The experience group dilema

It is worth noting people were complaining about an empty lower-level game and no one to group with before the advent of Mercs.

Everquest has been a game that's empty below within five levels of the level cap for a very long time. Mercs were implemented specifically to address this problem (though at the time they were pretty useless because of the all-too-common voices shouting that people who want to play the game but aren't already max level/max AA don't deserve to have help).

Mercs help people get close enough to max level to have any possibility of finding other people to play with. There isn't really a better solution to this problem in a 20-year-old game with very little hope of drawing in a robust community of new players than doing whatever possible to help people get through the lower level game on their own. If anything, Mercs need to be improved so they are viable to a higher level range than they are.

@Moege
We seem to have a misunderstanding as your quote did not show all words (missing: EverQuest was never made for you !) because of a color problem in my post. The logic is that EverQuest was never made for solo players as it is a multiplayer game.

It was never my intention to punish anyone and that people get pushed into my playstyle. You do not know my playstyle Ryino, so its a weird assumption that I want something like this to happen.

Good point but 90% of the servers do have a low population. We should find a solution for the factors that push people away from EQ. New players that play EQ for the first time mostly start with the expectation that they can team up with other players quickly but since more than a decade this is not the case anymore. Now alot older players have foul arguments like "its their own fault", "its easy to find a group" and other bullocks. Fact is that the game cannot keep its players anymore as new players quickly do find out that even at the top levels they still have to play alone alot. People tend to deny this fact which does make the problem even worse. Changing servers is definetly not a solution.

Also

I mean that sounds like it would shoehorn people into playing a certain way or making a certain class just to be able to group at all. Right now almost any decent healer should be able to run circles around a merc healer but if you can't find a real healer that would kind of screw up grouping for the rest of the people.

If moving servers isn't a solution I don't know what is. Devs have already said they can't do server mergers right now and I haven't seen an ETA on when that could be fixed. I can't really speak for other servers since I have never transferred, but on Cazic there are multiple raiding alliances that could be a good spot to meet people for grouping, there are family style guilds that are pretty group / progression friendly, and there is the casual wing of my guild (and maybe others?) that is pretty active for non raiders. I think the days of /LFG group building is pretty much over so you're better off to find an active guild that will have a pool of people to group with at roughly the same level / playtime as you.

I have been reading this thread and am now "glowering at it dubiously", so to speak. I was gone from this game, for "real world" reasons for a very long time. I could not afford to subscribe every month, and there was no Free To Play option back then.

When I first started playing again, it was on Project 99, and it was sort of ok, but I still wasn't grouping with anyone. I joined a friendly guild which offered me some encouragement, and I think I got a cleric up to like lvl 11.

Then I found out about Live F2P, and have been back for a year and a half. I am only level 65, but I play lots of alts on lots of servers. I think I have been in maybe five groups total in a year and a half, and that is fine. My style does not involve competition with anyone other than myself and the environment. I know for a fact that there are MANY of us who view this game in exactly this manner. I help other players when I can, but I am not that great of a player, so when I am busy, I just don't read chat.

Bottom line = Don't roll up in here and think you know how or why I play this game. You are not the boss of me, as they say in the vernacular. If you want to play "hard core", you will find a way to do so. I have found what gives me the most enjoyment in this game.

I can't get a group to save my life. You take away my ability to box and use mercs and I will stop playing.

I actually hate boxing but it beats sitting in PoK doing nothing.

I do wish they would ease up the new content. I am choking on it.

maor anti-boxer QQ

QQ QQ QQ....wall of QQ.

What I do in EQ on any given day depends on my mood, goals and availability. Some days I can join guild activities cause I got an uninterrupted chunk of time to commit. Or I might start something up and invite people. But fairly often, I got stuff to attend to, and might need to take uncheduled breaks. Or I might want to work on tradeskills/farm stuff for alts/do older expac progression. You wanna join a group half of which goes AFK for half an hour 10 min into a mission? Or go camp some name in Elvantil? Boxing and mercs let me get things done on a bad schedule, and there is guild chat/general for socializing.

About only decent suggestion is the ability to earn merc AA without having merc up. Either a toggle, or let us buy merc AA using regular AA. If my schedule allows me to commit, I will alwats drop mercs in favor of guildies, but I still wish I could earn merc AA in the process.

Necros were the worst invention ever. Which is why I never play my live maink, instead I'm on Agrnarr

I totally get it, OP.

But you're wrong.

I am referring to Ryino`s post but my following statement is for everyone. So don't be offended by me Ryino.

My suggestions are not based on myself as I am not the center of the game. Its about the game and not about me. Most of you people do not want to face the truth. Instead you give me advices but you should give these advices to the game and its developers and not to me. Im sure that you just fear changes and that you might loose something. This is selfish and negative thinking at its best. If my ideas can improve the game and attract and keep new players everyone should benefit. This sure does have a price but you can also benefit from it. EQ does have a test server and many other life servers where changes can be tested first. If it won't work just bring back to the old state so there is little risk involved.

The truth is that mercs are way to usefull to players right now, especially the healer merc. Because of THIS about nobody is lfg and experience groups are about nonexistant because mercs do replace groups so there is just no need to team up with other players. The intention to add mercs sure was a good idea for players that was not able to find a group and to rush through the lower and mid levels to the top but it has gone to far. Boxing always was optional but the combination of boxing AND mercs is a desaster as it made solo players way to powerfull and independant. However a MMORPG does live from dependencies and that every class has its special role in a group which does empower the whole group. You got used to it and now you think its a good thing, and if someone wants to take your toys because its necessary to improve the game generally, you cry.

Which possible scenario do you prefer ?
A: The game loses more and more players because no substantial and necessary changes are getting made because of fear and egoism. Game will close in 3 years.
B: Substantial changes are getting made and the player base will be stabilized. The game can exist for 10 more years.

As you might know there are some interesting MMORPGs with much better graphics from other companies in the pipe already. Some of them won't make it but some will do. This will definetly pull alot players away from both EQ titles again. In these new games players will be motivated and more or less nudged/forced to build groups like it was in the first few years in EQ and I'm pretty sure that there won't be OPed mercs around that will prevent multiplayer groups as MMORPGs do live from this multiplayer group experience. I am asserting that if there would had been mercs around in EQ right from the beginning the game would had been dead in just a few years.

@ Canloe

100% disagree. I out heal my healer merc as a Paladin. I would 100% rather have a cleric or shaman with a clue. I could get behind Druids needing a fix for healing. The only priest archetype that cannot load multiple of a heal and spam through them. They are forced to use 1 of each line.

1. if you want the 'true box' experience the DBG created a server just for you so go play on it.
2. Limiting the number of mercs in a group would loose so many players it's not funny.

Mercs allow those of us who don't have the hours that we used to have available to ply to actually log in for a short amount of time and actually get something accomplished.

Personally, I'd much rather have a live player than a merc, but if only have 30 minutes or an hour to play, 99% of that time could be wasted simply trying to find some random stranger who happens to want to go do the same thing I want.

I really cannot understand the people who would rather have a merc healer than a live healer.

I can see how a player would choose their merc over a real character for several reasons. "Just for merc xp" is not one of them. Some players are annoying (like me) and others don't put any effort into playing the game or their class.

Also, many players will choose to have their boxed toons in the group rather than carry someone else at least some times. There are limits to generosity. Given the difficulty of TBL in general, I think most people would find difficulty in carrying more than one player in a group.

I would say that, most of the time, having a player boxing a 2nd or 3rd character is beneficial to the group. They will very likely out perform a merc, and allow the group to achieve things that you otherwise would not.

For anyone who can't find a group, mercs and boxers are not the cause.

Without mercs the game wouldn't be around. Mercs allow groups to do things that cannot be done without a healer. Years ago many players would have quit as finding a healer was close to impossible. Back then if you wanted to get a group going you had to box a healer. I for one do not want to go back to that.

But with only 3 healer classes v 3 tank + 3 pet classes there were always going to be more groups needing healers than healers available

Very, very rarely do I see anything other than a healer merc in a group. Players aren't using mercs beacuse they want to, they are using mercs because they have to if they want to get anything done.

If healers are stuggling to get groups then there is something wrong with that player, most if not all players would rather have a real healer than a merc.

Many times I'm seeing in /gu "room in group for 1 doing X, 2 if ones a healer"

Mercs aren't the enemy here and are not the reason players are not getting groups. These days you need to be sociable and when you get a group you need to perform. We recently had a returning player join us in Droga, we were only a group of 3 so we had room. I member of the group gated back to the guild hall to assist them in getting to us as they didn't know the way. We were crawling around Droga doing hunter so there was lots of moving camps keeping as many PHs dead as we could. On numerous occasions we started moving only to realise our new group member wasn't moving and didn't respond to tells. Invised them and left them at our safe camp spot, they seemed surprised we had moved when they returned. No appology for ninja AFking, we were the bad guys for not waiting. Once I could understand, but this happened a few times over the hour or so we were there. Needless to say they won't be invited to join us again.

It is players like that which give all returning players a hard time getting groups and the reason many will pick a merc over a player. Its not necessarily about getting good, its contributing to the group regardless how small that contribution is. They were a mage so even just putting the pet on the mobs would have helped....

Some players want groups, but do nothing when they get one, for those I have no sympathy when they cannot get one.

I will say it is true that doing the Hero's Journey quests, some of which are extremely tedious, I would much rather keep my merc than invite another player who also might need to do those quests. I already have to acquire 20 drops between two characters for multiple quests steps. Adding another 10 would just make things even more tedious and time consuming.

My goal is to complete the Hero's Journey. Trying to do that with another person who needs to complete Hero's Journey is not an appealing idea.

That's not really a problem with mercs, though. That's a problem with unnecessarily tedious content. Especially content that requires me to go to a spot, farm drops, go to quest hub, pick up next step of quest, return to same spot, kill through trash to get to next spot, farm drops, etc, etc, etc.

If my goal were to set up shop at a camp and gain XP, I would be more than happy to drop my merc for a real person.