Why I don't like to group

[Lazortag]

Sometimes the loot is better in groups. There are some camps your mage is just never going to be able to break, that have awesome loot. Then again, mages can do seafuries, which beats everything. Fuck.

[Reiker]

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

That wasn't left out at all. Even with a 10% bonus to exp, a typical group would still need to kill 6 mobs for every soloer mob. Take away the bonus and maybe the number is 7 mobs. Etc. Etc.

Missed this post bro.

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

Then your math is bad. You're saying that a full group would have to kill 30+ mobs every 6 minutes to compete with a soloer. If a group was killing 30 mobs / 6 minutes, and a soloer killing 5 / 6 minutes, the full group would be receiving approximately 10% more exp than the soloer and that's not factoring things such as better zone ZEM, less downtime, etc.

I'll clarify because now I realize your country's education system has failed you. I'll use fake numbers because they'll be easier to grasp. I'll keep them relatively low also in case you can't count that high.

Mage killing 5 mobs (10000 exp each) every 6 minutes (more on this later) = 50000 exp.
Group killing 30 mobs every 6 minutes = 55000 exp

In your scenario, the group earns 10% more exp than the soloer. Because most likely you left out the 10% exp bonus. Not sure how to keep this simpler!

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

Welcome to the let's pull numbers out of nowhere game. 2-3 a minute is 12-15 every 6 minutes, at best 3x that of the soloer.

Maybe if you have no hybrids and a ZEM of 2 or greater that's possible, otherwise not a chance.

The problem here is you guys are taking that 5 mobs / 6 minutes too seriously. Mage soloing kind of goes in peaks and valleys, and unless everyone here only plays EQ for 6 minutes at a time is meaningless. The best question here is how many mobs can a mage kill over an hour straight? Better yet, 10 hours? Sure you may be able to summon a pet, buff, start a timer, and kill 5 mobs before 6 minutes. But eventually you'll have to re-summon or heal your pet. You'll have to rebuff your pet. You'll have to run a bit to find mobs. You'll have to wait on respawns. Groups are being undersold and a mage's ability to solo is being glorified in an attempt to prove a point. I'm trying to be the voice of reason.

But that's the problem, reason on P99 is about as welcome as a stripper in a nunnery.

[Noselacri]

Well, the thing is that if you're no longer hugely amused by the various dungeons, soloing can be a much more pleasant experience. I get the impression that the soloers are mainly people who enjoy classic but haven't been waiting 8 years for it; i.e they're the ones who have been drifting from classic server to classic server on emu, or they're the ones who haven't been missing it so much they could cry but still find it mildly entertaining. They're also often people who still play Live, or have up until recently. In groups, I see mostly people who a) haven't played for 8 years or b) just want to experience the old days for sheer nostalgia. They aren't the ones who long for high-end raiding, or the ones who have been playing the game on and off all along. For that reason, joining a group often means playing with people who aren't hardcore gamers or haven't been for a decade. Seems that the min-maxing experts who know everything and can play their classes to perfection are either out there soloing, or are playing with their RL friends and pay little attention to those around them. Basically, joining a group almost always means playing with at least a couple of bad players.

That's no problem in and of itself. All games have bad players, and it was no different back in the day. However, what's different is the fact that most soloable classes can get similar or sometimes much better exp from soloing, without having to deal with people who consistently cause wipes or play their classes poorly. They rely only on themselves, and if they know what they're doing, it's simply much less of a hassle than grouping in a dungeon. If you don't specifically miss the grouping aspect, and if you aren't overly interested in meeting more internet strangers - after all, we gamers have met thousands upon thousands, and it sort of loses its appeal - well, then grouping isn't all that attractive. Add to that the fact that soloing tends to be a good deal more safe, offers many more options, can be much more profitable than regular exp grouping, and allows you to do whatever you please and go AFK for 15 minutes when you feel like it.

And that's the thing, really. The benefits of soloing are supposed to come at the price of less but safer exp and a lack of interaction. However, the guy who played back in anno 1999 when he was 18 and had a blast joking around with strangers and staying up until 2AM and so on, he's now a grown man with a wife and a crying kid in the next room. He doesn't care as much about bullshitting with other youngsters, and he doesn't need to play in an environment where having to leave the computer for 20 minutes is a problem. And unlike the EQ he remembered, this version actually rewards him much more for refraining to group. Suddenly soloing isn't something to do when there are no groups available, or the only way for classes that aren't highly desirable in groups. It's the best way to level up and by far the most convenient way to play for him. And since many, if not most players, are now more like him than the energetic teenagers they were when they started playing ten or eleven years ago, it's no wonder more and more players prefer the spectre island over Lower Guk.

Other than that, there has been a simple change of mentality in gaming over the years. Back then, Everquest was a modern game and we didn't really question it. Now, after most of us have played WoW or EQ2 or whatever, and after MMORPG gaming as a whole has shifted to an entirely different atmosphere, EQ turns out to be a brutally punishing and unforgiving game. Dying while camping bouncers in Oggok means a loss of exp and a 10 second corpse run. Dying at the bottom of SolB means a loss of exp, a corpse run of potentially hours, and quite likely a further loss of exp as you die once or twice trying to recover. These are things we put up with back in the day, both because grouping was the more effectively way to level and because that's how games were. Now, neither of those two are the case. What seemed like a fact of life back in the day, the hour-long CR or the hours of going from dungeon to dungeon trying to find a group, those aren't really acceptable in today's gaming industry. It's no longer an accepted element of the game, it's a thing that constantly pisses you off. And when the exp then isn't even better, it's sort of hard to justify grouping. You'd have to just love grouping for the sake of grouping, despite the disadvantages that it tends to come with. Virtually all of EQ1's gear is tradeable, anyway.

Until grouping becomes substantially better exp than soloing, we'll see hordes of people playing necros, mages and druids, and we'll see ridiculous amounts of soloing. We can't change the fact that most of the players have grown older and live lives that make soloing more convenient than grouping, but if they want to solo, it should be for that reason; not because it's twice as fast as Guk.

[yaeger]

Not sure why the antagonism, but I've bolded the quote for you.

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

Not true, I've checked it with debugging repeatedly. In fact what happens is:

Example mob worth 1000 xp.

One person killing one mob gets 1000xp.

Six people killing six mobs get 6600xp (which equates to 1100xp per player before normalization). In this area the 10% experience is applied in the calculations as 1000 * 6 * 1.1(10% experience bonus) = 6600xp.

If all six players are the same level and are class/race combinations without any XP modifier then all six players will get 1100xp each.

However, if the group is again the same level, but has some penalties etc, it works out like this:

Race        Class    Per Mob  For Six 
---------   -------  -------  ------- 
Human       Cleric     162       974 
Ogre        Warrior    174      1042 
Halfling    Rogue      142       851 
Erudite     Wizard     180      1083 
Barbarian   Shaman     171      1026 
Half-elf    Ranger     271      1624 
---------   -------  -------  -------
Total                 1100      6600

So except for the Human Cleric and the Halfing Rogue, all members of the group earn more XP for killing 6 mobs while grouped than they did killing one mob solo.

The benefits of solo'ing vs. grouping depend on a lot of factors, but from a raw XP perspective, if the group can consistently kill 6 mobs in the amount of time the solo'er kills one mob, the group will earn faster XP over time.

The number I came up with (6 kills for every solo kill) was not arbitrary.

And sure, they have peaks and valleys. But how many groups can break, kill, and even find 30+ even con mobs to kill every 5 mins. That's very unlikely and IF a group COULD kill 30 mobs in 5 mins.. where would they continue to get mobs from to keep even with the soloer?

The ease of play definitely goes to the soloer. Experience too. Hell, just about everything.

[Troy]

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

The problem here is you guys are taking that 5 mobs / 6 minutes too seriously. Mage soloing kind of goes in peaks and valleys, and unless everyone here only plays EQ for 6 minutes at a time is meaningless. The best question here is how many mobs can a mage kill over an hour straight? Better yet, 10 hours? Sure you may be able to summon a pet, buff, start a timer, and kill 5 mobs before 6 minutes. But eventually you'll have to re-summon or heal your pet. You'll have to rebuff your pet. You'll have to run a bit to find mobs. You'll have to wait on respawns. Groups are being undersold and a mage's ability to solo is being glorified in an attempt to prove a point. I'm trying to be the voice of reason.

But that's the problem, reason on P99 is about as welcome as a stripper in a nunnery.

Did it myself for at least 5 hours straight. I didn't mean 5 mobs in a single period of 6 minutes, I meant 250 mobs in 5 hours. Lost my rhythm with a crash to desktop.

[Reiker]

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

And sure, they have peaks and valleys. But how many groups can break, kill, and even find 30+ even con mobs to kill every 5 mins. That's very unlikely and IF a group COULD kill 30 mobs in 5 mins.. where would they continue to get mobs from to keep even with the soloer?

The ease of play definitely goes to the soloer. Experience too. Hell, just about everything.

I'm still not sure why you're sticking with your 30+ number as a group killing 30+ mobs every 5 minutes would be earning WAY more experience than a soloer.

As I stated, when you factor all the variables, a group would need to kill about 3 mobs every minute (at the high end) to compete. I was able to do this back in October/November (much less gear available) at SolB royals with no cleric and no CC and with no downtime.

[yaeger]

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

I'm still not sure why you're sticking with your 30+ number as a group killing 30+ mobs every 5 minutes would be earning WAY more experience than a soloer.

As I stated, when you factor all the variables, a group would need to kill about 3 mobs every minute (at the high end) to compete. I was able to do this back in October/November (much less gear available) at SolB royals with no cleric and no CC and with no downtime.

Prove it.. use da math. We know all the class and race experience penalties. I've provided proof to back up my 30+ number. You do the same.

[hueylewis187]

It's different now tiki , try it out with lightblues giving barely any xp.
Shared hybrid penalty. . . highest lvl in the group gets most the xp.
You can't group with any 50's and get much xp anymore.

Wayyyy different than back at server release. Much more competition for mobs also.

only the 5 or 6 solo classes go faster "much faster" than a great group in the perfect spot. I see solo classes grouping all the time. Especially together. Counted 11 out of 12 people in paw that were mages today. ....

[Tork]

Grouping for me is why I enjoy EQ - sometimes even horrible PUGs are fun in weird, random ways that result in negative xp. When everything goes well, grouping is amazing fun.

But yah, no question - solo classes have it easier in that they have they option to group OR solo.

[Taluvill]

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

Then I guess I just have to resort to the tired "you suck at EverQuest" because grouping is obviously faster.

For once, I actually agree with Tiki here. Grouping is much faster, and, pre-manastone it was basically all that I did. I got my manastone at 34 duoing the camp with a 29 Druid. Grouping in Sol A was much better than anything I could have asked for soloing.

When I got my manastone, Keeping the BB docks clear and the BB house clear was awesome exp, as BB has a newbie exp bonus. With a Manastone (not a usual item), I can hit loads of exp while I was LFG on the global channels. Once I was able to get into a Sol B Royals group though (usually didn't take too long because the same good players kept camps and invited the same good players)
the exp was MUCH better. Grouping Exp is much better.


tldr: Unless I'm quadding with regen and my manastone, grouping is much faster. and even quadding with my manastone, soloing was still slower most of the time (depends on the group members and the particular camp.)