Update 29: Level 30 Overview

[N-0cturn]

thanks for looking into this. The middle road between the current status and the original proposal in my view is best. The lower levels are passed too quickly, so bumping it is reasonable. However 800k is very discouraging for starting epic levels. My vote would be closer to 550k to 600k for level 21 and slowly increase the xp required per level from there

I agree with this. A linear progressions means we would spent more time at lower epic levels, because it takes longer to complete the quests. Maybe:

21: 500
22: 600 (1100)
23: 700 (1800)
24: 800 (2600)
25: 900 (3500)
26: 900 (4400)
27: 900 (5300)
28: 900 (6200)
29: 900 (7100)
30: 900 (8000)

Or skip to linear at 1000 which means, lvl 30 would be 8500 XP.

EDIT: I also really like the idea to spread the fate points over the epic levels that currently lack.

[Anaximandroz]

i start my epic 1st lives playing the heroic 18s and 19s elite bb (without BB wont make half way to level 21) and lower epics. At level 23 i start raiding (DQ,Von, FoT). Ins the 2nd lives the Saga make for the 18 and 19s (useless now, without bb), Then er and tr. I'm against the flat xp curve because (in thelanis):

1- Dont promote playing different quests (do you really think someone will play a level 18 in elite for 15ish k instead a level 20EN for 40k - i do because i'm a flower sniffing- ? and von3/4,WK, spies are low level -off topic: Sagas promote);
2- Less time around the cap;
3- Less raiding (i already see Mods and DoJs with level range 26 to 28 so they can fill,and people still have to shortman);
4- Less grouping (with longer level the impatience will grow and BB will become a must in epics too, so the LFM will have the 2 or 4 level range instead around base level to cap. Also less people in the top tiers, who can play effectively in more quests.).

/signed for Propane's proposal

[rehakp]

Alot of new shiny things alot of new shiny build options i like that.
What i HATE is the XP change.
You can try to "explain" it in many different ways. Higher levels are closer together etc.
BUT. the truth is. Its big nerf to leveling in epics and nothing else.

Just pick ANY number betwen 0 xp and 5.774.00 xp and in the NEW system you are WORSE (lower level or more xp needed to next level) compared to the current one. And only betwen 5.775.000-6.600.000 you are the same.
The fact each level now takes the same XP doesnt compensate for the fact the Xp for early levels are SO MUTCH BIGGER and it doesnt improve before hitting level 28. You get EVERY level 21-27 LATER in new system and only gets level 28 the same time (but probably later in time because you know running content and exping at level 20 toon is little slower than on level 22 toon with same XP)

And the fact you even try to talk about this like "improvement" is making my head hurt alot !!!!!

If you want early levels to slow down but compensate for this on higher levels you are doing it wrong.
If you want to do it right you must lower the per level XP.
For example 600.000 xp. This way you get levels 21-24 later, level 25 stays the same and levels 26-28 you get sooner (all regarding to XP and not time as already explained. Regarding to time you still take 25 little later because 21 still run thru quest little faster than 20)

So please if your intent is to make lower levels slover AND higher faster then consider this.
And if you only want to make ALL levels slower (and mostly the lower) then STOP promoting this as something nice and helpful for people exping. because ITS NOT.

[rygard]

Please keep 20-25 as it is and do what ever you want with 25-30. As many peoples already point out new xp curve gonna hurt epic level progression deeply.

[pitong]

i don't like epic exp change, especially for low epic lvls. any half decent gear starts at ml23 like citw weapons. with armor it's even worse, gh dragon armors are ml 25. on my TRs i usually stayed with my hearoic gear. for now we can do few quests with ee bravery to reach it and after that proceed with good gear.
if you're going to make leveling from 20 to 23 (or 25) so much longer, we will have to store more gear for those low lvl epics and will need more banking space.
speaking of banking space i have to remind that TR cache design is just terrible. not only there is no search option in it, but taking stuff out of it takes ages. it usually take me over 3 hours to empty my tr cache when i want to TR.
also please test a lot and BE SURE about what you put in "Existing Characters after the change" paragraph. with all bugs we've seen here i think it can be a soft spot of this update.

Moreover I consider that binding of items must be destroyed.

[SirValentine]

All the flat XP curve does is incentivize dailies more and discourage running anything else.

That's what the current curve does!

Or, oh, that's what needing XP does, and running dailies or not has nothing to do either way with the exact level breaks.

[1cebeast]

if you keep experience flat, I will be wearing my House C challenge gear, more than I will be wearing my DoJ or Necro raid gear.
Please, no, no, no...

[Thar]

Flattened xp curve is a good thing for epics imo. Will hopefully mean lower level epics get run more often.

you mean von 3, wiz king and spies. yes they will be run more.

[SirDrakaden]

That flattening XP idea is -bad-, all you are accomplishing is a nerf in XP, you will force everyone to wear low epic gear for a much longer time, you will force them to over-grind quests in order to get to their next levels, that will also cause a dis-balance in quest XP rewards, and you will make so epic/iconics TRs will take a -lot- longer to accomplish.

I really dislike that plan. If you plan to stick with that new Xp line you need to raise all yer quest XP rewards accordingly.

[Hephaistor]

Flattened XP curve - time to run epic Phiarlan Carnival and epic Red Fens again.. or just do more Spies, VON or the Eveningstar Saga again? Make an educated guess what will happen:

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20140926

Perhaps we could get some sagas for the abandoned low level epics?

[nibel]

(If you have been quietly preferring the proposed flat "curve", speak up now and be heard.)

I prefer the absolutely flat curve. Thank you.

[Kompera_Oberon]

If they make epic greensteel level 20, i can only see two possible outcomes. 1. Epic Greensteel will suck 2. Epic Greensteel will replace all other epic gear in the game. People already complain that once their destinies are filled they don't feel like they are making enough real progression while leveling through epics. If you remove getting access to better gear from that equation it will feel even less like you are progressing your character.

If they make it like Greensteel, where all items are the same level regardless of how many Shards you use to craft them, you'd be right. If they make it more like Thunderforged, where the min level of the item increases as the power of the item increases, then starting at level 20 should be fine.

Epic Greensteel is an opportunity for Turbine to offer players a way to customize items to fill in gaps in their gear. It doesn't have to be a step up in power from current itemization at the lower Shard (Shard equivalent) levels to be useful as long as it is able to be customized and has enough options to be useful to everyone. It can then go beyond current itemization at the top levels of Shard investment.

[Saekee]

When this goes live I will most likely stop ever eTRing.

The reason is that eTRs where encouraged (among the non grinders) to pick an extra twist slot. Now if give it to me at cap (which is what I like to play), 5 twist slots or even farming fate points is a much longer term goal.

You need 4 eTRs for an extra fate point and now those will be significantly more painful:

- Cannot get to CITW weapons as "soon", meaning playing quests without them for more hours.
- Total XP is a lot higher, meaning that every eTR implies more time getting back to cap
- More time in lower levels means more hours where you cannot really participate in the raiding scene for current important raids.

Now you kill eTRing for all but the most determined. But what is there to do at cap? Play DoJ, eVale and Tempest? Given timers (being locked for 3 days from raid) and low amount of quests this means that one is very restricted on what to play.

IMHO increasing the level cap without a good number of end game quests is the same mistake you made in the past and costed you a ton of players.

THIS!!!!!!!

also, I like the flattened xp idea. However, IF you do so, please consider the following:

1) A minor bump in xp of some quests like Pharlian and Fens
2) add an epic wilderness to Sands and Fens if it is quick and easy, otherwise focus massively on legendary content and faux endgame
3) Make it possible to put old seals (not shards) on the AH for S S S items and (ideally) give them a simple update (that will take work but hey! and please make such gear changes optional-retroactive).
4) Update Cannith and eStar challenge gear. The former has an obvious progression for level 24, make eStar have a selectable/craftable option that costs insanely high (like cloaks) so no annoying lottery--you make the thing you want. (Please, I am sick of getting a Steam weapon of Parrying.) Think how great that would be for customization and builds. People may turn to it for level 20 gear additions.

I find the low level eberron epics fun and run (and have run) them regardless. The eberron ones have the bonus of dropping twelve tokens/frags which are great for Lahar purchases.

[slarden]

Do what you wish with the xp curve. Only reason I even think about caring is delayed use of CITW weapons.

[inspiredunease]

Absolutely awful. I also like running eberron 19-20 content at the earlier levels. I will no longer bother with it if this change goes live. That content will be completely dead. Fine increase the early costs a little, just not 800k!

[Kompera_Oberon]

Consider your average, non forum reading player who logs out "1 pip" from level 26 the night before the next expansion hits. Maybe they have a piece of equipment they are going to use, maybe its a new quest they will do at the next level. The point is, they log out expecting that the next day they will run a couple quests and get their level.

Instead, the update hits. They log in. They are now SOOOO much xp to the next level. In fact, they do a couple quests and notice their XP bar doesn't even move. This is going to result in support tickets. And frustrated casual players.

You're overlooking the fact that this will happen once. Ever. Any player below 20th level won't even see it. Any player at cap won't even see it. Only people in the process of leveling from 20-28 will see it. Once. And if this is a real concern to them, they can get to cap and stay there until U29 hits, or eTR to 20th and stay there until U29 hits, or TR to 1st or 15th and start leveling as normal.

These are significant downsides than incur real costs to Turbine (support isn't cheap).

I'm often amused when people try to make their argument more compelling by trying to attach a dollar cost to it. Do you really think that Turbine is going to hire a bunch of new support staff to handle your hypothetical influx of tickets? No, they are going to let the CS staff already on payroll handle all tickets, same as it ever was. No additional cost at all.

[Kompera_Oberon]

When this goes live I will most likely stop ever eTRing.

The reason is that eTRs where encouraged (among the non grinders) to pick an extra twist slot. Now if give it to me at cap (which is what I like to play), 5 twist slots or even farming fate points is a much longer term goal.

I'm amused that you would refer to someone who earned a 4th Twist slot through Epic Completionist, requiring 12 epic past lives, a "non grinder."

I thought the incentive to eTR was the excellent epic past life feats, because even one is a nice boost to your character. Epic Completionist seem more like a cherry on top for people who had already collected a great number of those already, something for a grinder or a very long term player to strive for.

[BigErkyKid]

I'm amused that you would refer to someone who earned a 4th Twist slot through Epic Completionist, requiring 12 epic past lives, a "non grinder."

I thought the incentive to eTR was the excellent epic past life feats, because even one is a nice boost to your character. Epic Completionist seem more like a cherry on top for people who had already collected a great number of those already, something for a grinder or a very long term player to strive for.

It may be personal, but I feel that there is hardly any reason for going beyond the first 3 important PL feats for any character.

Fortification / healing power --- Doublestrike ---- Double shot / colors - Energy criticals / enchant weapon

Depending on your planned end build you triple stack the useful one. Besides that, yes, getting more PRR is good, but also a massive grind (3PRR per PL...zzZZZzzzZZ). The extra twist with triple stacked everything is the big milestone, the rest is for people who don't mind the grind.

Now they give away the twist. To unlock 5 useful twists you need a ton of fate points. Probably most people like me (we like end game, despise the mechanic of eTRing for power), will be satisfied with the amount of PLs we got and see little benefit for grinding 4x PLs at a time to get a single fate point. Compounded by the fact that now PLs will be MASSIVELY more time consuming than they were say at cap 25.

So yeah, this kills eTRing for me. I have currently 3 divine PLs, 3 primal, 2 martial and 1 arcane. I was going slowly towards eCompletionist (I am already hCompletionist) but I reconsidered strongly after seeing the proposed change.

[CThruTheEgo]

you mean von 3, wiz king and spies. yes they will be run more.

I'm not sure why you think that is the case. As SirValentine said above, needing xp at all is what encourages running the dailies, the actual curve doesn't make a difference for that.

Currently, you can go from 20 to 22 (or 23 with the right xp boosts such as streak bonus or xp pot) just by running Eveningstar chains 1-3. From there you can move onto the other Eveningstar chains – Druid's Curse, High Road, Wheloon, Stormhorns – and be well into the mid-upper epic levels. So all those old school epics can just get passed over completely. With a flatter xp curve, you'd spend more time in the lower epic levels, providing more of an opportunity to run the old school, lower level epics.

As an additional comment, I don't really understand all the rage about an extra 1+ mil to be able to etr. 1 mil xp is easy to get in epics and isn't really that much. You can get that in a few days running dailies. If anything, that is what will encourage running dailies more, not a change in the curve.

And for the comments about weaker low level epic gear, I don't really understand this much either. If you can blow through the Eveningstar chains with that crappy gear, then you can certainly blow through the old school epics with it because those are a lot easier than newer epics. If you're someone who is on the etr train, then you probably don't find any low level epic content challenging, so what difference does the gear make. And if you're not on the etr train, then this change probably won't affect you much. That said, if they are going to flatten the xp curve, then I think an update to the old school epic items, or the shard/seal/scroll system as some have suggested, is a good way to offer better low level gear and further incentivize playing those quests more.

[nokowi]

Now that 48 hours have gone by, I will share my thoughts.

ER at level 28 is a bad idea for the following reasons:

1. All those Mortal Fear weapons that won't work in Legendary content? Throw them in the trash because you would ER by the time you can use them.
2. ER at 28 severely reduces the number of players at max level. I would like to have a vibrant community of players at cap, and any action that reduces this is a bad idea.

If cap is 30, I can use My Tier 3 TF during ER. Level 30 cap gives a use for Level 28 gear, even after Level 30+ content provides better gear.


I have proposed 500K + 50K/ level as a compromise both for flatness of the curve, and total xp. This would be 7.25 million total XP, and would keep XP for level 25 at 3 million (when you get nice gear).

I have also supported allowing quest and slayer (but not raid completion) reset during ER as a free (automatic) or paid option. Combining both of my proposals, it would be easier to get to cap, not harder.