When to Quest

[Eustace the Monk]

Good afternoon all,
I have finally made it to lv 26 (in no real position to say "you should do it this way")and am I glad I waited for many of the quests until I leveled through combat. The teleport and weapons quests, I did early, for good and obvious reasons. The Pearl Quests, on the other hand, should be saved for later in your leveling for multiple reasons. While you are early in levels, kill, kill, kill. This will allow the most rep paid for the easiest enemies. Once you reach lv 25+ and have to go kill stumps to get 100 rep per enemy, you will regret not having the quests to gain your quick 100 to get Gibbs a drink.

The way I see it, whether you're level 2.5 or level 25, you get paid the same amount of rep for the quests. Save them for when you'd rather take 12 seconds to dig a hole, versus 3 minutes to kill a lv35 stump. The other reason to wait for the Pearl Quests is this: It is not finished yet. (It is now available, so this part is a little out of date) What are you rushing for, relax, take your time, let others finish first, so they can help you find that burried chest in the Queen's Den.

One other tip to help with the length of some of the quests (Besides having friends or guildmates hang out in the spots so you can teleport to them) is to cheat the smuggling. Of all the times you need to smuggle back and forth to Port Royal, just teleport there, board your ship, drop anchor, and teleport back. It saves the long trip that is filled with the distraction of enemy ships, waiting to be plucked off.

Any objections or counters to this theory are welcomed and anticipated. Enjoy.

[Davy]

I love this idea. I did this on my character, and I love it.

[ohhmyylantaa]

I definitely agree with you. I restarted a new pirate because of this reason.

I'm not doing it as drastically as you, however, because I get bored quickly when plundering/killing enemies alone. So, whenever I'm on and the guild's not (which isn't too often) I work on my quests. When they're on, usually we all go sailing/leveling up together. And usually I save my "sink 12 Navy ships" kind of quests for those times. (BAAAD sailor right here :])

[Davy]

ohhmyylantaa, I am very similar to you. Except, when I was notoriety 34 and only 68% done with the Black Pearl quest, I decided to dedicate all my time to questing. Now, 3 days later, I am 95% done with the Black Pearl quest.

[Angel]

LOL, with Angel I rushed through my questing. Big mistake. Hunter on the other hand did nothing but lvling up all her weaponry. Everything is 15 with Nades at 16 and sailing and cannons at 20+ (What can I say, we love sailing!). It made questing so much easier. Plus gettin the staff was so much faster! My 3rd pirate, I dont know yet, goin back and forth lol.

[Rugs00]

I did this with my character as well. I was around level 27 when I started the Black Peral Quest in earnest.

[ohhmyylantaa]

Yeah, it's quite nice to learn from others mistakes before you start, haha. But yeah, only level 20 and I'm maybe 48% done or something. Hopefully I'll pace myself well enough to hit notoriety 40 right as I need to do the Black Pearl Boss Battle. (Hopefully I can pace myself slowly enough to not have to wait either, but haha, I'm not sure anyone can go that slow ;D)

[Angel]

**** tell me about it! It takes so long once you get up there to lvl. I've had Angel on 38 for hte longest time. Then again I get real bored hackin away at the wood all the time.

[Chris]

yes my first pirate i did the quest to fast (and now im paying in time ) my second pirate is noto 10 and he hasnt even done the first tast to go see jack sparrow LOL

[Samantha Wildhound]

i do not enjoy the quests either, and am at 1% (only did a few in the hopes itd somehow add the grenade quest by completing the ones i had already)

i satrted about 2 weeks ago, and am level 29,
all weapons at 20, with the exceptions of grenades and sailing, first of which i dont have, just been leveling while my friends have been questing, and we started out evenly, but now i am almost 10 levels ahead of them (been fighting gypsies mainly for a good 400 rep or so per.) and the sailing..im not fond of right now because i have no friends list, so ill wait till im farther along to work on it,

so right now trying to level my weapons some more to hit 30 (would be so much EASIER if i had grenades, disney) and pray i get the staff quest, or im outta luck on 2 weapons to use for rep gaining.

so i guess its besically the grasshopper n the ant sorta thing. they visit me and tell me im being boring and leave to go sail or quest..while i stay and earn alot of rep, so in the long run its backfiring on them to go the "easy rep" route.

my other character has 80% done, and i dont intend to finish because i wont get no rep, and i heard john smith is the worst. plus im in no big hurry for the boss battle, so i dont even log in on it no more.

[Twisted]

I guess I made the big mistake on finishing the pearl too fast. But, I am having alot of fun levelling up weapons now. I finished it at level 25, and I am now 34, halfway to 35 just levelling stuff. Still haven't mastered anything, but the doll will be soon as well as cannon. One thing I really hate is sailing, that is soooo boring to me. So in turn, I am lvl 10 sailing, maybe 11 I havent looked...

I guess to each his/her own. I don't mind the level grind. And I am not so upset the boss battle is not available, because when I started playing this game 2.5 months ago it wasn't anyway! lol

So to all you guys/girls that made the same mistake I did, I say just have some fun with your friends and enjoy what ya can if you don't feel like starting another pirate.

[Steely Jim]

I've been sticking with my original plan, which is essentially to keep my skill levels, my overall notoriety, and my quest completion percentage all at around the same point.

I've definitely been the weakest at keeping all my skills in range, but I was pretty near an average of 12.5 in skills, at 20 notoriety, with about 50% of the Black Pearl quest complete.

I assume that Disney assumes I'll be somewhere between 35-40 when I complete the quest, probably around 38. I plan to keep the same overall development trajectory through to the end.

Admittedly, applying skill points does seem to slow things down even more; however, even if I were to get down to only +5 or +6 rep from any particular kill, I'd still only have to grind a few thousand mobs to get the highest possible levels. To me, a few thousand mobs don't amount to much work because I'm comparing it to experiences in other games.

For instance, I killed 25,000 of a particular mob (in another MMO) because it dropped a piece of treasure I was looking for; I never did get that specific treasure, and I only stopped counting after 25,000 because beyond that number was always going to be excessive in my opinion. Still, that's just one relatively weak type of mob out of hundreds. My character is maxed out for hand-to-hand combat now, but those 25,000 mobs barely moved me through the some of the lower intermediate combat levels. If I looked at my totals, then I have killed hundreds of thousands of mobs.

So, I definitely agree that questing too fast does make it a slower to move ahead, and it does increase the level of grind; however, even in a worst case scenario, this game still requires far less grinding than what I've had to go through before. I don't think that makes grinding any more fun for me than anyone else, but I'm also not particularly daunted by the upper end potential for grinding in this game.

[Bilgepump]

My first pirate was before I upgraded. I messed up his skills bad, since I could only put 2 points into each skill, and wound up putting 2 points wherever they would go.

My second pirate, I did the skills much better, but I also did the Black Pearl quest. No big deal, I had fun, but I finished at level 27 or so. He's now 29, and his weapon skills are all around 15ish, except grenades (9) and cannon (22) (what can I say, I like cannons).

Then I created that leprechaun for the screenshot contest, and since I had to play him a bit to be able to dye his hair green, I kept on playing. He still has the initial "Visit Joshamee Gibbs" in the journal. He just hit 9, and just finished getting his dolly and the Tortuga TP quests. His weapons are all at 6. I think I was significantly higher with the other two when I finished those, all because of the BP quests.

Not sure if I want to keep playing him or go back to the second one. Maybe play the second one until I get word that they fixed the level-triggered quests. It's FUN playing the lower levels when you have a better idea what you're doing.

[Eustace the Monk]

Just a quick Bump, since it is about to drop to the next page and I keep seeing questions about this.

Loot Hard!

[Eustace the Monk]

OK, so my PvPer is now L13 and has yet to set foot on Tortuga. I may have to complete the very first part of the Pearl Quest, so i don't have to keep seeing the "Go to Tortuga and visit Jack Sparrow" box whenever he logs in. After that, I am only grinding weapons.

It's fun to take down someone 5 levels your senior in PvP and have them ask "wait wait wut lvl is ur cutls?", and watch them gasp when you explain that your cuttlass is L15 with 5 dots on Flourish and 5 dots on Parry, and pistol is L11 with 5 dots on Hex and 5 dots on Bane when you are only a pitiful L13. It's also fun to see L18s hesitating before attacking the L18 Grunts at Ft. Charles and this little L13 runs in without giving it a second thought, wiping out the Grunt before the L18 even has time to attune it.

So, if you are wanting to PvP one of your pirates, definately save the quests for last and give your opponents something to think about the next time they underestimate a lower level opponent.

Loot Hard!