Not sure I'm getting "it"...

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by gambitak, Oct 27, 2021.

  1. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    I probably shouldn't answer, since this is a severe necroposting, but I just have to.

    If you want a group, don't sit around contemplating your navel with your LFG tag up. Start your own group. Go to the LFG channel and say, "Need more for {area you plan to hunt}, PST!"

    Mentoring has never worked quite right, TBH.

    Agnostics provide a reasonably quick way to level up solo. Some people love them, others hate them. YMMV.

    Make sure you have equipped good food and drink, by which I mean player-made food and drink with stats. If you are level 1-9, try for food that's level 10+. If you are level 22, you want food that's level 30+ and so on. A level 10 person can use level 100 food/drink, but you won't get the stats from it... it scales down. Never rely on the cheap food/drink from NPC vendors. If the stuff on the broker is astronomically priced (as it usually is) ask in the Crafting channel for a Provisioner to make you some food and drink, it will be cheaper.

    Drink restores your power in Norrath. In the Real World™, you can't fight for long without rehydrating. Norrathian food helps you regenerate your health.

    This is simply a player's complete failure informing that paragraph. If your Warlock is not out-DPSing your Dirge and Paladin, you aren't playing any of them right. When you get spells or combat arts, you need to open your Knowledge book and read them carefully for what they do!

    Your character's stats make a big difference, as does how you spec your AA. There's a good post in which current state of stats is discussed, read it. The default AA that you are offered as you level is NOT the best AA set up for the class. It just isn't. I personally like to ask in General chat "Who is the best {name of your class} on this server?" then look up those people on EQ2U and see how they do their AAs. You can even download another person's AA spec there, and then use that yourself.

    As it happens, we have Tier One DPS, which is usually something like Wizards and Assassins, but which classes are up there vary by expansion. Then there's Tier Two DPS, which still does good DPS but not as much as the T1 folks. T2 is usually Swashbucklers and Conjies and so forth. Beastlords, Predators (Assassins and Rangers), Sorcerors (Wizards and Warlocks), Rogues (Swashbucklers and Brigands), Summoners (Conjurors and Necromancers) are your DPS classes.

    But DPS is not necessarily ALL that those classes do. For example, Warlocks can do a petty good amount of power feed in a pinch, a Conjuror's Stoneskins can help protect their group and tank, Rogues can do some limited tanking as needed. Most tanks have means of protecting themselves and doing limited healing/curing. Etc.

    Bards and Enchanters are support classes, and what their spells do is CRITICAL to how they function. Bards should be running specific songs to buff themselves and their allies, or debuff their foes. Enchanters use specific spells to feed power to their allies, or to control their foes via mezz, stifle, stun, daze, root and so on.

    Fighters include Warriors (Berzerker and Guardian), Crusaders (Paladin and Shadowknight), and Brawlers (Monk and Bruisers). Their job is to grab and hold aggro so other people can kill things. They all have slightly different methods for doing this, including doing some of their own DPS.

    ALL CLASSES should be arranging their cast order based on spell efficiency, using the most efficient spells/combat arts first. I calculate this using my Knowledgebook, my toon's stats, and an Excel spreadsheet. I have a sample sheet you can grab from my Dropbox if you'd like to try this.

    To use the spreadsheet, you open it in Excel, Google Sheets, or whatever Open Office's equivalent is. You fill in the stuff at the top from your toon's stats: don't mess with anything in the yellow boxes, that's where the sheet will be doing calculations for you. Open each of your spells of combat arts one at a time from the Knowledge book, and replace the sample data in the sheet with the name of your spell, the damage numbers, and if it ticks, the min/max, duration, and frequency of ticks. Once it's all filled in, select rows 7 through the last row that has data, then sort on Column L (Spell Efficiency) on descending order (Z to A, it may say depending on what software you are using). That's your cast order. This can make a HUGE difference in your overall DPS.

    For some things, like dumbfire pets, you may need to use an invulnerable Guild Hall Training Dummy and ACT and throw dumbfire pets at the dummy several times and get your min and max damage values from ACT.

    Maj'Dul is supposed to have the highest population (hard to say, since no population figures are released by DBG), and Skyfire is next most populous. The top-heavy nature of the population distribution is just what you get from a game that's been around this many years.

    The most satisfying lower-level experience is to start on the next TLE server that opens up. That lets you have the population all at low levels. EQ2 PVP has never been really great (YMMV), but regular rule-set TLE is a lot of fun. I usually create a new toon on the new TLE when one appears and then use that as my "de-stress" hideaway toon.

    I dunno about Skyfire, but every server has a handful of jerks. Put them on /ignore when you encounter them, don't engage with them at all. The rest of the community is usually pretty helpful, although it helps to ask in the best channel. Use LFG when you are trying to put together a group. Ask questions in General and/or Newbie: General will get you the most people available, not everybody monitors the Newbie channel. Be nice when you ask, people will give you grief if you are belligerent or acting like an overentitled brat (not you necessarily, but we see those people). If it's about crafting or tradeskills, ask in Crafting channel. If it's about Norrathian Interior Decorating, /j Antonia_Bayle.Homeshow then ask in that channel.

    FWIW, Maj'Dul has a pretty helpful community.

    This is one of the advantages of playing from low level up to high level, it gives you the time to learn what your spells do and learn the various mechanics.

    You have in your Character window a tab for Familiars. Once you have a Familiar, you can drag it to the equipped block and summon it. If you open the Familiar's Examine window (from the main list of Familiars, not the equip block) you can see its stats and level.

    To level your Familiar, basically there are two methods.

    The first is to take other Familiars and feed them to your summoned Familiar. You do this by Examining the new Familiar, you will get an option to consume that Familiar and add to your summoned Familiar's level. Sometimes Familiars drop as loot. Sometimes people buy Familiars on the Marketplace. Or you can go capture a Familiar using the daily Familiars Wild quest.

    The second method is to use the Overseer Mission system. Some Overseer missions give training potions as a reward, for leveling your spells, mercenaries, mounts, familiars. In particular, you want to do as many Overseer missions every day that you can. The max is 10 regular missions, 10 charged missions, and 1 Heritage Crate daily. Stanley Parnem has your charged missions (you can get 10 missions, with 10 charges each). Arabella F'arquharson will sell you the Heritage Crate mission (you only need to buy it once).

    Start with the wiki's page on Gods. Good characters can worship good or neutral deities, and evil characters can worship evil or neutral deities. You can choose a deity at level 20 by seeking out the prophet of that deity and doing some quests at level 20, 35, 55, 65 and 70. Along the way, you get altars to that deity. Once placed in your home, you can right-click the altar and "pray" and either sacrifice gear to the deity or purchase miracles.

    Basically, the gear you sacrifice translates into favor with the deity, and you use that favor to buy miracles.

    Now, just to make this totally confusing, somewhere along the way they added this Deity menu to the EQ2 button menu. This is completely separate from the prior system of choosing a deity. Here you can purchase a miracle from deities that either are your alignment or neutral. These are single-use spells, basically.

    You can also safely ignore the whole deity system if you choose. The miracles are helpful in a sticky situation, but because of their limited use, not something to rely upon.

    Some things you can craft turn out to be very useful. You might as well bite the bullet and learn to craft, because when you get to level 70+ there will start to be some quests that have a crafting step for stuff you may really want. At end-game, you will need to be able to tinker and do adorning so you can make the various doo-dads that make your life easier, unless you can con your GF into crafting them for you.

    The fastest way to level crafting is to follow the wiki's Tradeskill Timeline. If you didn't already, do even the low level quests, they all reward tradeskill XP. If needed, do a few crafting missions for your local tradeskill headquarters until you hit the level for the next quests. While you are at it, do the daily adorning, tinkering, and transmuting quests from Londiar Inygad at your local tradeskill HQ, it's the most painless way to level those skills.

    And at the same time, do A Gathering Obsession (even if you decide NOT to craft!) so you can get the rares you need to have turned into useful gear, spells,etc. This questline also gives tradeskill XP, but the ability to get a pony that harvests for you is not to sneeze at!
  2. Sleppen Active Member

    He said "has become." That's not wrong. The game was different in many ways during beta and at launch. Just the same, I played both games during that time period, and I was struck by the similarities. Both games were a reaction against the EQ1 model. That's vast subject, though, so I'll just leave it at that. I didn't care much for WoW, so I dropped it after a month or two. I dropped EQ2, also, but I still kept my account and came back from time to time. Whenever I came back, the game mechanics had slowly evolved in the direction of WoW (or at least WoW as I remember it).
    gambitak likes this.
  3. Sleppen Active Member

    I'll make a comment on this, both for you and for other new players. EQ2 had an ambitious crafting system during beta and after launch. It didn't work the way that the developers had hoped. The current crafting system bears only a superficial similarity to the original system. Also, over time, the game moved away from player-made gear. I can remember one of the times when I returned that player-made armor (with rare harvests) was really good stuff. Today, it isn't. There are some discrete uses for crafted gear, but really, most of the value is spell upgrades. There are a few other things that still matter.

    You should think of crafting as a game within a game. That is what it has become, and I have fun with it. Starting with the Solstice Earring questline, crafting produces benefits other than making stuff. The earring opens up special collectables and gives you a run speed bonus. If you max out your tradeskill level (which is not difficult using the adorning/tinkering/transmuting quests), you can do the higher level tradeskill quests while your character is otherwise at a low level. You can run the Far Seas quests (especially if you put your AAs into mass production, or get the Hand of the Maker from the Cobalt Scar questline) and buy a flying mount that is usable at low adventuring levels. Eventually, you will start to get whole signature quests based on crafting, and some of them are a lot of fun. I'm thinking of the Planes of Prophecy quests in particular, as they actually have instanced zones just for the tradeskill quests. In expansions starting with Luclin, crafting is a way to open up the ability to fly. There is a lot more than this, but that should give you a flavor of it.

    Almost none of this is based on your actual crafting class (for example, Weaponsmith). It's just a game within a game. I do occasionally make items to sell, but by and large, it's just a game within a game.
  4. gambitak Well-Known Member

    Thank you, and this is it, precisely. It's not just EQ2, though; since WoW was so dominantly financially successful, most other MMO games became derivative and EQ2 is not immune from that. Up to a certain point, I know WoW extremely well and can see similarities in game play between EQ2 and WoW (up to the point I stopped playing, at least).

    Please see the above; and, it's not a rant. It's an ongoing, continuous evaluation of my experience.

    It's not a necropost, but a continuation of my experience. Rather than having several posts over time that get lost, I figured that I would keep it current. My observations change as I gain levels, so I thought I'd put it here.

    I had actually typed up a long response, but I downloaded the spreadsheet you listed and tried to open and crashed to the login screen *sigh*. It's not your spreadsheet's fault, but the NVIDIA drivers for my card that are a known problem.

    I have never cared enough about any game to quantify unknown stats into a spreadsheet. I can understand why people like you will do this, you want to maximize your character's effective/relevant stats for raids and high level groups; however, for the average, casual player, this is the opposite of why we play. In fact, had you told me at the beginning that I would have to create a spreadsheet to effectively play my character at end game, DBG would not have gotten one penny from me.

    I think that I'm being respectful (using polite words such as "Please", "Thank you" and "I appreciate your input"), much like I do in the forums. Basically, I got the "learn to play your character" and that was it. Or, people would laugh at my questions, in General chat; that is, if they bothered to answer at all. I don't use General Chat for anything much any more. And, I stopped asking for groups long ago. I've never been invited to one or nobody ever joined my group. I was told, a few times over the last couple years, that I would most likely ever find a group until I get to the end game.

    This has not been my experience. It's a given that I've not played past level 90 and have never played in a real group, so my mileage has certainly varied from the experience of people who play end-game raids/groups.

    Min/Maxing means nothing to me, at this moment. And, there's not much I can do with the gear that's available. I just get the highest plus to STAMINA and PRIMARY ATTRIBUTES that I can find. After reading the link to the stats topic, I'm more confused about the game than before.

    Why have all stats for all classes? Why not just have two stats called STAMINA and PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE? If my dirge does not need Wisdom and it literally brings nothing to my experience of the game, why have it?

    Again, why have these in-game, at all?

    I've seen these stats on my window, and did not know that they have no bearing, at all, since they've been removed. How is a new player supposed to know this?

    I get this, probably more than the people who have been involved since the beginning of the game. Regardless of the reason, it's a fact that new players have a long, lonely slog up the level ladder. At least, that's been my experience.

    I have a familiar up all the time. The ONLY ones I have are from the /claim window. I have never gotten one from a quest or as an overseer reward. Again, I don't craft and have no plans to ever pick up crafting, so I don't know how to get them from the game. I checked on the wiki and started typing in names from the very first one listed to see if they were being sold and after about 30 minutes, I got bored and moved on.

    I think that most people who play EQ2 have been playing for a long time, whether they take breaks or not. I was a completely new player and have had to Forrest Gump my way through the game. I really appreciate the information I've received from answers to these forum posts, that's why I continue to post, regardless of whether the post is a direct question or a journal of my experience. I go and read everything that people, like you, suggest I read. I may not understand it or agree with it, but I do go and read what people link for me.
  5. gambitak Well-Known Member

    Thank you for this post. I came to the same observation, that it doesn't bring anything to my game play and is just like Gems was for OG EQ. However, the difference is that I found Gems to be a great game because I could play it while camping a spot for an item or while talking to friends online or on the phone.

    Approaching crafting as a game-within-a-game is probably the correct way to go; however, I do not like that game. It's more irritating than anything, at least for me. I would rather run around the world and randomly visit places than waste my time with a game-within-a-game that takes 100% of my focus for the time I'm doing it, all the while providing no benefit for my time invested. But, that's just me. My GF likes it, so she does her crafting.
  6. gambitak Well-Known Member

    What's that? Is that decorating the houses? LOL, I've got like 3 or 4 houses from my /claim window, but haven't really set foot in there. I did the newbie quest to get a house to open up all the broker slots, but I don't think anything is in there. I just deposited a thousand platinum for the house and haven't been back since.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  7. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Heh...er, 1,000 plat is more for a guild hall than rent for a house; fear not, anything you put in an EQ2 house will still be there if you haven't paid rent (even beyond the 12 weeks max; if you don't have important things there like your Sales Crates, etc., it may slip your mind [/guilty :oops:]), it won't poof into a mere box on your front stoop -- do they still do that in EQ1? One of the many varied reasons why I dropped out of that game after about a fortnight. It would deeply, deeply suck in EQ2 to have an elaborately decorated place, the max amount of items reached, and everything precisely where you want it, only to be like 5 minutes late with rent and coming back to -- a box on the stoop (can you save the house layout in EQ1?). :-/

    It may be "realistic" (other landlords in RL just lock the door on you, with all your stuff still inside, until you cough up what's needed to free it) but it still sucks.

    Uwk
  8. Sleppen Active Member

    It's another game within a game. I don't find it to be interesting, but there are a lot of people who have fun with it. My houses all look like the garage of a hoarder, with random stuff stuck in random locations and an army of pets wandering around or sleeping on the floor. The houses have some legitimate uses, especially for crafters, but they aren't necessary for anything. The pets do amuse me, though.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  9. Sleppen Active Member

    That's fair, of course. I still recommend doing the Planes of Prophecy tradeskill signature quest when you get there. You can pick up some potions to make the actual crafting go faster (the combines are very long otherwise). The instances are like non-combat adventuring, and it has a storyline that culminates with resurrecting a god. I think you'd like it even if you don't like crafting in general. The Luclin expansions also had non-combat adventuring storylines, but not as good in my opinion.

    My only other comment is that the level 100+ crafting quests do provide benefit for your time invested, outside of crafting itself. But none of it is necessary.
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  10. Sleppen Active Member


    This made me chuckle. You said that you were an old school EQ1 player, so you probably remember back in the old days when real life engineers would create all sorts of models and stuff for EQ combat. There were spreadsheets and simulations and all sorts of stuff. Ah, the old days. It was a crazy time.

    Anyway, I'm a soloist, so I don't worry about stats very much even at high levels, and at lower levels I barely pay attention. I'm not convinced that stats really matter much at lower levels. Once you pass level 100, Resolve becomes important, because the developers use it as a gateway stat for people who do heroic and raid content. You need to have a certain level of Resolve to survive against certain mobs. But I get all the Resolve I need from ordinary drops. It's the raiders who really need to worry about it. Potency and Fervor appear to have some value, too, but I largely ignore everything else.
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  11. Priority Well-Known Member

    Resolve doesnt apply to solos. You may know that, your statement insinuates you didnt, though. Friendly FYI.
  12. Sleppen Active Member

    I didn't know that, so thanks. Resolve wasn't really anything I worried with anyway. It just pops up on ordinary gear, right out of the Tishan's chest. I never ran into a situation where it seemed to matter, and now I know why. I have worried with Potency a bit. I took the advice from one of Sig's guides and loaded up with Potency tack for my mounts. That actually seemed to make a difference.
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  13. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    When you are fighting a "potato" computer, that can be aggravating. I did that for a long time, and I think it made me work harder to get the most out of my characters despite lag and glitches. Then when I got an actual up to date machine, wow, what an improvement!

    If your local install of Excel is giving you fits, use Google Sheets instead. It's free, you do have to sign up. I made a free Google email account and use that email address for Sheets, personally. Then you can import the spreadsheet into Sheets.

    You don't have to use a spreadsheet.

    But I promise you that if you are struggling with DPS, a good casting order will help you. You can't just ask someone else of your class for their casting order, either, because your own stats, gear, AA, and the quality of your particular spells/combat arts makes it hard just to pick up someone else's order.

    In general, some of your fastest-casting, fastest recasting spells, even if they are single-target spells with what looks like small damage can be very efficient, if you cast them every time they come up available again. On the other hand, long-casting spells such as Ascension are way less efficient (DPS is "damage per second" so the more seconds it takes to cast, the less efficient it's probably gonna be).

    People also do things such as using ACT, sorting out what does the most damage, and go with that. You can just experiment and see what results you get, but for my time and effort the spreadsheet is way faster and easier.

    In the case of this spreadsheet, since all the thinking about the calculations is already done, it's just a simple tool into which you put your character's stuff, sort, and a casting order pops out.

    These people who give you the "learn 2 play n00b" answers are the ones you should put on /ignore. Once you have them out of the way, you can get actual help from people who aren't glassbowls.

    On the live servers, this is, alas, pretty much the case. I think you'd be much happier if you roll a toon on a TLE server when the next one opens.

    Right now the Varsoon TLE server is at Fallen Dynasty, which is level 55-65, more or less. There will probably still be some groups available at lower levels, and it doesn't take long to get to your 50s, so that's one possibility you might try out. You do have to be a member to play on TLE.

    While STA and your primary attributes are important, they come pretty naturally on level-appropriate gear.

    The stats you need to pay attention to are Fervor (less of an issue at lower levels), Crit Bonus, Potency, and Ability Mod.

    Originally we really did look at the primary attributes. Nowadays they're kind of lumped into one value anyway. Originally, your dirge would compare two pieces of gear, and if one had more agility while the other had more wisdom,all other stats being the same, you'd select the one with AGI.

    EQ2 started in 2004. Over those nearly 20 years, things have changed just about every expansion. Some changes worked better, some were really not good. We have years and years worth of incremental changes in the code.

    Start doing Familiars Wild daily, it's fast to do, and feed the familiars you get to your current familiar to level it. I also highly recommend doing Overseer Missions, because the occasional training potions help level your familiar much quicker. The only "very fast" method is to spend cash money on buying familiars from the Marketplace and feeding those to your familiar, but it's not practical for most of us.

    The EQ2 Wiki can be a really big help. Since it's purely a volunteer effort by other players, sometimes there are odd gaps. But there's still tons of helpful info there.
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  14. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    The main purpose for a house for some folks is to place Sales Crates of various sorts from the Broker, where their sold stuff is found. That can be an incentive for folks to visit that house, to avoid having to pay the "Broker Fee" addition to the price of an item. I've seen houses, like the basic 2-room one you can get for just existing in a city, that consisted of the Basic Table, Basic Mirror, Basic Chandelier, and......whatever else you get with that city quest (it's been awhile), and Sales Crates. ;->

    If nothing else, they are neat and tidy... :D

    Uwk
    Aenvar likes this.
  15. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Also, people who come to see a cool house may also decide to shop your broker boxes! If you don't like decorating, you can hire someone to do it for you as well ;)
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  16. gambitak Well-Known Member

    Original EQ is the reason I don't do certain things, especially in games. Being an IT guy, I helped create a bunch of spreadsheets for guild raids (I was a raid leader on the Stormhammer server). I had enough of that! Also, OG EQ, especially after PoP was released, convinced me that I did not really enjoy raiding. Too much time invested with little to no return and everybody became focused on the end game rather than the journey of the game.

    @Sigrdrifa Thank you, again, for a link. I'll check out the Familiars Wild quests. My GF is like 121 or 122 now and was wondering about how to do that, as well.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone and rutro like this.
  17. Sleppen Active Member

    Vex Thal did it for me. I was a raid leader at one point. Hate and Fear were fun. Some of the Velious stuff was fun. Luclin wasn't so bad after they fixed the raids. But Vex Thal was just so tedious. Anyway, I know where you're coming from.
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