Last time I was on EQ2, others in the guild were so persistent to let them help me powerlevel. How is someone to learn anything if they are to be instantly offered powerleveling from guild members? Why power level? Why doesn't anyone actually play the new player quests, instead of power leveling their way up to high level zones?
Most people who seek a powerlevel (I've done it myself, but with friends, not for pay like advertised in channels) have done the low-level content to death. I appreciate things like Antonica and slogging through level 30 dungeons for the fun of it two or three times, but most of us have a ton of alts. In our guild, it's something like seven alts to a person. If you're running that eighth alt through questing, it's gonna get boring, even irritating - hence, the wish to powerlevel to max or near max level and enjoy more recent content you may not have done so many times.
Some people level up without power leveling, some don't. It depends on the person, how they enjoy playing, what their goals are, how much time they have..... <add bunches more variables> and how all those things interact with each other for that person.
Because once you know a game well enough, you don't need to waste 1000 hours grinding through the pointless parts of the game the old-fashioned way just so you can get to (in EQ2's case) 95 with your full Prestige tree, enough AA's to get all the mandatory features, and capped basic functionality stats like Cast / Reuse... and then actually learn how your class actually plays. Obviously not everyone has the same perspective there. But as much as some people love the smell-flowers approach (and that's totally fair & legit), other people would prefer to ... well... get to the point, especially once there's nothing fresh and thrilling to discover in the traditional questing experience. You could argue that at this point it might be time to go find another game to play rather than continuing to grind the same one to particulate dust, but that would be judgmental. (and make Sony sad)
Why ask why? If your a new to game player prefer to quest a see game that way do so! Tell your guild you prefer to take the slow route and want to learn your toon that way. Some like having helping hand and a good guild will teach how to play your toon as you go and can learn group playing which is important once your 90-95 because you wont want to do advanced solo much to level. Its a pain and the rewards are a lot greater doing heroic group content. Since ToV due to the imbalance in stats once you hit 90 and thing slow down you be glad to have people helping you level. These comments are imho and if you dont want the pl I got some toons still need there 95
Conformity, sometimes it is a good thing sometimes it is bad, in this case, so many power level that really should not that it has become the standard the norm and you can thank what has happened in the real world in the last decade or so. Modern life is all about rushing to work, to meals, to friends, home, to the party or what ever the actual activity is needs to be done as fast as possible, there are 1001 useless distractions in your day to fill all the dead time that you don't have because people need to live their life at 210%, rush rush rush, this has bled over into playing games, got to rush to the end to be bored faster because there is another thing around the corner that needs to be done that could be more fun, but you are going to be rushing so fast that it does not matter because you are going to be too busy with new shiny to even care about what was wrong even two minutes ago. In short, your guildies have been brainwashed into one way doing things and trying to get others to do the same they either seek to reinforce what they went through or they are simply desperate for more group play at the end of the game. But it does not make them wrong for wanting to help you join them sooner in current content, you'll see below as to why. It can be done, some learn by example (reading your abilities and thinking about them), some by trial and error (get a training dummy and start parsing rotations and noting the changes vs spec/gear changes etc) and others by asking questions (either in game or going through the forums and selectively trying out things you can test for yourself in game). The fastest learners employ all three. No game is hard, especially not this one, but you are right you do need thinking/doing time, it should not be more than ten hours for a game as complex as EQ2 as a general average but not everyone is as quick as everyone else on the uptake, it is possible to attain class mastery or core mastery in as little as two hours having never touched this game before but you would be at the top end of quick scale (i.e. the tutorial section of the game lvl 1-15 is usually enough). What you would then lack is the requisite hundreds of hours of experience of preferably failure of others and yourself in content in a group/raid setting to get a sense of what others are doing right wrong and how to compensate for their deficiencies and your own (if you can), how ever that knowledge can not be told, taught or shared solo it has to be as it happens and in general this game is now so top heavy you will not really get good opportunities to level in group content in old content. The reason for that is two fold. Everything gear wise has been super boosted stats wise for no real reason other than player demands and the game has suffered for it, grouping is decimated in lower levels for it, no need to group when you can solo much of the heroic content. Throw in the mercs and even more of that content is opened up that used to require people. Mercs don't teach you anything they are even more OP than you are. The final flaw is the AA system, all content prior to 70 was built around having at most somewhere between 0 and 15AA when it comes to heroic content, maybe the EoF stuff should be higher say around 35AA max, but in any event you can run around with more than that easily well before 70 now and its somewhat OP broken. In short you are also playing in content that is mechanics wise not been updated for all the player growth in power but also not updated in terms of total mechanics revamps or extensive reworks, I think we are pretty close to Everquest 2 Verision 6, in other words this game has changed pretty radically at least six times and the old content really teaches little to the level cap stuff which is pretty much been the exclusive focus of this game for last seven or eight years running, (Rise of Kunark was the begining of the new paradigm; in my opinion). People do, do the lower content, you could try looking for a guild that specialises in that or one of the many smaller guilds that have a very hands off policy towards their guild mates activities. That said, I suppose a lot of people are expected to know sooner or later the old parts of the game are so out of date even if you had people to play with in that level range, you will not be capable of having a genuine authentic experience at all because of what has already been said, players are monstrously OP vs the content they face at lower levels, even in 'crappy' handcrafted or treasured gear. I consider myself a vet and frankly I don't get the game is hard sort of posts, I have actually run a few alts into the 20-40 range in not too distant past (year maybe?) without a merc and running around in gear that is 'greyed-out' meaning it needs to be replaced, with apprentice one abilities and its not hard, it is laughably easy. I don't think if I was a new player I would actually learn anything more than what the tutorial taught me if I was paying attention to what was trying to be conveyed. Even on accounts where I don't have max level characters for bonuses I would say the leveling speed is ridiculously fast through tiers one through eight. So while it is admirable that you want to experience the game as it was intended. It simply is not possible, between the dev team and the player base, the two have pushed the game in a direction that is broken and generally worthless below current cap in terms of learning/tutorial, the only thing of merit prior to that if you are new to the game is the game lore/variety of places and that is something personal and subjective as to weather that is good/great content, really depends on the writers/creators and not all of them are equal over the decade.
Awesome post! Solution: more naked groups PS Lonewolf on Guk ="one of the many smaller guilds that have a very hands off policy towards their guild mates activities."
EQ2 is one game at levels 1-89 and but changes quite a bit after level 90. Your class-defining AAs/Prestiges open up. New types of Equipment stats are added or increase in sufficient quantity that you start seriously looking at different sets of gear to meet your class' needs. Survivability is almost a non-issue at levels 1-80 as even when surrounded by enemies, death is unlikely. Abilities you use constantly at low levels might even be removed from your hotbar when you hit the 90's as things change so dramatically. So yes there is tons of enjoyable content in lower levels (especially if you find a way to make it challenging, such as stripping off most of your gear or running level agnostic zones), but that doesn't necessarily prepare you to be the best Dirge, best Coercer, best Paladin, etc. at level 95.
Thanks for the input. I'm going to likely get on EQ2 tomorrow... try things out. I am not going to make a commitment... I know I'll probably upset many by stating it here, but I only like having one active subscription, and I already preordered the new WoW expansion... So it will come down to which one I enjoy more. I like social guilds with mature people, and I find that EQ2 has that. I may have to bite the bullet and just subscribe to both. I loved the social aspect of EQ2 and the amounts of people on there at times... although last time I went on, it felt "empty" and "old", being that players just weren't really making new toons... I felt left behind due to the amount of time I was away. I do love the voice chat, and the social aspect of EQ2, that is something that WoW has never had... At the same time, it has a younger target audience. I will get on, get in a guild... if I like the players and the game I'll keep it. If not... Goodbye EQ2, and wait for the new EQ2 expansion, as that typically draws in a lot of returning players.
keep in mind with the level agnostic dungeons it might actually be a little easier to get groups on occasion while lvling... granted they will most likely be screwed up groups, but it works for the most part
I've been playing since launch for the most part although I had taken a break over the last 6+ months to try out some other games. Upon returning to the game today, even though I have 9 level 95's (adventuring and crafting) I decided to start a brand new character and I am leveling him in Frostfang Sea right now on AB. I saw plenty of folks there running around playing today, that was nice to see. As Feldon wrote above : "EQ2 is one game at levels 1-89 and but changes quite a bit after level 90". That is very true. Some people powerlevel to avoid the 1-89 game, others just to rush to end game for raiding with their guild, other people just want to be "end game". There are many reasons people powerlevel. It's all just personal preference. Personally I don't like powerleveling, never have. I plan on doing as many of the quests in the game as I can while leveling my new character up and I will be taking my time. I won't be following the "golden path" but will be branching off and hitting all of the older, not so popular zones as I go. It's not for everyone and there will be those that think what I am doing is stupid or a waste of time. I enjoy the game and all of it's aspects. Adventuring, Questing, Crafting, Raiding, Decorating, Achievements, they all have their place and I have done them all over the last 10+ years. This time through I'll be approaching things a bit differently and enjoying the journey at a slower pace
Once you've leveled a character in EQ2 you can earn significant amounts of platinum. SOE has this thing called krono which can be purchased for (I think) about $18USD. They are tradeable in-game and can be bought for plat from the broker (EQ2's auction house). They give you a 30-day subsription when you use them. It basically pulled the rug out from under gold farmers since anyone can now convert $ to plat by buying and then selling one.
Almost forgot...right now there is an open beta running for the new xpac. You might want to try it out, boost a character to level 100, run the quests. There are some very nice mounts that you get on live for completing achievements in the beta. The tradeskill one is probably the fastest one to get: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/beta-tradeskill-rewards.552224/ The adverturing ones are: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/beta-rewards-overland-solo-quests.551817/and https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/beta-rewards-heroic-and-raid-content.552219/
Feldon is pretty much spot on. Once you've done the kill 10 rats quests 5 or 6 times they hold little in value. After you've ran across Antonica a bunch of times delivering booze the quests seem silly. After you've zoned into SoS for the 1000th time it really isn't all the amazing any more. Honestly, as Feldon alluded to, if you play 1-89 you're basically wasting your time. So much of your character opens up at 90 that if you try to learn how to play your toon prior to that you're going to have to relearn a lot. Granted there is value to playing 1-89 a few times to see the game - but there is very little value to learning how to play. This is due to EQ2 being a level based game. As such, the design makes it so old levels lose meaning as new levels (expansions) are introduced. The result is - get power leveled to 90. Then learn how to play your class. There are MMOs that are not level based. In those worlds, you don't see powerleveling.
Makes perfect sense. My new computer arrived yesterday, and I'll get on. Downside is that it has Intel HD graphics, and being a small form factor, it has no PCI-Express slots for a new graphics card.
