Pockets are worse then kiters.

[Technogen]

Why add those?! Go do freakin RK missions, they are good exp. Jesus people you're not TL7 you can get exp from RK GO FREAKN do it.

I've gone from 120 to 125 in 1 week on my mp SOLO just farming tokens...

And just so you know those missions were 1 step down not a few steps up...

[Verta]

Why add those?! Go do freakin RK missions, they are good exp. Jesus people you're not TL7 you can get exp from RK GO FREAKN do it.

I've gone from 120 to 125 in 1 week on my mp SOLO just farming tokens...

And just so you know those missions were 1 step down not a few steps up...

I wish FC brightend those up some: new loot, new layouts, new mobs. May be a coat of paint and a couple of plants... Anything to break the monotony of endless brown/grey sometimes white walls and rectangular rooms.

And no, cave mishes are not it.

[Technogen]

...?

Have you... You confuse me greatly, I give you points for that one.

RK is some of the most diverse playing areas in game, Shadowlands is a FAR FAR cry from RK.

Maybe, don't pull Missions in Broken Shores all the time? (only thing I can come up with about brown/gray)

[scenenheard]

I wish FC brightend those up some: new loot, new layouts, new mobs. May be a coat of paint and a couple of plants... Anything to break the monotony of endless brown/grey sometimes white walls and rectangular rooms.

And no, cave mishes are not it.

better than the dull dark brown/grey monotony of SL mishes... cherish it while it lasts

[Verta]

better than the dull dark brown/grey monotony of SL mishes... cherish it while it lasts

Case to the point, with all the colours of the rainbow to pick from, whats with FC and shades of brown/grey?

...?

Have you... You confuse me greatly, I give you points for that one.

RK is some of the most diverse playing areas in game, Shadowlands is a FAR FAR cry from RK.

Maybe, don't pull Missions in Broken Shores all the time? (only thing I can come up with about brown/gray)

Yes, sometimes the walls are white/offwhite. Sometimes there are caves. But what other colours are there and where do I find them?

[Kaylinne]

At least you get the chance to beat something else than pile of rock that isnt even worth looting.

[Questra]

it may be annoying, but to be fair you can understand why people join and even pay for those teams.

grinding in AO gets very boring, and is worse when there aren't enough heals or DD or tanking to make a 6 person heck team viable without a pocket.

considering all the time that needs to be spent on grinding VP in BS, grinding aliens in LE or s10, questing in scheol and ado, twinking every 10-20 levels as well, why would someone want to waste their time grinding hecks?

to really enjoy this game, you should accept what little allieviations from the grind you can find. i'd go so far as to say you should even be willing to pay for them. it's really nice to get a break from all that hard work once in awhile.

or did you like paying to do hard work? well don't worry, when you grind AI there's still plenty of that hard work available!

[Technogen]

the xan booster will get rid of that AI grind, its only 20,000ish kills from ai0 to ai30 now.

[Questra]

the xan booster will get rid of that AI grind, its only 20,000ish kills from ai0 to ai30 now.

holy ****

that's 1/4 of the grind i went through

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOO

WHY oh WHY do they always reward the lazy ones?!

i want my money back

[Technogen]

Truthfuly I am fairly saddened by it, personally I have done everything in game. I was hoping that this booster would bring new rewarding content to the game to give us more room to expand. People call it a "grind" but without it AO would get very boring very quickly. PvP is just as repetive as PvM, you say "But players are smarter then mob!" No not really, as is players just run around tring to do as much damage in a short time as possible. There is no tatics in this game on the PvP front.

Hopefully in the future things can change for the better.

[Kaylinne]

WHY oh WHY do they always reward the lazy ones?!

I went through grind myself too, not AI 30 yet but I was willing to get to 30 the old way nevertheless. I grinded other things in years of playing.
I get that small sinking feeling of somebody downgrading my effort every time I see someone getting from 160-220 in 2 days leeching inf mishs too.
I get irritated with players that want everything now and with 0 effort too.

But seriously, how can you say someone is lazy in context of some online game? Games are supposed to be fun and place to relax, NOT another job you do because you have to pay the bills.

People that do have a job and family hardly have time for second job in some game, and that is almost everyone, if not now then very soon in the future.
And when everyone that cant spend 24/7 in AO grinding leaves, who will stay? If I was new player and if I only got hint about the grind awaiting me I would probably get disheartened and leave.
Its not laziness but common sense. AO is just a game.

[Wrangeline]

It is often the trend in MMO's that something hard is achieved early on by the hardcore people and then they get to enjoy being that powerful for a year or two. Then things are made easier and the less hardcore people get to catch up finally.

The hardcore people don't like this but I guess the tradeoff here is to either be "uber" for 1-2 years compared to the less hardcore people or to wait with the grind until its made easier and then do the work.

Hard now, but powerful.
Easy later, but not powerful.

Those that have the time and energy will choose the first option more often than not because they can't stand being "not powerful" for so long just to avoid some work.

Me personally, I did the "hard now, but powerful" approach in the early days of AO and i kept it up until I was 214 and left for WoW. Before inf missions were put in the game. Then I came back after inf missions had come into the game and I got to 220. Now I no longer have the energy to do everything the hardcore way so when things like AXP becomes easier with the booster, I don't mind at all because without making it easier, I would never ever level a single alt to endgame and that's not good for any MMO.

[scenenheard]

it may be annoying, but to be fair you can understand why people join and even pay for those teams.

grinding in AO gets very boring....

Welcome to the world of MMOs. tbh AO's leveling speed is far faster than a lot of MMOs I've played. The grind is there for a reason: to keep the player subscribed longer and thus earn more cash for the developer.

Just think yourself lucky this isn't a Korean MMO with a lvling rate of 1 lvl every 10 weeks and 0 content

[Questra]

PvP is just as repetive as PvM. There is no tatics in this game on the PvP front.

well, i guess everyone is different. i really enjoy PvP with ingame friends and i like playing AO with my partner. PvP can also be really funny! i think there are often times in BS when you really need to use teamwork and tactics to win the BS

i also like quests and prefer them to missions. i just wish that out of the content we have available, levelling didn't require spending a huge amount more time grinding inf missions than doing quests or PvPing or doing any of the endgame encounters. it would great to get a bit of XP for PvP or VP, or to get more XP for quest rewards, or some consumable +XP items from some of the higher level encounters. would give people a bit more choice, if not a quicker grind

But seriously, how can you say someone is lazy in context of some online game? Games are supposed to be fun and place to relax, NOT another job you do because you have to pay the bills.

well that was half in jest. i don't think people are truly lazy. i understand why most people don't want to go for AI30 and that's fair enough. i might have been one of them if soldiers didn't need AI30 so badly.

Welcome to the world of MMOs. tbh AO's leveling speed is far faster than a lot of MMOs I've played. The grind is there for a reason: to keep the player subscribed longer and thus earn more cash for the developer.

Just think yourself lucky this isn't a Korean MMO with a lvling rate of 1 lvl every 10 weeks and 0 content

hehe... ultimately i'm glad FC are doing this. it's fair and when i level my alts to ai30 i'll be able to do it in a fair amount of time.

i do wonder, though, if more people would play AO longer if they knew they could choose one of the many profs they haven't tried yet and make it 220, AI 20+, and in good equipment with a good setup in just a few months *without* forfeiting their social lives for that entire time. if someone was motivated to make more tl7s and therefore spend more months enjoying the fruits of their labour, i wonder if that would generate more money for Funcom

someone spending 2 years or more on one tl7, and another year on the second, gives AO 3 years of payments before that person can't stomach grinding a 3rd 220

but someone spending 6 months on a tl7, and another 6 on another, and then not being too weary to spend 3 years making 5 or 6 others, would generate more cash for Funcom

i think it's worth a MMO giving it a try. Guild Wars isn't a good example since there are no subscriptions as such, and therefor no grinds whatsoever.

[Kaylinne]

Welcome to the world of MMOs. tbh AO's leveling speed is far faster than a lot of MMOs I've played.

I dont know what kind of MMOs you have played then. WoW, AoC, LotRO for example have very fast leveling.
If you want something special then yes, you have to grind as well, but getting to max level and somewhat decently gearing your toon takes very little time compared to AO.

i do wonder, though, if more people would play AO longer if they knew they could choose one of the many profs they haven't tried yet and make it 220, AI 20+, and in good equipment with a good setup in just a few months *without* forfeiting their social lives for that entire time. if someone was motivated to make more tl7s and therefore spend more months enjoying the fruits of their labour, i wonder if that would generate more money for Funcom

someone spending 2 years or more on one tl7, and another year on the second, gives AO 3 years of payments before that person can't stomach grinding a 3rd 220

but someone spending 6 months on a tl7, and another 6 on another, and then not being too weary to spend 3 years making 5 or 6 others, would generate more cash for Funcom

I think you are right on this one, at least thats the way I feel too.

[Technogen]

there is a fundamental problem with leveling fast in AO, you miss a good % of the content.

[scenenheard]

I dont know what kind of MMOs you have played then. WoW, AoC, LotRO for example have very fast leveling.
If you want something special then yes, you have to grind as well, but getting to max level and somewhat decently gearing your toon takes very little time compared to AO.

I played RF Online for over a year and that was a grind! 0.01% xp per mob @ lvl 47 with 0-15% xp loss on death and only % based xp regain pills, low % of drops, low % of success upgrading and 99% PVP zones.

Trust me, leveling in AO is a doddle after that

[Kaylinne]

I played RF Online for over a year and that was a grind! 0.01% xp per mob @ lvl 47 with 0-15% xp loss on death and only % based xp regain pills, low % of drops, low % of success upgrading and 99% PVP zones.

Trust me, leveling in AO is a doddle after that

Sounds more like torture than fun game to me.

I love social and to some point twinking aspect of AO, if that was gone I would be gone too and take my money elsewhere.
Dishes have right to be boring grind, games dont

[Mekh]

Pocket tanks aren't the problem, they're a symptom. No one enjoys bashing rocks from level 40 to 160. Give us something new to do.

Sadly, I doubt FC is going to be adding any more new low level content, as it seems to be taking all of their effort just to keep TL7 PvPers from getting bored and quitting.

The reason the game is still running is that players who have done the 1-220 grind before roll new toons (the influx of new players doesn't appear to be that great). They cbf getting levels slowly so they use pockets to make it fast and easy.

I seriously doubt all hecks in Ely are taken at the same time by pocket teams. Maybe it's my timezone :P

The solution isn't stopping pocketing (which would annoy a lot of people already sick to death of heck noob teams) but to give people better options to get levels not involving hitting the same lumps of rock over and over again.

You can either try to enter one of those pocket teams or you can level in a way that does not involve hecklers.

Having that said, there are not enough pocket teams running to take up all the heckler spots in Ely. There's a lot of hecklers there if you look around a bit.

What they said....

[Enfizzle]

This would just make pocket teams even more happy to stay there and farm XP.

If you really want to stop pocketing then you could ask FC to make it so that aggro works in the same way as damage when it comes to XP. Or, slightly more so when it comes to aggro.

To be precise, FC could make it so that if someone not in your team did a lot more aggro to a mob than your team did, then your team would not get xp. Same way as if your team did less damage than someone outside the team, you would get a message saying "you didn't do enough damage to gain xp blah blah".

When I say that this mechanic should work "slightly more when it comes to aggro" I mean that if someone outside the team got more aggro built up on the mob than anyone in your team, no XP is given to the team at all unlike with damage, where the team get some XP if they did at least some damage.

I'm not suggesting this myself, just thinking out loud on your behalf

Yes please then my enf would win every DD war .