Punishing Groups
 

I will begin this by stating that this is merely an opinion that others may share and I'm just looking for an answer, please don't come after me :)

I understand that this server is meant to be the 1999 version of Everquest with some very slight changes. But why is it that experience penalties haven't been changed? All characters that I've made that can solo, do. The rewards for grouping are extremely minimal and rewarding people who choose to be social doesn't make sense to me. I get that the experience is supposed to be divided as groups will kill more mobs faster, but the experience feels way too diminished.

Leveling at a slower pace allows you to enjoy your character for that many more hours. All in all a blessing!

What experience penalties are you referring to? The early EXP penalties didn't really encourage grouping and were eliminated in patches by Velious during the classic timeline. Are you referring to something else?

Hybrid penalty is gone but race penalty is still here, rip iksar 20%

How many players are you grouping with? A group with a total of 2-4 players, including yourself, is what you should be aiming for.

Groups of 6 players typically get diminishing returns on XP due to not enough mobs to kill compared to how the experience is divided.

Grouping can also remove the XP penalty related to pets. If you are soloing and your pet does more than 50% of the total damage on the mob, you get less XP. When you are grouped, that penalty goes away.

As Cd288 said, the harsher class XP penalties are no longer enabled, so you don't have a Shadowknight with a 68% XP penalty or whatever it was.

Grouping gives a bit of safety in numbers too.

Soloing with a bad pull is yikes. Full grouping with a bad pull is probably just extra xp.

This is good to know, because normally I end up in groups of six because that’s just what there is. I was aware of the class xp penalties being gone which is good.

I chose poor wording in the original post. It’s not a penalty but how experience is divided in a 5-6 person group. The amount of experience you get for how much faster you kill than 3-4 people feels slower

Yeah that is your issue. Try doing a group of 3 people total including yourself, it's much better than a group of 6. I can usually solo faster than what I gain from a group of 6 people.

I don't remember when it happened on live but group experience was modified to give a bonus to the point that 6 players got the same xp per mob that 5 players did.