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Alternate Progression Paths and Skipping the Main Game...
arontimes
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I have six characters, all of whom are above level 20. I've pretty much played most of the non-epic content, and I've been looking for ways to progress through the levels without having to replay the same official content over and over again. I'm starting this thread to hopefully promote discussion about alternate progression paths that help keep the game fresh for players with multiple characters.
One of my characters is Oak Leafblade, a drow guardian fighter. I played him through the official content up to the Nest Egg quest, the last quest before Sergeant Knox sends you to the Blackdagger Ruins. After this, I leveled him up through invocation while I focused on my other characters, and I think I got about 5 to 7 levels through prayer alone. I like to think that Oak was training constantly in addition to praying during his "downtime."
The first time you invoke during a day, you get x XP and y astral diamonds and a random buff or potion and 1 Celestial Coin and 1 Ardent Coin. The second time you invoke, you get (2/3)x XP and (2/3)y AD (and another buff and maybe a potion). The third time, you get (1/3)x XP and (1/3)y AD. After your third invocation, you only get a random buff and nothing else. If you invoke once per day, you get a steady stream of astral diamonds and XP and Vault of Piety coins that you can use to buy or sell stuff at the auction house, allowing you to progress through the levels without necessarily obsoleting your equipment.
Of my six characters, four of them got the ability to ride a mount through invocation alone. I basically stopped playing them anywhere from after the Tower District to in the middle of the Spellplague quest chain, and got to skip the boring (to me, at least) content and get to the other areas sooner.
Speaking of skipping content, I find that there are two that you shouldn't skip because of their quest rewards. I'm talking about the Tower District and the Graveyard District, both of which provide free bags to hold your stuff in. These are the only two free bags in the entire game, so I recommend everyone playing through at least these two zones even if you plan on skipping most official content.
Back to alternate progression paths. Aside from Invocation, which everyone can and should use, you can also progress through Foundry quests, PvP, Skirmishes, and Dungeons.
I find that Foundry quests net you good XP and a lot of gold and green items. The green items are good enough up until level 59, and can always be sold for more gold. As for gold, you can use gold to buy keys and other items from other players, as well as potions and skill kits for your own personal use. Furthermore, Foundry quests seem to give a lot more gold than the official content, especially when you finish the harder encounters. As for the XP reward at the end, it seems to be based on the average playtime of the quest, with longer quests providing more XP. And finally, if you have the daily quest from Rhix, you can earn a good amount of astral diamonds for little effort.
I have very little experience with PvP, so I cannot really offer any insight into this alternate progression path other than what I've read all over the forums regarding PvP giving "too much XP," resulting in players outleveling their PvP brackets.
Regarding Skirmishes, these are like mini-dungeons that you can queue for from the comfort of the Moonstone Mask. At the end of most skirmishes, when the exit portal appears, you can instead right click on yourself and click Leave Party and you will be teleported back to where you initially queued for the skirmish (in my case, it's usually the Moonstone Mask). Some skirmishes will teleport you to the adventure zone the skirmish takes place in anyway, so this doesn't always work.
And finally, Dungeon Delves are another way to progress. Unfortunately, they require a larger time commitment than the other options presented above, and until epic dungeons, have a terrible risk to reward ratio. I rarely do dungeons, preferring to play through the Foundry and do skirmishes until level 60, when I have amassed enough astral diamonds to buy decent epic gear so I can do the epic dungeons.
I apologize for my poor paragraph organization, but I'm low on caffeine and feeling a bit down. I hope this thread starts a long and thorough discussion of alternate progression paths in Neverwinter Online.
One of my characters is Oak Leafblade, a drow guardian fighter. I played him through the official content up to the Nest Egg quest, the last quest before Sergeant Knox sends you to the Blackdagger Ruins. After this, I leveled him up through invocation while I focused on my other characters, and I think I got about 5 to 7 levels through prayer alone. I like to think that Oak was training constantly in addition to praying during his "downtime."
The first time you invoke during a day, you get x XP and y astral diamonds and a random buff or potion and 1 Celestial Coin and 1 Ardent Coin. The second time you invoke, you get (2/3)x XP and (2/3)y AD (and another buff and maybe a potion). The third time, you get (1/3)x XP and (1/3)y AD. After your third invocation, you only get a random buff and nothing else. If you invoke once per day, you get a steady stream of astral diamonds and XP and Vault of Piety coins that you can use to buy or sell stuff at the auction house, allowing you to progress through the levels without necessarily obsoleting your equipment.
Of my six characters, four of them got the ability to ride a mount through invocation alone. I basically stopped playing them anywhere from after the Tower District to in the middle of the Spellplague quest chain, and got to skip the boring (to me, at least) content and get to the other areas sooner.
Speaking of skipping content, I find that there are two that you shouldn't skip because of their quest rewards. I'm talking about the Tower District and the Graveyard District, both of which provide free bags to hold your stuff in. These are the only two free bags in the entire game, so I recommend everyone playing through at least these two zones even if you plan on skipping most official content.
Back to alternate progression paths. Aside from Invocation, which everyone can and should use, you can also progress through Foundry quests, PvP, Skirmishes, and Dungeons.
I find that Foundry quests net you good XP and a lot of gold and green items. The green items are good enough up until level 59, and can always be sold for more gold. As for gold, you can use gold to buy keys and other items from other players, as well as potions and skill kits for your own personal use. Furthermore, Foundry quests seem to give a lot more gold than the official content, especially when you finish the harder encounters. As for the XP reward at the end, it seems to be based on the average playtime of the quest, with longer quests providing more XP. And finally, if you have the daily quest from Rhix, you can earn a good amount of astral diamonds for little effort.
I have very little experience with PvP, so I cannot really offer any insight into this alternate progression path other than what I've read all over the forums regarding PvP giving "too much XP," resulting in players outleveling their PvP brackets.
Regarding Skirmishes, these are like mini-dungeons that you can queue for from the comfort of the Moonstone Mask. At the end of most skirmishes, when the exit portal appears, you can instead right click on yourself and click Leave Party and you will be teleported back to where you initially queued for the skirmish (in my case, it's usually the Moonstone Mask). Some skirmishes will teleport you to the adventure zone the skirmish takes place in anyway, so this doesn't always work.
And finally, Dungeon Delves are another way to progress. Unfortunately, they require a larger time commitment than the other options presented above, and until epic dungeons, have a terrible risk to reward ratio. I rarely do dungeons, preferring to play through the Foundry and do skirmishes until level 60, when I have amassed enough astral diamonds to buy decent epic gear so I can do the epic dungeons.
I apologize for my poor paragraph organization, but I'm low on caffeine and feeling a bit down. I hope this thread starts a long and thorough discussion of alternate progression paths in Neverwinter Online.
Post edited by arontimes on
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Comments
The "main game" is an engine intended to produce profit. Cryptic content is nothing more than kill x to earn xp. The foundry contains out of box quests but has a difficult UI. Dungeons are fun, skirmishes are grindy, PVP is a clickfest...
Crafting is where its at.
too bad cryptic never got crafting right. heck NW's crafting isn't really crafting and more the fisher price version of STO's doff system
I laugh every time someone mentions they like the crafting system. To me this isn't crafting. Maybe it is a good thing they call it professions instead of crafting. If this is the level of crafting that players expect or want to experience then I truly feel lost in the potential world of online gaming. To click a few buttons and then wait for a timer to expire is all the crafting experience a player wants? Truly sad..
Taking a break from Neverwinter indefinitely...
Honestly though, once you've done then entire sequence. why do it again? There's maybe two quests that will be different based on class or race, and other than that, it's the exact...same....game... over and over. They could at least make it so you could pause a Foundry mission in the middle.
lol. true, do you think it is because they want it playable from web sites and iphones? I wish the STO gateway could do Doff missions.