The Elysium Crush

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Anyone else feeling the crush lately?

In the last couple months, I've levelled a crat to 100, an advy to 140, and another crat to 120.

I've noticed that it's crazy hard in some timezones to get a spot at kite hill, or anywhere there is hecks!

As soon as my 120 crat hits 130, I'm going to start on ado, and try to get them out of Ely because it's madness right now.


Here's some of the problems I've identified:

1. high level players (150-160) STILL getting research done in ely

This is the biggest and most obvious problem. The rate of XP acquisition even when buffed to the nines in Ely is really slow. This creates a massive stagnation in toon progression that's top heavy. The low and mid level toons (90-130ish) can just barrel through the levels, but face a huge massive logjam at gaining any dings in Ely past then.

2. People aren't acquainted with Scheol or Adonis, or what levelling opportunities are available there.

If 150+ toons moved to Ado, it would create openings for the 130's to team up with them, gain lots of XP using their toolsets, get them acquainted with Ado sooner, get them keys+quests out of the way, and it would even further help create openings for the lower level players to get (either) kited up quickly, or fight normally.

Years ago, I remember doing ado hecks and loving it. I remember seeing level 135ish players in ado all the time, and wondering if they were geared enough to make a difference in the team. Nowadays, it's a rare occurrence to see any 130 in ado (are we going backwards?)

3. Scheol to Ado run is stupid - I don't mean, it's stupid, it's stupid hard, I mean, impossible to do with a single 130. The mobs are insanely OP'd for the run, and crazy social agg just means death, death and more death.

If the Halls of scheol got a minor tweak - as simple as perhaps, adding a 'do not enter combat unless attacked' clause, it would alleviate strain on players who would progress naturally at the appropriate level that lack outside help to advance.

4. once you get players into scheol or ado, locations that are good for levelling are rather muted - I mean, they are either non-existent, or completely unknown - so it would be nice to see some more Dark-ruins-esque levelling areas that are team or solo to help alleviate the massive traffic jam.

Fixing up the geometry so that people can actually function there (either with an OST+NT, or just with normal teams killing mobs) is a good start, but a bit of re-vamp would be useful as well.


Those are my observations on Ely and the colossal traffic jam we are facing there.

TL;DR

Some players want a free ride - I get that.

But MOST players want to actually play the game, that's what we log on for. So, if Scheol was slightly more user friendly, and the trip to Ado wasn't so much like a suicide wish, I think some pressure on Ely could be dissipated quite quickly.

[Legendfluf]

I've noticed that it's crazy hard in some timezones to get a spot at kite hill

But MOST players want to actually play the game, that's what we log on for.

Yes, because playing the game is afking at kite hill.

You know, you could grab people from LFT and actually kill things? Oh wait, you have to afk to get xp now-a-days, sorry.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Yes, because playing the game is afking at kite hill.

You know, you could grab people from LFT and actually kill things? Oh wait, you have to afk to get xp now-a-days, sorry.

Interesting you say that, because I did that all the way through, and I always picked up people who were within range.

I did that at crips, at nasc hecks, at tiigs, and at ely hecks.

I started in ely with a level 90 crat soloing hecks at beach with my OST just tanking, but I picked up any person who asked for a team - with one exception, a level 91 Omni doc was on LFT, I said I'm going to ely beach I got my OST waiting so I just need some DPS to make it go, he said, 'invite me when you have an NT' and left team.

Well I invited a 122 shade with duel nippy's and got up to level 93 really fast, and I got a tell from the Omni doc who hadn't gained any levels, but by that time the shade had dinged 123 or 124 and was out of range.

We got 3 more people in team eventually and I felt that XP was going ok, but not fantastic, so one of the guys said he had an NT and said he could log it if we could find a spot. So we tried kite hill (full), bridge/ramp (full), so we went up to outer isles. that was slow going but everyone got a few levels before I logged.

Then the next day my toons were in range of my NT on another account, so I teamed myself and just did a few pulls. But while I was doing that I saw about 8 people in 30 minutes come up and ask for team, so it filled quickly.

By all means, yes, if you can find a team, join it up and we'll make some kills, but the problem isn't people.... If you read the OP the point is exactly the opposite.

The problem is too MANY people in Ely - no matter what spot you choose, there is intense competition for the mobs, and that's my point.

[Qualto]

Nerf nasc & ely OST'ing, make hecklers run if attacked by players outside their lvl range. And add an SL elite daily to kill X hecklers (should take 30-60min with a team). It should equal 3-5 daily rewards.

edit: Should probably level-lock the mission to somewhere around lvl 90-150ish to.

[mcnurja]

Please kids take Your whines to Game suggestions and if that wont help buy veteran account and always have OST for future alts Like everyone else. Stop being poor and get a job if its too much asked to Support funcom.

[westyfu]

I, too, see this as entirely a people problem, not the numbers but the mentality of 90% of them, The XP in SL is still pretty good for the most part, if not a metric tonne better than we had before with so many more options there now to gain it in quests.

The single biggest problem here, is the fact people will NOT do content, and will fill up 3-4 spots in medsuits and Afk, Even you on your own... took an OST with you, when you could be soloing on Devourers (too low? Rafters) for about the same XP per hour, on smaller HP pools and faster kills, the more there? the faster you kill, and there's dyna's all over the place to try your luck at some loot with your xp. These are plenty up till 110ish and by then, if you gathered a team to kill those? you could all head to scheol and kill the abundance of wildlife there for decent XP, without touching a heck, or seeing an OST, by the time you get to the Spiders south of the 160 incarnator you're coming up to 130 and just about ready to come back to ely, and getting into heck teams of your own... It just takes a little longer, and you can't pay someone to do it for you.

But the lure of those NT's on those hills is WAY too strong and simply cannot be resisted and people will throw credits at it as fast as they can.

Break this entire "Must have OST to do anything in-game" mentality, and people will be stood on p7 again, people just cannot stand seeing 10 green mobs die in 5 mins for their xp, vs 1 red mob tanked for 5 mins for the same xp.

But it just cannot happen while so many of you scramble to those dual accounts at the smallest hint of 'effort'.

I see it's all about 'twinks' latley... yet the twinks we used to call that, didn't get carried to pande and buy all their lootrights in a day, Now? It's more akin to 'the norm' than a 'twink' as you're all in the same stuff, doing the same things, on the same toons at title caps.

There is no alternatives, There is Auno config's treated as bibles and anything less and we're all 'gimp'.

What happened to all that fun... I keep hearing that MOST people want to play, and MOST people want to go back to how AO was... I find this to be the exact opposite.

MOST people have vet accounts and OST's.
MOST people cannot live without them.
SOME people want to team.

Hurja here is a prime example of why this game is suffering at the players hand, ever think some of us do not 'want' vet accounts?

God forbid people actually want to play YOUR game, with people. right?

Hell after returning, the first thing you said to me in-game was an unwarranted insult in /tells because you saw half of a conversation in /ooc and couldn't resist flashing your E-peen, First person on my ignore list in years... Bravo.

But have fun on kite hill, that one website sure does thank you for it while FC continue to find better uses for their employee's time.

[Awikun]

Sitting on kite hill is hardly fun, but if others do it I do not mind.
I sometimes do it as well with new alts but it has never been a top priority for me.
What I found more important is to get alien levels asap (most of the time capped for my level).

When I hear that my friends are organising kite in Nasc or Ely I will gladly join (if I have alt in that level range) but most of the time I do it for 2-3 hours max per day. In the meantime I do all dailies (esp. alien daily) as well as do soe quests/get some items from level locked dungeons etc.

There are also some tricks/alternative ways or leveling on RK as well as in SL and most of those spots are usually quite empty. The key point is to know at what level to go there ...

[Leetlover]

I, too, see this as entirely a people problem, not the numbers but the mentality of 90% of them,

I disagree. It is 100% on the account to game mismanagement and neglect on FC's behalf.

[Legendfluf]

Nerf nasc & ely OST'ing, make hecklers run if attacked by players outside their lvl range.

Aye, just take the code that already exists with Mortiigs and slap them onto hecklers.

If a person that has Tiigs gray to them, even hits them (or a dmg shield hits) they run away.

[ultion]

This mentality is what is wrong with AO. Years ago, people would be embarrassed to make a thread crying about not being able to find a Kite or OST at every stop along the way. Play your toons, it can actually be fun to see if you can survive without an OST.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I feel like a lot of the posters in this thread didn't read the OP.

The point of the OP was that IF OPTIONS EXIST, then there wouldn't be such a ridiculous logjam at ely.

For an option for levelling to exist, it's got to be comparable to the 'norm' I agree, the 'norm' now is parking at ely hecks and letting someone else do the work.

I was very busy last night, I had two alts parked on bridge, my NT, and my OST. So quad logged, pulling hecks and nuking them on my NT for my two alts.

Ya, i'm a sellout. But if there was another option, by all means, I'd do it.

both the toons I'm levelling are equipped to fight...

But I can't be bothered going to scheol before level 130 because there's really very little options in school to actually make a ding on.

So I kited up to level 130, and logged the OST and NT and went to scheol to farm some sigs.

At least I called it a day at 130 - there's no reason to do hecks higher than that. I can get to ado at 130 and start my quests, by the time I'm done my quests (ado key, ado brain, bronto burgers, a few dailies and AI dailies), I'll be 145. At 145, I'd much rather regear, and multibox Ado hecks with my 200 enf.

That way I can at least chew through a bit of his neverending research as well, but more importantly I don't have to deal with the garbage in ely anymore. The number of leach, *******, anklebiters in ely makes me want to puke.

[westyfu]

"I was very busy last night, I had two alts parked on bridge, my NT, and my OST."

There we go again...

You refuse to even try and find alternative options.

If there was another option?

You'd log your damn OST again.

You are not helping the problem and are contributing to it in force.

Edit: How can you honestly expect the people around you to play, when you must do everything on an OST as 'the example', You say we haven't read the thread... Did you think about it before you typed it? I'm not 100% sure you've read it yourself.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

"I was very busy last night, I had two alts parked on bridge, my NT, and my OST."

There we go again...

You refuse to even try and find alternative options.

If there was another option?

You'd log your damn OST again.

You are not helping the problem and are contributing to it in force.

Edit: How can you honestly expect the people around you to play, when you must do everything on an OST as 'the example', You say we haven't read the thread... Did you think about it before you typed it? I'm not 100% sure you've read it yourself.

But that's completely unrelated to my point.

My point is, is that there are too many high level players in Ely.

Why?

Because the XP gains in ely are slow at that level (150-160 specifically), compared to 90-130.

Let me explain differently:

Lets say you have a 150 and you want to finish 4 lines of research.
I have a level 90 toon, and I want to ding up to 130.

You go park at kite hill, and you take up one spot in a heck kite team for 14 hours to achieve your research goal.

I go and park at kite hill, and I ding up to 130 in 3 hours and 45 minutes.


Now I'm level 130, and I'm ready to go do stuff in scheol /ado /wherever else, and I've only used about 4 hours in ely gaining XP quite quickly, compared to the 'higher level' toon that still needs another few hours to finish up some odds and ends.

But, that's where my second point comes in. If there were some other options for levelling, perhaps people wouldn't feel that sitting in a kite team for 14-16 hours was a necessity.

I don't have a problem with doing it for 3-4 hours, because I logged a few toons and even helped out a couple orgmates and even some Omni's that came by and asked to join. I'm not a jerk so I invited them and they thanked me for the service.

What I'd really like is for there to be some more activities to do once the ely kite is done. It's extremely fast and effective. I have no problem with people doing it, especially in the low levels when you just want to move to the next area.... what I have a problem with is people who have already reached a level at which they should EASILY be able to go do other content, but still don't do other content.

Why? I assume laziness. But I get tired of doing the ely kite grind very quickly so, like I said, I'm not doing it... I'm going to do quests.

Anyway, why are you so mad? the people levelling from 90-130 aren't the problem. I'm not the problem. I'm only staying in ely until I'm at a level where I can move quickly to ado.

[Gimpynoob]

I have no idea what these people are talking about.

[Metafizis]

But I can't be bothered going to scheol before level 130 because there's really very little options in school to actually make a ding on.

Not sure what the quest level req is but thers many dings to be gotten from Scientist and Yuttos quests.

[Tryptophy]

I've tried to make suggestions for revamping Dark Ruins so that people actually do it but...even if they've been taken seriously they're on the back burner, best case. But it seems to me like if that can be made a real target for players, either because of loot or xp/hour, that would go a long ways toward making ely less attractive for higher levels. But maybe in the end people will do anything to avoid spending money making a char combat ready before inferno.

[Zixx]

remove hecks, simple. (kite teams is stupid anyway )

[Wakizaka]

Not sure what the quest level req is but thers many dings to be gotten from Scientist and Yuttos quests.

To bad that even for highbies, those quests involve way to much pointless running around. Far to much of a timesink.

[MachSchau]

The fact is, there are too few people leveling up to disperse the population. The game has gotten to the point where dual, triple and quad logging is the norm and higher level toons doing all of the work in regards to tanking or damage dealing. There are hardly enough people to do adonis hecks with unless its with your org or a group of friends helping you. The random teams that do form are few and far between and gone are the days where you could go to adonis and easily find a team. People sit in ely because of those reasons. They are more likely to get a team, for any amount of XP, in ely sooner than a different zone.

Playing AO in a more "legit" way (by legit I mean one toon no dual logging) makes it extremely difficult to do much of anything since this game is very dependent on teams. I have been in ely in the 100s looking for people to team with to just kill hecks (you know, the old fashioned way) and I couldn't find enough to make up a team or really anyone, it was all kite hill OST nonsense and I didn't feel like paying for that kind of service. Not only that but the experience I described happened on my keeper around the middle of 2012 (keep in mind pre server merge) and I would also like to say teamage is also dependent on what profession you are. For the most part, it was dailies and going afk on lft hoping I got on to some sort of team to level quickly, but that hardly happened. I remember playing that toon regularly and it took me a couple of months to get him to 220/30 because throughout the entire leveling it was extremely difficult to find teams.

People aren't going to change how they level up until FC steps in and does something like create hot zones where solo/teams can go to get insane amounts of XP with relative ease or an open world dungeon where the XP and respawn of mobs is amazing (also good gear can drop there). AO needs a lot of work and attention now with the population so low and player mentality so bad. Fun story, I actually got kicked from a team on my keeper in nasc because I was looting the hecks (they had an nt and ost also I was poor) and it was spamming up this guys chat.

[srompu]

To bad that even for highbies, those quests involve way to much pointless running around. Far to much of a timesink.

After about 7 years, I finally did the Scheol quest from beginning to end on a 220, and I'll never do it again on any toon.