Trying to understand group experience

[port9001]

Feel like I'm missing some key part of how classic EverQuest works because I've often had the experience of joining a group in a popular dungeon (say Unrest main room as a level 18+) and the experience has been an absolute crawl. Worst than I could get solo as a Paladin off in some outdoor area. Is this normal? Seems like there's always a full 6 man group rolling in these spots that barely supports the xp for a trio.

Biggest problem as I see it is the popular spots always have all 6 spots filled with overleveled people, so maximum xp split, and not enough mobs to support having a mob always in camp. So we're all standing around, full mana, wrecking blue cons with 0 risk and very little reward. Is this just normal and expected or do people have a better way to go about this?

I like grouping. I can solo occasionally but I miss the social aspects of chatting with a few people. And dungeons are just more interesting than outdoor zones to me. But 5+ hours per level is excruciating.

[pickled_heretic]

the bonus is pretty trivial... 10% at a full group. so you'd still have to have to be killing 6 times as fast as your solo rate in order for the exp to exceed what you'd be getting solo. this also assumes that everyone has relatively the same amount of exp (as in, the total amount of exp they have earned up to that point) or else people with a larger exp pool get a larger portion of each kill.

groups almost never kill 6 times faster than a twink or a good soloer so the exp tends to be slower for those people.

there's always duoing which gives you some social interaction and you're likely to be able to kill faster than double your individual kill rates if you're a class that is decent at duoing.

[Eresimus]

Originally Posted by port9001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Feel like I'm missing some key part of how classic EverQuest works ... But 5+ hours per level is excruciating.

It's a shame about that last line, because I was tracking you pretty well. Unfortunately, the last bit turned it into a bit of a whine.

But I'll assume the best and speak to the rest of it. The situation you described -- full group of six, all similarly leveled, tearing through blue-cons -- is the problem. You even identified it as "0 risk and very little reward". Isn't that how the xp mechanic should work? I would argue that the full group of six should be crawling into a part of the dungeon where there are white-cons (with a chance of a yellow-con named). After all, with the economy as mature as it is, you're probably geared well above your level and could handle a yellow-con. If you were doing that, you'd be seeing a lot more xp, and probably feeling more challenged and having more fun.

I guess I remember crawling through dungeons circa 2001 in well organized groups with guildies and feeling quite gratified if we managed a full yellow bulb of xp (in the 30s and 40s) after 2-3 hours... that was a long time ago, but I'd take a level every 5 days (not hours).

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by port9001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Biggest problem as I see it is the popular spots always have all 6 spots filled with overleveled people, so maximum xp split, and not enough mobs to support having a mob always in camp. So we're all standing around, full mana, wrecking blue cons with 0 risk and very little reward..

This is how groups tend to roll on p99. I've solod multiple clerics in this game rather than deal with random PUG groups... lol.

And you couldn't fix it. If you implemented a big group XP bonus like there is on red then you'd just have people farming easy content (even EASIER stuff maybe) because it's fast XP now even without having enough mobs or high-enough-level mobs or a reasonable group composition or people who are even trying... plus the people who really want to blaze up the XP will form up silly stuff like wizard AE groups and pull all of MM until they get washed out of the zone by a tsunami of tears, etc.

5 hours for a level in a full group is not really that bad, unless you're under 20 or so. It's 2-3 hours per level when soloing on a chanter, and that's one of the faster non-bard solos I would think.


The advantage of groups is safety in tougher situations... or at least that SHOULD be the advantage. That means you can go into the bottom of a dungeon and kill tougher stuff that drops more loot (maybe even upgrades) than stuff that a solo class could kill. But since P99 is late in its life, the drops from dungeons before 50 aren't something that a lot of people are concerned with. And since a lot of players aren't terribly attentive or good or something, you end up with groups wiping in places like that and then earning less XP over time than if they just stuck to the orc highway in oasis or the wall in OT or some crappy place like that. Plus dungeons are often disproportionately difficult for the better ZEM; you'll often be dealing with a ton of wizard and shaman and necro NPCs who all get buffed by each other and heal through walls and flee in tight quarters to start trains and have buggy pathing, all for like 20% more XP than you would get blasting through stuff outdoors with room to move, fewer casters, zonelines or guards to flee to, etc.

[maskedmelon]

I feel your pain OP. It's always awesome when you show up to a pond group full of level 30s. That don't happen on red though ^^ of course nowadays not much of anything happens on red :s More fun though when you get something going ^^