What I think PL needs to keep people interested all the way to a new lvl cap.
I posted this in another thread, but didn't want to it get lost. It finally occurred to me what happened between to make me go from PL-obsessed to losing interest compeletely. I'm just copying/pasting my post from the other thread for now, so may be a bit disjointed. Work with me here ;).
Personally, what I loved about the original ao3 was how VL was your reward/accomplishment for hitting 50 and acquiring the necessary skills to blast through all those bosses in VL. In the sewers, you don't really gain much between lvl 50-56. So you can farm a bit faster maybe? But it's not NECESSARY to hit 55-56. The only carrot being dangled was the crown, and I never found that to be a big enough reward for the effort.
I think you're onto something (referring to Haikus' post here) -- if they released two campaigns at once (or even a VL-like version of one) that was nearly impossible without lvl 60/61 gear, it would give people more of an incentive to grind. Something to achieve besides a lvl cap to wait out another lvl cap.
Personally, when AO3 was nerfed, I gradually lost interest. After that, there didn't seem much incentive to keep farming.
Edit: Actually, it just hit me why it's so easy to get bored with this game if you're not super hardcore. I feel really stupid for not putting it all together before, but here it is: The reason AO3 was so successful in the beginning, IMO, is bc you had to unlock each campaign by completing the previous one. And in the end, you had VL as your final reward (and a darn good one at that). This kept people playing. But now they got rid of that and any campaign can be completed fully the first time you step into that dungeon. So as a lvl 50, you can complete all of the Sewers (correct me if something has changed as it's been a long time since I've played). At lvl 55-6, you're still grinding the same exact mobs that you were at lvl 50. If each map got harder and had lvl-appropriate mobs, it would mean that as you lvl up, you unlock a new map (or at least grind new mobs each lvl). The way it is now, I can't imagine EVER hitting 55 with a char, bc it means hitting the same maps and same mobs over and over and over from 51-55. Would be the same way from 55-60/61 if this doesn't change.
And if this is already planned for the new maps, then good on ya, STS -- I would then recommend doing the same for the sewers. I, personally, can't see ever grinding to 55 in the game's current state. But if something changed as I leveled up, I might be more inclined to play.
Thoughts?
