I’m writing this to address the Experience gain discussions.
There seem to be a lot of discussions on Experience Gain in Heart of Thorns. Most of them are not very helpful. They all seem to center around topics like:
Is there a Grind?
What is the Grind?
CoF is …good/bad/indifferent
Where do I go for Experience?
This all leads to a lot of dog-chasing-its-tail discussion and none of it very friendly nor informative.
Rather than write another post just like it I’m going to sit down here with a stop-watch.
…After I find my cellphone…
Experiment I:
Verdant Brink
- Will NOT be using Lean Techniques to simulate being a new player
- No Stealthing skills
- No Buffs/Potions
- I can’t do Hero Points or Masteries, I have them
- Playing Thief
- Run Speed Signet +25%
- Will use Gliding II: Updrafts
I have loaded Verdant Brink.
It’s Tier 2.
There are 4 Commanders.
The Mini Map indicates they are all West of me.
Pressing M does not show them on the map what so ever.
I scroll the mouse back.
They are all clumped at Pact Encampment Waypoint
I teleport to Pact Encampment Waypoint
Time: 2:30 minutes, secs
The Event has ended.
Time: 4:00 minutes
Commanders are moving about. No events occurring.
1.2k Exp for Rezzing someone
Present Time:
13:42 minutes played.
Experienced Earned: 1,200
Conclusion:
This map is a giant waste of time if you need Experience.
Experiment 2:
Auric Basin
- Will NOT be using Lean Techniques to simulate being a new player
- No Stealthing skills
- No Buffs/Potions
- I can’t do Masteries as I have them
- I can’t do Hero Points as I have them
- Playing Thief
- Run Speed Signet +25%
- Will use Gliding II: Updrafts
- Will use Exalted I
Starting at Wander’s Waypoint
Auric Basin Map:
It’s Tier 2.
There are 4 Commanders.
The Mini Map indicates they are all West of me.
Pressing M does not show them on the map what so ever.
I scroll the mouse back.
It’s people flagging up to do Hero Points
Time: 3:18 minutes
Map Population too low, commanders are shifting maps and taxi-ing.
Map change has lead to commanders being scattered about. Taxis are failing to bring people together.
Time : 5:52 minutes
Commanders are fed up with the servers. Tarir events dispersing. Map clearing out.
Time: 7:36 minutes
I consider doing Hero Points, but I have too many. Staying on this map is an unproductive use of my time.
Time: 15:23
Experience gain: 0
Range of Map Explore: Ran from Wander’s Waypoint to Tarir
Teleported to Chak Hollow because a Commander was moving there. Didn’t reach the event in time- the Hero Point just below there.
Killed a Veteran Mordrem Flamerider
780 exp plus 286 bonus
Killed Mushroom Bomber that downed me.
391 exp plus 113 bonus.
Time: 25:18 minutes
Really reminded why I don’t go to Auric Basin…
Experiment 3:
Experiment 2:
Tangled Depths
- No Stealthing skills
- No Buffs/Potions
- I can’t do Masteries as I have them
- Playing Thief
- Run Speed Signet +25%
- Will use Gliding II: Updrafts
- Will use Gliding III: Lean Techniques
- Will use Gliding IV: Stealth Gliding
- Will use Gliding V: Advanced Gliding
- Will use Gliding VI: Ley Line Gliding
- Will use Exalted I
- Will use Nuhoch Lore II: Wallows
- Itzel Lore I
Tangled Depths Tier 1
Comms 0
Starting from Order’s of Whispers Camp Waypoint
Time: 1 minute
Killed:
Mordrem Vile Thrasher – 357 exp 65 bonus
Mordrem Guard (x2) – 357 exp 64 bonus
Time: 5 minutes
Flew to Fallen Ally camp… Champion Mushroom there. NO one wants to get near it.
Jumped further down.
Killed three skelk – 357 exp and 221 bonus (x3)
Time: 8:36 minutes
Killed two Chak – 357 exp 831 bonus (x2)
- this is the first productive experience I’ve gained from a creature
Time: 11:43 seconds
Used a Nuhoch Wallow:
Immediately died to Poison
Pressed M to see if any events are going.
Zero Events going.
Time: 12:38 seconds
Returned to Order of Whispers Camp:
Discussion Time:
13:42 minutes
28:18 minutes
12:38 minutes
+
_____________
53.98 minutes
Experienced earned:
Verdant Brink:
1200
Auric Basin:
780 + 286
391 + 113
1570
Tangled Depths
357 + 65
357 + 64
357 + 221 (x2)
357 + 831 (x2)
422 + 421 + 1156 + 2376 = 4375 experience for 53 minutes of tying to find something to do toward gaining experience.
In 53 minutes I have basically gained NOTHING.
Anet… This is why people are complaining there is a Grind.
I’ve just teleported to Dragon’s Stand.
12:47 minutes until the map closes
That’s 66.45 minutes until I begin to gain anything in regards to Experience.
… IF you can complete Dragon’s Stand there’s 100,000 Experience at the end of it… but with crashes the way they are and rewards not being saved there’s no certainty AT ALL Dragon’s Stand is worth 2 Hours of dedicated Participation when it can all be robbed from us at the end.
This is why people are angry with “the Grind” right now. All of this. It’s incredibly unfair of our time.
Heart of Thorns IS loads of fun. Don’t get me wrong, but it is nothing more than log in to run around in hopes of getting somewhere after a certain point. I’d say that ‘grind’ reallly starts to hit around Elite Level 41 or so. At that point we’re trying to climb into Mastery Point tier V somewhere. Before that things were just a lot of fun because doing ANYTHING was leading to SOMETHING.
I’m not desperately concerned about this at the moment since there’s really nothing out there right now that anyone needs or will demand we have. But at some point a good chunk of your player base is going to stop calling this Grind a grind and instead call it " being clothes lined " because they’ll be riding their bicycle the way they are used to when suddenly new content arrives that demands we be done with XYZ, we won’t be, and there’s just nothing we can do.
Now, I’m sure there is some players out there who have found a sure-fire event that grants loads and loads of experience that rockets you right to the top. Good for you! Now shush, because if you have found one the chances are it will get nerfed into oblivion.
For people wanting to understand why players have taken to CoF so much, this is it.
Speaking of CoF I went in there to see what that’s all about.
You get 1000 exp per kill IF you have an ungodly amount of exp buffs on you. Otherwise it’s just 750 exp. That’s WAY less than just sticking with a Commander out in Dragon’s Stand. Out there killing most things in the groups is a promised 18,000 experience per character per day. It seems to be just 9,000 experience if you run the same character through there multiple times. I am commanding there a fair bit now, but I am not certain of this halfed value. Still, this morning I was getting 18,000 exp per event, which seemed to go about 15 minutes each. This plus trash mobs.
Now, before I post this I’ll do something else many wonder and comment about… farming for exp bonuses.
I’m starting at Teku Nuhoch Waypoint, Tangled Depths.
Used Confluence Passage wallow.
In 3:38 seconds I killed:
1 Elite Jungle Spider – 713 exp 264 bonus
2 Veteran Jungle Spider – 714 exp 195 bonus
713 exp 522 bonus
Time: 3:38
… there was nothing else to kill and those were rather difficult for me as zerker thief.
Next, Nuhoch Lane wallow.
Killed a Veteran Chak Blitzer – 714 exp 8 bonus
Time: 29 seconds
Downtime: 15 seconds
And now a very important point:
There are no more creatures near by… Let’s start the timer:
20 seconds walking landed me 1 Chak Zapper… 358 exp 87 bonus
8 seconds fight
20 seconds to next target: 1 Veteran Chak Blitzer
38 seconds fight…
etc
Let’s say this averages a minute. Mostly because somewhere I’ll get bored, some fighting, and just stand there thinking, “What is this all for?” followed by “Why can’t I do this with friends?”
The answers are …"Because I may need that Itzel Poison I’m working toward (no complaints about it! I love working toward it… I just wish there was some way to actually do that).
So here it is…
I need 1,016, 000 exp.
If I killed ONLY Chak Zappers for 445 exp every 20 seconds that’s 1335 exp.
If I gained 1335 exp every minute then 1016000/1335 = 761.048 minutes
761.048 minutes = 12.841 hours
The time to do this is actually longer as, already discussed above, there’s about 66.45 minutes delay before I can reasonably find an event reliably. Add onto this the delays between targets, eventual (and frequent) failures when I try to kill a Blitzer … and yeah… we’re starting to talk about a lot of time here for things I’m not really even sure what for…
All I’m getting at is when I log into a game, any game, I expect I should be able to do what I want to when I set myself toward that goal. Right now Heart of Thorns doesn’t even let me really set goals. It’s not exactly a complaint because I’m having a heck of a lot of fun wasting a lot of time gliding and not to get anywhere! Nevertheless, I’m sure there are a LOT of player who are going through this and thinking, “What and the heck am I doing?” At which point they log off and that really might be that.