DISCLAIMER: This post is highly based on personal opinions of the writer. Actual experience could vary for everyone.
Personally I find it much faster. Already 7 characters level 60 to this day I can speak. 2 by campaign 5 by Threads of Fate mode.Campaign 7 hours per character. Threaads of Fate 4 hour 39 minutes my record.I will never do the campaign again.Disadvantages of the campaign are the long dialogues during the quests.Quests need to travel to all areas.If the quest are pack, it's good. If it's not, is verry bad.Level 60 before finishing the campaign. Rest of the quests on reroll is waste of time if the goal is chosing a covenant.Advantages of Threads of Fate: Instant covenant, instant anima farm (ok it's very very low but is just for the pexing !), possible resources farming during leveling like cooking and skins. Meats. Gold and experience. Farmer also some rare during leveling like rare mounts.Me bashing mob = fastest possible way I did.Choice of leveled zones and mobs. No predefined path.World Quests with bar are much faster than quests with picking up items :DSorry for my bad english guys, I learn :p
I'd say Threads of Fate is vastly faster than the story line. The quests take slightly longer to complete, mostly the bonus one in areas. But they reward better loot and more experience and you don't have to run around as much. I reached level 52 after only moving around in about 1/4 of bastion, instead of having to run around the whole area.
I see it as being ideal if the alt class you are working, you know the Covenant you want, hands down. If you are undecided, try the campaign instead, to test as you go. Likely the only reason I would repeat it, is for getting the feel for the Covenant abilities for a class, to ensure what I am picking is both fun to use, and worthwhile.
Well a good alternative atleast for not having to do the awful maw stuff and slowlinear locked levelling.
Does this mean it is possible to level from 50 to 60 by doing world quests in just a single zone? For example, if my mage likes Bastion and wishes to stay there instead of moving on to the others, can she just level all the way to 60 in that zone?
Can I still group up with people that chose the campaign if I chose the threads of fate option?
You can continue in the story with your friends using Party Sync even if you have Threads of Fate. However, some quests are bugged if overlayed by WQ or bonus objective. It says something about lvl 55 max. Items from quests are those party sync crates 75 ilvl (disenchant giving old mats not new ones). When friend leave you loose all quests and party sync is turned off.
The questing is horrendous, but it's the worst in Bastion/Revendreth so avoid those if you level with threads of fate questing. I didn't try chain queing dungeons, but from what i've heard that's way faster then the campaign so this should only really be used if you're doing that as a tank or with a group of friends.
As long as I get to skip that awful story that reminded me of some cheap show for children (ardenwald especially), I am all in. Glad they put ToF in
Both mining and herbing give XP. So do pet battles, btw. Hubby and I are leveling together but I came in to do some fishing and mining and a few pet battles - he had to do 3 side quests to catch up to me.
What does this mean " the Covenants lack other end-game features such as the mission table, soulbinds, or conduits"? If I do ToF, I don't get mission table, etc?
I chose fate so I can farm herbs and mining lol
i do not mind if it is slower, i appreciate the alternatives to leveling instead of doing the zone campaigns
This seems to be more of a system to not level one alt, but to level multiple alts at the same time. So you just can do your daily stuff and when done, hop to the next char. Basically like its done at max level. The down side is, that you wont get max lvl as fast as possible, but it will take at least several weeks, but then every char is 60. If you want to use this sys and focus on one char, dungeon grinding seems to be the only way, imo the worst of all, because the drops scale to your level and dont act as a good access to start your endgame. I really loled, when I got a blue 98 item at level 54 as quest reward. Later you will grind these dungeons anyways. Again.Still, I think I will try it out with my first alt and see what happens. The main problem with the traditional quest line is, that its TOTALLY linear. E.g. before the pre SL patch/Chromie, you could chose to level at three different areas when you hit 110 and with account gear you never really had to grind all of these areas in the later stages of the addons. So if you dont have every class at max lvl, you had some variety. To HAVE this variety you basically HAVE TO use the new alt system. Unless there are some serious reasons, because some items are not attainable, e.g. transmog, that only appear in the major original quest line.
Threads of fate is better if you want to keep your sanity, I don't understand the game design sometimes when you are supposed to do the same thing over and over until your eyes bleed just to get to max level when you can start to actually enjoy the game. Variation is key for me in a game experience, especially when it comes to grinding that doesn't give you anything but the possibility to do something other than leveling... Dungeons and Battlegrounds at least offer some variation in the players you team up with, and if you can do some world quests that actually benefit you in the endgame it's great, plus you can choose a different questing route if you are bored with the old one.
Not a fan as a mostly solo player with a lot of alts but I guess thats what I get for playing mostly solo in an MMO so what can I say, really.