Anybody telling you that soloing is good exp in EQ or that it is enjoyable has an odd perspective on life. Killing light blue mobs for exp fits my definition of "unreasonable". Everything you (the OP) describe fits my experience. I am max level on many toons and in a raid guild now, but I was locked around your level for a decade before I finally broke down and bought a power level (this was just before Heroic Toons were released). Also, I box and never would have been able to do anything alone without boxing (except maybe endless light-blue grinding at the slowest rate possible). Without that PL to get me high enough to join more active players, I am sure that I would have left EQ (or stayed a "casual" forever, never coming close to max level). Anybody who is not max-level can only give you advice on how to not be max level. There are a lot of casual people who play the game for different reasons and some don't care about leveling. To me, that is like signing up to play a sport and then being happy to get the water boy job. I signed up to slay dragons! Not grind light blue trash for 6 months. I think most players want to strive for the top, but if the top feels too inaccessible, we don't even bother wasting time on the attempt. And I think that is what you are running into now.
Sky is green and grass is blue and if you disagree your name is Felicia, a girls name, because girls are weak and stupid.
Multiple people are saying gaining XP is easy by killing lots of light blues (lower level mobs). Yet you refuse their advice, call them "unreasonable", and declare XP is too hard? This confuses me. My favorite tactic at mid 70s (when level 90 was the max) was playing a solo SK and pulling the farm in SOF. Maybe that is "unreasonable", but it sure was fast and fun for me. Soloing Worgs in Loping Plains until the low 80s wasn't half bad either. And that was before AA Autogrant. I would assume that leveling speed, getting AAs and levels, was too slow for the OP. I agree that's probably true in today's level 110 game. I did the same thing with a different SK with AA Autogrant on (when level 105 was the max). What an amazing difference in speed! I blew past the Dragonscale Hills farm and Loping Plains just trying to do the Hero's Journey quest line. I leveled thru the 80s faster than I could complete the quests in SOD. Granted, this was on FOV but only with cheap bazaar gear as I could afford it via loot from that same character. Weapons were the most critical upgrades. I did not use a merc except for the merc AC/hitpoint buff. I did use distillates (especially the level X haste), but did not seek out other player buffs. I did not use XP potions. If I had skipped doing quests, and simply went for XP speed, it would have been even faster of course. It would have been more boring to me too most likely.
There is no reason to be confused: I did not say anything was hard and I did not call any people unreasonable. I said that kind of game play (mindlessly killing light blue mobs by myself) falls under my definition of unreasonable...as in, I would rather be doing anything else That kind of gameplay is fine for powerleveling somebody else. But maybe, as evidenced by the fact that you were doing it at level 70 while the level cap was 90, it is not really an effective way to level at a reasonable pace.
I never actually mentioned my XP rate. How can it be called unreasonable? I did spend 3x longer or more earning AA than leveling with that first SK. I was purposefully getting 200+ AAs per level in the 80s, trying to maintain tanking and damage potential while leveling. That only means with AA Autogrant turned on, the level 105 max game was at least 4x faster XPing thru the 80s as compared to the level 90 max game. That is/was a rather significant boost in the XP rate. FOV at +50% XP multiplies that for people that want/need to level faster. So, I ended up with a 6x faster XP rate for that second SK. That sure felt reasonable to me... well, a bit too fast truth be told. I out leveled all the zones/quests I worked on (except for the mid 60s when I caught up with all of the Hero Journey quests).
I won't try to take away from your good experiences playing EQ however you choose to. My point, and I think the point that the OP was trying to make, is that the best part of EQ is playing with other players in relevant (current) content. I say that as a player who was "casual" and stuck in the 60's-70's for a decade, before finally piercing the barrier and joining the ranks of max-level players. The casual game is fine for some, but it is a tiny part of the real potential that EQ offers. And that full potential can only be realized at max level, with the majority of other players. For a new player with a single account, the barrier to getting a toon leveled up and able to join other players in relevant content is very prohibitive and I would call it unreasonable. To the OP, my best advice is the following, in order of importance: 1) Join a guild and make friends. EQ is not a good solo experience for most. 2) Box multiple accounts. 3) Buy a Heroic Toon token and some kronos, and don't be afraid to pay for some power leveling.
If your goal is to gain levels and surpass the block that many "solo" players hit, then mindlessly killing LBs until you hit an area where you can progress and do your definition of "reasonable" game play, is in fact...reasonable. If you're having troubles, try asking where to level and how to go about it. A lot of times people will refer a quest line in a certain zone/expansion that is fun/interesting/easy and/or yields something useful/helpful. Knowing your classes capabilities and tricks of the trades, as well as zone layout (may take some time spending time in a zone to get this figured out), will allow you to start breezing through things. Or in some cases, challenge yourself for better xp.
To be clear, I do not have trouble any more. I have 8+ accounts, 4 max-level toons and another 6-7 toons that were maxed out until RoS came out. I've done 41 out of 48 Epic quests. And the biggest challenge for me, in all 18 years of EQ, was breaking the barrier the OP is facing on my first characters. I simply wanted the OP to know that somebody on the other side of the "barrier" agrees with their observations and believes the OP's feelings are valid. I am sure all of the suggestions for ways to work around this "negative for some" aspect of the game are appreciated.
Correct. And this proves the game is not just catered for max level. There is leveling. And there is maxing. Leveling is a process. Maxing is a goal. I enjoy the process. And I don't have any goals. I personally don't like grouping. Don't want to be forced to go where the group wants to go. And don't want to stick to a group's time schedule. That will make raiding even worse for me. I go wherever I want and kill or do quests whenever I want. That's the attraction of the solo game for me. Can EQ be enjoyed this way? I have been here for 19 years. So yes, it can be. And yes, "there are a lot of casual people who play the game for different reasons". I agree with your assessment of the OP's needs. But when the OP asks about the viability of soloing and challenges the game as only for max level, I think the voices of the casual people should also be heard too.
Heroic slots is a fairly big sale item for them, so I doubt they will make the 70-85 portion any easier. Heck past 85 things are not much better. But if you got max level buddies they can take you through levels real fast by grouping. Some classes are definitely better equipped to handle the grind. My general advice is to try boxing. Create a free secondary account. Or try another MMO. Lord of the Rings Online is VERY solo friendly. At least till you hit Mordor...
If you dont wanna grind your way up and indeed want to explore different zones - it involves a lot of travelling and possibly dying - which takes a lot of time. So imho lvling faster will encourage players to visit different zones and not just the "best-grind-zone-to-lvl-xy"
Lots of good advice here. If you're on Povar, message me your char name. I'll assist you in punching through to the end game.
My advice: 1) go into a dialogue on specifics in this forum. You will likely get a ton of help. 2) the game becomes more and more complex, and not all classes can do everything at a given level. At 70+ is where the more complex learning requirements set in, wrt optimize xp pr hour, etc. If you are not levelling at a reasonable rate, then there is stuff to improve (assuming you play a class that can solo). If you don’t, reroll. This game does not offer easy solo for all classes. 3) join a large guild. This cannot be stressed enough. As soon as you are in grouping range, a single session can easily give you 2-3 levels. I can take in an 85 and have a good session, where he comes out 88-90. It slows down as you progress through 90ies. The point being: join a guild. Maybe join it before you choose server. 4) use the Heroic Character option, it sounds like it is the right choice for you. That will get you into grouping range with max level instantly. 5) consider FV
I levelled fast as hell from 68 to 78. Just came back recently. All I did was park in Guild Lobby at night and with all those super buffs just run around wherever there were a lot of dark blue mobs and let a merc tank and 2 merc healers keep everyone alive while the two hour dmg shields killed everything. The game is simple and fast with guild lobby buffs. Pull 10 mobs, stay healed up, watch merc mana, watch xp bar roll up fast. Once I hit 75 tbe game started getting dull though. I bought a bunch of remnants or tranquillity and got the broken mirror gear, but the endless augmentations is just annoyingly stupid. I miss the old EQ where you would hunt down rare spawns in a dark dungeon to get a new shiny piece of gear. Buying everything preset from a vendor every 5 levels to me seems pretty boring. The stupid augments really ruined the game. Forget about acquiring a bad suit of armor and weapons. Take this generic dumbed down armor and stick 4-6 magic beans in it to make it better. No thnaks.
Well this is called gear reset and is in fact done in order to make leveling up easier. Defiant gear which drops in profusion throughout lvl 1-80 zones and can be found on bazaar real cheap has pretty much destroyed need to hunt/quest for anything else. Likewise, TBM "assembly required" gear has obsoleted almost everything up to EoK. The lvl 75-80 TBM stuff is almost double the stats from the lvl 75-80 items for SoF. The difference shrinks down at higher levels, but if you have the plat to buy remnants, you would be hard-pressed to loot anything with better stats from anything pre-TBM outside of a raid or chase loot.
I don't know if that's always correct, at least not from lvl 80+. I am pretty sure the best gear at those levels will still come from hunting mobs. However, most folks' goal at that level is not to waste time chasing the BIS (best in slot) gear for a level 87 toon, but rather to level that toon up so that it can get current gear. And for that, the TBM gear is hard to beat. But you always have the option of working through the expansions as you go, and getting the true BIS gear at each level. I've been helping a friend of mine do just that with his SK - helping him camp the BIS sword & board every few levels. It is a nice break from the PL-grinding (not sitting at a named camp, but rather binding and porting in every 20 min to check spawn, then back the grind)
they must of read you post https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...us-experience-now-through-august-20th.251032/
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, with one exception. You're looking at the wrong places for gear if you can't find good gear to pick up on FV. You need to be looking for Crypt-Hunter gear and TBM non-visibles once you hit 75. Pick up some Remnants of Tranquility and get some people to do the Into the Temple(b) heroic adventure from Sul Vius Life. Crypt Hunters is a neat set of gear that will last you from level 75-105 when you can upgrade to Cohort of Selrach. Get the appropriate piece for your class, or a Raw one, purchase a Type 9 augument for you level range to get the base item stats, then look for dropped or vendor purchased type 5s to fill out your heroic slots. After that it's just a matter of looking for type 7 auguments to fill slots, and it'll be better than equivalent expansion group armor until you hit EoK gear. I've got two sets on my traders right now, with every slot 10k or below.
Some of the posts in this thread are hilarious. Who molo's 8 gribble missions in 3-4 hours at level 88
You chose to go the multi aug alt currency armor route, rather than the item drop route; and you're complaining about it being boring? You've got no one to blame for not going and getting the bad*** suits of armor and weapons but yourself. There is nothing stopping you from getting said armor and weapons from content that was made when those levels were current. The TBM vendor bought gear was not really created to gear up those 75-100; that simply was part of a proof of concept. You can quite easily get better gear drops from mobs without needing multiple augments. This is coming from a level 108 monk who has leveled up mostly solo/molo since 85, as the expansions have came out. I've also done this without a ton of gear from current content. A few groups a year, solo/moloing when not in a group, and doing level appropriate dailies as they are available makes leveling and AAing crazy easy. Speaking of AAing, if you're having trouble leveling up or killing mobs fast enough, then you might need to make sure you've got the appropriate AAs and are using them (or how you can best use them).
