Dude, it about putting in the hours. You can reach 75 in two weeks if you play like the ones who are 75 already. Eat, sleep, bash. They put in a ton of hours into getting there.
That's not how it works. They did it in 2 weeks, lets say 250 hours to be generous, because it was broken and they moved up FAST. Now that it's "not" broken, everyone else now moves up SLOW. So what took them 250 hours could now take what? How long? 500 hours? 1000 hours? More? We don't yet know. If I can do it in 2 weeks of eat sleep bash, then no complaints, but it's clearly not looking like that.
I am STILL getting 3 levels a night if I bash hard
Except there's been people between 50-70 saying it's not quite as bad as you think it is? You're not even level 25 yet. You've had people sub 50, also, telling you it's not as bad as you think it is.
This. I am 56 at the time of writing this and it is not that bad. I actually think this is the most balanced leveling in any of the IRE games. It is slow enough to be something you gotta work at, but quick enough that you see actual progress when you log out for the night.
The main thing SM has over other IRE games is that damage scales with Stat and gear, not with skill ranks.. so you can invest 200 into each of your main skills and be as effective at Lv. 50 as someone who is omni-trans.
This has been mentioned before, but I appreciate it.
The main thing SM has over other IRE games is that damage scales with Stat and gear, not with skill ranks.. so you can invest 200 into each of your main skills and be as effective at Lv. 50 as someone who is omni-trans.
This has been mentioned before, but I appreciate it.
Lvl 50 equipment is roughly 2/3 the power of level 75 equipment!
But it makes no different for affliction based combat.
I’m not sure if SM combat will actually be as affliction based as other IRE stuff. We don’t all have potions and scrolls and berries and other herbs to keep us constantly buffed up at top health. I think high damage is far more of a threat in a game where we can’t just walk out of rooms and our healing is super slow. I can’t make any definitive statements about late game pvp obviously so that’s just an assumption.
it seems pretty possible to just melt people with room AoE though.
LEVELING: It took me 2 and a half 12 hour days of solid bashing just to get my last two and a half levels! Probably because I died a lot from the Scoundrel changes making half the creatures in my only viable bashing area murder my face off.
But mostly it was slow because the last 10 levels for anyone other than a BEAST right now is an absolute nightmare to gain as we have no way to solo any area other than Prugita Breeding Colony, and that spot's contested by everyone over 65 and barely has room for 2 people. All the other spots have huge hitting stacks of aggro mobs and we get squashed in 2-3 hits from just one. 4 if we heal mid fight, but then what's the point when they deal twice our heal in damage a second later anyway? It's been an unpleasant curve to the grind and I'm glad now all I have to get is gear... which is also gonna take an unpleasant amount of time with more people creeping up to fight the tougher stuff.
The areas: North Usum is passable to hunt in between 65 and 75 if you're desperate and really, really, really careful about all the different wandering aggro types, but not only do you have to deal with the scary level 75 aggros, there you've got the aggro skulfs which for some reason sit up there in packs of 2-4 and give little to no EXP. No idea why they're sitting in the 65-75 zone because they feel like a level 50 creature!
Deisk is... weird. It's home to mekmavaurs which have an obscene amount of health, are aggro, deal moderate damage and often group up in packs of 2-4. The ones you can pick off alone are slow to respawn. The reward for killing 25 of them is 3000xp and 1050 marks, which feels pretty underwhelming considering the level 50-65 Arrizuri Quarry has a quest that rewards 6000xp and 1000 marks for killing just 12 atzaparaki.
Oh and for reference! I get a little under 2000 exp for killing things in the 75 zones. That quest was worth less than two mobs. Though it gets credit for being a kill quest you could do while on the grind.
Lastly, Jelle is just a big nope. The vines often double-hit and there's wandering aggros and I got hit for nearly 2k and decided I wanted none of that thank you very much!
So in summary: I don't know for sure what it's like lower down right now, but I speculate that the earlier levels will be about on par with what it was like when I leveled through them, what with the new and improved more forgiving curve on damage reductions and shrugging afflictions. I didn't punch up above my level much until I realised everyone else was shooting for the stars, and I only got in on that for a few hours before the damage reduction update rolled out (woulda been 75 days ago if I'd realised sooner!). For the most part, I was just hunting nonstop since release.
In all, I think it would be about 130-140 hours of bashing I've done all up to get here.
BEING 75: I'm pretty sure it's going to annoy a lot of endgamers pretty quick as more people creep above the level 65 mark where they can begin to move up. Prugita's too small and everywhere else is too brutal. We want to hunt for gear and mods, but everywhere's cleared out. We could go to Thait for mods now it's been expanded because it's within that 20 level range, but then we'd be hindering the lower levels from catching up. Even then, we wouldn't get lvl75 gear drops, which are what we're really gunning for.
Prugita really needs the expansion treatment like Thait got. The other areas need tuning, or better, we need more areas so we aren't stepping on each others' toes all the time. Besides Prugita, the existing areas might make for good group zones, but not everyone wants to deal with coordinating a party when they just want to enter the bashing mindzone out and get the grind done.
Drop rates on equipment is... alright I guess? I've earned a lot of 70+ equipment in these last levels, but now I'm 75 that means nothing because it's SUBPAR OBSOLETE NO GOOD INFERIOR TRASH! In all I earned about 35 pieces of armour my level and 11 weapons. Two of those pieces of armour were Prime (+5% quality) which I suspect is the maximum. I found a couple of weapons marked X which I think is high quality, but not maximum. I think I'm yet to find a top-tier weapon of any level.
I've been told there's some hidden internal scaling for drop rates that prevents you from getting too much gear or junk in a day, which refreshes at 0:00am or when you level. So maybe now I'm not leveling, it'll take longer to gear up. I haven't confirmed this yet.
So I figure getting geared up with all the -best- gear is going to take months and months of grinding at the same rate I've been going. Getting a basic set of level 75 equipment is probably going to take a few days.
There's a significant power spike between level 74 and level 75 equipment, so maybe once I've picked up a new kit I'll be able to survive those other areas and speed things up a little.
We will see!
In any case, it's a fuckton of grinding. And from the (admittedly few) quests I've done I can say with absolute certainty that questing is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from anything close as rewarding as a brainless murderathon of every living thing in the known galaxy.
Update: Haven't gone to check it out myself because I'm burned out on trying to bash after 75, but according to my usual competition it seems they nerfed Prugita's spawn rate down to an hour or something.
As an engineer, I just loop 'bot claw .. target' over and over again until it dies. I also have an automatic stimjector for healing. I'm only Lv. 19, though. We'll see how much harder it gets.
Update: Haven't gone to check it out myself because I'm burned out on trying to bash after 75, but according to my usual competition it seems they nerfed Prugita's spawn rate down to an hour or something.
but y tho
Noticed this too. It happened right as I was capping out out 75.99. RIP those that come after.
The stat system is unexpected. It created an endgame style situation like we see in many mmos, including wow.
I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but I'm glad it isn't like level 100 in Aetolia (2009), where a day of unemployed bashing was a fraction of a level.
Honestly, I wonder if a Time Awake ranking right beneath the experience ranking would solve a lot of hurt feelings for people.
Sure, it’s a bit disappointing to be in the mid 20s when people are already starting to get into endgame stuff. But I just try to remind myself that I’m enjoying the game, and I’m still getting a massive head start on all the poor souls that don’t start until a year from now. As far as that group of people is concerned, we’re all going to seasoned veterans flying around in our third supercruiser by that point, and no one will ever know or care that it took most of us a few extra months to get there.
Also, 75 is not endgame. They are at level cap during open beta which is different. People are excited about SM. There is a ton of potential and work that will be done to make it even better. I may be frustrated that the race seems to keep getting longer for me but I remain hopeful that a year from now, it will be leaps and bounds greater than today.
Also, 75 is not endgame. They are at level cap during open beta which is different. People are excited about SM. There is a ton of potential and work that will be done to make it even better. I may be frustrated that the race seems to keep getting longer for me but I remain hopeful that a year from now, it will be leaps and bounds greater than today.
#ThinkPositive
Isn't 75 the max regardless of open beta? It's looks like its setup that way in the help files.
Also, 75 is not endgame. They are at level cap during open beta which is different. People are excited about SM. There is a ton of potential and work that will be done to make it even better. I may be frustrated that the race seems to keep getting longer for me but I remain hopeful that a year from now, it will be leaps and bounds greater than today.
#ThinkPositive
Isn't 75 the max regardless of open beta? It's looks like its setup that way in the help files.
Also, 75 is not endgame. They are at level cap during open beta which is different. People are excited about SM. There is a ton of potential and work that will be done to make it even better. I may be frustrated that the race seems to keep getting longer for me but I remain hopeful that a year from now, it will be leaps and bounds greater than today.
#ThinkPositive
Isn't 75 the max regardless of open beta? It's looks like its setup that way in the help files.
As an engineer, I just loop 'bot claw .. target' over and over again until it dies. I also have an automatic stimjector for healing. I'm only Lv. 19, though. We'll see how much harder it gets.
Welcome to the rest of the game for engineers! No other strategy has ever been more efficient.
But yes, y'all are blowing this out of proportion. I clawed my way up into the top twenty well after the engineer nerfs (okay fine BLEED nerfs but all we have is bleed), and leveling is still... Fine, even with everything being hunted out. As for the comment about marks, it seems the general consensus is that the level 50-60 zones bring in even fewer than the 40-50 ones, and in the 60-70 zones I'm still earning fewer per level than UNNAMED STORY LOCATION was earning back in 40-50.
Frankly with all the feedback being given to make areas easier to hunt in it'll probably be EASIER for y'all to get through these last several levels.
Feraluna has called for the honoring of Razzy for the following reason: somehow setting Reynolds on fire, killing someone, and then calling for her own besmirching.
On the other hand, the most important (at least, in other IREs) currency is dictated, at least partially, by the total amount of marks circulating the market: credits. If a small portion of players hold vastly superior amounts of the marks, then they can, in fact, set the price of credits high enough that the rest of the playerbase will have to settle for scraps.
Theoretically.
To Matlkael's point, Zulah proved it multiple times in Achaea by manipulating the credit market (admittedly he was nice and set prices super low) by just controlling all of the credits that were up. It's harder with purchasing off CFS being Bound, but I do see where Matl-yada and others are coming from.
Yes, that's what I said. Theoretically people get enough gold where they can. But it doesn't happen nearly as often as the naysayers think it does. And majority of the time it goes back, drastic price increases never happen for long, it increases over time. Achaea didn't go from 6000 to 12000 in a year.
Quests across the board need some tuning for rewards - I haven’t found one yet that was better than just bashing - even the kill quests are hard because the spawn rates are too slow to finish before it times out.
3x or so on the experience might make them worthwhile to track down. I think if quests have a chance to drop mods then those would also be more heavily incentivized.
Comments
This has been mentioned before, but I appreciate it.
But it makes no different for affliction based combat.
it seems pretty possible to just melt people with room AoE though.
It took me 2 and a half 12 hour days of solid bashing just to get my last two and a half levels! Probably because I died a lot from the Scoundrel changes making half the creatures in my only viable bashing area murder my face off.
But mostly it was slow because the last 10 levels for anyone other than a BEAST right now is an absolute nightmare to gain as we have no way to solo any area other than Prugita Breeding Colony, and that spot's contested by everyone over 65 and barely has room for 2 people. All the other spots have huge hitting stacks of aggro mobs and we get squashed in 2-3 hits from just one. 4 if we heal mid fight, but then what's the point when they deal twice our heal in damage a second later anyway? It's been an unpleasant curve to the grind and I'm glad now all I have to get is gear... which is also gonna take an unpleasant amount of time with more people creeping up to fight the tougher stuff.
The areas:
North Usum is passable to hunt in between 65 and 75 if you're desperate and really, really, really careful about all the different wandering aggro types, but not only do you have to deal with the scary level 75 aggros, there you've got the aggro skulfs which for some reason sit up there in packs of 2-4 and give little to no EXP. No idea why they're sitting in the 65-75 zone because they feel like a level 50 creature!
Deisk is... weird. It's home to mekmavaurs which have an obscene amount of health, are aggro, deal moderate damage and often group up in packs of 2-4. The ones you can pick off alone are slow to respawn. The reward for killing 25 of them is 3000xp and 1050 marks, which feels pretty underwhelming considering the level 50-65 Arrizuri Quarry has a quest that rewards 6000xp and 1000 marks for killing just 12 atzaparaki.
Oh and for reference! I get a little under 2000 exp for killing things in the 75 zones. That quest was worth less than two mobs. Though it gets credit for being a kill quest you could do while on the grind.
Lastly, Jelle is just a big nope. The vines often double-hit and there's wandering aggros and I got hit for nearly 2k and decided I wanted none of that thank you very much!
So in summary:
I don't know for sure what it's like lower down right now, but I speculate that the earlier levels will be about on par with what it was like when I leveled through them, what with the new and improved more forgiving curve on damage reductions and shrugging afflictions. I didn't punch up above my level much until I realised everyone else was shooting for the stars, and I only got in on that for a few hours before the damage reduction update rolled out (woulda been 75 days ago if I'd realised sooner!). For the most part, I was just hunting nonstop since release.
In all, I think it would be about 130-140 hours of bashing I've done all up to get here.
BEING 75:
I'm pretty sure it's going to annoy a lot of endgamers pretty quick as more people creep above the level 65 mark where they can begin to move up. Prugita's too small and everywhere else is too brutal. We want to hunt for gear and mods, but everywhere's cleared out. We could go to Thait for mods now it's been expanded because it's within that 20 level range, but then we'd be hindering the lower levels from catching up. Even then, we wouldn't get lvl75 gear drops, which are what we're really gunning for.
Prugita really needs the expansion treatment like Thait got. The other areas need tuning, or better, we need more areas so we aren't stepping on each others' toes all the time. Besides Prugita, the existing areas might make for good group zones, but not everyone wants to deal with coordinating a party when they just want to enter the bashing mindzone out and get the grind done.
Drop rates on equipment is... alright I guess? I've earned a lot of 70+ equipment in these last levels, but now I'm 75 that means nothing because it's SUBPAR OBSOLETE NO GOOD INFERIOR TRASH! In all I earned about 35 pieces of armour my level and 11 weapons. Two of those pieces of armour were Prime (+5% quality) which I suspect is the maximum. I found a couple of weapons marked X which I think is high quality, but not maximum. I think I'm yet to find a top-tier weapon of any level.
I've been told there's some hidden internal scaling for drop rates that prevents you from getting too much gear or junk in a day, which refreshes at 0:00am or when you level. So maybe now I'm not leveling, it'll take longer to gear up. I haven't confirmed this yet.
So I figure getting geared up with all the -best- gear is going to take months and months of grinding at the same rate I've been going. Getting a basic set of level 75 equipment is probably going to take a few days.
There's a significant power spike between level 74 and level 75 equipment, so maybe once I've picked up a new kit I'll be able to survive those other areas and speed things up a little.
We will see!
In any case, it's a fuckton of grinding. And from the (admittedly few) quests I've done I can say with absolute certainty that questing is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from anything close as rewarding as a brainless murderathon of every living thing in the known galaxy.
Haven't gone to check it out myself because I'm burned out on trying to bash after 75, but according to my usual competition it seems they nerfed Prugita's spawn rate down to an hour or something.
but y tho
I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but I'm glad it isn't like level 100 in Aetolia (2009), where a day of unemployed bashing was a fraction of a level.
Sure, it’s a bit disappointing to be in the mid 20s when people are already starting to get into endgame stuff. But I just try to remind myself that I’m enjoying the game, and I’m still getting a massive head start on all the poor souls that don’t start until a year from now. As far as that group of people is concerned, we’re all going to seasoned veterans flying around in our third supercruiser by that point, and no one will ever know or care that it took most of us a few extra months to get there.
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-starmourn.html
Can't forget having free class swaps so we are able to try out classes without losing half our investment with each swap.
Also, 75 is not endgame. They are at level cap during open beta which is different. People are excited about SM. There is a ton of potential and work that will be done to make it even better. I may be frustrated that the race seems to keep getting longer for me but I remain hopeful that a year from now, it will be leaps and bounds greater than today.
#ThinkPositive
Then you have to grind for gear.
But yes, y'all are blowing this out of proportion. I clawed my way up into the top twenty well after the engineer nerfs (okay fine BLEED nerfs but all we have is bleed), and leveling is still... Fine, even with everything being hunted out. As for the comment about marks, it seems the general consensus is that the level 50-60 zones bring in even fewer than the 40-50 ones, and in the 60-70 zones I'm still earning fewer per level than UNNAMED STORY LOCATION was earning back in 40-50.
Frankly with all the feedback being given to make areas easier to hunt in it'll probably be EASIER for y'all to get through these last several levels.
3x or so on the experience might make them worthwhile to track down. I think if quests have a chance to drop mods then those would also be more heavily incentivized.