Character Advancement in DDO.

[Noah EQ2]

I saw some questions and concerns about this in a few other posts so I figured it would be best to start a new one. I personally had a lot of questions since 1) I have a lot of time to play a game 2) Enjoy a challenge while advancing my character(s) 3) Often use up content quickly grinding it out .

Here is what I was able to dig up on the subject.

David Eckelberry
If they do it right 20 levels will hopefully take some time to get..
Indeed it will.

Remember that the number of levels in any game, be it D&D or any other MMP, is really just a number. It doesn't gate how long the play experience is, or how much fun you have getting to "max level."

With D&D, of course, that number is defined for us at 20th level (at least for the core game D&D game, without epic rules, and for at release). That's fewer levels than the average MMP out there today, and so you can probably expect it take you somewhat longer to gain a level in D&D.

What that means for us as designers is since there's only 19 "obvious" level-up occasions for a character, we will provide other meaningful points of advancement. Character advancement and achievement are important parts of both D&D and online games in this genre. Examples of those forms of advancement include treasure (obvious, but important), quest completion (gain special rewards, spells, abilities), and quest advancement (gain access to more content).

I underlined that there will be "other things" to do besides pure exping (or just questing for exp in ddo). Great idea for giving people other things to do with their character is make them go work for skill and spells. DING "YAY i got a new fireball spelll".... wrong, you have to go find the ancient scroll where you will then be able to learn it (due to your lvl). No "buy it from a vendor" either... Looks like a good way to have people spend time away from OMG I NEED 20TH!!11one. Will you have to quest EVERY spell/skill, surely not but I am betting the good skills/spells will not be "instant gratification" upon dinging.


Further posts bring up questions about Multiclassing. MClassing gave DnD a ton of flavor to every character created. At the same time it could gimp you too. Will there be "specific builds" for the ut best nuker ... or Tank... or assassin? I am sure there are advantages to picking certain skills and streamlining but having a few lvls of Rogue to pick a lock here or there would be pretty nice. Here are a few Dev Comments

Nik Davidson
One of the things about D&D that I love and fear when using it as the basis of an MMP character system, is that there are very bad choices. We can't really stop people from making very bad choices. You can multiclass a wizard/sorcerer. We can't stop you. You can take nothing but cross-class skills with your rogue or ranger. You can take amazingly poor or redundant feats for your class. You can play an 8 wisdom Cleric.

We can try to categorize and identify these Very Bad Choices (VBCs) and give warnings and such when you're about to make a VBC. "Are you sure you want to take the Stealthy feat? You're a fighter in plate mail, with no ranks in those skills. McFly?" Except there are SO many combinations of VBCs that I don't think we'd be able to cover them all.

Too much multiclassing is just one of many, many VBCs available. Maybe we should just call it a "feature" and move on.

--Multi Class penalties--
Nik Davidson
This is currently planned, yes. Races will get their appropriate favored classes, and lopsided multiclassing will carry the appropriate XP penalty


It looks like following the DnD 3.5 rules pretty close. MultiC will be interesting to see how it pans out. At the same time you will not need to be an expert on PnP DnD 3.5 to make a good character with VBCs. Warning you " YO RETARD YOU ARE GONNA GIMP YOURSELF" - I hope they don't pigeon hole to many people into a certain cookie cutter successful class type.

Anyway, nothing concrete about advancement lvl rate really. It is a bit hard to put a time frame on that. David touched on this, 1-20 vs 1-50 or 1-200... they all could take the same amount of time. It is how long a level might take to gain that is increased.

I'll leave you with one last Dev quote ... it might be a big turn off but it is in the true essence of DnD.

Xundau
We definitely will have high-level content for players once they hit level 20.

That being said, one of our key design goals is for our game to be fun and exciting from levels 1 to 20, just like PnP D&D. This isn't going to be a game where levels 1-19 are a grind, and the "real game" starts at level 20.

[Cynax]

Some prestige classes would be cool to see in expansions.

[Banukak]

The fact that there is no actual mob grinding, only xp is earned through quests, has gotten my interest peaked in this. Turbine hasn't exactly blown my skirt up with their last few games, but perhaps this will be the one they get right.

[Camerous]

I ran a ToEE module for 2.5 years of playing every other Saturday. At the end of this the characters were only lvl 12. The players were proud of their lvl 12s as they had every right to be. I am not afraid of not having enough lvls. What I am afraid of is not having enough content to make it worth the long lvl lengths. When you don't have the huge carrot of lvls it falls comepletely on content and items to make up for it.

[Elgonn]

Anyone know if the DDO devs have stated whether or not they are using "Fractional BAB"?

It certainly is more newbie friendly.

[Iannis]

Awesome. We've gone as far as we can go with the "You defeat an Orc Pawn and receive 5 xp" mud levelling concept.

Bring on the quest completion prerequisites before you "level up", baby. BRING 'EM! Gone shall be the days of grinding weakass mobs monotonously for hours on end.

Still think D&D will suck some major ass, considering how much it NEEDS a gamemaster, but I'm hoping for the next gang...

[Ukerric]

Originally posted by Iannis
Bring on the quest completion prerequisites before you "level up", baby. BRING 'EM! Gone shall be the days of grinding weakass mobs monotonously for hours on end.

Actually, from what I read, it's the opposite.

You ding! Great! You got some HP, and nothing else.

Now go on the quests to get the new spells and new feats.