Originally Posted by
Energizeric
Here are some thoughts and analysis....
1) I'm assuming these numbers are "total" players rather than "active" players? If so, then it would be logical than many people try the game, and then quit after a short time. That is just normal and to be expected. So that would explain the spikes at the very low levels.
2) Another explanation is events.... Prior to there being events, I just had my main endgame character. Then when the first elondrian event happened and we started being given good loot for reaching silver/gold/platinum event tiers, it just became logical to run the event on as many characters as possible. And then when the Para and Eye gems were being given out, the number of players running the events on multiple toons increased drastically. Many of us, myself included, made a number of "extra" characters just to run events, and since it's easier and takes less time to make a lower level character, those are the ones that are out there. A good analysis of this would be to show a similar chart, but instead of total number of characters that exist for each level, how about the number of hours played in a given month for each level. I think you would find endgame would be the highest, and lower levels would only peak during an event.
3) Another reason lower levels are popular is that scaling based on level in PvE has failed. Why? Because many items have stats which do NOT scale. For example, pet happiness bonuses do not scale. So a level 5 player with munch mouth pet still gets 200+ armor from the happiness bonus, which will more than double his armor. Other items that have health/mana bonuses also do NOT scale. They give the same +50 or +100 health/mana bonus that the same item at end game does. As a result, twinks who are well geared are much more powerful for their level than higher level players. But if scaling was adjusted to account for this, then a new player with lousy gear would have no chance to complete a typical dungeon and would be discouraging. So this system encourages players to run events at twink levels.
4) As for the middle levels being dead, there is simply no reason to play the middle levels. There is no good loot to be had by running any of the mid level dungeons. For example, let's take level 31. You would expect this to be a popular level because of all the good mythic gear that exists at level 31. The problem is that none of that gear can actually be farmed by someone who is level 31. The level 31 mythic weapons are all discontinued. The armor/helm/ring and amulet all come in elite golden chests that cannot be farmed by level 31 players, only by endgame players.
5) With all the event gear that has come out over the past 2 years, the best items at most levels are now event gear. The legendary items that still drop in the dungeons -- none of them are worth much at all since none are the best for that level anymore. Other than a few eggs, I cannot think of any legendary gear at any level that is worth farming. And I think that is a big problem. In Pocket Legends, there was tons of gear to farm at every level. Everyone was always interested in farming "sets". Unfortunately, sets in AL are a recent addition, and no sets appear at lower levels.
6) Another phenomenon in Pocket Legends was farming for scaled gear. For example, level 56 gear could only be farmed by a level 56 player. A player level 60 or higher farming the same dungeon would get the same item in level 60. So having level 56 farmers became a popular thing. No such phenomenon exists in AL. The recent addition of the level 16 arcane weapons was a good addition to encourage lower level farming, but it should have been limited to players under a certain level. Unfortunately, most of the players farming for the arcane chests are endgame. If only players level 21 or lower could loot an arcane chests, that would have encouraged much more play at the lower levels.
In the end, what is killing AL is that the fun runs out after around level 16, and then you must level all the way up to 56 before any more fun is to be found. And that takes a lot of time, and I think many new players just get bored long before getting there and give up.
I began playing Pocket Legends during the level 66 cap, and it took me 6 months to reach endgame, which I did for the first time at level 71. That 6 months of leveling was tons of fun. I can't imagine having to do that in Arcane Legends -- it would be very boring as virtually nobody is running the lower and mid level non-elite dungeons. In Pocket Legends, you could join just about any dungeons and there were always random players running. You need to find a way to bring that aspect to AL, and the way to do it is by making desirable items that can only be farmed by lower and mid level players.
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