I'm not having fun playing this game. Why?

[Zuranthium]

That's not how skeleton form is supposed to work. It's another non-classic thing on p99. But beyond that, Necros don't get skeleton form until Level 34 (it's also a research spell), so young Iksars who want to travel elsewhere and don't have experience with the game may have difficulties. Ofc, there's no need to leave Kunark anyway during that timeframe, unless you're dying to meet up with a friend somewhere, and you're KOS in good-aligned places anyway as a Necro.

[WarpathEQ]

Everquest/P99 has a huge learning curve, even as someone that played for a couple years on launch it took me several days to remember how things functioned, keybinds, etc when I came to P99

Don't get discouraged just go with the flow and have fun. If your goal is to level your toon (which should be the primary goal of virtually all players until your reach lvl 60) then the way to do it is going to be killing mobs, typically blue cons (can consider white or yellow if able to kill them at low levels, might have to switch to green mobs if blue becomes too hard but unlikely to be an issue for necro class).

2 things I would have bookmarked on your browser are the Necromancer class page on the wiki, which you will reference probably every single time you load the game to find spells, when you get new abilities, ideas for gear to obtain once you earn some money, etc. and the per-level hunting guide or any guide that provides you value in finding a "camp".

The gameplay is mostly spent locating an area where you can kill mobs the most effeciently for the best exp. Which mobs will change over time as your level changes. Starting out fresh I would focus on looting every single item that drops and selling it at the closest vendor for money, spend the money on 8x backpacks (so you can carry more and make less trips to a vendor) and the rest on acquiring your spells. The only thing I would keep are bone chips, as they will be useful to you (if your bags start filling up with stacks of bone chips you can put some in the bank in cabalis and buy additional backpacks). You likely won't be able to afford all spells, there are some guides out there that help prioritize which are the most important so you can get those first, eventually you will have enough money to afford all spells (I personally like to acquire every spell, you never know when an obscure one might be helpful later).

It sounds like one of the things that is making the game so challenging is that you are playing on a caster but not using spells. Necro is a pet class so your pet will be key to your gameplay, the pet is going to take most of the damage from the mob you are fighting and do a lot of damage as well freeing you up to cast spells and meditate. So it sounds like priority #1 is to go buy your first pet spell, just simply summoning your pet, finding a blue con mob and hitting pet attack will likely be much easier that what you are doing now. You also get a really powerful spell combo at lvl 4 with fear and clinging darkness, by casting both of these spells on the target you can both reduce the targets movement speed and make it run away. This allows you and/or your pet to beat up the mob without taking damage from them, this makes it more possible to kill the white/yellow/red con mobs, however melee dmg goes much slower above blue cons so I would still focus on killing blues.

The gate spell sends you back to your spawn point (where you appear when you die) this can be a safety net to leave a dangerous area/situation or simply make travel time to and from the vendor faster, eventually you will be able to change your spawn point to virtually anywhere in the game (bind) to leverage gate even better.

These are some of the key components of the necromancer's gameplay and the nice thing is you already have access to them at a very low level. I think you'll find the game much more playable with a couple of these core spells and leveraging the wealth of information available to you online via guides and resources like the class page.

[Wakanda]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's not how skeleton form is supposed to work. It's another non-classic thing on p99. But beyond that, Necros don't get skeleton form until Level 34 (it's also a research spell), so young Iksars who want to travel elsewhere and don't have experience with the game may have difficulties. Ofc, there's no need to leave Kunark anyway during that timeframe, unless you're dying to meet up with a friend somewhere, and you're KOS in good-aligned places anyway as a Necro.

I have a feeling this is true. I think we would remember skeletons being non KOS in cities. I don't remember witnessing this or hearing anyone talk about it. I also had a Druid friend who used to PL us in UR and I don't remember wolf form making us non kos in that zone. I feel like at least one of us would have picked up on this, but maybe I'm wrong.

I think Iksar Necromancer kind of does feel obligated to go to the main land early on to try and get their crafted spells (Animate Dead, Haunting Corpse and Intensify Death). As someone who has leveled two Iksar Necromancer in the last year though I can honestly say you'll almost never use intensify death because you already struggle with making sure your pet doesn't KS you. Mid to late 20s you are nuking Treants to death so fast your pet is really just there as a safety buffer.

But that being said, having access to the internet, I didn't find life in Antonica that rough. Iksar Necro isn't KOS to the sewer and you can hand in a stack or two bone chips to move from Dubious to Apprehensive etc.

I could see why this may be daunting to a new player, but I twinked a real-life friend's Troll Warrior with over 100K of items and offered to PL him any time he wanted. He had never played P99 before. Every time I checked on him he was playing his Iksar Necromancer who essentially had no gear. He leveled super fast and was having a blast. When our fellow female friend decided she wanted to play a few weeks later he insisted that she play Iksar Necromancer and explained that it was way easier than playing any of the other classes he tried etc.

For me Necromancer really is playing the game on easy mode. So much that I don't even play mine anymore [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] to do the same stuff on my Enchanter it feels way more dangerous and way more strategic. And Shamans require an insane amount of plat to get their epic, torpor, and even their 50+ DoTs are super expensive for a new player. Doesn't take into account JBB, Fungi, Fungi Staff etc. other items that a lot of people are going to want to have (although I leveled without these fairly easily).