Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Hekotat said:

I saw on that newsletter it took someone 220+ hours to hit the 40s.

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We've also seen that it took someone roughly 6 hours to hit level 20 when being power leveled.

I think the biggest thing you and I have encountered as we've leveled, is (and this isnt necessarily directed specifically at you Heko):

1. Our gear as a noob sucks. So its our normal inclination to spend an unnecessary amount of time farming gear in a low experience spot. When in the grand scheme, +10 skill for offense/defense/etc. from a level is far more valuable than the +3 str/sta necklace that you would farm up.

2. This is a big one - There isnt a clear, laid out path, for grinding. You're kind of just floundering around, trying different spots. On one hand, you get to break up the monotony of leveling by going to different spots. But the other side of that is the experience per hour. Farming the bottom of Wyrmsbane is fun, and rewarding. But the Exp/Hr pales in comparison to fighting the Goblins at the entrance of Tel'Ekir.

Going even further, you, as a player, have to recognize - following that same example - that as soon as you hit 16, its better for you to leave Goblins and go kill Skeletons in Fallen Pass. Then, recognize at 19, that its better to move from the lower level skeletons, to the upper skeletons and ghouls.

This is banking on the fact that you have a competent group of players to play with. As you can move from upper skeletons to Cave Rats as early as 21 with good players. But its a lot more dangerous, and you might as well stay at Upper Skeletons until 24.

3. Lastly - This is alpha. There are times when people just wont find a group because there arent but so many people allowed into the alpha. Theyre letting in new players every single day, but all too often - you just wont be able to fill an entire group for the best camp / group exp bonus.

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I feel like this held true with EverQuest back in '98 when they were grabbing people from other games. I dont recall the name of the person that invited me to "test" EQ back then, but I was actively playing Sierra's "The Realm" at the time. I doubt they had any idea how young I was, nor did they probably care. But I recall killing shit in Greater Fay for far too long. Pining more over Bronze Armor than I should have been.

Daidraco said:

We've also seen that it took someone roughly 6 hours to hit level 20 when being power leveled.

I think the biggest thing you and I have encountered as we've leveled, is (and this isnt necessarily directed specifically at you Heko):

1. Our gear as a noob sucks. So its our normal inclination to spend an unnecessary amount of time farming gear in a low experience spot. When in the grand scheme, +10 skill for offense/defense/etc. from a level is far more valuable than the +3 str/sta necklace that you would farm up.

2. This is a big one - There isnt a clear, laid out path, for grinding. You're kind of just floundering around, trying different spots. On one hand, you get to break up the monotony of leveling by going to different spots. But the other side of that is the experience per hour. Farming the bottom of Wyrmsbane is fun, and rewarding. But the Exp/Hr pales in comparison to fighting the Goblins at the entrance of Tel'Ekir.

Going even further, you, as a player, have to recognize - following that same example - that as soon as you hit 16, its better for you to leave Goblins and go kill Skeletons in Fallen Pass. Then, recognize at 19, that its better to move from the lower level skeletons, to the upper skeletons and ghouls.

This is banking on the fact that you have a competent group of players to play with. As you can move from upper skeletons to Cave Rats as early as 21 with good players. But its a lot more dangerous, and you might as well stay at Upper Skeletons until 24.

3. Lastly - This is alpha. There are times when people just wont find a group because there arent but so many people allowed into the alpha. Theyre letting in new players every single day, but all too often - you just wont be able to fill an entire group for the best camp / group exp bonus.

///

I feel like this held true with EverQuest back in '98 when they were grabbing people from other games. I dont recall the name of the person that invited me to "test" EQ back then, but I was actively playing Sierra's "The Realm" at the time. I doubt they had any idea how young I was, nor did they probably care. But I recall killing shit in Greater Fay for far too long. Pining more over Bronze Armor than I should have been.

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The other problem will be the number of players at said popular spots. It was night/day difference from a dead server versus the free week. We routinely ended up in worse xp camps because everything we knew about was camped. However, it appears there are a lot more camps that what is popular and we just haven't found them. After hearing them talk about the underdark and how it'll be another starting area under NH should help a lot as well.

Im honestly not too concerned with it, im mainly here to hang out and blow shit up with some homies. Its all about the journey so im not in a huge rush.

Also, some classes just get huge advantages with stats, inquisitor being the main one. Getting +4 int and an increased mana pool makes a remarkable difference in how the class plays. Inquisitor is very difficult to level even with a pocket healer due to mana regen. It just doesn't really feel fun until 8 or 10 ish.

Inquisitor and enchanter are just painful to play at low levels by a large margin compared to everything else I've tried. The experience needs to be improved or they risk losing players starting out new to the game if they pick those classes. I dont know how to improve it without making it OP other than maybe giving them meditation out of the gate.


Edit: typed from my phone and I didn't proof read well enough and I dont feel like editing it, youll figure out.

Hekotat said:

The other problem will be the number of players at said popular spots. It was night/day difference from a dead server versus the free week. We routinely ended up in worse xp camps because everything we knew about was camped. However, it appears there are a lot more camps that what is popular and we just haven't found them. After hearing them talk about the underdark and how it'll be another starting area under NH should help a lot as well.

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Have you tried the elf city?

Sloan said:

Have you tried the elf city?

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Not yet, im trying to play on a slow burn so when ea comes out there is still fresh content to engage with. I dont want it to end up like WoW where im just really tired of the first 20 levels of content.

You should never have a shortage of camps to grind at. Some may just be more work to get to.

Hekotat said:

Not yet, im trying to play on a slow burn so when ea comes out there is still fresh content to engage with. I dont want it to end up like WoW where im just really tired of the first 20 levels of content.

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Newb we armor is so much cooler than newb beetle gear. It’s a pretty neat area, but still getting my bearings in it.

Forced melee wizard and cleric mechanics are being walked back, almost certainly due to community feedback.

This is why people critique systems before release. This is why developers choose to open the process and collect feedback real time. It’s a win/win proposition for both parties.



Up next, Spell Book mechanics, raid instances, and hearthstones!

Quaid said:

Forced melee wizard and cleric mechanics are being walked back, almost certainly due to community feedback.

This is why people critique systems before release. This is why developers choose to open the process and collect feedback real time. It’s a win/win proposition for both parties.



Up next, Spell Book mechanics, raid instances, and hearthstones!

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How to like only top half of post

GuardianX said:

I hope he nukes CotH from Eles.

Nuke it nick, do it, fuck that spell even on a 30m CD. Being a CotH bitch in EQ sucked if you didn't have alts.

Make that shit something everyone has access to or no one and log the ever living heck out of it's usage because it will, without a doubt, be used abusively.

I would even argue that corpse summons should only happen in a graveyard in your city of choice.

Summons have almost always been attached to exploits, body summons, rez jank, COTH...ect.

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I think taking away corpse summon is a little much, and I dont think ive ever said that lol.

it costs 10g per corpse summon atm which even on the closed alpha where we can free farm is ALOT. Cant imagine how tight money is going to be on EA or live servers...gonna be fun.

Quaid said:

Forced melee wizard and cleric mechanics are being walked back, almost certainly due to community feedback.

This is why people critique systems before release. This is why developers choose to open the process and collect feedback real time. It’s a win/win proposition for both parties.

Click to expand...

It's genuinely encouraging to see them walk back design choices that sound clever in a pitch document but disintegrate the second they make contact with actual gameplay. A lot of studios fall in love with their own ideas (especially ideas rooted in nostalgia) and never pressure-test whether those mechanics are FUN, sustainable, or even coherent once players are let loose on them. MnM at least demonstrated here that they're willing to accept reality when theory collides with practice.

The melee-wizard and spell-book mechanics are perfect examples of this. On paper, they were framed as "class identity," "risk versus reward," and "bridging the gap between melee and magic." In practice, it turns casters into awkward auto-attack drones and forces players into friction that doesn't create depth, just downtime, clunk, and annoyance. Watching the video, you can practically see the devs realize the system wasn't elevating the fantasy, it's actively undermining it.

This is why critique matters. This is why early testing matters. This is why opening design to feedback and not closing it off is important. Good systems get reinforced. Bad ones get exposed before they calcify into the foundation of the game. Reversing course isn't weakness or "catering to casual WoW players!". It's the first sign that they're trying to develop a game rather than just enshrining a memory.

Quaid said:

Forced melee wizard and cleric mechanics are being walked back, almost certainly due to community feedback.

This is why people critique systems before release. This is why developers choose to open the process and collect feedback real time. It’s a win/win proposition for both parties.



Up next, Spell Book mechanics, raid instances, and hearthstones!

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LoTRO MMO maintains dual wield staff and sword wizard supremacy

Kuro said:

LoTRO MMO maintains dual wield staff and sword wizard supremacy

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Isn’t LOTRO the literal gay bears MMO

Kirun said:

It's genuinely encouraging to see them walk back design choices that sound clever in a pitch document but disintegrate the second they make contact with actual gameplay. A lot of studios fall in love with their own ideas (especially ideas rooted in nostalgia) and never pressure-test whether those mechanics are FUN, sustainable, or even coherent once players are let loose on them. MnM at least demonstrated here that they're willing to accept reality when theory collides with practice.

The melee-wizard and spell-book mechanics are perfect examples of this. On paper, they were framed as "class identity," "risk versus reward," and "bridging the gap between melee and magic." In practice, it turns casters into awkward auto-attack drones and forces players into friction that doesn't create depth, just downtime, clunk, and annoyance. Watching the video, you can practically see the devs realize the system wasn't elevating the fantasy, it's actively undermining it.

This is why critique matters. This is why early testing matters. This is why opening design to feedback and not closing it off is important. Good systems get reinforced. Bad ones get exposed before they calcify into the foundation of the game. Reversing course isn't weakness or "catering to casual WoW players!". It's the first sign that they're trying to develop a game rather than just enshrining a memory.

Click to expand...

Forcing them to attack for like 3 seconds at the start of the fight makes them auto attack drones that causes downtime? The opposite is true. There will be downtime now because putting up seal is going to take a lot longer and take mana whereas before it was literally free. Before you could even avoid missing a med tick if you wanted to and were mindful.

Del said:

Forcing them to attack for like 3 seconds at the start of the fight makes them auto attack drones that causes downtime? The opposite is true. There will be downtime now because putting up seal is going to take a lot longer and take mana whereas before it was literally free. Before you could even avoid missing a med tick if you wanted to and were mindful.

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I think you're massively overselling how "harmless" the forced-melee mechanic was and underselling the long-term design consequences it creates. The problem was never "three seconds" of melee, the problem was the direction of the design philosophy behind it - which is taking casters and nudging them into being awkward, off-brand auto-attack bots in a system that already struggles with pacing, downtime, and identity clarity.

And yes, Seal now costing mana is a better outcome. You know why? Because that's an intentional tradeoff, not a weird immersion-breaking minigame where wizards and clerics run up to slap mobs with a stick so they can actually function. One is a resource decision. The other is a gimmick that only sounds cool on paper for people with weird Gandalf LARP fantasies who made the LOTR movies their personality.

Your take also assumes that the pre-change system had no real gameplay cost, which simply isn't true. It created more friction than depth, forced casters out of their intended roles, and introduced a clunky "must melee or you're trolling" expectation in groups. That's the sort of thing that snowballs into bad habits and worse balance problems later.

This is exactly why critique matters. Because something that feels "fine" to you in a vacuum often plays out disastrously across thousands of players in live conditions. And clearly, the devs agreed, because they walked it back.

Del said:

Forcing them to attack for like 3 seconds at the start of the fight makes them auto attack drones that causes downtime? The opposite is true. There will be downtime now because putting up seal is going to take a lot longer and take mana whereas before it was literally free. Before you could even avoid missing a med tick if you wanted to and were mindful.

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Maybe this game just isn’t FOR you bro

Kirun said:

I think you're massively overselling how "harmless" the forced-melee mechanic was and underselling the long-term design consequences it creates. The problem was never "three seconds" of melee, the problem was the direction of the design philosophy behind it - which is taking casters and nudging them into being awkward, off-brand auto-attack bots in a system that already struggles with pacing, downtime, and identity clarity.

And yes, Seal now costing mana is a better outcome. You know why? Because that's an intentional tradeoff, not a weird immersion-breaking minigame where wizards and clerics run up to slap mobs with a stick so they can actually function. One is a resource decision. The other is a gimmick that only sounds cool on paper for people with weird Gandalf LARP fantasies who made the LOTR movies their personality.

Your take also assumes that the pre-change system had no real gameplay cost, which simply isn't true. It created more friction than depth, forced casters out of their intended roles, and introduced a clunky "must melee or you're trolling" expectation in groups. That's the sort of thing that snowballs into bad habits and worse balance problems later.

This is exactly why critique matters. Because something that feels "fine" to you in a vacuum often plays out disastrously across thousands of players in live conditions. And clearly, the devs agreed, because they walked it back.

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You know you don't have to argue against a bunch of straw men that you've concocted and just admit that you were wrong about seal causing downtime.

Kithani said:

Maybe this game just isn’t FOR you bro

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Because I corrected Kirun? You won't see me sperging out and doomposting for the next few months because Kirun was wrong about something. I barely even have an opinion about the seal of magic change other than it's going to make wizards weaker in groups, but perhaps better overall because it won't pigeonhole wizards into dual wielding fast weapons.