Do I suck more now than before?
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Is shit getting harder ? Have multiple kobolds always sent down beams of negative energy and fireballs in the Cave Quest? Is it possible to get past level six anymore? Has the XP penalty always been 40%? Like " oh you died, dump two levels "
No idea. None at all.
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It might have been 30% before. Remember, after you get past Lv9, you tend to wait for raises rather than respawns.
I've gotten to Lv9 on Valor. I haven't managed to climb back up yet, but that's because I'm frontlining without spells usually.
You also don't have the BS gear that a PDK is probably given. I know my survivability tanked when I joined the Dragons since I lost some AC.
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Yeah. I was pretty stacked on gear.
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I've only been back a few days myself, but, relooking back at all of the changes and how things are being tweaked, yes, the server is becoming harder. Not to say that all of the quests have been buffed or changed, but, for example, fullplate is more rare now due to things like the charity chest dissapearing. This means your teammates might have a lower average AC than before, which does result in a harder time doing quests as a whole.
Recently, I had spent nearly all of my gold to buy near-mundane fullplate, the fullplate from the congress of faiths to be precise, around level 5. This means I had no gold to go out and spend on consumables, AC potions, or healing supplies. I'm bad at my money management.
But because things like high quality armor is more rare, you have to spend more on consumables, which means lower base ac, which means things are inadvertently harder.
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People often make the mistake of trying to get Full Plate ASAP.
Say you spent 2000gp on that full plate. That is 8 AC.
If you stayed with a mundane half plate for 7 AC, and spent 2000gp on Shields and Barkskin, you could have 28 Shielding potions and 15 Barkskin Potions. That means you would have 13 AC over 8 AC. The Full Plate you would eventually find, sooner or later.Potions are king. Full plate is not.
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CoA's mechanics are something that are fairly unforgiving. Quests are designed with the intent that you have barkskin and shield buffs up -at minimum- at all times. Haste, stoneskin, bulllstrength, and displacement are also very critical. If you are not doing this, it is because you are a ranged character. The difference between adding 7 AC and 50% conceal is impressive. With a haste, that is 11 AC, and with stoneskin, that is 10 DR. Finally, using potions to make up for character weakness. If your will save sucks, you need clarity or protection from alignment potions. If your HP sucks, you need endurance up all the time. (Part of the reason I tend to build my PvE P.Cs with at least 14 con, and toughness is to minimize risk.)
The reason my characters are able to regularly pass level 10, and do not die often is because I use buffs like water, and always make sure to have enough gold to purchase more. I try to never to get into a situation where not having these buffs will get me killed. I've observed other players known for their mechanical efficiency (Lannister, FearMoho Citizen Bane, Applefritos and Dobby come to mind.) do the same.
As a cleric, when I see a frontline P.C that isn't spamming AC and damage buffs, I am far less inclined to heal them because they will probably die eventually anyway. The damage from most encounters will exceed my ability to heal (which also costs me gold, and CoA is very much a server that is does not pool gold for the healer's wands, so out of strict self interest, I often have to conserve.)
I'm fairly new to CoA, but I am not new to the concept of 'hardcore RPG servers.' I used to play diablo on hardcore mode, back when it was out, and other such games. The honest thing you need to look at People is figuring out ways to minimize your risk through buff management. Then you'll find leveling a far easier prospect because it's simply a matter of not dying. I can offer advice, and I know some of the names I mentioned are probably even better at offering advice on this then I am.
Stil my advice is from the perspective of effectively the main tank cleric of the server for the last 3 months. In that time, I have died perhaps three, or four times in the highest risk position in a party. It comes down to risk management and reducing the chances of the dice killing you.
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Dagon's pretty much spot on. It takes some time, but you will learn how to survive eventually.
Given that there is a respectable number of high level PCs out there, it clearly isn't impossible or even that hard if you know what you're doing.
Or, you could come up with such an amazing idea IG and get the server so invested in you, I will just drop levels on you like peanuts. Players can vouch for the veracity of that statement.
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Polaris pretty much covered it and do not worry about understanding mechanics, I have never quite understood it all but the potion/buff thing I learned quickly through dagon's tips and I too spent most of my PC life above lvl 10. It isn't impossible, you need to consider where you invest your gold, who your allies are and compare notes with others and you will do really well.
Now you don't have to worship mechanics to get levels and stuff, indeed DM are keen to invest into story tellers like no tomorrow if they are doing fun stuff!
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Getting to 8 not to tricky. Since exploration exp tends to be rather rewarding pre 8. If your dying a lot, you just likely need to learn better tactics.
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Choose your battles (don't tank when you can flank, use doorways, use invis pot etc)
Know your party (Are you the only tank among squishies? Nope.)
Barkskin and shield minimum (cheaper than healing)
Be awesome (get free levels)
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The short answer to the topic question is: Probably. But the good thing about sucking is, once you realise you suck, you can get some practise and that will make you not suck, just keep a positive 'can learn' attitude. A fun idea would be to find someone ingame who's got things down, and have them teach you in character. It's actually alot easier to pick things up if someone explains it to you while you watch them do it than to just read through a bullet list. I'd offer to do it but that might be awkward ICly…
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Seek Cat IG >.<
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XP loss for a respawn has always been 40%.
You just got unlucky though the spells you got hit with would have been blocked by a blur potion
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I do have a bubch of gold sand-bagged. i suppose it does not do anythibg if I dont spend it!
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Unspent gold is a health hazard. Not only do you not have the buffs you're supposed to have spent it on, but also people will rob you.
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I'm glad to hear CoA is getting harder personally, it was that way for quite a long time. Level 10 wasn't supposed to be an easy thing to accomplish and death was painful. Doing a quest you've done 100 times and getting an adrenline rush from knowing that you might die was real back in the day
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They actually implemented an XP nerf which makes it a lot harder to level up beyond level 7. But no one should really need to repeat quests they've done hundreds of times beyond level 6 or so, there's probably like 70 quests you're eligible for on the server at level 6-7 range. That said, level 10s are meant to be epic characters that are either famous for their heroic deeds or infamous for their vile villainy.
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I was able to go from barely 8 to getting 9 in a handful of different quests in various ranges over a couple of days, along with a bit of DM xp, so quest spamming is definatley not a requirement, The true and tried trick to good XP gain is to stop repeating the same quests you're at the high end cap of. If you're lvl 6, try aiming for 4-8 quests and 5-9 quests. They'll be alittle tougher, but the XP will be alot better.