Shattered Kingdoms

Making GM's a rare case...For some reason it doesn't seem too complicated.

-Reduce the maximum level of ANY item, with ANY enchantment on it to 41 level (master). Let a few exceptions for extraordinary items.

-Any character who reaches level 41 is now complete. I don't think there is a spell/skill to be learned after that anyway. Basically reducing the amount of necessary level advancing by 9 and changing the advancement after that point to a different method than grinding.

-Each level attained above 41 now has different prerequisites.
For example:

To advance from 41 to 42, you must have played 40 hours in total, the character is active for at least 2 IC years and have explored 5% of the known world.

To advance from 42 to 43, you must have played 50 hours in total, the character is active for at least 2 IC years and have explored 7% of the known world.

To advance from 43 to 44, you must have played 60 hours in total, the character is active for at least 3 IC years and have explored 10% of the known world.

Now, after reaching the champion status, which shouldn't be as difficult, this pattern might change to something slightly more complicating and demanding.

To advance from 46 to 47, you must have played 180 hours in total, the character is active for 10 years and have explored 30% of the known world. The requirement of a few quests completed might be added or anything of the like.
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By applying such a system, the grinding time is lessened quite ALOT.
A high level character must have traveled enough to justify his title and by adding those time restrictions, the character actually HAS to play the game in order to attain the title rather than kill the same NPC over and over again.

From the players point of view, if I know that I CAN'T advance more before a specific time elapses, I would just play the game and actually enjoy it. Most would consider any IC interaction with other characters to be a waste of time as they try to get to GM status.

Cheers.-

Folks, you are missing the point.

You should be able to get to mentor (level 36) in a matter of 50 hours no matter who you are.

We need rapid development of 1 through 36, and slightly slower rapid development of 36 to 41.

Then we need currently difficulty in levelling from 41 to 45 and then a sudden GRUELING 46 to 50 phase.

This way people don't spam reroll characters, but even the most casual player can at least be useful and take part.

If you think anyone will ever just accept the fact that not all character should get to GM tthen at Master you have to get all the HP/Mana/PE/Resistences your character would ever get, and no item is above Master in level. Probably a few other things I'm not thinking of.

Making it take longer to level to GM isn't an answer with any sort of promising results. Only those who can Mud all day will ever take the time to reach GM, and those same people are the ones today that people QQ about being to powerful.

The difference between 45 and 50 is minimal. You get 95% of everything before level 42 anyways.

Except for necromancers.

Not if you start enchanting those things.

You can easily get high enchants at 41.

Take some gear that's below average quality and start pumping into it. You can usually get 5-6 enchants per piece of tanso steel armor before it goes into the outstanding category.

I kinda sometimes sorta do know what I'm talking about.

I think if NPCs came back quicker, SK would be a [REDACTED] load easiar and then people could stop bitching about leveling.

That's certainly one thing we could easily change, if it's an agreed upon solution to the problem. Perhaps we could do another spreadsheet that asks for input on whether the repop speed for each area is too fast/slow.

PS. If you haven't noticed, every time I suggest a spreadsheet, that's my way of asking for input from YOU the player. So please participate in them. You don't have to be an awesome elite player to have your opinion heard and be part of the tuning of the game. People love to complain, but when it comes to getting constructive feedback, these spreadsheets often have trouble getting even 10 people to contribute.

Now that's for sure a double-edged knife there. If you make aggro NPCs respawn faster as well, not only will it not be easier for leveling, but it can prove a hell's bottom harder than today. So needs careful planning. Also, if NPCs that auto-assist respawn too quickly in an area, most people will find themselves fighting an endless horde of NPCs that will certainly kill them. One area of the kind that quickly comes in mind is CoH. ToM however could indeed use a fatser respawn timer.