Are there any Everquest servers where I can level at my own pace?

Good day! I've been attempting to restart here in Norrath, but seem to run into the same issues that I've had every time, so far. Regardless of which server here I might attempt to start out on, I very quickly outlevel almost all of the content that is available. I can fully understand that this isn't an issue for most here, who actually prefer to overlevel content to turn /godmode and bottomfeed to their heart's content. There are a handful of us, though, that do enjoy working through content at appropriate levels.

Are there any servers available today, here or on private servers, where leveling experience isn't forced on the player? A completely optional experience toggle exists here, as it should in any well thought out MMORPG. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't become available until the 51st level. So I've basically been forced to overlevel almost all of the earliest content here in its entirety. Yes, no one is putting a gun to my head and I can and have ended up skipping over almost all of this content that is available. I'm not wanting to have to do this, though. Are there any servers available that I'd be allowed to level completely at my own pace? Where anyone has had the sense to make this optional toggle for experience available from the beginning?

Well, if you purchase the newest expansion, you could effectively do that for yourself with the Persona system - as long as you're "class-fluid" and willing to switch to X/Y/Z class to reset your progress.

With needing to level a potential 15 extra times (assuming you buy all the persona slots, default allows 3 alternate classes), I can't imagine too many people having the free time to max out that in era, ever.

(And I say this as someone who is planning to do exactly that with the Persona system personally - although realistically while I may get to 15 by the end of the server reaching live, would likely be "only" 1-2 extras being maxed per expac)

Even with the different personas that I've attempted to work with, I've ended up overleveling *a lot* of early content very quickly with each one. That's the part that I was wishing wasn't forced upon me. An optional experience toggle exists here with the expendable firework glyph AAs that become available at the 51st level. It's only at that point here, where I've been allowed to truly level at my own pace. A real pause for leveling experience exists at that point only. Any intern could take less than five minutes to make this feature available from the beginning, but they've been quite stubborn about it. I'll admit that the personas can slow down the overall process, but each persona is going to be forced to overlevel a ton of content here. I'd prefer not having to leave hundreds of bodies around as I delevel each character/persona here. That just hasn't been possible anywhere that I've seen yet.

Eh, I don't see that if you're wise about "spreading out" to make sure you experience everything, there's not THAT many leveling paths in the 1-60 expansions - and the other expacs are linear.

4 paths for Classic, 4 funneling to 2 later for Kunark, 2 more for Velious, 2-3 for Luclin, and 2 for TSS.

Comes to 14 by my math - with 15 personas + original class avail. So to me it feels like a discipline issue to follow the idea, more than an implementation issue, at least now with personas involved previous years, absolutely didn't have a solution other than "keep making alts" which comes with it's own drawbacks. (i.e. for my wife and I, we intend to try to do the uber-achievement thing in TSS for the drakkin illusion item, so the carryover on achievements and repeated trips through should minimize cleanup at dull levels)

I do agree that I wish there was an Exp off toggle. When a couple of friends and I were on Vaniki and trying to do achievements recently, the exp is so much faster now that I almost outleveled Plane of Fear achievement by just clearing plane of fear. Had to die a few times and eat the exp penalty just to avoid outleveling the achievement. Even with the reduced AoC experience.

On Live or a TLP at DoDH and later, you could shroud to the level of your choice until ready to move on to another part of Norrath. It can be a nice way to experience zones in a level appropriate way. Unfortunately, lately people seem to prefer something closer to god-mode as you mention. Exhibit A being the Mischief server and probably at least one of the new servers coming soon. So you may need to get creative to experience lower-level content without just blowing through it.

Yea, true, accelerated rulesets do muck with things - but I'm not putting eggs in baskets on that yet.

If you are out leveling early content you are probably on a normal server. Maybe take this post to the regular forums instead of TLP. If you play on TLP you won't outlevel anything. It comes out late May.

You likely missed the "Regardless of which server here I might attempt to start out on" in the OP. Leveling experience, prior to 51st level, is forced upon us on every server. So, yeah, overleveling has been an issue anywhere that I've tried, so far. Just as example, I'd bet that it would be impossible to knock out the starting city quest achievements (sure, the achievements themselves might be missing for awhile, but just doing the questing) where I wouldn't outlevel almost all of them.

You could use shrouds to stay in the correct level range

Or the death loop

Or make an alt and go do the content you missed

There are options to accomplish what you want, and the number of folks who don't want to level in a timely manner is so small there really isn't much point in dedicating the time to putting a feature in game.

I am not sure if "there is too much content in the game and I keep outleveling it" is really a bad thing.

I don't get what you mean. You can stay in a camp killing greys and greens indefinitely and that'd slow your progression I suppose. I know for Heroes Journey you can outlevel the stages but long term that's not a real issue either. What exactly are you doing where levels come "to fast"?

Just as an example, I should be able to work on every one of the starting city quest achievements within the appropriate levels. As it is now, though, on any server, I'd end up outleveling the content for most of them and be forced to bottomfeed the remaining ones. I get that this /godmode type of design is preferred by the devs here, as well as almost all of the players, as Kahna mentioned. There are a few of us, however, that would like to work on all of the lower level content at appropriate levels. Why not allow us to and make the optional experience toggle (which already exists) avaiable from the beginning?

The option does exist for you. You just have to be proactive about it. Other games have this toggle because you don't lose exp when you die. Deleveling is an option in EQ. Why should they take dev time to develop this thing that only a handful of people want when there are work arounds that still allow those people to play how they want. Alts, shrouds, deleveling. Multiple ways for you to play how you want.

And I don't agree that you should, in this day and age, be able to complete all the starting city quests without outleveling them. I am not sure you could ever do that in EQ. You might try P99, and if you can't manage it there it won't exist anywhere (and probably never did). Less whining, more deleveling.

Below 51 where you can toggle AA, I guess you can just die a few times to de-level. Othergames don't have exp penalties where you can lose levels.

What most people don't choose to remember is that original content was much "harder" due to not having all the formula/programming/content changes over the last 20+ years that has made it all easier. Plus now everyone knows everything or can find it so it doesn't take the amount of time or whatever to do all of it. If you've done it a number of times, which it sounds like you have - it SHOULD be much easier/faster. That's just the nature of not making the same mistakes you used to make when you didn't know it all and not having to explore to find everything from scratch.

An option for "turning off" kill experience would be to group with another character that is too many levels above you. That could be anywhere from at least 6 to at least 31 levels higher than you, depending on your level. I'm pretty sure they'll need to be in the same zone as you, but I don't know if they need to be in the same area. This won't prevent you from getting quest experience if those quests you want to do have any meaningful experience rewards.

Probably the easiest way to find a too-high-level character is to make one on another account, even if it's a new Free account. Then you could level a character too quickly for your desires on that account.

Nothing you said so far is remotely accurate. You can just die repeatedly to lose levels. Are you new and trolling? How can you not stay where you want to?

AT level 6 you can de-level. If you are mad you are level 5 and doing a level 2 quest then I guess you just have nothing else to complain about in your existence and just want attention.

Its more than that, the original game is dead and gone. TLP is like a disneyland ride through history. Things like monk h2h damage are pretty crazy, no corpse runs, much higher experience gain, all sorts of things. However most things of these changes are a good thing. The original game was punishingly hard. Remember when melee didn't have yellow mana abilities? Your warrior/monk/rogue would press attack and then maybe one other button every 10 seconds? Casters would nuke 4 times then sit for 10 minutes to get the mana back, ect

This. Leveling is only forced if you choose not to de-level. I get it on Live you get levels early on extremely quickly, but that isn't the case on new TLP servers. But even if that is the case, just die repeatedly to de-level.

This is all part of the 20 years of changes I mentioned. We're not playing the original EQ - you are correct.