Instances are an Alts Best Friend
stargrace 
Having spent very little time in any instances that went live with Sentinel’s Fate, I was excited to join up for four of them yesterday. We started with the two that I have already been to, the Erudian Library, and the Research Halls. Afterward we decided to head to the Vasty Deep zones, Conservatory was our first mark, and then Labs. Unfortunately labs is still currently broken, one of the named refuses to spawn and it’s required in order to reach the final named, but it was still quite fun.
One thing I really love about running these instances is that it’s an alts dream come true. Pretty much every piece of scout related gear that dropped was an upgrade for my troubador – specifically because SOE changed us from being int / str based bards to agi which is a stat I have never focused on. It was very nice to be able to replace a great deal of my int / caster based gear for agi, and I also managed to inch my way closer to getting UT which is the only thing anyone ever seems to want from a troubador. Since this is my alt (and one of many) I admit that I’ve neglected her achievements quite severely, but I’m about 6 away from picking it up thanks to the plethora of quests available in Vasty Deep.
When I wasn’t running instances, I dove back into battlegrounds. It’s getting to the point now where people are gearing themselves up with ‘toughness’ gear which is mitigation / critical mitigation for PvP. In other words it means it makes them harder to hit. I don’t like where this is going, because eventually for anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor, you’re going to have to face a large number of loses until you can save up enough tokens to also gear yourself out with that critical mitigation gear.
I also really wish the numbers meant something. When the game ends you see a screen pop up with number of death blows and healing done etc. I wish there was a (even small would be alright) coin number associated with the locations on that list, so if you topped the killing blows and damage dealt list, you would receive some coin for your troubles. Since Battlegrounds can prove to be an effective method of leveling from 80-90 and also even grant achievement experience, I think that awarding a coin value to doing well in them would be great and then you wouldn’t feel obligated to go quest in order to earn money.
As it is now those stats are for nothing but bragging rights, since you earn 1 token for losing, and 3 for winning. There’s nothing else to be gained.
In the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying their game of choice, and I’ll see you in Norrath!
