Leveling should be slow

I stopped playing on Vulak in the first week because the speed at which I was leveling was ridiculously fast. I felt like "what's the point"? I remember being in a group in upper guk and getting a yellow bub every 5 kills. I've never been so turned off by a game mechanic.

I would not mind at all if the leveling speed was the same as it was in 1999, and that includes hell levels.

Going to call BS on this one.

exp was capped at a max of 2% per kill, so it would take at least 10 kills for one yellow.

Exp was actually faster in 1999 then it was on the 2% cap TLP, if you knew what you were doing

I agree partially. I hated how they cut exp on Fippy with the cap per kill. I think an overall exp percentage should be done. At level 1 an even con gives you 10% on live and the con system seems to be pretty consistent throughout the early levels. Maybe cut exp by 80% across all exp gained? So at level 1 an even con is giving 2% similar to how Fippy was but this time it would continue throughout leveling.

Just a thought

I was fine with the slower leveling after you got past, 10ish... However having to kill 50ish mobs to get from level 1-2 was horrid. Make 1-10 fairly quick, then slow it down.

That way your character has SOMETHING besides... turn on auto attack, wait 40 seconds, repeat

Hmmm

Yes, those first 5+ levels back when EQ launched were much faster than the same levels when Fippy / Vulak started. I seem to recall the maximum amount of exp per kill was 3% not 2%, but either way it was painful given how (over)crowded all the starter zones were.

I counted after level 1 seemed to take forever...

It took 50 mobs exactly to get from 2-3

Hmmm

I admit, I did not count them . The recollection of 3% was from later during classic prior to kunark launch, I was power-levelling my shaman, I used the monk to do 90% of the damage, FD and the shaman finished off, on reds I was getting 3% from what I can remember. I also remember when they had one of the power / special weekends and exp increased, it broke the exp cap for the TLP's.

They increased the exp at some point, i believe it was right before each expansion launch and then in luclin or PoP they removed it.

They increased it twice I believe. The overwhelming majority of people where begging for faster XP rates. Below are a couple of the old threads when Fippy came out talking about how slow the XP was and needed to be changed, it was pretty brutal. If anyone thinks having slow XP on a new server is a good thing is sadly mistaken as people will leave in bunches, not saying it has to be super fast either, but most people playing now aren't 18-20ish years old with part time jobs and plenty of time to play EQ, people don't want to spend thousands of hours grinding out levels.


https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?forums/time-locked-progression-servers.123/page-40
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/fippy-exp.183664/
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/raise-the-solo-xp-cap.184081/
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...-45-50-is-ridiculous-at-this-exp-rate.184090/

I think the bigger debate was about the cap on experience. Even at level 1 you could only gain 2% a kill which is kind of harsh. The overall exp was fast when you got a group rolling. I made it to level 50 in 5 days I believe. I proposed putting a flat experience percentage penalty on anything that gains exp, not just mob kills. Don't put caps in because it screws over soloers and groups that can kill stronger mobs.

The bigger issue is the lack of places to exp at 40+.. 100+ people in lguk and solB, the OoT goblin island would have 4-5 groups on it, each killing 3-4 goblins a cycle. Hell we even made exp groups in plane of hate and fear....

you can nerf exp all you want, the biggest issue is actual places to exp

Would be nice if they launched two servers with different appeal. Instead of having vulak as an after thought and it having much less population, try to split the players more evenly. Fippy was hell to level on, but I heard Vulak was much better.

Vulak had iirc like 20% of the population of fippy, or something abysmally low like that. However they still had issues wiht high level areas to exp

IMHO, Slowing down XP does a lot more *for* the game than fast XP does. Slower XP makes the game bigger. What does that mean? Well, if I were go to to Mistmoore and grind mobs at a high XP rate, I could be ready to leave Mistmoore before I even stepped foot in the castle. Slower XP means you're going to learn the zones more, you're going to see spawn points cycle 5, 10, 20 times or more and you're going to see interesting named mobs you didn't know existed.

Slower XP also naturally acts as a congregating point for people instead of being a virtual pit-stop for levels before moving on to the next zone and chewing it up in 2 hours, too.

Having to progress slowly thru areas creates game "microcosms" within EQ. One may end up spending weeks in Mistmoore depending on their play time. They'll learn about the front yard, canyon, graveyard, pit, castle entrance, and all the cool other camps inside Mistmoore and the names/loot that go with it. It's a whole world unto itself. All that goes away if they level so fast they leave before they've barely seen 2 spawn cycles inside the castle.

Daybreak (SOE) struggles to constantly put out new content, when all they have to do is slow down the game and all these areas will come to life.

I also think the 2% cap is a cop-out from Daybreak (SOE). It's the easiest way to throttle XP without actually doing much work at all and it smacks of laziness. This game is about risk/reward, and capping XP that way means that low-risk low-reward types can gain XP at the same rate as the risk-takers who are pulling yellows and reds +4 levels over them. Major buzzkill..

Yes it was skewed. Levels 1-5 were abnormally slow but once you reached level 20 and joined a dungeon group the opposite happened, the experience just flew by. In fact I just logged in my 24 rogue on Vulak, just the same as when I left him. Went into upper Guk at 21, 1 hour later I was 24. I quit Vulak that same day. If the new server is like this I will quit just the same.

Spending weeks learning zones is fun if they are brand new to you.....

15 years later, not so much. I could tell you the exact layout and rare spawn camps of pretty much every zone through OoW

Hmmm

All of the above happened when EQ first launched, as much as we try, we cannot repeat the experience of the early game, we remember too much about the zones, so we never have to fully re-learn them again and that has nothing to do with how fast or slow the exp flows. Slowing down the levelling does nothing to reduce the amount of people in each zone spend competing for exp, which is the problem Fippy faced last time.

I'm having a lot of fun taking batches of toons from 1-50 thru old vanilla zones with no help, no mercs, no money, no buffs, self-found vanilla items only. I have one set that's already 50, another set in the 30's and I'm probably rolling a 3rd set later to optimize my leveling route. Will have to change servers though since f2p only allows 2 toons per server =].

I could tell you the exact layouts too. Just because you know the content doesn't mean you've mastered it and it's not fun anymore. Can you take a few level 40 toons and successfully camp your FBSS? Could you lead a group of noobs half-equipped with raw hide armor into Mistmoore and get some noble's robes or a pair or crested spaulders? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for sure - it's a challenge, and that's what makes things fun. When you're working on a server with slow XP and there are no level 70's rolling around AE'ing everything in sight, Castle Mistmoore get's a little more intimidating than you last remembered it.

You're right, we can't reproduce the experience of the early game - not as long as Daybreak (SOE) doesn't put any effort into recreating the surrounding circumstances.

I'll concede that knowing the maps does take some of the mystique out of it, but the replay value of EQ is undeniable, hence why we're still here playing it 16 years later.

To your last point, right, slowing down the XP would likely congest places. Then again, by today's standards, having 35 people in Greater Faydark would be "congested". Back in 1999, it was commonplace to have 100+ in Gfay and 30-40 or more in mistmoore on a busy night. Lot's of people in one place, believe it or not, is good for the game. It's ironic we don't want to deal with people in real life, so we play an MMO, then get annoyed when there are lot's of people in the same place.