Returning Player

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Shankette, Jan 26, 2023.

  1. Shankette New Member

    So, i'm returning to the game after an extended absence. (I stopped playing sometime between Age of Discover and Chains of Eternity). A few weeks ago, the Mrs. was quarantining downstairs with Covid and - long story short - I was looking for something for us to do as she was going stir-crazy.

    Lo and behold, i found out EQ2 was still alive and our accounts (from launch) are still here. Honestly, i was shocked as to how fast was able to get us both up and running. There's a lot to re-learn though... and GOOD GOD; the inflation on the broker is staggering.

    We're having fun though and that's the important thing. Working on clearing out old quests old quests on our characters (i had 4 at 92 before the break) and i have fully remembered why i hated Nek. Castle.

    It's kind of weird having a T3 Guild Hall mostly to myself; I was an officer though so i have access to everything. I can see though that other people have been on in the last 90 days; people i played EQ1 with, so looking forward to catching up with folks.

    Honestly, the hardest part at the moment is figuring out where to pick up and what the travel routes are between certain zones.

    Anyway, i can see there have been a LOT of changes over the years. Any particular suggestions on what to focus on or prioritize??

    Loramil Trailwalker
    Brotherhood of Light
    Skyfire
  2. Cyliena Well-Known Member

    Welcome back! I came back late last February after a nearly 6-year hiatus, so I get how overwhelming some stuff can be, especially the broker prices! If you have a woodworker, totems of Escape and Deadly Sabertooth sell well on broker, and lower level shinies and harvests that you have extra of would sell well, too.

    For traveling: if you're a member, the quick travel function on the map is now free. You can access it from the icon on the upper-left of the map. I didn't know that for a few months after returning and it made getting around much, much easier.

    Once you hit level 100, Plane of Magic is where you'll want to adventure next. While Thalumbra is that level range as well, the cap was still 100 when the Thalumbra xpack released, so with Plane of Prophecy the cap raised and the xp requirement becomes massive and quest xp is basically the only way you'll ever gain an appreciable amount of experience again. The signature quests in particular are worth a lot of xp. There are Tishan's lockboxes in the expansion intro zones starting with Plane of Magic that will gear you up appropriately for the content.

    Personally, I did Plane of Magic until I hit 110, then hopped to Luclin because the Plane of Magic quests were mind-numbingly boring (lots of faction grinding to progress). With an xp potion, you can fly from 110 to 120 pretty fast in Luclin, then hit up Vetrovia to get to 125, then you'll be in the new content with Renewal of Ro.

    Buying the Renewal of Ro expansion will unlock the latest xpack plus all prior expansions for you.

    I won't get into too much more because Sigrdrifa has two really helpful posts here that will likely answer many of your questions:
    Visions of Vetrovia returning guide: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ide-for-beginners-or-returning-players.602324
    Renewal of Ro returning guide: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ide-for-beginners-or-returning-players.607863

    Also, I suggest checking out the Panda quests that start in Stonebrunt -- these are basically exploration quests that unlock merchant items that may help you: https://eq2.fandom.com/wiki/The_"Travels"_of_Yun_Zi_Timeline

    Most importantly, do what's fun for you! I'm still overwhelmed by the things I'm behind on, especially with live events, so I find myself flitting from thing to thing. Eventually I might catch up... but I'm in no rush to do so. ;)
  3. Heresford Active Member

    Do you like to quest or are you looking to get to endgame as quickly as possible? I enjoyed the trudge through Ethernere and especially Tears of Veeshan at levels 90-95.

    I took a hiatus from 2009 to 2014, and I went back through all the content I had missed instead of trying to rush to endgame. Doing that with all my alts took about 3 years, but I only play about 2 hours a night and maybe 4 on Saturdays and Sundays.

    I'd plan a stop in Terrors of Thalumbra and Kunark Ascending. There's a nice plant you can get at the end of the Kunark Ascending tradeskill timeline that will produce harvests with a chance for rares. It updates with every expansion, and you can choose harvests from every expansion since it was released, although in addition to your "basket" which you have to unpack, you occasionally get a rare or two from KA. I've done this with all of my alts.
    Hartsmith likes this.
  4. girney Active Member

    Near the end of this quest series you are given the option to relinquish the ability [COLOR=var(--theme-link-color)]Artisan's Gathering Goblin[/COLOR] and replace it with a goblin that will "garden" for you instead, allowing you to gather a rare material.
  5. Graymouser New Member

    Sounds like I'm in the same boat as OP. Was playing since launch, can't remember exactly when I left.

    Looks like tons of new stuff to catch up on. Wonder if I'll even remember where all my houses are...

    Edit: How is population on Varsoon now?
    Sturmlocke likes this.
  6. Cyliena Well-Known Member

    The garden is great, especially when a new expansion comes out, but the best feature of Growf's quests, in my opinion, is the harvesting time reduction buff you get in place of the gathering goblin. If you get that buff before doing the Gathering Obsession harvesting quests, it makes dealing with Qho so much better! :)
    Hartsmith likes this.
  7. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Hail, well met and welcome back!

    On my phone rn, so in short: If you can try to prioritize taking your sweet time to smell the roses - that would be my primary advice. And by that I mean take your your time exploring, questing and with other things such as housing, fishing and more. I'm re-exploring Castle's right now, admiring their beauty and all. Usually this is the perfect moment to catch up with the lore and read a bit while questing.

    Let it all sink in ladies and gentlemen:



    In other words: Go for some exploration and take it from there :)
    Hartsmith, Breanna and Tweedles like this.
  8. Shankette New Member

    Thanks for all the responses...

    The Mrs and i are working through Cobalt Scar at the moment. I'm not in any particular rush to get to the end game. We're mostly focusing on one or two adventure characters at the moment; Her Fury and my ranger. Also working on leveling up my tradeskillers. I've pushed a few from 90 - 100 thanks to the daily quests for the most part, but then i obviously found the WALL. (Do question start giving more tradeskill exp now that you suddenly need a million exp??)

    Anyway, i have found a few things that weren't obvious up front.... like leveling mercearies. (i don't recall what that was like 10 years ago, but my thief merc now has WAY more HP than i do.)

    There is one question i do have though... what's the practical / expected way to cross the (for lack of a better term) level 95 hump? (one of the things i did when i came back was to temporarily create a Heroic Character to see what an end game character could look like - so it was obvious there's a Gear/HP spike since that character was over 4 million HP and i'm under 90k).

    Anway, a tradeskill quest sent me to Tranquil sea and let's just say that things didn't go well. (i'm level 94 curently).
    Sturmlocke likes this.
  9. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Some ideas:

    (1) Bookmark the wiki's Solo Timelines page. It will show you what zones are at which levels. You can click into a zone to get more quest specifics. At your level, you should consider Eidolon Jungle, Obol Plains, and Vesspyr Isles before you go to Shattered Seas.

    (2) Update your spells to Expert is you have not already done so. Fighters get their Experts made by Alchemists. Scouts' Experts come from Jewelers. Priests and Mages should talk to a Sage for their Experts.

    Our spells and combat arts (I'm just gonna call them spells after this) come in differing levels and in spell "strengths"... you automatically get the Apprentice versions of your spells. A Scholar (Alchemist/Jeweler/Sage, depending on your archetype) can craft Journeyman spells. Adept is the next level, and are mob drops and often available on the broker. Scholars can craft Expert spells for you from rare harvests, and this is your best bet while you are leveling... harvest everything, find out which rares can be made into what, and ask in the Crafting chat channel for a crafter to make things for you. After Expert spells, we have Masters, Grandmasters, Ancient, and Celestial. If you happen upon one of these as you are leveling, that's great, but don't worry about them until end game

    (3) Congratulations on figuring out how to level mercenaries! Did you know you can also level mounts and familiars? The new Overseer Feature is the easiest and least expensive way to accomplish this.

    The easiest way to do this is to do Overseer missions, including all the old Charged Missions possible, every single day to get training potions for not just mounts, but also mercs, familiars, and spell research. "Purchase" them for free from Administrator Agent Stanley Parnem in either Qeynos or Freeport (click link to get exact locs). You may use a maximum of 10 Charged Overseer Quests at a time, and 10 charges per. Also, be sure to visit Arabella F'arquharson in either Qeynos or Freeport and purchase the daily Overseer Heritage Crate mission!

    Also, pick up the daily Familiars Wild quest in Qeynos or Freeport to obtain a familiar that you can either add to your collection, or you can right click the captured familiar and feed it to your currently summoned familiar to help level the summoned familiar.
    Sturmlocke and Twyla like this.
  10. Tanto Done, finished, gone.


    I would take alts to contested High Keep (Vespyr Isles) and do all the quests in there, but admittedly, I had veteran accounts with all the deity stats and a few goodies here and there. I'm not entirely sure how easy it would be to grind there with fresh accounts. Skyshrine too. Again I'm not sure how accessible that would be for you this time round.

    I think the key thing for making old content easy mode is to have the deity stats from the panda quests, but I think you might need to be level 100 to do that (the stats apply to all your characters on that account). If the heroic content in Skyshrine is too much for you just follow the solo quest timelines and take your time. It will definitely take a while doing it that way.
    Sturmlocke likes this.
  11. mouser Well-Known Member

    My main is 95 on Skyfire as well. I've been doing Vesspyr taking time to relearn my class doing quests and hitting the dungeons.

    For the broker, sell rare harvests. They drop like candy now. Tier 1 rares sell quickly for 500 plat each, and they go up from there. I'm still figuring out how high I can push the prices, but I feel like I'm robbing people (only been back a few weeks). Keep sending out your goblins.
    Cyliena and Sturmlocke like this.
  12. AOE1 Well-Known Member

    Take your time. Enjoy the process of relearning and discovering. There is no rush to get to the end game as it changes all the time. Much will be missed if your boost or spend all your time just leveling doing the "quick and fast" track. Often you find you have to go back and do things you didn't do anyway. Just enjoy the ride. Keep your harvesting up, do tradeskills as it does grant many good benefits just doing the tradeskill signature quest. Follow the timelines on both adventure and tradeskills and don't worry about what someone else is doing. You do YOU.

    Welcome back.
    Sturmlocke and Twyla like this.
  13. Shankette New Member


    I've noticed that as well... I created a new beast lord and assassin to relearn on and also noticed that low level tradeskill quests were providing rares as rewards. I've been going back and doing those as i don't believe they were in when i originally leveled my characters up. That's helping fuel my bank account. My total sales to date before i put anything back on the broker was about 4k in plat. Now i'm close to 1.5 million (and 500k of that was just one Oggok coin). Multiple tradeskillers with Track Harvestable and Solstice Earing is also helping.

    Not in any particular rush to max on anything other than getting Tinkering to 500 so i can make personal Depots. not ready to drop THAT much coin on them and i could really use them to consolidate the stuff across all my characters. (In theory, i could burn some of my status for the guild hall, but it's only taking me 11 writs a week to keep up with the current status requriments at the moment)
    Cyliena likes this.
  14. Shankette New Member

    What would be the intened way to get to Obol Plains? I did go there (i think) in the process of upgrading the pack pony. I was only able to pick up a few tradskill quests there and that's it. (is that level related - curently 94 on the Adventuring side). Also, can you NOT fast travel there??
  15. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Progression of the Obol Plains portion of the signature series requires prior completion of The Eidolon Jungle portion of the signature series. Shades of Drinal: Puzzle Pieces is the quest that sends you to Obol Plains.
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  16. mouser Well-Known Member

    Druid portals will take you to Obol Plains.
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  17. Shankette New Member

    So, i was in Everfrost and found a spot where the ground is glowing (kind of like the Aurora Borealis). I know this means something, but for the life of me, i just can't remember. [IMG]
  18. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    You will find these in various spots across the Shattered Lands. There's a NPC vendor in Thundering Steppes who sells coins, and if you examine those coins in one of these spots, you may get a mob to fight and/or a prize.