Shattered Kingdoms

I was wondering a while ago if this is a possible task to accomplish and I want to throw it out as a challenge that some vets might undertake.

I want someone to level a character all the way to GM by only doing quests and getting exp for discovering new areas and such. Any other sort of method other than farming EXP through combat.

If you want to undertake the challenge, post here that you are trying to do it. Try to log all you can and document quests?

I'd be very impressed if someone could do it. But I'd figure I'd throw it out as an idea. Best of luck to all daring enough.

This would require significant xp from either enlights or non-combat casting. Probably most "easily" doable as a priest or sorcerer.

I wouldn't call this a challenge so much as it is a call to level so slowly as to be into your second or third age tick before you hit champ. Or, in other words, a call to be so frustrated with the game as to want to tear your own eyes out with your fingernails.

This game is not set up to make this feasible. While outwardly possible through non-combat casting, it's not possible through quests alone.

Can you confirm that? That all of the accumulated exp from quests, explore exp, and quest driven NPC slaughter, that it is not enough to get you to GM? What if its 'exactly enough' to get you to GM?
I wanna know the numbers on this.
But yes, it would be very irritating.
You come across a snow yeti and the whole thing is ruined. lol

Agreed. A newbie browsing the helpfiles may think you can RP a true pacifist, but it just isn't made to be a practical way to enjoy one's time. For one thing, there's the Catch-22 of needing significant amounts of XP to train the non-combat spells you would spam to gain significant amounts of XP needed to train level. For the other, there is some sort of time-based cap on non-combat XP. Many quests require combat, so you would have to be choosy about which UPS quests and other such charges you undertake.

I suppose the operative question is whether the game is playable without leveling up or training spells, and the answer would be "no" for the majority of the gamer archetypes.

However.

If you have enough people watching you enough of the time and do enough interesting things during that time, I don't see any reason why one couldn't ride the enlightenment train all the way to superg in everything and grand master status. On the other hand, I also don't see any reason why we can't all be friends.

Anecdotally, yes, I can confirm this. It's nowhere near enough to get you to GM. You're assuming a level of planning that just hasn't existed in the formation of quests in this game. Most of them have been added piecemeal without an overarching concept of quest trees and how they interact and what rewards they provide. That's leaving out the quests that are currently impossible due to obscurity. I'm not saying the way that quests have been made in this game is bad, per se, but it's certainly hasn't been done with a metaplan or in such a way as to make your challenge feasible.

Even in the ideal range for a quest to be completed, it's only going to provide maybe 1 tick of EXP. And there are by no means enough quests available for all level ranges to get the ideal amount of EXP from each quest, even if you have an alignment that's suitable for doing most quests (there isn't an alignment suitable for doing ALL quests, either). That means you're either going to end up getting low EXP from having to supplement your level range with lower range quests (which provide less EXP the further from their ideal range you are), or you're going to end up losing quests from a higher range due to having to use them early.

As to GMing off of enlights alone, the game is also not set up to make that a feasible option. I know of two people who have tried it, and failed miserably. Not because their RP was poor, but because 1) IMM and PAR enlights are limited in quantity and both are encouraged to spread them around, and 2) getting even part way to your goal means you're going to be PAR pretty frequently if not constantly and frequently enlighting other PARs is discouraged, and 3) repeatedly enlighting the same characters is also discouraged. The individual rewards granted by enlights are also usually not enough to provide a consistent or timely path of progression. Sometimes IMMs give out half-to-full-level rewards; more often you'll get your small-to-medium reward from PARs. That translates to ≤ one tick of exp per reward, which you can only receive once per day, and that assumes you run into a PAR who hasn't already enlighted you who has a reward available who is impressed enough with your RP to give you a reward. And if you get one of those, you aren't eligible for an IMM reward of potentially higher value because you're not allowed to receive more than one reward a day regardless of source.

I don't disagree with the set up, and despite the impossibility of playing a total pacifist I'm not advocating any changes to the current arrangement. Pyrathia's mythos and structure is a violent and brutal one, and it is not out of theme for characters to be required to kill their way to strength regardless of alignment.

While on the topic of quests and planning, I have to say the "one status worth of XP and an overarching, accessible quest narrative per area" approach of the Valley of Ashes is probably one of the best and most coherent builds on the world map that I have seen. It would seem like other areas, such as the Chancel, Cloud Realms, and even Tlaxcala, could easily be rendered to fit the model.

More like that would be good, but the impression I get from XP is that the game tries to dissuade you from experiencing it solo past veteran for some builds.

Big +1's for the problem of obscurity rendering quests difficult or even practically impossible to solve.

The situation is an improving one, though. This is an optimistic post with commendation for the people working behind the scenes on making quests work well, including upgrades to the platform responsible for tracking them.

Agree with all this. Still would be interesting to try.

You can probably learn a good 80% of the game pretty quick.
The other 20% comes with time/patience/dedication to learning the game.
While there could be improvements to #/amount of rewards given, more quests,
more adventuring guilds/books with area guides, and the like, there are still players
who have put in (long ago) the death/sweat/tears to really understand the inner workings.
There are those (time permitting, usually) who pass on their knowledge, but it's usually
been 'oh just go here and do this, push the other thing' without (generally) showing us
where in the game they actually found the information. Most times, I've learned it's just been
'passed down,' though sometimes, people will stop and show me around areas to see notes,
papers, extra descriptions, where the clues exist. Yay to those folk! Note - following others
around to level all the time means you're probably not seeing a lot of this part of the game.

And while, then, I agree some vamping up of quests/guides would be a good thing, since
the majority of players seem to just be 'behind,' I don't believe in making the game too easy
(Diablo III, anyone, right?) at the same time, the utter time sink in trying to explore the
higher-ranked areas seems to be the thing people who have been GM get to doing, instead of
those in the last 10 ranks, especially when they are new to the game. Perhaps there should be
some things in the game as clues where 0 exist, and the knowledge people have is from days,
characters, and stories gone by.

Side note: I think rewards should be based on # per time period, alone and not 'oh if I give someone a bigger reward, it takes more time to be able to reward someone again.' I had that problem as paragon, and found it silly.

It would be difficult to do that unless rewards gave no actual reward until a weekly reboot, during which time the previous rewards were all examined and parsed on like a "grading on the curve" system.

No one ever seems to like grading on the curve, however.