Thursday, May 28, 2009

Age of Conan - Grinding for 2 hours a day

Is a horribly difficult thing to do.

At the level I am at, I am basically stuck in a rut as I attempt to reach max level. What has become most trying during this period is that fact that I am not able to put more than 2 hours a day into playtime. This puts me into a category of not being able to get into groups, and I am then relegated to specific quests.

I had, up until I reached level 75, 3 zones to play in. But, now one of those zones has become low level quests with minimal to no XP. The other two have been pushed into "Kill 10 x" quests of regurgitated contracts. The dungeons are off limits to me due to no solo capability (as the mobs need 3-4 players to combat just ONE mob), and any interesting quests are out of my level range.

I am about 5 bars away from level 76 that opens new quests in new areas of one zone I am in, Keshatta. But, to get there, OMG...I have already played 4 days to get to that point. I could grind another 3-4 days before I reach 76...that is with only 2 hours a day.

My lifestyle at this point is not open to doing those longs hours of MMO playtime I use to do when I started. I enjoy more family time, work has become more demanding (thank goodness too, as what I am doing now really rocks), and I am unsure if I could push myself to sit down one or two days in the evening and crank out some hours to get some dungeons going.

I have debated about jumping games, and getting a break for a bit, so I do not tire of that grind. I loaded up Guild Wars today for example, and I also have DDO waiting for me to trial for 30 days. In two weeks Prototype for the 360 will be released, and that will get me a single player game to goof off in here and there...

But, I use time cards for AoC, and time ticks away as I play something else.

Do you guys have some suggestions, as I do not want to give up hitting max in AoC. I am so close. But, I need to figure out a way to mix up that time I have available, or let go for a few days...or SOMETHING (before I rip more of my hair out grinding away).

Cheers

3 comments:

Tesh said...

Ah, such is the fruit of bad game design, pacing in particular. Bleh. I feel for you.

Maybe try to schedule some grouping via forums or a blog group somewhere? Or is all the group content designed around play sessions of longer than two hours?

Of course, I'm assuming that a scheduled group would cut out what I imagine are PUG delays. If the content alone requires play in 2+ hour blocks, well... that's just another level of game design incompetence.

Good luck. If I had any interest in AoC (or a sub model game in general), I'd volunteer to help you blast through that dead zone.

Elementalistly said...

No actually...A lot of dungeons can be done in 1-2 hours. The "LFG" part is what kills looking for a particular dungeon. You spend too much time in Global LFG, that then I get nothing accomplished.

I like the idea of forming groups ahead of time. The issue lies in where. The guild I am in has a decent amount of players on in the morning (my 2 hour block is after waking before work), but all are lower levels right now. Higher levels are playing in the evenings...which kind of eliminates that for me.

I need to investigate forming a team then, and see if that goes over. Otherwise, I will probably start logging in less so I do not burn out.

Good suggestion.

Cheers

Talyn said...

It's fine to back off awhile, especially if they don't quite have enough legitimate content for that final push to level cap.

I'm already on break (again) from LOTRO heh. I went back full-on PvMP then my Lore-master. But then I broke down and dusted off one of my alts and burnout set it all over again so I'm just taking it slow now.

I did make a reappearance in Guild Wars though the past few days. The new Zaishen stuff is a pretty cool way to re-use content; I'm loving it! There's still plenty in GW I want to do, and plenty of players still around.

DDO... honestly I would wait until Module 9 hits. It keeps getting pushed back (well, I don't think they ever officially announced a date but still, this is the longest in-development update ever) which makes me think there's more in there than the release notes have let on. They're still being mysterious about their new "vision" for the game. But hey, I'll be popping back in then too if you want to attempt to coordinate some grouping?

Otherwise, I've been pretty heavy on the 360. Fallout 3 and a few other solo RPGs and a few favorite shooters with friends.