Solution to lower level grouping woes: hotzones or group XP?

[Littlestgnome]

The groups I've had up to this point have been a bit of a mixed bag. The thing for me is that a group is (usually) less risk with the potential for better payoff (ie, named spawns and drops). I can often times gain solo exp at a faster rate but generally can't hold named spawn locations unless I've already outleveled most of the immediate area in which case I'm no longer maximizing my exp gain anyway.

The big issue I've had with groups thus far is that many players either don't remember or don't stick to tried and true EQ formulas. Namely, they don't let the tank grab aggro before going in with swords flailing and spells blazing.

No nukes before 70%!

[Pomaikai]

I dunno, I've had great luck in EXP groups from my start through 45, where I am now. Extremely solid exp, and many times blazing exp. Now, some of that may be colored by the fact that I'm a Cleric and we don't solo worth a damn in Classic EQ. We can and I've done it, but it's an ugly thing to watch.

[fischsemmel]

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

I dunno, I've had great luck in EXP groups from my start through 45, where I am now. Extremely solid exp, and many times blazing exp. Now, some of that may be colored by the fact that I'm a Cleric and we don't solo worth a damn in Classic EQ. We can and I've done it, but it's an ugly thing to watch.

Don't use colorful words. Tell me what % of what level you were earning per hour.

The cleric I was talking about leveling earlier? Every time I joined a group with him, people in the group were going on and on about how the xp we were getting was so great, when it was like half of what I had been soloing 30 minutes earlier while 3/4 afk and with no risk of death.


Oh, ya see! I just re-read your post and you said that you, as a cleric, can't solo worth a damn. You are SOOOOO wrong.

Come on. Tell me your group's blazing xp rate in the 30s. Is it faster than 2 yellows per hour? Cause that's what my cleric was soloing in unrest from 34-39. And it wasn't much slower than that from 19-34, probably 7-9 blues per hour.

[fischsemmel]

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

The groups I've had up to this point have been a bit of a mixed bag. The thing for me is that a group is (usually) less risk with the potential for better payoff (ie, named spawns and drops).

This is one of the two reasons to group on p99, the other being because you meet people and at least some of those people end up being really cool and making it onto your friends list and chatting/playing with you for a long time.

But the "groups can handle named spawns" thing? Well, that IS a legitimate reason for an untwinked melee (that being SK, pal, rang, monk; we all know that rogues and warriors aren't soloing in the first place without ridiculous twinking) to join groups. But every single caster (plus bards) can solo naked, more or less. They are better off spending their time getting to higher levels faster and than worrying about drops.

I have not found grouping to be lower risk than soloing with any of my characters so far though. Groups want to go into dungeons most of the time, and without the right group and/or players, that gets ugly pretty quickly. But if you are the one forming groups and keeping them from getting in over there heads, I can see this being a perk to grouping also.

[formallydickman]

Duoing is faster than soloing in my experience, so long as the 2 classes are at least somewhat compatible. It doesn't always have to be a full group or solo.

[fischsemmel]

Duoing certainly can be nice. Depends on the camp moreso than the classes, imo. Any 2 classes can duo better than solo if their camp can support both of them. But adding a second class of anything into a camp that the one person is keeping clear or nearly clear just divides the xp two ways without increasing the amount of xp there to be earned.

Duo seems to most benefit melee and pet classes, I think. Melee since they can't solo for squat, and pet classes because they have to worry about the pet eating xp when solo.

[Galelor]

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

35-40 seems rough, not sure what happens to all the people you group with up to 35? They all seem to vanish... haven't found a group in days for my rogue. Looking like I should just farm plat on necro to have him powerleveled at this point.

I saw 35-45ish like this on my shaman.

I would also like to add 2 points of contention regarding the solo is better argument:
1. Soloing is super fucking boring...
2. EQ is mostly designed around grouping/guilding. If you are leveling your first char and want to have success when you are higher level, I suggest you make friends while you are leveling up.

[fischsemmel]

I don't really mean to argue "solo is better" in some overall way.

The thread was started because of the justifiable perception that groups are hard to come by while leveling up. Me pointing to all the reasons soloing is preferred for a lot of people is explanation for the difficulty in players finding groups.

Grouping is only really a good idea if at least a few of the following are true:
1. you need to make more friends
2. you are a warrior or a rogue and can't afford a PL
3. you are totally untwinked and are a melee who is not a bard
4. you want to group just because

Plus it's not like you can't make friends when you are 50+. No reason that someone can't zip 1-50 without talking to a single person in game and then make friends while doing something more productive than killing orcs in oasis.

[Teeny]

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

The grouping issue is simple, really.

Groups are shitty.


I have yet to be in a group in this game, after 52 levels on a necro, 50 levels on a cleric, 49 levels on a bard, and ~20 levels on each a shadowknight and a rogue, where any group earned better xp than I could have earned solo (excepting the rogue, of course).

I don't know if players are bad, or if they don't pay attention, or what. But group xp is just terrible on the whole, and even in a great zone with a balanced group of good, attentive players, group xp is only "good."

Because of this, anyone who can solo decently or better (aka everyone except rogues and warriors) WILL solo. They will avoid having to spend time and effort moving to groups, dealing with bad players, putting groups together, sitting around with /lfg on. And they will earn more xp for less effort.

There being too few people grouping is just incidental to this.

I hate to say it, but I agree with this post almost 100%. I think a lot of it is, we've gotten used to games with very minimal downtime, so now that we're back to a game like this any downtime drags really long.

I think a part of it also is though a lot of people on this server do indeed abuse the group mechanic. I find in a lot of the groups I get into, there always is at least 1 person taking a 5-10 minute afk break at any given time. There may be plenty of mobs to pull, but just its not going as fast because someone is always afk. The only thing you can really do to solve this is, start a list of people you know not to group with tbh. This will keep them from always taking an abundant amount of afks. Try to stick within a group of people who are like minded such as yourself who want to maximize XP.

Just my 2cp.

[Teeny]

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

I don't really mean to argue "solo is better" in some overall way.

The thread was started because of the justifiable perception that groups are hard to come by while leveling up. Me pointing to all the reasons soloing is preferred for a lot of people is explanation for the difficulty in players finding groups.

Grouping is only really a good idea if at least a few of the following are true:
1. you need to make more friends
2. you are a warrior or a rogue and can't afford a PL
3. you are totally untwinked and are a melee who is not a bard
4. you want to group just because

Plus it's not like you can't make friends when you are 50+. No reason that someone can't zip 1-50 without talking to a single person in game and then make friends while doing something more productive than killing orcs in oasis.

The only flaw in your logic is we don't play MMO's such as EQ to play solo 1-50. Not to mention, the fact that unless you're one of the key solo classes, xp is slow especially with the current penalties being in place. Yes it is completely possible to solo from 1-50 without interacting with a single person for max xp. The problem is the incentive for people to play their lower toons to group with these newer people.

I personally would be more apt to play an alt in a lot of these lower zones if there was an xp bonus in affect. Does this mean anything to anyone? No, but boosting the pop of this server by giving a couple days worth of a minor xp bonus won't hurt the server overall I think it would help it. Its not classic, etc etc, that argument is always thrown around on this forums. There's alot of things not classic about this server that people are happy about. Adding about 100 more active players would be great for the community, and keeping them for more than the first 20 levels when they realize the xp penalty + the grouping situation is a PITA then quit.

just my 2cp.