Returning player questions

Hello Forums,

I have been thinking of returning with a friend, and have a few questions. Most of my questions have been answered already by browsing posts elsewhere, but I do have a few questions left. My friend and I have both played before but it has been 10+ years. I will likely be 2 boxing and he will be playing a single account. Not sure what classes we will be playing yet as we haven't spoken about it yet. But I am hoping to have a Shaman main, with a supporting box of some sort. I am uncertain what to box with a shaman, as most shaman box teams seem to have shaman as the support, not the main.

I do suspect many of this will be nuanced or personal preference, so my personal goal in the game is to simply enjoy the journey and the grind without drama/conflict. I might join a guild if its social. But my days of hardcore raiding are behind me. But I would enjoy doing dungeons and the like if its possible to do them with my friend.

1.) TLP vs Live? Which would be suggested/recommended for us to start playing again? Based on what I have read, there are strong points and weak points to both. Personally I am leaning live, as I would rather deal with low grouping numbers than have to fight Krono Farmers at every camp of note, but that's just me. I am also taking the "long view" and I would hate to spend countless hours leveling up only for the TLP to become a ghost town in a year. As I understand it, it's -

TLP's
Pro's - Lots of people in level range. Enjoy classic content while in-era.
Con's - Player count drop off after a new TLP begins, Krono farmers.

Live
Pro's - Little contest for leveling areas. Many options to get geared up.
Con's - Little grouping while leveling. A lot of catching up to do.

I plan on subscribing, but I cannot speak for my friend. I do believe they intend to stay "free game" only, and I am not sure how that will affect our choices in servers.

2.) Class features/dynamics - I have read here and elsewhere that some classes change quite a bit past 80-85. Does any class in particular that stand out in any way later on as "late bloomers?" Is there any new mechanics or abilities to be aware of? I think the last time I was hardcore playing was during Omens, but I could be wrong. And it just seems what was once "endgame" to me is now "mid-game" and I wonder how much the game changes post-70, and I suspect it might be quite a lot.

3.) Class AA - Boost or grind it out? I am torn on the heroic boosting and autogrant AA. While it might save hundreds of hours of grinding, I am concerned that I might suddenly have 10,000 AA and abilities that I have no idea how to use properly or might simply be overwhelmed. I know guides are a thing, but some seem incomplete, conflicted, or just plain confusing.

4.) What is the conventional Level/AA grinding wisdom? Is it still 20-30% AA exp or does current gear outweigh the necessity of AAs while leveling/is AA still critical when leveling in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90+? At what point in levels should we stop focusing on leveling and try to focus on gaining AAs?

5.) Is the game more solo friendly later on at 100+ or is the "group dynamic" still strongly recommended/required? How far can a player get soloing, 2 boxing, or moloing?

Thank you kindly for any advice and input, and if any information I got was wrong or incorrect by all means do let me know.

First off I would try and recover your old accounts. Its very possible and many have done it via the "that didn't work"post at the bottom of this page. https://help.daybreakgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/217481518-How-do-I-recover-my-account- The reason being is those accounts have a few benefits that Free do not even though it will be free. Confusing huh? Its a perk they put on old returning accounts. You can get into general chat which is much better than free that only has use of newplayers chat.

Second, if your recover your old account or not I would make a new FREE account on Live servers and go thru the tutorial to learn some of the game play. Make a character than you might not intend keeping, just to get the feel of the game. The tutorial continues up in POK with the quest called "Out of Gloomindeep" - these are much shorter quests but will help you with bazaar and other stuff https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=5787

You will have to stick to live if your friend stays Free to Play (F2P) because he will not be able to play on TLP unless he is paid or All Access.

I think rangers change a lot after 85 because that is about the level our Headshot really really kicks in.

You are right on your concern about getting so many AA all at once. Again this will depend on your account - F2P or Paid. Auto grant is only on Paid. However you can pay for a month down the line and do an Auto Grant then which will give you all the AA up to that level. And you will keep them when you go back to Free. But you will not be able to earn more until you go paid again.

Personally I just flip between earning AA and regular exp on my alts up to about level 90 or even 100. Then I will throw a month of paid on them and do auto grant. But that is a big chunk of AA all at once.

However if your going to be paid then may as well start auto grant at level 51 or so - the beginning of AA really.

There is nothing wrong with both of you guys playing free to start with. There are not that many advantages of starting paid until a few levels in. Only paid accounts can select their starting city so if you decided that is important (its really not anymore) then keep that in mind.

There is a lot more to be said and I am sure some others will drop their info in, hopefully it won't repeat what I said so you don't waste time reading all this again and again

As CatsPaws notes, if your Friend is staying free (for now), you are limited to Live servers.TLP requires All Access (subscription or Krono).

Like CatsPaw, I too recommend doing the Gloomingdeep tutorial on a few different classes to get a feel both for how many mechanics have changed and also to get an idea of the class you really want to play.

To figure out which server, I suggest doing the tutorial on at least a couple servers and then go to Plane of Knowledge during your normal playtime to see how many players there are in various level ranges. If you want a more populated server that actually does have players in a variety of level ranges (but, yes, most 110+) try Firiona Vie and Bristlebane. Either of those might not be a good fit for you, but they are the most populous Live servers.

Free up until mid-50s has almost no difference from All Access. In the mid-50s, auto-grant on All Access and AA limitations starts to differentiate. Auto-grant gives considerably more AA than is 'earned' and the free account is limited in how many AA they can earn or spend though you won't hit the maximums for many levels.

As for the Heroic character bumps to 85 or 100, I suggest leveling a character 'naturally' (i.e. through all levels) first a least to 70+ before considering it. It is highly not recommended for a free account because of the AA limitations on a free account.

But, 2-3 characters + 2-3 mercs, even with one or more as a free account, can do most content up to the 90s and even into the 100s. The merc with the free account is not as powerful as the All Access one, but that isn't as noticable until 70+.

A friend did some number crunching with the AA slider and found the 'rounding' for XP/AA when it's a % is simply lost. It's not a huge amount in lower levels but can add up later. It might be better to put the slider to 100% XP when you want to level and 100% AA when you want to stay in a particular area for a while (i.e. because you're doing quest content or just like a particular set of zones). Only All Access can use the slider, free is set at 50%. But, until you hit level 51, there are no AAs. Because 1 AA is the same XP as level 51 over again and that accrues a lot faster in later levels, with an All Access account, unless there is a specific AA you want for your character at a particular time, you just roll with Auto Grant until later. On Live, leveling until 90+ can be "blink and you'll miss it", so you might find spots you want to stay in a while and that's a good time for the slider.

The default starting location for all characters now is Crescent Reach and the Gloomingdeep Mines tutorial. For free accounts they can only have their starting city as CR, for All Access, you can have your starting city one of the originals for your race/class/diety but the only thing that really affects is the Origin ability (and Return Home on the character select). Otherwise, if you do Gloomingdeep, when you leave there, you will be in Crescent Reach no matter where your starting city. BUT, that's actually kind of handy because the Hero's Journey (EQ button > Character > Achievements) is focused primarily on The Serpent's Spine progression and that starts in Crescent Reach. It's actually a pretty decent progression line to follow, too, especially for a new or returning character. There are even many rewards along the way which aren't entirely devalued by later additions and itemization. BUT, for nearly all gear and weapon slots, Defiant is by far better than anything else until level 80. (my still not finished, especially in the upper levels, page on armor comparisons: https://rijacki-game.blogspot.com/2022/11/armor-set-by-prefixsuffix-with.html).

I have a few other blog posts on several of the starting out things for new/returning novice players to hopefully help a little with the learning curve. I returned a few years ago after a long absence and was overwhelmed by a lot, too. One of the other potentially confusing "new" features is the advanced loot window: https://rijacki-game.blogspot.com/2023/04/eq-looting-for-novice.html

But.. I hope you find your niche and have fun!!

Just a little note. There are 2 ways to leave the tutorial in the mines. You can go behind the waterfall which will put you in Cresent Reach or you can go up to Arias and /say ready to leave and that will put you in POK right next to the NPC that gives the next tutorial quests that I mentioned (Secalna Galnor). If you wish to return to the tutorial at any time up to level 15 (sometimes 14) just /say send me back to her.

Interesting, I always use the tunnel.

If you leave and want to go back before you get to level 10 (I think that's the max level cutoff), talk to Secalna Galnor.

One more little thing, after you leave the Mines for good after level 10, bind your soul somewhere else. There is a soulbinder in PoK and one in Crescent Reach (as well as a bunch of other places). That way if you die, there won't be a long pause while the game tries to figure out where to send you

Another tip, the merc only levels when it is 'summoned' or you zone. If you're leveling quickly with a merc, camp and return every couple levels or your merc will get far below your current level. Especially important when using the Apprentice which is the max one for Free account.

on live,unless they changed it in the last patch, level 10 is the maximum. you can delevel to 10, do your business in tutorial then expedient recovery back to level. shrouding doesn't work either.

You are right, Allah is once again wrong.

You can grind out all your AAs and there is something to be said for earning it all in the order you want but to say it will take quite some time is the understatement of the century. If that's what you want to do. But I'd be impressed to hear from someone who actually did this and didn't burn out eventually. I would level lock at good levels for your class, for ex the dps difference in a level 60 bard vs a level 61 bard with amplified song of the storm is substantial. Plus the level 59 instrument and singing AAs. So why not fly to 61 and then stay 100% aa for a while and get all caught up. Just as a random example.

https://www.raidloot.com/class this can tell you what spells and AA you get at each level.

Beastlord is what pops into my head as post-85 late bloomer.

You should join a TLP. Oakwynd is still in classic. You can join right now and you will not miss any major content. All classes and races are pretty much equal. People make fun or rogues, but they are still fun in groups, and gnomes still cant wear half the armor drops, but thats ok. You can still join a group with only 4 pieces of small banded armor and not be laughed at.

When I play on live servers, everyone else is so far away, and the rules for people over level 80 are so different to anything you would remember from days gone by. Even when you do find a group at low levels, the twinks are like something from another planet.

If you are one of those weird people who think encounter locking is the new Y2K bug, then join Mischief. that is still fun, and has some crazy loot rules, so you can sell a Krono and buy anything you want.

As was mentioned they are not both committed to All Access, so going with a regular server would probably be best to get restarted. While Firiona Vie is a high population server, it can be pricey to get things and of course, it is locked from other servers because of the Free Trade factor. Bristlebane is a decent choice also decide your preferred hours to play and use the link to the right of forums and check population Status, there are several other servers that are medium population and play goes quite well. Also check more on the forums to see which servers have a friendly family guild, to join for a while at least, as in game information can be a boon to playtime.

You can check the link to see the general population, but logging in and looking in Plane of Knowledge might give you a better gauge for the level ranges of the population. For most Live servers, the population in the lower levels (lower than 100, lower than 85, and lower than 50) is very very thin to non-existant. You can also check out the general channels to get a feel for the general community.

Absolutely look for a friendly guild to join. EQ is still a social game and having voices in guild chat can improve your experience exponentially. Even if you leave the first guild after a while and join another, it's still a good thing.

Hello again,

Thank you all for your responses. I have passed on the info to my friend and it sounds like we will be settling on Firiona Vie to begin. As far as what we will be playing, he is pretty dead set on Paladin. I am still musing what I will be 2 boxing with mercs. But he is a family man and also plays other games, so whatever setup I have will have to be able to act independently of him. At the moment I am reading into good combinations. So far what I've read -

Cleric + Enchanter - the problem with this is I tend to go afk time to time, and a charmed pet that gets broken will likely maul me while away.

Shadowknight + Shaman - while I loved shaman back in the day, I am not sure how good they are now, and this setup seems to be focused more on the SK where I would prefer to focus on the shaman.

Mage + Bard - I am currently favoring this one, as I wouldn't mind giving bard a try. And unless things have changed much, bards are welcome in pretty much any group. I have never played mage or bard but I "think" mage would be fairly easy to box. The downside to this is it would rely on merc healers, so I am not certain how long that would hold up.

Still considering other options, I just want to be able to do my own thing when my friend isn't around, but also easy enough to include. I am open to suggestions or recommendations. I played solo necro and shaman back in the days of yore. I have some experience on SK and Bst as well.

Any suggestions for other box combos that would work with a paladin friend for fresh accounts on live starting from scratch?

I had a shaman until I made a beastlord.

Re: class AA (more properly stated, activate-able AAs): I think you're over-thinking it. There aren't as many as you think (most AAs are passive), and of those which are active, it doesn't matter if it's 10s of 1000s of AAs, what matters is how many skills there are. In other words, a particular active AA skill may take up over 1000 AAs for all ranks. It's still just one AA skill.

My advice: when you do turn on auto-grant, and get a pile of AAs, go to the AA window, and use the filter which only shows activate-able skills. Now go to each tab of the AA window, and for each skill listed, make a hotkey and place it on a hotbar. THOSE are the skills you need to learn how to use. All the other AA lines are passive, and you don't have to worry about how to use them.

Then, each time you level, you'll get a new pile of AAs granted. When that happens, you'll see text regarding the new AAs in your chat window. Scroll through that text, and you'll see two types of messages. Most will be "you have improved" or something like that. Those are all the ones where you already learned the AA, and this is just telling you that you now have more ranks. You don't have anything to do here, because you already have a hotkey for that skill, right? For the other skills, you'll see something along the lines of "you have learned a new", or something like that. For those messages, that's telling you that you learned a new line of AA skill, so you should find those in your AA window and see if they are activate-able.

That should take care of that issue.

Now for the second issue: My approach is, go 100% to leveling, and have auto-grant turned on. This will get you all AAs up til level 110. Fastest way to catch up to most of the population, and you won't miss many* AAs while you level. (* - There are some AAs which don't auto-grant. Most of that is tradeskill related AAs, so if you don't tradeskill, you don't have to worry about those. Other than that, there are just a very small handful of skills which don't auto-grant, so it's hardly even worth talking about.)

Once you hit 111 (or whatever level auto-grant stops working in the future), turn your XP to 100% AA, and use Overseer to level to max level. Should be able to make 5-10% of a level per day, which isn't bad, and now you can devote all of your XP to AAs.

@ That Guy in FV ,what is your toon name? could help you some with advices ect.

and don't forget once level 85 to start doing overseer.

If you need independence when you're friend isn't online, you'll need Tank, Healing, DPS, and CC.

Healer mercenaries work fine for casual group content (they do struggle in some missions and encounters, but that's the exception, not the norm). So unless you really want to play a Cleric or Shaman, I'd just go with a merc healer.

For the tank position, you could do SK, Warrior, Mage, Beastlord, or Necro. Of those 5, only Mage and Necro are friendly as boxed characters.

I'd strongly recommend some Crowd Control: Enchanter does this better than anyone, and is the ultimate "clutch" boxed character. Bard is second best, and perhaps Shaman a distant third (although each class brings other, awesome capabilities to make up for the difference).

Leveling goes *fast* on FV. In you're playing a lot more than your friend, you'll quickly leave them behind. You may want to have 2 characters you play with them, and 2 you play alone.

I have not made the characters yet. Still doing my homework and such.

Thank you kindly. I am actually leaning Beastlord + Bard, with healer merc. But I am not dead-set on anything yet, aside from know I am not playing cleric + enchanter. Also tempted to go Shaman + Bard and just root-rot when solo, but i am unsure how many mobs summon these days and I generally dislike being limited to "one" method of fighting. If I go shaman, I'll likely go tank merc.

If he's going to play a paladin you can go a beastlord, mage , or Necro and still be independent of him when he's offline

MAGE cover all this ( cc via call of heroes ) if you have another player in group *

shaman is a great addition for a mage as well
2 group heals ( usually all it need to keep pet alive ) and a rain heal and 2 more aa overtime heals via AA ( these at higher levels tho ** ) who is matter since you can level fast at lower levels anyway .

dd proc via roar line , great aa and ae roots , hard to resists , combined with call of heroes it rock.
more pets from shaman procs, and regular and aa pets , my mage love it .........best mage nuke doing more damage when more pets are on a mob , i like to see a million + dd nuke ( non crit ) here and there , specially with shm being able to add some decent amount of pets .

and list goes on .

There might be some ambiguity here. If you are over level 10, you cannot return to the Tutorial once leaving it, but you CAN stay in the tutorial after level 10. Most of the mobs are gray by 12 or so. i maintain a few characters around level 12 in the tutorial just to help out newbies.

It's been a long time, but i believe there is a level, that once you reach it, the tutorial zone will automatically boot you. It might be 15 or something. i swear i did this once just to test it, and gettting to that level is not easy, as very few things grant you experience at that level, just the 3 Boss type mobs in there. This is probably why there is a disparity in the information. Typically i will run new characters through the tutorial for all the easy money and equipment, do all the quests, and i'm about level 10 by then.