Sorry but this cannot work ... (Phinigel)

Logged today, did some lfg and i found in the range 26-40 : 2 clerics, 3 shamans, 1 druid and absolutely nobody else.

Clearly we must be able to solo till 50 since getting a group is close to impossible. Till 30 and during the xp bonus i found a group in usually 30mn.

You're mad because you couldn't get a group at 5am pst on a Monday morning? What do you think this is, WoW 2 days after TBC launch?

Early morning is always a quiet time. Hard to get groups. Always has been. Almost no one plays then. Even some australians are headed to bed at 5AM us time. Euros at work still. Indians would be prime time, but they don't really play EQ in great numbers.

Phinny will ALWAYS be heavy on soloing thru the 10-40 range up thru kunark because of the limitations on boxing and the lack of new players. I considered getting the old laptop out, but decided I am just not that dedicated. People will roll alts, sure, but I doubt that the majority of them will want to re-grind to 50. The powerlevelers are already out in large force...unrest has more lvl 40+ druids than Guk. Some of them are nice enough to let my little bard in on the action, but some are not.

Unfortunately, unless DBG does some intense marketing and lures a couple thousand new players over the course of the next few months, the lower level zones are going to die and the group scenes at (Level < Max_Level - 10) are going to be scarce. Plus, not everyone uses the /LFG tool, so there's that...

Grab another account and alt+tab box over at RF. There were 3 instances of BW last night...got about 4 yellows in about 1.5 hours at lvl 49 in a Giant fort group.

Maybe you should be working? 5am monday mornings and you are mad about not finding a group. You have to be kidding.

Back in 2002, a buddy of mine started playing EQ. He played a rogue and I twinked him a bit. I gave him some old golden chain that another friend had crafted for skill ups, and a magic piercer of some sort. Couldn't been more than 7-8 damage.

With that.. he was quite able to solo all the way to the mid forties as a Rogue. He healed himself to 50% with bandages. Kept his defenses high and other skills skilled up. And did just fine under less than optimum exp rates (original exp rates, plus hell levels, only thing going for him was the rogue class bonus exp of 9%).

If he could have done that back than. Why would soloing be hard now? Exp rates are a bit better. But beyond that.. bandaging takes you to 70%. And we have melee augs, access to spells earlier, and rebalanced spells that are stronger. As well as many other changes to make the game a little smoother.

I'd argue the Rogue is the hardest class to solo. And it can do it. Slowly but it can do it.

Now I'm not saying there is no issue with grouping (though truth be told, I don't see it.. since I think the OP is playing at some weird times). But we do have to remain honest about the facts.

Have you considered going to your leveling spot of choice and asking individuals directly if you can group and level with them? If it takes you 30 minutes to "find a group" I get the impression you aren't finding a group, you're expecting a group to find you, and therein lies the problem. It's not a problem that really ever goes away - if you aren't taking the initiative to form groups proactively (beyond checking /lfg) and you aren't soloing, you're gonna have a bad time.

He's right it's much harder finding groups.
But he also sounds lazy. With this low amount of players, groups should be desperate for replacements. Broadcasting that you're LFG or starting a group should be easy.

actually a group of 2 clerics, 3 shaman and a druid would rock! ..use one of the clerics to tank and nothing would be able to kill them, they could stack enough Dots on things mobs would just melt in front of them!

Good point. I forgot how tanky clerics can be..

I mean If I was on my rogue and saw that in LFG... that'd be a ton of good buffs.. no haste.. but beggars can't be choosers.

I once read of a guy long ago that rolled an egg with his nose over the Rocky Mountains, yeah it can be done but surprisingly it didnt catch on completely unrelated to any supposed character flaws that might be assigned by the roller to the people that refused to do something so mind numbing god awful boring...
Heh

5am Monday morning..............

The key to finding groups is to pretty much ignore the LFG tool. After leveling my mage to 50 first then my rogue, I found a group through the LFG tool maybe twice total. Guilds, general chat, and /who "your level" all is what finds you groups. Especially the latter.

/who all *level*
Start sending tells to random folks and checking for groups across multiple zones

There's been maybe 3 occasions where it took me longer than 15-20min to find a group. As a rogue.

5am doesn't help, but neither does being ultra lazy.

Lol 5am Monday morning! You do realize that a majority of eq players are 30+? And have jobs and lives. Look at the log at say 5pm pst, tons of lfg in all levels.

Sounds like one of these guys...

*logs into EQ*
/guildchat LFG!
2 minutes later...
/guildchat omg you guys are a bunch of no one ever gives me a group! I quit!

So there were two healers and four modest DPS available. Looks like a root rot group to me.

you wanted traditional....and you got it.

last night in befallen with my lvl 7 enc we had 2 shm 2 dru 1 enc and a pal throughout the night when the group started we had another enc and a wiz. ANY lfg people will make a low level group work we gained over 3 levels to almost lvl 11. shm can nuke and heal dru can nuke and heal i was nuking mez at low lvl. Dont be lazy make due with what you have cause this is true right through till the 40's

My favorite. Mobs don't move, they just die.

if you're in a group with 3 shamans and have no haste, you're in a group with 3 pretty bad players.