I did see this coming, I admit.
At eight levels difference grouping becomes unworkable. Realistically, a six level disparity in a group at our level, is about the maximum that can play together. More than that and the low levels do two unfortunate things:
- They die a lot, costing them a lot of money in kit repairs.
- The accidentally pull mobs that the group could otherwise have walked straight past, as aggro-range is based on mob level difference.
Nanor suggested that 18 is the maximum level one can be for Ragefire Chasm but I wouldn't worry too much about that. There are plenty of other instances even if you don't go into RFC.
Picking up on a thoughts I put in the [thread=1075]"Thoughts on playing together" thread[/thread]...
Ronin Storm said:
There are two main situations that are likely to occur. One is that a small number of us play more or level harder than the rest and so starting pushing ahead of the rest of us. The other is that one or two get caught up with things in the real world and don't get as much opportunity to play as the rest of us, so fall behind.
My impression is that we've got the majority of people around 16/17, one or two about to forge off to 19/20, and one or two stuck at around 13/14, and even one stuck at 10 (Fury). We're shortly going to diverge in play locations, quests and instances.
Catching up isn't easy and in my experience in other games, over time, doesn't happen. People play as much as they want to play and play groups diverge.
So, I think it's probably pointless you being arbitrarily capped at level 17, especially as you're enjoying play. I think it'll turn frustrating really quickly.
For those outleveling the rest, I previously suggested:
Ronin Storm said:
the people who are forging ahead can make alts and play those as well. They get plenty of chance to play, still, without pushing their main characters too far ahead.
I overheard Nanor not being overly enthused by this idea. I get the impression, from Haven's post, that he's not enthused by that either.
For those falling behind:
Ronin Storm said:
we can spend some play sessions really working on helping them catch up, or we can deliberately start seeding lower level characters from time to time so that we can, when we want, play across various different levels with various different people.
As the lowest active player until Fury returns, I think that the "helping catch up" is going to be difficult for others to do for me as WoW isn't a front-and-centre activity for me at the moment and I'm exceedingly busy with work -- next week I'm going to be away for four days straight on work, completely away from the Net, for example. In that time I expect the average group level to have hit 20/21 at least (perhaps as high as 23/24), where I doubt I'll have made it much past 15/16 and Fury still won't be back.
I really do see that the only solution is to seed lower level characters or accept that in a play group of our size it just isn't reasonable to expect to be able to maintain a cohesive playgroup.
Either way, it does seem to me to only be a frustration to be told to slow down at something you find fun, and that'd be pointless. I guess just keep playing, but keep an eye on where you are in relation to the others and consider an alt or two if that gaps starts to really grow.
