Underleveled for 3rd area...

Casual_Carnage · June 2015

So me and my group are playing AD and trying to move on to Greenshade, but we're all stuck at level 22 and cannot for the life of us find any quests we missed to level up any further.

Now Greenshade's first quest is listed as level 26 and granted, after consulting the google, it seems many users leave their second area at level 23. However, even after revisiting Auridon and Grahtwood to scan for any possible quests we may have missed we cannot imagine having missed a whole level of XP.

We've gone through a list and checked off every side quest, delve, skyshard, public boss, and group dungeon in each area. Have all the respective journal achievements for each area ie "Pathfinder" but still are stuck at level 22. The problem is compounded by the fact that, even if we are missing quests it's like searching for a needle in a haystack because there is nothing in the UI that even gives so much as a hint to quests we possibly missed or even quests we have previously completed (horrible, horrible design choice...).

What are we doing wrong to be 4 levels under? Are we supposed to resort to grinding previously completed group dungeons solely to make it to the next zone? Will moving on underleveled distance us even further behind from content?

SirAndy · June 2015

That is odd. For each of my 8 characters i have always had to slow myself down because i'm constantly over-leveled.

Stupid question, did you start with the starter islands at the beginning? In your case, that would be Khenarthi's Roost.

Did you do all the quest related to the main quest? Fighters Guild and Mages guild quests? All dungeons in each zone? All skyshards? All world bosses? All dolmens?

In 2 years of playing this game, i've never been under-leveled unless i purposely chose so by teleporting to an area that was above my character level.

Sharee · June 2015

Most likely, you started adventuring in the area the game dropped you off at when you left coldharbor at level 3.

There are so-called 'starter islands' where the game was supposed to start, and originally did, until players complained that the game is not 'open enough at the start like skyrim was'.

So now to get to the real starting area, you have to take a quest at level 3 after leaving coldharbor, which many new players miss.

That being said, i would not worry too much. A level 22 should be able to do level 26 quests without any significant issues. Keep your equipment up to date (i suggest crafting it yourself) and it will work out. And make sure you explore all areas thoroughly, lots of experience can be found by exploring, finding hidden quests, and treasure chests(lockpicking one actually gives a nice chunk of XP)

Casual_Carnage · June 2015

SirAndy wrote: »

That is odd. For each of my 8 characters i have always had to slow myself down because i'm constantly over-leveled.

Stupid question, did you start with the starter islands at the beginning? In your case, that would be Khenarthi's Roost.

Did you do all the quest related to the main quest? Fighters Guild and Mages guild quests? All dungeons in each zone? All skyshards? All world bosses? All dolmens?

In 2 years of playing this game, i've never been under-leveled unless i purposely chose so by teleporting to an area that was above my character level.

To reiterate, we've sort of gone out of our way to exhaust all content possible to try and catch up.

This includes Khenarthi's Roost, Auridon, and Grahtwood. We've found every skyshard, world boss, delve, all group dungeons once, whited out every symbol on the map, etc. The only thing I've skipped (on purpose) was the Mage's Guild questline as I was saving it for my Sorc alt I'm planning on making; which I will most likely skip the Fighter's Guild questline on that character as well since my current one is taking care of it. Surely, that couldn't be enough to be gimping our levels so much?

I'm sort of struggling to understand what we're doing wrong in our leveling. I've talked to many other users on other forums and the answer I hear is they feel over-leveled as well, to the point where they don't even finish all quests available in a zone because they just move on to the next. My group finds that even completing every quest available in an area we still are barely making the cut for the next zones.

Now I understand that a level 26 quest is totally doable at 22, but I'm concerned our leveling is going to continue being a problem in the game as we progress and I'm curious if it's something we're doing wrong. We haven't touched PvP at all, would that be a culprit?

Ranique · June 2015

The level stamp on the staff of magnus is wrong. It is indeed a level 26 quest, but it is a non fighting quest without any encounter of hostiles. The next quest is level 24. Also many sidequests will be for level 24 if you venture south of Marbruk.

Hope that allready suits your mind a bit

I don't use any boosters and normally dont leave a map untill I made sure I did everything. This means that I made sure ALL icons on a map are white coloured (and done all quests I could find in the process). This includes the public dungeon and the dolmens, but exclude the group dungeon and the bosses. It normally gives me more then enough XP that I'm bout 2-3 levels ahead.

Even if you missed things, you can still go back and do them. Even if you are overlevelled it scrapes up XP.

As for skipping the mages guild questline. It is not accountbound. You can do them again on your sorcerer and they do give a nice amount of xp.

Anyways...most important is that the game automatically solves the issue if you continue (provided you stop missing stuff). When you do stuff above your level you get bonus XP. when you are ahead of level you get less xp. This means that any difference in level (positive or negative) will get outcancelled anyways.

So don't worry continuing in Greenshade.

Casual_Carnage · June 2015

Thanks for the advice, definitely good to hear "Staff of Magnus" and that area doesn't begin at level 26. I saw that number and thought "Yikes, no idea how we're going to pull up to that".

On further research it seems killing mobs provides a lot of XP compared to questing and considering this is console launch (with a plethora of new low level players questing along side with us), a lot of the quests my group has been doing have had the mobs cleared out already so we haven't had to kill them as much. My only running theory is because of this we've fallen a bit behind due to not dealing with as many mobs as we should be, which should be easily remedied by a bit of grinding.

I wasn't aware XP payout for the normal enemies was so considerable in this game otherwise I would've put a better handle on this for my entire group. Too used to MMOs /RPGs that give minimal mob kill payout to encourage players to gain XP through questing or other means.

I'll be sure to not avoid any mobs and engage them as much as possible when I see the opportunity in quests. Hopefully are leveling starts accelerating if we get involved in more combat, otherwise I'm stills stumped as to the secret to the healthy leveling

Ranique · June 2015

Casual_Carnage wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, definitely good to hear "Staff of Magnus" and that area doesn't begin at level 26. I saw that number and thought "Yikes, no idea how we're going to pull up to that".

On further research it seems killing mobs provides a lot of XP compared to questing and considering this is console launch (with a plethora of new low level players questing along side with us), a lot of the quests my group has been doing have had the mobs cleared out already so we haven't had to kill them as much. My only running theory is because of this we've fallen a bit behind due to not dealing with as many mobs as we should be, which should be easily remedied by a bit of grinding.

I wasn't aware XP payout for the normal enemies was so considerable in this game otherwise I would've put a better handle on this for my entire group. Too used to MMOs /RPGs that give minimal mob kill payout to encourage players to gain XP through questing or other means.

I'll be sure to not avoid any mobs and engage them as much as possible when I see the opportunity in quests. Hopefully are leveling starts accelerating if we get involved in more combat, otherwise I'm stills stumped as to the secret to the healthy leveling

That sounds like very wise words and you got it all right. Just wanted to re-add again that doing anything underlevelled gives a great boost to xp. So if you run behind, you will be getting more then enough extra xp to compensate for the difference, bringing you back on track soon enough.