Leveling

Khizan

Recently, I was in the mood to play Demonic. So I logged on Syric. I got all my lessons back from Summoner on him, and I had a sanguis pendant refund and a few other credits, so I went Strong Deathknight and got a L1 claymore. Solid tanky class without much affliction tracking, but a lot of team utility. 31-34 bashing DPS. Right up my alley. The only problem is that Syric was level 82.85 or  so, and so my nice tanky class has ~440ish health and is basically pretty untanky due to that. Oh well. Time to level!

... hours later, 83.30.

Looking forward to all the bashing I'll have to do to get to a 'real' level has pretty much made me put Syric back on the shelf, so to speak. I could do 1-90 in WoW in the time it would take me to hit Aspect, and I'd have way more fun doing it. Running dungeons. Doing quest lines that expand the story and lore behind the areas. Quests with different mechanics, like the vehicle quests, bombing runs, etc. Playing with new mechanics as new abilities open up, changing my skill-trees around. All sorts of things designed to keep the leveling process interesting and engaging and fun. In comparison, in Imperian, I'd hit "dsl $target" a lot in various areas. For hours and hours and hours and hours on end. And then a few more hours of it. And a few more. 

In WoW, I would log on specifically to level alts because leveling was fun. In fact, just thinking about this makes me want to go back and level something right now.

In Imperian, I  basically threw away a multi-trans character with an artifact because leveling is such a hugely unfun pain in the ass that I'd rather just scrap the investment than go through it again.

This is, well, a pretty damned terrible state of affairs, and it has a pretty damn terrible effect on the game, imo. A lot of the problem with the conflict now, especially with Magick and Demonic, is that we get these new people who want to get involved in things, only to find that it's going to take an incredibly long time to get to a level where they're not just going to be cannon fodder or glass cannons. We  should be trying to make things more accessible and more involving, and not locking the good stuff up behind dozens or hundreds of hours of bashing.

Here's what I'd like to see:

• Cap health/mana out at L75. That is to say, change the health/mana  distribution per level so that you reach the current L100 health levels at L75, and stop gaining health from that point on. Levels past 75 would still gain credits and other perks, and they would still be required to actually hit aspect, but hitting L75 would give you endgame health and let you get involved in things, and it would do a lot to help normalize damage and balance, since the health ranges would be tighter.

That's really all you have to do. Make it easier to get up to PvP levels of health and I don't really think the rest of the system needs changing that much. If they want Aspect for the perks, they can bash to it, but they won't be FORCED to bash that long to get their health up.

Other things I'd like to see, though:

• Change achivement bonuses so that I can activate them and deactivate them at will. As it is now, they help force a poopsock mentality of "Well, if I'm going to use it, I should spend all n length of time bashing, and there's too many other people bashing right now, I have to leave in an hour, etc. So I better not use it." WoW doesn't screw me out of my rested time cause I've only got half an hour to play. Imperian shouldn't, either.
• Give me some quests that are still worth decent experience past level 30 instead of just FedEx crap that people automate for gold
  
• Give me some quests that reveal more of an area's story, and that tie it into other areas. We've got a crapload of Horde camps, why don't they have any connections to each other or interactions?
• Turn Druid Wisps into bees. Bees are optimal for leveling 
• I'd really, really like to see those portalcoins give me access to instanced historical scenarios like Czavak versus Nathariel and the battle leading up to it, possibly with vanity gear. Scale it to level and make it give bucketloads of EXP and some neat vanity items, and people will pay to do it.

Ambrose

As someone who is 82.70. Agreed with all of this.

Jeremy Saunders

Seen and noted. I do agree that bashing can be better at  those levels, and it is all on the list, but it is a ton of work. The rest of the things are easier, so I will think about those some more.

Khizan

The problem isn't the bashing. The problem is that there is SO DAMN MUCH OF IT.

I don't mind that bashing is better than questing, really. I don't mind that it's better than PvP for reliable exp gain.

I mind that you don't seem to have a problem with "Hey, maybe after a month or two your character will be advanced enough to participate in the fun things! Until then, get to bashing!"