Well, I'll just start this off by saying I died... a LOT. And today is only my first day in the notorious Holy lands, aka Asee-Teph! Did it take me a long time to finally ding 24? Yes... yes it did. Was it THAT bad? Nope.
Several times it was my own fault (man those League Defenders have a huuge aggro radius, I got hit for 87k by one before I even saw him on my screen) for running around with my flag up ;) but it was good fun and I racked up about 50 combat glory without actually seeking pvp. A guildie and I literally died 6+ times within maybe 15 minutes because a huge group of League were waiting right outside for us. FoD at this level is still almost negligible, and running back for me was fairly easy due to psi speed buff + how close most spawn points are. I didn't die very often when my flag was down though, but one should always keep a wary eye out in case that unflagged dude near you decides to pop a war banner.
When things got bad I just ran off to a fairly isolated area, turned on my flag for extra xp, and grinded about 25% of the level. Time of day seems to affect how often you'll run into the other (and your own) faction, so I will probably be making most of tomorrow's questing progress early morning, and finishing up with grinding in the evening. Seeing as how Asee-Teph quest taper off at level 27, I'm sure I can survive another 3 levels of this, even if it takes longer than usual.
Things I'm most looking forward to in the v6 patch:
- Flag will be lowered upon entering purg
- Shortcut to respond to whispers
- Flag will no longer be refreshed due to certain self buffs (watching my timer go down to 1min + refreshing rapid metabolism = ffff)
- Empire incense daily will be fixed! Yay!
Not going to comment on the endless debate about ganking ruining the game until I'm out of Asee-Teph.
As of this entry, I'm only 80% away from dinging 40. I'm not too fond of Dragon Ring, after dodging 2 geared 40s with warbanners pat...
I'll keep an eye out for you tomorrow :)
I'm looking forward to some of the issues with flagging being fixed, especially the self-cast refresh problem.
Most my quests are up north now, so I'll be heading into league territory... 8D