Raise the maximum experience limit. - IDEAS FOR RYZOM

@Daomei:

You would have a point with your questions if the answers would be game-changing for a significant amount of players. As it happens, the ugly truth is that very few people out of a group would actually care to learn the answers. You can play in most situations just by knowing which class attacks which (carnivores > herbivores).

Instead, what people DO notice is how fast you level, how fast you can gain access to content, how boring or interesting content is, and so on. No, a nature documentary isn't interesting for a lot of people.

For a completely personal example, I never got into GW2 due to two reasons: one is that I dislike the endless quests at the start, and even if I could get over that, the XP gain is pretty slow. The person I'm watching play has been putting in maybe 1 hour daily, and three months later they're still 52 out of 80. Granted, that's the only skill to level, instead of 63 trees, but consider what the average player's expectation is.

Daomei

And I would dissuade anybody to grind 2hrs a day only "to get a master" unless having abundance of time to spend every day. Doing so means you have not understood the game.

Having reached a level, be it 50, 100, 150, 200, above or inbetween, empowers you to do a lot of things in Ryzom, such as fighting, healing, exploring, harvesting, and so on. You will not have understood a hundredth of the intricacies and mechanics of the game when reaching medium (100, 150+) or high levels (200+) or even "master". A player using her first month on mainland not to grind to "master" at any cost, but thoroughly exploring, learning about seasons, weather, mob behaviour and movements and general survival will definitely be the better player at the end of that month, even if she has no level above 100.

And in some cases, you may be able to pull of things that most people would think only possible through the sheer brute force of power-levelling. For instance, tanking for a plod team with Daggers and a CC skill of only ~120 is easily doable with some player skill. Admittedly, dagger is not the best choice for plods due to the DPS, but so long as you remember that a tank's job is more about keeping the casters from being eaten than about dealing damage, and you have enough healing support to even have a plod team in the first place, even F2P players can be very useful in 250 zones.

Daomei

There are lots of players ingame who had no qualms to undergo the efforts of training. Most will be willing to craft the stuff you cannot craft yourself. Mind that this is a multiuser game.

When leveling digging and crafting is no challenge to you drop it and rely on guildies and other helpful players, there are lots around.
And most of them found purpose and satisfaction in training those skills they are practising.

The game is designed so that one cannot do everything on one's own from the beginning (it is possible, but is a long way reserved to those ready to take the pain).

I think that that right there is where the problem is. It seems that many of the players who have issues with Ryzom play almost like it's a single-player game with a chatroom. Or maybe it's just pride that makes everyone feel they NEED to be 150% self-sufficient, if not the Ultimate Uber-Master of All Things.

Do you know why I am only half-heartedly levelling craft? It's because most of the stuff I use can be crafted by guildmates, and whatever they can't craft, I have friends outside of Rift Walkers who can. That means I don't have to do anything; I do what I want. Some would say that I "should" be mastering a dig other than Lakes, but I'm in no rush to do so because anything I can't get myself can be obtained just as easily with interpersonal skills as with character levels.

Yes, the last couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of digging, but it's by choice. I've done quite a few other things recently as well, like occupations, treks, hunts, SNs, an OP battle, giving the Kirostas in Loria a campfire so they don't freeze at night... things that are not grinding! I do not feel bound to grind away single-mindedly until I hit 250; I do a few levels here and there whenever I feel like it.

Zooming out a bit, I think that this discussion has done a great job at highlighting the difference between the old-timers who are used to getting a level every few weekends and those whose RPG experience is mostly computer/console-based. How many of you old table-top RPG players ever got to "endgame content" at all? And those of you who did, how many did it in under 20 hours of playtime? I think @Rikutatis is a great example of that difference because of this line;

Rikutatis

The idea that MMO's should be about grinding skills and levels is a very antiquated one.

Round wheels are an antiquated concept as well. But how is it that you personally have ever improved anyways? I mean, I know what I know about many things through study and experience. I didn't just say, "I want to learn electrical engineering!", wait a few hours, and suddenly have the differences between Delta and Wye transformers pop into my head; I had to do some studying and put in a bit of time and effort.

Some of us gamers consider that sort of "effort leads to improvement" thing to be more immersive than just having competence based on how long since you clicked a button that said, "I want to learn ****". It's the fact that many other gamers agree that the model even still exists. (Well, also the fact that it's easier to monetize, but lets keep the business side out of it.) And given the heavy pay2win aspect of EVE, I think it safe to say that much of what works there would not work here anyways.

Then again, I treat my RPG characters (MMO or otherwise) as psuedo-real people in an alternate world rather than as some omnipotent being. I think MMORPGs are different from single-player games like Deus Ex and thus don't feel that I need a set storyline that I follow on rails and reach maximum character development by the time I'm 10-15 hours in. So of course I have far different expectations from those whose idea of MMORPGs is closer to "Counterstrike with crafting".

In any event, it's simply impossible to please everyone. The XP cap apparently was higher at some point in the distant past and was lowered to 6k for reasons. I'm not sure what those reasons were, but given how many homins have done well despite that cap and the difficulty of taking out things >20 levels above me without having enough teammates to nerf XP anyways, I'm not convinced that there is really any need to raise the cap either.