Noone is playing the game after level 100 and to be honest pre 100 doesn’t look much better.
The reason for this is that at this point the elitism kicks in and the few chosen with their high level friends help eachother out while everyone else looking to play legit is left behind. This especially hits new players and people without billions of credits because the difficulty curve goes through the roof.
I’ve joined several orgs now with several toons now and it is the same everywhere. Noone is playing. Everyone has multiple accounts and drags their toons all the way to endgame. Multiboxing is the cancer that kills this game and i have no respect for people that engage in it.
There is seemingly a lot of activity in the hubs but that is an illusion. It’s either muleaccounts, bufftoons or multiboxers and the rest is max level characters farming endgame gear with their friends. Getting into these circles is impossible and none of them play legit. Everyone is being pushed through the content exept the people who don’t have access to these ressources.
Here is a simple fix though: a) ban multiboxers b) limit taunt to 3 targets and limit aoe to 3 targets c) reduce the teamrange in higher levels. YOU NEED TO FORCE PEOPLE TO PLAY LEGIT THROUGH GAME DESIGN.
I see your points and understand what you’re saying but time zones play a big part.
Also I’m unsure if you’re on a free account or a paid account, but people with paid accounts breeze through 100 - 150 very fast, so that’s definitely a possible explanation as to why you don’t see many people past 100.
People with extensive knowledge of the game and resources do indeed “push through” the content at a much faster rate than other peoples but there’s not much that can be done about it, this game has been out for 19 years and most players are veterans.
I play mostly alone (daily, quest and blitzing for creds for a bunch of stuff that I can’t do).
I am at lvl 101 now (and very far from being “twinked” : 125 implants, gun 160, armor 100 ish) but if you wanna do some team missions, LE AI team missions, SL stuff or going to crypt of home /tell Moustach and I will be happy to team with you.
In some place (foreman to get GE for exemple), you can usualy ask around and get an helping hand.
It is indeed rough to get teams between the 100-160 range, it will be a bit easier once you get to inferno. Luckily enough there are plenty of questlines you can do that will help you power through a bit. Most veterans save them for later on but if you are stuck in the levling they are great.
First I’d recommend trying to solo Mortiigs as far as possible, usually you can stay there until 105-110 if you solo, Valirashes at the entrance in Scheol also gives quite good XP and mobs in the area can drop DOJA chips.
Elysium has a lot of Yutto quests that you can do that should cover quite a few levels if you’re stuck soloing, you can find them all on AO-U (personal recommendation, save the Catacombs one until 144, iirc those gets you to 150 for dark ruins that will in turn get you to 157, then a few steps of the adonis or penumbra questlines will get you to 160).
In Scheol you can also do quite a few steps of the two big questlines there for quite a few free levels. You can’t solo all of it at your level.
Then you have The Reck dailies that can be handled, there’s also the hecklers in The Reck, they give quite decent early on.
And dont forget the elysium/scheol key quests
So to sum it up:
Grind to 110
Elysium Quests
The Reck Dailies
Garden Keys
DOJA Chips
Scheol Questlines
Dark Ruins Quest
Adonis Questline
Penumbra Questline
The game is a lot about knowing what you can do solo, some veterans doesnt even touch kite teams. You can’t do all of Scheol/Adonis/Penumbra questlines solo but you can do enough to get you the needed levels.
Getting into Endgame content is indeed pretty rough. If you are on the Clan side, I’d recommend joining one of the Orgs that are in the AP Alliance, that gives you access to bi-weekly S13, S28, S35, 12man farms, Ipande runs and weekly S42 runs. It also increases your chances of doing things like Dio or getting into DB and PoH runs. Also join Tnet for Tarasque etc, you might not get anything, but people might start recognizing you by name and be more willing to do content with you.
If you are Omni…Don’t really know what to tell you.
I do agree tho that multiboxing is a huge problem for content. Taunt really isn’t a problem considering we have exactly 1 profession with access to it and they really do need it considering how agro works in this game. AoE is also not a real problem as outside a few perks only 1 profession has access to any meaningful AoE (NTs). Kite hill farms with NTs are part of the problem, I agree, tho the problems with NTs go far beyond that and spills into PvP and certain other gimmicks.
Multibox is bad since day one.
There is still lots of people who does not multibox but grind to a desired level in no time, gear the character and rarely log it again - just like me.
The sad part about it is, the population is too low that I never get to use most of my newly twinked toons as I would love them to be put in use.
Veterans are just tired of the content - maybe because they remember how active it once was, maybe because they grinded it milion times before or maybe because they just know their goal and they try to push it, but they cannot because they have to wait 6 months for a nodrop anniversary item to finish their desired twink - this literally makes me log off for another few months and do something else than run in a ghost game.
That brings me to the point that the game have to be fixed first to get rid of old bugs and silly development ideas before people start coming back as old or new players.
Then we could maybe think about MB different again - with a higher population.
Saying that this game is hard at level 100 is just plain wrong…
On my soldier I leveled 100-150 in a week doing normal missions, and I looted nanos and other fun stuff (even looted a mist-filled jar).
Made billions of credits doing it.
So perhaps you should sit down and do the work?
This game is not about throwing credits around.
If you are playing on RK5, I suggest you start blitzing Nano Crystal (Riot control), as it currently goes for 100m+.
If you are lacking creds, try to get stuff that people want to pay for.
Want to get into one of these “circles”?
Stop joining multiple orgs with multiple toons.
Be patient and you will be rewarded.
I play mostly alone, grouping with peeps doing the same stuff for both sides profit. One meets people everywhere. Granted, not so much as in wow, but they are nicer.
If you do not know what to do, there are always daily missions, daily PVP, the chip or the mission terminal where you can clicksaver pull anything you might want.
Btw - have you read teh book?
Returning player here after about 10 years on RK5. Low leveling was pretty active until about 100 like OP said. After, 90% of the people leave groups and I guess join org groups for kite hill. Guessing they stay to about 160-170 and move onto inferno afk missions. I get it. Problem is, if you are not in an org (almost level 190 clan and no org) you do kinda get left behind soloing. General chat and Darknet general chat are completely dead. I’ve yet to see any clan orgs looking for new folks or folks I’ve grouped with offer an invite. Do mission in 10 minutes, gg, good team, /teamdisband. I guess folks form there cliques and thats that.
I still enjoy the game, but not sure if the solo play will keep me entertained in the long run.
As i said i was in several Orgs and it’s the same with or without Orgs. People there are exclusively playing their 220 chars so i left again, because to play solo for 100 levels i don’t need a org. Someone commented on my negative attitude… yeah sorry but frustrating expieriences lead to bad mood.
The big issues here are a) Multiboxing b) Dailies wich further incentivise solo play and c) pay for afk.
These things completely destroy any kind of nescessity to group up. New players/returning players suffer the most so they just unsub and leave again.
It’s kind of ironic that the people who seem to love the game the most are the ones that hurt it the most.
Speaking of multiboxing - is has its good and bad side.
If we’re talking about PvP aspect - multiboxing is, of course, bad, in all cases.
If we’re talking about PvM - it all depends on multiboxer and situation:
in OD contests multiboxing is bad
in mass instance multiboxing is good, cause it helps overall, and sometimes specificl content cannot be done due to lack of people, while multiboxers make it real to do atm
in org-based actions multiboxing is always good, cause it helps org people get what they want
of course, it all depends on person who multiboxes, but all in all it has its good and bad sides.
“in mass instance multiboxing is good, cause it helps overall, and sometimes specificl content cannot be done due to lack of people, while multiboxers make it real to do atm”
Multiboxers skips the requirements, everyone else has to skip the content. Maybe change the content then? They charge a premium price for what exactly? If the game is no longer fit for purpose the answer is to change the game and not force people to multibox…this is insanity.
“in org-based actions multiboxing is always good, cause it helps org people get what they want”
They skip the whole mmo part of the game and you argue this is a good thing. Again if there are not enough people to tackle the content in this game the game has to be changed not the way people play it.
Levelshrink, scale content to groupsize, lower level ranges, etc. these are all tools for a willing dev to implement when the game is lacking people and AGAIN for a premium price you would think that anyone would give a crap.
