I seriously dont understand what the OP is saying. I am almost half way through 23 and I havent grinded on any mobs (other than when trying to get items for a quest) and I havent did a repeatable quest other than its initial time. I actually decided not to do those gathering quests since it was so late in the beta and deleted a good 10 or more of those out of my journal. Heck, I am 23 and still havent done the abyss gate quest yet and its worth 200k exp all by itself. There are TONS of quests out there, you seriously just have to find them as they are all over the place and a fair number of them actually end up sending you into some dangerous areas for your level but thats part of what makes it exciting. The thing about Aion is, past 20, its not very linear. You will be in a 20+ area and running around and find yourself in ?? territory. Passed that may be another level 20+ area. Take the flights to the different areas and run around, you will find quests.

For any game to succeed in the long term and not only the short term it needs to be able to accomodate the playing style of a lot of different players. But, this doesn't mean that at any extreme a game should accomodate them. Game developers certainly need to put in enough content to keept people moving along from one level to another but they also need to include incentives to get people to try other things.

I tend to be a grazer when it comes to leveling. By that I mean I like to do the quests and try to do as many as possible but as I move from one quest to another I tend to kill mobs that pop in my way and gather resources (which in Aion give you exp) and of course look for the odd group that is working on elite level mobs. In general so far this has worked well for me in Aion. Yes it isn't as fast as a pure quest leveling mode would probably do but then rushing from one NPC to the next and only getting exp from quests isn't what I want to do. I like exploring and trying things out and getting surprised when some random mob that I killed just because it looked at me funny drops a nice bit of loot.

This does also bring up the fact that while quests provide a bit of loot and money it really is the bare minimum you need and if you kill more than the bare minimum number of mobs you will be much better off in the long run to buy your skill books and expand your cube. You might consider the need to kill mobs to be grinding but it isn't. Grinding is where you just staying the same area and kill the same mob(s) over and over simply to get exp. Killing mobs as you move along is a way to keep the exp meter moving as you travel and really should be considered as part of the leveling process.

So far doing this along with the odd group or two for elite mobs and quests has worked well without the need to start grinding.

personally speaking, NCsoft game how easy are u expecting them to make leveling? wait until u get like 30s or 40s

Originally posted by observer

@robdog: You could be right and maybe it's this genre i'm getting sick of.  Single-player games are ok, but i just prefer multi-player games due to the social aspect of them.  Oblivion Online sounds pretty good actually.  I guess i'll just have to wait for the next "big thing" in the MMO genre.

@shiymmas: I'm also a cleric too, and it does frustrate me a bit to see other classes kill with ease.  I also read that thread and it actually had some good arguments from both sides, until the trolls and flamers got it locked up.  And ya you're right, my thread title does sound kind of trollish, but oh well.

Sorry for flaming you but what did you expect? Being a healer and can 2 hit mobs? seriously you should party with others and aion doesn't penalty you by doing so.

Originally posted by observer

...until i hit lvl 20.  Simply put, i ran out of  quests.  (repeatable & crafting quests shouldn't be required to level)

It's severely lacking in the 20-25 range (sounds just like that other MMO), and others have said it gets worse later on.  From what i've read on Aionsource's forums, it's faster to just grind on mobs than it is to quest, gather, and even PvP.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to imply that questing should be the only way, or even be the fastest way to level, but it should be an alternate path to get me to max level or at least to the next questing hub.  Even if questing is slower or faster than other routes, or whether it's solo or group oriented, questing should be there.

Why?  Because questing immerses me more into the world than just grinding on mobs.  Even those annoying fetch x and slay # of x type of quests give me a purpose to do it (once again, repeatable quests don't count in my eyes), otherwise what's my purpose in that world if i don't have stories to follow?  Questing also gives me a purpose to go back and forth between towns and cities, so i can sell, auction, and interact with others while taking a break from the monotonous grind.

If NCSoft would just up the XP gain from quests in that level range, it wouldn't be so bad.  Unless the next leveling zones are also lacking, then that also means the PvE content is lacking as well...which is pretty bad.

p.s. please do NOT think i'm only comparing this to WoW, i'm comparing it to many other MMOs, including WoW.  (hmm this is sig worthy)

p.s.s. this isn't a wall of text either, since i used paragraphs :p

Hi,

I think they designed the game this way on purpose to get us to do PvP. That is the over-arching focus of the game from what I've both seen and heard.

Also, if one just quests and doesn't craft, PvP, or grind at least a little, then one could come up short. However, do a spot of these while questing and I think it will be OK.

I'm not saying that more quests(or quest exp) shouldn't be in order, but that it is possible to do it as is now.

Op, did you do any mission?

www.aionarmory.com/search.aspx