Ryzom

I remember the low level solo grind was a pain.
It is slow and risky.

And the low level harvest and craft...ugh. When you can only get 1 or 2 mats from a prospect...it isn't that much fun.

The first 50 levels in any skill are pretty difficult.
And the last 50 take a lot of time.

My highest current level is 206. ...Digging. My source mode 3's can kill me, my hit points are so low.

I also solo about 80-90% of my time in game. But, like my above confession shows, I mostly dig these days. Sometimes, Jez teams up with Enon and we work our Elemental together, but I don't go out and join random teams. I think the most 'random' team I have ever joined was at Xyrana's invitation... to dig in the Flaming Forest. There was a small group of us all doing our own thing. It was nice, but not exactly "teaming".

As a lower level, why not team?

XP is based on the highest skill used. If you find osmeone with a relatively low level to use (even if higher than yours)...

Hm, example is better.

40's healer. My close combat is 51. We challenged my fighting - I have more hp than a level 51 melee so I could take more hits - and we gained xp very well.

Solo'ing IS a challenge - just like being in a team can be if you go out to be challenged, but it is not impossible by far.

it has both aspects in game, digging and crafting are all solo areas

But it is an MMO which means its supposed to be multiplayer. Solo leveling can be done, just finding the right spots and being patient

A few thoughts...

In General
If I were smart, I would stop everything and solo melee until 250 and then do everything else. But I'm not and there we are.

I could also have been smart by going for 250 in healing and then raising ele on plants. However, that took too much time experiencing the game solely as a collection of health bars and vertigo-inducing graphics. Small doses only for me thanks, I will get there one day.

Harvesting
I don't see how anyone can stand harvest below about level 80. I couldn't, I just took the word of otherwise trustworthy people that higher level harvesting was worth it. Now I am over 100 in three regions and it is very much worth it.

Which reminds me, if I were smart I would stick to one region until 150 then switch to PR. So...more proof I'm not.

Crafting
Helping other folks is great. In fact Mokdarion and I are even having a sort of arms race supplying a newbie in Yrk. I am not trying to get him to go Kami (though I suppose I should be) it's just that Mok's LA was prettier than my ugly LQ HA, which can't be tolerated.

At any rate it remains that crafting feels pretty useless until you can craft at the level of your highest skill. So if you race your melee/casting up then crafting is going to feel pretty useless for a long time.

Wait so if I were smart I would raise my harvest/craft along with my melee/casting. Hrmmm apparently there are conflicting approaches to smart. Well whatever, whichever way I've done it has been so accidental that I am pretty sure it isn't optimal.


Calevin

kazaam31 wrote:sure its easy for US. Those with some 250´s alrdy means max hp, sap, stam. Peace of cake to get melee to lvl 200. But someone with no 250´s and 3k hp or something it aint that easy.

And it shouldn´t be.
What purpose was a game in wich you could kill anything on sight right from lvl 1 on?

No Risk, no Fun I always say.

I understand that soloing can be quite frustrating, because I did solo my way in Melee from lvl 0 to 100, but i managed.
All I can say is. Just don´t try to always get 3k XP from one MOB in one minute.
Go after 3 Mobs that give you 1k each in a Minute and inflict less damage to you than the bigger one. Same result with less time waiting for HP/Stam Reg.
It´s called economics

I simply don´t get this strange desire to ALWAYS get max XP from one target, if there are so much easier ways to reach ones goal.
*shrug*

Acridiel

mrshad wrote:I remember the low level solo grind was a pain.
It is slow and risky.

As I recall, teaming with you is a little risky as well! (just kidding!)

Well aside from every online game forum having the sence of "its a mmo learn to team since it was ment to be a team game" type comments I agree with most of the replies here.

IMO online games are ment to be played how the individule wishes to play within the given set of game mechanics. the MMO aspect is for community. I don't feel one should feel compelled to team up if that is not their style. But I think they should be allowed their own way of socializing without the community pressuring them to be something they may wish not to be.

Afterall Ryzom has one of the better community structures aside from OP wars and the stuff that comes from them.

I myself love the ability to solo, but I also like the ability to just chat away while digging (and thereby blowing myself up).

But everyone here has hit a spot on..... you need HP to effectively solo any caster skill.

looking back at my time on my main character a good strategy for solo would be to mix melee and digging and useing those points earned for hp and hp regen along with other needed skills to keep advancing melee and digging.

Don't worry about "wasting" points, at the end you will have a point surplus you can't use up.

As you open new trees of skills in melee and digging, advance all trees, that will maximize the skills you learn for any given top level you have.

EXAMPLE:

Say you hit 101 in melee piercing, bring all other melee up to that level before moving on. you will end up with more points than you know what to do with if you level all trees out. Not to mention you will have an advantage over another person that may be trying to just reach high level in one skill tree.

They will have only just the skills that tree provided points for. You on the other hand will have a skill point surplus for your level and a nice compliment of abilities for your level (very handy in pvp tournaments).

Also same for digging and crafting, keep all trees close to even and you will have a surplus of points/skills for the levels you are.


Now after you reach a comfortable level, or during the leveling of melee/dig. you can more effectively level casting with less death time. Tho downtime for Sap recharge will still be long.

It is far more entertaining to have a full hp from a master level melee or dig and then doing casting. Since you can pretty much go nakid against most mobs up to like....70ish? (depending on mob ofcource) thereby reducing costs and upkeep on armor.

As far as adding a grouping flavor to this strategy, I'd say group up for healing before you start nuking skills, as this will build a rather large sap pool for a low level nuker.

So if you solo your hp high, and group for some easy heal xp, after this is done, nuking will be easy to solo and quite entertaining.

This is from my personal experience, everyone else's experience may differ.

Another point for soloing is that you dont need to "keep up" with your team mates as much, so pressure to get max xp per minute isnt an issue. Everyone will tell you soloing is slower than teaming - me included - but you arent under time pressure anyway.
This entire thread seems to be focusing on earning XP as a solo player, but playing Ryzom isnt just levels. Exploring new lands is probably more fun when you dont have someone with you who already knows all the aggro spawns and Named mob migration paths already. Sneaking can be harder with more people. Sneaking through the PR back in the Kitin Patrol days was incredibly difficult, and more people just meant more chances of being detected.

The social aspect of Ryzom is a huge part of its enjoyment, but the world itself is still worth visiting even if you dont have a team around you

iwojimmy wrote:Another point for soloing is that you dont need to "keep up" with your team mates as much, so pressure to get max xp per minute isnt an issue. Everyone will tell you soloing is slower than teaming - me included - but you arent under time pressure anyway.
This entire thread seems to be focusing on earning XP as a solo player, but playing Ryzom isnt just levels. Exploring new lands is probably more fun when you dont have someone with you who already knows all the aggro spawns and Named mob migration paths already. Sneaking can be harder with more people. Sneaking through the PR back in the Kitin Patrol days was incredibly difficult, and more people just meant more chances of being detected.

The social aspect of Ryzom is a huge part of its enjoyment, but the world itself is still worth visiting even if you dont have a team around you

Well said countless times in grouping have I felt strange pressure to get best xp per min. Tho at times I have pressured the same back.

Much more skill and ability to face challenges tends to come from a solo player IMO. Not to mention patience . Tho not to mean team based people don't have these traits