What am i doing wrong at level 100? 14 quests only gave me 1.5% XP ?

Hi everyone,

I just dinged level 100 and previously just one single lvl 90-99 quests gave me about 2% XP per quest, whereas the new level 100 quests in Zek and Thalumbra are giving a fraction of that XP ?

Am I doing something wrong, or it is just the way it is? I would love to get to level 120 before the new expansion but this Level 100 XP slowdown is a nightmare.

Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer

Regards,

Saalih.

They massively increased required XP to level with the Planes of Prophecy expansion. Go start that signline and you should level much more quickly.

This is the only way past level 100. Once you finish the first signature quest from PoP you will gain levels extremely quickly.

Just like you said I started the PoP signature quest line and gained 3 levels last night, thank you.

Just as a point of reference, I recently leveled a toon to 100. Level 99 required ~1.5 million XP (don't remember the exact number, and levels 96-99 are often referred to as "hell levels"). Level 100 requires ~150 million XP, but the XP gained by killing stuff did not receive a similar boost. This is why just getting XP from killing crap is all but useless post 99, and doing quests is mandatory to level. Doing the signature quests (and associated side quests) will give you that XP.

Why did they do this? I'm not seeing any reason to do so. It seems like I might as well delete any quests prior to that expansion once I hit lvl 100 and not bother with that content any more.

I started playing again after several years off, and I have many characters at lvl 95 adventure and tradeskill.

You'd probably have to get Kander (lead developer) to answer that question....if you can get a solid answer out of him.

For what it is worth I agree entirely. I find it sad that when one hits 100 and tries to do Thalumbra which is level 100 one essentially can't gain more than a fraction of a level in any way. One is forced to do PoM for any level gains..As an altoholic I would much rather not always be forced into the same leveling straightjacket when there are excellent zones at the same level available.

Planes of Prophecy came out 4 years ago. Are you saying that they have never explained why they set it up that way in all of that time? When I asked, I was assuming that I was just missing where they explained the reasoning, not that it was still a mystery.

I am pretty sure there was a good reason for it, they (the devs) don't do stuff for no reason. But, if or when you find out the answer to this question, you most likely still won't be happy with it. So...my suggestion is don't worry about it and just play the game and enjoy yourself as this situation is one that has become buried in the past.

The reason is almost surely that they wanted to focus people on the then new expansion. If we could get the same experience at 100 in Thalumbra as in Plane of Magic fewer people would buy the expansion. Nothing nefarious there - developers have different ways to make new expansions "must have" and this was part of the EQ2 approach.

I don't expect that the reason for it would necessarily appeal to me or even a majority of players, but I still would expect them to say what that reason is when it is such a big departure from how the increase in xp required to level went in previous expansions that upped the max level. There is also the big boosts in stats on gear to answer for. I had several characters at 95 when I took a long break, coming back a few months ago to check it out. I was working on some Skyshrine quests and content, and Tears of Veeshan had just come out, but I didn't get into. Lately, I've been working my way through Altar of Malice and got my crafters up to lvl 100. My lvl 95 toons that are now adventure lvl 98 have doubled their health and massively increased their other stats as well. That is an enormous amount of stat inflation for just a few levels out of ~100. I see the stats on lvl 120 gear from the Overseer rewards and see what people's stats are at that level when I look at EQ2U and I see toons with tens or even hundreds of millions of health. It seems really bizarre to me to have lvl 120 characters with literally more than 100 times as much health as my lvl 98 character. It'd be like a lvl 9 Paladin in D&D with 70 hps walking through town and then someone that was lvl 12 walks by that had 7000 hps.

I can't just not worry about it, either. It will affect whether I can enjoy the game. I need to know whether the decisions that they made over the last few years are actually rooted in reasonable and well thought out game design principles that are aimed at my enjoyment, or whether there is something else going on that I don't understand because they won't explain it.

That doesn't make sense to me. From what I could see, it was Planes of Power that raised the cap above 100. Someone that didn't buy that expansion couldn't go over 100 at all.

I get them wanting players to spend their time in level-appropriate content, rather than to do their grinding in stuff from previous expansions that is easier. They don't want it to be hard to get groups for the most recent content because it is more efficient use of our time to grind to lvl 110 in zones designed for a maximum of 100. That can be a fair reason to make it take more xp to gain a level from 101 to 110 than it took to go from 96-100, and for mobs and quests in those newer zones to give more xp. But it shouldn't be so much more that it feels pointless to go back and finish quests you didn't do in those expansions, or to work your way through the content in the order it was released rather than skip ahead as far as you can.

Well, good luck in getting a precise answer on the whyfors and whatevers of old expacs. Still pretty sure you are not going to be happy with the answers you get. I could be wrong...sometimes I am...

To be clear, I'm not necessarily looking for a "precise" answer that I will be "happy with". I just want to know what, if anything, they've said about this at all.

Well, I finally hit 100. I was almost done with the signature line in Tranquil Sea for Altar of Malice. So that would leave me with (I assume) the other half of the expansion's signature line to finish. I would get hardly any adventure xp relative to the amount needed to level. Is there anything worth that time, in terms of gear or abilities, for finishing AoM, Terrors of Thalumbra, and Kunark Ascending, or should I just skip to Planes of Power now?

They allow you to run around in the zones without guards killing you, however I can kill guards there at 120. If you want to use the merchants there ever, for who knows what reason, you might want to get faction. However, you can also do this if you are a crafter getting the KA crafting line plant. Otherwise, if you are shooting to 120 to play in new zones, might just as well skip it and head to PoP. You could always come back and do it if you ever just so bored with nothing to do. I do the CD line because I like the gear as appearance gear, but that's just my taste. Some people like the skyshrine mount for appearance. For that, the line there is required. So no, abilities and anything worth while, no. Skip to PoP, and personally I wouldn't even finish that line there, just get to 110 and move on to the blinding and again, wouldnt finish the line there either, just get to 120 with side quests and head to fordel and do that line or skip to the next expansion, unless you want to fly in the blinding zones, then do the line. Again crafting line can substitute for any of these expansions.
I always burn up to 120 as fast as I can though then go back and do whatever because they like to nerf experience and mess.

The thing most are forgetting, is max level was 100 UNTIL PoP came out.
So once you hit level 100 while running AoM (the expansion that upped level from 95 to 100), the subsequent expansions of ToT and KA were for gearing up, AA's and with KA they added ascensions and epic 2.0. Since there were no level increases until PoP, it seems the amount of experience granted from kills and quests of those expansions didn't need to be increased as there were NO level increases with those expansions.
So, if you hit 100 and want to continue levelling, you will have to start questing in the next expansion that increased the level cap, which would be Planes of Prophecy.

I get that. But it seems like I don't need any gear from ToT or KA, since I zoned into PoMagic and found a crate with some basic Legendary gear I could wear for free, that seems far better than anything from earlier expansions. Thus, what do I really need ToT and KA for now that PoP is out? It just doesn't seem like there is much worth the time investment from those expansions anymore. Like they might as well not exist, as far as I am concerned. That seems like a poor design choice, if you ask me. I get wanting to be able to skip ahead if you're mostly interested in catching up to other people doing the most current content, but to disincentivize experiencing older content to that degree feels wrong. Just my opinion, anyway.

Choices are good - always leveling in PoP when there are interesting and well designed zones available at the same level is ...not good.

Is there any negative whatsoever to changing the xp rewards for KA and ToT to make these useful zones to gain experience in while going from 100 to 110? It can't possibly take much effort to boost the quest rewards even if the rewards for killing mobs remain unchanged.

I know the history and I am not saying the design choices were bad choices at the time. I *am* saying that a few hours work changing the amount of xp given per quest would be a major quality of life improvement for anyone leveling characters between 100 and 110.