Leveling is HARD: some suggestions

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I don't know if anyone else has tried to level a toon lately, but I'm going to outline the go from level 1 to mid TL4. Some things have worked, but there have definitely been some pretty serious difficulties that I am not sure are well known or documented.

I wanted to roll a shade because I have only played one to 150 on my own, and played a 220 shade that someone else had built.

Starting off:

I did the bare minimum quests on Arete, got some newcomer's armor, then realized I had some parasite stuff or whatever and used that since I didn't have to bother Rclicking all that crap so many times.

I perked Totemic rites initially for the +15 add dmg and that made things fairly reasonable up to level 20ish.
I used the Arete pokers or whatever and that was fine.
I went to the subway, and found some ofab weaps next. These were also fine and then I did crip cave.

So far, I'd found 1 other person, a froob in subway whom I purchased a ofab viper from.

Went through crip cave, then the dungeons in the crip cave. I used the spirit siphon religiously and it quickly became apparent that if you were fighting orange/red mobs, you'd get spirits that were about the right QL for you to equip.

Went to SOM for fear forged blades. Got one after getting some more NCU for a HnQ. That allowed me to solo "Unrelenting fear" around level 30 or 40 without too much hassel, and got myself two FFB's. I couldn't go deeper, so I just figured I'd come back later for NCU's.

Did a couple of dailies or tried to. Got one for ToTW and got myself an exarch cloak/barrow strength and some rings which were useful for maybe 3 levels.

Couldn't finish daily so carried on with other stuff. At any point, the main thing was to always have hnQ running. I simply didn't have the firepower or healing to continuously kill any mob without having a big hot running full time.

At level 60 I went back to ToTW on a whim, and finished the Daily there. It was kinda fun and I found someone there so we teamed and that was nice.

After that I went to Ely and killed outdoor mobs near P7, rafters, the malaahs or whatever they are called, and eventually worked up to spiders. That went well, but again, I'd never have been able to kill any of these without HnQ running full time.

Around level 70, I went back to SoM. I wanted a 5 slot belt and 5 NCU's which would give me 350 HP all together. I barely managed to kill up to Neleb solo, but I managed to get 4 NCU's+belt before I lost my patience. But it was quite difficult to do that and took a lot of time.

I went to equip my belt and NCU's and then with more NCU I decided to try to get on some new weapons. I bought a 100 shade ofab glove, Rclicked in some offensive/piercing spirits, found a few pieces of miy's that trickled piercing, and a piece of nova dillon, and with a 131+ the level 50 piercing buff, and two FFB's for hotswap, I stuck on 158 nippy followed by a 99 typed rapier.

With my new weapons on I went back to SL and killed spiders with ease.

I realized at this point that I had gear FAR beyond what a normal shade would have with 6 pieces of parasite armor which levels with you (thank god), and QL 100 ofab gloves for piercing skill not to mention some very expensive weapons. For reference, another shade I'd talked to still had FFB's on at level 100 and was under the impression that they were the best weapons available for some time.

After getting a few easy levels at spiders, I went to Tiigs. Someone happened to have a belamorte when I went to tiigs the first time, but for all the 25ish levels I got at tiigs, I only had a 2 man team ONCE for about 5 levels. Other than that I was operating solo the entire time. It turned out I didn't need bela, but it certainly helped, and it really helped before I got a few lucky defensive spirits which gave me just enough defence that with an aggro tool I could pretty confidently solo a tiig solo.

After tiigs, there was a period where levelling was so slow that I would have quit AO but I'd already quit so I couldn't requit without restarting and I really wasn't interested in restarting just so I could requit with impunity. Anyway, it was very bad. I resorted to doing quests for a while and I finished ely key and ely sanct key. I got level 90 after a few more trials at tiigs.

At 90 I was so fed up with not having a team in SL, that I decided I'd go check out the reck. That was interesting. I got a GSF+HnQ as usual, and used my 13% graft and by then I was operating with my perks spread between acrobat, spirit phylactery and piercing mastery. Spirit phylactery was necessity to not die in SL where I could pull bigger mobs and kill 1 v 1. but in RK it was a bit more tricky. Eventually I gave up on the reck after a few deaths in the cargo area. It was too hard at level 90 and I didn't/haven't seen a single other person in the reck the entire time I've been playing there.

One day I was out at tiigs and I saw TWO people on LFT for ely hecks, so I jumped on the opportunity, and I thought we could take down some hecks at 90 if everyone was reasonably well equipped. Well, that was a bit of a surprise, but the enforcer was using a styg, and in gear which wasn't really useful and the doc didn't really understand the concept of healing I guess, or the enforcer just was taking too much damage to even be worth healing. So that didn't work, but the enforcer saw that we could basically get a heck down to half health by the time he died and insisted on bringing a 220 enf to tank it.. well I wanted to level the oldschool way the whole way but honestly I had only had 3 teams between level 1 and 90 by this point and I didn't think I was going to keep playing unless I made some progress. So he did that and I killed hecks while his enf tanked them, and I got up to 95 doing that which was really helpful because I was honestly going quit.

Somehow I managed to get up to level 100 later on with a team of agents who also brought an OSB and I felt bad again being in a team which was cheating but I promised myself once I got to 100 with the token board upgrade that I'd have enough tank to simply say no to any further cheats.

Well, I dinged level 100, and by that point I had 1250 tokens, so the HP/AAD boost was a really nice upgrade. I then equipped 4 pieces of QL 130 CC and a pred circlet which I thought was a reasonable choice to boost my survival/offense and put on a Ql 154 kyr rapier with the Nippy. At this point I realized I was really very far removed from what the average player would be encountering and dealing with... And even with the gear I had, the game was no walk in the park.

I got up to level 125 with a great team I fished around for and once we got going with 3 MP's pets on me I was able to tear through hecks at a solid pace. we also had one MA who seemed to do some OK damage, but probably I was doing close to 70% of the damage of the team.

Here is the summary of problems I had:

* teaming in Rk/SL was next to impossible (nobody to team with)
* on occasion when I found people to team with, I got turned down for teaming when it became known they would "have to fight"
* content designed for teams means solo players either need exceptional gear and patience, or simply become stuck for potentially long periods
* some solo content is simply not balanced (spaced out, some AI daily nukers are WAY too hard hitting, mantis den can be pretty difficult)
* The reck seems to have content good for very specific levels, but lacks a wider level diversity of mobs making the content only applicable for a smaller level range
* Regearing was difficult with having a bankroll, and I can only imagine how hard it would be without one - the lack of reasonable weapon choices and acquisition was frustrating to say the least, I also didn't see one decent piece of armor for a shade the ENTIRE time I was in game
* finding crucial nanos for shade was next to impossible. In fact, at level 125 I'm still using nanos from level 25 because I have no idea where to find/buy the regular buffing nanos (I bought some from GMI, if it wasn't in GMI, screw it). What the hell is with Dyna's being the only thing dropping these nanos? I don't have two weeks to camp some stupid level 50-60 mob to get a nano... come on, game design here folks, lets make it a more fluid transition...

What worked:

* spirit siphon actually made very clear rewards for fighting larger/harder mobs. using spirit siphon on a mob then having SOMETHING to loot on it was a refreshing change from the norm of simply finding nothing useful on a mob.
* while I got pretty tired of clicking, the shade perklines seemed to be working OK for what I needed. Overall, spirit phylactery was most useful, followed by totemic rites at level 120 (a larger lifetap opens which makes the line viable), followed by PM, which I found to be decent damage, but utterly infuriating in trying to get the first perk to land
* the overall prof design seems to function even at low levels, Shade does (can) do quite good damage but it's not easy to play


What I think should be addressed:

1. This game is wtf retardedly unplayable with low population

2. New players or even old players, I don't know, simply can't get all the stuff that's needed to keep a toon up to date. It's actually ridiculous how much stuff there is to try to keep updated. On this topic, I think:

* Nano availability: Shade/keeper nanos available in the IPS shops, but keeper/shade doesn't have shops in RK. I think RK needs to have nano shops for shade/keeper. Also, Adventuring expertise isn't on any composite (makes for 20 extra IP spent equipping a Robust Backpack), Any prof that relies on dyna drops for standard use nanos.. that is ridiculous. Just put these nanos in a shop or make all nano availability more convenient in general.

* The parasite armor should be purchasable with vet points for like 2 vet points per piece or offer yesdrop upgrade drops on mobs/quests that upgrade newcomer armor to DB parasite, or similar

* outdoor mobs in SL and RK should drop gear that actually makes the game playable - or a credit transfer thing like a "Take me to the shop" of relevant QL which actually makes farming credits from regular mobs a possibility. There isn't a single person who gets excited when they see that a EVO marauder has dropped 3 chunks of meat... WTF! Let all mobs drop something useful.

3. tokens seem like they are pretty well addressed by the dailies, but the difficulty on some dailies is still too much (Notably the Newland AI daily: Spaced out - the nukers are crazy in there, but the nuking aliens basically throughout TL3-6 can be a serious handful)

4. There is no guidance. While some may appreciate that it's a sandbox and anyone can go anywhere or whatever... it's stupid. Put it this way, there is a whompa system that anyone can go to, the grid requires comp lit, so if you have "about the right amount of Comp lit" the original design limited travel - so by default you're "supposed" to stay in area X. But none of it makes a lot of sense. If you are level 30 and you go to newland desert, your pitifully low movement speed means you're going to be spending the vast majority of your time running and if you're lucky enough to get a fight... you'll die to social aggro and then you realize that the game is essentially stacked against you so you shouldn't really go out that way again. But that's not enough, the game has to add insult to injury. The game wants you to go fight, not ONLY the social mobs that utterly destroyed you, but it wants you to fight the big glowing mob that can wax you on it's own, in order to get the nanos you need JUST to be able to survive the mobs at your own level. And not only that, you'll probably get 20-30 kills on those glowing mobs IF you can kill them, and not get the nano you need. That's just a waste of players' time.

I really think there needs to be a series of Prof specific quests. One for each TL Each quest should get you:

1. all the nanos you'll need at that level
2. a reasonable selection of nodrop weapons or chances at acquiring some weapons
3. a selection of armor pieces which you can use and will suffice for normal gameplay
4. take you to all the areas under which normal game play would normally open to you
5. offer challenges that provide you with item/token/XP/AXP/armor/weapon upgrades which are transferable (yesdrop) that make subsequent content easier

Each dungeon and area should have quests available which offer glimpses into the history of RK/SL and provide useful rewards that help players along the way.

My personal opinion is that the sandbox type game's time is over. Anyone who starts AO as a first time pickup doesn't want to spend three hours in game running forever just to die to a red mob 250 levels higher than him and not get anything for it. People need a more comprehensive experience in the game that feeds them content, gives them waypoints so they understand what the next step is and how to get there, and, most importantly, give them something to fall back on.

Without a more comprehensive game experience that immerses the player and allows them to explore their prof without the obvious and serious limitations and deterrences currently in game, the game simply doesn't offer an experience that ensures long term stable membership trends. If the game is unplayable as a solo player... the game will continue to bleed membership. The game should be playable solo and very enjoyable as a team.

I'm not suggesting the game is reborn as WoW or SWtOR or any other game that operates along those lines.. but what I am saying is that there are VAST empty spaces in RK where, at one point AI cities dotted the map, there simply is nothing. Occasionally a gray mob or a flower can be found, very, very occasionally there is some content related to the area like cyborgs, the bronto burger quest, or prisoners, or the OTAF basses, or whatever.. but these are spread out so far that you can literally run from one side of RK to the other, and never see something that relates to anything. Sure, the wildlife is interesting, or whatever, but lets be honest, The RK map is incredibly sparsely populated. So is SL. You could travel out to anywhere and not see a single other player. There are very few places where there are small clumps of players... cheating together. That is how bad it's become.


Michi, if you read this and wonder how in hell you could ever manage this... I would remind you that you have a pretty amazing community here, and if you said something like:

"I want 14 profs x 7 TL's questlines each one a specific, standalone quest with relevant rewards" I reckon the community would be more than happy to write the vast majority of script needed to populate each one.

[Wakizaka]

For your nanos, did you try the IPS shops at all ?

[Alternity]

Been leveling myself recently, keeping away from pocket teams. The only thing I've seen so far is no one else. Well I did see a flower but it didn't want to team.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

For your nanos, did you try the IPS shops at all ?

For shade nanos, yes I tried the professional shops in Jobe, and only found the lowest ones. Then the gardens sell all the procs.

Been leveling myself recently, keeping away from pocket teams. The only thing I've seen so far is no one else. Well I did see a flower but it didn't want to team.

The number of potential team mates is astoundingly low. It's been a very, very lonely time. For a shade, who might really benefit from having someone else take aggro so I can backstab occasionally... it's been a very frustrating time.

[MrXaatXuun]

I seen there needs to be changes.
the game has become more of solo leveling then Team, and yet the game is still designed to be team to get items for your level, or twink (weird word)

I have only been in 2 player teams, except for ToTW, was actually in a 5 player team, was supposed to be a 6th, but for some reason they was a no show.
I did join a pocket team from 50someting to 60something.
getting Spirits is frustrating, why are 120 mobs only give ya ql66 spirits

I have spent most of my Shade time Soloing, a shade is a back stabber, a Shade needs a team mate to use what they were supposed to be doing.

I really like the idea of the Prof only nano quest/missions

I wouldn't mind if I saw QL95 Spirits drop from a 120+ mob, but a 56 or 66 .. that's a big WTF man, would like to see something changed there.

when I was last sub, you went to heckler beach, where many others were standing around trying to get on a team, then it was a race, to beat the other team to the next heckler, go there now, and you see nothing hell the crickets even left, due to nothing going on there, just silence

I like that idea in another post of add SL to Free to play

[Vinkera]

I'd say having a professional hall dealo in RK that hands out profession specific missions would be kind of cool.

Let's say... They hand out missions with content based on your profession. (well, as much as possible) Have like 2 hour lock out timer, and focus on giving a few pieces of gear and some creds as opposed to XP.

At the moment, I'm working on another crat, and based on my own experience, I know what gear to get to solo well. But, not everyone does, obviously. At around level 50ish (where I am now) I don't see a problem with a quest handing out a QL 50 SOL K-91, a 75 Dark Pistol, and a Speech nano or init debuff. Why not a random Symbiant or even a version of the premade implants that's 1.5x your current level? Those are all things I'd otherwise have to farm. I don't mind farming, but those are just the basics that everyone pretty much needs anyway.

I haven't found any profession I felt couldn't solo up to TL 5 without extreme difficulty, but if your gear sucks it could be a painful process getting there :P New players, or maybe even your average player don't have multiple full bank toons and a few billion creds to gear their new toys, either.

[Alternity]

Honestly, getting whatever gear needed is least of my worries. Buffs, pockets, everything I can do for myself. I guess what I am trying to say is that is boring as hell to run around alone.

[Lazy]

I wanted to roll a shade because I have only played one to 150 on my own, and played a 220 shade that someone else had built.

would that be ebay or account sharing?

[Cratertina]

Lol. Come on leveling isnt hard anymore.

Subway, totw, Foremas all have good xp now. + elite dailies avaliable.

Once you get to Reck OMG! Xp galore.

And at 101 SD elite dailies, BS 3x dailies... Xp explodes.

OP is trying to level old style crippler cave etc. That os simply obsolete Meta.

There are now easier ways, especially if you have say 1 hour per day to play.

Finding gear is now harder than getting xp.

P.S. Once. Going gets slow in foremans head to borgs. Shade can solo those easilly to lvl 90. Then Reck tiem.

[PigBrother]

And for nanos - roll rk team mishs and blitz to the boss.

I know inferno have some mishs ... what about Nascense, Elysium and others ? Can you drag mishions from those gardens also for leveling and siphoning some spirits ?

The game is a bit empty because everyone is in a damn rush to 220. This is why is hard to get a team going - in a team you have to wait a bit from time to time, but they are in a damn rush...

I have put up the idea of some leveling weapons (right click-able to grow in level) - was not my idea I was only bumping it. We already have some right-click-able NCUs so why not some weapons to level up with ?

[spathi]

Ado and Pen have missions. But why the ado missions in the water? The same types of dungeons are also on the land and you cant get missions in those.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Guys, "missions" kind of suck though. They are all the same, and it's exactly the same thing in RK. That content is so outdated.

Sure, there is an occasional froob who will "roll" nanos and go farm RK mishes endlessly, but serious, that's a waste of a heartbeat.

The "missions" you roll in ado and pen are the same. Mindless garbage. If you actually want people to "roll" missions (i.e. self producing content) there needs to be value in it. Not just crap content for the sake of crap content.

That's the point in suggesting professional quests that take you on tours of area that relevant to your level. The point is to get the person out to various areas that are valuable for that level, and can provide value in more ways than just XP.

Here's an example:

A level 130 engineer is sent to tinker tower, after previous missions have provided him with some tradeskill gear. The engineer goes to tinker tower and the objective is to kill however many mobs, collect 10 gems, cut them using a gem cutter thingy. The Challenge part of the quest would be to produce 10 pieces of jewellery (i.e. silver filigree ring with a perfectly cut balas ruby)
Because it teaches the player how to become self sufficient in tradeskilling useful items that can be sold for a modest profit.

If you want to include "rolling a mission" in actual gameplay content, it's got to be part of system that is useful to the player. Not just something stupid that spams the player with mountains of garbage.

In my opinion, the mission "rolling" system is so completely broken it's not even worth mentioning. The way the mission rolling system should work is this:

The player approaches the mission terminal, the terminal FIRST asks the player what item would you like? Then the player does a search for an item in a similar search system as GMI. Then if the item isn't rollable, the terminal provides info on how that item is acquired, and if it is rollable, the terminal produces a random spawned mission with that item as the reward. All mobs in the mission are approximately the same level as the item reward, and there are other oddballs in the mission such as crates/chests/skeletons all that crap.

Then you bypass all the useless spamming of missions and the need for third party software and all that crap, and you free up the mountains of memory to keep all those gazillion random missions.

[Legendfluf]

Leveling is hard if you want to get 220 in a week.
Leveling is hard if you want to get 220 in a month.

Leveling isn't hard if you just take your time, have fun with the profession and don't just want to whine on the forums about something YOU found hard about wanting to be 220 in a few weeks.
I have only gone into the shadowlands to grab a few DOJAs early on from cripplers, otherwise I haven't bothered with that place.

Spirits are a hard thing to get too, I thankfully have been able to grab most of them off GMI for 500k - 2m each. Otherwise I just use old ones.

Sneakeestab was born on Sat Apr 30 01:38:07 2016 (~38 days till now, if you are lazy)
Sneakeestab has played 2 days 22 hours 46 minutes 0 seconds
150/20/36 Shade (with 35k VP & 126m xp pool)

I haven't been in any kite teams, been solo most of the time (my time of being level 40 to 60 was in a nice totw team nighttime in EST) and main xp is dailies.
Been only grabbing alts for buffs, but not really a team to blitz missions for xp or anything of that sort. A fixer for gsf/hnq and a soldier with rrfe, otherwise I just solo everything.

You can find most shade nanos from the IPS shade professionals in SL, but because shade nanos have such high nanoskills after their starting nanos, there's really been no need to grab them as I can't spare the IP from evades/weapon skills.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Leveling is hard if you want to get 220 in a week.
Leveling is hard if you want to get 220 in a month.

Leveling isn't hard if you just take your time, have fun with the profession and don't just want to whine on the forums about something YOU found hard about wanting to be 220 in a few weeks.

Where in hell did you read that I wanted to be 220?

Chuckling to myself reading about your crap assumptions.

And just an FYI, dailies don't get you gear. So if you were someone new, joining AO today, if you really just did dailies as a shade... you'd end up at whatever level with spirits that are 37% lower than you should be using, no weapons of value, and no armor of value unless you somehow had the foresight to pick up newcomers. And if that's the case, how do you think you'd be able to complete the dailies with that kind of ridiculous setup?

[Starphoenix]

2. New players or even old players, I don't know, simply can't get all the stuff that's needed to keep a toon up to date. It's actually ridiculous how much stuff there is to try to keep updated. On this topic, I think:

* Nano availability: Shade/keeper nanos available in the IPS shops, but keeper/shade doesn't have shops in RK. I think RK needs to have nano shops for shade/keeper. Also, Adventuring expertise isn't on any composite (makes for 20 extra IP spent equipping a Robust Backpack), Any prof that relies on dyna drops for standard use nanos.. that is ridiculous. Just put these nanos in a shop or make all nano availability more convenient in general.

* The parasite armor should be purchasable with vet points for like 2 vet points per piece or offer yesdrop upgrade drops on mobs/quests that upgrade newcomer armor to DB parasite, or similar

* outdoor mobs in SL and RK should drop gear that actually makes the game playable - or a credit transfer thing like a "Take me to the shop" of relevant QL which actually makes farming credits from regular mobs a possibility. There isn't a single person who gets excited when they see that a EVO marauder has dropped 3 chunks of meat... WTF! Let all mobs drop something useful.

Some great feedback here! When I cancel my accounts and give a reason for doing so, I always mention that finding gear for and with a new character is almost impossible. I hate starting new characters because I can not simply play and pick up items as I go. I always have to log other characters to go get useful stuff. The difficulty of acquiring new items is IMO the number one thing to fix.

[Vinkera]

The value of having auto-leveling lux armor for making new toons is huge. I'd even start toons on that account and move it to another after claiming it for the convenience of always having decent armor. I don't see a reason newcomers doesn't auto-level, myself.

It would be nice if newcomer's was upgradable to a profession specific armor, also. Let's say, it adds a few points to your basic weapon and special skills, and was level 50+ locked to use. A soldier would get something like AR, SMG, Burst, Full Auto, MC, TS and those always stayed the same while the other stats of the armor leveled. Maybe 4 or 5 points per part. So, at a low level it's actually a huge help, later on not so much but not bad.

*shrugs*

[Hunni]

Great observations and ideas. As a player with 4 paid accounts (when I HAVE to HAVE someone to play with, I can play with myself ), I find that keeping toons that I want to level in adequate shape is extremely difficult. The cost in credits or in time spent camping is ridiculous.

Excellent ideas on the profession specific nanos and equipment drops.

[PigBrother]

And just an FYI, dailies don't get you gear.

False.

More accurate : not all dailies can get you very good gear

[Psikie]

Over all interesting post. I did take exception to this quote

Somehow I managed to get up to level 100 later on with a team of agents who also brought an OSB and I felt bad again being in a team which was cheating but I promised myself once I got to 100 with the token board upgrade that I'd have enough tank to simply say no to any further cheats.

I have a problem with that because you seem to say OST is "cheating". My theory is how can OST be cheating when OSF (outside farming) doesnt seem to bother you? Getting nippys is definitely something your toon didnt get through "playing". Im just saying that seems a little hypocritical. In BOTH cases you are using a high lvl toon to help you with something your toon can not do themselves through game play. In my opinion you cant consider one cheating without the other being equally guilty. Just a thought.

Other than that I found your post insightful to new player angst. A weapon that levels with you is a novel concept. It shouldnt be as good as ofab/ai weapons of equal level. But maybe as good as 001 weapons of equal lvl?

The idea of daily missions for prof specific nanos/gear is also very appealing. I wouldnt want dyna drops in there because that would eliminate the entire reason dynas exist. But rollable mission nanos should be included. Maybe make the 001 weapons more readily available, or at least more known about.

[Vinkera]

Even continuing Nano consolidations would help this whole problem. Leveling weapons that are "good" but not great would be amazing to have.

Just logging in and going is great. Almost every time someone wants to go level, I think to myself "ah crap... I don't have *insert one of 5783675910 things here*"

I think of several things that contribute to a crappy noob experience. Everything in ICC is overpriced, gear from mobs is generally complete crap, and implants are seemingly only for the rich. I started AO in late 2013 as froob, and just looking at how things are now, I'd say that's pretty much the same now.

Having some halfway decent stuff that just levels with you to a certain point would alleviate that problem. Having a daily that gives you some mission rollable gear, and profession appropriate weapons, etc would just appeal to everyone. I like putting work into my toons, but you could literally spend more time gearing than actually playing.