Insta-Level 85 (280 AA?) (Heroic Characters)

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Daray, Aug 3, 2013.

  1. Pauly Well-Known Member

    this will only be used by people who want a lot of alts at cap.. and maybe 3 new players who will quit before hitting 95 because of the 'hard grind'. Waste of dev time imho.. Leveling is so simple as it is. Those hoping for a windfall of new players are going to be disappointed.
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  2. Necris New Member

    I am for the level 85's.
    I have played EQ2 off and on, for about 3 years now.
    My highest is only 48 (50 crafting).
    The game is much easier then what it was, but for those of us with so limited time, we never get to see the high level areas, so we think why should I buy the ex-pac if I will never have the time to get there?
    This it what SOE does not want, they need new players (and old) to buy the ex-pacs, to think "Wow I can go there if I just spend the $59.99 pre-release or the $39.99 - $89.99 post release.
    It is a really good move, much, much better then lowering XP demands of the old world or streamlining the characters path so you don't get the real feel for the world and all the different parts of the story of Norrath and the timeline of EverQuest 2.
  3. Guzaka New Member

    It actually isn't. I imagine it's very easy with 200%bonus plus a potion though. I spent 2 hours in getting PL'd in Sebilius last night by a hard mode geared SK, only to get two levels. Once again comes down to the silver members AA slider being locked at 50%.
  4. yerbo Member

    This is going to make PUGs MUCH better!!!
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  5. Pauly Well-Known Member

    I guess, over time we forget what it used to be like. 4 years ago 2 levels took a week.
    When I created a toon on test server this year (it gives a 50% bonus) it only took 5 days to hit 95/95/320. Live server vet bonuses don't apply to test, I wish they did, but alas..
    On the Freeport server my guild tends to get a lot of new/returning players. They are almost always in their 80's within three weeks if they play daily. They get groups once in a while but we don't really power level them. Slider being locked is player choice.
    Im not against the insta 85's.. I just don't think the results are going to be what they think they are.
  6. Izanami Member

    I just wish they would not have dumbed down the game so much. I pop in every few months but it's hard to keep interested when the complexity has been so nerfed. The old EQ2 I would recommend to friends, but I just can't come to recommend this lazy, easy-mode, distilled version of what the game used to be. I was hoping EQN might be more like the old EQ2, but it doesn't look that way.
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  7. Kalika Well-Known Member


    Well what level was the SK mentoring on (in other word what was your level) ?
    Did you have exp potion ? Were you rested ?
    How many rooms was he pulling ? were the mob at least yellow -- preferably red --
    to you (and hence him).

    Yesterday we made a quick visit to varsoon (less than 1 hour) and our new guildmade entered as 23 paladin and left as 28
    he had too mentors fooling around (returning warden and wizzie with gear from 18 monthes ago). Everything was absolutely red. I was sorry for him that he could convert 100% of his xp into AAs.

    Sebilis is certainly good at 70 or 75, i m not sure at 80, anyway 79-80 used to be really slow, i remember grinding painfully mobs t) with at least one toon (indeed my mystic since i always prefered ake the warden for single group content)
    to hit 80 in Sentinel Fate days.

    In ROK days 79-80 also took a long time, i remember quite well playing several days. Mostly questing and doing an instance here and there.


    I m not realizing fully but it took a very short time to my fury do ding 90 with reasonnable AAs amount. And it was way more fun
    than being power levelled. I managed to do a most of the group content either solo or with my dear little sk from neriak.
    Dealing with the shorcoming of mercenaries was really entertaining, sometimes i had to body pull and eat the harmtouches in sebilis and to use wisely mercenry order to position her properly.

    But yeap she had a rather good veteran bonus (like 80%).

    The problem with Eq2 is not the leveling speed but the fact that people may ding 90 with 170 aas.

    - Doubling the AA rate till 250 aas would have been a better choice.
    - Elite char but only for people with 2 level 90 (for raid/guild purposes)
    - Faster xp but also harder content, eg a difficulty slider (this would work only if not grouped), as example mob hit x2, hp x1,5 xp multiplied by 3.
  8. Atan Well-Known Member


    The thing is someone considering playing the game again or for their first time due to some promotion going on, does not realize how easy it is to level. Heroic characters removes the stigma of having too much to catch up on to play the game with others. And even just a stigma of too much 'catch-up' required is enough to keep folks from trying your game.

    I imagine these heroic characters will be part of some F2P type program to get people to return or try the game ahead of EQN. An attempt to ride the wave on the EQN PR as it were. While these characters are available to everyone, I suspect the target is new/returning players who would be interested in 'jump-starting' back in.

    WoW did this a while back, and it works fairly well. All I had to do was get invited back and I got an instant high level toon. I played for about a week and remember why I never really got into the game before and I haven't played since. However, I have to assume enough people did play it long enough for the effort to be worth while.

    I assume heroic characters are targeted to the same result. However, I have to do a lot of assuming, cause they haven't exactly been forthright in communication. But lets be honest, that is completely par for the course with SoE. I assume its a fear of over-commitment, but I personally have a hard time understanding why they can't share their motives with something like this, while I understand they don't want to share technical details as those might change.
  9. Ahupu Well-Known Member

    One point orange and yellow mobs are worth more than red mobs other than that Kalika is correct, being a silver member should not have been that restrictive. Unless you were completely without vitality or potions of any sort. If so take up tradeskills you will regularly get a 25% potion for doing your daily apprentice quest. It may not be a lot but it is better than nothing. Also mentoring down so the mobs are yellow or orange may seem counter intuitive but in large part the increase in difficulty of the mobs usually more than makes up for the xp hit you take for mentoring.
  10. Griffon Lady Well-Known Member

    Only other online game i played before this was Phantasy Star Online, so I was accustomed to soloing through with the option of logging into the server and finding a group, so on my 20 or so toons, I'm fine with grinding. (dunno why any one would say it's a cake walk for some one who never played before though. o.0 I remember being lost in Antonica 2004, taking a year to reach lvl 50 and then finding out the expansion was raising it 10 more levels. XD) Believe me, knowing your way around makes a HUGE difference when there isn't any one to help you. And completely free to play peeps can't even ask in a chat channel or shoot some one a tell. :\
    So basically what I'm saying there is, even though i thoroughly enjoy all the old content, then chrono down to get every nook and cranny of it, I think these insta-lvl 85s is a AWESOME idea to get new players. It gives them just a handful of levels to learn things them selves, or better yet, read up on forums here or EQFlames to get a good casting order going. My hubby PLed my necro for me and I wound up 4th or 5th DPS in raids on a regular basis after a week or so of reading threads about optimizing my casting. (Yes, chicks CAN DPS! -.-)

    I do think a good idea would be to make class specific tutorials for the heroic characters, maybe a new starter city (XD I'm picturing something like the pegasus city in My Little Ponies, since heroic toons come with a flying mount. ^_^). It's like re-releasing the game, bringing every one together again, but with the abundant content and lore for people to go find as new quests require old HQ items, epics take you to certain locations, unique quest rewards for appearance armor or furniture lure them off to old zones for an hour or 2 before or after a raid, kids in the family join in and parents take them to older "safer" content all with lvl 85s (or to train their kids to farm for rares and shines. >.>)... sooooo many possibilities. XD

    My favorite part though, now when i'm meandering around in old content, questing and looking for odds and ends for my decorating, there won't be so many power leveling people grabbing every thing in-front of me. 0.0

    any who, I'm just glad they aren't taking away any more of the old content. /knocks on wood while reminiscing about old colony island and grumbling about being locked out of the suburbs after the quest lines...
    Quinterra likes this.
  11. Wirewhisker Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I can't wait to join a group with a 35k tank for HE.
  12. Togusah New Member

    If there were more Double Experience days, this wouldn't really be required(IMO).

    I can see why they want people to bypass a lot of the solo leveling. Its a dull experience if you're looking to get into grouping immediately. That being said, I'd hope their is a cap to amount of "heroic characters" we can have.

    Enjoying all of the content is still available via mentoring so you really don't miss out on anything.
  13. Wakanash Member

    I agree i think that if they do decide to go with this idea at all you should be required to have 1 or 2 90+ toons on that account and server.
  14. Guzaka New Member

    This isn't required. They need to find a way to make it benefit people to do the long 1-95 grind or just get rid of the mentor system all together. The funny thing is that the people saying it's not hard would probably quit when the mentoring system got took out.

    Also I was 75, the SK mentored down to 75, took over 3 hours to get 77-78.
  15. Pauly Well-Known Member

    There is no long grind. Did you even play when the level cap was 50? It took months to get to 50. That was a grind. 1-95 can be done solo by a brand new player with zero vet xp in a couple weeks. If that is LONG and BORING.. you must be part of this new generation that needs prescription drugs just to get out of bed.
  16. RadarX Community Manager


    Let's keep discussion constructive please.

    Keep in mind the time to get from 1-95 being a "grind" can be very subjective. Sure it took forever to get to 50 at launch (I didn't even hit it until DoF) but that was also before the AA system so there was very little to do about 50 beyond grind for gear. It was a long and arduous process that people should be proud they accomplished.
    Kraeref likes this.
  17. Feldon Well-Known Member

    You are completely missing the point.

    At launch:
    • Level 1-50 took months.
    • Grouping was HUGE.
    • Content was sufficiently challenging that grouping was preferable.
    • There was a sense of accomplishment.
    • Gear upgrades had a noticeable affect on your survivability and success in Norrath.
    • You couldn't buy in-game success with money.
    • Rewards were rare and the items you got were useful for weeks.
    Now:
    • Level 1-85 takes days.
    • There is little to no grouping in this range.
    • Content is faceroll easy and grouping is unpleasant due to how quickly roomfuls of enemies die.
    • There is no sense of accomplishment in level 1-80 content.
    • A set of Handcrafted equipment off the broker gives you more than enough survivability to clear all the solo AND group content at even con level.
    • A single Krono purchased for $18 gives you enough plat in-game to fully outfit your character in decent gear to play from level 1-85 with plenty left over for spell upgrades and adornments.
    • Rewards flow like rain and will be replaced within 2-3 hours of gameplay.
    I'm not saying I love Insta-85. What I'm saying is, unless 1-85 is made Relevant, Fun, and Groupable again, then yeah, might as well skip this range because it's just an annoying roadblock between new players, returning vets, and alts, and where all your friends are playing (up at level 85-95).
    Quabi and Kalika like this.
  18. Kalika Well-Known Member


    Well different peoples have different goal. Even if quite often mentor down to power level peoples i never
    asked to be Power leveled. Once or twice friends were happy to power level me, and i could not refuse but that was incidental.

    Neither my paladin nor my fury wanted to be 90 fast, both wanted to fully explore the class possibilities solo.

    There is a good reason for that, at the level cap solo play is very marginal (best i could solo at 90 with medium gar was ascent category and kael 1, never tried with a mercenary since i consider it as cheating ;-)).

    And yeap the bigger the group the more linear it gets. That's why i enjoy solo play or duos/trio, nothing is written
    and you decide what to do next on-line. Group play is in between, you still have some latitude/freedoom
    and raidplay is almost written into the stone.

    The level cap is not that great :

    your weekly or bi-weekly raid : you first clear the encounter that you already cleared and then you wipe 4-5 times due to others being not focuses and then you bring mobzzz down 10% more than the previous time.

    forming a group with if possible a tank with decent gear and abilities, not granted since most people focus on a single toon
    and people in my raid were rarely doing instances. Pick up groups are not always bad, often people may be undergeared
    but play well. The worst case is probably the one of rerolls with inherited raid gear.

    So as you see leveling may be great fun,and the current problem is not that it is too slow, the problem
    is that getting proper AAs is really a grind, especially for new players.

    Ps : don't think that mentoring down will allow you to enjoy the low level content, mentoring does not scale well
    and mentor is always overpowered.

    I actually hope that they will require at least one toon at 90, otherwise we will see an invasion of totally clueless players.

    ==> i already explained to many tanks what is intercede, many level 90 tanks were totally unaware of this skill.
  19. Kalika Well-Known Member

    Quite a good summary, and yes to have fun levelling you must do group content. I started in 2007 and in those days
    some 1^ or 2^^ were to be taken with caution, and i remember group wipe in runny eye, sebilis, klakanon innovation and many other places ;-)

    What is a KRONO ?
    Feldon likes this.
  20. Liral Active Member

    Really liek this post. I'm in the same boat for a different reason. I just have hard time getting into the higher level content. I have one character that is now level 74 and I got here a few weeks ago and now I barely play him. I just LOVE the old world zones much better than what I find in later zones. So might enjoy starting way up there and seeing what's what and decide whether I want to complete the journey with my other toons rather than just start over a lot. LOL