Boom, my main character is level 50 and I'm among the last to hit 50 in our guild. There are a few stragglers behind me. However, most people that started playing with us during head-start are already at max level.
Gotta Cut it Loose
Yesterday I decided to give up my 8x8 farm to another guild member and use the returned farm design to craft a farmer’s workstation. First and foremost, I was starting to feel the grind of managing 4 different properties spread across 3 different zones.
Properties cost money in the form of weekly tax payments. If I am going to pay the bill, I want each location to pay its way and doing so requires a considerable amount of oversight. While I really enjoy farming, I don’t want it to be the only thing I have time and labor to do.
Secondly, the farm cart I recently crafted at considerable expense and effort, moves slower than a donkey unless you use Eco-Friendly Fuel. An average trade run from my properties require 4 injections of Eco Fuel which is roughly 4.75G or more per trip, if purchased from the Auction House. With a Farmer’s Workstation, I can produce my own fuel amongst other things I need. Giving up my smallest property in order to have a Farmer’s Workstation lessens my farm management load and makes me self-sufficient in other aspects. Win!
Doing the PVE Content
As a result of my heavy investment in farming and establishing my character’s “world”, my XP level always outpaced my ability to actually do PVE content at the intended level. Consequently, I hit 50 but only made it through the level 30ish PVE content. A side affect of this, is that I'm walking around in level 24 gear. Not to worry. I can quickly close the gear gap using quests in Karkasse Ridgelands and Hasla that when completed,provide a full set of level 50 starter armor and weapons.
In preparing to do more questing and crafting in my main profession, I'll start planting longer gestation produce and doing trade packs using my backlog of raw materials. This will save time and free up a lot of labor.
Crafting
I’ve had a hard time narrowing down which professions I want to pursue in earnest. When I looked at how I’d spent my labor thus far, commerce, husbandry and tailoring (from processing fabrics) are the highest, followed by metalwork and carpentry. Commerce doesn’t yield any highly coveted bonuses for maxing that profession so I won’t use it as one of the two I can progress to max. I will definitely go with tailoring and husbandry because I do them a lot and will benefit from the bonuses provided.
I'm likely to continue dabbling in carpentry for furniture and wood based weapons. I'd really like to do cooking. I pick cooking in every MMO that has it. Unfortunately, I'm disappointed in cooking thus far in AA.
Given the breadth of produce being farmed in AA, I'm shocked by the limited number of cooking recipes. We don’t even have recipes that use seafood in a game that has fishing!!??!! Consequently, leveling cooking feels like a grind because you have to create the same stuff ad nauseam. Even though what you’re creating is useful, if feels like a snoozefest.
PVP Incoming
Once I have level 50 gear, I will use the PVE in the lower zones to level up other skills trees. In AA you can train all skill trees and consequently, play all classes on the same character. I don’t plan on taking it to that extreme. However, I do want my original Paladin build on this character which means leveling the Battlerage tree and I may want Auramancy. Even though I’m not partial to it at all, Auramancy does have a couple of good situational skills.
Questing through the zones I missed means I’ll be in PVP areas, some of which are PVP all the time. We’ll see how that goes. If it’s too annoying I can advance other skill trees via crafting.
There are two unavoidable PVP zones if you want the best end game weapons and accessories. Doing the war event in Halcyona and farming tokens in Hasla, are necessary evils if you are going to do any sort of PVP – ever. Even if your version of PVP is simply protecting yourself and/or others during cross continental trade runs or sailing on the open seas. Be prepared to get owned most of the time if you don’t have end-game quality weapons and gear. People in our guild farm these areas regularly so I won't be out there alone.
The Beats
Farming, daily trade runs, working on tailoring and getting into level 50 gear is what I’ll be focused on the next few weeks. I’m actually looking forward to the adrenaline rush of doing the Halcyona event with guild members after I’m out of my scrub stuff. I’m probably going to give 5v5 PVP arenas a run at the point too.
Chilling up high in Karkasse Ridgelands to avoid gank squads
I freed up a character slot and was considering coming over to your server etc. Would your guild be interested in having a complete noob who is casual (but, for the next month at least, a Patron)?
Posted by: Chris | October 03, 2014 at 03:13 PM
Absolutely, we are very new player friendly as long as people are polite. TeamSpeak is however, rather important if you're very new. We don't ignore people in guild chat but it's much easier to help and be part of the gang if you're on TS.
Put in an application here: http://tiilgames.com/ and then whisper me in game (Alysianah).
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | October 03, 2014 at 05:03 PM