I was recently browsing the other forum and came across a post about feeling the burn of the lower ranks and it's utter lag. I happen to be someone who agrees with this person (Uli), and have not had a character for about six months because of it (It's not the sole reason, but definitely one of the main ones). The reason for this post is to gather some sort of record to see how people feel about low level ranking.

Do you:

a)Love it? If so, why?
b)Hate it? If so, why?
c)Stradle the line and just deal with it? If so, why?
d)Other

I was hoping that perhaps we could do something with the results of this post.

Immortal and Mortal replies are welcome.

I like levelling for most of the reasons people have already given for liking it, and agree with most of the reasons for it being worth doing anyway.

My reason not to like it is gone now. It was because I kept getting stuck, unable to level. For that reason, my first high level character was little more than a tank, since I didn't know support classes very well, and I figured I could keep a quick pace by being desirable to groups. Now, there's no more 100,000xp holes from a few unlucky mob deaths. Back then, once you were 30K in the hole, it wasn't easy to get out without another mob death, unless you were extremely patient and only advanced by killing mobs with a very low chance of hurting you. (getting 100xp per kill if you're lucky)

While I'd like more experience from other things, like automated quests, RP, and exploring, by no means should those things replace the usual ranking method, just help it along. A lot of RP is based in going places, meeting people, getting beaten to a pulp, beating others to a pulp, and so on. We'd lose too much of that if people didn't go out to kill mobs, because we'd lose so much risk factor.

As for exploring areas, apparently I can't keep my mouth shut, so my previous comments just aren't there now. The only real advice I should have given about them is this: Don't go to far off places for easy experience, it's not worth the trouble. Go to far off places to learn about them, learn what's there not just in gear and mobs, but also for strategic means. If you want to catch people in places that for whatever reason helps you win the fight, that's great, but it's also good to find places to hide and/or make a stand for when those hordes of people come hunting you.

But it does keep me rolling up classes that can tank. And by extension I imagine it is another limiting factor on non-tanking classes. Ranking and Extra-Cabal interactions (raid, retrieve, constant PK) just kill my lust to Roleplay a fully fleshed out concept when I'm not careful and nurture it like a little fern - but then all my ferns die, too. Huh.

That's the part I HATE. Asking everyone you can even remotely trust in your group range and NO one will go with you. Some days I log on and get 10 tells in a row from others who are desperate for companions and I have to turn 8 of them down (feeling bad about it cuz I feel their pain), other days I sit for 2-3 hours trying to find someone myself to go out ranking with and they are all busy. It's not too bad below mid-20's, but about that level people begin to get real involved in pk, cabal politics, and practicing so it gets a lot harder to find ranking companions.

The actual ranking experience itself I like. It poses challenges, helps you make allies, forces you to learn how to use your skills...you can't do that sitting alone and practicing them. Of course I am fairly new to CF, so all the learning of the lands and stuff is good for me because it is all fresh and interesting. If I had been doing it for years, I think it might get a little stale. The one thing I haven't done any of yet are the quests and I currently am playing a hero character. I just don't even know yet where to go to do any of them except the newbie one.

anyway just my 2 cents worth (if its worth even that ;) )


Smile - It can't hurt and might help. :)

Let's see what ranking allows:

1. People to exist with just a subset of their skills, amongst those with a subset of their skills. This gives rise to far more tactical scenarios than if we were all heroes.

2. Exp penalties. Would mean nothing if we were all heroes.

3. Learning the lands. People wouldn't bother visiting most places if not to rank.

4. Setting up ambushes etc. Ranking increases incidences of resting, being engaged in combat and thus vulnerable, learning skills, travelling more predicatably etc.

5. Ranking forces people into alliances/risks that they otherwise wouldn't make, because of the risk.

This applies to lowbie ranking as well as non-lowbie ranking.

Therefore, despite the annoyances like getting stuck at level 35 as an ap, 34 as an assassin (not that this ever happens), 39 as a warrior etc, I am a huge fan of ranking, despite the tedium of it.

I generally power-rank to 51 and put it behind me. I haven't heroed a character in about 1.5 years, but I think Ledauna got to rank 40 in less than 50 hours. My last hero got to 51 in 58 hours.

Maybe if enough people agree that it's a sour part of playing (sometimes sour is good even though you don't like the taste), we can change or mold it in some ways to make it better.

Tweaks have been made

Free exp for exploring, quest-completion, RP, etc.

From 1 to 10 I usually get something like 8000 exp from quests. Once I figure out what I have to do to actually get the mad exploration exp gains I'll start doing that (just walking into every area on the list doesn't appear to get it done).

One day I hope to rank from 1 to 10 in 1 hour without killing anything :)

*nod* Tweaks have been made. Are they really enough, though? 8000 out of a few hundred thousand you need to get to hero isn't exactly huge on the grand scale. Exp for exploring is pretty nice, I agree. But that just causes people to go to areas for the sole reason of getting that bit of exp. Like ranking, without killing anything. :P
Rp is also a nice tweak and are a step in the direction of loosening the ranking gripe, but I don't think you can't count these as they aren't given out to everyone.