nothingxs wrote:
Something definitely needs to be done about the process of leveling up / gaining experience through fighting NPCs. Being that it's the major of way of doing so, there needs to be some way to make it more enjoyable.
1) Quests that guide you out to areas, or at least provide some generic IC reason to go places and lay waste.
2) Active playerbase because it's always better in a group of 2-3 as far as curing bordom, as you can bring some life and RP to the exprience. Also other players can provide some more specific reasons to intro. you to new areas.
When someone doesn't know the game very well and there aren't people around to show you at all where to go, it can take considerable time to hit the right areas which give the right experience/level ratio. At higher levels, this becomes more and more difficult to do as the areas "require" more than one person - either to get there, or to survive tactically.
It took me in the neighborhood of 500 hours to level Amadeo. There were times levelling was tricker. On the other hand, there was a lot more activity going on and more RP to be involved in (or to drum up). One of the reasons this was even so is there was a more active playerbase to begin with. Most of the times I wanted to find a group and go work on the levels, it was generally possible. So I while I can say there is a coorelation between activity and the grind, I can't say it's a direct relationship. When there are players around, the levelling is easier.
Going back to nothingxs' last post... "there needs to be some way to make it [fighting NPCs/levelling up] more enjoyable. If the game had more built in questing/sending out of PCs to areas with game provided reasons, that would certainly help the less experienced people who don't know the game as well get out there. If some of those quests provided experience upon completion that would help everyone. This still does not address whatever it is veteran players are still writing about here though, does it? That's just giving really 'free' experience to those who already know the game. That may may things easier, but I'm not positive about "making it more enjoyable," unless the idea is faster is more enjoyable. I found things enjoyable when I was purposefully trying to level and could manage a notch every 15-20 mins. What are people's expectations between "it's too difficult/boring" and "unchallenging/too easy" at the medium to higher levels?