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

Like you never make typos or use the wrong words. Sheesh. Hardass

I think this change will ensure the game stays viable for many years to come. Many folks come to the game to play with others, but cannot for a long time. Now they can right away.

From my experience, leveling up does not help one play well in groups after 90. There is so much to learn about gear, scripts, AAs, etc that do not apply while leveling up.

We have a great bunch of players on line that will help folks out. I know groups teach me new things every day.

I can't wait to try out some new classes now that I don't have to grind them!

I totally like the idea. Who the *** is going to solo level from 1-89. Especially for new players the road is way too long. If I would be a newb I would stop playing after the first 10 quests, but more then thousands of quests to get to 89 is maybe slightly too much. Powerleveling is also bllsht (if you don't have 10 lv 95's), just run around like a robot killing exactly the same mobs for a couple hours and then run to the next zone do the exact same thing, IT IS BORING. Also while you are at it SoE, give us instant myth buffs aswell, or atleast let us do ER only but not the epic timeline if you are a lv 95 (running from spot to spot oneshotting stuff is kinda ***** boring except if you are in the level range 80-89). I might sound a bit lazy, but I must say I am. I don't want to spend my hours doing boring sht in my time off. Also, the eq2 community might slightly grow if there are returning and new players who can skip the most annoying part of the grind. Thumbs up for instant lv 85 characters.

You know, this ER and Epic quest stuff keeps coming up in reference to the heroic characters. If accommodations are going to be made to give this away somehow to those new level 85 characters, then why not just make the spell(s) pop into your spellbook at that level for all characters from here on out at level 85? If they're so class defining that they need to be bundled with these characters for these players to stand a chance, then they should be available to everyone automatically.

That or remove the epic quest requirement entirely. For everyone. Then these new 85 characters get jump right in and get theirs done easily and all who currently don't have theirs can skip the painfully boring faction grinds.

For the record, I've done my epic for ten different characters and have no problem continuing to do so. But if you're going to make this change, make it for everybody.

It is good that players will be able to have an instant high level character without paying massive amounts of plat for power leveling. I prefer the long journey myself. But I realize that for many, the end game is the only game. That is the beauty of EQ2. You can spend the whole time crafting and building houses, questing, raiding or whatever you enjoy,

I do hope that the characters with these purchased levels will not have any advantage over other players though.

You can't finish ER until you're lvl 86, so premade lvl 85 characters should absolutely NOT come with ER already done.

If you are paying "massive amounts of plat for power leveling: from 1 to 85 then you are doing something wrong, 1 to 90 is a cake walk, 90 - 95 is the nightmare

A lvl 85 can zone into VC:VD so I'm not sure why you say you can't finish till 86.

I don't pay anyone to level me. It sounds like a massive amount of plat in 1-9 that people are charging. I have absolutely no interest in rushing to any level, I enjoy the game at my pace.

I find the worst part of leveling to be ~82-90. Seems like there aren't any good spots to grind that out quickly. You're stuck basically with blues or low-exp yellow/oranges. 90-95 is an hour in skyshrine, nice and easy.

I'm looking forward to being able to be higher lvl automatically. I already have 15 max lvl/aa toons and want more but it's a boring grind to get there. I think this should only be available if you have a couple (2 or 3) max lvl toons. and should get you 280 aa imo too, but only if you have a couple max aa toons. Saves me the grind of having to play the low lvl's I've seen so many times already.

I just wish they'd give us some info on this so we can stop guessing and supposing our way through it.

the main things id like to know is the price, and if were going to be able to buy one with SC or if its a RL cash deal like expansions.

Do not tell my level 85 berserker who just finished her ER she might feel the need to give it back.

Sorry, I misremembered, thought cella was 86, not 85

My understanding is that one can complete their epic quests almost all the way with just a merc, and that a few tough spots can be finished with a friend and two mercs. (at a higher level of course)

Leveling 85 to 90 can be a chore. I wonder if there will be many more folks grouping in that range because of this change? Maybe that means we can get Sentinel's Fate instance groups again....I love those zones. Then the new toons can have full sets of "entry level" yellow adorns from that content as they push on to the good stuff.

Myth: People don't want to play 1-85 content because it's not current content.

Reality: People would love to play any content if it's fun, if it's not so faceroll easy that grouping for it is just plain boring, and if the items rewarded aren't immediately replaced by crafted gear or stuff 5 levels later. Currently, time spent playing level 1-85 content is time spent sequestered AWAY from (or even in competition with) other people. This is anathema to a successful MMO.

If someone were foolish enough to put me in charge of EQ2 for a day, I'd initiate these programs:

• Triple the difficulty of one or two named encounters in each dungeon in EQ2 from level 20-80.
• Multiply by 8 the XP earned from all level 20-80 Heritage and Signature quests.
• Add more Public Quests. The Crushbone Army (lvl 30), The Battle of the Sand Giants (lvl 45; don't forget to add a boss named Fansy!), and The Reclaiming of Felwithe (lvl 60; contested Mayong oh yeah!). I would not waste time with "anti-slacker" code as this has proven to be months of wasted effort to satisfy a tiny minority.
• Add level 90 gear tokens, plus level 90+ adornments, to all of the above content.

The end result of this would be:

• Instead of there being just a band of 10 levels of useful content, the entire game would be useful content. It would almost make the game level-agnostic.
• Time spent playing at level 20-85 wouldn't feel wasted. Players would encounter players out in the world running this different content, in no rush to get to 85 or 95.
• Encounters would be challenging enough to warrant a merc or even grouping up with 1 other person at level, or if you can't find another person, just gain a few levels.
• Public quests throughout the level ranges would draw players out in the open, rather than rushing to the end, so people actually see and can communicate with others instead of all being off in their own solo dungeons.

This would also take buy-in from players, as it would mean choosing to make the WHOLE GAME relevant, at the expense of maybe a few level 95-100 dungeons.

I totally agree and I will even spend money on a few extra level 85 heroic characters to unlock more so can make more alts.

Look I fully expect soe to give us 1-2 heroic characters free as they said, and If I had to guess us subbed players gold and soe all access will get extra 1-2 free heroic level 85s then they rest more then our free instant level 85 for subbed players and ftp we will have to buy for station cash.

New and old players , returning players vets that don't like this system can still roll a level 1 character instead of making them all heroic start at 85 , so those players whining about it can still do that the old way.

All AAA MMO's now a days are about many players being happy from old players to new as well as in between, so again this change is going to make most happy, if not then you still can do it the old way.

For heroic characters example if your not sure you can play that new heroic 85 or like that class, then you can roll a level 1 and get the class to level 1-20 to get the basic of understanding your future heroic character out of the way, then can either keep this characters or delete it to make the same character but this time start at 85.

Again I fully expect since soe said it would be free, that they give from 1-2 heroic free level 85s to ftp accounts, then the gold subbed players and soe all accesss will get at least 1 more extra free level 85 heroic then rest you have to pay for etc.

Cheers.

In order for that to be true, the mentoring system would have to adjust the power of high level characters down to match lower level character (or at least not be too far off).