Remember several years ago when a level increase expansion was released at 10am PST, and you came home from work and had dinner and logged into EQ around 8pm PST and there was already a couple zerkers or SKs who already hit max level because they mass pulled mobs and grinded out hardcore to max level in hours? I am sure devs saw that and rather had people not running around max level on Day 1. Hence maybe part of the reason for putting XP into playing the expansion and not into the mobs. Maybe?
I can guarantee that were it at all viable there'd be people swarming and flipping instances of The Darkness Howls to get to 120
Bro, how are you going to talk about grinding in 30-40 hours then include Hero’s achievements? You also forgot LFG time, breaks, etc. I get it, we all box and just roll our groups easily through content but it’s coming at a detriment to the rest of the game.
Some people are power gamers and most others are not would still do the quests and progression for the achievements, loot, and other items. Is it better for the game to receive more experience from Overseer than a Lesson burn? People keep constructing these weird ethical stances in regards to the game. All the while ignoring that people aren’t going to stick around for a 3% experience lesson burn in FM at 112 because they can’t solo mobs in GD and took some easy ToV taskadds and don’t have any other options left.
Because missions aren't quests? Even without them it only adds 10ish hours, which if you do that in a ToV t2 zone is still within the 30-40 hours. It's hilarious that you're trying to include things like LFG time and breaks in how long it takes to get to 120. Given those are going to be incredibly variable no matter what the devs do and have nothing to do with the content itself. I mean, if it took 5 mobs total to level, but I AFKed between each mob to take a 3 week break, then I don't get to complain and say it took me weeks to level. The only sane way to look at grind time is to look at the time actually spent grinding. Trying to throw in all that extra nonsense just shows you know that you don't have a leg to stand on, and you're just trying to artificially inflate the numbers.
I get it, you got one of those GD crews running 24/7. No issues with that, I know it's a popular thing to do.
I do not, I'm just not stupid enough to count things that aren't grinding as part of the time spent grinding. Like my grind to 120 was done in 3 or 4 sessions, and I slept between them, I don't include the time sleeping as part of the time spent to grind, that would be stupid.
So you do a lesson burn and get 3% in whatever zone and whatever level. So in four months you can reach 120, purely by grinding a lesson each day. Throw in some extra grinding on some days for some extra percents, throw in an Overseer here and there if you care (but don't have to). Maybe one Saturday a month you can get in a solid 8 hour power gaming session in your favorite grind place. That all adds up to reaching max level in an expansion within a four month block, giving you 20 months over the next year and a half to grind AA. So it can be done. You can grind mobs and AA as your heart wants, it just won't be done in a couple weeks or months. I guess I am not seeing the problem? Because it can be done, you can do it, no one is forcing you to do progression to XP. You can grind everything out if you please. But again, you want to play 10 percent of the game, you get 10 percent of the rewards and results.
No they are not - they are saying it’s unrealistic in the current state. Much easier to log on to Overseers and log off.
You have to include the extra time and then view it from perspective of play sessions. You’re a power gamer. You’ll sit down and binge EQ. Great. It’s why you include things like LFG time and such. It would have been much more easier to talk from the perspective of kill count, when discussing levels. For example, if it takes 1750 mobs from Maiden’s Eye in a full group to level from 117 to 118, then it’s a much clearer discussion.
I'm highly disappointed experience is locked behind quests yet again. The company lost at least two expansion sales because of it from me (I would have bought the $140 versions) . Hopefully devs reconsider this in future expansions. I never swarmed zones or whatever the problem was. I just sat in the corner of the zone and played with my two toons and a couple mercs the classic way.
From what I've been seeing on my server, the hard-core boxers aren't using GD anymore. They're using stuff in ToL because you can kill stupid fast in the right area with the right group comp and the XP is better per minute.
Straw man argument. Who cares if it can be done. The question you should ask… is it reasonable to grind compared to other methods of leveling? The answer is obviously no.
The simple truth is this game is now designed for and around box crews. They are the loudest voices screaming that the task/mission design for leveling is more then fine, as they all hit 120 in less then a week rolling out their ready made groups using multiple programs with questionably in game legality. In the meantime, anyone else that doesn't box a full party is left begging for groups or trying to buy task adds to the missions to level, unless they want to grind for 6-10% per hour and that's with a full group while running lesson. Yeah, did I mention that full groups don't exactly grow on trees unless you are one of previously mentioned full party-boxers. I have no problem with the achievements giving a large exp boost, as I enjoy doing the tasks/missions myself and usually have no issue getting guild groups to do these things. What I and a lot of people are saying is grinding should be an option as well, and not the 6-10% exp under a fully optimized group type of grinding. There is no reason why the exp can't be returned to the level it was at for 20+ years when killing mobs. It was a stupid change that was done for the wrong reasons.
Honestly, it sounds to me like some of y’all need to join a guild or make some friends in game. I am able to do missions every night (more than once a night sometimes with the short lockouts!) Using exactly 0 boxes or 3rd party software. All I use is /1, /fs, /gu. If you're completely unable to find anyone to group with you either need to move to a more active/friendly/better time zone guild or figure out what you're doing wrong to drive people away. The game is better with people, and I *seriously* doubt that third party software can outplay a real person who's put effort into learning their class and how to hit their buttons.
Can't beat them, join them ... I don't feel like creating a 6box crew but it seems like it's the only option these days (unless one has reliable gaming partners/guild).
You're right. But the population is so thin below max level that's just the way EQ is. There is a huge opportunity to solve the "returning player" problem and develop a bridge between TLPs and Live. And I think the solution is the same for both. I'll sketch it out here, but feel free to ignore it .. The devs should really be considering Heroic Toon maintenance in their expac launches, so Heroic Toons are basically at parity with whatever the current FTP expac is each expansion, and people can just jump back into the game (even Heroic'ing their old toons if it's been a while) and be ready to jump into "Current Content" if they want to pay. Work your Heroic Toon maintenance backwards (over time as you get time) so that there are Heroic Toons all the way back to PoP, and let people jump into TLPs at whatever era those TLPs are at. Missed the HoT glory days? There's a TLP about to hit that expac. etc. This would have glorious consequences. Merge servers. Like, I would seriously consider a merge of all Live servers into a single Mega Server™ (excluding Zek, Test and FV ofc). It would be also be glorious. The future of this game is not in maintaining a set of sparsely populated Live servers ... it's TLPs and maintaining a single healthy "end-game" server that all TLPs eventually merge to (plus FV). Continuing to tack on expansions is still very important, you want to maintain your end game population, maybe even flip them between TLPs and Live, and you want to be dragging people through your bought and paid for (development-wise) content until heat-death of the universe if you can manage it. The "customer loop" needs to be completed, people need to be able to jump on the loop anywhere they like and just ride the wave of EQ content from that point. And this brings me back to my original claim: there should never be a need to "box in order to progress", because there is a slice of EQ ready for you at any point of the game that interests you, and a population for you to play with from the moment you click "Enter World". And that's it, that's how you do it. Sorry to sorta hijack your reply Skuz, it just seemed a solid quote to tack my thoughts on about solving that problem that people keep bringing up in here.
