My bard has got 60% in 116 since the launch a week ago, hasn't left the guild hall and has only done Overseer. Her Overseer is far from maxed and I haven't paid for any early completions or recruiter packs and I've not done Overseer every day, so your estimate is on the conservative side, I'd expect to get her done in 2 months. Anyone doing exping on top of overseer is going to get there much faster, more likely only take a month. My rogue has done the same amount of Overseer and 3 hero missions and she is stitting at 30% in 117. She has got no exp from killing mobs other than those in those 3 missions.
There’s literally no point in grinding level exp anymore for most players. Just sit in GH or PoK. Accept task adds for missions and stuff and use overseers for the rest. I wouldn’t call that being lazy. It’s more or less just giving up current game design.
I'm going to be honest, I was having trouble finding fun after the initial new expac rush wore off. Logging in to do overseers and logging out to play other games... This is not why I play EQ. Literally the only thing that EQ has is the social aspect fo the game. The cool people and the stories we can create together by going out and hunting mobs with meaningful rewards attached is the "special sauce" that other games have tried and failed to recreate. We used to have that in EQ, but its gone now. I have one paid account, I am going to turn it off and wait until next year I think.
In my experience T1 trash gives something like 0.05% level exp per kill (level dependant) Recently, I had made a camp in Umbral Planes to collect Punch Cards for my sub-optimal group. 6.5 minutes respawn timer with 7 mobs to kill in that camp. If one burns the Lesson for 30 minutes in that camp it will total about 3.2% of level experience. Which equates to 125 days to go from 115.999 to 120.0 at that camp for 30 mins per day and nothing else at all. If one does Hero Missions on weekends at least once, that's 115% of the level, which reduces the grinding time to 89 days. If extra hour per day is played at the same camp (in addition to the Lesson burn), then the time to level to 120 will get reduced to 45 days. If the group also does Mercenary and Partisan in Maiden Eye and Umbral (very doable with a grinding group) - that's another 36% of experience and the grind time reduced to 38 days. Any collections or Overseer tasks reduce that time even more. This is a timetable for easy grinding of trash in T1 zones for 30 mins with Lesson + 1 hour without, and weekend questing 1 mission per weekend. How much shorter does it need to be for a casual player?
It's not just the experience being trash in yet another expac. Now, the items arent even significant upgrades anymore, and in a lot of cases are straight downgrades because they (forgot?) to increase the hStats over the last expac items. So we literally have nothing to do other than quest / afk to 120 then wait for raids to be unlocked? This feels like half an expansion. A hollow shell of a game I used to love to spend massive hours grinding in.
Alnitak, it’s not about rushing to 120 or having to complete progression that’s the problem here. It’s about the removal of an experience that has been part of EQ since day one and the negative impact it’s having on the community (in a bad way). What is the real harm increase level exp from killing mobs? Those bot groups are still AFK leveling and farming in a host of zones. It clearly doesn’t have a meaningful impact on them. So clearly, that’s not a valid excuse.
I don't see the kill experience removed from the game. It just became a small fraction lower per kill comparing to ToV. Dark-Blue trash in GMM gave about 0.055-0.06% per kill, Dark-Blue trash in ToV gave about 0.05-0.055 % per kill, and Dark-blue trash in ToL gives about 0.045-0.05% per kill. Why is that a problem now? It was somewhat annoying in GMM (although it was a huge relief from TBL main zones lock-down disaster), and just a bit more annoying today. Why is it "having negative impact on the community (in a bad way)" ? It's very similar from 3-2-1 years ago, so what is so horrible now? And today we have several more ways to level up, which did not exist in GMM times. We should rejoice, not whine. Just recall the uphill batlle a lvl 105 group faced entering lvl 110 era (RoS-TBL), how many more AA's they've got to grind, how much harder monsters they had to kill and how worse choices of available gear they had (basicall Conflagrant only, anything better was hard to get). Today, lvl 115 people entering ToL can actually grind in there, do progression and complain that gear is just too small of an upgrade. And ToL is nowhere near the challenge to CoV-geared people comparing to RoS being a challenge to EoK-geared people (and TBL being a nightmare). ToL monsters are roughly equivalent to CoV T2 monsters, while RoS mobs were almost 50% harder than EoK. I do not buy it - if poeple grinded through RoS and GMM, they can as easily grind through ToL, there is not much difference in effort and time.
What we have lost is the freedom to go out and have our own "quests" that are not scripted nonsense. When we have reasonable exp, and interesting loot to chase after, we have no need for the partisan/merc/hero stuff. We can go out and create stories together like "Quest for the rogue's new dagger" etc. These thypes of "quests" are the real quests in my opinion. The scripted garbage is bad. You guys cant tell me those things are compelling and fun to repeat beyond the 1 time exp bonus or to flag alts.
Hmm, I thought you are already on a quest, which is not a scripted nonsense: How's the waiting going ?
You expect me to be silent while the game I love rots away think again. Thankfully there's no limit to the amount of ...people... I can add to my ignore list. Welcome to that club!
I thought you were going to "turn off and wait until next year"? You talk a big game but will not follow through with it. Put your money where your mouth is. Your comments (line of attack) can be summed up in the following: I want a TSS-sized expansion otherwise this game is "trash." Nothing can defuse that attack: it's an unreasonable level of entitlement and expectation. Are you an employee of a competing MMO studio? I am very concerned that your bottom line or end game is to actively turn players away.
Do the mercenary tasks and the partisan tasks and you will level much faster. It is very simple. Toss in a few Hero tasks if you can get in on em! Collections Dont forget collections!
