Hello, I enjoyed playing Everquest many years ago. I quit the game and just recently was able to come back. I wanted a different kind of challenge. I decided I wanted to try and 6 box on Firona Vie. I had no interest in using any kind of software to help out with this. I decided on a Warrior, Cleric, Mage, Enchanter, Druid, and Wizard and for the most part everything has been a lot of fun. I knew that there would be no way for me to afford to pay for 6 characters every month. I also knew that I didn't really want to play with mercenaries. With some basic ingame macros I was able to be pretty successful and slowly got myself to level 84. I only have about 10 hours a week to play so from about level 75 on I have been doing Gribbles quests and I like them. I get decent xp and some plat so I can afford a few spells for each character per level. Also, with the alternate currency (the currency escapes my mind for the moment) I have been able to upgrade my armor from defiant to some decent stuff. Things started to get difficult around level 82 when I had to switch out my Warrior from tanking to the Mage's pet to tank because it was surviving so much better. I maxed out the AA's for the Warrior (250AA) and spent them all into survivability type AAs for him. The problem is the basic mobs in the Gribbles quests are now hitting much much harder. I am now being hit by double or triple hits of 2500 to 3200. The warrior goes down really fast. Sadly the game is becoming less and less fun as I attack a mob, warrior dies, group evacs till the beginning of the stage, rez, rebuff, and try again. I'm sure this is a common enough story. I know I need augs, I know I need AA's. Here is the question: I know I will be having to buy at least a 1 month membership on one of my characters to keep going. Which character would give me the most bang for my buck on this one month membership to keep this group going? Also, if you only had one month to do this, what would you do? Thank you in advance.
Here is a thought. Since your severely limited on AA but you can afford 1 account a month then I would rotate them. First month do the warrior and then auto grant - he will get all AA up to his level and keep them when you go back to free. Rinse repeat with each character - just remember to cancel. Another thought is to apply for one of those credit cards offering X amount if you spend like $200 or $500. Get one of those then buy all your guys one month and get Christmas presents for family with the rest. You will have the bonus to apply towards the balance. And finally? Get out of gribbles. Yeah they are great for mindless leveling if you are trying to get to the top of the game but there are unlimited other zones that have some nice non prestige drops/armors etc.
real tank will be better than a mage pet later , but you will have to farm many items for the warrior who is very gear dependant , and as free to play war will suffer a lot not being able to wear prestige armors ( specially augments and many aa's ). what is your toon name in FV ? I could help you some for free , to at least got your war decently equipped with tbm armors. but if you stay FTP you will , imo having some problem with your war later on, if anyone play a high level war free to play they could give you better advices. I would wait to be level 100 ( almost 101 ~ stay at lv 100 **) to get a month sub , then you get as many aa's as you can in that time. there are some good armors who are not prestige , specially the level 105 tier one armors , what' s bad is most augments are prestige. if staying FTP , I would maybe get another mage at war place , and casters and much easier to box than melee, just send pet and start right away the hot keys, no need to always place your melee toon in range to attack and not being oor to attack or * can't see target *. anyway I could maybe give you some good advices in FV , if I ever see you on. *** mage is not that far behind wiz on dps and you already have a druid to heal and ports ,and evac if needed ( and track $$$ ),, , having 3 mages you could at level 101 cast alliance and after 8 ? dd landed ( in 18 sec ), , proc a 2million + dd.
Thank you both for your responses. The credit card idea is a good one. Buying a one month membership for the Warrior was what I was thinking too. I just didn't know if I was missing something and others thought buying the one month membership for another class would be a better idea. Thank you for the offer to help, bigpapa, I will keep it in mind. And yes, I should get out of Gribbles. But the monotony of doing them doesn't really bother me too much. I went wondering around last night to try and find someplace that I could safely do my own thing of pulling one mob at a time and couldn't find anything I really liked. I'm really tired of killing wolves, bears and snakes.
Another idea is to /testcopy all of your characters, and go play them on test server, you don't need gold membership and gain almost all expansions.
Hmm. That is an interesting idea Rowanoak. What are the benefits/detriments of doing something like that? Thanks
the upside would be you lose nothing really, your characters stay on home server, and a copy is created on test. Gaining the benefits of being gold which should include the autogrants on the AAs. I haven't testcopied from a free account but I believe that's how it works. Other benefits include an increased xp rate, and quite a few expacs. Gear is pretty easy to attain there since people can copy the same gear over and over to the server, and although less people serverwide, more are willing to help. Downside, its test, you play there at the whim of the gods.
EQ's free-to-play offering is really more of a "free trial" and, IMO, is only "good" until about level 60 for all the reasons you're running into. I'm actually surprised that you have made it to 84 before hitting the wall - nice work! If you try to stay on Live as F2P I think you will be fighting a losing a battle: things only get harder as you increase in level. You may pay for a month, and maybe you'd even manage another 5-10 levels in that month before your All Access runs out. After that, everything may be peachy for a level or two, but you will run into the same exact problem after a few levels (and certainly when you go to the next-higher expansion). Your warrior is key to your success, so if you want to keep from limping along you will need to keep his account active. Also, you may not have noticed it yet at 84, but Defiant gear stops at lvl 80 and all the good gear will start to have a "Prestige" tag on it, meaning you can't wear it unless you pay for All Access. I think Rowanoak's suggestion of the Test server is probably the best bet if you want to stay free-to-play. But as he said, you will live under the constant fear of a "character wipe" (they delete all characters). Maybe DBG hasn't done this in a while, but I'm sure it will become more likely if DBG starts to think a lot of people are doing it to circumvent paying.
that is incorrect .. all T1 gear from any expansion is non prestige .. accept raid gear and even that T1 Raid gear up to CoTF was non prestige.. so the OP can get T1 non prestige gear from any expansions HoT, VoA, RoF, CoTF, TDS, TBM, EoK, and RoS..
What I said is NOT incorrect (I've highlighted the important word you may have missed): DBG isn't in the business of giving stuff away for free. They give you the bare minimum for free, just enough to tease you into wanting the real thing. This is how all advertisers (and drug dealers) work
I did not miss it What your implying is that T1 gear is not good .. and for someone who wants to try and play as long as they can for free your saying they cant that the GEAR is not good enough to play FREE.. when it is .. for the group game ..
I did not need to imply that T1 gear is not good: The fact that it is T1 means it is the bottom of the barrel by definition. Regardless, end game content is designed for characters with 40,000 AAs and free-to-play is never going to match that in a reasonable manner. I suspect the OP is running into more problems from lack of AA at 84 rather than lack of gear. Based on my experience playing the game, and based on the OP's initial post, I stand by everything else I wrote. I couldn't care less if you want to take on the challenge of trying to enjoy the game as a free-to-play account, or if you simply enjoy logging in and chatting and don't need All Access. To each their own. But the initial free-to-play experience (up to level 60-ish) is far more enjoyable than the rest of the game will be as free-to-play, and there is no "secret" to making the rest of the game feel anywhere near as enjoyable as the pre-60 experience, other than paying for the game.
it is possible to play up to level 110 pretty easily as FTP, but you would need a class who are not gear dependant and can kill mobs before going oom ( a shaman or necro can do that easily ) and some other class... ftp lack of gears and aa's , hurt , but killing non summoning mobs is easy and pretty safe. specially if you can root , snare , ect. since you don't need to use a weak merc doing that I play the same class since 1999 ( shaman ) are really enjoy him. ** a warrior FTP, is a weak tank, and that why you have problem with him, , lack of gears and aa's will hurt soon or later . can still consider to add another mage at your war spot, and you could do much more than having your warrior ftp to tank imo. anyway free2play1999, if you see veggy ( my chanter in FV ) you can shoot me a tell, I could help you some or give some advices.
I disagree that they would want to punish people for playing for free on test. We want people to be on test so we catch bugs before they get patched to our servers, don't think of it as circumventing, think of it as an alternative payment of labor (testing) vs. cash. The high xp rate, and more content / gear available to you are all perks.
An alternative thought: Lose the box crew, play your favorite DPS/support character (i.e., mage) on the single paid account and join a casual-friendly guild while explaining your situation. You won't just be tolerated as a "10 hours a week player", you'll be welcomed. Plus... f2p boxing to 84 shows you are skilled, so you will likely be sought after for grouping. There are lots of good people in this community.
JUST PAY, and all of your free to play problems GO AWAY INSTANTLY. JFC people, It's $15 lousy dollars!
I keep 2 accounts subbed and 3 are F2P. I only sub the F2P accounts when a new expansion is released which allows me to grind AAs (not tradeskill ones) and then I stop subbing. Using this approach I find that the F2P accounts are more than capable of playing in latest content and it keeps my costs down. My SK is on a subbed account as that allows me to use T2 / Rare / Raid gear and the best augs I can camp. If I had to use just plain F2P (i.e. no subbing) then I think I would find it harder otherwise there is no reason to sub.
Plenty of options here. FV should be attractive to anyone looking to enjoy the full extent of the game. /soap box on I also think that if hardcore f2p spent half as much time earning $ to sub as they do trying to scheme their way out of having to pay to play the full game, we'd have a lot more subscribers. Just my $0.02 /soap box off
I agree with this about trying to scheme their way out of paying but I disagree with earning $ to sub. It would be easier to get a part time job flipping burgers for a few hours a week than it is to earn this kind of plat in game to buy krono. Unless you have a secret to this then the only way I know of is to farm the chase loots or sell the conflag stuff right now and that is hard to do at lower levels.
I have to agree with subscribe for one month, hit auto grant, gain thousands of AA's that will make things much easier for you plus exp like mad for the month you are gold and then let the account lapse, you get to keep all the AA's you earned. You don't even have to spend any real world money if you do not want to just save up your plats and buy a Krono. Overall best plan to me would be to make one of your accounts gold full time and keep the other 5 as freebie, and buy each of them a krono one time as you can afford it, so they can auto grant and then laspe back to free. This will make your group much much better overall
