Does anyone else regret Insta-Leveling to 85? I know I certainly do. I had a 65 Mage and Necromancer that I played way back when before I moved to WoW for several years. When I came back to EQ --we always do, don’t we?—for some reason I chose to insta-level my former main characters to 85. Don’t ask me why, was I drunk? Insane? Stupid? Perhaps all three at once? Clearly, yes. Regardless. My former mains had thousands of hours played on them and suddenly (after L85 twinkage) were not recognizable with unearned aa’s and spells I’d never heard of. As a result I haven’t played them since; I don’t play them anymore, at all. Instead, I play other characters that I have since leveled to about 60. I have a good time with these new guys, but my original characters languish. Remember when casters had to med while staring at a book when less than L35? These characters do. And I blew them up. And yes, I know. It’s my fault and I’ve made myself a target: some anus is going to troll me for weeping into my spilled milk and tell me I deserve it. But OMG, I really wish I hadn’t done that to those, my former main characters. Does anyone else feel regret over their main pixels getting twinked?
I have 3 accounts from back when I was playing in the aughts on FV and the server was 1 character per account. I had been back on and off a couple times after the character restriction was lifted but only for a few weeks at a time. When I fully returned in mid-2020, one character on each account had been auto-upgraded to 85. On my main account, the only one I had played since the aughts, it wasn't my original main that was upgraded but a character I had started and played a couple weeks with my sweetie shortly after TSS was released. The other two accounts had only one character. I had an enchanter (main account) that went from 20-something to 85, a beastlord that went from 58 to 85, and a wizard that went from 50-something to 85 (the beastlord had an in-game mail with congrats for 58 is why I know her previous level). The spell books were hopeless to untangle at that point. The beastlord at least had melee even without knowing all the AA so I was able to play at least a little with a couple friends at that time. But, like you, I didn't play the other two until later because I was overwhelmed. I actually rolled new characters to level and get back into gameplay. I did over a year later use a booster on a character by choice but by that time I wasn't as overwhelmed by too many changes all at the same time.
The only regret I have when using a level 85 heroic is that I didn't use a level 100 heroic. The levels between 65 and 100 are slow and profitless to learning your class for modern Everquest.
The OP has a decent point. Jumping the learning curve isn't always a very good thing. I decided to make a bard alt a few years a go. Did the heroic thing and then realized I had no clue how to play a bard. I learned some of it by trial and error, lots of error, but I should have at least done the tutorial and and leveled some to have gained at least a little bit of confidence in how to play the lame little musician.
I learned some barding on Oakwynd that I didn't know with my 120 bard simply because I didn't have every tool in the box to rely on. Learning some of the basics (or rather relearning them, I did play a bard a bit in the aughts) helped substantially even for my 120. Was this after you had been playing other characters or the first characters you were playing at 85 from a pre-60 jump with years of absence between? For those who have been continuously playing, a jump to 85 or even 100 is not as abrupt and overwhelming as for someone who is just returning with old knowledge of the way the game was in the past. A couple friends of mine made a leap from TLP to Live and bumped some of their old pre-60s Live characters to 100. They've been getting through the overwhelmed stage by also playing lower level characters they didn't bump and by playing with me and some other friends with their 100+.
Sorry to hear your having problems adjusting to the new levels. Perhaps take a look at http://www.paullynch.org/eqguide/guides/heroic-characters/ this guide was put together when heroic (level 85) chars were first released. I found it very helpful when I started on Miragel server which launched at level 85. I hope it helps you with your old chars.
Most of the spells are repeated and named slightly different for each level expansion. If you stop using the spell book to search for spells and use the 'expanding tree' (whatever its called) to search and fill in your spell slots, you will learn the spells really quick. Not to mention, going heroic should have backfilled any spells which you missed before going to WoW. But like someone else said, its only 20 levels and likely the least exciting levels in EQ. House of Thule was a good expansion and several others after were good too. Necros are very fun to play now and mages are the caster class of choice. They are a good combo together and you would likely find them fun to play again.
I pointed out this exact problem many times to developers, but they went: "lalala I can't hear you!....this is going to make us money!".
For people who don't want to jump to 85 or 100, I've thought it would be good to have something that accelerates your leveling. You still have to level up, but you're in a constant state of bonus exp. That way you would level up twice or three times as fast as normal. This way people could get some experience of playing the capabilities of each level, but they wouldn't have to slog through the level for so long on their own. One way they could do this is by using the Vitality system. If you're not aware, Vitality is an exp sharing system from Fellowships that give you bonus exp. They could add a Vitality potion to the DB store that fills your Vitality bar. Then when you get exp, you get the Vitality bonus exp in addition to your normal experience. Another way they could do this is by having a NPC that boosts you to the next level simply by asking (up to 85 or 100 depending on which Heroic you bought). So you can play normally as long as you like, but when you want to jump to the next level, you simply ask the NPC and you get boosted to level+1. That way if you're having fun in level 50, you can stay there and level up normally. But if you're bored in level 60, you can get to 61 just by asking.
Not all spells/songs are updated but have only one version. For most classes with invisibility or levitation there is only one or possibly 2 if you count a group one. Some of them are exceedingly useful, such as the banish ones, but the categories in the tree menu don't give you any clue of their existence. Plus, the categories can be misleading on what a song/spell does especially if there are two (or more) in a category that are current. The menu is a horrible way to learn the spells/songs and definitely is not a quick way to learn all the abilities of any class. The menu also does not catch any discipline for melees and hybrids.
They already have a bonus XP system that depends on being under level X, the old Recruit-A-Friend accounts. But old level XP is already boosted a ton.
I came back to EQ in 2022, having last played seriously in 2005, with negligible playing between 2005 and 2022. I decided to 3 box for the first time. I slowly leveled and learned to play my toons and box. But I ended up adding 3 more toons for a full box. I don't regret using heroic 100 tokens for my other 3 toons. I'm glad... very glad, that I spent time learning to box. I'm still learning to 6 box.
I've played on and off since Kunark - never had a toon above about... 87 or so? I don't auto-grant AA's or anything for the reason OP stated - you very quickly lose track of what you have and how to use it if you just go POW - here's 63 clickies you may need / must use / should never set a hotkey for. I'm 2-boxing through content (currently alternating between LDoN and doing the 68 spell arc in Undershore) appropiate to my current duo's (Mage & Chanty) level on live, I don't often get KS'd. My trader makes the plat I need without fighting botted traders (there's some great tribute stuff that drops as well as defiant etc). I'm thoroughly enjoying strolling through content that was much tougher back in the day and I am in zero rush to get to the stressy end of EQ. When I get to the upper end of fun stuff with this duo, I have a SK & Bard I'm looking to learn. There's so many different routes in the early game that no levelling period needs to be duplicated unless you really like TSS...
It's not that heroic characters were a bad idea--letting people pay to "catch up" to relevant content is a great idea. The problem is the implementation was only kind of half done. The spell bar and hotkey bar they give you range from suboptimal to downright bizarre, depending on the class. They don't automatically give casters different spell sets, which is pretty nearly mandatory for some classes. There is no tutorial at all; you just get tossed into the world to figure things out. And the gear is missing augments, which is okay for casters but debilitating for tanks (which many returning players will have no way of knowing). It doesn't help that modern EQ has way more buttons than is sensible for every class, but that's a whole other can of worms.
Sorry, I wasn't clear in my post. I should have stated more about a case by case situation. If the OP is talking about missing levels 66-85, then most of his spells are likely repeated between those levels and the levels going forward. Sure, there are some spell lines which are new in the higher expansions, but for the general core spells of each class, they are mostly repeated. Either method (browsing spell book or spell tree) will still need additional searching or clicking in order to read more info. But if I see every 5 levels of the tree under DoT -> poison there is a spell listed for 'xx venom', then its easy to know which is the current best of the line. To each their own, but I would think using the tree search would be easier then trying to remember where my DMF spell was located in 40 pages of the spell book or trying to look for levant or summon corpse I used when I was 65 only to find out I need to use the most current spell.
Yes, it has happened to me too. I've also felt regret when accepting powerleveling or free gear. No matter how boring some levels might be, there is a sense of accomplishment when you look back and see how far you've come. I hope you can regain your affinity with your character. You should try banking the heroic gear and putting back on what you used to wear, then go back to the old zones and resume where you left. The extra levels will help you solo many things you'd otherwise need a group for (which now is impossible to have, unless you box). As a last resort, you could also delevel back to 65. Harsh, but better than 'spoiling' your main character. Some people might become tired of repeating the same journey over and over so they choose the 85 or 100 heroics. Personally, I think they are a good way to test a class at a higher level, so you have a better idea of how it's played in 'current EQ'. On a last note, each heroic upgrade gives you a mount and two bags, so if you are a collector then there is no other way to get those
Why would you use an 85 level heroic on a lvl 65? You're already halfway there, not a wise choice. Honestly 40-60 is grueling time to level. Old EQ doesn't have mob density and what not. Easy to find 65+ zones with mob density. You have your spell lines by now too. 40-60 and 105-max level in EQ is grueling, terrible.
Actually, many of the one-of spells are lower than 60. Some of theose later get 'converted' to AA, but that, too, can be overwhelming for a new/returning who goes from sub-60 to 85 or 100. But, for an example of a song/spell not being "learnable" (i.e. what it does, etc.) from the spell gem menu, the Song of Highsun is a level 56 bard song that sends the target to it's origin point as well as stripping them of enchantments and a brief stun. The location in the spell gem menu is Utility Beneficial > Shadow Step. If not for playing on a TLP as a bard, I would not have learned the usefulness of this song for crowd control. From the menu I thought it was only used for a PC to shadowstep and I find shadowstep of dubious usefulness. On my now 120+ bard, I had used an 85 booster on her when she was in her 40s from playing her on random occasions between the aughts and TSS being launched when I wanted a brief break from other games and wanted to try bard again. My original character was a bard, but I only got into the 20s with her. I actually had to go through all the menus again to find Song of Highsun because it is in such an illogical location for what it does. Knowing now what it does, I would have expected it to be under Utility Detrimental > Dispell since it does strip enchantments or even under Direct Damage > Stun since that's were stun spells end up for other classes. But, yes, generally the menus can HELP and are significantly better than finding a song/spell in the book especially since the methods to sort and organise it are absolute dreck when you use a Heroic booster (and not much better even when you don't) -and- there is no way to do a search for a spell/song either by the book or in the menus. There are no auto-sorts for the book on alpha or level (both things available in EQ2, so they did realise the shortcomings of the EQ book) or type. The categories in the menus are sometimes misleading or incomprehensible why that there (i.e. Song of Highsun). Updating the memset on a character when picking up 1-2 levels of spells in the higher levels is daunting enough even with the names of a spell line being similar or having one part of the name the same (though that's not always consistent either). But, I am sympathising with how overwhelming and daunting it can be when, as a new/returning just starting to play again, jumping direct to 85 or 100. It absolutely can be. It absolutely can take a few weeks to figure it all out and, sadly, there isn't a lot of help to do so. Those who play in the high end already don't face the same issue even if they boost a brand new character even if they might miss some of the nuances of playing that class using only the tools and information in game or even from looking at a few 3rd party sites (like me with Song of Highsun).
This is one of the reasons that I don't like turning auto-grant on for AAs. I don't feel like I actually learn WHY and HOW I should use the AAs I earn if they are auto granted to me.
Even if you play normally you still wont know whats going on. Too much stuff. People with 4 hotbars, people that say 4 hotbars is not enough. New games. 1 hotbar thats all you need. Also, seemed like the OP was talking about those DoN AAs and what not. If heroic 85 deletes the AA you got from playing normally to 65, thats pretty messed up. Especially if you gotta faction again, levels have nothing to do with faction, so it's pretty messed up if thats the case.
