Mentoring/Malafatoring

[MESS14H]

Ive just logged off from Warhammer online completely wroukd off so this might be a bit of a rant.
The issue thats wroukd me off is the fact that I now cannot complete a part of the game simply because My lvl is now too high. :confused: Because you are limited to not being allowed to participate in open rvr past a certain lvl in order to provide a fair pvp environment for lower lvl players you are restricted via a debuff to your pve zone. i.e. lvls1-9, 10-19, and so on.
This in principle allows players a fair fight without being ganked by higher lvl players but has presented a problem whereby I can no longer finish part of the game. This part of the game only becomes available after completing a series of public quests which are great in their concept allowing people to randomly join in with an open quest to complete a series of objectives to receive an individual reward tailored to yourself depending on the lvl of contribution you put into the completion of the public quest. These public quests seem great as they provide the community with a common goal to participate in and earn a great deal of exp toward your lvl. and here is were the problem lies. you see in order to complete these public quests you gain several lvls and risk the danger of being unable to complete the final rvr part of the quest line simply because you've gained too many lvls. Now when i think of a solution to this i come up with 2.
A. a lvl cap of some kind that prevents a player from earning any more exp
B. A mentoring system allowing players to temporarily decrease their lvl by reducing their stats by a certain percentage equal to that of a friend or party member.
Option B is preferred by myself as I have played EQ2 for many years it has provides a mechanic to allow Members of my guild to participate in the activity's that their lower lvl guild members are currently working on.
I feel that one of the problems and indeed conflicts in an online gaming community or guild is that everybody wants to play the game at their own pace. Which inevitably means that people get left behind while others sour ahead creating a click within the guild while the others that get left behind feel left out.
Having a mentoring function that allowed a player to reduce all their skills by a certain percentage so that it equaled or came within a certain margin of a friend/party member/guild members complete skill total and stat total i feel would help deter such clicks from evolving within a guild.

[reddo]

A is standard in most (if not all) mmo's right now. B could be useful if the level drop was temporary.

[MESS14H]

Yes option A is often used as it provides a nice little time sink, making you spend more time leveling up.
It works and it dose the job intended but its a lazy trick for a game to implement.
Plus it provides no incentive for higher level players to join in with lower level players which is kinda detrimental to the idea of building a game based on its input from the gaming community.
It simply doesn't make sense to have players soloing through gaming content solely to catch up with and play with everybody els.
After leaving wow for a while then returning back about a month after burning crusade i had to solo up to level 70 in order to catchup and the I had to solo all the rep quests in order to get all the stuff id need to access all the instances the rest of the guild were running. the problem was as I already mentioned was that everybody plays at their own pace.

[Avacon]

there is 2 games (well one each side) in witch i know the lvl drop works in and thats city of heroes/city of vilians the both use that technique but they also allow for a lower lvl player to raise thier lvl not in skills but in certans stats to fight amoungst the higher lvl enemies with the m8's as long as thier in range of each other. in which they can still grind like m8's in guilds do and when the lower player lvls up here still only stays at that equal lvl but is able to stat his avatar for when he goes back to soloing.

as for the higher going lower it has the same effect for what he/she learned during the course of there lvling which ever skills they had at the time of the lvl there lowering down to will be the lvl and skills and stats of that lvl while still being able to wield their original gear but for lvls they go down the gear down grades its abilities acordenly.

[MESS14H]

Yes having ability's that have a ranged effect depending on the level of skill employed to use them would be a good idea.
Take for example the masterminds pet summon in coh/cov. At levels 1 - 9 you get 1 pet, at levels 10 - 19 you get 2 pets, and 20 - 29 you get 3 and so on.
so for example my human Marine in Kaos war has a marksman skill of 1 to start off with so he can shoot a rifle. His accuracy with the weapon gives him a fair chance of shooting something about 10 meters away, But with the same weapon at skill 100 marksmanship his accuracy is increased to 100 meters.
mentoring could work like so
your lowbe friend has a total of 100 skill points distributed in various areas.
You have a total of 500 skill points.
So 100 is obviously 20% of 500 so by mentoring him all of your skills will be reduced to 20% of each of their values and do the same with each of the players Stats as well
So by reducing skills by meens of Mentoring your lowbe friend your not going to end up with a balancing problem and just end up with a twink fest.
Mentoring could really be a significant way of finalizing you players skills in the game
for example to increase your skill in something from level 20 to 21 you may have a 1 in 20 chance of a skill increase while using a corresponding ability to that skill.
At level 400 skill you have vastly increased odds at 1 in 400 chance of increasing that skill.
Of course there will be the first players that did it all the hard way. Maybe you could give them a nice title for it.

[Avacon]

well also for the players that prefer to solo themselvs to the top aswell. i found it nice being a guildy but i was usually 98% of the time solo until it came time to lvl in pvp mode. where if you solo ur sure to be dead or have a 75% chance of getting ganked.
also damon was talking about a place where you can get speacial titles in the game. much like the old roman days with a gladiator match up with only so many champions per year but quiete sure there will be master titles for accompleshing skill feats. this trick works nice for its a common goal for the public but also gives them there own persanel master titles.
was also thinking about a title name for those that choose to master each of the skill to get a speacial title which would take awhile but would mean there could be speacial abilities with the title. that way thier grinding days wont go un awarded.
there is one game that i have seen that does the skill system well and thats voyage century. the reason for saying it is because each and every avatar has the abilities to learn every skill that is in the game so everyone can be what they want or be all at the same time and for every skill lvl gained goes towards your main total.
which its nice but also no matter which way the lvl or skill system is the lower lvl player will always get singled out. unless however there was a way to make a mentoring guild focused on helping lower end players out which can give speacial abilities or sertain items to the mentors for helping the new blood learn the game. where as being there basicly like a volenteers live sapport desk inside the game.
also a way that they can get lvls from helping lower players achive a certain mark is by giving them something like an xp ball and letting them choose what skill they want it to go into.