Do you have a "Process" for leveling your characters?

[Corruption]

5 hours ago, Razia said:

Totally agree, invader is much quicker and for me even more fun.

Most of the accolades are quicker to get red side. Invader is easy if you're doing all the mayhem missions as you level, otherwise you'll need the Hero Slayer badge to go back and get them all. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

18 hours ago, roleki said:

So I dual-client and PL myself, despite warnings that if I do that I'll go blind. 

 

Knew someone else would run as I do now.

 

Create character, log on 2nd acct with claws/fa farmer. Invite new character to SG, promote, invite to team, grab 20mil inf from email, buy all the porters and dbl xp from P2W vendor, create base instaport macro, go to base, port to Talos, use farmer to port to AE, PL new alt to 32, give all new earnings to new alt, lvl up, buy some IOs, go runnin radio missions or team or whatever.

 

Oh yea.. total time spent PLing? Bout 30 minutes per alt. Total time spent at character creator? Geez, who knows? Some costumes take a LOOOONG damn time.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[roleki]

13 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Knew someone else would run as I do now.

 

Create character, log on 2nd acct with claws/fa farmer. Invite new character to SG, promote, invite to team, grab 20mil inf from email, buy all the porters and dbl xp from P2W vendor, create base instaport macro, go to base, port to Talos, use farmer to port to AE, PL new alt to 32, give all new earnings to new alt, lvl up, buy some IOs, go runnin radio missions or team or whatever.

 

Oh yea.. total time spent PLing? Bout 30 minutes per alt. Total time spent at character creator? Geez, who knows? Some costumes take a LOOOONG damn time.

Dual-client is a pretty simple solution, I have to imagine a majority of PL-types do this to some extent(?)

[MunkiLord]

My general process is to dual box farm myself to 20-35 until I get bored again and remember I dislike farming. Then I'll usually try and influence whip some random person in AE to finish me off. Then go do shit at level 50.

[Meph]

14 hours ago, Ukase said:

I would further suggest you only do task forces if they're fun, or the weekly for double merits. Or, you just want the merits. Doing the task forces for task force commander is just wasting time. You can get the Invader, red side equivalent in about 25 minutes, maybe less if you hustle. 

I didn’t know this about Invader. I’ll definitely utilize that for my red side toons.

 

What I really appreciate about that post is it outlines a sort of normal game experience, almost a completionist run (or completionist “lite” if you will). I stuck to it pretty close on my first toon back to the game here on HC, using no xp boost, to get a sort of classic experience of the leveling process and the content that was designed for those levels. I’m older and wiser now and have an appreciation for the level design and other systems at play. That said, I’m also not able to sink as much time into the game as I once could, and in the later levels I got bored/impatient and resorted to more efficient grindy solutions like +4 PI portal mission groups to finish up.

 

Either way it’s a great road map to level with and get a very full experience of the game’s content for anyone, new or old. I wish someone would make a red side version!

[Fan Mail]

I spend 30 minutes creating my new character, farm Twin Shot arc, bang my head against desk, log off, create new character...rinse/repeat 

Edited January 31, 2020 by tafilr

[Oubliette_Red]

1. I play with my friends.
2. Sometimes I'll solo story arcs for the content
3. I play with my friends.

 

Here, and in Legacy as well, it was never about hitting 50, it was about playing and enjoying the game. That's pretty much it.

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Oubliette_Red

[Ozgamer69]

I play to play with my friends. If they are not on I bring out the second account and loaf up the Fire / Spines Farmer and take a newbie through Fire Scorchers on +4x8, 15 minutes has them at level 20 with 2 x Exp from the P2W vendor. Rinse repeat a few times because I have come to despise the 1-20+ grind, and the DFB even more.

 

Recently created a Kinetic defender I'm dragging to 50 precisely to make the Farmer even more efficient, the money and purple drops I get are used to support fitting all my alts with Sets, usually by 25-27 they are usually kitted out with sets. Probably farmed 3+ billion, kitting out some 25 characters, including 6 x 50s with both Archetype sets.

 

All that so that when my friends are on we can go do the hard stuff and my toons pull their weight.

[Heraclea]

I do a combination of:

 

Task forces, task forces, and more task forces starting with level 8, which one DFB should put you at or past easily; and

 

Soloing old line blueside story arcs, for merits and for the nostalgia value.  I will sometimes run newer material - I especially like the KR Skulls arcs - but you may want to have a couple levels on the final missions if you are soloing them, especially if you are not a scrapper or brute.  Also worth doing is the Steel Canyon Tsoo story line that gives the 'Honorable Combatant' badge.  But few of the old line stories will ever put you against anything meaner than an EB. 

 

My aim is to have enough merits to get some of the ATOs, where I usually start with the procs, and other desirable recipes as I level up. 

[Myrmidon]

With IOs at dollar store prices, my routine on a new character is to have their entire IO build compliment sitting in trays before they even receive a single drop of XP.

 

Also, while I’m not much for hardcore badging, I do enjoy getting both the Ouroboros portal and Entrusted with the Secret at level 1, then proceed into the game.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Myrmidon

[WillowManson]

I do the following...........make hero, skip tutorial, join a few DFB's, head to Hollow's to do the Frostfire arc, snag radio, call contacts, do story arcs and missions, join teams. I just found out about the game coming back so i have not hit any of the TF's yet because I can't get a hero passed lvl 12 or 13 cause I am having to much fun playing them all.

[Snarky]

Redside Invader is only easy if you dual box and have a 50 with Heroslayer? Badge to open up the contact for bank missions. Otherwise it is more of a pita than Blueside. Because you have to get your bank mission every 5 levels (not on levels divisible by 5 because that can get you wrong bank) and not miss one   You can fly past one fast and since Redside is slow getting someone who is formkng a team to get your bank is...  its not unicorn searching but it aint hunting skulz either

[Robotech_Master]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:49 AM, Ukase said:

But for those of you who are okay playing solo, or are okay forming teams, I thought I would share my "process" and my thoughts for getting to level 50. 

My "process" is a lot simpler. As I explain in my powerleveling guide:

 

When I start a new hero-side character, I usually put double-XP on and then go through Death From Below once or twice, to reach at least level 8. From there, I go straight to Positron, and do all the “Task Force Commander” Task Forces up through Numina, followed by a few Imperious Task Forces and possibly some Rikti Mothership Raids. I’m level 50 before I know it, often just over the course of a day or two. If I ever hit a stretch where I don’t have quite enough XP to get to the next Task Force, I will fill in with one of the other TFs or trials, like Moonfire or Hess, Market Crash, Summer Blockbuster, or a Respec Trial. I might also do the Abandoned Sewer Trial or Eden Trial for variety, or the Shadow Shard TFs if I can find enough people willing to do them; I’ll also be sure to do whatever the current Weekly Strike Target is for that big XP bonus.

[tidge]

This has been interesting reading. I don't really PL my toons, except to take 2XP to get some actual powers ASAP... Or two pass some content I've done many times and don't care to repeat on a toon.

 

I like the variety in how much Inf gets gifted to new toons. I usually drop 200M on new toons to allow them to buy the prestige powers and also have enough leftover to start making their own Inf in the market.

 

As I level through classic play-through, I will slot the toons with leftover/recycled Enhancements. Inf isn't a problem, so I'm replacing IOs whenever I can. It seems to only be the generic travel IOs that don't drop that frequently, so if that lvl 10 run hasn't been updated in a decade or two I'll buy/craft a higher level version.

[lemming]

Most of my chars get PL'd up to level 22 or 32 depending on what I'm doing and then get some IOs at that point.  Then it's pretty much doing TFs or just screwing around doing missions or whatever event is live.  Though come to think of it, I need to get the "needed" accolades on most of my characters.

I think where I've gone CDO the most is with day jobs where I have a spreadsheet showing progress for all my alts.  I'll probably add the important progress on the accolades and incarnate powers, but I think at that point, I may need to make a more DB based solution. 😛

[Ukase]

7 hours ago, Robotech_Master said:

My "process" is a lot simpler. As I explain in my powerleveling guide:

 

When I start a new hero-side character, I usually put double-XP on and then go through Death From Below once or twice, to reach at least level 8. From there, I go straight to Positron, and do all the “Task Force Commander” Task Forces up through Numina, followed by a few Imperious Task Forces and possibly some Rikti Mothership Raids. I’m level 50 before I know it, often just over the course of a day or two. If I ever hit a stretch where I don’t have quite enough XP to get to the next Task Force, I will fill in with one of the other TFs or trials, like Moonfire or Hess, Market Crash, Summer Blockbuster, or a Respec Trial. I might also do the Abandoned Sewer Trial or Eden Trial for variety, or the Shadow Shard TFs if I can find enough people willing to do them; I’ll also be sure to do whatever the current Weekly Strike Target is for that big XP bonus.

I used to do it that way - and then on a weekly TF being Synapse, I thought - why am I killing myself at level 16 on a Synapse, when I can just wait until it's a weekly - if what I'm after is the merits? If I want the tfc - as mentioned, the Invader accolade can be done at level 1 (although traveling through for the badges would take more time than if I wait until level 4 when I get Super Speed, but better still to wait until 12 for a Celerity to be tossed in the slot.) 

I do think for MOST people, the way you're doing is probably the better way. Most folks need those merits. I'll never spend all the merits I have now. Must be sitting on over 10k worth, not including hero merits and what's in my email from the winter packs. 

If I have to do any task force, I plan to be at least +5 over the max level (unless it's a 45+ tf) so I can take full advantage of the extra slots (and 2-3 powers). Doing posi at level 8 is just insane in my mind. Much better to wait until 20 for posi 1 & 2, 25 for synapse, etc. 

[Robotech_Master]

It's not so much the merits I'm doing it for as the XP, and also conveniently getting one of the sought-after stat-boosting accolades for doing nothing more than how I'd level myself up anyway along the way. I'll probably never spend all the merits I have now, either, except possibly on converters. It's so much easier to buy stuff with cash when you've got a total of about 11 billion Inf across all your characters and self-emails.

[Rokkeb]

Load up my fire farmer and go from 1 to 25/30 in a few minutes. Cause I'm bored of low level, no power, end issue side of the game. Done it too many times. So straight to mid 20s or 30s for me. 

[Hedgefund]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:49 AM, Ukase said:

Invader - +Max Health Hero equivalent: TFC Badge - Earn all exploration badges in mayhem missions (9 in total, Atlas Park, Kings Row, Skyway City, Steel Canyon, Independence Port, Talos Island, Brickstown, Founder's Falls and Peregrine Island). TIP: Lord Schweinzer, contact in PO that will give you on-demand mayhems. He's unlocked by getting the Hero Slayer/Bloody Hands badge which can be earned by completing the RSF ~2 times. Another way is to do the Brickstown SSA from Dakota Berg with the third mission on -1x8

No no no no no to the bolded.  I don't know how the bolded falsehood has been enmeshed into the game (I see it stated a lot), but you only need to be at x2 to get hero slayer from EITHER SS1 (WWD) E4 - Berg or Tyrka in St. Martial.

[Chris24601]

My process is pretty simple. Do a different path each time.

 

My first toon back went blue after the Galaxy tutorial (and the connected new Atlas Park contacts and new KIngs content), so my next started red-side with the Breakout tutorial and my third was Praetorian. My next hero did Outbreak, the original origin contacts, followed by the Hollows and old issue 0-1 story arcs.

 

I’d guestimate there’s enough content for at least 3-4 separate trips through blueside without repeating an arc. There’s probably 2-3 trips through redside.

 

My current Praetorian is level 36 in Night Ward and still hasn’t taken the portal to Primal Earth yet (by my estimates I’ll be about level 40 so should be able to jump right to the Portal Corps and then New Praetorians arcs and will probably wrap it with the mission to save Last Bastion from Hamidon on Praetorian Earth). They also did only the Warden arcs in Praetoria (outleveling stuff is a serious thing there) so there’s probably 2-3 more routes through the 1-20 content I can take.

 

And by the time I’ve gone through those seven separate routes, repeating something from 6-7 passes through is long enough back that it doesn’t feel like I’ve just done it.

[MTeague]

I level up almost exlusively through story arcs, pickup groups, and taskforces.

 

I generally don't group for extended periods of time on any character because even though I know it's NOT necessary, and I DON'T need to do it as I level anymore, I still consdier it something of a rite of passage to do all the Safeguards (if a Blue character) or Mayhems (for Red characters) as I level them. 

 

I have never done a DFB and I have zero interest it. I actually dont' WANT to rapidly gain tons of levels.  I prefer to level up slowly and experience that character at several different stages of power.

[Murcielago]

I play story arcs.

[Skywise]

My process is to enjoy the game to the max.  My forays into PL'ing were very unsatisfying.  What i love is to create a character that I love and then I love to play him.  I spend a ton of time on his costume and bio.  A toon without a bio is hollow and I won't play it long unless I'm just trying something new.  Once I know his reason for being a hero then I play him that way.  Some  solo and some team.  I have over 70 active toons currently.  I play with the ones that match my mood that day.  All of that is why this is the greatest game in the world to me.

[Ravara]

My usual process is to create all my own groups and not wait for others, got 8 50's so far.