Tool_of_Society

I've been running a 9 man alt group 24/7 for a long time now because my mains cannot afford shots let alone gear upgrades. The alt accounts had a mix of VIP 1-3.

Sounds like you were popping XP scrolls as you leveled up. That will set you pretty far back on SP and all you can do is just keep grinding for more SP. I litterly had a character in it's 70s that was still using level 50s skills because of that.

Oh god please tell me they aren't intending to introduce a NCstore item called sear's stone which allows you to see the debuffs/buffs of your target??? It's bad enough that I can't tell what character I'm playing without moving it out of the pile of people....

Oh I refuse to spend a dime on this game now. It's clear NcSoft Korea doesn't care about the classic experience and are only interested in sucking as much money out of us as possible while turning the game into another sh***y mobile game...

Of course it was intended /eyeroll. Ncsoft korea is trying to turn this game into a mobile game so they can make big money and to do that they need to dumb it down and apparently remove as much content as possible. I had already taken to boycotting all new ncsoft games after Aion and I only came back because Classic was pitched as a throwback to the golden days. Now classic is quickly becoming a poor attempt at Lineage 2 on mobile. If that's the end goal then please let us know so I can stop wasting my time on this. If this is the direction the developers want to go then they can kiss NA goodbye ("DO YOU GUYS NOT HAVE PHONES?!?!"). Sure they'll make bank off mobile games in Asia but they'll find it hard to grow beyond that. Not that it matters to them as most of Ncsoft's income is now from the asian mobile market. NcSoft being the short sighted company it's always been will throw it all in on that market. I might even be around to see how this bites ncsoft in the ass like their prior short sighted decisions.. I say might be as I'm quickly losing what's left of my patience for this game and the company. EDIT :DID they at least give any kind of hint as to what "reasoning" the devs are using to remove such an important thing as being able to see if your debuffs landed or not? I would LOVE to know how they decided it was a good idea.

Yeah Olympiad basically became non existent to me once they announced the time. Siege on my server is also at a bad time. Since the RBs are bugged/impossible or being heavily farmed by the same PKers I have litterly nothing in game to engage me outside of killing one RB in clan arena each week.... So my "gameplay" is to check my two parties and my two vend accounts. If the vendors need something to vend set them to vend and then go play a real game that has fun interactive elements. Occasionally I'll grab junk off the parties and then admire the growing stacks of useless items in the vendor's warehouses. Just prior to the last "update" I sold almost 200k stems alone to the NPC because I simply was unable to sell them prior. I ended up selling about 200m in ori ore and more to the NPC simply because I had built up piles and it was "now or never".

Interesting. I recently made an alt group on my main accounts because I needed some more clan reputation to get the +15% clan xp passive (I have a clan for myself now that everyone quit). I rolled through ROA the other day and experienced no problems. This is my oldest original account and it was part of that group and I'm not banned. I found a spot near the entrance so I didn't get a chance to check out the bot situation. Last time I was there at least one of the botters were using C grade weapons that were raid drops... Too bad blood crystals are silly hard to get or I would of just gotten some regular clan skills instead..

Well at least I can block the gold spammers now on my vender accounts..

Well clearly ncsoft wants players to make even less adena than ever. They tried when classic first started by giving us a fractional rate of adena per drop AND a fractional drop rate compared to other classic servers. The rebellion lead to that being mostly "fixed" but not fully. In the latest "update" we saw NcSofts newest approach to nerfing adena income. Meanwhile gold sellers are spamming the same prices to me every day as I can't easily block them anymore thanks to the latest "update". So either those are scammers or their supply of adena hasn't been noticeably affected at all... It's really annoying that I have to run a lower level 9 man party with no shots so I can afford to use some shots in my 9 man 8x party. At the current rate I'm probably never going to have any A grade items as the cost is just too outrageous for me. Which is super fun considering how hard the monsters are at that level.....

Boy that's interesting as I've ran a 9 man group AND a 3 man group through ROA in the last month. Left them running over night because I was low on time and I wanted to get the quest done. Since there are bots everywhere the quest can take quite a lot longer than it should. I'm about to run another 9 man through there for a test group. You probably got caught up in some security related system. I wonder what the parameters are for that as I've not run into that issue so far.

I would imagine you're not experiencing any d/c issues because the post was 2.5 months ago when the serves themselves were having problems. The datacenter hosting the servers are a few hours drive away from where I live. The only thing I do anymore is looping. Everyone I did things with in game have quit so I don't even raid anymore...

Yeah that was one of many things the last "update" broke.... You have to teleport to monster track and talk to Leo..

I have a fortune seeker in my 8x party and a "bounty hunter" in my lower level party and they aren't worth having. They were kind of worth it before because I could at least sell the junk they spoil to the NPCs. Some of the stuff they spoil I can still sell to players for a fraction of what I got before but the majority of the stuff they spoil just goes into the warehouse of one of my vend accounts. You're far better off getting a real DPS that can contribute something to the party. Even with armor crush the fortune seeker is meh DPS compared to the rest of my party...

Yes it's removed.

Do you play Overlord? Do you see how tiny the CP bars are and how annoying that is in clan PVP? Do you play more than one client at a time? Do you see how they removed the ability to quickly see the name of the character in the game client? Now you have to look at the skills or move the character to figure out what character's client you're on. Do you see the complete lack of debuff information on the target window? Do you enjoy having to find the four pixel wide area you have to click drag to move the autohunt window? Do you have to now deal with the game client resetting the position of the UI elements every time you log in? I do (across 7 machines). Hell the character select screen has been broken for me since my first log in. Do you like having the ability to click quickly to the action menu? I do and now I have to go through other menus to find it. Ditto for the quest quick link they removed. Do you like being forced to have system information displayed in one of the few chat windows you have? I don't want that crap in my chat windows I want it in the system window so it doesn't spam important messages off screen. That change is aggravated by the developers removing the ability to right click to block/report the spammers. I also love how this version of the UI will randomly turn on/off auto hunt just by swapping clients. Autohunt can get really persistent with using one specific macro no matter how many times you turn that macro off and right click the one you want it to use. Did you like having five hotkey bars? I did and now I don't have them.. It goes on but that's the major points of my dislike of this mobile/phone style UI. Here's my character select screen. https://i.imgur.com/mrHX6tP.jpg If you're wondering it's broken even when run at full screen up to 4k.

The server is perfectly stable. It's either your internet provider or someone between your internet provider and the game server. Sounds like there's some packet loss going on which is why things get worse when you run more than one client. I live a few hours south of the datacenter housing the servers and the last time I had a D/C in game was a long time ago.

They removed quite a bit of content from the classic era. Pets and the related quests are gone (the flute you were talking about?). Manor system and related quests are gone too. Leveling areas removed or nerfed into oblivion.. It's a shell of what classic was. But hey we got a new UI that is less useful and less effective as a UI but it's NEWWWWW...

Autohunt can be very finicky in this game. I've had clients where autohunt will cycle off/on just by clicking on to the client (left or right) either in the window itself or the icon on the task bar. I've had autohunt straight up turn itself off even when I didn't click on the actual client. My theory on that is that when two game clients overlap sometimes clicks will go through the top game client into the game client stacked below (seen this many times prior to autohunt) which then causes autohunt to turn off. Along with that issue sometimes one or two game clients will insist on turning off the macro loop when autohunt is turned on or autohunt itself will insist on turning on a specific macro when used. You can even remove all macros from your hotkeys and autohunt will still use the macro it wants to use. When that happens I have to right click to disable the autohunt chosen macro then right click the one I want for it to work properly. It can be quite "fun" to try to stop my party when everytime I change a client the last client turns autohunt on or the newly swapped to client turns it on for no discernible reason. A nuisance for sure but nothing compared to the problems the game is facing right now so I haven't bothered to write a post complaining about it. I'd much rather they get things like debuffs showing properly or right click to block spammer in first.

OR you can just right click teh macro after you click auto hunt.

Mages are great until they hit their 40s and they suddenly require an army of rechargers following them to do anything. Summoners don't have that problem as they can transition to melee dps in the high 40s or sooner (and their mp pet keeps leveling up so you can keep nuking if you want). ES can nuke to the 70s pretty well since summoners get higher levels of the basic nuke (aqua swirl etc). HK seems to do fine dps in PVE with their pet. ST does similar damage but has HEX and lightening bolt which pushes it ahead in PVE. ET is outright slow due to it's focus on defense over offense so the DPS is pretty abysmal. Daggers seem pretty meh in this version of the game. I only have limited experience with daggers in this version so I cannot really comment beyond that. Giran used to be better for a newbie than TI because giran USED to have a market for d and C grade. Now post latest patch the vestiges of that market died for good. B grade is decently available depending on the items. GIran's crafting market is still better than TI but that's not saying much as it's still pretty much non existent. If you plan to AFK at all you'll want to add a WC to your group. You will need buffs but you will also need heals as you level up so having a WC to buff while the PP heals would be super helpful. Depending on where you're leveling you can set the wc to autohunt with buffs on a delayed repeating macro and have the dps assist the WC while the PP follows and heals.

Juji works at NcWest which seems to have no developers and is responsible for Lineage 2 NA. The people doing the actual developing for this game are in Korea and they work for NcSoft the parent company of NcWest. So all Juji and NcWest can do is ask the developers in Korea to make changes for them. Unfortunately for us Korea's classic server is much older than ours and apparently has vastly different situations going on with the playerbase. EDIT : TI is a bit ahead on levels as giran just now has two 85s. "Hitting the level cap" isn't really possible either as there is no cap.

Oh look the craptastic UI reset all the positions on ALL my machines for no apparent reason... At least I don't have to redo all the chat windows again.. I love how the autohunt window has a tiny couple pixel wide spot for people to click drag it...

After 40 you stop getting quests and other useful stuff. At that point your choice is Cruma tower or an open field. With autohunt it's hard telling where you'll end up either way. In an open field you could end up spending hours stuck on a tree or in the wrong zone. I'm not even sure what kind of options you have as the auto hunt functionality was changed since my last group rolled through that level range. If you need to anchor in one spot you're going to need a target director which could be a healer who also casts group heal. Whatever ends up the director just stands there with /next target on repeat with some variations in delays and what not depending on your group setup and what you choose as the director. EM in theory could be a director by using it's pet to attack and /delay. If you use the short ranged next target you could even use aqua swirl on it (since targets will be guaranteed within range). More likely though you'll be forced to use a heal of some kind on/for your pet. EMs do pretty decent backup healing. The WC would have the choice to stand around and only buff or not buff and assist off the director to kill. It's less than optimal but still works. Things can hit pretty hard in Cruma so without a tank it'll be slow going. One of the macro parties I tried had a BH 3x ES 2x healers 1x wc 1x sws 1x bd. It did decently as long as I had the SWS pretending to be a tank. The dwarf even in full plate wasn't tanking the damage very well. I ended up partially scrapping that party in Cruma because it struggled to stay alive. I replaced some aspects of it and rebooted the group as SK BH WK (lock) ES bish EE WC SWS BD. With a real tank the party started destroying cruma and ended up in patriots/devotion at level 55. Just a heads up but I wouldn't bother with a bounty hunter if I had to do it again as the class is basically useless now and can be replaced with one of many better DPS choices (such as a destroyer for armor crush and moar dps/off tank ability). SO in summary running an ES heavy party with no real tank did amazing up until 44ish and cruma. I didn't get it past cruma but the composition would of continued to have problems. This was prior to the autohunt change so the WC was just buffing and the SWS/BD were tossing one or two buffs while dps assisting the director. I don't think it would change much with the current settings. Just something to think about.

I've stopped buying NcCoins completely for this game. Normally I would of thrown some down for the latest "event" but there's no point as NcSoft korea doesn't care about our server. This complete disregard for the differences between this server and the Korean ones will kill the game in the NA area within a few years at best (maybe quicker). Most of my characters are now below level 3 VIP (one is still VIP 3 but it doesn't matter). I don't even care because what's the point of having a +55% drop rate when the items are basically worthless now? Seriously 55% more of 0 is still 0... It's kind of funny in a way because for over a decade I along with others who played during the original classic would complain about how our server were so far behind the korean one on updates and how we wished we'd get them sooner. Now that we don't want the updates we're getting them much sooner.... Be careful what you ask for I guess. The last friend of mine who played the game quit a couple days ago due to the latest patch. He basically said he's tired of being in an abusive relationship but if NcSoft ever pulls their head out of their posterior he would be willing to give the game another try. My clan is basically non existent now.

That question is far too open ended. I could do it by putting b grade on it and just wrecking everything at range with a BOP using a quiver. That probably isn't applicable to your situation though. They smash face pretty decently and with just the stuff your given and the 15 day duals you can do 40 pretty quickly solo. Setup a macro with your buffs with /delay (whateverseconds) and put it on the hotkey bars. Left click autohunt and then right click the buff macro. The WC will buff itself and run around killing stuff. The downside is it won't heal itself so you have to pay some attention or really overgear the content. Alright if you're serious about playing two to three characters only then you need to realize a few things. Leveling AFK without dying will be a matter of luck and the effort you put into refining your setup/location. Better xp areas tend to be tougher to successfully AFK. Unfortunately there are some level ranges in this game where you have few options for good xp. Those times will be painful until you figure something out or out level it. Actively played you can use the tools in game to make things a bit easier and advance with 2 or 3 characters. Actively played a PP would be good for your summoner although a WC is pretty good too and if you want to be lazy on buffing the WC wins If you have decent gear like knowledge D with a D or better mage weapon then an EM can level up quite quickly as a nuker. If you're not using shots then energy bolt is an efficient exchange of mp to damage. After 40 if you have money for spirit ore you can just re-summon the recharge pet anytime it's MP is low for infinite mana and spam aqua swirl FTW. I've made several rounds of EMs so far and every time nuking is just quicker especially if you're doing the newbie quests. EMs with a castor weapon can also heal pretty decently in a pinch. Having said that my last party based EM switched to melee in the 50s. Blue Wolf Light and a cursed main gauche with othell rune worked quite well. Even with a CMG it's group heal is "good enough" to help keep the party up in areas the group was under leveled for. If you go melee people tend to go dagger on the EM. I'm pretty sure eventually you WILL go melee. Most people have already leveled up a designated WC for their group so finding parties might be tough. Definitely want to be able to at least dual box with it. Part of a trio would be better. THe starter pack is pretty darned helpful for getting a start on a new server. The high grade starter pack is a very nice continuation of that. AFter that though you better be in a position to afford your own weapons and the gear you need.