Ok, so after having played through almost the whole starter area I have to say that this area is highly unomptimized for handling newbie levling.

Not only does the game only provide two starting areas  (one single area for each faction), but the quests provided are anti-newbie friendly.

What happens is the following:

-There are quests where you need to kill certain mobs. Now, these mobs can be very rare compared to the number of people in the zone. There is an outright WAR to get these mobs, and it takes forever to complete. Also, I played a templar, the class whose DPS is what seemed like 10 times lower than say a mage. This means I can bash away at a mob for 20 seconds and then have a mage come and steal this mob by simple DPS. And that happens all the time since people are desperate to complete these annoying quests.

-"Hey group up!" Grouping up doesn't do anything really, since most of the time you need a certain drop from these mobs, and only 1 member of the group can loot each mob.

-There are other quests where you are supposed to interact with objects, like a sack of grain. Now these objects DESPAWN, every time someone clicks them. Then you have to wait a good while for them to come back.

-NPC quests. These are perhaps the most riddiculous. Such as the Where is Rae quest (asmodian). 10, 15, 25 people waiting in line to be able to click the Cute Rabbit NPC to be able to proceed. And NO you can't really skip this because it's part of the epic quest chain.

I ended up skipping a huge part of these quests and went xp grinding on some random mobs. At the end of my session I was starting to hate my fellow gamers so much because of overpopulation and mob stealing, that I had to log off.

Clearly this could have been done alot better. Almost any other way had been an improvement.

Try to switch channel?  I switched a few times, I level up w/o any problem. 

At the begining of any game people are vying to come first place... give it a few weeks and it should calm down. 

Same thing happened in CB & OB. It's to be expected with so many people logged in at the same time.  I just skipped over these quest and continued on,  Came back a few hours later and finished them off when the crowds moved on.

You just got to know how to deal with crowd control in these first few day's.

Originally posted by teco221

Try to switch channel?  I switched a few times, I level up w/o any problem. 

Actually, I didn't try that yesterday. I did try it in the beta, and usually the population was spread equally between channels (as it should be). I mean, for sure, they must apply balancing and assign new characters in each zone to the most empty channel right?

Either way, I don't think many people imagine it to be alot of fun to toggle between channels every minute to try and find a little space for themselves.

Are you aware that the 1-20 zones are instanced? That means that you can switch a zone if you see that at a particular time a particular mob is contested by a lot of people. The zone switch is very fast (instant in my computer). I don't have the game in front of me, so I don't remember exacts ... but I think it's the menu/support/channels ... then pick a different channel than what you are. It usually pays off to pick a larger number since usually the previous numbers should be more populated (so if you're in channel 5, try the channel 6 and up).

You'll also need to excuse people. In some cases they fire up at mobs from afar without knowing that you're also closing in for the same kill. Of course, if they do it repeatedly, then there is something wrong with them and it's a perfect opportunity to avoid them for the rest of the game. Same goes for gathering stuff, they are so numerous and the respawn time is so fast that attempts for hopping on a nod shouldn't be happening. If they do, there is something wrong with those people and you'll do well to avoid them for the rest of the game as well. The good news is that you learn about them at the very beginning, when the annoyance factor is not that big.

when you first log in, it will put you in first channel, don't think it will put you into empty channel.  When i first log on to the game, it put me into channel 1 which I couldn't even move, then I switched to 8, the lag was gone and it was smooth after that.

Originally posted by haratu

At the begining of any game people are vying to come first place... give it a few weeks and it should calm down. 

Yeah definately it will become better. What I mean is, why couldn't it work like this:

-Mobs that drop quest items should be among the most frequent mobs in the zone, not the least frequent.

-Dropped quest items should be lootable by all players in the party.

-Mob tagging should work like in other mmos (if I am first, it's my mob).

-Unique quest NPCs and fixed quest items should exist for all players simultaneously.

This happens in every game even in f2p.

You wanted to play on the first day it got opened and so other 400k that pre ordered, at least you have channels were to switch from.

Originally posted by charlionfire

Ok, so after having played through almost the whole starter area I have to say that this area is highly unomptimized for handling newbie levling.

Not only does the game only provide two starting areas  (one single area for each faction), but the quests provided are anti-newbie friendly.

What happens is the following:

-There are quests where you need to kill certain mobs. Now, these mobs can be very rare compared to the number of people in the zone. There is an outright WAR to get these mobs, and it takes forever to complete. Also, I played a templar, the class whose DPS is what seemed like 10 times lower than say a mage. This means I can bash away at a mob for 20 seconds and then have a mage come and steal this mob by simple DPS. And that happens all the time since people are desperate to complete these annoying quests.

-"Hey group up!" Grouping up doesn't do anything really, since most of the time you need a certain drop from these mobs, and only 1 member of the group can loot each mob.

-There are other quests where you are supposed to interact with objects, like a sack of grain. Now these objects DESPAWN, every time someone clicks them. Then you have to wait a good while for them to come back.

-NPC quests. These are perhaps the most riddiculous. Such as the Where is Rae quest (asmodian). 10, 15, 25 people waiting in line to be able to click the Cute Rabbit NPC to be able to proceed. And NO you can't really skip this because it's part of the epic quest chain.

I ended up skipping a huge part of these quests and went xp grinding on some random mobs. At the end of my session I was starting to hate my fellow gamers so much because of overpopulation and mob stealing, that I had to log off.

Clearly this could have been done alot better. Almost any other way had been an improvement.

I killsteal so people like you would come whine here then quit the game already.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Are you aware that the 1-20 zones are instanced? That means that you can switch a zone if you see that at a particular time a particular mob is contested by a lot of people. The zone switch is very fast (instant in my computer). I don't have the game in front of me, so I don't remember exacts ... but I think it's the menu/support/channels ... then pick a different channel than what you are. It usually pays off to pick a larger number since usually the previous numbers should be more populated (so if you're in channel 5, try the channel 6 and up).

You'll also need to excuse people. In some cases they fire up at mobs from afar without knowing that you're also closing in for the same kill. Of course, if they do it repeatedly, then there is something wrong with them and it's a perfect opportunity to avoid them for the rest of the game. Same goes for gathering stuff, they are so numerous and the respawn time is so fast that attempts for hopping on a nod shouldn't be happening. If they do, there is something wrong with those people and you'll do well to avoid them for the rest of the game as well. The good news is that you learn about them at the very beginning, when the annoyance factor is not that big.

To be honest, even though I really had a growing hate towars all the other players at the end, I really understand them, since standing around for hours waiting for buffalos to spawn is very demanding of your patience.

Originally posted by DeltaFrc670

I killsteal so people like you would come whine here then quit the game already.

Ok swelled.

some people must not have this problem because lot of them are 17+, some are even 20 already. 

Originally posted by charlionfire

Originally posted by haratu

At the begining of any game people are vying to come first place... give it a few weeks and it should calm down. 

Yeah definately it will become better. What I mean is, why couldn't it work like this:

-Mobs that drop quest items should be among the most frequent mobs in the zone, not the least frequent.

This is dependant on the faction/quest itself, some are the most frequent, some aren't. It's not as if they are ALL the least as you imply.

-Dropped quest items should be lootable by all players in the party.

Some of them actually do, Kraul Marks for instance do drop for everyone. Again, this is dependant on the faction/quest.

-Mob tagging should work like in other mmos (if I am first, it's my mob).

Coming from games that have the 'tag I win' function, thats just as annoying. In the first days of launch, when you have EVERYONE in the same level range and around the same road, you will get to meet the greedy and selfish among us. After this crunch goes away you will see less and less of this. I'ld take the suggestion of one of the posters above, learn from this who is and isnt worth dealing with later in game and get rid of them now.

-Unique quest NPCs and fixed quest items should exist for all players simultaneously.

Again, Everyone in one spot at one time, not normal. I'ld be willing to bet if you go back there in a week you will never have this problem with the cute one again.

 

Originally posted by charlionfire

Ok, so after having played through almost the whole starter area I have to say that this area is highly unomptimized for handling newbie levling.

Not only does the game only provide two starting areas  (one single area for each faction), but the quests provided are anti-newbie friendly.

What happens is the following:

-There are quests where you need to kill certain mobs. Now, these mobs can be very rare compared to the number of people in the zone. There is an outright WAR to get these mobs, and it takes forever to complete. Also, I played a templar, the class whose DPS is what seemed like 10 times lower than say a mage. This means I can bash away at a mob for 20 seconds and then have a mage come and steal this mob by simple DPS. And that happens all the time since people are desperate to complete these annoying quests.

-"Hey group up!" Grouping up doesn't do anything really, since most of the time you need a certain drop from these mobs, and only 1 member of the group can loot each mob.

-There are other quests where you are supposed to interact with objects, like a sack of grain. Now these objects DESPAWN, every time someone clicks them. Then you have to wait a good while for them to come back.

-NPC quests. These are perhaps the most riddiculous. Such as the Where is Rae quest (asmodian). 10, 15, 25 people waiting in line to be able to click the Cute Rabbit NPC to be able to proceed. And NO you can't really skip this because it's part of the epic quest chain.

I ended up skipping a huge part of these quests and went xp grinding on some random mobs. At the end of my session I was starting to hate my fellow gamers so much because of overpopulation and mob stealing, that I had to log off.

Clearly this could have been done alot better. Almost any other way had been an improvement.

Troll move along nothink tosee here.

First of all change channel there are 8 of them,  and tell me that all 8 are rammed full of people waiting to click on sacks of grain.

The rate of these objects takes seconds to respawn, there are lots of diffrent quests to lvl up with and dont now wtf you are talking about when you say " these mobs can be very rare "  do you play with shit in your eyes ?

-Mobs that drop quest items should be among the most frequent mobs in the zone, not the least frequent.

Things will improve considerably during the next couple days, if the CB and OB were any indications. Until then, we must deal with a certain amount of zone hopping.

-Dropped quest items should be lootable by all players in the party.

I would probably agree for all mobs that the drop rate is not over 50%.

-Mob tagging should work like in other mmos (if I am first, it's my mob).

Actually that won't work that well in the context of contested mobs in the Abyss when both your fraction and the opposite will be competing for them.

-Unique quest NPCs and fixed quest items should exist for all players simultaneously.

Not sure what you mean by that. You're probably repeating your second point.

For uncontested areas mob tagging should work as it does in other MMOs.

I can see why in contested areas it would be different, no reason for it to be DPS based in non-contested areas.

Some classes are just not built for DPS. So its hardly "fair" to have the current system in place. Think about it this way .. if it was "whoever had the mobs aggro when it died got the kill" and a tank followed you around force taunting each mob just before death would that be ok? As a caster you dont have a taunt but thats tough right? Just like its tough for them atm because they dont have your DPS?

The problem is if they changed it to who attacks it first has it then they have to change the pvpve dungeon cause you have 2 factions competing for a boss.

Originally posted by bloodaxes

The problem is if they changed it to who attacks it first has it then they have to change the pvpve dungeon cause you have 2 factions competing for a boss.

That would be "contested" content. Re-read my above post please :)

I know but why should they use both systems? I'm not that great in programming but couldn't this make some conflictions?

I mean you can group it doesn't penalty you if you do it, this game is group based in the higher lvls anyway.

From what I've seen, whatever is considered group material, drops quest tokens for everybody. The 1-10 region is considered solo material, so the mobs drop just one token. The kill quests still count towards everyone in the team of course. The quest item drop is very high as well, over 80%, from my own observations.

It was just a Sunday night rush in a launch night for all pre-starters, who will for the most part be the most active people in the game anyway. Things should tone down as people revert to a more normal schedule.

Originally posted by Xasapis

-Unique quest NPCs and fixed quest items should exist for all players simultaneously.

Not sure what you mean by that. You're probably repeating your second point.

I know what OP is talking about here.

Where someone clicks on a Item (like say the Treasure map on the Boat), it will disappear when someone that needs it, takes it. The respawn for it, is like 1 minute... that is the problem... the respawn on these are too slow.

So 6 players in a party = 6 minutes just to do that one quest... and that is if no one else grab one on you.

Yea that's irks me too.

They need to up the respawn rate on those to almost instant.... that solve the problem.

One of the things that should be considered, regarding the kill-steal events is the low DPS classes. In my humble opinion, a ratio of Class/DPS for the mobs could help out (for example a Cleric would need 25% of the mob to claim it as opposed to 75% required from a Sorcerer), if things are to be a bit more just for the single players (groups can be different).

For example, I am thinking of turning my warrior into a Templar. But if there's to be mob stealing (I can't predict how things will be later on), I'll probably consider a Gladiator. Point being is that there's a risk of later in-game being stuck with an eternal problem... of not being able to find tanks or healers!

Just my 2 cents! :-)

Originally posted by lornphoenix

I know what OP is talking about here.

Where someone clicks on a Item (like say the Treasure map on the Boat), it will disappear when someone that needs it, takes it. The respawn for it, is like 1 minute... that is the problem... the respawn on these are too slow.

So 6 players in a party = 6 minutes just to do that one quest... and that is if no one else grab one on you.

Yea that's irks me too.

They need to up the respawn rate on those to almost instant.... that solve the problem.

 

What ought to happen is that everyone in the group (and close enough) who has the quest, should get the quest item when one person loots it.

This would have the added benefit of encouraging grouping.

Kill stealing has going on since  CB as well and will continue to go on in this game. Only difference mid and higher levels will make is you will get ganked before they steal your kill.  Some people enjoy doing this to others and PVP games seem to draw them like flies.