Using a merc up to level 60 or 70 is a PL tbh, the rogue merc does decent dps and the healer merc will tank without subtlety AAs. After 70 though, getting 125 buffs is the difference of like ~40K health and a nearly 9K ds. To make group content more enjoyable they'd have to increase the exp back to something like 1% per kill...in a hot zone. If you aren't swarming mobs and doing a PL, 100 mobs / level is pretty slow, slower still if not getting 125 buffed. They also would need to look at mercs, because they dramatically fall short around level 70. I'd love the ability to buff block what my merc casts....on my merc. Casting promised on itself and then dying as a cleric merc is ...EQ coding bad.
What they need to do for Live servers is take the Oakwynd progressive bonus structure and run it in reverse...you start off with bonus xp, bonus AA, whatever and as you get higher level, the bonuses start to trail off until you've caught up to "modern" EQ expansions. That would remove the slog of the early levels and allow returning, new players to experience playing the class while also getting them through those early, lonely levels quicker.
You don't list the levels of the members of your group as the level spread between the highest level and lowest level impacts how much the lowest level gains.
The problem is not the low end, the problem is post-70 to about 95 now. That's what needs the boost. Not the start. I'm not sure what other folks do ... I just leave alts at the right levels to take characters I want to level through chunks and pass off to the next alt. He says he's leveling a group starting at level 1. States that clearly in the original post. Maybe the xp has gotten off a little, but it should be safe to assume they are all at least within 1 level of each other.
I've often found some of the non Hot zones quicker to level in, due to the mobs having less HP and dying quicker, so while my exp per mob is lower my kill rate is faster. My usual path is TSS, SOD, HOT, RoF, CoTF, GMM, ToV, ToL, LS. The first expansion of any level increase is the easiest, so I tend to skip the 2nd +. Occasionally I will throw in TDS. I've started a mage persona and levels are flying past like crazy. With the lastest mount, and Djinn Illusion she is able to single shot mobs. I think the familiar is level locked, I can't remember. The plan is to hit zones I still need achieves finishing on my main and also hit DoN to get the faction for her AAs to work. At some point I need to visit MPG once. My next persona will be a rogue, but I expect leveling that to be a lot slower due to having to actually move to hit things.
Levelling in this game is broken. It is / was based on group play which is difficult to find beyond the last few levels. The mercs help up to a point (75ish?), then the 125 buffs help for a bit longer. Beyond this it's a cluster****, especially when you hit 110+. DBG have shown countless times that they're not interested in this element of game, nor anything beyond the latest expansion or so. Building a levelling strategy upon group play does not work when you fall behind the wave of players, especially in a game with a dwindling population. Plus, having no incentive for people to repeat content further exasperates this issue. I doubt they're going to do anything about it now. IF Personas was their answer to this, then I think it has missed the mark as the option for many people seems to be just to roll an alt. Would you recommend this to new players?
Exp is complicated. More complicated than you think. Con means very little. NPCs give a set amount of exp for killing them. Higher level npcs generally give a higher base amount of exp, but not always, (e.g. "weak" npcs). A dozen different mods all increase or decrease that exp: Server EXP mod1 Server EXP mod2 (There is more than 1, Test/FV use different ones, you can test this, I have) Zone EXP mod (ZEM) Group Bonus (Bigger group, more EXP) Fellowship Vitality RAF (different values for recruiter/recruitee) Buff EXP mod Class Bonus (Warrior/Rogue) Race Bonus (Halfling) Old content EXP nerf. (Older zones give less exp even at the same level when new expansions launch. I think this is RoF+ only?). Group "Puller" bonus Perk Bonus I may even have forgotten some, idk. And then you have the EXP Cap which limits how much EXP per kill you can get. Some of the above mods ignore the cap, others don't. I don't know the full specifics of which ones do or don't or the precise formula, so don't ask. I don't actually think there is a single person on this planet who completely, fully, understands all of how EQ EXP works. Killing a "red con" means nothing. A "red con" can be 5 levels above you or 100 levels above you and give 100 exp or 1000000000000 exp. What matters is how much base EXP it gives you, and how the above smorgasbord of EXP mods adjusts that value. TL;DR 0.3% per kill for an NPC 4-5 levels above you sounds pretty correct. For 10 levels above you it sounds a little low, but it requires knowing a LOT more of the context.
They removed the Race and Class bonuses in 2/2019 Code: Game Update Notes: February 20, 2019 - Removed some legacy experience code so that experience-per-level is now uniform for all races/classes. Warriors, Rogues, and Halflings will no longer gain experience faster than other classes/races.
This is all on purpose. They want the game to be painful and completely miserable post levels 65. Why would they want this you ask? Because it forces players to purchase their nonsense, taking advantage of their player base. Make levels post 65 horrible and eventually you'll break down and buy a level 100 boost and exp pots from the marketplace. Better yet you'll blow money on Kronos to use to pay for power leveling. Those in control of this game are not your old school everquest developers and executives who are passionate about the game and it's users. Daybreak is only looking to suck as much cash as it can from it's users while providing the most minimal experience and content that we will tolerate.
Yup. Daybreak wants you to suffer and hate everything. Management actually hands out candybars on thursdays based upon how many tears each dev has extracted from players.
I assume he is referring to the old zone xp penalty (nerf) for characters over the level of the expansion (starting with RoF I believe) and the bug that the puller (or first to aggro) ignores that penalty. It's not really a group puller bonus, it's a group puller non-penalty. In zones that do not have this penalty for over-leveled characters, there is no difference in the xp received by all group members (assuming same level ... yadda yadda yadda). Beimeith needs to update his list a little.
As far as I remember, grinding at 70+ has always been a slow point in EQ. Getting from high 60s to 75 has been the most painful part of the journey every time I have done it. The "intended" non-PL route from 75 to mid 90s or so would be HAs, and--especially in a full group where you will just blast through them--they will be much faster than grinding in a hotzone.
