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 lvl 1-15 player experience discussion 
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Joined: Wed May 16, 2018 9:15 pm
Posts: 33
My experience in Xen 2.0 thus far. (These are only my opinions and I hope that they are useful for a discussion on the state of Xen2.0 early player experience and its development. I do not mean for anything here to be an insult to the work EJ has put in.)

General:
I like the increased speed of progression into the teens and the NDNT reward gear as well as no exp loss on death. I will say that each class does feel a little different but my best player experience has been as mage classes. I’ll explain my thoughts and personal feelings on each class I’ve gotten to lvl 15 and beyond in my 3 weeks here. I’ll rate this lower level experience using 1-10 (Feel free to disagree)

Gear:
NDNT gear is great. You quickly out progress plate mail and alot of other melee type armors, and typically I found myself always defaulting to the mage gear even on melees since the rest of the lvl 13 and under gear do not offer anything useful. I’d easily trade 2-8 protection for +2 mp regen, and I’m desperate for a Base MP helm on melee characters. Mages gear is very powerful and means you have no lack of Magic Power and pretty solid protection ratings. I wanted to use the other available 1-13 armors but really magic leather or the magic elvin leather you get as Harsad reward is the absolute go-to for +2hp and +4mp regen. The multi-prop fire staves from orc mages are SUPER useful as a newb mage and will carry you well into your late teens or beyond until someone gives you a propped boss dropped bone or mystic staff. They are also useful for buffing as a melee. [EDIT] Perhaps low level items could have thier own propping rules (white peals/Blue pearls) to encourage experimenting and propping for newbies. If i could have propped a chest armor or helm with base mp or regen I may have been able to use the other low level armors. Or perhaps more 1/2prop NDNT quest rewards to possibly get a helm or armor with the critical mp regen or mp base.

Darkwar: 7/10
Slower to start and multi seemed okay once I earned it, but leveling with a staff seemed to be the best way to do it if I wanted to use Juxta. This is likely the best feeling of the melee classes I’ve tried since it has built in trans, but limited supplies of magic and gear to fuel Magic Power consumption made it abit more clunky. Shield and sword felt okay, but its hard to take a hit by the time you reach elementals task. Even using sword/shield

Druid: 9/10
Abit slow to start until you get your multi spell. I really wish the “Tame or Pet spell” worked at an earlier level and was much more effective once it did work. I’m not sure how it currently works (under the hood) but a big boost to tamed creatures HP/Defense/Attack (atleast from 1-15) would be very welcome as well as some enhanced AI. I’d love to see this class encouraged to be able to hybridize as a psuedo melee/pet class instead of almost exclusively as a tanky caster reliant on its multi. Over all this class felt good out of the box and I didn’t find myself frustrated with lack of Magic Power or abilities. It was frustrating to sometimes be able to wear certain “Melee” class items and “Mage” class items and other times be unable to equip something even with the right stats/level. (Need better gear labeling)

Cleric:9.5/10
This could have easily been my main character had I tried it first. Plenty of Magic Power, a VERY powerful multi spell and Obstar Malus works great for early leveling once u hit the GY. I found myself sticking to robes and Magic Power regen leathers rather than plate mail. Trans and multi work well together and I can hunt elementals fairly easily at lvl 12.

Ranger: 6/10
I’ve gotten my ranger to lvl 18 not from a pure level of enjoyment, but because of stubborn effort. I’ve found this ranger after lvl 14 levels around half as fast or slower than my warlock did. Sword and shield combat moves work pretty well while invisible for early levels. You can’t take a hit and trying to heal mid battle just doesn't work well. Once you get Multi and invest all your points into bow skills you will be very disappointed at how lackluster it is. You can multi 2 times and without Magic Power regen or base mp you can’t level with multi. You’re honestly better off speccing for melee at least as far as I’ve gotten. If I could take back my 16 skill points in bow I would. Shooting a bow by clicking is not any better as you miss a large number of your shots and have a lot less defense vs using a shield. A reliance on arrows is also tough unless you’re killing things that drop them or quest rewards them. I will say with the accuracy cloak and lvl 17 it felt like ALOT more of my arrows started to hit, but melee is still likely the fastest way to level. Also another major issue with the ranger multi accuracy is that arrows get blocked by lots of things where spells or spin/juxta do not. Granted your aoe is larger than spin, but a strafing target will easily dodge an arrow unless point blank. Oh, and i was lucky enough to get 10% move speed boots which without them kiting/multi is very painful as you get hit/die alot. (Also all same complaints as warrior for lack of movement and pathing issues)

Warlock: 10/10
As this toon has gone to be my main I’ll give it 10/10. It can be abit tough to figure out, but once you get venum and can dot and kite things you progress quickly. You get plenty of Magic Power and gear to help with never running out. I’m not sure if Intel = Exp bonus anymore, but this character leveled the fastest of all my characters by a decent margin with the possible exclusion of cleric. Reditus Cubil is an AMAZING ability and huge time saver for leveling. Posion cloud is fun, and while you are squishy you can quickly escape via trans if you take a hit, and with some hp regen you’ll be able to take another hit quickly. No complaints here.

Warrior: 5/10
Slowest start as well as most confusing. Since spell cost goes up each level I found myself able to self buff some levels and not able to on others. Once i got a base MP helm it felt decent, but until then it was off putting. The general feeling of being squishy was odd, and by the time I got to elementals I still had a hard time taking a hit with the best gear i could get via quests. I wanted to use 2h weapons, but found the lack of shield to begin to kick my butt at elementals. Attack run works okay in the current game, but it’s not nearly as reliable as the trans spell for locomotion or leveling. You quickly realize how much ground clutter and pathing issues there are when on a warrior. I died a lot, and a good number were due to pathing issues and the inability to extract from combat once engaged. I wanted to use reflective gear, but the lack of any Magic Power regen or bases on it made it not an option vs alot of the other starting gear with +2 MP etc.


I'm curious what the rest of X2.0 thinks.

~Mino


Sun Jun 03, 2018 12:30 pm
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Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 12:47 am
Posts: 47
Awesome posts you been cranking out bro. It really helps the server development, much appreciated.
You forgot Wizard =p but of course they would be a 10/10 too.

I think there is just not a ton of places for a anyone under 20. On x2 you start killing Bugs to lvl 3 then Imps/Newb Dungeon West of T1 for a few levels.
Then its basically Skeletons GY>Elementals to 20+

On x1 there is more places for those early levels like the 1-19 dungeon, Minotaur task, amongst more that are shown on the Game help forum posted by Feral Child.
At the moment trying to think what should be added besides the offhand update is hunting area wise in my personal opinion of course, would be

Another place for a level 16 to get just as good exp as elementals gives or better with a clearing bonus exp and possibly a monster task.

A hunting ground for level 40+ . As right now if your around level 32-33 or so you are starting to hunt Skeleton Wars(West and Down from T2). But once you hit 40's the experience isn't as great and you can't hunt Fire imps at lvl 40. So I think their just should be a hunting area between Skel Wars and Fire Imps.

A hunting ground for lvl 55+. As right now you hunt Fire Imps pretty much from level 48-60. There's just nothing else that gives the same experience and drops per hour besides Cons Great Hall which your not hunting until roughly 56-57 and its still rough at those levels. If more then few lvl 48+s are hunting then the only hunting ground(Fire Imps) is severely drained for experience.
Let Derath Area and Barrow Area give "Found Items"
Add some of the lower level tasks for monsters in East dungeon
Add another NPC that gives high lvl quests like Daemon Animus Task, Daemon Task, Skeleton(GH ones) Task


Last edited by Prysionero on Sun Jun 03, 2018 4:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.



Sun Jun 03, 2018 3:53 pm
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Joined: Wed May 16, 2018 9:15 pm
Posts: 33
@Prysionero Thanks for joining the convo. I havent tried Wizard, but it seems likely to be just as good as war or cleric perhaps. You also mentioned Diabolist being a good caster. Only so many hours in a day though and I'm starting to enjoy playing a few of them specifically.

As far as hunting areas and diversity of choices I'm all for either adding additional tasks or balancing areas with found exp/items. You just need to balance the exp/hr with gear/item finding to encourage activity if not just level grind. A diversity of areas that the melees would excel at would be nice. Perhaps the T2 barbarians could be a no-trans area in the walls and offer a kill quest in T2 (its a nice and open area for att run) Also the rouge camps already randomly drop the turn in chests. Perhaps those could be more common or also have a found exp spot in each camp as well.

I've only just hit lvl 28 on my Warlock so I'm not much of an expert for beyond that. =P


Sun Jun 03, 2018 4:06 pm
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Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 11:06 pm
Posts: 785
Minoxen wrote:
My experience in Xen 2.0 thus far. (These are only my opinions and I hope that they are useful for a discussion on the state of Xen2.0 early player experience and its development. I do not mean for anything here to be an insult to the work EJ has put in.)

General:
I like the increased speed of progression into the teens and the NDNT reward gear as well as no exp loss on death. I will say that each class does feel a little different but my best player experience has been as mage classes. I’ll explain my thoughts and personal feelings on each class I’ve gotten to lvl 15 and beyond in my 3 weeks here. I’ll rate this lower level experience using 1-10 (Feel free to disagree)

Gear:
NDNT gear is great. You quickly out progress plate mail and alot of other melee type armors, and typically I found myself always defaulting to the mage gear even on melees since the rest of the lvl 13 and under gear do not offer anything useful. I’d easily trade 2-8 protection for +2 mp regen, and I’m desperate for a Base MP helm on melee characters. Mages gear is very powerful and means you have no lack of Magic Power and pretty solid protection ratings. I wanted to use the other available 1-13 armors but really magic leather or the magic elvin leather you get as Harsad reward is the absolute go-to for +2hp and +4mp regen. The multi-prop fire staves from orc mages are SUPER useful as a newb mage and will carry you well into your late teens or beyond until someone gives you a propped boss dropped bone or mystic staff. They are also useful for buffing as a melee. [EDIT] Perhaps low level items could have thier own propping rules (white peals/Blue pearls) to encourage experimenting and propping for newbies. If i could have propped a chest armor or helm with base mp or regen I may have been able to use the other low level armors. Or perhaps more 1/2prop NDNT quest rewards to possibly get a helm or armor with the critical mp regen or mp base.

Darkwar: 7/10
Slower to start and multi seemed okay once I earned it, but leveling with a staff seemed to be the best way to do it if I wanted to use Juxta. This is likely the best feeling of the melee classes I’ve tried since it has built in trans, but limited supplies of magic and gear to fuel Magic Power consumption made it abit more clunky. Shield and sword felt okay, but its hard to take a hit by the time you reach elementals task. Even using sword/shield

Druid: 9/10
Abit slow to start until you get your multi spell. I really wish the “Tame or Pet spell” worked at an earlier level and was much more effective once it did work. I’m not sure how it currently works (under the hood) but a big boost to tamed creatures HP/Defense/Attack (atleast from 1-15) would be very welcome as well as some enhanced AI. I’d love to see this class encouraged to be able to hybridize as a psuedo melee/pet class instead of almost exclusively as a tanky caster reliant on its multi. Over all this class felt good out of the box and I didn’t find myself frustrated with lack of Magic Power or abilities. It was frustrating to sometimes be able to wear certain “Melee” class items and “Mage” class items and other times be unable to equip something even with the right stats/level. (Need better gear labeling)

Cleric:9.5/10
This could have easily been my main character had I tried it first. Plenty of Magic Power, a VERY powerful multi spell and Obstar Malus works great for early leveling once u hit the GY. I found myself sticking to robes and Magic Power regen leathers rather than plate mail. Trans and multi work well together and I can hunt elementals fairly easily at lvl 12.

Ranger: 6/10
I’ve gotten my ranger to lvl 18 not from a pure level of enjoyment, but because of stubborn effort. I’ve found this ranger after lvl 14 levels around half as fast or slower than my warlock did. Sword and shield combat moves work pretty well while invisible for early levels. You can’t take a hit and trying to heal mid battle just doesn't work well. Once you get Multi and invest all your points into bow skills you will be very disappointed at how lackluster it is. You can multi 2 times and without Magic Power regen or base mp you can’t level with multi. You’re honestly better off speccing for melee at least as far as I’ve gotten. If I could take back my 16 skill points in bow I would. Shooting a bow by clicking is not any better as you miss a large number of your shots and have a lot less defense vs using a shield. A reliance on arrows is also tough unless you’re killing things that drop them or quest rewards them. I will say with the accuracy cloak and lvl 17 it felt like ALOT more of my arrows started to hit, but melee is still likely the fastest way to level. Also another major issue with the ranger multi accuracy is that arrows get blocked by lots of things where spells or spin/juxta do not. Granted your aoe is larger than spin, but a strafing target will easily dodge an arrow unless point blank. Oh, and i was lucky enough to get 10% move speed boots which without them kiting/multi is very painful as you get hit/die alot. (Also all same complaints as warrior for lack of movement and pathing issues)

Warlock: 10/10
As this toon has gone to be my main I’ll give it 10/10. It can be abit tough to figure out, but once you get venum and can dot and kite things you progress quickly. You get plenty of Magic Power and gear to help with never running out. I’m not sure if Intel = Exp bonus anymore, but this character leveled the fastest of all my characters by a decent margin with the possible exclusion of cleric. Reditus Cubil is an AMAZING ability and huge time saver for leveling. Posion cloud is fun, and while you are squishy you can quickly escape via trans if you take a hit, and with some hp regen you’ll be able to take another hit quickly. No complaints here.

Warrior: 5/10
Slowest start as well as most confusing. Since spell cost goes up each level I found myself able to self buff some levels and not able to on others. Once i got a base MP helm it felt decent, but until then it was off putting. The general feeling of being squishy was odd, and by the time I got to elementals I still had a hard time taking a hit with the best gear i could get via quests. I wanted to use 2h weapons, but found the lack of shield to begin to kick my butt at elementals. Attack run works okay in the current game, but it’s not nearly as reliable as the trans spell for locomotion or leveling. You quickly realize how much ground clutter and pathing issues there are when on a warrior. I died a lot, and a good number were due to pathing issues and the inability to extract from combat once engaged. I wanted to use reflective gear, but the lack of any Magic Power regen or bases on it made it not an option vs alot of the other starting gear with +2 MP etc.


I'm curious what the rest of X2.0 thinks.

~Mino


Levelling isn't too bad once you hit orc mages, skeleton warlocks and than fire imps. Prior to that and after that it is pretty slow going. Perhaps experience amounts could be adjusted in a few areas - that would be a simple solution to this issue.

Cleric is probably the easiest character type to level, although at higher levels it is not as powerful as it initially is.

Melee's (have a pally) are so gear (especially damage) dependent that they are more difficult to play. There are a couple of 50+ melee characters, so it is possible.


Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:52 am
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This was a nice reference and confirmed that a cleric would be a good second character for me, holy crud he levels up like crazy.


Tue Jun 05, 2018 3:41 am

Joined: Wed May 16, 2018 9:15 pm
Posts: 33
@PrincessNesb

I think most could agree in its current state Xen 2.0 is more enjoyable at least from a 1-25 experience as a mage type character. Following the full mage classes would be the hybrid classes that can teleport using Magic Power and lastly the Warrior and Ranger with only attack/spirit run movement and extremely limited Magic Power/casting capabilities. This imbalance may not persist beyond 25, but I can vouch that in my limited experience my Ranger has only gotten to lvl 23 out of stubborn effort.

The discussion should identify objectively why mages "Feel" more rewarding, or easier and what actions EJ may take to create this same feeling in melee characters or providing a stong of enough trade off in benefit that the lower enjoyment rating is offset by some other aspect to the class. I'll add suggestions with - after each description.

Melee Gear Dependence:
Gear progression is a satisfying goal for any character, but the melee classes are dependent on gear for Damage as well as Damage Reduction more so than mage classes. Alot of the blank mage gear that can be obtained via quest or "Items found" gives them all that they need to survive and kill effectively. A lvl 9 Fire staff with 7 props is nearly as effective as a level 25 mystic staff as far as damage output.

-Review Magic Power requirements for pure melee classes and possibly for hybrid classes to reduce dependence on MP regen/MP base as must have
-Base stats increase for melee exclusive armors. (Greater protection and possibly a +1mp added to several items if Magic Power reqs are unchanged.
-Increase odds of 1-2 props on quest reward/ndnt items. This would help mages as well, but give a gear progression opportunity for melee without lots of investment in propping.
-Review mage classes damage output and make it more dependent on weapon damage to scale similarly to melees damage limitations. (This doesn't help melee feel, but balances the experience. I'd rather see melees made more fun rather than nerf mages.)

Speed and Survivability:
The teleportation ability of mage classes allows them to travel faster as well as completely avoid damage if well practiced. Teleportation also leads to less frustration due to the current state of pathing and the inability to change the click to attack setting. The Melee multi spells are much smaller in area of effect and usually are limited in the "Casting Speed" based on another stat like agility. The smaller AOE means that melee classes are subject to physical damage more often, but do not seem to be significantly more survivable than a fully buffed mage class. A shield does help mitigate some of this survivability issue, but it also now means another piece of gear required to compete.

-Review melee movement and possibly up base movement speed for melee classes
-Review early melee HP progression
-Improve pathing and collision detection

Consumable Dependence:
At early levels at least Melee classes are much more dependent on consumable items. Red Potions, Battle Scrolls, Portal Scrolls, Medri wands and even Trans wands if you want to emulate the mage feel. Mages are able to teleport, open portals, and perform in combat with really only occasionally needing emergency items such as Max pots.

-Make quest rewards class dependent where they can obtain a greater variety of items relevant to their class.
-Increase the variety of potions/items sold in each town
-Indicate no-portal zones with an icon on screen to avoid portal scroll wastage.
-Possibly extend duration of potion effects or offer a skill to increase this by a decent % with each investment.

Gold Farming:
Classically weight was a earning factor when i played years ago. As it is currently each class gets 50 item slots completely independent of Strength rating. While a melee had a total item capacity limit the same as the mage classes it was able to load up on heavier more valuable items per trip. Also while you do receive some combat items from quests as well as portal scrolls you have to spend more to make more.

-Consider making strength a determining factor for max item slots. Every 1 over 10 str +2 inventory spots to a maximum of 100 total (50+35str total) possibly even more (150 max inventory slots?)

Hunting Efficiency:
Many of the current hunting areas in the 1-25 range (mostly 1-23) feature a lot of ground debris making melee hunting more challenging. Mage classes can move, multi, and typically earn more exp/hr (not sure if int=bonus exp anymore, but they are just more efficient). The larger multi aoe also helps, but the hybrid classes at least get teleport.

-Consider more areas with high magic resistance(to discourage mages), but lower physical resistance/dificulty to hit.
-Consider more open areas with limited teleportation function.

What do you guys think about your early Xen 2.0 experiences and how do you feel about the current state of new player experience melee vs mage?


Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:59 pm
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