Solution to lower level grouping woes: hotzones or group XP?

[fischsemmel]

The grouping issue is simple, really.

Groups are shitty.


I have yet to be in a group in this game, after 52 levels on a necro, 50 levels on a cleric, 49 levels on a bard, and ~20 levels on each a shadowknight and a rogue, where any group earned better xp than I could have earned solo (excepting the rogue, of course).

I don't know if players are bad, or if they don't pay attention, or what. But group xp is just terrible on the whole, and even in a great zone with a balanced group of good, attentive players, group xp is only "good."

Because of this, anyone who can solo decently or better (aka everyone except rogues and warriors) WILL solo. They will avoid having to spend time and effort moving to groups, dealing with bad players, putting groups together, sitting around with /lfg on. And they will earn more xp for less effort.

There being too few people grouping is just incidental to this.

[Caridry]

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

The grouping issue is simple, really.

Groups are shitty.


I have yet to be in a group in this game, after 52 levels on a necro, 50 levels on a cleric, 49 levels on a bard, and ~20 levels on each a shadowknight and a rogue, where any group earned better xp than I could have earned solo (excepting the rogue, of course).

I don't know if players are bad, or if they don't pay attention, or what. But group xp is just terrible on the whole, and even in a great zone with a balanced group of good, attentive players, group xp is only "good."

Because of this, anyone who can solo decently or better (aka everyone except rogues and warriors) WILL solo. They will avoid having to spend time and effort moving to groups, dealing with bad players, putting groups together, sitting around with /lfg on. And they will earn more xp for less effort.

There being too few people grouping is just incidental to this.

not entirely true, i have been in some guk groups where we were raking in some monster xp. thats pretty much it though >.>

[Bohab]

35-40 seems rough, not sure what happens to all the people you group with up to 35? They all seem to vanish... haven't found a group in days for my rogue. Looking like I should just farm plat on necro to have him powerleveled at this point.

[Galelor]

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

35-40 seems rough, not sure what happens to all the people you group with up to 35? They all seem to vanish... haven't found a group in days for my rogue. Looking like I should just farm plat on necro to have him powerleveled at this point.

I saw 35-45ish like this on my shaman.

I would also like to add 2 points of contention regarding the solo is better argument:
1. Soloing is super fucking boring...
2. EQ is mostly designed around grouping/guilding. If you are leveling your first char and want to have success when you are higher level, I suggest you make friends while you are leveling up.

[Teeny]

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

The grouping issue is simple, really.

Groups are shitty.


I have yet to be in a group in this game, after 52 levels on a necro, 50 levels on a cleric, 49 levels on a bard, and ~20 levels on each a shadowknight and a rogue, where any group earned better xp than I could have earned solo (excepting the rogue, of course).

I don't know if players are bad, or if they don't pay attention, or what. But group xp is just terrible on the whole, and even in a great zone with a balanced group of good, attentive players, group xp is only "good."

Because of this, anyone who can solo decently or better (aka everyone except rogues and warriors) WILL solo. They will avoid having to spend time and effort moving to groups, dealing with bad players, putting groups together, sitting around with /lfg on. And they will earn more xp for less effort.

There being too few people grouping is just incidental to this.

I hate to say it, but I agree with this post almost 100%. I think a lot of it is, we've gotten used to games with very minimal downtime, so now that we're back to a game like this any downtime drags really long.

I think a part of it also is though a lot of people on this server do indeed abuse the group mechanic. I find in a lot of the groups I get into, there always is at least 1 person taking a 5-10 minute afk break at any given time. There may be plenty of mobs to pull, but just its not going as fast because someone is always afk. The only thing you can really do to solve this is, start a list of people you know not to group with tbh. This will keep them from always taking an abundant amount of afks. Try to stick within a group of people who are like minded such as yourself who want to maximize XP.

Just my 2cp.