Swimming wasn't level capped in the classic era.

[Uradamus]

Just as the title says. Swimming was treated just like all the other general skills (sense heading, alcohol tolerance, fishing and begging) back during the classic through Velious era at the minimum. It wasn't until a later expansion that swimming was changed to be level capped to 5 * level + 5.

I can't remember exactly when the change was made, but I think it might of been around PoP, LoY or even later. There is a allakazam thread about swimming that dates back to early 2002 for the earliest comments. Here is at least one example of someone talking about their level 32 Iksar being at level 200 swimming during the SoL era: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/skills.html?skill=54#m102461951276332

I distinctly remember shortly after Velious came out I made an Iksar SK who started out with the racial 100 swimming and I spent as much time as possible in the canals any time I had to travel through Cabilis and had 200 swimming by the time he was 10-15. I also made a Barbarian Warrior around the same time, maybe earlier actually, and leveled up my swimming all the way to 200 over several sessions in the entrance pond to Halas by the time he was around 16-20.

[Uradamus]

It would seem this is an issue with other general skills as well. Been practicing a bunch of skills with my new rogue as I level him, so far I've found that begging and fishing also seem to be level capped to the same 5 * level + 5 formula as swimming. I haven't been able to drink enough alcohol to keep up with the speed of my leveling so far, but I would imagine that might also be suffering from the same fate as the other non-sense heading general skills. This is definitely not classic behavior. All of the general skills should be capable of being taken up to 200 right from level 1 if you are crazy enough to take on the time sink of doing so. That was the case for all of them up through at least Shadows of Luclin, so that should be the setup adopted for Project 1999.

I was a bit crazy with skills with my old Barbarian warrior on live back during the Velious era, he had all of his general skills at 200 by the time he was 20-22. I remember going out of my way to do so. I spent a ton of hours working on his skills any time I was getting bored of the melee grind or was having troubles finding a group to fill the down time.

Just to be clear, by general skills I am talking about alcohol tolerance, begging, fishing, sense heading, and swimming. None of them had a per level cap during the eras in which Project 1999 is attempting to emulate, just the hard skill cap of 200 for each.

[nilbog]

Can I get some more discussion about this?

[nilbog]

Well if it's wrong, I'd like to see it corrected.

OP mentions alcohol tolerance, begging, fishing, sense heading, and swimming.

[Ravager]

When I started here, I remember being surprised I couldn't cap my swimming at 200 right away, but I just assumed my memory was bad. I think this is right though. I remember capping my swimming on my rogue at level 15 on live so that I could survive the swim on the way to Ass/Sup room to loot a mask.

[Sorn]

Here's a comment from 2002: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zones.html?zstrat=71#m102174140231894

At lvl 30 I am maxed at 150 on swimming. It is almost as fast as walking or running.

That's pretty much all I've got, not a lot of direct references to any cap but plenty of mentions about how one should try to work on it to survive various places.

[Kich867]

Well if it's wrong, I'd like to see it corrected.

OP mentions alcohol tolerance, begging, fishing, sense heading, and swimming.

Swimming and Sense Heading were definitely able to be raised to cap without level restriction.

When Kunark came out I would regularly leave my pc on overnight on a new character, swimming into a corner all night to max it out. Sense Heading you could macro to use it over and over and I would do that until it was high enough to consistently succeed in the past.

Unfortunately the others I never raised much on live. Begging I think I had raised pretty high once btu don't recall my actual level.

For some context, this is a fairly recent post on the EQ forum from 2015:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/phinny-auto-run-for-swim-skill.229230/

A relevant quote:
"Oh hm. This is a good one. It used to be done a lot, especially in Erudin at one of the fountains."

And:

"[...] though I remember being afk'd out doing it on Ragefire, so that shouldn't be a problem even if they did have to turn the afk kick back on. I just want to make sure I'm not going to get banned for overnight swimming is all =)"

[Dolalin]

Looks like this was complicated.

Thread from May 1999 with two people mentioning that Swimming had a level-based cap:


5/5/1999

Higher swimming skill helps with you not feel the effects of fatigue as
quickly. This skill goes up like a rocket just swim around in safe waters
and it will skill cap for your level very quickly. I wouldn't waste any
training points on it.

---

Swimming skill definately increases swimming speed and less fatigue. I
spent a couple days fighting Giant Paranha in West Commons and went from
about 5 swimming to 60 (skill cap at that time) and it was amazing the
difference in swimming speed and abilities.

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/alt.games.everquest/siq0OtQvTGI/discussion


Another post a bit later in the year mentioning a level cap:


12/3/99

Well, as a druid, almost all "spell skills" as well as swimming, fishing,
sense heading, forage, etc. are capped at the "normal" equation of:
5*(Level+1)

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.games.everquest/jNY-mel-hBs/dQB1QtQWr5AJ


But Iksar had some special coding for their swimming skill, their cap was Level * 5 + 100:


1/11/01

And you get into real weird formulae when you get to iksar monks. For
example:
dual wield: (level + 1)*7
swimming: level*5 + 100

offense:
level*5 at levels 1-14
(level+1)*5 at levels 15-29
(level+2)*5 at levels 30+

---

> swimming: level*5 + 100

I thought Iksar swimming worked like Dwarven sense heading? The formula for
that is: the greater of 50 or (level+1*5). In other words, the skill doesn't
increase until the level based ability exceeds the racial base (level 10).
Iksar get swimming skill increases from level 1?

---

> I thought Iksar swimming worked like Dwarven sense heading? The formula
for
> that is: the greater of 50 or (level+1*5). In other words, the skill
doesn't
> increase until the level based ability exceeds the racial base (level 10).
> Iksar get swimming skill increases from level 1?

my Iksar Monk had a swim skill of 113 by level 4 =)

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.games.everquest/0UJIL5SG5Ug/kCsHGlqgCLQJ



4/25/00

What I observed.

Swimming: Swimming skill starts at 100 and was up to 110 by the time I was
level 2

Forage: Seems to be equivalant to Wood Elf forage skill. No improvements
of course

Safe Fall?: Several of us felt we were able to fall for no damage from
greater than normal heights, but this may have just been wishfull thinking

Regeneration: Mighty nice to be at level one and have your HP regen as you
fight.

Shadjakin Shadowheart
Erollisi Marr

"Bert Medley" <med...@flash.net> wrote in message
news:8F2091695medleyblogicacom@158.234.153.198...
> What are the native Iskarian abilities? I have seen Infravision and
superior
> swimming mentioned. What about regen? Anything else?

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.games.everquest/CCA2L79Y1Y0/9yS-IMEGLYsJ


Lastly, swimming skill should raise simply from auto-running and facing a wall while 'submerged', shouldn't be necessary to do the P99 dance and go in circles/move:


10/20/00

The place I have found that this works best is N Kaladim, in front of
the clerics guild. Deep enough to swim, not deep enough to drown. Had
to go feed my daughter, so I pointed my H/Elf at the back wall, hit
numlock and went. Came back to a scroll full of better at swimming,
topping at 35, which is apparently max for my lev6 druid at that time.
Only took about 30 mins too.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.games.everquest/yNh5e8iRt9A/fFW7SCvq9dUJ

[ricquire]

Also on live it was fairly easy to afk level swimming against a wall in a short period of time, if not overnight. It has become amazingly hard to level swimming on p99 actively or otherwise since the last round of swim skill up adjustments were made.

[DMN]

Also on live it was fairly easy to afk level swimming against a wall in a short period of time, if not overnight. It has become amazingly hard to level swimming on p99 actively or otherwise since the last round of swim skill up adjustments were made.

From what i recall you had to find some special spots in order to AFK raise swimming back then, like where the water comes down to meet another body of water(like a waterfall of sorts) or some other water features/certain walls in bodies of water sand then you aimed your character just right it and left autorun on. It wasnt as simple as just jumping into any body of water and running up against a all though.

And ya I think the OP is correct and swimming was certainly either not limited by your player level or there was an incredibly generous skill/level cap ratio that made it seem like such. I also recall people celebrating get maxing sense heading well before they shold have if they had the typical level/skill cap(x5). No idea about the other ones listed, but it seems likely it is true.

[ricquire]

I remember doing mine either in Kunark or Vel on most chars in OT at the jetty/wall out in the water. Was never longer than an overnight affair.

[Dolalin]

And ya I think the OP is correct and swimming was certainly either not limited by your player level or there was an incredibly generous skill/level cap ratio that made it seem like such. I also recall people celebrating get maxing sense heading well before they shold have if they had the typical level/skill cap(x5). No idea about the other ones listed, but it seems likely it is true.

I mean the stuff I'm seeing is directly contradicting you. Three or four times in my above quotes people mention an explicit level skill cap for swimming, from May 1999 to January 2001 inclusive. And sense heading too come to think of it.

This must certainly have been one of those things that was changed later on (Poop or Shit outta Luck eras) if it ever was, and people are misremembering. Happy to be proven wrong but I'm just not seeing it.

[Dolalin]

Iksar had some special coding for stamina and breath-holding too. They could always hold their breath for the max-stamina-equivalent amount of time:


9/13/02

> I think it was proven that how long you can hold your breath is
> determined entirely by STA not by swim skill. And I've swum for
> ages with my sta down around 0 and not gone "Glub Glub Glub" :)

Except for Iksar. They always last as long as anyone else does with Max
Stamina. All other races tested Stamina does change how long you last
before you drown. So, get the friendly Iksar, he has 130 seconds before he
starts to drown, regardless of his stamina.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.games.everquest/hBPIQAwhtFk/x4oTuDw67aUJ


And from that same discussion, people are still saying swimming is capped by level in 2002:


9/13/02

Nobody drowns in EQ unless you go too deep or leave the keyboard. No
matter how bad your swim skill is. At level 17 you can get your skill up
to around 85 which should be fine. I'd suggest, if you are going to get
it yourself, that you just go swim around in a safe area until you max
it out, then ride the boat to near the zone, jump off, swim after the
boat until you hit the zone line and dive. You'll find it. I've swum all
over OoT and you'll be surprised at how shallow the water is. Just make
sure you have a /corpse hotkey set up.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.games.everquest/hBPIQAwhtFk/bf6WJtPydy4J