So, how is Pagos?

[InkstainedGwyn]

It's a shame this game has pretty much nothing like that at all. I was sitting idle staring at the world the other day and couldn't help but see that there was nothing there. Just a very large, empty map.

I've thought about that quite a bit, I think it comes down to "competition" - the only real competition you have in this game is for loot, housing, & in PVP. Maybe hunts, but even those are on a predictable timer - and as long as you contribute, you get the gains. They've really gotten rid of a lot of the griefing in the game by removing anything that you could fight another character over. There's no racing each other to the khorium node that just spawned or the rare mob that spawns on an erratic timer and only gives loot to the first person to tag it.

It's unfortunately a sad trade for a more peaceful situation - I remember vanilla wow, BC days, and the playerbase was one of the reasons I quit. Not all of that was because of competition, of course, and we still have unpleasant people here, but you're not going to have someone screaming obscenities at you because you got to a treasure chest before they did. Of course, I'm good with my blacklist, so I don't know if it's a choice I would have made - I really do love those random exploring items. But I see what they were going for.

At least, though, they could give us lore nodes like SWtOR has. Those aren't competition, and it's at least some reward for exploring. Especially in, as Theodric said, a game that is known for it's lore and is incredibly story-based.

[EdwinLi]

ESO, LotRO, SWtOR... I loved collectables in Rift and EQ2, things like that. I like finding random odds-and-ends. Even back in WoW where you could find quest stuff, chests, rare mobs, that sort of thing.

Don't forget Guild Wars 2.

Yes it is a massive "Fate" fest on the maps for that game but it is a active massive "Fate" fest where people always find something to do both solo and as a group. In fact, many players tend to use the map chat very often because every event contributes towards something that all players on the map will gain from so it is not a competition to who gets what first but how can each player on the map help each other to gain exp. Not to mention daily "hearts" for players who only want to do quests daily, Hunt marks for players who want a group target boss, and Meta events for when at certain point everyone on the map will swarm to as it is a event designed for everyone on the map (both solo and group) to work together to beat.

[InkstainedGwyn]

Don't forget Guild Wars 2.

Never played it, but I've heard good things. I did enjoy GW1 quite a bit, although I never was able to complete the story because I didn't have enough people to play with. I do agree. I remember finding little things sitting around that would end up influencing your gameplay later, little bits for quests and stuff. It was a lot of fun.

I think SE could really benefit from adding little unique things to discover and enjoy. Even if they make everything server-side, like nodes are. I just miss that sort of variability.

[drgnmstr44]

my impression so far: boring as all heck once you complete the challenge log for the week. chaining doesn't seem to result in a lot of XP gain in my experience (only been in there 3 times so far) feels like when Anemos first came out. It looks like there is a lot to do but I think SE trying to combat the NM train that formed in anemos is a bad move. people have expectations that it wouldn't be this grindy. it kind of reminds me of EQ to be honest. I hope it picks up soon because it's really slow and boring. Having read we get to collect aether in a pot aka light farming, is rather silly

[udubdave]

I kinda like Pagos better than Anemos. Pagos has more of that FFXI feel to it, where you actually have to form a viable party and find a camp, and try to get chain 30. Anemos was just like join the train, go AFK, then kill NM. You can do that in Pagos too, but it's a lot less efficient than joining a chain party.

We'll see what it's like when the majority of people are level 30+ though. It might turn into another Anemos fate train.

[Nihility]

I kinda like Pagos better than Anemos. Pagos has more of that FFXI feel to it, where you actually have to form a viable party and find a camp, and try to get chain 30. Anemos was just like join the train, go AFK, then kill NM. You can do that in Pagos too, but it's a lot less efficient than joining a chain party.

We'll see what it's like when the majority of people are level 30+ though. It might turn into another Anemos fate train.

They put so many walls in the way to make that way harder than you may think.
You don't get a mount or access to the upper warps until very high level so everyone is slow
They put tons of chokes all over the map guarded by level 40 dragons that just slaughter people trying to run by. Good luck trying to get a giant herd of people in a rush for free exp to tiptoe
The spawn rates are abysmal, watched a group killing worms nearby so fast they were waiting for worms and it still took over an hour for the pop
You really don't need much pagos crystals at all(unless the 35 upgrade is something silly). Not much incentive to go back and farm any of the lower level stuff

and finally they made it so anything that doesn't count towards an NM spawn is drastically more valuable to farm since they randomly just gift you with the 200% bonus exp on top of chain bonus

Just feels like the sheer amount of roadblocks they put in place will make that road pretty useless.

Seems to me the far more likely situation will be a large chunk of people getting their two levels from challenge logs and any NM that just happen to be around at the time then waiting for the next week. I mean the final reward for this part of eureka is basically just a glamour placeholder after all and that method should only take 6-7 weeks of minimal effort

[Deceptus]

They put so many walls in the way to make that way harder than you may think.

You don't get a mount or access to the upper warps until very high level so everyone is slow

They put tons of chokes all over the map guarded by level 40 dragons that just slaughter people trying to run by.

The spawn rates are abysmal,

and finally they made it so anything that doesn't count towards an NM spawn is drastically more valuable to farm since they randomly just gift you with the 200% bonus exp on top of chain bonus

Just feels like the sheer amount of roadblocks they put in place will make that road pretty useless.

This is probably the best write up I've seen of Pagos. They Dev team made specific decisions to make the content harder and worse.

WHY?!

[XiXiQ]

after a few days going in and out a few times over the past few days, I have to say I've not got a brass razoo out of this content. Never seen an NM spawn. never seen a crystal drop, despite chaining to 30 both in groups and solo. Never seen a lockbox, never got a bunny, no magicite yet, no experience to speak of (I got to level 21+, but that was achieved in amemos, not pagos). The challenge log only gets you so far, then nothing for the rest of the week. Moving around the area solo and exploring just gets you dead and risks a huge penalty. This is a brick wall I'm tired of banging my head against.

[Deceptus]

Pagos suffers the same fate as Anemos does. It is boring as hell at the beginning. That's bad game design.

[Darkplanet]

I was one of those people who really liked anemos, and I mean there are neat things about pagos. The most fun vie had with it was adventuring into high level areas with 3 people dodging enemies. it was like we were on an actual adventure and it was quite nice honestly. The bunny thing is kinda cool, its pretty. But honestly I got burned out nearly immediately... like I'm gonna get to 35 and get my relics cause relics are what I do but man its a struggle. they made it so chain killing gives you more exp and it works but like its also just makes it really difficult to work? like I have yet to find a group that can dps the enemies fast enough, so its like you need to kill higher lvl mobs for good exp but it takes too long to kill them so your chain fails half way thro 90% of the time, so its like weird? also major issues with other people stealing your mobs if its crowded, there's like a flip ton of mobs around so this doesn't happen but it still does. idk just bizarre and I think unbalanced in a lot of ways. the NM train is half dead but still a thing, nm's don't give as much exp, and take flipping forever to spawn, like does anyone else think it is taking longer? The challenge log was good for literally one day. My number one suggestion is make the challenge log daily or every few days reset. So you would then have 3 different ways to level, and all of them intersect in some way, once a week is fairly useless for people who are spending hours and hours daily. Also its frustrating cause I feel like I'm spending hours and hours but people are just flying ahead of me in levels, maybe I'm not doing it right idk.

so in all its just painful so far, maybe things will change by next week but right now I'm having a hard time feeling the urge to struggle thro it, and like I said I thought anemos turned out pretty good! its just pagos is tweaked weird and it feels off imo.