XP Updates Coming to Phinigel, Ragefire & Lockjaw

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Roshen, Feb 5, 2016.

  1. derpinscotch Elder

    Anybody saying WoW raiding in 2004 was more difficult than EQ obvi never raided original plane of hate and got wiped. Also, 2004? Ever done the Rathe event in PoP for the first time without being given the strat?

    Repair costs were high in WoW? Ever done literally anything in GoD in 2004? WoW was harder? You obvi weren't a top end raider in 2004.
  2. Jaymond1037 New Member

    I personally don't have a problem with the XP on Phinny, but I do understand a lot of the arguments for making it faster. Why not make the XP rate dependent on level? 1-10 is fast, 10-20 slows down a little, 20-30 even more slower, etc. This will prevent the mundane killing of skellies at the lower levels, but still prevent everyone being level 50 in a couple of weeks. Then, as new expansions are unlocked, you can increase the XP even more to encourage others to join and feel like they can catch up to everyone else.
  3. Kiani Augur

    RF and LJ are getting pretty top heavy, this will only encourage that trend. But it's probably a good thing, because it means people can catch up to their level 60 friends/guildies or level their 20th alt that much quicker.
  4. Draekon Elder


    source: lockjaw and ragefire failed
  5. iceyx Journeyman

    Outside of logging in for raids, i dont play at all. No alts beause the exp is so . Once that changes i will have a reason to play again.
  6. kain200 Elder

    I had this exact thing happen to me in nektulos. I only have a level 7 cleric, level 5 necro and level 5 druid all from playing on double exp weekends. I tried to play my cleric on a regular day and I honestly fell asleep in my chair fighting skeletons in nek. Its absolutely horrible and stupid to have an exp rate that slow at those low of levels. I've been playing this game off and on since 1999. I don't need to relearn these low levels and I sure as hell don't look back on them "fondly" enough to want to spend an inordinate amount of time in them. I cancelled my sub until changes are made. I really hope this exp hike is going to be significant because even on double exp weekends...it was still kind of annoyingly slow after playing on RF/LJ a few months back.

    But honestly, when have they ever in history doubled an exp rate in one go? I really really doubt its going to be anywhere near a double exp hike. I'm betting on an almost 70-80% nerf on the quest exp turn ins and something like a 20% increase on kill exp...which is pathetic and won't bring me or anyone else back. When they see this lack of bump in their revenue I bet they'll have another go at it and give it another paltry increase, maybe even do it a third time later on. By then of course it will have been far too little too late.

    And thats a shame because I do want to play. I'd be playing (and paying) right this minute if not for the terrible exp. I have a family and other things I like to do besides sit in a newbie zone killing skeletons for a week straight just to make it to level 10 so I can move on to the next chain gang grind zone. (Oasis)
    No thanks bro.
  7. Denno Elder

    Same issue. Its impossible for me to stay awake with the slow xp rate. I realy want to play, but i cant.
  8. McJumps TLP QoL Activist


    I am not privy to the exact numbers in this situation, but I do know that they have had a SIGNIFICANT amount of double XP weekends since the launch of Phinigel, more than I have personally seen in any other 2 month period. This leads me to believe (and I will admit, I could be wrong here) that they might have been testing that particular XP rate out and seeing how it would go over.

    Even during double XP on Phinigel, it is still only 60% of the current normal XP rates on Ragefire and Lockjaw. Maybe I am being an optimist. Maybe I am reading the majority of the community wrong, but I feel that 90%, if not more, of people playing on Phinigel would be 100% ok with double XP being the new standard. Its still not that fast. You still have to grind almost twice as hard to make it to max level when compared to Ragefire and Lockjaw. But it is within reason.

    Lets at the very least give DBG credit where credit is due. Over the past year they have made MANY changes to the game, most of them for the better. Phinigel is proof of this. Lets at least allow them to correct what I see as the only downside to a near perfect concept of a server.
  9. Vaclav Augur

    To be fair, by the time you hit 10-15 it levels out and isn't nearly as oppressive. Once you push through those levels it's downhill until around 40.
  10. Rauven Augur


    That does not explain why EQ players had a rocky start, and those that continued to play EQ primarily tend to do worse than other MMORPG players at complex mechanics. Specifically those requiring one to think on their feet and be mobile.

    Even in Live EQ there's very few encounters that require you to be mobile throughout the fight. The game just wasn't designed for that. You are right about the predictable stats and rhythm seen in games. Personally I think EQ is to blame for that. The 'pioneers' of MMORPGs being the EQ player would have been stumped by random mechanics.

    Everyone who first played WoW are primarily EQ players. Some took off and ran with it. Some didn't. Blizzard decided to cave to the ones who didn't. And -That- opened it up to more casual oriented players who didn't play MMORPGs initially.

    2004 WoW wasn't WoW in 2010 or 2016. I do want to stress that. The game didn't get easy until the pre-Burning Crusade patch. And even then it was the solo-group content that got easier. They didn't ease up on the raids until well... after I stopped playing in 2010.

    As for corpse runs, it was always pretty simple. The game is a MMORPG. You're expected to socialize. I personally played a Necromancer half the time, so corpse runs were a spell cast away. When I wasn't, I could rely on rogues, necro's, or SK friends to retrieve. I mean the 'hard' part there was not ticking off my best friend of (at the time) 13 years.

    I get that not everyone who plays has that sort of network, but they're likely not putting themselves at as much risk either. I mean if the hardest part of EQ is making friends in it.. that's not saying much to the difficulty of the game. But there's nothing wrong with that.

    But we do have to be honest.. its a pretty easy game, always has been. But that's also part of its charm. While leveling in groups, it wasn't uncommon for me to tell the group.. during combat I might add, that I'm going afk for a drink. Come back and the mob is dead or nearly dead. And the group could easily handle 2-3 people afk at a time and not miss a beat clearing a camp.

    You just can't do that in other MMORPGs.
  11. GrugSA Augur

    I played EQ from SoV to GoD and WoW from a few months after it came out till WotLK. I got Glad s1-3 in 2s and 3s. I've been part of the highest rated Arena teams at times in S2 and S3 as alliance when alliances racials sucked a big for pvp, once with Zilea and Hoodrich as RdHW and with a few different people as Rd, SP, SL/Affliction hybrid lock. I'm the reason why they made Gnomish Poultryzier not usable in arena, I'm part of the reason why blind got changed to a banish from a poison, Hydras countering my teams SP/LOCK by buying greens with Shadow Resist and STA is the reason gear swapping in arena originally got nerfed. Despite the fact i played WoW solely for PvP i was able to complete ALL raid content in era with pugs or as a guest raider with mid tier guilds on Alliance/KJ. All of the raid and group content in vanilla and BC was mechanically simple and the strats were just straight up given to you. With Lady Vashj being the only exception. While much of early EQ is very simple the strats weren't handed out and a few things like the fear break in and how to properly pull/position fights was much more difficult than anything WoW or modern EQ has to offer, Blizzard straight up took pulling as a skill out of the game in WoW after vanilla and made CC easy mode after BC because it was to hard for many players. They reduce raid sizes because it was to hard to get WoW/Modern EQ raiders organized they way the top dogs did in non-instanced EQ. What actually happened is MMO players that didn't every get a chance to raid in EQ got a chance to raid in WoW because instances and they failed badly.

    TL;DR Reading don't stand in the fire in 5 seconds and moving to not stand in the fire isn't difficult.
  12. Rauven Augur


    But yet the majority of EQ players fail at that.

    You don't have to go digging very far to see it either. Pull something with an arrow to your group and watch your healer or something (that's not the tank) stand in the way and take a few hits.

    Watch how many people break mezes despite there being a MA.

    I mean you're right that after vanilla, WoW got easier. No one is debating that. But to say it was always easy isn't correct. Compare the hardest stuff in both games in 2004.

    And I'm sorry, raid sizes mean nothing. I see outfit pushes in Planetside 2 (a PVP game) that makes the Sleeper kill on Rallos Zek look like a duo group. And that happens daily, even as of writing this.

    There's nothing hard in EQ, its why they took my suggestion to make the old content harder. We're more experienced now. Some of us are coming back from WoW, Rift, Tera, FFXIV, and other games. It would be (and was) anti-climatic to come back for nostalgia and gib a 16,000hp dragon in under 20 seconds (I'll do the math for you, that's 12dps per person on average in a 72 man raid, didn't even need to be 50 for that).
  13. Risiko Augur

    You people crack me up. With the current experience on Phinny, I have leveled a 43 paladin, 46 necromancer, 26 shaman and a handful of sub 20 characters. The experience isn't that bad.
  14. kain200 Elder

    While you're cracking up, the rest of us have wives and families. I won't neglect either to have characters at a similar level to yours. This game shouldn't be a job. Back in 1999 I was a single young bachelor and I traded getting laid for playing everquest. It was a stupid mistake then and its even more stupid now.
  15. Your_Ad_Here Augur

    I wish they just wouldn't nerf anything.

    Look, I don't care either way if you want to sit on your butt and press a button over and over to have your pet kill a fire beetle. Yeah it can be annoying for players who need such a mob for a quest, but in the case of the Paineel newbie area, there are still lots of mobs to level on. It's not like those players are camping the entire zone.

    This reminds me of an update they did in Skyrim. Some players were making items through smithing then breaking them down at high rates to level their Smithing up quickly. So the devs changed it because it was seen as an exploit of some degree. Players actually complained about what other people were doing ... in a SINGLE PLAYER game.

    It's the same thing here. So what if someone spends a ton of plat buying red wine and handing it in to level quick. It isn't hurting you in any way. They aren't camping the merchant so you can't use it. They aren't gating your level or exploration progression by hiting level 20 quickly.

    Either do what they're doing or move on.

    That brings me to what DBG said. They don't like players leveling this way and want them to essentially do it the 'proper way'. Holy crap. I didn't know there was a 'proper way' to play an MMO (excluding EULA/ToS of course). Next you'll tell me I can only level on white cons and not blue cons cause they don't give enough exp.

    There is nothing wrong with players leveling using CB belts, or bone chips, or red wine. Leave quest exp like it is. I'm also fine with Phinigel exp, though I do agree that 1-20 grind is hella long in some parts.
    EQvet likes this.
  16. EQvet Elder

    Hmm I played in 99 and still got laid...just like I have a 50 on phinny now and still have a family. I think it's the player not the game.
    Venthos likes this.
  17. kain200 Elder

    Ok ok I still did too, but honestly my social life took a major hit and my friends were always bugging me to quit playing 'that stupid game' and come outside for once. I guess it would have been more accurate to say that I didn't hold down a steady girlfriend because there was no way I was putting in the time for that over everquest. It was a truly sick way to live and I know plenty of people lost their wives/husbands/familes over that horrible grind.

    I honestly don't know how you got to 50 though. I suppose if you played from the server opening and just really put in the time, especially on double exp days. Most of the double weekends came around christmas and new years which was exactly when I was NOT going to be playing due to family stuff so I pretty much missed most of those aside from a few hours here and there.

    Or maybe you don't like your family and grinding on phinegal is an excuse to get away from them hah!
  18. Venthos Augur

    Wife, family, job, & social life here. Got a L50 + L37 + a bunch of teen level toons. Another vote for "problem with the player, not the game" as EQvet said.
    Risiko likes this.
  19. Rithlir Journeyman



    EXACTLY!

    DBG are like.. woot so many people are playing when it's double exp, let's make it permanent!

    But in reality it's the "limited time, double exp" that makes people play more, not the actual number of exp obtained per kill. Why not make double exp a regular thing every end/start of the month, instead, and run more double plat / faction / etc to even out the gaps in between. Could even make a certain day of the week (pick the one with lowest population) a double exp day. It's all about marketing and promotion, if you feel you're getting "more than usual" for logging in, more people will play. Making it permanent is just inflation.

    Besides, like poster above said, increasing (Phinigel) exp will not make the game better. Those who don't like the exp rate have plenty of servers to choose from! You can make the next TLP 10x exp for all I care. I left Ragefire because you messed with the ruleset after the server was started. Don't make me, again :(
    Venthos likes this.
  20. Ailiite New Member

    Exactly !!

    it seems we finally get nice things, and then daybreak change it all up. I am happy here. PLEASE DONT change things on a whim.

    Do some user research, maybe even have a open forum.

    This according to all the people i play with, is the sweetspot.