Why does we have this slow grind? *CURIOUS*

[MrShine]

You forget it's not about NEEDING 1000 heirlooms to win.  But people wanting to be on a somewhat even field and not abusing a past system to get 100 gens and 1000 heirlooms means you're shit out of luck now as it takes for goddamn ever just to get 1 heirloom, much less a masterwork, much less a full set of armor + shield + weapons etc.

That was normalized though, so people who had 1000 heirlooms due to the +100 xp retirement bonus now have the proper generation reflected as if they had played with the normal +30 xp retirement bonus.  People like Kesh no longer have 'bonus' looms, they've just played a shit ton.

A heirloom alone doesn't help much, but sure having a bunch of them give you an advantage.  Still, the ABSOLUTE most heirlooms you can wear is 27 (9 unique item slots all +3 heirloomed) and given the slot mechanics/not everyone uses a mount that pretty much never happens... so there's a ceiling that everyone can reach where they can't pile on anymore heirlooms even if they've massed a stockpile of them.

Besides, compared to other 'grind to compete' type games this doesn't even come CLOSE.  A 2-hander with no heirlooms against a mirror image of himself in full heirlooms might need 3-5 hits to kill his heirloomed counterpart, while the decked out version needs maybe 1-3 to kill him.  Player skill can very easily overcome that obstacle; yes it's a disadvantage but you can certainly compete and win if skilled.

[Bartimo]

10 hours is quite small, the time will fly by.

I disagree. I think 10 hours is a very long time to play a not fun version of a game. I normally only average about an hour a day of gaming, so I have to spend a week and a half of my game time playing cannon fodder before I can be anything else. This is very discouraging and if I didnt have friends already playing the game encouraging me I never would have made it 10 hours.

I disagree. I think 20-29 are far less fun than 1-20. During these levels, you have the pride of being a peasant and making lawlsy kills. If you kill an opponent at level 8, you damn well have earned the right to teabag him to your heart's content.  At 28 or 29? you're just a slightly weaker version of your future self, and the same satisfaction isn't achieved.

If you kill an opponent at level 8 you got lucky and picked off the last 1/10 of his life or are a veteran with heirloom items and lots of money to equip the most optimal gear your stats will allow. If you are masochistic enough to ENJOY the early levels you can just not distribute your skill points and run around naked to your hearts content while letting those who want to be competitive do so.

You can contribute to your team even if you're a peasant. In sieges you can try to get enemys away from the flag-area and follow you, so your teammates have less work. In battles you can take a pike and backstab good blockers so other people can get a strike in. Even if you just annoy the enemy it helps your team. 

Sure, you can draw enemy archer fire, get melee to chase you since your such a pathetically easy kill to pad their score, and if the stars align just right you can sometimes even poke someone with your pitchfork and mess up someones timing enough to let someone else kill them... OR you could, you know, actually provide a non-gimmick asset to your team and hit shit with a real weapon. One of these is a lot more appealing then the others.

I disagree. It's a mix between the two, grinding and personal skill.

We've seen plenty of STF peasants that still get destroyed.

And we've seen people at level 15 who most would refuse to believe they were level 15, based on the destruction they deal. 

Level is important, but equally so is personal skill.

The level you can become effective depends on your build. A 2 hander is going to be more effective earlier then anything else since you only need STR to beneficent your key skills. 20 is just a number I threw out that I felt afforded all types of characters enough points to be able to have some points in all their key skills and have some level of effectiveness.

I also agree that if you take a highly skilled player at level 15 they are going to smoke a newbie STF character. This is as it should be - but at least the STF character can take a couple of hits before dying. Also bear in mind that the level 15's youve seen be very effective also arent using the same gear as a new level 15. Theyll have heirlooms and other optimal gear bought from their massive piggybank.

[Dexxtaa]

If you don't like leveling, I imagine you should go to Native. They have plenty of equal playing field servers out there.

The joy comes from BLOSSOMING from infantry to adultery (haha) in terms of leveling.

[Gheritarish le Loki]

I disagree. I think 10 hours is a very long time to play a not fun version of a game. I normally only average about an hour a day of gaming, so I have to spend a week and a half of my game time playing cannon fodder before I can be anything else. This is very discouraging and if I didnt have friends already playing the game encouraging me I never would have made it 10 hours.

If you find this discouraging then you would have never made it before january patch.

Also, you should already quit cRPG, it's a hard game and you will be disapointed.
I'm speaking of personnal skills, not equipment or lvl, it's the hard part, aquiring personnal skill, buy stuff and leveling is nothing...

[Dexxtaa]

If you find this discouraging then you would have never made it before january patch.

Also, you should already quit cRPG, it's a hard game and you will be disapointed.
I'm speaking of personnal skills, not equipment or lvl, it's the hard part, aquiring personnal skill, buy stuff and leveling is nothing...

Ah the January patch.

Back when we made 42 gold per round if we were lucky, 90 gold on the EU 180 man servers.

Back when getting padded cloth actually meant you fought hard for half a day, and armor meant you should be afraid of the man encased within. Horses were fierce and the warriors mounted were fiercer still.

Back when cRPG was truly about skill, combat experience and fighting career, and not some jackass impatient to get to level 30 so he could start "pwnzer!ng s0m3 d00d3s."

Ahhh. Golden days of ages past.

[Dezilagel]

lolno.  If that were true then there'd be no levels, you'd simply get a set number of points to spend on skills/attributes, respecs would be free ORRRRR this would just be Native.

It's about amassing grinding all the little +1's in the game, especially if balance is being done around the premise of a MW'd item.

You forget it's not about NEEDING 1000 heirlooms to win.  But people wanting to be on a somewhat even field and not abusing a past system to get 100 gens and 1000 heirlooms means you're shit out of luck now as it takes for goddamn ever just to get 1 heirloom, much less a masterwork, much less a full set of armor + shield + weapons etc.

Bro, you're not getting it.

I don't consider lv 1-20 a grind - it's an interesting and refreshing gamplay experience. As others have said, doing good as a peasant is very rewarding^^

And why would you need heirlooms to be on a "somewhat even field"? I've only got one loom thus far (a +2 poleaxe) and from my experience any advantages they offer can easily be offset with a little skill (and if they cannot - well then that says something about your class amrite?  )

C-rpg have lots of qualities NOT related to geargrinding that native doesn't have. Wider range of equipment, less rangedspam, unparalelled level of char customization and strategus just to mention some.

I play this game to face (and beat!) the best, my grind is the grind for skill. And also, I think it's a really good game (and mod!), and I just enjoy playing it.

If people want to play this game to grind gear - fine, let them. I'll just enjoy playing the game my way. '

But don't go crying about how "it's not fair!", the developers set the rules and the current rules say that if you spend 1000 hours grinding heirlooms, you get a slight stat advantage for your chosen gear over other players.

Big deal.

[Dexxtaa]

I don't consider lv 1-20 a grind - it's an interesting and refreshing gamplay experience. As others have said, doing good as a peasant is very rewarding^^

I agree with this. I kind of wish I could retire at this point, so I can muck around.

[Bartimo]

If you find this discouraging then you would have never made it before january patch.

Also, you should already quit cRPG, it's a hard game and you will be disapointed.
I'm speaking of personnal skills, not equipment or lvl, it's the hard part, aquiring personnal skill, buy stuff and leveling is nothing...

I understand cRPG is a hard game that rewards personal skill, that is the main reason I enjoy it. I am getting better and feel like I typically have a positive impact on my team when I play. Its a hard game even without having to enter it at a severe stat and gear disadvantage - I dont see the need to compound the inherent difficultly.

Telling me, and people like me, just to quit is a losing proposition for everyone. This game is extremely unfriendly to new players and as time goes on and the overall gear disadvantage for new players grows it is going to become even more unfriendly. It is in everyones best interest to encourage new players to play and to keep playing, otherwise the community will stagnate and the game will with it.

Id be curious to see what the statistics are on what percent of new accounts achieve a level 30+ character. I think that number could be raised by giving new players less of a disadvantage from the get go.

[Warpeasant]

Here s what i want to say, when all the other s went from Gen to Gen i kept on leveling my 2nd Gen char pre patchup to lvl 44 in a pure grind... after the patch i got thrown down to lvl 30, that was very frustrating i gotta admit because other Templer s were up to Gen 10 back than, and i couldn t even retire to gen 3 and wished i had at least retired once more pre patch.
With the new worth of heirlooms and the total unworthfullnis of grinding above lvl 31 i think retiring is actual fun for me now. I m half way to gen 6 now and i don t even cworry anymore for Templar s with gen 18.
The exp bonus is nearly perfekt with a max of 45% due to retirement. Now guy s like Kesh or my teammate s can t go up to lvl 44 in just a couple of days just because they retired 18+ time s and whenever i got my set full with (i only retired 5 time s but i bought 2) 9 heirlooms i don t c the need to retire anymore and can easely catch up to them on lvl s (maybe stop just 2-3 lvl s behind them wich is not so big a problem).
Using all my loomed equip will be rather rare, because of the exp. upkeep but i know that it s rewarding and lot s of fun... so for me a 'lil grind to have a 'lil edge once a while is totally ok and just perfect...
Big Thx to the Def team nice job 

[Gumdrawp]

I just want to actually state this. You can only wear 9 heirlooms, and thats if you fill up all of your weapon slots and ride a horse, which typically only a horse archer will do. I don't really see the point in whining about "he has too many looms". If anything the old system was more noob friendly in that it would make heirlooms much cheaper than they are now.

While I agree that heirlooms should take some time to get the fact that it takes ~180-200 hours for a new player to make his first masterwork/lordly is probably a bit excessive.

The only downside is really that being gen 30+ would make leveling to 33+ significantly easier which probably isn't intended. Perhaps a solution to that is leaving leveling to 33 about the same as it is now, and then significantly increasing the path to 33+. That way there would be a slight advantage to older players and still would appease people who don't have as much time as others to play.

[Blondin]

Nobody can go on lvl 44 now, there is a hard cap at 35.
Since new patch with no upkeep for new player, i think it's pretty balanced for everyone.
Noobs and casual can play just for fun, veteran and hardcore player can grind and play endless hours.
Everybody is satisfied.

[MrShine]

I understand cRPG is a hard game that rewards personal skill, that is the main reason I enjoy it. I am getting better and feel like I typically have a positive impact on my team when I play. Its a hard game even without having to enter it at a severe stat and gear disadvantage - I dont see the need to compound the inherent difficultly.

Telling me, and people like me, just to quit is a losing proposition for everyone. This game is extremely unfriendly to new players and as time goes on and the overall gear disadvantage for new players grows it is going to become even more unfriendly. It is in everyones best interest to encourage new players to play and to keep playing, otherwise the community will stagnate and the game will with it.

Id be curious to see what the statistics are on what percent of new accounts achieve a level 30+ character. I think that number could be raised by giving new players less of a disadvantage from the get go.

First off, everyone wants new players to join CRPG, you'll have your elitists and your smug assholes just like every other game, but I think most people love to see new players join in on the fun. (and it IS fun)

But you have to understand that compared to MMOs and many other RPG type games the grind and disadvantage a new player has to endure in CRPG is almost non-existent.  A lot of people who start out might say "if only I had some loomed weapons" or "if only I was level 30 instead of level 20" thinking that the deck is stacked against them so much.  And yes you ARE at a disadvantage in level and in gear, but by not as much as you probably think.  Once you hit level 28 or 29 or 30, or are able to acquire a few loom points you'll see that they aren't making or breaking your character.

Here's some more food for thought:

-new STF (skip the fun) option allows you have one character jump to level 30 and get 10k gold.  This is newbie friendly.
-new upkeep system allows for new gen 1 characters to get some time amassing gold before having to worry about upkeep.
-most players retire at level 31, so a lot of those experienced players spend half their time at lvl 30 and the other half leveling up just like you
-having no looms against a player with FULL looms (quite rare) means you might have to hit them 1-3 more times than normal.
-for many builds you can be effective at level 15+ (some less, some more)

Last gen I had a 2.4:1 KDR using a +3 sword and generally no other heirlooms (sometimes busted out a +1 sword and +2 armor).  The shielder gen before that I used 0 looms yet was able to maintain a 1.8:1 KDR.  You could point at looms for the improvement but I earnestly think it was a change in build and general improvement in my personal skills that did most of it... either way I was able to do quite well without any looms so my point is skill is the most important factor.

So TLDR looms, levels, and gold matter, but I think the devs have made an earnest effort to make an already 'grind lite' game fairly newbie friendly with recent updates.  If you are a skilled player at level 28 with 0 looms you will consistently beat an unskilled player who's crutching on looms.

[Lichen]

I play more than I should and still just retiring once takes forever basically. It sucks when you are on a not so good team and there isn't much you can do to affect the outcome and win. My best option is to wear my best gear and weaps to increase my chances to gain and keep a multiplier. So I either lose money to better my chances at winning or make money and lose way more often. Kinda sucks that individual performance is not directly rewarded. Sure now we have the 'valor' thing but I've only ever gotten that once.

It's a grind. A very slow grind I agree. I like grinding but I'd want to be able to have more control over my progress than currently.

One thing I would like to see is xp given every 30 seconds instead of minute (obviously half the amount given for a full minute). That way there would be less missed ticks when a round ends close to before another minute goes by. Also less people 'milking' for another tick. People would get more xp that way. I hate how the quicker a round ends the less you are rewarded. The incentive now is to purposely try and draw it out as long as you can if you have a multi (aside from the possible increased repair costs).

[HuskerRall]

How long does it take to grind/level a character to level 30?

-provided playing crpg only a couple of hours at night each day-

Is there a limit for number of characters per cd-key?

there's currently 1 week cooldown for STF characters

say..if a month has passed or 3 weeks or something, why can't we buy our STF char and make it a regular alt?

or even more, why buy it? if a month or two have passed make it a regular alt..just saying

[Tears of Destiny]

How long does it take to grind/level a character to level 30?
it takes an average of 71 hours or so to retire assuming a gen 1 character is used, so 30 hours or so to reach level 30.
-provided playing crpg only a couple of hours at night each day-
Most people can casually play and reach it in two weeks, which is insanely fast when compared to every MMO out there.
Is there a limit for number of characters per cd-key?
No