After reaching 101Yul/101Othel and going for 102 with main i can say the following
from my experience.
When i started to play 1 year ago - with the new wave of newly returning
players ( 11TH Anniversary) was a free to play invitation and everything looked good.
You had huge amount of Gold winged 99lvs and of course big quantity of noobs.
Of course there was no field drop/so you couldnt gear by swapping collected mats or picked from the ground adena(was nothing to pick).
But you could get Immortal Set and weap which was not that bad but when you went to BS the mobs were alot stronger than yourself and the exp was a disaster compared how you leveled prior of that.
The K85 with the boss which compared to 90 level was a beast with the most hated fear.
Basically after K85 and several hours in SOA it was not that much to do. So the first raids were locate(gludio raids)
At 87LV was my firs siege - funny part was i got couple kills, cause compared to now you had a huge mix of participiating people like in the golden days.
was mad fun - many noobs with big amount of cc where noone really cared about your gear.
Also was real fun to do Fortuna/istina at 90lv to level in BOZ Core and hunt raids with 1 pt.
Elven raids up to 97lv.
Finally finished the leveling from 97-99lv in EV.
Situation in Kama - Youre having extremelly badly geared people who actually never really played l2 were just logging in in between events and you have half *** geared Eviscerator which is able to out-damage the whole pt.
Or +12 bloody lv 4 ruby and epics wearing Evi which gives full list to any pt so the scrub healers decide that the standard run is no longer than 20minutes and PR.
Atelia field is made for 2 classes Tyr Titan and Feoh.
AF same story when you feel like sh and need to watch how a a single class cleans the whole instance in minutes and when you host a pt with kelbim and +6/7 r99 with almost all epics people decide that your gear is not good enough.
So you`re being forced to work to +12 bow and +8 armor which is the standard equipment in AF Chronos...
Oly and Sieges.
Oly= lv 4 topaz wearing isses and antihide runners.
Btw in Core the issue doesnt exist like here when people with low scores meeting farming Heroes.
Siege - Top level parties with severe disabilities where they are able to move the char cause for something else you need both hands. ( just go to youtube and write some top tier names will see the outcome)
So PvP doesnt exist cause to actually to PvP it needs to be players vs player but if the person is not even playing its own char so you can`t call it that way.
So basically if i would need to summarize current situation in L2 with 1 sentence it would be:
G|reed based arcade with bored exploiters.
Incase anyone will ask - wtf im doing here: Im already stuck lol
Thank you for sharing your story. I can see you've worked hard and honest for your way to LvL 101; Job Well Done! I think I understand your frustration and disappointment to a degree.
I've been asking myself the question, "why do I play Lineage2?"
To be honest, I don't have the answer but here is what I think.
Maybe, there isn't one true answer but there are many answers and maybe, they are all true, too. I know a guy with 20+ zaken toons doing nothing but Zaken every week and he is quite happy with that. There is another guy with 3 computers with multi-accounts doing nothing but fishing 24/7. He is mostly busy at work and needs sleep after but his toons fishing 24/7...LOL he even got a clan and he gives his clan members FREE fishing equipments and baits and all he asks for in return is certain fish caught...No RMT or anything but the guy has full Top R99 gears already..+12 Bloody weapon, +8 Bloody set...etc...all from his fishing empire! LOL; and there is a guy at Giran who buys from the item brokers in Aden, Rune and Giran and resell the auctioned items for sweet profit, Tauti ring 14B ----> 18B, shadow weapon finals 4b---->6B, baium soul 4B ---> 6B...quick and easy profits made just from the Item brokers. I have been a K95 farmer, myself too. Originally the whole thing started simply cuz I liked leveling toons fast and have been doing 7-8 K95 runs a day(on my day-offs) and to my surpise, about 6-7B adena made every month simply doing this 4 hr a day.(that's if I do 7-8 runs everyday for 1 month) Well, I've stopped doing that now cuz after LvL99, K95 is not good enough for leveling...I mean, compared to Kama, AF, Gludio..etc. K95 exp not so good after LvL99...
And there are people making R-shots and selling them for profit in Aden and Goddard. They are not bots...cuz I've talked to some of them...these people just happy to make 10M a day...for their time....enjoying little things in Lineage2; and yeah, there are some pro-raid farmers, too..etc.
Long story short, my point is, L2 is not gonna give the answer for our life but it can provide us with some fun and entertainment. As for me, I try not to look at the flaws of L2 any more (at least while I play the game but at forum, I am different) but just try to enjoy what I can. I am not obsessed with the game any more, either. I am rather casual these days. I log in for a couple of hrs a day and do whatever I want then log off. I don't even log in everyday now.
Personally i resumed my maestro when i got back since GoD.
Long story short ended up not really enjoying it since was hard to get parties with it as gear was horrible on it.
Had major setbacks because i was too good on trusting people and when loaned R95 set to someone with intention to get back since when i hit 95 since at that time i wasn't even 95 yet.
This person ended up enchanting it and blowing it up... yes i have not forgotten this and will never forget it since it set me back really badly but i learned a lesson "do not loan out stuff you can not afford to loose/replace", it could have been far worse then just a R95 set though it was major stuff back then.
Eventually after a lot of pain i hit 99 on it and pretty much stopped leveling it entirely.
Since then i changed my mindset to mostly rely on solo play i then decided to make a new account and play a wynn since people told me it's cheap to gear and is really good in solo situations.
Reason i made a 2nd account rather then sub/dual is that i could still use the power of the maestro to help out my new summoner.
Figured if i want to get to higher levels i would need a ISS as well so made one to level together with the wynn.
At some point i found that the wynn started to be capable of holding its own better then the maestro so the wynn became my main character and i started to focus on gearing this toon instead.
At some point i grown a bit of a daily routine with doing the things i could solo once i hit 97, consisting mostly of the daily run 93 dailies (**** + **** quests), 95 dailies (k95 / GF daily) and the 97 dailies (hellfire / SoS quest).
Since doing it solo with just 2 chars (iss + wynn), using the maestro only for the 97 dailies (for quest items, reward boxes just following the wynn / iss around) it turned out decent xp and eventually when new playgrounds came out i started to xp there too.
Slowly but steadily i worked both wynn and iss to 99 mostly with blazing swamp after that daily run if i had the time, also using that quest obviously saving up to max out the items for best rewards.
Eventually, because the iss leached off on the wynn while doing my daily routine the iss reached level 100 when they opened up the levels to go past 99.
All these dailies did not give a lot of money but it was enough to slowly earn enough to start buying event items off people and take a few gambles of my own or just stock up nice items with intention to sell them later when prices go up.
Some events also really helped me to reach the point where i am today in regard to gear.
11th anniversary given me the earrings + rings which was a huge boost with 0 cost, all i did was login the chars i already have / made for zaken, frint, (epic) freya etc, leaving them logged with the leona buff to receive the coins in the end and roll the dice.
Other events like the collector cards was also great, got a specter cutter craft pack from it which turned out blessed (that is when i actually loved having my 99 maestro) and with big luck it was worth quite a lot back then, i literally never seen so much money before then in my own hands :).
That money made more money since i used 50% of it for future invest the other half used for gearing myself up.
So what is important to know is how to play the market and find those little opportunities and just like with gear, only gamble the money you can afford to loose (and you need a little bit of luck obviously).
Personally i enjoy PVE the most, couldn't care less for PVP since it's not my thing anymore as the requirement to compete on that level is just too much relying on your real life wallet size and i never will use wallet to win.
Besides that same money could buy me a few other games with many hours of great content and nice variation instead of being deep sunk into one game only.
Still plenty of things to do but i still got the mindset of a solo'er so new characters are easier to get around with rather then focusing on the 102+ game.
Got my rogue to 99 so kinda feeling that one is done level wise since i only wanted to get it to 99 for spoiling and using his weapon to the full abilities as it's R99.
Still some small things to do on it like gold wings, it's dual class (its a titan so probably fun to play too) and it's subs but other then that probably wont end up spending much more time on it.
Next project is the eviscerator, i am late to jump into that hype since a lot of people already did since they came out but i also enjoy playing this one.
Got it to 90 yesterday with it's levels from 87 to 90 being done on only duo kartia's, it's a powerful little thing and i enjoy it.
Obviously this one is going to join up with my ISS and wynn when it gets to their level range and potentially open up more stuff that i could attempt to solo at that point.
This is what i like to do, more chars, more variation so i can play what feels most fun at that time instead of being annoyed with a single char that did not see a boost for a long time or gets further and further behind on the "more powerful" chars or worse actually got nerfed hard before it could be fully enjoyed.
I even got a healer up to 90 solely helping out others on raid/kartia while i never really expected i would even make one, people say i play it really good but it's just not my thing, i like to DD more rather then heal or tank but maybe its a good thing, it could help me out some point as well on that "quest to solo everything i can" :p.
But it's how i enjoy it, other people enjoy different aspects and how i play might not even work at all for them because they want to rather focus on making 1 good char then be spread out between several.
This is where i feel the non trade-able gear really sucks, i understand why but it is what keeps people from starting a new char since they do not want to do it all over again as they had enough effort getting it in the first place.
Not everyone can afford to deck out their alt(s) with really amazing stuff as well, i gotten very lucky hence why i could afford it but that is all there is to it, luck at the right time because otherwise i had been in the exact same situation they been in.
I hope one day anyone will be able to enjoy the very same feeling of being lucky and super happy when they open an (event) item and get something really good or do that raid with 1 party raid with random loot and jumping a hole in their roof when they receive a tauti/ist/oct ring or jewel for drop.
Besides that same money could buy me a few other games with many hours of great content and nice variation instead of being deep sunk into one game only.
Read the whole thing and made me feel so stupid for doing the opposite you did... Thanks for openning my eyes... Golden words right there ^
Seriously... Thanks
Also for the people who think that you need to spend $ to play the game.
I bought my first 100% rune when i was already 99lv during the crazy EXP winter event.
And currently i level without any runes to level 102 cause i enjoy the challenge and sometimes i play some events.
Majority of the people think game sux no drop - i completely agree if you do only couple instances and log off.
First of all you need to make alts and run lowbie instances/ also x2 istina/octavis/tauti then epics - repeat.
Look for field raids/ the people who are saying there 0 chance to spot some are terribly wrong but what you need to understand the raids are being farmed-and some of them are being killed only in minutes.
So what you would need to do is take some time off and monitor the selected raids with cams etc till the death can be documented.
Also you might approach the farmer and share the raids together during on/off periods.
Personally i dislike the people who play 5 Years + and have many characters but almost naked and constantly complain that the game is pay 2 win.
First of all if you log only during events - dont expect anything.
Cancer of l2 are bellow casual level players and the ones who never play l2 before and ******* from WOW or whatever and doesn't have a slight understand about their class(join group-get lift - infinite repeat)
Also communication is the key - once you have people who lack even basic English language skills you`re going to have worst nightmare runs(to speak even with disaster grammar it is still better than ranting in your native language)
i never had actually the time to read the forum prior when i was leveling my toon - now as i do i`m fascinated when reading old forum threads - basically thee people are amazing but probably already long gone cause current in game community is one of the worst which i ever experienced.(greedy self centered selfish people)
Same as the people who bash on Dreamseeker for spending recources in thier mind stupid way.
Imagine if the person wouldn't have the goal to level and play all characters but instead would decide prior to be with the TOP tier - get OP leveled toon/dragon weapon and maxed out gear on the black market.
Noone would laught then instead all doors would be open - hypocrisy at the finest..
To all people who think that all events are pay to win - it is true but only if you`re extremely lucky or very very fortunate(check Sandrah video during current event to understand that not everything is gold what shines)