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

[Hitchens]

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

I suspect playing a Shaman is a great way to find a group =). I believe you 0when you say it is easy to get into groups. Now go play an untwinked Rogue, level him up without using any friends to start up with you. I quit my untwinked Rogue at level 5, the first moment I left the newbie ground and sat LFG for over an hour. I logged out, went and created a character that can solo and life has been good since.

Hey, I'm still wearing large raw-hide stuff I looted from Orcs in South Ro. This is my first character on P1999. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Level five of anything untwinked is going to be pretty painful. Innothule Swamp was a barren wasteland, but everything changed once I made it to Oasis and it's been pretty good since then. Please don't give up on your Rogues though, I like to buff them because they stab stuff to death fast.

[eqravenprince]

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

Hey, I'm still wearing large raw-hide stuff I looted from Orcs in South Ro. This is my first character on P1999. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Level five of anything untwinked is going to be pretty painful. Innothule Swamp was a barren wasteland, but everything changed once I made it to Oasis and it's been pretty good since then. Please don't give up on your Rogues though, I like to buff them because they stab stuff to death fast.

Huge difference between a class that can solo versus one that cannot. Besides, it's not painful for you to leave Innothule and go to Freeport.

Painful meter
Rogue/Warrior - extremely painful
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Giving Birth - very painful
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Breaking your Fibula - very painful
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Migrain headache - painful
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Above this line need some kind of prescription medication to deal with the pain
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Getting soap in your eye - mildly painful
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Classes that can solo - Not painful

[Wolowizard]

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

Hitchens after reading several of your posts I'm convinced you have a brain tumor and it's affecting your sense of reality. I am sorry for trying to prove an obvious point to someone that does not have the mental capacity to sniff his own feet.

Is this how you treat people in game?

I've had similar experience to Hitchens. But any single person's experiences are mostly anecdotal. That said, I've found that grouping in most MMOs is what you make of it. Sometimes it requires laying some ground work. While there are less total people than in Live in 2000, I don't find it any more difficult to find groups in p1999. In fact, it might be easier since there are always XP camps available.

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

I suspect playing a Shaman is a great way to find a group =). I believe you when you say it is easy to get into groups. Now go play an untwinked Rogue, level him up without using any friends to start up with you. I quit my untwinked Rogue at level 5, the first moment I left the newbie ground and sat LFG for over an hour. I logged out, went and created a character that can solo and life has been good since.

My level 5 cleric couldn't find groups either and it was pretty painful for him until 9 or 10. The earliest groups I've found were around 8 or 9: Kurns for my necro and Crushbone for my bard.

[Splorf22]

Well part of it Fisch is your level. 50 is the peak of caster power relative to melee I think.
From 55-60 it seems things are much more balanced, and there aren't that many good places to solo anyway at that point.

Personally I think half of Verant's problems with balancing classic everquest were due to them trying to save memory on their servers by storing skills as 8-bit numbers leading them to cap skills at lower values. If melee got appropriate skillups in their 40s they wouldn't be nearly so weak (probably something like 100 more AC/ATK would make a big difference).

[Muchew]

1-10 can be painful, but even untwinked warriors and rogues can solo through these levels.
10-20 ALWAYS groups in oasis
20-30 Uguk, LOIO, HK usually have 1 group going. Join a waiting list.
30-40 almost always a group in OT
40-50 almost always a group in DL and usually a stables group in CoM
50+ ....

That being said, I think group exp sucks and solo'd 90% of my exp to 50, but there is certainly groups available if you go to the right place.

Pro tip: /who *your level range* all, send tells to those in exp zones within travel distance of you, and join a waiting list.

People act like you never had to wait longer than 5 minutes to find a group on live.

[Pomaikai]

The best advice I can give you to help with leveling up and getting groups, is to put people on your friends list that you had a good time grouping with. Then, when you log in and see those folks on, send them a tell and say "Hello!" You may not group with them that day, but they're much more likely to remember you fondly and will usually ask you to fill a slot when they are putting a group together. You should of course be doing the same thing. I keep in touch with the folks on my friends list in game. Even if I'm soloing, I've got folks I'm chatting with. Sometimes that will lead to a duo or trio, and sometimes even into a full blown group. And of course the final bit of advice is to be proactive! If you want to group, then start putting one together yourself! Don't wait for someone to ask you.

By the way... I'm a L45 Cleric. Feel free to shoot me a tell if you need some healing. I'd love to group with you! I also don't give a rats ass whether the group is optimal, or whether your race/class/both have exp penalties. If you can do your job well and are fun to chat with, then we're gold. Every class brings something to a group. Every player can bring something as well. It's up to you whether that is good, or bad. Idiots and asshats reputations precede them. Your rep is what you make of it. A player with a good rep keeps getting groups. Players with a bad rep? Not so much.

[Mcbard]

There are already ZEM on certain zones and people tend to gravitate towards them for exp. I think the reason that hotzones were added to eqlive is because there was just so much content that people could spread themselves out over, that entire zones were completely neglected (and rightfully so). It was a tool to get players of given level ranges concentrated into particular areas for grouping and exp.

This server only has n number of zones with a good ZEM that people group up in, and that number is never going to increase (with the servers classic-Velious scope in mind) beyond where it's already at for levels ~1-~35. If it's difficult finding groups in those zones, I would think that it has more to do with server population at those levels, and I don't think that implementing an artificial (non-classic) system to boost this is the right solution!

Most of this server seems to log on around est primetime (5-12 EST) and I've never not seen 20 or so people in the zones where people commonly level. Perhaps you are just looking for groups in the wrong zone, or you are not playing at times were the servers population is most active, but from what I've seen there should be people to play with! The best solution I can think of, and coincidentally most "classic" would be to get your friends to play. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]