Fist de Yuma - August 10, 2004

This and that Today's column takes a look back through the leveling aspect of AC. I'm sure that many players have a favorite leveling spot I'm not listing. If you have stories about a leveling dungeon, from years back to the present, send them to me, and I'll try to include them in a future column. There are a lot of things in AC other than leveling. There has to be a careful balance between gaining power and having fun using that power. Far too many players are totally focused on just that one part of AC. That is not bad if leveling is how you have fun. The key is longevity. My game will often weigh more to leveling. I have fun doing it. Others have totally focused on leveling, and quit playing after a few months. I recommend that most beginning players try to balance their game, until they find where it is they have the most fun. The key is always fun. If you are not having fun, then change your style of play. Leveling dungeons One of the aspects of all role-playing games is leveling. While leveling was not as much of a focus at the start of the game, for must of us, there were some who took advantage of leveling dungeons from the very start. The rest of us were too enthralled with the game itself to focus on leveling. A leveling dungeon has to have a few characteristics. A leveling dungeon needs; lots of easy to kill monsters, a relatively good xp return and ease of access. Depending on the difficulty of monsters, the ease of access can be flexible. Most leveling dungeons don't have magic tossing monsters. Those that do, have low war skills, and are easy to resist. Remember also, the xp flow is relative. What was great xp years ago, would be far too low today. Lugian post One of the first leveling dungeons was not really a dungeon. There is a small fortress North of Qalaba'r. This contains a handful of Lugians. They were much weaker than the ones we see today, and were worth a small amount of xp. Nevertheless, for the time, they gave a leg up to anyone who knew about the fortress. For some time, this fortress was the first stopping point for any new mage. The main advantage of the fortress is the midpoint in a stairwell. Under normal circumstances nothing could get to the players there. They would use drain and harm to get the kills. It quickly became a contest as to who could get the first drain in, as they would get the majority of the xp when the Lugian was killed. This was not a totally safe spot. For one, it could be dangerous to get into. The outside had Fire Rats and some undead, along with two or three Lugians. The danger was less if a lot of people were killing stuff. I'll not call it fighting. Yes, today, such monsters would not even give a well equipped, well buffed, first level mule any trouble, but they could eat up most players at the start of the game. The biggest danger was other players. For some reason, there were those who felt offended by the drain mages. They would draw Fire Rats and Lugians into the hallway, with the intent to get the drain mages killed. The last danger was a less than solid wall. A player could get punched through the wall, but that was rare. More common was a rock tossing Lugian spawning. With little armor and/or protection buffs, one rock tossed through the wall was all it took. Still, that was rare and the rock thrower was usually dead before it did too much damage. Another leveling dungeon nearby was Forking Trail. This was not used as much as some other places, but it was used. Most often a team of melee and mage would go to hunt there. Zane and Fist de Mage hunted there a time or two. Old Mine While many a mage started out in the Lugians Post, melee's had another leveling spot. Most had to wait until 18+ to have the power to survive there. This is Old Mine. It was common to see dozens of players hunting this dungeon. The main route to it was through the Arwic Mine. Many of us can run through the Arwic Mine blind folded, even today. This route is still in use, because of Linvak Tukal. Linvak Tukal is just outside of Old Mine. This was a fun dungeon for the time. XP wise, it would get a small chuckle today. I felt proud to make three levels in three days hunting there. (23 to 26) Of course, today you can do that in an hour. Lair of Death After the melee's hit around 30th level, we would move to the next leveling dungeon, the Lair of Death. For the time, it was a scary place. Many of us had a hard time fighting one Soldier Worker, let alone anything harder. Two or three attacking you was beat feet time. It was not uncommon to see a line of players forming a wall near the entrance. One player would run down a passage, and draw up some Olthoi. They would run through the wall of players, which the Olthoi could not do. The players would not attack, but keep the Olthoi trapped while others killed them. At the bottom of LOD was the ultimate monster of AC, the Olthoi Noble. After we had leveled a bit, we started taking on this bad boy. Many a death was contributed to the Noble. Even with a large mob of players attacking it, we had deaths. The Noble also had a notable loot advantage. Many an item was collected off his body that contributed to advancing to the next leveling dungeon of the time, Black Death Catacombs. Black Death Catacombs You can imagine how hard it was to advance, with a dozen players fighting over a handful of Olthoi. There were far more Olthoi in BDC, but many of us were afraid to go there. The key to the dungeon was the ability to fight three Olthoi at a time. That may not seem like much today, but remember, we did it with few if any Creature buffs, and at most, level IV protects. BDC had three Nobles for loot, and many more lower Olthoi to fight. BDC still exists, but has been changed a lot. Some of the major features are still there, but rearranged and behind different portals. Acid Vault BDC was popular until the Acid Vault was discovered. Now here was a true leveling dungeon! Today, it can be soloed without danger, and is in bad need of an upgrade. Back then, it was a place where few were safe, and most people went with a mob of players. While there was a handful of mages there, most were melee. Mages were better off fighting outside. Later, a major leveling spot was created for mages that changed the balance of the player classes. The Acid Vault ended as a leveling dungeon when Turbine fixed a bug and beefed up the Dires. The Acid Vault portal was supposed to be untieable. Turbine fixed that bug in the same patch they beefed up the Dires with. When fighting in the Acid Vault, many players would run to the exit portal when in trouble. We quickly found that outside was filled with things that were even worse than the Olthoi. Many of us changed our portal ties before we found out we could not get it back. This created an advantage for those who did not break their tie. They were able to level at a far faster rate than anyone else. This did not change until Turbine put in three major leveling dungeons. While it was still a great leveling dungeon, the access was a nightmare. Many players died trying to get there, sparking major events in body recovery. It would have become a quest dungeon, if not for macros. Archers found they could perch on the pillars in the Acid Vault, and be totally safe. As people started creating macros and macro tools, the Acid Vault started filling up with archers fighting 24/7. When Turbine found the time, they removed the ability to perch, and the Acid Vault became what it is today, a safe haven for Olthoi. Olthoi Horde Nest, Hills Citadel and Black Spawn Den The big change for leveling came when Olthoi Horde Nest, Hills Citadel and Black Spawn Den was put in the game. Not only did these three provide a great leveling spot, but Turbine give us three of each! At first the spawn rate of these dungeons was out of this world. Only the very strongest groups of players could explore them. Most just hung around at the start and killed what they could. This was the norm for a month. The next patch saw a drastic reduction in the spawn rate of these dungeons. Turbine said these dungeons were creating too much strain on the servers. While the screams and complaints were loud and constant, Turbine never increased the spawn rates of these dungeons. For mages, things were a little different. Olthoi have never been a great hunt for Mages, especially when armor was far weaker than it is today. They were mostly hunting outside and in BSD. Their first big break came with the introduction of Aerlinthe. Aerlinthe Aerlinthe had the biggest mage leveling monsters in the game. While Coral Golems were the main monster hunted, Vapor Golems, Undead and other monsters provided a good flow of xp to the hunters. This was also about the time that Turbine made changes to the fellowships. Until this time, everyone had to be within 5 levels of the leader to share xp. Turbine put a cap of 50 on this, which is how it is today. This made for more fellows and a wider spread of levels. Aerlinthe was so popular that there was a constant run of the quest for the recall scroll. At the time, only one person could get the recall scroll. So a fellow would have to run the quest nine times to get everyone the scroll. It was found that Turbine had a bug. A person who had never gone into a no-summon portal, could summon a portal to wherever they last logged out at. At the time, many of the leveling dungeons were no-summon. This allowed a player to level to 45, and be able to summon a portal to Aerlinthe. Players would tie to the portal and bypass Turbine's restriction. I'll admit that I took advantage of this with Fist de Mage. I arrived on the island at 43 level, and used that recall until Turbine fixed it, many months later. While the cost of a D note is not much today, it was a lot of cash back then. Most of us would fight our way though the C note fortress instead. It only took a short time for Turbine to fix the summon bug. Those of us with the portal tie were able to use it for a few months more. Then Turbine did a search of all the illegal portal ties, and forced us to go to Aerlinthe the right way. Training Camps After one patch we had many set spawns of Tuskers, Hollows and other monsters set outside. Many players used these to level. I never used them myself, but some players got to a high level, for the time, by using them. Conflict When Black Spawn Den was put into the game, the Mages had a dungeon they could level in. Tuskers were, and still are, great mage food. Because of their easy of killing and high xp for their difficulty, the mages had to share the dungeons with melee's. This created a lot of discontent. Some mages would use drain to almost kill a group of Tuskers. Then they would move on to the next group. A melee would come along, finish off the mob, only to find his reward, barely worth the effort, with most of the xp going to the drain mage. Another conflict was mages draining what a melee was fighting. I should point out here that drains worked far differently then than they do today. Back then, a single drain took half the health of a monster, even a level one drain! This worked even when a mage was at full health. This gave mages an unparalleled advantage in fights. Two level one drains, and they had the kill. A melee would be very lucky get the kill on an Olthoi Noble when a mage was around. Shiner and I had large battles of words over this problem. Another conflict with the BSD's was powerful players who were racing to 126. Many decided that they were going to kill everything in BSD, even if someone else was fighting it. They were powerful players and made hunting there useless for anyone but them. Fortunately, they did not last long in the game. Their goals were not to have fun, but to dominate others. Tusker camps were always in conflict. The main problem, of course, was greed. Players decided they not only "owned" a camp, but all the camps near them. Anyone who tried to use one, received a lot of grief if one of these kids were around. Sharing was never their strong suit. Expansion and today BSD, OHN and the Citadels were the main leveling dungeons for some time. There were others, such as Metros, but these were the most popular. This held until the expansion hit the game. The Melee hit the Olthoi dungeons while the mages hunted North ML. The top-leveling dungeon was Matinate Holding. Another leveling dungeon that hit was not meant to be a leveling dungeon. This was Fathomless Chasm. It is part of a quest, but became a favored spot for macros. The biggest change in leveling dungeons came with the introduction of Tusker Island. Here were dozens of dungeons where a melee or mage could level. The only draw back to these dungeons was ease of access. Unlike the beginning of the game, players can hunt for hours at a time. With Foci and other changes, a mage can hunt for hours on end, without having to re-comp. Many more melees are self-buffing today, so they too can hunt for hours on end as well. For this reason, Tusker Island became the top hunting spot for some time, despite being hard to get to. Turbine did a lot to reduce Tusker Island as a leveling spot. The biggest was to reduce the xp on many of the Tuskers. For this reason, I only see the 60+ Tusker dungeon camped. I'll see players in the others from time to time, but the 60+ seems to be the only popular one today. For mages, Tusker Island is still the top spot for a dungeon. Caul island and VoD have a far greater return so, we see a lot less dungeon camping by mages today. For the melee, it is back to the Olthoi. The matron dungeons can supply more xp than any dungeons in the history of the game. Surprisingly, they are not heavily camped. Some might disagree, but I have seen camped, and this is not it. Of course that might change when Turbine starts making a marketing push with AC. There are rumors of great leveling dungeons I have not tried yet. I keep hearing something about wasps. My nephew has hunted a wasp dungeon with his archer. There are also some secret places I'm not privy to yet. Of course it I were, I would not be allowed to write about them. The game has matured a lot over the years. Leveling dungeons are only part of the story. I for one am glad to see places where a hard hunter can pick up 100 million in a day. It gives someone a chance to make the top levels, but only if they are willing to put in the time and effort. Why are people happy over this? Turbine has posted that they are thinking of removing the level cap, but not the skill cap. The new cap I saw was 275. If they give us skill credits and/or other benefits to go with the level, it will unbalance the game. So I see it as just a number, a number we can all look up at Treestats.com anyway. At best it is an EGO thing. So we gain very little, at possible cost. At this time, there is an xp reduction based on level. I disagree with this reduction because AC is not a level game. Power comes form skills, and level means nothing. My 105 mule might be great at applying steel to armor, but as a fighter he is very weak. And yet, he would have to fight monsters his own level, or higher, in order not to get the reduction. I understand why Turbine did this. A 126 player hunting in the 60+ Tusker dungeon should not happen. Nevertheless, it does happen, even with the reduction, and the fellows suffer for it. The reasons for this vary, but it is mostly because the 126 can count on the others to give him their xp. Yes, he can kill faster, but when everyone is standing in a corner waiting for something to spawn, that does not count for much. I don't see these people leaving, even if they hit 200. Unless Turbine finds a way to balance the xp drop, such as capping it at 126, I see no benefit to this, other than the EGO boost. With luck, this is only a number, such as what Treestats plug-in gives us, and will have no effect on the game otherwise. That I would support. The second problem I see might or might not be a big deal. This could be a big mess. I'm not sure. This is the problem with swearing players to patrons. Most of us don't move around a lot. With chains gone, and allegiances stable, there is little reason to move. Sales on E-bay are gone, so paying for a high level player will not be common. I don't see a lot of high-level players moving. Nevertheless, player's patron can quit playing, and friendship can fail. If someone is a very high-level, they will have a hard time moving to a new patron. I hope Turbine caps this at 126 as well. At this time, Turbine has a lot of thinking to do. There are a lot of problems with removing the leveling cap. So far, Turbine has not disappointed us with their changes. I'll take a wait and see attitude. - Fist de Yuma