Career, Family, Everquest, Sleep, choose up to three.

You had 12 months not 1 month to do 1 to 50 back in 99 though, it's important to be aware of all the variables and not just cherry pick the one's that fit your own narrative/world view.

There will be a period until we start getting lvl/AA's and AA's every other expansion that this question and post will fade away probably. But it will come back when Luclin/PoP hits and onwards with the reduced unlocks this server has. The point of this post is just to raise awareness among the people who need to be aware of the situation, so that they have hopefully formed some opinions on what may or may not need to be done/changed when we get to that era.

It takes 40 hours to get 1-50 naked. Way less for 50-60. All this is dramatically sped up when you can drop 1 krono on a full set of gear, pots,spells etc. Raiding all targets is about 3 hours a week. If you don't have free time for this I can't see you having free time for anything.

The proverbial git gud post.

My experience for 50-60 has been it takes about the same as 1-50. I guess if you consider AoE leveling is the baseline, then ok.

Going forward into further expansions will require way more than 3 hrs a week for raiding, but I don't consider raid times to be a big issue with dz's.

Right now, leveling is what takes the time, getting to 50, and then 60 is a large time investment, but raiding is very quick. In later expansions it flips, we went from 70-75 in less then 4 hours, but we raid 9 hours a week.

Everquest requires time to stay competitive, if you don't have the time or don't care about being "the best" then it takes less time. Figure out your goals and adjust your time accordingly.

Okay, I choose raiding. I don’t have time to also level so I chose just raiding. See how useless your post is now?

And more so as people like me will never make it to that “flip” you seem to think exists but definitely doesn’t once you’re in the 80s.

Just be glad there are no hell levels anymore!

This is the dumbest post in this thread, and there are several to choose from.

If you are the adult you claim to be, act like one and quit whining that Jimmy got a bigger slice of cake than you.

You didn't really answer the question, and completely avoided how the exp mechanics work, probably because they undermine your point. You say you got 50 fast, so I have to assume you were in full groups, fighting hard content, otherwise you may have gotten 50, but not fast. Putting in a ton of hours is only required if you are not in optimal groups and content.

You say all the other factors are fluff, but the reality of who hit 50 first disagrees with you. Nobody who was among the first people to hit 50 did it solo, or duo, or in a trio. If they did they can come correct me, but it's unlikely, due to the exp multipliers and capabilities of a full group to wade into a pack of red mobs and come out alive with the multiplied (80% for the first 5) and bonus exp (free equivalent exp for the 6th) as their prize. They'll have less downtime, and if they are an optimal mix of classes, few struggles with the fights even on red cons.

The only real argument here for casuals is how hard it is to put together a long block of time to be able to join one of these kinds of groups, or being averse to grouping with strangers. Again, I know this because I'm this person. That's unfortunate, and maybe there is something that can be done about that, like rested exp bonuses, since casuals will be logged out a lot. But otherwise I doubt there's much that could be done without drastically benefiting the people that don't need help, while barely helping the people that do.

Six months, we had six months, and not everybody started on day one. And we had hell levels, starting at 30 and every 5 levels if I remember correctly.

EDIT: Apparently I remembered wrong.

I believe the length of time people play in one session is the biggest factor in total leveling time. If I were to define casual and hardcore eq gamer, this would be one of the defining metrics. I unfortunately get pretty bored with leveling after a couple of hours nowadays.

You may want to double check the release dates for classic and RoK. I do remember those hell levels were so bad they eventually added a blue bar so we could track the progress within the yellow bubble. There were times it seemed our exp bar was broke.

Oops, the expansions were 6 months after RoK, but it was a year between release and RoK. I forgot, thanks

I wasn't in an optimal group, I never am, so yes what I stated was correct, I put in a shaitload of hours in one go, something casuals can't do mostly.

Again, you can't set the XP based on the people that don't need it on a very casual focused server like Mischief, you need to cater to the core audience. If it was the core audience they were looking for from the start, I do not know. They have at least got a ton of new casual customers in, and now they probably should adapt to keep them.

Here's the lowdown on who can level the quickest in EQ, and its pretty much always been this way.

1. Heavy Elite Player
2. Part-time Elite Player
3. Heavy Mediocre Player
4. Part-time Mediocre Player
5. Heavy Dumb Player
6. Part-time Dumb Player

I don't usually use the terms Hardcore and Casual, since there's so many definitions used for them and there's connotations used that people use to make themselves feel better about certain inadequacies.

So let's break this down. Your Heavy player is the one who plays alot. They get literally 8 or more hours a day in. Usually playing the better part of 7 days a week. Your part-time player is that player who plays a few hours a day and a few days a week, usually not every day. There's heavier and lighter versions, but you get the idea.

Your elite player is the one who has all their stuff together. They know the game, they know their class, they have all the resources, and likely have some TLP experience before.

Your mediocre player lacks something the elite player has. They can still be incredibly good at their class, know the game well, and have all the websites tabbed. But maybe they don't have TLP experience, or do and haven't played TLP since some features were added.

Your dumb player is lacking a ton of stuff listed above or just lacks some other important aspect to playing EQ successfully. There's plenty of things that can cause this, use your imaginations.

Number 2 can get a character to 50 in under a week. 3 can as well. 4 can get it done in under 2 weeks. So if you're not able to do that. Either the problem is between the screen and the chair and falls into category 5 or 6, or there's something else missing. Usually judging by these posts its a lack of commitment, a lack of motivation, and/or a lack of confidence.

I'm not going to be mean or derogatory and say most players fall into 5 and 6. They really don't. Its a bell curve in my experience. But in some cases some people just lack stuff that is not really game related, but it affects the game itself. And likely affects not just EQ, but every online game they play. They always feel behind. And like I said, its usually a lack of commitment, motivation, or confidence.

You need to go in there, with a goal, with a mind on success, and be badass while doing it. That last one is important because you've got to have fun too. EQ can be fun. Getting leveled up in EQ can be fun. Getting geared in EQ can be fun. But you have to make that happen. The dev's can't do that (well they can, and did their part so far), and we the other players in the general community can't do that for you. You have to do that yourselves.

But if you go in with negativity, saying you're always getting camps stolen, kill stolen from, and trained, and that you'll never get your epic. Then yeah you might as well uninstall now. Just do it. Give it up if you can't get past that. But if you go in there, being badass, having fun, having a goal, and having the mindset no one can stop you, then you will obtain everything you set out to do. And the best part is, you'll be the person people want to be around. Negativity isn't something we want to be around.

As I stated multiple times, putting in a ton of time isn't the only option. If it's the only option a person has due to their play schedule or group composition options, then they may just have to live with leveling slower.

Casuals aren't the primary target for a TLP. With that said, these two new servers have been much more casual friendly, so there are likely more of them around. The exp is already set for the target audience, people who jump to every new TLP and level up quickly to raid. They make static groups with Enc/Clr/Mag/Mag/Mag/Brd or whatever, or they PUG like mad. That's the reality of TLP life.

The best thing we can do for casuals is educate them. Messing with group exp bonuses or unbalancing solo versus group options/exp would be bad for the TLP ecosystem they have developed. Again, I am casual, I am speaking from experience here.

I spent a few hours over the weekend just running around, because I hit 19 and Gorge of King Xorbb was getting too grey and green to do another level there. Went to Upper Guk, but it wasn't a good fit for a Mage/Wizard duo. Was going to hit Sol A, Najena, Dagnor's Cauldron, and Mistmoore. Ended up checking Mistmoore first, and was getting 3% per kill on white/yellow/red mobs, so I stayed. The next couple levels should be a breeze and fly by.

I'm fairly experienced with Classic, but not as much with TLP's, so I have to put in the work to improve my game experience. We need to use our knowledge to help the casuals find their best options. Trying to adjust exp rates to help them will just get them an additional 5/10/15/20% exp, while simultaneously giving that to the 5 and 6 person groups that are already leveling far faster than the casuals due to the factors I mentioned earlier.

The speed of leveling for non-casuals has more to do with max-bonused splits on packs of red mobs, versus non-bonused (solo) or minimally-bonused (small group) splits on smaller counts of blue to yellow mobs. This isn't a casual problem, it's a math problem. The solution is to try and get the most bonused kills you can on the toughest mobs you can handle.

You do realize that putting in 10 hours of XPing in a non optimal group in one day is the same as putting in 10 hours in a non optimal group over a week (7 days)? in both cases you XP for 10 hours.

Is this just your very subjective opinion based on your own biases or do you have any "objective evidence" to back it up with?

If you do the exact same thing during that time, yes. If you use the longer block of time to get into PUGs and benefit from a full group bonus and fight harder content, then no, they are not. That is the point I've been making. There are fast and slow ways to gain exp, the fast ways tend to require longer dedicated blocks of time to accomplish.

Casuals, as you've said yourself, can't often level as fast as hardcores. TLP's at best give you 3 months in any expansion, and 1 month at worst. That is not conducive to casuals. To be fair, the target for TLP's is anybody who is willing to sub and might consider spending real cash on 40 slot 100% weight reduction bags. Those could be casuals, but they tend to find TLP's move too fast for them.

For like the 1000th time, I'm flipping casual. I'm not making this crap up, I'm telling you how it goes from the perspective of somebody with both limited playtime and limited session playtime. I'm not out there asking the devs to speed up leveling for me, the casual, because I understand how the math works. They can't help me without helping people that don't need help. Maybe if things were different, but probably not even then. Rested exp bonuses might help, as I said before. Beyond that, there is very little I can think of that would help casuals and not make things too easy for the hardcores.

Would have to be some sort of logged out bonus that applies after being logged out for (x) hours then a casual could log in and have like a few hour (x) bonus for experience.

EQ is just a time sink unfortunately that's the way it's always been but now days it's just far easier to buy a level 50, 60, 65 etc as they sell for so cheap it's actually more effective.

I've purchased accounts for friends on past TLPs when I was too bored to PL and it was a speed and cost effective process. Just view it as a form of entertainment, one night out at dinner + drinks = a highly leveled character.

You are stuck in a loop and your neural networks are to myelinated for the amount of enzymes your body is producing for you to be able to change your thinking and actually understand anything else then the illusionary box you have created for your self. I wish you the best in life....

I'm looping because you keep repeating the same ignorant stuff over and over again. See what face a math teacher makes at you the second time you tell him 2x3 isn't 6. The first time he just thought you weren't paying attention, the second time he wonders what is wrong with you.

You want to solve this problem, propose something, other than just faster exp. Propose something that helps casuals without trivializing leveling for others. You can't ignore the side effects of a proposed solution if you want it to be considered with any level of seriousness. That is why I'm pushing back.

I said rested exp bonuses could help, and I have no issue with something like that being added. That is specifically targeted at casuals. So what's the problem with that? Why doesn't that solve your issue? It's ok if it doesn't, but you have to explain why if you want others to understand.

Rested XP has been purposed a number of times and has never been implemented, making changes in XP rate on a server they do many times a year.

I have never said I was against rest XP bonus, that suggestion has however "no" chance of making it in before luclin/pop release on Mischief (unless they are already working on it) based on the speed of major feature releases in the past and summer vacation coming, changing the XP rate in general on a server, they can easily do. Let's see if you are able to adapt after I spelt it out for you.....