Profile: isurus
Send PM  Forum Posts  Forum Topics 

Recent Forum Posts [more...]

• • For anyone starting once the expansion hits retail, read.

  • Ephemiro I still find that hard to believe, I'll bet you play longer on weekends than you've said. But I won't belabor the point.

    Here's my story.

    I rerolled a Necromancer almost 2 months ago. Fully twinked all the way up to A-grade (SOM+Acu, DC robe set, Maj jewels, +4 wit/int tats), 'infinite' BSPS and Cursed Bones. Lv56 2boxed SE. Lv56 Prophet that I log in once every 20 minutes for Acut, Zerk, etc.

    I have played this game on and off for years, I know exactly where to level and what to kill for XP. With my SE + PP buffs + herbs I have zero downtime. I'm a nuker so I level 2x as fast as any melee char. And I didn't start partying my SE until my Necro was 61.

    I do not raid or even bother with Kama (much faster to grind).

    2 months in, my Necro is lv66 (SE is lv62). I play about 2-3 hours a day weekdays, maybe 2-6 hours a day on weekends. Ever since I started partying my SE, my vitality on both characters has never once dipped below Lv3.

    So, coming from someone whose char has pretty much everything working in my favor yet is only lv66 after 2 months, 1-75 in a month for a newb to L2 is a stretch.

  • Posted: 10/10/08 11:44 AM
    Lineage II
• • A lot of people play?

  • L2 is more populated by real players now than it has been in a long time.

  • Posted: 10/10/08 8:11 AM
    Lineage II
• • Questions.

  • L2 is still one of (if not THE) grindiest MMOs out there, even with the new vitality system.

    PVE is mostly just a grind.

    They have a new raid system called Kamaloka which allows you to participate in one instanced mini-raid per day, which you can do at any level from 20-80 I think. Think of Kama as raids for pick-up groups.

    There are also many "true" raid bosses scattered throughout the world, but these are usually only done by clans/alliances/farmers.

    And lastly there are also a few epic raid bosses (Antharas, Valakas, etc) which require huge amounts of people but those are only undertaken by end level players.

    1-20 is 100% quests but only take an hour or two. 20-40 is a grind. At 40 you do your second class transfer quests.

    After that, it's a grind. There are quests, but are ridiculously inefficient compared to grinding. Sure you can pick up a few farming quests here and there but it's still a grind.

    Sovrath puts it best when he says that it's best to develop a zen-like attitude to PVE in L2.

    One nice thing about Gracia is that Common Items give new players an alternative to the adena grind. If you can live without armor set bonuses, weapon special abilities, enchant scrolls and life stones, then you can go with Common Items which cost pennies compared to their regular item counterparts.

  • Posted: 10/10/08 7:47 AM
    Lineage II
• • Who thinks the bot problem is NCsoft's fault?

  • WSIMike you couldn't be more right.

    Finally, between you and UbahNecro this board FINALLY has some people who not only understand but can verbalise this fundamental flaw in L2's design.

    Your two points are 100% correct.

    One being that L2 is, at this point, dependent DEPENDENT on large scale adena farming, and a sad testament to this is the fact that the average L2 player understands it (excellent point).

    Two being material drop rates (or item craft requirements for you demand-side economists). This is the one single reason why L2 is overrun by botters. The very first domino that tipped over and sent the whole thing spiraling out of control. Material drop rates.

    Were mats (including L2's consumable recipes) realistically obtainable by real players and not farmed exclusively by 24/7 afk botters, L2 would be a completely different game.

    There would still be bots. Enchant Scrolls, Life Stones and general laziness would always provide an RMT market, but it would be more like RMT in other MMOs and nowhere near the scale it's at now.

    Were players able to fund their own equipment, without dwarfing it for countless hours, without getting a one-in-a-billion item drop, then the demand for RMT would fall like a rock, the bot population would plummet, real players would fill in the gaps, and L2 would be a much MUCH better game.

    The solution to the bot problem is as simple as providing a dramatic increase in material drop rates (or decrease in item material craft requirements). And it's important to understand that we don't need an increase in adena drops or full-item drops, otherwise we might as well put S-grade in NPC shops.

    The question is whether or not NCsoft will ever make it happen. Unfortunately I don't see any indication that they will. Bots make up such a huge percentage of their income that it might be financial suicide to go cold-turkey all at once.

    But maybe, maybe if they combined a slow but steady increase in drop rates with an effective marketing campaign aimed at real players, it could happen...

  • Posted: 10/08/08 2:12 PM
    Lineage II
• • I knew the Easier leveling miracle patch was too good to be true

  • This board is nothing like l2guru. L2guru is dominated by ego-stroking. It's been that way since the beginning, even back before the community migrated from l2orphus.com. It's all about rolling entire armies solo with half a dozen 78+ buffers that are never mentioned but always assumed. In other words, 99% bullshit minus 1% of a few losers who actually have put that much time/effort/cash into the game. That's L2blah.

    But, that said, I myself am a lurker there because for every racist, homoerotic GIF, there is an insightful fact from truely experienced players that you won't find anywhere else in the english-speaking L2 community. As vulgar and ridiculous as it is, l2blah really is a wealth of information.

    
    MMORPG.com tends to focus on answering newbie questions and venting frustrations with the game.

  • Posted: 9/22/08 6:01 PM
    Lineage II