How long should a TR take?

[droid327]

There's a lot of consternation now about the XP changes, but its nothing new - there's been consternation for a long time about how long it takes to do a TR, and how much time new players or alts are looking at to get up to full power.

So the key underlying question is this - how much time you do think it should take to do a TR? ETR? What should the expectation be? How much is too much, or too short? And what expectations should be on players in terms of how they play, what resources you assume they're using, etc.?

Personally I think an average player, soloing, should be looking at an ETR in two weeks of casual play (a few hours a week), or one week of pushing (couple hours a day for 5-6 days), or be able to hit the 3 day limit if they really grind out over a weekend. HTRs maybe represent double that. That's assuming no pots.

[Bunker]

Level 20-30
12-15 hours of in quest game time. How that equates to people personal hours is up to them.

......this is with no XP pot running.

Personally, it takes me 8-9 hours to do an Etr life of levels 20-30. Then I Etr a second time turning in most sagas and running KF and Orchard slayer, and finishing other sagas. This was all before the changes. Knowing the experience has improved over all will only make this possibly a bit quicker.

....I usually have a 20% or 30% pot running.

[Cantor]

Level 20-30
12-15 hours of in quest game time. How that equates to people personal hours is up to them.

......this is with no XP pot running.

Personally, it takes me 8-9 hours to do an Etr life of levels 20-30. Then I Etr a second time turning in most sagas and running KF and Orchard slayer, and finishing other sagas. This was all before the changes. Knowing the experience has improved over all will only make this possibly a bit quicker.

....I usually have a 20% or 30% pot running.

Prior to this update
1-20 about 12-15hrs potion time, 20% or 30% pot.
Probably not going to change much, might have been faster if they had buffed all the quests in the original list.

[math92]

Level 20-30 12-15 hours

huh?

[ChadB123]

Prior to this update
1-20 about 12-15hrs potion time, 20% or 30% pot.
Probably not going to change much, might have been faster if they had buffed all the quests in the original list.

With a Tome of Learning, Voice of the Master, Guild Shrine, 20% XP pot, and running on R1 difficulty, I can do a heroic life in 10-12 hours (of actual in-quest time). But you're correct that anywhere from 12-20 hours (again, in-quest time) is likely average.

For an epic life, it takes me about 10 hours of in-quest play.

The amount of time one takes to TR varies a great deal by one's play style and XP boosts. I have friends that spend many more hours on a life because they prefer to run every quest for fun. That's fine, too.

[tinyelvis]

There's a lot of consternation now about the XP changes, but its nothing new - there's been consternation for a long time about how long it takes to do a TR, and how much time new players or alts are looking at to get up to full power.

So the key underlying question is this - how much time you do think it should take to do a TR? ETR? What should the expectation be? How much is too much, or too short? And what expectations should be on players in terms of how they play, what resources you assume they're using, etc.?

Personally I think an average player, soloing, should be looking at an ETR in two weeks of casual play (a few hours a week), or one week of pushing (couple hours a day for 5-6 days), or be able to hit the 3 day limit if they really grind out over a weekend. HTRs maybe represent double that. That's assuming no pots.

That is up to you. All of it. I play with people who lap me on occasion with store purchased items, essentially leveling and coming back to my level almost instantly. If you are a person with little time, where time is a valuable commodity, then this approach may be for you. So, my answer in that situation is 2 hrs. What I council is don't worry about what other people can or will do. And certainly dont die of misery and envy pining for it. Just play your game. It does not matter since what will you be doing once you TR? Well, pretty much the exact same thing you are doing at any other given moment. Namely playing the game.

Loot is a factor, but learning to play your toon well goes a lot farther to helping you cope. And the best way to do that is playing the game and challenging yourself to play at a higher level. Loot... Meh.... you can pick up the minimum needed in typical end chests with 30% or so drop rates. Or craft it.

[Aelonwy]

If I can focus, truly focus, on just one character my shortest getting to 20 time was (I think) approximately 4, or 4 and a half months now, my shortest 20-30 time was 2 and a half weeks. No XP potions in heroics, a scattering of Slayer Boosts (I love those) and I think... yes I'm pretty sure I used a really good XP potion when turning in ALL my sagas except RL & Sharn at level 26/27. I have a difficult time focusing on just one character though and I doubt the entire 4 to 4 1/2 months was just that one but now I can't remember exactly.

I generally get only about 2 hours of play on weekdays (and NOT all weekdays) and if I'm really lucky 4 to 6 hours playtime on the weekend. My kids are still small though and interruptions (even when they play with us) are pretty frequent. so anywhere from 8 to 14 hours on a good week of playtime that is punctuated with demands for snacks, drinks, adjudication of squabbles, searches for missing items such as books, shoes, remotes, swim suits, favorite toys.

You'd think during the summer we'd get to play together more but there have been several weeks when we haven't played at all because of reunions, weddings, funerals, baby showers, trips, etc. A lot of nieces and nephews born this summer, good thing facebook keeps all the birthdates for me.

[Jerevth]

Ideally, I'd like to see an average of 2-3 hours per level from level 10 and up.

Of course some folks would destroy that and hit the waiting period to TR in two days. Groups especially.

And there are solo players who want that rate of leveling which means to groups would leveling exponentially.

Would it be reasonable to have something like this:

At the completion of a quest within two levels of the toon's level, the character earns a stackable ingredient-type item (Call it "Essence of Bacon"). (BTC)
-The quest will only give it one time, per level advancement (Advance a level and it resets).
-If the toon runs solo they receive 2 of these at quest completion.
-If the toon runs in a group (Active players, not hirelings) they receive 1.

This means we'd have to run 10-20 different quests per level (but you can run the same one a total of five times if you really wanted to and gain the EOB once per level from that same quest.)

Twenty EOB (Essentia of Bacon) must be paid to the NPC who allows advancement, once the requisite xp is gained. Class trainer or the epic spinners of fate.

This is purely off the cuff and I'm not sure if it would be feasible or just one more mess nobody wants. I was looking for a way to allow for both play types to stay competitive.

But let me just say: Bacon!

[Bunker]

huh?

Could you expand on that?

[bls904c2]

1-20 quest time around 12 hours in game time and with running to quests, bank, leveling about 17-18 hours a life for me

my wife 40-45 hours with static guildy 2 hours a session about 5 sessions a week about a month for them

she has 3 toons that are static toons and 12 toons she randomly plays she's lucky to tr a non-static toon in 4-5 months or about 2-3 trs a year for all non static alts together. she maybe maybe does 14 to 15 trs a year in total across all toons combined.

i do 2-3 trs a week. 4 if i join a tr train with friends.

the time it takes for a tr is based on your play style do you zerg (run past enemies), do optionals or run past them, build knowledge. using a great build with best gear and clickies. quest knowledge which quests are better to run than others for your build. (avoiding quests of undead when ranged) again proper equipment to handle quest. routing or plan. having it planed out so you avoid time outside of quests and order of quests so less time running to quests.

tr can be very optimized and streamlined to go fast or will take for ever if you wonder aimlessly what quest is next in my level range i fell like playing that one today.

optimized streamlined game play, its playing in a rut same old path travel dozens of times. can be very boring and tedious.

[Khurse]

Wow
I know I'm way out of the loop, but 12-15 (even 18) seems...fast.
Is that solo? With a group?

[Cantor]

optimized streamlined game play, its playing in a rut same old path travel dozens of times. can be very boring and tedious.

I'd compare it more to a highway rather than a rut, you are making good time but it's not the scenic drive.

Good points on quest/gear choice.
know that you don't want to run abishai content without evasion, or undead/constructs on crit builds, etc
have run speed boosts: falconry now makes this an AP cost instead of a multiclass cost.
have gear ready for your whole life: newbie stuff>slavers>RL>sharn> TR.... not hmmm what can I move/replace/craft here.... oops I'm 2 levels behind my group.
have openers for top tier quests.

Just good use of time makes a huge difference.
Knowing where you are going, not spending time looking for a +1 or +2 to some skill here or there, not deconning loot, auto loot and run on or don't loot trash chests, more.

[SpartanKiller13]

...how much time you do think it should take to do a TR? ETR? What should the expectation be? How much is too much, or too short? And what expectations should be on players in terms of how they play, what resources you assume they're using, etc.?

As long as you're having fun It's not a PvP game, and there's not even much direct competition, so why should there be an expectation?

Personally I take ~2 months per 1-20, ~3 weeks per 20-30. I pretty much don't use pots except Slayer pots in epics (which is something I'm pretty new to). I also sit around at 30 a bit lol, and I don't really prep Slayers/Sagas (although I just did a little for next life, to try it out).

I've ETR'ed in 3 days before, without running a pot. I've also taken a month to go from 18-20.

When I'm looking at what I could expect a slightly more dedicated player with a little more free time to do, I'd expect 1-20 in 3-4 weeks and 20-30 in two weeks. That to me is a fairly reasonable expectation. Most people don't have the gaming time available to TR every 3-5 days even if it is quite possible.

[ChadB123]

Wow
I know I'm way out of the loop, but 12-15 (even 18) seems...fast.
Is that solo? With a group?

My 12 hour lives are with a static group. Lots of factors go into this: party makeup, quests ran, XP boosts.

[Strider1963]

Could you expand on that?

The average player will take much longer than what you stated for 1-20 or 20-30. You assume that everyone can do reaper in both heroic and epic, and thats simply not true.

[droid327]

Note that I'm not asking how much time it DOES take for you to get 1-20 or 20-30. I'm asking how much time you think it SHOULD take. Like what should the baseline expectation be for a generic player?

why should there be an expectation?

Its important to have a baseline expectation we all accept, because then we can judge whether the game is actually delivering on that expectation in a real sense. And then we'd also have a common ground to discuss how much of a burden PL grinding etc. is, how hard non-endgame items are to acquire compared to how much use you'll get out of them, etc.

In the current case, we can compare whether or not quests are giving enough XP on average to meet that expected 1-20 time for an average player, or for players in specific scenarios (e.g., the new player who only has a few adventure packs) and then we can have a basis for calling for additional buffs where appropriate.

[cdbd3rd]

Heh. Depending on the player...

For me, an average TR takes about 3-4 years.

[bls904c2]

Its important to have a baseline expectation we all accept, because then we can judge whether the game is actually delivering on that expectation in a real sense. And then we'd also have a common ground to discuss how much of a burden PL grinding etc. is, how hard non-endgame items are to acquire compared to how much use you'll get out of them, etc.

In the current case, we can compare whether or not quests are giving enough XP on average to meet that expected 1-20 time for an average player, or for players in specific scenarios (e.g., the new player who only has a few adventure packs) and then we can have a basis for calling for additional buffs where appropriate.

You will never get a straight answer to this like cantor said

I'd compare it more to a highway rather than a rut, you are making good time but it's not the scenic drive.

a player who sits around looking for a group is never going to level fast. a player who doesn't map out their toons build or has the equipment laid out before hand will spend hours just in build choices and equiping the toon. looting chests well, you have to sell or deconstruct the items adding hours to you life. inventory management can add 10-20 hours over your life if you let it.

you see players TRing ever few days and leveling quickly because of a road map they have made themselves.

is your road map a highway or is it a city street or is it a farm road. your game knowledge will decide if it is a couple months to TR or a few days.

a life taking 2-4 months just playing having fun getting optionals, getting chests, collectables, socializing learning the game is fine by me.

solo play mapped out route skiping chests, optionals, and distractions, cruise control as it may be called 12-18 hours is fine.

thing is there is no way of cruise control without first acquiring the knowledge of game mechanics, player builds, map layout, enemy make up, game skill. and years of collecting items so you don't have to stop for them anymore.

play the way it is fun for you. many carrots to chase in this game and PL is just one of thousands of carrots. enjoy the journey because once you arrive at destination what is left but to get out at the destination.

[Bunker]

The average player will take much longer than what you stated for 1-20 or 20-30. You assume that everyone can do reaper in both heroic and epic, and thats simply not true.

That is true. I suppose if you are running quests only once. Having all the content available. I would say a fast average is:

1 level per hour heroic
1 level per 2 hours epic

However, there are clear moments at different stages of the leveling process where you could jump 1 level in a very fast pace. That would be a result of running certain quests that yield higher xp/min ratios.

I do not see a newer player having issues adapting to a playstyle that yields a heroic life in 20 hours of quest time. There are tricks involved that will ultimately make the leveling process faster overall. Example: Run speed, if you always run faster, you will always get to where you are going faster, aside from combat moments.

You can also choose your quest progression for better overall efficiency. I myself have quests that I enjoy, and I run the even though they are not the best choice for high xp/min. So we all make sacrafice.

[droid327]

You will never get a straight answer to this like cantor said


a player who sits around looking for a group is never going to level fast. a player who doesn't map out their toons build or has the equipment laid out before hand will spend hours just in build choices and equiping the toon. looting chests well, you have to sell or deconstruct the items adding hours to you life. inventory management can add 10-20 hours over your life if you let it.

you see players TRing ever few days and leveling quickly because of a road map they have made themselves.

is your road map a highway or is it a city street or is it a farm road. your game knowledge will decide if it is a couple months to TR or a few days.

a life taking 2-4 months just playing having fun getting optionals, getting chests, collectables, socializing learning the game is fine by me.

solo play mapped out route skiping chests, optionals, and distractions, cruise control as it may be called 12-18 hours is fine.

thing is there is no way of cruise control without first acquiring the knowledge of game mechanics, player builds, map layout, enemy make up, game skill. and years of collecting items so you don't have to stop for them anymore.

play the way it is fun for you. many carrots to chase in this game and PL is just one of thousands of carrots. enjoy the journey because once you arrive at destination what is left but to get out at the destination.

That's fine for individual players...but in terms of game balance you have to have a number, a standard, for what you expect the average player to take. Some players will be the tail of a Poisson distribution and take much longer, and that's fine - but you still need to know where the peak is expected to be, or intended to be