How often do you log on, not find a group, and then log off?

I box, so I always have a built in group. I usually don't group with people I don't already know due to how terrible PUG's are 90% of the time in my experience hah.

That said, I have several friends who I have shared my personal phone number and we will often coordinate via text message of "I am planning to play at 7:30pm, let me know if you can make it. Planning to do >insert thing we have been working on together<.

Being able to reach friends outside of the game is a nice improvement for me. Since I usually know when I will have free time, so if the other person's schedule can accommodate it, it helps.

I am a boxer with 6 accounts. I became a boxer not because I could not find groups, but because I NEED frequent and unpredictable AFKs. It is absolutely not fair to others in my group to force them into a situation where they are waiting on me to return, or if I miss a critical function because I needed to AFK.

Since I box 6 characters fairly well, I tend to do very well in content that might challenge groups that aren't as cohesive. I do group with guildmates and will make room for others occasionally. My experience with PUGs is that skill levels and gear vary WILDLY. Spending time waiting on others to figure out their characters, or recovering from wipe after wipe is not my idea of fun. I can do that on my own. So I find myself doing PUGs less often than I have in the past.

That said, I do enjoy meeting new people in game. Those occasions where someone surprises and delights with charm and wit. Or they simply know their class well enough that they are a valuable contributor to the task at hand are, unfortunately, rare.

To the OP's query, no. I do not have a problem with logging in to LFG and then log off in disgust or disappointment. To me this points to a different problem, and it has nothing to do with EQ.

While I accept most people want to have fun when in game, they also need to own at least some of the responsibility of how that fun is achieved.

I will say never.. If log on.. im going do something. That being said I do have a 3 box.. with too many options to mod in and out.

80% of the time my goal is this.. 1 account trader 1 account barter 1 account focus.. I do attempt to be social to everyone.. guild, fellowship, friends, general, /who all lfg etc.. kinda in order.. sometimes I like jump into the PuG from general. Its an adventure, sometimes good sometimes bad, sometimes a waiting game.

Im 100% ok doing off beat things that maybe I was interested myself but I enjoy game much more non box without merc. Issue is that harder and harder to get. People I feel often attempt to jump content, skip gearing up or AA.. The rush to PL to max and hide low gear low AA used get label and stamped.. maybe it still does. IDK

If all fails I will log off a trader or buyer and 2 box.. and I really only 3 box when needed for content or for hunters, progression.

I started this mess due random playtimes and not being able get groups.. so created options. I still attempt to return to being social.. but often I will adjust to get something done.

TBL is a different ballgame. EQ is ride wave game in sense you jump on first wave and get things done or waiting catch the next wave. As time passes that wave is harder and harder catch until its 100% outdated and doing the content by yourself. Some of blame can be this hyper design expansion every year. Flipping the coin the other way.. players want content so Deves create something to feed the demand.

Back to OP. If I log in.. I going to something.. and I adjust to what I see. The goal is always non box non merc full group.. but that will stop us from doing stuff.. or dropping the bar. Start with an ideal goal and adjust and do what you can with what you got.

When I find myself bypassing the social part of game. I burnout fast. I stop playing and go play monster hunter or something else.. I return to EQ for social adventure I remember.. via 2001 or 2008 or 2019. I never game a game best when EQ is at peak of adventure. Group or Raid. Just harder and harder get that fix. It still happens just not as often.

Have a great day, smile at a stranger, risk being rewarded with smile in return.

Ive noticed I get more response to calls for more to join a group than calls to form a group. My guess is that people dont want to join a group and then be stuck waiting for more to join. If you form the question implying that you already have enough to go, then the group fills out quickly.

Tunare been this way for years.. this is not some thing new. Tunare is my original home server prior something with Lanys server.

I box have 12 accounts. And when I choose to I play 1 toon and have grps basically ready when ever.

Well at least 90% of the time.

first, I play on cazic, which is a pretty populated server with many outlets for things to do through out the year. I also want to mention, the first thing you should do if your having trouble or worried about grouping is tells, Tells always work far greater then just /shout potatoe lfg. people respond to tells where as they kinda just lurk in open channels and not pay them much mind unless something sparks their conversational interest. i Suggest also having goals in mind, as many people prefer to just lemming (especially raid geared players who have nothing better to do), you point they shoot kinda deal.

personally, I'm usually always on, AFK/idle in PoK or Ghall with my fire extinguisher like most guild leaders/officers I would imagine. for the first 4-6 months of an expansion im usually actively Playing 1-3 accounts, grouping with myself+mercs (im usually on early mornings) or with Guild Members (during active play times). when I've completed everything on my main and my 2 boxed accounts in the group game i find myself kinda just lurking in PoK/Hall until a Guild member asks for help. from June until October I pretty much Idle in PoK/Ghall only really playing to raid all the content on sunday due to it being "farm status" until news of the next expansion. then its usually a flurry of content opening up (New expansion news, Beta Opening up, new TLPs). then the process restarts.

This year, it sounds like they are gonna break it up some on the expansion side of things, which could be interesting, but all its gonna do for the completionists/speed runners is break the idle process up, which may not be as bad i suppose. I think if they spaced their TLP launches out from Expansion Launches we could see a lot less AFK/Idling through out the year as once people on live have their expansion fun/completed they could go check out the TLP in the meantime (TLPs are the most fun in the first 2 months before the population scatters in interest/Levels/cliques) rather then having everything thrown in their face at the same exact moment like the current roll outs of tlps.

my 2 cents anyways.

I don't often have trouble finding a group even though I'm in the Pacific time zone and a lot log when it's only 8 PM here. I don't like to solo because I find it boring, and as an enchanter am always fascinated by how well the class can take a ragtag group and meld them together. Regardless of which class I play I have found that you do have to be a little more proactive than putting LFG on. I go to different zones looking for people that are also LFG and send tells or put out that I'm lfg and offering to do buffs in the meantime. I say I'm LFG in general, PoK and any of the starting zones. I'm lucky to finally have an active fellowship and that's an option that you could consider. If you find friends with a similar play time you can get a lot more done.

The most practical way to get a group is to start soloing. Depending on your class you may have to solo light blues which sucks but its something and the important part is that its much easier to invite people to join you if you are already set up and being productive. Once you get a group you can tackle better mobs.

Every day.

But I am NOT on Tunare.

Tunare and TBL didn't really go well together. A lot of the people use boxing to do the progression, but TBL was not boxer friendly. The trials effectively split the population and on a server where grouping is hard to come by you can walk into almost any TBL zone opened after the trials and find it empty. You need to do hunters but you can't invite folks from general because they are not flagged. It seems every group has to start with a trial mission so people can get to the zone.

I have a feeling these problems were not exclusive to Tunare.

What I've found works best is to start my own group with my box and then ask in guild for people to join if they're looking for XYZ. Before too long, with people joining up, and friends logging on, the whole group is full of real people and my box goes for a snooze.

Stating an intended goal seems to be the most helpful, i.e. evolve xp, finishing chieves, finishing hunters, etc.

Also, not being picky about what class joins. Make due with what you get. If you're a raider, try inviting some casuals. You might be pleasantly surprised, as I have been. Yes, sometimes you find someone who isn't so great and then you know not to invite that person back.

And yes, taking a risk on someone LFG in general can lead to some great people too.

Flexibility reaps great rewards.

But it's not difficult to group, players are just unwilling to do non-optimal content. I think the Merc tasks should provide currency but otherwise like I said earlier you + one other person is 2 players and 2 mercs if you put your mind to it you can get things done they just might not be the specific things you want to do.

It would be nice to have a cross server dungeon finder like in WOW though with some of the low server numbers.

I've never really had this problem, whether I'm running 12 Active accounts or 1, generally the best thing to do is just find a common goal with at least 1 other person, if you've got a couple people ready and raring to go it's not overly difficult to fill out the rest on most occasions, and if you can keep pace with eachother you'll have the foundation for a consistent group for a good period of time. Framing it as "Group looking for more" vs "Player looking for group" is the key difference imo, Sitting there habitually spamming channels you're LFG gives off the impression you're not a desirable groupmate, I think there's some psychology behind that, especially given the age of the game and the perception that most of us already have our steady groups, anyone I see that never gets groups (or at least claims as much) screams to me "Stay Away", obviously that's not a fair thing to think, but it's a trap I've noticed at least myself fall into over the years and often have to fight to overcome.

Using utilities like your Guild's Forums or preferably a Discord server help tremendously, people are older, playtimes are lower, a little pre-planning goes a long way. Performing well will ensure future interest when you go LFG or attempt to form groups, I'm sorry to say that there's a sizeable list of people I've blacklisted over the years due to lazy play/outright inactivity/too much hand holding. If you want to get something done, do your research on the mission and be ready to take the reigns, expecting someone to come in and carry you is a huge turn-off and people don't often get a second chance in my personal experience, gamers have long memories, and the last thing we want to do on a tuesday night when we're getting hungry and thinking about starting dinner is to go group up with AFKaren and slog through a task that we know we're gunna have to play hero to complete.

Also, don't be afraid to ask a Boxer if they can make space, 90% of the time I'm dying to camp out one of my toons and rest my poor little fingies.

To answer the original poster no I don't log in and then log back out if nothing is going on but maybe I'm in the minority. I have a healthy friends list from high-end raiders to casuals that struggle to be efficient in Frontier Mountains. I start in guild 1st as to who needs me and then I move on to the friends list and then I move on to general chat.

I've said it many times before, I'm on Tunare and I'm willing to help. Helping is what I do.

I have very little left to do as I don't raid so I'm glad to jump in wherever I'm needed.

I just did 2 trials to complete someone's full Smoke access on Sunday. I wasn't looking to do a trial and I wasn't going to get anything out of them but someone I knew sent me a tell and said "hey we need a healer come do this". This was not quite a pick up group because I knew many the majority of players at least in passing but it certainly wasn't guild only and it was patched together from "who know's someone who needs a trial". One person was under-geared and kind of needed to be carried but it was okay and we got the wins.

When I log in I usually first check my fellowship, then guild, then public raiding channel to see what people need. On Sunday we completed the Delivery and Remodeling missions for someone in fellowship then we got Smoke Trials done for for guild alts. The problem is you need at least 3-4 people to carry others through the "Cliffs" task. Surprisingly, there are people who like running that mission ;-).

One facet to highlight that plays a part in this is the fact you have to have 3 toons to make a campfire. Trying to get 3 toons fully Trials flagged is a challenge.

On pet tanking the trials, once you know the mechanic you can plan accordingly. On the trial of 3, I am not aware of any timer you have to beat other than figure out the clues and attack the first mob and maybe the time gap between the mob being killed and attacking the next mob. I can see it could take a while if you had one pet class and 5 clerics in your group, but you should be able to get it done.

It's not the game it's people, Multiple factors that sometimes discourage people from my observations. One factor over the years is so many want to rush to the end and not enjoy the game as they're only fixated on the big stats on gear. To get to that gear they power level and end up sucking because they didn't go through the progressive growth of learning the character and all it's nuances, some of which are based off low level spells/discs they blew past due to power leveling. This sucks mostly for a Power level tank. Now some can pick this stuff up but it would be arrogant to say that everyone can do what you do.
Then there's the I don't want to share loot factor, some people play at work with a box team and can't be at the keyboard as much so grouping isn't a good option in that instance. I could honestly go on for hours about the scenario's because over my 20 year lifetime playing EQ I've seen it all and experienced it all. Me, I personally 2 box and occasionally reach out to the loner I see keep LFG, there's been times I do more with my 2 than a full group can and that pretty much makes me not want to sometimes.
All in all I do reach out however bad the situation can sometimes be in pick up groups because I want to keep my pass time alive. Just my thoughts you don't have to like it.

Not to be Debbie Downer, but some people just play terrible and as a result it makes them completely undesirable for a group.

The truth is that if you're a good player, get along well with others, and work at establishing relationships, you can and will find people to group with. I'm by far not the best mage out there, but I know how to DPS. I don't know how to lead missions. I hope that my DPS abilities make me desirable enough that it overcomes my weaknesses. And I can tell you from personal experience that you can go from knowing no one to making many friends in a relatively small period of time if you make the investment in grouping with others.

That being said, there are people who don't want to group with me, too. Have to keep trying until you find the ones that do.