test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Am I the only one that . . .

silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
Sometimes has way more fun leveling up a new character than playing the end-game grind? I love having one of each paragon paths for each class. I hate to use an old -ism but sometimes the journey is better than the destination.
I aim to misbehave

Comments

  • snottysnotty Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 476 Arc User
    I will agree 100% that I enjoy leveling a new character much more then the end game grind mainly because of the simple fact that I enjoy the over all story arcs as oppose to the endless dailies, HEs, dungeon runs and skirmishes. but as far as far as worrying about paragon paths and such. Sadly, ever since mod 6 most of the builds have become worthless.

    Pre mod 6 you could get by with a screwed up build but post mod 6, a screwed up build will make the game way harder and far less fun.
  • pitshadepitshade Member Posts: 5,665 Arc User
    It used to be that way, but leveling up my SW was too easy. Too many account wide unlocks and no real will to play without them. Apart from some of the later skirmishes, it was a faceroll the whole way. Add to that it seems to me that the leveling quests have been stripped down in number and the XP adjusted upward. She raced through the zones far faster than simply being overpowered would suggest. I seem to remember that it took my first character over a week or maybe two to get to 60 on Beta and that was running with friends. The warlock probably could have completed it in a day or three of constant play.
    "We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
  • ilmenirailmenira Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 269 Arc User
    +1

    have been levelling 2 chars recently, taking them through all campaigns except Storm King, and that was fun

    took 4 chars into Storm King campaign for boons (2 have 5 boons, 1 has 3, 1 has 1)
    passing on all everfrost specific equip and the new weapon set for now...
    maybe i'll get the new weapons for one dps char later on
    i'm simply not ready for that grind right now
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User
    edited December 2016
    If you don't need to get the latest equipment to do the latest whatever, it is the best to wait. The history has proven that many times.

    Remember the elemental equipment? Those you need to do 100 successful HE to get?
    Now, I can easily make one in 20 minutes. 20 minutes is still too long? Buy it from AH.

    However, not many people can stay out of the 'latest'.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • oldbaldyoneoldbaldyone Member Posts: 1,840 Arc User
    Strip the campaign time gates from Dread Vault, Sharandar, IWD V1 so that people can complete the campaigns faster, and you'll see a lot more alts. Stripping the time gates would simply mean that a person would have to spend the same amount of time doing it, but wouldn't have to wait for the dailies to refresh and could just keep grinding. Obviously some other things would have to be adjusted for this (SH coffer donations, etc), but the only thing keeping me back from alts is the campaign grinds. Well, that and moving enchants around between toons, as I refuse to get more than 1 set of rank 12s.
  • rafaeldarafaelda Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 666 Arc User
    leveling i solo was always too easy to be honest and if you have a guild with power boon you must not active your boons or you will just ignore everthinng all the way...

    plus i still think the 60 to 70 is hamster...
    also it get boring (for me after the 6 or 7 time...)
  • btairbornebtairborne Member Posts: 352 Arc User
    Not in this game, you actually start feeling more powerful little by little as more boons and gear additions are added. So that's pretty fun to see. In some games, you really don't feel much different after you hit max level because there is not enough vertical progression (unless you raid). Here there is so much vertical progression it's impossible to keep those at the top happy.
  • silverkeltsilverkelt Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,235 Arc User
    Frankly if you could pvp without doing mod 10,, I would maybe cash in a few enchants and make a pvp toon and just play pvp until they make something even half remotely playable.

    I already have 8 toons between 80-90 of all boons anyways..

    But sadly, you cant even do that.. as you are forced to get those stupid weapons to continue that as well.

    There really is just not much left at this moment, but a dry husk of grinding and dailies and fishng and hes..

    Even if you work on a lower alt, you are hit over the head again at some point with the knowledge of the mod 10 looming over your head..

    Sadly, it appears they will keep this stuff probably until at least April.. if not longer.

    My dream , is that they raise level cap again and reset this game and make it glorious again with a designer who isnt going to think, that increasing the boring grind 1-2000% is the only way to make money.



  • ilmenirailmenira Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 269 Arc User
    edited December 2016
    @oldbaldyone
    yes, i see the problem with switching enchants... it would put me off too
    i play 3 chars regularly now, 2 have bondings, one (a tank) has a defensive augment
    (only have high rank bondings and weapon enchants, all other enchants basically max 9)

    i didn't find the campaigns too long though. the good thing about it now is that i can do all these campaigns parallely, every day just what i feel like... that's better to me than doing one stretched out campaign, waiting from day to day.
    (and worse: doing the same for a handful of chars... i can stand STK only on 2 chars parallely... it's almost too much.)
    the old campaigns all got shortened, even tyranny is easier now, as there's no need to wait for the dragon every day.

    >>> feels better to me to do all old campaigns on one char, than the newest campaign on several chars. :)


    @rafaelda
    i hated the 60-70 stretch when it first came out, it was total HAMSTER... extremely boring... as i did it with 3 chars back then...
    now i followed up with 3 more and found it got MUCH better... with certain intervals it can even be fun
    (subjective of course)


    @btairborne
    a good quest to measure progress is ghost stories
    i keep doing that with the same new renegade fire mage all through tyranny now...
    at the beginning it was tough, now with all those boons from all campaigns it got easy


    @silverkelt
    aya, pvp is the total and ultimate HAMSTER in this game!
    i pvp'd with 3 medium geared chars (special niche builds)
    and it was ok for a while
    but after i saw the huge difference solo queue makes
    i felt too stupid to keep being stomped and waiting around
    it would be easy to reform roughly and i won't do solo weeks anymore -- i want solo queue to become permanent!





  • btairbornebtairborne Member Posts: 352 Arc User
    @ilmenira - Yes, I know what you mean. Another benchmark I use still is how fast to kill the Red Wizards group down in the Dread Ring (by the Orb) or a tougher one how fast I can solo run Biggrins Tomb.
  • kvetkvet Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,700 Arc User
    Yeah samm I totally agree. I'd amend only that I enjoy the journey to level 60, but not beyond. 60->70 is a nightmarishly slow progression, and the EE campaign is boring as frack.
  • emilemoemilemo Member Posts: 1,718 Arc User
    silence1x said:

    Sometimes has way more fun leveling up a new character than playing the end-game grind? I love having one of each paragon paths for each class. I hate to use an old -ism but sometimes the journey is better than the destination.


    Im the same way. Even tho I know bringing an alt up to the power level of my main is extremely expensive hence nearly impossible, I still make a new one and play it. 1-60 with a fresh toon is the best fun in this game.
    Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
    Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    PvP is fun until you hit 60 then the twinks show up and it's "Game over man." I miss the old GG setup - 3 phases (PvE, PvP, two dungeons). That was the only reason I played PvP for a long time. Then they came out with the Neverwinter Combat League (NCL). NCL was fun because lots of people were playing it so the chance that you got steamrolled was much less, at least back then. Now, NCL would be a train wreck as well. Too many pre-mades hanging out waiting for pugs to slaughter. I still don't understand why it's fun for some to stomp severely under-geared folks but whatever.

    I think I'll continue leveling my second DC tonight. He's gonna be a DO Righteous. If you see Deacon in-game, say Hi.
    I aim to misbehave
  • kemnimtarkaskemnimtarkas Member Posts: 838 Arc User

    If you don't need to get the latest equipment to do the latest whatever, it is the best to wait. The history has proven that many times.

    Remember the elemental equipment? Those you need to do 100 successful HE to get?
    Now, I can easily make one in 20 minutes. 20 minutes is still too long? Buy it from AH.

    However, not many people can stay out of the 'latest'.

    TOTALLY this. And you don't need to buy or earn the EE weapons now - just get an artificer or weaponsmith to level 25 and make them yourself (dragon egg and unified elements required).

    Bottom line - the pattern of behavior exhibited by Cryptic over the last 2 years says mod 12 next year will replace all the grindfesty things from SKT with new grindfesty things. So if you hate the SKT grind (like me) be patient and wait them out. And hope that mod 12 isn't still worse.
  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User
    That's exactly what I'm doing
    Please Do Not Feed The Trolls

    Xael De Armadeon: DC
    Xane De Armadeon: CW
    Zen De Armadeon: OP
    Zohar De Armadeon: TR
    Chrion De Armadeon: SW
    Gosti Big Belly: GWF
    Barney McRustbucket: GF
    Lt. Thackeray: HR
    Lucius De Armadeon: BD


    Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
  • mok33mok33 Member Posts: 151 Arc User
    You are the only one.
  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    I think that a lot of us that have been around for a while have gotten to the point that we get burned out on the grind so we create new characters and try something fun with them. I have a level 63 Bulwark OP. We all know that Bulwark is not a favorite tree but I have had fun running low-level PvP with him.

    Plus - the more characters, the more good stuff you can get during Winter Festival :)
    I aim to misbehave
  • zebularzebular Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 15,270 Community Moderator
    I agree as well, the leveling process is very fun. This is one of the reasons I have at least 4 of each class. Some classes I have 6.
  • ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited December 2016
    silence1x said:

    Sometimes has way more fun leveling up a new character than playing the end-game grind? I love having one of each paragon paths for each class. I hate to use an old -ism but sometimes the journey is better than the destination.

    In general I agree.

    I don't agree in NW but I think that is more to do with the way the game plays more so than not wanting to agree.

    In Neverwinter Nights I absolutely enjoyed BOTH the journey and the end. The Journey in NWN took MONTHS for every character in most non-PvP Persistent Worlds. The Journey to max level took a long time and the gear grind, while long, was normally not as strict as kill one guy over and over again. Overall once your character became 20 or 40 you felt the journey was over and any gear grind was just because it was fun to kill things.

    In Neverwinter...I don't feel like the game starts until the gear grind. Why? Because the content I most enjoy is basically locked behind max level.

    In NWN your character was everything. The gear helped but it didn't define your character. If the Persistent World was well designed much of the content could be done with nonmagical equipment. Modest enchantments worked fine and good enchantments just reduced the challenge a bit.

    In NW your character is defined by your gear far more than your stats. Level 60 and 70 are basically resets to progression.
    In other words your journey was pointless. I think that's where the difference lays. In NWN reaching the end of the journey gave you the option to keep playing while in NW the end of the "journey" is IMO "the end of the tutorial."


    So...do I like the journey more? Yes!
    However when it comes to NW I absolutely enjoy the gear grind more than the journey even if it is just because the journey is a glorified tutorial.
  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User

    So...do I like the journey more? Yes!
    However when it comes to NW I absolutely enjoy the gear grind more than the journey even if it is just because the journey is a glorified tutorial.

    Good points Ambi. I guess my love for the end-game grind would be greater if my relationship with the spiteful RNG was better (even a little bit better would be nice). I swear that my ex-wife is in there somewhere checking a box when I open a lockbox or chest. "Nope, not gonna get that . . . Nope, no Coal ward for you . . . You want some companion tokens - here take 10 tomes instead." :)

    I do agree that leveling is a bit tedious after you've done it several times but, to me, it's no worse than running Sharandar on your 11th character. I haven't taken advantage of the campaign bypass stuff from the Zen store but when my latest DC gets to that point, I just might.

    I never played NWN as I was busy killing Covenant for 10 years in Halo PC :)

    I aim to misbehave
  • ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited December 2016
    The campaign grind is definitely not something I enjoy per se.

    I had one of each class at launch and finished the Sharandar campaign on all of them. It burnt me out on Sharandar massively.
    Every campaign I did the campaigns on one less character until I only did it on one.

    I actually am an altoholic. In NWN I would make new characters and level for the fun of it. I can't enjoy the leveling of NW though.


    I read a study recently by Dan Ariely in which I think applies to this situation. He wanted to test how the meaning behind work effected a person's motivation and general enjoyment from their job. In his study he paid people to build Bionicles and he observed how many people were willing to do based not only on how much they were paid but also based on what "meaning" was put behind the work.

    In one scenario people built the Bionicle, got paid and left. In the other scenario people built the Bionicle and watched them get taken apart in front of them while they worked on the next one. The result was that people actually ended up building far less Bionicles if they saw their work being dismantled in front of them thus making their task blatantly meaningless.
    This happened regardless of whether the people studied said they normally enjoyed building legos or not.


    So this is what happens to me playing NW:
    I know that after I reach max level I will be forced to decide whether to continue with the campaigns and gear grind to be relevant in dungeons and other content I really enjoy...
    Or I will end up virtually forever setting the character aside/deleting them.
    In other words my character is either going to take more commitment than I feel is humanly possible, rarely if ever playing the character again or deleting the character to make room to rinse and repeat.

    This to me feels like the latter Bionicle experiment. Logically I know that Neverwinter will be shut down at some point and all my work will be meaningless (like in the first scenario) but the way the game is set up makes me feel like Sisyphus because progression basically resets after max level whether it's due to needing to work on campaign and gear progression or because I abandon the character forever because they are not viable to just hop on and do max level content with.

    So I stick to the gear grind and avoid having more than one character per class.
  • btairbornebtairborne Member Posts: 352 Arc User
    This reminds me the x2 campaign currency events are a great gift to people like me (altoholics) and part of why I like the game better now than a year and a half ago when I started. A lot of people don't have the intestinal fortitude to take on campaigns over and over but without doing that I'd be BIS on one character and be moping around the forums complaining there was not much to do anymore (just SKT). I decided long ago alting no matter how repetitious beats that feeling.
  • araneaxaraneax Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 639 Arc User

    The campaign grind is definitely not something I enjoy per se.

    I had one of each class at launch and finished the Sharandar campaign on all of them. It burnt me out on Sharandar massively.
    Every campaign I did the campaigns on one less character until I only did it on one.

    I actually am an altoholic. In NWN I would make new characters and level for the fun of it. I can't enjoy the leveling of NW though.


    I read a study recently by Dan Ariely in which I think applies to this situation. He wanted to test how the meaning behind work effected a person's motivation and general enjoyment from their job. In his study he paid people to build Bionicles and he observed how many people were willing to do based not only on how much they were paid but also based on what "meaning" was put behind the work.

    In one scenario people built the Bionicle, got paid and left. In the other scenario people built the Bionicle and watched them get taken apart in front of them while they worked on the next one. The result was that people actually ended up building far less Bionicles if they saw their work being dismantled in front of them thus making their task blatantly meaningless.
    This happened regardless of whether the people studied said they normally enjoyed building legos or not.


    So this is what happens to me playing NW:
    I know that after I reach max level I will be forced to decide whether to continue with the campaigns and gear grind to be relevant in dungeons and other content I really enjoy...
    Or I will end up virtually forever setting the character aside/deleting them.
    In other words my character is either going to take more commitment than I feel is humanly possible, rarely if ever playing the character again or deleting the character to make room to rinse and repeat.

    This to me feels like the latter Bionicle experiment. Logically I know that Neverwinter will be shut down at some point and all my work will be meaningless (like in the first scenario) but the way the game is set up makes me feel like Sisyphus because progression basically resets after max level whether it's due to needing to work on campaign and gear progression or because I abandon the character forever because they are not viable to just hop on and do max level content with.

    So I stick to the gear grind and avoid having more than one character per class.

    Personally i stick to only one main char.
    I do have 2 more level 70 and 2 more little ones.
    But for the love of Gods, gearing them and getting them to the point they are okay, leveling their campg. all over again...and again.. and again..
    I can not do it. It is too much of a grind for me.
    Getting them to 70 is interesting.
    But afterwards it feels like a second job.
    I already have one char that does all of the dailies and weeklies.
    Add to that some fishing in Somi, opening maps, fishing in winter festival, collecting Vblood, and maybe do a dungeon a day or a skirmish if i am lucky enough to have some extra time left on my hands. It is getting to the point i look at my other chars and i feel disgusted on the amount of things i need to do on them.
    Just no...

    d7d81448-df6b-48cf-94a0-cf1ba87d861a_zpsish6zr2v.jpg

  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    Once I get them to 70, I pick one campaign and run that until it's done. OR - I get them to mid-60's and invoke to 70. I don't think I'll ever have all of them at end-game ready level anyway but it gives me something to do when the 2-3 that I do run every day have finished their dailies.
    I aim to misbehave
  • araneaxaraneax Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 639 Arc User
    silence1x said:

    Once I get them to 70, I pick one campaign and run that until it's done. OR - I get them to mid-60's and invoke to 70. I don't think I'll ever have all of them at end-game ready level anyway but it gives me something to do when the 2-3 that I do run every day have finished their dailies.

    How do you find the time ?
    I struggle with just 2 and that is only cos i was silly enough to find a Pali amazing to have, so now i am stuck with him as well.
    d7d81448-df6b-48cf-94a0-cf1ba87d861a_zpsish6zr2v.jpg

  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    araneax said:

    How do you find the time ?
    I struggle with just 2 and that is only cos i was silly enough to find a Pali amazing to have, so now i am stuck with him as well.

    I have no life :)

    Seriously, I don't get the dailies done on the 2-3 that I regularly play but I do manage about 5 out of 7 on each one. Those three though are only running the two new zones. I also spread out the weeklies. One or two toons a day. I spend about 3-4 hours a day (most days) but I don't get stressed if I miss a day or I miss an invoke cycle.

    I've also take two breaks from the game in the 3 years I've been playing (for a month or two each). That helps when you feel like the game is turning into a job.

    I aim to misbehave
  • araneaxaraneax Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 639 Arc User
    edited December 2016
    silence1x said:

    araneax said:

    How do you find the time ?
    I struggle with just 2 and that is only cos i was silly enough to find a Pali amazing to have, so now i am stuck with him as well.

    I have no life :)

    Seriously, I don't get the dailies done on the 2-3 that I regularly play but I do manage about 5 out of 7 on each one. Those three though are only running the two new zones. I also spread out the weeklies. One or two toons a day. I spend about 3-4 hours a day (most days) but I don't get stressed if I miss a day or I miss an invoke cycle.



    I've also taken two breaks from the game in the 3 years I've been playing (for a month or two each). That helps when you feel like the game is turning into a job.

    @silence1x
    I took a few breaks as well.
    In mod 6 and then just after strongholds came out.
    It took me a while to catch up with it all.
    Now i just invoke on all 6 and do my main cleric all dailes. And fish with my Pali for treasures. XD
    d7d81448-df6b-48cf-94a0-cf1ba87d861a_zpsish6zr2v.jpg

Sign In or Register to comment.