Mentoring with a twist

[Lourdin]

I play EQ2 a lot now. However, for a while there, I took a break and I missed out on an expansion or two. Also, in some cases I leveled to fast and outleveled some zone content or instances before I was done having fun with them. So that got me to thinking...

I usually play with a solid grp of players who are all lvl 80. None of us have alts of any significant level because we do not want to go through the effort of bringing them up or the time to do it. Which brings me to my question: How hard would it be to get a group together of all lvl 80 players, go to a zone like Kaladim and set the group lvl to 70. Basically using the mentoring system without an actually lvl 70 player to mentor.

This would bring back a lot of fun and excitement to the game making instances and dungeons challenging again without worrying about getting other lower level players there first.

I guess all loot gained would have to be no-trade to prevent farming but other then that, is there a down side that I am missing? I think something like this would breath a lot more life and adventure into some of the older zones.

Thoughts?

[projoking]

I guess one thought would be rather then reducing your level why not increase the level of the dungeon for your party. It makes more sense to scale up then down.

[Lourdin]

Because they were built for that level? It seems easier to integrate the existing mentoring system then worry about mob scaling.

[projoking]

Originally Posted by Lourdin

Because they were built for that level? It seems easier to integrate the existing mentoring system then worry about mob scaling.

Good point. Well the system is already in the game sounds solid to me. The mechanics are in place to bolster your numbers if you will why not just reduce them so you can do lower level content. Sounds good to me.

[Pinski]

Originally Posted by projoking

I guess one thought would be rather then reducing your level why not increase the level of the dungeon for your party. It makes more sense to scale up then down.

Because not everything is an instance?

[Grave]

FFXI did something similar to what you are talking about called BCNMs where the group would be scaled down to the appropriate level the event was designed for. Unfortunately, you actually had to have level appropriate gear for it as they did not have a scaling system like EQ2 has for mentoring. It was decently fun, and you had a reason to do it because the items generally sold well.

Still, a system like this would only really be necessary in a game like EQ2, where you really need to do quests and kill nameds to get your AA points. In other games it really doesn't matter if you skipped some content, and even if you could go back and earn exp for it by being lower level, there's no guarantee that players would want to if they still have higher content to do to reach max level. You would, like FFXI, have to give players some incentive to drop their level and do the content. Where EQ2 has it's AA system, other games would have to come up with something else.

[...]

I actually think one thing eq2 could easily implement (that would also bolster under used old world zones) is a sort of a system that gives you quests for a zone (just about any zone, instance or outdoor) then mentors you down for the duration of the quest, only letting you un-mentor if you quit the quest or return for the reward. make the rewards a scaling sort of points haul (like LDoN camps) that give great or unique rewards for each zone. Make it particularly valuable for some one to finish all of the quests in each zone, so that everyone wants to do them at least once.

This would give old ghost town zones a use (lavastorm, permafrost, or any of the many abandoned DoF dungeons/ instances), give high level folks something to do, spread the population out a little, and (I'm sure I'm over generalizing here) it should be relatively easy to implement given the versatility of eq2's mentoring/aa/scaling/whatever-else systems.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Grave

FFXI did something similar to what you are talking about called BCNMs where the group would be scaled down to the appropriate level the event was designed for. Unfortunately, you actually had to have level appropriate gear for it as they did not have a scaling system like EQ2 has for mentoring. It was decently fun, and you had a reason to do it because the items generally sold well.

Still, a system like this would only really be necessary in a game like EQ2, where you really need to do quests and kill nameds to get your AA points. In other games it really doesn't matter if you skipped some content, and even if you could go back and earn exp for it by being lower level, there's no guarantee that players would want to if they still have higher content to do to reach max level. You would, like FFXI, have to give players some incentive to drop their level and do the content. Where EQ2 has it's AA system, other games would have to come up with something else.

This.

The novelty of going back and doing old zones would wear off quick if there wasn't actually any incentive to do so. And what incentive can you add really? Would have to involve implementing TLC style content and fuck that noise.

So yeah, EQ2 might as well have it at this point, but I don't think it's a feature that needs expanding in future games.

[Surlok TP]

Next update they are adding in AA Xp for grey quests,anything that was 10 levels below you, gives you incentive to go back to old dungeons and waste them for the quest completes.

As far as Scaling to your level,they already do this with things like the Adv Packs and some other instances in the world so I can't see why they wouldn't be able to do it with the regular instances as well if you selected it when zoning in . The leveling down thing,you justn eed one player to scale 5 players down to his/her level. Like Split paw only scales up to lvl 50 so you would need someone level 50 to scale down to do the raid if you wanted to do it at that level.

Obviously if everyone you know is already 80 then it's more of a hassle, just pay someone to go AFK at the zone in that you can all Mentor down to.

Doesn't answer the question of scaling the instance down/up though I guess.

Unless I am reading this all wrong.

[Etwynn]

The big problem with mentoring is that there's no reason to do it other than to help out your friends or just for kicks.

If midlevel dungeons/quests were required to enter end-game dungeons (key quests) and if the only way to complete the quests were if you're in the correct level range, then people who don't skip content would be rewarded and those who do can just go back an mentor that shit.

Of course, this wouldn't have any point in a game where there isn't 1 dungeon per level range that everyone always does.

[l0z]

Originally Posted by Etwynn

The big problem with mentoring is that there's no reason to do it other than to help out your friends or just for kicks.

Not quite true.

Mentoring allows you to snag all the achievement xp for named kills and green quests that you complete while mentored, along with any rare corpse loot drops that you may have missed while leveling. So unless you're capped on achievement xp, then it definitely does help you. (And a lot of people are -not- capped on achievement xp.)

In addition, it does actually give an xp boost to your friend. So you're not just helping him/her by coming along and helping with the content, you're actually speeding up their progress in getting close to your level range to play with.

Just something worth dropping in to mention. And the kicks are fun too, since you keep all your high level spells for content that wasn't really designed for it.

[Aamina]

I love mentoring. If I can't find a group or am bored with current content I'll go mentor something old even if I've done it and use spells that are hilariously overpowered for that tier. Yeah, they scale, but sometimes its just awesome how good Ring of Fire or Strike of Storms is.

[Genjiro]

CoH has yet again, a great way to deal with this, called flashbacks. It keeps track of your character at every level, and you can go to a zone called Oroborous that lets you enter crystals and do flashback missions which basically lets you do just about any storyline that you might have missed on the way up. Any lower level missions automatically set you to the mission level limit, you can also set the difficulty for it. Like, no inspirations (potion equivalent), tougher enemies, limited power use, no temporary power use, or other restrictions you can place. There are benefits to adding more difficulty as well, or just something to challenge you if you want that kind of challenge.

[Lourdin]

Originally Posted by l0z

Not quite true.

Mentoring allows you to snag all the achievement xp for named kills and green quests that you complete while mentored, along with any rare corpse loot drops that you may have missed while leveling. So unless you're capped on achievement xp, then it definitely does help you. (And a lot of people are -not- capped on achievement xp.)

This is exactly why I would like to see it implemented. They way they are doing it now, with 10 levels is crap. People are just going to be able to blow through the content. (It's grey) Where the hell is the challenge in that. AA rewards are a big deal. There should be some risk for the reward. A game without a risk/reward scenario is crap.

[Fog]

There's always a ton of perfectly good content that any given player skips levelling up. Any system to encourage them to go back and see it is cool with me.