I tried to put together a table with all of the advantages of levelling up, so we can have a goal and say "ok, i need to get to this next level so i can get this" :p
If you think of anything to add (there doesnt seem to be anything between 61 and 75, that's weird...), dont hesitate !
08 : Newbie Buffs
15 : Get a Wolf
20 : D Grade
20 : Participate in Seven Signs
24 : Get a Kookaburra
25 : Get a Buffalo
26 : Get a Cougar
35 : Get a Hatchling
40 : C Grade
45 : Get Cat Ears, Raccoon Ears, Rabbit Ears
45 : Get a Strider
46 : 1st Life Stone Augment
52 : B Grade
55 : Become Royalty
60 : Get Formal Wear
61 : A Grade
75 : Become Noblesse
76 : S Grade
Level 1: Tell me what server you're on, I'll grief you to the point that you're obsessed with killing me and becoming strong enough to destroy me! [/Sasuke]
61-75 depending on your toon is all about those skills that you have been dying to get for so long
YES! resist shock 4!!!! lol
77 - your first DECENT set of S grade skills :)
78 - kick *** S grade skills
79 - even cooler skills
80 - bragging rights?
76+ is also grinding = more chances to enchant skillzzzzz
Level 1: Tell me what server you're on, I'll grief you to the point that you're obsessed with killing me and becoming strong enough to destroy me! [/Sasuke]
Listen, you should enjoy the game on whatever level you want. However, this is a pvp game. Being able to be somewhat competitive, as long as you enjoy pvp combat, is what this game is about.
Unless of course you just enjoy grinding for grinding's sake. Which it sounds to me you don't.
Listen, you should enjoy the game on whatever level you want. However, this is a pvp game. Being able to be somewhat competitive, as long as you enjoy pvp combat, is what this game is about.
Unless of course you just enjoy grinding for grinding's sake. Which it sounds to me you don't.
if they enjoy that i think korean servers is more their cup of tea
Listen, you should enjoy the game on whatever level you want. However, this is a pvp game. Being able to be somewhat competitive, as long as you enjoy pvp combat, is what this game is about.
Unless of course you just enjoy grinding for grinding's sake. Which it sounds to me you don't.
if they enjoy that i think korean servers is more their cup of tea
Oh, I don't know, i can't really speak to that. However, I've always believed in freedom of choice. But I don't know how many people are into grinding "just" for the sake of grinding.
I find it relaxing, true, but in the end this game is about pvp in some form. Whether it be sieges, clan wars, etc.
>.> Yeah, I have the level 60 wall as well - approaching A Grade thinking: "Right. Two more levels of resist wind/aqua ahead, yay!" is a pretty weak motivator to get all the way to the good stuff at endgame. :p Although on the other hand having enough money now to start gathering the gear in preparation is a good motivator to at least get to 61 ("Hey, I have a full set of A grade - I should wear it.").
However, things that interest me are mostly gambling quests and possibly new manor seeds for crafting. And I finally caved in and rolled a class that would have a skill I would really, really want after level 58. :p
Listen, you should enjoy the game on whatever level you want.
Oh i enjoy it, but as the grind can become pretty much boring and repetitive, and is not the best part of the game to me, i find it easier to accept with a motivation at the end (i know that, now, i need to get to 46 so i can Augment my Dual Stormbringers :cool:)
I find it relaxing, true, but in the end this game is about pvp in some form. Whether it be sieges, clan wars, etc.
Yeah well, i'd love to be able to participate in sieges, clan wars, etc, but i dont think i'm high lv enough...
So when do you think we can start to engage in such things, that could be something i could add to my table ?
Just focus on making money rather than your exp bar - run quests and count how often you complete them (always with an immediate reward), manor away a certain amount of seeds etc., and then you will realise after a while that you've gone up in level without noticing.
Yeah well, i'd love to be able to participate in sieges, clan wars, etc, but i dont think i'm high lv enough...
So when do you think we can start to engage in such things, that could be something i could add to my table ?
If you start thinking that you ain't even going to make it past lvl 51.
Yeah well, i'd love to be able to participate in sieges, clan wars, etc, but i dont think i'm high lv enough...
So when do you think we can start to engage in such things, that could be something i could add to my table ?
Level 1.
Why do you think I take every single academy member that's online to a siege? Because they're **** useful, that's why.
If you start thinking that you ain't even going to make it past lvl 51.
... meaning what ? :eek:
meaning if you're griping about the grind and you've yet to hit lvl 46 or higher, it does not get any where better. hell, you haven't even reached your very 1st xp wall :p
indeed, academy members may be useful for sieges (maybe) but sieges arnt fun for them until they can get the satisfaction of holding their ground and killing people (Mid B grade for most)
meaning if you're griping about the grind and you've yet to hit lvl 46 or higher, it does not get any where better. hell, you haven't even reached your very 1st xp wall :p
Oh ok i get you :p
But i'm not griping about the grind, i just wanted to put together the actual benefits we get from leveling up !
Some more motivation cant hurt ;)
I (robe) was still one-shot at 58 (admittedly without SwS), not a hell of a lot of fun - in the whole time I was on the siege field, I mostly managed to res people only to see them immediately one-shot again, and got off a woopping what - two, three heals, one of them into a corpse.
Clan hall sieges were more fun, with a chance to kite back and actually heal for quite a bit.
I (robe) was still one-shot at 58 (admittedly without SwS), not a hell of a lot of fun - in the whole time I was on the siege field, I mostly managed to res people only to see them immediately one-shot again, and got off a woopping what - two, three heals, one of them into a corpse.
Clan hall sieges were more fun, with a chance to kite back and actually heal for quite a bit.
So, what do you think would be the first level when you can actually siege and have fun ?
Considering that the 7x tank who was with us and did have BtB (but neither vitality nor Song of Earth) went down faster than I could notice and throw him a heal (and I dare say I cast fast) - I'd say sieges are no fun at all. I prefer the open field skirmishes, but I am sure someone else has a more qualified opinion on that.
meaning if you're griping about the grind and you've yet to hit lvl 46 or higher, it does not get any where better. hell, you haven't even reached your very 1st xp wall :p
Oh ok i get you :p
But i'm not griping about the grind, i just wanted to put together the actual benefits we get from leveling up !
Some more motivation cant hurt ;)
Listen, don't worry abut the whole "1 shot" thing. Heck, I can two shot a lvl 60 "something necro (he didn't have a summons out so no extra hp).
So even "higher" levelled players can be wiped. I'm sure there are archers out there who could 2 shot me as well! But you can participate in other ways. Scouting, relaying messages, etc. Whatever needs to be done.
How I deal with grinding is very simple. I put on some good music, make myself a post of coffee, perhaps some food, and I just drink coffee and listen to music while grinding. It's very relaxing. As soon as I lose interest I do something else.
40 : Become a Destroyer
61 : A Grade - Now you can do something.
76 : S Grade - Titan, nothing else matters anymore
Fixed the list for you ^^ All the other stuff is irrelevant imo. 1-61 is quite a short time and the grades, well they help, but you can also reach the lvls with inferior equipment so I dont feel them as important points.
About grinding, well... good music and chatting with friends in pm/clan/ally chat helps alot. I personally can go for hours just chatting and grinding at the same time. Since you concentrate on the discussion it takes the focus away from the boring grind and you dont even notice how the time flies.
If I get really bored with the grind, I spend a few days/weeks in town just making money and equipment for clannies. Or exp an alt since even the change in toons can help alot.
Fixed the list for you ^^ All the other stuff is irrelevant imo. 1-61 is quite a short time and the grades, well they help, but you can also reach the lvls with inferior equipment so I dont feel them as important points.
He he...
Well, i think you know me by now, to me the most important thing is the visual, so, being able to wear a new cool armor at lv52 is indeed an extremely important point :p
The reason why there seems to be no motivation now to get through the 61-75 levels is because the game was originally designed and balanced around level 68 being S grade. If you look at the complete void between these levels, this actually fills in the gap really well.
Also if you follow along this line, level 60 should have been the 3rd class change not level 76; following along the class change quest every 20 levels so yhou have something to look forward to within a reasonable amount of time route. Level 76 was an arbitrary place to put the 3rd class change which was chosen simply because at the time they finally implemented it, the cap was raised from 75 to 78, and they wanted the new levels to seem more important than what they really were. Had they simply added the 3rd class change in C3 instead and of C4, the class change would have been at level 60. This would have pushed the pointless subclass system into a C4 launch, where you would have needed a level 76 character to do the subclass change and noblesse quests (currently you need a level 76 3rd class and 75 subclass to become a noblesse). Overall that system would have made much more sense, The hero system is more akin to a 4th class change, and as such should be moved to the level 76-80 area in line with the once every 20 level class changes. As of now, both hero and 3rd class changes happen at 76-80; all because they implemented the subclass system before the 3rd class system; even though the 3rd class system was in existance before the subclass system (though the hero system was with us since day one).
For me personally, part of the reason to level up is to keep seeing new hunting places and mobs.
Only reason to level is to see end game content and be able to have a chance to challenge those high level players that dominate the server.
But most of you time will be spent in very few leveling places up until S grade. I mean, I've been in VoS since level 48, and before then I did Ivory Tower from 40-47 and Outlaw Forest from 47-48. D Grade was spent primarily in the same zone also, Cruma Marshlands (25-40 yey!).
When levels become longer to go through, you start spending more and more time in the same areas and moving to a different area for an extra 500-1k a kill when you're doing fine in you current area is nothing to look forward to.
Of course this works differently for different classes, but I know some warlords that level primarily in catacombs poling and AFAIK there really isn't any distinguishing features in different catas for them to look forward to, other than the levels of the mobs.
You don't HAVE to stay in the same place untill mobs turn blue. There are plenty of areas to check out. Though I know it's probably different for a nuker, that has to max 2 shot to be efficient.
Also if you follow along this line, level 60 should have been the 3rd class change not level 76; following along the class change quest every 20 levels so yhou have something to look forward to within a reasonable amount of time route. Level 76 was an arbitrary place to put the 3rd class change which was chosen simply because at the time they finally implemented it, the cap was raised from 75 to 78, and they wanted the new levels to seem more important than what they really were. Had they simply added the 3rd class change in C3 instead and of C4, the class change would have been at level 60. This would have pushed the pointless subclass system into a C4 launch, where you would have needed a level 76 character to do the subclass change and noblesse quests (currently you need a level 76 3rd class and 75 subclass to become a noblesse). Overall that system would have made much more sense, The hero system is more akin to a 4th class change, and as such should be moved to the level 76-80 area in line with the once every 20 level class changes. As of now, both hero and 3rd class changes happen at 76-80; all because they implemented the subclass system before the 3rd class system; even though the 3rd class system was in existance before the subclass system (though the hero system was with us since day one).
That's really interesting, and yes it makes perfect sense !
But is it something somehow official or did you make that up ?
I lost 20% yesterday trying to find a different spot to level at (bots training agro mobs on you, lag spikes, etc. all adds up - not mad tho :p).
There are exactly 0 new skills for my main from level 62 - 75. There are no skills to work for, they're all the same. Most of the skills from 58-62 are useless for PvE for the most part (Summon Cursed Bones, Mass Gloom/Fear/Slow.
Looking at my other toons (SE/Warlock), it seems like it will be the same story.
Getting a new servitor, at least, is a palpable upgrade every time - the good skill ups for warlocks and and SEs after 56 are respectively:
Warlock
- Mass surrender to fire (great when supporting poling destroyers with queen the cat) (58)
- TP4 (durh)
- Servitor Cure 3 (no more DoT bother - 60)
- Servitor Blessing (no more slow, no more para, no more root vs servitor. Yay!) - 62
- Queen buffs level 2 (62)
- Queen buffs level 3 (68)
- Servitor UD 2 (70)
- TP5 (probably not as important as TP4, but stil : P ) also at 70
Those, IMHO, are the skills to look forward to - or rather, that's what I'd put on my motivational wallpaper if I were grinding a character in that level range.
Compared to these measly list, the majority of good stuff is between 40 and 56 - the initial skillsets were simply much better made than the 60-74 skillsets, and they never fixed that.
Maline, Mass Surrender to Fire = Useless FTM Part. I don't pole, it's not fun. I don't think I'll ever play buffhoe for anyone, TBQH. Servitor UD 2 is second level of an existing skill. So is Queen of Cat Buff 2/3 - Cat Queen is a level 56 Servitor, and Kai is leevl 40... Transfer Pain 5 is the same, higher level version of level 40 skill. Those are not new skills, but rather the same skills just at a higher level.
Servitor Blessing is 62 :)
Servitor Cure is a level 40 skill of course I would hope I get a higher level.
My Necro will upgrade Death Spike up to level 74, doesn't mean it's a new skill.
Where are the "New Skills".
SE, Lol. Wild Magic 1 is level 60. VR is not an A grade skill. Purify is not an A Grade skill.
If the skill has "Lv #" following the name, it is not a new skill.
There are no new skills worth looking forward to in A Grade, after level 62 - which makes grinding boring monotanous, and with little reward other than the levels. The skills are free, since you don't need a spellbook for any of those you listed past level 62, and you get SP while you level.
Comprendez-vous?
New Skill = I need a new spellbook to get this skill.
After 62, New Skills don't come until level 76. All those in between are just "free skill upgrades".
Level 60 is sweetspot for SE for a nuker. Recharge is useless to me even at 63. My SE just buffs.
So you either want all your skills have their "max" lvl from the start or you are looking for something new every lvl where you can spent your millions of worthless SP onto, right?
TBH I would gratefully trade a few of my skills to you :o
Some skills don't give you a notable improvement when they are raised - some do. Ask any prophet who just dinged 52 about gleefully buffing the GSAPs off people. TP, cures, UD, and buffs all count in this area.
Level 1: Tell me what server you're on, I'll grief you to the point that you're obsessed with killing me and becoming strong enough to destroy me! [/Sasuke]
Ding... we have a winner ;)
Laughing at his face when he is unable to kill him since he could have blessing for not getting pk until reaching level 39. lawl
Does this cure the Flame DoT in Vos? That is the most annoying DoT and if it were not for the herbs I would be sitting down a lot. VoS is a wonderful place to xp a dagger.
Listen, you should enjoy the game on whatever level you want.
Oh i enjoy it, but as the grind can become pretty much boring and repetitive, and is not the best part of the game to me, i find it easier to accept with a motivation at the end (i know that, now, i need to get to 46 so i can Augment my Dual Stormbringers :cool:)
No offence Grazzt, but you don't even get close to knowing how big the urge is to hit 75/76 when you just dinged 70.
Now, if you like your char, that's some kick *** motivation in my opinion. Thumbs up for my clan that we share that same spirit.
IMO Sgrade should of been bumped to maybe 70. 15 Levels between A grade and Sgrade makes no sense.
This is why
NG - D = 1 - 20 (20 Levels)
D - C = 20 - 40 (20 Levels)
C - B = 40 - 52 (12 Levels)
B - A = 52 - 61 (9 Levels)
A - S = 61 - 76 (15 Levels)
S - Endgame - 76 - 80 (4 levels)
Anyone else seem a problem in this thinking?
Makes no sense its like your going backwards in progression of your toon nevermind the fact that takes 100x longer to go from 61 - 76 then 52 - 61. To be honest what the hell were the devs thinking when they move sgrade to 76? It was fine at 67 maybe even 70 would of been ok. Part of the reason why the level grind feels so steep getting to 76 and boring. You change weapons and gear so often till you get to 61 feels like your making progress, but 61 - 76 its the same gear same hunting ground and for the most part same skills till 76, dull and repetive, wouldnt do anything to unbalance the game if you moved Sgrade down to 70. This way you would spend 10 levels in sgrade and 9 levels in a grade. Makes it about even as it stands now you only have Sgrade for 4 levels and part of the reason why some agrade is so expensive because you wear agrade for most of the toon's life.
Also if you follow along this line, level 60 should have been the 3rd class change not level 76; following along the class change quest every 20 levels so yhou have something to look forward to within a reasonable amount of time route. Level 76 was an arbitrary place to put the 3rd class change which was chosen simply because at the time they finally implemented it, the cap was raised from 75 to 78, and they wanted the new levels to seem more important than what they really were. Had they simply added the 3rd class change in C3 instead and of C4, the class change would have been at level 60. This would have pushed the pointless subclass system into a C4 launch, where you would have needed a level 76 character to do the subclass change and noblesse quests (currently you need a level 76 3rd class and 75 subclass to become a noblesse). Overall that system would have made much more sense, The hero system is more akin to a 4th class change, and as such should be moved to the level 76-80 area in line with the once every 20 level class changes. As of now, both hero and 3rd class changes happen at 76-80; all because they implemented the subclass system before the 3rd class system; even though the 3rd class system was in existance before the subclass system (though the hero system was with us since day one).
That's really interesting, and yes it makes perfect sense !
But is it something somehow official or did you make that up ?
This is all what actually happened. True a small part is pure conjecture based on previous and changing NCSoft decisions made up to each point in time, but i can assure you that the subclass system was not original to the game design but the idea of a hero and 3rd class system were even though NC released them after the subclass system in C3.
If you weren't here to see the additions and changes each chronicle brought, just go the latest update under the News tab where a list for the changes in each chronicle can be found. Some of what I mention can't actually be found now though. For example the old official skill charts from this website used to list all the skills to level 75. The only skills they showed for players between levels 61 and 75 were A grade mastery at 61 and S grade mastery at 67 (therefore the official level the initial game developers chose for S grade when creating and balancing the game was 67); there were no more actual skill upgrades after level 58 or 60 just as there was no implemented B grade, A grade or S grade armor before Chronicles 2, 3 and 4 respectively even though everyone knew since alpha that these were eventually going to have to exist.
in every game i have ever played getting an A rating (grade in this case) was like a really good thing
however getting an S rating (grade) was like when you knew you had made it
now personally i found the grind from A to S to be long, but not unbearable
S grade is supposed to reward those who have gotten that far, not be something that most people obtain before quiting the game (A grade level 70ish)
it is supposed to make those of us who have worked so long and hard to get as far as we have, feel like we have actually accomplished something
plus its not about the levels you spend in that grade, because im sorry but those 15 levels you spend in A grade will go by waaaaaaay faster then those 4 levels spent once you hit S grade
you can honestly spend more time playing (actively) at level 76-77 then you did playing 61-76
plus if you lower S grade to 72, or whatever you have to change the length of the levels (xp need to level) and the drop rates of S grade mats and so on and so on
PLUS with S grade being available to more people, prices of S grade will go way up because of drop rates, crafting levels and demand
and when prices go up, more people buy adena, more bots etc...
i think the new A grade things they threw in (weapons) were a big plus to the grinding of A grade
granted they are still hard to obtain, but it is giving those A graders much more choices
after getting to S grade finally i think that if anything it came to early
move it to 77, that way you get a big boost at 76 (3rd class) and then another big boost at 77 (s grade)
...or just leave things the way they are
then the really low amount of updates we get might have more usefull and abundant content
How many games have you played? And how many games have you played for more than 3 years consecutively working on just one character? Leveling in this game is solely a function of time and not skill, demonstrated by the ability to automate or only half assedly play from 1 to 80.
You are trying to use an old argument which has been generally accepted as false. S grade is not a reward for service, it is normal item progression. You wouldn't want to be level 67 and still in B grade (especially if you actually are) and there is no reason why you should be. The same holds true for S grade, you don't want to be level 76 and still finding yourself in the gear you just spent the last 15 long levels in; not when you are still hunting in the same areas you were hunting in prior to level 76. This is an MMO and the indication of character progression is not the less than mediocre stat increases you get every level but the visual changes to your character or where they are hunting or walking around or what have you. This is exactly why those 15 levels in A grade are too monotonous, you receive no visual changes through the entire process other than the occasional hunting ground change once every 5-10 levels; but even then the change might not be very large as most field type areas in L2 tend to look the same if they are grassy fields. That is then 15 bleak levels of no visual changes, you continue to use the same weapon, armor and skills through it's entirety. This is why the leveling is so boring in those areas, there is nothing new within them in terms of either stats or looks. When we also know that the reason why there is no visual change is because someone shifted S grade from level 67 to 76 in order to try to make the levels past the previous level cap of 75 seem more important and exciting by doling them out after they were long long long long overdue 9 levels and 2 chronicles ago.
Further, it is in fact an impossibility if you don't die more or somehow drastically change your schedule to take more time to get from level 76 to 77 than from 61 to 76 because you do not need more experience to get from 76 to 77 than from the combination from 61 to 76. The fact that it takes so outrageously long to get those last 4 levels is a testament to what is wrong with those levels, not a reason why we should have to endure 15 of the most bland and uninteresting levels prior to them.
Next, there is no logical correlation between lowering the level requirements for S grade to raising the amount of experience needed to level. When they raised the level requirements for S grade, they did not decrease the experience requirements for those levels effected. Nor did they boost the stats on the gear which was only meant to be used for 10 levels at best and which now had to hold out for 15 levels. That NC had enough leeway to add better A grade weapons which were significantly better than the already released A grade from Chronicle 3 should be raising flags. Those weapons could be released for A grade at that strength because there was a void between levels 61 and 76. The weapons are extras, they were the weapons we were supposed to be getting at level 67 to begin with. If anything, those weapons are the real S grade, and the current S grade weapons are really SS.
Yet seeing as you need level 75+ers to actually do the quests to get the new A grade equipment, in reality levels 76+ers who are already using S grade, then there is no big plus to newly implemented top A grade should have been S grade. If anything, this is a huge minus as these weapons intended for A graders were not made accessible to the people they were meant for. This is another case of poor design on the part of NCSoft. If anything, A graders actually lost out as now NC will not add equipment that A graders can actually gain access to because they have already added A grade equipment content without care to its accessbility.
After playing a level 77 toon for a while, I think S grade and the 3rd class change didn't just come too late, it came way too late. There is no more fun to be had by by mindlessly grinding out a level for 100 or more hours at 77 than there is from peeling an onion. I'd rather NC simply wipe away the last 4 levels, remake the level cap 75/75/75 but increasing the needed experience to level a subclasses and shift S grade and the 3rd class change back to level 67 and 60. This will allow all new content to be made more available to all players across the board as well as making the noblesse rank harder to acquire by increasing the experience needed to make a level 75 subclass to finish the quest to become a noblesse and a hero. This will ahve the side effect of increasing the potential distribution among the 40 to 75 levels characters running around aden as there will no longer be so much crowding in at the peak levels when everyone can't just subclass a necro and solo to 75 for the noblesse quests.
This raises an interesting question, why do players sub a necro to solo to 75 on their subclass as quickly as they can rather than taking their time through these levels? Shouldn't all facets of the game be enjoyable or are these players so burnt out and bored with grinding that they do it as quickly as they can to reap the rewards without having to grind more than they have to?
This is exactly why those 15 levels in A grade are too monotonous, you receive no visual changes through the entire process other than the occasional hunting ground change once every 5-10 levels
i disagree, there are many places to obtain good XP in A grade and the ones that i chose to use gave me a good scene change. also i do not like going by what everybody tells me i should wear, and what tat's and weapons to use for my characters. A grade for me was 15 levels of trying and testing different weapon/armor/tat combinations to see what best fit me for my play style and my liking.
Further, it is in fact an impossibility if you don't die more or somehow drastically change your schedule to take more time to get from level 76 to 77 than from 61 to 76 because you do not need more experience to get from 76 to 77 than from the combination from 61 to 76. The fact that it takes so outrageously long to get those last 4 levels is a testament to what is wrong with those levels, not a reason why we should have to endure 15 of the most bland and uninteresting levels prior to them.
i also disagree with this. once you hit S grade and 3rd class change you are thrown into (at your own choice) a wealth of PVP and other non-level oriented things (enchant skills, etc...)
my point was that once you hit 76, you can still actively play and gain little to no XP due to these other options that are opened up to you at that level.
Next, there is no logical correlation between lowering the level requirements for S grade to raising the amount of experience needed to level.
if you keep the max level at 80 still, and do not add SS i feel that you the XP req's should be altered if S grade is lowered. while S grade is a logical progression, it is not in any game a level that should be easily obtained.
as for the new A grade stuff not being easily obtained by A graders......
what grade of equipment is easily obtainable from a person that grade (level)
starting out with D grade, you cannot obtain the craft only items mats or recs until you are almost out of D grade
How many games have you played? And how many games have you played for more than 3 years consecutively working on just one character? Leveling in this game is solely a function of time and not skill, demonstrated by the ability to automate or only half assedly play from 1 to 80.
i do not think it is a matter of how many games i have played, as it is a matter of most games make S rating/grade a hard to obtain reward for spending so much time in mastering the game.
i have reached level 76 on 2 characters having been here only since late C2 and skipping most of C4 and C5.
and not mainly because of time i put in, but learning very early that playing the way that suits me best helps me level way faster than what everyone else tells me is how i should level, and what i should be equipd with. once i realized that, the levels went by faster than i could imagine.
i think the level hap from A-S is a very nicely placed gap.
it is a time where one should start exploring their characters possibilities and their own. the fact that most people just go "oh ima nuker, i need DC and a Som/Acu" is what i believe the true problem is with A grade.
people do not take the time to try out different armor and weapons and options with their characters. that i believe is the players fault, not the game.
and i find this to be true, any A grade toon i know that just goes with what everyone else is wearing and using, finds A grade to be extremely long, drawn out and boring.
on the other hand, those people that i know (including myself) that use A grade to fully explore our characters to every extent that we can imagine. we find A grade to not be to long and boring. i feel we have way to many S graders as it is that have not explored their toons, do not know what they are cabable of, and therefor suck at PVP/PVE and really anything that doesnt involve soloing with their buffpet.
and yes i understand that there are exceptions to what i am saying and that people may not agree, but this is what i have observed and this is what i have heard from those that i interact with.
....however i do agree with you on the fact that noblesse and subclass is a little to easy and that should be adjusted
I *NEED* to quest to keep my mind off of the numbing grind. Even if it's just waiting for the "ping!" of a quest item drop, it's a little something to keep me interested. I remember in earlier years where there just weren't any quests after about level 15. I am very glad NCSoft has been adding more and more. Yeah, they aren't the greatest, but it helps.
Others... if you are fortunate to have the option.
14: Join a Clan Academy
20: Get your Clan Academy Armor
40: Graduate from the Academy, get your Academy Circlet
Subclass quest is way to hard, if that was the noble quest I would agree with it but why should you need a huge clan or alliance just to further your own toon's progression, a hero or noble needs to be supported by many people some person wanting to sub shouldnt have to be.
I guess sch3nk2k4 has only played L2 and/or WoW. He seems to have a very bad opinion on good balanced character progression in MMOs. That is not meant as an insult, but you are totally missing her point - almost carelessly.
The leveling progression is broken, IMHO. NCSoft doesn't employ any innovation when it comes to leveling and progressing your toon. That is why everyone is running around wearing the same armor/tats/weapons and using the same 2-3 skills to level with. There simply isn't enough variety in anything in this game to justify the monotany.
You classify S Grade as "a wealth of PvP"-oriented things, etc. and that is part of the problem with the game. S Grade players tend to think that the aspects of the game that form its foundation are primarily reserved for them. Castle Seiges, etc. Hardly anyone below S Grade is ever seen, and as a result half the castles on a given day aren't even seiged. People get bored when they have nothing to look for until 76+ other than grind in the same spots for 8+ levels at a time and/or sit in almost identical catacombs for the entirety of their characters' progression.
I guess it's why so many people quit the game before they get there. When you are able to stop thinking like that, step back, and look at the whole picture. You may get it. But as of now you - are totally clueless.
Well, if we go by his sig, he has played more L2 than you, so maybe you should shut up? Spectral Dancer... 76+, Trensharo the VoS hunting Necro... 68max?
How long have you been on retail, hmm?
Only S-graders in sieges? Oh right, what were the other 600 people in Aden doing then last weekend? (bit more, bit less, cant really tell how many of them are S-graders, total numbers being somewhere around 700-800 on the field.)
Maybe on Teon, come to Bartz or stop talking like I play on you server... Some clans sign up and still don't go, and A/Bg playrs go to watch, not to fight. Maybe 200 peeps if you count both sides, and 90-95%+ of those are 75+/4th class players.
I haven't leveled my main in almost a month, I think I could have hit S grade 8 weeks after I started playing NP. It's not difficult, just boring as hell... In other games I played when they raised the level limit people took off days of work to grind non-stop to get those levels, in L2 90% of the playerbase can care less to grind above level 78 unless they are a buffer class with a nice skill in those higher levels. Nukers sure aren't getting new nukes, and general DD classes tend to stagnate around level 78. I'm sure the 79/80 skills are nice, but for most players they are not worth the time investment in getting there. Gratz to those who went all the way.
But I suspect I have alot more time to dedicate to this game than most others.
P.S. Stop acting like 76+ is an accomplishment.
P.P.S. I also CDL in Hot Springs, Forest of the Dead, and sometimes I do WoA.
You are missing everything I am saying. There are no real choices when it comes to A grade for a nuker, not if you have half a brain and can do the analyses. There are 4 robes to choose from. Of those 4 robes, 3 have similar casting speed bonuses, but dark crystal is clearly the best nuker robe because of the other bonuses also present. The nightmare robe is most definitely only meant to increase your m attack, and even then it does so much less than the C grade demon set or S grade robe set. For mid grade A weapons there is either som or botm, which have nearly identical SAs but the SOM allows you to also carry a shield to use against those pesky archers. The obvious choice which all logical nukers make is dark crystal with a som and shield because it numerically is the best. For tattoos this is exactly the same, any mage will go at least +4 int +4 wit and -8 men right off the bat because those are the 2 most important nuker stats. And if you are a nuker with at least half a brain, you should be able to afford at least a new A weapon by A grade if you so choose to buy one, though there isn't much of a benefit in doing so because the increase to damage is negligible and the increase in shot cost is huge.
Now you are proably a physical damage class, so doing the actual tattoo analysis is a little more tricky because the benefit of increasing str or dex vs con takes more work. Quite frankly, if it takes you 15 levels in the 61-76 bracket to figure out which armor weapon and tattoo setup is best for you, I think there is somethign very odd going on and I must also wonder what the heck you were doing during C and B grade. The only classes who really make decisions on whether to focus on using a pole to level or a sword or blunt are destroyers and dwarves. An archer, nuker, glad, bd, dagger, summoner, healer and warlord have very small equipment choices to make. The armor that is best for you at 61 will still be the armor that is best for you at 75 because your character is not going to change during this period; your armor and weapon choices are not going to change either. The hunting zones themselves probably will be all about the same, there is very little changing during these levels. Going from VoS to FotD is a change, but that is a change external to a visual change in your character. The crux of my argument is that character progression in a visual game is based on visual change to a character, yet in L2 we are forced to go 15 levels without any visual change to our characters which makes us think that our characters either are not actually progressing during these 15 levels or might even be getting weaker (this is actually the case, as mob hp defense and attack power are all based on the old curve which places S grade at level 67; hence a spellsinger will go from 2-3 shotting mobs while soloing to 3-6 shotting them somewhere at the level 67-70 area; definitive evidence that there is a missing grade in this area).
When someone does hit S grade, there really aren't that many changes. The skill enchanting system is exactly like the weapon enchanting system, you can try to make a lower grade weapon into a higher grade weapon, but more people seem to be carrying around higher grade nonglowing weapons than lower grade highly glowing weapons. That system isn't new, it is the skill upgrading system tailored ot those who like gambling. And if you don't like gambling (me), you are [censored] screwed. As far as a wealth of pvp and other non level oriented things, there is nothing that magically appears at level 76 which you couldn't do at level 1 albeit with a lesser ability. The only pvp change is the olympiad, but that doesn't appear at level 76, that requires bringing a subclass to level 75, allowing you to do the boring level 61-75 all over again because it was so fun filled the first time.
Your argument trying to relate S grade in this game to the best of the best gear in other MMOs is flawed. In other games, you can still get gear meant for the top level players which will be an upgrade to your casual player gear, it just won't be amazing gear. Because there is such a small selection of gear in L2 which is fundamentally all the same, it isn't broken up into decent and omgbbqautopwn gear like every other MMO you are trying to connect L2 to. When we say S grade in L2 we aren't refering to the once in a lifetime weapon drop off of a raid boss, we are refering to gear meant to be worn by people who have S grade mastery, which is anyone over level 75. When we do refer to the once in a lifetime weapon off a raid boss drop, the closest and only L2 comparison would be boss jewelery, not armor or weapons.
Now I don't know how you play, but I personally was able to buy the next grade gear each time I reached the new grade. So easily obtainable by a person just hitting that grade? Yes if you are smart enough to plan ahead. The fact that mats and recipes for equipment of a certain grade and tier within that grade drop many levels after the point where you are no longer using that equipment is more a problem that we have been negatively affected by since day 1 rather than a point as to why S grade is better at level 76 than 67. Especially because if we follow your logic to it's conclusion,you should need to be level 86 before you start being able to obtain S grade from quests, drops and spoils. There is the big flaw in this piece of evidence you tried to use.
The number and type of MMOs you have played as well as the duration of play is vitally important. Were you playing EQ for 5years? WoW for 6 months? E&B from closed beta to the time they brought the servers down? Or are you refering to single player RPGs which are incredibly different from an MMO. As I said above, the equipment progression in all of these games and nearly every other MMO is worlds apart from L2 because L2 does not break gear up into crap, ok, decent, better, good, pretty good, ****ed good, wow, omgbbqautopwn tiers of equal level gear. Hence it is extremely important to know what games you are refering to as there are only a handful of games which have equipment similar to L2, and even those games are slightly different in how obtainable and the expectations of obtainability in their gear.
The 15 levels is not a nicely placed gap, it wasn't even an intentional gap. There isn't anything new to discover about your class during the 61-75 gap that you shouldn't have already picked up by playing through the level 40-52 or 52-61 areas. This raises the question of what exactly you were doing from level 40 to 61? And not only once apparently, but twice. The reason why everyone looks and acts the same during these levels is because what is the fastest for one person of a class, is fast for everyone else of that class because of how over specialized many L2 classes are. It's great you play a class you say you can do many things with, but for a nuker there is no difference between what they are doing at level 2 and what they are doing at level 75. And heavens forbid you play a sorceror who is superspecialized into casting prominence.
No matter how many times you try to say it, level 61 to 75 will still remain a void in this game where you can expect to get no new skills and no new armor. Do some classes now get skills during these levels? Yes but not all, and in some cases because how some people level also correlates to chronicle releases, they might have just hit level 66 when a new skill is released for their class is released which breaks up the tedium but ultimately is not a skill which breaks up the actual 61-75 void.
I continue to maintain that character progression equals visual progression. Because there is no visual progression between 61-75 it is a void full of imperceptible stat upgrades.
Maybe on Teon, come to Bartz or stop talking like I play on you server... Some clans sign up and still don't go, and A/Bg playrs go to watch, not to fight. Maybe 200 peeps if you count both sides, and 90-95%+ of those are 75+/4th class players.
Maybe then say "ON BARTZ"? And not that "Sieges blaa blaa only S-grades blaa blaa". Btw, if I wanna know what goes on Bartz, I just ask some of the UR guys in irc.
No new nukes for the end game nuker? So, what do you call those lvl 80 AoE nukes that can drop whole siege forces? Imo that is REALLY worth grinding.
No new nukes for the end game nuker? So, what do you call those lvl 80 AoE nukes that can drop whole siege forces? Imo that is REALLY worth grinding.
I agree, but by the time anyone gets there, their brain will have turned to goo falling out of their ears from all the mindless grinding they had to do to get there.
level 80 was opened what over a year ago? and there are only 30 people in all of NA out 85,000 accounts only 30 people hit 80 where you get these skills, probably 200 at 79 and no one is masocist enough else to try that.
Most people stop at 78 because past that it just not worth the weeks of grinding to get 1 level. Anything more then a level a week for semi hardcore player is too much for any game. Ideally in a MMORPG you should be able to hit max level in 4 - 8 months not possible in L2 if you want to do it legitly at least.
ok so in response to all those against my points (dont remember your names exactly) here is what i gots to say
imo levels 1-61 went by waaay to fast
and i solo'd them (no buff-pet) with not even the top armor for my class, or any SA on a weapon till level 58 when i realized that +4 Tsu*SLS was better for me because of the crits and my current choice (which was just cause it way pretty) sucked for me
i was a BD and up till B grade i could solo about a level an hour, self buffs no SA
why, cause i spend my time exploring different leveling areas, and enjoying the game for what i like, and not people saying that i should go to Apo and party cause XP is waaaay better there. i left all those players in the dust because i leveled in places that i enjoyed, and the way i wanted to, with whatever armor and weapons i felt like using.
it was not until i hit A grade that i made an alt account to recharge my dwarfie while crafting that i turned my EE into a buff-pet for myself, and i grinded him to 40 solo, and then in parties with actual players, and the levels still flew by
i am also not saying that S grade is the best of the best, i am just saying that it is nice stuff, and to me, is something that should not be easily obtained. i know S grade toons who use B grade weapons (not over SA'd) just cause that is how they like to play and the S grade stuff doesnt suit their play style
so yeah i cannot speak on nuker's behalf on how A grade is, but i am friends with many nukers who i talk to on daily basis who say that they loved A grade and what was available to them.
you must also understand that my arguments are coming from me assuming that max level is still going to be 80, no grade SS is added, and so on and so forth. while 3rd class change and S grade is not the end of the game (by a long shot) it is not something that should come easily. it doesnt matter if my previous game experience includes every MMO ever, solo RPG's, FPS, racing games, whatever. the fact is that S grade (assuming no SS is their) is not something that one can sit down and play the game for a month or so and say they they have obtained the grade/rank/score bracket of S grade. it is the next logical progression from A grade, but should not in any way be an easy to obtain one ..in my mind.
while in this game you can obtain S grade only by the amount of time that you put into the game, i do not find this to be the games flaw. i find the flaw to be in the players. if you are bored and think that S grade is to far away, then dont just be one that goes out and solo's. find groups, rift some, do some raids, join a PVP clan, start a fun quest. the levels go by so slow if you are just watching for XP with your only goal of being a level higher.
i dont find that reaching the max level/gear/items should be short 4-8 month process. then we end up with WoW where in a trial account i reached max level, got bored, and never even went past the trial because there was nothing left for me.
also, i am not saying that when you hit S grade, that all these non-level oriented things are right at that point introduced to you, and were never available to you before. but you are regarded as a more serious player at that level (if you are not a well known ebayer on your server) and therefore these are MORE open to you, and more readily accessed. i mean on bartz i see more PVP done in mixed groups of A/S graders, than i do of only S graders. why? because most people realize that a lower level toon thats irl player knows how to play, can destroy an S grader that just then started to explore their character. i have seen A grade dwarfs take out S grade archers with no problem. not because of different buffs, or over enchanted items, but because that person knows their toon, and how to play it.
the fact that people run around in the same leveling spots, with the same armor in a players problems, not the games. until you are S grade (and level spot choices drop a bit) there are countless places to level in parties and solo, and still get good XP. as i said before, i would level faster in places that i liked, and were off the beaten track than any of my friends who would go to cata's and sit for days on end. any threw the levels i stayed one step ahead of them because i played my character. i didnt just sit in a cata, dance whatever dances the party leader wanted every 2 mins and then hit the /assist macro all the time. to be honest, if you just go with what everyone else says you should be equiped with, and where you should go, and how you should play, then that is not L2's problem.
sure 99% of archers in S grade are in drac with such and such tats and such and such armor, but thats cause they worked hard (or not) to get to that point and be rewarded with the best items for their class.
as a BD, nothing in S grade but jewls interested me, but i still wanted to get there, just for the jewls. still in A grade armor, still using A grade weapons from time to time, and not because i have no adena, but because i know how i play my character best, and that is how i continue to play. i tried light/heavy/robes in A grade with a large assortment of weapons and buffs, and tats, and i know how to play with what i like. and to be honest, i can beat people who equip them selves how the "game" tells them to equip themselves.
and, i never ONCE (that i can remember) compared this games stuff to any other games besides the logical progression of ranks, and that S grade is hard to obtain. my point was that S grade in almost any game means that you have finally reached the highest or next to highest accomplishment in said game. and imo it should not be because of pure time put into the game, it should be because you are well on your way to mastering how to best play that game. as i said, from what i see in L2 most people get to S grade by just pure time put in, but once again, not the games fault.
as for the new A grade being hard to get argument. i was talking purely about being obtained personally, not buying from other players. i was able to afford my gear at new grades, but just because i made tons of money playing the market and sitting there for hours on end watching movies and crafting DSS :)
however, i would not have be able to obtain that gear on my own when i hit that new grade. and no i do not believe that you shoud need to be 86 to obtain S mats. i am saying that with the way the game mechanics are set up currently, you need to be more or less, higher than that armors level/grade/rank (top/low/mid) to obtain the mats. i am not agreeing with this system, but that is how things are done atm (except for S grade) but i wasnt talking about S grade stuff, i was talking about A grade stuff.
i also agree that level progression should mean visual progression also, but as i said for me, there was many visual changes and item changes.
to conclude, imho, although the A-S grade level gap is a large one, Lineage 2 is a game that really only gives you back the amount of enjoyment that you put into it. if you want to go with the flow of what everyone else is doing, then you are not putting all that much effort in. if you change gear every level or so, test out new hunting areas, wander the world to find pretty new places to level, that even tho the XP might be 1k less per kill, the scenery or monster skins (or whatever) draws you into leveling there, then you are putting a lot more into the game, and therefore find it a lot more enjoyable. i am truly sorry to anyone who did not find A grade as fast and as enjoyable and me and a lot of people that i talk to. but maybe you just try to spice things up a bit, and see how much more fun the game gets for you. however imo (my opinion, so it is right no matter what you sat :P ) A grade was a well needed break from the rapid level progression, that i got to explore my leveling choices way more than any other grade, i got to really get a good grasp on my toon, and i found out a lot of things about the game and how to play it (that i am sure a lot of people will never learn).
....plus, if you find the leveling that boring, go play WoW and be toped out in 2 weeks and then see how fun getting there fast and then having nowhere to go is
Not everyone levels that quickly, for a number of reasons. Luck has a lot to do with it, for one, another is, as someone else put it in another thread, you can't "learn someone" to play the market. For many, switching gear every level is simply not an option. Exploring different gear and item set-ups is simply not a possible option for them, the adena simply isn't there.
There are also other classes... and as a BD you should know this... with a skill-set that does not offer itself as one which will change frequently. In other words, while they might have 15 or 20 skills to use, only 4 of them are ever actually applicable to the situation... and these classes progress in this manner over such long periods of time that the minor upgrades at each plateau seem small reward for the time and effort.
hahaha sorry man, i figured if i spaced it out to much people would complain that it was long, when it was really just empty space that made it longer :P
oh well i shall try to skip some lines in the future :)
in response to not having money to change gear all the time, i didn't own all the gear i tried on all at once, i only ever owned 1 full set of gear and a little extra. i would sit in town sell mine overnight, buy the new set i wanted to try and then sell that when i was done.
also, to those who are going to re-butt
as i re-read my own arguements i am seeing that i know what i am trying to say, but am not necessarily presenting my case as clearly as i could, so yeah thats why i keep restating my facts, cause i think i am just stating them how others might not understand
Maybe on Teon, come to Bartz or stop talking like I play on you server... Some clans sign up and still don't go, and A/Bg playrs go to watch, not to fight. Maybe 200 peeps if you count both sides, and 90-95%+ of those are 75+/4th class players.
Maybe then say "ON BARTZ"? And not that "Sieges blaa blaa only S-grades blaa blaa". Btw, if I wanna know what goes on Bartz, I just ask some of the UR guys in irc.
No new nukes for the end game nuker? So, what do you call those lvl 80 AoE nukes that can drop whole siege forces? Imo that is REALLY worth grinding.
1 Spell is never worth grinding.
This is not Final Fantasy, or Chrono Trigger.
MMOs are supposed to support a atmosphere developed to bring people together and promote fun progression. I'm sure everyone wants to play a sorceror through 76+ levels of medeocrity to have a change to wipe out a seige force with end game buffs/etc.
The chances of a Sorceror wiping out a seige force with 1 AOE nuke are ____________?
I'm sure I can sit down and OE an homu to +20 too, but what are the chances of that?
That is far from a reason to grind. You'll still suck in PvE and seiges don't happen every day.
Well, now you can be the gods of PEEEVEEPEEE on Bartz since UR is disbanding and most of them are leaving the game. Even A/B-graders can now siege, have fun ^^
Btw, wasnt talking of Sorceror. Sorceror is CRAP. Try SPS/SH/Necro line. Also, if you'd seen what those lvl 80 AoE skills do, you wouldnt even question them. Maybe go look up some pics from Nestia on siege field.
You may (or may not) notice a couple posts gone, one of which was inappropriate. Please keep your cool, even if you disagree with someone else's point of view, and do not attack others for their views. Keep the discussions/debates constructive and mature.
S you basically keep saying the same thing over and over and over again, that you thoguht the progression was fine because you had oodles of free time. Well I hate to burst your bubble, but some of us simply cannot spend 24 hours a day 7 days a week playing Lineage 2. This of course has nothing to do with the fact that your entire argument about Sgrade beign hard to obtain is still as flawed as ever.
Your continue pretty much follows that since every other game you played follows a system of crap through amazing gear for every level, that the S grade gear in Lineage 2 must also be the same. But there is no mediocre equipment upgrade for a level 76er besides S grade. When you hit 76 as a mage it is either Major Arcana or Major Arcana, for a tank it is either Imperial Crusader or Imperial Crusader; there is no in between armor. And because of the 15 level no visual change gap, we have all spent much more time than we should having looked at the back of our characters in whatever armor we were using for 15 levels to be told we need to spend another 6 months looking at the same thing everyday for 2 or more hours a day. If this were WoW (I realize many posters here will say they find WoW caustic, but it is the most easy to use example) a rogue will hit 70 and can choose to raid for deathmantle(the epic level rogue set) or casually acquire the assination armor (the nonepic level rogue set). In the WoW world, it is perfectly reasonable to say that Epics should be hard to get because WoW offers nonepic equipment upgrades as well. And the nonepic equipment upgrades can still be pretty good. Yet any Lineage 2 player knows there is no breakdown of S grade or level 76+ player gear into mediocre and epic grade gear. That is why your logic is flawed. You assume that lineage 2 gear is broken up similarly to WoW gear, with superior and epic levels, but it is not.
Next, there is no way a level 61 A grade dwarf is going to kill a level 76+ S grade archer, I don't care how much the dwarf is overbuffed. A dwarf simply does not have the damage output nor the skills to offer much of a challenge to an S grade archer who isn't afk. Even if the archer had an iq of 30 and the dwarf player had an iq of 200, there would still be no contest because the dwarf is simply at too much of a disadvantage.
As far as highest accomplishment in this game, that is being the hero for your class by winning the Olympiad, and guess what, you get access to the hero weapons which are the highest grade of weapons in the game. I believe the argument you are making should be focused on these weapons and being a hero who wins the Olympiad; then at least it would make sense. But just straight grinding to level 76? That isn't an accomplishment at all, it is simply a function of time, if you put in enough time you will eventually get out a level 76 character. You can even level all the way to 80 without any weapons or armor if you so chose, it just wouldn't be a very exciting experience killing over a million level 20-35 mobs to do it.
The fact that people run around the same hunting spots in the same armor most definitely is the game's fault. In an ideal world every hunting spot would give equally good experience and be equally good for every class. But Lineage 2 is not developed ideally. The exp in each hunting area on the same level mobs can be the difference between night and day, so is the difference btween how different classes perfrom in different spots on different mobs who all use different abilities and have different hp and armor amounts. Mages do very well in VoS, but I'd imagine tanks do not. In the ideal game yo'd also have equipment progression to give you a visual indication of your character's progression, but since we are having a conversation concerning the 15 level equipment void, then we can safely say that Lineage 2 isn't ideal in regards to equipment either.
As Charmille said, some classes such as mages use the same few skills every mob every level. When you kill thousands of mobs to gain a level, it is only normal to want some visual change reduce the tedium; this is only human nature. That you were able to level quickly through these levels and did not notice the enourmous amount of repetition is great for you, but what about those of us who level more slowly than you and only use the same 2 spells per mob? We spend more months in one area in the same equipment using the same skills, subect to more repetiton than you seem able to comprehend or understand.
To conclude, Lineage 2 is a game which should give me back enjoyment for the time I put into it. Lineage 2 is not a job so you shouldn't have to put work in to get a check out. Even if I did change my gear every level, that would be 4 out of 15 levels before I ran out of gear to change into,never mind the cost of having to buy 3 sets of gear worse than what I was already using assuming I am intelligent enough to know what gear is best for me from the getgo having already played my class for 61 levels prior to buying my A grade. At any level you are always able to explore your leveling choices as much as you want. If you chose not to explore during C and B grade this is wholly your own fault and is in way an argument why A grade should be as elongated as it is.
1) i played WoW for 2 weeks on a trial and never ever compared the item set up from L2 to Wow. i compared the length in which it takes to get endgame (or **** close).
2) i never said a level 61 A grader, i just said an A grade
3) where hero might be the best of the best, the olympiad system is very flawed and the best players do not always win. and the weapons are not the best of the best. i know (well knew before UR quit) heros that almost never used the hero weapons, they just sit there in their inventory chillen. why? the numbers prove that hero weapons are better. yeah, well that was not their play style. you say all nukers should wear DC thats it, no choices. i know nukers in Nightmare and tallum. and they have no problems leveling, it just suits their play style.
4) as i said people stay in the areas that they are told are the best because they dont wanna go out and find other places themselves. you want visual changes, go level somewhere else. there are over 20 places that i leveled a lot in A grade and still got great XP there, and few of which are where people told me i should go. and once again, i leveld faster where i went than others.
5) i work 10 hour days 5-7 days a week. i do not play 24/7.
6) the reason D-B grade should not be used to explore armor is because different grades give out different armor bonus'. A grade LA has different affects than C grade. some people never leave their A grade armor, for that reason. the S grade armor doesnt work for them, and they still do fine with their A armor and kick some serious butt.
7) this game (as every game is) is a game solely based on personal experiences. seems to me that i played my character properly in ways that allowed me to break up what others call "boring grind". if you didnt do that, well im sorry but thats not really my fault. and seeing as how i am not the only one that i have talked to that enjoyed the length of A grade, it doesnt seem to be the games fault either.
8) this argument is getting almost as stupid as the age old "EE vs SE : which is better?". different personal experiences and preferences are the only factors in these arguments. the facts for both classes are there, but people enjoy different things. some people enjoy seeking out different areas to level and grind, and why shouldn't they, the world is huge and getting bigger. personally it just seems like you were one of those people that leveled where they were told was best, and were equiped how they were told was best, and brought what buffers were told were best. and thats fine, many people get by fine that way. but, me and some of my friends didn't do that, and that is where my whole argument is based. i cannot speak for every class and every play style. however, with 4 robe sets to try out in A grade. matched with how ever many combinations there are to test out with each robes and with different SA's on different weapons and different tat's .....i dont see how there is a lack of things to explore. i shall know soon enough when i roll my first nuker ever, but i dont feel that my grind will be any less exciting that what i allready had. i am sorry that you dont find the wealth of things that should, and really need to, be explored in A grade were any fun. why not just go play a different game if you are just gonna complain about this one tho?
Major Arcana (Robe)
Wit +1, Int+1, Men -2,
M.Atk +8%
Moving Speed +7
Casting Cancel Chance -50%
Weight Limit +5759
*Wasn't the set bonus changed to 17% M.Atk and in addition 50% Stun Resist? Not sure but this is from stratics and I didn't feel like going all the way to Giran to check.
Dark Crystal Robes
P. Def. +8%
Casting Spd. +15%
Speed +7
Small decrease in chance of spell interruption, Paralysis Resistance +50%
WIT +2, MEN -2
That Robe set is not worth the adena when compared to DC. I wonder how many nukers wear Major Arcana for PvP over DC for any purpose other than to look nice (it does look very nice on humans, admittedly). But at 150-200M+ it is not worth it.
My playstyle is efficiency and speed. I will not wear NM for anypurpose other than looks (awesome on human male) because I have Demon and it's a superior PvE Robe Set IMO (cast speed nerf is no-no in PvP) and Tallum lacks aything the average nuker would fine attractive in a robe set - from its ugly looks to the subpar set bonus.
I'd wear Majestic Robe Set before I wore both NM and Tallum Robes, at least.
You do realise you need TWO lvl 75s to become noblesse ? That your subclass also needs to be 75
Also, 46 takes a few days of leveling, in terms of time required to lvl, assuming no downtime and killing mobs your own lvl, you arent even a 50th of the way to 76. At 50 xp starts to slow down, at 55 you hit another xp wall (huge increase in xp required compared to the previous level) At 60 xp starts to come slow, at 65 its very slow, and at this point you arent even half way to 75, not even a 4th of the way to 78. At 70, 71, ... , 75 theres xp walls every level
Im getting 8% xp pr hour now at 60. Combine that with it being almost impossible to get a team going despite being in one of the bigger alliances on the server, and maybe 25% of the time im online i actually get to xp, the rest of the time is just waiting for class x to log on, etc
Wish i was 46 again so i could level fast :P
SCH you just don't get it. You say you aren't comparing Lineage 2 to games like WoW, then you go on to say that S grade is the best of the best just like in other games. But other games do not have only one armor set for each level group. If Lineage 2 were any other MMO, S grade would cover the entire spectrum of crap to good, and the best of the best would be the good S grade. Your argument rests on this very assumption whether you know it or not. But this is entirely false. S grade is not broken up into more easily obtainable and not as S grade and harder to obtain better S grade, it's all one lump because the developer's didn't put much effort potentialy due to the initial small group of levels in which it would be used within and not wanting to completely overbalance these level 76+ characters with new equipment and skills against the rest of the crowd who are wearing equipment they won't be changing for 15 levels.
Every time new equipment is released, those people who have it are always trying to tell the people who don't that their equipment is super special and only for the best of the best people. It happened with B grade, A grade and S grade. In each case as more time pass and more people level, and more people acquire the equipment, everyone becomes forced to concede on some level that the newer equipment really isn't all that special after all but is simply natural gear progression.
The only equipment this cannot hold true for are the hero weapons as these are the only weapons which are given out in limited quantities to the winners of a pvp tournament. This was the only equipment that was actually meant to be special as it is the only equipment which has an absolute limit to the number which can exist at any given moment. This is the best of the best, the best pvpers in a game most people call a pvp oriented game. Sure the matches end up rigged, but the intended spirit the entire olympiad was designed around is what counts.
When I say you should have learned the ins and outs of your class by level 61, I don't mean the ins and outs of gear, I mean the functionality of your class alone. Once you know how your class functions you can easily know how a given piece of gear is going to effect you and your play style. When an armor increases your attack speed by 8%, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what will happen when you put the armor on.
In terms of robe sets, you see mages in DC all the time because it is hands down the best pvp set at any level above 60, and in a game where pvp can happen any time, you want to always be ready; hency always have your DC set on hand and on you is better than sitting in your inventory. This doesn't mean that every mage uses DC. Personally I use the nightmare robe set when I am leveling because I like how it looks but I also know when wearing it that my m attack is lower than if I wore a demon set and my casting speed is much much lower than if I wore any other robe set. You do not want to pvp in a nightmare robe unless you don't mind losing nearly all the time.
You seem to think that no one else has any relevant experience but you. I have been to every corner of Aden, hunted every mob minus Valakas (except 50% of the ones in Jurassic Park which I doubt I will ever return to until the problems I have with it are fixed). I have 3 years of experience playing my class, I know what works and does not, where the best areas are and which ones are bad for a mage. When people have questions about my class and what areas are better for them, they ask me.
Whether it is meleeing or magery, if you do the number crunching you never need waste time testing out the tallum robe set and an elemental sword with empower. The empower SA is crap, the magic power SA is mega crap. The entire wide range of mage related SAs can be broken down into overpowered when it procs but useless otherwise to making the weapon worth less than a weapon without the SA (magic power). Then there is acumen which affects every spell cast in a sufficiently good way without making every spell cost more. Acumen is much better than nearly every other mave SA which is why nearly every mage has it. They didn't just buy it because someone told them to, they made a rational decision based on all examining all the possible SAs in light of their understanding of their class. You tend not to see magic poison very often because it simply isn't very good, every good mage knows this. The same I'd imagine can be said for the physical related SAs, there are some which obviously suck once you spend a moment to think about them, and there are some that were obviously the best possible SA to have on that weapon (might mortal comes to mind).
People tend to choose hunting groundsin the same manner they choose equipment; they make a rational choice based on their understanding of their class. You aren't going to want to grind outy 60,000 mobs in an area you where die more than you live if you know of a better area where you live more than you die. WHen they don't understand their class and believe someone else knows it better, they might go to another person who has more experience than them and has demonstrated their superior knowledge. In some cases, this demonstration of superior knowledge is simply by being a higher level which creates the assumption of better knowledge (not really true) or based on actual conversation. People do the same thing outside of the game. When I want to get my car fixed, I bring it to a mechanic under the assumptiong that mechanic who has been fixing cars for almost as many years as I have been alive has a better handle on fixing cars than I do. Sure you can wind up with a mechanic that actually has no idea what he is doing, but then neither do I.
There is the other rational decision of wanting to have to level as fast as possible to have as few repetitions as possible. Sure changing things up might be nice, but having to kill 30,000 mobs instead of 60,000 is even nicer, and at the end of the day requires half as many repetitions. You can only kill a mob so many ways before you run out of ways to kill it, and again when you kill it in half the time or less vs another way, most people tend to gravitate towards just the faster paced strategy rather than using them both.
In the L2 world, there aren't that many things to explore if you have a sufficient grasp on what you are doing. The mobs might look a little different, and the armor to, but how many swords can you use to kill an oel mahum before you understand how a sword is going to work simply by looking at it?
i know S grade toons who use B grade weapons (not over SA'd) just cause that is how they like to play and the S grade stuff doesnt suit their play style
This is where you lost me bud. I fail to see how someone, anyone would do that...........unless they
a) don't have the means to buy the items(meaning ingame adena making skills or lack thereof)
or
b)have their credit cards maxed out
Playing an MMO, is all about reaching that next level, just as equially as it's all about getting that next set of shiny new gear or weapon or skills. Hell even playing any other game, be it FPS, RPG, Racing, etc, it's all about getting or unlocking something you don't already have, even if it's just for the looks.
You are welcome to prove me otherwise............if you can.
ok this is my last post here cause this is just becoming a contest of who can min-interperate the others statments the best
all i said about S grade being the best of the best has nothing to do with the stats of any items in S grade. my soul point was that in every game i have played S grade is the highest (no SS assumed) and therefore the best of the best rank/level/grade to obtain. i even blatently stated that i dont think S gear is the best of the best. and i even agreed with you that S grade is lacking more items. my only point was that since S grade is the highest you can go in gear, it deserves to be hard to get to. forget what is available in S grade, forget what items are best. i am talking about the grade itself. and to me, S grade is decently hard to obtain, but not to hard, and not to far away from A grade if you are playing the game for the right reasons, in the right way. and as i also stated, this is my PERSONAL OPINION. now go on and mis-construe this as much as you want.
first obvious thing that comes to mind is lets see, the fact that some SA's on weapons are only available in lower grades
Crit duals (+4 Tsu*SLS) or nowhere in higher grades.
and i know plenty of people who destroy in PVP with just a set of +4's. they use their Dama*DLE's for PVE.
im sure there are others that have similar SA problems between grades, but im too lazy to look them up, i feel this horse is dead and im taking my stick and walking away.
And I have continually told you this argument is incredilby flawed because gear in Lineage 2 is not broken into the best of the best. You cannot say because other MMOs, who have different grades of gear for each level of gear, make their best equal level gear the hardest to obtain gear that S grade gear in Lineage 2 should also be hard to obtain because Lineage 2 does not break down it's gear the same way as any other MMO. I have been trying to hammer into your skull this one key fact, but you refuse to accept it. 1, 2 and 3 being prime numbers less than 10 are not made equivalent by this these properties. In fact because 1 is an odd number and since 1 does not equal 3 then the soul is immortal.
Every argument you have presented is simply too shoddily built to withstand the weight of reason. Saying the 61 to 75 gap is perfectly lengthened because this allows one to learn their class should very well leave anyone else pondering what the 40-61 levels are for; especially for classes who do not fundamentally change after level 25. And this leaves the argument especially open to wondering how the level 61-75 levels are helping you learn a class which might very well be changing fundamentally at level 76 when it begins to acquire its third class change skills.
When I stated that every mob you are fighting is balanced based on new equipment being available at level 67 even though that equipment change was shifted to 76, you simply skipped over the argument. Yet even you as a bladedancer must have noticed some point around the level 67-71 area where you went from using X range of swings per mob to using X+Y range of swings per mob. Here is the core argument of why I initially said that S grade should not have been moved to level 76 but left at 67.
ok lets use another anology besides other games, cause you dont seem to understand my main point here.
in school, the best you can obtain is a 4.0 score (unless weighted classes but lets throw that out)
should the 4.0 grade be easy to obtain?
i mean my only real argument was that S grade should not be easy to obtain. forget the gear, and all that stuff.
the actual grade of S is the only thing i am saying should be hard to obtain.
most people that try somewhat hard can get a 3.5 grade, however it takes a lot of hard work and studying to obtain a 4.0 (unless you are just really really smart).
in an FPS, most people can play through hard if they try hard enough. but to beat God mode (or whatever if it) you need to have basically mastered the game.
your arguments are all solid and 100% valid.
but you are not even aiming your arguments even close to my main point. i really couldnt spell it out for you more.
in life the highest ranks that one can achieve are those that do not come easily. if you dont agree with that, well then im sorry but for 90% of the people thats how things are. if you think that in games the highest rank should be easily obtained .....then L2 really isnt ur game, cause the highest rank is hard to obtain and imo that is how it should be.
in reference to NC moving the S grade level requirement all i am gonna say comment is that, it happened and they must have thought it was for the best, and i agree with them
Understand your point? You don't have a point because you don't understand the comparison you are using to try to validate your argument. There is a difference between best and all there is. S grade in this game is all there is. It isn't some high and mighty honor that only the most worthy players can achieve, that is reserved for hero weapons. Your school analogy itself suffers from the same problem. Someone who graduated with a 3.5 instead of a 4.0 still graduated. That is how the idea of best of the best works in other MMOs, it looks at how you are doing towards changing your gpa. Lineage 2 works more along the line of freshman, sohphomore, junior and senior. It (L2) does not care how good your grades are, it only cares how many years you have been in school. The dumbest kid who never goes to class, does their homework or study and graduates with the absolute lowest possible gpa is good enough for S grade gear in the eyes of L2 simply because they did spend 4 years.
All the level 76ers I saw the first few days after C4 went live were the worst type of people who were least worthy of having access to the best skills and a new equipment grade. The only reason why they had level 76+ and S grade within the first few weeks it was available wasn't because they were the ideal example of great players worthy of being rewarded, but simply because their character had spent more time mindlessly grinding than mine.
The difference between an S grader in L2 and the top chess player in the world is that the top chess player actually has to be the best and prove so by winning competitions against other good chess players, whereas the S grade player simply has to log the 100,000 mobs needed to gain a level; they don't even have to do better than anyone else, they just have to do it well enough not to delevel. To top it off, with sufficient time, every player of L2 will conceivably have at least one level 76+ character because the only necessary input is free time.
But he will never see your point, because he wants to believe that he actually had to work hard to get there, which is not true. Leveling in L2 is so mindnumbingly easy compared to other games, that it is actually one of the game's shortcomings.
Not only do you want us to grind forever to gain a level, but you make it so easy that it bores the hell out of us. Other games with more dynamic PvE aspects and similar grind aren't as griefing becuase there are other aspects of the game that are enjoyable and compliment the grind - like non-epic raids that are actually quite beneficial and quests that actually move you XP bar, or give you something of sufficient worth for the effort involved.
Too late to fix now. But making leveling take longer does not = hardcore/difficult leveling. Making it enormously easy on top of that just means that more people get bored and go play other games that are... fun?
Maybe that's why L2NA server population is suffering as it is, and WoW is the #1 MMO in the world. There are other MMOs that are older than L2 that still haev a higher subscription base. It doesn't have anything to do with bots, but the design of the game doesn't lend it to being "fun" until you are S Grade and can enjoy end-game content which this game is sorely lacking - and it's a long, boring [not difficult] road to get there.
first obvious thing that comes to mind is lets see, the fact that some SA's on weapons are only available in lower grades
Crit duals (+4 Tsu*SLS) or nowhere in higher grades.
and i know plenty of people who destroy in PVP with just a set of +4's. they use their Dama*DLE's for PVE.
im sure there are others that have similar SA problems between grades, but im too lazy to look them up, i feel this horse is dead and im taking my stick and walking away.
My point still stands.
By the way, I do agree with you that S grade at lvl 67 would have been too premature, although I'm not sure if lvl 76 is the best for it, but definently not anything under 70.
i dont find that reaching the max level/gear/items should be short 4-8 month process. then we end up with WoW where in a trial account i reached max level, got bored, and never even went past the trial because there was nothing left for me.
then you said this:
1) i played WoW for 2 weeks on a trial and never ever compared the item set up from L2 to Wow. i compared the length in which it takes to get endgame (or **** close).
So you've played WoW for 2 weeks and reached Max level?
I can hardly see how someone, anyone can get lvl 70 even in WoW in 2 weeks.
This is just from my own experience, but here goes:
Besides, when you hit lvl 70 in WoW, that is not the end of the game, it's just the begining. The epic gear you get prior to 70 is in comparison total crap. The Purple stuff you get below 70 and at 70 are have the difference of Night and Day..yeah it's that **** good. Except that one you are 70, then you have to work your [censored] off to get the best of the best equipment.
The real game in WoW starts at 70, not ends.........but then again you wouldn't know that since you never actually gotten the max level in WoW have ya?
never once claimed to reach the end of game in WoW did i?
said that i reached the max gear ranking
also never once claimed that S grade was end game in L2, just the highest rank obtainable
and trensh ur not even S grade so dont speak about it
for the last time i see you point, and i accept it as your opinion
however you will not sway me from mine, you just refuse to accept that someone could think differently from you.
i found A grade to be extremely enjoyable, and short
sorry that you dont understand that guys ::shrug::
never once claimed to reach the end of game in WoW did i?
said that i reached the max gear ranking
and that would be when you hit level 70, do every raid boss, lots and lots of BG's, get every piece of the new epic stuff, etc, etc. what about some uber Enchants? or do you mean you just had the best weapons that say a lvl 20 'Lock might sport? :p
what exactly do you mean Max Gear Ranking? What lvl? lol
WoW ain't L2, and it really does have items that are branched into cattegories such as:
very bad, bad, descent, half descent, ok, good, better than good, etc, etc
I am also finding A Grade to be short. I find grinding in general to be boring becasue of the repetition. It's not my fault the fastest and most efficient way for me to level my toons is solo or with them in a party with my nuker on autofollow.
The reason why there seems to be no motivation now to get through the 61-75 levels is because the game was originally designed and balanced around level 68 being S grade. If you look at the complete void between these levels, this actually fills in the gap really well.
Also if you follow along this line, level 60 should have been the 3rd class change not level 76; following along the class change quest every 20 levels so yhou have something to look forward to within a reasonable amount of time route. Level 76 was an arbitrary place to put the 3rd class change which was chosen simply because at the time they finally implemented it, the cap was raised from 75 to 78, and they wanted the new levels to seem more important than what they really were. Had they simply added the 3rd class change in C3 instead and of C4, the class change would have been at level 60. This would have pushed the pointless subclass system into a C4 launch, where you would have needed a level 76 character to do the subclass change and noblesse quests (currently you need a level 76 3rd class and 75 subclass to become a noblesse). Overall that system would have made much more sense, The hero system is more akin to a 4th class change, and as such should be moved to the level 76-80 area in line with the once every 20 level class changes. As of now, both hero and 3rd class changes happen at 76-80; all because they implemented the subclass system before the 3rd class system; even though the 3rd class system was in existance before the subclass system (though the hero system was with us since day one).
They changed the level of S grade to make the newly added 76-78 levels seem like more than just the same old grind as 61-75 had been. Some people like yourself bought into it without questioning the effect of the change, and some people do not.
I look at the change and I see a problem because of the visible void left behind, the void of a nonchanging character and mobs which no longer scale properly.