You be the dev: XP for Kill Formulae omgthissucks

[Tsavong]

I find getting XP more of a pain than gear its not always possible to find a party when you are high level to tackle these higher CR places. The last cleric I leveled was a caster cleric and he got his last levels soloing the first screen of HoD because there were no parties around when I could play to go anywhere more interesting.

[mining]

That's probably my problem... I play games like these instead of WoW or other mainstream games because I don't want to do the exact same character with the exact same strategy as every other person on the server has done.

Well, Midterm's guide is pretty much just the one shot "this guarantees you all gear ever" build. I'd say most builds can get decent gear farm - even HiPSers can handle DWP, although str WMs will always have an issue, heh.

[Bargeld]

Give me any cleric build, no matter how bad it is, and I assure you I can solo it in posi plane without any problems.

Not with an evil cleric.

Players all have their own perspectives and they can differ greatly. It's tough to keep everyone happy.

[Midterm]

evil shmevil

The only thing that can possibly kill you are lumi paladins. if you were really bent on farming them with an evil cleric, i suggest preparing 3 Gates to eat the lumi smites.

Besides, MA can have neutral clerics.

[Dazrield]

Well, Midterm's guide is pretty much just the one shot "this guarantees you all gear ever" build. I'd say most builds can get decent gear farm - even HiPSers can handle DWP, although str WMs will always have an issue, heh.

I've never really liked playing clerics all that much, not even 15 years ago when I first started playing tabletop(although I did make one for crafting things as I was advised to). And decent gear isn't the issue for me.. I can get average stuff. The thing I find daunting is that everyone I run into seems to have alot of the stuff that I'm being told I shouldn't rely on when designing a build.

You'd not believe the number of people that actually 'could' fill my trade request I posted if I had more worth trading. Like have all of those items, and quite a few have doubles or triples of some of them. And the value of them is being largely understated in this thread.. I've crunched the numbers and compared my current build I'm working on to what it could be and it's huge.

I saw a thread here about what makes things better for new players. I'm just telling you.. having a requirement to have been here for a year or maybe a few to be as competitive when the servers shelf life may not even be that long is a real concern.

[Rufio]

That's probably my problem... I play games like these instead of WoW or other mainstream games because I don't want to do the exact same character with the exact same strategy as every other person on the server has done.

Haha, I'm the same way, I like to think of unique builds rather than following set paths (like pure builds). Midterm's guide is like gear farming for dummies, but it isn't the only way to do it. The best way to figure things out is to go to different planes and slowly test the waters. Find areas near transitions where you can rest and you can single out mobs 1 at a time. See what damage types they do and prepare armor accordingly. In most places, having the right physical resistances will go a long way. Sometimes you'll have to be picky about what you fight. For example, lumi clerics in posi can turn outsider races, which can mean death, so outsider races will avoid these. It takes testing to figure out what fights are safe, so don't be afraid to retreat back to a transition if you get in over your head.

What you really need to consider if you want to solo high level stuff is your build's ac, damage reduction, saves, and damage output. High ac can be great against non-boss mobs and make those fights easy, but it is fickle. You can go from not taking any damage at all, to taking more damage than you can handle really fast if you don't have adequate damage reduction. Damage reduction is reliable and is the real key for endgame bosses and mobs. These bosses/mobs hit hard and will hit you, so you just want to minimize their damage. You don't need to be a dwd either (though it helps), Epic damage reduction and epic energy resists paired with the right armor and shield will soak quite a lot of damage. Saves are then important so you don't end up dead before the fight really even starts to a stray spell. After all of that, you need to make sure you can do damage. Melee damage is the most common, so meleers need to have enough ab to hit reliably. The less damage your build does per hit, the more important ab is. Endgame mobs aren't like dwarves, they will actually have ac sometimes, but they also have damage reduction and usually regenerate hp over time, so you need enough damage to kill in a reasonable amount of time. Melee isn't the only way, damage shields and spells can work too. It can be tough to balance all of these things on a builds, but If you have considered all of these, fighting in the endgame planes will go a great deal smoother.

[Midterm]

Rufio has the right idea.

What I posted isn't the only way to get gear, it's the "instant sure fire way to get the gear you want".

There are plenty of other ways of getting gear:

1. Guilds. Join one.
2. Organize parties. You will need to have some natural charisma for this though (and i'm not talking about your CHA stat)
3. Trade. Perhaps your toon specializes in killing NPC casters - farm them, and trade the extras.
4. DM events.
5. Borrow. I lend out alot of my gear; I even often forget to take it back.

The fact of the matter is that people who make farm builds will have more gear. That's how the gear meta works. If you don't want to make a build dedicated to farming gear, then you must use another method.

Let's make another supposition. I assure you if we had a server wipe, people like Cross and Northstar and myevan would have 10X the amount of gear as the regular person within a month. And it's not that they play obsessively either - they are just very good at farming. In fact, a server wipe would probably increase the imbalance of gear rather than restore balance, since alot of the epic parties would not be able to go where compulsive farmers would farm.

What I'm seeing here, and I don't hold any offense to anyone, is that people want to have their cake and eat it too. You can't expect to earn levels without levelling (unless you catch Torm's Balor events). You want something, you gotta either be super lucky, or earn it the hard way. And the hard way is actually the easier way, unfortunately.

[Dazrield]

What I'm seeing here, and I don't hold any offense to anyone, is that people want to have their cake and eat it too.

Nah.. more just weighing the pros and cons of making a long journey for cake that may already have been eaten by the time I get there. As I said.. I'm unsure of the future of this game and server. I'm sure any new player that joins would have the same concerns as one that returns after a year or so. I have no issues leveling even if the xp rate is adjusted so that it takes me a month or two to hit 40. It IS something I can attain. Matching the same level of gear that other players have to be on an even playing field for PvP.. will most likely never happen.

[Rufio]

Nah, you'll get there. You have to consider that people with a lot of gear also have a lot of toons. You can't solo-farm endgame bosses, so no one has a stockpile of those items. For example, pelor and loth rings are obviously the best rings, and everyone can use them, but you really cannot just go farm these bosses. Even very experienced players don't have more than 1 or 2 of these, so obviously they can't suit all their characters up with these rings. I have 3, and I have killed lolth and pelor more than most people I know, and have gotten some really lucky loot rolls, but these 3 rings have to be divided up between about 7 characters of mine (and many people have a lot more characters than I do). If you were able to see the gear of everyone in a pvp battle, you'll probably see more slave rings than anything else.

[DeputyDog]

Future of this server? After 10 years? really? It will be up when Im an old grandpa and my kids are playing it on their phones.

[Midterm]

Also,

You'll find that a better build/player will trump people with better equipment in pvp. And that is where the extra +1 discipline on your ring, or that extra damage resistance will matter most. In PvM, unless you are soloing, team dynamics will matter more.

My Ranger/Pally/PDK was an absolute terror a year ago, despite being equiped with only dual +6 moleman king SS, rogue's mantle, and IA boots. I've recently upgraded to +8 black swords, royal shadow cloak, and crafted boots, yet I've seen very little difference in performance - if anything, it is less intimidating, as people have learned to slot Remove Fear, and precast TS/CC via items or spells.

[Dazrield]

* A sandpit area where you can try out builds. Yes you can do this offline, however given the numerous class, race, spell, feat and token changes it's very hard for a noob to get it right. There is a really steep learning curve here and it took me years to catch up to everyone else. Not a great incentive for the newcomer.

This idea get overlooked? Thought it was by far the best idea mentioned.. yet didn't see one comment on it other than mine :/

[Amoenotep]

even though the server is listed in PW Action...it was based on a storyline. making a sandbox to auto lvl your chars for testing....goes against any type of storyline at all. you might as well be an arena server after that.

[Dazrield]

even though the server is listed in PW Action...it was based on a storyline. making a sandbox to auto lvl your chars for testing....goes against any type of storyline at all. you might as well be an arena server after that.

I'm really not sure I understand the difference between someone who's been here for years building a char on paper and someone who doesn't know everything about the server using a tool to accomplish the same thing w/o having to scrap char after char due to mistakes. I wish I knew how to code and stuff so I could write in some of the things here ingame like with subraces, weapon, and class changes so I could test my builds offline w/o messing up.

How about offering some sort of offline module that would allow us to test builds with the changes coded in?

[Lokey]

Make a new topic about that, Dazrield.

Lots of good stuff I can't make a coherent response to right now.