Is it possible to catch up on Phinny?

With GoD just around the corner is it too late to start on Phinny? Im sure the slower exp rate combined with fewer people in the lower levels is going to suck. However, I dont wanna go to Agnarr and be stuck in PoP for eternity. Obviously I wont be PLed cause I dont know anyone so about how long should it take to get to 65 so I can join a guild? I play around 4-5 hours a day and will be playing Monk with some minor twinking (Fungi Tunic and Staff, 36% Haste, AoW legs, good weapons).

A decent number of people will re-roll to a zerker or start one up from scratch... you can definitely catch up if you wish.

really? i didnt think they were any good till we get a few more expansions

They suck but you think that will stop anybody? Hell no. Look at classic, people still roll rogues what whatever reason.

Of course it is! I just started an alt druid yesterday. There's always people to play with

Just hit level 16 and exp isnt really that slow. Seems like lots of groups in the 40s I guess starting to do Greigs so I guess I just gotta tough it out for another 30 levels solo.

XP will get better in a few weeks when Gates launches too.

You can definitely catch up. There should hopefully be an exp bonus event for the 4th of July as well.

So groups will probably be 6 zerker twinks with an assortment of 65's all sitting out of group buffing/healing etc

Not so sure this will make it easier for random new starters to find groups, I suspect quite a few will be in closed PL groups locking down huge sections of popular zones like Unrest and Lower Guk.

The buff to global xp rates with GoD might bring a few more alts out of the woodwork, but the above problem will still be a potential issue if you think you are going to be getting groups in high ZEM zones.

As for the OP. Catching up is still possible, but you'd need to get super proactive and fast, join that pick up group guild and git gud at making your own groups, if you just roll up a toon and expect to sit in PoK with LFG on you're gonna have a bad time.

Well GoD isn't for another 3 weeks or so, the op could just get started now, which it sounds like he's doing.

Lol...I logged on to phinny today, I have a couple of characters there that I haven't played in a while, and was curious. I have a 31 monk and 34 chanter. Logged the monk on, was logged in lower guk in safe hall. /who..literally the only person in the zone. Hit origin and ran to PoK, put up LFG, checked out the LFG list, only person in my level range either looking for group or looking for players. This was the middle of the day on a weekend mind you.

Scooted around to a few of the other mid level leveling spots, results pretty much the same, it is a freaking ghost town.

I can't see Phin living through the combination of player attrition and slow leveling. The slow leveling is painful enough, but when the only way to accomplish it, is to PL or box it seems like a death spiral. I'd actually love to keep a few of my characters on Phin caught up, but just can't see how I'd do it. I'd rather poke my eyes out with dirty sticks than try and solo with that exp rate, it's bad enough as it is on normal servers.

Maybe you will get lucky and catch a PL group or something, but from what I could see today, anything resembling the low/mid level grouping game is just completely desolate. I think that's the problem with all of these TLP servers, once the bulk of the player base is no longer around, it becomes very difficult for new characters, be they alts or new people to the server. I think it's much worse on Phin because of the slow exp, it's a double whammy.

^

I heard the guild <Pick Up Groups> welcomes people from all level ranges. It is a guild for leveling up. Try that out.

Did you check CoM? Usually people at that level range all go to CoM. I've rarely had any problems finding or making my own group when doing the popular PC > Unrest > DS > CoM > Velks > GE route for leveling, at least not during peak hours.

Yeah there are less groups around, but more often than not I've been able to find groups running in those zones during peak hours. Even when people were already saying that Phinny was dead for low level groups I leveled a bard from 0 to 65 fairly quickly grouping in those specific zones during peak hours.

I feel like a lot of people log on, throw out a lfg for 15 mins, then give up instead of even bothering to start their own group or trying to find an existing group and asking to be next replacement.

There are 23 expansions. We are about to open expansions 7.

One of the good things about not being locked into a specific expansions; lots of time to catch up!

We have also been told by a dev that XP rates on Phinny will increase when Gates of Discord opens. How much, we don't know yet. But it will increase.

I was also told that we get AA auto grant (luclin AA) when Gates of Discord opens. This I am not 100% sure on this; I don't remember seeing a dev confirm this. It will help catching up if it is true though.

I would think there will be people making Beserkers to level up when GoD comes out. There will probably be a number of them being power leveled, so if you make some friends on the server, you can probably piggyback on their PL sessions for their newbie Beserkers.

The way it was worded suggested the post-GoD phinny exp rate will be higher than RF/LJ/Agnarr's current.

I don't remember Auto-Grant going live in GoD, so I'd be sorta surprised if it will go live then.

Autogrant goes live once 4 AA-granting expansions pass.

So, Luclin->PoP->GoD->Oow->DoDH, should get the luclin aa's in dodh.

And Ngreth specifically declined to answer whether post-GOD Phinny will be greater than RF/LJ/Agnarr current, when I asked him directly. So I think we are just guessing there at this point.

*if* they go by how it was put in on Fippy (who were on SOD at the time so didn't effect them much) it will go like this:

(From the April 29th 2014 patch notes)


*** Progression Servers ***

- Corrected a problem that was preventing some Progression event triggers from being recorded.
- Auto-Granted AA are now available on Time-Locked Progression Servers. These AA will be granted similarly to regular servers with one exception. The following expansions will not count towards the "4 expansions previous" requirement, and will not unlock any new AA as they did not have any new AA released with them:
- - Legacy of Ykesha
- - Lost Dungeons of Norrath
- - Dragons of Norrath
- - Prophecy of Ro
- - The Buried Sea

It will, from what they've announced.

Here's a link to a post I made with the full autogrant schedule:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/phingel-aa-autogrant.239714/#post-3525527

or it could be as it was posted in one of the FAQ's about the progression servers which suggested Auto Grant will be granted just 2 expansions back! .. who knows when we are dealing with daybreak....