At what point does EQ become a group game? Or Guild game?

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Magneress, May 3, 2021.

  1. Jebasiz Journeyman

    The issue isn't "what is molo-able", it's "what can YOU molo"? Typically characters that are leveling up "late", new characters to an old game are lacking AA, gear, probably some knowledge (experience is very quick comparatively to when the game was newer or I guess I should say "less old"). Class, AA, knowledge, play style etc all factor in. Even specific zones...or mobs. I don't really know how COV plays..but I'm sure there's a cut off, and there should be..it's max level content. Prior to that..if you've put in the work..you should be able to molo selectively in most content..with the last 2-3 expansions having some areas that are a "hard no".
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  2. Magneress Augur

    ya, i feel like with exp pots and stuff, catching up shouldn't be that hard, but i obviously wont be doing TDS raids probably

    Still, it's great food for thought, I've settled into leveling a necro on aradune, so when GoD comes out i can try and play a zerker :)

    I think at some point I will roll a wizard or paladin on a standard server and try to catch up exp wise, not necessarily gear wise, because I'm not super fond of classic anymore anyway.
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  3. Magneress Augur

    So far moloing for just Exp on my wizard with autogrant, and pots, and a caster merc in HZ with defiant/heroic gear has been a lot of fun. It's not the fastest, but I got to really enjoy zones like the Bixie hive in TSS, and veksar, and a bit of velkators. I did every solo task in the Barren Coast. I did three islands in The Burried Sea and some instanuke kiting with my caster merc in Arcstone.

    I did manage to kill a yellow burried sea named with a tank merc, although it was hairy. Or close for comfort.

    Looking forward to my J5 mercs.

    I think as long as I realize there's just some content I'll need friends for, or box a tank and cleric mercs with my wiz and box. There's just some stuff that needs a friend.

    Looks like Ldons and DoDH missions flat out need groups if I want to explore those, but plenty of later expacs I can go for example to Jewel of Atiiki and don't need to take the missions there.

    It'd be nice if I could solo some raids like in DoDH or missions for example when I hit 105 or w/e. My experience is there'll just be a few things I will need friends for, want at least a boxed alt for no matter what.

    It's been fun. Exp is about a lvl every 6 hrs of play, I could probably push that more. But molo is eminently funner than boxing. I am pretty casual, don't enjoy tracking a lot of screens. I I'll make a new thread once I finish up my heroic progression and get my j5 :D
  4. quakedragon Augur


    I'm guessing he is referring to, if your lvl 70 and doing lvl 70 content, if your lvl 80 and doing 80 content. Not lvl 115 and whats the highest molo possible.
    Somewhere between expansions 13-17.
    I mean skill(what you know and how good you are) is a factor. For me SoD T3 or HoT T1 is when stuff just hits too hard. At lvl 85 and doing T1 HoT, stuff hits too hard. Lvl 84 and doing SoD T3, if I'm not fighting a weak mob, like those iksars, they hit pretty dang hard. Moloing MAY win most likely lose.

    If we talking about kiting, theres always a place to kite, but this is moloing, and I'm guessing if your lvl 80 doing 80 content.

    Btw, I skip UF, so of course that would be before HoT.
    Another factor is adds. Can you pull single, can you tank, can you dps, can you mez, can you do so much group stuff? Thats a factor too.
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  5. Magneress Augur

    i'm beggining to figure out it is way more gear, level, and merc dependent, though tanks shine towards the very high end, but i was kinda curious mostly about what a lvl 115 wizard could do vs a 115 necro vs a 115 pally for example in grp gear.

    The answers I got are legit.

    I think melee struggles moloing 60-80 from what one of my friends said until they gear and get aas. For example. So it's going to be diff for wiz, 60-70 was super easy, i was killing murkgliders before i even went into veksar! I was practically naked. because I could root/snare and my merc and me could easily burst them down. I even killed a few named in the nobles causway.
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  6. Vulken9 Journeyman

    In my experience, L75-85 is a real struggle on live, regardless of class. There's a couple of reasons.

    1. I believe TSS was the last global xp boost. While 70-75 isn't so bad, leveling becomes a real slog after that because you are stuck moloing or boxing.
    2. You don't have easy access to the J5 merc until 85.

    Also, the mudflation is real between 75-85 (and beyond). Those 10 levels are more like 20 (or even 25) if you're comparing the relative power increase from levels before. That also means you have to basically replace every slot.

    I think it is by design to funnel you to go heroic. And really, heroic will save a lot of headaches and timesinks.

    That's my opinion. Your experience may differ.
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  7. Magneress Augur

    Absolutely.

    I whole heartedly agree.. I'm 80 now. Took me a whole week of playing at least 6 hrs a day.

    I switched to a healer merc to help split mobs so I could burn them, cc if I got a bad pull @ around 74. This essentially slashed my exp rate in half. But it let me safely kill dark blues and do all of the heroic quests in The Burning Sea. This plus the generous gift of Dwerium, lvl 75 jewelry which is +600 hp/mana a piece has gotten me to 80.

    I went to Fortress Mechanutos to do some hotzone kiting, questing. Still using the healer merc for safety.

    I was only able to play about an hour today and didn't burn my lesson, was saving it for a safer camp I could solo without my merc or with caster merc. And I got 9% exp with the hotzone and holiday bonus stacked.

    Mobs are hard to snare, AoE kite even with steamfist, 85% runspeed. Especially in direwind cliffs.

    I expect netherstep will be key to dealing with this, or upgrading to a 125 speed mount, in fact I was going to post about that.

    Exp is slow going. I expect these 5 levels to take a full week and a half with a lot of playtime. At least a full 5 days /played. The grind is real.

    I'm determined to experience and report in on it tho.

    Upgrading to heroic is the best way for people busy IRL and the developers are definitely cashing in. Don't blame them. The cost is really pennies for me, even tho I'm opting out, for now. At 84 and 99% exp ill probably click the button and upgrade.

    I do wish it was faster, easier to catch up on a paid for account and group missions and raids, instances, where more accessible to casual paid subs. With less grinding. And no requirement to box.

    I like grping. But most of the time I can only play in 15-25 min sessions even though I'm logged in 6 hrs. Or logging in and out every 30 minutes or hour. Or I just want a very casual personal play session even if the exp or loot isn't amazing while I do other things.

    I guess it boils down to not having the focus to group a lot. Even if it's what I actually enjoy the most about MMOs.

    Here's to catching up and sharing the journey. :)
  8. Stymie Pendragon

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  9. Tatanka Joe Schmo

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  10. Stymie Pendragon

    I could swear that they start at 75 and top out at 100 since the latest change that I know of. Evening Gribble runs is how I got this mage to 105 back in EOK.

    We may be saying the same thing in different words I guess.
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  11. Vulken9 Journeyman

    This is a good question because while there are sites that say 75, my recollection is it was L85 when HA's become viable. For some reason, I didn't think I could get one <85 but there's always the possibility I was invis at the moment or something.

    HAs are a gear check, too. You won't be able to 2 box through very easily until you gain points to gear up. HA's are designed for a full group and scale to the highest level .

    This is the reason I always felt 75-85 was awful. You are gaining xp at the same rate as when the expansion was released, but are still a good 30-40 levels behind in catch up mode. If you can do HAs at 75, then that would be the way to go.
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  12. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    HA's were "introduced" with the Level 100 Expansion Call of the Forsaken

    They scale to the level of the highest player in the group - up to a maximum of 100 & down to a minimum of 75.
    In my experience however at levels below 100 they will be significantly tougher than open world content from earlier expansions.
    When they become "viable" for you to molo them is largely down to class, your ability to play it and how well geared you are for your level, so that's hugely variable.

    Also bear in mind that HA have 2 tiers of difficulty, though even within those tiers there are easier HA & harder HA.
    Check your achievement window, the ones marked "I" are easier than those marked "II" for a rough guide, or you can check out ZAM / EQresource for a better idea of the progression and what will be easier for you.
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  13. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Your first comment wasn't "starts at", it was "goes to (100) now".

    That implies at some previous time, they didn't go to 100. My response was just to point out they ALWAYS went to 100, because that's the base level they are tuned to.
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  14. Stymie Pendragon

    That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
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  15. Magneress Augur

    I can probably do the 75 daily HA in Pok from the guy nexto Franklin.

    I missed out on the 85+ gear upgrade path for this new herioc heritage run. I'm far too casual to commit to much. My plan is stick to the stuff in the heroes journey achievements, grab some of those +900 hp/mana achievement armors, than use that to get my j5 merc at 85, then grind to 90, 95, do some gearing in an older expac, then see where I am.

    Sounds like around 90 is where Gibbles HAs will be where it's at, then the jaunt to maybe 105.

    Advice is very much appreciated, but I am doing pretty well. Mostly play time is whats holding me back right now, having a solid uninterrupted hour to pick a spot, grind out lesson without having to afk or camp. Etc.
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  16. Malpheroth Elder

    I believe the “group game” starts at planes of power because that is the first expansion to not offer experience from level 1 and it is clear to see that due to all of the flagging requirements that it was exclusively intended for groups. Defiant gear and the removal of flagging requirements has trivialized this content such that you can now level alone with a mercenary easily all the way to 100 by preying upon tens or hundreds of thousands of “relatively weak” mobs such as the ones in the field of scale, the snakes in the feerrot, and the wildlife in shard’s landing. I think the “guild game” begins in omens of war both because of the importance of having the 2.0 which requires raid content but also because of the severe lack of group content in that expansion which includes terrible group expeditions that were a serious reduction in quality compared to the recently released ldon and to a lesser extent gates of discord. Raiding at all points is optional, however. Worth noting is that raid gear becomes exponentially more important the closer you are to the newest content because this game does not boast a healthy enough population to reliably find full or even half full groups to tackle content design for 6 players such as the quests or farming augs from many rare mobs which is why many have resorted to paying for 6 accounts and automation programs in place of spending the same amount on gear that still in many cases (largely determined by class) cannot compete in new content.
    Edit: I apologize for necroing this post. I saw it at the top and had not checked to see that the most recent reply was weeks ago.
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  17. Stymie Pendragon

    Since the topic resurfaced again I figured I would respond to this part. If you've already made it to 100+ then please disregard. :)

    The Gribble HA's tend to scale harder around the "0's and 5's" from what I remember. If you're having difficulty at those levels it may be a good idea to exp somewhere else for a level or 2 and come back. I was able to push through, but I was using the best gear I could buy on FV at the time.
  18. quakedragon Augur

    Well technically yes, but realistically? I don't see a returning or newplayer realistically deciding to stick around 60s just for PoP. They could just 'can someone join so I can get taskadd, I can do this with a merc, or solo because defiant gear is good' deal too.

    I'm guessing this is a where does the molo/solo end? If your heroic I assume they can molo HoT. So I'd say lvl 90, right when heroic gear gets obsolete by the next expansion and mobs go from 4k quads to 7k quads.
    If returning player, I'm going to say after midway through SoD. Gear starts to drastically increase as well as the mobs dps. A lot of dps checks nameds yet its just you and a merc.

    Basically up to midway SoD, nameds just are tank and spank, then after midway SoD, they start becoming DPS checks by doing stuff where if your dps isn't good enough you fighting a named plus 8 adds he spawns, and he spawning even more as time goes by.

    Moloing with your merc, your going to fail all these post midway SoD and later expansions dps check fights.
    One thing molo'ers hate is dps check fights.
    Like in T1-T2 SoD, in Bloody Kithicor, theres a quest, you gotta clear an entire camp before any respawn. AKA dps check. smh
    Tons and tons of dps checks start happening in SoD and continue in later expansions.
    You can kill anything by tanking and having your merc heal you? Well lets keep spawning adds and make this a dps check fight but you need an actual group worth of dps because they making the mob beefy too, and longer the fight goes, the more adds spawn.

    Fighting a named that already has adds up is one thing, root the adds and fight the named, but when they keep spawning during the fight. Add decides to go after your healer. Its a GG. Everyone will be telling you, 'should play like this', thing is you don't know what the named does. Its like every named has to be researched and analyzed like your getting ready for a raid before fighting them. Then if you wipe after and lose all your buffs, its very demoralizing for a molo'er.
  19. Stymie Pendragon

    I think a big part of the problem for new and returning players on live post 65ish is the shared database between live and tlps. They have to keep those levels challenging for tlp people, but it really hurts live molo/solo players trying to catch up to the pack.

    Maybe they could add a permanent buff only available on live within a certain level range for example? They already have a process for when mount buffs are applied. Mercs were the original answer to the problem of finding exp groups, but that was 13 years ago. Even the Heroic boost has its own issues since the massive amount of abilities gained all at once can be overwhelming to many people, myself included. It's not a simple problem to solve, otherwise I can only assume they would have by now.