Has anyone else felt like they hit a wall?

[fratt37]

I am nearing the over 50 mark in forage, melee, and melee crafting.
I am noticing deep cuts in xp, success rates, and benefit in teaming up.
So I am wondering if there is a slump in progression at this level?

Does anybody have experience with effects on these things based on Item Quality v.s. Skill level, v.s. other team members skill?
i have been wondering what the " up to Xlevel ARM" means in the melee stanzas.
If it says can be used by up to level35 arm, does that mean my q40 longsword gets no bonus?, or my q20 lance is still rockin?
In addition, if I am say 50 fight, and I am using Inc Damage3, can I expect to have a hard time of it?

Last night while teaming my partner in crime and I saw wide fluctuations in xp based on what we did. Whereas two nights ago we were raking in cap XP for almost everything we did.

Can someone point me toward a place where this stuff is better explained?
Or explain some of these things a bit better?

I don't want the game to be too easy, but I also don't want it to waste my time either.

[spaaz69]

Can't really say as I'm still in 20's, but from experience in other games there's always a slump. Although only being in the 50's and I believe the cap is 250 seems kinda low to be hitting a wall at this point, I'd expect it around 100.

[fratt37]

I agree. I am mostly just making sure my current concept of how the game works is essentially correct. I don't want to make a snap choice if I only need to change a stanza, or use a different item. That sort of thing.

[aelvana]

Ploughing ahead at 110 no faster or slower than I did at 30. Same with my fight at 66.

If you're hitting a wall, could it be because you're still playing the same way as you were just a short while ago? There are 250 levels, and they move much faster than other games. Just move up to the next step in mobs/mats/etc as you need:)

[billg1]

It is problably because your fighting stuff your level or near your level. Get a group of 9 and go take on some MOBs 30 to 50 levels higher then you. You will find the progression level increase rather quickly.

[bobturke]

Regarding harvest the levels 50-60 are some of the slowest, 59 being by far the slowest level of anything i've had to get past. But once you hit Harvest 60 you fly through at least the next 40!

[co1osse]

Regarding harvest the levels 50-60 are some of the slowest, 59 being by far the slowest level of anything i've had to get past. But once you hit Harvest 60 you fly through at least the next 40!

Oh yeah that 59 jungle specialisation was such a pain.
At least once you get quality 100 extraction, it start flowing again.

[chuangpo]

Aelvana is right, you do have to adjust your playing style to match the challenges of a new area, play around with different things, group with people and go a different region to fight. Ask people in your area which region is good for 50+ Chars (In Zoran, for Instance, this would be the Maiden Grove). First and foremost, don't be afriad to experiment! Don't be afraid of getting a little death pen. If you can find a good hunting spot that will get you though 20 levels, spend the time to explore and find it. Attack things. Die. Learn.

One you get a grasp on what you can handle, just keep stepping it up. Now, this can be hard for Off. Casters in particular when soloing if you have not kept your offensive affliction and Elemental SKills at a roughly equal level. (I have made this mistake and it's costing me). The Fear Kite trick will become less effective as you move up in levels unless you also keep Fear upgraded to the appropriate level. At this point, I essentially have to either fight in a group with a tank, or, find things that I can kill before they can even get to me, usually for modest but steady XP...Really the point I, and I think Aelvana, are trying to get at, it just play around with the game. Don't get comfortable!

[daleknd]

On the topic of the slowdown in harvesting between 50 and 60, the best thing you can do is get the extraction specialization skill for various materials. These let you extract things up to q50 above your normal limit as long as the source supports going that high. This results in double to triple the experience you would get otherwise.

Sadly for me, I didn't learn this little gem until hitting level 58 in harvest. :)

Dalwin
humble forager of the Fyros

[lucasd]

Dale is 100% right, the extraction specials help a ton and make the 50-60 gap alot easier. And like everyone said, its simply a matter of finding higher level mobs to fight, aside from crafting there doesnt seem to be a huuge slowdown after 50.

[docsardo]

The only skill that really slows down significantly is crafting. That's because it takes a lot of dapper or a lot of mats to level up. I'm thankful that the crafting itself is fast. I couldn't bear having to wait 5 min or more to craft each item like in DAoC - just watching that bar slooowwwly go up was torture. So if you have the coin or the materials even crafting experience is pretty fast.

Harvesting is very fast if you use Dalwin's suggestion (hey Dalwin where'd ya learn that one? ;) Once you hit 60 then you can pull Q100 mats for 2500-3000 exp each extraction. When this gets slow you can use your specialization plus Q100 extraction and go forage at Q150 nodes.

Fighting is very fast exp in the right group. I went from 50 to 62 in about 2 hours fighting cloppers. I would guess that I spend 10% of my time fighting and 90% of my time crafting and harvesting and my fighting skill is as high or higher than the others.

Kraak - Fyros Crafter of Fine Weapons

[zzeii]

As for the benefit of various fight stanzas...

When it says that it works best for weapons up to level 35, it will deal its optimum for weaps up to that level, any weapon higher recieves a reduced effect, the bigger the disparity, the greater the reduction in benefit.

This is most easily seen in improved damage. Using ID1 with a q10 weapon will double its damage, but using ID2 with a q20 weapon will only increase the damage by 50%. I can't give specifics on other disparities because I haven't paid that close attention, but I do know you do get partial benefit when the weapon is greater than the skill used. Hence the benefit of having a lower skill/lower cost attack, and a matched skill/higher cost attack. The higher cost is most efficiently used in a team, since you will probably have a healer to watch you hp/stamina and keep them healed up, thus reducing downtime. Where when soloing/in a very very tight situation(healers down, prolonged fight, healer low on juice) the lesser attack would be ideal, lowering your drain on your juice, reducing downtime for soloing, and not being as big a drain on the healer.

The big thing is knowing what to do then, the more options you have, you can then use the best tool for different situations.

And for team hunting/solo(or small team) hunting, some creatures are designed to be optimal to hunt for one or the other. Obviously those critters with a ton of hp can be more easily taken down by a pt of 9 (and thus giving more xp overall per kill) than by a pt of 2-3 or solo. 9 people getting 2kxp but killing it faster is better than trying to take a long time to kill something with 2-3 people and getting 3kxp. Remember xp/hour > xp/kill.

Once again, it's all based on the situation you are in.

Which I would love to give kudo's to the devs for their inclusion of mobs designed for big and small(and solo) teams, making the playing environment more diverse, catering to many play styles.

And as for finding out which is designed for which? It is a game of trial and error, exploration if you will. Just like back in the ice age, where the hunter/gatherer tribes were required to kill the mammoth, where smaller game could be hunted by single hunters or smaller teams. We are those hunter/gatherers, and we have to learn how to survive in the world we live in. Just be happy there is only a dp, and not a character being destroyed and having to be remade.

I just hope people learn that this game is designed around a hunter/gatherer premise more than a hack'n'slash premise of so many other MMO's out there.

Sorry to ramble, hope some of the information proved useful.

[Nirvy]

Well,

Im 90 Melee, 93 Harvesting, 60 off mage, 40 def mage.

I would say Melee slowed down dramitically for me at about level 80, mobs became very tough to solo, and all my XP from 85-90 came from groups with other similar rated players. Sure solo is possible, but it gets pretty tricky. I can for example at my level take on a Gluttonous or if lucky a grunting Raspel, and get 3000 XP for it, but the massive number of HP's they have means it can take a minute or 3 of whacking on it to kill, which makes it feel a grind, and if i get adds im in trouble.

Harvesting is a piece of cake, you can quite easily get 4 or 5 levels and hour without even realising, 3 or 4 days of helping to harvest mats for the guild armour and equipment got me to 90, the only slow spot was lvl 50-60, which was a grind, Once i hit 60 and could get QL100 mats it went back to gettting 4 or 5 levels and hour without even noticing.

MAge is afairly easy so far, so long as you learn which mobs have less HP's. which i simply new from the melee levels i had, maybe it gets harder, but so far its fast.

Def Mage is obviously slow as it requires a group, many times im not in the mood to concentrate on being a healer, i dont particularly enjoy healing, but i took it ot 40 so i could res people pretty quikly, even if they have a load of HP's.