The Path to 115

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Gnomereaper, Apr 10, 2020.

  1. Tappin Augur

    I didn’t promote anything I said as fact, besides what is a fact. I’m not interested in prefacing all post anymore. If someone has a question about a post, then ask it.
  2. Duder Augur


    "Not being able to level an alt" - lol

    Well, your anecdotal evidence is just that. And you attempt to speak for everyone with your anecdotal evidence. So far, your only actual evidence is you, a worthwhile note for feedback to the developers. Is it too much to ask that you not lump everyone else or your entire server into your own personal feelings and actions? Your voice is louder when you speak for yourself rather than trying justify the validity of a statement on behalf of everyone because you *think* everyone else is doing it or feels the same way.
  3. NeverPayForLag Augur

    Another issue nobody mentioned so far:
    The new way to get AA/XP mainly through progression (without activation window) has a big drawback:

    Jumping from Gold Status back into Silver while working through progression results in loosing every AA-Gain from the progression stuff. I realized this while doing this epic CC/EW-combination a second time while having another toon running with me at silver status. This is really nasty. The extreme XP bumb was there (like usual on silver status) but no AA-Gain - like activating an AA reward is never pumped into the AA storage! This is really bad. I lost all of that and I have no option to get it somehow back except grinding this extremely slow way with this ridiculous slow AA gain through killing. And especially if the AA is not very high and the toon jumps from 110 to 111 then this gets really slow and ugly. I have no clue if that is/was a bug or if that has been corrected but I stopped playing ToV out of this for some weeks now.

    I am playing different accounts with Gold - like I am in the mood to change a class every month. In that way I have always a buff station and sorting out items as tradeskiller is much easier with more accounts - today it is not easy especially on lower levels to get your toon buffed and the shared bank slot is so small when working on Artizans Price or other extreme tradeskilling parts. Having more accounts makes it fun and easy - buff at the buff station or use a couple to box and have fun in the middle of the night when people are rarely active and sort everything out without reloading countless times another toon.

    The result is that I cannot do progression in ToV without loosing insane amounts of AA for good or I need to buy Gold status for every toon - and I surely will not pay myself stupid only to play another toon and have some alternation if the current one starts to get boring. And yes, after nearly 20 years playing EQ, normal standard gameplay bores easily. It is sad that I never got the typical reward window where I was used to activate it when the account has gold status again. The method to give an item which was possible to activate and get XP/AA like in old expansions was perfect. This avoided all the bugs which are connected to loosing a reward window in silver status. Simple zoning while having some very exclusive rewards pending while windows are cummulating and the limit to 10 makes an account utterly demotivating to play in gold status again if you see that these rewards disappear because there is no way to sort it out in a level system (and nobody is always aware on every part while playing and zoning to get the buff station or tradeskill mule to another place). If there would be an item which is storable then all classes can be played alternated and while the next toon is on gold then nothing is lost. Not everybody wants to pay for all classes only to have them there at once without always having the need to load - and reload - and reload the second account until all buffs stick or all items are sorted out.

    Please DGB, change that and make every progression and additional AA/XP a window or like in old days and item to click and activate again. This harms people who are deadly bored to play only one class and results in preventing me from buying ToV for more accounts.

    Making these items tradeable would be the dream - like the fellowship bonus - only as something to store on another toon like tradeskill items (but that is only an additional thought).

    Therefore I stopped playing ToV on a couple of toons and went back into old content at moment.
  4. Daedly Augur


    While I don't agree with people about how hard it is to get regular experience, I can see why some may think that.

    With AA however, I am at a loss. As far as I can tell, I am getting AA at the same rate I was in RoS and TBL through normal killing. The AA gotten from the tasks is not the only way to get it. I am really confused by what you are upset about here. Maybe I didn't read it well enough.
    Yinla likes this.
  5. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    They can't win with you, GMM was too easy and gave too much exp now this is giving too much exp and it too hard....
  6. Tappin Augur

    I never said it was hard, provided you have a decent group. Finding groups for alts is the problem, especially if your play time is limited. And for those who aren’t adequately geared with sufficient AA good luck to you.
  7. Tappin Augur

    I didn’t start this thread nor am I responsible for any complaints but what I wrote. There is clearly a problem with the level design in this expansion (if there wasn’t, this thread would not exist). If you want to believe there isn’t, that’s your choice.
  8. Buri Augur


    It's entirely relevant, because it shows that experience gained in this expansion is not worse than other expansions, as so many people are trying to claim.
  9. Tappin Augur

    Experience gained from killing mobs in ToV at 111+ is far worse than the last two level expansions.
  10. Sokki Still Won't Buff You!!

    We've had several people return recently who were undergeared/AA'ed and are now 115 catching up AA's and gear. Hell some of the heroics that were just made with the free Anni one are already 115. Take the initiative to start a group and you'll be amazed at what can be accomplished. ToV progression is quite easy compared to previous expansions and the non-linear style means you can add people at different points of progression and they can all benefit from it.
    Yinla, Herodotus and Duder like this.
  11. NeverPayForLag Augur

    Less upset, more giving feedback specific to AA (not to XP) because people claim that it is the same rate. It isn't due to some factors which are not properly taken into account which I described in my post.

    There is no question, that it is possible for somebody grinding long enough to make it (XP is not the problem in my opinion, I played completely haywire my first couple of toons up to 115 without full progression but these toons where maxed out with AA and have enough DPS. There is a question if all people really are fond of the playstyle 15+ years ago. I am not. After getting the next toon upwards I realized this horrible AA gap if many AA are missing but the toon is crawling into L111+, it is really bad. And loosing additionally the chance to repeat the progression parts which have been done in silver to get the AA which have been lost is another slap in the face. One fault, not correctable.

    So it is like always here the different view of people who maxed out their toons (either full AA group or with raid components which makes - like always - I say it every year - a horrible big difference). So instead to clash all your heads and deny other peoples truths, it would be useful to simple step in their feed and test it. I am testing both ends and therefore I understand both sides.

    And would the playstyle be so crude like in olden times... there are enough games out there who understand the difference between a one-way competition race doing "boring"-always-the-same repetition things and having a flexible and interested gameplay with many options to have fun. EQ should not fall back into the medieval ages of stoneold MMORPGs.

    For sure one of the reasons why many meanwhile search for some automated solution for the dumb stuff.... most are not student or kids anymore and have a different playstyle now...
  12. Tappin Augur

    Not everyone has the opportunity to piggyback, or maybe they don’t want to go that route. Try being the main healer or tank with less than optimal gear on those ToV missions. Maybe doable with raid DPS, but not realistic with a normal group.
  13. Cicelee Augur

    What if I told you a TOV mob gives more xp to a player than a TBL or ROS or EOK mob?

    I mean, there is an easy way to find this info out. I think you might be surprised by the results...
  14. HanktheTank Journeyman

    The Path to 115 is stupid easy this expansion

    Been making alts go from 85 to 115 in about 4 days. So many alts. So much free xp this expansion it's crazy. Once you figure out where all this extra XP is you'll stop complaining, use it, and wait for the nerf like the rest of us.
    Duder likes this.
  15. Tappin Augur

    Standardize the result and compare that to previous level change expansion (RoS). Anyone can push a false narrative, by omitting a crucial statistic. That’s exactly what’s going on here.
  16. Sokki Still Won't Buff You!!

    Like everyone claiming the XP gain per mob is lower? How many times does it need to be said? XP per mob is higher than ever..

    What you're actually mad about is the amount of XP required for lvls 111-115. To make up for this they added a significant bonus to XP for doing progression. Is it required to lvl up? Absolutely not. Is it easier/faster than straight grinding lvls? For sure.

    I've lvled up chars both ways, doing progression was definitely faster but grinding is still very possible.
    Yinla and Duder like this.
  17. Tappin Augur

    The experience per mob killed is irrelevant without talking into account other factors - you cannot directly compare the data without normalizing the data first. Saying the experience per mob killed is higher in ToV than other expansions, therefore it’s better, is misrepresenting data to push a narrative.

    Slow leveling by itself isn’t the problem it’s combined with the large amount of experience given (one time adjustment) upon the completion of progression task that’s causing the problems.
  18. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    I didn't see anyone quote the Discord AMA. This is what the devs said about the ToV XP model. It is one of the hard-hitting questions that they answered:

    Question 39: There has been criticism about the way experience is earned in ToV. Some of us dislike the idea of forced progression, myself included. Will this trend continue into future expansions?

    Ngreth: There are criticisms about everything we do. In the last two expansions we increased the amount of experience required to level more than we increased the amount of experience gained for killing an NPC. A ToV NPC does offer more exp per kill, but the amount of EXP required to level is larger than that increase. I like the idea of granting large amounts of experience for completing the content of an expansion. If it is up to me, the answer is, yes, we will continue to grant large amounts of experience for completing content in the expansion, making it the most efficient way to gain levels. Will we always increase that amount of experience required to gain a level as much as we did this time? That is a less certain decision for which I do not have an answer.

    niente: Progression isn't forced, leveling just takes longer if you don't do it. I think you'll get more traction if you can explain what you don't like about progression or what's stopping you from doing it.

    Absor: (looks up the definition of "forced"...)

    Prathun: We do want there to be a meaningful reward for doing the expansion content progression as it's much more logistically difficult than farming NPCs. And we definitely don't want farming easy NPCs from older expansions to be the best way to level.

    ----------------------------------
    Somewhat related to this thread:

    Question 1: What features of the new Overseer system do you feel help characters "catch up"? Can you share thoughts on what you feel is a reasonable reward for players to obtain from that system in order to help them catch up?

    Prathun: Perhaps "supplement" is a better term than "catch up." The Overseer system is meant to reward periodic interaction over the course of months (and if and when we extend the system, years). I worry that "catch up" conjures up the concept that a few weeks of play will max out your characters' benefits from the system. We want the Overseer system to be an evergreen addition to EverQuest.


    Question 30: Is the ZEM in Velks Lab (ToV) correct? It appears to be giving less exp per mob than other ToV zones, and being both T2 and a dungeon I would expect it to be higher than somewhere like GD & EW.

    Absor: I just checked, it's the same as the other tier 2 zones for that expansion. It's certainly not low. It is, in fact, exactly the same for all the zones in that expansion, including Great Divide and Eastern Wastes.

    Ngreth: And the NPCs are sharing the same "NPC Base" (We call it "Relative Value" ) And have the same XP multiplier (1 for normal, 3-4 for rares) on the NPC's I.E. they give the same EXP.
  19. Tappin Augur

    It’s completely unreasonable to think the average player can go out and level from 111 through 115 killing mobs with less than 20 hours per week play time.

    Forced isn’t exactly the word to look up, it’s punishment (psychology definition). Players who strictly kill mobs in ToV are by definition being punished for their behavior.
  20. Benito EQ player since 2001.



    I've leveled faster in ToV than in RoS. If you complete only ToV merc and partisan tasks (glorified Franklin Teek tasks), this will take you to comfortably from 111 to 113. If you do a lesson burn during kill tasks (not grant but incidental grind), it may even take you into 114. The period from 114 to 115 can be made up with collections (TBL and ToV) and Overseer. I did not include mission XP grants because they may be too difficult for casuals. Overseer has only increased the speed for everyone.

    There are pros and cons to both systems but I felt like the old XP system actually rewarded people who could withstand time sinks and grind (i.e. people with more time, I S B O X E R, or botters). Notice how the OP mentioned Frontier Mountains? A zone favored (and absolutely ruined) by botters.
    Yinla likes this.