Help non soloable classes

[Widan]

As it currently stands playing classes that are not able to solo is extremely frustrating. On a server that only has 150-200 people on during peak times, and <100 during off hours groups are not the easiest thing to come by. I really wanted to play a warrior, but if I can't find a group I'm pretty much out of luck.

I realize that this is trying to emulate classic eq 100%, but classic eq had a couple thousand players at peak times. So is anything being considered to help classes that realistically cannot solo past newbie levels? Allowing bind wound to heal up to 100% would make things loads better and not really over power anything.

[stormlord]

The recent melee fix made things easier. It's supposed tobe more accurate now. And you want it even easier?

I understand where you're coming from. Live classic servers had about 27x more players than I see when I play at project1999. That made a big difference. Everything from getting bufs, advice, groups, and so on. All of that was elevated greatly.

My opinion is that as the server matures, more and more items will be in circulation and more and more porters will be available as people make alts. The impact of all this will mean that levelling up will be easier for new people - assuming that all this wealth trickles down. In theory! If there're more druid alts (in theory) then that means that you should be able to find a bind/port because people could go on their alts to give you it. And if you're shopping for new gear, there should be a greater supply (items are tradeable and don't need repair). Additionally, all of these high levels running around will be able to buff you. A druid DS helps significantly. A cleric hp buff helps too.

All of that depends on the community remaining strong. If they don't get anything out of buffing you or helping you (like money), then there needs to be another reason. Community! We have to bond together to ensure things like this happen.

Another thing I'm doing is prohibiting myself from twinking alts. I forbid it. All of them are legit. I am not against twinking others. In theory, this means that we will twink eachother rather than ourselves. I hope this theory is correct.

The very fact that we live in a tough environment (live had 27x more people) encourages us to value one another.

The more you give, the more you get.

I'm not kidding you, however. Warriors, more than everyone else, will find it very difficult to solo. Best you can do is to grind platinum so that you can buy yourself great gear. This will in turn allow you to solo better.

[Widan]

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

The recent melee fix made things easier. It's supposed tobe more accurate now. And you want it even easier?

This is irrelevant, you aren't going to be able to solo as a warrior, rogue or whatever class either way past like level 10. Even a classic eq emulator needs to undergo certain changes to accommodate for the fact that they don't have very many people playing. Your points about gear and buffs don't address the problem of the lack of actual people playing. I'm on right now and theres 92 people on, hardly enough to even be able to form a group within each level range.

[stormlord]

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

This is irrelevant, you aren't going to be able to solo as a warrior, rogue or whatever class either way past like level 10. Even a classic eq emulator needs to undergo certain changes to accommodate for the fact that they don't have very many people playing. Your points about gear and buffs don't address the problem of the lack of actual people playing. I'm on right now and theres 92 people on, hardly enough to even be able to form a group within each level range.

Ahh, but read the post carefully! Those people (92?) will level up. That means better buffs. It means they'll have more platinum. It means better items entering the economy. None of those items will go into disrepair, and most of them can be traded. This means that the economy will continually get filled with more and more items that will be in circulation.

My last point on the my previous post addresses the fact that warriors/rogues will have a tougher time than others. However, we all suffer as a result of having 1/27 the population of what live classic had. My advice is to play a class you can play. Play more solo-able classes, if you don't like the warrior. Or play a warrior and see how far you can go as a way of testing yourself. Savor the tough environment, and use it as motivation to help others. Try to overcome it. It's a challenge. That's what I do. Appreciate small things.

I play several alts, and none of them are higher than level 7. Yet, I'm having a blast. I can't imagine having any more fun at level 50.

[quenyar]

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[stormlord]

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

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He has a point. It's not beating a dead horse. The horse isn't dead. It's alive and well. Until we can boast 2500-3500 online players, then this horse will be alive and eating our grasses (and pooping in the forums).

Since I want to see an accurate picture of 1999, I want to make the best of it. Maybe we can work around it in ways not thought of before. Or maybe we can appreciate things we otherwise wouldn't have.

We always talk about "community", but what does that really mean? We depend on eachother now more than we did in 1999.

[karsten]

i'm a paladin, one of the worst solo classes in the game. I leveled to 50 in full groups all the way from crushbone to solb, and, being from a pvp server where skins are thicker, I alienated every groupmember that I felt sucked at eq, gaining me the admiration and love of most of my peers, aka potential groupmates. In other words, if I can get groups (and i mentioned in other threads that I often made my own -- being proactive helps) then anyone should be able to.


less QQ dude, more PEW PEW

[Tovok]

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

This is irrelevant, you aren't going to be able to solo as a warrior, rogue or whatever class either way past like level 10. Even a classic eq emulator needs to undergo certain changes to accommodate for the fact that they don't have very many people playing. Your points about gear and buffs don't address the problem of the lack of actual people playing. I'm on right now and theres 92 people on, hardly enough to even be able to form a group within each level range.

Back in early 2001 (I think) I leveled my Ogre Warrior to 31 mostly in groups in Kunark. Sometimes, when I didn't get a group, it would try to solo a blue sarnak (light blue didn't exist then). About half the time I'd get my ass handed to me, especially when they ran and I had no way to stop them but a lucky bash.

I eventually got fed up with my roommates (or at least, people I was playing in the same room with) watching TV instead of healing while my warrior died, so I rolled a Wizard. I leveled the wizard at least in part by finding single spawns where I knew the exact paths of walkers and the spawn time, and I could just nuke one down and med to full while doing homework in the six minutes between spawns.

The moral of the story is that soloing has historically sucked ass in EQ. Even when it was supposedly good, like quadding raptors in TD, it was still tedious, sucky, and dangerous.

I'm sure my story wasn't all that encouraging, and I really don't mean to jump on your case and be mean. Just wanted to point out that the Vision[TM] has fucked a lot of orifi in its day, but somehow we all come crawling back to it....

[Casezilla]

More items, ports and binds will be nice, but the main issue here is that a class like a warrior is completely screwed without a group, or at least a partner that can heal. A lack of people to level up with during off hours is something that will probably get worse as the server matures, not better.

I started an enchanter last week, and while I've had some great groups, a majority of my time leveling has been spent solo, duo, or trio. I've played a lot during the middle of the night, and at least at low levels, there really isn't anyone to group with a lot of the time. One night I spent 4-6 hours LFG and didn't receive a single tell. That is something that would NEVER have happened during 1999. I also played a chanter on the combine, and I've already done more soloing on this server by level 12 than I'd done by level 60 on the combine. Had I decided to roll a warrior, I probably would have rerolled another class or quit all together by now.

I'm really feeling for untwinked low level warriors right now. I dragged a wars corpse to the zoneline in HHP as I was passing through last night. When he got to HHP to loot, he sent me a tell asking for an invis so he could run through as well. By that time I was already most of the way through EK and it was already 5am, so as much as I wanted to help, I couldn't turn back at that point. The war literally had no way to continue on to Qeynos short of back tracking to EC and trying the southern route through the rathe mountains and up through SK. It really made me realize that had I rolled a war, most of my time spent soloing would have been spent standing around picking boogers instead.

Widan raises a very good point. One of the most important "features" of old school EQ was the large number of people that played the game. The comparatively small population of this server is a huge blow to the effort to recreate the classic experience. Small deviations from classic to help counteract problems caused by low population could result in a more classic experience. Just something to consider. Perhaps we're getting close to the time when 2 (and only 2) boxing should be allowed, at least in some situations.

[Halladar]

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

The recent melee fix made things easier. It's supposed tobe more accurate now. And you want it even easier?

It's still not right. I'm not exactly sure what ac is doing right now. But from my group experiences of the past few days, except for having more hp's warriors, sk's, and paladins don't tank any better than rogues.

No parses, but last night in Unrest a warrior was just taking too much damage from light blues and above. The guy was definitely experienced, and it looked like he was wearing bronze (didn't inspect him though). It just wasn't right, is all I can tell you.

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

I understand where you're coming from. Live classic servers had about 27x more players than I see when I play at project1999. That made a big difference. Everything from getting bufs, advice, groups, and so on. All of that was elevated greatly.

My opinion is that as the server matures, more and more items will be in circulation and more and more porters will be available as people make alts. The impact of all this will mean that levelling up will be easier for new people - assuming that all this wealth trickles down. In theory! If there're more druid alts (in theory) then that means that you should be able to find a bind/port because people could go on their alts to give you it. And if you're shopping for new gear, there should be a greater supply (items are tradeable and don't need repair). Additionally, all of these high levels running around will be able to buff you. A druid DS helps significantly. A cleric hp buff helps too.

This server reminds me of test server in old eq. Population when I played was almost exactly what we have here. When I jumped in it was year 2000 or so. Most of the population had played long enough to have maxxed level characters. The only people running around were alts (usually really twinked) and the occasional true noobie. There weren't as many people running around handing out buffs as you might think. You had a better chance of getting some if someone's friend showed up to pl, or someone two boxed a main. The high levels just weren't going through the areas the low levels were exp'ing in.

The sheer lack of people made it difficult to play a melee class. You were forced to solo. You could go days trying to find a group sometimes. Especially after level 10 or so. People made alts and played them, then a lot of times lost interest in them.

Also your location is a big deal. Last night I made a human sk of Bertoxxulus (I hate Innoruuk, pansy god.). I was the only person in N. qeynos for the 20 or so minutes I played him. Just like test the whole population works out of Freeport until kunark comes out. I'm sure at some point I can get someone to give me a port (I don't care what anyone says, that cross country run is not trivial unless you can invis), but qeynos, halas, and erudin are awful starting spots on a low population server.

Test really didn't have a market for low level items. Of course I wasn't hanging in EC to hear most of the time. You would be more likely to just have someone hand you some bronze than to see someone selling banded.

If there aren't any groups of your level, you can pretty much forget about upgrading your gear. Since most of the people you did group with were alts of mains, and had gear their mains got for them, they weren't interested in dungeons for the most part. Crushbone, and BB being exceptions. When they hit the teens the groups were in oasis pulling crocs. Not sure what happened in the 20's because I had enough by then.

I can also tell you a lot of times low level people didn't bother to group, not even melees. I'm not sure what kind of gear a rogue could be twinked with in classic so he could solo at level 15 or 20 but some of them did.

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

I'm not kidding you, however. Warriors, more than everyone else, will find it very difficult to solo. Best you can do is to grind platinum so that you can buy yourself great gear. This will in turn allow you to solo better.

I don't think it will help. There are some warrior items that soloing warriors used from later expansions. You need some way to get hp's back. Warrior soloing gear is the dagger that procs summon bandage, or just maybe a fungi.

An indispensible tool is some sort of slowing weapon. Truncheon of Doom is best, but good luck getting that.

You really have to pick your spot as a warrior, because you can't control adds or stop runners.