Ok the fellowship has 2 returning players atm 91 and 96. Everyone else in fellowship is 110. The 2 toons in questions are mains and non box. Clueless returning players that have more fun chatting and talking old times. Plan A Was just drag them along in HS or ST and let them leech and chat.. sharing old jokes. Results were ok.. but the players started to AFK and show non interest in learning anything. Plan B Return to FM and swarm forts. Fellowship didn't support this action much. Currently I'm the only that is willing step foot in FM and assist the leechee. Same result as HS.. after 45 mins.. I'm the only playing or at the keyboard. Plan C shards. Fellowship needs to finish out the alarian tear aug.. and I was thinking we could find a con favorable to leechee here. We have not done this yet.. only planning to do so. Also some befouled TS matz for bags etc.. maybe helpful to them as well. Looking for suggestions. Only 1 day a week is current plan for massive leeching. These are older players and I think they can only focus for 1 hour at best. Druid and clr is classes matter.. Currently the fellowship is suggesting a fellowship b and saying the weaker toons go there. I don't like it. Someone helped me.. at sometime and I want assist them..
My suggestion is the Frontier Mountains Sarnak forts. Fast re spawn rate and easy pulls. Lots of upgrades for the leeches as well
Get them to log in, invis their toons, and send them go watch TV, you go grind AA for a couple of hours at a time, make them use Lesson, in 1-3 weeks they are 106 and can contribute, and feel motivated by that. A FM Sarnak fort sounds good for that, you can get many mobs...
How did they get into the fellowship to begin with? "Clueless returning players that have more fun chatting and talking old times. "older players and I think they can only focus for 1 hour at best." If you want to help them then do something with them for the one hour they can pay attention and actually use their characters. Right now they are learning nothing. You guys are moving the lawn while they sit in lawn chairs sipping margaritas. A death or two might wake them up. But really take them out of the fellowship for now, and maybe ask them where they would like to go or right now with anniversary going on is there something they would like to do in that?
I am a firm believer in mainly helping those who help themselves. After 19 years of playing eq I need to see people making a strong effort first. That's just me though. I totally get the part about only being able to spend an hour at a time playing do to having a RL but hopefully they are being very active during that hour and not just sitting there.
fellowship lost 2 clr mains to elite raider x server guild. We just replacement the healer need with mercs atm.. but grabbed them in general as returning players. I agree with respect to do something they like or interested in. This would engage them a bit.. the issue is no one else shares this common topic. Ideal yes it would work.. but people are people. I thought about mapping out ideal aug camps.. and visiting them as well. I was praying if I could get them to 95.. we just start EoTD.. and grind that til its done. That would get everyone within the fellowship moving I think. or hope. If that would work.. I prob open up 3 days a week to EoTD grind.. now to get google calendar to mod over eq calendar to show the fellowship what we are doing and when. and cross off if you need this log in this day. etc.
Do you use any voice chat? Might help to keep them more engrossed if they hear it rather than typing out everything. If they aren't doing anything, not even healing, practicing spells, then they will definitely get bored and find something else to entertain them.
In my mind, you're talking about the real life execution you're looking for out of them. And they aren't hooked yet. We all know how addictive this game is, when you catch the bug. You don't have to role play for it to be about your character. Maybe they would benefit from wanting something for their character to motivate them to play, then the zone to achieve goals becomes more clear. Whether it's that 'Best thing' 'Cool click' 'Ace looking illusion' 'moar tradeskill stax' whatever. If there's not that cool next thing you're chasing it can be hard to be interested. Maybe change class if there's no 'gotta have it' thing?
Go run the gribble/skulk HAs. At low 90s, they'll get significant XP. Because there's moving/zoning involved, it also means they need to pay attention and be active in order to get the XP. It's not great XP at 110, but it is super easy. With a decently optimized group(Solid tank that can swarm, and a class that can do a bit of AOE DPS), you can get all 6 in with lesson. That nets at least a level in the low 90s and around 60-70AA for the 110s.
If they are in your fellowship and you have more play time than them. Have the fellowship leader opt them into fellowship xp sharing when they are offline (or have them opt in before they log out). When they are online and going to play, opt them out of sharing (or have them opt out when they log in). That really helps a lot if the other's in the fellowship are willing to share (many people are max aa now, so it might as well be of some use)
Make sure to switch the sharing/non-sharing in the fellowship for them, to fill their vitality when they are not on, and to prevent them from loosing XP when they are (as was said by Bigstomp above). That is the most important thing to note imo. Next thing, do whatever gives you XP or gets you a step ahead, that's imo the 2nd most importnat thing to note. They will benefit no matter what you do; the clueless players can also play by themselves (or the fellowship can make two groups with mercs) while still benefitting from the fellowship. If you are looking for a way to PL them, then i suggest helping them from the outside some; level 100mobs should do the trick (CotF/TDS progression and zones perhaps). Snare and memblur might help with that much.
Do gribbles. It's caps at 100, but it'll still be good for them. 1 lesson = 1 level which you can do in a day. This will last for a bit.
I want to thank all the fine people that offered suggestions. I will put together a package and submit to fellowship for feed back. Its a mix bag of getting them to 100 ish.. 106 for that ROS gears that rots. I mean I would like to push them hard and get there quickly.. but I understand not all push for haste leveling. The fellowship mod was noted and known, I just assumed that was a given. Yes some member and myself have much greater playtimes than joe the average dude. So capped mod is given and stacking this mod with lesson is crazy good. Leechie 1 and 2 have asked about using db cast saved for xp potions.. and I suggested no save for draft pots. if you are 1% thinking of artie and cresta. Planet Earth is my home.
So to maybe add on, etc. Fellowship: A group of friends that wanna do stuff together... The leader of said fellowship should be someone online a lot. They then open the window, toggle exp sharing on/off etc. Gather a group, go slay stuff (when I do this I like to run 90/10 exp/AA) so that most of the exp is going to reg exp and then most of that is funneled thru the fellowship to them. Do this for a few days! Now when said noobs log in, turn their sharing off then go kill stuff, then they will level up faster. Now I would also suggest you start quest lines, merc/partisans hero missions etc. Then they don't have to go back later to do it.
No idea about regular XP really, but at least for AAs stacking vitality and lesson is "too good", even after the XP nerf (based on level 105 characters and EoK for the place to XP in). When before, vitality was hitting the 5AA-cap alone, it still gives around 3AAs for a while when capped (Scorched giants), so stacking it with lesson you would again hit the 5AA per kill cap and loose some of the benefit. Regular XP is, iirc, capped similarly, depending on the level-spread in the group - but i don't know how the modifiers are applied, it could be they work 100% for regular while they do not for AAXP. Either way, i would not "stack" them, but serialize the boni somewhat, i.e. go by capped vitality alone until the XP gain is consistently at 2AAs per kill and THEN activate lesson or use the potions. And once they are level 101+, taking them to EoK for the T2 loot they need to make use of the rotting RoS visibles is ofc a given too.
Ok so I just switched out two in my box group and went from 85-110 in under 12 hours (while bonus xp was going on). The key is to have them leach xp with just one character 85-100. Pick COTF or some zone like that where you can run through it. I like using Sk or my necro ae aura - I group with one of them. LEvels fly by because you are pulling trains. At 100 you can have them group with the full box team just hit up EoK (I usually frontier). You'll hit 106 in no time. From there they can participate and I tend to do RoS.
