you, but I'm playing this game to have fun, so there'd be nice if there was a solution to address that.

 

Douglas

I understand that you believe this, but I do not think you have a reasonable basis for that belief.

As I believe I mentioned earlier, my account is currently inactive (except that it still happens to work on the PTR). I am not leveling up an alt right now. I've quit. I am not the only person I know who has quit due to issues related to what we're talking about right now.

If a system like this had been in the game, would I have quit? I would not. An hour or so ago I checked with another friend who has quit, and he agrees that if something like this had been in place, both he and his girlfriend would likely still be playing. Over the years we've had a few friends try out the game, get to maybe 20th or 30th level, and then quit due to a lack of people they could play with.

I do not know if people like us are a significant enough number of people to influence Blizzard. But we're enough to provide an existence proof that claims of "literally no impetus" are false.

We're not paying now! That's lost revenue! I paid subscription fees for something like 33 months, and had well over 6000 hours /played on my Earthen Ring characters (nearly 3000 of them on my restoration druid alone, one more raid would have pushed me past that mark), and I yet I ended up quitting!

Are there enough of us that this effort would be justifiable? I will admit that I do not know. But, you do not know either, so stating that there's "literally no impetus" as if it were fact is simply not correct. You believe that impetus is small. It may well be too small for Blizzard to worry about, sure. I don't know, and you don't know.

So, if I follow you, what such people are afraid of is that we might actually persuade Blizzard to implement this? And such people wouldn't use it themselves? And so they'd rather not see Blizzard expend any resources on anything they don't use themselves?

I guess such people think a lot of the stuff in patch 2.3 is junk? I mean, if you're only worried about things like "raids, and max level 5-mans, etc", then adding a bunch of content to Dustwallow Marsh, rekindling the "Lost Diplomat" chain, reducing the XP cost from 20-60, those are wasted effort?

It just sounds to me like exactly the same kind of reasoning many more casual players use when they claim that the effort spent on Naxxramas should not have been undertaken at all because they would never see it. I didn't think most people around here were sympathetic to that sort of reasoning.

 

Chucifer

While the powerleveling exploitations were rampant in COH, one should remember that the game focus is entirely different in COH as opposed to WOW. COH has virtually no endgame, and the entire challenge of the game was the leveling aspect. When asked what a person should do after getting to level 50 in COH, the common response was "Roll a new character." As such, everyone always has a 'work in progress character'.

Understanding this and knowing that the groups you and I played with in COH (PvP heavy) subscribed heavily to exploiting the sidekick system for XP, however, a huge portion of the COH playerbase did not and would not allow themselves to abuse the system. These people religiously use the sidekick/exemplar systems for Taskforces (instances) and for them it works out very well.

While I think a system such as this would be nice to have in WOW, I dont believe that the focus of the game is on leveling, a la COH, purely based upon the amount of endgame that is available and that is continuously being developed. The impending xp/level decrease and the xp/quest increase changes only further convince me that the devs are focused on endgame.

However, if they do implement a system, the COH exemplar system would be a great example of a succesful execution. Just don't try to 'depower gear'. That's why the Auction House exists.

 

Vykromond

An easier way to handle huge level differentials between friends who level at different paces is to speed up the levelling process, so that it's much easier for everyone to reach the level cap. This seems like an easier option in terms of cost to programming and development. You might, for instance, make it so that less content in the lower levels necessitates grouping (by removing elite quests), increase the XP gain from quests, and decrease the XP required to level.

 

Douglas

And it might work. We'll have to see. I'm not certain. I am going to give it a chance, though -- when 2.3 hits, I'll buy a one month card and see how things play out. Kudos to Blizzard for making the attempt. There's a lot of good stuff in 2.3, and it might be enough to bring me back. It's certainly enough to get me to take a serious look again.

It does presuppose that people are interested in hitting the level cap, however. I've known plenty who were not (like the fellow in my guild who has been playing for over two years, does have the expansion, and has not hit 61st level yet). They want to play in Deadmines, or Zul'Farak, or Scarlet Monestary, or Maraudon.

And in fact patch 2.3 is making those instances more desirable! There's better loot in there now, including (low level) phat epix!

But... the level range they're tuned for is being narrowed. The problem of being out of sync before the level cap is, to some extent, being made more severe. Time is going to convert to XP more efficiently, so people who play at different rates will separate from each other in level faster. And at the same time, a proper party for each instance is going to consist of a narrower range of levels!