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Lineage 2: Gracia Update Allows Faster Leveling
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
NCsoft has announced several changes to Lineage II with the upcoming Gracia update, which include the introduction of the Vitality System, and efforts to reduce 'the grind' and entry barriers to new players by allowing players to level faster.
One of our greatest assets is our fantastic group of players, who are a very dedicated, hardcore bunch that spend a lot of time and effort building up their characters and battling each other in big player vs. player (PvP) fights like castle sieges. However, the process of building and leveling characters can be a very long and frankly tedious process in Lineage II, which may serve as a barrier for letting a much larger group of potential customers to fully enjoy our game. While in the past the developers in Korea have continually built the game with this hardcore mentality firmly set, with the release of Gracia, they’ve completely changed the rules and made Lineage II even better and a lot more fun.
The big change is that leveling a Lineage II character is now extremely easier—and we say “extremely” in a fairly conservative manner. A normal new character that goes through the beginning quests can gain a few levels in just a few minutes, and players should find leveling now quite easily, all the way up to level 60 and beyond. Players that could spend several months of hardcore grinding to get up to a competitively high level will now be able to accomplish the same feat perhaps a month, if not less. They’ll also be able to get to their occupation changes a lot faster, so developing a selection of specialized characters is a much more realistic option. Building characters is now a lot fun and easy to do, rather than a long-term activity many players would rather do without. This drastic change in leveling is due to several factors.
Get all the details here.
Take a look at the Gracia Part 1 preview site here.
Comments
Awesome!
Might considered looking into lineage 2 know! Was always put off by the "grinding" but this is something to look forward to.
This is great news. Does anyone know when its coming out?
I just got a retail copy of L2, shoulda waited to activate the time to be honest!! But i got the 45 day version so i'll be leaving my 15 day timecard unused until the update goes live, hopefully before my time runs out.
Enjoying the game but knowing theres a huge grind coming is v.off putting. Especially considering with my being a big 360 gamer I have to share out my time between PC and 360 gaming therefore I cant spend a stupid amount of hours per day on one game.
thats great, but what about the adena grind? No mention of getting the $$ to re-equip. Or should we just take that for granted?
That might not happen NC Soft would not want to put there adena farmers out of business! Because I think they get a cut , cause they never seem to stop em!
Wow I definitely may come back again, of course this has to be a significant increase whereas the game is not still a grind as much.
As for adena, I am pretty sure this is still going to be a grind but players just have to take advantage of everything single thing like guild armor, etc.
~Greatness~
Currently Playing:
Nothing
This is a MUCH NEEDED update, it really goes to show that NCsoft is being serious when they say they are done with making hard-core grind games. This is one of their most successful titles internationally, and a change like this is going to really show people they mean it. It's been needed for quite some time now.
good news. Gives me a reason to start playing again. I am sure Adena and item drops will be adjusted as well, and from my experience last time I reactivated, there are plenty of players/guilds who would be more then happy to help equip any new/returning players.
Warp
Cool I tried L2 a few months back and realy enjoyed it however was put off by the grind and the time especially with Aion just round the corner this just might make it worth it.
Anyone know the date for this to take effect.
I'll reactivate my accounts, but first I would like to try it in the public test server.
Now if I could just use mouse to move like in EQ, SWG and others I've played I'd be in there lol.
It should be released at August.
"This drastic change in leveling is due to several factors."
Um...
1) Like the fact that Warhammer Online is coming out soon? Or is it...
2) Games like WoW has stolen all your subscriptions? Or is it...
3) That Games like Guild Wars exist where you don't have to grind 24 hours for 1 year to access high lvl content e.g castle siege without dieing from a 1 hit kill? Or is it...
4) There are thousands of games where you can grind for free anyway e.g. RF Online, Rose Online, Florensia, Sword of the New World and thousands of other translated MMO. Or is it...
5) Because people who buy your game play for 1 month and don't come back so you're not getting any new subscriptions anyway? Or is it...
6) People in the Western world prefer real girls and a life out in the Sun rather than spend their life in the dark, in front of a PC, Masturbating....
Who knows....
C U all in Aion - Tower of Eternity
Posted this elsewhere, but it applies here too.
As a long time player since L2 NA Closed Beta, I finally shelved my 2 Lineage 2 accounts a few months ago.
While some of the changes appear refreshing, many Lineage 2 aficionados, including me, questioned some of the updates and "improvements" over the last year or so -- not the least of which is the new mega-nerf of the Archer classes.
And while, I know, NCSoft hopes to woo new players to L2 by greatly reducing the game's legendary, excruciating grindfest, I don't think they will endear the current, long term players who've spent many months (hardcore folks), if not years (normal players), leveling their avatar(s) past level 76.
Awesome
perhaps they did learn something from all the people playing on private servers with increased XP gains. It really is a fun game when you get into the PvP, I might have to give it another try soon.
Odd they would do this so close to the release of Aion, which promised not to be a grinder.
Yeah, I think that on C5 they had a good balance and a good ammount of skills, now they've changed the game and I can hardly recognice it anymore after seeing frapses, surprisingly, though, even with all these updates, skills changes, nerfs and balances, they haven't really screwed the game like many others did, updating the game without screwing it up is hard for game companies.
It should be released at August.
Now I am interested. With playing Eve and Factional warfare all of my leveling games that require a bitof time have been put off, I really did like the Orcs in Lineage II so I would be very much willing to try it again.
About time for some increased xp/sp!
definitly a good step towards making l2 more accessible...
BUT
imho instead of giving players boosts to endgame imho they should have gone the way warhammer goes splitting pvp into tiers so you have fun pvping at each level (against similar strong opponents) rather then to have to lvl to highlevel first.
ALSO
compared to modern day games like conan L2 is still only a grinding game where you do
1. wait for a mob to spawn
2. hit a button to kill it
3. repeat that processes over and over again
with the update that grinding may be a bit more rewarding on the xp bar but the game will still lack quests and content
it will also be interesting to see the effect on the economy since they only increase xp speed and not money this way. if xp speed for example would increase by factor 3 you would have only 1/3rd of the adena (gold) a player has leveling at 1 time xp.
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
While there is definetly a cool thing to see Lineage 2 becoming easier, for we all know how much grind you have to do in the game, it still doesn't make up for the real problems, like getting adena or horrible drop rates and such. I've played it on and off since beta, mostly because of the awesome people who are ingame, but the horrible player-driven markets, moneyproblems and lack of drops (not just good item drops, but material and recipe drops for crafting) gets to me every time.
Its a rich-gets-richer and poor-gets-poorer system, unless you are either lucky or dedicate a year+ of time into getting money.
Such a slap in the face update for anyone who's spent the time to get to a competitive level, and it only took a month to go 1-75 anyways =/
And Wolf isn't that how life is anyways? If the poor can get rich just like that, there wouldn't be poor and rich.
That's really nice, I will probably sub up to L2 again once that goes live. The only problem I can think is that all the old areas will be abandoned and obsolete. Not too much of a price to pay I guess, but I will miss some of my fav leveling zones.
Edit: Person above me, are you serious about it only taking a month to grind to level 75? From that I remember, and commonly hear, that's BS. It would take more like 6 months from what I hear.
Well, yeah, but that's taking it slightly out of context. What I mean is, with almost no chance of getting drops (unless, like I said, your extreamly lucky), an absolute minimum of adena drops and a player market where items now cost 50-200mill++ adena, and now faster leveling up to those levels, only those who were there from the beginning (the now rich people) are those who can survive the game.
If you were to start up L2 now, for the first time, you'd practically get the door slammed in your face. Its like having a job that requires you to have a jetplane bought with your own money, and the daily pay is a dollar, if you get what I'm saying ;p
It's supposed to be a game, with a high focus on PvP, especially mass PvP like fortress and castle sieges, clan-against-clan and alliance-against-alliance PvP, with a grind-based PvE and large-scale raids, and instead you get a money-grind game, because the costs behind leveling up (gear, jewelry, accessories and especially SS/SPS) and pvp (atleast before, when you had the chance to loose your equipped weapon.. and the costs of siege golems, cp/hp pots etc.) far outweights everything else.
It was hard before, how the hell will leveling faster help the new ones now? You'd have to go from 1 to 60 back to 20 up to 60 back to 30 up to 60 back to 40 up to 60 back to 40 - 60 - 40 - 60 etc. just to afford stuff, so basicly, ur back to the same speed it took you to get from 1 - 60 again
Knowing how to play, the zones to hunt, the features the game and maybe having a buffer has and everything, 1-75 in 1 month is possible. I leveled an alt abyss walker 1-70 in probably 3 weeks buying buffs playing around 5 hours daily (more on weekends).
Either you're forgetting the fact or you just don't know, that they have already put C-grade gear into the NPC shops and will be putting B-grade gear in there in the upcoming update. Sets that used to cost 15+ mil, will now cost just a few hundred thousand from the NPC. The cheaper gear will also lead to cheaper crystal prices for C and B grade, which will lead to cheaper SS/SPS. Through this, clan oath armor and shadow weapons, the cost of leveling to A-grade is significantly reduced, allowing players to save more money.
Will the ability to level to A-grade quickly affect the market? I'm sure it will, because there will be more demand for A and S grade gear. However, I don't think it's going to be as disastrous as you seem to be saying it will be. The new players can devote the time to making money just like the old players have.