I really hope VI didn't forget this for PoP...

[EZ_Zylc]

I gotta rant for a second!

Does anyone else, who is not level 60, get a little peeved when you see more than half the players in Velks or Seb already are level 60, and in groups -- and YOU can't find a group?

I'm not saying that level 60s shouldn't hunt in places like Seb and Velks -- I understand there's really no other places to hunt as of right now. That's why I VERY much hope that when PoP comes out, there will be lots of zones like CT and FG for the 60s to get their AA without enroaching on the lower levels who need the experience for leveling.

What brought upon this rant is because it's been four or five times now where I've been in Seb or Velks and seen something along the lines of this:

'56 Rogue LFG'

'60 Rogue LFG'

'60 Rogue come to Frenzy'

I've also seen level 60s get two or three friends and camp places like the back room/UDogs/LDogs/Frenzy or Crypt all day long. Granted, they're allowed to -- there's not much room for complaint there. Again, I'm not saying they can't. I'm just saying that it makes it very hard for people who are not level 60 to find a group and/or level the way it 'used to be', before AA was introduced into the game.

[EZ_Lemac Dushae]

You have entered the Ruins of Old Sebilis.
You shout, "Rog 55 LFG."
a_rogue_01 shouts, "60 rogue lfg"
a_rogue_02 shouts, "58 ROG LFG PST!!!"
It will take you 30 seconds to make your camp.

/agree -- Lemac Dushae, Guild Leader for the Court of Jesters
55th Season Blackguard
Fennin Ro

[EZ_meyekal]

I find it absolutly horrid to find groups. Doesn't matter what zone it is, people over 50 are exp greedy. Best bet IMO would be if you couldn't get less then 1/3 of the exp from a mob. Groups of 3 or 4 would then start to let other people into the group instead of just replying "We're OK"

[EZ_Bronus Blackblade]

There is no rule that states you must fill all six slots in order to camp a location. It's about efficiency, there is no need to have 6 level 60's in the Discos in Seb, for example. For me, it's a lot more fun to take a Paladin, Shaman, and myself (Rogue) down to Discos and pull as fast as we can. No sitting around FM all day for crap xp, etc.

I don't think it's greed to want to spend your time wisely.

And yes it would be nice if there were more dungeons like CT. Semi-high risk, great loot and xp. Bronus Blackblade - Assassin

Mystin De`Vermiis - Enchanter

"Try walking my shoes, you'll stumble in my footsteps..."Edited by: Bronus Blackblade at: 9/24/02 12:59:14 am

[EZ_Zylc]

My only point was exactly what you said.

It's that kinda stuff...three level 60s or so holding camps for their AA experience in popular places like Velks and Seb, when a full group of non-level 60s could be down there getting leveling experience. It makes it very hard for non-60s to find places to hunt and gain levels since AA was introduced when 60s have returned to places like Velks and Seb to get their AA. There NEEDS to be more high level experience zones.

[EZ_Panamah]

It's no worse than AE groups claiming several camps.

I think Verant really needs work a little harder to make experience groups more desirable. Still many classes can solo and get exp faster than they can in a group.

They should make the "hard mob" experience modifier bigger and lower the level of mob it affects a bit. I think level 52-53 mobs should start bringing a modifier. That'll draw the 60's to zones with harder mobs.

They should increase the XP gained in groups. 20% still isn't enough to make packing your group full worthwhile. 33% might be, 50% would definitely make groups much more popular.

[EZ_Quiet]

Actually the best way to increase full groups is to reward full groups. Make the group bonus bigger. And make it lots bigger for bigger groups:

If I remember right the bonus at the moment is:

1 person +00
2 people +05
3 people +10
4 people +15
5 people +20
6 people +25

So, if you can kill as fast as they spawn with 3 people there is no reason to add another.

But lets say we wanted to encourage 5 and 6 people groups. (Why not 2-4 ... 2 boxers etc)

Make the bonus as follows:

4 people +30
5 people +50
6 people +70

Now it is tempting to add another if you are at 3 or 4, even if the person only does a little work. But if you REALLY want to encourage large groups you can take this over the top:

6 people +100

anyway - we can argue numbers, but the point is, VI "encourages" groups by making things hard enough only a group can do them, but then this means a smaller group of higher level can also do them. They could also "encourage" people by giving them exp for being in a large group. (as other games do by the way.)

Oh, personally I think they could really take this to heart and add the following:

7-12 people +100
13-18 people +150

etc for when they have raid exp in place. It might tempt people to join everyone doing spiders in velks into a single "raid" and get bonus exp. I can't see this as a bad thing.

[EZ_Zylc]

Writing this while slightly peeved, so bear with me.

/who

[60 Warder]
[59 Templar]
[60 High Priest]
[60 Assassin]
[60 Warder]
[60 Grandmaster]
[60 Hierophant]
[60 Assassin]
[60 Warder]
[60 High Priest]
[60 Warder]
[60 Hierophant]
[60 Assassin]
[60 Warder]
[60 High Priest]
[60 Warder]
[56 Rogue]
[55 Enchanter]
etc...
There are 20 players in Velketor's Labriyth.



You think, 'wtf?'

/who 60

[60 Warder]
[59 Templar]
[60 High Priest]
[60 Assassin]
[60 Warder]
[60 Grandmaster]
[60 Hierophant]
[60 Assassin]
[60 Warder]
[60 High Priest]
[60 Warder]
[60 Hierophant]
[60 Assassin]
[60 Warder]
[60 High Priest]
[60 Warder]
There are 16 players in Velketor's Labriyth.



*stabs at the wall*

[Pyrocat Moonstalker]

Why'd a 59 come up when you did a /who 60?

[Yalum]

We just went too long without a level increase. Two and a half years worth of mudflation without a single mob going green, it makes things too easy and puts the squeeze on folks just under the cap. VI knows it, Jaggedpine is good xp all the way to 58 or 59, then it greens out abruptly, so we can hope Seb, HS, Velks, FG, etc will go green long before 65. 61, preferrably.

[EZ_Anad Cloudrider]

the first thing I do when I get to either velks or seb is / enter to see how many people are there. In either zone if it is over 30 than I know chances of me getting a group is gonna be slim. The funny thing is my brother goes to velks 2 nights in a row at 49 and gets a group right away, I go at 52 and have to sit for 30+ minutes shouting for a group. I usually play an alt then...my mage is almost 19 now after only 2 days.
:: how jedi are you? ::

Battan Stabsemdeep
52 Rake
Vigilant Order

Anad Cloudrider
42 Druid (Semi-Retired)
Vigilant Order

The art of war is a simple art - Napoleon

[EZ_Zylc]

Why'd a 59 come up when you did a /who 60?


'Cause it wasn't an actual screenshot -- it was me typing what I saw earlier that day, and I went to copy and paste the list below, and forgot I put a 59 in there.

[EZ_Brashrack]

remember when everyone is 65 most of seb and velks will be green

[EZ_Goradain]

I think the biggest problem is the sheer amount of unused 50+ zones in the game. Not talking about raiding zones either. On Seventh Hammer, Luclin is almost completely ignored except for ME. The day I got back from my deployment, I installed Luclin (this was a few months after it was released) and ran through just about every zone on the Moon. Over half the zones were completely empty. I know some people have some lag issues, but it can't be all that bad. I can play there with all the new graphics and I don't exactly have the best PC out there. Sirens Grotto is empty all the time (I have XPed there before and it was pretty good - a hell of a lot better than sitting in Velks or Seb LFG, anyway). It's like the more people go to a zone, the more people want to go to a zone. Sure Velks and Seb have good drops in them (Seb has good XP, Velks is horrid anymore for XP), but if you just wanna XP, why not try somewhere else? I used to go to Howling Stones alot, but it's camped alot now. Same with Chardok. Just seems to me that people are a little too narrow minded in where they XP. Perhaps instead of waiting for 3 or 4 hours on the Frenzy list, you could hit SG for a few hours, walk out with a couple bubbles (xp there is quite good in a small group) and walk away with some very nice cash loot. I know when people first started the game they had no problem trying new zones, but it's like once they played for a while they became content to follow the crowd. Goradain - 55 Myrmidon of Rallos Zek
Grummbar - 11 Cleric of Brell Serillis
Proud member of Steel Thunder

[EZ_Brashnir]

yeah unused quality content is a big problem that I find as well (on drinal). Every time I zone into chardok there's about 12-18 people there, and the following are the only things ever camped.

Zone-in
Zone-out
Fort
Observer
Levi/captain

That's it. Nobody ever at the bank, Korocust, Niblek area, Herbi, etc - which are all excellent exp spots, but people are afraid to go down there it seems.

Same thing in Seb. In seb, you see kitchen, discos, guard, necros perma-camped, but king and juggs are rarley occupied, despite the fact thet there's better exp down there, and better loot.

Then there are also areas that could use some improvement from a design perspective.

Much of Acrylia and Akheva could be excellent exp if the zones had better exp modifiers, and in the case of Acrylia, if the grimlings had less HPs. (the mobs are like level 45-49, same as upper seb frogs, but they have 2-3x as many HPs) As is, they're kinda neat and fun zones, but the rewards (exp) of hunting there is a bit on the low side. Grieg's End is also underused as an exp zone for the same reasons.

I think with Luclin they did a nice job designing the content, but making the content usable for your average exp group would help the zones out a lot.

edit - nerfed my sig. Edited by: Brashnir at: 10/6/02 1:42:35 am

[EZ_fenrihr]

speaking of acrylia.... went there to zone in w/ a 60 cleric (as a monk) and fight there lasted about 5-6 minutes.... for 1. add extended it to a little more than10 minutes. (saw mend repop 2 x's) Fenrihr Furfoot - 47 Rogue

[EZ_Aamdaron]

coudlnt be bothered reading it goradin its caleld paragraphs mate =D
you all have pretty valid points, i reckon vi should make bonus for killing higher lvl monsters bugger coz right now i get better exp doing pools than doing the lvl 60 shiknars

which is pretty screwed, and if you can hold a camp with 3 why add more if you killing everything that spawns? unless you get some super bangidy bonus with quadruple sparkly glittery modifiers

[EZ_Goradain]

Sorry Mr. English professor. It's not enough that everything is spelled right and punctuated correctly, now I have to have an editor, too? Goradain - 55 Myrmidon of Rallos Zek
Proud member of Steel Thunder

[EZ_Apollohades]

I read Goradin's post completely. (He has a point, but use paragraphs bro!)

Gor's right in that alot of zones do go unused, but sometimes with good reason. Let's take AR for example. GREAT exp zone, but usually there is a shaman or rangers killing everything from the zoneline to the fallen pillar.

The area from the fallen pillar to the first junction supports on group, the tunnel to the right of that can support one good player or one group.

And the prep area for IV supports one group or one person with two bots.

UP. Can support 3 groups or more, but eventually, one group will suck and pull right over another group as they do a mad dash to the zone screaming "TaIrn! Trin! Train!"

There's plenty of examples, but it all boils down to zone design. City Planning you might say. Velks, while I HATE THAT ZONE, is very well designed. If you want a good player to learn to suck, send them to velks for exp. There's no skill involved in getting around that zone now.

The good part of that zone, is that it can easily support 8 groups exping. If people take the effort not to be morons, there's plenty of mobs available.

Wish there were more places in SoL that well designed. *****
Profile: HERE
************
Every soul will taste of death. And ye will be paid on the Day of Resurrection only that which ye have fairly earned. Whoso is removed from the Fire and is made to enter paradise, he indeed is triumphant. The life of this world is but comfort of illusion.

[EZ_Ciba]

You could also try /tells for groups. You'd be surprised how easy it is to form a group when you just tell the people you want.

[EZ_Filan Fyretracker]

AE groups spawned cause melees shut casters out of normal groups. so we fired up our AEs and let loose the inferno.

[EZ_Jlaily Varkas]

groups are hard for everyone, I log in late, not EST time zone and can spend 8 hours lfg, and not get exp

I can always find groups with peeps 55 and under, but that is zero exp, they are in a zone that gives me nothing, and we kill so slow i might get a blue in 3 hours

part of my problem is I have no friends in EQ who would go out to the empty zones to hunt, I can send 20 tells and get 2 yes out of it, and that is nothing to go anywhere with

so my grouping problems is mostly me and the time zone I live in, everyone is busy when I get on, and no way in hell I will get them to do something, they are already grouped, or doing trade skills or on their alt
Edited by: Jlaily Varkas at: 10/19/02 8:24:28 am

[EZ_Wulien]

/agree

I couldn't get a group anywhere to save my life. Maybe I just suck. /shrug ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wulien, lvl 50 Rogue of Norrath Fellowship on Quellious
W.U.L.I.E.N.: Wireless Unit Limited to Infiltration and Efficient Nullification

[EZ_Mishtarmacdonald]

Send more tells, if i need a group i just do a /who all 56-60 (class) then send tells out till i get a yes, and keep doing it until you have 5 other people. Can just tell them where to meet, then all head there and go exping

Mish

[EZ_mastafizzla]

OMG send people tells and make a group rather than sitting on ur butt shouting for a group?
In 61 levels +45 aa i have never sat in a zone and shouted fora group. Dont any of you have friends?
Sure ive soloed some but dam level 50+ shouting for groups is lame. get some friends and make ur own groups.