Ignore the exploits that have been patched, I don't have much problem with those who have nolife grinded to max (or near to max) thus far, with one exception, which was mentioned earlier: Marks inflation. Right now, the main method of getting marks is junk, and people at max level can get an INCREDIBLY high amount of marks very quickly compared to everyone else. This, plus the fact that credits are sold for marks, basically means that if you grinded to max, you now get to have trans in all skills because you can grind out marks to buy credits extremely cheaply. Additionally, the economy is in a very fragile state at the moment, with patches needed to tweak numbers with industry and other things. Having one class of players be rich because of junk income will result in a division between them, and everyone else being utterly penniless as they drive costs up amongst themselves and no one else can compete.
Now I realize that ultimately, this will stabilize as changes are made and a more even level range of people appear, but this sort of thing WILL have severe consequences in the short term future.
eta: Meant to say compared to others their level. Which isn't a problem in my eyes. Higher level should be more powerful, and capable to bash better. That's literally the point.
Barring victoryrush, them having more credits doesn't exactly help them bash more marks (at least not until artifacts are inevitably added that improve bashing).
It remains to be seen how much of a goldsink resource generation and stuff becomes, and whether or not selling credits will still remain an attractive source of marks for the whales with a lot of RL $$$ to spend.
It's not that having more credits helps them bash marks, but the other way around. Their extremely high level relative to everyone else helps them get more credits, which in turn allows them to convert into lessons and trans all their skills and basically be on an entirely different level of power compared to everyone else.
I phrased it badly, meant to say once you have your main bashing skills then outside of Victoryrush they don't bash any better than anyone else does. It's not like other IRE games where your damage is proportionate to lessons invested, since we have a gear system that takes the place of that.
Someone who's higher level should, naturally, be getting more marks than those who're lower level... You can get those too, if you bash to their level. I don't see it as a big deal. The economy's still sorting itself out, it's not any different to any other game that's new. Earlybirds are gonna have an advantage if they continue bashing at max. Just how online games with economy systems work.
And? People are blowing it vastly out of proportion, just how big a deal it is. Just ask someone like Locke or Darios how much they make, and they're still a long, long way aways from max level.
Why does everyone need to have the same amount of marks as they do, when people who have less are able to get the exact same stuff? Is the entire point I'm making.
If someone has, for instance (arbitary number)... 500,000 marks when you only 'need' 300,000 then it's redundant to complain that they have more, if you have that 300,000.
Why does everyone need to have the same amount of marks as they do, when people who have less are able to get the exact same stuff? Is the entire point I'm making.
If someone has, for instance (arbitary number)... 500,000 marks when you only 'need' 300,000 then it's redundant to complain that they have more, if you have that 300,000.
I think I draw some comfort in the way the credit market is set up. At least speculation isnt possible to add to the instability of the economy.
Honestly I don't want to pass judgement on those people either. They have a lot more time than I do.
You know, I can understand that those at the top put in more work than I do. Does it feel any less shitty that it will now take me longer comparatively to get to where they are because of pretty drastic changes? Nope.
Not going to make me quit. Still get to express a frustration. I don't have a good solution though.
We have a handful of blessed individuals who arguably exploited their way to 75 or very close to that, and the game hasn't even been out for 2 weeks. Was made clear that Starmourn was meant to be a "marathon and not a sprint," and we were asked to report any funny stuff and not take advantage of it. Now we have people running around with the equivalent of hundreds (thousands?) of playtime hours worth of experience over everyone else... Our bashing, unlike theirs, is also significantly more dangerous because we don't kill things as fast. Also, they generate a HUGE amount of marks compared to normal people around half their level or less. Can you say credit inflation?
I feel like we're being made a bunch of chumps here...
If I can't max level from 35ish right now, in 2 weeks of focused bashing, then I'm done with this game. I realize it's not the most mature thing to care about what others have, but what they have does impact the rest of us, and it's undermining my faith in just how much monkey business will be tolerated and even rewarded in Starmourn. And honestly, every time I watch my xp go up less than 1%, per kill, it's just a shiv in my groin, made worse by all the above.
I have no problem with a marathon, but I do have a problem when other people get to finish it in a mountain bike.
Dude, it about putting in the hours. You can reach 75 in two weeks if you play like the ones who are 75 already. Eat, sleep, bash. They put in a ton of hours into getting there.
On the other hand, the most important (at least, in other IREs) currency is dictated, at least partially, by the total amount of marks circulating the market: credits. If a small portion of players hold vastly superior amounts of the marks, then they can, in fact, set the price of credits high enough that the rest of the playerbase will have to settle for scraps.
Mereas Eyrlock "They're excited, but poor." - Ilyos (August 2019)
On the other hand, the most important (at least, in other IREs) currency is dictated, at least partially, by the total amount of marks circulating the market: credits. If a small portion of players hold vastly superior amounts of the marks, then they can, in fact, set the price of credits high enough that the rest of the playerbase will have to settle for scraps.
Theoretically. Other games don't have the gold sinks that Starmourn has, however. So we need to wait, still, and see how they actually work in practice before jumping the gun on nerfing anything.
On the other hand, the most important (at least, in other IREs) currency is dictated, at least partially, by the total amount of marks circulating the market: credits. If a small portion of players hold vastly superior amounts of the marks, then they can, in fact, set the price of credits high enough that the rest of the playerbase will have to settle for scraps.
Theoretically.
To Matlkael's point, Zulah proved it multiple times in Achaea by manipulating the credit market (admittedly he was nice and set prices super low) by just controlling all of the credits that were up. It's harder with purchasing off CFS being Bound, but I do see where Matl-yada and others are coming from.
Dude, it about putting in the hours. You can reach 75 in two weeks if you play like the ones who are 75 already. Eat, sleep, bash. They put in a ton of hours into getting there.
That's not how it works. They did it in 2 weeks, lets say 250 hours to be generous, because it was broken and they moved up FAST. Now that it's "not" broken, everyone else now moves up SLOW. So what took them 250 hours could now take what? How long? 500 hours? 1000 hours? More? We don't yet know. If I can do it in 2 weeks of eat sleep bash, then no complaints, but it's clearly not looking like that.
The changes really didn't slow things down as much as you think. Especially because the level 75 people didn't abuse the group zerg squads to level, they did it solo for the most part.
I'm still getting levels about the same as before, admittedly I'm still around 50 so I can't speak about the very top tier.
To Matlkael's point, Zulah proved it multiple times in Achaea by manipulating the credit market (admittedly he was nice and set prices super low) by just controlling all of the credits that were up. It's harder with purchasing off CFS being Bound, but I do see where Matl-yada and others are coming from.
Yes, that's what I said. Theoretically people can get enough gold where they can. But it doesn't happen nearly as often as the naysayers think it does. Something being able to happen, and something actually happening, are usually two different things entirely.
Dude, it about putting in the hours. You can reach 75 in two weeks if you play like the ones who are 75 already. Eat, sleep, bash. They put in a ton of hours into getting there.
That's not how it works. They did it in 2 weeks, lets say 250 hours to be generous, because it was broken and they moved up FAST. Now that it's "not" broken, everyone else now moves up SLOW. So what took them 250 hours could now take what? How long? 500 hours? 1000 hours? More? We don't yet know. If I can do it in 2 weeks of eat sleep bash, then no complaints, but it's clearly not looking like that.
This is pretty sad. Honestly. I don't have any advice because all I can see is you saying you didn't get what they have and you're gonna throw a fit about it.
In a day and half I went from 200+ XP down to the fifties. You could too, it is no ones fault that you haven't. And not the people who spent way too much time playing early on.
First world problems. My most recent experience: I was level 10 two days ago. I was level 9 yesterday. I'm level 10 again. As far as I have fun on my own, it's fine. What other players do only affects you if the devs adapt the game to said players to fit them, ignoring the rest of the playerbase. And I don't see that happening. Enjoy the journey. Don't quit because others prosper in-game more than you. It's a matter of priorities: if you priorise the game over anything else and/or rush to cap level, you will advance faster and have more stuff. That's also fine. And the fact that some players got some advantage because the game was released recently is something expected that always happens. The game is a masterpiece. Enjoy it at your own pace and your own way.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at this discussion wondering what you'd all think about my voluntary choice to stay beneath Level 10 to minimize marks spends on clones while I work on setting myself up in the Industrial sector through Incursion hunting
I'm literally here for the REST of the game, not the combat. if all you could do was bashing and politics, I'd be out of the door faster than you could blink
The devs are balancing the game continuously, and those that abused bugs are being nerfed as it's being discovered. The others ?
They either spent much more time in the game than most of us will over the next month, or invested enough of their intellect into developing strategies that took advantage of the game's current conditions and how everything is/was to progress faster.
Think about it from their perspective.
If you were a Top level player who'd spent 10 hours a day since launch, not abusing bugs (or at least not knowingly) and the admins swooped in explaining that they'd rebalanced the game after studying the big gap between players, and as a result they were going to rebalance YOU, reduce your marks total by 80% and your level to 20, so that the game would be more fair to other users, what would you do ?
But that's probably a part of the balancing of the game. Not balancing the players, or making it so everyone can get to the same high level just as fast (which would remove the attractiveness of having such a high level, if everyone else has it), but changing the economy so that there's a spot for those who have humongous fortunes to invest them, without it negatively affecting the low level players.
My personal thoughts are that if you want to ruin the foot race by jumping on a mountain bike that's your choice. If people really exploited XP docks will have happened, and if they didn't and they just invested a lot of time into running while others were resting that is good for them and only a natural reward of their time investment. I've been there at the top, and I found it pretty lonely, because the only choices you have is to then wait, help others, or find something else to do. Some people enjoy playing in sprints and then disappear, but again personally I found it to be the road to burnout and within months the odds were levelled because I'd just not want to touch the game for a good while.
I'd really suggest thinking about why you feel it ruins the game for you. I can understand anger about "cheating" but I'm 100% sure if so it has or will be dealt with. If you have little time to play and you feel that makes you not matter, remember having a lot of time to invest here isn't always a positive. When I myself had lots of time to play I was unemployed and that was right miserable.
Some runners sprinted to the finish line. Organizers saw how quickly that happened and made the race longer for the rest who hadn't gotten to the finish line.
Considering that the closer to the finish line you are, the more money you make, it feels shitty.
This probably won't be the last time an adjustment happens though. Someday we may look back on it and say, "Those poor schlubs..." about the people who now have a longer race than us.
Still don't have a fair solution.
EDIT: I just want to add that I really enjoy the game a lot and I don't envy the pressure the admin are under. I really don't think there is a good way to make people feel less shitty about this. I do think threating to quit is a bit of an overreaction.
Right. The better analogy would be: everyone started out in a bike race. Some people fiddled their way into using a car. The admins noticed and took the cars away; they then removed the bikes and told everyone to go on foot from now on, but left everyone (except the car-users) where they were.
Telling the sub-50 people to just "get good" is quite tone deaf, because getting from 50 to 70 now is much harder than getting from 50 to 70 a week ago, even without exploiting the bugs.
Mereas Eyrlock "They're excited, but poor." - Ilyos (August 2019)
No matter what changes have been made and how overcrowded the hunting zones have been, I've still steadily gained a level every 2-3 hours. I'm a Scoundrel, so not the greatest on the scale of things, nor can I code an efficient and intelligent bashing system because I'm a potato. It is a marathon, not a race. If people are running for 15 hours a day like I've been, I'd expect them to be much further along than those who put in 3 hours a day. Even if you have done 8 hours a day, a commendable effort, it still isn't anywhere close to the no life diehards like myself.
As others have said, most of us up here bashing the high areas have encountered bugged mobs and quests and we've been reporting them and getting them fixed, plus I know of at least two zones 60+ that have been increased in size substantially and had tons more mobs dropped in, so it'll be easier and smoother in the long run.
Only reason I'm not all the way up there is because I had 3 days off over Christmas and as I touched on, I'm not an efficient class or an efficient person.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at this discussion wondering what you'd all think about my voluntary choice to stay beneath Level 10 to minimize marks spends on clones while I work on setting myself up in the Industrial sector through Incursion hunting
I'm literally here for the REST of the game, not the combat. if all you could do was bashing and politics, I'd be out of the door faster than you could blink
The devs are balancing the game continuously, and those that abused bugs are being nerfed as it's being discovered. The others ?
They either spent much more time in the game than most of us will over the next month, or invested enough of their intellect into developing strategies that took advantage of the game's current conditions and how everything is/was to progress faster.
Think about it from their perspective.
If you were a Top level player who'd spent 10 hours a day since launch, not abusing bugs (or at least not knowingly) and the admins swooped in explaining that they'd rebalanced the game after studying the big gap between players, and as a result they were going to rebalance YOU, reduce your marks total by 80% and your level to 20, so that the game would be more fair to other users, what would you do ?
But that's probably a part of the balancing of the game. Not balancing the players, or making it so everyone can get to the same high level just as fast (which would remove the attractiveness of having such a high level, if everyone else has it), but changing the economy so that there's a spot for those who have humongous fortunes to invest them, without it negatively affecting the low level players.
I'd be very interested in meeting your character and seeing what RP you get up to. I'm only rushing through levels so I can jump into my ship andshop and never look back if I feel like it .My character is going to be a pilot who doesn't like being off his ship at all. But, I don't wanna be stuck not able to get off the ship if I wanna stop and check out a planet. So, I level up to a point where I'm able to participate and then I'm space bound .
Telling the sub-50 people to just "get good" is quite tone deaf, because getting from 50 to 70 now is much harder than getting from 50 to 70 a week ago, even without exploiting the bugs.
Except there's been people between 50-70 saying it's not quite as bad as you think it is? You're not even level 25 yet. You've had people sub 50, also, telling you it's not as bad as you think it is.
Dude, it about putting in the hours. You can reach 75 in two weeks if you play like the ones who are 75 already. Eat, sleep, bash. They put in a ton of hours into getting there.
That's not how it works. They did it in 2 weeks, lets say 250 hours to be generous, because it was broken and they moved up FAST. Now that it's "not" broken, everyone else now moves up SLOW. So what took them 250 hours could now take what? How long? 500 hours? 1000 hours? More? We don't yet know. If I can do it in 2 weeks of eat sleep bash, then no complaints, but it's clearly not looking like that.
I am STILL getting 3 levels a night if I bash hard
Except there's been people between 50-70 saying it's not quite as bad as you think it is? You're not even level 25 yet. You've had people sub 50, also, telling you it's not as bad as you think it is.
This. I am 56 at the time of writing this and it is not that bad. I actually think this is the most balanced leveling in any of the IRE games. It is slow enough to be something you gotta work at, but quick enough that you see actual progress when you log out for the night.
The main thing SM has over other IRE games is that damage scales with Stat and gear, not with skill ranks.. so you can invest 200 into each of your main skills and be as effective at Lv. 50 as someone who is omni-trans.
This has been mentioned before, but I appreciate it.
The main thing SM has over other IRE games is that damage scales with Stat and gear, not with skill ranks.. so you can invest 200 into each of your main skills and be as effective at Lv. 50 as someone who is omni-trans.
This has been mentioned before, but I appreciate it.
Lvl 50 equipment is roughly 2/3 the power of level 75 equipment!
But it makes no different for affliction based combat.
LEVELING: It took me 2 and a half 12 hour days of solid bashing just to get my last two and a half levels! Probably because I died a lot from the Scoundrel changes making half the creatures in my only viable bashing area murder my face off.
But mostly it was slow because the last 10 levels for anyone other than a BEAST right now is an absolute nightmare to gain as we have no way to solo any area other than Prugita Breeding Colony, and that spot's contested by everyone over 65 and barely has room for 2 people. All the other spots have huge hitting stacks of aggro mobs and we get squashed in 2-3 hits from just one. 4 if we heal mid fight, but then what's the point when they deal twice our heal in damage a second later anyway? It's been an unpleasant curve to the grind and I'm glad now all I have to get is gear... which is also gonna take an unpleasant amount of time with more people creeping up to fight the tougher stuff.
The areas: North Usum is passable to hunt in between 65 and 75 if you're desperate and really, really, really careful about all the different wandering aggro types, but not only do you have to deal with the scary level 75 aggros, there you've got the aggro skulfs which for some reason sit up there in packs of 2-4 and give little to no EXP. No idea why they're sitting in the 65-75 zone because they feel like a level 50 creature!
Deisk is... weird. It's home to mekmavaurs which have an obscene amount of health, are aggro, deal moderate damage and often group up in packs of 2-4. The ones you can pick off alone are slow to respawn. The reward for killing 25 of them is 3000xp and 1050 marks, which feels pretty underwhelming considering the level 50-65 Arrizuri Quarry has a quest that rewards 6000xp and 1000 marks for killing just 12 atzaparaki.
Oh and for reference! I get a little under 2000 exp for killing things in the 75 zones. That quest was worth less than two mobs. Though it gets credit for being a kill quest you could do while on the grind.
Lastly, Jelle is just a big nope. The vines often double-hit and there's wandering aggros and I got hit for nearly 2k and decided I wanted none of that thank you very much!
So in summary: I don't know for sure what it's like lower down right now, but I speculate that the earlier levels will be about on par with what it was like when I leveled through them, what with the new and improved more forgiving curve on damage reductions and shrugging afflictions. I didn't punch up above my level much until I realised everyone else was shooting for the stars, and I only got in on that for a few hours before the damage reduction update rolled out (woulda been 75 days ago if I'd realised sooner!). For the most part, I was just hunting nonstop since release.
In all, I think it would be about 130-140 hours of bashing I've done all up to get here.
BEING 75: I'm pretty sure it's going to annoy a lot of endgamers pretty quick as more people creep above the level 65 mark where they can begin to move up. Prugita's too small and everywhere else is too brutal. We want to hunt for gear and mods, but everywhere's cleared out. We could go to Thait for mods now it's been expanded because it's within that 20 level range, but then we'd be hindering the lower levels from catching up. Even then, we wouldn't get lvl75 gear drops, which are what we're really gunning for.
Prugita really needs the expansion treatment like Thait got. The other areas need tuning, or better, we need more areas so we aren't stepping on each others' toes all the time. Besides Prugita, the existing areas might make for good group zones, but not everyone wants to deal with coordinating a party when they just want to enter the bashing mindzone out and get the grind done.
Drop rates on equipment is... alright I guess? I've earned a lot of 70+ equipment in these last levels, but now I'm 75 that means nothing because it's SUBPAR OBSOLETE NO GOOD INFERIOR TRASH! In all I earned about 35 pieces of armour my level and 11 weapons. Two of those pieces of armour were Prime (+5% quality) which I suspect is the maximum. I found a couple of weapons marked X which I think is high quality, but not maximum. I think I'm yet to find a top-tier weapon of any level.
I've been told there's some hidden internal scaling for drop rates that prevents you from getting too much gear or junk in a day, which refreshes at 0:00am or when you level. So maybe now I'm not leveling, it'll take longer to gear up. I haven't confirmed this yet.
So I figure getting geared up with all the -best- gear is going to take months and months of grinding at the same rate I've been going. Getting a basic set of level 75 equipment is probably going to take a few days.
There's a significant power spike between level 74 and level 75 equipment, so maybe once I've picked up a new kit I'll be able to survive those other areas and speed things up a little.
We will see!
In any case, it's a fuckton of grinding. And from the (admittedly few) quests I've done I can say with absolute certainty that questing is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from anything close as rewarding as a brainless murderathon of every living thing in the known galaxy.
Update: Haven't gone to check it out myself because I'm burned out on trying to bash after 75, but according to my usual competition it seems they nerfed Prugita's spawn rate down to an hour or something.
Comments
Marks inflation.
Right now, the main method of getting marks is junk, and people at max level can get an INCREDIBLY high amount of marks very quickly compared to everyone else. This, plus the fact that credits are sold for marks, basically means that if you grinded to max, you now get to have trans in all skills because you can grind out marks to buy credits extremely cheaply.
Additionally, the economy is in a very fragile state at the moment, with patches needed to tweak numbers with industry and other things. Having one class of players be rich because of junk income will result in a division between them, and everyone else being utterly penniless as they drive costs up amongst themselves and no one else can compete.
Now I realize that ultimately, this will stabilize as changes are made and a more even level range of people appear, but this sort of thing WILL have severe consequences in the short term future.
Honestly I don't want to pass judgement on those people either. They have a lot more time than I do.
You know, I can understand that those at the top put in more work than I do. Does it feel any less shitty that it will now take me longer comparatively to get to where they are because of pretty drastic changes? Nope.
Not going to make me quit. Still get to express a frustration. I don't have a good solution though.
- Ilyos (August 2019)
That's not how it works. They did it in 2 weeks, lets say 250 hours to be generous, because it was broken and they moved up FAST. Now that it's "not" broken, everyone else now moves up SLOW. So what took them 250 hours could now take what? How long? 500 hours? 1000 hours? More? We don't yet know. If I can do it in 2 weeks of eat sleep bash, then no complaints, but it's clearly not looking like that.
I'm still getting levels about the same as before, admittedly I'm still around 50 so I can't speak about the very top tier.
In a day and half I went from 200+ XP down to the fifties. You could too, it is no ones fault that you haven't. And not the people who spent way too much time playing early on.
My most recent experience: I was level 10 two days ago. I was level 9 yesterday. I'm level 10 again. As far as I have fun on my own, it's fine.
What other players do only affects you if the devs adapt the game to said players to fit them, ignoring the rest of the playerbase. And I don't see that happening.
Enjoy the journey. Don't quit because others prosper in-game more than you. It's a matter of priorities: if you priorise the game over anything else and/or rush to cap level, you will advance faster and have more stuff. That's also fine. And the fact that some players got some advantage because the game was released recently is something expected that always happens.
The game is a masterpiece. Enjoy it at your own pace and your own way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZVIHHET85Y
"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water".
I'd really suggest thinking about why you feel it ruins the game for you. I can understand anger about "cheating" but I'm 100% sure if so it has or will be dealt with. If you have little time to play and you feel that makes you not matter, remember having a lot of time to invest here isn't always a positive. When I myself had lots of time to play I was unemployed and that was right miserable.
Some runners sprinted to the finish line. Organizers saw how quickly that happened and made the race longer for the rest who hadn't gotten to the finish line.
Considering that the closer to the finish line you are, the more money you make, it feels shitty.
This probably won't be the last time an adjustment happens though. Someday we may look back on it and say, "Those poor schlubs..." about the people who now have a longer race than us.
Still don't have a fair solution.
EDIT: I just want to add that I really enjoy the game a lot and I don't envy the pressure the admin are under. I really don't think there is a good way to make people feel less shitty about this. I do think threating to quit is a bit of an overreaction.
Telling the sub-50 people to just "get good" is quite tone deaf, because getting from 50 to 70 now is much harder than getting from 50 to 70 a week ago, even without exploiting the bugs.
- Ilyos (August 2019)
As others have said, most of us up here bashing the high areas have encountered bugged mobs and quests and we've been reporting them and getting them fixed, plus I know of at least two zones 60+ that have been increased in size substantially and had tons more mobs dropped in, so it'll be easier and smoother in the long run.
Only reason I'm not all the way up there is because I had 3 days off over Christmas and as I touched on, I'm not an efficient class or an efficient person.
Morgan.
You've had people sub 50, also, telling you it's not as bad as you think it is.
This has been mentioned before, but I appreciate it.
But it makes no different for affliction based combat.
It took me 2 and a half 12 hour days of solid bashing just to get my last two and a half levels! Probably because I died a lot from the Scoundrel changes making half the creatures in my only viable bashing area murder my face off.
But mostly it was slow because the last 10 levels for anyone other than a BEAST right now is an absolute nightmare to gain as we have no way to solo any area other than Prugita Breeding Colony, and that spot's contested by everyone over 65 and barely has room for 2 people. All the other spots have huge hitting stacks of aggro mobs and we get squashed in 2-3 hits from just one. 4 if we heal mid fight, but then what's the point when they deal twice our heal in damage a second later anyway? It's been an unpleasant curve to the grind and I'm glad now all I have to get is gear... which is also gonna take an unpleasant amount of time with more people creeping up to fight the tougher stuff.
The areas:
North Usum is passable to hunt in between 65 and 75 if you're desperate and really, really, really careful about all the different wandering aggro types, but not only do you have to deal with the scary level 75 aggros, there you've got the aggro skulfs which for some reason sit up there in packs of 2-4 and give little to no EXP. No idea why they're sitting in the 65-75 zone because they feel like a level 50 creature!
Deisk is... weird. It's home to mekmavaurs which have an obscene amount of health, are aggro, deal moderate damage and often group up in packs of 2-4. The ones you can pick off alone are slow to respawn. The reward for killing 25 of them is 3000xp and 1050 marks, which feels pretty underwhelming considering the level 50-65 Arrizuri Quarry has a quest that rewards 6000xp and 1000 marks for killing just 12 atzaparaki.
Oh and for reference! I get a little under 2000 exp for killing things in the 75 zones. That quest was worth less than two mobs. Though it gets credit for being a kill quest you could do while on the grind.
Lastly, Jelle is just a big nope. The vines often double-hit and there's wandering aggros and I got hit for nearly 2k and decided I wanted none of that thank you very much!
So in summary:
I don't know for sure what it's like lower down right now, but I speculate that the earlier levels will be about on par with what it was like when I leveled through them, what with the new and improved more forgiving curve on damage reductions and shrugging afflictions. I didn't punch up above my level much until I realised everyone else was shooting for the stars, and I only got in on that for a few hours before the damage reduction update rolled out (woulda been 75 days ago if I'd realised sooner!). For the most part, I was just hunting nonstop since release.
In all, I think it would be about 130-140 hours of bashing I've done all up to get here.
BEING 75:
I'm pretty sure it's going to annoy a lot of endgamers pretty quick as more people creep above the level 65 mark where they can begin to move up. Prugita's too small and everywhere else is too brutal. We want to hunt for gear and mods, but everywhere's cleared out. We could go to Thait for mods now it's been expanded because it's within that 20 level range, but then we'd be hindering the lower levels from catching up. Even then, we wouldn't get lvl75 gear drops, which are what we're really gunning for.
Prugita really needs the expansion treatment like Thait got. The other areas need tuning, or better, we need more areas so we aren't stepping on each others' toes all the time. Besides Prugita, the existing areas might make for good group zones, but not everyone wants to deal with coordinating a party when they just want to enter the bashing mindzone out and get the grind done.
Drop rates on equipment is... alright I guess? I've earned a lot of 70+ equipment in these last levels, but now I'm 75 that means nothing because it's SUBPAR OBSOLETE NO GOOD INFERIOR TRASH! In all I earned about 35 pieces of armour my level and 11 weapons. Two of those pieces of armour were Prime (+5% quality) which I suspect is the maximum. I found a couple of weapons marked X which I think is high quality, but not maximum. I think I'm yet to find a top-tier weapon of any level.
I've been told there's some hidden internal scaling for drop rates that prevents you from getting too much gear or junk in a day, which refreshes at 0:00am or when you level. So maybe now I'm not leveling, it'll take longer to gear up. I haven't confirmed this yet.
So I figure getting geared up with all the -best- gear is going to take months and months of grinding at the same rate I've been going. Getting a basic set of level 75 equipment is probably going to take a few days.
There's a significant power spike between level 74 and level 75 equipment, so maybe once I've picked up a new kit I'll be able to survive those other areas and speed things up a little.
We will see!
In any case, it's a fuckton of grinding. And from the (admittedly few) quests I've done I can say with absolute certainty that questing is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from anything close as rewarding as a brainless murderathon of every living thing in the known galaxy.
Haven't gone to check it out myself because I'm burned out on trying to bash after 75, but according to my usual competition it seems they nerfed Prugita's spawn rate down to an hour or something.
but y tho