I am curious as to how many players find the low level grind a bit to much of a pain in the ass?

I really can not find my way to playing, though that is not a loss to CF cause I suck , again simply because the insanely boring drudgery of leveling. This problem is quite acute at low levels where it is boring beyond belief.

If you are not a "hater" of the grind, what do you to get yourself past it?

I find new characters a real rush. They're new, and you never really know where they will wind up rp/cabal wise even if you set out with a firm picture in mind. Thats the nice thing about a game like CF. You can start out with a picture of where you want to wind up, and along the way something happens to change everything around and the character takes on a life of it's own. Those are the best characters, and among my favorite experiences. Those characters that take on a life of their own are also the ones that tend to stand out.

I agree. With a new character, nobody's yet kicked your butt, so you can walk around like you're king of the world. Also it's alot less dangerous being a low-ranking character, so the stress level is much lower.

..

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."
- Albert Einstein

>I find new characters a real rush. They're new, and you never
>really know where they will wind up rp/cabal wise even if you
>set out with a firm picture in mind. Thats the nice thing
>about a game like CF. You can start out with a picture of
>where you want to wind up, and along the way something happens
>to change everything around and the character takes on a life
>of it's own. Those are the best characters, and among my
>favorite experiences. Those characters that take on a life of
>their own are also the ones that tend to stand out.
>

WARNING RAMBLING & BIT STRONG IN OPINION!!

I love making a character from scratch ere I even roll for him or her.
Goals, desires, and drives are all something I truly enjoy having in place ere I start a character. I am unable to focus my efforts without this and even something as small as not having a description at the get go makes a character feel unappealing. This approach strongly detracts from your vision of enjoying low level character grind and sadly it is the one that best suits my personality and playstyle.

Now to get to where my character can actually start interacting with CF, both environmentally and PC based, it requires a certain amount of levels. Up to a certain point many classes feel like a chore to play since you have no hope of surviving a PK attempt from one of the many classes that have sweet spots at lower levels. And even worse, well worse in my opinion, are the interactions with those who are "liked minded" or "acceptable" (according to the CF standarization of classes, aligments, roles, and races) who treat your character like a place holder to ensure they get optimized XP or a tool securing their shinies. This causes your character to take on the feel of a kleenex that is being used and tossed aside.

I have yet to consistently enjoy roleplaying exchanges ere level 40 since there seems to be too much focus on leveling, getting that shiny bit of kit, getting Imm interaction(not for the group but for the individual), or PK bravado but no interest in the other potential channels for exchange. Of course I am part of the problem because I gave up on trying to interact as a character at lower levels instead of a soulless automaton trying to get levels, kit, or the rare PK victory.

Just some counterpoints to what you think is the enjoyment of lower levels. Again I am guily of not always trying to enjoy a diverse experience that CF provides but sometimes I just want a quick fit so I can rush up to the levels where roleplaying is fun and fresh.

Edit: sweets spot -> sweet spots

>Now to get to where my character can actually start
>interacting with CF, both environmentally and PC based, it
>requires a certain amount of levels. Up to a certain point
>many classes feel like a chore to play since you have no hope
>of surviving a PK attempt from one of the many classes that
>have sweet spots at lower levels.

FWIW, I've PKed with every class in the game in the first 10 levels of PK. There are definitely classes that have some advantages, but there's definitely no class that has no hope of survival.

Let's take a look at this:

>I have yet to consistently enjoy roleplaying exchanges ere
>level 40 since there seems to be too much focus on leveling,

and this:

>Again I am guily of not always trying to enjoy a
>diverse experience that CF provides but sometimes I just want
>a quick fit so I can rush up to the levels where roleplaying
>is fun and fresh.

So basically, you're just trying to level through the low levels as fast as you can without really trying to enjoy it or RP, because there's no enjoyment or RP down at lower levels? Have you considered that this might be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and/or you might be part of the problem?

I'm not really trying to bash on you. Just something to think about.

Oh, I recognized the fact that is may be a self fulfilling prophecy if you look at my post. Unfortunately prior experiences have built up a bit of a block that I try to suppress but it is not easy.

As Kermit would sing "It is not easy being green."

I do get a kick out of you and other premiere players using the "Well come on, I can do it." response. I am pretty sure you do not even notice many things other players do since you simply know what to do to get your character where you want it. Perspective does come from experience but experience can lead to false positives in the arena of perspective.

I know you are not trying to bash me, you are helpful 99% of the time, even when you let your evil nature come out. The other 1% of course are the delusional moments, but hey being delusional only 1% of the time is way above the norm. Cheers.

I want to see a log of you PK someone with non-felar pre-forms shifter.

I'm guessing it would involve him zapping a fire giant.

Pretty much involves zap/recite/brandish or ganging, yeah. (Plus a little bit of creative partial shift use... but that's secondary.)

Detect invis is a long way from universal at those levels, which helps a fair bit.

Having been "out" of the game for a while, and not knowing the current "story" going on, even in the slightest, I've found it near to impossible to get back in, even though I've wanted to.

I have a number of roles and names that I'd love to play....at or above lvl 38 or so.

But, about a dozen times or so, I'll roll up, and solo to lvl 8.....



And about the 100th time I have to sleep for 5 minutes real time because I am out of moves, I delete.

I just can't take lowbie ranks. Not solo anyway. And I admit, If I got a decent group that also wanted to rp, those early ranks wouldn't be so bad...but I've gotten that decent lowbie group maybe twice since I started playing in '97.


Maybe it's because I've done all those newbie quests 100000000 times. Go here, get that, go here, get that. sleep, go watch tv for 5 minutes. Continue to go there, get that. Sleep, go watch tv for 5 minutes. recall. walk to grind spot, sleep half way, watch tv for 5 minutes waiting for mv, grind there a bit, sleep waiting for repop, watch tv for 5 minutes.


And that's if there is anything worth watching on tv.

And that's a complete shame, because I *WANT* to get back into cf. I just can't get over the first 15 levels or so of complete boredom.

I mean, sure...that's just 2-3 hours....if you have a group...probably more like 7-8 hours.

In those 7-8 hours, I could have rolled up a char in Wow, and done dozens of quests that are STORYLINE! quests...meaning you get right into the epic of the world right away...

Or, in those 7-8 hours, my lvl 64 hunter in Wow can either grind to 65, or do 4-5 quests....again...STORYLINE quests.

Or, I can solo a char in cf to 15, and still be 5 lvls away from being able to join most cabals, if I'm lucky enough to know where to get enough cash to afford food and practice sessions. (which I might not know anymore, having been so long).


Personally, I would love to cf add in dozens of lvl 1-10 or 1-20 quests. Have them start in a Quest-story-arc in the various cabal rooms/religion rooms of mud school. If you start the rager story arc, no way you can do any of the scion story arc quests, etc.

Little things, to help each character get into the STORY that is cf.

send a maran-wannabe-newbie to bring re-enforcement axes to the elite storms on Kiadana for some xp and some copper.

Send a scion-wannabe with a magic wand to poison the soup in that neutral temple south of galadon.

send an empire-wannabe to beat into submission the son of a defector.


etc.

I'd love to see enough quests so that you could just do "story" quests to develop the background of your character and get enough xp to go from lvl 1-10. Heck, make it so that doing the quests actually takes LONGER to rank to 10 than grinding ...but at least you feel like you are accomplishing things.

You can even do "grind" quests. Say, in the outlander-wannabe-quest-line....some witch needs 8 "gnoll fingers" , 4 "blood beast gizzards", and 3 "Dark stalker belly-buttons"....or something....and just add a mob-prog on those mobs, so that if the person who lands killing blow is on the quest, there's some small chance one of those items will drop.

So in essence, you are still grinding...but you are doing it for a REASON, you are helping along your faction, you are accomplishing something. And, once you gather all you need, you hand it in for a few extra grand xp (maybe with a small armor/weapon bonus, if you are in a group of three that all turn in at the same time....to encourage grouping and pc-on-pc interaction).

There are literally dozens of different kinds of quests in that vein that are possible and it would seem to be to be very easy to implement.


At least, that is what *I* would do to fix the problem *I* am having with getting started in cf.


Some would say "That kind of quest idea is stolen from WoW and other MMORPGS, cf should be unique".

and my answer to that would be....

Many games are successful. Most of them are successful for different reasons. I see nothing wrong with encorperating ideas that WORK into cf, if it might make it more newbie friendly.


Heck, this kind of quest could even be extended into the high ranks, with some interesting rewards.

Say, some semi-unique weapon /eq rewards, only available the first time you kill a certain "boss" mob in cf, and only if you are on the quest for it....

Say....25 quests down the "maran wannabe" line, some dwarf weaponsmith wants you to bring him a vial of the Matron Mother's blood, from the Matron mother in the Drow city....for him to use in quenching a special kind of metal for weapons to be held in reserve to be used against the Drow if they ever decide to come out of the underdark.....and in return, he will forge a weapon for you.


Anyway, just brainstorming. Maybe one of these days I'll actually grind through past lvl 8 again before deleting out of boredom. Heh.

.

First off, welcome back and I'm glad to hear you're trying to
find something that fits your groove.

>And about the 100th time I have to sleep for 5 minutes real
>time because I am out of moves, I delete.

If you don't know about it, there's an oasis on the Eastern Road
that's a good place to rest as a newbie (help eastern road).

We could look at adding more "rest stops" for newbies around the
world in a similar vein. I've never seen any feedback really on
the oasis, so I don't know if this is worth looking into.

>Personally, I would love cf to add in dozens of lvl 1-10 or
>1-20 quests. Have them start in a Quest-story-arc in the
>various cabal rooms/religion rooms of mud school. If you
>start the rager story arc, no way you can do any of the scion
>story arc quests, etc.

We've actually added a number of neat quests for those levels,
but I don't think they're exactly what you're after.
If I'm hearing you right, you're looking for something that
guides you along a path. You're not just doing the job so much
as taking a side in something larger and finding direction.

Admittedly I've been less productive than a rock for a long time,
but something in this kind of inspired me. There are a few quests
that seem like they're crying out for a sequel and I'm going
to pick one and see if I can build a storyline out of it from
newbie to hero.

Just wanted to give you some feedback there.

Qaledus

that is all...

The game REALLY needs more (colored) echoes at various points to tell people about things. For instance...the oasis...I had no idea about that. Have people get an echo as they walk by.

When encountering a mob that you can...what's the command...talk? chat? gossip? ...and get a quest, echo about the relevant command to initiate it.

That kind of thing is what rival muds (which are quite a bit more popular for some damned reason) have in abundance. Close the gap.

>The game REALLY needs more (colored) echoes at various points
>to tell people about things. For instance...the oasis...I had
>no idea about that. Have people get an echo as they walk by.

I will not add colored echoes, but I will think about other
options.

>When encountering a mob that you can...what's the
>command...talk? chat? gossip? ...and get a quest, echo about
>the relevant command to initiate it.

I'm not interested in putting the text equivalent of a "talk
to me" balloon over a mob's head. I'm open to suggestions on
how to clarify the helpfiles though.

>That kind of thing is what rival muds (which are quite a bit
>more popular for some damned reason) have in abundance. Close
>the gap.

GEORGE: Don't you understand? It's not about him. To have a line as perfect as 'jerk store' and to never use it. I, I couldn't live with myself.

ELAINE: See, there are no jerk stores. It..it's just a little confusing, is all.

GEORGE: (adamant) It's smart. It's a smart line, and a smart crowd will appreciate it. (shouting) And, I'm not gonna dumb it down for some bonehead mass audience!

I will not add colored echoes, but I will think about other
options.


That's fine, but really, what's the harm? How is it going to ruin someone's experience to get a colored echo every now and then which helps to instruct them on the finer points of the game? The whole idea is to embrace new and old players alike and retain them.

>I will not add colored echoes, but I will think about
>other
>options.
>
>
>That's fine, but really, what's the harm? How is it going to
>ruin someone's experience to get a colored echo every now and
>then which helps to instruct them on the finer points of the
>game? The whole idea is to embrace new and old players alike
>and retain them.

I meant none of what you're reading into that.

Qaledus

>I will not add colored echoes, but I will think about
>other options.

Sorry. Your statement led me to believe that you had a real problem with it. If you did, I was trying to argue* it a bit.

*Too many people nowadays think that because we might have a disagreement, it means we're enemies. I will always argue for something I think is worth arguing for, and it does not go hand-in-hand with ill will towards anyone else.

My experience is that only works once. Unless I'm just using it wrong, it'd be a million times more monumental in the terms you're talking about if it worked every time someone lvl 10 and under rested there.

Splntrd

but it does periodically refresh you like any healer does for characters pre-lvl 11 if you rest there, at least that has been my experience if I'm not mistaken.

Like Nep said, I don't find the first 20 levels time-consuming at all. At least, with the exception of a few "hard to rank" classes. Even 20-30 aren't that bad. After 30 it gets tiresome, especially if you're in a cabal and have to deal with raiding, retrieving, etc.

If I might disagree with Eskelion, I don't think low-penalty classes are "all that". If you look at the difference between a 0 penalty and 900 penalty character, the 900 penalty guy is going to need about 75% more xp to hero. However, most 900 penalty builds (paladins, at least) are pretty handy for the purposes of ranking. That's not to say you should target high-penalty classes; just take "rankability" into account when gauging how long it will take.

25% of an average of 80 or so hours is a pretty huge amount. For me that'd be like an extra month real time.

The difference between a human paladin and storm ranking wise aren't great. I guess PK wise they're pretty different, but I'd go with the human (and have, with all of my hero paladins) and I didn't regret it.

That being said, the difference between a drow necro and human you could fill a canyon with. That extra 25% is enough to make you want to stick a fork in your eye, especially as a class who predominantly does far better at 36 than 26 and predominantly does better with level advantage.

>25% of an average of 80 or so hours is a pretty huge amount.
>For me that'd be like an extra month real time.

My point was that the class with the greater xp penalty may require more xp to hero, but that that doesn't always translate into extra time since those classes may be better suited to ranking in general. Contrast a human thief with a human paladin. Paladin has the higher xp penalty by far, but he may still hero faster.

>The difference between a human paladin and storm ranking wise
>aren't great.

Agreed. Was more talking about high penalty classes than races. Within a given class, usually no one race is that much better than another for the purposes of ranking. An elf paladin is technically "better" for ranking since he tanks better, has swiftstike, and has superior mana regeneration. But he's probably so much more rankable that it offsets the 500xp penalty.

I prefer playing to ranking myself. There is always something to do regardless of which level your character happens to be at the time. The grind to me is getting the group and repeating the same commands over and over again. Mind you, I usually play loners and don't group much at all.

Define low level.

If I want to create a new character and be level 20 in 3-4 hours, I can do that. I don't usually want to, but I've done it a number of times with even ####ty groupmate characters.

Ultimately, it's as much grind as you want it to be. If you feel like the game starts at hero, the first 50 levels are always going to be somewhat grindful. If you're exploring/PKing/RPing/cabal-stuff-ing at every level, then levelling quickly becomes something that probably happens as fast or faster than you want or need.

Two things :

1) I play low xp penalty combos. Humans and half elves pretty exclusively.

2) I don't play things that make terrible groupmates. IE, no necromancers, air/air shifters or city slicker thieves for me.

Between 1 & 2 I tend to power rank to 40 in 40ish hours usually.

I try and rank as quickly and efficiently as possible. If you can't get a quality group within 10 minutes of asking, go and do something else (you could PK or gather preps, read a book, take a walk, meet someone new). Come back in a few hours and try it again.

A good group should pretty much allow you to watch TV or do whatever and being able to just type in commands while glancing at the screen. For me, it's a great time to grade papers or write lesson plans. I consider it "great" ranking if I'm levelling every 20-30 minutes and "good" ranking if I get a level in under an hour. Other people have different standards. Your mileage may vary.

If you're having trouble finding a group in the first place, you need to make yourself a desirable groupmate by playing a desirable class. Play a class like a warrior or assassin. If you're up for empowerment, go healer. Rangers are pretty good also. Transmuters aren't going to get much love until they get haste and slow. Avoid necromancers.

If you do play another class, do what you can to bribe people to group with you. Get some gold in the bank and offer to pay them for letting you tag along. This is one of my downfalls, as I tend to play thieves a lot, which are near useless until they get circle, and then only moderately so until they get enhanced damage and dual wield at 25.

You should be able to mow through to 11 in about 1-2 hours with lowbie quests and easy levelling. From there, it gets a bit harder without a group.

This is what works for me. Good luck.

Solo rank up a storm or elf paladin to the point of pain, and then switch to a no-experience penalty class human, half, or orc that has a role you love. The high experience penalty will put the low-experience penalty character into perspective.

More importantly:

Focus on role development at all times. I'm not talking about interactions with others or even submitting your roles to the immortals for review, but getting into your character so much that you know what memories are linked to his favorite foods and which hand he wipes with in the outhouse. The beauty of role development is that unlike playerkilling or ranking or exploring, you can continue building your character regardless of whether you are playing a hero or a pre-pk, a bad-ass or a speedbump. Developing your character's role can be done while ranking or equipment gathering or even while you, the player, are stuck in traffic.

If you can find your character interesting, then even the most mundane aspects of his life will take on meaning.