I think anything less than 1/10th of a percent per kill is unreasonable. That is still a 1000 mobs for 1 level, which frankly, is still bad exp, but the current exp rate is horrifically bad and a kick in the face to the average player.
Shadeweaver's Tangle is a T1 zone. 1% per kill is not a really balanced idea. It would mean some "grinders" would level up in a week and venture off. Not a great business idea. And it takes somewhere around 2K trash kills to evolve 1 step of the cloak. And at a rate of 2AA per kill it takes about 5K mobs to earn extra AA's (class dependant). Basically what you are suggesting - give levels just for asking. Meanwhile all other projects in EQ require much more elaborate effort. In my opinion, the projects should be well-balance in term of effort. Maxing AA's, leveling up, evolving the gear, farming the gear, getting Challenges, etc should be balanced between. 5 levels for 500 mobs is too much. Currently it is about 5 levels for 20K mobs, which is on-par with other effort. Wanna argue that it should be 5 levels for 10K mobs ? Well, argument away. 5 for 500 ? No way, no how.
So, you are arguing that it should be 15 hours of grinding for a level, not 30 hours as it is now ? And why did you mention sarcasm in your comment? I fail to differentiate a level per 15 hr as a serious proposal, while a level per 30 as sarcasm.
Basically this model serves the hard core player, or player who has a 6 box, but to the average player, which surely is a majority of the player base. For people like me this is a horrible and non-enjoyable experience. Maybe it's as simple as the average every day player needs to just be happy with level 110. It could simply be that the EQ model as it stands since ToV, is great for some, and people like me need to change our expectations and or move on to something else. I guess I don't have the perfect answer. I'm simply pondering the issue and wondering if there even is a solution?
umm, my proposal literally cuts it in half, and I said that is still not great. You can't differentiate that? Lol, come on, you're just arguing for the sake of argument.
Was I too cryptic? Why do you think that a level per 30 hours is sarcasm, and a level per 15 hours is not sarcasm ?
I think you should able able to get at least 10-15% of a level and/or around 150-200 AA/hr. It should be enough that you can look at your XP bar before and after and say yah, that made a nice dent.
Fine, I think both are horrible and should be sarcasm. I was just trying to meet in the middle so to speak. Honestly, I'm more inline with the statement Windance made. I want 10-15% when I spend an hour non-stop grinding mobs. 15-30 hours for 1 level is ridiculous. There, I hope that makes it all clear for you on my opinion about the exp... sheesh
They could look at the grinding time for various 5-level ranges to find what players find appropriate. I feel like the time to grind 95->100 is acceptable. From 100->105 is a little slow, but still okay. If that kind of grinding XP velocity was the same for 105->110, 110->115, and 115->120, think players would be happy with that. But it really slows down past 105, and is so slow that it doesn't seem worth it. I don't mind that the quest path gives big chunks of exp, but that really only works for characters who box or have lots of grouping opportunities. The molo/solo player is going to have a lot of difficulty completing the quests. The choice for them is to grind it out for minuscule gains or try to complete very difficult quests without dying too often. I don't see why the grinding leveling method which worked so well to get to 100 or 105 could not continue after that. Clearly there are lots of players who prefer that path. I'm not sure what benefit it brings to the game or the players to greatly reduce the effectiveness of the grinding path past 105.
Aaaand going back to the original argument: logging in for 15 minutes to do Overseer and earning 5-6% of the level is somehow ruining the game (as some argued), but your proposal to log-in for an hour and gain twice more would be beneficial for the game? I do not see it that way. In my opinion 3.5% per hour is more than plenty of a level experience. And it does equate to about 150-200AA even without Lesson.
It's obviously intentional. It's about making more from the store, and forcing players to reject the way we leveled in EQ for 20 years and to do it their new way by gaining a majority of our exp from the progression quest lines. Our other option, if we don't want to do progression or don't enjoy doing progression or don't have the time to do progression, is for us to buy potions, krono, or station cash overseer to get those levels. People argue that you can do Mercenary quest while you grind. Ok that's fine, but that's not going to get you to 115 much less 120. Further more, most of us can't go into ToV at 110 and actually achieve that progression anyways. We are going to need someone to run us through it. I agree with your point. I enjoy the game and the way it progresses really until 110, and then I basically hate it lol.
YES BECAUSE WE WANT REASONABLE EXP FROM PLAYING EQ, not a silly mini game. I mean come on, why is this so difficult to comprehend??
The expansion is supposed to last for 12 months. 10 if you decide to do Beta for two months. The 30 hours was done without lesson, so you could cut that in half to 15 hours. Which equates to doing one lesson a day for a month to gain a level. Which means, assuming you started at 120.99, you would hit 125 (max level) in four months. That is 4 months of just doing a 30 minute lesson in a group. You could also do Mercenary tasks and get a huge XP bonus upon completion. I am not even talking partisans, just grind mobs XP with a bonus on killing a dozen or less of three specific mobs in each zone. Throw in Overseer, all of a sudden that 4 months is cut to what, half of that? With Overseer daily and Merc tasks achievements? So someone who does one lesson a day, can get to max level in 4 months. Do all Mercenary tasks, cut that by 4 weeks. Do Overseer daily before you start your lesson, that 3 months becomes 6-8 weeks. For a 12 month long expansion, the ability to just kill mobs can get you max level in 1/3 of expansion life cycle. Significantly less if you do Mercenary achievements and Overseer. I think that 4 months of grinding mobs is more than fair for someone who just wants to sit in one corner of a zone and pull the same 12 mobs. And if you actually want to play the expansion, you can shorten it by a lot. Grinding is viable for the laziest of lazy. Period.
Here is my take on that subject - "lots of players" is a very vague term. As it was last reported (in financial statements) there is more than 20K distinct credit cards were used to regularly pay for EQ playtime. With a normal distribution rules anything below SQRT(20K) (that is under 141) is a pure statisctical noise and bears no statistical significance whatsoever. So, what's "lots of players who prefer that path" ? Any number below 141 is not "lots". Do you have any info that more than 141 complained? Definitely not on this forum. And why grinding method was altered in latest expansion - the game has evolved. To be good it takes more than just mindless grind. Levels alone are not enough these days. Players need to quest, and quest alot. All those small things accumulate into a massive difference comparing to just grinding levels. And "lots of players" want to play with good groupmates, not just leveled up. People, who refuse to quest are not doing others any favors. And those who do quest not only get better, but also gain all the experience and levels they need. True, lonely hermit's life in EQ is full of misery. But that's the way EQ is heading, and there is no more room for mindless grind in it anymore. It's still possible (one of my guildmates only grinds and has full group of max level and AA characters entirely by grinding, although he prefers it that way and does not complain), but not a good way to move forward.
What does make you think that it was Absor ? Darkpaw is still a team with frequent meetings, and even that Absor is in a leading position, I had always the impression that he is a conservative guy that would fit to the TLP servers. To me Overseer and the exp nerf seems to be more the idea of some younger devs that want to distinguish themselves by leaving their mark on the game. Exp is not everything and I do pity those players that do level up as fast as possible and are missing out 95% of the game content by doing so. I never liked the Overseer exp much as I do it mostly for the merc exp but they are linked to each others. I prefer to level my PCs the old way by grindings mobs and doing some quests and prog tasks every now and then. @Velisaris I think it would be a good time for a group friendly expansion like LDoN 2 with a level scale of 90-125 which is a range of 35 levels. LDoN was 15-70 which is a range of 55. Themes could be from original EQ and the first three expansions.. Does sound pretty old school maybe even slower than a hell level. I would tripple the experience. 50 hours for 5 levels are doable. That are about 1 hour per week but only when being in a group of ?? players. It would be slower for molo but it would be still doable for about everyone.
I do understand your point of view and you make a compelling point. However, I disagree that those of us who enjoy grinding are just by nature lazy, I don't think that is a fair statement at all. I think the frustration is for those of us who are in the 110 range. We get through EoK, hit 110 and then suddenly it becomes very difficult. And we are not trying to just get 5 levels over 4 months. We are trying to get 10 levels, not to mention have appropriate gear to move forward. Honestly, I don't mind the mercenary quest. In fact, I think one solution would be to give higher exp rewards for older mercanary quest inside the Eok, CoV, TBL expansions. If we could go do those quest and get good exp, and could get to 115 that way, then we could enter ToV and TOL and do those mercanary quest and maybe have a reasonable route to take. Or, just increase grind exp, like myself and many of suggested. I think we have some options here that could help midigate this frustration. It doesn't have to be either or.
I've been asking for this for years... Wish they actually would, could be a big success and really reach a lot of different types of EQ players
The amount of grinding should always be related to the amount of content provided. The more content the more the Devs can get away with more grind. Arguably, the group content should giving you something do for most of the grind, but not all of it. This game does the opposite - less content with more grinding and outs for raiders. The Devs need to stop doing stupid things with the progression tasks. If you want people to do them while they are leveling, don't put bloated HP or rare spawns on kill quests. Of course for these and more reasons, no one wants to do these tasks.
