Toon Experiment: Started a new one and will level to 60 on Elite

aspartan1 · October 2014

I have one toon for each faction and for each specialty. I leveled all of them to 50 on elite. I've finished leveling one to 60 on elite yesterday and will hopefully finish a second one tomorrow.

With that said, a fleetie decided he wanted a new main but was highly discouraged to say the least so being the masochistic person I am, I deleted the toon I disliked the most (sci/Gorn) and made a new one (sci/Reman) to level with his new main. I had him promise me not to run it without me and that we would do it all on elite. I'm a grognard or ironman gamer; always have been.

We decided to try the 'new and improved STO experience" as if we were newbs just playing the game for the first time. :eek:

We plan to only level via missions and do all the options and kills in each one. We both own 95% of the ships in the store and will use those exclusively throughout the process. Moreover we are timing it to see how long it will take us and if we even can finish for that matter.

lordmalak1 · October 2014

GL
...but isn't using store ships kinda 'cheating' ?

Try levelling with the free junk.

onerats · October 2014

Careful, if you level too quick you'll get us all rolled back to like level 40 at least.

aspartan1 · October 2014

lordmalak1 wrote: »

GL
...but isn't using store ships kinda 'cheating' ? Try levelling with the free junk.

I dont think of it as cheating so much as we are playing the game the way they wanted us vis paid for stuff - despite the whole F2P moniker.

If he wants to do that fine by me. I think it would be best actually for the "pure experience" so to speak but is also an opportunity for us to use ships we spent a lot of money on over the years which we have not touched in years...

adamkafei · October 2014

Good luck, maybe you'll have it done come 2016? Just about?

futurepastnow · October 2014

Yeah, the last time I tried leveling a new toon through the story on elite, that experiment ended when I met my first Elite Reman Captain.

Good luck. You're gonna need it.

tancrediiv · October 2014

I've leveled 3 characters on elite under the old system with few or no store ships. Those toons are now doing the level 60 content. Even with the new elite system it's still completely doable, just takes a little more time in each fight and you might die once or twice. The rewards, however, are not that much better, maybe worse, on elite. In some content where I have vaporized a target I have gotten rare or VR drops, but they weren't generally worth keeping. The Vaadwaur encounter made me have to work a little until I figured out the Phantom.

thunderfoot · October 2014

This is an interesting idea, OP. Best of luck to you. Today, I blew the cobwebs off my Fed lvl 50 TAC and took her out for a spin. Decided to see if I could go from 50 to 60 via replaying the story line missions om the Elite setting.
I am encouraged by your example and hopeful of success.

Would you please keep us informed as to your progress? I for one would greatly appreciate being able to keep up with how this goes for you. Thank you.

crusader2007 · October 2014

thunderfoot006 wrote: »

This is an interesting idea, OP. Best of luck to you. Today, I blew the cobwebs off my Fed lvl 50 TAC and took her out for a spin. Decided to see if I could go from 50 to 60 via replaying the story line missions om the Elite setting.
I am encouraged by your example and hopeful of success.

Would you please keep us informed as to your progress? I for one would greatly appreciate being able to keep up with how this goes for you. Thank you.

Question is not just making it to level 60 but having ALL of them specialized to max...meaning leveling to 110 for specialization.

janus1975 · October 2014

Interesting experiment... I would like to suggest you make a note of when you hit levels, to help dispel the myth that "The new XP system means you can't level up fast anymore". I did a mini-experiment (Fed toon from creation to end of SS Azure Rescue) and found that the first three levels were gained by clicking on three buttons, Level Four was achieved by the Azure mission, and it was clear Level Five would be achieved before the end of the next.

meimeitoo · October 2014

janus1975 wrote: »

Interesting experiment... I would like to suggest you make a note of when you hit levels, to help dispel the myth that "The new XP system means you can't level up fast anymore".

That myth is a myth. Currently only Argala offers the best XP/time ratio. And this is a rather sad statement about the state of the game, really. Cuz, instead of spreading XP evenly across the map, the game has you grind just 1 single map, over and over again. Of course you can do other things; but with countless ship Mastery Tiers to fill out, for one's various ships, and the Specialization tree, of course, grinding XP has become a priority activity.

peterconnorfirst · October 2014

aspartan1 wrote: »

I have one toon for each faction and for each specialty. I leveled all of them to 50 on elite. I've finished leveling one to 60 on elite yesterday and will hopefully finish a second one tomorrow.

With that said, a fleetie decided he wanted a new main but was highly discouraged to say the least so being the masochistic person I am, I deleted the toon I disliked the most (sci/Gorn) and made a new one (sci/Reman) to level with his new main. I had him promise me not to run it without me and that we would do it all on elite. I'm a grognard or ironman gamer; always have been.

We decided to try the 'new and improved STO experience" as if we were newbs just playing the game for the first time. :eek:

We plan to only level via missions and do all the options and kills in each one. We both own 95% of the ships in the store and will use those exclusively throughout the process. Moreover we are timing it to see how long it will take us and if we even can finish for that matter.

I salute your brave endeavour!

Personal after DR I will do a lot but surely wont carry a 9th through 60 levels, 6 reputs and a solid pve endgame build as secure way to face dead queue lists and disappointed comments of fleetmates and in game friends.

A new faction next year could change that, just hope to be around till then.

szim · October 2014

Ineresting idea indeed. I really wonder if your going to be able to progress all the way to lvl 60 with story missions only. I usually hit lvl 50 somewhere in the Cardassian story arc so the XP from the Borg, Breen, Solanea and Delta quadrant arc should get you far enough.

Keep us posted

gpgtx · October 2014

hmm have a character slot wonder if it is possible to mission level

before it could be done on normal with just story missions to get to 50 by the middle of the cardassian arc

boosbc · October 2014

aspartan1 wrote: »

I have one toon for each faction and for each specialty. I leveled all of them to 50 on elite. I've finished leveling one to 60 on elite yesterday and will hopefully finish a second one tomorrow.

With that said, a fleetie decided he wanted a new main but was highly discouraged to say the least so being the masochistic person I am, I deleted the toon I disliked the most (sci/Gorn) and made a new one (sci/Reman) to level with his new main. I had him promise me not to run it without me and that we would do it all on elite. I'm a grognard or ironman gamer; always have been.

We decided to try the 'new and improved STO experience" as if we were newbs just playing the game for the first time. :eek:

We plan to only level via missions and do all the options and kills in each one. We both own 95% of the ships in the store and will use those exclusively throughout the process. Moreover we are timing it to see how long it will take us and if we even can finish for that matter.

Can you please, please, please keep us posted regularly about the progress and experiences? I am so very curious now!

fmgtorres1979 · October 2014

I'm sorry to apparently be the first to rain on your parade, but your experiment is completely irrelevant in terms of a "new player". Because:

A) - No new player should expect to start the game in Elite (It's like putting someone who just got their drivers license in a Rally, Touring, or even F1 car - or even worse, because at least that person would know how a car handles)

- You can not unlearn all your knoledge of the game. Something a new player would not have.

In short, your idea may be positive as a personal challenge, but only as such. Nevertheless, I wish you ggod luck. I would not have the patience. :cool:

jarodroto123 · October 2014

fmgtorres1979 wrote: »

I'm sorry to apparently be the first to rain on your parade, but your experiment is completely irrelevant in terms of a "new player". Because:

A) - No new player should expect to start the game in Elite (It's like putting someone who just got their drivers license in a Rally, Touring, or even F1 car - or even worse, because at least that person would know how a car handles)

- You can not unlearn all your knoledge of the game. Something a new player would not have.

In short, your idea may be positive as a personal challenge, but only as such. Nevertheless, I wish you ggod luck. I would not have the patience. :cool:

im considering doing this on normal with a cardassian toon that got left behind.....ill keep y'all posted :P

aspartan1 · October 2014

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

I salute your brave endeavour!

Personal after DR I will do a lot but surely wont carry a 9th through 60 levels, 6 reputs and a solid pve endgame build as secure way to face dead queue lists and disappointed comments of fleetmates and in game friends.

A new faction next year could change that, just hope to be around till then.

I would be shocked if they added a new one and did not make the Rommies a stand alone one.

As far as fleetmates go, he is the only one left. I now have a T3.5 fleet only he and I out of over 100 members. The F2P changes since the switch have ran everyone off. I only stayed because I'm a serious ST fan. Sadly, I dont have the heart to try to rebuild the fleet alone but I digress...

fenr00k · October 2014

Given my own observations, you will probably hit level 60 from 0 in under 3 weeks, less if you have an LTS or gold account.

Without rushing, and with only minimal grinding of Argala system, I hit level 60 from level 50 in 10 days.

Slow levelling is a myth. As MMOs go, STO STILL has one of the fastest paths to level cap. Short of playing on "fake" servers with stupidly high xp rates etc.

divvydave · October 2014

aspartan1 wrote: »

I have one toon for each faction and for each specialty. I leveled all of them to 50 on elite. I've finished leveling one to 60 on elite yesterday and will hopefully finish a second one tomorrow.

With that said, a fleetie decided he wanted a new main but was highly discouraged to say the least so being the masochistic person I am, I deleted the toon I disliked the most (sci/Gorn) and made a new one (sci/Reman) to level with his new main. I had him promise me not to run it without me and that we would do it all on elite. I'm a grognard or ironman gamer; always have been.

We decided to try the 'new and improved STO experience" as if we were newbs just playing the game for the first time. :eek:

We plan to only level via missions and do all the options and kills in each one. We both own 95% of the ships in the store and will use those exclusively throughout the process. Moreover we are timing it to see how long it will take us and if we even can finish for that matter.

Would just like to say good luck. and i look forward to hearing how long/difficult it was

leviathan99 · October 2014

fenr00k wrote: »

Given my own observations, you will probably hit level 60 from 0 in under 3 weeks, less if you have an LTS or gold account.

Without rushing, and with only minimal grinding of Argala system, I hit level 60 from level 50 in 10 days.

Slow levelling is a myth. As MMOs go, STO STILL has one of the fastest paths to level cap. Short of playing on "fake" servers with stupidly high xp rates etc.

I'm skeptical about this.

WoW generally boosts old content's XP to keep everything from prior expansions at about 20 hours of leveling needed to the cap -10. They also are selling access to cap -10 with a class tutorial. So you can pay to start at level 90, do a class tutorial, and then spend 20 hours TOTAL to get max level.

Generally the last 10 levels are about another 20 hours worth of play and that IS comparable to Delta Rising's rate of progression except that WoW also releases roughly 4x the amount of content per 10 levels, per faction.

Converting quests to missions at a rate of about 5:1, WoW releases the equivalent of around 90 STO episodes per 10 levels, with around the equivalent of 45 episodes being needed to increase 10 levels. This is very close to Delta Rising EXCEPT for the fact that DR only has 20 episodes.

So rate of progress is similar to WoW currently from 50-60 but STO has roughly half the content needed for comfortable progression and roughly a quarter of the content WoW would release for a 10 level boost.

In theory, what STO could have done is to only raise the cap to 55 (with current missions unlocking at lower levels) and save 55-60 until they had content to go with it, temporarily placing Elites to scale at 55 instead of 60. The biggest problem is what this might do with specialization points.

The other alternative might have been to double the XP for everything compared to where it is now on Normal and make Elite quadruple what the current value is on Normal.

gavinruneblade · October 2014

I prefer running advanced for a less boring experience. Elite is quite possibly them least fun I've ever had in any mmo because everything just drags on and on and on. I am curious how it goes for you.

I did recently level a rommie to 50 in dvek's t'liss. Just upgraded gear with drops. Was a fun challenge.

Toon Experiment: Started a new one and will level to 60 on Elite

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