[Messianic]

Originally Posted by Pescador [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have no hard evidence to offer, but I'm sure many other people remember being thrilled if killing a blue mob solo even had a noticeable effect on your exp bar. Now, it seems like I can kill a blue mob in a hell level and still get 1/4 of a blue bar per kill.

Killing blues on my wizard during a hell level had a barely noticeable effect on my exp bar.

Originally Posted by Pescador [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Again, I have no evidence besides my memories, but I'm sure other people would agree that back in 1999/2000 you couldn't hop on your paladin and get a yellow after an hour or two of solo'ing.

Against undead with a Ghoulbane between 20-40, sure you could. I did it on live on my Half-Elf Paladin.

I know that 9 or 10 years ago my level 12 mage in wc would get absolutely crushed by kodiaks, but here I was able to kill deep red cons while only healing my pet a few times and tossing a level 1 nuke to get exp. Similarly, when I hit 16 I wouldn't dare attempt red con dw crocs in oasis because it simply wasn't worth the mana expenditure and the risk, while here I can solo them all day with almost zero risk because my pet can almost solo them himself.

Mage pets are an entirely separate issue from how fast you can gain exp as a specific mechanic. You can make another thread if you want to debate that.

Overall, though, I think the solo exp is quite a bit higher than it was on classic, because there was NO question that grouping was faster in 9 out of 10 cases, with certain kiting classes in certain zones being the exception rather than the rule.

I soloed constantly. So did most of my friends. I knew it was faster. I essentially soloed my monk to 60.

"Lack of knowledge" seems like a very thin excuse; don't you think the people playing 18 hours a day in 1999 would have figured out that grouping was crappy exp? It's not like you truly need years of experience to learn how to level fast in EQ. I don't really mind, since I'm able to solo my cleric, mage, pally, and bard and get at least a level every few hours, but I can very clearly remember that it was not this easy in classic.

All of what the Min-Maxers did back then trickles down to everyone else over time. Nearly everyone here is a person who is devoted enough to the game to play it over 10 years after it was released, so you have a higher population of min-maxers here than on live, which is another point that supports the concept.

Bards actually leveled faster on live because you could nearly swarm kite entire zones - mobs ran slower than they do here. I have a friend who did it through PoP. But the EXP he got from his swarms seems to match what bards can do here.

The points stand - Knowledge is better now, non min-maxers have access to be min-maxers. More Min-maxers here than on live as a %. Additional - general change of gameplay style of MMOs from group/hard/unforgiving to solo/easy/expect casual epics.