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Factual questions for experienced players:
Factual questions being questions asking about specific, verifiable details. I'm looking for hard answers from people with experience, not opinions on the merits or flaws of anything. Mostly, I'm trying to nail down a few basic details before I consider a purchase. Any help here will be appreciated.
1. Death penalties. What do you lose if you die to a mob? What do you lose if you die to a player?
2. Leveling difficulty? Does leveling become an insane grind at higher levels? Is the leveling curve similar to WoW? Similar to L2? How many months of play would it take to reach cap?
3. Ganking. I've seen videos on youtube of high-level players going into the other side's leveling zones (at least that's what they were described as) and basically just going on a killing spree. Is there any restriction on doing this at all?
4. PvP gear. How difficult is it to get decent PvP gear? If there are multiple tiers, is there a huge cap between the "good" and "bad" PvP gear?
Comments
I've only played up to level 22 in CB4 but most of these are easy to answer.
If you die to a mob you lose a bit of XP and get ported back to your binding point. There you can pay a small fee (It really doesn't cost much, maybe around the same as like a repair bill would in WoW from dying [comparatively]) which will get rid of the death sickness (1m and makes you slower) and restores your lost XP.
When you die in PvP you lose abyss points depending on your level, the opponents level and your current abyss points. At lower AP numbers you won't lose much when you die. At higher numbers you have more to lose though. If a high level kills a low level the low level will not lose anything. (I'm not sure on the specific mechanics of this).
I believe it's around WoW's leveling time, although if someone could confirm that it'd be great. Levels aren't too difficult to do, and from what I understand it'll take maybe a couple of months to hit cap. (not sure exactly).
Those are rifts. Not only are they only up for small periods of time, but enemy player locations get pinged on the map if they are in the other sides territory. I believe there are other restrictions that 1.2/1.5 addressed, but I am unsure of them.
I'm not sure on the difficulty on how to get gear. There are sets of gear though from Abyss points, green/blue/gold gear. To get gear you need to spend abyss points on them. I'm not sure how difficult it will be yet, like I said, but it does seem like you'll have to be a decent player to get the higher up gear -- because you need to be able to get your AP up to that point to spend those points. (Think of AP as honor points from WoW, except that you can lose them from dying as well).
1. Death penalties. What do you lose if you die to a mob? What do you lose if you die to a player?
You lose some gold, little bit of experience and a debuff when killed by a mob. If killed by a player you lose Abyss Points and you gain a debuff which is curable in town.
2. Leveling difficulty? Does leveling become an insane grind at higher levels? Is the leveling curve similar to WoW? Similar to L2? How many months of play would it take to reach cap?
The leveling curve is more similar to WoW. Months is hardly a factor but the estimated time from 1-50 is about 250 hours played.
3. Ganking. I've seen videos on youtube of high-level players going into the other side's leveling zones (at least that's what they were described as) and basically just going on a killing spree. Is there any restriction on doing this at all?
The rifts open every 2 hours to gain access to other sides zone. The restrictions are they limit the amount of people into the rift, there is a penalty debuff for killing those lower level than you in patch 1.5. Also it really isn't worth it to go ganking here since it's a pain to find the rift and you'll find targets with higher bounties in the Abyss. Rank 9 Soldiers (Lowest PvP rank, will be found in leveling zones) won't net any high levels enough Abyss Points.
4. PvP gear. How difficult is it to get decent PvP gear? If there are multiple tiers, is there a huge cap between the "good" and "bad" PvP gear?
It's very difficult since the more Abyss Points you obtain, the more you can lose at death. Gathering a large amount of Abyss Points to get good PvP gear comes from simply "not dying". Players looking to gain a lot of Abyss Points at a certain point stop looking for PvP and start grinding Abyss Point quests. I don't think the gap is that large since even crafted gear is just about as good as PvP gear. Most players don't even try to farm PvP gear and use crafted/raid drop gear instead.
In order to get the higher quality Abyss Gear you need to participate in Castle Sieges in order to get Gold Badges. Both Abyss POints and Badges are requiered for the best PvP Gear.