Optimizing lvls 1-49

[Drewhat]

This is for those folks who want to get to lvl 50 ASAP and do it on a budget. If you have millions upon millions of credits, this isn't for you. If you LOVE content and playing every bonus mission, this isn't for you. No offense, but yeah...

 

Please discuss these principles below as you may or may not disagree with them.

 

Laws of Leveling:

 

 

Survivability:

1A) The more levels you are above mission content the easier the content will become.

1B) The higher average armor rating your gear the easier content will become.

 

Cost/Credits/XP:

2A) The more levels below content you are, the more resources it will take to complete the content in time and credits.

2B) You must compensate XP level with gear rating level if you want to play missions at a level below your content level.

2C) To stay at gear/content parity you must spend more credits than if you were above content level in XP, but equal to or below content level in gear.

2D) You can accumulate XP quickest by doing missions A) in groups and B) doing content at level parity.

 

 

So the goal is to optimize your gear level with the content you are most comfortable completing at the cost that you prefer. Keeping too high of a gear level will cost too much, over leveling on content means inefficient time spent on grinding. Keeping too low level of gear may mean more spent on repairs or too much time spent killing.

 

So this requires awareness of the cost associated with keeping gear at content parity.

 

So how does gear scale? This informs us of how to stay at parity.

 

 

I have done a survey of ~100 random pieces of equipment and found:

 

1) The best armor (purple) at each level has a rating of roughly ~2.8*(armor req level). Best blue armor is closer to ~2.4*level.

2) The prevalence of armor supply increases as you increase in levels. (Helmets, Implants and earpieces are difficult to find on lower levels.)

3) The armor contribution is ~60% greater per piece for leggings, helmet, and chest than bracers, gloves, belt, and boots. There is no armor bonus for implants, earpieces, relics, or offhands. So 40% of your armor makes up 60% of your defense reduction.

4) The primary stat contribution is relatively equivalent across armor pieces.

 

5) The relationship between armor rating and stats is

 

What I am suggesting, and maybe it is common knowledge for veteran MMOers (which I am not one) is to think in terms of average Armor Rating Level.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Drewhat

[hadoken]

You're making it sound far more complex than it really is. A mission or mob gives the same xp when green as it does when yellow, and grey gives nothing. Once you understand that, the answers are clear. Edited April 11, 2012 by hadoken

[Drewhat]

You're making it sound far more complex than it really is. A mission or mob gives the same xp when green as it does when yellow, and grey gives nothing. Once you understand that, the answers are clear.

 

Right. It gives the same xp, but it is a little harder to do. The question I am trying to answer is, "How often should I buy the best armor I can?" I hope end result would ideally end up making the player crafted armor supply and demand more transparent.

 

On one extreme you could have those OCD people who have to get a purple for every level they advance for all 10 armor pieces. They are getting the least "use" from every purchase.

 

On the other extreme you could have those people who level content in groups, have high skill, and require less stats to finish content enabling their average armor level to be much further behind content.

[hadoken]

I would argue for swift levelling you shouldn't buy gear at all, simply use quest rewards and visit the comm vendor for the planet you're on when in town training. Going out of your way to get to a GTN is a huge chunk of time spent (as is, with the client we have, loading into one character, navigating the fleet, and logging back to your main) on marginal gains.

[Drewhat]

This is where I need more of a math whiz. The problem seems to stated in terms of growth or tolerances. I would want to think of my Average Armor Rating Level in terms of % of max possible level.

 

If I want my armor rating level to be 100% of max all of the time I would need to buy 10 new pieces of purple armor every level. Unless you are creating all of your own gear, this is probably nearly impossible on most servers, by simply sourcing from the GTN.

 

But if I was okay with a level of 90% of max this would look closer to having mostly purple and some blue armor within 1 level of your current level every level. Blue gear is approximately 15%-20% 'weaker' than purple gear at the same level.

 

My guess is that most people hover closer to 60%-70% of max level. So at level 30, max level gear has an average armor rating of around 84-85. This could be anything from:

 

A) somebody who crafted a full set of purples at level 21,

B) someone with all level 24-25 blue gear,

C) or all green gear at 28-30, or

D) obviously a mixture of all of the above.

 

All of their stats would be roughly equal.

 

What I think this shows is that purple gear should be 'worth' no more than 2-3 times green gear at the same level, because that is the upper limit of its 'life cycle value' to the customer.

 

So if you get green drops from the NPCs and are curious how much you should list them for on the GTN you can get your sign from the average value of other items at that rating level.

 

Another way armor suppliers could work, would be through collecting and delivering a whole package of 1-49 armor that would guarantee a ~75% max armor rating level regardless of your level. This could come through a series of CoD mail packages.

[Drewhat]

I would argue for swift levelling you shouldn't buy gear at all, simply use quest rewards and visit the comm vendor for the planet you're on when in town training. Going out of your way to get to a GTN is a huge chunk of time spent (as is, with the client we have, loading into one character, navigating the fleet, and logging back to your main) on marginal gains.

 

I am not against commendations, but in my experience, at the speed I went through content, my guess is that I only got enough commendations to get me up to 40-50% max rating. You typically get enough for blue mods that are 1-2 levels behind, and even then it is not enough to cover all of your mod slots. You would need to fill 15+ slots per planet, which, depending on the number of armor slots you have to fill requires something close to 60+ commendations, which I have never had when leaving a planet.

[hadoken]

Your goals seem somewhat contradictory to me then, if you want to both level as fast as possible and have optimal gear. You're going to have to sacrifice one to obtain the other.

 

Optimal gear isn't remotely required for levelling quickly, though.

[Technohic]

Solution for gear is do daily PvP and at 20 and 40 you will get decent armor. Fill in gaps with stuff you loot or improve with quest rewards since they are orange or even replace if you get a good enough award. If you overlevel anyway with PvP and space dailies, you won't need the top of the line armor at all.

[Elyx]

Solution for gear is do daily PvP and at 20 and 40 you will get decent armor. Fill in gaps with stuff you loot or improve with quest rewards since they are orange or even replace if you get a good enough award. If you overlevel anyway with PvP and space dailies, you won't need the top of the line armor at all.

 

This may not be too effective come 1.2 and the price hikes on pre-50 PvP gear. the amount of time you would need to PvP to obtain the gear seems to be falling more in line with the time needed to craft similar gear on the PvE front.

 

either way, I think the key with fast leveling is reducing gear acquisition to a point where the time invested in gear acquisition (outside normal questing) is proportional to the advantage you gain from said gear in leveling speed.

 

In other words...how much time are you taking out of the "pure" leveling process, and can you show that you've reduced the leveling time by the same amount (or greater, to prove that the gearing time was worth it).

 

I haven't compared the two myself, but I don't distinctly see time spent out of the process to get better gear as beneficial enough to warrant the investment. you can average 2-3 blue pieces per planet easily simply from quest rewards. throw in at least 2 orange (or 1 orange/1 blue) from commendations (buying the mods to upgrade an orange count in this category as well), and you are already at an advantage over simple greens.

 

FYI...this is coming from a person who prefers to take his time leveling not that I want to push myself (too much to enjoy in the game), but if I were to DO it, I would simply quest, do available FP's as they are advertised, and drop anything I had on that planet when i was high enough for the next planet to be green. comms go towards clear improvements in gear, pick any blues from quests you can get, and move on.

 

other then that, someone would probably need to do some timed tests to determine waht is the best curve. PvP would have to be tested in a like manner, with the new PvP gear costs taken into account.

[Technohic]

I didn't think they increased the cost of sub-50 PvP gear. I saw where the cap for Warzone coms is now 2k instead of 1 which should allow you to save up more over the course of 20 levels.

[Keypek]

Fastest and easiest way to level is to simply do your class quests and any others you happen to pick up along the way. Do your space and pvp dailies as often as you can. If you do the dailies they will level you fast enough you will always be higher then the content you are doing in pve. Just simply use gear you get from quests or pvp or crafting. Don't need a super suit of armor to level with.

 

This is by far and away the fastest way to level.

 

End.

[Elyx]

Fastest and easiest way to level is to simply do your class quests and any others you happen to pick up along the way. Do your space and pvp dailies as often as you can. If you do the dailies they will level you fast enough you will always be higher then the content you are doing in pve. Just simply use gear you get from quests or pvp or crafting. Don't need a super suit of armor to level with.

 

This is by far and away the fastest way to level.

 

End.

 

But have you compared it with straight leveling? it may feel faster...sometimes a flashpoint can feel faster then simply leveling a quest or grinding. But is it truly faster? Often involved events can feel faster then grinding quests because your involved. but without a timed test I think were running on perception.

 

I like to mix them up personally, but i have yet to see my leveling curve go "faster" when I run a daily vs. jsut grabbing a group of 3-4 quests and killing mobs until I'm done.