rank 25 required for legend

[el conquistador]

is this real?

64  (P)Arctic Legend          0/1  4 100000 Turns you into a Legendary   
                                            character.                   
       Requires: Rank 25

.....why?

[Kam]

Yeah. It's hard to become a legend.

[el conquistador]

:(

ive broken rank 25 once but i dont think any of my friends have and we have less time to play than ever these days.  i guess legend is only for the strong and the casuals can dream about how it used to be.  feels sad

[Super Tacoman]

finally we get the nerf to noobs that we have been calling for~!

the staff has been soft for years on this issue.  if you cant do the same zones as me and you cant load the same spells/loot as me then why do you think you should get access to the same OP skills that i have?

get good or gtfo

[Hoodoo]

I love this game, but the Dark Souls "git gud" people can bapt off and die.  The game is hard. People need help and encouragement.  Don't be any more of a douche than your genetics and questionable upbringing absolutely require.

[reed23]

@Kam - you've made a lot of good changes.  Take this for what it's worth.  Continue to reduce the grind...
A - let ranks be somewhat fresh at wipes.
B - reduce legend back to rank 20.
C - increase spell load rates slightly.
D - Make Mages Great Again MMGA
E - Increase group sizes to 10 - this could be the single greatest thing you do.  If you need to nerf player dam to get rid of your internal angst, go for it.
F - Fix the insane skilling problem from Excellent to Supurb.

[Willoe]

Mostly agree with Reeds post:
A - Don't see a reason for this...having it take longer to legend is not a bad thing at start of wipe...Not everyone can be the first to run a zone and keeping the game level(rank wise) for people at beginning at least for a few days isn't so bad IMO.
B - I Agree for the rank 20...It's not soo bad to rank a character to 20, but once you hit 25 you are committing to a pile of shit stat wise...At rank 20 at least you aren't committing days upon days of play time to possibly reroll the same class without shitty stats...That or perhaps allow yourself to reroll your stats once you hit legend with legend races? Now that would be amazing.
C - Don't think spell load rates were so bad this wipe, were they?
D - This is very broad...There are specific things I think that need to be looked at. Red Robe anchor is honestly a worthless sack of crap now, may as well remove the skill all together, that or do something else with it. I think honestly its that druids are SO strong, that why even bother playing a mage? The problem isn't so much with mages as how strong druids are now.
E - Agree with this completely.
F - Again, agree completely.

[Jorake]

A. Leave druids alone, they needed all that love
B. Druids were no fun before and now they have some fun stuff
C. I dont even play a druid OR the game atm but i like that they got buffed up
D. Why you haten playa?

E. Yeah group size should be back to 10
F. I quit around the time i found out that you had to hit rank 25 to legend. It broke my spirit.
G. I would love to see splintered mind be given back to white robes. That was some cool shit.
H. Leave druids alone.

[el conquistador]

as reed wrote there have been a lot of great changes this wipe.  the druid changes and what i have seen of the new zones are amazing additions.  also im really enjoying being allowed to play 2 characters.  great job on all of these to the staff.

i am in agreement with most of the ideas in this thread for possible future changes.  the ranks as they used to be where people could hit rank 16 on the first day seemed a bit much to me.  but the ranks being set to 0.01 at the start seems harsh.  maybe a compromise somewhere in the middle would be ideal?

the skilling does feel sort of long but i dont mind it too much.  its really just the skills i will never use that bother me to train.  i would maybe like an option to permanently delete skills and then you dont have to superb them.  i am not crazy about having to sit there and hide for 10 hours straight watching pigeons fly back and forth to superb a skill i will never use again.  but whatever it is doable.

the rank 25 to legendary is the one that really makes me sad.  we had planned to get characters to legendary and then make our 'real' characters out of exotic classes.  but now we are looking at putting in about 3 more months of grinding on characters we dont even really want.  its really demoralizing.  i dont know if jorake really quit because of it but i can understand if he did. 

i like willoe's idea about letting you transform your character into an exotic race when you reach legendary.  rank 25 is still a really long grind for a casual player but that would help me feel a lot better about it.

[Gnua]

A few ideas about the grind:
 - maybe rank 22 or rank 23 would be a better compromise for legend.  this way the casters arent quite so disadvantaged relative to the other non-casters: especially thieves and warriors.
 - reduce rank loss on death
 - unlock exotics at rank 15
 - reduce legend skill requirements to excellent
 - take a poll on skills that we would like to postpone until after legendary or delete all together so we dont have to skill it

being allowed to play 2 characters has been really good.  it's easy to start zoning, when more log, there is something to join, and when even more log we boot the alts and things really start cooking, and when even more log it isnt that hard to create a second group.  some sort of increase in the legend requirements makes sense to compensate but rank 25 is pretty harsh.

[Kadaj]

Here's my two cents so far this wipe:

- Legend requirement of rank 25 was brutal. With the amount of people playing and me typically playing during the day when none of the people I know are on...it was a challenge ranking to 25 with my two guys.

- Spell loads for druids and clerics seemed pretty good, mage spells still seemed pretty low and random. The higher tier spells got all jumbled up again and right now with the current state of druids, there's 100% no reason to play a mage outside of locating and poofing items to players.

- I think if ranks 'refreshed' faster, that would be ideal. I don't mind grinding zones, it's fun to see what your characters can do, but doing an entire zone with 30+ rank mobs and coming out with 2-3% rank is just disheartening and feels grindy. Instead of starting out at 0.01% after being killed, perhaps you could raise the minimum starting rank %. Obviously this could cause issues with lowbie zones with tons of rank mobs that repop often. Those could be adjusted to avoid exploiting them.

-Rank loss on death. I agree there should be a penalty for death, but seeing 3-4 hours worth of rank exp vanish in a blink of an eye really demotivates people to continue to grind. I've played this game for years and years and if I find the struggle to rank 25 hard, imagine the less experienced players.

-My favorite class in this game are the mages. Specifically the black robes, I've had 8 legend black robes and have had the best possible gear combo you can have. After seeing how brutal a tank/healer type combo was to rank 25, there's no way in hell I'm ever going to rank a mage to 25. There's just no way. Mages are so weak before legend and even at legend, if you don't have the right spells/gear combo, you're pretty much dead weight in a group. A non legend druid with a handful of easily popped 2 mannable spells is 100% more useful in a group than a mage who needs  a group to pop 6th circle or above spells.


I've had an awesome time this wipe and have thoroughly enjoyed my time experimenting with the new druids. However now that I have hit legend, I feel like taking a break as the grind to legend was just exhausting. It feels good to be rewarded with success, but again this isn't Everquest from 1999. This is a game people play at home or at work with friends with they have time. 

I look forward to other improvements you guys are making to the game. Just my thoughts on the current wipe from a mage player and newly addicted Druid player.

[Mick]

I agree with the OP that Rank 25 is just a step too far. I get that you want to slow down some players, but I'd argue that the bulk of us are filthy casuals who just don't have the time to grind that far out.

Is the argument that once people hit legend they stop playing? So you delay that by a month and it still happens? I think it's the wrong way to go about it. The ability to play 2 chars will keep more ppl playing if anything. I'm liking the idea of what combo I might roll for my exotics, if I ever get there. ugh Rank 25.

22 might be a happy medium. Keep em pushing past the 20, but not make it quite so painful.

[Valenore]

Also agree.  I just started back after a few years, mainly because a some friends who are true casuals started back playing.  Highest I have ever made it was rank 23 and that was when I played three times as much as I am able to play now.  Us making rank 20 would be doable, rank 25 is no shot. 

It took me a few weeks to find out the rank ceiling had been raised.  Originally, I figured we could legend our melee while trying to grind the spells for the casters.  As the melee legend, it would open up some new zones for us to do.  Now, I figure we will get burned out in a month or two and slowly stop playing. 

[Valenore]

I should have posted what my solution would be (besides reverting to previous implementation).  Make legend Rank 20, then stagger the legend ranks with requirements for rank 21, 22, etc (probably put one of the better legend ranks either also at 20 or at 21).  This gives you a reason to grind out rank 20+ even if you may never make rank 25.  It also makes your character incrementally better instead of just making it a binary jump once you hit the legendary threshold. 

[eddiex]

making the game more grindy in almost any capacity is absolutely braindead.

Revert legend req. to rank 20.
remove situational skill requirements or make all skills train as fast as weapons.
never do a weapon damage reduction again, pointless.
tune up mages by making mental acuity a skill not a spell. similar to commune
give mages useful area at lower circles like druids

also: remove ability to cast boon with a dragon orb. dragon orbs are already ridiculously powerful, this just allows 3 people at any given time to be able to solo shit that no other players can even come close to (spire, mystic king, storms, frostbyte, you name it)

revert ochre ot revamp. the change to ochre made it 3mannable and an absolute pussy. ancient green dragon is now more challenging.

make wrist dams unlimited.
increase # of ring dams

2 char change worked as intended. far less bot squads, more zoning power for everyone. good job on this.