[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
[TERA Console] The Grotto of Lost Souls update (v85) is now live! Read the patch notes here: https://bit.ly/TERACon_v85
[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
[TERA PC & CONSOLE] Summerfest Part 2: The Beach Bash is on from August 11 until September 1! Participate in event activities to earn tokens redeemable for costumes, consumables, mounts, and more! Details: https://bit.ly/tera_sf20
My leveling up event analogy
Story time.
I know we hear a lot about the exploits of pro players who do extremely daunting feats, like soloing end game dungeons, or maxing a character in 6 hours upon release. This isn't that kind of story. This is the other side. The story of a common mook who accepts he's not skilled at gaming(and already too old to game at all but too stubborn to quit), who took on the leveling challenge for the ninja title. Still, with all the work done, I can say I'm proud of what I did. Got my ninja to 65 before the initial 24 hour period, 100% solo. No open world parties, no party in dungeon. Not the greatest feat of will but again, I'm not a pro or naturally skilled person.
My quest started days before, as I collected items and stuff. Mostly things to allow me to stay prolonged times without having to resupply or rest. Meaning, a bunch of stamina pots, health pots and a stamina refreshing mount, even though the initial plan was to stay mostly in dungeons where mounts are disabled. This was though, a greater asset than I thought because of what was to come.
So come the day and I was already tired from lack of rest because real life events, so I started at a disadvantage already. How to pull such a marathonic session without previous rest? LOTS of coffee. Young people can take it but I'm not young anymore. Anyway. Created my ninja. A big eyed, jet black haired girl named Musika Mishi. I set my controls and binds, as I do with all my new toons and started slashing away, running past the mobs of ninjas either just standing there or attacking the air. I had no time to see what the ninja attacks did, only when using them to advance would I know.
A few minutes past and I was already flying to Velika to meet the new quest setup. I personally didn't like it. They rendered Lumbertown and Fey forest, a place I really loved, useless. Perhaps in a new patch we will see it destroyed and with an orange hue like Island of Dawn. I swear someone at BHS has an infautation with burning orange hues and the smell of death. Anyway, moving past the hordes of now active ninjas and scampering around looking for quest objectives to grab, I noted the first of my problems. There's much less channels available, and all were full, making hunting a tad more difficult. But I wasn't there to stop, so in a multi channel jumping feat I managed to get level 20. Time to start rolling into dungeons.
So I stopped the main quest altogether and moved to BoL. At first, not used to ninja (at 65 I'm still not used to it) I decided to run solo mode BoL. There I noted, at least, that the class was squishy. I had a glass cannon in my hands so I had to treat her gently. Still, I found solo BoL too easy and decided to do the 5-man version. There, the squishiness was noted even more when I nearly died at the hands of the mid boss, who I will always call 'Rock guy'. But I was able to do the dungeon at a decent speed at least twice, which gave me enough level to jump straight into Sinestral manor. Now, the experience there was much worse because my own lack of experience with the class. I haven't been playing it for more than an hour anyway, so the Duke guy, who will always looks to me like a stone'd version of Johnny Depp, got the best of me and made the fight generally slow because I always had to avoid his "Eat arcane death" shenanigans. I still got two levels from that dungeon so decided to go for some bam farming.
Chebika and then Tulufan bams were the first unwilling victims of my first bam massacre run. I also did some Mistmoor island stuff, killing nagas and crabs(did you know there's a guy sitting atop the crab bams, sort of driving them? It's ominously creepy). Then I stopped by the Pora Elinu area to continue on with Fangspawns(Head guys), until around level 35, where I started doing Cultist Refuge until at least level 42. Then I moved to Tria to hunt bams there, but they weren't giving much experience by then. That's when I remembered Acarum had bams too, so I killed a few nagas there, then entered Necromancer Tomb. This is where my problems got worse and the whole story went downhill into a pit of suffering.
So when I arrived at Necromancer Tomb, I was intent on soloing from the start because I'm comfortable with the dungeon. What I wasn't comfortable with was that I began to note an increasing amount of lag that almost got me killed more times than I would have allowed. I barely managed to kill the first boss, after a long, slow fight due to all inputs having lag for a second or more. Not an optimal way to fight as a glass cannon. I decided to push on into the second boss. The slug guy. Again, a slow fight due to lag, so I felt this was it for this dungeon.
I decided to move to Frontera and fight the giants there, but not only they were few and there were a bunch of people on them already. The area was downgraded to only one channel. If I stayed, I would have still been there waiting. So I had to think quick. Leveling was starting to slow down as the exp needed for each increased abruptly and the mobs and quests didn't give as much in comparison. But I did remember a place. A place some people have never been. The forgotten land in Tera. Bleakrock. As I headed there, I saw very few people as expected, and, few know this, Bleakrock is pretty much bam land. A whole large extension of snow and level 45 bams encompass the second camp's quests. There's two types of bams there. Giants and lizards. Not the lizards that bury underground and stick their tails up like the Tulufan stuff, but meaner bams that look like the child of a basilik and a Lok cultist. In the old days, when bams were much stronger, these were deadly even fighting them at level cap with decent gear.
I got at least 3 levels from these and by the time I was level 47. One of the experience gifts from the leveling event pushed me near 48, so I took a few more bams to get there. I also noted I didn't prepare completely before this run. One key item was missing. Gear. As soon as the thought appeared in my mind, I facepalmed and thought about what would be in the broker. The early levels can be done in pretty much any gear, but trying to fast level at higher content meant I needed better gear fast, and if I had that thought, everyone else would have it as well, so the only things remaining on broker were the utterly and unfairly expensive pieces. But I needed them and at least I had pulled some gold for emergency usage.
But my problem about where to find leveling without lag wasn't gone. 5-man dungeons seemed to all lag, their solo versions not being too profitable, and everyone doing bams here and there. I tried the Castanica beach but only got one level from the crabs there. So I moved to hungry caverns and the firebase north of Castanica to do the red story quests there. They also gave some gear so not all was bad. I then moved and tried Golden Labyrinth, but again, the 5-man version was plagued with lag, so I had to do the solo version several times. Again, some gear was obtained here so I didn't have to pay the greediest of players their ridiculous gold prices for their gear.
Once GL stopped giving any meaningful exp, I was slowed down again, so with some quick thinking, I moved to the Elenea area to do bams there. By now, I was already thankful for getting a stamina regenerating mount. Each bam was fought with full stamina and that was a weight off my shoulders. In between bams, I tried to do Saleron Garden, but again, was prevented to advance because of lag. Surprisingly I still got enough to gain a single level there, but I was back into the wild to hunt for bams. I even did some oddball zone quests and also part of the Dragonfall story quest when utterly not knowing what to do. This back and forth continued until level 57, where I decided to try something. I moved over to Pathfinder Post.
I have heard before about people farming bears and mugatos there, but never did it myself, thinking it was slow. Heck, was I wrong. The full 57 to 58 level went by faster than almost any other level after 40, just by hoarding and killing mugatos. Surprisingly, nobody was around to share kills with me. All the better. At 58, I thought about the mobs at velika. The level 60 bears and tree guys and the other creepy wtf guys who move like marionettes. So I hunted a bit there. Wasn't as fast, but got me to 59. There, I decided to start the argon war story line until I reached 60.
One thing to note about story quests. These later ones have way too much back and forth running to parts of the world that are usually very far apart. As in, you talk to this guy with a red question mark, and he sends you to another guy at the other side of the map. I know this is so people gets to see the map and pick up any yellow quests in between. But this may be also why not many people do any quests here and decide to farm dungeons instead. Still, I did these quests because there was nothing else available. Sure, I could have hunted Habere or Zulfikar bams, but I was in a rush and a not calm mind forgets things. I tried Ebon Tower solo mode but sadly, very little xp was obtained there. The bar barely moved. So it was questing in Pathfinder Post and Three towers what finally got me to 60.
Finally, 60. To a set of straight forward quests that required not much meaningless running around. With vanguard quests that complemented with a little extra XP and credits, all done while doing the main quest. All I had to do was kill a few more enemies and that was it. Still, by here, I was tired. I was playing with little rest for nearly 12 hours and my hands were already weak and trembling. I still pressed on like a good little lemming.
One thing of note is that the very last story quest, defeating the arch deva whatever boss (whose outfit looks like those of the Yes Men from BnS), gives very little exp. Maybe buffing that will put more players at 65 when they finish it. Perhaps the current model is to do all these quest not on a single run but on two days, when vanguard requests reset and give extra exp. Not sure. But when I start the 60-65 quest line I usually do it in one sit and end up at level 64. A single sabex or catacombs run will set you to 65, I suppose.
Anyway, with only half a level to go, I went to do what I always do then. Kill rock guys near Highwatch till 65. They give decent exp when using a 100% xp scroll or elite. BUT, ninjas. Ninjas everywhere. I managed to kill only two rock guys when I realized this wasn't going to be. But I remembered there were slug guys just a few steps close. I went there, and surprisingly, nobody around. So in the end, it was a slug that gave me level 65. And I did it fully alone and within the 24 hour period. Something I have never ever done before. No party for anything. All done and completed by my own unskilled but stubborn hand. if only I was as enterprising for socializing and getting friends.
Lastly, and as a note to everyone. I got a full set of Dreadnaught gear and accessories after doing the new island of dawn quest. In it, you kill a total of 31 bams. They are all easy, and made even easier when killing one grants you a keening dawn mote, which gives you a lot of crit factor and crit power for one minute. If the next one gives you another mote, then the shenanigans continue in a chain. Still, I didn't spend half an hour on this. And as a bonus, ninja Dreadnaught gear has the same appearance as the ninja promotion outfit. So she will look good even with no cosmetics on.
Well. That was my story. Hope someone enjoys it and maybe staff reads it and sees how's life for those players at the bottom of the skill chain.
I know we hear a lot about the exploits of pro players who do extremely daunting feats, like soloing end game dungeons, or maxing a character in 6 hours upon release. This isn't that kind of story. This is the other side. The story of a common mook who accepts he's not skilled at gaming(and already too old to game at all but too stubborn to quit), who took on the leveling challenge for the ninja title. Still, with all the work done, I can say I'm proud of what I did. Got my ninja to 65 before the initial 24 hour period, 100% solo. No open world parties, no party in dungeon. Not the greatest feat of will but again, I'm not a pro or naturally skilled person.
My quest started days before, as I collected items and stuff. Mostly things to allow me to stay prolonged times without having to resupply or rest. Meaning, a bunch of stamina pots, health pots and a stamina refreshing mount, even though the initial plan was to stay mostly in dungeons where mounts are disabled. This was though, a greater asset than I thought because of what was to come.
So come the day and I was already tired from lack of rest because real life events, so I started at a disadvantage already. How to pull such a marathonic session without previous rest? LOTS of coffee. Young people can take it but I'm not young anymore. Anyway. Created my ninja. A big eyed, jet black haired girl named Musika Mishi. I set my controls and binds, as I do with all my new toons and started slashing away, running past the mobs of ninjas either just standing there or attacking the air. I had no time to see what the ninja attacks did, only when using them to advance would I know.
A few minutes past and I was already flying to Velika to meet the new quest setup. I personally didn't like it. They rendered Lumbertown and Fey forest, a place I really loved, useless. Perhaps in a new patch we will see it destroyed and with an orange hue like Island of Dawn. I swear someone at BHS has an infautation with burning orange hues and the smell of death. Anyway, moving past the hordes of now active ninjas and scampering around looking for quest objectives to grab, I noted the first of my problems. There's much less channels available, and all were full, making hunting a tad more difficult. But I wasn't there to stop, so in a multi channel jumping feat I managed to get level 20. Time to start rolling into dungeons.
So I stopped the main quest altogether and moved to BoL. At first, not used to ninja (at 65 I'm still not used to it) I decided to run solo mode BoL. There I noted, at least, that the class was squishy. I had a glass cannon in my hands so I had to treat her gently. Still, I found solo BoL too easy and decided to do the 5-man version. There, the squishiness was noted even more when I nearly died at the hands of the mid boss, who I will always call 'Rock guy'. But I was able to do the dungeon at a decent speed at least twice, which gave me enough level to jump straight into Sinestral manor. Now, the experience there was much worse because my own lack of experience with the class. I haven't been playing it for more than an hour anyway, so the Duke guy, who will always looks to me like a stone'd version of Johnny Depp, got the best of me and made the fight generally slow because I always had to avoid his "Eat arcane death" shenanigans. I still got two levels from that dungeon so decided to go for some bam farming.
Chebika and then Tulufan bams were the first unwilling victims of my first bam massacre run. I also did some Mistmoor island stuff, killing nagas and crabs(did you know there's a guy sitting atop the crab bams, sort of driving them? It's ominously creepy). Then I stopped by the Pora Elinu area to continue on with Fangspawns(Head guys), until around level 35, where I started doing Cultist Refuge until at least level 42. Then I moved to Tria to hunt bams there, but they weren't giving much experience by then. That's when I remembered Acarum had bams too, so I killed a few nagas there, then entered Necromancer Tomb. This is where my problems got worse and the whole story went downhill into a pit of suffering.
So when I arrived at Necromancer Tomb, I was intent on soloing from the start because I'm comfortable with the dungeon. What I wasn't comfortable with was that I began to note an increasing amount of lag that almost got me killed more times than I would have allowed. I barely managed to kill the first boss, after a long, slow fight due to all inputs having lag for a second or more. Not an optimal way to fight as a glass cannon. I decided to push on into the second boss. The slug guy. Again, a slow fight due to lag, so I felt this was it for this dungeon.
I decided to move to Frontera and fight the giants there, but not only they were few and there were a bunch of people on them already. The area was downgraded to only one channel. If I stayed, I would have still been there waiting. So I had to think quick. Leveling was starting to slow down as the exp needed for each increased abruptly and the mobs and quests didn't give as much in comparison. But I did remember a place. A place some people have never been. The forgotten land in Tera. Bleakrock. As I headed there, I saw very few people as expected, and, few know this, Bleakrock is pretty much bam land. A whole large extension of snow and level 45 bams encompass the second camp's quests. There's two types of bams there. Giants and lizards. Not the lizards that bury underground and stick their tails up like the Tulufan stuff, but meaner bams that look like the child of a basilik and a Lok cultist. In the old days, when bams were much stronger, these were deadly even fighting them at level cap with decent gear.
I got at least 3 levels from these and by the time I was level 47. One of the experience gifts from the leveling event pushed me near 48, so I took a few more bams to get there. I also noted I didn't prepare completely before this run. One key item was missing. Gear. As soon as the thought appeared in my mind, I facepalmed and thought about what would be in the broker. The early levels can be done in pretty much any gear, but trying to fast level at higher content meant I needed better gear fast, and if I had that thought, everyone else would have it as well, so the only things remaining on broker were the utterly and unfairly expensive pieces. But I needed them and at least I had pulled some gold for emergency usage.
But my problem about where to find leveling without lag wasn't gone. 5-man dungeons seemed to all lag, their solo versions not being too profitable, and everyone doing bams here and there. I tried the Castanica beach but only got one level from the crabs there. So I moved to hungry caverns and the firebase north of Castanica to do the red story quests there. They also gave some gear so not all was bad. I then moved and tried Golden Labyrinth, but again, the 5-man version was plagued with lag, so I had to do the solo version several times. Again, some gear was obtained here so I didn't have to pay the greediest of players their ridiculous gold prices for their gear.
Once GL stopped giving any meaningful exp, I was slowed down again, so with some quick thinking, I moved to the Elenea area to do bams there. By now, I was already thankful for getting a stamina regenerating mount. Each bam was fought with full stamina and that was a weight off my shoulders. In between bams, I tried to do Saleron Garden, but again, was prevented to advance because of lag. Surprisingly I still got enough to gain a single level there, but I was back into the wild to hunt for bams. I even did some oddball zone quests and also part of the Dragonfall story quest when utterly not knowing what to do. This back and forth continued until level 57, where I decided to try something. I moved over to Pathfinder Post.
I have heard before about people farming bears and mugatos there, but never did it myself, thinking it was slow. Heck, was I wrong. The full 57 to 58 level went by faster than almost any other level after 40, just by hoarding and killing mugatos. Surprisingly, nobody was around to share kills with me. All the better. At 58, I thought about the mobs at velika. The level 60 bears and tree guys and the other creepy wtf guys who move like marionettes. So I hunted a bit there. Wasn't as fast, but got me to 59. There, I decided to start the argon war story line until I reached 60.
One thing to note about story quests. These later ones have way too much back and forth running to parts of the world that are usually very far apart. As in, you talk to this guy with a red question mark, and he sends you to another guy at the other side of the map. I know this is so people gets to see the map and pick up any yellow quests in between. But this may be also why not many people do any quests here and decide to farm dungeons instead. Still, I did these quests because there was nothing else available. Sure, I could have hunted Habere or Zulfikar bams, but I was in a rush and a not calm mind forgets things. I tried Ebon Tower solo mode but sadly, very little xp was obtained there. The bar barely moved. So it was questing in Pathfinder Post and Three towers what finally got me to 60.
Finally, 60. To a set of straight forward quests that required not much meaningless running around. With vanguard quests that complemented with a little extra XP and credits, all done while doing the main quest. All I had to do was kill a few more enemies and that was it. Still, by here, I was tired. I was playing with little rest for nearly 12 hours and my hands were already weak and trembling. I still pressed on like a good little lemming.
One thing of note is that the very last story quest, defeating the arch deva whatever boss (whose outfit looks like those of the Yes Men from BnS), gives very little exp. Maybe buffing that will put more players at 65 when they finish it. Perhaps the current model is to do all these quest not on a single run but on two days, when vanguard requests reset and give extra exp. Not sure. But when I start the 60-65 quest line I usually do it in one sit and end up at level 64. A single sabex or catacombs run will set you to 65, I suppose.
Anyway, with only half a level to go, I went to do what I always do then. Kill rock guys near Highwatch till 65. They give decent exp when using a 100% xp scroll or elite. BUT, ninjas. Ninjas everywhere. I managed to kill only two rock guys when I realized this wasn't going to be. But I remembered there were slug guys just a few steps close. I went there, and surprisingly, nobody around. So in the end, it was a slug that gave me level 65. And I did it fully alone and within the 24 hour period. Something I have never ever done before. No party for anything. All done and completed by my own unskilled but stubborn hand. if only I was as enterprising for socializing and getting friends.
Lastly, and as a note to everyone. I got a full set of Dreadnaught gear and accessories after doing the new island of dawn quest. In it, you kill a total of 31 bams. They are all easy, and made even easier when killing one grants you a keening dawn mote, which gives you a lot of crit factor and crit power for one minute. If the next one gives you another mote, then the shenanigans continue in a chain. Still, I didn't spend half an hour on this. And as a bonus, ninja Dreadnaught gear has the same appearance as the ninja promotion outfit. So she will look good even with no cosmetics on.
Well. That was my story. Hope someone enjoys it and maybe staff reads it and sees how's life for those players at the bottom of the skill chain.
8
Comments
The issue with the red story quests from ~23-60 now is that, while they used to be intended to get you from quest hub to quest hub (for yellow quests), they've basically taken steps now to deprecate them (such as hiding all yellow quests by default and introducing vanguard requests). Plus, the red quests now give so much more experience than yellow such that it really isn't worth your while to do the yellow quests at all, IMO. So this makes the pointless treks from one NPC to the next seem even more unbearable, especially when you're in a hurry and trying to go fast (like for this achievement).
It's in that spirit that I understand the revamp they did to the Arcadia area (even though they used my least favourite part of the map as the base). If they want people to level up so quickly now, the world of TERA is simply too large. I imagine that it would make sense for them to continue this trend in future patches until they eventually redo the entire leveling process to require much less point-to-point travel and more time (proportionally) spent in combat. It does raise the question of what they could do with all the beautiful areas of the world that are now essentially useless; perhaps they will do more end-game stuff, but, as you say, I do hope they don't "fire and brimstone" all of them like Island of Dawn. (This being said, the addition of flying mounts is also another way to reduce time spent travelling, and it looks like they're slowly rolling that out to the rest of the world as well. That may be a second strategy to make use of more of the world.)
As you also allude to, you might be tempted just to grind your way up instead of doing the red quests, but these are a reliable way to get decent armor. This is sort of why it's too bad the game doesn't really have a vibrant crafting system, and doesn't have merchants that sell decent gear
as you level up. The choice is basically red story quests or random drops.
Anyway, yeah -- even though it would probably have been faster/easier to get to 65 in a dungeon party, in a way it felt easier to be more self-reliant when on the clock. And, in general terms, I think I'd rather take a bit more time to smell the roses than this sort of "speed run" (though it wouldn't be properly called that). I'll probably plan on leveling at least another alt while the main leveling event it still on, but try some other paths.
Next major patch update
TERA: The Fall of Velika. (I'll be happy if it's Allemantheia tho... I HATE the layout of that damn place -___-")
Velika and all areas north of it are smashed down to bits by some random thing Yana pulled out of it's time-space bag of tricks, 'cause if that ugly thing is master of time-space surely it won't die, e-v-e-r.
Anyway, I believe with enough patience Ninja can solo every single dungeon up to 65, except maybe Sabex and Macellarius... maybe Manaya's Core is doable but a pain in the rear unless you get yo shining lvl 60 op gear and know every last bit of the dungeon by memory.
The gap you suffer in gear from Siniestral to Cultists is because people still forget Sarasvash Ascent (not sure if that's how it's spelt?) which gives lvl... 32(?) gear I believe, and the trick to live in dungeons (assuming no lag like there has been for the past 2 days) is to stay in one until you get the avatar weapon you'd get on the next dungeon AND at least the superior chest piece for your class (except maybe NT because worst drops EVER for any class...), or rather, keep doing one dungeon until you get to the level that avatar weapon is whether or not you get it before doing the next dungeon, that way you'd do BoL and get the lvl 28 (or is it 26?) avatar weapon then move to SM to get the level 32 then move to SA to get the lvl 36 then CR > lvl 42 weapon > NT > lvl 46 weapon > (think you need to be 48 for GL and AH tho) Akasha's (everything in GL hits waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hard and there's a gazillion things around every corner... plus for AH you only need to kill 3 things and you get gear quite easily; the only 2 things to watch out for in AH are that you need to stun Karascha right when it says "the third word" or you'll die, and the barrels both, all over the place and during Akasha, just don't forget the potion from GL) lvl 54 (or is it 52?)... the part right after really depends on if you can solo SSG or not, if you can you do it until 57 or 58 which is when you get the weapon I think then move to LoT and try to solo, if you can't, either mugatos (or anything in Val Tirkai really, EVERYTHING gives the exact same amount of XP) or BAMs in Kanstria and Argonea. then quest all your way to 65 and no, I think even if you run one MaC and one SAr you won't get to 65 after you're done with all the quests, perhaps you would right now since there's the double xp event but under normal conditions you need more than that for sure, I've leveled at least 8 reapers and they all fall short unless I do a few of both (which you should anyway since glyphs...).
I leveled both, gunner and brawler that way, and I'm pretty sure Ninja could be leveled the same way since... maybe it's not super op (as in very big hits that kill things utterly fast with few key skill uses) and have a death cheating passive or self-heals but it has very short cds and quite enough utility if you pay enough attention (plus that Stun... 3 secs on a 9 secs cd I think which should work just fine for Karascha, 2 iframes and that backstab kind of skill which probably counts as iframe too... assuming thousand cuts or w/e doesn't count as either i-frame or complete immunity like Sorc's Warp Barrier and Gunner's Recall.).
And yeah... sadly every time a new class is released broker prices for that type of gear skyrocket from about 100g at most for a +9 piece to 1k+ each piece... if you do every single dungeon and you get lucky you get at least chest piece from every dungeon you can get by with either blue or non enchantable superior boots and gloves and thus you have no need for story quests, if you don't, however, you should do the pertinent one until you get a chest piece otherwise you'll be at a big disadvantage when you step into the next dungeon (NEVER, E-V-E-R, step into GL or AH unless you absolutely have superior enchantable or non enchantable pieces from NT AND the avatar weapon required for that dungeon... you'll be nothing but fodder if you do =P, oh, and the reason to do AH instead of GL is the set that drops there, the non bankable non tradeable one, I think it's stronger than the set you usually get from GL [not to mention those were one of the coolest designs for weapons for several classes, too bad you can't get them anymore...])
Also, who needs friends when you can kick [filtered] like that!...
WTB Friends > 10m each need 100..........
I stayed up all night playing, too (for the first time, and never again). I don't get why you wanted to do everything solo..? I spent all day yesterday making LFG for dungeons, made some friends, spammed almost every dungeon until it stopped giving exp (yeah, you get less exp per kill in a party BUT you get a lot of bonus EXP for having a full party). I agree that it got more challenging after Golden Labyrinth, but you should've just went to Akasha's Hideout instead of farming open world bams. Also, no idea why you didn't grind bears at Pathfinder all the way to 60 even after you realized that it would be faster than grinding the bears at Velika.
Spent all morning spamming Sabex and Catacombs with a bunch of other ninjas, got to 65 ez. I was doing story quests and grinding vanguards when the dungeons were on cooldown and I didn't even make past the Trading Post area LOL. It was definitely painful and I think I OD'd on Tera, but exp isn't as hard to get as you say it is.
I was lucky in running into a few world bosses, but most of the rest of the leveling was done on BAMs. I pretty much stuck to what BAMs were in the vanguard quests to 58 and did level 59 with Tirkai Grizzlies, and to 60 on the bears outside Velika; by this time I think I was way behind those seriously going for the title because there was only one other person there. Yesterday - when I started - I tried to kill as many world bosses as I could because I was after decent gear drops, and the drops from world bosses tend to be the best you can find in the open world however I didn't have any luck with drops so I ended up in green gear for quite a long while.
Having not played Tera's end game for quite a long time because there wasn't any internet here I don't have any feedstock so I can't see myself doing much with my ninja, but I have enjoyed leveling through killing BAMs and I think that when the next class comes along I'll be in a better position to get a title for that. More importantly I had fun and wasn't bored so I might not have got the best title but there are positives I can take from the experience. Thanks for an interesting read.
I can't imagine you guys actually struggling unless you're clueless about the leveling process, in which case can you guys really say you "prepared" for it?
I burned through dungeons in LFGs as fast as I could. I think overall I participated in about 6 different groups because of timezone problems, scheduling, etc. I stayed up until 6:00 AM my time and because I really wanted that title, I managed to get 3 hours of sleep before jumping right back into the constant farming. I don't think I can do that again. I'm still feeling the effects of it now.
I know Enmasse didn't mean for their players to exhaust themselves with this new type of class event, but that's what happened to me. I could definitely have prepared better to reduce the hours of grinding. I do know that if it weren't for the extension on the deadline, I wouldn't have made it in time. I had 4 hours to spare when I finally reached 65 in Macellarius Catacombs' final boss.
Struggling with work. It's on weekday anyway.
Also, I didn't mention, but I DID queue more than once for a dungeon or two despite knowing the lag would suck, but queues drop when entering dungeons and I didn't have the will on me to either wait for however long a queue would take, nor the will or social drive for posting an LFG because I'm utterly shy to ask for any help. So when I was already level 50-ish, I decided, what the heck. Done this full solo so far so I decided to go all the way. I also preferred to not stay in a single place for too long. I would have fallen to boredom if I did that. That's why I left the mugatos and went for Velika bears. And as I also said, I missed some stuff that I could have done, but a mind tired and on edge doesn't think as clearly.
So in the end, I did it in an obviously inefficient way, but it counts that I at least did it instead of looking up to others and think "I could have done it but I didn't." In the same way I see so many people with their shiny titles and red winged weapons and special earned mounts. Those I'll pass, but at least I'm taking a little something with me for my memories.
Oh, also, thanks for the comments.
You make it sound as though everything that happened was their fault, but it isn't the case. At the very least, the login problems and unscheduled maintenance took time away from the time allotted, and the dungeon lag was really unbearable at times (even for soloing).
I don't think adding six hours trivializes the effort at all.
For myself personally, I didn't "prepare" for it at all. I just decided on a whim to try it, and relied on my past experience. I knew a few tricks about good grinding areas, soloing dungeons, and so on... but I'm sure it's not the "pro way" for people who would normally try to do the server-first race. Just a "I think I can get this done in 24 hours" thing.
I had a plan A. Dungeon all the way. I just didn't have a plan B because I have never been in such a situation. I usually wait a few days after a class is released to avoid all the clutter. Still, I prepared to do it within the 24 hour period. Not to make it first nor as fast as I could. No difference if I made it on 12 hours or 23. This was a much different race than the old 'Prime' stuff. And when I say 'prepare', look at it from a non pro point of view. I mean, some people 'prepared' for the patch by simply buying costumes. All I did was just store some money and pots, and a stam regen horse.
Also I just found out it was only 6 hours, but people in-game were making it sound more dramatic. But still, if it's a person who knows they're going to have to play to the last second to make it. It's the difference between having to force yourself to keep playing, and knowing you can get a drink or whatever while still having the goal in reach. In other words, someone logs in later knowing they have little time, but still tries anyway. So they bust themselves for hours and make it with maybe 10 minutes left, and later realize eme randomly added more time.
That would trivialize anyone's effort.
I do agree with your point that any extension would make the initial effort by most players have a little bit less worth. And while I personally don't feel bad, I completely understand that not everyone deals with these in the same way. So your concerns are indeed, valid to some extent. And I'm pretty sure you are not the only one feeling cheated. Again, we can't make everyone happy, and sometimes we even fail at detecting who the majority is and target those.