Some "expert" in bugs and whatnot, recently said: "F2P ends at 106 level." There are some caveats with this, first, if you are a veteran player, you can level to 105 a mage within one week without investing even in PA or 3 days if you play a few hours a day manually, or even 24 hours if you are really hellbent on it. Sure, the path to 106 after is very slow and 107 is quite far away. Second, with some basic knowledge and a good clan, any SUPPORT char (mainly heal/iss, but also tank in a really-really good and helpful clan) can reach 110 without putting in one Eur. I do NOT include here donations from friends and clannies, nor talking of "factorz" clans. It requires patience and dedication, but it is absolutely doable, we helped full nondonators reach 107 before leveling was so fast, some of them without PA too. A 5 level gap means 107 can buff/heal/clump mobs together for level 112 chars, albeit the tanking part is, indeed, tricky with only the exalted gear. When you are 112 it is extremely easy to help someone reach 110. That being said, and this being L2, a world of selfishness and trickery, ppl prefer to make naked DDs which hit a wall out of blazing swamp, then struggle towards some basic gear like rings and +6 blessed r99 weapon. Let's analyze whether that statement applies to these people which solo with a box buffer and get pked daily 20 times so they cant use events to gear themselves. In most cases, yes, if they do manage to reach 106, and that is a big if, they will quit soon afterwards, but probably even before when they will see 1kk damage from other players in rags. There are some classes, such as evi, summoner, titan which can pve in HB even with very basic gear, doable without l2store with donations from friends, things that cost under 10 bn and popular people, nice and respectful, get those pretty easily, it is possible to reach 107 in a couple of months, say 3 at the most playing only afk and checking from time to time to rez after pk. Shots are free for a very long time and while they wont get you to 107 in most DD cases, they will last enough so you can gear enough that you can break even, pay for consumables from the adena drops, even after the vita nerf if you use a buffer on laptop on the side so you skip the horrendous spirit ore costs associated with selfbuffs. In conclusion, while it is not easy for naked DDs, it is possible to reach 107 without putting in one Eur and with only minimal help, while support classes can easily make it to 110 if they are the right kind of people. Support classes can go further, of course, but that involves massive help from others, including l2store for runes and all, so it won't really mean F2P even as they wont actually pay, while, yes, for DDs, without massive help from a really close friend, going over 107 is very-very hard and time consuming, even if you manage to break even at consumables. But, wait! That is the situation where we do not consider events and trading! Some, like this letter event currently running, offers a lot of opportunities for the wise and cunning. In the first 2-3 days, farming intensively and under supervision (i.e. mostly afk, but checking often), can get you 200 words and you can sell in first week-end at an average price of 50 mil each. This means 10 bn in just a few days. Sure, once people notice the rates have been nerfed compared to previous events, will stop buying, but until that happens, you can grab an old laptop and run another free mentee doubling the farming rate. In 4 weeks you should be able to get some 50 bn if dedicated and checking often those 2 chars, picking up letters dropped from ebayer archers at FoS or some other places and 50 bn are a decent capital to start trading. Yes, patience is rewarded in this game, dont buy shiny gear, just sit and trade your way up using the other type of "events", the l2store ones. In such promos, various items are offered at a discount, so it is good to buy then and sell later, the more money you have the more you can wait and cascade such promos at markups of 20% or more, so, just by having one afk box to trade you can usually double those monies in just 3-4 months while continuing to level your char. Of course you won't get it right the first time, there are risks associated, such as, for example, innova making another promo later at even bigger discounts, with loot boxes and whatnot, when you havent yet managed to sell your items from the previous promo. Keep in mind you are not a top ebayer, so they wont tell you what promos are in the making, but if you follow the russian servers, the incoming updates from korea, you can, in time, develop a sense of that is coming and how prices will go. Some people say this is a PvP game and they understand by this the kind where people waste shots in pointless jousts now and again, but there is another kind of "hidden" PvP: the one in the market. That is the one that I like, where long term thinking, logic and patience beats reflexes and 10 k computer gear, because, when you are a good trader, even fully nondonator, you can buy level, gear, even castles and clans, just be careful so nobody will take advantage of you. Will a nondonator or simple PA user, even with 3-4 accounts ever manage to become a "factor"? The short answer is "no". You may be able to buy third or even second tier gear, have a great PvE CP and friends, but unless really-really smart and lucky (at some promos, eventually, you might get the big prize), a special kind of person able to see patterns and beat the RNG, no, you wont share the world stage with cheaters and people which put tens of thousands in the game. But, to be honest, who would like that? We can stay in our corner and, from time to time, win one hell of a battle against all the odds that will live in your memory and sweeten all the bitterness that the staff and the cheaters are unleashing on you most of the time. Best of all, know there are people like you, those that do not aim to "pwn", humiliate, threaten, swear, make you quit then complain of "low pop", as long as the staff will not move all out against legits, we will be here for you, people with families and jobs, but passionate about this game, dedicating it a few hours every day, as well as computers and power 24/7. Join us and nevermind the haters, ebayers, rich rude kids which have nothing else to do and try to prove their worth in a game with mommy's credit card, nevermind the staff which dont care about us and even openly threatens us when we raise legitimate questions, thinking that only people that spend lots deserve their attention and even blind eye when they blatantly break the rules. We survived Botland since 2004, this is not worse, as long as we are tolerated, we will stay here and fight for another day. This game is harsh and rewards immorality, but it can be survived and builds up character. It teaches you patience, psychology, leadership, and many other things, it is demanding on time, but it can be very rewarding when you successfully navigated the weaknesses and disunity of much richer people and clinched a victory nobody thought possible.
one thing i know, demagogues are the worst and they cant be trusted. gl to the ones that decide to follow op way of thinking.
HELP IF AFK three most popular words in your wall of text. anyway 106 i mentioned just because later you can't port in to coal mines which is awesome to exp. and then starts IF you find clan who can HELP you, you can stay with them in AFK party 25/8 and hope that they will HELP you to get better than free r99 paulina gear, otherwise you will be walking frag who dies even when mob farts in 1k range from you. And another thing - time required to spend with game.. that's another discussion, but it burns a lot of time. another thing if you not ready spend money for game, nobody want's you in "farm" parties, because without pa you decrease drop rates, and other excuses just to keep you outside.
L2 burns less time than you spent on forums crying. Just think of all the great things you could have done.
1358 words, HELP appears 6 times in an article about helping newbies, IF 10 times (i think average for a normal english text), afk 3 (three) times much lower than the normal in a regular post in this forum. Of course you will be. Any newbie is "walking frag" for ebayers which make or buy 110 level chars to pk them in order to promote their adena sales. Nobody disputes that: First, you only decrease adena drop rates if you do not have vitality and only proportionally, it doesnt affect PI drops, for example. Second, nobody goes in a party to farm altar, also, we are talking newbies here, not 110 stacked chars. Third, this is mainly about support chars, I agree you cant really be a nondonator as a DD, but you can be as a good support. That also solves the clan finding issue you have described. In aoe parties pulling 6 spots at EV, one non-pa char does not change anything, really and you can stay there up to 109 due to great exp. 1. As support is pretty easy to find clan, we take anyone which is a nice human being, but we consider ppl making DD are rich enough to support themselves; 2. Support doesnt need much gear, I have a healer/ISS in r95 with apo weapon, sure, has some talismans, etc, but all gear there is at most worth 50 bn and can take heavy aoe in all instances 107 and below with rose while debuffing bosses; 3. There is exalted gear that everyone gets at 105. That is seriously better than "free r99 paulina" and we have dagger which comes to dailies in exalted gear and only dies about once a day in average when the healer goes to toilet. Also has an iss with same stuff and can do the job albeit dies more often, being a box on macro.
everything depends on your goals. not everyone is ok to be walking frag and kill same mobs over and over and over again. another major problem - a lot of content is removed or dead, or not existing because of "technical difficulties". let's say dimensional gap and rift. was very good way to make some adena and rune stones. zaken/freya, crystal corals (emralds, steam corridor, coral garden), octa, tauti, fortuna, idk how's everything with keuceus base, you can port in to hellfire/soa or not? iirc last time it was "failed deffence" so even istina/epic istina was a good source for some income for non donors, but active players. what else.. forts - dead, territory wars - removed, dimesnional raids - "tech difficulties".. what else i missed? sieges dead, probably. like 2 hours of doing nothing, while "top parties" looking for fun in other castles. what else left? raids? gl with that so basically nothing left, only few spots and like 0 activity.
Then they should switch games because literally everyone is a walking frag, even top ebayers, I have killed AFK top ebayers even live ones when ambushed, you don't like that, go play some other game. I personally coordinate defense most of the time, last time death decided to go for our fort and I was mostly afk, but it was certainly not failed as after we killed merc only did some pvp because the attackers asked us to. IIRC, last time was failed was during last letters event when I was curious if works without me. We do 106-108 many times, outer, inner, dailies (baylor, kama, gludio) literally every day, rare exceptions when we have no time due to other raids, sieges, etc or too ill, power outage, etc. That being said, you are right, content where newbies were able to farm adena and most other things, actually, is gradually being removed to favour L2Store, however, this is far from only afk left killing always same mobs. Last siege was good, we took castle with ally against death, team and even brometheus and other major ebayers which didnt coordinate well or even attacked each other. I am far from saying the game is ideal for nondonours (and donours for that matter), but you can still do something if you are smart and don't solo PK all the time to promote dead sales.
someone should give a medal to zauliuz, he is the only one of u, that still have his brain. now to the topic, even if a guy start on some clan here without being friends of the leaders from such clan, he ll play for nothing and if he won something, it would be the leftovers. clan gives nothing to no one besides to the leaders friends, 99% of the time the clan leader dont even know someone exist in clan unless someone on top position point that out. if u want to get something u need to find a CP and even so u got 50/50 change of being stolen in the end, LIKE TOO MANY CRYING HEROES ON INNOVA SERVER, or u do all the job and receive less than other who do way less than u. i had a real life friend on ncwest that asked me to join with him the br101 clan, i told him to not group up with noobs or random br cos problems ll start appear on his l2life, he didnt listen to me, few days ago br101 leader made a thread on their forum mocking him, then he left. after free to play there was another br clan on chronos i dont recall its name now, he again asked me and i said the same thing. sometime after that i got pissed with ncwest and cashoutquit north american server, 2 years after he went on my facebook asking me if i stole his gear cos someone enter his account and clean it all. i told him to ask the clan he shared account with, since then i never spoke with the guy again. i helped the idiot before and after free to play, teach him and defended him every time he needed and in the end he stabbed my confidence asking that to me bcos a clan, l2 clans ruin friendship, he decide to listen some thief he met online instead his close friend. some clans here on core are the same, and some are even worst, some even have censorship where we cant say nothing and we have to behave like 10 years old. these clans have lots and lots of bad seed on it, u just need to meet one to steal all ur fun. even more these servers that the person can log more than one account, i have a lv7 clan here on core, i level it alone, 30 days ago when i decide to try again i put the clan on public setup, tons of 100/105 flood my clan just to logoff after join and never log again.
Well, maybe you should stop ebaying and join a legit clan where cheaters dont matter? I know in US and SA as well as in Russia and a few other countries in EU which should remain nameless, the more you swear, the better you are in the eyes of the other kids, but some clans do not accept kids at all, unless recommended by their parents and swearing, namecalling, scamming, etc are practically unheard of. You want to play with the cheaters, ebay, etc, of course you will have to hangout witht he wrong crowd, but it seems you like them more, so... good for you!
if your goal level and kill some mobs, and talk with clan members while exping then it's fine. but if you want achieve more -then without $$$ it's literally impossible. and to be in bottom.. well, it's not an option for my playing style
Depends what you mean being at the bottom. I am 16th at my race stats and my friend is 7th. We do pay PA, though, because it cant be paid with adena. for more than one account, at times even 4 or five between us. I was second last month in oly and many times before, but this month (actually last month to apply for this one) I was ill a lot and wasnt in the mood. My friend doesn't like PvP so rarely comes to oly. Of course an archer with level 3 bow kills us in one hit (not when I am on tank, though, unless really-really lucky). Does that mean we are at the bottom? Perhaps, compared with those which make huge profits by trading, scamming, abusing "normal game mechanics" and whatnot, sure, we are no match, but those are the "elite" few which are tolerated because the management imagines that helps their bottom line. I am proud to be part of a legit clan, I never cheated, everything I did was with the help of my friends (mostly me helping them, though) and with trade. You might spit on us and consider us the lowest at the bottom backed by your GM friends, but I beg to disagree. Even if you will ban us, will be just one more empty victory to celebrate alone at home with your char while PKing at BS. Bravo! You did it!
I never paid anyone to join clan, did you? I think I know you, the guy with redstars25 clan now changed into brazilianimperio or something. You can have all the kids and ebayers, don't think I compete with you, I just want to make it known there are civilized players here, not all the same. Whether you can play for free after 106 or not.
For sure you can play free after 106, i did that on NCWest without using any money to purchase anything L2 Store but it took many years of playing to build up (since GoD). Over there to get certain gear is even harder then here because things are way more expensive, both in terms of L2 Store as well as adena wise and events usually provide a lot less actually good rewards. Main tip has always been being smart about knowing where money is to be made. It requires experimentation as well as dedication to not succumb to the easy way out (purchases). It for sure can be done if there is willpower to do so even with how the game is today but the journey for sure will not be a short and quick one (unless you are crazy lucky on a free to play event).
i think you missed part when i said "for new player". if you played here few years then it's possible, but it's very hard, and for new player, that one who just created account, or someone who come back after few years break and had nothing, it's nearly impossible. and for oly. oly is dead long time ago, and it's broken since c4. it's not a factor. for example with my box iss i was top5 many times in iss hrp class. so that means i was good with it? no i just had some strategy, some gear better than average player and luck with 70-80% wr there, but i did only 10 battles, most of the time against 85lvl farmers.
Actually i failed to mention that i am actually one of those "fresh starts with nothing" over here. Maybe 2 - 3 weeks at most, granted letter event helped out to get me going for a few basics and upgrades right off the bat. I know the road is long, been there done that but i am going to give it a shot anyway. It does not bother me if to see any improvement at all it takes a year or even more, hell i been used to spending months to get stuff to do one click and fail it. Does not mean i gave up, i just save up and try again. Granted i have the head start over a true fresh start with knowledge but none of it is anything secret you can't find mentioned somewhere or discover on your own with a little bit of research / trial & error.
I didn't. In fact, today is way easier than pre-GoD. I play since 2004 and I remember running underwater to dwarf town to buy 1 aden cheaper ore so I can undercut other dwarves at SSD. Many people didn't have money for teleport, there were no free buffs, etc. Also, after the russians took over the adena and chars sales, they were PKing at Dion gates to promote them... People today are spoilt with free buffs, free shots, free gear, 0 exp loss on PK, no gear drop in any circumstances... Back to the new player which is supposedly unable to play after 106 for free: 1. Playing solo DD, no, won't work in 90% of the cases. There are many reasons why, one of them being that this is not a solo game; 2. Playing DD in a clan, such as wynn/dagger for CW or titan/dn puller, with a laptop on the side to supplement one of the often missing classes, such as ISS, it is definitely doable. We do dailies with such chars, because CW is great and marks stack with other debuffs and we are too lazy to pull... Going over 108 without PA AND without being a great trader AND without investing a lot of time, no, it won't work in most cases; 3. Playing a dedicated (not particularly skillful even) support, such as ISS or Aeore can take you easily to 110 in a good clan, in half a year or less, without spending one dime. People might even buy you PA, not to mention basic to medium gear. It is a bit harder for tanks, either you are really good at it and manage to do your job with minimal gear (I have seen cases), or you are a super-nice guy/gal that everyone will love to help. Keep in mind the new player thing and be constant about it. We are not talking top clans here, albeit, for a good healer with some slurping skills, it might be possible to get into one of those within months (you know who you are), but do not bring also the argument that "your goals" are too high for playing for free. We are talking newbies here, not people with years of play on the server. After a few years, of course, the goals change, even a solo DD can, after playing intelligently for 3-4 years and exploiting the trading opportunities land in the top 10% of players with only PA and maybe even without. Does anyone know how much did FOTM spend? I am watching him for years and he slowly crawled up the ladder. He probably didnt waste time PKing newbies or exploiting bugs, didnt "cashout" often, just went on about his game. I would really like to know how much money he put in the game but i doubt he put much more than PA.
ok last question. how long you need to farm ~50-60b in order to get basic gear when you can start do SOMETHING, for example kill 1 mob in primeval island. and maybe i'll say it in different way. After 106 without l2store and putting money in to game your progress becomes slower. like 10x slower than it was before all nerfs
