Franklin Teek

I returned after a long break at level 86 with a mix of SoD raid-gear and paragon-gear. What i did was progressing through HoT with some friends with similiar characters around level 85-ish, getting spells along the way. My use of hotzones was basically doing the dailies while waiting for my friends to log on, and getting the hotzone augs that would be an upgrade(including Skal Nethus-quests). later we swicthed to HAs and the occasional grind in valley. then i tried to molo the VoA-champion achievement and getting guild-groups for RoF missions. That took me to level 105. Now i just do the daily to regain the XP I loose in raids. I try to keep my EQ-experience varied and interesting rather than solely focussing on the shortest path to max level.

I had fun.

I don't think the game needs fundamental changes in the levelling curve, or higher level heroic characthers.

I didn't feel restricted by the hotzones, i merely viewed them as an additional option between many ways of play.

That said, the overall hot zone idea wasn't really the huge goldmine of pugging it was meant to be....

I haven't tried the current hotzones with a level appropiate characther though, my experience with pillars was at level 97-98, where moloing through mercenary/partisan was doable. It would be a rough experience(i guess) at level 95- and under.

On what server(s) is the HZ Pilars? On Luclin it's been sarith since the patch.

Doing all three of the HZ 85, 90, and 95 gives me about the same amount of exp as all three gribbles and is taking around same time. However, with Gribbles I get group currency as well. I think that's a problem. I hate both to be honest. Just want to go to a zone in my level range that I want to explore and not be penalized for it. That's why the HZ need to go.

In what way are you being penalized for going to regular zones? In what way will eliminating hot zones help you? If you hate hot zones and gribbles, don't do them. I don't follow your logic in this crusade against hot zones, it's like you're just saying 'I don't enjoy hot zones, so no one else should get to either'.
Hot zones don't 'need to go', many people use them, enjoy them, and take advantage of them the way they're intended. You don't need to just do your Franklin Teek quests and go, you can explore and do progression there too.

I typically get maybe 1/2 (if lucky) the experience hunting in the zones VS HZ. That's a huge penalty for choosing my own content. The HZ is a band aid for a much larger problem - how to properly update the exp curve when an expansion is out of date.

You're looking at it the wrong way. You do not get half the exp hunting in regular zones, you get double the exp from hunting in hot zones. That's the incentive for going out of your way to help populate underused zones, and getting out of your comfort zone.

Removing hot zones will not increase your exp in your preferred zones, just remove the option to do the quests there.

There is a reason(s) for every underused zone in the game.
Some are pretty good ones.

Experience RVR has become disproportionately skewed toward quest rewards in recent years.

Let me first clarify that I have no problem with, and in fact encourage quests providing meaningful experience. But there is a fine line between "meaningful" and "You'd be silly to do it any other/the old fashioned way". IMHO somewhere between SoF/SoD there was a pretty ideal model for balanced quest EXP rewards (minus the MM's) So it's a line we crossed quite some time ago.

Today I might end up clearing 40 mobs while doing a "kill 5" hotzone task and get 2% of a level from killing the mobs, but 20% of level for the reward. What the heck is that all about. Or look at merc/partisan tasks: Save the last steps for a bonus exp weekend and you might get an extra 3 levels for doing the same work.

So if I plop down in a regular named camp and score some drops while grinding my levels, I'm going to get experience at a much slower pace. Now I'm totally okay with a "non-optimized" levelling path if it saves me zoning 100 times per level and I score some upgrades on the way.

But things have surpassed ridiculous when you sustain a good kill rate and still level 10x slower because 90% of your experience comes from hailing a mob and clicking a box. Instead of "non-optimized" it looks a lot more like "penalized".

I don't care about what people write. I do care when someone makes multiple threads on the same subject just to get attention. I'm not unreasonable in that regard because its obnoxious and the OP is very obnoxious. If you don't like it, tough tamale hombre. Get glad in the same pants you got mad in. You want to talk about trolling, the fact you completely digressed from the actual topic just to criticize me bringing up a valid point for the sake of slighting me is trolling dude. Everyone at some point has pointed out to another forum user that they are breaking some type of rule, so save your hypocritical holier than thou attitude for someone else.

Dre - I agree a 100% I have just one question (have a good idea of the answer) - why did SoE/DB make this change? Hint: think of TDS launch and CotF.

I'll skip the guessing game. What are you getting at?

Stop thinking in "risk versus reward" instead try to think in "fun versus not-fun", sure you will get max level some months later, but you will not regret it.

The fun starts WAY earlier than level 105, if you let it

That doesn't lead to progress in EQ - it leads to logging off and doing something else.

Yeah - people who rush to 105 quickly find themselves bored quickly with nothing to do. I've always encouraged people to enjoy the journey up.

The ability to swarm or ae the instance and not completing the task in order to do it over and over. What's the point of leveling in the new content when you can get more exp by mass killing old content.

IIRC that was a very specific group of instances - the issue was they were undertuned. Not that I think there's any real difference between doing the same HA's over and over until your eyes bleed when the only difference is whether you bail early to avoid the lockout or not.

When did Daily tasks become something people saw as an actual leveling path?

A long time ago. It's disturbing how many people log in only for the daily tasks every day and then log off for weeks on end because regular experience is "too slow". I assume they eventually graduate to mindlessly grinding Gribble's. Discussions about such things is part of why I can't stay in General Chat for more than a few minutes each week without feeling like my head will explode.

Too slow? Try non existent by normal means (kiiling things). The only way to level is through progression/instances, but good luck getting a group on a consistent basis.

What's this easy path you're talking about? I know of 2 ramps up, and it's a tossup whether both, either, or neither will have SI.