CoE: Why are we still levelling in (old) Chelsith?

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Arieste, Nov 15, 2012.

  1. Arieste Well-Known Member

    Or Kael or Skyshrine?

    I went to SOE Live with an almost singular purpose - to ask developers: "Why in the world is it that every expansion encourages us to go back to old outdated content to level instead of making the new content an attractive levelling path?"

    I went, I asked, and the answer I got was along the lines of: "In Chains of Eternity, the new content will be the more attractive way to level." The audience cheered, the birds sang, i was happy that FINALLY after 3 expansions spent in chelsith on launch day i would finally be able to focus my attentions on actually going through the new content, seeing the new zones, doing the new quests - all without hindering my character from being at the appropriate level to raid and group with the rest of my guild.

    So, on launch day of CoE, I logged in and headed down to the Jungle. And what did i get? At Triple XP (VItality + Potion), i was getting less than 1% XP per quest. That means that normal XP per quest was along the lines of 0.3%. Seriously? After 1 hour of CoE questing, i had a whopping 4%. Seriously? At this rate, I would need to spend 75 hours of playtime to get 3 levels. My guildie - who has more patience than I - did just this. She levelled entirely by following along the CoE quest path. It took her approx 20 hours of non-stop playtime to hit 93 (not 95!).

    After 1 hour in the Jungle, I got really frustrated and went back to chelsith. Now, I'm a healer - a defensive one at that, so i don't exactly slaughter mobs by the hundrers like an SK does. Still, after 5 minutes at chelsith (solo, no merc, no mentoring), I had 5% XP. So... 1hr of CoE content, 5 minutes solo in Chelsith. Then I went to Kael and soloed some higher level stuff. It went much slower, but the XP was higher, so it about 3 minutes for me to get 5%.

    At the end of the day, I got a couple of groups for Kael and Skyshrine and got to 95 in 3-4 hours.

    The question is, WHY don't the developers want to encourage us to do CoE content? I'm not suggesting that each easy quest in CoE needs to give 10% xp. I am not even suggesting that quest levelling should be on par with a 6 person group grinding heroic mobs for XP. But, by gods, shouldn't I at least get as much out of my solo questing time as i do out of soloing Chelsith (on a healer at that!). I'm ok with questing being the "slower" way to level. But i still want to LEVEL not be insulted every time I complete a quest.

    There are some cool-looking zones and an interesting storyline in CoE, but the quest XP gain is a major turn-off for doing it. I am fully prepared to spend twice as much time levelling via questing as i did via "old content grind". I'm ok with that. But approx 75 hours via questing versus (at most) 5 hours via doing old zones, is just insulting and discouraging. (That's 15x the xp for those slow with the math)

    DEVs, c'mon - what exactly are you achieving by keeping quest xp THIS low? Are you preventing people from being 95 in an hour? You're not, people just ignore the content you worked hard to build and go get their levels elsewhere. Why the hell do you want this? All you're doing is channeling people away from your content and punishing the people that actually enjoy doing it.
  2. Morrigel New Member

    I've got to agree. I've finished all the forest quests, done the solo dungeons there at least twice and I'm still only about 80% of the way through level 92. I'm on the part where you do solo ST and everything is orange and red to me - my merc (coward) won't fight half of them and, though I'm killing them it doesn't feel like I'm making any progress.

    So, I've got to stop questing and go back to old zones as the OP says or get in SS group. What's the point of limiting the xp this way? Who's winning? You're not slowing down the people who want to rush to 95, just making them go and zerg an old zone. The ones who suffer are the ones who want to work through the quest lines.

    Bring the xp in line with the level of the quest progression. If a quest line goes to quest levels being 93/94/95 at least give us a chance to have reached those adventure levels if we've followed the quests.
  3. Gaarysal Active Member

    An easy fix would be to make the xp granted on yellow/orange/red mobs when not mentored give way more xp so that the amount of xp you can gain per time spent comes out about equal. I completely agree with you though, it is a bit ridiculous we have to keep going back to old content to level up with any sort of efficiency.
  4. Mohee Active Member

    I agree the quests could give more XP.

    But my guild has leveled quite a few guildies by just running through the NEW dungeons. They are great XP!
  5. Ecchoo New Member

    I agree, this is so frustrating for me. I actually really like the quest line this expansion and I am enjoying doing it but it baffles me why the xp is so slow when doing quests for EVERY new expansion. I quit doing the WL quest line to go and level up but I think I'm going to stick this one out and then level up afterwards I think, unless I just really get left behind by the guild.
  6. Kalmaraa Active Member

    I believe folks are still leveling there as it's a controlled instance. So there is no one stealing mobs one might need or want to help gain XP, like Sebilis for example. Controlled instances are more preferred in the long one anyway.
  7. CoLD MeTaL Well-Known Member

    They blocked all the new dungeons with a stupid solo quest.

    Quest XP needs to be multiplied by 10, and the last quest in a quest line XP needs to be multiplied by 1000 due to the time invested.

    Plainly they just lied to us at SOE Live that Chelsith/etc (SS Seems to be best) would not be the best place to level.

    CoE XP so far is craptastic, quest XP is still laughable. Soooo sorry I bought this expansion. Once the raiders stop mowing SS XP will be super hard to come by, and I can't imagine the group requirements people are going to have to be admitted to a group for the CoE dungeons.
  8. SgtPmpkn Well-Known Member

    Folks will go where they enjoy and which suits their needs. Those that like to quest and arent in a rush to max will find the questing interesting. Those that raid dont want to wait so they will find the best and quickest leveling zones - Seb, Chelsith, Erudin Palace, other instances, SS, etc. I agree quest xp should be upped a bit, and hope xp isnt nerfed in other areas, as it isnt the right way of handling this. Options are great, and some are better than others, while some options are not right for all people so that's why we should have them.

    Overall, the rate of xp gain can be tweaked for various factors including current content greater than older content, unmentored xp compared to mentored xp, but then this can get into taking away players freedom of choice on how they wish to level. XP rates will be a controversial topic and better left to players to play how they wish instead of punishing a portion of them.
  9. Mohee Active Member

    Only 1 person in the group needs access to zone you into the new zones.
    The new Heroic dungeons are awesome XP.
    The instances in skyshrine are still excellent XP. Just as good as contested...
    Pretty much anything White/Yellow/Orange con while unmentored is going to be really nice XP.

    If you mentor for anything, your XP is going to suck now. SoE did a pretty good job at making mentor grinding a bad way to level.

    Yeah, while I agree making you do a solo quest-line to have access to new zones is a little lame, the quest line only takes like 6 ours to do... (if thats your only goal). But like I said, only 1 person in the group needs access and they can zone everyone in.

    I do agree though, if you did ALL the new quests, you should be able to ding 95 off those if that is your preferred method of leveling. If you want to do the new dungeons, those are GREAT experience as well...
  10. Ryptide Member

    By the time I finished the sig quest line, along with a few side quests, I was half way thru 94. Grouped up and grinded through contested ss for a little bit and hit 95. The quest xp is fine and the cloak clicky buff is well worth the time invested.
  11. yerbo Member

    I wouldn't mind the slow xp if there was actually enough quests to through to lvl 95, but I don't think there is. Looks like I will be lucky to hit 94 via quests. Very disappointing.
  12. Pakhet Member

    1) If you want the FASTEST leveling it's going to be where you kill the most the fastest, period, ever. So of course Skyshrine is still awesome, you can pull 40ish mobs and burn them down, the mobs are a joke. Chelsith is OK, but without the encounter bonus, i'd rather group up and run a 92 zone for it.

    2) There ARE enough quests to hit 95. One of my guildies insisted he wasn't gonna grind, he was gonna hit 95 following the sig line. And last night he was 94 1/2 doing just that and not even near complete with it. No vet bonuses.

    Questing is always going to be the slower way to level, they can't really make a quest worth 10%-20% XP like it would require to make it compete with grinding. I don't really know any game where quests are the fastest way to get to max.
  13. Arieste Well-Known Member

    Not asking it for being the fastest way to level. Not by a longshot. Groups doing heroic content should absolutely be the fastest way to level.

    But questing should be at least on par with just killing mobs solo. If invest 1 hour of my time in questing, i get approx 5% xp. If invest that hour just soloing mobs (on my own), i get twenty times that (that's exact math btw, i would get a full level). That's from killing easy mobs that can be one-shotted by most classes. 20 times faster xp. Questing maybe shouldn't be the fastest way to level, but this kind of rate of difference is just stupid. I'm happy to give up SOME levelling speed for the sake of doing new content, hell, i'm HAPPY to level a bit slower if it means i get a storyline and something more exciting than a mob grind. But when casting 2 nukes gives me the same experience as spending 10 minutes on a quest.. it's too much of a difference.

    (Btw, as far as I know, many of the new MMOs DO have questing as the fastest way to level - SWTOR, Rift, etc. Or at least very much on part with doing anything else.)
  14. Taysa Well-Known Member

    I don't think people are asking that questing be the end all/be all of leveling.

    I think that people are asking for is a balance between questing for EXP and grinding for EXP. As it stands, questing for EXP at these levels is, quite honestly, abysmal. I personally wouldn't be questing at all if A) It wasn't required to see other content and B) I didn't have a friend questing with me.

    Personally, I'd be happy with 1% per quest. Really, 0.3% to complete a quest is dreadful.
  15. Arieste Well-Known Member

    1% before XP bonuses maybe. So around 3% with.

    I'd honestly would like just an explanation that helps me understand what exactly would the negative effects of CoE quests giving 5% xp (inc bonuses) be? That makes it so i would need to do 60 quests to level to 95. That's quite a lot of quests, quite a lot of time invested. Definitely much slower than a grind group. But the tradeoff is taht it would be (arguably) more interesting. In a game where someone can get those 3 levels in 30 minutes in skyshrine, I simply can't see any downside to quests giving 5% xp (or even more, but really 5% is an ok number).

    If anything, it would get alot of people really into the expac, and by the time they're through 60 quests, chances are they'd want to finish the stories, etc.
  16. Pakhet Member

    SWTOR questing is not the fastest way to level, it's horribly slow, actually. Doing instances is the fastest way to level, do quests all day there and you get the same amount of XP as if you did a few hours of instances. I have two max levels in SWTOR. Just questing is much more fun in SWTOR than the dungeons. Rift, I got more XP running the dungeon than questing, though I didn't reach max level, but from what I saw it's still pretty much way faster than quests. I got bored before I finished, I hate dungeon queues, people kept AFKing on my groups. :s

    And grinding again is always going to be the fastest. My guildie spent about 12-15 hours questing up in Eidolon and he got to 94 1/2. Of course if you are CONSTANTLY gaining XP by killing you are going to get more XP than not, so the time you take traveling in quests sucks (and a lot of eidolon is gather this or that, which with the content being new, takes a while). They could up it by 1% or so per quest, wouldn't hurt, but also wouldn't solve the issue since constantly killing mobs would still be worth more. :)
  17. Nocturnus Member

    If the content is digested in the way that it was intended, you can hit level 95 without needing to grind out quests as it were. Just follow the signature line. I have friends who have done that and they hit 95 without touching Chelsith.
  18. Geothe Active Member

    Grinding IS the fastest way if all you care about is getting to cap ASAP. Thats perfectly fine and how it should be IMO.
    Likewise, you CAN solo to 95 with the current content if you want to as well. Yes, it will take you longer... but frankly, i should.
    Now, if you do nothing but fly from quest point to quest point avoiding all agro mobs completely, yeah, you may not get 95 after just doing the quests.... but you are bypassing a large chuck of XP along the way, so its your own fault. /shrug
  19. Pakhet Member

    Well, without touching old Chelsith anyway. The sig line takes you into new Chelsith, so you have to touch Chelsith. Even though it's slimy! :(
  20. PeterJohn New Member

    This is an excellent point. Significant questing experience would allow people to level in a way that makes seeing all the hard work that went into making these overland zones worthwhile.

    As it is now, I was forced to abandon my questing and level up quickly in Kael so that I could make 95 for raids, and then I went back to finish the quest line which has such an interesting story. I would much rather have never gone back to Kael.

    Maybe the old zones give too much experience as well? I would love to see full grouping current heroic content give the most XP, followed by questing, and then last grinding old zones.