Is it time to reexamine EXP rates on Phinigel?

Phinigel has the slowest EXP rate of the TLP servers currently, and for the longest time, this was not an issue. Yes it took longer to gain AA and levels than it does on live or Selo's for example, but it was something that could be accomplished with some hard work and a little extra time.

As we enter into an era where each expansion has multiple thousands of AA to obtain, I think it might be time to reexamine this rate, not only for the sake of Phinigel, but also for Coirnav as well since they have the same base EXP rate as Phinigel.

Moving Phinigel away from the (Classic) EXP rate to a more forgiving (Progression) EXP rate would help to improve overall server morale, and give more people a chance of being the best version they can be moving from one expansion into the next. A few people are able to Max AA every single expansion without much trouble, but this is not the common experience on Phinigel by far. Some people are falling behind as it is, and are becoming discouraged. I would personally like to see these people continue to play the game on Phinigel well into the future as a server with less players is never a good thing.

Some of the expansions due to be released over the next 18 months on Phinigel have an insane amount of AA to obtain (In EoK most classes have over 10000 AA to obtain) and some that are right around the corner have 3000-5000 AA to obtain. This is simply not possible given the current EXP rate and the amount of time (as little as 8 weeks) we spend in each expansion.

I would ask DBG to at least take this into consideration since most of the people who wanted a slower EXP rate on Phinigel are either gone or would likely welcome this change considering how many AA are needed in this later era of EQ as compared to earlier eras. The slower EXP rate seems punitive at this stage of the game and I know I am not the only person who feels as such.

Thank you for your consideration, comments and suggestions

Are you trying to say that people who demand dumb options/nerfs usually never stick around to see their negative side effects? No, this doesn't sound plausible AT ALL...

Have you tried using a fellowship? Clever use of that can really level/AA people up

Phinny actually has the fastest EXP of any TLP. When TSS came out Phinny got live EXP rates making it tied for the fastest EXP among TLPs

maybe for lvl's 1-4 LOL

With the dirge nerf I'm not sure I have it in me to balance sleep, [no] work, Cheetos and maxing AA's in 1-2 weeks every expansion.

Sorry it's plain wrong, Coirnav have the slowest.

lol i thought you were gonna ask for less xp. I basically pop daily to burn my lesson, maybe get 3 more aas to hit a new rank off an aa line, and then log off again, and i already made like 1500 aas in this expac. No, i am not a bard or some other class that swarm kill stuff, i am a beastlord that just kills 1 mob at a time.

Selo is faster than Live, slower than FV. It is the fastest TLP.

https://www.everquest.com/guides/eq-what-is-a-progression-server

Yeah this info is just wrong. Selo will have faster then live XP when it reaches TSS and gets an XP buff. Then Selo will be at FV rates(50% bonus) but until then it's slower then live. All progression servers that are past TSS have live rates. The "faster" and "slower" rates only apply too the earlier expansions.

(looks at your sig) does it even matter on Agnarr?

Also This is why I wanted a sliding scale of expansion release times. Phinny should be on 6mo/xpac by now. Still half the time these lasted on current servers, which is about in line with 3 months in xpacs that lasted about 6 back in the day of biannual releases.

I was speaking of the Base rate. Coirnav and Phinny have the same BASE RATE. as in when Coirnav gets to VoA it will be just as slow as Phinny is today. Phinny is no where near live EXP rates.

I'm going to have to agree with McJumps.

While Phinigel is in a decent spot overall, the experience per kill for the casual player will divert potentials willing to call the server home. The problem is at the current rate of experience gains versus three months per expansion is just not enough time to get settled into the expansion. And, folks that actually level as the game mechanics intend will suffer greatly.

For example: My girlfriend and I experienced some catch-up pains just last expansion. We took a small break around Seeds of Destruction, rejoined the server half way through House of Thule, and just made it to 90 with mixed T2/T3 group gear when Veil of Alaris unlocked. Another set back was we did reconfigure our group composition (instead of 2 trio, we now both duo) to have room for guild-mates. I will admit that this took a lot of time and careful planning, but ultimately we were not able to obtain all the base AAs from House of Thule, Underfoot, or Seeds of Destruction for our characters.

We're not doing too bad in Veil of Alaris, but I made a slight change to the 2 that I play and it set our group back a few days/weeks. For our play-style I do anticipate being expansion ready, but we'd have no real 'downtime' between expansions, which means burnout at the casual level is inevitable. Burnout means a break, and the catch up phase all over again if we decide to rejoin. However, this time it will be even more of a chore.

I would like to see the rate of XP somewhere between what it is now and during double XP weekends. I think that would be the real sweet spot.

I really don't get why people are so motivated to believe that Selo is not faster than Live. I gave you a link to everquest.com that plainly states that Selo it is faster than Live. I have verified it myself at several different levels and zones. It doesn't matter if it doesn't "feel" faster to you. It verifiably is.

You can search the forum for my test results if you want, but that won't convince you either. Everyone else can look at the link I provided and decide if everquest.com or you would be more likely to have the correct info.

Selo

• Experience: Fast (Faster than Progression and Live)

Mangler

• Experience: Progression (Faster than Classic, slower than Live)

Coirnav

• Experience: Classic (Slower than Progression and Live)

Agnarr

• Experience: Progression (Faster than Classic, slower than Live)

Phinigel

• Experience: Classic (Slower than Progression and Live)

Lockjaw/Ragefire

• Experience: Progression (Faster than Classic, slower than Live

I am not sure this is accurate, but Phinny is supposed to be slower XP than Ragefire/Lockjaw/Live right now. Selo is supposed to be faster than Live, but may be crippled by era xp blocks until TSS. No current TLP is stated to be equal to live XP in the website FAQ. Is the website accurate? probably not...

>but may be crippled

Please cite your sources, or provide data from your testing. No one is interested in how you think it may work.

It’s not simply an EXP thing. It’s also a Named spawn rate and Raid Chest drop rate issue.

When you get to the expansions Phinigel has reached (basically everything SoF and beyond), the expansions were designed to occupy players for an entire year because this is when they shifted to yearly expansion launches.

This meant that raid progression was designed to have keying hurdles that would take most guilds several months to defeat them and reach the end tier content. For the most part the developers have addressed this issue by increasing key drops in SoF/SoD/HoT, by doubling entire chests in Underfoot, and by revamping the book progression in VoA. It also sounds like RoF+ expansions which Phinigel hasn’t reached also have some progression acceleration fixes in. These were necessary fixes to allow players to get through raid content while it remains current. Good on Daybreak for these.

But raid progression is only part of the formula. There’s also raid gearing, group gearing and Leveling/AA progression.

Raid chest should all be double loot like was already done in Underfoot. That was the perfect fix to allow guilds to gear properly so they are prepared for the next expansion. The advent of coin vendors in VoA will help this especially due to how friendly the VoA T2 vendor exchange rate is, but in the next few expansions coins aren’t that quick of an option and Raiders will lag behind in gear. We only have 1/4th the time spent in each expansion that Live players have, by increasing the drops on all items and spells by 2 you increase the likelihood guilds will continue to succeed and play into further expansions rather than collapse and quit.

For group gearing players had a year to progress through the tiers and acquire their visible armor, non-visible drops, Augs and rank 2 spellss. However on TLPs they have 25% of that time, only 3 months. The most logical thing then is to apply a double named spawn rate on these TLPs that reach SoF and beyond content which have modern itemization and tiering of items. This was done on Selos for the entire server life which is good because it’s accelerating 1month per expansion. But once you get into these later year long expansions even a 3month server needs this Named spawn increase to allow group players to progress through content without requiring large time commitments. I know there are people who have already finished hunter achievements on Phinigel but those are outliers in top tier raid guilds. For the general population this Bump would be very helpful and allow them to see more content and progress more quickly.

Similarly EXP rates, we are getting into expansions that grant 2000+ AAs every 3 months and often another 5 levels. The base EXP rate doesn’t allow most players to get their levels and the non-fluff abilities each expansion and will cause players to fall behind. Double the base EXP rate once a server reaches SoF so that you can account for the lower amount of time TLP players have in each expansion compared to when they were live to try to earn the same number of AAs.

I think xp is fine. We will have almost a month of xp bonus in the next 3 months. I missed the labor day weekend, and I'm still almost xp capped. Is it possible to only play 5 hours a week and keep up, nope. That's what newer tlp are for.

Increasing the xp will just drive the daily players away earlier in these xpacs, making the server even more of a ghost town.

No one is online grinding out AAs anyway. No one plays after the first month of an expansion except to raid. Genchat will drop down to around ~130 in off hours now. Only ~30 offline traders even! Double Rares was single player MMO for aug hunting, had a couple zones to myself. Just be strategic with the AAs you buy, SoD autogrant with RoF in November.

As a Resolute guild member, you're in the very best of gear at the end of the expansion, which means you're able to run through the next expansion with little to no issues. It's also much easier to hit all caps when you're at that level of gear/play style. Those that don't have that luxury have a very different (slower) experience.

I'm going to respectfully disagree because there are quite a few achievement hunters on the server. There are also currently a good handful of players in the 85-90 and 90-95 brackets still leveling throughout the day. However, because the rates are semi-punishing, I think it's safe to assume that these numbers have to be dwindling.