Hard Mode Madness (or Hardcore Leveling)

Hi, and welcome.
If you are reading this, I will assume you're interested in the Hardcore leveling-sessions we've been planning (which from this point on will be referenced to as HMM, short for Hard Mode Madness).

This post will work as a scource of information, rules and a hub of communication between the participants of the event.

To explain it in simple terms; the HMM-event will be a test of player skill and an exercise of teamwork.
You, along with your teammates have a goal: To level a character from level 20-80 with nothing but the funds you earn through leveling and the gear you purchase from merchants or acquire as loot.

The HMM-event will require you to play a character of any race and class (which you will then need to specify in the comments below) from 20-80. You are yourself responsible of getting your character to level 20 and you can do it any way you please, be it by using an XP-scroll (for instant lvl20) or crafting

If you decide on crafting, cooking and artificing are a great way of getting to lvl 20 in under and hour and it'll only cost you 5-10g.:

. From level 20, we will be moving together, sometime all participants, other times in smaller groups and explore the lovely country-side of Tyria - from Kryta to Orr. We will aim to have 100% world completion by the end of the HMM-event.


To make this sort of a semi-regular thing, I thought it'd be nice to have one set day a week where we all meet up at a certain time and do HMM. This is something we'll figure out through the comments.

Once you reach level 20, you are allowed to transfer 1G, and only 1G from your main-character to buy lvl 20 gear. This will be the only gear you are allowed to buy from the Black Lion Trading Company.

At level 20, we will meet up at a designated "Rally Point" - this will work as our "Legion's" base.

To prevent that someone gets left behind or outleveled, we've decided to instate a minimum and maximum-member limit.
I cannot HMM if there are less than 5 participants at a time. The maximum capacity will be set once we know how many total participants there will be.

I have been toying with the idea of excluding waypoints from the whole proccess, forcing us to walk, run and utilize our class skills to speed it up. Alternately waypoints will only be allowed either TO the Legion Base FROM another waypoint (as in you have to stand next to a waypoint to use it) and back to the last used waypoint.
(This point may be subject to change)
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The Rules:

- You are not allowed to speed-level or grind from lvl 20 to lvl 80.
(You can speed-level to 20, but from there on out leveling will be done through map completion, events and STORY-mode dungeons)

- You are not allowed to buy gear from the BLTC, nor are you allowed to transfer items from your other characters (Skins are allowed though.)

- You are not allowed to solo-level, all HMM-leveling will be done with your teammates.

- You are only allowed to use the standard bag-slots, e.g you cannot buy more bag-slots with gems. At level 20 you can ONLY use 5-slot bags, but every 10 levels we will upgrade bags.

- You are allowed to trade gear amongst your teammates, or buy them off karma-merchants (for karma you earn from events) and regular merchants.

- You are only allowed to do Story-mode dungeons, and only once per path. This rule is to prevent grinding dungeons.

- EXP-boosters are not allowed.

- Once the group has met up at the rally point, there will be NO USE OF WAYPOINTS.

More rules may be added later.
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Use the comment sections to let me know what class and race you'll be playing and what your character name is.

Also, if you have any questions feel free to post in the comments.

The date for the first HMM-event will be set very soon.

GODSPEED, MY MINIONS.

-Shehr, aka Spongey

Character name: Shehr Mechanus
Class: Engineer
Race: Human

Character name: Mini Trathy Trathie
Class: Mesmer Guardian
Race: Asura Charr

..What about your personal story? Are you allowed to do that alone, or must it be in group, or not at all?

Personal story is not allowed from 20-80. It would be too complicated to synchronize with groups and several people all having personal story quests. It would also be too easy to level by doing them.

alright then. finally i got shehr to post this topic. and as officer/leader of FUN i approve of this

not that fond of the idea to not use waypoints. walking works and saves us a good amount of gold in the long run. but walking also means that were not leveling. in the beginning i did the same thing, walking everywhere i could, but afterwards it gets boring and some classes dont have speed boosts available to them. suggest that we can use waypoints that we ALL agree upon using. this still cuts down on money spent and makes traveling simpler.

love the idea of having a base of operations. curious to see which location this will be. please make it something epic and worthy of our greatness

what about bags that you craft yourself that have like 8 slots in them? are those allowed?

sign me up for this any time.
Character name: Dragon Soulshard
Class: Thief
Race: Human

still kinda debating with myself if i want to use engi or thief for this. for now im leaning towards thief.

Well just make it as hardcore as possible in my view, or else we aint doing it right
Also i wanna participate, but i have no clue what class i should take. So name me smthing i can make that works good in the group. i see a engi, mesmer, thief...so ya :p

Well, the whole waypoint thing is an extention of the "map completion". We walk places WHILE we finish maps. So once we're done with 1 map, we walk on to the next, or WP to a location where we can walk out there. To make it more "hardcore".

How about that we are only allowed to use waypoints when all waypoints are cleared on a map? That way we don't have to cross a map for all the small pois and whatever that was missed, but it's still a challenge and requires us to keep leveling and clearing the map.

Can't say that I'm happy about not being able to do the personal story, it's a big part of leveling for me. How about only being able to do them some level below your own?

The waypoint thing is a good idea, but the Personal story would allow you to level too fast, and possibly get ahead of the rest. The whole point is not to do anything alone- it's a group event!
But let me think about it and see if I can find a viable solution.

Groups can join in someones personal story, so why not doing the personal story as long ur doing everyones personal story from ur group. And only the ones that are below ur level.

thats not a bad idea. I afree also that the no WP rule needs some alteration. Else its just too much of a pain. I am massively looking forward too this event btw.

Character name: Julia Aemiliana
Class: Necromancer
Race: Human obviously

^What Dana said. All I want is to have that as an option. Don't want to be level 80 and go through my level 6+ personal story. :C (And I want my level 10 key! xD)

We might have to reconsider how to work this, Shehr. Because of... the wallet.

"Keep all of your currencies in one easy-to-find location! This Wallet holds dungeon tokens, coins, karma, laurels, Guild Commendations, Fractal Relics, Badges of Honor, gems, and glory and makes them accessible to any character on your account. Upon logging in with each unique character for the first time after the Wallet has gone live, that character will have all of their currencies deposited into the account-wide collection."

"The currency wallet will not have the 250 stack limit. Currencies in the wallet will behave in the same manner that gold and karma do currently.
Correct. All currencies in the wallet will be account bound.
All of your tokens in your inventory and bank will be automatically added to your wallet after the update goes live."

Don't get me wrong, the wallet is awesome, but uh... it might have to be worked around. Any ideas, theories?

about the personal story. if you did everyone's personal story if only the first few parts then its possible to level really fast without ever really seeing the world so to speak. i have no problem with not doing personal story at all. heck i have high level characters who havent even touched it. currently i dont see a way to do them without leveling too fast. especially since some of them our simple "talk to this person" quests which take about 2 minutes.

and i'm sorry trath but why would the personal wallet be a problem exactly?

Character name: X Tripz X
Class: Warrior
Race: Norn

wallet:
You are allowed to trade gear amongst your teammates, or buy them off karma-merchants (for karma you earn from events) and regular merchants

all your karma is in 1 place, your gold is in 1 place. Hard to keep track of what you earned on your HMM-char as we'll all keep playing our other chars too.

Btw, sign me up (if i can make it on the times required ofc)

most likely:
Nimrod Bloodblade
warrior Charr

might go for my thief, mesmer, necro, ele though.

Y Noway is right. With all that stuff in 1 place itll be hard to monitor what you earn on this charr

Name: Akhullad Warrior
Profesison: Necro

Alright ive picked smthing to work with. Dnno how it go's !!
Danogir a Sylvari Ranger

Ok, so it's decided! This sunday (11.08) will be the first day of HMM. The Legion Base is also decided, and it's the Township of Claypool (South-west in Queensdale). We'll meet at Claypool on sunday (we'll figure out when later) for a quick review of the rules and then head out into the vast unexplored countrysides of Kryta.
PS: Teamspeak is obligatory, mic is not- but it's highly encouraged!
Really excited
xoxo
Shehr

Rather got those kisses and hugs from a norwegia chick though :-D

Ps: what time to what ttime?

Mini cute cumber - guardian trying to get to 20 asap

Character name: Feye
Class: Necromancer
Race: Sylvari