What levels do you find fun/not-fun?

I've noticed a trend. Nearly everything I play is frustrating up to around level 20, then fun thereafter -- and note that I'm not necessarily taking Stamina, so it's not always that.

Around level 20, though, I can get some cheap set IOs and suddenly have MUCH better enhancement bonuses than I did before. My attacks hit, they do more damage, they cost less endurance, and I start having set bonuses, like +regen and +recovery.

Is this just me, or do other people have it too? How do people get through those early levels?

The early levels are cake, can get to level 20 in a weekend just running sewer & radios. I dont like the 30-40 grind, I have a few toons that I started 5 years ago that are still only in the 40's. between altitist & being a soloist the higher levels seem to take forever.

I often like to solo, and my experience has mostly been that soloing through the teens is sort of tedious, especially if I'm on a build which really wants stamina. So I have a bunch of heroes who are around 12.

I dislike the teens... mostly because my power choices are set. A few of my peoples can do with out stamina, the rest though the levels 6-20 I have to take travel prereq - travel - then three picks from fitness.

Counting 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 thats eight power picks five of which I don't get to use my primary or secondary sets.

Of course I19 will change this a whole lot.

I solo as much or more then I team and thirty plus can slow down, yet the easy answer to that is to team up.

Depends on the class. late teens-early 20s on a mastermind? Ugh.

For me it's different with each character. Some AT's are more fun to play at different levels.

Probably when I get to St.Mart it just seems to be no good mishes in that lvl range it's just boring.

I can actually take time through the early levels and not mind... depending on character. It is different for each AT. Someone mentioned Masterminds in the late teens to early 20s, and I'd have to agree that's rough. Not only are you probably at your weakest (Four pets, three -2 to you, only one upgrade and little support - though we'll see how that changes for some with getting inherent fitness) but you're hitting a particularly nasty range for masterminds with Scrapyarders and their blasted Demolitionists.

My Khelds? They tend to be fun no matter what, if I'm going multiform. Level 6? Nova. Slot that up and start buffing what you're getting when you *do* drop back to human (not having to take a travel power helps there, too.)

VEATs, on the other hand, irritate me while leveling because I feel like I'm wasting 23 levels - when I hit 24, I can *finally* become what I wanted to be in the first place. That's not so much "hard to level" as... eh, I don't even want to say tedious. If that branching were done earlier (say, 14, or even 10) I wouldn't have an issue with it. (Just the REST of my list with them. )

Controllers and doms seem to vary wildly just within sets. Plant starts strong and keeps going, almost regardless of secondary. Illusion, to me, feels too control-light (unless paired with /TA, perhaps,) and then after 18 it feels like you're chasing recharge for PA. That just never gets fun for me. (I've got one at... think it's 39, maybe 40 now. Not in my top 100 favourite characters.)

It just varies quite a bit.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I find most all the levels fun--

1-10 is all about racing to get enough contacts so by level 10 I get the Spelunker mission..issue 19 is going to make this not as important

10-15 is pretty dry so I either do radios if I am in a big hurry to level, or if I am not in a big hurry I find arcs to get merits

15-20 is Faultline and more Radios or Arcs....I love the Faultline stuffs

20-25- I finish up Faultline and move into Striga.I love the Ring Of Peebles power..

25-Croatoa, Ouroboris missions, Radio and Story arcs, and Tips

30-Return to Croatoa.

Hmmm...starting with the end of the Croatoa arcs and ending with level 40, is the stretch I most dislike. Feels like a dry desert to me....except now they have tips and that might work in sweetening it

Good thread.

Lisa.

10 and 11 have been pretty miserable on the two Praetorians I've leveled that high. Yes, those two specific levels. Not sure why, but everything was fine at 9, then boom, crazy impossible difficulty where I'm dying multiple times on the same mission. Then level 12 came and I got "DOs" (actually level 15 IOs) and, in the case of my Electric Control Dom, unlocked the ridiculous Static Field. It didn't go quite as badly on my Brute as my Dom, but it did seem like enemies got more powerful more quickly than my characters.

In general though, pre-20 has always been frustrating for me. Constant misses, never enough endurance. The second problem will be alleviated somewhat next issue, though.

For solo play the late teens can be a drag. Especially for melee characters. I'm thinking inherent Stamina will alleviate much of that.

For team play, Tankers have a difficult time until the early 20s. Some even later. They're pretty squishy until then. This is a generalization of course.

1-49

I can't stand most characters from about 10-22. That's when endurance issues get to be really, really bad, and my power choices are basically made ahead of time (travel power and fitness). I19 should fix that though. The late 30s and early 40s seems to be another dead zone for me. Not so much that I'm having issues with the character, it just seems like it takes forever to level through those levels. 45-50 seems to go by much quicker somehow.

I don't like the early levels. At all. After being here for so long, I've played through everything multiple times. 1 - 20 is boring to me. As far as Praetoria goes, I have read through the Crusader/Warden arcs completely...twice for the Crusaders, actually... Power and Responsibility I have made it almost the entire way through those as well. I just don't like the lower levels. Sick to death of them.

After 32 (for some reason) I feel horribly stuck until about 41 or 42.

Likewise. I can't stand the 32 to 41 grind.

I have run all the heroside missions and am in the process of doing all of the villain side via oroborous.


The leveling can be tedious based upon the missions as well. It seems more and more story arcs are done solo. I notice certain things are making missions tedious. This translates into slow leveling and annoyances.

Two culprits are:
Large maps for no reason.
Defeat all on large maps.

A new culprit is the mission the forces you to go back and forth in the mission on large maps.

first 10 can be fun. 12-20 are not due to having to waste 4 power for travel powers and staminia/health.

after 20, things speed up then slow a about 24, then I get bored with my char unless a cool power pushes me on or some other big goal.

For me, I love the early levels. Anything from about 1-35 is great fun. But after that, it starts to feel more of a slog to me. The XP smoothing has done a lot to combat this for me, but still I find it somehow less enjoyable then the early levels.

Unfun? L40-50.
By L40-49 all I have to look forward to are filler powers as I already have all the neccesary powers in my build. The rest are just for filler or mules for set bonuses.

L50 is like sweeping and vacuuming an apartment after all your stuff is on the moving truck already. You're just finishing up those last few badges and unfinished arcs before you roll the next one.

I really don't like the low levels; until a character gets to 22 and SO's it's mostly a case of playing it in order to get to the fun part. I typically start to really have fun in the mid-20's and up, but my favorite levels are usually in the 40-50 range. More often than not I grab one of my 50's instead of working on a lowbie.

I do see the new inherent fitness with issue 19 being an unmitigated boon to all characters, particularly in the 10-20 "grind" area. That's always been by far my least favorite level range since it's always "travel prereq, travel power, hurdle, health, stamina" to fit in there. Nearly all characters really start feeling the endurance pinch here as well making it much more of a chore than fun to play.