My road from 0 to 1000000000

[Armus]

I keep hearing about how difficult it is to start playing AO, how hard it is to make money and such. Having played for many years I probably forgot how it was. I Wanted to see again for myself how it was to start from scratch, with absolutely nothing, no help whatsoever, to find out how hard it is. I have now amassed my first billion credits! I was ofcourse aware that my knowledge of the game would give me an unfair advantage. So I decided to make it a bit harder on myself by not teaming and not joining an org until level 100 ish. I also declined any charity. And I sure was offered a lot from 9-30 ish! I also didn't babysit myself with my other toons and I didn't do any nuking/kiting/healing or anything. An occational mp buff was all I did for myself.

"Lorturban has played 7 days 0 hours 20 minutes 10 seconds"

1-24 I chose an MA since that's supposedly the easiest class to play. Got level 9 on noob island. Got as much armour and credits as I could. Then i did rk missions until 22 ish. After that it was subway till I dinged 25. I managed to loot and sell some morphing mems and froob tshirts for a few hundred k's. This was a major bump for my bank. Before that I had no more than 10k. And the premade imps were really expensive and kinda sucky too. I looted as much stims and kits of stim fiends in subaway. They really helped a lot.

25-60 I continued doing rk missions as well as killing stuff in totw. I also did some dailies and dyna camps. This part was a very boring grind. But not overly so. I looted as much stims and kits as possible in totw. I tried to farm purifying rods off the reanimator. But after a few hours I realized that it would not work. Sold one for 100k.

61-90 I did most leveling here on rk dynas. A red dyna gives 10% xp. So kill 10 and get a level as well as a decent chance of loot. I shopfooded everything I got. My gear at this time was still lowbie carb that I had bought off the shopping channel, black ma back and lowbie premade imps. I had 2 totw mems and the rest store bought ncu's.
I didn't upgrade these until I really needed it.

91-111 I continued with dailies and dynas. Around level 100 I had my first lucky drop. An enf 1he nano that got me 9 million credits. So I went from having max 150k to 9 million in one stroke. I decided to spend this money on an ai tank and some better impants. This increased both my survivability and my damage greatly. I learned that AC's really matter at these levels and the ai tank helped a LOT! I continued killing dynas. Sometimes up to level 155's. No more real luck though. Most of the loot was shop food. I also did some leveling on devourers near p7. This was my first trip to SL
I also joined my org at this time.

112-125 With my new ai tank and new awesome ql 130 imps I decided to check out sector 10 as I heard from org mates that money was good there. I died just 5 meter inside from an alien larvae. Undeterred I came back, this time packing the stuff from the unicorn that kills larvae. I followed other ppl around and started working on killing aliens. Apart from a few threats and allegations of training it went pretty easy to get to mid. Ppl were friendly with buffs and advise. Evey kill was a small adventure, but I eventually got it right and I could kill single aliens quite efficiently. It took me about 40 minutes before I got my first relay. I stayed a little while longer so that I had the relay as well as two bp's of fuel glands and the other round thingy to sell. This yielded me about 35m. I felt really rich now! I replaced most imp spots with symbs and I got new crit and evade nanos. I tried ely hecks but it didn't work so I levelled mainly on dailies.

126-150 I continued farming s10 as well as rk dynacamps. 10 bosses per level ain't that bad as they die quickly. I did the ely cata quest and it yielded 4 levels I think. More dailies and then a few bits of the scheol quest and I dinged 150. I kept farming and selling relays and the other stuff. I bought new symbs and eventually a d-chest, some ma ofab and three strong pieces. Now s10 farming was a breeze. I equipped a shen stick also and dmg went up even further then. I got to 150 by killing hecks.
I decided to ask for help with popping pb's. So I started saving them instead of selling. The first pop I had 6 pb's. It yielded a strong and some other cheaper bot. Second pop was yesterday. 28 pb's yielded 3 strong, 2 obs, 1 supple, 3 arithmetic and 2 endurings as well as a boatload of ice and augs. Together with the 250m I had from the last sale I now have just over 1 billion credits, in addition to the 3 strong pieces, d-chest and rather expensive symbs.


Conclusion: 1-75 ish was the real struggle. Credits were sooooooo hard to get. You have to be really economic and don't upgrade your gear too often. Just keep going.
I should add that there is quite a bit of afking in those days. probably around half. So.. 3.5 days played to get from 0 to 1000000000 isn't too bad imo. And it was also quite fun. I got to experience every little improvement in the toon. Not just sit on kite hill and wait. My end conclusion of this little experiment would be that technically the game isn't that very hard. What's hard is to know how to play and where to do. I can see how it would be very hard if you had no clue. The cure for this could be to get ppl to join orgs sooner. I see a lot of ppl running around orgless till level 100. There should be a way for orgs to advertize on noob island already, and perhaps to recruit there as well. Because knowledge is what new ppl need above all.

Fanx.

[Ahndracorvid]

Nice post.

The cure for this could be to get ppl to join orgs sooner. I see a lot of ppl running around orgless till level 100. There should be a way for orgs to advertize on noob island already, and perhaps to recruit there as well. Because knowledge is what new ppl need above all.

Partly because I wouldn't like to see new players feeling pressured to join orgs until they're good and ready, I don't think being orgless would matter as long as the people you ended up in PUGs with were as friendly and keen to "teach you to fish" as people used to be when I was leveling through ToTW for the first time. I didn't *need* an org as a froob, and only joined one later because I'd grown particularly close to one of the friends I'd made while PUGing (this is how it should be IMO. Orgs are like your online family, not just a place for people to think they can leech handouts from).

In short (and this isn't really aimed at you, just at the whole community), don't just throw creds at newbs. Spend time playing the game with them so they can learn from you, and they'll do fine. Teach a man to fish vs. give a man a fish, etc.

[Lazy]

Teach a man to fish vs. give a man a fish, etc.

as my mum used to say, "give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life". this is why i am a strong advocate of gnakking anything you can tab.

[Ahndracorvid]

this is why i am a strong advocate of gnakking anything you can tab.

In Eve this would be the same thing as teaching a man to fish. How will they learn about the game without getting podded a few times?

[Lazy]

i cracked and bought mists of pandaria the other week. it was quite refreshing getting oneshotted by some alliance d-bag twice my level while handing in a quest. if the wow carebears can handle 25% gas in all areas, so can the ao crowd.


EDIT: on topic, however, ao early game needs to be severely reworked. the whole 1-100 experience needs a LOT of work. i'm not saying rollercoaster themepark a-la-wow but some basic basic TLC to get a player reasonably geared by the time they're high enough to enter s10 would be greatly appreciated. the rest of the game evolved while the 1-100 segment is effectively stuck in 2001 in terms of content, gear and money earning. getting everything brought up to speed wouldn't hurt. hell the "best" levelling armor is ewither medsuit or carb and the best levelling weapons are either froob crap or perenniums. seriously? we can't get anything new half-way decent to level with between the time peren weaps made it into game and now?

[Armus]

Nice post.



Partly because I wouldn't like to see new players feeling pressured to join orgs until they're good and ready, I don't think being orgless would matter as long as the people you ended up in PUGs with were as friendly and keen to "teach you to fish" as people used to be when I was leveling through ToTW for the first time. I didn't *need* an org as a froob, and only joined one later because I'd grown particularly close to one of the friends I'd made while PUGing (this is how it should be IMO. Orgs are like your online family, not just a place for people to think they can leech handouts from).

In short (and this isn't really aimed at you, just at the whole community), don't just throw creds at newbs. Spend time playing the game with them so they can learn from you, and they'll do fine. Teach a man to fish vs. give a man a fish, etc.

I was orgless myself when I started until about level 105. I was unaware of the whole concept of orgs. I believe I could've saved a lot of time and gained much more knowledge if I had someone to talk to, apart from my equally nooby friend.

[Ahndracorvid]

Yep but that's why rather than encourage new players to join orgs right away (sometimes no org is better than just any old org, depending on which one you join) I would rather see veterans mingling with new players more, to provide them with that source of information to talk to/learn from that you were missing.

That would allow the new player to join an org based on wanting to, rather than feeling like they need to.

[Wrangeline]

Great stuff

I tried something similar once many years ago. My account was frozen for like 2 years and then I decided to play AO again. But instead of opening my account, I made a froob account and started leveling an engie. I had no money or gear or anything. I even pretended to be new to the game if anyone ever asked, because I wanted the real "new player" experience. I played the game for some months like that and it gave me some interesting insight.

One of the many insights I got was that if you are unwilling to farm stuff until you are blue in the face, and/or don't know where to spend your time doing that, you wont get very far. You can level and you can scrape together some very basic gear just to be able to level some more, but in order to rise above that bottom-feeder gameplay, you really need to buckle down, hard. And I don't think anyone should have to spend 90% of their time farming like crazy so that they can afford to get good gear and have the last 10% be fun. The ratio/balance is a bit off there.

Joining a guild will help a lot in lower levels especially as a million here or a carb set there from a guild really helps a lot, but this is a band-aid. It doesn't change the fact that the solo-progression gameplay is unbalanced atm.

[Metafly7]

Pretty cool, but i do imagine there is also a time factor involved. If you cant play as much as 2-4 hours after one another you quickly loose interrest if it doesnt reward right away. Its a luxury problem but that could probably lead to people not getting off Noob Island.
NPE should solve that issue a little as it gives ppl a bit of a clue as to how things work, but still a basic way of earning money brought to them in the game could be a good idea. Things that might take a bit to create with different types of loot (a little bit like making bloodplasma) and then selling those. Atleast then u know for sure that the effort that goes in will go rewarded.

[Armus]

I guess it should be noted that 3,5 days of playing translates into 42 days. Imo that's not really bad. Especially given the fact that 95% of the money were made in the last 10 hours. So if you want to make more, it's quite easy.

Imo it would help if newbies ended up in a populated area. Earlier West Athens was very populated, and while there were many douchebags there to trick newbies into pvp, there were also helpful ppl that newbies could ask. I think it would be nice if west athens were to be repopulated.

[Ahndracorvid]

The whole game could do with a population boost. Make places like ToTW feel busy again.

[Gorathon]

I think it would be nice if west athens were to be repopulated.

Borealis will be the new post-NPE starting area, and will be more populated than if sided toons were funneled to WA/Rome. And fwiw there is no 's' in Athen.

[Armus]

Borealis will be the new post-NPE starting area, and will be more populated than if sided toons were funneled to WA/Rome. And fwiw there is no 's' in Athen.

As long as new ppl end up where ppl hang out, I don't care where it is.

[Esssch]

the rest of the game evolved while the 1-100 segment is effectively stuck in 2001 in terms of content, gear and money earning.

Says someone who obviously didn't play in 01. It's better than it ever was in 01. SoM didn't get added until Halloween 01, and the new SoM weaps didn't get added until much more recently. ToTW didn't get added until around SL launch in 03. I'm pretty sure Subway wasn't there on launch either, and not for some time afterwards, though I don't remember exactly when it got added.

Conclusion: 1-75 ish was the real struggle. Credits were sooooooo hard to get. You have to be really economic and don't upgrade your gear too often. Just keep going.
I should add that there is quite a bit of afking in those days. probably around half. So.. 3.5 days played to get from 0 to 1000000000 isn't too bad imo..

To be fair, you also chose an MA, who has one of the easiest times starting in S10. My 150 trader in best symbs he can get at 150, a couple pieces of 225 css/supple, shroud of darkest night, 225 ofab shotgun, I have no problem surviving, but there's no way I could kill nearly as fast as most MAs at 150. So 3.5 days /played might be reasonable for an MA, but for support profs, expect to take much more time in that. Although I do want to find a new weap for my trader, 1k normals and 3k crits are awesome, but it's soooo sloooow.

[Lazy]

Says someone who obviously didn't play in 01. It's better than it ever was in 01. SoM didn't get added until Halloween 01, and the new SoM weaps didn't get added until much more recently. ToTW didn't get added until around SL launch in 03. I'm pretty sure Subway wasn't there on launch either, and not for some time afterwards, though I don't remember exactly when it got added.

last i checked today is 2013. so what if they added something new almost 10 sodding years ago. the point remains: early game has been entirely forgotten in favour of beefing up the endgame.

[Esssch]

last i checked today is 2013. no new lowbie content for almost 10 years is laughable.

I didn't say it wasn't laughable. You said it's the same as 01. I disagreed.

And SoM revamp came within the last 10 years, though that's also not used for leveling, just weapons/cloak, so I don't really think I'd count it as "content".

[Lazy]

Although I do want to find a new weap for my trader, 1k normals and 3k crits are awesome, but it's soooo sloooow.

interesting option to consider: http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=211268 1.1/1.1 so it shoud be faster, crits look ok and the min dmg shouldn't matter for ai mobs.

alternatively, http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=214274 slower, but higher max dmg seems fun

[Esssch]

interesting option to consider: http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=211268 1.1/1.1 so it shoud be faster, crits look ok and the min dmg shouldn't matter for ai mobs.

alternatively, http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=214274 slower, but higher max dmg seems fun

Checked mine, it's 1.4/1.4. Still feels extremely slow, but maybe that's cause I have a whole 2 damage perks. Also, no fling on that turn-spirit shotgun, and porter is supposed to be dualwielded, I have no IP in MR. Here is what I'm using though

[McKnuckleSamwich]

It's hard to populate the low XP areas if everything gears people to race past the low XP areas.


If FC lowered the XP gain rate by 50 times, you'd get people actually playing the lower levels and even getting good at them (ie. well equipped etc.)

Armus, you did well.

If you played truly like a noob, that is definitely commendable.

The obvious fix for some of this noobiness is to put reference personelle (NPC's) at obvious and strategic locations that offer tips...

tips like: check out AO universe for quests at your level.
check out auno to assess your nanos
check out whatever..

Because true noobs would never know of these things. Obviously google helps, but googling something is default. That's like saying: the game doesn't provide enough information to succeed, I need google.

So I'd opt for NPC's, even if they refer to a third party site.

The obvious issue I saw is that there is a lot of very nice MA gear that you missed out on (because of your acted noobiness):

* spirit focus sleeves in smugglers den
* brothers brass knuckles in COH
* gambolling masters wear in COH
* obvious shoulders (barrow+MoTR) dunno if these were acquired
* Dchest (good acquisition)
* tier 1-2 MA pants (replaced with Ofab)
* predator helmet
* sandy goo bracers (farmable at 110 with decent setup)
* ring of haste (mishable at level 41)
* basically the only item left after these is goddess boots at 150 and that completes the rock bottom priced MA setup

I did this exact thing 3 years ago, I rolled a new MA on RK1 back when all my toons were on Rk2. I setup nearly exactly as this list purports and by the time I reached 150 I had all infantry symbs except right arm, and about 120m in the bank. The outfit listed here is fantastic for normal play and with the appropriate defensive perk setup my toon could easily farm in S10 - on the way to 1B.

[Armus]

If you played truly like a noob, that is definitely commendable.

I did, my orgmates can verify it. This was only fun for me because I did it solo. If I had cheated even a little bit it would've instantly become pointless.

* spirit focus sleeves in smugglers den
* brothers brass knuckles in COH
* gambolling masters wear in COH
* obvious shoulders (barrow+MoTR) dunno if these were acquired
* Dchest (good acquisition)
* tier 1-2 MA pants (replaced with Ofab)
* predator helmet
* sandy goo bracers (farmable at 110 with decent setup)
* ring of haste (mishable at level 41)
* basically the only item left after these is goddess boots at 150 and that completes the rock bottom priced MA setup

I have gamboling, totw shoulders, dchest, pred helmet, ofab pants, goo bracers and goddess boots on now. I wanted the pink dress early but I found it was 30m on gmi so I opted for the cheaper ai tank.

I did this exact thing 3 years ago, I rolled a new MA on RK1 back when all my toons were on Rk2. I setup nearly exactly as this list purports and by the time I reached 150 I had all infantry symbs except right arm, and about 120m in the bank. The outfit listed here is fantastic for normal play and with the appropriate defensive perk setup my toon could easily farm in S10 - on the way to 1B.

I will continue using the same setup for a while until I've finished research. I do have ql 205 strong gloves and 2x sleeves (farmed on the ma) on as well. I will upgrade those later when I have the research done.