Feldon Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has broken her forum silence with a flurry of posts today. Chief among them were a couple of comments on the level 91-92 XP grind, specifically a thread where players expressed their frustration at Withered Lands quests giving less XP than simply grinding in level 80-90 dungeons.
From the EQ2 Forums:
To respond to the [original poster] specifically, we want the current content to be meaningful and rewarding, including quests. We will have a solution for our expansion which of course means that we acknowledge there is an issue we need to resolve.
and then in more detail:
For experience for levels 91 and 92, we tried to communicate as best we could that each level past 90 is equivalent to 5 levels given that each “mini-ding” you earn a Prestige Point to spend on an ability.
For post 90, we will be implementing levels similarly. Getting to level 100 is a significant milestone and we are being very thoughtful and deliberate about how we get there with close attention paid to player power and progression and what those achievements mean in a game world where players confront dragons, deities, and so on. (I’m not claiming we are rushing to 100, but it feels inevitable at some point, right?)
So yes, the levels mean significantly more in terms of gaining experience because you gain more. Our post-90 approach with the AA requirements allows us to deliver more balanced and level-targeted content because we know what level 91/92 means in terms of player power. Previously, a level 90 meant vastly different things and trying to create level 90 content that was challenging to everyone was an impossible task.
Now we have something we can focus on and we are! And I apologize if it wasn’t communicated well what we were aiming for, but I hope this helps.
What I got was woi working as intended. Thanks. I just receintly came back from swtor and wow 90-92 combat xp is nerfed hard compared to crafting xp that took less than 30 minutes to crank out those levels.
That’s pretty much how I heard and saw it described before it launched. Instead of going up 10 levels, they’re going up 2 levels but making it take about as long as 10 levels normally take. From their description, it actually took me less time than I expected on the two toons I’ve done it on so far.
My take is the best XP for AE classes is to chrono-mentor to 70 and run Halls of Fate, Blackscale Sepulcher, Den of the Devourer, Nest of the Great Egg, and Vaults of El’Arad in KoS. Dense heroic mob clusters which pop like soap bubbles. Under a potion you can clear all of that in an hour and rake in 30-40% of a 91-92 level, which still means about 5 hours from 90 to 92. Take a 30 minute break to de-fry your brain from the repetition and reset the zones and go again. If you’re really speedy, or don’t want a break, add in Obelisk of Blight and Crypt of Valdoon before resetting.
I know some people like Kunark zones @ 90 (ie Chelsith). I’m not as convinced thats as fast as the Kingdom of Sky stuff but it may vary as to one’s tastes.
“Working as intended” – SOE
I haven’t done a single withered lands quest on my alts. Just take them right up into Skyshrine and do the heroic quests, and they’re magically 92 by the time they’re ready for the UD steps.
They dont need to fix EXP. It isnt broken. Run a group through Kael contested and you’ll be 92 in a few hours. The EXP is that good in there and the mobs die fast. Kill the non-agro Peons; who cares about faction…
What they need to do is fix the drops in the instances. There is NO reason to run any instances besides UD. The best equipment comes from the contested zones in SS not the 3 crappy stupid instances (non-challenge)… even if they ‘might’ drop a fable.. The EXP is awful and the drops are worse.
Stay in Kael till 92 then run the contested SS till your max faction and youll be fully decked in gear and you can run UD till you need to do challenge zones.
I agree with Szah (I’m sure Bob’s right too but I haven’t done it that way myself). I do a lot of mentoring down, both multi-boxing and with guildies and the xp I got in all the dungeons Szah lists and more was much better than doing Withered Lands quests. In fact you can mentor right down to Crushbone and it’s still better.
The WL questlines give you the gear, though, if you’re a solo/casual player and they’re reasonably entertaining. On balance I’d say the xp is fine as it is.
If the two levels are supposed to be 10 levels, shouldn’t the crafters have been given 10 levels of items to craft?
I actually experimented with some alts. Doing the WL quest series was maybe 30-40% as efficient as just grinding mentored. Doing all the WL quests MIGHT get you 2 levels, but I think it was closer to 1.4 levels, and it’s insanely boring. Having said that, if you have crap gear on WL gear is better than anything else, so you have to do a fair amount of the quests to gear up. The only BP quest that I know of is the dragon scale that drops from the heroic Holgresh. Maybe there’s another but I didn’t spot it. I think colossal reactants may be the “best” BP for levelling up a new twink sans raid gear.
I estimate some time in 2013, after a reitimization (again) they will do a “oops my bad, we changed the game to support more then 100 levels” move, flattening out the xp curve, making it so all the XP you gained to get from 90-92 will automatically ding you to 100. If this game eventually ends up with as many levels as Anarchy Online, I think it’s time to leave.
milk it baby milk it! I predict that they release each level in a content based package from now on till we hit level 100.
This game sucks, it takes a couple hours to get max level, it’s just too damn easy and there’s no sense of accomplishment to get max level.
This game sucks, they made it too hard to get experience and it just takes too long to do and it’s not worth it.
Damned if they do . . . damned if they don’t.
I hope I live to see the day when an MMO comes out without levels, where you can have fun in the whole game area without outleveling zones. And I dont mean The Sims or some crap like True Life or however that is called.
The problem is definitly the xp you get by questing.
I quest so i dont mind the time spent on the quest but i understand people who dont like to quest : what’s the point doing quest if in the same amount of time it takes to do a quest you can make 3-4 time more xp grinding in old zone ?
@Nyna
The Secret World – Funcom
It’s in beta now. No levels. Build your character how you want. Though at it’s current stage there isn’t a lot to do.
The cold hard truth is that the real problem is that the chronomentor route is just too damn easy. The quest experience is fine as is.
Levels shouldn’t be auto dings. Why not make the levels take a week or so of casual play to get? This “Insta-Max” model may be a boon short term, but I fear there will be no longevity to speak of. The developers need to wake up and realise that the “I want it now grinding is soooo stupid!! Make it easy and I’ll pay ya to play!” Crowd and the “Been there, done that, got my max level/geared toon and moved on” crowd are one and the same.
Why not make the levels take a week or so of casual play to get?
Forcing two years to cap? Seriously?
Good luck with that.
This game is such a mess right now. I still play, and have been very impressed with what they’ve done since Kunark … but this last year has been full of “what were they thinking?” moments.
@Anaogi – I of course meant the higher levels. Ideally, imo, it should be on a gradually increasing scale. First 10 or so levels should be doable in just an hour or 2 of running the newbie quests. Each level should take just a bit more effort to ding so that by the time you hit the 90s it take about a week or so of casual questing, as in just a couple hours of play. Chronomentoring exp should be nerfed (yeah, I said it) so that it is slightly less efficient than running level appropriate quests. That would still leave it as a viable alternative, but eleminate it being the only ‘smart’ way to level.
As things are right now, the quest exp amount is about right, but the ease of the chronomentor/powerlevel route makes it a self defeating way to play the game. Its pretty much removed the ‘quest’ from EverQuest.
While I understand the whole ‘let’s make leveling easy so long time players can bring in their friend and within a week have them up to speed’ concept, I think the went way to far with it. It shouldn’t be the determing factor in game design.
Say I have friends that run marathons. They want me to start running them. Using EQ2 logic the event organisers should let me just run the last mile so that I can finish with my friends. I mean come on, I know how to run. Why do I have to grind at running for weeks and months just to have fun with my friends. Its stupid, its just some artificial time sink they put in so all the ‘leet’ runners can feel special. I can run a mile, why should I have to grind out 15 a day for months? Its boring. I paid my entry fee same as the other runners, I deserve to be able to finish the same as they do.
Holly gave away what the next logical step is for the developers: eliminate separate AA XP and make all existing AA points dependent on your current adventuring XP.