How do you feel about the progression of levels?

[DEV Jlf2n]

Let us know what you think. I would also like to hear about your race and character build as well.

Thanks

[lorgin2003]

there's no option for "i feel i'm leveling at the proper rate" which is my vote. but then again, when i grind it's usually for gold, with xp as a nice bonus.

[CartMid]

I agree, I'm leveling at a nice pace... though it seems that people lvl up quite faster than me ;D

[mingming]

I feel the pace is actually pretty good until you hit around 21. I've struggled after that, but that's cause it's harder to find a party to be with, since my bard solo isn't really able to deal with the threats here. Compared with other classes, there's a sort of weird disconnected rough patch for bards in the epic levels, as they simply don't hit a helpful sweet spot til level 27. They do well pre-epic, and then from levels 20-26 they just suck compared with everyone else. This is especially true since Obsidian never bothered fixing their bug for bards not getting epic spells. Everyone else skyrockets in power once they get their epic feats, and the only epic feat for a bard to get during that period is Chorus of Heroism, which predictably benefits everyone else in your party, but is of no use to you solo. Without being able to get that 30 ranks of Perform 30 for Hymn of Requiem, which requires level 27, you just struggle cause you can't keep up with damage curve. So I feel as if once I entered the epic levels... it's been a slow crawl. Of course, I don't usually grind, so maybe that's part of why I feel so left out, but I didn't feel as if I had this kind of trouble in pre-epic levels, and I still roleplayed the same amount of time I am online that I currently do.

[Iceshard]

I think the leveling is way to fast. The fact that people log on for the first time, and a week later they are epic is way beyond me. I primarily think its detromental to the Dev teams and DM's as we quickly run out of events to challenge them and the material for them to experience.
I run a rogue Assassin and I have no issues killing anything and leveling takes only a matter of an hour-ish. I personally would like to see the leveling brought down a lot, it should take maybe a couple of weeks or so just to hit your mid levels (15-18). On top of that I think Epic should be a DM granted thing, levels only granted by DM intervention.

My opininon is of course a harsh one in some respects, but we are an RP server, and not an action grind server, I would just like to see it get back to that respect. I of course mean no offense to any players on the server by my above statement.

-Ice

[luna]

Ye, to fast if you have a strong build. I've gained two levels in about an hour and a half..

It seems if you know the layout of the world, you could go from level 1 to 10 in about 4 or 5 hours.

[shorn]

I have to say, I agree with mingming. Although, to be fair, my experience has been slightly different than normal, since I earn the xp equivalent to a class level 3 higher than my own, while remaining lower than that.

[DEV Akavit]

The progression up to epic levels seems about right to me too (unless playing a caster powerbuild in which case it's too fast). At level 25 with a human warlock/blackguard xp gain is pretty much non-existent. The quickest means to gain xp at the moment is grinding death knights at 4xp per kill at 6 spawns per minute. Frost giants are fun to combat but are poor grinding material as the risk of death simply isn't worth the 30 or so xp.

So whether this is too fast or not depends on how much you want to limit progression into the epic levels. I personally don't mind relying on events to get the last 6-7 levels to 30.

The one thing I would like to point out though is that ECL races apparently get 0 xp for anything much lower than vampire lords and frost giants once they get past 25. 1 point really ought to be the minimum for anything stronger than a wyvern as a character starts to become boring if they cannot at least make some progress. The difference between earning 0 xp in a night and 500 isn't much but it's all that's needed to make it feel like a PC is getting someplace. Killing frost giants is still very dangerous for the epics and I would never attempt to earn xp from them considering the very real danger of losing 16,000xp.

[DM Cephas]

Leveling seems fast for me. I heard of a ECL +1 race getting to lvl 18 in about 3 days. That example is probably on the extreme end but the fact that it's possible may imply some tweaking needs to be made. If this is slowed down however, the xp loss system may need to be refined. XP regain during raise dead/resurrection needs to be fixed (but I think this is already in the next update) and fail-safe procedures during crashes needs to become more robust. I'm personally fine with a 5% xp loss but that's probably because I came from a server that gave a 10% loss.

I recommend epic level gain to be a lot slower as well, needs DM approval, or something. Either that or make epic level mosters "inflated" in terms of stats/hitpoints.

[mingming]

See... I guess it all depends. I've been here since the server began pretty much, and I've only got the one character to boot. I don't think it's wrong to have some expectations of progress for my playing time, given the investment I've put in.

Is the 2-week epic character a bit ridiculous? Yes, absolutely. But this isn't the fault of the builders or the playerbase. It's a combination of initial enthusiasm for a new player who first tries the server and loves it so much they spend 40+ hours a week playing nonstop, and the wrong attitude that everything must be done now, now, now or the world will come to an end. We've all seen these players, and they are usually new. Moreso, many of them grow out of this phase, and so then become good roleplayers and understand that a sense of patience will give them greater gratification overall.

But the initial problem is educating them, instilling the right attitude in them with the carrot and not the stick, and discouraging the veterans from being overly nice to them and helping them power level. I know how tempting it is to help a lower group of players, and trust me it's fine to show them the ropes and nudge them in the right direction with a few buffs; but to take them to places way out of their league, follow them with constant buffs/heals/raises, this is misplaced charity and gives people the wrong idea. Yet it happens more often than we like to admit. It's not cause people are being bad, quite the opposite, this happens cause people want to be kind and share something fantastic with others.

I think there's sometimes a knee-jerk tendency for folks to assume the worst about other players and admins here on the forums, and it's important to remember that everyone here came here because of a love of the game. Just like major League ball players can become spoiled and forget why they play, so too I think we all fall into a similar trap. But there's nothing wrong with being a good sport about things, even if there's a troublesome problem or seemingly a exploit, we should not slap all players for what might be a small minority of ignorant players. Likewise, just because a DM or admin has had a bad day, or wasn't at the top of his game, doesn't mean someone should go postal and rant on the forums about how much they hate whom and what, or quit in a huff.

But the trust, it's got to start somewhere; and that begins with presumption that no one is cheating, that no one is deliberately exploiting, and that all it takes is a friendly whisper of "Hey, slow down. Those undead will be here tomorrow still." for a player to realize maybe they got too enthusiastic and they can afford to take a slower pace. I know that I like to roleplay more out of preference, but I'll bet it wouldn't hurt for people to feel they aren't penalized for voluntarily taking a step back from adventuring. Maybe DM's can do more "day in the life" things for people? I've seen Josh do a few, and they are greatly appreciated by the folks that are lucky enough to get a scene or two.

I guess what I am saying is the worries and fears of rapid advancement is a pacing problem that relates to style of play. It's not mechanical problem. It's not a XP rewards problem. And I don't think it should affect all players that have been here from the beginning or came afterwards. People deserve the chance to play without being made to feel ashamed for doing something they like. Guilting folks as if it's somehow BAD for them to be playing on the server is the wrong approach. It'll drive folks away and make the server poorer for the long run.

[earthsong]

It really depends on the pc you play. Lyra is all about RP and so levels too slow at times, particularly compared to people she was way ahead one day, who are passing her the next. She cant really solo much, particularly without being able to cast at the moment. Starting the same level over for the third or more time can get rough after something spawning on top of you, when you know you wont be getting that much xp.
Alley, on the other hand, managed to find a group a bit ahead of her, and got to level 7 or 8 within a weekend. I havent played her much, so shes still about the same, but that was way too fast.

[DM Sir Carnifex]

I'd have to say that I think other people are leveling too fast. Me? I level waaaay too slow! But I enjoy that because sometimes I think a low level PC can be more fun than a high level who can smash through anything.

However, I do notice that all my rogue PCs level really slowly (I'm not a HIPS person, so I can't use that method) whereas my spellcasters level quickly (considering the pace I take). Strong melee fighters level fast to ten or so, then slow down.

So based on the above, I'd have to say that whether or not leveling is too fast really depends on the build, if one joins a party, and how much time one is willing to spend grinding for XP. But overall, I'd say the levels are gained too fast, especially the early ones.

[meldor]

Depend of your build really.. I first started on this server playing a dwarf cleric I got from lvl 1-5 in about 30 mins.

Then I restarted Chloe ICL +3 and it took me 3 days just to get lvl 4. Starting was really painful. Having 6HP for the first 10000xp was just crazy. After that I was lucky to find groups and xp with them because soloing as an archer was really hard. When you see a barbarian solo phaze spiders at lvl 12.. and kill them 3 at times in about 10 sec when it take you 30 sec to kill one at lvl 14 you feel that you are way underpowered. Past lvl 17 it's just not possible to solo as a pure ranger / rogue archer.

I do understand that we should RP our epic level but I hardly find events and when I get one I get about 500xp to 3500xp. When you know it take about 25K xp for one lvl after 20.

Figure I should play another character but then again how will I find events if I'm on another character so what is left to me is patrol the roads in hope to find a DM event. I love RP but it cant happen so often.

I would like to see more Dungeon crawling.. more group contents. Where you need to build balanced team to past the deadly traps and find some boss and decent treasure at the end. Something that is so hard that you cant even think about going in there without having 4-5 peoples and the right peoples.

Also would it be possible for DM to adjust Health of encounters they spawn.. I wish to fight a dragon for 5-10mins. See peoples falling on the battle, use tactic, where pure defensive fighter like dwarven defenders, paladin, divine champion could shine having them position the monster. It's like a big zerg every time and I dont see the real tactic behind what we encounter.

[thegnomeherder]

For me as an extreme casual player its waaaaaaaaaay way way to slow, I don't have the patience to grind- I hate working on a game instead of playing it and theres never any DM events when I'm on so I feel mostly like I'm logging on when I get home from work and then working some more (Cast Buff - Kill - rebuff - kill - sleep - repeat) I think levels should be easier so we can be past the crappy boring redundant grind and onto adventuring and RPing.

Say what you want but a Level one can never have as much fun RPing as a higher level.

[luna]

Dec 22, 2008 20:37:15 GMT -5 mingming said:

I guess what I am saying is the worries and fears of rapid advancement is a pacing problem that relates to style of play. It's not mechanical problem. It's not a XP rewards problem.

I have to respectfully disagree. When your level 8 and can pull down over 100 xp per kill when your solo, thats an XP problem.
What else would you call that?

There some other things that probably can use some work to. The xp system currently re-wards soloing over grouping since XP tends to be much higher when your solo.
Down the road it would be nice to see this reversed to encourage partying vs. solo play.